City Life Church San Diego
Welcome to the City Life Church Podcast, where faith meets action in the heart of Mt. Hope. We are a diverse family of God, united by Jesus, led by Scripture, and empowered by the Holy Spirit, we are committed to caring for both the spiritual and tangible needs of the lost and hurting. Through inspiring messages and practical lessons, we seek to equip and encourage you to live out God’s calling in everyday life. Join us as we grow in faith, serve our community, and share the hope of the Gospel with the world.
City Life Church San Diego
Romans 8:12-17 Every Child, A Son
God's Spirit frees us from being slaves to our desires and transforms us into beloved children with a divine inheritance.
• The human body has natural God-given instincts for survival that have been corrupted by sin
• Our desires don't own us anymore when we have God's Spirit within us
• Living according to the flesh leads to death, but living by the Spirit leads to life
• We no longer have to live in fear because we've received the spirit of adoption
• As God's children, we are heirs to His kingdom and co-heirs with Christ
• Belonging to God's family means we're forgiven of past sins and given a new identity
• We may still suffer, but we never suffer alone with God's Spirit in us
• Our inheritance in Christ is secure and cannot be lost through our failures
If you want true freedom from fear and the power to overcome your struggles, consider giving your life to Jesus today. Our team is available after service to pray with you, and we're ready to baptize you when you're ready to publicly declare your faith.
Amen or freeze is really what I thought. You know, which was really funny, because I was in pump bands at the time and we would get down in the pump band and I would end up bleeding because I was jumping around getting elbows in the face while I was singing or screaming or whatever it was, and I had no problem with that. But when I came to church and somebody had their hands in the air, I was like freaking, weird, right. Like, did anybody else feel that way? When you first went to church? You don't got to raise your hand right now. But no, no, no, no, no, not you. You don't got to raise your hand now, but some of you probably feel that way right now, and that's okay. I'm just letting you know you are welcome here. It doesn't matter, we're just glad you're here.
Speaker 1:We're going to be opening our Bibles to Romans 8, 12 through 17. We have Bibles, free Bibles, available there. Would you like a good study Bible that costs money? Like good money? We have them for free for you if you need one. So we got them over on that side. We have Bibles in English, a study Bible with Tommy Evans. We also have them in bilingual Bibles. We have Haitian Creole Bibles and we also have them in the Pueblo Bibles. We have Haitian Creole Bibles and we also have them in Tagalog. So tenemos Biblias de Lenguas disponibles a costar de Salón. They're on that site as well, if you need one. Buen Día Venido. No se vive creol así, romans 8. So good, but we got to do my favorite verse last week, so everything is down there.
Speaker 1:Last week we talked about how, if you belong to jesus, there's no condemnation for you, so nobody can can speak against you. If you belong to jesus, the devil may say he has a claim on your life, but he can't say anything against you. We're no longer condemned to destruction because of what Jesus did for us. And if you could so easily unearn your salvation by screwing up, then we would be in trouble. But that's not the way it works. So a lot of people come here and you're still in drug addiction, pornography addiction. You're still gangbanging. You're still tagging every night. Whatever, like it doesn't matter. You cannot unearn your salvation. You're on your way. Friends, don't think that God is so like worried that like you're going to like be gone because you messed up he. If you could unearn your salvation that easily, then you wouldn't have needed Jesus in the first place, cause it means you could have earned it easily. It's not easily earned and it's not done by you, it's done by Jesus. So that's our context. We're set free from the law of sin and death and we're going to move on into Romans 8, 12 through 17.
Speaker 1:Does anybody have a physical Bible with you today? Because I just love to see them. Oh, dude, they smell good, they look cool. You know, you can work out with some of them. They're kind of heavy. You can work out with some of them. They're kind of heavy. You can jog with them.
Speaker 1:I don't know, the Bible's beautiful. I love it. This is mine. It's full of notes I actually have been thinking about. I've been highlighting this thing for three years. I wonder if it's heavier because of my highlights. Okay, yeah, I have anything. All right.
Speaker 1:So Romans 8, 12 through 17. Let me read to you from God's word okay, so then, brothers and sisters, we are not obligated to the flesh, to live according to the flesh, because if you live according to the flesh, you are going to die, but if, by the Spirit, you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live, for all those led by God's Spirit, are God's sons, for you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear. Instead, you received the spirit of adoption, by whom we cry out Abba, father, daddy, father, the Spirit himself testifies, together with our spirit, that we are God's children and if children also heirs heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him. Church, will you pray with me, father? We are grateful to be able to gather together this morning and I'm just, I'm excited to be here.
Speaker 1:We know some of our friends across the world, and even across the street, cannot worship freely and openly right now. We know some are afraid of retribution, some are afraid of ice, some are consumed by the depression and anxiety. God, I pray that you would bless them, give them freedom by your spirit. We also ask that you would deliver us from our own fears. That you would deliver us from our own fears, fears of not fitting in or fears of not being good enough for you. Give us joy, lord, in you that cannot be upset. Give us a joy that rises above shifting political controversies, a joy that rises above the shifting of tectonic plates. Help us to understand and participate in your active love for your enemies and ours. God, we cling to you for hope this morning. We cling to you because your love is better than our lives. Be glorified in our dancing, our crazy hands in the air, our singing and our grief this morning. May the words of my mouth and the thoughts of our hearts be pleasing to you. We pray this all in Jesus' name, and all God's people said amen.
Speaker 1:So today, I'm going to give you three undeniable facts when you have God's spirit in you. Three undeniable facts when you have God's spirit in you. And my first one is this your desires don't own you anymore. If you belong to Jesus and you have God's spirit in you, you don't belong. Your desires don't own you anymore. If you belong to Jesus and you have God's spirit in you, you don't belong. Your desires don't own you anymore. Verse 12 says so.
Speaker 1:Then, brothers and sisters, we are not obligated to the flesh, to live according to the flesh, because if you live according to the flesh, you are going to die, but if, by the spirit, you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. Now let me ask you Some of y'all are like hard workers, did you read here but if you live by your hard work and put to death the things of the body, you will live. Did it say that? No, if you just like, grit your teeth, if you just be the best you, you can be by just setting more reminders in your calendar, if you just work out harder at being a Christian in your own strength, you will live. Did I read that? No, it was by what? The Spirit, not by your flesh. Don't try to fix things using the problem. You can't fix something using your body in this way. It's the spirit.
Speaker 1:So to the Christian in the room it used to be that our desires told us what to do. It used to be our desires told us what to do, and we knew that many times our desires were bad for us long-term. Right Like we always talk about this right Like a lot of times the things that feel good in the short-term are bad for you in the long-term. Right Like we always talk about this right Like a lot of times the things that feel good in the short term are bad for you in the long term. The things that are good for you in the long term feel bad for you right now. Isn't that funny. So we knew many things were bad for us in the long term in the past, but we did them anyway. Why? Because those were the things that steered us right. Those were our steering wheel. We didn't know how to live, like.
Speaker 1:I was not raised in a Christian family and so I didn't know what good was, what was good or what was bad. I mean, my parents were like, hey, you want your girlfriend to sleep over? Fine, and I was like, thank you, but it wasn't good for me. But now God has given us the ability, through the spirit, to say yes to a better way. Living by the flesh is what we're talking about here. That's a bit of a weird phrase for me If you are unfamiliar with the Bible. Living by the flesh it's just, it's foreign, the idea of living by the flesh, what does that even mean? So I want to talk to you about it for a minute. I don't want you to read the Bible and look at this living by the flesh thing and just move on, because it sounds different or you don't understand it.
Speaker 1:Let's talk about what it means to live by the flesh. Let's talk about what the flesh is. See, god put a natural survival instinct in all of us. In the beginning, god put Adam and Eve in a perfect garden no weeds, no briars, no thorns, just beauty provision for them. He gave them food, he gave them water, he gave them everything that they needed to survive and thrive. And God gave them natural instincts to survive. But they, like us, don't be like mad at them when we're the same. They believed a lie from the devil and they rejected god. Suddenly those instincts were in the hands of sinful people. It's like there are some people that that are okay to drive, there are some people that should never get behind the wheel, right, like it's the thing, but it's steered in different directions. God gave them natural instincts, but once sin entered the world, once they chose sin, their flesh, which was once uncorrupted, it now belonged to God's enemies us, we were God's enemies. See, the non-corrupted version of our instincts were put by God in us to survive. We were meant to live forever in the Garden of Eden with God, but our world has been broken. Now I want to talk about some of the ingenious ways that our Creator made our bodies. It's not going to be weird.
Speaker 1:Maybe Salt Salt, I mean. If you live in this neighborhood and you have Mexican food. You know salt is a gift from God, right? Our cells need salt. Our cells need salt to work properly. Your blood is salty.
Speaker 1:Now the National Library of Medicine, doctors from the psychology department at the University of Iowa. They say this about sodium. The quote appealing taste of salt helps to ensure that such a vital substance is ingested. However, the powerful mechanisms governing sodium retention and sodium balance are, unfortunately, best adapted for an environment in which few humans still exist. They don't even know they're talking about the garden bean, by the way. So what do we do with salt? We over-consume salt. Everything is we here, right, like it's me too. Today is what Super Bowl Sunday. Some of you already have your stretchy pants on right, like you expect to eat some salt. Today you are planning on having 17 bags of chips with it, like I know it. I know it's because I usually do that too. I'm trying not to, but we'll see.
Speaker 1:But, brothers and sisters, we are not obligated to the flesh, to live according to the flesh, because if you live according to the flesh, you aren't going to die. The Bible says Now let's talk about sugar, sugar and carbohydrates. God created them. They give us quick energy, help us to store fat so we can have a healthy balance and reserves for emergencies. Or say it's wintertime, you know you might need an excess of storage in your body to protect you from the winter, when things can't bloom as easily, unless you live in San Diego. But God made sugar and carbohydrates to taste good, because survival tastes good. If things we needed for survival weren't pleasurable, we wouldn't consume them and we would die. God did that. But today, when you empty out that chocolate fountain at somebody's house at the Super Bowl, when you stir that bowl with like a king-sized Snickers bar, like using it as a spoon, and you put chocolate sprinkles on top of it and then you drink out of the bowl like it's water, we can be reminded that God gave us good desires that we now have taken to an unhealthy level of excess. And then we get diabetes right and a really bad stomach ache usually.
Speaker 1:Now let me just say this it's okay to feast sometimes. Like you know, god has feasts all the time. Like God has times when we sit down and we eat to our fill. Crazy, like Jesus goes to a wedding and his first miracle there's all these people who have consumed. And what does he do? He provides more, better wine for them. There's feasting, there's feasting. But sometimes we allow our flesh to just tell us this is good all the time, feast all the time. I need more. Usually with me it's cereal before bedtime. I'm just saying that. That's where I get lost, that's where they're like well, it's not good, it's not good for you. I'm not a leader, I'm like Jesus loves you in silence. Serial before bedtime Everybody cheers. It's okay to be sometimes Like Captain Crunch. Yes, that is good stuff, brothers and sisters, though we are not obligated to the flesh.
Speaker 1:And guess what else? God gave us sex. He made it pleasurable, like God did that. Okay, he made it beautiful, he made it wonderful. It's the way he wanted to populate the earth. Yeah, that's right. That's a good amen. Guys, if God made sex boring, nobody would be here. God made it good, and he made it a special bond between a husband and a wife. Sex was made to be good, in light, though, of God's good plan for us.
Speaker 1:But corruption entered the world, and suddenly people were just chasing the good feeling. We were slaves to our flesh, slaves to our desires. When you have sex only for how it makes you feel, it is your body, your flesh running the show. It is your flesh telling you the only thing that matters is how this makes you feel, not your spouse, not how they feel, not the person you're even committed to. And let me just say this you can have sex with your spouse for yourself and be selfish, and it be wrong when you don't care about them. It's still a problem, it's still wrong, but it's telling you. When you do this, it's telling you that the eternal creator, god of the universe, you're telling him my feelings are better than your thoughts. For me, my feelings are no better than you. Guys, if you believe that your feelings and your pleasure makes your identity, if you believe that your desires trump the things of God, you are in the flesh and your sexuality has been corrupted and you have become a slave to your flesh. Guys, god loves you too much for that. And pornography and prostitution are even more about you and your pleasures, and it means that you don't care what happens to that person or how you got your pleasure out of it. And it's wrong and it's sin.
Speaker 1:And you know, if this is your first time being here, you probably think I preach like this. All the time. I preach the text put in front of me. Okay, this is not what I'm doing. It's not like the church from Footloose, okay.
Speaker 1:So 1 Thessalonians, 4, 3 through 5 says this, not in my notes, for this is God's will, your sanctification, god making you holy, that you keep away from sexual immorality. That each of you knows how to control his own body in holiness and honor, not with lustful passions like the Gentiles who don't know God. See, when all you chase is pleasure and food or sex, that's called hedonism. That is us only listening to our body, to our flesh. It is not us chasing down God's better plan for us.
Speaker 1:But in the book of Ecclesiastes, chapter 2, we see the richest wise man on the planet who was good with the ladies, and he says all that my eyes desire. I did not deny them. I did not refuse myself any pleasure, for I took pleasure in all my struggles. That was my reward for all my struggles. When I considered all that I accomplished and what I labored to achieve, I found everything to be futile and a pursuit of the wind. See the wisest fan on the planet who had an issue with some hookups a lot of them. He said that chasing pleasure, giving in to all your desires, is like trying to catch wind in your hand, or a moonbeam in your hand, if you want to say it that way. Look at the marriages of Bill Gates, jeff Bezos, elon Musk nasty divorce, richest people on the planet. They're not happy. These super rich men have all openly talked about being depressed at one time or the other. So chasing after these pleasures, chasing after things, is pursuing the flesh.
Speaker 1:Now let me ask you guys this Does anyone know who Andrew Tate is? I hate that you guys said yes, who Andrew Tate is. I hate that you guys said, yes, this is a self-described influencer, slash kickboxer, taibo, whatever he is. And he openly says I'm a misogynist, I think that women are less than me and I'm better than them and they should bow to me. Basically, I should use them as vessels for procreation. Only that is what Andrew Tate says.
Speaker 1:He spends all his time working out in front of a camera, hooking up, making money, hooking up with endless beautiful women, as he says, and he tells our young boys how women were made to serve them. Parents, your teenage boys are soaking up Andrew Tate like Axe body spray. You need to watch out for these kids. You need to protect them from voices like Andrew Tate. They love this idea that they are superior to women. They love the idea that seeking pleasure is the way to true life. Fast cars, fast women, social media influencers that's what entertainment will tell you.
Speaker 1:But if you watch his gross videos, which you know, it engages the gag reflex. If you know the word, you will see a persona of a guy who gets everything he wants, and it reeks of self-doubt. Like it reeks of self-doubt. Like it reeks of self-doubt. He shows all the classic signs of narcissistic personality disorder and he most likely has this because he is wildly insecure. He seems to have everything and yet in 2022, romanian police actually raided his home and found four women that were said to be held against their will. He had been indicted on rape charges in Romania and the United Kingdom. He is accused of intimidating witnesses, rape, sexual exploitation of a minor, racketeering. It was reported that in another rape, they found a minor in one of his homes that was trapped.
Speaker 1:This is the dude telling people, and your boys especially, to follow the flesh. This is the dude who has, and your boys especially, to follow the flesh. This is the dude who has everything young men seem to want, and he's depressed, I promise you and he oozes insecurity. He's pushed the boundaries of seeking the flesh and he's found wanting. And, ladies, if you are dating a guy who likes entertainment, I'm just telling you run now, run away.
Speaker 1:You see, these people have everything most people could want, but they're the things of the flesh. The things of the flesh will not give you what you seek. So there has to be a better way. God has a better plan for us and it's not a plan to control you with rules. I know some of you are in here today like, yes, that's it. God wants to put rules on me, he wants to hold his thumb over me and tell me to stop doing that, because I said so. That's not the way God is. Look at these people who are supposedly have everything that you want, and look at how they don't want anything, how they're unhappy, how they want more. See, god's plan is not to control you with rules. It's a way for you to avoid the pitfalls of listening to your greedy body that has been corrupted by sin and just wants more.
Speaker 1:Brothers and sisters, if you live according to flesh, you are going to die, but if you live by the Spirit, you put to death the deeds of the body and you will live. See, your body was made to seek what it needs for survival. But there's something wrong when we are more willing to take more and more and more and more so someone else suffers, be it food, be it money, be it sexual partners. That is not the way of God. God has given us a better way. He's shown us true selflessness and given us his spirit as a way to have victory, once again, not by your hard work. He's shown us that we can be deeply fulfilled without seeking our own pleasures. He's put something deeper in us than a need for survival and he's put a love in us for him. He's equipped those who belong to him with his Holy Spirit to help us, to guide us, to empower us for holiness and joy. And you know what happens when you seek the welfare of those around you. You are blessed. If, by the Spirit, you put the death and the deeds of the body, you will live. What joy it is to have God's Holy Spirit in us. He gives us love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, self-control, faithfulness. Guys, these are the things that the Spirit gives to us, a gift that God gives His children, and the longer that we are in friendship, in relationship with the Holy Spirit, the less and less and less you may find yourself needing some things.
Speaker 1:Church, we don't have to just focus on feeding our flesh. It's drinking salt water. It makes you thirstier, and thirstier and hungrier and hungrier. We can have faithfulness, we can have self-control, we can have the spirit, but if you continue to seek after flesh, you will never be satisfied. You will never be satisfied. But survival as a species is not just about food and sex, is it? That's not it. This brings us to our second point. We no longer have to fear. That's our second point. Three undeniable facts. When God's spirit is in you, we no longer have to fear.
Speaker 1:Verse 15, for you to not receive the spirit of slavery, to fall back into fear. See, we have been given many natural instincts by God that have also been corrupted. Think about your protective desire to be safe. Now we're talking about safety. Fight, flight or freeze Natural good things that we've been given. Fight, punch this bear in the mouth, that's fight. Flight I need to run away from this bear. Probably won't work either. Or freeze If I don't move, the bear might not see me. I think that's your best chance. When a deer stops in front of the headlights of a car right, like headlights, the deer just staring at the car. That's freeze, right, if they don't see me, they won't attack me. Or a possum, right, pretends to be dead. They could have like flies on them. They smell nasty. That's the way they protect themselves. That can all be good if it's God-given right.
Speaker 1:But anxiety is when your body goes into overtime trying to protect you and you have fear when you fight everyone who wants to help you. You have fear when you fight everyone who wants to help you. You have fear when you run away from the people who care for you. That's fear. When you pretend to be dead because you don't want to have hard conversations with your friends. That's fear, otherwise known as ghosting. But we don't have to be afraid anymore, do we church? We can seek the welfare of those around us without acting afraid.
Speaker 1:Okay, so, um, my wife went to Costco last week and, um, there was a dude in there. So we have like, uh, at Costco, you know, you buy the like 18 pack of eggs. But then there's that other one, that's like the, the five dozen eggs. You know what I'm talking about. You see that thing and you're like man. I'm going to break that before I get out of here. I don't want it, but when you're out of eggs and eggs are costing $10 a dozen, you're like I want those. My wife at Costco saw a dude with a five dozen eggs. He had six of them in his car. That sounds like fear. Or he works at a breakfast place. That sounds like fear to me.
Speaker 1:But we don't have to behave like the 2020 version of ourselves anymore, do we friends? Some of you still probably have an entire shed behind your house full of toilet paper from 2020. It's time to share that. Okay, when you give your good food, your coats, your socks, your shoes to this food pantry, it says that you will not live in fear. Friends, when you take more than you need from the pantry, you're still living in fear. When you will take so that you can gain more for yourself, you are living in fear. We can't do that.
Speaker 1:1 John 4 says Dear friends, let us love one another, because love is from God and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. He goes on to say there was no fear in love. Instead, perfect love drives out fear, because fear involves punishment. Fear involves punishment, so the one who fears is not complete in love. Guys, we all fear. It's okay, we're not complete yet, church. We don't have to fear, though, do we? We don't have to fear because we have God. We don't have to be selfish. Why? Because we have God. We don't have to hoard our things. Why, because we have God. If someone is cold and we have two jackets we can share, because we don't have fear, we have God. And if we struggle with sin, we can still have confidence because we have God's Holy Spirit in us.
Speaker 1:Jesus has already defeated our sin and death. We don't have to be afraid for you to not receive a spirit of slavery, to fall back into fear. That old man is dead. The body twitches, but it is dead. And if that old man or woman is dead, we don't have to be afraid of death anymore. We've already been through that. We died in Christ. We're alive in Christ. Now you have a new life in Jesus. You don't have to be afraid for you to not receive the spirit of slavery, to fall back into fear. We are new creations in Christ. We don't have to be afraid of death anymore, and we don't have to be afraid of the second death anymore, do we? We don't have to be afraid when we get it wrong and when we sin against God. We don't have to be afraid. If we repent and seek forgiveness, we can be sure we belong to Jesus.
Speaker 1:Now, congolese pastor David Casale. He says this. He says the spirit will also replace fear of God with the freedom that children enjoy with their father. Those who are slaves to sin have good reasons to fear God, but as children we can acquire boldness to approach God as our father. We should be afraid of our God and king. We should. He has the power to throw us into hell. He does. He has the power to destroy us. But let me read the words of Tim Keller to you. The only person who dares to wake up a king at 3 am for a glass of water is a child. So yes, he's scary, but we're his children and we can be bold. And we can be bold for one huge reason, and that is our third point we are heirs to the family birthright. We are heirs to the family birthright.
Speaker 1:I'm going to read to you again from verse 14. For all those led by God's Spirit are God's sons, for you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear. Instead, you received the spirit of adoption, by whom we cry out Abba, father. The Spirit himself testifies, together with our spirit, that we are God's children and if children also heirs, heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with him so that we also may be glorified with him. This says we, church, are sons. We are sons.
Speaker 1:Israel called themselves the sons of Abraham. He was a great patriarch of the Jewish faith. And now the church, we call ourselves sons of God. God would only give an inheritance to his sons. The family estate belonged to the brothers of Jesus. He made us brothers.
Speaker 1:Now you've got to remember what the text said. I need to look back at my text. Hold on, let me pull this up. I want to say this correctly to you Matthew, mark, luke and John there we go, keep going. Acts All right. Romans you got to hear this part In Romans 8,. It says so then, brothers and sisters. So then, brothers and sisters, dot, dot, dot, we are sons. Brothers and sisters, we are sons. That's a cool ringer.
Speaker 1:Now, did you guys know that China had a policy from 1979 to I think it was 2015, called the one child per family policy? The state had been weakened by a socialized welfare program and much drought and other struggles. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with socialized medicine, some people might hear I'm not going to give my opinions, but it was an unstable program and it was unable to care for the amount of children that were being born in China. So they made a law against having a second child. If you had a child, the state would seek to end their life or give you major repercussions in utero usually. Now, of course, this meant millions of children in China were aborted, some were poisoned, some were abandoned, and this was often the first child that was killed. Why do you think the first child was killed, friends? Does anyone know why they would often kill the first child? Because it was a girl, because it was a girl made in God's image. That is why they sought to end the life of a child Because it was a girl. They were female. It is believed that 35 million baby girls in China have gone missing.
Speaker 1:That has been ingrained deeply into Chinese culture as well, as they have trauma, collective trauma, over this, and it's a part of many cultures, though Many of our cultures see the importance of men first. I'm not here to tell you that that's true In many cultures, though the bloodline only continues on the male side. In Western culture, wives usually take the husband's last name. This was no different in Jesus' time. The men were physically stronger. It was an agrarian society. So they're like if you want somebody pushing a cow, you usually want the biggest guy in the family. Right when someone's doing back-breaking work on the farm, you want the biggest dude. So it was the men who carried on the family name.
Speaker 1:I'm not here to talk about whether that's good or not, but here in Scripture we see all those led by God's Spirit are God's sons. Sons who get the inheritance, sons who get the inheritance. One of the reasons I love different translations is that we get to see God call women sons here, and I always hate the translations that just like call them sons and daughters there. Why? Because it misses out on something really beautiful. Here it says you, sons and daughters, and then it says become sons Now.
Speaker 1:1 Peter 1, 3-5,. It says this Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because of his great mercy, he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and into an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled and unfading, kept in heaven for you. You are being guarded by God's power through faith for a salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. Ladies, you are sons of God, and while we can grimace at the pain the women suffered in that time, to be a son in Eastern culture also meant suffering in different ways.
Speaker 1:To be the firstborn son, to be the firstborn son. In most cultures, but especially in an Eastern country, like Jesus, it meant responsibility. If dad died, who would step up to care for the family? It was the firstborn son. He needed to care for the family. The entire family would look to the firstborn son for leadership. He might need to marry the meanest, ugliest lady from a rich or powerful family to provide for his family.
Speaker 1:I read a quote recently in a book about Taiwan where the character said something like this. She said in the West you marry for love. In the East, those of us in the East, we marry for love too. We marry for the love of our families. See, here the firstborn son had to do something for the family. Our firstborn brother did something for our family. The responsibility of the firstborn son. Yes, jesus had an inheritance and he had a massive weight on his shoulders, like the firstborn sons.
Speaker 1:The Bible says Jesus is our big brother, he is the image of the invisible God and it says he's the firstborn over all creation. Now wait a minute, pastor. Did you say Jesus always existed? Yes, so what does it mean when you say firstborn here? Ooh, it's cool, right, like, come on, I hope somebody had their mind blown right there. It means that he has the responsibility of the firstborn son. He had the responsibility of everyone on his shoulders. Jesus took up the family business for me and you.
Speaker 1:The Bible says that Jesus was the bridegroom and now he calls the church his bride. Dudes, now it's your turn to feel uncomfortable, because I'm calling you the bride. If you belong to Jesus, you are the bride, the pure, spotless bride that beclothes in white you got some lace on too, baby dudes, and sure, the church can be a mean, angry and ugly place sometimes. No doubt, whenever people are like, oh, I've had people hurt me at my last church. You guys seem like you're going to be great. I'm always like well, here comes the truth. We'll probably hurt you. We're full of broken people on different paths. You know, some of us are just now coming into the church. Some of us have been here for a long time and we think we're so great. I mean there's a lot of problems with us, but the church can be beautiful.
Speaker 1:And God, jesus. He sacrificed himself for the church, for the people who were selfish and mean to him. That's the beauty of the gospel. It's the very people who hated Jesus. It's the people who disobeyed God in the garden. It's the people who spat in Jesus' face, who gossiped about Jesus, who put him up on the cross and laughed at him when he was murdered by the state. The beauty of the gospel is those were the people he died for. So if you're coming in here with too much sin to be forgiven, well, let me just say you're going to be all right if you give your life to Jesus.
Speaker 1:The beauty of the gospel is that when Jesus sacrificed himself to make us right with God, he revealed to us that he had done it when he rose again on the third day. Yes, I needed to show you. He says that even death couldn't stop me from helping you, from saving you, from making you right with God, from making you my brothers. He took enemies and he made them family. He made brothers out of enemies. How amazing is that.
Speaker 1:But I must ask you, friends in the room today, are you family Like? You can fake the funk all you want, but God knows if you're family or not. Have you given your life to him? If you want true freedom, if you would like God's spirit to give you true joy and freedom from fear, if you would like to give your life to Jesus today, I hope you don't wait. Make the move today.
Speaker 1:We will have people in the back that will pray for you, and I hope that you let them know that you want to give your life to God. Or you can just find me. I'll be sitting right here. I'll pray with you. Either way, it might be time for some of you to give your life to God and then, after that, we'll baptize you when you're ready, ready and you can tell the world that you belong to Jesus, that you are his brother, because you receive the spirit of adoption by whom we cry out Abba, father, if you give your life to Jesus, the Bible says his Holy Spirit resides in you now and if we're to be heirs, for us to be sons as well. It doesn't mean your bank account's gonna swell. Just, I'm gonna be real with you right now.
Speaker 1:It's not about that. It doesn't mean that you'll suddenly never suffer from depression. We've got people in here that suffer from depression all the time and they drag their butts in here because they know God is good still. But this text actually says we suffer with him, so we may be also glorified with him. I'm amazed that people are like oh, christians don't suffer. I'm like what? You should read the Bible. But this means that you'll never have to do to suffer alone anymore. It means God's spirit will be with you. It doesn't matter where you go. You go to some country by yourself, god's spirit will be with you. You go to jail, god will be with you. You go to prison, god will be with you. You go to prison, god will be with you. And actually, if you go to prison or jail, god's church will be there with you too. He's doing a mighty work there. He's doing a mighty work in Iran right now. He's doing a mighty work in China right now. God will be with you. You'll still suffer, but God will suffer with you. We suffer with him, so we may also be glorified with him.
Speaker 1:The young leader and the family yeah, they carry on the family name. We get to do that. But we are not going to build tables and chairs like Jesus adopted them. We get to look to our Father in heaven, his Father.
Speaker 1:There's this book. I know I'm talking about it, but I read three books on this subject Crazy Rich Asians, china, rich Girlfriend and Rich People Problems. I read them. I'm sorry, forgive me. In the book there's this grandmother, a mom, and basically the entire book.
Speaker 1:If you sum it down to everything is everybody trying to figure out if they could get that inheritance. She's got this big house, biggest house in Singapore, and they're all trying to figure it out, all trying to figure out how to get there Scheming, robbing, lying, gossiping. You got one dude who is just like trying to keep people out of the room when she's on her deathbed and making up lies about everybody else, even at his funeral. After a funeral, he starts singing like I think it's like I will always oh, it's wind beneath my wings Just trying to like score grounding points, even after she died, trying to get the inheritance. But, friends, we don't have to work or scheme for our inheritance and let me just tell you, even the rich people, they have limited resources. Your God does not have limited resources. He has everything, friends. He has so much you don't have to scheme to get an inheritance in God. He's not worried about resources. Our God wants to bless us. He wants to share with us out of his unlimited resources.
Speaker 1:I visited a friend who passed away recently. His name is Carl Woods. His funeral is today at 2 pm. When I went there I made the mistake of telling him that there was pretty stuff in his house. That's what you do, right? Like you go to someone's house, you're like oh, this is pretty, I like this. That dude was trying to give me everything. He was just like oh, you like it, why don't you take it with you? I'm about to die, like. I know that sounds funny, but it's real. He really was saying this to me God's resources are so much more than stuff. But I do have a pretty stained glass in front of my house now because of Carl, because he gave it to me, and I'm excited to celebrate him today. But Carl was looking to a much bigger inheritance than stuff. He didn't care anymore. He wanted his greater possession as a co-heir with Christ.
Speaker 1:Nepalese pastor, dr Ramesh Khatri. He says in most Asian societies, adopted children get only the rights that their adoptive parents grant them. However, in Paul's culture, author of this book, adopted children would enjoy the same rights as natural children. Now dig this church. The adopted children would be forgiven any debts and crimes committed while they were members of the previous family. Can I say that again? The adopted children will be forgiven any debts and crimes committed while they were members of the previous family. So when you are adopted into the family of God, guess what You're forgiven. You receive a spirit of adoption by whom we cry out Abba, Father, father. The spirit testifies with our spirit that we are his children, forgiven and loved.
Speaker 1:Dr Tony Evans says we can overcome the discouragement of a bad marriage or singleness or financial stress because he who is in us is greater than he who is in the world. That's the bible quoted. Jesus promised us we would have trouble, but he also promised us to give us overflowing life in the midst of it. I'll close with this. City Life Church is no longer on us to do what we got to do to survive. We can trust God and if we belong to Jesus, we are sons of God, and if we are sons, god provides his spirit as an inheritance for his children and with God close, we can live well, we can suffer well and we can thrive.
Speaker 1:Let's pray church, father, we thank you for your promises. Father, we thank you for your promises, promises that just give us a joy that we could never have imagined. God, we have chased after everything. We've chased after flu. We've chased after freedom from depression. We've chased after more friends and influence. We've chased after pleasure, and none of it satisfies us. Only you satisfy. We look forward to your inheritance and, father, in this moment, in the silence of our hearts, we confess our sins to you, the places we have gone wrong, the things we have done wrong, the things we have left undone that were good, knowing you are kind to forgive us wrong, the things we have done wrong, the things we have left undone that we're good, knowing you are kind to forgive us. Father.
Speaker 1:There's a bunch of us here today that if we were honest, we feel like posers, we feel like we're pretending, we feel like we just can't be as good as the person next to us, and if everybody just knew our heart, then they'd probably kick us out. But, god, we know that it is not based on what we have done. It is based on the work of your son Jesus, and we proudly proclaim to anyone who would challenge us, even ourselves, that we are co-heirs with Jesus, that as far as the east is from the west, so our sin is from your sight. That when you look upon us, you see the righteousness of your son Jesus and we say hallelujah. We thank you, we praise you, us, mess up people, we love you and we pray this, all in Jesus' name, and all God's people said amen.