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[2614.80 --> 2619.08] And the Spirit makes what's possible for Jesus possible for Christians. |
[2619.20 --> 2621.40] And what that means here is resurrection. |
[2621.40 --> 2625.46] Now, the three of you are young and healthy. |
[2625.56 --> 2627.44] You've got your whole life stretched out before you. |
[2627.50 --> 2628.28] We hope and pray. |
[2628.64 --> 2631.28] And you're probably not thinking a lot about dying and death, are you? |
[2631.80 --> 2632.08] No? |
[2632.26 --> 2633.16] You're allowed to say you are. |
[2633.16 --> 2644.66] But I'm told, and I've already begun to experience this, that the older you get and as you lose some of your health, your strength, all the vitality of youth, you start to think a little bit more about the years you have left. |
[2645.12 --> 2646.90] And what's coming after those years. |
[2646.90 --> 2660.92] And as those of us who are older relinquish capacities, relinquish strength, let go of things we used to be able to do but can no longer do, you start reflecting on how good the news is that death is not the end. |
[2660.92 --> 2668.66] Or as one Christian writer, Amos Traver, puts it, for the believer in Jesus Christ, death is a comma, not a period. |
[2669.80 --> 2676.96] The end for us is resurrected life and renewed bodies in a renewed creation forever because of the finished work of Jesus. |
[2677.26 --> 2683.02] And this spirit of the living God that makes what's possible in Jesus' resurrection possible for us. |
[2683.12 --> 2683.64] Praise the Lord. |
[2683.64 --> 2683.68] Praise the Lord. |
[2684.88 --> 2689.02] But for Paul, that resurrection life is not just a future reality that we wait for. |
[2689.10 --> 2690.10] It breaks into the present. |
[2690.36 --> 2692.30] Listen to what he says in verse 13. |
[2693.34 --> 2693.68] We read, |
[2693.86 --> 2696.54] For if you live according to the flesh, you'll die. |
[2697.24 --> 2703.28] But if by the spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live. |
[2703.92 --> 2706.10] Now, we're touching on something really important here. |
[2706.88 --> 2713.02] The spirit, as we receive him, and as he begins to work in our lives, he starts to unsettle things. |
[2713.02 --> 2718.62] He starts to kick around the furniture of our lives, you might say, so that we change in the way of Jesus. |
[2719.08 --> 2728.30] The spirit, if I can put it more pointedly, draws us into battle against the old habits, the old desires, the old destructive tendencies that once ruled our lives. |
[2728.60 --> 2731.36] Now we put those away by the spirit's power and we change. |
[2732.26 --> 2739.20] Or to say it a different way, the spirit is in the business of making us uncomfortable so that we grow to be like Jesus. |
[2740.16 --> 2741.90] Yes, the spirit brings us the love of God. |
[2741.98 --> 2745.02] It reminds us of the goodness of Jesus, the grace we've received. |
[2745.02 --> 2750.42] But the spirit will draw us in to battling the old self that needs to be put away with. |
[2750.90 --> 2752.66] Romans talks a lot about this. |
[2753.10 --> 2756.84] And one of the great gifts, we don't talk enough about this, that the spirit does. |
[2756.90 --> 2758.00] You know one of the great gifts of the spirit? |
[2758.82 --> 2760.36] Is the conviction of sin. |
[2760.36 --> 2763.28] You know what I'm talking about, don't you? |
[2764.32 --> 2765.98] It comes in a myriad of ways. |
[2766.10 --> 2767.78] It comes through the reading of scripture. |
[2767.98 --> 2768.76] It comes through preaching. |
[2769.22 --> 2773.08] It comes through conversations with parents and grandparents and teachers and family members. |
[2773.08 --> 2782.04] It comes in all sorts of ways as you're laying in bed at night, staring at the ceiling, thinking back over your day, where all of a sudden you're like, that needs to change. |
[2783.52 --> 2787.24] The way I spoke to that person dishonored them and it dishonored God. |
[2787.88 --> 2791.52] The way I wasted this day away on screens is not how God designed me to live. |
[2791.54 --> 2793.02] And there's that pulling of the spirit. |
[2793.10 --> 2793.80] And it's very subtle. |
[2793.94 --> 2794.48] It's very gentle. |
[2794.62 --> 2795.98] God is so generous with us. |
[2795.98 --> 2805.44] I mean, if you want to think about something that's overwhelming, is imagine God made you see all the sin, all the brokenness, all the distortion of your life, all at once. |
[2806.20 --> 2810.82] But he so generously, so kindly, so patiently draws it out of us by the spirit. |
[2811.16 --> 2814.86] Season after season, year after year, idol by idol, he topples over. |
[2814.98 --> 2820.76] And as it turns out, there's different idols, different temptations, different glittering vices that come in different seasons. |
[2820.86 --> 2825.58] And the spirit of God just gently comes in and says, this has to go. |
[2826.34 --> 2830.44] And I'm here to form you in the way of Christ. |
[2831.46 --> 2835.46] The conviction of sin is one of the greatest gifts the spirit gives us. |
[2835.52 --> 2838.42] And just to highlight, someone asked me this a few weeks ago. |
[2839.12 --> 2840.30] How do we know when it's the spirit? |
[2840.44 --> 2843.64] How do we know when it's like the voice of the accuser, the voice of Satan? |
[2844.00 --> 2848.12] And I think one of the key ways we know the difference is when it's the voice of the accuser. |
[2848.12 --> 2849.34] And that voice is real, by the way. |
[2849.40 --> 2850.92] I'm not going to go around this. |
[2850.92 --> 2857.58] That voice often brings up the sin in your life, reminds you of the things you've done in your life, so that you have fear and shame and self-loathing. |
[2857.84 --> 2859.74] The spirit of God is about freedom. |
[2860.50 --> 2863.52] And when the spirit of God is at work in our lives, it draws us into repentance. |
[2863.52 --> 2869.64] It draws us into change so that we experience what this verse says is life and peace. |
[2871.04 --> 2872.62] That's the gift of the spirit. |
[2873.20 --> 2876.02] And when you feel that conviction, allow it to settle. |
[2876.46 --> 2877.76] Allow it to draw us to Jesus. |
[2877.98 --> 2879.68] Allow it to bring us into prayer. |
[2879.98 --> 2881.24] Because that is a gift. |
[2881.24 --> 2887.16] To be sensitized to the old self so that it can be put away with is a great gift. |
[2888.00 --> 2889.30] The spirit moves in us. |
[2889.68 --> 2890.90] The spirit prompts us. |
[2891.16 --> 2893.56] The spirit convicts us so that we become more like Jesus. |
[2893.70 --> 2895.18] Praise the Lord for that. |
[2896.72 --> 2898.30] But now I want to draw out something. |
[2898.42 --> 2900.40] And this is, maybe you think, a strange turn. |
[2900.88 --> 2903.08] But I've been wrestling with this since we started this series. |
[2903.18 --> 2906.64] We started this series by saying, God comes where he is welcome. |
[2906.84 --> 2908.22] The spirit moves where he is welcome. |
[2908.22 --> 2912.42] A few weeks ago when Josiah was preaching, he made this comment that just unsettled me. |
[2912.50 --> 2913.22] But it's true. |
[2913.38 --> 2916.04] He said, the spirit doesn't overpower the human will. |
[2916.46 --> 2918.32] It doesn't just trample our own desires. |
[2918.56 --> 2922.02] If we want distance from God, there's a sense in which the spirit honors that. |
[2922.24 --> 2923.94] And here's the scripture behind that statement. |
[2924.88 --> 2930.00] In Acts chapter 7, Stephen, who's being killed for his faith, he says to the religious leaders, |
[2930.16 --> 2931.96] do not resist the spirit. |
[2932.66 --> 2937.18] Ephesians chapter 4, Paul's speaking to a church where there's slander, gossip, all sorts of division. |
[2937.18 --> 2940.76] He says, don't grieve the Holy Spirit by higher living. |
[2941.36 --> 2945.90] 1 Thessalonians 5, Paul's speaking to a church that's questioning the gifts of the spirit. |
[2946.12 --> 2948.44] And he says, do not quench the spirit. |
[2949.28 --> 2955.86] So that is to say, these are words to believers in the church that we can grieve and resist and quench the spirit. |
[2956.82 --> 2961.68] There's a sense in which believers who have the spirit can turn the volume down, you might say, |
[2961.68 --> 2965.04] on the voice and the prompting of the spirit. |
[2966.18 --> 2967.56] And we need to hear that warning. |
[2968.52 --> 2973.26] And maybe just to bring it a little closer to home, I think, you know, as a pastor and a leader in the church, |
[2973.56 --> 2977.48] I can be so moved as I read the book of Acts in particular |
[2977.48 --> 2983.56] and get a glimpse of what life and what church can look like when moved and motivated and transformed by the spirit. |
[2983.56 --> 2988.92] And then you look at your own life and you look at your church and you think, man, like, how do we get that? |
[2988.96 --> 2991.44] Because there's a sense in which I'm just like, I'll turn that volume down. |
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