Address—Tim Ruga
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Good evening.
Welcome everyone again to the meeting.
Could we start by singing hymn #174?
O patient spotless one, our hearts and meekness trained to bear thy youth, and learn of thee, that we might rest Obtain 174.
It's just, uh, OK, I'm gonna come back together again, so.
I'm finished.
It's prey, her God and our Father. We just thank Thee for that blessed One who has such beauty. We thank Thee, Father, that Thou hast put it into our hearts to see that beauty, to know Him, to know that finished work by which He not only redeemed our poor, worthless souls.
But brought thee such glory, and so.
We ask that as we open Thy word tonight, and that would just help us, help us, that we may learn something there and through the time that we spend here before that there might be something more. Yeah. To his glory and to thine, we ask his Father in the precious and worthy name of the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
So here we are, homeless at the end of camp, not much time left, and we've been through a lot of things together. And I have, yeah, another burden on my heart brothers before me have. But I just want to say it's not my purpose tonight to preach the gospel. But the gospel still goes out. We're still here. And so that God who loved the world still loves you.
And He gave his only begotten Son, so that if.
You will believe on Him. You will not perish but have eternal life. I'll just say that much.
You can still be saved right now, but I'm going to go on and I'm going to speak to the believers in the room tonight. And you know, as we have been taking up a lot of questions over this past week, I think as it occurs to my mind, a lot of the questions have sort of been.
Along the line of what about this or what about that? And the answers have often been, you know, the word of God says this and we shouldn't do this and we shouldn't do that. It hasn't been all that, but there's been a fair bit of that. And as the answers have been given, I know different brothers have been trying to take the positive side as well. And I want to just speak to that a little bit.
Umm, you know Christianity is not negative, although there are negative.
There, but Christianity is positive and tonight I have the positive side. More on my heart. So let's go over to Luke. I'm sorry, Matthew, chapter 12.
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Because it's not enough.
To say throw all these things out of my life. We talked about a number of things that might be wrong for the believer to have in their life.
And I want to start with.
A parable the Lord gave.
And maybe illustrates his point a little bit. Matthew chapter 12 and verse 43. He said, when the unclean spirit has gone out of a man, he walketh through dry places, seeking rest, and find us none. Then he says, I will return unto my house, into my house from whence I came out. And when he has come, he finds his head empty, quest and garnish.
And then go with he, and taketh with himself seven other spirits.
Worth more wicked than himself. And they enter in and dwell there. And the last state of that man is worse than the 1St.
Now the Lord is talking about something of that day, and tonight I'm making an application because there's a principle here in the principle is true. You can take all of the things that might be wrong for a Christian to do. You can get all of those things and collect them up and throw them out of your life.
And yet end up in a worse place where you were before. And so to take off those negative things only by themselves isn't going to do any good. Instead, we need to have something else put there. This man was in a better state for a short while, but he never took the time to fill that space with something that was positive. And so the demon came back with others.
That we're more wicked than himself and that man ended up in the worst case. Now it's not exactly the same with us.
Believer doesn't have the demons like that, but it's the principle of the thing. You can throw the bad things out of your life, and if you don't go and you fill your life with what we need to put into our lives from the Lord Himself, then we can have those bad things come crowding right back in the same way. And they will. It's simply a principle. It happens.
And so we need to have our lives filled with what is from God. Romans chapter 13, we are told that we need to put off the works of darkness, cast off it says the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. And that's the way Scripture talks is always a positive. It's not just getting rid of the negative, but we have to have the positive to fill the life or else there's a great void there that.
Is going to ultimately be filled again by that which we seek from pleasure.
Galatians chapter 5 says walk in the spirit and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. And that's what's in my heart, on my heart tonight. This first was mentioned a few times. Tim might have mentioned it today and the question and answer, we've referred to it several times over the past week.
That to walk in the Spirit is what we need to do, and the question naturally comes up then, and often we don't adequately answer it. What does it mean to walk in the Spirit?
I understand that they shouldn't walk after the flesh, but what does it mean then to walk in the spirit and how do I do that? And so that's really what my subject is. And before I take that up, we'll we'll go to Galatians 5. But before we do, there's some things that I think we need to understand.
And the first thing is that all of us have an evil, wicked nature. And without understanding what God says about things, we're really not going to understand how to walk in the Spirit and how to get victory over sin in our lives. So let's go to Romans Chapter 7 and just look at this sinful nature that we have. See what the Word of God says about that.
Romans 7 and verse 18 says, For I know that in thee that is, in my flesh dwelleth no good thing.
Period. There's no good in there. Every one of us, when we were born, we were born with a fallen sinful nature. And that nature is, to put it bluntly, evil. No good in it at all. If you go over to Romans chapter 8 for a moment and look in verse seven, it says the carnal mind. That's the mind of the flesh.
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Is enmity against God? Who does not subject to the law of God? Neither indeed can be.
So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God.
This is where we start out naturally before we're believers at all. All we have is the flash, and what we've read in this last verse is they're in the flesh. This is someone who's an unbeliever. They're not saved. They are only in the flash and there's no possibility of pleasing God. However, when we accept the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior, we now are no longer in the flesh because we have something else, as we'll see in a moment.
But still that flesh that's in US cannot please God. It's no better. There's no improving it.
And we need to know that very important because it has everything to do with how we're going to live our Christian lives and recognize how sin works. Now, if we go back to Romans Chapter 7, just look down at verse 22, we'll find out something else about us as believers.
He says, for I delight in the law of God after the inward man. Here is something different. It's an inward man. This is.
Something that just loves what God says and wants to do it and that we have as well. Her brother mentioned it last night in his meeting. He was talking from Second Corinthians chapter 5. If any man be in Christ, he's a new creation. That's something new. You believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you get that new creation. In Galatians chapter 2 verse 20, the apostle Paul refers to it.
And he says, I live, but nevertheless not I, but it's Christ that lives in me. And so that new life that I have is actually the life of Christ that's in there. And so every one of us as believers, we have these two things. We still have that flash, that old nature, and we have a new nature, which is a new creation, which is the life of Christ himself. Now there's something else we need to understand.
And that is that there is a struggle there between these two things, and we have that presented.
Here in this chapter as well, let's just go back to verse 18 and start there again.
For I know that in me that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing. For to will is present with me. But how to perform that which is good, I find not. For the good that I would, I do not, but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but then that dwelleth in me.
I find a law then.
That when I would do good, evil is present with me, for I delight in the law of God after the inward man, but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.
Oh, wretched man that I am.
Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?
In context, this is talking about someone who hasn't come into full deliverance, but as believers, when we don't walk in the spirit, and we're gonna take that up in just a few moments.
This is a good description of our condition as well, that we have this very same struggle. And when I was reading these verses, did you recognize that struggle? Has that gone on inside of you?
If it hasn't, you're probably the first Christian that it hasn't. OK.
It rings so true, doesn't it? You want to do what's right. You're a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. You know that He died for you. You want to please Him. And yet there is something there that's pulling the other way, isn't it? And that brings me to the next thing that we have to understand as believers. We don't just have a loss, fallen, sinful, old nature, and we don't just have.
A new nature that's the life of Christ, but we also have the spirit of God and that makes a tremendous difference. It makes all the difference really. Let's just go over to Romans 8 a few verses verse two says for the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.
Now here's something else. It's a law, and it's of the spirit of that life.
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We've got that life of Christ. It's the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. That's how the Spirit of God is viewed here. And it's this, the law of the Spirit, that power that he has that now sets us free.
And the question still remains, how does that work? How does the Spirit set me free? And we'll look at that. But first of all, we need to know we have that Paul is saying here that that spirit of life set me free.
Go to over to Ephesians chapter one verse 13 and he says there and that when you believe the gospel of your salvation, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise.
Everyone who believes is sealed with the Spirit, and so we know as believers we have the Spirit of God.
And it's important that we know that. So knowing these things, understanding these things, let's go over to Galatians Chapter 5.
And we'll look at that first verse, 16.
This I say then.
Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.
Simple fact, walk in the spirit.
Still, the question remains, how do I walk in the Spirit?
But first we need to know that that is the answer. It's not gonna be something else. It's not gonna be some self help or five steps or this thing or that thing with the Word of God says. It's by walking in the Spirit. And so we start there and we need to understand that that is what God says. There's something else we need to understand as well. We need to know.
What causes about the sin? Because if God says to walk in the Spirit, we find that there's also something saying no.
You're not able to do it. So I want us to go and look and see what God says about the sin before we actually look at the details of walking in the Spirit. Let's go back to, uh, Romans chapter 6.
Romans, chapter 6.
And verse 6.
Knowing this, stop right there.
Knowing this, that's why we take the word of God out and read it. We need to know the Lord Jesus said you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free. It's not good enough to make up things or have a Christianity sort of formed by consensus of opinions. We need to get the word of God and when he gives something and he gives it to us plainly from his Word, then we have.
Thus saith the Lord.
Knowing this, it says in verse six that our old man.
Is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin.
For he that is dead is freed from sin.
Read a little earlier, you'll find out we're dead. We're crucified with Christ.
You say that makes sense, the person who died is free from sin, but he says that we are free.
And we need to know that.
This is really, really important because.
Satan is going to come to you and say no, that's not right. There's no power there.
Sin is something you haven't been able to resist. The sin is going to come again and you're powerless before it.
You're going to yield to it all over again. And you know what else? God made you that way. So ultimately, if it's anybody's fault, it's not yours. It's God's fault.
That wicked spirit blasphemes God if he can and says things like that. And you need to know what God has said, not only Satan, it's the flesh that's inside of us. That flesh is saying, you know what? If you try that, your life's over. No more fun.
It's gonna be a horrible life.
Don't listen to it. Satan lies. Your flesh lies. God tells the truth. We need to know what he says. Let's go down.
Verse 11 Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Christ Jesus our Lord. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that you should obey us in the lust thereof.
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You know this is the other part of it, he says. Reckon yourself. You know what that means, except that it's true. Believe it. You began your life as a Christian.
By faith, God said you were a Sinner. God said you needed a savior, and you believed that. That's how come you're a Christian today. There's no other way.
Now as a Christian, you need to believe God again if you haven't laid hold of these verses.
I can plainly remember the time when I hadn't, and there came a time when I had to read these verses and I had to say that is what God is saying. I need to reckon that is accept, count it to be true.
It's so when we were sitting there one time having a great struggle with a certain sin of my life, and the Lord brought these verses before me for the first time, I told them that way and I said OK, then God is true.
And if it's so, then it's so. And I don't know whether it was Satan or the flesh came right back again with that thing. And I said, I don't have to listen to you. I'm free from sin. And it went away. What can I say?
What could it possibly say?
God says this, God means this, and it's true, and we lay hold of it by faith. And that includes addictions too. You have an addiction, that's sin in your life.
The power is here. These verses are true. Let's go to second Peter chapter one.
Second Peter one verse 3.
According as His divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, to the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue.
You know, there's nothing left out here. It says all things, and it's His divine power that's given it, and it's for what does it say here? Things that pertain unto life and godliness. Is there something in your life, a struggle in your life, something that would keep you from godliness? The world will say you need this, this and this.
God says no, He's already given you that divine power. Romans chapter 6 is true.
You go back and read Romans 6 again. You find out that that came through death. That death came through being crucified with Christ.
This is a result of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ on Calvary's cross, and all the power of God was involved in that.
And it was there for you. God gave it for you, and he gave it for me.
And that power is sufficient for that sin in our life.
You know, remember reading years ago about what happened as the World Trade Center? You remember there were two towers hit and the first tower was hit, I think pretty much dead on. And there was nobody above where that plane hit that lived. The second tower was different. It was hit on the corner of the tower. And because of that, it weakened it more in itself first, even though it was hit second. But the interesting thing about that was that the.
Corner from where that plane went into the tower was not cut off by fire, but there was a lot of smoke there. And there I read about a man who went up through that smoke and he got up at the top of that smoke and he found people. They were all confused and not knowing what to do. And he said, look, there's a way down on this stairwell and those people listen to what he said.
And some of them said, no, the smoke is too much. It's too hot there, I'm afraid.
And they went up looking for relief. Others followed him and they went down into that smoke and they found life.
That's what we're talking about here.
Your flesh might be screaming that these things are not so. Satan is lying, he says. These things are not so. It's smoke. There's no fun. There's no joy in it. It's just going to rob you of everything in your life. You might as well die now.
God says itself.
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You gonna accept what God says and go in spite of the lies, in spite of what your flesh is telling you inside, and just simply believe Him and follow Him?
There's another thing I believe we need to know that is when it comes to this issue.
A victory over sin and walking in the Spirit. We have no strength of our own.
And we'll come to walking in the Spirit. Sorry about taking so long to get there, but it's not walking in the spirit. And then our own strength too. And I want to deal with that part of it. We don't have the strength to deal with this issue on our own. In fact, we have no strength and we need to recognize that early on. Let's go over to Psalm chapter 16.
Psalm 16, verse 8.
I have set the Lord always before me.
Because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.
We need to forget self. The Lord is the one that we need in this.
If we're going to walk in the spirit and walk to please Him, we have to leave ourselves entirely. And this is really important to understand because we get so occupied with self. In fact, everything around us is about self. It was brought vividly before me not long ago when a few of us went to a beautiful garden that are not far from where I live.
And I was a little bit ahead of the group and as I was there.
Just walking along and I saw a lady in front of me.
And I watched for just a few minutes and I couldn't believe what I was saying. There was really some very nice vegetation over here. And she looked at that and then she got in front of the vegetation. She arranged her hair all very nice, and then got out her phone and did this. And then there was some other vegetation there. She went over there and she got herself arranged and did her hair again and did this.
And then she went down, did it again and again and again. After a while, the ones that were with me came to where I was. They said look, and they looked, I don't know how long. It was a while. My wife was with me. It was a while that we watched this until she went right out of sight. Every single thing, she took this picture.
Is she that much worse than us? Well, maybe, I don't know. It's pretty bad. But we're pretty occupied with self, aren't we? It's not good. In fact, it's the flesh. It's evil at its root. We need to think about that. Anyway, there's no help in it, and we can't help with that at all. I've seen some of you, by the way, going around the camp. I think with the the verse Philippians 4 to 13. I can do all things through Christ, which strengthens me.
Beautiful. That's the point, isn't it? But sometimes I'm afraid we take that verse and think, well, you know what, I can handle a lot of things, but there's some things that really take a little extra and I need that turbo boost, you know, So I'll use Christ for that. That's not what the verse is talking about. It means all things, every single thing I need Christ for. He's the one who gives strength for it. Let's go over to Romans chapter 15. See a verse there?
Romans 15 verse 5. Just the end of the verse only.
The Lord Jesus says, For without me you can do nothing.
I like to think maybe another version of that verse.
I could do no things without Christ, who strengtheneth me.
That and put it together with this first. And, and really you have to accept that when it comes to this walk of faith or really walking in the spirit, we need to remember that it's not walking in our own strength with the help of the spirit, but we have to leave ourselves aside, forget self, judge self. We need to actually put it behind and walk in the spirit.
Another point I just want to make before we go to walking in the Spirit is don't hold back anything when it comes to walking in the Spirit of God. You can't hold out some part of your life to yourself and say, well this is my little garden where I want to have my pleasure.
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Sometimes, but the rest of it I give to the Lord, and I'm going to live for the Lord.
During these periods of time, but sometimes at least still, I'm going to hold out this little piece. And if the flesh can't get anything else it wants, at least that don't do it. You need to give it all up. Let's go back to the verse we've already looked at several times.
Matthew, Chapter 6.
Matthew chapter 6, verse 24. No man can serve 2 masters.
Either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and Mammon.
Can't do it. We've often said it's a moral impossibility.
May try to do it, often times we do, but God won't allow it. He demands.
Desires I think is what the verse says. Truth in the inward parts, but he requires it too. It doesn't work any other way. You can't just hold out a part of your life for yourself and give a part to God. And he says it right here. No man can serve 2 masters. He's worthy of every part of our life and he must have it.
We need to take everything and examine in our life, is this thing for my flesh or is this thing for the Lord? Now, I just want to be clear. Scripture speaks about another possibility too, and we've been enjoying that a lot here at the camp. That is the natural thing that they're not wrong. In fact, they're very good. They're right. God made them. When we play volleyball, when we swam or enjoy food together and enjoy God's creation. These are natural things that God.
Given to us, and I'm not talking about that, but I'm talking about those things that please my flesh and those things that want to tend towards sin because that's what they ultimately do. If we leave them, we need to have. Is it what it says here? A little further up, your brother mentioned this last night too in verse 22. The light of the body is the eye.
If therefore, thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of life, and if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness.
It's a light that is in thee be darkness. How great is that darkness? And what's he talking about? Our brother told us. He said a single eye is the eye that's single for Christ.
The evil eye is what? Well, it's the other. It's the eye that's not single for Christ. Even if it's partly on Christ and partly on something else that I desire, it's evil.
And He says, if that light that's in you is darkness, how great is that darkness? That's total confusion. We can't do it. We need to take this issue to the Lord and we need to take every part of our life and just turn it over to Him. We can't hold part of it back for ourselves.
There's another way you can do this. There is a way. I used to do this in my life and that was I would live for the week for myself and go on say to Saturday night. Saturday night comes, it's free.
And go watch some movies. Not good movies. Oh boy. Well, I watched them. They're a little worse than I pretended I thought they were. And what do I do now? Tomorrow is Lord's Day, so.
I get on my knees at the end of it. I tell the Lord, oh Lord, please help me to do better.
And then I go off and break bread. If you're at the Lord's Table and relate to this.
And well, knowing that the next week I'm gonna do it again, can't do that.
That's a stupid, stupid game to play with God. Don't play games with God. He sees your heart. He knows what you're thinking. You're not fooling yourself. You made-up the silly game.
Should speak about myself. I'm sorry I'm speaking to you. I wasn't fooling myself. I made-up the silly game.
And God sure wasn't fooled. If you are playing any games even remotely like that, don't play them. It's only gonna be to your heart, and God loves you too much to leave you that way. I thank God he didn't leave me that way.
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Sooner or later, he's gonna do something about that.
But don't play games with God, Give everything to Him. He is worthy of it. Now let's go to walking in the Spirit. First thing. We need to live in the sphere of the Spirit and see that. Let's go to back to Romans chapter 8.
And while we look at these verses, I want you to remember.
Again, the flash that is in you is Satan. They're going to scream at you and tell you that these things are not so.
He's gonna lie and tell you there's no joy, there's nothing in it, you can't do it. Your friends are gonna laugh at you, and in the end you're gonna be embarrassed.
Why we need to see what God says and why we need to take these things by faith. Romans chapter 8, verse 13.
If you live after the flash, you shall die.
For the PA through the Spirit to mortify the deeds of the body, you shall live.
This is talking about two spheres of life, the one where there's living after the flesh.
And that goes on and as and what's he say you shall die, not physical death here, death in the spiritual sense of separation from God. And what happens is we live after the flesh and we do those sins as we go on more and more in that we get more and more down this road of separation from God and we become spirit spiritually more and more dead.
But on the other hand it says here, if ye through the spirit do put to death, that's what mortify means, the deeds of the body, you shall live.
How are we doing it? By the Spirit?
And so there's these two areas that we can live our lives, either that area which pleases myself and seems like so much fun to my Flash.
But let's be honest, it's empty, isn't it? You go and you do those things that I was talking about a few minutes ago, and what happens there when you're done? Do you feel fulfilled? Do you feel joy? You say, wow, that was so good. I'm just really happy now.
Or do you feel empty?
You feel empty, don't you?
That's the deceitfulness of sin.
And Satan will work hard to make you forget that with the next thing. He just keeps doing one more thing after the other out there, you know, keep you going down that road because he wants to take you down this sphere of life where you're ministering to your flesh. But the other is what you're putting to death, those seeds of the body. That's what we were talking about about back in Chapter 6, that we're dead and we need to reckon itself and we're just counting it to be dead.
The temptation comes along and says I'm not listening to that, I'm dead to it.
And how are we doing it in our own strength?
No, he says by the Spirit.
So how does that work exactly?
It's kind of nice because it's answered in good part right in the next verse, verse 14.
For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.
You know.
The verse says very plainly, if anybody if the person who's led by the Spirit of God, that person is the Son of God.
Or we might say the other way around. It's perfectly true. If you're a son of God, you're led by the Spirit of God. So every single believer in the Lord Jesus Christ in this room is led by the Spirit of God. Very important for us to know that.
That He leads us. He said I don't feel the leading of the Spirit of God in my life. OK, and you might not, but this doesn't change what this first said. This isn't talking about feeling the leading of the Spirit of God in my life. It's saying that the Spirit of God leads me.
He leaves, that's what he does. Whether I follow his leading or not is a whole other matter, but he's always there leading in my life.
And because he is leading, he is leading me on a path that leads me.
Where I need to go to walk in the Spirit means that I'm going to follow where the Spirit leaves me. And the first thing I need to know about that is what it says in this first, that the Spirit of God does this. Elite, do you accept that the Spirit of God leads?
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Have you felt his leading in your life?
If not, we need to talk more about that. How are we going to feel? How are we going to get the leading of the Spirit of God in our life? Well, we could turn to various verses and the Word of God. And what we'll find is that the Word of God, the Spirit of God are always found together. And so the first thing I suggest to you when it comes to the leading of the Spirit is that we have to be reading the Word of God. We're not going to get the leading of the Spirit.
Without the Word of God, it's not going to happen. We need to take up the Word of God and we need to read it, and then we need to talk to the Lord as well. So we have the reading of the Word of God and we have prayer. These two things are vital and the starting point for how it is that we walk in the Spirit. You are not going to walk in the Spirit. Without that, it's not possible.
To walk in the Spirit, to have the leading of the Spirit, we need to have prayer to talk to him, to say what we need, and we need to have the reading of the Word of God because without that, we're not going to hear what he's saying back to us. It is possible for the Spirit of God to lead me in my life, maybe through in some way circumstances or a feeling of peace or something like that. But by and large, He's going to lead me through what the Word of God says. And the only way I'm going to know that.
Is I have to take it and I have to read it and I have to read it regularly. You're not going to have the leading of the Spirit in your life. If you're just reading it on odd occasions. It's not going to happen. You're going to have these big areas where you're getting no input from the Spirit of God who wants to lead you in your life. So number one, I say take out your Bible and read it. And if you especially maybe some of the younger ones here say I've tried that, but.
It's difficult, it's really tough to get into the word of God and understand what it's saying there. And so I try for a little bit and I get frustrated and I give up.
Don't keep on going, persist in it and you wait and you see what happened, what will happen. You'll find that the word of God, it will start to grow on you. It will get in you. You'll find the things that before it seems almost a little disjointed or you didn't know how they fit together. You're going to start to see, wow, that goes together with that. I see what the Lord is saying here and even before you get to that point, the Spirit of God is going to bring before you.
A verse or part of a verse, something that's going to answer a need in your life. He knows what you need. He can give it to you. No matter how little you understand of the Word, just read it and ask Him to show you. That's part of it too. You're asking the Lord to show us. We're not told to speak to the Spirit. The Spirit leads us. We have to do with the Lord Himself.
We pray to the Lord, we ask him for that guidance, and he is God. You say, I don't understand how it works. It's OK, we're poor, failing humans, we're weak. But he's God and he knows how to reveal himself to us. He knows how to guide us. He knows how to lead us from his word. There is no limit to his power. So don't take your own failings or limitations into this question. God has said.
That His Spirit leads and guides us and He means it. He has the ability to do it. And so take up the Word of God and see what He'll say to you.
Next thing is we need fellowship. We need fellowship with other Christians. We're here for that purpose in part, aren't we? But it's very important. Again, I'm gonna go back to Brother Craig. Last night he was quoting from James, Chapter 4. Remember, he said enmity or friendship with the world is enmity with God.
That's true. I'm not gonna dwell on that. Negative. This is the opposite. So we need the fellowship of Christians. We're put together with other believers.
In one body, God didn't just save us through the work of the Lord Jesus Christ and put us out on our own, but He put us together.
And we find throughout the Word of God that we are put together for a reason, and that we are to help each other and to minister to each other, and that there's joints of supply through which the needs come, and that we're all then built up and edified together until we come into that perfect man in Christ. Go read that to yourself when you get a chance in Ephesians chapter 4.
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We are not to be here by ourselves.
Struggling on that, the leading of the Spirit would have us together. We know this from the Word, so that's part of it as well. Another thing is to serve the Lord. We need to spend our time desiring to know what He wants us to do. Remember, we took this up earlier in the week. The first thing the apostle Paul and Acts 22 asked the Lord as Lord, what shall I do?
And that should be the desire of our heads too, to be idle isn't going to be a useful path, umm, for the Lord. We're not going to follow the Spirit that way. He doesn't lead us into idleness. And so it's a desire to know what he wants us to do is very important. And the Lord Jesus says, I think it's in John 15. He says he that service.
Me, him will my father honor he.
Appreciate that He wants it and it's a path that we have to walk with Him. It's a privilege that we have to do. Let's go over to see another thing, John first John chapter 3, and that is the coming of the Lord.
We're given a hope.
And we need to think about that hope. And there's an important reason for it as well.
Has to do directly with victory in our lives and that work of the Spirit to give us power there.
First John, chapter 3.
Verse One, Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we shall be called the sons of God. Therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not.
Below now are we the sons of God, and it shall, and it does not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when He shall appear, we shall be like Him, for we shall see him as he is. Now this is saying, when the Lord Jesus appears, one day we're going to be exactly like him, because we're going to see him as He is there in that glory.
But then it goes on here to say something wonderful.
In verse 3, every man that hath his hope in him, everyone who's got this hope in that one who's coming, the Lord Jesus says.
Purifies himself even as he is pure. The Lord is coming. He is going to meet us in the air. He's going to come back here and appear in glory and reign in this world. We're looking for that day.
And my brother and sister, you need to think about that.
There's a crown of righteousness for loving that appearing, and there's a purification that comes from being occupied with that one in glory. Even right now, we look up before He comes and we see Him there. And as we see him as he is in glory by faith, what happens to us? We get purified, and that brings a great deal of this victory over sin.
In our lives.
This is part I submit to you of walking in the Spirit and hopefully turned over to 1St Thessalonians chapter one and the 10th verse. We find out there that there were some young believers in that city of Thessalonica and the apostle Paul says to them, he says.
That he turned to God from idols. That's what we started out with, isn't it? They didn't just turn away from idols and have a big void.
But they turn to God. That filled the void with God.
And then what?
To serve the living and true God. They didn't just say idol or they didn't just say in self seeking and pleasure going down in that sphere of the flesh and just enjoying it and saying, oh, it's OK, I'm saved now. I'm safe for eternity, but while I'm here I'm gonna have a good time. They didn't do that.
Says to serve the living and true God and what and to wait for his Son from heaven. That was their occupation.
And 5th, I submit to you, it's very much what it means to walk in the spirit, you know?
These are some things. There are other things you can find too. The first thing that I mentioned was to read the Word of God and you'll get the full answer of what it means to walk in the Spirit. He's going to guide you through that.
But one more point I want to make before we're finished tonight is that we need to bring him into every single sphere of our life. That is, examine everything. I'm not talking about holding out some part now, but I'm talking about actually actively saying where is it?
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That the Spirit of God can take over in my life and for this I just want to look again at that another well known verse.
Proverbs chapter 3 and verse 6.
Proverbs 3 verse six. And all thy ways acknowledge him, He shall direct thy path.
All thy ways, every sphere of our life, we need to take up with the leading of the Spirit.
We might be tempted to think again that there's certain areas that are just automatic and we don't have to bring them into it.
That I suggested every part. And if we're gonna do that, I'm gonna go back and say this again. We need to start right off the beginning of the day. Sorry for repeating that, but it's important. Suggest get up. Get up in the morning. Things are gonna come in. The day starts quickly enough. Things are gonna come in and crowd into your mind. So get up before that.
If you need it, get a coffee and get yourself wide awake. Then go get yourself good and comfortable.
And take out the Bible and start to talk to the Lord. Make sure that this is a really nice experience. And read the Word of God and pray. Talk to the Lord with a clear mind before those other things crowd in.
Make it the best part of your day and then go from there.
And follow his leading right from that point all the rest of the day when you leave that point and maybe you're driving to work or you're going somewhere else and you see the sunrise or you see something beautiful.
Stop right there, Say Lord thank you. Wow, beautiful.
Get a little further, something nice happens to you. Stop.
Thank you, Lord, for that. That's wonderful. I really appreciate that.
A little further, something bad happened. Thank you, Lord, for that. I needed it. I really appreciate that You didn't forget me and you gave me this lesson. Now what is it? And talk to Him, you know, all through the day. That's what He wants. He wants communion. He wants to have a living relationship with us all through the day. That's what it means to walk in the spirit and go right through to the end of the day like that, bringing Him into every part of your life.
Let's see if it isn't a path of joy. Now you understand I'm not talking about victory over sin anymore.
Yes, it is that, but it's so far beyond that. Christianity is not negative. Those lies at the flesh tell the lies that Satan's house, what lies they are, they're awful lies. Christianity is wonderful. You come to know the Lord like that and you start taking His word and it's just Absolutely Fabulous. It's a joy and a wonderful thing that you cannot possibly have with the pleasures of sin.
There's nothing remotely like it. Take it up and see.
If it isn't so, let's look at another verse in that regard. Psalm 104.
We're almost done here.
Psalm 104, verse 34. My meditation of Him.
Shall be sweet. I will be glad in the Lord.
This is an incredibly wonderful thing when you can go through the day with the Lord and talk to Him and then think about Him and get a sweetness coming back that you can never, ever, ever know until you try it.
And then he says, here I will be glad in the Lord, and it fills you with joy and praise. Believe me, you will never experience one moment of emptiness there, not for a moment.
It will be incredible peace and joy and sweetness of meditation with him.
There's another verse. We already read it a little bit earlier in Psalm 16. A little further down, though, it says.
At thy and thy presence are pleasures forevermore.
We tend to think about that as heaven, and it is, oh, no question about it. But my brother and sister, we don't have to wait for heaven.
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We can have that heaven right now.
And when we do, we'll say, I found a truer joy. And then the lies of Satan, the lies of the flesh, they'll lose their hold, and they'll be a truer, greater thing that will take their place. We'll all have it when we get to heaven. But why wait till then? You can have far more than victory over the flesh now. You can have that joy and that peace.
In your life right now? Well.
Let's just close and ask the Lord's help.
Lord, I was heard these things.
We have found them in thy word.
Let us know, Lord, the weakness of the vessel who spoke them.
We pray that those who are here.
With themselves each one. Go and try thee, and see if these things are not so.
We pray, Lord, that that would bring us each one into a fuller.
Deeper realization of thyself and that joy of communion with thee.
So that's in would fall off like autumn leaves and allies, and that we could be to thy praise and thy glory on this side of heaven.
Lord Jesus, we thank Thee for all this Thou has done every part of that work that founders accomplished at the cross. We thank Thee, Lord Jesus, that we can have Thee now and that we will have thee for all eternity. And we praise Thee and thy most holy and worthy name. Amen.