2001 Larry Huntsperger Peninsula Bible Fellowship

©2001 Larry Huntsperger Peninsula Bible Fellowship

4/29/01

Fleshing Out The Faith

Romans 8”9-13

4/29/01 Fleshing Out The Faith

ROM 8:5 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.

ROM 8:6 For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace,

ROM 8:7 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,

ROM 8:8 and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

We broke off our study of Romans chapter 8 last week

at the end of verse 8,

having just listened to Paul’s description

of the life in the flesh.

We actually used those verses

as a description of our lives

prior to our union with Christ.

But just as we ended our study

I pointed out that in context

Paul was really targeting

not the nonchristian with those words,

but rather the believer

who has been pulled back into a flesh-based walk with God.

And before we finish our time together this morning

we are going to complete that thought.

Now, as we pick up our study

with Romans 8:9,

the very next thing we hear Paul telling us in verses 9-11

is his bold affirmation

of the way the growing Christian life is designed to operate.

He says,

ROM 8:9 ¶ 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.

ROM 8:10 And if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness.

ROM 8:11 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.

While our new heart

must now, for a brief time

live out it’s union with Christ

within this mistrained body,

the Spirit of God Himself,

the same Spirit that brought about the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,

will be at work in us

to replace death with life

in these mortal bodies.

He is not talking about total redemption and transformation here.

He is talking about making these earthly bodies

reasonable, practical temporary tools

for expressing the new life within us.

And the comparison Paul has chosen

to impress this hope on us is a powerful comparison.

He turns our attention back to the physical body of Christ following the crucifixion

as that physical body lay dead,

and cold,

and still for three days,

sealed within a tomb carved out of solid rock.

You see, he knows what we go through,

he knows what he himself goes through,

when we look at our physical bodies,

with all of their stubborn, determined resistance against the truth,

against the life of Christ in our spirits,

and he knows how discouraging,

how potentially defeating that can be to us.

Paul himself put it into words for us -

ROM 7:18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the wishing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not.

ROM 7:19 For the good that I wish, I do not do; but I practice the very evil that I do not wish.

He knows the power of the lies

that Satan uses to destroy our confidence,

our hope,

and our security.

Our enemy points to our past

with all of its failures,

and all of its fears,

and all of its defeats,

and he tells us

that the past will determine our future as well.

And he points to the power

of the lies that are still imbedded in our minds and emotions,

and the way those lies

seek to pull us back into those old behavior patterns.

And Paul knows all too well

how much we need strong assurance.

He knows that in this life here and now,

with this new spirit

encased in the apparent tomb of this physical body,

with our minds still so filled with death thoughts,

and death impulses,

and memories of past failures,

that in this life here and now

we can know real,

practical,

consistent victory,

a victory in which the holy longings of our new heart

can be expressed clearly and effectively

in our practical daily living.

And to give us that hope,

Paul takes the dead body of Jesus Christ,

encased in more than 100 pounds of paste and linen wrappings,

lying cold and dead for 3 days in the tomb,

and then asks the question,

“Which is harder to do - bring that body back to life,

or bring your body into submission to the leadership

of the new spirit God has created within you?”

Don’t listen to the lies.

Don’t listen to all those flawed memories

that were recorded within you

before you ever knew the truth,

before you ever met your God.

In Jesus Christ

this one truth above all others

we must never forget -

our past,

with whatever it contained,

does not,

will not determine our future.

Our future is not determined by our past.

Our future is determined

by the living reality of our God with us,

in us,

for us,

committed to conforming us to the image of Christ Himself.

The same God who brought Christ back from the dead dwells in you

and will bring life into your mortal bodies.

And, of course, this transforming process

that Paul is talking about here

is common stuff to the people of God.

Through the presence of the Spirit of God within us

we do see changes taking place

that we never dreamed were possible.

We see ourselves relating to our world,

to our possessions,

to our relationships as we have never related to them before.

We see ourselves caring about things

we never cared about before,

and NOT caring

about things that we once thought we couldn’t live without.

Step by step,

one day at a time,

the death within us is being swallowed up in life.

But what if it isn’t happening?

What if this growing transformation

from death to life

is not taking place in the Christian.

What if nothing is changing?

What if nothing has changed for years?

What if the presence of Christ within us

is not the great, glorious thing

that gives us both our hope

and our reason for each new day?

It is that question

that Paul turns his attention to next

in his letter to the Romans.

And before we read his words together

I need to warn you that what we will hear him say

is very likely not what we will be expecting.

In a single statement,

consisting of just 12 words,

Paul both diagnoses the cause of the problem

and reveals the solution.

Now, in verse 8:12

Paul begins with a summery statement

of the conclusion that follows

from all that he has been teaching us

in this whole section of his letter.

He says,

ROM 8:12 ¶ So then, brethren, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh–

It is a clear, simple affirmation

of the freedom we now have

from the flesh-driven life we lived

prior to our union with Christ.

But then, halfway through his statement he stops,

and he injects these 12 words:

“...for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die...”

Now let me put that statement together

with what we’ve just heard him telling us.

He has just told us

that the normal Christian life

is one in which our inner spirit is filled with the new life of Christ,

and one in which we are consistently seeing the Spirit of God

enabling that inner spirit

to express itself through our mistrained bodies.

Paul calls this ongoing process

that of “...giving life to our mortal bodies through His Spirit who indwells us.”

But then he tells us that

if that is not what we are experiencing,

the reason we are not experiencing it

is because we “are living according to the flesh”,

and the only solution to this situation is that “you must die”.

And for this to make sense to us

I need to do three things -

1. I need to define the flesh.

2. I need to explain the two major ways

in which the Christian is pulled into a flesh-based walk with God.

3. And I need to point out God’s solution to that flesh-based walk.

1. First of all, we need a workable definition for the flesh.

You see, I know what happens with passages like this one

when we first bump up against them in Scripture.

We hear the word FLESH,

and we automatically tend to think

of all the really base body-oriented sinful behaviors

that cater to the misuse of our physical bodies -

sexual perversion,

adultery,

drunkenness,

drug addiction,

and stuff like that.

Now, there is a place under this term “the flesh”

where those things certainly fit in,

but that is not the primary thrust

of what Paul is talking about here.

He is talking with us

about our basic approach to life.

And the easiest way I could define the flesh for us

as Paul is using it in this passage

is to say that the flesh is all those things we brought with us into this world at birth.

It is all those things we possessed

prior to our union with Christ.

It includes,

but is in no way limited to our physical bodies,

our unique personalities,

our IQ’s,

our creative abilities,

our special talents and gifts.

It includes our sense of humor,

our strength of will,

our learned reasoning processes.

It includes all of those carefully developed techniques we have worked out

for meeting our needs,

for protecting ourselves from pain,

for giving ourselves a sense of security,

or identity.

The flesh includes everything we brought with us into this world at birth,

everything we have done with those things we brought with us,

and everything we have achieved through them.

And Paul is not telling us

that all of those things are necessarily evil.

Many of them are beautiful expressions of the creative work of God within us.

But he is telling us

that they are a completely inadequate basis for life,

and certainly for life with God.

And any attempt to live the Christian life

on the basis of our flesh abilities

WILL FAIL!

It may make us look very good to others around us

who are also operating in the flesh,

but will not produce a growing walk with God.

2. And how do Christians get pulled into continued life in the flesh?

Without getting into a great big sidetrack,

let me just say that the two great tools

used by Satan to keep the Christian flesh-based

are either man-made religious systems

or deceiving the Christian into believing

that their needs cannot be met

within God’s moral framework.

And isn’t it amazing that religion and immorality,

these two things that appear to be two absolute opposites,

both of them grow out of the same flesh base.

All man-made religious systems grow out of the flesh.

And our flesh loves them

because they offer our flesh what appears to be

a means by which we can please God,

look good to our fellow man,

and still keep control of our own lives

through our own flesh-based efforts.

They are built upon the diligent fulfilment

of some written or implied list of duties,

a list that contains all the things a good Christian will not do,

and other all those things

a good Christian will do.

And then the faithful follower

is plunged into a never-ending cycle

of attempting to fulfill what the list requires

through flesh-based efforts

that rest upon flesh-based motivations

growing out of fear,

or guilt,

or pride and the desire for the applause and recognition of others.

And then there is Satan’s other great deception,

that of convincing the Christian

that there is no way our needs

can ever be met within God’s moral framework.

If we have bought into this lie

we may look at some human authority God has placed us under

and find ourselves thinking,

“There is just no way I am every going to be able to get what I really need

by submitting to this authority.

I really have no choice but to rebel against it,

to do what I know really needs to be done.”

Or we may look at our love needs

and find ourselves thinking,

“I just have to have this relationship.

I know I cannot survive without it.

I know my love needs cannot be met without it.

But there is no way I am going to be able to hang onto this person

unless I compromise myself sexually.”

Depending on our personal areas of vulnerability,

the lie takes on a thousand different forms

in a thousand different people,

but if you want to see a miserable person,

look at a Christian

who is living on the basis of the flesh.

Whether it is flesh-based religion,

or the flesh-based distrust of the moral framework of God,

there is no joy bubbling out of their spirit.

Christ Himself described the real thing so beautifully -

JOH 7:38-39 "He who believes in Me, as the Scripture said, 'From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.'" But this He spoke of the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were to receive...”

But with the flesh-based walk with God

that inner life of the spirit just dries up,

and gets buried under all the rules,

or all the guilt,

or all the pride,

or all stress and anxiety that comes with a life lived outside of the truth.

3. And then we come to Paul’s solution...

“if you are living according to the flesh, you must die...”

That is not a threat,

it is a simple statement of truth.

And once we have given ourselves over to the lie

and have built our hope

and our future upon it,

freeing us from it is never easy.

Usually it involves our God

allowing us to put the full weight of our hope upon it,

and then letting it collapse.

If it is a flesh-based walk with God

that rests upon our ability to perform for Him,

using our talents,

our abilities,

our determination and skills,

when it matters most of all,

when religion as usual is not enough

and we desperately need real answers

in His love He will allow our little system

to fail us utterly.

And then, as we sit in the rubble of our efforts for God,

after having done the very best we could do,

and finding out that in the end it changed nothing,

and left us feeling empty inside,

when we no longer have any hope

or any confidence in our ability

to do for God or for ourselves what must be done,

at that point we will be able to hear His voice saying,

“MAT 11:28 ¶ "Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest...

You tried it your way,

trusting in your own abilities,

now trust in Me,

and find out if I really do have the ability

to bring life from death,

and to live My life through you.”

If you want a good example of this process,

just look at Peter in the gospels.

He knew he could do for his Lord what needed to be done,

and when it mattered most,

it all came crashing down around him.

And that crash was the beginning of his life in the Spirit.

And then, for those who have placed their hope on the flesh

by trying to meet their needs outside of God’s moral framework,

the same solution applies.

God will allow us to reap the consequences of our immorality,

not as an expression of His wrath,

but as an expression of His love,

knowing that our needs can never be truly met outside of His pattern for us,

and that every act of immorality

is most of all an act of hostility against ourselves.

Paul’s solution to the Christian life

being built upon the foundation of the flesh is simple:

ROM 8:13 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.

And just one final word of encouragement.

It is always our tendency

to drift back toward the ways of the flesh.

We know them so well,

and they rest of the world is continually shoving them in our faces.

But I have found that

as we grow accustomed to this flesh/spirit battle,

and as we become more skilled

in recognizing our own flesh vulnerabilities,

God’s Spirit is very faithful

in giving us eyes to see the return of these lies early in the process,

before we once again rebuild our kingdoms upon them.

And the earlier we see them,

and the more quickly we recognize them for what they are,

the less pain it takes to once again put them to death.