Well, this morning, if you have your Bibles with you, I hope you always bring the word of the Lord with you. We're going to continue on in Romans chapter eight. And we've got some families that are out today, obviously, the crosses and everything. Oh, it's under the umbrella of Bob Cross, I guess. They're on vacation. So we're going to be missing them for a couple of Sundays. But you know, it doesn't matter how many or how If you gather, we're going to gather in the name of the Lord, and we're going to worship Him in all that we do. Amen? So if you got your place, would you stand in honor of the reading of the Word of the Lord, if you're able to? Now I know sometimes we've got elderly folks, and I don't expect you to do things that would be, you know, that you just couldn't do, so. I'm going to read 12 through 17, just to kind of get us in the flow of the context this morning, of chapter 8 in Romans. The Apostle Paul, as he was writing to them, he continues on about the middle of this book, and he says, Therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die. But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, I have a father. The spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. And if children, then heirs, heirs of God, joint heirs with Christ. if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together. Father, I pray this morning to be filled with Your Spirit, that Your Word would richly dwell in me, Lord. Stir up my mind, Lord, even in the preaching of Your Word. I pray that in all these things, You would get glory for Yourself. I pray that Christ would be magnified. And we pray this in Jesus' name, amen. You may be seated. If you take notes, I'm gonna title this message, I'm gonna title it The Witness and the Work of the Spirit of God. And for kind of a subtitle, it's pertaining to our adoption. Now, I wanna say something before I kind of take off. In our church right here, this church is very familiar with what it is to be adopted. When Randy and I came here, we had one adopted little boy, and while we were here, we've adopted a second one that isn't with us this morning. But when I came to this church, usually we're used to being the only family that probably did foster care. And we came here, not only were there many families that did it, but we probably would have been about the least experienced in it. I mean, everybody had probably had been doing it longer and more far reaching than what we had. But one thing we all had in common was this, we all understood what it was to go through an adoption process. And we're gonna be looking at that today, but we're gonna be looking at in the fact of our adoption is now what we would say we are the children of God. But to do that, I wanna give us a context here. So I wanna back up to verse 12, and I wanna go through this very briefly, and then you just listen. I'm not gonna take the time like I have, because I did this message a couple, two or three weeks ago. But to get us in the flow of the thought here, Paul says, therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. And what that basically is saying is this, if we're a child of God, when he says you're a debtor, he's not meaning that you've got to go do things to earn your salvation. No, what it means is, is that we've been bought with a price. We're not our own. Jesus gave his life for us. He shed his blood, made the payment for our redemption. And in turn, he says, I now am the owner of your life. I want you to use your life to glorify me. Amen? So we're debtors in a sense like that. And then he says, 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. Now, again, he is not saying that if we try really hard and we do things by the Spirit, we have eternal life. But if we live in the flesh, like when we got this option as believers to go flesh or to go spirit, no, what he's saying is this. If you find yourself that your thoughts, your words, your actions are always on the things of the flesh, the sinful things, what we would call the unredeemed person, the lost person, he says you're gonna die. You're gonna die. But if you've been changed, if you've been born again, and you live by the Spirit, you have life in you. You're gonna live. Forever, and he says in verse 14, he says, for as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God. Now church, I want you to think, sometimes we try to understand these things in light of modern day teaching and modern day bad teaching. And people talk about being led by the Spirit of God. Just think of it like this. You start with the Old Testament and you look at the people of God and how There's a continued pattern of God leading his people. You see Moses leading his people out of Egypt through the wilderness to the promised land. You see Joshua taking them into the promised land. You see over and over, and then you get into the New Testament and look, what did it say? The Spirit of God led Jesus into the desert to be tempted. Do you realize that everything Jesus did was led by the Spirit of God, everything he did. You go through the book of Acts and you see over and over and over, you know, Peter and John going down to pray, the Spirit's leading them, the Spirit fills them, the Spirit empowers them. And so what he's saying is this, those that are born again are led by the Spirit of God and those that are led by the Spirit of God, guess what? They are the children of God, they're sons of God. Now we get to verse 15 where I'm gonna be today, 15 and probably 16. Now I don't wanna get Woodard upset, but I know in his Bible and mine, 16 ends on a comma, but guess what? The Geneva Bible ends on a period, okay? In verse 16, it ends on a period, because Woodard does not like to end a sermon without a period, so I found a couple translations that put a period there. All right, so I feel like I'm justified if I do that. I really wanna go all the way through 17, but man, there's a lot in 17. But I want you to look at this in verse 15. He says, now listen to this. He's talking to believers here. And He's saying, you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear. He's telling us what we didn't receive and what we did receive as the children of God. Now, why is Paul talking about how we did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear? What is it that Christians would fear? What is it that we should fear in life? I mean, if we've been born again, if we've been taken out of this world, we've been taken out under the law of sin and death, Think about it, he says in 8.2, for the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. Well remember this, in chapter 7, let me do this, let me back up to chapter 6. He says that a Christian is not to continue in sin. He says that as a Christian, we should reckon or consider ourselves to be dead indeed unto sin. Amen? I mean, think about it. If you become a Christian and you were to say, what do I need to do now? Here would be kind of a summary of the answer. Well, we need to stop sinning. We need to live for Christ. We need to pursue holiness. We need to love God. We need to love our neighbor. We need to love our church. We need to love our enemies. And you'll have a joy-filled life, right? Sounds good. Great plan. But Paul in chapter 7 says, Everything that I want to do, the good things for God that I want to do, I find that I don't always do it. And the things that I don't want to do any longer, the sinful things, I find that that's what I'm drifting towards. And then he cries out. He cries out there in chapter seven, O wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death? Now church, I'm going to tell you something. There are many Christians in churches that teach that you can lose your salvation. Okay? Now I want you to listen to this. You see, the reason that we would fear, we would have a fear, is because we would be afraid of what would be considered the law of sin and death. How many of you have struggled with your salvation in the sense of like, How can I be a Christian and continue in sin? If you don't at least raise your hand in your mind, you're either lost or you're lying, one of the two, okay? Every Christian has had that struggle. Paul had that struggle. I don't know if he felt like he'd lost his salvation, but he had the struggle of sin. And it's a tough one to deal with. Now, what does it ultimately lead us to if there's a fear of the law of sin and death, meaning that if I sin, I'm gonna die? Well, where did this fear come from? You go all the way back to Genesis chapter three. when they had sinned. Up until that point, every time the Lord came into the Garden of Eden, there was fellowship, there was intimacy with God, there was a relationship, but all of a sudden, one day it changed, and the Bible says when they heard God walking in the cool of the evening, they went and hid themselves. And God called out, Adam, where are you? And he said, well, we heard you walking in the garden. And he says, and I was afraid. Never had Adam been afraid when God came into the garden before that. I heard you and I was afraid and I went and hid myself from you. You see, that's where we started in the book of Romans. When he says this, he said the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness. Do you realize that there's people today that will just act. They act as though there is no fear of God in them. They are unbelievers. They'll tell you they're unbelievers. Some will say they're atheists. They'll laugh at the mention that there's a God. But I will tell you this. The Bible says that they know that there is a God. I had a friend when we lived in Montana. Big, big man, six foot seven or eight. Strong man, had a violent temper. He wasn't exactly a mean guy, so to speak, but when he got mad, you better clear out. And he would go to the bars all the time. They would party all the time. And by his own testimony, he said, oftentimes I would come home from all of that stuff and I would lay in my bed awake. And what went through my mind was I'm on a road to destruction, and I don't know how to get off of it. You know what was going on? He knew there was a God who was going to hold him accountable. Even though he wasn't a religious man, even though he wasn't a guy that grew up in church, he knew something inherently was in him that said, I have sinned against the holy God, and there is a law that says if I've sinned, I'm going to die. Let me ask you this, if there wasn't Why is it people fear death? If there's nothing waiting you, why do people fear death? Because everybody, God has wired in our DNA somehow, some way, that you know that you're going to be held accountable for your sins. Now let me tell you what we didn't receive, brother. We did not receive a spirit How does he say it? He says, we did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear. Bondage to what? In Romans 6, he says, we were slaves to sin. And with the slaves of sin came the penalty of sin. But when Christ came, He freed you from that. Now He did not free you from that to say, hey Jeff, I'm putting you right back in the bondage of fear again. You was out of it, now you're right back in it. So listen to this. He says, but you, you have received the spirit of adoption, by whom we cry out, Abba, Father. We have received the spirit of adoption. Now, people that are lost have a fear. People that have a works-based religion mentality, they have a fear. You know, I can remember being in the church that we were in at one time, and we believed that you could lose your salvation. We believed if you didn't keep all the commandments, you could lose your salvation. Now, there's one that the light should have came on somewhere a little quicker, I would think. We had never kept all the commandments. And you know what people would do? They'd say, well, if the Lord came for you right now, would you go to heaven? We never said yes. You know what we said? We said this very reluctantly. Well, I hope so. And that hope was not the confident assurance of the biblical definition of hope. That hope was more of a, I'm sure wishing, I hope God lets me in. Because you know why? Because in every one of us, there was a fear because we knew we weren't perfect. We knew that. So when we go to the spirit of adoption, what we have received, here's what you need to understand about this. In every adoption, there is a legal requirement that has to be met. A child does not have parents. You take an orphanage, there's no parents in the picture. Now, in foster care, oftentimes there are parents in the picture. But here's what takes place. There has to be this adoption that happens. It has to be, there's legal requirements that must be met. When Randy and I went through this, it was like everything had to be eliminated for any possibility of someone closer than us to adopt. But we met all the requirements that they demanded of us, and we were able to adopt two little boys. Now you gotta understand this about our adoption. Our adoption is fully legal. When we talk about the requirements that have been met, I want you to know this. Jesus Christ has met all the requirements of our adoption. You see, we were slaves to sin. We were in sin, we were under the bondage of law, of the sin and death. And Christ came, he lived a life that we couldn't live. He fulfilled God's requirements on our behalf. Sin's not gonna enter into heaven. How in the world am I gonna get there? Well, I'm gonna get there through Christ. Christ fulfilled God's demand for the punishment of sin. He was punished in my place. Christ fulfilled God's demand through the resurrection of my justification. If Christ would have never rose again, I would have never been justified. I want you to think about this for a second. Our adoption is fully legal, but get this, it's not fully realized yet. It's not fully realized. And you say, what do you mean? Well, let me show you something. If you turn over to the 23rd verse of Romans 8, he says this. In about the middle of the verse, he says, we're eagerly awaiting, we're eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body. This old body, this sinful body that we have, it's not been redeemed. Let me give it to you a picture like this. Many times people will go from America, they'll go to Russia or they'll go to China or they'll go to another country. And they will go to an orphanage. And they will look out amongst there and they'll say, I want that child right there. Or they'll bring a child and say, this one, you know. And all of these things are met. They say, well, we've got to have this. And all these requirements have to be met. Payment is made. But then they've got to go through all this red tape. And the people from here in America or something will fly home. Now, here's the thing. Everything has gone through but there's still this waiting period and They're waiting for the government or whoever to say come and pick up your child, right? And so what happens is they come home and Then when they're told like you can come get your child they go over there You see Jesus has said this he says I'm going to prepare a place for you to where I am there, you may be also. You may be also. And when I come again, you're gonna be with me. Your adoption is complete in a sense that it is, it's already there. It is a guaranteed thing. How do I know that it's guaranteed? I'm probably getting ahead of myself a little bit right here. Let me stop right there before I get too far. I want you to understand what this spirit of adoption is. It's fully legal. It's not fully realized yet. All the requirements have been met. Now, when we talk about this spirit of adoption, here's what you need to understand. What happens when that adoption in a relationship between a parent and a child There is an unconditional love for that child. I want you to understand, Southern Christians, God's love for you is unconditional. It is not conditioned on your past. It is not conditioned on your potential. It is not conditioned on anything that you have done or are going to do. God is not going to hold back some love from you, and your love, listen, you wanna hear something wild? You are loved the way that he loves the only begotten son. Now I said that, and I feel like probably most of you, even though you might be nodding your head, there's a part of you going, are you sure about that, Ron? I'm absolutely sure of that. I'm absolutely sure of that. You see, not only this is the relationship between, or from the father to us, we get God's unconditional love. We get the provision that God provides for his children. Just like when you adopt a child, you love them, you provide for them, you protect them. Not only that, but there is a security. How many of us have had the testimony I can remember when we got Dustin. I can remember Dustin and Tanner showing up. I mean, not Dustin and Tanner, Dustin and Colby showing up that first day. I can remember Colby. Dustin was little. He was eight months old. We couldn't even see him. But we can remember his older brother Colby. He's looking out the window like that. He's kind of excited, but he's kind of scared. When he got out, he was like the Tasmanian devil. He's just going everywhere, going through every one of our cabinet doors, everything. He's like, good day, you know. But you know what? Every time that we went somewhere, Kobe had this stuff. And every time we went, he would carry that with him. I remember going through training and they said a lot of times they'll have a sack or something and no matter what you go, no matter where you go, what you do, that is always gonna go with them. Because they had no sense of security, they had no sense of permanency. I'm sad to say that there's many Christians today that feel that that's the way their relationship with God is. They don't feel secure in Christ. They don't know that if, they don't even really believe that God loves them or loves them most of the time. Sometimes I think they think of it like this, God loves me as far as the group of people go. But they don't, they're not able to individualize that love to say that God loves me. Oh my goodness, folks. Do you know that in an adoption, in a Roman adoption, do you know that when you adopted a child in a Roman culture, do you realize that they got all the same rights? They got all the same inheritance. They got everything that the natural born child did, but you know what? They got even a better deal. In a Roman culture time, an adoption could never be undone, it could never be broken. You had the security of that. Do you know that the natural born children could be disinherited though? But not the ones that were adopted. And Paul, looking at this, is trying to tell us, and why is he trying to tell us? Because, friends, listen to me, and I'm not advocating for you to take an easy position on sin, but what I'm saying is when we sin, God has factored all of that in in our salvation. He has factored in that we're not perfect. Think about this for a moment. How many, listen, a lot of our people aren't here today that have adopted. The Troggons aren't here. Well, I guess they're not here. Most everybody's here. Do you remember going through the training and they talked about the DNA and how they would imitate things of their brothers or siblings and stuff, even if they were a baby? I remember when I heard that, I thought, that's crazy. You get a little bitty baby, they're not gonna act like that. You're gonna be training them. It was absolutely there. You know what that's a picture of? That's just like us coming to Christ. What is our ultimate goal? What is God doing in our life? He is conforming us to the image of Christ, right? We are to imitate Him or to walk like Him. Do we? No, not always. And it's just like when we got our kids, they would be like, where does this stuff come from? Why do they do that? Why do they act like that? This is really different. I'm not going to say what I probably said, but it's just so different. You see, what the Holy Spirit does in this spirit of adoption, this Holy Spirit comes and He teaches us. He guides us. He trains us. He causes us to remember what God has told us to do and what not to do. He comforts us. He helps us. Think about what God has done for us. So to understand this spirit of adoption like that, And he says this in verse 15. He says, we have received the spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, Abba, Father. He used a term that would be like saying Papa. It'd be like saying Dada or Daddy. What does that mean? Let me ask you this. Do you remember when you had your first child or whatever, do you remember the first time that that little person said mama or daddy? Do you remember that? Women don't like this one because usually they'll say dad at first. I guess it may be easier. I don't know. Women typically like, you know, I'm here with them most of the time. But man, it makes you feel good, doesn't it? Well, if you've ever adopted a child, do you remember what it was like the first time you heard that adopted child say mama or daddy? We've seen the movies and such. We've seen those things where somebody adopted an older child. And there's a part of them that's just this struggle. There's a part of them that is glad to be there, but there's a part of them resenting being there. They don't even know what to do with this love that's been, it's just an overwhelming love. All of the benefits that come with it. And they refuse to call mom, mom, or dad, dad, and they're okay with that. But then that first time they hear that, The child didn't come in and go, hey, I've decided to do this. It's just all of a sudden, instead of hearing your first name, you hear, hey, Dad, I'll go do that. Yeah, I'll do that, Mom. I'll grab that. And you just kind of, on the inside, you kind of just freeze for a moment. Man, there's such a joy there, isn't there? When do children cry out, Abba Father? When they're scared. When they're fearful. They cry out when they're joyful. Probably everything in between, don't they? Do you understand who you are today in the Lord? Do you understand that you've been given the Holy Spirit? That this spirit of adoption, that you can cry out, Abba, Father. It speaks of intimacy. It speaks of sonship. And sonship includes daughters. Don't misunderstand me. It includes those things. This is what we have been given as the children of God. All of this right here. I want you to look at this just for a moment. Let me turn over here to Ephesians chapter Chapter two. Look at this. He has just told us how we were saved by the grace of God in verses eight through 10, and even up before that. And then he says in verse 11 of chapter two, book of Ephesians, he says, therefore, remember that you once were Gentiles in the flesh. who were called uncircumcision by what is called the circumcision made in the flesh by hands. Now, you've got to understand something. At this time, do you know that you could have said, God is my father, and he wasn't? See, when we cry out, Abba, Father, we can cry that out because we really are His children, because He has given us His Spirit. There are some people who cry out, Abba, Father, and they can't do it legally, because they've not been born again. They have not received the Spirit of God. I'm gonna go back to something. We got Tanner at five days old the first time. We had him for almost four years. There were some good times and there were some really rough times. For me personally, out of all of my children, when Tanner was a baby, he was more of a daddy's kid. All of my other kids, when they were tired, when they'd come into bed, they'd always come in our bed, we'd wake up and there'd be a kid in our bed, you know? They always went to mama's side. If they were sick, they wanted mom to rock them. And I get that. That's kind of the way it works. But Tanner was different. Now, don't worry. He's a mom's boy now. But at that time, he was definitely a daddy's boy. If he was sick, he wanted me to hold him. When I would get on to him, he would charge me. He would bury his face in my chest. And I'd say, no, you go sit down. I'm not happy with you. And he would bury himself in my chest until I put my arms around him. And you can't imagine the anguish and how hard it was when his biological father would get these visits and he was scared to death. And I was forced to have to hand him over. You know why I had to do that? Because even though to him I was daddy, legally I was not. And the one that he's looking to for protection and security and comfort and all that is the one that's having to hand him over. And we lost him for five years. And he came back, I mean, we got him a lot through those five years. It's almost like if there was a divorce or something. But when we got him back through that first year, we had to watch this little kid. He was scared to death that the other guy was gonna come through the door. And I said, I promise you, that's not gonna happen. And I promise you, that if that happens, that'll be the last thing that guy does. I said, you are not, you have no reason to be afraid here. I'm gonna protect you. But do you know what the anguish was like for Randy and I? And anybody that's ever done foster care knows what I'm talking about. Until they say, this is your child, it's hard to believe them folks. Until that judge says, Mr. and Mrs. Hart, here's your new daughter. Here's your new son. Mr. and Mrs. Leahy, praise the Lord. Everything has been met that was required. And you leave that place with your child. Can you imagine being a child in an orphanage? You have no one. And somebody comes in and says, I want this one. What do you have to offer that they would want you? Nothing. I've told you the story. I'll tell it till I die, imagine. American couple went to China. All the orphans were girls. They saw one little girl, this woman saw one little girl that was very small, but matted up, filthy, but she had this big smile on her face, and that lady knew right then, she said, that's our daughter right there. They go in and they talk, and they said, we've got these girls, they're trying to present what would be considered the best ones of the lot. I mean, can you imagine, how do we even, I mean, it just gets you, doesn't it? And they said, no, no, we want that one right there, and they said, no, no, you don't want that one. They said, no, we do this. No, you don't understand. This one is way older than she looks. She's malnourished and she's not healthy and all these things. And the lady said, no, that's the one. And they went through all the legalities. They signed everything. They paid the price. The price was met. And they said, here's your daughter. And they took her to a hotel. And you know what they did? She got her first bath in the warm water. Washed her hair. That mother lovingly untangled all that mess. Brushed her hair out. They put her in new clothes, Tim. She had a new name. She couldn't speak their language. But she was feeling their love. She was feeling love for the first time in her life. She got her first hot meal. And then in a few days, she boarded a plane and flew back to America where she had her own room. She had her own clothes. She had her toys and her dolls and all of those things. And all of this was prepared for her. As awesome as that story is, can I tell you something? What God has done for you is better than that. See, that's temporary. This is eternal. Look at verse 16, if you will. And he says this, he says, The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. Now I want to show you something. In 1 John 3.1, you know what he says? He says, behold, what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us that we are the children of God. Some of your versions continue and say, and we are. Now my Bible doesn't say that, but I do like that. If you're a child of God, you indeed definitely are his child. The funny thing about 1 John when he says, behold, what manner of love, he never goes on to tell you what manner of love. But can I tell you this? The love that God has for you, had for you, he came into this world to be your substitute. He came into this world to pay the high price of what it would take to make you His own, which was nothing less than His own blood, meaning that He was going to die in your place? Do you realize that this love, He has said, I'm going away, but I'm going to return for you? But while I'm gone, I'm going to leave the Holy Spirit. He's going to dwell in you. Ephesians 1 says we are sealed with the spirit of promise, which is the guarantee of our inheritance. The guarantee. We are completely and fully adopted. We are waiting for the redemption of our body. We are waiting for our Lord to return, to take us where He is. One thing that's different, one thing that's highly different in our adoption compared to the other adoptions, when we adopt a child, when we have natural born children, there's things that they're probably going to look like either mom or dad somewhat. Some kids got that weird trait, they look like both. My little grandson Liam, he looks just like my son, And yeah, when he smiles real big, he looks just like his mama. And you can see both of them in just plain as day. Tanner and Dustin don't physically look like us. They don't have our DNA inside them. Legally, they are ours. They are ours permanently. You might pray for us on that one, okay? So I ain't got no hair today? No, they are ours. You know what, they are every much the inheritor of everything we have, which that's not much, but same as our natural born children. The difference is this, while they don't have our DNA in them, every child of God who's been born again, God has placed his spirit, in them, every one of them. You see, God has only one begotten son, the one and only. And all the rest of us have all been under the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry out, Abba, Father. Amen? Amen. We have a promised return. We have the promise of the Spirit. And when he says this, when he says, the Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. God has left us. He has given us His Word that we can take what we feel inside that's alive in us and it will bear out with the Word of God. I want you to think about this. Before you were a child of God, you were His enemy. How did an enemy of God go from enemy, hating God, to loving God? How is it that you didn't want anything to do with God or about God, that now you're a servant of the Most High God? How is it that all of your desires have changed? Now, some of you, some of us, the change comes slower. But in every born-again Christian, every child of God, there is a change of heart, there is a change of mind, there is a change of direction, there is a change of desire in every one of us. And the Spirit is bearing witness. Now, for the people out there that say, Oh, the Spirit's leading me to do this or that. I told you about the man that felt led by the Spirit to challenge Charlie Kirk to a fist fight. Insane. That dude's a nut job, okay? No other way to put that one. And he wasn't even a tough guy. I mean, he couldn't have whooped any of us. It's like, you're nuts. That's why we have the Word of God. See, what we feel on the inside doesn't bear out with what the written Word of God says. The Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. When you can just embellish, when you can just love the fact that you just think, and you just think, God loves me. God has saved me. And you know, he witnesses this to your spirit because instead of it making you want to go sin, all of a sudden you don't want to sin. You want to be like Christ. Folks, I can remember what I was like as a teenager and those later teenage years, what I desired to do. Very sinful stuff. And I can remember when this change happened. And at one time, Annette will like this, at one time, I wanted to be a school teacher. I wanted to be a coach and a teacher. That's pure insanity, isn't it, Ms. Annette? God delivered me from that. Jen knows. There's some people, we've had a bunch of teachers here. Here's the thing. Do you know what God did? Do you know what the Spirit did? All of a sudden, I went from desiring that, that I said, all of a sudden, there was something in my mind, I thought, I want to be a preacher of the gospel. I want to preach the word of God. I want to preach to a lost and a dying world. I want to teach people about, where did that come from? And then God confirmed that by equipping, giving the ability to do those things. Now it may not impress you, but there's times I'm like talking, preaching, and I'm like, when did I learn all this stuff? I'm acting like I know this stuff, but I'm not sure when it happened. What happens to us when we go do the sinful things to a lot lesser degree than we used to and then yet we feel such conviction inside us that is the witness of the Spirit of God? What is it when we do wrong and God disciplines us and we know it's for our good and there's a comfort in it even in the fact that God is disciplining us because He says He will discipline His children? If you're without discipline, the Bible says you're a bastard and not a son. You don't have a father. You don't have one. What is it that causes us to rejoice and just shout hallelujah knowing we've been delivered from sin? What is it that grieves us when we do sin? What is it that causes us to shout thank you Jesus when we have victories? You see, the Spirit of God has borne witness with our spirit that we are that we are children of God. Wow, behold. Behold what manner of love. Why does that excite us? Everything has changed. Everything has changed in us. I want you to think about these things today. We do have a struggle with sin. but yet we have been redeemed. In the same way that if we were to adopt a child that came from a very, very, very rough past, we would just consistently and try with all patience to keep working and working and working. Randy and I know a little bit about that. Even when there's very little to almost no signs of progress, when the the training, when the transformation is coming in very, very slow terms. The times that you want to throw in the towel and say, I give up. Even the fact that we just keep staying in there is a witness of the Spirit. It's a picture of what God's doing in us. Oh, isn't it amazing how we can get frustrated with our children, and then yet we're guilty of the same thing with our Heavenly Father? You ever thought about that one? I want you to think about this one. Would you want God to deal with you the way that you're dealing with your children? Trust me, I've had that come out in prayer so many times. I can get very angry. I was praying the other day, I said, Lord, I don't think that the angry is working. Lord, I gotta, it just hits you, it's like I need to be like Christ. Anybody else in here get frustrated? Yeah, Rick, just me and Rick, the rest of you guys were liars, so whatever. It can be very frustrating. Now Rodney's not here, but I've talked to Rodney enough, he's like, he knows. Every parent knows the frustration. And yet, we still love our kids, don't we? Nothing could keep them from being your children, could it? Even if they disobediently just rebelled and left, they're still your kids and they cannot stop you from loving them, amen? Well, I want you to magnify that about a few hundred million times and you're getting not even a little bit close yet to the way God loves you. And God says what he has, the work he's began, he's going to complete it. God is working on you if you're a child of His. Would you bow your heads with me? I'm gonna pray real quick. We're gonna have the men come up to pass out the wine and the bread and the juice and the bread. And we're gonna go straight into communion. So let me just pray that it dismisses here.