You have been made to be righteous. Romans 8:1-10

Do you ever feel like a failure?  I don’t mean professionally, socially, or even relationally.  I’m not asking if you feel like a failure in your career or occupation.  I’m not asking if you feel like you feel like a failure as far as your reputation or popularity are concerned.  I’m not even asking if you feel like a failure when it comes to your relationships with your friends and family.  Now, I hope you don’t feel like you are a failure professionally, socially, or relationally, but more importantly I am asking if you ever feel like you are a failure spiritually.  When it comes to resisting temptation do you ever feel like a failure who gives in far too easily and way too often?  When it comes to feeding your faith with personal bible study, family devotions, or public worship, do you ever feel like a failure who spends hours doomscrolling on your phone rather than reading your bible, fighting with your family instead of praying with them, worshiping at saint mattress and listening to pastor pillow instead of gathering with your fellow believers here at Messiah?  Spiritually speaking, do you ever feel like a failure. 

I hope you don’t feel like a spiritual failure, but I suspect, at least sometimes, you do.  Well, you’re not alone.  Saint Paul often felt like a spiritual failure.   In his letter to the Romans saint Paul writes about some of his spiritual struggles.  In chapter 7, which is the section of his letter to the Romans that immediately proceeds the section we are going to focus on today, Paul almost exclusively uses the first-person pronoun; he doesn’t write a lot of “he” or “she”, he doesn’t even write a lot of “we” or “us”.  In a section of his letter to the Romans that editors have entitled “Struggling With Sin”, Paul almost exclusively uses “I” and “me”. Sin is something with which Paul personally struggled.  The way in which Paul articulated his spiritual struggle has become, for many of us, the “Sedes doctrinae” or seat of doctrine; our go to passage when we are trying to articulate our own spiritual struggles.  Because when Paul writes “15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.” We say, “YES!  I also don’t understand why I do what I do!”  When Paul writes “19 For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.”  We say, “you are preaching to the choir, brother Paul!”  When Paul writes, “24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?” We say, “YES!  I feel the same way… and I have the same question.”

In a “misery loves company” sort of way it is comforting to know that we are not the only ones who sometimes feel like spiritual failures.  But, in the section of Paul’s letter to the Romans that we have before us this morning, Paul does more than commiserate with us.  In Romans 8:1-10 Paul comforts and compels any believer who has ever felt like a spiritual failure with the assurance that we have been made to be righteous.

Paul, first seeking to comfort any believer who has ever felt like a spiritual failure, reminds us that we have been made righteous.  Paul concedes that we are not righteous by nature.  Repeatedly, in the verses 3,4,5, and 8, Paul refers to our “sinful nature”.  Paul recognizes, as King David confessed in Psalm 51:5, that we all were conceived by sinful parents and, therefore, born as sinful babies.  By nature, we are not righteous, by nature we are sinners and Paul further concedes that there is nothing we can do about our sinful nature. In verse 3 Paul goes so far as to say our sinful nature made God’s law “powerless” and “weakened”.  Not that there is anything wrong with God’s law, God’s law in and of itself is righteous.  But in the hands of people contaminated with a sinful nature the law cannot do what it was designed to do, the law cannot be used by us to demonstrate our righteous nature, rather the law can only be used by us to show us our sinful nature. 

Well, that’s not very comforting.  It sure sounds like Paul is saying by nature we are spiritual failures and there is nothing we can do to become anything other than a spiritual failure.  It sounds that way because it is that way.  Well, this is exactly what we are afraid of, in fact, it sounds worse than we imagined.  Not only are we spiritual failures sometimes, but spiritually speaking we were born, live, and will die as failures.  “Where’s the comfort in that?”, you ask.  Well, there isn’t any.

There isn’t any comfort for those who seek righteousness by birth or by obedience which is why Paul directs our attention to Jesus.  In verses 3-4 Paul tells us God sent “3… his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, 4 in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us.”  By nature, Jesus was and is righteous.  Jesus neither inherited sin nor committed sin.  That is why Paul says God sent Jesus “in the likeness of sinful man”.  Jesus was fully human just as you are, and Jesus was tempted in every way just as you have been.  On the surface, Jesus looked like any other sinful person, but he was not a sinful person, He was and is a righteous person.  God sent His righteous Son to “be a sin offering”.  That is, God sent Jesus to pay for all your failures.  In his explanation of the second article of the Apostle’s Creed, Martin Luther explained Jesus “purchased and won me from all sins, from death and from the power of the devil; not with gold or silver, but with His holy, precious blood, and with His innocent suffering and death”.  Because God sent Jesus to be a sin offering, all your spiritual failures have been forgiven.

But God did not send Jesus simply to pay for your spiritual failures.  Paul tells us God also sent His righteous Son to meet the righteous requirements of the law; to obey every commandment ever carved in stone or written on the heart and that is exactly what Jesus did; Jesus successfully met the righteous requirements of the law.  That is comforting for every believer who has ever felt like a spiritual failure because God sent His Son, Paul writes, “4 in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us.”  When God looks at you, He does not see a spiritual failure.  Because of Jesus, God sees someone who has successfully met the righteous requirements of the law.

Because of Jesus, you are not a spiritual failure.  Because of Jesus, your failures have been forgiven, and the righteous requirements of the law have been fully met.  Because of Jesus, you have been made righteous.  But righteous is not just what you are.  Righteous is what you do.  You have been made TO BE righteous.

In verses 7-8 Paul describes what life is like for those who reject the righteousness Jesus offers.  Paul writes, “7 the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. 8 Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God.” It is not at all surprising that those who refuse to be made righteous would also fail to live a righteous life.  It is slightly surprising to see just how unrighteous the unbeliever truly is.  The unbeliever is not indifferent about their feelings for God.  Paul says the unbeliever “is hostile to God”; they hate God.  More often than not, the unbeliever’s hatred expresses itself not in insults or attacks against the divine but in blatant disobedience to His way of life.  The unbeliever does not want and is not able to obey the laws carved in stone or written on their hearts.  The unbeliever is more interested in pleasing themselves than pleasing God.  What is most surprising and downright discouraging is how often we resemble an unbeliever.  The way we flagrantly disregard the laws carved and stone and written on our hearts so that we might gratify the wants and desires of our flesh almost leaves one with the impression that we are as incapable of pleasing God as the unbeliever.  Which is why Paul compels us to leave a different impression. 

In verse 9 Paul reminds us “9 You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit”.  You are not controlled by your sinful nature.  It may look like it sometimes.  You might have a pet sin that you just can’t seem to put down or you might have a buffet of sins that you pick through like a pastor at a church potluck.  I am sure you, like every other believer this side of heaven, struggle with sin, but you are not controlled by sin.  Because of Jesus, you have been set free from sin.  With His death on the cross and resurrection from the grave, sin’s hold on you was broken.  For you to continue to live a life controlled by sin is foolish.  A believer living in sin is like a person living in a prison with no shackles on their wrist and no doors on their cell.  Sometimes it might feel like your soul is shackled in sin’s cell, but it’s not.  The blood stained cross and empty tomb are proof that you have been successfully set free from the control of sin. 

When it comes to living a righteous life, it might feel like you have been set up to fail, but you haven’t, you have been set free from sin, set free to live a righteous life.  In verse 10 saint Paul writes, “Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness.”  Because of Jesus, your spirit; your faith and the expression of your faith is alive.  Your living spirit allows you to do what those who are dead in their sins are unable to do.  You are able to live a life that pleases God.  The righteous requirements of the law have already been met for you and in you.  You don’t strive to keep the requirements of the law to become righteous, you strive to keep the requirements of the law because, in Jesus, you are righteous.  Your gratitude for having been made righteous compels you to live a righteous life; to be what Jesus has made you to be.  Which means any time you keep any part of the commandments carved in stone or written in your heart you please God.  Because of Jesus, when God looks at you, He sees a believer who is successfully living a righteous life.   

I hope you don’t feel like a failure professionally, socially, or relationally.  I am not sure I can be much comfort to you if you do.  I can give you a hug if you need it maybe help you find a mentor, image consultant, or expert on relationships.  Professionally, socially, or relationally, I’m a bit of work in progress myself.  However, if, spiritually speaking, you sometimes feel like a failure, I am happy to share with you the words saint Paul wrote in his letter to the Romans; words that both comfort and compel.  Because of Jesus, your failures have been forgiven, and the righteous requirements of the law have been fully met.  Because of Jesus you have been set free from sin and are able to live a righteous life.  In short, because of Jesus, you are not a failure.  Because of Jesus you have been made to be righteous.  Amen.