All right, Romans chapter eight. Years ago, I preached several
messages, a series of messages concerning three topics, and
based upon three fallacies that people hold concerning how we
view the world, for example, and the messages were number
one was the universal fatherhood of God. And number two was the
universal brotherhood of man. And number three had to do with
the golden rule. Do unto others as you would have
them do unto you. And the reason I preach those
is because of this passages like this in Romans eight, which speak
of true children of God. Who are the true children of
God? And one man asked me a question about, after one of those masses,
well, aren't we all children of God? Aren't we all, in God,
our father? And I said, well, you've gotta
look at this biblically. And the fact of it is, we're
not talking about creation in itself here. God created all
things, every person. And somebody said, well, you
could say everybody's a child of God by creation. But as you know, the Bible teaches
us, and we know and believe and we see and we've experienced,
that man fell and became alienated from God, actually became an
enemy of God. That's what the Bible teaches.
And therefore, spiritually speaking, in the way of salvation, we're
not all true children of God. The true children of God, and
we're not all brothers. We talk about the brotherhood
of man, brothers by creation. We all have a connection in that
way. But the brotherhood here is speaking
of the brotherhood of the faithful, the brotherhood of those who
are sinners saved by grace. Remember what Christ said about
that issue. He said, who is my brother? Those
that do the will of my father. So when we speak of true children
of God here, we're talking about those whom God chose before the
foundation of the world. They're called the elect. Those
whom he justified through Christ based on his righteousness imputed.
They have a right standing before God in him, washed in his blood,
clothed in his righteousness. Those who Christ redeemed on
the cross by his obedience unto death. It was all whom the Father
gave him. He said, all that the Father
giveth me shall come to me. And they are known by the fact
that God sends the Holy Spirit to separate them out from the
world, from the enemies of God. And he does that in what we call
the new birth under the preaching of the gospel. I'm gonna be preaching
on that this morning in the main message. where the Holy Spirit
uses the word of God to call out the people of God. He gives
them life. We're born spiritually dead. In the new birth, he gives us
spiritual life and knowledge and brings us to faith in Christ.
And that's what separates. And later on in this passage,
I'm not gonna get to this today, but it talks about how the whole
creation is waiting for the manifestation of the sons or the children of
God. The word manifestation means that God is going to make known
who his children are, who his true sons and daughters are.
Now, if this was talking about our relationship with one another
by creation, or our relationship as sons by creation, then it
wouldn't take the new birth to separate us out. It'd be the
first birth that would manifest that. But God's calling his people
out of the world. and into his household, into
his church, into his family. And that's what separates them
from the world. And that's what the apostle here
is talking about. Look at verse 12. He first lays
the foundation. And here's what he's telling
us. If you're a true child of God, you realize this. Verse
12. Therefore. Now the therefore
is based upon the conclusions that Paul had drawn up to this
point. And how the People of God have been called unto spiritual
life. They're not carnally minded in
the sense of being in unbelief and the deception in darkness.
You know the way. If you're a believer, you know
the right way. Now that doesn't mean that you always keep that
in focus. Sometimes we lose focus of them,
but God won't let us go. He'll bring us back always. But he says, therefore, brethren,
We are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. Now
what does he mean? We don't owe anything to the
flesh. What he's saying is simply this. We cannot attribute anything
of salvation, any part of salvation, any blessing of salvation, any
benefit of salvation, we cannot attribute it to ourselves. We
can't say that God owes us anything because of what we've done or
plan to do or intend to do or try to do. The flesh there refers
to the works of the flesh. In other words, man's attempts
to do what is right, to make himself acceptable, to cleanse
himself, to be more, those are the works of the flesh. And what
Paul is saying here is that when it comes to salvation, and all
the blessings and benefits of salvation, I cannot look upon
myself and say, I made the difference. I can't do that. I can't look
upon myself and say, now God, you gave it to me because I did
this. We're not debtors to the flesh,
and therefore we can't live after the flesh. Now a lot of preachers
say, well that means we can't live in immorality. And we shouldn't
live in total abject immorality. But what he's talking about is
we can't live like people who are trying to establish our own
righteousness before God. What do we do, how do we live?
We live by faith, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher
of our faith. And I'll tell you what, the only
way we're gonna do that is by the grace of God. We won't do
that on our own. We can't even attribute that
to our power or our goodness or our will. If I have a desire,
a will, to come to Christ, it's because God has sovereignly changed
my will. I remember when I didn't want
to come to this Christ. But God sovereignly and powerfully
changed my will through the working of the Holy Spirit and the Word
of God. So we're not debtors to the flesh. You know the Bible, when it speaks
of debt, you gotta make a distinction. There's the legal debt of law
and justice. The wages of sin is death. Just
like a criminal, you know, if a criminal gets convicted and
thrown in prison, we sometimes say he's paying his debt to society. Well, sin runs up a debt. But
we don't owe a legal debt because Christ is our surety and he took
our debt And he paid the debt in full. He paid it in full.
That's what propitiation is about. Justice is satisfied in the case
of the true children of God. We have a righteousness that
answers the demands of God's law and justice. But do we owe
any debt? Well, we owe God a debt of love.
And we can't pay that in full. We'll spend eternity praising
him, honoring him, glorifying Him, worshiping Him, serving
Him, and that's love. In other words, we do so out
of grace, love, and gratitude, but not a legal debt. So we don't
owe anything to the flesh. We can't look at ourselves and
say, I made the difference, I'm responsible, I did such and such,
therefore God only doing what He owes me. We don't owe anything
to the flesh to live that way. And he says, now think about
it this way, look at verse 13. He says, if you live after the
flesh, you'll die. Why is that? Because living after
the flesh is sinful and sin demands death. Now, the world will look
at this and say, well, I can understand that. That's talking
about all the immoral perverts in life, the drunks and the drug
pushers. They're living after. My friend,
think about this way. You will never have a Christian
worldview, as they say, or a biblical view of things. Until you see
that the most moral, in the eyes of men, the most religious, the
most dedicated person, who's trying to do the best they can
do, to be the best they can be, but do not know the Christ of
this book, and have not submitted to his righteousness as the only
ground of salvation and justification, that person is living after the
flesh, and it's sin in the sight of God. The natural man will not receive
that. Now why is that sinful? Here's a person trying to be
a good father to his children. And he thinks that being a good
father to his children, now he should be a good father to his
children. We all of us fathers. We're talking about, I will say
Happy Mother's Day. All you mothers ought to be great
wives, great mothers to your children. But the question is,
do you think in your mind that you being a good mother is going
to recommend you unto God and make you righteous in God's sight?
If you do, in God's sight, that's sinful. Why? Because it dishonors
his glory. What is God's glory? God is glorified
in the salvation of who? Sinners, by his grace through
Jesus Christ. If you think that recommends
you unto God, then you're denying the person and work of Christ.
If righteousness comes by the law, then Christ died in vain.
In other words, your whole life as a good mother without knowing
and believing in Christ, in God's sight, is a living testimony
that you think Christ died in vain for nothing. It's sinful because it's done
in unbelief, the product of unbelief. The Holy Spirit convicts us of
sin because we believe not on Him. It's sinful because it gives
you room to boast. You think God owes you something.
You may not say it that way, but if you don't know and believe
in Christ, that's what you're saying. That's why it's sinful.
Lord, Lord, haven't we preached in your name? How can that be
sinful? Lord, Lord, haven't we cast out demons? Haven't we done
many wonderful works? How can God look upon that as
iniquity? Because it falls short of the
righteousness he requires. It falls short of the perfection
of righteousness that can only be found in Christ. That's why. Now you be the best
mother you can be. You be the best father you can
be. But you realize that it's all a gift of God's grace. And it never could contribute
to making you righteous in God's sight. That's a task that only
Christ could accomplish and did. So you see, now that's why living
after the flesh is, you'll die. But he says in verse 13, but
if you through the spirit do mortify the deeds of the body,
you shall live. Now, how do we, what is mortify
the deeds of the body? Well, mortify means put them
to death. Consider them dead. That's what he's saying. And
the only, what's he talking about? The deeds of the body. The things
that we seek to do in our body and in our minds and our affections
and our will to be the best we can be. And he says, mortify
them, put them to death. Well, how do you put them to
death? Well, what he's talking about here is just another phrase
that means repentance from dead works. You've heard the term
repentance from dead works. In other words, you're going
to say that the best I can be in whatever capacity or role
that I have here on this earth, whether it's a pastor, a husband,
a father, a wife, a mother, a worker, an employee or an employer, the
best that I can be when it comes to attaining or maintaining salvation,
when it comes to earning or deserving God's favor and blessings, it's
nothing but dead works. And how do you mortify him? Put
him on the cross, where Christ died for my sins. And what it
says in the Bible that he made an end of sin. And that sin includes
my best efforts to make myself righteous before God. And the
only way that a sinner's gonna do that, he's gonna be brought
to faith in Christ and repentance of dead works, is through the
Spirit. the Holy Spirit, invincibly,
powerfully calling us unto Christ. If you through the Spirit do
mortify the deeds of the body. Paul did it when the Spirit called
him, didn't he? He said, I count all things but
loss. for the excellency of the knowledge
of Christ Jesus my Lord for whom I've suffered the loss of all
things and do count them but dung. Dung is a dead thing. In other words, those things
that I used to think were great and honorable and recommended
me unto God, now I see them as dead, dung. Now how did he come
to do that? It was through Christ sending
the Spirit of God to give him life and knowledge and bring
him to faith in Christ and repentance of dead works. And that's what
this mortify the deeds of the body means. It means you repent
of your dead. What you used to see as life
and honorable and good, now you see as death. And that which
Christ died for on the cross to put away your sins, our sins. So that's mortify the deeds of
the body. And you can only do that through, man by nature won't
do it. The natural man will not do that. No man can come to me
except the Father which has sent me drawing. And you know, this
is the issue right here that exposes people for who they really
are. People say, well, I believe in
Christ. I believe in the doctrines of
grace. I believe in election and predestination. But have
you been brought by the Spirit to repentance of dead works?
Because I'm gonna tell you something, that's something we won't do. You mean that all that time I
was going to a church where they didn't preach the gospel, but
I was saved? That's dead works. The Spirit
and the Holy Spirit. How does the Bible identify the
Holy Spirit? In several ways, does it? Spirit
of life, and the Spirit of what? Truth. But now I'm going to boast
of salvation under the preaching of a lie? You need to repent. That's what you have to do. You
won't do it on your own. I didn't. And I'll tell you,
that's a hard pill to swallow. That's why it takes the spirit
of God. He says, if you through the spirit do mortify the deeds
of the body, you shall live. But I was working so hard and
I was just ignorant. Well, ignorance is no excuse.
Remember Christ told his disciples that they would be persecuted
by the unbelieving Jews because they neither know him nor the
Father. They were ignorant. The Bible
says in Romans chapter 10 in verse 1, 2, and 3 that they were
ignorant of God's righteousness, therefore going about to establish
their own righteousness. And they've not submitted to
the righteousness of God, for Christ is the end of the law
for righteousness to everyone that believe it. You see, if you could bring, if I could
bring my religious baggage into the kingdom of God with me, that
would be easy. But you can't do it. Brother Mahan used to call it
grave clothes. Like Lazarus, you know, when
he came out of the grave, they took off the grave clothes. Those
were dead, rotten. They stunk, you see. And that's
what Paul was describing in Philippians 3. I count them all, but what
do you count loss? What's wrong with you, Paul?
You were a drunk? No, I was a Hebrew of Hebrews.
I was a Pharisee of the Pharisees. It's touching the law. Outwardly
righteous, men, that's the way they, I was moral, sincere, dedicated,
zealous, all those things. Yeah, and I counted all but lost,
dung, dead. See, he's mortified the deeds
of the body now. That's what repentance is all
about. That's the manifestation of the true children of God.
So he says, look at verse 14. He says, for as many as are led
by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. Now what is
it to be led by the Spirit of God? Led to Christ for all salvation. Led away from myself in repentance. That's what it is. And I'm gonna
talk about this in the main message today concerning conviction that
drives us to Christ. That's Holy Spirit conviction.
And there's so much myth in so-called churches today about the work
of the Holy Spirit. You know, people will go into
a place where they do a lot of entertainment, a lot of singing
and all of that. And they have feelings, you know,
it makes chills run up your spine, things like that. And they'll
make statements like, oh, I just felt the presence of the spirit
there. And I don't mean to be making
fun of people, but my friend, if that's how you gauge the presence
and indwelling of the spirit, you are totally, totally deceived. The first thing you want to look
for, if you want to know if the Holy Spirit is present in a worship
service, You know what the first thing you want to look for all
the handshakes and the smiles in the back padding and all that.
I mean I want us to be friendly to people don't get me wrong
a lot of great people. And I want you to have a happy
Mother's Day I thank God for my mother I hope you all thank
God for your mothers all of that. Okay. But disregard disregard
the The singing that just draws out the emotions. If you're looking
for, you know the first thing you need to be looking for? What's
being preached from that pulpit? Is it truth or is it a lie? How
do I know if it's a truth or a lie? If they speak not according
to this word, there's no light in them. And so when he says,
for as many as are led by the Spirit of God, you could just
as well say as many as are led by the truth of God. They're the sons of God. It's
that truth, empowered by the Spirit, that drives a sinner
to Christ as he's identified and distinguished in this book,
and based upon the merits of his blood and righteousness alone.
To where I see I have nothing, absolutely nothing to recommend
me to God, but the worthiness, the merit, the blood, the righteousness
of my Savior. And that's it. That if God were
to judge me right now based upon my best, I would be doomed for
eternal damnation. That's right. I have no hope,
I have no assurance, I have no peace, but that which I find
in the biblical Savior, the biblical Jesus Christ. And I say biblical
because there are false Christs, many, many, many false Christs. And it's up to you and me to
look into the book and find out what we're hearing. So he says,
those who are led by the spirit, led by the truth. And he says
in verse 15, he says, for you have not received the spirit
of bondage again to fear. Now what is that bondage? It's
legalism. It's any notion of salvation or any part of it conditioned
on me or conditioned on you. You say, what do you mean? Well,
if salvation is conditioned on you, what does that mean? That
means you have to do something in order to earn it or deserve
it. That's right. That's bondage. Now, why is that bondage? Because
it shackles you, it encages you into a system that is impossible. You can't do it. And you have
to start with this. What does God require? And the Bible says, and Christ
taught this in the Sermon on the Mount, you remember he said,
he said, I came to keep the law, not to break it. and except your
righteousness exceed the righteousness of the best religious people
on earth, you will in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven.
And let me tell you why you need such a righteousness, because
the law condemns you based upon your best efforts. Why does it
do that? Well, it's not only a sin to
commit the act of murder, but it's a sin to be angry enough. It's not only a sin to commit
the act of adultery, but it's a sin to think it, to want it,
to desire it, to lust. Now where does that leave me?
All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. There's
nothing I can do to make up for that. There's nothing I can do
to wash that away. Here's what I've said, if I could
start today and never think another thought of sin and never do another
act of sin, I would still be damned by God based upon my works
because I used to be a sinner. We fell in Adam. Right the way
we live. We never reach or attain the
perfection of righteousness that can only be found in one place,
in Christ. And so any notion, you walk into
a religious organization and what are they preaching? If they
lay salvation at your feet and say it's up to you, you make
the difference, they're preaching bondage. Now is that too hard? It's what they're preaching. You see, the gospel is salvation
conditioned on Christ, who fulfilled all the conditions. He finished
the work. So he says in verse 15, you've
not received the spirit of bondage again to fear, that legal fear. And he says, but you've received
the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. That's
a beautiful thought, isn't it? Spirit of adoption. That's the
adoption of grace. And this adoption had nothing
to do with the qualification of anyone who's adopted. And
you know, adoption in that culture, it was a legal matter where the
parents chose who they wanted to adopt. and there were legal
papers that were signed, and if there was a price to be paid,
there was a price paid, and then they went and picked the child,
got the child of their choice, and brought him into the family.
Now you see a parallel there to how God saves sinners. He
chose us before the foundation of the world, adopted us legally
into his family in Christ, and he sent Christ to pay the price,
the redemption price, and the Spirit comes and brings us into
his family. the adoption of grace. And when
he brings us into his family, he brings us into such a special
relationship that we can cry, Abba, Father. Now, any unbeliever
can read that and say those words, but the only ones who really
have a right to address God as Abba, Father, that word Abba,
it's a special word. It's a word that indicates A special word, a special relationship
of God with his children. Approaching God as a loving father. One preacher years ago, he equated
it to saying papa, papa. And it's not bringing God down,
it's not disrespect, it's just recognizing that God loves me
and he gave his son for me. And herein is love, not that
we love God, but that he loved us and gave his son to be the
propitiation for our sins. That's what it is. Biblically
speaking, rightfully speaking, no unbeliever has a right to
say I have a father. Only the true children of God.
And then he says in verse 16, the Spirit, the Holy Spirit,
it should be himself, beareth witness with our spirit. that
we are the children of God. The Holy Spirit has given us
spiritual life within from Christ. Spiritual knowledge, a new heart,
eyes to see, ears to hear. And what he does, he takes the
word of God and he bears witness, like on a witness stand. That's legal too, but it applies
because these are statements that God makes of his children
by which we can make our calling and election sure as the Holy
Spirit brings them to our minds and our hearts. So in other words,
it's not a feeling. Because I'll tell you what, there's
sometimes I just don't feel it. How about you? It's not a notion. It's not an emotion. It's the
witness of the Spirit through the word to our spirits. And how do we know we have that
spirit? We receive and rejoice in and
love the word of God. Now, if I preach the word of
God and I show you the word of God and you don't like it, you
can't stand it, you hate it, what does that tell you? It tells
you that the spirit's not bearing witness with your spirit. Because
you don't have spirit, you're spiritually dead. I've had people
call me up or write emails and say, I despise the God you preach. Well, I've got the testimony
here. I've got the witness right here.
And that's how the Spirit bears witness with our spirits that
we are the children of God. Somebody says, I don't believe
what you're preaching. Well, if what I'm preaching is
the word of God, is the truth, then what does that tell you?
You give no evidence as of yet of being a true child of God.
Now, you may be chosen and you may be redeemed, but at this
time you don't give any evidence of it. That's what he's saying.
The true children of God are those who have the witness in
ourselves, the word of God. You remember he said, called
it an unction in 1 John 2. You have an unction, and that
which is in you, that which is written on your heart, the word,
It stays with you and you can't leave it because he won't leave
you. All right.