Kirkcaldy Free Church

Sermon: Sunday, 16th February, 2025
Speaker: John Johnstone
Scripture: Romans 8:28

There are times in our lives when we wonder what on earth God is doing. I remember a Christian lady I knew who got cancer. Shortly after that she tragically lost her son. And not long after that she was brutally attacked. I don’t understand why all of these things happened to her. There’s great mystery in these events. There is no easy explanation to this level of suffering. I also remember my friend taking early retirement in order to get involved in a mission in central Europe. On his first trip he was in a car accident and died. This made no sense to me. Why had God allowed this to happen? To this day I do not know. There are a lot of things we don’t know the answers to. Satan wants us to focus on these things and have them drown out the things God has revealed to us!

We all have experienced suffering to one degree or another. We experience physical and mental ill health. Life can be full of disappointments, not working out as we had hoped. We face unemployment, addiction, bereavement, being mistreated by others, difficulties in our families and problems at work. Life as a Christian is never easy. We battle against sin and temptation and we fail on a daily basis. Have I cheered you up yet? It is no wonder that we groan (Romans 8:23), longing to be free from living in this fallen world, full of its pain and suffering.

When Christians go through times of suffering, we don’t always react in a godly way.
We might become bitter – feeling that life is just cruel.
We might feel distant from God – and feel that carrying on communicating with God is pointless.
Our prayer lives dry up.
We might feel that God doesn’t care. The disciples felt like that in the boat during the storm: – ‘Don’t you care if we drown?’ they ask Jesus. (See Mark 4:38)

What can keep us from doubting God’s love and goodness during our times of suffering? What’s the antidote to becoming disillusioned with God?

Well, God does not usually answer our ‘why’ questions. Why has this happened to me? Why has life worked out this way? Most of the time, we don’t know. But there is a reason to continue to trust our heavenly Father, even when things go wrong. Why should we trust Him? We trust him because of the magnificent promise he gives us here: ‘And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.’   (Romans 8:28)

1. How Powerful is God?

This verse teaches us about the providence of God, one of the most helpful teachings God has given us to help us to trust in him.

Shorter Catechism
Q11: What are God’s works of providence?
A: God’s works of providence are, his most holy, wise, and powerful preserving and governing all his creatures and all their actions.

In other words, God is in control of all of the events in our lives – good and bad. Life is not just down to chance. Our lives are not out of control. If we can believe the promise of this verse, it will transform the way we look at our suffering. It is a precious promise.

Let’s be careful we don’t misunderstand this verse. Paul is not saying that everything that happens to Christians is good. Many bad things happen to us. We are hurt by others and we experience much pain. What is he saying then? He’s saying something profound – all things, including bad things which happen to us, are ultimately working for our good. That means that although it seldom feels like it at the time, it is good that they have happened to us.

RC Sproul: ‘The bad that we experience is redeemed in the providence of God. This means that God brings good out of the evil we experience… These bad things are truly bad things. But they are only proximately bad things; they are not ultimately bad things. They are blessings in disguise.’

Many bad things happened to Joseph. He was hated by his brothers and sold into slavery. In one act of evil, he lost his freedom, his culture, his language, his family, and almost everything he had ever known. Whilst in Egypt, he was falsely accused and imprisoned. For years, he endured enormous suffering and pain. But Joseph did not become bitter towards God. He did not become disillusioned. Why not?

In Genesis 50, when Joseph considers all the suffering and pain he experienced at the hands of his brothers, he is able to see the providence of God in it all. He can see that God has been orchestrating everything that happened. ‘But Joseph said to them, ‘Don’t be afraid. Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.’   (Genesis 50:19-20)

In Joseph’s life, God bends evil to accomplish his good purposes. Joseph’s family are saved from the famine. This is the family from which the Lord Jesus would come. Our view of what is happening in our lives is so limited. But God sees the whole of history and oversees all the details of the lives of his children.

Cancer is not good. Death is not good. The evil actions of others which hurt us are not good. But God is so powerful that even these things result in our good ultimately. Friends, this is God’s superintendence over your lives. His providence. His control. Nothing ever takes him by surprise and nothing can thwart his eternal purposes for us.

The best example of God working all things for the good of his own is found in the life of Christ himself. Many bad things happened to him. He is lied about. He is rejected and falsely accused and sentenced to death in a kangaroo court and mocked and flogged and brutally killed on the cross. Were those who handed Jesus over to be crucified responsible for his death? Of course they were. Their actions were wicked. However, we must also ask: was God in control? Did the crucifixion have a purpose? ‘This man was handed over to you by God’s deliberate plan and foreknowledge; and you, with the help of wicked men, put him to death by nailing him to the cross.’   (Acts 2:23)

God worked the evil actions of Judas and Herod and Pilate and the Sanhedrin for good, resulting in the salvation of millions upon millions of people- as many as the stars in the sky. How powerful is God? So powerful that he bends evil for good. Yes, this is mysterious. Is this a God we can worship? A God who is that powerful? It certainly is.

Let’s spend the rest of our time focusing on Romans 8:28.

2. God is working for good

Imagine for a moment that there is no God. What could we say when going through pain and suffering? There would be no reason for the suffering. There would be no order to it. The events of our lives would just be random. We would be victims of chance. We would be without hope. Imagine that there is a God but that he is not sovereign and that he is not good. Again, our suffering would just be meaningless at best, or cruel at worst.

However, this truth is wonderful. God is not only involved in the details of those in the Bible, like Joseph and Moses and Jesus, but he is involved in the details of our lives too. God is working in your life. And because he is a good and compassionate and wise and all-powerful God, logically, he is working for our good. He promises this to be the case. God is very much ‘hands on’ in our lives.

However, we must be careful not to misuse or misunderstand this verse, thinking that everything that happens to us is good, especially with a narrow understanding of ‘good’. Our good is not the same thing as our pleasure or our happiness or our comfort.

Douglas Moo: ‘What God promises us in Romans 8:28 is not that every difficult experience will lead to something good in this life. The ‘good’ God may have in mind may involve the next life entirely. He may take us out of a secure, well-paying job in order to shake us out of a materialistic lifestyle that does not honour biblical priorities and we may never have a good job again’.

I believe Moo is right. It will not be until eternity that we will understand many of the things which happened to us in this life. Joseph was blessed enough to see some of the reasons why God has allowed him to suffer; but remember that for years and years, he had no idea why. And many of us will not know why in this lifetime.

What is the ‘good’ God ultimately has in mind for us? It is not health and wealth in this life. The purpose is given as follows: ‘For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.’   (Romans 8:29) God’s plan for us is to mould our characters into the character of Jesus. He wants to make you more like Jesus. Making us more like Jesus will involve massive work on God’s part, and suffering is one of the tools he uses for that. ‘… we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.’   (Romans 5:3-4) God is like a master sculptor, chipping away at all that is amiss in our lives.

Sometimes as children we are asked, ‘What would you like to be when you grow up?’ We might want to be a vet or a nurse or an engineer or a painter and decorator. But when we ‘grow up’ spiritually, we will all be like Jesus. And we will be part of a great family gathering in Heaven, where we will all be the people God intended us to be. (See Romans 8:29) And Jesus will be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters, including us if we love Jesus. That’s what things are working towards. That the ultimate ‘good’ God is working towards, and it will be for His glory.

3. God is working all things together for good.

The word ‘all’ is both a challenging and comforting word. ‘All’, of course, includes the good and the bad experiences in our lives. It even includes our sins. He can work them for good.

David’s sin of murder and adultery was a great evil. But did God work it for good? I believe he did.

What about Peter’s denial of Jesus? Peter learned many tough lessons through that sin, resulting in his spiritual maturity.

Robert Haldane: ‘It is not sin in itself that works the good, but God who overrules its effects to His children, shows them, by means of it, what is in their hearts, as well as their entire dependence on Himself, and the necessity of walking with him more closely. Their falls lead them to humiliation, to the acknowledgement of their weakness and depravity, to prayer for the guidance and overpowering influence of the Holy Spirit, to vigilance and caution against all carnal security, and to reliance on that righteousness provided for their appearance before God.’

Of course, this truth should never cause us to take sin lightly. We must always battle against sin. But what a wonderful thing to know that God’s promise here is so powerful that nothing in our lives is wasted with God, not even our sins. We don’t say ‘everything happens for a reason’ just to make ourselves feel better, but because it is the truth, even if we cannot understand how this could possibly be so until we are in Heaven.

Think of all the things you have gone through in your life. They have a reason and a purpose in God’s hands. Paul himself knew this to be true. He had a painful condition which he called his ‘thorn in the flesh’ but that too had a purpose, so that he would not become proud and so that he would experience even more of the grace and love of God. That did not mean it was easy for Paul. In fact, it was so painful that he begged and begged for the thorn to be removed. God is using your depression for good and your failures for good and the hurt in your family for good and the closed doors of opportunity for good. Do you believe that? That is the promise. Trust in it.

4. The qualification of this promise.

This promise is not for everyone – it is only for Christians.

‘And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.’   (Romans 8:28)

Sometimes, people who aren’t Christians say, ‘Everything happens for a reason’. But the promise of God working for good is only for those who love Jesus. It’s an exclusive promise. Christians are not just those who believe in God. They are those who love God. We don’t love him perfectly, but we love him who gave his one and only Son to die on the cross for us. And the reason we love Him is because he first loved us and called us into the circle of his love.

Do you want to be able to claim this magnificent promise today? Then you need to be on the narrow road that leads to eternal life. You need to be able to say like the psalmist: in Psalm 116: ‘I love the Lord because He heard my voice; he listened when I cried to Him for aid.’   (Psalm 116:1)

Challenge: can you rest in this wonderful promise. If you can say that you love Jesus, there is great peace to found, even right in the middle of our suffering.

Sermon: Sunday, 9th February, 2025
Speaker: Alistair Donald
Scripture: Romans 8:18-30

A famous country music song starts with these words…
‘I beg your pardon, I never promised you a rose garden
Along with the sunshine, there’s got to be a little rain sometimes…’

It’s a recognition that it’s unrealistic to expect a rose garden in all relationships, and then complain if there’s a little rain sometimes but sometimes we can have equally unrealistic expectations about the Christian life. We come to the Lord; submit our lives to Christ; get our lives smoothed out as the Lord changes us. We have more sense of purpose in our lives… a sense of joy and love and being accepted. But then when any sort of trouble comes our way, we can be quick to say, ‘Hang on! Surely it wasn’t meant to be this way? Why is God allowing this to happen to me?’

Well, I don’t suppose the Apostle Paul knew any country music songs, but he knew the sentiment of the song very well. He knew that for all the joys of being a believer in this life (and he’s very clear on those), there are also problems; sometimes really painful things to deal with, as many of us know only too well. So after all that Paul has said in the earlier part of this letter to the Romans – that we are all by nature alienated from God but when we put our faith in Christ we now have peace with God (chapter 5) and although we still struggle with sin (chapter 7), believers now have the Spirit inside us to help us overcome, for there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, as John laid out for us in recent weeks in the first part of chapter 8.

Yet Paul is very careful to say that, that while having the Holy Spirit in our lives is a wonderful privilege – by the Spirit we even get to call God Abba or ‘Dad’ – this does not mean that we get to live trouble-free lives ever afterwards. Paul’s ‘Big Point’ in our passage for today is this: when you compare the groanings of the present time, it’s nothing at all compared to the glory that will be revealed.

‘I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.’   (Romans 8:18)

Check out those last 2 words especially: ‘… the glory that will be revealed in us!’ As the apostle John writes: When Jesus appears, we shall be like him! (See 1 John 3:2) I wonder if we are really gripped by what God has in store for us?

C.S. Lewis reckons we don’t rate the glorious future highly enough. He writes this in the book ‘The Weight of Glory’: We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with [earthly pleasures] and ambition when infinite joy is offered us. [We’re] like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea.

We need to lift our eyes to catch the wonderful vision of what God has in store for the Christian. But before moving though the passage from verses 18 to 30, I’d like first for us to look at verse 25, one of the most famous verses in the Bible: ‘And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.’ (Romans 8:28)

For years, as young Christian, I misunderstood this verse. An older translation (AV) renders it as, ‘All things work together for good.’   How does that work?

In my 30s in Wales, a visiting Free Church preacher explained: God is so great that he can turn round even bad things, even horrible things that happen to us for our long-term good. Now, that’s not to say that pain is any less painful at the time, but for the Christian who has God as their Father, it is (or certainly ought to be) different. Because, you see, it’s only for those who love God that this works. It’s only for those who’ve been called according to his purpose that this is in any way meaningful. For everyone else, it’s just stuff that happens. But for the Christian, God has a purpose in everything that happens to us.

‘What do you know about my pain, Mr Preacher?’ says someone. ‘Or what does Paul know about my suffering?’   Well, rather a lot actually. Paul lists some things in 2 Corinthians 6, not to boast, but to say that he gets it! Troubles, hardships, distresses, beatings, imprisonments, hard work, sleepless nights. That’s quite a list! Yes, Paul knows what he’s talking about when he writes this verse. But in that letter he also writes that ‘Our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.’   (See 2 Corinthians 4:17)

So he knows that the groanings of this present age are nothing compared to the glory that will be revealed in us. Let’s look at all this in more detail as we move through the rest of the passage:

1. Groaning and glory in creation (verses 20-22)

First, we have creation as a character. That may seem strange, but the Scriptures do speak of the features of creation as if they were persons who speak. Psalm 114 talks poetically about mountains skipping like rams, hills like lambs, and the Sea which ‘ran away’ – as it did in the retreat of the Red Sea at the Exodus.

We read that, ‘The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed.’   (Romans 8:19) The language used here is like someone craning their neck to get a better view, as if it was a child at a football match craning her neck to get a better view of the pitch! And, incredibly, that’s how the whole natural world is straining to get a view of what Christians will be in their glory in the world to come! Did you know that?

Paul goes on in verse 20: ‘For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it (that, is, God himself).’ To what purpose? ‘… in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.’

You see the cosmic panorama that is in view here? This is Big Picture stuff – to encourage us in our times of suffering! For this world, beautiful as it is, is not as it should be. We can see that with our own eyes. There are earthquakes. There are tsunamis. And much else that spoils life. Paul describes this in verse 22 as being like the pains of childbirth – painful now, but leading to something wonderful beyond description.

When sin entered the world by our first ancestors, not only were Adam and Eve’s own lives diminished, but the whole world of nature was as well. God’s curse on the world was wide-ranging. But that curse will be reversed in the new heavens and the new earth – in the glory that is to come.

There are still commentators who think the world will just get better if only humans follow certain ideologies: More capitalism? More socialism? More nationalism? More Net Zero? Perfect world? No! These things aren’t a magic bullet that will lead to a better world. Only the change in human nature brought about by the Christian Gospel can do that. This world is broken; it’s creaking.

But God has wonderful plans to turn this groaning world into a glorious world. We fist get glimpses of it in the Old Testament: ‘The heavens will wear out like a garment…’   (Psalm 102); Isaiah’s vision: new heavens and a new earth, where lion will lie down with the lamb. That’s what Paul is talking about here – the realisation of that vision. We don’t know much detail, but we know it will be wonderful, as the very creation itself is changed from groaning to glory.

But what about our own sufferings, as fragile humans living in the here and now? As we’ll now see, that, too, is a story of present groaning and future glory.

2. Groaning and glory in God’s children (verses 23-25)

The whole creation may be groaning as in the pains of childbirth. But not only that, we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.

Even we, who are reckoned to be no longer ‘in Adam’ but ‘in Christ’; we who have the firstfruits of the Spirit – even we continue to groan inside ourselves as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons and daughters.

But aren’t we already adopted into God’s family? Well yes, as soon as we believe in Christ, our sins are forgiven and we are adopted into God’s family. But there’s a future aspect as well. It’s a bit like how the Christian is described as ‘saved’. One aspect of that is Past Tense – such as here in verse 24: In this hope we were saved. But Paul has earlier said in chapter 5 that there’s a future aspect too: ‘Having been justified by Christ’s blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath at the Day of Judgment.’   (Romans 8:24)

And so it is, with our adoption into God’s family: The Christian has been adopted (when we first believed); we are adopted in the here and now; but we also will be fully adopted in the new creation. But is that really a practical help to you in our sufferings? We do sometimes go through real pain and distress, may physical, maybe emotional (which can wrench us up just as much as physical pain). Is what Paul says really a practical help to us in our sufferings?

Well, it should be, for God has given us that future hope to keep focussed on. We Christians ought to be able to show the world how to suffer and to be sad, by showing that we have a future hope.

Think of Psalm 13. That’s a model for us being sad when we’re in pain or distress:
How long will you forget me, Lord?
Will you forget always?
How long, Lord will you hide your face
And turn from me your gaze?

But the psalm doesn’t end there; the final 2 verses tell us what to do, if ever we feel like that:
But still I trust your constant love;
You save and set me free.
With joy I will extol the Lord
Who has been good to me.

Samuel Rutherford was a wonderful minister here in Scotland, hundreds of years ago. A book of his pastoral letters addressed to hurting people is still in print today. One lady was really struggling with pain and suffering and doubt, and he wrote this to her: ‘Your soul is like a castle that may besieged… but it cannot be taken [by the besieging armies].’ We really don’t face trials all alone. As Isaiah wrote, long before Jesus or Paul: ‘Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you. And when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you.’   (Isaiah 43:1)

The Apostle Peter in Acts chapter 3 tells the onlookers, agog at the healing of a lame beggar in the Temple grounds, that the risen Jesus will now remain in heaven until the time comes for God to restore all things. That’s the future hope of the Christian. When everything will be made right. In this hope we were saved, writes Paul in verse 24. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.

So we’re to wait eagerly for that hope (verse 23) – but also patiently (verse 25). That’s a hard combination for us! We’re not to be so eager that we lose sight of patience. And we’re not to be so patient that we forget to be eager for what it is we’re hoping for! Now, none of this is to say that this present life doesn’t matter. Of course it matters, since God placed us here for a time, and God is good. And much of our life here and now is very good. But whether we’re going through happy times or sad times, it does us good to remember: that this life is not by any means the whole story – and we do sometimes lose sight of that, especially in the hard times we sometimes experience. And whatever we go through, in this life – whatever we lose in this life – trust me, will seem as nothing… compared to the glory that will be revealed.

3. Groaning by the Spirit on our behalf (verses 26-30)

But as we see here it’s not just the creation that groans, waiting for glory. It’s not just we Christians who groan, waiting for glory. In a very mysterious way, the Holy Spirit himself groans. Do you sometimes feel your spiritual weakness? Do you ever feel a bit of a failure, not knowing even quite what to pray? If so, you’re in good company with the Apostle Paul. But help is at hand!

‘In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.’ (Romans 8:26)

Isn’t that wonderful? We read elsewhere that Jesus intercedes with the Father on our behalf. And here’s the Holy Spirit doing the same, with groans that cannot be put into words! Aren’t we blessed? The Spirit intercedes for us saints in accordance with God’s will. So next time you feel your spiritual weakness (and which of us doesn’t sometimes fell that?), remember that you’re not a hopeless case. Next time you don’t really know what to pray for – don’t just give up! Sit quietly, open a psalm or another passage of Scripture and let the Holy Spirit lead your thoughts and prayers.

In closing we go back to verse 28: ‘And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.’

God’s unchanging love for his people means that even the bad stuff that happens to us can be taken up by him and moulded for our good. Joseph found that in Egypt after he’d been kidnapped and sold into slavery by his brothers. That was a wicked act – no question. But after Joseph’s rise to power in Egypt, when he saved many lives by storing up food to withstand the famine, he was able many years later to say to his brothers: ‘Yes, you intended to harm me, but God intended it for good, to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.’ So yes, In all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.’

This isn’t for everyone, but rather it is a special privilege for those who love God, who have been called according to his purpose. When you come to know Christ as Saviour and Lord, then you will realise eventually (it may take time) that God’s knowledge of you and love for you stretches way back before the time you first believed before even you cried your first cry as a baby the day you were born and way back before the universe was even made.

Paul signs off this section of his letter to us by spelling this out very clearly in a beautiful silver chain, laid out in verses 29-30, which we’ll now read in closing: ‘For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.’ (Romans 8:29-30)

My former minister in Wales explained predestination this way. When we first believe in Jesus, we’re conscious of our own decision to follow him. But we don’t at first see the whole picture (he was an artist). When we stand back and view the whole canvas, yes there’s our decision in the foreground, the hour we first believed. But then we see the mighty backdrop – the wonderful, majestic mountains of God’s sovereignty in setting us apart from before the foundation of the world.

‘Those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.’   (Romans 8:30)

And did you notice something? The glory from which we finally escape our groaning does lie on the future but Paul puts it in the past tense, along with the other things listed. How come? Because for those who have been called by God who’ve been put in a right relationship with him (‘justified’ by faith) – the glorious future he has prepared for us is as certain as if it had already taken place.

Sermon: Sunday, 26th January, 2025
Speaker: John Johnstone
Scripture: Romans 8:11-16

How can human beings experience lasting change? Think of communities in Scotland where there is high unemployment, widespread use of drugs and alcohol and high rates of crime. What will bring lasting change to these communities? Can politics alone deliver? A government could pump more money into the NHS and create more job opportunities and provide better care services and improve education, and in many cases that would be welcomed. It will bring about a certain kind of change. But people will only experience radical change if they come to know Jesus as Saviour and King. Why is that? Because only Jesus can change us from within. Only he can give us new hearts and new motivations. Only he can deal with our root problem of sin and provide a solution for that sin- his own blood shed on the cross.

I think self-help books have a place, as long as we recognise their limitations and are able to discern when they contradict Scripture or have an unhealthy worldview – and many of them sadly do. Nevertheless, we can learn a great deal from experts whether or not they are believers. For example, I keep on seeing the book by Robin Sharma called the 5 am club: own your morning and elevate your life. Sharma is described as one of the world’s premier speakers on leadership and personal mastery, and recently named one of the world’s top leadership gurus. I genuinely believe I could benefit from reading this book. Perhaps getting up earlier would help me to exercise more and become more productive. There might even be spiritual benefits, having more time with God. But this book will not change my heart or make me more loving or forgiving and it won’t give me peace with God.

I read an excellent article by Josh Maule on self-help books. He says: ‘Self-help books have one thing in common. They place you at the centre of your quest. You are the hero who must take charge of your life—thinking and acting better, starting your day smarter, finishing your day wiser — thus unlocking your full potential.’ He goes on to say something which is contrary to most self-help books, but which I believe to be true: ‘Christianity teaches universal brokenness. Worse, it teaches we are in active rebellion against our creator. Alcoholics Anonymous begins with a statement that: ‘We admitted we were powerless over alcohol — that our lives had become unmanageable.’

Regular Christianity begins with a similar confession. We admit we are sinners —morally and spiritually bankrupt. We live ignoring God and his plan for us. And deep down, we like it a lot. I can’t help myself. The second step Christians have made is to acknowledge that we can’t do anything to help ourselves. Like an insect caught in a spider’s web, a sinner caught in sin can wriggle. But it only makes things worse. We can’t stop how we live. We can’t fix up past mistakes. We can’t make it up to God or others. We’re in what the English call ‘a right pickle’.’

Let’s continue to think about lasting change. The greatest change which happens is when we become Christians. This change is a work of God’s grace. He takes away our hearts of stone and replaces them with hearts of flesh. We are unable to pay the huge debt of sin we owe God, but God provides the payment in the death of his Son Jesus. Remember those words: ‘For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering.’   (Romans 8:3)

Do you think God would have sent Jesus to die such a shameful and cruel and painful death if we humans were able to save ourselves from Hell? Of course not! If you are not yet a Christian, you cannot save yourself. All you can do is cry out to God for mercy, based on the death of Jesus on the cross. As we’ve seen in recent weeks, once we receive Jesus as our Saviour and King, God does something wonderful – he sends the Holy Spirit to dwell in us in a mysterious but real way. All Christians have God the Spirit living within. There is no such thing as a Christian without the Spirit as a constant presence. It is God’s Spirit who gives us new desires to live for God, rather than for ourselves. God’s Spirit alone brings lasting change.

For the rest of our time, let’s look at 3 things which the dwelling of God the Holy Spirit brings us: A new hope, a new enemy and a new relationship.

1. A new hope

The fact that all Christians are temples of the Spirit brings us enormous and certain hope as we face death – our own deaths and those of other Christians. ‘But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives life because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you.’   (Romans 8:10-11)

Here’s a question – how much power do we have as Christians to change? Well, the power we have within us is the same power which raised the Lord Jesus Christ from the dead. This is incalculable power. With God’s help, we can indeed change and become more like Jesus (more of that later). But notice the logic Paul gives us here: just as the Holy Spirit raised Jesus from the dead, so the Holy Spirit will raise the bodies of believers from the grave. As Christians, our bodies will die because of sin, but that’s not the end of the story. Our bodies will be raised one day because the Holy Spirit dwells within us.

My friend Douglas died just a few weeks ago and his funeral is here on Wednesday. I only knew him as a man in a wheelchair due to his MS. However, now I’ve seen lots of photos of him before his illness, when he was in full control of his body and could ceilidh dance and play shinty. Latterly, Douglas couldn’t use his hands so couldn’t drink a cup of tea on his own. But here’s the truth – one day, because of the Holy Spirit, he will be given a brand-new body which will be an everlasting human body. It will pulsate with energy and never grow weary or sick or stop working. It will be more glorious than any body we know of on earth. How do we know this will happen? Because the Holy Spirit raised Jesus from the dead, the first fruits of what is to come.

Death is the separation of body and soul. What is our certain hope as God’s children? That we will be made perfect in body and soul and that body and soul will be united once again, this time for ever. Christ’s resurrection is the pledge and pattern of our resurrection.

John Stott: ‘The ultimate destiny of our body is not death but resurrection.’

Friends, we have so much to look forward to.

Robert Haldane: ‘Christ the first fruits will be followed by that great harvest, in which…the bodies of believers sown in the earth, after having died like grain cast into it, shall be revived and raised up. The life which has been communicated to our souls will, at the glorious resurrection, be also communicated to our bodies… Believers, then, may defy the grave and glory over death, being assured of this resurrection… On Jesus then, the sure foundation, is the whole of our salvation built.’

2. A new enemy

‘For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.’   (Romans 8:15) What is our new enemy as Christians? It is sin! When we become Christians we are to wage an all-out war against sin in our lives. Sin is not something to be treated lightly or played down, or tolerated; rather, with the Spirit’s help it is something to be starved and smothered and slain. Is that your attitude to the sin in your heart? To help us focus on that personal question, I will ask, what particular sin have you been fighting against over the last few days? This must be a daily and constant fight. We cannot take our foot off the gas.

When we think of the work of the Holy Spirt, so often we think of Him guiding us in big decisions, like whether or not to take a new job or move to a new place. We talk about the Spirit leading us, or prompting us to speak to someone, and that happens. However, the ordinary yet vital work of the Spirit Paul speaks of here is to help us to put the sins in our lives to death. The fancy word for this is mortification. We need to rediscover this word. Mortification. It means that we must have a ruthless attitude to the sins in our lives. We must be radical in getting rid of them. After all, did not our Lord say, if your hand causes you to sin, cut it off? That does not suggest a lax attitude to sin. That does not suggest pruning sin around the edges, like we often do, if we are honest. Before slabs were put down in our garden, I had to dig out an ivy which had been there for years. I dug a really deep hole, but it wasn’t deep enough. I pulled and yanked and tugged on the ivy with all my strength and managed to get a fair bit out, but not the roots. Often, we treat our sin like that – we try to get rid of it using our own strength, and it might seem like we are making progress. But what does Paul say in Romans 8: ‘…if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.’   (Romans 8:8) So, if you have a problem with gossip, or internet porn, or pride, then you need to ask the Holy Spirit to help you. Do you do that? You must. You have to ask Him in order to kill sin.

If we are honest, many of us probably have a peace-time mindset, as if there’s no war going on in our lives. Let’s be clear – the war only stops in Heaven. The whole of our lives is marked by a battle against sin. The wonderful news is that we are not on our own in this battle. The Holy Spirit is our Helper. If only we asked for his help more often.

Perhaps you are not taking your Christian faith seriously enough just now. Know this, whether you realise it or not, sin will be flourishing in your heart. Here’s a practical step we can all take- run through the ten commandments in our minds, and try and discern the different ways we are currently breaking these commands. Then take radical steps to pray for help and do all we can to eradicate them. For example, the first commandment is that God should have the first place in our lives. Ask yourself, what is really first just now? Then prayerfully, depending on the Spirit, and using the sword of the Spirit, the Word of God, tear down that idol. We do not owe the flesh anything. We do not owe sin anything. Kill it! It promised us so much but failed to deliver time and time again. It promises life but leads to eternal death. This is serious.

3. A new relationship

‘The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, ‘Abba, Father.’ 16 The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.’   (Romans 8:15-16)

RC Sproul: ‘The greatest privilege of all is to be able to come before God and address him as Father. And we are not able to do that by nature, because by nature we are children of wrath.’

Do you realise that God is not everyone’s Father? It is only those who receive Jesus as Saviour and King who can call God their Father. In other words, very few people in Fife, a tiny fraction, are currently able to do this. That’s why we desperately need to share the good news of the gospel. For those of us who are Jesus’ disciples, do you realise the immense privilege you have?

What does it mean that God is our Father? I love the words of the Westminster Confession of Faith here.

XII ‘All those that are justified… receive the Spirit of adoption, have access to the throne of grace with boldness, are enabled to cry, Abba, Father, are pitied, protected, provided for, and chastened by him, as by a father: yet never cast off, but sealed to the day of redemption; and inherit the promises, as heirs of everlasting salvation.’

Those are wonderful words – God pities, protects and provides for us. Satan wants us to cast a false image of God in our minds as a tightfisted, harsh, killjoy who makes unreasonable demands of us. This is nonsense.

Terry Johnson: ‘We pray not as we ought and live not as we ought. We stumble. We fall. We fail. How does God look at us? As a father does his children. He looks upon us with compassion. What could be more liberating that this? What could be more freeing and healing than to know that God is my Father? What could be more therapeutic than to know that He looks upon me with all my brokenness and strife with sympathy, with pity, with compassion?’

We ought also to be confident of our Father’s protection. If good earthly fathers protect their children, how much more with our heavenly Father? ‘… who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.’   (1 Peter 1:5)

When a young child falls and skins their knee, they will instinctively call out ‘Daddy, Daddy.’ We should have that same instinct in prayer when we are in trouble. Cry out to Abba Father for protection.

Because God is our Father, we can also be confident of his care in all areas of our lives. He provides. He knows what we need. He encourages us to ask him for all we need: ‘Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.’   (Philippians 4 v6).

Once I was on a bus and sat next to a nun and we got chatting. I asked her if she knew she was going to Heaven when she died. She said, ‘I hope so but cannot be sure’. The thing is, God wants us to be sure that if we trust in Jesus, we have become his children. In fact, the Holy Spirit gives us the assurance that we are adopted as sons and one sign of it is that in times of great distress, we find ourselves just crying out, ‘Father..

‘And by him we cry, ‘Abba, Father.’   (Romans 8:15) It is the Holy Spirit who brings to us the awareness that we are sons of God. This word ‘cry’ is used around 50 times in the New Testament and almost always in the context of someone crying out in deep distress. For example, blind Bartimaeus is said to ‘cry out’ in all his distress. There’s something really significant here – when as Christians we go through times of deep despair, depression, loneliness, pain or suffering, isn’t it true that we instinctively just cry out ‘Father’. Sometimes that’s all we can manage to say. This cry is itself a sign that we are sons of the living God. In our times of great need, the Spirit ministers to us and enables us to cry out ‘Abba, Father’.

When we do, this is the hallmark of a believer. This is the cry of the child of God.

Sermon: Sunday, 19th January, 2025
Speaker: Geoff Murray
Scripture: Romans 8:5-7

1. True freedom isn’t what you think

Now before we explore this point, we need to first understand what Paul means here by the ‘flesh’ because he uses it a lot here and if you’re unfamiliar with the Bible, you’ve probably never used flesh other than flesh which covers our human skeleton. Reading it that way would make no sense.

‘… those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires.’ (Romans 8:5)

So, what does Paul mean here? I think it’s something like what he is meaning in Galatians 5 where he speaks of the works of the flesh of being sinful acts and sinful ways which are in opposition to God’s ways. And I think we see that in how the way of the Spirit, the Holy Spirit is being contrasted with the works of the flesh. I don’t think it’s reading too much into it to read flesh as ‘sinful nature, sinful ways, sinful desires.’ It is essentially living to please yourself.

And Paul when he speaks about life in ‘the flesh’, in other words, life following your own sinful patterns and behaviours, he speaks about it in the following terms:

‘Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace. The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so.’   (Romans 8:5-7)

It’s fair to say Paul doesn’t speak in glowing terms about all of this; so let’s break these three things down.

a) Living in the flesh doesn’t set us free but enslaves us
I think when we commonly think of freedom, it’s exactly what we think of: doing what I want to do when I want to do it, how I want to do it. But does that make you truly free? Is freedom possible just by doing everything and anything you want to do?

Well actually, it’s very limiting to simply live the way you want to live, you’re limited to your desires.

If we are ‘in the flesh’ as Paul says, we can only respond as the ‘flesh’ desires. ‘The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so.’ (Romans 8:7)

Those in the flesh can only set their minds upon what the flesh desires. Indeed, those who live according to the flesh are incapable of doing anything but. Those who live according to the flesh have no option, no alternative but to want what they want and often times do what they want to do.

This deep-level heart change John was speaking of last week, this inner transformation of the will and the desires cannot happen if you are ‘in the flesh’. Why? Because you might try to fight it by sheer gritted teeth and hard work, yet you will be constantly frustrated because you will still want that thing that you are denying yourself of. And so you may try to change but have no power to change your desire for it.

You might do the self-talk thing and say to yourself, ‘But this thing I want is wrong, don’t do it, it’s wrong.’ Yet we cannot be convinced not to do something just by telling ourselves it is wrong. The heart wants what the heart wants.

You might even stifle it. Perhaps you are bitter towards someone. You may be able to stifle it by not exploding at them and giving them a piece of your mind and so it appears there are no problems. Yet, what is going on in your heart at that moment? Are you a spring of cheer and goodwill towards that person? No, you hate them and that bitterness is poisoning your heart. You are happy when something doesn’t go their way and you resent when things are going well for them.

You see, there’s a social code, there are things which you can’t say or can’t do that you’d like to do. Maybe it’s telling your boss to take a hike. Perhaps it’s a family tradition that you cannot be bothered with but everyone else loves. There are ways in which we can hide and conceal, but at the deepest internal places, you can only do what your heart wants.

The reality of life ‘in the flesh’ is you cannot change. You are stuck in the same old patterns. Rules of any kind, whether man-made or whether from God have no power to change your heart, have no power to change your desires, have no power to give you a new direction and a new purpose in life.

Because the heart wants what the heart wants, those ‘in the flesh’ are unable to change allegiances to God, they are unable to follow Jesus in faith and obedience and they are unable to change at that deep heart level.

Let’s talk about anger. You know you shouldn’t be so angry, you know you’re getting way too wound up about things that don’t really matter, you know it’s affecting those around you. You know the way you’re responding isn’t helpful but harmful. You know you need to change. Yet does simply the knowledge you need to change make you change? Does the knowledge that your anger is wrong make you change? There needs to be a change of heart.

There are times we’re faced with the conflict of knowing what is the right thing to do and what we want to do. And often times our hearts give in to what our hearts want. And even if we do swallow our pride and do the right thing over the thing we really want to do, it is begrudging. Like a child saying, ‘Fine! I’ll tidy my room.’ The room is tidy, but the heart is bitter. So, even if we can change outwardly, that deeper change is hard to come by.

b) Living by the flesh sets us at loggerheads with God

‘The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so.’ (Romans 8:7) You may say, ‘Hostile to God? No way! I’m not really that fussed about him? How can I be hostile?’

But putting things in their context. If God is creator of the universe which he is, if we as his creation owe him love, worship and obedience which we do, yet if we do not and cannot do that, what is that except rebellion against him? What is that except hostility towards one in authority over you? How does that hostility show?

The flesh doesn’t submit: it’s a willing choice. even the word submit perhaps make your toes curl, submit means to be under and as a society, that is an unpalatable thought. Submitting to anything or anyone is contrary to our understanding of freedom.

Those walking in line with the flesh don’t submit to God’s law; neither the letter or the spirit.

• The letter of the law – if we’ve broken one of God’s laws we’ve broken them all (James 2:10), so all of us have been unable to submit to God’s law. The typical thing would be to look to the Ten Commandments and reel them off and see how we have loved people and things more than God, how we haven’t honoured our parents like we should, how we have envied our neighbour and wanted what they had that wasn’t ours.

• The spirit of the law – Jesus summarises God’s law, not in terms of the letter but in terms of the Spirit, love God with all you are and love your neighbour as yourself. You have neither loved God with all your heart nor have you loved your neighbour as yourself. Going back to the Ten Commandments you may think, ‘Murder, that’s easy!’ But Jesus said, ‘If you are angry with a brother you have murdered him in your heart.’

And so, because the one living “in the flesh” living simply to please themselves can’t change outside of what they want, they therefore won’t and can’t submit to God which puts them at loggerheads with God and brings us to our final point.

c) Living ‘in the flesh’ is short-sighted

‘The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace.’   (Romans 8:6)

Of course, it’s not implied that if you follow through with your sinful deed, boom that’s you on the spot. But what is saying is that if you continue on living in the flesh, it heads in a certain trajectory. If you head down the path of sin, it only goes in one direction and that is the path of death. (See Proverbs 1:1-5)

Of course due to the first human, Adam, we all due to sin head to a physical death. Even Christians. Yet, there is another death in view. A spiritual and eternal death. Earlier in Romans 6, we saw ‘the wages of sin is death’. The end result is not just a physical death, not just a descent into nothingness, but actually an eternity in hell separated from God forever.

And because of what we looked at before, namely, that those in the flesh can only do what they want to do, sinners are sleepwalking into a lost eternity and they couldn’t care less. Little by little as they are simultaneously charmed and disenfranchised with the world around them and themselves, they become desensitised to their need for God, they become more and more numb to eternal things.

Until eventually in a moment, they’ll know exactly what’s up. Either when Jesus comes again or they die and go to hell. It’ll hit them like a ton of bricks. And they will be separated from God forever.

And so living ‘in the flesh’ is incredibly short-sighted because when you simply live to please yourself, you aren’t thinking of the unintended consequences of what is to come, choosing to live in the moment.

And so given all of this, freedom isn’t what you think it is, it isn’t simply doing what you want to do and in fact that is no freedom at all but slavery to self which separates you from God and leads you to to an eternity apart from him.

So, perhaps you’re here as someone who isn’t a believer in Jesus yet. Can I just get you to consider for a moment that you’re not as free as you think you are. You’re at loggerheads with God, you’re living an incredibly short-sighted life because if you continue in this path it is an eternity apart from God in hell which awaits. As we’ll get to see in a moment that actually the true path to freedom is found in Jesus. May I encourage you to consider, to think that you aren’t as free as you think you are and that the only path to freedom is through Jesus Christ.

Or perhaps you’re on the fence. You’re a Christian but you’re just considering throwing in the towel, friend, please don’t. This is where it leads. It leads not to freedom but to slavery, it leads not to life but to death, it leads not to peace with God but enmity with God now and forever. Don’t go back to your old way, but press on in repentance, faith and obedience.

2. True freedom is better than you think it is

So true freedom is not what you think it is just doing your own thing and pleasing yourself, what is true freedom then? And how is it better? On the face of it, it seems equally as limited. The flesh can only set its mind on the flesh the Spirit can only set its mind on what the Holy Spirit wants. Except that’s not what it’s saying.

Before Jesus intervenes, we’re in a situation where we only please ourselves and cannot please God, we therefore cannot change at the deepest internal levels even if we can modify our behaviours. Yet when Jesus, by his Spirit, intervenes he opens up a new way to us. We’re still subject to death because of sin. (See verse 10) Sin is still a feature, it’s still a part of our life but because the entrance of the Holy Spirit into the picture and into our lives we can change with his help. It means we are directed in a new way.

But how is this freedom? If we’re still subject to something or someone, how can we be free? Well, under the Spirit of God, he is at work in us making us the people we were originally intended to be to live the lives we were meant to live. The Spirit sets us free to be who God intends us to be. Furthermore, the Spirit sets us free from the cycle of self and enables us to move towards God and others.

I said this last week in Leven but the common misconception about Christianity is that it’s a list of rules and therefore people say, ‘Ah, you’re a christian, does that mean you can’t do that? Does that mean you have to do this?’ It’s as if we’re somehow brainwashed or held against our will. The reality is when you put your faith in the Lord Jesus, are indwelt by the Spirit you are given new desires, desires to please him and honour him. (See John 14:16, 15:26, 16:14)

So all of a sudden, we have a new desire, a desire to honour God, a desire to live for him and that isn’t a coincidence. Whereas in the ‘flesh’ we have no power to change, actually in the Spirit we are freed from the same destructive patterns which repeat themselves because we have a new way opened up to us.

And it isn’t marked by the same level of frustration and wheel-spinning-but-going-nowhere because there is a new power living in us whose very role is to lead us on in worship, in faith and obedience. And when I say a new power, I mean the same power that raised Jesus is living in you right now as a believer. (See verse 11)

This isn’t about anything impressive about the you or me, this is all the Spirit’s doing. We, once unable to change ourselves, now in God’s kindness have a desire to change and a power to change and his name is the Holy Spirit.

The mark of a true believer that their life takes on this new direction and this new purpose which is Godward. If you are filled with the Spirit of God and belong to God, your following after him it’ll be imperfect, it’ll be messy, it’ll be coloured by sin but yet it will be marked with a desire to know and love and honour God.

And so that is one of the ways in which true freedom is better than you think. Life in the flesh it’s very black and white. The law simply says to those in the flesh, ‘This is what I require and you fall short, death is your end.’ Whereas life in the Spirit says, ‘This is what I require, and though you fall short, Jesus’ righteousness is what covers you and by His Spirit you are given new life.’

Christian, do you feel a bit discouraged as you come today? You want to change but you see so many areas of your life which is contrary to God’s way and what he calls you to. And you perhaps reason there isn’t sufficient change in your life. Can you really be a Christian if you still struggle with areas of pride or anger? Can you really be a Christian if you let out these swear words?

I think if there is a genuine fight and battle, a genuine desire to honour God you’re on the right track. Do you see, if we flip back to ‘life in the flesh’ the flesh doesn’t want to honour God, but those who are in the Spirit want to honour God.

Most likely there are 101 things you see that need to be sorted out and they probably do, but the fact you see that as a problem and aren’t sleepwalking into sinful patterns is crucial. Of course, feelings aren’t the be all and end all, sometimes we are unmoved by sin, sometimes we are unmoved by God. But feelings can be a strong indicator. People in the flesh don’t want to honour God only those who are in the Spirit.

And so if you feel down and out today, if you wonder if you could be a Christian because of the mess, the junk and the sin still in your life, yet that troubles you and grieves you, and you are seeking with his help to change, stop and think, ‘If I weren’t a Christian, none of this would bother me.’ The Spirit of God gives you new desire to honour and obey him, repent and ask for forgiveness for your shortcomings, but know that if your life is marked by a tender conscience which wants to honour the Holy Spirit and is grieved when you don’t – that is a healthy sign. As the text says in verse 10: ‘… though your body is dead because of sin, the Spirit gives life because of righteousness.’

That is to us life and peace. (See verse 6) In the midst of our ongoing battle with sin, in the midst of our failings and imperfections that for those of us who have the Spirit of God, we are children of God, that is settled. We have new life, not to the degree of spirituality in us but to the degree to which God is life and light.

A new start, a new life that was not and is not our own doing. The life belongs to God it’s not down to our genius or our spirituality, he has given it to us. And as a result we can know peace. Our relationship with God isn’t based upon our performance.

Our relationship with God through faith in Jesus is settled and it’s final because it rests in what God has already done for us. Do you want to talk about freedom? What is more freeing than that? That God doesn’t love you more because of the good things you do and he doesn’t love you less because of the bad things you have done but in Jesus his love for you is settled.

There’s nothing more enslaving than feeling the need to prove yourself because you’re always on edge, always watching out and hoping that nobody notices when you mess up, hoping that your good is good enough. Yet in the gospel, we aren’t looking over our shoulder wondering if God is going to cut us off at any moment, we rest in the reality of God’s settled love for us in Jesus Christ.

Do you think of God as one who, is gracious to save you and rescue you but once you’re in you need to prove yourself? A kind of ‘Over to you now’ situation? It couldn’t be further from the truth, it is from beginning to end: grace.

I love how Paul describes the totality of salvation in Ephesians 1 as ‘every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places’.

• He chose us before the foundation of the world
• He predestined us for adoption into his family
• We have redemption through the blood of Jesus
• He revealed his will to us
• Chief among the gifts is the Holy Spirit who is a deposit guaranteeing our coming redemption and rescue when Jesus comes again.

All of it is grace. From beginning to end. This is why we are secure in his love, this is why we are freed up to serve him because its ultimately his doing.

Of course we have to exert ourselves, that comes up in verse 13 unmistakably and in so many other places but it is in the wider context of God’s power and grace at work leading us home.

To tee us up for verse 13 which will be covered next week, this is what empowers our obedience, this is what empowers our lives as Christians: the glorious freedom of the gospel. Our identity, the love lavished on us, the Fatherhood of God, the presence of the Holy Spirit isn’t ours because of how we measure up or because we’ve earned it, it’s ours because of his grace.

As you go out in service to him, you needn’t fear that God is leaving you to get on with it, go out sure that the Holy Spirit will empower you, he will strengthen you, he will enable you to live obedient lives and where you fail his grace is waiting for you to scoop you up and to set you back on your feet again. So you needn’t give up, or feel helpless, in fact you have all the reason more to keep going and to press on.

Friends true freedom is not what you think, it’s not found in doing what you want to do. True freedom is better than you think because the Spirit of God enables new life and eternal hope, he enables great change in your life and though at times you fail he walks with you.

Sermon: Sunday, 12th January, 2025
Speaker: John Johnstone
Scripture: Romans 8:1-4

1. An anchor

We all know how important anchors are to give ships stability allowing them to securely hold their position and to stop them from drifting dangerously into rocks or other vessels. Sometimes there are strong winds or currents or tides that push against a ship or a boat. You need to make sure your anchor has been dropped, to keep both you and your boat safe. When it comes to the Christian life, stability is extremely important. We need certain spiritual anchors, which are the promises of God, to give us assurance of our salvation and to provide stability in the storms of life. Sometimes these storms can be long-lasting and ferocious. Our circumstances might be so tough that we think God must be against us, or must have forgotten us, or doesn’t really love us.

The old hymn asks the question:
‘Will your anchor hold in the storms of life,
when the clouds unfold their wings of strife?
When the strong tides lift, and the cables strain,
will your anchor drift, or firm remain?’

The answer is given:
‘We have an anchor that keeps the soul,
steadfast and sure while the billows roll,
fastened to the Rock which cannot move,
grounded firm and deep in the Saviour’s love.’

Romans chapter 8 begins with one of the most magnificent anchors of God’s love in all the Bible. These 12 words can keep us stable when circumstances seem against us or when Satan is dredging up our weaknesses and sins of the past: ‘There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.’

No condemnation! If you knew how black my heart has been, even as a Christian, then you’d realise how much these words mean to me. I ought to be condemned by God. I agree with the Psalmist; ‘If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand?’   (Psalm 130:3) In Romans chapters 1 to 3, we explored how both pagans and the religious fall well short of God’s standards. We live in a world full of pride, greed, racism, exploitation, hatred and lust. The truth is, these vices aren’t just in the hearts of other people- they are in our hearts too. There’s something in us all that wants to dethrone God and put ourselves on the throne instead. We wrongly think freedom means pushing God out of the centre and occupying the centre ourselves. However, the reality is that this results in selfishness and slavery rather the freedom we think we will get. Only lives centred in Jesus can experience true and lasting freedom.

Even Christians still behave in shocking ways and were it not for God’s grace would still deserve to be condemned. Think of Peter denying he even knew Jesus. I can think of my own life and the catalogue of wrongdoing in the book of my Christian life. There’s a lot from my past which Satan can dig up and hold before my face. And he does. And I need to say to him, ‘Yes, but there’s now no condemnation for me, not because I deserve pardon, but because I am now in Christ Jesus.’ I never need to fear being rejected by God. I never need to fear being condemned by God. Why? Because Jesus has already been condemned in my place. He was condemned for me, and that’s why there’s no condemnation to be experienced. What an anchor!

Again, the hymn says: ‘grounded firm and deep in the Saviour’s love’. That’s exactly right. ‘For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering.’   (Romans 8:3) In love, God the Father sent Jesus to be our ‘sin offering’. In other words, he would die on the cross in our place, paying the price for sin. And as we need to remind ourselves again and again, God never demands payment twice. That’s unfair. If you pay a bill in a restaurant, you don’t have to pay it again. Bills are settled once. Jesus has settled our account and so nothing more can be demanded of us, and thus rather than being condemned we are in fact justified – made right in the eyes of God.

The hymn ‘Before the throne’ puts it so well:
‘When Satan tempts me to despair, and tells me of the guilt within,
upward I look and see Him there who made an end to all my sin.
Because the sinless Saviour died, my sinful soul is counted free,
or God the Just is satisfied to look on Him and pardon me.’

God has given the verdict ‘not guilty’.

Let me be more personal. Is this an anchor you have in your life? Can you say with confidence that you don’t need to fear God’s judgment and that you will never be condemned by God? Let’s take a closer look to remind ourselves of who is able to say this wonderful thing. Look at the end of verse 1. It is for those who are ‘in Christ Jesus’. The ESV translates verse 2 better, and we hear the same phrase: ‘For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.’

There’s only one place to be in all the world if we want to be free from condemnation, and that is ‘in Christ’. The ‘not guilty’ verdict is not found in the false religions of the world or in humanism or paganism or agnosticism. The Bible is clear. You must be ‘in Christ’. What does this mean to be ‘in Christ’? It means we trust that he is King and that he died on the cross for our sins. Christianity is not a bunch of rules or a philosophy but rather a relationship of trust, where we rest on the work Jesus has already done on the cross.

Here’s the good news – let’s allow it to sink in – we are free from the penalty of our own sin. The hymn Man of sorrows says this:
‘Bearing shame and scoffing rude,
in my place condemned he stood,
sealed my pardon with his blood:
Hallelujah, what a Saviour!’

2. A rudder

It is indeed wonderful news that there is no condemnation for those who rest in Christ. However, imagine a prisoner who has been imprisoned for serious crimes. He receives a pardon from the prime minister; however, he remains locked up in jail. That would not be ideal predicament: ‘Yes, you are free from the guilt of these crimes, but you will remain imprisoned.’ The stunning thing about how God treats us in Christ is that he not only frees us from the penalty of sin saying ‘No condemnation’, he also frees us from the power of sin, by filling us with the Holy Spirit. God’s Holy Spirit gives us the desire to do what is right and opposes our old sinful desires to do what is wrong.

A rudder is the part of a ship which controls its direction and allows it to change course. Before we trusted in Christ, we were unable to change course in our own strength.

John Flavel: ‘We are more able to stop the sun in its course or make rivers flow uphill, as by our own skill and power to rule and order our hearts.’

In other words, we cannot really change within, in our hearts, without God’s power. Let’s make this statement more positively – we must never think as Christians that we cannot change for the better. You can change. With the Holy Spirit within us, we can change for the better. We can have more of the love and forgiveness and peace of Jesus in our hearts. Before the Spirit of Jesus was in our hearts, the 10 Commandments were just a reminder of how far short we fall from God’s standards. But what does the Holy Spirit do with these commandments? The prophet Jeremiah speaks of the blessings of the new covenant: ‘But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.’   (Jeremiah 31:33) The Spirit gives us new desires and inclinations and empowers us to root sin out of our lives.

You cannot change for the better just by trying really hard to obey God’s rules. ‘For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.’   (Romans 8:2-4)

Before, we were unable to keep God’s rules. The problem wasn’t with the law. The law is good. The problem was our sinful flesh was unable to obey it. We needed an external power outside of ourselves. We needed the power of God. God enables us to walk according to the Spirit.

John Owen: ‘Our minds now, have a new saving supernatural light to enable them to think and act spiritually.’

Before we were Christians, the master of the house was the evil one. We were under his dominion, and the evidence of this was that we lived for ourselves and pushed God out of the centre. But now we have a new master of the house, and that is the Holy Spirit. Yes, there’s still an unwelcome guest in our house, a squatter – that’s our sinful nature. He’s guest to get rid of. In fact, it’s only in Heaven that we’ll be totally free of him. But although the change is not total, it is nonetheless enormous.

I’ve been a Christian for well over 40 years. I’m ashamed how little progress I’ve made in some of those years. I think I spent too much of it trying to change myself, rather than coming to Jesus and asking for his help. Perhaps you can relate to that. But let’s really let this sink in, we’ve been given not only a wonderful anchor in our justification, but we’ve also been given a new rudder – the Holy Spirit. Will you open your Bibles through the week and listen to the Spirit speaking to you? And when Scripture comes to mind and you feel the Spirit prompting you to do something, or not to do something, will you be directed by the Spirit? Will you keep in step with the Spirit? If you are willing to, you can change. You can make real progress. You don’t have to give up.

In the excellent book ‘You can change’, Tim Chester asks: ‘Have you despaired of ever changing? Do you think you are a lost cause? Maybe you think it’s different for you. Other people can change but your history or temptations or problems make it different for you… Only God can bring true and lasting change. And that’s because only God can change our hearts.’

Let’s keep these two images before us. Our anchor is the fact that God will never, ever condemn us. And our guiding rudder in life is now the Holy Spirit. These are great truths which we need to rub into our lives each day. Why did we sing the hymn ‘Rock of Ages’? Because it speaks of Jesus saving us from the guilt of sin (we are not condemned) and also of the power of sin (we have the Spirit):
‘Let the water and the blood,
from thy riven side which flowed,
be of sin the double cure,
save me from its guilt and power.’

Often human beings think their main problem is their unhappiness. ‘If only I could be happy…’ God knows our deepest problem isn’t unhappiness but unrighteousness and powerlessness. So, in his kindness, he provides us with a Saviour and his Spirit. He provides us with exactly what we need. And this leads to our eternal happiness, and more importantly, the glory of God: ‘… the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us.’   (Romans 8:4) How good our God is.

Sermon: Sunday, 1st December, 2024
Speaker: John Johnstone
Scripture: Romans 7

The theme of Romans chapter 7 is the law of God which is mentioned well over 20 times! For many weeks, we have been reminding ourselves that none of us can enter into a right relationship with God by trying to keep the law. Nor can we earn our way to Heaven by keeping God’s rules. The law is not a ladder which human beings are able to climb up to reach God. The letter to the Galatians makes this plain. ‘Clearly no one who relies on the law is justified before God, because ‘the righteous will live by faith.’   Galatians 3:11

This means that before people become Christians, they have a negative relationship with God’s law. They are under the curse of the law because the law condemns them as guilty. Quite clearly, none of us have loved God or our neighbours as we ought to have done. We could not do so, no matter how hard we tried. But here’s the good news. Jesus sets us free from the condemnation of the law by keeping it perfectly on our behalf and by paying the enormous moral debt we owe to God for flouting his rules time and time again, by dying on the cross for our sins.

1. A marriage ended and a marriage begun

Paul uses an illustration to help us understand that we are free from the law’s condemnation. A married woman, says Paul, is bound to her husband as long as her husband is alive, and is not free to go with anyone else. However, if the man dies, she is set free and can marry someone else. The main point is that it’s death which dissolves this marriage. In the same way, before we were saved, we were married to the law of God, which brought condemnation. The consequences of our disobedience to the law is death. This was not a good marriage! Only death can dissolve the marriage. The good news is that because we are united to Christ, when he died, we also died, and our death meant that our marriage to the law has been dissolved and we are no longer bound to the condemnation of the law. We are free. We are no longer in bondage to the law, having the obligation of perfect obedience to it, and we can no longer be crushed by it, not because the law died, but because we did. Our previous unhappy marriage is over and now we’re happily married to Christ.

Ash: The key point is that death ends the first relationship and makes possible the second.

This is a wonderful marriage in total contrast to our marriage to the law. The fruits of our first marriage were death and condemnation. Listen to verse 4 to hear what flows from our marriage to Jesus: ‘…you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit for God.’   (Romans 7:4) What a wonderful marriage! Our purpose becomes bearing good fruit for the glory of God.

This raises a question – can Christians just ignore God’s law if we have died to it? Absolutely not. The law is good and reveals the holy character of God.

John Stott: ‘This does not mean that we have been divorced from the law altogether, in the sense that it has no more claims on us of any kind, or that we have no more obligations to it. On the contrary, the moral law remains a revelation of the Lord’s will, which he still expects his people to ‘fulfil’ by living lives of righteousness and love. This is what Calvin called the 3rd use of the law – it shows us what is pleasing to God.’

Christians now have a new relationship with the law and it is a much more positive one. By God’s grace, Christians are married to Christ and given the Holy Spirit to empower us to keep God’s law. It’s actually a wonderful thing that Christians are no longer married to the law, but instead are married to Christ! Why was being married to the law so bad? The law was a powerless to make us holy. The law could not make us more like Jesus. Quite the opposite. The law was impotent. The law could not change us.

2. The law – a poor marriage partner

Let’s examine just how rubbish a marriage partner the law was. What did the law do? The law reveals just how sinful we are. ‘I would not have known what sin was had it not been for the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, ‘You shall not covet.’   (Romans 7:7) Imagine a room that’s badly lit but it looks ok. However, someone turns on the light and suddenly you see the thick dust and grease and damaged paint- things you didn’t see without the light. The law is like that strong light. It reveals what we are really like. So just hearing the command ‘do not covet’, can reveal how black our hearts really are, as so often we wish we had someone else’s job or partner or children or money. The command ‘do not covet’ reveals our sinful hearts.

What is sin? The Bible says: ‘Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness.’   (1 John 3:4) That’s why the catechism says: Q.14. What is sin? A. Sin is disobeying or not conforming to God’s law in any way. The 6th commandment says that we should not kill. That includes the unborn child and the terminally ill person. Just because the UK government might change the laws on these things does not mean they are not sinful. If our actions to the unborn or elderly break God’s law, expressed in the 6th commandment, then it is sin, no matter what direction public opinion moves in. The 6th commandment shines a light onto UK society revealing how far away we are from God today.

The law actually increases sin in the heart of the unbeliever. It stimulates sin. ‘… but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died.’   (Romans 7:9) This is an amazing but sad truth. For example, you see a sign saying ‘Keep off the grass’ and what does this law do inside you? It makes you walk on the grass! It stimulates our sin. The knowledge that we cannot have something makes us want it. There is nothing so attractive to us as the forbidden, such is the rebellious spirit of man. If your friend is watching your house when you are on holiday and you say: ‘Please don’t read my private diary’, just by saying that, there’s a greater chance she will read it. Law can arouse sin in people. An excellent example of this is the prohibition era in the US, when it was forbidden to make or consume alcohol. The law became ‘Thou shalt not consume alcohol.’ What happened? The number of places which sold alcohol, despite being banned, doubled or tripled! The US saw the rise of speakeasies, illegal pubs. The law actually stimulates more disobedience. It is not God’s law which is bad (in fact, it is good) but it brings out what is sinful in fallen humanity.

This week I’ve been reminded of when in Jesus’ day, those with leprosy had to go to the priest. Could the priest help the leper? No! In fact, the priest was in a sense like God’s law, condemning the leper, showing him, yes, you have this disease and need to be sent away. The priest was impotent in that he could not change the leper. In contrast, how marvellous it was when lepers went to Jesus for healing. He touched them, changed them, and set them free from the disease. Who do you go to if you want to be changed, to the law or to Jesus? Who do you want to be married to?

3. A Christian’s tug-of-war

Let’s move on to consider verses 14-25. These are verses which many Christians disagree on. From verse 14 Paul stops using the past tense and uses the present tense. The personal pronouns are all in the first person. So, it seems likely to me, that in this section Paul is still speaking about the law, but now he is considering how the law impacts him as a Christian man. I believe that Paul is speaking as a Christian believer here. Look at verse 22: ‘For in my inner being I delight in God’s law.’ Surely, only a Christian can delight in God’s law. And this phrase ‘inner being’ found in verse 22 is found in 2 other places in the Bible, and in both it is speaking of a Christian.

‘Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.’ (2 Corinthians 4:16)

‘I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being…’ (Ephesians 3:16)

However, there are parts of this passage which might suggest that Paul is thinking back to before he was a believer. ‘We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin.’   (Romans 7:14)

‘For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature.’   (Romans 7:18)

‘… but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am!’   (Romans 7:23-24)

Over the centuries, and in commentaries, Christians have disagreed about who this wretched man is. The early Greek Fathers thought Paul was still speaking about himself as a non-Chrisitan Pharisee under the law. Others, such as Augustine, Luther and Calvin (and this is what I believe) view this section as a description of normal Christian life. There’s another group who think it describes a backslidden Christian. Still others, say this wretched man is a personification of Israel’s existence under the Mosaic covenant, and describes the way in which they tried to establish their own righteousness by obeying the law, even though that struggle was impossible.

Personally, I think the plain reading of the passage is the best explanation, especially because Paul speaks in the present tense, suggesting his present struggle with sin. Although he has been delivered from the dominion of sin, until Heaven he still knows the presence of sin in his heart. This is the tension with us, we know the presence of sin in our hearts but we also know the presence of Christ in our hearts. ‘… so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.’   (Ephesians 3:17)

Scotland is famous for its Highland Games. There are many different events. Perhaps you have taken part in some of them. One of the events is the tug-of-war. Two teams pull on the same rope as hard as they can – a test of strength and sure-footedness. It’s not easy- it’s a real struggle. But you are not on your own. It’s a joint effort.

The Christian life is like an ongoing tug-of-war event. This can be exhausting.

R C Sproul: ‘Before I became a Christian, I wanted to go only one way: [my way] the way of the flesh. I acquiesced to the desires of the flesh. I had a mind of flesh. I had no inclination toward the things of God. But then God changed my heart and planted in it a love for him and an inclination to walk in his ways. Now I have a desire to please God, but I still have a desire to please myself. I would like to think that every time those desires bump into each other, my desire to please God wins, but it does not, and I still sin. When I get to Heaven, and all the remnants of that flesh are removed from me, I will have one heart and one will and one mind-set to please God and God alone. Only then will I become conformed to the image of Christ.’

What is Sproul saying? Before he was a Christian, there was no tug-of-war. He just did whatever he liked- with no thought of God! But now, his Christian walk is a struggle between the way of the Holy Spirit, and of the flesh. Paul says; ‘For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do – this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. So I find this law at work: although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am!’   (Romans 7:18-24)

Like Paul, sometimes we can feel wretched. Like we are making no progress. Like it’s 2 steps forward and 3 steps back. Yet the Christian life is supposed to be a life of transformation. Gradual transformation usually. We call this sanctification.

I can relate all too well to Paul’s experience here. Indeed, this is the experience of every true believer. We are, as Luther said, ‘at the same time just and a sinner’. We are creatures of mixed desires. Jesus says: ‘The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.’ (Matthew 26:41) ‘There is within us a constant daily struggle and warfare with the old self whose desires are battling the desires of the new self

R C Sproul says, ‘It is not easy being a Christian! It is a fight.’ ‘So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me.’   (Romans 7:21)

RC Sproul: ‘It seems that whenever we desire to do good, we experience the closest proximity to evil. Sometimes… in our most precious hours of devotion to Christ, the most wicked thoughts will creep into our minds’.

I think it’s important to state that Paul is not saying he feels this way some of the time or even most of the time. He has already spoken of the experience of God’s love which floods his heart by the Holy Spirit. Paul knew great peace and joy in Christ. However, there are times when we feel like wretched men and women. Jesus even says: ‘Blessed are those who mourn (over their sin) for they shall be comforted.’

Leon Morris: ‘Great saints throughout the ages don’t commonly say ‘how good I am’; ‘go away from me Lord, for I am a sinful man’ is the authentic cry not of someone who does not believe but of one who does’.

We don’t want to leave Paul in his wretched state here. He asks a question: ‘What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?’ (Romans 7:24) It is not the law which will rescue him! He answers his own question. ‘Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!’ (Romans 7:25) Paul’s struggle has led him back to Jesus for strength.

Just as a law cannot justify the sinner, so the law cannot sanctify the saint. Only Jesus can empower us to be more like him. So if as a Christian, the law convicts you of sin and you feel the internal struggle of the Christian fight, don’t stay there, but rather run into the arms of Jesus, confessing your sin and asking him to empower you to know victory over sin in your life.