Book of Romans, 8:1 - No Condemnation For Those Walking After The Spirit, Pt. 2 (07/21/2019)

Back in Colossians chapter 1 this morning and we kind of took a little springboard out of Romans chapter 8 verse 1 into the whole

Bible. That happens from time to time. Romans 8 1 is perhaps the second most misunderstood verse in the

Bible right after John 3 16. It's just because everybody focuses on the first phrase and doesn't pay much attention to figuring out what

God meant by the second phrase. But if you read carefully some of our brothers and sisters in the past have had some great thoughts and ideas about that and my favorite was certainly

Spurgeon said some wonderful words about it but John Calvin I think said it the best and we talked about that a few

Sundays ago. But anyway one of the things John Calvin said was that second phrase it's practically just talking about the same thing as the indwelling of the

Holy Spirit. So when a person gets saved over 33 different things happen instantly that God does to us and one of the things is that we're indwelt by the

Holy Spirit. Our body becomes the temple of the living God that has to change everything and so that's what

John Calvin says that's the reason that people who are born again walk not after the flesh but after the

Spirit and remember it's talking about a predominant walk it's not talking about a perfect walk. In fact all of chapter 7 proves it's not talking about a perfect walk because that's the same

Apostle Paul who the Holy Spirit used to write chapter 8 same person same life same person who did what he didn't want to do and didn't do what he wanted to do was the same person that said there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ.

So he was obviously Paul was obviously walking according to the Spirit but sometimes he had a problem with his flesh and all of us do and that's why you have to take chapter 7 and 8 together you can't separate them by putting chapters on them like we do just I guess to make it easy to find the verses but sometimes it makes it harder to understand it's all one thing it's all the same person.

So what we started last Sunday was going through and looking to look at what the scripture says is

John Calvin right when he says that phrase that they walk not after the flesh but after the

Spirit that that phrase basically is talking about it's a spirit and dwelt person it's a

Holy Spirit and dwelt person it's not a perfect person but it's someone who's been in dwelt by the Holy Spirit otherwise he wouldn't have that predominant walk to try to move towards the spiritual things and so when we found

Colossians chapter 1 here it's interesting because all but about three of the 33 things that there in my old sermon on that subject are found in one chapter here so we started there with chapter 1 verse 1 and we went down probably through about verse 5 and I won't

I won't reread that now because we kind of went into detail on it last time but basically in those first few verses there it lists about seven things that are given to us out of some 30 different ones if you notice they're starting with first one and following down through there you're gonna find these things the first is first thing that he's gives us his faithfulness he makes it possible for us to be faithful to him and the second thing is he gives us grace and that doesn't mean salvation grace it's talking about growing from grace to grace in other words he gives us the ability to grow through life through time as things happen sometimes the bad things that happen help us grow the most but when they do happen we need a little more grace and he gives it to us when we need it and as we need it the third thing is peace and obviously the peace that we have is because we're joined to him and what's interesting is the

Greek word peace comes from the root word I row which means to join so the only peace we really have is because we're joined to Jesus Christ and then the fourth thing was faith he gives us

Jesus's faith right we already know that we've talked about that many times haven't we and then the fifth thing is love he gives us this agape love which is different than the world's love it's a love that has nothing to do with the object that you're loving it all comes from your own heart so that thing that you're loving can treat you bad or can treat you good but you still love it if it's agape only born -again people can have agape love and we looked in detail at that towards the end of the sermon last

Sunday all right and then the sixth thing we noticed there was called hope and we find that in verse 5 so why don't we pick it up there about verse 5

Colossians chapter 1 verse 5 let's pray first Lord we just thank you for the service today we thank you for every single one of us that you brought together today we pray for those who couldn't be with us and and ask you to be with them help them if they're ill or have hurt themselves that they'll grow in strength and healing and Lord watch over us during this time that we might learn what you want us to learn in Jesus name amen so there in Colossians 1 verse 5 it says for the hope which is laid up for you in heaven where have you heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel and that word hope it means a joyous anticipation of a future event that you expect to happen the meaning of the

English word has changed through the years and now really when we use the word hope it's kind of a negative word but back in the 1600s it was a very positive word full of expectation and that's the way the

Greek word is what it means here in this passage so this hope that he gives us

I think it's interesting that it defines it further it says for the hope which is laid up for you in heaven one of the greatest uses of the word hope in the

New Testament has to do with the second coming of Jesus Christ and the rapture and so that's one of our great hopes and this may very well be a reference of that that within every believer for every generation since the time of the

Apostle Paul for 2 ,000 years each believer has believed that the rapture could happen in their lifetime it's been the great hope

I remember my grandmother we called her Nana but she was amazing person wonderful Christian but she said

I'm not gonna die I'm gonna go up in the rapture but she didn't quite make it so now now we think we will and somebody will there will be a generation where we get it right and I'm depending on brother

Bill in our Sunday school class to get that right for us so we know when it's happening and we know that it's our generation so keep working at it brother

Bill we're getting close and it may well be our generation so that's the hope probably that's talking about there in verse 5 but then notice it towards the end of that verse 5 it mentions another one it's the seventh thing that he gives us and all these are things that he gives us the moment that he saves us it says where have you heard this hope that you heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel so the sixth or the seventh thing that he gives us which is quite miraculous is he gives us ears that hear for the first time in our life we hear with understanding that Jesus is our

Messiah and we get it and that's a that's a gift the Holy Spirit gives us is hearing the ability to hear and funny thing about this word in the

Greek it literally means to hear already so it's like once you get it you already have it you don't have to grow in that ability you can hear

God's word from the moment you're saved for the rest of your life for rest of all eternity future to which is a strange word if you think about it phrase

I should say all right so the hearing part it doesn't just mean that you hear it with the organ on the side of your head called your ear that's not exactly what the

Greek word means it means to hear with understanding so you hear it before the first time you understand it that's a gift that's that's a gift from God and we didn't have it one day and the next day we had it and it's miraculous and so that gives us seven things now

I want to go a little deeper into this hearing part so think about it because this is something again

I think all preachers if you go back and read older preachers from different centuries even they're all battling something and if you read their sermons you read the books they've written they're battling something there in their generation in time it is some big evil that's coming over trying to bring disputation against the church or trying to refute the scriptures or something or they're battling the

Pope you know saying that he can speak as God or whatever it is they're battling something I have my battles in my life and I've battled them from the time

I was 24 years old started studying the scripture and some of these things are still the main battles that I started back then and we're still fighting those some of those battles but one of the battles that I didn't recognize back then that I have come to recognize more in the last five or six or seven or eight years is the battle that the modern gospel has changed and it's not the true gospel that what most churches tell you you have to do to be saved is the

Bible doesn't tell you that and yet yet they separate with one another over these list of things that each group thinks it's a different list so they separate and every one of those are effects none of them are the cause and they don't get that because the cause of salvation is the calling and one of the things that happens with the calling is you have to be given ears to hear now think about this what if the

Holy Spirit went about to call each of us to Christ and he never gave us the ability to hear the call would that make any sense at all why would you call with no organ to hear it you have to have a receiver in order for the transmission to make any sense would you agree with that and so the idea of the calling and the miraculous gift of hearing is prevalent through the

New Testament even in the earliest parts of the church in the book of Acts when the first gift of tongues and I hate it that in English we translated tongues because what it literal meaning is languages it has never meant gibberish and nowhere in the scriptures it mean gibberish it is a language in fact a known language of the world or it's not a gift of the

Holy Spirit but even when the true gift of tongues of languages was given in the book of Acts if you read it carefully what it really says is it was a gift of hearing because it says that every man heard the word the gospel in his own language that was part of the gift so not only did the men of God and women of God have the ability to speak in a language they'd never studied but people could hear their gospel in their own language even though only one language was being spoken isn't that amazing that's a big miracle too so you have you have two sides of the same miracle and I think the calling unto salvation has those two sides it has the call but you have to have the ear to hear or you don't hear the call so it happens instantaneously it's kind of like two sides of the same coin the coin is worthless if it doesn't have a tail right it's worthless if it doesn't have a head it has to have both and the head and the tail here are the calling and the hearing now let's think about this hearing because it's not talked about much nowadays the gospel that we hear today is the gospel that will everyone can be saved and God Jesus died for everyone and all you have to do is make a decision it doesn't talk about hearing anything at all and yet you go back and you read some of the great revivals in history some of the great preachers like Billy Sunday and and Moody and some of these people that went around both continents of Europe and the

United States and preached Tory I could sit here and name them I guess for a while but what you'll read is very often you would find people these things would last for two weeks or longer sometimes three weeks these revival meetings which you don't see that today that's gone now it was still here when

I first got saved and now it's gone that's how fast that went away you don't have evangelists going around churches and staying for three weeks anymore now during the three weeks of this evangelistic meeting and you can read about them all through history people would come down to the altar that had been under the preaching and they would begin to beg

God to give them the ability to hear give me give me the ability to be saved give me the ability to to sense that you're calling me because they knew they couldn't just pray a prayer and get saved isn't that amazing now you don't see that today do you the preachers were telling them now you need to you need to come down and spend time with God they didn't tell them pray this little prayer come my heart save me amen they didn't tell him that that you need to come down and spend time with God you need to get along with God see if you can hear him because if you can't it's not real anyway

Wow things have changed let's look at Ephesians chapter 4 verse 21 I see what the Bible says about this

Ephesians 421 if so be that you have heard him see the word if that means everybody doesn't hear him but if so be that you have heard him this should be

Ephesians 421 does that look right okay if so be that you have heard him and have been taught by him as the scripture is in as the truth is in Jesus so before we see what it's talking about here it asked two questions if you have heard him and been taught by him now there's a passage in the book of John where Jesus himself said that no man comes to me unless he's been taught by the

Father think about that you can't just pray and ask

Jesus in your heart in the first place the Bible says there's none that seek after him so people don't want to do it anyway but even if they did want to do it they couldn't just do that they can't just do that they have to have the

Father through the Holy Spirit come to them into their mind and begin to open their understanding and give them an ear that hears and and gain some teaching before they will ever come to Christ is that amazing but that's what the

Bible teaches now here again it teaches it in Ephesians like it does in John if so be that you have heard him and have been taught by him as the truth is in Jesus that you put off concerning the former lifestyle you put off the old man which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts and be renewed in the spirit of your mind and that you put on the new man which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness now think about this this fits perfectly with Roman chapter 8 verse 1 a and B the two parts of that one verse are all carried within these four verses so Romans 8 one can say in one verse to two parts of it what it took four verses to say here in Ephesians but it says the same thing and that is that first of all you have to be given the gift of hearing by the

Holy Spirit and you have to be taught with understanding by the

Holy Spirit about what the truth is about Jesus Christ and then that same person that has that hearing and that understanding and that ability begins to understand there's an old man and a new man and that your job is to put off the old man and to wear the new man be the new man more moments of every day the old man is still there but be the new man more moments of every day it's right there but you can't do it without hearing can you and so that gift that we just the seventh one we just talked about very important now look down see look at first John 1 1 skip around a little bit here

I want to keep your hand Ephesians I see another Ephesians coming up here pretty quickly first John 1 1 that which was from the beginning which you have what heard you have to have had the in this again is the

Greek word which means to hear with understanding it doesn't just mean to hear it it means to hear it with understanding so that which was from the beginning which we have heard who's we

Christian people born -again people have the ear to hear they're the ones that have heard so that's who we is which we have heard and which we have seen with our eyes and which we have looked upon and our hands have handled of the word of life so in other words the only way we can know

Jesus and since him with our senses since he's in heaven and we're down here is by this miraculous gift that the

Holy Spirit is to spirit gives us to hear him to hear his words but also to behold him with our eyes of faith and to feel him with our heart like we would with our hands if he were here physically and so forth so these are all gifts of the

Holy Spirit now let's go back to Ephesians but this time let's go into chapter 1 and look at verse 11 this one is such a great teaching it just lays it out like it happens at the point of salvation in whom also we have obtained an inheritance so if we're in Christ we have an inheritance don't we we own everything well we own the whole universe because we're children of the

King who owns the whole universe in whom also we have obtained an inheritance being predestinated according to the purpose of him which works all things after the counsel of his own will so the reason that we have obtained an inheritance is because God predetermined that we individually and as a group meaning the elect would be the ones who would gain this inheritance it's been predetermined predestined by sovereign

God verse 11 says and it goes on in verse 12 why do we receive this inheritance because we were predestined to receive it but why else do we receive it so that we would bring praise to God's glory who first trusted in Christ those of us who first trusted in Christ from the

Apostles all the way on out to us at the what I think probably the end of the age right those of us who have trusted in Christ bring glory to God why is that because we're part of a fallen race and the entire race should have gone to hell because it chose to and God plucked some of us out of the fire and saved us and changed us in front of the world where the world can see the change and that brings glory to God but who are these people that were predestinated and who also bring praise to his glory who are these people in verse 13 in whom also you trusted see it talked about at the end of verse 12 those who first trusted in Christ well you think about it some of them actually saw him didn't they and walked with him for three years

John got to lay his head on his breast and sleep on the chest of the

Savior well yeah he believed in him that's good isn't it but what about those of us who have never seen him and we love him and believe in him there's a special commendation for us in the

Bible and so it refers to people like John and Peter and even

Paul at the end of verse 12 those who first trusted in Christ and now it talks about the rest of us who trusted some 2 ,000 years later maybe or all in between in whom you also trusted but how did we trust after we heard you see you have to have the hearing which is a gift of the

Holy Spirit before you can do anything so by the time you do something you've already been regenerated that's why salvation is not by works of righteousness which we do one of which would be believing that is a work of righteousness it doesn't save us it is an effect of the salvation it's it comes with it

I won't even say it's an effect belief comes with it at that moment when God gives us 33 some odd things obviously in order for us to believe we have to first have the ability to hear so the hearing comes before the believing and the hearing is part of the regenerative work regenerative work of the

Holy Spirit actually I think what's fascinating I've spent great hours of time studying verses 13 14 and following and tried to analyze it almost like you would when you were a kid in school having to having to what do you call it when you structure the sentences when you look at every little word in everything it's saying here what

I found interesting about it it does give a structure like this happens and then this happens and this happens and then this happens but then when you look at the

Greek so many of these verbs are in the aorist which means just boom it was there that it totally aorist always means without regard to time that's what it means so even though intellectually we study this as a sequence of events in reality it was you didn't have it and then you have it do you get that that's how salvation works you didn't have it and then the

Holy Spirit puts it on you and you have it so it's not really a sequence but in order for us to logically think of things we logically since we live on a timeline we're not eternal like God we live on a timeline for us it's logical that if you have to believe the gospel to be saved you certainly have to hear it before you can believe it in the

Bible says no man's looking for it and no man can understand it so God has to perform a miracle and he opens our ears so in whom you trusted after that you heard the word of truth the gospel of your of your salvation this gift of hearing is huge and it's only the seventh one in our list in Colossians but it's huge because in our logical way of thinking you can't possibly be saved until this happens and once it does happen everything falls into place so look how it reads after you believed in him you trusted in Christ after that you heard the word of truth the gospel of your salvation remember the word gospel means the good news so let's reread it in whom you trusted after you heard the word of truth the good news of your salvation in whom also after that you believed you were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise so you see a sequence you hear you believe and you're sealed and those things do happen but they don't really happen as a sequence they happen all at once as a gift from God verse 14 says which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession and to the praise of his glory so when you understand salvation as it's taught in the scripture it's all miraculous it happens as a gift that God gives us the

Bible says God never repents of his gifts which means he never changes his mind and takes a gift away from anyone so you cannot lose your salvation it just is taught so many ways probably hundreds of ways in the scripture that truth is taught but the thing that fools people is they see people come to church and go for a few weeks or months and then quit and go back to an ungodly life and they say well they lost their salvation so they're trusting their observance rather than what the scripture says and scripture says that doesn't happen but their eyes thinks they their eyes think they saw that happen so they trust their experience and we're in the age of experience that's why

I call us Bapto Catholics Pinto Catholics Presbyterian Catholics it's because the

Roman Catholic Church the Roman Church was the strongest church in the world at one time the church that the book of Romans was written to strongest church in the world and yet look at it now it's probably the biggest cult group in the world now because so many things have been added human things added to what was truth and now it's watered down to such an extent that if you're part of that group it's really really difficult to determine what's authoritative and what's not and so as that happens to every denomination

I'm not picking on the Roman Catholics the Baptist are going through it right now some Presbyterian groups

Lutheran groups have gone in Methodist groups went through it 50 75 80 100 years ago and the

Baptist are in the end stages of this cancer at this very time many of them every church is different though so you can't pick on every little independent church church but as a group everything is going towards mannishness and when you go through mannishness you move away from miraculous events like the calling and of the

Holy Spirit who brings to us these seven things we've already discussed and a whole bunch more all in a nanosecond of time and it's all his work and it's all what he does to you not what you did for God and that's what saved you is what he did for you and to you and it just moves away from that to focusing on the things that you respond with and say oh that's what saved you and so the hearing if you want to say that believing is what saves you then what what do you do with this idea that hearing has to come first though so oh wait a minute so so I have to hear to be saved so why don't we start a church group that says we're hearers right we start our own group we're hearers and that's all that counts if you're a believer you're not part of us because that's not what saves you if you repented that's not what saves you you're not in our group we're hearers so we're the church of the big ear the church of the ear and you have to join us or you can't be saved you see how ridiculous that is that's what we do so which is it the hearing or the believing that saves you or is it the repenting or is it the getting baptized or is it the walking not in the flesh but after the spirit which of that is it that saves you none of it saves you because you can't do is

I should put it this way which of those do you have to do to be saved see if you praise it that way it becomes clear none of it because you don't get saved by doing you do because you have already been saved and that's always been the truth but the

Baptist are moving away from it not so much when I first was saved they were still preaching it pretty pretty much right so this has happened in my lifetime and it's a battle that I fight and I know some other preachers do too so the hearing is hugely important and it yet it is a gift of the

Holy Spirit that he brings to us at our calling when he regenerates us turn to Romans chapter 10 verse 13 let's see if we see any further evidence of this idea of how important the gift of hearing is when he gives that to us it's fascinating to me that he gives us the gift of hearing but he also gives us the gift of Christ's faith

Jesus's faith and those two together give us the ability then to have our own belief and repentance so we end up doing those things but it's not the doing that saved us we were already saved before we did it therefore we get no glory we get no glory for it

God gets all the glory and that's how the gospel truly was written Romans chapter 10 verse 13 for whosoever shall call upon the name of the

Lord shall be saved so what if someone asked you what I have to do to be saved and as I myself did so many times as a young Christian before I understood some of these things we're talking about today

I would lead people to Romans chapter 10 verse 13 I'd say do that it's what

I would use so let's look at it for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved now certainly that's something you could do to be saved don't you think sounds like it doesn't it and we would pluck that verse out and stick it on cards and memorize them and use it and we would never look at the rest of the verses right after it so let's look at them for whosoever shall call upon the name of the

Lord shall be saved how then shall they call on the Lord in whom they have not believed oh wait a minute maybe

I should have said the thing you have to do is believe I got the wrong verse sorry it's believe oh wait let's keep reading and how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard whoops now we're back to the church of the ear we're the group that believes you got here to be saved you see it's just a little it's a group of list of things that happen when you are saved it's not what you do to get saved that you could pick any one of them if you want to start a cult group pick any one of them or pick a group of them and you got your own cult group and it'll be different than the one next door and they all have the name

Christian on the side how shall they believe in him of whom they have not heard and how shall they hear without a preacher uh -oh now we can start the group of David Mitchell because he is the preacher that shows people how to be saved

I am of Paul I am of Apollos right same church had gone through the same problem for 2 ,000 years but look at verse 15 and how shall they preach except they be sent as it's written how beautiful to the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace and bring glad tidings of good things so now we see that the true person who gets the glory is the one who sent the preacher who is that that's

Jesus he chose him and sent him but they have not all obeyed the gospel for Isaiah said

Lord who has believed our report so then faith cometh by hearing you say

I preached a sermon a long time ago called what comes first the faith or the hearing you know and hearing has to be what comes first it's a direct gift of the

Holy Spirit at the moment of regeneration so then faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the

Word of God now you hear again it's almost like the same thing if you're going to call someone and let's say you use the scripture to call them with let's say you use what's in this

Bible to call someone to Christ you still have to give them the gift of hearing or understanding don't you and so we can see how logical this is that this is exactly how the

Lord did it so then faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the Word of God you cannot show salvation in other than by two things that have to always be present and neither one of them are you or me or man it's not mannish at all it is the

Word of God that's the water and the Spirit of God that's the

Holy Spirit who calls us you have to have the water and the Spirit you have to have the

Word of God and the Holy Spirit and that's how the calling takes place but one of the things he does he gives us hearing at the same time he gives us shows us the word he gives us the hearing and then he speaks the word and it makes sense for the first time in our life that's how salvation works but I say have they not heard yes barely their sound went out into all the earth have you ever had someone say well it's not fair because these people over in the darkest parts of Africa never hear the gospel and it's not fair if God sends them to hell have you heard that before but what does the scripture say now this is written in the first century this this was actually written the first 100 years of Christianity 2 ,000 years ago it says but I say have they not heard who's they yes barely their sound went into all the earth and their words into the ends of the world so the gospel you know when missionaries went into Africa they found churches already there because the gospel went there before it went here the gospel went there with the

Ethiopian eunuch and he preached the gospel all over Africa they all heard it and you know what they did they turned away from it started worshiping rocks and trees and saying that God was in the tree

God was in the rock God's in the animals and they worshiped animals and things and and and and they taught their kids to do that and they taught their kids to do it and that's where we found them when the missionaries went back but the gospel had already been there it's just they rejected it so God is the person who tries to argue that God is not fair that is probably a pretty unfair argument don't you think all right look at Acts chapter 22 with me if you would in verse 6 and it came to pass that is my that is

I made my journey and was come nigh unto Damascus about noon so now we see the greatest

Christian who ever lived the one who had the problem of doing that which I don't want to do and not doing that which

I want to do and he said Oh wretched man that I am who will deliver me from this body of this death thanks be to Jesus Christ our

Lord that man this same man who said there's no condemnation for me though because I'm in Christ and I'm walking according spirit not according to the flesh that same man this is his salvation experience so let's look at it suddenly they're shown from heaven a great light round about me and I fell into the ground and I want you to circle the word heard because that's what we're studying today is the hearing this gift of hearing that the

Holy Spirit gives he says I heard a voice not just a noise but words

I heard words a voice saying unto me

Saul saw why persecutest thou me it should be acts 22 6 and 7 who was this voice that he was hearing for the first time in his life

Jesus Christ now it's interesting because it's not the first time he heard him with his ears but it is first time he heard him with his understanding and I think we can prove that too so let's keep reading

I fell to the ground and I heard a voice saying to me Saul saw why persecutest thou me and I answered who art thou

Lord and he said unto me I am Jesus of Nazareth whom thou persecutest and they that were with me saw indeed the light and were afraid now look at this but they heard not the voice why they weren't called now

I'm not saying they didn't get called five years later ten years later some of them may be in heaven but at this time and on the timeline it was not their calling so they could they they heard a noise and they saw the light but they couldn't understand the words and be saved because God didn't give that to them yet isn't that interesting see that's the true gospel this the true gospel is right here this true manner of salvation how

God saves people is right here he does it by opening their ears of understanding and so Paul could hear and understand the words

Paul had heard the words before but didn't understand them these people with him could not hear the words at all they knew

God was there they saw the light but they couldn't hear because God did not open their ears and you can't be saved without that and that's why the preachers of old would say why don't you come down for a couple of weeks and just beg

God to open your ears because you I can't give you a formula for salvation wouldn't it be great if churches would do it that way again just beg

God for salvation and to open your ears and to give you understanding and let you see Jesus because I can't do that for you that's what their gospel message was wow it's not like that now now

I understand you have to tell the guy you have to tell them Jesus died for the sins of his people and that blood will save you you have to tell him that but you can't make him hear it can you you cannot make them hear it most of them see a light and they hear it sound but they don't hear the words yet until the

Holy Spirit calls them and then they do so these other people did not hear the voice of him that spake to me and I said what shall

I do Lord and the Lord said unto me arise and go into Damascus and there it shall be told thee all the things which are appointed for you to do and when

I could not see because of the glory of that light so Paul was stricken with blindness temporarily he was led by the hand by them that were with me and I came to Damascus what a great story of the hearing all right now

I want to go back to Colossians chapter 1 that was verses 1 through 5 took us into 7 different things

God's given us and let's look at verse 6 we'll see the 8th thing and then that'll be all we have time for today so look at Colossians 1 6 so now he's given us the hearing to be able to hear the word of the gospel of our salvation and now look at verse 6 which is coming to you as it is into all the world now see there again it shows that this is another place where it shows the gospel actually has been to the whole world in the first century no one can say

God didn't give them a chance they chose other gods is what happened when they were given the opportunity they chose other gods so verse 6 says the gospel which is coming to you as it is in all the world now here is the eighth thing the eighth gift of the

Holy Spirit at the moment he saves us and bringeth forth fruit so what is it that brings forth the fruit here it is the

Word of God the gospel of our salvation that brings forth fruit within us it's not us that brings forth fruit now

I know there's many scriptures where it says we do we do bring forth fruit we're supposed to bring forth fruit all that but this particular one is saying that the

Word brings forth fruit in us when it hits that ear it's like it gets planted in the good soil remember the parable

Jesus told it's like it hits Holy Spirit opens the ear puts the word in it and it immediately it germinates isn't that something now now look what it does though it brings forth fruit it doesn't say it might bring forth fruit or sometimes it brings forth fruit or some

Christians have fruit others don't doesn't say that it always brings forth fruit that's why

Romans chapter 8 verse 1b says who walk not after the flesh but after the

Spirit walking after the Spirit means the Word of God is bringing forth fruit in the life it does not mean you're perfect it means it is bringing forth fruit in your life while you're on this earth and that's a beautiful thing to understand part of the gift that the

Holy Spirit gives you is that you will bear fruit not that you should it's not a thing you do because you have to do it to get saved that's not

Romans what Romans 8 1b means what it means is as part of the equipment you got at the moment

God saved you he gave you all these equipment to go with the salvation part of the equipment is you have the ability to grow as you read the word but it's directly proportional to how much you read the word so remember that it's directly proportional to how much you're in the word is how fruitful you'll be so it bringeth forth fruit as it does also in you since the day you heard it so when

God gave you the ears and opened the ears of hearing you from that moment began to bear fruit and also the word began to bear fruit in you and that's really what causes the fruit isn't it because the fruit doesn't come from us we just bear it we hold it like a tree just hangs off of us it comes from the root and the root is

Jesus and so when he gives you the hearing and he puts the word in there the word starts to bear fruit

Jesus is the word right so the word starts to bear the fruit you just hold it I mean it creates the fruit we hold it all right so the eighth thing that we see here is to bring forth fruit it's in the present middle voice which means it in language that sort of means acting upon oneself for one's own benefit so what's interesting is when the

Lord puts that in you where you have the work the ability for the Word of God to bear fruit in you you then begin to study the word and it bears more fruit and you do it you're doing that for your own benefit you want to grow so he puts an urge in us to grow doesn't he

I remember that so distinctly when I got saved because I never wanted to read the Bible it was boring

I tried a few times because I thought I'd go to hell if I didn't read it and I tried and I'd get to Leviticus and as the end of that I'd put it back down sometimes

I'd make it to Deuteronomy that's as far as I ever got and in the day I got saved from that moment I would sit down and just study for hours and especially that first year studied for at least an hour every day when

I got home from work before dinner and just couldn't wait to get home and study the word that is a change the

Holy Spirit made in me that I couldn't have made no way I would have just all sudden oh I want to read this book it's no longer boring now it's exciting the book didn't change did it

I changed God changed me and so it's interesting that it's in the middle voice which means you once you're saved you have this sense about you that the more

I read and study the word the better that's going to be for me and for the Lord and everybody else but it's going to benefit me and I think that's that's just in the grammar itself pretty pretty sweet stuff

I think we're out of time today so now we're up to the eighth thing and I wanted to spend some time on the hearing part though because that's such a battle that we battle today for the truth is that it's it's not what you do it's the gift of the

Holy Spirit giving us these wonderful abilities at the moment he regenerates us and then we respond and want to do these things one of which is to study the word all right let's stand and have prayer father we thank you so much for your word and even before we recognize your word you gave us the gift of hearing where we could hear it when we see it we could hear it and understand it and gain more and more understanding as we study and thank you for giving us the desire within us to study and to want to spend some time in the word

Lord bless us as we do by being our teacher and give us deeper and deeper understanding of each passage that we look into as time goes by help to equip us