Alright, so we went live a little
early, but just so we can do some tests. We just want to make
sure that there's no buzzing or any noises or anything else
that's a distraction. if someone happens to be on,
if you could let me know that it sounds good. Alright. So far, Feedback seems
to be that it's good, so that's good. I want to see if I can... How do you expand that? Yeah? Perfect. I'm going to put some
air on it for you. Yeah. It's really nice until
I have to close it. Okay. morning everyone just so you know we have a thunderstorm
rolling through all morning so so far it's fine it's nice light
rain but hopefully everything will be fine and we won't lose
power or anything like that you also should not hear any buzzing
this morning it should be fine so as long as you guys are in
agreement there we'll get started. Alright, so brethren, we're going
to open by reading Romans 8. This is where our text will be
found this morning. We're going to read from verse
1 through 16. Paul writes here to the church
at Rome and he says, "...there is therefore now no condemnation
to them which are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the flesh,
but after the Spirit, for the law of the Spirit of life in
Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.
For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the
flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh
and for sin condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness
of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the
flesh, but after the Spirit. For they that are after the flesh
do mind the things of the flesh, but they that are after the Spirit,
the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is
death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace, because
the carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to
the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are
in the flesh cannot please God. But ye are not in the flesh,
but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you.
Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ be in you, the
body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because
of righteousness. But if the Spirit of him that
raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised
up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies
by his Spirit that dwelleth in you. Therefore, brethren, we
are debtors, not to the flesh to live after the flesh. For
if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die. But if ye through
the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live."
And let me just say that Paul has already told us how we mortify
the deeds of the flesh by the Spirit. Simply when he said,
but ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that
the Spirit of God dwell in you. That's a promise, that if the
Spirit of God dwells in you, then the deeds of the flesh shall
be mortified. Because it's never of our flesh,
it's of God who does the saving. It's of God who does all the
spiritual works. He's the one that bears all fruit
in his people, okay? So now here's our text. For as
many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of
God. So if the Spirit of Christ is
in you, then you are led by the Spirit of God. Stop, don't look
for a work in yourself, something that you have to do for the Lord. Trust Him, trust Christ, believe
His promise. For ye have not received the
spirit of bondage again to fear, but ye have received the spirit
of adoption whereby we cry, Abba, Father. All right, and children
who are adopted, They don't pick the parents, the parents choose
them. And that's what our God has done.
He's chosen His people and put them in Christ and done all things
necessary to secure them and to bring them into His family.
The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit that we are the
children of God. All right, let's pray. Our gracious Lord, Father, we
thank you for the blessings that we have in your Son, Jesus Christ. Lord, that you're not looking
to us for any part of our salvation, that you have provided a full,
free, gracious salvation in your Son, Jesus Christ, and do not
look to the sinner for works of righteousness for us to do.
But Lord, that you do all things well and you've provided everything
in your Son, Jesus Christ. Lord, we ask that you would bless
us now, that your spirit would be upon every member of this
congregation who is gathered here to hear your word, to hear
Christ exalted, to be comforted by your gospel, to be taught
of you, of your spirit, and led by your spirit, and that we would
be brought to Christ. Lord, we ask that you would indeed
bless this hour. Help me, Lord, to preach it.
Help your people to hear it. Lord, bless us to receive your
word and to believe, resting in the grace you provided in
your Son, Jesus Christ. It's in his name we pray and
give thanks. Amen. All right, brethren. So, our
text is Romans 8. and we'll be looking at verses
14 and 15 this morning. Now, we're reminded last week
that it's impossible for the natural man to believe God unto
salvation. It's impossible for the natural
man to understand, to know by experience what God does and
works in his people, what he's accomplished for them Jesus Christ. And the natural mind, the reason
why, is because the natural mind lays in a tomb, in a grave. We're in darkness naturally.
We don't understand the things of God. We don't have spiritual
understanding. Even people who claim to be spiritual,
they may be spiritual, but they have another spirit. not the
Spirit of Christ, and we'll see why I can say that from the scriptures
a little bit later. So naturally, what we come forth
with, what you see here, the product of Adam and our fathers
before us, we are natural people. We have no spiritual life, no
fellowship with God, no understanding of the things of God, no understanding
of the things of God by experience. We can know them in word, we
could study them to some degree, but we don't know them by experience
except the Spirit of God give it to us by giving us life in
Christ. And so man cannot save himself. It's impossible. It's impossible. And I want to emphasize that
to you, that it's impossible for man to save himself. And
I say that knowing that there are a few ways in which a person
can hear that word. You have the religious, the dead
religionist, the one who's confident in their works, who's confident
in their decisions, who's confident in their religion. And they hear
that and they'll think, that's not true. and they turn to their
own opinions, formed by the lies and the falsehood spoken by man,
and say, well, see, I have this here, and I've twisted this scripture
there, and that's why I know that I can save myself. But that's
not the testimony of scripture. God has made it plain that none
of us can save ourselves, that we're all dead in trespasses
and sins, that we all come short of the glory of God. And our Lord testifies that he's
provided salvation himself in his Son, Jesus Christ. And then there's another that
hears it, and they may ask, well then, if man isn't saving himself,
if it's not by his works, how then can a man or woman be saved? And that's a good question, and
I hope to answer that with you this morning. And then there's
the child of God. who falls on their face rejoicing
to hear that salvation is not of them, that God isn't looking
to them for perfection and holiness, that he's not looking to our
flesh to produce an acceptable righteousness to him, the child
of God who's been shown and convinced that they are a sinner, that
they are corrupt, that they have no ability, but their flesh is
weak to fulfill the law, that they cannot please God well with
their works. They rejoice to know and they
confess to God, thank you, Lord, for your grace, for your mercy,
for your power in saving us. They cry out like those in Revelation
4 verse 11, Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and
honor and power, for Thou hast created all things, and for Thy
pleasure they are and were created. And this is because the Spirit
teaches us this truth. We know this by the Spirit, and
we are brought to an understanding that salvation is of the Lord,
just as Jonas recorded in Jonah 2.9, as he stated, salvation
is of the Lord, and we're brought to know this truth by experience. We're brought to nothing in ourselves,
but laid low so that we have nothing to boast in of this flesh,
of our natural abilities, of our understanding, our strengths,
what we've done, The Lord delivers us from that and we see that
salvation is our God's. Now, our God and only God is
the one who determines those that are saved and those that
are not saved. This we call God's sovereignty.
God is sovereign and he chooses and does what is right and good
according to his perfect will and purpose. All his people all
the Lord's people will rejoice in this truth. If you've never
heard it before, it may sound odd to you, but those that are
His people, those that are called, decalled according to His purpose,
they shall know that their salvation is by the grace and mercy and
purpose of God, who has done for them what they could never
do for themselves. And so, they're glad for God's
display of sovereignty. They're glad that salvation is
of the Lord. They're glad that He does all
things necessary, because our God does all things well in His
Son. And He's the one that has chose
them to salvation. The psalmist spoke of this in
Psalm 110 verse 3, when he said, Thy people shall be willing in
the day of thy power." When God displays His power in a dead
sinner, giving them life, giving them His Spirit, cleansing them
from their sin, giving them life by the blood of Jesus Christ,
they rejoice, they're made willing. They confess their need of Him,
and they rejoice in the salvation that He's provided in His Son,
Jesus Christ. Now, all the unregenerate, as
opposed to the children of God, the unregenerate, they hate this
truth. They don't love to hear this,
because they want to believe that salvation is in their hands,
that it's a decision that they make, that they choose when and
where they're going to be saved. They want to have the power because
they don't trust God. And the reason they don't trust
God is because their natural minds, their thoughts, their
whole being is enmity against God. They hate the thought of
a sovereign God who does as He wills and determines to do. But
you know, this is the testimony of Scripture. This is what our
God declares to us in His Word. For example, we have in Ephesians
1, Verse 4, that our life in Christ is according as God hath
chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, before we were
born, before we did any good or evil, and His will is that
we should be holy and without blame before Him in love. It's according to His love. You
see, if it was left to us to save ourselves, if it was left
to us to produce righteousness, we'd all perish and die in our
sins. We'd die in sin and dead to the
things of God and be cast off from Him forever. But we are
told that our God has predestinated us unto the adoption of children. by Jesus Christ to himself according
to the good pleasure of his will. You see, there's nothing in there
where God is looking to the sinner. It's not according to your works,
it's not according to your faith, it's not according to what you
have done in the flesh, but it's according to the sovereign will
and purpose of God, which he's purposed and made known to us
in his son, Jesus Christ. And this is all to the praise
of the glory of His grace wherein He hath made us accepted in the
Beloved. All the work, all the glory,
honor, and praise is our God's for this. And what the Lord is
showing us, what he brings us to see, and this is why those
that are his people enter into it and understand and grow in
this knowledge and rejoice in this more and more, is that salvation
is a spiritual work of God. It's displayed to us, it's revealed
to us in grace. freely, freely, not with any
requirement of us, but everything necessary He provides for us
in His Son, Jesus Christ. And because this is so, we read
last week in Romans 8, 12, and 13, because it's a spiritual
work and because our God has done this, brethren, we are debtors,
not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. For if ye live after
the flesh, shall die. But if ye through the Spirit
do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live." And again, this
is not a fleshly work. Religion teaches that we turn
back to the flesh now to mortify the deeds of the flesh. Now they
wouldn't say that usually. They'll say, oh, it's a spiritual
work. But what have they done? They've turned you back to Moses,
back to the law at Mount Sinai, which condemns man and shows
man that he's a sinner, but gives no help. And so they say, go,
do that now. Do that for your righteousness
and live. Oh, but it's different than it was in the Old Testament.
It's different than under the old covenant. No, no, no, now
you have the power to do it. No, we don't have the power to
do it. This flesh will never have the power to save itself. This flesh continues to be weak,
right? what the law could not do, in
that it was weak through the flesh. And this flesh is still
dead, corrupt, it's weak, and cannot do the things of God.
We are not perfect. We're not getting better and
better in this flesh. We are as holy and as righteous
as need be in Jesus Christ. He's accomplished our complete
and full justification and He's accomplished our complete and
full sanctification. Now we will grow in our understanding
of these things. We will come to know more and
more what our God has accomplished for us because it's His work
leading us in the Spirit as He wills, right? Giving faith severally
as He wills to the abundance of how he determines to do it,
for the purpose that he's raising them up to serve him and the
church, he provides all things that are necessary, and he grows
his people. As we saw previously, that there
are some that, when we first believe, are called children,
but they grow and become elders in the church. They grow in Christ. They grow in Christ, some more
quickly than others, but it's all according to the grace and
will of our God, and we rejoice in that. All right, so don't
listen to man-made religion that would turn you away from Christ
and turn you back to the flesh. Now, this week, I want us to
look at our regeneration. And our regeneration is the work
that our God does in revealing to us that we are his children. It's the work that he does to
make it appear that we are the children of God. And then we'll
also see, time permitting, we'll look at our adoption, our adoption,
and our adoption is God making us. It was his determined purpose
to make us children of God. So adoption is the will and choice
of God in putting us in Christ for our good and our salvation.
And regeneration is his making known to us. that we are the
sons and daughters of Almighty God. So I've titled this Regeneration
and Adoption. And we'll first look at our being
led by the Spirit. All right, our being led by the
Spirit. And then we'll see that our walk in Christ is not in
bondage. It's not in bondage, but it's
in love. It's of the love of our God.
All right, now, so God the Father has sent his son, Jesus Christ,
and when Christ came, he accomplished salvation fully, completely for
his people. Now, many in religion will speak
of Christ as having done a work and he did something that we
couldn't do. He died on the cross for our
sins. But they teach it in such a way
to make it sound as though it's possible for all men to be saved
And what they're doing is they're putting salvation into your hand. They're putting salvation into
your hand so that by your will of the flesh, they tell you,
by your will of the flesh, you decide whether Christ's blood
will be effectual for you in putting away your sins or not.
man's religion teaches, that it's your work, that it's your
will of the flesh that has to make a decision for Jesus, and
that by your decision, you're the one that makes salvation,
Christ's blood, effectual for you. But again, that's not what
the scriptures teach. In fact, it's exalting the sinner.
It's debasing God. It takes the glory and honor
away from God. That's stealing from God. That's taking away His honor
and glory in salvation, when God has made it abundantly plain
and clear to us that salvation is His work. It's His grace. It's His glory to save sinners
as it pleases Him. And so man-made religion would
teach all peoples are sons and daughters of God, and that God
loves all men equally the same. And as soon as they do that,
they make the love of God meaningless and worthless in salvation. Because
it still comes down to you, sinner. God's love doesn't do anything.
But imagine a parent where you live or happen to be near a busy
road and loves their child so much that they don't want to
offend their child's will. And when they call their child
who's heading to the busy street and there's a car coming and
out of love they say, come back son, come back son. Oh, would
you just please come back? But they do nothing to save them,
to turn them from that street and allow them to go out there
into the street and be run over by a car. and killed, how is
that love? That's criminal. That's criminal.
So the love of God accomplishes the salvation of his people.
It accomplishes their sure and certain salvation in the Lord
Jesus Christ so that he's provided the sin atonement in his son
Jesus Christ and he sends his spirit, which reveals faith in
his people, so that he will bring them to hear the gospel, and
they shall believe that gospel. They shall rejoice in the spirit
of what Christ has accomplished for them. He's making known to
his people who he's adopted in eternity. He's going to reveal
it to them. He's going to make them to know
what he's accomplished for them. So, not all are the sons of God. Not everyone is a son of God
in the sense of his love. We are his by creation, but not
all know the love or are in the family of God and can be rightly
called sons and daughters of God. Paul, when writing to Timothy,
said that Christ gave himself a ransom for all to be testified
in due time." In other words, our God shall make known who
they all are for whom Christ died by revealing salvation in
them, by leading them to Christ and causing them to believe in
the heart and confess with the mouth that Christ is their hope
and their salvation. All right, so he reveals who
they all are, and here's the qualification that Paul gives
us in our text in verse 14. He says, for as many as are led
by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. Do you see that
qualification there? As many as are led by the Spirit
of God, They are the sons of God. Well, that's who the all
is, for whom Christ died. He's making it known by leading
them in the Spirit. Remember, it's not being led
in the flesh, all right, by the flesh, we're being led by the
Spirit, by the Spirit. All right, so that's the qualification
that we're given. As many as are led by the Spirit
of God, they are the sons of God. And the apostle adds, just
as a little taste of verse 15, for ye have not received the
spirit of bondage again to fear. And what he's saying is, you
that hope in Christ, you that have no confidence in the flesh,
but believe God that he has put away your sins and accepted you
into the beloved, bringing you into the beloved of God, He's
given you a different spirit. You have a different spirit than
the spirit of others that have no knowledge or hope in Christ. And what I mean is, well, many,
many are led just by the spirit of man, right? That is, we have
our natural thoughts, our natural motives, our natural passions,
and are driven by the lusts of the flesh, to consume what we
would consume according to the lusts of the flesh. And you look
there at Romans 8, verses 7 and 8, it says, because the carnal
mind, this is what we are in Adam, naturally, the carnal mind
is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of
God, neither indeed can be, So then, they that are in the flesh
cannot please God. It's impossible. Salvation by
our flesh, in the flesh, is impossible with man. It's a work of God. Additionally, we don't have the
spirit of this world. we're led by the spirit of God,
not the spirit of this world, which is always contrary to the
spirit of our God. Over in Ephesians 2.2, I like
how Paul says it, he says, wherein in time past ye walked, that's
me included, we all walked in time past according to the course
of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air,
the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience. So it's not by the spirit of
the world, that's the devil. We don't want any part of the
spirit of this world, of Antichrist. Our God delivers us from that
when he gives us the spirit and we're made alive in Christ and
walk by his spirit, being led by his spirit. So remember that
God is sovereign. and those whom he's elected,
it's because God hath, from the beginning, chosen you to salvation. All right, now here's the revelation
that God has chosen you to salvation. He says that it's through sanctification
of the spirit, in other words, the spirit of God, who knows
Christ has died for you. He separates you unto himself. unto the gospel. He delivers
you from the world and brings you to Christ, so that we are
sanctified by the Spirit, set apart by the Spirit, and belief
of the truth. We're going to hear the gospel,
we're going to receive the gospel in good ground, prepared by the
Spirit, and believe it. We're going to believe it, because
God's going to reveal in us that we are the sons and daughters
of God. And so, the Spirit of God will
always lead us to Christ. You'll hear sinners speak of
a revelation of God and what God told them or showed them,
but you notice how the spirit of the world never leads them
to Christ. It never turns them to Christ.
It always turns them to worldly things and worldly fears and
worldly concerns. It's a spirit, I've no doubt,
but it's not the spirit of Christ. And John told us, to test the
spirits, to try the spirits, because many spirits have gone
out into the world. They left the church, they go
out of the church, they turn from Christ and they focus on
things that are of this world and not on to edification and
simply not declaring and glorifying Christ. Now, in John, if you
go to John 15, we see in John 15 and then we'll see in John
16, that the Spirit leads us to Christ. I want you to see that in the
Word. We're told in verse 26, John 15, 26, but when the Comforter
is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father. He's speaking
of the Spirit. The Spirit is the Comforter because
the Spirit turns us to our salvation, to Christ. He comforts us because
it's no longer about our works and our will and what we've done.
It's the work of our God. And so the comforter comes, whom
I will send unto you from the Father, even the spirit of truth,
not a spirit of lies, but a spirit of truth, which proceeded from
the Father. He shall testify of me. He shall testify of me, Christ
said. Turn over to John 16, And look at verse 14, John 16, 14. He shall glorify me. The Spirit of God glorifies Christ. So if you are being turned away
from Christ, I don't care if it's religion. I don't care if
it's in the name of religion. If you're being turned from Christ
to look at your flesh and to try and improve upon what Christ
has done by the works of your flesh, being turned from Christ,
for example, turning to the law of Moses to try and work righteousness
now to improve what Christ has done, that's not the spirit of
Christ. He's going to glorify Christ.
He's going to turn you to Christ so that you're crying out to
Christ to reveal himself in you, to bear fruits of righteousness
in you. We see what sinners we are. We see the weakness of our flesh.
And so the Spirit drives us to Christ, to seek Him and to call
out upon Him, to know Him and to deliver us from our sin, to
keep us from the lusts of this flesh, and to turn us to our
God, and to make us willing in the day of his power to have
us stand at the ready, yielding our bodies as a sacrifice to
God, which is our reasonable service, knowing that our God
at any time may call us to serve him, to lay down our lives, to
make some kind of a sacrifice for God and his kingdom, for
some other saint in his kingdom who needs help. or needs encouragement,
and needs to be reminded of Christ, and is benefited by us just speaking
a word of grace and season. All right, so being led and taught
of the Spirit, we then grow in grace and knowledge of what our
Savior has done for us. All right, and what the Lord's
showing us is that as he teaches us, right, being babes in Christ,
as we grow, in our understanding, it's a growth that He works in
us. It's a humble walk with our God
because the more we learn, the more we see that we don't know
what we ought to know. We see our need of knowing Him
more and rejoicing in Him more. Paul's prayer to the Philippian
church And this is our prayer, the prayer of brethren for one
another, for the church, just as Paul said, he said, this I
pray that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge
and in all judgment. If you remember, that word judgment
is sense. We're gonna grow in the sense,
the judgment, the understanding of what our God has done for
us. how that he's done all things necessary, and he's working all
things together for good to them that love God, to them who are
called according to his purpose. We rejoice in this, right? We
rejoice that our God has done this. And Paul went on to say,
being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by
Jesus Christ, not by your hard laboring and working in the flesh,
but it's by Jesus Christ, unto the glory and praise of God. Now we may be called to labor
hard, right, in this life. We may be called to what seems
to many to be a difficult service and to go through various trials
and temptations as it pleases our God. But it's never by the
flesh. It's always by Jesus Christ. And you notice that religion,
they talk of, they work up the flesh by speaking of the things
that they've done for the Lord, right? You notice that they're
always talking about their service and what they're doing, and more
and more of what they've done, right? It's as if when we go
to the Lord in heaven, that there's gonna be a big silver screen
displayed showing, you know, what John did, when he gave that
zinger to that person, that unbeliever, and how we've done this, and
how we did that, and how I said this, and how I said that, as
though salvation is of our works. But our God delivers us from
boasting in self. He delivers us from boasting
in self, so that believers see what our God has done for us.
Alright, if we're shown anything like that, it'll be, see here,
when Eric was going on in his mad dash to hell, when he was
continuing to walk in darkness, and ignoring the truths of God,
and refusing to hear what the Lord was saying, how that he
was going on into death and darkness, and about to be destroyed, but
God, but God, who is rich in mercy, for His love's sake in
Christ, how He delivered His child from death, how He granted
repentance to you, sinner, and turned you from your death, and
turned you from the works of the flesh, and turned you from
utter destruction, and being destroyed. That's what we'll
see, and that's what we'll rejoice in. Listen to what the Apostle
John said in 1st John 3.1, he said, Behold, what manner of
love the Father hath bestowed upon us, right? This is a gracious
work of sovereign God for his children, that we should be called
the sons of God. Therefore the world, with the
spirit of the world, the Spirit of flesh, knoweth us not, because
it knew him not." They don't have the Spirit of God revealing
the truth of Christ to them. They don't have the Spirit of
God turning them from the works of darkness. All they have is
flesh. That's all they can do. They
can never rise above that unless God grants them repentance. gives them His Spirit, turning
them from dead works religion to the true and living God. And then, it's our being led
by the Spirit, and being led by the Spirit, He reveals our
adoption by Him in eternity. There's two factors that we'll
look at primarily here anyway, whereby believers are made sons
and daughters of God. And you'll notice that none of
them require, nor does it accept the works of our flesh, our good
works, right? Even our best works, the works
that we thought were good and pleasing to God. God isn't looking
to what we do in the flesh. God is looking to his son, Jesus
Christ. And the more we grow in Him,
the more thankful we are that that's exactly what He does and
how He saves us. Now, the first factor is what
we've been looking at currently, which is regeneration. It's regeneration. It's what
our God has done for us in His Son, Jesus Christ. We call it
the new birth. Our Lord declared to the children
of God that we must be born again. and it reveals to us that it's
a spiritual work. It's not something that we decide
for ourselves and have ourselves do to be accepted with God. Man doesn't make himself born
again. God makes a sinner born again in the time of his choosing. Our Lord confirms this when he
said unto Nicodemus, verily, verily, I say unto thee, except
a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. We will
not believe that which we do not see, but by faith revealed
in us by the Spirit bearing this fruit in us, we see and lay hold
of what our God has done for us in his Son Jesus Christ. Now
remember, man's religion teaches anyone can be born again just
by their believing Christ. But our Savior taught the very
opposite of that. He taught us that it's a spiritual
work. It's not a work of the flesh.
And we all come forth dead in trespasses and sins, having no
spirit, but nothing but the dead carnal flesh of Adam. But our Lord confirmed that it's
a spiritual work when he said in verse six of John three, that
which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born
of the spirit is spirit. So our new birth is a spiritual
work. We're born of Christ's spiritual
seed, And Adam, we were born of his natural seed, which was
corrupt in the garden when he sinned, and we were in him, so
we all were corrupted, in that we rebelled against God and our
father Adam, our first father Adam. But Christ, having put
away our sins by the death of himself, when he came to this
world, robed in our flesh, yet having no sin himself, he willingly
took on our sin, making it his own, and he bore the wrath of
God when he hung on the tree, laying down his life as the Lamb
of God, the sacrifice of God, sent to put away the sins of
his people, to deliver us from eternal death, to deliver us
from the condemnation and the wrath of God, the just wrath
of God, And so our Savior did this work. And so Christ now
sends His Spirit, having accomplished everything for His people, He
sends His Spirit in the time according to His purpose, His
purpose of love for each child of God, and He sends the Spirit
and reveals life in them. He gives them spiritual life
and reveals faith, whereby they lay hold, they look to Christ
and believe Him. by faith, which is the spiritual
gift of our God, worked in his people, whereby we believe Christ. And I like how Peter said it
in 1 Peter 1, 23, being born again, not of corruptible seed,
right? Not of Adam's corrupt seed, so
it's not gonna be produced in our flesh, but of incorruptible,
incorruptible seed. by the word of God, Christ our
Savior, which liveth and abideth forever. And then the second
factor is our adoption into the family of God. Now this refers
to when God chose us in eternity, before the foundation of the
world in Christ, wherein he determined to bless us in Christ. Now I
read this earlier, but I'll return there again In Ephesians 1, and
we'll pick up in verse 3, where we read, blessed be our God and
Father, of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all
spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, according
as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world,
that we should be holy and without blame before him in love, having
predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to
Himself according to the good pleasure of His will." So, our
adoption was settled, it was determined in eternity past when
we were made sons of God according to the purpose of our God, His
choosing, and we were then purchased by Christ by the shedding of
His precious blood. not based on merit or works that
we've done or any decisions that we would make, but according
to his will and purpose. God is sovereign, not man. God
is sovereign, and God does the saving, not man. God is the one
who is glorified in our salvation, not we ourselves. We will be
glorified in Christ in that we've been brought into the family
of God so that we share in the inheritance of Christ. but he's
the one who receives all the glory, praise, and honor for
having accomplished and worked salvation in his people. Our Lord says in the next verse,
verse 15, for ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to
fear. Unlike that covenant of works,
which genders to bondage and fear, our God saved his children
in love and in mercy. So Christ's death, what he came
to do was to destroy the works of the devil, to destroy that
bondage of fear that we were all kept under, being dead, being
only born of corruptible seed and Adam, being dead to the things
of God. So Christ came We're told in
Hebrews 2 verse 14 and 15 that, for as much then as the children,
right, these are the adopted sons and daughters of God in
eternity, for then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood,
he also himself likewise took part of the same, that through
death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that
is the devil, and deliver them who through fear of death were
all their lifetime subject to bondage. And all that man-made
religion can do is keep their hearers right there in fear,
through threat of punishment and want of reward. They'll be
punished if they disobey, if they don't do what what their
church outlines for them to do. But our Savior delivers us from
that, and He gives us assurance. He reveals Christ in us, and
makes us to know through the preaching of the gospel, through
hearing Christ exalted, feeding upon His flesh, drinking His
blood, we are comforted, because we keep being reminded, and as
the Spirit sows it in our heart, lays it to our heart that it's
not our works. We are sinners in the flesh.
We're not, that's not changing. But there's a new man, a new
creation of Christ in us that hopes and believes God, that
Christ is the salvation, that He is the Savior of His people. And, you know, because they don't
have power over you, the word assurance is a bad word in religion. Those that preach grace to a
degree, we preach grace, but those that preach grace plus
works in the law, they don't like the word assurance because
they wanna hold power over you and keep you fearful and afraid
and always doubting whether or not you're the Lord. They don't
want that to go away. And so they'll even make it to
the point where, You need to go further in the depths of despair. And they make religion a work
of degrees, whereby in your flesh you have to sink lower and lower
and lower in yourself before you can have any hope in Christ. But the Word of God reveals that
the Lord, the Spirit, reveals that we're sinners. And we will
see, we'll see more and more. The more we know of this flesh,
we will see just why God needs to
save us by grace. And we'll see what sinners we
are. And we'll be surprised, sometimes though we ought not
be, but we'll be surprised to see what filthy sinners we are. But, you know, it gets to be
a game, you know, with religion, because first someone will say,
well, you know, I went into despair for a whole year, like Bunyan,
or like John Newton. And then another one will have
to come and say, well, I went into despair for two years, right?
And then another three years, and then five, and seven, 10,
and 20 years, you know, and so it becomes a competition And
only those that are able to feelingly articulate the depths of their
depravity the most are the ones that get the label that, well,
they must be a child of God. But you that aren't able to voice
it as well, well, you're cut off apparently because you weren't
able to express just what a sinner you are. But our God saves us
from that, and he delivers us into the arms of Christ. He's
provided his salvation in Jesus Christ. Believe him, trust him,
look to him, venture wholly upon him, trusting that his word is
truth to you. He's not playing games with you,
he's not lying to you, but all who call upon Christ, who cannot
save themselves and have no hope in themselves, rest in him, call
upon him, beg him for mercy. Ask Him to teach you and reveal
Christ to you. He's faithful to do it, and you'll
have no shame when you die. There will be no shame. Christ
will stand for you in that day, and you'll be delivered from
all judgment. He's delivered His people from the law's curse,
right? Christ has redeemed us from the
curse of the law, being made a curse for us when He hung upon
the tree. bearing our sins, taking our
place, dying our death that we should have died, and he accomplished
reconciliation. He made reconciliation between
God and his people. And we don't need to fear death
anymore. We're told, Paul said, O death, where is thy sting?
O grave, where is thy victory? Right? Why does death have a
sting to it? Why is, meaning people are afraid
to die? Well, the reason is because they're
sinners, right? They're still, they still are
holding their sin. They've been trying to work off
their sin debt and they couldn't do it. And so they fear death. And so death has a sting. And
Paul tells us that the sting of death sin, and the strength
of sin is the law." Well we're free, Christ has put away sin,
so death has no more sting for us, right, and we're free from
the law, Romans 7 4, wherefore my brethren, ye also are become
dead to the law by the body of Christ, that ye should be married
to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we
should bring forth fruit unto God. And so, because Christ has
done this, we are free from judgment. We're free from the judging condemnation
against sinners. John says, herein is our love
made perfect, that we may have boldness in the day of judgment,
because as he is, so are we in this world. We're not under Moses's
law anymore. We're not under the yoking bondage
of the law to try and make ourselves accepted with God. Christ, our
husband, is our husband. Christ, our savior, is our husband.
We're not married to the law anymore in Adam. We've been delivered
from that law, and we have his spirit dwelling in us, leading
us so that we serve and worship our God, being turned to him,
hoping and trusting in him, He's the one who bears fruit in us,
and the love of Christ constraineth us. He teaches us and works his
will in us. And so that's what we see in
our text, Romans 8.15 saying, for ye have not received the
spirit of bondage again to fear, but ye have received the spirit
of adoption whereby we cry, Abba, Father. And that cry, brethren,
is one of joy. You that are a working parent,
a lot of times you fathers that go out for the day and you work,
or you go on a trip, a business trip, and you come back, when
you come through those doors, your children, your young children,
stop everything they're doing, and they say, Daddy! And they're
so excited to see you, and such love, and such joy in seeing
their dad. And that's what Paul is saying
here. As free men and women, not under
the constraining yoke of the law, not under fear of death
and condemnation, but out of love and joy and thanksgiving,
worked in us by the Spirit of God, we cry, Abba, Father, Lord,
so thankful for what you've accomplished for us in Christ, knowing that
he loves us, he chose us, he adopted us, right? He didn't
have to choose us, he could have passed us by like so many others,
but he adopted us and then he sent his son in the time of love,
redeeming us by his work on the cross as the Lamb of God and
put away our sins so that When it pleases Him, He brings us
forth in time and reveals faith in us, reveals the gospel to
us by His Spirit, right? So be encouraged, you that have
no hope in yourself, you that have no hope in your flesh, for
He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all,
how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? I pray the Lord would bless that
to your heart and comfort you, you that have no hope in the
flesh, you that aren't boasting in or looking to your flesh,
but have heard Christ and see His sufficiency to put away the
sin of sinners, that you would trust Him and believe Him, calling
upon His name. knowing that he is the one who
puts away the sins of his people perfectly and completely. I pray
that he bless that word to your hearts. Amen. All right, let's
close in prayer, brethren. Our Lord, we thank you for your
great mercy and grace which you've shed upon your people abundantly
in Jesus Christ. We thank you for the adoption
that you have chosen your people and put them in Christ. We thank
you for regeneration, that you have sent your spirit to reveal
Christ in us, to reveal the hope of salvation in the Lord Jesus
Christ. Lord, we're nothing in ourselves.
We have no power or strength in this flesh. We don't trust
in this flesh, Lord. And that has been taught to us
by you. You've made it known to us. Lord,
help us to love Christ, to be constrained by love to him, to
trust in him and him alone. We ask that you would indeed
lead us by your spirit. For then, Lord, we know that
we are the sons of God. Lord, we trust you. Help us,
Lord. We believe you help our unbelief.
Keep us, Lord. It's in Christ's name we pray
and give thanks. Amen.