Title: Set Free by Christ unto eternal life!
Text: Romans 8:1-11
8 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.
Thomas Edison invented the electric light bulb in 1879. Twenty-two years later, in 1901, one of the newfangled gadgets was hung and turned on in the Livermore, Calif., Fire Department. It’s still there, and still on. The old bulb has almost never been turned off in 113 years.
By today’s standards it should have burned out 916 times by now. The bulb, hand-blown, with a thick carbon filament was made, it is said, by the Shelby Electric Company, which did not become one of the giants of the nation, for an obvious reason. The Shelby Company made light bulbs to last, and nobody ever reordered.
The bulb is accorded an awesome respect by Fire Captain Kirby Slate and his men. In a time of planted and planned obsolescence, when gadgets are forever falling apart or burning out or breaking up, it’s reassuring to watch a dusty 113-year-old light bulb shine on and on and on.
His promises are never failing. So you have been:
(From a sermon by Ralph Andrus, How to Dwell Securely, 8/26/2010)
Set Free by Christ unto eternal life!
Anytime you begin a text with “therefore” it is good to go back and read the verses that just preceded it.
Paul writes:
21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. 22 For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, 23 but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. 24 Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?
So Paul here is dealing with the struggle of sin in his life. Have you ever struggled with sin? I know I have. Recognizing the struggles that we face in the flesh is not new but it is also certainly what Paul and the believers in Rome that he is writing to also faced.
But he concludes chapter 7 with this truth:
25 Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.
Sin never goes away … in this life.
Our epistle reading builds on this teaching.
5a For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh. You do at times give in to temptation and that is what we all do as we struggle with our own sinful flesh.
6a For to set the mind on the flesh is death. Not only temptation that leads to sin but to be consumed with the flesh can only bring more temptation and a falling away from the faith for some. Lack of being in the word and hearing the word too can draw you away and ultimately this leads to death … a spiritual death that means separation from God for eternity.
Because: 7 the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot.
The Roman church was dealing with a falling back to its sinful, flesh driven habits. You may remember that Rome saw things from a polytheistic understanding which simple means that they worshiped many gods where these new Christians now only worshiped the one true God made manifest in the person and work of Jesus Christ.
Jupiter, Apollo, Diana, Mercury and many others, some even borrowed from the Greeks were part of Roman culture. Many things in Rome and these cults and worship had to do with sins of the flesh and just a few chapters later Paul says:
3 Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy.
The sinful flesh can lead away these believers in Rome and you and I can find ourselves struggling with the sinful desires of the flesh, having no confidence in the truth and falling away to the seductive truths of sin.
Ill.
About halfway through a PBS program on the Library of Congress, Dr. Daniel Boorstin, of the Librarian of Congress, brought out a little blue box from a small closet that once held the library's rarities. The label on the box read: Contents of the president's pockets on the night of April 14, 1865. Since that was the fateful night Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, every viewer's attention was seized. Boorstin then proceeded to remove the items in the small container and display them on camera. There were five things in the box:
A handkerchief, embroidered "A. Lincoln"
A country boy's pen knife
A spectacles case repaired with string
A purse containing a $5 bill—Confederate of money!
Some old and worn newspaper clippings
"The clippings," said Boorstin, "were concerned with the great deeds of Abraham Lincoln. And one of them actually reports a speech by John Bright which says that Abraham Lincoln is "one of the greatest men of all times." Today that's common knowledge. The world now knows that British statesman John Bright was right in his assessment of Lincoln, but in 1865 millions shared quite a contrary opinion. The President's critics were fierce and many. His was a lonely agony that reflected the suffering and turmoil of his country ripped to shreds by hatred and a cruel, costly war. There is something touchingly pathetic in the mental picture of this great leader seeking solace and self-assurance from a few old newspaper clippings … as he reads them under the flickering flame of a candle all alone in the Oval Office.
Swindoll, The Quest For Character, Multnomah, p. 62-3.
In spite of our failings and giving in to temptation and sin, you can have full confidence and complete assurance that you are:
Set Free by Christ unto eternal life!
So what does it mean to be set free? For one confined in a prison cell … it means freedom. For Lazarus in the Gospel reading it means being raised to life again and “coming forth” after lying dead in the tomb for four days. In the Old Testament reading, it is the breath of life from God, that comes into those that had formerly been just a Valley of Dry Bones but are now … an exceedingly great army!
As Paul compares the Law, which shows us our sin, the flesh which is set upon that sin and death which is the consequence of our sin God comforts us with from Paul’s letter when he writes:
6b but to set the mind on the Spirit … is life and peace.
He tells us that:
9 You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you.
He reminds us:
10 But if Christ is in you … the Spirit is as well and this Holy Spirit is life because of the foreign righteousness – Christ’s righteousness that you have been given.
And finally you know ...
11 If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.
Set Free by Christ unto eternal life – you have been!
The light bulb – still burning after 113 years on continuous use is quite a marvel but what is that compared to eternity. Joyfully we believe in the truth of Christ’s words himself!
“I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, 26 and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die.
And along with Martha when Jesus asks ”Do you believe this?”
We too answer:
“Yes, Lord; I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who is coming into the world.”
In the name of the Father and of the Son + and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen
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