The Spirit Who Changes Us

And I ran into a friend of mine from high school a few weeks ago, and I was pleasantly surprised by the encounter. I this is somebody I had not seen since we graduated. So it’s been 17 years. And you can do the math now and figure out how old I am. I haven’t seen this guy since I was 18 years old. And I had left the office and was headed home. And I stopped there at loves just off the turnpike because I was headed home on fumes. And I’m just minding my own business getting gas and I hear somebody yell, Jared, I thought, who is that? So I look over there. And I see somebody two or three pumps away. And I look for a second. Then I realized who it was I said, How are you? So we stand there. And we’re catching up and talking for just a minute about why number one why he was down here? Because I knew he didn’t live down here. So we caught up for a few minutes. And both went on our way. And I got home and told Charla all about it. I was excited that she’s like, okay, so you ran into a friend from high school? I said, No, you don’t understand. We haven’t seen each other in 17 years. And he recognized me just like that. I said, Do you know what this means? No. I said it means I look as good as I did when I was 18. I look exactly the same. Thanks. No, I’ve gone back since and looked at some pictures of me. And thank goodness, I don’t look like I did at 18. I think I’ve finally grown into my head at this point. She said I hate to break it to you. Here we go. I hate to break it to you. But aren’t your Facebook friends? And I said yeah, she said, so he knows you live down here, he wouldn’t have been surprised to see you necessarily. And he knows what you look like, well. Okay, so you can always count on your wife to speak some reality into your world when you’re feeling real good about yourself? No. But I was I was excited until I thought about it. And she was right. I was excited because I thought I haven’t changed in all these years. No, I have. And that’s not necessarily a bad thing we should change we should grow. If you don’t ever grow any older, something may be medically wrong with you. Either that or you’re just, I don’t know, there’s something in the water you drink. But I wouldn’t want to be 18 years old. Again, I’m not sure I’d want to look like I did when I was 18 years old. Again, I’m sure that I don’t want to be the person I was at 18 years old, again, talking to somebody yesterday about that, and how how people change and what it means for kids to grow up and some of the maturing process. And I said, you know, you know, I was much more of a fantasy 20 years ago than I am now. And I’m thankful that the Lord has sanded off some of those rough edges and made me a little, a little more Christ like in my in my responses to things. As Christians, we are supposed to change over time. You don’t want to be the person spiritually today that you were 20 years ago, we’re expected to change There’s a song that my friend Jordan who’s come and visited here and hopefully will again and would love for him to sing the song if we have the opportunity. There’s a song that my friend Ed Jordan sang in Arkansas years ago, that I always associate with him the song said thanks to Calvary, I don’t live there anymore. And I saw something along those lines on Facebook this week that said bringing up my past is like robbing my old house. I don’t live there anymore. And and hopefully as Christians, we can look back over the years. And it’s not say that we’re perfect now but we can look back over the years and see where we are now and see where we were and say thank God, I don’t live in that place anymore. I’m not the same person I am, I have changed. Hopefully as Christians we are becoming more and more like Jesus Christ. Hopefully as Christians, we are conforming more and more to the will and to the Word of God. But is that just because we’re so spiritual and so special? Now I think sometimes we think this or we act like we think it or at least at the very least the world perceives that that’s what we think about ourselves that we are so much more spiritual and enlightened and just better than than the world outside and and it is easy sometimes to forget where we’ve come from and think, well, I’ve always been this godly. No, no, no, this this goodness, this change this, this holiness that’s been brought about it. is the result of the Ministry of the Holy Spirit in our lives. It’s not something that we get to boast it. See, we don’t get to boast about our salvation, as though we’ve earned it. We also don’t get to boast about the fringe benefits that that salvation brings. That’s also the work of God. This morning, I want us to look at another of these ministries of the Holy Spirit, I told you throughout the month of August, on Sunday mornings, we’re going to talk about the ministry, some of the ministries of the Holy Spirit, there’s five Sundays in August, that’s not enough time to go into everything the Holy Spirit does. We’re going to talk about some of the most important ministries that the Holy Spirit has in some of the most important things he does that impact us still today. And, and one of the ways that he impacts us is to change us and to make us holy. And so to understand this role that he has in changing us and making us holy and bringing us more and more in line with God’s will and God’s word. throughout time, we’re gonna look at Romans chapter eight, this is not the only place in the scripture that talks about it. But it’s a it’s a good place to start Romans chapter eight. And if you would turn there with me and your Bibles, if you don’t, if you’re using your phone, there’s a link in our bulletin. If If you don’t have either of those, it’ll be on the screen for you. But once you find it if you would stand with me as we read to read together from God’s word, if you’re able to do so, we’re gonna start in Romans eight, verse six, and go to verse 17. It says, For to be carnally minded as death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God. I want to stop there for just a second and, and clarify some of these terms, just in case they’re unfamiliar to you. This idea of being carnally minded is talking about going with our flesh, our human nature, our natural instincts, it’s drawing a distinction here between the way the Spirit leads versus the way we feel like we ought to go. Have you ever had those instances where you’re in a situation, maybe a tense situation, and you know, over here is what is right to do? And over here is what I really feel like I want to do you ever been there just me, okay. Somebody else has to this over here that I really want to do and really feel like is what comes naturally, that’s, that’s the carnal mind, that’s the flesh, okay. And then when he says, enmity, that’s an old word we don’t use so much anymore. It means to be an enemy. It’s sort of the opposite of friendship. All right, so he says, to be current, the carnal mind is enmity with God. So that that mind that flesh is opposed to God is hostile toward God, for it is not subject to the law of God nor indeed can be. So then those who are in the flesh cannot please God, but you are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now, if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not his. And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But 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. Therefore, Brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh 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 as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God, for you to not receive the Spirit of bondage again to fear, but you receive the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out of a father, the Spirit Himself bears witness, with our spirit, that we are children of God. And if children, then heirs heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified together, and you may be seated this morning. So in this text, Paul is laying out the difference between living in a way that pleases God and living in a way that fits with our human nature. And again, you understand the distinction if you’ve ever been in one of those circumstances now, on television, and in cartoons, they’ll they’ll portray it as an angel sitting on one shoulder and the devil sitting on another shoulder. We don’t need an angel and a devil right there as as, as human beings, we’ve already got that fleshly voice telling us what’s wrong to do but feels so right at the moment. And then as believers, we have the Holy Spirit living within us. As a matter of fact, we were having a conversation Friday, Charla was saying, I just don’t know what to do in this situation. I feel like I ought to do X, Y, and Z. And her mom was saying, sorry, help. I tell stories that make me look better. Her mom was being a sympathetic mother and saying, you know, I kind of agree here and they look at me, I said, Can I be the Holy Spirit for just a minute and or at least speak on His behalf and say, maybe you ought to consider this. Okay, as believers, we don’t need the two little cartoon characters sitting here that the battle is already raging there. And that’s what Paul’s talking about. All right. It’s coming. From within us because we already have the flesh. And then if you’re a believer, you’ve got the Holy Spirit there as well. And there’s a difference between living in a way that pleases God and giving in to what our human nature tells us we ought to do. These two paths lead in very different directions. As he lays out here, he says that the following the flesh leads to death, he said, but the Spirit is live and walking in the Spirit brings life, it leads to very different directions. And it’s the presence of the Holy Spirit, that makes the difference. Because nowhere in this text are we told, just pull yourself up by your by your, by your socks, by your bootstraps, and just be holy. We’re not told, just go out and try harder and be a holy person, be a better person. We were told all throughout this, cooperate with the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit’s there, he’s the one making the change. Just go that direction. See, we can’t make ourselves holy, like trying to clean something with a dirty rag. If your mama never taught you that, don’t do that. Okay? You just got to spread the mess around. If you belong to Jesus, though, if you belong to Jesus, if you are somebody who has trusted in Jesus as your Savior, who has acknowledged him as this as the Son of God, and your Savior, who died on the cross for you, and rose again, to prove it, if you have trusted in him, then you belong to Him, and that spirit is there, nudging you in the right way and drawing you closer to God changing you so that you can walk with Him. It says here in verse nine, that you are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now, if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not his. He’s saying you cannot be you cannot belong to Christ, and not have His Holy Spirit. If you belong to Christ, that spirit is there about preacher, I don’t feel like it. It didn’t matter what you feel like. He’s there. The Bible says that it’s fact. And as I’ve said before, I didn’t I didn’t coin this, but it’s, it’s true. And I say it all the time. facts don’t care about our feelings. If the Bible says that it’s true, whether I feel like it or not. If you belong to Jesus Christ, you have the Holy Spirit, and he’s there drawing you closer to God. And so this passage describes part of the Ministry of the Holy Spirit being there to change us. What it’s describing here is a word called sanctification. And we’re going to talk about what sanctification means. It’s an important word. It’s a word the Bible uses. It’s also a word the Bible uses to describe a few different things. And so we want to be clear what, what this is talking about. And we want to be clear about what all the terminology is. Some of the terminology might be confusing. And if you’re like me, you might wonder sometimes why theologians use so many big words. I think sometimes it’s because they want to make themselves feel smart. But also at times, there are times when the big words are helpful. Because we’re going to talk about sanctification. One of the things we’re going to talk about in a minute is something called positional sanctification. Don’t Don’t shut your brain off and say, I don’t care about this. This is textbook stuff. positional sanctification, and the terms like it that we’re going to talk about this morning, are helpful because they summarize a big concept that the Bible is talking about. We don’t want to every time have to say, the idea that that God at one moment at the moment of conversion says that your holy he declared it in a legal way we don’t have, we don’t want to have to describe it in depth every time we mentioned it. And so sometimes the big word actually is the shorter way to say it. And when the Bible describes sanctification, it describes it in three ways that we’re going to look at this morning that all three are mentioned in this passage as well. All three are pointed to in this passage as well. The first one is this idea of positional sanctification. Again, please don’t check out because of these, because of these theology terms. This is stuff that applies to our real lives. This idea of positional sanctification is that we are declared to be holy. The reason theologians and different theologians use different titles for these things that makes it even more confusing that I like these because they all start with P and I think that’s easy to remember Adrian Rogers did it all the time. So I’ll do it when it when I can, when I don’t have to squeeze it in with a shoehorn. If it’ll work, I’ll do it too. The idea of positional sanctification refers to our position being in Christ, it’s because of where we are. It’s not holiness, because of how we act. It’s holiness. Because of where we are, we are in Christ. It’s the idea that God has already declared us to be holy. And we see this kind of born out in verses 14 through 16. Here, as the Spirit leads us, it’s evidence that we are the sons of God. And by the way that applies to the women as well. It’s not meant to exclude you that we are the children of God. But he says in verse 14, For as many as are led by the Spirit, these are the sons of God. He’s talking about this idea it going into verses 15 and 16 of adoption through Jesus Christ, that we have been adopted into the family of God. Now, here’s one area of distinction. You know, I said he draws the distinctions between walking in the flesh. walking in the Spirit, one area that distinction is that where we were once slaves to sin, we’re now the adopted children of God. We start out as slaves to sin, we start out as God’s enemies. Now that sounds so harsh to tell people, they’re the enemies of God. I wouldn’t necessarily necessarily start out your gospel conversation with somebody that way. Hey, do you know you’re the enemy of God? Not a great way to start out. But we if it does come to that, we need to understand God didn’t fire the first shot in that war. All right, God created perfect paradise on earth for us, for us to live in harmony with him. And it was us who said no, I think I’ll do things my own way. Forget you and what you want. We were the ones that we were the ones that fired on Fort Sumpter. All right, we did that not God. So if there’s if there’s a state of being enemies, we started the war. But we started out as slaves to sin and enemies of God. And yet God does this incredible transformative thing when we are in Christ, where he says, You have gone from being slaves and enemies to now being my children. And I love how well the story of the prodigal son illustrates this, that the prodigal son if you’re not familiar with the story, he turned his back on his father and, and everything his father stood for basically told his father, I don’t care about you. I just assumed you were dead. Give me my inheritance. Let me go on my way. He blew all of the money that his father had worked his whole life for. And when he was broke, and friendless, he realized even the servants in my father’s home live better than this, even though I don’t deserve to be even his servant, maybe I can find work for him as his servant, and he goes back. And before he can even ask before he’s got this whole speech prepared, before he can even ask it, can I come back as your servant, the father brings him in and says, My son who was dead is now alive again. And he throws a party, he throws a celebration. This man did not even deserve to come back as his servant. And yet the father said, you’re not just going to be a servant, you are my son. That’s what God does for us. Because we’re in Christ, because we’re in Christ. The Holy Spirit testifies to us, what the Father has already said is true, that we’re not just servants in the kingdom, we’re sons. We’ve been adopted into his family. And so walking after the flesh, we’re slaves to the sin. But walking in the Spirit, God has already said at the moment of conversion, by the way, you’re my son. He says, I’ve adopted you. sanctification means to be made holy. So this idea of positional sanctification means that because of where we are, because of where we stand in Christ, God has already declared us to be holy. Like a legal verdict has been passed, the judge has has declared as holy in vain the gavel, it’s already been decided, it’s already been said that, why are we holy? Is it because we act like it all the time? No, it’s because we’re he is, it’s a legal declaration here. They’re mine. They belong to me. Holy means they’re set apart, they belong to me. And so you need to understand this morning that at the moment of conversion, at the moment you trust Christ, God declares you holy. I know you don’t always act like it neither do on. But he said, it’s true. He said, we’re set apart and we belong to Him. And the Spirit authenticates this. As a matter of fact, he said this, this idea of being his and being his adopted children, is an intimate relationship. He uses the term ABA here, which is the word which is an Aramaic word that basically equates to daddy, that’s an intimate term don’t miss that may think, Well, no, it’s just a title. No, because it really creeps me out when somebody who’s not my child calls me dad or daddy, it would really creeped me out if they called me daddy. But it bothered me every time at the hospital with JoJo, or with Abigail when one of the nurses would call me dad. I know you’ve got a lot of patients, but my name is right there on the whiteboard. And we’ve known you for weeks now please don’t come you’re not my child. And just and I never argued with anybody I understand. They’ve got a lot of names to remember. But I’m going to Real talk a peek into my psyche here, it creeps me out. There are five people on this planet that get to call me daddy. And one of them can’t talk yet. So there’s really four. Eventually, real soon, she’ll figure out how to get what she wants. And she’ll start calling, she’ll start saying, Daddy, there are five people that get to do that. Anybody else? It’s just weird. And yet he says we’re able to call him ABA father, it’s an intimate relationship. And something else I’ve missed for a long time. Two different terms in two different languages. The Aramaic language that the Jews would have spoken calling him ABA, and that word father is the Greek word Potter. It’s the Jews and the Gentiles saying it didn’t matter where you came from. It didn’t matter what kind of background I always wondered why they would put two words for dad in there like we didn’t get it the first time. It’s a no matter where you’ve come from. If you’re in Christ, you have that relationship. And so we’re declared to be his and the Holy Spirit enables this verse 15 tells us and then in verse 16, it tells us he authenticates the world. relationship he bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God, he is there to remind us that God has said that this is true. And it’s true on those days that you don’t feel like it on those days when you know, you’ve let him down and you think I couldn’t possibly be his child, the Holy Spirit is there saying, Yes, you are. The Holy Spirit is there reminding you of, of what God has already said is true. That’s positional sanctification, this idea that he’s already, he’s already made a change in a legal sense because of where we are in Christ. But then there’s also progressive sanctification. And this has nothing to do with politics. It’s the idea of something go, being ongoing and changing gradually, where we are taught to pursue holiness. This is that that idea? We belong to Him, now act like it, I tell my I tell my kids, sometimes you are a burns act like it. Now, I think I’ve told you before, there are generations ago in my family where that would have been some meant something completely different. Your burns Don’t act like it. And I tell him, we, it means something, not that we’re better than anybody, we just have certain expectations, not not perfection. tell the kids all the time I don’t, I’m not God, I don’t demand perfection, because I can’t meet it myself. We just expect your best. But we tell them, your burns act like it. And progressive sanctification is this idea where God says you’re my child, now I’m going to teach you how to act like it. Because they don’t come out of the womb, somehow they come out of the womb, knowing the wrong things to do. I’ve never set my children down and had a flying lesson, or hitting and taking a toy lesson. Those things come to those are part of the flesh, the carnal mind, it’s the right things we have to teach them. And the same thing is true with God. It’s it’s how to walk in the Spirit that He has to teach us. And this is another distinction where we were once characterized by sinful choices. This is distinction he draws here between walking in the flesh and walking in the Spirit. We were once characterized by sinful choices. Now, the spirit empowers us to walk in a way that is characterized by holiness, that doesn’t mean that we’re going to be perfect. And it doesn’t mean that we have anything to brag about. But it means for the first time, he has enabled us to do what’s right out of love for God. And to walk in the flesh, he says, brings death. There’s a difference here between death and life in verse in verse six, in verses seven and eight, there’s a difference between being God’s enemy. And being on God’s side, look at seven and eight for just a second, the carnal mind is enmity against God I know we talked about that already. For it is not subject to the law of God nor indeed can be. I’ve struggled with this because we’re all subject to God’s law and God’s sovereignty, whether we like it or not, even the people that mock Jesus, today will one day declare Jesus as Lord to the glory of God, the Father of the Bible says he’s Lord, whether we acknowledge it or not, we’re subject to his law, whether we acknowledge it or not. This is not saying that he’s not in control over them. It’s not saying that they’re not going to be judged, according to His law. It’s saying that they in their minds are not subject to him. It’s saying that they are in open rebellion against him. I remember in the in the, the the protest, the riots, whatever you want to call it, when an Tifa people were taking over cities on the West Coast last year, we’re no longer part of America were chopped or whatever they call themselves. At any moment, the military could have gone in there and reminded them that they are part of the United States of America, right? They, they, they had their their moment of rebellion where they said, we’re our own thing. And we all knew that’s not going to last very long that that can be brought to an end at any moment. And that that happens in countries all over the world. A group of people will decide now we’re going to be our own thing. And they’re reminded, no, no, you’re not saying the carnal mind thinks it’s not subject to the laws of God doesn’t change the God’s sovereign, doesn’t change. The God’s Word is true. And God God’s word means what it says. But in its mind, the carnal is in rebellion against God. And he draws a distinction between this and verse eight, those who are in the flesh cannot please gone, you can’t please God while you’re in rebellion to God, you can’t be subject to God. You can’t humble yourself before God and be in rebellion to God at the same time. It just doesn’t work that way. That’s what he’s talking about here. And he’s rendered us dead to sin, but alive to righteousness. Verse 10, tells us now what this means is the Holy Spirit is working in us to change us, to make us more and more like what we ought to be. And because we’re no longer slaves to our nature, we’re called to put this old way of living to death. Now notice, he doesn’t say, here to put the body to death. He says, to put the deeds of the body to death. He said, we should be putting to death the old way of doing things the old way of living. We should be constantly asking God to reveal to us the things in our lives that are not pleasing to Him so that we can deal with those and put those aside, but we never come to a play a famous preacher and I can’t remember who now said we should always be killing sin or sin will be killing us. See, there’s this. The Old Testament says, sir And show me if there’s any wicked way in me, we should always be looking for those things that that don’t please God and putting those things to death. And it doesn’t mean we ever come to a place where we’ve arrived. And we can say, That’s over with, I’m righteous now. No, we’re always looking for the next thing. Because what I found is, no matter how many victories I have over sand, it’s like whack a mole, right? It just keeps popping back up. And just because I had victory today, doesn’t mean I’m not going to have to fight again tomorrow. Thank goodness, we’ve got the Holy Spirit, thank God, we’ve got his Holy Spirit, so that we can put to death, the deeds, the flesh, the battles will continue. But it doesn’t mean that the battles won’t change doesn’t mean the battlefield won’t change. You may deal with different temptations and different sins now than you did 20 years ago. When somebody comes to Christ, they may, in that initial period, they may deal with more what we’d call open since they may deal with drunkenness, they may deal with sleeping around, they may deal with some of these outward behaviors, 20 years into your relationship with Christ, even if you put those behind you even if those battles have been fought. And one doesn’t mean there’s no battle against sin. Sometimes. Now the battle against sin is with pridefulness. Sometimes now the battle with sin is gossip. Sometimes it’s the inward things doesn’t mean the battlefield won’t change. But we continue to fight. And wherever we find the deeds of the flesh, we put them to death, through the power of the Holy Spirit, we’re only able to do this because of the influence of the Holy Spirit in our lives. God declares us holy, and then the Holy Spirit spends the rest of our lives teaching us how to act like it. So we don’t get off scot free by saying, Well, God already declared me holy, so I can do whatever I want. I’ve got immunity here. Now we spend the rest of the time under the leadership of the Holy Spirit, as he changes us as he sands off those rough edges. As he changes the desires of our heart. We spend that time learning what it means to be holy, and walking in a way that pleases God not because we’re afraid of what he’s going to do to us, but because we love him, and we desire to please Him. So the Holy Spirit changes the pattern of our lives to come into line with what God has already declared to be true. And then at the end here, we have promised sanctification, where you and I will one day in Christ be received into the presence of a holy God, say will battle sin, as we pursue holiness will battle sin for the rest of our natural lives. But eventually, we get to a point where those battles are all concluded, and God transforms us completely receives us into His holy presence, and there’s no longer any sin. There’s no longer any separation, there’s no crying or death. There’s just harmony with God the way it was supposed to be from the beginning. And the Holy Spirit is able to do this in, in both his discussions of what has happened, that’s the positional and his discussion of what is happening to us. That’s the progressive. Paul here, reassured his readers, where the road was ultimately going to lead in the future what was going to happen, that’s this promise, sanctification, look with me at verse 11. But if the spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you notice this, the Holy Spirit was able to raise Jesus from the dead, and the Holy Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead lives inside of you, you understand that the spirit that had the power to raise Jesus from the dead is the same spirit that lives inside of you. And that incredible, then he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you. This is reassurance that one day we will that if the Lord Terry’s long enough, that we all die, there is a resurrection where we are raised to be with Christ again. And I understand there’s debate about the timing of all that that’s not really within the scope of what we’re talking about here this morning. It’s simply the promise that we will be with reunited with God in death, because the Holy Spirit was powerful enough to raise Jesus from the dead. So why? Why should we doubt that he has the power to raise us too. And then look at verse 17, where he talks about this again, after saying that, if we have the spirit, we’re children of God. He says in verse 17, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with him, that we may also be glorified together. He says that the Holy Spirit reminds us that if we’re children, we’re not just second class children. We’re not children who get less in the will. He says, We are joint heirs with Jesus Christ, that we are just as much entitled to the kingdom as the son is, which is incredible, because he’s the one that paid our entry. But we are just as much entitled to our presence in the kingdom and the joy in the presence of God. We are just as much entitled to the promises of God as the son who earned it for us, not because we’re good, not because we did anything to earn it, but because of Jesus. And he says, if we suffer with him, this is not a transactional thing, that if you suffer, if you suffer this much, make sure you suffer at least this much because then you’ll be glorified with him. It’s a reminder that even in the midst of the sufferings Hey, you If you suffer with him, it’s okay because you’ll be glorified with him. It’s the promise of the Spirit, that one day we will be welcomed into the presence of a holy God sinners, no, we may be because Jesus has paid for our sins. And because the Father has declared us holy, and because the Holy Spirit has been chipping away at that sin in us, and been progressively making us more and more holy, to match what the Father has already declared, one day, this flesh will fall away, one day, this, this body, this, this person that we are will be changed, and we will be welcomed into the presence of a holy God, and all of the promises will be fulfilled, the Holy Spirit is there with us testifying, that he has already declared us holy, that he is changing us to be holy. And then he’s going to continue doing his work until that holiness is fully realized the transformation that we need. And I think that most of us recognize that we need most of us, no matter how much we seem to have our lives together. I think in moments of honesty, we recognize that we’re still a mess. And we’re not where we ought to be. We’re certainly not as righteous as God expects us to be. We know something needs to change, we know transformation needs to happen. Let me caution you transformation is not something you can do yourself. You can go buy books, you can watch videos about self help, and you can kind of nibble around the edges of your behavior, but it’s not going to transform who you really are, to be transformed. And to be made holy. We need the Holy Spirit, we need him working inside of us, we need him renovating us from the inside out. And if you’re a believer in Christ, you already have that your job today is to cooperate in the process. Because I can fight and struggle with my children and try to teach them how to act right. And they can fight and struggle to go the opposite direction Can’t they think sometimes we do that with the Holy Spirit. That’s why the Bible tells us not to grieve the Holy Spirit, cooperate with what he’s doing. You can’t do it yourself. But you can get out of the way and let him work. But if you’ve never trusted Christ as your Savior, the Holy Spirit takes up residence in you because of what Jesus has done. And sometimes we get the idea that, well, I’ll come to Christ or I’ll come to church, I’ll do whatever it is, once I get my life cleaned up, then I’ll start coming to church and I’ll, I’ll get right with God. No, just No, you might hear that message on TV. But you’re not going to hear that message in God’s word. If we could clean ourselves up enough to come to God than the cross was a mistake. And God doesn’t make mistakes. We can’t clean our lives up. Jesus Christ came to pay for our sins in full. Because we couldn’t erase the wrong that we’d done. The Bible says that each of us have sinned, we’ve disobeyed God, each of us have done it and because of that we are separated from a holy gun. And so Jesus Christ came and lived a perfect sinless life so that he wasn’t having to pay for any sin of his own. And he was nailed to the cross where He shed His blood and he died to pay for my sins and for your sins in full. And then he rose again three days later to prove it. Now, the Bible says that he offers salvation as a free gift, not when you have to try to earn or deserve, you never could. But he offers it as a free gift. If we will simply believe that he is what he claimed to be that he is our Savior, that he did die for our sins and rose again to prove it. If we’ll believe that and ask for it. We’ve got it. That’s where transformation begins this morning. If you understand that something is not right in your, in your relationship with God if you understand that, that you are separated from God and you know that transformation needs to happen, and you understand you can’t do it on your own. It begins with trusting Christ as your Savior. asking God for that forgiveness and knowing that when you’re in Christ, the Holy Spirit will come and will begin to transform you and make you more like Jesus.

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