Sunday 12 • 17 • 17

Romans 8:1-11

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, for the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law weakened by the flesh could not do: by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh. In order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. 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. For to set the mind of the flesh is death, but to set the mind of the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set in the flesh is hostile to God. For it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is life because of righteousness. 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 you life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you. — Romans 8:1-11

The Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

Before I preach this morning, I want to give a shout out to our brother and my good friend Preston Hunt, who is joining us streaming this morning. If you guys know him, give him a cheer so he knows we've got him on video right here.

Romans 8. I have been dying to get to Romans 8. This is the most encouraging section of the book of Romans. We've been working our way through Romans this year. One of my seminary professors and mentors, a guy named Sinclair Ferguson, tells this story. He's been a pastor in South Carolina, and their church did a big conference and invited people from all over the world. A couple of pastors came from the Czech Republic, and they stayed with a host family. The highlight of their experience—the thing they remarked most about—was visiting a local grocery store. They walk into this American grocery store, just overwhelmed with all the options and the superabundance, and they break down in tears. One of the men asks the host family, "Does this belong to the American government?" He just couldn't get his head around the fact that all this abundance was available to anybody who walks in the door.

In the same way, we open up this passage, this section of Romans—Romans chapter 8—and we start looking at the gospel glories contained in this chapter. You almost want to pull Paul aside and say, "Really? Is all this for us? Is all this for any believer?" He says yes. This is for you. This is for you.

As we've been walking our way through the book of Romans, I knew we had to get here before Christmas to Romans chapter 8. We slogged through the last couple of weeks through Romans chapter 7, which is hard and could be discouraging. So I needed to get us here. We needed to get here to Romans 8 and all the encouragement that's in this chapter.

But this chapter is not just encouraging; it's also very instructive for us because it helps us understand how God has what—all the things that God has declared over us now come about within us. God has justified his people. He's declared over us truths about you being in Christ and therefore a new you. We've talked about the disconnect of how we feel about that. I know theologically I'm a new me, but I don't feel like a new me. And this is in Romans chapter 8 where we begin to pick up: How does God change us from inside? How does he transform us? We move from justification to sanctification. How does God work his transforming so I increasingly become the new me that he's making in Jesus Christ?

If you take notes, here's my outline for today:

• Freedom to be the new you
• Power to become the new you
• A new mindset to practice the new you

Freedom to Be the New You

This is verses 1 through 4. The first verses of this passage are a summary of everything that's gone before, but also an intensification of it. Paul starts here with the word "therefore." That's why he's summarizing everything that's come before, but he says, "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus."

If I can make one Christmas present for this church, it would be to take verse one and make a loop of this that just plays over and over and over and give this to you as a personal Christmas present that you play in the background all the time. So you're asleep at night: there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. There's no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus. There's no condemnation. You're in the shower: there's no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus. You're in the car: there's no condemnation.

I would love to have this playing in the background and not with my kind of whiny voice, but maybe like James Earl Jones or Judi Dench or Sean Connery. You know, there's no condemnation. Picture this. Can some of you tech people create this and then send this out to all of us? It would be so helpful because I don't think we can hear that enough. I honestly think we cannot exhaust how much we need to hear that. That is such an interruption to the way that we live and the way that we think about self. We need this so much.

Two Administrations

Here's why that statement's important. Paul reminds us here of what we've been reading through Romans 5 through 7, that there are two administrations. There's an administration under Adam that all people are born into. And the normal course of life in Adam is the law of sin and death. These two things are at work in everybody, and it leads us to a place of condemnation. The law of God is unable to do anything for us in this except to reveal to us how much we need a rescue, how much we need a savior. That's what Paul has been pushing at us and helping us understand.

But here's the good news. God sent his son in the likeness of sinful flesh—that's Christmas—to be a sin offering for us, that's Easter, so that the law and its condemnation over us is now done away with. Christ came and himself took the wrath of God in our stead, took all of it. So no condemnation. There's a legal term there. All that is due us in justice, all that's due us in punishment, all is put on Christ.

Let me stop here and make sure we are all clear on this. Maybe you're here and you're not a Christian. We always assume there are people who are not believers or who are in process of investigating this or not so sure about this in our church every week. Listen, if you're not a Christian, the Bible tells us there is a coming day of judgment where all will appear before the judgment seat of God and give an answer for how we lived in this life. All of us will have to give an answer, and all of us at this point stand under wrath.

Now for a Christian though, this is entirely different. This is an entirely different system because our judgment day, biblically, has moved from some future point. We don't know when God is going to send Jesus to return and the judgment happens. It has moved from the future, the distant future, to the distant past. It's moved back in history two thousand years ago. So Christians can look at that and say, my judgment day is already done. I know the outcome of that. I know where I stand. No condemnation.

For Christians, our judgment day has moved from our future to our past. So it's no trivial question to ask: are you in Christ Jesus?

The Flood: A Picture of Judgment

Let me give you an example of this from an earlier part of the Bible. The only other picture we have of God bringing judgment on the whole world happens in the book of Genesis, where God sends a flood with Noah and judges the world with regard to sin. And in that day, several things that we tend to evaluate one another by and ourselves by didn't matter. For example, it didn't matter if you were a moral upright person when the judgment by flood came. The only thing that mattered was: are you on that boat? It didn't matter whether or not you believed in a judgment of God. When the waters came, it didn't matter if you believed in it or that it was going to happen. What mattered was: are you on the boat?

And again, even if you're a person who said, "I trust in my moral goodness"—like somebody who's saying, "I trust in my ability to swim"—there's only so much moral goodness in swimming that you can do. What matters is: are you on the boat?

So really the question for every person is: are you in Jesus? Are you in him? That's the only way that we can look and say, "No condemnation. I am rescued from that."

But Christians bear this, therefore, like a permanent tattoo across their chest: no condemnation in Christ Jesus. No condemnation.

Now that condition is one that I also want to clarify. There's a lot of confusion among Christians about what that really means. For a lot of people, they understand that to mean: okay, all my past has been wiped away. Jesus takes those sins to himself. Even my present actions—but my future ones, those have a bearing.

And I better live a good and upright life from this point forward. And if not, I'm in danger of putting myself back under condemnation. If you've ever used words or heard words like carnal Christian, backslidden Christian, those terms a lot of times represent an ideology, a way of believing that's more like Scrooge than it's like the Bible. Remember Scrooge? He gets chances to sort of set his life back onto a new trajectory and get it right this time. The Bible doesn't tell us that.

The intensity of these words, "no condemnation," don't mean, "Hey, from this point forward, all the past is gone, but you better get it right from this point forward." No condemnation applies not only to past but to our present and also to our future. Amen? This is true for us.

One of the things that I find though among lots of Christians, one of the reasons I know we don't really believe this: one of the reasons we need Sean Connery on the loop in the background saying "no condemnation." One of the reasons we need this is what I can tell in your life and my life. When I meet with brothers and sisters in this room and we talk, I find there's a drivenness. There's a defensiveness. There's a lack of joy in prayer. There's a lack of real expression in worship. There's a lack of being able to let go of comparing yourself to other people. What I find is lots of us are carrying around a lot of guilt. It's like muscle memory—you know just how to feel guilty again.

And what you need to hear for Christmas, what you need to hear all the time: no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus. No condemnation for those in Christ Jesus. No condemnation for those in Christ Jesus. You need to hear that over and over and over.

Power to Become the New You

But the second thing we see in this is not only freedom to be the new you, but the second is this: power to become the new you. There's a noticeable shift if you've been following along this book from chapter seven to chapter eight. In chapter seven, the dominant word over and over again is "I, I, I, I." In chapter eight, it's Holy Spirit, Holy Spirit, Holy Spirit, Holy Spirit. The focus goes from sin is dominant and powerful to the spirit is dominant and powerful, and that is no accident. This is the first part in the book of Romans where spirit is dominant. Nineteen times in this chapter alone, we hear a mention of the Holy Spirit. Compared to before this: once in chapter five, once in chapter seven. This is life in the spirit. This is living in the spirit.

And there's a reason why Paul brings this up now. It may be hard to follow. Like, okay, he's been talking about no condemnation. How does that relate to suddenly bringing up the spirit? Well, the spirit is evidence in the life of a person that they are not condemned. It's evidence of a reality of the spirit living within you.

Last week, I gave this illustration. I said a person who has the spirit is like a body that has a fever. And a body that has a fever is fighting infection, and it shows that the body is alive, that there is something happening. There's a battle going on within. And good news: it may feel really uncomfortable. You may feel wretched over this, but it's a sign of the Spirit's work in us spiritually speaking when we have a spiritual fever. It's a sign that no condemnation is true in your life, that he is active in us.

And let me just remind you of these things. Look what we see here. This is not gradual, the spirit coming in a person's life. This isn't a second blessing. This isn't a process.

If anyone does not have the spirit of Christ, they don't belong to Christ. — Romans 9:9

And if you get him, you get the spirit. If you belong to him, you have the spirit within you. The word there for spirit is kind of a weird one in Greek. Paul is messing with grammar because the word "spirit" is a neuter noun. And throughout the rest of this chapter, he refers to spirit as "he." All the tell us: this isn't some vague force like in Star Wars. This is the personal presence of God himself in the life of a believer, poured in, as it says in chapter five, into your life.

The spirit takes the work of Jesus at the cross and the resurrection, the empty tomb, and applies that to the life of the believer.

If Christ is in you, even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the spirit gives life because of righteousness. — Romans 10:10

And so this gives us two things. One: the Spirit is the personal seal of God's ownership on you in justification. But, and this is where we're going today, the spirit is also the transforming power source for sanctification. This is true for all Christians. And that means two things that sound like a paradox. I want you to think through this with me.

On Sundays, when we have people stand up here and join our church, they say some really strange things. And I'm afraid this has become so normal for our church that we don't even hear it anymore. But if you listen closely, I can think of no other organization in all of human society that has the same rules to it. These people will stand up here and they will say, "I'm powerless. I can't change myself. I can't save myself. I look to Christ alone."

Now can you think of any other organization where people join on the basis of their inability? There's no other clubs or sports teams who are like, "I can't play football. Can I be on this team?" This is the only organization where we are the company of the powerless. We come together and we say, we are all powerless and the spirit—the spirit, he's powerful. He is the one who's powerful.

So when you come into this church and you look and you see all the people who look put together, don't be deceived by that. Not here. This is not the community of the powerful or the accomplished or those who have it together. This is the collection of the powerless. That's who we are.

And do you hear what power is given to the powerless?

The same spirit who raised Jesus from the dead is alive in you. — Romans 8:11

The same spirit who raised Jesus from the dead. We are the company of the powerless with the powerful one. It's so important for us to get that. John Stott says it this way: "The entire Christian life is essentially life with the spirit. A life that is animated and sustained and directed and enriched by the spirit."

It's all about the spirit. So if you've ever thought Presbyterians don't like the spirit or we don't talk about the spirit—no. We are pro-spirit in this place. We love the spirit. We are all about his power.

The New Capacities of Life in the Spirit

But conversely, do you see what else is true? Life in the spirit means that God now awakens in us and gives us new capacities and new abilities we didn't have before. One pastor puts it this way: think about the ways that we classify and order life on earth. Let's compare plants and animals and human beings.

Plants have a certain kind of life. They can feed themselves through photosynthesis. They can grow. But they're absolutely of a different order of life than an animal. An animal has volitional abilities. An animal can move itself. It can hide. It can be aggressive. Animals have a completely different mode of experience of life than a plant.

Well, so also humans. Human beings are animals, and yet we have within us capacities for delaying gratification, for self-sacrifice, for creating and appreciating beauty. These are things that the animal kingdom in general doesn't have. We are of an entirely different way of understanding life than your dog and your cat.

But what about life in the spirit? Life in the spirit is also of another order of existence than just regular human life. Those who have the spirit in us have a capacity to live more fully and more humanly than we ever did before.

I want you to think about this with me. You're now beginning to embrace the things that you were blind to before. You now begin to hate the sin that you once enjoyed. You now begin to treasure the truth that you once resisted. You aren't sinless, but you want to sin less, and you're more miserable when you do. That is a new capacity to live. Those are new abilities that you did not have before.

Incidentally, this is why we say, "Hey, don't date an unbeliever." It's not just being mean. That's saying like, you wouldn't date an animal. Now, that sounds really bad. But what I mean by that is there are capacities that you have if you're alive in the spirit that other people who don't have the spirit at work in them will never understand. And that's not to be cruel. That's to say that's not going to work.

God has given you new freedom to be the new you, new power to become the new you. And finally, a new mindset to practice the new you.

The Mindset of the Spirit

This is verses five through eight. The new life in the spirit gives you new capacities to fight the flesh, to grow as a Christian. This is where I really want to land the plane and focus on this for today. Learning to adopt more and more the mindset of the spirit in our lives, to live out of what it means to have the mind of the spirit. It's one of the greatest gifts that we have to deal with our flesh.

Paul talks here about mindset on the things of the flesh versus mindset on the things of the spirit.

So let me remind you of where we've been. What is flesh? Flesh is the residue of the old you. It is what's left of the old you that still loves sin, still rebels against God, still doesn't want to do what he says. And there is still part of us with us, even though you've been declared justified in his sight, that still resists and fights. And the power of the flesh is an active reality in every Christian. That was what Romans 7 was all about.

Maybe some of you are football fans, and you know the running back for the Oakland Raiders, formerly of the Seattle Seahawks, Marshawn Lynch. Marshawn Lynch is known as a favorite of fantasy football fans because of his special abilities. This guy has tree trunk-like legs, and he goes into this special mode. He doesn't do it every game, but he can go into a special mode where he just seems like you can't stop him. He can break all the tackles. He can do everything he wants to do. Now, does anybody know here what that's called?

Beast mode. I knew I could count on some of y'all. Thank you for that this morning. When he shifts into beast mode, watch out. You who are Christians, you also have a beast mode. And listen, nobody wants to pay money to come see it. Nobody wants you on their team when you're in beast mode. Nobody's impressed with your beast mode, but we all have it. And unlike Marshawn Lynch where it's like this special mode that he goes into for a few minutes, you can do it anytime you want to. It's as natural as breathing, and you're really good at it. This feels really natural to us to get in beast mode. Beast mode is a pretty good definition for mindset on the things of the flesh.

So, also, by the way, you can only talk about beast mode with regard to yourself. You cannot use this after the sermon. You don't have my permission to tell your husband or your wife or your kids or especially your parents that they're in beast mode. You talk about yourself that way; you don't talk about other people that way.

So beast mode—a mindset on the things of the flesh—is self-focused. It's self-absorbed. It's twisted in on self. It's all about promotion of self. It's obsessed with self. And it's not necessarily obsessed with all the bad things like pleasure and lust. It can actually be things that other Christians are like, "Oh, those are good things." But here's how we think about this. One writer, Charles Tanner, says it this way: the mindset on the flesh is an orientation to life focused on absolutizing some part of this world, making some aspect of this life too important, making something too big and too important so that you're like, "I will do anything I need to do in order to make that happen for me. I will sin against other people I love. I will disobey God. Whatever it takes, I'm going to get it. I'm thinking about me. I'm dwelling on me. I need that. I must have it."

If that sounds abstract to you, turn to Galatians 5. Galatians 5 tells us the works of the flesh are obvious, evident to everybody. It lists things like this: sexual immorality, sensuality, living to maximize our own comfort, idolatry—making something other than God the measure of our worth—enmity, relational discord, envy, wanting someone else's life, self-pity for what we don't have, lack of gratitude for what we do.

But what did we just say? You are not under condemnation. You have the Spirit. You are alive. You have new capabilities and new abilities. You're given a new mind given to you by the Spirit. Do you realize that this is the first time in the whole book of Romans that Paul uses the word "can"—the word of ability? You know, y'all were raised with good mamas. You know the difference between "may" and "can." Right? "May" is about permission. "Can" is about ability. And this is the first time, in verse 5, that we're told we have the ability to set our minds on the things of the Spirit. It's the first time we're told we have the ability to do something.

Paul says the connection between living and thinking is a tight and close one. And this sanctification pattern is repeated in other parts of the New Testament—Colossians and 1 Corinthians. Literally, he says, "For those being according to the flesh, mind the things of the flesh. Those who are being according to the Spirit, mind the things of the Spirit."

You know what it means to mind—to use that word as a verb. Right? Like, "Mind the gap." "Mind your manners." "Mind your mama." It means pay attention to that voice that needs to dominate right now. You need to focus on that. You need to keep that forefront in your mind.

So a person who has the ability that you have in the spirit to mind the spirit—you have that ability. I know what that sounds like to you. You know where this sermon's going. A lot of you are professional sermon listeners, right? You've been around this stuff a lot. You're like, I know where you're going. We're gonna talk about meditating and listening to God's word. And I've tried that. I've done that. I don't have time to do that.

Yes, you do. In fact, you do it all the time. You and I are people who meditate all the time. We set our minds on things all the time. What is worry but meditation on events that haven't happened yet? One of the things I've discovered about me is I really like to worry. I mean, I don't, but I do. I actually enjoy it. Worry is a rehearsal of all the things that could go wrong and thinking about them as if that can control anything or change anything. And that is a form of meditation. That is Jeff Bradford, signature beast mode right there, right? I'm in beast mode, and I'm worried.

To set your mind is a present tense verb. You're doing it. You're thinking about it. You're turning it over in your head. It's an ongoing action. You don't do it, and then you're done with it forever. To set your mind on the things of the Spirit is an effort to continue to do that, to do that regularly, to meditate on the things that are true, the things that have been given to us, the things that are true of us.

So what are the things of the Spirit? This doesn't mean that you have to read lots of theology books. Okay? It can mean that. What are the things of the Spirit that we're supposed to meditate on? Well, you're in luck because Romans 8 is full of them. You're in Romans 8, man, it is full of them.

So verse 15, meditating on the fact that you are God's child, you're adopted into his family. He dearly loves his children. Meditating on the fact that he has a future destination where he will take all of what's to come—that's verses 30 and following. Meditating on the fact that he's even at work in the bad things, the things that look like disaster and shipwreck in your life right now. Meditating on the things of the Spirit means to bow in Christ, to think on, to set our minds on how we're adopted, how we're loved, how we're provided for, how we're welcomed, how there's even a future. It means setting our minds on the things that are true that are coming and that are true right now. That's what we're supposed to meditate on.

If you're gonna do this in your life, you're like, okay, I want to meditate on the things of the Spirit. I need to start doing this. You're right, Pastor Bradford. We do this all the time. I'm constantly setting my mind on all kinds of other things.

Expect a Fight

I gotta warn you, though. If you're gonna do this, you better expect a fight.

So we have a number of college students who just finished a semester. Anybody here? Okay. A lot more at the first service. We have a lot of college students in our church. And imagine if you go into your biology 101 class next semester, you walk in, and the lab assistant's like, "Hey, today we're doing dissection. I've put a live wolverine on every lab table and some knives and a dissecting tray. There's nothing to tie the wolverine down with, no way to kill the wolverine, and no anesthesia. So what are you going to do?" You start coming at the wolverine with the knives. You could say, "Well, hey, mister Wolverine, if you'll just lie still here a little bit, we'll get this over with. Just a couple cuts." Not gonna happen, right? What are you going to get? You're going to get teeth and claws.

The flesh is the same way. You want to set your mind on the things of the Spirit. Do you know what that's going to do? Flesh is like, "Are you trying to kill me?" Flesh has lots of teeth and claws for you.

If you're like, "I want to set my mind on the things of God," here are some of the teeth and claws that you're gonna get. Okay? This is from Chris Lundgaard's book, by the way.

Number one: exploiting your weakness. So I try to set my mind on the things of the Spirit early in the morning. I really need another cup of coffee. I really do, right? And I'm like, no, that's just flesh distracting me, right? Exploiting my weakness.

Number two: tyranny of the urgent. Oh, I do need to send that email, that really important urgent email that can't wait four more minutes. I need to interrupt anything I'm doing with the Spirit right now so I can go send that email. And I'll come right back, right? Tyranny of the urgent—one of the claws of the flesh.

Number three: duty. Hey, let's turn Bible reading into a new legalism, yay, right? Flesh is so good at that.

Or what about this one? False promises. Hey, you know what? You got a lot going on.

You're going to have so much time to be really spending time with God after your exams are over. You will be so awesome then. Right? Don't do it now. Put it off. You'll be awesome then. Alright. Promises of the flesh. These are the clauses that will come out if you try to set your mind on the things of the flesh. I mean, the things of the spirit. So how do we do this? There's a way to do this that's both proactive and a way to do this that's reactive. And I want to give you both.

How do we set our minds on the things of the spirit? Proactively, here's a couple of examples. The Bible scholar and teacher John Stott used to pray this every day, every morning:

Heavenly Father, I pray that I might live this day in your presence and please you more and more. Lord Jesus, I pray that this day I may take up your cross and follow you. Holy Spirit, I pray that this day you will fill me with yourself, cause your fruit to ripen in my life. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control.

He prayed that every morning. Another guy, Bill Bright, the founder of Campus Crusade, he used to pray these kinds of prayers all through his day. He said:

As I got out of bed each morning, I worship Him saying, "Lord, I bow before you and acknowledge you as my master. I ask Him to think with my mind, to love with my heart, to speak with my lips." In the evening, I ask Him, "Lord, is there anything in me that's displeasing to you? Anything I need to confess?" So my subconscious thoughts are on the Lord Jesus all night long.

Now I know what you're saying. You're like, "You pastors, you always love to go for the hardcore examples." Right? John Stott, Bill Bright, these are spiritual giants. Exactly. How do you think that happened in them? How do you think that grew in them? I've had to start doing this in between my car door and my house door. Every day, as much as I can remember it, before I walk in the door, I pray like, "Lord, help me to die to myself and love the people in this house." And those are the people I love the most. Those are the people that it's easiest for me to love. Man, I need that every day, proactively. Help me to have the mind of the Spirit.

Reactive Steps

And reactively, you find yourself going into beast mode, theoretically speaking, over maybe the holidays. Right? You find yourself going into beast mode. What do you do in that moment? I'm going to give you three things to do. They all begin with the letter R so you can remember them: Recognize, Remember, and Refute.

Recognize. Recognize is simply to say, "I'm in beast mode now." Let's use the sin of worry again. I'm worrying right now. What am I doing? This isn't God's will for me. This is beast mode. You name it. You say, "Hey, I know this is flesh. I've been here before." You name it for what it is. You recognize it.

Remember. You reckon yourselves dead to sin and alive to God, as we read in Romans 6. You learn to say to the flesh, "Wait a second. That's not the voice of God. That's not how God talks to His kids. That's the old me talking right now. That's the old Jeff that's talking right now. That's not what the Holy Spirit sounds like. I don't want to listen, old self. I don't have to listen to you anymore. That's not who I am anymore. I am not condemned."

Refute. You challenge your flesh. You challenge beast mode with the truth. Not just "worry never works" or "worry never accomplished anything." Thank you, Captain Obvious. Right? That's not helpful. But speak to your heart with words, with truth, with things that are true in the Bible. Turn to Matthew 6. God takes care of birds and He takes care of plants. He can take care of what I'm dealing with at work today. He can take care of my extended family problems. Do you see what I'm doing? I'm applying God's word to my flesh.

Recognize, Remember, Refute. This works on all the patterns of the flesh, by the way. We're just so creative with all the ways that our different personal flesh works. Some of you struggle with envy. Some of you struggle with coveting. Some of you struggle with telling lies. Some of you struggle with addictive behaviors. All those different variations that you have, all of us need to learn to adapt this language to our own situation. How you recognize, "I'm in beast mode." Remember, "This is who I am. That's not who I am." Refute. "Here's how I'm going to apply God's word to that."

Let me conclude this way. When we lived in Philadelphia, our family lived a few blocks from the glorious, awesome Philadelphia Museum of Art, which is enormous.

And we had a family membership, so we went all the time, and we have six sons. So our boys' favorite place to go in the Philadelphia Museum of Art is the armory. They have this room that is filled with all kinds of medieval armor. So picture broadswords and shields and helmets and halberts and different kinds of shoes and all kinds of mail and even medieval rifles and all kinds of helmets. Our boys could go to every case and point out to you: that's my favorite sword, that's my favorite dagger. They had everything memorized. Every time we went, they just went from place to place.

And the boys intuitively knew something that I think adults visiting that room forgot. What did the boys want to do with that stuff? They want to hold it. They want to use it. Maybe on their brothers, but they wanted to use that stuff. We're behind glass admiring it. "Oh, isn't that exquisite? Look at the scroll work on that shield." But what they were knowing was this: these are armor. These are weapons of war and they're not meant to be just looked at. There's something very right about that impulse.

The truth that we have studied all this fall from the book of Romans are not just fit to be cherished or admired or known or memorized. They are not just helpful information. I've known countless Christians who love theology and that's either terrific or tragic depending on what you do with it. Because great theology like we find in the book of Romans is not meant to be just admired and looked at from behind glass. It's not just meant to be collected. It's meant to be used. It's meant to be used in our own battle against the flesh, in our own growing in likeness and conformity to our Savior Jesus. These are meant to be handled and picked up and used.

So look, brothers and sisters, God has given you keys to the armory today. He said: no condemnation. Never condemnation in the past. Never condemnation in the future. Spirit given with not only his power but new capabilities for you. You can enter into the mindset of the Spirit. These are amazing truths.

Brothers and sisters, here's your homework. You're going to have opportunity. I guarantee the next week is going to bring great opportunities for beast mode. I guarantee you're gonna go see family, be around friends, people you love—beast mode will come out. And God is opening up the armory, the treasury of his word, and all these riches that are yours in Christ Jesus, not for your admiration, but for your use, for your joy, for your becoming the new you.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.