Being conformed - what is the believer's part?

past, in big terms, God's will. And to bring it forth piece by piece here, God's sovereign will is fixed and irreversible and includes your position and possessions in Him. And this would include things like we've talked about here in this class, Romans 8.28, that God works all things together for the good that you are conformed to the image of the Son.

That is an ultimate conformity. It's not going to be thwarted. That's part of God's sovereign will. Another one would be Ephesians 1, 9, and 10. All things in this present heavens and earth will be summed up in Christ. That is the direction towards which God is managing things on earth, and that is God's sovereign will. You think of other things that are God's sovereign will, that God absolutely wills, and that's what's going to happen. Yeah, in other words, the things that are spelled out, for example, in the book of Revelation, things that are going to take place. New Heavens, New Earth, New Jerusalem. So there are things that are God's sovereign will.

Those are not things that God has said, well, I'm going to give you some kind of a choice moment by moment about. There are things that we're not going to deviate from in terms of the path that God has. The next here is God's moral will is revealed in Scripture and is intended to be lived by the life of Christ. Is everybody forced to live out God's moral will? No. We see every day people making choices that are contrary to God's moral will.

So in this, God has a will But God's will is not irreversibly cast in place, enforced, whatever term you want to use. God has made things and set things in place such that human beings, saved and unsaved, have a choice regarding God's moral will. And then thirdly, God's individual will consists mostly of learning to make wise decisions with godly wisdom rather than worldly wisdom. You see that?

So there is an individual will that is different from God's moral will. God's moral will is something essentially uniform among believers. God's individual will will vary from one believer to the next. What are ways that we can still be within God's moral will and yet have different individual wills? Can you think of some? That's right.

God gives some the gift of singleness. Matthew 19 is one of the places in 1 Corinthians 7. Those are a couple of passages that center on that issue of the gift of singleness or the gift of marriage. And so given that, that would be one way in which it would be God's individual will.

Can you think of others? Along that same line, we talk about the gift of marriage, gift of singleness. Another thing where it's different from one person to the next is spiritual gifts. One person is gifted in one way and one person is gifted in another.

And so that would be God's individual will for one believer or another believer, right? So those would be instances. The truth is if we kept looking, there would be a number of things. some of which are explicitly spelled out in scripture and some of which are not. But God's individual will is something that is unique to each believer.

There is not, in the large biblical sense, a right or wrong, but simply that God will have a different path or a different ministry or that sort of thing for one person and the next. Let's ask this question. If at some point in time you miss a fork in the road in God's individual will, are you just done for and never going to be used again?

No. No. And I think that's something very important. A lot of Christians will go around looking at God's individual will as if it's some yellow brick road. You know, I've got to stay on the yellow brick road. And somehow if I get off, I've just lost forever. And that's not a good conception. The reality is the ultimate thing that God wants us to do is to walk with Him. And He will always provide opportunities. He has prepared good works that we might walk in them. They don't stop if we miss one of the turnoffs.

OK. Anyway, I wanted to kind of give you an idea. This is the diagram that I kept referring to orally. And so with that, let's shift to your handout here. We have them here available if someone is in need of them. And hopefully, we'll have time to get through the most of it. If we read Romans 8, 28 through 30, as you find in the top of the handout. You need one? Yeah.

To read Romans 8.28-30 at the top of the handout there, it goes like this, And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God and to those who are called according to His purpose. For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren. And these whom He predestined, He also called. whom He called, He also justified, and these whom He justified, He also glorified." Now, how many things do you see in that passage for you to do? Huh? What's that?

Yeah, I hear none and one and probably are both close. Yeah, half. There we go. That's a good response. What is the one thing that you can sort of see in there for us to do? For us to love God. That's the one part in this passage that talks about our doing. Now, let me ask you this question. Do we love God out of our own initiation and we're the originators and we're the first ones to make the move? Or is there some other answer? This is some other answer.

What we see here, we have these passages right in the middle of page 1, John 3.16, for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son. And then here's the response, that whosoever believes should not perish.

Galatians 2.20, Ephesians 5.2, and Ephesians 5.25 are three passages, all three of which say that Christ, the Son of God, loved us and gave Himself up for us. some variation in words, but that's the summary. All three of those passages have that, and the Greek word for love in each case is identical.

The sequence of loved and gave, like John 3.16, is the same. So that pattern is clear.

The first John 4.19, which is the last of the passages we see of the five there, first John 4.19, we love because He first loved us. Our love that kind is a response to his love, right? God loved and he gave. God loved and he gave. God didn't just love and sit there, right? He took action. He loved and he gave. He loved and he gave. And our love is a response to his initiation of love. Okay.

So, does this mean that being conformed to the image of Christ is entirely a sovereign process in which we have no part whatsoever? And I would say no. And the reason is, while you can't find a lot for us to do in this passage, other than a response of love from God first loving us, What we see from looking at the rest of Scripture is that our response, our part in this, is spelled out everywhere else in Scripture, just not here. This passage that we've been kind of focusing on and centering on is all about what God has done, is doing, and will do. This right here, is kind of the turning point where we start off heading into other passages that say, okay, here is our part in response to what God has done, is doing, and will do, right?

So let's take a look at page two there. We start off with a diagram that we've been looking at for a few weeks, and the reason for keeping it in front of us is just so we recognize that there is the physical realm created by God, and there is the spiritual realm, the native realm, if you will, for God himself.

And what we find is there is the physical realm and spiritual realm, which are in somewhat mirror images in terms of the human being, our spiritual and physical anatomy, if you will. We've said in the past there are five senses in the physical realm that we've observed. There are five senses likewise in the spiritual realm. And we can find passages that confirm each one of those, sometimes more than one.

Between the brain, the physical side, and the soul, the spiritual side, there is mind, emotions, and will in both of those. So, we start off here, let's look at the middle part of page two, the believer's will. And in the all things in which God works that are both physical and spiritual, there are a number of ways in which we are called to respond to the working of God. Whenever we see an imperative directed to the believer in the New Testament, as directed to the church under grace, there is an opportunity to respond cooperatively with God's working in and through the all things.

Now, I put that positively. Let's ask this question. What are ways that you as a believer could work uncooperatively with the working that God is doing? Can you think of some? What are ways that we could be uncooperative with the working that God is doing?

Yeah? Well, to use an Old Testament example, being stubborn, stiff-necked, callous. Yeah. And actually the New Testament proceeds with it. We could be fighting and stubborn, bucking God all the way. That's possible. Okay? What are some other ways we might describe that? We might be in conflict with what God is doing. Yeah, in other words, the ultimate thing is out of fellowship. I think what Stan described is, here's what that looks like, but the ultimate thing is out of fellowship.

We've made the distinction here. Believers always have a relationship with God. That doesn't vary once a person believes. But believers can be out of fellowship with God, and that can change moment to moment. So yeah, that's an important distinction. Let's continue on here.

Along with the imperatives, which are an appeal to the will of the believer, there are also appeals to the will of the believer in the form of, I urge you, I exhort you. In all the the apostolic writers would write in that way. Paul would write to the church at Corinth and in multiple instances would urge and exhort them. So there's that. One is, you must do this.

The other is, I appeal to you, I urge you, I exhort you to do this. Either way, whether it's more forceful as an imperative or whether it is more soft and coming alongside, I urge you, I exhort you. Either of those, both of those are an appeal to the will. Now, let's ask this question.

God has a will. We've just looked at the diagram on that. God has a will. Does the Holy Spirit, indwelling the believer, have a will? Yes? Yeah, Stan says yes. Any other opinions on that? Yeah. The Holy Spirit does, in fact, have a will, right? Let's ask this. Does the sin nature have a will? Yes, the sin nature has a will. How do you decide which will is in control? How do we as believers decide which of those wills is in control? We have a free will. And where is that?

In our mind. To answer your question, I know a lot of believers will say peace, but we have to test everything by scripture. In terms of what we have been looking at, Remember, the new man and the new nature, those are things that are part of who we are in Christ. It is all of who we are in Christ. So what part of us is changing? Remember that? What part of us is changing? Pardon? The spiritual part of us is changing, but specifically what part?

The continuing person is changing. The new nature is not changing. The new man, which is all of who we are in Christ, which includes the nature but also our history and everything else, is not changing. But that continuing person is changing, and that continuing person is where the appeal is when we see, I urge you, or I implore you, I exhort you, or you must do this or that. This continuing person, the part of us that changes, is the part that is deciding between, am I going to follow this new nature and the new man, or am I going to follow the sin nature? See that? Yes? I don't think I've heard of a continuing person before. We covered that in in January.

In other words, we said what part of the believer is changing? The new man isn't changing. That's who you are in Christ. The nature, the inclination to act of that new man is not changing. But the continuing person, that is, the person that is an essential you, is the part that is being changed.

That's the part that's being conformed. That is the part that is making the decision I am going to put my trust and dependence and confidence in all of who the Lord has made me to be and in His Holy Spirit who is working in me versus the sin nature. There's a decision made there and that's where it's made. That's where the appeal is. The continuing person is within the soul.

Yes. Reckon yourself dead to the sin nature. Is the sin nature gone? Absolutely not. Not until we're out of these bodies. But reckon yourself dead unto that is spiritually separated from that sin nature. You're no longer in a position of having to obey its commands. And by the way, where's the determination to reckon? The determination to reckon is in that continuing person.

Right? Yes. So out of this picture up here, where does that decision actually take place? I mean, that's like, you know, they talk about if you have a bad habit or whatever, it takes, what, a month or six months or something like that, that if you practice what you're supposed to do, then it becomes a good habit instead of a bad habit, right? Okay, hold on a sec.

That is a statistic based on this world's approach and includes statistics about believers and unbelievers and everybody all together. But biblically, we're not stuck to that statistic. Because for us, it's not a matter of developing a habit. It is a question of reckoning yourself dead unto sin, which is a different process than the world understands.

So are you saying it's an aorist dance instead of a present tense? What's that? Are you reckoning? Is that a one-time choice? No. It's a process. You must right now reckon. You must right now continue to reckon. It's an ongoing process. In other words, I can decide right now to reckon myself dead to the sin nature, and by the way, the other half of that we haven't said is be alive to God, right? And be alive to God, I could choose differently five minutes from now. And that's why the exhortation, the command, is an ongoing, it's a continuing present. Now and then the next now and then the next now and then the next now, right?

Yes. Let's talk about that. A part of maturing spiritually is, and we'll be getting into that in more detail too, so we're kind of quick summarizing. But let's think about it. As we learn to walk with the Lord, do we have a greater or lesser likelihood to turn to the sin nature? Less. Less, yeah. There's no guarantee. The choice must always be made. But let me ask you this question. Why less? Why less?

Your faith gets stronger. Yeah, in other words, you know, you're not all of a sudden free from any problems or issues. It's not like all of a sudden Satan is going to leave you alone. It's not that all of a sudden the sin nature gives up. That doesn't happen.

But let's look at this diagram up at the top. What's happening as you exercise that choice to walk in fellowship with the Lord. What's going on? Yeah. So, reckoning becomes a process that you have after you become a believer. That's right. An unbeliever has no place to reckon themselves dead to sin. Pardon, what's that? You have to believe. You have to believe one time. Yes. Right. Reckoning is ongoing. consequences with your original decision, because the reckoning is what you do as a result of new information, new creations. The reckoning is ongoing.

Okay, and let's think about something, because I think we're on to something here we ought to pursue. As we walk with the Lord and walk in fellowship with Him, these five senses in the spiritual realm We get accustomed to using those, right? And that visibility in the spiritual realm is then registered as part of our whole perspective of what's going on spiritually. And we begin to make more and more of a pattern of thought. We begin to make more and more decisions in light of what we are now seeing and hearing. and smelling and everything else, all the senses in the spiritual realm, those become the norm.

Yes? It seems like, okay, like even if you sort of got, became more spiritual and realized more things, that there still may be some things that God wants you to hang on to for some reason, thinking of Paul with the thorn in his side, You can't even say, I want to become more spiritual so that I can be more like Christ. Are we talking about hanging on to things or is God using trials and difficulties in our lives to grow us even more? To grow us in greater dependence upon Him?

I think one of the things that happens even as we age, and of course we take this pill and put that cream on and get this treatment done to try to minimize, but the reality is as we age we realize more and more how limited and frail these bodies are. And one of the things that that does is we begin to realize our insufficiency and learn to depend more upon His sufficiency. Here's an interesting thing. My grandpa put it this way.

He said, for the unbeliever, life is like a funnel that gets narrower and narrower. For the believer, life is a funnel turned the other way. As you go down the path of fellowship with the Lord, the funnel gets larger. You begin to see more and more because of the spiritual understanding and the spiritual vision. The difficulties that we encounter, and we're going to talk about that in a minute, the difficulties that we encounter as a believer are such that they draw us to depend more and more upon the Lord. It is not that the Lord wants us to be hanging on to things in the flesh. As a matter of fact, if anything, it's letting go of those things more and more.

Let's look at what we have in this section of the Believer's Will. There's a piece on the Holly Hills website. It's the Will of the Believer on the Materials section of the website. I have the direct link here. You can click on Materials and find it in there.

But the bottom part here is the ultimate issue of choice in the bottom of page 2. While we make many choices every day involving and impacting both the physical and spiritual realm, the ultimate issue of choice for the believer is that of walking in the Spirit or walking in accordance with the sin nature. That is the ultimate choice.

There are lots of places where you can find, you know, Paul would say to the believers at Ephesus, you know, stop lying to one another, stop stealing, you know. So he'll talk about those and present those as a moral choice. He'll appeal to the believers at Corinth that they stop their squabbling. And so he will make those appeals. But the ultimate choice for the believer is, where is my dependence? That's a choice above all choices.

Yeah? Wouldn't it be nice if we were on the left side, that we'd get a check engine light? Check engine light. We do. That's a good point. Let's ask this question. What's the check engine light that we get if we're in dependence upon the sin nature? Conscience may be it, but as believers we actually have something better than that. Yes, and what happens with the Holy Spirit if we're not walking in fellowship with the Holy Spirit?

Grieving. So we actually do get a check engine light. It shows up as the grieving of the Holy Spirit, which was on the last page of the handout from last week. We get a check engine light. The grieving of the Holy Spirit. Let's ask this, is the grieving of the Holy Spirit the same as discipline? They're actually two different things, and that's the other part of the check engine light. The check engine light may come on and you may also get some other behavior coming out of the engine, right? Same thing with a believer. We get internally the grieving of the Holy Spirit. Externally, the Lord will bring about discipline of various kinds. It's the same thing.

We don't take care of the problem. If we don't find out and replace the oxygen sensor, the car is going to continue to run crummy and even worse as time goes on. Before Nancy and I got married, there was a really great roommate that I had, but he knew nothing about cars. He was driving his Volkswagen north of San Francisco and the oil light came on. He kept driving. Finally, the car started running real rough, and then it just wouldn't run at all, you know? And so the first thing it gets is the check engine light, and then the next thing it starts getting real rough, and then it just doesn't work.

A similar and analogous thing takes place. We get the grieving of the Holy Spirit internally, plus the Lord may well bring about discipline in the believer's life. And so then when that person prays about it, and the problem doesn't go away, they think it's God's fault.

Right? Wow. I've seen it happen. Okay. Let's take a look at page 3. We have a diagram there that... Actually, Sue, I think you put this together, didn't you? This one from Hal? The top of page 3 there? There's a diagram here that I think is illustrative.

We have in essence this spiritual switch. Where is our dependence in what are we going to walk? It is either in the flesh or walking in the spirit. It's one or the other. And by the way, there's no mix and match kind of thing. It's not like, you know, 30% you know, it's in nature, and 70% spirit, there's no mix and match thing. It's either entirely one or entirely the other.

And so, the one who is walking in the spirit, as opposed to walking in the flesh, the one who is walking in the spirit is the one who has the fruit of the spirit. So the fruit of the spirit, that is the fruit of the person who is walking by means of the spirit, is the one who exhibits love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, etc. Okay, so here is our choice in the middle of every moment in life.

Where is our dependence? That is the ultimate choice. And one reason why it isn't a matter of just, okay, here's the Ten Commandments, live it, and if you do live it, then God's happy, and if you don't live it, God's not happy. No. What's wrong with that picture? It bypasses this ultimate choice. The ultimate choice God's looking for is not, how are you doing with the rules I gave you? But the ultimate choice is, where is my dependence? See that? Okay. Now, trials and suffering are discipline, and this is a distinction I think it's important to make, is both of them may on the outside look the same, but they are two different things spiritually.

If you're a believer walking in fellowship with the Lord, are you going to go through life with absolutely no troubles, just on a highway to heaven that's been all cleared and smooth and freshly paved? No. Not going to happen. How is that different from the Lord disciplining us? Discipline is when you choose not to walk, but walk to the Spirit.

Suffering is part of the process of maturing as a believer. So we've got two different things going on. Here's a believer walking in fellowship with the Lord, and the Lord allows difficulties in that believer's life, not because God's mad or God just can't help it, but the Lord explicitly and deliberately brings about things in that believer's life to grow them. Then, for the believer who's either ignorant of or doesn't care, what God has revealed and just goes headlong the wrong direction, God brings about discipline in their lives with the intent that they would realize, oh, I'm not walking in fellowship with the Lord. I guess I'd better get back on that path. On the outside, they might even look the same. Sometimes not, but there may be things you look at that are the same. but God's intent with each is different. Both of them are intended for the better.

See, the person who says, oh man, God just isn't cooperating in my life, and I'm ticked off at Him, and He's not doing the stuff I want, and He's making life really rough for me, and I'll get people to call me up or visit and help me get the rock out of my road.

I'll say, well, it sounds like the Lord put that rock in your road. And that's not the answer they want to hear. People will head down that road not realizing that God is the one who put the rock in the road and He is the one who put it there because He loves them. God disciplines those whom He loves. Not because He's mad or God just can't help it or God just enjoys toying with us. but because he intends that believer to get back on a road of fellowship. And as long as they think that life is about figuring out how I get God off my back, they're not going to get back on the right road.

We have 1 Peter 4, 12-19. Don't be surprised, beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you which comes upon you for your testing with a view to approval as though some strange thing were happening to you. But to the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing. Wow. Keep on rejoicing, so that also at the revelation of His glory you may rejoice with exultation. If you are reviled for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. So are you saying, is James saying then that there's a spiritual joy and a physical joy as well? Well, that's the next verse. In fact, we'll jump to it. We'll let you get away with it here. Page 4 at the top. James 1, 2 through 4.

Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance. This is a practice passage, by the way, for the for the Greek course that I went through, and my brother and I were going back and forth on this because we took the same course.

He translated it this way, you must esteem it ultimate joy. You must esteem it ultimate joy. What would you consider an ultimate joy? Isn't this interesting? Or even in this worldly sense, what would people say? Boy, I won the lottery. got married and really enjoyed myself or whatever. No, you must esteem it ultimate joy my brother when you encounter various trials.

That word various is the word where we, it's a Greek word behind that is where we get our word polkas and polkadots. How are polkadots? You get this little one over here and this bigger one over here and you know, little ones. Rejoice when you encounter various polkadot trials, right? various trials.

Why? Just because they just make you happy as can be? You know, whoopee, I just broke my ankle. Right? Is that what it is? No. Knowing that the testing of your faith with a view to approval produces endurance. And let endurance, and I have a footnote here, let never means allow anywhere in the New Testament from Acts to the end of the New Testament. Well, that never means allow. It's actually an imperative. And endurance must have its perfect result so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

Jumping down to verse 12, blessed is a man who perseveres under the trial. See, the inclination is to say, let me out. I want out. You know, Lord, I prayed to get out from under the trial, and if you're really a good God, you'll get me out from underneath it. Is that what this says? Nope. Perseveres under. Under the trial. For once he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love him. Those who love him? That sounds like Romans 8. Those who love Him.

So yeah, here's this amazing thing. A trial comes along, and from a worldly perspective, it's, you know, how do I get past this? Or, you know, it might not even go that far. You know, give me a drink. Some way to cope with this thing. For the believer, there's an entirely different perspective. God's got something great that he wants to have be the outcome, even though what may itself be happening might be awful.

Yes, Pat? How do you define approved? I think the question is not so much how do you define approved as who does the approval? It's God who does the approval. And that's the ultimate thing. It meets with God's approval. You don't understand. Pardon? Not a stamp, but there's a reward.

He does offer, say, a crown of life, right? So going through the trials with faithful perseverance has an eternal reward. And then the question is, what does the crown of life mean? A crown when you see it in the New Testament. A crown when you see it in the New Testament. That's a Stephanos, it's a victor's crown. It means that you are given a capacity to glorify the Lord for eternity. Those believers who in this life go through trials faithfully and persevere through the trials are eternally given an additional capacity to glorify the Lord forever.

In other words, we go through a trial and how long do trials last? Some of them might be seconds and some of them might be a lifetime. Because remember, it's the polka dot. It's the big, small, short, long. There's variety in the trials. Every trial has a finite duration. Every crown has an infinite capacity and duration. So is that a good trade-off? Yeah, that's an excellent trade-off. A limited time trial, faithfully carried through, carries an eternal capacity to glorify the Lord that will never end and can't be diminished. Well, that's a fantastic trade-off.

That's exactly what this is about. So according to the passages above, 1 Peter, and I realize we didn't read all of it, and then it's James chapter 1, what mindsets and actions is the believer to take as they encounter trials and suffering? Let's get on the prayer chain and pray that all the difficulty will go away, right? No. What are the mindsets and actions that the believer is to take when they encounter trials and suffering? Joy.

Why? It's because we're some kind of crazies? You know, masochists? Why? Why joy? Because we know the Lord's at work. How do we know the Lord's at work? Pardon? Yeah, we're going through a trial and trusting Him through it. He gives us the grace to get through it. Yeah, my grace. Remember we brought up the thorn issue? My grace is sufficient for you. in this. Yes? How long until the next trial, right? It might be.

You know, it's funny, I mean, people have sort of a cynical mindset about, you know, trouble coming along. sometimes it gets to be a personality trait, like an Eeyore. So people have this sense of, yeah, how long until the next problem? There's a guy by the name of Ashley Brilliant, who starting several decades ago, made a series of postcards, little cartoon postcards. One of them shows this guy standing at a desk, And he's saying, well, life isn't what I want. Have you got anything else? And so it's easy to just kind of, well, that isn't quite what I asked for.

But the truth is that the Lord presents these things in our lives for His purpose, and He has an intent for every one. You heard the question, why me, God? That's why. For the believer, that's why. And the only other reason you're going through a difficulty is it's either trials and suffering, like we've read about here in these passages, and we made reference here at the end because Hal and Bob taught a six-month elective on trials and suffering.

There's a lot more than what we see here, but this is a very good introduction. It's either the things that the Lord is deliberately putting in the path of a believer that he's putting there with a view to approval. The Lord's intent and desire is to approve of your faithful perseverance through the trial. That's what God has in mind. If it's not that, then it's discipline.

God never has a senseless difficulty. Never. God doesn't do that. God either has an explicit reason for why he has had this trial come in your life with the intent that you grow through it and are approved and are eternally rewarded for it, or he's got it there for discipline so that the believer who is not walking in fellowship with the Lord will go, hopefully, and have the lights come on and say, oh, wow, I better get back over here and fellowship with the Lord, get back on the path. That's what it's there for. That's what it's there for. The Lord doesn't have any senseless difficulties in our lives, none. It's always either one or the other. Okay. Let's take a look, Hebrews 12, 4-13, in the middle of page 4.

You have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood in your striving against sin, and you have forgotten the exhortation which is addressed to you as sons. My son, do not regard lightly, and here he's quoting here, the discipline of the Lord, nor faint when you are reproved by him.

For those whom the Lord loves, He disciplines, and He scourges every son whom He receives. It is for discipline that you endure. God deals with you as with sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? But if you are without discipline, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Further, we had earthly fathers to discipline us, and we respected them. Shall we not much rather be subject to the father of spirits and live? for they disciplined us for a short time as seemed best to them, but he disciplines us for our good so that we may share his holiness."

Even the believer who is at the moment unbelieving is going through a difficulty for purpose. There is no senseless difficulty at all. Here's one other thing. It's a short bottom paragraph on the bottom of page four, and I think it's an important one.

Unlike the people of Israel who are under the law, the church under grace is never the recipient of God's wrath. Never. As a believer in the church, you are never the recipient of God's wrath. It is in fact promised never to be subject to God's wrath. The church is never to be subject to God's wrath.

1 Thessalonians chapter 1, 9 and 10, and then later on in 1 Thessalonians. Yes? Now that refers to the wrath to come, right? Even now. No wrath now, no wrath to come. Well, I know it says the wrath to come, which refers to the tribulation wrath. Right, but the promises are not now, not later. Is it the same reference for now as it means Both. Both of those are in Scripture. Romans has one of them. 1 Thessalonians has two of them.

So, in no case is it exclusively one or the other. The Church is not subject to God's wrath, period. Not now, not ever. Interestingly, Israel is. Israel was multiple times in the Old Testament. Israel will be subject to the wrath in the tribulation period. The church is promised never, not now, not later, to be subject to God's wrath.

Okay, five. The ministries of the Holy Spirit. We looked at those last week. They were page four. This is basically a listing that Hal developed. And so this is the ministries of the Holy Spirit. We listed the ministries of the Spirit at first generated by Hal Molloy. Though we will not relist those ministries here, we would do well to explore which of those ministries are such that we have a part in responding to them or living harmoniously with the ministry of the Holy Spirit. It's not Holly Spirit, it's Holy Spirit. Okay. Spell checkers don't catch things like that. Oh, by the way, we get all sorts of people landing on our website because they put in Holy Bible, only they put two L's in it. So anyway.

Certainly an imperative to walk by means of the Spirit is a clear instance of our responding to and cooperating with the work that God has done and is doing in our lives. So there are almost two dozen ministries of the Holy Spirit spelled out in the list. A number of them have some aspect of our response. And certainly, I think one that's very obvious is walking by means of the Spirit, walking in fellowship.

This refers to the ultimate choice that we talked about earlier, right? Our ultimate choice for the believer is not, you know, am I going to do this good thing or that bad thing? The ultimate choice for the believer is where is my trust and dependence? That's the ultimate choice. Okay? Questions? Exasperations? Inspirations? Perspirations? Anything? Yes? No?

Ah, I have in the past used the term logical imperatives, and let me explain briefly what I mean by that. That's not some sort of a Greek grammar term, or you can't look in the Greek and say, is that a logical imperative or not? Here's what I mean by it. The Apostle Paul particularly we'll talk about, you know, since, because, in other words, and really what it amounts to is based on our position in Christ, The logical thing to do is this. So that's what I mean by a logical imperative.

Forgive one another. In order to be forgiven? No. Based on the logic of, you've already been forgiven. Because you've been forgiven. As God and Christ has forgiven you. And we talked earlier about reckoning. Reckoning is a logical imperative. You must do this based on your position. What's your position? You've been baptized into Christ, into his death, burial, and resurrection. Therefore, the only thing that makes any good sense, a logical imperative, is that you must reckon. count it all up, add it up, get it figured out, you have died with Christ and you've been buried with Him and raised with Him. So that's what we mean by logical imperative, not a Greek grammar form. But in the context of the New Testament, we're not told to do anything just because I said so. We're told to do things based on who we are in Christ.

Then it makes perfect sense. Yeah, one of the ways that we've put it in the past here, an easy way to remember it, you know the prosecutor wants to be handed by the detectives with means, motive, and opportunity, right? He wants the detective, you know, give those to me, then I'll take it to court, right? Well, Christians, we have those three issues. Means, grace. Motive, excuse me, motive is grace.

The means, we are enabled, empowered, and energized. So we have motive and means, motive of grace, means, enabled, empowered, and energized, and we have an opportunity in front of us. Everything that we do here on this planet is eternally rewardable. We have motive, grace, we have means, enabled, energized, and empowered, we have opportunity. We have an eternally rewardable opportunity in front of us. So, let's go for a conviction.

Okay? Good question. Good point. Anything else? Are we done? I think so. Okay. Let's pray. Lord, as we look at this, we've certainly actually scratched the surface. We've touched on something that has much more richness to it, but at least we've begun to get a perspective on the difficulties that happen in our lives, on our capacity by your decision and design, Lord, to respond to the way you've expressed your love and care for us and the way you've shown your grace. And we pray for responsive hearts and thank you for the opportunities you lay in front of us. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.