The Battle...The Spirit vs The Flesh

Romans 8:5-13

We have started a journey on breaking free from the lies of the enemy and learning to live in light of who we are.  We are living free of condemnation because Jesus was condemned for us, He took our place, He took the full force of the punishment of the law and we receive this incredible freedom to live the Christian life.

You feel great on Sunday and then Wednesday hits!  You were leading 3-0 after two periods and that your spiritual life takes a blow and the enemy has knocked you down and you are barely holding on...what happened??

However just like the Canadian JRs, as many have noted is like life.  It is at the moment that we think we have it made, we are in the clear that we can get the life sucked right out of us.   We might as well realize right now that as great and glorious it is to live in freedom, there are chains that are more than ready to shackle us.

OK, the enemy isn't Russia, and the battle is not for hockey supremacy.  We do have an enemy and the battle is for Christ's supremacy in our lives!

So, then, we get derailed, we lose sight of our destination and we find ourselves back in a slump.  How did it happen?  How did we get here and even then when we to get back on track, we can even ask the wrong questions like

·         How do I live the Christian life?  and the point is this, if you ask the wrong question, you will most likely arrive at the wrong answer because the question is not how, but who! This isn’t a course that we take or a syllabus that we have been given to study, we have the living Jesus!

It is Jesus Christ, It is only because we are in Him, He fulfilled the righteous requirement of the law, He defeated sin and death.

In the story of Noah and his family in the Ark, God told Noah in Genesis 6:14 to make yourself an ark of cypress wood; make rooms in it and coat it with pitch inside and out.

“pitch” is the same for atonement (Kaphar). It is a picture of salvation!  

The rains came down and the Lord shut them in.  He didn’t give them 6 tent pegs, rope and a tarp and tell them to hang on.  Noah and his family were shut in the ark and you are in Christ.

No matter how much the storm rages around you, you are covered and you are in His grip, in the palm of his hand, the apple of His eye.

TWO mindsets v5

The mindset that we must have must be tenacious in guarding the spiritual life within us.  The understanding of setting our minds includes the whole action of our affections, our will and our reason.

It is our mind, our soul that determines which direction we are going to go, how we are going to be entertained, how we are going to feed our flesh.

Flesh – is your natural learned tendencies.  Age of two when you said NO

Who is going to control the mind, the body or the Spirit?

Is my flesh controlling my thinking? If so, I am   and I am experiencing death!

The mindset of the sinful nature

The root of the sinful nature is ‘my will, my time, my way’

The mindset set on what the Spirit desires

The heart of the Spirit desires to teach us ‘your will be done, in His time, pursuing His way’

There is a recognition of a divinely enabled obedience under the influence of the Spirit

Danish Theologian Soren Kierkegaard best summarized this when he said, “Life in Christ is best understood backwards but lived forward.”

We must live in light of who we are, who God has created us to be and then move out and live out His divine calling on our life.

Identifying your mindset v6-8

A death mindset:

·         It is hostile towards God.   There is this extreme enmity and hatred towards the ways of God.

·         Is non submissive

·         It cannot please God

A life mindset:

·         Filled with peace

·         Focused on the Spirit

·         The word for control here means ‘to be under the domination of’

·         Submissive to God

·         Pleasing to Him

 The cancer in the believer’s life is that I can receive all this, believe all this and my life will be completely unchanged.

TWO masters v9-11

 Identifying your stronghold

Who is going to control your soul? Is it your flesh, by that I mean is your hope for happiness wrapped up in your house, your cars, your hobbies, the next vacation  because that is death and it will always leave you wanting more.

 The average person, thinks “I’m almost happy.  I just need a little more money, a little more house, a little more….more, more, more…”

Well I have seen people first hand who have won the lottery and visited in their home. The toys – all there, every last one of them, but joy so completely missing.  They are gripped by alcohol, stealing, broken family relationships.

What is an idol? It is anything more important to you than God, anything that absorbs your heart and imagination more than God, anything you seek to give you what only God can give.

A counterfeit god [idol] is anything so central and essential to your life that, should you lose it, your life would feel hardly worth living.

An idol has such a controlling position in your heart that you can spend most of your passion and energy, your emotional and financial resources, on it without a second thought.

The true god of your heart is what your thoughts effortlessly go to when there is nothing else demanding your attention. What do you enjoy daydreaming about? What occupies your mind when you have nothing else to think about?

Tim Keller in Counterfeit Gods.

The sinful nature

·         Does not belong to Christ

·         The sinful body (flesh) is alive

·         The Spirit is dead

  The Spirit of God and Christ

·         Belongs to Christ – owner identification

·         The sinful body (flesh) is dead

·         The Spirit is alive

·         Resurrection power

 V9  The Spirit of God lives in you!

Dwells in you – Is He at home in you, can He kick back and rest in your thoughts, attitudes and in your heart?  Do you enjoy His presence, His life?  Or is He being quenched by the activities, the conversations that quench and choke out His presence in you?

The choices that we make affect our spouse, our children.

The reality is that your feelings on all this may check in and check out on you, but we can’t be driven around by our emotions.

In this battlefield where Satan loves to mess with your mind, you need to continually affirm out loud and claim over yourself who God says you are even when you don’t feel it.

Eventually, in time, our emotions will catch up after some serious reinforcement.

The homeless man with the golden radio voice has sure caught our attention this week.  I’m not sure if he was a Christian, but he spoke about continuing to give thanks to the God no matter if he made 25 cents an hour or whether he made in his mind a significant amount.  He made his mindset clear regardless of what took place in his circumstances.

 How much better to begin each day thinking victory not defeat; to awake to grace, not shame; to encounter each temptation with thoughts like, Jesus, You are my Lord and Savior.  I am your child – liberated and depending on your power.  Therefore, Christ, this is Your day, to be lived for Your glory.  Work through my eyes, my mouth, and through my thoughts and actions to carry out Your victory.  And Lord, do that all day long.  

 Charles Swindoll in Grace Awakening

The Ultimatum! v12,13

 Live according to the sinful nature and death becomes you. 

Live in the Spirit and rip the heart out of the sinful nature.

I have seen a young man in my previous ministry gripped by pornography now overwhelmed by the love of Christ to the point that he has no desire to go back.

Galatians 5:16  Live by the Spirit and you will not fulfill the desires of the sinful nature.

Galatians 5:17,18   

There is a real conflict going on between our Spirit and the flesh.

I also believe the blessing of living my life in the Spirit is that I become more fixated on walking in the Spirit and less on trying to stop fulfilling the desires of the flesh.  I believe the more and more my appetite grows for the presence of the living God, the less attractive and appetizing the flesh becomes. 

How do you perceive Scripture – does it look like, ‘you should’, ‘you must’, ‘you ought’ and is experienced as a demanding, nagging voice

OR is it perceived as an invitation – a revelation of what God intends to do in us and through us? 

Faith hears the guiding of the Spirit’s voice and it is less about trying and more about surrending.  It is more about what Jesus is doing in us than what I am unable to do myself.

Now if you are thinking that the difference between the law and the Spirit about the spiritual life is the difference between listening to the Spirit and just reading the Bible then you are missing the point because it is all in our approach.

The battlefield is how I’m going to engage in this battle between the flesh and the Spirit

Am I going to struggle to keep the law or am I’m going to be more focused on yielding to the Spirit?

The battle is between self- effort and will power vs enablement and the power of the Spirit

How do you relate to God?  Is it about feeling good about ourselves?  To me it is being more and more overwhelmed about the goodness of God in me.

Status Update!

There was a time when you used to have to ask people how they were doing to find out what was going on, but now, thanks to Facebook we know more than we need to know about how other people are doing thanks to status updates!  This past summer I had fun with this one…’traded the van in for a Charger’.  I got some pretty good responses and my brother Adrian chimed in, ‘oh boy, Jack is having his midlife crisis.’  Well, as it turns out, I did trade the van in…for a week until the warranty work was done.  Then after the Night In Bethlehem event here at Grace, my wife Sharon typed, ‘this angel is hanging up her wings’.  The response, ‘no matter what it is Sharon, God will get you through’…from someone in our previous church.

Romans 8 has been described as the Christian’s declaration of freedom because of all the emphasis on what is ours to possess as part of our birthright into the family of God.  The Holy Spirit is mentioned 19x so to say that this series will revolve around His work is an understatement.  The weight that a believer can feel under a spirit of condemnation is paralyzing and we want to move to greater heights of freedom in this journey of life in the Spirit.  It is high time for a God inspired status update!

I have from time to time struggled with depression and self-condemnation.  There have been times in my life as a pastor that I have doubted my calling, grieved over watching some of my elders in previous ministries walk away from the church.  It has broken my heart and in my spirit I doubted I had anything more to give.  It is always easier to take a punch from someone outside your family, but when it comes from the inside, it can really spin you into quite a downward spiral. 

There is one thing that I know and that is how powerful the truths of Romans 8 unleashed can be in your life and can meet you in your darkest moments, lift you out a deep pit of depression and reorient you in times of confusion.

Let’s look at a quick outline: 

• In Romans 1-3 we see the downward spiral of man and just how sinful, rebellious and unrighteous we truly are.

• In Romans 4-5 we read that the only justification for our sin is faith in Christ.

We read that only through the cross of Christ can we be justified and fully forgiven of our sin.

We find that life can only be found in and through Jesus Christ.

·         Romans 6 – a great picture of our baptism into Christ  and then the wheels come off in Romans 7 with this incredible inner battle going on in Paul’s spirit.

 I know a lot of Christians who definitely stuck right here in chapter 7 because of the back and forth battle they face and then we find Paul’s battle cry in  Romans 7:24

O wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?   There is this sinking feeling that we are never going to get out of this mess; however we haven’t heard the closing arguments; all the evidence is not in.

What are the closing arguments on your life and your walk with God?

Understand that Satan is the Prosecution

Revelation 12:10

Then I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, “Now salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of His Christ have come, for the accuser of our brethren, who accused them before our God day and night, has been cast down.”

• He is the Prosecutor, proclaiming that you are guilty, a loser, a nobody, who will never amount to anything!

Jesus Christ, is our Defense

Hebrews 7:25

Therefore He is also able to save to the uttermost those who come to God through Him, since He always lives to make intercession for them.

He is making intercession for us and the Judge is God; Psalms calls Him the Righteous Judge

In Romans 8:1-4, we will discover the elements to our renewed STATUS that is free of fear, free of condemnation and free of man- made expectations:

1. A status update based on the Testimony of Witnesses
2. Physical Evidence that proves our status
3. Past Case Decisions that reinforce our status.

I. The Testimony of Witnesses

Romans 8:1a

There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus

• “Therefore” means that Paul is showing us that all that we have learned about sin and our condemnation up to now and now it is time to address that head on.

There is an incredible perspective change as Romans 7 end with  “O wretched man that I am!”

 And chapter 8 where he declares “there is no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.”

·         What has happened between 7:24 and 8:1?

I think Paul had this incredible wake-up call to what it means practically to be in Christ.  No condemnation, not even a little bit of condemnation!  Condemnation in the Greek means “to pass judgment, to accuse, to know something against someone.”

No matter how intensely you now feel that struggle against sin within; no matter how you may have failed in that struggle in the past; and no matter how you may fail in the future; if you are in Christ, there is therefore now - emphatically - "no condemnation"

Paul came to see that he was righteous before God.  He realized that because of the cross, the righteousness of Christ was imputed to his account.  We were sold likes slaves into sin because of our sin nature and the actions of our life that followed suit. Its grip on us was like chains that we couldn’t break. But now Christ steps in and becomes our sin offering and takes it all upon Himself on the cross.

 Christ bore all of our sins and iniquities on the cross.  But Satan will tell us that we are condemned, so that we will give up and quit or that our plight is hopeless or that there is no hope of ever doing it right.

This is the very reason why we need the witness of the  Word, of Christ and the Spirit to take the stand and testify.

  

Status Update # 1  No Fear of Condemnation

How can I really get to the place where I do not live in fear of my enemies’ onslaught and the darts that are thrown at me by well- meaning people!

Take every thought captive with the Bible.

2 Corinthians 10:3-5

For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. 4 For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, 5 casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.

The moment that a thought enters your mind, you are on the threshold of a decision.  Do I accept and dwell on this thought or do I reduce it to ashes.  It is the firm realization that it has no place in my mind and heart.

2.    Jesus Himself

Romans 8:37-39

Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. 38 For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, 39 nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

We are more than conquerors, and we can overcome our constant desire to go back to our old lives and our old sins, beating ourselves up over it.  We need to be overwhelmed and enveloped by His love.

3.    The Holy Spirit

1 John 5:4-6

For whatever is born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world--our faith. 5 Who is he who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? 6 This is He who came be water and blood – Jesus Christ; not only by water, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who bears witness, because the Spirit is truth.

This is the proof that you are no longer condemned.

      We must be filled with the Holy Spirit and begin to experience His power in our lives as we see in Galatians 5; Ephesians 5.  We need to really come to experience the joy of the Lord and worship music is a powerful way to change our mindset, our attitude.  I think all too often its just easy to turn on the radio and listen to whatever.  If you are riding with my son Jordan, you’ll listen to 20 stations in the 10 minutes that it takes to get him to work!  Then question I bring it back to is how is you diet.  This is the time of year where we make resolutions to lose weight, but what about the diet of music that is filling our hearts.  We need to SOAK in His presence.  One CD I just purchased was Awakening – the Passion series and just lying down, listening and absorbing its truth is one way that the HS can speak to me. Another way is stillness and again we make resolutions to spend more time with God and that is important.  The Bible affirms us to make every effort to go by direct effort to the place where we could never go by effort alone.  That is the place where we hear from the Lord and the Spirit of God testifies with our spirit.

II. Physical Evidence that proves our status!

Romans 8:1

There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.

As with all good mysteries, there is a dead body, a rotting corpse, the old man of our flesh.

 Our old man is dead. He was guilty, but I’m a new man.

2 Corinthians 5:17

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

• Yes, your old life of addictions and lust has been taken away by Christ.

Romans 6:6-9

knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him, that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves of sin. 7 For he who has died has been freed from sin. 8 Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with Him, 9 knowing that Christ, having been raised from the dead, dies no more. Death no longer has dominion over Him.

The old man is dead, and you are a new creature walking in newness of life.  It was the old man that was dominated by sinful actions and decisions, habits that were self-destructive. 

We’ve also been set free from the dead man of religiosity and religious score card keeping.  It isn’t about all that we do to somehow impress others and make God proud.

Romans 7:6

But now we have been delivered from the law, having died to what we were held by, so that we should serve in the newness of the Spirit and not in the oldness of the letter.

The new way of the Spirit means that it shouldn’t become systemized to the point that we take all the room for the Spirit to move out of our walk with the Lord.  We need to change our perspective from time to time and meet God in new ways.

III. Past Case Decisions that reinforce our status

• Ex. “Case decisions” means that when a case has made itself through the appeals process and makes itself all the way to the Supreme Court, whether they would decide to hear it or not, if they say we will hear this case, they look at previous decisions; precedents.

Romans 8:1-2

For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.

The law cannot lay any claim on you.   It has no jurisdiction over you and you have moved into a completely new sphere of influence and control.

The law cannot condemn you.  Why?  It is because Christ has already suffered that condemnation for you on the cross.  There is no saving ability in the law.  It’s only function is to make us so aware of our need for freedom.

Here is what the law can do: make sin obvious in its offence (Rom. 7:7, 13; 5:20)
It is much the same way when we see the blue and red lights flashing behind us and we know that we’ve been busted for a speeding ticket!

The law brings about wrath, God’s righteous indignation. (Rom. 4:15), it brings about death (2 Cor. 3:7-9), it is made powerful through the strength of sin (1 Cor. 15:56), (5)it brings with it a curse (Gal. 3:10-13), the law identifies sin as "transgression" (Gal. 3:19), it provides the knowledge of sin (Rom. 3:20), and hopefully it becomes the tutor that brings us to Christ (Gal. 3:24).
But as good and powerful as it is, there are things that the law cannot do for us: it will never enable us to live by faith (Gal. 3:12), it cannot justify us in the sight of God (Rom. 3:20), and it cannot give us life (Gal. 3:21). The law cannot do these things because we are weak. The principle of sin that operates in our flesh makes it impossible for the law to do these things in us. Therefore, the good and powerful law of God, in and of itself, cannot bring about in us anything but sin and death.

 The judge has been satisfied because of the work of Christ on the cross.  Christ has gone to the trial for you. He has taken all the sins of your past life, all the unrighteousness of your past, and it has been nailed to the cross.  It is finished, it is totally complete and we stand in His righteousness alone.  We now have a new law: it is the grace and freedom of love. It should never be ‘because you have to, but because you want to.’

Do you need some status updates!

• Satan is disarmed.

• Satan has no jurisdiction over your life.

• You are cleansed and declared innocent.

• You are forgiven and innocent for the past, present, and future.

If you are not where you want to be:

Repent! Turn from listening to the lies of Satan, who has been telling you that you can never change or do any different.  Do some serious damage to the sloth of your old life.

If you’ve been trying to make it happen all on your own, then repent and stop trying to live it in your own strength.

Finish The Statement -

I have been set free in Christ to _________________________

·         live the adventure of knowing Him more

·         never to doubt my salvation

·         experience the overcoming power of the Holy Spirit