The Necessity for the Holy Spirit – Part 1

Here's an grim lots.

You have two people as I can put it that way tonight. Just two people living inside of you holding your natures.

They don't get along there like all in order. They don't mix they never merge the never bland, we have basic principles how we overcome the old nature. Thank you for joining us for living in the light with Bible teacher and Graham was today's message and will answer the questions. If Jesus lives inside me.

Why can't other people see Jesus. And what do I keep doing the wrong thing shoring and now, as we look at the necessity for the Holy Spirit.

Jesus in me that's from Romans chapters 6, seven, eight years and never knowing somebody who claim to be a Christian. Not like it. Have you ever known somebody that claim to be a Christian after your sure they were but when they're in private behind closed doors when they feel safe with family or close friends. They may be use profanity or they watch things on television that are inappropriate or they tell inappropriate stories and maybe you know somebody at churches seemed like a lovely person and they put a smile on their face. They do a lot of good things. Maybe there even teaching and you know but at the same time when pressure comes on and push comes to shove, they can lose their temper, they can become mean-spirited they can take vengeance.

So what's going on and to be honest, maybe not using those examples, but I know that I have been at times in my life presented as a Christian and yet I have not acted like it either, and I expect if you're honest, you would say the same thing that there are times when we call ourselves Christians, but we don't act like it even though we want to.

So what's wrong. Who am I, daughter of Eve or a son of Adam, and also a child of God, little dust person but I'm also living stone placed in a living temple and the flower that fades in a vapor that vanishes, but I'm also a jewel in the king's crown on the center and I'm also a saint. When I was born I was hell-bent now have been born again I'm heaven bound. I'm poor but I'm rich I'm weak but I'm strong. I'm a lowly but I'm exalted to live in heavenly places. I am dead but I'm more alive than I've ever been before.

So who am I I'm living proof of the necessity for the Holy Spirit to open your Bibles to Romans chapter 6 were going to look at Romans 6782 but I'm not going to take you. Verse by verse. I'll just be referring to phrases and verses in these chapters and were going to begin by just pointing out something that I think we all know and that is that and I'll just use the personal pronouns have a major problem and I know that you have a major problem to end the problem is this.

If all that we describe Jesus's lives inside of me. Why can't other people see him in me, and if Jesus lives in me and I'm saved and born again of the Holy Spirit is in me then why is it that I keep doing the wrong thing. Why did I say that product not do that. I didn't want to say I didn't mean to do that.

I just what's wrong so I have a major problem in this is the major problem that there are actually two people who live inside of me and to natures that live inside of me and the first one.

The nature that were born with.

This is what the Bible calls our old man. Our sinful nature.

Adam is called our Ishmael are self our flesh and so the black spots are our sin. And when you were born in the human race you're born as the center. Romans 323 makes it clear that all of us of sin.

All of come short of the glory of God. James 210 says if you ever send one time in all of your life, then you have the disease of sin shows that your body is permeated with it. We think of sin as being murder, adultery, stealing, but Jesus said the greatest commandment in all the world was the love the Lord your God with all your heart mind soul and strength and, therefore, could it be that the greatest sin in all the world is breaking the greatest commandment. Just not loving the Lord your God with all your heart mind soul and strength. And I think in my life of all the moments of all the days of all the weeks of all the months of all the years of my life and I haven't love the Lord all my heart all my soul all my strength on my body and that's a lot of sin just right there and if I've done that one time if I'm not love the Lord. One moment in all my life, then it shows that I have the disease of sin so little baby can be innocent when is born, but you give that little baby a chance and after a few months it'll talk back to its nominal steel. A cookie able to get sibling and you know that and it's that old nature were born with that when Rachel Ruth was little she were sitting at the table and I can't remember. Age maybe five or six that she came running up to me and and she said mom. She said something to me, so I pulled up her shirt. You have shed a little red bites. I looked in her shirt not insane thing is, or whatever it is is gone now, so she went back to play in a few minutes later she came up to me and she said mommy's bit me again as I pulled up her shirt and should not ship to little bites so I took off her shirt and found a freshman I put a freshman on us and now it's okay. Whatever it was is gone and minutes later she said mommy's bit me all over and I took up her shirt and she was covered in spots. She had the chickenpox of the first little spot show that her body had the disease, even though she had broken out. Some of us are spotty or than others but one little spot of sin shows that your body is riddled with the disease and that's our old nature. Romans eight versus 78 says the sinful bond is hostile to God. It does not submit to God's law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God this old nature. The nature were born of cannot please God.

It cannot stand before God. It cannot do anything that has eternal significance and value. It's condemned it will never improve. From a spiritual perspective. You can't manage it drag it drown it rehab it is a sinful old nature that we are born with all God ever expects of this nature is moral and spiritual failure.

When we are born again. The Holy Spirit comes into us and were given a new nature.

So we have a new emotions the love God and the love somebody made. We didn't even like and you will to do the right thing new intellective think the thoughts of God and to understand the Scriptures, and so that's that's our new nature within and John 33 Jesus said you must be born again because the old nature can't see God is the new nature that is the one that is pleasing to God and that bears the eternal fruit, and that one day will go to heaven I gave you the illustration of the Virgin Mary when the angel came to her and said you going to conceive the son of God, and she's a bit under me according to your will, and she conceived physically, the life of the son of God within her, and when we come back face of the cross and we confess our sin until God were sorry and were willing to repent and turn away from it and we invite them to come in. He comes in and the person of the Holy Spirit and we conceive within us the spiritual life of Jesus, so that inner circle. That's what that represents. That's the life of Jesus on the inside of us. That's our new creation. Second Corinthians 517 says in Christ were a new creation. So we been born again, but this is the major problem may old nature is still there in the old and you natures they don't get along there like oil and water. They don't mix they never merge the never bland and so you have two people as I can put it that way to natures. This is your new nature. This is the spirit of Christ living in you. This is your new man is the Bible calls the end living right with in that old nature within your same body. So you have two natures to people living inside of you to we have basic principles how we overcome the old nature and the basic principles are given to them, explain them to you is very simple. You know God's word and you apply God's word and you obey God's word so that's the way you overcome that old nature.

So first of all we know God's word and in verse three it says don't you know verse five we know verse nine we know over 16 don't we know so it's emphasizing there something we need to know ask you two things in this passage, one we need to know about the death of Jesus.

And when Jesus died on the cross, he not only paid the penalty for our sin, so he took the judgment that should have been yours and should've been mine and because he died on the cross in my place and what I claim that for myself. I'm forgiven of my sin and delivered from God's judgment on delivered from hell I can go to heaven. I made right with God. Okay, praise God. So the death of Jesus has set us free from the penalty of sin, but listen to me there's something else we need to know the death of Jesus is also set us free from the power of sin in our lives.

So when Jesus died.

His death is sufficient to break the power of that old nature. Example would be an alcoholic who's very addicted to alcohol and just can never get enough of it and he dies and you can take the bottle of his favorite liquor and you can waive it under his nose, and you can poured on what she doesn't flicker. Now he doesn't move. He doesn't want it anymore.

He's dead. Okay, so that old man through the death of Jesus is dead without that new nature. It's what Kanye West College is the dead man walking. You know, we have the life of Jesus within us, but we have this old man through the death of Jesus is also been put to death instead of Jesus. So we need to know about the death of Jesus and his power to set us free from the power that old nature. Second thing we need to know is about the resurrection of Jesus.

And when Jesus was raised from the dead. When we identify with his life were raised with him into a new life to let me go back and look at chapter 6, verse three and Romans says don't you know that all of us were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death. That's what we just talked about in verse six we know that our old self was crucified with him, so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin, because anyone who is dad's been freed from sin like the alcoholic who is dad to alcohol. He doesn't care about it anymore. Right. So then we know about the resurrection going back to verse four we were therefore buried with him through baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the father, we too may live a new life. If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection, so we know about the resurrection that when Jesus was raised from the dead. He gave us eternal life. He opened heaven for us. We have a personal relationship with God now were going to live with them forever when we die, but also he gives us this new life to live, and he expects us to live in that new life ends like Lazarus when he raised him from the dead you member and he stood in the. The opening of his tomb and he was all bound with the grave clothes and Jesus didn't raise him from the dead, so that he could just stand there like a mummy. So he said Martha unwrap in because Jesus raised him from the dead to that he could walk in newness of life.

And Jesus says in his death. He's put to death. That old man but that he raises us into new life and expects us to live in this new nature and to enjoy the abundant life and the life of Christ that he's one for us through his death and resurrection. So we know God's word is it applies to his death. We know his word as it applies, resurrection fact, if you're in a Baptist Church and every time somebody's baptized, they immerse them I'm not sure about some of the other denominations, but they put you under the water and they say you identify with Jesus in his death, and your buried in the water and then they would raise you.

They say you raise now to walk in new life and that's with the picture that water baptism is dying to yourself and being raised at the new life in Christ. Okay so we know that second principle is that we apply God's word. So in verse 11 it says, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God, so that Ephesians talks about putting off the old man and putting on the new man. So for instance let's in verse 13 are rated it says don't offer parts of your body to send, but rather offer yourselves to God. So you put off worry and put on peace and I put off hate and I put on love and I put off bitterness and a put on forgiveness so we just take what we know and we apply to those feelings we want to deny the old nature and its emotions, will, and intellect, we want to put on whatever, not the opposite. But with the new nature emotions, will, and intellect would be all right. You put off and you put on when you want to obey God's word is not enough to just know it in a plot you got to live it out.

So in verse 17.

Thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you wholeheartedly obey and this requires wholehearted obedience.

I'm just going to use some examples for my life. Okay so I know that the Bible says that I'm not to worry about anything.

One of my wife's verses is Philippians 4 verse six that nothing be anxious. All right, so I know I'm not supposed to worry so apply that to my health situation. So when I went to the doctor and nobody my families ever had this kind of cancer and very few of us have had cancer all have a huge family and then they diagnosed me with cancer, so I tend to worry you as one of the besetting sins. Although God is given a wonderful victory over it, but that that's enough to rattle your cage right so I know that I'm not supposed to worry. I plot to that diagnosis. But then I have to obey it, and I know the rest of that person flipping cells exactly how to obey.

It is says nothing be anxious, but with everything with prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. So I thought back over this faster.

I think I have thank the Lord and praise the Lord more than any other year and such can remember ends of cradle and I've asked him for help in healing and just to make it through some of those treatments, but every time we went to the hospital and chemo and radiation.

Martha Beck, the first few times he went to the hospital and it's so daunting and and going over it was about a 3040 minute drive from the house and we would go through the alphabet, not just the blessings but we alphabetize the names of Jesus and so we would take letter a in each of us would give a name of Jesus for ANB. Each of us would give a name for Jesus would be in and just until we got the hospital would gone to the action. We just putting the banner of his name over us and we listen to praise music and worship music and you sit in on us was to worry. So I plot that to my health situation and then I have to obey and live it out by choosing not to worry and then came the piece, which is the next verse in Philippians and the peace of God that passes all understanding would guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus and experience that in Joshua 19 says not to be afraid and their other scriptures that site again and again were told to not be afraid. Do not be afraid to not be afraid, so I plot them. After going through you know all the surgery on the treatments and the radiation and everything. Then I have a seminar here at the Cove in August and no one not supposed to be afraid. I plot it to coming here not knowing if I could even stand up for 45 minutes, much less stand up and speak for 45 minutes literally have no idea if I had the physical strength and stamina to carry off that seminar and so on. A new wasn't to be afraid applied it to that situation as I faced the seminar and I just had to trust the Lord and then obey back walking up on this platform, standing in his pulpit delivering the message, and God was sufficient to give me strength and stamina for the whole weekend. Those are just some examples.

So if we know that were to forgive others as God for Christ's sake has forgiven us. We know that and then we apply to that person who's deeply wounded us in the church and then we have to obey. By choosing to forgive and that's a choice all right.

You have to feel forgiving.

All right, they don't have to deserve your forgiveness. They probably don't. But you make the choice to forgive them and I think you follow that choice to reach out and bless them. Maybe you have to have a conversation. The maybe there's been a misunderstanding of the reconciler in some way, but if you know sometimes you just can't and you just choose to forgive them to love them and do do something to bless them. All right, so that's following through. And you know you apply and you obey those of the basic principles so far to experience victory. Why don't we have it when we know and we apply it, and we obey it, and one reason is because we have a wretched paradox to deal with the principles don't seem to work they did for me because I was using the key which is that total reliance on the Holy Spirit and and he comes through, but principles don't seem to work and and I remember point in my life was when I was a young mother with young children in a small house in small sticky fingerprints and small words all and was so fresh and I was just not living the way I knew I should.

I wasn't the mother that I knew my mother had been.

I was disgusted with myself.

I would lose my temper was yelling out under all the things that do when you're tired and frustrated and interrupted 100 times and I had to reach that point that I admitted defeat. I can't do this. I can't be the mother that God's call me to be. I can't be the person I want to be and I think what made that honest confession that actually was the first step to experiencing victory so I don't if there's somebody here and you been frustrated and you just feel like you just can't do it and you want to quit maybe coming to the Cove's and have had people tell me that come to the seminar and it's like their last chance to make good on their commitment to be a Christian to live for Jesus and maybe if come to that point and I think that's a very good point to come to because then you're willing to let go. All right, we can we can't do this and one of the things that's difficult is that Paul knows that while we're free to do what we please. Were not free to stop doing what we please. Because our old nature is almost like quicksand. When we sin, and we've been set free from the center-right know when you come to Christ and you born again in your living in the new nature and is wonderful and you're telling people about Jesus and his joy and peace and love, and you just you know and then how long did it last few days a few weeks a few months and then that old nature just rears up and end the sin that you've been set free from if you go back and dabble in it that old nature is like quicksand just pulls you right back in and it become stronger and it becomes much harder to then break free of that sin and it becomes a big crisis you to get rid of it.

One example from my life is my prayer life and you got a call me to get up and spend time with him early in the morning and so I did and I had no morning after morning wonderful prayer times and was doing good.

Even though I struggled getting awake and then after a while I thought I've done this in one morning I was sleepy enough that one just got some extra time so I'm just gonna roll over and go back to sleep so I did and the next morning I did the same thing and I can't tell you within a short period of time that old nature come up and robbed me of my morning I could not get out of bed in the morning I could not have foot Allen red Paschal's blanket victory.

It was like months and even years of struggling so hard to get back the early morning time and there's just something about sin.

That's the habit takes over. I've never smoked. The people tell me the same thing about smoking you break the habit you're free and then you just think you know I'm just can have one more cigarette and what you know you're right back in it, or same thing with alcohol or you know and it's just it's amazing how that old nature will just dominate and it dominates through habits in verse 15 says what then should we sin because were not under law but under grace would been set free.

So now we can just send by no means, don't you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves. You are slaves to the one whom you obey with your slaves to sin, which leads to death or to obedience which leads to righteousness, and so this conflict begins in because the old nature is more familiar. It's old right you were born with it.

So you lived in it first and is stronger because it is been there longer and I don't know when you are born again. When the new nature came within, but if when you had the new nature. If you didn't start to develop it and be intentional about living in your new nature than that old nature can still dominate and it's easier to slip back into heaven. Tell that person. Often you know tell that little white lie in, manipulate, and get what you want and cheat on this unit is just as natural force. In a sense, to live in that old nature ends. This is become a habit so the old nature is like your evil twin. And I put them both up there that the one that were born as the spiritually dead person on the left. The person on the right has a new creation, but surrounded by the old and that person on the right is in conflict with they admit it or not song your two people inside of us and even though the new nature is empowered by the Holy Spirit if we don't choose to live in it than that old nature. You wouldn't believe. Well, I know you do you believe how strong it can be with seen people who lived that we ourselves.

I'm sure at one time in certain areas of lived in that old nature so that it were crippled and were enslaved by an Paul describes this is the apostle Paul. By the way, you know, the apostle Paul, the greatest evangelist ever lived, planted churches all over the known world turn the world upside down is written so much of our New Testament. This is his testimony in Romans seven. Beginning in verse 14 he says we know that the law and we can think of that as the 10 Commandments of God's word or coming to Bible study or coming to the Cove.

We know that spiritual but I'm unspiritual sold as a slave to sin, because that old nature is dominating. I do not understand what I do for what I want to do. I do not do, but what I hate I do.

And if I do what I don't want to do. I agree that the law is good. God's standards are right going to Bible study coming to the Cove, but as it is. It's no longer myself to do it, but sin living in me and others, I recognize I have a major problem here for I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature can't make it good and bubbly.

Did you think that was some good in your sinful nature, not people save you some good in everybody. Well, there is not from God's point of view, there is none righteous, no not one.

All of our righteousness is as filthy rags. Even the good things we do permeated with sin or you send Christmas cards.

The people didn't sing Christmas card you last year and you feel sorta smug. You know you really, really nice, really. You pray in public in the prayer comes out loving people. After say you know you that which is such a beautiful prayer and you think how you know it was so even the good things we know are permeated within so there is none righteous, no not one is no good in any of us at all.

In verse 18. I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. I have no power in myself, for I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I don't want to do this I keep on doing now. If I do what I do not want to do is no longer who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it old nature will never change the old nature will never get better the old nature will you know never improve and you get so exasperated that's God will just let you fail and fail and fail in failing to you so exasperated that you admits from experience is nothing good in you at all to help and encourage you in your work for the Lord, we invite you to and Graham lots.org.

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