Metamorphism...The Art of Surrender

Romans 12

We move from the depth of Paul’s theology in the first 11 chapters to the very practical outworking of our faith through the remainder of Romans. We will learn the process that takes us to the place of heightened sensitivity in following God’s calling on our lives. The spiritual act of worship is the laying down of our very lives, it is very clear that He wants all or nothing. Today we will wrestle with being fully devoted followers of Jesus Christ. On the subject of conforming vs transforming, Francis Chan writes in ‘Crazy Love’

We disgust God when we weigh and compare Him against the things of the world. It makes Him sick when we actually decide those things are better for us than God Himself. We believe we don’t need anything Jesus offers, but we fail to realize that slowly, almost imperceptibly, we are drifting downstream. And in the process we are becoming blind, being stripped naked, and turning into impoverished wretches.

My prayer is that this message will be a real wake up call to the life of surrender. Let the morphing begin!

This chapter begins to unfold the giving away of our lives to acts of mercy, but before we can even go there; we must give ourselves completely away in worship.

Spiritual worship is becoming a living sacrifice.


Morphing The Body
Paul is using the language of worship from the Old Testament and his audience wasn’t too far removed from the sacrificial system of worship. In coming to God the worshipper would bring a sheep, a bull or a pigeon and then sacrifice it on the altar as an offering to God.

There were different kinds of sacrifices but realize this: at the heart of this was sin demands punishment. The slain animal represented God's willingness to accept a substitute so that the worshipper might live and have an ongoing relationship of forgiveness and joy with God. John Piper

The constant sacrifice of animals would certainly be an incredible visible reminder to not take sin lightly and that sin comes with a huge price tag.

However, OT believers knew that the blood of bulls and goats could not take away sin at Hebrews 10:4 states. It was at best a covering for sin and it directed them beyond themselves to Christ, the final sacrifice for sin. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 5:7 Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed.” That was the final sacrifice for sin, because it was perfect and sufficient for all who believe. Then we read in Hebrews 10:12, “When Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God.”

So Christ brought to an end the Old Testament sacrifices for sin. He finished the great work of atonement. His death cannot be improved on. All we have to do now is trust him for that great work. We do not add to it.

At the same time, we participate in communion every month to not allow ourselves for one minute to take lightly the awesome privilege of confessing our sins and finding the freedom of forgiveness.

The call to lay your body on the altar is in no way a form of payment for sin

You might be asking the question, ‘Why does God want my body?’ I’m losing my hair, I can’t see very well. The OT demanded a flawless sheep. I am definitely not flawless! Good point, but it is never been about our appearance with God. Man considers the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart. Change with God always comes from the inside out

And Christ, at the hour of his greatest beauty, was repulsive to look at. It was Isaiah who described him: “He had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.” in 52:2,3 The beauty of Christ is the beauty of love, not the beauty of looks. His beauty was the beauty of sacrifice, not skin.

So much of our culture’s focus is on making your outward appearance look great, but God is looking for models of mercy. He doesn’t want us to obsess about our appearance. We need to pray for our sons and daughters that God’s view of their bodies would become imbedded on their hearts. The world in which our children live is a cruel place where so much of acceptance is based on what they look like. We need to train them to realize they are agents of mercy.

One of our favourite exercises that Sharon began with our children is to have their birthday guests name what they appreciate the most about them and so it was Brynley’s turn and 13 things needed to be said. Yes, there were many things to get excited about yesterday from the pinyata to the presents. The candy will disappear fast enough, the presents will eventually to, but the affirmations she will carry with absolute confidence.

Just as the OT believers lived by faith and denied themselves some of their earthly treasure by sacrificing the best of their livestock, their livelihood so God is calling us to sacrifice our bodies by being agents of mercy. Often, we too are being called to sacrifice, deny earthly comfort so that mercy may be shown whether it is in Darfur or across the street.

• living – while there are many martyrs who in death have sacrificed their lives in the highest call of surrender, we are called to be living sacrifices. We are called to be let our lives speak out loud about our devotion to Christ. We are a living act of worship to our Lord. In our body, we are to testify to the greatest treasure of all, Jesus Christ

• holy – It is the same declaration as in Romans 6:13 to offer ourselves to be used as instruments of righteousness.
Philippians 4:18 – a sacrifice of giving Hebrews 13:15 – a sacrifice of praise Hebrews 13:16 – a sacrifice of doing good –seizing the opportunities

• pleasing – Finally we are brought back again to the one we offer ourselves, God. In the end it doesn’t matter what others think, if you are some sort of crazed Jesus freak. We want to be God pleasers in this place.

Morphing The Mind


The same word for transformation in v2 is the same word used in Matthew 17:2 in relation to his transfiguration. The crazy thing is that God wants our lives to make visible the beauty of Christ.

• Through identification

Let’s just make sure that we are talking about the same thing here. We are not talking about a glowing halo or aura around you like you might see in Catholic artwork of Jesus. We are being taught here to mirror the unmistakeable identity of Jesus in our actions and Paul really gets specific about that identity as we move through this chapter. Do you really know what it means to be in Christ...

Think of yourself with sober judgment, use your gifts in proportion to your faith, love well, be devoted and honor each other above yourself, keep your spiritual fervor, bless those who persecute you...

I got news for you...you can’t do it. You need a constant renewal of your mindset because left to ourselves we make ugly decisions and value based judgments that show very little of Christ’s love.

We need our minds to be renewed. It happens every time we open His Word and say God cut me wide open and lay me bare. Remove the selfishness and put in your heart of love for all people. Remove the stubbornness and place in me a heart of obedience to follow through on your HS’s promptings.

• Through Reinforcement of Practice
Ezekiel 33:30 -33

Unfortunately much of Western Christianity is based on who has the most captive audience and success is driven by how many people attend your church. It is the question I still get asked the most as a pastor.

The fact is that numbers impress and we gauge success of an event by how many people attend. We are wowed by big crowds. However, Jesus always questioned this kind of record keeping. In Luke 8 when the crowds began to follow Jesus and what did He do? He started talking in parables so that those who were genuinely not listening wouldn’t get it. Jesus just wasn’t interested in those who were faking it.

One of the parables that fascinated me early on back in the day when I started Bible College was on the different types of soil. I think the challenge is for us is to not just assume that we are good soil.

Remember the plant that gets choked out by all the cares of this world. Well those thorns are anything that distracts us from God. We say we want God but we want a lot of other stuff too and they just can’t coexist. A relationship to God simply can’t grow where sins, money, addictions, obsessions...sports included, materialism, commitments are piled on top of it.

It might be an understatement to say that Jim Balsillie is pretty obsessed with bringing another NHL franchise to Ontario. However, for me, I know how easily my love for the game of hockey can become an obsession and I know it.


This past week John reminded me that my office is going through a metamorphis. It began with the desire for a fresh change, but now symbolically it is beginning to represent so much more for me.

• My desk has been moved to allow more natural light
• I have also placed distance between my books and myself
• The past personal accomplishments have come down, the degrees on the wall as well
• My Leafs corner will be replaced with pictures of places where God has taken me and ultimately revealed Himself to me.

Hear me out.... a lot of things are good in and of themselves, but they have to be kept in check or they simply take over.

Most of us just have too much in our lives. “Too much of the good life ends up being toxic, deforming us spiritually.’ David Goetz


Morphing The Will

Let your life be the acid test of the will of God. This is more about the will of God than ‘the will of God for your life’

It His will that you be saved, sanctified...a big word for going through the process of metamorphis, Spirit-filled, submissive and to suffer.

Half hearted believers don’t really want to hear that last one. Let’s be honest, that is a hard truth to accept, but it is the willingness to accept the reality of suffering for the call of Christ that is our reality.

1. Morphing my will as it relates to myself.

On sober judgment... “If you read history you will find that the Christians who did most for the present world were precisely those who thought more of the next. It is since Christians have largely ceased to think of the other world that they have become so ineffective in this.” C.S. Lewis

2. Morphing into the fullness of my gifts

Prophesying – There are those who are able to speak into our lives into a very profound way and are used of the Spirit to speak and pray
Serving – they don’t care who is looking...
Teaching – they can bring the richness of the Word of God to life.
Encouraging – They don’t wait for others to encourage them, it just pours from their lives and they know exactly what to say and often do it in a variety of ways.
Giving – some people stop at thanking God for all their luxuries and comforts and rarely consider trying to give as much as possible to the poor. These are people who hold it all with open hands and allow God to take it and keep look for opportunities to give it away
Leadership – lead by example
Showing mercy - a strong sense of calling to those who are the ‘down and out’. It keeps them awake at night...

3. Morphing into love with reckless abandon
As we begin to focus more on Christ, loving Him and others becomes more natural. As long as we are pursuing Him, we are satisfied in Him. It is when we stop actively loving Him that we find ourselves restless and gravitating toward other means of fulfillment. Francis Chan
Psalm 16:11
Psalm 28:7
Psalm 90:14

The Takeaway

The only acceptable sacrifice for a spiritual act of worship to God is all of me, body, mind and will.

Questions For Discussion

1. Memorize Romans 12:1,2
2. One of the major traps for believers today is that we are surrounded by so much evil that we become used to it or worse become numb to it. We are no longer shocked and we just learn to get along. How can this change in our lives?
3. Has your relationship with God actually changed the way that you have lived?
4. Do you see evidence of God’s kingdom in your life? Or are you choking it out by spending too much time, energy, passion on the things of this world? What needs to go in your life or where do you need to ‘clean house’?

Happy Mother's Day

It was really great to have my mom share yesterday on Mother's Day as we reflected on our recent trip to Israel. The first place that stood out to her was the Wailing Wall. It was here as she waited to pray in this most holy place for Jews that she really could sense God's Spirit as she prayed and saw the thousand upon thousands of little papers crammed into the rocks. The next place was the Garden Tomb because here was one place that was so serene and beautiful in the midst of all the chaos all around it. She shared about the power of the tomb to the intricate beauty of all the flowers here and as we came back a second time, it was a wonderful place to meditate on what Jesus had done for us.

Wild Olive Branches!

Romans 9-11

Paul was considered a traitor to the Jewish nation by virtue of the fact that he saw himself as one called to minister to the Gentiles. He had taught freedom from the law of Moses, he had taught in many synagogues and caused a great uproar because of his very own conversion and many still questioned his reputation. In the middle of this great book on our legal standing before God as those who have been grafted into God’s family, Paul wants to make it absolutely clear how strong his feelings are still for the Jewish people who he loved with his life! It would seem like a diversion...after all this book is addressed to the Romans, but he wants to make it crystal clear how we arrived here...on the back of the nation of Israel.

A simple breakdown of these three chapters would be: Israel’s past calling in chapter 9, Israel’s present rejection of Jesus in chapter 10 and her future restoration in chapter 11

Paul’s sold out commitment to Israel 9v1-13

He was so overwhelmed with love for this chosen nation that in his heart if it were possible to be cut off from Christ and cursed so that they could be adopted into God’s family, then so be it. He wants to make it absolutely clear that even though he may be seen as a traitor, a sell out, a good for nothing Jew, the fact of the matter is that his love runs very deep for his Jewish brothers and sisters.

· It all started with Israel. They have the longevity, the history, the covenants. They are the nation as the representation as God’s people. They were given the law directly from God, who spoke the Word and wrote them on tablets of stone. They understood the significance and symbolism of every temple ritual and the prominence of worship in all its purity, beauty and sacrifice. It was God’s Shekinah glory that came over Mount Sinai and rested on the Mercy Seat in the Holy of Holies. It is through this wonderful nation that we trace the roots of our greatest heroes and prophets and the lineage of Jesus Christ. It was the promise of salvation and redemption of the world that has come to us through Israel.

When we toured Israel we travelled with Ran, our tour guide, he was incredibly knowledgeable on the significance of every site for us as Christians as well, but was even more aware of all the deep rooted connections to the Hebrew customs and beliefs. To be honest, at times it felt like TMI, but they know their history, they get it and they know God has His hand on them as a nation even through all the suffering and pain.

· We are part of the new Israel, the new Jerusalem. We are children of the promise.

The character of God 9v14-29

· We serve a merciful God.

There are some very difficult and challenging truths here to grasp about the character of God. It is not easy to understand why the Word states that God will harden hearts. However, having said that we need to know that even in the case of Pharoah, the choice to harden his own heart took place before God stepped in. Pharoah was a wicked man and time and time again was completely unresponsive to the power of God displayed in His life.

It is the hardening of the hearts of this very nation that became our open door to the grace and mercy of God

We also need to take into account the testimony of all of Scripture which tells us that He is not willing that any should perish but that all should come to the knowledge of the truth in 2 Peter 3:9

Jesus also made it clear that none of us could have come to the Father unless we were first drawn in by Him. John 6:65

Should not the Judge of all the earth do what is right?” Genesis 18:25

· We serve a God who is incredibly patient.

V24ff As we really wrestle through our understanding of God, the fact of the matter is that we were all destined for destruction. There is nothing good within any of us that would make us pleasing to God except for the finished work of Jesus on the cross in preparing us in advance for His glory.

You say but Pastor Jack aren’t you sidestepping a God who seems to have already made that call. Well again, we need the testimony of all of Scripture and let’s look at how Paul in particular writes about us in Ephesians 2....we were dead in our disobedience and our many sins,

But v4,5 God in so rich in mercy and he loved us so much that even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead (It is only by God’s grace that you have been saved!)

There is no disgrace in being a child of God’s grace v30-33

We move at the end of this chapter from God’s sovereignty to human responsibility

Here are the very hard and difficult lessons about being made right with God

1. It has nothing to do with how good you think you are.

2. It has nothing to do with your heritage

3. You can’t do anything to make yourself more acceptable before God

4. There is absolutely not one iota of earning in your salvation, you can’t read enough, study enough.

Just in case you think its about you and your ability, you don’t come anywhere close to what I saw in Israel. If you think you have done a lot of studying and have lived a pretty upright life, you have got nothing on the Hasidic Jews...they beat you hands down. They have rejected pretty much everything from our modern culture except cell phones...They live in a very close knit community, they study the Word diligently, they pray fervently, they do not wear the latest fashions. They don’t have TVs, internet. They have rejected it all...

Here is the one simple and often ‘unaccepted’ lesson about being made right with God

1. Stop trying and trust in Jesus and you will never be put to shame!

The Plan of God’s Salvation 10v1-13

It is really hard to believe that the majority of the nation of Israel at the time would miss the arrival of their Messiah. For centuries they knew that the law was their ‘schoolmaster’. Everything in their teaching, their faithfulness to the Word would lead them to this realization and yet they rejected Jesus Christ.

WHY?

They felt they were better than this, they didn’t need salvation in the spiritual sense, they want a deliverer in every other part of the way.

They couldn’t separate the Christ who saves from the Christ who will reign and whose second coming will be very different from His first.

They were so zealous for God that they tried to ‘improve’ on God’s laws and so their own man made traditions became stumbling blocks where the real Messiah started healing on the Sabbath...God’s law never forbid us to do good on a holy day, but their additions did.

They were fine with their own ‘man-made’ righteousness...thanks, but no thanks attitude.

So what does Paul do in proclaiming the gospel....the Romans road as some of us have affectionately called it? He showed that it is completely rooted and fulfilled in the OT.

1. Romans 10:5 Lev. 18:5
2. Romans 10:6 Deut. 30:12
3. Romans 10:7 Deut. 30:13
4. Romans 10:8 Deut. 30:14
5. Romans 10:11 Isaiah 28:16
6. Romans 10:13 Joel 2:32

W. Wiersbe does a great breakdown of the difference between the Law and Faith

Law Righteousness Faith Righteousness

Only for the Jew for whosoever based on works comes by faith alone self righteousness God’s righteousness cannot save brings salvation tries to obey the lord calls on the Lord leads to pride glorifies God

The Plan of God’s Salvation...to be continued! 10v14-17

We have used this passage to propel the movement of missions and it certainly communicates that. However, it has as its first application for the nation of Israel. The only way that unbelieving Jews can be saved is by calling upon the Lord and believing that Jesus Christ of Nazareth is truly the Son of God and the Messiah of Israel.

1. Romans 10:15 Isaiah 52:7 - Isaiah used it as a future statement for the return of Christ and the establishing of His glorious reign
2. Romans 10:16 Isaiah 53:1
3. Romans 10:18 Psalm 19:4
4. Romans 10:19 Deut. 32:21
5. Romans 10:20 Isaiah 65:1
6. Romans 10:21 Isaiah 65:2

The sad reality of Israel’s rejection 10v18-21

The future restoration of Israel 11v1-10

May their table become a snare and a trap – v10 – meaning that their blessings will turn into burdens and judgments. Unfortunately, the very religious practices that were designed to be only a picture being fulfilled in Christ have become their reality and their home. It is the sad reality when people trust more in a ritual or a practice instead of Christ.

We have a vital ministry to Israel to point them to the riches that are found in Christ.

Israel has a future, a fullness that they will one day receive.

In relation to the olive tree...no matter how far they may stray from the truth of God, their roots are still good. They will flourish once again.

1. Romans 11:3 1 Kings 19:10,14
2. Romans 11:4 1 Kings 19:18
3. Romans 11:6 Some manuscripts by grace. But if by works, then it is no longer grace; if it were, work would no longer be work.
4. Romans 11:8 Deut. 29:4; Isaiah 29:10
5. Romans 11:10 Psalm 69:22,23

The incredible privilege of our position ch 11 v11-24

We cannot for one minute take for granted the incredible opportunity we have been given to be part of the family of God. It has come at an incredible cost to our Lord Jesus, but it has also come more readily to us because of the rejection on the part of the nation of Israel

1. Romans 11:27 Isaiah 59:20,21; 27:9; Jer. 31:33,34
2. Romans 11:34 Isaiah 40:13
3. Romans 11:35 Job 41:11

The Takeaway

Romans 10:9,10

Questions For Discussion

1. What do you believe in the main stumbling block for the Jews who reject Christ as the Messiah?

2. What kind of rituals or practices can we be guilty of resting our confidence in apart from Christ alone?

3. What is God’s plan of salvation? Can you articulate the ‘Romans Road’ including verses from Romans Chapter 3 and 6.

4. How can we show Jews the glorious riches of His grace?

Freedom and Life In The Spirit

I want to focus on God’s Spirit and how he comes alive in God children. Romans 8 is full of very memorable teaching and its verses are often memorized because it is so well loved. The Holy Spirit’s power comes alive here as we learn about our freedom from condemnation, the mind controlled by the Spirit, the power of our sonship and the undeniable connection to Jesus.

We move from the battle that rages within us in our desire to live the Christian life and how the law all too often reminds of our shortcomings in Romans 7 . The reality is though that the law will only take you so far. Eventually you realize how utterly far you fall from the expectations or you live in denial with the sense of your own accomplishment.

I had the opportunity to walk inside some of the orthodox Jewish, ‘Hasidic’ communities in Jerusalem and see the reality of a people bent on doing their upmost to follow all of the 600+ rules as stated in the Torah or as we know it, the first five books of the OT. To me there was a lot to admire about their desire to live counter culture and strip away the evil influences of their culture and then there was a deep point of sadness knowing that they rested their hope in their own abilities and self proclaimed knowledge.

We are free from condemnation v1-4

Where Chapter 5 begins with a positive declaration of our justification, this chapter makes a negative point to our good. There is no condemnation

Because we are not condemned, it leads to two positive affirmations – the first is a freedom from the law of sin and death, the Torah. It is not that the law is sinful, but that the law provokes death, it produces a death in us. The believer needs to come to the full realization that looking to the law for life will never come. It will never produce justification, it was not designed or set to do that.

William Young gives a great illustration of what the law was intended to do in his book, The Shack.

On page 202, Mack asks, why did you give us the commandments to which Sarayu, the Spirit responds,

Actually we wanted you to give up being righteous on your own. It was a mirror to reveal how dirty your face gets when you live independently. But as I’m sure you know there are many responded Mack who think they are made righteous by following the rules. Sarayu continues, But can you clean your face with the same mirror that shows you how dirty you are? There is no grace or mercy in rules, not even for one mistake. That is why Jesus fulfilled all of it for you – so that it no longer has jurisdiction over you. And the law that once contained impossible demands becomes promises we fulfill in you.

So, why then are we more comfortable with following rules and trying to ‘live up’ to the faith. Because in that there is:

1. A sense of control. I now can decide who is in and who is out based solely on their ability to live by the code

2. A sense of comparison. I can now focus my attention on comparing myself to others in determining how worthy I am.

The law is weakened by our own sinful nature. It is our human weakness that robs the law and so God provided the way for the law to be fulfilled, for all the requirement to be met and that was in Jesus.

The plan for our salvation is the Trinity in that God met us and justified the law through the grace in the death of His Son Jesus and his way of transforming us is through the indwelling HS.

When God puts his Spirit in our hearts, he writes his law there. Remember it was through Jeremiah that God said, ‘I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts.’

Let’s realize that the law was important enough that Christ died for us and that God’s Spirit lives in us in order to secure the law. There are still good laws that we are called to follow today, the law to love God and love others, but the motivation to obey the law and the strength to follow through has been completely redefined.

Realize that these verses do not say there will be no mistakes, there will be no more failures because we will fail, we will make mistakes and we will sin. Abraham lied about his wife, David, the man after God’s own heart committed adultery, Peter denied Jesus. The fact is that we will suffer consequences because of sin; however we are not condemned. When sin is confessed, when His light exposes our darkness, where there is repentance, there is restoration of fellowship.

In the Hasidic community, should you fail to follow the rules, you will be expelled from the community and everyone will know and they have their own security to force you to walk away and leave. Condemnation tells you that you can never come back to the throne room, that you are not worth it, that you have nothing to offer, that you are not welcome here and it is not from Yawweh, it is lie from the pit of hell.

Allowing our minds to be dominated by the Spirit v5-13

Setting our mind on the Spirit the question that preoccupies us? It is the ambition that consumes us, the concern that engrosses us, it is the energy that we expend in that direction. How do we practically go about that in our everyday life?

The recognition of a child of God is the indwelling Spirit of God. While there are many rich experiences of the Holy Spirit and fresh anointings for the believer, I want to make this clear. To know Christ and to have the Spirit are one, there is no separation; however I will say this, there are varying degrees of influence just as there as different degrees of surrender in the life of the follower of Christ.

We have no obligation to the sin nature. It has no claim on us. We owe it nothing! So, hear me out. Stop giving it more credit than credit is due. Stop believing the labels that it attaches to you, the excuses that it so pompously proclaims to you, the lies that it burdens you with.

If anyone comes after me, he must take up his cross and follow me. When the Romans condemned a criminal, the person was demanded to carry cross piece to the site of the crucifixion and we are called to carry our cross and put to death self centeredness and self assertion. We are called to be ruthless here with those things that control us and suffocate the life of the Spirit in us.

The daily, hourly, moment by moment affirmation of the Spirit is what is necessary to fight the scheming and controlling enterprises of my natural learned tendencies. It is choosing to be led, directed, compelled by the Spirit as opposed to reacting in a knee jerk way to what I am faced with.

There is a place where the impulse of the Spirit does become undeniable and it is almost always born through prayer.

The Power and Authority found in your adoption v14-17

Adoption into a family is not an acceptance of what already is, but a conscious, active choice to choose on the part of the father and mother. If the child listens well, their connection in the family is undeniable.

I live next door to a couple who have adopted two special boys. The oldest, Justin, lives with incredible confidence and is not shy at all. It always struck me as so beautiful how he used to confidently proclaim his name to me...first and last. For Justin, there is no doubt who he is.

Adoption in Roman culture was a deliberate event where the son or daughter was chosen specifically to perpetuate the Father’s name, inherit his estate, would be fully embraced and receive the Father’s full affection and called to reproduce his character.

Abba was an everyday word, it was a very home sensed word , for those to call their Father only within context of the direct family. No Jew would have dared to address God in this manner, it really was unthinkable to address God in this way

The witness of the Spirit is one of inward assurance that often comes through times of intense prayer.

Although it is not essential for our salvation, often the wave of the Spirit in our lives comes in very emotional and powerful waves. It is a profound sense of the Father’s love that you cannot prescribe or dictate but one that often comes over you and it is undeniable.

Sufferings and glory belong together, they are indissoluble. They are welded together and they cannot be separated. The magnificence of glory cannot compare with what persecutions we may face.

The ministry of the Spirit v18-27

· He enables us to not dwell on today.

Paul gives the illustration of child birth which no man really understands – no, sympathy weight does not count!! However, what we do understand is the incredible joy of a newborn child. So, while there can be great pain in child birth, it will come to a glorious end. One day creation will be delivered and while we think it is beautiful now, it will be nothing compared to when it becomes glorious creation when even the rocks will cry out in worship to God.

· The ministry of the Spirit is to teach us to wait patiently for those things which will last forever. They are the things that don’t come easy, they come often with tears and pain, but the end result is always beautiful and worth the wait.

Our bodies groan too....they groan more as we get older, but our bodies will also experience their future redemption as they await their adoption as well. It is the point when we will enter our full inheritance in eternal glory.

· He teaches us to pray. We groan. Why? Because often when you get to the place of intense prayer, where you are overwhelmed at the prospect of what is staring you in the face you understand Paul when he says, we do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.

Two times recently I have sensed and felt this incredible groaning was at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem and at my bedside on Easter morning as I prepared for the service and overwhelmed at the realization with baptizing my children, Jordan and Brynley.

Five unshakeable convictions for a Spirit controlled person v28

We know that God is at work in our lives

He is at work for the good of His people

He works for our good in all things

He is at work in all things for the good of those who love Him

Those who love God have been described as those who have been called according to his purpose

Five affirmations for the adopted child of God v29,30

· God foreknew us – sovereign distinguishing love. The Hebrew word here is much more than an intellectual knowledge. It speaks to a group of covenantal people who God called out, chose and formed a relationship with. Paul is speaking to the thread of God’s divine love.

· He conformed us to the likeness of His Son

· He predestined us

Predestination is a wonderful teaching for those who are born of the Spirit

No one comes to the Father unless he has been drawn by Him John 5:40

We have been created before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless in His sight. Eph 1:4; 2 Tim 1:9

Predestination is not to foster self absorption Gen 12:1

Predestination is a calling. We have been called and we have listened to His voice. It is a subject for the believer. No where do we find Scripture teaching us that God predestines people to be eternally condemned.

Predestination is the spiritual summons that raises the spiritually dead to life. It is the refusal to listen to the calling, the rejection of Christ that keeps a person out of His presence.

· We are justified.

· We will be glorified

5 unanswerable questions for the person born of the Spirit v31-39

If He is for us, who is against us?

Will He not graciously give us all things?

Who will bring a charge against us,

Who will condemns us?

Who can separate us?

The Takeaway

No condemnation! No obligation! No separation but only beautiful intercession for the child born of the Spirit.

Questions For Discussion

1. Have you been in that place of self condemnation? What can you take from today’s message to bring you renewed hope?

2. Have you ever been in that place of intense prayer when words were not enough to express your heart? What circumstances led you there?

3. Memorize Romans 8:28. How is God revealing His purposes to you?

4. Compare Romans 8:37-39 with 1 Corinthians 15:54-58. Then write a brief statement, ‘Overwhelming victory is mine because...’