The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit Lesson 18 continued

Okay, we are in Lesson 18, and it's from the person work of the Holy Spirit, and we've entered into the, we've been working on what is known as sanctification, and graduated to the walk of the believer. And so, If you have the book, we're working off of page 98 and 99 today, or if you have the PDF, it's page 42 and 43.

And last week we just covered the first question, which was, what characterizes a Christian and distinguishes him from the world? And the answer was pretty simple. Believer walks in the spirit, and that's what characterizes his life. And it's in contrast with a walk in the flesh. And we'll expand on that quite a bit today. That the believer, like Rideau quotes, if any man have not the spirit of Christ, that is, not the disposition of Christ, but the Holy Spirit given to the believer is none of his.

So let's go to question two and probably three together. First part of question two is read Romans 8-6-39. And what are these verses dedicated to? So let's answer the dedicated question and then I want to read the verses. So what is Romans 8-6-39 dedicated to? See, you guys are really up on your Bibles. What is it dedicated to? The walk in the fire of the Spirit. That's right, that's what it is.

We said last week, if you sequentially study the book of Romans, what you find out is that when you get to Romans 3, there's salvation. by grace through faith. You get to Romans 5, there's an approach God, you have access to him through Christ at any time. And then starting in verse 12 is the doctrine of the two men, Adam and Christ. And when you get to Romans 6, you find out that what God did through Christ on the cross is he positionally took us out of Adam and identified us with Christ. We call those the identification truths. We were crucified with Christ, buried, and resurrected.

And the rest of Romans 6 talks about the effects of that. Romans 7, the first five verses, six verses, talk about, five verses, talk about the freedom from the law, and the rest of 7 talks about how a man who, with all of that information, still tries to live a life under the law, and it isn't working for him. So when we get to Romans 8, I've thought this for a long time. Romans 8 is the first chapter of the Christian life.

What does it look like? How does it operate? All of the information up to Romans 8 is information that's important in how God got us into Christ. Now that we're in Christ, what's that life look like? How does it function? And what is the frame of reference that we would have as believers as to how that, how does that go, you know?

So, I'm going to, who's a good reader? Anybody want to stab? It's about, like I say, it's probably 30, 33 verses. I can spread it around. So, I'll start out and then I'll have somebody else pick up. So in Romans 8, 6, he says, starting with 6, he says, for the mind set on the flesh is death. And I'm reading from the New American Standard. The mind set on the flesh is death. The mind set on the spirit is life and peace. Why? Because the mind set on the flesh is hostile towards God, or it does not subject itself to the law of God, or it is not even able to do so. And those who are in the flesh cannot please God. What a revelation.

However, you're 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. If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness. But if the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his spirit who dwells in you. So then, brothers and sisters, we are under obligation not to the flesh to live according to the flesh, For if we are living in accordance with the flesh, you're going to die. But if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God. For you have not received the spirit of slavery, leading to fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption as sons and daughters by which you cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are the adult children of God, and as children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs of Christ. if indeed we suffer within, so that we may also be glorified together within. So, somebody want to pick up an 18? I can do that. Good.

For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us. For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it in hope that the creation itself will also be set free from its slavery to corruption into the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and suffers in the pains of childbirth together until now. Not only this, but we ourselves, having the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our body.

For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope, because who hopes for what he already sees? Yet if we hope for what we do not see, with perseverance we wait eagerly for it. In the same way, the Spirit also helps us in our weakness, because we don't know how to pray as we should. But the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groaning too deep for words.

And he who searches the heart knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because he intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God and to those who are called according to his purpose.

For those whom he foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of his son, so that he would be the firstborn among many brothers. And these whom he predestined, he also called. And these whom he called, he also justified. And these whom he justified, he also glorified. What then shall we say to these things?

If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things? Who will bring a charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is the one who died, yes, rather, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, and also intercedes for us.

Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, or sword? Just as it is written, for your sake we are being put to death all day long. We were considered as sheep to be slaughtered. But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer through him who loved us.

For I am convinced that death, life, angels, principalities, things present, things to come, powers, height, depth, or any other created thing will not be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. Cool verses, huh? Amen. So, that answers question two. So question three says, how are we, as believers, to view our present bodies based on these verses? How are we supposed to look at them? How are we supposed to, based on what we're told here, how are we to look at them? Pretty simple. A dead thing is no longer provided for. Yeah, the body is dead because of sin. Death means what? separation. So the body is separated from who?

From God. Why? Because it has been a slave to sin. You know, I'm constantly, and probably ought to shut up, but I'm constantly in discussions with people who tell me we have free will. And I say, well, wait a minute. If my whole body is a slave to sin, how free am I? I'm not. I'm a slave. And sin tells me what to do. And it gives me my appetite. It gives me my desires.

But now, as a believer, I have the incredible privilege to look at my body and say, you know what, my body is dead to sin. Now, once you enter into that understanding, your body is going to push back and say, well, I'll show you how dead you are. It's like Paul says back in Romans 7, when he decided that he was not going to sin anymore, or not desire anymore under the law system, what happened? All sorts of desire came up. Same thing's going to happen when you start to reckon yourself dead to sin but alive unto God. Your body's going to try to prove that God's word is not true. But we're talking about now the walk of the believer. And the most important thing that Rite Out says is to start with the fact that your body is dead to sin, the principle of sin. Number one thing. The walk of the believer, my body is dead to sin.

It has no relationship to sin anymore, even though it still dwells in there. So God is going to say to us, well, if your body's dead to sin, let's see what we can do with it. So the body itself has appetites and desires that you, because you walk by faith, you do not have to satisfy. If you're one of those guys like me that yells at people on the highway, I don't have to do that anymore.

I still do it, but I don't have to. And then the next thing, as the word of God tells us, we're to put to death or mortify the works of the body. So therein lies a problem. How do I do that? How do I do that? I mean, you know, pick whatever your, the sin you struggle with, whatever it might be. And the word of God says, well, you're here to put to death that in your experience. So how do you do that?

Well, Mike, what you said there about yelling people on the highway that maybe hit home, really, but just that comment, I don't have to do that. For me, that's been a really, really important phrase to remind myself of is that I'm not a slave. I'm not a slave to that. And it actually sounds really funny because I, you know, I've had this conversation with a couple of people and just, and to say that about sin, well, I don't have to do that. They're really sitting there looking at you like, but you do like, you know, you just say you don't have to, but it's actually really, really key to understand that you're not a slave to it. Sure. And, and, um, recognizing that, that your separation from it, your death to it. Right. Yeah. I think, I think that's right. Um, It's really interesting.

One of my favorite comedians of the old was a guy named Flip Wilson. And he used to dress up as this black woman named Geraldine. And Geraldine had all kinds of fleshly desires. And she would always say, the devil made me do it. You know, no, the devil didn't make you do it. Your body made you do it. Because it's a slave to sin.

So If I have been positionally separated from the control mechanism of my body, then there's a couple of other things that come into play here. One is, I don't have to serve as a slave the desires of my body anymore. I don't have to do that. Doesn't mean I won't, but I don't have to. The non-believer has no choice. We talk about free will. He doesn't have a free will. He doesn't have a choice. He's a slave. She's a slave, okay? So what Rideout does is really cool.

In question four he says, what's the highest part of man? You know what he means by that question? Man is made up of body, soul, and spirit. What's the highest part of man? The spirit, right? So the non-believer, What's going on with his spirit? Nothing. His spirit is dead. So what rules him? His sinful body, his sin nature. And whatever the sin nature rings up, that's what the body is going to go for. And I mean it really is kind of a vicious circle that you live in. And then you discover in these verses that the highest form of a man is his spirit.

Oh my goodness. Maybe I ought to investigate what my spirit's all about now that this holy spirit has indwelled me, indwelled my spirit and recreated me in Christ. I have this whole new authoritative, powerful system called the spirit of life in Christ Jesus. So my, yeah. The spirit is dead because of sin and we sin the unbeliever sins through the soul. Did you say the spirit is dead? Because it's sin. What verse are you quoting? For the unbeliever, isn't that? Oh, the unbeliever. Yeah.

So, his nature works through the soul. And all that can do is sin, right? And work through the body. If you don't, if you don't, if you don't, you know, what happens when a non-believer dies, physically dies? One of the things that happens is he stops sinning. Why? Because he doesn't have a body anymore to sin with. Because the law takes him.

No, he doesn't have the vehicle. It's like, Mike, when you get in your car, if you don't get in the car, the car isn't going to run. Well, maybe yours will. But it isn't going to run. If I'm not occupying my body, I'm not using it to sin. That doesn't mean I'm not personified with the sin nature itself. But I mean, If I don't have the thing to send through, the body is dead because of sin, dead to God. So that would be the mind of the flesh? Yeah. The mindset of the flesh is a better way to say it. And Mike, going back a little bit too, makes us sin or whatever. How do we deal with it?

Romans is foundational. You go back to Romans 6, reckon yourself dead unto sin and alive unto God. Start there, and then tacking on to what Miles said, you get just at the beginning of Romans 8, what are your favorite verses? For the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death. That's right. Reckon yourself dead and now we're free, we're under the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. So, think about how much wonderful information that is in so few verses. That I was crucified with Christ, buried and resurrected. That I can reckon myself, dead to the whole sin principle, but alive unto God.

And the reason I can do that is most of the translations say the new law of life, the word is principle, the new principle of life in Christ Jesus. There's an entirely new principle of life, brand new kind of life, never been that kind of life in me before, that has already done with the principle of sin and death. I'm free. I'm totally free. Now, I got a body that's still going to do its happy dance, and it's going to want to express itself, but I'm free. I don't have to. I don't have to.

Mike, I think of Romans 6.13, you know, present your bodies as those alive from the dead. Present your bodies to God as those alive from the dead. Sure.

You know, and that's what you're talking about here. I'm focusing on away from sin and on Christ. So what is Paul telling us when we read this? And we can include 12.1 into that. He's saying to us, look, what I've done through my son on the cross enables you to walk in newness of life.

You can live this Christian life. You can live by the Spirit of God. You can do that if you'll trust me. if you'll believe me. But if you find yourself involved in the desires of the flesh and you're dancing around with them, you're not walking in the flesh.

Notice how that one verse says that those who pay attention to mind and the flesh are occupied with the things of the flesh. Let me give you a good example. When you get up in the morning, Is the first thing you do sit down with the Lord and just spend time with him, or do you turn on CNN? Well, the news. Are you more interested in the world system than you are in the Lord Jesus? If you are interested in the world system, guess who's controlling you? Because sin only cares about what's going on here. This is sin's territory.

That takes me to Colossians. chapter 3. If you then, if then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above where Christ sitteth at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth, for you died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

And the first word of that, though it shouldn't be if, it should be since. Since that happened, here's what you can do. Well, that's what my Bible... Yeah, most of them say if. The point is that the result of walking by the Spirit is a practical walk of righteousness. You can do that. And we may not know a lot about it. That's why we have the Word of God to teach us. Because we don't know what that looks like. You know, at first you think it's a case of the warm fuzzies. You know, I'm just going to be a really terrific guy. I'm going to be really emotional and I'm really going to care about people.

It's not the walk of the Spirit. The walk of the Spirit is by one thing alone. It's by faith. And in order to walk by faith, you've got to have in place what to believe in. That's why Romans 8 is such a great chapter. It is the Christian life. It is the foundation of the Christian life. Now, question five says, in the second to last paragraph on page 42, There is a meager glimpse, I love how he says it, at the wonders of Romans 8. Lists them. Interesting. The first one I put down is, meanwhile, we are led of the spirit. You know what's interesting about that? What's the big lie that the sin nature tells you? Whispers in your ear all the time. What's the big lie? You can do it. You got the strength. I got this. I believe in the Nike principle. I got this. And if I'm not so good at it, he'll help me do it. No, he won't. The walk in the spirit is to be led by him. He leads, you follow.

That's one. I have a witness of the Holy Spirit. Do I have a witness? Yeah, I do, all the time. And he uses God's word to show me, to show me. Three, oh, I can pray in the Spirit. I can quietly sit with the Lord and pray in the Spirit. I can have, as Courtney talks about a lot, I can have the Spirit of God search my spirit and lead me in what God's will is for me in my prayer for somebody else. I can actually do that. And He will do it. So I can pray in the Spirit. quietly waiting for that hope, the coming of our Lord, no matter what our ignorance may be. That's an interesting point, at least it's been brought home to me in the last few months.

How many believers are eagerly waiting for the return of the Lord? They are waiting. And they don't have to be real theologians. They just love the Lord. They know that he's gonna come and rapturous, and you can't wait. Most believers, when they grow, they can't wait. Now granted, some of them can't wait because their circumstances are really bad in their mind, but others can't wait because they can't wait to see him face to face. They can't wait to just see him and be with him full on. So it's kind of like that electrical switch It goes on and on. I don't know so much about the switch.

I think that, you know, there is a battle, there is a war going on between the flesh and the spirit. There's no question about that. What's my job in that battle? Galatians 5. The spirit has strong desires against the flesh, and the flesh has strong desires against the spirit. They're contrary one to another so that I can't do what I want to do. First of all, where am I in that war? Am I the spirit? No, the spirit's fighting the battle. Then who's he fighting against? The flesh. Am I identified with the flesh anymore? No. So there's these two powerful entities warring over control of me. Right?

Isn't that what they're doing? So who determines the winner? Hey, Mike, I was thinking about this as you said that the illustration of having the, you know, the angel dressed in black on one shoulder and or, you know, the sinful. I guess it would not be an angel, but fallen angel on the right, you know, and the white angel on the left and who's in the middle?

Yeah. And you've got this battle that's going on, but one of the things that I think is the common mistake for, at least for me, is that I consider that battle to be an equal battle. Like I've got good versus bad. And here I am in the middle deciding which one sounds like the best option, you know, given the decision or circumstance I'm in. But the question I guess I would ask is, is it a fair battle?

No. Why? Because the flesh is already dead. I'll put it another way, I'm already dead to it. I mean, it's almost JD like, oh, the analogy I think about, I remember when my mom died, they had her body laid out in a coffin in the funeral home, right? And I had this thought, well, I ought to go down to the funeral home and talk to my mom. The problem is, she can't talk back. Why? Because she's dead. In other words, she's separated. And if the Word of God says to me, you're separated from the flesh and its power, then that's the reality. Not the fact that there's this even fight going on. The fight is over. When my dad died, felt to me like a part of me died. Oh, yeah? What part? Well, all of it. Well, no. The dad part, I guess. Dad part. Yeah. Uh huh.

You know, it just hurt me deep because we were so close. Yeah, it's no question that people you love, if the Lord takes them home, there's a sense of loss there, but there's also a sense of, oh my goodness, they're home. How cool is that? So Mike, this is, you know, it's kind of spiritual insanity. Good way to put it.

Why do we listen to the flesh that has been crucified, but we still do it? There's two natures within us, and the battle is going on, and whether we listen to one or the other is the walk in the spirit, walk in the earth, in accordance with the flesh. It's insanity that we listen to the flesh, but that shows how powerful the old man is when we respond. And I think it gets back to a little bit what you were saying before is our desire to be home with the Lord. you know, versus hanging around here.

As you have that intimacy and that relationship, you want to be with that person. The person is Christ. The more time you spend with him, the intimacy of John 17, you know, or the Abba Father, that we have that much of a relationship, you want to be with him. That's your desire. As you grow in the knowledge and grace of the Lord, you want to be there with him. That's your desire. Well, it's interesting, Courtney, in this battle that JD's talking about and we're talking about, you know, you could at some point think, well, wait a minute. Why is this battle going on?

Is the flesh dead or am I dead to it? Which one is it? Well, it's obvious that the flesh isn't dead, because it's, you know, striking up the band every morning, you know. The point is, is that I'm dead to it. See that? My mom, when she died, she was dead to this world. She was not here anymore. When any of us die, we're gonna stop sinning because we're not here and don't have a body to do it with. So it gets to be kind of a, oh, wait a minute, who are the players and what roles do they play?

If I'm to reckon myself dead, dead unto sin, The other thing I think about, too, with the reckoning and knowledge of I think Romans 7 is put in there. Here's Paul. Here's, you know, the man who spent years with the Lord, personally with the Lord, and yet he struggles with it. That to me shows the strength and the power of the old man and the flesh, well, the flesh, basically, in which we dwell. Here's, you know, he struggles with it and he tries and he wants to and he struggles and, you know, the only thing is he comes back to, it's a person. in that relationship. I'm a little hung up personally about the idea of power.

Because it's not an equal battle. The problem is that it's our lack of either A understanding or B faith in the matter, right? Because it's not like we're some kind of neutral entity sitting in the middle making decisions between two powerful directions. That's not the picture.

But it is oftentimes the way we think about it and the way that others do in the world. So the question is, what does the battle really look like? And we'll talk about it a lot in the next lesson. I'm going to leave it open to any questions. How is the power different from the two competing claims, from the flesh and from the spirit? But JD also, while he's writing that down, that's why I say it's a spiritual insanity.

Why do we listen? Why do we respond? We know it's wrong, we know it's bad, we know it's not the right thing, and yet we do it. We know the end is an eternal life face to face with him, but we make these decisions that go with the flesh. And that's what I said, it's insane what we do, but the battle is won. It's over with that, and yet we respond to the flesh.

Why do we do that? I think our focus is off the Lord or we're not spending time with the one we love, so we fall over here into the insane position of listening to the flesh. You know, on Wednesday night we started in this new thing, and one of the questions that was asked was, Why do some believers grow and others don't? You know what the answer that this guy gave was?

Diligence to the word of God. So we have the opportunity and the privilege to have God's word. We've been recreated in Christ and then dwelt by the Holy Spirit so we can understand it. He shows us what he means and we have the privilege to believe him.

One, I think that partially the answer, especially for young believers, they don't have enough information. They don't know God's word in terms of what's true of them. And two, even older believers, when they're confronted with Romans 6, 7, and 8 truth, they really don't believe it because the power of the flesh is so strong.

You know, it's the old saying that if I'm dead, how come every time the music starts, my feet start moving? You know, well, the intricacies of this death with Christ to a world that I still live in, in a body that still has desires, in a sin nature that's still active, is an enigma until we finally come to just rest by faith in what God tells us. I am dead to sin. I am alive under God in Christ.

That's true. And that's what spiritual growth is all about. I think diligence is intimacy or time with that leads to faith. Faith in the facts. I agree. Diligence leads us to believing what's true about us. Ultimately, it's the faith. Isn't that something? Yeah. We've got to go. We're over about 7 or 8 minutes. So, I'll see you guys in 40 minutes.

Let's pray. Father, how we thank you for your word. How thankful we are for this incredible truth that you tell us. Now that you may, your spirit may continue to work with us to the point where we will accept no other truth but what comes from him and your word. We pray in his name. Amen.