Romans 8:12-17 Spirit Take the Wheel

to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsak preaches his series in the

Book of Romans, A Righteousness from God. Let's listen in. Well, good morning and welcome to Recast Church.

I'm Don Filsak, I'm the lead pastor here. It's a privilege to gather together with God's people.

I hope that you recognize what a great privilege it is to be together in one place, together with brothers and sisters in Christ.

I look out at all of you and I find comfort in knowing that I'm not alone in this Christian walk, and that's one of the primary reasons why

God has given us the church, to gather together with people who also agree that we trust in Jesus Christ for our salvation.

And that is not something that the world necessarily understands or completely gets, and so it's something that's a great thing that we have that opportunity to gather together.

God gives his children a lot of things in the process of fighting the war of faith inside us as well as outside of us.

And last week, Rob Knoll preached in my absence about the armor of God, thinking in terms of spiritual warfare, which was an excellent metaphor for the way that we guard our lives with constant reminders of the salvation that has already been given to us.

But God has given us relationships also to help steer us in the right direction. And how many of you would recognize that you know that you're a relational person?

You need others in your lives. You already know that. And so I think it's really good for us to take that on as one of the things that God has given to us in our walk in this

Christian life. He's also given us his word. He's given us his word to show us more and more of who he is and then how we're supposed to relate to him through his son,

Jesus Christ. But a couple of weeks ago, the apostle Paul in the book of Romans introduced us to one of the most amazing gifts that God has ever given to anyone and will ever give to anyone.

And that is just simply this, that each and every Christian has received this gift. Each and every Christian has been given the Holy Spirit to live in them.

An amazing gift, an astounding gift. God in us, God coming to dwell with his people to live in us and through us.

And that's a glorious thing. And to be honest, I think I can state that, and I don't know what goes on in your mind when

I say that, but I think just saying that the spirit lives in us may leave us with more questions than it does answers.

And it might even be something that you've heard enough in the past that it's kind of like it's just, it's a fact that you've heard, but it's never quite made sense and you haven't quite had the curiosity about pursuing what all of that implies or means.

It might not be something that you can fully form. What does it mean that the spirit lives in us? And so this week as we continue on in the letter from Paul to the

Romans, we will see more detail about what it means to walk according to the spirit.

And it is clear that each and every believer is indwelt by the Holy Spirit according to Scripture. But I think that many of us just skip over what that means for our day -to -day lives.

It's meant to be a truth that imbues us, gives us power and strength to walk each and every day, that we're never alone, but that he is with us working in our hearts and through his word to bring about conviction and direction and guidance.

And I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that for many of us this is, you know, we've got a little bit of skittishness around the

Holy Spirit. Some of us were raised in churches that were maybe more conservative and were a little bit afraid of the

Holy Spirit, maybe even just kind of casting a sideways glance at the Spirit going, don't do anything crazy up in here, right?

Like that's kind of the way that we were raised. And so, and then some of you maybe come from a more Pentecostal background where you were like, yeah, we were with the

Spirit all the time and it was like kind of hyped up and kind of a lot of stuff going on and a lot of things that we don't see here at Recast and stuff like that.

And maybe you're kind of somewhere balancing in the middle or something. But rest assured that there's nothing in this text about knocking people on the forehead so they can be slain in the

Spirit. I'm not gonna ask people to come up forward and knock you over or anything like that. It's not a text about clucking like chickens or barking like dogs or a movement of holy laughter.

Now, that sounds a little bit extreme, but those are all manifestations that have been credited to the

Spirit in the church in America. Churches in America, there have been people who kind of go a little bit, whoa, and they start clucking like chickens, barking like dogs.

There was a movement, how many of you remember the movement of holy laughter that was a big deal in the late 90s, early 2000s?

And it started in Canada and swept across America and people were just kind of like having this holy laughter moment or something like that.

But I just wanna clarify that when we read this text, we're gonna see what God has to say about the role of His Spirit in our lives.

And I hope that it informs both sides of the equation. Regardless of where you were raised, let the Word of God dictate.

What does it look like to have the Spirit of God in a life? And it is nothing less than the power of God expressed in a changed and transformed life toward the will of God.

A life transformed by the inner desire for holiness. A life transformed by an adoption into the family of God.

And an inner life transformed, and that transformation comes through the promise of an inheritance from our

Heavenly Father that we know that we will have an inheritance when these days of suffering end.

So let's open our Bibles, if you're not already there, to Romans chapter eight, verses 12 through 17. Again, Romans eight, 12 through 17.

You can navigate in your device over there. Most of you probably have an app or you can grab that scripture journal or the

Bible under the seat in front of you if you didn't bring a Bible with you. But we're gonna read this together and it would be great if you can just follow along.

It's a shorter passage this morning. Doesn't mean a shorter sermon, but we'll see what we do.

Romans eight, 12 through 17, before the praise team comes to lead us in songs.

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 by the

Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the

Spirit of God are sons of God. 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. 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, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.

Let's pray. Father, it's a privilege to have an opportunity to read your word and to even just identify and to see the glory and the beauty of your

Spirit. And I pray that over the course of this time that we have together, this short time this morning, as we take in the whole scope of a week, this is just a short period of time, but that you would meet us here in this place, identifying for us what riches are ours as your children in the

Spirit, identifying what is indeed true of everyone who follows you, that what that indwelling

Spirit means for us and his role in our daily lives, that he is our daily life.

And so, Father, I pray that you would identify for each and every one of us where we have thought wrongly about your

Spirit, where we have thought wrongly about life, where we have thought wrongly about our battle with sin, and that you would correct where correction is needed, that you provide encouragement, that you are present with your people for strength and for power.

And we don't always feel powerful. As a matter of fact, I would guess that there are people here, Father, who are feeling weak this morning, and they're saying, where is the strength?

And so, Father, I pray that in your Spirit, you would strengthen us to sing your praises even now.

There are some who probably don't even feel like moving their mouths to worship you. But, Father, I pray that you would be the strength in each heart here gathered together, and that you would encourage us through your

Word and encourage us through these lyrics that we're about to sing and receive our worship in Jesus' name.

You can go ahead and be seated, yeah. And remember that over the remainder of our time, if you can keep your Bibles open to Romans chapter eight, verses 12 through 17.

Maybe you lost your place there, but re -navigate in your device or grab the Bible and open it to Romans eight so you can see that what we're gonna be talking about the remainder of the time is focused there.

And if at any time during the message you need to get up and get more coffee, juice, or donuts, you can take advantage of that.

Restrooms are out the barn doors down the hallway on the left -hand side if you need that. But let's keep our focus as much as possible on God's Word and really to listen to what

God, through His Spirit, wants to communicate to us about His Spirit from this text here this morning.

So I wanna start off with a question, and it's just a simple question, but one that I think we all need to take a moment to just consider, and that is, what is driving internally your war with sin?

When you think about where do you get the strength to combat sin in your own heart? Where you see your tendency to go against God and live for yourself, where are you drawing strength from?

Paul has already established that if you belong to Jesus, then you most certainly have a war raging inside of you.

If you belong to Jesus, that's a given. There is indeed a war raging inside of everyone who is a follower of Jesus Christ.

You see, there are righteous things you wanna do that you don't, and there are wicked temptations that you do not want to do that you do, and sometimes you give in.

I know you do, and it's not because I'm stalking you. It's not because I'm clairvoyant.

It's because Scripture tells me that you do. Scripture has been clear throughout the passages and particularly chapter seven of the book of Romans explaining to us,

Paul giving his own testimony about how he did the things that he didn't wanna do and the very things that he wanted to do, he wouldn't do, and so he's basically showing us what is true of the human heart, a fallen state, warring against God in our flesh, desiring to do the things that displease

God. So what is driving your life of faith? Since we're all sinners, we know we need forgiveness, but we also might have forgotten that what we really deeply need is a holy desire and a holy ability.

It's more than just forgiveness for the things that we've done wrong, but in order to honor God, in order to live for him, we need a transformation in our desires, a transformation in our ability to follow him, and that is where the

Holy Spirit is introduced here in chapter eight. Starting a couple of weeks ago, we looked at the first 11 verses, and now we're gonna take off another chunk in Romans 8 here starting in chapter 12.

We are to live spirit -driven lives. I kind of tongue -in -cheek entitled this message

Spirit, Take the Wheel, because in essence, that's really what we're looking for here, is we're looking for the spirit to guide, the spirit to drive, the spirit to take that leadership role in our lives and in this war of sin, and him be the one who we are drawing strength from in our daily moment -by -moment battle with sin that we see in us.

So we are to live spirit -driven lives, and there are many phrases used in Scripture for that concept of a spirit -driven life.

Here are some of the biblical terms that are used. Walking according to the spirit. We live in the spirit.

We are led by the spirit. We are indwelt by the spirit. We are filled by the spirit. All biblical, scriptural terminology for basically the same thing, all basic metaphors for the spirit -driven life.

In verses one through 11, it was established that the indwelling spirit is the life of the believer.

He is our lives. And so now Paul will give us six characteristics of the life that is driven by the

Holy Spirit. And these six things are here for our encouragement and for our assurance. They're here to encourage us.

We should walk away. Those of you who are in Christ, you should walk away from here encouraged that these things are indeed true of you.

But I also would just say, man, this is a great time for us to take a self -assessment about these six things.

Identify them, think it through. Don't just let it pass over your mind, but think through these six things as we walk through them and say, does that define me?

Does that sound like me? Does it sound like my experience and what I'm walking through and working through in my spiritual walk with God?

You see, if you belong to Christ, this description should remind you of what is true of you.

And as we walk through each characteristic of the life of the spirit lived out in us, we should increasingly rejoice at the power and ability that has been given to us through this gracious gift that is none other than God living in us and through us.

So the first thing that we see, the spirit -driven life is really something that it's not. It's not compatible with the flesh.

This is a bit of a repeat from verses 12 through 13. It really summarizes a lot of what has come before this passage, going all the way back to chapter six and explaining this life with Christ.

This is, by the way, written to people who already have faith. It's written to the church, and it's written to those who

Paul is fairly assured belong to Jesus, they've accepted him and his work on the cross for them, and therefore, they are already in the faith.

So he's saying the spirit -driven life is not compatible with the flesh type of life. Now, flesh is, we talked about this a couple weeks ago because flesh occurs a lot of times in the book of Romans, and it's not a great translation.

We can't really translate that Greek phrase very well into English because when we think of flesh, we think of meat on our bones.

We think of the body and the material world, and that's not at all what Paul is getting at here. The flesh is a tendency in humanity to live apart from even the thought of God.

It is a complete and utter dependence on, you can think of it this way, it's kind of like materialism as applied to your spiritual life.

I don't really need God, I don't, and how many of you know that you can walk, you can go through days like that?

Even as a follower of Christ, you can go through days of living in the flesh, just only what I've got at my disposal, my thinking, my mind, my resources, my money, my house, my wife, my family, my, my, my.

Do you get what I'm saying there? That's flesh living, okay, as opposed to spirit living, spirit -driven life.

We often can find ourselves going, we devolve into a flesh -driven life, a thought and a way of thinking and a way of living that is without God.

And so that's what this is, the spirit -driven life is not compatible with the flesh, with that godless aspect.

And we know that the Christian is not supposed to continue to be friendly with sin. Paul has well established that over the last couple of chapters in Romans.

We no longer live in the realm of sin and death. We have been transferred from the kingdom of sin and death into the kingdom of life and grace.

And here in verses 12 and 13, Paul states, using a plain metaphor, that we no longer owe a debt to sin.

We're no longer debtors to sin. In Adam, through his first sin, all of humanity came under a debt of sin.

Our natural tendency has been bent toward living according to the flesh. That's the way we naturally go.

In other words, we're hardwired through our fallen sinful nature to live a fleshly life.

A simple way to think about that is just to say, think of that life that's concerned with just material things like I mentioned before, self -care, self -centeredness, self -esteem, self -worth, self -exaltation, self -help, all at the exclusion of God.

Now, how many of you know that you have to take care of yourself to some degree? You already knew that, right? But our culture goes way over the top in caring for self, doesn't it?

Do you know what I'm talking about? And at this point, you've gotta think, the most important thing to understand in that phrase that we're concerned about is at the exclusion of God.

At the exclusion of trusting him is flesh living. Certainly, eating a good meal or taking care of yourself or brushing your teeth or those kinds of things, caring for yourself is not a bad thing, of course not, but at the exclusion of God it is.

At the exclusion of God, that's what we're talking about, and that's the type of life that's not compatible with a spirit -driven life.

According to verse 13, death is the inevitable end of any life that never gets beyond living, according to the flesh, and death there, throughout the

Book of Romans, death is contrasted, often, with eternal life.

So it's death or eternal life, and by that contrast and the way that that's drawn out so many times in the Book of Romans, it's very clear that what

Paul is identifying for us is eternal death or eternal life. So he's talking about condemnation here.

Condemnation is the end result of a life that never gets beyond flesh living.

So in other words, you've got to be put into the spirit. You've got to have the spirit put in you in order for you to be saved.

That's a necessity. Paul clearly left room, obviously, for some of his audience. Remember, he's writing to the church, so why is he even talking like that in verse 13?

I believe that he's leaving room for some in his audience, even in the church, to be those who are still living in the flesh and have never gotten past that.

They've never, ever lived a moment in the spirit. Do you hear what

I'm talking about there? And so he's actually identifying that for us. He's saying that condemnation is the end result of never getting past flesh living, only ever living for yourself.

That's where condemnation comes in. But in verse 12, he's stating that those who are in the family of God do not go on in living in the flesh.

If you belong to Christ, you will not be defined by godless flesh living, but you'll be defined by a spirit -driven dependence upon God.

In the end of verse 13, Paul is not talking about Christian perfection. That's not what we're talking about here.

We're not talking about getting it all right and living a perfect life where you're always, only ever honoring the spirit of God in you.

Throughout this passage and previously, Paul takes for granted that you have a struggle, an ongoing struggle with sin in your life.

If the spirit dwells within you, if you are a child of God, then you're gonna have a struggle and a battle with sin. But what he is saying here is that if you have ever warred with your own sin, hear that again, if you have ever warred with your own sin, if you have ever chosen

God over your own desires and your own wishes, if you're currently waging a knockdown, drag -out battle with sin in your life, then take heart.

You have good reason to believe that you are on the side of eternal life. If you have ever fought sin in your life and you have ever battled and you've ever sought to honor

God above yourself, that, my friends, is a sign of life in you.

Do you hear me? A lot of times, the very thing that causes us frustration, how many of you, just raise your hand and just be honest,

I'm a little tired of the battle with sin. Are you a little tired of the battle with sin? And sometimes you can even just, it works the opposite direction, right?

It's like, am I really in? I keep sinning and I do the same dumb things time and time again, right?

And so, that can be a discouragement to us, but what I'm identifying here from this passage stretching from chapter six through the end of chapter eight is that that's an encouragement, that you actually want to be done with sin.

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied. Do you hunger for it?

Do you want it? Do you have an appetite for God's holiness? Do you have an appetite for that which pleases him?

It's a good sign of life in you. Take heart if that battle is yours.

And one quick note before we move on to the second point, we've got a lot of points to cover this morning, but notice that the action here in verse 13 is a very hostile action.

The action is putting to death the deeds of the body or the deeds of sin. This is a violent action.

The last time I checked, it's hard to put something to death without determination, without intention. But where does that fight come from in our lives?

Where does that kind of tenacity and that kind of stick -to -itiveness, we all just raised our hand and said, we're tired of fighting, don't give in, folks.

You're tired of fighting it? Don't give in. The spirit within you will sustain the battle, will keep you going, will keep you taking on more, will keep you to the degree and the point where you desire to put to death sin in your life.

And that battle comes from the spirit. You see, I'm convinced that I could even state it, the opposite quite strongly.

No spirit, if you don't have the spirit, then you do not have a desire to battle sin. No spirit, and the love of the flesh will show up everywhere in your life.

And the life of the flesh loves sin. The life of the flesh washes itself in sin. It endorses sin.

It seeks ultimately to justify its own sin. The Christian may at times give in to the flesh, but it will bring about a godly sorrow and repentance, and the spirit will bring about a godly sorrow and repentance in the life of a believer who gives in to the flesh.

So ask yourself here at the end of this first point where the spirit is not compatible, the spirit -driven life is not compatible with the flesh, do

I have within me the spirit who adds a ruthlessness to my battle against sin?

A ruthlessness that seeks to put to death sin where I find it in my life. Do I desire to put sin to death?

The second point, in verses 14, verse 14, we find the second character of the spirit -driven life, the spirit -driven life is synonymous with the

Christian life, and that sounds like kind of a strange point, but it's identifying that the spirit -driven life is the

Christian life. If you have a Christian life, you have a spirit -driven life. If you have a spirit -driven life, then you're living the Christian life, and it's important to understand that those two things tie together necessarily.

In verse 14, Paul states that the spirit is alive in all of God's children, definitively.

Those who have been invited into the family of God through Christ are led by the spirit. One cannot be a believer without the spirit.

But a word of caution about the phrase leading of the spirit here that you find in verse 14, because it's a very misunderstood phrase, and it gets us thinking and puts our mind off in a whole different group of directions when you think about the spirit leads those who are his sons.

This is not like God, where should I go to college, that kind of leading, or God, who should I marry, or God, should

I switch companies this late in my career, not that kind of leading, not that kind of guiding, although we would love to have that.

How many of you would love to have him just call you up and tell you these kinds of questions? If that's not the kind of leading we're talking about here, this in context is led by the spirit, led by the spirit, as in putting to death the sinful deeds of the flesh.

All who have experienced that war with sin, he's going on again, all who are woke to the fight within them have a solid reason to believe that they're in with Christ.

Again, this is all about assurance, all about encouragement, all about identifying for you, tools for you to identify, am

I in with Christ? The Christian life is the life of the spirit, the life of the spirit is the

Christian life, and the Christian life is one defined by a driven, driven, driven hunger for righteousness.

Third, the spirit -driven life is not compatible with fear. We sang about that earlier, and that's kind of the nature of why we sang that song, the spirit -driven life is not compatible with fear in verse 15, at the start of verse 15.

According to that opening to that verse, the life of the spirit is not a life of duty and rules and regulations.

It's not the guesswork of living according to laws with the fear that we have not done enough. How many of you have lived a season of your life according to laws and rules and regulations, and you can testify by raising your hand that you actually have lived a life of fear, fear that I haven't done enough, fear that God doesn't like me anymore, fear that I'm not measuring up in some capacity or in some way, and what that creates is an unholy comparison game with others, and a competition with others.

Even within the church, going, well, at least they look worse than I do, at least their life is more messed up than I am, so probably, you know, when we stand before judgment day, if God's grading on a curve or whatever, that's certainly the wrong understanding of the gospel, isn't it?

That God would be judging on a curve? Isn't that like a scale? Aren't we getting away from the very core of the gospel, that it is by grace through faith alone in Christ that we are saved?

There is no fear. It's not guesswork, but it is whether or not the spirit is alive within us.

Not a fear that we have not done enough, or given enough, or obeyed enough, or pleased God enough, but the spirit of slavery is a slavery to law that he's talking about here in this text.

And I think we need to be careful here, because the fact of the matter is, we all ought to have a holy sorrow over our sin.

Do you know what I'm talking about? You should be able to look at your sin and have some sorrow over it when it happens. But it should not carry the follower of Christ all the way down the road to fear.

Now, that sorrow within you is a reasonable thing, but if your first response to your sin is, oh no,

I'm condemned, oh no, I am, out of the pleasure of God, oh no,

God must hate me, and I'm terrified of him being my judge, then

I think that this text is calling you to consider, at least to come back to the gospel, at least to come back and review that, and say, am

I believing this? Am I believing that I'm okay with God based on his work on the cross for me?

Or am I thinking that it depends on my performance? That's kind of that fear, when you see fear in your life, especially spiritual, when you begin to fear

God in that capacity, it begins to look like maybe you're misunderstanding your position with God.

If you find yourself running away from God, in what sense could you really say

I have a healed relationship with him through the cross of Christ? Are you getting what I'm saying in there? So the question is, are you running from him?

Are you fearful of him? We certainly should have a holy sorrow of our sin, but it doesn't carry us all the way to fear, it carries us to sorrow and back to the cross.

Think of it this way, on this pathway of life, when a follower of Christ gets caught up in the flesh and gives in to the flesh and gives in to sin,

Satan would seek to accuse us. The very name Satan means accuser, the one who will point out your faults and nitpick you.

That's Satan, that's kind of what that means. He's gonna point out every fault, every failure, everywhere that you come up short of God's standard in your life.

And some of us have lived there, some of you know what I'm talking about, where you feel completely under this weight of guilt, this weight of oppression, and it's like Satan is just heaping weight on your shoulders time and time again.

Well, Satan would seek to accuse you and grab you by the ankle and drag you toward a pit called fear and condemnation.

And he desires to bring every one of you there because there you can be immobilized, there you can misunderstand the gospel, there you can be drawn away into selfish thinking about who you are and whether or not you measure up in this competition and comparison begins and all of that.

So Satan grabs you by the ankle, accusing you and drags you towards fear and condemnation.

But the Christian, who is training themselves well with the gospel, will pull out the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God, and boldly hack at Satan's grip with words like, there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ.

You can't take me there anymore. You can't take me to fear. You can't take me to condemnation because I am covered by the blood of Christ.

And the sin that I just committed is already paid for and has already been punished on Christ on the cross.

I accept that forgiveness. And you hack at the hand of Satan, who would seek to drag you back into condemnation and seek to drag you into fear.

Or even words like we see here in this text, bold words spoken by the Apostle Paul. I have not received the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but I have received the spirit of adoption as a child of God.

And by his spirit, I cry out for deliverance. Abba, Father. You see, fear is legitimate for anybody who is living in the flesh.

If you're living in the flesh and you haven't gotten past that, and you've never taken a baby step in the spirit.

So in other words, you're not a follower of Christ. Then fear is legitimate because somebody in that status will only ever know

God as a righteous and holy judge. And the accusations of Satan will stick.

And you have nothing to hack at his hand with. But fear is thwarted and Satan is thwarted by rehearsing the truth of the gospel found in scripture.

And let me encourage you towards two resources that have had a positive impact on me personally in rehearsing the gospel in my life so that I'm well protected from fear.

The first is called The Cross -Centered Life by C .J. Mahaney. Short book that packs a punch in putting your feet on the firm foundation of the gospel.

If you haven't read it, man, we ought to have some copies out there. I don't think we have any right now, but maybe next week we can grab a handful of copies.

So I'll have some out there next week for you and we can get that going. But I would love it if everybody read that book.

It's just a recentering thing for me to bring me back to the cross, back to the cross. Wake up first thing in the morning and think about, man,

I'm forgiven. I've been deeply loved. My sins? Sure, they're terrible. It's so terrible that the

Son of God died on the cross for my sins, but I'm so deeply loved as well. And that's the fuel for life.

That's the fuel for understanding. It's the fuel for combating Satan and the fuel for combating sin. So that's a great resource.

The second one, I didn't even realize until I had written this down that Rob mentioned it last week. It's called

The Gospel Primer. So maybe God's doing something because he had him mention it last week and then has me mentioning it this week and I just made that connection.

But I decided to go forward with it anyways, give you the same recommendation two weeks in a row, called The Gospel Primer.

It's like a daily devotional, 30 different short readings in that book. We've gone through it as a staff, taking one a week and doing that in our staff meetings and that's been beneficial and helpful.

But if you use it, I just encourage you, if you get a copy of that one, make sure that you read the verses on the bottom too because the verses are really where the power is in the word and he's writing about what is ours in the gospel.

Because you have accepted and received Christ, now all of these things are true of you and it's just beautiful and it's kind of deep and it's heavy and it's meaty and it's great because at the end of the day, we need that reminder of who we are in Christ because Satan, I would guarantee, this week is gonna seek to accuse you of something.

It's very imminently practical because you're in this battle and you need to be equipped with the gospel, the gospel, the gospel.

So when Satan tries to drag you away in your sin to fear and condemnation, you need the gospel to release his grip and the spirit will bring that gospel to mind, him working through his word to bring that to mind so that you have that equipment, the

Holy Spirit -given equipment to be able to fight the battle well. Come back to the place of the cross and remember that you're no longer a slave to sin, you are no longer a slave to fear, you are no longer living in the realm of death, judgment and condemnation.

And not only is the fear removed by the spirit but instead it is replaced by the last part of verse 15 with the fourth character of the spirit -driven life and that is that the spirit -driven life is one of intimate relationship with God.

It's not only that fear of God removed, the fear of judgment removed, the fear of have

I done enough removed but no, it's the positive step. I'm adopted by God himself, brought into his family of love and care and concern, he loves me.

In verse 14 we're called sons of God, in verse 16 and 17 we're called children of God and there's a shift that happens in between there.

The word son matters primarily in terms of inheritance so that's why it's a gendered word, it's son in verse 14 but Paul shifts to inclusive language in verse 16 and he's speaking to cover sons and daughters in his inheritance.

So in other words what I think Paul is getting at here and I mean a lot of scholars would back me up on this, all of God's children receive an inheritance, men and women, boys and girls, all receive an inheritance like a

Roman son. So you study what a Roman son's inheritance was like and get down to that.

And so he's speaking to a culture where women did not inherit and so he's trying to draw that clarity out for us that all are inheritors, all can be adopted into the family of God.

So we've now been adopted into God's family through the Holy Spirit according to the text and it's cool that the context of this crying out to God as our

Abba or as our Father is in the context of fear of not measuring up.

And by the way the word Abba, you know it's a repeat, Abba and then Father and he's using the more intimate word that Jesus would often use,

Abba, as the more intimate, like the cry of a young child to his father, like Daddy or Papa, and then he uses the word

Father which is a more formal title and he's basically identifying that God is both that one that we can come to with that childlike faith but he's also there formally as our

Father as well. But any tame notion that this utterance at the end of this verse, is it verse 15?

No. Yeah, verse 15, right? Check it out.

For you do not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you receive the spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry

Abba and Father. Any notion, any tame notion that that cry of Abba or Father is the quiet prayer of a person in their prayer closet who just feels super close to God.

They're just delighting in their personal Lord and Savior in the quiet of their prayer time and their quiet time and just delighting in their

Savior. They've just donated $5 ,000 to their church, they've attended an all night prayer vigil, probably helped out last weekend feeding people at the food pantry and man, they're just feeling really tight with God and they just feel like, you know what?

So close to you right now, I just feel like saying Father. I just feel like saying Abba. That was meant to be funny, guys.

This is exclamatory. This is not that kind of prayer. This is not the prayer of somebody and the cry of somebody who's got it all together in their life.

That's not what's going on in this text. This is the cry of a desperate mother who has lost her temper and shouted down her eight year old for the fourth time today acting like a big woman.

This is the desperate cry of a man who has looked at pornography the fourth time this month and you know what?

He's pledged time and time again to never look again and he finds himself in failure again.

This is the sin sick cry of an alcoholic who can't hear the voices of others because the bottle cries so loud.

That's what this is about and the only thing that they can utter is Abba, Father, help me.

I need you. What direction are they running? Are they running from God?

No, they're running to. Do you hear the difference? Do you get it?

Running to him because they know they are his daughter. They know they are his son and they know his grace because they've experienced it at the cross and they say,

I know you will open your arms wide to me and let me run to you. You're my only hope.

That's what's going on here. If you don't believe me, then you've just got to read the context and read it again.

This is in the context of no more fear. No more fear from the one who has the right to condemn you.

No more fear. But you are now adopted and you are his child. No more slavery.

You no longer live in fear, but instead you're in the family. You are adopted by God himself.

Why in the world would you be moved to fear? Well, there's reason. There is reason because you know you don't measure up.

You know you don't deserve it. How many of you would raise your hand right now and say, I know I don't deserve that? And that weight is there.

Satan is really eager to point that out, by the way. Satan wants to make sure you know you're not worthy and take it a step further and say, by the way, you ought to fear because you're not worthy.

You ought to just rest and sit in condemnation and you ought to sit in self -loathing and by the way, you ought to work for it.

You ought to try to pay it yourself. You know you don't measure up.

You know you have failed. Why would you need to cry out, Abba? Why would you need to cry out,

Father? Because you're desperate for help and you're running to him for mercy. You're running to him for grace.

You're running to him for strength. The desperate cry in this text shows where the spirit of adoption drives us in the fight against sin.

He drives us to confidence in our loving Father. That is where this drives us.

We're accepted by God and brought into his family. We've been brought into an intimate relationship of love and acceptance by the

Father through the Son and powered by the Spirit. And that leads to the fifth point found in verse 16.

The spirit -driven life is a life of confidence. It's a life of confidence, not a life of fear, a life of intimate relationship with God, a life of confidence in verse 16.

Confidence is available to the believer through the Spirit at work in us and through us. It says his spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are indeed his children and the question comes how does the

Spirit give us confidence that we are children of God? How does that happen? Well, we see the desire within to put to death the deeds of the flesh.

That's part of it. The fact that you desire, you hunger for righteousness. You want to be okay with God.

You want to please him. You want to honor him. When you find out that what he desires of you is

A, then you want to do A. You want to please him. You want to honor him because you know what he did for you.

We now have a desire to run toward God, his Father, instead of running away from him as the righteous judge.

We trust him. We love him and we have more than a cold and calculated transaction of law and fear with him, but we have a radical grace that draws us into an emotional response to him from the heart.

Earlier in the book of Romans it was stated that we have now in Christ an obedience from the heart, not an obedience from law, not an obedience from duty, not an obedience from slavery, but at the end of the day an obedience from love, a love that was planted there by his death on the cross for us.

But I read this as a kid. I think maybe even in an Awana program or something, I memorized this at one point.

It's not real clear to me, but that his spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are his children. How many of you are familiar with that verse?

You've heard it before. I used to think that, man, this has got to be like, I remember praying for this. I remember praying and just saying, could you let me know if I'm okay?

Could you tell me, God, please let me know if I belong to you? And it was as if my expectation was that there was gonna be an audible voice, that God was gonna just be like, hey,

God, am I okay with you? Yeah, you're all right today. And it was like, oh, he should be more booming voice.

Yes, you are okay. I don't know. I don't have a deep voice, so sorry.

But yeah, I don't think it's like an audible voice like that. I don't think that's what we ought to expect. What we ought to expect is that if we ask him, that he will show us in our lives.

The spirit's witness is not a word to us, although it's certainly this word to us, so you can read it time and time again to read what is true of you.

And this is beautiful. This is the first and primary place, but he will also testify with your life in your battle with sin, that you'll see these things, that you read that, oh, well, if I'm okay with Christ, then

I'll have this battle with sin. Oh, I'm battling sin. Oh, I must be okay. Do you see how that logic works?

And so he's gonna show it to you. Expect him to show you as you become woke to the battle with sin. Expect him to show you through your desire to run to God for mercy.

And of course, expect potentially the opposite. Just it's quite possible, just like Paul expected that there were gonna be some in the church at Rome who were gonna hear the reading of his letter who were not in with Christ.

So be honest in your evaluation. Be honest as you listen for the Spirit. Be ready for what he may or may not tell you.

Some of you, when you ask, you might get crickets when you ask the Spirit to show you signs of life.

There's just not anything there. You have no battle with sin inside, and you'd come to me and say, there's just nothing in there.

You have no desire to run to God. Hunger and thirst for righteousness, never done that. As a matter of fact, maybe some of you have been consistently running from God, and you know it.

You know it in your heart. You hear the first blush of him, and you wanna go the opposite direction.

Some of you are like, I mean, it's sheer strength of will that's holding you to your seat. You wanna bolt. Let me encourage you, if that's you, to come and talk with me afterwards.

If you wanna start a relationship of forgiveness and hope and power through Jesus Christ and through his Spirit, today might be a great day for that.

I'd encourage you to come and talk with me. And that leads to the last point in verse 17.

For those who are in Christ, the Spirit -driven life is a life of future hope through present trials.

Future hope through present trials. The Spirit brings confidence to us by showing us that we belong to the family of God, and then that reality leads to the hope for inheritance alongside of our big brother

Jesus, that all the promises that are given to Jesus and through Jesus are ours.

We become heirs with him who is the heir. We are his brothers and sisters.

If we are children, he says, then we're in line for inheritance, heirs. And the word heir is a forward -looking metaphor for our lives.

We are now currently his children if you're in Christ, but we will in the future be heirs and receive the inheritance.

That's a future thing. But in the middle of verse 12, there seems to be a prerequisite to the inheritance that might make us recoil a bit.

When you read it, when it hits you, you might go, whoa, wait a minute, it seems like there's a prereq to salvation, a prereq to inheriting the kingdom of God.

And there kind of is. It says this, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.

Did you guys see that the first time I read it? Some of you maybe saw it. Somebody, if you're looking at me blank, stares like,

I don't know, what are you talking about? Provided we suffer, we will inherit, we will be heirs provided we suffer with him in order that we also may be glorified with him.

It sounds like our inheritance depends on our suffering, right? Is that what it sounds like? And in a way, it truly does.

In a way, our inheritance does depend on our suffering. But hear me carefully, church.

Suffering isn't always epic. A lot of times we read it in scripture and it's an epic word.

But sometimes suffering is just life. You know what I'm talking about? Sometimes suffering is just everyday life.

And I believe that that's what's meant by the suffering here. It isn't talking about a radical persecution for our faith, being strung up or tortured for our faith or abused for our faith.

But it's the same kind of suffering where Paul will say in the very next verse for next week, that we're gonna talk about next week, this present suffering.

He's gonna use this verse that we're talking about now to launch out into next topic of suffering next week.

And he says this present suffering isn't even worth comparing to the glory that is revealed for us or to us.

And the suffering there is, in context, just basic everyday life. In essence,

Paul is saying if we suffer with him, walking through this life of hardship with him, which will be shown by the

Spirit, walking with us, in us, through us, we have every reason to believe, every reason to trust, that we'll be glorified with him.

If you see these evidences of life, then you are walking with him in suffering. So if we're no longer of the flesh, putting to death the deeds of sin, if we are living a

Christian life as God's child, if we are no longer living out of fear, but instead we are living a life of running to our loving

Heavenly Father instead of running from him as a terrifying judge, if the Spirit is showing us that we are children of God with increasing confidence, and if we have hope for the inheritance that helps us to endure sufferings in our everyday life, then we can confidently go out from here with joy, trusting his word and his

Spirit that we are indeed his children. And although this is not a text that results in a lot of immediate commands to follow,

I'm gonna give you a list of things to do with this. Here's a list of stuff. It certainly establishes a foundation, a foundation of a life of trust in our

Abba, to run to him with our needs, to run with him in the battle.

He has given us his Holy Spirit that drives our lives. So let me encourage all of us, we can come to communion this morning and take a moment to seriously consider the evidences over our lives.

Take a moment as Dave is gonna play a song and don't rush to the table, don't seek to be first there, but that's always awkward because then you don't wanna be first, right?

But I'm sorry, sorry to make it weird, but I do want you to take the time. I just, whatever that means for you, seriously.

If that means that you are, I mean, maybe just in hearing this, you're super confident. You just listened to this message and you're like, man, you're just full of joy, and you're like, that defines my life, then just jump up and go.

But take some time and ask these questions. Do you hate sin? I wanna put it to death in you.

Do you find the conviction of the Spirit leading you away from sin? Do you find confidence from the

Spirit that you are God's child? Seek that this morning. Do you run to him as your loving father?

Are you enduring the sufferings of this world with the hope of a better inheritance in mind? And after considering these questions, then come to the tables for communion as the

Spirit bears witness with your spirit that you are indeed a child of God. And come to the table to remember his body broken for you, and come to the table to remember his blood shed for you, really for us.

But if you're here and you find no confidence, and really, at the end of the day, you really believe that probably your confidence is in the flesh, then

I would encourage you to skip communion and please come and talk with me afterwards. In order to try to be more available for those who desire to talk about where they stand with Christ, I'm gonna do something different,

I'm gonna try something different, I'm gonna be chilling up front here after the service. I'm not gonna stand at the door. And you can feel free to come down here for prayer, for discussion with me about these things.

If you have another concern, or just wanna chew the fat, or talk about the weather or something like that, that's great, but give me a few minutes up here to interact with others, and then

I'll be out in the lobby after a few minutes. If nobody shows up here, then I'll just come back there and chill. Love to talk with you.

But I'd like to take a moment and do something different and just give people an opportunity to come down front for prayer, or to talk about where you stand spiritually.

Let's pray before we come to communion. Father, I thank you so much for your grace and your mercy.

I thank you for your spirit that bears testimony with our spirit, whether or not we are your children. And so,

Father, I pray that you would even now make today a holy moment, these next few moments holy and set apart for you.

I pray that you would remove all the various distractions that our mind would swirl around us and try to distract and push out the thoughts, the deeper thoughts of who we are in you, and whether or not your spirit genuinely resides in us.

I pray that you would deal with every heart here. This is serious business. And I ask that if there's anybody here who at the end of that conversation in their mind with you comes to the conclusion that they really only have ever lived for themselves,

I pray that you would allow today to be a day of movement for them. Might not be a day of going all in, it may be, but at the end of the day, that they might just take that bold step of coming and talking with me down here.

Father, for those who are your children, I pray that you would produce rejoicing in our hearts, a gladness and a swing in our step as we go out from here, living by the spirit, recognizing what it means that we are no longer slaves to fear, but we are your children.

We're adopted and we can run to you even in our darkest moments and cry out for strength and hope and for healing and for forgiveness from you anytime, anywhere.