SPEAKER_00: This podcast is the Ministry of Grand Parkway Baptist Church.
SPEAKER_00: For more information on our church, please visit Grand Parkway.org.
SPEAKER_00: You guys can be seated.
SPEAKER_00: My name is Lance Williams, and I'm the Spiritual Formation Pastor here at Grand Parkway.
SPEAKER_00: It's my my privilege, excuse me, my privilege and my pleasure to be before you.
SPEAKER_00: I always enjoy preaching.
SPEAKER_00: Uh this week is kind of special.
SPEAKER_00: Uh your your bulletin would seem to indicate that we'd be in the lesser-known book of Habakkuk.
SPEAKER_00: Uh actually, we're going to be in the much uh well much beloved chapter of Romans 8, and we'll be in verses 9 through 11.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, if you don't have your Bible on the end of your road, there's a Black Pew Bible you're more than welcome to use.
SPEAKER_00: Just ask your neighbor to pass it down.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna be on page 944 of that Bible in Romans 8, 9 to 11, where yes, we'll be talking about putting the spirit back into spiritual life.
SPEAKER_00: Putting the spirit back into spiritual life.
SPEAKER_00: Uh this week was rather weird for me.
SPEAKER_00: Uh last week we all know was Easter, and we had three services, and so I came to the first two services and they were great.
SPEAKER_00: And then many of you, this is odd for me, asked, Hey, were you here on Sunday?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I was here.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, except during the second, the actually the third service, uh, when I normally teach up at the 11 o'clock hour, uh, what was weird for me that day was that I went up there on Easter Sunday, and uh there was uh one person there, Squadoosh.
SPEAKER_00: It was like, all right, he was just carrying his Bible around.
SPEAKER_00: He wasn't sitting down, he was waiting for me to show up to say, You're dismissed.
SPEAKER_00: Go enjoy the day.
SPEAKER_00: Uh and so that was weird, and I was kind of like, all right, Lord, hey, I'm I'm happy to prepare, I enjoy the preparation, but I'm also happy to not do this right now.
SPEAKER_00: So I said, Lord, would you what would you have of me?
SPEAKER_00: And he said, Go to the hospital.
SPEAKER_00: Uh okay.
SPEAKER_00: It's not really normally what I would do on a Sunday morning.
SPEAKER_00: So I came down, talked to Neil, and I said, Hey man, uh, somebody's in the hospital, I'm gonna go visit them real quick.
SPEAKER_00: He's like, Cool, uh, enjoy yourself.
SPEAKER_00: Which by the way, Neil will be back next week, and we'll start a new series.
SPEAKER_00: But uh so I went to the hospital and uh visited with a friend in there and a patient, uh someone that goes to our church on a regular basis, and we were just sitting there chatting, and the doctor was in there, and he was doing his business, and he kind of overheard our conversation and figured out we were Christians, and then figured out I was a pastor, figured out the patient was in ministry as well.
SPEAKER_00: And he just kind of sat around, he just waited for us to quit talking.
SPEAKER_00: He just uh had this one question, he said, uh, well, I can't tell you yet.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna tell you later.
SPEAKER_00: I was gonna tell you now, but I'll let I'll leave you hanging.
SPEAKER_00: But it was an interesting conversation.
SPEAKER_00: Let me just say this, because it'll be kind of the the thread through the rest of the sermon.
SPEAKER_00: It's not often that a doctor stands still for 30 minutes.
SPEAKER_00: I'll just say that.
SPEAKER_00: That the Holy Spirit became present uh all because Christians were there and available.
SPEAKER_00: And it wasn't just me, it was everyone in the room praying and being present.
SPEAKER_00: But that was something that was weird, and then I had a couple of different meals with people that go to our church this week, and it was almost like there was this theme coming over me for the week as I looked uh towards the weekend and even to today, and that theme was this: man, we Christians, maybe just we Baptists, we have a low view of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: We have an ignorant view, we have a low view of the Holy Spirit, and the theme that I kept thinking about was that we marginalize our spiritual lives due to ignorance.
SPEAKER_00: You know that's one of the biggest tools that the enemy has is to keep us ignorant, is to keep us lukewarm, to keep us satisfied with so much less than what God wants to fill us with.
SPEAKER_00: We have marginalized our spiritual lives, and so that's why today we're gonna talk about putting the spirit back into spiritual life, because once that happens, we can never go back.
SPEAKER_00: We can never go back.
SPEAKER_00: Francis Chan wrote a book called Forgotten God.
SPEAKER_00: Kind of a weird, weird title to a book, but it's all about the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And it's entitled Forgotten God, and he says this in the introduction to that great book.
SPEAKER_00: He says, If I were Satan and my ultimate goal was to thwart God's kingdom and purposes, one of my main strategies would be to get churches to ignore the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: The degree to which this has happened is directly connected to the dissatisfaction most of us feel with and in the church.
SPEAKER_00: The feeling is so strong that some have run away from the church and God's word completely.
SPEAKER_00: If that's you today, if you have become a believer, maybe years ago and you've lived a life that's become so satisfying, something's missing, that you've become cynical and jaded towards God's church, towards God's word, welcome.
SPEAKER_00: Welcome.
SPEAKER_00: I'm glad you're here.
SPEAKER_00: Today is for you.
SPEAKER_00: If you're a Christian that's been living a full life, welcome.
SPEAKER_00: Glad you're here.
SPEAKER_00: Today is for you.
SPEAKER_00: As we look at what it means to put the Spirit back into spiritual life.
SPEAKER_00: Again, we're in Romans 8, and we will start in verse 9 to 11.
SPEAKER_00: And uh as we read these three verses, it'll kind of we'll kind of fill out uh what it means through the rest of the chapter chapter later on.
SPEAKER_00: But Romans 8, 9 through 11 says this.
SPEAKER_00: You, however, are not in the flesh, but in the spirit.
SPEAKER_00: If in fact the spirit of God dwells in you, anyone who does not have the spirit of Christ does not belong to him.
SPEAKER_00: But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is life because of righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: And if the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies, through his spirit who dwells in you.
SPEAKER_00: Now we look at that, and before we get to our main points, we look at that and we ask, who is Paul talking to?
SPEAKER_00: Because right there, those first two words in verse 9, he says, You, however, he's talking to Christians, and he's making this giant contrast to what nonbelievers look like.
SPEAKER_00: I know it's a genius statement to stay, but let me just say it right out that Christians are not non-Christians.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I say that because I think we've muddied the waters a little bit in our Christianity, that Christians can sometimes dabble in non-Christian things, and that's okay.
SPEAKER_00: And well, we're all just sinners and we're all just human.
SPEAKER_00: But let me just say that Paul is going to write to us starkly, clearly, and say, You, however, what is he contrasting against?
SPEAKER_00: It's right there in verses 7 and 8.
SPEAKER_00: It says, For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God.
SPEAKER_00: For it does not submit to God's law, indeed it cannot.
SPEAKER_00: Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
SPEAKER_00: Three things of a non-believer that that's you and that's me, if Jesus doesn't intervene in our life.
SPEAKER_00: We're hostile to God, we don't submit to his law, and we cannot please him.
SPEAKER_00: Now I tell you all that because it's gonna it's gonna, again, be the thread to which the rest of the sermon comes into, not to discourage you, because if you have a true picture and grasp on hostility, your lack of a desire to submit to God's law, and the reality that you could never please him, that makes you all the more grateful for a gracious God who intervenes into someone like someone like that.
SPEAKER_00: An amazing truth that kind of gets us pointed in the right direction.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, that's who Paul is talking about, believers, in contrast to non-believers.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, and the whole way that any of that happens is that the spirit.
SPEAKER_00: It's not that just that Jesus paid it all, but it when in the process of him paying it all, he gave promises that the spirit's coming, the spirit's coming, the spirit's coming, and oh, by the way, it's gonna be better for you.
SPEAKER_00: We believe that in the church, don't we?
SPEAKER_00: Three of us do.
SPEAKER_00: I should have said amen there, maybe four.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, my bad.
SPEAKER_00: Sure we do.
SPEAKER_00: It may not be as evident, but the spirit comes.
SPEAKER_00: The first point in putting the spirit back in our spiritual life is that the spirit is a homemaker.
SPEAKER_00: The spirit is a homemaker.
SPEAKER_00: Now, you just got into your mind uh some domesticated spirit that's at home, pregnant, barefoot, baking cookies.
SPEAKER_00: That's not the spirit.
SPEAKER_00: I'm making this as a point because it's familiar.
SPEAKER_00: Most people, especially people in my stage of life, we know what it's like to have a homemaker in the home.
SPEAKER_00: If we're blessed enough to where our wife is able to stay home, it's an unbelievable blessing.
SPEAKER_00: And my wife does a lot of different things.
SPEAKER_00: She works outside the home.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, she's a reading interventionist and does a lot of different things.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, but more than anything, she's a homemaker.
SPEAKER_00: She's a home, she manages the home, she does a lot of different things in the home.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, let me give you a few of them, not any that I could list.
SPEAKER_00: And as I was listing these, I just overflowing with thankfulness to my wife.
SPEAKER_00: I texted her yesterday and I was like, hey, I don't think about this enough, but thank you for all that you do.
SPEAKER_00: Some of Melissa's tasks as a homemaker.
SPEAKER_00: She plans meals gluten-free.
SPEAKER_00: She cooks meals gluten-free.
SPEAKER_00: By the way, some of you will say to me, I'm sorry this isn't gluten-free.
SPEAKER_00: Don't apologize to me.
SPEAKER_00: That's like music to my ears.
SPEAKER_00: Give me all the gluten you got.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: She plans meals, she cooks meals, she cleans up the meals, she cleans the house, she does laundry, she organizes the girls' rooms, she gives them different uh-sized clothes when appropriate.
SPEAKER_00: She does grocery shopping, she communicates the needs of the homes to me.
SPEAKER_00: Those are just tasks.
SPEAKER_00: Now just think about the relational tasks with the girls, Reese and Ellie.
SPEAKER_00: She disciplines them.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, from two rooms away, she hears something's going on and she disciplines them.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, she wipes their noses when they're sick.
SPEAKER_00: She loves the girls in the way that they need it.
SPEAKER_00: For Reese, you gotta be gentle.
SPEAKER_00: For Ellie, you can't be gentle.
SPEAKER_00: She gives baths, she blows bubbles, as Ellie likes to say.
SPEAKER_00: She slides down slides, she pushes the swing for hours upon hours, and when things are off in the slightest manner, with the slightest little nuance, she knows.
SPEAKER_00: She steps in and she deals with it.
SPEAKER_00: Now, when we think of homemaker, we could think of an apron and some cookies, but the reality is she is so important to our home.
SPEAKER_00: She's the glue that kind of makes it all work.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not I'm not available to do all of that.
SPEAKER_00: And so she does, and she loves it.
SPEAKER_00: It's a joy for her.
SPEAKER_00: She's a homemaker.
SPEAKER_00: It reminds me of the Holy Spirit because verse 9 tells us that you, however, are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: If in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you, that word dwells in you is a Greek word okeo.
SPEAKER_00: And it comes from the Greek noun oikos, which means house.
SPEAKER_00: So there's this verb of making a home inside of someone.
SPEAKER_00: Oikeo to inhabit, to dwell, with no intention of moving.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't come and bring a bunch of extra boxes just in case you kick them out one day, as if you could.
SPEAKER_00: He comes and he makes his home inside the life of the believer.
SPEAKER_00: He's a homemaker.
SPEAKER_00: He, just like my wife, he disciplines children.
SPEAKER_00: He disciplines the inner child inside of each one of us that demands for the more comfortable road, our selfishness, our pride, whatever rises up in us to demand for more of what I want.
SPEAKER_00: He disciplines that.
SPEAKER_00: He renovates the rooms of your heart.
SPEAKER_00: An unbelievable truth.
SPEAKER_00: Man, does he clean.
SPEAKER_00: And not only does he clean, but when the slightest little nuance is off in you, he knows.
SPEAKER_00: And he steps in and he deals with it.
SPEAKER_00: And not with an iron fist, but with a comforting arm around you.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Paraclete, that's what the Holy Spirit is to come alongside you, to comfort you, to guide you, to be your advocate.
SPEAKER_00: He knows where that room is in your heart that you don't want to let him into.
SPEAKER_00: He knows where it is.
SPEAKER_00: He knows what you keep in there.
SPEAKER_00: And he knows the combination to the locks.
SPEAKER_00: He'll let you have it.
SPEAKER_00: Also you can go in there every once in a while to figure out, man, it is dirty in here.
SPEAKER_00: I wish I want to go be back in the presence of my God.
SPEAKER_00: He's different than everything else that you put in your body, however.
SPEAKER_00: Everything else you put in your body is temporary.
SPEAKER_00: Food, temporary, drink, temporary, medicine, in another couple of hours, you're gonna need all that again.
SPEAKER_00: The only thing that gets put into your body, the Holy Spirit, that has permanence is the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And he only does this to believers.
SPEAKER_00: What an unbelievable privilege.
SPEAKER_00: And John 14 through 16, he kind of, Jesus gives this great, unbelievable understanding of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: He just says, Hey, the world is not going to receive him.
SPEAKER_00: They can't receive him, but he'll be in you.
SPEAKER_00: He'll dwell in you, and I'll be with you forever.
SPEAKER_00: What an unbelievable promise.
SPEAKER_00: What an unbelievable privilege.
SPEAKER_00: Dwelling implies three things intimacy, permanence, and privilege.
SPEAKER_00: He dwells, he homemakes, and he makes his home inside of a believer.
SPEAKER_00: That's what it means to live in the spirit, right there in verse 9.
SPEAKER_00: He says, however, you are not in the flesh, but in the spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And he's just trying to tell all of us that in the flesh is no longer a way of life.
SPEAKER_00: This habitual yearning for whatever the flesh yearns for, no longer a part of the believer's life.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, because Christ lives in you, because the Holy Spirit dwells in your heart, now you live in the Spirit, in the realm of.
SPEAKER_00: You dwell with Him, and you walk, excuse me, you walk in His ways.
SPEAKER_00: Unbelievable promise.
SPEAKER_00: Spirit's a homemaker, but that's not all He is.
SPEAKER_00: And certainly for us men, that may be hard for us to understand because that's not normally who stays at home.
SPEAKER_00: The women that stay home, they're like, oh man, I just got a new purpose for what I'm doing tomorrow.
SPEAKER_00: Not only is he a homemaker, but he's also the giver of life.
SPEAKER_00: If we're going to put spirit back into our spiritual lives to renovate us and rejuvenate us, the spirit gives us life.
SPEAKER_00: Right here in verse 10, he says, But if Christ is in you, and he is, and although the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is life because of righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: The NIV, I believe, probably has it right here where he says, Your spirit is alive because of righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: Now, this is where my conversation with the doctor picks back up.
SPEAKER_00: Because when we're sitting there and he overhears us, and I'm a pastor and he's in ministry and he just kind of lingers around and he says, Hey, I got a question for you.
SPEAKER_00: And pardon my ignorance, but what do you think about this prominent speaker?
SPEAKER_00: What do you think about him?
SPEAKER_00: And I said, I'm I can't talk right now.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna let the diplomatic one talk, the guy that's underneath a drug-induced stupor.
SPEAKER_00: I said, Why don't you let him talk?
SPEAKER_00: And I just gotta lay out of this one because if I do, it's not gonna be good, and you'll be mad at me, and I'm just gonna lay out, just let the diplomatic one go.
SPEAKER_00: So the diplomatic one goes, and he says, Well, he's positive.
SPEAKER_00: People need to hear that.
SPEAKER_00: He speaks to that audience.
SPEAKER_00: I was like, way too diplomatic.
SPEAKER_00: I can't hold it in anymore.
SPEAKER_00: All right, here I come.
SPEAKER_00: So I come out from the side of the hospital bed and I said, He's a joke.
SPEAKER_00: And he goes, I like your answer better.
SPEAKER_00: And here's why I said, I don't mean to be a jerk and I'm not trying to be harsh, but here's the reality that God is gonna hold me and him and anybody else that stands up on a stage like this and teaches the word of God doubly accountable.
SPEAKER_00: Once for me and once for his hearers and my hearers.
SPEAKER_00: Wow, okay.
SPEAKER_00: And so the Bible says, hey, you don't want to do that.
SPEAKER_00: And if you do that, you're gonna get judged double.
SPEAKER_00: So you probably want to think real hard and long about being a teacher.
SPEAKER_00: And so that's why I come down hard on him.
SPEAKER_00: And so, but the reality is, more than that, I said, his message is only half the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: I said, you can't ever appreciate Easter without, and I'm talking to him on Easter, and I didn't say it quite this eloquently.
SPEAKER_00: I wish I would have, but now that I've thought about it, I'll tell you more eloquently than I told him.
SPEAKER_00: I said, you can't appreciate Easter without Good Friday.
SPEAKER_00: You can't appreciate resurrection without the cross.
SPEAKER_00: You can't appreciate all the things and all the blessings and all the promises that God gives believers without fully understanding your depravity, your sinfulness.
SPEAKER_00: That's the reason why I read to you verses 7 and 8.
SPEAKER_00: Your hostility, your disobedience, the reality that in your heart you can't please God.
SPEAKER_00: And yet God looks at us and he says, You, my enemy, I love.
SPEAKER_00: You who are hostile to me, who spat on me, who beat me, I love.
SPEAKER_00: Now that's a different kind of God.
SPEAKER_00: Because what my doctor friend said, and we were just talking, and I told him what I thought about that, and I said, Well, what do you believe?
SPEAKER_00: And he, uh, well, mm-hig higher power.
SPEAKER_00: That's what I believe.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, there's a lot of uncertainty in that.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not really sure what to do with that.
SPEAKER_00: Higher power.
SPEAKER_00: What was your tradition of faith?
SPEAKER_00: He's like, Well, I'm a Hindu.
SPEAKER_00: I said, Oh, okay.
SPEAKER_00: I just got back from India.
SPEAKER_00: I I I know.
SPEAKER_00: I was just telling him all about India.
SPEAKER_00: And talk to him about that.
SPEAKER_00: See the sovereign God just kind of working out this plan.
SPEAKER_00: I was supposed to be up here teaching, went to a hospital, ended up talking to a doctor who's Hindu.
SPEAKER_00: I went to India.
SPEAKER_00: Too many things going the right way.
SPEAKER_00: So I sit there and I'm we're sitting there talking, and he goes, Yeah, I just think, you know, Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, it's all the same.
SPEAKER_00: It's all about it's all comes down to basically the same morality.
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, time out.
SPEAKER_00: If you think Christianity is about morality, then you're right.
SPEAKER_00: But let me tell you something.
SPEAKER_00: Christianity has never been about morality.
SPEAKER_00: Christianity has always been about life versus death.
SPEAKER_00: I said, dude, I didn't get a class today, so you're gonna get all my words.
SPEAKER_00: And he did, and he took them, and he was excited about it.
SPEAKER_00: But we talked and talked and talked about life and about death and about resurrection.
SPEAKER_00: If there's one way to appeal to a man's pride in evangelism, in witnessing to your neighbor who I just happened to run into, just start appealing to his pride.
SPEAKER_00: I said, Hey man, you might be the most educated person in this room, but you're real uncertain about your faith.
SPEAKER_00: You might be the most medically educated person in this room, medically powerful person in this room, but you can't raise somebody from the dead.
SPEAKER_00: Only God can do that.
SPEAKER_00: Only He has the power to give life.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Jesus came for.
SPEAKER_00: He said, I have come to give life.
SPEAKER_00: And so it implies that we're dead.
SPEAKER_00: Paul would expound upon that in Ephesians 2.
SPEAKER_00: He says, You were dead in the trespasses and sins.
SPEAKER_00: Ephesians 2, 3 says, You were by nature because we were dead and we followed the ways of this world and our flesh.
SPEAKER_00: Ephesians 2, 3 says, you were by nature children or objects of wrath, like the rest of mankind.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, Hey man, God raises people from the dead all the time.
SPEAKER_00: It's not about morality, it's about death to life.
SPEAKER_00: Something you can't do, something I can't do, something only God can do.
SPEAKER_00: And he looked at me and he said, I have never heard that before.
SPEAKER_00: Now, this is a man who, although claims to be a Hindu, also grew up going to a Catholic school for nine years of his life.
SPEAKER_00: But more than that, he's been practicing medicine here in Sugarland for I don't know how long.
SPEAKER_00: He's a younger guy, maybe a few years, five, maybe ten.
SPEAKER_00: And no Christian has ever said to him that he's treated, hey, this is all good.
SPEAKER_00: God's gonna raise me up one day.
SPEAKER_00: What?
SPEAKER_00: No Christian has ever preached to him the gospel in such a way that he would say, it's not about morality, it's not about the golden rule, it's not about doing better, it's about living resurrected and life to the full.
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
SPEAKER_00: I said, man, here's the deal: the God of the Bible is true, the God of the Bible is powerful.
SPEAKER_00: I said, you can have all the Hindu gods that you want, but the reality is they are all sufficient in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Whatever Vishnu and whatever all these other gods that he started naming, I said, the reality is, I said, that reminds me of Paul when he went to Athens.
SPEAKER_00: He said, There's an altered and unknown God.
SPEAKER_00: His name is Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: The same thing for you.
SPEAKER_00: This Jesus who was raised from the dead came to give life.
SPEAKER_00: I said, He was the promised new covenant.
SPEAKER_00: When Ezekiel said, That I will give you a new heart and a new spirit, I will put within you, and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give You a heart of flesh.
SPEAKER_00: And the doctor said, I said, I said, look, I said, here's the reality is that every person apart from Christ has this stony, stoned heart.
SPEAKER_00: It's just hard.
SPEAKER_00: He goes, hang on, you're wrong.
SPEAKER_00: It's like, how are you gonna tell me I'm wrong about Christianity?
SPEAKER_00: What are you talking about?
SPEAKER_00: He goes, no, if I go down to the OR and I open up somebody's chest cavity, there's a beating fleshy heart in there.
SPEAKER_00: And my heart broke a little bit, but it also excited me.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, You are so, like I'm in my mind, I'm going, you're so honest.
SPEAKER_00: I love this guy.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, Let me just appeal beyond your empiricism and your sign, your science.
SPEAKER_00: Because now you're gonna have to start looking into the spirit world.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not talking about the literal heart.
SPEAKER_00: I'm talking about what God says your heart is right now.
SPEAKER_00: As a non-believer, as a believer in Hinduism, it's stony.
SPEAKER_00: It's like limestone.
SPEAKER_00: You're not getting into it.
SPEAKER_00: The only way to get into it is to break it and remove it.
SPEAKER_00: And God puts in a heart of flesh that's moldable and malleable, like clay and the potter's hand.
SPEAKER_00: He can form you and mush you into his hands and push you towards where he wants you to go and how he wants you to be.
SPEAKER_00: Instead of cold and stony hearts, that's what he puts in us.
SPEAKER_00: And he says, Man, I've just never heard any of this.
SPEAKER_00: And I got excited, but also my heart broke a little bit.
SPEAKER_00: Because I was just trying to tell him it's not about morality.
SPEAKER_00: It's not about morality, it's not about doing good, it's about resurrection life, which kind of leads us to my last point, and that is this.
SPEAKER_00: If we're going to put the spirit back into our spiritual life, not only does he dwell in us, not only does he give us life right there in verse 10, that our spirits are alive because of his righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: It kind of ties right back in here with verse 11 that the spirit has given us resurrection power.
SPEAKER_00: Not just life, but the power that comes along with that life.
SPEAKER_00: Right there in verse 11.
SPEAKER_00: Let's read it together.
SPEAKER_00: He says, If the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies.
SPEAKER_00: Through his spirit who dwells in you.
SPEAKER_00: There's no doubt that he's talking about your actual body will one day be resurrected.
SPEAKER_00: That's our true hope.
SPEAKER_00: Not escaping this place and being in heaven with Jesus forever, although that's true, but escaping this place, we will still look towards our body.
SPEAKER_00: Being raised up.
SPEAKER_00: That's the promise, that's the hope that the Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead, that power, which is pretty powerful, I can't think of anything else that's more powerful besides raising dead people to life, now lives inside of you and me.
SPEAKER_00: If Easter isn't real, if resurrection isn't real, Paul will tell us that our faith is pointless.
SPEAKER_00: It's futile in 1 Corinthians 15.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, the Bible says that this power is in you.
SPEAKER_00: You know that, don't you?
SPEAKER_00: Yes?
SPEAKER_00: Sandy knows?
SPEAKER_00: This is the QA portion of our sermon.
SPEAKER_00: You know that, don't you?
SPEAKER_00: Yes, because now this is the reason why I'm kind of emphasizing that, because the world around us is waiting for us to speak up in our faith.
SPEAKER_00: And if we can't do that here, we'll never do it out there.
SPEAKER_00: What's holding you back?
SPEAKER_00: You're afraid of what everybody else is going to say?
SPEAKER_00: What's holding you back from killing that sin that you don't want anybody to know about?
SPEAKER_00: What's holding you back from going out and reaching your neighbor?
SPEAKER_00: Not because you've planned it and that you're going on a mission trip, but because you're just being instant, in season and out of season.
SPEAKER_00: You're just being obedient.
SPEAKER_00: And that sin that so easily entangles us, we've just kind of managed along and said, I don't want to deal with you right now.
SPEAKER_00: You go to that room, I'll lock you up, and you'd be like my little pet.
SPEAKER_00: You can come out when I want you, but you stay over there.
SPEAKER_00: Like my little dog named Baxter, who eats our food off our table when we're gone, I found out.
SPEAKER_00: But what's holding us back?
SPEAKER_00: Romans 8.13, if we don't understand that the resurrection power of God is in us, then we'll never be obedient to this verse, uh, verse 13.
SPEAKER_00: Where he says, For if you live according to the flesh, you will die.
SPEAKER_00: But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying, Hey, kill your sin, kill your flesh, put it away.
SPEAKER_00: Don't just manage it and put it in a room and lock it up for later when no one's looking.
SPEAKER_00: Kill it.
SPEAKER_00: Because if you don't, you're gonna be like the Israelites who were supposed to go into the promised land and kill everybody.
SPEAKER_00: And they didn't.
SPEAKER_00: They were more gracious than what God had told them to be.
SPEAKER_00: And years later, those people they were supposed to take out ended up being their demise.
SPEAKER_00: That's a picture of our sin.
SPEAKER_00: If we don't kill it, if we don't handle it now, we'll be reaping that later.
SPEAKER_00: But what's holding us back?
SPEAKER_00: What I love about this doctor friend of mine that I can't wait to follow up with is that when I was started talking about power, I said, Hey, man, I got power you you've never even dreamed of.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I don't normally say that, but apparently it was right to say in the moment.
SPEAKER_00: Because he just said, like what?
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that great?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's just beautiful honesty.
SPEAKER_00: I love that guy.
SPEAKER_00: He says, like what?
SPEAKER_00: And then I shocked him with my answer.
SPEAKER_00: I said, Well, I can pray.
SPEAKER_00: And he said, looked at me like, what?
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, I know, I can pray.
SPEAKER_00: So the second thing is that I've been adopted by the God of the universe as his son.
SPEAKER_00: And that's his son, and that's his daughter, and you aren't.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't tell you that to be in your face.
SPEAKER_00: I tell you that to just say, this lie that you've been told that we're all in, that we're all children of God, is a lie.
SPEAKER_00: And instead, the Spirit gives us power only to those whose He's adopted.
SPEAKER_00: Only to those who say, That's my son, that's my daughter.
SPEAKER_00: That's specific, which means intentional and purposeful.
SPEAKER_00: And to us as believers.
SPEAKER_00: This resurrection power, I told him, number one, I can pray.
SPEAKER_00: And then I wish I had my Bible in front of me, but I didn't.
SPEAKER_00: But since I did over the week, here's just some promises of power out of just Romans 8.
SPEAKER_00: There's about nine or ten of them.
SPEAKER_00: I want to just come up on the screen.
SPEAKER_00: Let me just read the scriptures that go along with these.
SPEAKER_00: Power inside the believer because of the Spirit's indwelling presence.
SPEAKER_00: Number one, you got power over condemnation.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 1, there's therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Good news.
SPEAKER_00: That guilty feeling you got in the back of your head, not from Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: There's no condemnation.
SPEAKER_00: It's unbelievable power.
SPEAKER_00: He says in verses two, verse two, you got power over the law that God has sent his son to fulfill the requirements of the law, to give you power over sin and flesh.
SPEAKER_00: Verses six through eight, we've read, but I want to read it again.
SPEAKER_00: This is what he's freed us from.
SPEAKER_00: He's given us power to please God.
SPEAKER_00: For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the spirit is life and peace.
SPEAKER_00: See how it's about life and death?
SPEAKER_00: Peace or anxiety?
SPEAKER_00: War within your soul?
SPEAKER_00: For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law.
SPEAKER_00: Indeed, it cannot.
SPEAKER_00: Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
SPEAKER_00: And then he says, You, however, you can please God.
SPEAKER_00: That's unbelievable power.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not talking about power.
SPEAKER_00: You go around and you're just pointing at people and they're raising from the dead and you're just waving your coat and people fly over.
SPEAKER_00: That's not power.
SPEAKER_00: It's just power to pray, power to please God.
SPEAKER_00: I now get to be obedient to him.
SPEAKER_00: That inside of me, this Holy Spirit has changed me so much from the inside out that now all I want to do is love him.
SPEAKER_00: That's power.
SPEAKER_00: Power over death, we've talked about, power to wage war against sin and flesh, we've talked about, power to be adopted by God.
SPEAKER_00: I just got to read that because it's too good not to.
SPEAKER_00: For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 15 for you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received the spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, Abba, Father.
SPEAKER_00: The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.
SPEAKER_00: And if children, then heirs, and heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him, in order that we may also be glorified with him.
SPEAKER_00: Power to pray, power for courage during witness.
SPEAKER_00: He didn't give you a spirit of timidity.
SPEAKER_00: Didn't give you a spirit of slavery or of fear.
SPEAKER_00: And that you feel those things when you're going out to be a witness.
SPEAKER_00: Slavery, fear, timidities in 2 Timothy.
SPEAKER_00: You receive the spirit of adoption, that you have been accepted fully and wholeheartedly by the God of the universe.
SPEAKER_00: So why fear someone else?
SPEAKER_00: An unbelievable promise of the power of the Spirit inside the life of a believer.
SPEAKER_00: Spiritual life, it's not just about praying.
SPEAKER_00: It's not just about giving.
SPEAKER_00: It's a lot of those things.
SPEAKER_00: It's all those things.
SPEAKER_00: It's also about realizing that Spirit has made you alive to want to do any of it.
SPEAKER_00: And he gives you life and he all of a sudden plants himself in your heart, resurrects your heart, takes the stone out, puts the flesh in, and now all of a sudden you got resurrection power in you that you're able to do at least nine things just out of Romans 8 that you were never able to do before.
SPEAKER_00: I was telling him about praying.
SPEAKER_00: I said, Man, you I love that you're so honest.
SPEAKER_00: I said, I know you'll be honest about your faith.
SPEAKER_00: I said, You guys, I've been down to the Hindu temple at feeding time.
SPEAKER_00: The doors are closed to the idols that are inside because they're eating lunch.
SPEAKER_00: Because someone has preserved for them and made for them a full meal.
SPEAKER_00: I said, you guys go and serve idols.
SPEAKER_00: I said, but the reality is, Christianity is the only religion in the world where God has come to serve us.
SPEAKER_00: And dying on the cross, giving us new life.
SPEAKER_00: That's what we say in baptism.
SPEAKER_00: That's what Kenneth said last week in baptism.
SPEAKER_00: I baptize you now, my little son, name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit, buried with Christ in baptism, raised to walk right now in newness of life, not just in the forever, but in the right now.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, man, prayer can be so much more than just going to an idol behind a cage and giving your food, going, please, please.
SPEAKER_00: I used to wear a cross and I don't wear it anymore, but I used to wear a cross.
SPEAKER_00: And I get pulled over, I'd be like, all right, Lord, help me out.
SPEAKER_00: Get me out of this.
SPEAKER_00: If I rub this hard enough, not only the silver will be better, but I'm gonna get out of this ticket.
SPEAKER_00: That's what prayer is, apart from the power of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: It's just a rabbit's foot.
SPEAKER_00: But instead, it's this beautiful, intimate, Abba father, son relationship.
SPEAKER_00: You're just walking down the road and asking him, What are you up to today, Lord?
SPEAKER_00: What do you want me to do?
SPEAKER_00: Doctor?
SPEAKER_00: Cool.
SPEAKER_00: He's gonna stick around and ask a cool question?
SPEAKER_00: All right.
SPEAKER_00: What do you want me to say to him?
SPEAKER_00: Because I don't have anything.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, didn't teach a class today.
SPEAKER_00: I got all that.
SPEAKER_00: All right, here we go.
SPEAKER_00: What does it look like for you?
SPEAKER_00: Whether you're a teacher or a doctor or an accountant, God help you.
SPEAKER_00: Whatever you're doing tomorrow, what does it look like to have the spirit in your spiritual life?
SPEAKER_00: What does it look like?
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: God of heaven, we are thankful for this unbelievable gift of the spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Unbelievable promise that you've come to live in us.
SPEAKER_00: And so as Ross plays, we just uh we want to be attentive to your spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And there's I'm not foolish enough to think that there's not there's people in here that don't have the spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And so perhaps because they don't believe in the sun, or they've perhaps fallen victim to the same thing I fell victim to, and that was I thought I believed in the sun, but truly had never understood what that meant.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, if you're drawing and you're calling, uh, we want to be available for them after the service, and so we will be, but would you just speak loud and clear, with an undeniable voice and clarity to that person, to that non-believer, and to us believers, God, what does it look like to listen?
SPEAKER_00: What does it look like to obey?
SPEAKER_00: What does it look like to put to death whatever sin we've got?
SPEAKER_00: Not that there's not a struggle, there's a struggle, but we fight it with resurrection power.
SPEAKER_00: God is.
SPEAKER_00: We sit and listen.
SPEAKER_00: We ask for your mercy and your voice to hit our heart.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus said this if you love me, you'll keep my commandments.
SPEAKER_00: And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another helper, to be with you forever.
SPEAKER_00: Even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him.
SPEAKER_00: But you know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.
SPEAKER_00: I will not leave you as orphans.
SPEAKER_00: I will come to you.
SPEAKER_00: Point us home, God.
SPEAKER_00: We'll follow you.
SPEAKER_00: Kicking and screaming, maybe, but we'll follow you.
SPEAKER_00: We trust you in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: If you could, would you rise to your feet?
SPEAKER_00: Let me speak a word of blessing over you.
SPEAKER_00: Hold your hands out like this.
SPEAKER_00: May you be strengthened with his glorious might for all endurance and patience and joy.
SPEAKER_00: For he has transferred you from the dominion of darkness to the kingdom of light, the kingdom of his son Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Go live as transferred people in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.