Session 26 – Romans; Romans 8: Mark Lanier, 02/15/26

ROM 026_Romans P26_PODCAST_021526
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[00:00:00] Have you ever noticed how two people can look at the exact same situation and see it completely different? There's a classic example here it is. What do you see? If you're an optimist, that glass is half full. If you're a pessimist, that glass is half empty. If you're an engineer, that glass is twice as big as it needs to be.

If you're a realist, there's water in the glass. Right. If you're a nihilist, it doesn't matter. We're all gonna die anyway.

I mean, [00:01:00] same facts, different perspectives, different responses. If it's raining outside, the farmer during the drought, thank you, Lord. The crops needed This, the bride on our wedding day. Why today of all days. The kids stuck inside boring. I wanted to play outside the gardener. Perfect. My plants will thrive.

Think about it. It's the same rain, but four completely different reactions based on perspective. The whole case that I'm trying in Los Angeles, it's the same evidence, but the other side has a different framework and they draw different conclusions from the evidence than I do. I think I'm right. Uh, but Paul is making a point like this in Romans chapter eight.[00:02:00]

Paul wants his readers, he wants the church at large. He wants the believers to understand that everything can depend upon your framework, your mindset, all of us. Can experience the same circumstances, challenging days, difficulties, the same temptations, but our mindset in how we deal with it can make all the difference in the world.

You can have two completely different outcomes based upon one thing, your mindset. And that's the focus I wanna put on the class today as we continue to work through Romans chapter eight. And so we're gonna briefly make sure we're all standing on the same foundation, which are the first four verses of this chapter.

Then we're going to [00:03:00] examine a chiasm as some see it in Romans 5 8, 5 through eight. And then we'll hopefully have time to start dabbling our toes. With the identification from Romans eight, nine through 11, uh, let's start with the foundation. Now I'm standing a little bit closer to the computer. I will go back there some today, but I forgot my glasses, so if I get this far away, I can't see what's on the screen behind me.

So y'all just, excuse me. If it looks like I'm about to jump on the front row, Stan, I'm not jumping in your lap. Okay. The foundation, Romans eight, one. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus condemnation. There is no crema there. This is the greatest verdict in human history.

The media are all over our case in Los Angeles. Uh, they're gonna be over it again this week. [00:04:00] Wednesday I will be cross-examining Mark Zuckerberg, uh, and, and it will be, um, a media circus. They will have a lottery for seats available in the courtroom. Truly, the judges announce that it'll be a lottery because people have been lining up.

Uh, it started at four in the morning to get one of the tickets in. Then it moved to three in the morning. And then it was midnight before the president of Instagram. Adam, er was cross-examined last week, and they slept out in the rain to, to try to get into the courtroom. It's, it's a, uh, it's a big deal because this case, this is the first time it's been tried.

Social media addiction has not been tried before in the us and there's a boatload of other cases behind it, and how this case goes will help determine. Uh, what, what happens next? And, and some people understand that, that [00:05:00] this is a, an important case and it's an important verdict. And, and I think it is. I think it's extremely important or I wouldn't be doing it.

But I will tell you this, it is a flea bite, not just on the back of a camel, but I'm talking on the back of eight gazillion camel. Compared to the greatest verdict in history that there is, therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. That means the charges have been dismissed against you and me in God's eternal court.

That means the verdict is not guilty for you and me before God, not premised upon how good we are. It. That means there's a no penalty in a sentence to you and I. We are not guilty. There is no condemnation for the law of the [00:06:00] spirit of life. Has set us free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death.

There is a, an old principle, a law of sin and death. It's been there since. Adam. The day you eat of the fruit, the day you disobey, the day you rebel, the day you steal, the day you quit. Bearing my image as in, in, in the fullness in which you bear it now as a true reflection of me. Is the day you die and that law is there and there's no getting over it.

Save for the fact that there's a law of the spirit of life, but that's found in Christ Jesus because only Christ truly conquered sin and death. No other human has ever or will ever conquer sin and death. [00:07:00] Save Jesus and those in him who get it credited to them by God and that system is why there's no condemnation for us.

See God, Paul continues, has done what the law weakened by the flesh could not do by sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh. Paul's Greek here is very deliberate. See, if, if, if Paul had written sending his own son in the likeness of flesh, we'd have thought, well, Jesus wasn't really human. He was something weird or different.

Or if he'd said, sending his son in the likeness of sin, then we don't have a perfect savior. He's sin. Instead, he's in the likeness of sinful flesh. It's, it's, it's like us, [00:08:00] but it's not the same as us. And then for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh. Now, this word for condemned, uh, kaino is the same word that Paul's used earlier for condemnation.

And so Paul is saying, what we don't have is what happened in Christ. We don't have any charges against us. They were dismissed. We have a verdict of not guilty. We don't have a a sentence. There's no penalty. But that's what happened to sin in Christ. The charges were made there. The verdict of guilty was made there and the sentence of death was assessed there.

All of that happened in Christ, so it doesn't happen to us. And this was in order that [00:09:00] the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the spirit. God did this for a reason. Uh, if, if I pulled David Capes back up here, Dr. Capes, the Greek professor would tell you that's a hena purpose clause.

That first word in the Greek hena is, is a introducing a clause of purpose for the reason of in order that, so that. This has happened so that the righteousness requirement, the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us. See, God's goal was not to just lower the standard. Okay. You can't meet that bar of perfection good enough [00:10:00] to, to walk with me eternally.

So I'll just lower it. I'll just make it where you, you don't have to be that good. Maybe, maybe we'll use some scales. Let's just throw all your deeds in there, like the, the Egyptians would do and, and weigh the heart after death. And, and, and if you got enough good to outweigh the bad, come on into my blessed eternity, if not death a second.

Death for you. Now that, that that's not what God did. He did not lower the standard. He did not take the standard of his purity and say, well, yeah, we'll just bring it down. Nor did God simply excuse our failure, yeah's. All right. Ah, it is just people are people.

I mean, seriously, do we really care that [00:11:00] much anyway? No, he did not do that either. He never pretended that righteousness doesn't matter.

What God's goal was, Paul says, is to fulfill what the law requires. To fulfill it in us. And, and that's what he did play. Roma is the Greek word there that's being used. He fulfilled it in us. He, he, it, it's, it's poured over all the way to the brim. All of the righteousness is, is fulfilled. We, you've got the righteousness of God if you are in Christ.

And we're to walk, not according to the flesh, but according to the spirit. This does not mean the flesh, your human body. [00:12:00] So I don't walk like this anymore. I just levitate. That's not what he's saying here. Paul is using these words in a very specific way for his purposes. Now, sarks, that word does mean flesh.

But the way Paul's using it here in a moral and ethical sense is he's talking about living based upon our flesh, meaning our direction, our strength, selfishly directed by to and for us, versus verses living by two. And for the purposes of God's spirit. Paul's saying there are two ways of living. You can be self-reliant.

That's living according to the flesh. You can be self-reliant or you can be spirit dependent. That's living dependent upon God [00:13:00] instead of me,

and that's the foundation. So then we get to this chiasm. Now if you come to this biblical literacy class because you want a feel good lesson, I wanna meet that need. I want you to feel so good. After these classes, I want you to just walk away feeling like you just got a spiritual, intellectual, mental, emotional massage.

I want you to just say, that was just, I just, I feel so good. But if you come to this class, because deep down in your heart you wished you'd gone to seminary, I want you to walk away from this class feeling like you got a little version of what you might've been like. Uh, if you'd gone to a seminary [00:14:00] class.

If I were teaching in a seminary and I were teaching Romans. A lot of what I'm gonna explain to you right now is something that we would be teaching. This is not just go to this life group. Biblical Literacy has its title for a reason. We're trying to, uh, what's the old Oak Ridge Boys song? Dig a little deeper in the well, boy.

Dig a little deeper in. Well, if you want a good, cool drink of water, you gotta dig a little deeper in the well. Does anybody remember that other than me and I? Thanks. I never listened to country music, but I got that one.

So we're gonna dig a little deeper in the well here. We're gonna be seminarians for just a moment who are in serious Bible study. We're we are gonna dig a little deeper. Alright, now Tom Wright. Who's one of my favorite people to read [00:15:00] biblically Uh, heavens. He's one of my favorite people to read in email when he emails me.

I can read his emails three or four times. It's like, wow, that's just so cool the way he wrote that. And that's just when he says my name. It's just, um. I don't always, I don't always agree with Tom on everything, but he's, he's smarter than a tree full of owls. He's, he's insightful, he's, um, so witty and, and, and writes with, with clarity and I just, and, and he's a wonderful, godly man, uh, which means his wife.

Is all of that and more. Um, but Tom is one who's really big on seeing. What would be called a castic structure or a chiasm, and you might, some of you know what [00:16:00] that is. Bill Young, uh, who still watches this class a lot, they've moved to Denver, but, uh, we were saw them I think right before Christmas, and he and Anne.

And they were talking to us and Bill says, you know, there's a Chism here, da da da da da. I said, what? And he said, just wanted you to know I paid attention in class all those years. So some of you may not know this, and for some you do, but for some it may be a reminder. There is a Greek letter that looks like our ex, it is the letter Kai.

And that if you were a modern Greek, you'd pronounce it key, and I guess you'd say key is, but nobody does that. Uh, in, in, in seminary, they shouldn't do that. But a chiasm is an ancient literary device where you present ideas in one order and then beep, beep beep, you back it up in reverse order. So it's like, okay, I'm gonna go to this far.

Then I'm gonna [00:17:00] back it back up to where I started. It's like the X I'm gonna go down and then I'm going right back to the start. You can fold that X in half either way, and that's a chiasm. So sometimes it's represented like this. I have thought A, and then I have thought B, and then I have thought C, and then.

I go back to thought B, and then I go back to thought A, see, it's like that X, it's, it's works. And then it goes back, works. And then it goes back. And that is a chiasm. So if we were to put it up here on the letter, you've got thought A, you've got thought B, you've got say thought, C, and then you go back to B, and then you go back to a.

That's a chiasm. [00:18:00] Now it doesn't have to be A, B, C, B, A, sometimes it's just A B, BA, which also, uh, was a pop group in the seventies. Abba. Um, it's also not a bad report card for some people, uh, A, B, BA. But, um, it's the same principle. You, so there's not magic in, oh, it's a, B, C. Ba. And when you have a chiasm like this, generally you know that the center point is the point of emphasis you've driven to the center and then backed back up.

So that center point in a chiasm is your point of emphasis. If it's an A, B, C, B, A, look to the C. If it's A B, B, A, look to the B, but you're emphasizing the center. You with me? Yes. Let me give you some examples. I'm gonna [00:19:00] give you some easy examples. 'cause Paul's is not an easy example, but here are some easy ones.

Let me give you one. That's an A, B, C, C, ba. Genesis nine, six. Whoever sheds the blood of man by man shall his blood be shed for God made man in his image. Now, if you're reading this in Hebrew. You've got Chopek as the first word. A and chopek means to pour out, uh, um, or, or to spill. Okay. Chopek dom is the Hebrew word for blood.

That's sure. B. So chopek dom. Ha. Adam is, see that? Ignore the, the first letter, that's just the, in Hebrew adamo is this, by the way, Adamo, you should all know. Let me pronounce it differently. Adam [00:20:00] Adamo means man. Adam was the first. Adam, he's the first. Adamah was the first Adam. Man was the first man. So what do we have?

You've got chopek, whoever pours out or spills the blood of man, um, ignore the, that first letter that just means by, or it's a preposition type thing. But, but here's the word. A dam. A dom. A dom, Adam. Adam Dom, you see, you can, even if you don't know Hebrew letters, you can see it's the same word. So you've got another C right here.

So you've got A, B, C, C, and then B uh, that end that it just means his blood. [00:21:00] So that's the word for blood B. And then this is a verb form of spill. I think it's a nial, if I'm looking correctly. Uh, a, uh, Isha. P. And so you've literally got A, B, C, B, A, B, C, C, B, A. The exact same words just flip flopped. A, B, C, C, B, A.

Whoever sheds the blood of man by man, uh, blood of man by man. Shall his blood be shed?

It's a chiasm. Now, in a chiasm, where do we look for the emphasis? In the middle and the middle here is man. The middle is man. So the [00:22:00] point that God's making, when God gives this statement. Whoever sheds the blood of man by man shall his blood be shed is putting an emphasis on the humanness. And you see that in the final clause.

The key clause in the Hebrew, because God made man ha Adam in his image. Um, in, in the Hebrew, it's because in the image God made the man, so he's saying, yes, I'm emphasizing man, but not because man in his self is something special, because man's made in the image of God and that's why spilling the blood is bad.

That's why we should treasure human life. We should never read that verse and just read past it and think of Cain [00:23:00] Slaying Abel. We should never read that verse and read past it, and just think of murder. We should read that verse, and we should realize that every human being is made in the image of God and God cares about them.

And how we treat them is a reflection of how we should be treating God. So we care for those who are hurt. We care for those who are needy.

There are needy, hurt people in this world, and we can do three things.

We can help 'em, we can ignore 'em, not me, or heaven forbid, we can pray upon them. And what scripture is teaching from the very earliest pages is humanity is made in God's image, so we should be treating humanity accordingly. And that's the [00:24:00] chiasm there. That's the punch behind that. Let me give you a second Castic example this from the teachings of Jesus.

Look what Jesus says in Matthew 23. Whoever exalts. Himself will be, himself, will be humbled. Whoever humbles himself will be exalted. A, B, CC, B, A, whoever. Exalts will be exalted himself. Himself will be humbled. Or humbles himself. What's Jesus saying? The emphasis here is on the importance of humility. Jesus could have just said, be humble.

It's important. [00:25:00] And that's probably the way I'd have said it. 'cause I tend to deal with bluntness. Hey, be humble. It's important. Have a good day. Jesus doesn't do it that way. He uses a chiasm. Whoever lifts himself up is gonna be brought down. But whoever allows himself to be down will be lifted up. And he says it in a chiasm that emphasizes humility.

So you got two examples there. You got it. Now somebody out there is saying, well, why on earth did they bother doing that? Lemme give you two reasons. Number one. Yeah, not everybody had written Bibles, and so it's a marvelous memory aid when you speak in those forms. It is [00:26:00] something that's more easily remembered.

In a sense, you only gotta remember half as much because you get through it and then you back it back up. You know, it's, it's a, it's memorable, but what we're driving at also is it is an emphasis tool with some literary artistic ability. It's the difference between speaking, uh, just some, some people have a way with words.

When Ken Starr was alive, uh, I love to listen to Ken Starr speak because he had such a way with words his eloquence, sparkled. He was able to utilize laying language in, in ways that I found ent Trancing. [00:27:00] And there are some speakers like that. There are also some speakers who you listen to and you start trailing off after a little bit because it's just kind of, um, a little, little more dull.

Well, some of our biblical writers under the, the gifting of the Holy Spirit and direction of the Holy Spirit, they wrote in ways that are, are beautiful linguistically, and we shouldn't just. Read it as words on a page. We should also appreciate the majesty and the artistic nature of God's word. Do you remember in the Old Testament when Moses is getting instructions from God on how to make the robe for the high priest, God tells him how to make it in excruciating detail.

Tells him to do double stitching around the collar so it won't so easily tear when you take it on and off and it'll last. It tells him to [00:28:00] put pomegranates around the hymn. Now, some people will try to oversize that in my mind and say, well, the pomegranate represents the, the no is he made it pretty. Can we not just look around us at creation?

Go look at a sunset. God makes it pretty. Go. Go look at a sunrise. God makes it pretty. That God has artistic beauty. There's not a human being alive that doesn't have beauty within them somewhere because God's responsible for 'em. Oh, don't get me wrong, some people are, are Ming and marring what God did, but it doesn't change the fact that every human being.

Made in the image of God bears an artistic beauty about who they are. So that's [00:29:00] why. Now let's look at the chiasm. I'm gonna read through it. You may not pick it up, don't worry about it. Not all the scholars agree it's even there, but I think it is. I think it's very, very there. It's just more complicated than the simple examples I gave you.

So we're gonna read it and then we're gonna dissect it, alright? Because the dissection is what gives us the punch. Um, whoops. Those who live according to the flesh, set their minds on things of the flesh. Those who live according to the spirit set their minds on things of the spirit. To set the mind on the flesh is death.

To set the mind on the spirit is life and peace for the mind that's set on the flesh is hostile to God for it doesn't submit to God's law. Indeed it cannot. Those who are in the flesh. I cannot, please God. [00:30:00] That's the chiasm. It's an A, BC, BA chiasm. Here it is broken out in Castic form and then we'll look at it.

A, there are two kinds of people in this world, my friend, be there are two mindsets. With these two kinds of people and see, there are two outcomes for the two mindsets for the two kinds of people. And we know now if this is truly a chiasm, Paul wants us to see the emphasis in the outcome in the c. The two outcomes.

So let's break that apart and put it like this because I think it's easier for us to show a [00:31:00] two kinds of people. B two mindsets C, two outcomes. Let's start with the A. Two kinds of people. We see this in verse five and verse eight in verse five. We read about those who live according to the flesh.

Contrasted to those who live according to the spirit. And so we have two kinds of people set out there in verse A. I mean in verse uh, uh, five A in the chiasm. In verse eight, he talks about those who are in the flesh cannot please God with an implied those in the spirit can. So you've got two kinds of people, those according to the flesh.

Are those according to the spirit. Now, if you look at that first verse, for those who live according to the flesh, those who live according to the spirit, he doesn't give [00:32:00] you an option. Three, you got two options. It's not, there's no middle ground here. You, you can't straddle the fence on this one. You either gonna live according to the flesh or you're gonna live according to the spirit.

Paul doesn't say find some nice neutral ground.

He wants, he, he wants you to understand there's a, a choice here, a dichotomy, a cho, a true dichotomy, not a false one. You can make a choice those who live according to the flesh. Selfishness self-interest, and those who live according to the spirit, godliness and godly interest. And those are the two kinds of people.

Now, he says, those who are in the [00:33:00] flesh cannot please God. Why? Because flesh orientation is by definition the way Paul's using it. Self-directed. I cannot. You cannot simultaneously be self-directed and God pleasing. Say, well, I don't know. I'm self-directed, but I'm doing pretty good. I'm doing a lot of good things.

That's not the point. You can do a lot of good things. Lemme tell you something, I got a tree. It is a good looking tree. It is got a pretty trunk. It's got these gorgeous, gorgeous limbs that produce this gorgeous, gorgeous tree. And you know what kind of tree it is? It's an oak tree. Live. Oak tree. [00:34:00] Gorgeous, gorgeous.

Now I'd love to have an apple tree there, so I'll tell you what I'm gonna do. I am gonna go to HEB and I'm gonna buy me a bag of apples. I'm gonna buy me some string. These are gonna be granny smith apples. 'cause I like 'em. They're green, they're tart, they make a good pie. Maybe honey crisp. I'll do honey crisp.

They're kind of an not a red apple. I don't have a red color. That's my problem. I shouldn't have chose apples. Um. No, I want a lemon tree.

I want a lemon tree. So I'm gonna go to HEB. I'm gonna buy me a, my mom has a lemon tree. I love it. I'm gonna buy me a bag of lemons. I'm gonna go out to that oak tree. And do you know what I'm gonna do? I'm going to [00:35:00] hang me a bunch of lemons on that tree.

You know why? Because I want a lemon tree. Now does that gonna give me a lemon tree? No, that's gonna gimme an oak tree with lemons tape to it. When Jesus said by their fruit, you will know them. Don't know that to be a lemon tree. Just 'cause I hung a bunch of lemons on it. Is a oak tree with lemons hung on it.

That's the thing about the flesh. You can do good things, but that doesn't please God if you're doing 'em self-directed.

It's, it's a tree. Well, yeah, but it's a lemon. I got fruit from the tree. Yeah, but you're not a lemon tree. You're a oak tree with lemons you cannot face north and south at the same time. [00:36:00] Just can't do it. You can't live to please yourself and live to please God. You cannot live a self-directed life and, and, and be living by the spirit of God.

Just can't do it. All right, so the two kinds of people is the a. Let's look at the be. There are two mindsets. Those who live according to the flesh set their minds on things of the flesh, but those who live according to the spirit set their minds on things of the spirit. That's verse five. So you've got two different mindsets here, and the mind that's set on the flesh.

Verse seven is hostile to God. It doesn't submit itself to God's law. It cannot. And the implication, again, for the spirit is that those with set on the spirit can. [00:37:00] Now, let's break this apart for a moment because there's an important verb that Paul's using. So I'm bringing up this screen for verse five.

Those who live according to the flesh set that that means self-directed, set their minds on things that please them, that satisfy them, that are oriented by them, that are prioritized by them. But those who live according to the Spirit by God's direction, set their minds on things that are God directed on his priorities, on his will, on what he wants.

Amen. Now, the reason I wanted to bring it back up here is because f oh is this Greek verb that's translated, set their mind. Ello means it, it, it reflects an attitude. It reflects an opinion. It's not a fleeting thought. [00:38:00] It's your, it's your default setting. It's, it's, it's, it's that attitude that's, that's deeply rooted in you.

Let's look at it this way. Um, I thought I had something, maybe I did not put this slide in here. Hold on. I gotta get close to c. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Let me get this out of the way. Okay. Here's your example. If I were to get out of PowerPoint on my computer and just pull up a web browser, just hit Safari as the web browser, I generally use.

If I were to pull up Safari, I did it this morning before class. I just took a screenshot, show you what my screen looks like. Here it is. This is my default page. It's Yahoo. I know you'd be saying, why would you choose Yahoo as a default page? I did it because of these yahoos I grew up with in Lubbock. Um,[00:39:00]

I did it because I got tired of every other webpage that I've used before is a default page. I've had tons, but this is my current one, so I pull this up. Now I can go to other websites. I can go check out any number of, I mean the, the web is at my disposal, but that's my homepage. That's my in computer speak default setting.

That's just where I go to. That's just what comes up and that's fto. When Paul says, if you set your mind on this versus set your mind on that, he's not talking about just a deliberate decision. He's talking about where your default mode is.

Now we can train our default mode. We can work on our default mode, but I wanna talk to you [00:40:00] about what Paul's saying and what he's not saying. So here's what he's not saying. Paul is not saying, your random thoughts are always. Directed to God. You'll have random thoughts that come into your brain that aren't anymore.

God, you want to take those thoughts captive. He's not talking about things that might just pop into your head. There's an enemy out there. We live in a world of of craziness. And a lot of stuff will pop into your head. That's not what he's talking about. What Paul is talking about is your default orientation.

What is your purpose? Where are you driving? Where? What is your motivation behind life? Where is your habitual thought pattern? And he wants it to be on the spirit, on God's things, not on your own. Because if we're gonna see things of the flesh and compare it to things of the spirit, [00:41:00] I tried to make it just blunt, simple.

Here it is. Things of the flesh. What can I achieve? Can I beat two of the biggest companies in the history of the United States? No, in the history of civilization, it's how big can I do that? Facebook and Google. What can I do that's of the flesh? How can I succeed? How can I do this? This Wednesday will be a a, a frenzy day at court because I'm set to cross examine Mark Zuckerberg, one of the richest people in the history of the world, one of the most powerful people in the history of the world.

How can I succeed? Do I really wanna be asking that question?

What do I want? I can [00:42:00] handle this. All of those thoughts are things of the flesh, my performance, my reputation, my goals, and that's not the way we're to walk. That is not to be my default orientation, and it's not to be yours. This is things of the spirit. What does God want?

How can God be glorified? What is God doing? God, I need your help because we're looking at his will, his kingdom. His glory. That's the walk of the spirit. Do you see why these can't be, you can't face north and south at the same time. What's [00:43:00] gonna be your default? Are you gonna live your life asking these questions by this compass point or this one?

Take your pick, but you can't do both of them.

Those who live according to the flesh, set their minds on things of the flesh. Those who live according to the spirit set their minds on things of the spirit. The mind that's set on the flesh is hostile to God. It doesn't submit to God's law. Indeed, it cannot break that verse apart for a moment. Hostile fra in the Greek.

RA means enmity at war. It's, it's not, oh, they don't get along. No. It's active opposition. Think about opposing armies on a battlefield. If you're thinking self-directed and you're living outta your flesh instead of out of the spirit, you are opposite. You are [00:44:00] opposing where you should be, and the mind that's set on the flesh is not only hostile.

It does not submit to God law. Whoo. Who pot is in the present tense. It's talking about a continuous, ongoing refusal to submit. Is is, is just, is just there all the time. It's there, but it doesn't submit to God's law. Indeed, Paul says it cannot. It doesn't have the power to it. It is not possible. You cannot possibly submit to God's law if you're trying to do it on your own strength, by your own power and your own wherewithal.

It's just not possible.

Two kinds of people, two kinds of mindsets, and most importantly, in the center of the Chiasm, two [00:45:00] outcomes. Let's look at those. They're in the center verse to set the mind on the flesh is death. To set the mind on the spirit is life and peace. It's that easy. Two outcomes. By the way, if you're reading this in the Greek, there's no verb.

None. There's no verb.

I for to set the mind. On the flesh death, but to set the mind on the spirit, life and peace. There's no verb. It's like it's a mathematical formula, it's just an equation. It's just like put an equal sign in there. A flesh mindset equals death. Spirit mindset equals life and peace. It's that simple. [00:46:00] It's two plus two equals four, and this is a present reality.

This is for real. This is the way it is, and this is what it means. Those armies in opposition on a battlefield. If you wanna have a flesh mindset, what do you get? Death. You get alienation distance from God, emptiness, futility. But if you will set your mind on the spirit and ask about God and what God wants and live by his power, you will be infused with life.

You will flourish in what you do. You will have a wholeness in your sense of life, and you will have a deep shalom, peace. And that's the chiasm. Now, next week, my plan is to deal with the identification, so I'm just gonna warm you up with these [00:47:00] verses and then we'll do points for home. We're out. You, however, are not in the flesh.

You're in the spirit. If in fact, the spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who doesn't have the spirit of Christ doesn't belong to him. But if Christ is in you, although the body's dead because of sin, the spirit is life because of righteousness. If the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead, will also give life to your mortal bodies through His spirit who dwells in you and that we'll talk about next week.

God willing points for home. Your mindset sets, your life,

your orientation, the mindset on what you want. What you can do, what you think is what should be done, your priorities, that mind [00:48:00] is death and all that it entails, but a mindset on God's wishes and God's seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and everything else is taken care of. That's the way Jesus said it.

The mindset on the flesh is death. The mindset on the spirit is life and peace. So what does that mean? Pay attention to your default page. 'cause some of us need the hand of God to start maneuvering, uh, our default page.

And let me give you some examples of how you might do that each morning when you wake up or when you face a problem, whatever it is. The challenge is to say, God, I need you not, I got this when I was growing up. We sang a hymn in church. [00:49:00] I don't remember the number, but it was like before 100. Charles Mickey, probably, mom probably remembers, Catherine May remember the number I need thee every hour.

Stay thou nearby. Temptations lose their power when thou art and I, I need thee, oh, I need thee every hour. I need thee. Oh, bless me, Lord, and my savior. I come to thee, I need you, God, every minute of the day. That's what we want our mindset to be when we wake up. Look, I understand that my wife doesn't wake up until after the first cup of coffee.

She's moving, but she's not awake. So whenever you wake up, [00:50:00] whatever that moment is where you're finally awake, ask yourself for the day. What does God want? What does God want today? Don't say, what can I do today? So what does God want?

And if we do that, we will find we are walking by the spirit. Our default page will begin to be what it should be, and we will find a victory. We will find a peace. We will find a life and a joy that we can never find anywhere else. Amen. Amen. Amen. I mean, bless you in the name of Jesus and I apologize that I've got to teach and run.

Um, I can't really, uh, visit much to, it's, uh, these are hectic days, but, uh, I'm so glad I got to come home and see you guys. Thank y'all so much for being [00:51:00] here. It means the world to me. Um. And shout out to Pastor David last week at the, toward the end of the week, I realized I had no shot of getting here.

Um, we had some issues come up at court, so I'm sorry I wasn't here last week. Lord, in the name of Jesus, I ask your blessings on all who hear this message that you would touch their hearts, that you would reorient their default page, that you would bring to them a recognition that you want to infuse them not just with your spirit, but with the life and joy and purpose and meaning that come from your spirit.

Lord, you've given us your spirit. Forgive us when we turn the other way back to who we were because we want to live by your spirit Lord, as your children. In Jesus' name, amen.