START CONVERESATION
- If you opened a restaurant, what kind of food would you serve?
- What’s the best show currently on TV?
- What does it mean to live according to the Spirit?
- In what ways are we “co-heirs with Christ”?
START TALKING
We always want to try and do the right thing! One way is to ask the question “What would Jesus do?” Whatever you think Jesus would do you try to imitate him. But, that can be very frustrating. We don’t always know what Jesus would do or we know we cannot do what Jesus always did. The better way is to surrender our lives to the spirit who lives inside of us.
The Frightful Flight of the Believer
Romans 8:5-11 is ALL about how mindset determines the height of your flight. And, a “spirit lead” mindset can determine your lifestyle and your destiny. Paul is contrasting between a “mind set on sin” and a “mind set on following the Holy Spirit.”
READ ROMANS 8:5-8
5 Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. 6 The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace. 7 The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. 8 Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God. Romans 8:5-8
THE MESSAGE
Those who think they can do it on their own end up obsessed with measuring their own moral muscle but never get around to exercising it in real life. Those who trust God’s action in them find that God’s Spirit is in them—living and breathing God! Obsession with self in these matters is a dead end; attention to God
leads us out into the open, into a spacious, free life. Focusing on self is the opposite of focusing on God. Anyone completely absorbed in self ignores God, ends up thinking more about self than God. That person ignores who God is and what he is doing. And God isn’t pleased at being ignored.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:
- What two kinds of people are referred to in Romans 8:5? What is the difference between the minds of these two kinds of people (Romans 8:6)?
A mind set on sin produces a deadly lifestyle. Think of your failures or mistakes as dead leaves falling off trees. During the fall, leaves fall everywhere. According to The Arbor Expert website dead leaves do not fall off trees, they get pushed off. If you don’t believe that, find a branch that’s fallen off a tree. You will find the leaves are still attached. And, those leaves won’t ever separate from that branch. Leaves fall when “life” inside the tree begins producing new leaves. The branch begins hardening, then “closes” and the tree’s sprouting process will literally push the old dead leaves off the branch.
There’s a great lesson for the believer. We can spend a lot of our time trying to push off a lot of things in our lives we shouldn’t have such as: bad thoughts, bad deeds or bad habits. The easiest way is to allow the life of Jesus in us to push them away. It is vital that we allow him to replace those bad, dead leaves with the “new fruit” of the Holy Spirit.
The Abundant Flight of the Believer
An airplane has several items inside the cockpit to assist the pilot. Some of these are the control panel, the control wheel and the throttle levers. The success of whether a plane successful completes a flight plan is determined by how the pilot uses the tools available.
There is a connection between our ability to “complete our flight plan” and our submitting to the Holy Spirit. The key to the Christian life is not looking at Jesus and trying to imitate him. The key to the Christian life is surrendering to Jesus and letting him have the controls.
1. The Flight Instruments
But if God himself has taken up residence in your life, you can hardly be thinking more of yourself than of him. Anyone, of course, who has not welcomed this invisible but clearly present God, the Spirit of Christ, won’t know what we’re talking about. Romans 8:9, THE MESSAGE
Before becoming a believer, we often use worldly resources to assist in our daily walk. We depend on the things we can visibly see or touch. But once we become a follower of Christ, we fly using a different panel. That panel is called faith. Hebrews 11:1 says, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”
Doesn’t that sound attractive? Who doesn’t want to live a life that’s full of tranquility, security, serenity, peace with god and with the peace of god? The only way you can do that is to have your mind set on the spirit. That kind of mindset produces the right kind of lifestyle.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:
- Why is it important that the Holy Spirit indwells believers? What will the Holy Spirit do for believers?
- What is the overriding characteristic of those who are controlled by the Spirit (Romans 8:9)?
- Can anyone be a genuine Christian and not have the Holy Spirit (Romans 8:9)?
2. The Control Wheel
But for you who welcome him, in whom he dwells—even though you still experience all the limitations of sin—you yourself experience life on God’s terms. It stands to reason, doesn’t it, that if the alive-and-present God who raised Jesus from the dead moves into your life, he’ll do the same thing in you that he did in Jesus, bringing you alive to himself? Romans 8:10
For the believer to get to the “life” Paul is writing about, there must be a point where we give up the “control wheel” to Jesus. At that point we are the co-polit. We must yield to him and allow him to live his life through us. Then suddenly, something wonderful happens. We feel “life” entering our spiritual wings and they begin to spread. And before we know it, we are in flight, “soaring with wings like eagles”. (Isaiah 40:31)
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:
- When Paul refers to the Christian’s body as being “dead” (Romans 8:10), do you think he is talking about being physically dead or Christians who are no longer living under the control of their bodies?
- What does it mean that the Spirit will give life to our mortal (dead) bodies?
3. Throttle Levers
When God lives and breathes in you (and he does, as surely as he did in Jesus), you are delivered from that dead life. With his Spirit living in you, your body will be as alive as Christ’s! Romans 8:11 THE MESSAGE
For too many the Christian life is just getting Jesus in our heart and having our sins forgiven so we can go to Heaven when you die. Unfortunately, you’re missing the point! The Christian life is an experience a joy that is unspeakable and a peace beyond understanding. It is an exciting experience of “staying in step with the spirit” (Galatians 5:25). It is KNOWING that our walk is powered by resurrection power. The question is this: What are you waiting for? “Throttle up” and let’s see what this “life” can do. I promise, you will be amazed and what can do in a “life” surrender to Him.
START PRAYING
Dear God, thank You for how consistently You work in our lives. As we go into each day, please help us to be an encouraging presence in the lives of others. Help us to trust that what I do matters, and that You can use us in simple, ordinary actions to make an eternal impact. In Jesus’ name, AMEN!
