"Discipleship Essentials" Pt. 5

Hi, this is John Ozanting, lead pastor of Evolved Church, and this is the Evolved Church Podcast.

Thanks so much for tuning in.

We hope that you find today's message encouraging and full of hope for wherever you're at.

Last week, Pastor John O walked us through chapter seven, which was a lot to go through, and it talked a lot about the law and about sin.

And uh, after talking to many of you this week and even on last Sunday, something clicked in your minds as you heard some verses you've heard before, and you're like, I understand it now.

I get it.

This is why this is in there.

Such relatable passages like, for I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing that I hate.

Or maybe you have this one, I do the things my I do not do the things my wife wants me to do, but I end up doing the very thing that she hates.

And I see some elbows poking next to them in this chairs there, and you're wishing you had stayed home and watched from the couch this morning, but that's okay.

I actually got in trouble after first service because I was told I was vilifying my wife too much, so I'll do a little bit better this service on that.

But you might be wondering what happens.

Some of you know, but if I had just listened to my wife, I wouldn't be in this situation.

Because two years ago I was playing football and I tore my right Achilles, and then six weeks ago tomorrow, I'm running down the field, I hear a popping noise, I fall over, and in my head, there's two things that are going on.

One, ouch, because it was hurt, and two, how am I gonna tell my wife?

Realistically, I called five people before I called her that night.

Every one of them for prayer, hoping God would do a work before I had to tell her what happened.

But if I had just listened to her even before I left that night, it was raining, and she said, Are you sure you need to play tonight?

And you know, I mean, there's a little bit of fun in this, but how often do we not listen to the things that are being told to us flat out?

We end up doing the things we hate, and bad things come out of it.

And as we go into chapter eight, these are good tensions to still keep in our mind as Christians that we're gonna still be doing things that we hate.

We're gonna do the things that we do not want to do, but what does that actually mean in light of the gospel and in light of Romans chapter eight?

And before we open up chapter eight, it's important to go back to chapter seven for a little bit more context.

We're gonna read verse six together from Romans 7.

It says, But now we are released from the law, having died to that which held us captive, so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, not in the old way of the written code.

This verse could have almost ended chapter seven.

Like the whole chapter, the first six verses, was almost enough to end it.

But then Paul felt a need to get on a little sidetrack talking more about the law and about sin and what that looked like, which Pastor Giano did cover last week, and I'd encourage you, if you haven't heard it yet, go back and listen, because it really helps build into what we're gonna talk about today.

But verse six, going into chapter eight, is pretty much where we need to pick up today.

And chapter eight, I want to leave you with a question to think about the whole time we're talking.

The question is this if we have been released from the law, like it says in verse six of chapter seven, does the law still have a role in our life?

Chapter eight will help us focus on the Holy Spirit as we are brought into the family of God.

Once you have made the decision to follow Jesus, to accept that he died and rose again for us, we then can take that step into sanctification.

The grow and become peace we talk about each and every week.

Let's read Romans 8, verse 1 to 4 together.

Romans 8:1–4

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.

For what the law was powerless to do because it was weakened by the flesh, God did by sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering.

And so he has condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the flesh, but according to the spirit.

And our essential number one today is this victory over condemnation releases us from fear and despair.

It gives us hope.

And it can be easy to wonder at the end of chapter seven, reading all about the things we don't want to do, about how we can be frustrated and get angry and annoyed and live in a fear of the ongoing defeats that we know we're gonna have.

Fear of that indwelling sin that is still inside of us.

But the answer is no, we don't have to be frustrated, we don't have to be fearful, we don't have to live in despair, because this victory over condemnation, we no longer have to.

Condemnation defined is this complete disapproval or a sentencing to a punishment.

And Jesus has already done that, he's shown his disapproval of sin and he's condemned it, he's paid the sentence, it's been punished, it's over.

We now have that victory, and we get to walk in that.

The law of double jeopardy states that a man cannot be tried twice for the same crime.

Since Jesus Christ paid the penalty for your sins, and since you are in Christ, God will not condemn you.

The word victory is used a lot in church.

We have victory in Jesus.

We walk with him, we talk with him, and we sing about these things.

But true victory and an understanding about it is that it's not a victory at the end of time.

That's not all it is.

In fact, quite the opposite.

This is the moment when we're actually called in closer to God.

When we take the mistakes we make and realize, oh, come back to that Father.

Instead of the old phrase, one step forward, two steps backward, we're walking in a place where we might get to go to three, four steps forward before we take that step backward.

And as we continue to draw closer to Jesus, maybe it becomes five, six, seven steps.

Who knows?

But the goal is that when we do screw up, it's not to push us away, it's actually only to pull us in closer.

To pull us in closer to what God has for us.

Because He already took the initiative through Jesus to do what the law couldn't do.

The law was powerless to do.

And Pastor John talked about the law and why it was important for us to understand evil and what is right and wrong, but that we would never be able to truly meet up to the righteousness that came from the law.

So God had a plan for Jesus to do what the law couldn't do on its own.

And now we have the ability to be sanctified, to be changed, and to live in that fulfillment of the law with Christ.

There are still going to be earthly consequences for the sin and mistakes we make.

You end up with a torn Achilles because you didn't listen.

You end up in debt because you make financial mistakes over and over again and you wonder why you are where you're at.

You end up lonely because you're hurting everyone around you and you never let people in to what's truly going on.

You have defense mechanisms.

There's pain that comes because of actions we make.

But thankfully, Jesus has already paid the price.

Allowing us to still live in the righteousness that God has for you.

Reignite the fire inside of you.

Allow God to pull you close and to remind you that you are loved, that the Spirit is living inside of you.

Let's move to Romans 8:5 to 11.

Romans 8:5–11

Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires.

But those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.

The mind governed by the flesh is death.

But the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace.

The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God.

It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so.

Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God.

You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh, but are in the realm of the Spirit.

If indeed the Spirit of God lives in you, and if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ.

But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives life because of righteousness.

And if the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give you life to your mortal bodies because of his spirit who lives in you.

And when we choose the spirit, we are now empowered to please God.

A legalistic person can try to measure up to all the laws and the righteousness required of Scripture.

But no matter how morally good they are, no matter how much they strive on their own, without yielding themselves to the Spirit of God, they cannot actually truly please God.

And there's a lot of contrast in these verses we read.

The hostile mind because the mind of the flesh, the things where you can never please God versus the way of the spirit.

It's a good contrast to see the extremes on both ends and why it's so important to be living according to the spirit and not according to the flesh.

We read in verse 3, Jesus was sent in the likeness of sinful flesh, but not in sinful flesh.

He was able to fulfill the law to stay righteous and never sin because of what we are able to now choose in the spirit.

We also have the likeness of Christ.

That's what's been given to us here.

And although we are born into sinful flesh, we now get to take a hold of our likeness in Christ as we continue to choose the spirit daily, as we get to live the way Christ lived in his life, as we are invited into a journey much like the one he went in.

And I know there are some of you in this room that are probably wondering when you read this, there are these if statements.

It says, if Christ is in you, if the spirit of him who is living is in you.

You read these and you're wondering, well, does that apply to me?

Is the spirit really alive in me?

Does this apply to me?

Or should I try to get further because I see someone else who clearly has the spirit living in them and I don't feel that, I don't see that in my life.

But the if that Paul is writing about to the Romans and to all of his readers here is the if you've been saved, if you've accepted Jesus, then yes, these things are true.

If you've accepted Christ, then he is in you.

If you've accepted Christ, then his spirit is dwelling inside of you.

It's already there.

There's nothing to be worried about anymore.

There's no ifs, ands, or buts about it.

The spirit resides in you.

And now if your mind is in the spirit, then you can please God.

But it's important to make a little distinction because I've heard people confuse or use interchangeably the words the world and the flesh.

Blaming the world for everything that's wrong, blaming the world for all the evil.

But in reality, these words aren't used interchangeably.

The word we translate here and elsewhere as flesh refers to people or things who share the corruptibility and mortality of the world.

And often enough, and certainly here, the rebellion of the world.

Flesh is a negative term.

For Paul as a Jew, the created order, the physical world was good in itself.

Only its wrong use and its corruption and defacing are bad.

Flesh highlights that wrong use, that corruption, and the decay.

Because God created this world and it was good.

And he wants us to take joy in it, to enjoy the things of his creation, the beautiful things he's put in front of us.

That hasn't changed.

God still created everything that's out there.

But it's the sinful flesh, it's the corruption that has turned so many of these good things for evil.

But we have been redeemed.

And one of the ways we can please God is by starting to redeem his creation even now.

Not waiting for a new world in heaven, but starting to bring back the good and the joy and the peace that was once in this world, and starting to be like, the world isn't bad.

We just need to get the evil out of it and start living for Christ again, starting to use the things of this world for good again.

We've been redeemed, remade, and renewed by the Spirit.

Titus 3, verse 3 to 5 says this.

Titus 3:3–5

Relatable?

Easy marks for sin, ordered every which way by our glands, going around with a chip on our shoulder, hated and hating back.

But when God, our kind and loving Savior, God stepped in, he saved us from all of that.

It was all his doing.

We had nothing to do with it, and he gave us a good bath.

And we came out of it new people, washed inside and out by the Holy Spirit.

And when I read Eugene Peterson's paraphrase here, it has me thinking about a good bath and about my child who goes through a day or two of hard work, hard play, sweat dripping down his face and in his hair, clothes covered and smelly, and you get to the end of the day and you're like, Oh, I don't have energy to give him a bath.

But you know that you know that you know that he needs it so desperately.

He has a stench about him.

And then once he's clean and you smell again, and you're like, Oh, I just want to snuggle you.

This is so amazing.

I can let you into the world again tomorrow.

Can any parents relate to that one?

They're still having troubles getting their teenage child to take a bath or a shower.

But after the bath, they are clean.

And the same goes for us before we have the spirit in our life.

We're living with the stench of sin that is so potent that it harms people around us.

That people don't always want to even be near us when there's the consequences of the evil and sin in our life.

But the Holy Spirit has come to give us a good bath and to make us clean once again, so that when we're going out into the world, we are a pleasing aroma to our Father.

We can please God because the Spirit has come.

And that process became a reality through the righteousness of Jesus.

And all of this is to say the Holy Spirit is able to free us from being controlled by what our sinful appetite desires.

And this is the beauty and the allure of the gospel right here in Romans 8.

Jesus became flesh, he died, and in the process he condemned sin, making a way for the Spirit.

His Spirit now dwells in us, allowing us to please God, our Heavenly Father, our Creator.

And we now have the ability to act out our faith in practical ways.

And acts of love, obedience, kindness, service, turning this world into a beautiful place once again.

As we begin to trust that it is the Spirit that equips us and guides us for every good work, today, tomorrow, and for the rest of our lives.

Even when you feel weak, even when you feel unqualified, even when you feel alone and you don't want to leave your house, the spirit is still there equipping you for any work that you are to do.

You just need to depend on the Spirit's power for once and not on your own.

Trusting that he is there speaking to you.

But this is a delicate matter to describe.

It is, however, a common Christian experience that while many of the thoughts in our minds seem to come from the ordinary flow of consciousness within us, sometimes we find other thoughts which seem to come from somewhere else, hinting gently but powerfully at God's love, at our calling to holiness, a particular task to which we must give energy and attention.

A key part of Christian discipleship is to recognize that voice and to nurture the facility of listening to it.

It is or may well be the voice of God's own spirit, and one of the primary things the Spirit says, with which we find our own spirit in full agreement, is that we are indeed God's children, God's adopted sons and daughters.

It is the presence of the Holy Spirit that is the identifying mark of someone who follows and serves Jesus.

No one should know you're a Christian by how often you go to church.

No one's gonna know you're a Christian by how much you read your Bible.

They're not gonna know you're a Christian by how you pray at your front window or by how much money you give to the church.

The way that you're gonna know that you follow Jesus is by the indwelling of spirit in your life that marks you as his child, that starts to flow out of your life.

We are indeed God's children.

Are you paying attention to the voice of the spirit?

Are you listening?

Are you learning to recognize that voice, that whisper?

Or are you waiting for the way he speaks of the earthquake or the wind?

Are you waiting for the loud way that you think he's gonna speak to you?

Are you starting to say, God, I want to listen, I want to focus on those thoughts that are going through my mind?

And maybe, just maybe, that isn't me thinking crazy, maybe that's actually the spirit at work in my mind, starting to guide me and teach me.

And as you start to recognize that whisper and allow it to shape your life, you're gonna start hearing more and more and more.

Will you learn to recognize that voice in your life?

We are sons and daughters, and that takes us into chapter 8, verse 12 to 17.

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.

The third essential today.

Understanding that we are adopted sons and daughters allows us to take our place as heirs with Christ.

We are sons and daughters, we are heirs with Christ.

Think about that for a moment.

You have an inheritance that comes from Christ.

Warren Wearsby writes, the Spirit has you.

It is not enough for us to have the Spirit, the Spirit must have us.

Only then can he share with us the abundant, victorious life that can be ours in Christ.

We have no obligation to the flesh, because the flesh has only brought trouble into our lives.

But we do have an obligation to the Holy Spirit, for it's the Spirit who convicted us, revealed Christ to us, and he imparted eternal life to us when we trusted Christ.

Because He is the Spirit of life, he can empower us to obey Christ, and He can enable us to be more like Christ.

We are in Jesus' family.

As Pastor John mentioned earlier with this belong piece of our culture, that we believe people can belong to a family here because we are all adopted sons and daughters into an amazing family.

No negative connotations of family in this one.

Our God is unlike any father you could ever imagine, who's never too busy to take a moment with you, who's never on their phone sidetracked from your conversation, who has the energy to give you everything you will ever need.

That is our Father who has adopted us into his family as heirs with Jesus.

When Jesus becomes Lord of our life as we identify as one of God's children, confident in our inheritance, knowing that even though in present times we will have to persevere through trials and suffer.

Because when we suffer, as it says here, we get to partially partake in the glory of Christ.

And there's going to be a future glory that's going to be talked about next week when Pastor Jonathan finishes the series.

But there's a suffering now that can help us understand how to be more like Christ.

To understand what he did when he lived and walked on this earth.

Because Christ did suffer.

It wasn't all easy for him.

Yes, there were a lot of highlights of the amazing things he did through the Spirit, but that wasn't an easy life.

He knew the end and had the end in mind when he was living and walking and facing those sufferings.

And we can approach God with trust.

Like the love of a child for their parents.

Because there's a reason that when a child hurts themselves or has a bad moment, that the first place they run is to mom or to dad, whoever's closest.

And they go into their arms, even if it's not a terrible thing, and all they want to hear is, it's going to be okay.

It's going to be okay.

I love you, son.

I love you, daughter.

And that's what it should be like when we're facing those troubles in our life.

We can go to our Abba Father, who will whisper to us and remind us it's going to be okay.

Come in close.

You have the likeness of Jesus.

You are my son.

You are my daughter.

I love you.

I'm pleased with you.

I want to pour out my spirit on your life.

I want to pull you close once again.

And as we join in that inheritance of Jesus, we take up what Christ was doing here on earth.

We get to continue his journey.

We get to get continue his taking the word of God's love to the ends of the earth.

We are heirs of Christ here and now.

And God wants us to bless us now.

But he also wants us to understand that a blessed life is not a perfect or easy life.

Harm can come our way.

Did you know that harm came Jesus' way quite often?

That he talked to people and they didn't listen to him, that they rejected what he had to say and went the other way.

People wanted him to be put to death.

We're not going to experience all of those things, but you may face moments where someone close to you leaves or walks away because they don't like the challenge you put in their life, because you have Jesus marking you now, you have the spirit marking you, and you feel comfortable challenging other people to live the way that Jesus wants them to live.

Some people aren't going to like that, and they may turn the other way.

And in those moments you're going to be sad and lonely, but that's okay because you are doing what the Spirit's asking of you, and you can go back and say, Abba Father, speak to that person.

But there's so many more people that when you start listening to the Spirit, they're going to come out the other side and need that challenge that you put in their life.

They're going to need to see that indwelling of the Spirit in your life to push them in the way that God has for them.

But we can always cry, Abba Father, Holy Spirit, come.

And this ties all back into the gospel.

Romans 8 really is a summation of the entire gospel, the truth of Jesus, that he came and died on a cross for us.

And now we get to share that news with other people because we have the power and indwelling of a spirit to change us.

We can not only live out the law now and start to act in a way that reflects the truth of Scripture because of the Spirit, which is a true testament to Jesus and His love, and people are going to want to be like that.

They're going to want to see that change in their life too.

But the news that we are not perfect is okay.

We're never going to meet up to any of these standards on our own, and that's okay.

We're going to face moments where we still slip into sin, and that's okay.

Because we can still be made righteous because of what Jesus did, because of the spirit that is in our lives.

Let's go back to verse 1 and 2 to start chapter 8 from the message.

With the arrival of Jesus the Messiah.

That fateful dilemma is resolved.

Those who enter into Christ's being here for us no longer have to live under a continuous, low-lying black cloud.

A new power is in operation.

The spirit of life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing you from a faded lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death.

And right to verse 17, where it says, and we know we are going to get what's coming to us: an unbelievable inheritance.

We go through exactly what Christ goes through.

If we go through the hard times with him, then we're certainly going to go through the good times with him too.

And back to the question we started with.

If we have been released from the law, does the law still have a role in our life?

You know, we're now able to fulfill and follow the law.

No longer out of legalism, but out of an outflowing of the spirit in our life.

Because truly that's now how we can fulfill the law.

As the spirit marks and guides us and changes us into the perfect, perfect person that is Christ, the likeness of Christ, we're now starting to fulfill that law on our own.

But not out of an obligation to anything, but out of an obligation to the Spirit alone, who now guides us and takes us.

Romans 13, verse 8 to 10 kind of sums up the Old Testament law for us.

Romans 13:8–10

Owe no one anything except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.

For the commandments, you shall not commit adultery, you shall not murder, you shall not steal, you shall not covet.

And any other commandment are summed up in this word you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

Love does no wrong to a neighbor, therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.

The law, even of the Old Testament, can still help us understand how to act.

We can never think that we are good enough at anything to stop growing.

True maturity comes when we continuously strive to get better.

And if you want to continue to grow in any area of your life, why not look at scripture, Old and New Testament?

Because this talks about love, but what better way to learn about loving people than to see all of the law and how that now reflects into what the New Testament says?

Reading the Old Testament, understanding the whole flow of scripture to understand this is important too.

In knowledge of what is to come, I understand why all these laws are here.

And this can still help me, this can still teach me.

Instead of only reading the New Testament and being afraid of the Old Testament, we don't have to be afraid.

We don't have to meet up to every little thing, but we get to meet up to every little thing because of the Spirit in our life.

That outflowing of what God has done in us, it's going to become natural for you as you start to do it over and over and over again.

We can overcome sin in our lives.

We can continually be transformed as we place our mind on the Spirit, as we pray and read our Bible, no longer as a checklist of something we do, but as something that helps us go deeper into a meaningful relationship with our Heavenly Father.

Spending time with Him, knowing Him, and not needing to live in fear of sin any longer.

Knowing our healthy family obligation, what it means for us to play a role as a son or daughter.

Don't be afraid of sin any longer.

Because sometimes we spend so much time focusing on the sin that we're gonna do sometime that it inabilities it doesn't give us the ability to do the things we need to do now.

When we play so much attention on the sin or the mistake that we're pretty sure we're gonna make someday because we still have that sinful flesh as a part of us, it limits what God wants to do here and now.

We get to take our place as heirs of Christ today, living as he did, continuing to spread the good news, the good news that he has to offer anyone who will accept it.

And recognizing that we now have that ability to fulfill the law of the Old Testament in righteousness because he has already done it, he's already fulfilled it, we can now be a righteous people living that way, and it will start to become such a natural outflowing of everything in our life when we spend more time with the Spirit, when we spend more time not thinking and worrying and in despair and realize that God has a plan for us even now, allowing ourselves to be shaped into the likeness of Christ.

And in a moment, we're gonna sing another song together.

But I want to highlight a few things that might be going on in some of your hearts in this room.

Maybe you're still thinking about that first essential.

It's stuck in your head, you can't get it out because you have been living in fear.

You're worried that your sin life is gonna take over again and again, and you're just stuck and you're worried and you're living in shame all the time, but that's not what God has for you.

You don't have to live in despair today.

God wants you to know that there's no condemnation for you this morning, and allow that to be in your heart.

Still, others might be stuck on number two.

You're wondering why you still keep falling into sin.

You're like, oh, I have this mind that I'm supposed to have, but now I'm still sinning.

What's going on?

Feeling like there's no way that the spirit is dwelling in you.

You're worried that you've done something wrong and other people are further along than you.

But I need you to take a moment and listen.

Know that if you've accepted Christ, you have that spirit, the same spirit that was in Christ that wants to walk with you and to speak with you, wants to work in your life and draw away the ways of the flesh and bring you into the ways of the spirit.

Pay attention to that still, small voice.

Pay attention this morning.

And then for others in the room, you're trying to figure out what it means to be an heir of Christ.

What implications could that have for you here and now?

And you're excited about what it means to walk in this inheritance and to share this inheritance with the world.

And wherever you're at in the room, as you're singing this song, as you're thinking about what God's doing, would you just allow your heart to be open to what the Spirit wants to speak to you today in this room?

Would you stand with us?

Thank you so much for listening to today's message.

If you're ever in the Edmonton area, pop by for a visit.

And if you need any more information, visit EvolveChurch.com.

We hope to see you soon.