Romans – The Play Part 6

Alright, now we’re going to go on. He now presses His consolation and comfort for you. And I’m going through this verse forever, so join me in verse 13. He passes now from the flesh into a new subject: once again, the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Verse 12:

“So then, brethren, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh.” And he never did say, “But we are under obligation to the Spirit to walk according to the Spirit.” And I’m glad he didn’t say that. Because that word obligation would probably put one of you under the pile, he stopped. And now he changes the subject.

“For if you are living according to the flesh, you are about to die. But if you are living according to or by the Spirit, you are putting away the deeds of the body, and you will live.”

Now, then, brothers and sisters, if the Holy Spirit is in you, therefore you are in the Holy Spirit, and you will put away the deeds of the flesh. I’d like to go back to the other night. The deeds of the flesh are often listed in Scripture, and they are never pastel things like depression, low self-esteem, discouragement, or anxiety. They are “murder.” You’re not anxiety in your flesh. You murder with your flesh. Lying. Stealing. Cheating. Big old ugly things. Drunkenness. Addiction. These are things of the flesh that even the unbeliever can put away and put out of his life. And if the Spirit of God dwells in you, you will put these things away. Isn’t that simple? You will do it as a believer who is in Christ, and Christ in you, and the Spirit is in you, and you are in the Spirit. What do you mean, Gene? “In the Spirit?” Well, you weren’t here the other night. I am in the Spirit. If the Spirit is in me, I live in the eyes of God. I live in another realm.

Alright, now verse 14: “For all who are being led by the Spirit of God are the sons of God.”

Now then, how many of you believe the Bible is the Word of God? How many of you believe you ought to believe everything that’s in the Bible? Oh, good, I know you do. Then is this passage for you? For all who are being led by the Spirit of God—these are the sons of God. The word “sons of God” should not be taken lightly as metaphorical. You’ve got to believe, first of all, that there is a race, a genetic race of gods. Head for the door. What is this guy doing? Well, I didn’t say that. That’s what Jesus Christ said, and He was quoting an Old Testament passage that His Father had said.

I have often told a little story about after the Lord comes and the world is made new, and there’s a new earth and a new heaven. A spaceship comes down from some other part of the galaxy, and a little green child with little antennas looks out the window. And he sees this beautiful planet, and he says to his daddy, he says, “Daddy, what is that planet?” And the daddy says, “That’s where the gods live. That’s where God the Father lives. And that’s where Jesus Christ, the Son of God, lives.” And He has called me brother, Amen? And the Father has called me son. Is this true? Do I call Him Father? He calls me son. I call Him Father. Jesus calls me brother. I’m about to find out what the Holy Spirit’s doing here in just a minute, but I am metaphorically a son of God? No. I am not. Now, I am not a begotten son of God. I am an adopted son of God, but I have got some kind of adoption that will go beyond any other. Any of y’all orphans? Any of y’all? Have you been adopted? We’ve got one here, that’s all, but usually it’s three or four.

Man, listen, this is adoption that puts past everything. This is the adoption of not only you as a body, but you are given something that ordinary adoption cannot; you are given the life of your adopted Father, the actual – that is correct, you are given through His Son—the actual genetic lineage of divinity. You become partakers of divine life. Now that’s wonderful, is it not? But what good is it if you don’t know it? What good is it if you only know it intellectually? And this is the ministry of the Holy Spirit.

Now listen to me, because actually, in everything we’re talking about tonight, we’re really discussing this gap between how you feel and how you look at yourself, and how God sees you. And here’s the ministry of the Holy Spirit. And we have been so encouraged concerning our flesh. Now we’re being encouraged concerning our sonship.

Okay, I’m a son of God. What does that mean? Is that a metaphor? I am saved; therefore, God treats me like a son? No. God sees you, and sees me, today as more His genetic child than He sees you as the child of your earthly father. In His eyes, you are far more in the lineage of one who has partaken of divinity than one who has partaken of humanity. Now, that’s how He sees you. That’s how the Son sees you. That’s how the Spirit sees you. That’s how the angels see you. They are reverenced by you, but you, being caught in time and space, and having had a history of sin and so forth, and so forth, and so forth, and in the weakness of your flesh, to be told that you are a son of God is virtually worthless. It is worthless. It is of no good to you. Intellectually, you will never get it. You will never hold on to it. But—

If you will study your Bible, and pray, and tithe, and witness, and go to a building and be good and be very, very good, you will still not feel like you’re a son of God. You will feel that you’re under the view of performance and that if you stop performing, you’re going to lose whatever status, I’m not talking about your salvation, whatever good standing you have with God. But if you are led by the Holy Spirit, you have a witness—not your own—that you are a child of God. A witness from another realm, a witness from a higher source, that you are a child of God. The Holy Spirit is as picky as He can be about who He leads. He does not lead the sons of darkness or the sons of men. I don’t doubt that the Holy Spirit speaks to everyone at some time or other. That’s not what I’m talking about. This is not what Paul is talking about, excuse me – we are speaking concerning being led.

Now, you all know how to be led as Christians. You were taught in Bible school. It goes like this: and all unbelievers will be cast into the pit forever and forever. What is that, someone told me the other day, that we have three witnesses—one is the something, and one is something else, and one is the Bible, and I don’t know what it was, but it was just so terribly intellectual. But Paul does not qualify the statement. He’s not afraid of it. He is not afraid of an internal relationship here. He is actually pushing it to an extreme in order to help our weakness.