You received the spirit of adoption, he says here.
That Greek word for adoption is a compound word in the Greek. It means that we are a child of placement. That's what an adoption is.
We've been placed. God says, I'll take you into my house and you will belong to our family as family. That's God adopting us. Adoption is not always easy.
About cross reference radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. And now here is Pastor Rick in the Book of Romans Chapter 8 as he continues his message called The Saved Life. talk to God about it. Why are you standing in my way? Why do you make me feel uncomfortable? Why are you pressuring me? I can call fire down from heaven.
It won't come, but I can ask. All right, stay serious. So, should we genuinely encounter someone, genuinely led, don't butt heads with them. Lift their arms up in support. In the wilderness, Israel was led by what we know to be the Shekinah, the presence, the visual manifestation of the presence of God. It was a theophany. That's a created thing representing God's presence. And for them, it was a cloud in the daytime.
That would help shield them from the sun. And it was fire at night. They followed that Shekinah wherever it led them. Not a Christophany. A Christophany is when Christ appears in the Old Testament in human form.
But a theophany is when he uses a created thing to mark his presence, like the bush that burned but was not consumed. And Moses said, I got to go see this. And what an experience that was, the whole Moses thing. Don't forget, Moses is one of the greatest men that has ever lived.
Be nice if his name was more appealing, like David, but he is a dynamo. Anyway, back to this, numbers nine. At the command of Yahweh, they remained encamped. And if your name is Moses, I'm sorry.
It's just one of those things I'll be thinking about tomorrow. Anyway, numbers nine twenty-three. At the command of Yahweh, they remained encamped. And at the command of Yahweh, they journeyed. They kept the charge of Yahweh at the command of the Lord by the hand of Moses. God spared Moses. God said, Moses, I'm going to spare you grief. I'm going to lead the people because if I just tell you, Moses, go into Moab now. Oh boy, why are we going there? How long before we get there? Why don't we go this way? So God says, you know what, I'm going to give you a little break and you can just follow the cloud and follow the fire. Now that is my take on how it went. Anyway, the road to Ishmael's.
If you know the story of Hagar and Ishmael, you know he's a problem. And that road can still be paved to this day. And it is paved by not following the Lord. We're talking about being under his Lordship, leaning not on your own understanding, being led by the Spirit of God and not doing whatever you want to do. Maybe sometimes God, God often leads us to do what we want to do.
He's not a meaning pants up there. You really want to do that? No, you can't. He's like, I put that desire in your heart. Yeah, I want you to do that. You know, come back to the hymn when we get to Isaiah, but back to Ishmael. What makes Ishmaels in our life is lack of devotional time with the Lord, lack of trust in the Lord and what you get out of your devotional time if you have it, lack of agreement with God. You know, you can say, yes, Lord, but secretly be saying, I'm not doing that.
No. Lack of obedience is the outcome. May Christ-centeredness dominate over our self-centeredness. That's what the believer wants. Ezekiel 13, verse 3, thus says the Lord Yahweh, woe to the foolish prophets who follow their own spirit and have seen nothing. Wow, that kind of verse is the kind of thing that's supposed to resonate with the believer. You don't say, well, that's the Old Testament. Well, so as thou shall not kill. How about Jeremiah 23, 21?
I love this one. In fact, the whole 23rd chapter of Jeremiah's work. Anyway, I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran. I've not spoken to them, yet they prophesied. Now, that's Bible language. It's like, I didn't send these guys, yet they went anyway. I didn't give them anything to say.
They didn't stop flapping their gums. Well, we want to bear fruit for the Lord. And this is the other side, when you are led by the Spirit and you can be led by the Spirit. It's the Father's pleasure to give us the Spirit, Jesus said. Isaiah said, here am I, send me. He wanted to do this. Jonah, on the other hand, resisted, but he did submit the very, very hard way.
And you guys just love Jonah and love that God put his story in the Scripture. So I can go ahead and resist God as his child, but I might have to pay for that. Being led by the Spirit, being filled with the Spirit never means losing self-control. You can be overwhelmed, but that does not mean you're out of control or free to be a distraction. Well, the Spirit just came over me. I couldn't control myself. Well, that's not the Holy Spirit, because the gift of the Spirit is love, joy, peace. He continues self-control.
I don't know why this is missed. 1 Corinthians 14, verse 32, and the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets. You have a right. Well, I just had, I couldn't, I burst out into tongues. Well, we burst out and go on upside your head, because we lost control. You see where that could go? It's just like, if you can lose control, we can lose control.
What gives you the right? Now, maybe you don't like those examples. I don't do good farmer ones. I come from an upbringing, not as hard as some others, but there was a lot of knuckle fistfights growing up. Anyway, I won them all.
The rule is to fight people that are half your height. Anyway, do these verses mean anything to you, or do they interfere with your self-will? The verses that I've been reading is creating you, yes, yes, Lord, I want to get to that place, or does it just bounce off of you?
It doesn't do anything. Well, remember, the Holy Spirit is our breastplate. The priest had the ephod, that was the vest, and over that vest he had this breastplate, and in that vestplate he had the lights and the perfection that would tell the Jews which direction to go in. Zechariah 4, 6, not by might, not by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord. That used to be a central verse in the Calvary movement. I fear it's not so much anymore. It should be a central verse for all of us because it says what Paul is saying here in Romans chapter 8, as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the children of God. So in our zeal to be led, let us remember others are also zealous to be led, and let's not be, you know, a drag on them.
There are three primary features to being led. Hearing God say something to you about, Lord, what should I do? Well, you can get no, and that's the way it's got to be.
And you'll be, boy, it would have been so nice, you know, but he said no, and no opportunity arises. It could be wait but work. There's no waiting without work in Christ. If you're going to be waiting, you better be studying, you better be serving, you better be doing something. Maybe you're praying about serving and so you got to wait, and while you're waiting, do something like stay in the Word.
And then of course there is yes, oftentimes God says yes. Acts chapter 16, this is Paul wanting to take the Word into Asia. Luke tells us they were forbidden by the Holy Spirit to preach the Word in Asia. The Holy Spirit said, I don't want you preaching over there.
They're not getting the Bible from you. Somebody else could do that. You're not doing that.
That's how it was. That's no. Then the church in Philadelphia, one of the seven churches in that region, modern day Turkey, Revelation 3a, Jesus said to this church what he couldn't say to Ephesus, to Pergamos, to Thyatira, to Sardis, to Laodicea. He could not say this.
He also couldn't say it to Smyrna because they were busy being hunted down, but the other five because they weren't behaving. He says to them, I know your works. See, I have set before you an open door and no one can shut it, for you have a little strength have kept my word and have not denied my name. To that kind of church, he could open doors.
To those kind of Christians, doors can open, but to the others, not so much. By the Spirit of God, he says here in verse 13, not self. Again, to be led by the Lord, he often uses, very often uses, people to lead other people.
We're not free to be vigilante Christians. Those are the ones that forsake the assembling of ourselves, that are rebuked for that behavior. Yeah, they're still going to heaven and not questioning their love for the Lord, but they're out of formation. These are the sons of God who are led by the Spirit of God. Children are to obey their parents, are they not?
Yes, they are. Well, unless that parent is trying to get them to rob a bank for them, there are exceptions. Luke 19, I quoted this already, but his citizens hated him, sent a delegation after him. This is how serious they were to not have Christ in their lives, saying, we will not have this man reign over us.
May we always have the opposite take on this verse. So, submit to leadings. If you do submit to leadings, especially the no's, when God says no, you know what will happen? What I have learned is you develop instincts. We call it discernment.
You learn to discern. The Lord's going this way, we're going that way. The Lord's not moving right now, this is where we are.
It doesn't matter how I feel about it, what I feel about following Him overrules how I feel about what I want. This does not come naturally, it's spiritual and you've got to be in it to get it to happen. You don't just show up, hey, my gift is discernment, I was born again yesterday.
There may be an exception here or there, I've not met them, neither in scripture. Even Paul said, I've got to get to the desert away from everybody. This is something that's got to be thought through. Verse 15, for you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the spirit of adoption by whom we cry Abba Father. This is fantastic placement of bravery in the midst of being led by God. It requires, yes, love, because if you have not that, you have nothing. It requires faith, without faith it's impossible to please God. You need patience, you need perseverance, you need to keep getting hurt. That's what perseverance means. Prayer and guts.
That's why this is, he says, read again, verse 15, for you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear. What's the other side of fear? Courage. What is courage?
Guts. It takes courage to follow the Lord. Fear will make you break ranks and run. And then you'll flee to yourself and you'll be shot in the back.
The whole point of the Roman armor in Paul's illustration of Ephesians is there's no back protection. If Christians want to enjoy freedom with God, it will be along the road of submission. The Bible is all about submission. Men submit to God. Wives submit to your husband. Children submit to your parents.
Yeah, there are those who abuse these. We're not talking about them. We're talking about the ideal.
From the very beginning, man and wife were to abstain from just one tree, and they did not. Now look at us. All creation groans. So the stakes are high. But you received the spirit of adoption, he says here. That Greek word for adoption is a compound word in the Greek. It means that we are a child of placement. That's what an adoption is.
We've been placed. God says I'll take you into my house, and you will belong to our family as family. That's God adopting us. Adoption is not always easy for the one being adopted. It's an adjustment that's often involved.
It might be kind of rocky. God knew what he was getting when he invited you to receive his son. He knew he was getting the short end of the stick. The bargain was in our favor, not his. Like, ooh, God is a better God now that I'm in the kingdom.
That would be ridiculous. By whom we cry Abba, Father. Well, there's a whole history to this one. Abba is a Syrian term for father. And Paul adds to Greek with it. What's with the double father thing? His passion.
A little bit more. He does this in Galatians 4. Because you are children, God has sent forth the spirit of his son into your hearts crying Abba, Father. He wrote Galatians before he wrote Romans. In fact, Galatians is like many Romans.
It's a term of endearment, Abba is. Father, of course, speaks of his divinity, his sovereignty, his creatorship. But where does Paul get this? Well, he gets it from Jesus. Directly from Jesus. The phrase comes from Christ.
When? When he's on his way to the cross. When crucifixion is hours away. Paul was moved by the Lord's usage. There in Mark, chapter 14, verse 36, Jesus speaking, Abba, Father, all things are possible for you.
Take this cup away from me. Nevertheless, not what I will, but what you will. We go back to that lordship, submission example he's giving us here. So Abba is a word of passion because that's how Christ used it. The fact that he's in Gethsemane, on his way to death, the death on the cross, it's loaded. We call it Passion Week.
Theologians call that last week of Christ to the cross the Passion Week. So you consider the circumstances of our Lord's use of Abba and you get, when Paul says, we cry Abba, Father. It's almost as though he's saying the simple word Father is not enough. It has to be supplemented.
It will still not be enough. It is a term of endearment. It speaks of trust. It speaks of love. It speaks of submission. And we now, because there is submission without love, but not in this case, verse 16, the Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. The Spirit bears witness, not angels speaking to us. Angels have their role, but they don't teach us directly.
They're sent with messengers from time to time. This is the assurance of the believers. Any of you here still wondering, you've given your life to Christ, who am I saved?
Am I saved? Well, when are you going to grow out of that? Because you need to. It's not the place to be. It's a place of weakness, not strength.
It's unnecessary. I'm not rebuking you. I'm encouraging you. Luke chapter 4, this is Luke's writing to a man named Theophilus and he's telling Theophilus, you know, I've done my research. The word he uses, Luke does into Greek, to tell Theophilus how much he dug into putting together this gospel known as Luke's gospel is where we get our English word, autopsy.
Because I really cut into this. And then he says to him that you may know the certainty of those things in which you were instructed. Is that you, Christian?
Do you know the certainty of the things that you've been instructed? Or are you still busy being immature? I want my rattle or my pacifier. You're free to be a baby in Christ. And then we're free to talk about you. First John, I've read this verse a lot and I understand. If you say, yeah, I do struggle with this, I get it. But I'm not going to help you. I'm not going to help you doubt your salvation.
I'm going to help you get rid of your doubts, if I can. These things I've written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God. John is saying I'm writing to you, Christians, that you may know that you have eternal life. Why would he have to say that? Because there are those there that were so turned upside down by this gnostic heresy coming in and complicating everything.
All these strange, wacky words that nobody needs. In theological terms, of course. That you may know that you have eternal life and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God. He says, you know, knowing that you have eternal life drives you forward.
Doubt will not. John chapter 1, Jesus said, but as, John says, but as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become children of God to those who believe in his name. I believe in his name. I believe he's the Son of God. I believe he died and rose again. I believe he's coming back.
And the saints will be with him and I'll be in that number. Well then why am I doubting? Well, get saved. Listen to the Lord. This is my only begotten Son. Hear him. The best thing out of the words of Mary, perhaps of all that we have from her, is do what he says. That's the best words.
It's still in effect. It's theological. Or be lost. And hear the Lord said, I never knew you. Depart from me, you worker of iniquity. Verse 17 now.
Verse 17, and if children heirs, heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified together. Oh great, again with the suffering, Paul? That was Christianity. You know that magazine Christianity Today? I'm not endorsing it.
I'm just saying. Well, Christianity Today in Paul's world was stonings and whippings and persecution. But what's interesting about the 17th verse here is that three times he says heirs.
What is he talking about? The life to come. It's a guarantee in this verse. You'll get to heaven.
Don't worry about it. You believe in the Lord, he'll take you there. Just abide in Christ.
Mark 16, Jesus said to his disciples, if anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself. Take up his cross and follow me. I don't want to. I don't want to. I want to just have, I'm telling you the truth.
I don't want to have to carry a cross to be crucified on. That's my flesh. But my spirit stands up. Here I am.
Let's do this. And that's what's supposed to make us different. And we are supposed to be different.
Ergo the title, Saint. Sanctification means you've been separated. Something different about you.
Back to the Jews. God was saying, I don't want you to do this. I don't want you eating pork. I don't want you to be like everybody else. Don't hand me that stuff. Well, it's better for you tonight. No, you haven't had bacon. You don't know what you're talking about.
It's not true. When Paul had bacon, he redid everything with the New Testament. He says, okay, we got to get rid of this diet stuff. Yeah.
Yeah. You know, you think Enoch didn't have bacon and he walked with God. So anyway, Paul tells, don't, don't be a food fighter. He does. He says that twice in Corinthians.
He comes again at it in Colossians. Don't be one of those Christians. Well, people who don't eat pork are healthier. Show me.
I haven't found them. They may be as healthy, but they're not like, whoa, man, look at that guy. He doesn't eat pork. Well, anyway, I, you got my point. Well, that we may also be glorified together. Now I'm not attacking vegetarians because we're all going to end up vegetarians. Every single one that enters into the millennial kingdom will be a vegetarian. So, you know, let's make sure we get the whole picture. And we're going to be happy about that.
Nobody's eating anybody anymore to survive. That's a good thing. But anyhow, that we may also be glorified together. Well, unwasted suffering is found in union with Christ. Unwasted suffering. Suffering can be wasted.
Make no mistake. There are people that just suffer in life and at the end they're done. They get nothing. On the other hand, there are those that suffer and Christ, of course, he rewards those who follow him and especially suffering in his name. 2 Timothy, we close with this chapter 2, verse 3.
You therefore must endure as a good soldier of Jesus Christ. Thanks for joining us for today's teaching on Cross-Reference Radio. This is the daily radio ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia.
We're currently going through the book of Romans. If you're in need of hearing this message again, or want to listen to others like it, head over to crossreferenceradio.com. We encourage you to subscribe to our podcast too, so you'll never miss another edition. Just go to your favorite podcast app to subscribe. On our website, you'll be able to learn a little more about the ministry of Cross-Reference Radio. So make a note of it, crossreferenceradio.com. That's all we have time for today, but thanks so much for listening. Pastor Rick will be back next time in the book of Romans here on Cross-Reference Radio.
