Our Thoughts Can Limit the Holy Spirit’s Activity

Join Dr. David Jeremiah to learn how our mindset affects our spiritual life as we study the difference between the flesh and the Spirit.
“In Scripture we see example after example of God coming alongside people who felt weak and inadequate—who felt the absence of the strength needed for the assignment they’d been given—and calling them to be strong. In fact, there are more than thirty occasions in the Bible where God commands someone to be strong.”
― Dr. David Jeremiah

What If one Chapter could change your life?
What if there was one passage of scripture that allowed you to leave the past behind you to look beyond your present challenges and provided the hope for a brighter tomorrow.
Turning the page to these powerful words can turn a page in your life, giving you the confidence you need.
For every step you take words that contain God’s desire to breathe renewed life into you through a divine promise just waiting to be claimed, a promise that you will never be abandoned, never be alone and always be cared for a promise that you are chosen and called by God.
How would your life change if you knew you could endure every trial that nothing could stand in your way knowing there’s nothing God wouldn’t do for you?
Is it too hard to believe that such an arrangement of simple words composed, beautifully authored divinely nearly 2000 years ago could be so great.
What is this chapter? Romans eight, the greatest chapter in the Bible.
Hello, I’m David Jeremiah. Today. I am taking you back to your school days.
Do you remember having an essay assignment to compare and contrast two different people or views or periods of history, we gain a better picture of two things when we can compare and contrast them with each other.
And that’s what Paul does in verses five through 11 of Romans chapter eight, a chapter of the Bible that can change your life.
We’re on the second message of a series called Romans eight, the greatest chapter in the Bible.
And today we’ll follow Paul as he compares and contrasts the flesh, our old human nature with the spirit, our new life empowered by the Holy Spirit.
I hope you’ll join me for today’s message as we explore the perils of the flesh, contrasted with the power of the spirit in the spirit and the flesh.
Here on turning point, the act of writing out scripture by hand is a powerful practice.
In fact, it is a command directly from God.
God understood how writing with your hand imprints the words on your mind.
And that’s why Doctor Jeremiah has created the written word journal, use the written word journal to write Paul’s wonderfully rich letter to the Romans word for word.
As you do record your thoughts, reflections, notes and prayers on the adjacent page.
Charting your personal journey with through the book of Romans, the Written Word journal is yours when you give a gift of any amount in support of this program, and if you give $60 or more, Dr Jeremiah will also send you his current teaching series Romans eight on CD or DVD, along with a correlating study guide or if you give generously to the ministry, you will receive the written word journal and a genuine letter Jeremiah study Bible in the new King James version.

Contact turning point today. Thank you for watching. Turning point.
Now, here is Doctor Jeremiah with his message, the spirit and the flesh Romans seven, which comes before the chapter we’re studying is all about what happens when we try to live life ourselves.
Interestingly enough, the whole chapter is full of words like I and me and my and then you come to Romans chapter eight.
And there’s a huge change because in Romans eight, those words kind of go away.
And the Holy Spirit shows up in Romans chapter 8, 19 times.
And throughout the epistle, Paul has always relied on this little teaching thing.
He’s going to do contrast, for instance, some places he talks about Adam and Christ, some place he talks about slavery and freedom, some places he talks about death and life.
But here in this chapter, he’s gonna talk about the difference between the flesh and the spirit.
And he’s going to teach us that how we respond to the Christian life with regard to these two things, the mental way that we go after this will determine everything about us as Christians going forward.
Now let me read the first three verses of our text which begins in verse five of Chapter eight.
And I want to talk with you as I read these verses about the mind of the spirit in you, please notice the words that I have set aside and color coded.
So you will understand the emphasis that Paul has in these few verses.
He said, those who live according to the flesh, set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the spirit, the things of the spirit for to be carnally or fleshly minded is death.
But to be spiritually minded is life and peace.
Because the fleshly mind is enmity against God for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be.
So then those who are in the flesh cannot please God four times in these verses.
The Apostle Paul uses the word mind to contrast two different ways of thinking.
It all starts in your mind says Paul, those who of the flesh think about fleshly things and those who are of the spirit think about things that please God.
In the first few parts of this passage, he actually uses a term which is really interesting.
He said they set their minds. It’s a Greek word that refers to the basic orientation of your whole system.
It’s your bent in life. It’s your thought patterns of the mind.
I wrote down another word in the margin of my notes. It’s your grid.
It’s how you open your mind up to things and, and that’s a word we all understand because of computers, it’s the grid, it’s how you look at things, how you look at things is everything, isn’t it?
It’s how you interpret them, how you come at them. What is your bent in life?
And Paul says you need to set your grid on spiritual things so that you look at life through a lens that isn’t just what’s going on in the world around you.
Now, Paul is not simply saying that people are either fleshly or spiritual because of how they think.
No, he is saying instead that people think about fleshly or spiritual things because of who they are.
You get to make a choice, you get to set the grid, you get to determine uh the ramifications of how you’re going to think about life and how you’re gonna go through life.
This is the message that Jesus tried to give to Nicodemus one day.
Remember he said to Nicodemus that which is born of the flesh is flesh, that which is born of the spirit is spirit, the fleshly mindset.
According to this passage of scripture, doesn’t mean that people who have that mindset or some sort of criminals or gross or vicious people, how many of you know, the flesh can be very educated the way you think about life.
If you don’t think about Godly things, you can still be refined and culture.
I know a lot of really refined culture people who wouldn’t know Jesus uh from a swear word.
But I want to help you understand what the word flesh means.
I told you it’s not the, the skin that’s hanging on your bones.
I mean, that’s a certain kind of flesh, but that’s not what Paul is talking about.
I, I found a little way to remember what the flesh is and I, and if I share this with you, it will probably help you remember and understand it.
So up on the screen, you have the word flesh. F les H. Here’s the little deal.
Take your pin and scratch out letter H. You got it. The letter H.
Let’s say that stands for him now, spell the word backwards.
And what is it spelled S E L F flesh is yourself without him.
Someone told me one time that your flesh is who you were before you got saved.
That’s a pretty good statement. You say you mean it’s possible for me as a Christian to go back and live my life the way I used to live before I got saved and live in the flesh.
Absolutely. And all of us have done it.
Have we not so flesh isn’t what’s hanging on your bones. Flesh is self centeredness.
Flesh is living your life without God. You can be a Christian. Listen to me and a practical atheist.
Did you know that you can be a Christian and live your life and you’re still a Christian.
But you’ve put God over here, maybe you’ve, maybe you’ve put him on a time warp and you’re gonna get to him when you get to be 80.
But you can be a Christian and not live like a Christian.
You can be a Christian and live a self centered fleshly life.
Oh, how easy it is for us.
Even as Christians when we fall in love with the Lord Jesus Christ because of what he’s done for us on the cross and paid the penalty for our sin and nothing more important to us in all the world when we first get saved, but to love him and thank him.
And then all of a sudden we get caught up in what’s going on around us and pretty soon and it’s about us Now, that’s the first mindset.
But notice Paul doesn’t stay there very long.
He goes on in Romans 8 to tell us about the spiritual mindset.
And that’s what I want to talk to you about because this is pretty exciting.
He says in verses five and six. But those who live according to the spirit.
In other words, they set their minds on the things of the spirit are spiritually minded and they have life and peace.
In other words, Christians should think differently. They dwell on the things of the spirit.
In verse six, Paul zeroes in on two particular descriptions of the spiritually minded person.
He says they’re full of life and they’re full of peace. Now.
I know that some people think if you’re really walking with the Lord and you’re walking in the spirit, you’re going to be sort of sober and sad and, you know, not enjoying life.
And the Bible says, if you have the Holy Spirit at the center and you’re walking in the spirit, you’re full of life.
The most exciting people I know are the people that I know are walking with the Lord and they’re excited because every day is an adventure and you don’t know what’s gonna happen next.
And you just can’t wait to see what God’s up to in your life because you’re walking in the spirit.
The Christian is a person who’s been made alive by God’s spirit.
And because of that spiritual matters now makes sense to them before you became a Christian, you were dead in sin.
Now you’re alive to a whole new world of reality and you’re at peace with yourself as never before.
That’s one of the most commonly stated results of becoming a Christian. I found peace.
I got rid of my guilt.
I realized that God is not mad at me, that God loves me and I’ve made peace with God.
There’s therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ, Jesus.
Remember that on more than one occasion, Jesus described this life that I’m talking about. On one occasion.
He said that he had come to give us this life and to give it to us more abundantly.
That’s life. And John 17 3, in his high priestly prayer, Jesus said this is eternal life that they may know you.
The only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. That’s what it means to be alive.
That’s what it means to truly live.
The Bible says, therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord, Jesus Christ, Romans 1417 says this the Kingdom of God.
Now listen to this. What is the Kingdom of God? What does it mean to be a Christian?
The Kingdom of God is righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. You’re a Christian.
So you can’t enjoy the things of the world because the Holy Spirit is gonna make you miserable. Right.
Right. You act like you’ve never been there.
And if you’re a Christian and you’re over here, you can’t really fully devote yourself to Jesus Christ because you got all the world pulling at you over here.
So what Paul is saying is when you get both feet on the same side of the fence and you get your grid, correct?
And you begin to think spiritually about life that doesn’t mean that you don’t have joy.
Let me tell you this. If you are a Christian and you know, you’re going to heaven and you know, your sins are all forgiven and you’re not guilty before God.
How can you not be full of joy. How can you not walk every day?
Just excited to see what God’s gonna do next.
Jesus says, when you get the Holy Spirit in your heart and we’re gonna talk about that in a moment.
He brings peace. I’ve been ruminating in history a little bit these last days, I guess you do that when you hit these special birthdays, thinking about life.
And Almost exactly at this particular time, 25 years ago, I was diagnosed with lymphoma, a type of cancer that at the time had a very poor survival rate.
Shortly after my diagnosis, I went to the mayo clinic and I was operated on immediately.
The surgery was called a laparotomy.
And really what it was is they cut me open from the stern like a fish.
After my surgery, I was taken to another floor to recover.
And I remember this, like it happened yesterday on this particular floor, the patient rooms were in a circle and the nurses station and desk for staff were in the middle.
And as soon as it was possible, the doctors told me that I should get up and try to walk.
So knowing this was an important part of my recovery, I pushed myself to do a full lap around the nurses station, starting at my room and passing every other patient’s room until my room came up again.
And then I went back in and got in bed. My goal that first day was one lap.
That’s all I wanted one lap.
And that was pretty challenging and I was barely able to finish it.
So the next day I decided I’m on two laps today.
My plan was to do one more each day and then I’d done the day before.
So I set out walking slowly around the circle by a strange coincidence, the doctor who had performed my surgery was dictating his notes about me when I shuffled by his desk, all I remember hearing him say was a pastor from California who has stage four large cell lymphoma cancer.
Now, that might not seem important to you.
But nobody had told me I had stage four cancer.
I had cancer, but I didn’t know I had stage four cancer.
I wasn’t even sure what that was, but I know it was worse than stage three.
Somehow I completed those two laps and got back to my room.
And I remember sitting there feeling really scared and overwhelmed.
But then that feeling completely left me and was replaced by another.
I realized I’m not in control of my life.
I told myself that, but the spirit of God is in control of me.
And a sense of what I can only describe as peace began to come over my heart.
I’m going to let God do his work and I’ll do mine.
My only thought was, well, tomorrow I’m doing three laps. I don’t know what you’re doing.
God, but I’m doing three laps tomorrow, right?
If things are bad on the outside, listen to me.
But the Holy Spirit is in charge of the inside. He will give you peace.
And the Bible says it’s peace that passes all understanding. Isn’t that true?
And, you know, you can’t understand that unless you’ve been there and you can’t tell somebody.
Oh, I’ve been where you’ve been. I know.
No, you don’t, you don’t know what I’ve been through because you haven’t been through what I’ve been through.
And I don’t know what you’ve been through.
But I know this when you go through something like that, that actually pulls with the very fabric of your life.
If the Holy Spirit is in your heart and you’re walking with the Lord, he will give you peace and it will be something like you can’t even explain to someone else.
And if you try to tell a non Christian about it, they’ll just look at you like you’re weird, you know.
So it’s how you think about things. It’s your mindset, it’s setting your mind.
Now, let me talk with you just a few moments about the measure of the spirit because in verses 9-11, this is what Paul says.
He says, you are not in the Flesh, but in the spirit.
If indeed the spirit of God dwells in you.
Now, if anyone does not have the spirit of Christ, he’s not his.
And if Christ is in you the body is dead because of sin.
But the spirit is life because of righteousness.
But if the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his spirit who dwells in you.
Now, beginning with this verse, Paul shifts from the third person to the second person.
It’s interesting, he’s gonna talk directly to his readers instead of about them.
He’s going to exhort them to acknowledge the Spirit in their lives.
And he begins by telling them that the Holy Spirit inhabits us verse nine.
But you are not in the flesh but in the spirit. If indeed the spirit of God dwells in you.
Now listen to this. If anyone does not have the spirit of Christ, he’s none of his.
I grew up in a culture where a lot of preachers preach that when you become a Christian, you get Christ.
But then you gotta have a second work of grace to get the Holy Spirit. You ever hear that?
Some people say, well, have you been baptized in the spirit? Yes, I have.
Every one of us has been baptized in the spirit.
Because the word of God says when you become a Christian spirit, baptism happens automatically imperceptibly in your life to be baptized in the spirit means you become a part of the body of Christ.
So let me just settle this once and for all. And then I’m gonna read this verse again.
You cannot be a Christian and not have the Holy Spirit. It’s impossible. Listen to what Paul said.
Now, if anyone does not have the spirit of Christ, that person is not his, you’re not a Christian.
If you’re a Christian, you have the Holy Spirit. Every Christian has the Holy Spirit.
Are you a Christian? Yes. Do you have Christ? Yes. Do you have the Holy Spirit? Absolutely.
Don’t let anybody come and tell you that if you’re a Christian, you need to go get the Holy Spirit.
Because listen to me, I wrote a book one time about this, a little pamphlet.
It was, it was called, this is the Holy Spirit original or optional equipment.
He’s original equipment. Amen. So you got the Holy Spirit. He dwells in you.
The acid test of being a Christian is the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit.
And Paul says that you can be certain of your salvation. If indeed the spirit of God dwells in you.
And the word dwell is a wonderful word, which means he’s at home in you.
So the first thing he wants you to know is that the Holy Spirit inhabits you.
You may not even know that.
And let me tell you if you don’t know the Holy Spirit is in you, you will never call upon him to help you.
Have you ever prayed in the morning Holy Spirit? This is gonna be a really tough day.
I’m not sure how I’m gonna get through this day, but I know you’re with me.
So guide me and direct me and help me through this day.
Holy Spirit, help me, not only does the Holy Spirit inhabit you, but Paul says he invigorates you verse 10.
And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteousness.
Paul does not deny the effect of our fallen nature. We all have a fallen nature.
We’re Christians, but we didn’t get rid of the old nature.
When we became Christians, we just got the new nature. There’s a more powerful agent working within us.
It’s called the Holy Spirit. And while outwardly, it may appear as if sin is having its decaying effect, there’s another force at work.
I love this verse in second Corinthians because it puts all of this in perspective.
It tells us where we should put our emphasis.
Here’s second Corinthians 4 16, the outward man is perishing but the inward man, the spirit is being renewed every day.
The Bible reminds us that even though we have been redeemed from the power of the flesh, we can still live fleshly lives.
If we don’t yield to the power of the Holy Spirit, we must let him control our lives or we will fall back into old patterns of sin and the flesh.
You see the Bible is so clear about this that we have to make a choice.
We’re Christians. Now, we know because of what Paul has said that we are Christians who have the Holy Spirit living in us.
Here’s the difference in Christians.
Some people have the Holy Spirit as a resident in their life and some people have the Holy Spirit as the president of their life, which are you notice third thing and this is really interesting.
The Holy Spirit insures you. The Holy Spirit is your insurance policy.
And the Bible actually says He is the down payment that God gives you that one day, you’re going to spend eternity with Him.
He is your earnest. He’s your earnest money. You know what that is?
When you go buy something, you give him a down payment that says, I’m gonna bring the rest of the money at closing.
Well, the Holy Spirit is God’s earnest payment in your life. The Holy Spirit is your insurance.
That one day you’re gonna spend eternity with the Holy God.
Most often we think of God, the father is the one who raised Jesus from the dead.
But in verse 11, we learned that the Holy Spirit was involved in that process too.
Let me read it again. But if the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, now listen carefully.
He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his spirit who dwells in you even though we have been made alive by the Holy Spirit.
At the time of our salvation, Our bodies are still subject to death and decay.
But the Bible says that a future day of resurrection awaits us when our mortal bodies will be clothed with life, immortal.
And the Holy Spirit who lives within us will regenerate us by the power of God.
To be in our forever rejuvenated. 100% made over our bodies. Amen.
So we will have new life in our bodies.
The Holy Spirit comes to inhabit us.
He comes to invigorate us and he comes to ensure us that one day we’re going to spend eternity with the Lord.
So back to the beginning, what is your mindset?
You see, we can only be effective in the spiritual realm, sort of in the same way that we become effective in the physical realm in the physical realm.
If you don’t eat right, if you don’t exercise, if you don’t do the right things, you won’t be healthy for long in the spiritual realm.
If all you get is what you get.
When you come on Sunday, you’re gonna struggle, you’re gonna find that life is kind of overwhelming you.
And when you’re fragile, you need more than what you can get from your pastor on Sunday.
You need to get some books to read some Bible commentary, some things that will build you up.
You know, the old adage is this, you got these two natures and whichever one you feed is the one that’s going to dominate in your life.
You can either be spiritually minded or you can be fleshly minded.
It’s not something you just decided something you do.
Can we just say thank you Lord for your spirit who has come to live within us, give us peace and love and hope and guidance and direction and the guarantee that we’re going to be with the Lord someday and allow the Holy Spirit, not just to be the resident in your life, but to be the president in your life.
Doctor Jeremiah will return in a moment to close today’s program right after this.
Thank you for watching. Turning Point.
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And now with one last word for today’s program, here is Doctor Jeremiah before becoming a Christian.
Every person is a slave to their sinful human nature.
There’s only one way to be set free and that is through faith in Christ.
I want to invite you today to place your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ to be born again, to be released from the flesh and set free to begin a new life in the spirit.
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Next time on turning point, something happens in us when the spirit of God comes to live within us, our sins are gone, our guilt is gone.
We know that we’re gonna go to heaven someday. When we die, everything about life is changed.
For one simple reason that God loved us, sent his son to die for us.
And in the process gave us his Holy Spirit to live in our hearts.
Thank you for being with us today. Join Dr Jeremiah.
Next time for his message, the ministry of the Holy Spirit here on turning point.