The Indwelling Power of Love

Today on Renewing Your Mind.

It is love that Jesus points to as bearing the summation of the law. The quintessence of obedience. The most foundational point of Christian growth and action.

If you are Christian.

If you are creating your desire is no longer to be identified with what the apostle Paul describes as works of the flesh, but the fruit of the spirit, love the way peace, patience and kindness, to name just a few. And were going to look at those traits this week. Dr. RC Sproul's teaching series, developing Christian character discover there is a reason that list begins with love is a very real sense in which the life is a life that is lived in the power of the Holy Spirit.

That's why we speak of the Christian life as a spiritual life and one reason why the apostle speaks of the warfare that goes on between our flesh and our spirits as we seek to bring our lives under the control of the Holy Spirit in this session were going to be considering the priority of the fruit of the Holy Spirit in the Christian life. It's very easy for us as Christians to become preoccupied with the gifts of the Holy Spirit, to the neglect.

At times of the fruit of the Holy Spirit. We have to be careful in an attempt to restore the proper biblical balance on that that we not in the other direction by overemphasizing the fruits but I do want to focus our attention in this time together not so much on the gifts, but on the fruits for the simple reason that it seems to be that is the fruit at this present time in church history that is being deemphasized and the gifts are being emphasized. We have to know at the beginning that both the gifts and the fruit proceed from God the Holy Spirit. They both are a result of the spirits activity and we ought not, of course, in any way to despise either one of them. We are also confident that God the Holy Spirit has gifted his church and is Paul tells us in Corinthians that every Christian has been gifted by the spirit we don't all receive the same gift but we all can be sure that we have some gift some endowments, some empowering from God the Holy Spirit to carry out the vocation or the calling that God is made upon our lives, but I think one of the reasons why we have an imbalance today between the gifts and the fruit is a very natural one. The gifts have to do with manifestations of talents and power. They tend to be more glamorous than the fruit. The fruit tends to be when we talk about things as love and peace and patience and kindness.

These things are abstract, they're not concrete. They don't seem to be as tangible, though they are indeed manifested intangible works.

Intangible activities, they are little bit more elusive like one theologian said that the very study of the work of the Holy Spirit is one of the most difficult of all of the endeavors of theology because the Holy Spirit is left no footprints.

He is the holy spirit and is very essence is that which is intangible and so we are much more naturally drawn to watch and observe the performance of gifts and talents to the neglect of the fruit and as I say I don't want to mislead you by indicating that the gifts are unimportant and the fruit is all important.

That would be a distortion. But if there is an accent to be detected in Scripture, it would seem to me that the accent falls on the development of the fruit of the spirit. For the simple reason that it is possible for the extraordinary gifts of God the Holy Spirit to be visited even upon unbelievers. There's not a hint in the New Testament that when Jesus dispensed the power to do miracles to his disciples that Judas, for example, was excluded from that group.

We know that basically Baylon in the Old Testament comes under the sensor of God and is not depicted as a devout believing person. Yet God for a moment in history for a particular purpose of the particular time in doubt, that one who was not even a believer with an extraordinary gift to be manifest. No, I don't think that's commonplace.

I think it's normally the case that the gifts of the spirit are poured out upon believers, but it's no guarantee if one has these gifts as we see in the very opening statements of the classic teaching on the primary fruit of the spirit which is love, which we read in first Corinthians 13 the passage are all familiar with. Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not charity. Have not agape have not love, I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal.

And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so as I could remove mountains, but have not agape.

I am nothing.

Though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not love, it profits me nothing. This is an extremely strong statement by the apostle.

Remember that when Paul gives us this lesson on law in first Corinthians 13 that 13th chapter is not a self-contained unit of Scripture, but it's part of a larger discourse about what not about the fruit of the spirit, but about the charisma time.

Paul introduces this section by saying beloved, I would not have you ignorant concerning the spiritual gifts and SEs teaching about the gifts he saying that the manifestation of the gaps apart from the presence of love adds up to futility so that the sine qua non of the Christian life that which is most foundational that which is most Principe is the presence of love in the heart now. Couple things I want to say about that this week. Probe a little more deeply. Love is described in the New Testament both as a gift and as a fruit and when the gift of love is compared with or contrasted with the other gifts of the spirit. This is seen as that one which has preeminence so that love is the supreme gift of the spirit as the apostle says a note earnestly desire the spiritual gifts and the greatest of these is what life and when we look at the discussion in Galatians of the fruit of the spirit which one comes first in the order of those which are expound laugh. It is love that Jesus points to as being the summation of the law. The quintessence of obedience. The most foundational point of Christian growth and action. Now I know that everyone has been a Christian for six months has heard at least one sermon on the different kinds of love that the New Testament speaks of the three Greek words for lack of which generally refers to brotherly love, camaraderie, fellowship, that sort of thing. Eros, which has an accent at times on romantic love or erotic love as it carries over to the English language and then that special kind of love that comes through the Greek word agape I were talking about agape. That's what Paul was discussing here in first Corinthians 13 and what is the focal point of the gifts and the fruit of the spirit later before I get into that exposition of the nature of love. Let me say one more thing about the relationship between gifts and fruits. We have experienced in our nation, a cultural revolution is not just that we are nostalgic in our old age.

Looking back to the good old days. We know that in 1910 the divorce rate in the United States of America was 10% in 1948 it was 25% in the last 30 years. It's almost doubled. So there is a measurable change in the whole process of marriage and so what brought about whether many factors and I don't want to get into analysis.

But the one factor that certainly contributes is the example that is set in our culture by people who are lifted up as idols or models and one of the impacts of the sociologists describe is the impact of the lifestyle of Hollywood. It is said is as California lifestyles go so go the nation.

What happens in California tends to sprinkle out and spread throughout the United States and you can almost predict the cultural changes throughout the US as we observe what is presently going on in California. The free speech movement.

For example, was born in Berkeley and so and so a generation of people grew up reading about their stars and their heroes and their heroines. Adopting a radically different lifestyle and it was okay that they did this. Why because a very subtle principal was settling upon the land and the principal is this and I won't labor the point that performance excuses immorality.

If somebody is a fantastic football player or a great actor or actress, then it's all right, whatever they do in their private lives because what we really care about is the manifestation of their gifts and talents. Only point that for this reason that we are in jeopardy within the Christian community of doing the same thing our idols in the Christian world tend to be those who are extraordinarily gifted as preachers as evangelists, as teachers, many of whom disappoint us with the personal manifestation of godliness. We don't tend to celebrate the lives of Christian leaders who have extraordinary manifestations of the fruit and yet it's by the fruit of the spirit that we will ultimately be evaluated as Christians is over going to do now is to look at the fruit of the spirit, beginning with the first fruit which is well now, I mentioned that we have this specific and unique concept of love in the New Testament that goes by the name of agape Anna, first of all want to say that love is described in the New Testament, not merely as a feeling that is agape, nor even simply as an activity. The biblical love of agape is much more often defined in active terms rather than passive terms which right away differentiates it from how love is talked about in our secular culture in our secular culture. Love is something that is passive and happens to us zing went the strings of art I can make a decision to love.

I can't turn love on and off with a switch, but biblical love agape includes activity and includes feelings and all of that but in the first instance. It is a power and a possession that is reserved for the regenerate person what I'm saying that I don't want to sound too radical, but what I'm saying but this is if we could do a perfect autopsy or a perfect analysis of the actual composition and makeup of the being of a Christian and the being of a non-Christian way with our scalpel. If it were finally cotton owned enough should be able if they could penetrate to the invisible to the intangible. We should be able to find ontologically, if you will compositionally within the structure of the being of a Christian, a reality called agape. That is simply not present in the unbeliever. I say that may sound strange to you but we know this, that the Holy Spirit when he regenerates a person when he causes a person to be quickened from death and brings them to life when he makes that person born again, the spirit doesn't just act upon the person and change the disposition of the heart, which he certainly does, but he also in the wells. The believer when the spirit of God like a stated very simply begins to actually come inside of you with his presence is brought agape don't have the indwelling Holy Spirit you don't have agape.

If you do have the indwelling Holy Spirit. You do have agape of Jonathan Edwards who stated it this way, quote the spirit of God is a spirit of love and when the former enters the soul.

Love also enters with it.

So you see love is a gift. It is a power.

It is a presence and it is that foundational power that is the good soil. If you will, in which the rest of the fruit of the spirit is nourished and nurture and cultivate. I will use a technical term here for second, I don't want to scare you with it, but it's one you ought to know that the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in agape is what we call technically a habit to ask H a BITUS love is a habit to's use that technical word advisedly, because again is not known generally in the popular church hall crucial is that very little Latin term inhabiters to the history of controversy in Christendom. I've referred already to the controversy of the 16th century over justification and one of the central issues in justification is how does grace bring us to a state of redemption.

How do we understand the working of God's grace in justification.

The Roman Catholic Church traditionally and classically hot and does continue to teach that justifying grace comes about through infusion, a pouring in of saving grace into the heart and is that justifying grace that gives the power for a person to become righteous enough to merit justification without that indwelling infused justifying grace a person can never be justified but that indwelling grace must be assented to and cooperated with to the point that we reach a place of righteousness. And then, on the basis that real righteousness. We are determined just now only confusion, but it was at that point that the Cardinal debate came about the possum reformers were saying that justifying grace is not infused grace is imputed grace hello controversy hangs on those two words infused versus imputed now if you study your theology.

You will notice that what the reformers were saying is that the merit of Christ is not poured into me that makes me righteous in an undeclared, just but it is charged to my account reckoned to me imputed transferred from God's perspective to my account now so great was the Protestant protest against infused grace that many Protestants today have made the error of assuming that when we are justified. There is no infusion but classic Protestantism maintains with the Bible and with the Roman Catholic Church that it regeneration. Yes, there is an infusion that is the infusion of love and of the soul. The indwelling of the Holy Spirit it becomes.

I have a two so that word doesn't mean habit in the sense of repeated patterns of behavior that we have difficulty breaking but the word habit. There has more to do with the concept of cohabitation that dwells within us in power know what I'm saying is that you either have it or you don't know that there's a little catcher that habit to's that indwelling agape that power of love that the spirit puts in you its strength can be augmented or diminished. Those of you who were music majors know exactly what I'm talking about when I talk about augmenting and diminished. It can be increased. It can flourish and be strengthened, it can yield more and more abundant fruit or if it is neglected, it can diminish. It can become weak. It can atrophy bearing precious little fruit know what kind of outward manifestations. What kinds of things.

Should we look for in our lives as evidence that love is operating and that love is being augmented and that love is doing the sanctifying work that is called to do. I'm going to give another lecture on love, but let me just finish this one by just listing a few indicators a few signs of the presence of a healthy active indwelling power of love. First of all what love does is that it disposes us. It changes the inclination of our hearts in the direction to honor God.

It quickens a desire in our hearts for adoration. Do you enjoy the adoration of God in prayer or is your prayer life merely endless petitions and requests or is he one of the signs of increasing sanctification is an increasing accent in one's prayer on adoration because a lot of disposes us to a desire to honor God to be enthralled by his Majesty to enjoy his adoration, which is not natural to us in a war dear friends, what love does is moves us and inclines us to worship.

I think if there's any crisis in evangelical Christianity today. It is at the point of worship people have great difficulty worshiping part of it is rooted in ignorance. How can you worship that which you don't know unless we understand and have preached clearly before us the character of God in his greatness in his Majesty in his honorable mess. Why would we ever be disposed to honor him, but love pushes moves inclines us to a growing appreciation for worship. The second thing is that love gives credit to God's word.

Love does not operate in a spirit of suspicion with respect to the trustworthiness and veracity of the word of God is the father said when we love people. We are more prone to trust their words even in the natural world without being na�ve. I still want to believe those whom I love. There is a spirit of criticism going on in the church about Scripture, some of which is borne out of genuine puzzlement and real academic problems, and so on. But there is a mentality alive. That seems to enjoy and relish finding problems in Scripture and in a sense neutralizing the authority of the word of God that is not a manifestation of agape all mention one more before we close this and that is that love in the heart acknowledges the right of God to govern, and not simply to govern the universe in his providence, but to govern me, so it melts the arrogance that is part of our fallen nature and acknowledge us without complaint and in fact the lights in the authority of God. These are but three of the manifestations of the work of love in us, we will look at more of them in our next time to get if you're a believer, the Holy Spirit lives in you and he hasn't moved in empty-handed. He brings fruit rooted this in a natural part of our human nature and that fruit is the key to our growth as Christians love, joy, peace, patience, to name a few, are series this week on Renewing Your Mind is developing Christian character or teacher Dr. RC Sproul in 12 messages. RC shows us how to develop these traits grow in grace and glorify God will send a series to you on two DVDs just contact us today with your donation of any amount you can call us at 800-435-4343. You can also find us online@renewingyourmind.org spiritual growth is is not automatic.

It's not easy.

In fact, it can be quite discouraging. The apostle Paul described it as a war in order to grow, we must be equipped with God's word so that's why we commend Dr. scroll series as a helpful place to begin our goal here at leader ministries is to reach as many people as possible with the kind of teaching we heard today. Since we are listener supported. We rely on your donations to produce and distribute these messages we reach 13 million people this past year but there when you consider how many people there are in the world. Think you can see there's considerable work to be done so we hope you'll contact us soon. Well tomorrow we will learn more about what it means to develop Christian character. We see a world of people running around with that spirit of discontent thing if I can only get that job if I can only guide this car. Then I will be happy and there is this elusive sense of contentment. That's always beyond our grasp developing the Christian trait of contentment next Tuesday on your mind