Live According to the Spirit

Live According to the Spirit

Romans 8:1-11

An Address to the Graduating Seniors of First Baptist Church of Echo

Sunday May 18, 2003; Evening Service

Daniel R. Crull

This evening, since today we recognize our seniors, Jeff has asked me to bring a message from God's Word. It is a privilege for me to occupy this pulpit for the purpose of teaching God's people, and it has as well been a privilege for me to teach the seniors that will be graduating. It has been a difficult week as I have struggled with what God would have me preach tonight. It has taken much prayer and study in order to focus down on what God wanted. I had several ideas, but it wasn't until Wednesday night before church that I was reading in Romans chapter eight that God revealed to me that I should encourage our seniors and us all to live according to the Spirit, and not according to the flesh. So rather than telling funny stories of my college life, like being late my first day, in hopes to “encourage” or “inspire”, we will instead tonight expound the Scripture God has given me, and see what glorious truth we may glean from it to take with us from this place, and for our seniors, to hold fast to as you step into a new and exciting time in your lives, and this will be encouraging and inspiring. So let us tonight seek God's face in His Word.

Romans 8:1-11

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. 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, 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. 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. To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. 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. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

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. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 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.

Let us pray.

I have had quite a time studying this text to prepare for this sermon. As always, God's Word has brought me joy and brokenness, confusion to enlightenment, and all from the same passage. However, the difficult time comes not so much in trying to understand Paul's teaching, but in deciding what small nugget of golden truth we can examine in the time we have here. The book of Romans is such a rich treasure trove of truth that it is quite difficult to pick one thing to focus on, because it is all so good. But tonight for our purposes, I feel it appropriate to look at the truth that is “we can fulfill the law of God in complete obedience, because of Christ's perfect obedience, death and resurrection, and only by living `according to the Spirit' and not `according to the flesh.'”

The first obvious, and indeed glorious, truth we see is that there is no longer condemnation for those of us who are in Christ Jesus. We are free from the bonds of sin and death because the Spirit of life has set us free in Christ Jesus. This in essence is our justification, which is the declaring of one to be righteous, a legal term basically meaning an acquittal. We were once bound to the law of sin and death completely unable to please God in any way, and most certainly unable to perform to the letter of His perfect Law, and live in obedience to Him. But “God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do.”

The Law, which God had given to Moses at Sinai, was His will for Israel, and set down His standards for holy living. For someone to follow the law would be on their account, righteousness. The Law itself is good and holy, but as Paul has said, it could not perform its intended purpose, which is our righteousness, because it was weakened by our flesh. In other words, we cannot obtain righteousness by the Law, because in our sinful state, it is impossible for us to follow it completely, and in the manner in which God intended, which is by faith. So we cannot adhere to the letter of the law because of our sin, which keeps us from it, and we cannot adhere to the letter of the law because we must do so by faith, and outside of God's grace, we have no true, real, saving faith. In our fleshly state, we have no true saving faith, outside of the Spirit's regeneration, by which we are reborn, not of flesh, but of Spirit, and thus have the Spirit of God living in us. So we are justified in God's eyes not by our adherence to the Law, but by the Spirit's work in our lives of regeneration unto faith, for “the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law…through faith in Jesus Christ (Romans 3:21).” We are “justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by His blood, to be received by faith. (Romans 3:24-25).” Justification, being declared righteous by God, comes not from our adherence to the Law, but by the work of the Holy Spirit in giving us the gift of faith, and our adherence to the Law, comes only from the Spirit living in us, and our faith in Him.

We now know that we can fulfill the Law, we can live in obedience to God's holy standard of living, but not because of anything with in ourselves, lest we boast in anything other than the cross, but because of the Spirit which lives in us. Some may object, saying that we have no need to fulfill the Old Testament Law because we live in under the New Covenant. But let me remind you of Christ's words in Matthew chapter 5 verse 17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” The Law of Moses still stands, but has now been fulfilled by Christ. He came “in the likeness of sinful flesh,” and lived in complete perfect obedience to all that the Law says, thus being righteous in God's eyes, and it is this righteousness (the righteousness of Christ) that is imputed unto us through the Holy Spirit. We have no righteousness on our own. There is nothing in us that is righteous, only that our faith is credited to us for righteousness. We cannot obtain righteousness by works or chants and mantras but only by Christ's righteousness being applied to us. This means that When God looks at us, He does not see our unrighteous wickedness, but instead He sees the righteousness of Christ, in His blood sacrifice that covers us. Just like in the Old Testament sacrificial system, where the lamb would be killed and the blood poured over the mercy seat, which was the top of the Ark of the Covenant. This was done so that when God looked down from His lofty throne in heaven, He would not see the law, the tablets of Moses that were kept in the Ark, the Law that Israel had broken, but instead He would see the blood of the sacrifice. In the same way, the blood of Christ's sacrifice covers us, so that when God looks upon us, He does not see the law, which He has written on our hearts, and that we have broken on so many occasions in so many grave and horrible ways, but instead He sees the righteousness of Christ in His perfect obedience to the Law and His sacrifice for the atonement of our sins.

And in His sacrifice Christ became our sin offering and thus by His death, burial, and resurrection condemned sin in the flesh. But in doing so did not negate the purpose of the Law, but fulfilled it. And as the Law was perfect and needed no correction, Christ, through His Spirit, has worked in us to fulfill the Law in us, correcting our problem, which is sin, our fleshly state. All this so “that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit (Romans 8:4).” Therefore, those of us who walk according to His Spirit have fulfilled His righteous requirement through His Son.

What a glorious truth! We do not need to rely on our human ability to adhere to the stringent letter of the law for our righteousness. We have the righteousness of Christ covering us through our faith in Him, and thus there is no condemnation on us. Praise God! And this is why I encourage all to live according to the Spirit, for this is a sign of the work of the Holy Spirit in your life and your faith in Christ Jesus. And now we know what “living according to the Spirit” really is: it is living by faith in complete obedience to God and the law of the Spirit of life that has set us free, through Christ Jesus, and now we will move on in the text to see what living according to the Spirit looks like.

“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. To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. 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. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. (Romans 8:5-8).”

The phrase here “set their minds on” implies more than just our mental process, but includes our desires as well. Thus, the one who lives according to the flesh, and sets their mind on the flesh, desires fleshly things, and the one who lives according to the Spirit, and sets the mind on the Spirit, desires only the things of the Spirit. If I set my mind on Krispy Kreme donuts, I'm not just thinking about the donuts, or how wonderful they would be. No, I want them, I desire them, my mouth starts to water and I envision the donuts and how great it would be to partake of the wondrous fruit of Krispy Kreme which I'm sure was enjoyed in Eden, and will be enjoyed in heaven; I'm absolutely sure of it. They're just great. You see I don't just think about the donuts, I crave them, and I go after them. I'll drive all the way to Beaumont to get them. So when we set our minds on the flesh we desire fleshly things like money, fame, power, etc. When we set our minds on the Spirit, we desire humility, meekness, and to rely totally on the power of God Almighty, the most famous of all, the omnipotent God. To go from setting our minds on things of the flesh, to setting our minds on the things of the Spirit, entails once again the work of the Holy Spirit to change our desires from the faulty temporal things of the flesh, which lead to death, to the perfect eternal things of the Spirit which lead to life.

Paul says “to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. (Romans 8:6).” And indeed we have seen this earlier when we read that “the law of the Spirit of life has set [us] free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. (Romans 8:2).” Desiring the things of the world, and seeking those things instead of the things of the Spirit leads to death because “the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. (Romans 8:7-8).”

The flesh is hostile to God, and the root of death is sin, which is rebellion against God. The flesh rebels against God (which is hostility towards Him) because it does not view God as the ultimate prize to be grasped, but rather seeks satisfaction in the worldly things. The desire of fleshly things above God is the essence of sin and is the root of all our disobedience. So to live according to the flesh, setting the mind on fleshly things, results in death because it is the ultimate form of disobedience, desiring worldly gain and rejecting God. And the flesh cannot submit to God's law, and cannot even please God, except through His Spirit. And this is where we see that living according to the Spirit is life and peace.

We are not living according to the flesh if we have been reborn, that is, born in Spirit. This is what Paul says in verse 9. If we are living according to the Spirit we have been regenerated, given the gift of faith and believed on Christ for our salvation, in which we belong to Him. We are His sheep, and we hear His voice. If we live according to the Spirit, we set our minds on the things of the Spirit. If we live according to the Spirit, we do not seek selfish ambition or prosperity and fame on this earth, for we know by the Spirit, that this world is passing away (1 John 2:16-17). To live according to the Spirit means we fulfill the law of God, through Christ, which is His holy standard for living, and this is our sanctification. As we live according to the Spirit, and the Spirit dwells in us, He is constantly at work to transform us into the image of Christ “For those whom He foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son (Romans 8:29).” And He is constantly working in us to move our desires from the fleshly worldly things, which lead to death, to the things of the Spirit, which lead to life. When we live according to the Spirit, we begin to be transformed into His image, as we have seen it in the beatitudes in Jesus' sermon on the mount. We see His character in our lives as we “hunger and thirst after righteousness” and as we become more gentle, merciful, peaceful, and pure in heart, and as we suffer for His names sake. And this is what it means to “live according to the Spirit,” to be “conformed to the image of Christ.” To have the Spirit of God living in us, constantly at work to change our hearts to seek after Him, and find our full and complete satisfaction in Him.

“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 (Romans 8:11).”

And those of us who live according to the Spirit, Who raised Christ from the dead, will also be given life in our mortal bodies, through His Spirit which dwells in us. We have seen how we are justified, in the work of the Holy Spirit in regenerating our fleshly nature and being counted righteous in God's eyes because of the righteousness of Christ. We have seen how we are being sanctified, the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives constantly conforming us into the image of Christ. And now we see our glorification, in the work of the Holy Spirit, to give our bodies spiritual life, to live and dwell with God in heaven for all eternity. And all this is summed up in verses 29 and 30 where Paul says, “For those whom He foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, in order that He might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom He predestined He also called, and those whom He called He also justified, and those whom He justified He also glorified. (Romans 8:29-30).”

It is God's good and perfect will for His children that we be conformed to the image of His Son, with Whom He is well pleased, and because of that He has called us out of our sin and despair and justified us, and He will glorify us, and we will be fully and perfectly conformed to His image, and live with Him in His glory forevermore. And this is why again I urge you to live according to the Spirit, because living according to the flesh is death, but living according to the Spirit is life, eternal life in the glory of God Almighty. Praise Him! Hallelujah, oh Praise His holy name, and live according to His Spirit, which dwells in the hearts of those who belong to Him.

As we come to a close this evening, I would like to say to the seniors, and indeed to us all, that it is absolutely essential that we live according to the Spirit, and set our minds on the things of the Spirit. It's a life and death issue. Believers, if you have been setting your mind on the things of the flesh, now is the time for repentance. Now is the time to test our ways and return to the Lord. And for those who may not be a believer in Christ, but feel the Spirit that we speak of working in your life now, do not resist, for today is the day of salvation. Bro. Jeff will be here to pray with and talk to anyone, and the altar is open, so let us pray, and then as we begin to sing, you come as the Spirit leads.


	Live According to the Spirit Live According to the Spirit Romans 8:1-11 An Address to the Graduating Seniors of First Baptist Church of Echo Sunday May 18, 2003; Evening Service Daniel R. Crull This evening, since today we recognize our seniors, Jeff has asked me to bring a message from God's Word. It is a privilege for me to occupy this pulpit for the purpose of teaching God's people, and it has as well been a privilege for me to teach the seniors that will be graduating. It has been a difficult week as I have struggled with what God would have me preach tonight. It has taken much prayer and study in order to focus down on what God wanted. I had several ideas, but it wasn't until Wednesday night before church that I was reading in Romans chapter eight that God revealed to me that I should encourage our seniors and us all to live according to the Spirit, and not according to the flesh. So rather than telling funny stories of my college life, like being late my first day, in hopes to “encourage” or “inspire”, we will instead tonight expound the Scripture God has given me, and see what glorious truth we may glean from it to take with us from this place, and for our seniors, to hold fast to as you step into a new and exciting time in your lives, and this will be encouraging and inspiring. So let us tonight seek God's face in His Word. Romans 8:1-11 There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. 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, 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. 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. To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. 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. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. 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. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 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. Let us pray. I have had quite a time studying this text to prepare for this sermon. As always, God's Word has brought me joy and brokenness, confusion to enlightenment, and all from the same passage. However, the difficult time comes not so much in trying to understand Paul's teaching, but in deciding what small nugget of golden truth we can examine in the time we have here. The book of Romans is such a rich treasure trove of truth that it is quite difficult to pick one thing to focus on, because it is all so good. But tonight for our purposes, I feel it appropriate to look at the truth that is “we can fulfill the law of God in complete obedience, because of Christ's perfect obedience, death and resurrection, and only by living `according to the Spirit' and not `according to the flesh.'” The first obvious, and indeed glorious, truth we see is that there is no longer condemnation for those of us who are in Christ Jesus. We are free from the bonds of sin and death because the Spirit of life has set us free in Christ Jesus. This in essence is our justification, which is the declaring of one to be righteous, a legal term basically meaning an acquittal. We were once bound to the law of sin and death completely unable to please God in any way, and most certainly unable to perform to the letter of His perfect Law, and live in obedience to Him. But “God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do.” The Law, which God had given to Moses at Sinai, was His will for Israel, and set down His standards for holy living. For someone to follow the law would be on their account, righteousness. The Law itself is good and holy, but as Paul has said, it could not perform its intended purpose, which is our righteousness, because it was weakened by our flesh. In other words, we cannot obtain righteousness by the Law, because in our sinful state, it is impossible for us to follow it completely, and in the manner in which God intended, which is by faith. So we cannot adhere to the letter of the law because of our sin, which keeps us from it, and we cannot adhere to the letter of the law because we must do so by faith, and outside of God's grace, we have no true, real, saving faith. In our fleshly state, we have no true saving faith, outside of the Spirit's regeneration, by which we are reborn, not of flesh, but of Spirit, and thus have the Spirit of God living in us. So we are justified in God's eyes not by our adherence to the Law, but by the Spirit's work in our lives of regeneration unto faith, for “the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law…through faith in Jesus Christ (Romans 3:21).” We are “justified by His grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by His blood, to be received by faith. (Romans 3:24-25).” Justification, being declared righteous by God, comes not from our adherence to the Law, but by the work of the Holy Spirit in giving us the gift of faith, and our adherence to the Law, comes only from the Spirit living in us, and our faith in Him. We now know that we can fulfill the Law, we can live in obedience to God's holy standard of living, but not because of anything with in ourselves, lest we boast in anything other than the cross, but because of the Spirit which lives in us. Some may object, saying that we have no need to fulfill the Old Testament Law because we live in under the New Covenant. But let me remind you of Christ's words in Matthew chapter 5 verse 17 “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” The Law of Moses still stands, but has now been fulfilled by Christ. He came “in the likeness of sinful flesh,” and lived in complete perfect obedience to all that the Law says, thus being righteous in God's eyes, and it is this righteousness (the righteousness of Christ) that is imputed unto us through the Holy Spirit. We have no righteousness on our own. There is nothing in us that is righteous, only that our faith is credited to us for righteousness. We cannot obtain righteousness by works or chants and mantras but only by Christ's righteousness being applied to us. This means that When God looks at us, He does not see our unrighteous wickedness, but instead He sees the righteousness of Christ, in His blood sacrifice that covers us. Just like in the Old Testament sacrificial system, where the lamb would be killed and the blood poured over the mercy seat, which was the top of the Ark of the Covenant. This was done so that when God looked down from His lofty throne in heaven, He would not see the law, the tablets of Moses that were kept in the Ark, the Law that Israel had broken, but instead He would see the blood of the sacrifice. In the same way, the blood of Christ's sacrifice covers us, so that when God looks upon us, He does not see the law, which He has written on our hearts, and that we have broken on so many occasions in so many grave and horrible ways, but instead He sees the righteousness of Christ in His perfect obedience to the Law and His sacrifice for the atonement of our sins. And in His sacrifice Christ became our sin offering and thus by His death, burial, and resurrection condemned sin in the flesh. But in doing so did not negate the purpose of the Law, but fulfilled it. And as the Law was perfect and needed no correction, Christ, through His Spirit, has worked in us to fulfill the Law in us, correcting our problem, which is sin, our fleshly state. All this so “that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit (Romans 8:4).” Therefore, those of us who walk according to His Spirit have fulfilled His righteous requirement through His Son. What a glorious truth! We do not need to rely on our human ability to adhere to the stringent letter of the law for our righteousness. We have the righteousness of Christ covering us through our faith in Him, and thus there is no condemnation on us. Praise God! And this is why I encourage all to live according to the Spirit, for this is a sign of the work of the Holy Spirit in your life and your faith in Christ Jesus. And now we know what “living according to the Spirit” really is: it is living by faith in complete obedience to God and the law of the Spirit of life that has set us free, through Christ Jesus, and now we will move on in the text to see what living according to the Spirit looks like. “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. To set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. 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. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. (Romans 8:5-8).” The phrase here “set their minds on” implies more than just our mental process, but includes our desires as well. Thus, the one who lives according to the flesh, and sets their mind on the flesh, desires fleshly things, and the one who lives according to the Spirit, and sets the mind on the Spirit, desires only the things of the Spirit. If I set my mind on Krispy Kreme donuts, I'm not just thinking about the donuts, or how wonderful they would be. No, I want them, I desire them, my mouth starts to water and I envision the donuts and how great it would be to partake of the wondrous fruit of Krispy Kreme which I'm sure was enjoyed in Eden, and will be enjoyed in heaven; I'm absolutely sure of it. They're just great. You see I don't just think about the donuts, I crave them, and I go after them. I'll drive all the way to Beaumont to get them. So when we set our minds on the flesh we desire fleshly things like money, fame, power, etc. When we set our minds on the Spirit, we desire humility, meekness, and to rely totally on the power of God Almighty, the most famous of all, the omnipotent God. To go from setting our minds on things of the flesh, to setting our minds on the things of the Spirit, entails once again the work of the Holy Spirit to change our desires from the faulty temporal things of the flesh, which lead to death, to the perfect eternal things of the Spirit which lead to life. Paul says “to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. (Romans 8:6).” And indeed we have seen this earlier when we read that “the law of the Spirit of life has set [us] free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. (Romans 8:2).” Desiring the things of the world, and seeking those things instead of the things of the Spirit leads to death because “the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. (Romans 8:7-8).” The flesh is hostile to God, and the root of death is sin, which is rebellion against God. The flesh rebels against God (which is hostility towards Him) because it does not view God as the ultimate prize to be grasped, but rather seeks satisfaction in the worldly things. The desire of fleshly things above God is the essence of sin and is the root of all our disobedience. So to live according to the flesh, setting the mind on fleshly things, results in death because it is the ultimate form of disobedience, desiring worldly gain and rejecting God. And the flesh cannot submit to God's law, and cannot even please God, except through His Spirit. And this is where we see that living according to the Spirit is life and peace. We are not living according to the flesh if we have been reborn, that is, born in Spirit. This is what Paul says in verse 9. If we are living according to the Spirit we have been regenerated, given the gift of faith and believed on Christ for our salvation, in which we belong to Him. We are His sheep, and we hear His voice. If we live according to the Spirit, we set our minds on the things of the Spirit. If we live according to the Spirit, we do not seek selfish ambition or prosperity and fame on this earth, for we know by the Spirit, that this world is passing away (1 John 2:16-17). To live according to the Spirit means we fulfill the law of God, through Christ, which is His holy standard for living, and this is our sanctification. As we live according to the Spirit, and the Spirit dwells in us, He is constantly at work to transform us into the image of Christ “For those whom He foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son (Romans 8:29).” And He is constantly working in us to move our desires from the fleshly worldly things, which lead to death, to the things of the Spirit, which lead to life. When we live according to the Spirit, we begin to be transformed into His image, as we have seen it in the beatitudes in Jesus' sermon on the mount. We see His character in our lives as we “hunger and thirst after righteousness” and as we become more gentle, merciful, peaceful, and pure in heart, and as we suffer for His names sake. And this is what it means to “live according to the Spirit,” to be “conformed to the image of Christ.” To have the Spirit of God living in us, constantly at work to change our hearts to seek after Him, and find our full and complete satisfaction in Him. “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 (Romans 8:11).” And those of us who live according to the Spirit, Who raised Christ from the dead, will also be given life in our mortal bodies, through His Spirit which dwells in us. We have seen how we are justified, in the work of the Holy Spirit in regenerating our fleshly nature and being counted righteous in God's eyes because of the righteousness of Christ. We have seen how we are being sanctified, the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives constantly conforming us into the image of Christ. And now we see our glorification, in the work of the Holy Spirit, to give our bodies spiritual life, to live and dwell with God in heaven for all eternity. And all this is summed up in verses 29 and 30 where Paul says, “For those whom He foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, in order that He might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom He predestined He also called, and those whom He called He also justified, and those whom He justified He also glorified. (Romans 8:29-30).” It is God's good and perfect will for His children that we be conformed to the image of His Son, with Whom He is well pleased, and because of that He has called us out of our sin and despair and justified us, and He will glorify us, and we will be fully and perfectly conformed to His image, and live with Him in His glory forevermore. And this is why again I urge you to live according to the Spirit, because living according to the flesh is death, but living according to the Spirit is life, eternal life in the glory of God Almighty. Praise Him! Hallelujah, oh Praise His holy name, and live according to His Spirit, which dwells in the hearts of those who belong to Him. As we come to a close this evening, I would like to say to the seniors, and indeed to us all, that it is absolutely essential that we live according to the Spirit, and set our minds on the things of the Spirit. It's a life and death issue. Believers, if you have been setting your mind on the things of the flesh, now is the time for repentance. Now is the time to test our ways and return to the Lord. And for those who may not be a believer in Christ, but feel the Spirit that we speak of working in your life now, do not resist, for today is the day of salvation. Bro. Jeff will be here to pray with and talk to anyone, and the altar is open, so let us pray, and then as we begin to sing, you come as the Spirit leads.