Romans Chapter 8:13-15

When you live for the flesh, you live a life of defeat, you live a life of weakness. When you live, according to the Holy Spirit, you live an incredible life of victory and power.

It's not a complicated question. I mean, do you want to live in defeat and weakness, or do you want to live in victory and power? I think most of us say, well, I want to live in victory and power. Yield to the Holy Spirit.

Welcome to Cross the Bridge with David McGee. You know, life as a Christian is not always easy. That battle between our spirit and the flesh is often hard. But learn today how you can take part in the resurrection power of Christ to live life to the fullest. Join us now, for receive, believe, be led.

Here's Pastor David. So let's go to Romans chapter 8, verse 13. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die. But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. Put to death the deeds of the body. What in the world is he talking about? There's a thing called flagellation, where you take a whip and you beat yourself. And we do that on Wednesday nights here. And no, I'm kidding. We don't die.

That's a weird thing. That's not what it's talking about. It's talking about dying to what you want to do and living for what he wants you to do.

You know, I didn't understand this for a long time, to be honest. I didn't understand this whole concept of living for God. Now, I got saved, born again. I was like, okay, I'm saved. Jesus, thank you for giving me all my sins. This is great.

Past this pardon. All right, God, I can take it from here. You sit over there in the passenger seat. Don't tell me how to drive. Don't tell me what to do. Don't tell me how to live. Don't tell me how to live. Don't tell me what to do, my time, my money, my energy, or my life.

Just sit there quietly. Well, he's not really God in your life if you're doing that. I mean, I did that in my life. The only thing I've done really well up to that point in my life was trash it. You know, and I'm like, okay, God, thanks for forgiving me.

I can take it from here. And God sits over there, and he must've felt like I felt when my kids got to be 16 and drove with me in the car. And I'm like, ooh, stop, stop.

They're turning. You know, I mean, you ever seen that bumper sticker? God is my co-pilot. Right there's your problem. He doesn't want to be your co-pilot. He needs to be your pilot.

He needs to be leading your life. That's one of the things is I've studied the Jewish roots of Christianity and just discovered such cool stuff in doing that. And one of the things is that, you know, years ago before the New Testament, there was just such a knowledge of walking in the Lord. I mean, they had these feasts all the time. They had seven feasts a year. You know, we pretty much got, eh, resurrection Sunday, Thanksgiving, Christmas. But they would have these times they wouldn't work.

They would all get together. They would remember how God had blessed them and what he had done. I know we think of Thanksgiving as a new thing.

It's actually about 3,500 years old. And there was this knowledge that you're walking with the Lord every day. And I don't know how we got to the point where we think God just wants us a little bit of time on Sunday from us. I don't know how we got there.

It's certainly not what he intended. Have you ever noticed, you know, a dog is like happy to see you and you pet a dog and he's just like, oh, man, I'm so glad you pet me. You know, you looked at me, you acknowledge me, you know. But a cat, they're different. You know, they're like, nah, I might let you pet me.

If I do, you're really, really fortunate, okay? And I'll let you, okay, here, pet me. You're done. I mean, that's what they do. They're going, ah, that's real funny.

Here comes the convicting part. How many of us act like cats to God? And we're like, oh, I'm going to give you a little bit of time on Sunday morning or, well, it's not exactly morning anymore. And we think, well, God, you should be pleased with me. God wants to live with you every day, not just for a little time on Sunday.

Our services, you may have noticed that they go a little longer than some. It's called the Lord's day, not the Lord's hour and a half or the Lord's hour. But we think, okay, God, you're kind of in this little section. That's not what He desires. He wants to live with you. He wants you to acknowledge Him every day. You know what I've seen?

It's kind of interesting. Sometimes somebody begins this, well, we need to allow the Holy Spirit more freedom in the service. The Holy Spirit is here.

He's here every service. People get saved. People get discipled.

Sometimes when somebody says something like that, you know what they're really saying has nothing to do with the service. What they're really, the cry of their heart is, I wish the Spirit was more free in my life. I wish I was more yielded to the Holy Spirit than I am now because the things I know to do, I don't do them.

I think we can all relate to that. We all need the Holy Spirit to be more free in our life. We need to be yielded to the Holy Spirit more and live for God. Look at this, verse 13, for if you live according to the flesh, you will die. But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. So you either live for the sin nature and you die or you live for the Holy Spirit and the sin dies. If you yield to the flesh, you're going to die. Now you're sitting there going, well, Pastor David, are you saying the next time I sin, I'm just going to fall over dead? No, no. It's going to be a lot slower and probably a lot more painful than that.

Here's what I know. When you live for the Spirit, when you live for the flesh, you live a life of defeat, you live a life of weakness. When you live according to the Holy Spirit, you live an incredible life of victory and power.

It's not a complicated question. I mean, do you want to live in defeat and weakness or do you want to live in victory and power? I think most of us say, well, I want to live in victory and power. Yield to the Holy Spirit because the more you yield to the Holy Spirit, the more you're prone to yield to the Holy Spirit. The more you yield to the flesh, your sin nature, the more you're prone to live for the sin nature.

We do something interesting. You know, the people in this book, the Bible, we look at them and go, well, they were just different. They were just like some kind of superhuman Christian is what they were. And we have the stories of Peter and Paul and Silas and Barnabas and these people and John and David and Moses, but they were just different. They were kind of like a superhuman believer that, you know, God just told us these stories just to tease us because none of us can ever live like that or be like that.

Really? God calls us to do incredible things for him. And I think some of us would go, well, he'd never do this.

He never do that. Look, to me, I am such a shining example. I'm pastor of this church. I mean, that just shows that God's desperate and God will use anybody that offers their services to him. I mean, the Bible says that God will use the foolish things to confound the wise. And some of you are going, I just figured out why he's a pastor. God wants to use you.

He wants to use me. Who do you want to win in your life? Your new nature or your old nature? I want to yield to the Holy Spirit. I want to live that kind of life that the Bible talks about me living.

I want to do this. And God says I'm able to do this through his power. The deeds of the flesh. What are these deeds of the flesh? We're told Galatians chapter 5 verse 19. It says, Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contingents, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like. Which I'll tell you beforehand, just as I told you in times past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. It's quite the list, isn't it?

I don't know about you. I don't look at that list and go, Oh, I wish I was more like that. I don't look at that list and go, I wish my family was more like that.

No, we look at that list and go, Oh man, that's just, that's just not good. But see, when you take a step to your selfish nature, you're taking a step towards all this stuff. When you take a step towards just the spiritual nature, the new nature, you're taking a step away from that. And as you live for the spirit, this starves to death.

Or you feed the old nature and your new nature starves to death. Life lesson here, we should die to our sin and live for God. We should die to our sin and live for God. Colossians 3, 5 says this. It says, so put to death the sinful earthly things lurking within you.

That's nasty, isn't it? Put to death the sinful earthly things lurking within you have nothing to do with sexual sin and purity, lust and shameful desires. Don't be greedy for the good things of this life for that is idolatry. Now let me, let me make sure we're on the same page because some of you are going, okay, so I got to quit doing this. Quit doing that. Quit doing this.

No, no, no, no, no. The emphasis here is on what you need to do. You need to yield to the Holy Spirit because see all the different things we, we need to not do, it's all centered on what we do. When you come to church, you're less likely to engage in other things. When you're in Bible study, you're less likely to do this or that.

So it's not about what you don't do. You can stand in a dark room and curse the darkness all you want to, or you can light a candle. We tend as followers of Jesus to curse the darkness the world is engaged in.

Light a candle. Be the light of the world that God is calling you to be. In John chapter 8, 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. Verse 14, for as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God. We could use children. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the children of God. And let's understand something too, because there's some confusion about this. I've heard Christians, I've heard pastors on television say this, that we're all children of God.

No, we're not. We're created in His image that's completely distorted through the fall, but we're not all children of God. Next verse will prove part of that, but there was an exchange. If this says, if this verse, it says, for as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the children of God. So what about those who aren't led by the Spirit of God? Well, apparently to this verse, they're not children of God. Let me explain, and if you've thought that we're all children of God, evidently if you buy into that, you think that Jesus was confused. Because Jesus had a moment in John chapter 8 when these guys were giving them a hard time, religious leaders, imagine that.

They're giving him a hard time, and Jesus in a very seeker-sensitive way, friendly, warm, fuzzy moment, turned to him and said, you are of your father the devil. So apparently he didn't think they were children of God. This verse says if we're led by the Spirit of God, we're the children of God. John chapter 1 verse 12 says, but as many received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God to those who believe in His name.

This kind of introduces an interesting theological issue because now we've got received, believe, and led by. So Pastor David, are you saying that there's something we need to do to become a child of God? Well, you need to come to Him, ask Him to forgive you of your sins. That's when you receive from Him. God wants to give you forgiveness. He wants to give you His grace. He wants you to receive that.

You have to receive that. And you do that by what? By believing in Him.

What about this being led by? Isn't that kind of salvation by works? If you receive Him and you believe Him, you want to follow Him. I'm not a follower of Jesus necessarily because I think that the church has it all together or Christianity has all the answers. I look at the history of humanity, there's never been anybody like Jesus.

And Jesus says, I want to teach you how to live and I want to forgive you and here's how you do it. I'm in. I'm following Him. I want to be led by Him. Well, I don't want to be led by myself. See, again, we introduced kind of a difficult issue because somebody says, well, I'm a fleshly Christian. I've been a fleshly Christian and I don't want to be a fleshy Christian because they say, well, I'm saved, but I'm just not turning from my sin.

That's a dangerous place to be because when you realize your sins are what put Jesus on the cross, begins to lose its appeal or at least it should be and changes start to happen in your life. And we're supposed to be led by the Spirit of God. Now I understand, you know, I don't be led by anybody. You need to be led by the Spirit of God.

Not only that, but let me go ahead and mention this too. Paul talks about in the Bible that to follow Him as He follows Jesus. God put the whole thing of churches and pastors into place. I am not talking about blindly following some man or some doctrine. You're following God and God gives us godly examples in our lives to do this. And I'm not inviting you to come on a journey where I am. I'm inviting you to come on a journey where I'm going.

I haven't arrived, but I do want to live this kind of life that the Bible is talking about here. I don't want to be everybody's pastor. I'm not going to be everybody's pastor. People have to make the decision whether I will be their pastor or not.

If I'm not your pastor, you need to quickly find someone that you can call your pastor. Let's read verse 15. For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again the fear, but you received the spirit of adoption by whom we cry out Abba Father. Not again the fear, not bondage, Abba Father. Abba is Aramaic and really it says Abba Father. That's not an exact translation. Abba Av in the Hebrew, Ab in the Aramaic, Abba, is more like daddy than father. Early on translators, they just didn't want to translate it like that. They thought that was going to be too assuming to call God daddy. So many translations to this day say Father, but it really says daddy.

It says daddy. And understand this book, this letter to the Romans, Paul wrote, we talked about this historically, we'll talk about the history at the time again sometime soon. The Romans understood adoption. They had adoption. It was different than we think of adoption. They would adopt adult males. If you were a leader, if you were a Caesar and there was somebody that was a good military leader, you would adopt him. And then he would stand in line as your heir to the throne.

Julius Caesar adopted Octavian, who was not his biological son, and he became Caesar, Augustus. So the Romans understood this concept of adoption. God wants to adopt us.

And this again tells us something. If he wants to adopt us by faith, by grace, that tells us we're not in the family until we do that, that we need to be adopted. Ephesians chapter 1 verse 5 says this, his unchanging plan has always been to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ.

And this gave him great pleasure. Galatians 4 verse 5, God sent him to buy freedom for us who were slaves to the law so that he could adopt us as his very own children. Now understand there's adopted and there's adapted. We're adopted into his family, and then we kind of need to adapt into his family, if you will. Adopt in the sense that, okay, we're positionally, we're in. Adapt and we got to figure out how this family works. We got to become a member of the family.

We got to figure out when dinner is, when to take the trash out, that kind of thing. That part of it's a process. The adoption like that.

The adaption, takes a little longer, doesn't it? We're growing into the spiritual people we're called to be. And we're all, unlike the Roman thing, we're all adopted as babies.

Nobody comes into the kingdom of God as an adult. You've got to humble yourself. You got to get over, I don't completely understand the cross and that's holding me back. You know what? You're never going to completely understand the cross.

Its power and its simplicity are overwhelming. But you come to God, Jesus says, everybody's got to come as a little child. Now you come as a little child, but then you should be growing into adulthood. First Peter chapter two, verse two says this, you must crave pure spiritual milk so that you can grow into the fullness of your salvation. Cry out for this nourishment as a baby cries for milk. The word of God is referred to as milk.

It's referred to as meat. And it's kind of interesting because I do less biblical counseling than I used to here, but you know, talking to somebody and go, I'm just so weak and I'm just making bad decisions. And one of the things that, well, you know, are you reading the word? Well, no, not really. When's the last time you were in your Bible?

Well, it was about a week ago. And you're wondering why you're weak. Friend, after we're finished here, you're probably going to go eat a meal. And chances are that if you waited until next Sunday to eat, you wouldn't feel so good, would you? You'd feel pretty weak. Why? Because you had not had any food. If you only have spiritual food once a week, you're starving to death.

There's a reason you're spiritually weak. And I understand somebody uses this milk here. There's something just so cute about a baby. You know, they got the toothless grin thing going on. You know, I mean, there's just, just melts your heart, doesn't it? And you know, and they sit there with a little bottle and you just, oh, you know, they're just so precious. And that's what you feel when you see a little baby holding a bottle. But imagine if one morning, one Sunday morning, 30 year old man comes in here, comes up to the front row, he's wearing a diaper.

He lays back, kicks his feet up and puts a bottle in his mouth. Cute is probably not the word you're thinking at that point. You're thinking there's something wrong with you partner. We can help. We need to be growing in the Lord. And you're still living as a spiritual infant and you've known the Lord for a while, something's wrong.

Now it could be that you're starving to death. You need the word of God. You need to be in a fellowship that's going to focus on the word of God that's going to encourage you to yield in the spirit, yield to the spirit.

But it's, you know, when it comes down, it's really not that complicated, gang. We talk about yielding to the spirit, yielding to the old man. God wants you to yield to him. He knows what's best.

My father is with the Lord. He was a smart guy. He was an entrepreneur. He was owned and ran some corporations and a smart guy, had a background in aeronautical engineering and a civil engineer.

And so he just knew a lot about a lot, you know? And when I was a little kid, if I broke something, broke a toy, I had a choice. You know, there is that, you know, when you break something, I mean, you know, you're like, oh, I broke it.

That's not good. And part of me would want to take it and hide it in the bottom of the toy bin, you know, thinking nobody would ever know. And sometimes I did that. But sometimes when I broke things, I would look at it and go, you know what? I can't fix this. I don't even know how to fix it.

I don't even know the steps to fix it. But my daddy can. And if I take this and act like this didn't happen and hide this broken thing, it's going to stay broken. But if I take it to my dad, my dad will fix it.

I don't know how. I don't know how he knows so much. But he also always seems to take pleasure in fixing things for me. Now, some of you may have grown up with an imperfect father.

You know what? Every one of us grew up with an imperfect father. But there's one that calls to us now that's perfect, our heavenly father. And yeah, there's broken things in your life, isn't there? There's broken visions, broken dreams. You've messed some things up, maybe messed some people you care about, messed them up, broken things. And you can either act like that doesn't exist and try to hide those broken things, or you can come to him this morning and say, daddy, would you fix it? I said, daddy, would you fix it? I don't even know how to begin to fix it. But daddy, I think you want to fix it. And he does.

And he will. Friend, are there broken things in your life? Are there things in your past that you need forgiveness for? Are there things going on right now that you need forgiveness for? Is there anything wrong in your life that you need God to fix?

Do you need more joy, love, forgiveness, peace in your life? That's what he offers right now. He stands with his arms open wide, hands extended, and says, I'd love to fix those things, but you got to come to me. If those things are going on, let it go.

Come to him. And don't sit there and try to work on it. Well, how's that work? And how's that going to change anything? You know what? I can't even completely answer that question.

I can only say I know that it does. I see it week after week after week after week. Life's being changed because they were humble enough to say, you know what? I do need daddy to fix it. And yet there's going to be people in here today right now that keep hiding the brokenness of their lives in the bottom of the bin. And someday, friend, everybody's going to know how broken it is, but it doesn't have to be like that. Jesus died for you. Not so you could act like everything's okay. He died for you so that you could come to him and say, everything's not okay.

There's things that are messed up in my life that nobody else knows about. And God, I need your help. And he will, if you'll come to 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. 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. 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. Cross the Bridge with David McGee is a ministry dedicated to sharing the whole Bible with the whole world. If you've been blessed by Cross the Bridge, consider financially supporting this ministry. Your gift will be used to reach more people with the gospel of Jesus Christ, while also supplying resources to new believers. To give, simply call 877-458-5508. Or visit us online at crossthebridge.com and click on the donate button.

Once there, you can choose to give a one-time gift or become a Bridge Builder monthly supporter. Also, while visiting crossthebridge.com, make sure to sign up for Pastor David's free email devotional, as well as browse through our many online resources. One of the most important parts of growing in Christ is being in fellowship at a local church.

But what happens on those times you're sick or traveling? Simply log on to crossthebridge.com and click the live stream button, and you'll instantly be streaming from David McGee's home church, The Bridge. Catch every life lesson and scripture reference as you take part in hearing the Word of God from anywhere in the world. Pastor David McGee teaches live online Sunday mornings at 9 and 11.15. Watch this week at crossthebridge.com. Thanks for listening to Cross the Bridge with David McGee. Join us again next time and invite your family and friends to listen, as together we cross the bridge.