Sin and Death

by James Lincoln on September 25, 2005

  The Converting Ministry of the Holy Spirit (Means of Conversion) Romans 8:1-11 Christians Struggle But Christians are Blessed This morning I want to do some review and pick up some loose ends from the first eleven verses before we go on to the next section. Paul has been rejoicing in the glorious realities of the gospel. Now it is precisely in the context of an often agonizing and ongoing struggle that he lays hold of this great joy. In 7:24, he says, “Oh wretched man that I am who will save me from this body?” Then he gives us the gospel hope, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ the Lord.” Even though the record of his righteousness next to the perfect standard of God’s righteousness leads him to conclude that he is a wretched man, he sets his mind and heart on the truth of the gospel and as he does he recovers a joy that’s beyond his wildest imagination. But notice that his joy in the gospel doesn’t end the struggle. At the end of v. 25 He tells us that the conclusion of this matter is that even after he lays hold of the gospel he doesn’t cease to struggle. He says, “So then, I have a mind that serves the law of God but I have a body that doesn’t want to and doesn’t always cooperate.” (my paraphrase) Later, in v. 23, he tells us this struggle is a life long battle that doesn’t end until our bodies are redeemed. Remember, this is not a novice Christian speaking who doesn’t know how to live a holy life, in the power of the Spirit or in the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit. This is an apostle. And the assurance of no condemnation for those who are in Christ in v.1 is given to us in the context of this deep inner turmoil and struggle. Listen, when you begin to walk in the Spirit, that’s when you begin to come under the law of His convicting ministry. And as he convicts you of sin, righteousness and judgment you become aware of the disparity between your righteousness and God’s. Without the certain assurance of v.1 the weight of this reality would be devastating. So, the assurances, blessings, warnings and exhortations of Romans eight come to us in the context of serious struggle with indwelling sin. And, these are struggles that we don’t always win. The fullness of the Holy Spirit doesn’t remove the struggle. To live or walk according the Sprit - in this context - in some new ways creates the struggle. However, he also gives us realities of our conversion that tell us how to rejoice and make progress even in the presence of those struggles. Conversion Realities In Romans eight, Paul is describing the converting ministry of the Holy Spirit. He is describing what Ezekiel prophesied in Ezekiel 36:25-28 “Then I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean; I will cleanse you from all your filthiness and from all your idols. "Moreover, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. "And I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will be careful to observe My ordinances.” Ezek 36:25-28 NAS Some have asked me, “Why do you say that this is about the converting work or regenerating work of the Holy Spirit?” Look carefully at the contrast in vs. 5-11, and notice that Paul’s not contrasting converts who have come to live by the Spirit with converts who haven’t. He’s not contrasting a mature Christian with an immature Christian. He’s not here contrasting spiritual believers with carnal believers. Instead, Paul is contrasting those who have been converted by the Holy Spirit—or, as Jesus said, those who have been born of the Spirit—with those who have haven’t been converted. In other words, he’s describing how authentic conversion really shows up in those who have been born again. Notice in v. 2, that The Spirit is called the Spirit of life. If you are in Christ you are a new creation (2 Cor. 5). You have passed from death to life or separation from God to life with God. You’ve been given eternal life (Jn.3:16). You’ve been given new life in Christ. So Paul is outlining for us the mutual life bond between Christ and His people that comes about by the converting and re-creating ministry of the Holy Spirit. Let’s look carefully again at the contrast. 1. In v. 5-8 he is describing those who walk, live or who are according to the flesh. Verse 7 makes it plain that these are not immature believers or carnal believers. He writes, “For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed it cannot. Then he writes in v. 8 that those who are in the flesh cannot please God. That description: hostile, rebellious to God’s law, unable to submit to God’s law and unable to please God…that description couldn’t be more stark in its contrast to what Paul says here and elsewhere about a Christian who can do all thing through Christ who strengthens him. He’s writing about those who have not had a change of mind, will or heart. But if that wasn’t clear enough his next sentence removes all doubt. He says in v. 9 that “You however are not in the flesh (like the person mentioned above), but you are in the Spirit.. ”If in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you.” This is a reference to the converting and indwelling ministry of the Holy Spirit. And if the Spirit does not dwell in you, then it’s not that you are immature or that you are out of fellowship. If the Spirit doesn’t live in you, he says that you don’t even belong to Christ or that you are not one of His children. Again, in v. 15, our adoption by God by which we are enabled to call God our Father is not a blessing that comes after you are converted. It’s one of the blessings of your conversion. Paul is here showing us what authentic conversion to Christ looks like. Not every one who professes to believe in Jesus does. Remember that James says that the demons believe and even tremble but they don’t repent or believe on Jesus as their Lord and Savior. They do not believe in Him as He really is. We see this with Simon the magician in Acts 8 and the multitude of disciples at the end of John 6. Jesus said that you can’t even see the kingdom of God much less enter it unless you are born again or unless you are converted. So, the realities of verse 5 and 6 about the one who sets his mind on the Spirit describes the normal behavior of an authentic convert. It describes how new birth really shows up. Notice that Paul doesn’t give us an exhortation here. He doesn’t say here, “Set you mind on the Spirit”. Now that’s a fair exhortation. But here, he gives us a description of what a real convert looks like. Now, does a new convert set his or her mind on the Spirit with sinless perfection? No! That’s why you have Romans 7. But will a born again believer act like this? Of course. Why? Because vs. 2 tells us that this converting work of the Spirit is, “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” It’s a law! It will happen to every convert. Jesus said as much when He said, “My sheep hear my voice and they follow Me.” Those who really belong to Jesus will find themselves listening to His voice and following Him, not with sinless perfection, not without agony of failure and recovery, not at the same speed and pace or dealing with the same issues as the next person. But His sheep will follow him and following Him will define the tenor of their lives. They will set their minds on Him. How do I know this? I know it is true because it is the law of the Spirit of Christ and it’s the word of the Lord. And God enforces His laws. So, in this context to “walk” or “live” according to the Spirit is used synonymously with being in Christ or being born again. That’s what Christians ordinarily do. This is not a sequence in a believer’s life whereby he begins without the Spirit or without sanctification and then later gets the Spirit for power. He’s contrasting those who have been converted by the Spirit and those who have not. If anyone is in Christ he is a new creation; the old has passes away and the new has come. If you believe on the Lord Jesus you are sealed with the Spirit of God, and blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, baptized by the Spirit of God and indwelt by the Spirit of God and set free from the law of sin and death. Paul is simply describing the Holy Spirit’s role in all of this and how this will show up in the life of true believer. So what does a Christian convert look like? 1. Justified and cleared of guilt. Well he’s a person who even though he struggles with indwelling sin and sometimes loses that battle through faith in the Lord Jesus as his sin bearer he can be assured that there is now therefore no condemnation on his life from God. Jesus has born the full penalty for all our sins. If there was one sin that He missed we would be vulnerable. One of the blessings the Holy Spirit communicates to believers is that our sins have been forgiven, past present and future and though someday we will all stand before the judgment seat of Christ all the condemnation and contempt that would have been behind that judgment will be missing. Jesus has born that on our behalf. How do I know that is true for every believer? It’s a law. 2. We are Empowered to do good. The converting and convicting ministry of the Holy Spirit purposes that the righteous requirements of the law will be fulfilled in your life. Isn’t that what he says in v. 4. He says that God has done this that the righteous requirements of the law might be fulfilled in us. Not just for us but in us. God’s purpose for you in conversion is not that you have an initial spasm followed by chronic inertia. His purpose in conversion is to pitch your heart onto the righteous requirements of His law so that you will strive to fulfill them or become righteous. Or to set you free from the law of sin and death. A true convert is not simply acquitted she is also converted. And the converting ministry of the Holy Spirit convicts us of what is righteous and pushes us in that direction. When you’re converted your heart is changed. You desire things you didn’t before you were converted. And righteousness is one of those things. How do I know this is true for every believer? It’s a law. It’s a law. It is how the Spirit works and what He is about in our lives. The Means of Conversion and Renewal So, Paul reveals for us here not only the assurance of the forgiveness, the freedom to obey and the certainty of a changed heart…he also reveals for us the means the Holy Spirit uses to change and heal us. In v. 5-8 look for the means the Spirit uses to bring us into cooperation with God’s purposes for us. (7:5). “For those who live according to the flesh, set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. (Notice that that’s what they do) This is not an exhortation. 6 To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. 7 for the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. 9 You however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you….” I see at least three means the Holy Spirit uses to bring us into cooperation with the glorious purposes God has for us: The mind, the will (the converted sets his mind set on something… right?) and the affections or your heart. The mind set on the Spirit is no longer hostile to the things of God; instead, he’s now drawn to the things of God and yearns for the things of The Spirit. How does authentic conversion show up in a person’s life? What does a person look like that has been converted? What does someone who is a new creation in Christ look like and what difference does God make in their lives? Paul says that the Holy Spirit makes a cognitive change or a change in our understanding about God about Jesus, and about ourselves. There is a volitional change. We behave differently. This is not just about knowledge or our words. And you have a change of heart. When you are born again you start to love, honor, adore, and cherish the things of God. How do I know these things happen? It’s a law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. Do we do these things perfectly? No. But are these the kind of changes the Spirit makes in our lives? Yes! The Spirit of God uses three faculties of your soul to bring you into cooperation with God’s divine purposes for your life: the mind, the will and the heart. The Mind This morning, let’s just take the mind and we’ll pick up the others later. I said a few weeks ago that if I were the devil and I wanted to muck up a person’s progress and joy and peace that I would try to convince God’s people that there was a wedge between the mind and the Spirit. I’d try to get people to think that the Christian life is primarily about the mind or primarily about the Spirit. I might even divide them up into churches that taught that the mind is central and churches that said, no, the Spirit is central. But, you see, the devil creates false dichotomies that, in reality, don’t exist. Paul folds the mind and the Spirit together. Luther liked to say that the church, at times, is like a drunk on a donkey. We keep falling off one side or the other and have a hard time staying on balance. Paul mentions the Holy Spirit twenty times here and the one faculty of the soul he emphasizes (6 times) and makes explicit is the mind. You see, it’s the Spirit that brings conviction to the heart through the preaching of the Word (Rom. 1O: 17, “So, faith comes from hearing and hearing through the word of Christ.”). People are brought to faith by means of the Word of God. This Word is addressed to the mind. The Spirit-empowered Word penetrates the heart by way of the mind. That’s why the mind is so central to Paul. You have to hear the word preached. If you are converted, you have to deal with God on the terms he has set forth in His word. You have to deal with the judgments of your Creator and Redeemer. When you are converted, you recognize that you aren’t God. You must consider, know and think about what God has said . The Holy Spirit takes that Word. Gives us understanding and then presses it into your heart so that you learn to love it, trust it, and obey it. Now, aren’t you glad this is true? What would you do without understanding John 3:16, Ps. 103, Eph. 2:8-9 or Rom. 5:8? How could I live if I didn’t know that when I draw near to God He promises to draw near to me (James 4:8) How could I live if I didn’t know God was my heavenly Father? Paul is telling us that God penetrates the heart through the mind. Or as Jonathan Edwards loved to say, “The heart can’t move to what the mind doesn’t know.” So the heart and mind are both simultaneously primary in our lives. The heart is primary in value and the mind is primary in order. Now the word in the mind alone is never enough. The mind is the means the Holy Spirit uses to bring us into cooperation with God. What’s necessary for conversion is that the Word of God is empowered or illumined by the Spirit who takes that Word and brings about conviction in your mind and heart. Conviction is being persuaded about the truth of something. Conversion is not just a mental exercise. That’s why we pray before we read, teach or preach the Bible. The Holy Spirit takes the Word of God and He opens the heart to trust it, love it and desire it. However, His primary means of changing our hearts and healing our hearts and minds is a mind that comes under the influence of the Word of God. How can you know blessings of God’s promises if you don’t know the promises? How can I know what to think about God if I don’t know anything about God? That’s why it is so critical to reason from truth to experience and not the other way around. How can you ever be free of fear if you don’t know that perfect love casts out fear? How can you walk in the freedom of sin’s tyranny if you don’t know you have been set free from sin’s tyranny? How can you believe that you can face demanding trials if you don’t know that you can do all things through Christ who strengthens you? How can you know the expectations of God on your life if you don’t set your mind on His word and listen to them? How can you know the Spirit of truth if you do not set your mind on the truth? How can you resist temptation unless you know that God will not tempt you beyond that which you are able, but will provide a way of escape in every temptation? How can you walk in the joy and peace of forgiveness if you don’t know that He has cast our sins as far as the east is from the west? How can you walk in humility if you don’t know the question: “If the Lord should mark our iniquities, who could stand?” and that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. How can you stop complaining that God hasn’t helped you if you don’t know that God has given you everything you need for life and godliness? If you don’t begin your day or carry on throughout the day thinking about God’s Word, you just don’t have a fighting chance. How can you defeat strongholds? In 2 Cor.10:3-5 Paul says: “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, (Then he defines how that shows up) casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, (NKJV) Jesus’ sheep set their minds on the things of the Spirit. It’s what a convert does. How do I know this? It is the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus our Lord. And the Spirit of life knows that man does not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the Father. You can’t live a new life in Christ without the nourishment of the Word. In his final words, Jesus said, “sanctify them by Your truth,” and then He said, “Your word is truth.” When you are converted you begin to understand the Word of God. And you begin to fall in love with the God’s truth. Your affections for it also change. It’s one of the changes God makes in your heart. It’s the means the Holy Spirit uses to heal your mind and your heart. And most of us have a lot of healing to be done. Do you think that you are the exception? Do you think that your mind has been so lightly and superficially affected by sin that your mind doesn’t need to be healed? Do you think that the patterns of thought in this world do not influence you every day? This is a world that says that, loving yourself is more important than loving God. This is a word that says “think about yourself and your happiness and satisfaction before God’s glory. This is a world that says, “You are what you possess and your value is in how many things you can buy, or worse, how good looking you are or how smart you are or how skinny and emaciated you can look. Not how good you are.” Could it get any more superficial? I read somewhere, 60% of teenage girls in Beverly Hill CA have had some form of plastic surgery. This world says that you will not be accountable to your Creator. This world says that you are the final authority in your life and that you call the shots in your life. This world says, look out for yourself first and then think about others. Do you think you don’t need to have you mind saturated by the Word of God to combat the influence of the pattern of thinking in this world? Beloved, you need every ounce of truth you can get squeezed into your noodle if you are to have a fighting chance. One of the most foolish propositions of the emerging church movement is the proposition that the church needs to be depropositionalized. Of course, that idea will fail because it is self defeating. But the idea that we don’t need propositions from God is outrageously irresponsible and un-Christian. Where would we be if we removed the propositions of God’s promises like “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”? Where would we be if we removed the propositions of God’s identity or ours in Christ? That God is our heavenly Father and God, almighty maker of heaven and earth? Where would we be if we deemphasized the propositional truth of the gospel? Where would we be if we removed the propositions of God’s expectation and exhortation of us? Few things could be more foolish than this. To set the mind on the things of the Spirit is to take the truth of God’s word that has been inspired by the Holy Spirit and, by His grace, taste it and see that it is good. It’s not just truth or stuff in the head…it’s is a mind set on the Spirit. He’s talking about truth that comes from a heart that loves it, believes it, wants to obey it and is set on it. And, beloved, that is a heart that has come under the law of the Spirit of Christ Jesus the Lord. How do I know that? It’s a law. Have you been converted? Do you set your mind on the things of the Spirit? Have you tasted the word of God and have you discovered that it is good? Jeremiah 15:16 When your words came, I ate them; they were my joy and my heart's delight, (NIV) Ps 119:103 How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth! (NIV)