Opening Illustration: Lena arrived in the port city of Magadan, Siberia, well before the Iron Curtain was drawn back. Sick and penniless, she went to the dock area to find work. There she met a gentleman who, as she put it, had “a good heart.” He gave Lena a job in his factory, and he and his wife provided her with food and shelter.
Lena had always feared the future. She confided in the couple about her visits to spiritualists and fortunetellers, but her newfound friends assured her that she didn’t need to consult the mediums to be secure about the future. Then they told her about Jesus. Lena had never heard of Him, so they explained who Jesus is and that He could set her free from her fear. A few months later, Lena became a believer in Jesus Christ.
“Now,” she says, “instead of seeking the spirits, I am led by the Holy Spirit.” Her apprehension about the future has been replaced by the peace that God alone can give.
Perhaps you’re worried about the future and preoccupied with what it may have in store for you. There’s only one way you will ever have peace about it. Like Lena, you must put your future in God’s hands. Trust in Christ as your Savior. Then, no matter what the future holds, you will experience the peace that His Holy Spirit brings. (Our Daily Bread, by David C. Egner)
Let us turn to Romans 8 and learn how to fight the flesh and live and walk by the Holy Spirit.
Introduction: In this passage Paul is drawing a contrast between two kinds of life. In fact he lays it out bare about the carnal and Spirit-led lifestyles. He touches on the pros and cons and also exhorts us to make a choice that would lead to eternity in Christ.
What Paul is doing in this section is contrasting a LOST and a SAVED person - we know that although we are no longer "in the flesh," the Bible clearly teaches that the flesh is still in us in these mortal bodies - the difference now that we are in Christ is that we can say "yes" to Jesus and "no" to the FLESH.
In God’s eyes, there are only two kinds of people in the world, those who do not belong to Him and those who do. Obviously there are degrees in both categories. In other words, some unsaved people exhibit high moral standards and behavior, and, on the other hand, many saints do not mind the things of God as obediently as they should especially considering that they possess the Holy Spirit Who enables them to be holy. But every human being is completely in one spiritual state of being or the other and either belongs to God or does not belong to God. Just as a person cannot be partly dead and partly alive physically, neither can he be partly dead and partly alive spiritually. There is no middle ground. A person is either forgiven and in the kingdom of God or unforgiven and in the kingdom of darkness in this world and under the dominion of Satan. In short, every person on planet earth is either a child of God or a child of Satan; all are either in Christ or in Adam. There are no exceptions to this rule.
Which lifestyle will you choose?
1. CARNAL Lifestyle
There is the life which is dominated by sinful human nature; the life whose focus and center is self; the life that is absorbed in the things that fascinate sinful human nature; the life whose only law is its own desires; the life which takes what it likes where it likes. In different people that life will be differently described. It may be passion-controlled, or lust-controlled, or pride-controlled, or ambition controlled. Its characteristic is its absorption in the things that human nature without Christ sets its heart upon.
These two lives are going in diametrically different directions. The life that is dominated by the desires and activities of sinful human nature is on the way to death. In the most literal sense, there is no future in it. That is because it is getting further and further away from God. To allow the things of the world completely to dominate life is self-extinction; it is spiritual suicide; it is, again in the most literal sense, soul destroying. By living it a man is making himself totally unfit ever to stand in the presence of God. He is hostile to God; he is resentful of God’s law and God’s control. God is not his friend but his foe and no man ever won the last battle against God.
"FLESH is openly arrogant, overbearing, boastful, lustful, cynical, and proud. We have it described in Ephesians 5. But 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. When driven into a corner it would rather wreck your life than give in. Have you found this to be true?" (The Price of Survival; see also The Death of the Flesh)
Illustration: “A dog behaves like a dog because he has a dog’s nature.” If somehow you could transplant into the dog the nature of the cat, his behavior would change radically. Why does a sinner behave like a sinner? Because he has the nature of a sinner (Psalm 51:5; 58:3). This sinful nature the Bible calls “the FLESH.” “The FLESH” is the old nature that we inherited from Adam, a nature that is opposed to God and can do nothing spiritual to please God.
Believers need to be wary of defending the manifestations of the FLESH and excusing them as part of their personality or temperament, rather than judging them for what they really are! To give way to the desires of the FLESH is to give the devil an opportunity over us (Ephesians 4:17-27). The FLESH in believers is that part of a believer that functions apart from and against the work of the Holy Spirit in the believer’s new heart. It is not enough for us to have the Spirit; the Spirit must have us! Only then can He share with us the abundant, victorious life that can be ours in Christ. We have no obligation to the flesh, because the flesh has only brought trouble into our lives. We do have an obligation to the Holy Spirit, for it is the Spirit who convicted us, revealed Christ to us, and imparted eternal life to us when we trusted Christ. Because He is “the Spirit of Life,” He can empower us to obey Christ, and He can enable us to be more like Christ. Paul talks about the contrast of the flesh and walking in the Spirit in Galatians 5:16-26.
Be aware that the desire of the FLESH is to be religious in a manner acceptable to the world and to conduct its business along the principles of the world. FLESH is not a believer's friend, as many have been lulled into thinking but in fact is our enemy. Ray Stedman feels that "perhaps nothing has contributed more to the present weakness of the church than a failure to understand the nature and character of the FLESH"... the primary characteristic of the FLESH (is that) it is self-serving. It is God's life, misused. It can have all the outward appearance of the life of God - loving, working, forgiving, creating, and serving - but with an inward motive that is aimed always and solely at the advancement of self. It thus becomes the rival of God - another god! This is why fallen human beings, working in the energy of the FLESH, can do many good deeds - good in the eyes of themselves and others around them. But God does not see them as good. He looks on the heart and not on the outward appearance; therefore he knows they are tainted right from the start.
Illustration: When asked to account for the sleeping giant Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines (600 years), a research scientist from the Philippines Department of Volcanology observed, "When a volcano is silent for many years, our people forget that it's a volcano and begin to treat it like a mountain." Like Mount Pinatubo, the fallen flesh always has the potential to erupt, bringing great harm both to ourselves and to others. The biggest mistake believers can make is to ignore the volcano and move back onto what seems like a dormant "mountain." Never forget, the flesh is a Volcano … not simply a mountain! And it will always be a Volcano until we are glorified!
2. SPIRIT-LED Lifestyle
There is the life that is dominated by the Spirit of God. In the man’s heart is the Spirit. As he lives in the air, he lives in Christ, never separated from Him. As he breathes in the air, and the air fills him, so Christ fills him. He has no mind of his own. Christ is his mind. He has no desires of his own; the will of Christ is his only law. He is Spirit-controlled, Christ-controlled and God-focused.
The Spirit-controlled life, the Christ-centered life, the God-focused life is on the way to life. Daily it is coming nearer heaven even when it is still on earth. Daily it is becoming more Christ-like, more one with Christ. It is a life which is such a steady progress to God that the final transition of death is only a natural and inevitable stage on the way. It is like Enoch who walked with God and went walks with God – and one day he did not come back.
But no sooner has Paul said this than an inevitable objection strikes him. Someone may say: “You say that the Spirit-controlled man is on the way to life; but in point of fact every man must die. Just what do you mean?” Paul answers this. He says that all men die because all men are involved in the human situation. Sin came into the world, and with sin came death. Death is the consequence of sin. Inevitably, therefore, all men die; but the man who is Spirit-controlled, and whose heart is Christ-occupied, dies only to rise again. It is Paul’s basic thought that the Christian is indissolubly one with Christ. Now Christ died and rose again; He conquered death; and the man who is one with Christ is one with death’s conqueror and shares in that victory. It still remains true that the Spirit-controlled, Christ-possessed man is on the way to life; death is but an inevitable interlude that has to be passed through on the way.
"Those who live according to the flesh allow their lives to be basically determined by their sinful human nature. They set their minds on—are most deeply interested in, constantly talk about, engage and glory in—the things pertaining to the flesh, that is, to sinful human nature. Those who live according to the Spirit, and therefore submit to the Spirit’s direction, concentrate their attention on, and specialize in, whatever is dear to the Spirit. In the conflict between God and sinful human nature the first group sides with human nature; the second sides with God. Paul is reminding the members of the church in Rome that it is impossible to be on both sides at once (you can’t be a servant of two masters … ); that is, the basic—this adjective should be stressed!—disposition or direction of our lives is either on God’s side or on the side of sinful human nature. If a person persists in being worldly, he is on the side of the world and must expect the world’s doom. On the other hand, if the things concerning God and his kingdom are his chief concern, he can expect life: sweet communion with God, God’s love shed abroad in the heart, joy unspeakable and full of glory, all this and far more forever and ever."
If we take both the characters, and consider them -
(A) In their judgment
A carnal man may feel a general approbation (commendation) of religion; but he does not regard it as of paramount importance. What he allows to religion, he rather concedes from necessity, than claims as its unquestionable due. He will conform to religion so far as his temporal interests will admit of it: but where the two come seriously in competition with each other, the world will have a decided preponderance in its favor. The good opinion of men will limit his exertions for God; and the attainment of some earthly object be prosecuted in preference to the best interests of his soul. To attend to the interests of time and sense will be esteemed by him as of the first necessity; and his spiritual welfare will be subordinated to it.
The spiritual man, on the other hand, will decidedly declare himself on the side of God and of religion. He will not neglect his earthly duties; for he considers them as a part of his duty to God: but if anything earthly stand in competition with what is heavenly, he hesitates not to which he shall give the preference (Matthew 6:24). The things of time and sense are in his eyes but as the dust upon the balance, in comparison of the things which are invisible and eternal (2 Corinthians 4:18): and in the contemplation of his God and Savior, he gives this as the deliberate judgment of his mind, “Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire in comparison of thee.” (Psalm 73:25)
(B) In their will
The will of man, for the most part, is determined by his judgment: for though he may see a better path, and pursue a worse, yet, at the time, he wills that which he thinks will, under the existing circumstances, contribute most to his happiness.
Hence the carnal man, though he may feel some good desires after religion, and some purpose of heart to seek after it at some future period, determines that he will, for the present, give himself to the prosecution of his earthly objects. Hence, too, he chooses as his associates those who are like-minded with himself, and who can participate with him in his enjoyments. He may know of persons capable of advancing his spiritual welfare: but he has no sympathy with them, nor any desire after their company, Any excess in worldly-mindedness he can forgive and palliate: but anything that approximates to excess in religious matters is deemed by him an unpardonable offence: and one instance of it will do more to repel him from religion, than ten thousand instances of the opposite habit to deter him from a conformity to the world.
The spiritual man, on the contrary, chooses, with deliberate purpose, his spiritual pursuits; nor will he be deterred from them by any regard to the things of this world. His heart is fixed; and though he finds that the world has yet too great an ascendant over him, he maintains his conflicts with vigor, and becomes daily more dead to the world and more alive to God. He uses diligently, too, the means of spiritual advancement; and takes for his friends and associates those who will help him forward in his heavenly way.
© Their affections
These invariably are most called forth by the things which most preponderate in the soul.
The carnal man accordingly betrays his indifference to spiritual objects by his total want of feeling in relation to them. He may go through his religious observances with constancy; but he rests in them, and never thinks of the way in which his duties have been performed. But, in reference to earthly things, he is alive: his hopes and fears, his joys and sorrows, are called forth, according as he succeeds or fails in the objects of his pursuit.
The spiritual man, on the contrary, though not regardless of earthly pursuits, is comparatively unmoved by them; because he is chiefly solicitous that his soul may prosper, and that he may advance in a meekness for his heavenly inheritance. You may find him dejected or happy, without any visible cause: but when you inquire into the reasons of his experience, you will find that some change has taken place in his conflicts with sin, or in his sense of the Divine presence, or in his prospects in the eternal world; and, according as these are favorable or not, his soul becomes elevated or depressed; by which he shows that his chief treasure is in heaven.
Illustration: Story of Lupe who happened to be a practicing witch in Salem and lived a life not only in the flesh but under demonic dictation and turned around by accepting Christ and serving Him alone.
Application:
(A) As a test whereby to try your state: Now, if we will only take notice whither our thoughts lead us, at those seasons when nothing particular has occurred to determine their course, we shall infallibly discover the real bias of our minds:
• If they run out after anything that relates to this vain, transient world, we are carnal.
• If after things spiritual and eternal, we may rank ourselves amongst the number of those who are truly spiritual.
(B) As a rule whereby to regulate your conduct: It is clear, from this passage, what ought to be the constant habit of our lives.
• We should be growing continually in a deadness to the world, and in a superiority to everything here below.
• The great concerns of eternity should more and more occupy our minds; and the whole course of our life should be such as to bear witness to us that we are candidates for heaven.
Are we truly leading SPIRIT-LED LIVES?
