WWUTT 157 The Spirit of Adoption?

The Bible says that if we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, we will not perish, but we will have everlasting life.

You know you get more than that even? You not only receive eternal life, you are fellow heirs with Christ of the kingdom of God.

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Text, committed to the sound teaching of the Word of God. For questions and comments, email whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

Here's our host, Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. Romans chapter 8 verses 12 through 17 is where we are today.

If you want to open up your Bibles and join with me there. I've mentioned previously that we're also going through Romans in our sermon series at church.

We're still in Romans chapter 12. In fact, if you want to hear the latest sermon, you can go to our website firstsouthernbaptistchurch .org.

You'll see the sermon player there on the right side of the page. I'm trying to get the messages here on this broadcast to catch up with where we are in the sermons.

Partly because it would be easier for me to just be prepping the same stuff over the course of the week, but I also wanted to be a greater service to our congregation.

So not only are they hearing the sermon kind of thrown at you all at once on a Sunday, but then be able to hear it in bits and pieces and maybe be able to digest it a little bit easier that way.

Committing these things to memory and not just hearing it once, but all week long meditating on the things that had been talked about on Sunday.

And so that's another one of the reasons why I want to get the broadcast and the sermons to sync up together, but invite you to be a part of where we're at in our sermon series as well.

Again, firstsouthernbaptistchurch .org is the website. Alright, Romans chapter 8.

Let's look at verses 12 through 17. 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.

So again, back to verse 12. So then brothers, so this obviously this is in light of the previous thought, which was verse 11.

If the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised

Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his spirit who dwells in you.

The same spirit of God that brought that brought Christ back from the grave is the spirit that has brought you from death to life.

Ephesians chapter 1 or chapter 2 verse 1. For we were once dead in the sins and trespasses in which we once walked, but it is by the

Spirit of God that we have been brought from death to life. So then brothers, since that is the spirit that lives within us, all who are in Christ have the

Holy Spirit dwelling within them. So then brothers, we're 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.

Again, it's not by your ability or your power to be able to live sinlessly, but according to the

Spirit of God in you that you are able to put to death the deeds of the body. A friend of mine who is a youth leader, he and I were prepping a cafeteria one time.

We had some high school students that were coming in to eat some lunch, so we were gonna feed them some food and also feed them the

Word of God, give them a devotional while they were eating. And as he and I were getting things ready, he said to me, a person can just decide to not sin anymore and follow all of the rules of Scripture and be without sin, right?

And I said, are you insane? And I don't really respond to people that way when they ask questions like that, but he should know better.

He went to seminary and was a youth leader, and he said, don't get me wrong, I believe that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and because of their past sins, if they don't follow

Jesus, then they're going to go to hell. But a person could just get to a day where they decide they don't want to sin anymore and follow the rules of Scripture and live day after day after day without sin, right?

And I said, do you not understand that the Scriptures say those who are in the flesh cannot please

God, and that it is by the Spirit that we put to death the deeds of the body and live?

So a person can't just decide, you know, today I'm gonna stop sinning. I bet if I follow all of these rules of Scripture, I would be without sin.

There's a term for that. It's self -righteousness, which in and of itself is sin. It is a blasphemy of us to say that we can keep the rules of God perfectly in a way that makes us sinless without Christ.

That's blasphemy. It's vanity. And it is that very kind of self -glorifying proclamation that we make that's going to send a person to hell, standing before God saying,

I could be good without you. I didn't need you to be good. And God is gonna say, depart from me,

I never knew you, you worker of lawlessness, and will condemn those people to hell. They are sent to hell because they proclaimed their own glory instead of God's glory, because the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God.

It is by the Spirit of God that we're able to put to death the deeds of the body and live in a righteous way.

We have been given the righteousness of Christ. And then when God looks at us, he sees not our sin, but the righteousness of his

Son, and then he loves us with the same love and affection that he shows his own

Son, Jesus Christ. And that's what Paul goes on to explain in verse 14. 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. Again, verse 15, for you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear.

And even though Paul had said previously in Romans chapter 6 verse 16, do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness.

And he clarifies in verse 19 there in Romans 6, I'm speaking in human terms because of your natural limitations.

So he's using the word slave to basically just point out you're gonna have to serve somebody.

I mean even Bob Dylan understood that. You have to serve somebody. Either you serve the devil or you serve

God. And it is only by the Spirit of God that we're able to serve God in a righteous way.

So we're either slaves to sin or we are slaves to righteousness. But when it comes down to it, the

Spirit of God has set us free from the slavery of sin that we were in prior to the salvation that we have received in Christ.

The adoption that we've received by the Spirit. 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 because by the Spirit of God we've been set free.

You have received the spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry

Abba Father. We are able to call upon God as Father because we are in Christ who is the

Son of God. When Jesus taught us to pray in Matthew 6, our Father who art in heaven, it was unheard of up to that time to call

God Father. Yes we have a couple of mentions of God as Father in the Psalms, but it is not spoken about in the same way that Jesus refers to God as Father.

We are able to call him our Father, our all -loving, benevolent provider because we are in Christ and have received adoption.

1st John 3 .1 says to us, how great is the love the Father has lavished upon us that we might be called the children of God and that is what we are.

In Christ Jesus we are able to call upon God as Father. Jesus said to his disciples, I will not leave you as orphans,

I will come to you. So we have not been left in in that state of being hated by others and hating one another as is talked about in Titus 3 .3,

but by the mercies of God we have been delivered from sin and death and have been given adoption as sons and can call upon God as Father.

Jesus said in John 14 .6, I am the way the truth and the life no one gets to the

Father but by me. Paul said to Timothy that there is one mediator between God and man and that is the man

Christ Jesus who is sitting at the right hand of God interceding for us. So when we pray our prayers are heard by God if we are in Christ.

Now let me clarify something, it is not enough that we believe in Jesus that he died on the cross and rose again from the grave, we must believe in the right

Jesus because Jehovah's Witnesses believe in Jesus but they believe that Jesus is the

Archangel Michael and that he was created by God. The Mormons believe in Jesus but they believe that he was begotten by the

Father as a spirit child by Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother and that he is also the brother of Satan.

These things are lies, they are false. Muslims, they believe that Jesus was a real person and really existed but he was just a prophet, just a man and was not really

God. A Muslim's prayers are not heard by God. Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormon's prayers not heard by God because they are praying to a different Jesus.

If they believe in a different Jesus then his death on the cross is a different atonement.

If it is a different atonement then they are still dead in their sins and they are not saved.

So it is important for us to understand that it's not just Jesus we believe in but we believe in the

Christ, the true historical Jesus of the Bible and it is by him that we are received as sons and daughters of God.

Verse 16 there in Romans 8, the Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are the 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.

We sin, we blasphemed against God, what we deserved is death. Romans 6 23, for the wages of sin is death but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our

Lord. God shows his love for us and that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us and we do not receive death instead not only do we receive life we are fellow heirs of the kingdom of God with Christ.

What a mighty God we serve. Our Lord God I pray that we would come to understand you and know you as our father our all -loving provider who has given us all things including life and resurrection from the grave.

We worship you, we praise you in the name of Jesus by whom our prayers are received by the

Father and we have this adoption as sons and daughters of God.

Amen. This is the protection of First Southern Baptist Church in Junction City Kansas.