The Spirit of Life

Romans 8:6-11

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.

9 You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ.10 But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives life because of righteousness. 11 And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you.

We have all heard the cliche: “There is only two guarantees in life, death and taxes.”  I don’t think Paul would argue against this cliche because he too says our bodies are subject to death.  Christian or not, our bodies will pass away some day but Paul is writing to the Romans to tell them that this bodily death does not have to be the end-all-be-all.  He is helping them, and us, understand that there is more to life than the air we breathe that keeps our bodies alive and well.  We are more than the bodies we live in.  Our spirit is what continues to live on after our bodies have failed.  What I appreciate most about Paul and his writings is how his words seem to transcend time.  He could just have easily wrote this passage yesterday instead of nearly 2,000 years ago.  We see that the Romans struggled just as we do today with bodily death.  Even as Christians, we do not have an urgent ambition to die.  We want to live as long on this earth as we can.  Death is scary and it is something that none of us want to face any time soon even though we believe bodily death is not the end.  Even though I believe in heaven and life eternal, I do not want to let go of this life for many, many years.  The Romans felt the same way we do today and Paul is helping them and us to understand that our spirit lives on through eternity.  When I say that our spirit lives on through eternity, I mean it in two different ways.

First, the most obvious, that our spirit will enter into heaven and worship God throughout eternity.  But the second way of understanding eternity is much different and not so obvious.  For example, Griffin will never have a memory Frances Keeney, he will not know what she looked like, what she sounded like, or how good her beef burgers were but he will know her... How?  Because of the way she impacted me, my mother, my brother, my father, my grandma and many other members of my family.  Grandma Francie’s spirit lives on through me, my mother and father, my brother, my grandma and many others.  He will never know Frances personally, yet many of my best characteristics were formed by her.  I learned what hard work looked like by watching a 70 year old woman push mow her yard.  I learned honesty and integrity by being caught stealing a piece of Double-Bubble gum and her making me go back to the store and paying for it and yet she never told my parents.  I learned about faith, even though she never forced it.  These characteristics and many more were taught to me through her actions and are pillars of who I am.  In this way, her spirit lives on through me.  Most likely, we all have someone who has impacted us in this way and they have helped form who we are today.  As Christians, the Spirit of God should also be one of those pillars.  Just as hard work, honesty and integrity were learned behaviors from Grandma Francie, so too should love, mercy, grace and forgiveness be learned behaviors from God.  We may have been shown these behaviors through others in our life but they are exemplified through Christ’s death and resurrection.  These characteristics and behaviors shown to me through Grandma Francie were passed on to me and my hope is that I pass them onto my children and their children.  So in this way, her spirit lives on through eternity in heaven and here on earth.  One of my favorite movies is Gladiator and the best quote from that movie is from Maximus when he is talking to his army.  He said, “What we do in life... echoes in eternity.”  How true!  What we do in this life is passed onto those whom we know and some that we don’t.  

 Paul’s letter to the Romans and our snippet of that letter we are using this morning sums up the Christian conundrum: we are confused about God’s will, not always being able to fulfill it, and so we fall short.  In other words, it’s like being stuck between knowing what to do and not being able to do it.  It would be similar to me trying to dunk a basketball.  I know that if I jump high enough, I can dunk the basketball.  I know what it takes, and so many others make it look so easy, yet I cannot do it.  I want to, I could work really hard but the likelyhood of me ever dunking a basketball is right about 0.  Many people who run marathons never set any sort of record yet they keep doing it.  I don’t understand it either but they do.  Our faith follows both of these examples in the sense that we seem to be striving for the attainable perfection of that faith.  So why strive at all?  The most selfless thing we can do is strive for the benefit of another.  This reminds me of the story of Cayden and Connor Long from Massachusetts.  The brothers competed in a kids triathlon but Cayden has cerebral palsy so Connor, who is 9,  pushed and pulled his brother through the 2.5 mile course coming in second to last place.  Connor didn’t do this for himself, he did it so his brother could compete just as other children do.  An act of complete selflessness.  Our faith should be maintained in the same way: we do not always actively pursue our faith simply for our own benefit.  Connor’s sacrifice lives on through eternity in giving hope where it seemed lost.  Christ offers us that same opportunity.  Christ offers us hope, he shows us what love, forgiveness and sacrifice looks likes.  We know we will never achieve perfect faith and understanding but we have to try.  We will never conquer this Christian conundrum but we must try, not for the sole purpose of getting to heaven but so that others may find faith in our successes and failures.

As Holy Week approaches, I am asking you to look at the actions of Jesus in a different light.  What Jesus did was selfless and very painful and when we look at the events of Holy Week we see a man, who was in the spirit of God, willing to anything for God.  We see actions that have echoed through time.  But we must make an important note of Paul says in his letter to the Romans: “...The Spirit gives life because of righteousness.”  It is the Spirit of God that gives us life.  It is not Jesus dying on the cross that Paul says gives us life for God loved us before Jesus died on the cross.  It is not through Jesus we are justified because God is the definition of love and there is no need for God to justify that love.  Jesus sacrificed out of that love.  Jesus did not die on the cross to take our place there, not to show us how to live so that we could merit or deserve God’s love, not to satisfy some strange sense of justice that God could only love us if a perfect sacrifice took place.  Jesus died on the cross to show us that God already loved us.  And more importantly, the resurrection showed us that God’s love is more powerful than anything, including death.

When I was 15, I was involved in a car accident, well that’s what it was called anyways.  I was at the yield sign, that is now a stop sign, that is just west of the school and I was stopped and pulled out into the road a ways so I could look to the west because there was a softball game and a lot of cars parked on the street.  As I started to make a slow left turn, a kid on a moped came flying into my front bumper.  Thankfully, he was ok and I got my license taken away for awhile but my parents never really got mad nor was I punished and I took the whole event very hard.  As I reflect about that situation now, my parents loved me before, during and after that whole thing.  I did not have to do anything to earn that love back after the mistake I had made.  I did not have to somehow justify myself to them.  They still loved me.  So why did that situation have to happen in the first place was the question I asked myself so many times.  Did it happen so I could use it in this analogy?  Did it happen so I could see the love they had for me?  I don’t know for sure but it happened... Just as Christ dying on the cross happened and God loved us before, during and after his death on the cross.  Sometimes we need an example of that love so we can see it for what it is.  Could Jesus’ death happened differently?  Yes, of course it could have.  Could I have turned down a different road?  Yes, of course I could have.  There are events in this life that are meant to show us glimpses of God’s glory and through the resurrection of Christ, we get a good look into the love of God that has always existed.  

  Our scripture this morning tells us that we are in the realm of the spirit if the Spirit of God lives in us and 

goes onto goes on to say that if the Spirit of Christ is not with us, then we do not belong to Christ.  Just as I am 

with the spirit of my Grandma Francie, so too I need to be aware of the Spirit of God and Christ in my life.  A 

spirit of love, mercy, grace and forgiveness should be evident to all of those whom I know.  We are called to 

live lives according to that spirit so we can pass it on to others.  Verse 11 says, “And if the Spirit of him who 

raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal 

bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you.”  As we prepare to sing the hymn of invitation, I encourage you 

to take a moment to think about whether or not you are in the Spirit of God.  If not, say a prayer asking that 

Spirit to become a part of who you are.”  In closing, God loves you.  He always has and He always will.  So 

now the question becomes what will you do with that love?  Amen.