I had my 32nd birthday a couple days ago, which still qualifies me as a young guy, but not as young as I used to be.  As good as it is to see friends, my physical birthday is reminder of who I am in Christ.  My birthday is about the same time of year as of the time God powerfully drew me to Himself about 8 years ago now, so I often like to think back on where He has taken me since then.  I think back to how for the first year, it just felt like every message each week (on the weeks I fought through the temptation not to go) was directed right at me personally.  I think back to how little I knew about God, doctrine, and God’s calling on my life at that time.  It was a sweet innocent time in some ways, but a violent dark time as well.  God’s reaching into my life was patient, loving, and above all merciful because my life at that point was far darker than I realized.  It took hard events and some amount of suffering to awaken me to my own depravity and the goodness of God.  Outwardly the world might not have noticed.  In some ways I was not a bad guy.  I was always nice to people and most people liked me, but inwardly I was pure evil.  My world terminated on myself.  I was nice to people because I wanted people to like me.  I wanted girls to like me, and not so that I could be a partner, sarving and loving them – but so they could serve my needs for self-affirmation and physical desires.  Now some of you are expecting me to turn as some point and say how now I’m completely different, but that would be a lie, and I don’t think helpful.  There is victory in Christ and there is healing in His blood shed for us, but we still battle with our flesh.  Put another way, 1 John 1:5 – “In Jesus was life, and the life was the light of men.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”  God has entered into my life, the light is shining where there was not light, but there is still darkness to be pushed back.  We are not yet fully sanctified, we are being sanctified, being progressively conformed into the image of God by His Spirit.  So today, as we continue in Romans, I want to praise God for saving us through Christ, but praise Him further still for not leaving us alone, but giving us a Helper.  Our Helper is the Spirit of Christ within us.  He is with us every moment of every day as we strive with Him to push back the darkness within ourselves and within the world.

Romans 8:26-27 – “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.  And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.”

If there has been one common thread in my life it’s been weakness.  I make the wrong decisions, I will fall to temptation, I am not as disciplined as I ought to be, I will let down people I care about, and on and on it goes.  If this shatters anyone’s view of me, that’s probably a good thing.  We are all equally broken people.  How great news is it then that Jesus did not come to save the righteous, but broken, wretched sinners!  God did not abandon us when Jesus ascended into Heaven, it was actually for our good.  How precious were the words spoken by Jesus to us in John 14:16-18 – “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.  “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.”   So our God and Savior knows our weakness, and we have a Helper, God Himself who intercedes for us.  Let me be frank with you all – I thought I would be further along as a Christian after 8 years.  I’m not where I want to be, but we have a Helper, the Spirit of God in us who will never let us go, and will continue to work in and for us conforming us into the image of God. 

My encouragement to you all is to not confuse your sanctification with your justification.  You are saved, you are declared righteous and loved by faith in the blood of Christ.  That is done, settled – press that truth continually into your heart, because we have an enemy that wants us to believe the lie that we are not “good enough” for God.  We are in Christ.  Therefore, as new creations in Christ, keep running the race set before you.  If you fall or if you suffer, know that you have a Helper who knows you, loves you, wants the best for you, and is interceding for you even now.  Be of the same mind with Paul in Phlippians 3:13-14 – “forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”   The Spirit of Christ in us is powerful and no darkness can ever overtake Him.  

Grace and Peace,
Adam