SPEAKER_01: Hey, I'm Pastor Steve Hole.
SPEAKER_01: I want to empower you today to walk in your true identity as a worshiper and warrior.
SPEAKER_01: Today, embrace the power of God's Word and the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Born for War podcast.
SPEAKER_01: So if you guys would just turn your Bibles to Romans 8, we're going through the book of Romans for you that are guests with us today.
SPEAKER_01: And we were in Romans 7 last week, and it was Donald Gray Barnhouse, the great pastor and writer of 10th Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, who said every Bible, if you were to drop it, should open up to Romans 8.
SPEAKER_01: It's probably one of the greatest passages in all, greatest chapters in all of the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: You could argue many different ways, but I think you'd find most scholars and commentators would say Romans 5 is at least in the top five great chapters of the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: And if you get a hold of Romans 5, it will set you free.
SPEAKER_01: I've known many, many friends of mine who've memorized the entire chapter because they struggle with shame and they struggle with condemnation and they struggle with legalism in their life.
SPEAKER_01: This is, I'm gonna call this the freedom in the spirit, or principles, or the job description of the spirit, whatever you want to call it, but it's about the freedom of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
SPEAKER_01: So look back at Romans 7 with me, because I think it sets up Romans 8 so well.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 21.
SPEAKER_01: We talked about this last week, but I just want to hit it real quick again.
SPEAKER_01: Paul is talking about how much he struggles with legalism, how he struggles to try to do the right thing through religion, but he's unable to do it.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 21.
SPEAKER_01: But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death?
SPEAKER_01: And so, church, a lot of people struggle with shame.
SPEAKER_01: A lot of us struggle with a religious spirit, a lot of us struggle with condemnation.
SPEAKER_01: We compare ourselves with others.
SPEAKER_01: We we spend more time looking around than we do looking up.
SPEAKER_01: And because of that, we have this shame thing.
SPEAKER_01: And everybody struggles with shame.
SPEAKER_01: Shame's part of the fall, shame is an issue.
SPEAKER_01: And so what that then hap, what then happens in our life if we don't deal with that is we start having panic attacks, we start having anxiety attacks, we start having mental disorders, we start moving toward addictions to medicate those issues in our life.
SPEAKER_01: And Paul is saying, look, I'm trying to be good.
SPEAKER_01: I'm really trying to be a good person.
SPEAKER_01: I know as a Pharisee of Pharisees what goodness looks like, but I just have this battle going on and I can't seem to get set free.
SPEAKER_01: And then in verse 25, he is set free, and he says, This is this is his salvation, I thank God, through Jesus Christ our Lord.
SPEAKER_01: So then with the mind I myself served the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin.
SPEAKER_01: So what he's about to do right now, he's gonna say, This is how I did it.
SPEAKER_01: This is how I found out that I was free from the law of sin and death.
SPEAKER_01: This is how I found out that I didn't have to have panic attacks anymore or anxiety.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, if anybody in the Bible had panic attacks, it might have been Paul before he came to know the Lord, and it definitely was Peter.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, Peter must have been having them all the time, you know.
SPEAKER_01: So he is, he's just setting us up.
SPEAKER_01: This is a setup for Romans 8 about the Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: This is about the power of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: And church, this is the problem in the church today, is the forgotten Trinity.
SPEAKER_01: The forgotten member of the Trinity is the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: We got a lot on the Father, we got a lot on Jesus, and then we forget about the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: And that's why I think Jesus, in his last week, what we call Passion Week, we just passed, you know, through Passion Week, and we had the triumphal injury on Sunday, and then we had a Seder, and then we had Good Friday, and then we had the resurrection day on Sunday, and it was a it was an exciting week, and I talked about the kingdom of God, kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_01: You remember what I said is that when that last week came, Jesus shifted in his teaching from just the kingdom of God to the Holy Spirit is coming.
SPEAKER_01: The Holy Spirit is coming, John 14, 15, 16.
SPEAKER_01: He's talking about the Holy Spirit coming.
SPEAKER_01: And here's what he says to the disciples just before he's to ascend to heaven.
SPEAKER_01: He says, If you love me, keep my commandments.
SPEAKER_01: And I will pray the Father, and he will give you another helper, that he might abide with you forever, the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him, but you know him, for he dwells with you, and he will be in you.
SPEAKER_01: I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you.
SPEAKER_01: That's in John 14.
SPEAKER_01: So he's saying, look, you can't do it alone.
SPEAKER_01: You can't do it even with a relationship with the Father, you can't do it with a relationship with me.
SPEAKER_01: You're gonna have to have power from within.
SPEAKER_01: And it's in Acts chapter 1, verse 8, he says, You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and that word is dunamis, and that's the root word in the Greek for dynamite.
SPEAKER_01: So we don't talk about superpower.
SPEAKER_01: The Holy Spirit is God's superpower.
SPEAKER_01: In one sense, he's really God, and he really wants us to have intimacy with him, but on the other hand, he gives us power.
SPEAKER_01: You can have power to do what you naturally can't do.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I can't explain it except that on Thursday, that in the fall of my freshman year, I had zero interest in anything to do with God.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, people that shared their faith, I had so many people sharing their faith with me.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I must have been the project of Campus Crusade for Christ and Marinantha and Inner Varsity and Navigators.
SPEAKER_01: Get Steve Holt.
SPEAKER_01: So it's like I met people like four laws, uh, steps to God, bridge to God, all these things.
SPEAKER_01: But then on Friday, after having a little bit too much to drink and being with the wrong people, I knelt down and I gave my heart to Christ in a chapel at Georgia, and all I can tell you is that I woke up the next morning fired up for Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: That's the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: I didn't have the Holy Spirit before.
SPEAKER_01: I was full of religion, man.
SPEAKER_01: I had religion oozing out of my ears.
SPEAKER_01: I had religion oozing out of my belly button.
SPEAKER_01: I was a Lutheran man, and my dad was a pastor, right?
SPEAKER_01: So I had been catechized and baptized and everything.
SPEAKER_01: But I didn't know Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: That was the only problem.
SPEAKER_01: So the Holy Spirit came in and gave me a desire.
SPEAKER_01: So Romans 8 is how to walk in the power of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: It's how to walk in freedom.
SPEAKER_01: So I'm only gonna go like halfway through, and then next week we'll get in the second half.
SPEAKER_01: So I'm gonna give you five thoughts about the job description of the Holy Spirit in your life and in my life.
SPEAKER_01: So you understand, 7, chapter 7, everybody look at it again.
SPEAKER_01: 21 through 24, that's the setup for 8.1.
SPEAKER_01: You gotta get, because remember, there's no chapter titles when he wrote this, so this was all a continuous, extemporaneous letter inspired by the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: 8-1, he says, therefore, so it's therefore.
SPEAKER_01: And the therefore is what he just said, therefore there's no condemnation.
SPEAKER_01: The reason he says that is because he had so much personal condemnation.
SPEAKER_01: Paul must have had that.
SPEAKER_01: And now he's set free, verse 25 of chapter 7, he's set free through Jesus, to those, and this is this is the real important means by which we have no condemnation, who are in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: In Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Circle that.
SPEAKER_01: You have to be in Christ Jesus, who do not walk, circle walk according to the flesh, but according to the spirit.
SPEAKER_01: So, men and women, this is important.
SPEAKER_01: This is gonna make no sense in your life if you're not in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: If you're in your flesh, then you'll go, there's no way that can happen because there is no way it can happen because you're not in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And the only way you're in Christ is to walk in the spirit.
SPEAKER_01: It's not a run, it's not a 100-yard dash, it's a walk.
SPEAKER_01: It's you walk in it.
SPEAKER_01: So you need to rest sometimes.
SPEAKER_01: You need to take a day off, not from the Lord, but from work and all the activity you're it's a walk.
SPEAKER_01: It's learning to have a personal intimacy with being in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: That's the point.
SPEAKER_01: So here's the first point.
SPEAKER_01: The first point is that the freedom of the Spirit breaks the power of shame and condemnation.
SPEAKER_01: It has the capacity, if you'll be filled with the Holy Spirit, and we'll talk about how to do that in just a moment.
SPEAKER_01: But the filling of the Holy Spirit breaks the power of shame and condemnation.
SPEAKER_01: Well, how does it do that?
SPEAKER_01: Well, that's what he's going to talk about.
SPEAKER_01: But in my opinion, from experience, is that it's all rooted in identity.
SPEAKER_01: If your identity is being successful, if your identity is being beautiful, if your identity is being rich, if your identity is having a lot of kids, if your identity is having a happy family, guess what?
SPEAKER_01: You're gonna have condemnation and shame on a regular basis because it didn't always work out for you.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, we had seven kids.
SPEAKER_01: I know what having kids is all about.
SPEAKER_01: I know what parenting is all about.
SPEAKER_01: And it was hard enough getting married.
SPEAKER_01: And then we had kids.
SPEAKER_01: So you work hard to have a happy family, you work hard to have a happy marriage, but if you're not looking up in the process of that battle that you're in, and you're looking more out through comparison or whatever the standard is that we have, it's the same thing as religion, then there's a lot of condemnation and shame in that.
SPEAKER_01: And so at some point we've got to figure out what Jesus says: seek first the kingdom of heaven.
SPEAKER_01: Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, all these things will be added unto you.
SPEAKER_01: So we work hard here, but we look for the power here.
SPEAKER_01: The power has to come from me.
SPEAKER_01: So, first of all, freedom in the spirit, walking in the spirit breaks the power of condemnation and shame.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 2, for the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free of the law of sin and death.
SPEAKER_01: So, number two, when you walk in the spirit, when you're in the spirit, the spirit breaks the power of sin and death.
SPEAKER_01: It breaks the power of sin and death.
SPEAKER_01: Remember what the power, you know what the power of sin is?
SPEAKER_01: It's the fear of death.
SPEAKER_01: The power of the fear of death?
SPEAKER_01: Sin.
SPEAKER_01: We never saw that more conclusively than during COVID.
SPEAKER_01: I've never seen so many people fearing death, freaking out.
SPEAKER_01: And some of you did that.
SPEAKER_01: I know you did.
SPEAKER_01: You know, and if you didn't, if you say you did, you lie, because I know you did.
SPEAKER_01: But there was people freaking out.
SPEAKER_01: We do anything they tell us to do.
SPEAKER_01: And one thing I loved about the road is we've got a lot of smart people here.
SPEAKER_01: We got scientists, we've got doctors, we've got researchers, and we dug in and we go, wait, that dog doesn't hunt.
SPEAKER_01: And we started figuring out a few things.
SPEAKER_01: This is more about control than health.
SPEAKER_01: So we we informed all of you, and we were the smartest church in town.
SPEAKER_01: And we we saw through our protocol that we developed, not Fauci, Fauci's making money, man, off all the stooges out there that do what he says.
SPEAKER_01: But we started our own protocol, 3,000 people healed in El Paso County through our protocol.
SPEAKER_01: That's called being smart, man, and that's also being filled with the Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: So we don't have to fear death.
SPEAKER_01: We can walk with new life in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: That's exciting, right?
SPEAKER_01: Isn't that exciting?
SPEAKER_01: Isn't that really exciting?
SPEAKER_01: I think it's exciting.
SPEAKER_01: I think it's a good thing.
SPEAKER_01: So there's a new law.
SPEAKER_01: The old law is dead.
SPEAKER_01: The new law is the spirit of life.
SPEAKER_01: That means the spirit of, it means what it says.
SPEAKER_01: It's the spirit of life in Christ Jesus living in you and me.
SPEAKER_01: It's his spirit living internally, transforming us from the inside out, not from the outside in.
SPEAKER_01: For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God did.
SPEAKER_01: So you can't do it, you're unable to do it in your own power.
SPEAKER_01: The Spirit was given to give us the power to be able to follow the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: God did by sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh on account of sin.
SPEAKER_01: He condemned sin in the flesh, verse 4, 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.
SPEAKER_01: So what he's saying here is that Galatians says that anyone who hangs on a tree is cursed.
SPEAKER_01: So at the point where Jesus, Jesus was immortal because he had no sin.
SPEAKER_01: He was immortal.
SPEAKER_01: No sin.
SPEAKER_01: But then when he was raised up on the cross, cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree, the sins of the world, our sin, flooded into his system, and in some mysterious way he became a sinner and he had to die.
SPEAKER_01: He took on all of our sin.
SPEAKER_01: But he didn't stay there.
SPEAKER_01: He rose again on the third day and he conquered sin and he conquered death.
SPEAKER_01: And so what Paul is saying is if you'll receive that, if you'll believe that, if you'll realize that Christ was the righteous requirement of the law, you can be set free.
SPEAKER_01: Set free.
SPEAKER_01: So that's number three.
SPEAKER_01: Number three is freedom in the spirit fulfills the law.
SPEAKER_01: Freedom in the spirit fulfills the law.
SPEAKER_01: So now what you couldn't do in the flesh, you can do in the spirit.
SPEAKER_01: That's pretty cool.
SPEAKER_01: So from time to time, we hear phrases like a person was, they say they were born gay.
SPEAKER_01: Or they were born addicted.
SPEAKER_01: Born to this, born to that.
SPEAKER_01: And it's kind of an excuse to get people off the hook, and I always say that's true.
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely true.
SPEAKER_01: You were born that way.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm a born adulterer.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm a born fornicator, and I'm a born legalist, and I'm a born lawbreaker.
SPEAKER_01: Left to me, man, not good.
SPEAKER_01: Not good.
SPEAKER_01: But you can be set free in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Because we're all born sinners.
SPEAKER_01: It's just that people's predisposition and those sins are different, but it's still sin.
SPEAKER_01: And so Christ comes and he sets us free for what we could not do, he does through us.
SPEAKER_01: That's the power of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: So how do we do that?
SPEAKER_01: How do we make that happen in our lives?
SPEAKER_01: And that's the big six million dollar question.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse five.
SPEAKER_01: For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh.
SPEAKER_01: But those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.
SPEAKER_01: Because the carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be.
SPEAKER_01: So then those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
SPEAKER_01: So in other words, it's it's a renewing of our mind every single day.
SPEAKER_01: And we did not plan this, it was not in our strategy that we were launching Empower You when we happened to be in Romans 8.
SPEAKER_01: But that's what empower you is about.
SPEAKER_01: So empower you is gonna be one of those means where you can renew your mind.
SPEAKER_01: Where you can go into the internet and you can go there and you'll get stuff on spiritual warfare, you'll get stuff on the Bible, you'll get stuff on basic discipleship.
SPEAKER_01: And then I've gone, I've done a podcast.
SPEAKER_01: There's a podcast there, and I've interviewed some fairly famous people, and we're gonna be interviewing people along the way who are men and women who are in the arena.
SPEAKER_01: That's kind of what the podcast is about.
SPEAKER_01: They're in the arena, bringing their Christian faith into an arena.
SPEAKER_01: It might be media, it might be sports, it might be politics and the gamut, because we believe so strongly.
SPEAKER_01: I believe they talk about the seven mountains.
SPEAKER_01: I think there's 13 mountains.
SPEAKER_01: There might be 25 mountains.
SPEAKER_01: But the point is that God's called you as a kingdom of God, ambassador, to bring Christ wherever, whatever work you have, wherever you are, bring Christ there.
SPEAKER_01: Be a citizen of the kingdom through the governor of the kingdom empowering you to be a kingdom revolutionary.
SPEAKER_01: So when Great Britain took over Hong Kong, when Great Britain took over the Bahamas, when Great Britain took over Singapore, the king or the queen at that time didn't go to Singapore or Hong Kong or the Bahamas or wherever it was.
SPEAKER_01: They sent a governor, right?
SPEAKER_01: There was a governor sent there.
SPEAKER_01: Well, that's that's true in the kingdom of God now.
SPEAKER_01: The governor, that's what Jesus is saying in John 14.
SPEAKER_01: He's saying, look, I'm sending my governor.
SPEAKER_01: Let him rule in your heart, and he will administrate the kingdom through you.
SPEAKER_01: He will be an ambassador for me as a for the king here on earth.
SPEAKER_01: And so what we're doing, gang, is we're colonizing the earth.
SPEAKER_01: And that's just not that's not just in having a lot of kids, and that that can help, but I mean, planting churches, bringing the kingdom into your area of work.
SPEAKER_01: You're colonizing, you're bringing the kingdom there through the governor empowering you, the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: That governor working through you enables you to do what you couldn't do, but you have to renew your mind.
SPEAKER_01: This is the most powerful computer in your study.
SPEAKER_01: It's not the one on your desk, it's not the one on your lap, it's right here.
SPEAKER_01: And we and we don't even know the capacity of what we could do through the power of the spirit if we renewed our minds every day.
SPEAKER_01: So people come into the road from time to time and they say things like, Are you a spirit-filled church?
SPEAKER_01: And I always answer the same way.
SPEAKER_01: Well, yesterday we were, and the day before we weren't.
SPEAKER_01: Because we think that the spirit-filled life's a title.
SPEAKER_01: It's not a title, men and women, it's a function, it's a verb.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, it's not a noun.
SPEAKER_01: Spirit-filled.
SPEAKER_01: No, to be filled with the Holy Spirit is a daily decision that we make.
SPEAKER_01: If my wife was here right now, you could say, was Steve filled with the Holy Spirit on Wednesday?
SPEAKER_01: She might say no.
SPEAKER_01: She knows, man.
SPEAKER_01: Holy Spirit and Liz.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes I think they're the same, same people.
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
SPEAKER_01: I know she thinks so from time to time.
SPEAKER_01: Right.
SPEAKER_01: There she is.
SPEAKER_01: There's a beautiful woman.
SPEAKER_01: There she is.
SPEAKER_01: She's waving.
SPEAKER_01: She's she's pointing at me.
SPEAKER_01: If you want to hear from her, come to Taco Tuesday on Tuesday for the women.
SPEAKER_01: That'll be awesome.
SPEAKER_01: But really, the filling of the Holy Spirit's a renewing of the mind.
SPEAKER_01: That's what he's saying.
SPEAKER_01: If you set your minds on porn, if you set your minds on riches, if you set your mind on being something really special on this earth, and that's your goal in life, you're gonna have enmity with God.
SPEAKER_01: It's gonna be really rough for you.
SPEAKER_01: But if you seek first the kingdom and you renew your mind with the kingdom, God's gonna get you where he wants you to be.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think godly ambition is a great thing.
SPEAKER_01: Go for it.
SPEAKER_01: 100%.
SPEAKER_01: But do it in the power of the Holy Spirit by letting God guide you in that.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 9, but you are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you.
SPEAKER_01: Now, if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he's not his.
SPEAKER_01: So what he's saying here is that if you have to be a believer, you have to put your faith in Christ to have the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: So some of you in this room, you're not a believer yet.
SPEAKER_01: You're a believer intellectually, but you're not born again.
SPEAKER_01: You say, Well, are you a Christian?
SPEAKER_01: They say, Well, I'm not a Buddhist and I'm not a Hindu, uh, so I must be a Christian.
SPEAKER_01: No, if you don't have a passion for the things of the kingdom on a fairly regular basis, I'm not saying there's not ebbs and flows with everything, but if you don't have a pretty consistent passion for the Lord, you're not born again.
SPEAKER_01: You don't know the Lord yet.
SPEAKER_01: And you ought to settle that one really soon.
SPEAKER_01: It's really smart.
SPEAKER_01: Really smart to settle that.
SPEAKER_01: Settle it today.
SPEAKER_01: If you sometimes struggle with whether you're going to heaven or not, that means you're lacking assurance of your eternal destiny, you're probably not born again.
SPEAKER_01: You don't have the Holy Spirit yet.
SPEAKER_01: I'm telling you, man, on Thursday, zero desire for God.
SPEAKER_01: On Saturday, totally sold out to God.
SPEAKER_01: There's no explanation except the Holy Spirit enter my life.
SPEAKER_01: So you say, Well, I don't know, man.
SPEAKER_01: I just never have had it.
SPEAKER_01: I never have gotten it.
SPEAKER_01: Well, then get it.
SPEAKER_01: Get it now.
SPEAKER_01: Come up front at the end of the service and pray with someone.
SPEAKER_01: Receive Christ into your life, and you'll get born again.
SPEAKER_01: And then suddenly, and it may just be a little bit, but that little bit will become more and more and more, and you'll get hooked.
SPEAKER_01: And you'll get hooked and addicted on Jesus because he loves you so much, and you are created for a relationship with him through the Holy Spirit that begins to start setting you free.
SPEAKER_01: And you'll go, man, I tried, I've tried this, this, and this, and it never worked.
SPEAKER_01: And then suddenly you're seeing the shackles, the bondage break off because it's the Spirit of God released in your life because you're allowing him to do that.
SPEAKER_01: Isn't that cool?
SPEAKER_01: Fantastic.
SPEAKER_01: And if Christ is in you, verse 10, the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteousness.
SPEAKER_01: But if 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.
SPEAKER_01: Number four, the filling of the Holy Spirit, walking in the Spirit, the freedom of the Spirit gives you life and health.
SPEAKER_01: Physically, mentally emotionally.
SPEAKER_01: He says, gives life to your mortal bodies.
SPEAKER_01: That resurrection, dunamis, dynamite power brings health.
SPEAKER_01: And here's how it works.
SPEAKER_01: You show me a man or woman that can't forgive.
SPEAKER_01: And I'll show you a man or woman who's got a root of bitterness.
SPEAKER_01: You show me a man or woman who's got a root of bitterness and keeps keeps fostering that, I'll show you someone who's gonna die early.
SPEAKER_01: They're killing themselves.
SPEAKER_01: They're living under death, man.
SPEAKER_01: But when you learn to give it all over to Christ and you start to forgive, you get healthier.
SPEAKER_01: And you start having godly relationships, you get healthier.
SPEAKER_01: You start having the ability to break off condemnation and shame in your life, you get healthier.
SPEAKER_01: That's why the best-looking women and the most handsome men are at church.
SPEAKER_01: They're not at the bar.
SPEAKER_01: Don't listen to any, especially recently, don't do any of those Budweiser commercials.
SPEAKER_01: I don't care how many horses and Clydesdales they run across there.
SPEAKER_01: They got some problems over there.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: But the reality is it's only in a commercial where there's good-looking women at the bar.
SPEAKER_01: They're at church and they're getting better looking all the time.
SPEAKER_01: And the men are getting more handsome.
SPEAKER_01: Because you follow Christ, it gives life to your mortal body.
SPEAKER_01: You become a forgiving person, you become a loving person.
SPEAKER_01: It's supernatural.
SPEAKER_01: Hello?
SPEAKER_01: That's good news.
SPEAKER_01: All right.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 12.
SPEAKER_01: Just go ahead and write this down for number five.
SPEAKER_01: Spirit of adoption.
SPEAKER_01: You've been adopted into a new family.
SPEAKER_01: You have the spirit of adoption through the power of the Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, brethren, we are debtors not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh.
SPEAKER_01: So you know who paid that debt?
SPEAKER_01: Jesus did.
SPEAKER_01: You don't owe the flesh scrap.
SPEAKER_01: You don't owe nothing to them.
SPEAKER_01: The flesh is dead, man.
SPEAKER_01: It's over.
SPEAKER_01: Christ paid the debt.
SPEAKER_01: Here's where you have a debt, though.
SPEAKER_01: The debt is this: to live according to the flesh.
SPEAKER_01: For if you live according to the flesh, you will die.
SPEAKER_01: But if by the spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
SPEAKER_01: For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are sons of God.
SPEAKER_01: We have a debt to Christ for what he did in our lives.
SPEAKER_01: And we walk and we live in the power of the Spirit, because, verse 15, for you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you've received the spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, Abba Father.
SPEAKER_01: So, how many of you remember the movie Ben-Hur?
SPEAKER_01: There's this really cool scene in Ben-Hur where Charlton Heston is floating on this scrap of wood and he saved the life of that senator, that Roman senator.
SPEAKER_01: Remember what the Roman senator did?
SPEAKER_01: He said, I make you my son.
SPEAKER_01: And he gave him, if I remember, I might have pierced his ear with an earring.
SPEAKER_01: It gave him a ring.
SPEAKER_01: He's now the senator's son.
SPEAKER_01: Folks, you have been adopted into a new family.
SPEAKER_01: You've got a new ring on your finger.
SPEAKER_01: You've got a, you guys that have pierced ears, you can get a new piercing because you're now adopted with Christ.
SPEAKER_01: If you have tattoos, you should have one about Jesus on it or something.
SPEAKER_01: But you're adopted.
SPEAKER_01: You're adopted.
SPEAKER_01: You're a son and a daughter of the king.
SPEAKER_01: Can't get out of it now.
SPEAKER_01: So as I said to my kids, can't get out of it.
SPEAKER_01: You're a Holt.
SPEAKER_01: Dad, you're this past.
SPEAKER_01: You've been here forever.
SPEAKER_01: Everybody in the city knows you.
SPEAKER_01: Da-da-da-da-da.
SPEAKER_01: And I said, Too bad.
SPEAKER_01: You're a Holt.
SPEAKER_01: You're adopted into our family.
SPEAKER_01: You'll always be in our family.
SPEAKER_01: You can't get away from it.
SPEAKER_01: We're always for you.
SPEAKER_01: And you remember, you probably did this, you guys and your families, when you raise your kids.
SPEAKER_01: Kids come back from something.
SPEAKER_01: You go, we go, yeah, I heard, yeah, Johnny said this and Susan said that, but holts don't do that.
SPEAKER_01: Holts don't do that.
SPEAKER_01: We're better than that.
SPEAKER_01: So you're adopted into a family, and Jesus is your is your brother, is your father, and he's given you his spirit.
SPEAKER_01: And he says here that we can say daddy, we can say Abba Father.
SPEAKER_01: The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we're children of God.
SPEAKER_01: And if children, then heirs, heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ.
SPEAKER_01: If indeed we suffer with him, that we also may be glorified together.
SPEAKER_01: So Revelation 1.6.
SPEAKER_01: Revelation 5.10 says you are a king and a priest.
SPEAKER_01: You're heirs of God.
SPEAKER_01: So you serve a king.
SPEAKER_01: You know the king.
SPEAKER_01: He's your dad.
SPEAKER_01: But he's also your king.
SPEAKER_01: And you have the same power.
SPEAKER_01: You see, I think Jesus ministered out of the power of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: And then he was giving us his spirit to empower us.
SPEAKER_01: We can do the works of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And he even says in John 14, we can do greater works than he did because he goes to the Father.
SPEAKER_01: So we have this power to heal the sick.
SPEAKER_01: We have power to cast out demons.
SPEAKER_01: We have power to preach the kingdom.
SPEAKER_01: We have power to walk with integrity.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening to the Forn for War podcast.
SPEAKER_00: We hope today's message has empowered you to make a difference in your world.
SPEAKER_00: To connect with Pastor Steve's sermons, books, and blog, visit Steveholtonline.org.
SPEAKER_00: God bless.