Romans Chapter 8

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Romans Chapter 9

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Alright guys, take out your Bibles and turn to Romans chapter 8.
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Alright, for those of you who don't know me, my name is Keith.
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I'm the pastor of Sovereign Grace Family Church.
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I come in every Thursday at 9.45 and I teach from the Bible.
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Now, I had been teaching a series on systematic theology, and I stopped that several months ago, and we began to teach a chapter-by-chapter study of the book of Romans.
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And so, if you have not been here, today is Romans 8.
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And so, if you're brand new, you missed chapters 1-7, that's fine.
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But understand that all of the Bible fits within a context, and so understanding where we are in chapter 8 is predicated on understanding what happened in Romans 1-7.
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So very quickly, let me give you a very brief overview.
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In chapters 1-3, the Apostle Paul is discussing the Gospel and how the Gospel relates to sinful man and a holy God.
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God is holy, man is sinful, and Paul describes man in chapters 1, 2, and 3 as being completely sinful and opposed to God.
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He says in the middle of chapter 3, he says that he has convicted both Jew and Greek, that all are under sin, no one is good, no, not one, there's none who understands, there's none who seeks after God.
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And then he begins to explain the doctrine of justification.
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How can this sinful, unrighteous, wretched man be made right with a holy and righteous God? And the only way is through Jesus Christ who came, who died on the cross to take the punishment that men deserve and to give them His righteousness.
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And we call this the Great Exchange, whereby Christ receives the punishment we deserve and gives us the righteousness that only He possesses.
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In chapters 5, he rounds us out with the statement about us having peace with God.
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He says, therefore, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ by faith, having been justified by faith.
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And he goes through the relationship between Adam and Christ showing that Adam is the representative of all mankind.
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When he sinned, he sinned on behalf of all mankind and therefore brought all mankind into condemnation.
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But Christ, through His one act of righteousness, dying on the cross, brought those who believe in Him into a state of justification.
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Then he gets to chapter 6 and he asks this question, well, based upon all this, can we continue to sin? If we've been justified by faith, if we've been justified by Christ, does it matter what we do? Can we continue in sin that grace can abound? And the answer was, absolutely not.
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That does not give us a license to sin.
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If we have been saved by Christ and filled with the Spirit, then we should walk by faith and not seek to satisfy the desires of the flesh.
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Chapter 7 deals with the law and how the law affects the believer.
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And then we get to chapter 8 and chapter 8 is going to be our study for today.
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And I want to say a few things and then we're going to read and then we're going to pray.
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When we talk about Romans chapter 8, Romans chapter 8 has been considered by many scholars to be the greatest chapter in the whole Bible.
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And the reason why is because Romans chapter 8 describes in explicit detail the blessings of what it means to be a member of God's family and a person who is filled with God's Spirit.
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One author said it like this.
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He said if you consider the Bible a ring, like a ring that you wear on your finger, he said Romans would be the jewel of the ring and Romans 8 would be the sparkling point of the jewel.
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Romans 8 then considered again by many to be one of the greatest chapters in the Bible.
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It begins with no condemnation, it ends with no separation.
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And throughout the chapter we are reminded of the blessing of being a part of the family of God.
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So I'm excited to read this and to study it with you and to share its contents because I think it's one of the greatest chapters in the whole Bible.
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So let's read.
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Beginning in verse 1 it says, There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
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For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.
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For 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.
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For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.
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For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.
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For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, it does not submit to God's law, indeed it cannot.
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Those who are of the flesh cannot please God.
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You, however, are not in the flesh but are in the Spirit.
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If in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you, anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to Him.
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But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness.
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If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Jesus Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through the Spirit who dwells in you.
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So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh to live according to the flesh, for if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if you by the Spirit put to death the deeds of the body you will live.
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For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.
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For you did not receive the Spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry, Abba, Father.
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The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ pervaded we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him.
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For I consider the present sufferings are not worthy to be compared to the glory that is to be revealed to us.
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For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.
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For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.
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For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.
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And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly, and we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.
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For in this hope we were saved.
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Now hope that is seen is not hope, for who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.
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Likewise, the Spirit helps us in our weakness.
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For we do not know what to pray as we ought, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.
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And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
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We know that for those who love God, all things work together for good.
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For those who are called according to His purpose, for those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son in order that He might be the firstborn among many brothers.
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And those whom He predestined, He also called.
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Those whom He called, He also justified.
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Those whom He justified, He also glorified.
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What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies.
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Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died.
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More than that, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, and who indeed intercedes for us.
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Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword, as it is written, for your sake we are being killed all the day long.
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We are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.
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No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.
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For I am certain that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
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Let's pray.
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Father, as I seek to give an understanding of your word, I pray first, as I always do, that you would keep me from error.
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For Lord, I am a fallible man, incapable of preaching error, and I pray that you would keep me from that for the sake of these men, for the sake of your name, and for the sake of my conscience.
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I pray, Lord, for the men under the sound of my voice, that they would hear the truth of the word and be moved by them.
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If they are believers, Lord, that they would be moved to a deeper walk in their faith.
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And Lord, if they are yet to believe, I pray that today would be the day that they would bow the knee to Christ.
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Lord, I pray that you would be glorified in what is going to be preached, and I pray that they would be edified by your word.
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And I pray, Lord, help me to give a right understanding of what you have said in your word.
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In Christ's name, amen.
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One of the most precious promises that anyone could ever receive is the promise of absolution.
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Absolution being the idea that we have been forgiven completely of a particular crime or sin that we have committed.
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Imagine there's someone in your life that you have hurt, or someone in your life that you have offended, sinned against, and you go to this person and you plead with them for their forgiveness, and they give you that forgiveness completely, and they no longer hold to your account the record of your offense.
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It's a wonderful thing, isn't it? I mean, many times have I been in situations where I have been the guilty party, whether it is with my words or with my deeds, and I have said things or done things that have hurt people, and I've had people say to me, Keith, I forgive you.
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And in that moment, especially if you know they're being genuine, they're not doing it to manipulate you, or they're not doing it to build themselves up or to express some form of pride, but they truly do forgive you.
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And in that moment of forgiveness, where you had been rightfully condemned for what you had done, because what you had done was wrong.
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You're not justifying yourself.
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You're not saying it was right.
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You know it was wrong.
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And the person has given you forgiveness based not because you're deserving of forgiveness, but because they chose in their mercy to forgive you and to not hold that record of wrong against you.
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That moment is sweet.
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That moment is joyous.
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And the reconciliation that comes in that relationship is beautiful.
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Because what was divided by pain, what was divided by hurt, what was divided by sin, has been washed away, and now you are embraced.
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I think of the picture of the prodigal son's father.
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You remember the prodigal son is in the pig slop, and he remembers that his father is a kind man, and he says, you know, my father's servants live better than this.
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And he gets up and he goes home, and what does the father do? He sees his son from afar off.
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He runs to him, and he embraces him, and he kisses him, and he puts a ring on his finger, and he reestablishes their relationship, and he's whole.
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There was a song years ago.
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I don't remember who sang it.
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It was a Christian song on the radio.
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It was called Mercy Came Running.
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Mercy came running like a prisoner set free.
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I don't remember the words, but I just remember that phrase.
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Mercy came running.
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And I always think about that with the father of the prodigal son.
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Here comes the young man, and the father doesn't sit on his porch with a highfalutin attitude.
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Oh, here comes that fool back to grovel.
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No, he hikes up his tunic because noble men did not run.
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That was just something that was not done in the first century, and they wore garments that actually made it difficult to run.
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And if they had to run or go into battle, they had to hold up their garments or do what was called girding up their loins which was tying it up so that they could run.
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As you can imagine, this noble man who obviously has power and affluence in his community, he's holding up his skirt as it were, running to his son in mercy, in love.
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Embraces him, kisses him, reestablishes their relationship and reconfirms him, not as a slave, but as a son.
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Beautiful picture, right? And what's important about that parable is that that is the picture of the person who comes to God in faith in Christ, that God receives them in mercy and establishes them not as a slave, but as a son.
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The Bible says we've been adopted into the family of God.
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We're no longer slaves of sin, but we are now children of God.
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And therefore, when we see this passage in Romans 8.1, it should remind us that this is no small thing.
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This is the greatest blessing in the whole world.
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There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
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There is now no condemnation.
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Again, I can't stress it enough that we're not waiting to be justified, but we are justified.
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Remember Romans 5.1? Having been justified by faith.
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What is that? What tense? Past tense.
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We have been justified.
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Having been justified by faith, we have peace with God.
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And so here he says there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
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As I said, this is a beautiful chapter because it begins with a beautiful reminder.
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And the reminder is all seven chapters that came before this.
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Man is sinful.
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God has justified.
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Adam brought death.
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Christ brought life.
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Don't use grace as a license for sin.
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All of these things have been building up to a crescendo moment where Paul says to us, there is now no condemnation.
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If you think about what he just said in chapter 7, go back up to chapter 7 and look at verse 24.
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He says this question.
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He says, wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord, so then I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh the law of sin.
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He's talking about himself as being a wretched man.
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And he says, even though I'm a wretched man, I'm in Christ.
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And in Christ, there's no condemnation.
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Even though I deserve hell.
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And I do think a lot of people disagree with this, but I'll take it for what it's worth.
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I do think that it's almost impossible for a person to truly understand the weight of God's grace unless they understand the weight of condemnation that they were under when they were outside of God's grace.
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Because we have to understand what we deserve to truly understand what we've been forgiven of.
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If we think ourselves to be righteous or good or worthy, then we don't understand grace.
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But when we understand that we're wretched and depraved and sinful, then we understand that this God who saved us has saved us from condemnation and given us now a position where there is no condemnation.
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There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
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Now, some of your Bibles will add this phrase, who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the spirit.
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That is a textual variation there.
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And I don't really have time to get into what that means, but it simply refers to certain manuscripts having a line and certain manuscripts not having a line, and therefore there are debates as to which manuscripts are the ones that should be used.
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And please don't let that call into question the integrity of Scripture.
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We have more manuscripts of the Bible and the New Testament Scriptures than any other manuscript from the ancient world.
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We have thousands and thousands and thousands of handwritten manuscripts that date all the way back into the second century.
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And so when we see every once in a while a line or something where there's a question about how something was written or how something was expressed, we have to understand that's the nature of handwritten manuscripts.
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And that doesn't mean that we can't trust what is said.
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It just means we have to investigate.
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And I'm of the mind that that particular line is not necessarily authentic or part of the original, but it's still true.
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Because when we are in Jesus Christ, we are to walk by the Spirit.
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Amen? So it's not as if it's not true.
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And it does go along with what He says next.
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And that's what we're going to do now.
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We're going to look at verse 2.
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He says, For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ from the law of sin and death.
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For God has done what the law, that being the law of Moses, weakened by the flesh could not do.
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Now what could the law not do? I've said this before.
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I'll give you 100 cool points if you can tell me.
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What could the law not do? Save.
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Thank you.
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There's 100 cool points for everybody.
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They don't mean anything.
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The law cannot save.
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The flesh, one, will not keep the law.
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The flesh is opposed to God and His law.
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But also, the law's intention was not to save.
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According to Scripture, the law had a purpose.
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The law was the schoolmaster to lead us to Christ.
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It was to show us our sin.
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And Paul tells us in Romans 7, which we studied last week, I wouldn't even have known covetousness if the law had not said not covet.
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But when the law said not covet, I became even more covetous.
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Because the law, it condemned me and showed me how bad of a covetor, not right word, a covetous person I was.
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So the law doesn't save.
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The law condemns.
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And so this is Paul's point.
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He says God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do.
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See, the law can't save.
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But what did God do? Look at the rest of verse 3.
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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.
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You see, God sent Christ into the world.
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And guess what Christ did? Christ actually fulfilled the law.
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Now that, to me, is mind-boggling.
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I've said it before.
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Christ went 33 years without sin.
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I can't go 33 minutes.
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I mean, He, 33 years, He had siblings.
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Part of my sinful life is because I got siblings.
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You know? I got 5 kids and one on the way.
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That's why I won't be here next week.
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If the baby ain't here by Tuesday, they're going to induce.
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So we'll have a baby by Tuesday.
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Win, lose, or draw.
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Thank you.
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And this is number 6.
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This is Theodore.
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He's our miracle baby.
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We're 42.
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My wife and I, both.
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I have to scrub that from the recording.
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She won't want me to put that out.
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But we are well past where we thought we were going to have any more children.
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We're going to have this little baby.
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And I can already know that his other siblings are going to bring about the stress of sin in his life.
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Because they bring about the stress of sin in each other's life.
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My little one.
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I have a 5-year-old.
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She went to my dad yesterday.
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My other two were at school.
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While she was at my dad's, her grandmother gave her a stethoscope.
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A little plastic stethoscope.
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That stethoscope became the moment of contention in my house because she was the only one who had it.
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Grandma didn't buy three stethoscopes.
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She bought one.
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So the other two, I want a stethoscope too! And now they're yanking, pulling.
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I want to hear my heart.
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And they all just demonstrate in their depravity.
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Little vipers in a diaper.
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That's a little baby demonstrating their sin.
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But Christ lived 33 years.
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Never sinned.
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He had siblings.
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He had a mama.
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He had a daddy.
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We don't know how long Joseph lived because the text doesn't tell us anything after Jesus' 12th birthday about Joseph.
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So we don't know how long Joseph lived.
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But he did have a daddy.
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He had all the things we have in the sense of community, people.
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And he never sinned.
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And he condemned sin in his flesh.
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He condemned sin in his flesh by not sinning.
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He showed what it was to be a true man.
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See, Adam was supposed to be that man.
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And the sense of Adam was created with no sin.
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And Adam was supposed to represent all mankind by obeying God and being that man.
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But instead, he represents all mankind by sinning, eating of the fruit he wasn't supposed to eat, and becoming a rebel against the Holy God.
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And Jesus comes as the second and last Adam to do what Adam couldn't do.
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Adam brought sin into the world.
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Christ shows righteousness to the world and demonstrates that righteousness by condemning sin in His flesh.
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He came in the likeness of flesh, but He didn't live like a fleshly man.
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He lived as a godly man in an ungodly world.
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And by doing so, He shows us what it means to be a true man.
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God did what the law weakened by the flesh could not do by sending His Son.
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And the likeness of sinful flesh.
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And He condemned sin in the flesh.
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But then it goes on, verse 4, "...in order that..." This is the purpose of that.
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"...the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit." See, because of what Christ has done and because of our justification and because we have been given forgiveness and we are now no longer condemned, we now have the call to live like Christ.
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That's the call of the believer.
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Here is your Captain.
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Captain Jesus.
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And He is the one who shows you how to live.
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He is the one who gives you the way.
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This is why He says, I am the way, the truth, and the life.
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He is the way to live.
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In fact, I want to just jump down very quickly and show you something very quickly.
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Notice it says in verse 29, "...for those whom He foreknew, He predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son." You know, I'm not going to get into predestination a lot today.
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That's a long topic that would take us off course.
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But I will say this.
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Your salvation, your predestination, your election has been given for the purpose not just to go to heaven, but to be conformed to the image of Christ.
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You were predestined to be conformed to the image of Christ.
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See, people always talk about election and predestination and all that, about heaven.
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And it is true that those who are foreknown are predestined and will be in heaven.
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But let me tell you this.
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You have not been saved just to go to heaven.
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But you have been saved to be conformed to the image of your Captain.
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Your Captain is the leader that you are called to follow.
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And we have been predestined to be conformed to His image.
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People miss this all the time.
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But do you understand that you have been called not to live for yourself, but to live for Him? And you've been called not to live to your own desires, but to live to the desires of Him who saved you.
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What does it mean to be conformed to His image? It means to be like Him.
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To be sanctified.
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Very good.
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That's the right theological term.
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To be conformed to His image means to be sanctified.
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In fact, that's the way I define sanctification.
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It's the process by which we are conformed to the image of Christ.
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And that's absolutely true.
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Absolutely true.
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Now, getting back to the beginning of chapter 8.
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Beginning of verse 5, He begins to distinguish between those who are in the flesh and those who are in the Spirit.
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And I'm going to use the board for a second.
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Just for a moment, I want us to kind of create a chart in our mind.
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And we can look it on the board.
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Notice He says, For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.
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Alright, so first of all, there's an issue of the mind.
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Alright? And He gives it both.
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He says those who live according to the flesh, their mind is on the flesh.
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And those who live according to the Spirit, their mind is on the Spirit.
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Now, what is it talking about when it talks about the Spirit? I am convinced, because by the way, the word Spirit, the word penuma in the Greek, is used over 30 times in this chapter.
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And almost every time, it's referring to God's Holy Spirit who comes to live within us when we believe.
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And I do believe that what it's saying is those people who do not have the Spirit in them yet, because they're not believers, then their mind is set on fleshly things.
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But those who have the Spirit within them, because they have been born again and the Spirit now has made an abode within them, and I know it's not here, but the idea of being in our heart, is that their minds have now been changed.
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By the way, what does the word repentance mean? Change of mind, right? That's the metanoia.
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It means the changing of the mind.
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And the first thing that changes is I go from being an unbeliever to a believer.
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That's the first act of repentance.
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I repent of unbelief and I become a believer.
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But then my mind is continually changed to think about what the Spirit would have me do rather than what my flesh wants to do.
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And that's the picture that we're given in Scripture, is that we have a new mind.
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In fact, we're told in Romans 12, what? That we are to be transformed by the renewal of our mind.
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Our mind is to be transformed, not to be conformed to this world, but to be conformed to who? Christ.
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All right.
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So he says, For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh.
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Those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.
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Now, here's where we're going to continue with our chart.
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For to set the mind on the flesh is death.
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But to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.
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All right.
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So right away, he's making a distinction, and I would say he's making a distinction between, and there's different ways of saying this.
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We could say the saved or the unsaved.
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We could say the regenerate or the unregenerate.
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We could say the believer or the unbeliever.
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So we're just going to say here, we're going to say this is the unsaved man.
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And I'll prove this in a minute, but I do believe this is referring to the unsaved man.
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And this is the saved man.
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And like I said, I'm going to make the argument in a moment.
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But look with me, just continue.
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He says, for to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.
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For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God.
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This is key, because I want you to just think back to Romans 5.1.
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Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have what? Peace.
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Peace.
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No, that was 8.1.
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5.1 is peace, right? So what does the unbeliever have? Hostility.
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Hostility.
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What does the believer have? Peace.
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So you see the distinction.
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The distinction is between those who are hostile to God.
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You ever met somebody who was really hostile to God? Every unbeliever.
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And you might not think that.
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Every unbeliever is hostile to God, and here's how I prove it.
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You talk to the unbeliever about God.
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Some people say, yeah, I understand God, I'm cool with God, man upstairs, whatever.
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Start talking to them about the true God.
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The God who condemned sin.
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The God who killed every man, woman, and child except for eight in the flood.
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The God who sent fire on Sodom and Gomorrah and burned them to death and left Lot's wife in a pile of salt.
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You talk to them about that God, they'll quickly become hostile.
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Talk to them about the God who tells them that abortion is murder and that homosexuality is an abomination.
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Yeah, they're going to become hostile real fast.
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You see, that's the thing.
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They're not hostile to the God of culture.
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They're hostile to the God of the Bible.
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The unbeliever, unsaved man, is always hostile to God when they're introduced to the true God.
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I've told this story a thousand times, I'll tell it again.
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That lady in Kmart that I gave the track to.
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You remember? I gave her the track.
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I go look at shoes.
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She walks up to me, puts the track in my hand.
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I don't want this.
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Don't you want to know why I don't want it? I know why you don't want it.
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You're hostile to God.
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I know why you don't want to read the gospel track.
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You don't like God.
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Well, my goddess wouldn't send anyone to hell.
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That's true.
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Your goddess don't exist.
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You done made her up in your own mind.
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You don't like the God who does exist, so you made up a God that satisfies you.
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You see, unbelievers are not opposed to the idea of a God who blesses them, but they want to be blessed on their own terms.
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They want to be blessed in their way according to their rules.
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And when God, the true God, the God of Israel, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God who sent his son into the world, Jesus Christ, when he comes along and starts making the rules, they don't like that.
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They're hostile to God.
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So all unbelievers are hostile to God.
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In one sense or another, they have hostility.
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And that's what he says.
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He says, For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God.
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And notice the next, this actually, I'm going to do a little extension off the bottom.
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It does not submit to God's law.
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And then the next thing it says, it cannot submit.
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This is key.
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It cannot.
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Notice what it says.
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It says, it does not submit to God's law.
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Indeed, it cannot.
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And then verse 8, those in the flesh cannot please God.
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They cannot please God.
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People get offended when I say this, so hold on before anybody throws anything at me.
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I ain't wearing my armor today.
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People will say sometimes, they'll ask me, well, when an unbeliever does something good, does it please God? Here's what I say.
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Again, think with me.
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Don't get mad at me.
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Think with me.
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An unbeliever can do things that are socially good.
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They can do things that are humanly righteous.
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But that doesn't mean those things please God, because they're still doing them in unbelief, because they're an unbeliever.
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And the Bible says, that which is not of faith is what? Sin.
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So even when the philanthropist billionaire pays for thousands of people to be able to eat, from a human perspective, we'd say that's a good thing.
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But if he's doing it in unbelief, he's still doing it in hostility to God.
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And therefore, it's still not pleasing God.
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Go ahead.
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I would say he's not glorifying God in that either.
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That's right.
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He's not doing it for the glory of God.
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I would agree.
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1 Corinthians 10 31, do everything that you do to the glory of God.
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And when we don't do these things to the glory of God, again, it's not for that purpose.
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And he might not be doing it.
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Some people do it selfishly.
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Some people do it because they want to be known.
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And some people genuinely just want other people to be fed.
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So I wouldn't say it's always because he's selfish or whatever prideful, but he's not doing it to glorify God.
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And therefore, he's not doing it for the ultimate reason.
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Yeah, and I agree.
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Yes, sir.
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So basically what you're saying is if somebody is in unbelief, then anything they do is a sin.
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Yeah, but let me back that up.
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What I'm saying is everything they're doing is in unbelief, and it's not pleasing to God.
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Now, we do have to differentiate between breaking God's law and not breaking God's law.
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For instance, let's say a man marries.
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He's an unbeliever.
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He marries a woman.
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He lives 30 years.
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He never commits adultery.
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Well, then I wouldn't call him an adulterer because he didn't break God's law on adultery.
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Right? But did he live his marriage to glorify God? No.
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So in that sense, I could say it still wasn't pleasing to God because he wasn't doing it to glorify God.
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And in that sense, I would say yes, but he didn't commit the sin of adultery, but he is sinning in the sense of not glorifying God.
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So it's difficult when you say everything they do is sin.
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But again, you have to come back to that which is not of faith.
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It's sin.
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In that sense, it's not meeting the mark.
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The mark is everything we do is done to the glory of God.
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They had missed that mark.
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And so this tells us...
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I'm going to answer your question here.
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This tells us too how desperate we are when we come to Christ, how much we need Him.
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I was 19 years old when I got saved.
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That means I lived 18 years plus because I don't remember what time when I was 19, so 18 years plus.
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I lived outside of God's commands doing whatever I wanted.
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Doing however I wanted to live.
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And if at any moment in that, if I would have died, I would have faced the justice of God, I would have faced His condemnation, and I would have been worthy of it.
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That's the point.
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I would have been worthy of it because I had lived outside of His commands for 19 years.
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So yeah, in that sense, very much.
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Yes, sir? So, believers are chosen by God.
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Yes.
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And the unbelievers, if they're not chosen by God and they're going to hell, isn't that part of the problem? Friends not believing in Him anyway? Or can they come to God? Or are they just not going to? This is a longer question, which I don't mind answering, but let me give you this short answer.
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Because when we address the will of God, we have to discuss God's will in regard to what we call His will of prescription and His will of decree.
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So when we talk about God's will of prescription, the will of prescription is what He gives us in His Word as prescribed or things He tells us to do.
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He prescribes things for us to do.
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Like for instance, God commands that all men believe.
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Right? And it says in Acts 17 that God has commanded all men everywhere to repent.
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The problem is no one will.
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According to Jesus, no one will come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him.
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Right? So God has commanded something that we won't do because by our nature, we do not want to submit to Him.
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We are hostile to Him.
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We cannot do His will because we don't want to.
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The natural desire of man is not to come.
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The natural desire of man is to be a rebel like his father Adam.
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We are all sons of our father Adam and we all have the same spirit of rebellion that he had.
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So God chooses to come into the life of the believer and change their heart and give them the desire to repent and believe.
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And that's an act of grace.
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Now He doesn't do that for everyone.
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And so how does He treat the person that is unbeliever? He passes over them in their unbelief and He allows them what they want because they want to live in unbelief.
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But for the believer, He changes their heart and graciously gives them a new heart that wants to serve Him.
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So He's never unjust because if you leave a person to what they want, you're not being unjust, you're leaving them to what they want.
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But if you give a person a new heart that wants to follow Him, that's also not unjust because that's merciful and loving.
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So God is not unjust to anyone but He is loving and gracious to His elect and He chooses to do that by the counsel of His own will according to Ephesians chapter 1.
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So it's never unjust and when someone is an unbeliever and is left in unbelief, they're getting what they want.
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No one is being forced to be an unbeliever.
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They're getting the desire of their heart.
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Okay? That's why I was a little confused.
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Yeah, yeah.
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And next time when I come, it'll be a couple weeks because of the baby.
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Next time when I come, we're going to go to Romans 9 and Paul's going to express this a little bit more specifically because he's going to talk about the difference between Moses and Pharaoh.
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And he's going to say, Pharaoh was raised up for the purpose of glorifying God but God didn't show him mercy, He showed him justice.
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God showed mercy to Moses and He told Moses, I will have mercy on whom I will and I will give compassion to whom I choose.
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So God does have the ability to do that because He's sovereign.
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But it's a difficult subject and I don't try to make it too simple but I do try to help people understand that ultimately, the unbeliever is still getting what he wants and that is to remain in his unbelief.
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Alright? Now, we're down to the last five minutes unfortunately so we're not going to get all the way to the end but I can't help but want to just jump very quickly because we talked about this, those who are in the flesh, their minds, their death, hustle with God, don't submit to God, but then the Spirit makes us children of God and this is the part, I can't miss this part.
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Go with me to verse 12.
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So then brothers, we are debtors not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh, for if we live according to the flesh, we will die, but if we live by the Spirit, we will put to death the deeds of the body you will live.
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For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.
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For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry, Abba, Father.
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The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God and if children, then heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him.
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And brothers understand this, if you are a believer, the greatest blessing that you've been given is that you've been made a child of God.
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One of the most dangerous doctrines of men is that every person is by nature a child of God.
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We are not.
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Now we are all creations of God and we all bear the image of God, but we are not children of God until we are adopted into His family because we are rebels against Him and God chooses to make us part of His family.
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John chapter 1, it says this, Jesus came unto His own and His own received Him not, but to as many as received Him, to them He gave the power to become children of God.
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See, we're not children of God by birth.
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We're children of God by the new birth.
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Jesus said, unless a man be born again.
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See, we're born into the family of Adam.
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We're born into a rebellious state, vipers and diapers, like I said.
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We're born rebels.
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But then when we are born again, we are born again into the family of God and we receive God as our Father, Christ as our brother, and the Spirit as our indwelling power who lives within us, that we might live for Christ.
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You see, if you are in Christ, you are a part of a new family.
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You're part of God's family.
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And how great a blessing it is to be considered children of God.
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Isn't that what Paul says? Behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us that we can be called, what? The children of God.
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And we are.
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I have two adopted children.
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I told you earlier I have six children.
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Well, with the baby coming, I'll have six.
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The Brady Bunch.
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I have three boys and three girls.
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But my oldest two children, Ashley is 24, Cody is 21.
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We adopted them when they were four and six years old.
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And when we adopted them, we had to go before a judge.
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And we had to raise our hand and we had to make an oath before the judge that we promised that these children would be our legal heirs and that they would receive the same benefits and the same inheritance and the same rights as any natural child.
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So Cody Lee Blaylock became Medford Cody Foskey.
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That's my first name is Medford.
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So he took my first name and he became my legal son.
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Ashley Marie Blaylock became Ashley Ann Foskey.
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She took my wife's middle name and our last name.
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So Cody and Ashley became our children.
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And now we have six children, not four plus two.
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We don't have our real kids and our adopted kids.
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We have our children who are some by adoption and some by birth, but all ours.
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And they are ours forever.
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When we are adopted into the family of God, you are fellow heirs with Christ.
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He being the only true son, only begotten son of God, you become part of the family of God in Him.
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United with Christ, brought into the family of God.
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You see why I say this is the greatest chapter of the Bible? Because it tells us who we are in Christ.
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We're no longer slaves of sin.
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We're no longer dead in trespasses, but we are now made alive together with Christ and by His Spirit, we have been adopted into His family.
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And if you go down to the very end, He says, what shall we say then? Can anything separate us from the love of God? Nothing, neither height nor depth nor anything in all creation.
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If we are in Christ, can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
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What a blessing.
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Let's pray.
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Father, I thank You for Your Word.
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I thank You for the blessing of knowing Christ.
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And I praise You, Lord, for the promise that nothing in this world can separate us from that love.
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Lord, give us a desire to grow into the image of our Captain, our Savior Jesus, and be reminded always of what has been done by Him.
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And Lord, let us be led by the Spirit and not conformed to the flesh.
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In Jesus' name.
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Amen.