Seeing with the Spirit
QUOTES FOR REFLECTION
“You and all of your new perspective now
Wish I could shut it in a closet
And drag you back down.”
~Noah Kahan, “New Perspective”
“I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”
~C.S. Lewis (1898-1963), British scholar, writer, and Christian apologist, in “Is Theology Poetry?”
“All those who are ‘in the Messiah’ are covered, shielded, protected, like the Israelites sheltering under the blood of the Passover lamb. That’s Romans 3. They are declared to be Abraham’s true family, Romans 4. They are therefore the true humanity, Romans 5. And they set off on their journey through the Red Sea as newly-freed slaves, as in Romans 6; they find themselves at Mount Sinai in Romans 7, only to discover in Romans 8 that what the law could not do God has done in his Son and by his Spirit, and they are on the way home through the wilderness to their promised inheritance. This is the new Exodus.”
~N.T. Wright, New Testament scholar and Anglican bishop
“Here again [in Romans 8:15], it seems that Paul is describing the situation of his Christian readers in Rome by using exodus metaphors. They should not be afraid and desire to return to ‘the house of slavery,’ as did the Israelites in the desert. … Instead, they should continue to recognize the leading of the Spirit of God, which confirms their status as ‘sons,’ causes them to cry to God as Father, and shows the way to freedom.”
~Richard B. Hays, New Testament scholar, in “Pneumatology: The Spirit in Romans 8”
“When Pharaoh drew near, the people of Israel lifted up their eyes, and behold, the Egyptians were marching after them, and they feared greatly. And the people of Israel cried out to the Lord. They said to Moses, ‘Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us in bringing us out of Egypt? Is not this what we said to you in Egypt: “Leave us alone that we may serve the Egyptians”? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.’
And Moses said to the people, ‘Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the Lord.’”
~Exodus 14:10-13 (ESV)
SERMON PASSAGE
Romans 8:1-17 (ESV)
Romans 8 (ESV)
1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. 3 For God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh, 4 in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. 5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. 6 For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. 7 For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot. 8 Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
9 You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. 10 But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 11 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.
12 So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. 13 For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. 14 For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. 15 For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” 16 The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him.
1 Corinthians 10 (NIV)
1 For I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers and sisters, that our ancestors were all under the cloud and that they all passed through the sea….
5 Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them; their bodies were scattered in the wilderness.
6 Now these things occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did.
Exodus 16 (NIV)
2 In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. 3 The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died by the Lord’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death.”
Numbers 13 (NIV)
30 Then Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said, “We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it.”
31 But the men who had gone up with him said, “We can’t attack those people; they are stronger than we are.” 32 And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, “The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size. 33 We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.”
Exodus 14 (ESV)
11 They said to Moses, “Is it because there are no graves in Egypt that you have taken us away to die in the wilderness? What have you done to us in bringing us out of Egypt? 12 Is not this what we said to you in Egypt: ‘Leave us alone that we may serve the Egyptians’? For it would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians than to die in the wilderness.” 13 And Moses said to the people, “Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the Lord”