Life in the Spirit

The Sunday morning message in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on March 3, 2024.  The Bible verses used are Romans 8:5-11.

[            “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 our 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 so many people get so scared when something like COVID comes along.  And don’t get me wrong, this is not a criticism of anyone.  I’m not saying we should not be concerned illnesses or that we should not take precautions to prevent them.  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.  No matter how much we eat right and exercise and get our rest and get physical check-ups 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 eventually 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 are still things God wants us 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.  But still, there were things we had to give up to get to where we are.  And there still are.  That’s just the way it works.

            And 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 some 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 giving something up to get it.  Again, it’s just the way life works.  

            And God’s Holy Spirit requires us to give things up, too.  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, probably more than one thing, 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 of 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?  When it feels like so many things in the world have gone sideways, it would be awesome to feel peace.

            But what is peace?  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.  Again, God has things for us to do while we’re here.  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.  Let’s make the right decision, and find the life and peace that comes from living in the realm of God’s Holy Spirit.