Whatcha Thinking About? Series

Flesh and Spirit – Part II – Whatcha Thinking About?

1. Review

a. Paul wrote letters dealing with the flesh and the spirit to Collosea, Rome, Corinth, Ephesus, and Galatia.

b. Ray Stedman writes that

i. "FLESH is openly arrogant, overbearing, boastful, lustful, cynical, proud. . When it is driven by the Spirit into a corner it can assume a garb of righteousness and become pious, religious, scrupulous about morals, zealous in church work, indignant over wrongs, provokingly evangelical! The righteousness of the FLESH is always counterfeit righteousness. It is centered in self, and therefore it is always self-righteousness...The FLESH can memorize Scripture. The FLESH can teach Sunday school. The FLESH can distribute tracts, give large gifts of money, give a stirring testimony, teach a Bible class, sing solos, or preach a sermon. It can even apologize (after a fashion), and repent (to some extent), or suffer (with a martyred air), but there is one thing that FLESH will never do. It will do anything to survive, but one thing: It will never give in it will never surrender, it will never change, it will never give up, never! It is a slippery, elusive thing; and, when we back it into a corner, it simply takes on a different disguise and appears in a different form, but it is the same old, deadly, evil FLESH

2. Background

a. Your flesh (meaning your old, fallen nature) will rule your life unless you continuously surrender your life to the Spirit of God and reckon it crucified each day. Even so, once you are a Christian, you now have a choice about who will rule your life…

3. Passage:

a. Romans 8:1-17 “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. 3 For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, 4 so that the 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 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. 6 For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, 7 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, 8 and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

b. 9 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. 10 If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness. 11 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.

c. 12 So then, brethren, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh-- 13 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. 14 For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God. 15 For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, "Abba! Father

4. Exposition of Passage

a. IN CHRIST: V1: Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus

i. No condemnation for those who are “IN” Christ Jesus.

ii. This statement “in Christ” occurs 47 times in the NT>

iii. What does it mean?

1. We were once “in Adam.” The bible says that was our state of existence. We inherited his rebellion against God. What he did we do. It is our nature because we have Adam’s nature.

2. Example: $20.00 bill in a book. Whatever happens to the book happens to the bill in the book. The bible says that we were in “his loins” or lineage. So whatever happened to Adam happened to me.

iv. How do we become “in” Christ?