You Are Not in Flesh But in the Spirit

Introduction

I appreciate Scott’s fine work this morning in leading and your fine job in singing these songs. In some ways, the song just did the sermon for us, which is why I asked Scott to lead that song. It’s tied up in the wording of Romans chapter eight and verse eleven, which we’ll get to here in just a few moments. We’re going to begin reading in verse one. I’m going to read the first part of Romans chapter eight, and then spend some time talking about what Paul’s doing here in this part of the letter. If you’ll begin reading with me in Romans chapter eight and verse one. Romans eight and verse one. It says, There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the spirit. 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 set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the spirit is life and peace.

For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law. Indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. You, however, are not in the flesh, but in the spirit. If in fact the spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your immortal bodies through his spirit who dwells in you. So then, brothers, we are debtors not to the flesh to live according to the flesh, for if you live according to the flesh, you will die.

But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry. Abba, Father. The Spirit Himself bears witness with our Spirit that we are children of God. And if children, then heirs of God, and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we might also be glorified with him. Up to this point in the letter, Paul has made quite a few arguments, and so I want to kind of trace through those quickly to give us an idea of what he’s doing here in the text.

And as always, if we understand what’s going on before, we’re going to understand what’s happening in the text way better. And there’s a lot of language here that sometimes makes us a little nervous. In fact, the word spirit is used twenty-one times in Romans chapter eight. It’s used five times in Romans 1 through 7, and it’s used eight times in Romans 9 through 16. And so Paul’s wanting us to understand something here about the Spirit. And it would be a mistake to ignore the idea of the Spirit and what’s going on here in the text in Romans chapter 8. However, the place to begin with this is to really see this within the context of everything that’s gone on in the story so far. And that is that the idea or the proposition that the just shall live by faith, that God’s righteousness is revealed through the gospel, and the gospel is the power of God to salvation to everyone who believes, and it’s those who have faith in Jesus Christ who are going to be saved.

And he’s dealing with this issue with Jews and Gentiles and Jews thinking you had to remain in the law of Moses. And so he’s dealing with a good bit of that. But where he starts with this argument is to say that all ungodliness and all unrighteousness is going to experience the revelation of God’s wrath. So God’s righteousness is going to be revealed, but also God’s wrath is going to be revealed. Chapter 1 and verse 18. And he begins kind of with this broad spectrum, and then he’s going to narrow it down. And as he gets toward the middle of the sections we’ve been looking at, he’s going to start from a narrow place and go broad. It’s kind of a rhetorical style he uses. And so he starts very broadly.

Paganism is empty, it’s worthless. It does nothing for you. It’s vile, it’s wicked, it’s anti-God. And so God is going to judge the unrighteous and the pagan world. But also the Jews are going to be judged as lawbreakers. They also are unrighteous. There are none who are righteous, he talks about in chapter 3. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And now he’s going to kind of narrow this in and say, Abraham, he was he was justified by faith, not in keeping the law. He was before the law. He was justified, and it was accounted to him as righteousness before circumcision, not after. And so he gets very narrow with this idea of Abraham, and then those who are in Abraham. He is the father of faith to all, those who are in the law, who are outside of the law.

And then chapter 5, it is the justification by faith that brings peace with God. This is those who are in Christ who experience peace with God in their relationship. There’s no longer hostility between those who are in Christ and those with those who are in Christ with God. Now he’s going to get real specific again with this idea of Adam and Christ. Adam is the first man and Christ is the second. And so Adam brought in death. He brought in sin. And Christ, on the other hand, is the second man, this second created this second humanity, we could say, he ushers in grace and life. And that is that contrast at the end of chapter 5. And let me just stop here and say almost everything that we’re doing from chapter 5 through where we’re going to be this morning relates to the end of chapter 5.

Everything in chapter 6, 7, and 8 connects to this the dichotomy of Adam and Christ at the end of chapter 5. He’s setting all of this up based on that picture and the idea that you have Adam who is the first man, and you have Christ who is the second. You have the Adam humanity and you have the Christ humanity. And you’re going from one to the other, right? Sin dominates and reigns, and death dominates and reigns in Adam. And grace and life reign and dominate and rule in Christ. And from there, he sets up the rest of everything he’s going to do through the end of chapter 8. Right? So in chapter 6, those who are in Christ, they have a new life. They died with Christ, and they’re no longer slaves of sin.

1. The Contrast Is the Point: No Condemnation

They’re resurrected to newness of life. And now as we move into chapter 8, comparing this and contrasting it, which we’ll do a little bit here in a few minutes, to the end of chapter 7, those who are in Christ are now in the Spirit. They live in the Spirit and they are no longer in the flesh. And because of that, they have victory through Jesus Christ, and they are no longer controlled by sin. Alright, so with all of that in mind, I really just want to go through this text and talk about really some simple points. These are things that are not complicated. The first of those is really just the very first line. Is that when we compare what’s happening here in chapter 8 and verse 1 with what preceded it, the contrast is the point.

Right? The end of chapter 7 is this terrible picture of humanity that has no direction, that has no hope. They want to do the right thing, but they don’t know how. They continue living in sin and they can’t find their way out of it. And even though in their mind they want to do the will of God, they continue on in the flesh, living in sin, being ruled by sin, under the bondage of sin. So, verse 14, he says, I am of the flesh, sold under sin. He’s still bound to sin. He’s still enslaved by sin. And man, in and of himself cannot get himself out of that slavery. That’s what slavery is. You can’t get yourself out of it. Right? It’s it’s like the Israelites in Egypt, right?

They were enslaved in Egypt, and there’s a whole lot of Exodus imagery going on in this whole section of Romans 6 through 8. but they’re in they’re enslaved in Egypt. You know, the Israelites couldn’t say, okay, let’s just leave now. You know, we’re tired of this slavery, we don’t like doing the things the Egyptians said. We would rather do something else, but we keep having to do what they want us to do. Let’s just leave. You know, that’s not gonna work. Right, because when you are enslaved, you can’t do that. Like that’s the whole point, right? So that’s the image that Paul wants us to get about slavery to sin. If we could get ourselves out of sin of ourselves and by ourselves, we wouldn’t need Jesus.

If we could do this alone, there would be no problem. And we could say, no longer am I gonna be enslaved to sin, I’m gonna leave that, and I’m gonna do something else. But the whole argument Paul’s making is you can’t do that. That’s the end of chapter 7. Right? The picture of Adam and the picture of Israel in which Paul includes himself, I think, previous to being in Christ, he’s in this situation outside of Christ in which he is enslaved to sin. And it didn’t matter how much he wanted to do right and how much he wanted to follow the Ten Commandments and the laws and all of that, he still betrayed himself and did things he didn’t want to do. This is the nature of what humanity was like in Adam.

And so the contrast is that now there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. The man in chapter 7 stands condemned. He’s condemned in his sin, and there’s no answer. Sin rules over him. He’s bound to sin. That’s the picture at the first part of chapter 7 when he talks about marriage. He’s assuring them they’ve died to the law, and so now they can be bound to Christ. Before that happened, they were bound to the law. And the law only increased sin. It only made it more evident that they were sinners. That’s the whole point Paul’s making. And it’s not because the law was bad, the law’s good, the law is spiritual. But they’re tied up in flesh, the corruptible, sinful humanity, and so therefore they cannot keep the law.

They were unable to do that. That’s the very point that Paul’s making at the end of chapter 7. And so just to reinforce that you can go back and listen to this sermon if you want to. Chapter 7 is not talking about life in Christ. It’s not talking about the life of a Christian. It’s not talking about a Christian struggle with sin. Paul is aware that Christians struggle with sin. And the point he makes there is you have an advocate, right? You can go to Christ. He is the mediator, is in his words in Colossians chapter 2. And when you realize you’re in the wrong, you turn to Christ. And chapter 7, when you realize you’re in the wrong, you turn to law and it just exposes how sinful you actually are.

There’s no answer. The law does not die for you. The law does not mediate for you. The law does not advocate for you. And so there is no answer in the law. The answer is in Christ’s Jesus. And so the point here, and this huge contrast is now there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. The law of the spirit of life has set you free in Christ. And this phrase in Christ is really important. It’s within this sphere or within this realm. When we are in Christ, all kinds of good things happen. When we are not in Christ, those good things do not happen. So, chapter 7, laid against chapter 8. Chapter 7, you are not in Christ. You’re outside of Christ.

Chapter 8, you were in Christ. And when you were in Christ, you are set free from the bondage of sin. You’re set free from slavery. Right? Again, it’s like the Israelites when God comes in with Moses and they are released from the slavery to Egypt and they’re brought out. All of that happening by the power of God, and they’re led by the Spirit with a cloud by day and a fire by night. There’s a lot of imagery going on here with the Exodus story. And so very much what Paul’s doing here is you are part of the Exodus story. You were enslaved to sin, and now you are being freed from that, and now you’re going to follow the things of God. Why would you turn back to slavery?

Right? I mean, that’s where he’s going to go toward the end of our reading. He didn’t free you to then for you to turn back and go be a slave again. That doesn’t make any sense.

2. Christ Condemned Sin in the Flesh

That’s the ultimate point of where we’re going here. Well, why is there no condemnation in Christ Jesus? Paul offers just a short little segment here to explain that. There’s a whole lot more that could be unpacked from this idea. And of course, we could go all through the Old Testament and talk about sacrifice and do all of that and talk about how Christ made all of this work because of his perfection. But here’s what Paul has to say about this. God has done what the law we can by the flesh could not do by sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh. So he came in the likeness of Adam, the first human, but he was not sinful, right? And so rather than sin condemning those in Christ condemns sin in the flesh.

He is the answer. Now, like I said, there’s a whole lot more that can be said about all of that, but this is just Paul’s short point here. Rather than sin condemning me, and rather than sin condemning you, Christ condemned sin. Right? Christ condemns sin in the flesh. In the flesh is an important reference there. And as I’ve talked about before, the idea of being in the flesh doesn’t just mean the body. Right? And this is sort of important to everything we’re going to do with this idea of spirit and flesh here in a few minutes. The flesh is the corruptible, sinful nature of man. That’s how Paul uses that phrase, flesh. He uses the word soma, body, to talk about the physical body. And there’s certainly some overlap there at times depending on the context, but this is generally the way in which Paul uses these terms.

And so when, for example, in 1 Corinthians 15 it says flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven, he’s just talked about there being a body. There’s going to be a body. We’re going to be resurrected in a bodily form. But when flesh and blood cannot, this is the corruptible, sinful human nature, that’s not going to inherit the kingdom of heaven. Right? So there’s a difference that Paul is making, a distinction between the idea of flesh, Sarks, what is corrupted and evil, and this is in chapter 7, right? I am of the flesh, sold under sin, and what he’s going to talk about in some ways as the body, the physical nature. And the reason I point that out is because in our modern thinking, sometimes we have this idea of like flesh and spirit, this contrast we’re going to make here that like the flesh is like material things.

It’s all the material things around us. And the spiritual or the spirit is all the non-material things. And as best I can this morning, I want us to strike that concept from our mind because that’s not what it’s about at all. Paul very much cares about the body. He very much cares about the physical things of the world. In fact, the second part of Romans 8, which we’re not going to get to this morning, talks all about the redemption of creation, right? The whole creation is going to be redeemed, not just humanity. So he cares about physical things.

He cares about things like being gentle and being kind, actions and activities that involve the body. Those are fruits of the spirit. And similarly, he compare he thinks the things of the mind on the fleshly side are important. Like, for example, he mentions rivalries, jealousy, pride. All those things are works of the flesh. They’re not physical things we do, they’re things that happen often in the brain. So just understand spirit and flesh is not the comparison of material and non-material. It’s more about orientation. It’s more about the direction of our life and the way that we think, which he’s going to get to here in the latter part of this of the second, the first half of Romans chapter 8. But I want us to understand what he’s trying to get us to see here in the first part of chapter 8, is that there is assurance and hope and peace of mind for those who are in Christ.

Those of you this morning who are here who are in Christ Jesus, you have every reason to be assured of your salvation. You have every reason to have hope of eternal life. And when I say hope, I don’t mean like wish. Like I just hope this happens, kind of our idiomatic way of saying this. No, like hope is this idea that you expect this to happen because of the promises of God. We talked last week about 1 John, and he tells us this is the promise he has made to us, eternal life. It’s a promise. It’s something that God guarantees. And if you are in Christ, if you’re in the sphere, if you’re in the realm of Christ and you’ve left the realm of sin and death, you’re in a really good place.

You’re in a place in which there is no condemnation. Right? And that’s not because Paul thinks you’ve never sinned, you know, or that I’ve never done anything wrong. That’s that’s not the point. He’s well aware that all of us have. In fact, he made that whole point back in chapter 3. But what matters is we go down to the idea of righteousness, right? This has been the whole point he’s been making from the very beginning. The just or the righteous shall live by faith. And so your faith in Jesus Christ puts you in a position where you are justified. You are made right. You were declared innocent or right in God’s eyes. And as such, not because you’ve never sinned or you’ve never done anything wrong, but because you are in Christ, you’re within his sphere or within his realm, and he claims you as his, now there is no condemnation.

3. Setting the Mind on the Things of the Spirit

This is the idea that Paul’s getting at here in Romans chapter 8, in the first four verses, especially. As we move on to the next section, though, he has something to say about mindset. This is something I actually had missed in the past, I guess as I read through this. There’s so much in Romans chapter 8. It’s easy to miss some really important things, I think, as you read, especially if you read quickly. But as I read through this over and over again, I just kept coming back to his focus here in this section on setting the mind or mindset. It’s kind of an interesting thought. And Paul seems to have no trouble. We will see this throughout the rest of the sermon this morning. He has no trouble with combining our actions, our mentality, with the actions of the Spirit and the outworking of the Spirit.

He sees no conflict in that. Right? The two can work together just fine. And he does this quite frequently. He does it in Philippians, he does it here, he does it in Galatians. And so one of the things I think we have to understand here again, if we could set our mind, if we could be outside of Christ, and we could set our mind on spiritual things, and everything would be okay, then we would do that. But we can’t, right? We’ve already established that. You can’t do it. I can’t do this myself. Outside of Christ, I can’t say, well, I’m going to be spiritual and good and I’m going to keep the will of God, right? The flesh cannot please God. There’s something that’s happening here.

There’s something that is inspired or empowered by the Spirit, something we didn’t have before. And there’s so many things about the Spirit that I do not understand and don’t intend to try to get into this morning. But what I do know is what the text says. And that is the Spirit is in me and I am in the Spirit. And the Spirit is in you, and you are in the Spirit. I don’t think this has some sort of literal meaning, like he is literally abiding within my soma, my body, and that somehow I’m literally abiding somehow within Christ. And so people kind of go down all these roads where they get tripped up and obsessed with some of these ideas, and I’m just not interested in that at all.

This is about orientation and what Paul says right here mindset. The way we set our mind. But it’s inevitable that we have to realize I cannot set my mind the way God wants me to set my mind if I’m in Adam. If I’m still living a life that’s outside of Christ.

There’s something that happens there that now allows me to set my mind on the right things. Right? Some of this, I think, is understanding the hope that we have, understanding the assurance, understanding the confidence that we can actually be pleasing to God. There’s two references here that I think are super important, understanding mindset and understanding being in the spirit and the spirit being in me. The first of those is he says, for the mind, this is verse 7, for the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law. Sometimes in our modern religion, people get really caught up in this idea that being in Christ means you don’t have to follow law. You know, like you just there’s Jesus and He’s the answer, and there’s nothing else.

And of course, I certainly believe that if we look to Jesus, we’re going to find all sorts of answers, and he legislates from his own body, Ephesians 4 tells us he is truth. But that’s that meaning itself means we have to submit to it. Right? I mean, there’s something to submit to, there is something to keep. And Paul’s argument in the book of Romans is not law or not law. That’s not what he’s really doing. He’s dealing with the idea of the Judaic law, the law of Moses, and what gives you access to life. What gives you access to God’s grace? What gives you justification? And justification was not going to come through the law of Moses. It comes within the sphere of Christ, within the realm of being in Christ.

That’s his argument. But when you are in the realm of Christ, you submit to Christ.

Like I’m not a citizen of Germany. I have no reason to follow any of their rules or any of their laws because I don’t live there. I don’t dwell there. I am a citizen of the United States, though. I’m in within this sphere, I’m within this realm of control. And I do have obligation. If I’m going to live here, I’ve got to do things the way our country has laid them out.

Now there’s all sorts of caveats and disclaimers, and I completely understand, but that’s the image though is I live here. I dwell here, and I don’t live in Germany or Switzerland or somewhere else. I don’t have to follow their rules. But I do have to follow the rules here. This is where this is where I live. And what Paul’s saying here is you’ve left this tyrannical master sin, and you’ve left Adam, you’ve left the reign of sin and death, and now you’ve entered the reign of grace and life, and you submit. When you set your mind on the things of the Spirit, you will submit to God’s law. When you don’t, when your mind is set on the things of the flesh, you can’t. You cannot submit to God’s law.

It’s not even going to happen. Right? So if you think you’re going to follow, speaking to the Jews back then, if you think you’re going to follow the Judaic law and somehow you’re going to submit to God and please God, that’s not going to happen. That’s the point he’s making. But ultimately, anything outside of Christ, submitting to that is not going to please God or honor him, and it’s not going to submit to his will. The second part of these, the first is he certainly says we need to submit to God’s law. If we’re within the sphere of Christ, we will submit to God’s law if our mind is set on the spirit. So being in the spirit is not somehow opposed to law, right?

First point. The second point here is those who are in the flesh cannot please God. The opposite of that is if I’m in the spirit, I can please God. So again, some kind of pseudo-scholarly sort of theology that pops up a lot around us, this idea like, oh, we just can’t ever please God. You know, God, he’ll never be happy with us, and we can never be worthy, and all these kinds of things. No, you can’t. Right? I mean, this is Paul’s point. If you live according to the Spirit and not according to the flesh, you can please God. And you will submit to his laws. Now, again, Paul’s he’s under no delusion that we’re gonna live a perfect life and never make mistakes. That’s not the point at all.

But it is the orientation, it’s the direction, it’s the habits we create, it’s the things that we do now empowered and inspired by the spirit in Jesus Christ, through which we can live this way. And when we do live this way, we can submit to God’s law, we can please God, we can do all of that. And so idea is that, well, we just can never be holy. I mean, he calls us to be holy. Is God calling us the things we can’t do? That we can never be holy, or we can’t keep God’s law, or we can’t really ever please God. That’s all rubbish. None of that is true. Paul says, a life living according to the Spirit, with a mind set on the Spirit, submits to God’s law, it pleases him.

Right? He says this multiple places in Ephesians chapter 5 and verse 10. We’re supposed to have understanding. We’re supposed to discern what is pleasing to the Lord and then walk as children of light. So it’s not just here that he says these kind of things, it’s other places as well. Now we’ve left that past life of Adam. That is the life where you can’t please him, and there’s no hope, and you can’t ever be holy and all that. Now, this is a life in Christ where there is justification, there’s righteousness. We can submit to the will of God, we can please him. That’s the whole point. And we should want to, understanding the things that he’s done for us. And how he has empowered us through his spirit.

However, that works, I don’t know. But it says that’s what happens. That I can now set my mind on things of the Spirit, and I can submit to his will, and I can please him. I kind of think part of this, I was trying to think of a way to explain it. I just don’t know if I can explain it fully. But it sort of works in my mind. You know, like there’s times we maybe give an award to somebody. One of the things I don’t talk about FC a lot, but I’ll talk about it for just a minute. When I was you know, Florida College, they have a lectureship, and they’ll do the Friend of Youth Award. Some of you have maybe seen this.

It’s one of my favorite things that happens. Some of the lectures are good, but really I think this is one of the great things that takes place. I’m serious. I mean, it’s just reality. But you know, they spend sometimes 10 minutes talking all about, usually it’s a couple on all the things they’ve done, and it’s stuff that’s just you would never even. It’s like they’re helping people adopt babies and they’re getting people off the streets who are addicted to drugs, and they’re doing all sorts of stuff, and you’re like, Man, I never knew this about these people. You know, I guess they could just get up and be like, all right, everybody, we just want to encourage everyone to be good and help people. All right, have a good night.

You know, they could just like give some rules and list some things for us, and we can say, yeah, you know, we agree with that, and then what we’ll do is we’ll go out, and the times we don’t do that, we’ll be like, oh man, I was supposed to be good and help people. You know, it’s just kind of like recognizing the fact when we don’t do it. But it’s amazing, and it’s like sort of an emotional experience. A lot of times I know these people and they talk all about them and all the things they’ve done. You don’t know, and you’re like, man, I want to be like that. And I think that’s sort of the idea here when we’re recreated after the image of Christ in righteousness and holiness, it’s not just like, okay, here’s a bullet point of rules, and so I’m gonna carry these around and you know, keep these rules.

No, I’m I’m looking at the one who is the image of the Father, the one who declares him. And I see the things he did and the way he lived, and I want to be more like Jesus. That’s a much more empowering thought than just having a list of things. Right? Like we’re following after someone. There’s an image that we can work to conform to. Do not be conformed to the world. We’re stealing again from Romans 12, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Right? We’re looking to the one who is the author and the finisher of our faith. We’re not just looking at a bunch of rules. We’re looking at him. He’s the answer. And in him there’s no condemnation. And so in him there are answers and there is hope and there is life rather than death.

And so now we can be inspired to focus our minds on the things of the spirit rather than the things of the flesh. I guess I need to talk for a minute just about that idea. For years now, and you can judge me if you want. I don’t care. For years now, I have not voted in elections. It’s not because I’ll never vote, or because I think it’s wrong to vote. But it’s just a decision I made a long time ago that I didn’t want to be so caught up in all of that. You know? And you may be fine, and there may be come a time where I feel like it’s fine for me to do that. Don’t think it’s wrong. I’m just saying this is the sort of decision types of decisions.

Right? Like to me, it’s it’s frustrating to get caught up in the things of the world and the things of the flesh. I see the corruption of humanity and the decisions that are made, and I get all tied up and wrapped up in that, and I feel like that’s going to be the answer, and I’m gonna go find this guy and he’s gonna save us, or this policy, or whatever. Right? That’s thinking in the flesh. That’s thinking the flesh is gonna solve things. Now, again, don’t misunderstand me. It’s fine to vote, it’s fine to agree with certain things and support those. So I’m not saying you shouldn’t do that. But what I am saying is we make decisions, each of us, to try to help us not set our mind on the things in the flesh, to set our minds on the things of the spirit, right?

The things that actually matter. So for me, that’s one decision I’ve made. You’ve probably made many others, and that’s fine. But again, this is not material, non-material. It’s not like I’m never going to think about money again. No, like you have a job and you have a family to take care of. You’re going to think about taking care of those things. And you got to take care of kids and you’ve got to eat and you’ve got to get food. So the material things, those are not bad. The body itself is not bad. The physical body is not bad and evil. And there’s been a lot of teaching over the years with that incorrect idea or mindset. Sometimes based on a misunderstanding of this idea of flesh and spirit.

4. Guided and Led by the Spirit in Action

The flesh is the corruptible. It is that which is decrepit. It is that which follows Adam and the life of sin and points our minds that direction. The spirit is that which follows after, is oriented after the things of God and the things of Christ Jesus. And it’s where I am going to go in the direction that God wants me to go. It’s not that I just abandon all material things in life. That’s not what God is calling us to. And those who are in Christ not only have the spirit empowered focus, but they also are guided and led by the spirit in action. It says it right here in the text. I can’t explain it to you. I don’t know how it all works. I do know that it fits the Exodus imagery where they’re following this cloud by day and the fire by night, and that God’s giving them direction, and then they still have to do things.

You know, it’s not that God just does it all and they don’t do anything. You know, there’s kind of a mutuality there that has to happen. God has given us his plan. He has sent his son, he’s made all these things work, and it’s on us to then follow his lead. And that’s really all that’s going on here. Again, there’s so much, you know, is the spirit telling me things and talking to me, and all. There’s all this talk in the religious world. I don’t think it has anything to do to do with any of that. Right? The idea of being led here, it’s just being brought or being carried. Right? You’re being brought along by the Spirit. The things the Spirit has done. Some of them are direct actions of the Spirit.

For example, there’s work that the Spirit does that I’m not, I’m not personally involved in, neither are you. For example, I will not have anything to do with giving my mortal body life. Right? The Spirit does that. And this is what Paul says about that. If the Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, if you’re in the sphere of Christ and you have the Spirit and the Spirit is in you and you are in the Spirit, the one who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through or by means of his spirit who dwells in you. It’s called an instrumental genitive. There’s instrumental dativs to follow it here in the next section. All that means is it’s the means by which something happens.

Right? So I don’t raise myself. Like, that’s not going to happen. And neither do you. This is going to happen by the power of the Spirit. It’s going to happen through the Spirit. By means of the Spirit, the same power that rose Jesus from the dead is also going to give life to my mortal body. The Spirit’s going to do that. It’s going to be through him. But then there’s things where they sort of like interact together. And maybe you caught it, maybe you didn’t. In verse 13, for if you live according to the flesh, you will die. But if by the spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. Now look, if I could have put to death the deeds of the body outside of Christ, I would have done it.

5. The Spirit Confirms Our Sonship

So would you. But we already established you can’t. Right? And the means by which this happens, Paul says very clearly, is by the Spirit. Right? It’s something that has changed. It’s an orientation that is new, a mindset that is different, that now can happen and exist within the realm and the sphere of Christ by which I can put to death and I should put to death the deeds of the body. And he says, we’re led by the Spirit. And there’s this neat part of this that I think deserves some focus and attention. And that is that the Spirit confirms our sonship. You know, analogies, metaphors can only go so far. Paul kind of works this slavery metaphor through most of this section. And he’s doing that to kind of express the idea of freedom, right?

We’re enslaved to sin, then we are freed from sin by Christ. Now we’re slaves of God. But just like the trespass is not like the free gift at the end of chapter 5. The free gift is so much greater. You know, the slavery to sin, that is slavery. That is what we ought to imagine. It’s tyrannical, it’s evil, it’s wicked. Slavery to God also, he says here, to kind of break the metaphor, involves sonship. It’s so much more. It’s so much greater. The Spirit Himself bears witness with our Spirit, right? So God’s Spirit, with my Spirit, your Spirit, it testifies that we are his children. Right? There’s assurance, there’s confidence there. We are within the sphere of Christ, and the Spirit is saying, yes, they’re they’re ours.

They belong to us. Right? And they’re children of God. We are sons, we are children, and if we are children, we also share in the glory and the inheritance of our Father. So I hope you can see how Paul has kind of worked this whole path to get from the point of hopelessness and distress outside of Christ to now show how when you can leave Adam and you can come into Christ, you can have no condemnation. You can reset your mind. You can set your mind on the things of the Spirit, and that the Spirit will testify that you are His and you become children of God. And as children of God, now you have glory and inheritance. There’s no glory in slavery to sin. The only thing we inherit when we’re slaves of sin is death.

That’s the wages of sin. But God wants to gift us freely eternal life if we are his. And so this idea of identity, I think is key in what Paul’s trying to accomplish here in the first part of Romans chapter 8. That God says, You’re mine. We are adopted. Adoption was a pretty big thing in the ancient world. It’s a big thing now. But in the ancient world, it involved the idea of glory, even. You know, like sometimes they would adopt someone to then become, particularly within royalty, to then become the ruler. Right? It was seen as a kind of a glorious sort of thing. Right? We even within the Roman emperors, this happened. So adoption is sort of lauded as this great thing by which now you receive blessing.

Conclusion

And so much so does God want us to understand that we are his that he says you have the spirit of adoption. He wants us. He wants to bring us, and he wants to be our Father, and he wants to be your Father. And if you are living under the rule of sin this morning, you can change that. You can change that not by your own power and your own self-will, but by dying with Christ and being resurrected in newness of life. You can have the spirit now. You are not in the flesh, he says. Those who have given their lives to Christ, you are not flesh. Now you are spirit. You are living in the spirit. You have a life that’s completely different, a life with hope and confidence and peace of not.

Can we help you this morning? Why don’t you come as we stand and we sing together?