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“Have your mind set on what the Spirit desires” (Romans 8 v1-27)

(2010-05-29 06:26:39) 下一个

Derek Frank

刚刚收到英文教会牧师明日讲道词,让我准备翻译用。他讲到只因为耶稣的缘故, 信他的人不再被定罪了。圣灵的律从罪与死中释放了我们, 这是我们所有罪人的福音。如果我们要得到真正的生命与平安, 我们就要顺服那释放了我们的圣灵的带领, 旧事已过,我们因为信基督而成为一个新造的人,依靠圣灵的能力,就是那叫耶稣从死里复活的能力,我们可以成为一个不随波逐流的人。。。

“Have your mind set on what the Spirit desires” (Romans 8 v1-27)

Last Sunday it was Pentecost, so I thought that today we would think about “Life through the Holy Spirit”. Thinking about Paul’s words in Romans chapter 8, especially verse 5, where he says “Those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires”. Now as you may well know, the Holy Spirit can take us beyond what our natural minds would consider to be normal. So to suggest our minds should be “set” on what the Spirit desires may seem rather contradictory. Because to get into experiences of the Holy Spirit can often involve us in having to go past the obstacle that our mind can be. But Paul is saying that until our minds get lined up with the way the Spirit works, we won’t get properly into life through the Holy Spirit. In other words, mindless, unthinking experiences of the Holy Spirit are not the real thing. So what do we do to engage our minds with the ministry of the Holy Spirit? Firstly our minds have to relinquish their right to control what happens in us on the basis of natural thinking. Then secondly, our thinking needs be submitted to fit what gratifies the Holy Spirit. Romans 8 has much to say about this.

It’s been said that if you can think of Paul’s epistles as being like a series of mountain ranges. When you do so, then Romans is the Himalayas . Chapter 8 is Everest. Verse 1 is the pinnacle of Everest. It says that “there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus”, It’s the very highest point it’s possible to get to whilst your feet are still on earth. It’s significance is not only the view you get from there. It’s also the experience of what it took to get there. Mountaineers use a series of camps to climb Everest. Paul has done the same thing to climb to this supreme truth about “no condemnation”. His base camp comes in chapters 1 and 2 of Romans It’s about the reality of God’s wrath. It’s about how the wrath of God leads to two forms of judgement – present judgement and also future judgement. Paul then passes through several other camps in chapters 3 – 6 about justification by faith. Then he comes to the final climb of chapter 7. Here he acknowledges his struggle with sin. That struggle left him thinking the final ascent was more than he could make. Even with all his determination, Paul found his body just could not do it. Like any mountaineer who knows his energy is failing he felt wretched. It’s why, in v24 of chapter 7, he cried out “What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?”

It all seemed utterly hopeless. But then he realized there was One who was above him, One who had gone ahead - who has already scaled that which was humanly impossible. Who threw him a rope, and literally hoisted him into a place he could never have got to even by his most extreme endeavour. So he answered his cry of despair about who would rescue him. Verse 25 “Thanks be to God – through Jesus Christ our Lord. After which comes chapter 8. It’s like the reflection of a mountaineer standing on the very peak of Everest . He’s surveying the grandeur of all that he sees from that unique perspective. It’s magnificent beyond description. At the same time he can’t forget what it had taken to get him there. So his mind can only bow its knee to the view he is seeing, and the story of what it took to get him there.

Now you don’t have to stand on the top of Everest to be able to understand this – though did you see that a 13 year old succeeded in climbing Everest last week? I get exhausted just walking our dog up the hill behind our house! But you don’t have to climb up to 8,500 metres to experience how your mind can be so humbled by what you see. Just to go up in a cable car 2 or 3,000 metres, then look out over the other mountains and you find that your mind is over-awed by what you see. Even at that height you are impacted by the majesty of what you are seeing. And also be the timelessness of what you’re seeing. You can’t help but be reminded by how small you are by contrast, and also by how passing is your life. But it’s great to breathe the air on that mountain top. And to recognize that you’ve been made by the same Creator who made those mountains, and to find your spirit being lifted as you see things from this other perspective.

That’s what Paul was wanting his readers to feel. He was wanting them to gon to the heights as they take that we are “in Christ Jesus” Also that there is “now no condemnation” for us. It’s not that the reality of our past story no longer exists. We still have to live with the consequences of it. It’s not that our present circumstances have ceased to apply. We still have to live the constraints they bring. But even so, there’s a greater truth about our lives which our mind has to bow to. It’s that (v2) “through Christ Jesus, the law of the Spirit of life has set me free from the law of sin and death”. It’s just like the way an aeroplane works. Planes have aerodynamically shaped wings. They have very powerful engines. This means they can overcome the law of gravity by harnessing the law of flight. When you’re up there, it’s easy to forget how much power it took to get you up there, and how much it takes to keep you up there.

Like for the passenger who was on a tight schedule. The pilot announced that due to one of the engines breaking down they would be fifteen minutes late - though as it was a four-engined plane they need not be anxious. This made him feel a bit frustrated. But when the pilot made a second announcement, he got even more frustrated. Because the pilot announced that the delay had increased to thirty minutes due to the failure of the second engine - though not to be anxious though because they still had two engines running. A bit later the pilot made a third announcement that got him really frustrated. Because the pilot announced they were going to be an hour late due to the failure of the third engine. This made the passenger really annoyed. So he shouted out “Let’s hope that fourth engine doesn’t pack up, or else we’ll be stuck up here all day!” But what we have available to us is the unfailing power of the Spirit. Whatever our story our our circumstances. His power can lift us above them. And it will never fail. We can always trust it.

So this means there will be “no condemnation” when we stand before the seat of judgment. Every secret will be made known (Romans 2 v16) but there will be no condemnation. We will be so thankful! But “no condemnation” means even more than this. It’s a truth for each and every day. It means we need not be condemned by all those things which would otherwise diminish and defile us. More even than this (v11) “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”. This is not a reference to the resurrection bodies we’re going to be getting: it’s about receiving the life of the Holy Spirit in a tangible way into our present, mortal bodies. Such we’re set free to live in a way we never would have been. And we are also given the power with which to live. It’s all because of this new identity we have been given. Verse 14 “Those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God” v16 “The Spirit testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs – heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ”. It’s saying we’ve been given a totally new identity. We’ve also been given a totally new opportunity. And we’ve been given new resources and new potential. This is what life through the Holy Spirit is all about. We’re not only taken out of condemnation, and but we’re also given liberation! Liberation to live in a way we never could have done otherwise. It’s there for each and every one of us. That’s what Paul is saying that we not only need to set our minds upon. Our minds may struggle with that. But if we submit our minds to that, then we can really know the power of the Holy Spirit.

When we do this, Paul makes a powerful promise. Verse 6: for the “mind controlled by the Spirit, there is life and peace”. He’s saying it really is possible for our minds to be controlled by the Holy Spirit. It will certainly mean some adjustments in our thinking. First we will encounter the God whose thoughts “are not our thoughts and whose ways “are not our ways”. Then we will encounter things our minds would want to steer us away from. Because they may involve discomfort and inconvenience. But if you read on to the end of verse 17, you find there’s a conditional clause at the end of it. It begins by saying Now if we are children, then we are heirs – heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ” Then comes the conditional clause “if indeed we share in His sufferings in order that we may also share in His glory” Now the natural mind veers away from suffering, rather than towards it. So it has to take on a new way of thinking if it is to be controlled by the Holy Spirit. But despite this he knew the experience of “life and peace” that comes when the mind is controlled by the Holy Spirit. He knew how it can set us free from both our past story and our present circumstances.

In EBCG we help support a missionary couple in Nepal . They work closely with a church where the pastor is a paraplegic. He’s been confined to his wheel chair for the last 26 years. But many handicapped people have been led to his church. Through his ministry many have found hope for dealing with their physical handicap. Even more for dealing with their spiritual handicap. Even though they can’t walk physically, the Holy Spirit enables them to walk spiritually. So they can stand on the spiritual heights. They can see what it means to be set free from their circumstances. That means much changing of their thinking. But the Holy Spirit gives these people to change their thinking. Where it began for the pastor was when he fell out of a tree 26 years ago. He was only in his early twenties. The result of the fall was that he broke his back. He lost the use of his arms as well as his legs. It was physically devastating. But there was something else he had to face. The custom where he came from is that the families of those that have such accidents then abandon them. They declare them to be as dead even if they’ve lived. The reason is that they believe the victim must have done something terrible for such a thing to happen to them.

But whilst in hospital, through a Christian outreach ministry he was converted. He was also helped to understand what it means to set his mind on what the Holy Spirit desires. He found that the mind controlled by the Spirit can still know life and peace, even in his circumstances. He discovered what “no condemnation” meant for him for every day as well as on the final day. That life can still come to our mortal bodies through the Spirit, even if they are terribly damaged. He became very excited about this. So he began to shout out of his hospital window to people going by. He’d shout “Come and hear the wonderful thing that has happened to me!” And out of sheer curiosity, some did indeed go in to find out what had happened to this man. Then they found they were meeting a paraplegic. Through this he began his preaching ministry. As a result many have come to the Lord. Including many who have had similar accidents. They also have discovered that there is no condemnation to them - notwithstanding what the natural mind would say, or what religious superstitions would say.

So what do we have to do to set our minds on what the Spirit desires? That our own minds may be controlled by the Holy Spirit? First we need to understand that completed work of the Holy Spirit has made us into a “new creation” (2 Corinthians 5 v17). In our spiritual identity, the “old has gone, the new has come”. A graphic illustration is what happens when a caterpillar becomes a butterfly. It begins when the insect get physically changed in a way it would never have understood before. But then it’s thinking also has to catch up with what has happened to it, if it’s to enjoy being a butterfly. You may know the story of the two caterpillars who saw a butterfly fluttering by. One said to the other “you’d never get me going up in one of those things!” Little did it realize the transformation that lay ahead for it. The transformation happens without it doing anything. But in order to fly, it has to change its thinking. Previously its mind said “there’s no way you can fly” Now its mind has to controlled by another truth. That truth says “Whatever your past story, flying is what you’re now made for”. If we’re to know what we’re now made for, our thinking also has to change. Romans 12 v2 says “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” It continues like this “Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is – His good, pleasing and perfect will”

Turn it round the other way: if you don’t have your thinking changed, you won’t discover what God can do through you. You won’t discover how you can be set free from your past story. Or from your present circumstances. You won’t discover the life and peace which the Holy Spirit has for you. Instead you’ll just be up against the objections of our “natural mind”. In verse 5 onwards, Paul speaks of the “hostility” towards God that the natural mind has. He says “It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so”. He adds that “Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires”. It’s the residue of the “depraved mind Paul spoke of in Romans God permitted it to happen when man asserted he knew best, and didn’t need God. We may not be into all the things listed in the rest of Romans 1. But that bent of mind is still in every human being. Even though we’re “a new creation”, God still lets us choose what our minds are actually set upon. And what we set our minds on is a big factor in how much we know the Holy Spirit in practice. If they’re not open to what the Holy Spirit wants, they can block the power of the Holy Spirit. But here’s what happens if our minds are open to what the Holy Spirit wants. Things can happen in us and through us that are outside the realm of what is considered normal. Those things may even be seen as miraculous!

Now the renewal of our thinking will go on until our dying day. Paul speaks of us in verse 22 like this. We are “groaning inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.” We’ll always have a gap between where we’re at and where we know we should be. But even so, Paul ends with words of encouragement about knowing the power of the Spirit. It’s like the question of whether a bottle is half full of half empty. Yes there’s a gap. But don’t look at the gap! Instead look at what you’ve got with the Holy Spirit. He describes us in verse 23 like this. We “have the firstfruits of the Spirit”. This isn’t the full harvest of the Holy Spirit. But it is the first fruits. It’s the sign of what is to come. So be excited about what is to come! In verse 26, he tells us of something else to be sure about. Namely that “the Spirit helps us in our weakness”. It may be weakness due to our personal limitations. Or it may be because the situation is apparently impossible. But either way, the Holy Spirit is with us as our helper. Finally in verse 27 Paul says this. “He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will” In other words, the Spirit is with us all the way. He is longing to lead us and to use us for God’s glory if we will just be sensitive to His promptings.

So Paul encourages us to get a “mindset” which anticipates the working of the Holy Spirit in amazing ways. A mindset which is not defined by our past story. Nor by our present circumstances, even if they’re terribly difficult. A “mindset” that looks to see things which the Holy Spirit wants to speaks through and work through. A “mindset” that looks to see how the Holy Spirit wants to bring “life and peace” to us and to others. And most of all how the Holy Spirit wants to bring glory to Jesus Christ, who has overcome every condemnation.

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