One totally vital rule for Christian fruitfulness: `”Not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit”, says the Lord`! (Zec 4:6). It’s when we’re in full partnership with God’s Spirit that everything works! So then: How does that happen? How can the incredible potential God’s put in us be released?
STARTER: What will you say to someone who wants more of God’s Spirit in their life? And what would you say hinders that?
In Galatians God presents two powers fighting for control of us (read Galatians 5:17) – the `sinful nature`, and God the Spirit; and one will push out the other. We can’t decide this conflict and break free from our built-in sinful nature by our own strength. We need God the Holy Spirit to dominate our lives if we want the wisdom, strength and resolve that will free us and enable our transformation…
How will this work? God explains in depth in Romans. Romans chapters 1>5 set out the gospel and how we are saved. Then Romans 6:14 says, amazingly, `Sin shall not be your master` – there is no sin or negative behaviour, none at all, that we cannot overcome!! Why? Because we’ve died and been born again; when you first became a Christian, the central old you died (read 6:6-7), and the Spirit came to live at the heart of your being. He’s taken over, like a new owner taking over a house. That’s what being `born of the Spirit` means (Jesus’ words in John 3:8)!
But this is not an instant victory. Read Paul’s words in the very next chapter, Romans 7:19: `I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing!` This is a partnership, and various parts of the house (us) that the Spirit now owns still need a lot of work and renovation from us together. Nonetheless, He and we are going to win! The next chapter tells us (amazingly!) that we’re predestined for nothing less than becoming like Jesus (8:29)! And 8:8-9 explain why: `Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God. You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you!` What matters is the issue of control; and since our new birth we’re becoming controlled by the Spirit. So we can win!….. But we have a part to play, as His partners – we have to side, deliberately and practically, with the Spirit….
The battle lines, then, are drawn: the old sinful nature against the Spirit. The first question is: to whom, day by day, will we allow more influence? If we truly `repented`, truly became a follower of Jesus, we said No to our old `sinful nature`; but now we must live out that repentance, carefully giving the Holy Spirit, day by day, more influence to shape us than the other power that’s in us. This requires us to ‘keep in step with the Spirit’. Read Galatians 5:16-25: `So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature.` It’s one or the other! `The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.` (A good point to stop, think, and pray through that list!) `But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.` (Likewise!) `Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit!`
SO HOW DO WE DO THIS? (1)
Practically, how do we find the power for this `keeping in step`, how do we give God the Spirit this dominant influence? Two things are vital.
First, see how Romans goes on; 12:2 speaks of us being `transformed by the renewing of our mind.` What counts is our minds being reshaped by God, so that our thinking matches up more and more with His. This happens, and the sinful nature is weakened, as we soak ourselves in God’s Word, because the Word and the Spirit continually go together. (Read and compare Colossians 3:16-17 and Ephesians 5:18-20!) It happens as…
• we read God’s living Word, building it into ourselves
• we feed on God’s Word being expounded on a Sunday, and discussed at homegroup
• and, as we live out obediently what we’ve heard!
The more this happens, the more the Spirit’s life grows in us, the more we find ourselves ‘nudged’, and empowered, by Him to respond to situations in a different way. We don’t have to criticize that colleague. We don’t have to be selfish with our spouse or sibling or housemate. We don’t have to give in to greed when out shopping, as if was just our own money and God didn’t come into it. We have the power to stop and spend time with a person who seems lonely, or to help someone who is struggling rather than walking on by. The Spirit reminds us what He’s put in our mind through reading His Word, and gives us the strength to do it!
SO THEN WHAT? (2)
Then secondly: If we want this destiny and transformation, if we want to see the Spirit’s fruit (results) in our lives, we must grasp the importance of asking Him (He is a Person!) to fill us; so that (read Ephesians 5:18 again) we are `filled with the Holy Spirit’, or literally, ‘being filled continually with the Holy Spirit’. In Greek it’s a present tense – `be being filled` constantly. The great evangelist D L Moody was asked if he was filled with the Spirit: yes, he replied, but I Ieak! We need to be refilled continually with the Spirit, because we so easily displace Him with other things. God’s incredible purpose for us depends on our being full of His Holy Spirit. There’s no more vital Christian habit than asking God every day to fill us with His Spirit.
How? First, we need to recognize that the Holy Spirit is holy; and He is a person, a person who can be grieved if we are careless about holiness. (Read Ephesians 4:30-32.) So our relationship with Him is vitally restored as we repent and recommit ourselves wholeheartedly and practically to holiness, to walking in step with Him.
Then, we ask Him to fill us. If you want someone to be your guest in your house, you do have to ask them!
And then we trust Him to keep His promise. `You know how to give good gifts to your children: how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?` (Luke 11:13). He loves to fill us! Maybe we will feel no different immediately. But over the coming days we will start to sense something is changing. If we want transformation, it’s vital that we invite the Spirit to fill us, every day. Repent, ask, trust!
And then, on that basis, keep living carefully in ways that please rather than grieving the Holy Spirit. Back to Romans: `Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind’ (12:2). As we invite and allow Him to develop in us the radical holiness of Jesus – humbling ourselves before God, being a servant to others, releasing our grip on things of this world – we will find that we exhibit more of the fruit of the Spirit – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Until we get to heaven we’ll be a work in progress; but let’s feed our minds daily on His transforming Word, ask Him daily to fill us, and be alert in shunning the ways of our old sinful nature that resists Him. And step by step we’ll be transformed beyond our imaginations, becoming the person that in our best moments we’ve dreamed of being; in the end, living the joyous, God-filled life beyond our wildest dreams!
ABSORB TIME: What might it mean for me to ‘crucify the sinful nature’ (Gal 5:24), so that my life is controlled by the Spirit? And what action is God prompting me to do more of as a result of what we’ve been considering? Pray – thankfully! (and as a group?) – about all this…
