Two Differing Mindsets

So, Romans 8:5. It reads as follows:

“Those who live according to the sinful nature 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 of 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 nature cannot please God.”

And you will remember that “the sinful nature”―the phrase “the sinful nature”―is the way in which the NIV tries to help us out in understanding the phrase “the flesh.” But I found it most helpful, in going through chapter 8, to keep in mind the constant distinction between the flesh and the Spirit. Flesh and Spirit—not flesh in terms of the physicality of life, but flesh as human nature, corrupted, directed, and controlled by sin.

Just a pause to ask for God to help us:

Lord, we pray now for a sense of brevity and clarity as we seek to draw a loop around our study of this morning and make sure that we haven’t left things trailing or left things unclear for one another in relationship to the truth of your Word. To this end we ask for your help. In Christ’s name. Amen.

So, what we really have here is a contrast that really couldn’t be clearer. It’s the contrast between, as I say, flesh and Spirit. It’s two different kinds of person―two different people, two different mindsets, and so on. And what Paul is making clear here is the radical distinction between what it means to be “in Adam,” which is an argument that he’s already teased out in the earlier chapters, and what it means to be to be “in Christ.”

Earlier on, he has pointed out that by virtue of our physicality, of our nature, we are all in Adam. And as in Adam, there are the characteristics of the flesh, of our sinful nature, being corrupted and directed and controlled by sin. When by grace through faith we are placed in Christ, then not only are our sins forgiven, not only is its guilt removed, not only is the power of God unleashed within us, but at the same time, we’re given a whole new status as the sons and daughters of God.

And as I said this morning, finishing things up, this contrast is so clear and the distinction is so crucial that we must understand that there is no middle ground. No middle ground. And essentially what Paul is enforcing here is what he does elsewhere in his letters, where, for example, in Colossians chapter 3, in reminding the readers of their relationship with Jesus, he tells them of their new identity in Christ, he reminds them that they have a whole new mentality―an entirely different way of thinking―because they are in Christ, and that they, as a result, have an entirely different destiny from those who are not in Christ.

Hopeless, Hostile, and Helpless

Now, you will notice that he begins with “those who live according to the [flesh].” This is a description of the non-Christian. And he tells us three things, which I mentioned in the first service but never got to in two and three. And the things we might summarize very straightforwardly.

First of all, that “those who live according to the [flesh] 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.” And “the mind of sinful man is death.” Death. In other words, the condition of man is then hopeless. It’s not that one day he’s going to die, because that is true not only of those who are in the flesh but also those who are in the Spirit. So he is not saying that the inevitability of life is death for this individual, for the inevitability of life is death for both. All will rise, some to eternity with Christ, some to eternity without Christ. What he’s actually saying here is that the controlling principle of the non-Christian is that of death.

It is a salutary thought, and it is something that we actually never think about. What we really have around us every day are men and women, dead men and women, walking around. If you wanted a cross-reference to go to, you could go to Jesus’ conversation with Nicodemus in John chapter 3, when, remember, he says to Nicodemus, “You need to be born again.” And he says to him, “Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You shouldn’t be surprised that I tell you, ‘You need to be born again.’”[1]

Now, see, men and women don’t just need a new code of ethics. They don’t need a little fillip to help them in their lives―that’s fillip with an f. They don’t need something to just chart their course. They need to be set free from the controlling power of death.

Hopeless, and secondly, hostile. Hostile. “The mind of sinful man,” verse 7, “is hostile to God.” Again, we don’t think in these terms. But this is what the Bible says. Your cross-reference for this would be turn back to Romans chapter 1 and read on from verse 18 and following. And there you will find that it is absolutely clear that the animosity of men and women towards God is realistic. Well, people say, “Well, I don’t see how that can possibly be, because I’m an anthropologist, and I have considered many cultures in the world”―you may well have, and what you have to point out is, “I’ve never found a people without God. So why does the Bible say they’re hostile to God? Everywhere I’ve gone, everywhere I’ve researched, I’ve found temples, I’ve found shrines, I’ve found rites, and I’ve found rituals. So, presumably, all of these people, far from being hostile to God, are actually very interested in God.” Which God? Which God?

You see, the issue here is not god with a small g, which may be a principle in our thinking, a notion that we project. No, what the Bible is talking about here is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. And men and women by nature are hostile towards God.

It really comes down to a battle for control. Who’s in control of life? Who makes the decisions about where I’m going, what I’m going to be? And when they discover that what God says is “I’m in charge, I’m in control, you’ll do what I say,” they said, “No, I don’t like that at all.” And so there is an enmity.

And as a result of that―and it’s a third h―they found that they’re helpless. They’re helpless. They’re helpless to do anything! Verse 8: “Those controlled by the [flesh] cannot please God.” “Cannot please God.” And you say, “Well, they could do something, couldn’t they?” Well, they could please themselves. They could convince themselves that what they’re doing is acceptable to God. But this is the judgment the Bible gives us: when we remain apart from Christ, we live in the realm of death, we’re actually hostile to God, and we’re hopeless.

Now, you see, it’s only when those truths begin to dawn on a person that they start to say, “Well, what in the world am I going to do? What will I do then?”

Octavius Winslow lived in the nineteenth century, and he wrote a book that ran to about 390 pages on Romans chapter 8. And I thought that I might read you just a little portion of it to reinforce this point.

He tells the story of a professor of a distinguished Continental university who has a young man who has decided to study at the law school. The young man is resolved to spare no amount of labor or expense to get through his studies as quickly as he possibly can, and so he was hastening all his way through his courses. The old man―the professor who’d been listening to him with patience and kindness―said to him on one occasion,

“Well! and when you [finish] your career of study, what do you mean to do then?” “Then I shall take my degree,” answered the young man.” “And then?” asked his venerable friend. “And then,” continued the youth, “I shall have a number of difficult and knotty cases to manage; shall attract notice by my eloquence, and wit, and acuteness, and win a great reputation.” “And then?” repeated the holy man. “And then!” replied the youth, “why there cannot be a question I shall be promoted to some high office in the state, and I shall become rich.” “And then?” “And then,” pursued the young lawyer, “then I shall live comfortably and honourably in wealth and respect, and look forward to a quiet and happy old age.” “And then?” repeated the old man. “And then,” said the youth, “and then—and then—and then, I shall die.” Here his venerable listener lifted up his voice, and again asked, with solemnity and emphasis,—“And then?” Whereupon the aspiring student made no answer, but cast down his head, and in silence and in thoughtfulness retired. This last “And then?” had pierced his heart like a sword.[2]

You see, men and women, our friends and our neighbors, are going about the business of their days thoughtless of these things, careless of these things. And what the Bible says is that in mindset number one, we’re reminded of man’s total depravity and of man’s total inability to fix it.

Harmony, Joy, and Hope

The contrast is with those who set their minds on the things of the Spirit. And you don’t need for me to work this all the way through. It is pretty straightforward, isn’t it? The contrast is obvious. Instead of hostility, there is harmony. Instead of hopelessness, there is joy and there is hope. Instead of doing everything to the pleasure of our own ends, fulfilling our own agendas, the person who’s controlled by the Spirit of God has discovered the reason for their existence. Suddenly, all that we are and all that we have are to be used in an entirely different way. Our ability, our skills, whatever they might be; the gifts that we’ve been given, the graces that we enjoy; whether we have time to use or talent to spend or energy to expend―all of it, for the person who lives according to the Spirit, is guided by God’s Word and directed by God’s Spirit. Instead of the prevailing sphere in which this individual lives being one of death, the sphere in which this individual lives is one of life and one of peace.

That doesn’t mean that everything is ultimately peaceful, but it means that the ultimate peace of knowing that, having been justified with faith, I have peace with God; that all the record of things that were against me, all the things that accuse me, all the stuff that I have done, as we sang this morning: “You know all the things I’ve ever done, and yet your blood has cancelled every one. Oh Lord, what peace, to qualify me as your own!”[3] That’s the distinguishing feature.

And it is the life of the Spirit of God in the child of God that provides the basis, if you like—the root—for living this life. It is the life of God’s Spirit set free within us which gives to us the opportunity to enjoy a vigorous faith, to live in the light of a bright hope, to find increasingly in our hearts a fervent love for Christ, for his Word, for his people, for his world. It is the power of the indwelling Spirit given to us that enables us to repel the assaults of the Evil One, to defeat the painful habits that grab us and seek to undo us. And what Paul is making clear here is that those who live according to the flesh live with the implications of that. Those who live according to the Spirit, controlled by the Spirit, enjoy the privileges that accompany that.

I wonder if sometimes each of us is not guilty, actually, of beginning to act―although we know this isn’t right―in such a way that suggests that we believe that all that Christ has accomplished for us somehow or another is all up at the front end of how this thing gets going―that he’s done a wonderful job of dealing with the predicament of our death and our hostility and our hopelessness and so on, and then after that, it’s pretty well up to us, you know? Make of it what you can. Do your best. Pick up some pieces along the way. And the absence in that kind of thinking is the absence of the truth of Romans chapter 8―that the Spirit of God has been given to the people of God in order that we, the people of God, might live to the praise of God; so that the things that threaten to undo us―as I say, the habits which so easily can chain us and enslave us―we don’t have to fight them on our own.

This is not a mythology, the indwelling reality of the Spirit’s power. And some of us actually need to go away and ask God to fill us afresh with his Holy Spirit. Because Jesus said that if we, being earthly, know how to give good gifts to our children, how much more will our heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?[4] And we have every legitimate right, every necessary right, to ask God the Father, to ask the Lord Jesus, to give to us all the power that we require in order to be the people that he has designed for us to be. We do not need to be constantly hampered and hindered and beset and bedeviled by all of these things.

The Spirit of God has been given to the people of God in order that we might live to the praise of God.

I’m not suggesting for one moment anything approaching a life of sinless, triumphant perfection. We await that one day in heaven. But I am suggesting to you that God is far more willing to bless us than we are to take the time to ask him to, and that he has far more resources to entrust to his child than we as his children may even think to appropriate.

So, what you really have are two kinds of people, two differing mindsets, two resulting lifestyles, and two ultimate destinies. I say to you again, this is what makes sense of the words of Jesus, of the absolute necessity of the rebirth. Because without that rebirth, we remain totally depraved and totally helpless. But in Christ, all that is necessary has been accomplished on our behalf.

Let me give the final word to Graeme Goldsworthy, whom I like to quote and like to read. This is what he says:

Only the message that another true and obedient human being has come on our behalf, that he has lived for us the kind of life we should live but can’t, that he has paid fully the penalty we deserve for the life we do live but shouldn’t―only this message can give assurance that we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.[5]

In other words, it is when I look away from myself to Christ that I find my assurance. The work of the Evil One is always to suggest that we should look into ourselves to find the ground of our assurance. But when we look into ourselves, we’re back in Romans 7 saying, “[O] what a wretched man I am! Who will [deliver] me from this body of death?”[6] We are then saying, “But actually, there is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus.”[7] And before we go crazy, we say, “I guess I just need to turn my eyes upon Jesus and to look full in his wonderful face.[8] I guess I just need to sing to myself in my bedroom, in my car,

“Spirit of the living God,
Fall afresh on me.
Break me, melt me, mold me, fill me.
Spirit of the living God,
Fall afresh on me.”[9]

And the promise of God’s Word is that if we ask him, he will.

Let us pray:

God our Father, we thank you that we have the opportunity not only to sing your praise but to study your Word. We thank you for your goodness to us as a church throughout the hours of this day, for the privileges of service that we’ve enjoyed in many different ways and in different places. Not only in this room but in many places and behind the scenes, so many have displayed the fact that they are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, their minds controlled by your Word, their lives led by your power and your truth.

We’re truly in awe, God, of your goodness to us in Jesus, because we know what we were, and we know what we are. And the fact that your kindness, your love, should lead us to repentance calls for “songs of loudest praise.”[10] And when we think about our responsibilities as a church family, when we think about the challenges that each of us face in anticipation of a new day tomorrow, we want to ask that you will abide with us, that you will dwell with us, even as Jesus said would be the case: “If a man loves me, he will keep my commandments, and I too will love him, and the Father will come to him, and we will make our home with him.”[11]

Come, Lord Jesus Christ, and make our hearts your home. Come, Lord Jesus Christ, and rule and reign over our church family, for the glory of your name and for our good. For Jesus’ sake. Amen.

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[1] John 3:3, 6‒7 (paraphrased).

[2] Octavius Winslow, No Condemnation in Christ Jesus (London: John Farquhar Shaw, 1852), 70–71.

[3] Kate Simmonds and Miles Simmonds, “When I Was Lost” (2001). Paraphrased.

[4] See Luke 11:13.

[5] Graeme Goldsworthy, Preaching the Whole Bible as Christian Scripture: The Application of Biblical Theology to Expository Preaching (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000), 83–84.

[6] Romans 7:24 (NIV 1984).

[7] See Romans 8:1.

[8] Helen H. Lemmel, “Turn Your Eyes upon Jesus” (1922).

[9] Daniel Iverson, “Spirit of the Living God” (1926).

[10] Robert Robinson, “Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing” (1758).

[11] John 14:23 (paraphrased).