Good morning, brothers and sisters.
This is now my second message. How many of you who are here this morning did not hear the first message? Well, half the people. Oh, that’s good.
We’re aware there’s always a great turnover going on here—people going out to teach the children and having various responsibilities. I noticed yesterday there were quite a few people in the Coral Room, I believe, where they show the tapes for those who are working with the children in the morning.
Thank the Lord, if you haven’t heard the first message, hopefully you can catch up with it on tape or video.
We are looking at the eternal purpose of God for the Christian, and the context is primarily Paul’s letter to the Romans. The first time, we basically looked at Romans 1 through 5 and talked about the gospel—that is, the power of salvation.
I tried to make a very simple point, an elementary point. When the love of God breaks in upon the sinner, and they realize they can be saved, and by faith they receive the Lord Jesus, this is actually their first touch with the eternal purpose of God. This is the beginning of a climb that will take them from glory to glory unto God’s full purpose. It begins there at salvation.
Paul carefully traces the route through an awareness of sin, to the awareness of the cross’s work, and the awareness of Jesus as Savior. I know probably many of you have read books on Romans. Many of these books concentrate on justification by faith, which we find primarily spoken of in those first five chapters.
Interestingly, there are other books written about Romans 6 through 8 as if they are an entity in themselves, talking about the exchanged life and the Holy Spirit life. They make a whole book on it. Of course, these books are very valuable. I think John Stott has a very good book called Men Made New, based on these chapters.
There are not too many books written on the rest—Romans 9 through the end. It is just like it is not interesting to people, but they do the first two sections really well.
The thought occurs to me that these books are always very good, but seldom really attached to the eternal purpose—the calling according to purpose. Some books that talk about justification by faith leave you with the fact that you are saved: “Praise God, when you die, you are going to heaven.”
The books on Romans 6 through 8 concentrate on the victorious life: “Praise God, now you are victorious. All you are going to have is blessing and the power of God.” Amen. But they do not attach it to this wonderful eternal purpose, and that is certainly Paul’s burden here.
Let us go to the end of this second section, Romans 6 through 8. As we said the first time, we are trying to go progressively through this book. Let us go to Romans 8 and pick up at verse 14, to see how this whole section of Romans 6 through 8 relates to God’s eternal purpose.
For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.
For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!”
The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God,
and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him.For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.
For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God.
For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope
that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God.For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now.
And not only this, but also we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.
For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope; for who hopes for what he already sees?
But if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it.
In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words;
and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.
For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren;
and these whom He predestined, He also called; and these whom He called, He also justified; and these whom He justified, He also glorified.
What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who is against us?
He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him over for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?
Who will bring a charge against God’s elect? God is the one who justifies;
who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is He who died, yes, rather who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us.Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?
Just as it is written,For Your sake we are being put to death all day long;
We were considered as sheep to be slaughtered.But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us.
For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers,
nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, will be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Our Father, we are so thankful that even as we hear these mysteries of glorious sonship, we have Your Son to look at and to see what it means to be a son.
O Lord, we pray that by the Holy Spirit, the One who has been given to us to reveal all things concerning Christ, that as we share this word together, we may find Christ in us, moving us from glory to glory, even according to this steadfast and eternal purpose.
Help us, Lord, by the Holy Spirit. Now, Lord, we have received a lot this week. Some are stretched to capacity. We all feel tired. But we know that the Holy Spirit, among other things, quickens our mortal bodies and makes alive our hearts and minds to understand, to grasp, to have written upon us Christ our Lord.
Help us, Lord, we pray, in this simple time. In Jesus’ name. Amen.
Our first session began with the gospel. I tried to talk about this electricity of the power of God unto salvation. When the gospel is proclaimed, indeed, it is electricity. It is God’s love electrifying—electrocuting—sinners and bringing them back to life in Christ. What wonderful power.
Paul says, “I am not ashamed of that gospel,” because when that gospel is proclaimed, some amazing things happen. First, the righteousness of God is revealed. Everybody who hears this and whose eyes are opened sees that God is right, God is just, God is merciful. The righteousness of God is revealed.
Also, faith is kindled as a gift in the hearts of people who are listening, and suddenly the unbeliever believes. Even as our brother Lance was sharing with us last night, some of the most unbelievable atheists are touched by some of the most foolish methods. For so it pleases God to create out of nothing faith, belief, and salvation.
I remember myself. The night I was down on my knees and I was saved, in my heart I knew this was real. In my mind, I still had a lot of doubts. So God basically electrocuted my mind, and I came up a believer off my knees. Praise God.
When we first touch that love of God come down to us in Jesus Christ, actually we have had our first taste of eternity. It sure tastes good.
Romans goes on to tell us that not only do we have this first taste of God’s love, but we also have intimations of eternity. It says, in our spirit, we cry out, “Abba, Father.” There is some transaction now with a God we cannot see. There is a relationship that has opened up.
We receive, as we read in Romans 8, the first fruits of the Spirit. Here is another electrocuting experience. The Holy Spirit is poured out upon us, and suddenly we are energized with something that enables us to live for God and serve Him with power.
We become incorporated. We suddenly sense that we are part of this body, this universal man, this something—it is hard to describe—people put together, called the church.
I remember when I was first saved. I went home for my first Christmas. I was living in North Carolina and went back to New York. I was out on the street, just getting out of my car to go into the house, and my next-door neighbor, who was a girl my age, was a real strong Catholic going off to a Catholic college.
I saw her, and I said, “You know what? I am going to go witness to her.” So I went over there and said, “You know something? By the grace of God—you know me. You know what a sinner I was. But by God’s grace, He saved me through Jesus Christ.”
Well, I almost died. This girl broke down in tears and said, “Praise God, Dana, I have been praying for you, that you would be saved.” I could not believe it.
But what I did feel at that moment was this: she and I were in the same thing. It was only when I got back home and my Baptist friend told me a Catholic could not be a Christian that I got confused.
But somehow I knew. Of course, they are all different, but she was a real believing Christian. It just stays in my mind. I knew I was part of something big. She and I belonged together, even though I never saw her. There we were.
We are all touching eternity in some of these wonderful ways. We find ourselves as young Christians standing in grace, as it says in Romans 5, with peace with God, standing in grace by faith, looking through the little portal into glory. Oh, what a wonderful place.
As we go through difficult times, we feel the love of God pouring through our hearts by the Holy Spirit. What a great consolation, to know the love of God. Love pours down, and you say, “I love You too.” That is first love. It is so simple.
Then you decide, “Okay, I am going to serve God.” We witness wildly, sometimes a little too fanatically, but we serve God and we love God. God loves those who love Him—new Christians with that wonderful first flush of love.
The Lord’s eyes look to and fro across the earth, looking for that group of young people who love the Lord and have no idea what they are doing. They are around.
When you go to different places, is it not amazing how often He starts with some young people who are together? They love Jesus. They are being apprehended by something. They do not know quite what, but they know it is something.
God loves to find somebody like that. Then, through tapes, books, or some wiser person who has caught on to something of God’s purpose, they begin to share with them, and everything is like, “Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh.” They say, “Ooh, that’s right. Ooh, that must be. Ooh, that’s so. Oh, I never saw that.” It is just like a whole “ooh, ooh” session.
God loves those who love Him, who have this first love, willing to lay down their lives. Then suddenly they hear how they are supposed to serve God. They have been doing it instinctively, sometimes wrongly, but all the time really loving the Lord.
Whoever imagined that the Lord would start us along on this incredible trip to glory? This is an incredible trip to glory.
When we look at these verses, picture yourself as a young Christian. The Lord begins to pull the curtain of eternity back as Paul begins to share these things. All you have going for you right now is something inside you that keeps saying, “Abba.” It keeps making you look up. Then the curtain starts to open.
In Romans 8:17, we are not only children; we are heirs. What? Heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ? You mean all the lands and the cattle on a thousand hills are mine, and God is mine, and I am His? Oh, this is wonderful.
Wait: “If we suffer with Him, so that we may be glorified with Him.” Uh-oh. I am going to be glorified with Him? I thought this was pretty glorious already.
We have only begun. Romans 8:18 says the sufferings of this present time are not even worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. There is more. There is more than, “Jesus loves me, saved me.”
Then you begin to sense the anxious longing of creation. You realize God is doing something huge in creation. There is something beyond us.
All creation is groaning for this thing to happen. And guess what? They are waiting for us to get finished—to be glorified. Creation is groaning, saying, “Oh, please, sons of God, come on. Be perfected. Be glorified. Come on, we are all waiting here.”
This baby is big. The whole creation is in the pains of childbirth, waiting for this whole thing to happen. When we see that, we start groaning too. We say, “I am so glad I am saved, but there is something more.”
We ourselves groan because we have tasted by the Holy Spirit. “Hmm, that’s glory, honey. I like that. I want some more.” We begin to groan as we sense that we are waiting eagerly for something: the redemption of these bodies.
This body is already giving me a hard time. I may be a young Christian, but my body is not always agreeing with the Lord. Oh, but the day comes when I will be in the resurrection body, a glorious body. I will be able to walk through walls and eat fish. That is all we know Jesus did. That is a pretty good start.
Then we come down to Romans 8:26: “In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness.” We do not know how to pray as we should.
Here is a sign that you are becoming aware of this sonship—this eternal sonship. You sense the Holy Spirit taking over. You begin to sense that He is tracking you on a journey. Of course, He has been before you were even saved; you just did not know that.
We often take this verse to mean that when we have a problem, we do not know how to pray for it. But actually, I think in the context Paul is saying that when we hear the things of glory, when we hear of creation being perfected and set at liberty, and when we hear what is going to happen, we see such a gap between where we are and what the plan is that we do not know how to pray for ourselves.
How should I pray for myself? “God, how am I going to get up to there when I am right here?” We do not know how to pray as we should.
So we groan, and the Holy Spirit interprets our groans. We say, “Oh, God, please, the one thing I cannot stand is being poked by that goad.” The Holy Spirit’s translation is, “Hit him with the goad, Lord.”
The Holy Spirit knows, and the Father who works all things according to His plan looks down. There is the Holy Spirit inside of you, praying through you: “Lord, touch me. Discipline me.” The Holy Spirit is interceding and helping you. He is beginning to lift you and change you from glory to glory.
Then we come, of course, to Romans 8:28, where we see the word purpose. We all know the verse: “We know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.”
Some of you are here perhaps for the first year, three years—you do not know. I have been coming here twenty-eight years. But for more than twenty of them, they locked me in an upper tower with the teenagers during the whole course of the week. I was there in the morning and evening, and they just locked me in there to see if the lions would eat me or if God was with me.
I worked with the young people for years. As a matter of fact, some of the young people are now here with kids who are now in the teenage group. That is right.
Unfortunately, I have been with young people so much that I talk young people talk sometimes. You can tell that because whenever you see Ellen over here translating and her hair stands straight up, it is because she has no idea what I am saying. Star Wars episode seven—she never heard of it.
As the Lord opens the drapes of eternity before us, we suddenly become aware of what I call, when I speak to the teenagers, “eternity’s car wash.”
We come to this door and it says, “Eternity’s Car Wash. Whosoever will, let him come.” You come to this car wash and say, “Okay, Lord, I come to You. I want to come to You. I want to serve You.” Then that chain that goes round and round locks onto your tire.
There are automated car washes that you can get into. All you have to do is drive up. You can be a dummy. You just drive up to the platform, and then they say, “Please put it in neutral. Do not put the brake on. Do not try to steer. We have got it from here.”
By God’s love, you drive up there. Eternity’s car wash says, “Move up onto the ramp.” Well, you did that of your own free will. That is the end.
Now this thing comes around and hooks onto your tire. The Lord, the Holy Spirit, says, “Just do not try to steer. Do not put on the brakes. Here we go.”
Ladies and gentlemen, when you go into the car wash, you do not go backwards. Once you have started, you are going to go through. You will go through the glorifying process.
Sometimes, when I was speaking to the teenagers every year, I had to change the illustration. So the second year I would always talk about getting on the roller coaster. You go in there and sit down. “This is fun.” Click, click, click, click, click. The chain is pulling you up.
Somebody says, “Can I get off?” Down there? You are going up. You are hearing the click, click, click because you are going to hear, “Woo!” just a minute.
Now eternity’s car wash gets hold of you. You get in there, and all things start coming at you. Somebody sprays a mist on you. Then soap hits your windshield. Now you cannot see anything. You turn on your windshield wiper, but it does not do any good.
Then these big brushes start coming and wiping along the sides. Then a big mop comes. A big blower comes. You put your brake on; the car still goes. The tires squeak, but the car keeps moving.
The blower gets you. It blows all over you. A wax job. The undercoating. I tell you, when you get in there, there is no stopping, and all things are working together for good.
Every Christian, once they get in there, thought they entered by their own free will. Wrong. You look through the rear-view mirror and see a sign behind you: “You were chosen from the foundation of the world.”
There was an old preacher—I am not sure who it was—who explained this matter of free will and predestination this way. He said, “When you stand outside the gate of salvation, it says, ‘Whosoever will may come.’ You say, ‘I will,’ and you walk in. You look behind you, and the same gate says, ‘Chosen before the foundation of the world.’”
Now, you cannot understand it. But when you look back in the rear-view mirror, He has even written the words backwards so that you can read them in the mirror: “You have been chosen before the foundation of the world.”
You are going through a car wash that is not quick. It would be good to look in the Word of God and see what the end of this whole thing is.
Do you know who is waiting for you on the other end? Do you know who is pulling the chain to bring you to Himself? Do you know who is all glorious, full of love, smiling, drawing you to Himself from glory to glory, through tribulation and suffering?
The whole process—you wait until you get clear on the other side and the windshield starts to clear up. There is Jesus. Blessed Jesus. You realize why you went through the whole thing, why the whole thing was worthwhile.
Paul goes on to say that the car wash was set up before you were ever born, just for you. He has a different one for everybody. They all have the same ending, but He has a different way, a different route, by the amazing engineering of the Holy Spirit.
Romans 8:29 reveals the end of this whole process:
For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren.
The Lord already has the perfect car: His Son, the glorious Son. He was glorious before He ever came to earth—glorious as the Son of God with the Father. He came down to earth and did such a perfect work. He is now the glorious Son of Man as well.
He is full of glory. He is the perfect image of God. He is exactly God’s love, His beloved Son. This is it.
God says, “Every car that I put into the wash is going to come out in the image of that Son.” You are predestined—not merely predestined to salvation, but predestined to be like Jesus. You have been predestined to be conformed to that image of the invisible God, even the image of His Son.
Imagine that. I know you see the gap, but you are early in the car wash.
Jesus went through a car wash too. He suffered. He learned obedience through the things which He suffered. He even suffered death on the cross and came through in glory, declared the Son of God by the resurrection from the dead by the Holy Spirit.
He has been through it. He knows what it is like. He did it for our sake. Now He wants you to do it for His sake.
Romans 5:3-5 tells us that even the young Christian is aware there is a process involving tribulation:
We also exult in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance;
and perseverance, proven character;
and proven character, hope;
and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
We are already in a process. But perhaps in Romans 5 Paul shares the process as personal development—developing character, patience, perseverance. All of that is true. But the process is really not for our sake; it is for His sake.
We are being drawn through from glory to glory that we might be like Him. He wants us to be among the many brethren He is bringing to glory. He is the first one through, and He wants us to come through.
There is a third glorious moment of satisfaction when the bride and the groom meet and marry. There is a final glorious, beaming satisfaction when these many sons have been brought to glory and they meet with Jesus. These many brethren are joined with Him by the same nature and the same character. There is going to be a tremendous outshining of the glory of God at that time.
Romans 8:30 leaves us more dazzled regarding eternity’s plan:
Those whom He predestined, He also called;
and those whom He called, He also justified;
and those whom He justified, He also glorified.
All these verbs are past tense, as completed acts. It does not say, “He will glorify,” because then this would make it only a process in history. This is talking about what has already been done in eternity.
You were predestined, called, justified, and glorified in eternity. Notice sanctified is not there, because in eternity that is not part of the picture. But the whole thing was done.
Jesus, the Son of God, was the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world. The whole process was, as it were, completed in eternity before it ever happened historically, because Jesus had the cross in His heart from before the foundation of the world.
Salvation is not an emergency afterthought, as if God said, “Oh boy, I do not know what men have done, but they have gone all wrong. We have to come up with something.” No.
In some great mysterious way, God would not have been able to glorify His Son sufficiently if Adam had not sinned. I am not saying God made Adam sin. But somehow the Son of God had to be manifested, and in eternity it was already seen that this would come through His coming to earth and dying on the cross.
For the individual Christian, just to put it simply, God’s eternal purpose is sonship.
By sonship, I mean that in the end we are of His nature and in His image. We are united with Him. We are with Him on His throne, ruling. We are with Him in His life, as His bride. Sonship is the eternal purpose of God for the Christian.
This was very important in Paul’s burden when he wrote to the Romans. There is a problem with understanding that the gospel is the gospel of salvation, getting saved, and serving God in an outward way—in an outward love, a real love—but never coming to see this eternal purpose in our being saved.
There are many churches and many believers who, by God’s grace, have been saved. They believe they are going to heaven when they die, but they have no idea why on earth they are here now, except to be good and maybe witness and bring other people to Jesus.
Paul does not want to leave Christians there. If a person is left there, then as soon as things go bad or wrong, or there is suffering and groaning and all things come at them, and they do not realize the purpose of them, they may fall backward. They may become offended. They may quit the whole thing.
“Why, I got into this Christian race, and then all of these impediments, all of these hurdles, all of these people holding me back—it is just not worth it. I quit. When I die, I am going to heaven anyway. What is the big deal?”
Paul does not want Christians to be settled in this outward understanding of serving God, knowing God, and being called by God.
I have enjoyed and been so blessed by my trips to Russia. But can I tell you my burden? The Lord is moving out there. So many people are being saved. But if they do not come to a fuller understanding of what God’s purpose is in the church and in their own lives, the whole thing can come to nothing.
The mysteries of the kingdom that Jesus speaks about in parables can be summed up this way: if you do not embrace the cross in its deeper work, then in the end what you do will be corrupted by man’s hand.
As wonderful as the move of God is at this beginning stage in the cities I visited in Russia, if they do not understand the cross and its working and God’s fuller purpose, they will institutionalize. Leaven will come in, and various corruptive elements will destroy what was begun.
Do not try to go over to Russia on the next airplane. What the Lord is doing there is wonderful. They are young Christians. I did not meet a Christian over there who had been a Christian more than ten years. They have all been recently born again. They all love the Lord.
Every time I go, they give me a chance to share, and I share about the life of Christ. That is purpose. If they catch some of that, then there is hope. But if they do not understand that the cross is going to work in their lives, they will serve God in the flesh, exhaust themselves one after another, and history will repeat itself.
May God do something deeper there, where He has begun to do this work since the days of Perestroika in Russia.
This matter of coming into sonship is very serious. The realization of sonship comes as the cross works more deeply in our lives.
Those who love the Lord with first love—simple believers gathered together—have learned how to deny themselves, take up the cross, and follow Jesus in an outward way. They sacrifice themselves, preach the gospel, serve, and witness, even though some people say, “You are not my friend anymore.” They suffer for their witness of Jesus.
That is what the Bible means by taking up the cross in its outward way. But to bring us into sonship, the Lord has to bring us from the place where we are not just justified, made righteous by faith, but righteous in our nature.
Not just righteous because we are clothed with the robe of righteousness of Christ Jesus, but righteous because His righteous life is abiding in us. That is what Romans 6, 7, and 8 are all about.
The Lord is not satisfied with Christians who say, “Praise God, I am saved by grace. Even though I still do carnal things, live carnally, and act carnally, God just forgives me.” That is not good enough.
The Lord intends to produce the image of Christ in us, and that includes the nature of righteousness. It includes sons who are able to do righteous works and live righteously. This is a process.
Paul implies a process even in Romans 1, where he says that in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed “from faith to faith.”
That first faith is the initial obedience of faith which believes the gospel and stands on the finished work. That is the beginning faith for every Christian. Do you stand on the finished work of Christ? Do you know you are saved because He died for your sins? Do you know you are saved because He rose again from the dead? Do you stand on that faith?
In order for the Lord to bring us into sonship, there is a process where we have to go from faith to faith. We never leave the faith that stands in His finished work, but we add to it faith in His indwelling life, living through us.
We must be disciplined as sons. We must be child-trained as sons. We have to learn how to live by His life and not by our life.
When we think about sonship, what do we think of? Ruling and reigning from the throne? Possessing all your possessions? Your inheritance in Christ? All these are, in fact, products of sonship.
What is sonship? This is where we have Jesus, as He walked on earth, as our example. Sonship is an abiding relationship with the Father, where I do nothing of my own initiative and do everything that the Father tells me to do.
Sonship in the Old Testament was especially pictured in Isaac. Isaac has no claim to fame whatsoever except he was Abraham’s kid. He received everything from Abraham. He had to learn how to be a receiver.
Sometimes rich kids do not want to take from their dad, but they always have to. Isaac had to learn how to say, “Thank you, Dad.”
Sonship is being a receiver. Sonship is being a steward of all the riches you received from Daddy.
Jesus, when He walked the earth, said many times in the Gospel of John, “I do nothing of My own initiative. I do nothing out of Myself. The words that you hear are not My words, but the Father speaking through Me. The works that I do are not My works, but the Father working through Me.”
“Have I been with you so long, Philip, and yet you do not know that it is the Father in Me? He who has seen Me has seen the Father. The works that I do are the Father working in Me. Do you not see it yet?”
The disciples were saying, “Show us the Father.” Nothing could be clearer. Here was the Son. How could you find the Father? Just look at the Son. The life He is living comes from the Father. The power He is exerting comes from the Father. The words He is speaking come from the wisdom of the Father. He is living in that vessel of sonship life.
That is what sonship is. That is where the Lord wants us: to do nothing of our own initiative, to speak what He speaks, to love when He loves, and to do what He does. This is sonship worked out day by day upon this earth.
There is a necessary process of undoing in our lives that we might call discipline or the work of the cross. The Lord has to take us away from our complete reliance upon ourselves.
We go through a season of discipline, a season of undoing, which leads to a season of His doing and our abiding. Then somebody can look at you as a Christian—even before you are finally perfected in glory—and say, “I see Somebody in there.”
If somebody asks, “Who is Jesus?” we should be able to say, “Look at me and you see Him.” Who dares say that? Any takers?
Well, it is a bold step. We are so far from that, we dare not say it. But this is what the process and its goal are all about.
This process is engineered by the all-wise God. It is different in everybody’s life, but it usually involves three areas where you are going to be undone and then redone—deconstructed and reconstituted.
The first area is church life and body life. The Lord has a tool for you: your brothers and sisters. They start hammering away on you. They start rubbing against your corners. They start doing a job on you.
When you are in the body of Christ, there is a lot of this going on in our lives. We always feel held back, held down. “Why does this brother still think I am just a kid?” We often feel it is the saints dealing with us, but it is always the Head.
The second area is our personal spiritual life. This is where Paul talks about his life in Romans 6, 7, and 8.
The third area is ministry—however we are to serve in the body of Christ. The Lord Jesus comes to us, the lowly ox, and says, “Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me.” He has His head in His part of the ox yoke, and here is a second hole for your head. You, like a dummy, say, “Okay, Lord,” and put your head in.
What you are going to learn is something. “Take My yoke upon you and learn of Me.” First, you are going to learn He is meek and lowly. But what you actually learn first, when we put our heads in the yoke, is not of Him—you learn of you.
Jesus wants to go straight down the path, and you want to go over and eat the daisies on the left. So you turn left; He goes straight. Guess what happens? You go straight.
You have been serving a half hour and say, “I have got to take a month off.” But Jesus, the big blue ox, keeps walking forward, and He is dragging you along.
We learn so much about ourselves. We learn about our preferences, what kind of daisies we especially like. We find out how often we like to roll in poison ivy. We find out all kinds of things.
I make a great jest out of this whole thing, but I do not know any real servant of God who has not learned by being unlearned. A servant of God has a certain ego already. They move right into something and say, “I can do this. Praise God.” We have all kinds of plans for how we are going to preach, witness, pray, and serve.
What I want us to see most importantly is this process of His exchange in our personal spiritual life.
It sounds incredible to say that the Lord saves us, then we start to serve Him, pray to Him, and read our Bibles, and He has to take that whole thing through the cross in order to bring it into a spiritual relationship.
What does Galatians 2:20 mean?
I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.
“I have been crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live.” Well, are you dead or alive? “Nevertheless, I live. Yet not I.” What does he mean? How can you live, yet not be you?
How do we live by His life? How does somebody come to this? It is individually tailored for everybody, but it basically comes through a season of failures, struggles, dealing with your flesh, praying and swearing to God you will never do it again—and then doing it again.
You ask forgiveness again, and your flesh seems to be out of control. You feel condemned. You see other Christians all looking victorious. Of course, they are going through the same thing you are, but they have better makeup than you do.
For most people truly to come into sonship—that is, into a life where the Lord’s life is actually your life—there is a lot of undoing that goes on. Paul himself confesses autobiographically that is what happened to him.
The first thing that is very important for us to understand is this: to the degree that you understand you are united with Christ in His death and resurrection from the very moment you become a Christian, to that degree His life comes through you.
Paul talks about this wonderful process in Romans 6. I am going to point out three words because, to me, they define what this obedience of faith is all about.
First: knowing. Romans 6:6 says that our old man was crucified with Christ. When you were baptized, there was a testimony that your old man was crucified, and now you are living in the resurrection life of Christ.
Even as Christ died, you died with Him. Even as Christ rose, you rose with Him. Even as Christ died, your old man died.
Obviously, the old man was Adam. He is dead. The new man is Christ. He is alive. Do you know that? Do you stand in that?
I am amazed how many Christians are struggling with something, and I say, “Do you know who you are?” They say, “Well, yeah, I am me. I am trying to be a Christian.”
No, no, no. Do you know who you are? Do you know you are in Christ now? You are living by His life. You are living by His nature. You are grafted into Christ. You are no longer in Adam. You are cut off from there. Now you are in Christ.
Many Christians do not understand that, but that is the first place you stand: “I am a new creation in Christ. I live by the life of Christ. I died with Him. I rose with Him to never die again. I live in Christ.”
The second word is reckon. Romans 6:11 says:
Even so consider yourselves to be dead to sin, but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
Knowing that you are alive in Christ, reckon on it. Do business with it. Pray with that. Commit based upon it that you are dead to sin but alive to God.
Write the checks out: “I know I am alive in Christ. I write this check: I will obey You today, God.” If you know that you are united with Christ in His life and you do that, the Lord honors it. That is faith, and you live by His life.
The third word is present. Romans 6:13 says that you present your members as instruments of righteousness.
Faith is based on what you know: you live in Christ. Faith reckons upon that in its actions. The specific action you take daily is, “I present my hands and my feet and my tongue and my mind as instruments of righteousness to Christ.”
I am a slave of Christ and no longer a slave to sin. I live by grace. I am no longer under the law. I live in Christ and no longer in sin.
Do you know that you are alive in Christ? Do you reckon on it, even when you feel dead? Do you present your body to God every day as a living instrument for God to use as a Christian?
This is where we start. This is where we stand. If we are not standing there, we will get confused in the process we have to go through. We will become condemned. Some Christians think they are not even saved.
But no, we start right there: “I am alive in Christ. I was buried with Him in baptism, and I came out alive in Him. I reckon on it, and I present myself.”
Very practically, having taken this step, the problem is that we are so used to doing things our own way.
In Romans 7, Paul deals with this reality as a Christian. I went through and marked all the times he said “I” or “me,” and it is thirty-eight times. That is our problem.
“I want to serve God, but then I know what is good. I intend to do this, but I cannot do that. I can, I cannot. I love, I hate. There is nothing good in me.” It is me, I, my, me, I, I.
We all begin to sound like operatic sopranos: “Me, me, me, me, me.”
No matter how much you want to serve the Lord, me is in the way. The Lord has to show us that the me is wrong and the me is right. “I have found that there is nothing good in me, that is, in my flesh.”
There is a part of “I” that is alive, and there is a part of “I”—your flesh—that has got to go. Only the Lord can sort that out.
For Paul, the Lord did this by the active, powerful Word of God. The active, powerful Word of God came to him in the law and simply said, “You shall not covet.” That did Paul in.
Paul said, “Well, I am a Christian. I am not going to covet.” The more he said, “I am not going to covet,” the more he said, “I like that Mercedes-Benz.”
There was something inside him saying, “I agree with the law. I should not covet.” But there was something inside saying, “I want. I want. Gimme, gimme, gimme.”
There was a separating of soul and spirit, and a revealing of the thoughts and intents of the heart. You can no longer fool yourself about your inward life by saying, “Oh, I am all sold out for God,” because now the Word of God is going in and separating. You begin to see the difference between your flesh and your spirit, what is really going on in your life.
Paul discovered there was a sin principle inside him that was like a runaway train. He could not do anything about it. His spirit was willing, but his flesh was weak.
He ends up saying, “Oh, wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this bondage? What am I going to do? I am a Christian, and I cannot live the Christian life. I am a Christian, but there is stuff going on inside me that is at war with God’s will.”
That is why Romans 8:1 says:
There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
A lot of Christians get to the place where they say, “That’s it. I am condemned.” But there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.
For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.
This law of the Spirit of life is a principle that begins to be learned in our lives as we abide in Him. He begins to give us a law within and the grace to obey the law. We begin to walk in the Spirit.
He tells us what to do, and we walk in the Spirit. We begin to set our minds on the things of the Spirit. I did not even know I had free will to do that. I thought my mind just had to roll as it wanted. No—I can set my mind where I want: on the flesh or on the Spirit.
As you are walking in the Spirit, there are deeds of the body that you have to deal with. The Holy Spirit mortifies the deeds of the body when you also mortify the deeds of the body. There is this whole walk in the Spirit.
I saw something new when I was reading the book of Acts: the difference between being filled with the Spirit and being full of the Spirit.
The Christians at Pentecost were filled with the Spirit when the Spirit came down. No doubt about it. They had gifts of the Spirit, and they were filled with the Holy Spirit.
But when it came time to choose seven men from among them, the qualification was that they had to be full of the Holy Spirit. Obviously, being full of the Holy Spirit is talking about a state of character and life. It is different from the filling of the Holy Spirit, which comes in service, for anointing, or for whatever reason.
Being full of the Holy Spirit is somebody who not only has the outward power of the Holy Spirit, but has the inward life led by the Holy Spirit. Those who are led by the Spirit are the sons of God.
When people come to the place where they are walking in the Spirit, setting their mind on the things of the Spirit, dealing with the deeds of their body by the power of the Holy Spirit, and their body is being quickened by the Holy Spirit, these are people full of the Holy Spirit.
People are filled with the Spirit by the grace of God. They become full of the Spirit as they walk with the Lord, as they abide in the Lord.
If I could leave you with a thought that pictures this completely, it is this: it is abiding.
Sonship is living a righteous life by abiding in His life. A person goes through the undoing, but it comes into the doing. It does. Step by step, issue by issue perhaps, but it comes in.
We begin to learn to live by His Spirit indwelling us. He prunes us. His Word speaks to us. We bear more fruit because we are abiding. We are abiding.
It is not the sense of, “Oh, I have got it now. I am a Spirit-filled man.” It is a daily sense of dependence, just like Jesus had when He said, “I do nothing of My own initiative. Everything I do, the Father is doing through Me.”
This is sonship walked out here on earth: a righteous life lived by abiding moment by moment.
Finally, there are two consolations which, to me, are tremendous as we walk in this process of undoing and abiding.
The first is this: usually in the moment of our despair, in the moment of our failure, the Lord shows us how much He loves us. It is at the moment of failure that we become captured by His love.
It was when Peter had failed the Lord that the Lord said, “Do you love Me?” Peter could not answer in a positive way, but Jesus was, in effect, saying, “Peter, I need you. Peter, go feed My sheep.”
There was nothing more precious He could have said to this failure: “Peter, I need you. Go feed My sheep.”
When Elijah fell down, wanted to take his life, ran to the caves of God, and was so wrought in depression, it was then that the Lord said to him, “Elijah, I need you. Go down and anoint Hazael. Go down and anoint Jehu. Go down and anoint Elisha. There is more work for you to do.”
What a wonderful thing. “I thought I had failed. I thought I would be forsaken by God. I thought I was on probation, and I blew it.”
I do not know many servants of God who, at some point in their lives, have not felt that they were truly disqualified. Yet the Lord comes and says, “When I say I love you, I mean it. I do not quit on you.”
The Lord does not quit on you. You may fail. You may rebel. You may be in a place of rebellion right now. You may not even want to hear these things. You may not want to be dealt with by God.
Well, He has got you in the car wash. You are going through.
In these moments, you would be surprised how the Lord comes to you and says, “Oh, how I love you. Do you not know My love for you has never grown cold? Do you not know that those I love, I rebuke? Do you not know I am dealing with you as a son? Come on now. Abide in Me. Let Me abide in you.”
The Lord is our great consolation and our encourager, even in those times when we feel perhaps we have lost it.
I think of John in the book of Revelation. There he is on the Isle of Patmos, and he feels some charge for those seven churches. When he saw this glorious Lord standing before those churches, he fell down like a dead man. But Jesus came and said, “Come on, come on, come on. Come on up here. Let Me show you some things regarding glory.”
At the very time he felt so disqualified, the Lord drew him near.
Does that not happen in your life? Do you not realize that sometimes, when you come to the end of yourself, He says, “Oh no, I just love you. I have always loved you with an everlasting love. You are Mine.”
That is what He said to Jacob. “I have loved you forever. Undying love. You are Mine. You cannot go anywhere. Gotcha.”
He never quits on us.
The second great consolation is when we realize, because of that, nothing can separate us from the love of God.
Nothing can separate us from the love of God. Who is he who condemns? It is Jesus who justifies. He is even interceding for me. So go ahead, condemn me if you want.
Who brings a charge against God’s elect? Go ahead. But He is the One who has chosen.
Who can separate us from the love of God? Paul says, “Nothing.”
This is where a son comes to. This is where first love is enhanced by what I am going to call captured first love.
You love the Lord with all your heart, mind, soul, and strength, and you know you have been captured. There is nowhere else you can go.
Has the Lord dealt with you as sons? Has the Lord shown you that He loves you, and that is why He is pulling you through this thing? Do you see? There is nowhere you can go.
I would like us to sing, “O Love That Will Not Let Me Go,” and then perhaps have a few prayers, as you feel led, just to say that back to the Lord.
Some of you, I know, are in a process—a very difficult time, sufferings inexplicable. And the Lord is doing something glorious.
Let us stand up. Let us sing this song.