Spiritual Warfare: “The Spiritual Warfare of Our Bodies” (Romans 8:1-17)

“Only about 5% of what we do in a given day is the outcome of conscious, deliberate choices we make.” Let’s just sit with that for a moment. This is what Timothy Wilson argues in his book called, “Strangers to Ourselves: Discovering the Adaptive Unconscious.”

This morning we are finishing up a series on spiritual warfare. In this series, we have looked at several different arenas into which Satan can insert himself, deceive us, and lead us away from what God is trying to do in our lives. He wants us to believe things that aren’t true about God, to be trapped in shame, to be wrapped up in bitterness, and to allow our sexuality to divide us. He does all of these things in sneaky ways by inserting half truths into these different areas that lead to further bondage rather than freedom.

Today, we are going to look at a little different aspect of spiritual warfare though. Satan doesn’t work alone in his efforts to hinder the work of God in our lives. In fact, you may be surprised to find out that his greatest ally is you, at least a part of you. As the above quote illustrates, there is still much of who we are and how we function that we do not yet understand. Whether we consider ourselves followers of Christ or not, I believe that all of us can relate to the experience that the ideal of who we wish we could be and the reality of who we actually are don’t line up. I can shout at my kids or gossip about someone at work or cheat on a test at school or give in to workaholism. Sometimes, we even find ourselves addicted to a substance or wounding others through our words and perhaps we have even hurt others physically.

The average person is not proud of those shortcomings and does their best to improve and grow, but it doesn’t always change, does it? How do we understand this and how do we actually experience transformation in our lives? First, we have to recognize that it is a battle. I am going to make some controversial statements here today, but one of them is that transformation doesn’t just happen because we make a decision that we want to change. It also doesn’t happen because we have all the right information. To help illustrate this reality, let me tell you the story of a young man who sold a truck.

On the screen you will see a picture of this young man. I drove trucks all through high school and college. I loved the feel of driving a big vehicle and being able to do lots of different projects with my trucks. Yet, when I was preparing to move overseas, it no longer made sense to drive a big truck around. It cost a lot to drive, I still owed money on it, it was hard to park, and a friend offered to let me use their very economical sedan for as long as I needed it until I left. So, I listed my truck in the newspaper—yes, I am old—and I sold it a few weeks later. I still remember my eyes getting wet as I watched this guy drive away with my truck. I had applied all the right logic to this decision, so it shouldn’t have been difficult right? In college, we did make some good memories with this truck, like the night we picked up snow at Larch Mountain in the gorge and then drove around our college campus and threw snowballs at unsuspecting students. The grief was deeper than just nostalgia though, several years later, I came to realize that driving a truck helped me portray myself in a certain way that a sedan didn’t. It wasn’t wrong for me to grieve saying goodbye to that truck, but just selling the truck didn’t resolve my deeper feelings of self-worth and value. I was bumping up against Satan’s greatest ally, the part of me that the Bible describes as the flesh—our physical bodies—or otherwise translated as the “sinful nature.” I will use the term “corrupted self” to describe that part of us which looks for fulfillment or satisfaction in all kinds of selfish or improper ways.

The Apostle Paul talks about this corrupted aspect of ourselves in Romans 7:18-19 when he notes that there is part of him that wants to do good, but is often unable to carry it out. There is a part of him, what he calls his inner being, that wants to respond to God and do what is right, but there is another part of him, his flesh, or corrupted self that fights against him and keeps him from doing what is right. Unfortunately, we also aren’t ever free of that corrupted part of ourselves. There is part of it that is connected to our physical bodies that we will always have with us. However, that corrupted part of ourselves is more than our physical bodies.

Without diving too much into philosophy or theology, followers of Christ believe that we are more than just our bodies. We have a will, desires, consciousness, and souls that are linked with our bodies. The corruption that we then experience in our bodies impacts our wills and consciousness as well. If we go back to my illustration of the truck, I sold my truck for many practical reasons, but the part of me that grieved the loss of the truck, looked for another outlet once the truck was sold. If I couldn’t prove how tough I was by driving a truck, I could do it by showing how much I could lift or how good of a basketball player I was. I could show it by how hard I worked and refusing to let anything affect me emotionally. What was going on is that my sense of significance had somehow become connected to this macho version of myself that I wanted to portray to the world. It took me several years after I sold my truck to realize that I was looking for significance in places where I would not be able to find it.

This is why I believe our corrupted self is Satan’s greatest ally. Our corrupted self blinds us and keeps us from connecting with God and experiencing true transformation. It seeks fulfillment of and satisfaction of true needs through inadequate sources convincing us that the next thing will be the one that meets our needs. We all know that person who has been a serial dater or been married several times. The belief is that the next relationship will finally meet that need of acceptance or security or love and it doesn’t work out.

The Apostle Paul would say this shouldn’t be surprising to us. Our corrupted self is working hard to pull us away from finding healing and help in God. It recognizes that there are unmet needs in us but convinces us to pursue all kinds of counterfeit substitutions. It is like being thirsty and being encouraged to drink salt water, it only increases our thirst. So, how do we properly address those desires? At a 30,000 foot level, what we are really talking about today is spiritual growth or transformation. The fancy church word for this is sanctification. When someone responds to the call of Jesus it doesn’t mean that all of their problems and selfishness disappear overnight. Even though that person comes back into relationship with God, there are still many aspects of their lives that do not belong to God. So, what we are talking about today is how that process of change and transformation happens in our lives and how our corrupted self serves as one of the biggest barriers to that change.

In the next few minutes, I will solve every question you have ever had about growing spiritually and changing to become more like Christ. Just kidding, we are going to talk a bit about how our corrupted self keeps us from moving forward in our relationship with God and how God meets us in our place of need.

The first step in this process is to describe how our corrupted self shows up in our day to day lives and how we often combat it ineffectively. How does the corrupted self show up? Well, sometimes it is obvious. When I was in high school, I thought the idea of someone being a kleptomaniac was a joke. I didn’t believe it was a real disorder until I realized that one of my friends had this disorder. Anytime we would go into a store, he would steal something. He couldn’t go into any store without taking something. He hid an ice cream sandwich in his pants only to throw it away once we got outside of the store. He went on to work for military intelligence, so I am not sure what that says. Anyway, I came to realize that he was not in control of himself when he went into a store. He stole something every time.

The corrupted self was obvious on the outside. Addictions and violence are obvious outward manifestations of the corrupted self. There is no question that something is off. Other times, that corrupted self is hidden behind actions that are not obviously problematic. For example, someone can be extremely generous to the poor. It seems like a good action, but perhaps they do so because they are trying to erase the shame of letting a family member die on the streets. No amount of money that they give will actually resolve that shame, but their corrupted self keeps telling them to give.

The Pharisees are the perfect example of this biblically. They studied the Scriptures and ordered their entire lives around their religious faith, but Jesus called them whitewashed tombs that looked nice on the outside, but were full of dead bones on the inside. They worked hard to be religious, but it only increased their pride and feelings of superiority over others. They were controlled by their inner corrupted self. Their actions looked good, but their core inner motivations were still controlled by their corrupted selves.

Romans 8:5-8 speaks to this reality. Let’s read it together: “Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace. The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God.” It notes that when our corrupted self is in control, we are at war with God. Our corrupted self doesn’t want to give up the reins. It wants to hold onto us and keep us in opposition to God, even after we come to know Him.

One of the main ways to do this is by deceiving us into focusing on actions over our inner desires or motivations. What do I mean? Your corrupted self wants you to focus on your behavior far more than the core need that your behavior is trying to fill. Just imagine for a moment that you are in the tool section of Home Depot and three guys are there buying power tools. They are all performing the same action, but each one has a different reason for doing so. One has a job he needs to finish and this tool will make it possible for him to finish the job quickly and efficiently. Another one just lost a loved one and is trying to find something to take his mind off his grief. The other has convinced himself he needs this tool, even though he won’t use it much, but he likes how he can portray himself when others see that he has a garage full of tools. Each motivation is different and probably only one of the guys buying a power tool isn’t doing so out of desire to meet some deeper need within himself. The behavior is not bad for any of them, but the core motivation should impact how we see the behavior.

The problem is that if we make behavior our standard and strategy for spiritual transformation, we will find ourselves living impotent and empty lives. We will not be filled with life and light because our corrupted selves will still be steering the ship and causing us to look anywhere but to God for life and fulfillment. It is certainly better to refrain from viewing

pornography or indulging in too much alcohol, no matter what your motivation, but if you are doing it just because you think you have better sex with your spouse—what happens? When sex with your spouse doesn’t fulfill you, the framework supporting your behavior crumbles and you can easily fall right into the behavior again because your foundation was faulty. In the same way, if you focus on counting to ten so you can stop yelling at your spouse, the anger may just come out in different ways until you recognize that you have a deep need for control. Your breathing strategies won’t even touch on your need for control.

First we have to take seriously that our motives are harder to identify than we think they are and changing our behavior is not enough. When I sold my truck, I didn’t know that one of the main reasons I drove a truck was because of the sense of significance it gave me. No matter what practical value it might have had, the intangible sense of significance I got from driving that truck was really why I had one. Marketers know this. Their most powerful advertisements are not ones that logic out why their product is tangibly better than another product. Their most powerful ads are the ones that tap into our core motivations and desires. Apple wants you to have feelings of love for their products. Their ads show off products like models on a runway. They may give you some information about the product, but more than anything they are trying to reach you in a much deeper place. Fragrance advertisers don’t really ever talk about the makeup of their products. Instead, they are tapping into your desires to be beautiful or wanted by others.

The first strategy of the corrupted self is to take our eyes off of our core desires and motivations, while the second strategy is to get us consumed with fulfilling our desires. This is what eventually happens with addictions right, we become consumed with getting that next fix. However, we don’t have to be addicted to something in order to be subject to a surface level desire or desires. We might become consumed with getting that new car and how happy that will make us. Or we might become obsessed with a person we want to date or sleep with. Whatever it might be, our corrupted self will bring all of your thoughts to self-gratification. We don’t always necessarily understand why, but we just become convinced that someone or something will make us happy. I did this with a stereo or nice sound system as a middle schooler. I saved up every penny and even sold some things, so that I could have this great stereo system that I wanted. Who knows why I became obsessed with it, but I did. This is what happens when our corrupted self overwhelms us with base desires. They too are symptoms of a deeper need and lack, but we get fixated on that thing we want right in front of us.

Yet, in the church, we miss that deeper reality that we have been experts at explaining information and hoping that this will lead to change. Consumerism won’t make you happy. So, stop buying stuff. Pornography is dishonoring to God and women. Stop doing it. We may even ask people to confess an action and turn from that action, but without touching on what is under the surface that information won’t be that helpful. If we don’t just change our behavior or pursue new information to help us get out of the place where we are stuck, what do we do?

Romans 8:9-11, “You however, are not in the realm of the flesh but are in the realm of the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in you, then even though your body is subject to death because of sin, the Spirit gives life because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you.”

This gives us the hope that we need. It lets us know that while our corrupted self doesn’t go away, we are not forced to be under its control any longer. We have life through the Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit brings us to life and begins to change our hearts as He gives us a taste of the true realities that our corrupted self longs for but cannot attain. For the person who has been jumping from relationship to relationship looking for acceptance, the Spirit floods our hearts with true acceptance that comes from a Father who knows everything about us and chooses to love us anyway.

We would like to believe that we are rational beings, but if we have learned anything over the last several years during Covid and beyond, we have learned that logic and rationality often take a backseat to other motivations and desires. We are motivated by safety, significance, anxiety, greed, etc. Yet, we still try to explain to people why they are thinking wrongly about something. Here I am explaining concepts to you and while concepts are important, they are often incapable of moving anyone to change. Our culture is becoming more and more aware of this. We are realizing that we need guidance and that we have an abundance of information, but we can’t apply it to our lives or make the changes we need just by having the right information. Therapy and life coaching has been on a huge rise at least in part because we are trying to figure out why we are so stuck.

I have needed help uncovering some of these areas in my own life. I have struggled with feelings of insignificance for a good part of my life. As a high schooler, one of the main ways it manifested itself was as a tennis player. I know, don’t be too amazed that you are in the same room as a high school tennis player. At the time, if you would have sat with me and talked with me about how my performance in tennis didn’t impact who I was in any other way, I would probably have agreed with you. Yet my whole outlook on life was impacted by how I performed on the tennis court.

My parents had a hard time watching me play because I acted like an idiot. I would get so upset when I would not perform well and my coach had a knack for making it worse. This search for significance morphed over time as I stopped playing tennis competitively. I tried to be the best language student when I moved to another country. I wanted to make myself stand out by the work I was doing. Some of these tasks I became successful in and others I didn’t, but over time I became less and less satisfied with my feelings of insignificance. I now see that God was divinely orchestrating some circumstances in my life to reveal that core motivation of significance and it wasn’t until I could finally see it that I could even begin to accept that purpose and significance that the Father was offering as His child.

The truth about our world is that Satan is working in tandem with our corrupted self in order to sell us counterfeit solutions to the longings of our hearts. AJ Swoboda describes this dynamic well in his book “The Gift of Thorns” where he writes, “Satan always wants us to believe we need “more” than we have.”

Having access to God is great, but you can’t really rest when you spend time with Him. That new show you have been wanting to watch, that will help you rest. Not that watching TV can’t ever be restful, but there is a reason we use the term “binging” right? We don’t typically come out of a streaming binge feeling more rested. We feel worn out, but the next time we are tired it is easy to go back to the well. The same thing with scrolling right? Our devices promise to keep us entertained or help us relax and before we know it, time has gotten away from us and we don’t know exactly what we just experienced.

Another big shift that has taken place in our world is that we have recognized the dangers of eating for comfort. While food can make us feel good for a moment, sugars and saturated fats in the amounts we consume don’t actually contribute to our long term well being. For many, the pendulum has swung to healthy eating and exercise. While not bad pursuits in and of themselves, people have curated a sense of beauty and value based on their physical appearance or have built a morality around what we eat. While Jesus encourages us to be wise, He also reminds us that it is not what enters our bodies that causes us the greatest problems, it is what comes out of our hearts or our corrupted selves. Satan knows that our flesh or corrupted self will chase after all of these counterfeit solutions, masquerading as ultimate solutions.

Romans tells us that the only way this changes is when the Spirit of God or the Holy Spirit enters us and allows to encounter true beauty in the person of Christ, true significance as part of God’s kingdom, true love in the sacrifice of Jesus on our behalf, etc., that we begin to reorient our lives towards Him. I believe He does this really in two ways. One He shows us what true beauty, acceptance, love, purpose, etc. are. We encounter the real things as we come into relationship with Him and it changes us. The other thing that He allows to happen is He allows our counterfeit solutions to fail us. While He may let you enter that new job or relationship that you think will fix everything, He will let it disappoint you. He won’t let it be the solution, not because He is trying to be cruel, but because He knows that when we let go of control and allow the Spirit to govern our hearts and minds, we will find life and peace.

Now, you may be sitting there today after this deep dive into what we call “spiritual formation," which is just a fancy way of saying growing into maturity as a Christ follower, and wondering what can you practically take away from this message? Well, because of our inability to recognize some of our core motivations, I have to be very careful in telling you how to respond to a message like this. If all you hear are instructions on what to do in order to achieve a better spiritual life, you will have missed the core of what is being said here.

First, we need the Holy Spirit to reveal areas in our hearts where we have corrupted desires or unmet needs and allow Him space to meet us in those places. I don’t think this happens if we don’t have community in our lives or give Him space. Our Father cares about us too much to let us wander forever and can create space through tragedy or upheaval in our lives, but He can do it without upheaval as well. I just don’t know how that happens without upheaval unless we have people around us who can help us identify those unspoken corrupted desires and we have spaces in our lives where we can tune our ears to his voice.

I believe that he often wants to speak with us, but we let other voices speak louder. I don’t know how we hear His voice unless we give Him space. So, one thing I would like you to do right now where you are sitting is just to take a moment and to take stock of your own hearts. Are there any areas where you are noticing that your heart is wanting and unsatisfied? I would like us just to take a moment here right now to do a quick heart check and ask the Holy Spirit if there are any areas where you need to be filled. If the Holy Spirit brought something to your mind right now, I would encourage you to pray at least once every day this week for God to help you understand and meet that desire in your life. We have to give God space in our lives to help us understand our needs and meet them.

In closing, worship is a powerful experience that helps move us from knowledge about God to love for Him. Although singing is part of that process, it is more than just singing. Worship is stopping to consider who God is and allowing ourselves to respond to who He is and what He has done in a variety of ways. Song is one of those main ways. Singing taps into our deeper desires and longings. Any form of artistic expression can actually tap into that deeper part of who we are. Responding in those ways has power. One other significant way this takes place is through communion. One of the reasons we partake of communion almost every week here is because we believe that communion creates space for an encounter with Jesus. He gave it as a symbol of His sacrifice for us and it gives us a very tangible means to reflect on that sacrifice and commune with Him. In that encounter, our hearts are moved towards Him once again as we are reminded of so great a love for us that would even give up its life on our behalf.

Life Level Application

1. How come it is important to discern the motives and desires behind our actions?

2. Are there any areas in your life right now where the Spirit may be trying to highlight that you have been giving into a counterfeit desire?

3. In what ways could you create space for the Holy Spirit to have more access to your heart?