Please remain standing now for the reading of
God's word. We're looking at Romans chapter 8
verses
9 to 11,
and Romans 8 verses 9 to 11. And
I wanna say this too that,
of course, the whole Bible
is incredibly profound,
but within the Bible, if you had to
pick 1 chapter
that is especially
rich in every way in in the depth
of the doctrine,
in the in the majesty
of the way that it presents God
and in the clarity with which,
the grace of the Lord on behalf of
his church is presented to us. Romans 8
is that chapter.
And so even these three verses,
are so profound and there's so much to
say here that I'm actually gonna spend 2
weeks on these three verses. And I get
to do that and I'm excited
to do that.
Today we're gonna be looking as you'll see
about
the Holy Spirit. We're gonna look at the
Holy Spirit work in our life. But there's
so much more in here that it goes
even beyond the Holy Spirit and looks at
the triune God. We'll look at that next
week and I'm just preparing you for that
already. But let's look at Romans chapter 8
verses 9 to
11. 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. This is the word of the
Lord.
Please be seated.
I was born and raised
in a city
called Reynosa, which is along the Mexican border
just over a 6 hour,
drive due south from here,
5 hours
if our constable is driving.
But, for most of us, it's 6. And
if,
one of the things about growing up along
the border
is that,
you are exposed to so many
very interesting
contrasts
in in in life
where,
just, when you when you cross the border,
you see a contrast,
across
countries,
across
cultures,
across
landscapes,
and across languages.
It's it's certainly a journey that goes beyond
just the crossing
of a bridge, but that's not all. In
a way the journey across the border is
also a journey across time or at least
it was when I was growing up.
You see the the way of life
and the customs in Mexico when compared to
those in the United States
appear to be a throwback to
time, to a generation
that had long passed.
For example, in Reynosa when I was growing
up, the idea that a child,
even a teenager,
would openly
disrespect,
his parents
or his teachers
was entirely unacceptable,
even to the point of being scandalous. Have
you heard it? Even as a child, have
you heard that somebody did this, you would
be scandalized by that just because it was
such an unthinkable thing.
One was always expected to be respectful
to anyone who was older.
In fact, as children and yes, even as
teenagers,
we were expected to wake up early every
day,
even on weekends,
even
in the summer,
and we were expected to immediately
get dressed so we could be presentable
if and when company arrived.
And company would arrive
on any day
and at any time.
Families were bigger and extended family lived in
the same city for generations, so
grandparents and uncles and aunts and first and
second and third cousins,
could show up
at any moment and they indeed would show
up at any moment unannounced.
And it would be considered very rude
if you weren't ready to receive them by
not being dressed,
by
not having brushed your hair, by not having
brushed
your teeth, and so on.
The governing principle
was that a way to show love and
respect to others
was to be ready to anticipate
their needs,
to count their comfort
as more important
than your own.
In short, one was taught
that it was right and necessary
to honor your guests.
In this morning's text, Paul writes about the
most important,
most significant guest anyone
could ever hope to have. If you're a
Christian,
then you have this honored guest living within
you.
If you're not a Christian,
then you need to let him in.
The guest I'm referring to of course is
the Holy Spirit,
And the main point I want you to
take from this sermon today is this,
if you have the Holy Spirit,
you have eternal life.
If you have the Holy Spirit, you have
eternal life because you see,
Romans 8 places
particular emphasis
on the person
and work
of the Holy Spirit. And as we shall
see,
the 3 verses we are considering this morning
highlight the role of the Holy Spirit
in salvation
from beginning
to end.
In fact, our three headings for this morning's
sermon are these.
1st,
the role of the Holy Spirit in our
justification.
2nd,
the role of the holy spirit in our
sanctification.
And 3rd, the role of the holy spirit
in our glorification.
Justification,
sanctification,
glorification.
Let us then consider the first heading, the
role of the Holy Spirit
in our justification.
You might recall from last week that in
verse 8, Paul wrote that those who are
in the flesh
cannot please God.
He didn't write that those who are in
the flesh
will not please God,
nor that they would prefer
not to please God.
He wrote that those who are in the
flesh
cannot
please God.
For Paul to be in the flesh is
a technical term
referring to the moral or spiritual status
of unbelievers.
In other words, if someone is in the
flesh,
that person
has not been born again.
That person
has not been regenerated by the Holy Spirit.
So that person is still under the dominion
of sin,
still in bondage to the tyrannical rule of
his father nature.
This is what it means
to be in the flesh, and it is
why those who are in the flesh
cannot
please God.
They're not merely
indisposed
to please God,
nor are they merely
predisposed
to displease God.
They are
utterly
unable to
please
God.
Now, think about the great peril
that such a person
finds himself or herself in.
They are created by a God
that they do not love.
They are liable
to a law
that they cannot keep.
They are guilty before a judge
that they cannot bribe.
And they are condemned to a punishment
that they cannot escape.
Such is the state or condition of most
people that you meet,
and most people that you interact with
each and every
day.
Perhaps that's your condition today.
It certainly is the wretched condition
that each and every one of us inherited
the very moment that we were conceived
as David himself tells us in Psalm 51
where he cries out, he laments,
in
sin did my mother conceive me.
In our heart of hearts, we were all
in total
rebellion
against God.
We were pursuing our own pleasure
instead of trying to please God,
and we were laboring to build our own
kingdoms instead of advancing God's kingdom.
We were
unapologetically
unrepentant,
unwise,
unrighteous
and unjustified.
We were created by a God we did
not love
and we were liable to a law we
could not keep
and we were guilty before a judge that
we could not bribe
and we were condemned to a punishment that
we, in and of ourselves,
could not escape.
That was our reality
when we were
in the flesh.
Now, look at what verse 9 says,
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.
Anyone who does not have the spirit of
Christ does not belong to him,
because anyone
who does not have the spirit of Christ
belongs
to another master.
That person belongs to the flesh. That person
belongs to sin. That person belongs to death.
The person,
who does not belong to Christ,
but belongs to the flesh and to sin
and to death may be a baptized member
in good standing
of a bible believing in bible proclaiming church.
That person may partake or even administer the
sacraments.
But unless the spirit of God dwells in
that person,
unless the spirit of God has taken residence
in that person's heart,
that person is
unjustified
before God.
You, however,
are not in the flesh, but in the
spirit, if in fact, the spirit of God
dwells in you,
writes Paul.
In other words,
the
determining factor,
the decisive condition
for someone to be a Christian, for someone
to be justified before God
is the presence
of the Holy Spirit
in that person's life.
The Westminster Shorter Catechism defines justification in this
way.
Justification
is an act of God's free grace,
wherein he pardons all our sins
and accepts us as righteous
in his sight
only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to
us
and received
by faith alone.
So, our justification
is not because of our works,
it's because of God's act, right? Justification is
an act
of God's free grace. We are justified that
is to say our sins are pardoned
and we are accepted as righteous
through an act, a decree as it were,
of God.
Jesus does all the work
to merit the Father's favor.
He lives a perfect sinless life fulfilling
all the righteous requirements of the law.
He dies on the cross to atone for
the sins of his people.
And then
that
perfect,
complete,
finished,
saving work of Jesus is imputed
or credited to us
by an act
of God.
We were unjustified.
That is to say, we were guilty
when we were in the flesh. We were
in bondage to sin.
But now,
we have been justified
through an act of God
entirely
by grace.
Look at how Paul puts this
in Titus chapter 3, verses 3 to 7,
he writes:
For we ourselves
were once foolish,
disobedient,
led astray,
slaves to various passions and pleasures,
passing our days in malice
and envy,
hated by others and hating
one another.
What a wretched existence that it was.
Paul continues.
But when the goodness
and loving kindness of God our savior appeared,
he saved us
not because of works done by us
in righteousness,
but according to his own mercy,
by the washing of regeneration
and renewal of the Holy Spirit
whom he poured out on us richly
through Jesus Christ, our savior.
So
that being justified by his grace,
we might become heirs according to the hope
of eternal life.
Now, does that sound like something that we
did? No, it's the exact opposite of that.
It's something that God did.
Jesus did all the work, and then
he poured out the Holy Spirit on us
so that we could be justified by his
grace.
The act of God
by which we are justified
is the regeneration
and renewal
of the Holy Spirit.
This is why in order to be a
Christian,
you must have the Holy Spirit.
This makes complete sense.
In Genesis 1,
we read that at creation, the spirit of
God was present as he hovered
over the face of the waters.
That's at
creation.
Well, it is no wonder that at recreation,
when we are regenerated
and renewed, when we are reborn,
it is in the presence of the Holy
Spirit as well.
It's his work.
Think about this.
One of the biblical metaphors
for God's act of justification
is that of the separation of the wheat
from the chaff after the harvest.
The threshing floor
was typically located outside of the village
on a flat open area preferably on an
elevated place so that the wind would blow
and it could aid in the separation of
the wheat which was lighter from the chaff
which was heavier.
After the grain was crushed
to begin that process of separation between the
kernels
from the husks,
the thrust material was then tossed in the
air with a winnowing fork.
As it was tossed in the air, because
you were in a high place, the wind
would be blowing and it would take those
husks,
which were which were lighter,
and and and then the heavier grain would
fall to the ground and the discrimination of
the 2 would take place because of the
work
of the wind.
In the metaphor,
the chaff which was gathered
to be burned
as after after it was blown away, it
would be gathered and we sent away to
be burned, that chaff represented
the unrighteous
person,
the unjustified
person, the person that on the day of
judgment
will hear
guilty
as his or her sentence.
And of course, the,
the wheat
on the other hand represented
those who are justified,
those who will be declared
not guilty
on the day of judgment.
And the key factor in the separation
of the wheat from the chaff was the
wind and so too,
the key factor
in the separation
of the justifier from the unjustified
is the Holy Spirit which by the way,
both in Hebrew
and in Greek is the same word as
wind.
It is the wind, it is the spirit
that separates,
it is the spirit that
justifies
as it were.
It's no surprise therefore, that when in the
Old Testament,
when God calls King Solomon to build the
temple,
the very place
where
sacrifices would be offered day in and day
out to atone for sin,
He calls on Solomon to build it
on a field that David had purchased, a
field that used to be a threshing floor,
a field that was elevated. That's why,
it's the temple today is on a high
place in Jerusalem on where Moriah was.
And it was the wind that separated the
wheat from the chaff. And so it's also
the Holy Spirit
that separates
the justified
from the unjustified.
So that to be justified, you must have
the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit must do
the work.
This is why
we need many
good,
solid,
faithful churches
where the gospel of Jesus Christ is proclaimed,
where the Holy Spirit works through the preaching
of the word to apply the saving grace
of justification
to sinners,
to regenerate
and renew
hearts of stone into hearts of flesh by
the work of the Holy Spirit.
This is why God is calling us to
plant this church.
The church of Jesus Christ is not meant
to be a social club
where people can come to be entertained
or to network
or just to feel good about ourselves, to
have a good time. That's not
the primary purpose
of the church.
The church of Jesus Christ is an outpost
of God's kingdom in enemy territory,
where the message of salvation
is clearly,
boldly,
and lovingly proclaimed not just by the preacher,
but by all her members
who through their words,
but also through their service in the community,
and their hospitality in their homes, and their
generosity with their time, and their talent, and
their treasure,
delight
in sharing the hope that lives within them
with gentleness and respect.
That's what the church is.
It is an outpost in enemy territory.
When Moses
guided the people of Israel
right up to the border of the land
of promise, knowing that he himself
would not be allowed
to lead the conquest of the Holy Land,
he called on Joshua
and he exhorted him and all of Israel
with him, to read God's word and to
take it to heart,
and to live according to his precepts saying,
for this is no ordinary word for you,
it is your very
life.
Christ now calls
you his disciples
to take every square inch
in the woodlands
and in Montgomery County and even to the
ends of the earth and claim it for
the King of kings and the Lord of
lords, it belongs to Him.
He calls us to do it by proclaiming
His word
which is our very life
and which will bring justification
for the unrighteous,
and joy for those who mourn, and hope
for the destitute, and peace for those in
despair. That's what the spirit will do. Doesn't
that excite you?
Isn't this a call worthy
of your commitment?
In a world full of darkness,
and full of sadness,
and full of hate, God is calling you,
he's calling us
together
to be his light, and to share his
joy, and to demonstrate his love, to proclaim
the good news of salvation that is found
in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Now, we cannot do this on our own.
We are not sufficient
for these things, but his grace is sufficient.
His grace is sufficient for us because his
power is made perfect in our weakness.
We cannot do this alone.
But here's the thing.
We are not alone.
We have
the Holy Spirit. In verse 9, Paul says
that we have the Spirit
of Christ
and just like the Spirit of Christ transformed
our hearts, he will transform the hearts of
others.
He will
do it. He will do the work.
He will give the increase. He will regenerate
and justify.
Now having considered the role of the Holy
Spirit in our justification, let's turn our attention
now to our second heading, the role of
the Holy Spirit in our sanctification.
Look at verse 10 with me.
But if Christ is in you,
although the body is dead because of sin,
the spirit is life
because of righteousness.
The first thing to note in this verse
this morning is that it uses a parallel
structure to contrast the body with the spirit,
being dead
with life
and sin
with righteousness.
The point is that since Christians possess the
Holy Spirit,
they will no longer be governed
by the principle of decay which is germane
to death.
They will no longer be governed by that
principle which operates in their bodies as a
consequence of sin.
Instead,
because the righteous and life giving spirit
has taken residence in the believer's heart at
regeneration,
he will be working
righteousness
and life
in and through the believer.
The spirit is working righteousness and life
in and through us.
Although because of sin,
believers
are still subject to all the miseries of
this life
including pain and suffering,
including trials and sorrows,
including even
illness
and death.
So much for the prosperity gospel and for
the health and wealth gospel by the way.
Nevertheless,
because the Holy Spirit dwells within the believer,
Christians
can and will bear the fruit of the
spirit
in this life.
Though sin produces death
and as a result our bodies are decaying,
death will not have the last word.
Rather,
through the Holy Spirit,
we can bear good fruit that pleases God
and serves our neighbors. We can grow in
godliness,
we can become
through the work of the Holy Spirit in
our lives
more and more like Christ.
This growth
in Christ likeness,
this growth in holiness is known as sanctification.
From the Latin, sanctus which means holy, we
are being made holy, we are growing in
holiness, we are growing in godliness.
That's what sanctification means. Look at,
how the Westminster Shorter Catechism defines sanctification.
It says,
sanctification
is the work
of God's free grace,
whereby we are renewed in the whole man
after the image of God
and are enabled more and more
to die into sin
and live
unto righteousness. Look at those contrasts
there in sanctification.
The contrast between death and life,
the contrast between sin
and righteousness.
And it's because it's the work of God's
free grace. It is the work of the
spirit.
Remember, justification is an act
of God's free grace.
Sanctification is the work
of God's free grace.
Justification is a one time act whereby the
Holy Spirit
imputes,
credits
the righteousness
of Jesus
to us by divine decree.
It's a one time act. He declares it
and it is so.
Sanctification
entails the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit
whereby the Holy Spirit is working righteousness
and life
in and through us.
He's moving us away
from the sinful acts
and sinful choices
and sinful
lifestyles
that produce death.
It's a mercy that he's moving us away
from that.
And instead he's working in us the righteous
deeds,
decisions, and habits that produce
life. The Spirit is life
because of righteousness,
writes Paul.
In other words, if the Holy Spirit dwells
within you,
your life will demonstrate it,
your actions will reveal it,
your spiritual fruit will bear witness
to the life giving spirit dwelling in you.
Because the true Christian has the holy spirit
dwelling within him or her,
the Christian will not behave
or act
or even speak in the same way that
unbelievers do.
The world will know you
by your fruit.
Good works are not the root
of your justification, but they are the fruit
of your justification. We should expect
good works.
This is also why we are planting
this church.
Our call isn't merely to make new converts,
although that is an important part of our
mission,
but Christ specifically calls us to make disciples.
So the Holy Spirit doesn't only work through
the church, particularly in his proclamation of the
gospel to apply Christ's work of justification
through regeneration.
He also works in and through the church
to grow people in godliness,
to sanctify us.
This certainly happens in the church on Sunday
mornings
when we read God's word, and we hear
God's word preached, and when we learn God's
word in Sunday school and when we pray
God's word and when we sing God's word
and when we see, touch and taste God's
word in the sacraments.
The holy spirit disciples us through all of
these means of grace
molding us and shaping us into the image
of Christ.
This is why you must prioritize
worship.
Because you see, not only are you active
when you attend worship,
but the Holy Spirit is also active in
you,
growing you in righteousness
and in
life.
But Sunday morning is not the only time
when discipleship takes place.
And this is why we need more and
more church plants in more and more places
because it's not just about what happens on
Sunday morning when somebody might be willing to
drive
a longer
on a longer route. It happens every day.
It happens in the way
that we live.
The Holy Spirit works in you through your
personal devotions,
through your time in private prayer,
through your midweek bible studies
and through every decision you make
to avoid sin,
to choose righteousness,
to help your neighbor, to share the gospel,
in every one of those decisions and actions,
sanctification
is taking place
in
you and in those with whom you interact,
if indeed the Holy Spirit goes and works
in them.
Just like we want to
honor guests in our homes,
with the way that we behave when they
are there.
So too with our actions,
and with our words,
and with our behaviors,
Christians must honor
the distinguished guests
dwelling within us.
Remember the holy spirit dwells within you if
you are a Christian.
Think about how that needs to shape the
way that we act
when we think nobody else is watching us.
God is always not just watching us, he's
with us
in the Holy Spirit.
How are we honoring our guests?
Knowing that the Holy Spirit dwells in us
ought to curb our sinful behavior at the
very least,
and also should spur us to good works
that please God, that please
our guest.
The body may be dying because of the
persisting effect of sin, but the spirit will
bear the fruit of life
because of the righteousness
of our guest.
Does your life demonstrate
that the spirit dwells in you?
Is your love for and commitment to worship
growing?
Is your interest in and love for God's
word increasing?
Are you communing with God
through prayer?
Do you enjoy fellowship with other believers and
long for it and look for it and
prioritize it?
Do people know
that you belong to Jesus because of how
you live? Because of the things you prioritize?
Because of where you invest your time and
your talents and your treasure? Because of your
service to God, and your service
in your community.
Does this community know
that God has called us, all of us
to love him and to love this community
through our love and through our service.
That is our responsibility
and our privilege as a church plant as
the Holy Spirit works in and through us,
as the Holy Spirit works life and righteousness
in and through us, sanctifying us by making
us faithful disciples of Jesus. We are called
to make disciples,
both inside of these walls and outside of
these walls, both on Sunday morning and on
Sunday evening
and every day of the week. That's our
call, and that's our privilege.
Now having considered the role of the Holy
Spirit in our justification
and the role of our Holy Spirit in
our sanctification, let's turn now to our final
heading, the role of the Holy Spirit in
our glorification.
Look at verse 11 with me.
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.
It's difficult to imagine
a more clear and forceful statement regarding the
total victory of the believer
through the power of God.
This awesome text
teaches that if the Holy Spirit dwells in
you,
you share
in Christ's resurrection,
that what happened on Calvary and at the
tomb is actually part of you.
Is that not
amazing?
Is that not astonishing?
And it's a part of you because he
who raised Jesus from the dead
now has taken residence in you. He dwells
in you.
This is amazing.
This is why even when death claims your
body,
death's ostensible final word shall actually
usher in
death's
final defeat.
In a stunning turn of events
that evidences God's unstoppable power,
the Holy Spirit shall undo what heretofore
was death's uncontested dominion over you.
And he will do this by transforming your
mortal and then evidently lifeless body into an
immortal,
imperishable,
undefiled,
unfading,
and glorious body.
A body that will be full of vigor,
full of health, and brimming with eternal life
by the very
same power that raised Jesus from the dead.
Dear Christian, listen to this. By the most
amazing,
unimaginable,
and undeserved grace,
God's glory
through the Holy Spirit
dwells within
your and mine sin infected
and sin afflicted body.
And this glory of God
which dwells in you and already is producing
life in you cannot be subdued by death
and will not be contained by the grave.
This is why
if the Holy Spirit dwells in you
with His
unstoppable,
glorious life,
death will not have the final word over
you.
For in a moment, in the twinkling of
an eye, death shall be swallowed up,
and you shall have the final word as
you cry out with a booming voice, oh,
death, where is your victory? Oh, death, where
is your sting?'
Brothers and sisters,
we are all being transformed
into something that we cannot even begin to
imagine.
The great British author, C. S. Lewis, in
his famous thought provoking essay, The Weight of
Glory,
addresses the awesome or terrifying destiny that awaits
us all
in this way. He writes,
it is a serious thing to live in
a society of possible gods and goddesses
To remember that the dullest
and most uninteresting
person
you can talk to may one day be
a creature which if you saw it now,
you would be strongly tempted to worship
or else a horror and a corruption
such as you now meet, if at all,
only in a nightmare.
All day long, we are in some degree
helping each other to one or other
of these
destinations.
It is in the light of these overwhelming
possibilities.
It is with the awe and the circumspection
proper to them
that we should conduct all our dealings with
one another.
All friendships,
all loves,
all play,
all politics.
There are no ordinary people.
You have never talked
to a mere mortal.
Nations,
cultures,
arts,
civilization,
these are mortal and their life is to
ours
as the life of a gnat.
But it is immortals
whom we joke with,
work with,
marry, snub,
and exploit
immortal horrors
or everlasting
splendors.
Listen, because
you have never met
an ordinary person that is precisely
why we are planting this church.
The message God has given us to proclaim,
to be shaped by,
and to live out has eternal consequences.
No one should make the mistake of assuming
an eternal
changeless
status quo. It does not exist.
Sin is either shaping you into monsters that
would cause demons to shutter
or the Holy Spirit
is transforming you into glorious beings that would
tempt angels to bend their knee before you.
Everyone
is undergoing
a substantial
and awesome
transformation.
Let us begin
and contribute to this transformation by setting aside
the Lord's day
as holy.
God gives us the 1st day of the
week to restore us and to rebuild us.
This is
why
our worship service
might be uncomfortable to us
because it is the Holy Spirit's scalpel
as he performs heart surgery
to change our self centered arrhythmia
for a heartbeat
dictated by heavenly rhythms
and to
do brain surgery on us
to renew our minds
that instead of being filled with worldly content,
we might be enabled and excited
to think God's thoughts after him
and to perform eye surgery
to enable us to see reality as it
is,
to recognize both the snares of sin that
we might avoid them
and the footsteps of Christ that we might
walk in newness of life.
It is the Holy Spirit's scalpel to perform
ear surgery on us that we might discern,
hear and obey
our Shepherd's voice,
especially as he speaks to us through his
spirit
in his word.
It is the Holy Spirit's scalpel
as he performs mouth surgery on us that
our tongues might be subdued and disciplined
and that our lips
might proclaim the gospel and sing praises to
our God and king.
In the Old Testament,
God called his people to offer him the
first fruits of their labors as a sign
of their love and devotion to him.
Amazingly,
he has now given us
the 1st day of the week
for our rest and renewal
as a sign of his love and devotion
to us.
Christian, don't forsake this gift.
Use it to worship God.
Use it to instruct your children
in God's word.
Use it to rest
by disconnecting,
disconnecting from electronics,
disconnecting from the cares
of this world.
Use it to bless your neighbors
by welcoming them into your home
and enjoying fellowship around a meal.
Imagine if you committed
to this radical
transformation
even if initially
just on the Lord's day.
Now imagine
if we could do it together
as a church body.
How radical would that be?
What a blessing will we bring to this
community?
What a witness to our children,
to our neighbors,
to our friends.
Kids using their imaginations to play outside
instead of playing with electronics inside.
Filling our homes with guests
instead of filling our shopping carts with things,
enjoying a family feast around a table
instead of paying for it at a restaurant,
Playing games together
instead of spending money to watch strangers play.
And praising god for his goodness
instead of cursing in traffic
or at crowds.
If you want to feed yourself,
go fish with a fishing rod.
But if you want to feed a community,
grab a net
and go fish with your brothers.
Jesus calls us to be fishers of men.
Let us do it with a net.
Let us do it together.
Food,
fun,
fellowship,
rest,
refreshment,
renewal,
justification,
sanctification,
glorification, it is all the spirit's work.
If the spirit
dwells in you,
your life will be transformed.
Are you okay with that?
You need to be.
It will happen.
It is already happening.
It is happening now if
the spirit of God
dwells
in you. Let's pray.