Romans Chapter 8:8-10

Everybody's called to ministry. So you're sitting here going, I could never be like some of these people I read about in the Bible. Yeah, in a sense of your selfish nature, your fleshly nature, that's right. It is impossible. But with God, there's no such thing as impossible.

That whole thing of I can't has to go out the window. Welcome to Cross the Bridge with David Magee. You know, one of the important parts of following Christ is seeking the Holy Spirit on a regular basis and asking to be filled to overflowing. Find out more about this relationship between you and the Holy Spirit as Pastor David continues in Romans 8 with Choose Life and Peace.

Here's David Magee. So we're in Romans chapter 8. I've been encouraging people and would encourage you to take the time to read this chapter several times while we're in it. Minimum, I'd say, you know, read it like once a week, either Saturday night or Sunday morning. Now, I'm not saying that's all you should read the Bible. You really should read the Bible every day.

But keep in mind, it's not necessarily a speed reading contest. I mean, sometimes, you know, I'll just read a few verses and just, oh, man, you know, the Lord just so speaks to me and other times I, you know, I'm in there for a chapter or two every day. And so let me encourage you to read the Bible, but especially while we're looking at this chapter to reread it several times while we're in it. Now, I know we all think, well, I just don't have time to do that. Well, take the time to read because he took the time to bleed.

Okay. So God gave us his word to read and to be a life changing experience. So we should give it time and priority in our lives. So we're in Romans chapter 8, chapter 8, verse 8. So then those who are in the flesh cannot please God. Wow.

What a statement. Now in the new living translation, I'll give it to you. It says those who are dominated by the sinful nature, think about sinful things, but those who are controlled by the Holy Spirit, think about the things that please the spirit. That's going back to verse five. So then if you're walking according to carnal things, you cannot please God.

What's your driving thing in life? See, God never intended for us to say, okay, God, I need forgiveness, so I can't get it anywhere else. So I guess I'll come to you and I'll get forgiveness. And then we're kind of done with this whole barter transaction thing.

No, no, no, no, no. God never meant for us just to come to get a ticket to heaven. He says over and over, I got the, I can tell you how to live. I can tell you how to live, that you live life to the fullest extent that I created it to be. But how many of us really, really believe that? Do you understand that happiness, contentment, peace and joy don't come in all these things in the world? They don't come in a nicer house, a nicer car, a better job, more money. None of that will bring this.

None of it. And the moment you realize that, then you're more willing to come to God and say, well, God, I need you to control me because I want to live a life that's pleasing to you. And some people get in a lot of trouble because they think, okay, well, I'm saved. Now I can go do whatever. I just go live my life.

I can run my life. I, you know, no, no, not according to this Bible. The Bible says, yes, theologically you're forgiven of your sins. Now let's start the journey. Jesus said, follow me, follow me. And as you're following Jesus, where's your focus? It's on Jesus.

What's it not on all the other stuff? Matthew 6 25, Jesus asked us quite a great question. He says, therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink or about your body or what, what you will put on. It's not life more than food and the body more than clothing.

Is your life all about these things? Friend, that's no way to live. There's certainly no way to die because at some point you have to let go of all those things. And if you try to hold onto your life, if you try to make your life about life, you're going to miss it.

You are going to miss it. If you make your life about God, it's going to be an incredible adventure. Jesus, he was telling us this, he told us so many times, Matthew 10 39, he says, if you cling to your life, you'll lose it. But if you give it up for me, you'll find it. I need to cling to God.

I understand this war is going on. I understand when I'm walking in my selfish nature, that's not pleasing to God. In yourself, in your old nature, you cannot please God. You know, early in my Christian walk, I used to be really disappointed in myself sometimes because I think, Oh, I got this. I got this. I read this book about it. I'm applying this principle.

Everything's going to go great. You know? And then I would mess up again. And then I would be really disappointed.

Check this out. I would be disappointed in myself. It's kind of interesting. And maybe you're sitting there going, well, that's good. You should be disappointed in yourself when you're wrong.

No, no, no, no. I should never be disappointed in myself. I know what myself is capable of. I've seen what I'll do unaided, unyielded to the word of God, unyielded to the spirit of God. So disappointed in decisions.

Yes. But you know, I need to hold on to the Holy Spirit, cling to the Holy Spirit and have his priorities as my priorities. And then I'll discover the joy of living for the Lord, of being changed from the inside out. And God says, if you do this, he'll take care of you. But if you live your life trying to acquire and get things, then you're going to live a very frustrated life. Matthew 6, 33 says, and he will give you all you need from day to day. If you live for him and make the kingdom of God your primary concern.

And the New King James, it says, seek ye first. What is your primary concern? Is it money? May you never be so cheaply satisfied.

If you live a life for God, it's going to be an incredible venture. You're living for sex. Oh, come on.

Give me a break. Again, that's cheaply satisfied. Fame, success. There's more to life than that. Being spiritually minded, the life lesson here, we should make the kingdom of God, our primary concern. We should make the kingdom of God, our primary concern to be kingdom minded. Now, some of us look at this verse and I think I probably looked at it one time. Well, that's an oversimplification. You simply can't just focus on the kingdom of God because you know, you got to work, you got to do this.

You got, you know, no, no, no. God's not saying neglect those things because what happens as you focus on the kingdom of God, you understand you've got a responsibility. There are certain things that you have to do. Again, I've been this world minded and I've been kingdom minded and I'm certainly going with kingdom minded, but you friend have to make the decision if you'll be cheaply satisfied or you'll focus on the kingdom of God. And if you'll focus on the kingdom of God, watch God do what he says he'll do.

As you step out in faith, there's two words that should never go together. That's normal Christian. I don't, you know, people talk about normal Christian. Are you a normal Christian? I don't want to be a normal Christian. We look at the lives of other people, some of who are not following God and we feel pretty good about us.

Well, I'm not, at least I'm not like Joe, at least I'm not like him. You know, we went through the book of Acts and we read about a lot of incredible, incredible things in there. Went through the gospels, credible things in there. I think our tendency and looking through the Hebrew scriptures, I think our tendency is to look at the lives in the Bible and say, well, that's the exception. I mean, nobody can actually live like that. That's just kind of like a story told to encourage us.

Wait a minute. If it's telling us about people that we can never be like, how is that encouraging? See, we look at it and go, well, can't be like that. Can't be like this. Can't be like Paul. Can't be like Peter. Can't be like the disciples. Can't be like any of those people that we read about in the book of Acts. Can't be like Elijah, Elijah, David, Moses. Oh, those are, those are people. They were just, you know, they were kind of different, extraordinary calling on their lives, but don't miss this friend. Ordinary people, ordinary people.

See the moment we think of them as spiritual superheroes, guess what? We go, well, I can't do that. Nobody can do that.

Nobody could live like that. Oh yes, you can. You can. That's why we're told. That's why the Bible says, I gave you these examples that you might benefit.

Not that you might go, well, that'll never happen, but say, wow, can that happen? I can have true and lasting joy. I can live a life that, that God is pleased with as I walk in the spirit and bless others.

Understand you're never going to be satisfied living for yourself. As long as your eyes are on you, you're never going to find peace and joy. As a matter of fact, the moment your eyes get on you, you give away your peace and joy.

You can live an others centered life and find and be spiritually minded and find this joy and peace that's been so elusive in your life. Well, I'm not sure that's possible. Certainly it's possible. Well, that's not for me. That's for certain.

Here's another one. Certain called Christians. We have in our mindset that there are certain people who are called to a radical life with God and then there's the rest of the people.

No, no, no, no, no. We're all called to this radical life with God. And the moment we go, well, you know, I'm not really called to serve, to tithe, to pray, to be a part of a ministry or you know what? You're getting ripped off.

You are getting ripped off. Well, I'm just not sure that that's possible in your own strength and your own flesh. You cannot follow a call of God. Everybody's called to ministry. Jesus said, he didn't say some of you follow me.

He said, follow me. Luke 18, 27, Jesus. Then he said, the things which are impossible with men are possible with God. So we're sitting here and going, well, I could never be like some of these people I read about in the Bible. Yeah. In a sense of your selfish nature, your fleshly nature. That's right. It is impossible, but with God, there's no such thing as impossible.

That whole thing of I can't has to go out the window. In John chapter eight, Jesus tells his followers, if you abide in my word, you are my disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. This desire to see others set free has led pastor and teacher David McGee on a mission to teach others the important truths of scripture. These are timeless truths.

We're talking about people dealing with loneliness, lust, selfishness, all these things that we're still dealing with. It was this reason that David selected seven of his favorite teachings to share with you. David McGee's Select Seven features teachings on finding your purpose in life, how to cope with pain and suffering, dealing with temptations and more. Each teaching is based on solid biblical study and will help set you free to experience the abundant life in Jesus Christ. The Select Seven audio series is available to you for a gift of any amount to Cross the Bridge.

To order, visit crossthebridge.com or call our friendly representatives at 877-458-5508. Get to know God's word better and see your life changed with this exciting series from Cross the Bridge. Now let's return to our study. Let's look at verse nine. But you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit. If indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not his.

And these are powerful verses. So again, it's talking about walking according to the Spirit. The Spirit of God dwells in you.

From the Bible, it seems when you come to Jesus, you ask him to forgive you of your sins. The Holy Spirit, his relationship with you changes. Before you're saved, before you're walking with the Lord, the Spirit is alongside of you.

Para is the Greek word, P-A-R-A. He's alongside of you. What's he doing? Well, he's convincing you or convicting you of your need for God. And he does this, if you will, kind of from the outside, trying to influence you to go forward at a service or to go to church.

He's on the outside influencing. Once you come to the Lord, ask him to forgive you of your sins. God washes away your sins. Now there's a place where the Holy Spirit can live. See, while you're walking in your sins and you're not forgiven, the Spirit of God cannot abide where sin is.

The natures collide. So then you have the Spirit of God. And I believe according to the Scriptures that you should ask for God to fill you with the Spirit.

Why is that? And I'm not, I don't want to get weird and wacky. The Bible doesn't tell us to get weird and wacky, but it tells, Jesus says that we're supposed to ask to be filled with the Spirit. And he said, don't let your fear drive you away. He said, how, you know, earthly father be asked, if a son asked for a piece of bread, the father's not going to get my stone. How much more will the heavenly father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him? And then we're filled over flowing with the Holy Spirit. And as we're filled over flowing with the Spirit, guess what happens? You no longer holding onto your sin. And when we sin, gang, it should bother us. Don't ever talk yourself into being okay with your sin or given an excuse or, well, it's this way because of that.

No, no, no, no, no. According to the Bible, you can live above it. And this doesn't mean you're always going to be controlled by the Spirit. It means that most of the time you should be controlled by the Spirit. And when you mess up, ask to be forgiven. And if the Spirit is in you, you know, the Bible talks about quenching the Spirit talks about grieving the Spirit.

Why does it talk about those things? Well, the Spirit is in you and Jesus says, I'll never leave you nor forsake you. The Spirit is always with you. Where will you take the Spirit of God this week? What TV shows will the Spirit of God watch with you? What websites will be visited by the Spirit of God? And when we do those things that are contrary to the Spirit of God, contrary to God's word, we're grieving, we're quenching the Spirit in us instead of yielding to the Holy Spirit.

Verse 10. And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. Your body will die.

That's probably not a newsflash. I think everybody, everybody that's in their right mind understands that at some point this body will die. It'll be gone. And we'll be walking. If you know Jesus, you'll be walking completely in that new nature.

Man, I look forward to it. Why? Because you know, as you grow older, you grow older. I mean, the Bible talks about, you know, it being our bodies are like a tent, you know, and some of you are still in that really cool shiny pup tent, you know, kind of phase and God bless you. But you know, as you get a, as you go on a tent, well, well, 10 ain't what it used to be, you know, and it leaks now when it rains and there's just all kinds of, you know, I mean, it doesn't look like it used to. That's just reality. And one day you'll say goodbye to the tent.

That's okay. As a matter of fact, God in the neat kind of way has us look forward to saying goodbye to the tent that need by the time he gets like, Oh, I'll let it go. So then, you know, when we see each another in heaven, we're not looking for tents that are like messed up and, you know, beat up and leaking and stuff.

We're looking for the glorified bodies. The new living translation is versus since Christ lives within you, even though your body will die because of sin, your spirit is alive because you've been made right with God. Your spirit is alive. His spirit is alive. The spirit is life and the new King James spirit is capitalized.

Why is it capitalized? Cause it's indicating the Holy spirit. Whenever you see spirit capitalized or he capitalized is speaking of the Lord, the spirit is life.

So if you belong to God friend, you belong to God and the spirit of God should be controlling you rather than the fleshly desires and the cares of the world. We should be growing as a believer. We should be growing in love. We should be growing in acts of service. We should be growing in these things. You know, whenever you attend a sporting event or concert or whatever, you know, most people want to want to get down front and I'm not saying you need to do this here physically, but spiritually. Don't just sit on the outskirts.

Don't do that. I don't understand. I've seen people be here for a year or two and basically they're visiting the same church every Sunday. They're not really engaged. They're not an active part. I don't understand that.

And you know what? May I never understand that because these folks could be getting it and living it out and instead they're just watching it go by when they could be a part of what God is doing here. You can't make the kingdom of God, your focus and being a spectator. You can't do it.

You can't do it. Christ is in you. The body is dead. So you have to yield. You have to yield to the Holy Spirit and maybe you sit there and go, well, does it bother you that people aren't serving?

You know, that's not even the issue to be honest. What really bothers me is that I see people who aren't walking in the freedom that Jesus died for, that they're being earthly minded, worldly minded instead of heavenly minded. That's what grieves me because friend, when you're straddling that fence, you're not free. You're in bondage. And so, yeah, in love, I want to grab your hand and I want to pull you off the fence and I'm telling you, I'll walk you through this Bible. I'll tell you what it says and I'll tell you that you need to live a life according to the Holy Spirit.

And that's all I can do. I don't understand why I have to do it. This whole thing is not built on your understanding. Years ago, you know, the Lord led me. He said, hey, I want you to start a home Bible study. He didn't tell me anything about it. I did not understand. Friend, think about it. If I had sat there with God and said, well, God, I don't understand it. And when I understand it, I'll move forward. I would still be in my house this Sunday morning telling God I need to understand it. And God would keep saying, step out, then you'll understand it.

We're supposed to be yielding to the Holy Spirit. Love this story. D.L. Moody, who was an evangelist that traveled around, they were inviting into this town and the pastors were meeting together and they, and, and this guy was really excited about D.L. Moody and went and seen him and just blown away by the ministry God had given him. And so he, you know, he was saying, talking about, you know, Moody this and Moody that and another pastor sitting there saying, you know, what is this whole thing about D.L. Moody? I mean, what does he have it like a monopoly on the Holy Spirit or something?

And the guy turned to him and said, no, no, no. D.L. Moody does not have a monopoly on the Holy Spirit, but the Holy Spirit has a monopoly on D.L.

Moody. See, the question isn't really, we, do you have the spirit? The real question friend today for you is does the spirit have you? Are you yielding to the Holy Spirit? Are you still arguing with God?

I don't understand this. Friend, you'll get to those points in your life that it's a complete faith thing. God will sometimes let us understand things and he's let us understand today probably more than we deserve to understand. Certainly enough to make a decision for him, but will we make a decision for him? Friend, do you know for sure that your sins have been forgiven?

You can know right now. I want to lead you in a short, simple prayer, simply telling God you're sorry and asking him to help you to live for him. Now, God wants you to pray this prayer so much that he died to give you the opportunity and the ability to ask him to forgive you.

Please pray this prayer with me out loud right now. Dear Jesus, I believe you died for me, that I could be forgiven. And I believe you were raised from the dead, that I could have a new life. And I've done wrong things. I have sinned and I'm sorry. Please forgive me of all those things. Please give me the power to live for you all of my days. In Jesus name.

Amen. Friend, if you prayed that prayer, according to the Bible, you've been forgiven. You've been born again. Jesus said he would not turn anybody away who comes to him. And he came for those people who knew they needed forgiveness.

Those who were sick, not the righteous. So congratulations, friend. You just made the greatest decision that you will ever make. God bless you. If you've prayed this prayer with Pastor David, receiving Jesus Christ for the first time, or rededicating your life to the Lord, please call and let us know. We want to send you our exclusive First Steps package for free. This package will help you grow in your new life. Receive your First Steps package by calling 877-458-5508. That's 877-458-5508. Or visit us online at CrossTheBridge.com.

When you call, let our Call Team representative know where you heard about our broadcast. The Apostle Paul laid the foundation for the New Testament Church, and yet few of us in the Church today really understand the events and places that shaped this remarkable man. But now, Pastor and Bible teacher David McGee has created the Footsteps of Paul Tour through the heart of the ancient world. You'll be a part of a breathtaking three-day tour of the famous Greek Islands. Also, during the tour, David McGee will be opening the Bible to teach on Mars Hill, the very place in Athens Paul taught about the unknown God. We'll go up to the Acropolis and visit the Parthenon. Also, we'll visit Patmos, the place where John wrote the book of Revelation. We'll continue to Ephesus in Turkey, sharing the history, stories, and reality of these historic places that changed the future of the Church. Plus, be a part of an actual television production as we film parts of the tour for our national TV program, Cross the Bridge. The Footsteps of Paul Tour with Pastor and Bible Teacher David McGee. Combine your vacation with an in-depth experience in the reality of God's Word. For more information, visit CrossTheBridge.com or call us at 877-458-5508. That's 877-458-5508.

Contact us today, because space is limited and this tour will fill up fast. Hello Pastor, I hope this letter finds you well. I've been praying for you and was just writing to give you an update. I really have been blessed by being able to read and stay in the Word, without everyday worldly things hindering my thoughts. That's the only good thing about prison, a lot of time to get myself together with Christ. I've gotten a job working with the local animal shelter. I get to take the abused dogs and train them. This is also good for the other inmates that come to me about seeing the dogs. It allows me to ask them if they know Jesus.

The Lord is good in all He does. This job pays 70 cents a day and I wanted to send the 10% I'm supposed to, but it was going to cost me $7 to send 50 cents a week. So I'm going to send you a stamp. That's 44 cents. It's all I have to send.

I know it will be used. Love all of you and God bless. Bradley. You know, I want to thank everybody who's been giving or who has ever given to Cross the Bridge Ministries on behalf of Bradley. Because without your support, we couldn't be telling you about Bradley.

But friends, there's a lot of Bradleys out there and you know what? We need your help to reach them. So please join with us to reach more people by supporting financially the work of this ministry. For less than a dollar a day, for $25 a month, you can become one of our bridge builders and help us to reach more people. And the next time we tell a story about the next Bradley, you can know that you helped us play a part. Thank you so much for supporting this ministry. Look forward to hearing from you.

To become a bridge builder, simply go online to crossthebridge.com or call us at 877-458-5508. You know each day comes with its share of stresses. So what better way to wake up than with an encouraging word from the Lord. Log on to crossthebridge.com and sign up now for David McGee's email devotionals. Each devotion includes scripture and a message from the heart of David McGee. It's easy and it's free.

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