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Christ Community Chapel is a church in Hudson, OH, that invites people to reimagine life because of Jesus. Learn more about us at ccchapel.com.
Romans 8:16–18
The Spirit Himself
bears witness with our spirit
that we are children of God,
and if children, then heirs
heirs of God and fellow heirs
with Christ, provided
we suffer with him, in order
that we may also be glorified with him.
For I consider
that the sufferings of this present time
are not worth comparing with the glory
that is to be revealed
to us.
Well,
welcome to the weekend here at Christ
Community Chapel.
We're so glad
that we get to be part of your weekend.
My name is Zach,
I'm one of the pastors here,
and we're so glad you're here.
And hey, if you're watching this on video
on Sunday,
it's because I'm out at the tent.
Thanks for being here this weekend.
We are in week
three of our four-week sermon series
we're calling More Than Religion.
It's been pretty a pretty simple series.
The focus has been on
how God is really not interested
in religious formality
or religious ritual,
but instead in us, in our hearts,
in relationship with us.
That's who he is. That's what he wants.
Two weeks ago, we talked about how God
the Father has designed us
for relationship.
He built us with that in mind.
And then last week we looked at how Jesus
Christ, his son, has earned our access
to that relationship in his life
and his death and his resurrection.
He's gone before us to prepare a room
in the father's house.
And this week, we're going to be talking
a little more practical
in terms of what
that relationship actually looks like.
What does it look like to have
a relationship with God and including
asking the question, how can you be sure
if you have a relationship with God?
So to do that, we're going to be looking
at Romans chapter eight, verse 16
through 18.
But full disclosure, this is some old
school Bible teaching we'll be all over
so I recommend just watching the screens
and writing the verses down,
and then you can look them up later.
I have three points I'm going to use
to guide our time together.
Very simple.
And they go like this three words.
Actually I want to talk about presence,
prepositions, and promise.
Okay, presence, prepositions, and promise.
All right, let's start
first with presence.
I don't know if you've ever thought
about this, but in life there are
natural relationships and what I'll call
a supernatural relationships.
I don't mean like with aliens or anything.
That's not what I mean.
What I mean is
there are some relationships
that just move forward
because you take the steps
that you're supposed to take,
and then there are others
that you just can't explain that way.
Like consider getting a job, like building
a career that's a natural relationship.
Do you want to work at a place?
You figure out what the requirements
are to work there, and you go do that.
You get a degree to unlock the door.
You get an interview,
you wear what you think they'll like.
You say the things you think they'll like.
Then you get the job
and you do the things you know
they want you to do in order to move up.
When you tell the story of your career,
it's a series of steps
you've taken, decisions
you've made, doors you have unlocked.
That's a natural relationship.
Falling in love is very different.
So if I were telling you
the story of my relationship with my wife
and I said, yeah,
I just did a lot of research about her
online, I figured out what she likes
for guys to wear
and how she likes for guys
to do their hair,
and I kind of hung out in the spaces
where she hung out and listened to
the things she talked about,
and I
kind of just observed her from a distance
and figured out what her hobbies were
like. Zach, you're describing a felony.
That's that's stalking, right?
That's because they're not the same.
Like like you want to be loved
romantically.
I want to be loved
romantically in a more supernatural way.
I mean, there are
there are obviously natural parts of it.
But I want my wife to say, you know,
I just saw you new
you know,
there was just a moment where I realized
I want there to be some something
inexplicable,
something she didn't manufacture
because getting a job and falling in love,
they're not the same kind
of relationships.
And I say that to ask this question.
Well,
which one is a relationship with God?
Is it natural?
Meaning the way you get a relationship
with God is you just put in the work.
You you take the steps,
you do the things you're supposed to do.
And over time, you unlock access to God.
Or is it a little more like
falling in love and there's just something
you can't manufacture to it?
Well, I think the answer is the latter.
It's a little more like falling in love.
And one of the places the Bible says
that is our passage this weekend.
Here's what Paul says in Romans
eight verses 16 through 18.
He says, the spirit himself bears
witness with our spirit
that we are children of God.
And if children, then heirs, heirs of God
and fellow heirs with Christ, provided
we suffer with him in order
that we may also
be glorified with him.
The the point Paul is making is here's
how you know.
He's saying you have a relationship
with God.
It's through the presence
of the Holy Spirit in your life.
Now the Bible tells us that
there's one God, but he is three persons
father, son, and spirit, one
and yet three, three, and yet one.
And if you're like, man,
that's hard to understand.
That's not a sign.
You're not getting it. It's a sign
you are getting it. Okay.
That's because I don't know
if this makes sense the way I teach it.
Like even when I teach kids,
there's nothing.
If there is a God,
there would be nothing like him, right?
He. He wouldn't
just be like a giant human in the sky.
There'd be nothing and no one like him.
And so when the Bible says God is one
and yet three, three, and yet one,
we go, man, that's hard to understand.
Yeah, but doesn't that make sense?
God would be hard to understand.
He wouldn't fit neatly in any of our boxes
or categories.
Even.
Sometimes people will be like, well,
can you give me an analogy or a metaphor?
And the answer is no, not really.
No, I can't,
because there's no one like God.
There's nothing like God.
He's one in yet three, three,
and yet one father, son and spirit.
The father designed us for relationship.
The son earned our relationship
the spirit, his presence in our lives
is the evidence
that we actually have the relationship.
To explain this, let me reference.
We won't read it, but just reference
another part of the Bible
in the book of Ezekiel.
Ezekiel was a prophet.
His job was to tell the people
what God wanted for them.
In 37 God has.
There's this vision God gives
Ezekiel of a valley of dry bones.
And the reason
why they're called dry bones
is because this is not like
a recent battle that happened there.
These are like more like Indiana Jones
archeological dig,
kind of bones like
like they're they're dry, they're dusty.
There's no organic matter on them.
That guy's kneebone is there.
And his his arm bone is there.
You get it?
It's an old scene.
And God says to his, Ezekiel,
can these bones live?
And Ezekiel does what you should do.
When God asks you a question like that,
he's like, I don't know, God.
What do you think?
And God says, watch this, basically.
And he causes the bones to come alive.
And then he tells Ezekiel, he says, hey,
one day I'm going to pour out my spirit
and I'm going to make people who are dead
come alive.
That's what Paul is talking about.
To become a Christian is not to wake up
one day and be like, you know what?
I need to get serious about my faith.
I need to take some steps towards God.
I need to modify my behavior.
No, no, no. It's not like getting a job.
To become a Christian is to experience
the presence of the Spirit of God.
Your story would go like this
I was dry bones.
I was dead, and then I came alive.
To be a Christian is not a natural
relationship.
It's a supernatural relationship.
Now that begs the question, of course,
for you to say, well, wait a minute.
Hold on.
How how do I know if I have that?
Because,
you know, every survey that comes out,
they'll say 80% of Americans
or so will say that they're Christians.
But I don't think that's what they mean.
I don't think 80% of Americans are going,
I was dead and I came alive,
like I am experiencing the presence
of the Holy Spirit of God.
I think what they mean is
I get up and go to church,
and I stand when they tell me to and sit
when they tell me to.
And I try to live generously
and keep the rules.
And so how do I know if I have
this presence of the Spirit of God?
Well, that's my second point.
Not just the presence of the Holy Spirit,
but prepositions.
I have four prepositions
I think the Bible would use to describe
what the presence of the Holy Spirit
is like in your life,
and then you can work through
hey, have I experienced this now?
I think these are all prepositions.
If you're an English teacher
and I'm wrong,
I have to do this a bunch of times
this weekend, so come see me.
But whatever they are,
I needed to start with P.
Okay, so just replace it with a p word.
So prepositions for prepositions
I want to talk about on, in,
for and through on in for and through.
All right. Let's start with on.
The first job of the Holy Spirit
is to work on us
externally in to to cause us to see that
we're dead
bones, to see our need for God.
This is the way Jesus describes it in
John 16.
It'll be on the screen. Here's
what it says.
And when he he hears the Holy Spirit,
and when he comes,
Jesus says he will convict the world
concerning sin and righteousness
and judgment concerning sin,
because they do not believe in me
concerning righteousness,
because I go to the father,
and you will see me no longer concerning
judgment,
because the ruler of this world is judge.
Jesus says
that the first job of the Holy Spirit
is to awaken people to the reality
that they have sinned against God,
that they're under God's judgment,
that they're in rebellion to God,
and they're in need of a remedy to that.
Listen here.
Here's the way
I would say it in like our experience,
sometimes people will say to me,
Pastor Zach, when you were preaching,
it was like you were talking to me.
That's the spirit working on you.
I don't know what's going on in your life.
I'm not in my office like that guy.
Third row, little to the left.
This is going to nail him, right?
I, I don't I don't have that kind
of infrastructure, that kind of network.
That's the spirit.
Sometimes people will say,
I don't know why, but when I come,
I just get super emotional.
That's the work of the spirit.
I'll give it to you this way.
At one time
I was meeting this, this really bright
young woman in downtown Cleveland.
We were
she was curious about Christianity.
I was pastoring in Cleveland.
We were talking
and she was a doctor, very bright.
And and one day she we were meeting was
like the fifth of fifth or sixth meeting.
And she asked me a question
that I couldn't
I didn't have a great answer to,
and it frustrated me.
Her name was Karen, and I just said,
Karen, let me ask you a question.
Why do you meet with me?
And she's like, I don't know.
And I said, you're you're smarter than me.
You're more educated than me.
And I thought at some point she'd jump in
and be like, no, no, you're pretty smart.
But she was just like, yep, yep.
And I said, why do you keep meeting me
in this coffee shop to talk about Jesus?
And she looked at me
and she said, I don't know.
I just can't let it go.
That's the spirit.
That's the spirit working on you.
Now, here's the thing.
You may have experienced this.
Sometimes that happens here in a big way.
Like I'll be preaching
or we'll be in a moment
where you can just sense God in the room.
You can sense him moving.
But but,
you know, here's what you and I know on
is not enough because it goes away,
you know,
we'll experience this incredible moment,
and then the service ends
and somebody goes, what's for lunch?
And it's like, it's gone.
You know,
it's like we've turned the page, right?
So it's not just on that's on.
Here's the second one in.
Now this is where the real change happens.
Not on us having us go. Man.
I feel like maybe I'm at odds with God.
I feel like I need some solution
for God in
is when who I am begins to change.
Like the
things I want, the things I value,
the way I feel about God, the way I feel
about Jesus, everything begins to change.
This is how Paul describes
this in the Book of Titus.
It'll be on the screen.
He says this.
He says he saved us.
Listen, not because of works
done by us in righteousness,
not a natural relationship,
but according to his own mercy,
by the washing of regeneration
and renewal of the Holy Spirit,
whom he poured out on us
richly through Jesus Christ our Savior.
Here's what Paul saying.
He's saying our relationship with God
is not like getting a job.
He said, we didn't dry bones.
Don't wake up one day and say,
you know what I want to do today?
I'm going to come alive.
And we don't do that with God.
Instead, what happens is
the spirit begins to work in us.
And you may have experienced this,
you start finding.
I used to think all this stuff was silly,
and now people tell me all the time,
I'll say, when did you become a Christian?
And they'll go, maybe this is your story.
They'll go, I don't know.
I mean, I started coming,
I thought it was crazy,
and then I was coming
and I didn't believe, but I was curious.
And then I was coming and
I didn't believe, but I was interested.
And then one day I woke
up and I was like, oh, no,
I believe this stuff.
That's the spirit working in you.
One of my favorite stories
is another really bright
young woman I was meeting with
in Cleveland, who her name was Alex.
She had just become a Christian
and we were talking that day.
We got coffee together
and and we were talking about
what it means to follow Jesus.
And she had just become a Christian.
And I said, you know, I was just trying
to wrap it up and get home.
And I said,
what are you doing this weekend?
And she said, oh,
there's this big party on campus.
And, and I'm going to go,
there's a guy I'm interested
in, and I'm hoping we're going to hook up,
which I really appreciated because
no one ever tells pastor stuff like that.
Everybody I know,
all they do is read the Bible and pray
and, you know, so I was just glad
someone was treating me like a human.
But then I was like,
oh man, I'm going to have to tell her
what Jesus says about that.
And she is going to stop calling herself
a Christian after like 18 hours.
And I just said, hey, Alex, do you mind if
I tell you what Jesus said about that?
She said, no.
And I took 30 minutes to walk her
through a biblical understanding
of sexuality and, and covenant
and and all that.
And at the end I said, what do you think?
And she looked at me.
I'll never forget it.
She looked at me, big smile on her face.
She said, well, it looks like I'm going
to have to make new plans for the weekend.
And I said, really?
And she goes, listen, I can't explain it.
I love Jesus.
Whatever he wants is what I think is best.
How do you explain that?
You don't, you don't.
She she didn't decide in 36 hours
to become a new person.
The spirit wasn't just on her,
but he was working in her heart and in her
mind, changing what she wanted, changing
what she valued, changing who she was.
Not at a natural way,
but a super natural way.
Here's the third one.
You're going to love this if you don't
know this, not just on and in, but for.
This is one of my favorite verses
in all of the Bible.
Here's what Paul says in Romans eight,
just a little bit later than our passage.
He says this.
Likewise,
the spirit helps in our weakness,
for we do not know what to pray
for as we ought, but the Spirit himself
intercedes for us with groanings
too deep for words.
And he who searches hearts knows
what is the mind of the spirit,
because the spirit intercedes for
the saints according to the will of God.
Here's a Paul saying, The Holy Spirit does
a number of things for you.
You don't even know he's doing,
one of which is he prays for you.
Things you would pray
if you knew what was coming.
Think about that.
The Holy Spirit is praying for you.
Things you would pray so you don't know
when the next big thing is coming, right?
You don't know
when the diagnosis is coming.
You don't know when the career
is going to take a turn,
when the relationship
is going to dissolve.
But he does, and he's praying for you.
Things
you don't even know on and in and for.
How do you make God
pray for you to himself?
You don't.
He does it.
It's not natural. It's supernatural.
Here's the fourth one.
On and in and for and through acts one
eight, Jesus says this to his disciples.
He says, but you will receive power
when the Holy Spirit has come upon you,
and you will be my witnesses
in Jerusalem, and all Judea and Samaria,
and to the ends of the earth.
Jesus says, here's what's going to happen.
I'm going to tell the whole world
what I've done,
and I'm going to do it through you.
You see, one of the evidences
of my own relationship with God
is that you get something from what I say,
when when I'm up here
helping you understand
the Bible says that coming from me.
It's like I went to school.
It's not because I have some natural gift.
Anything meaningful that's accomplished
is because what the spirit
is doing through me.
Here's all I'm trying to say.
A relationship with God
is not coming to church
and trying hard and doing the right thing.
A relationship with God is dead, bones
coming alive
because the Spirit of God is on us, in us,
for us and through us we.
We live a life full of his presence.
Is that what you mean?
Because it's possible that you're sitting,
you going, man,
you know, I, I do all the right things,
but but I don't have that.
Like, that is not my experience.
And I would just ask you to consider
if maybe
the first sign of the spirit
working on you
is to help you see that,
to awaken you to that, to say you're
you have a natural relationship with me,
but that that isn't what I want.
I want a supernatural one.
But if you're here and you're a Christian,
you say,
well, no, I have experienced the presence
of the Holy Spirit.
I just wish I experienced it more.
Do you ever feel that like.
Like, yeah. Yeah, he's worked on me,
but I wish more.
He's worked in me,
but I wish I was changing more.
He's done things through me,
but I wish more.
Listen, if that's how you feel,
I just want to end with encouragement.
So my third point is promise.
If you
wish that the Holy Spirit was more present
in your life, that's good.
I don't want to talk you out of that.
I want you to want that.
I want you to want him to use you.
I want you to want him to change you.
I want you to be as awake
and alive to the presence
of the Holy Spirit in your life
as is humanly possible.
I want that for you. But.
But here's the danger.
You might focus on
what you don't have more than you do.
Here's what I mean.
Paul says, the Spirit of God testifies
to our spirit that we are children.
In other words, here's what he says.
You're looking at the wrong thing.
Sure you want more of the Holy Spirit,
so do I.
But he says, but if you have any,
that means you're a child of God.
Paul writes it this way in Ephesians.
He says it this I love this.
That's what he says in him you also,
when you heard the word of truth, the
gospel of your salvation,
and believed in him, were sealed
with the promised Holy Spirit,
who is the guarantee of our inheritance
until we acquire possession of it
to the praise of his glory.
That word guarantee means down payment.
In other words, here's what Paul is saying
if the spirit has worked
on you, in you, for you, through you. Yes.
You want more? Yes,
you wish you were doing more.
But if he's done any. Here's
what Paul says.
That is the proof positive
you're having bound.
In other words, let me just get
really real with you for a second.
Let's just take something very common.
Let's say you have a problem.
Another kids in the room.
So I'll say it this way.
Let's say you have a problem with looking
at websites you wish you didn't look at,
and you hate it.
I hate it, you're shamed.
You're guilty.
You hate it.
You know, it grieves God.
You know it's not what he wants for you.
You know, it's
probably robbing you of the closeness
you're meant to have with him.
You hate it.
And I don't want you to not hate it.
That's not.
I'm not trying to talk you out of that.
I want you to hate it.
But I want you to realize something.
Years ago,
you were looking at the same websites
and you didn't hate it.
People all over the world
look at those websites.
They don't hate it.
So you wish you hated it more.
And I wish that for you, too.
But you're forgetting your dry bones.
If you hate it at all,
it's because of the Spirit of God in you.
See, we all wish we were better.
We all wish we were more like Jesus.
And I want you to wish that.
But have you ever stopped to say,
but if all I am are bones,
let me put it this way.
Can you imagine some of the bones
God brings to life?
And as 37 and walks up to just,
I guess, one of the bone guys
and he's like pretty nuts, man.
And the guys like the guys like, yeah,
you know, I just wish I could jump higher.
You know, run faster.
A couple of tendons would go a long way,
you know.
Do you know what as he would say to him
is like, dude, I get it.
But you were dead like five minutes ago.
Brother, sister in Christ,
I know you want more.
I want more for you.
I don't want you to not want more.
I want right now you to be praying God,
but I, I want you to work on me, in me,
for me, through me more.
I want to participate in your kingdom
more.
I want I want to be holy like you more.
I want to experience conviction over sin.
I want to experience your blessing,
your gifts.
I want more,
but I hope when you do that, you
marvel at the grace of God
that you even want it at all.
And you take a second to
say to hear what Paul saying that
that in and of itself
is the down payment of the home
that is most definitely yours.
It's not a natural relationship.
You don't manufacture it,
but you can have it
if you just ask
that through the life, death
and resurrection of Jesus,
you might gain
the presence of the Spirit of God.
Let me pray for you. Father God,
thank you so much for everyone here.
Thank you for those that are awakening
to the first time that they're religious,
but they don't know anything
about the presence of the Holy Spirit
that you might show them.
You're not showing them that
to wound them, but rather to woo them,
and they might turn towards you.
And for those of us who wish we had more,
who wish we were further along,
that we wouldn't stop wishing that
and wanting that, and even participating
in the work of the spirit
to get there,
but that we would take a second to
say, God,
I can't even believe I'm alive at all.
We would marvel at the grace
we have and the evidence
that is of the future that's coming.
In Jesus name we pray. Amen.