Episode 20: How Much Does God Really Love You?

Are you living like an adopted child of the King, or a spiritual orphan trying to earn your way?

In this episode of Live It Out, Pastor Jason Lancaster and Adam Green unpack the life-changing truths of Romans 8:14–25. This is a deep dive into the staggering reality of how much God loves you in Christ. We explore how the Holy Spirit powerfully equips us to fight for holiness, what it means to be co-heirs with Christ and heirs of God Himself, and why the suffering we face right now is just a momentary blip in light of eternity.

No matter what kind of pain, weariness, or trial you are walking through today or will face in the future, if you’re a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ, you have an unshakable, immovable hope anchored in God who loves you and who gives everlasting life!

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Also, if you have any questions or topics that you would like us to answer and discuss on future episodes, then email us at liveitout@vbchsv.org.

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:06

Hey friends, welcome to this episode of Live It Out. I'm Adam Green, and with me today is Pastor Jason Lancaster, and this has been recorded live right here at Village Bible Church. And if you're in the Hot Springs area, we want to invite you, we want to encourage you to join us Sundays at 9 15 a.m. It truly is the highlight of our week where we gather together, we seek the Lord, sing his praises, pray with one another, hear the preaching of God's word, and be encouraged and equipped to live it out for the glory of God and for the good of others. Well, today we are in Romans chapter 8, verses 14 through 25. Let's dive into the podcast.

SPEAKER_00 1:01

Because of Jesus. Because of his perfect life and his death and resurrection in our place, we've now been, and this is the emphasis of the sermon, we've been adopted into his family. So we're adopted children of God. Every believer in the world has been adopted by the Father who trusts Christ. They are adopted into the family.

SPEAKER_01 1:20

Yeah, I loved how you, I mean, obviously your emphasis was on God's love. And even the the beginning of this passage talked about kind of the role of the Holy Spirit in our lives. And, you know, I think for most of us, we feel like the Holy Spirit is his feelings or comfort, but this gave us a whole different perspective, especially even me. It reminded me of truly uh how the Holy Spirit works in our lives to make us more like Jesus. Can you expound on that?

SPEAKER_00 1:49

It's like those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God, how the passage kicks off there. And the and the idea is that we're his children. And the verse right before that talks about killing sin by the Spirit. And so the Holy Spirit is continuing to work in us to make us more and more like Jesus Christ. And of course, that's painful at times, but it's the Spirit's work in us. So God loves us, but He doesn't leave us as we are. Right. He wants to make us like Christ.

SPEAKER_01 2:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:18

And the Holy Spirit plays a significant role in that.

SPEAKER_01 2:21

Yeah. I think um, I mean, even for myself, I just you're kind of thinking about there's there's things of the flesh which maybe whether it's temptations, certain desires, and if we seek the Lord, we ask for his spirit to help us. Maybe it's through scripture memorization, maybe it's a song, but something to help us stop that that pursuit of that of those fleshly ways. And I don't know, for me it gave me hope that that truly may not happen today, but we can have the Holy Spirit help us fight these temptations of the flesh. And we don't need and have victory over them.

SPEAKER_00 3:00

That's right. And we don't need to f do it in fear of being cut off from God if we fail.

SPEAKER_01 3:07

Right.

SPEAKER_00 3:08

That's the key, is that we're not trying to walk in holiness to gain God's love. We already have it. So holiness is the fruit of God's love.

SPEAKER_01 3:18

Yeah. That's so true. Because I think it's so easy for us when we do fail for the thousandth time. Yeah. We think, man, I didn't didn't have victor over it this time, you know, or the next time, to not feel well. I guess it's it's good to have that that sense of um maybe it's uh you know shame or whatever it is, but we can lean into what Jesus has already forgiven us and praise God and ask him for help. Amen. Amen. Yeah. So Paul um uses this term of we're co-heirs with Jesus. And you went even a step further, and I think um hit the nail on the head by saying that we uh that we're heirs of God Himself. How does that like radically change our perspective of this eternal inheritance that that we get?

SPEAKER_00 4:08

Yeah, so we're in the co-heirs of Christ concept is we inherit everything in Christ from eternal life, freedom from sin, right? No more tears, all that in Christ. But the the main point of heaven is God. We get we get God, we inherit God. And I think in unless we understand that here on this earth, then we're gonna think it's it's the stuff that's greater. And so, and God blesses us with stuff all the time. We have all the spiritual blessings in the heavenly realms, and that's that's awesome, but that's ultimately not the end goal. The end goal is God, and we can get him now in the fullness, you know, as much as we can now before face to face, right? And so we can have him now and we'll have our finalization of our adoption uh in heaven.

SPEAKER_01 4:58

Yeah, I think I think that's so important because I think the stuff is tangible. Yeah, we can see it, we can feel it. Maybe we experience uh uh um uh a little bit of joy for a blip of time. Yeah, and so we think of all the all the blessings in which God's word reveals about what heaven might be like, but truly the greatest joy is God Himself. Amen. And that's that's what we should live for, that's what we should live to long to be with God Himself in the fullness of his glory and to be worshiping with him, and like we can't perceive what that's gonna be like, but it's gonna be greater than anything.

SPEAKER_00 5:34

This is key and living daily life because you'll see all over social media people are constantly talking about wanting and desiring the blessings of God, and that's totally fine, but that's not the end goal, that's not the point. We can praise him for the things we have, but when we elevate those things above God, then work it we can actually turn his blessings into idols, which is what we don't want to do. Absolutely. The goal is God. That's right, that's right.

SPEAKER_01 5:59

Yeah, I I I often uh tell my worship team, you know, all the all the songs that we do, all the you know, beautiful music that that we can prepare, or or even sermons or whatever we do in our Sunday gatherings or through big events. I always think I I always try to tell them, you know what, Jesus is greater than all of this. And if we don't get that right, yeah, then we're we're missing the whole point. That really we need to exalt God. Absolutely. He's the reason and the focus for our all of our lives. Amen. Well, um uh many believers might struggle with this concept of assurance. They feel like maybe spiritual orphans trying to earn God's favor instead of being sons that can cry, Abba, Father. I mean, I I don't use Abba that often, but I it always it's it's always amazing when I can hear a preacher talk about it, and it reminds me of that's right, we can come and approach God that way. So, practically speaking, how does a believer transition from serving God out of a fear of rejection to resting in the reality of adoption?

SPEAKER_00 7:06

Yeah, that's the reality of my kids. I have seven kids, and three of them are adopted. Like if they misstep, am I gonna say, that's it? We're done. Done. Get out. And so the the idea is that God's not gonna do that because he's I'm evil and he's not, and he's adopted us into his family. And so you've got to understand that we are desiring to obey him because we already have his love. We're not, I know people come from families, come from backgrounds where they are accepted if they do right, they're rejected, if they do wrong. And I know that's that's mess that messes you up, and you have father issues and things like that. And I totally get that, but God's not like that. God's not like that. Our father is not like that. He is our Abba who has adopted us into his family, and he's not just looking and ready to pounce on us, to bully us, and to cut us off. He's not doing that. We have his love, and so knowing that we have his love, knowing that we won't be rejected, then there is this freedom to serve him. Freedom to serve him.

SPEAKER_01 8:05

Yeah, and I think you even kind of outlined uh in your message, I mean it's just a beautiful picture of how much God loves us in your in your in your in your opening section. And it it definitely reminded me of of the of the prodigal son who's coming home, and you know, he's probably walking in shame and of course rehearsing what are you gonna say to the father. And but the father loves his son, uh, even in light of all that that he's done, he said, he's gone away, and even when he comes back, his father runs to him and embraces him. And is probably the son's just dumbfounded. Like, I I can't believe this. How much my father loves me. And and I think you even outlined that fact that he um he you know his son paid it all for us. His son was actually cut off so that we weren't.

SPEAKER_00 9:00

And that I think that's key. That's why I'm fine with people to use the unconditional love language. That's fine, but I don't I think there's better terminology because there there are conditions, yeah and we just didn't meet them. That's why it's contra condition conditional, like contrary to the conditions, despite that, he still loves us because Christ met the conditions. And what other conditions? The conditions are perfect life. We didn't have that, so Christ makes that. Well, who's gonna pay for our sin? Well, we didn't do Christ did that, and so he meets the conditions. So despite us not making and meeting the conditions, he loves us. Yeah, that's the big deal. So unconditional sounds so passive, like, oh, come on in here. This is great. I love you no matter what you've done, but somebody paid for that stuff you've done.

SPEAKER_01 9:46

So Paul, uh as well in this passage, uh uh calls light and heavy afflictions, these light momentary troubles, uh, when weighed against the uh eternal glory, right? So when a believer is sitting across from us, walking through a deep tragedy and suffering, how do we shepherd them? How do our people, maybe they're in the pews today, they know someone across from them is struggling? How do they shepherd them without uh this text kind of sounding flippant or dismissive? How do we counsel them?

SPEAKER_00 10:21

For me, I'd share what's helpful for me because when you get into those situations with a difficult relationship or something you're dealing with physically or trauma and drama in your family or your church, you think you'll say to yourself, I cannot live this way for the rest of my life. And you you may run, you may run to medicate it through alcohol, medicate it through drugs, medicate through porn, whatever. You go, I just can't live it this way. But now and I just want to tell you this stop. You don't have to live this way the rest of your life, but just for today. Don't worry about tomorrow, 10 years now. You don't know what's gonna happen. Just say, God, I need you today. I think that's the key thing is that you you say, Okay, I got eternity, I'll be free from this. I don't have to think about the rest of my life, but today I'm gonna live in faithfulness to the Lord.

SPEAKER_01 11:10

That's right, because it if if if we start thinking about whatever it is, 10 years, five years, it's overwhelming. It is. And so I think that's a great uh counsel to those folks. I mean, obviously, pray with them, you can share verses with them, be with them, help them in however you can, but just remind them hey, it it could even be one choice in the day, one fraction of the day at a time. Don't worry about tomorrow. Don't worry about tomorrow.

SPEAKER_00 11:33

Today has enough troubles of its own, you know, chestalore for the day.

SPEAKER_01 11:36

Yes, it's true. Toward the end of the passage, it talks about creation itself straining forward for this final revelation of the sons of God. How should this alter our daily Christian stewardship, how we view our jobs, our communities, uh, our maybe our physical bodies in this decaying world? How should this give us hope?

SPEAKER_00 11:59

I think it's it helps us as creation groans, obviously, talking about animals and trees and things dying and killing each other. You need to understand that this is the this is a thing. Nothing's gonna be perfect in this world. And so many times we're like, oh, I can't, I can't do it unless it's perfect. I can't work on my marriage unless it's perfect, I can't do creation care unless it's perfect, I can't do my job unless it's perfect. I mean, the the the idea is we are in a fallen world. That's the reality. We groan here. It is hard. Marriage is hard, parenting is hard. Relationships are hard. They're hard, jobs are hard. Try to grow a garden, it's hard. That that's the thing is that we groan. And if it we try to avoid groaning by making everything perfect and pushing out any pain, we're missing the point. We're not longing for what is to come. We're trying to make that a reality now, and that's just not reality.

SPEAKER_01 13:00

Um, so any any any last thoughts you want to kind of bring to our attention? I I just there's there's there's so much stuff here.

SPEAKER_00 13:06

Yeah, there that it's hard for some people who had terrible dads to understand the father's love. And I I'm I'm sorry, I understand that. I mean, you probably may have been in years of counseling trying to get over all the abuse from your father. I totally get that. But I just I just kind of just say, you know, God is not like that. He's not a father like that. He's not here to abuse you, he's not here to reject you, he's not here to only love you when you're doing well and smack you around. He's not like that. And so I understand, I get it, but our father is not like that, and we got to keep looking to him and his love for you in Christ.

SPEAKER_01 13:45

Amen. And look forward to that celebration. Amen. One day. Amen. Amen. Thanks, Jason. Thanks so much for joining us for this episode of Live It Out. We are thankful that you've tuned in with us today. And if you found any of this helpful or encouraging, drop us a comment. Let us know how God is working in and through your life this week. And if you have any questions or topics for future episodes of our Live It Out podcast, email us at Live It Out All One Word, live it out at VBCHSV.org. Well, we hope you have a good week. Keep living it out for God's glory and for the good of others. God bless you.