Skip to content

The River ChurchSermons

The Spirit

The Spirit - Gives Us Life

Chuck Lindsey · Sunday, 10 August 2025 · Romans 8:9-11 · 50:32 · 8,355 words

Romans S16 · 8:9-11 Grand Blanc

There is no public page for this message yet — the transcript below is the whole of it.

Romans 8:9-11 says every person is either in the flesh or in the Spirit. Those in the flesh cannot please God, while believers have the Spirit of Christ living in them. God loves his people and is pleased with them because they belong to him, not because of their works. The same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead now gives believers life and power to live. The message asks listeners to examine whether they have the Holy Spirit and to turn to Christ if they do not.

What this sermon is about

Ranked by keyness against every other sermon in the corpus. Each one is a word this sermon actually said — nothing here was written by a model.

spirit 124 holy 85 evidence 17 god 182 tongue 17 alive 23 live 68 born 20 please 28 spiritually 13 prophecy 10 movement 7

Topics

The Holy Spirit 49 The Flesh 7 Sin 4 Righteousness 2 Salvation 2 Spiritual Gifts 2 Prayer 2 Faith 2 The Wrath of God 1

Scripture referenced 25

Verified against the transcript. A reference the recording does not support is never listed here.

Romans 8 0:52 Romans 8 0:57 Romans 8 2:24 Romans 8:8 2:34 Romans 8:9 2:38 Romans 8:8 10:27 Romans 3 13:08 Romans 3:8 16:00 Romans 3:9 16:17 Romans 3:9 16:17 Romans 3:9 19:19 Romans 8:14 27:10 John 14 28:56 Acts 2:17 37:55 Joel 2:28 37:55 Acts 2 38:41 Romans 8:9 40:06 Romans 8:10 40:21 John 14 42:18 John 14:23 42:42 Romans 8:10 43:15 Romans 7 43:23 Romans 7:10 44:23 Philippians 3:9 45:03 Romans 7:11 45:39

Transcript

Every word, as spoken, with the second it was said. Each word links to its own entry in the index.

Pre-service announcement — 10 lines, 0:39. Excluded from every count and search on this site, kept here so nothing is hidden.

Hey everyone, my name is Grant Grimes and thanks for checking out this message today.

We're so glad that you're here and we want to connect with you and your family.

Here at the River Church, we value connection and community, so please text RIVERCONNECT

to 97000.

You can also visit our website at theriverchurch.cc to learn more about us and what we have going

on as a church.

Lastly, if you want to support the work we are doing here at the River Church financially,

please head to our website and click the Give tab at the top of the page, or you can text

the amount you'd like to give to 84321.

Thanks again for joining us and we hope you are blessed by today's message.

It's good to see you this morning.

If you have a Bible, I'm going to ask you to open it up to the book of Romans.

Chapter 8 is where we're going to be again this morning as we continue through the book

We are in this wonderful chapter, chapter 8.

While you're turning there, I want to reiterate for those of you that weren't in here, we

will have a barbecue today after our 11.

AM gathering is done.

And so we're going to be grilling hot dogs and hamburgers and all of that, just asking

you to bring a dish or a dessert to share.

But because it's so hot, we're going to do it inside.

We were going to do it outside, but I don't like being hot.

So we're going to do it inside and you can eat your hot dog outside if you want to.

But you know, just wanted to make sure you knew that.

I hope you'll stick around a little bit today or make plans to come on back.

And to be a part of that.

And so this is just a wonderful way to get to know people.

So if you felt like, hey, you know, I don't really know too many people.

These are the kinds of opportunities that we try to give so that you'll get to know

And you're like, well, it's hard for me to meet people.

I know, right?

That's true for most of us.

So but these are the things where you just trust the Lord.

You kind of put yourself out there.

You kind of introduce yourself to people.

And if it's awkward, who cares?

Right?

Like, seriously, who cares?

Nobody cares if it's awkward.

So but that's what it takes.

Okay.

So I would just encourage you to make that time and to set that aside and to just come

and be a part of that.

Okay.

And hope you can do that today.

All right.

Well, let's open God's Word, Romans chapter 8.

I want to read the three verses that we are covering this morning.

So we left off last week.

We left off verse 8.

We'll actually touch on that again in just a few moments.

But verse 9 down to 11.

Let's read that and then we'll pray.

The Apostle Paul writes,

And he says,

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 body.

And if Christ is in you, the body is through his Spirit who dwells in you.

Let's pray together, okay?

Lord, we come to you this morning in need.

Lord, we need you.

Whether we see our need or we don't see our need, we are still in need.

We need you to speak, Lord.

We need you to help us.

We need you, Lord, to open your Word, to open our hearts, to open our ears,

that we would hear from you, that we would see you today.

And I pray, Lord, that you would speak.

I pray that we would draw near to you today.

And, Lord, that you would use your Word to teach us and to comfort and encourage

and to correct and to help and to stabilize us in this life.

We love you, Lord.

We thank you for your Word.

It's in Jesus' name I pray.

So, let me ask you, do you believe?

We've asked this a couple of times over the last year or so.

I wonder where you're at in the progress of this.

Do you believe that God is happy with you?

Do you believe God is happy with you?

Or do you think God is annoyed, upset, bothered, tired of you, right?

What does it mean to make God happy, right?

To please him?

In many religions, their gods, and I use that in lowercase g, air quotes,

because there is no other God.

There is only one God, right?

But their gods are not happy.

If you ever studied world religions, the gods of world religions, they are not happy.

They are always angry.

They are always full of vengeance and wrath and demanding more.

They seem to just be very, honestly, very grumpy.

They cannot be pleased.

And the reason for that is actually really simple.

The reason for that is that all other gods are false.

They are not real.

But they're really just a reflection of the people who are following them.

That's what all other gods are.

They are really just a representation of the people that are worshiping them.

And so what you have, right, false god worship,

it's people that are expressing themselves, if you will, through these.

You see throughout the Old Testament, they would carve little idols,

and they would make these things.

And these were just a reflection of what the people were,

and what the people wanted, and who the people, you know, who they were as people.

So a person was,

and so they worshipped a little god that they made of power.

Well, it's the same thing today.

A person is obsessed, or they're driven by greed,

and so their god is a god of their own making, the Bible says.

God himself says.

They just make these gods after themselves.

They love money, and so their god is a god of money and prosperity, right?

Or they're consumed by lust,

and so many of the quote-unquote gods throughout history,

have been just lust, just sexual desire reflected in these little idols.

So all other gods, you know, they're mad, and they can't be satisfied,

and they're evil, and they're full of wickedness,

because the people who invented them are mad, and evil, and unhappy, and discontent, right?

That's what happens, power-hungry, and whatever else.

It's just a reflection of the people.

But the only true and living,

the only God,

he is not the invention of man, right?

He is not like us.

This is one of the most wonderful things about who God is,

is he is not like you.

He's not like me.

You can say amen to that, and praise God, right?

You're like, whew, yeah.

He is not us.

He's not like us.

I get tired of me, but for some reason he doesn't, right?

You get tired of you,

but he doesn't.

You would give up on you, but he doesn't, right?

And so while he hates, please hear this,

he hates sin, he hates wickedness, he hates evil,

and he will bring one day wrath and judgment against it.

The Bible says it's being stored up for a day.

God is not pouring out wrath right now.

He is storing it up.

There will be a day when he eradicates all evil forever.

While he hates evil, he loves his enemies.

He is not like us.

He hates evil, but he loves people.

He loves the world and those that hate him

and those that curse him and those that deny him

and those that reject him.

He does good, the Bible says, to those who despise him.

He tries to convince them of his love for them and their need.

And you are sitting here, hopefully in the Lord,

because he loved a sinner.

He loved an enemy, someone who hated him.

He loved into loving him.

He is not like you.

He is not like us.

And so the Bible says he desires that not one person would perish, not one.

He wants no one to perish.

He wants all to come to the place of repentance and be saved.

So please hear this.

God is happy with you as his people.

And I know you don't deserve that.

But you please him simply by being his, by belonging to him.

Not just by being his.

Not just if you get it right.

Not just if you do what's right.

Not just if you toe the line and do what God wants

and serve him enough and give enough and all of that.

No, no, no.

You're in the land of false gods now.

He loves you.

He is committed to you.

He is next to you.

He is with you.

He will not walk away from you.

He likes you.

He loves you.

He's pleased with you.

Not because of anything you've done,

but because he is determined to.

He's decided to.

He's decided to.

It's his decision, not yours.

You'd probably cancel it.

You'd be like, God, I'm going to let you off the hook.

I know I'm a turd.

Can you say that from the point?

I don't know if you can say that, but it's fine, right?

We please him as a child pleases their father or mother

simply by being, by being their children.

And so we do with our father.

Now I tell you this because of where we ended last week.

We ended last week with something that's very serious.

Verse eight is very serious.

And here's what it said.

It said, so then those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

This is very serious.

What does it mean?

Again, what does it mean to please God?

Well, the word means to win favor or have approval, right?

So, so what, what we hear in, in this verse is that it is impossible

for those who are in the flesh.

We're gonna talk about what this means in just a second.

Impossible for them to please God.

They cannot ever win favor.

They cannot win God's approval.

Approval in the flesh that it's an impossibility.

It literally means they in Greek, it's literally, they cannot ever, it is impossible, but to

understand what this means, you've got to know what it means to be in the flesh, to

be in the flesh does not just mean that a person is alive, right?

So that would be like, if you are physically walking around, you cannot please God.

Okay.

That that's not what's being said to be in the flesh is a category and it's, it's one

of only two categories that any person can ever be in.

You are either in one of these two categories, one or the other.

Any person is, is, is only in one or the other.

So here's the question.

What are you, what category are you in?

Are you in, are you in the flesh?

That is category one, uh, in the flesh, or are you in category two?

Are you in the spirit?

And those are the two categories and it's one or the other.

You cannot be in both.

You don't move between both.

It is one or the other.

And so this is very important to understand every single person on the planet.

Every person here today, every person watching is either in the spirit or in the flesh to

be in the spirit means that you are alive spiritually.

You are, you have turned to Jesus Christ for salvation.

He has made you alive.

You have been, please catch this word.

You've been born again.

You've been born a new, this is what Jesus said, uh, had to happen.

You are alive spiritually.

You are in the spirit, right?

And so you're in the spirit because.

The spirit of God is in you.

I'm going to show you this in just a moment, but to be in the flesh is the opposite of

that.

To be in the flesh means you're dead spiritually.

You are only alive physically.

You are not alive spiritually with God.

And so this means you are not saved.

It means you are not born again.

It means you are not going to heaven.

And this is not my opinion.

This is what Jesus said.

He said it to Nicodemus.

You remember John chapter three, Jesus said to Nicodemus, most assuredly.

I say to you, unless one is born again, literally born a new, watch this.

He cannot impossible.

He cannot see the kingdom of God.

The only people that will see the kingdom of God that will enter heaven are people who

are born again.

And so if you are in the flesh, you are only born once.

You have not been born again.

You've only been born once.

And that is the problem.

It means you're dead.

Spiritually, you're dead towards God.

Now, when it says that those who are in the flesh cannot please God, understand this is

who it's referring to unsaved people, unsaved people being unable to win God's favor.

What does that mean?

Well, as we said, first of all, God loves all people, but he is not happy with all people.

He's not happy with everybody.

He is happy with you as his people, but he is not happy with the unsaved person.

The Bible says,

that the unsaved person lives in a constant state of, we saw it last week, a constant state of

rejecting God at war against God.

We, the unsaved person fights God in every category in their mind, in their emotions and what they

want and what they do.

This means though, that, that, that they cannot win favor with God in terms of salvation.

They can't do anything to just sort of get God to give them salvation without receiving it.

They can't do any good deed.

They can't give enough to the red cross.

You know, they can't, you know, keep Lent and think that they're winning favor with God.

That's a common idea, isn't it?

I'm going to give up something for Lent and then that's going to absolve my past year's sins.

That is blasphemy to God.

Why?

Because it took the death of the son of God to absolve sin.

If you could just like not eat Snickers for a month and absolve your sin, like God,

didn't need to come and die, right?

But to absolve our sins, God had to come and die.

It's so stupid to think we could go to church and absolve our sins, or we could get baptized

in a, and wash our sins away.

Or we could, we could do anything and wash our sins away when it took God himself coming

and dying in our place to, to, to remove our sin.

Nothing is going to win God's favor.

It is impossible apart from faith to please God.

And so, um, we say all of this.

We say all of this because someone might read verse eight, a believer might read this and

think, is this me in the flesh?

Am I not pleasing to God?

Cause I'm alive or, or something or some weird teaching, which we'll look at here in a second.

So look at verse nine, verse nine says, but you, so who are we talking to?

Well, if you're a follower of Jesus Christ, we're talking to you.

You are not in the flesh.

You're not, you're not in the flesh.

Rather you are in the spirit.

If indeed the spirit of God lives in you, dwells in you.

Now here's the qualifier.

If anyone does not have the spirit of Christ, then he is not his.

Okay.

So who is this talking to?

Well, it's talking to the person who catch it has the Holy spirit of God living in them.

This is the qualifier.

And you ask, well, who has the Holy spirit of God living inside them?

And the answer is, uh, all real Christians.

Okay.

So if you are trusting Jesus,

Jesus Christ for salvation,

then you should be able to point to yourself and say,

Holy spirit of God is living inside of me.

Okay.

So this is not talking about how good of a good of a Christian you are.

This is talking about reality, right?

What God says, look at the words carefully.

You are not in the flesh.

So this is what we said before.

You're not dead spiritually.

You're not separated from God.

That's not you, but rather you are in the spirit.

You are alive spiritually and also pleasing.

What we said before, right?

You are pleasing to God at all times, but this is true.

It says, if the spirit of God dwells in you.

So what does it mean for the Holy spirit of God to dwell in you?

Well, it's talking about what happens at the moment of a person's salvation.

At the moment you turn to Jesus Christ, something happened.

The Holy spirit of God came in.

Let's back up for just a second.

So every person is spiritually dead.

Right?

That's the default.

Every person needs to be made alive.

It doesn't matter if your parents were Christians, you don't, you know, you don't become a Christian

because your parents are Christians or, you know, whatever, right?

It doesn't matter.

Every person needs to be made alive.

And so the Lord pulls at you.

He pulls at you trying to convince you of your need of this.

And then when a person finally says, okay, I give in.

Okay.

I will surrender.

And they turn towards him and they ask him for forgiveness.

And for his forgiveness and for salvation.

Hear this.

Here's what happens.

The Holy spirit of God comes into your life and he makes you alive spiritually.

He like raises you from the dead.

The Bible says, this is what it means to be born again, to be born a new, the Holy spirit comes in and now you are alive spiritually to God.

And so it is the Holy spirit of God who does this.

He makes you alive.

He makes you alive spiritually.

And that's why we read here in verse nine, but you are not in the flesh.

You are not unsaved.

Instead, you are in the spirit.

You are saved.

How, if the spirit of God dwells in you.

So please hear this.

This isn't anything you do.

We said it, I think a couple of weeks ago, there is no command for you in Romans eight.

There's not one imperative in, in the Greek text of Romans eight, not one command.

This is all what has been done for you.

So.

This isn't.

This isn't anything you do.

This isn't saying, and there's some wild teaching out there concerning things like this, but this is not saying that you are in the flesh.

If you're not a very good Christian, it's not what this is saying.

Not what this is saying.

And that somehow you're in the spirit.

If you're, you're being a really good Christian today.

Okay.

I know we kind of use words like this sometimes.

And, and this idea of kind of slipping in and out of like, I'm in the spirit, I'm in the flesh, I'm in the spirit, I'm in the flesh based on my behavior, based on my thinking, based on my.

Emotions or whatever.

No, no, listen, this is, this is what you are, not what you do.

Okay.

Very important.

You understand this.

You're either in the flesh unsaved or you're in the spirit saved.

It's one or the other.

Now, the evidence of what you are.

Very simple.

Very, very simple.

It's the Holy Spirit of God living in you.

Does the Holy Spirit of God live in you or does he not?

That's the question.

So if he lives in you, cause he lives in every Christian.

Here's look what verse nine says.

If anyone does not.

Have the spirit of Christ essentially right living in them.

They are not his in very simple terms.

If the Holy Spirit of God is not living in you, then you do not belong to Jesus Christ.

You're not saved.

Your, your, your sins are not forgiven.

You're going to have to pay for your sins at the time of your death.

You're not headed to heaven, but rather headed for hell when you die.

And this is not because God wants this.

This is because you're rejecting him because listen, God.

Loves you, and this can all change right here, right now, today, this morning.

Remember, he wants no one to perish, not even one person.

But what this means for you to not have the Holy Spirit of God living in you is that you are unsaved.

Now, again, side note, it's important to understand what this is not saying.

This is not saying what some people wrongly teach.

This is not saying that if you have some, and you probably have heard these things, right?

If you have had some quote unquote, manifest.

Manifestation of the Holy Spirit in your life, like speaking in tongues or prophecy or vision or whatever, like then you belong to Christ because you're in the spirit.

You've had this manifestation of the spirit.

So you're in the spirit.

That is a common teaching.

It is false.

It is false.

All you have to do is look at the thief who was on the cross and you understand just how simple it really is.

Wasn't baptized.

Didn't speak in tongues.

No ability to pay back anything.

Simply changed his opinion of who Jesus was from just a man dying on a cross to the savior, the king of heaven, who could save him, right?

All transformed.

So there's, there's crazy teaching out there, right?

So the idea, if you don't have any manifestation of the spirit, then you are not in Christ and you are not in the spirit.

No, these things are not true.

That is not what the passage is saying.

It's what false teachers will say, but it is not what the passage is teaching.

And so the evidence of the Holy Spirit is actually so much more.

So the evidence of the Holy Spirit is actually so much more.

More normal than this, by the way, do I deny, um, uh, the gift of speaking in tongues?

No, no, I don't.

If I'm, if, if somebody takes me and drops me into another country and I don't speak that language and I'm supposed to share the gospel, guess what I'm going to be praying for the ability to either speak in tongues or the ability for them to hear my tongue in their tongue.

Right.

By the way, tongues is a stupid word.

We shouldn't, it's languages, right?

Tongues is like, I don't want a tongue.

God, don't give me a tongue.

I'm good.

I've got one.

I'm good.

Tongues are nasty, right?

Like, don't tell me your dog's tongue is clean.

Don't do that.

Don't tell me that it's not clean.

I'm just telling you right now.

I've seen what dogs do with their tongues.

They're not clean.

Okay.

I don't know where I'm going with this, but it's fine.

Right?

Listen, tongues, tongues are not it.

It's languages.

That that's what the word tongue is.

So is there something wrong with that?

No.

If you come up against somebody who, who needs to hear the gospel and you can't understand a thing they're saying.

I was just, I was just with someone yesterday.

I couldn't understand anything they were saying.

I was asking God to give me the ability to understand what they were saying and giving, asking God to give them the ability to understand what I was saying.

There's nothing wrong.

God can do this.

That's not a problem.

But listen, that is not the evidence of the Holy Spirit of God living inside of you.

In fact, there have been people who have spoken tongues and prophesied who are not actually even believers.

So don't go down that road.

It's a false road.

It proves nothing.

The first.

Foremost evidence of the Holy Spirit of God living in you.

You want to know if you have the Holy Spirit of God living in you.

Here it is ready.

First and foremost, it's in his name.

You want to be holy.

That's the evidence of the Holy Spirit of God living in you is that you want to be holy.

Do you have that desire?

If you have that desire, that is the greatest indicators that the Holy Spirit of God is living in you.

If you don't have that, you should stop right there.

You need to repent.

You need to turn to Jesus.

You are an unsaved person.

You don't have a desire to be holy and please God.

Oh yeah.

You're.

You are.

You are unsaved.

You're.

You're the God of your own life.

As soon as the Holy Spirit comes in, there's a desire for holiness in us.

You want to do right.

You want to please God.

You don't want to sin and you hate when you do sin.

This is the strongest indicator, but there's a second indicator.

Evidence of the Holy Spirit of God living in you is that when you sin, there is conviction.

You're bothered by it.

And again, that's because he is the Holy Spirit of God, but he brings conviction.

He tries to convince us.

That's what he does, convincing us that what we're doing, what we're thinking, what we're

saying, how we're feeling is wrong, or convincing us that how we're thinking, I should pray

for that person instead of cursing them.

That is right.

That is good.

Holy Spirit of God in you with conviction.

Do you, do you have this or can you sin with no issue at all?

Problem at all.

That is a very serious indicator.

There's a third evidence, I believe, of the Holy Spirit of God living in you according

to the Bible.

And that is that you love Jesus.

The Holy Spirit of God loves the Son of God.

And so there begins to be this love, this deepening love for Jesus in the life of the

person who is born again, who has the Holy Spirit of God living within them.

He pushes you towards God, the Son in worship and in love.

There's a fourth evidence of the Holy Spirit of God living in you.

And that is that you are led by him.

What does this mean?

Well, Romans 8, 14, very clear.

As many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God.

What leads you?

Do you lead you?

Does, you know, the body appetites, as the Bible says for the unsaved person, that's

what leads them, is the bodily appetites lead them.

What leads you?

See, the born again person, not perfectly, right?

But the born again person, in some way, God leads you.

He nudges you.

He pushes you here and there in your thinking.

In your actions, in what you do, to do what he wants, right?

To, again, to pray for the person instead of cursing them or to choose to forgive instead

of burning with anger and gossiping about them all over the place or to get rid of that

thing that's in your life that's just eating up your life to, you know, he might lead you

not to take that job or to take this job or to do this thing, right?

Are you led by God?

Does he lead you?

It's an evidence of the Holy Spirit of God.

You, he's living in you and you are a child of God.

Well, another evidence of the Holy Spirit of God living in you is that you have understanding

You know, before I was a Christian, I heard many sermons.

I heard, I mean, we would even read the Bible as a family sometimes and I don't know that

I ever understood anything, nothing, maybe on the surface, right?

You know, Peter's walking on water.

Okay, you get that.

But do you understand what's actually going on?

No, I had no clue.

I had no understanding.

I had no understanding whatsoever.

Well, John chapter 14, Jesus says this about the Holy Spirit living in you, that he teaches

you.

It says the helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the father will send in my name.

He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to

you.

So again, before I was saved, I didn't understand any of it.

And then suddenly when I came to know the Lord, did you have this experience?

I came to know the Lord and then all of a sudden it was like every sermon like made

And when I was reading the Bible, it was like, oh my gosh.

Did I get some special Bible?

It like all makes sense now.

It was like light bulb, right?

Everything's, everything's alive.

All of a sudden, did this happen to you?

It's incredible.

You're like reading and you're going, this is amazing.

People should read this.

They should understand what this says.

Evidence of the Holy Spirit of God.

Prior to that, I sat in total spiritual confusion.

I did not understand any of it.

Made no sense to me because the Bible says that apart from the Holy Spirit of God living

in you.

You.

Listen, cannot understand these things.

They don't make any sense.

So if you're sitting there today, you're like, I don't understand any of this.

None of this means anything to me.

Makes no sense to me.

I don't know what any of you people are ever talking about.

I have no idea.

You need to be born again.

You need to be born again.

You are not born again.

The Holy Spirit of God does not live in you.

I say that with compassion, not, not in judgment.

You just need to be born again.

And you can be today.

You can just turn to him and admit your need.

One other evidence that the Holy Spirit of God lives in you.

Please hear this is real movement.

What do I mean?

Not this nonsense, pseudo spiritual moving of the Holy Spirit that is common in many

false churches.

I'm talking about real movement and real movement of the Holy Spirit in our lives is so different.

It's so different.

Real movement of the Holy Spirit.

It's going to look like the right words at the right time.

You ever have that happen?

Just the right words at the right moment.

You didn't even know.

It wasn't like someone took hold of you and you're like, and you start speaking and you

can't control it.

And it's just flowing out of you.

It wasn't like that.

It was like, you just said something and the person's like, how did you know that I needed

to hear that?

You're like, I didn't, I didn't know anything.

It's the Holy Spirit of God.

Just so natural.

We call it supernaturally natural.

The Holy Spirit of God just said something through you that just corrected me and changed

my thinking about this thing.

And I go, oh, that's, that's funny.

John didn't even know what he said to me, but what he said to me moved me.

It changed me.

It shaped me.

The Spirit of God moving through, right?

And so it'll look like that.

It's just so normal.

How many of you have experienced this?

You've said something and it's clearly been the Holy Spirit of God and not you.

You're like, I don't even know what I said.

Real movement of the Holy Spirit is not going to look like flopping around on the ground,

laughing hysterically, running up and down the aisles.

It's not going to look like that.

That's not the Holy Spirit of God.

You don't see it anywhere in the Bible.

The real movement of the Holy Spirit of God is going to look like selfless sacrifice.

It's going to look like you giving up your life for others.

It's going to look like you giving up your time to someone who needs help.

It's going to look like sharing what you have with people who are in need.

It's going to look like giving up what you want for others who are in need, right?

So dads, it's going to look like not falling into your favorite chair as soon as you come

home from work and want to.

By the way, my favorite chair is set up in our living room.

It is a camping chair.

It is one of those zero gravity.

I love it so much.

You come to my house, you're going to see it.

It's a crappy little chair.

It's so awesome.

I just fall asleep in it.

It's amazing, right?

I don't know why I told you that, but you needed to know that this morning, okay?

Right?

But instead of falling into your favorite chair, the Holy Spirit of God is going to

look like helping with dinner and dishes and packing lunches and washing kids, right?

And so many things.

Real movement of the Holy Spirit is so different.

It's not all this crazy stuff that calls attention to us.

It's sacrifice.

It's selflessness.

It's wise decisions in life.

It's these real things in life that make us look and do more like Christ.

That's what it looks like to have the Holy Spirit of God living in you.

So the question this morning is, does the Holy Spirit of God live in you?

Don't point to some experience.

Don't point to something you did in a church.

Tell me about this morning.

Tell me about yesterday.

Holy Spirit of God in you.

Living in you.

Pulling you towards.

Pushing you into worship.

Is he moving?

Is he working in you?

These are very serious things.

If you can't say that, I would say what Jesus said to Nicodemus.

You must be born again or you will never see heaven.

But if you do see him in your life, I pray it's an encouragement to you this morning.

Stop and think about how incredible it is that God, the Holy Spirit lives inside of you.

He lives in you.

And Jesus said forever, he will not be taken from you.

He lives inside of you.

He is enabling you to understand and serve and live for the Lord.

And be effective in this life.

Man, this is so radically different from any time in history.

Do you realize the time that you live in is so radically different from any time in history?

If you back up to the Garden of Eden for just a moment.

God and man, they dwelt together in perfect unity and relationship.

But man's sin broke that, right?

Well, from that point on, we see man and God sort of growing further and further apart.

For a time, God was.

God was still on earth physically.

You say, how do you know that?

Well, think about Adam and Eve, of course, but then Cain and Abel.

You remember, they brought their sacrifices to the Lord.

He was there.

Well, then, as sin continued to overtake the world,

from between the death of Abel and the flood,

there's something interesting.

It says that men began to call on the name of the Lord,

which means God was not there anymore.

They're now praying to him.

Well, from there, the summary of God just prior to the flood was this, right?

He said that the thoughts and the intents of man's heart

was only ever wickedness, only ever evil continually.

So God sent the flood, and it was a reset.

After the flood, God spoke, but he was not here,

and he spoke through individuals like Abraham and Moses and Joshua,

and he would tell them what he wanted the people to hear.

From there, it got more distant, and God spoke through prophets,

and he spoke through judges and through visions and through dreams,

until finally, hear this,

the Old Testament,

the Old Testament closes with about 400 years of silence.

400 years of no visions, no prophecies, no direct word from God.

400 years, and it shows what sin had done.

It had distanced us so much until the coming of Jesus Christ.

But there was a prophecy throughout the Old Testament concerning the end time.

You say, are we living in the end times?

Yes, we are.

You say, how do you know that?

Because the Bible says we are.

You say, where does it say that?

Well, there was a prophecy that was given throughout the Old Testament.

And here's what it was.

It was the prophecy that the Holy Spirit of God would not only come,

but would fill each believer.

He would indwell each of us in the end time.

Again, in the Old Testament, that is not what it was.

In the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit would come upon you to do something for God,

but he did not live in you.

And so he came upon people, and then that enabled them to do what God wanted.

It was amazing, and amazing things happened.

But the Holy Spirit would not come upon you.

The Holy Spirit of God did not live inside of anybody.

No one had the Holy Spirit of God at all times.

But sprinkled throughout the Old Testament was this prophecy.

This prophecy that he would give his people his spirit continually.

And so Acts chapter 2, verse 17 quotes from Joel chapter 2, verse 28.

It says this,

It shall come to pass in the last days, says God,

that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh.

Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy.

Your young men shall.

Your old men shall dream dreams.

On my men servants and on my maid servants,

I will pour out my spirit in those days, and they shall prophesy.

Look what it says.

On my men servants, on my maid servants, on those that know me,

I will pour out my spirit.

The end times prophecy that we were living in the last days

was that the Holy Spirit of God would live inside of you.

That was the prophecy.

And when did that happen?

Well, Acts chapter 2.

The Holy Spirit of God came.

Not just upon them, but filled every single believer and remained with them.

And since that time, the Holy Spirit of God has filled every single believer and remained with you.

Are you living in the last days?

Yes, you are.

What's the evidence of that?

The Holy Spirit of God living inside of you.

You say, but didn't that happen like 2,000 years ago?

Yeah.

Like, how can you call it the last days?

Well, because with God, a day is as 1,000 years, and 1,000 years is as a day.

It's only been two days.

Right?

Like, God, where's your coming?

And he's like, it's been two days.

Listen, ever since, right, the Holy Spirit of God lives in every follower of Jesus Christ.

Permanently, not occasionally, continually.

So as Leon Morris said it, the Spirit is not an occasional visitor.

He takes up residence in God's people.

So this means if you are a follower of Jesus Christ, he is in you right now.

His power is available to you right now, as we said,

to live for the Lord.

Now, the Holy Spirit of God lives in every follower of Jesus Christ.

But if there is no evidence of the Holy Spirit living in you,

then look at the end of verse 9 again.

If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, then he is not his.

And I would just say to you, if you have no evidence of the Holy Spirit living in you,

then you need to turn to Jesus Christ today and humble yourself.

And so, if the Holy Spirit is, take a look at verse 10.

And if.

If Christ is in you.

You say, wait a minute, I thought we were talking about the Holy Spirit living in me.

You say, why does it say, and if Christ is in you?

The answer is this.

God is a trinity.

God is a trinity.

One God, three persons.

You can talk about the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit interchangeably.

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

One God, three distinct persons.

Each is unique and yet one God.

Not three gods.

One God.

It's not one God that sort of presents himself one way and presents himself a different way,

meaning he does not like morph, right?

Like God the Son morphs into God the Father, morphs into God the Spirit.

That is not what happens.

They are each distinct and yet one God.

And if you're having a hard time understanding that, join the club.

There are t-shirts in the lobby that say, I don't understand the Trinity.

But it's okay.

But to that I would say, right?

If God isn't bigger than your understanding, then, you know, would he really be God?

And I would also say what John Calvin famously said,

to try to understand the Trinity, you'll lose your mind.

To deny it, you'll lose your soul.

It's a great way to say that.

But listen, they are each 100% God.

So it's not like the Holy Spirit's 33% and Jesus is 33% and the Father's 30.

It's not like that.

They're each 100% God and yet not 300% 100% God.

You say, that doesn't make any sense.

There you go.

I know.

But listen, it's not one plus one plus one equals three.

It's one times one times one equals one.

All right?

So each one, we are told, lives in us as believers.

This is important to understand.

John chapter 14, Jesus said this concerning the Holy Spirit.

He said,

And I will pray the Father, and he will give you another helper, watch this,

that he may abide with you forever, the Spirit of truth,

whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him,

but you know him, watch this, for the Holy Spirit,

he dwells with you and will be,

in you, okay?

Now, what about Jesus and the Father?

He says, a couple verses later, in John 14, 23,

he says,

If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him,

and we will come to him and make our home with him.

Father, Son, Holy Spirit of God, all living inside of us as believers.

And so, when we talk about the Holy Spirit living in us,

and then we say, and if Christ lives in you,

or if the Father lives in you,

there is no problem.

There is no problem at all with that, because God is a trinity.

Now, look what it says, verse 10.

If Christ is in you, so talking to saved people,

then the body is dead because of sin.

This goes back to what we talked about in chapter 7.

As saved people, we have three people living inside of us.

Do you remember what they are?

The old you hates God, does not want to please God, does not want to serve God,

still lives in you, amen?

Don't you hate that old man?

I do.

There's the new you, loves the Lord, always wants to do what God wants him to do,

submitted to him, wants to please God.

That's the real you, by the way.

And then, there is a third person that lives inside of you,

and that is God himself.

Father, Son, Holy Spirit, helping and enabling you

to live for him as you depend upon him and not on yourself.

And so, here's what Paul says.

If Christ is in you, if the Holy Spirit lives in you,

then you are not just that old, dead person.

You are alive spiritually.

And this means that you are a new you.

You are a new you.

That God himself lives in you.

So, it says there, the body or the old man is dead because of sin.

But, verse 10, the spirit is life because of righteousness.

So, hear this.

We are alive spiritually because of the righteousness that was given to us.

Say what?

Yeah.

You are alive not because you have been righteous.

You are alive because he was righteous.

And he is given his righteousness.

Righteousness to you.

This is what the Bible says.

He has given us as a gift righteousness to every person who will receive it.

Listen to this.

Philippians 3.9.

Here's what it says about every believer.

That we are found in him, watch this,

not having our own righteousness, which is from the law,

but instead, right, that which is through faith in Christ.

The righteousness which is from God by faith.

Very simple.

This righteousness is given to you and I,

who simply believe that we need it, that he did it, and that he gives it.

And so, we are alive.

And not only are we alive, but we are saved forever.

Look at verse 11, our last verse this morning.

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.

So, think about what this means for just a moment.

The Holy Spirit of God, by his power,

he raised Jesus Christ from the dead, right?

Jesus raised from the dead.

The depths of that could be mined forever.

You could spend so much time sitting in this truth.

But listen, his power to deny death,

to not allow death to keep the Son of God,

his power to defeat sin, to not allow sin to claim the Son of God,

his power to bring Jesus' life back, right,

back into his body.

I mean, it's beyond understanding.

Jesus was raised from the dead by the Holy Spirit of God.

And you say, why does that mean anything to me?

Because that same power lives inside of you.

So, what is dead in you that needs to be made alive?

He raised the Son of God to life.

I mean, think about this.

He defeated death for you.

It cannot claim you.

He defeated sin for you.

It cannot hold you.

He has denied...

He has denied hell for you.

It cannot take you.

He gives you life now.

His power for all that is needed.

And this is meant to say,

you have all that you need to live in a way that pleases God.

What is this thing in you that needs to change?

What is this thing in you that you need power over, victory over?

Listen, there is only one thing that actually sets people free

from all of the stuff.

We have as people.

And that is, it is the Lord himself.

By his power, people can be different people.

Drunkards can be no longer drunkards.

Thieves can be no longer thieves.

Covetous people can be no longer covetous people.

People that were stuck in lifestyles of sin,

they can be completely free, set free from those things

and what they were through the Holy Spirit of God

because of his power.

So, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life.

If you are more than that,

you are mortal bodies through his spirit that lives in you.

This is his power available to you right now.

What do you need?

What do you need?

What do you need?

It also refers to your future.

Through the Holy Spirit of God, you've been made alive forever

and eternal life with God forever in heaven is yours.

Not because you earned it, but because of him and his work.

It is yours if you look to him for salvation.

So, question before we leave this morning,

do you have the Holy Spirit of God living in you?

That's the question.

Any evidence of it?

Do you love Jesus?

Do you hate sin?

Are you led by the Lord?

If not, you can turn to him right now.

Let's pray together.

Lord, we come to you this morning and we admit our need.

Lord, I pray for any person here today or watching

that realizes that they do not have the Spirit of God living in them.

If that's you this morning,

you must humble yourself as we have all had to do

and admit our need to God.

To turn to him and to ask him,

to say,

save us.

That's the need today.

To admit it and to turn to him in your need.

To say, I am a sinner, please forgive me.

I am a sinner, please save me.

Talk to the Lord right now.

He's listening to you.

You must be born again.

Lord, we thank you so much that you came to die for our sin.

We thank you that you love us.

We thank you for your word.

And we thank you, Lord, for giving us your Holy Spirit

to live in a way that honors you.

We love you, Lord.

We give everything to you.

you. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.