Text: Romans 8:6-11
Focus: Spirit life
Function: to contrast following God vs ourselves
6To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. 7For this reason the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law—indeed, it cannot, 8and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
9But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. 10But if Christ is in you, then the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 11If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through his Spirit that dwells in you.
Good morning to the beloved children of God!
Our text today is from the great chapter on the power of the Holy Spirit in the lives of those who trust in Christ.
It is a fitting scripture for Lent because it causes us to reflect on our own failures, mistakes or, as the text calls it: Sin.
We have the power of the Spirit to resist the power of error in our lives.
He starts out the chapter telling us that the Holy Spirit is the answer to the problem we have with failing to meet the standard that we believe God requires from us.
He contrasts what he calls the mind set on the flesh and the mind set on the spirit.
By “The flesh” he means our carnal nature. Setting our minds solely on our own needs instead of the needs of the community is part of what he is speaking about.
But he is talking about it in a selfish way, when we hoard our wealth and others suffer.
It is ironic that we honor billionaires who hoard more wealth than can be possibly spent in a lifetime while others are working for them and living on food stamps in a cycle of poverty. God has a lot to say about that kind of hoarding. God says it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven. And here is the sad part about it, how we are duped into worldly standards: In our minds, we may covet their wealth thinking of the fun that luxury will bring.
That is the mind set on the flesh. And we are to resist that thinking.
And we know that money doesn’t make us happy.
So, he commands us to keep our minds set on the subtle leading of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
That starts us on our understanding of the passage. Now look at vs 8 says that says that we are alive because of righteousness.
He is speaking of the fact that Jesus forgave all of humanity on the cross when he said it is finished.
God does not hold us accountable for our sins.
Christians believe this and trust in God’s forgiveness for them.
It is important to understand that God is love and that God loves us unconditionally.
When I introduced the sermon, I mentioned a standard that God requires. But we don’t have to meet any standard for God to love us. The promise of God for us is salvation, which means that we are restored to God and healed from the error of evil that is present in the world. Even healed from the times when we have knowingly or unknowingly been a part of that evil.
God forgives and cleanses us from all mistakes that we have made in the past, we will make in the future and the ones that we are making now of which we might not even be aware.
How often have I preached a sermon wishing sister or brother so and so would hear it and change when the person who needed to hear it was me?
Our human nature never really takes the time to consider it may be me God is talking to.
Lent is that season of reflection and it is part of my duty here as pastor to lead us in confession.
I am a minister of the gospel you know that this pulpit is not for political purposes. But from a biblical perspective, I just wonder how much accountability we as a people will have for the 170 girls murdered in a school in Iran. Or, when we read Leviticus 19:33-34 that says God will judge the nation that does not care for the alien or the stranger. So how will God judge us for the actions of ICE? Or, when our bombs were used to slaughter 20,000 children in Gaza? These evils of war and national identity are condemned in scripture.
We believe that all war is sin since it doesn’t meet the standard of love that Christ commands.
I believe in a strong defense, and we need our military. But the murder of innocents is a war crime and I believe that we as a people will be held accountable by God for those actions.
So, as pastor of this church, before God we confess our sin and ask God for forgiveness. “God, give us your mercy and make us merciful in response.”
I hope you realize that I am not trying to be political here., Remember what I was talking about before that confession. I was speaking of how we are forgiven for sins we have committed, ones we will commit and for the ones of which we are not aware.
We are forgiven, even though we are guilty because God is love and God forgives us, especially when we come to God and ask God.
So, again, not politics but the power of forgiveness is what I am trying to preach here. Humanity desperately needs forgiveness. This evil we see committed recently isn’t anything new in the history of humanity. That doesn’t make it right or mean that we are consenting of the evil that is happening. It is humanity itself with its greed that leads us to war needs redemption.
Praise God for Jesus. Jesus redeems us.
So Paul; using that phrase, “the body is alive because of righteousness” has to do with the fact that God through Christ Jesus loves us no matter what we have done.
God is love and love is God’s nature.
And the text says that those who follow the Spirit belong to Christ.
The whole thing boils down to this prayerful leading from God that we get when we surrender our lives to the way that Jesus wants us to live.
By faith we trust the leading of the Spirit to cause us to live in the power of God’s love and the promise is that God’s power will sustain us in everything we face.
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