There are times when my actual experience of Christianity weighs me down. For one thing, I get tired of too much religious talk. Too much religious talk cloys and suffocates and makes the faith seem less real. Most wearying, however, is religious behavior that professes and perhaps means to show that one is dedicated to God, but in reality it gives God a bad reputation.

One of my seminary professors told us of a church in San Francisco that forbade people to wear two-tone shoes in the morning service. It's hard today to imagine why a person would want to wear two-tone shoes anywhere, but tastes change. But what logic would bar them from morning worship?

Did the church fathers see those two-tone monstrosities as symbols of a double-minded man, a man, we might say, with a two-tone soul? Or was the sight of those shoes sinister like bell-bottoms or mini-skirts or guys wearing earrings at a later time? Was this pedestrian barrier designed to keep the wicked out or the righteous safe? I don't know the answer to these questions. I do know that the rule about two-tone shoes exacted a high cost of energy with very little to show for it, except to expose the faith to ridicule. The words of Jesus come to mind. "You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel," (Matthew 23:24). It was a silly rule. Here is something sinister.

Back in February, I heard Mike Yaconelli speak. He is the founder of a youth organization called Youth Specialties. He told the story of his daughter, who announced one day that she was no longer a Christian. Some time later her story came out.

She majored in dance at Temple University. While there, she got involved in a Christian ministry. One day, the leader of that ministry came to her and said, "You have to dance or you have to give up dancing and go into this ministry. You can't do both." The all-or-nothing demand and the fact that the leader seemed indifferent to her college career upset her. She not only left the ministry, but also she decided she didn't want to be part of a faith that treated people the way that leader had treated her.

It would be terribly easy to say the girl had problems, and maybe she did. All the more reason for Christian leaders to be gentle enough and sensitive enough to get in touch with what is going on in the souls of those who serve with them. Why can't we be more like Jesus, of whom the Gospel of Matthew says, A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out, till he leads justice to victory.

As I said, behavior like that of the church in San Francisco and the Christian leader in Philadelphia wears on people. When it wears us down, we can be tempted to chuck the whole thing, or we can do something quite different. We can go back to square one and get in touch again with what our faith in Christ is all about. I recommend the latter highly, and Romans eight offers one of those transit cards back to Square One.

Live According to the Spirit
The end of verse three tells us that Jesus Christ condemned sin in sinful man. That doesn't mean He condemned people for being sinners. It means that Jesus, by His life, death and resurrection condemned sin itself. He came into the world to destroy sin. Sin's days are numbered. He also made it possible for us to join the demolition.

Verse four explains how we join in with a surprising statement. Jesus Christ condemned sin in sinful man in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us. Now, back in chapter seven the apostle told us how hard it can be to meet the requirements of God's law. He said, I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out (Romans 7:18). So, what has changed? Look again at verse four.

Jesus Christ condemned sin in sinful man in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit. That's what changed. The Holy Spirit is the new source of strength that empowers the Church to meet the righteous requirements of God's law. Our responsibility is to live according to the Spirit.

Before we leave the sanctuary this morning, I hope that two things can happen. First, I want us to be able to say clearly in a few words what it means to live according to the Spirit. Second, I hope that each of us will make it one of our life goals to live according to the Spirit. Getting into people's lives and helping them to live according to the Spirit is what God called me into ministry to do. The great question is, Can our congregation's defining characteristic be a communal quest to live according to the Spirit? Could it become our collective passion to be a congregation like that? My heart's desire is to become single-minded about that in a way I haven't been before.

Cautions and Encouragements
The apostle gives us the help we need in doing this in Romans eight and Galatians five. He begins by cautioning us in verse four that living according to the Spirit is not automatic. In the language of verse four it is also possible for Christians to live according to the sinful nature.

Christians do not escape the inner conflict that Paul described in chapter seven. In verse 15 he said, I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. The dividing line between good and evil passes right through the heart of every one of us. We are not bad all through, but we are all torn between the good ways of God and our own evil desires; and we find within us a mysterious inclination at times to follow the evil desires.

Becoming a Christian doesn't change that. What changes is the presence of the Holy Spirit in the center of our personality. Reinforcements have arrived, but the battle still rages. And whether we take advantage of the reinforcements Christ has sent us is always an open question.

You know, the Church is not a fast faith operation. We don't take people in here with all their bad habits, clean them up and present them the next day flawless for public consumption. We accept each other with our flaws of a lifetime, and it takes us a while to get the hang of living according to the Spirit.

So, living according to the Spirit is not automatic. In fact, verse five says that in order to live that way something needs to happen to the way we think. Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.

The Church doesn't fix people, because people are a mystery with a mind and a long history of thinking a certain way. So, at our best we attack the mystery and the history by going after the really big prize, the renovation of the mind. Romans 12:2 sums up this strategy by saying: Be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

The next three verses encourage the renewal of our minds with some brief comments on why it's good to live according to the Spirit. Verse six says that the mind of sinful man is death. The insensitivity of that Christian leader that turned a young woman away from the faith at a vulnerable time of her life is death. The hypocrisy that none of likes is death. The mindless, Christian chatter that wearies people is death. But, verse six goes on to say, the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace. A mind controlled by the Spirit will learn to be sensitive to vulnerable people, consistent in its speech and relationships, and will speak in a way that builds up and doesn't tear down.

Verse 7-8 say that the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God. The mind in its unrenewed condition operates in contradiction to the intentions of the One who created the human mind.

An Obligation to the Spirit
However, a change has taken place. Verse nine says, You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ.

You might say to me at this point, "If you really knew me, pastor, you wouldn't be so quick to say that Holy Spirit controls me." In one way that is true of us all. Our sinful nature still controls our behavior more often than we would like. A small child falls down often, but within that child a life force is at work that will someday give him strength to stand and not to fall.

Paul's point in verse nine is that the Holy Spirit, God's life force, is at work in us, to give us strength to please God more and more. Verses 10-11 tell us why Paul says this. Verse ten says, But if Christ is in you, your body is dead (you body is destined to die) because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. Nothing we do can stop death, not even having God's life in us. On the other hand, he says, your spirit is alive because of righteousness. I like what one biblical scholar said about this. "When sin plays death as its last card, God's Spirit will trump it," (Dunn, Romans I, 445).

Verse eleven confirms this. 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 through his Spirit, who lives in you. So, what's the point?

Verses 12-14 make the point. Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation - but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it. For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live, because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.

We can live according to our sinful nature, or we can live according to the Spirit. God will raise us from death some day, because we have the Spirit living in us. So, we have an obligation to put to death the misdeeds of the body and to live according to the Spirit, or to be led by the Spirit. They are two ways of saying the same thing. And how do we live according to the Spirit? The apostle does not tell us how to do that here.

The Pastoral Center of Gravity
Evidently, Paul assumed his Roman listeners would know how to do that. In another letter he gives us more help in how to do that. Before we go to that letter, listen one more time to verse five. Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. Now, let's go to Galatians 5:19-23, which tells us explicitly what the sinful nature desires and what the Spirit desires.

First, verses 19-21 tell us what the sinful nature desires. The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity, and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God. It is humbling to think that I am capable of such behavior and might enjoy and defend that behavior. That is the behavior we Christians are obligated to turn away from.

By contrast, verses 22-23 tell us what the Spirit desires. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. The Holy Spirit is at work in us to produce those nine behaviors. Living according to the Spirit results in such behavior.

I love the vivid language of verse 25. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. The Apostle Paul talks about living according to the Spirit, walking in the Spirit, being led by the Spirit, and now keeping in step with the Spirit. They mean the same thing. For my pastoral purposes with you I will use the express here in verse 25: keeping in step with the Spirit. Christian spirituality consists in keeping in step with the Spirit.

And you will ask, "How do I keep in step with the Spirit?" We refer back to the Spirit's desires in verses 22-23 and practice, practice, practice the behavior that the Spirit is at work in us to produce. I can make it even simpler to remember what to practice.

Listen to Jesus in Mark 12:30. "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength." Now listen to Romans 13:9-10. The commandments, "Do not commit adultery," "Do not murder," "Do not steal," "Do not covet," and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: "Love your neighbor as yourself." Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

Keeping in step with the Spirit means to love God wholeheartedly and to love your neighbor as yourself. Early in this sermon I said that before we leave the sanctuary this morning, I want us to be able to say clearly in a few words what it means to live according to the Spirit.

There it is. Keeping in step with the Spirit means to love God wholeheartedly and to love your neighbor as yourself. Our focus is not on rules telling you what not to do. It is on how to give ourselves away to serve God and to benefit the people God sends across our paths everyday. To the extent that we live that way, we will meet the righteous requirements of God's law.

I also hope that each of us will make it a life goal to keep in step with the Spirit. Is that a life goal for you? You have to decide to do it, but you shouldn't try to do it alone. This needs to become a frequent conversation among the people you are closest to. When people ask how they can pray, tell them, "Pray that I will keep in step with the Spirit," and people here will know what you mean.

Before we stop, I have a prayer for you. If you want to make it a life goal to keep in step with the Spirit, say these words to God. "Lord, turn all of me into love and all of my love into obedience, and let my obedience be without interruption." Let's keep in step with the Spirit and see how ten years of doing that will change us and our world.