Glorious Joy in the Lord - Pastor Sandra Roach

Discover the freedom and joy that come from knowing who you are in Christ. This message from Pastor Sandra Roach, on Romans 8, reveals that there is no condemnation, no separation, and no striving, only victory through Jesus.

Be encouraged to renew your mind, silence the lies of the enemy, and live confidently as a son or daughter of God. Nothing can separate you from His love.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to the Summit Church Podcast. Thank you for joining us as we share weekly sermons and teachings from Summit Church in Pigeon Forge, Tennessee. Our prayer is that today's message encourages your faith and helps you grow in your relationship with Jesus. Check out our website at summitchurchtn.com. Thanks for listening, and we pray this message encourages you today.

SPEAKER_02 0:27

It's the glorious joy in the Lord. Let me ask you something. When was the last time you had joy in the Lord?

unknown 0:38

Hallelujah.

SPEAKER_02 0:42

You need to tap somebody next to you and say, I'm going to give what I have to you. But I'll never run out.

unknown 0:52

Amen.

SPEAKER_02 0:54

Hallelujah. Today I am excited to be here with the word from the Lord. And today I'm going, we're going to look at one of the most glorious passages in the Holy Scripture for sons and daughters of God. Amen. If you're here and you have not yet accepted the Lord, I'm going to say this. Today is your day. Hallelujah. Why can I say that? Because the Spirit of God is moving. When I got up this morning, the Lord said, Can you believe I'm already moving in my house? I said, Lord, I can believe it. Oh my goodness. When we were here, I'm driving home last night for a prayer meeting of prayer meetings. It was building. Monday was good. Thursday was great. And last night was beyond. And so I'm getting in my car and I'm driving home, and the Lord said, Did you sense what I was doing there? I said, Yes, Lord. He said, Did you sense what I was doing? I said, Clearly I did not. I mean, if God asks you something twice and the first answer wasn't right, don't be stupid, okay? Don't just keep on saying, yeah. Clearly you don't. And he said, You didn't understand that I had angels posted all around the sanctuary. There are some of you who have seen angels in this glorious womb where the word goes forth and impregnates the hearers, and the seed of faith grows to a great harvest. Hallelujah. But I'm asking the Lord to open our eyes to see what he's doing. Amen. And maybe it might be on the person next to you or down in front of you. I don't know. But if the Lord tells you to obey him, I want you to obey him. If he tells you to pray for somebody, you pray for him. Amen. Hallelujah. Okay. That's not part of my sermon. It's just a little exhortation. Hallelujah. The full assurance of our salvation through faith in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is written in the word. Never again to work for that full assurance. When you leave here today, say that to me. When you leave here today, you will never again try to be saved. You will never again hope for assurance. You will have it. Amen. If you will hear what the Spirit of the Lord is saying, you will have it. Hallelujah. I want you to look with me at Romans chapter 8. Glory to God. I've been reading through Romans. And last week I got to Romans 8 and I shouted all over the house. And then I uh I read it over and over and over and over again. And uh I read it from a different translation than what I normally do. And I'll get to that in a minute. I'm gonna read from the New Living Translation. And it says this in verse 1, so now there is no condemnation for those who belong to Christ Jesus. Now if I was if I was preaching out of the New King James, it would say, who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit. But you see, in the in the original Greek text, that line was not in there. It was put in there to keep you in line. Now, I don't know that for sure. It could have been a I started to say typographical error. I don't know. Scribe. Anyway, verse 2. And because you belong to him, the power of the life-giving spirit has freed you from the power of sin that leads to death. The law of Moses was unable to save us because of the weakness of our sinful nature. So God did what the law could not do. Hallelujah! God did what the law could not do. He sent his own son in a body like the body we sinners have. And in that body, God declared an end to sin's control over us by giving us his son as a sacrifice for our sins. He did this so that the just requirement of the law would be fully satisfied for us, who no longer follow our sinful nature, but instead follow the Spirit. Beloved, I want to say this. There are so many people who are trapped in lifestyles because they know not who they are. They don't know the full measure of who they are. Beloved, maybe you don't know the full measure of what it means to be a son or a daughter of God. A joint heir with Jesus Christ. A joint heir. Do you know what that means? That means we're adopted in through the blood of Jesus. We are sons and daughters of the Most High God. I couldn't do it myself. I couldn't pay the price. But you see, the beloved Son of God came and poured out his blood to pay the price that I could forever be a daughter of God and a joy heir with him. Oh, somebody better get happy today. Hallelujah. Listen to this condemnation. It means the penalty of death bringing separation from God. Now we can say there is no separation from God to those who are in Christ Jesus. Somebody needs to get free today. Come on. You've been working real hard at being a Christian. I'm just going to try. I'm going to try. I blew it yesterday. I had two weeks. Man, I was doing so good for two weeks. And then I got up and and the devil started beating me up. I hear people say that all the time. You know what you do? You turn around and beat him up. How do you do it? It is written. Come on. Listen, you can hit at the air all you want to at the devil. Nothing will happen. But you open your mouth that is full of the word of God and you'll beat him every time. Hallelujah. Glory to God. Beloved, if we feel like things in our life are separating us from God, that doesn't come from God. You're listening to a lying spirit that wants you to walk in defeat. Let me let me say this. The Bible says that we are to renew our minds. What do we renew our minds with? The word of God. So as I renew my mind, I start thinking like God. But you see, if I don't renew my mind, I'm going to give ear to the accuser of the brethren. Come on, someone's going to get this today and leave here completely free. You are united with Christ. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. Because you belong to Him, the Holy Spirit has freed you from the power of sin that leads to death. But, Pastor, what am I going to do about this sin issue? Renew your mind. Repent and renew your mind. Come on. Who are you? Who are you? Listen, come on. Come on. That's what I'm needing here. Listen, I've been preaching your identity in Christ for 21 years. Some of you weren't around when I started preaching your identity in Christ. Why? Because it changed my life. It set me free from who I thought I was to who I am. Now let me tell you something. When my spiritual father started preaching this to me, I was sitting up in this big choir that, I don't know, had 80 to 100 people in it. Who knows how many was in there? It was massive. And I would help him preach. You know when you help someone preach? When you're getting it. I knew, hear me say this. I knew if I didn't get that message, I would die. Because I believed every lie the enemy spoke to me all the time. Well, you're not good enough. Well, you you blew it this time. You'll never, you'll never, oh, glory to God. I got this. I just a little sidestep here. If we can step over here into my life for a minute. I was getting it. I got it. I'd say, I got it all the time. I got it. I knew who I was. We're driving Steve. This is when Steve and I were driving around going to see our boys play college basketball. We we were driving down this road, and the Lord said, Tell him. And my thought was, I don't want to tell him. He said, Go ahead, tell him. He'll set you free. I don't want to tell him. And then it got quiet, and I said, Hey, Steve. You know, you never, when God gets quiet, you want to start talking, okay? I said, hey, Steve, I want you to know from this moment on. Are you ready, women?

unknown 12:21

Yeah, you say it, girl.

SPEAKER_02 12:23

I'm gonna submit to you. My brain was going, you've done it now. Done it now. Now you'll have to do it. You'll have to do it. And I'm thinking, I've got it. I've got it. I've got it. I said, I'm gonna submit to you in all things. He said, he almost ran off the road. Let me see if I let me clarify. In all things, I said, oh yes. I was being spiritual in that moment. I knew it was gonna be hard, so I felt like why not be spiritual? I said, oh yes. He said, Well, praise the Lord. I'm thinking, why do I get the hard part? But you know what? Every time my flesh wanted to go, yeah, I don't think we ought to do that. The Lord would remind me. And it was when we got great breakthrough in everything. I'm talking about everything. We got breakthrough in everything. Why? Because if you align yourself up with the word of God and you will become who he says you are, then you won't have to struggle with him any longer. And the devil can't come to you with accusations. He'll try to, but you'll say, I got it. I got it. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. That was just a commercial. Okay, let's get back into this. Hallelujah. Oh. Ephesians says this to us. For you were once darkness. But now, now, sons and daughters, you're light in the Lord. Walk as children of light. You don't know where he says, you were once darkness, but now you're light in the Lord. Try as hard as you can to walk as children of light. I am light. Wherever I go, light goes with me. The light of Jesus Christ is burning, it's shining in me. So when I go, I see my I see light. I'm lighting up wherever I go. Why? Because there's no more condemnation in Christ Jesus. There's no more condemnation. There's no separation from God ever again. Hallelujah. Thank you, Lord. This is, do y'all realize how glorious this news is? Praise the name of the Lord. Do you know how many Christians live a defeated life? Yes. And I can tell you, as pastor, I used to live a defeated life. Anyone in here join me in saying, I used to live a defeated life. But let me tell you, thanks be to God. Oh, hallelujah. Praise the Lord. Because let me tell you, too many Christians think that God is either disappointed or angry at them for something they did. Even if it's before salvation. There is therefore now. No separation. Oh, hallelujah. Praise the Lord. Living a futile life of trying to measure up to please God, but never making it. Are y'all hearing that? It's futility. It's on the road. It's like, you know, it's so frustrating unless you love it. Getting on a treadmill going nowhere. That's why they got those little screens, and you think you're going somewhere. It's sort of playing mind games with you. And I'm okay with that, all right? But it's it's just going and going and going and going and never getting free from the tyranny of the enemy, the lies of the enemy. You'll think, I'm gonna overcome this sin. I I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna overcome this sin. Beloved, it's not what you can do, it's what Jesus did for you. He took your place. Listen, we're coming up to Easter. When I see the cross, yeah. He took my place. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. God delights in showing mercy. It's time, I'm gonna say this to you. It's time for us to begin to live like sons and daughters of God. Wow. You know why it's hard to be up here? Because you can just be preaching and he'll make you admit to something. Now, others may not have to do that. I remember when I was a young woman and God had placed a call on my life, and I said yes, and I was working with these little couple, and they would get with me and they'd just laugh and they'd say, Sandra, you're on fire for the Lord, but you need the Holy Ghost. I said, I need what? You need the Holy Ghost. I was used to people saying, the Holy Spirit. See, if you don't say it loud, it doesn't mean you know it's not like you're gonna get charismatic or Pentecostal. If you whisper it, you're safe. You say it out loud, he's coming. He's there. Come on. Come on. And so I I did I didn't know what I didn't know that I needed this Holy Spirit. And then I was baptized. Hallelujah. Come on, somebody. I want to make this declaration, okay? In Summit Church, we welcome a move of the Holy Spirit. We celebrate every time somebody gets baptized in the Holy Ghost. Oh, hallelujah.

unknown 19:37

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 19:38

Praise the Lord. I don't ever want you coming in here thinking that we will ever deny the Holy Spirit. We're gonna do whatever He says. Y'all hear this? We're gonna do whatever we're gonna obey the Holy Spirit. Hallelujah. Listen to this. Free from condemnation and free from separation. Hallelujah. John 5 in verse 24 says this. I tell you the truth. Those who listen to my message and believe in God who sent me have eternal life. They will never be condemned for their sins. But they have already passed. They've already passed from death to life. You passed up death. You died. When he died, you died with him. I am crucified with Christ. I no longer live, but Christ lives in me and the life I live in this body. I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself up for me. Hallelujah. That's my identity. When I see the cross, I don't weep and cry and say, I can't believe you had to go to the cross. I say, praise be to God. That because of your obedience, I am brought in. I am a daughter. I am a restored daughter. I'm a restored daughter. Hallelujah. It's like living in heaven on the earth. Come on. Somebody needs to hear this. It's like living in heaven on the earth. My relationship with God is like living in heaven on the earth. When the devil comes at two o'clock in the morning or at three o'clock in the morning and pokes me and says, You're gonna die. I just do one thing get up, go to the front door, unlock it, open it, and say, I don't know how you got in here. Maybe you came on the back of somebody. But you get out of my house. This is my house. This is God's house. And He lives here. And you come in here thinking I'm going to listen to you. No, I'm not listening to you. Get out, devil. I've already seen what God can do. Oh, come on. Hallelujah. To be free, listen to this from the weight of the condemning voice that says, You better pray harder. Oh, come on. You better get your act together. You better work hard for the love of God. You're going to have to work hard for these things. Beloved, I if you're a visitor, praise the Lord. If you come here all the time, praise the Lord. But I want to say this to you: the work is already complete. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. He did it, you couldn't. Praise the Lord. You see, this is a church mindset. And it goes like this. You ought to work really hard. You got to work really hard so you can live a life of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost was given to me. And I live in righteousness, peace, and joy. Come on. I'm not trying to get to righteousness, peace, and joy. I live in righteousness, peace, and joy. Come on. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. Romans 8, 15 through 17. Listen to this. So you have not received the spirit that makes you a fearful slave. Instead, you received God's Spirit when He adopted you as His own children. Now we call Him Abba Father. For the Spirit joins with our Spirit to affirm that we are children of God. And since we are His children, we are His heirs. In fact, together with Christ, we are heirs of God's glory. But if we are to share His glory, we must also share suffering. Give me the glory, Lord! Hold back on that suffering thing. And she said, This, I've been praying 30 years. Well, I've been praying that Jesus would come to Iran. And she said, I know he's going. I know he's coming to Iran. I know the Iranian church is going to be set free and many are going to be saved. She said, I've been praying and I believe God will do what I've been praying for. Come on. Come on. Well, do you really think we had any business going into Iran? Oh, I'm for those of you that are visiting, yeah. Sometimes I can say political things. It's okay. I'll just take a minute. Yeah. Yeah. I think we're seeing doors open in Iran for the gospel. Come on, hallelujah. You see, it's a privilege, the privilege of every son and daughter of God to have full assurance of salvation. When torment comes, and torment tries to come all the time, just to know there is a glorious life in Christ, but some are always hoping they might be able to get to a place of freedom. Hallelujah. Want to talk for a minute about no separation, okay? Oh, hallelujah. If you look down at Romans 31, what shall we say about such a wonderful thing as these? If God is for us, who can ever be against us? Have you ever thought of that? If God is for me, who in the world could ever be against me? Come on. We we so many times I'll hear people in the church talking about how the devil's beating me up all the time. It's just horrible. You see, that is not in God's economy. So don't let it happen. Oh. If God is for us, who can ever be against us? Since he did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all? Won't he also give us everything else? Who dare accuse us, whom God has chosen for his own? No one. For God himself has given us right standing with himself. Who then will condemn us? No one. For Christ Jesus died for us and was raised to life for us. And he is sitting in the place of honor at God's right hand pleading for us. Beloved, you believe this, do you know this? Jesus is sitting at the right hand of the Father making intercession for you and I. Listen, I'm going through a struggle. I better call the intercessors at some at church. I just look up. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Lord. You see, he knows the beginning and the end of every story of my life. Isn't that good? It's so good. So in verse 35 it says, Can anything ever separate us from Christ's love? Does it mean he no longer loves us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted or hungry or destitute or in danger or threatened with death? As the scripture says, for your sake, we are killed every day. We are being slaughtered like sheep. No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ who loves us. Listen, I've had Christians say to me, Pastor, I really feel like that all of this is happening in my life because I haven't lived close enough to the Lord. You know why they say that? Because some crazy person told you that, and they did it because they thought it would make you feel better. But I'm not here to make you feel better. I'm here to tell you the truth. Which will make you feel better. They act as if church, that the church, when we're saints of God, when we're sons and daughters of God, we don't go through stuff. We just life is just good. We don't go through anything. So then what they say is, oh, we need to pray the devil off your back. We need to do this and do that. It says you'll fellowship with his suffering. Do you know how I know I'm a daughter of God? Because my family went through a time of praying and believing for my daughter-in-law to be healed of stage four cancer. And she's healed. Nowhere in the word did it say, now, because she's a Christian, she will never ever go through that. Listen, we're contending for our sister Kathy. She will not be in that wheelchair all her life. She will not. She will go on assignments. They used to blow my mind the way they would go on these assignments. Angels would show up, all kinds of great things would happen, and we all would get to hear about it and go, uh, because we thought, why not be, Lord? But it, and you know what? The enemy didn't like it. But you see, we're believing for complete restoration. Are you believing? We're believing for complete restoration, okay? Listen, I'm sorry that someone told you that being a Christian would always mean you would go through good times. Because, see, in third world countries, people think, oh, I wish I was a Christian in America. Because I've heard they don't go through stuff like we do, they don't go through persecution. But let me tell you a statistic I heard this morning. The most persecuted people in this nation right now are Christians. You know what I said? Glory to God. Come on. That means something's happening. Devil don't want to give up territory, so we're being persecuted. I set my face like flint, and I go after everything God has promised. Pastor, you've been praying for a long time for a move of God. You've been praying for revival, that's right. When are you going to stop? Let me just say this to you. If he takes me home before this all ends, somebody has got to pick up the torch. Come on. And continue to pray for what he placed in our hearts. Our hearts, when we started this church, our hearts were burning for revival. God, you've got to have a church that knows who they are and that will burn with the fire of the Holy Ghost and set ablaze a region for him. Hallelujah. In no way am I here to impress. I am here as a change agent to pray until I see God move. Last Monday night I had to preach on being a good steward for revival. And that first one was a killer. It was a steward of time. And the Lord said, Your time is my time. And I want you at every prayer meeting in this house. I said, Yes, Lord, I'm up there. And then if Pastor Mickey Brock didn't raise her hand to say, the Lord is requiring things of us, and I'm going, hush. I didn't say that. I just smiled, praise the Lord. Anyway. And then in verse 38, it says, I am convinced. Anyone in here convinced? That nothing can ever separate us from God's love. Listen to this. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today, nor our worries about tomorrow. Not even the power of hell can separate us from God's love. No power in the sky above or in the earth below. Indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord. Hallelujah. The gift of God's Son is the irrefutable evidence of God's heart toward us. Isn't that beautiful? You can't question that. Don't try to. Nothing can separate us from Christ's love. Listen to this. To separate means to divide. To disconnect, to pull apart that which was joined. You see, the only way you will be separated from God is in your mind. You can't change God's mind. Are you hearing me? You can't change God's mind about you. Hallelujah. We are in union with Christ. And beloved, when we're in union with Christ, we're in union with each other. Listen, I can get irritated at my brother and my sister. But I don't want you talking about them. Y'all know what I'm talking about. You know how they can go off and do stupid. And I can think. But don't come to me and talk about them. Because I'll say, I don't know who you think I'm you're talking about. Come on. See, that's the way we ought to be toward each other. Somebody brings accusations. Oh my goodness, you're not gonna let me go, are you? Oh I sitting right there last night. Right there. I still looks like fire's been there. I think I burned a hole in the carpet there. Come on. When the Lord said, you know, you know those people that you don't really believe that they have their doctrine right? He named them. He don't want me naming them. He named them, I said, Yes, Lord. Being very spiritual, closing my eyes. And he said, I need for you to repent for that. If they're off, I'll take care of it. I want you to love them. I want you to love them. I want you to hug up on them and love them. I want you to pray for them. I want you to go crazy praying for them. I want you to pray for them in the morning and at noon and at night time. I want you to pray for them. And you know what he did? He began to show me how off I was in my love walk. He didn't say I could pick and choose who I get to love.

unknown 39:16

That's right.

SPEAKER_02 39:18

Some people choose churches because they're like them. We want to go to a church like us. Have a lot of people like us. We just, oh, they have so many of this and they have so many of that. And we want to go there because, you know, it's just fun. It's fun. And then we get to, you know, we get to uh hug on each other and we all skip out to the parking lot, give each other a group hug, go to lunch, connect. And we're good for a whole week, and then we do it again. But no one is changing. There's a difference between a country club and the house of God. Because a country club will make you look like each other. The house of God will bring transformation. You'll look like Jesus. Come on. This house is to preach the word. So you'll look like Jesus, not look like everybody else you go to church with. Come on. Listen, there's no clicks in heaven. When I was sitting there, the Lord said, Don't you, don't you have separation from them? They're with you. They're with you. They'll be in heaven with you. Just because they don't think like you do, they're gonna be in heaven with you.

unknown 40:38

Come on.

SPEAKER_02 40:42

I go out on my front door in heaven, go out my front door and on the porch, and I'm sitting there, and I look over. Guess who my neighbor is? They look over at me and go, He chose. Yeah, come on. We gotta love each other. We're in union with God and we're in union with each other. We may have differences. That's okay. But we are called to love each other. The Bible says if you don't have the love of the brethren, guess who else you don't have the love of? Don't have the love of the Father in you. Oh, come on. That's scary. Anybody else get like, whoa, wait a minute, hold it right there. Come on. So if nothing can separate us from the love of Christ and we are united with him forever, who is condemning us? Who is it? Who's condemning us? If God will never separate from us, who is it that is condemning us? Well, in Revelation, he's called the accuser of the brethren. In John, he's called the father of lies. So my question is, who is accusing you? Thank you. That was an easy answer, wasn't it? But I'll tell you who else accuses you?

SPEAKER_01 42:35

You do. You do.

SPEAKER_02 42:38

Come on. Knowing the word of God will enable you to stop listening to the accusations and lies. Nothing can separate us from the love that was unveiled to us through our Lord Jesus Christ. Unveiled to us. Isn't that glorious? Hallelujah. You may think, you may think this is elementary what I'm preaching today. Yeah, I've heard that, Pastor. Then my question is, why does the church, so much of the church, live in defeat? If this is elementary, we need to recap. There is therefore right now in your life no separation. None. None. Hallelujah. You see, we're past knowing this. Have you ever struggled with your identity? You ever struggled with your identity in Christ? Have you ever had a time where you weren't fully assured that you were in Christ? I've had people, Christians that have lived for the Lord for years, say, you know, I think I just need to get saved all over again. People who've walked with Him. I know their history. Come on, you're listening to the lies of the devil. Have you ever had a failure in your life as a Christian? You see, if you can say yes to any of these, then this is why God wanted us to talk about it today. When I say us, I mean me and the Holy Ghost that dwells inside. The one who came and united with my spirit. And who said, My church is struggling. God is doing something so incredibly beautiful in the church. Oh close this because he doesn't want me preaching anymore. Hallelujah. Listen, Lord said to me the other day when I was praying, he said, can you say something positive?

unknown 45:34

Come on. Jesus God.

SPEAKER_02 45:40

I said, Well, of course I can. He said, Can you say something positive about the church? And I remembered, I'm part of the church. I said, uh-huh. I sure can. Listen, there is so much negative rhetoric going on. But we're in union with Christ. There is no separation. You leave here today, you know that His love is for you forever. Not just when you're good.