00;00;02;17 - 00;00;25;16
Brenton
This is further a weekly show for the people of Harmony Bible Church, where we seek to revisit and expand on Sunday sermons with the goal of growing deeper in biblical truth that transforms our lives. Welcome back to Further. I'm Brian Grimm, and I'm here with Chris Carr to continue discussing Romans eight. How's it going?

00;00;25;18 - 00;00;31;06
Chris
Pretty good. It's been a great time in Romans eight so far, and maybe the best is yet to come, so looking forward to it.

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Brenton
Yeah, Paul covers a lot of ground in verses 12 through 17. We see kind of an explanation of of adoption. And one thing that I think is an interesting thing to talk about is we actually find a warning passage here. So in verse 13 he starts out with four If you live according to the flesh, you will die.

00;00;54;24 - 00;01;10;24
Brenton
And following that in your message, you said we must not eviscerate the warning implicit in these verses. Do you think that we as Christians can sometimes be too quick to dismiss these warning passages?

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Chris
I think that I would answer that with an unqualified yes.

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Brenton
Yeah. Why do you think that is?

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Chris
Well, I think that we don't like what they potentially say to us for sure, and we don't like to think that it would be be possible that we have fallen away, that it's possible that we think that we're save where we're not truly saved. That's scary proposition for sure. And it also goes against a fair amount of teaching in the church, what I would call a erroneous teaching.

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Brenton
But yeah, yeah. And some of this would probably get a little deeper into like covenantal thought and things like who who is actually in the New Covenant. But I mean, are these, are these real like what, what are the what's the role of, of warning passages like that when we see things Because I think it's easy to maybe conflate ah, salvation by faith alone and like our understanding of we can't lose our salvation, but then we see these clear passages of like.

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Chris
Well, saying we can't lose our salvation is one way to put it. I think a better and more biblical way to say it is that we will all those who are truly stable persevere to the end. They will persevere in their faith and they will persevere because God, through His Holy Spirit, preserves them. Yeah. And that the warning passages are one way that God preserve serves us so that we persevere.

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Chris
I think this is super important because people do have a hard time with passages, say, you know, in Hebrews three, Hebrews chapter six I can Peter two relationships are five, and there's a lot of them. And, you know, I think of Matthew chapter seven, where Jesus says, Well, many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, you know, and we do this and that and, and everything in your name.

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Chris
And he'll say away from me, I never knew you. And I think the the way that we need to understand that is that again, that God is going to preserve us and therefore we're going to persevere. And the way that that happens, or one of the ways that that happens is through warnings where we're these are meant there kind of be like flags waving, caution signs going, don't go this way, don't go this way, don't go this way.

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Chris
And those warning signs are what keep us from going down that path. And they they in some way keep us safe. They don't keep us safe. But that's the way that God things that God uses do to keep us safe.

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Brenton
Yeah, it's it's a means of grace, really, for God.

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Chris
Right? And so they are legitimate warning passages that there is a legitimate warning, but some people can take them to mean that people can lose their salvation and and know what the truth is, is that anyone who is saved will heed the warnings. Yeah, and I think that's even how we should understand this. Romans eight passage is as Paul saying that all those who have the spirit will live.

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Chris
They will live according to the spirit. This is the life of of a true Christian. They will do this and that. The warning here in versus 12 through 13 is one of the ways that the spirit keeps us living according to him. Mm hmm.

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Brenton
Yeah. And I think I think one one place that we go to to argue that position is first shown to where he says they went out from us, but they were never of us, for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us. But they went out that it might be complained that they are not others.

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Brenton
And so, like there is kind of an implicit assumption in that in that verse that like had they been true converts, then they wouldn't have fallen away. Mm hmm. Absolutely. So, yeah. Okay, good. You said walking by the spirit gets easier or harder, depending on how often we submit to him. And I'm wondering if you can just kind of elaborate on that.

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Brenton
Why? Why is that the how? How does that work?

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Chris
And I was thinking about this because you she gave me the questions a little early. Maybe the best way to explain it would be it's kind of like a muscle that if you use the muscle, it gets stronger. And if you don't use it, it atrophies. And so I think the more that we do submit to the spirit, the stronger we grow in our faith.

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Chris
The and then the easier it becomes to continue to submit to him in the future. And then when we don't, we kind of lose the power, so to speak, to be able to do so in the future. Not completely, not totally, but I think that's maybe a fair illustration. I think it's it's also just simply the case is that our our consciences can be shaped and molded.

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Chris
And I mean, it's just an example. The more that you watch something that has of a graphic nature, the more you, you know, your mind will kind of just get to the place where you can. It doesn't bother you as much, or you can take in more or it doesn't, you know, matter to you to any more. And I think that that's we see this more and more of you.

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Chris
If you look at even, you know, television, I've noticed something going on, maybe a rabbit trail here. But you talk about language cursing and it just is it's more and more. And what's acceptable now is much more than what was ever acceptable before. And now the you know, the national networks generally keep it fairly clean, but nobody watches that anymore.

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Brenton
Yeah.

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Chris
And you you watch anything on Amazon, Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, whatever. And it's just all the time. And so what happens is we get accustomed to that. And what used to would have bothered us and would have pricked our conscience before is like no big deal. And, and what I've also noticed is even in this issue is that Christians, the language that Christians and end up using and what becomes acceptable to us is more it's more acceptable to us to speak like the world speaks than it was decades ago.

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Brenton
You know, what would you suggest if if someone kind of found themselves in that in that place, kind of desensitized to to, I guess you could say, the leading of the spirit? What would what would you suggest to a person in that situation to help them to come back?

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Chris
A couple of things. I think the first step always is repentance, confession, and repentance. And repentance means turning and our passage talks about crucifying the flesh or this passage is putting it to death. The parallel passage Galatians is crucified is really means the same thing. Talk talking about the same thing. And sometimes we just gotta cut things out and we get to make the hard decision is like I've got a I've got to stop giving myself to that.

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Chris
Going down that road, watching that and, you know, rip the band off, so to speak. And to that, I mean, and we don't like that. I mean, it's there's really hard but that's it's drastic and sometimes you you've got to take drastic steps in regard to that. I think in a maybe a simpler way sometimes is just simply deciding that you're going to listen the next time the the spirit leads you to do so.

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Chris
And that that's going to be your commitment. And I think every step where you take it again, that leads you in a direction towards being a person who is more actually led by the spirit in the practical day to days of life.

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Brenton
And you think that when when we start to you kind of said, rip that Band-Aid off of stop doing things that we know we shouldn't be doing, stop watching things? I mean, in this example, you think that if you if you do that, that kind of sensitivity, the the the willingness to obey will will come back? I think so.

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Brenton
Like aversion to things that you should be averse to.

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Chris
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I think for sure. I mean, I use a personal example and I think that's probably true for for many of us. But, you know, in my teenage years and young adult years, you know, there are things that I wish I had. Just give you an example of like movies that I go back and I watch them now, or many of us have had this experience with our kid.

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Chris
You start watching something that the movie that she loved, you know, and watched all the time as a kid, you start watching it with your kids and you're going, Oh, my goodness, we got this. What are we doing here? Why in the world to my parents, Let me watch this. Or why did I watch it? And it's maybe there's some humor in that.

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Chris
But I do think, you know, I came across it at a young age and then but there are some choices I made where I just really wasn't sensitive to the spirit in a number of different ways. And then conviction and repentance and growth. I made some to the spears empowering, made some choices, and now I'm much more sensitive to those things and than I was 20, I guess.

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Chris
I guess so at this point 30 years ago. And I think that and I find it becomes more and more all the time and it does go up and down. So so just I mean, obviously it depends as well as how we respond to the spirits can fiction that just isn't necessarily leading to stop doing something or to do it.

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Chris
But how do we also respond when he is convicting us about just like, okay, this is this is a serious issue and serious matter? Mm hmm.

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Brenton
Yeah. Yeah. And this clearly stretches beyond just entertainment. I think that was that was a good example. But I think we can apply this to to all parts of our life that, you know, the more we get caught up in something, the more just normal, it seems. And so apply that to anything that you're you're struggling with in your life.

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Brenton
And yeah, I think the same truth applies there. It's good. Okay, so in an attempt to better understand the concept of adoption, is there would you say there's a direct correlation between God's adoption of us and human adoption? Is there is there any differences?

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Chris
I wouldn't say a direct correlation, like in every single way. It was a very close correlation for sure. I don't think it's always a direct correlation. It's a direct correlation in every single way. So for example, when we adopted our two kids from from China, there were, there were things about them that that attracted us to them. Yeah, sure.

00;13;33;06 - 00;14;05;03
Chris
You know, Zoe's sweetness, Zane's kind of crazy personality. There were were things about them that that warmed our hearts. And, you know, we were inclined before we ever even met them to. To adopt them by the spirit. I could tell that story at some point. It was one of the clearest leading of the spirit independent. Even I at almost the exact same time that this is what we needed to do.

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Chris
And yet there then as we learned about them, we're like, okay, these these are great kids. And there's, you know, a lot of a lot of wonderful things about them when it comes to God adopting us. He doesn't adopt us because of anything wonderful about us or there's not nothing attractive about us. And so that's where the kind of the the parallel breaks down.

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Chris
Another way it breaks down is like, like Zane and Zoe were not our enemies when we adopted them.

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Brenton
Yes.

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Chris
You know, at worst they were neutral toward us. They really have no idea who we are. And, you know, it just kind of a funny story here. You know, it's just like when we pick them up there. Remember, I'll never forget that they they were terribly frightened of us. And they didn't they didn't want they didn't want to go with us initially.

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Chris
They warmed up really, really quickly. By God's grace. But I just remember them being the mean terrified, probably mostly of me. But, you know, they they were they were scared of us, but they weren't our enemies. You know, we weren't they weren't, you know, fighting against us or anything like that or hostile. They weren't hostile to us. To use Paul's word in in Romans chapter eight.

00;15;21;00 - 00;15;53;24
Chris
And we we are we're more hostile towards God. So that's kind of where it breaks down. But there's a lot of there's a lot of similarities to that is that that those kids didn't do anything to to to merit us adopting them. And it was a choice of of our our own choosing. And out of generosity and generosity, but based upon God's generosity to us.

00;15;53;24 - 00;16;15;06
Chris
So there's similarities to that. They weren't our natural born children. We brought them into our family. They took our they got our name so got our last name. And in both cases they got Zoe, got Eva's middle name, and Zane got my middle name. So not only the last name, but the middle name, and then God gives us a new name.

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Chris
I didn't talk about this on Sunday, but he gives us a new name when we were named by him. We're called his, his, his children. And they become our heirs. So, you know, Zane became and Zoe became equal heirs with my four biological children. So they're as much my heir as my my four bio kids. And what I would also say is that and and I think most, if not every adoptive parent, especially at Harmony and we have lots of them, I'm so thankful for that, by the way.

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Chris
But you you kind of wonder if you're going to love the adoptive child as much as you love your biological children. You can question that. I think in like, how is this going to work? And then the moment that it happens and really then even before it happens, it's just it just is in the in the love in some ways is a kind of a unique love for them.

00;17;26;02 - 00;18;00;09
Chris
Because often times in adopting that's it's costly and maybe financially costly, but it's it's costly. It changes your it changes your life significantly. And a lot of times there are complicating factors that come into play in all of that. And yet in in view, even in view of all of that, this love that you have for them in some ways is unique and in a special love.

00;18;00;11 - 00;18;14;26
Chris
So I can talk about that on and on. But there there's so many different ways that picture it does picture it not perfectly, but that our adoption here, human adoption parallels a spiritual adoption.

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Brenton
Yeah, that's really helpful. A years ago, I think we, my wife and I, were kind of going down the road and discussing it, and I had just kind of a skewed view of it. I never had any experience with adoption in my life and just had this kind of view that it's you're pretty much just collecting the kid to babysit and like, like I never would have seen it as on the same level of, of your as your biological kids.

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Brenton
But yeah, I think I think she actually gave me a book I think it was by Russell Moore.

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Chris
Yeah.

00;18;47;10 - 00;19;07;24
Brenton
That really compared it to the adoption to the gospel, to the way the that God adopts us. And I think that changed my entire view of it. And I think it gives it such a so much more meaning than than what I thought it was before. Yeah, we are now. Actually. His children.

00;19;07;28 - 00;19;43;15
Chris
Mm hmm. Yeah. That book is very similar. It's a really, really good one. I would also add here that I've learned a lot about how God has adopted me and feels about me in in relation to how I feel specifically about Zane. Obviously, part of our story of the adoption is that we lost Zoe quickly after we brought her home.

00;19;43;15 - 00;20;07;08
Chris
And so Zane's birthday, it's actually his 14th birthday is today on this part, I guess. And so think about that. He was three and a half when he when we adopted him. But there's just so many just so many times over the last decade that God is just spoke to my heart about, okay, here's how you feel about this.

00;20;07;08 - 00;20;41;03
Chris
This little boy. And that is just a just a little bit of how much I feel about you, how much I love you, how much I care for you. And, you know, again, I love my love for all of my children is beyond beyond words. And yet with me saying there's a uniqueness to it because of honestly, some of the trials and the challenges that we've we've walked through together.

00;20;41;06 - 00;21;11;04
Brenton
Yeah, that's a unique perspective to have on this and it's helpful. You said that you think many Christians have deficient view of what it means to be a Christian and that this is largely due to the fact that they have little to no understanding of their adoption and all that entails. Why is this concept so important and why why do you think that many have misunderstood it?

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Chris
Well, I think it's so important because there's nothing more important than to know whether or not you're a Christian. I don't know. I need to say anything else. There. But what could be more important than to know that you're your child of God or not a child of God so that you can become a child of God? I, I think that that's why, you know, I used the example of people saying, you know, we're all God's children.

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Chris
I just think that that's so dangerous is we're just not. And and to think that you are and to not be is the most dangerous place in the world to be. I mean, one of them one of my biggest concern is and in past st is Ike. It's really hard to get people who think they're Christians to realize that they're not enough, that they make sense.

00;22;09;22 - 00;22;34;29
Chris
But, you know, it's I think it's much easier to evangelize someone who knows that they're not clear. I'm not a Christian. I'm not a believer then to to evangelize someone who who's not a believer, but they think that they are not. Yeah that's a great we're and and this is a huge problem in in the western world. Yeah.

00;22;35;01 - 00;23;02;05
Chris
And there's just so many people who think that they are now it's interesting we bring this up again, another little rabbit trail here but there there's a new book that's just come out about the great Church of America. And and yeah, some reports are saying as many as 40 million people in the United States have stopped going to church over the last several years, like round covered time to now 40 million.

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Chris
And we can look at that and say, oh, the sky is falling. I'm actually not sure that that's bad news. And you're like, what are you talking about? Your pastor? You want people to come to church? And the answer to that is I think it could be potentially good news because there's we could be having some real clarity here.

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Chris
You know, they went out from us, like you quoted from first, John, because they they were not of us. And then we can be really clear about that in the clear that we are, I think, is is going to be much more helpful in actually doing evangelism. And churches today in in the United States are filled with unreached inner people and sometimes those unreached people, quite honestly, are taking up seats and resources and taking up time that we would be better use being able to get in and out and doing mission and and reaching people who maybe are much more open to actually hearing the gospel.

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Brenton
Yeah, yeah. It is a bit of a rabbit trail, but it's you're right and it's a good perspective to have. I think that's why we see like the church doing what it is and in China, because it's it's hard it's hard to be a Christian in China. It's not here like it's it's really easy to be a Sunday nominal kind of Christian.

00;24;31;15 - 00;24;38;13
Brenton
And we just go to church and nobody's doing that for where they're actually persecuted. Nobody just drove in the church on Sundays and called himself a Christian.

00;24;38;14 - 00;25;06;17
Chris
Yeah, right. Well, I mean, in our passage, I didn't get to it this week or coming this week, but he says, you know how he's in this, provided we suffer with him, that we may be also be glorified. There's no glorification without suffering with Christ. Yeah. And today in the the Western world, this idea of suffering is something we tend to run for.

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Chris
We don't want to accept. We want to be comfortable. And so yeah, but I, you would go back here and I think this issue of truly understanding what a Christian is can only be understood if we talk about it in terms of adoption, because that to be a Christian is to be a child of God. Yeah, And honestly, the the New Testament doesn't actually talk about these the term Christian hardly at all.

00;25;39;26 - 00;26;19;12
Chris
Only in a couple of places uses the word disciple, uses believer for sure. And here in numerous other places it's sons and daughters of God, children of God. And so it's absolutely fundamental to understanding all of that. And I just I think that and hopefully we're getting this in this series in Romans eight, but hopefully you can see the wonder of what it means and how great it is, because it's when we understand how great it is, that's when our life really is is transformed and change.

00;26;19;12 - 00;26;54;00
Chris
And we we find the power that we need to walk with the Lord to say no to sin, yes to God to actually suffer with him like we talked about this week, is like the sufferings that we are facing. They pale in comparison to the glory that we're going to receive and we're going to experience one day. And so and Paul is telling us as if we if we're not willing to go down the path of suffering, we're not going to be able to experience that path of glory.

00;26;54;03 - 00;26;58;10
Chris
But that the hope of that glory is what enables us to face the suffering that we do.

00;26;58;12 - 00;27;23;23
Brenton
Yeah, yeah, that'd be good to jump in next week, talk about suffering I think how I'll and this I wanted to kind of a better definition of what the theological concept of adoption was. And so I ended up looking at the 1689 London Baptist confession. I know we're not a confessional church here, but I think there's a lot a lot of wisdom to be found here.

00;27;23;26 - 00;27;52;17
Brenton
And part of the section under adoption was that we who are adopted have access to the throne of grace with a with boldness. We're enable we're enabled to cry of a father. We're pitied, protected, provided for and chastened by him as by our father, as by a father, yet never cast off, but sealed to the day of redemption and inherit the promises as heirs, everlasting salvation.

00;27;52;20 - 00;28;03;15
Brenton
It's a good it's a good overview of adoption. And that's that's who we are as sons and daughters of Christ. All right. Great. Thanks, Chris. We'll talk to you next week.