Resurrection Life - Set Your Mind - 04.12.26 - Kyle Morris

This sermon unpacks Romans 8 by contrasting the struggle of life in the flesh with the freedom found in the Spirit. After reminding us that there is no condemnation for those in Christ, it explains that while our justification is secure and immediate, our transformation is an ongoing process that requires active cooperation with the Holy Spirit. Paul shows that what we set our minds on determines the direction of our lives, either toward death through the flesh or toward life and peace through the Spirit. Because the same Spirit who raised Jesus now lives in us, we have both a new identity and new power to overcome sin. The call, then, is clear: stop feeding the flesh, set your mind on the things of the Spirit, and actively put sin to death, not out of fear or obligation, but in response to the love and freedom we have already received in Christ.

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Transcript

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In Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Thank you guys. You may be seated. If you have a Bible, I want to invite you to turn to Romans chapter 8. We as a church we're walking through the book of Acts from beginning to end. And I want you to see this. If you're a part and you've been walking through, we're not going to Romans 8 as kind of this random, disconnected teaching series. But instead, what Acts does and what the book of Acts as a whole really challenges us to think about is how the Holy Spirit changes everything. Jesus told his disciples, go to Jerusalem and don't even begin to do ministry. Don't even begin to do a thing until the Holy Spirit comes. Jesus told his disciples before that, it's actually better for me to leave and to go to heaven to be with the Father so that my Spirit can come and live inside of you. And so there was something about the coming of the Holy Spirit that Jesus thought was really important. There's something about the Holy Spirit that Jesus, he looked and said, Hey, you can't even begin to live the life that I'm inviting you to live without the presence and the power of the Holy Spirit. And so the challenge as we look at the book of Acts is to walk through the book of Acts and to look at the first century church and to see all of the ways that the Holy Spirit worked through normal and ordinary people like us. And recognize that that same power, which is the power that raised Jesus from the dead, that same power that was working in those first Christians is working in us. And so as we walk through the book of Acts, we're going to be continually challenged to live in that reality. But at the same time we're walking through the book of Acts, there are moments like Romans 8 where we kind of have to pause our journey in Acts and we've got to step into Romans 8 because it's really important that we understand the ministry of the Holy Spirit in our lives. If we ever hope to be a blessing to other people, if we ever hope to allow Jesus' ministry to flow through us, then actually we have to receive what the Holy Spirit wants to give us. We have to receive what He's offering. And Romans chapter 8 is a good picture of not just what Jesus has done on the cross, which would have been enough, but actually the ministry of the Holy Spirit in our lives that is meant to impact us day by day and to change us, and not just us, but to change those around us forever. So last week we just we just looked at the first four verses of Romans chapter 8, and that first verse is really the pinnacle verse of the entire chapter where Paul says, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. And so what Paul is declaring in that moment is that because of Jesus' death on the cross and his eventual resurrection, we can stand today as Christians under zero condemnation from God. And that's good news. And that's an unchanging status. It's not like we walk into condemnation and out of condemnation based on the kind of week that we had. No, condemnation has literally been removed. Now, here's what I wish, if I'm honest. I wish that in the same moment Jesus removed our condemnation. I wish he would have completely removed our ability to sin. And particularly, I wish he would have removed the ability for the people around me to sin. How many of you wish that? Like that'd be awesome. That's why our hearts long for heaven. Because heaven is that place. Heaven is that reality, heaven is that eternity where when Jesus returns and he sets up his kingdom and he redeems this earth, and there's a new heaven and a new earth, there will be the absence of sin, which is pure joy and pure love in the presence of God. But until that moment, but until his return, we battle with sin, do we not? Now, before we look at Romans 8, I want to go back to Romans 7. Because Romans 7 is so important for us to understand, because what Paul is laboring to describe in Romans 7 is his experience of trying to please God without the power in the presence of the Holy Spirit. Without the day-by-day, ongoing power of God living inside of us. Paul writes these words, Romans chapter 7, verse 14 through 23. And as I read this and they're highlighted on the screen behind me, I want you to see how focused Paul is on the pronouns that represent his life, the I, the me, and the my. He says this, for we know that the law is spiritual, but I am of the flesh, sold under sin. For I do not understand my own actions, for I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh, for I have the desire to do what is right, but the ability but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want. But the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now, if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but the sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. And so what I want you to see, if you look at that whole chapter of Romans chapter 7, I think Paul uses 47 different pronouns to describe himself. Like he is fixated on I, me, and my. He has tried his entire life to fulfill the law. Even before he was a Christian, when he thought he was doing the will of God, he had tried and tried and tried to meet the law, to follow its demands. And he said, even though there's this desire in me, I can't quite do it. Who can relate? But look at Romans chapter 7, verses 24 and 25. If Paul left us in this moment, this would be a very depressing sermon. But look at what he says. And when I tell you that the gospel is the reality of two things, listen, number one, uh, we're worse than we think we are as human beings. But we're also more loved than we could imagine by God. This is what Paul's saying in Romans chapter 7, verses 24 and 25. Listen to what he says. Wretched man that I am. You ever just looked in the mirror and called yourself wretched? That's what Paul's doing. He's saying, Wretched man that I am, who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin. And then we turn the page to Romans chapter 8, where there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. But I want us to picture what Paul's trying to express here. Paul is trying to express that his sinful nature that gets the better of him more often than not is like carrying around this body of death on his back. It's graphic language. Here's what's interesting. If you look at this, Paul might have been referencing something that occurred in ancient Rome. There were certain murderers in ancient Rome, particularly those who killed their own family members. Sometimes here's what they were forced to do: they were forced to carry around or be shackled to the corpse of their victim. I mean, that's pretty graphic. That's pretty graphic, serious stuff. And that gruesome, symbolic punishment aimed to punish murderers with the weight and the stench of their own crime. And here's what it did. It often led to a slow, agonizing death from infection. A lot of commentators point at this as, hey, this is what Paul very well might have had in mind when he chose to use this language about carrying around his sinful nature, his old nature. And then we turn to Romans chapter 8, where Paul says, no, no, no, now it's time to leave that image behind. Now it's time to no longer be shackled to the body of death, which is our sinful nature. There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. That's the announcement. Now, as I said earlier, I wish, I wish that that announcement in that moment would have included, hey, there is no more sin. Our propensity to sin as human beings is can is immediately wiped away. But there's not. And if you're familiar with the New Testament and particularly the writings of Paul, does Paul not consistently go back to this idea of putting off the old nature and putting on the new? Can we get the lights up a little bit? I'm seeing some eyelids in the back start to droop. There we go. Okay, I want to make sure you're locked in. Some of you guys, a little drool. And the reality is there are amazing things that happen at Jesus' death and resurrection. And the truth is there's some things that happen that are not yet. Let me introduce you to two theological terms that I think are helpful in understanding the difference between what happens when we're saved and the rest of our lives. Many of you, you've heard the theological term justification. Paul says throughout Romans, he says, we are justified by faith. So it's not our works, it's not the things that we do that are good and pleasing to God that save us. No, we are justified completely and fully by the blood and the sacrifice and the perfect life of Jesus Christ. Nothing in addition to that. So it's not Jesus plus your best behavior, it's not Jesus plus the money you give, it's not Jesus plus your serving record and how many things you're involved with. It's Jesus plus nothing equals justification. So here's the definition of justification. It's God's declaring a guilty sinner, not guilty. And the righteousness of Christ in that moment is transferred to us. So here's what that means. When you are in Christ, not only does God look at you and say, I no longer see your guilt, I see Jesus Christ, but he sees the very righteousness, the perfect example of Jesus Christ in us. That's what allows a holy, perfect, and just God to not judge us based on our sin. He judged us on the cross through Jesus. So what does that do to our nature? It's instantaneous. It's a once and for all act. You can't lose your justification. What is the basis? The finished work of Jesus Christ on the cross. What is the timing? It occurs at the moment you are saved. What is the result? Freedom from the penalty of sin. Not from the presence of sin. It's freedom from the penalty of sin. We learned about that last week. That there's a law in motion in our world today. Not law in the sense of commandments, law in the sense of principles, like the principle of gravity or the principle of thermodynamics that show us the nature of the world that we live in. There is a spiritual nature to our lives, and it's this every human being without Jesus Christ will die separate, both physically and spiritually, apart from God. So we're freed from that penalty. That's justification. That happens the moment you're saved. The rest of your entire life and my life is sanctification. The definition of sanctification, it's a continuing process where the Holy Spirit works in the believer to make them holy. What is God's desire for your life? Have you ever wondered that? His primary desire for your life is for you to be holy. We sing that song, holy forever. That's not just a song we sing. That's God's desire for you and me, that we might be made holy through Jesus Christ and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. The nature of this is progressive. So there's this ongoing transformation that happens in our lives as we put our faith in Jesus Christ. Have you seen that? I hope you have seen that. This is the evidence of our salvation. This is why, if somebody comes up to me and says, Hey, my son accepted Jesus Christ when they were 12 years old, and I've looked at their life from the time they were 12 years old, and I see absolutely no fruit, absolutely no transformation. If you love your son, you will have a conversation with your son because the result of the Holy Spirit indwelling you is there will be character change. There will be growth in Christ. You're on a progression of holiness. Now, let me be very careful. That progression looks very different from person to person. But there is always a progression if the Holy Spirit is living in you toward holiness, as slow as it may be for some. The basis for it is the Holy Spirit's work. The timing, it begins after justification. It begins after your salvation, continues through the rest of your life. The result of it is a deliverance from the power of sin. What does that mean? It means that when you are given the gift of the Holy Spirit, you now have the ability to choose holiness over time that overcomes sin. So the rest of our lives is sanctification. My mentor, Brother E, he's 85 years old. He was a pastor for 50 years. I can promise you, there is not a week that goes by where we're not on a Zoom call where he is sharing with me very clearly where God is refining him in his life. For some of us, that's bad news. That means we have like 30, 50, 60 more years of growing. Brother, he's a holy dude. We do not arrive until Jesus returns and we are glorified with Christ. This is so important for us to understand because as a pastor, I have conversations with people over and over again about they've accepted Christ, but they still continue to struggle in this area. And in the reality is you are on some level going to struggle as you grow in Christ. That struggle becomes fewer and farther between as you submit and surrender your life to Him, but you are going to struggle. There are going to be moments, and so there's this process of continually inviting the Holy Spirit to take control of the vehicle. It's not, hey, I'm going to keep driving and stick the Holy Spirit over on the passenger side. No, it's Holy Spirit, you're driving, and I'm actually going to sit over here and I'm not going to tell you what to do. I'm not going to be an armchair quarterback. You have control. And so the rest of Romans is aid is this mixture of teaching us how to live in this awareness of this spirit who now inhabits us. And it shows us the ways that we can continually remind ourselves of our own salvation. Because reminding ourselves of the goodness of God, the sacrifice of Jesus, and the presence of the Holy Spirit, that will motivate us to holiness. Not just guilt. Guilt doesn't last very long. The motivation for us to grow in godliness is to continually remind ourselves of how good God is. So we're going to pray, we're going to dive in. Father, this morning, would you work through my flawed words? Would you work through my words that will not even touch the heart and the depth of what you said through your servant Paul? But would you somehow use them in this room by the power of your Holy Spirit to bring about change in our lives? That we would walk out of this room today. My goal is that our eyes would be more fixed on Jesus and that our hearts would be more dependent on your spirit. It's in Jesus' name. Amen. Alright, Romans chapter 8, we're gonna begin in verse 5. So right after Paul tells us that we're not condemned, right after he tells us that Jesus has satisfied the requirement of the law, right after Paul tells us we now have this new power working in us that can defeat the power of sin, he says this for those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the spirit set their minds on the things of the spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law. Indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the I'll tell them I'll call them back. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. You, however, are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, if in fact the spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is life because of righteousness. 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. That's a lot of flesh, that's a lot of spirit, that's a lot of confusing words. Let me take a step back and explain what Paul is doing in this moment. If you're familiar with Paul's writings, particularly in the book of Galatians and Ephesians and other places, Paul is a master of describing the battle that is going on inside of us. He's a master at it. He's a master of telling us why, even though we have the Spirit of God living inside of us, there is this war that is still being waged. And it's still being waged because of the flesh. Paul uses this term the flesh, which can be a bit confusing. He's not talking about the skin that is wrapped around our bones. That's not what Paul's talking about. This is one of those words that commentators and Bible scholars have a really hard time taking the Greek word and describing it with one English word. So I'm just gonna say this. Even after we become followers of Jesus Christ, we have fleshly desires. There is still indwelling sin that is within us. And a life that is lived in the flesh is a life that is lived in self-focus and self-obsession. I would just say this: a person who is led by their flesh is a person who is living their life without God at the center. And so what Paul lays out here are two paths or pathologies that describe the difference between someone who's living by the flesh and someone who's walking in the spirit. He says, people who live according to their flesh or according to their sinful desires, what do they do? They set their minds on things that are selfish and self-satisfying. What does Paul say? This mindset leads to death. Not just physical death, but spiritual death. Why? Because God is not part of their equation. This fleshly mindset, Paul says, the pathology of that mindset is a mindset and a person who lives in hostility to God. And if you live in hostility to God, guess what? You cannot please God. Here's what that means: it doesn't mean that a person who's not a Christian can't do something that is good for someone else. Because we we know people who are wealthy, we read about them on the news, who give a lot of money, they're very philanthropic in what they do. They feed people that are hungry, they help the poor. But I want you to see what Paul's saying here. When that help or when that goodness is rooted in a life apart from God, where God is not the source of that goodness working through someone else on behalf of the other, guess what? It's not pleasing to God. Is it pleasing to God that the five-year-old in Africa who didn't have food is being fed? Absolutely, but it is not pleasing of this person who's giving that money because it's not given in his name. And guess what? The Bible says every good gift comes from God. Now remember, this is the state of every human being apart from the saving grace of God through Jesus Christ. None of us can please God without God. We need help to change. We need help to do the good in our life, we need help to break bad habits, we need help to honor God. I mean, how much success have you had in your life of trying to experience change in your life or transformation without God? It is his spirit in us. It is our only chance. It's interesting if you put Romans 7 and Romans 8 side by side. Up until this point, Paul hasn't talked a whole lot about the Spirit in the book of Romans. But here in Romans chapter 8, right after coming off of chapter 7, where there's like over 40 uses. Of Paul, I, me, and my, in Romans chapter 8, here we see those don't exist any longer, but the main focus, the main character of Romans chapter 8 is the Holy Spirit. Over 19 uses in chapter 8, where Paul is pushing us to the reality that there is no good in us apart from the Spirit of God working in us and through us. So what is the main work of the Holy Spirit? Because Paul says, he's not just saying don't, he's saying, don't set your mind on things of the flesh. He's saying, set your mind on things of the Spirit. What does that mean? Well, actually, Jesus tells us what the Spirit does. Listen to what John chapter 16 says. This is Jesus' words. He says, When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth, for he will not speak of his own authority, but whatever he hears, he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. This is Jesus now. This is what he says about the role of the Holy Spirit. What the Holy Spirit is here to do. Verse 14, he says, He, the Holy Spirit, will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. Therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you. So to have your mind set on the things of the Spirit is this. Don't forget this. To have your mind set on the things of the Spirit is to live your life, glorifying Jesus Christ and declaring him to others. Like if you just boiled it down, there's all kinds of other things that the Spirit does, but at the end of the day, Jesus says, here's what the Spirit came to do, and here's what the Spirit wants to do in you. As the Spirit of God is testifying to you who Jesus Christ is, it is his desire that then you will go with your life, with your words, with all that you are, declaring the truth of who Jesus Christ is and bringing glory to his name. That is it. The result of that kind of living is opposite of the flesh. It leads not to death, but it leads to life and peace. Now, again, I gotta say this because as human beings, we enjoy the path of least resistance. We love the easy button. I'll just be honest with you, I love the shortcut. I'm a huge shortcut guy. I'm a huge expedient means. Get as much done as you possibly can as fast as you can do it. But this transformation that Paul is describing in Romans chapter 8, being the person who follows the leading of the Spirit of God in us, I'm gonna tell you right now, there is no easy button for this. There is no automatic for this. The Spirit is not a magic force, but the Spirit is a powerful force. You see, God has given us everything that we need to live according to the Spirit. That means if we're living to the Spirit, we're not living according to the flesh, and God has given us everything that we need. And so, in the times in our lives where we're not living according to the Spirit, guess what? It's not because we're lacking power. It's not because the power is not inside of us, it's not because God has looked and said, Well, there's insufficient means there. The presence of God in us is more than enough. And so if we're not experiencing growth, we have to ask the question: are we cooperating with the Spirit of God? Am I cooperating with God or am I potentially cooperating with my sinful desires? You see, obedience is the key to transformation and the transformation that God wants to bring in our lives. There is no substitute. Obedience is the key. You see, when you say yes to Jesus, the Holy Spirit comes inside, He's within you, He's a part of who you are. That means that you no longer are to be controlled by your sinful desires. Before Jesus Christ, you were a slave to sin. But now you have been set free. Things have changed. Many of you in this room, and many of the people up in our New Believers class right now, this is happening to them right now in this moment, and you're seeing your life or they're seeing their lives as they never have before. This happened to me. I used to loathe going to church. Each time my parents would make the four-hour drive to Abilene, Texas, to visit me in college. I had to take them into a church that I'd never stepped into and pretended like I was there on a weekly basis. I didn't want to go. Church was boring and lifeless. And then when I became a follower of Jesus, you couldn't keep me out of church. This is one of my favorite places to be. Praise be to God. This is one of my kids' favorite places to be. But it wasn't always that way. But when I came to follow Christ, man, I was obsessed with worship music, obsessed with reading my Bible. Some of you, you're experiencing that right now. You want to know more. You can't get enough. You want to serve others. For the first time, you're thinking about how to use your time and your resources to serve God and to build his kingdom. Here's what's happening: the Spirit of God is awakening something in you right now. God's very presence is doing a work that you cannot ignore. And guess what you're doing? You're cooperating with him. And the more that you cooperate with God, the more he shows you what it looks like to walk in the Spirit and to not gratify the desires of your flesh. I'm saying your, but I mean that for me as well. The Holy Spirit of God is doing that work in your life, in our lives. It's a new mindset. Paul uses the word mindset here, and we we gotta understand that when uh when Paul uses the word mind or mindset in Greek writing, when we think of mind, we simply think of thinking, my thoughts, and that's certainly a part of it. But in the New Testament, in Paul's writing, to set your mind on something is to fixate your entire being, to orient all that you are, your mind, your will, your body, and emotions towards something or someone in this case. It means to be preoccupied with or to have your attention and imagination captivated. You see, when the when the Holy Spirit moves in, he becomes the center of attention of our lives. Erica's parents are coming into town this weekend, and we love Erica's parents, and we love for them to come and see us and visit us. But I'm gonna tell you, and this is true for all guests who come into your home or come to visit you, if you're a good host, when someone comes into your home and when they choose to spend a weekend with you, guess what? Everything changes. Does it not? It's not so much what kind of food do you want to eat, it's what kind of food do they want to eat. Where can you go that the place you go to will allow the dog that they're bringing on a hiking trail? Okay, what do we do for church? What time are you going? What time are the kids going? Like it changes everything. I'm gonna tell you right now, this is the best way to think about the Spirit of God living in you. When the Bible talks about you and me becoming a temple of the Holy Spirit, here's what the Bible is thinking: that when Jesus' spirit comes to live inside of us, that we will reorient everything around him. Everything. Not nine to 1015 on a Sunday morning, not 11 to 1215 on a Sunday morning, your whole being, all that you are, all that I am, in worship to glorify him and declare him. So that changes everything. If I if I'm literally the host of God's Spirit, if we're the host of God's Spirit, that changes everything about how I live, does it not? Oh, the Spirit of God's with me. That changes what I'm willing to look at. The Holy Spirit is living in me. That changes the places I'm gonna go. The Holy Spirit is in me, that changes how I'm gonna use my money and how I'm gonna use my time. The Holy Spirit, God's very presence and spirit is living inside of me, occupying me, and inviting me in every moment. Am I aware of his presence and what I'm about to do, say, see, how am I honoring him? You see, this is how Paul says, like this is how Paul says that we will overcome sin. We will overcome sin by recognizing that to live according to the Spirit is actually to be so captivated with Jesus Christ, so obsessed with his kingdom and his glory that our entire lives will spin around him. I mean, what an amazing God. Not only has he saved us from our sin, but he's come to live inside of us. Look at verses 12 and 13. So then, brothers, we are debtors not to the flesh, but 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. So Paul, he like he introduces this tension all throughout his writings because there's this tension. A couple things are true at the same time. We as human beings, we don't love to live in the tension of two things being true at once. There's two things that are true at one time here. Number one, when Jesus died on the cross and he rose from the grave, we find out in Romans chapter 6 and even Romans chapter 7, we find out that in that moment we became dead to sin. That means that Jesus Christ has crucified our sinful nature. That's true. It's also true that we still have sinful desires and a propensity towards sin. Both things are true. And so we we actually have a responsibility every single day to choose to not give life to our sin, but instead to feed our spirit. And the language that Paul uses here is really interesting. He says, we're not debtors to the flesh. And here's what he's saying: the old Jew, the old me that was driven by selfish desires, that old regime, don't give it any room to operate. Meaning Paul is very aware that just because we have the spirit does not mean that we're not going to be tempted to go back to the ways that things were. We're not going to be tempted every day to go back to the me, me, me, me, me kind of living. Paul says that's a dead end. It's guilt-ridden, it's full of shame. He says there's a new regime. And you're actually obligated to live in this way. We're obligated to live by the Spirit. I don't love that word obligated because I think most of us we don't love to do things out of obligation. But in this case, think about what the Spirit of God has done for us. Think about what Jesus has done. Jesus has died on the cross for our sins. Jesus has brought us into the family of God. Jesus has assured us that we will never be separated from our Father. Jesus has given us his very presence in the Holy Spirit to walk with us and lead us and guide us. I think that we are obligated to him in the best sense of the word. So what now what? Mortify the flesh by walking in the Spirit. The process to putting putting to death the flesh is what early theologians and Bible thinkers called mortification. To mortify is to put to death. Now, in a sense, Jesus has already done that. And as I said earlier, there's this tension of he's already done it, and we have a responsibility to continue doing it. John Owen, who is a Puritan pastor, he said this be killing sin, or sin will be killing you. That is an active attack on the sin in our life, knowing that if we just leave the sin dormant, that ultimately that sin will begin to run rampant. Later in the book of Romans, Paul uses this language to communicate a same point. Verse 14 of chapter 13, he says this, but put on the Lord Jesus Christ and make no provision for the flesh to gratify its desires. In other words, don't give your sinful nature any help. There's an old story. Many of you have heard the story about a man. He's trying to describe what it's like to follow Jesus while still battling these sinful desires, while he's still battling his old nature. And he says this, he said, it's kind of like having two dogs inside of me. One's a small one and one's a big one. And they're always at war with one another. They're always fighting each other. And so someone asks the man, he says, which one of the dog dogs win? And he says, Whichever one I feed. And that's the tension we all feel because the flesh doesn't just disappear. It's been around a long time. It's strong, it has a loud voice. We have habits that are hard to break. But the truth is that whatever you feed will grow in you. If you feed your flesh, your old patterns, your old habits, that is what will grow. You can't play games with sin. You can't take the mindset of, I can do this or I can do that or I have it under control. The Bible actually tells us we are to get as far away from sin as possible. When Paul talks about sexual sin in the Bible in his letter to the church at Corinth, here's what he says: flee from it. Run away. Get as far away as fast as you can. The picture is Joseph running from Potiphar's wife in the Old Testament. He gets away from it. This married woman tries to seduce him and he's like, I'm out. So don't try to manage sin. Don't just say, I'll cut back, or I've got this, or hey, it's just a little bit here or there. No, no, no. Instead, close the door on it and walk away. We're gonna talk about this in the next few weeks, but I think oftentimes when we think about putting our sinful nature to death where it belongs, we think about doing that from the wrong motivation. We think about it from the motivation of how is this sin going to affect me, or how's this sin going to affect others? Or what if I get caught? Or what if I feel bad about it tomorrow? And these motivations, while some of those things might be true, the only motivation that will lead you to a place of walking in the spirit and overcoming sin is being motivated by God and his son Jesus Christ and the gift of the Holy Spirit that's been given to you. That is the only motivation that will change you. That is the only motivation that'll change me. To walk by the Spirit is to be obsessed and consumed with what God has done for us. I'm gonna invite you to close your eyes for a minute. I've used this story before. If you've been at Revive for any number of years, you've heard this. It's one of my favorite stories that really just captures what I'm speaking of this morning. It was given by a gentleman named John Piper. Many of you have heard of John Piper. But I think he gives a good picture of what these verses are trying to communicate. Picture your flesh, that old ego with the mentality of merit and craving for power and reputation and self-reliance. Picture it as a dragon living in some cave of your soul. Then you hear the gospel, and in it, Jesus Christ comes to you and says, I will make you mine and take possession of the cave and slay the dragon. Will you yield to my possession? It will mean a whole new way of thinking and feeling and acting. You say, but but the dragon is me, I will die. He says, and you will rise to the newness of life. For I will take its place. I will make my mind your mind, and my will your will, and my heart your heart. You say, Well, what must I do? He answers, trust me and do as I say. As long as you trust me, we cannot lose. And so you're overcome by the beauty and the power of Christ, and so you bow and you swear eternal loyalty and trust. And as you rise, he puts a great sword in your hand and says, Follow me. He leads you to the mouth of the cave and says, Go in, slay the dragon. But you look at him bewildered. I can't. Not without you. He smiles. Well said, you learn quickly. Never forget. My commands for you to do something are never commands for you to do it alone. Then you enter the cave together. A horrible battle follows, and you feel Christ's hand on yours. At last the dragon lies limp. You ask, Is it dead? His answer is this I have come to give you new life. This you received when you yielded to my possession and swore faith and loyalty to me. And now with my sword and my hand, you have felled the dragon of the flesh. It is a mortal wound, it will die. That is certain. But it has not yet bled to death. And yet it may revive with violent convulsions, and it could do much harm, so you must treat it as dead and seal the cave as a tomb. The Lord of darkness may cause earthquakes in your soul to shake the stones loose, but you will build them up again with me. And have this confidence with my sword and my hand on yours. This dragon's doom is sure. He is finished, and your new life is secure. My favorite line in that entire story is when the man looks at Jesus and says, I can't. I can't do it. Not without you. Listen, none of us in this room can overcome the sins, the habits, the things that easily entangle us, trip us up. None of us can. And God's not expecting any of us to do that. But instead, He has supplied us with the same power that raised Jesus from the dead. So I'm gonna invite you just for a few minutes of reflection, Grayson, if we can give people three or four minutes. I'm just gonna put these questions up on the screen, and I just want to invite you to sit with these questions, and after a few minutes, Grayson will lead us in prayer and then we'll sing one more song.