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Live by the Spirit By Richard Wilson

 Word of God, as we find it within Isaiah chapter 9, Isaiah chapter 9, and we'll read from verses
1 to 7, that wonderful Christological passage of Isaiah concerning, for unto us a child
is born, unto us a son is given, and the government will be upon his shoulder, and his name shall
be called Wonderful, Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, for the
increase of his government and peace there will be no end.
So that's what I want to concentrate on today.
We have a particular interest in Christ that only those who know Christ understand.
And then I want to go to another famous passage, and from Matthew, sorry, from the letter of
Paul to the Romans chapter 8, and that is another passage that is concentrating on our
adoption into Christ.
And just take the Westminster Shorter Catechism on Adoption, it's a very good little book
this one, it sort of summarises the faith in very succinct ways.
What is adoption?
Adoption is the act of God's free grace, that's one thing we need to see, by which we are
received into the number, into the number of God's redeemed, and have the right and
all the privileges of the sons of God.
What a wonderful succinct way of describing what adoption is.
So there we are.
Let us reopen the book of Galatians at chapter 4.
We've been looking at the subject of our adoption into Christ.
And I'll take it from verse 26 of the preceding chapter, of chapter 3, for it says, For you
are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.
For as many of you as being baptised into Christ have put on Christ, there is neither
Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave or free, there is neither male or female, for you are
all one in Christ Jesus.
For if you are Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise.
Now I say this, I say that heirs, as long as the child does not differ at all from a
slave, though he is master of all.
In other words, we saw last week that the physical appearance and the physical lifestyle
of a slave and a child in a master's household was much the same.
They lived under the law of the house.
And before we were actually converted, even though we are destined to be sons and inheritors
of the kingdom of God, we are under the law, and the law leads us to Christ.
And when we see Christ, we are transformed on the inward parts, and we are justified
and given pardon and set free from our condition of slavery.
Although we are not slaves in destiny, but we are in actual physical environment we live
in.
So this is a good point, so that's why Christians and non-Christians before they were converted
are the same.
But the privilege that a son has, is he has the holy ordinances and the holy law of God
put him toward Christ.
So we saw that last week.
And yet he is a master of all, because in terms of his destiny, in terms of the decrees
of God, he is indeed master of all, but he hasn't grasped it yet, until his adoption
comes.
He goes on, he says in verse 2, but he is under guardians and stewards until the time
appointed of his father, until the time that the father in heaven says, come unto me, you
who weary and heavy laden under the law, even the son has to be so spoken to.
Even so, we when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world, in
other words even the sons were subject to the world, the flesh and the devil, that's
the elements of the world.
And he goes on he says, and he says, but when the fullness of time had come, in other words
there is a point of time when a man and a woman and a child is actually converted.
And this is what covenant children need to understand.
You can't just assume that you are Christians because you belong to a Christian family.
That is no different to any Roman Catholic doctrine of salvation by enfolding into the
membership of the Church, that won't save anybody.
Indeed such people will be damned through the Church.
But he says here, but there is in the fullness of time that God will so work in your heart
that he awaken you to the need of Christ and because of your own sin and lead you to embrace
Christ in penitence and faith.
So he says, he sent forth his son, born of a woman, born under the law.
Here comes our substitute, the Lamb of God that was going to be our redeemer.
And he says in this verse here, in verse 5, to redeem those who are under the law, both
sons and slaves, if you like, of the household, that we might receive the adoption as sons.
And in the passage that we're going to be dealing with now, and because you are sons,
now that you've passed over that fine line of conversion where we are now aware that
we are in Christ and we cry up to God, Abba our Father, in the spirit of our adoption,
and we know within our spirit of spirits that we are indeed have transferred from the administration
of a steward and guardian to the administration of the spirit who gives us life and immortality
and strength to walk individually and personally before God himself to give glory to God.
And he goes on and he says, because you are sons, God has sent forth his spirit, the spirit
of his son.
You know how often it says in the scripture, we are in Christ, or Christ dwells within
you.
What he means by that, the very spirit of his son dwells within you.
And after all, God is spirit, infinite and eternal and unchangeable in his being, wisdom,
power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth is a good old catechism summarising the scriptures.
And he says here, and he says, what happens in our hearts when this takes place?
He says, he cries up, Abba Father, Daddy, if you like, or something far more reverent
than that, but just as affectionate, Dad.
And it's interesting, as I walk around in Middle Eastern countries, the children call
their father Abba and I hear the word, whether I'm in an Arab country or in an Indian country
and the Indian state, they all say Abba for Dad, Father.
And here he goes on and he says, therefore, you are no longer a slave, but a son.
And if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.
Now we see here three major things.
We see overall what the life by the spirit means.
But more importantly, it is the spirit of his son that dwells within us, not the spirit
of the flesh, but the spirit of the son, not from the son, but of the son.
It's quite a different sort of idea.
And this sets us free, that we are no longer slaves.
We are no longer under the administration of the law that speaks of our doom.
And we are now transferred from the status of slavery to the status of liberty in the
spirit.
And the third thing we see here, that if we are the sons of God, then we are heirs of
God, as well as Christ is heir.
Now here in verse six, it is clear what it says, for because you are sons, not shall
become sons, but he's speaking in the present and continuous tense.
He is saying you are sons.
And we know this because he has sent forth his spirit, the spirit of his son.
In other words, we are not only adopted, but this adoption has brought about a certain
consequence within our lives that we might speak of not only a new status and a new relationship,
but it also means that there is a subjective awareness that is taking place within our
heart of hearts, that enters into the very substance and the core of our being, that
we are indeed the sons of God.
I suppose if you ladies would like to think of yourselves as the daughters of God, that
would be alright, but there's no gender at this point.
We are the sons of God in Christ.
And he says here that this is caused not by some kind of a new teaching, it's caused by
the Holy Spirit himself dwelling within us in reality.
It is something that has gripped our hearts, our emotions and our very life itself.
So it's not just a revision of ideas that we're talking here, we are talking about a
newness of constitution.
It enters into the very heart of our being.
And now we have the Spirit of God dwelling within us.
And we might say that all our affections in our formal life have disappeared in the sense
that they have no longer priority.
It's not as though they disappeared altogether, because the memory of these things is still
with us, such as our relationship to our natural family.
It's very important to us, but it's not as important to us as our relationship to the
spiritual family we now belong to.
One of the clearest signs of conversion is the sense of the new Christian's identity
with a new community that also are born again in the Spirit.
And that is tantamount.
We don't have to convince others that we are Christians.
We don't have to say to others that we are Christians.
The fact is we know in our heart of hearts that we are who we are, because the Spirit
of God is witnessing in our own souls, in our own spirit, that immaterial aspect of
our existence, that we are indeed something that God has made, as God has done.
It is God, what God has done, that has made all the difference.
In 1 Corinthians chapter 2 we have this alluded to, chapter 2 and verses 9 and 10.
But as it is written, the eye has not seen nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart
of men, the things which God has prepared for those who love him.
But God is what God has done.
But God has revealed to them, to us, from his Spirit, for the Spirit searches all things,
even the deep things of God.
We have come to know God and that has made all the difference.
And anything else pales into insignificance by comparison.
We know that we have been justified, but we know this because we have been adopted
into a new family.
And that Spirit of that family, whom the head of that family is Christ, dwells within our
hearts.
That's a new inner consciousness of this identity that is so fundamental that has changed
us at the very core.
And we might say this is our subjective side of our salvation.
Among Calvinistic teachers we might put a great premium on the mind, on what we think.
We might have all the doctrines of Scripture well and truly set in their little boxes.
But it will not give us the ultimate conviction that we are Christians.
Our conversion will be of the mind rather than of our spirit.
God has come to convert us in our spirit, in our very heart of hearts.
And that is something that is so subjective, only the believer knows about it.
Nominal Christians don't know anything about it, they only know about the sweet companionship
that is found within the Church.
They do not know what it means to actually commune with God, personally, individually
and so thoroughly persuading our hearts.
And it's here that there is a transfer of social and cultural identity.
Why is it that we immediately, when we become Christians, become far more identified without
the history of the Old Testament than we do the history of our national identity?
Why is it we love the Jews?
Because we love their history, even though they have no right to their history, because
they have rejected Christ.
Why is it that we delve into the tabernacle and the prophets and the laws and all those
aspects?
Why is it that we identify with the history of Christians in other nations far more readily
than we do with our pagans around in our own land?
It's because our heart identifies with that of the actions of God and the blessings and
the graces of God.
Why is it that I'm far more concerned about a prisoner in China at the moment and I'm
desperate he's left for it and I'm dead because he's been beaten to pulp by guards in a place
I've never met him but my heart goes out and I almost cry to think what he must be
undergoing because he's my Christian brother.
This is what happens to the heart when we are converted.
Because we find that at conversion the inner constitution has utterly changed.
We are no longer under the dominion of the flesh but we are now under the dominion of
the Spirit, the Spirit of Christ.
And at the conversion we find that at the very moment we believe in Christ, it says
here God has sent forth his Spirit.
In Romans chapter 8 and verse 16 he says it in this way, the Spirit himself bears witness
to our Spirit.
He says also that the Spirit of his Son agrees with the Word of God within what we read and
what is the first sign of conversion is we immediately refer to the Word of God as the
Word of God and it's authoritative in our lives.
Is it a contradiction when a so-called believer wants to carve up the Word of God through
higher critical scholarship and say the Word of God is not the Word of God, that man is
not a Christian when he speaks like that because the Spirit of God within him cannot contradict
the Word of God that we read.
There is no such thing as a Christian that is a non-believer in the Word of God.
And this is paramount, it's constitutional to our very souls.
I think it was Graham and I we went to theological college together.
I don't think one of the lecturers knew the Lord except for Leon Morris, would that be right?
Because they were carving up the Word of God, weren't they?
The worst couple of years of my life.
Never go to theological colleges, not those kind of theological colleges.
Can we find?
We find that very problem.
It's hard to find a university professor that actually believes in the Word of God, otherwise
you probably wouldn't get a job.
Now here the inner spirit cries, Abba, Father, not in a formal and taught way.
Now does a baby somehow says Daddy in some kind of taught way?
I know mums are trying to, who are around the baby all the time, are trying to say mama,
mama, mummy, mummy, get the first time and then the first word he says is Daddy.
Is that right?
First word he says, Daddy.
And it's not something taught, is it?
It's something that just instinctively comes from the child.
Who are you?
Who are you looking after me?
Who are you that I came from the loins of your being?
Oh, you're Daddy.
That's what they say.
And that's exactly how the heart cries up.
A child of a family no more would split from their family than to fly, would they?
They know their identity.
Even the animals know that.
The second thing we see here, we are no longer slaves.
We don't need to revisit our former life ever again and yet the devil is putting us
under that all the time, isn't he?
We are no longer slaves, he says, in Romans chapter 1 and chapter 8 and verses 1 to 2.
Let me say it again.
Now concerning, there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus,
who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
For the law of the Spirit or the principle of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has
made me free from the law or the principle of sin and death.
So here we have been set free by the Spirit of life so that we now are those that are
set free from the slavery of death.
And therefore formally we were totally depraved, we were totally unable to choose God.
We were not ready to do that.
As former workmates have said to me, Richard you are a Calvinist, you are one who believes
in predestination.
It came up last Friday actually, although I wasn't able to get this little sly little
comment back to him but in a previous conversation I had with others, we were able to say this,
that I was a predestinarian, and I said I suppose I am as much as the Bible is, and
I had a point then, I must go on, about choosing God.
And I said oh well, you are an atheist are you, and he says yeah I can choose God if
I wanted to, ok go and do it, prove to me you can.
He said no I don't want to, you are just proving my point aren't you, you can't.
And that happened very long ago actually.
We were formerly slaves to our sin and our death but as sons we have been set free, set
free from sin and no longer justly condemned under that sin.
That was a little lesson I had to learn not long after I was a Christian.
When I became a Christian I went under the ministry of a very fine Bible teacher that
taught me all about Romans, not all about Romans but everything I could contain about
Romans I learnt at the time.
And I went away and I went to a church and I drank from that church and I felt very much
under condemnation because in those days they were coming into the charismatic movement
and I wasn't able to really give my heart to that.
I felt condemned, I felt brought under it again.
So I went back to my friend and he opened up this passage, there is therefore no condemnation
in Christ Jesus.
And if you feel condemned, if you feel under the condemnation, it doesn't come from Christ,
it comes from the world, it comes from the devil and sometimes it comes from your own
flesh that reeks against and strives against the spirit but without any winning side to
it.
So claim that promise again my friends, if you feel under condemnation at all, if you
feel guilty, sometimes we feel guilty that we've got to simply confess our sin and get
right again with God but God accepts us as quick as before we even actually ask.
But there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus because we've been set
free from that and now the Spirit of God is at work within us.
I find that so encouraging and such a blessing.
This does not mean that we do not struggle against sin, we do.
Romans chapter 8 speaks of this and in verse 21, even we ourselves groan within ourselves.
There is that struggle and we must recognise that there is a struggle and the reality of
the residue of the flesh and the devil in us constantly is at work to bring us under
again but the difference between the bondage of a slave and our struggles as sons is that
no longer sin has dominion over us.
It might take years for us to become confident in terms of our strength to be able to resolve
particular sins in our lives, it may take years and decades but the fact is after those
years and decades we do win out in the end because the Spirit of God is far more powerful
than he who is out in the world.
And so the sons are no longer under its dominion.
We might well be in occupied ground at times but not under dominion and therefore let us
take encouragement from them, let's not lose heart any longer, let us walk as though we
know what it means to be truly forgiven and walking in the power of God's grace.
The light by the Spirit is that invincible power of God that is able to achieve God's
purposes and God's work and His will within our lives.
We will not be put on under and as we look to Christ suddenly we are almost jack potted
out of our situation at times and the amazement of the fact that some of the problems we face
seem to be resolved suddenly after many, many months and years maybe of struggling with
those particular questions as we look to Christ on it things totally change their perspective
because what has changed is that there has been a real change in our life.
Thirdly that we are then heirs of God and it says here in verse 7 that therefore you
are no longer slaves but sons and if sons then heirs of God through Christ.
There is a work or a merit that bring to Him the inheritance but only as sons.
We'll only ever receive the inheritance of this kind of inheritance as sons and now sons
therefore we are inheritors of the One who has created the heavens and the earth.
We are those that are more than just heirs of something that's going to pass away but
we are also heirs in Christ and I cannot understand this because the mind just sort of goes into
overload at this point and overdrive to think that we are heirs with Christ of all that
He inherits with Christ.
Now that is better than any lottery.
Just imagine the joy if you came into a wealth, I think it would be awful actually but anyway
some would think that would be a wonderful joy but nonetheless the kind of joy that comes
into a person's life because we are actually realising, we don't realise it here on earth
to the degree that we will realise it in heaven.
I just can't get my mind around it, maybe you can sort of think about that a bit more
but there is basically a limitless inheritance.
It is beyond my capacity to be able to understand what lies are in store for us in eternity
with Christ.
But if we got a vision of something of the magnitude of that I think we would be living
less for this world and more for heaven, would we not, if we really understood that.
I was only talking to Anne yesterday morning and I was saying concerning Joseph and I thought
to myself Joseph must have felt such a failure, he was sold as a slave by his own brothers
he went down to a pagan land away from his family he knew the promises, how on earth
he was going to survive spiritually we don't know and yet the Lord went down with him.
He was in prison for so many years, well I reckon he would have felt a fairly much of
a failure there too, where is God in all this he would have said.
And then suddenly he was raised and became the second in command along with the king
of Egypt and he saved a whole lot of pagans from starvation and they had no interest in
God whatsoever.
You know I think Joseph would have felt a failure then too, even though he became so
wealthy to see the salvation of the family of God and that's what brought tears to his
eyes, that's what switched on his heart, that's what really brought the bowels of compassion
upon his heart again.
And that's what he saw his whole life to be bound up in, that his family, the inheritors
of the things of God were able to go that one step further in the purposes of God's
covenantal redemptive purposes.
And that's what really turned him on.
It wasn't the wealth, it wasn't the poverty, it wasn't the circumstances, it wasn't his
location, it was his inheritance that he had in the promises that were given by Abraham
to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
That is our privilege.
And so here, if we are therefore sons, we are also therefore heirs.
If heirs, then we are also partakers of the sufferings of Christ.
And this is our privilege to bear the responsibilities as sons of God and we know that if we are
responsible family members we will bear along with the kind of problems that family faces.
And on planet earth the family of God have got many problems, many persecutions.
On planet earth our brothers and sisters are dying all day long and considered as sheep
for the slaughter.
On planet earth there are many Christians so bewitched by the world they don't know
where and how to pray any longer.
On planet earth our family is under immense attack.
What is the Apostle Paul's response to that responsibility?
He says in Philippians chapter 3 and verse 10, the fellowship of his suffering being
conformed to his death, that was his major issue and major responsibility as a Christian
in his own day.
In 1 Peter, the Apostle Peter says in chapter 4 and verse 13, he rejoices to the extent
that you are partakers of Christ's suffering.
He rejoices not because they have been blessed but because they have become partakers of
the sufferings of Christ.
We rejoice that you have remained true, we rejoice that you remain holy and righteous
even in the midst of that and the Spirit of God is giving them strength to be Christians
and witnesses in the prisons and in the times of great persecution.
Acts chapter 5 and verse 41, he says, we are counted worthy to be suffer shame for his
name's sake.
That is what a Christian's lot is.
We will never be friends with this world, we can never make compromises and deals with
the devil and we'll never be happy within ourselves while we're in the flesh.
And we will always be regarded as people who are the off scour of this world.
Let us be encouraged that the measure of our suffering is indeed for the glory of God
because our inheritance far outweighs any sufferings that we undergo here.
Far outweighs because my mind can't even think about it.
It is so immense and so great and the magnitude of these things are so glorious for our time.
Some of you might be desperately concerned about certain things that you are facing.
Sometimes it might be singleness, sometimes it might be your enemies at work and the difficulties.
You don't know where on earth you're going to get enough money to be able to survive
the next couple of months, you might say to yourself.
Consider it as being part of the sufferings of Christ and you have been privileged to
suffer thus far for these things.
I don't know but the Lord knows that he is more than adequate for these things and I
want you to be encouraged not because you'll be taken out of these sufferings but because
God will give you the joy of the Lord in the midst of them and the sense of accomplishment
as God enables you to live for his glory.
Our inheritance in Christ, yes it is an immediate proportion upon conversion that we receive
and we get the firstfruits of these things when the Spirit of God comes into our lives
but it's neither the firstfruits.
The full measure of these things is yet to await us when we go to be with Christ.
Maybe dear Oletath we'll be with him this week.
May the Lord quicken that day.
I don't know but she is a lot better off than what we are if she passes from this life into
be with Christ.
The day is coming when the adoption of the redemption of our bodies will be made as well.
On the last day the body that lies in the grave will be raised from the dead and that
we will have a body like Christ not confined by time or material or anything.
It will be an incomprehensible body, a body that is resurrected without the restrictions
of physical restraint, without the flesh but it will be an entirely like Christ.
On that final day Christ will enter into the full inheritance and it would seem that Christ
has yet to receive his inheritance waiting for the full number of Christ's adopted to
come in.
May the Lord bring about conversions in this world so the full number of the adopted will
come in and may we be part of that because until that happens even Christ himself can't
receive and won't receive his full inheritance because we are part of the inheritance.
Amen and may God give us strength in these things.