Not been here...

Not been on here for a year, so sorry about that!
NEWS IS ANDREW is getting Married to Gina Macko in Sydney on Saturday 23 May 2009.
Congratulations to you both.
Love from Dad and Kathy
We are going over to the wedding and plan to stay about 6 days and see a few sights.

Romans series:
The Spirit of Him who raised Jesus is in YOU
Rom 8:1 “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.
8:2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.
8:3 For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh,
8:4 that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
8:5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.
8:6 For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.
8:7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be.
8:8 So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
8:9 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.
8:10 And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.
8:11 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.”
Introduction
In this 8th chapter, the writer of this letter to the Christians in Rome, Paul the Apostle continues to set out why Christians are to live spiritually clean lives. Ch 8:2 “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.”

All that I am about to say relates to true Christians; those born of the Holy Spirit of God. When I use the word ‘Christian’ I mean those who are born again.

The Spirit’s Ministry
Paul sets out here in Ch 8 the groundwork or basic principles about the Holy Spirit’s ministry in the believer. He does this very carefully because he wants Christians to hear and understand all the wonderful things God has already done for us.
We are to live clean lives because we have been granted a new life of freedom. (2) With such freedom comes responsibility.
This freedom is found in Jesus Christ as we experience God’s Spirit. (We read this in Rom Ch 6: 18-22 and Ch 8: 3-6)
We live by or according to the Spirit: see v 4. It is Christians “who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.”

Paul says to live as God wants us to live, as God intends us to live, we must allow the Spirit to control our behaviour.
We read about this in verses 5-8: Warnings about the fate of those who live according to or after the flesh i.e. non Christians and how we Christians are to live according to the Spirit’s direction. That Christians are not fleshly i.e. we do not live according to human nature but we live in step with the Holy Spirit.

The Spirit’s Indwelling Power
He goes on in v. 9-10 to say to the whole church: You individually and collectively, belong to God and behave as He wants you to because His Spirit is in you.
The Spirit of Him who raised Jesus is in you!
If Christ by His Spirit is in you, you have life courtesy of the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead.
Let me say it another way: In vv. 10-11 Paul tells us what God has already done for us.
The astounding news is that God’s resurrection power resides in you, runs in and through your life, gives you life, eternal life and power. He, by His Spirit, shares His eternal resurrection power with you who believe.
“And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.
v. 11 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.”
That’s the NKJV, but it does not matter which Bible you use, the good news remains the same:
The Spirit of Him who raised Jesus is in you!
Your pew Bible says 8:10 “But if Christ lives in you, the Spirit is life for you because you have been put right with God, even though your bodies are going to die because of sin.
8:11 If the Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from death, lives in you, then he who raised Christ from death will also give life to your mortal bodies by the presence of his Spirit in you.”
(See MLJ on the distinction in v. re: “Spirit is life” versus “spirit is life” in v.10 on pages 70ff in “Romans 8.5-17 “The Sons of God.”)
All this is to tell Christians that we are sanctified. Being sanctified simply means separated to God, possessing His Spirit, belonging to God, as distinct from the world. We are God’s own children re-created in Christ to do good works so as to glorify Him. (Eph 2: 8-10)
All this is implied in the statement, the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus is in you!

How can we experience this?
How can we get the benefit of this wonderful truth?
If the God of the universe has put His resurrection power within us, surely there should be some marked difference in our lives?
If the power that raised the Lord Jesus from the tomb resides in us, then surely we should know it in our experience! So how can we experience this?
Illustration
Think about this. If some new company built a dynamic new power source in the middle of Dunedin, such as a new form of power generator, a thing of wonder! You can be sure everyone in Dunedin would want to know all about it, and to get their share of the power it was built to produce. It is the same with the H.S.
Within us is the ‘dunamis’ of the Spirit: the power of God. ‘Dunamis’ is the Greek word we get the word ‘dynamite’ from. This ‘dunamis’ comes from the power generator, the Holy Spirit.
So, how can we experience this power?
Reckon it to be yours!
Say to yourself: “I have received Christ and I have the Holy Spirit living in me!”
‘Dunamis’ is nothing less than the resurrecting power of the gospel: ROM 1:16 “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ,” says Paul in Chapter 1 “for it is the power (dunamis) of God to salvation for everyone who believes…”
It is the same power that “declared Jesus to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.” (ROM 1:4)
And remember, Paul has told us that the Holy Spirit lives within each of you as a believer and in the church as a whole.

So why are we so powerless and the church so ineffectual?
No.1: We do not recognise the Person or power of the H.S. We think of Him as a vague impersonal influence that may come to us and go away just as mysteriously from time to time. We do not honour the H.S. Sometimes we ascribe things to Him that are not true.
He is a Person who lives. He is the Third Person of the Trinity of God. He is God the Holy Spirit. He dwells within the believer so that we can know Jesus Christ in our lives.
The Spirit of Him who raised Jesus is in you!
No. 2: We do not submit to the H.S. as we should and so He does not produce His power in us as He could.
The Early Christians
But the early Christians did experience this power. The early Christians turned the world upside down! A world far more against them than the world we face against us today. They had no access to political power, they were not recognised or paid any attention to, they belonged to an illicit religion under Roman governorship; they had no means of communication as we have today, they had none of our advantages…yet they relied on the power and grace of the H.S. and they turned their world upside down! The Book of Acts tells us that they turned the world upside down by proclaiming the Lordship of Jesus in the power of the H.S. Acts 17: 6 “These who have turned the world upside down have come here too. 7 Jason has harbored them, and these are all acting contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying there is another king - Jesus.”
The church has compromised this message, so any power it had in NZ is waning and new forms of Christianity are rising up every day. No doubt some will be effective in NZ and some will not. It will depend how faithful believers are to the word of God and how dependent they are on the power of the H.S.
Examples of the Spirit’s Power in OT Times
In OT times the Spirit of God came upon people like Samson to give him superhuman strength to fight God’s enemies, on Gideon to win a battle with little in the way of resources, on young David to down the giant Philistine Goliath, on Moses in order to lead an unruly mob through the desert to the edge of the promised land and on all the prophets and leaders, judges and kings, but the Spirit did not remain with and certainly not in these early believers. In order to bring in the gospels’ power, in order to make permanent changes in people’s lives, the Holy Spirit had to come and stay in human lives. This where Jesus is central to this.
Jesus’ Promise
It was after the coming of Jesus and His resurrection and Ascension that the Holy Spirit was given to enter into and remain with God’s people, the church. That was why these ordinary folk could do such amazing things and have such assurance and determination that lead some of them to martyrs’ deaths and others to write the sublime words of the NT which we still have today…The Spirit of God was with them and to remain in them and to be theirs always!
The Spirit of Him who raised Jesus is in you!

The Spirit’s words of the OT prophets about Jesus and Jesus’ promises to His disciples and to us came true: Lk 11:9 “So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.
Verse 11 If a son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone?
Verse 13 If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!”
The difference between those OT and NT believers and us is not that the age of miracles is passed, but that we have become so comfortable with our own power. We have been able to do so much without having to depend on the Holy Spirit. At least we think we are ok without Him.
What we need as a church is to confess our foolish dependence on human strength and instead breathe in deeply of the Holy Spirit. The Apostle warns us in verses 5 and 6 of this chapter: 8:5 “For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. 8:6 For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.”
There is still too much confidence in those who live by their own strength and too little on dependence on the power of the Spirit.
The Spirit of Him who raised Jesus is in you!
Why would we not employ that superhuman strength, that wonderful wisdom, that source of eternal salvation and security?
For this is what the Holy Spirit produces in the believer.
When sought out regarding these things by no less than an eminent religious leader of His day, “Jesus answered, ‘Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.
6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
7 Do not marvel that I said to you, “You must be born again.” ’ ” (John 3: 5-7)
And on the occasion of His farewell, Jesus said to His followers: “Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day,
47 and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.
48 And you are witnesses of these things.
49 Behold, I send the Promise of My Father upon you;” (MEANING THE HOLY SPIRIT looking forward to Pentecost) “but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power (dunamis) from on high.” (Lk 24:46-49)
So God’s promise to you today, right now is: “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.” (Rom 8:11)

And it is that way and that way alone that you will be able to benefit from being a Christian and bring glory to God.

It is depending by faith in the working of the Holy Spirit in your life that you will be able to do what He calls you to do.

It is in turning from a dependence on your human nature to divine power the Holy Spirit supplies in you.

It is in humbling yourself to God afresh and in seeing what He has already done for you in Christ by the Holy Spirit is all sufficient and all that you need to live and then you will indeed live!

The Spirit of Him who raised Jesus is in you! AMEN.