No Separation for Those in Christ

Amen. You may be seated on your way to your seat. Look at your neighbor and tell him hello. I know you're introverted, but hello. It's not too hard. You extroverts, we don't need an hour long conversation. I'm working on that. I realize sometimes I'll be talking for ten minutes, and so to be like. Yeah. And then I realized I was just talking too much. You know, it's it's a tough thing. Last week we stepped into kind of I'm just going to call it a two part series. Technically, it's like a nine part series through Romans when the book of Romans. Hey, if you like Romans, the book of Romans, like, just say, yeah. And if you don't know what it is, just say, yeah, I mean, because just, yes, we'll call this a cult this week. So I just just do what I tell you. Come on. Just say yeah, when I tell you. Just kidding. Guys, we gotta. We got an intense culture, which is essentially what a cult is. But no, that's down the street somewhere else. I don't know who I'm talking about. There are a lot of streets here. And like, in in Phoenix to say down the street, you could be an easy valley for all we know, because the streets are the same. The entire city, guys. It was a crazy thing when I got here. Usually developers gave up at like six blocks where I came from. Anyways, we're in Romans chapter eight today in a series called Real Depth. I don't know if you know what real depth is. That's what we're talking about, real depth. I, I didn't clean up after myself in the last service. Something to do with the candle. Talk about a candle in a second. Has anybody here seen the show? World's worst roommate. Just raise your hand if you've seen that show, do first service. Half the people just supposed to be binging Netflix all day because half the room raise their hand when they. So. So essentially, World's Worst Neighbor was a Netflix show that came out a while back. I don't know if they still put out seasons. I just watched one. That was enough. It was about people who got roommates, and the roommates were like, I guess from hell or something. It was just these crazy things and I don't know which episode it was, but there was one episode that still sticks with me to this day. You could you understand why that that made me giggle for a second. Anyway, it was an episode about this female who owned an apartment in, like New York City or Philadelphia or something, and she put out an ad, got a roommate. It was a male roommate, and he was in, like, law school. So he knew the legal code. And he came in and, like, immediately set up camp everywhere except for her bedroom and took over and stopped paying rent. And because he knew the legal code, he knew squatters rights. You haven't heard of squatters rights? I didn't I didn't know about this until Covid, actually, because my brother rents out a Airbnb. Anyways, it was the whole thing. But this show stressed me out. This guy wouldn't leave, and it got to the point where she was about to move out of her own house because the guy wouldn't leave, and then later he murdered somebody in a different house. So there's. Yeah, there's this whole thing. I say all that to say, and I'm realizing again, you will hate what I'm about to say, but when you come into your walk with God, Romans eight verses or verse one, he says, there's therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the spirit has set us free from the law of sin and death. And what Paul does in Romans eight throughout the entirety of the chapter is tries to help us understand, okay, what is no condemnation look like, right? Because condemnation pre relationship with Jesus. Was you trying to follow some sort of law, be at the Jewish law or some other law that was prescribed to you when you were younger, trying to be a good person and no matter what you did good, bad, neutral. If you didn't have Jesus, you still end up in the same place, not heaven. And Paul says, there's nothing I can really do because of my futile thoughts and my darkened heart. He says, wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of sin and death? And then he says, there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. And I told you last week that stepping into your walk with God or living in Christ is like you were formerly outside, and it was raining, and then you stepped into the house and now you're dry, right? The reign of the wrath of God was on all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth of God for a lie and exchange the glory of the incorruptible God for other things like beasts and man. Right? That's what Romans one tells us. Inside is a life with Christ sheltered, protected. You could still see out the door and out the windows, but you are protected because you have chosen Jesus, right? And we haven't gotten to Romans chapter ten, but it says something very clear that I quote every single week says, confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord. Believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, and you will be saved. So when you confess and believe, you walk inside. And then Romans eight is this conversation about the old life of the flesh, a different law, and the new life with the spirit. And I'm not going to give you the entirety of Romans eight today. It's a long chapter, and we got to get through all of Romans before we jump into a new series in November. But I want to give you a couple things today that I think will be helpful. But I'll say this if you remember what I just said about the squatters or the squatter. If you want to leave here with one very clear truth. The Holy Spirit is like a squatter. He comes in and he doesn't leave. No, I know, I'm shifting. I said, you're stepping into the house. That's what in Christ looks like. But in Christ you're a new creation. Old has passed away, the new has come, and God deposits something in you, the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit seals you and it keeps you into eternity. It gives you conviction in the present. There are actually gifts of the Holy Spirit as well. And there are a lot of amazing things that the spirit does. It praise on your behalf when you don't know what to pray, the Holy Spirit does so much. It is necessary for the Holy Spirit to reside in you if you want to spend eternity with God. So when you confess and believe and step into Christ, he deposits the Holy Spirit. Now new imagery. You're not just stepping into the house now, you are the house. The body says you are a temple. And you know, pastors always use it when they want to talk. Mess about all the old school pastors who would talk about alcohol and all this other stuff. But they were like larger pastors. And so then they say that your body is a temple. You go to treat it well and all of a sudden stuff, but actually your body is and has always been meant to be a temple for God's Holy Spirit. But the Holy Spirit doesn't reside where Christ isn't present. So if you're not in Christ, the Holy Spirit is not in you. I know it's complex. I'm just telling you what the Bible is pretty clear about. But when you confess and believe and step into your walk with God, yeah, there's no condemnation. But there's also, like last week, my title was No condemnation. This week, my titles. There's also no separation for those in Christ Jesus. Right? Yeah. Because you stepped in, the Holy Spirit was deposited in and now the Holy Spirit is a squatter in your life. I know you hate that illustration. That's why you're not laughing. You're like, can I laugh at this? It feels a little sacrilegious. It's not a roommate from hell. It's a roommate from heaven. So it's a it's a full flip, you know, it's it's a little different. It does good things in your life, but it does not leave you. It does not go away even if you wanted it to. I don't think you do. But even if you wanted it to, it won't. Even if you try to leave, it's in you. It goes where you go. Now there are different kind of levels to this conversation. But when you confess and believe that Jesus is Lord, you are no longer condemned because you're in the house with Christ covered by the blood of Jesus. Now when you step into the Holy Spirit turned you into a house for itself, and now you walk with the spirit the rest of your life, no matter what you do. I know Paul's using all these mixed metaphors, and they told me in English class not to do it, but it's hard to comprehend. So we got to figure out how to circle around this reality that is hard to comprehend. And this is what I'll tell you. The Holy Spirit resides in you upon belief. Let's go stretch some people out because, yeah, cool. I'm not condemned. I've been saved by Jesus. But then you step into your walk with God and you're still stressed out, wondering if you can lose what you got. Number one issue I deal with with people who have already trusted in Jesus. Can you lose your salvation? If I if I keep doing this, does this mean I'm out? And I could keep going down the conversations I've had. But you thinking you can lose what God did in you. Lead you back to the thing that he redeemed you from condemnation and guilt. It's kind of this weird circular thing. It's like if if you condemn yourself or if you are in this condemnation space, you are disconnected from God. And if you're connected from God and think he can leave you. Well, then you feel like you got to perform again. But he died so that you didn't have to perform. He died offering you all that was necessary to be transformed by the renewing of your mind. It's this weird thing. I'm going to try to make it a little bit more simple for you in verse nine. Here's what Paul says. He says you, however, not in the realm of the flesh. You're in the realm of the spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, meaning you will die one day physically, I don't think any of you get to escape that. But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the spirit gives life because of righteousness. Now let me be clear, because Paul makes it clear in other texts that maybe you haven't read that righteousness is not yours. Is Christ righteousness what he did on the cross? He's righteous. His righteousness covers you, his blood covers you. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of the spirit who lives in you. Long story short, the spirit is in you. It is the same spirit that raised Christ Jesus from the dead. That spirit has power. It does something powerfully powerful in you, and you didn't become a righteous enough to get that deposited. It wasn't like you went to the bank one day and said, hey, can you check my account and see if I got enough to receive or to make a deposit? No, I mean, you didn't walk up to God one day and say, hey, you look at. No, we've already preached on this earlier in the Roman series. You should go watch it. You were not good enough. Paul says my righteousness was but filthy rags. I was not righteous. Christ was righteous. So the reason I have the Holy Spirit in me is because of what he did, not what I did. So now I'm going to transition this argument a little bit because I said the Holy Spirit was a squatter. Holy Spirit's not going to leave. It's going to stay there. No matter what you do is staying there. And nothing, nothing you can do will separate it, separate it from you. But look at your name. Tell him. But. Thank you. Hannah. The rest of them. Did they not? Here, look at your neighbor. Tell them. But you know you're not. It's not inappropriate. It's. But you know you can. It's because I made the comment about a cult or whatever. I'll take it a different direction. I didn't do this in the first service. Somebody said on the little scavenger hunt thing. Yeah. Scavenger hunt. They had a scavenger hunt on me last week. A couple of the volunteers and the scavenger hunt was a whole list of things that I regularly do on stage. And if they got, like, a bingo. They paid attention to. Hey, it was honoring in a weird way, but my wife one. Hey, come up here, Lucas. Okay, so when you live. This is my son, Lucas. Say hi. Lucas. Make him feel encouraged. Don't make him insecure up here. Dressed you today anyway. So when we step into our walk with God, we're in the house. When we walk into the house, the Holy Spirit's deposited into us. And now we are a temple of God's Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit is there on purpose. Jesus said it. He had to ascend to the father so that he could send the helper without the helper. This still disconnect, but the Holy Spirit is what binds you. And this is weird way of the Trinity father, son, Holy Spirit. I'm not going to describe all of that today because I don't fully understand it's above my pay grade. But what I do know is the spirit is in me doing something that I don't fully understand, and it never leaves. It would be like, and this is what you signed up for. If you trusted in Jesus, you didn't know you signed up for this. So it it would be like. Because. All my negative illustrations here, because it always feels like the spirit's going to be too controlling, too controlling and manipulative and all this other stuff. When I do it, I just keep hearing people in my mind saying, oh, I don't like the way that really looks. Here's what it does, though. It doesn't feel good, it doesn't look good. But this is what happens is when you stepped into your walk with God and the spirit was deposited in you, it's like, hey, can you try to go to your mom? Just try to walk over to your mom. Am I going to do that? I'm not getting CPS called him, hey hey hey hey, buddy. Hey. No, no, you can keep trying. Go ahead, keep trying. Nope, nope, that's not going to work. In fact, actually, no. Here's what's happening. Hey, God's over here. Yeah, yeah. So. Oh, you good buddy. It's a little painful, but it's just conviction, not condemnation. You got this. Hey, I know it's a small illustration, and I just wanted to use my kid up here, so I made it up on the spot so that we could do this, but, because his. My daughter said hi to me, and I said hi back to her in front of everybody, but I missed him saying hi to me. And so anyways, we included him up here today, but that's what the Holy Spirit does. Guys. The Holy Spirit is there to guide you. And I know you want your autonomy, but it's like if you want to go your own way. No, no, no, I'm not letting you do that. That's how you used to do it. Futile thoughts, darkened hearts. We're not going to do that anymore, buddy. Hey, I'm going to convict you. And you call it a condemnation, son. Whatever. Yeah, you know what? You know. He says it in the passage. He says you're not slaves, but your sons, right? Children of the Most High God. Okay, we'll get there in a second. Hey. Don't talk. Don't talk, don't talk. We're going to work on this. Hey, we're not going to talk. It's okay. I'm going to plead for you with groanings that you don't quite understand. That's in Romans eight, by the way. Hey, just go with me, okay? Just let me do this. Kind of like the Holy Spirit says to me on the regular basis. And what happens when the Holy Spirit or somebody who else, you know, you know, some, you know, other believers, how's the Holy Spirit to someone says something to you that you don't like? You're like nobody so judgy. Yeah. Have you noticed that sometimes condemnation and conviction sound very similar, but the radically different things. And and we have become accustomed to not liking conviction or calling conviction condemnation. But what the spirit does is it's not just trying to jerk you out of something. No, you volunteered to follow Jesus, and the Holy Spirit's job is to keep you bound to your creator. And yet it's sometimes it's got to drag you. Sometimes it picks you up and just takes you that way. Sometimes it pleads for you with groanings that you don't presently understand, but it is there for you as a counselor and a helper. And you if you follow, you'll learn to love that conviction over time. You can go sit. Give it up for my son, please. I gotta. Pastor's kid life. I don't know what that's like. I want to read this for you because I think it's really helpful. Verse 14. It says this for those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. The spirit you receive does not make you slaves so that you live in fear again. Rather, the spirit you receive brought about your adoption as to sonship. And by him we cry, ABBA, father. The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we're God's children, right? It testifies with, now I got to change that because prepositions in Greek understand the really difficult is a thing called Greek syntax. And each preposition depending on which part of the sentence it is, it can be like a genitive of advantage or a dative object or something like that. There's a whole bunch of weird Greek stuff, but I'll tell you is this. It says the spirit himself testifies with our spirit the way we learn to translate those things when we're not totally sure what it means. It's with regard to our spirit, not necessarily a direct conversation, but it testifies with regard to our own spirit, meaning inside you. The spirit is giving testimony of Jesus for you to understand more and more about who he is. Verse 17. Now if we are children, then we are heirs, heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ. If indeed we share in his sufferings, in order that we may also share in his glory. The Spirit of God is deposited in you as a helper. I'm just going to say it simply let it help you listen to the conviction of the Holy Spirit. Don't quench what it's telling you or testifying to you about your creator. Listen to it. Allow God's Word to complement what the Holy Spirit is doing in you. I'll never forget my friend J.L. and I. We went on a camping trip, but before we did, we went to eat with my mom. And one of the things that the Lord redeemed me from was just disrespect. As a child or as a young person. I didn't respect my mom in the way that I should have. Now we have an amazing relationship back then. I don't know what it was, just, I don't know, young adulthood. But I remember sitting and eating with my mom and J.L. then we went camping and we sat down. After setting up the tent, he looks at me and I looked back on it. I know it was the Holy Spirit speaking through him. He looks at me and he says, what was that with your mom, bro? In my immediate response to him was, bro. Don't be judging me. Just you don't know what it's like. You had like two parents in the household growing up. You lucky you. Whatever. It's just the whole sob story or whatever. And then later on, I just kept feeling like God through His Holy Spirit, testifying to what God's Word says. Not just honor your father and your mother, but live in such a way that everything you do is edifying, right? Offer yourself as a drink. Offering your body is a living sacrifice. I'm not operating that way when I'm treating my mother that way. And then after a couple hours, I went back to my friend and I was like, it was hard. It felt like condemnation, but it was conviction of God's Holy Spirit. Here's where that becomes even cooler. And this is why it's important for you to understand that the spirit never leaves you nor forsake shoot. It never separates from you. It is there sealing you until eternity. If you think it can leave, you interact with it differently. If you think it only comes upon you once in a while. I mean, maybe, maybe you feel a wind of God's Spirit or something in a moment and you become aware of what he's already doing. But no, I am convinced. Just like Paul was convinced. Like the spirit, once it resides in you, it's truly taken up residence and doesn't it doesn't go away. So it'd be like lighting this candle. Now, metaphors are all limited. You know what I'm saying? This candle. If I move too quickly, it's going to blow out. But the Spirit of God often referred to as a flame, an all consuming fire. The Old Testament, the Spirit of God would come down and they would consume the entire offering at the altar, right? Like the Holy Spirit is always almost compared to a fire. When the Holy Spirit came down at Pentecost, it was tongues of fire. The Holy Spirit is like a flame, and when it's deposited into your life, it is like the burning bush that Moses interacted with. It's never fully consumed. It is always burning. But when it's deposited into you, it's kind of like this. It's, it's always burning, never goes out. But it is up to you whether you allow the spirit that has taken residence in your life actually have an impact on every crevice of your life. I have I have an image in my mind of many people who have confessed with their mouth to Jesus as Lord believed in their heart that God raised him from the dead. They recognize that there's no condemnation in Christ. They may even recognize that the spirit has been deposited into them, yet they don't allow the spirit to have any impact on other areas of their life. It becomes. Just a little roommate that's sitting there as an accessory or an accent to your living room. Or to be honest with you. And this may seem a little harsh. I think sometimes we take that which God placed in us and we literally, like the VBS song said, hide it under a bushel or you put it into your hallway, but you don't let it into the rooms of your home. Again, you are a temple for God's Holy Spirit. You let it remain a candle, and rather than taking it from room to room to room, so that God would reveal that which is dark in you and light up those spaces that have been broken from sin and sanctify you, you just put it on the counter right there as an accessory for when people come over and they're like, yeah, I got the Holy Spirit, I love Jesus. He's so cool, just done amazing things in my life. And then I'm going to go out here and I'm going to party and get drunk with all these people, and then I'm going to do this thing with that member of the opposite sex, even though I'm married. But I was drunk, so I couldn't really control what was happening there. So it's a weird thing now I'm going to be dealing with a divorce, but I got three kids and I don't know how to deal with that. It's I see all this in the church, guys. Well, I'm going to go to work and I'm going to sit here living in insecurity. Never want to share anything with my coworkers because I'm scared that if I say something that, you know, it might cause a little bit of friction between me and them, or I'm just going to accommodate to what everyone around me wants to do, right? That is, that is taking the powerful Holy Spirit of God, putting it as an accessory that is always burning and maybe even adds a little bit of a fragrant aroma to a dead stench filled life. But what God wants you to do is let the entire of his presence overwhelm your entire house. There's an example in the Old Testament when Solomon, kind of was coronatus king and they established the temple. It was finally built after David had passed the temple of God. And it says the Holy Spirit filled the place, completely filled the place. It was like a whole thing described. I believe it's in a second kings or first King 17 I don't know, don't hold me to it. But it's an amazing moment with the Spirit of God fully dwells in a place. How can we take the Holy Spirit of God that is meant for us to draw near to God and to keep us from the flesh that we ran from when we trusted in Jesus, and just set it on the side table. Now what God wants you to do with this ever present, always burning flame is he wants you to take it to every room of the house. He wants you to take it to the bedroom. They laughed in the first service when I said that. Maybe they're just immature. You can interpret that any way you want to. Yeah, I moved from metaphor to real life for a second. It's like, man, what Holy Spirit fill this space? Because it's still filled with selfishness and stuff that I looked at a long time ago, and it's impacting the person that I'm called to love. Lord, take it into this place because I've been selfish all day, expecting something to occur later in the day. Holy spirit, fill this place and I'll take it to my kids bedrooms. Lord, I'm not praying for my kids like I'm called to. In fact, Lord, like I got really triggered the other day and I treated them like my dad treated me that one time. Holy spirit filled that place. You got to take it to the kitchen with the dishwasher. That's full. Yes, Lord. Don't complain. Don't help me not to complain. Lord, fill this place, this head space. Because I came home from a long day and I still got a lot of work to do at home because nobody else said they wanted to do it. Now. Lord had filled that headspace. Lord help me. Are you going to take it to work? It's going to change every aspect of your interactions with other people. Here's what's cool. You can light other areas up in your life, like if you picture a lamp in every room. This works so much better when we didn't have electricity everywhere. Keep in mind the Bible was written 2000 years ago so they didn't have electricity everywhere. So if you were to take the light of Christ, it was assumed that you would have to go take it to another wick and another wick and another wick and another way. And you would be lighting lamps throughout the community. This is what Jesus wants to do in your life. That's why he sent His Holy Spirit. He in the flesh resides in one specific spot at a specific time, but him up, interceding on our behalf at the right hand of the father and the Holy Spirit, dwelling in us, interceding for us with groans that we don't quite comprehend. What he wants to do is go into all of your lives, fan, and then enable you to have this ever present flame in your life. He wants you to take this flame and say, I'm going to take it everywhere, and I'm going to light up this. I'm going to light up this, I'm going to light up this. And it's the exact opposite of how you typically like something up and walk into a room and just start ripping somebody apart. No, you walk into the room and you restore shalom to that room. You walk into the room and you say beneficial and edifying things in that room. The Holy Spirit fills you with love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. And I know my sermon titled today is No Separation. You might be wondering, what does this have to do with no separation? Here's how. Sometimes we walk around, we got the Spirit of God, but we think if we do anything wrong, we might lose it. And so we walk around like, you know what? Eventually what happens if you're scared you're going to lose your walk with God is you're not bold, you're timid. But the Spirit of God does not give you a spirit of timidity, but of power. Love, a sound mind, self-control. It gives you boldness to approach God daily. But what we do is we say, oh, I don't want to. I want to screw this up. So I'll hold it tight to the chest like this, or I will put it in a back room where nobody else is going to jack it up. But when you truly understand, no condemnation, and then no matter what you do, this flame will not burn out. It may not be a big bonfire because you put it somewhere you shouldn't have, but it will never burn out. So what do I do? I walk around, I'm like, all right, come on, let's go, let's go, let's do this over here. Let me have this conversation with the staff member. I just walked over. I saw that you were over here. Conversation with the staff member that I'm scared to have. But, you know, spirit used me in this one. I don't have to have a conversation with you. By the way, you're doing an amazing job. You are so good. Walk over here to my wife. I'm just kidding. No. That's a big part of your lives. Spouse. If you realized how it's like you checked the spirit at the door when you walk into the house with your spouse and kids, sometime you were super good during the day and you walk back. No. Carry that with you there. Carry it everywhere, and don't worry about whether something's going to blow it out. I know the air in this room can extinguish this thing if I just move it. Oh, there's wax everywhere. I'll clean it up later. It'll dry chill, but the Holy Spirit will not go out. So you don't have to be fearful of it running out on you. You. Why am I hitting this so hard? Because there denominations within evangelicalism, there are people who live in this fear and guilt because they think the thing they never earned on their own will evade them or evict them if they do the wrong thing. Here's the reality you did all the wrong things, but God so loved you that he gave his only son for you. And when he was resurrected, it validated the act of forgiveness on the cross. And now he's seated at the right hand, sent his spirit like he promised, and it dwells in you. The Ephesians tells you it seals you guys. And here's what Paul says at the end of the chapter. He wants them to understand in Rome that they don't have to live in fear or guilt any longer. He says in verse 37, no, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I'm convinced other translations say, I am continually persuaded. I like that I am continually persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. If you look at Paul's short list, there it it collapses all of your fears in just a few statements height, depth, life, death, angels, demons, other translation say principalities, authorities, kingdoms, nothing. You think little old youths going to do it? Nothing can separate you from the love of God that we have in Christ Jesus. And when you understand that, nothing will separate you. It gives you two things. And it's two sides of Romans here. If you go back to the beginning of chapter eight, when you recognize he will never leave you nor forsake you. And there's nothing you can do to lose it. You realize what it looks like to live a life of no condemnation. If you think he's going to leave, you're going to be condemning yourself day by day, by day, by day. Then on the reverse side, if you jump ahead to Romans chapter 12, when you understand that he'll never leave you and that there's no condemnation in Christ Jesus that's going to fill you not with fear, but with gratitude, and you'll understand better what Paul says in Romans 12. Therefore, in lieu of the mercies some translations I keep saying, some translations just say what I want to say. Therefore, by the manifold mercies of God, in lieu of those things, it is natural to offer your bodies as living sacrifices to him when you know he won't leave you. It's like I'm sticking with the one who stays. Yeah. I'm glad he's watching my life. I'm so grateful. He's a great roommate. He helps me. And as I was thinking more on this, this imagery of the world's worst roommate, I started to feel convicted myself. Guys. Because if I'm a temple of God's Holy Spirit. I'm a pretty crappy temple sometimes, just being honest with you. The fact is, his spirit is within me and I'm the apple of his eye. And he has called me and I'm sealed by the spirit, covered by the blood of Jesus. I am good, I'll spend eternity with him. In my life is more abundant because of all of that stuff. That doesn't change the fact that I still screw up a lot. I'm still a hot mess. Like Paul talked about in Romans seven. And no, there's no condemnation. But I am filled with conviction on a regular basis. And I started to look at the reality of what was happening when God put His Spirit in me. That from the beginning, I was always meant to have God's Spirit in me. But because of sin, it it could not reside. Until the blood of Christ. And I look at the areas in my life. And I know I said the spirit was a squatter who never leaves, but he comes in and takes up residence and makes everything better. It'd be like, you know, you get a roommate who all of a sudden starts decorating like, that would be a great roommate. I am not a great decorator, but the Holy Spirit comes in and he changes everything, transforms me from the inside out. Yet I'm still here, sitting in my struggle and he he doesn't care. It's as far as the East is from the West for him. But I wonder, for those of us in the room who are called to live as God called us to live, I wonder if you live in like a servant of the Most High God in partnership with the Holy Spirit, or if you're the one living like a squatter jacking up the house. It's meant to be a temple. That sounded pretty intense when I said it, but that is the reality that sin caused. It took what was beautifully created, called good by God, and dropped it down to something that was subhuman. It stained that which God created. It took the temple. And it jacked it all up. And that life because of sin ended in death. And I have literally been squatting in the temple that God's called me to partner with him in the Holy Spirit in. I don't know who this necessarily hits. I find myself thinking about two specific types of people right now, and I'll close with this. The first group is those of you who have never experienced Jesus as your Lord. And like I said, without Christ, the Spirit of God cannot reside. But that doesn't mean it's not beating at the door trying to get in. This is an actual theological process called regeneration. And some of you right now, you're sitting in this room hearing the Word of God. You might be ignoring half the rabbit trails I jumped into because you're so locked into what the Word of God says. And, and you're you're hearing this in your, like, feeling something tugging at your soul. Listen to what the word says. Shift your life making about face. Turn around, repent of your sin, and confess Jesus as Lord. Step into the house. Let the spirit take residence and see what happens. If that's you, I would encourage you to step in to see what happens. Take a step of faith. See what happens. If it doesn't work out, you can come talk to me. But I know my. I know my Lord. And I know what he'll do in your life. And if that is you, I want to encourage you. Take a step today. In fact, it's a good time for those of you who have already trusted in Jesus. Spirit resides in you. You're about to make your faith public through baptism up here, and we're going to celebrate it with you. Why don't you go ahead out here through the entrance? You can get changed if you need to. We got shirts for you, and we'll be ready to come out here in a second and celebrate. Like having already celebrated when you made that call whenever it was. But there are some of you in here. You haven't made that decision, and it's time for you to do it today. And I need you to know that when you make that decision today, it's not like you're in a waiting room before you step into the house. You're there, and the moment you walk into the house, Christ fills you with His Holy Spirit. Now you don't know how to fully utilize it. It hasn't gone to every single, crevice in your life yet. But that flame is is sparked in that moment. And so I want to encourage you step into that today. You may do so, everybody, if you can bow your heads, close your eyes real quick, actually. You might say something as simple as God, I've sinned and fallen short. But now I see you. God, forgive me of my sin. Make me new. Deposit your spirit and help me to follow you daily. Help me have faith.

Romans 12 · chapter mention