LIVING IN THE SPIRIT
Text: Romans 8:1-17
April 17, 2005, Dave Philips
I’d like to read you entries from two diaries of two men who lived in London around the turn of the nineteenth century. The first man was obviously someone who loved a good time, a playboy in fact. He wrote:
“Dined Woodleys, then Goosetrees, and Almacks where danced till 4:00 o’clock in the morning.” Hey! Three dinners in one evening: the guy liked his food!
Another entry: “Played cards and supped Duchess of Portland’s. Bed about three.”
And another: “Called in Union Club -- drank much wine -- played faro. Supped late, lost money, 100 pounds.” And at that time, two hundred years ago, a hundred English pounds was a small fortune.1
The second man is obviously no playboy: he is a serious man of affairs completely wrapped up in one of the burning social issues of the day: slavery. He writes in his diary: “Slave business all the evening . . . nervous at night, dreamed about slavery.”
Another entry: “Slave business till near bed, and slept ill . . . haunted by thoughts.” Day after day the entries in the diary go on: “Slave business; slave trade, slave business evening”2
The man who wrote the second diary was William Wilberforce, member of Parliament and implacable enemy of slavery. The English historian, Trevelyan, wrote of him: “It was a turning point in the history of the world when Wilberforce and his friends succeeded in arousing the conscience of the British people to stop the slave trade . . . and to abolish slavery . . . .”3
The first diary, the diary of the playboy, was also written by William Wilberforce, but a very different William Wilberforce. William Wilberforce the playboy was fabulously wealthy, gifted, sought after, the member of no less than five of the most exclusive London clubs. He was elected to Parliament when he was only twenty-five. He was a brilliant public speaker, a wit, the darling of the social whirl, and best friends with William Pitt, the young Prime Minister.
Why the difference between the early Wilberforce and the later Wilberforce?
The difference between the early and the late Wilberforce was an encounter with Jesus Christ that made him a different person. This took place, oddly enough, on a vacation to France. Wilberforce and a friend took a book along that Wilberforce had picked up casually somewhere. It was called, The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul.
That book made a deep impression on the two friends, and on a later vacation to Switzerland, the two read through the New Testament in Greek. The words of Jesus began to burn in the mind of this gifted young politician: “What shall it profit a man if he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?”
Wilberforce sought out John Newton, ex-slave trader turned parish minister, writer of the hymn, “Amazing Grace.” He asked Newton what he should do with his life. Newton wisely counseled him to stay where he was in Parliament and to begin to live out his Christian life there in public service.
Finally, Wilberforce approached his friend, William Pitt, the Prime Minister. Wilberforce told Pitt that he had changed his primary loyalty from their party, the Tories, to Jesus Christ. This new loyalty might put them on different sides of the political fence from time to time. Pitt accepted this new direction in his friend’s life, and they remained friends. In the end, it was Pitt who changed his convictions to match those of Wilberforce.
Wilberforce demonstrates in his one life both sides of the contrast Paul shows us in Romans 8. Paul contrasts two kinds of living. “Those who live according to the sinful nature,” says Paul, “have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind controlled by the sinful nature ends in death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit brings life and peace.”4
Now, I put this to you all: do you feel that you are clearly on one side of that divide or on the other? Do you feel that you have your mind set on what the sinful nature desires? And do you sense that your life is heading in a downhill direction, that you are sliding toward death and destruction? Or, on the other hand, do you sense that you are living in accordance with the Spirit, that your mind is set on what God desires, and that your life is, on that account, full of joy and peace?
Or, do you feel as if you’re in a third category? That some of the time you feel like your mind is directed by the sinful nature, and that at other times your mind is directed by what the Spirit desires?
Do you feel a vagueness about your Christianity? Do you feel funny when I put this kind of question to you in church? Or when you’re in a Bible class and the question is raised? Do you feel like you’re neither quite fish nor fowl, not a terrible sinner, but certainly not a shining saint?
And, if this is where you feel you are, and I suspect that more of us feel like we’re in this third category than the other two, would you like to have a spiritual life that is more focused, more dynamic, more exciting, and more full of the joy and the peace that Paul talks about so often?
I’d like to talk with you this morning about living in the Spirit. In my judgment many, if not most, American Christians live lives of spiritual defeat when we could be living victoriously. Many, if not most, of us live with a vague Christianity, uneasy in our faith, wanting to be better Christians, but lacking either the knowledge of our faith or the will to press forward to an excellent Christianity.
A dynamic, exciting, focused spiritual life is possible for anyone who seeks it. Paul describes such a life in Romans 8. Let me walk you through a few verses of this great chapter to see Paul’s open secret of a dynamic, spirit-filled life.
First, let’s start with how we get the Holy Spirit. In the past generation with the charismatic movement, we’ve been challenged to think about what it means to be Spirit-filled Christians. We’ve wondered, some of us, if we really are Spirit-filled people, or, if we really have the Holy Spirit at all. Some of our friends in the charismatic movement may have given us the impression that it is very complicated to get the Holy Spirit, that you have to jump through a number of hoops and have strange experiences to be a Spirit-filled Christian.
But Paul’s language indicates that all believers in Christ have the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit that comes with Jesus Christ when we accept him as Savior and Lord. When we become believers, the Holy Spirit comes to live in us.
Paul reassures the Roman Church and challenges them at the same time when he says in verses 9-10: “You, however, are led not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. [Notice how Paul equates having the Spirit of God with having the Spirit of Christ!] But if Christ is in you,” Paul continues, “your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness.”
So, if you’re a believer, even if you only started believing five minutes ago, you’ve got the Holy Spirit. Who has the Holy Spirit? You do, if you’ve asked Christ to be your Savior. That’s the clear testimony of this passage and other places in Scripture.
So, if that is so, what are the consequences? How does a person who has the Holy Spirit live? How does a person who has the Holy Spirit behave? I have the Holy Spirit when I become a believer in Jesus Christ. But an equally important question is: does the Holy Spirit have me?
The Holy Spirit does not coerce you. Notice Paul’s language in verse 14: “those who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.” Paul does not say, “Those who are coerced by the Holy Spirit are children of God.” The Holy Spirit does not drag you around by the nose. But if you are a Christian, why would you want to resist God’s Holy Spirit? Why would you want a drab, colorless spiritual life when you could have an exciting and vibrant one?
What happens when you not only have the Holy Spirit, but the Holy Spirit also has you? All sorts of wonderful things! The more you follow the lead of the Holy Spirit, the more exciting life gets. The less you follow, the more drab your Christian life will be. And it is possible just to quit following and to drop out of Christianity altogether.
Let me point out two ways that enable you to live a more exciting life following the lead of the Holy Spirit.
First, lay hold of your birthright. You do this by faith. Believe God’s word when it tells you that you’re not a slave, you’re a child of God. Paul’s language in verse 15 indicates that we are the adopted children of God. To be adopted by God means a step up in our status: we’re not just the children of God because God created us. We’re the children of God because God has chosen us.
In Rome when an adoption took place, it was a big, big deal, very different from our modern adoptions. An adopted child in Roman culture was a very special person. Four things happened when an adoption took place: first, the relationship with the adopted person’s former family was canceled. The old family no longer had any power over him. Second, the adopted child gained total rights of inheritance in the new family. Even if more children were born after his adoption, this did not take away any of the adopted child’s rights of inheritance.
Third, all legal obligations against the adopted child were canceled. For example, all old debts were now null and void. So, if you were in debt up to your eyeballs in ancient Rome, the thing to do was to get yourself adopted.
Finally, legally you were considered absolutely and without qualification the child of your new parents. There was a weird situation in the Rome of Paul’s day that illustrates how strong this bond of adoption was. The emperor Claudius adopted Nero so that Nero could succeed him on the throne. They were not blood relatives at all. Claudius had a daughter named Octavia, and Nero, thinking that he could cement the relationship with Claudius even more tightly, wanted to marry Octavia. But he couldn’t, because, since he had been adopted by Claudius, Octavia was now his sister! So, the Roman Senate had to pass a special law permitting Nero to marry his sister even though she was not his blood relative.5
The bond that you have with God by the Holy Spirit is even stronger than Roman adoption. So, lay hold of your birthright. You have left your old abusive family, the family where Satan is the head of the house. That family now has no hold over you, all your former debts are canceled, and you have full rights of inheritance in your new adoptive family. In fact, you are a co-heir with the firstborn Son, Jesus Christ, and you inherit all God’s wealth along with him.
A second way to a more exciting life in the Holy Spirit is to live by faith instead of fear. “You did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear,” Paul tells us.6
Faith is the key. Faith is not just believing something to be true. Faith is acting on that belief. Faith acted out leads you into a life of adventure.
A friend of mine named Kirwan Flannery, now dead for many years, was once part of a lay witness team conducting a renewal weekend in a church in Atlanta, Georgia. He was eating in a small restaurant around the corner from the church when he got into a conversation with the man behind the counter.
For some reason, the counter man began to unburden himself about his personal problems. He had been happily married, but had gotten heavily involved in his work to the point that he was spending all his time away from home. His wife began to see other men and eventually, only three weeks before, she had left him.
“Have you prayed about it?” asked Kirwan. The man gave him a strange look.
“It’s seven years since I heard somebody say a thing like that,” he said. “I was in Pittsburgh and having a rough time. The fact is, I was heading for a prison sentence. I met a couple of businessmen, and they had lunch with me and asked me that same question.”
“What happened?” asked Kirwan.
“I did start to pray,” said the counter man, “and things got better. Got my life straightened out, got a good job, had a decent home life . . . until my wife left me.”
“Was Don Rehberg one of those men in Pittsburgh?” asked Kirwan.
“Yeah,” answered the man in surprise. “Don worked with the J.&L. Steel Company, I remember.”
“I was the other man,” said Kirwan. “We were trying to help men find jobs through prayer. That’s how you happened to come to us.”
For a moment the two stared at each other. Finally Kirwan said, “Friend, what are the chances against this happening? Here we are, both in Atlanta, a thousand miles from Pittsburgh, seven years later, and you have another crisis on your hands.” The man shook his head, but didn’t say anything.
“The only thing I can think of is that God must love you and care what happens to you,” said Kirwan. “Have you ever been in that church next door? That’s why I’m here, for a lay witness mission. Why not come over with me and meet some people so that you’ll have friends to help you straighten out this mess?”
Coincidence? Maybe. But as Archbishop Temple said, “When I pray, coincidences happen. When I stop praying, the coincidences stop.”
My experience is that when I live motivated by fear, conservatively, always hedging my bets, always playing it safe, never risking, my Christian life is pretty dull. But when I live by faith, trusting the Holy Spirit to guide me, ready to follow the Spirit’s leading, my life is exciting, and those wonderful coincidences that never seem to happen when I’m not living in faith, come tumbling out of God’s cornucopia to bless me and to make my life full of adventure.
Why would any Christian want to live a drab, dull life when Jesus Christ calls us to a life full of adventure?