Newness of Life in the Spirit
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Good morning, church family. For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Max and I am one of the members here at Dishman. As a church, we’ve been going through the book of Romans and we left off last week in chapter 8. This morning, we will go through verses 5 to 11, so if you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn there now.
So far in this epistle, Paul has laid out the incredible plan of God’s salvation. From the first 3 chapters covering the depth of the sinful nature of man to chapters 4, 5, and 6, where we learned of how God has saved us, Paul has built up this incredible exposition of salvation and now in 7 and 8, he has moved into what this Christian life now looks like. I will read this morning’s text and pray for our time.
For those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit have their minds set on the things of the Spirit. Now the mindset of the flesh is death, but the mindset of the Spirit is life and peace. The mindset of the flesh is hostile to God because it does not submit to God’s law. Indeed, it is unable to do so. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. You, however, are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to him. Now if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit gives life because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you, then he who raised Christ from the dead will also bring your mortal bodies to life through his Spirit who lives in you.
Let us pray.
In the first 4 verses of this chapter, Paul has reminded us about the incredible truth of our status, that believers are no longer under condemnation. In Rom 8:1, he writes:
Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus,
That most important question we talked about last week, “am I in Christ?” is the defining factor of a believer. Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, only those in Him escape condemnation. Only God makes Christians, only Jesus has done the work that satisfies God’s justice and saves us from eternal condemnation. My question this morning is the follow up to that most important question. Now that we have found the answer, now that we know we are in Christ, what next. Our question this morning is: Now that we are in Christ: How does the believer walk in Christ and in the Spirit? Paul immediately moves from the understanding of knowing we are in Christ to understanding what it means to be in Christ in verses 5-11.
And so, our first point this morning is this: We are no longer enslaved to sin and must set our minds of the things of the Spirit, despite still living in a body of flesh. We are no longer enslaved to sin and must set our minds of the things of the Spirit, despite still living in a body of flesh.
For those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit have their minds set on the things of the Spirit.
Paul is talking here to believers. His audience is Roman Christians, mostly Jewish, and here in the context of chapters 7 and 8, Paul is still speaking to believers. Only the believer is in Christ, only the believer can be described as one who lives according to the Spirit. In all the teaching he has laid out in chapter 7, now into 8, he is speaking to the believer, who has been radically transformed by God.
in order that the law’s requirement would be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.
Only the believer has been given a new mind that is set on serving the law, as he says at the end of chapter 7, in vers 25:
Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with my mind I myself am serving the law of God, but with my flesh, the law of sin.
And here now in chapter 8, Paul begins to highlight the contrast of the new to the old. He writes these words, just after laying out the struggle of the flesh and mind of the believer. There are two ways a person can be identified, two paradigms that are radically opposed: those walking in the flesh and those walking in the Spirit. Should we be identified as walking according to the flesh? By no means. But, this is exactly where every believer began life, lost in sin, walking only according to the flesh.
In his letter to the Corinthian church, Paul spells this out plainly:
Don’t you know that the unrighteous will not inherit God’s kingdom? Do not be deceived: No sexually immoral people, idolaters, adulterers, or males who have sex with males, no thieves, greedy people, drunkards, verbally abusive people, or swindlers will inherit God’s kingdom. And some of you used to be like this. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
“Some of you used to be like this.” Used to is the key phrase here. This was our plight before salvation, but now we are saved, we have been washed, we are being sanctified. And in that sanctification, we still struggle.
Paul spent most of chapter 7 sharing his own struggle. He did not become completely holy in everything after his salvation or even after attaining the office of apostle. As a believer that we all look up to, even he had a war between his mind that sought to serve God and his flesh that desired sin. And now after reflecting on the reality of this struggle, he exhorts us not to live according to the flesh.
This is not a new command in Romans. Since chapter 6, he has been instructing this. After more than 5 chapters without a command, Paul gives his first instruction in Rom 6:11, then says this in the very next verse:
Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body, so that you obey its desires. And do not offer any parts of it to sin as weapons for unrighteousness. But as those who are alive from the dead, offer yourselves to God, and all the parts of yourselves to God as weapons for righteousness.
He says “do not let sin reign in your mortal body.” The believer has a choice, a work to do in the Spirit. Instead of sin, we are to offer ourselves to God. Now we know the body corrupted by sin is an issue that every human has dealt with since Adam. This body of flesh is set on sin, which only leads to death. But the believer has been given a command, a responsibility to not give way to the flesh, but to fight against it.
And you were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you previously walked according to the ways of this world, according to the ruler of the power of the air, the spirit now working in the disobedient. We too all previously lived among them in our fleshly desires, carrying out the inclinations of our flesh and thoughts, and we were by nature children under wrath as the others were also.
This is the old mindset, walking according to the ways of the world, is the one that leads only to one outcome. But Paul is giving us the good news. We are not left in the old, we have been given a new mindset. This redeemed mind gives us the ability to fight against what the world tells us to do, what our flesh desires, and instead, we can serve God.
For those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit have their minds set on the things of the Spirit.
We live according to the Spirit, He who works in and through us, to make us new. And what is the point of making something new? Is it to allow it to function the same as it did when it was broken down and old? When someone finds an old car and lovingly restores it, they are making it new so that it can run as it was designed and in some cases, even better than it was before. God is in the business of redeeming. He takes us, broken and sinful, saves us and renews us, equipping us to serve Him, far better than we ever could before. This new mindset on the things of the Spirit is meant to bring about good works with in us. Good works that were not possible before salvation, as the author of Hebrews tells us in chapter 13, 20 and 21, verses our church is very familiar with:
Now may the God of peace, who brought up from the dead our Lord Jesus—the great Shepherd of the sheep—through the blood of the everlasting covenant, equip you with everything good to do his will, working in us what is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.
Not only have we been equipped by God, but He has planned and prepared each of us, personally and specifically to obey Him, even before the foundations of the world.
For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time for us to do.
This is His good will that we are allowed to be part of the kingdom building, to be a vessel of mercy that can obey and bear fruit. And this comes entirely because of the Spirit. The plan is the Father’s, the Son executes the plan and the Spirit guarantees us into that plan. Moreover, He sanctifies us, transforming our minds, equipping us to be obedient.
We all, with unveiled faces, are looking as in a mirror at the glory of the Lord and are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory; this is from the Lord who is the Spirit.
We are transformed by the Spirit to walk in the example of our Savior, to look like Him who has saved us from the death of sin and made us alive. This is a work God is doing in us, and a call we must obey. In verse 6, he continues:
Now the mindset of the flesh is death, but the mindset of the Spirit is life and peace.
The wages of sin is death, the mindset of the flesh is death, every single person not in Christ will experience this death, this is the condemnation that he spoke about in verse 1, the second death, the eternal death. There is no part of the unbeliever that is able to do anything with good motives, only sin that leads to death. Before our salvation, there was no obedience to God in us at all. Now in our salvation, we are able, but the conflict exists. This war is a difficult part of being a believer. We have been given a new mind and genuinely desire to serve God.
But we all find ourselves in moments where we do not want to sin, we know the good we should be doing, but we fall into our old habits. Paul is encouraging us, his brothers and sisters, by telling us we are not enslaved to this any longer, we have been bought with a price, we are made new, we are being made new.
The body of flesh is still corrupted, but we are indwelt by the Spirit and the mindset of the Spirit is not death and disobedience, but life and peace. This is the conflict from chapter 7, and the contrast that Paul highlights here in chapter 8. And in this circumstance, we read that we have life and peace from the Spirit. Peace might seem like it is too far off to be possible, but God tells us He has given us peace, it just might look different than we often expect.
Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Peace with God is not simply a lack of war but the comfort and security of being found in Jesus Christ. This peace surpasses all understanding, because it comes from our all-powerful, all-knowing God. This peace is as eternal as the gift of eternal life. Eternal life that is guaranteed by the Spirit, eternal life that has already begun, brought to us by Jesus. Isaiah prophesied long before Jesus’ sacrifice when he said this:
The result of righteousness will be peace; the effect of righteousness will be quiet confidence forever.
This same peace has been given to us by the Spirit, even now as we await eternity. Jesus told us that our eternal life has begun at the moment of our salvation and continues on, guaranteed by His blood. And Jesus knew we needed His presence, which is why the Holy Spirit is with us now.
But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and remind you of everything I have told you. “Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Don’t let your heart be troubled or fearful.
God has blessed us with His Spirit, because we would be utterly lost without Him. The Holy Spirit brings us peace, planting God’s Word in our hearts. He uses us, His servants, as He comforts us through many trials and sufferings. As believers, this Christian walk is not easy and it is not without conflict. We have peace with God, but in doing so, we experience opposition from the flesh and the rest of the world.
This brings us to our second point this morning: Believers are called to look very different from the world, because the Spirit of God lives in us. Believers are called to look very different from the world, because the Spirit of God lives in us.
In Romans 8:8 and 9, we read this:
Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. You, however, are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to him.
Paul is drawing a very stark contrast between the unbeliever and the believer. There is no ability of the natural man to please God. Romans 3 is packed with the depth of how wicked state of the natural man truly is. Verses 11 and 12 say:
There is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God. All have turned away; all alike have become worthless. There is no one who does what is good, not even one.
The natural man is utterly lost in his sin and cannot please God, the Bible in multiple places calls us enemies with God before salvation. Each way that Paul approaches this conflict in our passage further emphasizes the difficulties of the Christian walk, but he is also giving us good news. He is saying, this is what we were: lost, broken, and enslaved. But, God has saved us and made us new.
The writer of Hebrews draws the contrast in this way in chapter 11:
Now without faith it is impossible to please God, since the one who draws near to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.
God has given us faith, he has renewed us so we are able to seek Him and please Him. And note what Paul says. In verse 8, he says you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit.
Now obviously Paul is not ignoring the reality that we still live in a body flesh, neither is he making an argument for something like asceticism. He has just been contemplating the conflict of his body and mind in chapter 7, so we have to keep that in mind. What he is doing here is emphasizing our status of salvation. Yes, we live in a body of flesh and absolutely, we struggle with sin in our flesh. But we are in Christ. We are in the Spirit. We have been set free from the law of sin and death. We have died to the law, we now serve the law of the Spirit of life. Instead of staying slaves to sin, we have been made slaves to God and to righteousness, as is promised to us in:
But thank God that, although you used to be slaves of sin, you obeyed from the heart that pattern of teaching to which you were handed over, and having been set free from sin, you became enslaved to righteousness.
and further down in verse 22:
But now, since you have been set free from sin and have become enslaved to God, you have your fruit, which results in sanctification—and the outcome is eternal life!
That eternal life and the fruit that results in sanctification is the work of the Spirit on us. Paul says that “If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him.” Repeatedly in this passage, the Spirit is the one at work on our minds. Without the Father and the Son, we cannot be saved. The same is true of the Spirit. Without His regenerating work in our hearts, we cannot be saved. To be in Christ, we must have the Spirit of Christ. He is the seal and guarantee of our salvation. In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul says:
In him you also were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and when you believed. The Holy Spirit is the down payment of our inheritance, until the redemption of the possession, to the praise of his glory.
The Holy Spirit is the ever-present down payment as we await eternity, it is His presence that declares us to be in Christ. His special presence is a gift only afforded to the believer, the unbeliever does not have the Spirit. We read the passage earlier where Jesus promises the Holy Spirit, and at the same time, He made sure to highlight the exclusivity of this promise, in 14:17:
He is the Spirit of truth. The world is unable to receive him because it doesn’t see him or know him. But you do know him, because he remains with you and will be in you.
The gift of the Spirit is only for those found in Christ and it is for all believers. By telling us that if anyone does not have the Spirit, he is not in Christ, Paul is comforting us by telling us every single believer receives the Holy Spirit, we all receive the Counselor and we all are not left alone. The very fact that the Spirit of the eternal God is with us is a mystery and miracle that shows us how very much God loves His creation that He would stoop to save us.
We also know from Romans 8:9 that because of the Spirit, we belong to Christ. This belonging is more than just an identity, this belonging is an intimate relationship with our Lord and Savior. In belonging to Christ, we not only escape condemnation, He secures us in Him. Being found in Him, belonging to him, this is where we find that peace that surpasses all understanding.
Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.
While this body will probably die one day, once we are in Christ, we are always His treasured possession. No one can snatch us out of His hand, not even ourselves. And being found in Him, there is now no condemnation. So then, because of this truth, we are called to walk in the Spirit, in obedience to the law of the Spirit.
This means we are called to a higher standard than the world that walks according to the flesh. We called not to walk in that old way and the Holy Spirit lives in us, teaching us and renewing us. He is with us always, never leaving or forsaking us. In 1 Corinthians 6:19–20, Paul writes this:
Don’t you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought at a price. So glorify God with your body.
Paul is telling us this very same truth in Romans 8 as well. We do not have the Spirit to look like the world, to set our minds on the things of the flesh. That is what we have been rescued from. We are not our own to fulfill our selfish desires. Instead, we are given a new mindset, one in the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. And what are the things of the Spirit? Now, we all know the fruit of the Spirit from Galatians 5, that list of 9 attributes, but in reality, that fruit is many good works, all of them a reflection of our Creator.
For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light—for the fruit of the light consists of all goodness, righteousness, and truth—testing what is pleasing to the Lord.
“All goodness, righteousness and truth.” Jesus is the light of the world and we are called to look like Him in everything that we do. The world is lost in darkness, but we are called to walk as children of light. This new calling sets the believer apart in a very significant way, because there is great darkness in the world, but there is none in God, only light, and we are called to image our Savior.
This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light, and there is absolutely no darkness in him. If we say, “We have fellowship with him,” and yet we walk in darkness, we are lying and are not practicing the truth. If we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say, “We have no sin,” we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
The good news of the Spirit dwelling within us is this work of sanctification is not done on our own. This is a work of the Holy Spirit in us, to cause us to place our minds on the things of the Spirit. This is an active calling we must work though every day. The Spirit is the agent of sanctification, accomplishing the work in our hearts as we grow in our walk with the Lord, but we bear responsibility in our sanctification, we are repeatedly called to walk in the Spirit. This is why Paul is giving these commands in Romans and why he says this to the Ephesians:
I pray that he may grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power in your inner being through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. I pray that you, being rooted and firmly established in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the length and width, height and depth of God’s love, and to know Christ’s love that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
This strengthening is the contrast that Paul is highlighting in Romans 8. As believers, we have been radically changed from the old way of the flesh in our regeneration and are now being sanctified by the Spirit. This means that there should be a stark contrast to unbelievers in how we think, how we speak, how we act, in everything we do. The easy thing is to sit back and relax, to go with the flow, as the world does. But the Christian walk is a fight upstream. The moment you stop, it pushes you back. Sanctification is a process that is ongoing from salvation to death that God takes seriously. Over and over again, the writers of the New Testament and even the old exhort us to walk in the Spirit, because it makes no sense for a child of the light to walk in the darkness.
Which brings us to our third point this morning: We must walk in the newness of the Spirit who gives us life and clothes us in Jesus’ righteousness. We must walk in the newness of the Spirit who gives us life and clothes us in Jesus’ righteousness.
After giving us this good news of the indwelling of the Spirit, Paul continues to talk through our salvation that culminates in our glorification.
Now if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit gives life because of righteousness.
This body is still subject to death, even for us believers, because it is still corrupted by sin. We are in the Spirit, but our body wars with our new mind. The eternal life that is given to us does not halt the current decay of old age we all experience. This body will die, but we still have the guaranteed promise of eternal life, that comes from the righteousness of our Savior. Jesus, who would never have died, whose body would have never seen decay from sin (and doesn’t even now in heaven), He shed His blood and broke His body for all those He saves. We, who could never accomplish the work needed for redemption.
And when you were dead in trespasses and in the uncircumcision of your flesh, he made you alive with him and forgave us all our trespasses.
Because of this, we are not lost in this body in death and under condemnation, we are made alive in Christ, having died with Him to eternal life. And this is not just eternal existence. The second death is eternal existence separated from God’s goodness. Instead, our eternal life is characterized by being united with God. For this to be even remotely possible, we must be clothed in the righteousness of Jesus. Our sins must be removed and God’s righteousness added to us for us to inherit eternal life. We do not stand before the great, white throne with filthy rags, instead we are covered by Jesus’ perfect holiness.
The righteousness of God is through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe, since there is no distinction.
Our sins are forgiven, though they are many, and we are reconciled to God, through Jesus. He perfectly executed the plan of salvation and now He continues the process of salvation, through the working of the Spirit and in this way, death is overcome.
Therefore we were buried with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too may walk in newness of life.
His sacrifice saved us from the curse of the law and with Christ being firstborn from the dead, we receive faith and through faith, we receive eternal life. Now Paul tells us we are free from condemnation, from the law of sin and death, “so we too may walk in the newness of life.” Christ did not shed His blood for believers to walk in the old way of death. He did it so we would deny ourselves, our flesh, pick up our cross and follow Him.
The life He lived, the example He set, was one of perfect obedience to our Heavenly Father. Jesus satisfied all the requirements of the Old Covenant that we never could, every little detail. And because of this, He is the perfect priest, the spotless Lamb of God, who brought light into the world.
“Don’t think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or one stroke of a letter will pass away from the law until all things are accomplished.
Jesus fulfilled the Law perfectly for us and now calls us to walk in the reality of what He has accomplished. It is like we are a marathon runner, Jesus has declared that we have won the race. Now, we need to actually run the race with endurance, turning neither to the right or the left. The standard has been set from eternity, God’s Moral Law will always be that standard. The same law Paul says used to condemn us now is our guide that shows us the good works we can be doing. The Moral Law of God is the reflection of God’s character, it is the lamp unto our feet in a dark, lost world, so we must read it and treasure it.
The process of sanctification continues on through our lives, God upholds us in the law of the Spirit of life, growing us more and more into the likeness of Christ. The work He performs in us, that we must participate, not obeying the sinful desires of our mortal body, but instead obeying Him more and more as we live under grace. This work ends only at end of our lives, to be fully perfected in the glorification of the saints. Paul says this in verse 11:
And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you, then he who raised Christ from the dead will also bring your mortal bodies to life through his Spirit who lives in you.
Jesus died bearing the great weight of our sin. It is an incredible work and only the infinite worth of Jesus and His unstained perfection could accomplish it. Jesus rose again from the grave, once and for all proving the perfection of His sacrifice, giving us life and life more abundantly.
And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. The one who has the Son has life. The one who does not have the Son of God does not have life. I have written these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God so that you may know that you have eternal life.
This eternal life is a gift, guaranteed to us by the Spirit. And not only that, but this gift of life promises us an imperishable body. This body of flesh will be redeemed and made new. Paul says God will bring our mortal bodies to life. To be fully united with God in eternity, we must be changed. We cannot approach a holy God with even one small stain of sin and God has given us the incredible promise of glorification.
He will transform the body of our humble condition into the likeness of his glorious body, by the power that enables him to subject everything to himself.
This glorified body will be completely free of sin, and not only free from sin, but the effects of sin, namely death. We will cast off the struggle with sin and instead, live in the peace and freedom that can only come from perfect obedience to God, without sorrow or sickness, in full communion with Him. But as we await glorification, we have been given the blessing of time. Not to offer ourselves as weapons of unrighteousness, but for the Spirit to take effect in us. He will grow us more and more into the likeness of Christ, as we walk in Him.
When we step back to look at all He has done for us, taking us from being poor, pitiable, blind and naked to being saved and adopted, a child of God, free from sin and death, awaiting a glorified body, it is truly humbling and awe-inspiring. And He does this when there was absolutely nothing good in us, it all comes from His lovingkindness to us.
he saved us—not by works of righteousness that we had done, but according to his mercy—through the washing of regeneration and renewal by the Holy Spirit. He poured out his Spirit on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior
“According to His mercy.” It is because of that great mercy, that we are here today, gathered as a body. “There but for the grace of God, go I” is true of every believer. And thankfully, everything does not grind to a halt between regeneration and glorification. He is washing us through the renewal by the Holy Spirit, working things for our good. Walking in sin, especially as a believer, is a miserable affair. There are always natural consequences to sin and eventually death and destruction to account for. But God, in His mercy, does not allow us to wallow in our sin while we await eternity. He has regenerated and justified and He now sanctifies us. This is good and pleasing to Him, but it is also an incredible blessing to us. The fact that sanctification is ongoing should encourage us all the more to seek to walk in the light, after the pattern of our Savior. We can find great comfort in this: while we do bear responsibility, all of this is a work of God in us. All the work of salvation, predestination, regeneration, justification, sanctification, and glorification, all of it is the incredible work of God in our lives to His glory.
As we continue to move through Romans 8, Paul will lay out the whole working of our salvation and he neatly summarizes it in what many call the Golden Chain:
For those he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, so that he would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And those he predestined, he also called; and those he called, he also justified; and those he justified, he also glorified.
We live in that area between justification and glorification, it is described in verse 29 when it says we are “conformed to the image of His Son”, but it takes place between justification and glorification. In this life as a believer, it is a privilege to be conformed to the image of Christ Jesus. That natural resistance to obedience is mercifully removed from us, bit by bit. Some days it is slow, some times it is painful, and occasionally, the lessons flow, one after another, quickly moving along as the Lord draws us to Himself. But all of it happens in God’s good timing. His perfect will, His perfect plan is not susceptible to the influence of anything or anyone. He is working all things for His glory, and He has promised all things work together for the good of those who love Him. Even Paul had his struggles, like the thorn in his flesh, but he recognized the working of God in his life, even in the difficult circumstances. He said this in 2 Corinthians 12:
Concerning this, I pleaded with the Lord three times that it would leave me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is perfected in weakness.” Therefore, I will most gladly boast all the more about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may reside in me. So I take pleasure in weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and in difficulties, for the sake of Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
God consistently uses the weak things of the world to shame the strong, because it brings Him glory. The difficulty of sanctification displays the power and glory of God in our lives as He strengthens and equips us. He knows what we can handle and He knows what we need to grow in the likeness of His Son. He has made us this great promise in 1 Corinthians 10:13:
No temptation has come upon you except what is common to humanity. But God is faithful; he will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to bear it.
As He works us and grows us closer to glorification and eternity with Him, He is watching over us, protecting us, even as His Spirit indwells us. We should be encouraged and emboldened, because this working allows us to take part in God’s incredible plan of history. Just look at what God did in just a few short years with a few fishermen, a tax collector, a rebel, a murderous Pharisee, most incredibly uneducated, but when the time came, God poured out His Spirit for them to speak the truth in all boldness and multiplied His church over and over. It was God who saved and softened the hearts of hundreds, then thousands and now millions and millions of believers, and He uses men and women like you and me.
And sometimes, the incredible work of salvation is done in the quiet, as God reveals and convicts us of sin so that we can build others up later or the steady, quiet work over the years of raising children. He is working in all these things, sanctifying us in the Spirit. We all have things we need to work on, we all have blindspots, and as the Spirit opens our eyes to see, He continues to wash, because His good pleasure is to mold us after the image of His Son.
As obedient children, do not be conformed to the desires of your former ignorance. But as the one who called you is holy, you also are to be holy in all your conduct; for it is written, Be holy, because I am holy.
This invitation to be holy, to follow not just as slaves but as adopted heirs of God, is the miracle of sanctification. God is working through you, calling you to be holy. And you do bear responsibility to obey. Do you earnestly desire to please God? Will you answer that call today to walk with your mind set on the things of the Spirit? This will not come lightly, the world will fight against you. It loves the darkness, because their works are evil. Paul warns us not sit quietly and let the river take us downstream to the darkness in Ephesians 5:8:
For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light—
Let us always walk as children of the light, never allowing ourselves to offer any parts of our body as weapons of unrighteousness. We were made to serve and glorify our Heavenly Father and He has saved us for exactly this purpose, to bear good fruit to His glory. This will mean taking up your cross to follow your Savior, it means sacrificing the parts of your flesh that wage war against your mind to follow the Spirit of life, it means making the choice to walk in the Spirit every day. Paul tells us this in
because if you live according to the flesh, you are going to die. But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
Let us put to death the deeds of the body as they only end in one result. Instead, God is working in and through us, sanctifying us into the image of His Son, through His Spirit, His church and His word. Are you willing to take the time out of your day to sit and listen? Are you willing to let the light of Scripture reveal the darkness of your sin, so that you can put it to death?
We cannot allow ourselves to be so busy with the tasks of the present that we miss the gravity of the eternity that lies before us. Let us run the race with perseverance, placing our faith in God’s good work in us. Let us strive to live in obedience to Him in all things, as we hold on to the promise that it is He who sanctifies and will glorify us, to unite us with Him in glory. Let us pray.
