Do you have the right shoes on?
Romans 8:12-25
As Marilyn Monroe, once said, "Give a girl the right shoes, and she can conquer the world."
As the poet Maya Angelou says, "All God's children need traveling shoes."
1. All God’s .Children need traveling Shoes. WE need the correct Traveling Shoe because Paul says; “we walk mainly according to the flesh.”
• Paul says, 12Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation--but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to the flesh.
• We all walk mainly according to our own beat, our own directives, and our own choices
• We make wrong turns again and again, guided more by our guts than our God. Isaiah the ancient prophet said, "All we like sheep have gone astray. We have all turned to our own way" (Isaiah 53:6).
• We walk mainly in the direction of Self-centered lives. With our own desires at the heart of our decision-making. We walk in the directive of Self-serving, God desires us to be neighbor-serving or God-serving.
2. Paul speaks plainly: "Dude, if you live according to the flesh, you're gonna die" (see v. 13).
• Better for us to put on the right traveling Shoes -- which is another way of saying, "Better to be filled with the Spirit." The Holy Spirit guides and moves us toward life instead of death.
• The brand of traveling shoes we need is called “Cross Walkers” (these walk the way of the cross) (v. 17). There's a certain amount of pain that comes from walking in the Spirit, because the path we walk is the way of the cross. Jesus said “Take up thy cross and follow me”
• The Cross Walker is other-centered, with the desires of others at the heart of our decision-making.
• The Cross Walker is other-serving, rather than self-serving.
• The Cross Walker is reconciling, meaning focused on the healing of broken relationships.
• The Cross Walker is Interdependent. That's acting in concert with the people around us.
3. The Traveling Shoes of The Cross Walkers is grounded in HOPE
• Listen to Paul: "In hope ... we wait ... in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope.
• The Cross Walker has Hope that Understands. we are unable to count on controllable factors in life 20For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope 21thatI the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom
• Paul’s idea of the Cross Walkers Hope Is in Walking Forward 22We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.
• Paul’s Hope as a Cross Walker is I am waiting I am longing it is One Day but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. 24For in this hope we were saved
4. The Traveling Shoe of The Cross Walker knows there is a better Day
• 18I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us
• Until then, we keep walking with our traveling shoes. We'll all have good days and bad, successes and failures.
• After all, says Paul, "We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labor pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption, the redemption of our bodies" 22-23
5. In Conclusion Put on your Traveling Shoes.
• Allow yourself to be "led by the Spirit of God," l (v. 14). Don’t walk in the flesh
• Focus on being other-centered, other-serving,
• Reconciling and interdependent BEING IN UNISON WITH ALL
• Showing the unconditional love called agape to the people around you.
• Hope for what you do not see, and wait for it with patience (v. 25).
• Know that God is working to perfect God's design in you as you suffer with Christ and are glorified with Christ.
Sermon inspired by Homiletics July/August issue volume 26 number 4 Page 29-33
