July 10, 2022 Romans 8:1-11 “Do You Sow to the Flesh?”

08 Jul July 10, 2022 Romans 8:1-11 “Do You Sow to the Flesh?”

July 10, 2022   Romans 8:1-11   “Do You Sow to the Flesh?”

I think that some amazing things have happened in my lifetime.  I also think the same thing about the lifetime of my parents.  For the longest time, my parents didn’t have electricity.  They didn’t have indoor plumbing.  When I was a youngster, we didn’t have a TV.  For all you farmers out there, there was no such thing as a cab on a tractor.  Today, we not only have cabs on tractors but we also don’t even have to drive the tractor because some satellite is doing the navigation for us.  It really boggles my mind when I think of all the inventions that have come along and saved us a lot of time and energy.  Of course, it seems that human nature says that for all the good things that have come along, we also have bad things.  The crime rate is through the roof as we can see in Chicago where they had 57 gunshot victims over the 4^th of July this past weekend.  And they have very strict gun control. We also see this with inflation.  I was born on the first of the year at midnight.  People always ask why my parents didn’t choose Dec. 31 for may birthday as they had that choice.  In 1951, there were so few taxes that it didn’t make any difference what day or year I was born.  That sure isn’t the case today as we have an almost 50% tax rate.  Anyway, things have really changed in my lifetime, some good, some bad.  Our modern world is even trying to change the things that Jesus said and did.  You can see that almost everywhere in our society.  I praise the Lord that He is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow regardless of what our Godless society tries to tell us.  Today’s reading talks about how you can live a life worthy of Jesus Christ and leaving the old life behind.

I remember a lot of things about what it was like to live in the flesh before I knew Jesus Christ.  I would live like there was no tomorrow because actually there would have been no tomorrow.  There were many things that I did just because they were there or everybody else did them.  The worst part of living in the flesh was that I had no future.  I remember knowing that whatever I did, I did for myself and myself only.  Satan had me in his grips but I got free.  In my flesh years, I knew a little about Jesus.  It was just enough so that I was curious as to what He represented.  So, I remember the time I decided that I would try Jesus and see if He would help me out of my situations.  Well, nothing happened.  My life was just as miserable as before.  A few weeks later, I decided with the prompting of the Holy Spirt, that I would not try Jesus out but I would just make Him Lord and Savior of my life.  I remember that night very well.  Instantly, I felt a huge burden had been lifted from my shoulders.  I could stand up straight for the first time in my life.  I went into the other room and got the only Bible I had, and I sat down and I began to read.  I’ve have never looked back and I’m still reading the Bible today.  This is a book that never gets old and I have read it many times.

As we get started today, I would like you to remember that the Old Testament was all about following the Law.  This is pretty important to understanding what happened.  The people thought wrongly that if they followed the law as closely as they could, sacrifice animals for when they couldn’t follow the Law, that they would be saved.  Now there might be some validity to this but it was a hard way to live.  You were to follow about 600+ laws plus all the laws that were made after the original laws.  You were to keep these all these laws and there were people watching what you were doing.  They were there watching so that they could condemn you when you failed.

No one could keep the laws then and we can’t keep them today either.  But it’s wrong to say that we aren’t still governed by these laws.  Jesus came to fulfill the Law and not to abolish it.  Many people and some scholars say differently but Jesus tells us this exact thing.  Anyway, they had a system of sacrifices that they would offer to atone for the sins they committed.  These sins were the breaking of the Law.  So, they could be cleansed of their sins if they had the sacrifices.  These sacrifices were usually an animal that was sacrificed at the Temple.  They also had grain sacrifices. Some of the ancient religions even had human sacrifices.

Now if you chose not to follow the Law or if you got a bad disease like leprosy, then you would be condemned to live outside the Jewish settlements.  You also could not take part in any of their business dealings.  So, when you read about someone being banished from the Jews in the Old Testament, this is what they were talking about.  They would no longer have any way to make a living and they would have been cut off from all social activities.  It was pretty severe so most people tried to obey The Law.

This Law was called the law of sin and death.  There was no salvation like we know about today.  You sinned and were condemned to death by your sin.  In other words, you would eventually die in your sins.  There was a way out that we have discussed but it was rather arbitrary.  If you didn’t have enough money for a sacrifice, you were out of luck.  If the priests thought you were too bad, you were out of luck.  You can see that this system might have somewhat worked but it had many flaws because it was administered by humans or the flesh.

Now enter Jesus Christ, the Spirit.  He did abolish the Law to a certain extent in that people didn’t have to obey to the letter the written law.  If you read Romans 2:15 and Hebrews 10:16, we find that the law will now be written on the hearts of people who come to know and follow Jesus.  This was the beginning of a whole new way of thinking and living.  They would no longer need sacrifices because Jesus has already sacrificed Himself on the cross for all of us.  Therefore, all the sacrificial laws were now obsolete.

But the biggest thing that happened here is that there was no longer any condemnation.  Under the Law, you were condemned and you had to follow certain proscribed procedures to get out of this.  Now, because Jesus was the ultimate sacrifice, you don’t have to do these things.  That part of the Law is over.  Now we find that the Law and the Gospel will work together.  I think that the important thing to remember here is that God, Jesus only wants what is the very best for us.  He started out by giving us the Law and then when we had corrupted that to a point of not working, He gave us Jesus and wrote the Law on our hearts.  The Good News about all of this is that we will never be condemned under the Gospel.  Jesus will always give you a way out.  This is called repentance.  You now longer have to round up animals to sacrifice.  All you have to do now is get on your knees, confess your sins to Jesus and ask Him to be Lord and Savior of your life.  It is that easy and I guarantee that it will be the best decision you ever make.  And if you have already done this, then be sure to keep on confessing on a regular or daily basis.  That way you will always be ready to follow any instructions that you will get from Jesus.

Another thing that the writer is telling us today is that the mind of the flesh is death.  Now there may be some of you who get confused or maybe you don’t even like the term flesh.  It’s basically a term that hasn’t changed a lot over the centuries.  It means the physical body although today we may like to think of flesh in deeper terms because we now have more science and understanding than they did 2000 years ago.  What we have is a world of the physical and the world of the spiritual.  The physical world is the world of the flesh.

In ancient times, this was the only world for a lot of people.  Even most religions were about the flesh and not the spiritual.  Everything was about the flesh back then.  That is why they had so many religions.  Many of these religions had prostitutes at their churches.  They would eat and drink to excess.  You have heard about the Roman orgies and parties.  That was the way of the world.  It was also a big deal for many people to be able to eat regularly.  Many people didn’t have much and they relied on the everyday physical world to eat.  They also didn’t think that death was such a big deal.  It was just part of the cycle.  So just about everything that they did, was of the flesh.

I’m going to go out on a limb a little and say that we are kind of the same way today.  In this country we are a lot richer so we don’t have to worry as much about where our next meal is coming.  But one of our biggest concerns has been where will I go for my next meal.  Dining out has become a national pastime.  There is nothing wrong with this but I think that it is sad that something like eating takes up so much of our time.

Of course, the obvious flesh that we deal with all the time is sex.  I think that it is a national disgrace how we flaunt sex everywhere.  We just had the 4^th of July and people were everywhere just barely dressed.  Look at our advertising.  It’s all about sex.  Get the sexiest people to help you advertise and you will go far.  And if it isn’t sex that sells everything, then combine it with alcohol.  It’s hard to find a beer commercial without sexy men and women flaunting about.  And speaking of commercials, why don’t they tell us the truth instead of lying about the product.  They will tell you that they aren’t really lying but the fact of the matter is that they really are.

In this world today, we are obsessed with the flesh.  If I try to bring Jesus into one of these areas of flesh, I will and do get laughed right out of the conversation.  We have trained ourselves to the point that we are responsible for our progress in the world.  There is never any account of Jesus actually setting things up and helping us along.  The problem is that Jesus is responsible for everything we do and we don’t ever acknowledge Him.

So here is something to think about from John Stott.  A man found that he had a giant sunflower plant right in the middle of his garden.  He said they never even had the thought that it came from any other seed than a giant sunflower seed.  He knew “You sow a thought and you reap a deed. You sow a deed and you reap a habit. You sow a habit and you reap a character. You sow a character and you reap a destiny.”  That is really quite profound but think about this also.  “Every time we allow our mind to harbor a grudge, nurse a grievance, entertain an impure fancy, wallow in self-pity, we are sowing to the flesh. Every time we linger in bad company whose insidious influence, we know we cannot resist, every time we lie in bed when we ought to be up and praying, every time we read pornographic literature, every time we take a risk that strains our self-control, we are sowing, sowing, sowing to the flesh.”  Bad things will happen.

But if you are a Christian, you won’t have to worry about this because you are in the Spirit.  The ancients needed to be reminded of this because they were so new to this totally different way of thinking.  They had been trying their hardest to follow the ways of Jesus but the pull back into their flesh riddled society was great.  It was hard for them to resist because this was the society where they came from and they knew it best.

Most people don’t want to know much about living in the Spirit because they are so caught up in the world or the flesh.  There is no way you want to give up some of the things you think are nice in this world.  You think they are comfortable.  You totally refuse to give up your ways of the flesh.  But the truth is, and I’ve told you this many times, that you will have a far, far better life if you live in the Spirit and get rid of your ways of the flesh.  I am living proof of this as are many people that you know.  Truly successful people don’t make a lot of money.  Truly successful people don’t know every person around.  Truly successful people are of the Spirit, not the flesh.

As a matter of fact, Stephen Adams sums it up nicely when he wrote “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is peace.”  This is God’s peace and not the artificial peace of this world, of the flesh.  He also said, “Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is love.”  This is the love of God, agape love and not the superficial love of this world, the flesh.  He also tells us that “There is comfort in life’s darkest hour.”  You have never known comfort until you known God’s comfort.  The flesh offers no comfort at all.  Finally, he tells us “There is light and life; there is help and power in the Spirit, in the Spirit of the Lord.”

You can have this tremendous light, love, power, comfort and peace if you just confess you sins to Jesus Christ and ask Him into your life as your Lord and Savior.  You can search the world from one end to the other and you will not find anything that even comes close to this kind of goodness.  Do this today.  You will never regret this.  Then, when the time comes, Jesus can look at you and say, “Well done, my good and faithful servant.”  With Jesus, you will never fail.  And thank you Jesus for first loving us.  Let’s pray.