Leftovers - Romans 8:15-18

Happy Monday. Pastor Matt's here with you.

Pastor Chris is back. I'm back, I'm here, I'm here.

I am so ready to talk theology and say nonsense about other

topics. Just just complete nonsense

about other topics. I never say nonsense about

theology, but I love nonsense about anything else.

Real big no nonsense theology. Guy, no nonsense.

Here I am. I can't.

It's so funny. It's, it's like one of the few

things in my life I'm truly like serious about.

And then everything else is just, you know.

Frivolity. Of a bag of cats.

It's just madness. You should, you know my wife,

God bless her, living with me. I don't.

I don't think it's boring. I can't imagine.

That is no, but it's also weirdly unpredictable.

Just the things that sometimes come out of my mouth.

I believe that, yeah. So anyway, there's a little peek

inside the Hartley household. So you just had a a little

staycation, just kind of laid though for a week and took some

quiet time away off. Yeah, it was.

It was cool. You know, the last time I did a

staycation, I came back kind of hating the whole thing.

I was like, you know, I'm in town most of my like most of my

friends, like they're people in this church.

So now I feel like I can't hang out with my friends because

that's, you know, it gets weird. But I just, I just did not

restrict myself this time. Went hiking with somebody from

church and just hung out with people.

And it was, it was great. It was an awesome week.

So it's it's tricky to like segment your time away from from

church and that and that's not pointing fingers at at anyone

that like I'm not expecting people to have Shields up and

like interact with me differently based on whether or

not I'm quote UN quote working or not.

Like that's that's just the awkward, I don't know, life of a

pastor, I guess. Yeah.

So anyway, back at it this week. You're walking us through the

next step in Romans 8 here. And then we actually have, For

those of you who don't know, Dom Weese is in his first year a

seminary and his second semester kind of the yeah, but getting

into homiletics and the preaching courses.

And he's going to have opportunity to preach couple of

the next Sundays in March here in Romans, right?

Oh, I'm excited. I mean, I remember what it was

like, kind of remember what it is like being a a rookie

preacher, you might say. And I think Dom has a good head

on his shoulders. I think he'll be ready.

I'm sure he's going to do a good job.

But when I first started preaching, I was given an

opportunity to do that here and there was just a 0 guidance.

It wasn't like here's how long you should talk or anything.

Or here's maybe some highlights you want to hit.

You're up, buddy. Good luck.

You're going to seminary. So here you go, man.

And there there are a number of people in this church who recall

those first one or two experiences from, you know, the

chairs in the audience. And they just, they just kind of

laugh and they're like, you've gotten a lot better.

That's all they say. They're like, I mean, you are

passionate, but you've just gotten a lot better.

Sure. So.

I'll take that as a compliment. Yeah, I guess.

Yeah. So I guess I was hilarious if I

was still, if I was still the the same preacher that I was,

you know, 15 years ago when I first started, I don't think I

would still be in the game. I don't want that as much.

I don't think anybody would be like, we want that guy on

Sunday. Nobody would say that.

No, and that's OK. You should, you should improve

and get better at that craft. There's a there's a Do you craft

and rhythm to it too? Do you, do you remember your

first couple sermons? Like how did they go?

Do you feel like? I mean, so I had a couple

opportunities to preach. Obviously you've preached other

places too, but like I was just on church staff at like not

formal pastor title at the church before that.

Before, Yeah, at the church before I was here.

And those, those were also not great, similar to what you said,

like not a whole lot of guidance.

I was given a lot of latitude and there were only, there were

only a couple times that it was on like Sunday morning.

Some of them were like Good Friday or side Christmas service

or or Lenten season. We don't do Wednesday night

services during Lent, but the church I was at did.

So all the sudden, OK, that's 6-7 Sundays.

I can't believe I just said that.

Oh, man, so sad that yeah, there's just preaching

opportunities on Wednesday nights for seven weeks in a row

or, or something like that. So a couple of those yeah,

approached it very differently and gotten I I, I think a lot

better. I still this might sound weird

to say like I I still shoot from the hip a lot more than maybe

someone who's thinking about getting into preaching would

like are going pastoral roll would.

But as evidenced by the message I gave yesterday too, like I'm

not saying the events of last week, like informed and shaped I

already I already had a pretty good whatever direction on the

sermon. We were studied out.

We have we have texts and outlines and things like out

through the end of August already.

We already looked at sermons and direction of things for six

months in advance. So it's not like it's not like I

was pulling all of it out of thin air this week anyway.

But like when, when life happens and, or whether it's big events

or just like day-to-day events of the week, God's word speaks

into those sometimes too. So, yeah, yesterday I maybe took

a little, a little liberty with attaching, attaching struggles

in a big way to this falling back into a spirit of fear sort

of thing. But I think that's, that's also

a real tension that we, that we, we forget we have such a, we

have such short term memory loss that like we forget how bad the

bad was. And we also don't do a great job

remembering of how good the good is either.

And and we just, I feel like we often spend a lot of our

lifetime just in the middle trying, trying to avoid the

worst and settling for like less than the fast because we yeah,

no, no. You're you're really on to

something. Well, just because I think you

are. Yeah, I and so, but that's yeah,

this past week was the the bad side of that.

Like we we maybe don't remember how bad it was.

And I think that's what Paul's warning about in this passage

in, in Romans 8 that we're going to get to is like you, you were

dead in it's that you were dead in sin posture and you tasted

the goodness of God, the the gospel of Jesus Christ, But then

you kind of forgot how good that tasted and you kind of just went

back to the terrible Ness that it was before in your life.

And and yeah, we shouldn't, shouldn't do that.

One of one of my favorite little proverbs.

Keys in on what you're saying. Like a dog who returns to.

His mom, Yeah. And that's, that's, that's just

such a great little illustration of like Jesus Christ has has won

the war for you and you should not live in shame or guilt or

fear. And when you do, well, here

comes the vomit, you know? And so I think that's just

that's very apartment. Yeah, sorry that was a long

winded question to like how was your first preaching experience?

But but I think in that way I'm a lot different.

I whatever 10/11/12 years ago, I I couldn't get up there and

offered whatever a three different perspective.

And again, we we've talked about it week over week could have

ended up in a lot of different places out of this passage.

There's a few different key things that we could have like

landed on or emphasized out of this probably could have taken

2025 thirty minutes on any of those three had a 90 minutes

worth of content. Probably out of these 4-5 versus

1012 years ago, I couldn't have done that would it would have

needed to study up on the one point that I wanted to make for

20 minutes and hope I make it to 20 minutes.

Like that's now it's you're you often get the other side of that

where you got to wonder if you got to if you're going to hook

me before 30 like so yeah, there's there's things that I

think there's there's strength in that.

There's also there's this weird cyclical tension that I'm sure

you can relate to in preaching 2 of the What have what have they

heard me say before? And like.

There are some things that you want to say again and that you

want to re emphasize and honestly that you can't and

shouldn't avoid about preaching the gospel in the Bible because

I mean the Bible is consistent. There are similar things in

different places. We even at staff meeting this

morning, I read from Galatians 4 that was also about not

returning to a spirit of slavery.

It's Paul's writings in a different place about pretty

much the same thing we talked about in Romans yesterday.

So in some ways you're going to repeat the same things, but

hopefully you repeat the most helpful things.

And then and then whatever I I we, we talk about too that often

time I never really expect the sermon like the words that I say

to be life, like all of them are not going to stick with and

resonate on a weekly basis. But like how how we make you

feel about the word of God or or or the insight you can have from

the word of God. Hopefully what we're what we're

teaching and bringing out in that like that's, that's what

you take away. Yeah, I certainly hope there's

some lightning bolt moments of Oh yeah, I forgot about that.

I need to be, I need to be better about that or I never

thought about that that way. That's that's really good.

I need to take that part of God's word with me.

But for the 25 minutes, like I'm not expecting all of it to

stick, but hopefully as a as a whole, there can be something

that's helpful and encouraging to send you on your way with SO.

Actually, I like what you did a wonderful job yesterday of

making things sticky again. You're right.

I don't expect anybody to walk away from a 25 or 30 minute

sermon and go never forget the entire thing like I've got the

whole thing. But like, I thought you did a

wonderful job yesterday of like keen in on like two or three

ideas and just like man, you, you didn't hammer them home in a

repetitious, annoying way. But like you kept coming back to

it in such a way that like it created a stickiness around some

of these bigger topics like fear and, and some of those other

things that do come up in the Bible a lot.

And so, you know, even if I can't remember what you said

word for word, I can, I can take the larger swaths from that and

start to apply that and I can start to internalize that a

little bit. And so I thought that was really

helpful. Sweet, Where?

Where do you fall on the? I asked about the rule followers

yesterday. Yeah.

That's. True.

How were you the rule follower child?

Or were you the the fearful follower?

Well, probably more fearful follower.

You know, I well 'cause, you know, I had older brothers and

stuff, and all of them in one or more ways were rebels.

OK, And so I just saw all the drama of their infighting with

parents and stuff and I was like, you know what I don't want

to do? I don't want that any of that

ever. So like I was the kid who would

just quietly get pretty decent grades, nothing mind blowing,

but nothing bad enough to that you have to talk to me about my

report card. And then I'm just like going to

hang out under the radar and not do crazy bad things or anything

because I don't, I don't want to deal with that drama, OK?

That's fair. So I was just avoiding all the.

You were learning by example and like I don't OK, I can see how

far the limits can get pushed here, but I don't want to go, I

don't want to go that far. I.

Don't. It wasn't until my late teens

and I was just like, oh, forget all the rules.

And then, and then at some point I made a weird turn.

And then in my adult life, I've, I've come back to more, more

level normalcy for the most part, But I, I do even still

today, like I like challenging norms.

Sure, to some extent, you know, I, I just enjoy doing that.

I think that's the art part of my brain is just always

challenging what you think everything should be all the

time. But I but I think that draws out

some creativity that hopefully is helpful.

Yeah, no, I get that. I just, we've talked about it

before like with, I don't know, stop signs or the other.

I don't, I don't remember what we talked about like the rule

things we don't like or rules that we don't like.

Like most of the rules are like for the masses, not that doesn't

mean we shouldn't follow them, but like, it's if we just take

this like, OK, people are generally whatever irresponsible

in this area. So we have this rule.

OK, what about the ones that are responsible in this area?

I don't I don't like that rule. I don't need that.

Yeah. So I.

Don't for thee, not for me. That was always one of my

favorites. That was incredibly biased it.

Is built for thee, not. For me, wow, I love it.

I've never used that. I probably shouldn't start.

I, I, I do. I do ironically, when I'm being

a total hypocrite, you know, that's when I, that's when I use

that line. OK.

So yeah. Built for thee, not for me.

Oh. Man, when I'm, when I'm like

slamming cookies at home and it's like Grant, you know,

don't, don't need a bunch of cookies, you don't need that.

So bad. Oh, children are are examples

for you. Yep, Yep.

Just listen, listen to my I'm going to live my life.

I already made too many mistakes.

I'm beyond saving. You can still you can still make

not the mistakes that I did, but I'm just going to wallow here.

And yeah, boy. So we were talking, oh man,

staff meeting. There are things that obviously

we shouldn't share with the masses from staff meeting in the

morning, but there's also a few tangents that happened.

And I think I think part of your idea for what to talk about this

morning came out of the the Star Wars tangent that we went down

this morning at staff meeting. But you brought up, I'm curious

what movie series you're talking about with this question, but

what's what are we? What are we debating?

So the idea is before we jump. Into Romans 8.

Yeah, the idea is like, OK, so sometimes there's release order

on books or movies or TV shows or whatever.

There's release order versus chronological order, like actual

timeline of the story. So you could even take it with

the Bible. For example, if you're going to

do the Bible in a year, you could just do.

They have setups where you basically just read the thing

front to back, which is not chronological order which.

Seems really crazy actually that our bibles aren't set up in

chronological but. Strange.

They're categorized by type, like by type of writing.

There's there's historical book, there's narrative, there's

historical books, there's prophets, wisdom literature,

things like that. That's that's how they're

arranged. If you, if you don't know that,

but there are chronological Bibles that you can buy as well,

or even just probably chronological reading plans.

But you're going to get real thrown off when, like, I think

it's after what, Genesis 12? Like you jump into Job and

that's where it happens. Yeah, you just take a break from

everything that's happening in Genesis and you're like, oh,

here's this job guy and what's going on in his world, right.

Yeah. So that's really interesting.

So I, I guess one of the questions that the, the, the key

idea was do you prefer disregarding release order and

going chronologically or would you prefer to watch or read or

whatever do those kinds of things in chronological order

or, or release order? So, I mean, I don't know, one of

my one of my big kind of cultural examples comes in the

Marvel movie universe. So there's like 35 Movies Now,

which seems crazy to me because they just started producing

movies really in 2011, 2012. So they've released a bunch of

movies in a short amount of time, and the vast majority of

them do have a ongoing storyline, even though it's

different characters in different places like these.

These things don't happen in a vacuum, mostly.

So you can go back and you can watch these 35 movies or however

many there are in chronological order.

But it's not even close to release order if you do that.

But release order is interesting because it actually puts you in

the place of like, oh, I didn't know that.

But then I get to rewind later and go back to that.

And that makes so much more sense now if I'd watched it in

chronological order. There's so many things I, I

guess maybe I don't totally understand.

So in some ways, chronological might be worse, I'm not sure.

So I think it, I think it really depends for me.

And that's, that's what's interesting to me about some of

these different universes and just like creative forms, I

guess because like Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter, I guess

Lord of the Rings kind of did it because they did the they did

the epic first on the and then released The Hobbit.

They went backwards to show you The Hobbit.

Yeah, to show you The Hobbit prequel.

But like Harry, Harry Potter, that really wouldn't work.

Like you can't, you can't start on book four and or movie 4 and

then go back and do 123 or like that.

That has to be chronological, has to match release with that.

And even though, and like so like even within Lord of the

Rings, like you couldn't start with two towers and then go back

and do the fellowship of the ring.

And like you could do The Hobbit is a different.

It is a prequel. It is the first part.

So I actually think it's masterful how Marvel wove all

that because they are standalone movies as well.

And yes, there's Easter eggs in each one that like connect this

thread over here to this foreshadow over here or whatever

else. So that is interesting once

they're all out. I do prefer especially with like

MCU that the event The Avengers, at least part part of that.

I prefer chronological order now that they are all released.

I don't I don't I don't really do it by character.

I guess if I were to go back and watch them like I would, I

wouldn't watch all the Captain America movies and then watch

all the Ant Man movies. Or does that make sense?

It does, because if you did it in just character, I want to

watch all this characters movies, but you didn't have the

back story on all the other things, it wouldn't make a ton

of sense. Yeah, you would still enjoy the

action or the humor or whatever, but the story itself may not

make much sense. Yeah, because they're still, and

they're still bounds. I think there's bounds within

this question anyway, because the big one, the glaring one in

my mind is Star Wars because just craziness.

At no point did they follow chronological order with their

release or do you have a middle trilogy that is the original

trilogy that you then that they then met a prequel trilogy and

then a sequel trilogy with 789 and he obviously couldn't like.

So within that there's chronological order that you

have to follow. You're not going to watch 564

like a crazy person. Like each each trilogy you got

to watch in in order, but there's still some debate like

each trilogy is its own segment of characters, right?

Like you, you could watch 456 on its own without having taken in

one 2-3 or even continuing on to 789 after.

Right? So that's the bigger question

for me, though, with someone who hasn't, someone who's brand new

to one of the I think, and I think that's the heart of your

question here. Someone who's never seen it

before. Sure, what do you do?

Do you do you like Lord of the Rings?

Someone maybe who's never read The Hobbit or or read The Lord

of the Things. They're long books.

They're big books. Like it's, it's an undertaking.

Do you start them with The Hobbit?

I think, I think even even if they're not doing the books, I

think for somebody who's never experienced it, go ahead and

start with The Hobbit. It gives you a world building

that you don't. I mean, you get that in the

first Lord of the Rings movie, The Fellowship of the Ring.

You get that. But start with The Hobbit and

build the world for them and build the the character styles

and stuff like that for them. That if I was showing somebody

brand new, that's what I would do.

OK, Star Wars, the same thing. Do you?

Star Wars is a world I I kind of dabble in but I do not

understand. This is a Christian question.

Oh, yeah. I just, I don't understand the

whole thing. There's so many TV shows now and

they all happen at different times with different characters

and different worlds because, you know, start you're dealing

with a lot of different planets and worlds and you're just like,

I dude, I don't even know where to go.

I so I, I think even for me and having seen all nine of the the

main movies, I would be like, no, let's just start from

whatever the most beginning is and let's figure this thing out

because I otherwise I don't know man the.

Most beginning. Most beginning, because there

could always be a new new beginning.

Yeah, I suppose that I suppose that's true For me, I grew, I

grew up with Star Wars. That was my before Lord of the

Rings or before Harry Potter. Like that was my epic.

And and I watched the, even though the the new 123 trilogy,

the prequel trilogy came out when I was like 10-11 something

like that. But I had already seen the I

already been grown up on the original 3.

So but I realized like for Oliver, for for my son, like

that doesn't really make sense to watch the middle 3 and then

go and then go back. So release order doesn't make

any sense. I think I would still walk him

chronologically through. Is there any?

So is there anything any of these series that we're talking

about that you wouldn't if you were first showing them to

someone? What's the argument?

Is there an argument for doing release order rather than

chronological order? I didn't, I didn't.

I've, I've caught like two or three episodes.

This show, Yellowstone that big, they've done so many offshoots

on that. Now I wonder if I wanted to

start that show, if it would be best to.

I think there's a show called 1817 or something like that that

predates Yellowstone and all this kind of I I wonder if it

would. I wonder if it would help me to

do it that way if I wanted to get into that show, or if maybe

I should just watch Yellowstone 1st and then jump backwards.

Maybe it would be better to go backwards after seeing the

original series, I'm not sure. Because that's the other

problem, you could like you could watch Yellowstone and then

the prequel might deepen your understanding or character

development of things. But like obviously Yellowstone

stands alone on its own. Same thing with you could watch

the Lord of the Rings trilogy not having any knowledge of The

Hobbit, it still stands up just fine so.

OK. Interesting.

Interesting question to think about.

I I can't think of an example, I guess where release order

Trump's the experience of having like if you have the finished

chronological order, I feel like you just someone who's never

seen it, you show it to me in chronological order, not release

order. I would agree with that.

OK, that's probably wise. All right, so that was nerdy

Star Wars story sci-fi. I don't know pop culture rabbit

hole for today. Welcome into the ERC leftovers.

If you haven't figured it out, we're two pastors that talk

about somewhat trivial things to start out with and we jump in

and review the sermon from this past Sunday, hopefully in a

deeper and more meaningful way. The things, the leftovers that

we couldn't get to you in the sermon or just other sort of

things to think about for life groups, small groups, your own

personal study this week as well.

We are in Romans 8. I took kind of the main, the

main verses were 15 through 18 this week.

I had to back it up a little bit because we do still have this

spirit of just slavery to the flesh sort of things.

Flesh in the spirit is, is a lot of the thematic thrust of Romans

8 here. So I did go back and kind of

remind us of that mindset on the flesh versus mindset on the

spirit earlier in the chapter. But the main thrust from this

week was verses 15 through 18I tacked on there as the as the

thing to kind of look forward to.

So I'm going to read those 4 main verses here and we'll go

back and get some deeper thoughts or or some extra

things. Romans 8 starting at verse 15.

For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back

into fear, but you've 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. For I consider that the

sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the

glory that is to be revealed to us.

Amen. Yeah.

I would say one of the things that both you and I over the

last two weeks, we have touched verse 15 in different ways, but

both of us as I was sitting with my life group last night, both

of us skipped over adoption as a verb, like God is adopting us.

Because that is the actual word. I don't know if you went back

and looked at the Greek word. We had to because.

There was some confusion last night with different English

translations. Because some of them say sonship

or some of them say adoption into sonship.

But the actual, the root Greek word there is, is the action for

like to be adopted, right? Like as as in brought into a

family. Yeah, and we looked at this and

you know it, bigger picture, it's the one of the context of

it is the acceptance of the nation of Israel as sons and

daughters of God. We've got this entire people

group that God adopts. He brings in and says you are my

treasured possession. And so of course, on a much

grander scale, God says that about all people made in his

image and likeness, which is all people.

But for a time frame in history, God had adopted a specific

people group in order to give them the law.

Not that they would push everybody out who's not living

in this law, but that they might be an example and draw people

into a relationship with God through this different means of

living than the way the rest of the world was living at the

time. So that's at least the beginning

of adoption. But as we were talking a little

bit last night and there is an adult in our group that was

adopted as a child and it was cool to hear her speak about

that, to hear her say I was chosen.

I yes, it's great to be born into a family.

You'll be something. Else entirely.

Yes, it's so different to be to be seen and to be pointed at and

say I want, I want them. And so I thought that was

incredibly powerful. And that's exactly what God does

with us, right? He looks at us, flaws and all,

and says, yeah, but I want them. I want them in my family.

And I think that's just a powerful, powerful thing.

And so along along those lines, this, I'm not incredibly

familiar with Annie as the musical, to be honest with you,

but even just hearing you talk about adoption and, and kind of

the choosing, it's been Hollywood ified and theatricized

the, the, the sort of orphan or, or, or, or or foster home sort

of thing. I, I don't want to, I don't want

to step out of line with this. I'm sorry.

I don't want to be insensitive to someone who has lived through

this. But like, in my mind, as, as

this verse kind of says, you did not receive the spirit of

adoption to fall again into fear in a lot of those things.

In my mind, never is the orphanage portrayed as a good

place. Like, like it's, it's a place of

suffering, of fear, of discipline.

And then you get chosen and that's, that's your way out,

right? That's, that's the promise of a

better life, right, Of a more joyful life.

You're not entering into that family to feel the same way you

did at the orphanage, right? And that, and that's, that's I

think the idea, if I can kind of bring it out, that's the idea

that Paul's getting at. You weren't chosen by God.

You weren't blood poured out by Christ for you to live in

bondage to God the same way you lived in bondage to the world,

right? And in bondage to fear of sin.

So in that way, he's bringing out this this sort of adoption

scenario. You were chosen, but you are

also that the song we sing made for more like it wasn't, it

wasn't to live in the same way. And and I hope you're you're not

out there as as a part of this church saying week after week,

yeah, like I, I have a life. I have a life in Christ.

I am a chosen child of God. And then and then going back to

the same life you were living. Like that's, that's not what

Paul's getting at here, right? Well, and I'm glad you brought

up Annie. It's not a film I'm super

familiar with, but I have seen it once or twice a long time

ago, but even more modern children's kind of story now.

Despicable Me. Think about the very first

Despicable Me. One of the interesting things

about both of these films. Girls, Girls, sorry.

I do. I do that to my girls all the

time. I like it because you spell

girls GURLS. Yeah, Gorls, gorls.

That's so good. Sorry.

Give me a second, OK? Anyway, I love, I love that

series of movies. But one of the interesting

things that happens in both Annie and Despicable Me is that

the kids who are in the orphanage, it's like they are

performing in order to be adopted, to be.

Worthy of being chosen. Yeah, I need to look cute.

I need to be kind. I need to do all this stuff.

I need to look and and act a certain way so that I get

picked. Oh, the gospel says the exact

opposite. The gospel says, Oh no, I see

you when you're filthy, I see you when you're misbehaving, I

see you when you are shameful and I'm picking you anyway.

And I think that is just a powerful, powerful thing that we

need to understand about God's adoption of us.

The other thing that I think is worth picking up on comes from

John chapter 15, verse 16. And here's what it says.

John 15:16

You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that

you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide so

that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to

you. Good gravy, friends, He chose

you. He picked you and he didn't just

pick you just so you could sit around the house and OK sweet,

I'm a child of the King. No, He picked you so that you

might be something greater than you ever thought you could be,

and so that you could go to your father in need at any point, in

that He would give you what you need every single time.

I love that. And so with that, though, comes

we talked about inheritance yesterday we we didn't talk so

much about like the rights and responsibilities of a son or

daughter of the king, but that's that's the life you're entering

into honor. Read this this commentary

thought from David Guzik and enduring word he he equates it

to the Roman world that would have been closer to the time

that Jesus was teaching on this and Paul was writing about it.

Under Roman adoption, the life and standing of the adopted

child changed completely. The adopted son lost all rights

in his old family and gained all new rights in his new family.

The old life of the adopted son was completely wiped out with

all debts being canceled. Nothing from his past counting

against him anymore. That's that's the end of his

thoughts there, right and then and then, of course, you're

entering into the inheritance, the standing that the Co airness

of your brothers and sisters in that new family, right, that the

Co heirs with Christ that that Paul is writing about here in

our passage. I man isn't that so cool Isn't

that amazing You were just reading that and then I started

following along and I just man that is just that is the gospel

signed up in such a beautiful way.

And so this this word adoption in verse 15.

Again, I know neither you or I hit on that specifically on a

Sunday, but what a powerful image that God gives us in order

to make sure that we are seen and known and loved.

And if you just meditate on that one word and take that word in

as this is who I am now, I am an adopted child of the king.

If you can just hold on to that and meditate on that for a long

enough, think deeply about that, it will change your identity.

It will change how you move and live in this world because you

know that you are so fully and freely accepted by your Father

in heaven that you know what, I can be criticized over here.

I can be not liked over here and that's going to be OK.

My identity can withstand those things because I know who I am

in Christ. Yeah, and it's another way of

taking those, those in Christ being a new creation, the old

has gone, the new has come. This, this sense of adoption

into God's family, that old life is, is gone, is not counted

against you anymore. You, you do not need to bear the

burdens or fears of that any longer and fast.

In fact, Paul warns against returning to that right.

You didn't, you didn't get this new life to just keep living the

old one or to return to the things that inhabited the old

one. You, you are made new and, and

that comes with rights and responsibilities and, and an

inheritance that isn't worth comparing with the the toils and

suffering, he says in verse 18. Like it's not even worth taking

the time to try to compare what's stacked against you

versus what awaits you in heaven.

So Oh my gosh, yeah, I love the what he says about all the debts

are canceled. Nothing in your past can count

against you anymore. It's all it's all just a a

distant memory at best. And so not that we forget our

lives before Christ, but the sins and the shame that maybe

came during that period in our life, man, it shouldn't be much

more than a distant memory because God has made us new and

we are new every morning by his mercies that are new every

single morning. And it's and it's an amazing

thing. And again, it's an identity

shaping, life giving truth that we get to experience.

Verse 16 is a little interesting as far as like there's a lot of

freedom, but I also think it can go too far into a somewhat not

not cheap grace is the wrong word for it.

But the spirit himself bears witness to our spirit that we

are children of God. I touched on it a little bit

yesterday about how the the spirit leads us in ways that are

unnatural for our, for our fleshly bodies like wheat and

any inclination to fight against sin or to push back our

rebellion from God. Like that's all spirit LED that

that's where, that that's where the power in that is.

But there's still, there's still a yearning, there's still that

that's, there's freedom in that because in the power of the

spirit, we, we can overcome. We can't, we can't fight against

the, the struggles of of sin and in this world.

But it's also not like a hands off Jesus take the wheel sort of

thing either, right? Like, wait, we, we need to be

constantly vigilant. We need to be constantly

reminded of the promises of God's word.

It's not like, OK, I'm, I'm in the club, Holy Spirit, do your

thing, right. So how do we work out that

tension? Well The thing is like if you

were to think of an individual who was perfectly spirit filled

and spirit LED in everything they did, you would look at

Jesus Christ. And so if a human being, were it

possible for them to be so sensitive to the spirits leaning

and movement and decision making qualities in our life, that

person would be perfect. But all of us fail that because

we are just intrinsically kind of selfish.

And and so I mean, we don't perfectly follow the spirit's

guidance. Therefore we don't make perfect

decisions and we fail and ensure.

But I do think that, and again, we both been touching on this

over the last two weeks, which is the sense that as we let the

Spirit do the work, but we're sensitive and enough to follow

him because there is a verb we're doing, we're following the

Spirit. As we do that, we're going to

make infinitely better and more holy decisions.

We're going to, we're going to move in ways that love God and

love our neighbor better than we, better than we could ever do

on our own. It's not close.

But yeah, there's us following the the Spirit who's moving in a

direction. We still have to see that.

We have to look at what our selfish desires, our base, our

fleshly desires would want. And we have to say, well, but

this is where the Spirit is going.

Do I want to follow the spirit or do I want to take care of me?

And those things are not necessarily mutually exclusive,

but there's one that seems to scratch an itch, an immediate

itch, a little bit faster for us.

And that's usually the selfish choice, so.

And that with the other caution I'd have with this sort of

spirit LED language, I did, I did kind of harp on it yesterday

that this isn't a led by the Spirit is not a.

Each and everything. Do I think that God can be

leading us in? Yeah.

OK, where, where am I going to move?

Where am I going to work? Who am I going to marry?

How many kids should I have? Like, yes, I, I think there is

spirit leading and all those things.

I don't think that's what Paul specifically talking about here.

I think he I think he is talking about leading us out of a life

of of sin and fleshly rebellion into a life filled with the

spirit. I think that's what he's more

specifically talking about. So that's why we talked about

fighting against sin, falling before a gracious father and and

submitting to Jesus with lordship over over our lives,

because I think we can get wrapped up in always the is the

Holy Spirit leading me to to move here.

And I'm not saying he can't. I'm not saying he doesn't.

But I also think sometimes as Christians, we can get it up in

our head too much like we think this might sound weird.

You can you can be my theological guardrails on this.

Like we think that that there is a like right and wrong following

God or not following God with every single decision we make.

I actually as black and white as I am on a lot of things I don't

by and large, most decisions that we make, I don't think are

that black and white and and I will lean on God works all

things together for good, for the good of those who love him.

And even Joseph's what you intended for evil, God worked

for good. Like there's maybe a more right

decision to be made and in some instances, OK, to sin or not to

sin. Which one should I do?

Yeah, there's there's black and white.

But with some of those things, as far as like what should I do

as a, what should I do as a career?

I think God can bring glory to himself through your life in a

variety of different ways. Probably.

Might one bring him more glory than another?

Possibly. Sure.

Is it more glorifying to God to have one or two or four or six

or eight children? Maybe I, I again think he can

bring glory to himself in, in any of those familial

structures. I don't, I don't think there's a

like honored the Spirit dishonored the spirit in the

size of your family sort of sort of thing.

Like so I, I think I think we can often interject like Holy

Spirit approval into into maybe too many of our decisions.

Holy Spirit approval. Well, I'm just like he.

Stamped it. I just I don't know, I don't

want to make God sound as uncaring, but I think I think we

can get to a point where we think God cares a lot about the

decisions we have to make when really he's up there just like I

need, I just need you to move like I I just need you to pick a

thing and I'm going to help you with that.

It was the it's the greatest thing.

I don't know if this will make it into a servant last night,

but last night at life group. I love it's a little Owen

Sheehan, his his mom, Andy. He's hilarious.

He comes in, gives me a fist bump.

Hey, pastor man, like and then he and then he turns around.

It's like I got to I got to go take my shoes off and he runs

back in the entryway. He comes back in the kitchen.

He said, mom, I can't get my shoes off.

And his mom looks down. She's just like, well, buddy,

it's because you it's because you're stepping on your pants

when you're trying to slip your shoes off in that moment.

I just had this like heavenly Father God looking down as we're

trying to just do like the basic, most simplest thing.

I'm just God, I'm trying to take my shoes out.

He's like, yeah, but you're, you're stepping on your pants,

man. Like you're not.

You can't, I can't trust you to do this little tiny thing.

So like as far as like the Holy Spirit LED thing, I think I

think a lot of the time it's just like, Nope, I just need

gods are just saying no, I just need you to like choose to do a

thing and I'm going to help you with it most of the way because

really you're stepping on your pants instead of taking your

shoes off. Like I really think, I really

think that's how it is anyway. So I think I think we make too

much of what we stay in indecision waiting for like a

crystal clear lightning strike LED from the Holy Spirit.

Does the Holy Spirit work that way?

I think it can not in every single instance.

Am I crazy? No, and actually one of the

things that you're keying in on is what I've watched Christians

and I think sometimes in moments of fear, I've done myself, which

is I'm just, I'm begging God to just make a decision for me.

I just, I want the sure thing and why do I want that?

Do I want it because I want to honor God or do I want it

because I want the sure thing and I don't want to go through

any hardship or whatever. So if I rely only on what God

wants me to do and, and then he does all the work and all the

movement and makes all the decisions, then I don't have to

feel bad if something goes wrong because God told me to, you

know. And so I think there's like

again, behind every one of even our best motives, there's always

a hint of sin in there. And so I, I think we can too

often kind of mystify in some ways or over spiritualize

everything. But the reality of God and how

he built us is the same reality that all human parents should

want. And it kind of goes like this.

I don't want to tell my 18 year old hey am IA can I?

Should I eat right now? I'll be like, you're 18, are you

hungry, right? Now like you can.

Decide so God does just like human parents, he grows us so

that we can make decisions without without asking God to

micromanage us because who wants that?

And so I mean, like, we need to, we need to be wise here about

like, OK, so God, there's 8 billion people on the planet.

How many of them could I have honestly had a meaningful

relationship with in terms of like marriage, right?

I, I don't think God tapped me on the shoulder.

And I know this doesn't sound romantic, but I've talked to

Alyssa about this. So no surprises.

But I don't think God tapped me on the shoulder and said, oh,

no, this is the only one you can make that This is this is it.

Out of 8 billion people, this is the only one.

So good luck. No, like I, I think within those

decisions that God gives us, we have moments of being able to

honor or dishonor what he desires for us ultimately.

But he's still asking us to live your life.

I, I, I raised you to grow you so you can make good decisions.

And I'm, I'm asking you to involve me in those things, but

I don't want to micromanage your life any more than a parent

should want to helicopter their young adult kids or whatever

else. Like that's not the point.

Right. And I'm not saying this from

like a spirit of apathy or just like making flippant or

uninformed decisions. Yeah, God gives us discernment,

God gives us wisdom. But I, I want to caution against

so over analyzing every single thing.

And marriage is a good example of that because I'm I'm right

with you that yeah, you know what I believe that the concept

of marriage is bigger than one person.

I could have fulfilled a God honoring marriage with someone

else honest. Like there wasn't.

And again, sounds really unromantic for our wives.

They're so blessed that they have a you're welcome.

But, but like the, the, the concept of marriage and, and

thereby even this, this relationship with God and, and,

and maybe you did a better job of putting that in.

Like there are, there are tears and elements to this thing that

like a God honoring relationship with God can come out in a

variety of ways. And again, not from apathy or or

indecision, but the I just don't think it's as black.

It was the Spirit lead me to do this thing or this thing.

You know what I think the Spirit could lead you to do either of

those things and God could still work his glory out in in either

circumstance. So some of them a lot more, a

lot more clear what we what we talked about leaving that life

of slavery to the flesh behind. Like that's Yeah, no, you

shouldn't sin habit. Should you or should you not log

onto that website? Probably not like no, that's a

full stop. Should should you lie and ruin

that relationship? No, you shouldn't God's words

pretty clear on that for some of these other things make a God

honoring and and like you can use the Bible to vet a lot of

these things. Know the character of God from

the words that he says in there and and make it and and.

Let him Lord over that area of your life and see where it goes.

Absolutely. The other thing that I like

about verse 16, I know we've been stuck here for a little

bit, but that's OK. The Spirit himself bears witness

or testifies, depending on which one you're doing with our

spirit, that we are children of God.

And we looked at this a little bit last night and I, and I love

it because I had to, I had to look up this bear's witness as,

as like a, a verb. And it's, it's providing

supporting evidence through testifying to a high degree of

strengthening. So like we looked at it from the

perspective of like, if you have an expert witness in a court

case, man that, that witness, he, his, his, his thoughts on a

topic carry a tremendous amount of weight.

And so who carries the weight of calling us children of God, the

Holy Spirit, who knows us who, who is one with the Father and

one with the Son. He's the one who's bearing

witness as an expert on the case.

This is who you are. And so when we get down on

ourselves and when we feel kind of ashamed and we're pulling

backwards into these these things of guilt and fear and

worry about does God really love me?

I keep on messing up, man. Who's bearing witness about your

identity? The Holy Spirit is bearing

witness about your identity even when you don't get it.

And so I love that about verse 16, that it's not even us who

has to be on the stand in this court case.

It's not me bearing witness like, but I pick Jesus, I pick

Jesus. No, no, no, no, no.

It is the Holy Spirit who bears witness.

You are a son. You are a daughter of the King.

And so I love him as an expert witness in our lives.

And we do need to listen to him when he talks about that.

And can I add one thing to that then?

Because there's this the Spirit himself bears witness with our

spirit that, that we are children of God, right?

So, so then because people often like, we get the question

sometimes, why would, why would God include an imperfect people

in his work in his plan? So actually though, what I think

part of this verse is saying is you're witnessing, then your

testimony can hold that same power, the same power the Holy

Spirit holds as witnessing to your standing in front of God.

Then your spirit, your testimony of how that's changed to someone

else can be just as powerful at right as as the Spirit saying

before God. So that's why you're sharing

your witness, your testimony, what you've known to someone

else about being a child of God. That's how and why God includes

us in that. Do it.

Preach. That's awesome.

Yep, killing it. Sweet couple more verses here

and it's really, this was kind of the, the doom and gloom and

I, I feel like I didn't, I feel like I didn't prescribe a whole

lot of application in these verses other than to like grin

and bear it. I, I, I, I got to the end

yesterday and was like, Yep, you're going to suffer, but

heaven's coming. Have a have a great life.

I feel like that's what I left people with yesterday, but I

didn't, I didn't know like I feel like there's so many

specific instances of suffering that I couldn't really prescribe

an action for all of them other than that's not the way God

intended it for, for you to for you to be slave to this

suffering. It is for you to not live in

fear of consequence, but to be able to run to the helpful,

gracious father of OK in this world.

I have trouble and I need to call my dad.

I need to call the one who's over who's overcome and we have

this glory to be revealed that is not worthy to be compared.

So like the suffering right now isn't isn't anything in, in

light of eternity that is going to happen to us.

So sorry if that wasn't extremely helpful, but that I

think that's what's in here. Right.

No, you got to be honest with the text.

And so let's not import something that's just clearly

not there. But actually, I thought, you

know what, man? I thought you spoke about that

so well, like with that little illustration you gave.

When I'm in trouble, do I hide and do I run away and do I lie

or do I have such a relationship with my father that I actually

go to him first? I love that.

I thought that was just top notch and that is incredibly

applicable. It's challenging for those of us

who often times run and hide. That's a challenge for us, but

it's incredibly applicable. And so I absolutely love that.

And I thought that was a great little piece of biblical advice

to give. I just, I think that's

wonderful. And as a person who has really

struggled with that from time to time, like he, he, there's no

way he wants to hear from me right now because I promised him

I wouldn't do this or this or this and I did it anyway.

There's no way he wants me to pick up the prayer phone and

call right now because what it, what happens if I do?

He's going to be silent or he's going to yell at me or, you

know, and so all this fear comes back in.

And that's just not how it's supposed to be.

That's not what the Bible says our relationship with him should

look like. And so I just, I thought that

was wonderful. And it is glorifying to God when

we come to him burying our sins because that shows that we look

at the cross that Jesus took on for us and we believe that it

was enough. So it is glorifying to God when

we do come to him with all of our junk.

That is so glorifying to Him because it is putting all of the

all of the sin back where it belongs, which is on Jesus's

shoulders because He chose that. He chose to take the cross for

us, therefore He wanted that for us.

It was the for the joy set before him that He endured the

cross. Therefore, to go to God, even in

my worst, is glorifying to Jesus.

Yeah, that's so good. It's it's, it's just, it's just

like an outpouring of what you said.

That's what it made me think of. So there you are.

Cool. That's where we're going to

leave it for today. Well done.

Good day, good to have you back. It's great to be back.

Yeah, we're glad that you are. So you're on the docket for this

week. Dom is preaching on the on the

8th. So yeah, we have that to look

forward to. Be over.

Wow. Be over.

I don't know what I was saying. Be over.

That's not a you don't say that. Be praying over.

That's what I was going to say. Be be praying over Dom and his

preparation too. And yeah, just encourage you to

continually church be in in prayer.

We we covet and appreciate your prayers for for us and our

elders and leadership at church. We had a jam packed Sunday

yesterday and I don't need like we do keep track of numbers.

That's mostly for a caring that's not to puff our chests

out sort of thing. That's do we have do we have

coverage? Are we, do we have enough

ministry, volunteers and and outreach and and follow up in

place to to keep up with people that are coming in?

We had we had our biggest non Easter Sunday yesterday since

since I've been here. So those of you that are that

are new, welcome into the fold. Those of you that have been here

a while, we appreciate your, your partnership in, in serving

and giving and testifying to how the Spirit has moved in your

lives to reach to reach the one mores.

And, and some of some of these are people that are coming in

and checking us out of church. Some of them are, are coming

along by invite with others. It's happening.

It's, it's, it's working. And then we are growing and

we're continuing to search for the next steps that God has for

us as we look to continue to to join him in his work here and

continue to impact DeWitt and the surrounding communities with

with the gospel of Jesus Christ. So we thank you, we appreciate

you. I hope this is an encouragement

to start your week. Have a blessed week, Church.