Romans 8:5-11
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Last time we learned that you cannot get right with God by obeying religious rules, our sinful nature prevents us from achieving the level of performance God requires in his law - so we are doomed.
No we are not! We also saw that God sent his Son to be a sacrifice for our sins. Imagine you were massively in debt and have no hope of paying, you are not only in debt to the bank but to loan sharks and money lenders. If you don't pay up they are going to take your life! Imagine that a good friend spays your debt - he takes out his credit card and pays the lot.
The problem is that the credit card needs paying off, one day the bill will arrive and your friend is going to have to pay it. For Jesus the bill arrived the day he died on the cross for you and I - his death paid the debt I owe to God and now I am free!
This becomes true for you when you turn from your sin and trust in Jesus to pay off your debt. At that moment an invisible but highly significant transformation takes place (4)
What is a Christian? A Christian is someone who no longer follows their sinful nature but has chosen to follow the Spirit. That is what a Christian is - someone who has chosen to follow the Spirit; wherever he leads, be it life or death, prosperity or poverty, comfort or discomfort; the Spirit now sets the direction for my life.
Are you up for that?
Then you had better know what it means!
Two controlling forces (5-9)
There are a myriad of lifestyles available for people in our culture; many lifestyles, but only two ways to live - the Bible dissects these two clearly in these verses: you can be dominated by your sinful nature or by the Spirit of God, there is no middle ground.
We need to understand this very precisely, to there follows a technical interlude...
"Sinful nature" is the phrase used by the NLT and NIV translators to express the meaning of one Greek word; sarx, which literally means flesh. But to Paul, flesh meant more than meat, it was his way of speaking about human nature in all it's weakness and spiritual bankruptcy: everything in us that homes in on the world and is repelled from God.
There is an important passage in Paul's writings that expresses this in concrete terms, Galatians 5:16-26. This is how the flesh or sinful nature expresses itself: Galatians 5:19-21. If you are a Christian I is worth searching your heart and reflecting on your behaviour: what does your life say about who is ruling you?
That is what the flesh is and what the flesh does. In contrast Paul talks about the Christian life, a life "controlled by the Holy Spirit". Dip into Galatians 5 again and you see the contrast, this is how the Holy Spirit expresses himself through your life: Galatians 5:22-23.
There are many lifestyles, but only two ways to live. Tell me, which of these two do you prefer, what would you rather have expressing itself through your life?
Now just in case you found that a difficult judgement call to make, look at some more of the differences Paul spells out for us (6). A life controlled by the sinful nature leads to death (spiritual and physical) but a life controlled by the Spirit leads to life (spiritual and physical) and to peace.
Which would you rather have, death or life? She Spirit's presence within me means that I am spiritually alive (10) and it is God's guarantee that when my body dies it will rise from the dead just like Jesus' (11). Which would you rather have?
Which would you rather have... fear or peace? Live by the flesh and whatever happens to you, be it illness, depression, unemployment, disaster, death, you are on your own. That is pretty bleak isn't it? But when you have the Spirit of God everything is different - you are never alone - the God of creation, the God who heals, the God who comforts and guides, the God who always provides, is right with you every minute of every day!
Which would you rather have? Can I suggest that this is a no-brainer?
We are given the choice of living for ourselves or living by the Spirit, following our instincts of following Jesus - I want to call you to follow Christ.
The Wind of Change (9-11)
But what if you are a Christian and you know that your sinful nature seems to be bearing more fruit in your life than the Spirit of God? We get times like this and we need to know how to deal with them. But this is such a confused area (and it is in Satan's interests to keep it so) that we need to make clear what does not need to happen:
Some would say, "You are only half a Christian, you have clearly not received the Holy Spirit". In answer to this the Bible says very clearly, "Those who do not have the Spirit of Christ living in them are not Christians at all". If you have turned from your sin and trusted in Jesus the Holy Spirit is in you somewhere - we will come to that in a minute - the problem is that you have the Spirit but the Spirit does not have you!
This is a moment to pause and reflect - have I quenched the Spirit's work in my life by refusing to listen and to change? Have I grieved the Spirit into inactivity by conscious and persistent sin? Now is the time to change - not tomorrow, but now. You need to allow the Holy Spirit to 'control' you. To understand this we need another technical interlude...
The New Testament word for Spirit is pneuma and it translates an Old Testament word; ruach. If you translate both words literally they mean the same thing wind. The Bible is saying, let the wind of God control you.
We are used to thinking about the Holy Spirit in certain ways:
Some Christians talk about the Holy Spirit being like the hand in a glove puppet. This is proffoundly wrong, a damaging understanding of how God works in our lives. One of the gifts of the Spirit is 'self-control' remember - our ability to choose and our dignity are top of the Spirit's aganda.
It is common to speak of the Holy Spirit as a fluid - the Bible says 'be filled with the Spirit' and we have a mental picture of water being poured into a bucket, but the bucket has holes and leaks. But I have a problem squaring this with everything else the Bible says about the Spirit - the creative and orderly power of God running all over the place because we leak. It just isn't helpful.
It is much better to think of the Holy Spirit as a the wind of God - it fills our sails and gives us the power to move! When the Bible says we should be filled with the Spirit we have not leaked, we do not have the Spirit in instalments; the wind of God always blows, is always there, is always one, is always an expression of his one-ness and wonder. What we need to do is to turn the boat and trim the sails to that they are filled with the Spirit and we can move wherever he takes us. Your hand is on the tiller, your hand on the main sheet, the Spirit only has control when you let him.
So I am talking to Christians now... do you want to be filled with the Spirit? Will you make the changes you need to catch the wind and move through the water?