I want to go ahead and get into
our message this morning. It's a little bit longer than
I normally take in delivering a message. But before we get
to our main text in Romans 8, 13, is the text we're going to
major on. As you can see, the title of
the message is Mortify the Deeds of the Body, taken from that
verse. But I want to try to lay a foundation
here. before we get into to the message in Romans 8.13. And I
want to tell you a little bit about the Christ whose life and
his death enables believers to mortify the deeds of the body.
This mortification that we're going to be talking about is
a spirit work and therefore it's a fruit and the effect of what
Christ accomplished in his life and his death on the cross. Who
is this Christ that we worship? You might say, well, it's that
same historical Christ that the whole quote-unquote Christian
world worships and everything. The one that came to the earth
and died on the cross. And most people have that knowledge
of who he is and believe that he did it. But we need to look
a little deeper here. Because there's a lot of religions
say a lot of things about this Christ that's not consistent
with who he is and this God that we worship. And it's kind of
like they're lying on Christ or lying on God because what
they're saying he does, he won't do. And what they say he don't
do, he does do. Well, let me tell you a few things
about him. This Christ that we worship,
he's God, God in the flesh. He's both God and man. He's the
God-man. Because of our fall in Adam,
all men without exception became sinners because of Adam's fall. We became sinners not only by
representation as he represented us, but by practice, and because
of this, We need a savior. We're sinners. The God we worship
is a just God. He's a just God, and because
of this, there must be complete satisfaction toward God for sins. And because of this, God in his
great love and great mercy chose a people to save. They're called
his elect, his sheep. And he gave them to his son,
the God-man, the Son of God. He gave them to him in eternity,
an old eternity, in the everlasting covenant of grace that was made
before time. God the Son, the Word, was made
flesh. As you look at John 1, beginning
at verse 10, it says, The Beacon of Christ was in the world and
the world was made by him, and the world knew him not. He came
unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received
him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even
to them that believe on his name, which were born not of blood,
nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of
God. was made flesh and dwelt among
us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten
of the Father, full of grace and truth. The elect of God were
not chosen by God apart from Christ, but were chosen in Christ. God the Son willingly took on
the office of surety. God the Son, the elect surety,
became obligated for the sin debt that we all owed because
of our fallen Adam and our sins that we commit even here on this
earth. We owed a debt that we couldn't
pay, none of us. God requires perfection in every
way. God the Father, out of his great
love and mercy, chose not to impute sins the sins of his elect,
chose not to reckon or charge these for whom he chose, his
sheep, his elect, chose not to charge them with their sins,
but he chose to charge them to his son, his dear son, and he
gave them, he gave his elect to his son in that everlasting
covenant, and Christ stood his surety to pay that debt. The justice of God has always
looked to the Savior for full satisfaction and payment of sins
of God's elect. In the fullness of time, God
the Son came to this earth. God the Son came to this earth,
not as a private person, but as a representative of those
that the Father give him in the everlasting covenant of grace.
that was made between the Godhead, the Father, Son, and the Holy
Spirit. Let's look at John 6, beginning
at verse 37. It says, all that the Father
giveth me, this is Christ, Christ says, all that the Father giveth
me, giveth me in the everlasting covenant of grace, made before
time, shall come to me. And him that cometh to me, I
will in no wise cast out. Then he says, for I came down
from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of Him that
sent me, the Father that sent Him. And this is the Father's
will, which hath sent me, that of all which He hath given me,
given me in that everlasting covenant of grace, I should lose
nothing, but should raise it up at the last day. And this
is the will of him that sent me that everyone which seeth
the sun and believeth on him may have everlasting life. And
I raised him up at the last day. Christ, the God-man, became guilty
for my sins. But he had no sin. He was perfect
without spot or blemish. He was perfect in every way.
He became sin by imputed sin, imputation. And if you don't
know the meaning of that word, and I didn't until one day it
was mentioned to me and I started looking up that word. This is
such an important word in scripture. The imputation or the charging
or reckoning of one thing to another. And those sins, the
sin debt that I owe, it was imputed to Christ. He bore the responsibility
for my sins when he went to the cross. The wrath of God set its
sight on the Lord Jesus Christ. This is the one who was our surety,
the one who became responsible for the sin debt of the election
of grace. Look at Hebrews 7.22. It says,
by so much was Jesus Christ made a surety of a better testament.
The Apostle Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5.21, For he, for God the Father,
hath made him, God the Son, to be sin for us, who knew no sin,
that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. This is imputation. This is substitution representation. I said all of this in order to
make sure that we understand that anything done in the center,
which is wrought out by the Spirit of God, is the fruit and effect
of what Christ has already accomplished for us in his life, in his death.
What Christ accomplished demands that these, the fruit and effect,
which is these things that the Holy Spirit accomplishes in us,
it demands these things because of his death on the cross. Christ has already accomplished
for us in His life and death. It's His righteousness alone,
freely imputed to our account, that demands that we receive
all the blessings of grace. And once again, let's look at
Ephesians 1, beginning at verse 3, where it says, blessed be
the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed
us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ.
according as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation
of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before
him in love, having predestinated us into the adoption of children
by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will,
to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he hath made
us accepted in the beloved. He's made us accepted in Christ. I'll go ahead and begin. First
of all, I want to read Romans 8, 8-12. In our verse-by-verse study,
we left off the last time with verse 12, and that verse 12 kind
of leads in to verse 13, where it says, Therefore, brethren,
speaking to believers, we're debtors not to the flesh to live
after the flesh. The therefore that begins verse
12 is speaking of the previous verses here in Romans 8. Those
verses that consider the certainty of our final glorification, body
and soul, based solely upon the redemptive work of Christ, the
power of his blood, and the value of his righteousness. It says
here in verse 12, we're debtors not to the flesh, to live after
the flesh. We owe nothing to the flesh,
as if we have done something to earn or merit salvation in
any way. that we've done something in
and of, anything we've done in our fallen nature. We have no
confidence in the flesh, and you'll hear me say that phrase
quite a few times in this sermon, but all of our confidence is
in Christ and what he has earned and married it for us in his
obedience unto death. As we owe nothing to the flesh,
we're not to live after the flesh. Our life on this earth, now and
forever, is attained and maintained by what Christ accomplished for
us as our substitute in his life and death on the cross. We live
and walk after the spirit which points us to Christ alone for
all of our salvation, and we have no confidence in the flesh
in anything that we do or anything that we're enabled to do. Now
we'll begin verse 13, after we got through reading it says,
brethren, we're debtors not to the flesh to live after the flesh.
And verse 13 says, for 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. Well, first of all, make sure
that we understand that the if in this verse here, is not a
condition toward the believer, but an evidence of one who is
walking after the Spirit and not after the flesh. The first
part of this verse says, for if you live after the flesh,
you shall die. If you live in and by the flesh,
whether in open rebellion or in self-righteous religion, you'll
die. And what I mean by that, if you
live like some people are just unconcerned, They really don't
care anything about religion in this world. And then there's
others that are very religious that are sitting in some congregation
today, in some quote-unquote Christian church today. And what
they're doing by me saying they're self-righteous is that they're
going about to establish a righteousness of their own. They're ignorant. of the only true righteousness
whereby God has saved the sinner, which is Christ's righteousness
alone. What he worked out in his life and his death on the
cross. His obedience unto the law. Perfect obedience. And that's
what God requires. Perfection in every way. So,
if you live in and by the flesh, whether in open rebellion or
in self-righteous religion, and that's where we all were before
God brought us brought us out of it. Romans 6.23 says, for
the wages of sin is death. Anything outside of Christ is
sin and death. All that the flesh can produce,
which means all we can produce by nature, as we're born into
this world, all we can produce, whether we think it's these moralities
that we do, we abstain, from certain things thinking that
God looks kindly on it and somehow or another he's going to reward
us in some way or it merits anyway as far as our salvation. All
that the flesh can produce is sin. That's what we are. We're sin. And sin deserves eternal
death. Thinking that you can be saved
by works can never bring life to a sinner. Now the last part
of this verse is what we're gonna major and concentrate on this
morning. Romans 8, 13. But if ye through
the Spirit do mortify the deeds of the body, you shall live.
We mortify the deeds of the body and the mortification and mortify
is something that a lot of us might not be real familiar with
unless you think about maybe the funeral home and the mortician,
things like that. But if you mortify the deeds
of the body, it says, you shall live. We mortify the deeds of
the body in the same way as Paul described in Philippians 3, 7
through 9, where it says, but what things were gained to me,
this is the Apostle Paul speaking here, those I count at loss for
Christ. In other words, those things
that were gained to Apostle Paul before God saved him And he was
a Pharisee of Pharisee. He was circumcised the eighth
day, a tribe of Benjamin. All these things he did in religious. He says he counted loss. He said,
yeah, doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency
of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, my Lord, for whom I have suffered
the loss of all things and do count them but dung that I may
win Christ, and be found in him, not having mine own righteousness."
All that righteousness that we, that self-righteousness that
we had, thinking that we could in some way appease God. He says,
not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, my law keeping,
but that which is through the faith of Christ, the faithfulness
of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith. To
mortify is to put to death. This mortification is accomplished
through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and repentance of dead
works and former idolatry. We become, by the Spirit of God,
convinced that it is impossible for God's law to pronounce us
righteous. are right with God based on anything
other than the shed blood and imputed righteousness of Christ
alone, that righteousness that's accounted to us by God the Father. Look at Romans 8 and verse 3.
It says, for what the law could not do. Well, what is it that
the law couldn't do? Well, the law, our keeping of
the law, okay, there's no way that God can pronounce us righteous
based on our law keeping in any way. Why? In that it was weak
through the flesh, through our flesh. God sending his own son
in the likeness of sinful flesh, yet without sin, and for sin
condemned sin, and for sin condemned sin in the flesh. We believe
God's promise of a salvation in Christ alone and we repent
of our former idolatry and all those dead works, those works
that we did before God saved us in religious, those dead works,
those works that we thought recommended us to God, they were dead works. Look at Philippians 3.3. For
we are the circumcision. We're the true Jew. We're the
true spiritual Israel, which worship God in the spirit and
rejoice in Christ Jesus. And watch this, and have no confidence
in the flesh. We see that this body that we're
born with is totally dead because of sin. We agree with the Apostle
Paul when he says that he had no confidence in the flesh. Mortifying
the deeds of the body is a continual looking away from works that
we might do or that we might be unable to do, and are looking
to Christ for all of salvation and eternal life. Mortifying
the deeds of the flesh is to have no confidence in the flesh,
and only the Spirit of God can cause a sinner to be convinced
of that. Mortification is siding with God against ourself in the
matter of sin and of righteousness. turning to Christ for life and
turning away from our dead works, evidences that the Holy Spirit's
done a work of grace within our souls, our very being. We're
not in the flesh, therefore, we're not to live after the flesh,
but after the spirit. God, the Holy Spirit, impresses
upon our hearts, which is our minds, our affections, and our
will, that we're debtors not to the flesh, but to the grace
of God in Christ. Also, our being debtors to the
grace of God in Christ is not a debt of law, but a debt of
love, as we're motivated to live after the Spirit, as the Spirit
motivates us by grace, love, and by gratitude to God for what
he's done for us in the person of his dear son. Now, once again,
Let's remember to consider what is it to mortify or put to death
the deeds of the body. The question gets to the heart
of what it means to live by the Spirit of God, and it belongs
to the description of the Christian life found here in Romans 8.
I have two main points this morning that I want you to consider.
One of them is what mortification is not. Under that, I have three
points, as you see. Mortification is not something
believers have in common with unbelievers. Secondly, because
mortification is not something in common with an unbeliever,
it follows then that mortification is not moral reformation. And thirdly, mortification is
not a technique for Christian victory. First point we'll talk
about is that mortification is not something believers have
in common with an unbeliever. This is obvious from the phrase
in the first part of Romans 8.13 that says, but if ye through
the Spirit. Unbelievers do not have the Spirit
of God. Unbelievers do not have a life
of regeneration. Apart from regeneration, we're
rightly said to be dead in our transgressions and our sins.
Look at Ephesians 2.1. says, and you hath he quicken,
who were dead in trespasses and in sin. So we need to see that
prior to regeneration and conversion, God's elect were not alive in
the spirit, but were dead in trespasses and sin. This being
dead here is being dead not only in Adam, a federal head representative
in whom we've sinned, Adam being our federal head and representative
by nature, but dead in a moral sense through original sin and
our own actual transgressions. By nature, we're without God
in the sense that we have no knowledge of the true God or
the true Christ of scripture by nature as we're born in this
world. We're worshiping an idol, a god
of our imagination. We're without the spirit of God,
who is the spirit of life. Before God sends his spirit in
regeneration and conversion, we have a god of our own imagination,
one that we have conjured up in our own mind. Why? Because
we don't know the true God. And so we think in our minds
how this God looks. I know with myself, early on,
you think of God as some gray-haired old man up there that's got a
scale, and he's weighing out everything you do or don't do.
And somehow or another, hopefully he makes the right decision on
that thing. But this is a God that we build
up in our own minds. By nature, we're without God
in the sense we have no knowledge of him. We're without the spirit
of God. Before God sends his spirit in
regeneration and conversion, like I said, we have this God
of our own imagination. We've changed the true image
of God into a God that's like unto ourself. As we're born into this world,
we're dead as to our understanding of a true God. Our will and our
affection with respect to spiritual things is dead, as is also our
capacity to do anything spiritually good. We lost our original righteousness
that we had in Adam before the fall, before he sinned, before
he fell, and we're blind and dead to the sense of sin and
of misery. and by nature we're servants
of sin and Satan in the world and don't even know it. Scripture
says in Romans 6 verse 20, for when you were servants of sin
you were free from righteousness, didn't know anything about the
righteousness of God whereby he saves the sinner. But thanks
be to God that by the Spirit of God the believer has that
by which he knows what's been freely given to him of God. When
he comes to distinguishing the true gospel from a false gospel,
this knowledge, it involves distinction. In other words, to understand
something, it must be distinguished from something else. Until God
revealed himself to the believer, he didn't have anything to compare
with, the truth to compare with on who God was. But when he reveals
God to you, you got, in scripture, you see who the true God is.
And so there's distinction to be made about that false god.
It shows you that this was a false god. God's guilt of his spirit
brings a mind whereby righteousness is distinguished from unrighteousness,
light from darkness, good from evil, and so forth. Look at 1
Corinthians 2, beginning at verse 12. Now we have received not
the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God. that
we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.
Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom
teaches, but which the Holy Ghost teaches, comparing spiritual
things with spiritual things. We can't do that until God does
the work in our heart. 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. When God regenerates and converts
a sinner, this is the new birth, he gives that sinner a discerning
mind, a mind that's able to make right judgments according to
what God says of himself and what God says of the sinner.
Unbelievers have not been given the mind of God. Next, we'll
look at the second point. The first point, of course, was
that This mortification is not something common with unbelievers,
that believers have in common with unbelievers. It follows
then that mortification is not a moral reformation. If it were moral reformation,
then both regenerate and unregenerate could perform it. It is not the
amendment or change and improvement of a particular sinful behavior
or attitude in the way an unbeliever may recognize something in his
life that's wrong and he seeks to change it. This is not to
say that mortification does not include some change in behavior
and outward observable conduct. For see, an example here in Ephesians
4.22 says that you put off concerning the former conversation, the
old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lust. The putting
off of the old man speaks to the same reality as the putting
to death the deeds of the body in Romans 8.13. What's in view
here is not of itself a stopping of some behavior or attitude
as say an unbeliever would stop using profanity or stop stealing
from his company and admit blame to these things. Both unbelievers
and believers make a discontinue a certain behavior or at least
apparently discontinuing attitude toward death, but their motive
for doing so may be entirely different. In the case of an
unbeliever, the motive may be one of self-improvement and a
guilty conscience because of what he's done. In the case of
a believer, the motive is one of self-abasement and thankful
for the removal of guilt by Christ's sacrifice on the cross. he sees
that there's nothing good in him, nothing good in him. Only a regenerate believer has
the right motive for bringing about a good work or works that
are acceptable unto God. The point is this, mortification
most certainly has an outward expression or something that
can be seen, but it does not consist essentially or necessarily
in this expression. Mortification consists mainly
in the motive and the judgment of a certain thing. This is what
gives rise to mortification. In the mind of a believer, it's
where mortification most certainly has its beginning. Next, the third point we'll talk
about, what mortification is not, is that it is not a technique
for Christian victory. It is common among religionists
to speak of living by the spirit and mortification of sin as what
might be described as an extracurricular activity for those who are really
interested in getting deep and going on with special techniques
and procedures which give them a leg up on a normal Christian
and open up the door to a deeper life by his good works. He's a, they're both Christians,
he'd say, but we, I'm just a little bit, a little bit better, you
know. They judge things, judge themselves
by others, and that's not wise. If we're gonna do anything, we
better look to see who God is, to see who this God is, and how
holy he is, and how righteous he is. And he demands perfection. And if you're gonna judge yourself,
With anything else, you better do that. You better look to this
true God, this righteous judge, and to look to Christ, that standard
of righteousness, perfection in every way. The Apostle Paul
is not describing a technique, verse 13, in which Christians
may consider if they're having a problem overcoming a particular
sin or sinful habit that plagues them. He is describing an experience
common to all Christians. All Christians put to death the
deeds of the body. All believers do this by the
Spirit. There are no exceptions, from
the youngest, most inarticulate believer to the most seasoned
saint of many years. Every single believer is already
engaged in mortifying the deeds of the body that's described
in verse 13. And such is the quality of their
experience, and that from the time they first believe. They
might not be able to tell you that's exactly what they're doing,
might not be able to articulate it to you, explain it to you,
immature believer, young believer, but that's what they're doing. Mortifying the deeds of the flesh
is a work of the spirit and it begins with the most immature
believer. So mortification is not a technique
or an approach. It is a description of the essential
life, the quality of Christian experience all believers share.
After going over what mortification is not, now we're going to look
at our second point of what mortification is. We have two points under
that. Mortification is a spiritual
work in the experience of a believer. Secondly, mortification entails
or involves judgment. Let's look at the first point
here in that mortification is a work of the Spirit and our
experience. As the phrase says here, it is
by the Spirit. The Spirit of God brings that
life whereby a believer is convicted of his sin and sees the truth
of his unrighteousness. Be he ever so moral, and upright
as seen by others. He sees himself as unrighteous
by nature. There's nothing good in him.
He sees nothing good in him. Okay? He's looking to Christ
for all his righteousness. Let's look at some scripture
that shows us the work of the Holy Spirit. Look at John 16,
8. And when he has come, speaking
of the Spirit, he will reprove the world of sin and of righteousness
and of judgment. John 3.3 says, Jesus answered
and said unto him, this is Christ speaking to Nicodemus. Verily
I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see
the kingdom of God. And over in 1 Corinthians, 1
Corinthians 2 verse 12, now we have received not the spirit
of the world, but the spirit which is of God, that we might
know the things that are freely given to us of God. And also
in Philippians 3, 3 once again, for we are the circumcision.
As our brother Bill said this morning, we're the true Jew.
We're the true spiritual Israel. the Israel of God, which worship
God in the Spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus and once again
have no confidence in the flesh, anything that we do or that we
are unable to do by nature. It is this life produced by God,
the Holy Spirit, which sees the truth of God's kingdom and God's
righteousness. which causes the believer to
look to Christ alone in faith. Without the Spirit and without
this life, there is no God-given faith. Mortification is the work
of the Holy Spirit in our experience, and secondly, what mortification
is. Mortification entails or involves
judgment. The phrase, put to death, speaks
of judgment, the conclusion of a judgment. which when a murderer
receives a sentence of death for his crime, it is on account
of judgment or the assessment of the gravity of his offense
and the justice due him for that offense that he committed. The
actual execution of putting to death is the judgment being carried
out. Here the believer is said to
put to death the deeds of the body. The deeds of the body are
those actions and attitudes belong to what scripture calls the flesh. The flesh is that principle,
that sin principle, of rebellion toward God in opposition to God's
righteousness that exists in the realm of our body or our
present earthly existence. This is what must be put to death.
This is the judgment in the mind of a believer which issues the
death sentence. on anything, any works that might
come from our fleshly bodies. We have no confidence in the
flesh or from any works that might proceed from us. The believer
carries out the sentence of death to the flesh when he sees in
his life, in his flesh, as being contrary and opposite from Christ's
righteousness. And he sees it as God sees it. In other words, when we see ourselves
with spiritual eyes, God-given spiritual eyes, and thus see
ourselves as God sees us, we take sides with God against ourself. We know the greatest treasure
and advantage we may find by our own selves, by our own works,
as something worth discarding. And according to Philippians
3.3, once again, have no confidence in the flesh. In a matter of
speaking, we disown ourself and put all of our confidence in
Christ and his righteousness alone. And we won't do that by
nature. God has to send his spirit to
cause us to do that. We'll hold on to our works until
God comes to us and reveal to us who we actually are and who
he is. What is it to mortify the deeds
of the body? It is to regard as evil what
we once regarded as good. It is regard as worthless what
we once treasured. It is to see as nothing what
we once saw is everything. Mortification is determining
that who we are outside of this glorious moral perfection of
Jesus Christ is a person worthy of death. with deeds that deserve
death. It must also be said that Christians
in their earthly journey may find themselves forgetting and
sinning against the gospel that they believe and require correction,
rebuke, and a reminder of who they are and what Christ has
done for them. This correction never comes to
a sinner as some new and different approach to mastering his sinful
flesh. It comes to the believer in words
he essentially recognizes to be true and agreeable with the
judgment he's already made about himself by the Spirit of God.
The truth of Christian mortification is found in this. The judgment
or the assessment a believer makes concerning himself and
his sinful attitude and behavior that he is, for this, worthy
of the death Jesus Christ died on the cross and the penalty
that he suffered there. In other words, in and of myself,
I deserve the death that Christ died as he suffered as my substitute
and my representative. In Christian mortification, the
believers put to death the deeds of his sinful life by seeing
himself as deserving what Christ endured for him. judging himself
accordingly, and thus finding his life, not in himself, but
in Christ, in his righteousness alone. Here in the Spirit, walking
in the Spirit, the believer may discontinue sinful activity,
not for the fear of impending judgment, but in a confident
knowledge that all judgment and condemnation has occurred in
Christ by his sacrifice alone, and that he will not be judged
for what he determines is worthy of death, all of this because
Jesus Christ, his representative, has taken on that judgment in
that Christ died for him and is risen again and is now at
the right hand of God interceding on his behalf. If Christ died
for you, dear sinner, he's paid that debt. You don't owe a debt. If he died and paid that sin
debt that you owe, you don't owe a debt. You must go free. What a blessed thought. In Christian
mortification, and then I'll close here, the believer lives
by the Spirit of God, putting to death the deeds of the body.
He does all of this, not looking to improve the flesh, because
he knows that there is nothing good in the flesh. He does this
out of love and gratitude toward Christ, his Lord and his Savior.
This is a total opposite from our walk prior to God sending
his Spirit to regenerate and to convert us. As we look back
on our life prior to the Spirit's work, we thought highly of ourselves. We were going about to establish
a righteousness of our own and doing everything we could to
improve the flesh. by works of law. We now don't
have any confidence in anything that we do or that we're unable
to do. We now have all of our confidence
in what Christ accomplished in our room and in our stead. We
look to Christ for all of our salvation. This is true mortification. Thanks be to God for sending
his spirit and causing his elect to have no confidence in the
flesh. Because if he had not did this, we would have confidence
in the flesh. And for creating in us a spirit
that enables us to only have confidence in Christ and his
righteousness alone for all of salvation and final glory. Amen.