How You Know You Belong To God.

Let's get the CD started, so Debbie will have something to put on the website. And we'll all work together. Romans chapter 8, if you'd turn your Bibles there. Paul has talked about how difficult it is because our human nature, we want to do the things that are right, but we don't have the ability to be able to do it. And no matter how much we try, our human nature overrides these things. But he said, the real answer to all of this is the gift of the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit is available in our lives. Then two things happen. One is, once the Spirit is in our lives and we've yielded ourselves to Christ, there's no condemnation for us. No matter what our background has been, no matter what our past has been, no matter what we've done, we don't stand under condemnation because God has forgiven us. He's erased the sin in our lives and the guilt of that, so that we stand before Him no longer controlled by our flesh and by this law of death that we were powerless to be able to handle. Those who are living according to human nature, he says, have their minds set on what that human nature desires. Once we begin to live according to the Holy Spirit in our lives, we have our desires set on what the Spirit desires. So that God changes the desires of our heart. Not only does He erase the condemnation that we stood under before, but all of a sudden He changes the desires that we have. That's why a conversion is such a critical thing in making disciples. The desire of a person's life changes. One of the things that you look for when you're dealing with people who've made a profession of faith and trust in Christ, does their desire change? Do they want to read the Bible? Are they hungry for spiritual fellowship? Do they have a desire to change their behavior and lifestyle? They may struggle with that, but what you're looking for is that desire. And the desire change is an evidence that the Holy Spirit is now in control of their lives, and He will eventually transform their lives because He transformed what they want or desire. Those people living according to the human nature have their minds set on what the nature desires. Now they have their minds set on what is the Spirit's life. You, however, He says in verse 9, are not controlled by this sinful human nature. If the Spirit of God lives in you, and if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to God. If Christ is in him, then the body is dead because of sin. That is, you're going to die physically, yet your spiritual life is alive because of righteousness. And he talked about in chapter 5, verse 21, the righteousness that comes as a gift from Christ. It's not we've earned this righteousness, but He calls us righteous or announces that we're righteous. So if the Spirit is in this person who's raised Jesus from the dead, he who raised Jesus from the dead also gives life to our mortal bodies through His Spirit who lives in us. So the Spirit of God is now living in us. So he comes to the conclusion, verse 12, that's kind of a brief summary of this chapter 8, where he introduces into this life of God the power of the Spirit and the presence of the Spirit. So verse 12, now when you find in the scripture a word, therefore, it lets you know that there is a conclusion. What he's going to draw now is the conclusion to all these things in chapter 8. That's why I kind of summarized those so you can see that now he's getting to say, if all these things are true, what is going to happen? Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation, but it is not to the sinful nature to live according to it. So once the Spirit of God comes inside of you, you have now an obligation. The Spirit is now in control of your life and you're obligated. Before, you felt this obligation or desire to be controlled by your fleshly human nature, your human nature that caused you to do things to satisfy your own desires or your own needs or your own emotions. Now you're focused on the Spirit and what does the Spirit want? So because the Spirit is in us and we're not controlled by this sinful human nature, but we're controlled by the Holy Spirit, we have an obligation. No longer to our fleshly human nature to live according to that. This sets us free. The person, before they surrender their life to Christ, will be absolutely controlled by their human desires and human fleshly interests. So they're living a self-focused life. When the Holy Spirit takes over the life of a person, they begin to have a different orientation. They're now looking for the spiritual dimensions to life. And when they read in the Bible what the Bible says is true, they accept that. When they read in the Bible what God wants them to do, they accept that. So that their lives are now directed by the Spirit of God. So that their whole focus has changed. No longer feeling this obligation to the sinful human nature. The desires may be still there, but you don't feel controlled to live under its direction or according to it. Verse 13, it says, For if you live according to the sinful human nature, you will die. For this sinful human nature leads to death. Both spiritual death that comes to us, the death of things in our lives that come to us. It will lead us to destruction. So we know the difference between the spiritual life and this life that is controlled by our fleshly, or he calls it here, sinful human nature. So the fleshly and sinful are equivalent. They're one thing that he's describing in two different words. Our fleshly or human nature that focuses on itself. I want to satisfy myself. I want to achieve what I enjoy. I want to achieve what feels good to me. This is one of the reasons why a church service based merely on what we like or enjoy is always a dangerous thing. Because it is focusing on ourselves instead of the spiritual nature of God. And whenever you focus on yourself, then you're absorbed in yourself. And sinful human nature then begins to control the things that are around you. So when the Holy Spirit takes control of your life, no longer do you feel or are you controlled or obligated to satisfy your fleshly nature. But if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live. So the Spirit then takes hold of your life and begins to direct you. So when your fleshly nature has controlled you before and you begin to read the Bible and listen to God, he begins to show you that the things that you're doing are not what he approves of. That will happen because of the Spirit's presence in your life. Once you've opened your life, the Spirit comes in. The normal process is as when you come to preaching services or Bible study classes or you open the Bible to read it, and you begin to read, then God begins to say to you, look at this. You've done this all your life. It is not the right thing to do. It could be your own selfishness, it could be greed, it could be your temper. All kinds of things it could be, but God begins to reveal to you that those are not acceptable in your life. Sometimes that's instantaneous. Gary tells a story of when he came to commit to Christ, he was proud as a sailor of his language. It was colorful and stimulating. But when he came to Christ, suddenly God just took that away. Now, I'm sure you can also tell stories that there are some things in your life he didn't take away that quick. And that happens to all of us. We won't ask for an inventory, but it happens to all of us. Some of those things are instantaneous. And others, it says, as you begin to read the Bible and you begin to open your life to God, he comes into your mind and heart and says, this does not fit in you anymore. And you know it doesn't fit because it doesn't mesh with what you know about God. And you may have never noticed it before, but all of a sudden you see this is something that doesn't fit. Or you might say, here is something that has never been in my life that ought to have been in my life. Wayne, I know, has labored whenever you're trying to follow Christ with being able to say to your children that you love them. You've never been there before in your life, but you knew that's what ought to be there. And he struggled and struggled with that. But God said, this is what you ought to do and made a change in his life in a positive way, not to eliminate something, but to add to his life something that God wanted. This is a common experience for all of us. And if someone comes to church, says they commit their lives to Christ and are not having these experiences, then the Holy Spirit is not in control of their life. They are unable. He says that earlier, that the person who's not controlled by the Spirit is unable to obey the Spirit. Because there's a power that is necessary to overcome these fleshly desires that have a hold in our lives that are just impossible for human nature to live a spiritual life any more than it's possible for a bird to swim underwater. That's just not their nature. And so what God does is he changes who we are by placing the Spirit of God in us, so that all of a sudden our mindset is different, our outlook is different, we're open to different things that we were never open to before. And all of a sudden, God is able to lead us and guide us with these transforming things that take place. If by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live. And this is how spiritual life comes to us. God shows us that there's something that needs to be changed. We begin to do it. And as we do it, we discover a life more complete and more full than we had before. And so all of you can testify at different times, in different ways, in different places, you heard God say to you, you should change this. And when you recognized that, you said, okay, God, I will change that. Help me be able to change it. And over a period of time, or maybe instantaneously, however it was, that transformation took place. And you look back on that and you say, this is one of the great events of my life. It was a time in which miraculous things happened, because the power of God made me able to do and be something that I never was before. I was able to stop things in the past that I never thought I could stop. I was able to start things in the present and the future that I never thought I could start. So the transformation of our nature begins to show up. Now, what this is, as Paul talks, and later on he's going to explain how this is, but what's taking place is God is shaping us to be like Christ. And as the Spirit controlled Christ's life, so the same Spirit who controls us is going to direct things in the same way. Whenever the Spirit is in control, He always does the same things. He will never say to one person, it's all right to do this, and another person, it's wrong to do this. He always tells us the same story, because He has one focus in mind. We are to be shaped to be like Christ. Now, He doesn't always tell us those things immediately. You may grow in your own faith, and you may see someone that has a problem you used to have. Our tendency is to go in there and say to them, boy, you need to quit that, you need to change, you need to become like me. That's what you're saying. We have to be patient with each other. It is the Spirit that transforms the mind and heart of a person. If you see someone struggling with something you used to struggle with, you should pray that they would open their life to the Spirit of God, because it's the Spirit that transforms them, both to do two things, to start doing what they ought to do, or to stop doing what they should never have been doing. So the Spirit is the key ingredient in the life that grows in holiness. You cannot be holy apart from the Holy Spirit. By the Spirit, you put to death the misdeeds of the body. That's the key. By the Spirit, you do this. Now, when you look at the misdeeds of the body that Paul talks about in the book of Galatians, where he lists all these things that are characteristic of a life controlled by human nature, you see that in these things, oftentimes people will look at those and say, I want to quit this. And they'll desire to quit. Now, what Paul teaches is, the list of these sinful things in our lives are not necessarily a list that we are able to achieve by our own effort or by our own desires. They are actually things that the Spirit of God alone can defeat, transform, and change, because His nature is what causes us to be transformed. The Spirit's nature. The acts of the sinful nature are obvious. Sexual immorality, impurity, debauchery, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, discords, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition. It means, by that, getting ahead at the expense of other people. Dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and the like. All of these are characteristic of people who are living controlled by flesh. Now, you will encounter people who have these qualities. One of the things that's wrong sometimes in our churches is when we see these things flash up in the lives of people around us, is we jump on them, and we try to condemn them, and try to make them change. What we do when we see people, for example, if you have somebody who causes dissension in factions, that is, they're always causing trouble. They're picking on people, or they're creating dissent, or they're causing arguments to take place. Recognize that these are people whose lives are controlled by flesh. They cannot help it. You may have mastered the very thing that you see wrong with them, but it's not because you've mastered it by yourself. If you've mastered that, it's because the Spirit of God has given you a resource, a divine power to be able to do that. What you are to recognize is here is a person who is out in the, like somebody out in the water, drowning. They don't like the result of the dissensions and factions that happen. They don't like the fact that all these terrible things are taking place, but they do not know what to do about it. But you're placed in the middle of people who are controlled by these things. When you get on the job sites, you'll see people who are involved in discord, jealousy, fits of rage, desire to get ahead at the expense of other people, always causing trouble, always talking to one group and talking to the other group to get people fighting with each other. They're always envious. And when you see that going on in the world around you, you know you're in a place where flesh is in control of these people's lives. They cannot control it. Now, you are there as a spiritual person. You recognize that this is wrong because the Holy Spirit has revealed that to you. Your task is now to live in the presence of those people, not participating in those things. The first thing that happens to us when we get in a situation where people do things that hurt us or cause us to have pain or put us in difficult situations, the first thing that happens is we want to respond in terms of our own human flesh. Because it's so much a part of us for years, even though we may get over it and we don't do it to other people, when somebody suddenly slams us with this, it draws the human nature out of us. We don't stop to say, what does God want me to do about this situation? We can't control people controlled by flesh. What we can do is allow God's Holy Spirit to control us and how we react to it. Do I do anything that creates more factions? So I get in a situation where somebody is being nasty to me and saying things about me and maybe hurting my feelings and maybe doing things that cause me to look bad. My first reaction is to find someone I can tell this story to who will get mad at those other people and make me feel good. That's the first thing that comes to your mind. It's because around you, everywhere you see, that's what's going on. But you see, what God wants us to do in those settings, this is darkness, you see. He wants us to be light. He wants us in those circumstances to respond to this situation as God would respond with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. So you say to God, I want you to help me to not smack this person right in the face. Get under control. Start with. Second thing you say is, Jesus said, if somebody offends you, return, do something good for them. You start saying, God, how can I do something wonderful for this person that's hurt my feelings, that said bad things to me? And so you begin to say to God, what could I do that would cause this person to really feel to really feel that I cared about them? And Jesus said, you turn the other cheek, you don't strike back, and you pray for them that good things would come to them. You wait for God to open this door. And I tell you what he wants you to do. He wants you to be able to return good for evil. And you won't be, you might not be able to do it right then, but you begin to pray, God, I want you to help me do something for this person who's hurt me so bad, so that they will know that I care about them. And they will see this as a different response than they've given to me. That's what I want you to do. It may not happen today or tomorrow or the next day, but somewhere along the line, something will happen to that person. And the Holy Spirit will say to you, you need to go and you need to do this for them. And when you go and do it or say it, all of a sudden they will know that this is not what they would do after what they've done back to you. And in that moment, the Spirit of God will shine a light on what is good and positive and beneficial and helpful. They can't control this situation, but see, you've been able to control your side of it. You don't respond in the same way to them that they've responded to you. Now, in all these circumstances, I mean, you could take any of these things. He's talking about hatred. You can talk about people get mad at you. People are jealous. People who are hurting you to get ahead. People who are envious. All these things are the same. And no matter what of those characteristics take place, there is a quality that God wants us to exude in those settings that show what life is really like. It's the right thing to do. So you can't control those, but what you do is you say to the Holy Spirit, I want you to give me in the presence of this love for someone that's done that, joy, the confidence that in this situation, you're going to do something that makes this person's life better and mine. That's what joy is. A confidence that the future is going to be better. When you have joy, you can't be depressed. So those are opposite things. Depression says it's going to get worse and worse and worse and worse. Joy says God is going to make the future better for me. And when you have confidence in the joy of God, then you gain in the presence of all the kinds of things that are negative, you gain confidence that the future is going to be better. So you have peace because God has told you he is going to work in this situation to bring good out of it. He brings good out of these things. He's going to give me patience. He's going to give me kindness. He's going to give me goodness. He's going to give me faithfulness to obey him. He's going to give me gentleness instead of roughness. He's going to give me self-control instead of losing my temper or my patience or my kindness or my goodness. Self-control allows us to have all of the other qualities that are listed here because we're in control and we can be gentle when all of our insides say, hit them back as hard as you can. And we know what we should do. And God gives us control of our emotions, of our feelings, of our actions and our behavior. So the Spirit's presence is the key ingredient. If by the Spirit, that is the Spirit controlling you, you put to death the midst needs of the body, then you will be able to live this life God wants you to have. You look at anybody whose life is in a big mess and you can go back to this list of fleshly things and see that those things are characteristic of their life. They just show up one time after another. And that's why they're in the spot they're in. You look at someone who has a Spirit-directed life in that list of results that the Spirit brings, and it's hard to find someone who has those qualities, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, self-control, whose life doesn't seem to be good. I mean, they may have bad things happen to them, but their life just doesn't seem to be bad. It's because God has given us control of our lives. And the control doesn't come by the Spirit. And the control doesn't come because of our, I am really going to do better. So you don't fall into that trap. What you say is, God, I need you to come into my life and give me the qualities I need to do the right thing in this situation. And I'm going to wait until I know what you want me to do, and then I'm going to do it. I had situations years ago where I had just people in church I was in were very negative toward me, and they wouldn't shake hands with me, and they left, and they'd stand out in the alley and talk about things about me. And all three of those people, I started praying to God. I said, God, I want you to help me to be able to find a time whenever I can do something that is sacrificial and self-denying to help them. And one of those guys that left the church came and told me, they moved, when he was leaving, he came to my house, and he cried and said, you're the best friend I've ever had in my life. What a reversal all this was. Because times came, you know, whenever there's a disaster or something, I could go. And they knew that I was going even though I'd been treated badly by them. God changes our own hearts and the lives of others around us when the Holy Spirit isn't charged. He puts to death the misdeeds of the body and allows us to be able to live this life that He's called us to. In verse 14, why is this done? How is this done? Because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. Our whole nature's changed. Now, when you think of someone who's a son of another person who's been adopted and made a son by adoption, we think of going to the court and getting a piece of paper that says, now this is my child. It only means that they share in the distribution of your wealth if you should die. The Roman customs of adoption were very rigorous and unusual. If someone wanted to adopt a child, let's start out with a child born to a Roman family was always a child of the father. He never became independent. If he was 50 years old and his father was still alive, he was still a son of his father and under his father's authority. So, the picture here of being a son of God means that we're always under God's authority. That's what it meant in the Roman culture and it's why Paul uses this language. If you're born into a family and someone else wanted to adopt you, they would come and say, I want to adopt your son. The ritual's very clear. You would go to the court and there you would buy this son back with copper coins and the father then would buy him back from you. And then the father would sell the son to you again. I mean, actually change the coins. And then the father would buy him back by paying you the coins again. Then he would sell you his son a third time, but he would never buy him back. Evidence clear and plain that you were no longer a part of that family. And when you did, all the debts that you had accrued in your life before that moment were erased. Why? You were no longer the person you used to be. You now were adopted into another family. It was as if your life before never existed. This is the image that Paul is using about what happens to us when we enter the kingdom of heaven and surrender our lives to the authority of God. Our old life is passed away. All things have changed. Everything becomes new because we've been adopted into the family of God. This change was so radical that the child who was adopted in this new family shared equally in the inheritance as if he had been born into that family. He was so much a part of the family. There's a situation once when one of the emperors adopted a young man. I think he adopted, I forget which of the emperors it was, maybe Nero. And his daughter wanted to marry this prospective new emperor. And the senate had to pass a bill allowing the son to marry his sister by this adopted family even though they came from entirely different families. Because the law was so clear that they were brother and sister as if they were born from the same father and mother. That's how radical adoption was in the Roman culture. Now, this letter was written to the church at Rome. They knew what the customs were for being transformed from one family to another. Now, when they read this, because those who are led by the spirit of God are sons of God, you are no longer the person you used to be. You're no longer responsible for the things that you did before. You're no longer the person that did those things. You are now a new creature. Your life started the day you were adopted into the kingdom of heaven. That's why the symbol of baptism that Paul talked about in Romans chapter 6 is so powerful. You're buried in the water to show that your old life is completely over. And you're raised up out of the water to show that your new life has begun. Everything in your past because you're adopted into that family no longer even counts. And because the Spirit has taken control of your life and this happens because you are now a child of God. Verse 15, he says, For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear. Now, when you receive the Spirit of God, He makes you no longer a slave of fear. I think he's talking about the fear that the Jewish people had that I have to keep every single law or I'm going to fail. If I don't do every single one of these things, I'm going to be considered not a candidate to go to heaven. Whenever you have a child, your child's perfection is not a matter of their relationship. You don't have your children and then you say, well, now if you behave yourself well, you will be my child. When a child is born to you, you accept that child as they are. They are your child regardless of their behavior. The transformation that comes from us when we give our lives to Christ and the Spirit comes into our lives, then the Holy Spirit is a part of our lives. And we didn't receive the Spirit because we did certain kinds of things. And he's talking here when he talked back about the Jewish people keeping the law and how the law was a burden to them. You're no longer under the burden of having to do the right things all the time. Instead, you have a standing with God because you are His child. Not because of good behavior, but because of this new relationship in which you have been adopted in His family. You did not receive a Spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you receive the Spirit of Sonship, the awareness that you are a child of God. And by Him, by the Holy Spirit, you're able to say to God, Abba, which is a, you say Father, which is more formal, and you say Dad, which is more relational. You're able to talk to God in a relational way. And so when you start your prayer, Jesus prayed this way. The good Lord's prayer that He gave us is this way. It starts with Abba, my Dad. There is a relationship now between you that is tight and close, and you're connected. And it is the Spirit of God that allows us to experience this Sonship with the Father so that we're on a very close and familiar relationship with Him. Now, what happens to us is the Spirit of God Himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children. The assurance you have of your salvation comes from within you. And the Holy Spirit of God gives you peace to know that you belong to God. When you do these things that allow the Spirit to begin to transform you and change you, these are the constant affirmations that you have that you really do belong to God. So you don't have to worry about judgments. You don't have to worry about the end of time. You don't have to worry about if you're really going to heaven, because the Spirit of God tells you, assures you, affirms inside of you that you are God's children. Verse 17, Now, if we are children, then we are heirs. Heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ. What a powerful place that puts for us. We have the same standing with the Father that Jesus Christ Himself has. The same standing with the Father that Christ has. So you have to say, well, if I'm the Son of God, the Child of God, would Jesus be worried about going to hell? Wasn't it because of Jesus' good deeds that He was righteous and holy? Because He was the Son of God. His life was completely surrendered to the Spirit of God. I surrendered my life to Him. He's adopted me in His family. And the Holy Spirit keeps telling me, you belong to God. And you know how you know that? When you do something you shouldn't do, the Holy Spirit says, aren't you ashamed of doing this because your Father's not happy with you? And immediately you know. The Father's not happy with me. You ought to be happy when those things happen because it's an affirmation again to you that you belong to the Father. If kids come over to play in the yard, and they're throwing snowballs at each other, and you don't want them to throw snowballs at each other, you go out to the side and say to your kids, kids, I don't want you to throw that. Neighbors' kids, you don't say anything to them. You say to your own kids, come on, you don't do that. You don't have any control over them, but you have control over your own. So when the Spirit of God convicts you of your sin, shows you you should change your life, it's a wonderful thing because you know now that you're a child of God. Now if we are children, we're heirs. Heirs of God. Co-heirs with Christ. If indeed we share in His sufferings, in order that we also share in His glory. Okay, now what does that mean? If we share in His suffering. You know what the sufferings of Christ were? Being obedient to what He knew He should do, no matter how hard it was. So when someone gets mad at you, and cusses you out, and you swallow your pride, and you don't whack them in the face, and you don't run them down to someone else, you've swallowed your pride, and you've suffered. Someone cheats you, you have to do the right thing. You live by these fruits of the Spirit, and you have to swallow your pride, you have to deny your anger, you have to put aside the resentment and forgive. There's a lot of hard and difficult things you have to do to follow the Spirit. But when you do, you will share in the glory of God. You can go ahead and act in the fleshly ways, but you don't share in the glory of God. The greatness of God. And it is the Spirit that allows us to be able to do it. Now all these things he said in chapter 7, about how the sinful nature struggles with us, and I want to do good, but I end up doing bad. See, all of this is defeated by the presence of the Holy Spirit in your life. And He never comes in your life unless you totally submit yourself to the authority of God. I pledge myself to you. You are my Lord. I want to live in obedience to you. I trust you. I believe that you are the only one who can guide me. And I pledge my life to you. That's trust and faith. And the life of trust and faith allows God's Spirit to come into your life and begin to direct you in ways you never knew before. Will there be suffering? It is guaranteed. It is guaranteed. Because anytime you don't act according to the flesh, you're going to have people at you that you can't return it. You have to swallow your pride. You have to swallow your anger. You have to swallow your resentment. You have to be forgiving. And you have to love in return. But as you do that, you will begin to share in the greatness and the glory of God. And it is the Spirit of God and that alone that enables us to live this life and receive this greatness from Him. Let's pray. I'd like you to think about a situation, maybe in your own life, that fleshly people around you have hurt you or they've said things about you or done things to you. You've had a hard time with it. Ask God if there's anything you should do to show love, concern, compassion, and trust in God. Ask God if there's anything you should do to show love, concern, compassion, and caring for them. And just pledge to Him, if He shows you something to do, you will do it. Have you learned to trust the Spirit's presence in your life so that you know He's with you? That affirms that you're His child. So, Father, we give thanks to the Spirit of God that lives in us, that guides us day by day. We ask, Father, that you would allow us to live as Spirit-controlled people, that we might be witnesses to this world of what you can do in the life of one human being. And we give you the credit and glory for all that you'll do. Amen. Amen.