All right, brethren, let's turn
to Romans 8. Thank you, Brother Todd. Somebody last
night said the messages went well together. And you know,
they always do when you preach the gospel. It doesn't really
matter where you preach from. We just have one message. And
in fact, Lord willing, I'm thinking I'm going to preach from 1 John
3 tomorrow. So we do have a theme going,
don't we? Romans, I want to just pick up
where we left off last night. Somebody said to Charles Spurgeon
one time, they said, I've gotten out of the seventh of Romans
into the eighth. And Charles Spurgeon said, nonsense. He said, you never get out of
the seventh into the eighth because they're one. They're one. And if you have this warfare
that we talked about last night, you know that's so. Paul said
in Romans 7.21, I find then a law that when I would do good, evil
is present with me. For I delight in the law of God
after the inward man, in my new nature, but I see another law
in my members, in my carnal corrupt sin nature. It's warring against
the law of my mind. It bringing me into captivity
to the law of sin which is in my members. And by this ongoing
captivity and the ongoing deliverance, the Lord's constantly teaching
us two things. First of all, O wretched man
that I am. That's what the Lord keeps teaching
us. I am a wretched man in my sin nature. Here's the second
thing he keeps teaching us. Who shall deliver me from the
body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ
our Lord. That's what he keeps teaching
us. He has delivered us, he is delivering us, and he shall deliver
us, and he gets all the glory. And he said, So then with the
mind, with the new man, I myself serve the law of God, but with
the flesh, with the sin nature, the law of sin. There is therefore
now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk
not after the flesh, but after the Spirit, because the law of
the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the
law of sin and death. My subject is minding things
of the Spirit. And Paul's point in Romans 8
is, mortification of this flesh, being delivered from this sin
nature on an ongoing basis, continually being made to mortify this flesh,
treat it like it's a dead thing, is only through the Spirit of
the Lord. It's only through the Spirit
of God and it's by Him continually turning us to Christ who delivers
us. It's by the Spirit of God. He
said there, He qualifies who this applies to. There's no condemnation
to them which are in Christ Jesus who walk not after the flesh
but after the Spirit. What is it to walk after the
flesh? It takes many forms. takes many forms, is to be governed
by the sinful nature. That's what it is, essentially.
It's just to be governed by the sin nature. But some folks are
very moral. They make good neighbors. They
make good spouses. They make good parents. They're
very moral. But they hate Christ and want
nothing to do with the gospel whatsoever. There are some who
live for sin. They hate Christ. They have nothing
to do with religion, period. They just live for sin. Some
people profess to believe Christ, and they live for sin. They're
true antinomians who say, let sin that grace may abound. That's
walking after the flesh. But here's the most dangerous
form it takes. And this is what Paul is dealing
with throughout Romans eight. He dealt with it in every epistle.
This is the most dangerous form of walking after the flesh. Somebody
that professes Christ who minds the things of the flesh,
they mind what this book says and all they look for is what
it says to do and not to do. And they're constantly looking
to themselves to touch not, taste not, handle not. And they think
they are mortifying their flesh by that. And they think they're
doing a pretty good job of it. That's the most dangerous form.
And that's exactly what Paul's talking about when he's talking
here about those that mind the things of the flesh, that walk
after the flesh. And I'll show you that. I'll
show you that. But what is it to walk after
the spirit? Well, it's to mind the things of the Spirit by the
Spirit making you do so. Now, here's the problem that
you have if you're born of the Spirit of God. Because we have
that old sin nature, our carnal heart loves every one of those
other forms we just talked about. Our carnal nature is just as
carnal as it ever was. And the nature in us, the old
man in us who are born of God is a Pharisee. He's either condemning
you or he's commending you. And we gotta be safe from him.
We gotta be saved from Him. But the Spirit will keep you
minding the things of the Spirit. He'll keep you crying to God
our Father, to Christ our Lord to deliver us. And He will do
it because the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made
us free from the law of sin and death. The law of the Spirit
of Christ is the everlasting covenant of grace written on
the heart, the law of faith and love written on the heart that
makes you know you're His. And He's going to keep turning
you to Him, trusting Him alone, minding the things that He tells
you He's accomplished for you, and keep you walking after Him.
Now, anybody that imagines they've gotten past this warfare, they
hadn't even begun in the Spirit. When you're really walking after
the Spirit, you know this warfare. You know it. You know it. Now,
let's see how the Spirit keeps us minding the things of the
Spirit. First of all, the Spirit sets our mind on Christ. You know, we get captive and
we start minding things of the flesh and we start looking at
ourselves and whatever else. And He turns you again and sets
your mind on Christ. And here's what He makes you
to know. There is therefore now no condemnation to them which
are in Christ Jesus. This is what the Spirit keeps
making us know. This is how you're delivered.
This is how you're delivered. When you're so tangled up and
you think you can't possibly be a child of God He turns you
again and makes you to know there is now no condemnation to them
that are in Christ Jesus. This is what sets you free. This
is what sets you free. He didn't say there's no accusation
against them. He didn't say that. The problem
is the Satan may accuse, men may accuse, but the accusation
will not stick with God. God justified us. He said there
is no condemnation. It doesn't say there's no chastening.
When we sin, the Lord will chasten us. But when it says that he
chastens us, the Hebrew writer said, to keep you partaking of
his holiness. He gonna keep you knowing Christ
is your holiness. You're in Christ, you're kept
in Christ, you're sanctified in Christ, and he's gonna keep
you partaking of his holiness. If we confess our sins, He's
faithful and He's just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us
from all unrighteousness. So He will chasten us and bring
us again to Christ to plunge into that fountain and we'll
find God's faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us
from all unrighteousness. Now, how is He just? How is He
faithful and just to forgive us? Verse three, for what the
law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending
his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned
sin in the flesh that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled
in us who walk not after the flesh but after the spirit. Well,
that's what the Lord teaches you when he first calls you and
teaches you the gospel. He sure does, but that's what
he keeps teaching you to deliver you from your flesh. The law
couldn't justify us, and the law couldn't sanctify us. There
was nothing wrong with the law, it was us. The law couldn't free
us from our guilt, the law couldn't make us holy. Those that are
walking after flesh are attempting to use the law for that. But
the Lord's gonna, he makes you know, and he keeps making you
know, you can't go to the law for that. Those that have been
sanctified by the Lord Jesus are made to see that it was God
who sent His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh for sin. He chose His people freely by
His grace, and for those He chose and trusted to His Son, His Son
came into this world and He took the likeness of sin, of sinful
flesh. He knew no sin, but he took on
him the seed of Abraham. That is, he took on him the likeness
of his elect that he came to save. And why did he do it? That he might be a merciful and
faithful high priest in things pertaining to God to make reconciliation
for the iniquity of his people. That's the first reason he took
flesh, was that he might reconcile us to God, putting away the sin
of his people, and that's what he did. And the second reason
is that he might be touched with all the feeling of our infirmities
and be able to succor you that are tempted. that he might be
able to turn you back to mind the things of the spirit when
you are taken captive and mind the things of the flesh. This
is our high priest that does this. He's the one who came forth
and by himself condemned sin in the flesh. This is a good
thing to remember right here. You want to mind something, mind
this, think on this. Our Lord Jesus condemned what
was condemning us so that it can't condemn us anymore. He
completely, totally, thoroughly put away the sin of His people
so that that's all the ammunition Satan had was to charge us and
accuse us of our sin. And He took His ammunition away
from Him. He took away all the sin away from His people. And
He did it that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled
in us who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.
That doesn't mean that the righteousness of the law is fulfilled by us.
It doesn't mean that when you're born of the spirit now, he gives
you the ability to be able to keep the righteousness of the
law yourself. If we thought that, we would
stay in the bondage of our flesh all the time. We'd be in the
dominion of it, under the dominion of it. No, he came and fulfilled
the righteousness of the law and is the righteousness of the
law. And when he gives you faith to trust him, that's when God
makes you know he has imputed the righteousness of Christ to
you. He imputed righteousness to you because that's what Christ
made you by his obedience. He made his people the righteousness
of God. That's why God imputes righteousness
to us. God's not just pretending you're
righteous. Christ made you righteous. He
made you right. That's why God's imputing righteousness
to us. So when the spirit comes again,
when you're in captivity, he turns you back to Christ. This
is what he makes you mind. There is therefore now no condemnation
in Christ Jesus. Christ has put away our sin. He has made us everlastingly
righteous in him. And that's how the spirit frees
us from the captivity of our flesh. Now, knowing that, What
ought we to do if our brother falls? What ought we to speak? Rather than talking about him,
rather than talking what you heard, this or that, you know
what, we ought to speak to them. Christ has put away our sin.
There is therefore now no condemnation. If that's what God used to free
you in the first hour, that's the best thing you can speak
to a brother who is taken captive by his flesh. The gospel of our
successful, accomplished redemption by Christ Jesus, that's what
we need to speak. And secondly, the Spirit of God
is going to keep the believer walking after the Spirit and
minding these things of the Spirit. He's not going to let us stop
minding the things of the Spirit. It says there in verse 5, they
that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh, but
they that are after the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. Every
sinner who hates Christ, every sinner who lives for sin, lives
for worldly gain, of course, they're minding the things of
the flesh. They walk after the flesh. But
Paul is specifically speaking here about will-worshippers.
He's specifically talking about folks who go to this book looking
for what they must do to try to come to God. That's what he's
specifically speaking about. When the Lord said to the Pharisees,
search the Scriptures, Here's what the Pharisees were doing.
They constantly minded the things of the flesh. They searched the
scriptures because in them they thought they had life. They went
to them trying to see what to do and not to do, and they thought
they had life thereby. And Christ said, and these scriptures
are they which speak of me, and you will not come to me that
you might have life. Now, God's saints still have
a sin nature, and so we can come into this same captivity. We
can start minding the things of the flesh. You take Apostle
Peter, for example. The Lord, they'd been walking
with the Lord for three years, three and a half years, and the
Lord said, I must go to Jerusalem, I must suffer, I must be killed,
and I must rise again the third day. And Apostle Peter said,
that's not gonna happen. We're not gonna let that happen.
Peter said, I've got a sword. We're strong men. We can keep
that from happening to you, Lord. And the Lord turned to Peter
and he said, Peter, you savor the things that be of man. He
was minding the things of the flesh. And here's what the Lord
said. He said, if a man's gonna follow
me, he will have to deny himself. Now you'll hear preachers preach
on that and they'll tell you, boy, you gotta deny this sin
and you gotta deny that sin. Well, I hope you do. But if that's
the message you're hearing, you're gonna start minding the things
of your flesh and trying to deny this and deny that and deny the
other. What that means is you have to deny yourself lock, stock
and barrel. You can't have a part in this
salvation. It's got to be entirely Christ
and Christ alone. And that's going to involve a
cross. He says, so take up your cross and follow me. For whoever
tries to save his life, if a man is trying to work his way to
God, he will perish. But who loses his life, for Christ's
sake and his gospel, he'll be saved. That's what it is to mind
the things of the Spirit, is to totally know The Lord, he
has to do the saving. He has to do the saving. So we
can come into this captivity, brethren. Now go with me to Philippians
chapter three, and I wanna show you, I believe that the apostle
Paul is saying the same thing in Romans eight that he's saying
here in Philippians three. He had warned them there in Philippians
3, 2. He's talking about those who
mix law and grace. And he said in verse 2, beware
of dogs, beware of evil workers, beware of the concision. Now,
he's gonna give a contrast here of what it is to be the true
circumcision. The true circumcision, verse
3, we are the circumcision. Here's the three traits of those
that are minding the things of the Spirit. We worship God in
the Spirit, and rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no confidence
in the flesh. Now, those that are minding the
flesh, They don't worship in the Spirit, they're not rejoicing
in Christ alone, and they're putting confidence in their flesh.
And Paul listed some things there where he said, if a man's got
confidence in the flesh, I could have more, because he listed
all those things he had and he did. But this is how God made
him mind the things of the Spirit. Look at verse 8. He said, I count
all those laws that I might win Christ and be found in him, not
having mine own righteousness which is of the law, but that
which is through the faith of Christ, a righteousness which
is of God by faith, that I might know him and the power of his
resurrection. Now look at verse 13. Brethren,
I count not myself to have apprehended, but this one thing I do, forgetting
those things which are behind. Reaching forth unto those things
which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the
high calling of God in Christ Jesus. Let us therefore, as many
as be born of the Spirit of God, and that's what that word perfect
means. If you're born of God, be thus minded. Mind the things of the Spirit.
Look to Christ and press toward Christ. And if anything, you'd
be otherwise minded. And here's where we mess up now.
If somebody else is otherwise minded, and we think we need
to do something to fix that. No, he said, God will reveal
this unto them. Trust the Lord. Trust the Lord. Trust your brethren to the Lord.
He's teaching us all. We have, we got, There's a lot
we need to be taught in it, and he's teaching each of us, but
he's the one that's gonna have to reveal it. Now watch this,
go on and read verse 16. Nevertheless, until we've already
attained, wherever you are right now, walk by the same rule, let
us mind the same thing. And he says, be followers together
of me, mark them which walk so as you have us for an example.
And he comes back to the warning again. Same warning about the
same folks, verse 18, many walk of whom I've told you often now
till you even weep, and they're the enemies of the cross of Christ,
whose end is destruction, whose God's their belly, whose glory
is in their shame, who mind earthly things. They're minding earthly
things. In Hosea, when the Lord talked
about those who glory in their shame, He was talking about some
children of Israel, who left the true worship of God to worship
Baal. And it said they separated themselves
unto their shame and they were glorying in their abominations.
We're not talking about people that necessarily you would look
at and when you think that word abomination, we're talking about
people who were trying their best to be good and outwardly
moral and outwardly holy and all of these things. And he said
their glory, that's their shame and they're glorying in it. That's
minding the things of the flesh. But read on. Our conversation,
our citizenship is in heaven. From whence we're looking for
the Savior, the Lord Jesus. We're minding things of this
period. We're looking for Christ. And he will change our vile body
that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according
to the working whereby he's able to subdue all things to himself
right now. Look to him. Therefore, brethren,
dearly beloved, long for my joy, my crown. Stand fast in the Lord. Mind the things of the Spirit.
Mind the things of the Spirit. Why is this so important? Go
to Romans 8, back with me again. Because when we start minding
the things of the flesh, to be, verse 6, to be carnally minded
is death. But to be spiritually minded
is life and peace, because the carnal mind's enmity against
God is not subject to the law of God, and neither indeed can
be. A natural man receives not the things of the Spirit of God.
They're foolishness to him, and he cannot receive them. But don't
ever forget, brethren, we got that same carnal man in us. And when we start minding the
things of the flesh, that's just death. And there's only one way
we can be saved from it, the Spirit of Christ. If you start
trying to mortify your flesh by the strength of your flesh,
striving and striving and striving to put away your sin, has that
ever worked for you? That don't work for me. If I
try not to sin, I can't think about anything else but sin. But if the Spirit turns you to
Christ, when you're sitting and hearing the gospel priest, and
Christ is magnified in your heart, and you see that your life is
really right there at God's right hand, you're complete in Him,
you're righteous in Him, and God really set your heart on
Him, you don't even regard yourself. That's mortification of the flesh,
treating your body like it's dead, like it don't even matter. And that goes two ways. Don't
look to it to try to make yourself something. And when you fail,
don't think it's made you something else than what Christ has made
you. And that's how we glory in our flesh, both ways. We try
to save ourselves by it or we think, oh, I've messed it all
up now by my flesh. but he has to turn you to him
and make you see what he's done is forever. And it won't be changed. And that's when he turns you,
when he makes you know there's now no condemnation in Christ
Jesus. Now here's the good news, here's
the good news, and here's what Paul is teaching. And what I
want you to see, I'm just going to speak a few more minutes,
but I want you to see throughout the rest of the chapter, chapter
8, how much Paul speaks about the Spirit and what the Spirit's
doing for us, the Holy Spirit of God. Look here in verse 9.
He said, you're not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that
the Spirit of God dwell in you. You've got a lot of flesh and
you still have flesh in you, but if you're born of God, you're
not in the flesh anymore, you're in the Spirit. Now, if any man
have not the Spirit of Christ, he's none of his. And if Christ
be in you, the body's dead because of sin. It's still what it is. still what it's going to be,
but the Spirit's life because of righteousness. You read that
statement and really think on that statement, the Spirit is
life because of righteousness. Sin equals death. When sin entered
in, death entered, and we died. If you have spiritual life, there's
only one reason, because life equals righteousness. If you
have spiritual life, it means you're righteous. You have been
made the righteousness of God by Christ. Now read on. But if
the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwell
in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken
your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in you. We began
by the Spirit of God in the new birth, giving us life. Now we
receive not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit, which
is God, that we might know the things freely given to us of
God. And there's coming a day when we die and they lay this
body in the ground, that the Spirit's gonna quicken our mortal
body and raise it incorruptible and we'll be with Christ. And
by the same token, right now, it's the Spirit that's gonna
quicken your inner man and keep you looking to Christ. Now read,
here's the application. Verse 12, therefore brethren,
we're debtors not to the flesh to live after the flesh. The
flesh has never done anything for us and it won't ever do anything
for us. Don't look to self. Don't look
to self. We don't owe this flesh anything.
but we're debtors to Christ, we owe all to Christ. But watch
this, if you live after the flesh, you shall die, but if you through
the spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, you shall live.
We sang it last night and Martin Luther said it really well. A mighty fortress is our God,
a bulwark never failing, our helper he amid the flood of mortal
ills prevailing. When these mortal ills prevail
and bring you into captivity, still our ancient foe does seek
to work us woe, his craft and power great, armory cruel, hate
on earth is not his equal. Now listen to this. Did we in
our own strength confide, our striving would be losing. The
devil would love for you to think you're succeeding at mortifying
the deeds of your flesh. Did we in our own strength confide
our striving would be losing? We're not the right man on our
side, the man of God's own choosing. Just ask who that may be. Christ
Jesus, it is he. Lord Sabaoth his name from age
to age the same. And here it is. He must win the
battle. Now listen, he's won the war.
The warfare's accomplished. It's accomplished. he must win
the battle right now. He must win it today. When you're
struggling and you're in captivity, he must be the one to win it
today and he must make you know he's the one that's won it for
you. That's what's gonna keep you looking to him and not to
this flesh. I'm not even gonna go, you read
into Colossians 2, he says, all that mind and touch not, taste
not, handle not, it does nothing to mortify the flesh. It's what
the flesh loves. And it's putting on a good show
of will worship. It's not doing anything. But
he said, but if you're risen with Christ, set your affectional
things above. Your life is really hid in Christ
at God's right hand. And when he says, he says, mortify
therefore your members on earth. If you look that word up, therefore,
that word could be translated and thereby, because that's how
your flesh is mortified. God's setting your affection
on Christ above. That's how your flesh will be
mortified. And that's what the spirit will do. Now I want you
to do two more things here. Look now. You come into this
bondage, you feel like, oh, I can't be a child of God. You feel like
all the flesh is just talking to you, and oh, look at you.
Verse 15, you've not received the spirit of bondage again to
fear. You've received the Spirit of adoption. You're a child.
So you can cry, Father, Father. That's why I gave you the Spirit,
to come to Him and ask Him. And the Spirit itself bears witness
with our spirit that we're children of God. That's how the flesh
is mortified. It keeps bearing witness in your heart. You're
my child. Come to me. You're my child.
What about when you can't even pray, though? You can't cry,
have a father, because you're so captive to your flesh. What
you gonna do then? Verse 26, likewise the Spirit
helps our infirmities. We know not what we should pray
for as we ought. The Spirit makes intercession
for us with wrongs which can't be uttered. And he that searches
the heart knows what's the mind of the Spirit, because he makes
intercession for the saints according to the will of God. You see how
it's all the Spirit? It's all the Spirit. You know, this thing of getting
better and better and boy, I'm really taking charge and I'm
able to mortify my flesh, that's nothing but mind in the flesh.
When the Lord does it, He makes His child know the Lord did it.
And He keeps us from glorifying, glorying in ourselves, we glory
in Him. And that rest of that is, He brings you down there
to the end and you see, if God's for us, who can be against us?
And you just, that's when you brought out of it, and for a
little while you're on the mountain, and you realize, it's Christ
that's done this for me. And he lists all that list of
things. What's gonna separate us? And he said, nothing, because
here's why. We're more than conquerors through
him that love. It's him working it, Doug. It's
not us. It's him. Aren't you thankful? I hope that's a blessing to you,
brethren. I pray to Lord to keep us looking only to our Redeemer.
Amen.