Greetings everyone, thank you for reading. I pray you are well.
Last summer, Kristi and I had Emma’s wooden swing set and fort, as well as her playhouse, all taken down and removed from our backyard. She was now twenty years old and heading off to Boone. These structures were beginning to look rundown and dilapidated. Once we had all of the remnants removed, we had hoped that the yard would look nicer in the back. It did not. In a way, it looked worse.
So, this spring, Kristi and I got to work. First, I put up a no-dig three foot high, black metal fence to improve the aesthetics. We also did this for Pebble, our dog, a 2 year old Dachshund which was actually Emma’s dog, but with her going to Boone, it has now become our dog. I told her not to get that dog. But we do love the dog.
I have to say, the idea of a no-dig fence sounded wonderful to me. Sadly, on the first section, I realized that there is no such thing as a no-dig fence. So, I buckled down to dig the necessary holes and crawled around on my hands and knees, making sure that everything was connected properly. When we finished, it did look nicer. However, there were still scarred holes where the playset and the playhouse had been. My knees looked worse, and Kristi and I both were hurting.
It’s like when you are at the zoo, you see the pretty animals and say Ahhhhh. Then you see the magnificent animals and you say Ooooooo. Then you see the cute animals and you say Oooo, Ahhh. Then you visit the monkees with the shiny butts and you go ugh. That’s awful. We had to do something.
Then, Kristi went to work and did her thing, improving the look dramatically. She did this by planting a Hosta garden that in the beginning looked like my future cemetery plot. When she had finished it was lovely, just perfect.
Our backyard had been transformed.
Transformation is a word all Christians should become very familiar with. Different denominations like to use different words. Re-generation, sanctification, spiritual maturity, and spiritual growth all can be used to describe this transformation. All are describing the same process, our transformation from our worldly sin nature, inherited from Adam, to the Spirit led spiritual nature inherited through our relationship with Jesus. It really is a process of being born again. And it is important for all of us to understand that without this transformation, none of us, absolutely none, will make it to eternal life. Because without transformation we will not be equipped to change.
It is not just about us accepting Jesus as our Savior. This is just the beginning. This is because the lure of our sin nature is so powerful, so tempting, so insidiously addicting, that without our transformation from the sin nature to a spiritual nature we are lost for eternity. Without God’s Spirit we will weaken, fall away from the Lord, and potentially be lost for eternity.
The Apostle Paul understood this. In fact, his specialty was explaining how the spiritual nature replaces the sin nature in human beings. And like the no-dig fence that I just referenced, faith, true faith, is not just about the right choice of words, it’s about the actual change in our heart and soul, which is hard work. The elimination of our sin nature and the installation and growth of our spiritual nature is difficult work. The Holy Spirit will dig deep into our heart and soul to eliminate our sin nature. And, like the pain I suffered digging my no-dig fence, we all suffer as our old sin nature dies.
But first, we all must realize how truly lost we all are without Jesus. Romans chapter 7 explains this so very well. Here is Paul, explaining how difficult controlling our sin nature is. Romans 7:14-20, an essential understanding for all believers. Read this slow, because the syntax is unbelievably difficult, but beautifully accurate.
“We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good that I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do–this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin, living in me that does it.”
Paul is accurately describing our sin nature as a living entity within the human body. Sin, living inside of us, controlling us to do the very things that we do not want to do. The very things that are bad for us, for those around us, those closest to us. Because of our sin nature, we do all the things that are the worst for us to do.
I see this struggle take place at Opportunity House in many of our clients. They do the worst things, and they are addicted to these things. They can’t stop, many hate themselves, hate with a self-loathing that can drive them to madness, where they punch themselves, or cut themselves. They know that there is evil in them, but they cannot break free, no matter how often they hear or read the word. They read the Bible out loud, cursing at themselves, arguing with Satan and Jesus at the same time. Sin is not just living in them, but it is actually growing inside them, like a cancer. They know it and they can feel it.
It is like cancer. Kristi survived cancer, praise God. And I know many others, many of whom have said, like Kristi, “I just want to know that it is all out of me”. She just wanted the cancer out of her body.
We just want to get the sin out of our bodies. Just like cancer, sin kills. When we know it’s in our body, it is only natural to want it out of our bodies. But we have to understand first, how deadly sin is, for it eternally deadly. Cancer is deadly, but sin moreso.
It is a scary thing to know that we have something deadly living within our bodies. It’s frustrating also. Romans 7:21-25,
“So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God–through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.”
What Paul is illustrating for us here, is the fallacy of the law. It’s not the rules and regulations that save us, it is Jesus Christ that saves us. Not the law, but our Lord and Savior Jesus our Savior is who we praise.
But it’s not just Jesus in his bodily form that saves us, it is also his Spirit. The Holy Spirit, the Spirit of life and the Spirit of truth are what sets us free from our slavery to sin. Romans 8:1-2,
“Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.”
Christ Jesus as the Son of Man, in his sinless human body, died on the cross, for our sins, and was resurrected to live and reign for eternity. Paying our sin debts, as a once and for all sacrifice, so that we could all share in eternal life with him and the Father.
Jesus’ body, that which we celebrate every communion, along with his incorruptible blood, are why we have no condemnation.
But it is the Spirit of life within the Trinity of God that sets us free from the law of sin and death. Because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life sets us free from the law of sin and death.
This is why Jesus told the disciples that it was better for him to leave and send the other Counselor, than for him to remain in the earthly realm himself. 1 Corinthians 15:45-49,
“So it is written (Genesis 2:7): ‘The first man Adam became a living being; the last Adam ( aka, Jesus), (became) a life giving spirit. The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual. The first man was from the dust of the earth, the second man (Jesus) from heaven. As was the earthly man, so are those of earth; and as is the man from heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. And just as we have borne the likeness of the earthly man, so shall we bear the likeness of the man from heaven.”
We all begin with a natural body, like Adam, formed from the clay of the earth. Then, as we have borne the likeness of Adam, for us to be like Jesus, the man from heaven, we must bear the likeness of Jesus spiritually. For without the Spirit of God, we are powerless to be set free from sin and death. POWERLESS, absolutely powerless. Without the Spirit we are at sin’s mercy. Romans 8:3-4,
“For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature, but according to the Spirit.”
We cannot have eternal life and the sin nature together in us. For us to live eternally, we must live according to the Spirit of God. Only the Holy Spirit of God can show us how to rid our lives of sin. Hebrews 7:18-22, here the author of Hebrews refers to God’s royal decree regarding Jesus as our High Priest, found in Psalm 110.
“The former regulation (the law) is set aside because it is weak and useless (for the law made nothing perfect), and a better hope is introduced by which we draw near to God. And it was not without an oath! Others became priests without an oath, but he became a priest with an oath when God said to him: The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind: You are a priest forever. Because of this oath, Jesus has become the guarantee of a better covenant.”
The covenant of law’ weakness is in the law itself. The law does not heal you of sin. As an instrument of measurement, the law, by comparison, reveals the sin of the human being. The law does not forgive us of sins, it reveals our sinfulness. The law does not redeem us or save us. Jesus, as the great High priest in the order of Melchizedek, has broken the need for the covenant of law, Moses’ law of old, and brought forth a new and better covenant.
By defeating Satan at the cross, sin also was defeated, along with the stronghold that sin held on mankind. Now, with faith in Christ, a person, on an individual basis, can defeat Satan, and their sin, and then break free from their slavery to the sin nature. Galatians 5:24-26,
“Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.”
Jesus, at the cross, to Satan’s great disappointment, was crucified, but he did not stay dead, he rose from the grave. Instead, it was sin and the sin nature of mankind that was crucified.
We only need to call on Jesus’ name in faith, and his Spirit will rush in like a great wind, or even a soft breeze, so soft it is hardly noticeable. Which is why I acknowledge the Spirit daily.
God’s Spirit is gentlemanly, and regards your preferences as your own. If you ignore the Spirit, it will not complain. However, if you interact with the Spirit, it will teach you what you need to know. But be careful, if you ignore the Spirit completely and re-engage with sin, the Spirit may leave you completely. Then, once again, you are at the mercy of your sin nature, and the cycle for salvation must begin again. Which is where so many of our clients at Opportunity House find themselves. In and out of their slavery to sin. Galatians 5:16-18,
“So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.”
This is an incredible promise here. As Holy Spirit led believers, we are not required to follow the law. How can this be? It is because the Holy Spirit teaches us, corrects us, instructs us about all things, and inscribes the Word of God into our hearts. God’s Word is written on our hearts. How this is accomplished is for another sermon. For now, the why of why we need the Holy Spirit can be found in Romans 8:6-11,
“The mind of the sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful cannot please God. You however, are controlled not by 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. But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who lives in you.”
Praise the Lord! By Christ’s work on the cross, and the moving of God’s Holy Spirit in us, we have eternal life with the Father.
Let us pray…
Heavenly Father, thank you for who you are. You are so good to us.
My faith is in Christ Jesus, I know that he died on the cross for my sins, and was resurrected to life, and he now sits at your right hand. Thank you.
Please guide and direct your Holy Spirit to pour your Spirit into me. Holy Spirit you are welcome in and around me always.
Thank you, Father. In Jesus name I pray, Amen.
Do no harm, do good, and stay in love with God.
Blessings,
Thad Brown
Opportunity House
and Harmony Church
Concord