Set Free through Jesus Christ (Romans 8:2)
Hello. Today’s message is going to be titled, “Set Free through Jesus Christ,” Romans 8:2. What I wanted to share with the remnants today is what the difference between the law of the spirit of life is and what the law of sin and death is, and how to be set free.
Law of Spirit of Life
I probably really had fun preparing for this because it’s about the law and I’m a lawyer, but also because for several weeks now, I’ve been within the law of sin and death, and I feel like while I was preparing for the message, I was restored back to the law of the spirit of life.
Let’s talk about what the difference between these two things are, and to know that, we have to talk about what the beginning was, we need to know what it means to be within the law of the Spirit of Life.
1. Genesis 1:27 -> God’s Image
Which means ultimately we need to know how we were created, and in Genesis 1:27, we were created in God’s image, which means that because God is spirit, we are spiritual creations, which means that we were created to be with God. What does it mean to be with God?
James 1:18 -> prized possession
If you look at James 1:18, it says we are His prized possession.
Deut. 26:18 -> Treasured possession
If you look at Deut. 26:18, it says, “The LORD has declared this day that you are His people, His treasured possession, as He promised, and you are to keep all His commands.”
Isaiah 43:1 -> you are mine
What does He say again? “But now, this is what the LORD says, “He Who created you, Jacob, He Who called you, Israel, I have summoned you by name, and you are mine.” So, why do we care if we’re God’s possession? Why do we care if we’re God’s treasured possession, and why do we care if we belong to God?
Why do we care?
We care because, from all of this comes so many blessings, for example, you guys all know this verse.
Genesis 1:28 -> Blessed, Subdue, Rule, Increase in #
It says God blessed them to subdue, rule over, increase in number, which means that pretty much, we were created to rule over and subdue the earth, but we live being subdued and ruled over by our circumstances.
James 1:17 -> good and perfect gift
It says every good and perfect gift comes from God.
Colossians 2:3 -> all treasure of wisdom and knowledge are within Christ
It says all treasures of wisdom and knowledge are within Christ.
John 14:26-27 -> teach and remind
It says He sends the Holy Spirit to guide us, to teach us, and to remind us. John 14:27 is one of my favorite verses because it says, “My peace I give you. Peace I leave with you, my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not be afraid.” This means that the peace we have in God is something the world cannot give or even understand.
Jeremiah 33:3 great and unsearchable things
What does it say in Jeremiah 33:3? This is also one of my favorite BIble verses. It says, “Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know,” meaning that all our lives, we live trying to get the things we know about. Money, Pleasing your parents, whatever it is, having a lot of friends, that’s a blessing. But God is like, “If you call to Me, I will give you things that are great and you don’t even know about them.”
Jeremiah 33:6 healing, peace, and security
In Jeremiah 33:6, it says, “I will bring health and healing to it, I will heal my people and allow them to enjoy abundant peace and security.” Honestly within these few BIble verses, everything we could ever look for in life are all within this, right? The money, the power to rule and subdue, all the good and perfect things, things we don’t even know about that are so good and unsearchable are all promised to us just because we’re God’s treasured possession.
So, everything we ever look for is within this, but we have been separated.
Separated
We can’t enjoy these blessings anymore, why?
Isaiah 59:2
Your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden His face from you so He will not hear. Which means that, for whatever reason, Isaiah 59 says, it’s our sin. Our sin has hidden His face from us so we cannot even see Him and He can’t hear us. So, what is sin, then?
Sin? Colossians 3:5 greed
It says greed is idolatry.
Exodus 20:4 Idols for yourself.
It says, “Don’t make any idols for yourselves.”
Ephesians 2:2-3
It says, “We used to live in the midst of sin and transgression,” and it goes on to explain what sin is. It says, “When you followed the ways of the world and the ruler of the kingdom of the air, all of us lived by the flesh, following its cravings and desires,” all of us were living under sin. Ultimately, what does all of this mean? All of this is just a fancy way of saying, “I am God. I am going to do whatever I want. I’m going to think whatever I want, I’m going to treat people however I want.
Me = God
Why are you greedy? It’s because you want something. Why do you make idols for yourself? It’s for yourself. Why do you follow the ways of the world? It’s because you think there’s something out there for you, so you follow the ways of the world. But where does this get us? Because so far, all we know is that we’ve been separated from these blessings and some of the remnants might think, “Teacher Esther, I think it’s okay for me to live my life without these blessings.” But you’re wrong because you don’t only just lose hold of the blessings, but you’re stuck in the law of sin and death, meaning that there are curses and disasters following after you.
It’s not that, without these blessings you just live a mediocre, neutral life, but you live a cursed life of death and disaster. It’s funny because before I knew the gospel, at the beginning when I started learning about the gospel, I compaliend to Tiffany all the time, “Why do I have to evangelize? Why can’t I just live like an average Christian? I just want to go to church on Sunday for an hour and then do whatever I want to do.” But if you think like that, what are you centered on? Yourself.
So let’s talk about what it means to be in the law of sin and death.
1. John 8:44 Satan
First and foremost, you belong to your father the devil. It says you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and when he lies, he is the father of lies. When God tells us that Satan is a murderer, it’s not that Satan is going around, shanking people from behind. It’s that he is killing us spiritually and when we do what Satan wants us to do, we are killing ourselves spiritually. But, he is also a liar because, you know what?
2 Cor. 11:14
In 2 Corinthians 11:14, it says, “No wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light,” meaning that Satan is going around, lying to people, dressing himself as something beautiful to kill us. I’m going to give you guys an example of how he does that. I have two examples. The first example is about me and my love for food. My entire life, I just ate whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted, however much I wanted. There were times when I would be stuffing my face and I’d fall asleep with food in my mouth. There are times when I’d be sleeping, and I’d get up and sleepwalk to go eat food, then go back to sleep because, unbeknownst to me, I started getting this greed for food. Because when I was younger, that’s how I relieved my stress, that’s how I celebrated.
If a good thing happened, I ate food. If a sad thing happened, I ate food. If I get mad, I eat food. At that moment, I love it so much, but the thing is, I’m super unhealthy right now. It hasn’t just affected my health but it’s also affecting my looks. Obviously I gained weight, but I’ve been preparing for the wedding, and the thing is, my skin, I don’t know if you guys have noticed, but I keep getting red dots, right? It’s because I go to the dermatologist to take out impurities so that, for the wedding, my face looks smooth. But, I’ve had to go back so many times within the past month because they keep coming back, and my pores keep filling up with oil. Today, I actually went to the dermatologist again and I did it again, even though I did it two weeks ago. I was like, “Do I not wash my face, doctor? Should I use oil blotting paper?”
He was like, “What do you eat?” I was like, “Oh, eh. Cough.” I couldn’t even respond. But by the time I responded, “I eat a lot of snacks and fried foods and fast foods.” “You need to stop because your skin is only going to get worse.” But then he told me a list of all the things I shouldn’t eat, he told me I couldn’t eat sweets, but I love sweets. He told me not to eat carbs because that turns into sugar. I love carbs, and he told me not to eat shellfish, like seafood. Tiffany’s making a face right now because she knows I love seafood, I eat seafood once a month, on schedule.
He was like, “Don’t eat animal fats,” and I asked, “What do you mean by animal fats?” “Don’t eat pork belly and bacon.” That’s my favorite meat! I can’t have coffee, but I drink coffee every day. He’s giving me all these lists and the more he brings it up, my face was getting longer. “Why are you looking at me like that? You should be saying, ‘Thank you, Doctor!’” I was like, “Doctor, you’ve taken away all the food I love.” So, this is an example of how food in the moment can be delicious and awesome and great and bring you so much joy and comfort, but what does it do but give you large pores?
I was like, “Okay, then what can I eat?” He says, “You should eat six vegetables that are six different kinds of greens.” In my head, I was like, “I don’t even know if I know that many vegetables.” He was like, “You should always eat mushrooms.” “Im’ like, ‘heh heh, great,’ right?” But that’s the thing, he said if I keep eating the way I want, my health is going to get worse and worse and worse. When I turn 40, my body is going to feel it, and when iI get pregnant, my body is going to feel it. Right? Satan is like that. Satan comes as something so amazing, so good and perfect, but at the end of the road, all you see is he brings death and destruction.
The second example I want to give is an example that is out in the world. How many of you guys have heard about Roe v. Wade? It happened recently, like today or yesterday. Pretty much, the entire world of America is freaking out right now because the Supreme Court has taken away the Constitutional Right to abortion. Everybody is like, “We women can’t choose what’s best for our body? Our rights and freedoms are being taken away,” and everyone is freaking out. So many of my lawyer friends and females are crying about it, they’re posting about it,they’re so upset.
A lot of people are looking down on Christians and conservatives, “You guys are taking away our freedoms, our rights.” The thing is, if you look at the message, the worldly message, it seems correct because, yeah, it makes sense we should have freedom about our bodies, but just as you guys know, if you’re centered on yourselves and what you want and how you want to control your body, what is that going to bring except death?
But Satan is blocking everybody’s mind and spirit so all they see is their physical slavery. Satan gives us beautiful messages about independence and freedom, but at the sametime, it’s the same independence and freedom that is tearing the nation apart. So many people are fighting against each other, so many groups are fighting against each other, family members are falling apart. Churches are splitting up and shutting down. Couples are getting divorced and the divorce rate is skyrocketing. Why? All because of Satan’s beautiful message of independence, freedom, and “you do what you want.”
But guess what? That was his message ever since the beginning.
Genesis 3:5 You = god
You can be like God, knowing the difference between good and evil. But, what’s the result of that?
2.What’s the result?
Ephesians 2:1 -> dead
If you look at Ephesians 2:1, it says you’re dead in your sins and transgressions, and if you look at today’s Bible verse, Romans 8:2, it says you’re in the law of sin and death . Right? Which means that if there’s a law, that’s just the way it is. You may not like it but that’s the way it is. Right? So in the world if you break a law, there’s a punishment that goes with it. In God’s eyes, there’s a law that, if you have sin, you will die.
In James 1:14-15, it says each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then after desire has conceived, gives birth to sin, and sin, when it is full grown, gives birth to death, meaning that, because of my desire, because of my greed, my idolatry, my worshiping myself turns into sin because we’re like, “We don’t need God.” But the moment you believe you do not need God, that’s when all problems begin, why? Because that’s when death enters.
That’s how I lived for the past few weeks. The past few weeks, I’ve had a really hard time because I’ve been just so busy. On top of that, the judge with whom I work in the courtroom has been making my life a lot more difficult. She is making bad decisions against the law, so I look at how she’s making my life harder, and I look at how she’s not bringing justice, and I’m sitting there in my own anger, I’m like, “Ugh.”
Tim actually tried to give me the word about it, and I was like, “Why are you talking about that? Stop talking about that.” “Why are you fighting God’s Word?” I told him, “Because I want to stay angry. I want to hold onto my anger and talk bad about this judge, so talk bad about the judge with me.” So, I was holding onto “me,” my feelings, my thoughts, what I thought was justice, and that resulted in my death.
Genesis 3:7, 10 shame, fear
Not only that, but if you look at Genesis 3:7 and 10, after Adam and Eve sinned against God, what did they feel? They felt shame and fear, right? It’s not that, without these blessings, we just live a neutral life; without these blessings, we’re in a life where we have these curses of death, shame, and fear. But this is something we cannot see, it’s something we can’t fight, because you know what? I know the gospel message, I teach the gospel message, I hear the gospel message all the time. But the past few weeks, I was stuck in this, I was a slave within the law of sin and death. But because we have no choice but to be like this, because we can’t overcome it, that’s why God sent us Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ
1.King 1Jn 3:8
Right? Because first and foremost, as the true King, what did He do? He crushed the authority of Satan.
2.Priest Mk 10:45
As the true priest, what did He do? He set us free from our sin. Now that we’re free from our sin, we’re free from the law of death, right?
3.Priest Jn 14:6
Which means now, we’re all the way over here on the right side, where the law of the spirit of life is. That’s what he means in John 14:6, when He says, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” In Jesus Christ, we have life and we have a way to be with God, and by being with God, we have all these blessings restored again. That’s why it says in John 1:12 that anyone who receives Him, to those who believe in His name, He gives the right to become children of God. Which means that, because of Jesus Christ, we have the right to enjoy these blessings.
But here’s the thing, what do we do with that now? We have to proclaim it. In Matthew 28:18-20, the last thing Jesus says is, “Go and make disciples of all nations.” Jesus says, “I am surely with you until the very end of the age.” Here’s the thing remnants, you guys all know this, I know this, but why is it that we keep falling back into the law of sin and death? It’s because we don’t have faith that being with God is the greatest blessing. It’s because we think there’s some other answer out there.
So what do we do about that? How do we get faith? Romans 10:17, it says faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard from the Word about Christ, so the first step is, coming to worship and receiving the Word about Jesus Christ. The thing is, our Spirits, when we’re self-centered, we may react, “No!” Like how I reacted to Tim when I said, “Stop talking about that.” But we come to worship and we hear the words of Christ. Faith comes from that.
But is it enough that you just listen to it? Because we have to pray for it, right? Faith is also by God’s grace, so in John 15:7, Jesus says, “If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish and it shall be done for you.” Meaning that, we come to worship, receive the words about Jesus Christ, then we pray, holding onto that message about Jesus Christ, and when we ask God, “This is Your Word; please give me the faith to understand it and make it mine and for me to really enjoy this grace and answer You have given me,” God will give it to you because He promised it.
That’s why in Psalm 1:2, it says, “Blessed is the one who meditates on the Word of the LORD.” Remnants, this is why it’s so important for you to have summit time, when you hold onto the word about Jesus Christ that you received during worship, and you hold onto it and pray so that the Holy Spirit reminds you and teaches you. When we do that, God will answer us. I am going to give you guys one last example.
On Wednesday night, Pastor Park got up here and he was talking about Mission Home with the two kids from Navajo. He just straight up looks over at me and Tim and says, “I can’t ask them right now but I’m hoping they will be led so they can do it in the winter.” I’m going to be very honest with you, I was so tested because the thing is, I was holding onto the answer of Mission Home, but I always thought it was going to be when I was pregnant, not working, and just at home. Or I thought it was going to be at least one or two years from now. Inside my head, the thoughts going through my head were, “Tim and I are just married but we’ll never have the life of newlyweds. We barely had a chance to date because we’re always so busy and we’re always at church, doing things, so man, when do I get to live a normal, romantic life?”
In the moment I realized that’s a thought that comes from me. That’s just another lie that Satan has imprinted inside of me because of my past where I’m looking for this kind of guy, this kind of relationship, this kind of date. “This is what’s going to make me happy.”but I realized Satan was coming to me as an angel of light, so that night, I prayed right afterwards, and I was very honest with God. “God, I really don’t want to, I really just want to rest. It’s hard enough for me to live. I just had my buttkicked around for the past weeks and now you want to bring in these two strangers I don’t know?”
But I asked God, “Give me grace to follow Your Word. Give me the strength to believe that what You desire of me is only Jesus Christ and to proclaim only Christ. Give me faith that You will give me the power, the strength, the peace, and everything that will allow me to have Mission Home with these people.” The thing is, I don’t feel that yet but I’m going to keep praying for it because God promised me that if I hold onto His word and remain in Jesus Christ and ask for it, He will give it to me. That’s what it means to be set free from the law of sin and death and to go into the law of the spirit of life.
Remnants when you are seized by your thoughts or your feelings or what you want ro what you think you want, just know that that is here, the law of sin and death. But if you don’t believe that, it’s okay; all you have to do is hold onto His word and pray about it. God will answer because that’s what it means to be a child of God. So, I hope that you guys and I both receive this answer of grace and faith. Let us pray.
Prayer
Father God, thank You so much for this message. Thank You so much for giving us the gospel of Jesus Christ that has set us free from the law of sin and death. If there’s anyone of us who doesn’t believe in Your Word of Jesus Christ , if there’s anyone here who wants to hold onto their ‘“me-centeredness” more so than your Word, I pray that You will bind the forces of darkness that are working upon us. I pray that You will pour Your grace into our spirits so that we can have faith in Your Word. GIve us the faith that being with you and all the blessings You have given to us are the greatest blessings ever. Lord, let us not enjoy this faith just for ourselves, but let us truly restore it so that we can proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ to everyone around us. I pray that You will raise all the remnants into the evangelists who will do Your work of missions and evangelism. In the name of Jesus Christ I pray, amen.