A pastor used to counsel a young
man who was struggling with alcohol-addiction.
What the young man did not realise was that the pastor saw out the
window and watched him hide his beer before they talked. Then, after the man had told the pastor how
much he wanted to be free from drinking, the man would collect his beer
again. Now the pastor did not doubt the
sincerity of that young man. , but he could see that that his addiction had
control of him. This got the pastor
thinking: ‘Where does really power to change come from?’ He came to believe in the power of love to
change people.
As we look at this passage of
Scripture, I want you to feel that you are secure and loved. No child can thrive if they do not feel
secure and loved. Similarly, no
Christian will grow if they don’t feel secure and loved.
You
are secure in Christ
‘Therefore, there is now no
condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus’ (1).
Notice that he does not say,
‘there is no sin in those who are Christ Jesus.’ John tells us that if we say that we have no
sin, we lie and the truth is not in us (1 John 1:7). We are God’s failing and imperfect people,
yet we are never condemned. Does that
mean that God loves me even when I am sinning?
Absolutely! You are as much a son
or daughter of God when you are sinning as when you are obeying.
In verses two to four, Paul
explains how God accepts sinful people like us.
He says that being good cannot make us right with God because of the
sinful nature. Isaiah tells us that our
righteous deeds are like filthy rags (64:6).
Everything we do is stained by self-centredness and pride. Trying to earn God’s acceptance by being good
is as pointless as trying to wash a white shirt with hands covered in oil. It’s as ridiculous as throwing our dirty
laundry at the sky and shouting at God, ‘accept me because of these.’ But what we could not do, because of sin, God
has done for us in Jesus. Jesus lived
the perfect life and died a sacrificial death for our guilt. Therefore, those who have submitted to
Christ’s love and leadership are counted righteous.
You
can be changed by the Spirit
Am I telling you that obedience
does not matter? Not at all! If you have submitted to the love and
leadership of Jesus, you will want to change.
Two things combine to change us: seeing God’s and being empowered by
God’s Spirit.
Verses five to eleven talk about
the effect of the Holy Spirit on us.
Paul tells us that without the Holy Spirit we are hostile to God. People claim to admire Jesus. But often they admire Jesus as simply a good
moral teacher. When they hear Jesus say
that there is no good news for good people they resist his gospel of grace
(Mark 2:17). There is no more obvious
evidence of hostility to the God of grace than the claim, ‘I am a good person.’
The reverse is also true. Grace is for those who know they have a
problem with personal evil.
Acknowledging our guilt and wanting a relationship with the God whose
Son died for our guilt is evidence that the Holy Spirit is striving with
us. A desire to become like Jesus and so
please our Heavenly Father is evidence of the Holy Spirit within us. Our Father wants to move us from the place of
sorrow over our sin to rejoicing in his forgiveness and love.
Indeed, a lingering sense of
guilt inhibits growth as a Christian.
Trust God’s promises to forgive and live in the beauty of his
grace. Another thing that hinders our
growth is the lie that we cannot change.
Maybe our battle with lust or bitterness has lasted so long, and we have
seen so many defeats, that we think we never will improve. Yet Paul says that the power that raised
Jesus from the dead is at work in us (11).
I would encourage you to see the
victories as well as the defeats. See
that victory in the fact the Holy Spirit makes you want to be free. Take not of the times when God provides a way
out of the temptation. But as you see
progress let us be careful of pride (which is a sure recipe for further
defeat).
I want to mention two more wonderful
ministries of the Holy Spirit before we look at the unbreakable love of the
Father.
Firstly, we read that we ‘did not
receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear; but you have received the
Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!”’ (15) The devil always seeks to cause us to doubt
the love of God. So when you start
thinking that God is like a severe Garda or unmerciful judge, the Spirit
reminds us, ‘no, he is your Father and he loves you.’
Secondly, we read that when we do
not know what to pray, ‘the Spirit 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’ (26-27).
It is as if the Spirit says to the Father, ‘Paul does not know how to
pray about this situation, but if he knew you the way I knew you this is what
he would say.’ I think this is why
sometimes the answers to our prayers are for more beautiful than we had voiced.
You
are loved of the Father
Paul speaks of being children of
God and heirs with Christ. This is the
beautiful truth of adoption. God has not
only let you out of the prison of guilt and he has not only saved you from
hell, he has brought you home to be a cherished child. In his book, ‘Knowing God’, J. I. Packer
writes, ‘in adoption God takes us into his family and fellowship – he
establishes us as his children and heirs.
Closeness, affection and generosity are at the heart of the
relationship. To be right with God the
judge is a great thing, but to be loved and cared for by God the Father is
greater.’
I need to mention the repeated
emphasis on suffering in this passage.
The Christian suffers with Christ (17) and suffers in a world that
awaits Christ’s restoration. But we are
not to be discouraged by the suffering, for God is working all things together
for our good, which is to be conformed to the image of Jesus (29).
Before we finish, I just want to
emphasise the fact that the Christian is secure in God’s love. One Bible commentator, Alec Motyer, was
visiting a church in America, where he was introduced to a Christian man who
was desperately insecure about his faith.
This man, who we will call John, feared that at some point in the future
he would let God down and walk away from his faith. Motyer asked John, ‘John, what tense is the
verb foreknew in this passage?’ It is
past tense. ‘John, what tense is the
verb predestined?’ It is also past
tense. ‘John, what tense is the verb
called?’ Past tense! ‘What tense is the verb justified?’ Past tense!
‘And John, what tense is the verb glorified?’ It is past tense as well. ‘But our glorification is not yet
completed. It will not be completed
until Jesus returns and gives us our resurrection bodies. But God is so committed to bringing his
people to that destination that he can speak of it as if it has already
happened.’ Don’t worry about your
future; God is more committed to you than you are to him. Look for the evidence of new birth know and
trust him to keep you.
I find great confront in the verb
foreknew. God knew me before I became a
Christian. He knew me in my sin, and yet
he loved me. God knows my end from my beginning,
he saw today’s sins and tomorrow’s, yet he drew me into relationship with himself. He has promised that I will never be
condemned and that nothing can separate me from his love.
Conclusion
When I was in my very early
twenties, I began to feel very insecure about my faith. You see I remembered something terrible that
I had done when I was thirteen—I had experimented with a satanic prayer. I didn’t see how God could forgive that. It made me deeply insecure, and robbed me of
peace and joy. God does not want us to
be slaves of fear. If you are terrified
about some awful thing in your past, claim the promises of God. John Bunyan, who wrote Pilgrim’s Progress,
was haunted by his past and eventually came to peace by claiming Jesus’
promise, ‘that I will never drive away anyone who comes to me’. A similar promise is where John writes that
‘if we confess our sins, God is faithful and just, and will forgive our sins
and cleanse us from all unrighteousness’ (1 John 1:9). It is never God’s desire for you to be
haunted by your past!
I have also had people come to me
with doubts about God’s love for them because they feel so defeated about their
sin. But remember that without the Holy
Spirit you would be hostile to the God of grace. Make sure that your sorrow over sin isn’t
just wounded pride, and then realise that your desire to please God is evidence
that the Holy Spirit has not stopped striving with you. Remember that despite your failures there is
no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Let that love and security be the soil in
which you grow.
John Bunyan loved to talk about
the gracious love of God. At one stage
his critics explained, ‘if you keep assuring people of God’s love they will do
whatever they want.’ He replied, ‘if I
assure people of God’s love they will do what he wants.’ The key to growing as a Christian is to see
God’s passionate, committed love for you and rejoice in the security with which
he holds you.
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