We're gonna turn to Romans 8. Just maybe a bit of a recap. Two weeks ago, week one in this series, we looked at God and His expectation of His children to be able to die to sin and live for Christ. And we explored what that means, what this idea is of dying to sin in order to live for Christ. Last week, we saw that sin is a horrible thing.
We kinda zoomed in on sin and we did a bit of theology on the concept of sin. And we saw that sin is seeking to devour us. And therefore, as Christians, we should in turn desire to have it killed in us. We also briefly saw that God has given every Christian the ability to do exactly that, to mortify sin inside their hearts and their minds, and this is done through the Holy Spirit. We also touched on that.
But today, our main focus is to really focus on the Holy Spirit. Because there, we will see that the Christian is not only resisting sin, but through the Holy Spirit is able to overcome areas of sin that feels just impossible to conquer. And my hope this morning is that we will see how, with the help of the Holy Spirit, we can be encouraged and strengthened to know that we will never need to wonder whether we are able to conquer any particular area of sin, and that we as Christians may know and will know for certain that, yes, I am able. I am able to beat this. So let's kick off this morning by returning to a passage.
Like I said, we've already looked at a few weeks ago, and we're gonna read from Romans 8:12. Romans 8:12. Paul writes, so then brothers and sisters, we are debtors, not to the flesh or sin, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die. But if by the Spirit, you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God and if children, then heirs. Heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him. So far our reading.
Two weeks ago, after our introduction sermon on this topic, we looked at this passage focusing particularly on verse 13. If you live according to the flesh, you will die. But if by the Spirit, you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. And we saw that that death is not eternal death. There is no condemnation for the Christian.
This is a death that is a loss of the life, the spiritual inner life of the Christian, which is marked by joy, and peace, and confidence, and assurance. But then rightly, after that sermon, Tian came up to me. Sorry to put you in the spotlight, Tian. And Tian said to me, pastor, you've missed a huge component of that verse. What about the Spirit?
Paul says, if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body. So 10 points to Tian for me missing that. I missed it on purpose because I knew we were gonna come to this and we need to spend a significant amount of time on it. And that's what we're gonna do this morning. Because this morning we're going to see that the Spirit is absolutely critical to how any Christian can have victory over sin.
The first thing we need to do this morning then is last week we had a look at hamartiology. This morning, we're gonna do some pneumatology, theology of the Spirit. Pneuma being spirit in Greek. We use pneumatic drills, air pressure drills. We're gonna do some pneumatology and ask the question, who is the Holy Spirit?
The first thing we need to know and will recognise is that He is holy. He is the Holy Spirit. No other attribute of God is ever repeated three times through Scripture. Did you know that? No attribute of God is repeated three times in Scripture after each other.
Sure. God's love is talked about often a lot. But His attribute of love is not mentioned over and over three times, nor is His mercy, nor even His grace, and God is gracious. If you have studied the Bible for a little bit of time, you know that repetition is emphasis in the Bible. Repetition is important.
When someone is very bad, in the Hebrew, they are said to be bad bad. I mean, is that really bad? When a pit is really deep, it's pit pit. That's a deep pit. When Jesus declares a very important truth, what does He say?
Truly, truly. This is very true. So it's noteworthy when describing God that Scripture stresses God's holiness by saying, holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. No other attribute of His character is mentioned in that way. There is no good, good, good, although God is good.
There is no love, love, love, although God is love. He is said to be holy, holy, holy. And what does that mean? He is very holy. Extremely holy.
Pervasively holy. His holiness underlines every other attribute. So His love is a holy love. His justice is a holy justice. His wrath is a holy wrath.
So when it comes to the third person of the Trinity and the Spirit is referred to as the Holy Spirit, then it means that He is the epitome of the transcendent purity of God. Holiness has to do with being separate. Holiness is about being set apart, to be above and beyond. And what we hear about the Holy Spirit is that He's just that. Because the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of holiness, His work within us is designed to make us holy also.
And so the Holy Spirit works to sanctify us, we're told. The Holy Spirit works to cleanse us and transform us. This is why Paul writes in our passage this morning, Romans 8:13. If you live according to the flesh, you will die. But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the flesh, you will live.
Graham Cole in his book, He Who Gives Life, The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit says this, the new life that the Holy Spirit brings to God's people is a holy life. That is the life that the Holy Spirit gives, a holy life. And so consequently, what grieves and quenches the Spirit, and we hear that cliche thrown a lot, don't quench the Spirit, don't grieve the Spirit. They are references to parts in 1 Thessalonians 5 and Ephesians 4. When we talk about grieving and quenching the Holy Spirit, the context of those verses, those instructions has actually got to do with how we live as God's people, holy lives with one another.
It doesn't have some esoteric meaning of like, if you fast, then you're not gonna quench the Spirit or you unleash the Spirit some more or if you no. This is how we are to live as holy people with one another, treating each other well, loving each other. You see, it's easy for people to think of the Spirit mainly in terms of gifts rather than graces. Right? We think about what the Spirit may give us, abilities, fruit, gifts.
Too easily, we think of His power in terms of what He can enable us to do rather than what He causes us to be. But the primary work of the Spirit is transformation in us. He first transforms us in regeneration. That is His work. When you first became aware of God, that was the Spirit.
He then gives us grace. The grace to live out a certain life for Him, to be equipped with fruit that will be good and pleasing to God. But He first cleanses us and then He sends us out. He makes us saints, then He makes us servants. So first, we must recognise that the Spirit is working in each of us and He is the Holy Spirit.
The epitome of the Godhead of holiness and His desire, His pursuit is holiness in our lives. Now the second question we might ask, what good is it to know that the Spirit of God is holy and good when we aren't sure that this holiness affects us in some way? Fair enough. He's above and beyond and He is set apart, but how does that relate with me? This is where we come to our next point this morning, that the Holy Spirit is present and active.
It's perhaps one of the most amazing truths of Scripture that this holy God is seeking an ongoing relationship with us. But we need to be reminded that the Holy Spirit is a constant presence in our lives. John 14-16 contains the most sustained teaching in the New Testament on the person and the work of the Spirit. Jesus' discourse is designed to bring comfort and courage to His fearful disciples on the night of His departure. This is the night before He goes to the cross.
And in these two, three chapters, Jesus talks about being comforted by a helper who He's going to send them. The Greek word for this helper is paraclete, and it is famously difficult to translate this well into English. It's a difficult word. It can at times mean helper or adviser or intercessor. Sometimes it can mean champion.
But as Jesus explains the work of this helper who He's going to send when He leaves, He says in John 14:16 that the Spirit is another paraclete, another helper in place of Himself. In other words, Jesus has been a helper for three years to these disciples. Jesus has been an intercessor and a champion for them. He's been an adviser to them, and He says, when I'm gone and you all receive this paraclete, it will be like Me being with you still. Jesus then goes on to describe the paraclete as being the Spirit of truth.
Verse 16 of chapter 14. Just as Jesus has just declared Himself in the same chapter to be the truth, verse 6, He now says of the Spirit that He is the Spirit of truth. He will remind the disciples of the truth of Jesus, and He will lead them therefore into all truth. All this means that we are not alone as Christians in this walk of following Jesus. We are not alone.
The Holy Spirit is the essence of Christ with us. He is the one that is leading us into conformity with Christ, leading us to understand more fully, and we are never at perfect understanding. To understand better and better every day what Jesus Christ has done for us, who Jesus Christ is for us. That is the work of the Spirit of truth. Most remarkably, this paraclete, this adviser and friend, however, is within us.
So He's not just near us, He is in us. Our bodies are His temple. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 6. Where we go, He goes. In fact, He is so closely connected to us that something of God's direct divinity is part of us.
Does that not make you think that's amazing? Listen to this. 2 Peter 1:4. 2 Peter 1:4. God has granted to us His precious and very great promises so that through these promises, we may become partakers of the divine nature.
Partakers. Participants of the divine nature. Having escaped from the corruption that is in the world because of sinful desire. Partakers of the divine nature through the Spirit. Since then the Spirit dwells so closely with us, is it really necessary for us to invoke His presence?
I don't think we need to pray, come Holy Spirit. Come fall on us, Holy Spirit. The Spirit is here. The Spirit is with us. He cannot be closer to us.
In the New Testament, it's not the disciples who huddle together at Pentecost and pray, come Spirit, come. It's the Spirit who says to them, come and partake of the eternal riches for you in Christ Jesus. You come. You come here. You receive and believe this truth.
A better way for us to pray is that we may have a greater awareness of His presence in us. That's what we can pray. A greater awareness of Him in us. And perhaps you've been a Christian for a long time, but as you wrestle with ongoing sin in your life, and you may be old and you still find yourself wrestling with the same thing, if you give up, you might be losing track of these great promises for you. But I wanna assure you this morning, you have no need to feel hopeless.
Have no need to feel powerless because your struggles don't have the final say. They will not have the final say. The Spirit has the final say over those things. And so when God's command tells us to put off sin, God isn't asking anything more of us than what He will enable by His Spirit. One of the most common heresies we teach ourselves is that while we might believe that we are saved by grace, we also believe that we are sanctified by works.
That we can only be true Christians by continuing to try harder and do more. But while God doesn't shy away from telling us to make every effort to grow in godliness, our strength, even our determination, even the guilt that may drive our change comes from the holiness of the Holy Spirit in us. It is His inner strength that enables us to work out our salvation with fear and trembling. Holiness is therefore the work of the Holy Spirit. John Brown, in his commentary on 1 Peter, sums it up powerfully.
He says, holiness does not consist in mystic speculation. Holiness does not consist of enthusiastic fervours or uncommanded austerities, meaning you rid yourself of all things in life. Holiness consists in thinking as God thinks and willing as God wills. This is what Paul systematically explains in our passage in Romans 8. This is what he says about the Spirit.
Paul says that we can mortify sin in our life. We have the ability to do so, but he can't help but point to the Spirit who is the helper in that process. Have a look at Romans 8 again. Verse 9, you, however, are not in the flesh. You are in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you.
Verse 11, if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you. We read verse 13. We'll do it again. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die. But if by the Spirit, you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
Verse 14, for all who are led by the Spirit of God are what? Sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit enables us to know and believe we are children of God already. The Holy Spirit is therefore not just intimately present in our lives.
He doesn't sort of just passively sit in our hearts. He is active in us as well. It is the Spirit who stirs desires within us. It is by the Spirit that we put to death those misdeeds of the body. It is the Spirit who assures us of our sonship and leads us to love God as our father.
This is what it means. No aspect of your Christian life is possible without the aid and the presence of the Holy Spirit. Nothing you do is possible without the Holy Spirit. Only He is able to make us holy. He gives us the affections for Christ that are so enormous, that are so wonderful, affections that make us weep with joy, and it chokes out the sin in the meantime.
Everything else pales into comparison as we marvel and as we fall in love with the greatness and the glory and the grace of Jesus Christ. The Spirit gives the inner strength that enables us to say no to sin. I don't need it anymore. I want godliness because I want Christ. I want to experience all that He is.
I want to know the power of His resurrection. Whatever preacher you listen to, and I know we listen to all sorts of people. Whatever preacher you listen to, listen very carefully to them. Weigh up their words because if they tell you that your life as a Christian is dependent on anything but the grace of the Holy Spirit working in you, you gotta turn them off. You gotta stop listening to them.
Because this is exactly what Jesus did when He gave His disciples the Great Commission. You know, He is about to send them on the greatest mission, the greatest command He could give them, the final command He gives them. And He says to them, what? Wait. Not go, wait.
Receive the Spirit and then you will go to Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the ends of the earth. You must wait for Him before you can do that. And then even after this promise and this command, Jesus finishes with another promise. This is His final words. Surely, I am with you always to the end of the age.
How can Jesus be with us forever? Through His Spirit. So the Spirit is present, but not just passively present, He is active in us. And then finally, thirdly, the Spirit is sovereign and powerful. We did a series a few months ago on the Trinity.
Remember that? And we said that each of the persons in the Trinity is unique and powerful in and of themselves. They are unique persons within that Godhead. The Holy Spirit is not an appendix of Jesus. The Holy Spirit is not some tube or channel that directs us back to the father somewhere.
Some inanimate object that just channels the power of God the father. The Spirit is a unique individual within the Trinity. He is the independent and sovereign God in His own right. And the clearest verse on this is probably John 3:8. John 3:8 where Jesus teaches, the wind blows wherever it pleases.
You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit. So this idea of the wind. Murray Capill, who is the former principal of the RTC in Melbourne, he likens Jesus teaching about the Spirit here to when you drop a $20 note in the wind. Okay?
We've probably done that. $20 bill falls out of our pocket on a windy day. Now, you run after that $20 wanting to pin it down, but it settles just long enough for you to reach down and then the wind comes in and it picks up. It lurches up and it does a 90 degree turn and just goes in the opposite direction to where you thought it would be going. It flies away and you have no idea where it's gonna go next.
You cannot tell it. Stop. You cannot tell where and how far this wind will blow it. The Holy Spirit is that independent, that self driven. It means that He is sovereign and He calls the shots.
This explains why we can't tell when a revival is gonna hit Australia. This explains how, whether we demand it or not, the Holy Spirit will make that decision. It's also why we cannot determine how many people will be saved at a particular time. We cannot manipulate the conversion of a person. And this is why we should be careful not to make too many claims about how the Spirit has led us or what we have been prompted to do or believe.
If the Spirit is the wind who blows of His own accord, then He is powerful because He's not limited by anyone's parameters. Since He is a sovereign being, it means that He acts outside of anyone else's permission. He doesn't need anyone's permission. He doesn't need us to say, come Holy Spirit. He doesn't need us to say, I must lay my hands on someone to be healed.
He is sovereign and He makes His choices. He is not limited by anyone's permission. A quick survey of the Bible gives us examples of just how powerful He is and how He acts beyond the limitations of ability. In the Old Testament, the Spirit's work is associated with a mighty power. At times, He's able to snatch up prophets and relocate them elsewhere.
He's able to give superhuman power to people like Samson. The Old Testament says that the Holy Spirit has limitless powers in the realms of knowledge, limitless in wisdom, limitless in strength and determination. This is succinctly explained by the prophet Isaiah who foretells of the coming Messiah. In Isaiah 11, this is what he says, the Spirit of the Lord will rest on Him, the Messiah. The Spirit of wisdom, the Spirit of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of power, the Spirit of knowledge and of fear and reverence for the Lord.
Not surprisingly then, in the New Testament where we have the ongoing mission of this risen Messiah's disciples going ahead, the promise of Acts 1:8 drives that entire mission, drives the passion and urgency of the early church. Jesus says to them, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be My witnesses. The Holy Spirit sovereignly and powerfully comes down on the apostles. They are filled with the Spirit, and therefore, they speak boldly and courageously. What this means for us right now is that we can and we should expect the Holy Spirit to work powerfully in our lives.
Are you comfortable with that idea? To expect the Holy Spirit to work powerfully in your life. We must be expectant and hungry to know what the Spirit knows, to live the way the Spirit wants us to live, to minister in the Spirit's power. And of course, He often works His power in weakness. Jesus said to Paul, My power is made perfect in your weakness.
Knowing the Spirit's power may mean you don't actually feel very powerful at all. You may feel tremendously weak, but that may be the moment where God works most mightily in you. So it's not even based on a feeling. It's not even based on confidence. There's a real danger for Reformed believers that we expect an almost powerless Christianity.
We do not really expect our lives to be changed. We don't really expect revival to come. Even though we say we won't dictate when it comes, we don't expect it. We don't even pray about it. We don't really have a hopeful expectation for people to be saved or that God can use me radically.
At our worst, we just go through the motions of prayer without any urgency, without any expectation, and friend, that will only change when we come to believe truly truly in the Spirit's power. And so we see that the Holy Spirit, this third person of the Trinity, is both sovereign, limitless, has His own say, and He is powerful. And this power teaches us to expect amazing things, to not be limited by our own fears and what we think is appropriate. His power teaches us to expect amazing things, yet His sovereignty teaches us to wait humbly. We can be expectant and we can be hungry to experience and know the Spirit's power in our lives.
But listen to this, and it is a great comfort because He is sovereign. Even when we, in our weakness, have nothing to give Him to work with. Even if there's very little expectation or desire in our hearts, you may just have rocked up this morning and said, I'm here for church. And I'll punch out at 10:30. Thank you very much.
We may have very little expectation for Him to work in our lives, but He is the one that will do it. He is the one that's gonna break your heart. He is the one that's gonna make you uncomfortable. He's the one that's gonna stir you by His grace this morning. Even when nothing in us would help in making us more godly, the Spirit is running on His own desire and His desire is for you to be holy.
So why would we remain hopeless when we have such a great promise? If this is what is in store for us, victory over sin, not because of our desires, but because of the Spirit's desire for conquering sin in us, why feel like the battle is lost even before we've started? In some ways, I think it's because we think it's too good to be true. It just seems too easy. Surely, it must be harder than that.
Surely, the great men and the great women of the faith had superhuman ability, had just an incredible discipline in their lives. But God's way of working has never changed. God is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. And the steady gentle work of the Spirit is developing in you a character and a nature that the Bible says will ultimately magnify the grace and the majesty of God.
Through the Holy Spirit's cleansing power in us, God will be glorified so much so that when we are presented to Him one day, the Spirit and the Son will say to the Father, Father, here they are. All of them. They are radiant. They are perfected. They have accomplished all that You have desired for them.
Look at them. And the Father, and the Son and the Spirit will be praised for eternity. The Spirit will say, I've been busy perfecting you for a long time. Through those stops and those starts, through those stumbles and those u turns, but now finally, by the grace of the Lord Jesus, I present you to the Father as His child. This is the vision that the apostle Jude, one of the disciples that needed the Spirit of God to empower and to embolden him.
This is the vision that the apostle Jude paints for us at the end of his little letter. Verse 24. There's only one chapter. Verse 24. Actually, let's turn to that.
Let's have a read. Jude and we're finishing with this. Jude is right at the end of the Bible. Jude 24. Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of His glory with great joy.
To the only God, our Saviour, through Jesus Christ, our Lord, to Him be the glory, the majesty, the dominion, the authority before all time and now and forevermore. Amen. Though our offence and the sin of that offence is great. The Spirit's grace is greater still. Friends, know this and believe it, that you are able to put sin to death in your lives because the Holy Spirit is holy.
He is very holy and yet His wish for you is also holiness. And He is present and He is active working that holiness in you. And because He is sovereign and because He is powerful, He will do exactly what He set out to do for you. And this is the end result. Holy and blameless.
Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we stand really moved at this great hope and this great promise. And Lord, I can't help but be emotional. What a great vision. What a great desire, what a great goal and promise to look forward to.
Spirit, we thank You that You are working in our hearts. We thank You that it is Your desire. As Galatians 5 says, it is Your lust to conquer sin. You lust against the sin in us. We thank You that this is therefore Your fight.
And we pray, that as we hear these truths, as we feel the gentle grace and the peace that comes from hearing these words, we pray that we will be encouraged, that our strength will be renewed, that our spines will be straightened to stand up, to know we can walk upright with our God. For the areas, Lord, that You know of, we commit them again to You. We ask, Lord, that You'll teach us and train us, that You'll convict us and remind us. Give us the experiences, give us the wisdom of friends that will train us in godliness. And then Father, I pray especially that You'll give us the grace one day to look back on it all and see how far we've come and to see what You have changed and to give You glory for it, to give You thanks for it.
We ask for this power and this grace. And Lord, we say, yes. It is ours. We believe it. In Jesus' precious name we pray. Amen.