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Advent HOPE Sabbath School

Adrian Zahid

Romans 8: Born of the Spirit

Dear Father, as I open the Bible today and I preach from it, I ask that you be with the listeners, that you send the Holy Spirit to guide and to direct and may this sermon be 1 that is a message that encourages and uplifts Help us to have the hope in the second coming and help us to live as sons and daughters of God.

John chapter 3 verse 5 is our opening text for today.

John chapter 3 verse 5 Jesus answered verily verily I say unto thee, except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.

Jesus right here explains to 1 of the premier theologians of his day what the basic requirements are for entering the kingdom of God.

Before that he said, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.

So being born again, and being born of the water, and being born of the Spirit, that was Jesus' elaboration of the term being born again, is a prerequisite to being, to be able to enter the Kingdom of God.

Let us look at a chapter in the Bible, Romans chapter 8, to see what life is like of a person that is born again.

After you have accepted Jesus Christ into your life, what is your life supposed to be like?

And it is my prayer that as we study the Bible today that we will find that this life is possible because God has said that it is.

Romans chapter 8 verse 1 says, There is therefore no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit.

This is Paul's opening statement concerning a life that is lived after the Spirit.

Before we go any further, I want to set down just 2 terms so that you understand where Paul is coming from.

He says, "...know ye not that so many of us were baptized into Jesus Christ, were baptized into His death?

Therefore we are buried with Him by baptism into death, that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we should walk in newness of life." So what is Paul saying over here?

And he's also equating baptism with death.

Ecclesiastes chapter 9 verse 5 and 6 says, it is a very famous text for Seventh-day Adventist.

We should know this by heart, but I will read it straight from the Bible.

It says, Also their love and their hatred and their envy is now perished.

Neither have they any more portion forever in anything that is done under the sun." In Paul's mind, when he says death or when he writes the word dead, what he is meaning is exactly what the Bible says about death.

There was a time when I was working in the hospital and 1 nurse put some paperwork on a patient who was dead on his chest.

And then, I don't know how this happened, but he was put in the body bag with the paper on his chest.

So, at 2 o'clock in the morning, I had to go and wake up the nurse, she was thrilled, and ask her where the paper was, and then she told me that it was on the chest of this patient.

And then I had to go down to the morgue at 2 o'clock in the morning, find the patient and fish out the paperwork.

Because in the hospital, as you know, nothing happens without paperwork.

You're not dead until a paper says that you are dead.

But when I was in the morgue at 2 o'clock in the morning, I volunteered to do this because I told my co-workers I'm not afraid of going to the morgue alone at 2 o'clock in the morning because the living know that they shall die, whether dead or not, anything.

So I went in there respectfully as possible, I fished out the paperwork and I went on my way.

But the patient that was lying there, he did not object to me taking paperwork off his chest.

He didn't say to me, why is paperwork on my chest?

Because he was dead and he no longer cares about things that are living.

So when Paul talks about, in Romans chapter 6, about dying and he talks about death and when he says, For he that is dead is freed from sin, he's talking about the life that you live after you have died to sin.

He goes on to say in verse 11, likewise reckon yourself also dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body that you should obey it in the lust thereof." So he's talking about what happens when a person dies to that old self that they had and when they're baptized into the watery grave and they come back alive, they're living the life of Christ.

He goes on in chapter 7, verses 1 through 4, to explain in a different way the same meaning.

He says, talking about the law of marriage.

How that a law had dominion over a man as long as he lives.

For the woman which had a husband is bound by the law to her husband so as long as he liveth.

But if the husband be dead, she is loose from the law of her husband.

So then while her husband liveth, she be married to another man, she shall be called an adulteress.

But if her husband be dead, she is free from the law, so that she is no adulteress, though she be married to another man." Is that simple enough to understand?

What Paul is saying is, just imagine this, you by birth and by your actions decided to marry sin.

And according to the laws of marriage, a husband has rights on his wife, and the wife has rights on her husband.

And so, if your husband is sin, Then He is going to do what sin does, and you're going to produce or you're going to be what sin is in your life.

But if you want to be, if you want to free yourself from that, sin does not die.

You do, For that marriage to be finished.

And in order for you to marry Christ, Christ will not marry, Christ will not commit adultery.

He, according to the law, You need to be, or your husband needs to be, your husband needs to be dead in order for you to be able to marry Christ.

And so, since sin does not die, although you don't physically die, you spiritually die to sin so that you can be spiritually married to Christ.

And then he goes on to say that if you're married with Christ, then that's what we're talking about today.

Because that is, The reality is that if Jesus is married to you, then sin no longer controls your body.

So there are 4 things that the Spirit does in us once we have accepted Jesus Christ as our personal Savior and are walking in Him.

Number 1, He delivers from the power of the flesh.

That incredible power that is within us that makes us do wrong things, He delivers us from that power.

We have a choice to be able to suppress that power.

There was some time ago in March of this year, I was driving my car down Barton Road and I should say this before I tell the story.

When I was a kid I had a problem with temper, A very real problem with temper.

And the way I used to express it was when I was younger, I would internalize it.

So if I was mad, thankfully, I would go and study.

And I would just do the entire book of math.

And then go to class so that I would have mental superiority over the person that made me mad.

When I grew older and I became stronger, I realized that I could use my fists and I could use my legs in order to prove a point as well.

And so when I got mad, it wouldn't take me 2 seconds before I would fly into rage and grab your throat.

And it was so bad, it was so bad that there was a time when I just couldn't believe, I just couldn't see myself going anywhere because I could not control my temper.

Once my anger started to rise, it would just go through the roof.

But then I decided to get baptized and I decided to put away that old life, including my temper, and through the grace of God, every time I would get mad, I would suppress it by the power of God.

And I wouldn't use another channel to to Express it I would rather suppress it and each year succeeding year I would suppress it and suppress it to the point where it became a non-issue in my life by the grace of God However this March I was driving down the road doing 45 in a 45 mile per hour zone and there was this guy in front of me on a Harley Davidson.

And by his jacket I could tell he was a Vietnam vet.

And I don't know what it was with that war but somehow some of these guys feel that society owes them something that they did not get at that time when they fought this war.

And in reality society does but they have this deep seated anger at times towards other people.

And so this guy is in front of me, and I'm keeping my distance, but all of a sudden he starts to slow down, and slow really down, to the point where I can't pass him, and he stops in the middle of the road and he gets off his bike and he comes to my car and my window is rolled down and he starts to yell at me in my face and he tells me that he will break my legs if I follow too closely and I just look straight ahead I thought well should I roll up my window?

And I thought no I don't want him to bash my window, and then I'm out a hundred bucks So I thought I'm just gonna just listen to it and let it go He said what he wanted to say he got back on his motorbike, and he was gone But as he got back onto his motorbike, all of a sudden this feeling just rushed right into me.

And it was a feeling that I had not experienced in probably 10 or 15 years.

And that feeling said this, wouldn't it be nice to just pull up close to him and just give him a scare?

But once I let it open, then all of a sudden the second thought was, wouldn't it be nice to just pull up close to him and just give him a scare?

But once I let it open, then all of a sudden the second thought was, wouldn't it be nice to just give him a tap with your car?

And break his back so he won't be able to walk again.

And I was like, whoa, where did that come from?

It was my old self coming right back up again.

Because by choice, I let it rise up again.

The Bible says in verse 2, For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus had made me free from the law of sin and death.

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Romans 8: Born of the Spirit

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