The Upside-Down Life (Romans 8:11-17)

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Our second lesson is found in Romans chapter 8, beginning at the twelfth verse.

Romans 8 · chapter mention

So then, brothers, we are debtors not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh.

For if you live according to the flesh, you will die.

But if by the spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.

For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, Abba, Father.

The Spirit Himself bears witness with our Spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.

The word of the Lord.

Father, sometimes that's really hard to come before you and to listen to you.

Sometimes it's really hard to follow what you've asked us to do.

So Father, we come to you humbly.

We ask for you to speak gently but strongly to us at the same time.

And we pray us all in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Please be seated.

So something I love about traveling, um to going either going overseas or traveling around Canada, uh, is experiencing the different cultures.

Even within Canada, there's many different subcultures, um, especially when you go overseas as well.

There's you it's almost like you get almost a smack in the face when you go into a new culture because things are different.

Road signs look different, um, people talk a different way.

Some things that you say here at home mean completely different things you say in other places.

Um, even when you cross the border just to go down south a bit, it's a completely different culture depending where you go.

It's sometimes it looks it looks similar a bit, but a lot of the time it's completely different.

It has similarities but many differences.

And the passage that we're looking at today is very profound, it's very comforting, but it's very serious.

The average Canadian would say one of the ways it describes as living the life is the correct way, and the other way is completely bad or upside down, as you can see.

The title in the bulletin, it says the upside down life.

Because many people, when you talk about Christianity, they are they become so confused that you that you would choose to live this certain way, that you would give up certain things, that you would not sleep in on a Sunday morning because you only get two days off a week to do that.

Why would you do that?

It's some people think it's completely upside down living.

Like, why would you want to do that?

Why would why wouldn't you why would you just go off and live your life the way you want it to live?

But let's look at the text because this text is so profound, it's so comforting, but it's very serious at the same time.

So Romans chapter 8, verses, I'm gonna start 11 to verse 17.

Romans 8 · chapter mention

It's in your bulletin.

It's really helpful if you have a Bible, uh, so you can see if I'm actually saying the correct words and if the bulletin has the correct words.

But you can also see what happens before and also what happens after.

And what's going on here is that we're landing right in the middle of Romans.

And Romans is a very beloved book within the Christianity since the beginning, since Romans was written.

People have loved this book.

It is a very precise, well um, precise, thoroughly thought-out book that Paul wrote to the Romans.

And it is so it is so profound, this book, that you could study it for years, just like anywhere else in the Bible, especially this book, you can study it for years and still find new nuggets, new things, and new ways to think about God and his goodness and his love.

Martin Lloyd Jones, who's a famous um British preacher, pastor, he was a doctor before, he spent 12 years preaching this book.

So we're coming at this book, skipping over six years' worth of content.

So beginning in chapter one to verse seven, Paul is laying out his uh systematic theology, his theology, the way he views the world, the way he views how God came into the world.

And Paul is building up his case that neither Jew, neither Greek, that's pagan, people who aren't religious, can come to God.

They've everyone has fallen short of glory of God, the coming to him.

And all there, and there's nothing that anyone can do to come to God.

No matter how hard they try, no matter how good you live, no matter how much prayer you do, how much religious sacrifices or anything like that, there's nothing you can do to come to God.

But the only way is through Jesus, and he lands this.

Because he Paul explodes in the chapter 8 in this book.

He's just in chapter 7 has gone back and forth saying he wants to do this, but he does this.

It's completely contrary to what he does, but his body, his flesh, his mind forces him to do the stuff he doesn't want to do.

That's why we say a confession every week in the communion part where we say we do what we ought not to do, and we do not do what we ought to do.

Because our mind, our hearts are always contrary to what God wants us to do.

And here Paul explodes on to chapter 8, saying, there in verse 1, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

He explodes on the scene with this because everything seems so hopeless before.

And he comes in.

This is a verse that I would encourage you to underline, to memorize this verse, to run to this verse when you feel like giving up, when you feel like you've fallen so short, you've done something you think is so bad that God will never forgive you of it.

This verse, there is no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus.

It is a profound verse.

You can feel the emotion of Paul when he comes in with this verse when he's writing this letter.

But then we're starting in verse 11.

So let's look at verse 11.

Verse 11.

If the spirit of him in chapter 8, if the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his spirit who dwells in you.

So then, brothers and sisters, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the to live according to the flesh.

Now, when he says flesh, what he's talking about here, I guess I'm skipping ahead.

I'm skipping ahead in my notes here.

So I'll come back to that.

Because it's gonna it's gonna mess up the flow of everything.

I'm getting ahead of myself.

So what's going on here?

Paul is talking about this profound truth.

That what it means, that if you have put your faith and trust in Jesus, the spirit is within you.

The same spirit that is that rose Jesus from the dead is within you.

You have a new life, a new hope.

And this hope is so comforting because when you have the spirit within you, it gives you the hope of the future hope that you are assured you are it the work is finished in your life, that you will stand before God, you'll stand before Jesus, and he will say, Well done, good and faithful servant.

See, the Father works through the Spirit, through his Son, for the finished work.

We see the Trinity all through this text.

And the Trinity seems like this very, as I said at the beginning of the service, a very confusing thing.

People have often said it's like a hard-boiled egg, you know, there's the three layers, or it's like the sun.

But what the Trinity is, is that since the beginning of time, there is there is the Father loving the Son through the Spirit.

And the Trinity is this great love that the that our God is made up of three persons, one God, but through the beginning that they were loving each other, and through this love, God created humanity so that humanity can come into this Trinity and love God, love the Son, and love the Holy Spirit.

See, without the Trinity, it's impossible for a God to be loving.

Because how could they be loving without another person to love?

They would just be almost like a tyrant.

They would always be isolated, they wouldn't wouldn't want to love.

They'd always be a God on the outside, never a God that enters in.

See, God so loved the world, as we just read in John, that he sent his only son to come and save the world.

So this is this is what we see here is that the same spirit of the Trinity is within us.

That is what Paul is talking about here in verse 11.

If the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his spirit, God's spirit who dwells in you.

And this is why Paul then starts into verse 12.

He says, Because of this, because that we are saved through grace, through God sending his spirit to us through his son dying on the cross, giving us eternal life.

So then, brothers and sitters, we are debtors.

Now, when we read debtors, we think of like a credit card debt, or we think of a debtor's prison from the Victorian age.

But what is what he's talking about here is that when many people who, when their lives have been saved, they feel so indebted to somebody.

Um I have a I have a personal example of this, is when I was really into rock climbing, when I was just starting out, I didn't know much, and I was with a group of guys, and we were looking for an ice climbing, like looking for frozen waterfalls in a new place.

And there was a 200-foot cavern, and we decided to rappel off of it because it seemed like a good thing to do.

But because I was so new, I didn't put any safety backups in this, and I didn't wasn't wearing crampons.

For some reason, I decided not to wear my crampons, so it was very slippery.

And what happened is when I went to repel, I flipped over and was I managed to catch the rope, and that saved me, but then I was hanging upside down, and my buddy came and he pulled me out.

And this is the same guy a couple years later who pulled me out of a frozen lake after I fell through it with all my gear on.

And I still feel this sense of indebtedness to him, that I'm thankful.

I feel a sense of gratitude with him.

This is what Paul is talking about here is he's saying if we are saved through grace, saved through Jesus, we are in debt to him.

Not because not because it's something that he forces on us, but because we are so thankful, we're so we love him because of saving us.

Paul is getting at that when the gospel truly grips you, your heart grips your heart, that you were completely saved by grace, you did nothing.

You will gladly live the way God wants you to, not out of obligation, but out of love.

Because it is impossible to love God unless the Spirit is within you.

It's impossible.

And God asks us to follow him, not because he lists out these set of rules, but he wants us to be holy because he is holy, as he says in the Old Testament.

Now, what does that look like?

Well, I don't know if you were here last night, but Karen Stiller has a great book about it.

I would encourage you to look at it.

Um but also we can look at the gospel because Jesus lived a perfect life.

God walked among us, and he came to save us out of love.

He died for us, he shows us what it looks like to be holy, how to treat people.

When we read the gospels, we see this.

But you might be thinking, well, what do you mean that how God wants me God wants me to live a certain way?

You make it sound like he's my parent.

Well, interesting, the text talks about this.

So let's let's continue on in the text.

Verses twelve to thirteen.

So then, brothers and sisters, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh.

For if you live according to the flesh, you will die.

But if by the spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

Now, we can talk about the flesh now.

So the flesh, um, it sounds very abstract, um, something like why would he say flesh?

It just seems very odd.

What he's talking about here, he's talking about desires, passions, these dreams that are we have that are contrary to what God wants for our lives.

But if we I ended right there, I would just be telling you just to do better.

Stop doing this, just live a better life.

It just I would just be preaching moralism to you.

But what it is, when he says flesh, it goes deeper.

What he's talking about is a love of self over a love of God.

And this is laid out all through the Bible since the beginning, since the beginning of Genesis.

That man chose, humanity chose to turn their back on God and live their own life.

They decide to love themselves more than embracing the God of creation.

Michael Reeves, in his excellent book, Delighting in the Trinity, says a great quote while expanding on Jonathan Edwards, who's a great preacher's quote.

He says, The fact that the Spirit is not about bringing us to a more external performance for Christ, but bringing us actually to love him and find joy in him.

And any performance for him that is not the expression of such loves brings him no pleasure.

See, what Paul is getting at is something at the heart of all humanity, is that we all struggle with this, including myself.

I'm not up here just saying to do this.

Is that we all struggle to serve ourselves.

We all want to better ourselves.

We all want to not follow God.

Our body, our flesh, our minds, our hearts are always pushing against that.

But then that we have the spirit within us, and that's why Paul in chapter 7 is wrestling against himself.

Because he wants to do this, but he does this.

See, we are in constant battle with our with our flesh, with our hearts.

Now it's good to take care of yourself.

I'm not up here saying that don't take care of yourself.

We should treat our bodies well.

We should treat our bodies well, and we should take care of our mental health and enjoy life.

But is it glorifying to God or for us?

That's the question that we always need to ask ourselves, keep in the back of our minds.

Why are we doing this thing?

Is it for God or is it for ourselves?

Because everything we do brings glory to God in this way if we do it.

We should always be the way we approach our work, the way we approach our leisure, the way we approach interacting with people.

Um, it brings glory to God.

We do everything in the name of God when we follow Him.

Now you might be thinking also, well, I can't it says here that if I follow the flesh, I will die.

I can't follow God that or believe in a God who sends people to hell.

That's a hard thing to wrestle with.

I'll admit that.

C.

S.

Lewis has a great quote, and I truly believe this.

He's talking, when he's wrestling with this in his, I believe it's mere Christianity, he's wrestling with this question that how can a good God send people to hell?

But what he's talking, what he when he gets to the point of his argument, he says, people go themselves there.

It's not God sending them there.

The door is locked from the inside.

You see, we when we interact with God, he's not he's not a tyrant over us.

He doesn't treat us like puppets.

We have a free will.

He brings us to himself, but we have a free will to act out what God wants for our lives.

And it's that heart that's our heart behind it, why we do this.

See, this is bringing us to the heart of Paul's Paul's argument.

When you put your faith and trust in Jesus as your Lord and Savior, you do it out of love, not out of force, manipulation, but out of free will, out of choice.

We're able to make choices in our life.

A lot of people say when you become a Christian, you have to check your mind at the door and stop and stop making choices for yourself.

Well, that's not the case.

We're free to live life as we choose, but does it bring glory to God?

That's the question.

Do we do it out of love for God?

Christianity is the only religion where God comes down and walks among us, dies for us, rises for us, and invites us into relation relationship with Him, not based on our merit or how good we are, but on through the cross, through His Son Jesus.

Paul doesn't stop there though, it gets better.

He says something that's so profound, and let's look at it.

Verses 14 to 17.

For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.

For you do not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, Abba Father.

The Spirit Himself bears witness with our Spirit that we are children of God.

And if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs of Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.

This is a great verse.

I like I go to this verse all the time.

When I feel like I need assurance, that am I truly saved?

This is a great, great verse.

Verse 8, chapter 8 of Romans is just great altogether.

But he talks about adoption here.

Amy and I've mentioned before that Amy and I have fertility issues or struggles as we go through life.

And we've looked at the adoption route, we've talked about it, and we've looked at how long the paperwork takes.

It takes about two to three years.

That's a long time.

And you might get rejected at the end of that.

But when you come to faith, you're instantly adopted as a child of God.

And that never goes away when you follow God.

That is profound.

That you are a child of God, and through that you're able to say, Abba Father.

Now you may also be thinking, why does Paul say sons here?

If you look at the text, when he says sons, when he says um that you are sp the led by the Spirit of God or sons of God.

When he says sons, this is a very important thing.

It's something that we should never throw away when he says sons.

It's not him being sexist or anything like that.

He's not putting down females.

When he says sons, it's a very important thing to remember, especially in this culture that we're looking at.

It was necessary because only sons got became heirs.

Females never became heirs.

So what Paul is doing here is that he's bringing in females to be equal with males in this, in this heirship.

That it is so profound because everyone, a lot of people critique the Bible, saying that it is so anti-women.

But it is not.

It is so uplifting of women.

It treats them so like it puts such great value on women that no other religion does.

They become heirs with men.

Both women, both men or women are equal in salvation and their standing with God and the inheritance.

This would have been groundbreaking in this culture.

And it's groundbreaking groundbreaking now.

In a culture that had no rights for women, this would have been shattering.

But did you catch when it says fellow heirs with Christ, Abba Father?

See, when you put your faith and trust in Christ, in Jesus, you become a fellow heir with him in his inheritance.

You enter into this relationship with the Son and with the Father and with the Spirit.

You become you enter into the Trinity.

This is a very profound thing that through loving the Son, you love the Father.

And as you love the Father, you love the Son through the Spirit.

It is such a deep truth.

And in a world where you earn your keep where in our culture where you earn your keep, dog eat dog, this is so otherworldly, so upside down.

That your keep is earned through somebody else, through Jesus.

It's not earned through what you do.

See, we are bombarded with messaging that we must be heroes of our lives.

But the true hero in our life is Jesus if you believe if you put your faith and trust in him.

That is profound.

That the Spirit is in all those who follow Christ, who follow Jesus.

The Spirit brings you home.

And it is a great truth in this text.

And as we reflect on Trinity Sunday, reflect on this, that you are in this relationship with the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.

It is so profound to our Christian faith.

Because without it, there can be no loving God.

There can be no love.

There can only be commands.

Follow this, do that, and maybe you'll be alright.

But through Jesus, with the Spirit bringing us to him, we are given this relationship free of charge.

You don't have to do anything.

You just got to say, yes, I'll follow you.

I'll take up my cross.

And then through this life, we're not promised an easy life.

Because we're a Christian, we're not promised easy things.

There's suffering.

There's people who will mock us.

We go through health problems.

We go through relationship breakdowns.

We go through trauma or people treating us poorly.

But as we follow and hold on to that promise that God is for us, that we have a God who loves us, and that we will see Jesus and we'll stand face to face with him.

We bring glory to God as we suffer, as we are mocked, as we are persecuted, because we hold on to that hope that Jesus will return.

That is the gospel, that is the Trinity.

That is why we come every Sunday, why we worship our God, because He so loves us that He sent His Son into the world to save us.

Let's pray.

Lord, we are so thankful, so grateful, so indebted to you and your great mercy and your love for us, Lord.

Help us, Lord, to follow you, to take up Jesus' cross and follow you, Lord.

Help us to live by the Spirit and not live by our own flesh, Lord.

This is a daily uh struggle that we deal with.

So, Father, help us to know that there is no condemnation for those who are found in your Son.

Father, help us to know that nothing will separate us from you as we follow you.

Um just pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Thank you for listening today.

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God bless you and keep you today and every day.