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Romans 8:5-9 · Providence Baptist Church - Sermons

• 0:00
  I invite you to turn to Romans 8. I'm really grateful to be with you this morning. It's such a blessing to be with the people of God.
• 0:10
  Romans 8. I'm going to read from verse 5 to 9.
• 0:26
  For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh.
• 0:31
  For those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.
• 0:35
  For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life.
• 0:40
  And peace.
• 0:42
  For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile towards God.
• 0:46
  For it does not submit to God's law.
• 0:48
  Indeed, it cannot.
• 0:50
  And those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
• 0:54
  You, however, are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit.
• 0:58
  If, in fact, the Spirit of God dwells in you.
• 1:01
  Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to Him.
• 1:06
  Just pray really fast for me again.
• 1:08
  And, Father, we entrust this to you.
• 1:11
  This is your word.
• 1:12
  And I pray that for your name's sake and for the sake of ministering to your people, you would make it plain to us.
• 1:19
  Lord, we praise you for your grace.
• 1:21
  And we ask that you would move among us.
• 1:24
  In Christ's name.
• 1:25
  Amen.
• 1:25
  Throughout Romans, we've been, from chapters 5 to chapters 8, we've been discussing how believers that are in Christ have a confidence and they have a hope of a future glory.
• 1:40
  And we're now moving into chapter 8.
• 1:44
  And John kind of started us off with that and made them before that.
• 1:47
  I'm not going to revisit everything he said.
• 1:49
  It was really, really, really great.
• 1:51
  I encourage you to go back and listen to that if you missed it last week about the previous verses up to verse 5.
• 1:59
  And Paul begins now to celebrate the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer as a result of what Christ has done.
• 2:06
  And so, I'm going to just revisit what John said just so we can kind of continue from last week just really fast.
• 2:16
  We couldn't deliver ourselves from the power of the law.
• 2:18
  The law in itself was a good, righteous, and holy thing.
• 2:22
  But we, the problem was with us.
• 2:24
  We could not keep the law.
• 2:25
  We failed to keep the law.
• 2:27
  And in every sense of the way, in action as well as in motive, we failed to keep the law of God.
• 2:33
  And so, what John spoke on last week was that Christ came and lived the life and died the death on our behalf.
• 2:43
  He suffered the penalty of our sin and we were clothed in His righteousness.
• 2:48
  So, in Christ now, there is now no condemnation.
• 2:52
  No condemnation from God.
• 2:54
  No judgment from God on behalf of those who are in Christ.
• 2:57
  Christ was our substitute.
• 2:59
  He took our place.
• 3:00
  He died the death that we deserved and lived a life that we could not live.
• 3:05
  And so, that is the awesome story of the atoning work of Christ.
• 3:09
  So, moving into the next verses now, we begin to kind of move back to the work of the Holy Spirit.
• 3:15
  And a lot of people in our churches today are pretty ignorant when it comes to the Holy Spirit.
• 3:23
  You need to be aware that your salvation was a Trinitarian thing.
• 3:29
  The Father acted, the Son acted, and the Holy Spirit acted to bring you salvation.
• 3:34
  It wasn't just the Father, not just the Son, but it was also the Holy Spirit.
• 3:39
  And they all had different roles that they acted together.
• 3:42
  And it is from the Holy Spirit that all the blessings of salvation are brought to us and applied to us.
• 3:53
  The Holy Spirit is the agent of the new birth.
• 3:56
  All throughout Romans 8, you'll read these different things about the Spirit.
• 4:00
  The Spirit is the one who raises us from spiritual death to life.
• 4:04
  He's the agent of the new birth.
• 4:05
  He brings us no condemnation status with God.
• 4:09
  He applies the gospel to us.
• 4:13
  Christ achieved it, but the Holy Spirit applies the blood and applies the righteousness of Christ to us.
• 4:19
  He's our guarantee of eternal glory later.
• 4:23
  And also, He aids us in our prayers.
• 4:24
  We'll see these things just coming up in chapter 8.
• 4:28
  So, I want you to look really fast at verse 9 that we just read.
• 4:34
  Wes is going to speak on this next week, so I'm not going to really go after this long.
• 4:38
  But, it says,
• 4:40
  You, however, are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit.
• 4:44
  If, in fact, the Spirit of God dwells in you, anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to Him.
• 4:52
  So, from this text, we can assume a safe thing.
• 4:59
  Our text says that there is only two kinds of people in the world and only two kinds of people in this room today.
• 5:06
  There are those who are controlled by the flesh, those who are without Christ, unbelievers.
• 5:13
  And there are those who are controlled by the Spirit, those who have been saved by Christ, believers.
• 5:20
  So, there's only two options there.
• 5:23
  So, we're going to kind of examine that today.
• 5:28
  Scripture teaches us that we're supposed to step back and examine ourselves to see whether or not we are in the faith or not.
• 5:35
  Because there's a lot of people who think they are, but they are not.
• 5:39
  But, once someone is in Christ, they can't lose that.
• 5:45
  But, the Scripture is also clear that many people deceive themselves.
• 5:48
  Jesus Himself said that a lot of people will come to Him on the Judgment Day and expect to be rewarded by Christ.
• 5:55
  But, they won't be.
• 5:55
  They'll be turned away.
• 5:57
  And He will say, I never knew you.
• 5:59
  It's in Matthew 7.
• 6:00
  So, I want you to look back up to verse 4 just a little bit there in Romans that John spoke on last week.
• 6:10
  And the last part of it says,
• 6:12
  Who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.
• 6:17
  And this idea, this Greek word for live or walk,
• 6:22
  It means like your lifestyle, your behavior, your outward daily conduct, the way you think.
• 6:29
  That's what this implies.
• 6:30
  So, if we were to kind of observe your life for a week,
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  and your actions and all the things that go on,
• 6:38
  what would we be able to tell?
• 6:40
  That person is born again.
• 6:42
  That person has the Spirit of Christ based on the way you behave throughout the week.
• 6:47
  With some degree of certainty, we could, but not totally.
• 6:50
  There's a lot of people who know the theology,
• 6:53
  and who can be really clean on the outside, but be completely dead inside.
• 6:57
  But, to some degree of certainty, we can know.
• 7:01
  We see, in verse 4, we see that our behavior is based on what?
• 7:09
  The way we walk is based on what?
• 7:11
  And you see it connected to the way we think, our minds.
• 7:15
  Like, the way we act is a product of the way we think.
• 7:20
  And so, we're going to kind of look at that today.
• 7:22
  I mean, we know that in Proverbs 23, I believe,
• 7:25
  it says, as the old version says,
• 7:28
  As a man thinks, so he is.
• 7:30
  And so, we have to have proper, correct knowledge about God and who he is and about who we are.
• 7:36
  Here, where it talks about the mind in our text.
• 7:41
  It talks about the way we think, the mind.
• 7:44
  It's used for all the mental affections and mental activity, including emotions, your will, your intellect, all these things.
• 7:54
  Those who have their minds set on the flesh and the Spirit.
• 7:56
  And there was a great guy by the name of John Owen, a Puritan pastor a long time ago.
• 8:04
  And he said something pretty profound.
• 8:06
  He said, in relation to how spiritually minded are you, how much do you think about eternal things?
• 8:13
  And God's truth, this was like a good way to ask that question.
• 8:18
  Or how carnally minded are you, how fleshly minded are you?
• 8:22
  He said, what do you think about when you are not thinking about anything particular?
• 8:29
  Where does your mind go?
• 8:31
  When you're not deliberately trying to set your mind on something, where does your mind go?
• 8:34
  Does it go to worldly things and fleshly things, sinful things?
• 8:39
  Or does it go to the spiritual like Christ and His truth?
• 8:44
  So, I have like four things for us to look at today.
• 8:47
  The first one, the first point is, how does one become a true believer?
• 8:54
  How does one become a true believer?
• 8:56
  We're going to look at verse 7 or 8 first for this one.
• 9:00
  It says, for the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile towards God.
• 9:05
  For it does not submit to God's law.
• 9:08
  Indeed, it cannot.
• 9:10
  And those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
• 9:12
  Okay, now all of us in here, even those who are born again, who are saved at one point in our lives.
• 9:21
  You might not even remember when that was.
• 9:23
  I definitely do.
• 9:24
  But some people may not.
• 9:26
  This was all true for us.
• 9:27
  We all once lived in the flesh.
• 9:29
  We all once lived according to the world.
• 9:32
  This was us at one point.
• 9:35
  And a lot of us can recall at the same time when we heard the gospel and God brought us salvation and we were changed.
• 9:41
  Many of us can't.
• 9:42
  And that's okay.
• 9:44
  That's not really the point.
• 9:46
  But one time or another, we who all love Christ, like did not love Christ.
• 9:52
  We did not follow Him.
• 9:54
  Something happened to us.
• 9:57
  Some of us might remember having Jesus really early in our lives and wanting to follow Him and obey Him.
• 10:02
  But there was a time when our hearts did not belong to Him.
• 10:05
  So what happened?
• 10:06
  How did people like rebels become loyal servants of the King?
• 10:10
  How did those who once opposed Christ now stand with Christ?
• 10:16
  What happened?
• 10:18
  They didn't just wake up one day and decide to do this.
• 10:21
  It was something that happened to us.
• 10:24
  And that is the mystery of what we call in Scripture regeneration or being born again.
• 10:29
  This is a scriptural word that we read throughout many places.
• 10:35
  But two points under this one, under number one, is before Christ we were utterly helpless.
• 10:43
  Utterly helpless before Christ.
• 10:46
  Turn to Ephesians 2.
• 10:48
  Keep your hand in Romans, but turn to Ephesians 2.
• 10:51
  I only have a few places for you to turn this morning.
• 10:54
  Ephesians 2.
• 10:59
  Ephesians 2.
• 11:01
  And in this text we're going to see how that before Christ we were desperate, helpless.
• 11:07
  And this is Paul writing.
• 11:09
  And he's talking to Ephesians who are now Christians, but now saying there was a time when we all once lived this way.
• 11:16
  Verse 1.
• 11:17
  Verse 1.
• 11:19
  And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air,
• 11:29
  the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we once lived in the passions of our flesh,
• 11:37
  carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind.
• 11:43
  So, I encourage you to go back and study this.
• 11:49
  I'm more in death.
• 11:51
  But a few things to point out is that a lot of people have this idea that we were kind of sick spiritually.
• 11:58
  That we had some kind of, you know, we were sick and we were in our bed and Jesus came and gave us some medicine and we got better.
• 12:05
  But the reality is that's just not true at all.
• 12:08
  We were dead in our trespasses.
• 12:10
  And the word used here is corpse.
• 12:13
  It's like someone sitting in a casket.
• 12:15
  And that's the picture of us spiritually.
• 12:18
  And we cannot do anything to help ourselves.
• 12:22
  A corpse cannot do anything.
• 12:24
  Also from this text, we see that under the control of Satan.
• 12:28
  You see that in verse 2.
• 12:29
  And he's speaking in the past tense.
• 12:32
  You were, because he's talking to Christians now.
• 12:35
  We were controlled by Satan.
• 12:37
  And we followed the way this world thought rather than what God thought.
• 12:41
  So, we also see that we were controlled by our flesh.
• 12:46
  And as a result of the fall, men are blind in death to spiritual truth.
• 12:52
  They can't understand it in and of themselves.
• 12:55
  They might be able to intellectually grasp it, but it can't go from their head to their heart.
• 12:59
  The saving faith.
• 13:01
  And this word that we're using throughout our text of Romans is like fleshly, natural.
• 13:08
  It means that the term used for unbelievers to define the way lost people walk.
• 13:13
  They're controlled by their flesh.
• 13:15
  Like things like eating, sleeping, sex, comfort.
• 13:21
  Those are things that your flesh really, really wants.
• 13:23
  And those are things that your flesh needs.
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  We need those to live.
• 13:26
  But this is talking in a way that this is what governs your life.
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  It controls your life.
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  It steers your life.
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  And that's all you live for.
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  You don't live for anything else.
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  It's blowing all those things out of proportion.
• 13:37
  So we were blind to God's beauty, to God's majesty, to God's glory.
• 13:44
  And that we were at war with him.
• 13:45
  And it says right here that we were by nature children of wrath as the rest of mankind.
• 13:51
  So we weren't just having a little bit of an issue and Jesus helped us out.
• 13:55
  We were dead in our trespasses.
• 13:58
  And we could not understand the things of the Spirit of God.
• 14:01
  And 1 Corinthians 2.14 says this,
• 14:04
  The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him.
• 14:10
  And he is not able to understand them, because he is spiritually discerned.
• 14:15
  So this was a desperate, desperate condition that we were in before Christ.
• 14:21
  Which leads us to part B underneath number 1, which is what happened to us.
• 14:28
  And we're going to see the Holy Spirit regenerated our hearts.
• 14:33
  Turn to John chapter 3.
• 14:39
  This is a pretty amazing text where Jesus is talking to a Pharisee named Nicodemus.
• 14:51
  John 3.
• 14:57
  We'll start in verse 3.
• 15:02
  Jesus answered him,
• 15:04
  Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
• 15:11
  Nicodemus said to him,
• 15:12
  How can a man be born when he is old?
• 15:15
  Can he not enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?
• 15:19
  Jesus answered,
• 15:20
  Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.
• 15:27
  That which is born of flesh is flesh, but that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
• 15:33
  Do not marvel that I say to you, you must be born again.
• 15:36
  The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound.
• 15:39
  But you do not know where it goes, or where it comes, or where it goes.
• 15:42
  So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.
• 15:46
  And Nicodemus definitely is thinking like physical, like this can't happen.
• 15:53
  And Jesus is trying to say, No, no, this is not a spiritual thing.
• 15:56
  This is a supernatural thing that happens.
• 15:59
  And this phrase, born again, or regeneration, it means like a new birth, a renewal, a recreation, if you want to put it that way.
• 16:09
  And it is the act of God alone where he imparts to us new life through the Holy Spirit.
• 16:16
  Being born again and regeneration is not the work of the Father.
• 16:19
  It is not the work of Christ.
• 16:20
  It is the work of the Holy Spirit.
• 16:22
  He brings the gospel to us and applies it to us.
• 16:26
  So this is what we see.
• 16:29
  The Holy Spirit enlightens our minds to believe the gospel.
• 16:33
  And he develops a love for us, a love for God in us that we did not have before.
• 16:39
  So I'm going to throw out two terms out here to you.
• 16:43
  And I don't really care if you remember or not.
• 16:45
  It's just to kind of illustrate a point.
• 16:47
  But in theological circles, there's kind of two ways we think about regeneration and being born again or salvation in general.
• 16:57
  One of them is synergism.
• 17:00
  It means like two things working together to achieve a goal.
• 17:05
  And many people think that being born again is that way.
• 17:07
  Someone comes to God and they use their intellect, their willpower, their strength.
• 17:13
  And they say, Hey, I want this.
• 17:16
  And God says, That's wonderful.
• 17:17
  Now I'm going to reward you with being born again.
• 17:21
  That's back in our text in Romans.
• 17:24
  It says that we can do nothing to please God.
• 17:28
  We cannot submit to the law of God.
• 17:30
  There's nothing that we can do in and of ourselves.
• 17:33
  But the biblical view of this is what we refer to as monergism.
• 17:39
  It means that the problem of fallen man is we can't do anything to help ourselves.
• 17:47
  So what we can't do for ourselves, God does for us.
• 17:50
  It's all the work of God alone.
• 17:52
  God the Holy Spirit comes into our hearts and changes us from the inside out.
• 17:57
  We play no role in the new birth.
• 18:00
  We don't cooperate with God.
• 18:02
  He invades us.
• 18:03
  And He changes our hearts.
• 18:05
  He gives us a new birth.
• 18:07
  And it indicates God's initiative.
• 18:10
  This phrase, being born again, it really means, it says literally, to be born from above.
• 18:16
  Which means that God came and God worked and that we didn't go and meet Him halfway or anything.
• 18:22
  Since you're in John, flip over just to chapter 1 really fast.
• 18:25
  This is chapter 1.
• 18:31
  This is something above our natural life and our physical hearts and our physical brains.
• 18:37
  This is a spiritual work.
• 18:39
  It's what Jesus just said.
• 18:41
  John 1, go to verse 12.
• 18:44
  It says this,
• 18:45
  But to all who did receive Him, who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God.
• 18:53
  And listen to what He said right here in verse 13.
• 18:56
  Who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.
• 19:05
  See that?
• 19:06
  It's this idea that God acted.
• 19:08
  God took initiative and He changed us.
• 19:11
  We didn't cooperate with Him.
• 19:13
  He did this.
• 19:13
  And, like just as you chose not to be born physically, you didn't choose to be born spiritually either.
• 19:22
  That's exactly what Jesus just said.
• 19:24
  And the Holy Spirit is the one who acts.
• 19:28
  And keep your hands still in Romans, but turn to Ezekiel 36.
• 19:34
  This is one of the last places I think I told you to turn.
• 19:38
  So, I'm not going to give you the...
• 19:41
  Ezekiel 36.
• 19:42
  God promised long ago before Christ that He would send His Spirit and that He would create a new covenant.
• 19:50
  And He promises a new birth spiritually to man.
• 19:54
  Ezekiel 36.
• 19:55
  Go to verse 25.
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  This is the promise of the Holy Spirit.
• 20:04
  He says,
• 20:05
  I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleanliness.
• 20:12
  And from all your idols I will cleanse you.
• 20:15
  And here it is.
• 20:16
  And I will give you a new heart and a new spirit I will put within you.
• 20:21
  I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.
• 20:27
  And I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.
• 20:34
  So, sinners like us through regeneration are brought into God's kingdom.
• 20:41
  We have a...
• 20:43
  The Holy Spirit does like a spiritual surgery on our hearts.
• 20:47
  He completely makes us over from the inside out.
• 20:50
  And it's all His doing.
• 20:52
  He conducted it on us.
• 20:54
  He went into us and He changed us.
• 20:57
  A result of being born again is that we are resurrected from spiritual death to life.
• 21:04
  You get these connections.
• 21:05
  We were dead in sin.
• 21:07
  And that's why you need to be born again.
• 21:09
  You need to be regenerated, recreated almost spiritually.
• 21:14
  So, the Holy Spirit comes and He takes a dead sinner and He raises him to spiritual life.
• 21:21
  I have an illustration for you.
• 21:23
  Think about the story of Lazarus.
• 21:25
  He was in the grave and he was dead.
• 21:28
  You know, completely dead.
• 21:30
  His sisters are grieving and Jesus comes there.
• 21:32
  And here's what Jesus did not say.
• 21:35
  He didn't say, Lazarus, if you want me to make you alive, come out of the tomb first and then I'll make you alive.
• 21:44
  Like, that's a picture of us spiritually.
• 21:47
  He said the opposite.
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  He said, come out.
• 21:50
  He commanded him to come out.
• 21:51
  And by His power, Lazarus was risen from physical death to life.
• 21:57
  It's the same thing with us spiritually.
• 21:59
  We didn't just cowboy up one day and say, I'm going to change my life and I'm going to do better and I'm going to follow God.
• 22:05
  God came and raised you from spiritual death.
• 22:08
  In Ephesians 2, 4, it says this,
• 22:10
  God being rich in mercy because of the great love for which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.
• 22:21
  By grace you have been saved.
• 22:23
  So when Christ died, we died.
• 22:25
  When Christ raised, we were raised.
• 22:27
  We're reunited with Christ.
• 22:30
  So that was all under number one.
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  That was the longest one.
• 22:33
  But that was how we become a believer.
• 22:37
  We hear the gospel and God's supernatural work of the Holy Spirit.
• 22:40
  He changes us from the inside out.
• 22:43
  Number two.
• 22:44
  Go back to Romans again.
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  If you're not there.
• 22:52
  Number two is, what are the characteristics of an unbeliever?
• 22:58
  What are the characteristics of an unbeliever?
• 23:00
  So, we should examine ourselves with this.
• 23:04
  We see this in verse 5.
• 23:08
  Romans 8, verse 5.
• 23:10
  For those who live according to the flesh, set their minds on the things of the flesh.
• 23:17
  See that?
• 23:19
  So, people live according to and have their minds set on the flesh.
• 23:24
  These are marks of people who are not born again.
• 23:27
  People who are not of God.
• 23:29
  And again, the word flesh refers to a fallen nature of man apart from God.
• 23:36
  Unbelievers' whole mind, emotion, and will are affected by sin.
• 23:41
  It means you allow all your desires to govern you and control you and to rule your daily actions.
• 23:47
  And this is the last place.
• 23:51
  I'm pretty sure you've got to turn.
• 23:52
  But keep your hand on Romans, but go to Galatians.
• 23:57
  Galatians 5.
• 24:01
  We follow our fleshly desires almost immodestly.
• 24:06
  This is a picture of someone who's not born again.
• 24:09
  Galatians 5, verse 19.
• 24:11
  We'll read the first part of this now and the second part a little later.
• 24:18
  It says,
• 24:19
  Now, the works of the flesh are evident.
• 24:22
  Sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies.
• 24:36
  And things like these, I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
• 24:45
  All right.
• 24:46
  All right.
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  Now, don't don't take this the other way.
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  Like in one sense, even those of us who know Christ and who are born again, we still can commit sin.
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  But as John spoke on last week, we can't remain in sin.
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  We have to.
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  The spirit breaks us and convicts us.
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  We have to come to repentance and we hate our sin when we sin.
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  That's all of Romans seven before that.
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  But this is talking about someone whose life is absolutely dominated and controlled by these things.
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  These are your goals in life.
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  This is your purpose in life are these things.
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  That's what this implies.
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  And there's there's many people among us.
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  And I talk to them, talk to people like this frequently.
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  And I think I used to be one a long time ago.
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  So I used to think this way and I'm so thankful that God has changed me.
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  But those of us who are born of God, we cannot walk up to Christ as he hangs on the cross and say to him, I know you're suffering this terrible death for my sin.
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  And that you're dying wishes that I go and sin no more.
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  But I have this one fleshly desire that I can only satisfy by sin.
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  So I hope you understand that as I shove this sword into your side.
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  And I'm happy that it's good to know that your blood that comes out is going to cover my rebellion against what you're doing.
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  If you think that way, advance at your own peril.
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  Because there may be no forgiveness of sin for you or repentance.
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  Because it says in Hebrews 6 that you're crucifying Christ anew, afresh.
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  Every time you do that, you're hardening your heart more and more into sin and more and more to the only thing that can save you, which is the gospel.
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  You're hardening your heart against it.
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  In Romans 3.8 it says, if you think that way, that why not do evil that good may come, it says that your condemnation is just.
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  It doesn't say you're covered and you're good to go and you can just keep sinning to your heart's content.
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  Repent.
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  So, repent.
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  And come to Christ and He can change you.
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  Point three.
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  What are the characteristics of the true believer?
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  What are the characteristics of the true believer?
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  The genuine believer.
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  And we see this in verse, the second part of verse five.
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  It says, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.
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  You know, in Ephesians it says, do no longer be drunk with wine, but be filled with the Spirit.
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  He's making a connection there.
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  He's not just saying, like, don't get drunk.
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  He is saying that.
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  But he's also saying alcohol has a tendency to control somebody.
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  Control their actions.
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  Control the way they think.
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  They're kind of absent-minded.
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  They're not sober.
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  He's saying, don't be that way.
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  Be filled with the Spirit and controlled by the Spirit and the Spirit's actions.
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  Spirit's promptings and leadings.
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  So, by the Holy Spirit, our life is united with Christ.
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  The Holy Spirit keeps us pursuing the things of God and making our ultimate purpose God's glory.
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  And so, when the Holy Spirit works in someone, when he worked in me and he worked in a lot of you, you should know this.
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  Like, think about what Jesus said a minute ago in John 3.
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  He talked about the wind.
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  He related being born again to the wind.
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  It's a mysterious work.
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  The wind can't be physically seen or controlled by humans.
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  We just see it.
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  We see what it does.
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  We see the results of what it does.
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  We see how it affects things around us.
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  We can't see the wind or control it ourselves.
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  So, in the same way, it's the same way people that are born again.
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  We see some guy who is rebelling against God and loving the things of the world.
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  Then, a little later, he's completely different.
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  I had a friend of mine who went into the Marine Corps after high school.
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  And he was a crazy buddy of mine.
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  And a few years ago, he called me.
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  He'd been to Afghanistan and all that.
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  And he was out of the Marines.
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  He was going to UGA.
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  And I met up with him.
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  And I was hopefully just going to be able to share the gospel with him.
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  And I asked him, you know, like, so how's life going, man?
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  And what do you do in Athens?
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  I think he probably went and partied a lot in Athens.
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  And he said, man, I'm done with that stuff.
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  I'm, like, never going back that way again.
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  And I asked him, what happened?
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  Like, do tell, you know.
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  And he said, man, I became a Christian a year ago.
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  Like, I'm done with that.
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  Like, I have no desire for that stuff again.
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  I love Christ and I want to follow Christ.
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  And it just blew me away.
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  Like, you see a guy who completely was one way.
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  And then what happened?
• 29:48
  Like, the wind blew.
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  And he was born again.
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  Like, after hearing the gospel, he was changed.
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  So the evidence of the Holy Spirit's work in our life, though we can't see the Spirit,
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  it's clear, like, something happened to that guy.
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  Something's different about that guy.
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  He still has sin, but he is different.
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  And some of us don't have this crazy idea that the Holy Spirit is, to believers,
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  is like a lot of things you see on TV, people getting, you know, like the Holy Spirit is some kind of emotional thing.
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  This kind of comes on you.
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  Not true.
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  The Holy Spirit is what he's referred to as the shy spirit.
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  He doesn't draw attention to himself.
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  He draws attention to Christ over and over.
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  He points to Christ.
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  Read the Scripture carefully and you'll see that.
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  He's never trying to draw attention to himself.
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  He's always pointing to Christ.
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  His operations are mysterious and secret.
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  So, also a characteristic of a true believer,
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  and also this is probably a number one or one of the major characteristics,
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  is that they are a new creation.
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  And they have new and holy affections for God that they did not have before.
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  So, the Holy Spirit came and he changed our nature.
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  We know in 2 Corinthians 5 it says,
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  Therefore, if we have Christ, we are a new creation.
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  The old is gone, the new has come.
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  We are new creations all over.
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  The old is gone, the new has come.
• 31:19
  And it leads us into the next part of Galatians 5 right there,
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  that you're already in, verse 25.
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  But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.
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  Against such things there is no law.
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  And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
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  If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.
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  These are the effects of what the Holy Spirit has in a believer's life.
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  They're characterized by these things.
• 31:58
  Again, not perfectly, but these are the things that they're driving towards and moving more and more into.
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  And this idea of fruit is singular, not plural.
• 32:09
  It's not the fruits of the Spirit.
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  It's not like today I want to work on my goodness and tomorrow I'll work on my faithfulness.
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  They're all interconnected.
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  It's not like a spiritual menu for you to choose from every day.
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  All these qualities constitute the fruit of a new Christian's life.
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  And made only possible by the Spirit's power.
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  It's not the fruit of clay.
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  It's not the fruit of Andy.
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  It's not the fruit of anybody in here.
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  It's the fruit of the Spirit.
• 32:38
  He does this inside of you.
• 32:41
  So ask yourself, is there evidence of the Spirit's work in my life?
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  Do I see some kind of desire and love for God that I didn't have before?
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  No matter what God does to me, I will not turn from Him, like Job said.
• 32:57
  Are you trusting Christ alone for salvation?
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  Do you have a desire to follow Him, live for Him, and die for Him, no matter what?
• 33:04
  Do you have a desire to follow Him, live for Him, no matter what?
• 33:05
  These are the works of the Holy Spirit in a new believer's life.
• 33:09
  Jonathan Edwards wrote a book called Religious Affections.
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  And it has this idea that new believers, people that are truly born again, are characterized by holy desires.
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  They have the desire for the things of God that they didn't have before.
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  And this is what he said.
• 33:30
  He said, true saints have in their minds, in the first place, inexpressibly pleased and delighted with the sweet ideas of the glorious nature of the things of God.
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  And this is the spring of all their delights and the cream of all their pleasures.
• 33:48
  So, we want Christ.
• 33:51
  Like, a lot of us are just saying, give me Christ or else I die.
• 33:55
  I hope that's true when you say that.
• 33:56
  Because if you're just not, you don't need to sing.
• 33:59
  You'd be praying that God makes that right in your life.
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  Give me Christ or else I die.
• 34:05
  Christ is the goal of the gospel.
• 34:08
  And then lastly, last point, back in Romans 8,
• 34:12
  the last point is, what is the result of the two lives?
• 34:17
  What is the result of the Spirit?
• 34:18
  And what is the result of those who live in the flesh?
• 34:21
  Back in Romans 8, verse 6, it says,
• 34:24
  For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.
• 34:31
  So, here we have the equals, the outcome of what we've been talking about.
• 34:36
  First of all, those of the flesh, those of us who do not know Christ,
• 34:41
  and those of us who can remember what it was like to be like without Christ,
• 34:47
  in this present life you will have no lasting joy, no lasting peace.
• 34:53
  All the sinful pleasures you pursue will be fleeting.
• 34:57
  Hebrews says, calls them the fleeting pleasures of sin.
• 35:01
  Meaning that they don't last.
• 35:02
  You have to constantly rekindle them and go back to them for them to give you any joy.
• 35:08
  Just frustration, misery, and fear.
• 35:09
  Like, that's going to be the result of your present life.
• 35:13
  In the future, those who are without Christ and are not walking in the Spirit, they will face judgment.
• 35:20
  We just read that in Ephesians 2.
• 35:23
  And right here it says, the mind set on the flesh is death.
• 35:27
  And this is, again, talking about a spiritual death.
• 35:31
  So I plead with you, if that's you, like, don't remain there.
• 35:35
  Like, come and talk to somebody and go to Christ.
• 35:38
  He's powerful to save you.
• 35:41
  And then lastly, what is the result of those who are walking in the Spirit?
• 35:46
  It says, life and peace.
• 35:48
  So in this life, you can have peace.
• 35:51
  You can have joy that is not circumstantial.
• 35:53
  You can have everything taken away from you.
• 35:55
  But Christ remains, and He won't, even though you might feel like you're letting go of Him, He won't let go of you.
• 36:02
  He is yours forever.
• 36:04
  And the result is that the Holy Spirit ministers this reality that you belong to God, and that God is for you and not against you.
• 36:14
  Then the future will be eternal life.
• 36:16
  It will be life in the presence of the living God forever.
• 36:20
  And where no sin, death, or suffering remain.
• 36:23
  It will be with God in His presence forever.
• 36:26
  As a result of those who walk in the Spirit.
• 36:29
  So, in closing, I just want to tell you that, like, personally, it says in Acts 7, Paul says, like, do not resist the Holy Spirit.
• 36:41
  Stop being hard-headed.
• 36:43
  Don't resist the Holy Spirit.
• 36:45
  And some of you might be thinking, well, that sounds like the opposite of what we just talked about.
• 36:49
  Because if the Holy Spirit's going to work, He's going to work.
• 36:52
  Right?
• 36:52
  Well, there was a time in my life, and the lives of many of you in here who are born again, where you did resist the Holy Spirit.
• 37:00
  You're like, I don't want this.
• 37:02
  I want to live for myself.
• 37:03
  I want to live for my own glory.
• 37:04
  I like my sin a lot.
• 37:06
  But, you know, when we heard of the gospel, we heard about Christ, we were just like, no.
• 37:11
  Like, and we picture my life and your life as like this fortified castle.
• 37:16
  We're just like shutting up all the doors and building up the walls.
• 37:20
  You know, and the Holy Spirit kind of comes and like knocks on the door and we're like, get lost.
• 37:28
  We don't want you here.
• 37:30
  And that was me.
• 37:32
  Like, I was resisting.
• 37:33
  But here's where grace comes in.
• 37:36
  And God did not have to do this.
• 37:38
  He could have just been like, all right, perish in your sin.
• 37:41
  He could have said that.
• 37:42
  He would have been just.
• 37:43
  But here's what he did.
• 37:44
  He got tired of knocking.
• 37:47
  He just went, bam.
• 37:48
  And he kicked the door down.
• 37:52
  Then he like scaled my walls, took down my flag of clay that was waiting for my glory.
• 37:58
  And put up his and like completely made over everything.
• 38:01
  And I'm glad he did.
• 38:02
  Because left to myself, I would still be in sin.
• 38:06
  I still would be perishing.
• 38:08
  And so if that's you this morning, you feel yourself like, I don't want that.
• 38:13
  Like, know that God will have his way in you.
• 38:15
  And that we want to administer the gospel and his truth to you.
• 38:19
  Christ is enough.
• 38:21
  And I pray that you would examine your heart this morning.
• 38:25
  Amen.