Lesson 31c
Romans 8:12-13 · JD McCulley · May 5, 2019
Romans (2018-21), No. 63
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261914463547

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

So we are in lesson 31, and we're going to pick up with question number 8. Before I go into lesson 8, I wanted to yet another perspective on the conversation we had last week around the body plus soul equals spirit, the body plus spirit plus soul. We kind of got into that, but we also didn't necessarily gain a full clarity on it. I don't know if that's going to happen if this go around either, but what I did want to do is I went back and looked at some of the things that have been taught by other teachers here in Ollie Hills and I found this diagram, I believe it was from Vern, but it's interesting.

If somebody can read Hebrews 4.12 for me, I think that will help maybe set this up for us. See how fast your devices are compared to Donna's page flipping. I think page flipping wins. Well, you're not doing it. No, I'm not. This is easier to carry. It's not hard. Practical, practical. Hebrew Sport Club.

The Word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. So the point here is the way that God's Word works in our anatomy, right? It pierces. And where does it pierce? The heart. It's old. It's pierced. That's right. It does.

So, again, I can't suggest that we're going to all come to a final agreement on this, but I thought it was interesting to look at things in this perspective. We talked about what's the essential me, so that continuity of who we are. We were in the mind of God in eternity past, right? But we were in the mind of God. So we existed in the mind of God, our essential person. The way that you behave, the way that you present yourself, your characteristics, your mind, your emotions, your will were not fully in effect, but God had essentially created in his mind you in eternity past.

He's had you on his mind forever. You can say it that way, right? Yeah. No? Well, I would say that you have to get away from the idea that he knew about you. He knew you personally. you knew who you were then. Along those same lines comes this concept, because what we are doing is giving the outer reality. Sometimes when we focus on this to a degree, we start thinking about our reality, but our reality is not reality.

In Colossians 2.9 it says, For in him all the fullness of deity dwells in bodily form. And in Him, you have been made complete. And He is the head over all rule and authority. So, we might talk about the physical realm, and we might talk about the spiritual realm, but what is reality? Reality is spiritual. Reality is a spiritual reality. And God is that spirit.

So, Roy had a thought this morning that I thought was good. Paganism has this idea that humans ascend into various forms of deity. So everything is on the same plane, and it's just degrees or levels. I'm probably at a higher level than Russ. But you move through levels, there's not a distinction from deity and man. Man is essentially connected and it's just a matter of achieving a certain amount of deity.

That's every religion whatsoever and it's done through what? Words. Words. Every single one of them. We go back to the Tower of Babel. I often refer to the Tower of Babel as the first organized religion. It's the first time that man pulled himself together as a group and said, you know what?

We've got a better plan, God. We're going to build our way to you. The more we work, the harder we build, the more time we put in, the more spiritual we become. God said, no, it's not about you coming up to me. It's about me coming down to you. Because I'm distinct and I'm separate from you. You have a distinction. And that distinction is what? He is a creator and you are a? Creature. You are a creation. That's right. In Romans 1 it talks about the desire of man to constantly challenge that reality. Right? We call it the great exchange.

They gave up worshipping the creator and instead worshipped what? Creature. The creature. They gave up the truth of God as the creator and started to worship four-footed animals, etc. So, let's keep that in the big picture of our minds as we start to think about this. So, we are a creation. We are unique among creation, though. How? We are made in God's image. We have a mind, we have emotions, and we have a will. We have the capacity to have a communication between ourselves and the Lord.

Now, we picked up a stray dog last weekend. It was Sunday after I got home. Aiden took great care of that dog for about two hours. She was really super scared. Very, very kind and sweet dog. Does that dog have the ability? Was she created in the image of God in order to have the capacity to communicate with the Lord? Have a relationship? Does she have a relationship with us?

Yeah. But she'll never understand the spiritual side of God's Word in terms of who we are, or who, not the dog, but we, that dog will never have the capacity to understand the things that we do about who we are. Okay? We talk about philosophy. We know where we came from, where we're going, and why we're here. At least you should. At least, at this point, where did you come from?

God. Okay. The mind of God. The mind of God. You're a creature. Why are you here? To glorify God. To what? For His pleasure. For His pleasure. That's what I said. To glorify the Lord. To glorify our Creator. Where are you going? Heaven. Where are you now? Heaven.

Okay, so this is Genesis 101, yes? This is getting back to the very basics of where we came from, why we're here, where we're going, and one of the most important things is that we can distinguish ourselves, we can understand very clearly that we are not God.

We are his creatures. However, God did a marvelous thing. He gave us this unique, one-of-a-kind capability, as man, to be able to worship Him. The unbeliever, we talked about last week, can do nothing but serve the Lordship of the body. The flesh is all the unbeliever knows. And any attempt to become spiritual is what? Hopeless. It's hopeless? What does it look like? It can look really religious, just like the Tower of Babel. It can seem very astute and selfless. It can look really religious.

But at the end of the day, that believer can only serve the body. Now, what happened when we became a believer? When we put our faith in the truth of God's gospel message, what happened to you? We were replaced in Christ. What happened first? We believed. Yes. And we became new creatures in Christ. What happened first? We were saved. What happened before that? Crucified. Crucified? Oh, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. You got to die first. Duh. Duh.

So we had a death. And that is the death of our spirit that serves the body dies. Then we're given a new birth. We're given a new spirit. And who's spirit is that? It's the Holy Spirit. God's spirit. Call it the Holy Spirit. So we're given a new spirit. So now we operate in a spiritual realm, and we see that we still have a brain, we still have a body, we have mind, emotions, and we have a will. These things are going with us.

We still need the capacity to worship the Lord on into eternity. We need this to continue to comprehend the grace that he wants to explain to us for on into eternity. When it comes to worshiping God, The Lord Jesus said that the Father seeks those who will worship Him in spirit and truth. So to worship God has to be a spiritual activity to be acceptable to Him. So from a mind, emotion and will, would you say that's a spiritual entity?

It is over here. Because this goes away. You don't get a body. Not this physical body. You don't get to take it. You don't get to take your fancy brain. That's part of the body. This is a physical component. But over here, it's a spiritual component. You still have mind, emotions, will, but you're now indwelt by the very Spirit, the very Holy Spirit. It is your reality. He is your reality. And the Word of God, pierces that spirit and that soul, so as to communicate to you the truth of who you are, where you come from, where you're going, etc. etc. etc. Would you say before that you don't know the difference between soul and spirit? You don't. You think you're all one entity. Yeah. Sure. Which is really soulless, you don't know what spirit is at all. No, what's spiritual for the unbeliever is paganism.

It is a It is a work-based effort to achieve a greater level of spirituality than you were before. You can sit there and you can meditate. Now there's biblical meditation, meditating on the Word of God, putting our mind on the things that are true. But there's also climbing to the top of Long's Peak and getting on your bottom and worshipping the creation. Can you achieve a sense of spiritual peace up there? Are you a better, more spiritual person because you've meditated and you've allowed your spirit to become one with all that is?

Like that drop of water that enters the shore of the sea to become nothing, to become something. For the unsaved, isn't their spirit dead? Or is it just different? Their spirit is not dead. They're spiritually dead to God. Right? They're separated. They're separated from God. They do have a spirit, but it's spiritually dead. Their body is dying, just like ours. They're spiritually dead to God, and they're eternally separated from Him as well. So they're spiritually separated, and they're eternally separated. Because when they die, their body dies also, but their dead spirit that is separated from God goes to be in hell.

Correct. So they live on spiritually. That's right. We all have eternal life. It's just a matter of where you're going. I wouldn't call it life at that point, but It's existence. It's life. It's life. It's not a non-existence for sure. It's not an annihilation. We know that it is. This stuff still responds to the reality that they enter in eternity. Their mind, emotions and will will be very operative in hell. Yep. And there will be a party.

So I just thought that I would maybe cover that a little bit, just to give us some more thoughts. We can continue to touch on this as you guys get up here and continue to elaborate on the spiritual and physical realm. One thing that also I think is interesting about this is that we don't want to think of the physical realm as something separate from God. What is the physical realm?

Something he created. That's right, it's his creation. So when we think about physical realm, we can't think of it as being something not of God, in the sense that God is separate from it in a way that he wasn't involved in speaking it into existence. He spoke that into existence. I think what God did, and he does this with angels, when he creates a creature, I use the term sentient creature.

He also creates a state for them to live in. And studying Genesis, what you discover is that God has man in mind as he's creating the earth. And he's making it habitable and perfect for this man that he's about to create to abide in. And it all contributes to the man.

Once sin enters then the estate, he loses the estate, like when the angels sinned, they lost their estate. When man sinned, we lost our estate, and the estate itself became corrupt, because the man was corrupt. Does that make sense? That's a very good point.

So it's a corrupt estate, but then again, God is the ultimate reality. He is reality. Our reality is in him now. So the things that we talk about here in Romans 8 have to do with that reality of who we are in Christ, in his created physical realm that is not corrupted by sin which we brought. However, where is your citizenship? Now where is your estate?

There. That's where we are. You say, wait a minute, I'm right here. Conditionally, yes. For the time being. Yeah, he recreated us in Christ so that we would be suitable to the new estate that he has for us. Spiritually. And that's what's been done. And now we have the opportunity to do what? Let's go back to Romans. Take me a minute to turn my pages. We have the opportunity to live according to the Spirit. Well, if you live according to the flesh, you must die. But, if by the Spirit, what are you doing? Verse 13, 8-13. You're putting to death the deeds of the body. And that results in what? Life.

So why did God leave us, question number 8, why did God leave us in unredeemed bodies? Why didn't God decide that, hey, when you believe in my death, burial, resurrection, appearance, I will snap you out of this place just like that. His plan is to rapture us later, all of us. Some people may get that experience. Believe, boom.

You didn't get it. Why are you walking around in an unredeemed body? To be redeemed means what? Bought back. Bought back. And what's the opportunity there? Are you still serving? Isn't it to witness to the unbelievers? Okay, that's one. That's absolutely one thing. What does redeeming mean though?

Are you ever not under someone's control? Some control? You're not. When you got redeemed, you're spiritually under whose authority? You're never lacking an authority. That's how I should have said it. Not control. An authority. Whose authority are you under?

You've been set free. Now you get to decide for yourself, right? Now you're free to walk by faith, live by the Spirit. You're free, in Romans 8, 13, to put to death the deeds of the body and experience life. You're free to do that now, under God's authority. Right? So, does your body play any part in that freedom to serve? What does it do? Prepares a fellowship meal.

Your flesh is going to continue to bark at you. That's where the sin nature is. It has no authority, but it will not stop barking at you. Does he leave us this way so that we'll learn how completely abhorrent our nature is, and to teach us that we learn to rely on the Holy Spirit. Did you just want to answer that question perfectly? Abhorrent, you used the word abhorrent. Why does God leave you in an under-deemed body? I think you're right. In our flesh dwells no good thing.

How long does it take you to learn that? Oh, that's taking me forever. I was thinking, couldn't we say that freedom is freedom to yield? Which we didn't have before. We didn't have that before. We had one choice before. To do what? Serve? Serve sin. Serve sin. Yeah. Bound to Satan, death reigns. fear of condemnation, sorrow, suffering. My will is controlled by the sin nature. We're slaves to sin. So God leaves us in these unredeemed bodies to learn to hate sin.

Do you see it? Has your body helped produce that reality to you? Maybe I shouldn't say reality, but the seriousness of it? I think so. Well you could also say that it's on the plus side that it allows you to live by faith. Because you can utilize your will to believe. True.

Well that's what we were learning in Romans 7 was that Paul was willing but he couldn't get free. And what he found out was that his will wasn't the determining factor in terms of the implementation of freedom. He had to use his will to believe what God had already done in order to get free, to serve the living God. You mentioned the word yield.

I think rely on the indwelling Holy Spirit is another word that we could talk about. Another word, rest. Your body doesn't want to rest. The flesh is at war. And how do you get peace? Simple faith, right? Doesn't seem so simple sometimes. Especially with this body barking at us, sin nature, constantly. But it's been condemned, it's been judged, it has no authority, right? So question number nine. If our bodies are under the control of sin, how do we get out from underneath that control? Is it God's intention to live a holy life through us? Do you believe that? Yeah. How much power do you have to make that happen? Zero. Zero? Why?

Because she's the one who does it. Galatians 5, 22. Someone read that one for me. Let the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness. 23. Gentleness, self-control, against such things there is no law. Well, we can pick out that self-control pretty quick. Control yourself. How does that work?

Is this fruits of the Spirit or is this fruit? Fruit. Fruit. Who is this? The Holy Spirit. It's the Holy Spirit producing the life of the Lord Jesus in us. That's the fruit. And one of those components is self-control. Which means, do you have power to live the holy life? I do in Him. You're doing Him, and that's what's really important. It's not that we're just robots taken over by the Holy Spirit. He is now, through His Holy Spirit, producing the fruit of the Spirit, which includes self-control. Which means that while we're still in the unredeemed body, we now have, through the Spirit, the ability to control this body from temptations of sin. You have that. But where does it come from? You possess it. It's yours. But it's him in you.

I find it interesting that self-control is a descriptive term because in one sense it is me who is controlling self. He uses me as the agency through which he works. And I think you're right. We don't get to sit in the bleachers and watch him do his thing. He's doing everything through us. So the control is something that I decide to do by faith because he's working through me. I can't do it my own. I have to do it in absolute dependence. Do you ever convict yourself and convince yourself to do that?

Yeah, but good luck with doing it. Well, the Holy Spirit does it. Yeah. That's where your conviction comes. You can say, I've got a moral responsibility as a Christian to do X, Y, Z. Now where does that conviction come from? Through His word. And it is you that does it. You do it. Your body does it. But who are you? You do it. But who are you? Who are you? Actually the Holy Spirit does it through us, I think. We're an agent. We can act as an agent for the Holy Spirit. Fair enough. But you are a new creation. You are in Christ.

So when we say we do something, we need to think about it in those terms. We do that I'm walking. I'm making a decision not to do this or not do that. My mind is engaging my body and telling me not to go do X, Y, and Z. But the conviction, the convincing, and the moral direction of my decisions all live where? In our new spirit. I would also add the power to do it. Power.

Well, it's Christ's life in us and His righteousness, not ours. That's why it takes the self out of the picture. Any good that comes has got to be His righteousness, not ours. When we say you, we're talking about this component. When we're talking about the conviction, etc., the power, it's the Holy Spirit producing the life of Christ in us.

It's a little bit of a conundrum, I think, that sometimes we can get into. It's, hey, I'm supposed to do some stuff, but yet I'm supposed to rest. I'm supposed to yield. I'm supposed to rely. Well, how am I supposed to get up there and make something happen? Was Paul busy? Huh? Was Paul busy? Mm-hmm. Oh, jeez. The more I was body, he was so busy. Or on his body, he was so busy.

You could say he wore his body out by resting in the Lord. But you have to think about this, that he's got a dying body, animated by the resurrected life of Christ and can't keep up. He's going to wear out fast. Say that one more time, I think it's so important. He's got a dying, sinned body. animated by the resurrected life of Christ. The body can't keep up. It wasn't suited for that. The body can't keep up. I like that.

Well, if our bodies are under the control of sin, how do we get out from underneath that control? It says that one of the fruits of the Spirit is self-control. Where does that all... How does that... If you're in a state of sin as a believer, how do you get out from underneath that control? And what verse do we often go back to in order to help understand? 1 John 1. There's a confession, there's a reckoning of what sin state we are in at any given moment. Well, it's agreeing with God about what sin is and what's happened to sin. God's taken care of it.

It isn't part of the new We can get out of fellowship with our body and our spirit. I should say, our body is technically always out of fellowship. But we can spiritually be out of fellowship. Now, does that affect our position? No, it doesn't. 1 John 1, 9, we agree he's faithful, right? We agree about what?

Sin. The sin issue. Your sin issue. In your diagram up there, where is the sin nature? There is no sin nature in that diagram. Up on the left side. It's on the body. Yeah, it's still, it's still, I mean, I put it right there. I mean, it influences both the body and mind, emotions and will. Yeah. It actually controls them. Definitely on the, the physical side.

I would say too, as you're going along, I'm thinking that so many discussions you have with believers has to do with, well, what am I to do? What would God have me do? Does he give me a spiritual gift to live and serve him, right? In my walking around daily life, this is implemented This is more than you could ever do in terms of witnessing to the world what the power of the Spirit is.

Because people will look at you and say, how did you get through? How did you do that? Why didn't that temptation or circumstance have a profound effect on you? And it doesn't. Why didn't you succumb? to the world. That's the way the Lord Jesus was. He didn't have to do anything. He just showed up.

People hate that though. I know they do. They hate it when they see something different. Makes them feel like they're doing something wrong. So they have to tell you you're doing it wrong. So they feel like they're right. The light exposing the darkness and they don't like that.

A holy life without a controlled body is an absolute contradiction, not to be dreamed of for a moment. Indeed, God goes further here and says, you shall live if you, by the Spirit, put to death the doings of the body. The opposite path being, if you live according to the flesh, you are about to die. So that's verse 13. I think that's our opportunity to put to deeds. to death, the deeds of the body, how is that putting to death done?

You don't need the Spirit's control. And it's all triggered by faith, right? Looking beyond Galatians 5, 22 and 23, he tells us in a very straightforward way that they that are Christ have crucified the flesh with the passions of lust. And if we live by the spirit, let us walk by the spirit. But he's telling us, it's done. We just believe it. Live accordingly.

Although, like you say, there's always a war going on. If you're walking by the spirit, it's impossible to fulfill the desires of the flesh. So, by virtue of that fact, If one is walking in the Spirit, all of the deeds of the flesh are out of business. The Bible uses the word dead, but they can't function, express themselves, because they have no vehicle through which to do it, as you walk in the Spirit. There is no war. Oh yes there is.

Question 10 says, just what does walking by the Spirit mean? You might have to repeat what you just said, because you just answered that. You said put out of business. Let me say that one more time. Explain that concept one more time, because we're looking at a question. Just what does walking by the Spirit mean?

My thought was that if I'm walking in the Spirit, then the whole realm of sin, and flesh and all of that is inoperative because it doesn't have a vehicle through which to express itself. Because I'm off doing something else, I'm off walking in the Spirit, so it can't express its desire through me. And so therefore, from the Bible standpoint, it's dead because it can't function. It doesn't have a vehicle to function through.

Does that make sense? And what does that look like on the flip side? You are walking by the Spirit. What does that look like? We just talked about a lot of it. It can look very, very busy because the body trying to keep up with the redeemed nature gets worn out. You just get worn out. Walking by faith will wear this body out. It will. I think so. I think one of the dangers of walking in the spirit is that you're tricked into thinking, I got this now. As soon as you take that, you're back in the flesh. And it can take years to figure out that thing until you make it. I think that's because you're putting your faith in yourself. God, you do it without even knowing. Well, if your faith is not in the Lord, where is it? In yourself. Sure it is.

Always. Is there a surrender involved in this? Yield, rest, rely. Could we throw the word surrender there as well? Yeah. I think so. In your mind, in your emotions, in your will, you choose to surrender, yield, rely, rest. Can I do that? Or is that an operation of the Holy Spirit working through me as I'm beholding Christ?

You can do it. Only by faith. That's your only job. And it's not a job that earns merit. Right? It's a capacity that you have given the way God created you in His image, you can choose to trust, to believe, to operate by faith. But in terms of the rest of it, you didn't come up with a conviction. You didn't say, oh yeah, I know it's by faith and now I'm just going to give myself a pep talk.

I'm going to go listen to this really great worship song and get really super convinced that this is the way I'm going to live. Do a lot of believers do that? Do they have a pep rally for themselves? Sure they do. I've had it. I mean, you can get moved by a lot of things, but where does the conviction to walk by the Spirit come from? The victorious Christian life is a person, not an experience. I was supposed to be done today. I think I've got one more question left. Is walking in the spirit by my own choice? Can we just cover that? Is it your own choice?

That's why Romans 6 says it's a yielding process, not which is us. We reckon by faith. Walking by the Spirit is still our choice. If you by the Spirit put to death the doings of the body, how do you put those doings to death? Reckoning them dead. Reckoning them dead. Can't you say we can walk by faith in the wrong object of faith? No, you can't. But you can sure attempt to. It's called fake it till you make it. You can put your faith in something that is not true and continue to struggle. It's interesting that One of the things that is so important that Paul is talking about here is the object of faith in terms of walking with the Spirit is a person, but it begins with what that person did. And what's the very first thing he did?

It's the death part. If you understand that you've been separated as well, not only did he die, but you died with him. Not understanding that can produce a wishy-washy experience for the believer. I would say that without that information, you can't walk in the spirit. And the second thing I would say is that this just isn't a one-sided endeavor. There's got to be the death side and the resurrection side together.

Because if I'm not, if I reckon I'm dead to sin, I have to be walking in the spirit. I can't just say, well, I'm dead to sin and do your life. That's what this verse says. If you put the death, you'll live. And the life that I live has Christ at the center, and if he's the object of my attention, then I'm not thinking about or getting sucked into the desires of the flesh. Yeah, it's both. It's not just death, but it starts with the death, right? Yeah. I'll just say another one that kind of goes back was today's Henry Hart. overwhelm the feelings of your condition. I'll write that down. I love it.

I think Verne would say that on the spiritual side of that diagram with mind, emotions, will, the soul, and the spirit, the sin nature would be outside of that, but it would be connected with. It would be touching it. So it would be, you know, our sin nature is still attached to us. And it's still trying to get you to believe that it has authority, but it is not inside the spirit and the mind and emotions in the middle.

Yeah, I was going to say that too. I think it's just in the body form. That should end at the corner there. Exactly. Well, if you have the dividing line down the middle, if I'm functioning under the body, it's because the sin nature is in control. If you're an unbeliever, it's only the left-hand side, Nicky. That's the only thing you can do.

But now, since we have the other, we still have the mind, now we have the will to choose whether we follow the sin nature in that Roman 7 in the body, or we're on the right side. So, I don't think the sin nature gets into the will part. We make that willful choice, either. This is the whole thing about walking in the spirit or walking by flesh. The mind, will, and emotion. the will's sole purpose is for me as a man to believe, then I can either believe to walk in the spirit or I can believe whatever my body is offering today is better. Do you think the sin nature would be inside the spiritual realm, on the right side?

No. No, it's all in the physical side. It's all in the flesh. That's what we learned in seven. It's all in the flesh. There's nothing good that dwells in the flesh. But the mind, will, and emotions, I think, are separate from that. The body is basically infested with the sin nature.

And when we're on the left side as an unbeliever, that's all we can respond to. We can't make any other choice but to walk and follow the body in this There is the same nature of it. I think the two sides, this is, with this edition, we're talking about the believer, but this is the makeup of man. Right, right, I mean that's where we say now we have two sides. Before we only had one.

No, you still had your own spirit. Right, and you had it separate. And you had your soul, and that's where this word of God appears. Yes, that's right, my body and soul. So yeah, we had all those, but the spirit was separate, dead to God. non-believer side. Now that side is alive to God. His word pierces right there. We choose to believe. Sin nature is now just contained to the body and has no authority. It's been commanded.

Yes. Doesn't he say he'll give life to this mortal body? Do you have life? Yes. Are you mortal? Well, when you think about a believer... You're right. who's functioning as a believer in a dying body, what's the life source of that? It has to be the life of Christ in a dying body. Yeah, he gave life to my body, but the body didn't change.

Yes. Cool. Let's follow. Let's pray. Father, how do you think you put in the truth of Romans 8 and just the reality that we exist as creatures created by you, loved by you, designed by you, to ultimately serve and glorify you, and that capacity and that ability has been made possible. through your work and we thank you that by simple faith we can not only come to know the truth of who we are in Christ but we can also yield, rest, rely, surrender and find ourselves quite busy in the body but you do the living through us and we thank you so much that you are our very power and that you internally love us with an eternal love and that you are always in control and we can rest and rely upon those truths as well. Thank you again for this morning and pray for the next hour just that the Holy Spirit would illuminate our minds continually on the things that are true of you. It's in your name we pray.