You’ve Been Set Free—Why Keep Wearing Chains?

What if the loudest voice in your head saying “not enough” has already been overruled by a higher court? We open Romans 8 with a verdict that changes everything: no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus. From that starting point, we move beyond white-knuckle religion and step into the power of the Spirit, where life and peace replace the cycle of trying, failing, and hiding.

We talk through the limits of the law and the limitless grace of God: the law is holy but powerless to change hearts, while the cross removes guilt and the Spirit renews desire. You’ll hear how mindset drives experience—how setting the mind on the flesh quietly leads to death, and how setting the mind on the Spirit brings a steady, practical freedom. Adoption takes center stage as the Spirit teaches us to cry Abba Father, turning fear into trust and obedience into a response of love. Assurance grows not from comparing ourselves to others, but from the Spirit’s witness that we belong to God.

From there, we widen the frame. Suffering is real but not final; present pain can’t compete with the glory to come. We explore how our perseverance blesses others and why creation itself waits for the revealing of God’s children. This hope fuels daily choices: putting to death the deeds of the body by the Spirit, refusing old chains, and walking as sons and daughters who owe nothing to the flesh and everything to love.

If you’re ready to trade condemnation for confidence, performance for presence, and anxiety for adoption, this conversation will meet you with clarity and courage. Listen, share with a friend who needs hope, and subscribe so you never miss new studies through God’s Word. Then tell us: which verse in Romans 8 is anchoring you today?

Come On Up is the radio ministry of The Mountain Cross in Waynesville North Carolina. To learn more about us please visit: TheMountainCross.com.

Chapters

• 26:00 Marker 01

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:05

Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, and we shall walk in his paths.

SPEAKER_00: 0:13

Welcome to Come On Up, the radio ministry of the Mountain Cross in Waynesville, North Carolina.

SPEAKER_02: 0:20

Before we came to faith in Christ, we didn't seek the things of God. We sought the things of self. We were slaves to sin. And that's all we did. But now we have a choice. Verse 6: for to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. You've been set free. Why not walk in it? Going back to your old ways, you're walking in death. Paul is urging the Romans to walk in life and peace in the Spirit in Christ Jesus.

SPEAKER_00: 0:51

You don't have to be enslaved to sin and the destruction it brings. That's the glorious truth of the gospel. As Pastor Carl continues our study in the book of Romans today, he'll remind us of the freedom that can be found in Christ. Sin may feel good in the moment, but before long, you realize the control it has and that your sinful nature is never satisfied or content. It always wants a little more, and it can never get it. And it drags you down into a cycle that ultimately will destroy your soul. And now here's Pastor Carl.

SPEAKER_02: 1:28

We're in the book of Romans and in chapter 8 this morning, beginning at verse 1. There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. That's a great verse that we've all heard and memorized and hopefully grab a hold of. In Jesus there's no condemnation. And this comes after he says, therefore, there is therefore. And whenever you see a therefore, you need to find out what it's there for. And basically, everything that he said in the first seven chapters leads up to what this statement is. Everything that we covered, and there are just a few things that I want to bring back in what we looked at in the last seven chapters. First was there's a bunch of bad stuff that happens. Paul was happy to write to the Church of Rome and saying, this is great, you've grabbed a hold of the gospel and you're ministering to people, and it's wonderful, because the world is full of sin, terrible sin, and you still sin. You actually pour out sin in other people, and you don't realize that you're sinning yourself. And if we if we understand the gospel, we understand that it's not telling people not to sin, but it's pointing to the cross of Jesus, who has taken our sin, and in him we are a new being and we're a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, all things are new. And now we walk in grace and mercy. And as we grow in our relationship with Christ, he changes us from the inside out, so there's less sin that is happening. And yet we still struggle with sin, right? Uh we still struggle with sin. That was one of the things in chapter 7. You know, I understand that, okay, it's not about me fulfilling the law because I really can't fulfill the law. It's not about me pointing out at other people their sins because I'm really doing the same sins. It's not about the pro the the the the the the the family line that I'm in. It's not because I'm Jewish that makes me special and right with God. It's because I'm with Jesus. Okay, I'm understanding that. Now I'm with Jesus, and yet the things that I want to do I don't do, and the things that I do want to do, I'm not able to, because I'm still in this body of flesh, and I'm trying to do good for Jesus because he died for me on the cross and he set me free, and yet I'm still sinning and I'm struggling. And then he comes to this climax. Therefore, because of all these things, because we aren't able to do it, Christ died for us. And when we believe in the gospel, when we believe in the cross of Christ, there's no condemnation to you. Do you get it? You're free in Christ. Not because of the things you do or don't do, not because of the line that you're from, not because you're holier than thou when you're comparing yourself to other people. It's because of Jesus on the cross. And we need to hear that again and again. That's verse one. Verse two. For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. Don't you love that? The spirit of life compared to the law of sin and death. Spirit and life, sin and death, which do you want? If you're trying not to sin in the flesh, in your own strength, you're going to end up dead because you're going to keep sinning. But if you're free in the spirit because of the cross, you have life. Do you get it? For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, again, he's coming back to this fact that the law is beautiful, the law is holy, the law is righteous, it reflects the glory of God, and yet it provides no power, no ability for me to fulfill it. All it does is tell me I'm a sinner. All it does is I've fallen short of the glory of God, just like everybody else. So we got that in common. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And the law is real good to point that out, but it doesn't give us anything to overcome it, right? The law was weak. It couldn't do anything to save us, but God did by sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh on account of sin. Because the sin that we are stuck in, because of that sin, the Father sent the Son in the likeness of sinful flesh. He became one of us, although he was the only perfect man that ever lived, right? Because he did not sin. And because he did not sin, he could be that Lamb of God, that spotless, blameless, the Lamb of God that could take away the sin of the world, and he became sin on our behalf so that we could have the righteousness of God. He condemned sin in the flesh. He hung on the cross and took the judgment from God the Father on our behalf. He was condemned so that we could be accepted, that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. He changes us. He's fulfilled the law. He lives within us. And because we are one with him, in essence we stand fulfilling the law. And then some. But don't try to do it on your own. Don't try to do it in your flesh. He's talking to believers that have drifted back into trying to fulfill the law and please God in our own strength. We can't do it. Verse 5. For those who live according to the flesh set their mind on the things of the flesh. But those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. If you indeed have come to faith in Jesus Christ and He's renewed your mind, what kind of things are you pondering on? What kind of things are you thinking about? Are you thinking about the sin that that tempts you? Are you meditating on the goodness of Christ and His sacrifice for us on the cross? Are you digging into the Word and asking it, asking the Lord to change you from the inside out? Are you hungry for the things of the Lord? Are you hungry for the things of the flesh? And Paul was making the point that you guys are acting more fleshly than spiritual, even though you are a Christian. You have been changed. You have the Spirit of Christ living in you. Why aren't you walking in that? Before we came to faith in Christ, we didn't seek the things of God. We sought the things of self. We were slaves to sin. And that's all we did. But now we have a choice. Verse 6, for to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. You've been set free. Why not walk in it? Going back to your old ways, you're walking in death. Paul is urging the Romans to walk in life and peace in the Spirit in Christ Jesus. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God. The carnal mind. If we're falling back into our old ways and justifying our sins, we're actually fighting against God who has made us his friends in Christ Jesus. If he's made you his friends, why are you fighting against him? The carnal mind is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. The carnal mind cannot submit to the law. The carnal mind cannot follow the law. The carnal mind cannot fulfill the law, nor does it even want to bother with it. The carnal mind does not want to grab hold of the grace of God. The carnal mind does not want to live in this new law of life in Christ Jesus, the law of the Spirit. So then those who are in the flesh cannot please God. What is it that pleases God? If you believe Him, trust Him, surrender to Him, rely on Him, cry out to Him. God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble. Are you following? He's saying, Look, you guys have come to faith in Christ, but you're acting like you've never come to faith. But let me remind you of something, verse 9. But you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Did you come to faith in Jesus? Then the Spirit lives in you. Listen, you might be acting like you don't know the Lord, but the truth is you are in the Lord. If you've come to faith in Jesus Christ, the Spirit is living in you. And what He's doing in and through you is more powerful than what you are doing. Align yourself, realign yourself with that. Renew your mind in this truth. If you indeed have come to faith in Jesus, you're not living in the flesh, but in the Spirit. Now, if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not his. Now, if you do not have the Holy Spirit in you, helping you to see these things, helping you to walk in these things, helping you to rejoice in these things, maybe we ought to reconsider if I've actually come to faith in Jesus. Have I really believed? Have I really surrendered? Have I repented for my sin and turned to the grace and the mercy of Jesus and the price that he paid for me on the cross? And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin. I've been crucified with Christ. It's no longer I who live, but Christ that lives within me. Remember? If you came to faith in Jesus, you are no longer your own, you're a his. I'm a slave of Jesus. I'm a bondservant of Jesus, and he's working in and through me. The body is dead, but the spirit is life because of righteousness. His righteousness. We died to sin because Jesus came and identified with us. He became sin on our behalf to take sin away, and yet we identified with him on the cross, and our old man has died, and we have resurrected to new life in the Spirit with Him. It's so easy for us to forget this. That's what Paul is telling the Romans. That's what he's telling us today. It's so easy for Christians to forget the cross, to forget what happened when you were born again. Verse 11 But the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you. He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his spirit who dwells in you. Can anybody confirm that they're living in mortal bodies? Can you feel the mortality coming on? The aches, the pains, the things that aren't working that used to work. But he is giving us life. It may not feel like life now as we're suffering in these bodies of death, as Paul describes it, but we have a hope. We have a hope that we will see the Lord face to face and he will give us new resurrected bodies. Where no longer sin or death is part of the picture, right? And he's reminding of that. The Holy Spirit who dwells in us is that resurrection power that raised Jesus from the dead. He will also raise these bodies from the dead and give us new bodies. And even now, he raises our minds from the dead. We're no longer dead, we're alive to Christ, and he's changing us from the inside out. Are you grasping this? Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. We have no obligation to the flesh anymore. Before we came to Christ, we were slaves to sin. We were slaves to the flesh, and we couldn't stop if we wanted to. But now, even though flesh who's supposed to be dead, or old man who's supposed to be dead, rears his ugly head up every now and then, or maybe more than every now and then, and we have these struggles, we have no obligation to obey it. We have an obligation to the Lord. We have a debt that we can never repay. We have hearts now that are surrendered to the Lord. I am yours, Lord, forever and ever. I think in another place Paul talks about owe no man anything except the debt of love. You can never pay back the debt of love. And it's not designed to, right? It's something that we continue to grow in, continue to experience. We have an obligation to grow in the grace of God. Is that an obligation? That's a privilege. That's a joy. Verse 13. Okay, don't be debtors to sin. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die. But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. If you walk in the truth of the gospel, you will live. Because it's a gift of God. It's God's work in and through you. Allow him to do it. Don't try to do it yourself. Don't try to make up your own rules and live your own life, because that leads to death. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God. You know, often we say we're all children of God. No, we're not. We only become children of God when we're adopted into his family. And we're only adopted into his family when we accept the good news of Jesus Christ. And if you indeed have come to faith in Jesus Christ, are you being led by the Lord? Or are you being led by your flesh? It goes back to chapter 7. The things that I want to do, I don't do, and the things that I do want to do, I do. For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear. There is a good, healthy fear of the Lord that leads us to repentance. I don't want to mess up because I know God is going to strike me down. God is the judge. He judges sin. He's a holy God who can stand in his presence. And so you're afraid to get caught in your sin because God's going to get you. Which a lot of pastors preach. You gotta be good. You can't sin. You gotta avoid sin because God's gonna get you. There's gonna be a punishment. Well, what what really happened? He did execute a punishment, he did pour out his wrath on his son on your behalf, so that you would be free. So no longer do you have this bondage to fear. If you've come to faith in Jesus Christ, it's changed everything. No longer is that the judge, but now it's he's the savior. And more than that, he's your friend, he's your papa. But you received the spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, Abba Father, a very tender phrase that says, Daddy. When Jesus died on the cross, the veil was torn from top to bottom because the Lord did it. He opened that veil to the Holy of Holies, which only one person once a year could go in and meet with God. Now all of us can go and meet with God. We can run to the Lord and jump in his lap and share our hearts with him, and he can share our hearts with us, and he can encourage us and he can build us up, and he can discipline us as children that he loves. Do you have that reaction to the Lord? Do you have this Abba Father spirit where you're not afraid of the Lord, but you love the Lord and you run to Him. You trust Him, you rely on Him, and He loves you and He provides for you and He He protects you. If you don't have that within you, maybe we need to question whether you really know the Lord. Have you really come to faith? Because the Spirit Himself bears witness with our Spirit that we are children of God. If you don't have that witness within yourself, maybe we need to reconsider if we really came to faith in the Lord, if we really understand the gospel, if we really understand what it means to be right with God. In verse 17, if indeed we are children, then we're heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together. This was going so well until we read that line that talked about suffering together. The Lord has given us all things. We're co-heirs. As believers in Jesus Christ, we've been changed by him, we've been adopted into the family, and we've been given all things which which I don't even understand what that means yet. But we will someday. If we endure with him through suffering in this life, in these mortal bodies. So we could suffer within ourselves already and realize that there's more to come, but we also suffer because if they hated him, Jesus said, they're gonna hate you too. If you're followers of me and people see me in you, they're gonna come against you the way they came against me. In this world you will have tribulation, but fear not, for I have overcome the world. This time of suffering with Christ, this time of tribulation is really short in the whole scheme of eternity. And our role in it is very important, not only for the lives of other people, but for all of creation, which we'll see in just a few minutes here. We suffer with Christ because of Christ, not because of our own sin. I think Peter talks about don't don't you be persecuted because you did something stupid and wrong. Please just live by the Lord, and when you're persecuted by Him, and by because of Him, then you're rewarded for that. But you won't be rewarded for things that You do in the flesh, and you just I sped, I got a ticket. I'm suffering for Christ. No, you're not. You sped and you got a ticket. Let's suffer for the things that are for the Lord. I stood up and declared the truth of the gospel, and I got arrested. That's what we're talking about. With that, we'll be glorified together with Him. Verse 18. For I consider the sufferings of this present age are not worthy to be compared to the glory which is revealed with us. This sounds a lot like a couple of chapters ago when he talked about our sin is great, but the grace of God is even greater. And then we say, well, let's sin some more, so that grace will abound. That's not the point. You think you're bad, but God's grace is even greater than your sin, and he's overcome it, so you can be free of it. And now as we walk in it and we suffer with Christ because of Christ, these sufferings cannot be compared to the glories that are ahead of us. Hang in there. Catch the big picture here, Paul is saying. This is short. Eternity's forever. And the fruits of what we go through in this life cannot be measured by how hard it is in this life. They're so much greater. And some of those fruits are seeing others come to faith in Jesus because of your witness. Forever. I came to faith because I stood, I saw you stand up for the gospel and you were persecuted for it. And I said, That's real. I want that. I don't want the things of this world. Won't that be glorious when you meet people like that someday? I came to faith because of your faith. It's worth it. For the earnest expectation of creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God. Now we're revealed. We're salt and light here in this world. Jesus is shining through us into a dark world, and we're revealed. But I think this even points to a greater revelation. When Jesus is revealed to the world in his second coming, with armies of angels that are coming down, the heavenly hosts, which are joined by many of us. The sons of glory, the sons of God coming in their glory with Jesus will be revealed. And not only will that be a glorious thing for mankind, except for those that rebel against the Lord and not believe, but it'll be a positive thing for creation itself. Verse 20, for the creation was subjected to futility not willingly, but because of him who subjected it in hope. In other words, when Adam and Eve fell, all of creation was turned upside down. It's still a beautiful, glorious world, isn't it? It's amazing how God made things work, but this isn't the way he intended it to be. There's so much more glorious. And all of creation is looking with hope to its salvation in Christ that comes through us. 21, because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. Are we walking in his grace? Are we walking in his mercy? Are we declaring the truth of the gospel? It's sin that has separated us from God. It is sin that has destroyed this world. And it is Jesus Christ on the cross that will restore it, restore souls, and restore the earth. What a glorious time the millennial reign will be. And even after that, when when there's a new heaven and a new earth that's cre that's either created or remade or restored, I don't know how he's going to do it, but he's going to do it and it's going to be glorious.

SPEAKER_00: 24:07

That's Pastor Carl of the Mountain Cross. He's simply going through the book of Romans, verse by verse, chapter by chapter. There's just something about having the full counsel of God's Word, and that's our aim, to read and go through the full counsel of what God wants to teach us. Imagine the Apostle Paul writing this letter and sharing the good news, the gospel, to the nations beyond. He was giving a thorough explanation of the fact that before Jesus, we were trapped in a state of sin that was oppressive and limiting. Even following the laws of the Old Testament wasn't going to do us any good, as far as needing to be rescued. But through Jesus' mercy and grace, every single person has the opportunity to be brought into the fold, the family of God. Isn't that an incredible thing to think about? We are adopted by God and brought into his family. If you're not sure what some of this means, or if you'd like to learn more about being adopted by God, you can go to themountaincross.com where you can get a clearer understanding of what it all means for you personally. We have a tab at the top called How to Know God. Click on that and go from there. Once more, that website is themountaincross.com. We're so glad you've taken the time to listen to what Pastor Carl had to share in today's study of Romans. There's so much more to grow in as we study the Word. So come on up to the mountain with us again tomorrow as we seek to learn more from the Lord through His Word. Come On Up is sponsored by the Mountain Cross, a Calvary Chapel fellowship.