Unity Through Life In The Spirit
Note: This is not the normal teaching article I would post. These are only the Unedited notes I carried into the pulpit. Please be sure to listen to or watch the teaching, as much of what I teach is not in these notes.
This is Part 3 of a 5-part teaching series.
I’m picking up at the end of Part 1.
And yes, I’m starting with an analogy I used in Part 1. I won’t repeat it here for the sake of time.
SLIDE ONE: Let’s get on the subway at Romans 1, travel underground, and pop back up at another Romans
Tourist stop: Romans 8:14–17.
14 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.
15 So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, “Abba, Father.” 16 For his Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God’s children. 17 And since we are his children, we are his heirs. In fact, together with Christ we are heirs of God’s glory. But if we are to share his glory, we must also share his suffering.
ILL: I researched just under 1,000 sermons on this passage. Let me share the most common teaching points from sermons in the U.S.
SLIDE TWO:
“The Holy Spirit leads you through personal guidance and decision-making.”
“You don’t have to live in fear; you can live boldly.”
“You can call on God ‘Abba’ (Dad) whenever you need comfort.”
“You are an heir. So what belongs to God belongs to you!”
Those teaching points aren’t “WRONG.”
They are not necessarily shallow.
But, are they missing the greater, more primary thing Paul is communicating to the church in Rome?
ABSOLUTELY!
You see, these teaching points, as is often the case in Bible-tourism Christianity, are aimed directly at the individual sittings in their church seats, trying to survive the next week.
Here is how the congregants normally apply those teaching points to their week:
SLIDE THREE:
Find God’s will for a job, relationship, move, or purchase through the Spirit’s leading.
Be at peace because fear doesn’t need to control you.
Bring discomfort and stress to Daddy God, Abba, to be super comforted.
Expect blessings and a big future because our Daddy God owns everything.
But, is that what Paul was trying to communicate to the first readers of Romans 8?
If we can get to what Paul was teaching them, I think we will find it more beautiful and helpful!
SLIDE FOUR: Romans 8:1-17…………………………………………………
8 So now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. 2 And because you belong to him, the power of the life-giving Spirit has freed you from the power of sin that leads to death. 3 The law of Moses was unable to save us because of the weakness of our sinful nature. So God did what the law could not do. He sent his own Son in a body like the bodies we sinners have. And in that body God declared an end to sin’s control over us by giving his Son as a sacrifice for our sins. 4 He did this so that the just requirement of the law would be fully satisfied for us, who no longer follow our sinful nature but instead follow the Spirit.
5 Those who are dominated by the sinful nature think about sinful things, but those who are controlled by the Holy Spirit think about things that please the Spirit. 6 So letting your sinful nature control your mind leads to death. But letting the Spirit control your mind leads to life and peace. 7 For the sinful nature is always hostile to God. It never did obey God’s laws, and it never will. 8 That’s why those who are still under the control of their sinful nature can never please God.
9 But you are not controlled by your sinful nature. You are controlled by the Spirit if you have the Spirit of God living in you. (And remember that those who do not have the Spirit of Christ living in them do not belong to him at all.) 10 And Christ lives within you, so even though your body will die because of sin, the Spirit gives you life because you have been made right with God. 11 The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, he will give life to your mortal bodies by this same Spirit living within you.
SLIDE FIVE: Chapters 1-7 Summary Slide:
Paul’s been describing bondage to sin and disunity for seven chapters. In a single letter, to be read in one sitting.
Not split into chapters.
Not to be read in sections, weeks apart.
And not to be treated like a tourist of Romans traveling from passage to passage underground in the subway - popping up at stops that give us individual inspiration.
Paul is writing because the Roman church is extremely strained by Jew vs Gentile tensions that intensified after Claudius kicked the Jews out of Rome for 5 years, and when the Jews returned, their church had become gentile centric.
So Paul steps in and says belonging to God’s family is not grounded in ethnicity, ancestry, or any other Jew vs Gentile boundary markers. It is grounded in the Spirit.
THE PRIMARY INTENT FOR ROMANS 8: Paul is pastorally redefining who belongs to God’s people, how you can know, and what that implies (identity markers ).
What he is correcting is best described as confusion over the basis of belonging and status:
What gives a person standing in the family of God? Was it Torah? Circumcision? Food laws? Jewish identity? History? Heritage? Or was it the Spirit of God at work in a person through Christ? That is the pressure sitting behind this part of Romans.
SLIDE 6: Romans 8:1-17…………………………………………………
That is how you know who belongs to Christ. And that changes not just who is in, but how they are to see each other once they are a part of the family.
Let’s look at some of these identity markers:
Romans 8:4 “...who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”
This is an identity marker sentence. Paul is naming the defining feature of God’s people.
Romans 8:5 “For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.”
This contrasts two communities.
And the two categories are not "Christian Jew" and "Christian Gentile". No! They are a part of the same category!
The Categories are: 1. Those who live by the flesh. And, 2. those who have God’s Spirit living in them.
Romans 8:8 “Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.”
That is not just behavioral language. It is category language.
Romans 8:9 “Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.”
This may be the sharpest marker in the passage.
Belonging to Christ is identified by the Spirit, not by Torah badges and hashtags.
Romans 8:14
“For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.”
Again, Paul is defining who the covenant family really is.
Romans 8:15
“You have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’”
This marks out the family identity of believers.
In John Wesley’s Notes on Romans:
“Abba, Father—The latter word explains the former. By using both the Syriac and the Greek word, Paul seems to point out the joint cry both of the Jewish and Gentile believers.”
Syriac is Eastern Aramaic.
Jesus used Abba - when he prayed - which the Jews Understood.
Father - the gentile Christians are getting an explanation of what Jesus meant…
Romans 8:17
“And if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ...”
This is inheritance language, which is covenant-family language.
Jewish and Gentile Christians are both marked as the same, heirs of God.
Ben Witherington…: In a mixed Roman church, people were naturally ranking each other by (ethnicity, honor, patronage connections, education, wealth, and freedom status). Paul’s Spirit/adoption language detonates the ranking system:
not “slave vs free,”
not “elite vs low,”
not “Jew vs Gentile,”
but children/heirs.
—-----------------------
Yes. In Romans 8:1–17, Paul is both
(a) using that Spirit-language to settle the “who belongs?” question in a divided Roman church
(b) and teaching the Spirit’s work in believers.
For the first readers, those two aims are not competitors.
The Spirit’s work is the basis of the identity marker.
So, relative emphasis:
SLIDE 7 :
What is Paul accomplishing pastorally in Rome in Chapter 8?
1. Spirit indwelt identity and unity are primary!
How is that even possible in such a divided church?
2. The Spirit’s sin-liberating, life-giving work in people who believe!
95-97% of sermons on Romans 8 focus on 2.
Why does #1 matter…reread it and ADLIB
–
Your primary identity marker as a Christian is the indwelling of the Holy Spirit!
And you reveal it through the fruit of the Spirit in your life
Modern equivalents of Torah-boundary markers are
Ethnicity,
denomination,
political identity,
ministry brand,
moral résumé,
spiritual experiences used as status
Application: treat “Spirit-indwelt in Christ” as the non-negotiable center of belonging.
Practical: stop using secondary markers as proof someone is “really in.”
1-17 Is unity pastoral, The Holy spirit is the mechanism. The benefit is freedom from the power of sin which the torah could not do, but the Holy spirit can.
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