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What we VALUE – Spirit-led
Romans 8:1-17
Rev’d Chris Johnson
This morning we come to the third in our series on the Values in Vision 26,
Spirit led.
What does it mean to be led by the Spirit?
One idea out there is that God has a perfect plan for your life and if you pray hard and ask the Holy
Spirit to lead you he will show you
-who you are going to marry,
-what career path you should follow,
-where you are going to live and
-who your friends should be.
I have to say that this is not a spirituality I find in the Bible.
Romans 8:5 says “Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh
desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit
desires.”
The word flesh is a Biblical term which simply means ‘self-focus’ and here it is contrasted
starkly with a Holy Spirit focus.
The spirituality of the Bible is not on ‘the self’ finding God's perfect
plan for your life.
The spirituality of the Bible is having one's mind set on what the Spirit desires,
which means focusing on the Kingdom of God.
So the better question to ask is, ‘How can I lay my
life down to serve the Kingdom, rather than how can the Kingdom of God meet my needs?’
There is a lovely by-product when we do set our minds on the Spirit and the Kingdom of God, and
that is God does meet our needs, but it is not always [and in fact usually isn't] the way we would
have set things up.
So to be led by the Spirit is to take our minds off what the flesh desires, that is what the self is
focused on, and to set our minds on what the Spirit desires.
And we need to do that as individual
Christian disciples and we need to do that as the Christian Church.
Romans 8 gives us a great template for understanding what it means to be led by the Spirit.
I want
to look at this passage in three parts.
Each part builds on the previous one and gives us a deeper
and deeper insight into the work of the Holy Spirit in the Christian life - what it means to be led by
the Spirit.
1.
2.
3.
The first part is v’s 1-4 and deals with condemnation.
The second part is v’s 5-13 and looks at what it means to reject life in the flesh in order
to embrace life in the Spirit.
The third part is v’s 14 to 17 and is about the Holy Spirit leading us into an
understanding of God as Father and us as his precious children.
There have been many acts of kindness since my mother died in January and I want to thank you
again for that.
One of those acts was some beautiful roses that Ray and Di Albrecht gave me from
their garden.
Ray said the roses are called Father's love.
There were three tiny red roses that
looked at first is if they were meant to be miniature roses.
But Ray assured me they would develop
and blossom.
Well they certainly did.
In the ensuing days they just got bigger and bigger and in the
end were lovely full size red roses.
1
This passage could be likened to a rosebud gradually opening until it comes into full bloom - a
magnificent rose.
-The basic idea is set out in v’s 1-4, this is the bud.
-The theme is developed and we grow in understanding through verses 5 to 13.
This is the flower
getting wider and fuller.
-Then in the last paragraph verses 14 to 17 the full bloom of what it means to call God, Abba
Father.
And the Spirit testifying with our spirit that we are the children of God.
What a magnificent passage of scripture is Romans 8 - so full of the fragrant aroma of the Gospel.
So what does it mean to be led by the Spirit?
The first thing to understand is that there is, no condemnation v1.
This verse really only makes sense if you have understood what Paul has already said in Chapters 1
to 7. It really only makes sense if you have first taken time to carefully consider the seriousness of
sin and the reality of God's judgement.
The second half of v3 gives a very brief summary of what’s gone before, “God sent his own Son in
the likeness of sinful flesh to be a sin offering.”
This of course is talking about the cross.
Jesus was
the sin offering on the cross.
He took the condemnation we deserve so that we can be forgiven
and set free.
It's only because Jesus has paid the price, been the sin offering, that Paul can say in
v1 “there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”
That is the work of the cross which is set out in so much more detail in the previous 7 chapters.
However Paul now wants to tie in the work of the Spirit to what Jesus did on the cross.
There is no
condemnation because of the cross, but secondly there is no condemnation because v2, “the law
of the Spirit who gives life has set us free from the law of sin and death.”
The law was meant to
bring life and if we had been obedient to it, it would have brought us life.
But when sin entered
into the world the law became a curse for us.
You see it shows up our wrongdoing.
So we have to
find a new way to life.
-And that new way is the law of the Spirit.
-The new way is walking with the Spirit.
-It is about being led by the Spirit.
And all of this is built on what Jesus did on the cross so that there is no condemnation for those
who are in Christ Jesus.
We are set free from the condemnation of God's law and now live according to the Spirit.
Imagine a forest which is a beautiful pristine part of God's creation.
But then it gets overgrown
with a noxious weed and this weed is a parasite which is sucking the life out of all the plants.
God
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