Let the Shepherd Lead

Originally preached 06/24/18

Intro:

• As we continue our series, again we come to that question, where are we going this summer?
• An important part of taking a journey is setting our sights on the destination.
• The direction that we choose determines greatly what we will see and experience.
  • For instance some of you will likely be pointing yourselves north and west this summer. In that direction you expect to see rising out of the ground large, tree covered Smokey mountains.
  • Others of you, like myself will likely be pointing yourselves south and east expecting that in due time you will see the landscape flatten out and the vast ocean appear.
  • Our direction determines what we will see in the end.
• Another important part of taking a journey is setting our sights on what we will need.
  • A few moments ago I mentioned short sightedness. Short sightedness can interrupt any journey.
    • Consider for instance the number of miles that your vehicle can travel on a tank of gas. Knowing that can help you to search for a gas station long before you are desperate due to the miles between you and the next place to refuel.
    • Thinking ahead and knowing what to expect about the cost of things on the journey or the weather during your travel helps you to set your sights on the hazards and possibilities for your journey.
• Setting our sights before we depart settles a great deal of our future.
  • This week, this reality was fully in view as our country’s First Lady took a trip to our Texas border to visit a children’s shelter.
  • She wore a jacket with the words written on the back, “I really don’t care, do u?”
  • No matter what her intentions were for choosing the jacket or what the purpose of her visit to the shelter, her short sightedness in choosing to wear that jacket settled how everyone would see her trip.
  • Her choice was perceived to display either deafness to people’s opinion or deadness to the children’s plight.
  • That one choice, setting her sights on wearing that jacket, settled the whole perception of her journey.

Hook:

• So, what friends are our sights set upon?
  • Are we setting our sights upon eternal matters; making choices daily that display our settled destination to be with Christ?
  • Or are we setting our sights upon the temporary matters of this life; making choices daily that may be good for us but disastrous for our eternity?
• Whatever we set our sights upon will settle our future, and today, I hope to contrast just how important the choice really is.

Message Points:

• A number of years ago Matthias Media developed a simple track called “Two Ways to Live.”
  • While we do not have time to explore all of that track this morning, I will tell you that spiritually setting our sights is just that simple.
  • The track offers the simple choice either to set our minds upon pleasing God by serving Him or pleasing ourselves by serving our desires.
  • It is as if the apostle Paul himself wrote the content of that track as we examine passages like this one where he so clearly contrasts the difference that setting our sights makes.
• Look with me at verse five.
  • There we see the basic contrast, made clear by the phrase “have their minds set” with the choice between fleshy desires and spiritual desires.
  • The word in the original language for this phrase is important for us to understand.
  • When we talk about our minds, we think merely about our brain.
    • In other words it we think of intellectual exercise.
    • We are weighing options, considering suggestions, never with a sense that any of it must become actionable or practical.
  • Paul’s word in the original language is one used 26 times in the New Testament and it derives according to the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament from the Greek word for diaphragm or midriff. (Moo, Pillar: Romans, 305-306, FN)
    • The Greeks considered that midsection the seat of intellectual and spiritual activity.
    • This word settles the inner man at “the core” of a person, directing all of his body’s activities.
    • In other words, the ancient Greeks for completely different reasons came to the same conclusion as the writers of the Bible.
    • Humanity has been made so that the connection between body and soul will inevitably become apparent.
    • Our inner attitudes, actions, and considerations will make their way out into the actions of our bodies.
  • When Jesus talks about this principle in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:22-23 he says, “the eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness.”
    • Jesus is making the point that what we think about and what we receive into our minds or inner person will inevitably make its way our into our actions.
    • That is why in verse 24 of that say chapter Jesus famously says, “No one can serve two masters.”
  • Cognitive-Behavior therapists today agree with this assessment.
    • They do not seek to merely change behavior.
    • No they seek to understand the way a person thinks, so that they can help them to think differently.
    • If a person thinks differently and has different motivations according to these therapists, then they will behave differently.
  • So, when you see the word mind in verses six and seven don’t forget this distinction.
    • We are not merely talking about setting our sights intellectually.
    • We are talking about settling upon our actions and ultimately our eternity.
    • That is why setting our sights on the right way to live is so critical friends.
• Thus, let’s consider the two options, setting our sights on the flesh or selfish desires or setting our sights on the spiritual desires.
  • First as we look at verse 51: When we set our sights on selfish desires we settle for a broken relationship with God. (8:5,6,7,8)
    • Notice the ways that Paul makes this contrast clear.
      • Verse 5 points out that those living according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires.
        • Galatians 5:19-21 defines those desires of the flesh as selfish desires.
        • There Paul names sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery, idolatry and witchcraft, hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, orgies and the like as desires of the flesh.
        • A mind set on any one of these activities or numerous ones of them will inevitably find a way to act these things out.
      • There is a focus on the things that will bring death according to verse 6.
        • As we should remember, the wage for all such selfish, sinful desires is death according to Romans 6:23.
        • But here in Romans 8:6 Paul is telling us that setting our minds on such will not only bring eternal death, but spiritual death now.
      • Verse seven and eight reveals that the death Paul is talking about is a hostility to God that refuses to submit or surrender to Him. Setting our sights on fleshy desires as verse eight concludes means settling for a life that cannot please God.
        • In Romans 1:18-32 Paul teaches us that due to our sinful nature that suppresses the truth in unrighteousness, God removes his divine influence and turns people over to fulfill their sinful desires.
        • In these verses Paul makes it clear that without God’s intervention and influence we are spiritually dead, not merely sickened and weakened.
        • We are according to R.C. Sproul totally depraved – a theological phrase – which he defines in this way, “Total depravity does not mean that man is as sinful as he could be, it is not utter depravity. The point of the debate is this: Does man in his fallen nature have the moral ability to obey God?” (Sproul, The Gospel of God: Romans, 133-134
        • Sproul’s answer as well as Paul’s in Romans 8 is that without God’s supernatural intervention we are all spiritually dead, determined to choose what pleases us, refusing to surrender to God.
  • This is one way to live – opposed to God, broken in our relationship with him and headed for a disastrous eternity.
    • This is a reality that one of our youth came to know all too well this week at Mfuge. With great compassion she wrote these words on her facebook page about her experience.
    • Along with a picture of Jimmy that I cannot show you she offers these words of wisdom that should move all of us to pray for this young man and the lost around us.
      • Jimmy is 11 years old, and he loves football and dodgeball. He likes rock and rap music, and he wants to learn guitar, drums, any instrument he can get. Jimmy’s family is broken, and he doesn’t always get to go home to a loving hug, but he still knows how to give them.
      • Jimmy wrecked my heart this week.
      • Because of all the tough kids we loved on and prayed for all week, Jimmy was the most willing to listen to the Gospel—and yet I didn’t get to see him come to Christ. No matter how much I loved, prayed for, encouraged, and witnessed to him, I couldn’t force Jimmy to want Christ in his life.
      • Jimmy would ask me to pray for him and with him, but he wasn’t ready for that biggest step, of asking Jesus to be his Lord. And it broke me. I couldn’t understand why I was doing mission work, why I felt such a tug on my heart toward this little boy, if he wasn’t going to receive the Word.
      • But the Lord humbled me this week with the realization that it’s not about how well I do at sharing the Gospel. The Spirit will stir in a heart when He is ready to. It’s about whether or not I’m willing to obey without question, and share Christ unashamedly, even in the face of rejection.
      • There are hundreds of kids in South Carolina just like Jimmy. There are millions of PEOPLE just like Jimmy, all around the world. And they are desperate for the Gospel. Not all of them will be receptive—I’ve learned that this week. But we must go anyway. We must tell. Because God calls us to it, and WHATEVER He calls us to, He WILL use for good. Always. So I will step out in boldness. I will love people wildly. And I will let nothing deter me from sharing Christ’s love and power with everyone I meet.
    • Jimmy’s situation is all of our situation but for the grace of our loving and merciful God!
• You see friends 2: When we set our sights on spiritual desires we settle for fellowship with God. (8:5,6,8)
  • Notice how verse five frames this point. It tells us that if we have been supernaturally influenced by God we now choose to set our sights on what the Spirit desires.
    • In other words, the same Holy Spirit, who as God inspired the writers of the Bible to record thought, word, and deed that would pleases Him, now indwells us that we might be able to focus on what God has said.
      • Do not mistake this, the Spirit’s indwelling influence in our lives does not merely means that he will modify our behavior.
      • The Spirit’s indwelling presence allows us to set our sights on what He desires.
      • The Spirit desires according to John 16:14 to glorify Jesus Christ and declare to us the marching orders of Christ.
    • As God’s Word is proclaimed, the Spirit indwells us performing the for “Cs” of spiritual cardiac care.
      • He will convict us inwardly of the foolishness of setting our sight on temporary selfish desires.
      • He will convince us of our need for a Savior and that Jesus Christ is the only Savior of the world.
      • He will convert us to become followers of Jesus Christ so that we will submit ourselves to what He has said in Scripture and in our spirits.
      • And finally he will comfort us, bringing to our minds in suffering the reality of our eternal destination and victory!
    • This is the supernatural change that we needed and had to have in order to have as verse 6 tells us life and peace.
      • Life in the Spirit is life for Christ.
        • If Galatians 5:19-21 defines for us what it means to set our sights upon the flesh, Galatians 5:22-25 defines for us what it means to set our sights upon the Spirit.
        • There we find the fruit of the spirit – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control – all qualities and attitudes of the heart that Christ displayed in his life.
        • When we set our sights upon these things there is no law that binds us so life is the Spirit is freedom to live to express these attitudes with our bodies.
        • Most importantly though, verses 24 and 25 tell us that those who belong to Christ have crucified fleshy desires in order to be raised up to the same new life Christ experienced on resurrection morning by the Spirit.
        • By the grace of God, we set our sights upon leaving the fleshy desires in our past and pressing onward to the new life there is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
      • Further setting our sights upon Spiritual things allows us to have peace, and by implication a life that pleases God.
        • Peace is a theme often in Scripture. To set our minds upon the spirit is to set our minds upon peace.
        • This means that we no longer are hostile to God but willingly submit and surrender ourselves to Him.
        • Further, as Isaiah 26:3 states, “You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.”
          • Those who have set their sights on spiritual things have peace because they are trusting that God will care for their every need.
          • So, as believers when we sin, we do not fret or think we have lost our salvation, we come back to Jesus and trust what he has said in 1 John 1:9, that if we repent he will forgive and cleanse.
          • Our peace comes from trusting that Jesus really meant his promises.
          • Further when difficulties and suffering comes as they did with Paul, and doubts arise our peace comes when we focus on our fellowship with as Paul did in 2 Timothy 4:16-18.
          • Listen to his words, “At my first defense, no one came to my support, but everyone deserted me. May it not be held against them. But the Lord stood at my side and gave me strength, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. And I was delivered from the lion’s mouth. The Lord will rescue me from every evil attack and will be me safely to his heavenly kingdom. To him be the glory for ever and ever. Amen!”

Conclusion:

• So friends we have come to the moment when we can choose to set our sights.
• Do not be short-sighted. Look to your eternal destination. Consider the journey that is ahead. Recognize the difference your choice makes.
• Recognize that as God’s Word has been proclaimed the Holy Spirit has been at work in this room.
  • Have you sensed him convicting you?
  • Have you become convinced of your need for a Savior?
  • Has the Spirit converted you to follow Christ more closely?
  • Has the Spirit comforted you in your distress?
• In these next moments you have the opportunity to respond to the Spirit’s work.
• Friend do not choose to respond with deafness to the Holy Spirit or deadness to His desires, but with the peace and rejoicing that comes from our new spiritual life in Christ!