Breaking the Cycle of Sin (Romans 8:1-12)

Home. Home is a place of safety and acceptance. It's the dwelling place of family members who care about each other. In the famous words of Dorothy, "There's no place like home." For many, home is a good and stable place with characters straight out of "Leave it to Beaver." However, for many more people, home is nothing like the 50s TV show. The breakdown of the family has become very obvious in the last few decades. It seems as if the moral standards of the family have been utterly destroyed. There's no greater desire for Satan than to break apart the family unit. The battle for the home has become an all out war. The family is failing because there are no standards being kept. Our sinful natures have all but destroyed the family unit. However, for those who are in Christ Jesus, they do not have to live defeated. Romans 8 begins with a word of encouragement.

I. A Statement of Fact

A fact that God wants us to never forget is found in verse one. For those who belong to Christ, there is no condemnation. What good news that is to the believer! No matter what you have done, God does not condemn you because you are his child. He will never break the relationship with you just like you would never turn your back on your child. In our humanness, it may be hard to understand such unconditional love. How is he able to say that he will never condemn us? Verse 2 tells us that we have been freed, by the Spirit, from the power of sin and death as a result of belonging to God. As we try to keep God's standards, the Holy Spirit within us makes it possible to do just that. We have to understand God's attitude toward us. Our relationship with our heavenly father is one of freedom. We enjoy the freedom of no condemnation even when we fail. However, let's be clear. This freedom does not entitle us to do whatever we want. It means that the battle of condemnation was over forever the second we accepted Christ as our Lord and Savior. At salvation, our sinful nature was destroyed, and we took on a new, Christ-like nature.

II. A Sinful Nature Destroyed

Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. In other words, it is the dwelling place (house) of Christ himself. God is living in you, and he has the power to destroy the sin inside you. He has not condemned you, but he has condemned the sin within you. Inside you is a new master, the Lord Almighty. No longer do you have to obey the flesh. God's forgiveness gives us the power to obey him instead of the flesh. Because the Spirit is within us, we have the power to obey. When I was 21 years old, I was stationed at Lackland Air Force Base. God impressed on me that I had nothing to show for my 21 years here on earth. I told him that day that if he could do anything with my life, it was his to take. From that minute, everything I used to love (various sins) became hated, and everything I used to hate (Bible reading and prayer) became things I love. I was changed from the inside. My sin nature was destroyed. I was not changed by any effort of my own, not by keeping rules, but by what Christ did on the cross.

III. The Spirit's Victory

In verses three and four, Paul explains how sin loses and the spirit wins. Last week we learned that the Law of God is good in that it reveals to us our sin. However, what the Law cannot do, God did through sending his perfect son- the only one who could satisfy our sin debt- to die for our sins. Because of Christ's death, we are no longer controlled by sin. In that one act of love, we become fully capable of following the Spirit instead of following our own sinful nature. We become able to say no to sin through the power of the Holy Spirit. Verse twelve makes it clear. We are no longer obligated to do what our sinful nature urges us to do.

Our homes and our families can become more stable and vibrant if we can understand who we are in Christ. First, we belong to God and not self. At conversion, we became a new person with the power to say no to our sinful nature. Secondly, God will never condemn us. His love for his children is unmatched. There is nothing a child of God can do to make him love you less. Third, we have nothing to fear - even the fear of death can be gone. The same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead lives inside of us, and will one day raise us to be with him in the glory of Heaven. Amen!