Living Hope Church

Pastor Phil Steiger: If you have your Bibles, turn with me to Romans chapter 8. We’re going to be reading in verses 12 through 17 this morning. If you don’t have your Bibles with you, feel free to use the one in the chairs in front of you or around you. We'll have scripture on the screen as well to help along.

As we make our way into another section here of Romans chapter 8, we continue to see some of these powerful, life-transforming things that the Apostle Paul is up to as he makes his way through this incredibly rich chapter here in the middle of the book of Romans. The Apostle Paul has just given us this incredible truth in verse 11: it is the Spirit of God who raised Jesus from the dead, and it is that same Spirit now that dwells in the lives of the people of God.

Romans chapter 8, verse 11 said this: "If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you." If you are a child of God, it is this very Spirit, the power of resurrection and of brand-new life, that now dwells inside of you.

This means that there’s coming a day when we too will be raised from the dead to be with our Savior forever. The promise of life with God now, the promise of life with God forever. Now, that truth all by itself is beautiful and majestic. It is encouraging for us, but it turns out that it has real-life consequences as well. It means something for you and me today, not just as a hope for sometime out in the future.

Because this world is not all there is, we are not obligated to live as if this world is all that there is. The very Spirit of God raised Jesus, He dwells in us, and now we can live as if all of that really is true. In fact, I think we can actually end up making some of our more profound mistakes in life when we walk through this life as if all of this just is sort of true, or personally true but not publicly true—that it has application to the spiritual part of my life and not the rest of my life.

We can fall into some very significant traps if we live life like that. With our eyes on the world instead of Christ, the world becomes the set of guiding principles for who we are. It molds us and it shapes us. It becomes the spirit that moves us, the ideologies that we become indebted to. So the question that lies before us in our passage this morning is: will it be the spirit of the age or will it be the Spirit of the Lord who is truly on the throne of every one of our lives?

The spirit of this age can only offer us what this age knows, what this age thinks is important, what this age wants us to think is true. The world can only offer us substitutes for God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. This world cannot offer us the kind of life that is available only in Jesus Christ. As we are going to read, it is the kind of life that can actually animate us with the very Spirit of God and lead us to a point in relationship with God the Creator that we can actually call Him Abba Father.

The world cannot offer that, but it is this life that the Apostle Paul is talking about. That is where we gain access to this. So in our passage of scripture this morning, a couple of thoughts are going to help us along the way. The first is simply this: we are no longer obligated to a life lived without God. This is the language that Paul is going to use in this passage. We are not obligated to that life anymore.

The Christian has been saved from sin and the power of sin as well. Our obligation is no longer to sin, this world, or the flesh, but our obligation now belongs to our Savior Jesus Christ—the one who rose from the dead and the Spirit of God who now lives within us. This is a different kind of life that belongs to the follower of Jesus Christ. We are no longer obligated to live life without God.

Then, the children of God are led by the Spirit of God. It's a quick phrase in this passage, but I think it's important for us to spend some time on this morning. Instead of being led by the sin that is within us, instead of being led by the nose by the ideologies of this world who don't know you, don't care about you, and don't know what's best for you, we can instead be led by the Spirit of God who created us, loves us, and is taking us into relationship with Jesus Christ.

Let's read our passage of scripture this morning. Romans chapter 8, beginning in verse 12 through verse 17: "So then, brothers, 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 all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, 'Abba! Father!' The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him."

Some of you are thinking you had me right up until that last phrase. This is what it means to be a son or a daughter of God, a child of God. There is a different kind of life available to us because of the Spirit of God and the kind of consequences that has inside of our lives. In fact, that's how Paul begins this passage. We read verse 11, and at the very beginning of verse 12, he just says, "So then."

It’s one of these transitional phrases in the Greek that happens often inside of Paul's epistles. He's given us the truth and a piece of doctrine—something that has legitimately changed our lives—and then he turns his attention to our lifestyles and priorities and says, "So then, this is now what our lives should look like as children of God." This is what's true and what's been given to us, so now, what does life look like because of these truths?

These are some of the practical consequences, the result of this resurrection power that we read in verse 11. He says, "So then, we are debtors, but no longer to the flesh, no longer to the sin nature to live according to it." As a reminder, when Paul uses this word "flesh" in a passage of scripture like this, he is using a Greek word "sarx," and he doesn't just mean this physical body. He means our lives as they are shaped by sin.

That's what this word "flesh" stands for in a passage of scripture like this. So then, we are no longer debtors to live according to the flesh. Another translation in the CSB version puts it like this: "So then, brothers and sisters, we are not obligated to the flesh, to live according to the flesh." We’re not obligated to it anymore.

Paul in chapter 6 said that while we were still in our sin, we were slaves to sin. We could not not sin because it was the master of our lives. It was what was happening inside of our souls. He went through this entire argument in chapters 1 through 6 to show us that this is how we are born—this is the dominating work inside of our lives to one degree or another.

Then in chapter 7, he revealed what's happening inside of himself: "The things I want to do, I don't do; the things I don't want to do, those are the things that I find myself doing." He talks about that conflict, and that's what leads us into the beauty and the power of chapter 8 and this brand-new life that is possible. So instead of slavery where we are obligated and debtors to that life, he says you are now debtors, but not to that life.

We are obligated now to a completely different kind of life. You see, our freedom in Christ breaks that bond, and we’re no longer obligated to live according to the life and the works of the flesh. So when we still do—and we still do—nobody here has reached that level of perfection where we can say, "That's me. I have not sinned this week." That's not what's happening in the normal human heart.

When we do, we're still sliding back into those things, and this is a wonderful way of putting it: we no longer have to do that because something else is possible now. We have a new Master, and His name is Jesus Christ. So our obligation now belongs to Christ. It’s not an obligation of works in order to be saved; it is an obligation that rests on me because I have realized from what I have been saved.

I see how it is that Christ died for me while I was still in my sin, and how the Spirit of God has drawn me to my Lord and Savior and filled my life. So now I am obligated to respond to that in such a way that this life is lived differently—according to the life of the Spirit instead of the life of the flesh. So he says in verse 13: "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."

If you go back and read through chapter 8 and watch the language of life and death, you're going to see it all over the place. Paul keeps talking about that life of sin and in the flesh; it eventually is death. It's death and decay in this life now, and it will eventually lead us into an eternal death separated from God. But then you’ve got this thing available to you now living inside of us: the life of the Spirit is for us life itself.

He plays on these terms on purpose. So he says in this passage of scripture, a life lived for the flesh is death. So, Christian, put to death the life lived in the flesh. Does that make sense? The life in the flesh is death, so now, Christian, what I want you to do is put to death the life that is lived in the flesh. This is strong language. He doesn't say, "I want you to sort of ponder those couple of moments in your life where you could say something differently."

He doesn't say, "Fix one or two of those habits in your mind so that you're going to feel a little bit better at the end of the day about yourself." That's not what we're dealing with. We’re not just working on the margins of your life to tie up these nice things so everyone looks at you and sees a beautiful person. He doesn't say that. He says the sin dwells inside of here, so what I want you to do is to put it to death.

I need you to figure out how to starve sin. I need you to figure out how to remove its oxygen so that it can't breathe anymore inside of your life. This is not the only place that Paul uses the language of "put to death." There is this beautiful passage in Colossians chapter 3. When we get to Romans chapter 12, somewhere in the 2030s, we’re going to play these things together because they're just beautiful passages of scripture.

This is part of what Paul tells the Colossian Christians: "Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these, the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them." When Paul writes Colossians, he’s writing to a brand-new church. These are adult converts, people who remember literally two years ago I lived a completely different life and I've been saved from it.

So Paul says this is the life that you once walked, this is the life that I once walked. We know what that was, we know what the consequences of that life were like. So what I want you to do is have an attitude toward sin that it needs to die. It needs to go away. This is one of those questions that every one of us has to answer ourselves, and maybe one of those questions that we have to ask ourselves on a pretty regular basis when we know the things that happen inside of our own hearts and minds.

Is this my attitude toward life and death? Is this my attitude toward sin? Do I think that this is really what's happening in my life when there is sin inside of me? Scripture wants the Christian to see sin for what it is and to desire only its destruction. Scripture does not allow the Christian to believe that they can cohabitate with sin. We want to think that. We think we've got this under control, that this is just fine and not harming anybody else.

But when scripture starts pushing these buttons, these buttons say you cannot cohabitate with it. It is death; it is division between you and your Heavenly Father and your neighbor. So we need to figure out how to get rid of these things. Jesus says something radical in Matthew chapter 5, verses 29 and 30: "If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body be thrown into hell."

That's pretty straightforward. "And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. For it is better that you lose one of your members than that your whole body go into hell." Christ says this is the attitude that you and I need toward those things that are corrosion and decay within us, that actually separate us from our Heavenly Father. We need this disposition.

It is as if, if it’s in my right eye, I'm going to pluck it out. If it’s in my right hand, I'm going to cut it off. Because it's better to be in relationship with Jesus Christ in its full capacity now and forever than to walk around in hell with both hands working just fine. What's better then? So it's incumbent upon us to identify where sin still creeps around in our souls and to begin to deal with it.

A couple of very quick thoughts about how to actually deal with these things. The first seems straightforward, but it has to be done. When I recognize and know and see or find the consequences of that sin, friends, we have to repent of it. We have to repent of it in such a way that it has become vocal and obvious to the right individuals. We speak repentance out loud between us and our Heavenly Father, and where and when it is appropriate with other people, we speak that repentance out loud to them as well.

Our tradition does not practice confession in any sort of official or formal fashion, but the act of confession is exactly this kind of thing. I am going to pay attention to this and I'm going to speak it out loud and I'm going to look for forgiveness where forgiveness needs to be given, and then I'm going to try to walk a brand-new life in the power of the Spirit. These kinds of things need to be said out loud in the right context.

So we repent of it. Recognize that sin is the kind of plant that grows in the dark. It thrives in the dark, it thrives in the shadows, and so when you spread light on it, that's what actually kills it. The grace of God, the forgiveness of God, the goodness of mature brothers and sisters in Christ and the body of Christ can help actually destroy sin in our lives. It's the plant that grows in the dark, so we have to shine light on it.

And then thirdly, we have to replace that sin with the life of Christ. So often the sin that resides within us fits inside of our habits and our patterns—a time of day, an emotional trigger, an issue that arises, something that wants to come out of my tongue, bitterness that sits inside of my own heart and mind. If we're careful, we know where those moments are.

So if we're working at actually expunging those things, you can't just leave a void; you have to replace it with Jesus Christ. You have to replace it with the things of the word of God. Okay, so now I get to gripe just a little bit for a moment to you guys about my own yard, okay? Every now and again I get to gripe about my yard. A landscaper destroyed about 50 percent of my grass this year, and that's painful to me.

When that grass dies, what grows up in its place? Weeds. If you're going to put that grass back in the ground, what do you have to get rid of? You have to sit there and you have to kill weeds, you have to pull weeds, and you have to make sure you get as many of those roots as you possibly can. You have to till the soil, put the right seed down, and you have to tend to it. You have to get rid of the weeds in order for the right things to grow.

But if I just pull up those weeds and just magically wait for things to grow, the weeds are going to come right back, right? It is a perpetual metaphor of this kind of process: getting rid of these things that are the works of the life of the flesh and replacing them with being led by the Spirit of God instead. We need to learn to desire its death inside of our own hearts, but I also want us to hear that the Christian needs to desire the death of sin in the world around us as well.

Our faith is not private. Again, I think this is one of the significant mistakes that we can make if we think this way. Our faith is not private. It is not intended to be left inside of the walls of the church, inside of my private personal devotional time—that’s not what this faith is. It’s intended to be lived out loud in the world around us. Something else that Jesus says, also in Matthew chapter 5, he's talking to his disciples, he's talking to his church, and he says this:

"You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven." That is a wonderful surprise ending to that verse of scripture. You think, "Oh man, my light is shining, this is what I'm doing, so that the world can see my light and give glory to me."

That's not what He says. He says if your light, if your life is shining publicly in such a way that it is filled with the works of God, so that when people see you, fundamentally what they're seeing is God. So that my life, your life, our lives as the body of Christ can give glory to our Heavenly Father. One of the jobs of the Christian is to not only live this life of light but to call out sin in the world around us.

You may or may not have noticed this, but the world doesn't always like that. It doesn't always take to that very well, but that's okay because we're living a life led by the Spirit and not afraid of men, but a life that is full of the words of God. The life that God gives us to live is not part of who we are; it is the completion of all we are. It's not a compartment. It's not one or two Sundays a month.

The life that God is calling us to is actually the completion of all that He intends us to be. This is why He made you and me. This is why He made you the way that you are. He created you, He knows you, He loves you, and the desire to be in a relationship with you is salvation. It's the death of sin, but it is also the growth, the maturation of what God desires inside of this life.

It is the completion of all that we are, of who He's created us to be. So, living as if God is only part of my life, these become divided loyalties inside of the hearts and minds of Christians. Not only do I then become divided in my personal loyalties, I will end up living as a practical atheist. Let me say that again. If my loyalties are divided between the things of the word of God that I like and that I apply when I think they are appropriate, but then there are other things and ideas that I like better and I'm going to apply those things when I think those things are appropriate, these are divided loyalties.

In the end, that heart will live as if God does not exist. We will be practical atheists. No one will know the difference between you and your angry atheist friend on Facebook. I'm not the oldest pastor you know, but I've been doing this for over 30 years, and this kind of truth breaks my heart. The Christian who has decided to live a life of divided loyalties, yes, they begin looking like a practical atheist.

But in the end, the parts that don't belong to God will end up overwhelming the parts they think do belong to God. Maybe God is the Savior of my soul—that sounds tremendous—but man, these other ideas, I think they're going to save me in this fashion. They're going to provide for me in this fashion. They're going to tell me how to live a good life over here. God's going to take care of this soul thing, but all these other people, these ideas, these ideologies, these philosophies, they are going to go ahead and take care of me.

If this is who we are, we will lack both the courage and the knowledge that we need to push back against the sin that is within us and the sin that is in the world as well. If this is us, why would I want to call sin the things that part of my heart thinks are tremendous? Why would I push back against that? But this is the heart of divided loyalties. A divided life for the Christian will inevitably become a compromised life.

It will be easy to fall into the trap of lies. It will be easy to fall into the trap of the belief of this world that the Christian belongs behind the walls of their church but not out in public, not on social media, not in whatever the public forum is. It will be very easy to agree with the world that I don't belong out there. It will be very easy to agree with the world that this part of my life, God's not completely right on this.

The word of God's a little old and ancient on this; we've got better ideas. It's going to be so easy to let the world tell us what to do if this heart is divided. So the Apostle Paul says, put to death the life that is causing death within us. So instead of this kind of life of self-imposed schizophrenia, we are called to live whole lives in undivided love for God and devotion to His truth.

This is what we're called to live. This is what we're given the opportunity to live now because the Spirit of God—if you are a son or a daughter of God—the third member of the Trinity who created all things, dwells in you. So now we're learning to be led by the Spirit of God instead of the spirit of this age, instead of the world around us. So look again at verse 14: "For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, 'Abba! Father!'"

Everyone who is led by the Spirit of God is a child of God. So is it led by the flesh, by the spirit of this age, or led by the Spirit of God? This is not the kind of thing that is just sort of left for advanced disciples, the elders of the church in the New Testament, the great martyrs of the faith, those that people write biographies about. That's not left for them; Paul is talking to every single one of us.

Where you are, how you are, the place that you have been put by God, the time in which you have been put by God, you are able to be led by the Spirit of God in that life instead of led by flesh and sin in this world. Christ's disciples, you and I, we are God's agents on earth now, so we have every reason to live according to the truth and the power of the Spirit of God.

Part of what Christ says again, here we are in John chapter 5, verses 25 and 26. Notice again the vocabulary: "Truly, truly, I say to you, an hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself." The only being who has this kind of life as His native life, has this kind of life in Himself, is God Himself—God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

So the Spirit of life has been given to us, and Jesus says the day is coming and is now here that there are those who are dead—that's us in our flesh and in our sin—they will hear the voice of the Son of God and they're going to come to life. They’re going to come to life. This isn't the normal biological life we're used to, but this is the spiritual life given to us.

Being led by the Spirit of God—I want to talk about this for a few minutes. I want to sort of leave this pebble in your shoe this week and I hope it bugs you. I hope it gives you reason to reflect more on some of these things. What does it mean to be led by the Spirit of God? Well, first of all, think about what it is to be led by or shaped by this world or the spirit of this age. How does that happen?

Well, it happens because of the kind of information that we imbibe, the kinds of things that we read and listen to and watch and pay attention to. Over time, those things become literally our vocabulary. We repeat the same words, we repeat the same ideas. Those ideas fill our hearts and minds, and we begin to think those are the right ideas, those are good ideas.

Well, this is what the good life looks like, this is what the blessed life looks like, because we have filled our minds with that kind of information. When the world tells us who is important, well, then we go, "Well, yeah, well, that's what it means to be important. That's who's important." Well, am I important like that? Maybe, maybe not. When the world sets priorities, we eventually go, "Yeah, I think those are the right priorities."

It's because of what gets stuck inside of our hearts and minds and souls and starts coming out of our tongues and rolls around in our heads over and over and over again. And as that happens, and if we are not careful with it, we watch it in the lives of kids, don't we? The kind of friends that they have, the kind of people that they start turning into because of the influences that they have in home and in friends.

You and I are no different just because we're no longer 12 years old. These things form and shape us over time. So, what can I do? We think in those kinds of terms and now we take those terms and we place them into the word of God, and we place them into life with Jesus Christ. And we’re forcing ourselves to see different priorities, we're forcing ourselves to pay attention to different information, so to speak, different vocabulary.

Filing our hearts and minds with different ideas—what are, I believe, clearly true ideas, right ideas, good ideas given to us by God in His Spirit. So one thought is this: the word of God is a source of knowledge for life and truth. When you read the word of God and understand it appropriately, you’re not learning something that’s just good for your devotional time. You’re not reading something that’s just good for those emotions that you're trying to deal with or again one sort of little piece of my life.

What you’re reading here is the deepest well of knowledge that humanity has access to. The deepest well of here's what the human soul is really like and here's how it behaves. The deepest well of how did all of this happen and who did it? The deepest well of who is God and what is He like and what does He want from me? This is the place we go to. So this is the disposition that we need toward the word of God.

Psalm 119—magnificent Psalm, it's huge. The whole thing is about the beauty of the word of God. Here's part of what's written in the middle of that chapter: "If your law had not been my delight, I would have perished, I would have died in my affliction. I will never forget your precepts, for by them you have given me life." If your law had not been my delight—the things that you delight over are the things that you go back to over and over again.

The things that you delight in, you're going to think, "Oh, I can't wait until I do that again. I can't wait until I see that again, until I read that again, until I watch that again." And here the author of the Psalm says, "Your law, if it had not been my delight, I would have died in my sin. But it is my delight. I look forward to it. It is something that gives me joy and insight. It settles my soul. It’s true and it’s good."

The word of God is a source of knowledge for life and truth. And yes, your pastor is also going to tell you—he didn't just tell you to read your Bible—he's going to tell you to pray. But here's how I want to put this: make prayer as much an act of listening and adoration as asking and demanding. To be led by the Spirit of God, you're going to have to learn, I'm going to have to learn, what it means to listen to that voice when He speaks, how He speaks.

So the word of God is our constant voice from God. It is constantly right and good and true. But in our prayer lives, God is intending for us to develop a life of communication with the very Spirit of God. What happens so often—and this happens in my life as well—I realize that there's been a long period of time in my life when I've done all of the talking in my prayer life. And it's not just all the talking; it's been all of the asking and requesting and demanding.

And if you are the only person talking in a two-person conversation, is that actually a two-person conversation? It's not. So what does it mean then to learn how to stop, to stop my mouth, to slow down my mind, and to start to pray to listen to the voice of God? So I need to stop talking and I need to begin listening. Psalm 62, verses 1 and 2, this is one example of many, not just in the Psalms but the rest of the word of God:

"For God alone my soul waits in silence; from him comes my salvation. He alone is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be greatly shaken." I won't be shaken off of this foundation. So as the deer pants for the water, so my soul longs for you. I sit under the roar of the waterfall of the voice of God, and my soul is going to wait silently and patiently for the voice of God.

And now, this is a discipline. This is something that we have to figure out. You’re going to have to put your phone more than arm’s length distance from you in order to exercise this, right? So this is something that we learn, this is something we do on purpose. Ask God for the capacity to begin listening to the voice of His Spirit.

And then this: make obedience a priority. We’re not obligated to obey sin and the flesh; we're not obligated to do what the world tells us to do anymore. We now live in this kind of obligation, this kind of life of obedience to the things of God instead. So now we're working on making obedience a priority in our lives with Christ. Because we have the word of God, we always have the voice of God.

Do you want to know what the will of God is for your life? Let's start here. Let's start with the word of God and making obedience a priority. Obedience is a display of love and trust—any form of obedience to anything or anyone. If you obey that person, if you obey the dictates of that ideology, then you have some sort of connection of love and adoration for that person or ideology, and you trust it enough to do what it tells you to do.

So if obedience is an act of love and trust, do I love my God enough? Do I love His word enough? Do I love His truth enough? Do I trust Him to be right when He tells me these things? And if so, then I'm going to walk in obedience. And the act of obedience is an act of growing knowledge and intimacy with God. When we obey Him, yes, we’re displaying love and trust, but what comes on the other side of that obedience is a deeper sense of who God is—"Yeah, I really can trust Him"—and that sense of love and adoration gets hard-wired into my habits. It gets hard-wired into my delights, my emotions, my behavior, the things I want. That's what happens on the other side of obedience to God.

And then this final thought about being led by the Spirit, in part because this is some of what Paul says as he moves on in chapter 8. It’s not just in verse 17, but he works on it more as chapter 8 moves on. Identify with Jesus and believe that He is worth enduring for. Identify with Jesus and believe that He is worth enduring for.

Sometimes being led by the Spirit of God means that it's going to be crystal clear. There's going to be that light bulb that comes on, there's going to be that surge of discernment and insight, maybe even emotion, the confluence of circumstances, and you know, there's this smile's going to creep across our face. Something inside of us is going to wake up and go, "I see it, I know it, this is good. The Spirit of God is leading me, I know what to do, I know what He's telling me right now and I'm going to do that."

Sometimes we won't. Sometimes we're going to feel it, sometimes we won't. Sometimes it's going to be an absolute joy and blessing to follow what the Spirit of God is asking us and calling us to do. It’s going to be an absolute joy and blessing to do exactly what the word of God is calling me to do. Sometimes it will ask more of me than I think I have. Sometimes it will ask more of me than I think I have.

And that's one of those moments in which all of these other things come into play. And have I decided on some level that Christ is worth enduring for? I'm going to walk through this, I'm going to get through this, I'm going to identify with Jesus. This light is going to shine, I'm going to put to death whatever is going on inside of me, and I'm going to endure for the cause of Jesus Christ.

Romans 8:17, we caught that last phrase: we are heirs with God and fellow heirs with the Son of God, in flesh, risen from the dead, Jesus Christ, provided that you suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him. At one point in His life with the disciples, closer to the end of His time with them before the cross, Jesus and His disciples are near the temple mount and the disciples are in awe of the temple.

And Jesus starts to tell them, says, "Well, you know, as a matter of fact, as great and as magnificent as the temple is, a day is coming when not one stone will be left upon another. Everything you see in this edifice right now that the world's hands have made is going to be completely torn down." And the disciples, they knew a little bit about what Jesus was talking about, so they asked Him the next question: "Well, what then will be the signs of the coming of the Son of Man? When is all of this going to happen, and how are we going to know it's going to happen?"

So Jesus begins to unfold all of these things, and it's a fascinating conversation. In Luke chapter 21 and Matthew chapter 24, part of what Jesus tells His disciples is this: "And you will be persecuted by the world. People that you know and love will deliver you up to your enemies to be persecuted. This is one of the reasons that you're going to know that it's the signs of the end of the age."

You know, we ask that question and the disciples are thinking, "Oh man, that is going to be the most exciting moment any of us will ever live through." And Jesus says, "Some of you are going to endure severe persecution for my sake." And then He says this: "By your endurance, you will gain your lives." We put to death all that stuff that's killing us, all that stuff that's separating us from God and from each other, and we're intended to find now the life that God gives us.

And Jesus just simply said, "By your endurance through all things, you will find your lives." Let’s pray.