INTRODUCTION: As the Lenten season progresses, the weight of the penitential season will be bearing down on us as we struggle with the theme of our battle to live in a world of pretend gods and false religions. All too often, however, the joy announced in this powerful text is diminished by a world where God’s condemnation has no power or meaning, where the meaning of the penitential season is unclear even among Christians, where “walking in Christ” has little or no impart on our daily lives.

Into this world come the liberating words of our text “there is now no condemnation in Christ!”  This is the story of freedom and liberation. It is our personal story.

But even more personal is the struggle that goes on within each of us as we battle with our own sinful nature and the guilt we feel for our deserved condemnation from God because of our sin. Ten times in our text St. Paul uses the word “flesh” to describe our sinful condition in which by nature we find ourselves at enmity with God. ”Because the carnal mind [is] enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.” (Vv.7-8)

However, nine times he uses a form of the word spirit to reveal the source of our new relationship with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. “But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.” (v.9)

St. Paul would say to us today “I’m free to be me”

I.         I am caught in myself.

A.     I am caught in my fleshly nature. “For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded [is] death; but to be spiritually minded [is] life and peace.

B.     I am carnally minded - For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh; but they that are after the Spirit the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded [is] death; but to be spiritually minded [is] life and peace.  Because the carnal mind [is] enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. (vv. 5-7)

C.    I am at enmity with God “Because the carnal mind [is] enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. (v.7)

II.       I cannot free myself from my nature.

A.     Guilt is my constant companion. I am not only at war with God, but within myself.  That what I do not want to do is what I practice. And that which I want to do is what I do not practice. Paul cries out with the question “who can save me from this?” (Romans 7:18-24)

B.     Following the Law cannot save me. “For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:” (v.3)

C.    In such a condition I am a lost and condemned sinner.

III.  Freed to be in Christ.

A.     Freed from condemnation. “(V.1) There is] therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” (V.1)

B.     Freed from the law of sin and death “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.” (v.2)

C.    Christ achieved this, our freedom on the cross. For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:  That the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.

D.    Christ became a sinless man to free man from the sin that leads to death eternally. (Vv. 3-4)

IV.  Freed for exalted living. Now, and into glory.

A.     The mind, now set on the Spirit, is life and peace.

B.     Christ is in me, by faith, that I may be a child of God. “And if Christ [be] in you, the body [is] dead because of sin; but the Spirit [is] life because of righteousness.  But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you.” (Vv. 10-11)

C.    Real life and real living begins with the emancipation through Christ.

D.    May we now fill our minds, our lives with the spiritual things of Christ, the Lord of our exalted lives.

CONCLUSION: The Spirit of man longs to breath free. Many long for political freedom, yet many freed from man—made tyranny do not yet know the true freedom that Christ loved, suffered and died to obtain for a suffering world. With St. Paul and St. John we rejoice in the Truth that sets each and every one of us free to be ourselves.

 + Soli Deo Gloria +