11-21-10 Proofs of Adoption Pt. 1

We are returning to our study

of the 8^th chapter of the book of Romans this morning,

and returning, too,

to Paul’s summery comments

at the end of his 2^nd major section of the book.

You will probably recall

that Paul wrote the book of Romans

to provide his readers with the answers

to the 4 major questions about Christianity.

1. Why was it necessary for Christ to come?

2. What is a Christian?

3. What happens to the nation of Israel now that God has established the church?

4. What is the church and how does it operate?

He answers the first question in the first two and a half chapters of the letter

by painting for us

a painfully vivid picture

of our relationship with God without Christ.

He answers the second question in Romans 3:21 through the end of chapter 8,

a section in which he describes for us

both the truths

and the principles that govern our walk with God through Christ.

He then talks about the relationship between the church and the nation of Israel

in chapters 9-11,

and finishes the letter in chapters 12-16

by sharing with us

the 6 foundation principles

of life in the Church.

We are now near the end of that second section of the letter

in which Paul describes for us

those principles that describe the true nature of the Christian life.

It is a section that began

with Paul’s bold affirmation

that now, through faith in Christ,

we stand righteous before God

apart from any works of the law.

It is a section in which Paul then reveals to us

the amazing birthday presents

given to us by our Heavenly Father

the day we enter His family -

peace with God forever,

a relationship with God based not on our works, but on His grace,

the Holy Spirit given as our guide to lead us into our own personal discovery of the love of God for us,

freedom forever from the wrath of God,

and several others as well.

This was also the section in which

Paul then explains to us

the ongoing battle between our new holy inner spirit

and the rebellious physical body

that continues to house that spirit

while we remain on this earth.

He has told us

that the normal Christian life

is one in which our inner spirit is filled with the new life of Christ,

and one in which we are consistently seeing the Spirit of God

enabling that holy inner spirit within us

to express itself through our rebellious and severely mistrained bodies.

Paul called this ongoing process

that of “...giving life to our mortal bodies through His Spirit who indwells us.”

And then, most recently in our study,

we heard Paul tell us

that, if we are attempting to live the Christian life,

and walk the Christian walk

on the basis of our flesh efforts to produce for God,

it is an approach that will never work,

and one to which we must die

before the life of Christ

can be effectively expressed in us and through us.

Now, as we move through these final verses of this second section of Romans,

I want to prepare you for what we are going to find here.

These verses from 8:12-39

are the verses in which Paul condenses and summarizes

the key truths he wants us to take away

from the past 5 chapters of Romans.

And if you find outlines helpful tools in studying Scripture,

I’ll give you a three-statement outline

of what we’re going to see Paul do in these verses.

1. In 8:12-17 Paul talks about the family likeness,

giving us the 5 characteristics of the true believer.

2. In 8:18-30 he gives us 5 powerful sources of encouragement

for those of us who live with the family likeness.

3. And then in 8:31-39

he gives us 5 things we must never forget

about the Father of the family.

We will only look at the first of those 3 sections today,

but those divisions will tell you where we’ll be going in the next few weeks,

and they may be of value to you in your own study.

But first let me prepare you a bit

for what Paul does in the first of these three sections.

Or more correctly,

let me allow our Lord Himself to prepare us

through several of the parables

He shared with His disciples when He was here.

You see, for the past 5 chapters of Romans

Paul has been defining and clarifying for us

how a person enters the family of God

and what changes when he or she does.

And given what he has been saying,

we should not be surprised to find

that he concludes this section

by handing us a clear snapshot of the Christian

in the form of 5 identifying Christian marks that confirm our union with Christ.

Knowing who is

and who is not a Christian

is not nearly as easy a question as we might at first expect.

We do all sorts of interesting things with this troublesome question in the religious world.

More often than not

we write for ourselves some sort of religious list

with which we then evaluate those around us

to see whether they are in or out of the family.

Some of the most common entries on those lists include things such as:

Have you prayed a prayer asking Jesus into your life?

Have you been baptized?

Are you actively involved in some church?

Do you avoid certain types of immoral behavior?

Do you do good to those around you?

Do you read your Bible and pray?

But the truth is

none of those things in themselves

can either prove

or disprove the true nature of a person’s relationship with God.

I found it fascinating to discover

that a significant number of Jesus’ parables

were given for the one purpose

of preparing us for the presence of counterfeit “Christians” in the organized church.

I’ll mention just two of them

to show you what I mean.

MAT 13:24-30 Jesus presented another parable to them, saying, "The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field. But while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat, and went away. But when the wheat sprouted and bore grain, then the tares became evident also. The slaves of the landowner came and said to him, 'Sir, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have tares?' And he said to them, 'An enemy has done this!' The slaves said to him, 'Do you want us, then, to go and gather them up?' But he said, 'No; for while you are gathering up the tares, you may uproot the wheat with them. 'Allow both to grow together until the harvest; and in the time of the harvest I will say to the reapers, "First gather up the tares and bind them in bundles to burn them up; but gather the wheat into my barn."'"

Now, Jesus gave this parable at a time

when His disciples were just beginning to learn about this parable thing,

and how each little story

had eternal truths imbedded inside.

And so, to get them use to this process,

Jesus took His men aside

and explained the parable to them.

MAT 13:36-39 Then He left the crowds and went into the house. And His disciples came to Him and said, "Explain to us the parable of the tares of the field." And He said, "The one who sows the good seed is the Son of Man, and the field is the world; and as for the good seed, these are the sons of the kingdom; and the tares are the sons of the evil one; and the enemy who sowed them is the devil, and the harvest is the end of the age; and the reapers are angels...”

And I want us to notice two things in this parable.

First of all, a lot more ends up growing in God’s field than God intended.

Christ is picturing His planting the church throughout the world.

God sows His seed,

He brings His people into His field.

But then Satan sows weeds

right in next to the wheat,

weeds that look so much like the wheat

that it is very difficult to tell them apart,

especially when they first sprout up.

And second,

I want us to notice the way in which Christ instructed His angels to handle the situation.

They wanted to jump in

and rip out “the sons of the evil one”.

But Jesus makes it clear

that telling the difference between the true and the false in the family of God

is far more difficult than we might at first believe,

and if we try to tell the difference now

we will make some mistakes.

Some sons of the evil one are going to look very much like kids of the kingdom,

and some kids of the kingdom

are not going to look at all like we think they should.

And His solution is to let both “grow together until the harvest”.

In other words,

don’t waste your time trying to tell who REALLY is and is not a Christian.

And the very next parable Jesus tells

takes this same theme

and expands upon it.

MAT 13:31-32 He presented another parable to them, saying, "The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and sowed in his field; and this is smaller than all other seeds, but when it is full grown, it is larger than the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches."

In this parable Jesus describes His kingdom,

His work on the earth

as being like a mustard seed planted in the garden.

The seed begins to grow,

and if it would have grown correctly

it would have grown into a little herb,

a small garden plant.

But then something goes terribly wrong with the growth process

and this little garden herb begins to mutate,

to grow way beyond its correct size.

It grows into a bush,

and then a small tree,

and then a huge tree,

big enough for the birds

to come and make their home in it.

From Christ’s own interpretation of other parables in this same passage

we know that the birds

are used by Him to picture Satan himself and his followers.

And through this parable

Jesus wants us to know

that as His message spreads throughout both time and space,

eventually the organizations that grow in the wake of that message

will expand into a twisted distortion of what He intended,

a distortion that is so monstrous as to actually provide the home base

for much of Satan’s most hideous work.

I mention all of this at this point in our Romans study

because it will help us better understand

what Paul is doing at this point in his letter.

You see,

there are two distinctly different questions we are dealing with.

One of them is the question of how we can know for certain

that another person is a Christian.

Jesus answers that question for us through these parables

by saying we can’t.

We can usually have a pretty good idea,

but the truth is, rarely will we ever know another person well enough

to be able to see into their heart.

But there is another question

to which we can know the answer -

how can I know for certain

that I am a Christian?

And this is the question Paul is answering for us in Romans 8:12-17.

And I believe he does this

mostly to help arm us against the lies and accusations

that Satan so frequently flings at us,

lies designed to undermine our sense of peace and security with our Lord.

And with that as background,

let’s take a look at what Paul offers us as proofs of the presence of Christ within us.

#1. The first one we’ve already looked at in our study.

It’s found in 8:12-13:

So then, brethren, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh -- for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

The true Christian lives with an ever-present internal conflict between the impulses of the flesh

and the leadership of the Spirit.

And before we go any farther with these

let me tell you what to expect.

With each of these 5,

when we correctly understand what Paul is saying,

the Christian will find himself or herself saying, “Oh sure, I know what Paul means.”

And let me just say that this first one on the list

is in no way the same thing

as that universal sense of guilt

brought about by the moral conscience within us.

Everyone feels guilty at times,

feels as if they should try harder

to be a better person.

That is not what Paul is talking about here.

He is talking about that hunger and thirst for righteousness

that only the Spirit of God can create within us,

a hunger and thirst that always exceeds our grasp,

yet one that encourages us forward

rather than defeating us in the process.

Before we come to Christ

we think we should be good,

after we come to Christ

we wish we could be good.

And every true growing child of God

lives daily with an ever-present internal conflict

between the righteous longings of our new holy heart

and the unrighteous impulses still imbedded in our physical bodies.

The presence of that conflict,

that spirit-level tension within us

is the first great confirmation of our union with Christ

offered to us by Paul.

OK, that right there is the clear, concise, rather academic statement

of the first proof of our union with God through Christ.

But I can’t just leave it there

or I run the risk of not helping you

to bring this truth into your own life.

You see, I know every true growing Christian in this room this morning

lives daily in a war zone,

a war zone in which you face this tension between flesh and spirit.

And I know, too, that many of you

live with an ongoing sense of failure because of that war.

You feel as if you should be beyond these battles,

you feel as if by now you should have learned something,

or experienced something,

or discovered some truth,

or gained some level of maturity that would have freed you

from this tension within you that simply never ever goes away.

Perhaps you feel as if your life is a great big lie

because what you feel inside

is so often so very different from what people see on the outside.

And if any of that sounds familiar

then let me tell you that you are under a double attack.

The first attack you are all too keenly aware of -

it is the attack of your flesh against your spirit.

But the second one

is the attack of Satan himself

as he attempts to rob you of the peace and security that is rightly yours

because of the right choices you are making

in the face of a flesh that hates the presence of Christ within you.

A number of years ago I mentioned to you

an email correspondence I entered into

with a young man who’d gotten my address from my daughter’s college roommate.

He didn’t even know my name when he first wrote,

but in that first letter he said in part, “... I feel that I am gay and my attraction to men is something that is unavoidable, but at the same time my whole life consists of people telling me that gays are evil and disgusting and going to hell. I am a Christian and I believe in Jesus Christ, but am completely conflicted as to what effect my orientation has on my faith... I can’t live like this much longer, feeling like I am one person on the inside but acting like another ...”.

That note began an extended correspondence between the two of us,

a correspondence that ultimately resulted in major changes in the way that young man viewed himself, His God, and the struggles he faced inside.

With his full approval

I took all of those letters

and put them together into a manuscript

with the thought that it might be of value

to others who were in his situation.

So far nothing has come of it,

but I mention this in the context of our study of Romans

because I asked my young friend

to write up whatever concluding comment he wanted for the manuscript

and I want to read you what he wrote.

He said, “If I could offer some resolution or conclusion I guess it would be something along the lines of the following:

‘This book, these conversations...there is not a classic ending. No "The End", no last page. This isn't really a book though, is it? It is a conversation between two people who are trying to wrap their heads around a God that is so much bigger than we are capable of fully grasping and feelings that don't make sense.

While these conversations were sporadic, the content of the conversations were driven by the fact that each day is a new one and each day presents its own new challenges. Each conversation stemmed from subjects, issues and feelings that I encounter every day when I wake up and there isn't any resolution to them, there is just conversation, sharing and the understanding that even though I/we don't always get it, God always loves us and we need to always love each other.

People call these feelings a disease, a mental misconditioning, confusion, the devil... they call them sick and wrong. People can call them what they want, but until there is a pill, a therapy, a cure or a cause, they don't really have any ground do they? All I know is that my Savior loves me and that I love him back. My faith and my relationship with God is not contingent on these feelings or what people qualify them as and that fact alone has allowed me to walk through each day with my head up and my heart open.’”

Do you know what that is?

That’s what Paul is talking about

when He talks about the true Christian living daily

with the tension between the flesh and the spirit.

Most of you don’t face the kind of flesh battles this young man does,

but that doesn’t mean your warfare is any less intense,

or any less significant.

And here is the crucial thing -

the only reason that war within us exists

is because of the presence of our Lord within us,

and because His presence creates within us

a longing for a life of victory and integrity and courage.

When I received that response from my friend

I wrote back to him

telling him that his words had brought two passages to mind,

two passages that I believe are an essential part

of a truly healthy perspective on this flesh-spirit battle.

I want to read my response and those passages to you.

As I read your comments, two passages came to mind to me, Dan. One from Paul, the other from John. The first, from Philippians 3:8-14, is I think Paul’s way of saying what you were saying in your comment. He writes, “More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ, and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith, that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death; in order that I may attain to the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus. Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”

And the second is from Revelation 21:3-7, a passage I love so very much simply because it allows us to read the last chapter of our own life with the King, the chapter that tells us this warfare has an end, and it is a warfare so very worth fighting, and one that our King Himself will ultimately win for us. John says, “And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, "Behold, the tabernacle of God is among men, and He will dwell among them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself will be among them, and He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away." And He who sits on the throne said, "Behold, I am making all things new." And He said, "Write, for these words are faithful and true." Then He said to me, "It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. I will give to the one who thirsts from the spring of the water of life without cost. "He who overcomes will inherit these things, and I will be his God and he will be My son.”

Doesn’t it help to hear Paul say, “Not that I have already obtained it or have already become perfect, but I press on so that I may lay hold of that for which also I was laid hold of by Christ Jesus...” ?

And doesn’t it help to know

that the battle we face is so very much worth fighting,

that it makes a difference, it matters so much more than we could ever imagine,

and to know that what we hunger and thirst for

will one day be satisfied forever by Christ Himself?

Well, that’s just the first of the five proofs of our union with our Lord,

and we’ll pick up our study right here next week.