Holiness is Happiness (Romans 8:12-17) | Louis Azuma

Speaker: Romans eight, verse 12 is where we're starting.

All right.

We've been in Romans eight.

We've talked a lot about the Holy Spirit and, and, and not, and

all this stuff and, and what it's like to not have the Holy Spirit.

And, um, something that we've talked a lot about in Romans right, is.

We've talked about the kind of the legal side of being saved, right?

Being justified, being made righteous.

Right?

You, your guilt is gone and, and we think of like a courtroom, right?

Maybe you think of like a courtroom, you're guilty, but then, um, if you

trust Jesus, you can be declared not just innocent, but righteous.

Right?

We talk a lot about that side of being saved, but something that

we're talking about with the Holy Spirit is we're talking about

the relational side as well of.

Loving God and being a Christian, what that looks like.

And so what we're gonna see today is that the Holy Spirit is the only way.

Having the Holy Spirit and living under the influence of the Holy Spirit is the

only way that you can be close with God.

So maybe you, you think of times and you think of like, oh, at

camp I felt really close to God.

Or maybe you think, oh, there's this time in my life where

I felt really close to God.

Or you think of certain people, you're like, oh, it seems like

they're really close to God.

What we're gonna learn today is that the Holy Spirit.

Is the only person, the only way that can, you can have a

close relationship with God.

It has to be through the Holy Spirit.

And in fact, if you don't have the Holy Spirit, you can't.

You can't, and we saw that in Romans eight last week.

Even.

So, if you're looking at Romans eight, look at verses seven and eight.

Before we get to our passage tonight, look at verses seven and eight of Romans eight.

All right?

It says, the mind that is set on the flesh, right?

Someone who doesn't have the Holy Spirit, someone who is opposing

God, that person is hostile to God.

They're God's enemy.

They're not just, there's no neutral people.

You're either.

On God's team or you're against God, right?

That's what we learned.

Last week, that the person who's, who's living for themselves, who's trying to be

independent from God, they're hostile to God because they don't follow God's law.

And it's not just they don't want to, it's that they can't, they're unable to.

We talked about this last week too, right?

You can't obey God unless you have the Holy Spirit, and in case you're

wondering if that's true or not, you've got verse eight right here.

If you're in the flesh for someone who doesn't have the Holy

Spirit, you cannot please God.

Nothing you do doesn't matter how many times you, you know, help

your grandma across the street.

Doesn't matter how many nice compliments you give people, it doesn't matter how

many times you read your Bible, you cannot do anything pleasing to God.

God doesn't look at you and say, oh, awesome.

That's so great.

Unless you're doing something.

With the Holy Spirit.

That's the, so our main point is that the Holy Spirit enables closeness with God.

This is kinda the big idea, not the first point, but the

big idea for the whole sermon.

If, if whole sermon in one sentence, the Holy Spirit enables closeness with God, if

the only way you can be close with God is through the Holy Spirit, if you try to be

close with God by doing things apart from the Holy Spirit, then you can't do it.

You, you might as well give up because you can't draw close to God.

Doesn't matter.

You know how.

Great.

Your camp Worship time was, it doesn't matter how much you know about the Bible,

it doesn't matter who your parents are.

The Holy Spirit is the one that brings closeness with God.

Not, you know, great worship music.

Not a lot of Bible knowledge, not doing good things.

Okay.

And maybe you've never thought about this before, but one of

the reasons that Christians.

Don't wanna sin isn't just because we wanna follow God's rules.

It's not just because we, we know, oh, those things are bad.

But one of the reasons, one of the main reasons actually, that Christians don't

wanna sin is because sin actually is the opposite of being close with God.

Sin is interrupting that closeness with God, even as a Christian, if you're a

Christian and you sin, you're interrupting some of your closeness with God, right?

Because you're opposing the Holy Spirit.

The Bible says that sometimes when you're sinning, you're grieving the Holy Spirit.

You're making him really sad, which by the way, holy Spirit's a person, right?

We talked about this last week too.

We wanna use his preferred pronouns, right?

We don't wanna say it, we wanna say him, and he, right?

Not it or that.

So anyway, um, but sin interrupts closeness with God.

So actually one of the reasons that we fight sin as Christians.

Is because we wanna be close with God and the Holy Spirit is the

way you do that as a Christian.

The Holy Spirit is the um, reason you can even get rid of any sin in your life.

So our first point tonight is kill sin by the Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is the one who enables you to kill sin.

He's the one who gives you the ability and even the desire

to do anything about your sin.

Now, something really interesting that we're gonna see in our verse

is that killings, sin actually doesn't start with things you do.

It starts with who you are.

So look at verse 12 in Romans eight, okay?

Romans eight, verse 12.

So we just talked about how the Holy Spirit, um, he lives

in you if you're a Christian.

And then he says this, so then brothers, right?

He's talking to his, his, his church family, right?

You ever hear that phrase, church, family.

This is what Paul's doing.

He's like, you guys are my relatives, you're my brothers.

We're.

Debtors.

So debtor is someone who like owes someone money, right?

Someone who's in debt, they're a debtor.

Um, he says, we're debtors not to the flesh.

So we're not, we don't owe the flesh anything.

You don't owe your old sinful self.

If you're a Christian, you don't owe 'em anything.

You have no obligation to sin anymore.

You don't have to.

To live according to the flesh, right?

You don't have to do it anymore.

And why is that?

Well, remember what we learned the past couple weeks in Romans eight.

You have been transformed.

If you're a Christian, if you have the Holy Spirit, you're different now.

It's not just that you do different things.

You have been changed.

You've gone from a flesh person to a spirit person.

Remember that You've gone from a person who's in the flesh, who's opposed to

God, who doesn't have the Holy Spirit to someone who now has the Holy Spirit who.

Loves God.

You're a different person now.

Not just you do different things, not just you had new habits, not just you.

You learned some more facts.

You became a different person when you became a Christian.

If you don't see that evidence in your life, we talked

about this last week, right?

Then maybe you should ask, do I even have the Holy Spirit?

'cause the Holy Spirit is gonna make a big difference in your life, right?

He's God.

So if God's in your life, he's gonna make a big difference.

And so the first reason that.

We kill sin is because of who we are.

You have no obligation to your old self anymore.

You don't have to do the things you used to do anymore.

Right?

It's almost like, um, when you think about, oh, if you, if

you owe someone money, right?

You, you on a sense have to do what they say, right?

I, I was, um, watching this video the other day and, and this guy, he

accidentally, like, they were playing a video game and he accidentally hurt

someone and he was like, you know what, because I hurt you, I feel bad,

so I'm gonna do whatever you say.

For the rest of this episode.

And so whatever the guy told them, he's like, all right,

we're gonna go build this castle.

We're gonna go over here and attack these people.

He was like, I have to do it 'cause I'm in your debt, right?

I owe you stuff.

If you're a Christian, you don't owe your old self anything.

You don't have to sin anymore.

You have no, you don't never earn a situation where you

say, I just have to sin.

I have.

I just had to be anxious.

I just had to be angry.

I just had to watch that.

I just had to feel that.

I just had to be impatient.

They're so annoying.

I just had to do that.

If you're a Christian, you never have to do that.

You have no obligation to do that anymore.

You're free.

You're not in debt.

You're free.

You don't have to worry about it anymore, and that's because

who you are has changed.

That's really important that you start there, right?

Because as a Christian, there's times where you feel like,

man, I just can't stop sinning.

There's times where you feel that like, man, I just, I just

keep having these thoughts.

I just keep having these desires.

I just feel like the words just came outta my mouth.

I just started gossiping and I didn't really try, or I just got

angry and I didn't really try.

And sometimes you can feel like, oh, I, I can't stop.

And it's so important.

And remember we talked about the first command in the whole book of Romans, if

you're a Christian, is consider yourself, think of yourself a different way.

That's not me anymore.

Right.

Whenever you're attempted to sin, you can, you can tell yourself, you can tell

that sin, I'm, that's not me anymore.

I don't have to do that.

I don't have to feel that way.

I don't have to want that.

I don't have to do that.

I don't have to try and, and look for approval from that anymore.

And that's huge that you start there.

You start with who you are, right?

Change is a Christian is inside out, not outside in.

Something else though that we see I in this passage is another.

Way.

God helps us kill sin.

It starts with who we are.

But he also starts by giving us warnings and rewards.

Look here in verse 13, he says four, right?

Because you don't have to, you don't have to live your old way

because if you live according to the flesh, if, if you live the the way,

that's independent from God, right?

When you think of living coordinated flesh, don't only think of like,

oh, those are the bad people.

I want you to think living according to flesh.

It could be someone who looks really good, right?

Like the Pharisees, we would all say, oh, the Pharisees.

They're the bad guys.

Right?

But really, a lot of times, if, if you see a Pharisee in real life,

he'd be like, oh, he knows his Bible.

He goes to church.

He prays, they're, they're serving at church.

They're super involved, right?

They've memorized all this stuff from the Bible.

You would say that's, that's a person I, I'm, I like, I like that person.

They're, they're a godly looking person, so living according to the

flesh might not be your typical, oh, that's the bad kid in the class, right?

Living according to flesh might be a really religious

person, a really nice person.

Who is just saying, I don't want God.

I don't need God.

I'm good enough on my own.

Right?

You might have grown up in church your whole life and been

living according to the flesh.

So anyway, when you see that, don't think of, oh, just people who are

doing really bad things, right?

Anything independent from God is living according to the flesh.

So if you live according to flesh, you will die.

And hopefully this reminds you of Genesis three, right?

If you eat of the fruit of in the garden, right, you will surely die.

Sin leads to death.

So the first reason that we see here of, oh, here's some motivation for

you, not just who you are anymore, but here's some motivation to avoid sin is

think of the consequences of your sin.

That's one of the ways the Holy Spirit helps you kill your sin, is he gives you

a new vision of the consequences of sin.

You see your sin, you're like, oh, you know what?

If I give into that desire, where's that desire going to take me?

I want you to think of your, your choices, almost like path.

You know, those, um, like choose your own adventure books.

Um, like where if, if you, oh, if you choose to go here, go to page 14.

If you choose to go to here, go to page 47.

Right?

I, I read one of these as a kid and I literally spent hours reading it.

It was like a Star Wars with the Clone Wars.

Choose your own adventure book.

And I could not figure out the right, I, I died like 564 times reading this book.

Like every, it feels like every choice.

I went, I was like, oh, you went down this path and you're gonna die.

Or you went down this path and then you ended up.

In another, you know, another planet and enslaved paja of the hut or whatever,

and it was like, it was horrible.

Um, anyway, some of you are like, I have no idea what that is.

That's fine.

Whole point, right, is I want you to see your choices like paths, right?

You have, and every situation, when you have a choice to live for God or live

for yourself, you're choosing a path.

Is your path gonna lead to life or is it gonna lead to death?

Right?

If you choose to live for yourself, that path is going to lead to death.

Something that God does for us is he gives us a lot of warnings in the Bible.

Maybe you think in the Bible, oh, the warnings.

That's so mean, right?

I don't like churches and pastors or sermons where you talk

about all the warnings, right?

Oh, if you sin bad things will happen.

Or if you sin, you're gonna go to hell.

Or if you do, this is bad, bad, bad, bad, bad.

All people don't like that.

But the reason warnings are actually so good is 'cause

they're kinda like guardrails.

A warning like this, Hey, if you live for yourself, you're gonna die.

That's a guardrail to keep you on the right path.

That's the way that God protects you from things that are bad for you.

Right?

It's the way that God says, Hey, don't pick that one.

'cause that one will take you to to tattooing and you're

gonna be frozen in Carbonite.

Right?

Don't take that path 'cause that'll be bad for you.

So this is a loving warning from God saying, Hey, if you

live apart from me, right?

If you try to use your own wisdom and your own values, or if you

fall for the world's values, right?

If you fall for what the culture says is important, or what the

culture says you need to say or do or think or where, right?

You are going to go down the path that leads to death.

When you think about temptation, one thing you can do even is think

about if I do this, what do I get?

Right?

Maybe you're really tempted to use your words to tear someone down, right?

Maybe someone's really, really annoying and you're really tempted to just, you

know, text them or say something that's, you just wanna get back at them, right?

One thing you do is pause and think about where will this take.

Where is my sin going to take me?

Maybe it'll make me happy for a little bit.

'cause I'll feel good.

'cause I, I really stuck it to him, right?

I got, I, I said that thing and it was really witty and I, I

roasted them and embarrassed them.

Right?

And you're like, oh, wow, that was so great.

And then you think about, oh, but what about the conflict that's gonna cause,

what about the, all of the, the hurt that's gonna cause Oh, I said I'm a

Christian and now I'm hurting this person.

And then my, now I am trying to share the gospel with someone

later and they're like, well, you just said this about that person.

You think about all the consequences of your sin.

That's a good way to avoid.

Temptation is you think about what's gonna happen to me if I do this?

'cause sometimes what temptation does right, is it makes you, it

makes you shortsighted, right?

Um, I have glasses because I am nearsighted.

I can't see things that are far away.

They get really blurry, but I can see things up close.

That's what sin does to you sometimes.

Temptation it, it makes the things that are short term really clear.

You're like, oh yeah, if I watch this video, I'll feel really good.

Or if I say these words, it'll feel good in the moment.

Right.

It blinds you to what's really gonna happen down the road.

And then you, if you think about that, maybe if you, you know,

put your glasses on, right?

And that's like reading a warning in the Bible and you see that and you're

like, oh, I, I can see where this is gonna take me, is not a good idea.

So God uses warnings to protect us from sin, but something else he does to protect

us from sin is he gives us promises.

If by the spirit you put to death the deed of the body, you will live.

This is another way you look down the road.

You don't just look down the bad path and say, oh yeah, I don't wanna go there.

You look down the good path and you say, man, if I choose God's will, right?

If I live for God, if I do the things that God says are important, if I

love the things that God loves, if I put myself under the influence

of the Holy Spirit and not under the influence of the world, that's

gonna lead me to life, to happiness.

When you see death and life in the Bible, they're not just.

Places you go, they're states of, of being, right.

They're experiences.

It's almost like you're, you're going into the, not just the, you know,

oh, one day you're gonna, you're gonna enter into death forever.

But along the way, you're going to experience all of this sorrow

and the un, the dissatisfaction that comes from that living for

the world and living for yourself.

But on the way to living for God, you experience life 'cause

God is what you're really made.

Four.

And essentially what we're talking about here is by the spirit you

put to death of these of the body.

We're talking about faith, right?

Faith is the ability to say, I trust that God's path is good

for me and my path is bad for me.

What faith does, it helps you see the end of the road.

You're like, oh, well, if I go down that path, I'm gonna die.

If I go down this path, I'm gonna live.

Sometimes what we do, the problem right, is, is we don't call the

end of the path to mind, right?

We don't think about where is this gonna take me?

And so God gives us promises to say, look, it's gonna be so good, right?

A promise like blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God like,

man, I, I want God, I love God.

And so you say, okay, I'm gonna be pure because I, I I want more of God.

Or a promise, like our memory verse as a church, right?

Cast your anxieties on the Lord.

For, he cares for you, right?

It's a promise.

And you can say, man, God cares for me, and so I can trust him

with what I'm worried about.

It's a promise, right?

Or humble yourself before the Lord for he will exalt you.

God gives you a promise.

Hey you.

You can humble yourself now because it's gonna be worth it later.

The, maybe you get embarrassed by someone because you don't do the

things they do or they make fun of you.

If for not going to the places that they wanna go to or using the words

that they use, you can humble yourself and say, I'm not gonna fight back.

'cause I know that God is gonna take care of me, right?

You can trust God to do that and that's what faith does.

And so what I want you to do is envision the future of your choices, right?

Envision, even think about this.

If like, if I keep being lazy, what's my life going to be like?

Versus if I keep being disciplined and self-controlled,

what's my life gonna be like?

Think about it.

Something that my school did, um, in when I was in high school that they

did I think every two years is this thing is called every 15 minutes.

I don't know if you guys do this here, but something that they did is called

every 15 minutes and what they would do, um, because they were, 'cause young

people cause most of the car accidents in, in the world, that's why your parents

pay way more for insurance when you're young, um, is they would show us what it's

like for a real car accident to happen.

So what they would do is they would like simulate this car wreck

in the school parking lot and they'd have like real policemen,

real ambulances and real actors.

And they'd have all this and we'd all just sit there and there'd be people like

acting, like screaming and like crying.

And it was crazy.

It was like a real like acted out drama of this person died.

Right.

And what they would do during the week is they would take

someone out of our classes.

Um, because essentially the reason it's called every 15 minutes is because every

15 minutes someone dies in a car accident.

Statistically, every 15 minutes, someone, so during the school day,

every 15 minutes, they'd ring the bell, um, and they would come into your

class and pull someone outta class.

And so by the end of the day, there's all these missing seats

in your class and you're like, oh, that's how many people just died

today because of reckless driving.

What they do for us is they help us visualize, this is what

happens when you drive recklessly.

And that was super helpful for me, right?

Because in the moment when you're, you know, you're talking in the car, you're

listening to music, you're having fun, you're not thinking about, oh, if I hit

this person right and I, and I kill them,

you know, there's gonna be a funeral.

Someone's gonna lose their son or their daughter, or their best friend,

or someone's not gonna get married.

Right?

You don't think about that because you're having fun, you know, maybe

there's alcohol involved, right?

If you're older, or maybe there's, you know, maybe you're just distracted.

You don't think about the consequences.

'cause in the moment you're just having fun, right?

But what that does is it thinks you, it helps you really take it seriously, right?

Because you, you're just clarifying, oh, here's what,

here's what the consequences are.

And also, here's what the rewards are, right, is I can

have this person alive, right?

I can save their life, protect their life by being responsible.

So I know that's a more serious kind of story, but God does the same thing

with promises and warnings, right?

He helps you see where your decisions will take you, right?

If you keep ignoring God, where will that take you if you keep choosing

to hang out with those bad friends?

Where will that take you?

Right?

But if you keep trusting God, where will that take you?

If you make wise decisions with your time, with your money, where will that take you?

If you keep investing in the world and what the world thinks is important,

that's gonna leave you upset, empty, unsatisfied, wishing you did differently.

But if you keep investing in what God says is important, that's gonna

leave you fulfilled and happy.

Right?

So.

What we do here, right?

We see, oh, a warning helps me see the consequences, and a

promise helps me see the benefits.

Now, the key phrase here though is by the spirit you put to death of deeds of

the body, and this is really interesting, right, because you are doing it.

Who's killing the sin, right?

The deeds of the body.

That's sin.

Who's doing it?

You are, you're killing it.

But how are you doing it?

By the spirit, right?

By that's like a.

That's how something happens, right?

Like I got here by car.

I didn't get here by boat.

I didn't get here by plane.

I got here by car, right?

That's how I got here.

How do you kill sin By the spirit?

You use the Holy Spirit's power to kill sin.

You don't use your own power.

It doesn't say by trying really hard.

It doesn't say by knowing a lot.

It doesn't say by.

Showing up to the right things.

It says by the spirit, right?

The Holy Spirit is what gives you the ability to kill sin.

Now, how does that work?

Well, remember last week we talked about setting our minds on the

things of the spirit, right?

Having the mindset of the spirit.

So part of that means you need to think about the right things.

A lot of sin starts with your thoughts, starts with how you see the world.

It starts with the your priorities and your values, what you think is important.

It starts with how you view people and situations.

How do you change your thoughts?

Well, you influence your thoughts by what you take in, right?

What you take in are, you are, well, who are you listening to?

What are you telling yourself?

How do you, when, when something happens to you, what's the, the narrative

that you give yourself about it?

Right?

I'll give you an example.

I'll, um, let's say you're, um,

you, you, uh, go to school and in your class your teacher gives you a

ton of homework and you're just like.

That was so lame.

Why did they do that?

That was horrible, right?

Like we, we just had star testing.

Why are they giving his homework during star testing?

This is terrible.

What, what, what's going on?

Right?

You can talk to yourself and say, man, my teacher must hate us.

She's a horrible person.

I dunno why I said she, he could be a horrible person too.

Um, but you could, you could do this whole, we're we're equal

opportunity illustrations here, right?

So, um.

You could do all the, all the different things, right?

You could, you could tell yourself, you could, you could

start grumbling and complaining like you talk to your classmate.

Can you believe that, that they did this right?

Can you believe that our teacher just, did your teacher do that?

And, and you, what you've done now is you have filled your

mind with sinful thoughts.

You've talked to yourself.

Into this spiral of sin.

You've talked to yourself into complaining and grumbling, and maybe

now you're anxious about all the work.

How am I gonna get it done?

What am I gonna do?

Uh, how is this gonna work?

Right?

You have just spun your own narrative about how this goes, right?

You've set your mind on the things of the flesh, but instead, you could set

your mind on things of the spirit.

You could say, man, you know, I, maybe I don't like all this homework, but.

God is sovereign.

God wanted me to have all this homework right now for some reason,

and so I'm gonna try to honor God in what he's given me, right?

This is my responsibility right now.

Complaining is not gonna help me.

Maybe you envision the end of your complaining.

If I complain about this, is that gonna help me?

No, it's actually gonna give me less energy to do what I need to do, right?

And so you think about it and you, you fill your mind with the things of the

spirit and you're like, okay, well, uh, what does God say about working hard?

He says that working hard is a good thing.

God loves when I work hard for his glory.

I can please God by doing this homework.

I can please God, by not complaining.

I can please God, by not joining in with the grumbling.

I can trust God that even if I think this homework is pointless,

he's gonna use it for something.

And maybe he's using it to help you not be a complainer, right?

Because no one likes a complainer.

Complainers are the worst.

And maybe I'm complaining about complainers, but, um, regardless, right,

is we, that's an illustration of you just.

Either filled your mind with the things of the flesh or with

the things of the spirit, right?

How you talk to yourself about your life is really important, but also

maybe the things that you surround yourself with or the people you

surround, you surround yourself with, influence your thoughts as well.

If you have a bunch of friends who are just complaining about

school, I think it's so lame.

Why would I do this?

That's gonna rub off on you, right?

So that's the starting point, right?

We wanna set our mind, we're gonna control the narrative in our head

of, okay, what's happening here?

Is this a situation for me to complain or is this a situation for me to honor God?

Right?

But then the second thing we do is we don't just say no to sin, right?

Is we say yes to God, right?

We don't just kill sin, we put on righteousness.

Um, and that's where we talk about faith, right?

Um, the Holy Spirit has given you a weapon to fight, right?

The Ephesians six says that scripture is the sword of the spirit.

And so to put on the, the things that God wants you to do right to,

to actually to do the right thing.

You need God's word to inform your thoughts, to fight your sin, right?

You use the sword, the Holy Spirit's given you.

And that's why we care so much about the Bible here, right?

That's why we want you to, to read the Bible.

That's why we want you to know God's word.

That's why we do sermons, right?

Not most youth groups don't have a sermon that's this long, and

most youth groups don't have a sermon that's about Rowans, right?

But we do this 'cause we, we love you and we want you to know God's word.

We want you to go to go to war with good weapons.

We don't want you to go to war with, you know, a, a fork.

Like some snowballs, right?

We want you to go to war with, with swords and shields and spears, right?

We, we want you to do battle with the right things.

So you use scripture by faith to change how you feel and what

you think about and what you do.

And that's why we want you to know God's word, and you'll talk

about that more in, in your small groups of how exactly that works.

But the point of all of this, right, the point of killing sin

is we wanna be close with God.

That's the point.

It's not so I can do better.

It's not so I can feel better about myself.

It's not so I can fit in with my Christian friends and not

feel guilty after the sermon.

The, the point of putting on righteousness and killing sin is

because we wanna be close with God.

The whole point of all this, the Holy Spirit sanc, he, he sanctifies us.

He makes you holy because he, he wants you to be close with God.

And if you're a Christian, you wanna be close with God.

And so that's the whole point of all of this.

Right.

The point of killing sin is closeness with God, and it comes from who you are.

Again, like we talked about at the beginning, that's

where this four comes in.

Connecting words are important, right?

Uh, you put to that these of the body, you'll live.

Because the reason you do this, the reason you kill sin is because if

you're led by the spirit of God, right?

If you're following the leadership of the Holy Spirit, which

you find in his word, right?

Um, you are sons of God.

So the people who are children of God, not everyone.

Not everyone is a child of God.

Maybe that's new for you.

Not everyone is a child of God.

The people who are children of God are the ones who are following the

leadership of the Holy Spirit, the people who, the Holy Spirit it lives in.

Those are the people who are God's children.

And how do you know who those people are?

Well, they're the people that are killing sin 'cause they wanna be close with God.

The Holy Spirit gives them new desires and like, I wanna be close with God.

I don't wanna do these things God hate.

I don't wanna do these things that offend God, that put Jesus on the cross.

I don't wanna do that.

I love God.

And so then they follow the leadership of the Holy Spirit and that shows,

oh yeah, you're a child of God.

You've been adopted by God and closeness with God.

It doesn't just start with what you do, right?

It starts with who you are.

God makes you close with him, which is kind of an interesting

way to think about it.

But whose idea was it for you to be close with God?

It was God's idea.

Remember what we started with?

We were all hostile to God.

We were all living according to the flesh opposing God.

We were all saying, God, I don't want you.

I want your stuff more than I want you.

Right?

That's sin as I love all this other stuff and I love God.

And so because if you're a Christian, you have been adopted by God as his child.

You can now draw near to him, and that's all possible by the Holy Spirit, right?

Your status as a beloved child.

God is because of the Holy Spirit.

Not because you did really great or you cleaned yourself up and

and made yourself likable to God.

It's because of the Holy Spirit.

So our second point is to confidently approach.

God confidently approach God.

Because if you have the Holy Spirit, you're his child, you're adopted, you

can be confident of his love for you.

The Holy Spirit enables you not just to put away the things that

draw you away from God, right?

It doesn't just help you get rid of sin.

The Holy Spirit helps you come to God and be confident in his love for you.

Now, here's the thing.

Um, I almost put one of these things.

You know what?

These are a tree.

I almost put an uh, that's not a tree, that's an asterisk.

I almost put one of those here because if you are not a

Christian, you cannot do this.

You have zero confidence to approach God.

If you're not a Christian, if you approach God, you should expect is depart from me.

I never knew you.

If you're not a Christian, you should not be confident because you're God's enemy.

You don't like God, you're hostile to him.

Maybe you don't feel hostile to him, but that's what loving

things more than God is.

It's saying, God, I don't want you.

I want your stuff.

So if you're not a Christian, you have no confidence to approach God.

But if you are, you have all the confidence you ever need,

it's not because of you.

It's because you've been adopted by God.

It's because of something God did for you.

Romans eight 15 says You didn't receive the spirit of slavery to fall back.

Fear that you've received the spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry.

Abba, father.

Now this is really important here.

You're not adopted by God as a slave, right?

You're, you're not drawing near to God like he's your master and you're

just here to do stuff for him.

You're drawing near to God if you're a Christian because.

You have closeness with God.

So Abba, that's the Hebrew word for father, right?

It's not a rock band, it's the Hebrew word for father.

It's the, it's that close.

I think only the grownups got that.

Um, but that's okay.

Um, but the whole point is this, is, this is the term of closeness, right?

It's, it's something that a child would say to their, to say to their dad, right?

It's not something that you'd say to anyone and everyone.

Now, this does not mean you can call God daddy, okay?

I wouldn't do that.

Let's just we'll through that about later.

We're not gonna do that.

All right.

I saw you smiling and so I had to, I had to clarify, right?

Um, this is not saying that, okay, now, um, but the whole point is

because of the Holy Spirit, right?

The spirit of adoption.

You have as a Christian, this closeness with God you wouldn't otherwise have.

Okay?

That's the whole point.

So again, it comes.

From the Holy Spirit.

Now, there's a couple things that I want to point out real quick

about all of this, right, with, if you're a Christian, you can approach

God because of the Holy Spirit.

Now, the first thing that I want you to notice is the Holy Spirit gives

you the desire to approach God.

You see that by whom we cry, Abba Father, the Holy Spirit

gives you the desire to want God.

So if you have the Holy Spirit, you should expect, I want God.

You should expect to want to be with God.

You should expect to want to be close with God.

You should expect to want to hear from God in his word.

You should expect to want to talk to God in prayer, right?

So if you don't see that, it might be because you don't have the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit gives you those desires to to want God, to want that

closeness to that relationship with God.

So that's the first thing I want you to notice is there's new

desires that that come from that.

Now, what's also really cool about that, right, is that anytime you want, God,

that's, God actually initiated that.

Anytime you want to pray, that was God's idea.

Isn't that cool?

Anytime you want to read your Bible, that's actually God saying, here,

I want you to to come near to me.

That's God inviting you.

Isn't that really cool?

Anytime you wanna pray, that's God inviting you to pray.

He gave you a desire from the Holy Spirit to pray.

Anytime you want to do something for God, God's inviting you into that, right?

It's not you coming up with your own, oh, I really want God.

I hope he'll accept me.

That's God saying, no, no, no, I want, I want you.

I gave you that desire.

Now follow it back to me.

And that's really, really cool, right?

That's really awesome.

'cause the whole point is you're not a slave.

You're not like, oh, I hope God likes me.

Maybe if I do enough, he'll be pleased with me.

You don't have to do that anymore because you're accepted by God already,

so you don't have to work for it.

That's the whole point.

You're, you're a child, not a slave.

Now the second thing I want you to see is there's this new status, right?

Um, you're a loved son that's not in there, and that's the love

isn't in there, but you see it with this whole picture, right?

Of being someone who, who God loves.

God is not against his children, right?

He's for them.

He is working for their good.

He protects them.

If you think about, hopefully you think about your parents, you think, man,

my parents want what's best for me.

Right?

They're, they're in my corner.

They don't necessarily want what I want.

They want what is best for me, right?

Because they love me.

They love me so much that they're even willing to tell

me things I don't want to hear.

And maybe they're willing for me to maybe not like them because they love me, right?

My mom was a great example of this.

My, I hated my mom for a few years in middle school.

Because she wanted what's best for me.

And I didn't, I didn't, I wanted to live for the world.

I wanted to live for myself.

And she, I thought she was restrictive.

I thought she was mean and I really didn't like her.

And then I became a Christian and our relationship totally

changed 'cause I realized, oh, she's loved me this whole time.

She hasn't just been mean to me and giving me these rules

because she doesn't like me.

She's actually giving me these rules 'cause she loves me so much

and she wants to take care of me and she wants what's best for me.

And that totally changed our relationship.

And that's kind of what happens when you become a Christian, is you go from someone

who's fighting against God's rules and be like, oh, God's rules are the worst.

I hate that I have to do this.

I hate that God tells me to do this.

I hate my parents.

Want me to do this.

And, and you, you fight against God's rules because you don't really

see that they're from his love.

And then when you become a Christian, you realize, oh, God's whole like orientation

towards me has always been, he loves me.

And it changes everything, right?

Because now it's not you fighting against God.

It's you saying, okay, God, you love me.

You're way smarter than me, and you've been for me, and I, I I want

to trust you and, and live for you.

And so as a Christian, you can come to God and be confident with that, right?

Because you know he's for you.

He's for your good.

So even when you sin, right?

Like before, when I wasn't a Christian and I hated my mom, I didn't wanna

tell my mom when I broke the rules.

I didn't.

That was the last thing I wanted do.

I tried to hide it.

I tried to cover it up.

I tried to do all this stuff to, to hide that.

I broke the rules because we were against each other.

And then when I became a Christian, if I broke the rules, if I did something wrong,

I would come to my mom and admit it.

'cause I knew she loved me.

I knew she was for me.

I knew that she was working for my good.

Even if, if you're a Christian and you sin, right, and you will,

you can still come to God with your imperfections, right, with your sin,

with your guilt, and be confident that he's for you because he's your father.

He loves you.

And so the Holy Spirit gives you that confidence of God is for me.

I don't have to hide from him.

I can come to him.

And that's what Christians do.

When Christians sin.

They don't hide from God.

They come to God because they're confident in God's love for them.

And the last thing we'll talk about this next week, so I won't spend too

much time on it, is that the Holy Spirit gives you a new future, gives

you new desires, he gives you new status, and he gives you a new future.

Right?

We'll talk about that next week, but what I want you guys to really

focus on here is the fact that the Holy Spirit is the one who enables

your closeness with God, right?

You.

Drawing near to God on your own, coming up with your own way to, to come to God.

That's not how this works.

God invites you to come to Him his way, right by the Spirit.

He, it's, he initiates that.

He gives you the Holy Spirit, and that's how you draw near to God.

Let's pray and, and we'll talk about that more in small groups.

God, we are grateful for your love.

We're grateful that.

Christ, we can have you for us, for our good that all of who you are,

um, loves your children, you don't kind of love us or sometimes love us,

but you fully love us all the time.

And we're grateful that because of Jesus and because of the Holy Spirit,

we can be confident in your love for us.

So I pray for anyone here who wants that.

And isn't in Christ, doesn't trust Jesus that you would help them do that tonight.

And I pray for anyone here who thinks that you love them, um,

but is really hostile to you.

I pray that you'd show them that I pray, that they'd be honest, um, and

that you would help them see that um, they actually are opposing you.

And I pray that you help them to turn from that and turn to you, um, so that they

can be adopted by you into your family.

We pray this in Jesus name.

Amen.