“The mind governed by the flesh is death, but
the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace.” The Apostle Paul, who
wrote the letter the Romans, made that distinction between the flesh and the Spirit
pretty often. So did Jesus, for that matter. In Galatians Paul tells us about the acts of
the flesh versus the fruit of the Spirit.
As Christians, we are supposed to live our lives according to the ways
of the Spirit, not the ways of the flesh.
And we hear that, and we kind of nod our heads. It
sounds good. Live by the ways of
God. Live as God would have us
live. Set aside our human concerns and focus on divine concerns. Sounds logical. Makes sense, if you’re a Christian.
It sounds good, but actually living it is a lot
trickier. Because those ways of the flesh are pretty important to
us. And it’s perfectly understandable why. I mean, this flesh thing is the only thing
you and I have ever lived in, right? And this world is the only world you
and I have ever lived in. It’s out
entire reality, in a lot of ways. It’s
our only frame of reference. It’s all we’ve ever known.
And so we get pretty protective of this flesh we live
in. We do what we can to keep it going.
Most of us try to eat right. We try to get some exercise. We try to get enough rest. We don’t always succeed at those things, but
even when we don’t we feel like we should. That’s why nobody ever lost
money promoting a diet or exercise program.
We’re all trying to keep this flesh we live in going as long as we can.
That’s also why we get so scared when something like the
coronavirus hits. And don’t get me wrong, this is not a criticism of
anyone. I’m not saying we should not be
concerned about it or we should not take precautions to keep away from
it. That’s why we’re livestreaming this service, instead of having people
here in person. My point is simply to
emphasize how important this human body is to each of us and how much it scares
us when our human body is threatened.
And again, that’s understandable. I’m not saying it’s
wrong. But here’s the thing: each
of us, at some point, is going to die.
And you know, that was true long before the coronavirus came
along. No matter how much we eat right and exercise and get our rest and
get physical and get screened and everything else, at some point each of us is
going to die. This human body was only designed to last for so long. Maybe eighty years, maybe ninety, maybe even a
hundred or more. But no matter how hard
we try to prevent it, each of us is going to reach our expiration date.
Now, again, obviously, I’m not saying that we should do
anything to make that date come sooner. God put us here for reasons. There are things we’re supposed to do while
we’re here. And in fact, as long as we
are here that means there is still something we’re supposed to do. But
the fact remains that, at some point, we’ll run out of time to do those
things. It will be time to leave here, move
on, and find out what comes next.
And so, while this flesh we live in is very important, our
Spirit is even more important. And so, as the Apostle Paul says, you and
I need to live in the realm of the Spirit.
That’s the only way we can please God. We need to have our minds
governed by the Spirit. That’s the only
way we can have life and peace. We need
to have God’s Holy Spirit living in each of us. That’s the only way we
can truly belong to Christ.
So, here’s the question--how can we do that? How can
we get past the importance of our flesh and get to where we truly live in the
realm of the Spirit, so that we can please God? How can we get to where
our minds are governed by the Spirit, so we can have life and peace? How can we have God’s Holy Spirit living in
us, so we can truly belong to Christ?
Well, I think it starts with a decision on our part.
I say that because God has already made His decision. We know God wants us to live in the realm of
the Spirit. We know God wants our minds to be governed by the
Spirit. But God’s not going to force it
on us. We have to make the decision that
we want that. We have to make the decision that we want to live in the
realm of the Spirit, that we want our minds to be governed by the Spirit, that
we want to have God’s Holy Spirit live in us.
Now, maybe it seems like it’s obvious that we should want
that, but think about it. If we really want that, then the chances are
that we’re going to need to make some changes in our lives. And I don’t
mean to imply that we’re all bad or evil or sinful or anything like that. I mean, yes, as Paul writes in the letter to
the Romans, we have all sinned and fall short of the glory of God, but that’s
not what I’m talking about here.
What I’m talking about is that any time we want anything,
at least anything that’s important, the chances are that we’re going to have to
give up some things to get it. When Wanda and I decided that I’d become a
pastor, that meant I had to give up some things. So did Wanda.
We both had to be willing to give up our employment. I had to be willing to go back to school for
three years. We had to be willing to leave a town that we really liked,
and leave friends who we really cared about.
Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s all been worth it. I have never spent one minute regretting the
choice we made. I truly do believe we
are where God wants us to be and are doing what God wants us to do. But
still, there were things we had to give up to get to where we are.
Now, the things Wanda and I had to give up were not bad
things. There was nothing inherently wrong with the jobs we had. There was nothing wrong with the town we
lived in--we still like going back to visit there. There was nothing
wrong with the people--we still keep in touch with a lot of them. But still, we had to give them up, because
God had something different in mind for us. It was a great place to live,
with great people--but it was not the place God wanted us to be. It was for a while, but then it was not. And we had to give it up.
I’m sure you can think of examples like that in your life,
too. Times when you knew you needed to make a change in your life, but
you knew you would have to give up some things to do it. There may have
been nothing inherently wrong with those things, but you had to give them up
anyway. Because anything worth having
requires that of us. It’s just the way life works.
And God’s Holy Spirit requires us to give things up,
too. And again, there may not be anything inherently wrong or bad about
those things. There may be nothing wrong or bad about the way we’re
living our lives. But even so, there is
probably something, or some things, that we need to give up. Because God
has something different in mind for us.
And if we want to live in the realm of the Spirit, if we want to have
God’s Holy Spirit living in us, we need to give up those things in order to
have that.
So it starts with a decision on our part that we really
want God’s Holy Spirit living in us. But it does not end there. Because, this is not something you and I can
do by ourselves. We have to do our part,
but we cannot do it by ourselves. Because giving up things, things that
we like, people that we like, a way of life that we like, is hard. Even if we fully believe it’ll be worth it,
it’s still hard. And if we try to do it on our own, the chances are we’ll
slip back. No matter how good our
intentions are, we will probably slip back.
We are not strong enough.
So that brings us to the other thing we need to do.
If we want to live in the realm of the Spirit, if we want God’s Holy Spirit
living in us, we need to pray.
Because, as I said earlier, God wants this for us.
God wants us to live in the realm of the Spirit. God wants us to have our minds governed by
the Spirit. And so, when we pray, when we ask God to help us do this, God
will give us that help. God will
strengthen our resolve. God will help us resist the temptation to slip
back. God’s Holy Spirit will show us
what God wants for us, and God’s Holy Spirit will help us get it.
But here’s the thing. And this may be the best thing
at all. What do we get for all this?
Paul tells us. We get peace.
And is that not what we all need right now? Would you
not like to feel at peace with everything that’s going on? At this time
when the world has gone sideways, when our lives are in an uproar, when we
cannot do the things we normally do, we need peace.
And what is peace, really? It’s not things going the
way we want them to. It’s knowing that we’ll be okay no matter how things
go. It’s still okay to want things.
It’s still okay to ask God for things. But if we’re living in the
realm of the Spirit, we’ll have confidence that we’ll be okay whether God does
those things or not. We’ll truly mean it when we say, “Thy will be
done.” We’ll trust that God is in control,
whether it’s obvious or not. We’ll know
that God is taking care of things, even if we cannot see God working right
now.
But we don’t just get peace. We get life. Life in the realm of the Spirit. And
that helps us have peace, too. Because we
know that there is another life after this one. We still want to keep our
lives here, of course, and that’s okay.
We should want that. But we know
that, even under the best circumstances, this flesh we live in is still only
temporary. And no matter how long we live, it’s not very long compared to
eternity. But when we live in the realm
of the Spirit, we know this life in the flesh is not the only life. We know we will go on to eternal life through
faith in Jesus Christ.
So, will we make that decision? Will we decide that
we want to have our minds governed by the Spirit? Will we decide we want
to live in the realm of the Spirit? And
will we pray and ask God to help us make that decision a reality?
Life in the flesh is important, but life in the Spirit is
more important. May we all find the life and peace that comes from living
in the realm of God’s Holy Spirit.
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