Reasons of why not to serve the flesh.

[1.] The condition of our spiritual being, we’re so much more debtors.

a. If you have any grasp of the pit from whence you’ve been redeemed {the price paid} you understand the debt we owe.

Where were you? You used to locked into a state of bondage to sin and captive to Satan!

This means that all that we have we are debtors of Christ for.

18 "For you know that you were redeemed from your empty way of life inherited from your fathers, not with perishable things like silver or gold, 19 "but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of an unblemished and spotless lamb.” ()

He calls it “precious”. It’s valuable. The metals of silver and gold are precious because of their scarcity.

If they were laying all over the place like grass they wouldn’t be precious. They wouldn’t have value.

19 "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, 20 "for you were bought at a price. So glorify God with your body.” ()

9 "And they sang a new song: You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slaughtered, and you purchased people for God by your blood from every tribe and language and people and nation.” ()

7 "For none of us lives for himself, and no one dies for himself. 8 "If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.” ()

Do you see how God’s Word hems us in. We are owned! We don’t own God; He owns us!

So we don’t serve the flesh because of the great price paid for our sin.

So why else should we not serve the flesh?

b. The benefit of having been born again and therefore are being sanctified. So because God’s Spirit living inside of us, we are now inclined to live unto God.

These are all due to the Spirit’s work inside of us.

This makes it so that we owe our whole selves to God.

Listen to what Paul could tell Philemon.

"I, Paul, write this with my own hand: I will repay it—not to mention to you that you owe me even your very self.” ()

Paul was just an instrument that God used to convert Philemon.

And Paul looks at him and says that, “you owe me even your very self.”

But how much more do we owe God who is the Author of our salvation and the chief principle cause of this grace.

So how can we go on serving our flesh?