Princeton Presbyterian Church

Princeton Presbyterian Church (EPC) Sermon # 1609

October 15, 2023

Romans 8.1-17       Click here for audio worship.

Dr. Ed Pettus

 

"Spiritual Formation: Transforming the Body"

 

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. ²For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. ³For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, ⁴in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. ⁵For 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. ⁶For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. ⁷For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot. ⁸Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

⁹You, 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. ¹⁰But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. ¹¹If 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.

¹²So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. ¹³For 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. ¹⁴For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. ¹⁵For 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!” ¹⁶The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, ¹⁷and 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.

 

• No Condemnation

 

Romans 8 brings us to the good news of Jesus Christ in that there is no judgment upon those who are in Christ. The condemnation that was due to us, the blame and the punishment that should come upon us because of sin, has now been taken away because of what Jesus has done on the cross and through the resurrection. Good news! Good news! Paul, in the next three verses tells us why we are no longer condemned: ²For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. ³For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, ⁴in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. We were not able to find salvation through the law because the law actually revealed sin and death and our weakness in trying to keep the law. Only because Jesus fulfilled the law are we now able to walk in the Spirit. Thank you, Jesus! The result of what Jesus has done leads Paul to speak of the transformation of the body. Even looking back at Romans 6 we see this conclusion:

6.12-14 ¹²Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. ¹³Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. ¹⁴For sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under grace.

 

This can only be accomplished because of Jesus. Apart from Jesus’ saving work, we can do nothing. In Christ we are set free to do the work accompanying sanctification, which is the transformation of our bodies and minds and all things toward being like Jesus.

 

• The Flesh and the Spirit

 

⁵For 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. ⁶For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. ⁷For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot. ⁸Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

 

There is a great difference between the flesh and the Spirit. We set our thoughts on the Spirit so that we might transform the body. But that does not mean we simply ignore the flesh. The body, the flesh, is who we are as human beings in that we still live in the flesh. Galatians 2.20, I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. We still live in the flesh, but because Christ lives in us, the flesh is not our primary focus, that is, we do not live by the flesh. The flesh is not our determining guide, but it is Christ who lives in us. Within us is the presence of Christ by the Holy Spirit as we are taught in 1 Corinthians 6.19, Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you. The body is created in the image of God. The body is not inherently evil. Yet, the body is broken by sin. We cannot therefore live by the body and its passions. We cannot let the flesh be our decision making mechanism. Instead, when we sense our flesh leading us in the wrong path, that is when we need to trust in God all the more.

 

• Life in the Spirit

   

It may sound odd to many that the body is at the center of the spiritual life. This is partly because the body is one of the greatest stumbling blocks in conforming to Christ-likeness. We are tied to our bodies – Phil 3.19 speaks of the control of the belly, but it is not just appetites of the belly, but of the mind, of the emotion, the yearnings of physical satisfaction in other ways; passions of the flesh according to Colossians 3. We need to see how the inner life affects the outer life. How the spiritual depth affects the physical body and self-control. The more we become like Jesus in our thoughts, feelings, and will, the more we will conform, not to the world or to our own flesh, but to the obedient faithfulness in the kingdom of God. Living a kingdom life in every aspect of our being, spirit, soul, mind, body, emotion, the whole of life and the whole of our being.

Yet we are to take care of the body as we also take care of the spiritual. Think in terms of Jesus becoming human, taking on human form, His body did not sin even when He had bodily circumstances like hunger or exhaustion. He did not sin in or with His body. What He did do was to sacrifice His body and took all our sins upon Himself. It seems obvious that we should take care of that which Jesus redeemed. 1 Corinthians 6.19-20 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, ²⁰for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. What might change in our actions if we truly believed this to be truth? I am not my own but have been bought with a price, the price is Christ on the cross. Paul’s simple admonition is to glorify God in our bodies.

The only time that the body becomes a detriment in life is when we set our minds on the body alone. Romans 8.6-8 makes this clear. Our lives cannot be dominated or ruled by our bodies (flesh), but life comes only when we set our minds on the Spirit, which Paul sets out as a revealed truth in Romans 8.9-17, as in verse 11, ¹¹If 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.

Transforming our bodies is not a physical exercise as if doing a certain number of push-ups per day will transform our bodies in the way the Bible speaks. Transformation of our bodies is also a spiritual exercise just as with transforming our minds or feelings or will. We transform the physical life by transforming the inner spiritual life. This may sound strange to us but what occurs in the person in whom Christ resides is that as we shape, or the Holy Spirit shapes, our thoughts and feelings and wills, the body becomes trained to do God’s will in all things. We are no longer left to the passions of the body, but the body becomes subject to the leading of God’s Word and Spirit. The body, the flesh left to its own will choose the passions of the flesh as a way of life. These are the kinds of things Paul tells us to put off since we have come to put on Christ. Put off “sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry” (Colossians 3.5). This is also Paul’s message in Romans 8, ⁵For 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. ⁶For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. ⁷For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot. ⁸Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

 

When he speaks of the flesh as the ruling factor in our lives it is because the body does not submit to God’s law. To transform the flesh is to train the flesh to submit to God’s law. If we life only in the flesh without this spiritual training, then we are bound by the flesh to be hostile to God and we cannot please God. Think about some of the body parts that are discussed in the Bible. One is from James when he speaks of the difficulty of taming the tongue. In James 3 he teaches that it is impossible to tame the tongue. We curse and bless with the same body part. But we know that it is not just the tongue that is to blame, not just the physical part, but it is the spiritual, the inner life which directs the tongue. From the heart the tongue speaks. From the disciplined thoughts the tongue proclaims. If those inner thoughts are not directed and guided by God’s Word, then the tongue will spew forth poison.

In Philippians 3 Paul speaks of the belly, another body part that will lead us down a dark path if not tamed by spiritual maturity.

¹⁸For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. ¹⁹Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things. ²⁰But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, ²¹who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself. (Philippians 3.18-21.)

Those who are friends of the cross will seek to discipline the belly and also look forward to the transformation of our lowly body to be like Jesus’. That transformation has begun in receiving Christ into our lives, but that transformation will not be complete until we are with Christ in all His glory.

The tongue and the belly are minor topics compared to the amount of biblical discussion on sexuality which is one of the major topics of our society. I will not get into any details, but just to say that controlling the body in this area needs a growing spiritual maturity among Christians and certainly the society needs Jesus on this. We see the madness that is produced when people let their flesh direct their lives without any concern for God.

Remember that Paul is the one who wrote, under the inspiration of the Spirit, that we are to present our bodies as a living sacrifice Romans 12.1-2. It is the body we present, all of us, all of me, physical, spiritual, emotional, mental, every bit of who we are.

We also talk about body language. In that language the inner informs the outer. We might say we are okay with something and yet our body language says we hate this or that. We might say we feel fine, but our body language says that we are tired or exhausted or sickly. The same might be said in positive ways if our inner being is healthy and growing and focused on Christ, our body language will normally reflect that as well. We might say that actions speak louder than words and perhaps we might also say that body language speaks louder than words. If we have developed certain attitudes within our being, the body will demonstrate those attitudes. Contempt, resentment, anger, fear, apathy, any of these, and others, will rule over the body causing us to react from destructive attitudes without giving any thought to our actions. The body simply reacts out of the ingrained fears or angers we carry inside. Dallas Willard says that “we wear our souls ‘on our sleeve,’ even when we ourselves are oblivious to them” (Pg 162). Jesus said it this way, “For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks” (Matthew 12.34). That may also speak to the abundance of our inner being out of which the mouth speaks and the body acts.

How might we transform the body?

1. Present your body to God. This is Paul’s exhortation in Romans 12. Giving ourselves as a living sacrifice.

2. Focus not on the body, but on the Spirit. Set your minds on the Spirit.

3. Do not misuse the body. Don’t seek to gratify the flesh and do not use the body to abuse others.

4. Treat the body as a temple! Proper care. 1 Corinthians 6.19

Keep the Sabbath! The Sabbath is a wonderful discipline for training the inner life so that the body can get proper care and rest. When we are at peace within, our bodies will respond in kind.

 

In these things, we find that the body can indeed be transformed because the inner life is being transformed by focusing on the Spirit.

 

* Sermon series based on readings from Renovation of the Heart by Dallas Willard.