20251012 Romans 8:9-13 Five Dramatic Changes
If we want to know if we are in state of grace, if we want to know if we are children of God, we can look here for the answer. The first test we have as to whether we are children of God is whether we are led by the Spirit.
If any biblical concept has been thoroughly muddled in our day, it is this concept of what it means to be led by the Spirit. A danger in the Christian community is that we devise and begin to use Christian jargon, and that jargon becomes the norm that defines our theology rather than the Word of God. The way in which our jargon functions, in many instances, often has little relationship to how the same words are used in Scripture. With the enormous impact of the charismatic movement during the last century came the idea of being led by the Spirit, which is why the concept figures largely into today’s Christian jargon.
When people say, “The Spirit of God led me to do this or that,” what they usually mean is that they have been guided or are being directed by the Spirit to go here or there, to take this job or that job, to make this decision or that one. We use the language of “being led by the Spirit” to speak of concrete, specific guidance from God in which he opens or closes doors for us. There is nothing wrong with the idea that God leads his people where he wants them to go and into experiences that he wants them to experience, but that is not the primary biblical meaning of being led by the Spirit.
The question that I hear more than any other from Christians is, “How can I know the will of God for my life?” I explain that we have to distinguish in the Bible among various ideas of the will of God. On the one hand, there is the sovereign, efficacious will of God that we sometimes refer to as his hidden will, that which God ultimately has in view for our life and destiny. When people come to me and ask, “How can I know that will for my life?” I say, “You cannot. Quit worrying about it, because it is none of your business. If it were your business, it would not be in the hidden will of God.” God has chosen not to reveal certain things.
When the Bible speaks of the will of God for our lives, it does so very differently from what we hear in Christian jargon: “For this is the will of God, your sanctification” (1 Thess. 4:3). If we would spend less time worrying about whether to marry Jane or Mabel or Ellen and more time trying to apply the biblical revelation of what God wants from his people, we would be much happier and more fruitful as Christians. The Bible is not magic. It is not a crystal ball by which we ask the Spirit to guide us into the hidden places. Where the Spirit guides his people is on the path of righteousness to holiness. Paul has in mind those whose lives are being directed toward the righteousness of God. If our lives are being directed by the Spirit, it is a sure and certain sign that we are children of God, because that is what the indwelling Spirit does. He inclines our hearts. He gives us a hunger and thirst for obedience to Christ. He gives us an affection by which we respond to Jesus’ statement, “If you love Me, keep My commandments” (John 14:15).
We must ask ourselves whether we have any inclination to follow the Spirit’s leading in obedience to Jesus. If we ask whether our hearts are fully, totally, and absolutely disposed toward following the Spirit into holiness, the only answer we can give is no, but if there is a sense in which our spirits are directed to the things of Christ—any at all—it guarantees us that we are indwelt by the Spirit of God. The flesh never is inclined whatsoever to the things of God. There is where our theology is so important in terms of getting to assurance. If we know the state of someone not born of the Spirit and the state of another who is born of the Spirit, we can discern the difference in two patterns.
