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Romans 8:12-14, So then, brethren, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh– 13 for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live. 14 For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.
If you brought your car to my house and asked me to replace the cam shaft, I couldn’t do it. I don’t have the tools or the know-how, even with YouTube. When it comes to your Christian life, you don’t have the tools or the know-how or the power to live it. Jesus said, “Without Me you can do nothing” (John 15:5). You can’t become a Christian without the Holy Spirit and you can’t live the Christian life without the Spirit.
The Puritan John Owen wrote: “Notwithstanding the power or ability that believers have received by the principle of new life implanted at salvation, they still stand in need of the divine enablement of the Holy Spirit in every single act or duty toward God.” The Spirit illumines our minds to God’s truth, gives us spiritual gifts to serve, transforms your life into the likeness of Christ, and guarantees the resurrection or glorification of your body. This morning we’re looking at a key ministry of the Spirit…
THE SPIRIT’S LEADING
We must understand the Spirit’s ministry of leading, which Paul says demonstrates that we indeed are God’s people. All believers are led by the Spirit.
Romans 8:14, For all who are being led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.
Let’s look at verse 14 first and ask a few questions about the Spirit’s leading.
Where is the Spirit leading you? To lead means to bring someone somewhere; it has the idea of a destination. The shepherd leads his flock to good pasture and fresh water. Fathers are to lead their family in the things of God. Some think this leading is talking about the doctrine of biblical guidance, or decision making, but this is really talking about progressive sanctification, leading you into the likeness of Jesus Christ. Galatians 5:18 speaks of the same thing: “If you are being led by the Spirit” and then Paul lists the deeds of the flesh and the fruit of the Spirit. The Spirit leads every one of God’s people and He leads us to become like Christ. Jesus spoke of the Spirit in John 16:14, “He shall glorify Me.” The Spirit always leads you to honor your Savior Jesus Christ.
When does the Spirit lead you? Verse 14 says, “All who are being led.” This is present tense just like the verses in Galatians. Count on it – if you are a Christian, the Spirit is leading you every day of your Christian life. You may not always be following, but He’s leading. He never takes a vacation. He is always active in your life. You are as dependent on the Spirit for your spiritual life as you are dependent on the air you breathe for your physical life.
How does the Spirit lead you? There are some weird ideas about this – visions, voices, dreams, and liver quivers as one author put it. You may remember the Laughing Revival where people would supposedly drink in the Spirit, get drunk, and fall over laughing uncontrollably. How blasphemous. The Spirit’s leading you is not revealed through feelings or on a mystical level. The Spirit leads you through your inner motivation, desire, and hunger to know God’s Word. He influences your mind, your will, and your affections to please God and to honor Jesus Christ.
What is the Spirit’s means to lead you? What does He use? The Spirit always works through God’s inspired written word we call the Bible. He motivates you to read it and to be obedient to it. There is no leading of the Spirit outside the Word. You may hear someone say, “I don’t need to do all this study; I just follow the leading of the Spirit. The Spirit talks to me and tells me what to do.” If this were true, Paul wouldn’t have needed to write any of his epistles. He would have said, “Just listen to the Spirit’s voice.” But he didn’t. The Spirit doesn’t talk to us. He leads by opening your understanding to His Word and giving you that desire to obey it! Jesus prayed, “Sanctify them in Your truth. Your Word is truth” (John 17:17). Jesus called the Spirit our Helper and the Spirit of Truth in John 14-16. The Spirit will never lead you contrary to God’s Word. Never separate the Spirit’s leading from the Word of God. Remember, the Word of God is the Spirit’s weapon, the sword of the Spirit (Ephesians 6:17).
THE SPIRIT, YOUR FLESH, AND MORTIFICATION
The Spirit leads you to glorify Christ in your life and a big part of glorifying Christ is fighting that inner war against the flesh. And though the Spirit leads you, His work in your life is not automatic. You can’t just let go and let God, or sort of float down the Spirit river. The Spirit leads you, but you have a responsibility to follow the Spirit’s leading. Then He will strengthen you to deal with sin in your life.
Romans 8:12-13 So then, brethren, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh– 13 for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
Martyn Lloyd-Jones wrote, “I maintain that in many ways these two verses are perhaps the most important statement with regard to the practical aspect of the New Testament doctrine of sanctification in the whole of Scripture.” Here are two observations from these two verses.
You have no obligation to continue serving your old master, the flesh. You owe your flesh nothing. When it comes knocking, don’t answer the door. Why serve that old miserable tyrant who would only destroy your life and drag you down into hell? The flesh has done nothing good for you. The flesh we inherited from Adam is the cause of all our troubles. You owe it nothing! It’s your enemy. It has no claim on you although it tries to butter you up and seduce you to follow its lead into sin. Why would you do business with a deceiver? Why would you take your car to a mechanic who has already ripped you off, or go to a quack doctor? Our only obligation or debt is to God’s mercy alone! Or as another hymn puts it, “O to grace how great a debtor, daily I’m constrained to be.”
Then in verse 13a Paul throws up one of those red warning signs. He doesn’t presume on people’s salvation. Notice, he even changed pronouns from we in verse 12 to you in verse 13. You’re not under obligation to the flesh and in fact, if you are continually living according to the flesh, you’re feeding on sinful stuff, you will die! Paul isn’t teaching that we can lose our salvation here, but he’s saying a man or woman who lives their life after the flesh is not a Christian at all and will die spiritually and eternally. Remember, we’re justified by faith alone but never by a faith that remains alone. And Paul knows there are always those people in the church who never came to saving faith, who are just on the religion ride tares, as Jesus called them. So, Paul is warning us. We need this today. Coming to Christ means repentance and leaving a life of sin behind. Not perfection, far from it. But the Spirit of God who gives you new life brings change. Why live according to the flesh?
Martyn Lloyd-Jones asks that question “How can you live according to the flesh?” in this quote.
The Christian believes, that God, in love, has taken his sins, put them on His own Son, and punished them in Him, so that he, the believer, may be freely forgiven. Not only so, but the Christian man has been born again, he has been given a new life and a new nature and has become a child of God; he has been adopted into God’s family and transferred into a new kingdom. He is in the new realm of grace. He was in Adam, he is now in Christ. He knows all this, and he believes that when he dies he is going to be with God and with Christ in the glory. He has proof of this,- because God has put His Spirit, His own Spirit, within him, the ‘Spirit of Christ’, the ‘Spirit of God’, the ‘Holy Spirit’. He realizes that the Spirit has been given to him in order that he may be made ready for his eternal home in the presence of God. He knows that his body and everything else will be entirely purged and delivered from sin, and that he will stand holy and blameless, righteous and glorified, in the presence of God. That is what a Christian believes.
‘Very well’, says Paul in effect, “if you believe these things, how can you possibly go on living after the flesh?” You will certainly tell me, “I want to have nothing more to do with that old life, and therefore I will mortify the deeds of the body. (MLJ, p. 107)
This takes us to the next observation of the Spirit’s leading us given in verse 13b.
You have a responsibility to mortify or kill the deeds of the body by the power of the Spirit.
Romans 8:13b, but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
The Spirit leads you to kill sin in your body. This proves you are God’s child! What does this mean and how do we do it? Notice, this is a cooperative activity of the Spirit and you. First, you must have the Spirit’s power in you. You can’t do this without the Spirit. But second, you are responsible to put these sinful deeds to death. The Spirit doesn’t do it, you do! This is extremely important. The Christian life isn’t just passively “letting the Lord live His life through you.” The Lord lives His life through you, but He commands you to do something.
Jerry Bridges has a great illustration of this in his book Disciplines of Grace. An airplane has two wings. When you’re up there at 30,000 feet, what happens when one snaps off? Obviously, you need both wings. The two wings of the Christian life are dependence and discipline. Your Christian life will proceed based on these two attitudes – depending on God’s strength and disciplining yourself to obey God’s Word. Kris Lundgaard in his book, The Enemy Within, put it like this, “The killing of sin is your duty but His work.”
So, in Romans 8:13 the Spirit is leading you to put to death the sinful deeds of the body. King James translates “put to death” by mortify. I like that word. It doesn’t mean in this context to be embarrassed or shamed. “I was mortified at the luncheon when I realized I had this huge ketchup stain on my shirt.” No, it means put to death or kill. The body here is not your flesh, but the flesh uses your body to sin. Remember Romans 6:12 “Do not let sin reign in your mortal body…and do not go on presenting the members of your body to sin.” Let’s get a good understanding of this doctrine of mortification.
- Mortification is a violent, radical action. Remember when Elijah brought all of Jezebel’s Baal prophets down to the brook Kishon and he mortified all of them. Saul failed to obey God and kill the Amalekite king, so Samuel hacked Agag to pieces. We aren’t violent enough with the execution of these little sin rebels trying to take over our bodies. They are “domestic terrorists” out to destroy your life. This is what Jesus meant when he said if your eye or hand or foot offends you, be radical. Tear out an eye, cut off a hand or foot. Jesus isn’t calling for self-mutilation but mortification of sin and doing whatever it takes to keep from sinning.
- Mortification is a quick action. Never coddle sin and watch it to see what it is like. You must nip it in the bud. You quickly go after it, and the sooner the better. The Puritans said at the first movement of sin, kill it. It’s kind of like one of those “Whack-A-Mole” games at the fair. As soon as you sense one of these deadly sin critters moving around, wham! Knock it back where it belongs. Kill it. Make it ineffective. Remember, the Spirit has given you a sword, the Word of God, and you are to use it to fight those sins in your life!
3. Mortification is a thorough action. To mortify means to kill it dead. Don’t invite it for coffee or have a debate. That was Eve’s big mistake. John Owen said, “Be killing sin or sin will be killing you.” Have no mercy on your flesh. One day back in 2006 in Ocala, Florida, Dale Rippy, a Vietnam veteran in his 60s, encountered a rabid bobcat on his back porch. It attacked Dale and sliced him with his claws, but Dale grabbed that nasty feline and throttled his throat until the creature went limp. That’s how to deal with the fleshly practices of your body. Choke them before they bite you.
4. Mortification is a continuous action. Keep on putting to death the deeds of the body, the habits of the body, and the practices which the flesh keeps spawning off. Like a man’s beard, these deeds will keep coming back, whether you are young or old, man or woman. There isn’t anyone here who isn’t called to put these things to death, and you’ll be in the sin-killing business right up to those pearly gates.
5. Mortification is half of the action in progressive sanctification. The other side of progressive sanctification is to replace these things with godly practices. Sanctification means putting off the deeds of the flesh and putting on the fruit of the Spirit.
6. Finally, mortification is a Christ-honoring, Christ-demonstrating activity – vs. 14. Your mortifying sin in your life gives more and more genuine evidence of your relationship with God!
What are these deeds of the body you are mortifying? It is too easy to think in terms of gross, immoral sins like fornication or pornography or cussing. But what about selfishness and pride, greed and resentment, bitterness, wrath, anger, being irritable, clamor, slander, and malice? All of these are deeds of the body that we must put to death whenever they raise their ugly heads! And we need to replace them with godly qualities.
SO WHAT?
Let me give you several powerful motivations to mortify your deeds of the body.
- Love God with all your heart. When you love your wife, other ladies have no influence on you. Plus, the more you love God the more you’ll hate sin.
- Hate sin like you’d hate someone who was abusing your little daughter. Hate the sin that pierced our Lord.
- Keep your eyes on Christ and the cross. John Owen said, “Set your affections on the cross of Christ. This is eminently effective in frustrating the work of indwelling sin.”
- Stay firmly in the Word. This is the Spirit’s sword. Our pastor in Warsaw, IN, used to say, “Any believer equipped with the Word and the Spirit is more than a match for sin and Satan.”
- Flee youthful lusts and pursue godliness (2 Timothy 2:22). Turn off the movie or delete the app that tempts you to sinful thinking.
- Make no provision for your flesh – Romans 13:14 “But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts.” Get rid of anything that feeds your flesh. Tommy Nelson tells about an accomplished church musician on the trumpet who played in the church orchestra. People noticed when they sang Amazing Grace tears would well up in his eyes and moisten his cheeks. When he died his family went to his house to take care of his belongings. To their shock and surprise, they discovered a cache of pornographic magazines hidden in his basement. Instead of mortifying sin. he made provision for his flesh.
I can’t change the cam shaft in your vehicle, and you and I can’t live the Christian life in our own strength. We must totally depend on the inner strength of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit’s primary ministry is to lead us into the likeness of Jesus Christ, and that means mortifying those sinful attitudes and habits in the power of the Spirit for the glory of Jesus Christ. Is your life demonstrating the power of God’s Spirit? Can you identify several practices or attitudes in your life right now that God’s Spirit wants to empower you to put to death? Ask God to reveal these attitudes or practices and begin now to mortify them through the power of the Spirit and the Word of God.