Christianity is not behavior modification

Pastor Devon Ortiz opened Romans 8 with a question many believers avoid: why do some Christians seem to live in Christ without swinging back and forth, while others strive constantly to be good enough? His answer was that the Christian life is a supernatural transformation, not a reformation of habits. The day a person is saved, he said, they receive something not of this earth, and it begins changing them for eternity. Obeying God is still right, but if you are consistently trying to be a good Christian, you have missed the point of being one. The question for the morning was how the supernatural becomes natural in a person's life.

No condemnation, and two laws

Verse 1 begins with "therefore," pointing back to Paul's struggle in Romans 7, where deliverance comes through Jesus Christ. Pastor Ortiz noted that this made Paul mature, not perfect. No condemnation is also not a free pass: God still chastens His own, and he warned that a person living outside of Christ who feels no chastening should be concerned, because it means either he is ignoring it or he is not saved.

In verse 2 Paul sets two laws side by side, the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus and the law of sin and death. The second is the law nobody can keep. Most people cannot even keep the standards they set for themselves, such as getting up early, so how could anyone keep God's? The law had power to expose sin, he said, but it could never change anyone. It could only point to the One who can (verse 3).

After the flesh or after the Spirit

In verses 5 to 8 Paul says every person is either after the flesh or after the Spirit. To mind the things of the flesh is to have a mind for whatever pleases the body: excess of food, immorality, laziness, or even entertaining the mind until it stops thinking and can no longer take every thought captive. Speech reveals the heart, he said, and actions reveal the mind. To be spiritually minded is life and peace, and the Greek word for life here is not just existence but God's own life. A believer was bought, so his life belongs to Christ, which is why the church sings "my life is yours to control." Verse 8 says those in the flesh cannot please God, and that is the trouble for many believers: everyone says they want to please God, but their actions do not prove it.

"How do I take care of me?"

Verses 9 to 11 say the body is dead because of sin, meaning a believer is dead to his own desires. Pastor Ortiz admitted this raised a hard question for him for years: if I die to my flesh, who takes care of my needs, my family, my wants? His answer was that the question contains the problem, because "I" does not take care of me; God does. He illustrated with a weekend of eating foods he loved, which he paid for all week because of a digestive condition. Believers do the same thing spiritually, taking in what they love and hating it later.

The same Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead will make us alive too (verse 11). We die to our own desires, plans, and ideas, and we are brought to life in God. This does not make anyone a god, he said, but it means godliness begins to be borne naturally as a nature placed in us, not as effort we manufacture.

Verses 12 to 14 call believers debtors, but not to the flesh. He compared it to the church still paying rent on two old buildings after moving into the new one. It makes no sense, so why keep paying the flesh? Living after the flesh leads to death (verse 13), while those led by the Spirit are sons of God. His daughter did no work to be born, because her mother did the labor, and in the same way a child of God does not earn sonship by striving. He added that this does not make the spiritual life suddenly effortless or mean reading the Bible for seventeen hours straight. It means godliness becomes what a person thinks about, talks about, and how he lives.

Walk in the Spirit

In Galatians 5:16 the instruction is not "be good" or "obey the rules" but "walk in the Spirit." Pastor Ortiz said many people live in the flesh and hope the Spirit will make their fleshly decisions turn out well, and it does not work that way. The works of the flesh (verses 19 to 21) include sexual sins, religious sins, relational sins, and indulgent sins, and the phrase "and such like" shows the list is not complete.

The fruit of the Spirit (verses 22 and 23) is what a Christian looks like when he does not have to try to be one. He walked through several. Gentleness is not softness but the right amount of force, sometimes an atom bomb and sometimes an egg. Goodness means no longer holding back out of suspicion about other people's motives. Faith means being reliable, and he said the greatest ability is dependability. Temperance is strength kept under control. "Against such there is no law," so the person living this way does not worry about the rules, because he naturally lives above them.

How the supernatural becomes natural

Crucify the flesh. Galatians 5:24 says those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh. Jesus was crucified by submitting to the Father's will: "not my will, but thine be done." In Matthew 4 Satan twisted scripture in the wilderness, and Jesus answered each time from the commands of God. Refusing to turn stones into bread after forty days without food showed a desire to follow the life of God above feeding His own flesh. Refusing to worship Satan also meant refusing to bow down to self, and we bow to ourselves far too often, he said. Twisting scripture to fit a lifestyle is like trying to rescue spoiled milk by adding good milk. Crucifying the flesh has to be a yielding, "my life is yours," and not a chore done grudgingly.

Walk in the Spirit. Galatians 5:25 says if we live in the Spirit, let us walk in the Spirit. That means living as though the Holy Spirit is guiding you, like the Shepherd of Psalm 23, who may lead to green pastures, to still waters, or through the valley of the shadow of death. Wherever He leads, we follow.

Stop propping up a dead body. Verse 26 says not to be desirous of vain glory. Pastor Ortiz compared it to the old movie Weekend at Bernie's, where friends keep hauling around a dead body and pretending he is alive. Many believers do the same with their past and their old flesh, feeding it and acting as if they are having a good time. His charge was to let it die and live for Him.

The invitation

He closed in prayer, asking those whom God had spoken to during the message to raise a hand, and inviting anyone who realized they might not be saved to say so, since a life lived only for self with no chastening from God is cause for concern.