back to index2016-10-30 Mortification of Sin
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Alright, if you can turn your Bibles with me to Romans chapter 8, we read verse 12, 00:00:08.640 |
13, so I'm going to read again from 12 through 17, but our main text this morning is verses 00:00:20.880 |
So then brothers, we are debtors not to the flesh to live according to the flesh, but 00:00:24.720 |
if you live according to the flesh you will die. 00:00:28.080 |
But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. 00:00:31.780 |
For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. 00:00:34.800 |
For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received 00:00:38.920 |
the spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry, Abba, Father. 00:00:42.680 |
The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. 00:00:46.880 |
And if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we 00:00:50.680 |
suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. 00:01:00.280 |
We thank you Lord God that you have sustained us again this week. 00:01:04.200 |
We pray Father that your word will continue to open our eyes to see the reality of the 00:01:10.440 |
Help us not to live day to day nonchalantly, just making it through week by week. 00:01:15.760 |
Help us to be purposeful in the spiritual battle, to win the lost, to fight against 00:01:20.760 |
sin, to encourage and strengthen your church, that we may glorify you in every opportunity 00:01:27.960 |
Help us Lord God that this morning, that what we are unable to do in our flesh, that your 00:01:32.840 |
Holy Spirit will do Father by strengthening your church. 00:01:39.320 |
Now the two verses that we read this morning, it's of great significance because again it 00:01:48.760 |
We have a tendency if we're not careful to be passive participants on sanctification 00:01:53.400 |
that if you're justified, that if you just kind of coast through, that sanctification 00:01:59.680 |
You know one of the greatest books that I've read as a pastor was by a name named John 00:02:05.020 |
Owens, and the title of the book was "Reformed Pastors," very rebuking and challenging at 00:02:11.600 |
That book is probably not as well known as this book, "The Mortification of Sin" by 00:02:19.000 |
And his book "Mortification of Sin" is really based upon these two particular verses, this 00:02:25.200 |
series of sermons that he gave on these two verses about why it is necessary for us to 00:02:30.600 |
fight against sin, that we're not just passively waiting for sanctification to happen. 00:02:36.760 |
I want to read you a couple passages from his book before we jump into the text and 00:02:45.400 |
One of the quotes he says, "Mortification of indwelling sin, remaining in our mortal 00:02:49.120 |
bodies, that it may not have life and power to bring forth the works of the deeds of the 00:02:58.160 |
Our tendency in our generation is the idea of duty is somehow something of the past, 00:03:04.480 |
that is an Old Testament command, that is of the Old Covenant. 00:03:09.920 |
New Testament is just to receive and then just kind of coast along. 00:03:15.000 |
And hopefully we will look at the text and confirm that. 00:03:19.240 |
And he says, "It is a constant duty of believers." 00:03:21.400 |
Second quote, "Do you mortify, do you make it your daily work? 00:03:33.760 |
The seriousness of combating sin and fighting against sin. 00:03:38.520 |
Third and finally, "Longing, breathing, and panting after deliverance is a grace in itself 00:03:44.440 |
that has a mighty power to conform the soul into the likeness of the thing longed for. 00:03:49.160 |
Unless you long for deliverance, you shall not have it." 00:03:53.400 |
Are we longing to be delivered from these sins? 00:03:57.520 |
Have we identified what sins that we are trying to mortify? 00:04:01.320 |
What are we wrestling with in the context of sanctification? 00:04:04.720 |
Or have we just kind of swept it under the rug and accepted it as normal? 00:04:09.840 |
Paul has been arguing against this idea of passiveness. 00:04:13.760 |
That if you accept justification by faith alone and it's not by works, 00:04:20.840 |
If you receive a partial gospel, that's exactly what happens. 00:04:24.840 |
If you pick and choose certain parts of the gospel and ignore other parts of the gospel, 00:04:30.440 |
Since Jesus Christ died for me and I'm no longer guilty of my sins, 00:04:36.920 |
And the only thing that affects it is like, "Well, what kind of mansion am I going to live in heaven? 00:04:41.320 |
So maybe I'll just live in a little shack versus a big mansion." 00:04:44.800 |
So people are living no different than a non-Christian and absolutely convinced. 00:04:51.080 |
And they will take certain verses out of context. 00:04:53.360 |
"Oh, there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 00:04:56.200 |
So therefore, there is no condemnation because I went and raised my hand and accept Jesus Christ." 00:05:05.400 |
He says, "No, it does not lead to licentiousness by no means." 00:05:11.760 |
So what I want to go over today is kind of bring it all together, 00:05:19.240 |
So the first three points that we want to make is really a review of what Paul has been saying. 00:05:24.520 |
And then the last two points that we want to make. 00:05:26.960 |
There's five things that he has been saying and other things that he will say about mortifying sin. 00:05:35.080 |
What is it that Paul has identified up to this point, 00:05:37.920 |
and then the paths that we're going to be looking at, how to fight this sin? 00:05:43.440 |
I know that in this room, some of you are in that very context right now, 00:05:50.200 |
that you've been defeated for so many times that you've just kind of accepted. 00:05:55.920 |
Maybe this is not meant to be ever conquered. 00:05:59.920 |
That God just accepts the fact that we're struggling, we feel guilty and we repent, and that is enough. 00:06:05.560 |
That actually living righteousness is really not something that we should expect. 00:06:11.840 |
That's what Paul has been arguing against, that that is not the call of God. 00:06:16.160 |
But if that's not the case, then what's the answer? 00:06:19.840 |
How do we do this? What does the Scripture tell us about it? 00:06:24.840 |
So this morning, I want to go through these five things, and again, some of it is a review, 00:06:29.600 |
and then a couple of points at the end is going to be related to what he's talking about. 00:06:33.680 |
So the first thing that he says is that we need to identify sin as sin. 00:06:38.120 |
We need to know sin as sin. That's the first one. 00:06:42.640 |
James 1.23, James describes the law of God as a mirror. 00:06:48.040 |
And the only reason why we come before a mirror is to see what we look like. 00:06:53.920 |
Do we have the clothes on right? Is my necktie on correctly? 00:06:56.760 |
Did I brush my teeth? Is my toothpaste on my nose? 00:06:59.320 |
You look at that, and James says, a man who comes before the Word of God and just walks away 00:07:05.480 |
is like a man who sees himself in a mirror, and then he forgets what he looks like. 00:07:10.360 |
So in other words, he says the purpose of the law of God was to reveal and identify the sin in us. 00:07:17.680 |
Jeremiah 23.29 describes the law of God as fire and as hammer. 00:07:25.000 |
Typically, obviously, in our generation, we don't, I don't know of anybody who knows somebody 00:07:30.280 |
who's a blacksmith, at least not in our generation. 00:07:33.000 |
But at that particular time, when you said fire and hammer, 00:07:35.640 |
immediately you would have thought of a blacksmith, 00:07:38.600 |
because fire would make whatever it is that they're molding malleable, 00:07:43.800 |
whether it's steel or whatever it is, and it becomes soft. 00:07:46.280 |
And then once it becomes soft, you take the hammer and mold it into what you want it to be. 00:07:51.240 |
So when the Word of God is described as fire and hammer, 00:07:57.320 |
it's describing how it causes us to be broken down in order for us to be built up. 00:08:04.680 |
So Paul has been arguing this point in chapter 6, chapter 7, 00:08:09.360 |
that the law of God was given in order to reveal sin, to identify sin, 00:08:15.480 |
in order to stir up sin, kind of like you wouldn't really know 00:08:20.840 |
if you had a bad temper until you are provoked. 00:08:24.600 |
It's like, "Oh, no, I'm the most patient person in the world." 00:08:26.760 |
Until somebody cuts you off, and he's like, "You want to die?" 00:08:30.880 |
So the law of God came to stir up sin, to reveal what is already in our hearts. 00:08:36.360 |
And then finally, I believe what we talked about in chapter 7, 00:08:43.760 |
So the point of the law was to bring us to repentance, 00:08:47.760 |
that we would see sin as sin, to see sin being stirred up, 00:08:53.200 |
and ultimately bring us to the point where Paul says, "Woe is me. 00:08:58.480 |
Who will deliver me from this body of death?" 00:09:02.400 |
So the first thing that we need to recognize is, do we see sin as sin? 00:09:08.560 |
Not simply a mistake, not simply an error, not simply substandard, 00:09:17.200 |
That pride that resides in us, have we just justified that? 00:09:23.480 |
"Well, I mean, look at all these people who wouldn't be proud. 00:09:28.200 |
This coveting in our hearts, have we just kind of swept that under the rug 00:09:33.880 |
I mean, we live in Orange County. We have so much temptation." 00:09:40.480 |
have we identified these things as the Bible identified it, 00:09:47.120 |
Or have we just become so accustomed to living in sin, 00:09:50.960 |
living contrary to what the Word of God tells us? 00:09:54.080 |
Selfishness, self-centeredness, lukewarmness, 00:10:04.560 |
Because the point of the law was to cause us to see 00:10:08.720 |
the utter depravity of our sins in order to bring us to repentance. 00:10:15.480 |
The whole point of repentance, remember the word metanoia, 00:10:20.840 |
You can live your life as a great leader and be absolutely wrong with God. 00:10:27.200 |
You can actually even bear fruit, have no relationship with God. 00:10:32.000 |
See, the beginning point of a Christian life is not loneliness. 00:10:53.480 |
That is not the beginning point of salvation. 00:10:55.680 |
Beginning of salvation is to bring us to a point where you say, "Woe is me. 00:11:07.000 |
In fact, Paul has been arguing that if a man has not repented, 00:11:12.000 |
he can't even know and discern what is right or wrong. 00:11:18.040 |
That it is impossible, he says in chapter 7, to even please God. 00:11:24.840 |
because he can't discern what is right or wrong. 00:11:28.040 |
Oftentimes I have conversations with people who ask me, 00:11:32.800 |
And we get into this discussion of the gray area. 00:11:36.920 |
And when I say gray area, and I'm not going to mention any of it, 00:11:40.880 |
but I think you know exactly what I'm talking about. 00:11:42.760 |
There are a lot of things that we engage in are gray areas. 00:11:47.400 |
Gray area basically means it is not clearly wrong and it is not clearly right. 00:11:53.720 |
So these are discussions that we need to have. 00:11:58.360 |
We need to be able to identify whether these are things that we should or should not be doing. 00:12:03.280 |
But oftentimes these questions come in the context of trying to figure out, 00:12:08.040 |
"How much can I love this world and still say I love God? 00:12:13.280 |
How much can I get away with without saying I've crossed the line?" 00:12:19.240 |
Through the years, I've realized it's very unfruitful conversations that I'm having with people, 00:12:28.080 |
Until we identify sin as sin and it's hideous. 00:12:33.200 |
If you have done, and there's a possibility that you might have stepped on it, 00:12:41.960 |
you're not exactly sure if you did, and you might have or you might not have, 00:12:48.040 |
you're not going to take the chance to bring that into your house. 00:12:54.840 |
Maybe some of you are saying, "You don't know me." Maybe I don't know you. 00:12:59.200 |
If there's a possibility that you stepped on dung, you're going to burn that shoe. 00:13:04.040 |
You're going to wash it. You're going to make sure that that's not being drug into your house, 00:13:12.720 |
So the context of trying to figure out whether that is acceptable or unacceptable 00:13:17.080 |
has to be in the context of seeing sin as sin. 00:13:20.160 |
If you don't see sin as dung, and you're just trying to figure out how much can I get away with, 00:13:26.600 |
then it's kind of like, "Well, I got dung in my... Maybe I have dung in my house. 00:13:31.040 |
Since I'm not sure, I'm going to drag it into the house." 00:13:35.520 |
It's an unfruitful conversation because a person who doesn't know sin as sin 00:13:42.160 |
will not understand why we would take such anal measures to make sure that we're not anywhere near it. 00:13:51.360 |
So first thing he says, to identify sin as sin, that it is utterly sinful. 00:13:58.400 |
Secondly, to understand what is the consequence of this sin. 00:14:03.160 |
If sin is utterly sinful, what is the consequence of this sin? 00:14:07.720 |
Paul identifies sin and its consequence, and he goes straight. 00:14:22.960 |
It is not lack of unity or lack of church growth or frustration. 00:14:27.680 |
All of these things are true, but at the end of the day, the result of sin, he says, is death. 00:14:34.240 |
And he's been pounding this over and over again, all the way up to chapter 7, Romans 5.12. 00:14:41.320 |
"Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, death through sin." 00:14:45.560 |
Sin didn't just come in and then says, "Ah, they just messed up everything. Everybody's so selfish." 00:14:52.680 |
Romans 6.16, "Sin ultimately leads to death." 00:14:56.240 |
Romans 6.23, "For the wages of sin is death." 00:14:59.760 |
Romans 7.13, "It was sin producing death in me." 00:15:04.120 |
Romans 8.6, "To set the mind on the flesh is death." 00:15:10.720 |
Over and over again, Paul has been trying to convey this message. 00:15:17.240 |
The consequence of sin is not simply frustration. 00:15:21.160 |
It's not simply broken relationship or even bad marriage. 00:15:24.160 |
All of these things are true, but he says, "Sin equals death." 00:15:29.120 |
And he wanted to convey over and over again, not only is it utterly sinful, 00:15:34.400 |
not only is sin utterly sinful, it is utterly sinful because of the consequence of this sin. 00:15:40.960 |
In Romans 8.1, he says, "There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." 00:15:47.640 |
Now, if he says that, and then the rest of chapter 8, he doesn't bring up sin anymore. 00:15:52.520 |
He just says, "Well, I mean, you live the way you live, 00:15:54.680 |
but thank God there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." 00:15:58.720 |
That we're so eager to jump to no condemnation 00:16:04.240 |
that we forget that God has challenged and called us to a life of repentance. 00:16:09.560 |
He says in verse 13, "For if you live according to the flesh, you will die." 00:16:16.560 |
This is after he said there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 00:16:21.080 |
So we may read that superficially and say, "Well, is Jesus saying then 00:16:25.040 |
that if we don't live righteously, you have to somehow earn your righteousness to get into heaven? 00:16:38.200 |
He says what he's saying because the greatest evidence 00:16:42.000 |
of the life of the Holy Spirit is changed life. 00:16:46.600 |
If you continue to live in sin, it may be evidence that there is no Holy Spirit in you. 00:16:53.680 |
The greatest evidence of a changed life or a salvation and repentance is a changed life. 00:17:00.560 |
That's why he says, "If you live according to the flesh, again, you will die." 00:17:05.400 |
He didn't just deliver us from the consequence of sin, but also the power of sin. 00:17:10.920 |
And let me illustrate what Paul is trying to say. 00:17:15.240 |
I had a friend whose younger brother started to get hooked on crack a long time ago. 00:17:22.720 |
So it was by the time I was a freshman or sophomore in college 00:17:25.040 |
and his brother was junior or senior in high school. 00:17:27.760 |
And this is when crack cocaine just started coming in. 00:17:31.320 |
And so his younger brother, he wasn't a Christian, he attended church every once in a while, 00:17:37.200 |
And so initially, we didn't take it that seriously because we knew a lot of people who did drugs at that time, 00:17:40.880 |
going to parties and getting drunk and all that. 00:17:43.200 |
But his brother just kind of got carried away. 00:17:45.960 |
And every month, every time I would go to his house, his brother would be more and more disconnected. 00:17:51.840 |
And there were some days I would come to the house and he would be sitting out in the living room, 00:17:57.360 |
We would try to engage him, "Hey, David, what's going on?" 00:17:59.520 |
And he wouldn't be able to hear what I'm saying. 00:18:03.080 |
And so his whole family was concerned, but his family was going through all kinds of trouble at that time, 00:18:08.320 |
and they really didn't pay much attention to him. 00:18:12.120 |
Well, six, seven, eight months passed by, and I asked my friend Charles, 00:18:17.040 |
I said, "Hey, Charles, what's going on with your brother David?" 00:18:19.840 |
And he said, "My brother got so deep into, so hooked on drugs, 00:18:24.840 |
"eventually it fried his brain, that he got brain damage." 00:18:29.280 |
So I, again, went and talked to Charles and he said, 00:18:32.120 |
"Well, he's not completely not there, but something's off about him." 00:18:36.520 |
And ever since then, again, when you try to have a conversation, 00:18:39.920 |
you can't hold a normal conversation with him because he got so deeply involved with drugs. 00:18:45.840 |
Now we can look at that and say, "Well, but thank God he never got arrested." 00:18:50.720 |
He never got arrested because he never paid the penalty of doing drugs. 00:18:55.520 |
See, to say that we've been delivered from the penalty of sin, 00:18:59.680 |
and not the power of sin, is no different than saying, "You know what? 00:19:06.000 |
"Let's make doing drugs legal, so there's no penalty for drugs." 00:19:10.760 |
But the consequence of doing drugs is still the same. 00:19:14.280 |
There's a reason why the government passed a law forbidding drugs. 00:19:19.400 |
Because of what it causes, because of the danger of it, and what it leads to. 00:19:24.480 |
To simply say, "Well, thank God that the penalty of sin is no longer on me," 00:19:29.800 |
while the consequence of this sin is still reaping havoc in our lives. 00:19:40.960 |
The Gospel has delivered us not only from the penalty, but the power, 00:19:46.920 |
And that's why he says, "If you continue to live in sin, you will die." 00:19:53.360 |
So we need to know what sin is, that it is utterly sinful. 00:19:58.080 |
And that's why we are challenged to battle the sin. 00:20:01.520 |
We need to know that we have been given the power to battle the sin. 00:20:09.320 |
He didn't simply say, "Hey, you ought to do this," and then left us frustrated. 00:20:16.160 |
Like, "Okay, you know, I've been wrestling and struggling with these things. 00:20:20.760 |
So you just kind of accepted it in your life, and that you're going to live a certain way. 00:20:28.760 |
Let me read another quote from the book, "The Mortification of Sin." 00:20:31.760 |
It says, "Man may easier see without eyes, speak without tongue, 00:20:35.480 |
and truly mortify one sin without the Holy Spirit." 00:20:41.080 |
Another quote, "Mortification from self-strength, carried on by ways of self-invention, 00:20:46.360 |
unto the end of self-righteousness, is the soul and substance of all false religion in the world." 00:20:54.360 |
In other words, if you try to conquer this flesh by your own strength, 00:21:04.760 |
The difference between chapter 7 and chapter 8 is the Holy Spirit. 00:21:08.400 |
The difference between having the power to live righteously and being stuck in sin 00:21:15.320 |
And that's why Paul says in 1 Thessalonians 5, 19, "Do not quench the Spirit." 00:21:21.960 |
The word "quench" basically means to frustrate the Holy Spirit. 00:21:25.960 |
If you notice the language that talks about the Holy Spirit, 00:21:29.360 |
it's always in the context of the Holy Spirit already at work in you. 00:21:32.400 |
He doesn't say the Holy Spirit is hiding under a rock somewhere, 00:21:35.640 |
so if you lift enough rocks, you're going to find it. 00:21:39.440 |
Or maybe if we sing the right songs, maybe if we yell when we're singing, 00:21:44.120 |
instead of being quiet, sing certain songs, maybe if we dim the lights, 00:21:49.000 |
maybe if our prayer meeting was more engaging. 00:21:58.360 |
The language that we see about the work of the Holy Spirit is it is already working in us. 00:22:04.240 |
So when he says, "Do not quench the Holy Spirit," 00:22:07.080 |
it means to resist the Holy Spirit, to frustrate the Holy Spirit. 00:22:18.240 |
If you remember, the primary work of the Holy Spirit, 00:22:25.000 |
he says, "The Helper is going to come, whose primary work is to help you, 00:22:29.640 |
that Spirit of truth, he's going to come and remind you of everything that I have said, 00:22:34.200 |
everything that I have said, he's going to remind you of that. 00:22:37.240 |
And then he says he's going to convict the world of sin and righteousness." 00:22:41.480 |
So we talked about the work of the Holy Spirit primarily is to bring us 00:22:45.480 |
to a dynamic relationship with Jesus Christ by reminding us of what he has done and who he is. 00:22:50.680 |
So there's only one mediator between us and God, which is Jesus Christ. 00:22:55.360 |
But there's also a mediator between us and Christ, which is the Holy Spirit. 00:22:59.840 |
So the Holy Spirit is to come and bring us to repentance, remember? 00:23:04.640 |
Repentance is to change our mind, to renew our mind, renew our thinking. 00:23:11.880 |
"If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, 00:23:15.040 |
where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. 00:23:20.160 |
not on the things that are on earth, for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 00:23:24.440 |
When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you will also appear with him in glory." 00:23:35.520 |
If our mind is constantly engaged in a thing that has nothing to do with God. 00:23:40.960 |
Now there are things that are clearly identified as sin. 00:23:44.840 |
You're watching pornography, lying, cheating, all of these things are clearly identified as sin. 00:23:50.400 |
And all of these things frustrate the power of the Holy Spirit that is already working in us. 00:23:55.880 |
But I think the primary thing that we wrestle with 00:23:59.720 |
is constantly being engaged in our mind of things that have nothing to do with God. 00:24:06.880 |
That's what quenches the Holy Spirit more than anything else in an average person. 00:24:13.080 |
Is constantly engaged in things that have nothing to do with God. 00:24:17.160 |
Now I can start naming what they are, and we're all guilty to a certain level. 00:24:22.040 |
But if the Holy Spirit's work is to constantly cause us to remember the things of Christ, 00:24:28.320 |
then quenching the Holy Spirit means to frustrate that process. 00:24:34.800 |
To engage our hearts and our mind in seeking after things that have nothing to do with God. 00:24:42.560 |
No one could cause you, if anybody points any of that to you, 00:24:46.280 |
your first response is, "Oh, legalism. Danger of legalism." 00:24:50.760 |
So we're so afraid to challenge people of these things 00:24:54.080 |
because of this all-encompassing word, legalism. 00:24:59.960 |
But the primary way that we frustrate the work of the Holy Spirit 00:25:05.160 |
is to constantly seeking and engaging our minds with the things that have nothing to do with God. 00:25:11.600 |
The second thing that we're taught about the Holy Spirit, Ephesians 4.30, 00:25:15.040 |
it says, "Do not grieve the Holy Spirit by whom you are sealed for the day of redemption." 00:25:23.440 |
It says, "Do not quench, do not stop or frustrate the work of the Holy Spirit 00:25:27.720 |
by constantly seeking after things that have nothing to do with God." 00:25:42.840 |
You only grieve something that's a being, that has emotions. 00:25:46.880 |
The word "grieve" basically means a cause to mourn or to sadden. 00:25:52.000 |
The reason why it tells us not to grieve the Holy Spirit 00:25:54.320 |
is because the Holy Spirit is a being, not an "it." 00:25:58.720 |
It is not some Mother Nature, it's not some independent power. 00:26:04.480 |
That's why we say He's a third person of the Holy Spirit. 00:26:09.320 |
We have a tendency to look at God as an "it." 00:26:14.160 |
I know we call Him Father, I know we worship Him, 00:26:16.400 |
and I always say we adore Him, all this stuff. 00:26:23.360 |
If we treat our friends anywhere near the way that we treat our God, 00:26:45.600 |
But just in case something, I don't want to commit to that yet. 00:26:53.240 |
and they happen to be at 7 o'clock, I don't want to commit yet, 00:26:57.800 |
Just in case a friend comes from out of town, 00:27:01.800 |
So what I'll do is that at 6.59, I'll let you know." 00:27:10.640 |
commitment, appointment with God, and that's what you say to Him, 00:27:13.400 |
eventually you wouldn't have any relationship? 00:27:15.080 |
Imagine if you did that with any of your friends. 00:27:28.040 |
Just in case I had a burrito the night before, 00:27:30.440 |
and it wasn't fully digested, and I need to sleep a little bit longer. 00:27:33.760 |
Just in case there was some good program that kind of ran late. 00:27:38.080 |
You know what I mean? And I hung out a little bit. 00:27:46.920 |
what kind of relationship that we have with any friend. 00:27:49.040 |
Not only would you not have friends, you would have negative friends. 00:27:52.720 |
You have other friends who will hear about your flakiness, 00:27:55.640 |
and they will never want to be friends with you. 00:28:00.360 |
I remember when this really hit me as a college student, 00:28:03.520 |
because I would make appointments with friends. 00:28:06.160 |
"Hey, let's meet together at the prayer chapel at 6 in the morning, 00:28:09.120 |
and then we'll pray and do quiet time together." 00:28:17.720 |
when we make this commitment we don't follow through." 00:28:20.680 |
If He's a being, because I know how I would feel 00:28:25.960 |
And I remember thinking, "Wow, you know, I say, 00:28:29.160 |
'I'm going to meet with the Lord at this time, and I'm going to pray,' 00:28:40.400 |
The reason why it says not to grieve the Holy Spirit 00:28:42.440 |
is because He has emotions, not to sadden or to cause Him to mourn. 00:28:46.960 |
Because the work of the Holy Spirit is to bring us to Christ, 00:28:50.600 |
and we're constantly just kind of like putting Him on the side. 00:29:04.040 |
by the way that we just kind of put Him aside. 00:29:07.920 |
thinking about everything that has nothing to do with Him, 00:29:20.480 |
And think about all the other time we just completely ignore Him, 00:29:24.080 |
and that one time we prayed and God seemingly didn't answer 00:29:27.320 |
at the time that we wanted Him to answer Him. 00:29:32.560 |
Imagine if we did that with any of our friends. 00:29:38.520 |
Rather than quenching the Spirit and grieving the Holy Spirit, 00:29:43.760 |
"Do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is, 00:29:46.480 |
and do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, 00:29:54.480 |
To be filled with the Holy Spirit basically means to be consumed, 00:29:58.960 |
not to dabble in it, not to spend your extra time on it. 00:30:04.360 |
Make it our consumption, absolutely consumed. 00:30:23.120 |
Because as soon as somebody is passionately consumed 00:30:26.840 |
with the things of God, you can't be one of us. 00:30:31.880 |
You should join that group, the on-fire group. 00:30:47.560 |
to be consumed, not just dabble in it on Sunday, 00:30:52.320 |
not just study it on Wednesday, but to be consumed. 00:31:00.840 |
is when we are controlled by the Holy Spirit, 00:31:03.360 |
consumed by the Holy Spirit, not just dabble in it, 00:31:08.600 |
That's what that means, to be consumed in the Holy Spirit, 00:31:12.760 |
not just like, "Oh, I did my quiet time in the morning." 00:31:16.600 |
The whole purpose of why we are challenged to do quiet time 00:31:23.120 |
The only way that I can consume my mind and heart 00:31:25.400 |
with the things of God is to come early in the morning 00:31:30.320 |
So not simply to say, "I did it in the morning," 00:31:32.520 |
so that I can all day long think and meditate 00:31:38.320 |
Why it's not just Sunday, but Monday through Sunday, 00:31:41.560 |
so that I can be consumed with the things of God, 00:31:46.440 |
Because only then can I know the power of God. 00:31:50.200 |
Fourthly, know that God commands us to do this. 00:31:57.400 |
Not only did he give us the power in the Holy Spirit 00:31:59.920 |
to conquer sin, he says he commands us in Romans 8:13, 00:32:04.080 |
"For if you live according to the flesh, you will die. 00:32:08.520 |
"you put to death the deeds of the body, and you will live." 00:32:18.520 |
That you have to actively pursue putting to death sin. 00:32:23.560 |
Not passively waiting for something to happen, 00:32:29.480 |
Everything that you need for a life of Godliness 00:32:38.320 |
that maybe God is waiting for you to do something. 00:33:01.720 |
but with temptation, he will provide a way of escape.