If we're the friends of Jesus Christ, we're the friends of the Holy Spirit. If we're the friend of the Holy Spirit, we are the friend of the Father. James 4-4 tells us that the unbeliever is the friend of the world. He doesn't care about God, the Spirit, the Son, the Father.
He cares only about the world. He's the friend of the world, and he isn't the friend of God. So what does it look like to be a friend of God the Spirit? What does it look like to walk in friendship with the Holy Spirit? And while we're at it, what does it look like to not walk in friendship with the Holy Spirit? What does it look like to not be the friend of God's Spirit?
What are you obsessed with? When you think about your life, what is it that you most hope will be true of you? The answer to that question probably changed when God saved you. The Apostle Paul contrasted the mind of the believer with the mind of the unbeliever in Romans 8, 5-11. In that passage, he makes something clear.
The difference is not related to intelligence. The difference involves our desires. Today, Stephen Davey will show you what that means as he continues his series, The War Within. Stephen's calling today's message, A New Obsession.
Let's get started. According to the Bible, the believer rejoices in the Holy Spirit, Luke 10, 21. He resolves or decides in the Holy Spirit, Acts 19. He has a conscience that bears witness with the Holy Spirit, Romans 9, 1. The believer enjoys access to God through the Holy Spirit, Ephesians 2, 18.
In fact, the believer loves one another in the body through the power of the Holy Spirit, Colossians 1, 8. So the question is not, do we need the Holy Spirit? The question is, how can we survive without him? How can we ever live for God without him? How can we ever progress in our Christian walk without him?
The question is not, do we need him? The question is, how would we ever want to try to live a day, a moment, or an hour without this divine, powerful, loving, correcting, enabling, protecting, best of all, faithful friend? It's interesting that the Apostle Paul informs us throughout his letter to the Romans that the entire world can be divided into just two different categories. And we can imply from Chapter 8, as he introduces us to the Holy Spirit, that we could divide the world into two categories. People who are friends of the Holy Spirit and people who are not. People who care about the Holy Spirit, people who don't. People who go through life depending on the Holy Spirit and those who do not. So Paul will introduce this particular subject but it reminded me at the outset here, I want to give to you the words of our Lord Jesus himself when he referred to his disciples as his friends.
John 15, 14. We are the friends of Jesus. If we're the friends of Jesus Christ, we're the friends of the Holy Spirit. If we're the friend of the Holy Spirit, we are the friend of the Father. James 4, 4 tells us that the unbeliever is the friend of the world. He doesn't care about God, the Spirit, the Son, the Father.
He cares only about the world. He's the friend of the world and he isn't the friend of God. So what does it look like to be a friend of God the Spirit? What does it look like to walk in friendship with the Holy Spirit? And while we're at it, what does it look like to not walk in friendship with the Holy Spirit? What does it look like to not be the friend of God's Spirit? Well, in this opening paragraph of Romans 8, Paul begins a series of contrasts between the believer and the unbeliever. Look at verse 5. This is where we left off.
Let's pick it up there. For those who are according to the flesh set their mind on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. Would you notice that Paul focuses on the setting of the mind? The believer sets his mind on spiritual things and the unbeliever sets his mind on the things of the flesh.
And I want to talk about that this morning. When Paul contrasts, by the way, the mind of the believer with the mind of the unbeliever, he is not referring to IQ. He is referring to DQ.
And I want to coin something new here. You see, it isn't intelligence quotient that reveals the difference between the mind of the believer and the mind of the unbeliever. It is their desire quotient. It isn't the IQ that matters in relationship to God.
It is the DQ that matters. What do you desire? What do you long for?
What do you want in life? David wrote, whom have I in heaven but you and beside you I desire nothing on earth. My flesh and my heart fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.
But as for me, the nearness of God is my good. Psalm 73. Paul wrote, This is my heart's desire that my brethren will be saved. Romans 10 10. Paul also wrote, This is our ambition. This is our passionate desire to be pleasing to God. Second Corinthians 5 9.
So what do you desire? David would say, I desire communion with God. Paul would say, I desire the unbeliever to know Christ. I desire that my life be pleasing to God. In other words, Paul says, It's my desire. That word can mean it is my cause to which I am totally devoted to be pleasing to God.
The truth is your DQ has a lot more to say about you than your IQ. Paul writes again. Look at verse five. Those who are of the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh. And those who are of the spirit implied set their minds on the things of the spirit. The Greek word for setting the mind from the oh here translated to set the mind is a word which refers actually to a person's disposition. It refers to a person's bent.
It refers to the occupation of a person's heart. This is what occupies their minds. This is how they're known.
This is their reputation. This is in a very real way their personality. So you have to ask the question, what are you devoted to upon? What have you set your mind?
You could literally render the word desire obsession. What are your obsessions? What do you think about when you get up? And what do you think about when you lie down?
What are your plans, your hopes, your dreams? What obsesses and captivates your mind? I recently read about John Audubon born in the late 1700s. Early in his life, he began to reveal a love for art and for birds. Even as a teenager, he would rise at midnight, night after night and go out into the swamps where he lived in France and study certain Nighthawks. One summer after he moved from France to America and studied, of course, with his life, the birds of North America, he repeatedly visited the bayous near New Orleans to study a rather shy water bird.
He would stand, the article read almost to his neck in the stagnant waters, scarcely breathing while poisonous water moccasins swam past his face. It was life threatening work, but he was reported to have said with great joy, what of it? I now have pictures of these birds. Nothing wrong with that. It is our joy to study the creative handiwork of God.
And because of that particular obsession, that particular desire, John Audubon was devoted to studying birds and he risked his life and he suffered all sorts of discomforts for the sake of what he loved to do. I know people who love far less significant things, don't you? I know people who are so captivated by things that are very trivial. Do you? I keep a little file where I put stories of people like that and I just use those stories every once in a while. Let me give you one of them.
You're not ready for it, but let me tell you about this one. It was cited in the article Strange World, published by Campus Life. His name was Roy Welling. He won the annual Tour De Donut in Stanton, Illinois.
I'm reading, I'm not making this up. The article I read gave the guidelines to the race. Contestants got to take five minutes off their total time for every donut they ate during the 30 mile bike race. Roy Welling didn't cross the finish line first, but during the race he consumed 18 donuts and that was enough time to be declared the winner. He was interviewed afterward and he said he had eaten nine donuts in the previous year's race, but this year he said, I was committed to doubling my donuts and having a good race time.
I question that man's DQ and his IQ. I want you to know. Anybody who rides a bicycle and eats donuts. If you're going to eat a dozen donuts, everybody knows you'd need a booth with hot coffee. Everybody knows that's how you do that, right?
Not a bicycle. It never ceases to amaze me what people are passionate about, what people get involved in, what they love to do. The truth is what you love, you think about. And what you think about, you do. And what you do, you are.
Let me say it again. What you love is the thing that you think about and what you think about you end up doing because what you think about you are. In other words, what you are is what you have been becoming.
I know it's early to be so deep, it's so close to lunchtime, but it's true. Solomon put it this way. As a man thinks in his heart what?
So is he. How you think in your heart, the things that you meditate on your heart, the desires and dreams and plans of your heart. That happens to be who you are. A person who has made his mind up about something or holds to a certain idea or belief. We refer to that person as having a mindset, right? And so he says the things he says because we say, well, that's his mindset. He does the things he does.
He votes the way he votes. He talks about the things he talks about because that's well, that's his mindset. You just need to understand his mindset and you can understand him, right?
Well, that's what Paul is referring to. You could paraphrase verse five to read those who walk in the flesh have a mindset on the flesh and those who walk after the spirit of a mindset on spiritual things. In other words, a mindset is a way of revealing who you really are. A mindset determines how you act, one author wrote, motivates you in what you do and say and feel, determines who you will allow to influence your life, decides what you will choose as a source of knowledge and influence, affects your view of every experience you have, shapes your value system, dominates your private and public life. What captivates your mind is what you become.
One youth pastor made an interesting twist on this rather humorously. He wrote about it this way. He said, the more you love something, the more you become like it. For example, I have a friend that loves tennis.
There's nothing wrong with that, but he doesn't realize what he's become. He wears tennis stuff. He reads tennis magazines. He talks about tennis all the time.
Even his hair looks like a tennis ball. He says, I have another friend that loves surfing. He dresses with surf stuff, reads surf magazines.
He uses surfer talk and smells like seaweed. Could this be why the greatest commandment is the love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind? Because the power to change us is given in relationship and what you love, you become like. He is well put.
Paul basically says the same thing in a different way. Those who are of the flesh love the things of the flesh. Their mind is set on it.
They're devoted to it. They're obsessed with the things of the world. And those who love the spirit are obsessed with the spirit world. That's why when you get around somebody who loves the world, the only thing you can talk about are things of the world. You never can talk about the things of the spirit, but you get around a Christian and guess what? You can talk about things of the world, but you eventually want to talk about what?
The things of the spirit of God. Paul is contrasting two different mindsets. He is literally contrasting two different dispositions.
Now he goes one step further and contrasts two different destinations. Look at verse six. He writes for the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the spirit is life and peace. In other words, the unbeliever is obsessed with the flesh and the believer is obsessed with the spirit. And now Paul gives us the fruits of those obsession, the fruit of the flesh, the one who painters after the flesh, the one who loves the flesh, the one who loves the things of the world alone. That person is heading toward and now experiencing death.
Flesh equals death. The one who is obsessed with the things of the spirit of God who loves and painters after the things of the spirit of God is pursuing life and peace. In the next several verses here, the apostle Paul will simply summarize the results of these two different dispositions and these two different destinations by simply giving us what he's already taught us in the first seven now into the eighth chapter of the book of Romans. Look at verse seven. Because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God. You remember chapter one of Romans?
For it does not subject itself to the law of God for it is not able even to do so. That's Romans chapter two. And those who are in the flesh cannot please God. However, you are not on the flesh but in the spirit if indeed the spirit of God dwells in you.
But if anyone does not have the spirit of Christ, he does not belong to him. That's Romans chapters three and four. And if Christ is in you, that's Romans chapter five, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness. That's Romans chapters six and seven.
But 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 indwells you. This is Romans chapter eight. Paul is literally delivering the truth.
And as you know, he never pulls any punches. He has already said that man is hostile toward God. He described the mindset of the flesh in Romans chapter one, and now he describes it further in Romans chapter eight.
In Romans chapter one, he wrote these words. Therefore, God gave them over in the lust of their hearts to impurity, that their bodies might be dishonored among them. For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever.
Amen. For this reason, God gave them over to degrading passions for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural. And in the same way, also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another. Men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error. And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind.
There's the word again. This is the mindset of the world. This is the mindset, the obsession, the desire of depraved minds to do those things. Paul writes, which are not proper, being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil, full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice, their gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful. And although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such things are worthy of death, the flesh equals death. They not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to those who practice them. You pursue the flesh and the world is totally devoted to the things of the flesh and the world is headed for death.
That's the truth. Paul delivers as he usually does, always does, the truth. He can never be excused of beating around the bush, can he?
Not Paul. No matter how embarrassing, no matter how revealing. I recently finished a book on, a little commentary on the book of Proverbs where the man took several of the Proverbs and gave wonderful insight to them. And he said this in his story. He told the story of a mother who was preparing dinner one evening when her little boy came running into the kitchen. She asked him, well, what's mama's little darling been doing all day? He replied, I've been playing mailman. She wondered out loud, mailman, how could you do that when you don't have any letters? He said, oh, I had a whole bunch of letters. What letters were they? She asked. The little boy answered, all those letters I found in the bottom drawer of your dress are all tied up with pretty ribbons.
I put one in every mailbox on our street. The news is out. Well, you hold in your lap, your hands, maybe you've hidden some of it in your heart, the letter. It may be embarrassing. It may be revealing.
It may be something you want to keep private and confidential, but the news is out. People who are governed by the flesh and love the things of the flesh are living dead and they are headed for eternal death and separation from God. People who are governed by the spirit and love the things of the spirit then are living redeemed and they are experiencing now life and they are headed for eternal living. And right now in the midst of all of it, for those of you who know and love the spirit, you have this wonderful, incredible friend and you are no longer a helpless victim of sin. The life giving Holy Spirit can overwhelm the power of sin and empower every one of us to lead holy and godly lives.
You do not have to sin. Now that doesn't mean that a believer is perfect and consistent and being governed by the spirit, but this is your disposition. This is your bent. This is your desire.
This is your direction. This is your mindset. It is devotion to the things of the spirit of God. That is the true believer and that is his bent. And you know what Paul says here in this paragraph that the Holy Spirit who brought you to spiritual life at conversion will according to this text be the one when your spirit is having been in the presence of God upon death, enjoying the splendor of heaven. And now at the resurrection reunited with a glorified body. This text tells us that it is the Holy Spirit who is the one and the power bringing that dust ball back to life. He says in verse 11, look there again, but 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 indwells you.
And then an amazing thought. The resurrection of Jesus Christ was brought about by the power of the Holy Spirit. You have in your future as a believer that same power who will bring that mortal body that is now long decayed your spirit with him. If we have lived and died prior to the rapture, it will be that same spirit and that same power bringing your body back to life. And think of it, your mortal body that is now brought back to life and reunited with your spirit that never died will no longer have any remnants of old flesh, will no longer have the stain upon it, no more residue of earth. The effects of sin will no longer be felt in those glorified bodies that we have. You can think of it this way, Jesus Christ will be the only one in heaven with scars.
Heal on. But for the unbeliever hostile toward creator God, unable to please God, self-centered in his life and arrogant in his death, there's only future death and eternal death and depravity. Everything they live for will be seen for what it was. Everything they hoped in will be seen for what it cannot do.
Everything they believed in will be seen for how it cannot save. In his book, Bones of Contention, written by Professor Marvin Lubenow, I don't have the book, I read about the book, but it told the story of Sir Arthur Keith and so I pulled the story out of the encyclopedia and read it. Fascinating story. A man who was absolutely brilliant. He had earned doctorates in law, in science, and in medicine.
He would be knighted by the Empire of Great Britain. He was born in 1866 and died in 1955, one of the greatest anatomists of the 20th century. According to his own autobiography as a young man, he attended evangelistic meetings in Edinburgh, in Aberdeen, and watched students make their commitments to Jesus Christ. He wrote, I often felt myself upon the verge of conversion. Yet I rejected the gospel because I felt the Genesis account of creation was a myth and the Bible was merely a book of human origin. And so this incredibly brilliant man rejected God and the record of scripture. At the height of his career rise, his brilliance and his involvement in a number of different fields in 1908, a discovery was made of some bones, fragments of a skull and of a jawbone.
They were discovered 40 miles from downtown London. Keith became intrigued by the discovery. It was soon announced by the London Geological Society that these were the remains of the earliest known Englishman. And they gave him a name I can't pronounce, but the nickname we all know is the Piltdown Man.
You remember him? The vast majority of paleoanthropologists heralded this discovery as the great discovery of our human ancestry. More than 500 doctoral dissertations would be written exalting the discovery of these bones and what it meant for the evolutionist. Sir Arthur Keith became obsessed with these bones. He became obsessed with this discovery. He wrote more on the Piltdown Man than any other living human being. His famous book, The Antiquity of Man, was based upon and built upon the veracity and authenticity of the discovery of these fossils. But in 1953, science caught up with speculation and the British Museum with advanced techniques proclaimed the entire thing a fraud. Scratch marks invisible to the naked eye revealed that the sharp teeth had actually been artificially filed down. The bones had been treated with iron salts to make them appear old, but the jawbone and the fragments of the skull were no older than the year they were found. Now listen to this. Sir Arthur Keith was 83 years old when some of his colleagues went to his home to break the news.
Can you imagine that? They went to his home to tell him that the fossils he had trusted in for 40 years was a complete hoax. The bones he had been obsessed with, convinced that they proved a creator a myth and creation by a creator a myth and a fraud, now his own writings were nothing more than myth and speculation. Can you imagine a lifetime of such great faith in the wrong thing?
A lifetime of obsession in the wrong direction in just a matter of months before he died, this venerated old scholar was told the truth. What are you living for? What are you trusting in? What are you believing in? Paul delivers the truth about two dispositions and two destinations and I want to ask you which one represents you. I couldn't help but think as I studied this week how different the deaths of saints are from the death of people like Sir Arthur Keith, the death of God's children, void of disillusionment having confidence in the creator God and their eternal future.
I have seen it over and over again. I have stood in hospital rooms with Christian sons and daughters standing at the foot of the bed of a dying father or mother watching with them the chest of their dying loved one up and down with the breath and finally slowing down and stopping. Huddling with them in the room praying with tears of sorrow but confidence in the coming reunion. I have walked into hospital rooms and have been handed lifeless babies and have prayed with mommies and daddies through tears of great sorrow and yet confidence in God and the coming resurrection.
I think of the confidence of one man in particular whom I visited on his deathbed. I stood in the hospital room where he lay. He was a matter of a few hours from glory. He was my age. His heart disease would take his life.
He battled it for years. His wife was there and she would sing to him and read to him and he would slip in and out of consciousness. I talked to him whenever he would slip into consciousness and he would slip back out. We had corresponded over the years and his heart was about ready to give up the fight. As I got ready to go, knowing I'd probably never see him again this side of heaven, I leaned over the bed not even assuming that at this moment he could hear me and I said I'll see you later. And I'll never forget he roused, he stirred, he opened his eyes and he smiled and he with great passion whispered, yes you will.
Wow. He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through the Spirit who indwells you. Thank God for his Spirit. His life giving, life leading, eternally empowering, resurrecting Holy Spirit.
My friend, if the Holy Spirit is your friend, you will be friends forever. Thanks for joining us today. You've been listening to Wisdom for the Heart with Stephen Davey. You might know us best for these daily Bible messages that we produce each weekday, but we also have a monthly magazine. Each issue of our magazine includes articles written by Stephen with a different theme each month. The magazine also has a daily devotional guide. Many people are using that resource for their personal quiet time.
Those devotionals are both theologically rich and very practical. We'd be happy to send you the next three issues if you'd like to see them for yourself. You can introduce yourself to us on our website and that address is wisdomonline.org. Click the link at the top that says Magazine or you can call us today. Our number is 866-482-4253. Please join us again tomorrow for more wisdom for the heart's sake.
Whisper: medium.en / 2023-07-12 07:33:53 / 2023-07-12 07:44:30 / 11