“Life in the Spirit”
Part Six
This is our last message exploring what life under the influence of the Holy Spirit looks like. Paul clearly instructed the Ephesians concerning their relationship to the Holy Spirit.
Therefore see to it you walk carefully, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of your time, because the days are evil. So then do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit Eph 5:15-18
Paul warned them about their spiritual walk.
• He instructed them to live carefully. The term “carefully” could be translated “diligently” or exactly or perfectly.
• He instructed them to live wisely by wise time management.
• He instructed them to know what the will of the Lord is.
• He instructed them not to be under the influence of a substance that numbs the senses.
• He instructed them to be continually under the influence of the Holy Spirit.
All of the verbs here are in the present tense indicating action to be done as a lifestyle.
I. Life in the Spirit
A. It is a life of true freedom in the Spirit.
B. It is a life of competing passions. Spirit vs. Flesh
C. It is a life of godly behavior.
The Bible attributes numerous activities in our life to the Holy Spirit. Galatians 5 focuses on tangible and visible life change as a result of submitting to the direction and empowerment of the Holy Spirit. Paul called those visible life changes “the Fruit of the Spirit. The nine virtues listed in Galatians 5 are found all through the New Testament. These are all attributes of the Trinity demonstrated all through the Bible and human history.
1. Love vs. indifference
2. Joy vs. gloom, negativity
3. Peace vs. anxiety, worry, chaos
4. Long-suffering vs. short fuse
5. Kindness vs. apathy
6. Goodness vs. selfishness
7. Faith vs. doubt or trustworthy vs. unfaithful
8. Gentleness vs. harshness
9. Self-control vs. flesh-controlled
Logic dictates that those same attributes would unmistakably manifest in our life as we submit to the influence of the Holy Spirit. Stated simply, to the degree we submit to the influence of the Holy Spirit in our life we will manifest the fruit of the Spirit in our daily walk. It follows then, that to the degree we manifest the fruit of the Spirit in our life we will not fulfill the desires of the sinful flesh. It does not say that we will not feel the fleshly desires embedded in our members. But, we will not fulfill those driving passions. We will never escape the struggle between the fleshly passions embedded in our members and the longings of the Divinely created inner person. Through moment by moment submission to the Holy Spirit, there is hope for a different life. Paul joyfully declared that victory.
Wretched man that I am! Who will set me free from the body of this death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin. Romans 7:24-25
If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you. Romans 8:11
The key question then is, how can I consistently live under the influence (be filled with) of the Holy Spirit?
Several weeks ago I suggested five practices to consider in this regard. I would like to review those points and add a crucial sixth practice associated with a life powerfully influenced by the Holy Spirit. Because we had to rush through the latter practices in that list, today I want to reorder the list except for the first and most crucial one.
II. Living Life in the Spirit
How do we not continually succumb to the old impulses but genuinely manifest the character of Christ?
A. Continually submit to the direction and enabling of the Holy Spirit.
The Spirit of God instructs us to live by the Spirit.
But I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. Galatians 5:16
The key to victory has to do with our relationship to the Holy Spirit. The Bible employs many different terms to communicate the same concept. The concept has to do with a humble submission to the influence of the Holy Spirit in our life. Are we in vital relationship with Him? If not, we will carry out the desire of the flesh. If so, we will manifest the fruit of the same character found in the Trinity. It boils down to a moment by moment decision to listen to the flesh or the Spirit. If old fleshly patterns manifest, it simply means somewhere along the line we refused the direction of the Holy Spirit. Be continually be under the influence of the Holy Spirit. (Eph 5:18)
I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present (surrender, offer)your bodies (members)a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. Romans 12:1
Abide in Me (keep connected), and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches; he who abides in Me and I in him, he bears much fruit, for apart from Me you can do nothing. John 15:4-5
If we live by the Spirit, let us also be in line with (live by) the Spirit. Galatians 5:25
Just as you presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness, resulting in further lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness, resulting in sanctification. Romans 6:19
Report for duty every morning. Acknowledge your weakness. Ask for His direction and empowering to face the day. The way you live clearly indicates who is in charge – the flesh or the Spirit.
B. Encourage one another
I believe that this next practice is a missing element in the faith community today.
Dear brothers and sisters, if another believer is overcome by some sin, you who are godly should gently and humbly help that person back onto the right path. And be careful not to fall into the same temptation yourself. Share each other’s burdens, and in this way obey the law of Christ. Galatians 6:1-2
The concept of encouragement related to avoiding sin is prevalent in the New Testament.
Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But encourage one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. Hebrews 3:12-13
The core of our encouraging one another must be the Scriptures. Paul clearly identified the profit and purpose of the Divinely inspired Scripture.
All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work. 2 Timothy 3:16-17
The purpose is to equip for every good work. The profit is teaching, reproof, correction and training in righteousness which equips for every good work. God clearly ordained meaningful interaction with people as essential to our spiritual growth. The admonition and examples of such interaction fills the New Testament.
Such intimate interaction between people today is rare. We are an independent culture. God designed us to live in interdependent faith communities. The concept of “church” has devolved into a building or activity. The original word had to do with an assembly of people. I actually like the term “faith community” rather than church.
We often assert or at least feel that what goes on in my life is no one else’s business. We become like Felix who shut down the conversation when it got around to life change. We are reluctant to let anyone get too close to us. We live in fear that if people really knew what was going on inside. Very little actual discipleship takes place today. Very few connect with someone who might be called a spiritual director. We have little personal accountability for our actions. That is equally true among pastors and church leaders. True encouragement requires meaningful interaction – connection at the level of the soul. Interesting that the filling of the Spirit resulted in community encouragement.
C. Deny the flesh.
We will never be free of the pull of the flesh toward selfishness. Only when we enter into our full redemption will we continually want and do His pleasure. For now we must continually take a stand against the fleshly desires imbedded in our members. It requires a daily declaration of our allegiance to God and our true desire to please Him. When the flesh demands satisfaction, firmly deny the request. This passage does not say we will not feel the desires of the flesh, only that we will not fulfill the desire of the flesh when we live by the Spirit.
Therefore, since Christ has suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves also with the same purpose, because he who has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, so as to live the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for the lusts of men, but for the will of God. For the time already past is sufficient for you to have carried out the desire of the Gentiles, having pursued a course of sensuality, lusts, drunkenness, carousing, drinking parties and abominable idolatries. 1 Peter 4:1-3
It may feel contrary to your true desires only because the enemy tries to keep us ignorant of our true nature.
God promises His enabling power but we must take a side. We must submit to God AND resist the devil. We need to remember whose team we play for.
Stop letting sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its lusts, and stop presenting the members of your body to sin as instruments of unrighteousness; Romans 6:12-13
This requires a deliberate decision; a choice to serve God rather than the flesh.
So then, brethren, we are under obligation, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh— for if you are living according to the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you are putting to death the deeds of the body, you will live. Romans 8:12-13
True living comes by putting to death the deeds of the body. Consider ourselves dead to the screams of the flesh for satisfaction. The lie of the devil is that the flesh can be satisfied. Scripture revels that the flesh is NEVER satisfied. It is like a drug; the more you take the more you want. We bear responsibility to make wise choices. We must exercise our free will. We daily decide to live by the Spirit and deny the fleshly passions.
The more we deny the flesh the less influence it holds over our choices. It is similar to denying the craving for certain foods; eventually you lose your craving.
Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Galatians 5:24
The grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation to all men, instructing us to deny ungodliness and worldly desires and to live sensibly, righteously and godly in the present age, Titus 2:11-12
Stand up to those impulses. Take charge. Deny any association with those passions and cultivate the new passions imbedded you’re your inner core by the Holy Spirit.
D. Make no provision for the flesh (don’t feed the flesh)
This practice is similar but not the same as the previous. It is difficult to keep denying the flesh its desires when we continually expose ourselves to things that inflame the flesh.
Let us behave properly as in the day, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual promiscuity and sensuality, not in strife and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts. Romans 13:13-14
Try denying a sugar craving when you have a cupboard full of cookies. Try overcoming a craving for alcohol when you keep alcohol in the house or frequent bars. We live in a world that continually appeals to our evil lusts. Our members were programed to live according to those fleshly passions.
Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest. Ephesians 2:3
Those are the passions Satan appeals to.
For all that is in the world (system), the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world. 1 John 2:16
Any of the senses can be inflamed or stirred by over indulgence with anything.
Make no provision (give no forethought) for the flesh in regard to its lusts! Somewhere along the line we fall into sin when we think about it or plan for it.
But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death. James 1:14-15
When we do not deny the screams of the flesh or guard against intensifying the flesh through exposure to opportunities, there is going to be conception and birth of sin. When we allow sin to continue (grow up) it brings death and deadness to the soul. Be careful what you watch. Be careful what you do. Be careful where you go. Be careful who you hang out with.
E. Focus on Jesus.
Normally I would put this at the top of the list next to surrender to the Holy Spirit. This list is not in order of importance. These are all practices, habits, disciplines we need practice on a regular basis.
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit. 2 Corinthians 3:17-18
Our transformation comes by exposure to glory of the Lord. Just as exposure to the world stirs the flesh and deadens the soul into its image, exposure to the glory of the Lord stirs the inner man and transforms the soul into His glorious image. Grace and peace for living comes through a growing knowledge of Jesus.
Grace and peace be multiplied to you in the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord; seeing that His divine power has granted to us everything pertaining to life and godliness, through the true knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and excellence. 2 Peter 1:2-3
Hebrews instructs us to by faith lay aside every encumbrance and sin (Deny the flesh) and run the faith race with endurance. How? By focusing of Jesus who implanted faith and grows faith.
Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart. Hebrews 12:1-3
Keep your focus on the eternal.
Therefore if you have been raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory. Colossians 3:1-4
Let no one keep defrauding you of your prize by delighting in self-abasement and the worship of the angels, taking his stand on visions he has seen, inflated without cause by his fleshly mind, and not holding fast to the head…These are matters which have, to be sure, the appearance of wisdom in self-made religion and self-abasement and severe treatment of the body, but are of NO VALUE against fleshly indulgence. Col 2:18-23
Let us behave properly as in the day, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual promiscuity and sensuality, not in strife and jealousy. But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts. Romans 13:13-14
If you were to map out you daily routine, how much of it includes a conscious effort to focus on Jesus?
F. Renew our thinking
This battle takes a renewal of our thinking. Our behavior flows out of our thinking. Behavior begins with thinking, then feeling, then choosing. If you don’t figure out why you do what you do it will be nearly impossible to change your doing.
Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship. (Submission) And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind (thinking), so that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect. Romans 12:1-2
Your life will demonstrate the “Fruit of the Spirit”. Of course the renewing of the thinking can only come about through regular interaction with the truth of God. Paul prayed that the Colossians would be saturated with the Holy Spirit so that they would lead a life pleasing to the Lord and fruit bearing empowered by the Holy Spirit.
For this reason also, since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience; joyously giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in Light. Colossians 1:9-12
For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God, and we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, 2 Corinthians 10:3-5
Be renewed in the spirit of your mind… Ephesians 4:23
Therefore, putting aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness, in humility receive the word implanted, which is able to save your souls. But prove yourselves doers of the word, and not merely hearers who delude themselves. James 1:21-22
It is the implanting of the word of God in the soul that transforms the soul. That implanting has greatest effect after denying the flesh. Then we will become a doer of the word and not just read it.
SEVEN PROBING QUESTIONS TO ASK YOURSELF DAILY
1. Is the “Fruit of the Spirit” evident in my life? If not answer the next six questions.
2. Am I really surrendered to God’s agenda in my life? Submit to God.
3. Have I allowed anyone close enough to speak into my life? Encourage one another.
Am I speaking into anyone’s life?
4. Am I regularly denying fleshly passions to dictate my daily activities? Deny the Flesh
5. In what ways do I allow things to feed fleshly passions? Make no provision for the flesh.
6. Is Jesus really the focus of my life? Focus on Jesus.
7. What am I doing to renew my thinking every day? Renew your thinking.
There is no shortcut to spiritual growth and maturity. There is no church service I can attend. There is no epic “spiritual” experience I can feel. (The effects don’t last.) Without these six practices we will be anemic ineffective Christians.
