Series Title: Romans – The Line in the Sand
Message Title: The Life Line
9 For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of his Son, that without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers;
When I was just a youngster in the military, I had the occasion, because of my job, of being chosen to attend a special survival school. There, they taught students survival in the oceans, jungles and deserts. They taught you how to cook snakes, which berries to eat, how to survive in the deep oceans, the open deserts or in the wild jungles, and how to use various methods of emergency communication.
The last two weeks of the school was the most dreaded. That portion culminated with an intense ‘prisoner of war camp’ scenario, which lasted about three days. I’m not sure if it did or didn’t, because, from the beginning, I lost all track of time or time lost track of me.
To this day, I believe the reason for that last portion of school was not to give a ‘sampling’ of what one might expect in this day and age of wartime incarceration, but rather to give each individual a close-up look at themselves and how they respond to physical and psychological duress.
You can sit there and tell me all day long that it wasn’t real life and that it was only training, and I might agree with you, if I had not experienced it myself. You can laugh and say that the soldiers were play acting the part of communist guards, and that they wouldn’t really go to the extreme of actually hurting someone. You can assure me, now, that I was never in any real danger, and, again, I might agree with you, now. However, if you had told me then, during the experience, my mind would have quickly conjured up and transferred to my mouth a negative expletive so severe your ears would have been burning for several minutes. Not only would I have told you off, but the 37 other people that were raking the rock and pebble-filled yards with their fingers while they were on their knees would probably have been equally critical of your assessment.
It all began when they lined us up for the POW training, we were joking, laughing, and cutting up. The training, or scenario, was to start with running through an enemy evasion course. The objective was to successfully navigate to a flag 1000 yards straight in front of us, and we had three hours to do it.
“Three hours”, laughed a country boy. “I could do that in about five minutes.”
They shut him up rather quickly and told us that the area was 100 yards wide and 1000 yards long. It was covered with weeds, thick brush and thorns, a small stream and, last of all, but certainly not the least, it was infested with so-called ‘communist aggressors’ with weapons. If they captured you, they would take you straight to the POW camp.
I don’t remember much of that running, walking, and mostly crawling through that course. However, I do remember trying to lie still with hundreds of red ants crawling all over me in their attempt to get back into their home, which I happened to be lying on top of while hiding from a guard that was walking very close by.
I made it through the ants, and I made it all the way through that course. I touched the flag and I was safe, and I felt safe, for the moment. They, meaning the good guys, gave me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and I was able to rest, for the moment.
By the way, out of those 38 people, only six people made it all the through and touched the flag.
I began to feel sorry for the other 32 people, but I felt rather proud of myself at the same time. I do recall thinking that it was that only six people would escape having to go to the POW camp.
But that’s not the way things transpired. You see, it didn’t matter whether or not you made it through the course you were still going to go to the POW camp. It was inevitable.
Of those 38 POW’s, which were called war criminals, there were only two Christians in the whole group of people. And, you’ll see why I added this later in the message.
The experience of that preliminary ‘evasion’ course was to prepare or indoctrinate the mind. Its purpose was to ‘shatter’ the mindset of the participants. To wrest it away from our rather cavalier attitude of, “This is not real.” This is a joke,” to a more sobering attitude of, “What’s going on here?” “What’s happening here?”
Our minds became confused. What we once held in our minds was now in opposition to or in contradiction to what seemed to be, or what was being passed off as, reality. Paradigms that once directed and ordered our lives, no longer mattered. Ethics and values that had been carefully taught and nurtured with love by parents, teachers, and mentors, were thrown out the window. Only survival, my survival, mattered. No matter how many times I told myself that it wasn’t real, my body was still sitting naked in a dark three-foot by three foot box in 40 degree (5 Celsius) temperatures, with a gallon bucket for a bathroom. Needless to say, my cold, shivering body did manage to convince my mind that various critical and unbelievable parts of this training were indeed real. In all of that, however, there was something that my body could not do, and that was to convince my mind to give up. Which, now that I think about it seems to be a contradiction because at other less trying times the body had succeeded in winning over the mind. So why, in a much more stressful and difficult environment, does the body not succeed. I’m not sure. I don’t know the answer to that.
All of this training was intended to push you to your psychological limit. The training was intended to push you to the point of drawing deeply upon your own resolve, your own determination, so that you could find out just what kind of person you are. Some people gave up. Some people cried. Some people rebelled. Some people tried to escape. Some people encouraged [the Christians!]. Through all of that there is one thing that everyone had in common. They all reacted. Though they all reacted differently, they all reacted.
At that time I thought, where does that come from? Why does he cry, and the other get angry, or still another just gives in to the threats? Today, I know. Just like those two Christians that went through that training knew. For them, their spirits confided in, and relied on God. For the rest of us, we were not so lucky. Our bodies cried out against our minds, and our minds cried out against our bodies. The gray lines between the two only got grayer in the small dark box, and whatever happened to emerge as the victor, well, that was our reaction.
Today, I know that the body is the last and least important on the list. And, though it is the last on the list and the least important, it still strives, through lust, hunger, pride, sensuality or whatever else, to overcome the mind and its own version of morality.
Many times it wins. Many times, in our minds we give in to lustful urges, or power urges, or hunger urges, when, if in our spirits we had confided in and relied on God, whom we serve with our spirit in the gospel of His Son, we would have been successful.
And, then the question comes up, what about soul versus mind? Socrates said that the soul is what makes a body alive. [and that] Death occurs when the soul ceases to animate the body. Was he talking about spirit? Or, was he talking about mind? I believe He was talking about what some people refer to as the mind.
Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.
You see it was the breath of God that was breathed into man that made man alive. This very breath, referred to as spirit in scripture, is the spirit with which we relate to the Spirit of God. However, when man sinned in the Garden of Eden, his spirit basically collapsed into his soul [or mind]. Before the fall, there was an innate God-consciousness that related with God and, as it explains in scripture, directed the body and soul of man. The perfect spirit was in charge and relied on God. The spirits of Adam and Eve related with God, and it, their spirit, controlled their own minds and bodies. In the beginning, they were not subject to the slavery to sin that man finds himself in today.
Again, after the fall, the spirit fell into the mind, so to speak, and was all but extinguished, leaving the rebellious soul and body all alone to take over and run the show [i.e. carnal desires, see Rom. 8:7].
Man used to be made up of spirit, soul, and body. That was the order before the fall. After the fall, these three were turned around; body, soul, and spirit, with the separation of spirit and soul becoming indiscernible. That’s why Socrates said: “the soul animates the body…”
So what are these: Body, Soul, and Spirit? Let’s look at those three and learn what their responsibilities were supposed to be.
The body: our bodies are world-consciousness and through the body’s senses we are made aware of what is going on in the world around us.
Our soul: the soul or mind is self or ego-consciousness, and through that we know our own individuality.
Finally, the spirit is God-consciousness, and through it we are aware of the existence of a force that is higher than ourselves. But, because of the fall of man, this awareness is almost imperceptible and clouded and diluted by our self-awareness, or rather now, our selfish awareness, which is all the more reason we must be born again. And being born again is not to put things back the way it were. That’s irreversible. You see it’s impossible for man’s original spirit, which is now and forever hopelessly cursed and fallen into one with the mind, to be renewed or transformed. To have that pre-Eden, trichotomous make-up is impossible.
That’s one of the primary purposes behind being born again. Being born again means a new life. And a new life means a whole new spirit within man has been created.
Three times in Ezekiel, God tells us that He will give us a new spirit.
Ezekiel 11:19 I will give them an undivided heart and put a new spirit in them; I will remove from them their heart of stone and give them a heart of flesh.
But it doesn’t casually end there. Actually, there, immediately following re-birth, right after the moment when the fresh spirit is given, is also where the struggle of flesh and spirit begins. Yet, it doesn’t have to end there. Because little by little, through the revelation of Jesus Christ to our spirit through the Spirit of God, our own new spirit gradually gains ground against the flesh (i.e. the mind and body), until one day it is back in charge.
That is why Paul tells us, in Romans 12:2,
Romans 12:2 Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is--his good, pleasing and perfect will.
What else will transform the mind? Good thoughts? Good acts? Good movies? No. Your new spirit, given to you by God, and in constant communication with the Spirit of God is the only life line that you have to renew your mind, and dedicate your body to will of God’s will—His good, pleasing and perfect will.
That is why Christians always refer to themselves as a work in progress, because the mind and body are always seeking to re-gain what was lost and the new spirit is at war with them. The flesh wants things the way it used to be. For the un-renewed mind, it’s easier to be selfish, self-centered, and mean.
Now, with all of that information, I, myself, am able to read and now understand a portion of Romans, chapter 8…
5 Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. 6 The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; 7 the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. 8 Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God. 9 You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ.
Specifically focusing on verse seven of chapter 8, “7 the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so.” we see that the mind [the soul], though it has no capacity to relate to God on its own, has taken over running most of the three, or at least trying to because the spirit is hopelessly lost until a new spirit is given by God.
1 Corinthians 2:14 The man without the Spirit [spirit] does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned.
Again, all the more reason to be born again. But, now we read:
1 Corinthians 2:11 For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man’s spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.
So, you give yourself over to God and He gives you a new spirit. Now, that spirit needs to be in control. And, slowly, through trials, tribulations, Bible studies, prayer, and fellowship, it begins to make ground in the new trichotomous [three categories: spirit, mind(soul) and body] makeup of the saint.
It’s important that we understand the priority of this new trichotomy of man. The spirit of man is supposed to be in charge and running the show, based upon what it gets from the Spirit of God [even when we don’t know that we get it. See Romans 8:26-27]
Romans 7:6 But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit [spirit], and not in the old way of the written code.
In a ‘carnal’ kind of way, that survival training that I underwent can be a kind of allegory. Before I went to the training, life was safe and sound, and, if I dare, ‘Garden of Edenish.’ All was good. Then, all of a sudden, I was thrust into a world of chaos. My life fell apart. It became a dog-eat-dog, selfish life. It became a life where my survival was, I thought, in my own hands. It was up to me to do as I saw fit. It was up to me to make the decisions or choices that I deemed helpful to me and me only. I only thought about me…
But, then the training was over.
For the non-Christian, however, they are still in that life. They are still caught up in the ‘all about me’ life because they have no spirit that relates with the Spirit of God. They have no spirit that is led by Jesus through the Spirit of God.
The new spirit or new life in man is what distinguishes our makeup from the carnal man.
Have you ever heard of the old phrase, “I wonder what makes him tick?” Have you ever seen men, that have been faithful husbands, or women that have been faithful and loving wives, for 15, 20, or 25 years, just up and leave the home, never to be heard from again? Have you ever seen or heard of individuals in charge of great sums of money for many years, one day take it all and run away to South America? You hear people exclaim, “I wonder what made him do that? That’s unthinkable.” Yet it did happen, and we know that the answer is found in the Bible.
They never received a new spirit from God.
And, now, here in Romans chapter one, verse nine, we know exactly what Paul means when he says spirit. It is the new life. The new life is the spirit and it can only be received when you put your faith in Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.
Paul wants you to know that he serves God with his spirit. A spirit that is totally surrendered to the will of God.
The Bible emphatically tells us
John 4:23 Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. 24 God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth."
The life line between Paul and God was the Spirit of God and his spirit. In this on-going sanctification process, Paul relied upon the Spirit of God to minister to his spirit, thus the comment in verse nine, whom I serve with my spirit.
Like the Apostle John said in the book Revelation, Paul knew what it meant to be in the spirit. His actions, words and deeds, his life, were of his spirit that had been in communication with the Spirit of God.
Like Paul, we, too, can rely on the Spirit of God, even in those times when we are so confused and have no idea at all what is going on.
Romans 8:26 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.
Summary:
I want to read some scripture verses that talk about the spirit with a small ‘s’, and Spirit with an upper case ‘s’.
Mark 2:8 Immediately Jesus knew in his spirit that this was what they were thinking in their hearts, and he said to them, "Why are you thinking these things?
The Spirit of God related this to the spirit of Jesus.
Luke 1:46-47 And Mary said: "My soul glorifies the Lord 47 and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,
Mary, the mother of Jesus gave glory to God in her mind, but only because her spirit was led by the Holy Spirit of God.
John 3:5-6 Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. 6 Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit.”
John 6:63 The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life.
Do you have the new life? Do you have the new spirit that was promised in Ezekiel?
Ezekiel 11:19 And I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you…
