Episode Transcript
WEBVTT
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Please remain standing. Let's give our
attention to God's word in Romans Eight,
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Romans eight verses twelve through seventeen.
Romans eight, verses twelve through seventeen.
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Let's hear God's word. So,
then, brothers, we are debtors,
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not to the flesh, to live
according to the flesh, for if you
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live according to the flesh, you
will die, but if, by the
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spirit, you put to death the
deeds of the body, you will live.
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For All who are led by the
spirit of God are sons of God,
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for you did not receive the spirit
of slavery to fall back into fear,
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but you have received the spirit of
adoption as sons by whom we cry
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Abba Father, the spirit himself bears
witness with our spirit that we are children
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of God, and if children,
then heirs, heirs of God and fellow
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heirs with Christ, provided we suffer
with him in order that we may also
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be glorified with him, he may
be seated. In Romans Chapter Eight,
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Paul has been showing us the implications
of the Gospel. What does it mean
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that, as Christians, we believe
that we are saved by faith alone,
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through the righteousness of Christ imputed to
US credited to us and his forgiveness of
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our sins, God's forgiveness of our
sins through Christ's work on the Cross.
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What does that mean? What kind
of people are we? What kind of
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lives do we live? Well,
here in this particular passage, Paul continues
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to draw out implications of that for
us. He makes a conclusion right there
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at the beginning. He says we
are debtors not to the flesh, to
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live according to the flesh. Therefore, the opposite is true. We are
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debtors of God, to live according
to God, or we are debtors of
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the spirit, in particular, to
live according to the spirit. And he
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goes on to say that and to
make this kind of conclusion. And when
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he says this he teaches us this
very important thing about our lives. Our
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spiritual lives are inward lives, and
that's that. As Christians, our lives
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are lived from beginning to end in
and by the spirit of God. If
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we are a Christian, if you
are a Christian, if you believe in
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Jesus for your salvation, for the
forgiveness of your sins, then something has
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happened in you, Paul says,
you have been reborn. You are now
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a son, you belong to a
different order and as a result of that,
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because of your sonship, because of
your new birth, it's not just
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the beginning of your life that's different, but throughout your life it's different.
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You don't live according to the flesh
anymore. You live according to the spirit,
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and the same is true not only
at the beginning and the middle,
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but also the end. As he
says, we are not only children of
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God by the spirit of adoption,
but also airs of God, Fellow Airs
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with Christ, which means that the
things that he has been given are things
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that we have been given as well. So this is what Paul is saying.
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He's saying that the spiritual life is
lived from beginning to end in and
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by the spirit. Well, Paul's
focus here is particularly on the middle portion
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of that life. That's his focus
in the first verse and First First Verse
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or two. Again, notice what
he says. We are debtors not to
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the flesh, to live according to
the flesh, because if you live according
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to the flesh, you die.
You Die, but if you live according
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to the spirit, putting to death
the deeds of the flesh, then you
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live. That's what it means to
be a Christian. It means to live
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in the spirit, putting to death
the deeds of the flesh. But what
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does that mean? What does it
mean to live according to the spirit,
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to put to death the deeds of
the flesh? Or let me put it
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this way, let me ask it
in this way. How much holiness does
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God want in your life? When
God washes you by the blood of Christ,
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when he justifies you, when he
declares you as holy in this objective
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way, what does he want inwardly
from each of us? How much holiness
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does he want, or how holy
should we be? Five percent, ten
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percent, maybe ninety five percent?
That's pretty high. Well, God wants
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a hundred percent holiness. He wants
us to be holy in every way.
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His spirit has come into us to
cause us to be reborn so that we
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can be the children of God,
made in his image. And when we
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consider the image of God, How
holy is God? Five percent, ten
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percent, Ninety five percent? God
wants us to be his children. He
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wants us to be perfect, but
that call to be perfect and no way
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teaches a doctrine of perfectionism. Sometimes
we sort of jump the gun and we
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get frustrated with God. We say, I'm supposed to be living this life
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according to the spirit, but I
know I'm not. Paul even assumes that
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right. He's speaking to Christians and
calls them to put to death the deeds
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of the body. These are Christians
who have put to death the deeds of
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the body and are called to continue
to put to death the deeds of the
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body. It's a lifelong process,
but it does have an end. SANCTIFICATION
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has an end. It leads to
perfection, it leads to glorification, but
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it must go through a process.
This is what Paul has in mind when
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he put talks at the end of
this section or when he writes at the
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end of this section, airs of
God and Fellow Airs with Christ, provided
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we suffer with him in order that
we also may be glorified with him.
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Jesus went through a process of suffering
before his glorification, and we follow in
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the steps of our Lord. We
don't jump to glorification without going through the
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same process of suffering, the same
battles, the same fighting. But Paul's
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concern is how do we do that? How do we live this life?
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How do we struggle through our flesh? How do we put to death the
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deeds of the body. The answer
is by the spirit. By the spirit.
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That means that ultimately, it's God
who is working in us and that's
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the life he calls us to live. I want to make one brief comment
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about that and then talk to you
about the assurance that God offers. The
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brief comments is that this doctrine of
the spirit working in US and leading us
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in a process of sanctification to the
end of glorification, undermines any kind of
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idea that you can be a Christian
and not care about the things of God.
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You can't be a Christian and not
be putting to death the deeds of
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the body. You can't be a
Christian and not have the spirit testifying to
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you of your adoption as a son. You can't be a Christian and not
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care about holiness. We are not
called to be debtors to the flesh,
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but debtors to God. John Murray
writes it this way. He says the
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believers, what are the believers?
Once for all, Death to the law
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and sin does not free him from
mortifying sin or putting to death the deeds
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of the flesh, but it makes
it necessary and possible for him. We
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come to life. We're able to
do this because what God has given us
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to do. There's a sort of
doesn't this make sense kind of argument that
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Paul is using and has used throughout
this chapter. If you've been freed from
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slavery, does it make to any
sense to go back into slavery? If
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you've been freed from sin, you're
not going to go back under the slavery
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and bondage to sin. Let me
use a silly example, if you would
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indulge me. It seems to me
that people with small dogs often get the
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dogs off and get bathed a lot
more often than the big dogs. least
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this was my experience growing up.
We had a big dogs, and the
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reason we didn't bathe these dogs very
often, at least the reason I didn't
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bathe them very often, it's because
it's really hard and often it feels kind
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of fruitless. The dog doesn't seem
to get it. You go out there,
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you get your swimsuit on, you
wash the dog down, which isn't
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easy because their coats repel water often, and then you get the suds in
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there and you're a big mass in
the dog's a big mess and you finally
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get it done. The dog shakes
himself off and then rolls around in the
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grass and runs through the bushes,
and that grass isn't always very clean because
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the dog does other things in that
yard. There's this kind of vanity to
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the whole thing. Right, you
go out and you wash the dog and
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then the dog gets all messed up
again. It doesn't make sense, right.
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We're called to be better than that
as Christians. God doesn't just wash
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us. He washes us with the
blood of Christ and then for us to
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go around and roll in our garbage
and to run through the dirty bushes and
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to get all messed up again.
We haven't really understood what just happened,
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right, we haven't understood what God
has just done. Well, this is,
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of course, the sinfulness of sin
and the flesh working in us.
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This is the kind of thing as
Christians that we're fighting against, that we
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say no, I don't want to
believe that and I don't want to act
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that way. And that's what a
Christian does. A Christian fights against that
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and fights against those thoughts and strives
to live according to the washing of the
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blood that they have received. But
there is this reality that that Paul speaking
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to here. We have to.
It makes sense for us not to live
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according to the flesh, because we're
not debtors to the flesh anymore. We're
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debtors to the spirit. But this
is hard, this is hard to live,
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this life that we are called to
live, and we often grow weak.
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Our faith grows weak, and this
is sort of a double problem because,
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as act eighteen says, sanctification,
growing in holiness is by faith.
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So wherever your faith is weak,
your sanctification is typically weak. It's a
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double edged sword. But here's the
good news. Here's what God does in
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his word. He strengthens our faith. He calls us to greater sanctification,
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but he doesn't just say well,
get at it, start working for it.
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No, he speaks to us.
The spirit of God himself speaks to
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us through his word and brings a
lot of comfort and courage and confidence to
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continue in on, to continue on
in that battle and to persevere. And
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that's how I want to spend the
rest of our time, to assure you,
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to give you confidence that as a
Christian, if you are a Christian
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indeed, of what God is doing
in you, of who you are as
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a Christian and why you can continue
that fight and continues striving and continue working
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because of the spirit. Consider what
Paul says about you as an adopted person.
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Consider what Paul says, what God
says in this passage about you as
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one who has been adopted. This
is the language he uses in a verse
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fifteen. He says you did not
receive a spirit of slavery to fall back
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into fear, but you have received
the spirit of adoption. This language of
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adoption means something in particular. It
means that we who did not belong to
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God according to this holiness that he
requires, according to the justification that he
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wants. We didn't belong to him, we didn't deserve this, we weren't
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a part of the family. He
goes out and he takes us in.
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He gives us something that was not
our right to have. And this adoption
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has several things attached to it.
All Talk About for briefly. There's the
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freedom of adoption, the privilege of
adoption, the testimony of adoption and the
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inheritance of adoption, and each of
these things, with each of these things,
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God builds our confidence more and more
in who he is and what he
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has done so that we may live
by and in the spirit. So first
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the freedom of a option. When
God says we are not debtors to sin
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anymore and implicitly we are debtors to
God, that is a good, good
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thing. When God brings us into
his family, he doesn't beat us as
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slaves, he adopts us as sons. To be brought into a family as
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not to all is to owe a
different kind of debt. It's to say
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to this one who has given you
something that you didn't deserve, thank you.
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Now I'm free from all the things
of my bad old family. You
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know what the Bible calls people who
don't belong to God through Jesus, children
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of Wrath, those who belong to
Satan or the evil one, those who
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are under condemnation and slavery and bondage. That's a bad family to belong to.
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But what is it when God gives
us adoption in him, a new
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family? He gives us freedom.
As again John Murray wrote, he makes
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it necessary and possible to put to
death the things that were killing us.
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To have freedom and life and and
blessedness, to be protected by the arms
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of your father is a good thing. To not have him is death itself.
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So there is this great freedom of
adoption. Well, connected with that
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and related to it, lots of
overlap. There is also the privilege of
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adoption. Well, we are debtors
to God, we belong to his family,
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and with that comes many privileges,
some which are mentioned here. Robert
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held dame says that whenever we pray, whenever we pray our father and speak
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to him as our God and father, all of our prayers are summed up
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in that. If we speak to
God as our father, are we not
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speaking to him in seeking protection from
danger? If we speak to God as
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our father, are we not calling
on him to provide for us in our
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weaknesses? If we speak to him
as our father, are we not seeking
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comfort from him when we're tired and
lonely and afraid? To Go to God
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as our father, who is capable
of taking care of us, of wrapping
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us in his arms, is to
find everything that we could possibly need in
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him. It is a great honor
and privilege that you are children of God
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and can go to him as a
father. Included in this, of course,
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is is prayer. The Bible calls
us in various places to go to
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God, our father, in confidence, enjoy ingratitude in prayer, and this
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prayer is not one of irreverence or
anything like that. It is deep reverence,
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but it is very personal, it
is very relational. If you had
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a bad father, then in some
ways it's helpful because it teaches you that
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God is everything that you were missing, everything that you wanted, everything that
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you should have had in your father. God takes care of you and that
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and to a great and infinite degree. And if you had a good earthly
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father, then that teaches you as
well. It shows you the kinds of
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ways in which God is toward you, the ways he protects and cares.
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With this kind of reverence, but
also closeness, is how we go to
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God. Just as a brief aside, since many say at this word Aba
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doesn't mean I'm Daddy, I'm Greek
does have a word for that, Papas,
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that you can use to describe a
daddy, use that kind of more
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informal language, but it doesn't use
that here. It uses potter. Also
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do this. So you see this, for example, in Mark and,
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I believe, Luke in the Lord's
prayer. In one place that uses this
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word Auba and another place that uses
father. I'm God of course, deserves
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to be treated with a very deep
reverence, but not at a distance.
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We are close to him, and
that language is summed up in those words
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father. You might translate this phrase
as dear father or dearest father or exalted
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father. Father, father, you
are my father. That kind of doubling
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and closeness is what's going on here
and that, to go back to a
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adoption, is our privilege. We
go to God not as a stone or
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a piece of wood or as a
superstition, but as our father, our
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dear father, our heavenly father.
So that's the freedom of adoption that you
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have in a spirit. That's the
privilege of adoption that you have. And
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then there's the testimony of adoption that
God gives to you as well, and
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it's a twofold testimony. The first
comes by the spirit, through our spirit.
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Notice what he says. He says
for you are all led, but
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for you, for all who are
led by the spirit of God's are sons
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of God. And then he says
that you've received the spirit of adoption by
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whom we cry Abba Father. The
Spirit himself bears with our spirit that we
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are children of God. So first, if you are a Christian, then
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in your conscience, in your soul, in your inner being, your spirit
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speaks to you a truth. It
does that by the spirit of God,
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so that you may know that you
belong to God. If you have ever
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felt the conviction of sin, if
you've ever felt the want of holiness or
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clinging to his promises, and you've
felt that in your soul and you know
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the in yourself. I believe this. I know this. You know other
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things right. You know whether or
not you love your husband. You know
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whether or not you like your job. You know whether or not you prefer
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this thing or that thing. The
same is true of your relationship to God.
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The Bible says, you know whether
or not you call on God as
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father. You know whether or not
you believe. Now others may be able
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to judge that in part by the
works and fruits that are produced, but
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altimately it's only something that you know
and God knows, but you know and
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it's a question you must ask yourself, do I know? And it's a
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question that, when you ask yourself
and you say yes, I do,
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that you can have comfort from that. There is a testimony of your spirit
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that is coming by the spirit of
God, that testifies to you that you
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are a son of God. But
there's another testimony that comes in addition to
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this. God speaks to us about
our adoptions, so that we might not
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have doubts about that. Not only
in our spirits, but by the spirit.
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Immediately notice what he says. He
says the spirit himself. It's not
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just that we notice this cry in
ourselves ab a father, but the spirit
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himself bears witness with our spirit,
with our spirit, double testimony that we
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are children of God. How's that
for assurance? God himself speaking to you,
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saying you're my child. How is
it that we can persevere in this
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life? To get back to the
original question, how is it that we
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can have strength and weakness and keep
on, keeping on, because inside our
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souls God is speaking to us and
saying you are mine, I love you,
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I'm taking care of you now.
This may be strong sometimes and may
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be weak at sometimes. David Experience
this right in the psalms. We hear
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him saying why have you left for
me? Why have you firstaken me?
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Where's that testimony? But you notice
how he cries. It's not talking to
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a brick wall, he's talking to
the god and whom he believes, the
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God who is testifying to him these
things, and David clings to that.
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He clings to the God who is
to the God who has promised. And
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that's the final point about adoption.
Not only does God give us the freedom
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of adoption and these privileges of adoption
and then these testimonies of adoption to us,
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but he makes these promises, he
gives us an inheritance. What does
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he say? He says the spirit
himself bears witness with our spirit, that
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we are children of God and if
children, then heirs, heirs of God
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and fellow heirs with Christ. This
is an amazing thing. Imagine receiving the
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title to a great inheritance, vast
sums of wealth and power and honor.
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I say, here you go,
this belongs to you. It legally is
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yours. That's what God does for
us. When we find ourselves falling and
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stumbling and weak, think about your
inheritance. Remember what's in that safety deposit
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box. You have a title given
to you by God himself, guaranteed by
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the blood of Christ, that you
are heirs with him, and not only
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airs with Christ, but heirs of
God. You don't just receive the new
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heavens and the new earth and all
the wealth and glory of God. You
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receive God. He gives us himself. How do you know you have God
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himself? Well, go back to
the spirit, the spirit of God living
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and dwelling with you. How's that
for a down payment? How's that for
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a guarantee? God himself giving himself
to you in Christ, by the spirit
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we sang earlier, the Psalm,
we would dwell and live in God's house
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forever. That's possible because God is
living and dwelling in us. He's making
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us his dwelling place and US in
him. Jesus, Jesus, Our Lord
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himself, praise that. The unity
that he and the father would have,
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we would have with him. This
is the inheritance of adoption. God doesn't
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give to us a little bit or
a partial amount. He doesn't. He's
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not like earthly fathers who have to
divide it up equally among their children.
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You get twenty five percent, you
give twenty five percent. He gives us
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all of himself and he gives it
all to you, and you and you
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and you and you. All of
us together is the people of God,
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the body of Christ. God promises
to sanctify us and glorify us and give
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us everything, as a father does. If you have faith in Christ,
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then you have been adopted. You
have everything that you could ever want,
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everything you could ever need. You
have the spirit testifying to you that these
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things are true. You have the
great freedom to live your life in the
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spirit, privileges to pray and to
call out to God. So this road
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that we travel is hard, it
is narrow, it is difficult, but
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what do we have to fear?
Nothing. We have suffering to endure.
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Yes, Paul's going to talk about
that more in the next passage, which
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will consider next time, but let
me give you a highlight of the kind
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of things he will say. Verse
Eighteen Paul says, for I consider the
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sufferings of this present time are not
worth comparing to the glory that is to
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be revealed to us. The sufferings
that you feel, the weights that you
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and Doure, he says, don't
even bother. Don't even bother comparing.
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It's not even worth comparing to the
glory that is to be revealed. That
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is something that we must believe in
by faith if we are to room be
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in God, and we will.
That is his promise to us when we
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have been given adoption. You don't
fall in and out of adoption. You
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know one week you're doing well and
next week you're not. One Week your
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child of God, next week you're
not. No, you belong to the
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family. God has given you his
spirit and you will continue you to the
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very end. So, Christians,
don't jump the Gun, don't feel disappointed,
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don't be frustrated, but trust in
the spirit of God working in you.
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And when you trust, when you
put your faith in him, when
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you have confidence in the adoption that
has been given you, you will find
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that the process of sanctification is happening, that the deeds of the body are
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being put to death and the things
of the spirit are being brought to life
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in you, and that, in
turn, will lead the greatest, greater
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assurance, which will lead to greater
faith. And on and on you go
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until the flower broom blooms and God
says you're ready. This life will be
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a struggle even up to the very
very end, but the promise of God
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is sure. It's been secured in
Jesus Christ and has been guaranteed by his
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spirit. Let us trust in him. And if you don't trust in him.
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If you are still bound in slavery
and fear, if you don't know
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Jesus in this way, if the
spirit of God is not dwelling in you,
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then there is still time. God
gives to you this promise that all
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these things that are you have to
have been given to the sons of God,
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will be given to you when you
believe. Jesus says that on those
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who believe in him will have eternal
life. So go, go as a
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son, go in Jesus and receive
all that he promises to give to you.
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Let's pray and ask that God would
do these things in us.
