Monday, October 31

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Romans 8:1-4

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.

This past August my oldest son and I took a trip to visit several Major League baseball parks on the east coast. Part of the plan was to visit Yankee Stadium in New York City. Unfortunately, our Yankee game got rained out and we were stuck with a whole day in New York with nothing to do. So we decided to improvise. Using my son’s cell phone GPS function, we made our way through the city to the site of the World Trade Center memorial – which was still under construction but very cool to see. Then we decided to continue our expedition through the concrete jungle to see the Statue of Liberty since my son had never seen it. Our goal was not only to see the Statue of Liberty, but to actually climb up the internal stairway all the way to the “crown” so we could get a view of Manhattan from that unique vantage point. I had remembered making that climb as a young boy (we lived about 40 miles north of New York City) and I thought it would be fun to experience that climb again with my son.

So we found our way to Liberty State Park where we paid $7 to park our car. Then we paid $13 each to ride the ferry boat out to Liberty Island, where the Statue of Liberty stands. Once on the island we made our way through a driving rainstorm to the entrance to the Statue – only to find that we didn’t have the right ticket to actually climb the stairway. Evidently our tickets only gave us permission to be on the island and to observe the Statue from the ground – tickets to climb the Statue had to be purchased on-line two weeks earlier. Keep in mind there were no signs at either the Liberty Island welcome center, nor on the ferry boat, nor at the Statue itself indicating this process – you only learned about it once you stood in line in the rain until you got to the entrance way where a uniformed security guy informed you that you had the wrong ticket!

Soaked and now thoroughly frustrated, I couldn’t help but think of the words engraved on a plaque in the Statue museum:

“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door.” (a portion of the text of a poem engraved on a plaque in the museum in the statue’s base)

“Here we are,” I thought, “we are tired, we are $40 bucks poorer, we are homeless and tempest-tost,” and yet, because we don’t have the right ticket the great golden door is shut in our faces! I was not a happy camper!

Freedom: America was built on the dream of freedom and freedom is engraved into our DNA as a people. When we think of freedom, we think of political freedom and personal freedom; the freedom to speak our minds and do what we want – within the law. But the Bible talks about a different kind of freedom – spiritual freedom.

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.

Romans 8:1-2

Paul is saying that spiritual freedom is freedom from the “law of sin and death” and that the way to experience this freedom is through the “law of the Spirit of life” that is ours when we are “in Christ Jesus.”

What he is saying is simply that we are each held prisoner by the consequences of our own sin; by guilt, condemnation and eventually spiritual death. We are set free only when we trust that because Jesus has taken our place we are free from condemnation because we are forgiven. Furthermore, Jesus gives us his Spirit that empowers us to live in relationship with him rather than in fear of the law.

Becoming a follower of Jesus, then, is not only like having your ticket paid for by someone else – but it is having a ticket that guarantees you full access to the presence, power and promise of God himself! Thank God for the freedom you have in Christ; and ask him to help you to live more and more by the power of the Spirit that lives in you.

Pastor Brian Coffey