Where Is Your Mind?

Most of us have wondered, at one point or another, whether our walk with God is genuine.

You sit in church on Sunday. You sing the songs and you know the right answers to the Sunday school questions. But somewhere along the way, another question shows up. Am I really walking with God? Or am I just going through the motions of someone who is?

That question is uncomfortable. It's also one of the most important questions you can ask. And in our text this morning, Paul gives us a way to answer it.

We've been walking through Romans together. In chapter 7 Paul wrestled with sin and the law. In Romans 8:1 he gave us the verdict: no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. In verses 2 through 4 he told us why. The Spirit of life has set us free. Christ did what the law could not do.

Now in verses 5 through 8 Paul stops and gives us a diagnostic. He shows us how to tell two completely different kinds of people apart. The mark is where their minds live.

Open your Bible to Romans 8:5-8.

Let start with verse 5.

Romans 8:5 NKJV

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, the things of the Spirit.

YOUR MIND REVEALS YOUR MASTER (v. 5)

Paul opens with a contrast that sounds simple but goes deep. There are two kinds of people in the world. People who live according to the flesh, and people who live according to the Spirit. And the way you tell them apart is by where their minds live.

GREEK NOTE: The phrase "set their minds" comes from the Greek word phroneo. It means more than just thinking about something. It means to have your aspirations and your affections pointed at something. It's the difference between casually noticing a billboard and wanting what it advertises. Paul is talking about the orientation of the whole inner life.

Notice what Paul doesn't say. He doesn't say that the fleshly minded person never thinks a good thought, and the Spirit minded person never thinks a bad one. The contrast Paul draws is about the bent of your life. Where does your mind keep going when nothing is forcing it to go anywhere?

Here's a small test. Look at the home screen of your phone. The app you tap when there's a five-minute wait at the doctor's office, or when you wake up at 3 a.m. and can't get back to sleep. That app is a window into where your mind goes when nothing is making it go anywhere. For some of us, that little glowing rectangle has become a confession booth we didn't know we were sitting in.

Pay attention to your daydreams. Pay attention to what you reach for when you're bored, what you spend money on when you don't have to. That's your mind telling you the truth about who you are.

One commentator puts it this way. The unsaved person lives in the flesh and for the flesh. The Christian lives in an entirely new and different sphere. One person lives for the flesh. The other lives for the Spirit. Same world, two completely different orientations.

Where your mind goes, your life follows.

YOUR MINDSET SETS YOUR DESTINATION (v. 6)

Romans 8:6 NKJV

6 For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.

Paul moves from the contrast to the consequence. To be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.

Look at what Paul says. The flesh-mind already is death. Right now. The mind set on the flesh is a dying mind, headed toward a death that has no end.

GREEK NOTE: The word for "mind" here is phronema. It's a noun form of the verb in verse 5. It means a mindset, a way of aiming the inner life. Paul is saying your mindset itself has a built-in destination. Where your mind aims, your life arrives.

But the mind set on the Spirit, Paul says, is life and peace. Life and peace right now, before we ever get to heaven. Life that is more than breathing. Peace that does not depend on circumstances staying calm.

Think about what Paul is doing here. He's giving you a way to diagnose your own soul. You don't have to wait until you die to find out where you're headed. You can look at where your mind lives today and know.

Imagine two people sitting on the same airplane. One is heading to a vacation. The other is heading to a funeral. From the outside they look identical, eating the same airline peanuts and watching the same in-flight movie. But where they're going changes everything about what that flight means.

Two people can sit in the same pew, wearing the same kind of clothes and singing the same songs. From the outside they look identical. But where their minds live is where their lives are headed. And those destinations could not be further apart.

Where your mind goes, your life follows.

THE FLESH-MIND CANNOT REACH GOD (vv. 7-8)

Now Paul gets blunt.

Romans 8:7 NKJV

7 Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be.

The carnal minded is enmity against God. Enmity is a strong word. It means hostility. It means at war.

This is one of the hardest things in the New Testament for modern people to hear. The natural human mind is not neutral about God. The fleshly mind is at war with God. That word "enmity" is the word for what an enemy soldier feels in battle.

You see this play out in specific ways. The flesh-minded person doesn't want to submit to God's law. They want to be the law of their own life. They want to do what they want when they want, and they want God to be okay with it. And when God's standards confront them, something rises up inside that pushes back. Paul says that pushback is enmity.

Then he says something even stronger. The flesh-minded person not only does not submit to God's law. They cannot. The problem runs deeper than effort. The flesh-mind has no power to please God.

Some of you may have heard of William Wilberforce. He was an English abolitionist during the late 1700’s. Wilberforce was a strong Christian. His friend William Pitt the Younger, the prime minister of England, was a church member but only nominally a Christian. Wilberforce wanted his friend to come and hear the great preacher Richard Cecil, hoping the preaching might awaken faith in him.

Pitt finally agreed to go. The two of them sat under a powerful and wonderful presentation of the truths of God. Wilberforce was sure his friend would sense the truth and embrace it. As they walked out, Pitt turned to Wilberforce and said, "You know, Wilberforce, I have not the slightest idea what that man has been talking about." It was as if Pitt were a deaf man. Or a dead one.

This is exactly what Paul is describing here. The flesh-mind cannot hear God. It cannot please God. It cannot please God because it cannot submit to God. And it cannot submit to God because the flesh, by its very nature, is hostile to God.

Verse 8 closes the loop.

Romans 8:8 NKJV

8 So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

GREEK NOTE: "Cannot please" is in the present tense. It's not a one-time slip. It's an ongoing inability to please God in any way. No amount of religious activity or moral effort can change the fundamental orientation. Only the Spirit can do that.

Where your mind goes, your life follows.

APPLICATION

So what do we do with this?

Pay attention to where your mind goes when nothing is making it go anywhere. That is the most important diagnostic in your spiritual life. The songs you sing on Sunday don't tell the truth about you. Where your mind drifts when you're stuck in traffic or alone in the kitchen at 11 p.m. with the screen dark, that's where your soul lives.

If your mind keeps going to the things of the flesh, that is telling you something. Maybe it's telling you that you've never trusted Christ. You've been doing church but you've never been born again. The Spirit isn't in you yet, and your mind has nowhere to go but the flesh.

If that's you, today is the day. Stop trying to clean up the mind. The mind will follow once the heart is changed. Trust Christ. Receive the Spirit. The Spirit will change what your mind reaches for.

Or maybe you are a believer, and your mind has drifted to the flesh anyway. That happens. Paul will spend the rest of Romans 8 helping believers walk in the Spirit. The cure is to set your mind on the Spirit again, without piling on shame. Open your Bible. Pray. Set your mind on him.

One specific action this week. Pick one thing your mind has been chasing that does not belong to the Spirit, and replace it. Don't just try to stop thinking about it. Put something better in its place. Memorize a verse. Read a chapter of Scripture before bed instead of scrolling.

There's a Scottish pastor from the 1800s named Thomas Chalmers who preached a famous sermon called "The Expulsive Power of a New Affection." His main idea was simple. You can't drive a love out of your heart by trying to stop loving it. You drive it out by giving your heart something better to love. The way to defeat a wrong affection is to replace it with a stronger one. That's exactly what Paul is calling us to do. Fill your mind with the things of God, and the things of the flesh will lose their grip.

Where your mind goes, your life follows.

If you're here today and your mind has been chasing the flesh and you're tired of where it's leading you, Christ is offering you something better. Life and peace. Not just one day. Today.

Trust him today. Receive his Spirit, and let your mind take a brand new direction.

Let's pray.