Victory of the Spirit Over the Flesh

Victory of the Spirit Over the Flesh

Erie City Mission:   03-31-2024

Human nature is full of regret, remorse, and defeat. We all have times in our lives when we say things or do things that we wish we could take back or do-over. But time marches on and we do not have a time machine to send us back to fix mistakes of the past. Sometimes we live with new regrets every day and it seems that we are in a vicious cycle, making the same mistakes over and over. Even the Apostle Paul lived with these feelings:

 

Romans 7:14-25

14 We know that the LAW is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. 15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. -- For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.

 

22 For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23 but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? 25 Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!

 

So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.

 

The passage we just read speaks of two kinds of “laws” that are at work inside us and are in opposition to each other. The first “law” is the law of God. This is the written word of God which sets forth God’s perfect standard for holiness. God gave the law to Moses, first in what we call the “10 commandments”, then in many other laws found throughout the first five books of the Bible which we call the Pentateuch.

 

The second “law” in this passage is what Paul calls the “law of sin and death”. This is also called “sinful nature”, which is a force within all of us that drives us to violate God’s holy law and commit sin.

 

Jesus taught that the whole law of God could be summarized in two foundational commandments:

 

37 “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. 39 And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”  Matthew 22:37-40

 

To honor God and keep his commandments, we must first love Him with every part of our being. Secondly, we must love our neighbor as we love our selves. The problem is that all of us disobey those two basic commandments all the time. We often hate God; we often hate our neighbor and we often hate ourselves.

 

Romans 3:10-12

10 As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one.

11 there is no one who understands. there is no one who seeks God.

12 All have turned away; they have together become worthless.

there is no one who does good, not even one.

²⁰ Therefore no one will be declared righteous in God’s sight by the works of the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of our sin.

 

The written law of God tells us what we must do to be holy and righteous. While the law of God is holy and spiritual, we are slaves to sin and cannot obey it no matter how much we want to. The Law has no power to help us live that holy life. All the law does is make us aware of our sin.

 

God the Father sent his only begotten Son Jesus Christ, to be born as a baby, to live the perfect holy life we could not live, then to die on the cross to pay the penalty for our sin; and then the Holy Spirit raised Jesus from the dead to give eternal life to all who receive Him by faith. 

 

You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Romans 5:6

 

In Romans 6, we see the secret to living free from the bondage of sin. When we believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ we are baptized by the Holy Spirit “into” Jesus Christ. We are immersed into Christ’s body and we now live “in Him”. We die, and then we are born again. Romans 6:1-6

 

What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? 2 By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? 3 Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? 4 We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.

 

5 For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his. 6 For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body ruled by sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin— 7 because anyone who has died has been set free from sin.

 

Paul here is telling us spiritual truth. It is not necessarily something we “feel” or even think about. But it is vital that we simply believe it. If we have put our trust in Jesus’ death and resurrection to pay the penalty for our sin, and to give us Eternal Life, then we have died and been raised again to a new life. We are therefore free from sin! End of story. No arguments. No trying to make it fit with your experience. It is true!

 

11 In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. 12 Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. 13 Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness. 14 For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.

 

There are four things we need to believe are true:

1.      When we genuinely believe that Jesus paid the penalty for our sin and ask him to forgive us and be our personal Lord and Savior, he ALWAYS answers that prayer.

2.      When we pray that prayer of salvation, we are spiritually “Baptized into Jesus Christ”.

3.      When we are baptized into Christ, we are united with him in death and resurrection. This is called “regeneration” or the “new birth”. (quote John 3:16)

4.      When we die and are raised again, we are set free from sin’s mastery.

 

Victory comes through knowing the truth, believing it, and acting on it, not in the power of the flesh, not through obligation to keep the Law, but in the power of the Holy Spirit.

 

12 Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation—but it is not to the flesh, to live according to it. 13 For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live. Romans 8:12-13

 

The Holy Spirit is the one who raised Jesus from the dead. He is the same one who raises us from spiritual death and gives us spiritual life. The victorious Christian life is all about getting our self out of the way and letting God do his work through us.

But after we believe in our heart, we must apply those truths day by day.

 

1.      “Count yourselves dead to sin”. Take the truth and make it real to the temptation we might be facing. Are we tempted to drink? Count ourselves dead to drinking. Are we tempted to lie? Count ourselves dead to lying. Are we tempted to engage in sexual immorality? Count ourselves dead to all forms of sexual immorality. Notice “I” am dead to sin. Not sin is dead to me. Sin is very much alive.

2.      Do not let sin reign in your mortal body? Sin wants to be our master. WE must reign over sin.

3.      Do not offer any part of yourself to sin. What part of your body is doing the sinning? Your hand? Your mouth? Your eyes? You are the master, not the body part. Mind over body.

4.      Do offer yourself as instruments of righteousness. Put off the old man, put on the new. Part of a program to remain sober, is to become a mentor. Whatever you used to do that was offering yourself to sin, now offer yourself to righteousness.

 

Anyone who has been stealing must steal no longer, but must work, doing something useful with their own hands, that they may have something to share with those in need. Ephesians 2:28

 

None of this can be done in our own strength. We need the Holy Spirit even to pray.

 

26 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. 27 And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.

 

Nothing can separate us from God’s love.

 

35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?

 

37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39 neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.