The Necessity of the Holy Spirit – Part 2

Here's Anne Graham Lotz. When we choose to live in our old nature, what we're doing is strengthening the old nature, and it remains dominant, and it overwhelms the new nature, even though the new nature is fueled by the Holy Spirit. So you and I, we need to choose to live in the new nature. Share the same eyes, the same ears, the same mouth. They share the same hands and feet.

But one has got to die so that the other can live. Let's join Anne now as we learn more about the Holy Spirit from Romans chapters 6, 7, and 8. Romans 3, 23 makes that clear that all of us have sinned, all have come short of the glory of God. James 2, 10 says if you've ever sinned one time in all of your life, then you have the disease of sin.

It shows that your body is permeated with it. So a little baby can be innocent when it's born, but you give that little baby a chance, and it goes away. You know, after a few months, it'll talk back to its mom, it'll steal a cookie, it'll kick its sibling, and, you know, and it's that old nature.

We're born with that. When we're born again, the Holy Spirit comes into us, and we're given a new nature. So we have a new emotion to love God, and to love somebody maybe we didn't even like, a new will to do the right thing, and we're given a new nature. to love God, and to love somebody maybe we didn't even like, a new will to do the right thing, a new intellect to think the thoughts of God, and to understand the Scriptures, and so that's our new nature within. And John 3, 3, Jesus said you must be born again, because the old nature can't see God, it's the new nature that is the one that is pleasing to God, and that bears the eternal fruit, and that one day will go to heaven. This is the Apostle Paul.

This is his testimony in Romans 7, beginning in verse 14. He says, We know that the law, and we can think of that as the Ten Commandments, or God's word, or coming to Bible study, or coming to the cove, we know that it's spiritual, but I'm unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin, because that old nature is dominating. I do not understand what I do, for what I want to do, I do not do, but what I hate, I do. And if I do what I don't want to do, I agree that the law is good, God's standards are right, going to Bible study, coming to the cove, but as it is, it's no longer I myself who do it, but sin living in me.

In other words, I recognize I have a major problem here. For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is in my sinful nature. I can't make it good. And by the way, didn't you think there was some good in your sinful nature? You know how people say there's some good in everybody? Well, there's not from God's point of view. There's none righteous, no, not one. All of our righteousness is as filthy rags. Even the good things we do permeated with sin. So there's none righteous, no, not one. There's no good in any of us at all. In verse 18, I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.

I have no power in myself. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I don't want to do, this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it's no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. The old nature will never change. The old nature will never get better.

The old nature will never improve. And you can get so exasperated that God will just let you fail and fail and fail and fail until you're so exasperated that you admit from experience. There's nothing good in you at all. So picking up with verse 21, so I find this law at work.

Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being, I delight in God's law. That's his new nature.

He loves coming to the cove, going to Bible studies, reading God's word, being obedient, knowing God. That's your new nature. But I see another law, another nature at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. And then he has this emotional outburst, oh what a wretched man I am. And that word wretched is the same word that's used for a soldier who's been in battle and he's been slinging his sword all day and he comes in at night and he can't even lift his arm anymore. He's just exhausted. Somebody here, exhausted from trying to do the right thing, trying to be the person that you're supposed to be, trying to be a good mother, a good wife, a good sibling.

Trying so hard to be the person in church that your Sunday school class wants you to be or thinks you are and you're exhausted. And he says, oh wretched man that I am, I'm just absolutely exhausted. Who will rescue me from this body of death?

This is so graphic. In olden times when somebody murdered another person, the murderer was arrested and the victim, the dead victim, was strapped to the murderer face to face, chest to chest, leg to leg until he rotted. That was the body of death. And Paul is saying this old nature is like a body of death. It's just clinging to me face to face, chest to chest, you know, leg to leg.

Who will set me free from the body of death? And Paul is just saying this is absolutely almost unbearable and your new nature, you know, being born again should be wonderful, filled with love and joy and peace and now we're in conflict. And conflict, you know, at that point I think when the conflict is raging, I think a lot of people start wearing a mask and they start pretending to be more spiritual than they are. And they put a little pasty Christian smile on their face and they do little Christian things and they go to little Christian groups and everybody thinks they're a good little Christian and on the inside they're miserable. They're pretending or they just lower their standards because nobody in their church is really authentic. You know, everybody is just going through the motions and we come and we teach Sunday school, we take care of the little kids, we feed the poor, we have a clothing closet and we send money to missionaries and we do all these things. And then when we get home, you know, we kick off our heels, we let down our hair and, you know, we can enjoy a good story and we just let ourselves go and we talk about other people and we gossip and we just, you know.

Everybody does it. So it must be that's the way it is. We're saved, we're going to heaven, praise God. And I've even heard people say we're saved, we go to heaven, God sums up everything in grace, it doesn't matter how we live down here on earth. So God's standards haven't changed.

And when He says to be holy as I am holy, He means it. And you and I are to be like Jesus. The problem is how. We want to be, but how. And this is the how.

And there's no quick fix, there's no easy fix, okay? It requires making choice after choice after choice after choice. I shared with you some of the choices I made.

Those are just two or three. This past week I received an email, somebody just jumping on me, critical spirit judging me for something that I hadn't done. And I can tell you, that old nature just flared right up and, you know, thank goodness I didn't do it.

Email is so bad about that because you can just send something off and let them have it and who are you to tell me whatever. And, you know, and instead I prayed about it and I waited for, actually overnight. And I asked the Lord, how with my new nature, how am I supposed to respond to this? And He whispered something to me, I believe, and so I gentled it down, thanked them for pointing out something to me that I should have noticed. Should have noticed and just smoothed it over and something that could have been a disaster turned out to be something that was just nothing.

It was okay. But we constantly have to make those choices, choice after choice after choice. Colossians 3 verse 5 says, put to death therefore whatever belongs to your earthly nature. And He listened things.

Sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires. So let's just think about that. So we put it to death. We put it out.

We know that we're to put these things out. We apply it to the magazines that come into the home. The TV shows that you watch or that you, you know, when you channel surf. The websites that you visit.

The pop-up things that you punch on your computer. And you apply it to that then to obey. You have to get rid of those magazines. You turn off the TV.

You change whatever website you look at or maybe you even do away with your computer. And you have to put it to death. And greed, which is idolatry. And I thought about that one right at the Christmas shopping season when we had Black Friday coming up.

And when we go shopping for Christmas and you go through the malls and everything's just presented so attractively. And how many of us buy more things for ourselves than we buy for others? And Paul says that's greed. That's idolatry. So we need to get that greed under control, don't we, in the shopping.

And I talked to myself on that so. Verse 8, but now you must rid yourselves of all such things as these. Anger, rage, malice, slander.

Slander, telling the truth about somebody to make them look less in somebody else's eyes. Filthy language from your lips. Verse 10, put on the new self which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its creator. So your new nature will never fully develop until you choose to crucify the old.

Choice by choice by choice. And so I brought this, this is one of my books, The Magnificent Obsession, and this is the story of Abraham. And when Abraham threw Ishmael out, Galatians uses that as an illustration of what it is to throw out our old man. So I won't go through that whole story, but I've got some examples in here from my life that I'm going to share.

They're just easier than trying to come up with new ones. So this is living in my old nature. I've got my new nature, but I'm going to live in my old nature, okay? If I hurriedly run to the grocery store to pick up a forgotten item because I have company coming any minute, and I find there are five people and the only line open and the checkout clerk is gossiping with a friend on her cell phone, making every one wait, I have a choice to make. If I rudely tell her off when it's my turn, I've just exercised my old nature.

Just add a ring, it's like rings in a tree. If I go to the church picnic and see there's a shortage of my favorite casserole, I have a choice to make. If I choose to quickly grab a serving for myself before somebody else gets it, I've exercised my old nature. If I'm stuck in traffic and someone's trying to merge for my right, I have a choice to make. If I pull up to the bumper of the car in front of me and edge that merging car out of my lane, I've exercised my old nature. I can tell other people, done the same thing. If my grandchild repeatedly interrupts me when I'm trying to answer my emails before the family gathers for dinner, I have a choice to make. If I command her sternly to stop bothering me and leave the room, I've exercised my old nature.

You see, then I've got a whole page of examples from your life, I think, but I'm not going to read you those. So when we choose to live in our old nature, what we're doing is strengthening the old nature. And I don't know if we could say it grows, but it remains dominant and it overwhelms the new nature, even though the new nature is fueled by the Holy Spirit. So you and I, we need to choose to live in the new nature. If I live in the new nature, when delayed at the grocery store, if I choose to patiently wait my turn, helping the clerk bag another customer's items as well as my own, commenting that I know it must be tough to be the only checkout clerk on duty, I've exercised my new nature. If I'm at the church picnic and I see there's not enough of my favorite casserole to go around and I choose to wait until everyone else helps themselves before I do, I've exercised my new nature. If while I'm stuck in traffic, someone tries to merge from the right and I slow down, signaling the other driver to slip in front of me, I've exercised my new nature. If my grandchild interrupts me repeatedly while I'm trying to answer my emails and I choose to gently explain to her that I'm trying to get some work done, then give her a tablet of paper and a pen suggesting she worked quietly while I do, I've exercised my new nature.

You see? So we just add rings of the new nature and the new nature grows until one day it's just the fullness of Christ. This is a person you can see Jesus in, but it's required choice after choice after choice.

So you can ask, you know, what difference does it make if I tell a little white lie or if I just snap off at my coworker? It doesn't make any difference in your salvation. You're saved, praise God.

You're forgiven, praise God. The difference it makes is that you're exercising a choice in that old nature. And the damage you do is not so much to the other person, it's to yourself because that old nature will enslave you.

And then it just, because it's old and it's familiar and somehow it's just easier just to, you know, tell somebody off or to lie to get our way or to manipulate something or to grab what we want or, you know, and we can just live in that old nature. But that's not the life that Jesus died and raised to give you and me. That's not abundant life. That's not where joy and peace and blessing is. That's not the fullness of Jesus living in you.

So you and I need to make choice after choice after choice to live in the new nature. I don't go to the gym and never have learned to work out on those machines, but I walk so that strengthens my lower body. But I wasn't exercising my upper body. So several years ago I went to a personal trainer and she taught me how to use bands and I hook the bands on the back of the door. So like I have them up in the cabin and several times a week I pull on those bands to strengthen my shoulders and my arms and my upper body. And I could pull those bands a few times and think, you know, this doesn't work. It hasn't made any difference. I don't see any body tone or strength and I just quit.

And it doesn't make any difference. So what I have to do is pull those bands again and again and again, do various repetitions and do different sets of them. And day after day after day until I can build up the strength of my upper body and then see some tone and muscle.

And one of the hard things about this last year was when I couldn't even get out of bed, you know, I lost all that work that I had done. So, you know, you have no strength, no muscle tone and I've worked really hard to get it back and I'm still working on it. But the same thing is true with your old nature. If you just decide you're just tired of the fight and you're just going to give in to your old nature and you're just going to live in it, then you're going to lose all of your muscle tone if we can put it that way in your new nature and your old nature will take over.

Opposite is true. If you live in your new nature, choice after choice after choice, like pulling on the bands, just repetition after repetition after repetition until it becomes second nature to respond in your new nature. You recognize the old nature when it pops up its head and tries to get you to do something wrong and you can quickly pray, Lord help me, I just feel like I'm just about to lose my temper, I'm just about to tell that person off and you just catch yourself and then it's the Holy Spirit of course who kicks in and helps you do the right thing. So I want to tell you why this is very important and let me tell you something else that struck me. Our old and new natures, I didn't think about that really until this week, but our old and new natures, they share the same eyes. They both see out of the same eyes, they share the same ears, they share the same mouth, they share the same hands, they share the same feet. So it's like Siamese twins, one has got to die for the other to live and you can't be using these eyes to look at something that's inappropriate and then use these eyes to find somebody that you want to share Christ with.

You can't use this mouth in profanity and use this mouth then to reach out and bless somebody, you can't do it. You know, one's got to die so that the other one is freed up and I want to show you why this is very important. Alright, so the person on the left has been living in their old nature. They're saved and they're going to heaven but they have added all those rings to the old nature and the one on the right has lived in the new nature and this is a little discouraging thought but that old nature will be with us until we see Jesus. It doesn't drop off until we see him face to face and then it drops off. But that's what's so critically important because the old nature drops off when we see Jesus. So can you look at the different sizes? The one on the left, the new nature, how small it is and the old nature drops off.

Now I don't know what that means. The one on the right is going to have an abundant entrance into heaven. One person suggested that the one on the left when we squeak in the door of heaven and they're dressed like in a slip and the one on the right has this gorgeous wedding gown with all the layers. I wonder if it's different positions of service and I don't think we're going to be jealous and be rivals with each other but maybe more responsibility and the one on the right is going to be given a responsibility and service and the one on the left will be in heaven.

But you know there's something missing there. 1 Corinthians 3 says when we get to heaven we're going to be standing before the judgment seat of Christ and we're never going to be judged for our sin. Let me make that clear because Jesus paid it all. He took the judgment for our sin at the cross. We are forgiven, we're set free, we will never be held accountable for the guilt of our sin but we will be judged for our Christian life from the day we receive Christ and the day we see him. So our Christian life is going to pass through the fire of his holiness. And if I've lived my life in my new nature on the right side just in obedience to God's word and surrendered to his will and doing things his way choice after choice after choice after choice day after day after day until I've grown in my new. Then it's going to be like gold, silver and precious stones and it passes through the fire and Jesus is going to give me a crown in reward to the life I've lived down here for him. On the other hand if I live in my old nature and I just decide you know I don't have time to read God's word and I know I'm saved so I'm comfortable being saved but I don't have time to seek his will and I can't do things his way because I want my way and we live in our old nature. And our life passes through the fire of God's holiness.

It's like wood, hay and stubble and that old nature is burnt up. And we have very little to show for the life that we've lived down here on earth and someone once asked an audience I was in I've never forgotten. So when you stand before Jesus and you fully comprehend all that he is and all that he has done for you to open heaven and to receive you into his presence and live with you forever and when you see the nail marks on his hands and his feet and the scars on his brow where the thorns were. And you just fully comprehend for the first time what it cost him to welcome you into heaven. Don't you think you're going to want something to give him in return for what he's done for you? I know I will. And will you have a crown that he's given you in reward for a life that's been lived for him down here that you can lay at his feet?

Or will you have the ashes of a wasted life to press into his nail scarred palm? I can tell you every day that motivates me to make choice after choice after choice. I don't care how other people in my church are living.

I don't care what people around me their standards are so low or their pretense. I want to be pleasing to the Lord. I want to live for his pleasure. I want to be like Jesus.

I want him to see Jesus in me. I want to be the friend of God. So I would just ask you, which are you right now? How would you describe yourself? Someone who's given up the battle a long time ago.

Somebody who remembers it and wanting to come back to living in the new nature. I think that's what this message is for. That you're here and it's not too late. Wonderful thing is that Paul says in chapter 7 verse 24, What a wretched man I am who will rescue me from this body of death. And then he says, Thanks be to God.

Jesus to the rescue. So we have lastly the liberating power of the Holy Spirit. Chapter 8 verse 1, Therefore there is now no condemnation to live in defeat for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life has set me free from the law of sin and death. 2 Corinthians chapter 3 verse 17 says, Now the Lord is the Spirit and where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom.

Let me just rephrase that. Where the Spirit of the Lord is Lord there is freedom. The key is to surrender to the Lordship of the Holy Spirit. And we let him fill our lives and take over and take control and make choice after choice after choice.

But I can testify for my own life that he gives me the power to make those choices and to follow through. And it's almost effortless. In 1903 the Wright brothers flew a little plane down on Kitty Hawk in the outer banks of North Carolina. And it was the first time anything heavier than air had flown. It went 852 feet and then it came back down. And today there are planes that weigh so many more tons than that first little plane and they take off and they fly around the world.

And what's the difference? It's the power. And the Holy Spirit has the power to set us free. The Holy Spirit has power as you make choice after choice after choice to just enable that new nature to grow until the new nature dominates the old. And other people they look at you they can't even see the old nature.

It just seems to melt away. It's still there and it's still dangerous and you still have to keep your eye on it and you still have to deny it. And you still have to crucify it and you still have to put it off when it raises its ugly head. And we'll do that until we see Jesus face to face. But the person on the right is living in the new nature and that person is experiencing victory and joy and peace and blessing. And that person is someone God has poured out his blessing on this person and the blessing is flowing through that person to others and that's the person I want to be. The person on the left, people even doubt that person saved. You'd have a hard time seeing Jesus in that person. You question their salvation. Are they really saved when they act like that?

That's who I don't want to be. So my challenge, would you surrender to the Lordship of the Holy Spirit? We're going to talk about it and I can't wait to share with you about the identity of the Holy Spirit. So would you acknowledge that you have a major problem?

There are two people living inside of you. And would you embrace the basic principles that we're to know God's word, we're to apply God's word and we're to obey God's word? And then would you confess that the basic principles don't seem to work? There's such conflict in you. And then would you make the choice to live in your new nature, surrendering to the Lordship of the Holy Spirit, embracing Him choice by choice by choice until other people can see Jesus in you?

Who are you and who am I? We are living proof of the necessity for the Holy Spirit. And our lives should be a demonstration that the Holy Spirit can fill us and use us and shine His life through us, ordinary little dust people, little clay pots, so that other people can see Jesus in us. Praise God. These messages, Bible studies, books and videos all will give you a deeper, richer relationship with Jesus through God's word. And thanks for joining us today for Living in the Light.