Assurance Of Life In The Spirit (Nov 21) Glen Meyer

Hello and welcome to the Redemption Church Podcast.

We're a church in Newmarket, Ontario, Canada that exists to glorify God through the fulfillment of the Great Commission and the spirit of the Great Commandment.

Thanks for joining us today.

Good morning, Redemption.

Okay.

Open your Bibles or your Bible apps to Romans chapter 8.

Romans 8 · chapter mention

The Apostle Paul wrote this letter of Romans to Christians in Rome in order to encourage them and to challenge them and to help their heads get wrapped around the gospel truth.

It's possible that he wrote this letter while he was on his third missionary journey while he was in the city of Corinth and he was preaching there.

This eighth chapter is one of my favorite chapters in the Bible.

I encourage you to read it, to read the whole chapter, to read the whole book, but to read this chapter, to chew on it, and even to memorize it so that you have it with you if there's some time when you don't have a Bible available.

Because the truth in this chapter is so pervasive and so rich and so full that you're gonna want to know it by heart.

Well, we're gonna break it up into three messages so that we have a grasp of the truth that is packed into it.

And today we're going to look at verses 1 to 17.

And the message is called assurance of life in the spirit.

Lord willing, we'll be back again next week to look at verses 18 to 30, and we're gonna call that assurance of hope.

And then at another point, we're gonna come together again and we're gonna look at the last few verses of chapter 8 called the assurance of eternal love.

Life, hope, and love.

Well, let's pause for a moment to pray.

Father God, you are rich in love to us.

You have blessed us with your word.

You have blessed us with salvation through Jesus.

You have blessed us with the Holy Spirit.

And so, God, as we read your word this morning, we ask and plead with you that not only would you be present with us, but that we would be able to hear your voice as you speak to us and as you lead us and teach us and comfort us.

With your words, Lord God, there is life.

And so we come to you to celebrate the life you give us in Jesus.

In his name we pray.

Amen.

Well, the first point this morning is I have assurance of life in the spirit because I am a child of God.

Let's jump into verses fifteen to seventeen first as we begin.

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.

We have been adopted.

We have been chosen by God to be his children, his heirs.

We have the privilege to call God our Father.

Not just in this stiff kind of way of, okay, Father, but in the way of Abba, Father, just like Jesus calls him in the Garden of Gethsemane, Abba, Dad, or Daddy.

This is such a powerful picture of our relationship with God.

The Spirit creates for us intimacy with God.

Then he whispers in our hearts, you are a child of God.

We belong to him.

We belong to him.

The God of the universe is my father.

The God of the universe is your father.

Not in the weakness and the sin of our human fathers, but in the strength and the holiness of what we dream a father would be like.

Safety, provision, guidance, acceptance, even acceptance when I mess up.

Strength when I need help.

And he is so compassionate that no other love satisfies like his.

And because of this adoption, we are promised an inheritance.

I'm rich.

You're rich.

And we have resources and we have capital, spiritual capital, that is unbelievable.

And it's because we have received the spirit of adoption as sons.

So with that truth anchored in our hearts, let's go back to verse one.

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.

For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do.

By sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the spirit.

For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.

When the apostle says, those who are in Christ Jesus, he is referring to those who have been adopted by God.

And it's the same declaration.

If you are a child of God, you are in Christ.

And there are only two spiritual locations that humans can be in.

You are either in Christ or you are in the flesh.

Because we belong to God, we are in Christ.

We now live in the realm where his power and his lordship are experienced.

And the first thing that we experience is there is now no condemnation.

The sentence of death, that is the eternal separation from God, has been lifted.

The judgment on sin that had to be fulfilled by our death has been reversed.

We are declared to be not guilty.

We are free from the penalty of sin's law, which says that those who sin are dead.

This is not something that we are able to accomplish.

In fact, as part of his fatherly care, we're told in verse 3 that God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do.

By sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, he that is God, condemned sin in the flesh.

That is in Christ's flesh.

Sin has consequences.

And there's no getting away from the reality that those consequences have to be satisfied.

It is the law.

Everybody has to die.

But because he is our Abba, God the Father knew we could not fulfill the mandate to pay for our sin.

And so Jesus Christ came to earth and took on the likeness of sinful flesh and the condemnation that that flesh had on our behalf.

He became the sub.

And all the guilt and all the shame that you and I should shoulder, but we can't, that was placed on Jesus Christ.

That is the heart of the gospel.

If the Spirit of God has called you today to accept this truth, don't shove it aside.

Receive the gift and the freedom that the Spirit is sharing with you.

Trust Jesus Christ to be your substitute, and there will be no condemnation.

Until I became a child of God, I don't have the freedom or the power to live according to the Spirit, as verse 5 says.

Paul very clearly shows us the two choices that we face.

We can live and think according to the flesh, or we can live and think according to the Spirit.

Look at verses six to eight.

For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the spirit is life and peace.

For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law.

Indeed, it cannot.

Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

Look at the contrast between those two spiritual positions, in the flesh or in the spirit.

And being in the spirit is the same as being in Christ.

When I live in the flesh, I set my mind on the things that lead to death.

I am hostile to God.

I do not submit to God's laws.

In fact, when I'm in the flesh, I will not submit to God's law.

I cannot submit even if I try.

All my efforts are useless to try and please God.

But when I live in the Spirit, I set my mind on the things of the Spirit, and He gives life and peace.

There's a big difference between those two positions.

Practically, though, what does it mean to be in the flesh?

Well, it's all about me.

My feelings, my will, my desires.

Why do I have to do this?

How can I get what I want?

Who does she think she is talking to me like that?

How do I get first choice?

I deserve that recognition.

I have to do that.

He can't tell me what to do.

Me, me, me.

That is the flesh.

It is completely incapable of producing genuine spiritual life.

The flesh pursues the satisfaction of me.

And when I follow that thinking, it destroys my relationships.

It pushes God out of my life.

I am hostile to God.

In fact, it produces death in me.

I am killing myself by being in the flesh.

It's a totally different result when I live in the spirit.

The new birth, the adoption into God's family, that changes my life and it changes my eternal destiny.

It's not about me, it's about God.

And as a child of God, my focus, my thinking, my purpose, and my objectives in life are God-centered, not Glen-centered.

Can you say that your purpose, your objectives, your focus, your approach to others, your approach to things, your approach to the situations that you find yourself in are God-centered?

Can you say that?

Or are you me centered?

Are you operating your life in the flesh?

The apostle is blunt and straightforward.

Verse eight, he says, those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

Pretty heavy.

But you know what?

The good news is that because of Jesus Christ, children of God are not in the flesh.

And that brings us to our second point.

I have assurance of life in the spirit because the spirit dwells in me.

I have assurance of life in the spirit because the spirit dwells in me.

Let's look at verse nine.

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.

The plain truth is that anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.

But we do, we do belong to him.

The if the if in verse nine can also be understood as since.

So let's read it again, putting that little substitution in there.

You, however, are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, since.

In fact, the spirit of God dwells in you.

The way that we know that we are in the spirit is because it's kind of simple.

The way that we know that we are in the spirit is because the spirit is in us.

But not just in us.

He's not just a passive tenant.

He's an active influencer in our lives.

He influences our thinking, as we see in verse 5.

He confirms our adoption, as we saw in verses 15 and 16.

He gives us life, we just read that in verse 10.

And from other passages like John 14 and 16, we know that the indwelling Spirit teaches, comforts.

He repeats the truth back to us from what we heard from the Word of God.

He convicts of sin.

He brings peace and life, and so much more.

Later on in chapter 8 of Romans, here we're going to see that he also knows our heart and he intercedes in prayer for us.

And some of his other work we've seen just a few moments ago in verses 10 and 11 as well is that he brings righteousness into our lives, and he will raise our bodies in the resurrection.

What else does it mean for the Spirit to dwell in us?

Basically, it means that we are not under the control of the flesh, but we are under the control of God.

We are under the control of the Spirit.

We are brought under the holy influence of Him moving into us and putting us in His sway.

So even though our bodies experience the breakdown of age, I know that, and even though we experience the ravages of sin, and even though we are tempted to fall back into the sway of the flesh and sin, because of the indwelling spirit, we have the freedom and the power to say no.

Because the Spirit dwells in us, we are able to please God.

I'm no longer trapped in my flesh.

I'm no longer trapped by me, me, me.

I belong to Christ.

I am no longer my own master, overcome by the whims, the lusts, the weaknesses.

The deadly wicked desires of my flesh.

Because of what God did in verse three, by sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh, Jesus is my substitute.

My eternal life has been bought with a price: the death and resurrection of Christ.

The indwelling spirit is the seal of Christ that was purchased by his death.

My sin was condemned by God in the body of Christ so that I can walk according to the Spirit.

I do not have to be mastered by anything but Jesus Christ.

You do not have to be mastered by anything but Jesus Christ.

By faith in him, we have died to the passions that destroy us.

We are no longer doomed to be controlled by these passions.

Because the Spirit dwells in us, we can hold on to the promises from God's word.

And as we live in the Spirit, we discover that the Spirit works powerfully in and through the words of Jesus.

And those words are truth and life and food to us.

The Spirit creates and awakens spiritual life.

Genuine spiritual life.

And the power that raised Jesus from the dead lives in me, lives in you.

And that brings us to our third point.

I have assurance of life in the Spirit because his spiritual power helps me live in Christ.

We've just seen that when we are adopted into God's family, the Spirit of God dwells in us.

And Jesus promised that as well.

In John 14, 16 and 17, he said, I will ask the Father, and he will give you another helper to be with you forever.

You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.

Jesus doesn't leave us alone to fend for ourselves with our own desires, our inventions, our cleverness, or even our hard work.

That kind of activity is living in the flesh.

And the apostle restates the outcome of such living in verse 13.

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.

Something is going to die.

Either we die because we're living in the flesh, or we put the deeds of the body to death.

In Colossians three, verse five, Paul says, put to death what is earthly in you.

It's the same message.

Something is going to die.

This sounds so ominous.

But the good news, and we proclaim it here, we've been singing about it this morning.

The good news is that we can overcome sinful practices.

It is by the Spirit that I put to death the sinful, deadly deeds that would kill me.

The sweet part, if I could say it this way, the sweet part about this whole death thing is that it is easy to get help with it.

It is easy to get help to deal with it.

Just ask.

When I am tempted to sin, I just have to ask the Spirit for help.

When I realize that what I'm thinking or what I'm doing is leading me down death's path, I just have to involve the Spirit's help to turn around.

One of the most powerful prayers that we can utter in these moments, I mean, other than God help me.

Another really good prayer, besides that one, is to say, Holy Spirit, you have been given to me as a helper.

Jesus sent you to help me.

I need your help now.

I desperately don't want to sin.

Please help me in Jesus' name.

Amen.

The Holy Spirit is the power that God uses to give us grace in that moment of need.

So why don't I ask him for help when I need it?

Why don't you ask him for help when you need it?

It's a simple exercise, and yet we neglect the very one who dwells in us and has been given to us to help us put to death our sinful flesh.

Verses 16 and 17 are so beautiful.

Let's look at them again.

I know we looked at them when we started, but let's look at them again.

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 Spirit who dwells in us and confirms that we are children of God has the power to help us put these fleshly things to death.

That process causes suffering.

Paul says that as fellow heirs with Christ, we suffer.

The word that he uses there has both the meaning of enduring troubles as well as experiencing persecution.

And as we dig a little bit deeper, it begins to make sense what he means.

How does the indwelling spirit and the reality of suffering blend together?

Well, remember earlier when we realized that as heirs of God I'm rich?

Okay, you're rich too.

Remember that we also said that we have access to resources and spiritual capital that is unbelievable.

Let's be vulnerable here for a moment.

When we become aware that our irritation at our spouse or other family members will make our words hurtful and unloving, the Spirit is there to give us power to change our attitude.

Maybe even to zip our lip.

He's there to help us rethink about how to love that person.

We would bring death, but he brings life.

When we become aware of the envy bubbling up inside of us because our friends or our neighbors are heading to warmer climates, or because they're getting excited because they're going to get some really amazing new toys or new things.

The Spirit is there to help us and to give us the power to rejoice in their blessings and to be grateful for how we have been blessed.

When someone blasts us and tears a strip out of us and leave us wounded, and we want to retaliate, and we can justify that retaliation.

He's there to help us with strength to humbly go beyond what is expected and what is normal and to respond in love and grace and truth.

And you know what?

There are thousands of other situations that we face in our daily lives where fleshly attitudes and habits assault us and will produce death.

But the Spirit is in us to bring life and peace?

Don't we hurt and feel the pain of our sin and the sin of others?

Does it come easily for us to ask for help in these moments of temptation?

Are these godly responses easy?

These changes to our earthly nature are hard.

And they are part of the suffering that we are called to accept as the Spirit works in our hearts and in our minds to bring Christ-like change.

We call that sanctification.

The temptations to respond as if we are not children of God are so strong sometimes, and sometimes we're overpowered.

And that's why we need the Spirit to help us.

Denying my sinful human nature and putting to death my earthly passions, it causes suffering.

There's another aspect to this kind of suffering.

When we respond to circumstances or to situations or to temptations with the power of the Spirit, and we don't act like the world does.

That is, we don't act like we are in the flesh, we make ourselves look different.

And that may cause those around us to tease us, to mock us or to ridicule us because of our stance as followers of Christ in the family of God.

Because of our desire to follow Christ by crucifying the flesh and putting to death the things of the earthly nature, we will be setting ourselves apart from others, and that will bring persecution.

I think that's the suffering as heirs that Paul is talking about here.

But we're not to be discouraged by this.

The apostle tells us in verse 17 that as heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, while we may suffer with him, we will also be glorified with him.

That's a promise that the suffering and the putting to death of the flesh will be revealed for exactly what it is.

It's our assurance of life in the spirit.

Next time we're going to take a look at the assurance of hope in verses 18 to 30.

But right now let's close in prayer.

Heavenly Father, it is so heavy to hear and to know the reality of our human nature.

And yet, Father God, because of what Jesus has done, we are now your children by faith in Jesus.

Help us, Lord God.

Help us, Holy Spirit, to live as people who are redeemed and know the joy and the life and the peace.

Help us, Lord God, to be joyful in all that we do because, Lord, you have called us and you love us and you enable us to live for you.

Lord God, as we go, we give you praise and we give you thanks for what you've talked to us about this morning.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

Just before you go, uh one of our elders has some words to share with us of the family chat.

So, Dave, God bless you.

Thanks, Glenn.

Thank you, Glenn.

Thank you, Glenn.

Good morning, everyone.

I'm using Joel's mic there, guys.

If we can bring that good morning, everyone.

It's kind of fun.

I honestly, I uh as much as I love uh uh playing and being part of the worship team, um it's been nice to kind of have a break and have Joel bless us for the last little while.

I really appreciate him and and um appreciate so many things that are going on in uh in uh such unique times in in being a church and uh the pastors that we've had as guests and to have Glenn, our brother Glenn, who we know well speak this week and a couple more weeks.

It's an amazing blessing.

And we are blessed, it's just part of the provision.

But um as we sort of near the end of the year, it's a chance to kind of look at our finances.

We don't spend a lot of time talking about that as a church.

God is good, he's provided.

Um, you all have been incredibly faithful during a challenging year.

So it's um as much as Glenn brought us the good news of the gospel, we've got some good news for the most part financially too, and it's sort of my pleasure just to share that briefly with you.

Um, so we just go to this first slide here.

Okay, here we go.

So, first of all, I just wanted to kind of announce um, it's pretty exciting.

You guys are always faithful, and we always have great results whenever we have a special offering, and so it's a real privilege to be able to announce our uh Christmas or our year end.

You can kind of think of it however you want.

Our special offering.

This is an opportunity for us to give over and above what our normal tithing is.

Um I think this is an area that God kind of almost in a funny way dares us to take a chance.

You know, talked about storing things up in your storehouses and and uh take that chance of testing God's faithfulness when when we give a little a little bit extra.

And um, so we have an opportunity here.

Our goal is$20,000.

Last year we did a lot more than that.

We usually do exceed our goals, but this year's been a challenging year for everyone, and we recognize it.

So we have a goal of$20,000.

And where's it gonna go to?

So we believe in church planting, strategic church planting.

It's one of our pillars that you walk past on our on our sign in the lobby the other year.

So this will go to that.

We're gonna give more details to that.

But this is part of not only our commitment um as a church, it's one of our uh of our core distinctives, but it's also um it's also something just that God's commanded us to do, and it's part of our um uh of our commitments to the GCC, who we are are members of as well.

So we have some exciting things coming in church planning.

Uh, we always give uh to the Life Center here in Newmarket, a pregnancy help center, and just we really firmly believe in in the work that's being done there for our community.

Uh, and then we have some capital expenditures.

So throughout this year, uh it's been a different year to run a church.

We had times where we were all locked down, hiding in our houses, and we had to find ways to use the YouTube and some of these newfangled technologies.

No, I'm kidding, of course, YouTube has been around a long time, but we've been really blessed to be able to pivot quickly and and get on thing.

And we didn't miss a Sunday here as a church as far as gathering together, even if it was virtual.

So um, as a result, with with this ministry reopening quickly and the full room we've got now, and the second service, we have some capital expenditures that we had had been putting off that we really want to get to.

So that's part of this uh special offering.

And uh let's flip to the next one there, guys, if you don't mind.

Here's just a little snapshot.

This is my brother Dennis, and uh he's our numbers guy, and I love him for it because I'm not a numbers guy.

But here's just a snapshot.

You can kind of see that's what our pattern of giving looks like through the year.

Um, this is just month by month along here.

And um you can just see the spikes, and generally that orange line is sort of our target.

That's what we need to meet each week to keep the lights on, as my dad would have said if he was sitting me down having this talk.

Um, so you can see a couple times we've spiked about it, but for the most part, we've been kind of trending a little bit below, and it's been okay.

Because some of our expenses have been down.

If you want to roll along, guys.

So there you go.

So that's just our budgeted weekly need.

$8,131.74.

That's our need.

You can see our hopefully you guys can read this.

We need a bigger screen.

$336,000.

That's our giving year to date.

Our budgeted year to date at$360.

So we're just we're falling just a little bit behind.

If we project that, the trends that we've been on, you can see the deficit or the shortfall here of around about$37,000.

We have had some uh rent relief and some of the these government subsidies that that are available.

We have gotten a bit from that.

Um that a lot of uh churches and organizations have got through the pandemic, so that's helped them.

We may get a little bit more, but that's our projected shortfall.

Okay, flip on, guys.

Uh this just shows evil.

So we're actually um, if anyone wants any more details, we can chat over a coffee for sure.

But we are anticipating a little bit of an overspend.

And some of this is some of the opening up costs that we didn't plan on on occurring to some of the additional honorariums for our um for our uh guest pastors and whatnot and worship leaders.

So there is a thing where we are looking at just a little bit of an overspend potentially, where our overall deficit you can see just shy of around 50k.

Okay, so switch on, please.

And there's the same thing again, the same math on the slide.

We could take that one out.

So is there uh one more slide there?

Is that it?

Oh, that's it.

Amazing.

I'm not a numbers guy, but I do love our church.

And I think there, I think the overall thing is here, we're doing good.

We're doing good through a global pandemic.

Um we've had so many blessings.

This building alone that we're sitting in, the fact that when the doors closed at the at the high school, that we had a place to come right away, even if we were here by ourselves, just with a bunch of cameras for a number of months.

Uh God's been so faithful.

Um, there's so many areas where our church is thriving.

Thriving, people coming to Jesus, new families joining us.

It's been amazing.

Um we've had provision just through this regathering.

We've had just really diligent staff.

And if everyone, if anyone doesn't know Jeremy, you should take the time to get to know him because I don't know where we'd be without him, and we're better church.

The fact that he's here, but he's diligent at keeping top of what the local authorities are telling us and just uh keeping us all uh some would say keeping us safe.

I say just keeping us open and keeping us out of trouble.

But we've been safe, no one's gotten sick here, no one's got COVID here.

We've been really blessed to be able to follow the rules, the distance that your chairs are apart.

We've followed all of them, and we're proud that we're able to do that and stay open.

And then all that being said, I think it's time, and this isn't for the people here, but I think it's time for um some people who aren't here to get back.

And well, what I mean by that is uh YouTube's been great, but it's time if you're just counting on YouTube, it's it's time if you can to get back here.

We've been safe, we've been following all the rules, we have a second service now, and we want to fill these chairs to the capacity that we're allowed, and we're anxiously awaiting for the restrictions to loosen as the vaccination rates increase so we can open up without restriction.

And we want the rest of our church back, the people that have been at home, the people that haven't been coming at all and haven't been engaging in any way.

And if you found a new church, that's amazing.

We want you fellowshipping, but mostly we want people back.

I want us to break the system here.

If we have to go to three services, then we go to three services, but we want you back.

So the Lord, amen.

Thank you.

So the Lord's been good.

We're doing well.

Please keep in mind on this heart just your opportunity to help us with this special offering.

Um, there's just some things we're excited to do.

By the way, our youth, I don't know if you know, if any of you have youth, but our youth ministry has been thriving, thriving through the entire pandemic and growing.

And that's amazing, an amazing example for us, and we're thankful for the staff that's been looking after that.

So I leave you with that.

That was a little unscripted.

I apologize.

The last little bit just kind of came from the heart, but I hope you at least got the message of the financial numbers, anyways.

It was so good to see you guys all here.

You guys are loved.

Thanks for coming.