7-13-08 “Turning Your Mind to the Right Place” Romans 8:1-11 Dr. Ben Sloan
Our scripture reading for the day: Hear the Word of the Lord:
1 There is therefore
now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus,[a]
who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.
2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has
made me free from the law of sin and death. 3 For what
the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by
sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He
condemned sin in the flesh, 4 that the righteous
requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the
flesh but according to the Spirit. 5 For those who live
according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those
who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.
6 For to be carnally minded is death, but to be
spiritually minded is life and peace. 7 Because
the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law
of God, nor indeed can be. 8 So then, those who are in
the flesh cannot please God.
9 But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if
indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit
of Christ, he is not His. 10 And if Christ is in
you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life
because of righteousness. 11 But if the Spirit of Him
who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead
will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.
(NKJV)
A few years ago when we were ending vacation we received a call from the police. A teenage friend of my daughter’s and a church member had gotten in a wreck and was taken to the hospital. He would be okay. He had hit the only palm tree near the road at Debordieu Beach because he was reaching to change a CD and became distracted from driving. An international study found that one in five accidents are caused by distracted drivers. The NHSTA found that 20-30% of all rear end collisions are caused by the distraction of people talking on the cell phone while driving-
When you are doing something important, you need to focus, don’t you? Life is important. Paul says we should keep our focus on the Spirit of God. We are so easily distracted these days.
Henry Ford said, “a weakness of all human beings is trying to do too many things at once. That scatters effort and destroys direction.” This passage is about focusing our minds on the Spirit and not on the flesh.
I. THE MIND ON THE FLESH- What does Paul mean when he talks about the flesh? Paul is contrasting two things here the flesh (sarx) and the spirit (pneuma). The flesh is translated in the NIV and TNIV as “sinful nature” The word “sarx” or flesh is found nine times in these 11 verses, and “pneuma” or spirit is found nine times as well. Paul is clearly trying to contrast these two things. The life of the flesh is easily distracting because it is so complex and has so many options. We are called to "set our minds" on the Spirit and not on the flesh. "Flesh" here does not mean physical. Paul is not trying to contrast the physical with the spiritual. In fact he says that "you are not in the flesh." This obviously doesn't mean they don't have skin. Let's look at some nuances of what Paul meant by flesh.
A) Flesh involves the temporary. There are millions of people (unfortunately including many church goers) who are consumed with the here and now. It is easy to do so because we can see life all around us- we know we are here. We are not too sure about what is to come. These are people who are consumed with money, greed, sexual immorality, temporary pleasures. There was a philosophical group in Greece who epitomized this idea- they were the Epicureans. They purposefully didn’t think about God. There motto was basically “eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we may die.” Paul was very familiar with this philosophy as it originated near his home town centuries before his birth. Of course, the problem here is that seeing the pursuit of happiness as the pursuit of selfishness is shallow, meaningless, and takes away a reason to really love others. It is a definite dead end street when there is a much more scenic road that leads us to where we are supposed to be. The Epicurean road is the road to broken human relationships, it is an ever-encircling maze that ends up circling right back to you. We can be controlled by our passion, by our ambition, by our pride, by our lusts, or we can let the Spirit lead us. We are called in this passage to not focus on the temporary. A Christian realizes that life in the flesh is full of ups and downs. Paul was able to sing in prison and say “rejoice in the Lord always.”
B) Flesh is anti-God- (vs. 7 “hostility to God” “opposite” Message) People who just want to ignore God do not realize that to ignore God means to be against God. For to ignore God ultimately means to focus on everything but God. If Microsoft founder and multi-billionaire, Bill Gates, came into the room and I focused on everything but him, not only would that be rude, it would make him and those around me believe I didn’t like him at all. It would not be healthy to focus on the unimportant things and miss the most important. It is not healthy to focus on myself and not on God. This life is a gift. It is not about us. Focus on the giver. But there are so many distractions and detours today.
There are so many options calling for our attention today in our wealthy, technologically oriented society. When I was growing up we had four TV channels- NBC, ABC, CBS and ETV. Those were four more than the radio generation had. Of course the radio generation had something that other generations didn’t have either. I counted roughly 270 cable channels. Life is more complex. There were 2.3 million web sites in 1998. There are about 7.5 million today. You cannot see everything at once. The number of distractions and things to focus on are growing. You must choose your focus. Who has the remote? Who has the mouse? You do. You have some control over what to view. Jesus said in his day wide is the way of destruction, narrow is the way of life. He could have been talking about numbers, but he also could have been talking about focus. There are lots of opportunities to focus on unimportant or semi-important things. Let’s look at what he is warning us about- the flesh.
C) Flesh means trying to do it all on your own- The Message Translation vs. 5 says, “5Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life.” There used to be a Christian saying, “Doing things in the flesh.” This meant doing things in your own power and giving yourself the credit. This would apply to doing even good things. You can be fascinated by the things that fascinate the flesh or you can be fascinated by the things that please God. If we are obsessed with our abilities, we grow resentful of God’s telling us what to do. If the focus is on us then God is not our friend that we try to please, but our enemy we try to avoid. Do you find yourself trying to avoid the things of God? In contrast to this temporary, self-serving, I’ll do-it-myself-thank-you flesh is the Spirit.
II. THE MIND ON THE SPIRIT- He is not just talking about spiritual things here (spirit with a little s) but the Spirit of God (capital S). Both the TNIV and the NRSV translate “pneuma” with a capital S. For Paul there is no spirituality apart from the Spirit (capital S) of Christ.
A) Life- Not only does Jesus give us eternal life He gives us the abundant life, a joyful life. He gives us something to sing about that is healthy, healing and great. You and I both know people who have no song in their lives. The Spirit gives us the abundant life now and the hope of the resurrection to come. The flesh gives no hope beyond the temporary.
B) Peace- The Spirit of God gives us peace. I like the old Scottish song that says, “No more a stranger but a friend and like a child at home.” There is a peace in knowing you are where you should be- that it all fits together. The shalom of God means a sense of wholeness- that you are at one with your Creator and extending peace to those around you. The flesh can never satisfy. There is no peace for the wicked. Hearts are restless til they find their rest in thee. There is a peace in knowing whose you are and who you are.
A man was looking for a perfect picture of peace. He couldn’t find one so he held a contest. Hundreds of painting came in. It came down to two. One was unveiled and it was a picture of still mirror-like waters under a soft sunset with sheep grazing beside it. Most thought this was peace. The next one was of a powerful, noisy waterfall, stormy clouds threatened a powerful storm. But under the waterfall in a crag was a small tree with a bird with her eyes closed and wings preparing to spread over her little ones. She manifested peace and won the prize. Peace is not because everything is going our way in this life. Peace is because we have found the shelter in the rock- our refuge, our strength- our God. The Spirit offers that peace with God if we will take it.
C) What the Spirit Desires- God wants to take up residence in your life. Paul said to the Corinthians- do you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. If God lives in you, it would make sense that you pay attention to Him. Many today who attend church act like God exists for them instead of that they exist for God. They want God to think on them all of the time, but they don’t want to think of God on a regular basis. We want the world to go our way or we get mad at God. Who is Lord? Are we the king of kings and Lord of lords- or is God? Many do good to try to be admired or to get people to like them. They want the world to focus on them. Where are those who will forget themselves and serve God and others out of sheer love and grace? How do you feel when others take you for granted, or cut you down, mock you or treat you like a servant instead of like someone special. They did that to Jesus. Jesus found comfort in knowing who He was and focusing on the Father. We should do the same. We are children of the King (Paul goes into that subject in the next paragraph), and our focus should be on pleasing Him. The Spirit abides in us to give us the power and energy (if we just plug into Him) to focus on Him and give our lives to Him.
III. YOU HAVE THE SPIRIT Every now and then there are people who talk about Christians without the Spirit of God in them. That is an anomaly. That would be almost like saying someone is alive physically but they can’t breathe. The Spirit of God is what makes us believers. There was a time when people talked about Carnal Christians- who didn’t really have Jesus as Lord. While we all fail and all of us give into the flesh, there is no such thing as a Christian without the Spirit.
When I was in high school there was a guy I worked with who was Pentecostal Holiness. He was trying to tell me that even though I didn’t believe I really didn’t have the Spirit because I didn’t speak in tongues. And, if I didn’t speak in tongues and have the spirit then I wasn’t really a Christian. But the Bible says whoever believes in him has eternal life. The Spirit enables us to believe. Paul says in this passage in verse 9 speaks of the spirit being in us, and we are not in the flesh.
We have a tendency to want to label people. We want to put this label- ok you’re a Christian and you are not a Christian. This is tricky business. When Jesus said, “Judge not lest ye be judged” he was talking not about using your head in discernment of morality- but about trying to label the eternal destiny of others. People try to judge another by some outward sign to make it easy. But the Spirit of God cannot be placed in a box- He is like the wind. The Spirit gives us life and grafts us into the vine of Christ giving us life. Doctors know a lot today about grafts. There are skin grafts that can take skin from another part of your body and sew it into your skin to enable your skin to live. There are bone grafts that are used in the treatment of leukemia and other diseases, where part of a bone from another person can be transferred to the sick person, and once that graft is accepted there is life. The Spirit gives us that life, that graft from God that enables us to be born anew. If we do not believe we do not have the Spirit. But if you believe, do not wonder if you have the Spirit of Christ. He Spirit of Christ has enabled you to believe, and dwells within you. The Spirit is in us, Paul says, so we do not need to focus on the flesh.
Lucius Pavaratti died this past year. When he graduated from teacher’s college he asked his father, “Shall I be a teacher or a singer?” Luciano, my father said, if you try to sit on two chairs, you will fall between them. For life, you must choose one chair.” “I chose one. It took seven years of study and frustration before I made my first professional appearance. It took another seven to reach the Metropolitan Opera. Now I think whether it’s laying bricks, writing a book—whatever we choose—we should give ourselves to it. Commitment, that’s the key- choose [and focus on] one chair.”
Seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. Let your life have a focus- and let it be focused on Him.
The Solution Is Life on God’s Terms
1With the arrival of Jesus, the Messiah, that fateful dilemma is resolved. Those who enter into Christ’s being-here-for-us no longer have to live under a continuous, low-lying black cloud. 2A new power is in operation. The Spirit of life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing you from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death.
3God went for the jugular when he sent his own Son. He didn’t deal with the problem as something remote and unimportant. In his Son, Jesus, he personally took on the human condition, entered the disordered mess of struggling humanity in order to set it right once and for all. The law code, weakened as it always was by fractured human nature, could never have done that.
The law always ended up being used as a Band-Aid on sin instead of a deep healing of it. 4And now what the law code asked for but we couldn’t deliver is accomplished as we, instead of redoubling our own efforts, simply embrace what the Spirit is doing in us.
5Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life. Those who trust God’s action in them find that God’s Spirit is in them—living and breathing God! 6Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life. 7Focusing on the self is the opposite of focusing on God. Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores God, ends up thinking more about self than God. That person ignores who God is and what he is doing. 8And God isn’t pleased at being ignored.
9But if God himself has taken up residence in your life, you can hardly be thinking more of yourself than of him. Anyone, of course, who has not welcomed this invisible but clearly present God, the Spirit of Christ, won’t know what we’re talking about. 10But for you who welcome him, in whom he dwells—even though you still experience all the limitations of sin—you yourself experience life on God’s terms. 11It stands to reason, doesn’t it, that if the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, he’ll do the same thing in you that he did in Jesus, bringing you alive to himself? When God lives and breathes in you (and he does, as surely as he did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With his Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ’s