Thank God for bringing us together this morning.
This is supposed to be a question-and-answer period, but I always feel it is wrong, because the questions are very real, but the answer has to come from God. We may be able, by the grace of God, to help remove some of the hindrances that may stand in your way of knowing the will of God, but God is the only One Who can answer your question.
So, brothers and sisters, I hope you do not expect us to give you the answer. You have to look to the Lord for the answer.
I have here with me one question: When we are functioning in the new man, in the spiritual man, are we able to recognize when other believers are functioning in the natural man, in the old man? If so, how can we help? What do we do to encourage the new life of Christ in other believers?
Brothers and sisters, unless we are functioning in the new man, in the spiritual man, we will not be able to recognize the natural man, the old man, in others. It is only when we ourselves, by the grace of God, are really functioning in the new man that we are able to recognize the natural man, the old man.
Now, how can we help? What do we do to encourage the new life of Christ in other believers?
Unless we are functioning in the new man, in the spiritual man, we are not able to recognize in other believers the natural man or the old man. So first of all, I would say, by the grace of God, if we want to help other brothers and sisters, we ourselves need to function in the new man, the spiritual man.
Only when we are living spiritually before the Lord are we able to recognize the natural man in others, because, by the grace of God, we have recognized the natural man in ourselves. So the problem is: Do we have the experience, by the Holy Spirit, to recognize the natural man in us? If we do not, how can we recognize the natural man in other people?
So first of all, I would say, if we want to help others, we ourselves must first be helped. We ourselves must be able to recognize what the natural man, the old man, is. We have to experience, by the grace of God, our natural man being put to death through the cross of our Lord Jesus.
If we want to help others, we need help ourselves first. By the grace of God, He will show us what the natural man is. We all lived, in the old days, in the natural man. This was our way of life.
But when the mercy of God comes upon us, when salvation comes to us, we become a new man. That is to say, the sins that we have committed have been forgiven. He has given us a new spirit, and the Holy Spirit Himself comes and dwells in our new spirit.
The indwelling Holy Spirit is in every believer’s life. He is there in the most practical way. He is there to lead us in the spiritual life. He is there to show us what our old life was, what our natural life was. He is there to enable us to reject the natural life and allow His new life in us, by the Holy Spirit, to lead us all.
Christian life is an exchanged life. Christian life is a life lived not by yourself anymore, because as long as our natural man lived, we were natural men.
But when, by the grace of God, His salvation came upon us, our sins were forgiven. But this is only negative. There is a positive thing, and the positive thing is that He has restored our spirit into new life.
Our spirit was dead in sins and transgressions, but the mercy of God has come upon us. He has forgiven our sins. He has removed our sins from us, and He has come into our life. He gave us a new spirit.
Our spirit was dead in sins and transgressions, but now our spirit is being renewed into new life. Now, this is the beginning of a Christian life.
As long as we still live in our natural life, we can never be spiritual, because that is what we are. By the grace of God, He has saved us. Our sins are forgiven, and He has given us a new life. Our spirit, which was once dead, is now being quickened into new life.
And the Holy Spirit of God came and dwells in our new spirit. Now, this is the beginning of our Christian life.
So, brothers and sisters, first of all, I want everyone to be very clear: we cannot live a Christian life as long as our old man is in charge. Our life before God was sinful. We could only sin; that was what we could do. We could not be righteous. We could not please God.
But by the mercy of God, when salvation came upon us, our Lord Jesus, the Son of God, became incarnate and became a man. For thirty-three and a half years, He lived a perfect life. He obeyed His Father. Never once did He do anything on His own.
He says:
I speak because I have heard My Father speak.
I go because My Father has sent Me.
All His life, He obeyed His heavenly Father, did His will, and glorified God.
At the Mount of Transfiguration, our Lord Jesus was transfigured. He was in glory. Moses and Elijah appeared, and they spoke about His departure. Brothers and sisters, this was an exciting time, so far as the Lord Himself was concerned.
He had every right to ascend from the mount and return to His Father, because He had lived such a life of perfection. Thank God, He did not.
If He had done so, there would have been only one Person in heaven, and that is our Lord Jesus Christ. But for our sake, He was willing to come down from the mount, face Jerusalem, take our sins upon Himself, and die our death. This is salvation.
So, dear brothers and sisters, thank God. I believe everyone here, by the grace of God, has believed. We have believed in Him. We have accepted Him as our Saviour and our Lord.
He has quickened our spirit from death. He has given us a new spirit, and His own Spirit came and dwells within our new spirit. The indwelling Holy Spirit is there for a reason.
He is there to lead us in spiritual life. He is there to instruct us, to show us what we should do. You know, before we believed in the Lord Jesus, we lived our own lives. We went wherever we wanted to go and never asked a question.
But by the grace of God, He has revealed to us our sins. He has removed our sins from us. He has quickened our dead spirit into life. His Holy Spirit dwells in our spirit to lead us in a Christian way.
We cannot live a Christian life without the leading of the Holy Spirit. So, brothers and sisters, first of all, as soon as we are saved, as soon as the Lord has given us a new spirit, as soon as the Holy Spirit comes and dwells in our spirit, what is our Christian walk?
Our Christian walk is to follow the indwelling Holy Spirit. We are no longer to walk according to ourselves. We are to walk as the Holy Spirit leads and guides.
And when He is leading, He will usually begin with something small. If we obey Him and follow Him, then He will deliver us step by step until our new man takes over. And that begins our Christian living.
So the question is: What do we do to encourage the new life of Christ in other believers?
What we need to do is, first of all, we ourselves must learn to obey the leading of the indwelling Holy Spirit.
Christian life is not an outward living. Christian life is an inward living. Christian life is a life lived by following the indwelling Holy Spirit.
How we thank God that after we are saved, He does not leave us alone in the struggle to find our way. But He comes, not only giving us a new spirit; His Holy Spirit comes and dwells in our spirit.
The indwelling Holy Spirit has one work to do, and He is faithful. He will guide and lead us in all things, small and great. In the beginning, probably He will speak to you in small things, but gradually, if you are faithful in following, it will get bigger and bigger until Christ becomes your very life.
So what do we do to encourage the new life of Christ in other believers? It is very simple. What we do is encourage a new believer to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit.
God does not leave us alone to fight for a Christian life. God has made provision for us. He has put His own Spirit in us in order to lead us in a way that will be pleasing to Him.
So, brothers and sisters, the first thing in our Christian life is to humble ourselves and allow the indwelling Holy Spirit to lead us. We used to walk in our own way, but no longer. We are here to allow the Holy Spirit to lead us.
It is our responsibility to cooperate with the indwelling Holy Spirit. Whether our Christian life will grow or not depends upon our cooperation with the indwelling Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit Who dwells in us usually will begin with small things. If we are faithful in small things, gradually He will lead us into bigger things, until Christ fully occupies us and the life of Christ is manifested in us.
So, brothers and sisters, Christian life is an inward life. It is not an outward walk in which you try to do the best you can. No. Christian life is by obeying the indwelling Holy Spirit.
The more you obey, the more you will be able to obey, until Christ is fully formed. Now, this is Christian life.
So this morning, brothers and sisters, I will put this before all of you: you have the indwelling Holy Spirit within you. It is our responsibility to obey Him, to follow Him, and to let Him lead you. That will be your spiritual life, and this is all I would like to share.