Introduction

If you ever want to show your ignorance about the Navy, all you have to do is call a Naval ship, “a boat.” I made this mistake one time in my life. I found out (from one very gracious and self-controlled former Navy submariner) that if you call a Navy ship “a boat” in the presence of a serious-minded sailor, you might even make him mad. Why does that make sailors so upset? I put that question out to a few Navy sailors I know. Here’s what they had to say:

My brother-in-law, Ryan, was an officer in the Navy. He served on the USS Curtis Wilbur. He said, “A boat is very small, typically propelled by oars, small sails, or small engines where ships are much larger and often times quite complex with sail masts and/or large machinery for engines. It can simply be an unintended insult to tell a sailor that their ship is a boat because of the vast differences between the two.”

A former student of mine named Alicia, is a coast guard wife. She said that calling a ship a boat is like “calling a mansion a shack.” One sailor wrote me that, “ it is a respect thing that would cause a sailor to take offense to a ship being called boat. He also said big rig drivers wouldn’t want their rig to be called a pickup truck.”

The only similarity between a Navy ship and a fishing boat that you tow behind a pickup is that they float and they carry people. The similarities pretty much end there. Nothing else is remotely similar about those two vessels. Anyone who does not recognize the difference between a fishing boat and a Naval ship is only showing their ignorance of the subject.

The same way… if you ever want to display a complete misunderstanding of the scriptures, then all you have to do is say that all world religions basically teach the same thing. It is common among people in our culture to misunderstand Christianity so severely that they can’t differentiate the differences between Christians and Buddhists and Hindus and Muslims. (Much less the difference between Christians, Catholics, Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses)

This confusion exists, not just on a national scale, but (increasingly) on a global scale. There is confusion not just among laypeople, but it is in the minds of some people in religious leadership. I was asked the other day about the interfaith service that was led by the Pope. I was quick to comment that I’m not a Catholic and the Pope does not represent what we believe here. But let me recall what happened at that service:

Leaders from various religious groups came together a few weeks ago to conduct what they called “An Interfaith religious gathering.” This service included the Pope right along-side Christian, Jewish and several eastern religious leaders. Here is a page program from that service. During the ceremony, leaders from all different religious backgrounds recited these written prayers. Influential leaders from Hindu, Buddhist, Islamic, Sikh, Christian, Jewish and Catholic belief systems stood side by side as if they were all saying the same thing.

It made me question: why did these religious leaders participate in such a ceremony? These are all highly educated and intelligent people. Did the Christian leaders at the ceremony understand the implications of reciting the Beatitudes alongside the ommm’s of a Hindu prayer to a false demon god? Aren’t they aware that these systems are not the same at all? Is the Pope aware that Catholics and Muslims all have radically different belief systems?

I’m assuming he does, but a few months ago he said, that the Koran, and the spiritual teachings contained therein, are just as valid as the Holy Bible. National Report recorded him saying, “Jesus Christ, Jehovah, Allah. These are all names employed to describe an entity that is distinctly the same across the world.” I believe that there are many religious leaders who are creating a lot of confusion with statements that are calling all religious beliefs the same.

I understand that many other belief systems are claiming a form of spirituality, but not all religions are promoting the same thing. (Boats and ships might share some minor similarities, but they aren’t the same… Christianity and Islam and Buddhism might share some minor similarities but are also not the same)

Christianity is quite unique in its claims and built on an all-together, completely different foundation than all other world religions. Pastor Singh explained to us last week that all other religious systems (especially Hinduism) are man’s attempt to reach up to God. All other religious systems are a man-made effort to become good enough to be accepted by some form of deity.

Christianity is totally, foundationally different. The whole premise of the Bible is the God reached down to man. He saw our insufficiency and our utter inability to earn our own salvation. He then solved that issue at the cross. Christianity is a totally different kind of spiritual living… it is all about supernaturally living for the glory of Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit. (not in the power of my own flesh)

When I talk about supernatural, spiritual living, I am referring to the kind of living that can’t be done as a result of our own efforts. It is a kind of living that is the direct result of the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit in the life of a believer.

When I talk about spirituality in this church, I don’t have in mind ESP or channeling spiritual energy from the earth or crystal power or other form of Buddhism or sorcery. I’m not referring to out-of-body experiences, witchcraft or reincarnation. All of these things are not only unbiblical, but they are offensive to God.

• Deuteronomy 18:9-10 says, “⁹ “When you come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you, you shall not learn to follow the abominable practices of those nations. ¹⁰ There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer”

God is against these belief systems because they bring into question His all-sufficiency. They question:

• Whether God is enough… (God’s not enough… I need God and something else)
• Whether Jesus’ death on the cross provided adequate payment for our sin….
• Whether the Holy Spirit is effective both in communicating God’s truth and in transforming God’s people.

If God is against the teaching of these religious systems then the prayers of the leaders from these systems can’t possibly represent the God of the Bible. The Bible is not vague or overly generalized about what is means to be right with God.

• It is clear and specific that our sins were paid for at the cross.
• Jesus’ death on the cross was the only payment for our sins offered and there is no other way into a right relationship with God other than through Jesus. In John 14:6, Jesus says, ““I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
• All those who call on Jesus as Lord and Savior are given the Holy Spirit. Romans 8:9
• The Holy Spirit alone is the one who transforms the believer from the inside out. He creates new appetites for righteousness and He alone is the source of the power needed to live a life that pleases God. Paul says in Romans 8:4 that God sent Jesus and gave us the Spirit’s indwelling presence 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.
• All other methods to get right with God are, sadly, counterfeits. They are far from being the same thing!

The Christian life is not a matter of turning over a new leaf and deciding to do some additional religious deed to try to get on God’s good side. Work’s-based salvation is foundational to the teaching of all other religious systems. Works’ based salvation is founded in the flesh and not in the spirit. “Working our way to heaven” is not the way it works in the Bible.

Biblical Christianity has nothing to do with a work-based salvation. The Bible teaches that God saved us before we were ever able to do good works with a proper motivation. Back in Verse 3, Paul makes it clear that our salvation was completely God’s doing. He said, “³ 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.”

Christianity refers to a complete undoing of our natural, sinful state and a total re-birth through the power of the Holy Spirit. Galatians 2:20a says, “²⁰ I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me…” Christianity has an altogether different foundation than anything else and is incompatible with all other systems.

Prison Illustration:

Before we were in Christ the Bible says we were bound in a dark prison of sin. You and I may have tried to make the best out of our captivity to sin. We found our pleasure there. We built our lives there. We may have even cultivated a form of religion there. That is until that day when the light of the gospel touched us for the first time.

When the Holy Spirit entered our lives, we realized that what we have in Jesus is far greater than even the very best the world has to offer. Our new spiritual life opened up the prison doors of sin and we emerged into a whole new spiritual world. There is nobody who is still living in the prison cell of sin who is able to provide reliable, Godly wisdom for those of us who are released from sin’s captivity. Christ-followers have been given a whole new life and a whole new mentality.

What it means to Be a Christian

Romans 8:5-8 serves as a comparison of these two opposing mentalities:

• who we were in the flesh and
• who we are in Christ.

These four verses all crescendo into one of the clearest statements in scripture about the new nature of a person who has been delivered from death into a new life in Christ. Look at verse 9. Paul writes, “⁹ 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.”

We like to try to divide people into a whole array of categories:

• Democrat or Republican (or Libertarian)
• Rich or poor
• Male or female
• Generation x or y or z
• Worker, manager, owner, president, assistant, CEO, secretary

We even have online quizzes to find out more about ourselves. My family took a silly online quiz a few weeks ago to determine what kind of cookie we are most like. (I’m an oatmeal raisin cookie, by the way)

As a culture, we are always trying to define ourselves according to a whole range of criteria. Some of this information can be very helpful. However none of it points to our most profound level of being. To answer the most important questions about ourselves, we have to turn to God’s Word.

Whatever spiritual reality fills up your mind is the very thing that rules your life. Those who are have the indwelling Spirit are “in Christ” and are ruled by Christ. Those who do not have the Spirit are not “in Christ” and, by default, are ruled by satan (the god of this world) and their own destructive desires. The Bible is very clear that there are not a plethora of options or categories here, but only two.

Romans 8:5 peels away all surface appearances and reveals that there are only two types on people in the world: Those who are living according to the flesh and those who are living according to the spirit.

#1 There are Only Two Different Mindsets: Carnal or Christian

(or the Mind of Flesh and the Mind of Christ)

Verse 5 says, “⁵ 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.”

The first mindset is the mind of the flesh. It is referring to the carnal man. The word translated “flesh” is the Greek word “sarx.” The term is completely comprehensive. It not only refers to a person’s body, but to all the decisions made primarily with the stimulation of the senses in mind. One commentator refers to this carnal man as a sensate man. (a man driven by the stimulation of his senses) He described him as a person who is completely obsessed with the things the earth has to offer and their immediate payoffs. (He says that we are either spiritual or sensate)

Our media continually broadcasts the values of carnal men. Many modern television shows are filled with mindless thrills, with the depiction of immoral activities and with shameless displays of pride. We all know that these displays of carnality are obviously the result of fallen mankind. On the other hand, some of the preoccupations of sinful people have the appearance (not of carnality but) of piety. Some forms of religion play into the value system of a carnal man… namely religion that focusses on immediate, earthly rewards. This religion was that of the Pharisees.

The Pharisees where wildly religious, but for them it was all about the immediate payoff. Talking about the Pharisees, it says in Matthew 23:5-7, “⁵ They do all their deeds to be seen by others. For they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long, ⁶ and they love the place of honor at feasts and the best seats in the synagogues ⁷ and greetings in the marketplaces and being called rabbi by others.”

• They loved the social and religious positions of power offered to them as religious leaders.
• They loved the financial reward of their religious system. Luke 16:14 calls the Pharisees “lovers of money.”
• They knew how to work the religious system to squeeze all the earthly profit out of it.

In their carnal, religiosity, they made one thing very clear: religion and spirituality are not the same thing! Authentic Christianity is spirituality – meaning that a genuine believer’s mindset is fixed on the things of the Holy Spirit.

Put on Screen The Phillips paraphrase translates Romans 8:5 like this: “The carnal attitude sees no further than natural things. But the spiritual attitude reaches out after the things of the spirit.”

A spiritual man is someone whose whole orientation in life is centered on spiritual things with heavenly rewards. Back in Romans 6:11, Paul described this mindset as one that is “dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.” The mindset behind “walking in the spirit” is one that is leading a person deeper into truth and is showing them the immense value of spiritual things.

The psalmist captured the essence of the spiritual life well in Psalm 42:1-2a when he wrote,

“As a deer pants for flowing streams,
so pants my soul for you, O God.
² My soul thirsts for God,
for the living God.”

And in Psalm 63:1 when he said.

“O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you;
my soul thirsts for you;
my flesh faints for you,
as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.”

And again in Psalm 73:25-26 when he declared,

“²⁵ Whom have I in heaven but you?
And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
²⁶ My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”

These are the heart-cries of a spiritual person. The mark of a true Christian is not found in the rituals that person observes but in the true longing of their heart. A person who has a mind fixed on Christ is not trying to obey the law to get right with God. They obey the law out of a love for God. Jesus says in John 14:15, ““If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” A Genuine love for Jesus comes before the supernatural ability to keep God’s commands out of a pure heart.

Paul discovered in Jesus a treasure of such enormous worth that he willingly took all his hard-won religious achievements as a Pharisee and left them behind in order to have Christ instead. He looked at all the earthly rewards he tossed away and counted it as nothing at all to lose. In Philippians 3:8 he wrote, “⁸ Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ.” When our hearts are thrilled with HIS surpassing worth, then the insignificant rewards that this world has to offer begin lose their appeal.

What sets a Christian apart is a mindset that prizes spiritual riches over earthy rewards. A heart-set and a mind-set that treasures the gifts of the Holy Spirit over all other treasures is the most basic thing that distinguishes a spiritual person from one who is not. A mind that is fixed on the things of Jesus creates a mentality that helps a person grow deeper in their love of God and in a delight in the blessings of God’s commands.

If that is the definition of a spiritual person, then I wonder how many spiritual people there really are? Does that definition define you as a Christian? It is indicative of my behavior? You and I can’t tell ourselves that we are genuinely spiritual because we raised our hand and said a prayer at an evangelistic crusade. That might be how you became a Christian, but the way you know that you are a Christian has to do with your mind. Truly spiritual people have a mindset that is preoccupied with the things that are important to the Holy Spirit.

Some people allow for three categories of people in relation to Christianity. There are:

1. Non-Christians
2. Carnal Christians
3. Spiritual Christians

In my observations , too many people are content with category number two: carnal Christian They claim to be believers, but they live like someone who is still firmly planted in the world and at odds with God. You can’t have it both ways. You can’t be a spiritual person and also live in a way that puts you in direct opposition to what God is trying to accomplish. There is no such thing as a carnal Christian. Paul only sees two categories: Christian or carnal. Carnal people live for this world because they love it more than heaven and Christian people live for heaven because they love it more than this world.

It’s not the difference between a little more Christin and a little less Christian. Paul is communicating that the difference here between a spiritual person and a carnal person is a distinction between spiritual life and eternal death.

#2 Your Basic Orientation is Either Energizing You or Killing You

Let’s take a look at verse 6, “⁶ For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace.” There is a complex network of convictions and desires and ambitions that makes you who you are. These driving forces shape your personality and establish your priorities. At the most basic level, these influences determine whether you are someone who is God-neglecting or God-enjoying.

Paul’s point in verse 6 is to point out that an orientation in life that wholeheartedly pursues earthly rewards will eventually result in death. A person who makes his greatest treasure out of the fallen things of this world will live a life that ends in frustration, bitterness and emptiness. Even if this kind of person is religious, they are still carnal.

This is the reason why these Interfaith events are so confusing. A person who does not value Jesus as the most valuable treasure is, by default, setting their mind of the things of the flesh. Such a person is carnal, no matter what their religion might entail. Therefore, a carnal religious person is at odds with God. Romans 8:7-8 says, “⁷ 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. ⁸ Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.” It is difficult to understand how a person, who the Bible defines as “hostile to God,” could possibly be worshipping “distinctly the same God” as the Pope claims.

I think that claiming that the Koran is just as valid as the Holy Bible is like saying that a rowboat is basically an aircraft carrier or that a pickup is basically a semi-truck. These claims communicate an utter ignorance (or a total disregard) of what Paul says about those who treasure anything else above Jesus. I’m afraid that this misunderstanding of spiritual realities has been repeated so many times that people are beginning to believe it.

Life Application

On the other hand, verse 6 says that a person with a mind fixed on the Spirit will discover life and peace. What identifies a truly Christian mindset is a fixation on the immeasurable value of Jesus. A true follower of Jesus has a willingness to suffer losses in this world for the even greater worth of knowing Jesus

Everybody has their mind on something. You are either minding the spirit of God or minding the sinful nature. There is no such thing as neutrality as far as God is concerned. So what preoccupies your mind? That will tell you a great deal about your standing before God.

Teaching Outline

#1 There are only two different mindsets: Carnal or Christian – Romans 6:11, 8:5, Matthew 23:5-7, Luke 16:14, John 14:15, Philippians 3:8“

As a deer pants for flowing streams,
so pants my soul for you, O God.
² My soul thirsts for God,
for the living God.”

Psalm 42:1-2a

“O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you;
my soul thirsts for you;
my flesh faints for you,
as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.”

Psalm 63:1

“²⁵ Whom have I in heaven but you?
And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.
²⁶ My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.”

Psalm 73:25-26

#2 Your basic orientation is either energizing you or killing you – Romans 8:6-8

Application

What identifies a truly Christian mindset is a fixation on the immeasurable value of Jesus