God’s Holy Temple
The Struggle with Sin
Romans 8: 4-7
• You’ve all heard the old expression “You don’t know what your missing”. This is true when it comes to God.
1. There is so much we miss out on.
• God is good! God is so very good (Not in the cliché way)! There is so much confidence, joy, peace, power and victory over sin available to us through Christ that we miss out on.
(Satan’s motive – Jealousy)
John 10:10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.
• In the KJV the word abundant is used. As I pondered that verse, it occurred to me that there is more depth to it’s meaning than our language allows for.
περισσός
perissos
per-is-sos’
From G4012 (in the sense of beyond); superabundant (in quantity) or superior (in quality); by implication excessive; adverb (with G1537) violently; neuter (as noun) preeminence: - exceeding abundantly above, more abundantly, advantage, exceedingly, very highly, beyond measure, more, superfluous, vehement [-ly].
• The idea is life that is spilling over with joy.
How do I get that Abundance in my life?
2. Why do we miss so much of God’s goodness? One major reason has to do with where we have our focus.
Changing focus
3. What Jesus did is greater than what Adam did.
• You see, I believe that Jesus died for more than just my forgiveness. He also died for me to have victory over my struggles and to experience that abundance of joy, peace, and power in my life.
• Have you ever seen that bumper sticker that says, “Christians are not perfect, just forgiven”?
• When we say things like that or, “I am just a sinner saved by grace”, and we live our lives as though what Adam did is greater than what Jesus did. We deny God’s power in our lives and provision for overcoming sin. Adam brought sin into the world, but Christ came to take it out, so what Jesus did is greater than what Adam did!
• Illustration: I used to be a mechanic. Now I am a Social Worker/ Administrator/ Pastor-in-training. Do I still work on my car occasionally; of course, but it’s no longer the activity that defines my life anymore.
• Now, we cannot make myself stop sinning. When we allow God to fill us and stop trying to grab onto any of our own false securities, our appetite for things that are bad for us greatly diminishes because the satisfaction we receive from Him is so much greater.
The Temple
The Temple in Israel is divided into three sections, the Outer Court, the Holy Place, and the Most Holy Place or Holy of Holies, (Compare with our church). If we compare our lives to the Temple…
…the Outer Court would represent our flesh, the weak part of us that gets us into trouble all the time.
Within the flesh are all the things that satisfy me on a fleshly level (Food, Sex, Alcohol/ Drugs, Material Possessions, Money, Work/ Achieving Control, Etc.).They are not inherently evil, but can be very harmful to us if over used or depended on too much.
4. The problem with fleshly satisfactions is that they are self-focused.
For example:
If we are striving to lose weight or stop drinking, we’re thinking about food or alcohol so much at times that we get feeling anxious about it. The more focused we are on food/ drink, the more anxious we become. The more anxious we feel, the more we want to eat that extra piece of cake or have another drink, (Those are just two examples).
Romans 7:23 – “But I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members.”
The Holy Place represents the Soul, which consists of our mind, will and emotions.
The Soul is like a camera. Whatever it is focused on is what is imprinted on it.
The Most Holy Place is the place where God dwells. In our life, it is the Spirit part of us that comes to life in us when we invite Christ into our lives and God comes to dwell within us by His Spirit.
Romans 8:11 – “And if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who lives in you.”
When that happens, we begin to experience His love, joy, peace, and power in our lives and we experience freedom from all of the burdens that have been weighing us down for years. The battle ends there right? Wrong!!
2 Corinthians 3:17 – “Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.”
The problem is that there are two doors in each of us that are hinged so that only one can be open at a time. When one door opens, the other one shuts.
Galatians 5:17 – “For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want.”
The direction of our focus determines which door will open. When we turn the focus of our Soul around in the other direction, the other door opens and the first door slams shut behind us.
Romans 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.”
Now what inevitably always happens to all of us is that our Soul gets out of peace. The flesh, with all the best of intentions, opens up the door to the Soul to check in on it’s condition. Seeing that the Soul is out of peace, the flesh offers to help…
…It says, “I see you’re out of peace Soul. Why don’t you have that extra piece of chocolate cake and you’ll feel better”, or “Why don’t you have another drink and you’ll feel better”.
5. Short term gain = long term pain, but short term pain = long term gain.
We do so, and for a time we do feel better, but after a little more time, our Soul feels even more out of peace than it did before. Now some people who don’t know God, will just keep on trying to fill themselves with more and more, never really feeling satisfied. In fact they just get a deeper and deeper sense of shame and emptiness as time goes by. Then the Devil really plays on you.
Romans 7:5 – For when we were in the flesh, the motions of sins, which were by the law, did work in our members to bring forth fruit unto death.”
What works and what doesn’t work
6. We fail because we try to live by the Spirit in our own effort. No amount of striving will help.
We think we will change if we only kick ourselves hard enough. That doesn’t work, in case you hadn’t noticed. What we end up doing is trying desperately to force that door to the flesh shut. We may succeed for a while, but as soon as we let go of that door, it pops right back open again, (Example: It’s like trying to hold 3 beach balls under the water. You get two under and when you try to get the third one under, the first one pops up again). We think that if we just try harder next time, we will succeed in overcoming their sin. The harder we try, the more frustrated we become. Why? Because our focus is toward the flesh. All we accomplish is becoming more obsessed with ourselves and the desires of our flesh.
• Now let me tell you what does work.
7. Simply embrace what His Spirit is doing in you.
Rom 8:4 And now what the law code asked for but we couldn’t deliver is accomplished as we, instead of redoubling our own efforts, simply embrace what the Spirit is doing in us.
Rom 8:5 Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life. Those who trust God’s action in them find that God’s Spirit is in them--living and breathing God!
Rom 8:6 Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life.
Rom 8:7 Focusing on the self is the opposite of focusing on God. Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores God, ends up thinking more about self than God. That person ignores who God is and what he is doing.
Those of us who have come into a relationship with He who has overcome (Jesus Christ), eventually start to learn to rest and trust in Him and His Power. They begin to experience His satisfaction. A comfort and a satisfaction that is far beyond anything that they could bring to themselves in the flesh. The flesh becomes transformed so that everything in it becomes more satisfying as well. We need the things of the flesh less, but can enjoy them more, without allowing them to rule us causing us to sin. Food tastes better, but our hunger is less. Above all else, we simply enjoy His presence in our lives like we never thought possible
8. When we put on the Spirit, the fruit of the Spirit is the byproduct.
• We can’t produce it ourselves, we can only abide in Him, (In the vine). Then we will experience the fruits of the Spirit.
• The difference is the Holy Spirit. Do you believe that the Spirit of the Most High God can make that kind of a difference in your life?!
• Are we going to walk according to the flesh, or are we going to walk by faith?!
• Invitation: Maybe you have never stepped through that first door before, or maybe you have and you are standing in that Holy Place, knowing that you have a relationship with God through Christ, but you feel as though you are not really living for Him or enjoying the fruits of the abundant life He has for you.
