Adopted

[0:00] Father, in your word, you tell us that the Holy Spirit will lead us. Father, you know our hearts. You know how skilled we are at quenching the Holy Spirit and ignoring the Holy Spirit.

[0:17] And so, Father, we ask that in your mercy and in your kindness, that your Holy Spirit would move in a mighty and powerful way as we read your word and think upon it. Father, please, in your mercy, pour out your Holy Spirit upon us.

[0:32] Lead us by your Holy Spirit. And this we ask in Jesus' name. Amen. Please be seated. So, yesterday I was in a Starbucks trying to do some more work on my sermon, Get It Ready for Today.

[0:50] And I had sort of a shocking experience happen to me in politically correct postmodern Canada. in a pleasant suburb. I'm sitting at the window looking out of the parking lot.

[1:03] And an obvious, a young man, I don't know, he probably looked like he was around 20, but he was obviously mentally handicapped. Like, obviously mentally handicapped.

[1:14] And he was quite plump. And he gets out of the car with his mom. And as he goes around the car, his mom's walking a bit faster. And as he tries to go to catch up to his mom, I guess his pants were drooping way down.

[1:27] So, he was sort of doing this, like, waddling type run and trying to grab his pants and pull his pants up at the same time. And that's not the shocking thing. You know, many of us have to pull our pants up.

[1:41] It's not particularly shocking. What was shocking is that I was sitting beside a woman and her mother, and they made fun of the man and laughed at him. Like, it was actually really surprising.

[1:52] They said, look at that retard over there. Look how fat he is. Look at him waddle, pull up his pants. And they're just going back and forth. This is in Ottawa. It was pretty shocking. I felt both embarrassed for the young man and angry at what this, you know, probably looked like she was, like, in her mid to late 20s.

[2:13] And the mom looked like she was probably around 50. And making fun of this, which I thought was a really, in many ways, a tender scene of this young guy, obviously mentally handicapped, rushing to catch up to his mother.

[2:29] And how many 20-year-old men reach out their hand to hold their mom's hand while they go into a store? I thought it was really touching. But it brought derision and mockery and laughter from these two women who were beside me.

[2:44] And in many ways, this story, I think, shows a lot of what goes on in our culture. That, you know, even though there's a lot of politically correct veneer that goes on, there's still mockery and cruel judgment made about relationships.

[3:04] And even though there's a veneer of politeness and we know how to keep our thoughts private to ourselves and maybe just share them with our family or our friends, there's just this mocking spirit which is still present in many of us, if we're honest.

[3:20] And, you know, this story shows both the fact that, you know, many of us would probably long to have a relationship with our parents where we could just still be that trusting and loving with them.

[3:32] And yet, at the same time, we also know that there's mocking, just this whole combination of a desire for it. Like, that young man had a secure relationship with his mom that many of us don't have with our own mothers or with maybe our kids.

[3:45] And everything about this story, the desire for security and intimacy, mocking judgments. Anyway, I just sort of thought it's a lot of that stuff is just going on all in this brief little thing that took one minute, one and a half minutes for the guy to walk with his mom into Mark's work warehouse.

[4:05] And so the Bible actually has a lot of wisdom to say about this. And it would be a great help for me and a great help to you if you'd open your Bibles to Romans chapter 8. And Romans chapter 8, verse 14, and if you're a guest here, one of the things that we do in Church of the Messiah is we want God's Word to form us as a congregation.

[4:23] And so we preach through books of the Bible, and we're going through Romans, the book of Romans. We started back in September, took a break over Christmas, and we're back in it. And today we're up to Romans 8, 14.

[4:35] And it would be a great help if you follow along. Let's read the first few verses. And, you know, it's in the middle of a big section, so it's going to be a bit surprising. But it's really, really a precious thing that addresses our desire for security and attachment and belonging in a world where cruel judgments are made and where we often make even cruel judgments about ourselves.

[5:01] And here's how it goes. Romans 8, 14 and following. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. I'm going to explain in a moment why I didn't say sons and daughters and why I didn't say child of God and why the version of the Bible that I'm using says sons of God.

[5:18] It's not being sexist and hateful of women. I'll explain it later on. I'll start reading again. Verse 14.

[5:54] This next verse is a verse that many people have memorized. And it's often on cups and cards. And it's for good reasons. It's a very, very beautiful and powerful verse.

[6:07] And it goes like this. Verse 18. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

[6:19] Now, I know the passage goes to 25, but we just want to pause here for a second because, you know, that verse 14 is sort of a bit of an odd text for all who are led by the Spirit of God or sons of God.

[6:33] It's an odd text in the sense that I've heard talks given on this, and they're very, very good talks. But the problem is that they're wrong. It's actually not what the Bible text is actually describing.

[6:47] One of the things that my poor children have suffered under all their life is that on our holidays, we go to church. And just after I—as I was preparing for ordination, I noticed that a lot of ministers when they were on holiday didn't go to church.

[7:04] And I didn't want my kids to come away with the impression that Dad only went to church when he was up front. And if Dad couldn't be up front, the center of attention, then, like, why bother going?

[7:19] I wanted my kids to have a sense that I went to church because I was a Christian, not because I wanted to be up front. So we would go to—we go to church on our holidays, you know, these beautiful August days.

[7:30] And I don't know, I'm not trying to make any of you feel guilty, but you're all not going to church, and we trudge off to church. We don't trudge. We go. I mean, maybe sometimes we trudge. Anyway, I have to be honest, right, up front?

[7:44] But so, anyway, so one of the things is I—so often after the service, my wife or my kids ask me what I thought of the service or what I thought of the sermon. And I have to always—I try to be very, very careful about this.

[7:55] One of the things I try to do, and I ask you to do this for me, especially as I'm going through the Book of Romans, and as I shared in many other weeks, I find the Book of Romans unbelievably stretching, and I never feel as if I'm going to actually be able to get us into the text in the way that it deserves.

[8:13] It's just very stretching. And so one of the things I do when I'm away on holidays and I'm listening to somebody preach is I pray for them. And in fact, the worse the sermon is, the more I pray. Not so I can stop listening, but just because I—you know, I know what it's like to be up front trying to do your very best and maybe not doing a very good job with your very best.

[8:33] So I pray. Anyway, there's this one Sunday that I'm—it's sort of irrelevant. We went to this church. We're going home, and my wife asked me what I thought of the sermon. And in that particular Sunday, I had very definite thoughts.

[8:46] And I try to be polite, and I—you know, it's only my wife and my kids. I said, well, he said a lot of really, really, really helpful Christian things. Unfortunately, the text said the exact opposite of everything that he said in the sermon.

[9:01] That if you just actually read the very next verses, because it was a sermon about how if you have a vision of Jesus, how it completely and utterly transforms your life, and he uses the story in the Gospels of the Transfiguration.

[9:13] But if you actually go on and you read right after the Transfiguration, it didn't transform any of the disciples' life. They were just as clueless, incompetent, ornery, backstabbing, fighting as they were before.

[9:30] So I said, you know, he had really good things to say, but that text actually says the opposite. And then my wife said I was being too picky, which was probably correct, because most people just went away with lots of very, very helpful thoughts about wanting to see Jesus, which is very good.

[9:44] But anyway, so here we have, so we're back up here. Actually, why don't we put up a verse, no, no, we won't put it up yet. So here we have this, this passage begins, verse 14, for all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.

[10:00] And I've heard lots of people talk about how we go to God because he gives us guidance. Well, actually, that's not what this text is talking about at all. That's true, God does guide us, but that's not what this text is talking about in terms of whether we should go to graduate school or, you know, whether we should date this young woman or this young guy or whatever.

[10:18] That's not actually, there's other texts about this, but that's not what this is saying. We have to sort of go earlier in the text to see the context about what the text is actually saying. And it's telling us something very, very, very far more glorious than whether or not God will actually give us some insight about whether we should go to graduate school or not.

[10:36] So if you go up to the very beginning of chapter 8, in fact, Andrew, could you put Romans 8.1 up last week? Those of you who were here last week, I just tried to hammer away at this one text.

[10:46] Oh, Andrew's not here. Adam, could you put up Romans 8.1? No? Oh, yeah. Okay. That's, well, here, if you have your Bibles, here's how Romans 8.1 goes.

[10:59] There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. And what Paul is doing, oh, there it is.

[11:10] You found it. Could you all say this with me? Because it's just good sometimes to say the Bible together out loud, isn't it? There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

[11:22] And it says, you know, there is therefore now. And so Paul is sort of summarizing all, a lot of what he's talked about for the first seven chapters of the book. And he's talking about how there's no condemnation.

[11:32] And in verse 2, it continues like this. This is going to be relevant for us to understand verse 14. For the law of the Spirit of life, verse 2, has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.

[11:47] For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do, by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh. And for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh.

[12:01] And what this text is saying, it's a very, very powerful type of image. It says how the Holy Spirit leads people to Jesus to this point where when they put their faith and trust in faith and trust in Jesus, there is no condemnation that comes from God that will ever, you will never have any condemnation for the entire rest of your life.

[12:26] And in this text, as I talked about last week, I'm just giving you a brief reminder of it for those of you who are here. In this text, there's this very, very powerful image.

[12:37] It's, you know, in the flesh and for sin and all that. It's the language of the Old Testament sacrifices. And some of you remember, I reminded you last week, the way the Gospel of John begins, like in terms of the narrative bits, is when John the Baptist sees Jesus walking by and he points to Jesus and says, Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

[12:59] It says it twice. Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. And all of the Paul's readers who were Jewish, and they would have understood the Old Testament thing, but actually pagans also did sacrifices, so they would have this as well, that in sacrifices, what would happen is that you put your hands on the hand of the animal, and in Jewish law, the animal had to be pure and without blemish.

[13:22] And we all have a, there's an interesting thing in the National Post this week, that one of the things that we don't like about cruelty to animals is that there's this sense of innocence around animals. You know, to hurt an animal and hurt a young child, not that an animal and a young child are equivalent, but that there's this innocence about them that just really strikes us at wrong at a far deeper level.

[13:42] And so there's this animal without blemish, it's perfect, it's innocent, and the person, the man or the woman, puts their hands on the head of the animal, and there's this image then, it's being enacted in front of you, that this, the, all of the things that I've done that are wrong are being laid on the head of the animal.

[14:02] And then the animal that is pure and innocent, its purity and innocence becomes mine. And then when the animal is sacrificed and dies, it's the animal, in a sense, paying the price in my place for the things that I've done that are wrong.

[14:22] And I receive the purity and the innocence of the animal. And for pagans and for Jewish people at the time, they understood that you had to keep doing this over and over and over and over again.

[14:35] And what Paul is summarizing here, which he's talked about in the book of Romans, is what if God himself provided a true and greater lamb?

[14:46] What if God himself, in and through the person of his son, provides a true and greater lamb? And so Paul is trying to get them to understand this unbelievable truth.

[14:59] The Holy Spirit leads you to Jesus, leads you to that point in life where you put your hands up, so to speak, maybe just in your heart, maybe some of you even with your hands, and you put your hands out and you call out to Jesus to have a place in your life, to be your savior.

[15:13] And you don't entirely know what it is that you're asking for when you ask this. And you pour out your heart. You say, Jesus, I really need you. I don't know how to put it, but I see whatever it is in my friends. I just have this sense of the Holy Spirit prompt me.

[15:25] I put your hands out to Jesus. And Jesus crosses the infinite distance from God to us and takes our hands. And what Paul is telling us here is that in this remarkable moment, there is an exchange that the Holy Spirit accomplishes in our lives that is beyond what we knew or what we expected when we put our hands out to Jesus, that Jesus actually reached down.

[15:50] He takes our hands. And when we put our hands on Jesus, it is like you were putting your hands on that innocent lamb. And all of that which you have done, which is wrong, and deserves mockery and condemnation and justice, and all of that is put on Jesus, and the purity and innocence of Jesus is given to you.

[16:11] And you don't necessarily know that at the moment, but that is what the Holy Spirit does in your life. And because he is God, the Son of God, the true and perfect lamb, and God knows every single thing there is to know about you, he knows everything about you from the moment of your conception to the moment of what for you is your future, your death, with nothing left over, all of that is placed on Jesus.

[16:42] And all of Jesus' purity and innocence and standing before God is given to you. And so for the rest of your life, when you are in Jesus, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

[16:56] None. At all. Ever. And the Holy Spirit leads you to Jesus. It leads you to a faith in Jesus where that happens.

[17:12] And so it's within this context, everything in the rest of Romans 8 is all under that, not the shadow, but the bright light of this profound truth for even the worst person who calls out to Jesus.

[17:30] There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. And then to explain what he means by that, it's sort of encapsulating all of Romans, for the law of the spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.

[17:45] And here the word law, and so the version of the Bible that I'm using, some of your versions probably say principle or logic or reason or something like that. One of the things that this version of the Bible does is if there's the same word in the original language, it likes to keep using it.

[18:03] But sometimes, as we know, the same word can have different meanings. Here's an example. I stopped playing bridge to drive across the bridge to go to the bridge before getting my bridge work done.

[18:20] Bridge, a game. Bridge that goes over a water or something like that or another road. The bridge, which is a church in Ottawa, and bridge work, stuff done to your mouth. Same word, okay, but slightly different meanings.

[18:31] And here, in this particular case, law means sort of, in a sense, the intention behind the power, the reason behind the power, the goal behind the power, the logic to the power.

[18:47] And it makes sense because the Holy Spirit is a person. In a sense, electricity or light, it has no purpose. I mean, it doesn't have any goal.

[18:58] It just does things. It's impersonal. But the Holy Spirit is not like the force and isn't just energy. The Holy Spirit is a person. Like, if you just jump down, just before we come to verse 14, look at verse 9.

[19:13] But actually, could you put up the point for me? The first point. In every Christian, there we go. In every Christian, the personal God is personally present in the person of the Holy Spirit.

[19:29] In every Christian, the personal God is personally present in the person of the Holy Spirit. And that helps to explain this language. Look at verse 9 and 11. You, however, are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if, in fact, the Spirit of God dwells in you.

[19:48] Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness.

[19:58] If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you. So you see, it's this language of, the Bible is always doing this, that I am in the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit is in me.

[20:16] But that's how it works with persons, right? Like my wife and I have been married for 34 years. And in many ways, I mean, I am in her life and she is in my life.

[20:29] Those of you who've had a loved one die, that when a loved one dies, it feels as if there's almost a hollow place in the center of you that's been ripped out.

[20:41] Because people are in each other when there's personal relationships. And so, that's why Paul in verse 2 can talk about how the Holy Spirit has a principle, a purpose behind his power as he works in our lives.

[20:58] And that leads us up here then to verse 14. So it's been a bit of a long aside, but hopefully it's been helpful to you in your spiritual life. Look at verse 14 again. So Paul's just continuing.

[21:09] He's now going to give us a second powerful image of what it means to be a Christian. And actually, I think we have it. We want to say verse 14 with me together. I think I have it up there.

[21:20] Is it verse 14? Can we say it together? For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. Let's say it again. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.

[21:33] And then in verse 15, it continues. For you did not receive the Spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry, Abba, Father.

[21:45] The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. And if children, then heirs. Heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified in him.

[22:02] There's a different image here. If you could put up the next point, that would be really helpful. The Holy Spirit, you see, in the first part that we talked about last week is the Holy Spirit, we should never want to quench the Holy Spirit.

[22:16] We should be asking the Father regularly to pour out his Holy Spirit upon us for more of the Holy Spirit. Why? Because the Holy Spirit brings us to the Gospel. The Holy Spirit brings us to an understanding that we talked about last week that there is no condemnation now for those who are in Christ Jesus.

[22:37] And here, this same logic and power of the Holy Spirit is going to bring us if we let him work in our lives and don't quench him. The Holy Spirit leads me to a secure, humble, trusting knowing that in Jesus, God has adopted me as his child and his heir.

[22:58] The Holy Spirit leads me to a secure, humble, trusting knowing that in Jesus, God has adopted me as his child and his heir.

[23:10] Now, in the time that the Bible passage was written, around 57 AD, in the Roman world, adoption was usually actually quite different from the way it is today.

[23:21] And in the ancient world that Paul was writing to, so all of these people would be familiar with this. As soon as they got this image, they would get it in a way that we wouldn't necessarily get. First of all, they often didn't adopt babies.

[23:38] We want to adopt babies primarily or young children. But in the ancient world, if there was a man who was very rich and he had no heir or no suitable heir to leave his vast fortune and power to, he would go looking around and he would pick a man to adopt.

[24:02] Like, it could even be somebody as old as me or it could be a young man. So it would be as if if we were back in ancient Rome and I'll just use Ken.

[24:14] I'm sure he won't mind me using his name as an example. And let's say Ken has no heir. And Ken looks around and he sees Andrew and he says, Andrew has 10 kids and, I can't remember, how many of them are boys?

[24:27] Anyway, a few of them are boys. Five boys. And surely, out of those five boys, one would be a suitable one as well. I'm going to adopt Andrew with his 10 kids.

[24:38] I'm going to adopt Andrew as my son. And Ken would pick Andrew. If Andrew tried putting ads in the personals, I have lots of kids, I'd like to be adopted.

[24:49] It doesn't work. And Ken would look at Andrew and says, you know, Andrew looks healthy. He looks like he's a responsible person. He would really, I'm going to make him my heir. And so, in the ancient world, the father, in a sense, the man chooses and does all the work to make the adoption possible.

[25:13] And when Andrew is adopted by Ken, Andrew changes his last name. He now has a different name and a different identity.

[25:26] He instantly, once the adoption goes through, is the heir of everything that the rich man has. All of his power and all of his influence. And on top of that, Ken, when he adopts Andrew, undertakes on Ken now every single debt and everything against Andrew now goes on the dad in the Roman world.

[25:51] and Ken is now liable for all future actions of Andrew. They all go on the dad, the new dad.

[26:03] And the son has an obligation to honor and please and be with his father. and this is all done by the father in this ancient world.

[26:20] Now, just, I'm sure in the ancient world it was a little, I was listening a little while ago to a tape of a man who was a pastor of a church that only had male elders. And he was telling this story about sometimes after the elders board had made this decision for the church, one of the elders, male elders, would come up to the pastor and say, pastor, I've been praying about this and I think we need to reconsider.

[26:42] And the pastor says, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. I don't want you to lie in church. You weren't praying about it. You talked to your wife. She disagrees. Right?

[26:55] And the guy said, the man would often get red in the face and say, yeah, I wasn't praying about it. I was talking to my wife and she does disagree for these reasons. And then the pastor would say, those are really good reasons. Let's have a, let's reconsider the particular issue.

[27:08] So, you know, in the ancient world where there was all just male, male, male, you know, knowing how men and women work, that's probably not the way it actually worked on the ground. Okay? But legally, then you see this profound image, this profound image of the father choosing a son to be his heir, giving him a new name, taking upon himself all of the debts and obligations and charges against the son.

[27:37] And forever afterwards, as long as the father is alive, being liable for all of what the son does and a new name and a new identity and it's fixed and it's solid and it's all done by the father for the one who is adopted as his heir.

[27:53] And that's what, and that's what's being said here in verse 14, for all who are led by the spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry Abba, Father.

[28:11] The spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God and if children then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.

[28:29] Once again, you put your hands out to Jesus and you don't know all this theology, you're not a complicated guy or gal, you haven't figured out all this theological imagery stuff, I mean maybe today after the sermon it will be a little bit different, but you don't necessarily know all of this stuff and you just reach out to Jesus because you just have this sense that you need to be connected to Jesus and you put your hands out to Jesus and Jesus crosses that infinite distance down to you and takes your hands and what you do not know is that as Jesus takes your hands, the father has adopted you as if you, man or woman, are his son with all the rights of inheritance and all of the obligations against you are now on your father and all of the things that you will do in the future as long as the father is alive are on your father and he adopts you as his child and you have his name and he will never let you go or backtrack on that.

[29:29] That is your new identity and destiny and that is what happens to you when you put your hands out and you do not realize that when Jesus takes your hands it is the father adopting you as his child and heir forever and for the rest of your life one of the ministries of the Holy Spirit in your life which is why you should want the Holy Spirit to have as great a role in your life as you possibly can is to bring you to us secure and humble trusting knowledge that you are God's child not weighing your merits that you are God's child by adoption and grace this text was actually profoundly subversive I mean you can just imagine that the people when they're hearing Paul and in the congregation there's some estimates anthropologists have done some work and in the it might very well have been that 70% of the congregation in Rome were slaves majority women there were some rich people too and this would have gobsmacked them that woman over there who's a slave

[30:44] Paul has just said that she inherits as if she is the son bam that slave woman with no status the lowest of the low when she puts her faith and trust in Jesus she becomes adopted by the creator and sustainer of the entire universe as his child as if she is a son it's a very very powerful text you know you see with as the Holy Spirit leads us to this knowledge of the Father you realize you have this you start to have this sense of the security that you have remember I began this whole sermon by this you know plump mentally handicapped young man probably 20 trying to catch up to his mom and the son's hand out and the mom's hand back like this they hold hands that's your father with you the security you long for is in

[32:08] Jesus in the gospel the belonging you long for the intimacy that you long for the Holy Spirit leads you into crying out in pain I don't know if you've ever been maybe in your neighborhood or maybe you've had the experience yourself but the kids when they're a certain age you know maybe three or four or five and maybe the dad comes home after a day of work and one of the kids looks out the window and they say daddy is that crying out as well it's not just pain father is always present showing up and I saw another thing in a different Starbucks this week I know I spend a lot of time in Starbucks you know how slippery and slidey is outside right now and it was such a wonderful thing there's this mom and she had a little two year old girl and the mom they were on this really big icy patch and the mom had the little girl's hand mom's reaching down like this the little girl's reaching up like this the little girl had the biggest smile on her face and she was trying all these cool moves on the icy snow you know as if she was the world's greatest figure skater adventurer sliding here losing her feet and she never fell the mom was holding her in this text we see that there's a freedom that when we understand as I shared last week if my next five sermons suck big time

[33:40] I am still not condemned and I'm still God's adopted child if I have some great failure in my life in three years I am still not condemned I am still God's adopted son if I decide to try to leave the church in some way of making some difference for the kingdom and it fails and maybe people say if George had half a brain and the council had even a quarter of a brain they wouldn't have tried something like that you know what for me and the council still not condemned still God's adopted child this profound security to risk like this little girl trying out all her cool dance moves and skating moves and who knows I was through maybe she was going I don't know fighting bad Barbies or something I don't know all secure in the mom's hand and it's also just profoundly freeing to know that what the end of the day all

[34:46] Jesus asks us to do is to bear witness to him because only the Holy Spirit can lead people to Jesus and he just asked for words Holy Spirit carries the weight only the Holy Spirit can carry that weight you can try to carry the weight of conversion it'll crush you it'll make you proud and arrogant it'll crush you being proud is being crushed too that's a whole other story Holy Spirit carries that weight now just in closing some of you might say yeah George what's all this stuff about suffering though what's all this stuff about suffering could you put up Romans 818 we're going to read it in a moment but here just read verse 17 and then join with me in reading verse 18 and if children then heirs heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him now with me for

[35:47] I consider the sufferings of this present time are worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us can you say that with me again it's a profound verse to memorize for I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us for the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God for the creation was subjected to futility not willingly but because of him who subjected it in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God for we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now and not only the creation but we ourselves who have the first fruits of the spirit grown inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons the redemption of our bodies for in this hope we were saved now hope that is seen is not hope in other words if you have it in your hand for who hopes for what he sees has in his hands but if we hope for what we do not see we wait for it with patience

[37:01] Andrew could you I don't know if I have this in the right order could you put up our theme verse for all of the book of Romans can you say this with me together those of you who aren't maybe this is your guess is the way Paul has written the book of Romans is that in verses 16 and 17 he trying to unfold and deepen and give context for this could you say it with me for I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes to the Jew first and also to the Greek for in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith as it is written the righteous shall live by faith and here Paul is in jail he basically says in 2

[38:02] Timothy chapter 1 part of what 2 Timothy is all about in chapter 1 is that there's always going to be a choice before you as you live your life will you be ashamed will you suffer for the gospel or will you be ashamed of the gospel will you suffer for the gospel or will you be ashamed of the gospel Paul writes that just before he time and time and time again what are you doing today well do you tell them that you're on your way to church or you tell them you're doing something else it's all sorts of things just the ways that we try to avoid the mockery of the world and we see here as I've explained how we've made clear that if you believe that there's a power of God for salvation to it's revealed from faith we receive it by faith and our life goes from faith to faith from faith to faith from faith to faith and

[39:06] Paul here is now wanting to have us to understand if we could go back to Romans chapter 8 and this profound verse in 18 he wants us to understand something else about the Christian life and what the Holy Spirit does in our life in closing because sometimes the Holy Spirit will lead us into suffering yes I actually believe the Bible is true or yes I believe Jesus rose from the dead or yes I know you're going to think I'm a complete and utter idiot and a fool but I actually don't believe in naturalistic evolution I believe God is the creator of all things yes I believe Jesus is the only way I believe he is the way the truth and the life yes I believe the Bible is God's word and that if you read it in the context of the gospel and power of the Holy Spirit will bring you freedom profoundly yes I believe that every human being even human beings still in the womb bear the image of God and are worth dignity and protect all these things that flow out of the Bible that we in our culture know in our bones they are counter cultural sometimes the

[40:10] Holy Spirit will lead us to bear witness in a way that causes suffering and then there's just the normal suffering of living in a life with a body but the Holy Spirit not only leads us into suffering he leads us while we are in suffering and if you could put up the final point Andrew the Holy Spirit leads me to a secure humble trusting knowing of the eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison prepared for me in the new heaven and the new earth the Holy Spirit does in our lives the Holy Spirit leads me and I always use me these notes will be on the computer after Shirley gets back from holidays so that if you're writing them for yourself you're writing me because sometimes we can believe that this is true of those really holy people over there those people have their lives together just remember everybody's normal until you get to know them title of a really good book everybody's normal until you get to know them and then you go whoa you're pretty weird you're odd yeah anyway

[41:29] I was going to say something but the Holy Spirit stopped me sorry I would have got in trouble you know it's really funny when you're up here preaching without a written text you know there's these things that come into your mind and sometimes you think I should just say it and other times you go no no no no no just that's your internal voice George not your external voice you're not supposed to say that out loud so where was I so where was I in this the Holy Spirit works in our lives to bring us to this point where more and more and more we understand that God when Jesus comes a second time he will bring in the new heaven and earth and just as there is now no condemnation for me if I'm in Christ Jesus just as I am adopted when I am in Christ Jesus when I am in Christ Jesus it doesn't matter if you're that handicapped young man who can't has trouble holding his pants up when he waddles over to his mom that he puts his faith and trust in

[42:42] Jesus that in the new heaven and the new earth he will be a creature of glory that if you saw him now before the new heaven and the new earth you would fall down to worship him like a god it doesn't matter if you're old it doesn't matter if you're young it doesn't matter if you're sick it doesn't matter if you're handicapped it doesn't matter if you're one of those spectacular athletes who are going to compete in the Super Bowl this evening our bodies will eventually fail many of us know what that means every day when we wake up but when we put our faith and trust in Jesus we're not only not condemned we're not only adopted as his child we will bear an eternal weight glory in the new heaven new earth only God only he can do it and he can do it in you brothers and sisters pray that the Holy

[43:46] Spirit will not be quenched in your life but that you will allow that you will call out for the Father to have the Holy Spirit work ever more deeply and fully in your life because in the Holy Spirit leads me to a secure humble trusting knowing of the eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison prepared for me in the new heaven and the new earth please stand maybe you know the Holy Spirit leads you to a faith in Jesus and then after the Holy Spirit leads you to a faith in Jesus he keeps leading you to a deeper faith in Jesus and maybe some of you right now you have been quenching the Holy Spirit you have not wanted to reach your hands out to call out to Jesus to be your Savior and I'm just going to say if the Holy Spirit is moving and working in your life right now don't quench the Holy

[44:49] Spirit just let go and call out to Jesus there's no better time than right now call out to Jesus and for each of us with the different things that we're struggling with and we sense this and I'm not going to give you magic words I'm just going to tell you just say Father I want Jesus to be my Savior I want to have the Holy Spirit lead me you just pray that you don't need some special prayer that you have to try to figure out if you remember the words properly afterwards just in light of what just let the pressure and the power of the Holy Spirit lead you to call out to Jesus and if you call out to Jesus to be his child he takes your hands there will be no more condemnation you will be his adopted child and an eternal weight of glory beyond comparison is what will take place in your life in the new heaven and the new earth and for the rest of us just pour out your heart and call out to God I think every single one of us me included need to grow in this humble trust secure humble trusting knowing of what is accomplished for us in the gospel and just imagine the security and the adventure that can begin to go as you realize the strong grip of God on your life let's just pray father ask for those who maybe have never given their lives to you that your holy spirit would move with might and power and deep conviction and bring them to that point where they call out to you and father for all of us who are here who have given our lives to Jesus you know father how we struggle with accusation how we struggle with bodily weakness you know how we can struggle with doubts you know how we can struggle with fears you know father how we might be afraid to try to do bold or new things for you because we're afraid of failing we have a spirit of slavery and fear not a spirit of the adoption of us as sons father we ask that your holy spirit would move mightily in every life that is here to grant us a secure humble trusting knowing that we are adopted as your children when we put our faith in

[47:02] Jesus and that you will glorify us with Jesus for all eternity in the new heaven and the new earth father grow every day within us such a secure humble trusting knowing and this we ask in Jesus' name amen