Title: The Bigger Question
I. No Assumptions
v9 “But you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit…”
Paul now blatantly changes the address of his letter to what he sees as the primary audience. As he writes in 1:7 “To all who are in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints.”
We sometimes forget while reading Romans, such a rich, doctrinal book that examines such high levels of Christian thought, objection and theology, that Paul’s original audience wasn’t that different from the audience that is gathered here today: educated, modern Christians, the majority of which are not from a Jewish, but rather from a cultural background.
And here Paul turns his discussion directly back to the original audience and personally draws a line between the “us” and the “them” of his equation. And while he does this, a sly little examination comes in during the second part of verse 9.
“…if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His.”
Now, I admit that I could be reading more into the text than is actually there by saying what I am about to say, but try this on and see what you think. I think Paul is being very cautious and sensitive to his audience with verse 9. He is careful to not assume that everyone of his believers is saved just because they are receiving his letter. He could have just written verse 9 as: “But you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit.” And moved on to verse 10.
But Paul doesn’t do that. Instead, he qualifies for his congregation, what it means to be “in the Spirit.”
Once I was having lunch with a minister from another tradition and he asked me why Baptist always have an invitation at the close of each service, regardless of whether or not he message itself was evangelistic in nature or not.
I thought about that and answered, “I don’t ever want to assume that I know where each and every one of the people in my church on any given Sunday are standing with God. I’d rather offer the invitation and have no one come forward, than have someone really needing that invitation on a given Sunday and not feel welcome to come before God and have me pray with them.”
Now, here at Heritage, our invitation is usually given in three parts: and I attempt to make that crystal clear for everyone. First, the invitation is for someone who does not yet know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Second, for one who may know Him, but is not right with Him, either in a state of sin or backslidden-ness, or just needs to feel humbled before the presence of God. Finally, our invitation is given to anyone who has found Heritage to be their home, and wants to declare their intention of become a member of the congregation.
I, as pastor, really appreciate the way that Paul words verse 9. It reminds me to be humble, and to never assume I know the state of somebody else’s walk. It reminds you all of us that the qualifier for being a believer is having the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and the evidence of that Spirit, in our lives.
II. Eternity
v10-11 (read)
Here is one of the places in Scripture that we draw the idea of the Trinity from. We see Paul outline the relationship of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and how that leads to our immortality.
In verse 10, Paul says that if the Spirit is in you, the flesh is dead, but that shouldn’t bother us because our flesh is mortal, we can’t take it with us to heaven, and our spirit, the eternal is what we should be concerned with. For the believer, we are told that “the Spirit is life because of righteousness.”
I believe this pretty much sums the historical problem that humans have had with accepting and wrestling with any religion: Man is most usually concerned with the here and now, and does not think of the eternal unless he is forced to.
But that brings me to the quiet places. Remember two weeks ago when Paul challenged us with this simple question: What do you think about?
In Ecclesiastes 3:11, the great author writes: “Also He (God) has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end.”
I think that most people, no matter what path their life takes, says, at some quiet point in their life: “What does all of this mean? What is the point of life? Death can’t be the end of it all, can it?”
The sad thing is, most of us don’t readily face the question of eternity and life after death unless some great catalyst causes us to: The death of a loved one, a near fatal car accident, a national disaster.
If left to ourselves, were content to continue to ask and answer the all unimportant questions. I sometimes challenge people with this thought in this way. When someone comes to me very upset about something I ask: “Will it matter in 100 years?” The answer, after much thought is always, “No.”
“Will it matter in fifty years?” Again, almost always, the answer it still, “No.”
“Will it matter in 10 years?” About 95% of the time, the answer is, “No.”
“Will it matter in one year?” About half of the time, the answer is, “No.”
Do you see where I’m going with this, we spend most of our time worrying, fretting, fighting, stressing over things that half of which we readily admit are not going to matter in a single year from today!
Another way to put it is like this: Jim and I were in the car last Sunday after church and we go into a discussion on politics and unions and labor and both of us were very passionate and Jim just finally said, “I firmly believe that being a Democrat or being a Republican has ever gotten anyone into Heaven!” And he’s right. We get so caught up in the immediate, that when Paul is begging us to look deeper, look longer to the eternal we find it so hard to do because we’ve been conditioned, especially as Americans that we have a right to want everything and to want it now.
Yet there is a question that will matter in 100 years, to every single one of us, and most likely every single one of us will be dead in 100 years, yet this question matters forever.
That question: Does the Spirit of God dwell in you?
Don’t answer it quickly, or without serious meditation. Work it out with fear and trembling.
Paul alludes to something very special in the last part of verse 11. He says that this same being who raised His son Christ from the grave will also give life to our mortal (dead) bodies through His Spirit who dwells in us. The same resurrection that happened to Christ’s body will one day happen to us, and we will live with Him forever.
This may be selfish, but it’s honest: I want my life to mean something. I want it to be about something greater that myself. In fact, I want my life to about the greatest thing in the history of the universe. I want my life to bring glory to God. And I want it to bring glory to God forever.
Do you?