Sermon Title: Life in the Spirit
Question: How does one live in the tension between the flesh and the Spirit?
Direction of Sermon: In Romans 7, Paul wrestles with the tension of sharing an earthly life and a heavenly life at the same time; living in the flesh and living in the Spirit. In Romans 8, the tone of the text changes with the assurance that the "law of the Spirit of life has set me from for the law of sin and death" (Romans 8:2) and "the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace." (Romans 8:6). Yet we still struggle because of sin in the world. How does one resolve living "in the Spirit" while being "in the flesh"?
Sermon
1. Introduction
I have been to El Salvador three times to work with farmers in their fields.
The farmers work under ruthless landowners and unjust governments,
And IF they are able to purchase their own land, they face summer floods and winter droughts.
Sometimes I wonder,
"How do they make it?"
"How do they wake up every morning with hope for a better day while living in a corrupt world?"
How do you make it?
What are the conflicts and tensions in your own life?
Wanting to do the right thing but not being able?
Wanting to get out of a situation but don't have any options?
This was the Apostle Paul's dilemma in the book of Romans
Paul writes of the tension of being both a citizen of this earth AND a citizen of heaven.
He is a man pulled in two directions.
Paul ends Romans 7 in despair, "Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?"
We start this morning with Romans 8.
As I read, be aware of three often-used words: sin, flesh, and spirit
3. Read Romans 8:1 to 8:11.
In this text, Paul writes of the conflict in our lives using three words: sin and flesh and Spirit.
Let's unpack this.
[4. What is the Law of Sin?]
Paul writes in verse 2: "For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death."
What is the Law of Sin?
Sin is often defined as failing to keep God's commands.
And failing to keep God's commands is sin, but sin is more than that.
You can think of the "law of sin" as "power of sin." Just like there is the "Law of Gravity" or "Power of Gravity"; there is a Law or Power of sin. And like the Law of Gravity, the Law of Sin is something that cannot be avoided.
The law of sin is a pervasive problem. Paul writes that he was "sold as a slave to sin" (7:14)
We are prisoners of sin. The whole earth is governed by the law of sin.
If I am a prisoner of sin, then I do not do what I want to do
I moved to Seattle to attend the University of Washington and lived off campus in a Christian house. One evening I was out with 4 of my classmates and while we were all in one car driving back to the U District, my classmates were slamming Christianity... it's for the weak, no one can prove the existence of God, why is there evil in the world. And I said nothing. When the car got to my house, they noticed a sign in our yard that said something like, "Christian Church House." One of my classmates asked me, "Do you LIVE there?" I said, "No I live next door."
Wow! I want to say the truth, but I did not. I did what I did not want to do. I am captive to sin.
There is a man in the Bible who loved Jesus with all his heart and was part of Jesus' inner circle.
He would follow Jesus wherever Jesus went. His name was Peter.
And what conflict happened in Peter's life? When he was asked if he knew Jesus, Peter said (three times), "I do not know what you are talking about." Even Peter, one of the 3 chosen by Jesus to witness the transfiguration, could not avoid the Law of Sin. The Law of Sin is pervasive in our lives.
I work on First Hill and to get to work I go through downtown.
And if you are like me, you might notice so many homeless people, some of them passed out on the sidewalk. I just walk around some of them. Am I any different from the Levite in the story of the Good Samaritan, who passed by on the other side of the road when he came to the place where a man was left half-dead?
The Law of Sin is a power in my life. It is a power that turns me against God.
5. What is the "flesh"?
When Paul uses the word "flesh" he is most often referring to the ego, my selfish desires. The flesh submits to no one.
The flesh says, "I'd rather do my own thing." Paul writes, that the mind set on the flesh is hostile to God.
In the Book of Romans, Paul wrestles with the tension of living a selfish, flesh life that is hostile to God AND a heavenly, spiritual life at the same time. That is the conflict: We live in the flesh and, as Christians, we live in the Spirit.
Paul says in verse 9, "But you are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you."
6. That brings us to the third word- Spirit
What does it mean to live in the Spirit?
As Christians, we have a new life= born again =new creations, that is submitted to God. Trusting completely in Jesus, the vine who gives life. Submitting to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. Living attuned to the power of the Holy Spirit.
Setting your mind on life and peace. This is life IN THE SPIRIT.
Since we are IN the spirit, means that as Christians, the Spirit of God, God's Spirit, the Holy Spirit, is IN you and in me.
And because there is unity of God in Christ and the Holy Spirit, when the Holy Spirit is in you, Christ is in you.
So we live in the world of sin, in the flesh, AND we live in the Spirit.
That's the tension. How do we live in that tension?
7. Living in the tension
How can I live in the Spirit when the things of the world weigh me down? Tempt me or distract me?"
Sickness, job concerns, family trouble, debt, death.
How do I resolve this tension?
That was Paul's dilemna!
"I have the desire to do good, but can not carry it out"
How do we resolve this tension?
In my struggle, I have prayed in two ways:
1. God take this struggle from me: Jesus prayed this way before he faced the cross,
"Father, if it be your will take this cup of suffering from me."
2.God give me the strength to overcome or rise above this struggle
The Psalmist prayed this way, You give me strength to attack my enemies and power to overcome their defenses.
But there is a third way that I have started to pray: God help me to know you are here with me in this pain
How do we resolve this tension of life in the flesh and life in the Spirit? WE DON'T RESOLVE IT! We live in it.
We face the tension, then trust in God -- Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!--, and we throw ourselves into the battle!
We don't wait for the pain to go away. Because there will always be pain in our lives.
Jesus DID NOT say, come to me and you will never suffer. What Jesus did say is, You WILL suffer in the world.
But we live in the pain, or the struggle, knowing that God's Spirit is with us in the struggle, God suffers with us, "since the Spirit of God dwells in you."
In one of my travels to El Salvador, I was there when the growing season was especially bad.
A draught occurred during the planting seasons and dried up all the young tender shoots.
The farmers tried to replant, but a flood came and washed away all the seeds.
I thought, How do they do it? I asked one of the farmers, many who were Catholic, "How are you able to do it?"
[and in Spanish: Como puede vivid?] And he pulled an old leather wallet out of his pocket, opened it, and pulled a worn, torn single page from a Bible. And I wondered, what page from the Bible could that be?
Perhaps it was the birth of Jesus, new life and new beginnings.
Perhaps it was one of the miracles, knowing that Jesus could feed and heal his family.
Perhaps it was the resurrection of Jesus, with hope of an afterlife.
And he showed it to me. It was the CRUCIFIXTION of JESUS. The farmer said, "Jesus suffered. And I suffer. And Christ suffers with me."
It was not the hope of a miracle (although those happen) nor hope of a heavenly life with Jesus (and that will happen). It was knowing that God suffers with us in our suffering that enabled him to get through the day. Jesus abides in us. We abide in Christ. Jesus is the true vine, "Abide in me as I abide in you." And Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit would be with us.
In our pain and suffering, in our life in this world, we can be assured that God is with us. "since the Spirit of God dwells in you."
How do we resolve this tension? We don't!
We live in it.
We live in it.
We embrace it.
Not only that, we live the tension in community.
We live in the tension with the Holy Spirit in us and community surrounding us.
The church is a refuge for the suffering. As a church, we follow a suffering savior.
Paul writes in Galatians 6: "Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ."
When a member is wounded, we bandage their wounds.
When a member is down, we encourage that person.
[get book] German Theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote in Life Together (p.112) in 1939:
Sin demands to have a man by himself. It withdraws him from the community. The more isolated a person is the more destructive will be the power of sin over him, and the more deeply he becomes involved in sin, the more disastrous is his isolation. Sin wants to remain unknown. It shuns the light.
How do we live with tension in our lives?
Live in the tension knowing that Christ is WITH US and IN US and suffers with US.
AND we live with conflict in the midst of a church community.
I am going to close with a re-reading of Romans 8 from the Message
"With the arrival of Jesus, the Messiah, that fateful dilemma is resolved. Those who enter into Christ’s being-here-for-us no longer have to live under a continuous, low-lying black cloud. A new power is in operation. The Spirit of life in Christ, like a strong wind, has magnificently cleared the air, freeing you from a fated lifetime of brutal tyranny at the hands of sin and death."
" But if God himself has taken up residence in your life, you can hardly be thinking more of yourself than of him. Anyone, of course, who has not welcomed this invisible but clearly present God, the Spirit of Christ, won’t know what we’re talking about. But for you who welcome him, in whom he dwells—even though you still experience all the limitations of sin—you yourself experience life on God’s terms. It stands to reason, doesn’t it, that if the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, he’ll do the same thing in you that he did in Jesus, bringing you alive to himself? When God lives and breathes in you (and he does, as surely as he did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With his Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ’s!"
End.
