Please remain standing now for the reading of
God's word.
We're continuing in Paul's letter to the Romans
and we are going through verse
12
to verse 17 today. Romans chapter 8
verse 12
to verse 17. And I'll tell you right
now, we're really gonna focus on the first
half of verse 17.
Next week, we're gonna do verses 17 18
and we'll pick it up in the second
half of verse 17 just so so you
know already.
Alright, Romans chapter 8 verses 12 to 17
please listen to the reading of God's word.
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.
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. This is the word
of the Lord.
Thanks be to God. Please be seated.
In 1st century Rome,
it was not uncommon
for powerful men to adopt
grown men, adults,
whom they believe could be worthy heirs
to steward their estate with shrewdness
and especially to carry on the honor of
their family name.
In 44 BC,
after Julius Caesar's assassination, it was revealed that
he had adopted
Gaius Octavius,
and named him as his heir.
At the his adoption,
Octavius took the name Gaius Julius Caesar Octavius
bearing the name
of his adopted father.
This adoption not only legitimized
Octavius status
but also provided him with the political capital
and name recognition
necessary
to ascend in Roman politics.
When he became Emperor, he took the name
Augustus Caesar
preserving Caesar's name
and status.
Today we're looking at Romans chapter 8 verses
12 to 17, a text that invites us
to consider
the life altering implications
of being adopted
into the household of God.
Next Sunday, we will look at verse 17
again and at verse 18
where we will see that being part of
God's household
implies a sobering responsibility.
But this week I want you to focus
on the great blessing
of your adoption.
In fact, the main point I want you
to remember this morning is this,
because God has adopted you,
you are blessed
with great privilege and status.
Because God has adopted you, you are blessed
with great privilege
and status.
And we will consider this truth as we
divide this sermon into 2 headings.
1st, the fear of the flesh
and second,
the assurance of adoption.
Just consider the first heading, the fear of
the flesh. Look at verses 12 and 13
again with me.
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.
Notice that Paul writes that Christians are not
debtors to the flesh
to live according to the flesh.
In other words, Christians are no longer
under legal obligation
to serve the flesh.
The flesh is no longer our master.
Now I remind you once again that Paul
often uses this word, the flesh,
as a technical term that refers to fallen
humanity's nature.
As such, Paul writes that fallen human beings
are in bondage to sin
resulting inevitably in their death.
For example,
in Romans 6,
Paul calls human beings slaves of sin
and in Romans 7, Paul writes that before
being born again, Christians were in the flesh
and that our sinful passions were at work
in us
to bear fruit
for death.
The governing metaphor Paul uses is that fallen
human beings
are in bondage to their fleshly nature,
a master which demands sin from them
and who in return
pays their wage for their labor,
death.
Paul summarizes this transaction in Romans 623
where he writes that the wages of sin
is death.
In the flesh,
we labor for our master
producing sin
and he pays us
with death.
This is consistent with what Paul writes here
in verse 13
where he warns, if you live according to
the flesh,
you will die.
Some of you may recall my sermon from
Romans 623
Actually, who am I kidding? Right? Nobody recalls
my sermon from Romans 623. So let me
remind you. Okay?
At that time, I said that sin or
the flesh
is most certainly a harsh taskmaster,
but it's always it always pays its slaves
the wages that they earn.
And again,
the rightly earned wage
is death.
They can count on their payment,
They can count on it in full
and they don't have to wait for the
day of judgment.
The disbursements have already begun.
They're always on time.
Payments always run
according to schedule.
You see the Greek word that Paul uses
for wages in Romans 6/23
refers primarily to the daily rations
or the daily provisions of food
that a Roman soldier would receive.
They would typically be paid in cooked meat
usually fish.
So too sin
or the flesh pays the soldiers in its
army
with daily rations.
It pays with food
that never satisfies.
It pays with rations
that never fill.
It pays with provisions
that leave its soldiers
more poor,
more weak,
and more dependent
than before.
And though it would be unjust for soldiers
to not receive their wages,
one can be sure that the flesh always
follows the letter of the law.
It always pays its subjects wages
to the last penny.
And the rotten rations we receive when we
sin
do not leave us the same.
They change us.
They change us from that first moment that
we ingest them.
Sin continues to work its rot
in us,
consuming us from within,
decimating God's image in us, and making us
in a sense
less and less human.
Perhaps you're experiencing this cancerous metastasis within your
soul
believing that you can continue to partake of
the rot,
that you can continue to indulge
that sinful
appetite,
that you have it under control,
that no one will notice.
You think that you are sin's sovereign
when you're actually sin's slave.
You think your path is pleasure
when your destiny
is death.
You think no one will notice
when your every action is always before the
righteous judge
who sees all things.
Is that you this morning?
If you're honest with yourself, are you in
bondage
to the spirit of slavery?
If so, your wages will become like a
chain around your neck
that gets thicker and thicker
and its burden heavier
and heavier.
Perhaps you're quick to dismiss such thoughts
thinking to yourself that you work hard to
obey God's law,
priding yourself
in the firm belief that you are more
disciplined than others,
that your heart is less corrupt,
that your deeds deserve
God's favor.
Dear friend, if that is you,
although your discipline and obedience
will keep you away from some turmoil,
your pride might prove a different kind of
chain around your neck.
A chain that is just as thick
and just as heavy and that is engraved
with the same master's name.
That pharisaical
notion that one is capable of earning God's
favor with his own works
is a lie.
It's a lie that comes straight from the
pit of hell
from the father of lies himself.
Such delusion
results in either
a heart that is stone cold and frozen
to God's grace
without sensitivity to its own sin
and therefore to its own need of repentance?
Or as Paul writes in verse 15,
a heart that is paralyzed by fear
seeing God as a tyrant whose favor
is not the result of fatherly love
but the wages from a temporary contractual obligation
always subject to change,
always
under threat of not being renewed.
The spirit of slavery
never results in fellowship with God
or in fellowship with God's people.
It never leads to an abiding love for
God,
for his word,
or for his church.
It always ends in paralyzing fear,
in dehumanizing
isolation,
and in
certain and tragic
death.
This is what Paul writes in verses 12
and 13 about those who walk according to
the flesh, those who are debtors
to the flesh, those who are living
in the fear
of the flesh.
But in verse 12,
Paul writes that Christians are no longer debtors
to the flesh
which brings us to our second heading,
the assurance of adoption.
Look at verses 13 and 14 again.
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.
For all who are led by the spirit
of God
are sons of God.
In verse 9, we learn that Christians are
indwelled by the Holy Spirit.
That's what distinguishes or marks you as a
Christian. The fact that the Holy Spirit dwells
within you.
Here
in verse 14, Paul writes that the Holy
Spirit leads
or guides those who are sons of God.
There's a couple things I want you to
note about this assertion.
First,
notice that the Holy Spirit is not passive
within believers.
If you're a Christian the Holy Spirit leads
you in your walk.
A path has been prepared for you and
it is God's spirit
dwelling within you
who is taking you by the hand as
it were and leading you to the destination
your heavenly father has already laid out for
you.
At a time when so many people seem
content
to live aimless lives,
obsessed with what other people are doing,
with what people they dislike
are doing,
with what people they like and admire are
doing,
with what friends are doing on social media,
with what youtubers
are posting,
with what men playing games in costumes for
1,000,000 of dollars
are doing,
with what Joe Biden or Donald Trump or
Vladimir Putin are doing,
with what world markets
and bank accounts are doing,
Christians
can actually live for a purpose
that comes from God himself.
That is a great gift to you, dear
Christian.
Your life has a purpose
that is greater than you.
Whether you're a young child
still in elementary school
or you're getting ready to go to college
or you're looking for a new job,
God has a meaningful purpose for your life
and for each and every day.
Look at what Paul writes in Ephesians chapter
2 verses 8 to 10.
He writes, for by grace you have been
saved through faith
and this is not your own doing, it
is a gift from God, not a result
of works so that no one may boast.
For we are his workmanship
created in Christ Jesus for good works which
God prepared beforehand
that we should walk in them. Before
you were even born,
God prepared good works for you to walk
in.
That is the path that God has laid
out before you and that is the path
on which the Holy Spirit leads you.
When you were in bondage to the flesh
your destiny was death
but now
being guided by the spirit your destiny is
life
and peace
and joy.
You are
to live
walking on a path
of good works.
The law of God provides the signposts
that indicate what direction you must take on
this journey.
It tells you the right path
and it also shows you the path that
you shouldn't walk on,
but the law of God on its own
does not act,
it's passive.
However, when the Holy Spirit is within you,
he is active
and he leads you in the way that
you should go.
Instead of being passive,
the Holy Spirit causes the law of God
to become living and active within you
persuading you according to your new
redeemed
born again nature
to walk in the good works that God
prepared beforehand.
And with each step that you take according
to the leading of the Holy Spirit,
you move further and further away
from the deathly deathly path
of spiritual death
and you move further and further along
on that path to life,
to peace,
to joy,
to glory.
Children,
money,
fame,
electronic devices,
none of these things will give you enduring
joy.
Just like toys make you happy when you
first get them, when you receive them, when
you first play with them,
but then after a while you stop playing
with them, sometimes you even forget you have
them and you need some other toy, something
new, something else to entertain you,
so too,
the things of this world cannot satisfy you
as you think they can.
Just ask your parents.
Some of the saddest people on earth
are people who can have everything
that you can imagine.
But becoming more like Jesus as the Holy
Spirit leads you to study the Bible,
to obey it,
to worship God with your thoughts,
with your words,
with your actions,
that is the way to find joy
that joy and that peace
and even that fun that you long for,
that you long to experience,
and the way that you will become a
blessing to those around you. If the Holy
Spirit dwells within you
when the choice to sin or not to
sin is before you, he will enable you
to recognize what you are to do in
that moment.
The quote Paul writes in 1st Corinthians 10
verse 13.
With the tempt with the temptation or with
the test,
God will also provide
the way of escape.
The Holy Spirit is active within you.
Let him lead your thinking,
let him lead your steps.
The second thing I want you to notice
in verse 14
is that those who have the Holy Spirit,
those who are led by him
are sons of God.
Now in verses 16 17, Paul writes that
those with the Holy Spirit are children
of God.
So the expression sons of God is not
in opposition to daughters of God, for example.
It's not about gender.
It's about status
and privilege.
In ancient Israel, like in most cultures in
antiquity, the oldest son was the principal heir
of the family
often receiving a double portion of the inheritance.
When Paul writes that those who are led
by the spirit are sons of God,
what he means to say is is that
if you're a Christian,
whether you are male or female,
you legally
enjoy
the privileged status of the principal heir
in God's household.
This is what Paul goes on to affirm
in verse 17
where he writes that Christians are heirs of
God and fellow heirs with Christ.
Please think about what an astonishing statement this
is. What a great honor
this is for the Christian.
Some people like to say
that God is everyone's father,
that every human being is a child of
God.
Now it is true
that God is everyone's creator
and that therefore
everyone in a sense belongs to God.
And even that God gives good things to
all people
by causing it, for example, to reign and
to to reign both on the righteous and
the unrighteous.
That is a gift from God
and it's indiscriminate.
In that sense, God gives grace
and even love
to everyone.
He sustains
all of our lives, he gives us every
breath that we take
But our legal
or covenantal relationship to God at the moment
we are conceived
is that we are rebellious lawbreakers.
We are his enemies.
We are guilty of transgressing his commandments
and we are justly
deserving a punishment.
That's our legal status
before God.
Look at how Paul describes
this wretched condition in Ephesians chapter 2 verses
1 to 3.
He writes,
and you were dead
in the trespasses
and sins in which you once walked,
following the course of this world,
following the prince of the power of the
air,
the spirit that is now at work in
the sons of disobedience,
among whom we all once lived in the
passions of our flesh,
carrying out the desires of the body and
the mind and were by nature
children of wrath
like the rest of mankind.
Everyone in this room,
all of us
at some point
were and some still might be
sons of disobedience
instead
of sons of God
and children of wrath
instead of children of God.
So by what mechanism then?
Does one go from that cursed estate
to enjoying the legal status
of a child of God,
of the heir
of God's household?
Paul answers this question for us in verses
15
through 17.
Look at what it says there,
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.
The thing that changes everything for the Christian
is that he or she is legally
adopted into God's family.
When a Christian is indwelled by the Holy
Spirit,
that Christian receives the spirit of adoption.
The indwelling of the Holy Spirit is the
legal seal that marks the Christian as belonging
to God's household
with all the privileges and responsibilities
that that entails.
If you're a Christian,
this amazing grace
has been extended to you.
You really are a child of God.
You legally enjoy the status of the heir
of the most important
household.
No worldly prince or princess,
no billionaire
son or daughter
enjoys a more significant,
a more important,
a more privileged status than you do if
you are a Christian.
There is no universal fatherhood of God
but the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is
the royal seal that indicates
that God really is your father.
So what are the privileges of your adoption
into God's family?
Well,
if you're a Christian
you no longer have to exhibit a spirit
of fear.
This means that first of all
you don't have you don't have to fear
being found out.
God knows everything about you
and he still loves you.
This is why you have the privilege of
confessing your sin corporately
and individually as part of this body
and as a child of God.
Secondly,
you don't have to fear
not being good enough.
Through adoption Christ has become your older brother.
He is more than good enough,
he is perfect,
and he gives you the right to put
on his righteous robe.
He's not the older brother who jealously guards
what is his,
He's the older brother
who joyously
delights in giving you
what is his.
He takes the his double portion
and he says, complete my joy
by sharing it with me.
Thirdly,
you don't have to fear losing your membership
in God's family,
that is to say losing your salvation.
You didn't choose him.
He chose to adopt you.
And he doesn't make mistakes
and he doesn't change his mind.
He bound himself to you as your father
when he gave you his name in the
public ceremony of baptism.
He said, I will be to you a
father
and you will be to me a son.
He said, I will never leave you nor
forsake you.
He said, my mercies to you will be
new every morning.
Fourthly,
you don't have to fear death.
You have a new birth certificate
with a new name.
Your name is written in heaven with the
indelible blood of your redeemer.
It is a name that never wears out.
It is a name
that death cannot erase.
It is a name that will not be
forgotten.
It is the name
of the immortal King of glory and he
gave it to you.
And when he calls your name, you will
rise just like he did,
and he will take you by the hand
and lead you to fullness of joy.
Listen, the love of God for you is
steadfast.
But you say, I'm not worthy.
In Isaiah 43, your father answers, do not
fear
for I have redeemed you.
I have called you by name.
You are mine.
But I'm a sinner, you say.
The father answers, you are mine.
But I'm not always faithful to you, you
say.
Your father answers,
you are mine.
But I'm not always
but I don't always,
obey your voice. In fact, I often ignore
you, you say.
Your father answers,
you're mine.
But often doubt your word.
Your father answers,
you are mine.
But I sometimes prioritize over other things over
you.
Your father answers, you are mine.
But I don't always honor you as my
father.
Your father answers you, you're
mine. But I don't keep my promises, you
say.
Your father answers,
do not fear,
for I have redeemed you.
I have called you by my name.
You are
mine.
Listen. Because you have been saved by faith
and sealed
by the Holy Spirit,
you can enjoy the assurance of adoption.
Paul writes in verse 16 that the Holy
Spirit testifies to your spirit that you are
His.
This doesn't mean that life is always easy
for you
or that things always go the way that
you want.
But it does mean that your loving heavenly
father
always has your best interest in mind.
If this is true
of earthly parents,
despite our imperfect and finite love for our
children, how much more is it true
of your heavenly father with his perfect
and infinite love for you?
So when things don't go as you want,
instead of believing the devil's lie that God
doesn't love you,
He doesn't care for you,
He doesn't care about your plans,
Instead of believing that,
trust your Heavenly Father.
Trust his loving letter for you.
When Romans 828 he writes that, under his
care
all things
work together
for your good.
Sometimes our children don't understand why we deny
them what they want
but we know
and want what is best for them
because we love them.
Do you believe that you love your children
more than your heavenly Father loves you?
And if you do everything in your power
to bless your children
even if it means disappointing them sometimes,
do you not think that God has the
love
and the power
and the will to do the same?
As a child of God, therefore you have
the privilege
of having a heavenly father who is willing
to tell you no sometimes
and of knowing
that it is always for your good.
Another benefit of having the spirit of adoption
is that you have a heavenly Father who
is not only willing to tell you no
sometimes
but who is also willing to discipline you
when you go astray.
Look at what the author of Hebrews writes
in Hebrews 12 as he quotes liberally from
the Old Testament.
He writes,
And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses
you as sons?
My son, do not regard lightly the discipline
of the Lord
nor be weary when reproved by him,
for the Lord disciplines
the one he loves
and chastises every son whom he receives.
It is for discipline that you have to
endure.
God is treating you as sons.
For what son is there whom his father
does not discipline?
If you're left without discipline in which all
have participated, then you are illegitimate children
and not sons.
Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who
disciplined us
and we respected them.
Shall we not much more be subject to
the father of spirits and live?
For they disciplined us for a short time
as it seemed best to them,
but he disciplines us for our good
that we may share his holiness.
For the moment, all discipline seems painful rather
than pleasant,
but later it yields the fruit,
the peaceful fruit of righteousness
to those who have been trained by it.
Sometimes, we as parents fail to discipline our
children
because the last thing that we want,
our least favorite thing to do
is to cause them any pain or disappointment.
But we know that if we fail to
discipline our children,
we're actually failing to love them well
because we're permitting their inherent principle of sin
to shape them,
to form vices in them, vices that will
make them love themselves
more than they love God and
more than they love others.
And part of what makes it hard for
us to discipline our children
is the fact that they don't always understand
what we are doing.
They don't know why we're denying them things.
They don't know why we are
disciplining them.
And we don't want them to think
that we don't love them.
Well even though we don't they don't even
though we don't always understand why God disciplines
us,
because of his perfect love for us he
never forsakes his responsibility.
This is why in Romans 813
we read that through the spirit of adoption
we can put to death the deeds of
the body.
The Holy Spirit helps to discipline us
so we can put sin to death and
he enables us
more and more to love God,
to love his law,
and to obey it.
What great assurance
adoption provides us
knowing that God is committed to disciplining us
so our lives can yield the fruit
of righteousness.
In 1st century
Rome, since it was a matter of honor
when a powerful man adopted someone,
he would not only make his adopted son
the legal heir of all his estate,
but the father would also legally assume all
the debt
of his adopted son as if the debt
had been his own all along.
From his own possessions,
he would fully satisfy the debt
of his adopted heir.
You have been adopted
into God's family
to be co heirs with Christ.
The father already had the perfect heir.
But because of his great love for you,
he made you to be his.
So, your older brother
paid your debt in full.
He gave his life for you
that you might live and reign with him.
In Matthew 22,
we read that when the Pharisees and the
scribes asked Jesus about paying taxes,
he asked them to show him a coin
and to tell him whose likeness and inscription
was in that coin.
They said, Caesar's.
So Jesus answered, then render to Caesar the
things that are Caesar's
and render to God
the thing that are God's.
The coin used to pay the tax was
a denarius
which had the image of Tiberius Caesar on
it,
Emperor of Rome at the time of Jesus.
And it had an inscription that identified Tiberius
as the divine son.
So
as Jesus
who is the authentic image of the invisible
God
and is the only begotten Son of God
held in his hand a coin
with a counterfeit counterfeit image
of a counterfeit divine son,
Jesus was affirming
that his privilege and status as the Son
of God,
as the heir
of God's household
means that he is in no one's debt.
And because you are an heir in his
household
neither are you.
Your great blessing is that God calls you
my daughter.
Your great blessing is that God calls you
my son.
Your great privilege
is that through your adoption
God has given you the right
to call him Abba.
Father,
won't you do that? Let's pray.