Flesh, Law, or Spirit: Chose your weapon against sin.
What does man burdened by sin gain from the law? More burden! The Law shows man just how serious his problem really is! But man can do nothing to change who he is. And the Law doesn’t help him. Oh, we can alter a few of our behaviors, but basically we are still the same. We are still sinners. The Bible calls us a slave to sin. Condemned by the law a man goes to face the Holy God. Is there any hope?
What are we to do? What if we could die and be raised as new creatures, be adopted into God’s family with power to live free from sin and death! Is this possible? Can sinners become saints? Can legally condemned people be justified and set free? God’s word answers “Absolutely!”
God teaches us in Romans 6-7 to embrace death… Not our death, but the death of Jesus. God calls us by the gospel to enter the death of Christ so that this slavery to sin and condemnation of the law may end for us. We embrace the cross and the death of Jesus becomes our death. This actually, spiritually happens when we believe that Jesus paid the price for us and repent of our sins and are baptized into the death of Jesus and raised into his life.
It is here that the Spirit of life sets us free! Here we find “no condemnation in Christ,” no slavery to sin in Christ, because we have been baptized into Christ. Our bodies are dead because of sin but our spirits are alive and God will eventually give eternal life even to this body, when he raises us from the dead. But he starts giving new life to it even now! More on that to come, but first…
Let me take just a minute to talk about our resurrected body. Job said, though worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God. How? In a glorified immortal body like Jesus has. This body will be changed into his likeness, in a moment, in a twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. The dead in Christ will rise and we shall all be changed. Those still living and in Christ will also be changed and receive a glorified body, like Christ’s too. Do you believe this?
Is this just some fairy tale we talk about here at church to pass time and amuse ourselves with? No!!!
The Christian faith and New Testament teaching is not that this body will be forever gone and just our soul, or disembodied spirit will live. No! We will be raised and glorified bodily. Just like Jesus was raised. Bodily. Do you believe Jesus was raised from the dead? Was his body raised? Yours will be too. “Sown in weakness, raised in power.” Sown a natural body, raised a spiritual body. Like him thou shalt be. To deny that is to deny an integral part of the faith.
We have a living hope! We have a future! This world is not my home, I’m just a passing through, my treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue! It’s true!
How do you know, though, if the resurrection will work for you when Jesus comes? What I mean is, how can you have evidence and assurance that what happened to Jesus when he rose from the grave to eternal life will also happen to you? How can you be sure of that? Well, of course the first thing is that the Bible tells us so. We believe the Bible is God’s word of truth. But I would like to suggest another plain and clear evidence: The Holy Spirit is working in you right now! Is he or is he not?
Paul said to the Philippians, “I am confident of this very thing, that he who has begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.” (1:6) He also said, “Continue to work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.” (2:12-13)
The point is this: can you see God working in your life now? If your faith isn’t working for you now, what makes you think it will work for you on judgment day? If there is no spiritual victory in your life now, how do you expect to have it then?
Here and now we live in the in between time of the struggle between the spirit and the flesh. Gal. 5 is probably the best commentary on Romans 7-8.
But for the Christian there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ! The law of the Spirit of life has set us free from the law of sin and death. That law of sin and death is what was so crushing in chapter 7 to Paul as he describes living by his own power under the law. But today we turn to chapter 8 and discover the power of life to live for God in freedom through the Holy Spirit!
Lets just read Romans 8:1-17 We will notice 4 paragraphs that form 3 sections. This will be the outline of our lesson.
1. Freedom of the Spirit
2. Mind set on the Spirit
3. Work of the Spirit
1. Freedom of the Spirit 1-4
8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.
3 For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh,
4 in order that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.
The law can’t do it. We in our flesh can’t do it. But God did it for us. Sin had to be condemned. The righteous requirements of the law had to be met in us or we stand condemned before a holy and perfect God who must send us to eternal damnation. God did what we in our best efforts in the flesh, even when guided by a perfect law, could not do. He made us righteous.
Sounds impossible doesn’t it? How can I be fully righteous before God when I know that I am a sinner. Simple. God did it for me and by faith I accept it. How can I be free from sin when I know I still struggle with sin? The answer is: Live by the Spirit, not the flesh. Sow to please the Spirit, not the flesh.
But it isn’t that simple! My flesh is still weak. That is right. But now because of grace in Christ, and the changes his death, burial and resurrection brings… now, by the Holy Spirit in you, God is working in you.
The work of God that saves us is right there in the middle of verse 3, “God did by sending his own son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering.”
What has God done? He sent Jesus to take our place to be condemned and to die a sinner’s death. Yet Jesus was fully righteous before God by the law. If God can send his righteous, sinless Son to face the condemnation of all our sins and experience the curse of the cross, what can he do in you?
We are changed by two things, first, Jesus’ acceptance on the cross of our sins for us, and second, our acceptance by faith of his death for our sins. These have to come together. Now, all of us who are baptized into Christ’s death are also baptized into his Spirit. His is not a spirit of death, but the Spirit of life. His Spirit frees us from the sin and death that He paid for on the cross.
Do we still live by our old way of death? Do we live by the old way of the sinful flesh? Do we live by the old way of the Law? No! No! No! We now live by the new way of the Spirit of Life in Christ!
How does this work?
2. The mind set on the Spirit. 5-11
5 For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.
6 For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace,
7 because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so;
8 and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
9 However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.
10 And if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness.
11 But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who indwells you.
What is he saying here? I set my mind on the things of the Spirit and realize that these are not my own things but his. When I don’t want to do what God wants, I realize that is a natural fleshly reaction to the will of God. Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane struggled with the powerful things or desires of the flesh. He even said to his disciples, “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.” In his own prayer he said, “Father, not this cup. Please, if it is possible let this cup pass from me.”
What was going on in those words? Jesus was being an example to us. What a tremendous struggle he must have had! He was God’s Son, perfect, sinless, powerful... and he was about to have all our sins, all the sins of humanity poured out on him. The cup he dreaded was the cup of God’s wrath against sin and death. The curse of God was in that cup. Jesus did not desire that. His very core being recoiled from it.
This was more that the mocking and spitting, the scourging, nakedness and shame; it was more than the nails and crown of thorns. Jesus was about to taste the full wrath of God against sin. And when the cup was held before him, he cried out in prayer, “Father... not this. Can’t there be another way?”
“Yet, not my will... (Not my desire...) your will be done.” Jesus refused to give in to the powerful pull of the things and desires of the flesh. He would pay the price for us. Even if it meant standing condemned with our sins upon him. Jesus lived and breathed the power of the Holy Spirit. That same Spirit that later raised him from the dead.
In the same way we are empowered by that same Spirit to live above our desires when we set our minds on the Spirit. But if we set our minds on the fleshly desires, we will practice them and be condemned by them. Our fleshly desires go against God’s will.
So there is a battle ground in our mind. God sets us free to focus on him. But we must embrace the freedom! Set our minds on things above. Set our hearts on Christ. Fix our eyes on Jesus. Col 3, Hebrews 12.
3. The work of the Spirit. 12-17
12 So then, brethren, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh--
13 for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
14 For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.
15 For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, "Abba! Father!"
16 The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God,
17 and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him.
What does the Law do? What are the works of the law? The law works to reveal righteousness and condemn those who disobey. As we saw in chapter 7, the law offers no help for me. What does the flesh do? What are the works of the flesh? There is a list of the works of the flesh in Galatians 5:19-21 ending with this warning: of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. In other words: the flesh offers me nothing but condemnation.
What about the Holy Spirit? What does the Spirit do? Notice the things here that the Spirit works for us: 1. He works power to kill evil in us. By Him we put to death the misdeeds of the body. 2. He works life is us. By Him we live to please God. 3. He works freedom in us. By Him we are free from the fear of condemnation and death. 4. He works sonship in us. By Him we are adopted into God’s family. 5. He works a witness in us. By Him our spirits are confirmed by Him that we are God’s children. 6. He works to bring us to our inheritance. By Him we are assured that we will be fellow heirs with Christ! 7. Later we also see that he works to help us communicate with God when we don’t even know how to pray!
The work of the Spirit is new life! The Spirit has always brought life. He reveals the will of God. He brings order out of chaos. When God made man in the beginning. After he formed him from the dust of the earth. Scripture says God breathed into him the breath of life and Adam became a living soul. The literal translation is God breathed (inspired) into him the breath (spirit) of life.
1 Cor. 15:45 says the first Adam was made a living soul the last Adam, a life giving spirit.
The work of the Spirit is life, grace, freedom, adoption, witness, assurance, and communication with God in us! This same powerful Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead, never to die again is living in you.
Conclusion: By the Spirit we are Children of God.
What do God’s children look like? We can’t be children of God and live like children of the devil. The Holy Spirit leads us, but he doesn’t drag us. He even empowers us to follow, but we have the choice to resist, grieve, and even reject the leading of the Holy Spirit. Romans 8 tells us: The mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind of the Spirit is life and peace. Do you have life and peace? Are you experiencing the fruit of the Spirit which is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control?
Are you willing to reach up to God and cry out for deliverance from the flesh and receive his powerful answer? Are you willing to pray, “Lord I belong to you?! Do whatever you have to do to strip away my sin, put to death my fleshly passions and deliver me into the freedom of life in Christ!
The Bible speaks of people who began a new life in Christ, but then fell away. Paul mentions some by name in the New Testament. Demas, who Paul mentions in Philemon 24 as a fellow laborer in the Lord is later mentioned in 2 Tim. 4:10 as forsaking Paul, having loved this present world… Also 2 Tim. 2:17 Hymenaeus and Philetus,
18 men who have gone astray from the truth…
Have you really chosen to be a child of God or do you just want enough grace to get out of going to hell? Jesus said, Matt 6:24 "No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other.
Following Jesus does involve being persecuted and facing difficulties. The last verse ought to give us pause: 17 and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him.
Are we ready to follow Jesus through suffering into eternal life?
May we suffer with Christ as he suffered here on earth, so that we will also be glorified with Christ as he has been glorified.
