Christ Life in Us, Romans 8:5-6 The Flesh vs. The Spirit

Well, it's a real blessing and privilege to have the opportunity of opening the Word of God to you like this. And I was just really thinking about that this past week as I was preparing. There is such a deep love for each one of you in the body of Christ, and especially this local body here at Holly Hills.

It is such a responsibility but such a privilege to bring you His Word, to have the responsibility to study that out and to bring to you what you need from the Word. which is something that's far beyond me. I mean, I can't, you know, I can't perceive everything that you need. And I can't interpret the word of God in my own capacity, you know, to be able to feed each one of you from his word. But I have to go to him. I have to go to him as I'm preparing and really depend on him.

And so that's one of the things I really focus on in study is taking the time to be in prayer, not only before I begin, but throughout the whole process of study and preparing. And it's with you guys in mind. That's the whole purpose of it, is to be able to bring God's Word to you in a way that is truly beneficial to you. And that's the Lord's work, and if he can use me as a vessel to do that, then praise the Lord. But it's necessary that we be in prayer, that we be in dependence on Him to be doing that. So as we go to study the Word now, let's pray for that. at teaching.

Heavenly Father, we just thank you for your word. We thank you for the fact that you have revealed it, had it written down and preserved it so that we would have it today, so that we could benefit from it. You've written it for our benefit. You didn't have to do that. but you did because you love us.

And so Lord, I just pray that as we open your word together, and as we study through some verses this morning, portions of scripture, that you would be at work in the heart of each individual here, each of those listening online, and those who will listen to this teaching, the recording down the road. We pray these things in Jesus' name, amen. So we've finished Romans 6 and 7, and we've begun to move into Romans chapter 8. And I'm trying to keep in mind as we do this that this is our second pass through these chapters.

And though I wasn't here necessarily for all of that teaching. He would come along more recently. I know this is the second time through, and I don't just want this to be a repeat of everything that we've done before. Though repetition is necessary, right, JD? Repetition is the mother of all knowledge, learning. Yeah. See, I almost remembered it. JD was our Bible teacher when we were 18 years ago, right now. In fact, 18 years ago, JD was doing our premarital counseling. So there's some Canadian, anyway, sort of beside the point here.

But this is not just a repeat. We want this to be very practical, a very practical application of the things that we've gone through and studied in depth. The reason that we came back to look through these chapters again, 6, 7, and 8, is because they're so critical, they're so important to your day-to-day walk as a believer. And we didn't want to move on without having this last flyby of these chapters and just being reminded and impressing these things upon our minds. And so I believe that this has been and is practical to us. The things that we're studying here, sometimes people will say that Romans is a tough book, and in some ways it can be, but Paul is not explaining these things so that you and I can earn a theological degree. He's writing these things so that you and I have a clue about the Christian life.

These things matter very much in your day-to-day experience. It's very, very practical. It's not just about having theological facts in alignment. And these things are not intuitively obvious. Nobody just sits down under a tree and contemplates and comes up with these truths. We'd never understand these things if it wasn't that God had revealed them to us in his word.

So I do this a lot, and I guess just get used to it, but I want to back up and take a run into where we're at in Romans 8. Because context is all important to this. And we do tend to do that here at Holly Hills where we slice things finely and we're covering two verses a week. And that's important because there's so much in there, but we have to be able to see things in the context or we get lost. We run the risk of misinterpreting because we've forgotten things that were really only a page earlier, but it's been four months, right? So we've got to keep the context in view.

So, first of all, we want to remember, as I've said, that Romans is Paul's basic Christian doctrine. The things laid down in Romans are fundamental truths, not really advanced truths. These things are actually the basics, the fundamentals. And in chapters 1 through 4, Paul has given us what we could just categorize as the doctrine of justification by grace through faith. If you want to kind of flip along through some of these chapters, I'm going to point at a couple of things. I'm not going to put these scriptures in the text.

But by the time you get to Romans 3, verse 10, what does Paul say? He says, we see that there is none righteous, no, not one. That's a key text, because up to that point in the epistle, that's what he's been trying to really bring out and make crystal clear. There is none righteous, no, not one.

And only then, only when Paul gets to that point, does he declare this good news, this wonderful doctrine of righteousness by grace through faith, by grace alone through faith alone. If we look at 321 through 26, Paul says it so clearly, but now, apart from the law, the righteousness of God has been manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets. Even the righteousness of God, how? Through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe. For there's no distinction for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God being Justified as a gift hold that word in your brain this morning being justified as a gift by his grace through their redemption Which is in Christ Jesus whom God displayed publicly as a propitiation or a satisfying payment in his blood through faith This was to demonstrate His righteousness because in the forbearance of God, He passed over the sins previously committed for the demonstration, I say, of His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. That's the doctrine of justification by grace through faith. And then in chapter 4, Paul demonstrates that this doctrine is nothing new.

And he goes to Abraham to show that. And it's clearly stated in chapter 4, verses 2 through 5. He says, if Abraham was justified by works, then he has something to boast about, but not before God. For what does the scripture say? Abraham believed God.

And it was credited to him as righteousness. Now to the one who works, his wage is not credited as a favor, but as what is due. That came up in Sunday school this morning. But to the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is credited as righteousness.

And what we need to understand, what Paul's pointing out, is that Abraham was justified by faith before circumcision, before hundreds of years before the law came along, and Paul's making it as clear as he possibly can that justification has nothing to do with works of the law or any kind of ritual or rite like circumcision.

And so justification has been made crystal clear, absolutely clear. So what's the rest of the book about, right? We've only got four chapters in. It's chapter five where Paul begins to make a major transition. And we see that right in verse one, because he says, in Romans 5 verse one, he says, therefore, having, sorry, this is the Canadian, having been justified by faith.

You gotta say been. Having been justified by faith, okay? What tense is that? No matter how you say it, what tense is it? It's a past tense, okay? Past tense, you have been justified by faith. Okay, that's finished. Down in verse 10 of chapter five, he says, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by his life. Notice again the tenses, okay? Having been reconciled, past tense or aorist tense. We shall be, future tense, saved by his life. And that's verses one through 11.

Okay, this transition. I've laid out justification, and now I wanna tell you about something more, having been justified. So assuming that you are a born-again believer, a Christian, what's next? What else does God have for you? And that's what Paul wants to move into.

And so right after verse 11, He goes into verse 12, and verse 12 through the end of chapter five is what we often refer to around here as the doctrine of the two men. I'd never heard about that doctrine before I met the guys here at Holly Hills. And I thought, what in the world does that mean? It turns out this is extremely fundamental Christian truth.

Okay, look in chapter five, verse 19, okay? where it says, through the one man's disobedience, okay, we've got one man, and who is that man? In context, it's referring to Adam. Through the one man's disobedience, the many were made sinner. Again, paying attention to tense, okay? The many were made sinners. But through the obedience of the one, clearly referring to Jesus Christ, the many will be made righteous. We've got a tense difference.

And that's very, very important. So chapter five marks the transition between what we call positional righteousness, a righteous standing before God in the heavenlies, reconciled to God, that's the way that Paul's talking about it in chapter five, having been reconciled to God, completed, past tense work, we shall be, and Paul's moving into experiential righteousness, or we could say just a righteous walk here on earth, something that is ongoing, And so this experiential righteousness, this righteous walk, this Christian walk, this godly life, is what Paul is moving into. in chapter six through eight. He's settled the fact that we have a righteous position, a righteous standing before God, and it is purely by grace. And it doesn't depend at all on our good deeds or our good works, and that's wonderful.

And that has to be settled in our hearts. That fact has to be settled in your heart if you're ever going to move on in the Christian life. But the question is, what now? How does the Christian life work? And we wouldn't know it. We wouldn't know it if we didn't have these chapters.

I mean, there are other references to this, but this is the place where Paul lays this out. I should say the Holy Spirit, through Paul, lays this out very, very clearly. This is the clearest and most complete explanation of the Christian life in scripture. It's right here in these chapters. And by the end of chapter 5, Paul has introduced the fact that grace is the reigning principle in the Christian life.

Romans 5.21, so that as sin reigned in death, even so grace would reign through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Notice how grace is to reign. What does it say? Grace would reign through righteousness. Okay, and then down into chapter six, in verses 14 to 15, Paul says that we are not under law, but under grace. We are under grace as a reigning principle. That's the fundamental concept of the Christian life.

So just as we were born again by grace, we are to live by grace or live under grace. But what does that mean? What does that really mean, to live under grace? You know, grace, Seems to make sense to us in terms of that once for all transaction of being born again. But frankly, it gets really confusing when we start to talk about living by grace.

Because think about it, right? We understand grace as gaining this peace with God apart from good deeds, right? That's what we just talked about. We have peace with God, we've been reconciled to God apart from works. whatsoever, and now you tell me that I'm supposed to live the Christian life by grace, and I'm kind of thinking about this. I've got some concept of grace, and I'm thinking, okay, so I'm supposed to be living a Christian life apart from good works? How does that even make sense, right? Isn't the Christian life sort of like a life of good works, right? It can't be both at the same time. And I think we've got a confused concept of grace. So what is grace?

Well, we're gonna answer that in a moment, but I wanted to just pause on this for a little bit and think about how this confused concept of grace affects the way that so many Christians respond to the whole idea of living under grace. When you and I, you know, here at Holly Hills, and we talked to someone, we went, hey, You're a Christian, you live under grace. And they're hearing that, and how are they interpreting that, right?

Because we emphasize that. We emphasize that we live under grace and not under law. And we also emphasize this position, this righteous standing before God. But a lot of people hear those words, they hear us saying that, and they think that we're saying, well, it's okay to live in sin, and just focus on your righteous position. Focus on your righteous standing. Sin, ah, don't worry about that.

We've got acceptance with God. And I would never say that, okay, but that's what people think. That's what they think they're hearing when they hear us talk about living under grace. That's kind of the interpretive grid through which they're passing our words. They're saying, those guys over there are teaching some kind of loose living, like sin doesn't matter, right? And, you know, people are afraid of that. People are afraid of grace because of that kind of interpretation.

They think that grace amounts to a license to sin, like the get-out-of-jail-free card that you guys are always after, right? Who tried to sell the get-out-of-jail-free card for 200 bucks? That was big brother. Never mind that you can pay 50 bucks to get out of jail. They think that that's what grace is, okay? That it's just a get out of jail free card.

And so they wanna limit grace. They wanna limit what it means to live under grace. And often I hear people saying something along the lines of this, that we need to balance grace and works. And often you'll hear people arguing against grace by going to Ephesians 2.10, which we're familiar with, right? Because right after the justified by grace, you're paid to say, yes, we're justified by grace, but don't forget that we are saved unto good works. And they say that as if living under grace means that we're not gonna have good works. Well, no wonder they wanna tone down grace, right? They think that it promotes sin. And what the problem is is they've got a wrong concept of grace.

So what is grace? What is grace? Now, I know we've got our definition here at Holly Hills, but I want you just to set it aside, okay? And just think about grace in a very simple sense, okay? Now, if you've been in the Galatians class, I think I asked this question once already, so you can shout it out if you want, but what is one word that best represents grace? If we had to boil it down to one word, one common word, what is grace?

Grace is a gift. Grace is a gift. We can get a lot more specific, and we should, right? Probably the most important thing is to say that grace is an undeserved gift. But when we say that we're justified by grace, we're saying that God gave us something as a gift. That's the emphasis.

The fact that our sin wasn't taken into consideration in that transaction was not because God turned a blind eye to sin. It's because our sin was dealt with completely and fully at the cross. That's the reason that our sin wasn't taken into consideration, so to speak, in that transaction.

So grace is not a license to sin, right? It's not God turning a blind eye to sin. Does God ever turn a blind eye to sin? No, never. Okay, we've gotta be clear on that. God would be unjust, he would be unrighteous if he ignored or turned a blind eye to sin.

That's not what grace means. Grace, talking specifically in terms of our justification of being born again, was a gift that didn't didn't take away our sin because God had already dealt with it fully at the cross. So that's the fundamental idea behind grace, is that it's something that's been given as an undeserved gift, something that you didn't earn or work for. Now, if we keep that understanding of grace in mind, when we turn to look at the Christian walk, the Christian life, we can steer clear of some of that confusion. Grace for the Christian life doesn't mean that we do whatever we want while God turns a blind eye to our sin. is about a gift. Grace is about an undeserved gift. And when we think of grace that way, we can get really specific.

We can ask the question, what exactly has been given to us by grace? What exactly has God done by grace? We're not talking about excusing sinful living, we're talking about what God has done for us to free us from the power of sin and to provide us with the means of living a righteous life. You see how that's a gift, something that God has provided, something that he's done and given to you? And it's a very different thing, and that's what living under grace means. We don't want to just remain there and just be vague about it.

Oh, God's given us everything needed for a godly life. We need to know exactly what it is that God has done for us in the same way that we needed to know exactly what it was that God did for us when Jesus took the sin penalty for us, paid for our sins on the cross. We had to know that. We had to know the facts of that so that we could respond to it by faith.

So what specifically has God done? What is the grace gift that makes this experiential righteousness possible? And of course, it's the very things that Paul lays out in Romans 6. It's everything that was completed. when the Holy Spirit baptized us into Christ Jesus, God identified us with Christ Jesus in his death and resurrection. Very specific, that is a specific work of grace. Baptism into Christ, death and resurrection is exactly what we needed.

It means that our sinful flesh has been taken offline, right? You and I, as Christians, have been set aside in death. A death to my own thoughts, my ideas, my will, my feelings. Our death paves the way for a brand new life, a brand new kind of life. And we have a new head, a new life. Jesus Christ is now our life.

That's a specific work of God. It was done for us by God. And that was a very gracious thing. That was a grace, an act of grace. That's what God has done for you and I, that through the cross, we've been separated from self and sin as our master, and we've been given a new life, which is in Christ Jesus, okay?

And Christ Jesus, if you think about his life, what is his life? His life is a life of total submission to God the Father. totally submitted to the Father. In a word, it's a selfless life. It's a selfless life. And it's epitomized by his prayer, not my will, but yours be done.

Jesus' baptism, I was doing some study on that this week and just you know, reminded again of the significance of what Jesus was saying in his baptism by John. Jesus demonstrated his willingness to live not according to his will, but according to the will of the Father. You'll notice that all four gospels record Jesus' baptism. And there really are only a handful of events that all four gospels record. They don't even all record his birth. Okay, but they all record his baptism.

And what's so significant about that? Well, we know, I think, the water baptism is intended to picture death, right? And when Jesus went down into the water, he was demonstrating that he was laying aside everything of himself in order to be completely submitted to the will of God the Father and not his own will. And what comes next? This points out the significance of what's going on. What's the very next thing that happens? Where does Jesus go? Or what we should say is, where does the Spirit lead Jesus?

Because that's exactly how all the gospels say it. You see, Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, why? To be tempted or tested for 40 days, okay? At Jesus' baptism, and this is also recorded by all of them, the Spirit descended and remained on Jesus. And that was the beginning of his earthly ministry where from, From that point, every single thing that Jesus did was by the leading of the Holy Spirit according to the will of God the Father, okay? And then Jesus is taken out into the wilderness because what he had declared in his baptism was put to the test.

Jesus, will you, can you possibly submit to the will of God the Father through, any trial, testing, temptation that might be thrown at you, even by Satan himself? And how did Jesus come through that? Perfectly, right? Because you look at Satan's temptations, it's like, Jesus, why don't you feed your own physical hunger? Why don't you serve self instead of God? Jesus said, no, I will only eat. I will only eat food if God the Father wants me to eat food. He'd already gone 40 days without food because, why? Because God the Father didn't want him to eat those 40 days. What a test of his will versus the Father's will. Will you worship me so that you can gain the kingdoms of the earth? Right? Would you like that, Jesus? Would you like to be made the king of this world? We could do that right now, if you just worship me. And Jesus would not submit to any temptation to do anything other than God the Father's will.

Here's an interesting point. I took this out of my notes, but we'll just put it back in because The one gospel that doesn't record Jesus' temptation in the wilderness is John. But you know what John records at the beginning of Jesus' ministry? This little conversation between Jesus and his mother.

Now, you might be able to say no to Satan, but who can say no to their mother? Okay? Jesus did. He had to, because it was not God the Father's will that he listened to her. He said, no, Mom, I only, only listened to the will of my Heavenly Father. Everything that I do is submitted to His will.

This I thought was worth sharing from T. Austin Sparks. I hope it's not too small to read, but I'll read it to you. Sparks said this in his book, The School of Christ. He said, the Lord Jesus took this way and set baptism right at the beginning of His public life.

And under the anointing of the Spirit, From that moment, he absolutely refused to listen to his own mind apart from God, to be in any way influenced by anything arising from the dictates of his own humanity, sinless as it was, apart from God. All the way along, he was being governed by the anointing, the spirit, in what he said, what he did, what he refused to do, where he went, and when he went, and was putting back every other influence, whether coming from the disciples, or from the devil, or from any other direction, including his mother. His attitude was, Father, what do you think about this? What do you want? Is this your time? He was saying, in effect, all the time, not my will, but yours. Not my judgments, but yours, not my feelings, but what you feel about it. He had died in effect, you see. He had been buried in effect. His baptism had meant that for him, had meant that for him.

And that is where we stand. And I wanted to include that last sentence because when Sparks points out that is where we stand, he's talking about what I would have been trying to explain as Christians. We have been baptized into Jesus Christ. He is now our life.

What kind of life is it? This life, this kind of life that's pictured here. We were made to die to self so that Jesus himself might live his life through us. And his life is a righteous life of total submission to the will of God the Father, led by the Holy Spirit.

That's the kind of life that we have by grace. So what have we covered so far? In chapter five, Paul transitioned from talking about being born again, by grace through faith, to talking about the Christian life, which is also by grace through faith. To live under grace does not mean that God is turning a blind eye to sin. It means that he has provided everything necessary for a godly life freely by grace.

And we've talked about the fact that we need to be specific about what God has done to provide it. The specific details of our identification with Jesus Christ, okay? Our identification with him made us participants in his death and his resurrection. It's our death with Christ that frees us from the power of the sin nature, death separates, and our death with Christ on the cross separated us from the dominating power of the sin nature, and our resurrection with Christ puts us into this relationship with Christ where he is our life. And those are the specific details, specific facts of God's grace, the grace that we live under. So the life of Christ is a life perfectly submitted to the will of God the Father. And our responsibility in the Christian life is always a responsibility of faith.

And that's why we've got to be specific about these things, because faith requires specific facts. Faith can't just be in some vague concept. Faith has to be in facts, right? Faith has to rest in the truth. And so we have to know these truths. And they're revealed in Romans 6, right? We've got to know those things so that we can trust them.

And that's the way. that the life of Christ has lived through us. That's the way we can walk in this experiential righteousness, this outworking, this living out of the life of Christ, the righteous life of Christ. Now, I go through all of that to prepare for looking at Romans 8 today. Because otherwise, we can read what Paul is saying in Romans 8 and we can totally misunderstand it. In Romans 8 verse 4, Paul uses this expression, walking by the Spirit, and that phrase gets used a lot.

Have you heard that phrase a lot from Christians, right? But what does it really mean? Next time someone talks to you about walking by the Spirit, just ask them to define it for you, okay? Most of the time, if they can even put words to it, the answer comes back sounding a lot like, well, just obey God's commands, okay? Really? How am I supposed to do that?

Paul has made it abundantly clear in Romans 7, the impossibility of just obeying God's commands, right? Romans 7, 18, for I know that nothing good dwells in me that is in my flesh, for the willing is present, but the doing of the good is not. I can't. I can't do it. So it's not enough to just say that walking by the Spirit just means, well, just do what God tells you to do. Keep his commands. And just obeying God's commands will always turn into total fleshly legalism if I don't understand and haven't kept the truths of Romans 6 and 7 in view.

So yes, the life of Christ is a life of total obedience to the Father. That's what we see in Christ, right? But we don't attain to that life simply by gritting our teeth. Okay, so if we keep the cross in view, it keeps us from thinking that walking by the Spirit is something we work at. It makes it a matter of trusting the Lord, trusting Him about what He has done. I have been crucified before God. I am trusting Jesus to live His life in me.

And so to walk by the Spirit, we have to be settled on those facts. We have to be settled on the fact that we have indeed died and been raised in the Lord Jesus Christ. And any attempt to walk by the Spirit without the awareness of the fact that we have died and been raised with Him will amount to nothing more than self-effort. And self-effort is nothing more than sin, right? It may look wonderful. There's a lot of Christian do-goodism in this world, and an awful lot of it is motivated by flesh, fleshly obedience to the commands of Scripture, and that, frankly, is sin.

And so, we've got to understand what's behind this term, walking by the Spirit. So let's spend a little bit of time now in verses 5 and 6, which are the text for this morning. Let's just read those verses quick just to get focused on this. These are the two verses that are kind of this morning's text.

Paul writes, for those who are according to the flesh set their mind on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the spirit, the things of the spirit. For the mindset on the flesh is death, but the mindset on the spirit is life and peace. Now, not just these two verses, but just think of Romans 8. What's commanded in Romans 8?

This is a Mike question. This is a trick question, okay? You know, there isn't a single imperative command in the whole chapter. There's not a single imperative in chapter 8, and we want to be clear on that because it's so easy to infer imperative commands from these verses, and we need to be careful about that.

For instance, verse five is not telling us to set our minds on certain things, it's just giving us the facts. It's telling us about the flesh and about the spirit. Now we can talk about whether we should or should not, but in this case, in these verses, it's just telling us the facts about the flesh and about the spirit, about what they're like. And as we said back in verse four, We read, so that the requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. But even though we might see a command in there, there isn't. There's actually no imperative command. Paul's simply telling us what will happen when we are walking by the Spirit or not.

Now, in Galatians 5.16, we do have the imperative command to walk by the Spirit.

There it is. in the imperative. And so we should understand that we do have a responsibility to walk by the Spirit. But here in Romans 8, Paul's emphasis is on telling us about the facts. If you're walking by the Spirit, then the righteous requirement of the law is going to be fulfilled in you. That's a fact. Okay, and of course, as we've talked about here, that's a faith thing.

So don't read backwards to say that, well, those who keep the righteous requirements of the law are walking by the Spirit, because that's kind of the typical interpretation. Well, if you're keeping the requirements, you must be walking by the Spirit. No, those who walk in dependence upon the Spirit will have the righteousness of the law fulfilled in them. So chapter eight's not telling us what to do.

Paul simply explained to us the facts the facts about the flesh and the facts about the spirit, what they're like and what they can and can't do. So what are the facts in verses five and six? So now we're asking the right question. Okay, what are the facts that Paul is giving us here?

And again, it's easy to read an imperative into verse five, that we need to set our mind on the things of the spirit so that we can then go and do those things. And that misses the point, right? This isn't about us setting our eyes on certain ideals and then trying to live up to it. This verse simply tells us that those who are according to the flesh think about certain things, namely the things of the flesh. On the other hand, those who are according to the spirit think about the things of the spirit.

And Paul's explaining that you're either going to have your thinking dominated by the things of the flesh or the things of the spirit, right? And the things here, I think, could be translated as the interests or the desires, okay? So what we've got here really is two potential masters, and I'm taking that from what Paul said in Romans 6. Two potential masters, but we could also say two different life sources.

You're gonna serve one or you're gonna serve the other, the flesh or the spirit. And the interests or desires or aims or goals, you could say, of the flesh and the spirit are completely opposed to one another, completely contrary. In verse seven, just below, Paul says the mindset on the flesh is hostile toward God. And in Galatians 5, which is very parallel to this, Paul writes, for the flesh sets its desire against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh, for these are in opposition to one another. And we're serving one or the other at any given moment. The interests of one or the other are what is being fulfilled in us. And then we have verse six, and in verse six, Paul shows us how totally contrary the spirit and the flesh are. He says, the mindset of the flesh and the spirit lead to two totally different outcomes. Okay, so what are they? Now, the translation there says for the mindset, the mindset on the flesh is death, and the mindset on the spirit is life and peace.

The translation there is a little bit tricky. You'll see in different translations, it's some different ways of translating that. And the word there is phronema. And it's a mind word. Some of these things, whenever you're talking about the mind, things get tricky to translate or communicate. But what we could really say is it simply means a way of thinking or the mindset or the bent. I really like that one. Because we all have a certain bent. We know what that guy's into. We know what he's about. He's got a bent. He's inclined to this or inclined to that. Okay, and so what you've got here is that you've got Paul saying that, well, everything about the flesh is bent on death. Everything about the flesh is totally bent on death. You think, really? Is anyone interested in death?

But here's what that means. Elevating my own will, my self will above God's. Worshiping me as the ultimate, an end in itself. And that mindset is death. Okay, to worship myself above God is death. And the mindset or the bent of the spirit is toward total faithfulness to the Father, to His will. And that is life and peace. Because that leads to a harmony, a life and peace between you and God the Father. So, some questions about what we're learning here.

Can we be walking by the spirit and the flesh at the same time? Based on these verses, it's impossible, right? That's totally impossible. You can't be going in opposite directions at the same time, okay? The things of the flesh and the things of the spirit are totally contrary to one another, okay? The flesh is in hostility against the spirit.

But another important question is can a Christian even walk according to the flesh, okay? Now, the answer, I hope we're clear on this, is yes, we can. We can and we do walk according to the flesh. That's the whole reason for this section of scripture, I think you could say. Now, some people actually argue that a Christian can't walk according to the flesh. Why? Well, because you've died to the sin nature. You can never yield to his power. Maybe for a moment, but you can never be dominated by the flesh. You're dead to it. But that's wrong, that's incorrect. We know from Romans 6, yes, we are dead to sin, we are free from its power.

But Romans 7 makes it clear that a believer can still be controlled by their flesh. And that's what it means to walk by the flesh. It's what happens every time we put ourselves under law or legal thinking. We're no longer slaves to the flesh. We've died to its reigning power. But when we put ourselves under a law system, the flesh is activated and we become slaves to it. That's why the law is so dangerous. That's why in Romans 7, Paul says that we've died to the law, because as soon as we put ourselves under a legal system, any one command will do it, the flesh is activated, and we become slaves to the flesh, slaves to working out my own righteousness, and enslaved to it.

Down in verse nine, Paul's going to tell us, as Jim thankfully read on for us, he's going to tell us that we're not in the flesh, but in the spirit. And that's true. We're not in the flesh because we've died to it, but we can and do still walk according to the flesh.

We're judicially freed from his power, but we often allow ourselves to be controlled by it. And it's a lot more often than we might think. And so verses five and six make it clear that when we do, when we walk according to the flesh, we're submitting ourselves to a master that is totally contrary to God, totally hostile to God, bent on serving self rather than God.

And all that produces is alienation from God. And that's why it's called death. We don't lose our relationship with God. We have a permanent and unchangeable relationship with God. But when we walk by the flesh, we are in hostility against the Lord. And we can call that experiential death, not eternal death. But we can't enjoy a life of joy and peace with God while we're walking by the flesh. It's a miserable place to be.

And the good news is that you don't have to be in that place. You never have to walk according to the flesh. We are free from its power over us because of our identification with Christ in his death. But are you ever going to believe that if you don't realize the fact that you died with Christ on the cross? I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live. You've got to know that fact, or you will not recognize and understand your freedom from the power of the flesh.

So the only question really is, are we trusting that? Are we resting in that by faith? So what can we take away from these verses? We're just going to go through kind of a few summary thoughts here. What can we take away from these verses this morning and the things we've been through?

First of all, to walk by the Spirit is not simply a matter of obeying God's commands. That's not what it is. That's not what it means to walk by the Spirit. We walk by the Spirit when we are resting by faith in the accomplished facts, the accomplished work.

Namely, that we're counting on our death to the power of sin. in the flesh through the crucifixion. That's where the death happened. And we're counting on the fact that we have been raised with Christ and that Christ is now our life, okay? That's what walking by the Spirit is, is counting on those facts, resting in those facts. And that's a grace operation, right? Christ living his life through us as we depend on him to do it.

Now to live for the desires of the flesh is the most natural thing to us. When we get put into trials, some situation, our natural response is always going to be to respond according to the flesh. Always interested in protecting the interests of number one.

And the Lord allows us to go through these things so that we come to see the difference between the flesh and his spirit. And as we come to know the Lord Jesus more and more, the flesh becomes more and more repulsive to us. And that's a good thing. As difficult a thing as that is to go through, it's a very good thing. We're beginning to see things from his perspective now. The flesh always is the thing that we want to protect and really worship. God's showing us that's a very ugly thing. And is bringing us to the wretched man that I am cry that is in Romans 7.

And that's when we begin to see our need for a life that we don't have. the kind of righteous life that's only found in the Lord Jesus. And when the news of our co-crucifixion and resurrection life comes to us then when we've come to that realization, we see our need for it. We really see, oh, how desperately I need to be separated from everything of that old man. How desperately I need a new kind of life that I don't have in myself.

And so those facts become so precious to us and we respond to them by faith. And we begin to see that the death and resurrection with Christ was necessary in order to make the righteous life of Christ a reality. And we begin to trust him about that. And of course, this isn't overnight. We grow in this, and the Lord will continue to bring us back to these things.

You know, when Jesus was put to the test, he always walked in dependence on the Spirit. If you look at Jesus, every trial he faced, it's just boom, boom, boom. Always, always overcoming, always responding in perfect obedience to the will of the Father.

But that's not the way it goes for you and I, is it, right? We kind of go, boom, boom, boom, boom, you know, and we fall on our face and we forget. We forget what's been done for us and what it means to be crucified to the flesh and to be alive to God in Christ and we go so far and then we take things back into our own hands and we walk by the flesh.

So there's this learning, there's this growing, we're learning to trust Him. Learning to trust Him about what He's done, and it's little by little, one step at a time. And every time we trust Him with something, He proves that He's able. He proves that the life of Christ is sufficient and adequate to everything and anything that you will ever face. And so the Lord takes us on through greater and greater tests of faith.

Isn't that encouragement? I mean, the fact that we fear trials is kind of indicative of our fleshliness, isn't it? Because the trials are given to us to prove out who he is and what he is able to do. And so that's why we can rejoice in trials. That's why you hear that message over and over in the New Testament. rejoicing in trial and difficulty because it's an opportunity for the life of Christ to be shown for what it really is, for who He is.

And we can rest assured that the Lord is completing this work. He's not gonna take us halfway. He's going to take us all the way. One day we will all be complete in Christ. One day we will be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. Our life will be completely the life of Christ, controlled by the Spirit of God, just the life of Jesus Christ. And that will be an awesome day, and we look forward to that. But in the meantime, we walk on with the Lord, learning to trust him, and we can remember this, that the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn that shines brighter and brighter until the full light of day.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for the work that you've done, the accomplished work of the cross, Lord, we don't always rest in it, that's clear. But Lord, we do know that it's finished, it's accomplished, that the moment we put our faith in you for salvation, you did an irreversible work. You permanently placed us into your Son, Jesus Christ, joined us to him, welded us to him, and something that can't be undone so that our death and our resurrection is an accomplished thing through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And that frees us, frees us from everything that we were in Adam, everything that our sin nature had to offer and frees us to have this totally other kind of life, this life that didn't exist in any other man but the Lord Jesus. And Lord, we just pray that you would continue your work teaching us to trust you for what only you can do. And we just pray that Jesus would be glorified. as we face difficulties, trials, and challenges, things that are intended to give opportunity to that life, to the Lord Jesus, to demonstrate who he is in and through us, and what a testimony that is to a world that doesn't know him. Lord, we thank you for that grace, the grace that we live under as your children. In Jesus' name, amen.