Life in the Spirit: The Holy Spirit Applies the Indestructible Love of God

Well, we are spending January studying Romans chapter 8.

Romans 8 · chapter mention

We're learning what does it mean to walk in the Holy Spirit?

And so we have seen different things each week, these four weeks.

Romans 8, 1 through 4, we've studied that the Holy Spirit lives in us, bonds us to Christ.

Verses 5 through 17, the Holy Spirit reorders us, shapes us into Christ-likeness.

Verses 18 through 30, last Sunday, the Holy Spirit gives us hope as we long for the restoration of heaven.

In verses 31 through 39, what we're about to dig into, the Holy Spirit applies the indestructible love of Christ to our hearts.

And I love that word indestructible.

I started to see that it was popping up in my life because it's been a couple weeks since I gave you the puppy update because we're getting a puppy.

February 4th, this little guy is gonna join our family.

He's a bernadoodle, he's already my best friend.

We love each other.

I look at the video update.

So he's coming February 4th.

So I've been in puppy prep mode, been buying a lot of things, been buying a crate and bed and treats and food and all that, and toys.

And you know, in the puppy toys, you got like snuggle toys, and they have like a heartbeat in them, and snuggle toys that are like they have smells, and then there's like chew toys.

And the key word in the chew toys is that word indestructible, like over and over and over again.

An indestructible.

The pet people love this the word because they don't want these little puppies to die, to choke on some little piece of the toy.

And so they love that word indestructible.

So finally I looked it up.

It means it cannot be ruined, it can withstand damage and decay.

It is unbreakable and has enduring spirit and purpose.

So, Romans 8, the Holy Spirit applies the indestructible love of God to your heart.

Love that cannot be ruined by anything.

Unbreakable with enduring spirit and purpose for you.

Let's look at these verses.

Romans 8, verses 31 and 32.

Romans 8:31

What then shall we say to these things?

If God is for us, who can be against us?

He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?

Point number one is this God's welcome and delight in us is through Christ alone, not our efforts.

And even our lack of efforts can't break the indestructible love of God to us.

So we would call that theologically, we would call it justification by grace alone, through faith alone, and Christ alone.

And we are the receivers.

Verse 31 builds off of what we studied last week, verses 29 and 30, that says that God foreknew that you would be his follower, predestined you, justified you, glorified you.

And if you remember, we looked at that word for knew, which means a personal relationship of care and affection.

That God has set his affection on you even before you cared for him.

He decided to choose you.

He decided to love you even before you decided to choose him or love him or serve him, which means that if you do love him or choose him or serve him or walk an aisle or pray a prayer, if you love him, you're secure with him not because of your love and your choosing and your service and your commitment.

You're secure because of his indestructible love to you.

So Paul concludes at the end of that reasoning: if God's for us, who can be against us?

Paul says in verse 32, B, He provides it all.

Now, it turns out that doesn't mean that He's gonna provide you with the baby blue Ford Bronco that I want, or the cabin in Wyoming that I want, you know, the cabin that I want in Wyoming.

Just humble, that's my humble cabin in Wyoming that I'm really praying for.

God's gonna provide that and provide the private jet to get there, you know, nothing big.

You know, turns out, verse 32 does not mean that.

Not even close.

Not even close.

Provides all things, not those things.

Paul is speaking specifically about God provides all things you and I need for a relationship with him.

To be right with God, to be secure with God, not to be paralyzed with spiritual anxiety.

How good am I?

Am I good enough?

Am I secure with him?

Did I screw this up?

That Jesus is enough for us.

I saw this old sermon clip by Alistair Begg, great pastor, preacher.

I saw it on a reel this week.

So let's watch this.

Couple minutes of his preaching.

Think about the thief on the cross.

I can't wait to find that fellow one day to ask him.

You've never been in a Bible study, you never got baptized, and you made it.

You made it.

How did you make it?

That's what the angel wants to stand.

You know, like what are you doing here?

I don't know.

What do you mean you don't know?

You've watched the ball.

That is the only answer.

That is the only answer.

And if I don't preach the gospel to myself all day and every day, then I will find myself beginning to trust myself, trust my experience, which is part of my fallenness as a man.

Great accent.

Can you imagine how great my preaching would be if I had that accent?

I was watching, I was like, if I just had the accent, I mean my preaching that would be like five times better.

Begg goes on to say that if you don't preach the gospel to yourself, that Jesus is enough, that you're gonna end up trusting in yourself, and that that is the path, either to despair, I'm not good enough, or arrogance, I'm better than you, and I'm better than you, and I'm better than you.

And either way is a spiritual exhaustion.

The gospel's different because the gospel just says I'm not unworthy, I'm fully worthy, and yet I'm in need of help, and Jesus is enough.

Here's my current list of Jesus is enough.

I had to keep a running list.

One-way love to me.

Love without conditions or limits, love and acceptance that does not end.

He's my forgiveness and my righteousness.

Jesus is the end of my guilt trips and the end of my condemnation.

Jesus is constant companionship.

He's tenderness, and yet there's challenge with Jesus.

Secure acceptance without regard to my issues or mistakes.

Jesus is my peace with God.

He's my validation that I'm worthy.

He's my rescue from sin, relief from judgment and judgmentalism, relief from performancism, godliness and empowerment to grow godly.

Jesus is my welcome into my heavenly home.

Now imagine if I had read that with a Scottish accent, right?

I mean, y'all would have been like, that is amazing.

Amen, Russ.

That was amazing.

Verse 33.

Who shall bring any charge against God's elect?

It is God who justifies.

Who is to condemn us?

Christ Jesus is the one who died more than that, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.

So point number two is this God already decided.

There's no condemnation and no separation for you.

Paul says that since God, our judge, already justified us, Jesus on the cross, we can never be condemned.

Because Jesus, as our advocate, died for us.

So who can accuse us?

Well, of course, you will feel accusation that you're not enough or that you're a miserable sinner and God can't love you.

We're all gonna feel that.

It's just not the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit does not condemn.

People will say that kind of stuff.

The devil will say that kind of stuff.

Our old Adam, the sinful self, inside of us will say that to ourselves.

But when we feel condemnation, it's never the Holy Spirit.

Now the Holy Spirit will speak conviction.

But conviction is totally different.

Here's how we can see the difference here.

The Holy Spirit does not condemn us, but may convict us of our sin.

Condemnation leads to guilt trips and shame cycles.

The conviction of the Holy Spirit in us is by the kindness of God, and it leads us to repentance and freedom and growth.

And that's how you know the difference.

If you're sitting in guilt trips and shame cycles, that's condemnation by the world, by other people, by your own sinful self, by the devil.

It could be any of those.

And that's when even that, you say, Holy Spirit, move me from condemnation to any conviction I need to be open to, but a conviction will be a movement in God's kindness to freedom and growth.

Verse 35.

As it is written, For your sake we are being killed all day long.

We are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Point number three is this we are assured, meaning we're we're safe.

We're secure with God by the Holy Spirit's work in us, not our effort.

Paul rattles off a series of horrors that could happen to us in this world, and we could add to them cancer, failure, bankruptcy, divorce, death.

And his conclusion to all the possible horrors that could come to us is verse 37.

No.

And all these things were more than conquerors through him who loved us.

And what Paul is saying is that there's a life in the Spirit that even in the worst things this world could give us, we are still conquerors because God's in us and at work at us.

Walking with the Holy Spirit is about slowing down enough to let that engine of self-effort, that engine of self-justification to stop.

And to hear God's Spirit in you that's saying to you, you're fully forgiven, you're fully righteous in Jesus alone.

And there's no condemnation.

You might feel conviction, but there's no condemnation.

There's no more guilt trips or shame cycles.

That's not the path of the Holy Spirit.

There's no separation from God.

There's no distancing.

There's no sliding.

There's only being assured.

There's only safety, there's only security.

The Holy Spirit keeps drawing our gaze back to the cross.

Because that's the only answer we have.

Jesus alone.

It's the object place of God's love for us.

It's indestructible because it's based in Him, not us.

And so Paul has one conclusion.

And that's point number four.

In Jesus' love, we're more than conquerors.

That's his conclusion.

A couple of years ago, I read this book called Endurance.

It's about the adventurer Ernest Shackleton.

This guy was an absolute stud.

I got a few pictures we'll roll through as I tell you about him.

In 1915, his ship, 27 men, got trapped in the Antarctic ice.

I was actually assigned this book for our class on adaptive leadership because this Shackelford guy, things keep going wrong.

And whatever situation popped up, he would just find a new solution.

He would adapt and move forward.

Adapt and move forward.

So 27 men trapped in the Antarctic ice.

They're not going to make it.

Nobody's going to find them.

1915.

So he takes three little boats and they make it to Elephant Island, this little island.

The problem is nobody's on this island.

So then he leaves some guys there.

Five guys get into a really small, like rowboat.

They go 800 miles in the open sea, drifting and rowing.

Eventually they get to South Georgia Island.

Once they get there, they have to climb the mountains to get to the other side for help.

And the men back on the ice, it's 128 days they waited.

Almost half a year.

And every single man was saved.

I mean, this guy was a conqueror.

Like that became the joke in our class.

We were like, you know, shackled.

Like, and the conclusion was like, yeah, I'm not shackleford.

Like, not even close.

Like, I'm not a shackle.

I would have died on the ice about day eight, is probably where I would have died.

Not even close to a shackleford, right?

But for him, it wasn't about personal glory.

It was about saving his men.

The situation was not hopeful, but he just always found a way.

Our situation is very often not hopeful.

Our situation to be good enough to get to God, not hopeful, won't happen.

We need a shackled to rescue us.

We need outside help.

We're not the shackleford and we need one.

And Paul is saying in verse 27, we have it.

We have it.

Because we cannot earn it with our own goodness, but God gives it to us.

He pursues us.

He's closing the gap between us and him by his pursuit to us.

And it's indestructible.

Because he already chose that.

He already determined that he wants that relationship with you: care and affection, personal relationship.

And that is enduring, indestructible love that we can rely on.

So in Romans 8, we've seen how the Holy Spirit works in us.

And what we said back in week one is that the Holy Spirit is applying to us the redemptive work of God that we have in Jesus.

He is the applier of it into our hearts.

Here's what he's applying, verse 1, no condemnation.

Verses 2 through 13, there's a new power by the Holy Spirit inside of our lives.

Verses 14 through 17, we have new identity as sons and daughters.

Verses 18 through 27, there's a new hope that we have in suffering.

Even in our suffering, even if we don't see the restoration of that suffering in this world, that we hope in a next world.

And then lastly, verses 28 through 39, that there is unbreakable assurance because of that indestructible love that God has for us.

There's a scene in the movie, The Pursuit of Happiness.

It was actually on television yesterday, I saw it.

It captures Romans 8.

If you remember this movie, the father and the son are homeless.

They're in a subway station.

The scene I want us to watch is in the subway station, it's toward the beginning of the movie, and they're looking for a place to sleep.

Let's watch as the father cares for the child.

And did you notice that the child is not clinging to the father?

That's why the images of the gospel.

The father is clinging to the child.

This is what Paul is saying in Romans 8.

We have a Holy Spirit at work in us, applying to us that kind of love, that care, that affection.

Applying to us that enduring, indestructible love that the Father clinged to us.

To close, listen to these lyrics from the modern hymn that we often sing in Christ alone.

And then I close with this.

In Christ alone, my hope is found.

He is my light, my strength, my song, this cornerstone, this solid ground, firm through the fiercest drought and storm.

What heights of love, what depths of peace, when fears are sealed, when striving cease, my comforter, my all-in-all.

Here in the love of Christ I stand.

Let's pray together.

Heavenly Father, we're so thankful that while we desire to cling to you, it is inside of your sovereign, gracious, determined care of us.

And that our pursuit of you is inside your pursuit of us.

Thank you for the work of the Holy Spirit that is in us, not to condemn us, but to welcome us, to woo us, to delight in us, to convict us.

Help us to trust even more in the gift of Jesus.

That Jesus, you are enough for all the forgiveness we need, all the righteousness we need, all the security, safety, and assuredness we need in a relationship with you.

In his powerful name we pray.

Amen.