No Frustration (Romans 8:4a-17)

For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.”
ROMANS 8:15 (NIV)

This week Pastor Tom Holladay of Saddleback Church looks at God's promise to make us a part of His family so that we can call Him Abba, Father.

Show Notes

Promo: Making Time

You have the same 24 hours in your day as the most accomplished people in the world. So why doesn't it feel that way? Follow along on this special 6 episode series as we take a look at how to make more time. By following biblical principles and taking a look at what you really want, Making Time shares the secret to having all the time you need... with a little help from some friends.

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For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.”
ROMANS 8:15 (NIV) 

SERIES OVERVIEW 

Take a journey together with your small group to greater faith! If you’ve ever had feelings like, “I’m not good enough,” “I’m never going to change,” or “Life is too hard,” Romans eight is the chapter for you! Pastor Tom Holladay taught this series beginning at the bottom and moving to the top of Saddleback Mountain through each of the four sessions to help us see clearly the journey from doubt to faith—from discouragement to hope—that God has for us. 

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS 

1. Did you get a chance to share the message of “no condemnation” with someone this last week? How did they respond? 
2. What items would you put on the top of a list of things that frustrate you because they take longer than they should? 
3. Verses 4–7: What could you do to rely more on the Spirit and less on your own willpower in your battle to live as the Spirit desires? 
4. Verses 4–7: What helps you to set your mind on what the Spirit desires for your life? 
5. Verses 8–13: How does it impact you when you see the truth that living under your own control can never be pleasing to God? 
6. Verses 14–17: What does it mean to you personally to call God Father? How about to call God Abba, or daddy? 

PUTTING IT INTO PRACTICE 

From verses 14–17: Pray to God as your “Abba, Father” this week by addressing him as “Abba, Father” in your prayers, by talking to him about your simplest needs and your deepest hurts and by thanking him that because of Jesus you are his child and his heir. 

PRAYER DIRECTION 

Start the prayers to God as your Abba Father in your group prayer time. 

Creators & Guests

Host

Tom Holladay

Tom Holladay is a teaching pastor at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California. Tom’s passion in ministry is to help people discover a love for the Bible and an understanding of God’s truth that changes the way they live. In addition to his pastoral leadership and weekend teaching ministries at Saddleback, he assists Rick Warren in teaching Purpose-Driven Church conferences to Christian leaders all over the world. Books he has written include The Relationship Principles of Jesus, Love Powered Parenting with his wife Chaundel and (with Kay Warren) Foundations: Core Truths to Build Your Life On. He and Chaundel have three children and five granddaughters.

Producer

Saddleback Church

💙 Find your purpose and place at #SaddlebackChurch! 🏠 One family, many locations.

What is Great Chapters Of The Bible: Romans 8?

Romans Chapter 8: Climbing to a Place of Confident Faith
Take a journey together with your small group to greater faith! If you’ve ever had feelings like, “I’m not good enough,” “I’m never going to change,” or “Life is too hard,” Romans eight is the chapter for you! Pastor Tom Holladay taught this video series beginning at the bottom and moving to the top of Saddleback Mountain through each of the four sessions to help us see clearly the journey from doubt to faith—from discouragement to hope—that God has for us.

Keywords: Saddleback Church, Rick Warren, Tom Holladay, Small Group Curriculum, Lifeway, Studygateway, Zondervan, Bible, bible studies, church bible study, lessons from the Bible, what is the best Bible study?, What is a great study on Romans 8?, What is a good group curriculum for romans?

I want to welcome you to week two of our look Through Romans, chapter eight. Here we are, about a third of the way up the mountain. And that's about the time when you're climbing a mountain, when you begin to think it's long ways. I mean, I've gone away, but it's a long way still to go. This is going to take a long time. What was I thinking? Moment of life. And the truth is, in our lives, there are many things that just seem to take too long. You may have talked about in your group a minute ago. What would you put on a list of things that frustrates you because they take too long? On my list would be things like cars that take too long to go at red lights, or lines that are too long in grocery stores or pizza. Why does pizza take so long to cool? I'm ready to eat it. It's not cooling. In your life, in Christ, you're often going to have the feeling it's taking too long for me to grow. You're often going to have the frustration with not growing fast enough. Why am I not changing fast enough? How come it's taking me so long to get better? Last week we talked about the fact that when you feel like I'm not good enough, god says, there is no condemnation. I've got a life of liberty for you. And when you begin to feel in your life like, I'm never going to change, god says, no frustration, I've got a life of victory for you. Now, the truth is, you will feel frustrated sometimes, no doubt about that. But you will not be frustrated in this goal to grow, because God is the one who's working to grow you. In fact, in these verses we're going to look at from Romans eight today we're going to find three specific things that God has done in your life that are going to guarantee that he is growing. You not, uh, what you have done, but what he is doing in your life. You are going to grow because you have three new things in your life. You have a new nature, you have a new power, and you have a new father. First of all, you and I will change because of what God has done. You have a new nature. Look at these verses beginning in verse four and down through verse eight. Verse four says in the middle, we do not live according to the sinful nature, but according to the Spirit. Those who live according to the sinful nature have their mind set on what that nature desires. But those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their mind set on what the Spirit desires. The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace. The sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God. Now, in these verses, there are three vital facts about change. Fact number one is you choose the power according to which you will live. The phrase used here is according to according to the sinful nature or according to the Spirit. That's your choice. What are you living according to according to has, the idea, these words of what you're attaching yourself to, it's like a, uh, train car attaching itself to an engine. Whatever engine attaches itself to, that's the direction it's going to go. What are you attaching yourself to? To your sinful nature, your way of doing things, or to God Spirit, his way of doing things. You get to choose how you will live according to which you will live. Fact number two, your choice determines your thinking. It determines the way that you think. The idea that we're never going to change, the feeling that we're never going to change, a lot of that revolves around the way that we think. During the day, our thoughts resolve themselves into actions of grace, of goodness. Or sometimes they resolve themselves into paths of temptation and evil. And it all comes from our thoughts. My choice about what I'm going to attach myself to determines my thinking. You set your mind on the selfish nature, you're going to think selfish thoughts. Obviously, you set your mind on the spirit, you're going to think spiritual thoughts. Now, selfish thoughts don't always have to be seemingly evil thoughts. They can just be about you. Everybody else might be patting you on the back, but you're doing it just to get the prideful praise. Is it the selfish thought or is it the spirit that I am attaching myself to that's going to determine the way that I think? Essentially, what we're saying is it's as simple as setting the channel on a TV. And before you became a follower of Jesus, you were a one channel person. All you could think were selfish thoughts because that's all you had inside of you was yourself. So whatever button you pushed on the remote, it always went back to self. Good self, bad self, loving self, depressed self. It was always yourself. When you became a follower in Jesus, you got a new channel. Now, you can push a different button. You can think a different way. You can think spiritual thoughts, because God has put his spirit into your life. You choose the power according to which you're going to live. Fact number one, your choice determines your thinking. Fact number three, your thinking determines your life. In fact, the words that are used in these verses are death or life. The mindset on the selfish nature is death. The mindset on the spirit is life. Now notice it says is not will be, but is it's this living experience? And if you set your mind on your own selfish nature, it's like a living death. Your circumstances might be even getting better and better, but you feel like you're going downhill more and more and more because your mind is set just on you. It's not the way you're meant to live, not the way I'm meant to live. When you set your mind on the Spirit, that's where you get the abundant life that God wants to bring into our lives. Another picture in these verses is it's living with hostility to God or at peace with God? Now, the term hostile to God, that doesn't mean you have to be an atheist or be angry at God, swearing at God all the time, hostile to God just means you are keeping God out. It's holding God at arm's length. If there's an area of your life, and there is in most of our lives at times where you're saying, god, I'm just going to hold you out of this area just for this time, that's being hostile to God. But when you set your mind up in the Spirit, you're at peace with God, you're at peace with what God wants to do in your life, you're at peace with his best in your life. That's where I want to live. That's where I want you to be able to live. And that's what it means to begin to live in a different kind of way. Your thinking determines your life. Now, the truth of the matter is I can't please God by depending on myself. These verses say you can't please God that way. Even if I'm doing good things, I might be doing a ministry and it might impress a lot of people, get a lot of applause. But if the reason I did it was to get the applause, then I'm not pleasing God as much as other people might think of it. That's not the life that God made me to live. Now, there's something vital to understand about what we just walked through these three facts. It's how you work, it's how you're wired, it's how you're designed. It's vital to know in your life that thinking comes before doing. Your thoughts are going to determine your actions. As a person thinks in their heart, so are they. You are transformed by the renewing of your mind. So thinking comes before doing. So if you want to do something different, you got to start to think differently. And these verses tell us that we do that by depending on God's spirit. But there's another part of this these verses also reveal to us being comes before thinking. The truth is you can't think differently except that you are a different person. The idea that you can start thinking differently and still be the same person is pretty ridiculous. So God helps us to think differently by making us a new person, by giving us a new nature. I've been doing some reading lately on learning and the brain, and there's a lot of studies that show that even people who could do very well on a test. They don't do well if they've done poorly on previous tests because their feelings about who they are I'm a bad test taker caused them to do poorly on the test. Well, there's something even more powerful here. This isn't just feelings about who you are. This is a new nature. God has actually changed our nature, given us a new nature in Jesus Christ. That's why you're able to think in a new way. So when you think, I will never change, things will never change. God has something different in mind. He says, you have a new nature. Second reason in these verses you and I will change is because you have a new power. You have a new power, the power of God's Spirit. Now, God's Spirit is a mysterious thing to many people. How do I live the life of the Spirit? How do I walk in the spirit? There are three words in these verses that help you and I to understand our relationship with God's Spirit. And God's spirit is a person. When you understand your relationship with God's Spirit, you're better able to live out the life of God's Spirit. The three words are control, ownership, and obligation. Um, if you get a hold of what those words mean, you'll begin to understand, to learn what it means to follow the Holy Spirit, to let the leadership of the Holy Spirit work in your daily life. God has made you, it's made us to be connected to his spirit. And when you understand control and ownership and obligation, you understand that connection a little bit better. First, the word control. To let the Spirit control your life essentially means to let go and let God. Listen to these verses. Listen to verse eight and nine. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God. You, however, are not controlled by the sinful nature, but by the Spirit. If the Spirit of God lives in you, these verses say that you're either spirit controlled or you're self controlled. And control is the key word here. Are you in control or is God in control? When you're in control, you might be doing good things, but you're still living the old I'm in charge here life. Who's in control now? The truth is, we all have control issues. I certainly have them. I was reminded of my control issues a few years ago when a family vacation was coming up and I broke my Achilles tendon and I had to wear a cast. I couldn't even walk. I couldn't get around very fast in, uh, crutches. Even so, the places we were going, I had to use a wheelchair. So I let my kids push me in this wheelchair. If you want to know if you have control issues, let your kids push you in a wheelchair. I was looking for the brakes on that wheelchair. I was looking for the steering wheel on that wheelchair. I didn't want somebody else pushing me to where I was going to go. I wanted to control where I was going to go. And I think that's how many of us are with God. God, you lead me, but I want my foot on the brakes, I want my hands on the steering wheel so I can say it's okay. But control means trust. Control means I am trusting what God can do in my life. God has control. You let go and you'll let God. That's your, uh, relationship with the Spirit. And then a second word, ownership. Ownership means the Spirit has you. Verse nine, the end of verse nine says, if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. If the Spirit lives in you, you have this ownership of the Spirit. If you don't have the Spirit living in you, then you can't live in this kind of way. Now, I've always loved what Warren Wearsby had to say about this section of Romans, chapter eight. He talks about it being three levels of living life. At level one and verses five to eight, that is, you have not the Spirit. Level two is versus nine to eleven, that is, you have the Spirit. And level three is versus twelve to 17, that is the Spirit has you. That's ownership, you're marked as God's man, as God's woman. That's your relationship with the Spirit, that you belong to Him. There's ownership, there's control, and then there is obligation. There's obligation not to sin, but to the Spirit. Listen to verses twelve and 13. Therefore we have an obligation, but it's not to the sinful nature to live according to it. For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die. But if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live an obligation not to the sinful nature now that you're a father of Jesus, but to the Spirit of life, you have no obligation to the sinful nature. Now, this doesn't say no temptation, it says no obligation. You'll still have temptation, but you do not have an obligation to follow that temptation. God has made a way out, and you can now take that way out through the power of God's Spirit. Now, I know these verses say you're controlled by God's Spirit, but if you're like me, you don't always feel controlled by God's Spirit. All of us, because of sin in our lives, we have set down patterns, ways of doing things, way of thinking that make us feel like, I cannot resist that temptation. I have to follow what it's telling me to do. I've done it so many times. But these verses tell us that you now have a new obligation. And although Satan wants to tempt you and tell you you are obligated to do that because you've done that before, god's Spirit is telling you you don't have that obligation any longer. I can break that habit. It can be a new obligation. There is a new obligation in your life and it is to me to live in me, to live in my spirit. You have this new power through my spirit and what my spirit can do in you, I want to change you. Now you have to realize this new obligation change is not the result of one big choice. It's really the result of thousands of daily choices of a new obligation to God's spirit. So every time you choose to pray instead of follow the temptation, every time you choose to call a friend, every time you choose to get involved in a celebrate recovery, to break an addiction, every time you choose to do what the spirit is telling you to do, you are actually changing in ways that you cannot see but are dramatic. I always like to say it this way. God wants to make a Grand Canyon size difference in your life. If you go and look at the Grand Canyon, it's just grandeur, it's beautiful. But the Grand Canyon was not formed in a moment. The Grand Canyon was formed by the gentle erosion of a river going year after year, decade after decade, century after century, and that's how that canyon was formed. The difference God wants to make in your life is through decision after decision, day after day, year after year. You just keep trusting him. You just keep following Him and you feel like, well I made a mistake this last week. I sinned this last week. He knows. But he also has given you this new choice through this new obligation today to follow Him. You have a new power and you live out that power on a daily basis with this new relationship through the Spirit. Realizing that you give up control. You turn over ownership. You accept this new obligation. In fact, you might even just write down and pray this simple prayer each day just somewhere during the day or many times during the day. Just pray lord, I give up control to you. Lord, I turn over ownership to you. Lord, I accept my obligation to you. And then you begin to live in a new way. You're never going to become perfect in this world that's for heaven. But you can grow. You will grow in this world because God is working to grow you. He has given you a new nature, he's given you a new power and he's given you a third thing. You have a new father. Romans 814 to 17 talk about your new father, because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry abba, Father. The Spirit himself testifies with our Spirit that we are God's children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs, heirs of God and Co. Heirs with Christ. Earlier we talked about thinking before doing and being before thinking. How about feelings? Where do feelings play in to my relationship with God and how I live out my daily life? Where do they fit in this order? Well, the truth of the matter is, feelings are all over the map. Sometimes you feel your way into an action. Sometimes because you feel a certain way, you act in a certain way. They're just all over the map. So how do we deal with our feelings? Sometimes they control what you do. Sometimes they're controlled by what you do. One of the ways to deal with your feelings is what we're talking about right here. Recognizing that you have a new father, a new relationship with God, that guarantees change. You deal with your feelings through your relationship with God. Now, these verses say that we have the spirit of sonship. Some of you who are women might be thinking, wait a minute, I have the spirit of daughtership. The idea here, really the reason sonship is used is because in that day, the Son was the one who got all the inheritance. So this is saying, whether you're a man or a woman, a son or a daughter of God, all of us get all of the inheritance because of what Jesus has done for us. And then it says these incredible words by God's spirit. We cry out abba father. Just as Jesus did in Mark 1436. Jesus said, abba Father, everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me, yet not what I will, but what you will. And what does this mean? Abba father. These two words next to each other? Well, it's the Aramaic and the Greek words were father side by side. So it's assigned to us that the, uh, Jew and the Gentile are both included, because it's the Jewish centered word, but it's also the Greek centered word. Everybody is included, everybody's invited to accept God as our Abba Father. But it's also, and even more deeply to me, it's also the formal and the informal side by side abba, which is like daddy. It's one of the first words that a baby would say abba, Abba, abba. And then father the Greek word patir, which is the idea of respect for a father. So you have your intimacy and authority, both included. And that's the way that a healthy relationship with a father should be. You should have intimacy, you should have love, you should have closeness, but you should also have respect. That's the way that our relationship with God is. We have intimacy with him. We're close to Him, but also we respect Him, we live in awe of Him. Let me tell you the picture that I get when I think of God as our Abba Father. It's from years ago. I was in Israel with a group of pastors, and we were seeing all the sites and being inspired by everything that we saw in Israel. I mean, to walk and see the places where the Apostle Paul spoke or the places where Jesus walked or did miracles. It was very inspiring. But I have to tell you, one of the most inspiring moments for me in this trip to Israel was in a city park. We'd gone there to eat lunch together, and we're sitting there eating lunch, and it's a normal city park. Over on the side, there's a playground, and there are a bunch of children playing. And while we're sitting there eating lunch, there's a mom and a little preschool boy. And while they were playing, the father arrived, maybe from work, I don't know, to be with them during lunch, and began to walk toward them. And the little, um, boy, the little preschooler, saw his dad from across the park, and he began to run across the green lawn in the park, yelling all the way, abba. Abba. Abba. Abba. And I got this picture of our relationship with God. I have great respect for God, the authority in my life, the power in my life. I am in awe of God, but I also can run into the arms of God as his child. You will change because you have a new father. You have a new relationship with your abba father, a kind of relationship that only can come through our relationship with Jesus. God is working to change your life. God is working to change you. And even in those times when you feel like, I'm never going to make it, I'm never going to change, remember, he's working to change you. He's working to change you by giving you a new nature and a new power through his spirit. And you have a new father. Let's take a few minutes to pray together. And you might just pray with me and say, father, I want to live according to the spirit, not my sinful nature. These verses tell me that when I'm having a problem in my life, a problem in my relationships, it goes back to a problem in my thinking. And so, God, I confess that I haven't been thinking straight lately. I have been allowing my thoughts to run to things that have drawn me away from you rather than close to you. So right here, right now, in this moment, I'm choosing to live life according to your spirit's power. That's how you made me to live. That's the most joyous way to live. And I praise you that you're my abba Father. I want that sense of intimacy with you. I want that sense that I can run into your arms at any time. I also want that sense of respect for you, to sense your authority, your strength that you have for my life. And so, Father, even as I pray to you as my Father, I pray you help me to learn to relate to you as my Father. In Jesus name, amen. Next week, as we continue up the mountain, we're going to talk about some of the problems we face in life. You may have somebody in your group or somebody that you know that is facing some struggle right now. Hope they come next week. We're going to talk about the hope that only God can give in the midst of our problems. Now enjoy for the next few minutes talking about your new nature and new power and the new father that God has given us through Jesus Christ.