Now, we open the Word of God together to the book of Romans and the eighth chapter as we look at our text tonight beginning in verse 5. For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit the things of the Spirit. For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace.
Because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God, for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. However, you are 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. And 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 Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who indwells you. We live in a day of what I call creeping universalism. There is a gradual and subtle acceptance among those who call themselves evangelicals of the basic idea that ultimately everybody in the world is a child of God, and that someday everybody is eventually somehow going to be in heaven.
That idea, that creeping universalism, I think comes out of a sense of compromise and a desire to accommodate the ideas in the theological world these days. Is that true, though? Is it true that everyone is a child of God, and someday everyone is going to be in heaven? Well, in fact, as we look at our text tonight, we see that there is a definite contrast between those who are genuinely the children of God and those who are not the children of God.
You will notice that there is a new theme in chapter 8 of Romans, if you have been with us for our study over these past months. That theme is the Holy Spirit. He has nearly been absent in the book of Romans. He certainly inspired these words as Paul wrote them, but he has not showed himself in the language until you come to chapter 8, where now the Holy Spirit is mentioned several times. In fact, in the text that I have read, the word spirit, or nouma in the Greek language, is used nine times.
Nearly all of them refer to the Holy Spirit. There is a capital S on spirit. Only one time does it refer to the human spirit, and that is in verse 10. Paul concludes this initial paragraph of the book of the chapter, 8th chapter of Romans, by reminding us of God's purpose in our salvation. That is, that we might be liberated from our sin, the result being that now the righteousness of God's law is fulfilled in our lives.
That is, those of us who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. Notice the contrast there between two key words, flesh and spirit. Those are the two key words in this whole paragraph, flesh and spirit. There is a distinction in this paragraph between those who are lost and those who are saved, those who are the children of God and those who are the children of the devil, those who are unregenerate and those who are regenerate.
That contrast focuses on these key words, flesh and spirit. I want you to see this distinction as it is drawn out in five specific contrasts. Contrast number one is a contrast in position. If you're taking notes, that's the first key word to notice, a contrast in position. The Bible says that there are only two kinds of people in the world, those who are born once and those who are born twice. That is seen in this contrast of position.
Look in the last, or rather actually the middle part of our paragraph where it says in verse eight, those who are in the flesh cannot please God. You are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. So there is the contrast of position. There are those in the world tonight and in this room, undoubtedly, who are in the flesh. Then there are others who are in the Spirit. What is the difference?
Those who are in the flesh, according to the Bible, are those who are without spiritual regeneration. They have no life of God within them. In the flesh is the way they're described. The word flesh is used in several ways in the New Testament. The context makes it clear as to which way it's intended to be understood. It is used in the sense of one's own physical body, the body of flesh and blood that we live in. It's used in the sense of ancestry.
Jesus Christ was the son of David according to the flesh, his human ancestry. It's used in the sense here. That is, that unredeemed humanness. It is that part where sin dwells. It's used here of the essence of life apart from God. It is existence on the material level where there is no life of the Spirit. Melanchthon said it is the entire nature of man without the Holy Spirit. That's the flesh. The flesh is the natural man's identification before God. He's in the flesh.
There's nothing spiritual about him. That is his position in the eyes of God. And frankly, he is the last to suspect it. He is the last to suspect that he is lost. His mind is darkened to that truth because he cannot receive the things of the Spirit of God. He believes himself to be religious, to somehow someday be acceptable with God when he gets there to heaven. He pictures the gate of heaven as though St. Peter is standing outside it and surely St. Peter will let him in.
He does not suspect the awful condition that he's in. The fact is that he is lost and on his way to hell because in his position before God he's in the flesh, unregenerated. But then there are those who are in the Spirit. This is the regenerated person. The one who has experienced the reality of chapter 8 verse 2, in whom now the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus is operating. One who has trusted Christ, who has found the source of life in Christ and in the Holy Spirit.
Jesus said that which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. His contrast is further seen back in verse 5 where it says those who are according to the flesh and those who are according to the Spirit. Literally it says here those according to the flesh being, those according to the Spirit being. In other words, it's a matter of one's life's essence. There are those tonight whose being, whose very essence of meaning and life is in the flesh.
Then there are those whose very life, whose very essence is in the Spirit. That is the contrast of position. Are you tonight still in the flesh because you've only been born once? That which is born of the flesh is flesh, Jesus said. Your need tonight is to be born of the Spirit of God, to be born again, born twice, because then you are born of the Spirit and you are in the Spirit. Well, that position leads to direction, the direction of life. That's the contrast.
Going back now to verses 4 and 5 again, he speaks about those who walk according to the flesh, who set their minds on the things of the flesh. Do you see that? In contrast, he points to those who walk according to the Spirit and who set their minds on the things of the Spirit. The being, the essence of a person affects the direction of his life, what interests him, what motivates him. Those who are according to the flesh pursue, set their heart on, set their mind on the things of the flesh.
Their preoccupation of life is with sensual, earthly, material things. That's the goal of their activities. This frankly is the man of the 80s. This is the man of our modern, contemporary culture. Of course, it's been true in every age, but never has it been perhaps so exposed in Western civilization as today, people who are fine, upstanding citizens, who are intelligent, who are scientific, who are cultured, who are refined, who are religious.
They're not necessarily gross, immoral, dirty people. We're talking now about as well the person who is the member of the school board, pardon me, member of the school board. The person who is part of the philanthropic societies in our culture, who belongs to the community clubs. Here's the nice person who is without God. This person walks according to the flesh. It may not be a life of crime and immorality.
It may be even that the life is given to serve others, but the fact is that those actions proceed from the flesh, which is alienated from God. But in contrast to that direction of life, which is what, 95% of our neighbors, we're talking now about your neighbors, about your neighborhood, about the place where you work, most of you. The people there walk, they conduct themselves, they behave themselves according to the flesh because that is the reality of their life.
In contrast to that are those who because they are according to the spirit, walk according to the spirit, and they set their minds on the things of the spirit. You see, the Christian lives in another dimension, another realm of reality, another world. His motives are different, his objectives are different. Now, it's possible for a Christian to revert and for at least a period of time in his life to live according to the direction of his flesh.
It's possible for a genuine Christian to be carnal, if it weren't, Paul wouldn't have called the Corinthian Christians carnal Christians. But what a tragic way to live, what a contradiction to one's existence to be alive by the spirit and then to live dominated by that old self, that unredeemed part of us called the flesh. That's why Paul writes even to the Colossians and he exhorts them and says, set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. Why does he say that to them?
Because it's so easy for all of us, even we are saved, to set our mind, that is to focus our lives on the things here below. So he says, set your minds, focus, not on things horizontal, things vertical, on things above. Contrast of direction. Now we come to our third contrast, it is the contrast of condition in verse 6. The mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the spirit is life. Here is the contrast of the condition of a person, it's death and life.
And it could not be a greater contrast. What does he mean by death? The mind set on the flesh is death. He's talking here about something that's present. It's a present condition, just as Romans 6.23 says, the wages of sin not will be death, but is death right now. Death is the result of the walk and the direction of the life. Because of a person's position in the flesh, he walks according to the flesh, that's the direction of his life.
And that direction of his life determines the condition he lives in, it's death. Right now, every moment, the unsaved person lives in the condition of death, alienation from God. But that has a definite ethical result. The Amplified Bible says it's death that comprises all the miseries arising from sin, both here and hereafter.
Mark Evington Wood, in his commentary, Life by the Spirit, puts it this way, so then those who make the flesh their ambition are even at this moment, this present moment, entombed in death. That's a thought, isn't it? They are not really alive at all, they are simply going through the motions. How different is the viewpoint of God's Word from the viewpoint of the world? Those who are absorbed in the flesh, imagine that they have found life. They are seeing life, they think.
They are making the most of life, they are sampling the spice of life. But God pronounces them dead, dead through trespasses and sins, Ephesians 2, 1. They are sowing the seeds of final destruction. Paul tells Timothy, she who is self-indulgent is dead even while she lives. My friend, that is the condition of the one who is in the flesh, dead while he lives. The opposite of that is the one who is in the Spirit. The mind set on the Spirit, it says, is life.
This word life again refers to a present condition, not just heaven by and by, it's wonderful. And is filled with hope as that is. He is talking about life here and now. The mind set on the Spirit is life, he says, is a quality of living. It's a blessed life, it's the fullness of life. Jesus said, I am come that they might have life and have it more abundantly. That is the life he is talking about. What is the condition in which you live today, honestly?
Are you one who walks about, you go through the routine, you are a sincere person, a kind person, but because you have never trusted Jesus Christ as your Savior. Are you one who is entombed already while you live? The mind set on the flesh is death. How deceptive sin is, it makes us think we found something, it makes us think we found life. How I pity Shirley MacLaine and those who are following her as a guru and who are a whole part of that New Age movement.
You know they think through some kind of self-discovery, they have tapped into the God within. And they are so deceived. And you know God is everywhere and we are God and it's a lie. But they think they found something, but the fact is they are entombed in death. Because what they have found is outside of Jesus Christ who is the life. The contrast of condition. Then there is the contrast of relation.
Verses 6 through 8. He speaks about the mind of the flesh and he says in verse 7, it is hostile toward God. That's the relation toward God. Hostile. The mind of the one who is in the flesh is at war with God. He is in rebellion. He is in resistance. And the thought that somehow he must humble himself, that he must somehow repent of his sin, that somehow he must come through the narrow gate of faith in Jesus Christ, all of that turns him off.
That kind of teaching just makes him angry inside because he doesn't like God telling him what he must do. He wants to do it his own way. That's the American way, isn't it? Yes, but it's not God's way. The mind that is set on the flesh is hostile, is at war with God. It says it does not subject itself to the law of God. Subject here is a military term. To subject means to line up, as the commanding officer says. It means to be united under the authority of the commander.
The thought is here that the one who is unsaved has a whole mindset that is AWOL. It will not line up with the line God says to be on. God says this is the way, and this mindset says that is the way. How opposite this is to General Charles George Gordon, a military officer in the United States who every day would begin his day.
He would get out of bed and the very first thing he would do would be to salute his commanding officer Jesus Christ, putting himself in line, subjecting himself the very first moment of the day. God goes on to say here that this mind in the flesh is not able to subject itself to God. It's the inevitable outcome of his warped perverted sense of God. It is simply not in him, says Skevington Wood, to love God or to recognize God's claim or submit to his wise and beneficent law.
He goes on to say, those who are in the flesh cannot please God. Be good, turn over a new leaf, try harder, go through the rituals of the church, all of those things that seem to the flesh to be pleasing to God. But because he's in the flesh, he cannot please God. Or he does not please God, because to please God he must be in the Spirit. He must receive Jesus Christ. And that brings us to the mind of the Spirit, which it says here in verse 6 is peace. Here's the relation of the believer to God.
It's peace, not hostility. He's no longer at war. He has surrendered to the divine conqueror. Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. The unsaved person cannot know this. The one who's trying to make it on his own can never be at peace with God until he comes to God God's way by faith in Jesus Christ. The implication is here that he is at peace with God because the righteousness of God is in his life. Not that he's perfect. He's not.
But the fact is that when God looks at him, God sees him. He sees him identified with his son who is perfect. And God accepts him for Christ's sake. Therefore, there's peace. Peace with God. And finally, there's the contrast of possession, verses 9 through 11. What does the unsaved man possess? Nothing of the Spirit of God. He says in the last part of verse 9, if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to him. The one who is in the flesh does not have the Holy Spirit.
Therefore, he does not have Jesus Christ as his Savior. And he's on his way to an eternity of ruin, of perishing, and fires of hell. That's his inheritance. That's what he possesses. Awful possession. But in contrast to that is the believer who enjoys really a double possession. These verses, it says that the believer has the Spirit, and the Spirit has him. That's the double possession. To have the Spirit of Christ dwelling within us is to have Jesus Christ dwelling within us.
Notice that it says that. Verse 10 says, if Christ is in you. Verse 11 says, if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you. The if in both of those verses, by the way, is not conditional, but it's really understood. It's a first class condition, which really means since Christ is in you, since the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is in you. The double possession is that I have the Spirit of God, and the Spirit of God has me. And Christ is at home.
He dwells within. He is the occupant. He is the resident of me and of you who belong to him. What an amazing thought that is. That the God who dwells in unapproachable light, as Paul says in 1 Timothy 6, 16, dwells in you and in me. And he says that the possession of the Spirit includes a future for our physical bodies. He says right now in verse 10 that the body is dead because of sin. That is, sin still works even in the body of the believer. He talked about that in chapter 7, remember?
Our physical bodies right now are dead. That is, death works in them. Death dominates these physical bodies, and that's the direction we're headed in physically. But he says that's not the end. He says since the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who indwells you. These bodies in which death works now will someday know life.
The Holy Spirit will give us a new body like Christ. I look forward to that body, don't you? My brother-in-law and sister-in-law are here visiting with us for this week. He's been bemoaning the fact about how old he's getting. I agree with him. He is getting old. His body is wearing out, but I recognize the symptoms. Some of you who are young say, oh, it'll never happen to me. You wait around a while, you'll find out. Death works in these bodies, but these bodies will be raised.
Not just like they are now, but like Jesus' body. The same God who raised him from the grave 2,000 years ago by the same power will raise us with a body just like Christ's which is fit for all of eternity. Oh, what a wonderful hope we have in the resurrection of the body. This body is subject to death. That body will never, ever be subject to death. What a possession. And what a contrast. The unsaved has no possession. Even the body he lives in now will one day be stripped from him.
And to be resurrected in it one day only then again to experience what the Bible calls the second death which is to be cast into the lake of fire forever and forever. What a horrible thought. But what a just thought. For that is the recompense of a holy God to sin and to sinners who refuse him. For those of us who know Christ, what a possession. Now and forever in Jesus Christ. So hey, how do I get from the one to the other? How do I get from the flesh to the spirit? The answer is very simple.
That which is born of the flesh is flesh and that which is born of the spirit is spirit. You need to be born again. So how do you do that? Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. It's that simple. The gospel is that Jesus Christ came into this world, he died for your sins, he was buried, he rose again. That's the good news.
God has done everything and the only thing possible to save you from your sin, from your flesh, from the direction of your life, from the condition you live in and from your eternal destiny. God has done it all to save you. But now you must personally appropriate that and receive it by faith. Will you do that tonight? If you've never done it before, maybe you've been religious, you've been a good person, but it's all been in the flesh. Will you trust the Savior tonight?
Receive Jesus Christ and in so doing be born again so that you're in the spirit. Join us, won't you, in the family of God? Enjoy with us, won't you, the inheritance that belongs to the sons of God? Let's bow together. I wonder if there may be someone here this evening who has never trusted in Jesus Christ as Savior. Perhaps a church goer, a good person, but will you recognize that neither going to church or being good can please God.
The only thing that can please God is that you repent of your sin and trust his Son, whom he gave for you. Will you right now exercise faith in your heart? Will you tell Jesus Christ that you do believe in him, not just as an historical figure, but as one that you are receiving into your life right now to redeem you, to forgive you, to give you new life? Will you commit the saving of your soul to him? You don't have to come forward to do it. You can do it right there where you're seated.
For that matter, you can do it beside your bed at home tonight alone. But oh, I pray that you will do that. Oh, may God, I pray that these that you're speaking to will make that decision. Father, open their eyes to see and quicken their hearts to believe on the Son of God. In whom there is life and apart from whom there is only, only death. Before I finish praying, I want to just ask those of us who are Christians tonight, my friend, are you dominated by the flesh?
Oh, you're in the Spirit, but the flesh tonight is controlling you. Walk in the Spirit and you will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. That principle of sin operates within you and it will until that day that we get the new body or we're with the Lord. But will you tonight say, Lord Jesus, I give myself to you afresh and I ask the Holy Spirit to dominate me. I would be done with the flesh and its death. I want the Spirit to produce in me the life of Jesus Christ and its abundance.
Would that be your decision? Don't go on in your misery. May Christ Lord tonight. Would you stand together with me please? Now Father, as we depart from this place, we depart with joy in our hearts. Is the joy of having been together, having shared together in precious things, having heard the voice of the Lord through the Word. We pray that this week as we go about the routine of the assignment you've given us, we might do that in a way that would please you.
Not in some legalistic sense, but in a life giving sense. We might walk with you in grace and know the joy of your fellowship daily. May we intimately worship with you so that when we come together, if you tarry in seven days, we may do so with our hearts filled so that we may truly worship you together as a congregation. To that end, we ask your blessing on us in Jesus' name, amen. Thanks for coming tonight and God bless you.