Sunday Message — The Seventh Sunday After Pentecost The Holy Spirit Gives Us Not a Spirit of Fear but the Spirit of Adoption
Sunday Message — The Seventh Sunday After Pentecost
The Holy Spirit Gives Us Not a Spirit of Fear but the Spirit of Adoption
Text: Romans 8:12–17
Opening
This morning is the seventh Sunday after Pentecost, and I want to preach on this: the Holy Spirit gives us not a spirit of fear but the Spirit of adoption.
Because the season after Pentecost runs more than twenty-seven weeks this year, I am staying with this subject and letting it unfold week by week. I do not know how long we will keep going, but for now we have arrived at week seven.
Today I want us to see that the Spirit gives us not a spirit of fear but the Spirit of adoption, and to look closely at what direction the Spirit actually moves in, and what work He actually does, inside our hearts. The key question of the morning is this: fear, or trust?
As always, I will move through five questions.
One. How Did I Fight the Spiritual Battle This Week?
I fought again this week.
What is the most important thing in the life of faith? To guard myself. To guard my heart. And when I go to guard my heart, what turns out to be decisive? Guarding my thoughts.
Thoughts do not simply come in from the outside when I sit still. The things already lying dormant inside me come rising up on their own. In earlier years, what did I do about that? I shook my head to clear it. I stepped outside for air. If it got bad enough, I took a trip somewhere to shake it off.
But now I have a name I fight with. Jesus is the Christ. I confess it in my heart, I declare it, and I declare it to myself.
The Pastor Who Works With Addiction
As I fought this week and prepared for worship, I asked myself what stood out. The day before yesterday I went to a gathering of pastors. One of them lives in community with people caught in addiction — drugs, sexual addiction, gaming, alcohol — and has done so for years.
Here is what he told us. Suppose a man gets sober, whether through medication or through discipline. In that moment, the thing is not actually finished. He never knows when or where it will surface again, so he has to stay on guard for the rest of his life, and the people supporting him have to stay on guard too.
But if even one mouthful of alcohol goes in — even a single drop — everything sleeping inside him fires up at once. And the body ends up more damaged than it was before. Quitting and then going back is more dangerous than never having quit at all.
That is why such people cannot even take the wine at Communion. Wine is still alcohol. One cup, and the person is transformed on the spot.
His conclusion was this. In this world you have to manage it until the day you die, but the methods of this world can never actually break it. He said he reached that conclusion after watching countless people. Listening to him, I thought, this really is a hard and impossible thing.
And yet, from the books I read and the people around me, I have heard many testimonies of people who were completely held by these things and got free. What was the decisive factor? They came to understand that Jesus is the Christ, and they kept confessing it, and as they did, the power of God and the wisdom of God took up residence inside their bodies — and from that point on, I watched those people change.
When I meet someone like that, I test it in my mind. If you handed him a drink, or handed him a cigarette, would he go right back? But something has happened at the deepest root in him: he no longer wants to.
You do not stop until the desire dies at the bottom, do you? And that root-level change happens only when the name Jesus is the Christ is called.
The Night My Wife Was Sick Again
This week I was again caring for my wife. And she suddenly threw up again. I was asleep, but I heard all of it.
And in that instant, fear activated inside me. Is this going back to the way it was? She has only gained two kilograms — is she going to drop back down into the thirties? Will I be boiling porridge for her every evening again? The thoughts start turning on their own.
In the past, I could not stop that turning. It ran automatically and I had no control over it. But now it is different. The moment the thought first appears, I cut it off right there. Jesus is the Christ. I keep cutting it off with that name.
Put the Fire Out While It Is Small
What matters for you and for me? Of course, even after a thought has fully activated and produced its damage, we still call on the name. But look closely and you will see: your thoughts run in a pattern. When something is just beginning to sprout, if you cut it off right there with Jesus is the Christ, it is extinguished immediately.
Think of a fire. If you put it out on the spot with a fire extinguisher, it goes out easily. But once everything has burned, the fire trucks can come, all the equipment can come, and it will not matter — the place has already burned down.
The same is true in our life together in church. If we do not cut off what is inside us quickly, with the name Jesus is the Christ, then later, once everything has fallen apart, we come to church on Sunday or on some evening, raise our hands, and cry out, Lord, what do I do now? What kind of moment is that? That is confessing after everything has already collapsed.
So this is what matters most. The moment the thought starts to grow, the moment it starts to amplify — that is where I have to guard myself.
Let us confess together. Jesus is the Christ. Jesus is the Christ. Jesus is the Christ. I am a child of God. Every problem is finished. Satan, go. Filled with the Spirit. World evangelization.
God does not guard us while we sit still and do nothing. He has already given us the secret by which we are kept. I have to guard myself. And how? By calling that name, over and over.
When something rises up inside you, do not sit down and have a conversation with it. Keep putting it out with the name of Christ, the way you would put out a fire, and reality begins to come back into view.
So this week, looking at myself, I thought: you are fighting well. And I was rather pleased with myself.
Two. Looking at the Whole of Scripture, What Was Most Central This Week?
From Genesis to Revelation, if you ask me for the most important verse, I will always point to the same place. Genesis 3:15.
God gave the first human beings the name Jesus is the Christ. And He had a reason for giving it.
In Genesis 3:1–5, the satan that had been outside, the destruction that had been outside, the death that had been outside, the fear that had been outside, every trouble and affliction that had been outside — all of it came inside the human being.
That is the problem. And the greater problem is that once inside, it does not leave. From that point on, it has been passed down to our children through the genes themselves.
So what did God do in that situation? Since it was already inside, He did not extract it. He gave a name by which it could be defeated. That is the name Christ, in Genesis 3:15.
What We Badly Overlook
But here is what we badly overlook.
God did say that if you receive the name Jesus is the Christ, everything is finished. But there is a next line. In this world, you must fight.
This is where we grow complacent. I received Him as a child of God, therefore everything is done. Yes, everything is done. If you died in that instant, it would truly be finished. But we do not die.
We have to go on living until God calls us home. And while we live, what remains in place? The satan outside is still alive. The satan inside me is still alive. Death is still inside me. My separation from God is still there. And as Mark 7:21–23 says, every kind of evil keeps rising up out of us through the very genes we carry.
How do we defeat that? So God gave us a name for the fight.
Confess it with me. Jesus is the Christ. Jesus is the Christ. Jesus is the Christ.
What Comes Out of Us Is Fear
In terms of this morning's key word, why must we call the name? Because what keeps coming out of us is nothing but fear.
I told you already. When my wife suddenly threw up, what leapt out of me? Fear. Terror. She's going to lose weight again. She'll waste away, she'll drop under thirty kilos, and I'll have to carry all of it again.
That comes flooding in automatically. And what rides in on it? Fear. Hold onto fear and you end up locked in terror. Then you cannot breathe properly, you cannot eat properly, and you sit there in a fog.
So the name God gave us so that we might live is Christ.
Only when you and I call that name, again and again, does the Spirit activate these things inside us: that I am a child of God, that angels guard me, that my prayers are answered, that I hold the citizenship of heaven, that God leads every part of my life.
What matters is whether we call or do not call, whether we fight or do not fight. The more I fight, the deeper I fight, the more the word that God has already placed inside me by His Spirit becomes active. It all hangs on that.
Three. Explaining Today's Text on the Foundation of Genesis 3:15
Today's text is Romans 8:12–17. But before we get to those verses, we should look at the whole of Scripture in broad strokes.
Scripture begins with a promise in Genesis 3:15: the Messiah is coming. The entire Old Testament is the story of those who believed that promise and called Jesus is the Christ, and were answered and had every blessing restored — and of those who did not.
Then, exactly as promised, He came, in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. His name is Jesus.
And in John 19:30 He died on the cross and finished it all. He rose. He ascended. He went up to the right hand of the Father. But it did not end there. He sent the Holy Spirit.
Put simply: the Christ, who could only ever dwell inside our hearts, came inside. He is the Holy Spirit.
From Acts onward, the Spirit who lives inside worked through each of the disciples, and the gospel spread through the whole world.
Why Romans Was Written
Today's text is from Romans. People who had been in Jerusalem made their way, through various routes, all the way to Rome, and the number of believers there grew.
But once the church grew, something had to be taught. What does it mean to hold the status of a child of God? Why is Jesus the Christ? And what fear rises up in the heart of a person who does not call on the name of Christ? This had to be taught systematically.
So the apostle Paul wrote a letter to the church in Rome, and that letter runs from chapter one to chapter sixteen.
The Shape of Romans, Seen Through Fear
Look at Romans through the lens of fear and it comes out like this.
Romans 1 through 3 declares: you were people living in fear from the beginning. The bedrock of the human being is fear. Because we stand outside of God.
Then in chapter 4, Abraham appears — a man who took hold of the promise, took hold of the promise that Jesus is the Christ, and by faith became a child of God.
Then chapters 5, 6, and 7, and we arrive at chapter 8, our text. And here is what chapter 8 says: you have lived your whole life in fear, but now, when you call Jesus is the Christ, the Spirit within you gives you the Spirit of adoption, and inside you He gives a heart of trust, a heart of peace.
Four. What I Most Want to Draw Out of Today's Text
What Was I Originally?
Before we come to the text, let us ask: what was I, originally?
According to Genesis 3:1–5, I was a person living inside fear.
And what does it mean to live inside fear? It means I did not relate to God as a Father. What kind of relationship was it, then? Translate it into today's terms:
Like facing a prosecutor. Like facing a boss at work. Like facing an employer. Like facing a loan shark. A master-and-servant relationship. A contractual relationship. A lifelong entanglement. That is how I approached God — as a creature standing inside fear.
But What Am I Now?
John 1:12 says: to those who received Him, to those who believed in His name, He gave the right to become children of God.
So because we believe that Jesus is the Christ, we have already been transferred into the status of children of God.
Confess it with me. Jesus is the Christ. Jesus is the Christ. I am a child of God. I am a child of God.
And if I am a child, then an enormous status and authority already belong to me. But how do I actually get to enjoy it?
Confess it again. Jesus is the Christ. Jesus is the Christ. Jesus is the Christ.
Only when I keep confessing, keep declaring, and keep cutting off — with the name Jesus is the Christ — the thoughts that come in and try to expand inside me, does the Spirit within become more active, and the word of Scripture keeps being fulfilled in my life. So what matters most is calling that name first.
The Spirit of Fear and the Spirit of Adoption
Why must we call it? Because what sits at the root of me is a spirit of fear.
Today's text says that what is in you is not a spirit of fear but the Spirit of adoption.
Let me put it more plainly. What is a spirit of fear? It means there is a demon of fear inside you. And not merely present — it has taken the whole place.
The word spirit sounds refined. But in plain speech, it is a demon. You cannot see it, but it is alive. It exists. It has a personality. It has a definite purpose. And it holds to that purpose until the day you die, feeding you fear, provoking you again and again.
But there is something set against it. The Spirit of adoption. The Spirit of adoption is the Spirit that belongs to the new status of a child of God.
So this is a battle of spirit against spirit.
The Debt Collector — the Most Frightening Man I Ever Met
Preparing this message, I asked myself a question. In all my life, who was the person I was most afraid of?
I have not worked much in an office. But as I sat with the question, something surfaced. A credit card debt collector. That was the most frightening.
Through a particular chain of events, I ended up using a credit card — and it was in my father's name. When I could not pay, the calls did not come to me. They went to my father.
And not once or twice. A call in the morning. Another an hour later. Another an hour after that. Finally my father called me. These people are calling me every single day. I cannot take it.
My father had never in his life owed money to anyone. He had never been treated that way before. And because they kept hammering him, all of it came back to me.
What did that do inside me? It was not merely stress. Fear came pouring in. That collection agency became an object of terror to me. I had never felt anything like it. In the end, I did repay the debt.
The Man Who Paid Only the Interest
Later I met someone in the same position. A man who had been in business for a long time, and always seemed weighed down. One day we finally talked, and I asked, what is troubling you?
He said he had run up too much on his cards. How are you paying it off, I asked. Only the interest, every single day, he said. And how long has this been going on? Years already.
What are you doing now, I asked. He was working, but the money from the work went straight to the interest, and even that was not enough — so he had taken a second job on top of it, one that had him out working before dawn.
So I counseled him and said, let us file for bankruptcy, starting today. I will walk you through it.
And he told me he was afraid. The card companies frightened him, yes — but if he filed, those collectors who called him every day would come after him and do something to him. That frightened him more.
So I worked on him. One week, two weeks, three weeks. I persuaded and persuaded and persuaded. And in the end, that man could not bring himself to go through with the debt-relief process. The terror inside him was that large.
How Human Beings Relate to God
Why do I tell you all this at such length? Because every human being who stands apart from God, without ever knowing it, approaches God from inside exactly this kind of terror and fear.
We treat God like a gangster. Like a debt collector chasing an overdue card. Like the most fearsome prosecutor in the country.
And it shows up in our life of faith. I missed a Sunday. I did not worship properly. I did not pray properly. I did not serve properly. I let things go sour with the pastor, or with someone in the church. And then, when I go to pray, a dread comes over me that God is about to strike me.
What does that reveal? It reveals the way I approach God. Coming to God is frightening. Worship is offered out of fear. And if I do not offer it, I feel that God will lay a curse on me.
Which is to say: my relationship with God is not sustained by trust. It is held in fear and terror. And this is the background that every human being carries.
My Friend, the Missionary to Egypt
There is a video I started to make this week and have not yet finished.
One of my friends went to Egypt and served as a missionary there for decades. But he did not simply do mission work — he studied. He decided he had to understand Islam properly, so he went to England, to a graduate program where scholars of Islam teach, conducted many interviews, and worked out where the doctrinal errors lay.
I asked him to send me everything he had researched. He sent it all over gladly. I have been going through those files and preparing to make something from them.
And here is what struck me as I read. Why do they pray five times a day? Out of fear. Because it is terrifying not to. That is what is lying underneath.
Whether a person practices a religion or not, it makes no difference. Because every human being is born already standing outside of God, and so is held, from the crown of the head to the soles of the feet, inside fear. There is no escaping it.
But What Does the Apostle Paul Say?
In today's text, Paul writes to the believers in Rome, who are held exactly this way.
Romans 1 through 3 says: this is what you originally were. But when we arrive at chapter 8, what does he say? You are no longer a person held captive by the spirit of fear, by the demon of fear, until the day you die. You have received the Spirit of adoption.
And what is the Spirit of adoption? It is that place where, the moment something happens, you turn instinctively to God — the relationship of a child to a father.
What is the foundation of the relationship between a child and a father? You share the same blood. The genes are connected.
The spirit of fear I described a moment ago runs on a business relationship. It is a relationship bound by money. You use the other person because of money. Pay well and the work gets done; stop paying and it stops. You are simply tied to the money, and there you sit.
But the relationship between a father and a child is different. What is adoption? It means you are joined by blood. So when I fail, when I make mistakes, when I ruin something, when I fall apart — all of it is exposed within a relationship of trust. So the father says, yes, you did wrong; I forgive you. The genes between father and child are not crushed by it. They are not nullified.
That is why Paul writes to the church at Rome. From here on, your entire life stands inside a relationship with God that is already formed. So fight the spirit of fear inside you. Take that whispering, that thought that keeps feeding you fear, and break it with the name of Christ. That is what Romans 8 is saying to us.
Five. How Do I Apply This to My Own Life?
What We Must Admit First
We must admit first that we relate to God far more through the business model — through fear — than as children.
The Master-Servant Reflex, Learned in Daycare
People come to church in all kinds of ways. Some from childhood. Some in their twenties. Some in middle age.
But watch the next generation. These days a child of one goes to daycare. Some are sent at six months. The time spent in the arms of a mother and father, fussed over, cared for, is very short.
And what does a child learn in daycare or in preschool? The child learns to read the room. I should cry only a little. If I cry loudly, that adult will not like it.
And what kind of relationship is that? Master and servant. Only the instinct for reading others develops. I have to keep that person happy. I am not really there. And underneath it all lies the assumption that if I do not manage this, I will suffer for it.
And then the person comes to church in that condition. So when the church speaks of a relationship between a father and a child, none of it fits. Society has already trained the reflex into them.
But the relationship God establishes across every part of our lives is the relationship of a father and a child.
Let Me Put It in the Most Extreme Terms
I often speak in extremes, as you know. To speak in extremes is to say that the middle steps do not finally decide the matter.
So, to the extreme: suppose I never prayed my whole life. Never gave an offering. Fought with the pastor countless times. Clashed with the members of my church endlessly. Even so — I go to heaven.
But here is the point. While I lived in this world, I was miserable. I lived and died without ever knowing what it meant to be a child, and then simply went to heaven.
Why live that way? Everything has already been given. There is an inheritance to be enjoyed. Would it not be better to live enjoying it?
And when the day comes to leave this world — if I lived alone, perhaps it does not matter. But is there not something to hand on to my spouse, to my children? So it matters that we keep on enjoying what is ours.
This Week, I Decided
This week I decided again: the fear that belongs to a servant will keep pressing in on me, but I will go on living as a child, and die as one.
Let me close with this. However I may appear to you, I am genuinely free on the inside.
Perhaps you will say I have always lived that way, and so of course I preach this way. But I keep confessing, even now, so that I may enjoy that freedom more deeply still.
Confess it with me one last time.
Jesus is the Christ. Jesus is the Christ. Jesus is the Christ. Jesus is the Christ. I am a child of God. I am a child of God. Every problem is finished. Satan, go. Filled with the Spirit. World evangelization.
As I go on confessing that name, I watch myself entering into deeper freedom. And it feels wonderful.
What I Am Still Fighting
There was a time when I carried, as an aging and stubborn father, enormous expectations for my children. I wanted to hide it, but it was lying there at the bottom of me.
I am fighting that too, now. And I keep loosening. And when the old man surfaces again, I fight again. I find myself rather amusing.
Conclusion
Beloved, this week, may you and I enjoy Christ. And what we enjoy inside will show itself out there, in the field where we live.
May you be victorious.
Closing Prayer
Let us pray together.
Father, through Christ You made us Your children, and You gave us not a spirit of fear but the Spirit of adoption, so that the relationship between You and me rests on trust — the ground of everything, the foundation of everything, the completion of everything. This we believe.
This week I will keep planting the name Jesus is the Christ in my heart, and I will fight the many spirits of fear inside me. And in that fight, let the blessing and the authority that Christ has already given me be restored more fully, and testified to more brightly.
In the name of Jesus, who is the Christ, I pray. Amen.
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