Sunday Sermon: Dual Citizenship

Everyone has the choice between living a life of the flesh or the spirit.

Drawing on Romans 8, this sermon explores what Paul means by the Flesh and the Spirit, and what it means for Christians to live according to the Flesh or the Spirit. Expect quite a few Canada/US jokes coming from an extended metaphor throughout the sermon

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

All right, uh good morning. It's wonderful to see you all.

unknown 0:03

Good morning.

SPEAKER_02 0:04

Now, those of you who were here last week remember that I like to start with a joke. Get ready. Here comes the next one. So, there's a young man from Canada, and he decides he's going to, for the first time in his life, visit the United States of America. And so he crosses the border, he goes into a big city, let's say Detroit or something, and he's walking down an alleyway in Detroit. And then a man jumps out and points a gun at him and says, Give me all of your money if you want to live. And the young Canadian man says, Oh, I've heard about you. You must be what those Americans call a doctor. To be very clear, the butt of that joke is the American healthcare system, not Canadian guilelessness or anything. The joke is on me right now. So that joke relates to today's reading in Paul, the letter to the Romans. The jokes don't always relate, but you gotta you got lucky today. This one relates in that Paul is talking about citizenship between two different nations, two kingdoms, two societies you can be a part of. You can either be a citizen of the flesh, which is bad, and leads to death, or you can be a citizen of the spirit, which is good and leads to adoption by God and eternal life. Now that's great that Paul's saying that, but one, what does that mean, actually? And two, how does that apply to our lives today? So to know what this means, we have to define our terms first. And we'll start with the question, what is the flesh? And to know what the flesh is, it's important that you know what the flesh is not, because this is a term that is often confused in the church. So think that the flesh is not number one. The flesh is not your body. The flesh is not, you know, the literal flesh that makes up our being. Uh, number two, the flesh is not your bodily desires. It's not your desire for food, for comfort, for intimacy. That is not the flesh. Those things can be bad if they're, you know, treated or allowed to run to excess, but those are not bad in and of themselves. Keep that in mind, because people mistake that one a lot. And number three, what the flesh is not, is the physical world itself. The flesh is not your flesh, it's not your desires, it's not this world that we live in. If you open your Bibles, which is always a good thing to do, but don't feel pressured to right now. If you open your Bibles and you look at Genesis, what does God say after He makes the world? He says, it is good. Sorry, he doesn't just say it's good. He says it is very good. So if the flesh is bad, flesh cannot be something that God made. The flesh is the flesh is the diseased and broken nature of humankind in rebellion against God. Not who we are, to be clear, because we are good essentially, but we all, because of sin, we have this disease that makes us curve inward on ourselves. It's a kind of corruption. Uh the flesh, in this sense, is the politician who you know skims some money off the top because they don't think anyone will notice. Or the flesh is simmering ethnic or racial or international tensions, or a child who you know takes his brother's toy because he's not willing to wait his turn. This flesh is this curving inward, away from others, away from their best interests, away from God, away from what he wants for us, and inward towards ourselves and what we want. Living by the flesh is living inwardly. So now we have what the flesh is. It's this diseased, curved inwardness. What is the spirit, though? What does it mean to live according to the spirit? So again, let's define what the spirit is not. The spirit is not thing number one, not your mind. It's not about being rational, it's not about a feeling, it's not about anything inside of you. Not a feeling, not rationality, not anything inside of you. The spirit is not something you can acquire or do for yourself. The spirit very simply is the Holy Spirit of God, the third person of the Trinity, Father, Son, Holy Spirit, breaking into this world and dwelling in Christians now. We all have the spirit dwelling in us, which by the way, if you're worried about this, which it's a reasonable fear sometimes people in the pews have, oh, you know, do I have the spirit? Maybe I maybe I don't. Well, I was reading Corinthians this morning for my morning devotions. In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul says, Anyone who calls Jesus Lord does so by the spirit dwelling in him. So if you're here in this church and you're calling Jesus Lord, or if you even have a desire to call Jesus Lord, congratulations. Guess what? You have the Spirit in you. So don't worry too much about that. There's plenty of other things in the world for you to worry about. So the result of that is that we are no longer citizens of this nation of the flesh. We are now under the spirit of God's authority who dwells in us, which gives us this new orientation. Paul says that we are adopted by the Spirit and made God's sons. He says it directly here in verse 15. You did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, Abba, Father. This is a somewhat overstated homiletical point. But for those who don't know, Abba, that's an untranslated Aramaic term that's made its way into the text. The New Testament is written in Greek originally. We translate the Greek into English, but every so often there's a word in another language, and Abba is one of those. And it means father or dad in a familial, intimate context. It's the kind of thing Jesus would have called Joseph when he was a small child sitting on his lap learning carpentry. So because we've been adopted by the Spirit, we can look up at God and call him father, daddy almost. Although, again, it's a slightly overstated point there. So, hearing all this, a reasonable person might make an objection. If Christians have the spirit, why do they keep doing fleshly things? You know, look at the news. There's Christians doing all kinds of crazy stuff out there, are they not? If you're the introspective kind of person, you might be asking yourself, I mean, why can I not stop eating Anna's nanaimo bars? That's a struggle I'm dealing with right now. You guys really went off with those nanaimo bars. I mean, holy heck. So it's a reasonable question, right? Why do we keep doing these fleshly things, even if we want to be and are by adoption spiritual beings? So now we're going to return to my very funny joke from earlier about Canada and the United States. So most of you, I think all of you, at least most of you know, I recently moved here from Philadelphia in the US to Fort Smith here in Canada. The second greatest country in the world. Which I know I keep saying that, but I'm sorry. When you run the numbers, it's not even close. Liechtenstein comes in first place every time. Canada's a very distant second to Liechtenstein. Sorry, did you think America was the greatest country in the world?

SPEAKER_00 8:34

I can't see.

SPEAKER_02 8:35

Guys, the US isn't even playing in the game. It wouldn't be fair to the rest of you. So, anyway, I'm joking around, but the point is, physically, I am undeniably here in Fort Smith, in Canada, right now, in front of you. But if you get a text message from me, the area code will read 570 at Scranton, Pennsylvania, the United States of America. And you might have noticed I have a slightly silly accent, right? I say water instead of water, which by the way, I get picked on that even in the States. Water is a very regional thing. Or I might say used guys, uh, I don't eat sub sandwiches, I eat hoagies, so on and so on. And I still have a very strong temptation to defend the Fahrenheit system of temperature measurement. I know you all think you've got hot stuff with the Celsius thing, but I'm I'm telling you, Fahrenheit's very intuitive. You know, uh, if you're living in Germany, where Mr. Fahrenheit lived, or you know, most of North America, zero degrees is about the coldest you'll experience in one year, a hundred degrees is about the hottest you'll experience. Of course, that goes out the window here in Fort Smith, so maybe Celsius makes sense. At least if you're living in the north. The point is, when you're a citizen born in one nation, you're going to bear that imprint for a long time. Even if I decide to immigrate fully to Canada, I'm always going to carry that Americann-ness in me. And you all who were born into the flesh, who are now adopted as uh citizens of the spirit, bear that imprint of the flesh still in you. It's there. You'll you'll slip up, you'll fall back into it over time. You will say rude things to people. You will fail to fulfill your obligations, you will skip church on Sunday, which I know it's hard to believe, but some people do skip church on Sunday. Uh, and I will, you know, continue to defend the Fahrenheit system of temperature measurement. Now, this is tough, this friction that we live in. Paul says this in verse 17 of this passage. We find it for you. If we are children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided, provided, is the important part, that we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. There's suffering in this bargain. Uh, Christianity is not an easy religion, guys. If you want an easy religion, well, actually, I don't know of any. You'll have to make one yourself. But Christianity is not easy. Uh, there's a friction when you're carrying the spirit's passport, or when you're carrying the flesh's passport, and you're living in a new foreign land. God doesn't want you to be miserable. He actually wants you to be happy. I do believe that. But there is a difficultness to this. When you choose forgiveness over revenge, it's like a part of you is dying inside. That's a really tough one. Forgiving someone who's really hurt you, I mean, gosh, talk about a death. When you choose generosity, giving freely of the gifts God has given you to those in need over keeping it for yourself, I mean, it's like a little part of you dies. If I have two of Anna's Danaimo bars and someone comes to me and wants the second, I mean, gosh, that's a hard thing. And if you're watching scripture, or you don't watch scripture, if you're reading scripture instead of watching reality TV or Game of Thrones or whatever, gosh, that's not culturally relevant. What is the TV show right now? Anyone know? Someone shout it out.

unknown 12:39

Yellowstone.

SPEAKER_02 12:40

Yellowstone? If you choose scripture over Yellowstone, I mean that that's tough. It's not what you want to do naturally. You want to watch TV and veg out. Acting against that is like standing up when you've been sitting on your foot weird and it's fallen asleep. It feels unnatural. You're going against the grain. You know, to make this point very clear to you, uh, this is hard for us to do, but we do have to do it.

SPEAKER_00 13:06

Where is this?

SPEAKER_02 13:08

So when I came to Canada, I exchanged all my American currency except for this one dollar at Edmonton International Airport. Uh, and this is kind of a representative of the old world I was in, the United States, the flesh. Uh and you know what? It doesn't work here. This is legal tender somewhere else, but if I go to Tim Hortons and I try to buy my coffee with this, where's it gonna get me? Right? We need to put the old ways of our old life to death. You'll accept it? That is good to know. Anna, could I buy an Anaimo bar with this?

SPEAKER_00 13:51

No.

SPEAKER_02 13:52

No? Well, in that case, uh Kazers is nice, no offense, but this is essentially worthless. We have to put it to death. We have to, and you know, this is kind of corny, but we have to tear it up. Throw it away. By the way, I looked it up. That was legal to do. I don't have an intent to remove this from circulation or to defraud American citizens. So I can tear this up to make a point to you. Any RCM MP spouses in the congregation? Do not tell your husbands. I just did that. And you know, we can extend this metaphor if you want. I've got this wonderful Canadian $5 bill here. Mr. Laurier on the front. Pretty darn hard to tear in half. Almost impossible, actually. I hope you're all enjoying this metaphor, by the way, where the United States is the flesh and Canada is the spirit. I could only preach this here. It wouldn't go over well down south. You have to move on to that more resilient, that higher way of living. And it's hard. Believe me, I didn't want to tear that dollar up. That was my last link to back home. But we do have to do it. So what? What does this all mean for your lives? How are you going to carry this into Monday morning? When you're thinking, holy crap, he really tore up that dollar. You need to keep this flesh-spirit distinction in mind. Think about how it reframes your faith. Christianity is not about what you do or how you act, but who you belong to. Where is your home? Are you at home in the flesh or the spirit? The US, Canada. Old ways, new ways. Do you belong to yourself? Do I belong to my appetite for nanaimo bars? Or do I belong to God? So tomorrow morning, you're all, you're right now you're being very pious. You're here in church, you're thinking holy thoughts. But tomorrow morning, when you go about your life, you'll probably slip back into old ways. Uh maybe tomorrow we're all going to be treated to the smell of wildfire smoke. Uh, and then that leads to anxious rumination and worrying and worrying and worrying about things that are far out of our control. Or maybe someone is going to irritate you. Maybe at Kazers. Maybe someone at Kazers is going to irritate you and you're going to be tempted to retaliate or to gossip about them. That's big in a small town, right? You're going to want to gossip or even withdraw in relationship from them entirely. You want to literally curve in on yourself away from this person at Kazers who annoys you. Or maybe you just won't really be sure that you even want to do good this week. Because you know, that's true too. Sometimes it's hard to even want to be good. So when that happens this Monday, remember where you belong, who owns you, that you are a child of God, that you have his spirit in you. And when you feel that old accent of the flesh resurfacing, pause and pray.

SPEAKER_01 17:18

Five words. Abba, father, I am yours.

SPEAKER_02 17:25

Abba, father, I am yours. And to be honest with you, that won't fix everything. Like I said, there's a lot of friction in this religion. It's a marathon, not a sprint. Friction is part of the deal. But the cost of living in a new country, while the old one is still all around you, is you know, that's how it is. The good news, I think, and there is always good news, like I said last week, is that you belong to a new kingdom, a much better kingdom than that of the flesh, and you have a father in heaven who has you covered. Amen.