Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
The Spirit's Pace (Romans 8:1-30)
27 Plays1 year ago
Sunday Message recorded 11 February 2024
by Pat Preston
First Baptist Church -- Columbus TX
1700 Milam St.
Columbus, TX, USA 78934
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Gratitude
00:00:06
Speaker
Morning, everybody. We definitely feel like this is a homecoming. It is a gift to be back. For those of you that I don't know, my name is Pat Preston. You're definitely not getting the Super Bowl, Patrick. You're getting this. So you can get my homes tonight, but this morning, the super call is Patrick Preston. Sorry about that. And definitely not Taylor Swift here.
00:00:36
Speaker
We are so thankful to be back, and as Victor mentioned, and a few of you might already know, you know, we were at Pine Cove for 15 years. I started there as a 22-year-old, and that's really all we've known was camp ministry going from seminary into that, and God blessed that time. We love that ministry. We're so thankful for all the things and the ways that God shaped us at Pine Cove, that He
00:01:03
Speaker
He used different giftings. I mean, we're just so grateful.
Journey to Missions
00:01:07
Speaker
But a little bit about this message is going to explain how we got to this place of just surrendering to the call of oversee cross-cultural missions. It's been something that's been on our heart for a long time. When Meg was 15, that was something that she was like, this is where I'm going. And then I messed all that up by getting married and us having five kids. But it has been such a joy to see the journey that God has put us on.
00:01:32
Speaker
15 years of what we would call great preparation for this journey to come that we didn't know would be that long of a preparation and need. But what's interesting is as I talk about today, the spirit's pace, it's really what we've been walking through the last
00:01:51
Speaker
probably five years, the last year or two of being here in this community and then moving to Atlanta to help start the Southeast expansion with Pine Cove, which was a blessing, and all the things that the Lord had been teaching us and all the things that he was doing to specifically get us to this next call of going to Greece with great friends of ours who we got to work with at Pine Cove. Many of y'all know Tanner and Katie Coleman
00:02:18
Speaker
and we are humbled and excited to be able to go and serve with them and to do the Lord's will within that.
Challenges in Atlanta
00:02:26
Speaker
The last three to five years have been unsettling, to say the least, and I'm sure that many of you could say the same. Our last year here in Columbus was COVID.
00:02:40
Speaker
And some of you are like, just don't say it. Just don't say that word. Who cares? But that was an interesting time for us to leave this precious community. In the middle of the summer, we're moving to Atlanta, and we really don't feel like we necessarily got to really say goodbye in the best of ways because it was just such a weird time, right, for all of us.
00:03:00
Speaker
All of us were going through different things within that. And so a move to Atlanta was unsettling within that. As we got there, searching for a church in the Atlanta area, very easy. There's not many of them, right? No, there's thousands of churches there. There's so many options and opportunities. And honestly, it was overwhelming. It was overwhelming for our family. It was overwhelming for our marriage. We're trying to just, and we ultimately decided the closest church to our house that's teaching the Bible, that's where we're going to go.
00:03:29
Speaker
That's where we're going to go. And there were many different options, but that process was unsettling. Honestly, even the transition with Pine Cove was more difficult than I thought it was going to be. In this community and even with our people at Pine Cove, I felt very trusted. I felt like the people who were with me and following me were like, man, we're on your team. We believe in you. We know where you're going to go. We trust you.
00:03:56
Speaker
And when we got out to Atlanta, that was a very different situation, to say the least. I was the new guy and I was not trusted. And that was a difficult thing for me to come from such a sweet community like here in Columbus to then go to a very wide open, lonely, and filling, distrusted
Family Resilience
00:04:18
Speaker
place. It was a very unsettling thing. Meg's dad passed away.
00:04:24
Speaker
Meg's grandfather passed away. Our seven-year-old, we found out, needed open-heart surgery, which was amazing that it's happened and she's good to go by God's grace. So a lot of different things. And even more than that, we have five kids. So let's be honest, that's unsettling. And Meg would probably say, and she's married to me. So that's unsettling. I would not say the same.
00:04:51
Speaker
It's been an unsettling time. So where do we go and where do you go when things feel unsettled, when they feel disturbed, right? Because most likely you have been through this. You are going through it or you're gonna face this in life again. And as you enter back into work and school this week, as you look back at the past or prepare for the future, there's new seasons to come, new opportunities, new uncertainties, new problems.
00:05:19
Speaker
new difficulties, and what's our response going to be? Well, what does Paul say in Romans 8, 31 through
Faith and Resilience
00:05:28
Speaker
39? He says, what then shall we say to these things if God is for us? You know it. He who did not spare his own son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?
00:05:42
Speaker
Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died. More than that, who was raised?
00:05:51
Speaker
who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation or distress, persecution or famine, nakedness, danger, sword, as it's written for your sake, we are being killed all the day long. We're regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.
00:06:13
Speaker
Verse 37, no, in all these things we are what? More than conquerors, through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God and Christ Jesus, our Lord, amen. What an amazing truth to be read over us this morning. And it is true.
00:06:44
Speaker
Paul had this truth settled in his heart. But the reality is, you and I both know just reading that over you this morning isn't gonna fix everything, right?
00:06:54
Speaker
Just memorizing this verse doesn't necessarily go, OK, now we're all good. We know, hey, neither death nor life. I mean, you've probably quoted this before, and you go, still hurts, still difficult, still feeling unsettled. Well, how does he even get to this point, this amazing proclamation over us? We're going to, this morning, look at the first 30 verses. And you might be going, 30 verses? Wow, Pat, I already know you talk a lot, right? Well, buckle up. Here we go.
00:07:24
Speaker
We're gonna walk through this, and again, I'm just gonna try to communicate what God's word is saying and how it's impacted our hearts the last three to five years and what it looks like to walk in the Spirit's pace, the life that is in the Spirit from Romans 8, chapter, or verses one through 30. So let me pray and then we'll dive in. Father, we have great need.
00:07:50
Speaker
We come into this place, and I'm just so humbled and thankful as I see genuine heartfelt worship, friendships, a community that is unified together in this town, in this place that you've called them to. It's difficult, Lord, to look around and think that we're not here anymore. 11 plus years of being in this community of the friendships, the relationships, what feels to us as home,
00:08:21
Speaker
This is family, and I'm so thankful for that. And today, Lord, we all as a family are in great need of your presence, as in every day. And God, I pray that you would teach us through your word what it looks like to walk in your spirit, to keep in step with your spirit.
00:08:41
Speaker
And I know as some of us, we hear spirit-led living and it feels charismatic. It feels like, man, I don't want to get into this like crazy deal. And like, no, you spirit are God. And we're desperate for your movement in our lives. We want to walk with you because you live in us. We want that to overflow out of us into this world because this world needs
00:09:08
Speaker
Interaction with you, transformation through you and your power, Spirit. So we pray that you would do that in our hearts today and let it overflow into the community and the people around us. We pray in the name of Jesus, amen. So how many of y'all are runners in here?
00:09:26
Speaker
There's one. Awesome. That's what I figured. That's what I figured. Because that's definitely not me. There's like three of us in here. Great. Definitely don't like running. Based on this physical stature, you might not guess it. But I did run a 458 mile in high school. That's real. And you're like, I don't believe it. But it happened.
00:09:47
Speaker
But then, just a few days ago, I did a personal fitness test with some buddies that we work out with. And I got a 904. And at least I didn't double it in the last 20 years, you know? I didn't get to 10 minutes, so I'm doing OK.
Spiritual Pacing and Freedom
00:10:01
Speaker
But I do not like running. And really, my biggest problem with running is pace.
00:10:08
Speaker
right? The main premise behind PACE is to ensure that you preserve enough energy for the entirety of your workout, right? Or whatever you might be doing, a hike or a run. And it's especially important in the longer distances, right? Without pacing, you risk the potential of burnout or over training. And those two things specifically, burnout and over training,
00:10:34
Speaker
Both hit me hard in the last five or so years, and maybe for some of you in the room as well. In Adam Ramsey's book, Truth on Fire, he says this, those of us living in Western cultures are generally about as restless and impatient as a four-year-old on a cross-country road trip. Are we there yet? How much longer comes the voice from the backseat of our hearts as we barely pass the end of our street? We think to ourselves, once I arrive there,
00:11:02
Speaker
then everything will be OK. But here's the truth. The idea that we will ever be satisfied by our constant rush toward our own personally defined there is nothing more than a mirage. It shimmers on the horizons of our imagination, but only lures us deeper and deeper into a desert of discontentment.
00:11:23
Speaker
Instead, we need to learn to live at the Spirit's pace. What if we learn to really understand the faithfulness of God, the perfection of His timing, and that He has never once been behind schedule?
00:11:37
Speaker
in a world that shifts as constantly as the surface of the ocean where the winds of culture may change direction at a moment's notice. God's faithfulness stands firm and true. His commitment to the fulfillment of his plans at the right time is as unwavering as Mount Everest is before a desk fan. I love that.
00:11:59
Speaker
He is the eternal God, existing outside of time and uninhibited in his ability to move within it. He fully inhabits not only everywhere, but also every when. How could a God who holds time in his hands like you hold this very book?
00:12:19
Speaker
ever be described as late. As Jen Wilkins says, he is simultaneously the God of the past, present, and future, bending time to his perfect will, unfettered by its constraints. The past holds him no missed opportunity, and the present holds him no anxiety. The future holds him no uncertainty.
00:12:40
Speaker
You know, none of us know how much longer we have on this earth for whatever time that we do. Because for me, when I think about pace, as a young man, I was going pace, look, I'm living for the Lord. It doesn't matter if I die tomorrow. Let's go. Like, I'm just going to run as fast as I can. And I'm going to just do everything that I can for the Lord because he's my everything. So I'm going to give him everything, which the heart in that was right. My everything is already his.
00:13:08
Speaker
But there was a misunderstanding there as if I in myself had something enough for Jesus that he'd go, yeah, can I get a little bit more of that, Pat? I need a little bit more. Like, he doesn't need anything from me, right? And so we don't really know how much longer we'll have, but what would it look like to learn? And I don't mean the spirit's pace is slow.
00:13:31
Speaker
That doesn't mean that we just lollygag through life and, hey, I'm a jogger. I'm a walker. I'm a speed walker. Have you ever seen those speed walkers? So funny to watch. It doesn't necessarily mean a certain type of speed. Some seasons are faster. Some seasons are slower. Some seasons, you're not even moving much.
00:13:54
Speaker
You're resting. You don't even feel like you're maybe in the race, but yet the Lord is still working. And so what would it look like for us to know how to, as even Paul says in another letter, in Galatians five, if we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. So today I'm gonna talk about three main points that we'll get from Romans chapter eight, the first 30 verses. Walking in the Spirit's pace means we walk in freedom,
00:14:23
Speaker
We walk in security, and we walk in eager expectation. I believe if you have your notes, you can go ahead and fill them in and leave now, because you got the message. So you're good to go. Let's look at the first 11 verses here in Romans chapter 8. Paul says, therefore, there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.
00:14:50
Speaker
For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending in his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh. But those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.
00:15:19
Speaker
For to set the mind on the flesh as death, but to set the mind on the Spirit as life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh as hostile to God. For it does not submit to God's law. Indeed, it cannot. For those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
00:15:35
Speaker
You, however, are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if in fact the spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is life because of righteousness. If the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his spirit who dwells in you.
00:16:06
Speaker
Now, bear with me, we're talking about Romans eight. It's a pretty incredible chapter in the Bible. I'm not gonna unpack it all, right? We're gonna hit these three points. There's so much within this text, right? And the context of what Paul is speaking of. But here's just a few things. If we're walking in the spirit, it seems as though Paul's talking a lot in the first part about walking at the spirit's pace means we have a freedom that we're walking in. What are we free from?
00:16:34
Speaker
Well, verses one through six show that we're free from the flesh, freedom from the flesh. Number two, freedom from the world. And number three, freedom from the enemy. Let's talk first about the flesh. What does the flesh produce? Well, we see in verse one, this Greek word denoting this idea of not just the verdict, but the penalty for sin, condemnation. Flesh is gonna produce condemnation.
00:17:00
Speaker
Flesh is going to produce sin and death, as we see in verse 2. Flesh is going to produce a shaky foundation. When you look at verse 3, it says, for God has done what the law weakened by the flesh could not do. It could not do. It was a shaky foundation. You could not build upon that, a weakening of established rules and customs.
00:17:23
Speaker
The flesh produces an inability to fulfill the righteous requirement we see in verse four. In order that the righteous requirement of all might be fulfilled in us, we walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit, right? So if we're walking in the flesh, that righteous requirement could not be produced.
00:17:44
Speaker
The flesh produces an inability to fulfill that requirement. And the last thing is that the flesh, as we see in verse five through six, it produces a mind occupied by itself, right? A mind that is set on the flesh. But yet, in Christ, think about the freedoms that we have in Christ because of what he produces. You see, Christ produces condemnation of sin, not you.
00:18:10
Speaker
not condemnation for you or I, though we deserve that, but condemnation of the sin in the flesh because he paid the full penalty.
00:18:20
Speaker
And in turn, there is no condemnation for us. In Christ, he produces obedience and life, not sin and death, but obedience and life we see in verse two and six. Not human perfection, but Christ's reflection. We reflect who he is. As Paul later is gonna say in the doxology to the Romans, he talks about this obedience of faith. Not the overworking, but the overflowing. Not working for God's approval,
00:18:48
Speaker
okay for obedience but working from it that we already are approved by God because of Christ and in that there's obedience of faith that happens. Faith that as James tells us produces works that otherwise we would never be able to produce on our own.
00:19:04
Speaker
So Christ, in Christ, we have this freedom, right, because he produces condemnation of the sin and not condemnation for us, obedience in life. He also gives us a strong foundation for and a fulfillment of the law. As he talks about in Matthew chapter five, verse 17, he says, do not think that I have come to abolish the law.
00:19:25
Speaker
Jesus did not come to say, get rid of that. I'm doing a new thing. And he was doing a new thing, right? But he wasn't saying, I'm going to get rid of all that. And this is like a totally new religion, like the old God that he's not. No, that's still God. That's Father, right?
00:19:43
Speaker
And so Jesus has this amazing ability to come in and provide this strong foundation for and fulfillment of the law. Romans 10 later, Paul tells them, for Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.
00:19:58
Speaker
And he did provide that required righteousness as we see in Romans 3, 21 through 26. Many of you know that verse, right? When it comes for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. But before that it says, but now the righteousness of God has been made manifested apart from the law. Although the law and the prophets bear witness to it, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.
00:20:22
Speaker
And the last thing is, when we have that freedom from the flesh because of Christ, Christ is producing a mind that's occupied with what the Spirit of God is occupied with. Have you read in the last few chapters of John or in the middle area of 14 through 17?
00:20:39
Speaker
how Jesus prays for his disciples the things in which he speaks about, about this helper in John 14, 15, and 17. He says, if you love me, you'll keep my commandments and I'll ask the Father and he'll give you what? Another helper, to be with you forever. Why have we thought that living the Christian life could be done without his spirit, the helper?
00:21:03
Speaker
Jesus says again in John 14, verse 25 through 26, these things I've spoken to you while I'm still with you, but the Helper, the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all these things and bring to your remembrance all I've said to you. Chapter 15, verse 26, and John, he says, but when the Helper comes whom I'll send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth,
00:21:24
Speaker
who proceeds from the Father, He will bear witness about me. And then lastly, in John 16, verse 7 through 15, I won't read it all, but he says, nevertheless, I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage. Can you imagine being the disciples? And Jesus says, it's to your advantage that I go.
00:21:40
Speaker
No, no, no, no, you're God, you're the Son of God, you're Messiah, you're our Savior. He says this to your advantage that I go, for if I do not go, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I'll send him to you, and when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment, concerning sin because they do not believe in me, concerning righteousness because I go to the Father and you will see me no longer. A perfect plan.
00:22:08
Speaker
of bringing help through His Spirit. So we have freedom from the flesh, but we also have freedom from the world. The world is hostile to God, verse 7 says. It's hostile to God, and it's hostile to us. You feel any of that? I would assume, though small town Columbus, you might not be getting as much as we're getting in Atlanta, you're still getting some hostility, right? There's still hostility to what we believe,
00:22:38
Speaker
to the things that we believe are true. We did a Bible study this summer at Chimney Point at our family camp on truth. And one of our speakers was talking about we're not even in a post-Christian society anymore, we're in a post-truth society.
00:22:54
Speaker
Your truth is your truth, my truth is my truth. Man, if that's the case, that's scary, but that's where we're leaning. And the world is hostile, not only to God, but to us. And it's unwilling to submit, verse seven talks about. It's unable to please God. In verse eight it says, those who are in the flesh cannot please God. And verse nine, the world does not belong to God. But I love God.
00:23:20
Speaker
At the beginning of verse nine, you, however, are not in the flesh. Because you have freedom from the flesh, there's this freedom from the world that gives you peace with God, gives you a joyful submission to God. You don't see submission to God when you're walking in the spirit. You don't see submission to God as a burden. You see it as a gift.
00:23:44
Speaker
You know how needy you are. You know there is none, no other, none like him to submit to. When you know his power and you know who he is, submission to him is joyfully embraced. And you have a position of being pleasing to him and belonging to him. So you have freedom from the flesh, you have freedom from the world. And then really all encompassed in that 11 verses is you have freedom from the enemy.
00:24:13
Speaker
Many of us in here are thinking of an enemy and we're thinking of a certain political person. Or we're thinking of a certain, maybe family or a certain denominator. I don't know what that enemy could be. But the true enemy, the devil, he's the one prowling around. He's the one seeking to devour. He's the one who wants to destroy this foundation that we have in Christ.
00:24:37
Speaker
C.S. Lewis is quoted saying, the enemy will not see, you vanish into God's company without an effort to reclaim you. Thomas Adams was quoted saying, Satan like a fisher, baits his hook according to the appetite of the fish.
00:24:54
Speaker
Yet those who are in Christ Jesus are set free from that bondage. Freedom from the enemy. The father, through Paul, tells us he has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved son in whom we have redemption and the forgiveness of sins in Colossians 1. And A.W. Tozer says, Christ in you, the hope of glory. I'm not afraid of the devil. The devil can handle me. He's got a judo I've never heard of.
00:25:24
Speaker
but He can't handle the one to whom I'm joined. He can't handle the one to whom I'm united. He can't handle the one whose nature dwells in my nature. Amen. Y'all, keeping in step with the Spirit means that we walk united to Christ and we walk in freedom. Freedom from the flesh, freedom from the world, freedom from the enemy, but that's not it.
00:25:48
Speaker
Going on to verses 12 through 17, we also walk in security. We walk in security. Verse 12 through 17 says this, so then brothers, we are debtors not to the flesh to live according to the flesh. 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.
00:26:08
Speaker
For all who are led by the spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry, Abba, Father, the spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. And if children then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.
00:26:36
Speaker
So not only do we walk in freedom when we're walking at the Spirit's pace, but we walk with security. We walk in security. There's this story of a pilot in the 1940s named Chuck Yeager. Maybe some of y'all have heard that name before.
00:26:52
Speaker
And he relates to this story when this flight that he was on didn't go well because he was actually, as an Air Force pilot, was asked to fly the new F-86 Sabre because they had had some unexpected crashes and they were wanting him to see what was going wrong.
00:27:11
Speaker
And so he got into the saber to determine the cause of these accidents, and he found his answer pretty quickly. Once inverted, the ailerons on the saber would lock up and become immovable. And so once the aircraft was rolled right side up, he was able to regain control, but many of the other pilots weren't able to do that. He was able to regain control. And after a detailed inspection on it, it was determined that a crucial bolt
00:27:39
Speaker
in the ailerons had been assembled incorrectly. It was actually assembled upside down. My point is that I think every day we are securing or fastening ourselves to something. If we're prideful or overconfident, we might find security in ourselves, our achievements, our successes. If we're insecure, then we've lost the ability to feel secure and safely fasten to who we are because we're so busy worrying about what others might think about us.
00:28:09
Speaker
So in reality, we're just fastening ourselves to something else. Maybe others' opinions. Maybe an unrealistic expectation from others or from yourself. Or maybe to just false ideologies. Or maybe even to factual things that may describe us but they don't define us. The scary thing here is that every day we're attaching, fastening to something. And I believe that most of us here would know that we need secure fastening to Christ.
00:28:39
Speaker
We know that Jesus is the one in which we need to be fastened to, but what if our fastening to Him has been a little upside down? We've actually fastened to Him in a different way, trying, like, you know, we didn't really understand what it meant to really depend on Him, because we want Jesus, but, plus these other things. Like, I want Jesus, but I also want this, this, this, this. It's an upside down bolt.
00:29:04
Speaker
You can't fasten to Jesus plus other things. It is Him and Him alone. And when we walk in the Spirit, we realize this because we walk in this security.
00:29:14
Speaker
We have a secure position in Christ. Our obligation changes. Paul starts with stating that we're debtors not to the flesh to live according to the flesh. Some of your Bibles might say, we're not obligated, right? We're obligated not to the flesh. And that original Greek word is this meaning of owing another person, having an obligation or being bound to someone by a duty. And so Paul is clear that our position in Christ is not one in which we have a debt to pay to the flesh.
00:29:43
Speaker
We don't owe the flesh anything, nor we obligated to live under the illusion of control that the flesh may throw our way. Our obligation, or what we're bound to now, is the spirit, verse 13. And in that obligation, we put to death the deeds of the body.
00:30:03
Speaker
As John Owen talks about in his book, The Mortification of Sin, we need to be killing sin or it will be killing us. We need to make an effort of killing sin or it will be killing us, but we do that because of the Spirit.
00:30:20
Speaker
Not because of anything on our own, I wanna be clear, putting to death the deeds of the body is not done in our own efforts. It has to be spirit-led, it has to be centered upon the work of Christ, the finished work of Christ, and it must not be from a position that's shaky, or a position that's foundationally unfit, it needs to be a secure foundation. And that's what we have in Christ.
00:30:43
Speaker
We have this seated position in Christ. Ephesians two verses four through seven says, but God being rich in mercy because of the great love in which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. By grace you've been saved and raised us up with him and what? Seated us with him in the heavenly places. What a profound truth.
00:31:07
Speaker
Colossians 3, 1 speaks about, too, that we should seek the things that are above where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. I don't have to worry about my position here on earth. One of the things that's led to some of that unsettling is I'm trying to number, how many days do I have? I'm worried about death. Do I have 30 years? Do I have 40 years? I need to plan for this. And I remember sitting down with Calvin.
00:31:37
Speaker
And I was asking, Calvin, I was like, man, how do you live life knowing like the end could come? And first he's like, the same for you, buddy. You're not promised tomorrow. But he brought me to Psalm 139, verse 16. And it's been a profound truth that's went with me through a ton of unsettling of your eyes saw my unformed substance.
00:32:05
Speaker
and your book were written every one of them the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. He knows every single day we have, which gives me a real secure position. I don't have to worry about how much more time I have.
00:32:24
Speaker
I need to worry about walking in His Spirit and the position that He's given me seated, secure in Christ. I don't have to be insecure about my job, which I don't really have one right now, right? I mean, like, it was a good thing for me to leave Pine Cove, to leave something that was a secure and amazing place where I had a title.
00:32:48
Speaker
and a salary and got to go, look, great place, great opportunity. I've got something better for you and your family. Because you're securely walking in me, I'm gonna move you into a place of dependency on the mission field.
00:33:06
Speaker
And it has been an amazing truth to remember. So we have a secure position. We also have a secure identity. And we see this in verses 14 through really 16 or so when he's talking about first we're followers, we're led by the spirit. So many of us are leading things, but we have to first remember we're following.
00:33:25
Speaker
Well, every day, you're a follower first. But also, we're called children of God. John 1, 12 through 13 says, but to all who did receive him who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God who were born not of blood nor the will of flesh nor the will of man, but of God.
00:33:43
Speaker
Children are fully dependent on their parents. They bear the image of their parents and their name. They're fully known and accepted. They're taught and trained on how to obey. And so we are within our fathers.
00:33:56
Speaker
presence. We're fully dependent on Him. We bear His image. We're known fully and accepted fully by Him. So we have this secure identity as sons, and then not only that, we're securely adopted, right? We did not belong to the family of God based on our sin.
00:34:14
Speaker
But yet, when we get this adoption into the family, we're identified as a new member living under a new name and a new identity, a new family. It doesn't mean that the old family and the old things don't still impact us. I feel that from my past, right? But yet, this new adoption into the family is a secure adoption. One of the coolest things about it is it's
00:34:42
Speaker
It's legally like we're losing the past debts. Anything that we did owe from the past, we don't even owe that anymore. We've lost that identity, those debts, those names, that identity of that previous family, and we've become legally identified and known as belonging to this family. And the last thing is a secure inheritance. Heirs with Christ.
00:35:08
Speaker
You hear that? Some of us have really belittled that reality. Heirs with Christ, a secure inheritance, not one that's gonna go away that can be spent on a new pool or a new car or whatever.
00:35:23
Speaker
It's a secure inheritance, right? And the beautiful thing is it's not just, I mean, God owns everything. Psalm 24, one, the earth is the Lord's in the fullness thereof, right? I mean, our inheritance from him, we could think about it from a materialistic standpoint and go, wow, but heirs with Christ means that we also, we get him. We get fully this secure inheritance of the presence of God in our lives.
00:35:51
Speaker
If you think about Jesus' high priestly prayer in John 17, again, I know going back to John a lot in this sermon, but he says that they may also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. You know at the beginning he says, I do not ask for these only speaking about the disciples, but for also for those who will believe in me through their word. That's you. That's me. Can you imagine? Jesus prayed for you and me and he asked that we,
00:36:17
Speaker
would be in him so that the world may believe that the father had sent him.
00:36:23
Speaker
So we have this secure position in life. No need to worry about how many more days we have. We're seated in Christ. We have this secure identity of sons, daughters, adopted and grafted into his family. And we have a secure inheritance as heirs with Christ. But the last thing is when we walk in the spirit, yes, we're walking in freedom.
Hope and Promises in Christ
00:36:43
Speaker
Yes, we're walking in security. But this is probably the best piece that God's been teaching us a lot. We walk with eager expectation.
00:36:52
Speaker
Eager expectation. Expectations are strong beliefs that something will happen or be the case in the future. But sometimes expectations can just be disappointments in the making or resentments on the horizon. Some would say, just expect nothing and you'll never be disappointed. And maybe
00:37:12
Speaker
In some situations, that could be true. We can't expect people to be perfect or fulfill every need or desire. We can't expect things to always go our way. We can't expect to be comfortable all the time and never have to deal with difficulties. But if you expect nothing all the time, sure.
00:37:33
Speaker
You might not be surprised by difficulty or disappointment, but expecting nothing means just that you expect to get nothing. You expect emptiness. You expect to never be fulfilled. You may become cynical, distrusting, suspicious about everything and everyone, maybe even God. And maybe some of you are walking through that right now because of your, well, I'm just gonna expect nothing out of anybody or out of anything.
00:38:05
Speaker
You may lessen the amount of disappointment by expecting nothing, but you also lessen the amount of delight, delight and desire fulfilled in Christ. And I don't think the Lord desires for us to have no expectations at all. I believe He wants us to expect the right things, to have expectations that are rooted and flowing out of His revealed word and His spoken promises.
00:38:28
Speaker
David said, with confidence in Psalm 23.6, surely, surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever. So let's talk about expectations. First, we can expect some hard things. There are some hard things to expect, and somebody will be like, really, come on, we need some encouragement here. There is some encouragement, but one of the things that we can expect that's hard is suffering, loss, pain.
00:38:54
Speaker
Paul says, I consider, in that Greek word, the original means this idea of counting or calculating. So he's going, look, I'm gonna count up all my sufferings. And he actually does this pretty good in 2 Corinthians chapter 11 verse 23 through 29. You can read that later. I mean, he talks about, I've gotten lashes, been beaten with rod, stone, shipwreck, in danger, in the wilderness, toil, hardship, sleepless nights, hunger, thirst. I mean, he just keeps going on.
00:39:22
Speaker
And so we're going to have sufferings in this present time. He said, I can count all my sufferings. There's going to be sufferings now. Maybe in the future, there's going to be subjection to futility, which is this idea of uselessness, something devoid of truth. It's like loss.
00:39:38
Speaker
We're gonna have this groaning together that's a normal, like everybody's feeling it. All of creation feels this expressed grief or pain that he's talking about in verse 22. But then verse 23, we're gonna feel this deeper, more intimate, more personal feeling of grief, inward, deep hurt. But all of it is temporary.
00:40:05
Speaker
Why is it temporary? Because it's not worth comparing. It's not worth comparing what? To the glory to be revealed. None of it's not even close to comparing to the glory to be revealed. Tim Keller says, while other worldviews lead us to sit in the midst of these life's joys, foreseeing the coming sorrows, Christianity empowers its people to sit in the midst of today's sorrows, tasting the coming joy.
00:40:35
Speaker
So we can expect hard things. They're gonna come. It's just a reality. But we know what's to come. And this is what gets me to the next part. We can expect to wait.
00:40:46
Speaker
And some of you are like, at least for me, I'm like, I don't like to wait. I'm very impatient. But man, God's been teaching me this. Expect to wait, verses 24 through 25. And he speaks in verse 19. Creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. So that's when in Colossians 3-4 Paul says that when Christ who is your life appears, then you'll also be with him. So we're waiting for that moment.
00:41:11
Speaker
We groan inwardly, verse 23 says, as we wait eagerly for the adoption of sons and the redemption of our bodies. It doesn't mean that our adoption's not secure, we've already talked about that, it is secure. But it hasn't met its fullness of satisfaction. Ultimate perfection as adopted daughters and sons will happen when we're ultimately with him fully. And we're waiting on that. And we're hoping for what we do not see and waiting for it with patience, verse 24 and 25 talks about.
00:41:39
Speaker
It takes endurance. The process of sanctification for the believer is a reality and it just flat out takes time. I'm sure that many of you who are older than me would say that you're still in the process of being sanctified. And what a gift it is that the closer you get to him, the more you realize you have room to grow.
00:42:09
Speaker
So we can expect to suffer and have loss. We can expect to wait. These are hard things. And we can expect weakness. That's another one that some of you are like, whoa, whoa, whoa, come on now. I've got this. Me and God, we're doing this thing. But you can expect to be weak. I don't know if you all have watched The Chosen. If you like it, if you don't, either way, I'm going to give this reference.
00:42:31
Speaker
in the chosen in episode three of season two, I think. Anyways, it's two by two and he's sending out the disciples, so I'm ruining this, but if you've read your Bible, you're good, so. And this isn't necessarily the specific, like a Bible example, but it's a cool moment. Little James walks out and he had just said, hey, I'm sending you two by two, right? Little James walks out and what is he doing? He's like, I'm a little confused.
00:42:58
Speaker
You want me to go and heal people? And he's like, yes. He's like, but I'm not healed. Why haven't you healed me? And Jesus' response, and again, this isn't scripture right there, but you'll see how James talks, how he writes his letter and you'll see what they're getting out here. He says, because I trust you. And I was like, what? You're not healing him because you trust him. And he later goes on and he says,
00:43:27
Speaker
How much more of a testimony are you gonna have showing that you were patient with your suffering here on earth because you knew you would have no suffering and eternity with your father? He said, how many people do you think my father and I trust with this? He said, I'm gonna heal thousands. There's gonna be very few who can sit there and not be healed.
00:43:49
Speaker
and say he's worthy of it. And I'm gonna keep pressing forward and I'm gonna wait because my healing here would be temporary. But my eternal healing is forever. And that's what I want more. I don't want Jesus just for this lifetime. And I hope that that's not what you want either.
00:44:08
Speaker
This here would be temporary. Yes, He impacts it greatly, but what we wait for is a forever eternity, a forever healing, a finality of what has felt painful and lost and difficulty. We want Him. And that's what He's showing them. We can expect weakness. So we can expect hard things, but then there are better expectations, and here's what those are. We can expect that the Spirit's gonna intercede. He intervenes on our behalf with His own groanings.
00:44:38
Speaker
Isn't that amazing? We're not alone in our groaning. Some of you feel like you're alone, man, I've been going through this and you know, God knows his spirit groans with groanings too deep for words. It's expressed grief on our behalf that can't even be expressed in words. Wow, it's so deep. We can expect his goodness. And it's true good, not like, man, honey, that was a good meal. Like if I said that, they'd be like, what's wrong?
00:45:07
Speaker
I might be sleeping on the couch, right? Good in our definition today isn't really good, right? But Jesus valued the word good. When he was asked by the rich young ruler, good teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life? Instead of unpacking everything, he says, why do you call me good? No one's good except God alone. Jesus knew that the goodness of God, it wasn't diminished like we've diminished it here.
00:45:32
Speaker
So we can expect God's goodness is the beam of light bursting through all of his other attributes. I mean, when we think about his righteousness, his sovereignty, and his powerful, if that wasn't good, he could use that for bad. And yet he is good. All things work together for the good of those.
00:45:57
Speaker
who are in Christ Jesus. So we can say with Joseph like he did when he said, what you meant for evil, brothers, God meant for good. And then we can expect to be different, to be set apart because you're chosen to be conformed to the image of Christ. Having the same form, you're called, invited, called by name, personally chosen and set apart. You're justified, right?
00:46:26
Speaker
A rendering of a righteous status. A declaration of righteous. Maybe you don't feel good enough today. It was never about your good enough state anyways. A declared righteousness over you. And then we'll be glorified. A praising and extolling of to make glorious, to adorn with splendor. It's incredible.
00:46:50
Speaker
And there's much more to expect. I can't unpack all this. But the reality is when we are walking at the Spirit's pace, we have these three truths.
Conclusion of Faith
00:47:00
Speaker
We walk in freedom. Freedom from the flesh, freedom from the world, freedom from the enemy. We walk in security, secure position, secure identity, a secure inheritance that won't go away. And we walk with eager expectation.
00:47:19
Speaker
We know there are hard things coming. We know we might suffer. We know we're going to have to wait. We know we're going to be weak. But man, do we expect the better things. We know the spirit's going to intercede. We know his true goodness is going to come out. And we know that our life is set apart because we're conformed to Christ.
00:47:41
Speaker
And so we get to proclaim then. Because of walking in the spirit and walking in freedom and walking in security and walking with eager expectations, then we proclaim what then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? Not even ourselves. Who can be against us?
00:48:06
Speaker
He who did not spare his own son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall separate us from the love of God, verse 35, from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, no, shall distress, no, persecution, no, famine, nakedness, danger, sword, no, no, in all things, he says in verse 37, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.
00:48:36
Speaker
For I'm sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God and Christ Jesus, our Lord. We proclaim that when we're walking in the spirit and freedom and security and with eager expectation of what he's doing.
00:49:05
Speaker
We are more than conquerors and nothing can separate us from that reality of who we are in Christ. So Father, we bow before you and we thank you for the truth of your word, our desperate need for you and that you are enough, that you fulfill fully, you satisfy, you're sufficient and supreme.
00:49:26
Speaker
Teach us what it looks like to walk in your spirit, to keep in step with your spirit. If any of us, even today, Lord, by the convicting of your spirit, realize we've been walking in our own effort. We've been really just depending. We've got a wrong fastening to Christ because we've liked for Christ to be a part of our life, but not our life.
00:49:48
Speaker
and we haven't truly surrendered to Him, I pray that that conviction would lead us to repentance and true submission to you today. But for those of us who are already following after you, and we're just trying to figure out day by day how to walk in step with your spirit, teach us what it looks like to walk in freedom, to walk in security, and to walk with an eager expectation of what you're doing. In Jesus' name, amen.
00:50:19
Speaker
This is a ministry of First Baptist Church, located at 1700 Milam Street, Columbus, Texas.