The Spirit: The Greatest Chapter in the Bible, Part 2

Today on Summit Life with J.D.

Greer. You know, many Bible scholars consider Romans 8 the greatest chapter in the Bible, and many Christians suffering around the world would heartily agree with that. As Pastor J.D. continues teaching through the Book of Romans, Chapter 8 shows us how the Holy Spirit gives us assurance that God is with us and He's working for our good, even in the middle. That assurance brings so much hope to every Christian who asks, if following Jesus leads only to suffering in this life, is He worth it?

Let's get the resounding answer to that question from Pastor J.D. in Romans, Chapter 8. to the trajectory of the Spirit. The trajectory of the Spirit, where's He taking you? Verse 14, for all those led by God's Spirit are God's sons.

The question you should ask here is, led by God, where? Is He talking about people who get messages from the Spirit spelled out in their Cheerios or their alphabet soup each day, or who have things whispered to them about other people? Is He talking about when the Spirit shows up and gives you clarity about some decisions?

Because some of you say, I just don't know how much that happens to me, and how do I know I'm actually being led by God's Spirit? Y'all, look at the context. Look at the context. You know that's always the rule in Bible interpretation, is look at the context.

What does the context say? When Paul says led by God's Spirit, he means led by the Spirit into Christ's likeness, led by the Spirit into works of life. If the Spirit, Paul says, is moving you that direction, then you can have the assurance that you are God's sons. Now, by the way, ladies, don't feel left out here by the fact that Paul said you are God's sons and not you are His sons and daughters. He intentionally uses only sons here because sons in those days, firstborn sons, got all the inheritance. So it's actually better for you that he said sons and not sons and daughters, because he wants you ladies to know that you got all the same amount of inheritance that's come into a firstborn son, Jesus, and so we're all in Christ, the firstborn sons of God.

All right, so just like men are included when Paul calls the church the bride of Christ, so daughters are included in the analogy of sons, okay? Point is, if the Spirit is leading you toward Christ's likeness, then you have the assurance that you are God's sons. By the way, this is usually a gradual process, sometimes painfully slow. Don't get discouraged if it doesn't seem to be happening more dramatically and more quickly than you want it to.

Rarely does it happen in these big, dramatic, ecstasy-filled moments. Spirit growth is usually gradual and slow. It's honestly like watching your kids grow. And you parents know, you kind of look at your kids one day and you're like, when did they become adults, right? It seems like just yesterday they were toddling around the house. You look at them day by day and you don't notice anything. I never say, wow, what a day you had yesterday. But I look over time and they are dramatically different.

So it is very slow. And by the way, it's very painful. I can say that from personal experience, is that I always want the Spirit of God to grow me through ecstatic moments of worship and being on a spiritual mountaintop. That's rarely when God does any of his best work in my life. He does his best work in those valleys where there's brokenness and there's pain and there's sometimes humiliation.

Anybody testify here with me on that? Is that what happens to you too? That's where God does his best work in me. It is painful, it is slow, but make no mistake, if the Spirit really is in you, this is where he's taking you. The Spirit's one indispensable goal for you is to make you just like Jesus, just like him. To love what he loves, to seek what he seeks, to hate what he hates, to do what he does. And if the Spirit of God is really inside you, he's always moving that direction. By the way, is that what you signed up for when you became a Christian? Is this where you thought you were going?

I ask that because some people are surprised, even scandalized. When I try to suggest to them that God's goal for them is to make them just like Jesus and he'll be satisfied with nothing less, I'm like, wait a minute. No, no, I came to God because I thought he could help make me a better person.

And I needed a fire escape from hell and I needed some stability in my family and I needed some meaning in my life and I needed somebody to fix my marriage. But complete Christ's likeness, total devotion wholeheartedly to God, that feels a little overboard. I read this poem the other day that I thought perfectly captured this sentiment.

In church, it goes like this. I would like $3 of God, please. Not enough to explode my soul or disturb my sleep, but just enough of him to equal a cup of warm milk or a snooze in the sunshine. I don't want enough of him to make me love my political enemies or to open my home to the immigrant. I want ecstasy, not a transformation.

I want the warmth of the womb, not the trauma of a new birth. I want a pound of the eternal and a paper sack, please. I would like just $3 worth of God, please.

Paul would say, sorry, but we don't sell that here. The Spirit's goal for you is Christ's likeness. He is satisfied with nothing less. And if and only if he is moving you toward that, you can be assured that he is at work within you, which leads me to the third, the last thing. Number three, the assurance from the Spirit. Paul says, for you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear. Instead, you received the spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, Abba, Father.

Now here's something interesting, Abba. Virtually every language has at least two words for father, including Aramaic, right? So one word for father usually is like father. And then the other word is always like dada or daddy, right?

In English, dada, Spanish, papa, in Indonesian, papa, in Turkish, baba. Guess who comes up with that second word? It's always the kid.

The toddler comes up, the baby comes up with it. Humans have a primordial desire to reach out for a parent. And when we do that, what are we looking for? When your spirit first cries out, daddy, Abba, what are you looking for?

You're looking for somebody who will love you perfectly and who is capable of taking care of you. That's what our spirit is yearning for when we cry out Abba, but here's what we find. Our earthly fathers, no matter how good they are, cannot fully fulfill that.

Even good dads eventually let us down, if for no other reason that they can't be with us forever. And so we go through life looking for that fulfillment and security that we were first yearning for when we cried out dada. So we search for it in romance.

This is gonna be the missing piece. This is gonna be what makes me feel secure and have meaning. Or we look forward in our reputation.

If I can have this kind of reputation, I'll feel like I'm significant. Then I'll feel like I'm worthy of that love that I've been always yearning for. Or we look forward in financial security. This is the safety I've always wanted.

It's in this bank account, in this 401K. And Paul says, no, that Abba, that Abba Father that you've always yearned for, God answers that yearning in Christ. And when he does, that releases you from the spirit of slavery and the spirit of fear. What does spirit of slavery and spirit of fear means? Well, to be a slave of something means that you have to obey it all the time.

What happens is when you're without Christ, you come up with something that you think will give you meaning and significance and security. And you think, if I can obtain that, then I'll have those things. And you become a slave to that. And so you gotta get up and go to the job.

And you gotta work overtime. And you gotta just constantly stress about it, because unless you get to this spot here, well, you're not gonna have the meaning and security. And maybe it's in romance. And so you think, well, I've gotta find the right person.

And I think I'm married maybe not to the right person because they're not doing it for me anymore. And so I'm a slave to finding that right person. Or maybe it's some other thing that you put in there that is just you are a slave to it. And you feel like I've gotta do it to obtain this.

And that always leads to fear. Because now you're obsessed with what if I lose it? What if I can't get it? What if things don't work out for me? You start to look at your circumstances and you start to panic. Because you're like, well, what if these circumstances never quite work out? Well, what if life unravels? Am I gonna be forsaken? Or sometimes you even look at your circumstances and you'll just look at them and you'll say, well, this is how it always works out for me.

Life never works out. You feel alone, you feel fearful. That is the spirit of slavery and fear that you live under. Paul says the spirit of adoption, by which you cry out, Daddy, Abba, Father, that's what banishes the spirit of fear and the spirit of slavery. Because the spirit of adoption assures you through the promises of Scripture that you are fully loved by an omnicompetent father and you are fully protected in him.

Therefore, you are no longer slaves. You need to be afraid. You are sons who stand secure. If you had the blessing of having a good father, and I know not everybody in here did, I understand that. But if you had the blessing of having a good father, don't you remember how you looked at your dad when you were young?

Don't you remember how awesome and powerful he seemed, how safe you felt around him? You know, it seemed like my dad could fix anything with a pocket knife. It didn't matter what we were doing, hunting, fishing, I had a splinter, the car broke down, the TV's reception wasn't coming in right, out come that little case pocket knife, and 10 minutes later, everything was fine. Even now, if like my iPhone's not working, my first instinct to hand my dad back, can you fix this with your pocket knife? Let him go to work on it. It just seemed like he could fix anything.

It was omnicompetent. As a kid, I just felt safe when he was around. And so one of my biggest fears was the thought of him or my mom going away. In fact, my dad, he tells the story of taking me out camping one weekend when I was, I think he said like five years old. It was my first overnight camping trip. It was just me and him. And he said, I slept all night in the tent with my hand on his belly. And he asked me the next morning why I had slept with my hand on his belly. And I told him, I was afraid that I'd wake up in the middle of the night and he'd be gone.

And I'd be left out there by myself in the woods. Now, my dad would ask me to point out here that he had not done anything that would justify that fear. Okay, just he had a son with a hyperactive imagination and that's just part of the territory. But that was my greatest terror, right? So the fear is to be stuck somewhere scary without him. Now, I'm all grown up.

You're all grown up, most of you. Isn't that really, I mean, we may not be afraid in the same ways, but isn't that kind of a metaphor of what we're still afraid of? To wake up in the wilderness kind of alone and untaken care of.

Paul says, good news. You don't ever have to be afraid like that anymore because you're a beloved son. You're a beloved son and God has promised never to leave you or forsake you. You don't even have to keep your hand on his belly all night because he has got a nail scarred hand laying on you. And as long as that hand is laying on you, you don't even have to keep your hands on him because he will never leave you or forsake you.

And his blood is the guarantee of that. That's why one of the other places in the New Testament, we see that phrase, Abba Father, is in the Garden of Gethsemane, right before Jesus goes to the cross. And that was a point where Jesus calls out to his father, Daddy, except for the one time in history, that call is not returned. In fact, there's nothing but silence because in the Garden of Gethsemane, God was turning his face away from Jesus.

And because God turned his face away from Jesus when he cried out Abba, Father, I can be absolutely certain that God will never turn his face away from me when I call out Abba, Father, because he was forsaken so I could have the assurance of being forgiven. He was pushed away so that I would never have to fear being pushed away and that I would always be drawn close. And that assurance changes my view of everything. I don't have to be afraid of bad stuff. I don't have to be afraid of bad circumstances.

I don't need good circumstances. Give me insecurity and joy because I've got a heavenly father and I'm the competent, never stopping, never giving up father who watches over all things and promises to use even bad circumstances for my good and for his glory. That means that I don't have to define fulfillment in various things because I've got a heavenly father who gives me those things. I have the assurance that in everything, I am being guided and directed by the Abba Father who has given me the Spirit to help me pray in those moments and will work all things out according to his plan. Because he is omnipotent and because he is all loving, I never have to be subject to the spirit of slavery or fear again. Now let's return to today's teaching with Pastor J.D.

Greer here on Summit Life. Find out how much you make of the thought of being God's child and having God as your father if that's not the thought that prompts and controls his whole outlook on life, his worship, his prayer. Well, he does not understand Christianity very well at all.

I don't care how many degrees he has. I don't care how spiritual he seems. If he doesn't live in the security of having a heavenly father who is guiding and directing everything, he doesn't understand Christianity at all. Verse 16, the Spirit himself, you see, testifies together with our spirit that we are God's children. The Spirit testifies with our spirit that we are God's children. So again, how does he testify?

How does he testify? Again, in context, through the evidence of a changed life. You start to possess the fruits of the Spirit. You desire closeness to God. You and other people around you can see you changing.

By the way, here's a little insight, a little pro tip. It's usually other people that can see you changing before you know that you're changing. One of my favorite scenes in Pilgrim's Progress, Christian goes up into the interpreter's house which represents the Holy Spirit. When he comes down, the interpreter has given him a new set of clothes. He's traded his rags for this bright, shiny set of clothes. But when he looks in the mirror, he can't see them, right? He just sees the old clothes.

But everybody else around him can see them. And John Bunyan was trying to show you that when the Spirit of God begins to put virtue in your heart, usually you're the last person to see it. And that's why you have to have other people in your life that are speaking into your life and calling out and say, man, I see this developing in you. And that is the Spirit of God in you.

It's why we push small groups so forcefully here. So he gives you assurance through a changed life and he gives you assurance of the promises of the gospel. He whispers in your heart gospel promises, even, listen, when everything in your heart doubts him. Hear me, I'm not talking about a serene, peaceful, easy feeling that just comes over you. And you feel like a warm cup of coffee.

I'm not talking about that. What the Spirit is talking about here is when, in the midst of a heart in turmoil, you start to believe the promises of the gospel. You may not have peace and love and groovy vibes coming out your heart, but you start to say, I believe the gospel is true and I believe I got a heavenly Father. And in the midst of a heart in turmoil, you believe the promises, even when everything in your heart doubts him. In fact, for some of you, he might be saying that to you this weekend. You come in here in the midst of financial difficulty and he's saying, no, no, no, you're my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased and I will take care of all your needs through Christ Jesus. You come in the midst of marital difficulty and he says, yeah, but there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. You come in in the midst of an addiction that you have fallen to for the 10,000th time. And he says, yeah, but as far as the east is from the west, that's how far I've separated your sin from you.

You just got a diagnosis of terminal illness. And he says, yep, but as high as the heavens or above the earth, that's how great my love is for you. You come in this weekend and you got a wandering child and he says, surely he has borne our grief and carried our sorrow and that you don't walk through this alone. You've got to believe those things right now and that is the evidence of the spirit of God. If you believe them testifying to you, you are a child of God.

Verse 17 might be the best part versus this whole thing, the last verse. And if we're children, we're also heirs, heirs of God, heirs of God and co-heirs of Christ in adoption. Everything that belongs to the adoptive parent becomes a possession of the child who is adopted.

Child even takes the parent's name. I've got a friend who adopted a couple of children from another country, did it several years ago and he had to take on substantial health risk and healthcare costs in order to take them into his family. But he gladly paid them.

Not too long ago, one of the kids got accused of something and it was this big legal, my friend had to pay $200,000 in legal fees to help this kid get out of this problem. He says, I don't regret any of it. I don't regret any of it. He says, because I gladly took this on when I adopted this child into my family. This is what we get in Christ.

Even after we rejected him, he voluntarily took on all of our problems and gave to us the full abundance of his treasure. Even better, he says co-heirs with Christ. Co-heirs with Christ. This means, listen, that whatever Christ has coming to him, you now have coming to you.

Just let that sink in for a minute. Whatever Christ has coming to him, you now have coming to you because you're a co-heir with him. You know, serving in this role that I serve now as president of the SBC, I get to be around some really interesting people.

And I was at an event once not long ago where I got to meet the son, who's a Christian, of one of America's wealthiest businessmen. Now I'll admit to you again, okay? I'm just going to tell you straight up right here. I just kind of wanted to be friends with this guy. He was about my age.

I was like, I really want to be friends. You want to know why? Because I want to know what it's like to eat just the crumbs that fall off that dude's table, right?

Like, hey, I can't use my Super Bowl tickets this year. Would you like them? Yes, I would. Hey, my family has an extra jet we can't fare well to do with.

Would you like to use it? Well, yes, I would, right? What if I found out that not only... By the way, he never returns my text messages.

So that's not what happened. But what if I found out that not only was I going to be his friend, what if I found out that I was going to now be his co-heir and that everything that was coming to him was going to come to me? And Paul said, that would be a pitifully small dream if you understood that you're actually a co-heir with Christ.

You get so much more. I mean, forget Super Bowl tickets. You're going to the marriage supper of the lamb. Forget the jet. You're going to fly with the angels.

Forget his mountain chalet. You got a mansion prepared in heaven with streets of gold. It's all coming to you. So that's going to change your perspective in the midst of suffering, which if indeed we suffer with him, so that we may also be glorified with him. Paul indicates here where he's about to turn next in Romans 8, the road ahead for Christians is one of suffering. Paul says that is always going to happen.

Persecution, unpopularity, it's always ahead. For now, I just want to ask you this question because this is what I think Paul is asking you here. Is Jesus worth this to you? If all you get for following Jesus, if all you get is not prosperity, if what you get is suffering and persecution and even poverty, if that's the price, is Jesus worth that to you?

Because Paul would say 10,000 times, yes, 10 billion times, yes, I'm a co-heir with Christ. No amount of suffering I could ever go through would not take away from the chance to be glorified with him. So I'll take temporary suffering if it means eternal glory. Here's even the better part, Paul says, is while I'm waiting for that eternal glory, I get to do it in the presence of the Spirit. People who've gone through suffering always tell me, they're like intense suffering. They say the sweetest thought, the best possible thing, was that in the midst of my darkest days, knowing that the Spirit of God was right there with me, suffering alongside of me, I was suffering with him and he was suffering with me. And he was crying every tear, he was feeling every heartache and every pain, and he just stood with me in the moment of my persecution, my trial, my suffering. Is Jesus worth it?

Paul would say 10,000, 10,000 times, yes, 10,000 times, yes. Are you willing to forsake all and follow Jesus to let his Spirit have complete way in your life? There's only one way to be released from the penalty of sin, to accepting the blood of Jesus as your payment for your sin. There's only one way to release from the power of sin, and that is to let the Spirit of God have complete way in your life.

Have you ever done that? Because if not, I want to give you a chance to do it right now. I want to give you a chance to forsake religion and start pursuing relationship to the Father, through the Holy Spirit.

I want you to bow your heads if you would. Romans, it's a very simple message, friends. You can't save yourself from the penalty of sin, so Jesus died in your place. And you got to receive it as a gift.

That's the only way you can take it as a gift. Part B of that message is you can't save yourself from the power of sin, and only the Spirit can do that. Have you ever surrendered to him totally, and just said, Spirit, have your way in my life.

I'll follow you now. If you've never received Jesus as Savior, or at least you're not sure that you have, or never surrendered your life to the Holy Spirit, you can do that right now by saying something like this. Lord Jesus, I know that I can't save myself.

Say it to them in your own words. I know that I can't save myself. So I open my heart for you to save me, and for your Spirit to begin to lead me.

I surrender. Don't walk through suffering alone. Walk with Jesus. Let the Holy Spirit take over, and begin to lead you.

You're listening to Summit Life. Well, we just finished more teaching from the greatest chapter in the Bible, Romans 8. There's so much to soak up, not only in Romans 8, but in the entire book. And it's no wonder why it took Pastor J.D.

more than a year to preach through Romans at our church. And that's why we want you to get as much spiritual growth as you possibly can out of this book as we teach through it here on Summit Life. To help you do that, our featured resource right now is the first part of a two-part study through the book of Romans written by Pastor Tim Keller. To get your copy, simply give us a call at 866-335-5220. That's 866-335-5220.

Or you can give online at jdcareer.com. And while you're there, why not check out Pastor J.D. 's newest podcast called Ask Me Anything?

You'll want to do that today. Pastor J.D. gives quick, honest answers to tricky questions, and you can find it online at jdcareer.com or through your favorite podcasting app.

I'm Molly Vitovich. Next week, we'll be talking about the gospel that Pastor J.D. has done for us in the past. And we'll be talking about the gospel that Pastor J.D. has done for us in the past. And we'll be talking about the gospel that Pastor J.D. has done for us in the past. Molly Vitovich, next week we'll keep trucking through Romans Chapter 8.

That's right, we're only halfway through the greatest chapter in the Bible. So be sure to come back next time to Summit Life with J.D. Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by J.D. Greer Ministries.