Let's pray. Our gracious Lord,
Father, we thank you for the grace of your salvation, full,
rich, and free salvation in your Son, Jesus Christ. Lord, we thank
you for your power, your grace, your might, which works salvation
in your people. Lord, that all our works, all
our fruit is wrought of you, born of you, and not by our flesh. And Lord, how thankful we are
that you do not look to the flesh, but that you look to your Son,
Jesus Christ, for all things, and that your people stand complete
in Christ the Lord, and that we lack nothing, need for to
stand before our God faultless in that day. Lord, we pray for your people,
for your church, that you would indeed establish us in Christ,
that you would found us upon the rock, the rock of salvation
that you have provided to your people, for your people, in your
people, And Lord, we are so thankful how richly You bless us in Christ
Jesus. Lord, we pray that Your Spirit
would be upon us now, all whom You've gathered together this
morning to hear Your Word. Lord, that You would bless us,
cause us by Your Spirit to hear the Word, to receive the Word,
to believe the Word, to be fed and nourished in the inner man,
formed in us by Christ, of Christ, of His spiritual seed. Lord,
that we would be renewed and refreshed in Him, being conformed
to His image. Lord, teach us. Teach us the
Gospel. Lord, reveal to us Your wisdom, Your might, Your strength in
sending Your Son, in establishing us in Him. Make us to know Him,
Lord. Father, we pray for Your people
that are sick and ill, Lord, that You would comfort us, heal
us, make us to know Your will in Your mind. It's in Christ's name we pray
and give thanks. Amen. All right now, I mentioned that
we're going to be in Romans 8. Romans 8 and we're going to be
looking at verses 12 and 13. Verses 12 and 13. Let me begin by saying that over in Revelation
3, verse 1, our Lord is speaking to the pastor and the church
in Sardis. And he says to them, as he said
to all the churches in the book of Revelation, he says the same,
he begins the same way, saying, I know thy works. I know your works. And he says
to Sardis that thou hast a name, that thou livest and art dead. They have a name that they live,
but they're dead. Now, everyone living upon Christ,
every man, woman, and child living upon Christ is not dead and cannot
die. But everyone living apart from
Christ, they are dead. But this pastor and his church,
they had a name that they live. They had the appearance that
they were alive. People could look at their works
and think, these people are alive in God. They have life in Christ. But we see that this is the appearance,
the appearance only of flesh, the appearance only of works.
and it wasn't the work of Christ in them. Now, those living upon
Christ, they shall never die. They shall never die. Christ
teaches his church. Christ teaches his people so
that they know him and live upon him. Now, I wanna speak to you
this morning about life and death by the flesh or by the spirit. Life and death by the flesh as
opposed to the spirit, and that's what I've titled this message,
By Flesh or by Spirit? And I want to begin here, returning
to our study in Romans. It's been a few weeks since we've
been here in Romans, and Paul, in the text that we pick up in
verse 12, Paul is summarizing everything he's been saying to
us up to this point in the epistle to the Romans. And he says in
verse 12, Therefore brethren, seeing this salvation that God
has so abundantly and freely given to us by Christ. He says,
therefore, brethren, we are debtors, not to the flesh to live after
the flesh. For if ye live after the flesh,
ye shall die. But if ye through the spirit
do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live. Now, there's great confusion
about life and godliness, and especially in the church, the
so-called church, there's great confusion about life and godliness,
and our nature, our flesh, this natural man with our thoughts
and what we think about God and what we think about goodness
and godliness and what is life and death. This nature readily
attaches itself to the religion of flesh, to the religion of
this world, and it's confused. Our understanding, the understanding
that men have about God and about salvation is confused by the
religion of the flesh. Now, we've covered a lot of this
the last couple of messages that we looked at in Romans 8, but
we'll take this time looking at these verses, and it may serve
as somewhat of a review to you, but I think that that's good.
I think it's good for us to hear again the simplicity of Christ,
to hear the hope of our salvation, which is the Lord Jesus Christ
and not we ourselves. Because all of religion does,
their focus is on the flesh. Their focus is on the fruits
of your flesh and trying to provoke your flesh to do that which the
flesh cannot do, please God. The flesh cannot please God.
So I wanna declare to you Salvation in Christ. Salvation in Christ. Because salvation to us naturally,
in this flesh, it's impossible. It's impossible. Now, our beloved
apostle would say to the Philippians that to write the same things
to you, to me, is not grievous. But for you, it is safe. And
that's why it's good for us to go through and hear these words
that were being taught by the Spirit in his word, which he
moved the apostle to write. So Paul says in verse 12, we
are debtors, not to the flesh, to live, and notice that word,
to live after the flesh. Now the very ministry that our
Lord gave to the church is a ministry of life. We're not to be ministering
death to the Lord's sheep. We're not to be turning them
to the things that are death, the things of this world, the
things of this flesh, it's a ministry of life, we're turning, we're
declaring to sinners, look to Christ, hear the word of the
Lord, hear the salvation that God has provided in his son,
Jesus Christ, because we cannot save ourselves. So our ministry
is one of life. And in the church, we declare
living things. We declare that which is alive,
that which is salvation, that which is our life. And that's
why, like the apostles and the brethren, like Philip, when he
went to the eunuch, we're told that he preached unto him Jesus. And that's what we do. We preach
unto you Jesus. We preach Christ because Christ
is life. Christ is the salvation of God's
people. It's the salvation that God has
provided for us sufficiently and full in the Lord Jesus Christ. So I want you to understand that.
that our life is Jesus Christ himself. He is our life. Not simply that our life is found
in him, found in serving him, our life is Christ himself. He is our life. If you look to
the things of death, you will die. If you look to the things
of death, you'll die. But if you look to the things
of life, that you're looking to Christ. And if you look to
Christ, it's because you are already alive. It's because God
has already given you life in the Lord Jesus Christ. He's made
you alive. He stripped this flesh, brought
this flesh to nothing in itself. He's caused you to hear the gospel,
to hear the hope of salvation given to sinners in Jesus Christ. So if you look to the things
of life, you're looking to Christ. And if you look to Christ, it's
because God has made you alive in him through the preaching
of the gospel. And so the things of life are
found in Christ. We look to him who is our very
life, our very salvation. And so this is what our God has
freely freely given to us, salvation in his son. Paul, when he was
writing to the Corinthians, spoke of it in this way in 1st Corinthians
2, in verse 12, he said, now we have received. Our God has given this to us,
giving us life so that by the power of his spirit, we've received
these things, not by the power of the flesh, but by the spirit
we've received. And it's not the spirit of the
world that we've received, but the spirit which is of God, that
we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. It's God's will to make these
things known to his people. That's why he sends the gospel,
and that's why we preach the gospel. That's why we preach
Jesus Christ and him crucified, because he is the gospel, and
that's how we know what God has done for us, freely, by his grace,
apart from our works. And so, what Paul's talking about
there, the things freely given to us of God, He's talking about
the life that God has given to us by his grace as opposed to
life which we try to work by the flesh, by goodness, by good
works, by not sinning or doing what we think is the right thing
to do. That's not how God saves. We're
not to sin. We should do what is right because
we're God's creatures. We were created by God. We're
not to sin and rebel against him, but our very nature, is
sin, it's dead, it's corrupt in sins, it's defiled in Adam. When we sinned in the garden
in Adam, we defiled ourselves, we sinned against God, we made
ourselves enmity against God. We turned from the true and living
God and despised him, and despised his goodness, and despised his
care and kindness toward us in the garden there. And so that's
what we are by nature. We're enemies of God. There's
a hatred that we have of the true and living God by nature
in this flesh, which will never submit and has no will to submit. Let me put it that way. The Lord
will work his will always, that which pleases him. So the Lord
is doing his will. So the church preaches Christ
because it's Christ. It's Christ that forms in us
the new man, whereby we worship God and know Him and believe
Him. It's Christ that turns the heart. He gives a new heart, a new will,
a new mind that desires to serve and to know Him. And it's Christ. It's the preaching of Christ.
We're confident in Christ that it's Christ that that puts down
the rebellion and the sin in us. It's Christ that conquers
the flesh. It's Christ that subdues us and
shuts our boasting mouths and turns us from the things of death. to the things of life. It's Christ
that gives us faith and hope, love, peace and joy and rest
in Him. It's not from our flesh. It's
Christ who gives us a new name which no man knoweth save he
that receiveth it. Christ does that and that's why
we preach Christ and don't preach to your flesh and whip and bind
the flesh, because the flesh doesn't produce this. Nothing
lasting, nothing of life is produced by the flesh. It's Christ that
whereby we live and know God and serve and worship God. And
so Paul said, these things also we speak, not in the words which
man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth, comparing
spiritual things with spiritual But the natural man receiveth
not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness
unto him, neither can he know them, because they are spiritually
discerned." And naturally we don't have the Spirit of God,
so we can't spiritually discern the things of God. God must give
them to us. And that's what he does in the
Lord Jesus Christ. Now the grace of God reveals
his grace toward his people. The grace of God, it's in his
grace toward us that he reveals to us the knowledge of this grace,
what he's done for us in Christ, that God has freely, apart from
our works of the flesh, God has freely made us righteous in his
Son. It's through the death burial
and the resurrection of Jesus Christ, that we have been purged
of our sins, the debt is paid, paid by Christ, by Him shedding
His blood, Him dying our death, that Christ obtained righteousness
for His people, in dying in their place, in working perfect righteousness
in Himself and for His people, and giving us life in Him so
that we believe God and we rest in the salvation of God, trusting
the salvation of God, living upon the salvation of God, who
is Jesus Christ, our Lord. So our God did this for us apart
from our works and did it all in the Lord Jesus Christ. Romans
3, 22 and 23 says, even the righteousness of God, which is by faith of Jesus Christ,
by the faithfulness, the faithful work of Jesus Christ our Lord. Unto all and upon all them that
believe, for there is no difference, for all have sinned and come
short of the glory of God. And so this is exactly what Paul
is continually repeating and reiterating throughout his epistle
to the Romans. And we that believe Christ believe
because the faith which our God has worked in us and given to
us, this faith whereby we believe Christ is a faith which God works
in us by his power and his glory. And so what through the preaching
of the gospel, the Lord reveals in his people those that are
his through faith. They have faith revealed in them
through the preaching of the gospel. And this is what Paul
was saying in Romans 1, 17. He said, for therein is the righteousness
of God, the preaching of the cross, the preaching of this
gospel, this good news that God freely forgives in his son, Jesus
Christ, apart from any works of the flesh, This righteousness
of God is revealed from faith and the faithfulness of our God
in Christ to faith which he's revealed in us. As it is written,
the just shall, and here's this word, the just shall live by
faith. The just shall live by faith
so that we are debtors, brethren, not to the flesh, to live after
the flesh. And therefore, what he's saying
there is, is our faith whereby we believe God, it's not of this
flesh. Our faith is a spiritual grace,
a spiritual fruit revealed in His people, exercised in His
people by the power of the Spirit. Faith is a work of the Spirit. As Paul even said, and this is
a little different angle in seeing and understanding this, as he
said to the Galatians, having begun in the Spirit are ye now
made perfect by the flesh. So in other words, when we began,
people believe and understand, they have an understanding that
our life began when we believed, when we had faith in Christ.
And from our viewpoint, that's true. When we believe, that's
when our life began in Christ, even though it was already finished
in eternity in Christ. He says there, having begun in
the Spirit. In other words, those people that boast in their faith,
that faith is man's part, man's work, man's cooperation with
God, they don't even understand the Scripture which says we began
in the Spirit. So the Spirit gives life. The
Spirit is the originator of our faith. It's a fruit of the Spirit
produced in us. And so Christ himself, though,
Christ himself is our life. He's the believer's life. He's
the source of our faith, and he's the one in whom our faith
is fixed. We receive the faith from him,
and our faith is fixed in him. It looks to him, feeding upon
him. He is our life, so that our faith
is of him, by him, and in him. It's fixed in him, and thereby
Christ is the hope of the sinner. He's the hope of the sinner.
Now turn over to John 6, and we'll see this. John 6. And go to verse 47. John 6, 47. Our Lord says, and again we're
speaking of life and death, by the Spirit or by flesh. Which is it? Is it by the spirit
or by flesh? Then he says in John 6, 47, verily,
verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on me hath everlasting
life. It's a gracious work. already
accomplished for us by Christ and revealed to us by the Spirit
of God. And he says in verse 48, I am
that bread of life. Christ is our life. And he says,
I am that bread of life. And then he says, your fathers
did eat the manna, or did eat manna in the wilderness and are
dead. They ate the manna that God gave
to them, to the people of Israel, in the wilderness, and they are
dead. They're dead. They died, not
in faith, but in not having any hope in God, but they died in
their own works, They died in sin. They died apart from Christ. They had no hope in him, those
that he's talking about there. Now, understand it this way.
Today, we go to church services. We go to church services. We
hear messages preached out of this Bible, out of the scriptures.
We read the scriptures, we hear the scriptures preached. We pray
and we do religious things just like these people, the Jews did. We eat manna, just like they
ate manna. And many, many who go to church
services and take the name of Christ on their lips and claim
to be Christians, many die. They eat and are dead. They ate
and are dead like these Jews. Why? because they're not feeding
upon Christ. They don't believe Christ. They
don't believe Christ is all our life, all our righteousness. They're still looking to and
trusting in their works. They're going to church services.
They're hearing the word and they're reading the word and
their prayers. That's where their hope and their
confidence is because they call themselves Christians. That's
their hope and their confidence, but it's not fixed in Christ.
And so they die. They die in the wilderness, just
like the Jews. They die, even though they've
eaten the manna, they die in the wilderness. And so we don't
trust our own works because that is to live after the flesh. All right, that's to live after
the flesh. And so our Lord says in verse
50, This is the bread which cometh down from heaven that a man may
eat thereof and not die. And then he tells us precisely,
it's not in your religious things that saves you. It's not in your
eating of religious services and what you do that saves you. He tells us how we live. He says in verse 51, I am the
living bread, which came down from heaven. If any man eat of
this bread, Christ, if any man eat of this bread, he shall live
forever. And the bread that I will give
is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. Christ
is declared. that he will be crucified, and
he will die under the wrath of God in the room instead of his
people, bearing their sin in his own body, paying the price,
the death that we earned, and he accomplished for us the righteousness,
the debt of righteousness, which we owed to God and could not
pay by our flesh, by our works, by anything that we do. And so
Christ accomplished full, complete salvation in himself. And he
reveals this salvation in us by his spirit. And so he reveals
this, what he's done, for the life of his people, scattered
throughout the world to the ends of the earth, Christ accomplished
this and sends this gospel. And so now at the end of John
6, in verse 63 and 64, he says, it is the spirit that quickeneth,
right? It's not your flesh that's gonna
do this. It's the spirit that quickeneth. The flesh profiteth
nothing. The words that I speak unto you,
they are spirit and they are life. But there are some of you
that believe not. And so, this is why it's important
to go back to the basics, to hear Christ and Him crucified
continually, to hear this gospel, because many hear and do not
believe. Many hear and trust in their
doing and are turned back to the flesh believing that in the
things that they do, that that's their life. But if you try to
seek righteousness, to do what is good and right in the flesh,
we're told you will die. We're not debtors to the flesh,
to live after the flesh. For if you live after the flesh,
you will die. And so I read that passage in
and John to you, because everything that Paul has been saying to
us in Romans 8, up to this point here, today, it's not meant to
engage the flesh's cooperation. We're not gonna bring this flesh
now to cooperate and suddenly receive and believe and do spiritual
things. This flesh is dead in trespasses
and sins. This flesh is wretched. This
flesh is the old man which cannot hear and cannot believe and will
not believe, as Christ said to the Jews, but you will not believe
on me. So if any man believes on Christ
and confesses him, it's because the Spirit has given life and
the Spirit has revealed faith. giving them faith, revealing
it in them, and causing them to confess and cry out to Christ,
to confess the Lord Jesus Christ, believing that God has raised
him from the dead, having accomplished our justification, and thereby
all our works, our sanctification as well, all right? So to rest
in Christ and to live upon Christ is a work of faith, which the
Spirit works in his people. And so all who hear Christ and
believe him, it's because of that revelation, that regeneration
of the spirit, forming Christ in us and the new man by his
spiritual seed, whereby we hear and believe the gospel. Therefore,
Paul said in Romans 8, 12, brethren, we are debtors because of this
salvation, being totally and completely of grace, we're debtors,
not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. And so, I repeat these
words because religion takes this passage, right? They take
these words and they turn them into a condition of life upon
your obedience, right? They take that word where we
read in verse 1, Romans 8, 1, there is therefore now no condemnation
to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh,
but after the Spirit. And so that's where they introduce
this condition that if you start sinning and you start walking
in the flesh and doing sinful things, well then you're not
walking in the Spirit. And so they teach this passage
as though the believer is elevated now to having no sin in their
flesh, that they'll be able to walk perfectly before God in
the flesh, that they'll be able to conform this flesh to spirituality
and to righteousness in the flesh. That's what they teach about
it. So that's the religion of the
flesh that's worked in there and begins to create this confusion
that somehow we're made righteous in this flesh, that this flesh
is reformed and improved. Now, the first thing I just wanna
show you here that is about our justification. I just wanna just
ensure that there's an understanding of our justification, that it's
by Christ. And one of the ways that man's
religion introduces confusion is in speaking of our justification
by Christ. And so when I was younger, I
heard in religion, the way I heard about Christ, the way Christ
was preached and taught to me, was they would speak of what
he accomplished, what he did, but then they would turn to me
and say, now you must accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and
Savior. You must accept Jesus Christ
as your Lord and Savior. And once in a while they would
blend in the word believe in there, but the emphasis was on
your acceptance of Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. And
what man, what the religion of flesh does by doing that, by
putting this emphasis on you accepting him, is they remove
the spiritual power of God to effect life in his people through
the preaching of the gospel according to to God's timing, when He pleases,
by revealing faith in them, what they do is they put the emphasis
and the burden upon your flesh, as though your flesh has the
ability to have faith, to believe Christ, that it's something,
a product of your flesh and not a fruit of the Spirit. And Christ
said in John 3, 18, He says, he that believeth on him is not
condemned. He's not condemned already. It's
already done. Christ has already accomplished
salvation and now he's working faith in his people. They hear
of Christ and they believe God. They believe the testimony of
God, that Christ is the Savior, that Christ is the salvation
God has provided, that he's their hope. that they look to him and
trust him. They're confessing, God, you're
true, you're right, you've accomplished my salvation. Lord, you raised
him from the dead, testifying that we are justified in Christ,
that he has accomplished our redemption, he's accomplished
our righteousness, but he that believeth not is condemned already. We're already dead in trespasses
and sins and there's no sign of life there. We preach the
gospel and those in whom God has revealed Christ and given
faith, they believe the testimony of God. They believe the preached
word. They believe and trust God. And
so they're not condemned. They're proving that they're
not condemned already in Christ. And those that do not believe
are proving that they are condemned already. Because he hath not
believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And so we
preach Christ. We preach Christ to all creatures
because God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the
world, but that the world through him might be saved. And so the Lord describes to
us, he's telling us what this salvation looks like, how it's
evidenced in his people. In John 3.21, but he that doeth
truth cometh to the light. In other words, he's going to
evidence, he's gonna make known those that are his, because they
will hear the gospel and they will believe. That's doing truth.
Lord, not by my works, not by what my works of righteousness,
which I have done, but by the work and power, the salvation
you've accomplished in your son, Jesus Christ. We're just confessing,
Lord, I'm a sinner worthy of death. I see how that I have
offended holy God and done that which is wicked and evil in his
sight and cannot reform this flesh, cannot turn my life around
and start obeying the law and start doing works of righteousness
to earn and obtain salvation. The Lord delivers us from that.
He shows us, he brings that confession out and we see the salvation
God has provided in his son, and sending Him to die in the
place of His people, being crucified on the cross, shedding His blood
to make atonement for the sins of His people. And so we're accepted
of God in Christ. It's not our acceptance of Christ,
it's God's acceptance of us in Christ. And that's our hope and
our trust and our confidence is in Him. And so we're confessing
that we ourselves are sinners, unable to save ourselves, and
our salvation is fixed in Christ. We come not in our works of righteousness,
which we've done, but in the righteousness of Jesus Christ. And it's done so that his deeds,
you that believe that your deeds may be manifest, that they are
brought in God. God, we are testifying, I didn't
do this, I didn't do this work, God did all the work of salvation,
even to the point of forming faith, of forming Christ in me,
and believing God's salvation in His Son, Jesus Christ. Now, this means that we're justified
of our sins with God. We're justified of our sins with
God. And God declares all in Christ
are righteous, right? That the work's done, where there's
no sin, And so this we see in Romans 3, 24 and 25, being justified
freely by his grace, through the redemption that is in Christ
Jesus, whom God had set forth to be a propitiation through
faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission
of sins that are past through the forbearance of God. All right, so we see there that
this life that we have is found in that we are justified in Christ. We're justified, it's all of
Christ. It's all of Him, all right? But in this passage, Paul is
also declaring to us that our sanctification is in Christ. And so the Spirit teaches us
that just as we are justified in Christ apart from our works,
so we are wholly, completely sanctified by Christ apart from
this flesh, apart from our works in the flesh. And therefore,
brethren, we are debtors not to the flesh to live after the
flesh, to sanctify ourselves after the flesh. We didn't justify
ourselves after the flesh, we don't sanctify ourselves. after
the flesh. For if you live after the flesh,
if that's your sanctification, if that's your justification,
or your sanctification, is after the flesh, ye shall die. But if ye through the spirit
do mortify the deeds of the body, ye shall live." And so the flesh,
the religion of flesh, If it can't get a foothold in justification,
it'll come to get a foothold in sanctification and begin to
turn you from looking to Christ for your life, for sanctification,
how we live, it'll turn you to the flesh here. It'll turn you
away from Christ here at the point of sanctification. And so that brings in confusion. It confuses the hope that we
have in Christ. We began in Christ, right? Having
begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh? Absolutely
not. Absolutely not. All of our salvation
is Christ. So, there is a sense in which
religion will take this passage and look strictly at our putting
away sin, our turning away from sin. And there is a sense in
which Paul is talking about that we don't by not walking the flesh,
we're not fulfilling the lusts which are in the flesh. Paul
said in Romans 6, 2, how shall we that are dead to sin live
any longer therein? He said that. But our living
here in sanctification also, just as our justification is
upon Christ, so our sanctification is upon the Lord Jesus Christ.
We live and feed upon Christ by the Spirit and not by the
flesh. So we are as sanctified as we
are justified by the Lord Jesus Christ. We're as holy as we're
ever gonna be. We're as fit for heaven now as
we were when we first believed, as we were if the Lord tarries
another 10 years from now or longer. We're as fit for heaven
in Christ at the end as we are at the beginning of our life
in Him. Because it's not by the flesh,
it's by the Spirit. So, there are scriptures that
do speak of growth in the believer. As I read some of the old writers,
there are scriptures that do speak of us who are alive in
Christ, that there's a growth. One is 1 Thessalonians 5.23,
where Paul prays saying, in the very God of peace, sanctify you
wholly. He's praying that the Lord sanctify
them wholly, that he completely sanctify them. And in Peter,
1 Peter 2.2, he says, as newborn babes, desire the sincere milk
of the word, that you may grow thereby, that you may grow thereby. Proverbs 4.18 says, but the path
of the just is as the shining light that shineth more and more
unto the perfect day, right? And Paul speaks of, and the brethren,
the apostles speak of there being babes in Christ, right, and novices
in Christ, There's babes and novices in Christ, and then there's
elders in Christ. There's those that are experienced
believers in Christ. So there is, if you will, a progression
of growth. We do grow in grace, and we see
this growth outlined for us in 2 Peter chapter one, verses five
through 11 there. We see that growth and how the
Lord grows us in experience, and in various fruits, right? But I think one of my favorite
illustrations of that growth, I heard my pastor say to me several
times where a child, when a woman conceives in her womb, that's
a human life in her, that's a human in her. And though that child
is still in the womb and then comes out of the womb and there's
a little baby, And then that baby continues to grow into adolescence,
and a young adult, and into adulthood. But all the while, back at the
very beginning of conception there, and its growth in the
womb, it's a human. It's not gonna be any more human. It's a human at conception. All the way through its life,
it's a human. When we were babies, we didn't
become more human. we just got older and grew into
adulthood, if you will. So that's the growth that the
Lord is revealing or speaking about here. And some writers
called it progressive sanctification. And I'll come back to that in
a bit there, but what we see today is that there's a progressive
sanctification. They talk about that, which is,
through bringing the flesh into conformity with spiritual things
and reforming the flesh by the works of the flesh, such as turning
us back to the law, such as bringing our necks back under the yoke
of the law to try and make ourselves more sanctified. And so they
begin to speak of sanctification as a cooperation of our flesh
and that's very dangerous because the flesh is provoked then and
the flesh is brought right back under the yoke of bondage and
is more than happy to submit itself under the legal killing
letter of the law. It is more than happy to do that,
because it's death, and it knows the things of death, and delights
in the things of death, and not in things of the spirit, because
the flesh doesn't know the spirit. The flesh doesn't understand
spiritual things. And so, the Lord, we are to look
to Christ, we're to live and feed upon Christ, and the things
of the spirit, not upon the things of the flesh which were given
to Adam's seed to contain and constrain the wickedness and
the rebellion of man. And the law was given to show
us our sin and our rebellion against God. So to live after
the flesh, it's not simply here in Romans 8, 12, to live after
the flesh is not simply to live in the sin and lust of the flesh. It's not all that Paul's talking
about here. And we're always gonna have this
corrupt, sinful nature. We're always gonna have this
corrupt body of flesh. We're always gonna be humbled
by the sin that we see in the flesh, the thoughts that come
into our mind and our heart and the things which we do and say. We're reminded of the corruption
that is in this flesh. Paul says actually in Romans
8, 10, if Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin. This body is still dead and corrupt. It's not reformed, it's not improved,
it's not now holy, it's not now working righteousness, it's not
now broadened to cooperation. And that's where the religion
of flesh It works, it's doctrine, that's where it appeals, to the
flesh to try and make you, to make your flesh more holy and
more righteous. But the spirit is life because
of righteousness, because of Christ's righteousness. It's
in the spirit that we live in Christ and believe him and trust
him. So this flesh isn't improving. But what religion does, what
the religion of flesh does, is it turns us back to the law. It turns us away from Christ,
and looking to Him, and believing Him, and feeding upon Christ,
the bread of heaven, and eating His flesh, and drinking His blood
in the Spirit, which is what Paul's talking about here. it
seeks to reform this flesh by turning us to the law of Moses. And there we go, right back to
the veil of darkness, the works of the flesh trying to please
God by the works of the flesh, looking to the law, which was
given to constrain the flesh, right? To reveal sin in us, to
show us what sinners we are, because as soon as you look to
the flesh, that enmity is provoked in the flesh. All right, and
so by turning to the flesh, you're forgetting that they that are
in the flesh cannot please God. So we don't turn back to the
things of the flesh. We don't turn back to those things
which were given to unrighteous persons that they might know
that they're unrighteous. We're not gonna improve the flesh
by turning to the flesh or turning to the law, which is turning
to the flesh. All right, so going back to The
law to sanctify our walk, to sanctify ourselves with God is
to live after the flesh. That's what I'm trying to say
is that it's not just about not sinning, not fulfilling the lusts
of the flesh, but turning to the law is fulfilling the lusts
of the flesh. It's now engaging the flesh to
say, I can do this. I can make myself holy. I can
make myself more acceptable to God. Christ did whatever he did,
but I'm gonna do more by bringing my flesh under the yoke of the
law, and I'm gonna really show people what righteousness is.
I'm gonna really do it up and live, but that's living after
the flesh. Now, if you look at Leviticus
18.5, we read that it says, he says, ye shall therefore, this
is the Lord speaking to the people of Israel by Moses. He says,
ye shall therefore keep my statutes and my judgments. All right,
this is in the law of Moses, which if a man do, he shall live
in them. All right, if you're gonna look
to the law, which God gave to Moses, which Moses gave to the
people, all right, if you're gonna look to that law, then
you shall live in them. You're gonna have to do the whole
law. All right, you're gonna have
to do the whole law perfectly Now, believers in Christ can
never be turned back to the law of Moses because it inevitably
puts a yoke about our neck and stirs up the enmity and causes
our head to be bowed down in the flesh and we cannot look
to Christ. We're not looking to Christ now.
We're not walking by the Spirit, trusting Christ. We're walking
by the flesh, trusting the flesh. And if you don't believe me,
look at Galatians 3. Turn over to Galatians 3, and
look at verse 11 and 12 with me. Galatians 3, 11 and 12. He says, but that no man is justified
by the law in the sight of God, it is evident, for the just shall
live by faith, and the law is not of faith. but the man that
doeth them shall live in them." So Paul's showing us that you
cannot separate sanctification from justification. Where Christ
is justified, Christ also sanctifies. Our justification is complete
in Christ, so our sanctification is complete in Christ. And that's
become a stumbling block for religion, for those that are
zealous for the law. And they're trying to You know,
it's what the concision did. When they tried to declare, okay,
we're justified by Christ. But now, we look back to the
law of Moses for our sanctification. We walk in our life looking to
Moses. And Paul says, if you live after
the flesh, ye shall die. And that's why Paul would write
to the Philippians in Philippians 3.3, declaring we are the circumcision. which worship God in the spirit
and not after the flesh, right? We rejoice in Christ Jesus and
have no confidence in the flesh. We're looking to Christ, living
upon him for justification and sanctification, all right? So if you would have life, then
that life is found only in the Lord Jesus Christ, feeding upon
the bread of heaven, Jesus Christ. And he's our provision in every
aspect of our life. So Paul said, therefore brethren,
we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh. For
if you live after the flesh, you shall die. If you do anything
in religion by the deeds of the flesh, you shall die. But if you through the Spirit
mortify the deeds of the flesh, you shall live, or the deeds
of the body, you shall live. And so we began in Christ, and
we will be we will end or we will continue in Christ unto
the end if we are his, right? We're his people and so we'll
continue in him. And so now just in closing, returning
to our growth in Christ, right? Another one is where Peter says
in 2 Peter 3.21, the very, very last verse of that epistle, the
last thing he said was, but grow in grace and in the knowledge
of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. So, our Lord uses this
language, right? Speaking of the believers' growth
in Christ, our Lord uses this language. It's not because we
can effect growth in ourselves, right? It's not to turn us back
to the flesh. The religion, stumbling over
Christ, turns back to the flesh and hears it as a command to
the flesh to get working. to do that which we cannot do
in this flesh. But he says these words not because
we can affect that growth in ourselves. The Lord, what he's
doing is he's revealing to us that he grows his people. He's turning us, ever turning
us to look to Christ who is our life, who is the bread of heaven. declaring this to us in the gospel
that he grows us, that they're his growth, which he grows in
his delights to do and works in his people, causing us to
ever look to Christ and to seek him for this growth. I don't
know why these writers turn people back to the flesh thinking that
the Lord is telling us these things so that we trust in the
flesh and look to the flesh to do this. He's telling us that
he's the one growing us so that we're ever looking to Christ,
the bread of heaven, ever seeking him to grow us and to keep us
as he did in the start so that he does it all the way through
to the end. And so, this word is declared
in the gospel to all who hear it, but it's the Lord who, by
His power, sovereign power, makes us effectual in the heart. And
so we're declaring Christ because preaching Christ and Him crucified
is the very nourishment and the strengthening of the new man,
ever reminding us, don't look to the flesh. Don't have any
confidence in the flesh. Don't try and work a righteousness
for yourselves in the flesh. Don't try and sanctify yourselves
in the flesh, because if you try to do these things in the
flesh, you shall die. You're already dead. but you
that look to Christ and believe Him are already alive. And He's
keeping you alive, looking to Christ, ever seeking Him and
crying out upon Him. And so it's through the preaching
of Christ that He feeds us, and that's why we continue to preach
Christ. and not bury him just in theological
studies of the word and teaching moral Bible studies and things
of that fallen nature. But we look to Christ, we trust
him because that's feeding the inner man, right? Christ formed
in you. It's his work, it's his creation. And so I'll just close with these
verses in Romans 8, 14 and 15. because Paul reveals this very
truth to us. For as many as are led by the
Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. For ye have not received
the spirit of bondage again to fear, but ye have received the
spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. You see, Lord, you grow your
people. Lord, you saved your people at
the first, you grow your people. You keep your people in Christ,
by Christ. Father, save me. This flesh is
wicked. I see a law in my members that
when I would do good, evil is right there with me. Lord, save
me from this wretched, filthy, abominable flesh. Keep me ever
looking to Christ. Abba, Father, save me." So, that's
how the deeds of the flesh are mortified. Mortified by the Spirit
of God, in Christ Jesus. So, I pray the Lord will bless
that word to you, and help you, and comfort you, and cause you
to ever keep looking to the Lord Jesus Christ, because he is the
believer's justification, and sanctification, and life in him. Let's pray. Our gracious Lord,
we thank you for the hope of the gospel in Christ Jesus. Lord,
we ask that you would bless this word to your people. Lord, that
you would keep us ever looking to Christ, not walking in the
flesh, but walking in the spirit, feeding upon the salvation you
provided in your son, Jesus Christ. Lord, take these feeble words
of clay and bring them home with power to the hearts of your people,
nourishing them in the inner man. causing us to look to Christ
and feeding upon Him in the Spirit, not in the flesh. It's in Christ's
name we pray and give thanks. Amen.