Romans chapter eight. And I'm going to read from verse
one. Romans chapter eight and verse one. And we'll go through to verse
17. 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. For
as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of
God. 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. The Spirit itself
beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. And if children, then heirs,
heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ, if so be that we
suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together. Amen. May God bless to us this
reading from his word. The verse that I have particularly
in mind this evening to centre our thoughts around, to cluster
our attention around, is verse 14 of chapter 8. For as many as are led by the
Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. And the title of our
sermon this evening, the message this evening is, Led by the Spirit. This evening I want us to dwell
a little upon an emphasis that the Apostle Paul here provides
for us in these opening verses. of chapter eight, and I'm going
to be dipping back again into the earlier verses of the chapter
as well, just as it were, to pick up one or two strands and
threads that I trust we can weave together into a picture of what
the Apostle is emphasising here in these verses towards the end
of our reading, particularly in this 14th verse. because the
apostle seems to be drawing our attention with some frequency
to the work of God, the Holy Spirit. He's speaking about us
knowing something of the work of the Spirit in our lives and
what it means to be following after the Spirit and led by the
Spirit. Indeed, So emphatic is the Apostle
in these verses that he speaks of the believer's relationship
with God through the Lord Jesus Christ as being a living relationship. and as walking after the Spirit,
living in the Spirit and walking after the Spirit. Now we know
that our God has revealed Himself as a triune God. God in three
persons, one God in three persons, the Father, the Son and the Holy
Spirit. And each of these persons in
the Godhead have various and different offices, always in
unanimity, always with the same purpose and pressing towards
the same end, but fulfilling different roles and the revelation
of God towards his people. And this evening, we're just
going to touch upon some of the aspects of this office of the
Holy Spirit that Paul is speaking to us about here. This relationship
that we have, this union that we have with God, with the Lord
Jesus Christ, through the Holy Spirit. This living, walking
relationship with God. Let me say this another way,
because we touched upon something last week where we reminded ourselves
of the wonderful and mystical union that we have with the Lord
Jesus Christ. You might remember we made reference
to the opening verse of chapter 8 where it speaks about the fact
that we are in Christ and then we also drew attention to the
10th verse of chapter 8 where we're told that Christ is in
us. And we thought to ourselves, how is that possible that we
are in Christ and Christ is in us? How is that union, that relationship
being operated? How is it working together? Well, far be it from me to try
to explain the inexplicable, because when we come to these
truths in Scripture, really there is no parallel. We simply have
to take these revelations from God and say, Amen, so let it
be, that we are in Christ, and yet Christ dwells in us. But I do think that we can perhaps
draw the curtain back a little bit more than simply saying we
take these words at face value. Because I believe that the Apostle
Paul, in teaching us about God the Holy Spirit in these verses,
and by using these various words of life and action and walking
and being led and pursuing and having these activity words directed
to the work of God the Holy Spirit is showing us something of this
relationship that we have, this union that we have with the Lord
Jesus Christ and indeed with God the Father also. And these
frequent references are an indication by the Apostle of the fact that
God the Holy Spirit has this particular and peculiar ministry
of comfort and grace towards the people of God. So let us look at a couple of
the references that the Apostle makes in these verses. In the
first verse of chapter 8, and then again in verse 4, we are told that being in Christ
Jesus, being in the Lord Jesus Christ, is walking after the
Spirit. So if we are in the Lord Jesus
Christ, we walk after the Spirit. And that speaks about the ruling
or the guiding principle that animates and motivates our lives. Our spirit is joined together
to the Spirit of God. And with that joining, with that
connection, comes an activity of engagement whereby we walk
after the Spirit. We are connected with the Spirit
and led by the Spirit. He being our guiding principle
and directing us in our lives. In verse 2, he is called, indeed,
the Spirit of life. And therein we are reminded of
the fact that he is the bringer and the giver of spiritual life
to the people of God. And we're reminded in thinking
about the Holy Spirit as the spirit of life, how it is to
him in his office within the covenant purpose of God, within
the redemptive plan to apply the benefits of Christ's work
to individual believers and how it is that he makes alive, how
it is that he convicts and converts and leads into truth, how it
is that he quickens, ye hath he quickened. And we are reminded
here of the spirit of life and its quickening call, the regenerating
work of God, the Holy Spirit in the new birth. which of course
the Lord Jesus spoke to Nicodemus about when he declared to him,
you must be born again. That new birth, that being energised,
animated by God the Holy Spirit, being quickened by God the Holy
Spirit, is this spirit of life engaging with us in our own souls
and spirits. And so the Apostle Paul writing
to Titus in chapter three says in verse five, not by works of
righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he
saved us by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost. This is this quickening activity
of God the Holy Spirit in the lives of individuals. Regeneration, renewing, which
He shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ, our Saviour. So here we see the persons of
the Godhead working together to accomplish this end, but the
Holy Spirit being reckoned, being recognised and having attributable
to Him this work of quickening and making alive. So He is rightly
called in verse 2, the Spirit of Life. Then in verse five,
here's another way in which the apostle is directing our attention
to God, the Holy Spirit. He has spoken of us walking after
the Spirit, spoken of them as being the Spirit of life. And
here again, we find that those who are born again, those who
have that life in the Holy Spirit are after the Spirit. They are after the mind of the
Spirit. That is, they pursue these spiritual
things. They pursue the things of the
Holy Spirit, the things of the Spirit, which is the life of
faith. So the life of faith, which is
that spiritual activity in a believer's heart, is to be guided by the
Holy Spirit, to be after the mind of the Spirit, to be thinking
on spiritual things. And by this means to be brought
into a life of faith in Christ, to have spiritual things revealed
to us, spiritual things revealed to us that other people don't
see, spiritual things shown to us that other people can't understand
but are granted to us because of what Christ has done for us
and because of this quickening power of the Holy Spirit by which
means the blessings and the benefits of grace are applied to our hearts
and to our lives. So to be guided by the Spirit,
to be after the Spirit, is to be brought into the life of faith. Faith in Christ. Trust in Christ. Reliance on Christ. These are
all important words. To trust in him, to rely upon
him, is to recognize that there is an efficacy in the things
that he has done which flow to us and by which we stand in the
sight and in the presence of God. Our good Our standing, our
position is because of what the Lord Jesus Christ has done and
the Holy Spirit reveals that to us. It causes us to look to
Christ and see that in his blood is a cleansing power. To see
that in His sacrifice is an acceptance with God. To see that there has
been a justifying righteousness bestowed upon us because of what
the Lord Jesus Christ has done. And not to look anywhere else
for those things. not to be seeking them anywhere
else, not to be endeavouring to find them in our own righteousness
or in our own strength or in our own abilities, but to see
that in the Lord Jesus Christ is focused all of these divine
graces which we then receive by the Holy Spirit in our lives,
so that We are brought into this awareness, this teaching, this
understanding by God, the Holy Spirit. Not that he guides us
to do holy things, or teaches us to live good and righteous
lives, or takes us back to the law of God and says, now here
is the standard of obedience that I require for you. In some
respects, we might say that could have been a possibility. That
could have been something that the apostle would direct us to,
that the indwelling of the Holy Spirit would enable us to do
these things. But that's not what's said here.
The indwelling of the Holy Spirit causes us to have faith in Christ. The indwelling of the Spirit,
the work of the Spirit in our lives doesn't lead us to do holy
things, leads us to depend on Christ, leads us to trust in
Christ, leads us to see in Christ all those things which he has
done for us. And therefore, in verse six,
to continue this point, the apostle says, to be spiritually minded
is life and peace. How is that? Because we see that
we have life and we have peace in Christ, not in the things
that we do. If we had to get our life and
our peace, if we had to get our joy and our satisfaction out
of our own capabilities to do the things that we were supposed
to do, would that be generating or leading us into a peaceful
existence? No, but we see Christ and he
has become our peace. By faith we have peace. And then
in verse 9 and 10 we have another aspect
of this because we see here that it is the Spirit of God and the
Spirit of Christ That is the Holy Spirit that dwells in the
church and the people of God. The Holy Spirit, the third person
of the Godhead, dwells in us. And in verse 11 we are told, And to take that just another
step and put another spin on that, the Apostle Paul tells
the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians chapter 6 that our bodies are
the temple of the Holy Spirit. So the Holy Spirit is indwelling
the church and people of God. this Holy Spirit of whom the
Lord Jesus Christ spoke to his disciples in John chapter 14,
just when he was getting ready to go to the cross, which of
course was that precursor to his death, his resurrection,
his ascension, and his leaving them. And he says to them on
that occasion in John chapter 14, I think you'd find it in
verse 16, he says, I will pray the Father and he shall give
you another comforter. The Lord Jesus Christ had been
a comforter to his disciples during those three years of his
ministry. But now he was getting ready to leave and he could see,
he could see the disappointment in these men's faces. He knew
that he was leaving them bereft of that intimacy, that personal
connection and relationship. So in order to show them that
they would continue to have the Lord Jesus Christ with them,
he says, I'm going to get the Father to send you another comforter. And this comforter, he says,
will abide with you forever. Even the spirit of truth, whom
the world cannot receive because it seeth him not, neither knoweth
him. but ye know him, for he dwelleth
with you and shall be in you. He goes on, I think verse 26,
but the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will
send in my name, he shall teach you all things and bring all
things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you. So here we can see that the Lord
recognised that there was going to be this activity of the Holy
Spirit in the lives of the people of God. As they come to a knowledge
of the truth, the Holy Spirit would come into their life, would
teach them all the things concerning the Lord Jesus Christ. So what
I'm going to do this evening, and I know we've already started,
but I'm going to give you four headings which show us specific
things that the Holy Spirit gives to us, particularly in these
latter parts of the verses that we have before us this evening. Down to... down to verse 17. Four things, four blessings that
the Holy Spirit brings to us according to Paul. And the first
one we will find in verses 11 and 12. And that is this. Verse 11 says, 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. So here we have this
assumption again that the Holy Spirit is dwelling in the people
of God. And the reference that the apostle
makes here is that our mortal bodies are quickened by the Holy
Spirit that dwells in us. This is the Holy Spirit of life
in Christ Jesus that communicates to us, quickens our mortal bodies,
communicates to us all that life-giving power that was won for us by
the Saviour at the cross of Calvary. All of the covenant blessings
and promises are communicated to us in the quickening of our
mortal bodies. Now, these are our mortal bodies,
and that quickening is this new life of which the Lord spoke
to Nicodemus, you must be born again. Having been born again,
having been quickened, the Holy Spirit that dwells in us, the
Holy Spirit that lives in us, communicates, speaks to us, passes
on, conveys these life-giving graces and mercies of God towards
us. God's grace to his church as
from the head flowing to the body. The head, the living Christ
conveying all the blessings that our head has won for us to the
various members of the body by the power of the Holy Spirit. So here is this first blessing
that comes to us by God, the Holy Spirit, the quickening of
our bodies, the new life that we have in Christ and that energizing
life being conveyed to all the members of the body. Every covenant
blessing won for us by the Lord Jesus Christ, every promise that
God has made to his church. We were dead in our trespasses
and in our sins and with Christ we have been made alive. We have been raised with Christ.
We have been made free from the law of sin and death in Christ,
and we are united as one with Christ, and we are freely, fully
justified and accepted as righteous in Christ before God. and it is the Holy Spirit that
communicates all of those blessings to our hearts and souls and our
understanding and thereby conveys that sense of peace and acceptance
with which we stand before the Holy God. This is a relationship
activity, this is a relationship that works together, this is
not any mere declaration, forensic court judgment
that is made and it says, right, you have these things but there's
no sense of them, there's no feeling about it, there's no
awareness about it. No, that's not how it works with
God. God has declared us righteous but he has sent his spirit into
our lives that we may have communion with him in the Lord Jesus Christ
and we may participate with him in that life. And this is the
significance of the quickening or enlivening of our mortal bodies
here upon this earth. All the covenant blessings won
for us by Christ are conveyed to us through God the Holy Spirit. That's the first blessing that
we have. The second one is this, and we see it in verse 13. He
says, ye through the Holy Spirit, that is by the life of faith. 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. Now we've seen
that that is by faith. We don't mortify the deeds of
the body by doing holy things or by being taken to the law
and there shown these are the things that you're now supposed
to do and if you do them you'll mortify the deeds of your body.
Listen. There are whole religions, there
are textbooks of theology that have been devised and constructed
and written in order to teach people how to mortify their bodies. But that's not what this is about
at all. You, through the Holy Spirit,
do mortify the deeds of the body. And this is a wonderful, liberating,
comforting statement that the Apostle Paul has made for us
here. The world says, when it thinks about religion, when it
thinks about goodness and holiness and works, the world says, do
this, do that, do the next thing. But it's not about you doing. It's about the fact that the
Holy Spirit mortifies the deeds of the body. This is the spiritual
work within us because the Holy Spirit leads us into faith. It is faith that mortifies flesh. Faith mortifies flesh. not wearing some sort of hair-skin
shirt underneath our jacket, not walking with nails in our
shoes, not imagining that we can fast or that we can withhold
things that are pleasurable to us as some form of sacrifice,
thereby showing ourselves dedicated to the calling of God. That's
for the religious zealots of the world. That's not for the
people of God who have been made free in Christ. No, faith mortifies
flesh. It brings the power of Christ's
work, the power of Christ's achievements to bear upon the flesh of our
bodies. It shows us that we have rule
over our flesh, that we have a power and ability and enabling
to withstand the temptations of the devil. to live in the
light of the holiness of God's law and yet not be subsumed under
its weight or crushed by its condemning power. These are the
blessings of faith. These are the gifts of Christ
to a people that have been made free from these things and rather
than being subject to the world, the flesh and the devil, or indeed
the law, we discover that we have a spiritual strength that
we never knew we had. We have a hope that is based
not upon our own abilities, but upon the accomplishments of our
substitute and our representative. And we have a peace with God
in the knowledge that Christ has achieved everything that
was demanded by the Father on our behalf. That's why he's called
the Comforter. What is it that the advert says?
It does exactly what it says on the tin. You ever seen that
advert? Maybe you don't have it in the
US. The Holy Spirit does exactly what he was sent to do. He comforts
the church. He comforts the people of God. And then in verse 14 we're given
the third of these activities by the Holy Spirit. And here
the Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of Adoption. See the way the Apostle Paul
has opened up this work of God, the Holy Spirit, in these verses
in 8? He's begun at the beginning of
Romans, to tell us all of the ways in which man and his sin
is opposed to the things of God, and how God holds us accountable
and will judge us. But then he opens up the fact
that there is a righteousness which is imputed by God, not
because of works, but because of grace and mercy, and how that
the Old Testament saints discovered that. and how that it is still
discoverable, and how that righteousness comes by faith to the experience
of individuals who see that the Lord Jesus Christ has accomplished
all on their behalf. And now in chapter eight, we're
moving into the experience of these things. We're moving in
to see how all these blessings of Christ's work on our behalf
are appropriated and communicated to our souls. And here is another
one that the apostle speaks of. The Holy Spirit is called the
spirit of adoption because this is the peculiar work of the Holy
Spirit. This is one of his office responsibilities. to bring us into this knowledge
and experience of a filial relationship with God, the sons and the daughters
of God. That's an extraordinary statement,
isn't it? To be the son of God. There is
a Son of God, it's the Lord Jesus Christ, but here we're being
taught about adoption. And this is speaking to us of
the fact that we having been adopted into the family of God,
are given the rights of the sons and the daughters of God. That's
what we're called. No longer estranged, no longer
separated, no longer opposed, no longer at enmity towards him,
but by the spirit of adoption brought into this relationship
of sons and daughters, a filial relationship. And of course,
we spent a few months ago, we spent some time in the book of
Galatians and we read about that in Galatians chapter 4, that
we are no longer servants but we're sons and daughters and
the people of God himself. This is a theme that Paul speaks
about often. He picked it up again in his
letter to the Ephesians, chapter 1, verse 5. He writes there,
having predestinated us unto the adoption of children. That's
what the whole covenant plan was about. That's what the whole
decrees of God, the establishment of the purpose of God and the
redemption of a people was about, bringing these people estranged
from him into his family and making them his own so that we
can call him father and he calls us his children. predestinated unto the adoption
of children by Jesus Christ to himself according to the good
pleasure of his will. Whereby we cry, Abba, Father. Abba, Father, and maybe there
is a case to say that this is one of the tenderest words in
the whole of the New Testament. It's only used a couple of times. The Lord uses it once where he
speaks to his own father and he calls him Abba, Father, and
then a couple of times the Apostle Paul uses it with reference to
our relationship with God. It's a lovely word. It's a tender
word. It's an affectionate word. It's a word which speaks of a
close relationship with God and his children. This is a word
which is peculiar. to sons and daughters. No one
else gets to use this word. You have to be a son. You have to be a daughter to
use this word. The servants in the household
would never use this word of the master of the house. They
might call him the father. but they would never call him
Abba. That was a tender, affectionate word which fell only to those
who were the true children. And it's such is the intimacy
that it speaks of the closest of unions between the father
and the child. Now, I don't want us to lose
the practical significance of these things because what we've
been getting directed to by the Apostle here is to realise that
these things are those which energise us, which are a practical
effect in our lives. They're supposed to alter the
way we think. They're supposed to change the
way we feel. They're supposed to illuminate
and enable us to understand that direct relationship that we have
God forbid that we come to these scriptures and we read them and
we hear them and we go away thinking that it's like something from
a theory book or a textbook. This is to be our personal engagement
with the Godhead through that Holy Spirit that dwells in us. This is the power of faith in
the life of the believer. Do you remember what the Lord
Jesus Christ said would be the effect of the Holy Spirit being
sent to the disciples when he was going away, when he was going
to the cross and then the grave and then the resurrection and
the ascension? He was going away physically. The body of Christ
would no longer be visible to the disciples. And he was telling
them that, I'm going away, I'm going to prepare a place for
you. And he could see that these men
were downcast. There was a growing awareness
that things were about to change. And we don't like change at the
best of times. So here, the Lord says to his
disciples, I'm going to send you a comforter. Now, what was
to be the effect of that comforter coming? Two things, to teach
you all things and to bring to your remembrance all the things
that I have said. That was why he was going to
come. He was going to come and he was going to teach them in
a spiritual way, by faith, in this life of faith, to teach
them and bring to their remembrance everything that the Lord had
taught them. That is, he was going to reinforce
and remind and apply the effectual accomplishments of Christ's work
upon the cross to his people. And that's the work of the Holy
Spirit, to teach us about Christ, to show us the Lord Jesus Christ,
to lead us into an understanding of the implications of the effects
of his accomplishments. and to make us experience them,
to enable us to experience them in our hearts, in our minds,
in our bodies, in our mortal flesh, to lead us into all truth. Christ is the truth. I am the
way, the truth, and the life. To lead us into all truth is
to lead us into Christ and that we might draw from Christ's work
and accomplishments those comforts for our life's experience. Now, I don't want to sound like
a broken record. You know what I realized, actually?
I realized that sooner or later, the older people are going to
have to explain that metaphor to the younger people. You don't know what a broken
record is. You think that's something that
happens at the Olympics, don't you? Let me tell you about 45s and
78s and 33 and a third. Actually, I noticed that they're
all coming back again. I noticed that you can go down
to the shop and you can buy vinyl records. And if you put your
little stylus on the record and it starts to play, and then there's
a little piece of dust or a little chip in the vinyl, you see it
repeats itself and repeats itself and repeats itself and repeats
itself and repeats it, and it sounds like a broken record.
So I don't want to sound like a broken record. I don't want
it to always appear that I'm repeating myself, but here's
the point, right? That's why we've got to come
and hear the gospel preached. That's why we've got to be here.
That's why it's important. Because the Holy Spirit is going
to comfort us when we hear the gospel preached. That's how he's
going to lead us into all truth. That is how he is going to teach
us all things. That is how he is going to bring
to our remembrance all the things that the Lord Jesus Christ has
said when we are under the sound of the gospel. That's why we
call it a means of grace. It is a means whereby the grace
of God is applied to our hearts and souls. The Holy Spirit will teach us
and remind us who we are. who Christ is, what he has done,
and all the blessings that have been achieved and accomplished
for us and are conveyed to us by his presence in us. And so
in verse 16, the apostle says, that is, it teaches us to know. That's what the word witness
means. A witness is somebody who knows
because they've seen it for themselves. They know. It's an old English
word, to wit. and that to wit is to know and
he beareth witness, he teaches us of the things that he knows
of what Christ has accomplished and in that teaching we find
peace and contentment and rest in Christ. The Spirit itself
beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. I said there were four things
that I wanted to touch upon, and here's the fourth one. Verse
17. And if children, then heirs,
heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if so be that we
suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together. Now, it is only children that
can say, Abba, Father. And the other reference that
the apostle uses that in is Galatians chapter four and verse six. And there it says, and because
ye are sons, okay, you hear what I'm saying? Because ye are sons,
not because ye will be sons, but because ye are sons, ye are
sons and daughters, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his
Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. That's something
that we can do. Now because the Holy Spirit is
in us, because we have been brought into this filial relationship
with God, this relationship of father and children, we are enabled
and entitled, we have the right and the privilege to have this
closeness of union with the Father, this personal relationship with
him in our hearts, in our souls, in our minds, in our lives. And then the Apostle says, children
are heirs, heirs of the Father, joint heirs with each other,
Even says Paul, with Christ himself. And I think that's just the most
extraordinary statement. You know, he could have said
all these wonderful things about the Holy Spirit and not actually
said that. And we might have been left to
think, I wonder if that can really be the case. But he's nailed
it. He's nailed it right there. He
says, not only are you children, but you are now, because of adoption,
you are heirs of God. and joint heirs with the Lord
Jesus Christ. I think that's just truly amazing.
That's an amazing statement. We repeat it often and rightly
we should say it a lot and we should remind ourselves all the
time that this is the condition. Because I don't think we feel
like that. I don't think that that's what
we understand, but that's what the Holy Spirit is doing. That's what the spirit of adoption
is reminding us of. And so when I say to you that,
here's the broken record again, that we should be under the means
of grace, under the sound of the gospel, it's so that we are
reminded, like every time we need to get up in the morning
and have our breakfast to have the energy to start the day,
we need to be coming in here to have that spirit spiritual
energy, that spiritual enabling given to us as we are reminded
about the fact that this is our standing. It's not how we feel,
but it's how it is. It's how God makes it to be. And it is our privilege and our
blessing and our inheritance in Christ. It's apostolic revelation. It's
all that it is. It's the revelation of God the
Holy Spirit through the Apostle Paul for us today to lay hold
on this promise day by day. You are, in Christ, a son of
God, by the Holy Spirit, aware of your adoption and heir of
all the promises of God. even joint heir with the Lord
Jesus Christ of all things." What an amazing statement that
is. I say again, I could never have
said that except the Lord, or except the Holy Spirit had said
it first and revealed it to the apostle to teach it to us. Again, there's so much emphasis
on men and women endeavouring to live lives that are honourable
and glorifying to God. But the law could only ever make
us a servant. It's grace that makes us a son. Grace makes us the children of
God, where the law could only ever declare us to be unprofitable
servants. Grace gives us an inheritance
of glory. The law binds us to service,
but grace frees us to enjoy the divine blessing. Law brings us
to worry and to fretfulness and to self-examination. And grace
calls us and causes us to look to the Lord Jesus Christ and
all that he has done. And all of this, because that's
me come to the end of my four points, all of this is what the
Holy Spirit brings us to experience as we, as he enters our lives
and then leads us to enter into the blessings and the promises
of our inheritance. This is what the new life brings
us to. This is what this quickening
power, this enabling, this being born again brings us into the
experience of. And though sin remains, and we
don't deny it, we're not blind to that fact, though sin remains,
nevertheless, as the Holy Spirit causes us to look away from self,
to the one on the cross, to the death of the cross, to the blood
of the cross, to the sacrifice of the cross, we find that a
sense of peace rises in our souls. And we find that while there
is an ebbing and a flowing and a rising and a falling of spiritual
intimacy with God, yet we never lose it, because the Holy Spirit,
says the Lord, shall dwell with you forever. He'll never leave
you. And once bestowed this quickening
grace by the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit will never abandon
his post in the life of a believer, but will always be that comforter
to us. So I'm going to close by making
two points. And just to touch, really just
to indulge yourself. So I'm not gonna go past this
joint heirs with Christ without going back over it again. It's
just too good. So here we go again. Two points
in closing. Joint heir with Christ. In the Lord Jesus Christ, we
are the heirs of God. Heirs and partakers. of all the promised blessings
of God. All of those glorious attributes
of the Godhead, which he then communicates to his people, the
blessings of his love, the blessings of his mercy, his grace, the
gift of faith, having been made righteous, the holiness of God
itself, purity and peace. These are all characteristic
of God and we are heirs of God. We are the proper inheritors
of those communicable graces and attributes of our Father. There's a family resemblance,
there's a family likeness. And again, so what if you don't
feel like that? That's not the point. The point
is that the Holy Spirit has been given to us to teach us and to
bring to remembrance all that Christ has done for us. And it
is he who has made us an heir of God. And in the Lord Jesus
Christ, we are the heirs of glory, of glory. And with him, we shall
partake of and enjoy for eternity. the inheritance of God for his
people. He will bestow upon us all the
good gifts that the infinite, omnipotent God has desired and
designed for our good and our pleasure. It's beyond our comprehension,
beyond our imagination, the things that God has in store for them
that love him, for them that he loves and who love him in
Christ. Everlasting life begun. We'll
go on and on. on and on. It is never ending
and every blessing in it is our portion as an heir of that inheritance
of God. And that doesn't mean that we
take away any honour from Christ because he is the heir of all
things. We are the heir of all things
with him, but as the firstborn amongst many brethren, he retains
his preeminence in the inheritance. and we are united to him as the
bride. The two become one flesh. That's the picture of marriage.
The two, the indissolubility of marriage, as well as the beauty
of the picture of the revelation of spiritual things. These two
become one, they are joined together, and the head and the body enjoy
the eternal blessings of the Father to the Son. And here's the second thing,
and with this we're done. I said that the title of this sermon
was Led by the Spirit. And we picked that up from verse
14. For as many as are led by the
Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. That phrase is only used twice
in scripture. Oh, this is good, you'll like
this. It is only used twice in scripture. The other time that
it is used, it is a reference to the Lord Jesus Christ being
led of the spirit. And we find it in Luke chapter
four in verse one. And I just think that this is
a delightful picture of the union that we have with the Lord Jesus
Christ. The Lord Jesus Christ had just been baptised by the
Holy Spirit. The testimony of God was given,
this is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased. The Spirit
had descended upon the Lord in the form of the dove. And we're told in Luke chapter
four, verse one, and Jesus, being full of the Holy Ghost, returned
from Jordan, And here's the phrase, and was led by the Spirit into
the wilderness. So that's the only other time
that that phrase, led by the Spirit, is used. Jesus was led
by the Spirit into the wilderness. The Lord Jesus Christ, full of
the Holy Ghost, was led by the Spirit into the wilderness. And
we think, what? He's now full of the Holy Ghost,
full of the Spirit of Life, full of the Spirit of Power. Why shouldn't
He be led to the kingship of the world? Why shouldn't He be
led to the throne of power, to be given all dominion over this
world, that everything be put under His feet right there, right
then? Because He is full of the Holy
Ghost. Why not to a demonstration of
that power? Why not to the acclaim of the
masses there and then? Why not to the worship of all
the world's religion? But no, that wasn't what he was
led to. He was led into the wilderness. Being filled with the Holy Ghost,
the Lord Jesus Christ was led into the wilderness where no
one could see him, where he didn't have any of the enjoyments or
the pleasures or the ease of the natural world and the physical
blessings around about him, where temptation came and took hold
of him, where the devil assailed his spirit, where he went for
40 days and 40 nights without any nourishment for his body. where He endured trial and affliction? And are we any better than our
Saviour? Shall we not therefore count
it an honour to be led by the Spirit as He was led by the Spirit? And if that leading of the Spirit
leads us into the wilderness, Is that not a fit place to be
led in pursuit and in the footsteps of our Saviour who has gone before
us? Paul ends this little section and he says, if children then
heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if so be that
we suffer with him. Brethren, Brothers and sisters,
if so be we suffer with him, we shall be also glorified together
with him as heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ Jesus. May the Lord bless these thoughts
to us this evening.