Side kick

Samuel Young 3-24-2019 Romans 8:9-11 Your Side Kick Good morning. Something that I find interesting is how many movies and media today have sidekicks. One of the most prevalent ones that I could think of that you all would know of was the Lone Ranger, and his sidekick, Tanto. Or maybe Samwise Gamgee in the Lord of the Rings, to Frodo, the carrier of the ring. Or maybe R2-D2 and Chewbacca to the main characters in Star Wars. May personal favorite these days is a guy named Gus, in the older TV show Psych. What is the point of these sidekicks? Why are they in so many avenues of media today? In any role that you see them, I think it can really be summed up in that they are helping the main character, where through adding humor, or scouting in the case of Tanto, or in the case of R2-D2, he is helping computer wise. All these are helping in a sense the main characters, in ways or things that the main character could or would not most likely be able to do on their own. Just briefly today this is the idea that we are going to look at today. Who our side kick in a sense is. Now as some of you may have guessed, today we are talking about the Holy Spirit, or the Spirit as Paul calls Him in Romans 8. If you all will then go ahead and turn to Romans 8, we will be in verses 9-11 today. Now in my introduction, I am not trying to trivializes the Holy Spirit in any sense. All these other sidekicks hold nothing to the Holy Spirit. But that is the role that we see the Holy Spirit in. That of a helper, our helper for those who have accepted Jesus Christ as their Savior. So, without further ado lets get into the text. Romans 8:9-11 “You, however, are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God lives in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him. 10 Now if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 11 And if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you, then He who raised Christ from the dead will also bring your mortal bodies to life through His Spirit who lives in you.” Here at verse 9, the author goes from speaking some what abstractly about two groups of people, those who live according to the Spirit, and those who live according to the flesh in the previous passage. To directing addressing the reader, first the church at Rome, and now us. He almost seems to do this to give it more force. This is one of the clearest verses showing the Spirit entering one’s body upon salvation. For if we had to wait for the Spirit to indwell or live in us at a later point, perhaps when we had reached a certain stage or level of holiness, then this verse would be false for it clearly states that if you are in Christ then the Spirit is in you. “Then in verses 9 and 10, Paul uses the terms “Spirit of Christ” and “Spirit of God,” interchangeably. This use is one proof of the deity of Christ. In addition, Paul equates the indwelling of Christ and the Spirit, in verses 9 and 11 showing the trinity once more.” Also, we see almost a choice of sorts. That of those who are not in the flesh, because the Spirit of God live in them, or those without the Spirit do not belong to God. We now then go into talking about what is the result of being indwelt with the Spirit in verse 10. And now Christ is in us, with the result of the body being dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life. Choices that were made all the way back in the garden of Eden are still having an effect. Because of Adam’s sin, our body will suffer death, but because of Christ’s sacrifice, and the Spirit now living in us we can now have life, that of eternal life, if or when or bodies here fail. Right now, we kind of live in this weird overlap of sorts of ages. We still live in the time when our bodies are dead, but that is overlapped with Christ’s promise of eternal life. You know the body is going to die, but that is not the end or the most important part. For those who posses the Spirit, have eternal life and will be made alive once more, this time forever. We can kind of see this contrast here in verse 10 as well. Which says “Now if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.” On this one hand you have this dead body because of sin, that feels sins effects, like arthritis, aches, broken bones and such. In contrast to that we the Spirit which is life in us. Paul elsewhere addresses this when he says, “Therefore we do not give up. Even though our outer person is being destroyed, our inner person is being renewed day by day” (2 Cor. 4:16). Our possession of the Spirit as in verse 11 has direct correlation to those who have eternal life. The ultimate result of the indwelling of the Spirit is stated in verse 11. Let the body die, we cannot stop that, no matter what. For the day will come when the Holy Spirit will make our bodies alive again. With the exception of those living up to the rapture, the body of every believer will eventually pass through the gates of death, but will eventually be reunited with the spirit to make a wholly redeemed person. Verse 11 also reiterates that Christ was raised bodily from the dead, clear evidence that Paul was refereeing to a bodily resurrection, and not a moral renewal or spiritual resurrection. So, in closing, in the last few weeks we have been exploring the result of the Spirit if those who believe. Specifically, even today we have been looking what the Spirit provides for us, that we by ourselves could not provide nor ever reach, mainly eternal life. And for those of you have accepted Christ as your savior, this can and should be really encouraging. But for those of you have not accepted Christ as your Savior, I would encourage you to think of this choice today. Because while it may sound harsh, even in non-action, you are still choosing to currently reject Christ.