Faithful Living – Abiding
Romans 8:1-11
July 13, 2014[1]
This
morning, I have been hit right between the eyes with some pretty heavy
questions. And since I like to share
with my friends, I thought I would share some of these questions with you. Fair warning—these are some heavy duty
questions, ultimate questions about the way we live and the way we love.
Who
or what is the center of your life? What
is the primary motivator and driver of your decisions. What occupies most of your life energy? What do you treasure most?
This
summer, we have been spending a few weeks exploring what it means to live
faithfully as a disciple of Jesus Christ.
We have been using the Apostle Paul as a tour guide on this journey,
using his letter to the church at Rome as a roadmap. So far, we have talked about:
·
The freedom we
are given by Christ: freedom to live the
way that God wants us to live (Romans
6:11-23);
·
We have talked
about the dilemma we find ourselves in: sin still exercises power and control
over our lives. We want to do what is
right, but we can’t; we don’t want to do what is wrong, but we do it
anyway. We fail, but Paul affirms to us
that God through Jesus Christ can redeem us from what he calls this “body of
death” (Romans 7:15-25a).
He proclaims “thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Romans
7:25a).
This
brings us to Chapter 8, where Paul begins to discuss living in the Spirit of
Christ. Paul he assures us that “there
is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1). He doesn’t say
that the struggle against sin is over.
He doesn’t say that we will not be tempted. But he doesn’t say that when we fall down, we
will be condemned. He says, instead, “there
is no condemnation.” We are guilty, but
we receive pardon. Paul says boldly that
“the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of
sin and of death” (Romans 8:2). And in Romans 8, Paul talks some more about
what that “Spirit of life in Christ Jesus” means. I sum it up in one word: abiding.
Paul
uses several catch phrases to describe this abiding:
·
Walk not
according to the flesh but according to the Spirit (v. 4)--
·
Set our minds on
the things of the Spirit (v. 5);
·
Live in the
awareness that the Spirit of God dwells in us.
In
our world, it can be hard to connect, to live with this “Spirit,” who we cannot
see. This is doctrinally the right way
to describe the life of God in us and of us in God. But it can be hard to relate to Spirit.
So
let’s try to put it into more concrete language. Why are we here? In the words of one spiritual writer of 460
years ago, we are here to “praise, reverence and serve God,” to live with God
forever.[2] David Fleming has given these words a more
contemporary expression in this way:
“God who loves us creates us and wants to share life with us
forever. Our love response takes shape
in our praise and honor and service of the God of our life.”[3]
God
loves us and wants to share life with us forever. We respond to God’s love by praising,
honoring and serving God, who is the center of our life. The implications of those words are
huge. Loving God becomes the central
focus of our lives.
I
have been challenged this week to live so that my “only desire and [my] one
choice [is] this: I want and I choose
what better leads to God’s deepening life in me.”[4]
In
those statements, we find a current expression of what Paul was talking about
living and abiding in the Spirit. Don’t
get too hung up on trying to understand in your head what “Spirit” means. Rather, try to experience Spirit of God
through Christ present in your life.
Walk
in the Spirit. Dwell on the Spirit. Live in awareness of the Spirit living in you,
loving in and through you. When you walk
in the Spirit, the Spirit walks with you.
I
have heard it said that although we have the Spirit of God living within us, the
Spirit can only love through us as much as we are willing to open up our hearts
to let it. This means that if we close
up our hearts to the Spirit, we limit God’s work in the world. But if we open up our hearts to receive and
express God’s love, we become part of the process in which God make us
instruments of God’s peace. We begin to
love—not because we have to or ought to, but because we can’t help but love in
response to the love we have received from God.
If
you were to be aware of God’s presence walking at your side, how would that
affect where you go, what you say, what you do?
How would that affect how you spend your money, how you relax, how you
love? How would it affect your choices
in your job? How would it affect the way
you raise your kids? How would it affect
your choices in entertainment? How would
it affect your praying? What if you
began to understand God not as a presence out there somewhere but actually
began to experience God as present in your very heart and life, closer than the
air that you breathe? How would it
affect the way you think about, speak about, and behave towards your
enemies? How would it affect the way you
think about, speak about, and behave towards the ones closest in your life?
What
would happen if your focus throughout the day, throughout the week, throughout
your life, would be on wanting and choosing what better leads to God’s
deepening life in you?
But
we are human. We have a hard time
remembering and recalling something or Someone that we cannot see. Maybe that is one reason (one among many)
that Jesus took some common, ordinary things in life and infused them with
sacred meaning. May that’s why Jesus
took bread and wine and transformed them into a something that is more than a way
of remembering—He gave us to re-experiencing His life in us. He started with a meal that reminded God’s
children of the way that God delivered them from slavery. But then Jesus transformed that memory of
deliverance into a means of grace by which we can receive God himself into our
lives. By receiving the bread and the
cup, we remember God’s deliverance—both from slavery in Egypt and from slavery
to sin, and yet there is more! In some
way that we cannot fully understand or explain, we receive in the present tense
the real presence of the Spirit of Christ in us, today. Christ truly lives in us, enabling us to live
in Christ.
Who
is at the center of your life this morning?
We can think about it, debate it, be troubled by it, or feel guilty
about it. But Jesus invites us this
morning to become aware of God at the center.
He invites us to celebrate the presence of God—Father, Son and Holy
Spirit—in the breaking of bread and sharing of the cup, and then to go out and
live with that presence in the center of our lives. Will you join me this morning in this
challenge to live, to want, to desire only what will deepen God’s life and love
within you?
May
it be so!
Copyright
© 2014 by Thomas E. Frost. All rights
reserved.
[1]
Preached at Cunningham United Methodist Church in Palmyra, VA.
[2]
Ignatius of Loyola, Spiritual Exercises,
trans. by David L. Fleming and printed in Draw
Me into Your Friendship: The Spiritual Exercises—A Literal Translation & a
Contemporary Reading, (St. Louis:
The Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1996), 26.
[3]
David L. Fleming, Draw Me into Your
Friendship: The Spiritual Exercises—A Literal Translation & a Contemporary
Reading, (St. Louis: The Institute
of Jesuit Sources, 1996), 27.
[4]
David L. Fleming, Draw Me into Your
Friendship: The Spiritual Exercises—A Literal Translation & a Contemporary
Reading, (St. Louis: The Institute
of Jesuit Sources, 1996), 27.
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