THE GREATEST POWER OF ALL (Romans 8:1-4)

When you look at the world around us, what would you say is the greatest untapped source of power in the entire world?

Is it nuclear?  Is it hydrogen with all of the water on the earth? 

For the vast majority of believers and non-believers alike, the Holy Spirit of God is without question the greatest untapped source of power in the world. 

For the non-believer, or the lost person, the Holy Spirit is outside of their ability to tap for power.  The one role of the Holy Spirit with the lost person is to convict them of their need for a Savior.  The lost person cannot turn to the Holy Spirit for power.  You must be a born again child of God to have this power.

For the believer, the Holy Spirit is indwelling in their heart, waiting on the believer to turn to Him for power.  The sad fact is that most Christians do not know how to, or simply choose not to, tap into the power of the Holy Spirit to live a victorious Christian life.  We find that joy and peace are to be given to the child of God in this life.  We are to live for God in the very presence of sin.  Sin is not to dictate our life’s program.  

Paul has already shown us that there is nothing in the justified sinner that can produce this ideal state.  We have seen that even though we have a new nature, that new nature has no power of its own to do the things of God, and our old nature has no good in it at all.  We simply cannot live for God under our own efforts.  

The obvious question is then how is a child of God to live for God? 

Paul cried out for someone’s help, “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” (Rom. 7:24).  In other words, who is going to enable me to live for God?

Paul concluded chapter 7 by saying, “I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.” 

Now chapter 8 will give us the modus operandi; that is, the means by which the victory for the Christian is secured.  Listen to this podcast as we begin a series of lessons on the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer.