Open your Bible to Romans chapter 8, as we continue this series entitled "New Life Today." Let's stand together. Turn to Romans 8:9 for our Scripture reading. And if you're new or if you've been gone for a week or two, we are in a great series of Romans 6, 7 and 8. This is our sixth message in the series on new life and how we can enjoy the new life that Jesus Christ provides for all of us. And the outline is there in your bulletin. I'm entitling the message this morning "The Blessings of the New Life," and we're going to learn three of the blessings of being a Christian today, and three of the greatest of all. So Romans 8.
Just by way of introduction, if you weren't here last week, last week Romans 8:1 was our text, which says, "There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus." How many of you are thankful for that? And we were able to just learn what it really means to have true freedom in Christ and not to be condemned for our sin, but to be forgiven. Now we're going to begin in verse 9, and for the sake of time, we're going to read down through verse 12 of Romans chapter 8.
"But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell in you, he that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his Spirit that dwelleth in you. Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God." Let's pray together.
Father, thank you for the great time we've had in prayer, in worship through singing and giving. Now we come to the pinnacle of worship, and that is opening the Bible and hearing from you. And, Lord, what a great chapter, and what great truth I have just read. So please fill me with your Spirit and everyone here, that we might receive what you have for us today, I pray in Jesus' name. Amen. You may be seated.
When Jesus spoke of salvation, he often used pictures and metaphors to illustrate truth, and one of the pictures that he used as concerning salvation is the new birth. Now Nicodemus did not understand that in John chapter 3. He said to Jesus, "How can a man be born when he is old? Does he enter into his mother's womb and be born a second time?" And how many moms would say, "No, forget it, that is not gonna happen," right?
Nicodemus was all mixed up about this second birth stuff. And so Jesus said to him in John 3:6, "That which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I say unto you, 'You must be born again.'" So he said, "Nicodemus, there is a physical birth, that which is born of the flesh, the breaking of the water; and there is a spiritual birth, that which is born of the Spirit."
When a person receives Christ as their Savior, they are born spiritually. So the term "birth" reminds us that there is an origin, there is a beginning to our relationship with Jesus Christ. You are not someone that just by osmosis became a Christian, or your parents were Christians, or you live in America and it says God on the money so you're a Christian because you live in America. If you are a Christian, there was a point in your life when you chose to receive Jesus Christ as your Savior. And if you can't remember that time, then we're going to give you that opportunity before we're finished in a few moments, because God wants everybody to have a birthday spiritually.
You may not look back and remember the date. I do. I was saved on April 5, 1972 at 4289 Yerba Buena Way in San Jose, California. I was a ten-year-old boy, and I prayed and I accepted Christ as my Savior. You may not remember the date, but you have in your mind the time when you realized that you were a sinner and you called out to Jesus Christ, and he saved you on that day. That was the beginning. That was your spiritual birthday.
Romans 10 says, "that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be" – What's the next word say? – "saved." Right? So, there's a beginning point. There's a time when we get saved. And I've got to tell you, friend, it's the greatest day of your life, right?
The second greatest day of my life was when Terrie said yes and we were married, and that was awesome. And I've had other great days: when the kids were born, grandkids were born – lot's of great days. Next Sunday's going to be awesome, I can't wait. But nothing compares to the day that you get saved, nothing compares to that. And when someone is saved, at the moment of their salvation they are indwelt. And this is what we're talking about this year. Our theme is "Alive in Christ: New Life Today."
When someone gets saved they are indwelt by God's Holy Spirit. It's a miracle, I can't explain all about it. But in verse 9 the Bible says here, "If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he's none of his." So when you receive Christ as Savior, you receive his Spirit. You are born again by the Spirit. We call it being regenerated. From the inside out we are changed. And if you are saved, you understand exactly what I'm talking about, because suddenly when you're saved and the Spirit is in you, you're wanting to do things you did not want to do before. For example, go to church, right? I happen to believe most of you are here today not because your wife made you come or not because, you know, you're on work release from jail or something. I think most of you are here today because someone who lives inside of you said, "Let's go."
You see, when you get saved the Lord living in you, the resurrected Christ living in you begins to make a difference, and all of a sudden you're curious about the Bible and you want to know more about Jesus, and, "What do the words to that song mean?" and suddenly, there's new life. There's new life today and tomorrow, and there's new life every day when Jesus lives inside of you, the Spirit of God. And stuff that didn't bother you at all, like before on Sundays, I mean, you'd get up and you'd eat a bag of chips and some Twinkies and some Ho Hos and watch five football games, and never think about going to church. But now it's different, right? The Spirit of God dwells in your heart and you want to learn some things about Jesus. And maybe before you'd yell at your wife and kick the cat, think nothing of it. Now the Lord inside of you says, "Hey big boy, you apologize to your wife, and you pet the cat." You go, "Lord, I've got to draw some line somewhere." But I'm saying the Lord begins to convict us. The Lord begins to change us because he lives inside of us now.
And it's interesting to me, when you study Romans chapters 1 through 7, you only find the Holy Spirit mentioned one time. But now that we have been introduced to Jesus as our Savior in the first seven chapters, now that we know there's no condemnation when we're in Jesus, Romans chapter 8 is going to mention the Holy Spirit 19 times. And sometimes people say, "Hey you Baptists, you don't believe in the Holy Spirit." Well, we Baptists do believe in the Holy Spirit. We believe that he's in us, he indwells us, he guides us, he comforts us, he teaches us; and we must learn how to be alive to Jesus Christ through his Spirit. And so this morning I want to take these next few minutes and tell you three great blessings in the new life, three great blessings.
When I was a kid, there was a Christmas present under the Christmas tree, and I think I was about seven or eight. It was a big present. And I've got to tell you, I could not wait to open that present. It was long and kind of wide, and I tried and tried to guess. When Mom wasn't looking I shook it to try to figure out what was in there. And that Christmas morning when I opened up that present, it was not just one present, it was three. It was a baseball glove, a baseball, and a baseball bat.
How many of you are like me? You like it when one becomes three, right? All the ladies this morning, "That's right. I like to get diamond rings, diamond necklaces, and diamond earrings all in one box. That's how I like it."
Well, the great thing about getting saved is that maybe you trusted Christ as Savior because you wanted to go to heaven, you didn't want to go to hell; and those are really good reasons. But the longer you're saved, the more you begin to find out, "Wow, look at all the things God did for me when I got saved." And today I want to show you three of them. Is everybody ready? All right, here we go. Let's notice the first one.
The first great thing that happens when you get saved is the presence of Christ indwells your life. Jesus Christ indwells your life. Sometimes we say to children this phrase: "Have you ever accepted Jesus into your" – What's the next word? – "heart." Heart is the word for our innermost being. It's the totality of our being.
Have you ever invited Jesus into your life? Getting saved means that you have the presence of Jesus with you. You have a new resident in you. Notice in verse 10: "If Christ be in you," that's based upon the verse before speaking about the Spirit of God dwelling in us. It means that when someone receives Christ that he is a new resident in your life. And it is by his Spirit; for if we have not the Spirit of Christ we are none of his.
Now Jesus promised that he would come and be in us. In fact, his disciples, they spent much time walking with him. And I think in 2020 we're going to have a church trip to the Holy Land – we'll tell you more about that in the next few weeks – and take one more time where we take some of the church family to walk in places like Capernaum and around the Sea of Galilee, and see where Jesus cast the devils out of the maniac of Gadara, and see where he gave the Sermon on the Mount. And when you walk there – Brother Houk has been there and lived there one summer – and you walk in these places, you begin to imagine in your mind what it must have been like to be a disciple of Jesus, and to just be with him, and to love him, and to believe that he's the Messiah. And then the word we might use is the word "bond," and to bond in the friendship and the communion and the love of Jesus Christ.
But suddenly something happened. Jesus began to tell his disciples this. He said, "I'm going to leave you. The time of my departure is at hand." And this troubled their hearts very much. They didn't want him to leave. In fact, some of them thought he was going to bring in a kingdom and they were going to be big shots in the kingdom. This was the end of their dreams.
But Jesus said to them, "Even though I'm going to die, and even though I will rise again just like Jonah was in the whale's belly for three days, and I'm going to come out, destroy this temple and I'll tear it up again," even though he was leaving them physically, he said, "But I'm not going to leave you because I'm going to send my Spirit, and he will never leave you. And through my Spirit," Jesus said, "I will never leave you and I will never forsake you."
Notice, if you would in your notes, in John 14:16 it says Jesus says, "And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another comforter, that he may abide with you forever; even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you."
Now I don't want to break this down so terribly much that we get bogged down. But in the Old Testament era, the Spirit of God came upon people, and the Spirit of God spoke through the prophets. But Jesus is prophesying a different era; we call it a new dispensation – the dispensation of grace, dispensation of the church. And Jesus says, "Listen, not only is the Holy Spirit going to come and be with you and be around you, he's going to be in you," John 14 says. The Spirit of God will dwell in you; and what a tremendous promise that is.
In Ephesians 1:13, the Bible says, "In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth." By the way, nobody gets saved until they hear the word of truth. "Faith cometh by hearing and hearing by the word of God," Romans 10:17.
But the Ephesians, it says they trusted Jesus after they heard the gospel of their salvation, notice this, "in whom also after that ye received, you receive the Holy Spirit of promise." In other words, once they accepted Christ as Savior, then the Spirit of God immediately came into their life and sealed them. They were sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise. And so, this is something that Jesus said was a promise, that his presence would be with them.
The Scriptures say in 1 Corinthians 6 what: "Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost?" God says, "I want you to know that I'm dwelling in you. Your body is my temple." And so, one of the great blessings that we see when we receive Christ as Savior is that he takes up residence in our life.
Now, if you're saved this morning, that resonates with you, your spirit bears witness with his Spirit. If you're not saved this morning, you're like, "Dude, when's this get over? I want to go to In-N-Out Burger." Or, "I hope Mom's glad I came here with her, you know; but this religious talk."
But I'm saying if you know Jesus, then you know that he's living in your heart, because the Bible tells you, "Yes." But because of his prompting, because of his presence, because when we sing about Jesus and what he did, it means something to you, because you can't cheat like you used to cheat, because you can't live like you used to live, because there's somebody living inside of you. Your body is his temple, and he's guiding you and he's leading you, and life if different when Jesus lives inside, okay. There's a new resident living inside.
Look, just logically. Sometimes we counsel young people before they get married, and we tell them, "Look," I'll tell the young men, "Dude, get ready. You're going to want to go to In-N-Out, she's going to want to go to Del Taco; deal with it." You can't bring someone else into your life and everything stays the same. Someone comes into your life, things are going to be different. She's going to squeeze the toothpaste this way, you're going to squeeze it another way. She's going to want to watch the cooking channel, you're going to want to watch sports. When someone comes into your life, things change.
I was talking with a young mother this week. She said, "Well, we have one baby, we're getting ready to have another one." I said, "Life's going to change, because whenever someone comes into your life, things change." Well listen, if your life changes when your spouse or when a child comes in, if Jesus lives in you, how can you be the same, right? There's a new resident that comes in.
And then notice, secondly, there's this new relationship that develops. The Bible says in verse 10, "The body is dead because of sin; but the Spirit is life because of righteousness." So there is this new life that comes into us by the presence of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus did not redeem this corruptible body – we'll see in a moment – we're going to receive a new body. But he has redeemed our soul. He comes in with a new Spirit into this body and it's described in Titus 3. And I want you to look in your notes there, Titus 3:4, and I want you to read this with me, Titus 3:4, and just try to capture the essence of this passage. We're going to read verses 4, 5, 6 and 7, and I want you to read it like you mean it, and let's lift up our voices.
Titus 3:4, ready, begin: "But after that the kindness and love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; which he shed on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior; that being justified by his grace, we should be made heirs according to the hope of eternal life." There's the gospel in a nutshell. Not by our works, but by his grace he saved us. How many of you are thankful for that?
And then the Bible says it's by the washing of regeneration by the renewing of the Holy Ghost. That's being born again, as we said a moment ago, that we are justified by his grace. It's a whole new relationship. It is Christ in you, the hope of glory. So the first blessing of the new life is that you and I have in our bodies taking up residence the very Spirit of God. What a blessing. And I think again of the song, "I come to the garden alone, while the dew is still on the roses. And he walks me, and he talks with me, and he tells me I am his own." And I don't care if you're a military guy way out in some distant assignment all by yourself. If you're saved, you're not alone.
And Jesus said in Matthew chapter 28, "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations. And, lo, I am with you always, even unto the ends of the world." I'm thankful today that Jesus Christ lives in me personally. He took up residence in my life when I got saved; and I'm so glad that he did. The presence of Jesus – listen – it's real, my friend. And make sure that you acknowledge him tomorrow. Make sure that you walk with him. Make sure that you listen to his still, small voice. Let Jesus lead you tomorrow.
But notice, secondly, not only the blessing of his presence, but very quickly, the blessing of eternal life, or the promise of eternal life. You see, when you get saved, God says, "I'm going to bring you to heaven with me someday." That's what he said to his disciples, "Let not your heart be troubled: you believe in God, you believe also in me," John 14. "In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you, so that where I am, there you may be also." What was he talking about? He was talking about heaven, a place that is prepared for them.
Now notice in verse 11 what it says: "If the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus Christ from the dead dwell in you," now just think of that: the same Spirit that raised up Jesus from the dead dwells in you. How many of you think that might ought to affect the way we live? Then it says, "He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal body by his Spirit that dwelleth in you."
Now here's the promise of eternal life. It is in the word "quickening." The word "quickening" means to bring to life. When you're saved, you're quickened, you're brought to life spiritually. But at the end of this life, whether by rapture or by death, we're going to be quickened, we're going to be given eternal life. And so, the Bible says here that we have the power that raised up Christ within us.
Now Jesus said in John 10:17, "Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I may take it again. No man taketh it from me, I lay it down by myself. I have power to lay it down, I have power to take it up again." So Jesus had power to lay his life down and power to raise his life up again. And by the way, that's why we sing, "I serve a risen Savior," and that's why we worship Jesus Christ this morning, and that's why his name is above every other name, and that every knee will bow to the name of Jesus Christ, because only Jesus could say, "I lay down my life, and I take up my life again." Muhammad could not say that. Buddha could not say that. Joseph Smith cannot say that. But your Savior, the one who lives within you, he can say that, you see. He had power to take his life and power to raise his life again, and he said, "That power is in you. It's in you and it's in me."
So we have this power that raised up Christ. Secondly, is the power that will raise us up someday. It says that he will quicken our mortal bodies. A mortal body is liable to death. When we think in the Bible terms of mortality and immortality, God says that we are mortal. God says that we are not in an eternal body, but that we will receive an eternal body. Is everybody with me this morning?
Now if you're wondering, "What do you mean I'm not an immortal body?" Folks, I don't know how to tell it to you, but our bodies are corrupting right now. You get an abscessed tooth and that thing's full of all kind of decay and cavity, man, you've got to go to the dentist. They've got to chisel that junk out of there; they've got to fill it with metal; they've got to cap it. And when you come home your whole family thank you because your breath smells better. Are you with me this morning?
Look, our bodies have a tendency to decay. And we can go get medicine and ointments, and you ladies can get all kinds of oil and rub it and vaporize with it, and whatever else ladies do with oil. And we try to prolong this life, right? But I'm just telling you, you get out of bed, you hear it: snap, crackle, pop. Every morning that's what I hear, right? Our bodies are mortal.
There's no hope in the flesh. But within your body there is the presence of Jesus and his Spirit, and there's hope in the Spirit. In fact, notice in your notes 1 Corinthians 15:53, "For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, 'Death is swallowed up in victory.'"
In other words, God says, "One day our mortal bodies that are decaying and falling apart, we're going to put those aside and we are going to receive our new body." Our flesh is not redeemed, our unredeemed humanness one day will fall away, and our new spirit will receive a new body, a glorified body, and we will be with the Lord forever. We'll lay down this mortality, we'll put on immortality, and we will live eternally with Jesus Christ. Can I get an amen on that?
I'm telling you, friend, this is one of the blessings of the new life. This is something that God says, "I'm going to do this for you because I'm in you. And the same power that raised me up is going to raise you up someday as well." This is the promise of eternal life. So we see when someone is saved they receive the presence of Christ in them. He prompts our thinking, he convicts our sin, he comforts us, he guides us, he never leaves us – the presence of Christ. And we see that there is this promise of eternal life. This same resurrection that Jesus experienced, we will experience as well.
So that leads us to a final and practical thought this morning, and that is the priority of this present life. So someone says, "Okay, I'm saved, I'm going to heaven. What does that mean for me tomorrow? How does that affect anything in my life today?" Well, I want you to see how it does.
Look at verse 12. It says, "Therefore." Everybody say "therefore." "Therefore." Okay, everybody say it again a little louder: "Therefore." Whenever you see a "therefore" in the Bible, you look to see what it's there for. And it is referring back to the verse before it which talks about the fact that we're going to be quickened by the Spirit. So, "Because of that, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. For if ye live after the flesh, ye shall die: but if ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live."
So what is my priority and your priority now? Letter A: We do not pursue the flesh. If we are saved and regenerated by the Spirit, we don't owe the flesh anything anymore, we owe God everything. And so, God says, "You're not to pursue the flesh. The pursuit of the flesh will only bring spiritual death." So if you are a Christian and Jesus Christ is living in you, and you say, "Okay, Jesus is in me, but there's some things that I just need to have, some things I just need to do," and whether that's your party life, your drug life, whether that's your old relationships, I'm going to tell you, you might be saved, but if you mess around enough, I'm telling you right now, if it's, for example, if you're a married and you're messing around, you're going to kill your marriage. Right?
You say, "Well, I'm saved." You go out and keep smoking your pot and doing all of this, you're going to bring death to your mind – See what I'm saying? – because you're sowing to the flesh, and that brings death. Sometimes you'll see kids 18, 19, and they get out of the house, and it seems like the Devil says something like, "All right, look, you went to a Christian school, you had all those rules; now go live for yourself." Even some people say that at graduations, right? "Go live for yourself. Make the most for yourself, it's all about you. Go have a good time."
And so, people – and some of you men would say – you got in the military, and you sowed to the flesh. That's kind of where you were at that time in your life, you were sowing to the flesh. But now that you're saved, God says, and step back for just a minute, "You're not a debtor to your flesh, the flesh hasn't done anything but get you in trouble. It gets you hangovers, and it gets you problems. You don't owe the flesh, so stop feeding the flesh and start living in the Spirit. Start pursuing the Spirit."
So now that we're saved, we don't pursue the flesh. The things I used to do, don't do them anymore. Places I used to go, don't go there anymore. We don't pursue the flesh. Romans 6 says it this way: "Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it to the lusts thereof. Neither yield your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God." Now that I'm saved I yield myself to the Spirit, not to the flesh.
Some of you have heard the story about an old Indian that was saved, and someone asked about what it felt like to be a Christian to him. And his description was a little but crude, but illustrates the point. He said, "Sometimes it feels like there's two dogs fighting within me. One is an old dog, vicious, unmanageable, difficult. The second is obedient; it longs to serves Christ, it gives attention to the Lord." And he says, "They're often fighting." And someone said, "Well, how does that go? Which one wins?" and the old Indian said, "Oh, the one that I feed the most is the one that wins."
Now if we feed the flesh, if we're constantly looking at temptation, constantly thinking about the flesh, then we'll live a fleshly life. But if we feed the spirit, we listen to preaching, we read the Bible, we get godly music in our hearts and homes, if we feed the spirit, then we're going to have a spiritual life. You feed the flesh, you're going to have a fleshly life. And so the challenge of the new life is don't feed the flesh, don't pursue the flesh.
But notice, secondly, in verse 12 it says, "We're not debtors to the flesh." But then notice it says in verse 14, "For as many as our led by the spirit of God, they are the sons of God." You see, we're not debtors to the flesh; therefore we are to live by the Spirit.
Notice in verse 13, "If ye through the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live." If you say, "Lord, today I want to reckon myself to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto Christ. Today, Lord, I want to reckon myself dead to the flesh and alive to the Spirit," then we do not pursue the flesh, but now we are, Letter B, pursuing the Spirit of the living God. We're mortifying the flesh, putting the flesh to death.
And now then notice, thirdly, we grow in the family of God. Notice what it said there in verse 14. It says, "For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God." Let's read that verse together. Ready, begin: "For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God." Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh.
Now if you are led by the Spirit – let me illustrate it this way: unsaved people don't have a burden for other people to get saved. If you have a burden for someone to get saved, that's the Holy Spirit burdening you. If you had a burden to come to church this morning, that was the leadership of the Holy Spirit. And all of us who follow that leadership of the Holy Spirit are called in this passage the sons of God. We are a part of the family of God. We have been washed by the blood, we have been indwelt by the Spirit, and we are brothers and sisters in Christ. We are the sons and daughters of God. We used to sing a song about that when I was a kid, it went something like this: "I'm so glad I'm a part of the family of God." And it talked about being washed in the Spirit and washed by the blood of Jesus Christ, and so forth, and a part of the family of God.
Now that you're saved, what's the priority now? Not to pursue the flesh, but to walk in the Spirit. And whoever walks in the Spirit is described as a son, or we could say as a daughter of God. First John 3, "Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not. Beloved, now are you the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him"; that's the incorruptible body, "for we shall see him as he is," you see. What a blessing to be a part of the family of God.
Sometimes people say, "Ah, I'll you, Pastor, my family's kind of a mess, and my dad's in jail, and this and this." Hey, I'm going to tell you, it doesn't matter what your past is. What matters is that Jesus Christ is now living in you; and when he is, you're the son of God, a part of the family of God, "Because as many as receive him, to them gave he power to become" – What? – "the sons of God." If you receive him, you are the sons of God.
Here are the blessings of the new life: the presence of Jesus in me; the promise of eternal life, this corruptible putting on incorruption; and priorities in the present life. I have a purposeful life. It is no longer about the flesh, it is now about the Spirit, and it is now about walking in the Spirit, and it is now a life that is given over to being a part of the family of God with my church family. And tonight I'll be preaching a special message entitled – this, I believe, and I'm going to tell it tonight some things that 33 years later I'm still stirred up about. But one of those is the local New Testament church where sons and daughters of God can get together and pray, and encourage one another, and visit in the hospitals, and pray when a teenager is wayward, and try to help one another through good times and bad times. It's a blessing to be a part of the family of God. And when you're a part of the family of God, God's Spirit is working in your life, and you're no longer a debtor to the flesh; but you wake up in the morning thinking, "How can I live in the Spirit today? Lord, what do you want me to do today? I want to walk in the Spirit today."
The blessings of the new life; don't take them for granted. I hear people say, "Ah, I did the church stuff. I've read the Bible through six times." Right? "Yeah, I've been there, done that, got the t-shirt. I went on a missions trip in 1942. I got a Sunday School ribbon this long." Well, you know, congratulations. But this sermon series is entitled "New Life Today." How's that going?
Let's keep it fresh today. Let's be thankful today that Jesus is in us, that heaven awaits us, and that we have a purpose for living, and it's not about us anymore, it's about Jesus, because we owe the Lord Jesus for all that he's done for us. You see, the apostle Paul said, "The love of Christ constrains me." He did so much for me, I want to live for him.
[End of Audio]
