The Work of the Holy Spirit - Life of Paul Part 61

William Friedkin gave an interview and in this interview he was asked the question, do you personally believe in a real and literal devil? And here's what he said and I quote, he said, I believe in the existence of good and evil and in the constant struggle between these two forces in all of us, end of quote. Now folks, whether you believe in a literal devil or not, and by the way I do, but whether you do or not, I doubt there's anyone here today who would argue with Mr. Friedkin's comment that there is a constant tug of war going on inside each one of us here today.

A tug of war between good and evil, righteousness and unrighteousness, morality and immorality, decency and corruption, obedience to God and disobedience to God. You know 32 years ago when I gave my life to Christ and I'll save you the trouble, I'm 54. When I gave my life to Christ, I had this struggle going on inside of me and I thought, wow, now that I've come to Christ, this is wonderful, the struggle is going to go away. And as you know as a follower of Christ, that didn't happen because instead of the struggle going away when we become followers of Jesus, not only does it stay, but often it intensifies. Now this is what we want to talk about today. We want to talk about first of all, why as followers of Jesus Christ, do we have this battle inside of us?

And secondly, how can we win it more often than we do? Well, remember a little bit of review that in our last message from the life of Paul, we talked about the person in the work of the Holy Spirit, and we learned in that message that the Holy Spirit is a person. He's not an inanimate force.

He's not an it. And we also learned in that message that the Holy Spirit is not only a person, but He's God, co-equal with God the Father and God the Son, the Lord Jesus. And then in that message, we looked at 10 different jobs, 10 different ministries that the Holy Spirit carries on today in the 21st century.

And I don't have time to review all of those, but I invite you to go get the tape or go get the CD in our bookstore. Now today, what I want to do is cover one more job, one more ministry of the Holy Spirit in our lives, and that is His role in helping us live the Christian life, His role in helping us win this tug of war inside of us more consistently than we're winning it right now. And so that's the plan for today. Now first, let's cover the initial question, and that is why do we have this tug of war? What is the problem? Well, Galatians 5, where I asked you to turn, tells us what the problem is. Verse 17, for our sinful nature craves what is contrary to God's Spirit. And, verse 17, the Spirit calls us to live in a way that is contrary to our sinful nature. These two forces are in conflict with one another so that we do not do what we want to do. Here in Galatians 5, the Bible is talking to us as followers of Christ and telling us that just because we're believers, that doesn't mean that our sinful human nature disappears.

Oh no! As followers of Christ, our sinful human nature is still alive and well with all of its passions. It's as unruly as ever in our life. This is why, as followers of Jesus Christ, we all want to eat too much, sleep too much, drink too much, and spend too much. This is why we all want to talk too much, gossip too much. This is why we all feel like we want to disrespect authority and have our own way too much.

This is why we all speed on the beltway too much because our sinful human nature is alive and well. Maybe you heard the story about the man who suddenly his cell phone rang one day and he picked it up and it was his doctor. And his doctor said to him, sir, he said, I got bad news and worse news for you. He said, the bad news is that your chest had come back and you only have 24 hours to live.

He said, the worst news is I've been trying to call you since yesterday. Now I got bad news and worse news for you here today, my friends. The bad news is that our sinful human nature is still alive and us as followers of Christ. The worst news is that these passions are stronger than you and I are, far too strong for us to ever be able to control them or subdue them in our own power and in our own human strength. Now Paul wrote about this struggle in Romans chapter seven.

Listen to what he said. He said, and I quote, for what I want to do, I do not do, but what I don't want to do, I do. For I have the desire to do what is right, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do, rather it's the evil I do not want to do, that is what I keep doing. Paul went on to say, so I find this law at work in me, that when I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being, I delight in God's law. I want to do what God wants me to do, but I see another law at work in my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the sinful nature that lives in my body.

What a wretched man I am, Paul says, who can deliver me from all of this? Now friends, for the vast majority of Christ's followers in our world today, this is our life story. We want to do what's right. We try to do what's right. We want to obey God, but the passions of our sinful nature are so strong that it's like trying to spit on a forest fire and we lose and we lose and we lose. And so often we find ourselves feeling like the apostle Paul, oh wretched man, wretched woman that I am. We get discouraged.

We get defeated. We begin sinking if we're not careful into a cycle of self recrimination and self condemnation and guilt. We read a verse like John 10 in the Bible where Jesus says, John 10, 10, I have come to give you life and to give it to you abundantly. And we say, well, I don't know who he's talking about, but Jesus is obviously not talking about me.

And we, even if we're not careful can begin to doubt our relationship with God because we start asking questions like, well, if I'm a Christian, then how come I can't live the Christian life? So maybe I'm really not even a Christian. You say, well, Lon, this is, this is really good. You know, now, now I'm thoroughly depressed.

Now I really, I'm really glad I got up and came here this morning so you could depress me. Well, no, wait a minute. I got good news coming.

Hold on. I got two pieces of good news for you if you're in this situation. Actually, the first piece of good news is this, that as followers of Christ, God's love for us is not based on our performance, good or bad. This is the whole point that Paul goes on to stress in Romans chapter eight. And he concludes that chapter with this wonderful affirmation verse 38, for I am convinced that neither death nor life nor angels nor demons nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth nor any other thing in creation, including our own poor performance, can separate us from the love of God that is in Jesus Christ, our Lord. Folks, as followers of Jesus Christ, do we sometimes lose this performance tug of war going on inside of us? Yes, we do. When we lose it, does that diminish or change God's love for us one bit?

The answer is no, not at all. You know, I've raised three boys. My youngest now is 18. And when I was raising them, their performance hasn't always been what I wished it would have been. In fact, even to this day sometimes, their performance is not what I wish it would be sometimes. Now, the question is, when they perform in a way that I'm not happy with, does that change my love for them? No, not at all, because friends, I don't love my boys because they behave right. I love them because they're mine. My love for them is based on our relationship.

It is not based on their performance. And what the Bible tells us is that's exactly the way God loves followers of Jesus Christ. His love for us is based on our relationship with Him through Jesus Christ, not on our performance. May I take a moment and say, if you're here and you've never trusted Christ in a real and personal way, maybe you've never been loved like this in your whole life.

Maybe you've never had a human being love you out of relationship instead of performance. But I'm here to tell you that God, the God of the universe offers to love you like this. Now, how cool is that to have the God of the universe love you like this? And friends, you can have this relationship with God, but you can only have it through Jesus Christ. That's the only place God offers this kind of relationship.

I hope you'll think about that. Well, I have one other good piece of news for us, and that's this, that as followers of Jesus Christ, God has provided a means for us to get on top of this battle inside of us. And we learned, remember, we learned in our last message that when we give our life to Christ, the Holy Spirit actually takes up residence inside of us. First Corinthians 6 19, don't you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God.

Now, as followers of Christ, you and I may not have the power to subdue our sinful passions, but the Holy Spirit who lives inside of us does have the power to control these passions so that they don't overwhelm us, so that we don't become their prisoners. You say, Well, Lon, if this is really true, if this is really true, then how come so many followers of Jesus Christ that I see, how come they're living such defeated lives? Well, that's a great question. You say, Yeah, how come I'm living such a defeated life? That's a great question.

And let me give you the answer. The answer is because most of us were taught to live the Christian life incorrectly. Most of us were taught to live the Christian experience raw. Now, I want you to put your thinking caps on, okay, because I'm going to share some things with you here that I want I want you to think about. They may challenge you a little bit.

This may be information you've never heard before. Most of us were taught incorrectly how to live the Christian life. That's why it's not working. Listen, the Bible says Galatians 5 16. If we live by the Spirit, we will not gratify we will not carry out the desires of our sinful nature. The Bible says right here that the correct way to live the Christian experience is to live it by the Spirit. The problem is most of us were taught to live the Christian life differently. Most of us were taught to live it by human effort. Most of us were taught to live it by human religious works. Most of us when we came to Christ were given the navigator's wheel or something similar. And we were told, do Bible study, do prayer, do witnessing and do fellowship. You do these four things and the result will be a vibrant Christian life. And so we ran out and we did Bible study and prayer and witnessing and fellowship.

And we didn't get a vibrant Christian life. And we look around at all these other people who walk into church smiling and they seem to be living an abundant Christian life like this. And so we figure something must be wrong with us. Friends, there's nothing wrong with you. Those people, if they're living it this way, they don't have an abundant Christian experience either. It's all a fraud. You say, well, I don't understand.

What's the problem? Friends, there's no problem with Bible study, witnessing, prayer and fellowship. These are wonderful things. We should be doing them. But friends, these should be the overflow.

These should be the result. These should be the outpouring of a Spirit-filled life, not the cause of a Spirit-filled life. The Bible doesn't say that we are to live by the Bible or we are to live by prayer or we don't live by witnessing and we're to live by fellowship. It says we are to live by the Spirit. And friends, the Bible is not the source of power in the Christian life. The Holy Spirit is. Prayer is not the source of power in the Christian life. The Spirit is. But just listen to many followers of Christ talk when they're going through a struggling time in their Christian life.

Listen to what they say. They say, man, I'm really struggling in my Christian life. I got to read the Bible more. I got to pray more.

I got to fellowship more. And we may not realize it, but what we're really saying when we say that is that we are relying on these religious works as good as they are to give us the abundant Christian life instead of relying on the Holy Spirit himself. Now, there are thousands of believers every single day and many of you in this audience who are spending hours every week doing Bible study, prayer, witnessing and fellowship, who at the same time are living spiritually bankrupt, defeated and desolate Christian lives. And these people are waiting for God to drop some kind of wiffle dust on them from heaven that will suddenly transform all of this religious effort into the abundant Christian experience. And it never happens.

You know why? Because it can't happen. Friends, listen, God will never honor a system that depends on human performance instead of depending on the Holy Spirit himself.

Let me repeat that. God will never honor a system that depends on human religious performance instead of depending on God himself. Folks, the Christian life is a supernatural life. It is a life that is marked by supernatural love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, goodness. We don't produce these supernatural qualities by Bible study, prayer, witnessing and fellowship. These supernatural qualities the Spirit of God himself has to produce in our life or they don't end up there. And this is why that a brand new follower of Jesus Christ, that person may not be mature spiritually yet, but that person can be spiritual right away.

Because spirituality is simply the result of letting the Spirit of God fill us and flow out of our life every moment of every day. And you can have that from day one that you know Jesus Christ. You know, when I was a brand new follower of Christ, the very first year I was a believer, I led between 50 and 100 people to Christ personally that year.

I mean, it was unbelievable how God used me that year and the spiritual power that God allowed to come out of my life. And then I went to seminary and they taught me in seminary. Well, you can't possibly have that kind of Christian life, they said to me, because you don't know Greek. You can't possibly have that kind of Christian life. You don't know Hebrew. You can't possibly have that kind of Christian life. You don't know any theology at all.

You can't have that kind of Christian life. And so you know what? I believed them. I thought, well, they know more than I know. And it took me 10 years to recover from believing them.

And suddenly 10 years later I discovered, guess what? God speaks English. You don't need to know Greek and Hebrew. And that as a brand new follower of Christ, of course I could have that kind of Christian experience because the Spirit of God was moving and flowing in my life. And I wasn't trusting Greek and Hebrew and theology for an abundant life.

I was trusting God, the Holy Spirit, and it worked. You say, well, Lon, this is great. I mean, but how do you do this? I mean, put some handles on this for me. Make it so I can grab a hold of it.

Okay, in closing, let me do that. How do we actually make this work in everyday living? Okay, look at Galatians chapter 2 verse 20. Paul's going to tell us. He says, I have been crucified with Christ and it is no longer I who live, but Christ in the person of the Holy Spirit who lives in me. And the life that I now live in this body, I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me. Paul said, how do we do it? We live by faith. Now listen, faith means trusting God to do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. And folks think now, how did your Christian experience begin? It began by faith. When you trusted the blood of Jesus shed on the cross to do for you what you could not do for yourself, to forgive your sin, to reconcile you to God, to bring you into relationship with Almighty God, all right, you began your Christian experience by faith. How is your Christian experience going to end? You say, well, it's going to end with me going to heaven.

You're right. Do you know where heaven is? Do you know how to get there? Have you been down to AAA and got a triptych to get to heaven?

No. You say they don't know where it is. Well, of course, and you don't either. How are you planning to get to heaven? You say, well, I'm planning on God to send an angel or come get me himself and take me there.

That's right. You're planning for God to do something for you you can't do for yourself. Your Christian life's going to end by faith. Now, if our Christian life starts by faith, and if it ends by faith, explain to me why would God change systems in the middle?

Well, the answer is he doesn't. And that's what Galatians 2 says. The life that I now live, my Christian life, what does Paul say? I live by faith.

I go out of my house every day, Paul says, consciously depending on the Holy Spirit to do for me that day what I cannot do for myself, namely, to give me the resources I need moment by moment to keep my sinful human nature and its passions under control so that I can do what I really want to do that day, and that is I can obey God. There's a little acrostic that I use that really helps me. It's W-H-Y.

Why? And here's what the acrostic stands for. Number one, W stands for willingness. That is I walk out of my house every morning and I say, God, you know what? I want to obey you today. I want to do what pleases you today.

I'm willing. H, helplessness. But, God, I'm completely helpless. I mean, if left to myself today, I'm going to lose the battle to my passions all day long. I'm going to look the wrong place, say the wrong thing, drive the wrong way. I know it's going to happen.

And so why? Yieldedness. God, I'm going into the world today not dependent on my own strength, but I'm going in depending on you to give me the supernatural resources I need. I'm willing, but I'm helpless, so I'm yielded, God. You live the Christian life through me and together we'll obey God today, you and me together.

Now it works. You know, a few years ago I was in New York for two weeks in the summer as part of the summer witnessing campaign with Jews for Jesus. Let me tell you what we do. We go out on the streets four times a day, two hours for each time, so eight hours total a day, and we stand at various places. We go to the subway stations, Greenwich Village, the Long Island Railroad, Wall Street, Battery Park, the Staten Island Ferry, wherever, and we hand out tracks. And we wear bright t-shirts, yellow, red, blue with big letters across the front and the back, Jews for Jesus. Now in New York City, wearing a t-shirt like that is like painting a big old bullseye right in the middle of your chest and wearing a sign around your neck that says, please abuse me.

And the New Yorkers are very obliging to do that. And let me just tell you, when I was up there for those two weeks, I got cursed out by a lady and I heard words out of this lady I had never heard in my life. This was a lady. I got spit on, you know, in all the years I dealt drugs and all the years I hung out with drug pushers and heroin addicts, nobody ever spit on me. I got spit on several times in New York City. I got ridiculed. I got made fun of. I got physically assaulted. I was threatened.

I was cursed out as I already mentioned. I had things thrown at me. I was standing at Wall Street one day and I had this little man come from my blind side.

I never even saw him coming. I turned back around and with his hand, he slapped me so hard in the face, he knocked me over. Then I had this little Jewish lady who decided she wanted to fight me for the tracks. And I was in this struggle with this little Jewish lady and she was strong. I'm telling you, it was a fight to the finish with this little Jewish lady.

That was right outside Macy's there. I'm telling you, it was unbelievable. Now, after two weeks of doing this, I want to tell you that I was able in every case to return love and kindness and graciousness to these people. That every day I was able to go out there and be calm in the middle of all this chaos. That every day I was able to go out there and be bold for Jesus. And let me tell you why, because I started every day by saying, God, you know what?

I'm in over my head out here today on the streets of New York City. So I'm not going to walk out here trusting myself to have stamina and strength today. Lord, I'm trusting the Holy Spirit to give me supernatural stamina and strength today. Lord, I'm not going to walk out here today and try to be bold in the energy of my flesh for Jesus. I'm trusting the Holy Spirit today to give me supernatural boldness on the streets of New York City. And God, I'm not going to go out there and try to be nice and kind and loving and gracious to these people in the energy of my flesh, because I won't be that way.

I'm trusting you to give me supernatural love for these people that you radiate through my life. And friends, I'm here to tell you it worked. I didn't go out every morning now. The difference was how I went out. I didn't go out every morning saying, I will not lose my temper. I will not get discouraged. I will not get that. I will not punch one of these people and go to jail. No, I won't.

I didn't go out like that. I went out saying, Jesus, if we're going to do it today, you're going to give me the strength. And I'm just going to follow you. You're going to live the Christian life through me today.

And it works. And when I came back from New York, back to Washington, it was really interesting. The Holy Spirit said to me, now, you know, Lon, remember how up there in New York you felt like you were over your head every single day?

You remember that? Well, son, I want you to know you're over your head every single day in Washington. You know, it may not be as severe, but you're over your head every day here trying to show patience to your children and drive on the beltway correctly and be kind to people and return love for mistreatment and all. Son, you're over your head right here.

And you need to bring that same kind of dependence that you showed New York City back and live it out every single day here. Now, for many of us as followers of Jesus Christ, living like this is brand new territory. We weren't taught to live the Christian life like this.

And for some of you, you may be saying, has he finally gone over the edge? You know, theologically, do we need to conduct an inquisition into this? No, friends, I'm telling you, it's right out of the Bible.

It's exactly what Paul says, that we live the Christian experience by faith in the Holy Spirit, by dependence on the Holy Spirit. And if you're here today, I want to give you a little assignment to try. This is brand new for you. What I want you to do this coming week is I want you to take one area of your life where you've been struggling to obey God and you've been losing. Just one area. And don't go out this week and try to gut it out. Don't go out this week and try to beat it in your own strength, sugar coated by the wheel illustration.

Forget that. Instead, I want you in that one area this week to walk out every day and say, God, I am over my head in this area today. Left to myself, I am not going to obey you today. Willingness, Lord, I want to obey you today.

Helplessness, but God, I can't. Yield in this, so you give me the resources so I can look the right places and say the right things and return the right attitudes and drive the right way. You give me the resources and together, you and I, we're going to obey God today. And friends, I want to tell you, even if you have to pray that prayer 50 times a day, 100 times a day, what difference does it make?

Keep reaffirming that it's the Holy Spirit's resources you're depending on, not your own. And I'm telling you, this will work. You see, friends, the Christian life lived correctly. It works. And the way to live it correctly is to live it by faith, to live it by depending on the resources of God to do for us what we can't do for ourselves.

If you live the Christian life the way the Bible says to live it, it will work. Now, does this mean we'll be sinlessly perfect? No. Does this mean we'll never lose a battle?

No. We're human. Nobody can live like this 24-7, 365, every moment of every day.

We're just too human. But does it mean that learning to live like this in every area of our life will make us far more consistent in being able to obey God and having victory over these areas of our life? Absolutely. And that's the goal. So let me suggest to you that you try something brand new. If you were taught to live the Christian life by the wheel illustration, throw it away.

That's not the way you do this. And you know what you'll find is that when you're really living the Christian experience the way it ought to be lived in the power of the Spirit, your Bible study will get better. Your witnessing will get better. Your fellowship will get better. Your prayer life will get better because it's being energized by a Spirit-filled life. It's not something you're trying to do to create a Spirit-filled life. It'll change the way you live. Trust me. It'll work. And I hope you'll try it.

Let's pray. Lord Jesus, thanks for talking to us today about how to live the Christian experience. And thanks for reminding us today and giving us hope that lived correctly the Christian life works. And I'm sad that so many of us, including me for the first 10 years of my Christian life, were taught to live it wrong.

And Lord, many times that produces all kinds of self-recrimination and guilt. But thanks for reminding us today there is a right way to do this. And when we do it right, it will yield the abundant life that Jesus promised us. So Father, for many people here who this is a brand new thing for them, I pray that this would be a great week of discovery as they try in one area of their life to depend on the Holy Spirit to live the Christian life through them. And Father, I pray it'll be the opening, the gateway into a whole new approach to the Christian experience that will bring true joy, true supernatural victory to people's lives on a consistent basis. So Lord, use what we've learned here today to change our lives. And we ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.