Romans 8:12-17 Spirit Take the Wheel

Podcast of Recast Church in Mattawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsack preaches from his series in the Book of Romans, A Righteousness from God. Let's listen in.

The Privilege of Gathering as God’s People

Well, good morning and welcome to Recast Church. I'm Don Filsack. I'm the lead pastor here. It's a privilege to gather together with God's people. I hope that you recognize what a great privilege it is to be together in one place, together with brothers and sisters in Christ.

I look out at all of you, and I find comfort in knowing that I'm not alone in this Christian walk. That's one of the primary reasons why God has given us the church, to gather together with people who also agree that we trust in Jesus Christ for our salvation.

That is not something that the world necessarily understands or completely gets. It's something that's a great thing that we have that opportunity to gather together. God gives his children a lot of things in the process of fighting the war of faith inside us as well as outside of us.

Last week, Rob Knoll preached in my absence about the armor of God, thinking in terms of spiritual warfare, which was an excellent metaphor for the way that we guard our lives with constant reminders of the salvation that has already been given to us.

God has given us relationships also to help steer us in the right direction. How many of you would recognize that you know that you're a relational person? You need others in your lives. You already know that.

I think it's really good for us to take that on as one of the things that God has given to us in our walk in this Christian life. He's also given us his word. He's given us his word to show us more and more of who he is and then how we're supposed to relate to him through his son, Jesus Christ.

The Holy Spirit as God’s Gift to the Believer

But a couple of weeks ago, the apostle Paul in the book of Romans introduced us to one of the most amazing gifts that God has ever given to anyone and will ever give to anyone. And that is just simply this, that each and every Christian has received this gift.

Each and every Christian has been given the Holy Spirit to live in them. An amazing gift. An astounding gift. God in us. God coming to dwell with his people to live in us and through us. And that's a glorious thing.

And to be honest, I think I can state that, and I don't know what goes on in your mind when I say that, but I think just saying that the Spirit lives in us may leave us with more questions than it does answers.

And it might even be something that you've heard enough in the past that it's kind of like it's just, it's a fact that you've heard, but it's never quite made sense and you haven't quite had the curiosity about pursuing what all of that implies or means.

It might not be something that you can fully form. What does it mean that the Spirit lives in us? And so this week as we continue on in the letter from Paul to the Romans, we will see more detail about what it means to walk according to the Spirit.

And it is clear that each and every believer is indwelt by the Holy Spirit according to Scripture. But I think that many of us just skip over what that means for our day-to-day lives. It's meant to be a truth that imbues us, gives us power and strength to walk each and every day, that we're never alone, but that He is with us, working in our hearts and through His Word to bring about conviction and direction and guidance.

And I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that for many of us this is, you know, this, we've got a little bit of skittishness around the Holy Spirit. Some of us were raised in churches that were maybe more conservative and were a little bit afraid of the Holy Spirit, maybe even just kind of casting a sideways glance at the Spirit going, uh, don't do anything crazy up in here, right?

Like that's kind of the way that we were raised. And so, and then some of you maybe come from a more Pentecostal background where you were like, yeah, we were with the Spirit all the time and it was like kind of, kind of hyped up and kind of a lot of stuff going on and a lot of things that we don't see here at Recast and, and stuff like that.

And maybe you, maybe, maybe you're kind of somewhere balancing in the middle or something, but, but rest assured that there's nothing in this text about knocking people on the forehead so they can be slain in the Spirit.

I'm not going to come, ask people to come up forward and knock you over or anything like that. It's not a text about clucking like chickens or barking like dogs or a movement of holy laughter. Now, now that, that, that sounds a little bit extreme, but those are all manifestations that have been credited to the Spirit in the church in America.

Churches in America, there have been people who kind of go a little bit, whoa, and they start clucking like chickens, barking like dogs. There was a movement, how many of you remember the movement of holy laughter that was a, a big deal in like the late, you know, late 90s, early 2000s and it started in Canada and swept across America and people were just kind of like having this holy laughter moment or something like that.

But I, I just want to clarify that when we read this text, we're going to see what God has to say about His, the role of His Spirit in our lives and I, I hope that it informs both sides of the equation.

Regardless of where you were raised, let the Word of God dictate what does it look like to have the Spirit of God in a life and it is nothing less than the power of God expressed in a changed and transformed life toward the will of God.

A life transformed by the inner desire for holiness. A life transformed by an adoption into the family of God and an inner life transformed and that transformation comes through the promise of an inheritance from our Heavenly Father that we know that we will have an inheritance when these days of suffering end.

Romans 8:12-17 and the Spirit-Driven Life

So let's open our Bibles if you're not already there to Romans chapter 8 verses 12 through 17. Again, 8, Romans 8, 12 through 17. You can navigate in your device over there. Most of you probably have an app or you can grab a scripture, that scripture journal or the Bible under the seat in front of you if you didn't bring a Bible with you.

But we're going to read this together and it would be great if you can just follow along. It's a shorter passage this morning. It doesn't mean a shorter sermon but we'll see what we do. Romans 8, 12 through 17 before the praise team comes to lead us in songs.

So then brothers, we are debtors not to the flesh to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die. But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the Spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry, Abba, Father.

The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. And if children then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ provided we suffer with Him in order that we may also be glorified with Him.

Let's pray. Father, it's a privilege to have an opportunity to read Your Word and to even just identify and to see the glory and the beauty of Your Spirit. And I pray that over the course of this time that we have together, this short time this morning as we take in the whole scope of a week, this is just a short period of time, but that You would meet us here in this place, identifying for us what riches are ours as Your children in the Spirit.

Identifying what is indeed true of everyone who follows You, that what that indwelling Spirit means for us and His role in our daily lives, that He is our daily life. And so, Father, I pray that You would identify for each and every one of us where we have thought wrongly about Your Spirit, where we have thought wrongly about life, where we have thought wrongly about our battle with sin, and that You would correct where correction is needed, that You provide encouragement, that You are present with Your people for strength and for power.

And we don't always feel powerful. As a matter of fact, I would guess that there are people here, Father, who are feeling weak this morning. And they're saying, where is the strength? And so, Father, I pray that in Your Spirit You would strengthen us to sing Your praises even now.

There are some who probably don't even feel like moving their mouths to worship You. But, Father, I pray that You would be the strength in each heart here gathered together, and that You would encourage us through Your Word and encourage us through these lyrics that we're about to sing and receive our worship in Jesus' name.

Amen. You can go ahead and be seated, yeah. And remember that over the remainder of our time, if you can keep your Bibles open to Romans chapter 8, verses 12 through 17, maybe you lost your place there, but re-navigate in your device or grab the Bible and open it to Romans 8 so you can see that what we're going to be talking about the remainder of the time is focused there.

And if at any time during the message you need to get up and get more coffee, juice, or donuts, you can take advantage of that. Restrooms are out the barn doors down the hallway on the left-hand side if you need that.

But let's keep our focus as much as possible on God's Word and really to listen to what God through His Spirit wants to communicate to us about His Spirit from this text here this morning. So I want to start off with a question, and it's just a simple question, but one that I think we all need to take a moment to just consider, and that is, what is driving internally your war with sin?

When you think about where do you get the strength to combat sin in your own heart, where you see your tendency to go against God and live for yourself, where are you drawing strength from? Paul has already established that if you belong to Jesus, then you most certainly have a war raging inside of you.

If you belong to Jesus, that's a given. There is indeed a war raging inside of everyone who is a follower of Jesus Christ. You see, there are righteous things you want to do that you don't. And there are wicked temptations that you do not want to do that you do, and sometimes you give in.

I know you do, and it's not because I'm stalking you. It's not because I'm clairvoyant. It's because Scripture tells me that you do. Scripture has been clear throughout the passages, and particularly chapter 7 of the book of Romans explaining to us, Paul giving his own testimony about how he did the things that he didn't want to do, and the very things that he wanted to do, he wouldn't do.

He's basically showing us what is true of the human heart, a fallen state, warring against God in our flesh, desiring to do the things that displease God. So what is driving your life of faith? Since we're all sinners, we know we need forgiveness, but we also might have forgotten that what we really deeply need is a holy desire and a holy ability.

It's more than just forgiveness for the things that we've done wrong, but in order to honor God, in order to live for Him, we need a transformation in our desires, a transformation in our ability to follow Him, and that is where the Holy Spirit is introduced here in chapter 8.

Starting a couple of weeks ago, we looked at the first 11 verses, and now we're going to take off another chunk in Romans 8 here, starting in chapter 12. We are to live spirit-driven lives. I kind of tongue-in-cheek entitled this message, Spirit, Take the Wheel, because in essence, that's really what we're looking for here, is we're looking for the Spirit to guide, the Spirit to drive, the Spirit to take that leadership role in our lives and in this war of sin, and Him be the one who we are drawing strength from in our daily moment-by-moment battle with sin that we see in us.

So we are to live spirit-driven lives, and there are many phrases used in Scripture for that concept of a spirit-driven life. Here are some of the biblical terms that are used, walking according to the Spirit, we live in the Spirit, we are led by the Spirit, we are indwelt by the Spirit, we are filled by the Spirit, all biblical, scriptural terminology for basically the same thing, all basic metaphors for the spirit-driven life.

In verses 1 through 11, it was established that the indwelling Spirit is the life of the believer. He is our lives. And so now Paul will give us six characteristics of the life that is driven by the Holy Spirit.

And these six things are here for our encouragement and for our assurance. They're here to encourage us. We should walk away, those of you who are in Christ, you should walk away from here, encouraged that these things are indeed true of you.

But I also would just say, man, this is a great time for us to take a self-assessment about these six things. Identify them. Think it through. Don't just let it pass over your mind, but think through these six things as we walk through them and say, does that define me?

Does that sound like me? Does it sound like my experience and what I'm walking through and working through in my spiritual walk with God? You see, if you belong to Christ, this description should remind you of what is true of you.

And as we walk through each characteristic of the life of the Spirit lived out in us, we should increasingly rejoice at the power and ability that has been given to us through this gracious gift that is none other than God living in us and through us.

The Spirit-Driven Life Is Not Compatible with the Flesh

So the first thing that we see, the Spirit-driven life, is really something that it's not. It's not compatible with the flesh. This is a bit of a repeat from verses 12 through 13. It really summarizes a lot of what has come before this passage, going all the way back to chapter 6 and explaining this life with Christ.

This is, by the way, written to people who already have faith. It's written to the church, and it's written to those who, Paul is fairly assured, belong to Jesus. They've accepted Him and His work on the cross for them, and therefore they are already in the faith.

So he's saying the Spirit-driven life is not compatible with a flesh type of life. Now flesh is, we talked about this a couple weeks ago, because flesh occurs a lot of times in the book of Romans, and it's not a great translation.

We can't really translate that Greek phrase very well into English, because when we think of flesh, we think of meat on our bones. We think of the body and the material world, and that's not at all what Paul is getting at here.

The flesh is a tendency in humanity to live apart from even the thought of God. It is a complete and utter dependence on, you can think of it this way, it's kind of like materialism as applied to your spiritual life.

I don't really need God. How many of you know that you can go through days like that? Even as a follower of Christ, you can go through days of living in the flesh, just only what I've got at my disposal, my thinking, my mind, my resources, my money, my house, my wife, my family, my, my, my.

Do you get what I'm saying there? That's flesh living, okay, as opposed to spirit living, spirit-driven life. We often can find ourselves going, we devolve into a flesh-driven life, a thought and a way of thinking and a way of living that is without God.

And so that's what this is, the spirit-driven life is not compatible with the flesh, with that, that godless aspect. And we know that the Christian is not supposed to continue to be friendly with sin.

Paul has well established that over the last couple of chapters in Romans. We no longer live in the realm of sin and death. We have been transferred from the kingdom of sin and death into the kingdom of life and grace.

And here in verses 12 and 13, Paul states, using a plain metaphor, that we no longer owe a debt to sin. We're no longer debtors to sin. In Adam, through his first sin, all of humanity came under a debt of sin.

Our natural tendency has been bent toward living according to the flesh. That's the way we naturally go. In other words, we're hardwired through our fallen sinful nature to live a fleshly life. A simple way to think about that is just to say, to think of that life that's concerned with just material things, like I mentioned before, self-care, self-centeredness, self-esteem, self-worth, self-exaltation, self-help, all at the exclusion of God.

Now, how many of you know that you have to take care of yourself to some degree? You already knew that, right? But our culture goes way over the top in caring for self, doesn't it? Do you know what I'm talking about?

At this point, you've got to think, the most important thing to understand in that phrase that we're concerned about is at the exclusion of God. At the exclusion of trusting him is flesh living. Certainly, eating a good meal or taking care of yourself or brushing your teeth or those kinds of things, caring for yourself is not a bad thing, of course not, but at the exclusion of God it is.

At the exclusion of God, that's what we're talking about, and that's the type of life that's not compatible with a spirit-driven life. According to verse 13, death is the inevitable end of any life that never gets beyond living according to the flesh, and death there, throughout the book of Romans, death is contrasted often with eternal life.

So it's death or eternal life, and by that contrast and the way that that's drawn out so many times in the book of Romans, it's very clear that what Paul is identifying for us is eternal death or eternal life.

So he's talking about condemnation here. Condemnation is the end result of a life that never gets beyond flesh living. So in other words, you've got to be put into the spirit. You've got to have the spirit put in you in order for you to be saved.

That's a necessity. Paul clearly left room, obviously, for some of his audience. Remember, he's writing to the church, so why is he even talking like that in verse 13? I believe that he's leaving room for some in his audience, even in the church, to be those who are still living in the flesh and have never gotten past that.

They've never ever lived a moment in the spirit. Do you hear what I'm talking about there? And so he's actually identifying that for us. He's saying that condemnation is the end result of never getting past flesh living, only ever living for yourself.

That's where condemnation comes in. But in verse 12, he's stating that those who are in the family of God do not go on in living in the flesh. If you belong to Christ, you will not be defined by godless flesh living, but you'll be defined by a spirit-driven dependence upon God.

At the end of verse 13, Paul is not talking about Christian perfection. That's not what we're talking about here. We're not talking about getting it all right and living a perfect life where you're always only ever honoring the Spirit of God in you.

Throughout this passage, and previously, Paul takes for granted that you have a struggle, an ongoing struggle with sin in your life. If the Spirit dwells within you, if you are a child of God, then you're going to have a struggle and a battle with sin.

But what he is saying here is that if you have ever warred with your own sin, hear that again, if you have ever warred with your own sin, if you have ever chosen God over your own desires and your own wishes, if you're currently waging a knock-down, drag-out battle with sin in your life, then take heart.

You have good reason to believe that you are on the side of eternal life. If you have ever fought sin in your life and you have ever battled and you've ever sought to honor God above yourself, that, my friends, is a sign of life in you.

Do you hear me? A lot of times, the very thing that causes us frustration, how many of you just raise your hand and just be honest, I'm a little tired of the battle with sin. Are you a little tired of the battle with sin?

And sometimes you can even just, it works the opposite direction, right? It's like, am I really in? I keep sinning and I do the same dumb things time and time again, right? And so that can be a discouragement to us.

But what I'm identifying here from this passage stretching from chapter 6 through the end of chapter 8 is that that's an encouragement, that you actually want to be done with sin. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be satisfied.

Do you hunger for it? Do you want it? Do you have an appetite for God's holiness? Do you have an appetite for what that which pleases Him? It's a good sign of life in you. Take heart if that battle is yours.

And one quick note before we move on to the second point, we've got a lot of points to cover this morning, but notice that the action here in verse 13 is a very hostile action. The action is putting to death the deeds of the body or the deeds of sin.

This is a violent action. The last time I checked, it's hard to put something to death without determination, without intention. But where does that fight come from in our lives? Where does that kind of tenacity, that kind of stick-to-itiveness, we all just raised our hand and said, we're tired of fighting, don't give in folks.

You're tired of fighting it? Don't give in. The spirit within you will sustain the battle, will keep you going, will keep you taking on more, will keep you to the degree and the point where you desire to put to death sin in your life.

And that battle comes from the spirit. You see, I'm convinced that I could even state it, the opposite quite strongly. No spirit, if you don't have the spirit, then you do not have a desire to battle sin.

No spirit, and the love of the flesh will show up everywhere in your life. And the life of the flesh loves sin. The life of the flesh washes itself in sin. It endorses sin. It seeks ultimately to justify its own sin.

The Christian may at times give into the flesh, but it will bring about a godly sorrow and repentance. And the spirit will bring about a godly sorrow and repentance in the life of a believer who gives into the flesh.

So ask yourself here at the end of this first point, where the spirit is not compatible, the spirit-driven life is not compatible with the flesh, do I have within me the spirit who adds a ruthlessness to my battle against sin?

A ruthlessness that seeks to put to death sin where I find it in my life. Do I desire to put sin to death? The second point, in verse 14, we find the second character of the spirit-driven life, the spirit-driven life is synonymous with the Christian life.

And that sounds like kind of a strange point, but it's identifying that the spirit-driven life is the Christian life. If you have a Christian life, you have a spirit-driven life. If you have a spirit-driven life, then you're living the Christian life.

And it's important to understand that those two things tie together necessarily. In verse 14, Paul states that the spirit is alive in all of God's children. Definitively. Those who have been invited into the family of God through Christ are led by the spirit.

One cannot be a believer without the spirit. But a word of caution about the phrase leading of the spirit here that you find in verse 14, because it's a very misunderstood phrase and it gets us thinking and puts our mind off in a whole different group of directions when you think about the spirit leads those who are his sons.

This is not like, God, where should I go to college? That kind of leading. Or God, who should I marry? Or God, should I switch companies this late in my career? Not that kind of leading, not that kind of guiding.

Although we would love to have that. How many of you would love to have him just call you up and tell you these kinds of questions? If that's not the kind of leading we're talking about here. This in context is led by the spirit, led by the spirit, as in putting to death the sinful deeds of the flesh.

All who have experienced that war with sin, he's going on again, all who are woke to the fight within them have a solid reason to believe that they're in with Christ. Again, this is all about assurance, all about encouragement, all about identifying for you, tools for you to identify.

Am I in with Christ? The Christian life is the life of the spirit. The life of the spirit is the Christian life. And the Christian life is one defined by a driven, driven, driven hunger for righteousness.

The Spirit-Driven Life Is Not Compatible with Fear

Third, the spirit-driven life is not compatible with fear. We sang about that earlier, and that's kind of the nature of why we sang that song. The spirit-driven life is not compatible with fear in verse 15.

According to that opening to that verse, the life of the spirit is not a life of duty and rules and regulations. It's not the guesswork of living according to laws with a fear that we have not done enough.

How many of you have lived a season of your life according to laws and rules and regulations, and you can testify by raising your hand that you actually have lived a life of fear, fear that I haven't done enough, fear that God doesn't like me anymore, fear that I'm not measuring up in some capacity or in some way.

And what that creates is an unholy comparison game with others and a competition with others, even within the church going, well, at least they look worse than I do. At least their life is more messed up than I am, so probably, you know, when we stand before judgment day, if God's grading on a curve or whatever, that's certainly the wrong understanding of the gospel, isn't it?

That God would be judging on a curve? Isn't that like a scale? Aren't we getting away from the very core of the gospel, that it is by grace through faith alone in Christ that we are saved? There is no fear.

It's not guesswork, but it is whether or not the spirit is alive within us. Not a fear that we have not done enough or given enough or obeyed enough or pleased God enough, but the spirit of slavery is a slavery to law that he's talking about here in this text.

And I think we need to be careful here because the fact of the matter is we all ought to have a holy sorrow over our sin. You know what I'm talking about? You should be able to look at your sin and have some sorrow over it when it happens, but it should not carry the follower of Christ all the way down the road to fear.

Now, that sorrow within you is a reasonable thing, but if your first response to your sin is, oh no, I'm condemned, oh no, I am out of the pleasure of God, oh no, God must hate me, and I'm terrified of him being my judge, then I think that this text is calling you to consider at least to come back to the gospel, at least to come back and review that and say, am I believing this?

Am I believing that I'm okay with God based on his work on the cross for me, or am I thinking that it depends on my performance? That's kind of that fear. When you see fear in your life, especially spiritual, when you begin to fear God in that capacity, it begins to look like maybe you're misunderstanding your position with God.

If you find yourself running away from God, in what sense could you really say I have a healed relationship with him through the cross of Christ? Are you getting what I'm saying in there? So the question is, are you running from him?

Are you fearful of him? We certainly should have a holy sorrow of our sin, but it doesn't carry us all the way to fear. It carries us to sorrow and back to the cross. Think of it this way. On this pathway of life, when a follower of Christ gets caught up in the flesh and gives in to the flesh and gives in to sin, Satan would seek to accuse us.

The very name Satan means accuser, the one who will point out your faults and nitpick you. That's Satan. That's kind of what that means. He's going to point out every fault, every failure, everywhere that you come up short of God's standard in your life.

Some of us have lived there. Some of you know what I'm talking about, where you feel completely under this weight of guilt, this weight of oppression, and it's like Satan is just heaping weight on your shoulders time and time again.

Well, Satan would seek to accuse you and grab you by the ankle and drag you toward a pit called fear and condemnation. He desires to bring every one of you there because there you can be immobilized. There you can misunderstand the gospel.

There you can be drawn away into selfish thinking about who you are and whether or not you measure up in this competition and comparison begins and all of that. So, Satan grabs you by the ankle, accusing you and drags you towards fear and condemnation.

But the Christian who is training themselves well with the gospel will pull out the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God, and boldly hack at Satan's grip with words like, there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ.

You can't take me there anymore. You can't take me to fear. You can't take me to condemnation because I am covered by the blood of Christ, and the sin that I just committed is already paid for and has already been punished on Christ on the cross.

I accept that forgiveness. And you hack at the hand of Satan, who would seek to drag you back into condemnation and seek to drag you into fear. Or even words like we see here in this text, bold words spoken by the Apostle Paul, I have not received the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but I have received the spirit of adoption as a child of God.

And by his Spirit, I cry out for deliverance, Abba, Father. You see, fear is legitimate for anybody who is living in the flesh. If you're living in the flesh and you haven't gotten past that, and you've never taken a baby step in the Spirit.

So, in other words, you're not a follower of Christ. Then fear is legitimate because somebody in that status will only ever know God as a righteous and holy judge. And the accusations of Satan will stick, and you have nothing to hack at his hand with.

But fear is thwarted and Satan is thwarted by rehearsing the truth of the gospel found in scripture. And let me encourage you towards two resources that have had a positive impact on me personally in rehearsing the gospel in my life so that I'm well protected from fear.

The first is called The Cross-Centered Life by C .J. Mahaney. Short book that packs a punch in putting your feet on the firm foundation of the gospel. If you haven't read it, man, we ought to have some copies out there.

I don't think we have any right now, but maybe next week we can grab a handful of copies, so I'll have some out there next week for you, and we can get that going. But I would love it if everybody read that book.

It's just a recentering thing for me to bring me back to the cross, back to the cross, to kind of like wake up first thing in the morning and think about, man, I'm forgiven. I've been deeply loved. My sins?

Sure, they're terrible. So terrible that the Son of God died on the cross for my sins, but I'm so deeply loved as well. And that's the fuel for life. That's the fuel for understanding. It's a fuel for combating Satan and fuel for combating sin.

So that's a great resource. The second one I didn't even realize until I had written this down that Rob mentioned it last week. It's called The Gospel Primer. So it's maybe God's doing something because he had him mention it last week and then has me mentioning it this week, and I just made that connection.

But I decided to go forward with it anyways, give you the same recommendation two weeks in a row called The Gospel Primer. It's like a daily devotional, 30 different short readings in that book. We've gone through it as a staff, taking one a week and doing that in our staff meetings, and that's been beneficial and helpful.

But if you use it, I just encourage you, if you get a copy of that one, make sure that you read the verses on the bottom too, because the verses are really where the power is in the Word. And he's writing about what is ours in the gospel.

Because you have accepted and received Christ, now all of these things are true of you. And it's just beautiful, and it's kind of deep, and it's heavy, and it's media, and it's great, because at the end of the day, we need that reminder of who we are in Christ, because Satan, I would guarantee, this week is going to seek to accuse you of something.