Help in the Daily Battle
Notes
Transcript
Introduction:
Last Sunday we saw how God delivered us from the realm and reign of sin through union with Christ in His death. We learned that we were slaves to sin and in slavery we committed sins. We had developed sinful habits regardless of how “good” we were.
Then, Jesus Christ came into the world and took our place on Calvary. He died to sin and due to our union with Him we died to sin also. Now we experience freedom from sin - no longer its slaves. We are to count on this and no longer resist sin so that it does not reign in our mortal bodies.
Then Wednesday night, we talked about how sin still lives within us waging warfare through our evil desires and deceiving our minds. We may have felt deflated with this message because whatever hope for holiness we had was taken away.
In order to experience practical, everyday holiness, we must accept the fact that God in His infinite widsom has seen fit to allow this daily battle with indwelling sin. But this is the part I ask that you don’t miss: GOD DOES NOT LEAVE US TO DO BATTLE ALONE!!!!
Just as He delivered us from the overall reign of sin, so He has made ample provision for us to win the daily battle against sin.
This morning we are going to spend time examing Rom. 6:11. This is a point that we are to count on and keep before us everyday.
We are not only dead to sin but we are alive to God.
In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus.
We have not only been delivered from the dominion of darkness, we also have been brought into the kingdom of Christ.
Now you are free from your slavery to sin, and you have become slaves to righteous living.
God does not leave us suspended in a state of neutrality. He delivers us from the reign of sin into the reign of His Son.
So with all this being considered I ask two questions and we will spend time clarifying the answer this morning.
What is the significance of being alive unto God?
How does it help us in our pursuit of hoiness?
We are united with Christ in all His power
We are united with Christ in all His power
WE CANNOT LIVE A HOLY LIFE ON OUR OWN STRENGTH - it is not possible!
We live in a society that just thrives on independence and not needing anyone’s help.
I have to be honest I like being able to do things on my own. Having to rely on people all the time is not something I like because it takes longer to get done, I feel like I am bothering others when asking for help and the list can go on. But we need to realize that God’s ways are not our ways and that we need to be reliant on Him!
Christianity is not a do it yourself thing.
Notice Paul’s attitude in Phillippians.
I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength.
Here Paul talks about being content no matter the circumstances, whether well-fed or hungry, plenty or in want. Paul says he can respond this way through Christ, who is his source of strength.
So you may ask how does this apply to holiness?
Our reaction to our circumstances are a part of our walk to holiness.
Holiness is not a series of do’s and don’t, but conformity to the character of God and obedience to the will of God.
Accepting it with contentment no matter what the circumstances God allows for me is very much a part of a holy walk.
Notice that Paul said that he could respond in contentment because Christ gave the strength to do so. This is definitely something to work on.
I have found this series a challenge to preach and to walk in. There are days that I don’t feel able to respond in the way that is required because of even the circumstances of isolation and frustration with how things are. I have cried out to God on more than one occassion Lord please help me be more like you, please help me to be content because you have cared for me and blessed me so much already. Let me not get sidetracked by discouragement, circumstances or isolation.
Paul said he prayed that the Colossians would be strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience.
We also pray that you will be strengthened with all his glorious power so you will have all the endurance and patience you need. May you be filled with joy,
Endurance and patience come as we are strengthened with God’s power.
To the Ephesians Paul described this prayer.
I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit.
Paul ended the prayer by acknowledging that God is able to do immeasurably more than we all can ask or imagine according to His POWER that is at work within us! How’s that for a prayer packed with a punch that we can lean on today!
This is the first implication we should grasp of being “alive unto God”. We are united with the One who is at work in us to strengthen us with His mighty power.
We all have known the awful sense of hopelessness caused by sin’s power. It is not a place we like to be in. We hate being reminded of failure or stumbling. We have resolved scores of times never to give in again to a particular temptation and yet we do.
The Satan comes in and says we might as well give up, or you will never overcome that sin. It is true that in our own selves we cannot. This is not a lie.
But remember this, we are alive to God, united to Him who will strengthen us.
Remember when we spoke before about reckoning. We count it to be true - we will experiene the strength we need to fight that temptation .
When we reckon ourselves we need to remember two facts:
I am dead to sin and it’s reign over me
I am alive to God united to Him who strengthens me
“I can say to myself I am no longer under the dominion of sin, but I am under the dominion of another power that nothing can frustrate. However weak I may be, it is the power of God that is working in me” - Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones
To count on the fact that we are dead to sin and alive to God is something we must do actively.
To do it we must form the habit of continually realizing that we are dead to sin and alive to God.
We do this when we resist sin’s advances and temptations. We count on the fact that we are alive to God when by faith we look to Christ for the power we need to do the resisting.
Faith however, must always be based on fact and my friends Rom. 6:11 is a fact for us.
He has given us His Holy Spirit to live within us.
He has given us His Holy Spirit to live within us.
Next Sunday is Pentecost Sunday and we will spend the day with two services, talking about how important the power of the Holy Spirit is and what happened when it came and how even today it helps us.
With that being said the Holy Spirit is another way we can look at our union with Christ.
The Holy Spirit gives spiritual strength. The spirit of God works in us so that we may decide and act according to God’s good purpose.
But you are not controlled by your sinful nature. You are controlled by the Spirit if you have the Spirit of God living in you. (And remember that those who do not have the Spirit of Christ living in them do not belong to him at all.) And Christ lives within you, so even though your body will die because of sin, the Spirit gives you life because you have been made right with God. The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, he will give life to your mortal bodies by this same Spirit living within you.
For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him.
God has called us to live holy lives, not impure lives. Therefore, anyone who refuses to live by these rules is not disobeying human teaching but is rejecting God, who gives his Holy Spirit to you.
Paul connects the giving of the Holy Spirit with living a holy life.
He is called the Holy Spirit and He is sent primarily to make us holy - to conform us to the character of God.
The connection of these two thoughts, the Holy Spirit and a holy life, is also found in other passages.
So I say, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won’t be doing what your sinful nature craves.
Why do we have the Holy Spirit living within us to strengthen us towards holiness?
Why do we have the Holy Spirit living within us to strengthen us towards holiness?
It is because we are alive to God.
We are now living under the reign of God, who unites us to Christ and gives us His Holy Spirit to dwell within us.
The Holy Spirit strengthens us to holiness first by enabling us to see our need for holiness.
The Holy Spirit enlightens our understanding so that we begin to see God’s standard of holiness. Then He causes us to become aware of our specific areas of sin.
One of Satan’s most powerful weapons is making us spiritually blind - unable to see our sinful character.
“The human heart is the most deceitful of all things,
and desperately wicked.
Who really knows how bad it is?
No one can understand it and expose it except the Holy Spirit. Even Christians taking in the teaching of the Bible can be deceived about their own sins.
We somehow think that by being willing to be taught the scripture it is the same as obedience. It is hard to see our own sins and faults.
But don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves.
As we grow in Christian life we face increasing danger of spiritual pride.
We know do’s and don’t’s
We know correct doctrine
But we may not see the poverty of our own spiritual character.
We may not see our critical and unforgiving spirit, our habit of backbiting, or our tendency to judge others.
We may become like the Laodiceans or like David.
You say, ‘I am rich. I have everything I want. I don’t need a thing!’ And you don’t realize that you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked.
David was furious. “As surely as the Lord lives,” he vowed, “any man who would do such a thing deserves to die!
It is the Holy Spirit’s ministry to make us see that we are poverty stricken because of our sins.
The Holy Spirit opens the inner recesses of our hearts and enables us to see the moral cesspools hidden there. This is where He begins His ministry of making us holy.
The natual result of seeing God’s standard and our sinfulness is the awakening withing us of a desire to be holy. This is the work of the Holy Spirit as He works to make us holy.
We are sorry for our sins with a Godly sorrow that leads to repentance.
For the kind of sorrow God wants us to experience leads us away from sin and results in salvation. There’s no regret for that kind of sorrow. But worldly sorrow, which lacks repentance, results in spiritual death.
Wash me clean from my guilt.
Purify me from my sin.
Purify me from my sins, and I will be clean;
wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.
For God is working in you, giving you the desire and the power to do what pleases him.
Before we act we must will. That means we must desire and resolve. When the Holy Spirit shows us sinfulness, He does not do this to lead us to despair but to lead us to holiness. He does this by creating within us a hatred for sin and a desire for holiness.
Only one who has a strong desire to be holy will ever persevere in the painfully slow and difficult task of pursuing holiness. There are too many failures.
The habits of our old nature and the attacks of Satan are too strong for us to persecere unless the Holy Spirit is at work in us to create a desire for holiness.
The Holy Spirit creates this desire not only by showing us our sins, but also by showing us God’s standard of holiness.
He does this through the Word of God. As we read and study the scriptures or hear them taught, we are captivated by the moral beauty of God’s standard of holiness.
His standard may seem far beyond us, we recognize and respond to that which is “holy, righteous, and good” (Rom. 7:12).
Even though we fail so often in our inner being we delight in God’s law.
If the Holy Spirit uses scripture to show us our need and to stimulate a desire for holiness, then doesn’t it follow that we must be in God’s Word on a consistent basis?
Search me, O God, and know my heart;
test me and know my anxious thoughts.
Point out anything in me that offends you,
and lead me along the path of everlasting life.
After the Holy Spirit has enables us to see our need and creates a desire for holiness within us there remains something more that He must do.
He must give us the spiritual strength to live a holy life.
So I say, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won’t be doing what your sinful nature craves.
To live by the spirit is to live both in obedience to and dependence on the Holy Spirit. There is a balance between our will (expressed by obedience) and our faith (expressed by our dependence).
No one overcomes the corruptions of his heart except the enabling strength of the Spirit of God.
And because of his glory and excellence, he has given us great and precious promises. These are the promises that enable you to share his divine nature and escape the world’s corruption caused by human desires.
Through participation in the divine nature we escape corruption and this is the participation is through the indwelling Holy Spirit.
Conclusion:
We express our dependance on the Holy Spirit for a holy life in two ways:
Through a humble and consistent intake of scripture.
If we truly live in the realm of the Spirit we must continually feed our minds with His truth. It is hypocritical to pray for victory over our sins yet be careless in our intake of the Word of God.
It is possible to be consistent in our intake of the Word of God without an attitude of dependence on the Holy Spirit.
Has not my hand made all these things,
and so they came into being?”
declares the Lord.
“These are the ones I look on with favor:
those who are humble and contrite in spirit,
and who tremble at my word.
We are to come to the Word of God in a spirit of humility and contrition because we recognize that we are sinful, that we are often blind to our sinfulness, and that we need the enlightening power of the Holy Spirit in our hearts.
2. Pray for holiness
Paul prayed continually for the working of God’s Spirit in the lives of those whom he was writing. He told the Ephesians that He prayed God would strengthen with power through His spirit in our inner being.
I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit.
He prayed that God would fill the Colossians with knowledge of His will through spiritual wisdom and understanding.
So we have not stopped praying for you since we first heard about you. We ask God to give you complete knowledge of his will and to give you spiritual wisdom and understanding. Then the way you live will always honor and please the Lord, and your lives will produce every kind of good fruit. All the while, you will grow as you learn to know God better and better.
The Thessalonians:
Now may the God of peace make you holy in every way, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless until our Lord Jesus Christ comes again.
Paul knew we would depend on the Holy Spirit for holiness and he expressed this dependance through prayer.
When we first started out in our walk with God as a new Christian we believe that all we had to do to live a holy life was to find out what to do from the Bible and then do it.
We have to learn that we are dependent on the enabling power of the Holy Spirit to attain any degree of holiness. Then as we look to Him, we will see Him working in us - revealing our sin, creating a desire for holiness, and giving us the strength to respond to Him in obedience.
This morning as we conclude our time together. We need to realize that God gave us the Holy Spirit as our help each day in overcoming the battle towards holiness. Let’s reach out and grab hold of that help in every way we can.
Search me O God and know my heart
Holy Spirit you are welcome in this place, in me. Use me, show me, and lead me.
He gives me peace in the midst of the storm of my life
He’s an anchor, He’s a rock to build my faith upon
With Christ in my vessel I feel no alarm
He gives me peace in the midst of the storm
Thanks to Him I will never be the same