Romans 8:14-17 - Romans (3000 Series) (Current Series)

Romans chapter 8 this evening Sunday night through the Bible Genesis the

Revelation and we come to three verses that we'll look at tonight will limit

our focus we do have a water baptism next Sunday night and Lord's Supper as

well everybody invited out to that by the way being water baptized is

something that's commanded there's reasons for it we'll explain that so if

you've never been water baptized as a Christian it'll be a night to do that

but water baptism next next Sunday night and to head into a little bit further

beyond the verses that we'll look at tonight would be to head into something

that we would have to recap in order to you know it's a it's its own choice

and so we'll we'll be content to look at verses 14 through 17 tonight would you

read them with me in your own heart for as many as are led by the Spirit of God

these are the sons of God for you did not receive the spirit of bondage again

to fear but you received the spirit of adoption by whom we cry out Abba Father

the Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of

God and if children then heirs heirs of God

enjoy the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit

joint heirs with Christ if indeed we suffer with him that we may also be

glorified with him again in chapters 6 through 8 as we've seen as we've been

through these chapters the focus here is our sanctification as Christians and in

chapter 8 the Apostle Paul he emphasizes the irreplaceable part that the Holy

Spirit plays in our sanctification and our

growth in holiness and and in Christ-likeness and he's laying that out

in this chapter and as we saw last time Paul instructs us concerning the part

that we play in our own sanctification in life and that is the importance of

not sowing to the flesh the importance of then further sowing to the spirit the

importance of recognizing that we are a debtor as Christians to live a holy life

and a

godly life and the importance of mortifying the deeds of the flesh or the deeds of the body.

And now in these verses, 14 through 17, Paul moves into a different subject having to do with our

sanctification, and it's a vital one. And the subject that he broaches here now and heads into

in earnest is, what is to be our motivation as Christians for living a holy life? What is to be

the motivation for such a life? And motivation is so important to the success of anything that we

do in life that we'll make that our our sole focus and meditation this evening. And this is

important because possessing a proper motivation related to anything is a vital key to success

in achieving any great goal in life, and certainly our sanctification is one of those

desires and goals. By far, my favorite illustration or story of the power and importance of motivation

in anything is the story about the young man who took a shortcut home late one night through a

cemetery. And he fell into an open grave, and as he's in that open grave, he couldn't get out. He

cried and cried and cried out for help. He tried to climb out, but he couldn't get out. He couldn't

get out. There's no one around to hear his cries. It'll lend him a hand. So he settled down for the

night in a dark corner of the grave to just wait until the morning. A little while later, another

person came along the same route through the cemetery, took the same shortcut home, and fell

into the same grave. He starts to do the same thing, trying to jump out, trying to claw the

sides of the grave in order to get out, shouting for help to everyone, just as the first man had

done. And suddenly, the second man heard a voice come out of the grave, and he said,

out of the dark corner of the grave, saying, you can't get out of here. But he did. And the second

young man had a motivation for getting out of that grave that the first man didn't have. And it

made all of the difference for him. And we know the same thing is true related to our own lives.

Additionally, I like the illustration of the

story of Mary Gordon. She's considered one of the greats of her profession in the last

century. And she said there was one thing she always told herself before going on the stage.

She would say, there's one person in that vast audience who has made a sacrifice to come and

hear me. And for that person, I am going to do my best. You put yourself in the place of a

entertainer, even an opera singer, or a traveling rock band, or whatever it might be. Well, that has

to become tedious over time. The same songs, the same thing every night. How do you keep yourself

motivated to do your best? And the motivation is the key. And she found that high motivation

of that one person that was there at great sacrifice, and it brought the best out in her.

So

back to that sports illustration here. And aren't we all glad that college football has started once

again? But Pat Riley is the head of, coach of five championship teams in the National Basketball

Association. And he said, there's always the motivation of wanting to win. Everybody has that.

But a champion needs in his attitude, a motivation above and beyond winning. In other words,

just pure talent or ability. What separates, here's a man that has coached the most elite

athletes in some regards in all of the sports world, but the great thing that separates the

great from the good is the possession of a higher motivation to succeed. Those are the ones

that rise far above their talent than their natural ability, and it's true, and all of that

is very, very biblical. So significant goals like our sanctification as Christians, they take time

to be achieved in our lives, and as a result, we need a motive for godliness that is substantial

enough to hold up through all of the ups and downs of a lifetime of growing in holiness as

Christians.

It's good to remember that justification, our salvation, occurs in an instant in our Christian

life, but sanctification is a process that will involve the rest of our life from that moment on

until the moment we see Christ face to face, and it's a long process that occurs in our life,

and thus the question arises, what motivation for growing in holiness, growing in sanctification,

and remain strong in our lives, and remain fresh in our lives, all the way from the moment we became

Christians, all the way to the moment that we see Jesus face to face? What motivation is strong

enough for that? And first, we need to begin, I think, where Paul does here by taking note of

motivations for holiness that will not work. They will not hold up.

Over the long haul of our Christian life and Christian sanctification, and he makes mention of a significant

one there in verse 15 when he writes, for you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, and so here Paul is

talking about a motivation that will not hold up over the long haul in this work of sanctification in our lives, and he's

talking about a fear-based relationship.

He's talking about a fear-based relationship with God, and he's talking not about the awe that we've just expressed in worship to God. He's not talking about that kind of awe and reverence and fear. Here he's talking about a servile fear, the fear of a slave toward a harsh master, and that slave, he lives under the constant fear that if he slips up or messes up at all, he's going to be punished by his master as a result.

That was the attitude of the overwhelming majority of the children of Israel at the time of Moses. You remember Moses met with God, and he met with God face to face, and he knew God. He had a personal relationship with God. The children of Israel as a whole, they lived in the dread of God, and yet they had a relationship with him, but it was a relationship based upon

a fear, a dread of God. You might remember that at the time God gave the law of Moses to Moses, the people declared to Moses, Exodus chapter 20. Now all of the people witnessed the thunderings, the lightning flashes, the sound of the trumpet, and the mountains smoking, and when the people saw it, they trembled and stood afar off, and then they said to Moses, you speak with us, and we will hear you.

But let not God speak with us, lest we die. And I think all of us can recognize that nothing, not in any environment, certainly not concerning a relationship with God, nothing thrives, and nothing thrives for any length of time in an environment of fear. Certainly no relationship is ever going to thrive or remain healthy or healthy.

Or grow healthy in an environment of fear. And yet many Christians possess a fear-based relationship with God, and they obey him out of the fear that if they make one mistake, he's going to come down on them, and he's going to judge them severely.

The problem with that motivation is, it's a misunderstanding of God, but it's a motivation for obeying God, and the problem with it is that it does produce a certain quality of life.

It does produce a certain quality of holiness, but for a very short period of time, and it will never ever hold out over the long haul, because nobody can survive that kind of a relationship.

Not even that kind of a relationship with God, that kind of a fear.

And sooner or later, most people who build their relationship with God on fear, that kind of fear,

who use that kind of fear, who use that kind of fear, who use that kind of fear, who use that kind of fear, who use that kind of fear,

this kind of fear of God as their motivation for living a holy life, ultimately they crash and burn.

Because ultimately, they simply give up on all of it.

They give up on Christianity very often, not realizing they haven't even tried Christianity,

but it was what they were told it was, and they think to themselves,

I'm not good enough to do this, I'm not strong enough to do this, and not realizing that they haven't,

experienced Christianity truly at all.

And many Christian churches and church leaders will resort to this kind of fear in people,

and in God's people, because it does show short-term results.

And so, they constantly present God as always just slightly unhappy with us,

or slightly disappointed.

Displeased with people, always keeping them kind of uncertain about God's attitude toward them,

and that they must always be doing good in order to earn God's favor,

and to be free from the fear of punishment.

And then there are others of us that don't even need a preacher to do that in our lives.

We're born with a personality, whether it's a perfectionism, or whether it is just whatever kind of thing,

just whatever kind of flaw from the fall.

We don't need anybody to instill this idea of building a relationship with God that is fear-based at all.

We bring this kind of a fear-based understanding of God into our relationship with Him, all by ourselves.

But Paul says that a servile fear, the fear of a master toward, a slave toward his master,

who lives under the constant fear, that,

if he slips up, or he messes up, he will be punished by the master as a result,

that it is an inadequate motivation for holy living.

It will never produce, in any long-lasting, enduring way,

produce sanctification or holiness in a Christian's life.

Other inadequate motivations for holiness include legalism,

or a works-based relationship with God.

I'm going to obey Him.

I'm going to give a great focus to holiness in my life,

and I'm going to sanctify myself in order to make Him indebted to me.

That if I am holy and I obey Him, then He is going to have to bless me.

A lot of people have that kind of a transactional relationship with,

with God.

But one of the many problems with that approach is that most often the legalist then ends

up developing a deeper relationship with God's commandments than they ever do with God Himself.

Because the commandments become their supreme focus, and they end up missing out on an intimate

relationship with God in their Christian life.

And it's very, very subtle.

But it happens.

There used to be a saying that I really don't like, but I'm going to say it, so that's weird.

But people would talk about, and they would kind of, I didn't like it because they misapplied

it.

They applied it to the Bible, and they would talk about, for some people, there are four

persons of the Godhead.

God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, and God the Holy Bible.

And I don't like it.

I don't like it.

There are obvious reasons, because the Bible is what allows us to be in proper relationship

with everything else.

But there is, there is a truth that can be found there, where a person becomes born

again and they develop this legalistic relationship with Him, and their entire focus is on obeying

to get, and all of this becomes transactional.

And you can live in that place for decades and then miss the relationship with God.

You can miss God in Christianity.

And that's what legalism does in our lives.

Another problem with this motivation is that it puts me in the driver's seat in my relationship

with God.

So it makes me the initiator.

And it makes God the responder.

In other words, if I do this, then God will do that.

And ultimately, over the long haul, it ends up crushing us.

It burns us out, because we never quite know how good we need to be in order to earn His

blessings.

And so there is this, I do, and then He's going to do, and it is, it will wipe out even

the greatest legalist in general.

Because we never know concerning this thing that we want from God.

We never know what we have to do to earn it from Him.

And the kind of person that's attracted to that will kill themselves to try to provide

that to God.

And nobody can live under that weight because it's not what Christianity is.

It's similar to this.

Similarly, there's the same problem in terms of a motivation, same problem with greed as a

motivation for holiness. And greed is very widely used in Christian circles in order to produce

holiness in God's people, especially receiving blessings from God, especially in the area of

giving. If you give such and such an amount, then God will be forced to give you a miracle,

or He will, you give, whatever you give as a tenth or a tithe, He's going to multiply it

times ten, and you've got all of the positive confession stuff that goes on

today, which if it worked, nobody would be on TV doing it. We would all just be doing it ourselves,

and so the only people getting rich off of this thing are the people on TV getting other people

to give their tenth.

If this thing worked, they would never need to be on TV, they would have all that they could ever

want or ever need. It doesn't make any sense at all, where we obey out of the motive of getting

something from God. The problem with this is that God won't play that game, and the reason He won't

is a motive of love, really, on His part. He will not reinforce that kind of a misunderstanding of

Christianity.

You will not destroying anything that's slope you off to having that good performance.

You will not humiliate anyone who will deal that way with any还有 like a diamond in the

dartox, alipay, by blessing it, because here you have the person who is not being obedient to God

out of love, or out of gratitude, or response to God, but out of greed that is a love for

themselves, love from material things, out of selfishness.

And it's pure carnality,

and it nurtures carnality,

of carnality, or having these kind of carnal motivations introduced into my

life as a Christian and then operating in them. Well, it can't happen. Other

motivations include the fear of man is a motivation. I live my Christian life

supremely for some other person in my life. I live my Christian life in order

to please them because I don't want to disappoint them. And how many people are

in that place? Some of us recognize these. Then there's a

motivation that won't work, the motivation of pride. I lived my Christian

life supremely out of the motive of I am going to outachieve every other

Christian that I know in life.

All I want is to be happy. Bayonetta!

of my Christian peers, and I'm going to become holy, I'm going to become

sanctified, and in order to be recognized or noticed in some way by others in the

church or by the church itself and then be applauded in some way. And pride is a

very, very strong motivation for sanctification. But again, how can

something that is at the core of all sin always provide a path to

sanctification? And then there's self-righteousness, and that's a strong

motivation for holiness. It's very much like pride, but it's without the need to

be seen by others and recognized by others. I do it for myself,

and so I endeavor to live a Christian life,

I endeavor to live a holy life solely

for

Isis and Jesus and always for

for

Muhammad and for

myself so that I, I don't care what anybody else thinks about me, but so that I can view myself

as superior to everyone else that is around me, and I can view them with a self-satisfaction

so that I can think of myself, declare of myself in terms of my outward holiness, even pray to God,

God, I thank you that I'm not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers,

or even as this tax collector, and we can be on that path, and it's a broad path in terms of

trying to achieve sanctification or holiness, and not realize that path cannot even bring me within

a hundred miles of Christlikeness, or what the Christian life is intended,

to be, and each of these things that I list here, they are simply more man-centered,

works-based motivations that are doomed to failure in the long run. They can never produce

true holiness in a person's life, not only because they won't be able to withstand the test of time

for any length of time, but because they look nothing like Christ,

Christ. How can I achieve Christlikeness on paths and by means that look nothing like Him at all?

And Jesus, of course, being the definition, the embodiment of holiness, the definition of

holiness in the Christian life. Well, that then raises the question, is there a motivation for

holy living in our lives as Christians? That is, is there a motivation for holy living in our lives

as Christians? Is there a motivation for holy living in our lives as Christians? Is there a

motivation for holy living in our lives as Christians? First of all, unlike these other

motivations, holy in itself, and then second, is inexhaustible as a motivation. Is there a motivation

for this Christian life and growth and sanctification that will not fail me, not in the

highs or the lows of Christianity, in the sprint of Christianity, in the marathon of Christianity,

a motivation that will hold up through all of it and never fail me? And Paul tells us that there is.

And that is the motivation of love and gratitude expressed toward God through our obedience to His

Word. And to love God and to obey God out of that love for Him in response to the love that God has

the love that He has first shown to us. And what Paul does here is he describes the love

that God has first shown to us. The motivation of response, I'm going to obey God's commandments,

grow in holiness in response to the love of God, provides me with an inexhaustible motivation

for sanctification, because His love for me, His love for us is inexhaustible.

And so, what is the love that God has shown to us first? Paul tells us in verse 15,

in adopting us into His family. You say, what? Adopted?

Adopted into His family? The Bible teaches that because of our faith in His Son, Jesus,

we have become, and God has made us His sons and His daughters. Now, that may not mean

a lot sometimes in a culture where fewer and fewer as a family member's kind of continues

its decline. You'll find fewers, and fewer and fewer. You'll find fewer and fewer, and

You find fewer and fewer. You'll find fewer and fewer. You'll find fewer and fewer. There's

and fewer good models related to a healthy family that you would long to be a part of.

I understand it very well. There's hardly a home of a friend I had all growing up

that I did not long to live in that home instead of the home that I was in. And

for good reason. You can feel that for bad reasons, but I feel like I had good reason for

that. And in my immaturity, that was the best that I could do, was just to long for it,

to see that stability, to see that health. But when we become God's children, God took

responsibility at that moment for our lives going forward. We have become His children,

and

as little as some parents may view that with so little responsibility today,

we can't impose that upon God. When we become a child of God, it occurs at His invitation,

and He makes us now His responsibility. And the word adoption, as Paul uses it here,

and he uses it in the.

And the word adoption, as Paul uses it here, and he uses it in the.

And he uses it in the.

uses it for a purpose in the context in which he writes it, in the context of the Roman Empire.

When a child was adopted, they took on all of the rights of a natural-born son. That was Roman law.

You could not adopt a child and not give them the full rights of blood sons and daughters

in that household. And God brought us into His family, and He made us His sons and daughters,

and in doing so, He gave us a fresh start, and He gave us a new name, His name, and it's amazing.

One of the things about adoption, and sometimes children are adopted at birth, sometimes they're

adopted long after birth, but one of the things about adoption is that generally,

you know a little bit more about that child that you're adopting than a child that is born into

the world from your womb or from your loins, and so you know a little bit more about what you're

getting. And when God adopted us into His family, He knew full well what He was doing when He adopted

us.

He knew us very, very well, and He knew in adopting us into His family, He was getting a

project, and He was eager to do that. And no matter where we come from in life, unhealthy

the environments might be in our life, He says, I'm going to introduce you into absolutely

supernatural health by bringing you into My family, and into My family,

as a son or as a daughter. And then when He does that, He doesn't tuck you away in some kind of a

corner, which brings us to another point that Paul makes here in verse 15. He not only brings

us into His family, but then further into a relationship with God, with Him,

and we're free to address Him and to know Him as Abba, Father. And that speaks of

someone who is in a relationship, a person that can refer to God Almighty,

and refer to Him as Abba, and as Father, speaks to the kind of confidence that a child has, us,

do in that relationship with God, and the highest form of confidence.

God doesn't bring us into his family and then fix us up a little bit before we get introduced into the rest of the family,

bring us into his family and put us into a corner until we're ship-shaped for being identified as one of his sons or as his daughters.

It's interesting.

All of this is interesting territory for me.

I was never adopted, but I spent a lot of time in foster homes growing up.

And the stepfather that my twin brother and I had, it seemed to me, and even looking back all these years,

that he made it a point to remind us that in every way that he could, that we were not his children.

And that was our childhood, and that was our youth.

So I know the difference between being brought into that kind of a family and a household and the one that God brings us into.

God immediately identifies himself with us, lets us take on his name and looks after us.

I remember Karen and I were walking the dogs in Sonoma some months ago,

and we passed by a house that I spent a year in.

And my brother and I is a foster home.

And the foster homes we wanted to stay in, they were, we got moved right along on it,

probably because we destroyed their property.

We were just, we were savages, just savages.

And, but the people who were in it for the money, they hung on.

And those were the toughest environments.

And I remember we spent a year.

I think it was either second or third grade, in that particular, particular home.

And we never ate a meal in that whole year with the man or the woman, or with the family.

Never swam in the pool.

Never were invited into the same room as they were invited in on their Sunday dinners and all of that.

And yet God, and I,

surely we were a mess.

I get all of that.

But here is God brings us into his family, takes all of that on,

and then treats us as a son and as a daughter right from the start.

And then not only gives us permission to, but encourages us to call him Abba,

to call him and know him as father, to call him our dad.

And Abba is Aramaic, the language of the common man in Israel's, in Israel, in Jesus's day.

Father is Pater.

It was Greek for father, as Paul uses them here in writing the letter.

Abba literally means Papa or daddy.

And daddy is a wonderful, wonderful thing for a child to be able to feel free to speak to their father.

And it speaks of a beautiful intimacy.

And the relationship, it speaks of a confidence in that relationship that not only blesses the father,

but is even a greater blessing to the child.

No unhealthy self-consciousness in the relationship.

No sense of, in a negative way of, I'm not worthy of this.

It would be presumptuous of me to use these kinds of terms of intimacy toward him,

or to think that he would care for me the way,

that these words kind of would imply.

Every Jew under the influence of the Old Testament,

they would call, they would know God as father,

but no Jew ever dreamed of referring to him as Abba, as daddy.

And when children are small, they call their father daddy.

And then they grow into their teens and their adult year.

And then typically it becomes dad,

probably because we lock them in a cask.

And put a lid on it during the difficult years.

But it gives way.

Daddy gives way to dad for the most part.

But it can be dad on the lips,

but it can still be daddy in the heart.

And in Abba, there is this intimacy.

It's an intimacy with God at God's initiation

that is to mark our lives from intimacy

to full maturity as a Christian.

We will never outgrow it.

Every once in a while, it doesn't happen often.

So that's probably why it gets my attention.

But every once in a while,

you will run into a full grown adult

who still calls their dad, daddy.

And it just stops me in my tracks when I hear that.

They still call him even into adult life.

Daddy, and here that comfort,

that expression of how they view the relationship with him,

the intimacy of it, the freedom within it,

the confidence within that relationship.

And as long as we feel it inside,

we don't have to say daddy, but that we realize

that I'm special to him and to know he is special to me.

And then in verse 16,

not only have we been made a child of God,

but the Holy Spirit bears witness with our spirit

that we are children of God.

The thing that happens when we're born again,

the Holy Spirit comes into our lives.

We not only come to know God as father,

but we now call him father.

We now call him father.

And now when we now call him father

for the first time in our lives, it feels right.

And why does it feel right?

Because the first time in our lives,

it is right in our lives.

Did any of you ever call God the father

before you became a Christian?

Well, we would never do it.

I mean, even if we were inclined,

I mean, there's no relationship, it doesn't fit.

It's not right.

But the moment God comes into our lives, we're born again.

And there is that recognition by the Holy Spirit

that we've been adopted into his family.

We have become his child.

And now we speak of him as father God or God the father.

We're born again as a father effortlessly.

And without any self-consciousness at all.

I mean, probably every single time when I open up

or close a prayer related to being up in front here

or in prayer anywhere, I begin the prayer by saying,

father, a heavenly father.

You hear people praying this all of the time

when they pray to the father without any consciousness,

no consciousness at all, related to it.

And it's the witness of the Holy Spirit to just say,

now it's right.

Now it fits and it's right

because that's what has happened in our lives.

He has become our father.

So you have, sometimes you have people pray

and I don't have any problem with this.

Where people will pray to God the father

and they will say, they'll call him everything, but father.

They'll call him everything but father.

Oh, sovereign Lord of the creator of the heavens

and the earth and all of that is great

because he is that and there is a place for all of that.

But the marvel is not that he is the sovereign God

and that he is the creator of the heavens and the earth,

but he has found a way to become my father

and to become your father and to make us his children.

What we ascribe to God by calling him father is astonishing

and it's beautiful and it makes us love him all the more.

The apostle John wrote in John chapter one, verse 12,

but as many as received him, that is Jesus,

to them he gave the right to become children of God,

those who believe in his name.

Paul continues here in verse 17 in terms of the blessings

that we respond to the love of God,

that we respond to as a motivation for obeying him,

that we've become heirs of God.

That is being a child of God means

that I've become a part of his family.

Being an heir means I am now included in that family forever.

I'm written into the will.

When we become a Christian, we never have to worry

that he's going to write us out of the will

or he's going to write us out of the book of life

or he's going to cast us off or he's going to disown us.

We are now included in his family forever.

And then just when you think it can't get any more

mind boggling, it absolutely does in verse 17, we have,

become also joint heirs with Christ.

All that Jesus is in terms of everlasting life

and all that is created will become ours as well.

And there's a mystery here,

but I think the single great thing Paul is wanting

to get across in this great statement in this context

is the absolute confidence we can put in our salvation,

that it's a sure thing.

And which not only blesses us now,

but it will bless us just as surely.

And the life eternal that awaits each of us as Christians.

And Paul talks about each of these things elsewhere

in the New Testament, but the reason he brings them up here

in the context of our sanctification is to prime the pump

of our remembrance concerning what God has first done for us

out of his love for us.

So that we can be reminded that the highest motivation

for holy living and sanctification and obedience

to God's commandments is to do so out of a response

to the heart of love of God toward us,

how good he has been to us, how faithful he has been to us

and to obey him then out of a heart of love

and gratitude toward him.

And Christianity is a response.

It's an obedient life lived in response

to what God has first done for us.

The apostle John put it in,

is as good as you can put it anywhere, of course.

First John chapter four, verse 19,

we love him because he first loved us.

Christianity is a response to what God has first done for us.

It's modeled famously in the book of Ephesians,

in the New Testament, very structure and the outline

of the entire book of Ephesians is intended

to communicate this very thing.

And you have the first three chapters of the book

of Ephesians talk all about what God has first done for us

and all that he has done for us in Christ Jesus.

We're chosen, we're predestined, we're redeemed,

we're forgiven, we're sealed by the Holy Spirit.

We have resurrection.

We have power.

We've been saved into a infinitely superior life.

We have the promise of heaven.

We've been made members of the family

known as the body of Christ.

We have access to heaven through prayer

and all of these things he just rouses with

for three chapters.

And only after telling us all that God has first done for us

does then the apostle Paul by the Holy Spirit

now begin in chapter four to speak to us about what he knows

we will want to know.

And that is these final three chapters are instruction

in terms of how, what is a proper response

of someone who wants to respond in an appropriate way

to God for all that he has first done for us.

And that's why it begins with now, therefore,

now walk worthy.

And the problem is, and it's very common in Christianity.

I think it's less common now.

In American Christianity,

it was very, very common decades ago.

And the idea was on almost all teaching of God's people

was to talk about now, therefore, walk worthy.

We would jump right into chapter four of Ephesians

and constantly be telling people

what they ought to do for God,

how they ought to live for God,

without ever laying the foundation

of what God has first done for us

and providing us with this high motivation now

for obeying him and for longing for a proper response

to the love that he's first shown us.

And it is to have everything completely backwards.

Even the book of Romans models the same thing.

The first 11 chapters of Romans,

the very book that we're in,

11 chapters of this is what God has done for you.

And only then in chapter 12 through chapter 16

does he then tell us now,

now here is a proper response in terms of sanctification

and obedience to what God has first done for you.

And God never loses sight.

Not even in the structure of the letters.

Just being written by the Holy Spirit,

by the Apostle Paul includes the structure

for the motivation for sanctified living.

The response to God's love is a motivation

for obedience and holiness.

It'll always produce a degree of holiness and sanctification

that legalism never can produce

and that guilt and condemnation being heaped upon us

can never produce and that a fear-based relationship

with God can never produce.

The Apostle Paul declared of his own life,

he said in 2 Corinthians 5, verse 14,

"'For the love of Christ,

merci,

and shepherday was."

Just Richardson,

where's he?

To a lot of people,

he could not be found.

He could not be

but he said,

for the love of Christ,

he just clean up that mess

a little bit more now,

you understand?

He also says,

for the love of Christ,

he lost sight of two things.

He lost how to say They nicknamed me,

in his calling and he says, you know the reason I didn't just chuck the whole thing up and I

continued from the beginning to the end is that God provided me with a motivation for

sanctification and faithfulness to him that is greater than anything they heaped out on me in

any city in those three missionary journeys. And as a love of God in my life, it is the love of

Christ that constrains me. And the word constrain means to laid hold of. It has laid hold of me

and it has produced in me what legalism never could. And Paul knew all about legalism. He knew

all about guilt. He knew all about fear as motivations in a relationship with God.

And he said, this is what took me where none of those things could ever dream of taking me.

And in fact, I would contend that the heart of God is the heart of God.

hardest thing in the world to sin against is love. It's not law. You can sin against law

without a single emotion, but to sin against love, a love another person has shown to me,

that's the hardest thing in the world compared to law, to willfully sin and take advantage of a

person who really loves you. I remember many years ago, Karen and I were dating and having

all of those wonderful conversations that you have when you're dating and getting to know one

another. And she made the statement that the thing that caused her to obey her mother in her youth,

when she could have readily done whatever she wanted, gone off and lived a life that would

have broken her mother's heart. And was her love for her mother,

because of her mother's love for her. And I think that over the long haul of growing

and sanctification and our relationship with God, this is what must ultimately rise to the top. And

ultimately, it does rise to the top, because no other motivation is going to carry us. When we

mess up and we fail God and he forgives us and he gives us a fresh start,

he gives us the grace to carry on. And to do that, God has given us a heart and a heart

And He doesn't put a dunce cap on our head and put us in the corner somewhere,

and He certainly doesn't abandon us.

And after a while, we just start to feel like a heel

if we sin willfully against His heart.

We're so humbled by His love and so grateful for how good He's been to us

that now we choose to obey, not to escape His discipline,

but because His love has humbled us.

And we love Him, and we want to use our obedience to express that love to Him.

And as Jesus said, if you love me, keep my commandments.

And we say, Lord, I love you.

And if that's the way that I can express my love toward you,

is by keeping your commandments, then I will do that.

And sanctification then is a byproduct of all of that.

And now our motivation for living a life of holiness becomes the health,

of our relationship with God.

We don't want to break His Father's heart toward us

by sinning against that heart.

Someone has said concerning temptation and sin,

it takes a passion to conquer a passion.

It takes a passion to conquer a passion.

And it's true.

The key to sanctification,

is not to hate sin more,

but to love Jesus more.

The key to sanctification is not to hate sin more,

but to love Jesus more.

And to come to a place in my life

where my relationship with Him

becomes more important to me

than any sin in my life.

And I don't think any of us will experience

a victorious Christian life

until that relationship,

becomes more important to us

than anything else in life.

And sometime back I,

and I close with this,

I listened to a pastor that I have tremendous respect for.

And he was sharing at a pastor's conference

and I was listening on a download of it.

And he scorned the idea of a pastor asking someone

who had come into counseling,

can you tell me a little bit about

your devotional life with God?

And he made a mockery.

He made a mockery of a pastor ever asking something like that.

And he flatly stated that that was nobody's business.

And I thought to myself,

I disagree very, very strongly.

And when someone comes in to see me

related to counseling,

I don't ask everyone I counsel

about their devotional life with God.

But I do ask it when someone sees me

about sin that is dominating.

Their life as a Christian.

And I do so because I know that if they don't care

about their relationship with God yet,

enough to invest time in nurturing

and deepening that relationship with a devotional life,

then they are without the single greatest motivation

for holy living.

And that is to obey God's commandments,

but to have such a relationship with God

that that relationship becomes out of a love for him.

The relationship does not mean enough to them yet

to provide out of that relationship with him

what's more important to them than any sin in the world.

And thus, if that isn't in place,

then that's very often where I will begin.

And it's not the only thing that I'll say

takes a passion a passion for god to overcome a passion a passion for sin and long-lasting

sanctification and holy living always begins with the developing a deep meaningful relationship with

god that i come to treasure and to love more than anything else in life and certainly any sin

in my life and that includes daily devotional time and staying in fellowship with other christians

reading the bible listening to worship music prayer all of these kind of of things that cause

that relationship to become the most important thing in my life well we're americans

so

we like shortcuts if we can have an end without the whatever that is required the effort or the

all of that to get to the end somebody just write a book to tell us how to do that to skip

all of these um toilsome uh season between now and the end that uh that i want and so

we want to have a short cut and we want to have a short cut and we want to have a short cut and

have sanctification, but somehow we think that victory over sin in the victorious Christian

life will somehow happen independent of growing and growing deeper in my relationship with

the Lord, and it will never, ever happen.

And then it becomes a great frustration to Christians because they don't understand why

God isn't doing what I want Him to do, but it's me not willing to do and to give Him

the place in my life that He demands in the Christian life.

And so in terms of our motive for sanctification and holy living,

as Christians, we need to be able to do that.

As Christians, God has provided us with the very highest motivation.

He has provided us with an inexhaustible motivation for holy living, and that is to obey Him and

to serve Him out of a response to the immeasurable love and grace He's shown us and continues

to show to us.

And this is important because possessing a proper motivation,

is an absolutely vital key to success in any area of life, and including our sanctification.

And so let's stand together now, and we'll close in prayer.

Father, you made this possible.

Make it all really quite simple in terms of understanding.

We see the logic of it.

We see how one thing must lead into another.

We not only see that shortcuts can't be taken here, but that they must not be taken.

That the process is important, growing in our understanding of you.

Walking with you.

Experiencing your grace.

Your forgiveness over and over and over again in our lives.

Until, any kind of a casual attitude towards sin or rebellion against you or disobedience,

it shames us, and it makes us, doesn't produce within us a cowering in your presence to sin,

or rebellion against you or disobedience.

Especially, in times of hardship.

presence, but it produces a great concern for the harm that it can do to our

relationship with you and our desire not to harm the greatness and the purity and

the beauty of your heart toward us and your love toward us. And I pray and we

pray for one another that you would use this time in your Word tonight to burn

away, not just wash away, burn it away, every faulty motivation for holy living

and sanctification that cannot hold up, that will fail us, that will lead us into

a problem.

place of either pride or perpetual condemnation. And then, Lord, show us, as needed, our next step

for how sanctification occurs on this path. To notice your love, to notice your grace,

to begin to value the relationship in your heart, in your place in the relationship,

in a way that we never have before, and always in a greater measure the longer that we walk with you.

We pray that you would continue to sanctify this important area of motivation in the Christian life

through your word tonight. Thank you, Father, for supplying us with the power of your Holy Spirit,

the instruction of your word, and then the highest motivation of all for walking with you

and obeying you.

Obeying you, your love for us. Thank you for your unfailing love, and we thank you in Jesus' name.

Amen. If you're here this evening and you are not yet a Christian, we'll be up in front immediately

after the service, and we'd love to answer your questions about how to become a Christian

this evening by putting your faith in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.

If you need prayer for anything tonight, we'd love to pray with you and for you as well.

Mike, would you pray with me?

Would you close us up now?