Sunday Sermon: The Spirit Gives Life, Part 2 (Romans 8:9-11)

You're listening to the preaching ministry of Gabriel Hughes, pastor of Providence Reformed Baptist Church in Casa Grande, Arizona. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday on this podcast we feature teaching through a New Testament book, an Old Testament book on Thursday and our Q &A on Friday.

Each Sunday we are pleased to present our sermon series. Here is Pastor Gabe.

The Spirit of God Dwelling in Believers

We have been reading of the ministry of the Holy Spirit as we're going through Romans chapter 8 and we're picking up on a section that we looked at last week and I did not get all the way through verse 11.

So we're coming back to verse 11 today. This is going to be Romans chapter 8 verses 9 through 11. In honor of the word of the King, would you please stand? This is Romans chapter 8 beginning in verse 9.

Here the word of the Lord. You, however, are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells.

In you.

Whoever does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to Him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.

You may be seated as we pray. Heavenly Father, as we come to our passage today, I pray that Your Spirit would illuminate to us this truth. As we have heard from 1 Corinthians chapter 2, the naturally minded man cannot discern spiritual things, for they are spiritually discerned.

And it is only through Your Holy Spirit that we may read the word of God and make sense of it and apply it to our lives and live according to what has been written for our benefit in ages past. As we talk about even in our own confession and catechisms, anyone may read the word of God.

But it is only those who have the Spirit of God that may understand it rightly and keep it in a way that is honoring of Christ our Savior. We read this morning of the Spirit who has brought us back from the dead.

What does that mean for us practically? How do we live in light of that truth? And what hope does it give us for tomorrow? We have the very promise of tomorrow because of the Spirit of life that dwells in us and Christ's resurrection from the dead.

Make that applicable to us this morning as we come to Your word. It's in Jesus' name that we pray, Amen. We worship a God who raises the dead. And we read in multiple places throughout the scriptures of God raising the dead and doing so through His prophets and apostles, even through His own Son.

In 1 Kings chapter 17, Elijah raised the widow's son from death. And then His protege, Elisha, raised the Shunammite woman's son back to life. Our brother Alan read for us this morning the passage in Acts chapter 9 where Tabitha had died and Peter raised her back to life.

In Luke chapter 7, our Savior Christ Himself is passing by a town called Nain. And there is a funeral procession that is coming out of the town, a man whose body is laying there on the cart and his mother, a widow, who is weeping next to it.

And Jesus puts His hand on the woman and, in the Gabe paraphrase, says to her, it's going to be alright. And raises her son from the dead and gives her son back to her. And of course, one of the most famous passages we read of in John chapter 11, the raising of Lazarus from the dead.

When Jesus spoke to Lazarus' sisters, Mary and Martha, saying to them, I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live. And then saying to her, do you believe this?

When we gather as a church on Sunday morning, it's Sunday that we gather because it was that day that our Lord Christ rose from the dead. And we have these constant reminders of that story, not just at Easter, but every time we gather as saints remembering Christ who died on the cross as an atoning sacrifice for our sins and rose again for our justification, as we read about in Romans 4 .25.

And not raising spiritually from the dead, but His body actually came out of the tomb and rose again. And so that same promise of resurrection is given to us. And so asking that same question that Jesus asked of Martha, do you believe this?

It is our religious practice. It is what we proclaim and sing about every Sunday. But do you believe it? Do you really believe it? And how, as I had prayed about this morning, does this work out practically?

In our lives? Last week, when we were looking at this full section, verses 9 through 11, we talked first about the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, as we see it in verse 9. The Apostle Paul saying, you, however, are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you.

Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to Him. But we see it as a statement of fact. If in fact the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of God, dwells in you. And we consider that God has made His home in our hearts.

All those who follow Christ Jesus. Everyone who is a believer in Christ is indwelt by the Holy Spirit. Secondly, we consider life through the Spirit in verse 10. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness.

And this not just being the promise for us of life after death, but even that we have life now in Christ. We were born physically alive, but spiritually dead. And when hearing the Gospel and putting our faith in Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit comes inside of us and brings our dead spirits back to life again.

So the life that we now live, we live in honor to God, where previously we were in rebellion against God. Now in Christ Jesus, we desire to follow Him. Meaning that we keep His Word and obey it. And we do so in a way that is honoring of God Himself.

Previously rebellious against Him, now we desire to love Him. Life through the Spirit that we've been given as we read in verse 10. And then finally, which we didn't get to last week, what we get to today in verse 11, the resurrection by the Spirit that we read of here in this verse.

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. And we have the promise of the life that we now live in Christ Jesus, and we also have the promise of life after death, even in these words.

So as we look at this today, I want to consider, number one, that God would not leave His Son in the grave. God did not send His Son to die and then for His Son's body, His earthly body, and His incarnation to therefore be buried and decay.

God raised it from the dead. Secondly, we will consider that God will not leave your body in the grave or even unattended in the present. And thirdly, we will consider how God will not leave you, period.

That with the Holy Spirit dwelling within us, we have the assurance of our salvation and the assurance that God is with us. And so this, once again, we consider these things in light of verse 11, that God has given life to us through His Spirit who dwells in us.

And now how, therefore, should we live according to these things? So let's consider, first of all, that God would not leave His Son in the grave. Let me read to you again in verse 11. If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you.

Now you will often hear it said of all of these different works and ministries that have been accomplished by God on our behalf, that these are Trinitarian works. Your salvation is a Trinitarian work.

The Father had ordained it from before the foundation of the world. The Son purchased it with His death on the cross. And the Spirit actualizes it and makes it real when He comes into your heart and faith erupts as a result.

So your salvation is the Trinitarian work of God. When Jesus was baptized, we see the Trinity present at His baptism. Jesus being baptized by John the Baptist, the word of the Father from heaven, this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased, the Holy Spirit descending like a dove upon Him.

And just as the Trinity is present there at Christ's baptism, so the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are present at your baptism as well. For Jesus said to His disciples in Matthew 28, Go therefore into all nations making disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey all that I have commanded you.

And so God in His triune nature is present with us even in our baptism. And God is present with us now. He is our Father. Next week we're going to read about the adoption that we have received in the Spirit, in the ministry of the Spirit, in what Christ has purchased for us.

So we have a Father in heaven that we may call upon. We have the Son, Jesus Christ, whom we worship. We've heard here about the Spirit of Christ dwelling within us, which is synonymous with the Holy Spirit.

And of course the Spirit whom Christ sends, that He promised His disciples He would send. The Spirit that dwells within each and every one of us. Christ's resurrection from the dead was even itself a Trinitarian work.

As Jesus had said before He went and was crucified, I have the authority to lay down my life and to take it back up again. And we read of the Father who raised Jesus from the dead back in Romans chapter 4.

And we read here of the Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead. You might be inclined to think, well, which one was it? Was it the Father or the Son or the Holy Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead?

And the answer is, yes. Someone said it already. Yes, that's right. It was Trinitarian even in His death and in His resurrection. We see the Father, Son, and Spirit present in all of these works. And so the Father would not leave His Son there in the grave.

Now Jesus was incarnate, God incarnate, meaning God becoming man. So He is the God-man and that in itself a mystery to us. How is Jesus very God or truly God and truly man at the same time? But we see within that that there is an interconnectedness between the body and the soul.

The Gnostics would teach that there's not that connectedness between body and soul. Whatever you do in the body is wicked and evil anyway. And the body is going to die and it's going to become corrupted.

It becomes worm food when it goes into the ground. But the spirit is pure and always right and it goes on living forever. And the Gnostics would teach there's always that inner light that is inside of us because the spirit is always good but the body is always corrupt.

So there's that separation between body and spirit according to the Gnostics. But we read about in Scripture, we've read about even as we've been going through Romans, whatever you do in the body does absolutely affect your soul.

The way you live your life will come up at the judgment seat of God no matter what you did in the body. We've read about how the wages of sin is death and we've read back in Romans 1 that the wrath of God is upon all those who suppress the truth and love their sin.

So what you do in the body will absolutely come up again unless we have somebody to pay the price for our sins for us. Jesus having died on the cross for us and risen from the dead so that whatever we did is forgiven by God by His grace through the faith that we have in Jesus Christ and His righteousness therefore applied to us.

But in being applied to us, it's not just that our sins are forgiven but that we would now therefore live according to the righteousness of Christ. And if you have been clothed in His righteousness, then you would live according to that righteousness as well.

The Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you that we may live according to these things. So Christ's body not disconnected from God Himself dwelling within that body that was born to the Virgin Mary.

And so as the Father would not leave His Son's body in the grave to decay, He raised it up again. And so we also have the promise of our own bodies being raised from the dead. Psalm 16 verse 10 says, and this being a prophecy concerning the resurrection of Christ,.

It says,.

And when Peter was preaching at Pentecost in Acts 2, he said that verse was pointing to Christ. We know where David's grave is. Peter was preaching there. We can point to David's grave. But the Father did not let His Holy One see corruption, but received that sacrifice that Jesus made on our behalf and showed that He received it by raising Him from the dead.

We read in Psalm 22, a glorious Psalm that has numerous prophecies about the crucifixion of Jesus, which we see fulfilled at the cross. But this is the Psalm that begins, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

Which Jesus prayed from the cross. But He wasn't abandoned by God. Though that Psalm goes on to say, I am a worm and not a man, scorned by mankind and despised by the people. That's fulfillment of what is said in Isaiah 53.

All who see me mock me. They make mouths at me. They wag their heads and they say this. He trusts in the Lord. Let Him deliver Him. Let Him rescue Him for He delights in Him. What were the people saying at the cross of Christ when they were mocking Jesus?

Exactly that. Exactly those words. Prophesied a thousand years before it happened. And these were the ways that they mocked the Savior as He died. The Psalm goes on to say, My strength is dried up like a pot shirt and my tongue sticks to my jaws.

Remember that Jesus cried out from the cross,.

I thirst.

And it says that He said that to fulfill prophecy. Why would saying I thirst fulfill prophecy? Exactly what's said here in Psalm 22. Verse 16, For dogs encompass me. A company of evildoers encircles me.

They have pierced my hands and feet. Before the Romans even devised crucifixion. And it was prophesied about in Psalms. I can count all my bones. They stare and gloat over me. They divide my garments among them.

And for my clothing, they cast lots. Just as they did at the cross. Exactly as was prophesied would take place. But as that Psalm begins, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And we sing even in our songs, The Father turns His face away.

So did indeed the Father abandon His Son there on the cross?

No.

For as Psalm 22 goes on to say, For He has not despised or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted. And He has not hidden His face from Him, But has heard when He cried to Him. And in Jesus' cry to the Father, He was raised from the dead.

In fulfillment of His own promises, God would not leave His Son in the grave. One of the disappointing things about the film Ben-Hur, as great and as epic as a movie that is, known primarily for the chariot race scene in that film, for a long time it was considered the most glorious epic film ever put to film, and no movie would ever surpass it, with the number of awards it won and everything else.

Jesus makes an appearance in that movie, but not His face. I don't know if you've ever seen the film before, the one I'm talking about specifically starring Charlton Heston. But He's always seen from behind.

He's always a figure that is talked about in the background, never seen actually in His face in the film. I can appreciate that as one who values the second commandment. But the unfortunate thing about that film is when it gets to the very end, Jesus dies on the cross.

Those who believe in Him are healed of their leprosy, because they put faith in the one who was dying for their sins. But the movie ends just showing the three crosses there on a hill. And that's the way the movie concludes.

What's missing from the story? The resurrection. They never talk about in the film, as epic as this film is, and as many Christians who love it, they never talk about that He didn't just die, but He rose from the dead.

As the Apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 15, if Christ is not raised from the dead, your faith is futile and you're still in your sins. And so it was necessary for Him to rise from the dead, that we would be forgiven and likewise have eternal life.

God had promised He would. It was said in the Old Testament, it was fulfilled in His Son, that He would not leave His Son in the grave. And it is necessary for us to remember all of this. What God promised and what He fulfilled, because He's promised things to us.

And how can we know He'll fulfill those promises to us? Unless we see how He has fulfilled His promises from of old. And so, part two of this morning, we consider how God will not leave your body in the grave.

I think a lot of times we as Christians just have this idea of our eternal life being our body dies and it goes into the ground. And we think that way simply by our experience. It's what we observe, it's what we see.

Those whom we have loved that have preceded us in death, I say preceded because you're going to die too, but they've gone before you. And when we go to the funeral, we see their body placed in the casket and lowered into the ground.

We know that's where their body is. And we can go to the graveyard, we can go to the tomb marker any time we want and remember that the body is still there in the ground beneath the tombstone. It's not been raised from the dead, it's still there.

It could be dug up and you would still find the decaying bones inside that casket. So because that's our experience, we tend to think, we tend to wrestle with or struggle grappling with in our minds an understanding of what it means that our bodies will be risen from the dead.

We just have this idea that our spirits leave our bodies and go to be with God and we combine in some ethereal existence. And we're just a floating spirit around there with God and that's all we're ever going to be.

That may be as far as our belief goes in this faith that we have. I think it's that way for a lot of Christians. But the promise is more that when you die and your soul goes to be with God, as said in the book of Ecclesiastes, the body goes back to the dust from which it came, the soul goes to God who gave it.

So we know that our spirit goes to be with God, but that's not the end of the story. Even our bodies will be raised from the dead. We read in Philippians chapter 3, that He will transform our lowly bodies to be like His glorious body by the power that enables Him to subject all things to Himself.

Christ, the power to bring all things into existence out of nothing, has the power to raise your dead body back again and transform it to be imperishable like His body that came out of the grave is imperishable.

In Psalm 56 .13, For you have delivered my soul from death, yes, my feet from failing, that I may walk before God in the light of life. And with the promise of resurrection that we have, that we may live lives now, that demonstrate that our souls have been brought to life in Christ Jesus.

You remember the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, who were told if you don't bow down to this golden idol, we're going to throw you into this fiery furnace here. And they responded, Sorry, we can't do it.

We're going to worship God alone. He has the power to rescue us even from the flames of this furnace that you're threatening to throw us into. They went on to say,.

But even if He doesn't,.

We're still not going to bow down to your golden image. God does have the power to rescue us even from those things that threaten our lives today. But most of all, He will raise us even from the grave itself.

Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego understood that in the Old Testament. How much more should we understand that with the testimony of Christ, who has been risen from the dead? And so thirdly, we consider, God will not leave your body in the grave.

The promise is for us that we will also rise again. We understand also that God will not leave you, period. Once again, 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.

We have the promise of life now and even the promise that is to come. And with the Holy Spirit dwelling inside of us, God is with us. As Jesus promised to His disciples in John 14, 18, I will not leave you as orphans.

I will come to you. And so we have not been abandoned by God. Even in our lowest and darkest moments, He is with us. His Spirit is still there. We continue to read more about this as we go through chapter 8 of the Holy Spirit interceding for us, even when we don't know what to pray.

The Holy Spirit delivers our prayers and our yearnings to the Lord, for He is with us. Psalm 139, Can I go to the depths of the sea and be far from your presence, even if I go up to the highest heights?

You are there.

There is nowhere that we can go that is too far away from the presence of God. He is always with those who believe in His Son. With the Holy Spirit who has been given to us, we have been sealed by that Spirit.

That is the word that is given to us in the Scriptures. Consider Ephesians chapter 1 verses 13 and 14. In Him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation and believed in Him, you were what?

Sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it to the praise of His glory. How long are we going to have the Spirit?

Always.

He is the seal of our guaranteed inheritance. When we were in Titus last year, we read in Titus chapter 3, how we are fellow heirs with Christ, fellow heirs, meaning that we get all the stuff the Son gets.

What the Father gives to the Son, He then gives to us. And it's said in Revelation chapter 3, He who conquers, I will give to Him to sit with me on my throne. As I also conquered and sat down with my Father on His throne.

Everything that belongs to the Son will belong to us also. And we are sealed and guaranteed for that day by the Holy Spirit within us. Ephesians 4 .30, do not grieve the Holy Spirit. Talking about how we in the body of Christ would not be squabbling or disagreeing with one another in ways that would grieve His Spirit.

By the Spirit you have been sealed for the day of redemption. So there's an instruction there that we would be one in the Spirit because we've been sealed by the Spirit for the day of Christ. A few weeks back I said to you the following, that with the Holy Spirit dwelling within us, and with the Holy Spirit on our hearts having sealed us and guaranteed us for that day of redemption, if that's the promise, if that's the language that the Bible uses to talk about the Holy Spirit upon us, that we're sealed for that day.

For God to abandon you would be to abandon the Holy Spirit. Is God going to cut off part of Himself?

The Trinity?

Of course not. And He's not going to cut you off from Him either. If you have Christ, you have His Spirit and you are sealed for that day. He will not forsake you nor abandon you. He is with you always.

Votie Bauckham shared the words of John MacArthur who said, if you could lose your salvation, you would. And Bauckham elaborated on that and he said, how arrogant does a person have to be to think that they could lose their salvation?

I could lose my salvation, but I haven't. Who do you think you are to say, I'm a Christian and I'm saved and I'm going to heaven when I die and there's a possibility that I could mess this thing up, but I haven't.

Bauckham said, you probably just did. What wonderful assurance to know that we're sealed for the day of redemption. Can you break the seal of God? Remember the scroll and the book of Revelation and John mourning over it going, who is worthy to break the seals and open the scroll?

You?

You cannot break the seal of God. That's good news. Praise be to God for the guarantee of our inheritance and the Holy Spirit that He has given to us. I have shared with you many times before about how much this verse has ministered to me and how much my dad used this verse to teach me so many things about God.

Just out of Romans 8, chapter 11. I remember one of the lessons that he said to me that blew my mind even when I was a little kid. He said to me, God loves you with the same love that He loves His own Son.

He loves me with the same love that He loves the perfect Son of God, Jesus Christ, because we've been clothed in Christ's righteousness. And so when God looks at us, He doesn't see the object of wrath that we were before we came to Christ, the one who is deserving of destruction because of our sin and rebellion against God.

In Christ Jesus, God's wrath is no longer upon us, but His love and His affection for us, because when He looks at us, He sees not our sin, but His Son who has clothed us in righteousness. And furthermore, being taught from this passage of the guarantee of my resurrection, that I'm alive in Christ now, and that I will rise again to live with Him forever.

And it is God who will do this.

It is He who will fulfill this.

It is He who will see it through to the end. The Apostle Paul is saying in Philippians 1 -6, I'm confident of this, that He who began a good work in you is going to go, eh, forget it. What was I thinking when I started this?

Look at what this guy's doing. Is that what that verse says? He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it. God doesn't start something He ain't going to finish. He will be faithful to complete it at the day of Christ.

It's at the end of Jude where we read that wonderful doxology that says to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of His glory with great joy. And in 1 Thessalonians 5, 23 -24, we read this.

Many of you, if you've received an email from me, you've probably seen me sign my emails with this passage. Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely. And may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

He who calls you is faithful. He will surely do it. He who calls you is faithful. He has promised it. He will do it. And the Holy Spirit who brought Jesus back from the dead raises your dead spirit to life that you may live now in the glory of God.

And the promise also is there that your bodies will even be raised from the dead with Him. Now how do we understand this practically? How does this become a comfort to us in reality? Like the way that I live my life today as I go from this place, how does this comfort and keep me?

Let me show you a passage. Turn with me, if you will, to Philippians 4. Let's go to Philippians 4. The students that I teach over at the Christian school, we're going through Philippians right now. We've not come to this passage yet.

But one of the things that I've taught them about the letter to the Philippians, this is a joy letter. Paul is in prison for preaching the gospel. And yet he says so many times to be filled with joy even though he has been thrown in prison for doing the right thing.

Though he's not actually done anything wrong. And he says to this body of believers in Philippi who have sent an offering to help with his ministry there as he's under house arrest in Rome. He says in Philippians 4 .4, Rejoice in the Lord always.

I will say again, rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand. Let me stop there for a moment. Would somebody look at you as a reasonable person? Are you known for seeing the best and even the most difficult circumstances?

Because you know all things are being upheld in God's righteous hand. So that nothing shakes you. The complaints that you would raise aren't the same as what everybody else would say. You don't despair.

You aren't worried. You aren't filled with anxiety. For look at what Paul says next in v. 6. Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.

Don't be anxious about anything. What is anxious? What's anxiety? The word here that's translated anxious means to be divided. It means to be pulled apart. If you've ever heard anyone say of their anxiety, I feel like I'm coming apart at the seams.

Then you understand this definition that's being given here. When we are anxious, we are not trusting God. Where are we divided? Where is all of our attention? Our attention is on our circumstances. It's on this trial right here.

And all you're focused upon are all the different possible outcomes that this could have. What if this happens? What if that happens? What if it's this? What if it's that? And you're divided in all of these different ways instead of looking to the one place, the one person who holds all things in his hand and is delivering you even through this trial, has given you this trial for some great purpose, to sanctify you and make you more like Christ and long all the more for His heavenly kingdom and less and less for the stuff of this world.

And when you know that God holds all things in His hands, you won't be anxious about anything. But in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, can you be thankful for this difficulty that you're going through?

Knowing that God will ultimately deliver you from it. And the promise is that He's going to give you eternal life where all the things that plague us now on this earth won't touch us anymore. And how much more hope does that give us to endure the trials that we go through now?

How thankful we are to go through this, that it may remind me of the promises of God that have been given through His Son, that it may remind me that He holds all things in His hand, and as we're going to read, even as we keep going in Romans 8, He is working all things out for our good and for His glory.

Even this circumstance, and I'm thankful for it, God, because you will be glorified in this. And when that's our condition, when that's our disposition, because we know of the promises we've been given in Christ, then we have this in verse 7, and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

There's a popular praise and worship song out there right now. One of the lines in that song is, I have a peace that doesn't make sense. And when I heard that line, I was like, I don't think you understand the kind of peace that's being promised to us in Scripture.

See, we were once in enmity with God. We were once deserving of hell and judgment and damnation because of our sin against God. You would still be deserving of that. But God's sending His Son to die on the cross for us so that all who believe in Him won't perish, but have everlasting life.