Welcome to Gospel and Life. Who is the Holy Spirit? And why is the Spirit's work so vital to the Christian life?

The Bible tells us the Holy Spirit is not just a vague force, but a person who works in the lives of Christians in profound ways.

Today, Tim Keller is exploring how the Spirit calls us to

faith, unites us together, equips us with gifts, and shapes us to be more like Christ.

Tonight's scripture is from the book of Romans chapter 8 verses 15 through 27.

For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you receive the spirit of sonship and by him we cry, Abba, Father.

The spirit himself testifies with our spirits that we are God's children.

Now if we are children, then we are

heirs, heirs of God and co-ares with Christ, if indeed we share in His sufferings in order that we may

also share in His glory. I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the

glory that will be revealed in us. The creation waits an eager expectation

for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own

choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be

liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of

God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the

present time. Not only so, but we ourselves who have the first fruits of the spirit, grown inwardly

as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.

For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he

already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. In the same way,

the spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not

know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words

cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit because the Spirit

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