Music The Bible tells us that those who are in Christ are indwelt by the Spirit of God. and were to become what we are, children of God, using the resources God provides. Today on Truth for Life, Alistair Begg walks us through the challenging teaching found in Romans 8 to point out what makes genuine Christianity radically different from formalized religion. Our sinful inclinations in Christ have been dethroned, but they haven't been destroyed. They've been dethroned, but they haven't been destroyed.
Therefore, we have to learn to deal with them. We have to learn to deal with sin immediately, decisively, radically, consistently. When I was preparing this address, I was reading the telegraph in England, and it carried the story of—I think it was a lord. Certainly, his wife was a lady, so he must have been a lord. But anyway, he was a man of 62, and it was actually a posthumous account of his life.
And it told the story of him being diagnosed with an elevated PSA. He decided that it wasn't really something to be unduly concerned about. His physician said, you know, we can just monitor this. You don't really need to be unduly concerned. The next time he went back, it was too late because it was already in his spine, and he died within a matter of months.
It was really too bad. It was very sad, because it should have been dealt with immediately, decisively, and radically. Oh, I was only just thinking about this. I wasn't planning on doing anything. It was only something going on in my mind.
It doesn't really matter. I didn't follow through on it. It was only something that I thought about. Deal with it there. Deal with it in your mind.
Deal with it in your mind before it becomes an action. Deal with it the first time it's an action before it becomes a habit. Deal with it before it becomes a habit, because a habit may become your destiny. And Paul here is simply reinforcing what we've been discovering in our studies in Mark's gospel, that Jesus had the exact same thing to say. He said it's worth making the costliest of sacrifices in this life for the sake of eternal life.
For the sake of eternal life. That's why he uses the metaphor. If your hand offends, you cut it off. You better go into heaven minus a hand and go to hell with both your hands. And he applies that to the feet, and he applies it to the eye as well.
Now, pay careful attention here. If by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live. If you don't, you won't. And what kind of life? The life that is truly life.
Now, the responsibilities of life in the Spirit are then representative of the relationship which is enjoyed by the Christian. And he goes on to say, in verse 14, because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. In other words, we would expect that since God has made us his sons or his daughters, since he has come to live in our lives by the Holy Spirit, one of the indications that we belong to him would be that we live in obedience to his leading. We are God's children, therefore we would want to go in the direction that God intends. And this little phrase here, being led by the Spirit of God, I don't think should be thought of in terms of subjective guidance.
People say this all the time.
Somebody tell me this week, I asked him, I said, I believe you're moving to New York. And the fellow said, Oh, yes, we're moving to New York. I said, And is that because of your job? And he said, No. He said, Just God told us to go to New York.
Well, I was at the end of a meal. It was late at night, and I was leaving a restaurant. I didn't have time to engage in a dialogue. But I went away, and I said, I wonder how that works. I know.
God never once told me to go to New York. I wonder how you get that. Then I thought, well, maybe God didn't tell him to go to New York. And if he did, I wonder how he did. It always sounds very spiritual when people tell you that God told them to go somewhere.
I'm not denying that God can tell people to do whatever he chooses to do. I'm just telling you that he has never told me that. I suppose, ultimately, he told me to come to Cleveland, otherwise I wouldn't be here, but I never had any audible voice. If I'd listened to the voice in my head, I guarantee you I wouldn't be in Cleveland. And I don't mean to dishearten you in any way, but if I listened during the week to the voice in my head, I would never have stayed in Cleveland.
So I'm really afraid of the voices in my head. My head is full of whistles, so I do not want to be paying attention to that. No, actually, I think when he says here, because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God, verse 14. We ought to understand it in terms of verse 13. If you live according to the sinful nature, you will die.
But if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live. Because, explanation, those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. In other words, they are the ones who do what they're supposed to do in the realm of obligation, and they live, as opposed to those who don and therefore they die I mean you sensible people You can figure it out Verse 15 builds on verses 13 and 14 For you didn receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear No. You actually have received the spirit of sonship. You're sons and daughters.
You're not slaves. Paul is reminding them of what has happened in conversion. You didn't receive the Spirit as a spirit of slavery, but the Spirit of adoption. This is what he said elsewhere back in Galatians, and in chapter 4—you can read that on your own later on—but what he's making here is a very important point for us as Christians. We didn't find ourselves caught up with the servile fear of which the Reformers used to speak, the servile fear that lives in dread of punishment and makes us question whether we belong, but rather we have received the spirit of adoption, thereby producing what the Reformers referred to as filial fear, the filial fear making us wonder that we belong.
Servile fear makes me wonder whether I belong. Filial fear makes me wonder at the fact that I do belong. Servile fear lives in the dread of a God who will punish me justifiably for my sins. Filial fear lives in the reverential awe of a God who has taken the punishment that my sins deserve, and he has placed that upon his Son, creating, therefore, a sense of obligation to his mercy and to his goodness and to his grace.
Now, this notion of adoption is a wonderful thing. The Spirit of Sonship, and by him we cry, Abba Father. To be adopted in the Roman context was a radical thing, because the father, the Roman father, had the power over his sons. Petria Potestas was the name. And when someone was adopted, there was a whole ceremony that was gone through that took place in the public arena that involved scales, and it involved copper.
And then there was a fee that was paid to the father in Petria Potestas. And just when the transfer was about to take place, he said, No, I'm not giving him up. And then the ceremony was engaged in a second time, and just before the transaction was completed, he said, No, I'm not giving him up. And then on the third occasion, when the fee was paid and the symbolic gesture followed, then the child, the son, was relieved of his obligations to his father and was adopted into the new obligatory world of his adoptive father. All of the debts that may have been part of his previous family were canceled and annulled.
All of the responsibilities that were there were now dealt with. All of the benefits of the inheritance that was part and parcel of his new life were now to become his. And even the arrival of children by natural generation would not alter the status of this adopted son. You see the picture that Paul is using? You were once slaves of the flesh.
You were once bound by these things. You were once controlled by these things. There were debts that attached to you. There were unpaid balances. There was all that was part and parcel of that, which held you in absolute power in the Petria Potestis.
The Roman father had actually, in the early days, the power of life and death. And Paul, understanding the Roman culture and understanding theology, melds these things. And he says to the folks, he says, You realize what has happened to you? Nobody can take you back over here into that realm of slavery. Nobody can drag up before you again all these debts, because they have been canceled, they have been subsumed, they have been wiped clean in Christ.
And now the thing that defines you is the fact that you are a member of this family, and that you can address God in such an intimate way. And that's the significance of the Aramaic word Abba. It's the word that Jesus used in addressing his Father. It's the word that he used when the disciples came to him and said, Will you teach us to pray? And he said, Then pray this, Abba, our Father, who art in heaven.
See, when you think in these terms, when we think in these terms, we realize how radically different genuine Christianity is from formalized religion. I haven't met many formalized religionists who actually refer to God as Father. I certainly have not met many of my secular and unbelieving colleagues referring to God as Father, especially not when things go wrong. They'll refer to him as God or God or if there is a God. What is it, what is it that causes us, when the wheels fall off, when the circumstances change?
When the wind is in our face? When it appears somehow or another that we've lost control of the entire plot? What is it that causes us to kneel beside our beds and simply say, Abba That all we can get out We can even get a speech out We can get a prayer out We can even articulate what going on in our hearts We just got nothing to say All we able to say is Abba Why is that It's an evidence of your sonship. It's an indication that you are his daughter, that you are a daughter of the king. You are an heir, that all the inheritance that is Christ, your elder brother, is your inheritance too.
He owns the cattle on a thousand hills, the wealth in every mine. He's sovereign over all the affairs of time. And in Christ, we find ourselves here. Oh, that doesn't mean that it turns everything over, and tomorrow morning, the pile that we left on our desk or the challenges that we face in decision-making is somehow eradicated by that. Not.
But the distinguishing feature of the child of God is that they take all of that, whatever is represented in that big bundle, and when they lay it down, they're able to come and say, Father, Father. This is not an expression of triumph, I don't think.
So often when you have this taught, people say, and then we cry, Abba, Father, as if it was some kind of special spiritual experience. You know, that now that we've entered into the great glory of everything we call him father. No, no, that's not when your children call you father, is it? They call you father. In fact, when you have a son-in-law, when you get sons-in-laws, one of the questions is, what are they going to call you?
What am I supposed to call you? I said, call me the right Reverend Dr. Alistair Begg. That'll do fine.
Something along those lines would fit nicely. No, I said, call me dad. Call me dad. You're part of my family. Sit on my couch, watch my TV, drive my car.
Really? Yeah. No, I don't do that just for any guy that comes over to my house.
Somebody come over to my house and started calling me dad, that would be presumptuous. But given the relationship, there's no need for hesitation.
Now, the intimacy that is conveyed here and the wonder that is conveyed here—and with this we will stop—this is normal Christian living. This is not a special dimension of Christian life. You must fight against those who try and send you in that direction. The context demands us understanding that it is the normal Christian life. Allow the Scripture to adjudicate on your experience.
Do not bring your experience to adjudicate on Scripture. This is what is true of us. And when we cry out to God in this way, The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are God's children. In this Roman ceremony, there were seven witnesses. These seven witnesses were called to account.
Yes, on that day, this transaction took place, and this person was adopted into this family. Paul understands that this had to be witnessed. And he says, and I know many of you will be thinking of the witness in this process.
Well, let me tell you who the witness is. It is the Spirit of God himself who testifies with our spirit, assuring us that we are God's children. And since we enjoy this sense of intimacy, we are assured of this inheritance, and ultimately our inheritance is Christ himself. Do you remember when your children were small? They used to come home, perhaps get picked up at the airport, and your wife would be driving and they would be in the back.
And they were hopefully glad to see you, but they kept moving forward in the back seat closer to you, their little heads over the seat before all these regulations where you had to virtually strangle your kids in the back. And their little faces would be there. And they're trying to be sort of oblique about things, but eventually one of them can't contain it and eventually says, Daddy Did you bring us anything? And we say Yeah, I have something for you When you get home They're like, oh, it's fantastic I'm nostalgic for those days But you know, when my daughter Picked me up from the airport Friday She didn't ask if I brought anything I hope she was just glad to have me home. I think she was.
And progress in the Christian life is progress into understanding that when I have Christ, I have everything. Without him, I've got nothing. With him, I have everything. I may be absent a relationship I want. I may be absent something that I think would add to the sum of my total happiness.
But when I have Christ, I have all that I need. And when that begins to dawn, when I realize that I have been adopted into this family, that he is my—Christ is my elder brother, and that he has granted to me not only the prospective privilege of life and glory, but also the peculiar privilege of suffering with him. Isn't that interesting how he says that? And if we—this is true of us—if we suffer with him in order that we might be glorified with him Do you realize how selective our Western Christianity is in this kind of terminology If we not careful we skip the suffering bit going immediately to the glory bit A significant number of our brothers and sisters in Christ today are suffering for their faith—physically, materially, the loss of life, the loss of home, the loss of family. And yet here, consistently, leadership in American Christianity tries to convince us that we'll really get this right when we triumph, when we're in control, when we've got everything buttoned down.
That has never been true of the history of the church. The Cultural Revolution in China under Mao Zedong sought to eradicate once and for all Christianity from mainland China. And in seeking to do so by persecution, by all forms of punishment, by the breaking down of churches, by the dismantling of assembled religion, 40 years on, the church in China is far more vibrant than it ever was when the persecution began. What is that to say? That we ought to invite persecution?
No. But I think it is for us to take seriously what he says, if we suffer with it. Why do we think it is? that Christians in North America should get home to heaven scot-free. If there is going to be a third great awakening, I'm pretty dead certain it's not going to come about as a result of Glenn Beck and Fox News.
But it may come about as a result of what he's saying here in Romans chapter 8 actually coming to fruition. Those who, being led by the Spirit of God, as sons and daughters of God, put to death the deeds of the flesh, refuse to submit to the alien authorities, and as a result find themselves walking with Christ, not simply in the triumph of his resurrection, but in the very fellowship of his suffering. I'm not a prophet. I'm not the sons of a prophet. I'm not a son of a prophet.
But I think that it would be good for us to think along these lines and to pray along these lines. For I'm not convinced that things will remain as they are for the foreseeable future. And what we most desperately want, which is triumph, may be the last thing that we actually need, which is suffering. You're listening to Alistair Begg on Truth for Life. Alistair returns in a moment to close today's program.
Today's message is from a series titled Life in the Spirit. In this teaching from Romans 8, the Apostle Paul is writing to believers in the church in Rome to explain what it means to be a Christian and how faith makes a difference in the daily life of a believer. You can dive deeper into this study by using the free Life in the Spirit Companion Study Guide. It's available to download at truthforlife.org slash spirit. All 12 messages in the Life in the Spirit study can be found on our website and also in the mobile app along with the paired study guide.
Again, the link is truthforlife.org slash spirit. While you're on our website, don't forget to check the book we are currently recommending. It's titled Distinct Communion. This is a book that offers clarity to help you improve your prayer life and your devotional time by exploring how we better engage with God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. This book is Yours for a donation to the ministry of Truth for Life, you can go to truthforlife.org slash donate or call us at 888-588-7884.
Now here's Alistair to close today's program with prayer. Father, thank you that your word shines as a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. It opens things up in a way that is sometimes distinctly uncomfortable to us. It forces us to think outside of the box that is routinely fed to us by so much secular and religious thought. We don't want to be crazy except to be crazy in the way that your Word calls us to be.
And I pray today that you will help us to become people of your book. I pray that all that is true and of yourself may find a resting place in our minds. anything that is untrue or unkind or unclear help us to step away from it and may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit rest upon and remain with all who believe today and forevermore Amen Thanks for studying God's Word with us today all of us have experienced rough patches in life Tomorrow we'll learn how God interweaves suffering and glory for his purposes. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.
