Life in the Spirit - part 2 (Romans 8:5-13)
INTRODUCTION:
Last week we got back into Romans 8 after a break of several weeks over the Christmas and New Year’s holidays. We began looking at a passage in Romans 8 where Paul begins to teach us the doctrine of the Holy Spirit in regard to His ministry to believers. In the first four verses of our passage last Sunday Paul contrasted life in the flesh with life in the Spirit. The conclusion was that life according to the flesh with the mind set on the things of the flesh is death but life according to the Spirit with the minds set on the things of the Spirit is life and peace. Taking a deeper look at the life according to the flesh it was found that those who are in the flesh cannot please God. This is where we all began, in the flesh, and it is where we would still be if the Holy Spirit had not intervened in our lives convicting us of sin and granting us the faith to trust in Jesus Christ and the work He did on our behalf through His perfect sacrificial death, burial and resurrection. When we put our faith in Him for salvation, we are declared righteous by God the Father and the Holy Spirit takes up residence in us transforming our spirit and making it His own home.
At the end of last Sunday we had just begun to look at Paul’s description of life in the Spirit which we will finish up this morning and then we will look at the believer’s responsibility to get rid of sin in his life through the indwelling Holy Spirit. Let’s pray and then get into our passage.
SCRIPTURE:
Turn in your Bibles this morning to Romans 8:5-13, I will go ahead and read the whole passage again, but we will be looking at verses 9-13 specifically this morning. Please stand if you are able in honor of the reading of God’s Word.
Romans 8:5-13,
“For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so, and those who are in the flesh cannot please God. However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him. If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness. But 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 mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you. So then, brethren, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh— for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live.” (Romans 8:5–13, NASB95)[1]
LIFE IN THE SPIRIT (Romans 8:9-11)
Last Sunday we looked at verse 9 where Paul gives us a test to see if we are in the Spirit or in the flesh. He says the way that we can know is if the Holy Spirit dwells in us, if He does there will be evidence, your life will be transformed, your mind will be set on the things of the Spirit, you will have a desire for the things of God, you will hate sin and seek to avoid it to please God, you will desire to be obedient to the Word of God, you will desire to bear the fruit of the Spirit in your life. In other words, there will be evidence of the presence, the power, and the fruit of the Holy Spirit in your life, if that is not there Paul says that you have no claim that Jesus Christ is your Savior and Lord. If you do not have the Spirit of Christ dwelling in you, then you do not belong to Jesus Christ. Last Sunday I challenged you to test your faith, to examine yourselves for that assurance of the faith as Paul had told those in the church in Corinth. In the end of 2 Corinthians in chapter 13, verse 5 Paul wrote, “Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you—unless indeed you fail the test?” (2 Corinthians 13:5, NASB95)[2] I gave you time at the end of the service to do just that in the quietness of your own heart and I hope that each of you found the evidence of the Holy Spirit dwelling in you, and if you did not that you put your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ at that moment and received His forgiveness for your sins which He paid for on the cross and triumphed over forever through His resurrection from the dead. If you did this then you were transformed, and the Holy Spirit immediately came to live in you, and you will begin to see the evidence of this in your life.
Paul goes on in this section speaking of what this life in the Spirit means for the believer. Paul writes in verse 10, “If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness.” (Romans 8:10, NASB95)[3] If Christ is in you, the Spirit of Christ as we spoke about briefly last week the power and presence of each member of the Godhead indwells us by the Holy Spirit. His presence in our lives is the same as the whole Godhead indwelling us because the three Persons are one God. Paul speaks of each of them indwelling us interchangeably. Paul is speaking here of our present state as believers, the Holy Spirit indwells us and has transformed our spirit or our spiritual nature, but our body of flesh and bone is not yet redeemed and is dead because of sin, we are still waiting for our full redemption when our body will be transformed as well. Paul writes that though the body is dead, yet our spirit, our inner being is alive because of righteousness, now this is not our own righteousness because as Isaiah says our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment (Isaiah 64:6), Paul says that our own righteousness will not help us be found in Christ (Philippians 3:7-11). The righteousness that is spoken of here is the perfect righteousness of Christ that is applied to us the moment we trust in Christ by faith for salvation. We are declared righteous and our spirit is made alive by the Spirit of God indwelling us.
Paul goes on to speak of the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives to make us alive not only in our spirit or our inner being, but that He will also transform our mortal body to be like the resurrected, glorified body of Jesus Christ. Paul uses the resurrection of Jesus Christ to describe the power that the Holy Spirit possesses. He reminds us as believers that the same Spirit of God that raised Jesus from the dead resides in us or dwells in us. Paul often speaks of the power used by the Holy Spirit to raise Christ from the dead as great power, no one else has the power necessary to bring a person back from the dead. In Paul’s introduction to the book of Romans he wrote that Jesus Christ was declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead according to the Spirit of holiness. The power exerted by the Spirit to raise Jesus from the dead proved that He is who He claimed to be, the Son of God. In Ephesians 1 beginning in verse 15 Paul begins praying for the believers in Ephesus and as he prays that we might know what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe and he goes and says that this power is “…in accordance with the working of the strength of His might which He brought about in Christ, when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come.” (Ephesians 1:19b–21, NASB95)[4] Paul describes the power of the Holy Spirit in this passage of Ephesians as the surpassing greatness of His power and as the strength of His might. Paul is describing great power, and back in Romans this is the power that raised Jesus back to life and the Holy Spirit who exerted this power dwells in you and will give life to your mortal bodies because He has the power necessary to do that as seen in Jesus resurrection. And the Spirit who has this power to transform our mortal bodies into imperishable, immortal bodies is already dwelling in us and has already transformed our spirit and made it alive in Christ, this is the promise that He will do the same with our mortal bodies, He is going to transform them so that they are like the resurrected and glorified body of the Lord Jesus Christ. John speaks of this transformation in 1 John 3:2, he writes, “Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not appeared as yet what we will be. We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is.” (1 John 3:2, NASB95)[5] What a transformation we have in store for us who are in Christ. As we consider that we already have with in us the Holy Spirit and His power of resurrection and His power of transformation, cannot this same Spirit of God by His great power control us now? Can the Holy Spirit give us daily deliverance and victory over the flesh and the deeds of the flesh that tempt us and war against us? It is our responsibility to give Him this control in our lives, this is what living and walking in the Spirit is all about.
OUR RESPONSIBILITY (Romans 8:12-13)
Paul after contrasting life in the flesh with life in the Spirit and then declaring for us the great power that we have within us through the Holy Spirit indwelling us and how the new spiritual life that we have is not to be characterized by fleshly concerns and activities but instead by the things of God. Paul now turns his attention to the believer’s responsibility to get rid of sin in his life through the Holy Spirit who dwells in him.
Paul begins these last two verses of our passage with the phrase “so then” which makes us pause and consider all that he has just told us in the first eleven verses of this passage. He began by telling there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, we are set free from the law of sin and of death, it no longer dominates us or rules over us, because we walk by the Spirit, we have our minds set on the things of the Spirit, and we have life and peace through the indwelling Holy Spirit. With all these blessings in mind Paul gives us an exhortation to get rid of sin in our life. John MacArthur writes, “All biblical exhortations to believers are based on the blessings and promises they already have from the Lord. Without the provisions we have from Him, we would be unable to fulfill the commands we receive from Him.”[6]
We see this here demonstrated first he expounded on the blessings and now he brings an exhortation, but he begins it affectionately by addressing his readers as brethren. By doing this Paul is identifying with them as a fellow Christian, not lording it over them as an apostle but a fellow brother to whom God’s promises of victory over the flesh applies to him as much as to them.
Then after reminding them of the blessings and addressing them as brothers and sisters in Christ he then moves forward and gives them God’s plan for victory over the flesh. He writes that we who are saved by grace and indwelt by the Holy Spirit, we have an obligation or a responsibility, but he is quick to say that the responsibility is not to the flesh, we are not obligated to live according to the flesh. He then reminds them that those who live according to the flesh must die. Now understand that Paul is not saying that a genuine believer can lose his salvation and be condemned to death if he falls back into some of the ways of the flesh. He began this chapter with the assurance that there in now no condemnation if we have put our faith in Jesus Christ. What the apostle is saying is that a person whose life is characterized by the things of the flesh is not a true Christian and that person is already spiritually dead, and it does not matter if he is religious and does all the right things, if he does not come to Jesus Christ in true faith and repentance then Paul says he must die, speaking of the second death in the lake of fire where he will be eternally separated from God and tormented for ever and ever. Unfortunately, I believe a lot of people believe they are saved, but they are not and are still living according to the flesh with their minds set on the things of the flesh. I am not just talking about anybody, these people are in churches and have been their whole lives, but they do not have genuine faith.
What Paul is saying is that the genuine believer is no longer responsible to the flesh and the things of the flesh because the flesh no longer controls him. Until the redemption of our bodies the flesh will still have some lingering influence over us, but we have no excuse for sin to continue to corrupt our lives. Our obligation or responsibility is to the Spirit who dwells in us and has transformed our inner being. Because He dwells in us, we can draw on Him and His power to put to death the deeds of the body, which result from living according to the flesh. Paul says that as we fulfill our responsibility to put to death the deeds of the flesh through the Holy Spirit we will live, that is that we will possess the fulness of eternal life given to us in Jesus Christ, but even more than that I believe this refers to the abundant life that Jesus promised in John 10:10 where He speaks of being the Good Shepherd of the sheep, He said, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” (John 10:10, NASB95)[7] God wants us to have this abundant life now and for the rest of eternity, but to possess it and to persevere in it we must rely upon the Holy Spirit to rid ourselves of the ungodly deeds of the body by putting them to death and this is a lifelong process that will only end when we are present with the Lord and forever free from the presence of sin.
I want to finish up this morning by giving you five ways that can help us avoid and put to death sin in our life as we rely on the Holy Spirit. I must give credit to John MacArthur for pointing out these five Scriptural helps for believers.
The first help is that we recognize the presence of sin in our flesh. We must acknowledge it as Paul did in chapter 7, verse 21 he wrote, “I find then the principle that evil is present in me, the one who wants to do good.” (Romans 7:21, NASB95)[8] If we are not willing to acknowledge sin in our flesh then we are just deceiving ourselves which leads to being more vulnerable to its influence. Peter admonished the believers he was writing to knowing that sin can be powerful and destructive in a believer’s life if it is not put to death. Peter wrote in 1 Peter 2:11, “Beloved, I urge you as aliens and strangers to abstain from fleshly lusts which wage war against the soul.” (1 Peter 2:11, NASB95)[9]
A second help to killing sin in our lives is by having our heart fixed on God. In Psalm 57:7 David said to the Lord, “My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast; I will sing, yes, I will sing praises!” (Psalm 57:7, NASB95)[10] He also said in Psalm 119:5-6, “Oh that my ways may be established To keep Your statutes! Then I shall not be ashamed When I look upon all Your commandments.” (Psalm 119:5–6, NASB95)[11] When we know and obey God’s Word, this is the only way we can keep our heart fixed on God, we are building up both our defenses and offenses against sin.
A third help in killing sin in our lives is by meditating on the Word of God. As we spend time immersing ourselves in God’s Word this gives the Lord opportunity to help us to understand and draw strength from His Word as it works in our lives. David again in Psalm 119:11 wrote, “Your word I have treasured in my heart, That I may not sin against You.” (Psalm 119:11, NASB95)[12]
A fourth help in destroying sin in our lives is to spend time with the Lord in prayer. Prayer is a huge weapon that we have at our disposal. Right after speaking of the sword of the Spirit in Ephesians 6 Paul writes, “With all prayer and petition pray at all times in the Spirit, and with this in view, be on the alert with all perseverance and petition for all the saints,” (Ephesians 6:18, NASB95)[13] True prayer always has an element of confession, as sin is discovered in our lives we confess it and God is faithful and just to forgive us an cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9) I have shared with you before the acrostic of the acts of prayer. A is for adoration, this is how prayer should begin. C is for confession, confessing our sin and asking forgiveness. T is for thanksgiving, giving thanks to God for His forgiveness, salvation, goodness, etc., finally S is for supplication, this is where we bring our requests to God. The A.C.T.S. of prayer. As we spend time communing with God in His Word and through prayer He will show us areas in our lives where sin needs to be put to death and we can do so through the power of the Holy Spirit.
A fifth way that can help us put sin to death in our lives is to practice obedience to God. Peter wrote in 1 Peter 1:13-16, “Therefore, prepare your minds for action, keep sober in spirit, fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance, but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior; because it is written, ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy.’” (1 Peter 1:13–16, NASB95)[14] As we obey His will and His will alone in even the small issues of life this can prepare us to do His will when we are faced with severe temptation. As we obey and resist by the power of the Holy Spirit, we will slowly but surely put to death the deeds of the body.
Praise God that we have the Holy Spirit whom we can rely on to help in this battle, if we had to do this in our own strength it would be a losing battle. The Holy Spirit is powerful and desires that we be conformed to the image of Christ, Paul is pointing out through this final verse that by the power of the Holy Spirit we can successfully resist and destroy sin in our lives. Paul reminded the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians 10:4, “for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses.” (2 Corinthians 10:4, NASB95)[15] We should be encouraged and filled with hope knowing that the Holy Spirit dwells in us and we have His divine power to destroy sin in our lives.
CONCLUSION:
In this passage of Scripture Paul wants us to understand the great and many blessings that we have when we walk according to the Spirit and have our minds set on the things of the Spirit. To be controlled by the Holy Spirit comes from being obedient to the Word of God. This does not happen overnight but comes as we immerse and study the Scriptures and submit ourselves to them. As you spend time in God’s Word submitting to it and saturating yourself in it, hiding it in your heart and meditating on it being controlled by the Spirit who dwells in you will follow. When we are filled with God’s Word and led by the Spirit of God our behavior will be godly as we bear the fruit of the Spirit as He produces it in us.
I cannot emphasize enough, if you want to live a godly life controlled by the Spirit, I cannot emphasize enough the importance of being in God’s Word every day. This is where we learn what the Spirit controlled life is, this is where we learn what God’s will is so that the Spirit can lead us in it. This is our manual for life, if you do not read it how will you know how to live? People open your Bible and read it. Don’t leave it sitting on the shelf all week and then dust it off on Sunday morning as you head out the door for church. Don’t ever give it time to gather dust, by making it a part of your life every day, then and only then will your life be controlled by the Spirit and you will by His power put to death the deeds of the body and live. You want that abundant life Jesus spoke of, then you have to be eating and drinking from His Word.
[1]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.
[2]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.
[3]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.
[4]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.
[5]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.
[6]MacArthur, John F., The MacArthur New Testament Commentary – Romans 1-8. Chicago, IL : Moody Press, 1991.
[7]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.
[8]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.
[9]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.
[10]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.
[11]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.
[12]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.
[13]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.
[14]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.
[15]New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update. La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995.