Romans 8: E2 Declared "Alive in the Spirit"

Jacob Creighton: Hey everybody, welcome back to the Forms Podcast. This is episode two of our Romans eight series. We're here. We're here, back in the Steel City Cafe side room of Steel City Church. The studio. hey, we got a comment from our last episode from our most loyal listener, Beth. Yeah, boss lady Beth. she wants to know, Chris, what is in the cup? So it is a Firstly, tell us what the cup is. The cup is from Lebanon. I went on a mission trip to Lebanon, actually, probably one of the foremost experiences that actually led me to Pittsburgh, believe it or not. That's cool. But in the cup is a very fancy blend of whatever cured cup I picked and put it in my cup, and it's just black coffee because I'm like an old man. Chris and I are two vastly different humans when it comes to coffee. I w I am this may like cancel our podcast, but I am completely okay with just gas station coffee. I actually like what I may get. Honestly, for me, there's like gas station coffee, which is like, you know, obviously low tier. And then there's like curig coffee, which is like buried in the dirt. And that's what it is. I think it's great. Because they put it in one of those pods. It's delicious. And then you Basically pour hot water on it and that's I I guess it's coffee. It's like a pour over. It's not. I don't understand. I don't have a coffee with me. I need to get a coffee with me here. You do need a coffee. So But yours isn't really co it's not hot, it'd be cold with milk. Well, I do drink hot coffee as well. okay. Just in the summer I got the ice lattes going. But anyway, Roman C. Romans eight, we'd love more comments like that. So as you're listening, go ahead and drop us a a thought. yeah, Romans eight. Last week we were in Romans eight, one through four. If you've got your Bible, follow along with us. We're kind of recapping Chris's sermon and his notes from Sunday, but just in a in a dialogue setting like this. so today we're in Romans eight. we are in verses Five through eleven. So Chris, would you would you read for us? Yeah, so he picks up verse five for those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, and those who are according to the spirit, the things of the spirit, for the mindset on the flesh is death, but the mindset on the spirit is life and peace, because the mindset on the flesh is hostile towards God, for it's not able to subject itself to the law of God, for it's not even able to do so. And those who are in the flesh can Not please God. However, you are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him. But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is alive because of righteousness. But 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. Who dwells in you? Great. I'm gonna kinda pick up on verse six here. For the mindset on the flesh is death, but the mindset on the spirit of life or is life and peace. Yeah. how you kind of jumped right in. Yeah, listen. You jumped right in. There is no playing around, man. J jumped right in. I mean, the path that you're on, these verses laying out the path that you're on is a huge deal. Yeah. Yeah. How you said it is life and death kind of hang in the balance of what path you're on. You're either headed, following the path of life led by the flesh that leads to death, Verse X says, or you're on the path following the spirit and it leads to life and peace. yeah, I'd love for you to unpack that for us. Yeah, I mean this is this is some like heavy stuff to especially in our culture where we at times seem to be able to make ourselves out to be our own God. And like we we are the masters of our own destiny. We are the builders of our own identity. And here it's like, wait a minute, we're gonna like lay some hard boundaries down. Yeah. If you were in the flesh, which flesh does not mean like our skin flesh, it it it would be defined or what Paul is leaning towards is it's our fallen, self-centered humanity. Or the sin dominated self. And it it's when we live in a perpetual sense of just what we want to do, how we want to do it, what I want. Typically we're gonna be the the central theme there. first John actually would call it, you know, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, or the pride of life. and there's you know, things that fall into that, but it's it's basically trying to satisfy what you're desiring. Which I think if you want if you if you go back to maybe even last episode, yeah, when we we are trying to like earn our way to a certain level or a certain thing, we you know, we dish out those alts or expectations on ourselves. And I think that's what Paul's getting to here is is is if you are just trying to earn your own way out of that, then you're just trying to slave save your own flesh. Yeah. You're you're functioning out of that s that that that shame, guilt, fear. You're trying to make it better. Yeah. You can't. And so you're just gonna end up killing yourself. Yeah. And so things of the flesh promise life, but they end up with death. They end up giving us death. They end up wearing us out, beating us down, making us sick. Yeah. I mean, it's it's a it's a sad way to look at it. Yeah. That's good. So how do you live life? Following the leadership of the spirit. Yes, I mean that's the ob obviously the other path is, you know, if if we're there's one way to the flesh, then there's gotta be another way to the spirit. So how do I like drive on the side of the road where the spirit where the spirit is? Well, the funny thing is, is that it's like I guess if you're if you're going with like a highway analogy, you know, one way's the wrong way, one way's the right way. yeah, I was just you know, I gave the analogy of of of getting on a getting on the interstate going the wrong way. Yeah. And, you know, I being in Pittsburgh, you know, we have I seventy nine that runs north to Erie and south to to Morgantown. And as much as Pitt fans hate it, but if you get on I seventy nine north and you're trying to go to the Pitt West Virginia game in Morgantown, you're not getting there on I seventy nine north. You're also not getting back. Yeah, wearing pit gear. No, exhaust exactly. Exactly. Like you're not you're you're gonna end up in Erie. And it doesn't matter how much you're like cursing country roads take me home or whatever else, it is a like it ain't working. It's not yeah, and not going the right way. Not going the right way. And so I think that's where we look at if we're on a path of the flesh leading to death, like that's our only outcome is death. We're gonna run into Lake Erie. Like it just is what it is. No matter what our intentions are, don't matter how much we pray. Don't know how many like how good our driving is to get there. Boom. Well, how do we get to the other side? Well, living a life in the in the spirit. The funny thing is, is that you say with the drive and analogy, if we're living a life in the spirit, the Holy Spirit isn't dwelling us. Yeah. It's not about us anymore. No. We're not driving. Yeah. It's like the spirit is the one. But we didn't set the destination. We're not yeah. We didn't set it. We didn't earn the destination. We didn't, you know. all these analogies we can make. Yeah. But we're basically handing over the reins to Christ as Lord now, not ourselves as Lord anymore. The Holy Spirit is indwelling us and driving us and inviting us into obedience towards the Father, which brings life and peace. Yeah, we've got a new master. Yeah. Jesus is taking the wheel. Yeah. Exactly. here we go. no, not quite that far. Yeah, but we we've got a new master. Yeah. the other one I do want to talk this is just gonna be filled with analogies, I guess. I do think it was helpful. You were talking about the the soldier who's in a rebel army. yeah. That yeah, he can do all the best things, he's got the best uniform, he's got the everything is in step, he's doing all the right things. but at the end of the day, he's submitting to a rebellious leader against the king of the kingdom. Yeah. And so he could be the best soldier ever, but at some point it th the very DNA of him is in rebellion to the king. Yeah. And so as you're following the spirit and Jesus is your your master and king, the Lord of your life, he's setting the he's setting the standard in the way. Yeah. And so Well and I think that's that's a tough pill for for our culture to swallow is The mindset on the flesh, verse seven, the mindset on the flesh is hostile towards God. It cannot subject itself to the to the law of God. It cannot please God. Like no matter what you do, if you're living for yourself, you you can't please God. Because what we do is we place ourselves on the pedestal. I you know, something to consider is that fleshly desires demand the throne. They demand power. They demand like ultimate submission. Yeah. But it who has ever gotten success and said, Yeah, this is enough. Right. Or gotten that relationship. this is enough. Yeah. Long to be married or have kids. And I mean, you're married and have kids. I'm married and have kids. That's enough, Jacob. Yeah. Like all your desires are met now. It's like And just something's always seemed to be missing. Well, it's not just it's not just a like missed intention. It's like if you're living just for yourself to please yourself, to try to earn yourself out of it, you're essentially in hostility, rebellion towards God. And that's where that analogy came from. Right. No matter how good you are at it, that's true. You the king is still not your king. Right. Which means you can't get the blessings of the kingdom. From a king that's not your king. Right. And right. That's that's hard, man. See, I think it's cool that not not cool. It's kind of funny. Paul in verse nine is saying, however, you are not in the flesh. Yeah. There's like something in that that is that speaks to the way that we can get this crossed up at times. Yeah. Yeah. To the person who is a follower of Jesus that's like Maybe experiencing the same thing. Paul's experiencing where, like, man, I'm still like battling this war with the flesh. Yeah. Am I in the flesh? Yeah. He's saying, like, however, you're not in the flesh, but in the spirit. Yeah. If indeed the spirit of God dwells in you. just how often I think I need the same encouragement, the same reminder where you know I can get in a tailspin and I'm like quickly now going down this path. I don't want to go on this path. I want to go on this path. And The reminder of like, no, no, no, you're not in the flesh, you're in the spirit. The spirit indwells in you. So like you actually have the power to push back against this. Well, I think too, and I didn't get a chance to get into this on Sunday in the sermon, but I mean, look at Paul's like, look at Paul's heart change here. It goes from like verse five for those people who are cording in the flesh. And Those who are according to the spirit. So it's just kind of this general thing, but he gets to verse five after he says this really hard thing. And I think this is where you realize Paul's not just some cold-hearted pastor that's just berating his congregation. He's a guy who, as we said last podcast, and if you look in in Romans 7, like he's in this muck and mire as well. Yeah. And I think this is where it's so important, and this is what I didn't get a chance to get into. However, you Are not in the flesh. He he knows these people that are gonna be reading it. I think he knows and and I think he assumes Steel City Church in 2026 is going to need to hear this truth. I think that I think that he's telling Jacob here, hey Jacob, I changed my tense here to like give you this beautiful promise here. Who are you going to give it to? Right. Who are you going to speak this to? You are not in the flesh. You are in the spirit. The spirit of God dwells within you. Yeah. He's given you this freedom. He's given you life and not just life now, but you get down to verse 11. Yeah, verse 11. It's crazy. He raised Jesus from the dead, like the same power that raised Christ from the dead, the same power that defeated dead. No one else can do. Yeah. Is the same power living within you. Right. And it's like, what what can we do as followers of Jesus to To say those truths to each other. Yeah. Yeah. But I how many times have you been told that? Yeah. Like, do you believe that that's true of you? If you have the spirit in you. Uh-huh. He's the same power that rose Jesus from the dead. He will give life to your mortal bodies through his spirit, who dwells in you. Yeah. Yeah. How many times are you speaking that to someone? beside you in the pew. I mean to your wife to you know you're your Justin's almost a year. Yeah. And so, you know, you haven't you haven't gotten to this soon, but you're gonna get to a point where I mean he's gonna come home, he's gonna frustrated. He's gonna be key you know, something's gonna have happened at school, he's gonna be you know, whatever, tears or he messed up or broke something and momma's mad. And you were gonna grab him by his little cheeks, which I just absolutely love, your son's cheeks. Like You're gonna grab him by those cheeks and you're gonna get in his eyes and you're gonna say, I love you. And like I wonder at times if this isn't that like Paul's doing that to us right here. He is like grabbing us, looking us in the eyes. You are not in the flesh. Remember, you're not condemned, you're alive in the spirit. There's not performative qualifiers on this either. That's the crazy thing. I was We took our we took our incoming high schoolers on a trip this summer for a couple of days to Kingdom Bound, which was a music festival. But we went to a an amusement park, but we kinda had a devo every day, but I was still what I was like trying to get across to them. Yeah. And I don't I don't who knows if they're listening. No, yeah. But they it was probably one in one year, out the other. But the th the thought, the thing I was praying for them and for, you know, our our student ministry coming in this fall is like they're in middle school and high school. If they're claiming to be believers and followers of Jesus, you know, and they've got the spirit of God that dwells within them. Yeah. That's a crazy statement to say about a middle school or high school. Do they know that? Can they believe that themselves? Man, I've got the power of the Holy Spirit dwelling within me. I like I pray that they grasp hold of that. I mean, think about that practically. As soon as they can. Like we are promised life in the spirit. I mean, that's the declaration of the day is you are alive in the spirit. Yeah. You have person A, who's on the path of the flesh to death. Person B, who's on the path of life in the spirit, life and peace. The same they they encounter the same thing. Right. Is there not a difference here? For sure. I I think that's where like the performative thing doesn't matter anymore for the person who's in the life in the spirit. I mean, that's something of you know, having a middle schooler and a high schooler who There's not a lot of other followers of Jesus in their class on their teams. You know, there's been a couple things that have happened in in my girls' lives recently, and reminding them, like, hey, remember, you you have a chance to demonstrate life to your friends. Yeah. Because y'all are going through the same thing. Yeah. But you, you're not, your identity is not in your performance. Your identity is not in your athleticism or your intelligence or your abilities and skills, your identity is in Christ. This person can't say that. Yeah. And what what's cool is that, you know, they have a power living within them. Yeah. It's not, Paul's not saying, man, you know the whole old testament. Yeah. You know, you've got so much knowledge that you can wield. You know, you've got you can win an argument with those around you. He's saying like you have a power that is within you. That dwells within you is the same power that raised Jesus from the dead. Yeah. Wild stuff. yeah. And we're gonna get later in Romans 8. I mean, he's he is interceding for us, he is telling us, he is making it very clear to us. He's test verse 16, he testifies within our spirit that we are children of God. Like we can't get away from this. Yeah, but yet we need to attune like life in the spirit, the freedom is attuning our ears to hear what the spirit is saying. Yeah. Because we're not, we don't have. We don't have to be driving anymore. Yeah. We can now sit, we can listen, we can open our hands and and experience like the truths that he's pouring into us. Yeah. And then what does that do? It can't just stay inside. Yeah. It it it it's too powerful to stay inside. It like it it will blow up, you know? Yeah. It's like putting a mentos in a Diet Coke bottle, you know? And it it's not going to stay inside. It's going to blow the bottle up. Yeah. I think that's what it does for us. When you were prepping for this, I kinda asked you a question. preaching through these verses. I think you've kind of got two maybe application crowds of people in your mind of like, man, who who would you encourage to do what with this with these verses? yeah. Talk about those two crowds. I think number one is I mean, I s and I think Paul starts with that, for those who are according to the flesh. And I think so that's crowd number one. I think it's those who are close to us but still far from God. And they maybe are good people, they maybe can check like some cultural nuanced boxes of of being good enough. But yet they have not surrendered their life. They're still in the rebellion. They're still in the in in the rebel army. And they're good soldiers in the rebel army. But they can't please the king. And I tell you, that just it breaks my heart. It makes me think about, you know, those my my friends growing up, my my neighbors, former coworkers that that are that are they're just wonderful people, but they don't know the king. Yeah. He's not the master. He's not the master. And it just it breaks my heart because they can not please God. Like you said, there's no performative measure. There's no getting to heaven or getting in before the judgment of being like, Okay, how many works did you do? Okay, it just tells it Okay, you're in. Yeah, the scale thing is the question is, do you know me? And do I know you? Like God knows all of us. He loves all of us, but do you know him? Yeah. And It leads to death. Yeah. And of course the other side of that is for you know, the people in our congregation, man, I we we have a very, if you don't know Steel City Church, we have a very high performing congregation in the sense where we're in a spot where it is a medical field, it's it's higher education, it's technology, it is there is some just very brilliant minds in our congregation, hardworking people. We have blue-collar hardworking people. N It it I I want to be like the dad that like grabs them by the cheeks with all the love in my heart and like, you are in the spirit, like you have life, like you you have forgiveness and the debt is paid and you are not condemned and there's life and peace and and I think that's the other side of it is is really wanting to to take those that are followers of Jesus and and teaching Almost explicitly saying what the spirit is always saying within them. Right. And I want them to hear that loud and clear. And then also too, I want them to speak that to each other. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You want to plead with both camps and people like, man, if you don't know Jesus as your Lord, like come on in. Yeah. Come on in. If you don't know and if you do and if you do like let's live. Yeah. Let's live. You've got the power of the spirit that dwells within you. It's the power that Jesus rose. Yeah, that's what you're doing. Believe Christians should have the most fun. For sure. Christians should laugh the most. Christians should even in the face of suffering not not like push it away, like step into it. But you you you step into suffering with joy. Right. Because this isn't all it is. We have eternity of of living with with with you know God as like in our presence kind of thing. Yeah, that's good stuff. any closing thoughts? No. Next week is next week's gonna get real too. It's gonna get real. I mean, we're we're gonna be looking at you know, where where he says, you know, we we cry out to God as our Abba Father, our daddy. No other religion invites you into such an intimate relationship. That's good. With the one that is claimed to be the all-powerful, all knowing. Here we go. Yeah, living the declarations of Romans eight. Thanks for joining us. yeah. Leave us a comment, share us with your friends, your neighbors, coworkers. Thanks for joining us. We'll see you next time. Yeah.