Romans 8:5-28 • Vital Signs of the Spirit
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(This transcript was prepared using software tools and has not been reviewed for complete accuracy.)
You know, as I was coming into church today, I was listening to the radio, listening to J. Vernon McGee. Some of you will recognize that name, and a great Bible teacher, and J. Vernon McGee was saying, "I'm going to speak on Romans 8 today because that's the high watermark of all of Scripture." And I thought, "No, I want to hear what he has to say because we're looking at Romans 8 today, and it really is that place where the Apostle Paul takes all the theology of the past and points to all eternity future, really pouring the whole Bible, not just into one book, but into one chapter." So let me invite you to look there. Romans 8, this high watermark of Scripture. We have a long passage today, 5 through 28. I can't read it all to you right now. But even within that passage, there are some high watermarks, one of which is verse 11. We've looked at that a couple of times in previous weeks already. If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who lives in you. Wow, what is the impact of the Spirit of God dwelling in you? Well, another high watermark in the chapter is verse 28 as the implications are spelled out. Verse 28 of Romans 8, "And we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good, for those who are called according to His purpose." Now those are the bookends. We'll study what comes between. Let's pray that God would bless us as we do so. Let's pray together.
"Heavenly Father, the same Spirit who inspired these holy words now indwells us that we might receive them. So work the work of the gospel in our hearts, as good news not only penetrates our minds,
but transforms our hearts, that our lives might serve you in the joy that is our strength. So grant us insight into Your Word by Your Spirit, we pray, in Jesus' name, amen."
The newspapers only called him Baby Paul, the youngest recipient of a heart transplant in modern history.
He received his new heart when he was two and a half hours old.
Even before he was born, the doctors determined that his heart was defective and that he would need a new heart or he would die.
And so a team of 20 doctors, 80 nurses and technicians worked to give him a new heart. And once that heart was beating, the lead surgeon said there was electricity in the air when we realized what we were doing.
Now for a preacher, that is just too good an analogy to pass up.
A child of God with a heart that was dying, yet by electricity in the air, whatever that means, he has a new heart.
What we believe, because Ezekiel the prophet tells us this, is what God promises by His Holy Spirit is that He will take hearts of stone, dead and defective, and by that same Holy Spirit He will make them hearts of flesh. Says Ezekiel for God Himself, "I will put a new spirit in you so that you might have life."
If you think about that, it really is just kind of a wonderful expression of the Christian life as the medical team that is putting that new heart in us is God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. The Father determining what we need. The Son performing the work of salvation and the Holy Spirit, the instrument of God's power in our hearts and lives. Father, Son and Holy Spirit, it's a great analogy.
The trouble is we don't want just an analogy.
We want to know in actuality, what does the Holy Spirit do? After all our culture, even the church culture seems to be so confused about that.
If you have the Holy Spirit, do you turn blue?
Do you speak in tongues? Do you perform miracles? Do you grow a fifth toe? I mean, what does the Holy Spirit do?
All the Apostle is telling us in wonderful ways, saying what the Holy Spirit does initially is He confirms new spiritual life in us. How is new life confirmed? I mean, just can you picture in your mind, baby Paul with this new heart now?
His flesh begins to pink with new blood flow, eyes open, fingers begin to move, toes to twitch. There's life in Him. There's evidence of life. And what the Holy Spirit is doing for every believer is giving us confirmation of new life in us. Now, for baby Paul, you know, all the monitors are hooked up and they blip and beep and buzz to show new life. What spiritually is happening in us?
One of the things that happens that's confirming new life in us is that there is a new mindset for those who have been indwelled by the Spirit. That is verse 5 of Romans 8. "For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh. But those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit."
There's a new mindset for those in whom God dwells by His Holy Spirit. And among other things, that means that there is a change of direction. No longer are we seeking the things of the flesh, but we begin to go after the things of the Spirit. Our mind changes in terms of priorities. I just thought about it again last week when the high schoolers were so great to invite the pastors to the youth meeting last Sunday night and we gave our testimonies. And just as it happened, I recognized that that weekend was the 40th anniversary of the weekend that I, raised in a Christian family, nonetheless was a senior in college and recognized on that Thanksgiving break my life was going a wrong direction. Here's why. I wasn't doing terrible, awful things. But as I began to examine as a believer the priorities of my next choices as a college senior, I recognized that I was debating whether I was going to be a journalist or an attorney. Nothing wrong with either of those professions.
But here was the priority of my choice.
Where can I make the most money or where can I make the biggest name?
And there really wasn't anything else I was thinking about. My mindset was just about greed and glory.
And something in me says that is not what the Spirit desires. I'm not saying the professions were wrong. I'm saying my mindset was wrong because the direction in which I was going was only that which was pleasing me.
God says if the Spirit is in you, you have a direction. That is the direction of the Spirit. You're wanting to do the things of God. That's because you actually have a changed destination from what you were before the Spirit entered you. That's verse 6. "For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace." We are no longer dead men walking as though our hearts were going a different direction. We are no longer every one of us in whom the Spirit dwells walking toward condemnation.
No, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. So we now, having repented of our sins and dwelt by the Spirit, we are going toward life, not just eternal life, but life that is not fruitless, life that is not emptied, life is not void of satisfaction because we are just pursuing the next experimental satisfaction of life that turns up empty again. No, we're finding fullness. We're finding that pursuit of the Spirit is giving us a sense of satisfaction, fulfillment,
appreciation for our God. And that means we have a different destination. And the consequence of that is we begin to have changed desires in our hearts.
Verse 7 right at the beginning talks about the transition. "For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God."
The second aspect of the transition is at the end of verse 15. "But you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, Abba, Father."
Something has happened. If the Spirit is in you, you recognize there was a time, I didn't want this Jesus in my life. I didn't want him bothering with me. I didn't want him being the killjoy in my party life. I didn't want him controlling what I thought was good and bad. I wanted my own way.
Your mind was hostile to God. That was the mindset.
But now when you recognize what Christ has done in your behalf and God has become your eternal Father, saying, "I'm providing for you not just no condemnation, but a future of glory with myself," your heart begins to yearn for God. The psalmist says, "My heart and my soul cry out for the living God. Our hearts cry out, "Abba, Daddy, Father, I love you. I want to be with you."
The hostility has turned to affection.
There's a change in us.
I said to you last week, and I've tried to say other times, if you begin to evaluate the work of the Spirit by seeing whether or not you are perfect, you're perfection, you'll always be disappointed because we won't until we're in glory be perfect. But we don't look for the reality of the Spirit to our perfection.
We look to our affection.
When I sin, do I hate it? Because I recognize it tramples on the blood of Christ. It grieves the Holy Spirit. It is against the love of my Father. When I recognize the wrong in me, am I convicted by that work of the Holy Spirit so that I not only hate the sin, but love the Savior? And what renewed fellowship with the Father is there a longing for Him? There's just a change of the things that we desire in life. It may be in those simple ways that the Spirit is giving us these vital signs.
I had a friend in St. Louis for many years who, because of his job, he was in the car a lot calling on clients. And because he wanted to pass the time with things that were enjoyable to him, he developed this vast music collection that he would play in the car going from client to client. He enjoyed it a great deal.
And I don't remember if it was because he became a believer or that there was this renewal in his life of the work of the Holy Spirit. But he said to me one day, he said, "Brian, I still have all the music, but I don't turn it on.
I just want to spend my time praying.
I just want to commune with God." Now, listen, I'm not saying the music was wrong. I'm not saying anything like that. I'm saying there was this change of desire in him. His heart was being transitioned. There was this working of the Spirit in him that was evident in change desires and change priorities. And that's part of our assessment too.
Are you a child of God? Is the Spirit in you? Do you have a different mindset about what's important, about what your destination is? And because you know you are a child of God, your desires are changing. You want to please God. You want to commune with Him. I mean, it's not just some sort of vacuous, empty desire.
Because Paul is telling us that by the Spirit, you not only have a new mindset, you have new abilities at the same time. Verse 8, "Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
You however, are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you." And what's the consequence? Verse 11, "If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies." Do you see baby Paul? Fingers moving, strength coming, blood flowing. There's life in you. But it's not just mortal life. The same Spirit that raised Jesus' body from the dead that gave life to His dead mortal body. The same Spirit now indwells us by faith so that the resurrection power of God is in us. Change of sin, change of habit, change of addiction is all possible because we are no longer in bondage to the flesh. The Spirit indwells us. And part of what it means to be a child of faith is just to believe that that's real. Satan wants to come to you and say, "You can't change. You can't be fixed. You can't do anything different. Your background, your addiction, that's all bondage to you. It's just biology. You can't be helped." And the Spirit of God comes and says, "You are a new creature in Christ Jesus. And because you are a new creature in Christ Jesus, indwelled by the Holy Spirit, new abilities are yours." How do we assess that we have those new abilities? The fruit of the Spirit begins to show. Those vital signs are coming. What are the fruit of the Spirit?
Love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control? Not all at once. I mean, baby Paul has to grow. He has to mature. We sometimes make a mistake in the Christian life. You know, in the life of the church, people become Christians. And we expect them to go from baby Paul to the Apostle Paul in one day or one year or one...did you hear what Major Kelly was saying? Major Collins was saying? You know, sometimes it's just over time that people have to grow. We nurture and we help, but they are changing. We have to do two things at once in the church. We have to say to people who have no evidence of spiritual growth, "Is the Spirit in you? Do you need to be humbled before God to truly repent of your sin to say you need the Spirit in you and there's no evidence of that?" We need to say that at one time to people who show no growth, no evidence of the Spirit in them because they have no assurance that they're gods if there's no evidence of this new ability in them.
At the same time, we need to say to people, "This is a growth process, this Holy Spirit. We're wrong to expect you to be new, mature all at once.
There's an ability that needs to grow, but the reason it will grow is because you have new obligations, a new desire for those abilities to grow." That's verse 12.
"So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh." I read that verse last week and we had a good discussion after the service of people saying, "What does it mean to be a debtor to the flesh and what's the other debt that we are assuming?"
Well, I thought about that in terms of how the Apostle Paul expresses himself in other places. In Colossians 2, for instance, he says this, "Jesus canceled the record of debt that was against us by nailing it to the cross." You can almost perceive it, can't you? Here is this invoice that comes, it's your debt. And Jesus says, "That debt that you have because of your sin, he took and he nailed it to the cross, accepting the penalty of himself in himself so you would not have to pay it." So we are debtors to the one who paid our debt.
Your flesh did not pay your debt.
You could never buy your actions, buy your work, buy your achievements, buy your goodness, pay the debt for your sin to a holy God. And so Christ paid the debt. What does that give you? It gives you a sense of loving obligation, thanksgiving, love, gratitude. The debt that we owe to God is not the debt of dread, "Oh no, the ogre in the sky will get me because I haven't shaped up enough yet." No, it's the debt of love and thanksgiving. Look what Christ has done. And part of the evidence of that Holy Spirit in you is you have the sense of love for the Savior. And it's not love that's just abstract that has no application to our lives. Because with that obligation now become new deeds.
The ability, combined with the desire to do God's will, means that things change in us. Deeds are changed. Verses 13 and 14. "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. You are living as a child of God. There are characteristics now of you reflecting the nature of your father. You look different. You act different. Your deeds are different because your desires have changed and your abilities are new.
And so your deeds are different.
And because your deeds are different, your circumstances begin to change too as you begin to witness the work of the Holy Spirit in your life. Now witnessing the work of the Holy Spirit in your life, I would just say in modern culture that just sounds strange. That just sounds odd. Witness the work of the Holy Spirit. What does that mean?
I think of it from some years past. Kathy and I were in a Bible study and as we were in that Bible study with other couples about our age, we began praying for one of the couples where the woman in that couple said, "I'm witnessing to one of my neighbors."
And she's a member of a local cult, not a Christian.
And as we talk, she sometimes listens, but the more we talk, the angrier she seems to get. I'm not sure what to do.
And so our little Bible study we prayed for and we said, "Well, listen, what it seems right to do is keep looking for the opportunities to speak to her. And if the relationship is going to break, let her break it, not you."
I must tell you, the young one was honest enough to say, "I'm not sure I like that advice."
I mean, I just don't really like talking to her. It's difficult, it's hard, it's stressful, and I'm not sure I want to do that. But it does seem like what God wants me to do is be a witness.
And so against, as it were, her preference, she tried to live the deeds that God was calling her to do. It worked very well because just after a few more days of opportunity, she got a knock on her door one day from the neighbor, "How dare you put that rose bush on the property line so close to my fence?
If that's the way you're going to act, I'm not going to talk to you anymore." And the relationship was done.
And the woman in our Bible study group came back and we grieved for that for about six months.
The neighbor knocked on the door again, "Would you forgive me?
I wasn't mad about the rose bush.
I could tell what you were saying was true, and I did not want to face it.
But now I believe in Jesus and I want to hear what you have to say."
What was the Holy Spirit doing?
Changing deeds to change circumstances.
When the young woman came back to our Bible study group, the way she said it was this, it was really through tears of gratitude and joy. She said, "You know, I've always been able to see God the Father, to imagine what that is and how He works. And I've always been able to see the Son, but this is the first time I believe I have seen the Holy Spirit."
Now, you're good theologians. Did she really see the Holy Spirit?
No, what did she see?
She saw the effects. Just like Jesus said, the wind blows where it will and you don't see the working there. But what do you see? You see the working of the wind. That's the way the Holy Spirit works. We see the working of the Holy Spirit. As we look first inward into our own lives, we see mindsets change, priorities change, desires change, actions change.
But that's not all that's changing by the work of the Holy Spirit. The apostle wants us to know, once you begin to recognize the Spirit is present by this internal change that you are witnessing as the Spirit witnesses with your spirit that you are a child of God. Remember verse 16? When that begins to happen, you begin to witness other things. You begin to have confidence for the life the Holy Spirit is calling you into.
Confidence that is there even in the midst of suffering. Verse 16, "The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. If children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ provided we suffer with Him in order that we may be glorified with Him. Therefore I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed in us. For us to move with confidence through life now, it requires two things at once. We have to have an understanding of our inheritance and an understanding of God's heaven. They have to go together for us to move confidently through life. Now the understanding of our inheritance is that there is glory to come.
The reason it has to come is that there may be suffering in this life.
The presence of the Holy Spirit is not suddenly easy street. After all, Jesus Himself suffered for living a life holy to God. And He promised His disciples that if we would follow Him, we would experience persecution and suffering. He promised that would occur.
But what do we know? That's not the final chapter. That's not the end of the story. I recognize I have a glorious inheritance with God and that gives me confidence even in the midst of suffering.
When I was in graduate school, there was a time at which living on a graduate student's income, which means nothing, I was invited to a party with one of the school's benefactors. And it was because it was one of the school's wealthy benefactors, a Christmas party that was attended by lots of people with lots of means dressed in their finery. And you know, I felt pretty much out of place.
Except there was a young man about my age, also at the party, who seemed completely confident at ease despite the fact that he was addressed a lot like I was, flannel shirt, jeans, waffle stomper boots, you know.
We talked, engaged, great guy.
He moved on to talk to other people. I moved on and one of my friends came to me. He said, "Do you know who you were just talking to?" "No, a guy like me." He said, "Well, that is the heir to one of the greatest chemical fortunes in the world."
I thought, "Well, he didn't look like it."
Because you see, his father had insisted for a while he live on a student income too.
What did he care? He knew what was ahead. He knew the inheritance that was surely his. And we have the confidence even through times of suffering, the Spartan existence, the difficulty of now, because we know what is surely ahead. What is surely ahead? What is that heaven for those who are inheriting it? Verses 19 through 23. I have to tell you, we could spend four weeks or four months on these few verses, and I'm just going to cover it real fast. What is the heaven that's being expressed to us that gives us glorious understanding for confidence in a suffering world? Verses 19, "For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God." There will be a time at which the sheep are separated from the goat, in which the children of God will be separated from the children of flesh, where we will be revealed for what we are, truly, entirely, God's people with the glories of heaven. What are they? Verses 20, "For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who suggested it, subjected it in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption, and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God." What is heaven in your mind? I mean, we're so silly sometimes, you know, clouds and, you know, people with wings playing harps all the time, you know.
What is heaven?
Heaven is earth made perfect. It's the corruption taken away. It's the fallen world that began to experience the corruption of sin from the time of Adam that creates the heartache and the earthquake, not just of physical realities, but of spiritual and family realities. All that is going to be taken away. God says, "Even as we, the children of God, are taken out of corruption, so the creation itself is restored, renewed, and perfected in the original and even better creation order, so that the best world you could possibly imagine, the most beautiful sunset, the most glorious camping experience, the most wondrous experience you could have with family at the holidays to say, that is the continual existence of an earth made perfect. And God is saying, that is what is ahead for my people. It's what's ahead for my creation. We sing about it.
No more tears.
No more pain.
No more fears or crying again.
We sing without even thinking about it. Joy to the world. His blessings will flow as far as the curse is found. That's not just applying to me. That's the whole creation being transformed by the Holy Spirit so that we who go through the suffering of a broken world now recognize there is something better, there's something wondrous. It's a glory so that the sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. We are able to endure with patience the hard things now because we know what is ahead. I mean, imagine the doctors had come to the parents of baby Paul and they said, "Listen, it's wonderful. He's got new life and he'll live to maturity and we're just so thankful for that." But listen, there is this problem.
He's got very fair skin.
And when he's a teenager, he'll probably develop acne.
What would the parents say?
Who cares?
He's alive. He's got a future. He's got hope. What would they say? We'll endure the teenage years with some patience. And hopefully he will too. Why? Because of the glory that is ahead. It's precisely what the Apostle is saying here as well. Do you remember? Verse 23, "And not only the creation, but we ourselves who have the first fruits of the Spirit grown inwardly as we wait eagerly for the adoption of sons, the redemption of our bodies." He's turned the corner. He's come back. He started saying creation is going to be escaped from corruption the way individuals are. And now having spoken about that incorruptible creation, he turns back to us and says, "You know what's happening in the whole creation, release from corruption? That's going to happen to you, to your body." What will that mean? Verse 24, "For in this hope we were saved."
Now hope that is seen is not hope, for who hopes what he sees?
But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience.
All right, I don't see the full heavenly reality yet. I don't experience the full glory yet. But because by faith already being evidenced by the work of the Holy Spirit changing my priorities, changing my desires, changing my abilities, I begin to believe in that work of the Holy Spirit. And so I believe not just that the creation will be changed, but that our bodies will be renewed, not just my soul. This isn't just some sort of abstract cognitive faith. Soul and body renewed in the new creation in such a way that the worst things that we experience now in life are set aside, made right, corrected.
A friend of mine some years ago had a job much like mine in which he was on the road a great deal.
And when he was away from his family one weekend, his wife took the children to McDonald's just to get out of the house, that sort of thing.
One of their three children was Justin. Justin has Tourette's Syndrome. Some of you know what that means where involuntarily there are twitches and grunts and sometimes awful words that come out of children and sometimes adults.
They went into McDonald's and for whatever reason in the McDonald's Justin had one of those spells where the twitches and the words came and the mom just took the kids out to the car, at which point one of Justin's sisters said, "Mommy, will Justin always be this way?"
When my friend Ben got home and his wife told him that account, he said, "Well, what did you say?"
When our daughter said, "Will Justin always be this way?" What did you say? She said, "I didn't have anything to say."
He said, "Oh, yes, you did."
Justin will not always be this way. There will be the renewal of God's people, spirit and body. We are made right. I think of what that means to people with special needs children. I think what it means to children with special needs parents at this phase of life. I think what it means to all of us who know what it means to fight cancer and dementia and broken family relationships and the difficulty to say, "It will not always be this way." And what we experience now as awful as it may be is not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us when no more tears, no more pain, no more fears, no more crying again. We are made right with God. And when I know that I can go through the suffering even now with confidence, even with patience knowing what God plans for my eternity.
Don't hear me wrong. It's not as though this patience is just the patience of fatalism. "Well, I got nothing to say in this. I got nothing to do about this." No, it's not that the Holy Spirit is just giving us confidence of a full life now and in eternity.
But the Holy Spirit is providing power for a good life even now. How does that happen? Where does the power come from? First from just divine intercession. Verse 26, "Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness.
For we do not know what to pray for as we ought."
Aren't you glad an apostle wrote that?
I don't know what to pray.
So what? "But the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for word." Now here's the first aspect of the Holy Spirit working to give us power.
We pray sometimes not even knowing what to pray. I don't know what's going to happen tomorrow in the stock market versus much less in my own home or my own body. I don't know what I ought to pray for.
And so we are told that the Holy Spirit is before the throne of God taking the heart of Christ Jesus for me to the heavenly Father in the expressions of my prayers. But I have to confess something. I'm guessing this is true not only of me. Sometimes even when we are praying about the things most important to us, we can pray for the salvation of relatives. We can pray for the change of employment conditions that we're facing. We can pray for people around us to be renewed by the Holy Spirit.
And sometimes we fall asleep in our own prayers.
Is it just me?
And while my fervor is flagging, the Holy Spirit is before the throne of God in my behalf interceding. Father, hear Him.
Father, help Him with groanings, with fervency beyond my own expression. The Holy Spirit interceding in my behalf in what way? Verse 27, "And he who searches hearts knows what is in the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God."
How many times have you been taught in our Christian experience, God will answer your prayers as long as you pray according to the will of God?
Okay, great.
One little question.
How do I know what? The will of God.
Aren't you glad the Apostle said, "I don't know how to pray?"
And so the Holy Spirit prays for us not just with greater fervor than we can muster, but with greater accuracy than we can muster. He's taking our prayers and transforming them, conforming them to the purpose of God. Our act of obedience is to pray in faith, our desires, our best wisdom to God, and then believe that God can supersede that by the work of His Holy Spirit. It's the time of year when I love seeing all the cakes and the cookies that are so decorated. And I think to my mother's own expertise with cakes and how she would take that decorator icing and pour it into a piping icing syringe, just kind of glop in the icing, and then at the end of that piping syringe, what would be?
A decorator tip in which she could create beautiful designs.
And I think at times my prayers are kind of like the glop that's going in the syringe. I don't know what to pray, Lord. I'm just offering you my best wisdom, all I got.
And then the Holy Spirit is the decorator tip who is bringing about the beautiful design of God by my own prayer. And what happens then? Verse 28, "And we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good for those who are called according to His purpose." Sometimes we just quote verse 28 in isolation from the rest. Do you recognize that all things working together for good is in the context of prayer?
That we pray and the Holy Spirit is taking our human prayers with all their glop and indistinct and unknowing nature and is twisting the cosmos, changing creation, bringing about in our lives, in our community, in our creation, all things being worked together for good. This is better than a new pony. This is better than a new car. This is better than a promotion. This is God saying, "As you are on your knees, you are a co-creator of the new creation that God is bringing about by His people's prayer and the work of the Holy Spirit." We are not idle bystanders on the work of God, just fatalistically saying, "God's going to do what God is going to do." He is saying, "My people are my children, and because I love them, I am listening to their intercessor, that Holy Spirit, and I'm taking their prayers and I'm conforming them to the purposes of God on high so that now we can get our minds around it." All things, not just little things, nature and earth, heaven and nature will sing at our prayers because they are the way God is changing absolutely everything.
In our staff meeting this week, we were amused for a while by one of the staff members talking about what had happened in her family's Thanksgiving celebration.
And she said, "You know, we just have a habit in our family Thanksgiving that we go around the table and people say what they're thankful for, but we had a neighbor from up the street,
neighbor with a broken family, lots of difficulty at our table."
And so when it was her turn to say what she was thankful for, she said, "I'm thankful for the flood of 2013."
What?
Now you were recruiting Kathy and me in 2013, and we drove through those floodwaters thinking, "What are we getting ourselves into here?"
And so the family said, "Why are you giving thanks for the flood?"
She said, "Because of the floodwaters, the bus could not come down our street the way it normally does.
And because the bus cannot come down the street, I had to walk by your house to catch the bus.
And because I had to walk past your house, you got to know me. And by that I have heard about Jesus Christ."
All things being worked together for good.
What blessing.
What a great Christmas present that God is saying to His people, "Do you have a heart for me?
I have a heart for you." And when you see in yourself this desire for the things of God and the deeds begin to change who you are and your prayers begin to go to God, God is saying, "I'm going to use those because I love you.
And I'm going to work all things together for good."
Praise God for the Holy Spirit who works all things together for good, even people who pray like us. When we pray, He uses us. Father, so bring your Spirit's work in our hearts and lives, not just for the Christmas season but even for the seasons of challenge and suffering.
Sometimes when we feel distant from you, help us do that heart check again. Is my heart still beating for Christ? Do I still hate the sin? Do I still want to be back in close fellowship with the Father? Do I hate trampling on the blood of the Savior who gave Himself for me?
For if that is my heart, then my life and my eternity are yours. Fill me with that knowledge that I might have confidence for the hard things and prayers that affect all eternity.
So work in us, we pray, Father, that we might be the people of Your will by the work of Your Spirit. This we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.