Hand in Glove

For Jesus Christ said, apart from me, you can do nothing. And the Apostle Paul has informed us already in Romans 8 verse 11 that the believer is indwelt by the Spirit of God who enables the believer to walk with God, right? The believer is, as it were, occupied by the hand of God. The believer of the glove is inhabited. He is energized by the Holy Spirit. Christianity, ladies and gentlemen, is nothing less than a hand in glove experience. Hello and welcome to Wisdom for the Hearts. Over the last several broadcasts, Steven Davey has been taking a deep look into Romans 7 and 8.

This is the final lesson in that series called The War Within. The Apostle Paul says that we've been adopted by God. When you think of that word, adoption, you should take it literally. It means that as believers, we are God's children. We are children of the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. What are the eternal and immediate implications of that?

Well, stay tuned to find out. Here's Steven with a message that he's calling Hand in Glove. Thus far in our study of Romans chapter 8, we have discovered a new pardon from the king. We have discovered a new friend in the Holy Spirit and a new obsession by virtue of a new mindset. We are about to discover, as we allow that Holy Spirit who does indwell us to conform us to the image of Christ, that we experience a number of wonderful things.

Things that are ours by perhaps our standing, but things we experience as we allow the Spirit of God, as it were, to invade our lives and live by means of his power throughout our activity and the energy of our own flesh. I brought along something to illustrate that this morning. I think it's probably a little silly illustration, but I hope you never look at a glove the same again. Well, if it ever gets below 60, I'll pull out these gloves and put them on.

I brought one along with me. I have an amazing glove here with me. This glove is incredible. This glove can point. This glove can give the thumbs up sign. My glove even knows how to give the sign for I love you. I can pat somebody on the back with my glove. This glove knows how to shake hands. This glove can applaud a last minute win by the wolf pack if they would ever have one. This glove can smack somebody for saying something like that on Sunday morning. This glove is amazing, right?

Well, of course not. This glove is entirely useless unless my hand is inside it. What a glove does is directly related to what's inside the glove, right?

You could say it this way. Whatever possesses the glove determines whatever the glove performs. Whoever activates the glove determines the activity of the glove. For without me, this glove can do nothing.

That sounds familiar, doesn't it? For Jesus Christ said apart from me, you can do nothing. And the Apostle Paul has informed us already in Romans 8 verse 11 that the believer is indwelt by the Spirit of God who enables the believer to walk with God, right? The believer is, as it were, occupied by the hand of God. The believer of the glove is inhabited. He is energized by the Holy Spirit. Christianity, ladies and gentlemen, is nothing less than a hand in glove experience.

It is impossible to live it on your own. We are merely willing gloves and God's Spirit is the omnipotent hand. And when the hand of God, as it were, inhabits, indwells, energizes and motivates and leads us, we are able to experience a number of wonderful new things in addition to the things we've already learned.

And I want to give you three of them. First of all, you are able to follow somebody new. This is divine leadership. And I want to begin where we left off now with Romans 8. Look with me at verse 12. So then, brethren, we are under obligation not to the flesh to live according to the flesh. For if you are living according to the flesh, you must die. But if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. Now, Paul is first speaking in general terms. He's reviewing for us what he has already taught in specific language in the previous verses of this chapter.

If you live in the flesh, if you live by the flesh, if you live for the flesh, that's proof that you're going to die. And he begins to tell us this wonderful truth and privilege that we are being led by the Spirit of God. Now, what does it mean to be led by the Spirit? What does somebody mean when they say, I'm being led by the Spirit?

What should they mean? There are a number of answers floating around and many of them are dangerous to the believer. As they try to define what it means to be led by the Spirit, some believe Spirit leadership comes through some sort of mystical experience, some special intimation, perhaps some voice, some unusual feeling, maybe even divine revelation. Something in addition to what God has already said, you're being led by the Spirit when you have a word from God through his Spirit, you hear it, nobody else does. I think the latest fad coming down the evangelical pipe, as I've mentioned to my staff, and in fact, I think this last greenhouse class is what I believe, something that'll be viewed as Spirit-induced dreams, dreams from God that will now direct the believer.

And I've already seen some kind of hinting at that. I saw one book already in the Christian bookstore about this subject. But since the New Testament letters to the church say absolutely nothing about receiving dreams from God, you're going to have to know how to interpret them, right? And so all the shysters and all the hucksters are going to line up and they're going to write their books and they're going to put it into print and they're going to make their dollars and cents of those who will buy it so that you can somehow know how to take this dream from God and make sense of it.

They'll put their speculations into print. And the long result of it will be that believers are simply distracted again by one more gimmick, which will take their minds away from the revealed truth of God in his word. That God has spoken is not nearly as exciting as what God said to me last night in my dream. And what God said to me last night in my dream always will win out over somebody saying, well, God has already spoken as far back as the days of Jeremiah.

False teachers were leading the people astray by virtue of their dreams they had and they said they were from God. Let me read you a paragraph from Jeremiah who said, quoting God in the last days, you're going to understand this. I did not send these prophets, but they ran. I did not speak to them, but they prophesied. I have heard what the prophets have said, who prophesy falsely in my name. In other words, anybody who says the name of Jesus doesn't mean that what follows is right.

Anybody who says something and uses God's name doesn't mean it's right and from God. That was happening all the way back in the Old Testament. The prophets are saying, I have had a dream. Is there anything in the heart of the prophet who prophesies falsehood? Even these prophets of deception from their own heart who intend to make my people forget my name by these dreams which they relate to one another. The prophet who has a dream may relate his dream, but let him who has my word speak my word and truth. In other words, he's not saying go out and get a dream. He's saying stick to the word. If you have a dream, tell it. But the one, the prophet, the true teacher who has the word of God tell that. I can remember being in an audience of about 5,000 people. It was a Sunday service and listening to a church leader, a pastor of a large church, and he was speaking on this text.

We didn't open to it. That wasn't his particular style, but he quoted this verse that sounded interesting. He said, he that hath a dream, let him tell the dream. And then he went on and began to tell about how God had given him dreams.

This is 20 years ago. And I remember sitting there thinking something is odd. It doesn't sound right. And so I found the text that I just read to you. And he only quoted the first part of the verse.

He that hath a dream, let him tell the dream. The last part of the verse says, but he, the true prophet, that hath my word, let him tell my word. Jesus goes on to say, he says in his word, is not my word like fire, declares the Lord Jehovah.

We know him as Yeshua, Jesus. Is not my word like fire? Is not my word like a hammer which shatters a rock? I am against the prophets who use their tongues and declare the Lord declares I am against those who've prophesied falsely and related these dreams and led my people astray by their falsehoods.

I did not send them. I did not command them, nor do they furnish this people the slightest benefit. You remember that when you see a book, I want to warn you. The enemy knows that if he can get you to believe the scriptures are not sufficient for everything you need for godly living, he has won a major victory.

He has made you as vulnerable as Eve in the garden. That the word of God no longer matters. That the word of God is no longer sufficient. That something could be added to it that maybe he didn't say enough of it.

And it will be a danger to your life. Today, primarily in this culture, the word of God is no longer settled. The church is now voting its opinion, its feelings. Individuals in the church at large is voting in its own directions, determining what it will do and what it will believe because the word of God is no longer enough. That's how you can have, as we have been reading, a faction within the Episcopalian church voting to put a practicing homosexual into office as an official representative of Jesus Christ on earth who speaks for God. How do you ever get to that point? You get to that point when you take the word of God and you say it isn't enough. It isn't sophisticated enough. It doesn't address us.

We've progressed further now. God surely would have something to say through us. Oh, that we would have the passion of the psalmist who cried, establish my footsteps in thy word and do not let any iniquity have dominion over me. Or again, make me to walk in the path of thy word for I delight in it. Just one of the key roles of the Holy Spirit is to illumine the scriptures to the mind of the believer. Being led by God's Spirit means to be led into the word of God. Just like our brother earlier this morning testified in the baptistry, he is being led by the Spirit to do what?

To read the word of God for himself. Jesus promised his disciples that the Holy Spirit would come and he says, whom the Father would send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you. That verse is perhaps confusing. At least it was to me when I was in college taking that Bible examination.

He didn't bring back everything that I had heard and I couldn't quite understand it. Well, this is a special significant promise to the apostles who would become Christ's unique representatives and witnesses to the truth of God after Christ ascended back to heaven. They didn't have the ability to say to an audience, turn to Romans chapter eight, they were writing it.

They didn't have it yet. And so God by his Spirit brought back to their mind three and a half years worth of teaching in an amazing way. But this truth does apply in a general sense to the believer who gets into the word of God and finds the Spirit of God, illumining its truth to their mind and their life. Paul referred to that in first Corinthians two when he wrote, the unbelieving man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God. They are foolishness to him.

He cannot understand them. They are spiritually appraised. But he who is spiritual that has been brought to life and then dwelt by the Spirit of God appraises all things for we have the mind of Christ. So then to be led by the Spirit of God is to be led into the word of God. And furthermore, to be led by the Spirit of God is to be led in obedience to the word of God. Paul said, I say, walk by the Spirit and you will not obey the lusts of the flesh. Or like Paul, who encouraged Timothy that all scripture is given by inspiration of God. The word of God, the very breath of God. And it is profitable for teaching, reproving, correcting, for training and righteousness that the man of God, the believer may be absolutely, totally, adequately prepared, equipped for every good work. You have enough.

You have enough. Are you being led by the Spirit? You could ask it this way. Are you being led into the word of God and are you being led to obey the word of God? If you can say yes to that, you are being led by the Spirit of God. Now, the Greek verb for led, ago, has a number of different nuances, as it appears literally hundreds and hundreds of times in the New Testament. Let me just translate some of them that will give just further nuance to what it means to be led by the word of God or by the Spirit of God.

And I'll put it in question form. Are you attended by the word? Are you accompanied by the word? Are you driven by the word? Are you pulled, tugged by the word? Are you hauled and moved by the word? Are you literally escorted, conducted, directed? Are you piloted by the word of God?

Isn't that good? The verb appears some 200 times in the Greek Old Testament translation, the Septuagint. We don't have time to even get into it, obviously, but the very first time is significant as it directs the context of this verb in wonderful ways. The first time it appears in the Bible is that breathtaking moment when Adam was roused from his deep sleep. God having taken a rib from his side and fashioned the woman, God now leads Eve to Adam. There's the verb. He leads her to him and introduces her to him. Donald Gray Barnhouse wrote this way as that verb in that very first context sort of set the stage of the wonderful privilege and precious truth of being led by the Spirit of God.

He said it this way. I could not help but look down through the years to that moment when the Lord caused a deep sleep to fall upon our Jesus Christ. And there upon the cross of Calvary, he opened up the side of the Lord and from that suffering and death, he created the church of his redeemed people. Yes, the very bride of Christ.

Wow. For those indwelt by the Spirit of God, you have been brought as it were to be the bride of Christ. And you have the privilege of following somebody new, divine leadership, the Holy Spirit. Secondly, Paul goes on to say you are able to belong to someone new, not only divine leadership, but a divine relationship.

Look at verse 14 again. For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God. For you have not received a spirit of slavery again to fear, but you've received a spirit of adoption as sons. Now what does it mean to be an adopted son of God? I can tell you ahead of time it is a wonderful and beautiful nuance of our redemption to use this word. He begins of course by setting the stage, by telling us because of our adoption, we haven't received the spirit of fear. We heard a little bit of that kind of testimony, the kind of guilt and fear that you're never measuring up, that somehow those scales never tip in the right direction. This is what Paul is saying.

You don't have that spirit of fear. You don't have to measure up to all of the law. You are accepted by God on the basis of your adoption as a son. What does it mean to be adopted? Well we typically think in our American culture of what happens when we adopt a child. We take a child from one family or an orphan who has no biological family caring for him and we place them in our family. But the word adoption is a little different in the word of God.

In fact it has a little bit of a different nuance or meaning. The word adoption is rare. In fact it's never used in the Old Testament because Jews didn't adopt.

They didn't adopt because they had other practices and social systems for those who were orphans and those rights of inheritance. But the word adoption appears five times in the New Testament, three of which are in the book of Romans. And when we think of the word adoption we often think just of our own culture but Paul had a Roman adoption in mind and every Roman son went through a ceremony of adoption. Every Roman father adopted in this special ceremony his son. And this was a special ceremony whereby this son was inducted into manhood.

It was a ceremony where he was given the full rights of his Roman citizenship. It was bestowed upon that young man at his adoption. Likewise by saying that we are the adopted sons of God we have received at immediate conversion by faith to Jesus Christ the full rights of our citizenship in heaven. It isn't just for the ones that have been say for five years or 10 years or 15 years and if I grow up long enough then I'll get security that I'm going to go to heaven or maybe I'll get the inheritance of the father maybe after doing these things or no right away at conversion you are adopted.

That's one of the many things that happens when you come to faith in Christ and you have been given the full rights. One of the rights has to do with inheriting the father's fortune. That's why a little later on in verse 17 Paul talks about becoming a co heir with Jesus Christ. He's thinking of a Roman ceremony of adoption whereby the son is able to inherit his father's fortune. So also being adopted into God's family Paul is telling us that we will inherit our father's fortune. Can you imagine we are wealthy beyond imagination.

We experience only a little bit of it now but we will have all of paradise in the presence of our Lord and everything imaginable and our wealth will be so great that gold will be pavement. There is also the use of the word adoption for the transference of one child into another and it happened in Roman culture. And Paul I think had this in mind as well. In a Roman adoption in this typical sense that we think of several things happen. Number one the adopted person lost all rights to his old family and more importantly the old family lost all of its rights to the son.

They couldn't come along later and say well now we really want you to come back and bail us out or we really want you to come back and continue our name. No they lost at that adoption ceremony all rights to that child. He literally as it were got a new father. By law the old life of the adopted person was completely wiped out. In fact if they were older when they were adopted whatever debts they owed were all canceled out at adoption. And in this ceremony the adopted son received again the right to carry on the name of his new family.

They were literally viewed as if they were biological children of the ones who had adopted them. There's an illustration in Roman history that gives us how this ceremony was considered so complete so legally binding. The emperor Claudius adopted Nero. We don't know what he saw Nero but he adopted Nero. He wanted Nero to sit upon his throne and so he adopted him in this kind of ceremony. Claudius had a daughter by birth, biological daughter named Octavia. And Nero decided that it would be a good idea to marry Octavia to strengthen his grip on the throne because he would be married to the biological daughter of the preceding emperor.

And so he wanted to marry her. But because of Roman law considering them now brother and sister the Roman Senate had to convene and make a special exemption of law to Nero so that he could marry the one that everyone now viewed as if she were his biological sister. It's as if they were blood related. Now let me pause just long enough to say isn't that significant in the fact that we refer to each other as brothers and sisters.

We use that term rather lightly don't we? In the mind of God who has adopted us it's as if we were literally related by blood. So treat your sisters right.

Treat your brothers right. In the mind of God it's as if you were born to the same parents. And so in the mind of Paul as he gives us this great truth he tells us that we've been adopted by God. What did God see in us? What would he see in us?

We would say well I don't know what Claudius would see in Nero. What would God see in us? Who knows our hearts. And yet he took us sinful poverty stricken helpless lost debt laden sinners and he adopted us into his own family so that all of our sinful debts are canceled out and the inheritance of heaven is now all ours.

Because the Spirit of God is the hand inside the glove activating the glove of our lives. We are now able to follow somebody new. We're now able to belong to somebody new.

Let me give you one more we're able to speak to someone new. Not only do we have divine leadership and a divine relationship we can experience divine worship. Look at the latter part of verse 15 again. You've received a spirit of adoption whereby or by which we cry out what say it. Abba father say it again. Abba father. You just said something that no Jew would ever say.

You have said something new. No Jew would ever address God as father. By the time of our Lord and even by of course beyond that the time of the Apostle Paul the names of God within the community of Jews were no longer even being spoken they were being withheld more and more from public speech and even from prayers in the writing or the copying of scripture.

By this time when a scribe reached the name of God in the Old Testament record he'd lay his quill down he'd go and he'd wash his hands thoroughly and he'd come back and he'd pick up a special quill and he'd write the name or the consonants of God and he placed the special quill back he'd pick up his old quill and he'd continue on through the text. They had such an incredible reverence for the name of God and that's the good part of it. And I would encourage you to have great reverence for the names of God. Don't use the names of God with a trite spirit. Don't say oh my G-O-D. His name shouldn't be used as some sort of exclamation like that. Treat it with great reverence.

We can learn that from them. The sad part is though they had great reverence there was great distance from this God. But the Spirit of God would change all that because of Christ's atoning death and the Spirit's creation of spiritual life and those who trust in Christ alone the Christian can now call God Father. It's fascinating to discover that Jesus Christ in the New Testament always spoke of God as his Father. He used that address in all of his prayers which is another good sign for us to speak with intimacy as we approach him.

He never prayed to God. He always prayed to the Father except for one time only and that was his cry from the cross right when he cried out and he said my God my God why hast thou forsaken me. But that only proves and strengthens this point that prayer that one in particular came from the lips of our Lord at the moment in which he was made sin for us and that intimacy was broken that fellowship was set aside and so he would refer to him as God no longer the intimacy that he had prayed earlier in the garden when he said to his father Abba Father.

Our Lord taught his disciples to pray with this kind of intimate confidence and he taught them to pray in this model prayer by beginning with our what our father. Now what does Abba mean. Well the word father is simply the Greek word translated into English father. Abba is the Aramaic expression which simply means father.

They both mean the same thing. The only difference is the fact that Abba is the address of small children to their fathers that was common in this day. The Jewish Talmud confirms that when a child was weaned he or she would learn how to say the words Abba and Emma Daddy and Mommy Papa and Mama. And so there is a radically new intimate approach to God that no Jew would ever consider addressing God as his father and he would consider blasphemous presumption to ever enter God's presence and call him Papa when they are put together. They show both intimacy and respect. This is saying something entirely new to God and by what right. What right.

The indwelling occupying enabling person of the Holy Spirit who has brought us to life. So this winter if it ever comes every time you put on your gloves I trust you will never look at your gloves the same again but you will be reminded of the principle of God's Spirit indwelling you activating in you these wonderful truths. By the way if these gloves could talk they'd never think of saying to me I'll go it alone today.

I don't need you anymore. Furthermore they would never grit their teeth if they had any and complain they've got to get out of the warm closet and go out into the cold. No they simply surrender to the hand that indwells them and by yielding to the indwelling movement and direction of the Holy Spirit like a glove yields to the hand it has action. Christianity is in a way simply hand in glove. This is wisdom for the heart. Today's lesson is called Hand in Glove and it's the eighth and final lesson in the series entitled The War Within. If you have a comment a question or would like more information you can send us an email if you address it to info at wisdomonline.org. We'll add your question and Stephen's answer to our collection. Once again that email address is info at wisdomonline.org. Starting tomorrow we're going to shift our focus to the Christmas season. Make plans to be with us this same time tomorrow right here on Wisdom for the heart. you