WALKING IN THE SPIRIT #9 ROSS SMITH
This morning again, I have to ask myself, and suggest that you inquire of yourself, HOW SUCCESSFUL HAVE WE BEEN IN THE PAST WEEK IN APPLYING THE PRINCIPLES OF WALKING IN THE SPIRIT?
Are these principles still so seemingly theoretical or indeed are they becoming now a conscious part of our daily walk, understanding that we are controlled and directed by the Holy Spirit as we yield ourselves to Him and as we apply the principles which are fundamental and foundational.
The further we proceed, the more obvious it becomes that this should be the norm for God’s people, not extraordinary or indeed the exception. We used to get excited because we think “God spoke to me this morning”. We should live in that realm where we know God’s direction, where we know God’s control over our lives without having to have that sovereign intervention so spectacularly that he attracts our attention by it.
Although this experience of living and walking in the Spirit requires that we apply our effort to the promises of God, and when I say the promises of God, I’m not talking about all those areas for so long the church has majored on, I’m talking about the fundamental promises, the ones like
Proverbs 16:3 Commit thy works unto the LORD, and thy thoughts shall be established.
Proverbs 3:6 In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.
All these areas are such basic and fundamental promises of God to us.
As we apply our efforts to them however, we are not just left to our own devices. Isn’t that encouraging, isn’t that reassuring to know that I haven’t just got to do it on my own? For if I do, and in so many areas of my life where I do that, I learn by trial and error – more by error so often, which develops the trial.
God established His path in the process and we find in
Colossians 1:11 [We pray] that you may be INVIGORATED AND STRENGTHENED WITH ALL POWER ACCORDING TO THE MIGHT OF HIS GLORY, [to exercise] every kind of endurance and patience (perseverance and forbearance) with joy,
Now when we began to look at this subject, we said, so often we look for the invigoration and the strengthening according to the circumstance we face, but that is not what the Bible says.
Invigorate means to give vigour and to energize or to animate, so let’s keep that in the back of our mind because when we come down a little further to see the church of Jesus Christ today, should have vigour, it should have energy, it should be animated.
But the trouble is that the animation of the church today is misdirected and we’ll cover that shortly. So Colossians says that we should be invigorated and strengthened with all power according to the might of His glory. Now this statement is part of Paul’s prayer for the church of Colossae, and because it is his prayer, there is an immediate indication that the invigoration and strength has to have a divine origin.
You say, “Well I know that, I’m not that stupid.” But I ask myself the question “Do we understand that this invigoration, this strengthening, because it is divine it its origin, is also divine in its intention?” We have to understand or discover what our motive is for wanting that energy or strength.
I would suggest that much of our desire for that energy and strength is:-
- So that I might not be so frustrated every time I come to the close of the day and I find that I haven’t done all the things that I had to do or I wanted to do. Anyone else go through that? Come night time and my list is still three pages long, and I think “Why can’t I get up and continue to be fruitful in the things I still have to do?” So often I look for the strengthening and that energy to cover that aspect.
2 Sometimes, I think that we want the strength and the vigour of the Holy Spirit to cover for my frailties, or to help me with my ministry or to be better than my colleagues, and so often our motives for wanting that strength, vigour and animation is misdirected.
But the criteria exists in the context of
Isaiah 40:31 But those who wait for the Lord (and I suggest that we add in here “NOT IN COMPLACENCY”) [who expect, look for, and hope in Him]
(This shows an active, energetic, animated Christian pursuing the goal that God has for them. This is the promise…..)
shall change and renew their strength and power;
What are we looking at? The book says in Colossians that we should be invigorated and strengthened with all power according to the might of His glory.
Isaiah says the way we go about it is to wait for the Lord. That is to look for and expect and hope in Him. But there is an interesting aspect here. How many times have you seen ads on TV for vitamin pills etc to give you energy? We can take vitamin pills tablets for the rest of our days but the book says, If we wait upon the Lord then the source of our strength changes, He says He will renew, not repair. You shall change and renew – you have a new source of strength, God is our strength.
The recognition of need however, is the first requirement. If I don’t think I need a new car, I’m not going to go out and look for a new car, am I, I’m quite satisfied to drive my old car. So if I don’t understand or have a need, then I’m not going to pursue that need.
When I have a desire, when I have an ambition, when I have a goal, then I pursue that goal. There has to be that recognition of need as the first requirement. If we don’t realize the need, or we don’t want to live and walk in the Spirit, let me tell you, you never will.
This is why I get so apprehensive with folks who disregard the direction that the Lord is taking us. I get apprehensive for those week in and week out who fail to take up the Word of God and soak themselves in it, and there are folk who sit in service this morning that have not picked up “the book” for days, The Word of God to you is your strength, it is your sustenance, it is your salvation, it is your eternal security and you cannot survive without soaking yourself in the Word of God day by day.
I get apprehensive of those who refuse to consistently and conscientiously study the Word of God. The book says “study to show yourself approved unto God. (2 Timothy 2:15) How else can we do it unless we know in deed and in truth and intensely what God requires of us? The book says you MUST study. I’ve had people say to me “But Pastor, I can’t study, I don’t know how to study”. The book didn’t say you had to study with the qualifications of a PhD, the book says STUDY.
Isaiah 40:29 He gives power
Remember when we looked before it says WE SHALL CHANGE AND RENEW, there was a Source, now the Source is indicated.
V29 He [Jesus Christ in God] gives power to the faint and weary and to him who has no might He increases strength [causing it to multiply and making it to abound].
Isaiah 40:30 Even youths shall faint and be weary, and [selected] young men shall feebly stumble and fall exhausted;
You see, natural strength is inadequate, even the young men who have the energy of youth, those that are vital in God, because of their youth, they shall lose their strength if they rely on their natural abilities. The book says so, but… I look for what comes after the BUT
Isaiah 40:31 But those who wait for the Lord [who expect, look for, and hope in Him] shall change and renew their strength and power;
Now this is not an isolated instruction of the Word. The Psalmist also had that incisive understanding for in
Psalm 46:10 Let be and be still, and know (recognize and understand) that I am God. I will be exalted among the nations! I will be exalted in the earth!
In other words, if we use the words of Isaiah…. those who wait for…. let be and be still and know…. recognize and understand ….How? By waiting on God, actively waiting, not with the torpor of indolence, but with enthusiasm and action.
But you say to me, “Every time I try to do something positive to come close to God, to live and to walk in the Spirit, it seems that everything comes against me to try to stop it”. Father is aware of this, acutely aware of it, and because of it, He will intervene. How do I know this with such assurance? Well, I went on a little further in the book, I didn’t stop at verse 31 and say “O isn’t that lovely?” I needed to get to the context of it and when I went into Isaiah 41v10, just a few verses down, it says
Isaiah 41:10 Fear not [there is nothing to fear], for I am with you; do not look around you in terror and be dismayed, for I am your God. I WILL STRENGTHEN AND HARDEN YOU TO DIFFICULTIES, yes, I will help you; yes, I will hold you up and retain you with My [victorious] right hand of rightness and justice.
How many this week have had apprehensions about things? I look at the news at night and the Morgan Gallop Poll, and I get alarmed temporarily, until I remember that the government is upon His shoulders, our times are in His hands. I might plan my way but the steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord.
God says Fear not, I am with you. Who is with you? The great I AM. Remember when the disciples were with Jesus and He said, I want you to go and prepare the Passover etc, and they said “Who will we tell them who it is that wants all this?” and He said, “Tell them that I AM has sent you.” I AM with you. Recall in Isaiah 41:10:-,
do not look around you in terror and be dismayed, for I am your God. I WILL STRENGTHEN AND HARDEN YOU TO DIFFICULTIES, yes, I will help you; yes, I will hold you up and retain you with My [victorious] right hand of rightness and justice.
This is the renewal that we need from Isaiah 40, we will renew our strength if we draw from Him. If we look around in terror and despair, then we will see that our energy, our vigour, our whole peace will evaporate. But when I wait for Him, when I look for and expect and hope for Him, energetically, not complacently, then I will renew my strength. My source will change from the strength I have as a human individual to the strength God imparts as a sovereign King.
You will recall that when Paul addressed the church at Colossae, that he prayed that they might be filled with the full and deep and clear knowledge of His will and we have determined that the knowledge of His will is looked upon as preceding a life that is satisfactory to God.
And now I want to look quickly at Isaiah 40 and Colossians 1v9 with Romans 12v2. You will recall me saying that when we have a truth in the Word, that truth must not be held alone, that truth must stand with other truth. Now we see the convolution of this principle, it goes like this in Isaiah 40v29
Isaiah 40:29 He gives power to the faint and weary, and to him who has no might He increases strength [causing it to multiply and making it to abound].
We looked previously and saw that to MULTIPLY was God’s part and to ADD TO was our part. In 2 Peter 1 we find that principle conveyed there.
And now He says He will cause that strength to multiply, making it abound.
I qualify here, because I know that I’m weak and I’m faint and I’m weary so many times and so I qualify for what God wants to do, but it is those people who wait that God has promised He will multiply their strength, they are the ones who are the object of God’s attention.
When we look to Him out of our frailty, when we look to Him and wait for Him, He says ”That’s the man that I will multiply My strength to”. So don’t feel bad because you feel weak and you feel frail, it’s a precondition for our waiting on God and receiving the riches and power of His glory.
Isaiah 40:31 But those who wait for the Lord [who expect, look for, and hope in Him] shall change and renew their strength and power;
This renewal comes twofold:-
If I wait on the Lord, there will be a renewal not only in our strength but also in our mind. I can’t contemplate and sit before the Lord without having some transforming effect upon my mind, it goes hand in hand.
Colossians 1:9 For this reason we also, from the day we heard of it, have not ceased to pray and make [special] request for you, [asking] that you may be filled with the full (deep and clear) knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom [in comprehensive insight into the ways and purposes of God] and in understanding and discernment of spiritual things–
Paul’s prayer for the saints at Colossae was that they might have the full, clear and deep knowledge of His will. Paul was praying for the clarification of God’s will, let there be clarity, may they know Your will. (Also known as discernment)
And now when I come to Romans 12v2 I see that the strength that we require and use on a daily basis is for our own satisfaction and sufficiency so often. But!!!!
Romans 12:2a Do not be conformed to this world (this age), [fashioned after and adapted to its external, superficial customs], but be transformed (changed) by the [entire] renewal of your mind [by its new ideals and its new attitude],
Here again we see the reaffirmation of the principle, to know God’s will is a prerequisite of a life that is satisfactory to God. To be satisfactory to God, we need to have that transformation of our minds; we need to wait upon God. When I wait upon God, He pours in the strength, when I have the strength, then I am able to be strong in God and overturn the works of the enemy against my life.
There are several things that come out of Romans 12v2.
Firstly, it says “Do not be conformed to the world”. Now we may say “That’s fine”, but we get involved in so many areas that are like the world. If people looked upon the church of Jesus Christ in so many instances today, when God’s people are outside the four walls of the church, so often they’re hard to distinguish from the rest of the world, we look like them, we act like them, and we go to many places they go. We do and engage in things which are not appropriate, quite Legal, but not appropriate. The book says it’s legal but not expedient.
1 Corinthians 6:12 Everything is permissible (allowable and lawful) for me; but not all things are helpful (good for me to do, expedient and profitable when considered with other things). Everything is lawful for me, but I will not become the slave of anything or be brought under its power.
Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed – RENEWED IN YOUR MIND or better, renewed in your attitude, and prove what God’s will is.
How do I prove it, simply by living in it! When I apply myself to those basic fundamental principles of the Word of God, which says, If I roll my works upon the Lord, then my thoughts will be established, my plans will be caused to succeed, if I live in that, I prove God’s will for my life. Now that’s fundamental. Then we go on in God, steadily growing and increasing in and by the knowledge of God, according to Colossians chapter 1, it is so simple, why do we find it so difficult?
Romans 12v2b so that you may prove [for yourselves] what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God, even the thing which is good and acceptable and perfect [in His sight for you].
Now we’ve already said that knowing God’s will is a prerequisite to living a life that is satisfactory to Him.
Let’s come back to Colossians 1. The church of Jesus Christ is intended to be a vigorous church, we are expected to be an energetic animated body, but today the emphasis within the church has been misplaced in that the church today concentrates on emotional energy rather than spiritual vigour.
You see, God gives His power and His energy and His vigour not to dance but to do. Jesus Christ came that we might have liberty, not liberty to do our own thing, but liberty from all bondage, all the impositions and restrictions placed on us by the enemy, so that we can’t or won’t glorify God. He gives us vigour and energy that we might glorify Him, the liberty is the liberty to do the right thing.
Instead of recognizing His glory today, which issues from a strong and vigorous body, we see a church that looks for strength to meet the need of the circumstance.
And it seems today that the need of the circumstance is to go to church and get a buzz that will just keep us going till next week, “let me get some spiritual fizz and it’ll jack me up and I’ll last till next Sunday”. No, God wants us to live in the strength and the vigour and the energy and the animation of the Spirit that every moment of every day and we go out there and see the gates of hell being forced back because we’re living and walking in the Spirit.
If we want to, we can qualify to be like the prophets of Baal. All day they jumped all over the altar, they called upon their God, they cut themselves, they expended all their physical energy and for what, for nothing!
Then the fire fell. (1 Kings 18:38) O when a man like Elijah gets a hold of God, when a man knows His God, when a man looks for and trusts and expects and waits on God, then the fire falls. That could be pretty devastating, not only did it consume the sacrifice, it consumed the altar. Some of our altars are sacred, “don’t touch that altar, that’s sacred”, don’t complain about the loud music or the flashing lights, that‘s how we worship!!!! Not only did it touch the altar, it licked up the water and the dust around about it. That’s how we know it’s God’s fire, not only does it burn up the things we put before Him, but it roots out and takes away and pulls down all those things which are man-made or man-recognized.
How do I arrive at this conclusion? I’ve watched the church at play. You say at play, yes, the church is not at work, the church is still at play. I only have to read the church notices column in the newspaper each week to see that the church is at play. When God moves in on His people, there will be no need to advertise.
Today, the church is looking for satisfaction which is couched in the temporal, whereas our strength and our vigour are intended to be centered in the eternal, not in the temporal, it is according to the might of His glory. There is nothing glorious, in seeing two or three or four hundred people doing a hip-hop in the middle of service, nothing is God glorifying about that. When God moves in and He begins to stir the people of God, I won’t see what’s going on, I’ll be glorifying Him and worshipping and praising Him in a manner which will not be objectionable, but will be identifiable by its fruits.
There is an interesting description of men recorded in
Judges 8:21 … Rise yourself and fall on us; for as the man is, so is his strength….
Now we were familiar with the Scripture which says “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he”. Here in Judges it says “as a man is, so is his strength”. If you show me a man that is Mickey Mouse, I’ll show you a man that is Mickey Mouse in strength, and, whatever a man concentrates on, whatever he engages in, whatever he thinks about all the time, that’s what he ends up being. If he concentrates on God, if He fixes His mind on God, if he dwells in the eternal, that man will be strong, he will become like God.
The verse is pretty much self-explanatory, but I just want to cover a couple of items that will help us in identifying our living and walking in the Spirit. You see the man that relies on his own intellect and ability will be shown to be carnally minded.
Romans 8:6 Now the mind of the flesh [which is sense and reason without the Holy Spirit] is death [death that comprises all the miseries arising from sin, both here and hereafter]. But the mind of the [Holy] Spirit is life and [soul] peace [both now and forever].
Psalm 52:7 (READ THE CONTEXT) See, this is the man who made not God his strength (his stronghold and high tower) but trusted in and confidently relied on the abundance of his riches, seeking refuge and security for himself through his wickedness.
I must ask myself every week, what is it I am dependent upon? If I have adequate resources so that I’m fed and clothed and watered and housed, then I rely on that. Strip away from a man his house and food, suddenly he is so vulnerable, he hasn’t got any trust in his source of strength.
If we know God in the dimension that He intends, if we relate to the Lord in the way desires that we relate, it doesn’t matter what they do to me then, I am secure in His strength. Paul says I have strength for all things, I am satisfied IN whatsoever circumstance I am found, (but not necessarily “with the circumstance”). Don’t you wish you could say that this morning, don’t you wish you could say “I am totally satisfied because I live in the strength of My God, and come what may and go what may, I am secure?
The reason our psychiatric hospitals are so full today, and why we have such a proliferation of psychologists and psychiatrists today is because of the insecurity of people, that’s where it all stems from.
Psalm 52:9 I will thank You and confide in You forever, because You have done it [delivered me and kept me safe]. I will wait on, hope in and expect in Your name, for it is good, in the presence of Your saints (Your kind and pious ones).
Isn’t it incredible? When men are inspired of the Holy Spirit to write the canon of Scripture, God says the same things, He’s consistent. I hope it’s catching, the fruit of commitment is reliability.
The man who neglects the Word of God and is derelict in his duty towards things spiritual is a spiritual spastic.
Proverbs 24:5 A wise man is strong and is better than a strong man, and a man of knowledge increases and strengthens his power; [Prov. 21:22; Eccl. 9:16.]
That knowledge is not academic knowledge, he is a man of knowledge who knows his God, who waits for, expects and looks for Him. He gains that comprehension, he will indeed increase and strengthen his power.
What are we talking about? “As a man is, so is his strength”, I’m just identifying those who walk and live in the Spirit and those who walk and live in the carnal.
The man who lacks commitment and reliability in just one area of his life, that characteristic will eventually be seen to be all pervading. If I recall, the Word says, “”A double-minded man is unstable in ALL his ways”. (James 1:8) The man who lacks commitment and reliability in one area of his life eventually you will see that that characteristic will pervade his whole life. We said last week, show me a man who cannot control or manage his money, and I will show you a man who cannot order his life.
oOo
Ross Smith 