Living in the Spirit: From Death to Life

"There are a number of contrasts in Romans 8, and we'll see a few more of them in the next few minutes. And I want to take you back to 1974. I had recently graduated from undergraduate from university in mathematics and I was heading to seminary. I wasn't quite clear at first where that would be, and it ended up at Reformed Seminary in Jackson, Mississippi." [00:00:01]

"John Owen, I think, thought in Latin and translated into English, which accounts for the prolixity of his English style. And at 5:30 in the morning, it was incredibly difficult to make out what John Owen was actually saying except that he was urging with all of his might that we would grow in grace and that we would demonstrate, as a consequence to our justification, that we would demonstrate in great quantities a measure of sanctification that was in harmony with the desire and work of the Holy Spirit within us." [00:02:11]

"Now, I want to see three things in this passage this evening, three statements that are true about every Christian. And the first is that the Christian is alive. Now, I don't mean that he or she has a pulse. I don't mean it in the soulish sense. And sometimes in the Bible the word 'soul' or 'spirit' can simply refer to the fact that we are alive, that we are self-aware, that we have self-consciousness, that which continues to be after death, that we continue to be alive." [00:06:01]

"Think of the metaphors that the New Testament employs. The one in John chapter 3 where Jesus is speaking to Nicodemus, unless a man is born again or born from above, unless a man has experienced that sovereign work of regeneration in his heart, in her heart, he cannot see the kingdom of God. He cannot enter the kingdom of God. John 3:3 and John 3:5. He is speaking to Nicodemus." [00:08:46]

"Every Christian is alive with a life that is a testimony to the life to come, that something of eternity has perforated into our life right now. We have a glimpse of eternity just perforated into our very existence. Or think of the metaphor in Romans 6 and in verse 13: 'Do not present your members to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life.'" [00:11:46]

"Sinclair Ferguson, who has been my friend for over forty years would often end his sermon saying...I had the privilege of ministering alongside him for two years at First Presbyterian Church in Columbia. And sometimes at the end of a sermon, he would say, 'Isn't it a great thing to be alive? Isn't it a great thing to be spiritually alive? Isn't it a great thing to be a Christian?' We are alive. We are not dead. We are alive with a life that that will continue forever." [00:13:28]

"What does he mean precisely here by engaging in spiritual-mindedness? Well, I have a little test for you. Roughly about the same time as I was reading John Owen in 1974-75, I picked up probably the year before a little booklet by John Stott. And I have a great affinity for John Stott. I was converted through reading his book Basic Christianity. I owe my life, my spiritual life to him. I owe it to God primarily, but I owe it to John Stott instrumentally." [00:14:58]

"John Owen, and I'm going back forty-five years, but I remember vividly reading this question in his treatise on the duty of spiritual-mindedness. He asked a question, 'What do you think about when you are not thinking about anything in particular?' You know, sometimes we are so fixated on what we are doing. Our mind is going a hundred miles an hour because we're on a project, we're on a mission. But I'm talking about those times when you're sitting in the chair and daydreaming." [00:23:06]

"Do you remember what John Calvin said in the Institutes in book one chapter 11 and section 8? That man's mind is a perpetual factory of idols, idolorum fabricam, a perpetual factory of idols. Now, he's pre-industrial, but in our minds we think of a conveyor belt, and these people with almost mindless jobs and they are producing these widgets and they are just coming out one after another and they are dropping into a basket, just one after another." [00:25:30]

"To mind the things of the Spirit. What do you think the Spirit minds? Now, that would be a two-hour course in seminary. If R.C. were here, it would be a twenty-four-lecture series. What would the Holy Spirit mind? And I've only got a few minutes. Let's think about a few of them, things that are dear and close to the Holy Spirit. Scripture. 'Holy men of old wrote as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.'" [00:26:32]

"It is to make Christ known to you and me. He is the personal representative agent of the Lord Jesus now that Jesus in His incarnate body is in heaven. He is in another realm. He is in a parallel universe to this one. He has crossed through the veil to a place as we call 'heaven.' And there He is physically in space and time. And He cannot be in two places at one time. His human body does not possess the attribute of ubiquity, but instead He sends His Spirit, His personal representative agent, the One with whom as the Son of God He has been in communion with for all eternity. He makes Jesus special to you." [00:30:21]

"And part of the ministry of the Holy Spirit is not only to urge us to think holy thoughts, to mortify unholy thoughts, to be spiritually-minded, in other words, but also to remind us of the very character of the redemptive purposes that are at work here. Because when God saves us, He doesn't do so piecemeal and He doesn't do so half-heartedly, but He does so with a view to the grand finale of this redemptive purpose that we will see in the very final message of our weekend tomorrow that I think that Steve Lawson, Dr. Lawson, will be addressing." [00:39:50]