Sunday Sermon: The Spirit Gives Life, Part 1 (Romans 8:9-11)

You're listening to the preaching ministry of Gabriel Hughes, pastor of Providence Reformed Baptist Church in Casa Grande, Arizona.

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday on this podcast we feature teaching through a New Testament book, an

Old Testament book on Thursday and our Q &A on Friday. Each Sunday we are pleased to present our sermon series.

Here is Pastor Gabe. Well good morning again. Open in your

Bible if you would please to Romans chapter 8 as we continue our series in the book of Romans.

Romans chapter 8. We're in our study of Romans thus far. We're coming up on a year now that we've been in this book.

We have heard about our condemnation in chapters 1, 2 and 3.

We've heard about the way that God provided a solution to our condemnation in chapters 4, 5, 6 and 7.

And then it comes to this statement at the start of chapter 8 which we've considered the last couple of weeks. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

And as we go through chapter 8 we read of the ministry of the Holy Spirit that ministers to us in understanding that there is no condemnation.

And who is there to condemn? That statement of condemnation comes at the beginning and the end of that chapter with first of all

Paul saying there is no condemnation and then asking this question toward the end. So therefore who is there to condemn?

A rhetorical question that we may know no one. For in Christ Jesus we are reconciled to God.

Let's read this morning picking up where we left off. We're in Romans chapter 8 verses 9 through 11.

In honor of the word of the King would you please stand. Romans chapter 8 beginning in verse 9. Hear the word of the

Lord. You however are not in the flesh but in the

Spirit. If in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you, anyone who does not have the

Spirit of Christ does not belong to Him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the

Spirit is life because of righteousness. 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. You may be seated as we pray.

Heavenly Father we come back to this chapter again today where we hear so much of the

Spirit's work in the lives of believers. Later on as we go through chapter 8 we're even going to read of the weakness in our flesh.

We don't even know how to pray for what we ought because of how weak we are in the flesh. But it is the

Spirit who intercedes for us on our behalf. We are weak even to understand and to grasp this glorious truth and wonderful promise that has been given to us in Christ.

That by grace we are saved through faith. And this is not our own doing, it is the gift of God.

How weak we can be to understand that sometimes. Even sympathizing with David in Psalm 13 who said,

How long O Lord are you going to forget me forever? This is David of whom the Lord said, This is a man after my own heart.

And even he struggled sometimes to find God in the midst of his circumstances. Yet when we are weak you are faithful to your promises.

And that in Christ Jesus there is no condemnation. You have not forgotten us, you have not abandoned us.

So even in those most difficult of circumstances, may your

Spirit minister to us reminding us of the truths that we have read in your word. And those things sustain us, sanctify us,

Lord save us. We ask these things in Jesus' name, Amen. It's in the very beginning of the

Bible, the first three verses in the Bible that we read. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

And the earth was formless and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep, and the

Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters. In verse 3 you know,

And God said, Let there be light, and there was light. We know from John 1,

Colossians 1, and Hebrews 1 that it was specifically the Son, the second person of the

Trinity, through whom God created all things. By Him all things were made.

And so when we read those words in Genesis 1 -3, Let there be light, it was the Son Himself, the pre -incarnate

Christ, who brought all things into existence by the speaking of a word.

But even creation itself was a Trinitarian work, for as we see there, even in the very beginning of the

Bible, the writer does not even wait or hesitate to introduce us to the Holy Spirit.

The Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

What does that mean? What does that look like? How do you paint it? I don't have any idea. But the

Holy Spirit of God was there and instrumental even in the work of all things being made from the very beginning of time itself.

That same Holy Spirit who in the work of God brought creation into existence is the same

Holy Spirit, brothers and sisters, that dwells in you and me this morning.

The same Spirit that brought all things to be is the

Spirit that brought us to Christ and will one day bring us into His presence in His Holy Throne Room in the

Kingdom of God forever. This is a particularly touching section for me this morning to be in.

As you've heard me say many times before, even before we got here, I've made constant references to Romans 8, 11.

There were so many different applications that my father gave to me of this particular verse that applied to the

Christian life, and I'll share some of those with you this morning. But what a glorious truth and hopeful promise for all of us, and I hope it encourages you this morning as well.

As we look at this passage together, just three verses today, so as a Baptist preacher, that's nice and simple, three verses,

I get to make three points out of that. So we have in verse 9, we come to understand the indwelling of the

Holy Spirit. In verse 10, life through the

Spirit. And then in verse 11, resurrection by the Spirit.

And all of this understanding the life we are given by the Holy Spirit of God, who has brought us from death to life, even as we have come to faith in Jesus Christ our

Savior. Remember what we read at the very beginning of Romans, that the just shall live by faith.

And it is the Spirit of God that has made us alive to even have this faith in Jesus Christ.

Let's come back again to verse 9. The Apostle Paul writes here, you, however, are not in the flesh but in the

Spirit. This is obviously a continuation of the previous statement where we finished last week. Paul said in verse 6, to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the

Spirit is life and peace. And note that when Paul mentions those things, he's not saying necessarily that that is the result, but that it is those things.

Once again, to set the mind on the flesh is death. Not the result will be death, although we certainly know that is the case.

For what was said in Romans 6 .23, the wages of sin is death. But that it is death itself.

When we are in the flesh, remember what Paul said in Ephesians 2 .1, we are dead in our sins and our transgressions in which we walk.

Not simply that we will die, although that is certainly the case, but that we are walking dead men and women.

Before we come to faith in Christ, our bodies may be alive, but our spirits are dead.

And if in that state we were to die, we would perish forever under the judgment of God. So to set the mind on the flesh is death.

It's that living in our dead sins and transgressions in which we once walked. But to set the mind on the

Spirit is life and peace. In the Spirit of God, we are no longer walking in those sins and transgressions.

But we are walking in new life in Christ, as we had read about at the beginning of chapter 6.

Verse 7, for the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law, indeed it cannot.

We couldn't even obey God's law if we wanted to, and you didn't even want to. Those who are in the flesh, it says in verse 8, cannot please

God. I asked my Bible class over at the

Christian school where I teach, I asked them this question. I said, does God hear everyone's prayers?

There were a various spattering of yeses and noes. One student said, well, He hears them, but He may not pay attention to or answer them.

And I said, okay, that's a good answer. What do you mean by that? And they said, well, you know, for example,

Muslims pray, and God is omnipresent, He is everywhere, so of course

He hears that prayer, but He doesn't listen to the prayer of a Muslim. And I said, very good, why doesn't

He listen to the prayer of a Muslim? That student so very keenly answered, because John 14, 6 says,

I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but by me.

There are many people who pray, in all sorts of manner, in all sorts of religion.

There are many people who will even say they pray in the name of Christ, and yet even their prayers are not answered.

For as David said in the Psalms, if I have cherished iniquity in my heart, you would not have heard my prayers. In love with their sin and walking in the flesh, it doesn't matter what they profess with their mouth, if it comes from a heart that is still invested in the sins and the passions of this world.

And so those who are in the flesh cannot please God. Though they may pray a prayer that would be unto

His name, but their heart is far from Him, as Jesus said of the Pharisees and the religious lot, who certainly gave service to God with their words, but their hearts were far from Him.

So it would be of every person whose heart is not for the Lord, but for their flesh and for the way of this world.

And so then in contrast to that, Paul says, here in verse nine, you, however, are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, qualifier, if in fact the spirit of God dwells in you.

You are not walking in your flesh. You do not have the desire of the flesh. You are not dead in your flesh, but you are alive in the spirit.

If the spirit of God dwells in you, you are alive.

There is no such thing as a Christian who does not have the Holy Spirit of God. If you are saved, you have the

Holy Spirit. The spirit was there working in you before you were even aware of the spirit's existence.

It is the spirit who changed the heart from a person who was rebellious against God and was going after all of these worldly ways and the passions of our flesh.

The spirit of God, when we heard the gospel, broke us open. As said in Ezekiel 36, took out that heart of stone, softened our hearts that we may hear of our sin and need for a

Savior, and we believed it. Why did you believe it, but the other guy next to you who didn't believe it, why was there such a difference?

Why did you believe and he did not, though you heard the same words? Because of God.

Because it was the Holy Spirit of God that brought you to an understanding of Jesus Christ our

Savior through the preaching of the gospel. And that spirit was working there before we even came to faith so that we may have faith and the

Spirit of God comes within us and dwells inside of us and wrecks that idle factory inside of us called the human heart.

Praise God he's still cleaning house in there. Because those who have the

Spirit of Christ belong to Him. Now this statement at the start of verse 9, you however are not in the flesh but in the

Spirit. Those three words, in the Spirit, have been so terribly abused in the history of the church, but we see it especially today in modern

American evangelicalism even throughout the world. The Spirit's role, presence or gifts have been misunderstood, misrepresented, manipulated in so many of today's evangelical churches.

What are some of those ways that the Holy Spirit has been so misused and misapplied in our world today?

Well number one we have the manipulation of the name of the Holy Spirit for personal gain.

There are church leaders or individuals who have falsely attributed their actions, teachings or agendas to the

Holy Spirit's authority to gain financial profit or influence. Or authority themselves.

This includes claiming divine inspiration for personal opinions or exploiting spiritual gifts like prophecy or healing for fame or money often without accountability or any kind of biblical grounding.

I was reading recently, well I read this a long time ago, but was quoting this recently about how many churches in America actually practice church discipline.

It is commanded by Christ in Matthew chapter 18. But how many churches actually practice it?

Believe it or not it was an article in the Wall Street Journal of all places that said less than 10 % of churches in America actually practice church discipline.

And when you think about that statistic and I think about my experience in many of those evangelical churches, most of the time when

I saw church discipline practiced when I was growing up, it was because somebody did not agree with the pastor's vision.

And so that person was disciplined and put out of the church because you're not going in the same direction that we're going so you can't be here.

You're disrupting the apple cart, so to speak. And that's not truly what is understood by the

Scriptures when it says if you see your brother in sin, confront him and bring him to correction.

It's not about the pastor casting vision and then following that vision. But there are many pastors who do it and they will try to qualify it or grant themselves authority simply by saying three words,

God told me. It is so unbelievably common.

If any of you follow my YouTube channel, you know I just did a video about a pastor just up the road from us, Mark Driscoll, who through his entire ministry has been establishing his authority on those three words.

God told me. God revealed this, God revealed that. Now sometimes when you're asking, okay, well what did

God tell you? And he will say, well God told me to plant churches. And you might think, well what's so wrong with that?

I mean why would God not tell somebody to go and plant churches? The problem there being, whatever church is planted is planted under his authority.

And if you disagree with something that's being done in that church, well it's the same as if you were to disagree with God himself.

That's how they establish their authority in that way. I can run this church whatever way I want because God told me to plant this church.

Stephen Furtick does the same thing in his sermons. One of the most watched preachers in America right now.

One of the largest churches with his main campus in Charlotte, North Carolina. He begins many, many sermons with God told me this word to give to you today.

And then, of course, anything you would disagree with in that particular sermon, well he's already qualified it and then you disagree with God.

And many preachers follow this same pattern. There are the new apostolic reformation -like churches that do all manner of charismatic nonsense and even preaching and asserting prophecy which they claim comes in the name of the

Lord. Bethel Church, one of the most largest Christian music producers in the world.

And yet, this is how they establish their teaching. By putting it on the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit gave us this to do this.

And if it's good, then it must be from the Holy Spirit. If you see people rejoicing in God and singing these songs, it has to be from the

Holy Spirit of God no matter how bad or bankrupt their theology might be. Other televangelists like Kenneth Copeland, Joel Osteen, Benny Hinn have made many false prophecies.

Trump's faith advisor, Paula White, has made all kinds of declarations in the

Holy Spirit of God which the Holy Spirit did not give her to say. This is one of the ways that manipulation for personal gain that the

Holy Spirit's name is used. A second way is an overemphasis on emotionalism and spectacle.

And I lived in this for over a decade. Attended charismatic churches from about the age of 18 to about 28 or 29 in which

I saw this all the time. In certain charismatic or revivalist movements, the

Holy Spirit's work has been reduced to emotional experiences, dramatic displays, or sensational phenomena.

Whether that's exaggerated claims of miracles or speaking in tongues, even making prophetic declarations.

And you may think that this is a deep sense of spirituality, but it's actually very shallow and divisive.

Just look at the church in Corinth when Paul confronted them in their misuse of spiritual gifts.

You probably could have walked into that church and seen all manner of miraculous spiritual gifts at work.

Speaking in tongues, actual speaking in tongues where they're speaking in other human languages. Healing people, making prophecies and these kinds of things.

You may have seen that demonstrated even in that church. And yet, the Apostle Paul said to them, if you don't have love, it means nothing.

And the church was deeply divided because they did not have at their foundation the love of Christ.

It didn't matter what other kinds of miraculous things you might have been able to observe among them.

To see the Holy Spirit truly at work was to see love and unity in the body.

The majesty of the Spirit's role in Christ's body is seen in a church that is growing in holiness, unity, and sound doctrine.

The Spirit's work for us is often very, very simple. I mean, it's huge when you think about it on a spiritual scale.

Because as we read here, you could not have accomplished this by your own flesh. It's only by the

Spirit of God that you even know the things of God according to His Word. But it's very simple in the fact that you don't have to see some sort of miraculous occurrence to know that the

Holy Spirit is there. The very power of God inside of you and working is manifest in the very fact that you desire holiness.

That you're convicted over your sin. That you desire the righteousness of Christ.

Why do you desire that? Because the power of the Holy Spirit is at work in you.

If we look around this body and we see unity among these people, why is that unity there?

Because we have the same power of the Holy Spirit working in all of us, brethren. When you love

God's Word and desire to grow in it, you even understand what you read. Or maybe this passage is confusing to me, so I'm going to go ask somebody to help me understand it.

And then you understand it all the more. Why is that there? And why do you have the ability to understand the deep truths of the

Creator who is so above and beyond us? You understand these things because of the

Holy Spirit of God at work in you. As Paul said to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 2, the naturally minded man can't understand the things of the

Spirit of God because they are spiritually discerned. And it is the

Holy Spirit that helps us discern those truths. And not just understand it, but love it and grow in it.

And that's that sanctifying power of God's Word that works through the

Spirit that is within us. A third way that the Holy Spirit is often abused is the neglect of His work or the suppression of His work.

I had somebody ask me recently, how do you know God's will? And I responded with 1

Thessalonians 5 .18. Give thanks in all circumstances for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.

I was astonished at their response. You mean you don't pray and ask for the

Holy Spirit to reveal to you what God wants you to do? Then how can you know the

Holy Spirit? How can you say you have a relationship with God? I couldn't get another word in edgewise, but if I could have been able to,

I would have said the very fact that I know that God's will for me is to give thanks to Him in all circumstances is the work of the

Holy Spirit in my heart. When things get troubled and weighed down and I'm burdened and I don't see the end of this, how in the world does anybody have the power to hit their knees and go,

God, thank You for this moment? It's because of the ministry of the

Holy Spirit in the hearts of believers. And when we think a simple thing like that is not

God's work, that is a neglect of the work of the Spirit in our hearts. And a lot of times when you see people making proclamations of the work of the

Holy Spirit, look at the Holy Spirit doing this, look at the Holy Spirit doing that. What they're actually doing, if you look beneath the surface, is denying and neglecting what

He's really doing. The ways that He really works in the hearts of the people who know

God and love Him and desire to obey Him. The Holy Spirit guides us into all truth, into sanctification, and into unity in the church.

Some of you are experiencing this right now, even this morning, where you go to a new church that you've never been to before, and it feels like I'm with family

I've always known. It's been that way for my family and I when we moved from Texas to here.

It felt like we were saying goodbye to one family and hello to another part of the family that we didn't spend as much time with until now.

How do we find that like that? Because we all have the same

Holy Spirit working within us. It crosses boundaries, state lines, national borders.

Some of you aren't even from America. And are here today and love the people of God because we have the same

Holy Spirit at work within us. What a wonderful work.

What an incredible thing to behold. And it so many times goes by we are noticing because we're so caught up in our own flesh.

We have our own expectations we want to see and have met. Instead of looking for the ways that God works according to His will.

So that's some of the ways that that phrase, in the Spirit, gets so abused.

But my friends, dread not. If you are in Christ Jesus, the Holy Spirit is with you always.

Even if you come into serious sin and you may think of yourself in the midst of that sin, how can God love me after this?

Would you pray with David? In Psalm 51? Take not your Holy Spirit from me.

That's because you have that yearning of the Holy Spirit within your heart that would beg God not to remove

His presence from you. The Spirit is at work in the hearts of believers.

And you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you.

Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to Him.

I was listening to R .C. Sproul on this particular verse and one of the things that he said was that there are four kinds of people when it comes to assurance of salvation.

When you're dealing with that subject in particular. How can I know that I am saved?

He said there are four kinds of people. There is that person who is not saved at all and they know that they're not saved.

Right? That's pretty much every unbeliever. I don't care for God. I don't care for this

Christian religion that you guys are following. I'm not saved. They know that they don't have

God and they know that they are not saved. There's that kind of person. On the other end of the spectrum is the person who knows

God and they know because of their faith in Christ Jesus that they are saved.

So there's the first two. The one who knows I'm not saved and I don't even care.

The other person who knows that they are saved. There's the first two. Then there's another person who is saved but doesn't know that they're saved.

Now let me qualify that. Because that doesn't mean a person in Timbuktu is just doing the best with what he has and so therefore he's a

Christian. That's not who I'm referring to. But that person who has heard the gospel and they yearn for it.

They long for it but they just can't settle themselves in their minds that I'm there.

I'm there finally. I know I'm saved. I know I'm guaranteed. I am sealed for eternity.

They're still wrestling with it. They are saved but they're struggling for that assurance.

They don't know that they are saved. Make sense? But then there's another person who is absolutely 100 % certain that I am saved and I'm going there brother.

And they're not. And their heart is actually far from God.

They say it with their lips but it's not really inside. And it's of this person that Jesus spoke of in Matthew chapter 7.

Many will come to me on that day and will say, Lord, Lord didn't we do all of these mighty works in your name?

And I will say to them, depart from me you worker of iniquity. I never knew you.

Those who were certain they had it but they had it their way and not

God's way. Anyone who does not have the

Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. What's the difference between the Spirit of Christ and the Holy Spirit? Same thing.

Whether we're saying Holy Spirit or we're saying Spirit of Christ, it is that third person of the Trinity.

The one whom Jesus said to his disciples in the upper room, I will send my

Holy Spirit to you. And saying also the Father will send him. And so here in this first verse, in verse 9, we have read of the indwelling of the

Spirit. And that's where I spend the most time this morning. These next points won't go nearly as long. But understanding first of all that we have the

Holy Spirit that dwells within us. And I hope you are assured of that and comforted of that.

What we have next in verse 10, but if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the

Spirit is life because of righteousness. And we read here of our life in the

Spirit. Now, there was a statement that Paul made about this even in the section that we looked at last week where he said that God has done what the law weakened by the flesh could not do by sending his own

Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh.

In order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not according to the flesh but according to the

Spirit. So now with the Holy Spirit of God dwelling within us, we can keep

God's word in such a way that is pleasing to God. Jesus said to his disciples in John 14 -15, you will show me that you love me when you obey my commandments.

As I've said many many times, obedience is not the way to God. Obedience is to show that we're already with God.

And now in Christ Jesus, here is how that manifests and plays itself out in our lives.

You are not justified by your works. You're justified by faith. But the person justified by faith will do good works.

That will be the outworking of the person who is justified by faith. And so in Christ Jesus, the

Spirit is life because of righteousness. Who's righteousness? God's righteousness or ours?

Yes. We would not have any righteousness to speak of if it were not for the righteousness of God that has been imputed to us by faith in Jesus Christ.

As Jesus said to the church in Laodicea in Revelation 3, buy from me white garments that the shame of your nakedness may be hidden.

We're talking about Christ's righteousness there, that we would wear and put on as if putting on a garment.

We wear His righteousness and then if you are in His righteousness, you will do His righteousness. And so whatever righteousness could be seen, demonstrated or acted out in your life is the outworking of that righteousness that you have been clothed in.

We will be judged by our works ladies and gentlemen. We will be. But our works will be the testimony of whether or not we were in Christ.

Do the works that you do show that you belonged to Christ Jesus. Then you will do what

God has commanded of us to do. I'm so grateful that this week, it was just yesterday as a matter of fact,

I was asked about this passage in 1 John 5. It brought it to my mind. I was like, I've got to include that in the sermon tomorrow.

Here's what we read in 1 John 5. This is He who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ.

Not by the water only, but by the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one who testifies because the

Spirit is the truth. For there are three that testify, the Spirit and the water and the blood.

And these three agree. If we receive the testimony of men, the testimony of God is greater.

For this is the testimony of God that He has born concerning His Son.

So what do we understand there by this testimony of the Spirit and the water and the blood? The reference to the water there is a reference to Christ's baptism.

I talked to you last week about the active and the passive obedience of Christ. His active obedience is living

His life in obedience to the Father. His passive obedience, submitting to the

Father's will that He would die on the cross for our sins. In His active obedience, and we receive both when we come to faith in Christ.

Because again, you could not do good things if not for the righteousness of God that had been given to you.

And so in His life, we are clothed in His righteousness. We receive both

His active and His passive obedience whenever we come to Christ in faith. So a reference to the water here is actually a reference to His active obedience.

His baptism. His baptism by John. And then the blood, a reference to His passive obedience,

His death on the cross for our sins. And these things testify

Christ really lived and He really died. But just knowing those things would not be enough if not for the

Holy Spirit of God. You could give mental assent to saying, yeah,

I believe there was a guy named Jesus who lived and died, but it means nothing to you and to your salvation unless the

Holy Spirit in your heart has made it real to you and applied it to you.

So that you have applied to you both the life and the death of Jesus Christ our

Savior. These three testify. The Spirit and the water and the blood.

And so with that understanding again, we read that if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the

Spirit is life because of righteousness. My friends, when you came to faith in Jesus Christ, you were redeemed.

But your body wasn't. You're redeemed, but your flesh wasn't.

If your flesh was, you'd be perfect. Are you perfect? Somebody better not have said yes.

Do you know where liars go? You would be immortal. Your body wouldn't die if your body had been redeemed.

The redemption of the body doesn't happen now. That happens later. That happens when we read, as in Philippians chapter 3, that God will transform our lowly bodies to be like His glorious body by the power that enables

Him to subject all things to Himself. A day will come when our lowly bodies will be risen from the dead and they will be made perfect like Christ's body is perfect, risen from the dead and He will never die again.

So if when we were in Romans chapter 7, when Paul is talking about the good things I want to do, that's not what

I keep on doing, but I keep doing the things that I don't want to do, that's what I keep going back to. Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death?

And you remember us reading that when we were in Romans 7, but then we get here to Romans chapter 8 and we're talking about the contrast between being in the flesh and being in the

Spirit, and now you find yourself going I still am drawn to this sin, I'm still tempted by this, and sometimes

I give in to it. Does that mean that I'm still in the flesh and not in the

Spirit of God? It might mean that. It could mean that. I don't want to take away from you that conviction if you need to be convicted over that.

But it also means you're still in unredeemed flesh. And we are going to wrestle and fight with these things until that day that we enter into glory with God our

Savior. We will continue to struggle, even in this flesh, with those temptations of Satan that attempt to ensnare us.

And so if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the body is corrupt, it's coming to corruption, it's going to die, it fails, it lets us down.

Some of you are feeling that this morning. My back hurts. Amen, Brother Mike. My back hurts.

My legs hurt. My legs are falling asleep. I'm sitting here so long. It's hot in here. It's cramped in here. You know, our physical limitations can work against us in so many different ways.

We know the body is coming to corruption. We know we're going to die. You feel that in your bones every day.

You know your body is not redeemed yet. But our souls have been brought to life in Christ Jesus, and the

Spirit is life because of the righteousness of Christ that has been given to us by His Spirit.

Now I'm coming up to the end of my time. And I said to you regarding verse 11, that we have so much here and so much application that I want to give, and I don't want to rush it.

I really don't. There's so much good stuff here in verse 11. And so the third point is going to have to be my sermon for next week.

Amen! Okay. We got an amen on that one. But let me give you a teaser on verse 11.

And this will wrap up what we've considered today and also prepare us to come to the Lord's table this morning.

We read in verse 11, 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.

Go with me back to the beginning. Back to the beginning of the sermon, back to the beginning of time.

The Holy Spirit was there, hovering over the surface of the waters when God said, Let there be light, and there was light.

The Holy Spirit, instrumental even in the creation of all things. And the

Holy Spirit, instrumental in the re -creation of you from a dead sinner to a living saint.

And the Holy Spirit who brought Jesus Christ back from the dead is the same

Holy Spirit that lives in your heart and will bring you back from the dead also.

Have you ever wanted to be there in Jerusalem on that day when the tomb broke open and Jesus came out?

Do you realize the same Holy Spirit that worked that incredible miracle on that day that's been for your redemption, for your justification as we read in Romans chapter 4, is the same

Holy Spirit that dwells in you now. That has brought you to Christ and will with Christ even bring you back from the dead.

And my friends, when we know that, rest your heart on that promise and how minuscule will all of the other problems that you're dealing with this week or from now on look to you in light of this incredible promise that we have in Christ Jesus in the ministry of His Holy Spirit in our hearts.

You will rise from the dead. Be encouraged and may your hearts be uplifted in Christ.

We are promised life from death because Jesus died for us.

Because He rose again from the dead. So that all who believe in Him will not perish under the judgment of God, but we will have everlasting life.