Romans 8:6-11                                    Life or death??                                    10/4/11

{6} The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; {7} the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so. {8} Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God. {9} You, however, are controlled not by the 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. {10} But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. {11} 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.

Our readings this morning deal with the issue of death and life. Do we and will we live death or life? Well, what a silly question; of course we want life; and we want it to the full. We want the very best that we can possibly have; and we want it now. Yet tragically, for many, they not only end in death, but their whole life is death. Their very chasing after life is a constant confrontation with death.

However here we are reminded that in the face of, and in death itself, God has and gives life; and does it to the full and to eternity. God’s Spirit brings to life; and ensures life, in the midst of death. Until we face death and come to terms with it, we are not really able to live as we can and should.

Now we know that at Easter, God in the death of his Son Jesus, gave life to all mankind. But so many in the world do not want this life, but instead choose to live death. For us also, there is that constant danger that we will, and do, chase the worldly view of life, which is death. God’s life in us gets overshadowed by the death that constantly surrounds us, and a chasing after that which leads to death. So this Lenten season we are made aware of the seriousness of a life lived apart from God, and our need to return to the life that His Spirit has brought to us.

So with this most basic and important issue before us, let us think this through a little more deeply. As we look at the world around about us, we get the idea that everyone wants to live life to the full. Their aim is to have everything that they believe will give them a full and peaceful life.

So in order to live, we look to health, wealth and technology, along with large amounts of leisure time, and a selfish and self-centred outlook. We could add many other things as well, but these are the kinds of things that we would say constitutes living. Our minds and our society tells us that these are the things we need in order to live.

However our sinful minds twist this even further to say things like, eat, drink and be merry, to excess and you will live; and when you become fat and  ill, take a pill or have some cosmetic surgery or the like. When that no longer works, just drink a little more and take few drugs to blot out thinking about it; and you will continue to live.

Our sinful mind also tells us that we don’t just need enough wealth in order to live comfortably, but we need more and more, even if it is at the expense of someone else. We have to have in excess if we are to really live. The Bible tells us that, The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. (Gal 5:19-21)  Yet this is what we so often believe is living.

But even more than that, the sinful minds, believes that we can live without God. We don’t need to listen or take seriously what he has to say; but instead to do our own thing; do what we think is right and good. Most significant of all, it takes the focus off of Jesus Christ and his death on the cross, and puts it on our working hard at doing the right thing, whatever that might be. This we are sure is what real living is all about.

Here note that even we as Christians get caught up in this kind of thinking to a greater or lesser degree. From the least to the greatest, we all struggle with many of these aspects of the sinful nature. We even try to twist and turn things in order to justify ourselves and our thinking, and to make it seem right and good for us to do these things. And we think that we are living.

Yet in our more sober moments and as we reflect on what God has to say to us in this regard, we know that it is not living. We know it is death. And what is death? It is nothing else other than a lack of living – death is the absence of living. That is there in our lives again and again. We know full well that our life is far from full and that it lacks that something, even though we can’t put our finger on the issue. We all too often experience weakness, frailty, evil and death in our lives; and know that there has to be something more and better.

So where is this life that is so very much needed by us all? How can we find and have this life that we desperately long for? It is here that we need to acknowledge that we cannot look to where the world out there is looking for life and expect to find it. Their chasing after life is death. Our text here tells us that sinful, selfish, self-centred man, is death and their best efforts will end in death. So the ways and means that we and our world look to in order to find life are futile. We need to look elsewhere.

We need to acknowledge that we have no way and no hope from our human perspective – that we are the walking dead; and then receive and live out the way that God himself has given, if we want this life. Look to ourselves and we will find only death. However, allow the Spirit to connect us to Christ, focus us on him, and for him to control us, and then have life, and have it to the full.

The key for us then is Christ and God’s Spirit; Not ourselves and what we do or don’t do. So here, we are reminded that as Christians we are controlled by God’s Spirit, and thereby have life. We have life in all of its fullness, because now we are controlled by the Spirit of God; because he is in us; and because he is in us so is the Lord Jesus Christ.

Now to make sense of this we go back to our baptism, where God himself promised to work in our lives to give us that life which we need. There at the font, God not only washed us clean from all that is in our lives that is less than perfect; but connected us to himself and all that Jesus Christ did in his death and resurrection for us; as well as that we there had God’s Spirit come to live within us.

So, now as we go forward in life we have that Spirit at work in our lives, continually pointing us to that which is the fullness of life within us. He is there directing our attention to Jesus Christ, and in particular his death on the cross; for it is there that we know that we have forgiveness of sins, life and salvation; there we know that we are now declared righteous by God himself: that is that we are right with God because of Jesus’ death on the cross. Because we are right with God, we are alive; we have everything that is important.

So continually, we have the Spirit pointing us to and seeking to keep our focus on the Lord Jesus Christ, so that we can know that we have life in all of it fullness. It is there that we have the real work of the Spirit. Any attempt that is made to suggest that it is because we have this, that or the other gift, and that it is because we use these gifts, or that it is because we have masses of people jumping up and down, that there is the reason that we know that we are alive and that there is the Spirit; are leading us back to death. It is Christ alone who is our life and our assurance of salvation; and it is there that the Spirit of God seeks to turn our focus and keep our focus. This thought that there has to be something more, is nothing other than the sinful man in us trying to draw us back to death.

But it is here though that we so often run into difficulty, in that, if we are connected to Christ and thereby have life in all of its fullness, why is it that we still face great difficulty, struggles and even death itself? Yet this Spirit again here points us to Christ and the suffering that he faced as he walked through life in this sinful world. He reminds us, that as Christians we too will suffer in this life and that we too will have to take up our crosses as we follow him. But in the midst of that cross-bearing we are assured that he is right there with us and that he is using this suffering for good. In that suffering, the Spirit points us away from ourselves, and our self-sufficiency, again to our Lord Jesus and the life that he has won for us here and in eternity.

Here, the point is made, that just as Christ was raised from the dead after his life of suffering and his death, so also will we who are connected to Christ also certainly be raised to the new and perfect life with Christ that he promises us. A little further on in this chapter, we are told that in fact, nothing in all of creation can now separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. So, we are given that certainty that in Christ we have life in all of its fullness, even though things make not seem that way outwardly at the moment.

So here in the midst of Lent, as we now draw nearer to the celebration of Jesus’ death and resurrection, we are encouraged to recognise that our sinful selves seek to find life elsewhere other than in Jesus Christ; and yet all these other attempts to find life are futile; they are and will be death to us. So we are drawn again to look away from ourselves and the ways of the world, and allow the Spirit of God to turn us back to Christ and his death on the cross and there find that life which we so desperately long for and need.

In Christ, and with his Spirit at work in our lives focusing us on Christ and his death on the cross, we can go forward with confidence that we have life and we have it to the full. Knowing that, we can then give all glory to our great God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit: for to him alone belongs all glory and honour, now and always. AMEN.

Pastor Roger Atze

Glandore/Underdale Lutheran Parish