Editor’s note: These are notes drawn from Lucas Kitchen’s sermon “The War Within” at Burleson Bible Church (September 27, 2026). They are not a word-for-word transcript.
Inside every believer a war is going on—flesh on one side, spirit on the other, and your mind caught in the middle. Where you set that mind decides whether you live in death or in abundant life.
When I came into a clear understanding of grace, I was solid on salvation: by grace alone, through faith, apart from works. But I was hazy on discipleship. Was the Christian life just grit and determination from there on out—or was it somehow like grace, something God gives? For a long time I treated it like this: salvation is free, then you just have to work really, really hard for the rest of your life. A few years ago Scripture pushed that around. What follows is that exploration.
It starts with a simple question: What is happening inside of you?
You’ve had those days—anxiety, negative feelings, a sense that something is going on under the hood. I want to pull the curtain back a little. There is a war. We’ve all felt it. And the reason for the war is the flesh, the spirit, and the mind.
Picture it spatially. Flesh on the left. Spirit on the right. Mind in the middle—caught between two sides at war, like a nation stuck between warring neighbors and forced to give its support to one or the other. All of that is happening inside each of us.
What happened when you believed?
A lot of things. One of them: eternal life was placed inside you. We talk about new birth, regeneration—but essentially eternal life was taken and put in you, and your spirit came alive. The part of you that was dead and sin-ruined was made alive once you believed.
Jesus put it this way: Truly I tell you, anyone who believes has eternal life. Present tense. You believed; you have it. And that life is not like what was already in us. If it were, we wouldn’t need it.
So here’s a strange question: Can that inner life sin?
We know about sin—we’re experts. But is that eternal life inside us the source of our sin? Can that regenerated spiritual person sin?
The answer is no—not because I say so, but because John does:
Everyone who has been born of God does not sin, because His seed remains in him; and he is not able to sin, because he has been born of God.
1 John 3:9
You read that and think, Uh-uh—does that mean I’m not born of God? Don’t worry. He’s making a spiritual point. God’s seed—that spiritual seed—is placed inside us. The part of you God brought to life does not sin.
John also says that if you claim you don’t have sin, you’re a liar. The macro view of you: you do sin. But that seed, that spiritual self, that inner man, does not. That’s a unique aspect of the spirit.
Your flesh, on the other hand, definitely sins. Now you can see where the conflict hits.
If talking about the flesh feels awkward—hey, me too. But we need to be aware of it.
Paul in Galatians 5:
For the flesh desires what is against the Spirit, and the Spirit desires what is against the flesh.
Galatians 5:17
That’s a classic description of conflict. The best story scenes are two characters who want different things and have to go through each other to get them. That conflict is inside us. The spirit can’t sin; the flesh definitely can.
What does the flesh want? All of you. Your time, your talent, your attention. It would take over everything if you let it. Praise God, He’s given us the ability to fight back—but left alone, that’s where it goes.
Paul calls the results the works of the flesh—plural, like fracture points spreading across a frozen lake:
Now the works of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, moral impurity, promiscuity, idolatry, sorcery, hatreds, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambitions, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and anything similar.
Galatians 5:19–21
For me, that’s like a Tuesday. (I’m joking. My Tuesdays aren’t that bad.) But I definitely see myself in this list—and if you’re honest, you probably do too. We’ve overcome some of these; others crop up.
If you’re new to grace: he is not saying you can’t be saved if these show up. He’s describing the conflict. Let the flesh run amok and this is what it looks like. It’s deadly.
Another simple line from Paul:
For the mindset on the flesh is death.
Romans 8:6a
I don’t think he means you’ll immediately keel over if your mind strays toward fleshly things. He’s talking about a deathly path. Some fleshly things can lead to physical death—but you can also live an experience of death even today: negative emotions, anxieties, worries that turn into temptations that turn into sins. Set your mind on the flesh and that’s what you get.
Flesh on one side. Spirit on the other. Mind in the middle.
What are they fighting over? Your mind. God has given us real power in the mind—to adjust the situation based on where we focus. The flesh wants the mind’s permission to go. The spirit wants it too.
Paul said:
I see a different law in the parts of my body waging war against the law of my mind.
Romans 7:23
If you thought the mind could sit this one out in peace—no. The mind is caught in the middle of the battle. When it gives attention to one side or the other, amazing things happen. We’ve already seen what happens when the mindset goes toward the flesh. What happens when it goes the other way?
That’s the war within. If we stopped here, we’d be a little depressed. There is hope—but to understand the hope, we need the goal.
The moment you believed, it would have been convenient (and weird and sad) if God just sucked you into heaven. He didn’t. He left us here to do something.
My answer might surprise you. It comes from John 10:10—Jesus’ mission statement, right after the thief who comes to steal, kill, and destroy:
I have come so that they may have life and have it in abundance.
John 10:10
For an unbeliever who encounters Jesus, the mission is to believe and have life—eternal life. Once you have eternal life, the goal isn’t over. The goal is for that life to become more abundant. And abundance never tops out; you can always have a little more.
A few boundaries. Abundant life is not more wealth. It’s often most obvious in suffering, difficulty, and lack. It’s not perfect health either. Abundance is a spiritual reality—available in low wealth or high wealth, in health or sickness.
Paul ties purpose to fruit in Romans 7:4:
…you belong to Him who was raised from the dead in order that we may bear fruit for God.
In order that. Purpose language. Your goal is to bear fruit—and abundance and fruit feel deeply related. Elsewhere he talks about the fruit of good works. Galatians 5 fills in the picture:
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
Galatians 5:22–23
That sounds like the definition of abundant life. How could you have a life more abundant than one packed with those fruits? If the Christian life sounds boring, it may be because the actual goal hasn’t come into view.
Here’s the beautiful part: as an engineer and designer, God chose a goal we already want. He could have said, “Build big muscles,” or “Be a really fast runner.” Instead: abundant life—love, joy, peace. Who doesn’t want more of those? He’s designed us to want exactly what He’s setting as our mission.
When we lose the war within, we don’t lose eternal life. We’re eternally secure by faith in Jesus. What we lose is the daily experience of abundant life—the moment-to-moment fruit of the Spirit. Understanding the goal of the war is knowing how to win on the spiritual side.
Imagine I could command you to clap, give a thumbs-up, blink. You could obey. Now imagine I command you to have more love. You’d scratch your head. You can do acts that look like love while still being estranged from someone. “Have more joy.” “Have more peace.” You can’t obey those as direct commands.
I think that’s why Paul ends the fruit list with: against these there is no law. It’s hard to legislate “have more love.” So where does the fruit come from?
Not from your willpower. Not from grit and determination. It’s right there in the name: the fruit of the Spirit—not the fruit of the will, not the fruit of my energies. The Spirit grows these things.
If you’ve been locked in the try-harder trap—“I need to love people more, so I’ll do things that look like love and hope it works”—you may be sliding into lifestyle legalism. The power for the fruit we need comes from the Spirit. That doesn’t mean we have no responsibility. It means the growth, the transformation, comes from Him.
And if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who lives in you.
Romans 8:11
You already have the Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead—resurrection power doing stuff inside. He’s going to give life to your mortal bodies. Still mortal—but with life brought to them. Elsewhere Paul talks about the future resurrection; here I think he’s pointing to resurrection power available now for transformation, through the indwelling Holy Spirit.
So what’s your job?
I wrestled with this for a long time. If it isn’t making a new Christian law for myself and checking boxes, what is it?
In middle school I noticed other kids cussed and our preacher didn’t, so that became law number one: I don’t cuss. Habits stacked up. Salvation was free; the daily stuff was try real hard, grit your teeth through temptation. That carried into adult life. Sitting in a Bible study with an older teacher I respected, I voiced it: we get salvation for free, then we just have to try really hard. He said, No, that’s not it—and I had a Charlie Brown moment. I didn’t understand a word. But he was pointing at this.
People would say, “Don’t do it in your own strength.” I thought, Dude, I’ve got one battery. I don’t know how to unplug and plug into another thing. What is our job, then?
It was sitting in Scripture the whole time:
The mindset on the Spirit is life and peace.
Romans 8:6b
Life—abundant life. Peace—a fruit of the Spirit. You can’t obey a command to have more peace; it has to come from the Spirit. Flesh and spirit at war, mind in the middle: mindset on the flesh is death; mindset on the Spirit is life and peace.
This is your first-floor job: where you set your mind.
Set it in the wrong place and the works of the flesh spring up like weeds you can’t pull fast enough. Set it on the Spirit and the thing you couldn’t obey directly starts to grow. That’s how a life of discipleship can also be by grace. You have a responsibility in where you set your mind. The power comes from God. He gets the credit.
Colossians says it this way:
Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.
Colossians 3:2
Things above: the spiritual things, the things of the Spirit. Earthly things: the things of the flesh. Where you focus determines how the war goes in any given moment. You don’t make the fruit grow yourself. You change your mindset—remove the roadblock, the bad soil. The Spirit provides the power. We provide the mindset.
There’s so much outside our control—environment, even our own bodies. He’s given us amazing control within our minds. That’s why it’s an even playing field: any person, any background, can set their mind on Him. Set your mind on the things of the Spirit, on things above, and the transformation Romans 12 talks about begins to happen.
He says it another way too: those who live according to the Spirit have their minds set on the things of the Spirit. Spiritual success and mindset always travel together. No one with a mind locked on earthly things is going to experience that spiritual success.
Simple doesn’t mean easy. Anyone can set their mind for a moment or two. Jesus’ parable of the soils warns about thorns and rocks—temptations and distractions. How long we can keep our mind on spiritual things has a lot to do with the habits we build. It’s almost like strength training for the mind.
This rewrote the script for why we do Christian activities. In my middle-school no-cussing days, I would have said the goal of being a Christian is to pray, read the Bible, and do fellowship. Now I’d say those aren’t the goal. They fit somewhere else in the framework.
What keeps the mind where it needs to be—and for longer stretches, so transformation can happen—are helpful habits. I’ve picked three. You could list more.
Prayer. What are you doing when you pray? Literally setting your mind on things above. You’re talking to God. Scripture assumes we’ll be praying people:
Devote yourselves to prayer; stay alert in it with thanksgiving.
Colossians 4:2
Scripture. I grew up in a Bible church—we’re in one now—and for a while I felt like my whole purpose was to be a “Bible person.” Now I see the Bible as a tool that strengthens our ability to set our mind on things above for longer periods. David said:
I have treasured Your word in my heart so that I may not sin against You.
Psalm 119:11
Scripture often uses mind and heart almost interchangeably. Having God’s word in the mind/heart leads toward spiritual success. Study it. Learn it. Listen to it—I like an audio Bible sometimes. Be people of the Book, not because that’s what makes us good Christians, but because it helps keep our minds where they need to be. Go days without Scripture and prayer, and you’ll have a harder time staying focused on things above.
Fellowship. The writer of Hebrews:
And let us consider one another in order to provoke love and good works.
Hebrews 10:24
Good works Paul elsewhere associates with fruit. Fellowship with believers who want fruit is like a gardening party—you grow together. Around mature believers, your mind gets set in the right place.
These are helpful habits. They are not the goal. Praying a certain number of times, reading a certain number of verses, hitting a certain number of fellowships per month—that’s not the goal. The goal is a fruit-filled abundant life. These strengthen your ability to reach for that goal—or more accurately, they allow God to achieve that goal in your life, since the power comes from Him.
When someone is an unbeliever, they essentially have flesh and mind. Scripture calls the unbeliever’s spirit dead, so I leave that out of the picture. Once someone believes, they’re indwelled by the Holy Spirit and born again. Mind, flesh, and spirit. As we grow, the difference between heavenly and earthly, fleshly and spiritual, gets clearer.
Set the mind on flesh or earthly things → works of the flesh → death. Thorns and rocks overtake the plant. You don’t lose your salvation. Your daily success just doesn’t work well.
Set the mind on the things of the Spirit—on things above—and something unique happens. Resurrection power brings life to your mortal body. Transformation power (Romans 12) flows through you. The result is fruit. Abundant life.
I’m amazed at how simple it is. In my thinking, it’s all about where we set our mind. That’s what we’re aiming for: abundant life—something we can reach for with God’s power.
That’s the war within.
These notes were drawn from Lucas Kitchen’s sermon “The War Within” at Burleson Bible Church (September 27, 2026).
