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Thank you, music team. Please be seated and turn in your Bibles to Romans chapter 8.! Romans chapter 8. The date was June 19, 2005.
The place was Indianapolis, Indiana. The event was the United States Grand Prix Formula F1 race event, or F1 as it is partially known as today.
It was on that day that one of the greatest racing disasters in F1 history occurred in what they estimate between 100 and 160,000 fans, which ultimately cost over 100 to 150 million dollars.
But it's not the type of a disaster you might be thinking of. The race on that Sunday afternoon started, like all F1 races do, 20 cars representing 10 different teams.
They head out on what's called the formation lap. As they get in their proper orders that they've been racing ahead of time to qualify. But before the lap was even finished, 14 cars pulled into the pits and never came out.
What happened? What caused these 14 cars to pull over? Well, two days earlier in practice, a race car driver by the name of Ralph Shoemaker, his left rear tire literally disintegrated as he banked for the final turn at over 200 miles an hour and fired him into the wall.
Michelin was the tire that was on the car. They took the car. They flew the failed tire back to France. They flew back replacements overnight.
But they stated they couldn't isolate the cause why their tires failed. So the company did one thing a tire maker can never do.
It told the seven teams where the 14 drivers came from who used the tires, they literally said, we cannot guarantee your safety on these tires.
In a season when the rules required one set of tires to last the entire race, there was no fix. And 14 drivers refused to risk their lives.
Just think the world's greatest drivers and the greatest cars with the greatest mechanics and engineers on their side. But nothing could assure these men to step onto the track with tires that may or may not work.
The race went on with only six drivers. The fallout was almost immediate. Refunds needed to be issued to over 100,000 fans, which cost the F1 people over $16 million.
Later lawsuits attributed to $20 million in damages. But that wasn't where it ended. The long-term hidden costs measured in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
F1 disappeared from the United States for several years after that. All the broadcast rights sponsors all disappeared. Corporate sponsors were devaluated.
So if you had your company on one of those cars that didn't run, your stocks went down. You were devalued. And Michelin has not returned to the world of F1 racing.
What's interesting is this event didn't die for lack of drivers, cars, or fans. It died because the product everyone was trusting with their lives, couldn't say the words every assurance depends on.
You're safe with me. The fact is confidence is only as dependable as what you are trusting.
Now that brings to question a question for your own life. You say, I belong to Christ. You say, His Spirit lives in me. You say, even when this body dies, God will raise me.
My question for you is what supports that confidence? Especially when your strength gives way, when illness comes and death approaches, will the one you are trusting prove faithful?
This morning, Paul gives us the grounds we need to assure us that he is going to do what he promised God would do.
In fact, he directs us to the God who's already raised Jesus from the dead and tells us that God will do the exact same for those who belong to him.
If you remember last week, Paul described two kind of people. Two types of people. Those who are in the flesh. Those who are in the spirit. Those who are in the spirit.
The hard truth is those who are in the flesh have their minds set on the things of the flesh, which Paul calls death. And then he gives this horrifying description of being in the flesh.
Those who are in the flesh are one, hostile to God. Two, they are unwilling to submit to God. And three, they're unable to please God.
And ultimately need God to intervene in their lives. In case you're wondering who that is, that was all of us at one point.
This morning, Paul turns his attention to believers. When he says, you, however, are not in the flesh, but in the spirit.
But perhaps you hear that and wonder, if God has changed me, why do I feel so unchanged? Why do I feel weak in my flesh?
Why do I struggle with my sin? Why do I still get the same temptations? Why does my body get sick? Why do people who love Jesus still die?
Perhaps you've asked that or any of these questions quietly. Or maybe you've even shouted them out in tears. Why, God, why?
The fact is, you know the Bible answers. You can explain the gospel. But when life becomes painful, you wonder whether these promises really belong to you.
My friends, we need assurance that will hold us up when our strength will not.
I'm not here to tell you about hypothetical questions. These are real questions. These are questions that I have dealt with next to a bed, holding the hand of a saint who's lived for Christ for decades, still wondering if they have assurance that Christ will indeed save them.
As you age, these seem to be natural questions that people ask. One of the most interesting experiences of my pastoral life was at my former church when I replaced a pastor.
They didn't have a pastor for five years. But the pastor who was there before me, his wife died of cancer. And there was so many in the church could not get their mind around why would God call such a good person to him?
That there was something mixed up in their theology that the better you are, in other words, the more immortal you were. And this was a gospel preaching church.
But this morning, Paul gives us something solid to stand on. This morning, he tells us who we belong to, who dwells in us, and what God will do with our mortal bodies.
Let me read again, starting from verse 9. You, however, are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit. If, in fact, the Spirit of God dwells in you, 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 of life, because the Spirit is life, because of righteousness, 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.
Three truths that I want to unpack for you this morning. Because God's Spirit dwells in you, you, in fact, belong to Jesus.
Two, because God's Spirit dwells in you, you have life while facing death.
And the third point I have is because God's Spirit dwells in you, your body will be raised from the dead.
Let's begin with this first truth. You belong to Christ. Notice the opening word of verse 9.
He says, you. If you notice, if you look at the contrast with the flesh, he talks about those. Right? This you, he said, those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
But it's all of a sudden he's preaching to us. You, it makes this dramatic, intentional turn. Paul is not making any third person generalizations anymore.
He's directly speaking to his audience in Rome. Now notice, Paul is not saying some of you. He's not saying the elite among you, the most mature among you.
He simply says you. I'm convinced that if Paul was perhaps from the southern U.S., he might have said y'all because that would have encompassed exactly what he's talking about here.
You, who have been converted from the realm of death to the realm of the Spirit. Now if you remember, last week we talked about there's only two worlds that you can live in.
There is the realm of death and then there is the realm of the Spirit. And when you are converted in Jesus Christ, you are moved from this realm to this realm.
And notice he says, and he's going to be talking about this a lot, and I'll bring it up and I might be even getting ahead of my sermon somewhat. But, there's a reason why he doesn't say you need to start thinking spiritual things.
You need to start doing spiritual things. What Paul is describing here is reality. You are either this person or that person.
That's it. There's no middle ground. So being in the Spirit describes a new position that God gives his people. And we know the truth.
Christians still sin. We still think horrible things. We get tempted by stupid sins all the time. And so often, some people say, well, you know, that person's in the flesh.
No, they're not. They're still in the Spirit. They're not going back to that, but they're just struggling. They're simply acting inconsistently with who they really are.
Paul, later on in Romans, will address this. But, our failures don't mean Monday's a great day.
I just finished Sunday. I'm in the Spirit. Tuesday, I woke up late. It was a little grumpy. I yelled at the kids. So, now I'm kind of in this area. And then, by Wednesday, I am so frustrated and I'm yelling at the world that all of a sudden, I'm over in the flesh.
No, no, no, no. You're always in that position of the Spirit. What Paul is describing is that a change of ownership has happened.
You're in a different realm. And what identifies someone who's experienced that change, he puts in if, in fact, the Spirit of God dwells in you.
This condition matters. It's important to see here as assurance is offered, not because you were baptized, not because you said a prayer at camp or at church or you attended church or a membership class or you had a religious experience.
Paul's question reaches deeper. Does the Spirit of God dwell in you? You see, Paul is identifying people to whom this assurance belongs to.
Then he states the opposite with absolute clarity. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.
belong. That word belong is an interesting word. It's not some cold mechanical ownership.
To not belong to Christ means there is no covenant. the promises that are in Scripture are really not for you.
No matter how much you might try to claim them, they are not there. To not belong to God means you are not in union with God.
It means you do not have peace with God. It means you do not stand in grace with God and you do not have hope in glory. that also means God does not identify you as one of his children and you have no seal of the indwelling Holy Spirit on you.
Fact there is no Christians who belong to Jesus but has never received his Spirit. You see the Spirit is not an optional addition for usually or unusually committed believers.
The newest believer has as much as the Holy Spirit as the oldest of saints. You may not know as much you have more to learn. You may have more areas to grow in but you belong to Christ just the same.
Why? Because the Spirit dwells in you. So that word belong is an incredible term. Now I want you to pay attention to the word dwell that Paul uses here.
The implication of this word is beautiful when it applies to us and God. Paul was talking about an abiding presence that God has made his home in his people.
Why is this beautiful? Well let me ask you a question. How do you measure your spiritual reality with God? Do you tie it into your Bible reading?
Your prayer life? Perhaps you had a powerful moment or experience. Perhaps there's a song that's moved you at a certain time. or maybe there's been even a sermon that has gripped your soul.
And that experience, that emotion stays with you and sometimes someone would ask like how do you know God has made his home in you? You would point to these things. Now listen, I'm not putting down those moments.
We thank God for those moments. But the obvious question happens, what happens when those moments pass? Where does assurance come from? Has the spirit left because the music stopped?
Has God moved out because you woke up discouraged? Perhaps you sinned casually earlier in the day? That's not where assurance is found.
In fact, Paul gives us a stronger foundation than any intense experience can be. He directs us to the presence of a person who lives within each and every one of us.
The spirit of God dwells in those who belong to Christ. That's the truth. Now, what's incredible about Paul's wording here, and it's interesting, a lot of the commentaries are trying to guess why.
Why? Because he calls them the spirit of God in this text, you're going to notice, the spirit of Christ. And in verse 10, he speaks of Christ being in us. And it seems that Paul is naturally moving.
So people are asking, are these different spirits? Are these different manifestations? How do I figure this out? It's all one and the same. It's all part of the trinity. That perfectly exists in one, and Paul is just naturally moving between these words because they are inseparable from the indwelling Holy Spirit.
Yet, the Son and the Spirit are distinct persons. Paul is not confusing them. Paul is showing how closely the believer's relationship with Christ is bound to the Spirit's presence.
Essentially, what he's saying is, through his Spirit, which Jesus Christ promised us in John 14, John 16, we are now, the Lord resides within us.
To have the Spirit of God is to have the Spirit of Christ, which is to have Christ himself indwelling the soul. Now, why is this so important? Because, remember, this is a letter written to the saints in Rome.
They weren't in Jerusalem. They probably did not hear Jesus. They did not see Jesus. They were taught, the gospel, by people who did. But this truth tells us that they are not at a disadvantage for not knowing Jesus personally.
You with me? They can know Jesus just as richly and truthfully as those who saw and walk with Christ. And guess what? It doesn't change 2,000 years later when we live in Squamish.
That we can experience that same closeness intimacy with Christ as those who walk with Jesus. Can I get an amen?
That's an incredible truth. we sometimes imagine that there was this experience of nearness that we cannot have.
But Paul is here telling us, he's describing is the possession of everyone who belongs to Christ. Christ. The Lord has not left you to maintain a relationship with him through the strength of your imagination or some experience that you're trying to find.
He gave you his spirit. He gave you his spirit. Now, the natural question is, how can I know whether that is true of me?
That's a great question. Well, first, let's just start with the gospel and the Christ and his gospel.
One, are you relying upon Jesus Christ crucified and risen to save you or are you relying on you? have you come to Jesus as a sinner who needs mercy or have you come to Jesus saying, I have something to offer you?
Is your hope resting upon what he has done or what you think you have done? And the big question is, is there evidence of the spirit's work in your life?
that means a real turning towards Christ, a desire for his word, a desire for the things of God, and is there grief over sin and a willingness to repent?
If you have those things, it's probably safe to say that Jesus Christ lives within you. Those things do not purchase salvation, but they are evidence of the life God gives.
Now, here's the problem. We have a disease. We have a disease, and that disease is we constantly compare ourselves to others.
Anybody relate to that? Or am I the only one? All right, Nick and Sabre are the only two honest people in the church. All right, now a few of you guys are coming forward. All right, that's good.
This is real. I remember telling you my experience a little bit, a little bit about my background. I went to the seminary at 36 years old. I felt that God had led me there.
By the time I got there, I thought I knew someone. I thought I knew something. I was very well read, I'd say, amongst my peers. I had read all of Calvin's institutes. I had read the Bible through and through many times, different other books.
books. And when I showed up at seminary, I realized I knew nothing. And the pastor, he's a man that I love.
I served with him in the youth ministry. The reason I went into the youth ministry because I had never seen at that time probably a more powerful leader, and he just exuded this wisdom that was amazing.
And it turned out he was younger than me by about six years. And his background story was he grew up very similar to me. Broken home by the time he was in junior high, and his one parent was a police officer, like my story.
But I soon realized that he was so far in a way more gifted and knowledgeable and more fruitful than I ever could dream of.
And I remember sitting there, I am discouraged. I am ashamed that I haven't done more in my life, that I haven't read more, I did not know more, because I thought I knew something, and I didn't.
I remember, and I'm not ashamed to say this, my first test, first test was in Hebrew language. And what happens is you send in the test and they put it in the mailbox. And I pull it out, and I get a 79 point, or no, it was a 74.5.
And I'm like, all right, that's almost eight out of ten Hebrew words, right? That's not bad. That's not bad, right? Come on, give me something. Then I'm like, what does the D minus mean?
I grew up without letters, it was all these numbers. What is the D minus? Oh, I'm nowhere near as sharp as I think I am. But I had a different life, and I went to see one of my mentors.
I said, man, I got to drop out, man. I'm working with Eric. He's had the same life. And then he opened up, and as I got to know Eric, it was a different life, but similar in that God had taken me down a different path to grow me in the man that I am to be.
And I started figuring that out a little bit after. But at that moment, it's easy to compare yourself, right? Why don't I have a family like that? Why don't I have kids that respect me like that? Why am I not successful at work?
Why does everything seem to be going against me? See, the problem is we can turn this examination into an endless search about something in ourselves that moves us off Jesus Christ.
Do you with me on that? You're so busy comparing yourselves, you miss the point of what Jesus Christ did in your own life. What Jesus Christ redeemed you, grew you, matured you.
And what happens when you do that, you just, you don't tend to be thankful. So that's the problem that usually lives in each and every one of us.
But here's the news flash. Your repentance will never be perfect. your faith will never be without weakness. But Jesus Christ is sufficient to save every single one who comes to him.
That's the truth. And the question is, are you resting your hope on him when you fail? My recommendation is bring the sin into light, confess it, return to Christ, but never make peace with it.
But never conclude that the presence of a spiritual battle within you proves the absence of God's Spirit. The fact that you have a battle is evidence that the Spirit resides within you.
You see, Paul's assurance belongs to people who simply need grace every day. There is a difference between taking sin seriously and treating every failure as though the gospel has stopped being true.
Because when we start to doubt the gospel, we're actually asking the question, is the cross somehow insufficient? Has the resurrection been reversed?
our assurance here is the Spirit's presence is not depending upon our confidence. And the point of what I'm saying here is what Paul is driving at.
He's saying that, as one author says, Paul is directing our attention from our shifting feelings to the assurance of God's actions.
You with me? They're actions that determine our assurance of our faith. But it brings up a difficult question.
If Christ is in me, why am I still dying? Why do I still die? And this is my second point. Because God's Spirit dwells in you, you have life while facing death.
Look at verse 10. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness.
When we kind of read that, it's a little bit hard to understand. So I just want to unpack it a little bit. Let me boil it down to this question Paul is answering. If I am dying in the Spirit, why is my body still dying?
Or if I'm alive in the Spirit, why is my body still dying? And you might have heard a term. It's called the already but not yet.
If you've done any study on the kingdom of God, there's different understandings of how God's kingdom is realized when Jesus said he came to bring about his kingdom.
kingdom. So we know that when Jesus came, this was God's kingdom breaking into our fallen world, right? He's there. We saw Jesus forgive sins.
He casted out demons. He healed the sick. And even raised the dead. Now what's interesting is that these miracles were meant to demonstrate his authority.
that I am indeed God. But they also showed us what life under his reign ultimately looks like.
The fact is disease and death cannot stand against him. But Jesus' coming did not immediately remove every disease and every death, did it?
Now the reason I'm telling you this is we believe, we teach, this is what I believe the Bible teaches very plainly, the kingdom has arrived but its fullness is still ahead.
Right? We have salvation now. I've been transferred to this kingdom but guess what? My body is still in the kingdom of death. You with me?
Because I am in Adam, I inherited that sin. And that's why my body ages. That's why my body breaks down. That's why I have arthritis. That's why bones break.
All those things are a part of it. And we live in the same tension. We are already forgiven. We already belong to Christ.
His spirit dwells in us. But our bodies aren't imperishable. We still get sick. We still get old.
We still die. That doesn't mean our salvation has failed. It means we are still waiting for its completion.
You with me on that? That's why we're able to experience salvation now but it won't be full until that day of glorification. Now, why do I bring this up a little bit more?
Because there are some people that teach today that who falsely believe and teach that if Jesus has saved you and his spirit lives in you that physical healing must be yours today.
That you should be able to defeat cancer, dementia, any disease known to man just through believing. It's interesting.
It's interesting. My son working at a local gym here a couple of years ago, he broke, not broke his back, but he hurt his back or his hips working out too much and it turned out there was another Christian there and that member of the gym started telling him that you can have healing right now if you just truly believe that God healed you.
You're right. So he's kind of like, what? So he starts to wonder, is my faith somehow insufficient? I believe Jesus Christ.
I believe Jesus Christ died for my sins. So he's starting to wonder, maybe this back injury is attached to maybe a sin that I did. Or he's starting to ask, am I being punished?
Have I done something wrong in this life? Because he believes all these things and he's still wondering, why is my back still hurting? Now before I go any further, let me tell you, that teaching is absolutely wicked and blasphemous.
That is trying to attribute a work to the Spirit that God never said he would do. That we would have perfect health here on earth. Never.
Never. It takes something God promises to complete at the resurrection and tries to apply it now. And it turns into something every Christian should expect immediately.
That is false teaching. Now, I'm glad my son had me to talk to about these things. But what happens if it's told to a suffering believer?
Right? They pray. They trust God. They ask others to pray. And yet the illness still remains. Now on top of that pain, they begin carrying the guilt.
What is wrong with my faith? What did I do wrong? You know, then they begin thinking. They start looking back into the past. Maybe it's because of the sickness or the sin I committed in the summer of 96.
Right? The mind goes everywhere. But I want you to pay attention to verse 10. Notice how Paul places Christ living in you and your body remaining subject to death in the same sentence.
He's telling us that those two realities coexist. You can be indwelt by the Holy Spirit and still need chemotherapy. You can belong completely to Jesus and still live with chronic pain.
Faithfulness does not make our present bodies immortal. Your body's weakness does not prove that Christ is absent.
Do I believe that God heals today? Absolutely. We should pray for healing and we thank Him when He gives it. But nowhere in Scripture does it indicate that He has promised every believer freedom from illness before the resurrection.
Now I want you to look at the movement of Paul's argument. Verse 10 describes the present. Christ is in you. and your body remains mortal.
Verse 11 is now going to announce the future. God will give life to your mortal body. The spirit is already here.
The resurrection will happen. Here's the truth. And I've said it before. Spiritual growth and physical decline can happen at the same time. True Christianity tells the truth about the bodies we inhibit.
Now look at the other half of the verse. It says the spirit is life because of righteousness. And that word is meant to mean the spirit is life itself because of righteousness.
What that means is inside of our cracked aging clay jar of body God the Holy Spirit the unquenchable source of eternal life has taken up permanent residence in us.
Why is that life ours? Because of righteousness. Not ours but the righteousness God gives us.
It is the righteousness of justification the forensic legal standing we receive in Christ when God declares us not guilty. That's what this chapter opened with.
There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. And he explains how God has dealt with our guilt through his son.
The legal case is closed. that is why the Holy Spirit has every right to move into a fallen dying body and ignite eternal life.
You see the spirit lives in you today because your justification is complete. You see if we mix up these halves we get an incorrect truth.
Right? If we forget the first half we forget the promises God has not made about present health. If we forget the second half we speak as though salvation changes nothing until we die.
But Paul gives us a fuller picture of the gospels already and not yet. And why does this matter? Because we need this assurance.
assurance. We need this assurance when we can't get out of bed. We need this assurance when we sit in a wheelchair.
We need this assurance when we need to endure a hard diagnosis. it helps us speak honestly at a hospital bedside with someone we love.
We do not have to tell a suffering Christian to pretend everything is fine. We can acknowledge the pain the fear the exhaustion and still remind them that the disease does not define their relationship with God.
And some of you this sermon might not mean anything to you until the time you are placed with a friend a parent heaven forbidden child.
These are the truths you need to know to share with them because their faith will wane because their body is weak. And here's the third glorious truth.
Because God's spirit dwells in you your body will be raised from the dead. Verse 11 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.
I want you to notice he's making an argument here. Paul begins with something God has already done. He's raised Jesus from the dead. That is incontestable.
It's true. It's a reality. And then he identifies something true of believers now. God's spirit dwells in you. Then he announces what God will do.
He will give life to your mortal bodies because Christ lives in you. Amen? What he's doing, he's talking about the past, the evidence, the hope that we have is on the past work of Christ.
The reality now is Christ lives in you and the reality that we hold the hope for the future is we will be resurrected. resurrected. And it's based on his word.
Our hope is anchored in the resurrection of Jesus Christ, that Jesus actually died. He actually was placed in a tomb and God raised him from the dead.
What Paul is doing is tying our future to the fact that Christ lives. Then notice who will act for us. He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead is the same one who will raise us from the dead.
Amen? Let's be honest. If God didn't raise Jesus, what hope would we have? We're not called, the Bible doesn't call us to think happy, think positive thoughts about death.
We are being directed to what God has done, what God has promised, and what does he promise to give life to? Your mortal bodies. The very part of you that Paul has just described as subject to death is including in God's saving purposes.
He will raise your body. What Paul is saying here is salvation salvation merely mean the escape of the immortal soul from a physical body.
Salvation all culminates in a physical resurrection and glorification of our mortal bodies into immortal, incorruptible bodies like Christ Jesus.
That's the promise. every healing we experience in this life is temporary. Every person who recovers today remains mortal tomorrow, but the resurrection answers a deep need.
God will bring his people through death into bodily life beyond its dominion. Meaning that body that is still entwined in this body of death will eventually be you reunited with the spirit with him.
He completes it all. That changes things, doesn't it? Remember the Holy Spirit was active in raising Jesus from the tomb.
is the same spirit that indwells every believer. I love this quote I found in one of my readings. It says, God will not leave his spirit's temple in the dust on the earth forever.
That's why the word of God calls our bodies living temples. Because God lives within. How can we be sure?
Notice how the verse ends. through his spirit who dwells in you. The spirit's presence now is connected to God's future work in our bodies.
The same indwelling presence that identifies as us as Christ's people assures us that death will not have its final claim on us.
see the promise belongs to those who have his spirit. And to those people Paul says God will give life.
The reality is you and I both know how difficult it is to speak with certainty about the future. We don't know whether we're going to be healthy next year or even next month.
We have no idea how long we will live. We do not know which difficulties and trials lie before us tomorrow but we know this God has spoken clearly about our future.
If the spirit dwells in you he will give life to your mortal body. Now here's the other reality.
when we understand this truth when this promise is greater than our ability to feel its comfort at every moment it gives us permission to grieve with hope.
Because some people take that well you know what the body is immortal that means I don't need to grieve. The fact is when Christians die something terrible has happened.
Death is terrible. Death tears relationships apart. We miss voices. We miss conversations, shared meal, familiar laughter, just the ordinary companionship that we were blessed with when they were with us.
But at the grave of someone who belonged to Christ we can also say that God's work with their body is unfinished. Time does not weaken God's power and decay does not cancel God's promise.
The circumstances of death cannot prevent the God who raised Jesus from raising his people. The question for you is do you trust God to do what he promises to do?
And if you're shaky in that I encourage you to look at the tomb because God's promise is if I raise my son I will raise you.
So let me conclude with these thoughts. What has ultimately changed for the believer? One you belong to Christ.
Two your spirit dwells his spirit dwells in you and you possess life with God even while your body remains mortal.
And God will raise that body from the dead. This is the truth we need to hold on to when we feel weak. But I want you to remember one thing who Paul is addressing here.
It's those who are in Christ. For some of you who may not be in Christ I can tell you that church attendance will not give you that assurance.
Neither can a respectable life. God the reality is you need what everyone else here has is you need a savior who died for your sins and rose again.
My advice to you is to come to him to confess your sin and to entrust yourself to his perfect mercy.
You cannot give yourself his spirit but you can easily come empty handed to the one who saves. And Christian take God at his word.
When you sin repent and return to Christ when your body weak and seek the help you need when you grieve bring your sorrow honestly to God through it all remember who ultimately dwells in you.
The God who raised Jesus has made a promise concerning your body. He will give it life. You belong to Christ now.
His spirit dwells in you now and your future is in the hands of the God who raises the dead. What more could we ask for? Let's pray. Dear Lord, holy heavenly father.
Thank you for this truth. And I know these truths are the kind of truths that hit us sometimes later on in life and sometimes they hit us now in life.
Especially when we think of our loved ones who are hurting, they're aging, they're suffering through disease. and we ask, can we grieve?
Is it right? What hope are we to have? It also gives us the truth in which to encourage people when we sit with them, when we walk with them, when we share with them in their moments of fear, fear, in their moments of doubt, we can simply say the God who lives in you is the God who rose his son from the grave and he promises to do the exact same thing with us.
Lord, I pray you use this sermon to its full effects that are beyond anything that I know or where you want to take it. I know that this is just a wonderful truth that I needed to hear this week.
I ask you these things in your most perfect and immortal name. Amen.