223 ~ ALL ROADS LEAD TO ROME ~ PART 5

Hi and welcome to the Via Zion Sermon podcast.

We are a local church based here in Chennai, India.

We are so glad you are with us and hope that this will

encourage, inspire and instill fresh faith in you.

We continue our series titled All Roads Lead to Rome, which is

a study in the book of Romans. As we study this letter written

to the Jewish and Gentile believers in the city of Rome,

we ask that you put yourself in their shoes, for our context is

not that different after all. Our hope is that through this

series, you would experience the fullness of knowing who God is,

what He did for you through Jesus, and how you can live a

life that honors Him and blesses others.

Hi Church. What a joy it is to bring gods.

What do you? We're looking at the book of

Romans and today we're looking at Romans 7 to 8.

And today's passages are a bit long winded, repetitive.

And so I just titled it something easier for us to look

at it titled it the good, the Bad and the beautiful.

I don't know if you watched the old Western, which was the good,

bad and the ugly, but today we're going to be looking at the

good, bad and the beautiful. Just this past week, I had an

experience of how I had to put what I'm going to preach today

into practice. So I have a couple of things in

the house which, you know, I curate and create just, you

know, it's like a lot of DIY stuff.

And then So what I did was I have a small wooden tray that I

bought and I have my glass water bottles on that.

And two days back, I came down in the morning and found

leftover lemongrass incense sticks, which we used to drive

away mosquitoes. My son had actually lit it to,

you know, drive away mosquitoes while he was studying.

And what had happened was one of those sticks had leaned over

onto the wooden tray, which was almost brand new, leaned over

onto the wooden tray and had burnt into it.

So in the morning, they were just ashes there.

But there was the indelible mark of, you know, the, the incense

stick on the wood. And for 5 minutes, I was, you

know, so upset about it. I was like, how can you do this?

You know, I was telling my son, because here's the thing.

There's a rule. The rule was that you would not

light these sticks anywhere near wood or plastic, that you would

light it near the sink or, you know, near the tiles.

And he had flouted the rule just so that he won't get bitten by

mosquitoes when he studies. And because of that, it had

caused damage to this piece of furniture.

But as I was, you know, correcting my son, I was doing

it in a rather loud voice. My other two children reminded

me and they said, ma, look at it.

It doesn't look that bad. It looks like, you know, it's

the pattern on a, it looks like the pattern on wood.

And when I looked at it, it was true.

It just looked like it was treated wood now.

And so I replaced, I kept it back in its old place, put the

bottles back on and it's there again.

And I was reminded that how so often, you know, we look at the

law, the word of God, as something that's too hard to

follow through on and inevitably break it.

And that's where sin is revealed.

But the beautiful thing is that we're going to look today in

Romans 8 and how all things work together for good.

Just like my children could see the good even in a tray having

burn marks on it. I believe God is calling us into

a place of looking at everything he has allowed in our lives

through the lens of a good God. That's, you know, no matter what

happens, he works everything out for good.

So today's our topic is basically divided into three.

We're going to be looking at the law, which is the word of God.

We're going to be looking at sin and we're going to be looking at

life in the spirit. We're going to be looking at the

Spirit of God so that that these three things and I just want to

look at different passages. We're now going to look at all

of it because it's a lot of content.

So we're just going to take pivotal passages.

We're going to look at it. We're going to understand what

Paul is writing to us right now. So Romans Chapter 7 verse one,

Romans 7 · chapter mention

it says now dear brothers and sisters, you who are familiar

with the law, don't you know that the law applies only while

a person is living? Verse four.

So this is the point. You died to the power of the law

when you died with Christ and now you are united with the one

who was raised from the dead. As a result, we can produce a

harvest of good deeds for God. And Paul was talking in this

about how he used the example of marriage.

He said while you are married to someone, you cannot leave that

person and go live with someone else.

That would be considered adultery and that would be

breaking the law. If one of the members in the

marriage passed away because of death, that marital law ended.

Then if one of them chose the one living, chose to get married

again, that would be completely OK.

And that's what he's trying to explain, that only as long as

someone is alive does the law apply.

Once they died, the law doesn't apply.

And he's bringing it now to us and saying those of us who have

actually chosen to put our trust in Jesus have basically

crucified ourselves with Christ as figurative because every day

we have to die to our flesh, die to ourselves, and live for

Christ. So my question to you right from

off the bat, I'm going to ask you is how dead are you?

How crucified are you? Have you crucified your sinful

nature with Christ and are you living in step with the Spirit

of God? That's the question.

That's a big question because the truth is this is not a one

off event. This is a lifelong practice.

This is a daily thing. Needing to crucify ourselves on

the daily is something that we have to be avid about.

We don't need to strive because the Holy Spirit is the one who

actually does that for us. But we do need to be pliable.

We do do need to be involved. We do need to be aware that we

are a work in progress, and it's so important that we keep coming

closer to God in this process of sanctification because, you

know, the God is compared to light, He's likened to light.

And the more we come into the light, the more darkness is

revealed, the more darkness is rooted out.

And I believe God is asking us to come near to Him so that He

can root out evil in us, so that He can help us see the sin in

ourselves, so that we expose it to the gracious presence of

Christ himself. Now the thing about the law is

the law bad? The law, the word of God, is so

good. It was given with the greatest

of intentions by the greatest of all deities.

He is the Almighty God, and He in His goodness gave his people

the law. So it's very important to see

that the law is good. But the thing about the law is

that it brings condemnation. What does that mean?

Well, the minute you read the law, you read the Old Testament.

There are some who say, I don't read the Old Testament.

I don't like it. I don't get it.

The point of the Old Testament is for us to actually hold it up

to us like a mirror and identify in our lives where we have

similar cycles of sin, similar patterns.

I'm right now going through one Chronicles and two Chronicles,

and I was reading about this king the other day and it just

resonated with me because it said he does things right, but

he was not wholehearted in love, in following the Lord.

And I felt so convicted because it is true.

We try to live right. We try to do all the things

right, but sometimes our passion dwindles.

Sometimes my devotion for God is not wholehearted.

The point of the law is that it reveals sin in US.

It convicts us. It brings us to this place of

saying, oh, I get that, that sin in David.

I have that sin that Moses had with anger.

I have it. It reveals sin in us.

It shows us similar tendencies that we have.

The law brings condemnation because the truth is, when you

look at the word of God, there's so much to absorb and none of us

on our own can actually, you know, obey everything in the

law. And should we try, we will fail

miserably. So that's one way in which it

brings condemnation. Of course, sometimes when we

look at ourselves in the light of the law, we see just how far

you know we fall. We fall short of it repeatedly,

and that again brings condemnation.

And then there's also the time when you read about a particular

law and then you wonder, why can't I just try it?

Why does God say this is bad? He says don't covet.

He first says, don't covet your neighbour's things or your

neighbour's wife because it all is.

It's a gradient. I start coveting things and then

I start eventually coveting what someone else has in a marriage

or in their family. And what Paul writes here is

that sin has this way of turning the good law into bad by

triggering up temptation. So had I not known what coveting

is, I would have not known it's a sin.

But the same law can sometimes evoke in me this thought of why

not try it? What's the worst that can

happen? And so that's why he says the

law brings condemnation. The problem, though, is not with

the law. The law is perfect, but the

problem is with us because we are inherently sinful.

Our condition is that of sinfulness.

We, each of us, every one of us all have sinned and fallen short

of the glory of God. None of us are above it.

And so before you knew Jesus, before you actively got into a

relationship with him, some of the things you indulged in may

may be so terrible you can't even mention it.

But Paul writes about that in Galatians chapter 5.

Galatians 5 · chapter mention

And I just want to read it because he talks about the acts

of the flesh and the fruit of the Spirit.

What the Spirit does in US produces fruit.

What we do is, is basically the stuff that comes out of our

flesh. It's stuff that we indulge in

knowingly and unknowingly. It's tough that we make a choice

to be involved in. The acts of the flesh are

obvious. Galatians 519 to 21.

Sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery, idolatry and

witchcraft, hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish

ambition, dissensions, factions and envy, drunkenness, orgies

and the like. I warn you, as I did before,

that those who live like this will not inherit the Kingdom of

God. Once we come into the saving

knowledge of Jesus, once we step into a relationship, ideally our

lives should produce good fruit. Ideally, we should be doing the

things that please God and enrich his people, enrich the

world. But there is a struggle, a power

struggle, so to speak. And I'm sure you've experienced

this, but Paul articulates it so beautifully in Romans 7 verses

Romans 7:22–23

22 to 23. And this is what he says.

I love God's law with all my heart, but there is another

power within me that is at work with my mind.

This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me.

Can you relate? We love God's word, we love

reading it, we love Bible study, we love community, you know,

outings where we're discussing what God is doing.

But privately I'm still struggling with certain old sins

or some new sins that have crept in.

No one knows. But I'm privately struggling.

And the beautiful thing is we can be real about it.

This is real. The the struggle is real.

So what actually happened is when Jesus died on the cross,

his perfect body was the sacrifice.

And so he paid the price for our sin.

So the penalty of sin was sorted out.

It's over. There is no more penalty for sin

for you and me who have chosen Jesus.

And the beautiful thing is in his resurrection from the dead,

he triumphed over sin and death. So the penalty is removed.

The sting of sin and death are removed.

And So what happens now is we are every single day going from

a place of less power to more power over sin.

So sin no longer has the upper hand.

Is sin still present? Yes, But sin doesn't have the

upper hand in the life of a spirit filled believer.

And it's so important to say that because it's not like you

and I will not have temptations When we're at office.

It's easy to lie to our boss that you're not feeling well,

just to head home when you really have an outing with

friends planned. It's so easy to fall into old

patterns or just, you know, giving that that cash under the

table and getting your job done rather than saying, I'll wait it

out, I'll wait it out. I'll not give that.

I will wait. Or maybe there are those moments

when your anger just hits the roof.

You say all kinds of things to your spouse, leaving them in in

a mess and you won't walk out. Even after you know Jesus, that

still happens. And maybe you're thinking, when

will this end? But the truth is, the struggle

is real. The struggle is real for every

human. But we Christians have the edge.

You know how we have the Holy Spirit in US and he calls us

into relationship with Jesus by saying, you know what?

You live with my help. You don't live anymore alone.

Before Jesus, we were just running on our flesh.

It was a fuel of the flesh that drove us.

I feel like doing this, I should do this.

I thought I should eat this. I ate it.

I, I felt that, you know, I should go and connect, reconnect

with that old person. I did it.

But now that I'm living the life that Jesus has called me into a

relationship with him, the Spirit of God is now in me.

This temple now has the Holy Spirit in it.

And he is telling me, hey, why not pause?

I know you're feeling like you need to do this, but have you

thought to ask me what I feel you need to be doing?

The solution to the struggle is that you would live by the

Spirit. That's the solution that Paul

brings to us, and that is what we're going to look at.

Romans Chapter 7, verses five to six, says when we were

Romans 7 · chapter mention

controlled by our old nature, sinful desires were at work

within us, and the law aroused these evil desires that produced

a harvest of sinful deeds resulting in death.

But now we have been released from the law, for we died to it

and are no longer captive to its power.

Now we can serve God, not in the old way of obeying the letter of

the Law, but in the new way of living in the Spirit, the old

way, the old way before Jesus was just looking at the law and

by wrote, knowing it and obeying it.

Wash your hands. Do these things, you know, offer

these sacrifices, you know, have these the way of worship

worshippers, you know, they articulated how it has to be

done. But in the new covenant where we

are living with the help of the Spirit, when I look at the Word,

I'm asking the Holy Spirit to open it up to me.

And I no longer am obeying it just because I have to, but

because now I have a living relationship with the One who is

the Word. It changes everything.

It changes how I look at the Word.

I'm not trying to memorize all of the scripture.

I'm trying to live it out. So each day what I take is a

bite size input. I'm allowing God to actually

translate that into action in my life.

And that is what it looks like to live in the Spirit, in the

new nature, the Spirit LED nature, not the fleshly nature,

not the old sinful nature, but living in the Spirit.

Now I want to just, you know, lay some ground rules.

When we say living by the Spirit, many people twist that

and turn it to their advantage. Living by the Spirit does not

discount the Word of God. So it doesn't mean that because

he says, you know, the law and all the law causes condemnation,

but this living by the Spirit is above it.

It doesn't discount the need for the word of God in our lives.

Roman 8, Romans 8 verses 7 to 8 says this.

Romans 8:7–8

For the sinful nature is always hostile to God.

It never did obey God's laws and it never will.

That's why those who are still under the control of their

sinful nature can never please God.

So what are you under the control of?

If it's a sinful nature, the Word of God will make no sense

to you. You will just look at it as

something you have to do because you were taught that from, you

know, the time you were a child. Or maybe you do it because your

pastor has been encouraging you to do it.

But if you are truly living by the Spirit, the Word of God will

become your compass. That is your God's love letter

to you every single day and He's directing you.

Living by the Spirit requires the word of God.

The law doesn't get obsolete. It doesn't become null and void.

In fact, it comes alive. The second thing you should

remember, when we say living by the Spirit, it means that it

doesn't mean that we're just controlled by our feelings and

our thoughts. A lot of people will say, I feel

like, you know, I should tell you this.

I feel like we should do such and such, but it's not about

being led by feelings. It's being led by the Spirit of

God who was a being who is God himself.

And so it really means that we not that we discount our

thoughts, attitudes and emotions.

Not at all. Our thoughts matter.

Our feelings matter, but they don't become what we lead by.

Instead, they do come under the lordship of Christ, which is why

he talks about in verse six, letting your sinful nature

control your mind leads to death, but letting the Spirit

control your mind leads leads to life and peace is very simple.

You just have to in a moment when you're about to explode in

anger or you're about to say that lie to your boss.

It might just require you saying I know I feel like that's the

easy way Lord, but what must I do in this moment?

How do you expect me to respond? I remember that morning when I

was berating my son for burning my tray.

After about 5 minutes, there was just this nudge as to explain to

him why I was upset. So I told him, you know, while

of course it spoiled it a bit and I, I feel bad that you

spoiled, it's just a thing at the end of it.

But there's a bigger issue where it could be a fire hazard, you

know. So I had to explain to him my

heart for him as a mother as well.

And that was a spirit move. That was because that was in my

head. It was in my heart because I was

so worried that he was studying alone downstairs and I was not

there. But when I spoke that to him, he

was able to understand where I was coming from.

And also the Spirit of God moved in me to remind me that this was

just a thing. It's OK.

And I wonder how many of us would allow us, our feelings and

our emotions to be led by the Spirit rather than us being led

by those. When we live by the Spirit

doesn't mean that sin just magically disappears.

It actually doesn't. We live in a fallen world.

The only consolation is that when I live in the Spirit, the

power of sin begins to diminish. The control sin has over me

diminishes. Am I still tempted?

Yes, but can I beat the temptation?

With God's help I can. With the Spirit of God in me, I

can. Romans 8 verse 10 says Christ

Romans 8:10

lives within you. So even though your body will

die because of sin, the Spirit gives you life because you have

been right mean, made right with God.

Which means I am mortal. I'm going to have life maybe

till about 80, I don't know how long, but for whatever long,

however long God has instituted my life for.

But I will still be vitally alive and vibrant till the day I

close my eyes because the Spirit of God moving within me.

So sin, Will it stay in the world?

Yes. Will still sin still touch me?

Yes. Will the fallenness of the world

still touch me? Possibly could, but I will never

really be brought down and held down by it anymore because I am

moving from one place of powerlessness to greater power

over sin. And that's what the Holy Spirit

does. And you know, the truth is all

of this is really up to us. Many people assume that when we

say, you know you should be led by the Holy Spirit, that you

know, he just takes over you and he moves your hands and legs.

He tells you what to speak, He moves your mouth.

It isn't that It's a beautiful place where the Spirit of God

is. When we give Him room, He leads

us as a Father leads a child by the hand.

Just taking you step by step. That's what it looks like.

You can choose whether you yield to Him.

You can choose whether you submit to Him.

You can choose whether you listen to me.

It's all on you because the best part of humanity, every human,

is that we have free will. I can choose if I submit to the

Holy Spirit. I can choose if I want to be led

by. If I still want to be led by my

feelings, it's on me. And God's not going to say

anything about it. It's important to understand

this is a choice. Living by the Spirit is a

choice. It's a choice you and I have.

And so I want to ask you, what do you think living life in the

Spirit looks like in today's life, in our world today?

What does it look like? And I just put this into two big

subtopics. I believe that in the present,

right, where we're living the life and the Spirit makes us

fully alive in the present, What does that look like?

We're going to be looking at Romans 8, verses 11 to 17 as we

Romans 8:11–17

read it. I want you to understand that

this is a present condition. This is the place we're at.

We were saved by God through Jesus, right?

And now we're in this intermediate period where we

have not yet reached eternity. We're in the now and not yet.

So we have not yet reached eternity.

We are not where we used to be. We're in the middle, right?

And in the middle is where it seems like so much is happening.

Ever since I said yes to Jesus, He's put me in the situations

where my I need to love more, where I need to be more patient,

where I'm enduring more. I feel like it's one battle

after the other. I feel like the victories are

very sweet, but the battles are hard.

You know, that's an intervening period and it it is a hard

period. And and Paul speaks to that in

Romans chapter 8. He says, therefore, dear

Romans 8 · chapter mention

brothers and sisters, you have no obligation to do what your

sinful nature urges you to do. But if you live by it's

dictates, you will die. But if through the power of the

Spirit you put to death the deeds of your sinful nature, you

will live. For all who are led by the

Spirit of God are children of God.

So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful

slaves. Instead, you received God's

spirit when he adopted you as his own children.

Now we call him ABBA Father, for his Spirit joins with our spirit

to affirm that we are God's children.

And since we are his children, we are his heirs.

In fact, together with Christ we are heirs of God's glory.

But if we are to share his glory, we must also share his

suffering. So much fact in just a few

verses. And what the gist of it is this?

OK, this is the gist. We are in the process of being

sanctified, of being consecrated.

Like we said, this whole year has been about set apart, being

set apart. And this season for most of us,

whether you are in your teens, you're in your 20s, your 30s,

forties, fifties, 60s, till you reach eternity, we are in this

process of being sanctified on a daily basis.

And the Holy Spirit makes it endure bearable because he's the

one who mediates it. The Holy Spirit works in us

through situations that we encounter through the people

that we encounter, through our jobs, through our health issues.

He is working to sanctify us and make us more like Jesus.

That's the point of the season. And the important thing in this

time, in, you know, living fully alive in the present is

remembering our identity as children of God.

You and I cannot live fully alive in this moment of time in

history if we are not sure of who we are in Christ.

And the truth is, we are children of God.

That's what the Holy Spirit does when the Holy Spirit is given to

us. He affirms and establishes that

you and I are sons and daughters of the Most High God.

And what does that imply? It implies an inheritance.

The Holy Spirit himself is the first, you know, he's the the

first bit of that inheritance. He's the, you know, just that,

that sweet first taste of the big inheritance that we have in

Jesus. We are Co heirs with Christ.

But there's this small subtext. It says if you want to share in

God's glory, you have to share in his suffering.

So a lot of us walk through seasons or have walked through

or walking through or will walk through seasons of hardship.

You will have grief, you will have loss, you will have health

issues. You'll have setbacks at work.

You'll have relational fallouts. You will be heartbroken.

You could have moments when you've had a set back

emotionally, whatever it looks back looks like.

I want to encourage you this, that as children of God, the

discipline of God comes in as well.

Because who? Which father who doesn't love

his child doesn't discipline the child?

It's essential because in the book of Hebrews he talks about

this. He says that a father who, the

Heavenly Father, loves us and so disciplines us in love so that

we will be partakers of His Holiness and that we would be

righteous. There is a reason for what we

walk through today. What you are walking through,

there is a reason for it. Don't think that you are just in

the middle of a cosmic blitz where you know just everything

bad in the universe is happening to you.

You are seen, you are identified by the God of the universe, the

Father, the Heavenly Father who is your Father knows exactly

what you're walking through and you know, in fact, he's he's got

you in the palm of his hand. He knows exactly what's

happening. And so it needs us to come to a

place of accepting that discipline is painful.

We state the facts. This is hard.

What I'm going through is too painful for words.

Lord has been prolonged. It's been protracted.

What do I do? But the beautiful thing is that

I need my struggles and my setbacks need to move me towards

Jesus and not away from Him. And that's what the Holy Spirit

does in sanctification. As much as he's working, he's

not doing it. Removed in such a way that you

know what, you just figure this out.

I'm working on you, but you know I'm working on you from a

distance. The Holy Spirit is intimately

working in our lives through every situation, through every

circumstance, because you are a child of God.

You are loved, and He is shaping you.

He is removing the things of the flesh that need to be removed

from you so that you will live on in a greater dependence on

the Holy Spirit. And so it requires that we move

closer to God. Some of you have moved away from

God because you said, you know what, God?

I don't know if I ever understand what you're doing.

This doesn't seem like your hand.

I said yes to you, but it seems like you've said no to a bunch

of things in my life. I believe that God is asking us

to move from asking these questions of why me or why now

to what are you teaching me, Lord?

What are you doing in me? What are you accomplishing in my

life? Because those are the questions

that get him to really speak back.

It's important that to be fully alive in the present, you allow

the Holy Spirit to establish your identity.

You are a child of God. In the times that the Romans,

the book of Romans was written, anyone who was adopted into a

Roman family got all the rights of a full of a fully, you know,

legal original son. And they didn't have to be born

into that home to get it. The minute they were adopted,

they got all of the inheritance just like any other natural

childhood. And you and I are no different.

When we accepted Jesus, when the Spirit of God dwelt in US, he

brought us into that inheritance.

He brought us into that family, sealed us.

And so today I want to ask you, how alive are you living?

You're dead in Christ, but you're alive in the Spirit.

You died with him. You crew were crucified.

Your flesh had to be crucified and is getting crucified on a

daily basis. But you are being made alive by

the Spirit. And that's how by acknowledging

who you are in Christ, that's how you live fully alive in the

present. The second thing I believe is

Paul continues from that passage talking about how we need to

share in the glory of God. We also have to share in his

suffering. And he talks about the future,

OK. He talks about the end times,

What's going to happen when we close our eyes in death.

We meet our Savior and the glorious, a future that lies in

wait for every believer. And that's what he's writing

about in verses 18 to 21. This is what he says.

Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he

will reveal to us later. For all creation is waiting

eagerly for that future day when God will reveal who his children

really are. Against its will, all creation

was subjected to God's curse. But with eager hope, the

creation looks forward to the day when it will join God's

children in glorious freedom from death and decay.

This is so exciting for me because I just recently had to

do a root canal because I had a decayed tooth.

And just going through that process made me realize that I

look forward to heaven, where I'll have a good set of teeth,

hopefully, and no decays and no fillings.

And you know what an assurance we have?

We have a future where there's no death or decay, there's no

suffering, there's no corruption, there's no pain.

But until then, that's where we're at.

And so I believe that when we live in the Spirit, he makes us

fully prepared for the future. How does he do that?

He prepares us now, right? And this process of

glorification is what happens when we meet Jesus, when our

bodies are transformed to the resurrection body that Jesus had

when he was resurrected. But The thing is, we're not.

We're not there yet, right? And so how do we prepare better

for it right now? Well, the wait is long.

If you've gone through a long chronic ailment, you know that

the wait is unending. Twists and turns, but no end

insight. Maybe you're going through a

divorce and the process is so long.

You're so traumatized just by every visit to the court.

Maybe you're walking through a season of barrenness.

You've been waiting for that promised child, and you're

going. I don't know how long I can do

this. Lord, I'm at the end of my rope.

The wait is hard when we're preparing for this future, this

glorious future. Until then, the wait is so long.

The wait is hard. When will I get my breakthrough?

Lord? When will I find that spouse?

When will I get that dream job that I've dreamt of and wished

for? Romans 8 verses 26 to 28 says

Romans 8:26–28

this. The Holy Spirit helps us in our

weakness. For example, we don't know what

God wants us to pray for, but the Holy Spirit prays for us

with groanings that cannot be expressed in words.

And the Father, who knows all hearts, knows what the Spirit is

saying. For the Spirit pleads for us

believers in harmony with God's own will.

And we know that God causes everything to work together for

the good of those who love God and are called according to His

purpose for them. God has given us the Holy Spirit

to help us in the wait. Because most of us, we're

miserable waiters. We don't know how to wait.

In another translation, it says wait confidently and

expectantly, both of which are adjectives that don't epitomize

most of us Confident. The minute we get that other

closed door, we're just like, I can't do this anymore.

I'm done expectantly, Lord, half the time we're bracing ourselves

with some kind of negative impact.

But God is saying, I want you to wait.

And the one you wait with is the Holy Spirit who is interceding

for you. So maybe all you have are tears.

The Holy Spirit will use that. He'll translate that.

Maybe all that you have is so much pent up anger and

frustration that what you prayed for has not happened yet.

He will intercede for you. I want to ask you this, does

your waiting involve praying and abiding or has it been involving

ranting and raving? There's a difference because

when I am abiding and praying it changes the way I wait.

I found that while we are in the, all of us are in different

seasons of waiting. The one thing that has helped me

has just opened the Bible and reading it till God speaks to

me. I just read.

I can read the Psalms. I would read Nehemiah.

I would just read something and I'd say, Lord, I don't know what

to do. Can you please speak to me?

Sometimes He'll speak to me in the first chapter, sometimes He

speaks to me after the 30th chapter.

But can I encourage you that you will abide and pray rather than

ranting and raving because that is what this wait does, is

preparing us for a glorious future.

If I don't know how to wait now, I will not value what I'm

waiting for when I receive it. I need to come into a place and

in the abiding, in the praying, I find that my connection with

Jesus tightens and the Holy Spirit is so beautiful because

the Holy Spirit is pleading with the will of God in mind.

So the more I'm in touch with the Holy Spirit, I start to

understand God's will for me. And it's been amazing because we

have actually lived this way. My husband and I have prayed for

certain things and then we started we started praying in

the Spirit and we said, Lord, our words are not doing it.

So we're going to pray in the Spirit.

And as we started praying in the Spirit, we found that God was

explaining certain situations to us.

So we started praying not what we wanted, but what he wanted.

And I would encourage you to do that because intercession is

really coming to this place of understanding God's heart and

then pleading with him in alignment with his way rather

than just saying these are the things that I want.

Lord, do it now it changes. So it's really requires that we

live in the spirit and order that we'll be fully alive in the

present and fully prepared for the future.

And even as we close, I just feel like someone needs this

reminder. You may have been going through

a season of hardship, persecution, suffering, worry,

anxiety. Whatever it is, I want to

encourage you that to remember this.

Maybe you're thinking God's forgotten about you or you're

not in favor with God. God doesn't love you.

I want to close with this passage, Romans 8, 35 to 39, and

it is for you specifically if you've been saying I feel

unloved by God. I feel forgotten.

I feel like I have made some choices which has made me take

10 steps away from him and I feel lost.

I don't think God knows where I'm at.

This is for you. Can anything ever separate us

from Christ's love? Does it mean He no longer loves

us if we have trouble or calamity, or are persecuted or

hungry or destitute or in danger or threatened with death?

No, despite all these things overwhelming victories, ours

through Christ who loved us. And I'm convinced that nothing

can ever separate us from God's love.

Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our

fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow, not even the

powers of hell can separate us from God's love.

No power in the sky above, on the earth below.

Indeed, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us

from the love of God that is revealed in Christ Jesus our

Lord. Isn't that amazing?

Nothing. What you are going through, what

you have gone through, the decisions you made, nothing can

separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus.

And so I want to just remind you that you are more than a

conqueror. Whatever you're fighting

through, remember he fights with you.

He fights for you. So you are more than a conqueror

in Christ Jesus. And your victory is evidence

that he loves you. Even if you're on the wait for

your victory, He loves you right there.

He sees those of you who are waiting.

He sees those of you who are suffering.

He feels with you. He he grieves with those who are

grieving for those of you who are wrestling with your sinful

nature, you know the things all of us are wrestling in some

aspect. Would you just throw up your

hands and defeat and say, Holy Spirit come in.

I want to live fully alive. I want to live fully prepared.

And so as we close, I just want to play this scripture over each

of you that you would live completely aware of the

resurrection power that is alive in you because we are not living

with a spirit that is powerless. We have the the mighty power of

God living within us because the same spirit that raised Jesus

from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies

through His Spirit who dwells in new Romans 811.

I'm praying that over you right now.

Father in Heaven. I just pray for everyone who is

listening in that God, they will experience this resurrection

power in their minds, in their bodies.

I pray God they will experience it in their wombs.

I pray they will experience it in their heart.

Father, I pray that you will bring life to mortal bodies.

Spirits will be resurrected. Souls will be resurrected.

Lord, we pray that bodies will be resurrected.

We pray God, your power will course through.

If anyone's having circulatory system disorders that your power

will just go through that those blood cells and heal them.

Father, if anyone is having Lord back problems, the God you will

resurrect that spine. You will change things that are

broken into something of worth or father, I pray for those who

are having life situations that are like ashes, that God, you

will breathe life into it. You are the God Lord who showed

Ezekiel that you breathe life into dead bones.

God, for you nothing is impossible, nothing.

And so we praise you for that magnificent God, and we ask that

you would come in your power. You come in your power.

I pray for those marriages which are on the brink of separation,

that God, you will breathe your resurrection power into those

homes, that you will bring about reconciliation, that your love

will envelope these families and these couples.

Father, I pray where the doctors have given up hope that your

power would course through these bodies and resurrect them back

to life. We love you, we honor you.

Spirit of God, we ask that you would take control of our lives.

Lead us, guide us, hold our hands, guide the things that we

think about this, that we speak about.

Help us. We cannot do this alone.

Intercede for us as you already do.

We love you. We thank you in Jesus name,

Amen, Amen. God bless you.

Have a spirit filled week. Thanks for listening to this

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