Walking in the Spirit - Part 4 — Bruce Wilkinson

Some people you can challenge them with something and they'll hem and haw around and may take it and may not. And you always worry you have to check back up on them to make sure that they're following through and you may even have to Help them meet the goal.

The Navigators' Servanthood, Compassion, and Competence

Every once in a while you find one person or maybe even two that Yes, I'd like to do that. Don't worry about it. It'll be done. Now the first time the nav said that I held my breath because I'd not worked with them in a concrete way and It's exactly what happened and in the next months that followed I learned that's the way the navs are.

And it's been absolutely an incredible pleasure to work with an organization that has as its flavor servanthood. That's the flavor of the navigators. It's the flavor up front, but it's also the flavor not just with you.

But out there in the marketplace. They are servants. Secondly that I found out is they're compassionate with each other on the team. That they're always reaching out to the needs of other people all the time not only doing their job, but they are reaching out in ministry and Caring and our internal staff are talking about the navs.

Oh, it's great working with those people. And the third thing and You'll appreciate this if you come from the business community, especially they are incredibly competent. Competent it's an awful lot of great people who are Christian who are called who have great character who are not very competent.

I Love those people, but don't let me work with them too much. I love people who are called and Christian and Have great godly character, but then they're their competence and what they do is equal to all of these then you have Fruitfulness.

These are competent people and on behalf of the Commission not just speaker on behalf of the Commission in all movement. We just saw a great debt to the navigators and to Jerry and to Terry and to Lauren and Bob Stacy they've all added a tremendous amount of work just on top of it all they have and it has been a Challenge and I have greatly seen Marled for me the character of Christ and the stress of Too much work to get done.

So, thank you. One thing I hate to do is bring books back to Atlanta. So would you please buy all of walk through the Bible's books downstairs before I go they look like these they're wonderful. Here's one that just came out almost every answer for practically any teacher.

Resources for Bible Reading and Teaching

Hundred best articles we could find. We looked well past 1 ,500 articles and picked out the hundred best and how you teach. You can't name. I don't think a greater offer that's not in here everybody from Swindoll and Oddwell standards and MacArthur and Gangl and Lefevre and they're all in here and I'd encourage you to take a look at this Nuggets and there's a counterpart.

There's a textbook to a course I developed. That's called the seven laws of a teacher, but it's kind of meaty to chew on. The other ones are guides to help you read the Bible. Here's a daily walk in living Bible.

It's been very successful. It's also out in the King James and it just came out in the New Revised Standard. You already know about this Closer walk, you know what this is. I mean don't know what this is.

Closer walk goes through the New Testament in a year. This was first. We started this in 78. We started this this was known as timeless insights when we first came out. This is a very different purpose than this whole Bible New Testament one chapter a day.

But the purpose of this is to develop a heart for God. That isn't the purpose of this. This is spiritual maturity. Let you understand and apply it. This is to pull your heart toward God. We spent a long time trying to figure out how do you do that?

And we stopped pushing a noodle we couldn't get it. Finally decided that you don't teach somebody how to have a heart for God you you let them catch it off of somebody who had a heart for God and Therefore we asked the question Who had a heart for God in history and we began writing names on a blackboard and pretty soon we filled the board and then?

We got in categories and We named all the major people throughout church history that the Christian Church would say these people had a heart for God. Then we've got all their material. Got different people reading that all to say find the nuggets of how they walk with God send it to us.

We had thousands of them. We picked the best. We lived that with the chapter of the New Testament an application so for instance. Here's January 1. Haddon Spurgeon FB Meyer Matthew Henry G Campbell Morgan.

These are all the greats. John Wesley st. Augustine it goes right on through you can't. Oswald Chambers. They're in here. So we're introducing you to the greats as well as the chapter of the New Testament.

Family Walk and Resources for Families

Family walk. This is the magazine in book form. This is 52 weeks 52 topics. Family walk was basically started because I was frustrated with my family devotions. Frustrated with my personal devotions frustrated with my walk with God.

Frustrated with my family devotions. Sat down with a group of people and said, what do we wish our children knew sat down and just hammered it away. Came up with four categories of things. We wished our children would be true about them.

They're what character qualities what skills and so forth came up with a hundred and fifty two. Excuse me 156 and Then recategorize those put them in three years time and wrote a week on each one. This has been used by oh my millions of people it's for parents.

Dobson's been using it for years and years and years and years. It's always an embarrassment to me. He We we made a tape a couple Radio programs long time ago when this first came out and he plays it every year people come up and say well.

How is your six-year-old son? My kids 19 years old. But there's so many people who are interested in it and we haven't had time to go back and do any more about it. As our children got older I got frustrated with their walk with God.

So we came out with youth walk and it is gutsy. This isn't for you. This is a little bit straightforward for you. This deals with the real issues. This talks about it all. It talks about all the eating disorders it talks about incest it talks about abuse it talks about everything.

Because we felt Christianity hasn't been talked to straight to the kids like they talk about it at school. What are they really going through? So this is straightforward this is brand new came out the last few months with Zondervan in the NIV and This has got Almost anything you can think of in here.

So that's for high school students. So those are down there by way of encouragement. Many folks give these for Christmas presents many of our donors buy whole boxes of these and give them away. We have one guy who must have given away.

I don't know 500. And he challenges a Sunday school class and says if you promise to read through the Bible in the year. You can have it. You can have a youth. Well, I mean the family daily walk. So be thinking about it get your own family into this.

Whether it's the magazines or the books. It really doesn't make any difference. Let's change gears. Walking down the hallway last night man came up to me and said this has been great. But it was a lot easier before I met you.

Walking by the Spirit and Dying to Self

We've been trying to share the whole concept of walking by means of the spirit. To be filled with the spirit and by now you have a pretty clear handle on at least what I've been trying to say. That is the spiritual life is to be walked by the spirit.

It is my job to work. Through a great deal of effort to get in a condition by which I am able to do that. It is him through me, but it's taken a tremendous amount of effort to enable that to happen. So never think the spiritual life is easy it costs everything.

As you heard last night the more you walk with God the less and less is left of you and the more and more is of him and There is a whole dying to self. Dying to flesh dying to everything and living to him over an umbrella.

Be filled with the spirit once he's in you don't grieve him. Don't quench him. Walk with him. Don't grieve don't quench walk. When those things happen you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh and the Spirit of God as you attune your ear to him will teach will guide will lead will commune and all of the manifestations of the spirit will be in you and You will be obedient to the scriptures.

At that time then Jesus will fulfill his promise all those who obey me and keep my commandments Love me and I will manifest myself to him. That's not you conjuring him up. That's him keeping his promise.

Now as I think about grief quench and walk I think about a subset beneath it. I Think of grieving is about sin and that I must clear up sin and have a short account whenever I find myself in the process of sinning and When I sin, I know I'm not walking.

So grieve sin next part of this chart. Quench not that's more about yourself dying to self. Ultimately, that's the key of that Sin self. Walk in is not about sin and it's not about self. It is about the Spirit that's right the spirit and when I think about grieve not I think about sin and what's the bottom line of this?

Category, I believe I'd use the term and I may change this as I meditate over the next year. It is the word holiness holiness. As you take in the next category and you say quench not never say no to what he asks you to do.

Self needs to be broken. What is the result of full? Obedience in this area of your life. It is the word Brokenness so that you are broken like a vial of oil. It's broken and the oil just comes. So it's about brokenness in you.

The process of cleansing is when you really go for it I find takes years. The area of brokenness takes years. You can't however become broken and you are broken. You may have to be broken a little bit later on in different areas, but more and more holy more and more broken and when I think about the spirit and I think about the What he wants from me I come up with two words and I think the best one is the word dependence.

Dependence the other word that comes to my mind. It was used frequently as the word at least not in scripture, but more in human vocabulary is the word abandonment. You've abandoned yourself to the spirit.

That's a bit passive to me. I like the word active dependence and we're going to talk about that this morning. So Those are the three parts of your life. Don't grieve. Don't quench. Walk in Hand of your sin and yourself and your spirit grow in holiness grow in brokenness and grow in dependence.

When those happen you will be transformed from the inside out. Does that make sense to you this morning? Now I'd like to speak to you about walk in the spirit this morning. But I'd like to talk to you about it from a different point of view than I ever have before.

I Talked about it once and that was last week. So this is the second time I've talked about it. I Want you to think about God for a minute? Somewhere back in eternity past. Where there was only a Trinity then God made angelic beings with the free will.

The angelic beings some of them sinned at some point in time. Some of those angels were cast into hell. Some of them were cast out of heaven. Some of them Remained in heaven and there were two categories of angels angels and demons.

A demon was an angel who followed Satan obviously and It appears although scripture doesn't say it quite like this. There appears that there was an end to the free will of the angelic beings. No longer can a good angel choose to be a bad one, and you know, there's no salvation for a demon anymore and Free will left the universe except for the Trinity somewhere along after that.

Humanity, Free Will, and the Garden of Eden

I Don't know how to describe this theologically but on a human point of view. I believe the Lord God missed the free will in his creation. Because there's something wonderful about free will. What do I mean?

Well, I'm I'm heading back to the barn this afternoon. You know what happens with a horse and if you've ever ridden a horse going back to the barn as soon as their nose turns back. There they're gone and they want free reign.

Well, I'm heading back to the barn to see my wife and children and My wife and older daughters up in visiting my son in college today because he's preaching tonight but my younger daughter is five-year-olds with my parents so I'll drive home to the airport drive up to Marietta and Let's say I came in and I said to Jessica Jessica get over here and give your daddy a kiss and tell him you love him right now.

And and she looked down yes daddy and came over and gave me a hug. I love you daddy and walked away. Let's say the same daddy comes home and little Jessica I'm running in and jumps your jumps on me and gives me a big hug and we kiss around and talk and And she doesn't want to get down for a long time.

I don't want to get down either. One is because I wanted it and told her. The other one is because she wanted to. This one brings great fulfillment. If she had no free will and could never choose to do that or not to do that.

There's no flavor in it. And I believe that God missed it. If you can say God missed something. I believe he did and Therefore he made man and he made woman only he decided to have a baby. Yeah, you must put yourself more into what really happened.

I Think the Trinity talked a long time about this. Because they could have made man and woman in any way they wanted and then they come up with the idea Let's make them like us. Won't that be something and I imagine they talked about it.

What color hair you want? I don't know and I Honestly believe that we don't understand the Trinity we we make the Trinity Not real. When everything I know about God in the Bible is very real. And I believe they talked about it and then I believe when they decided to do that they decided they talked about the nursery and They decided to call the nursery the garden and they instead of putting wallpaper up put Stars and clouds and Sun Trees and birds and I think I couldn't wait personally.

And I think when they saw their their child Coming up for the first time. They said oh That's very good. Remember that it's good. It's good. It's good. It's good. It's good. Oh, oh, it's my part. Very good.

And you remember from Genesis that God and man used to walk in the garden. God came to the nursery. Because he wanted to be with his child parents can't help but want to be with a child and The love and the affection must have been absolutely unbelievable because God Loved children especially his.

Then you remember the sin. We talked about grief last night. I Can't imagine the grief when his child Children decided to follow the very one he cast out of heaven. I Can't imagine the betrayal God felt.

And then you remember as it followed through in Genesis 6, why don't you look at Genesis 6 together with me? I don't think we will abide until we understand. I Don't think we'll walk with him until we understand this Genesis chapter 6 one of the major turning points.

Genesis 6 verse 5 then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth and that every Intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. I've been thinking about that a lot because I believe we're headed there every intent.

Not some intent. Every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually it really is was evil all of the day all of the time and In verse number six, it says the Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth and he was grieved in his heart.

But he wasn't just grieved because of sin. He was grieving made man. I'm sorry had kids and that whole issue of the Lord wrestling in his spirit with what was going on in the earth and deciding to destroy it and to bring it to nothing is a major point and The pulling back of God that I'm sorry.

I've made him and destroys him the alienation that existed between parent and child in time God started over a number of different times and eventually God wants to come back down. But this time he doesn't come in the person of himself.

God's Presence in the Tabernacle and Temple

He tells him to build a tabernacle a tent so that he can don't miss this. So that he can dwell At least with his family. He's there, but he's apart from and you got to come to him by blood and Only the Holy of Holies could be visited one time a year but God was if you studied how the tabernacle and how the Israelites were gathered around the tabernacle.

Where was he smack in the middle? Saying I Wish there was a way to be closer than this. Then you remember in time the tabernacle was put away and the temple was built and again, God was there for hundreds of years, but Apart from man because of the sin of man and I believe the Spirit of God and was grieved Most of the time he was in that then you remember that I Believe that not only did Jesus come for salvation, but I believe that God was lonely for man and That God became a child and Dwelt among them and we beheld him.

I Believe there was something about the act of the incarnation that did something in the heart of God. That was unique and That it once again showed the love of God wanting to be with his children and then to watch them Reject him consistently for the goodness.

He did and for the truth that he spoke. Until he was murdered by his children. Well all the way in the middle of this. There's a passage in Ezekiel chapter 36 that you ought to take a look at Ezekiel 36 right in the middle of your Bible almost a little bit to the right.

Ezekiel 36 Isaiah Jeremiah lamentations. Ezekiel 36 Old Testament a Lot of white pages unwrinkled in a lot of Bibles here. Ezekiel is pretty good reading. Ezekiel 36 verse number 26 Is a wonderful prophecy and it says I will give you a new heart and put a new Spirit within you.

I will take the heart of stone. Talk about hardness out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh and I will put my spirit Within you. Now look at the next part of that and cause you To walk in my statutes and you will keep my judgments and do them.

What's the linkage if you walk in the spirit, you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. I will put my spirit in you and you and I will cause you to walk in my statutes and you will keep my judgments.

So there is this desperate desire of God, I believe I'm interpreting a little bit here to spend Time with his people with his children and to be with them and to walk with them and to love them and for thousands of years thousands of years He's outside of them.

And he makes his prophecy. I'm gonna come and I'm gonna rip out that hardness of our I'm gonna put in my spirit. And you will keep my commandments ultimately because of my spirit and then in process Jesus Christ comes and he said I can't give you the spirit until I am glorified.

No, Ezekiel. He knows Jeremiah 31 same prophecy. Jesus Christ goes and leaves them. It's better for you that he sends the spirit and the spirit comes in to us and take a look at 1st Corinthians chapter 6.

The Holy Spirit Dwelling in Believers

What then? Is to be our response to how should we think about this? 1st Corinthians chapter 6 the verse number 19 or do not or do you not know that your body is The temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you.

Whom you have from God and you are not your own. For you were bought at a price. Therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit which are God's. Therefore there's a picture here. That's incredible.

That said God in the Old Testament in the middle of Israel in the temple in the Holy of Holies. His spirit dwelt and once a year a high priest could come in. That's it. I Think that that was nothing close to what the Lord wanted and therefore you remember at the death of Christ how the Veil rent from the top to the bottom six inches thick worth a curtain.

Rent. God said I am sick of it. I've paid the price. I've bought you back from my enemy and He then said I don't want a temple made out of hands for me to dwell in. I want to dwell so close to my children.

I want to live Absolutely in the center of them. I was in the center of the camp. I was in the center of the nation. I am in the center of your being and I want to be so close to you. There is no closer place for me to go than where I'm at.

Only the shocking part about it is in The Old Testament you could only come to God through a priest and the priest could only go once a year and commune with God. In the New Testament we have our high priest and We can come to God as much as we want.

How much does God? Want of us with him answer all the time. He wants to walk in the coolness of the garden of our heart all of the time if you can believe that. Then all we have to do is to get a condition where it's possible and then that will be the norm and it will fulfill the heart of God and It will fulfill the heart of man.

Because that's what it's made for in the beginning. So when you and I say let's walk with God let's walk in the spirit now. You have a much broader concept of what on earth going on. For the past 4 ,000 years well since the building of the tabernacle 1 ,500 BC to 2 ,300 years on the outside in the tabernacle in the temple a promise coming in the flesh and then Coming inside in our holy of place and the issue is so many of us.

God's Dwelling With His People From Revelation to Eternity

The side will go in a couple times a year at the end when it's all finished and eternity begins. Look back in Revelation chapter 21. Chapter 21 talks about the new heaven and new earth and I saw a new heaven verse 1 and a new earth.

For the first heaven and the first earth had passed away and there was no more sea. Then I John saw the Holy City New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying behold The tabernacle of God is with men and he will dwell with Them and they shall be his people and God himself. I love this and God himself Will be with them and be their God.

It goes from the garden All the way back to the new heavens and new earth and God gets his dream fulfilled. But the point of it is He gives us the free choice about whether or not God can have his dream fulfilled.

Now it's amazing to all of us that when we think of the most glorious place in all the earth to live. Excuse me of all time. It is heaven. Heaven will be a glorious place. There'll be pleasures forevermore at his right hand and so forth.

Ultimately, what will make heaven glorious is God and being with God and Being within his glory and his light and our reaction to his presence Will be utter rapture forever. Isn't it not credible to realize that the same God?

Dwells with on us today and we can behold his glory. Today, we do not have to wait to heaven. And that is my encouragement to all of us to realize the significance of what I've just said to you that God desperately Longs for you to walk with him personally.

That God does not have favorites and that God loves every single Person and Longs for fellowship with us and with you. Individually, he desperately loves you and that he desperately has gotten so inside of you.

So that he is only a breath away. It is an era of unbelief. That stops us from ever finding what's in the Holy of Holies. It is an era of sin. It is an era of unbrokenness and is an era of unbelief that says I can't really know God like I will in heaven.

That's a lie. Yes, you can and men and women of the ages have. And you can as well. That's the most wonderful thing about God it's all equal for all of us and regardless of intelligence. Standing finances age.

Physical health. There's not one hindrance To coming to know God in a way that you will be absolutely Encaptured with him. Except you don't want to and that is my encouragement to you that heaven can be right here for you now.

Practicing the Presence of God

Inside therefore walk by means of the Spirit. What does it mean to walk by means of the Spirit. It means to be in the Holy of Holies all the time. That's what it means. That you do not sin that you walk with him and you depend upon him and anytime he touches his finger upon you and directs your attention you say yes Lord and go do it and that you.

Consciously, this is why I like the word dependence more than abandonment. Consciously. Keep in contact with the Lord. The ancients used to say the word practicing The presence of God and that's what it is.

The presence of God is there. But I need to keep myself in his presence. That's the work. I Need to keep myself in his presence. The problem is I keep darting out and the presence as that story I told you last night.

What is the person's secret? They never left their prayer closet. What do they really saying by that? I never leave the active presence of God. Never never this person's spiritual influence Was so strong in history that history records it over and over again that when the person would walk through a group of people the conviction of sin would follow the person and People sometimes would fall down and repent of their sin.

You know what that really was? That was the person had died to self so much that the spirit was so powerful. That the spirit came through. See, I believe that I know that to be true. Does it take? Learning to practice the presence of God.

Yes a Great deal of it. How do you start to do this? You want to that's the key whoever desires To follow after me. You must desire him number one and the spirit yearns Jealously for us. He will not be number two.

He will not be number two. You will not be able to walk with him if he's number two in your life over yourself over a person over a business over the love of things. Whatever it may be. He will not be number two and you cannot practice his presence.

It'll frustrate you and you'll quit within days and you'll forget this nav conference because you will not want to remember it. He must be number one and when he is number one. Your issue is how do I stay in the presence of God?

Because in his presence there is favor and graciousness and filling and freedom and Liberty and joy unspeakable. Well you bring every Thought into Captivity. Where is that passage? Thank Corinthians chapter.

Let's take a look at that 2nd Corinthians chapter 10 verse 5 B. I'm not going to teach on this passage. It's just I'm going to bring it to your attention. Verse 5 casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God.

Here's the key. Here's the key bringing. That's an active word, isn't it? Bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ. Where where do my thoughts go answer everywhere? They are out of control and passivity and daydreaming and Of course daydreaming me is not bringing every thought into captivity and therefore it is a sin.

Anytime my thought isn't in captivity of Christ. I am sinning. Now that's an advanced sin if you could say that. Don't worry about that early on. You got enough to worry about with your own piles. It's true.

Yeah, don't worry about this one till later. Unless you've been walking with the Lord in this and you know exactly what I'm saying. Then you got to bring it that means it's not there. You got to go out and grab a hold of the thought.

Come here. Get back under the Lordship of Christ. Meditate upon him depend upon him actively. Come back here. My opinion God in every areas of my life Lord. Is there any sin anything in him or worship?

Now that's practicing the presence of God. You know how much you can practice the presence of God all you want. The longer you practice it the easier becomes. This person I was telling you about. Gave me the secret of what I already words I can understand.

I Never leave the prayer closet. I was talking to a close friend yesterday about this very thing back in Atlanta and The person I've been trying to nurture this person with these things and I've seen a tremendous change in their life in the last two years and They're working on this very thing and I said to them how you doing on thoughts.

I had no idea How much my thoughts were Never in captivity. What do you mean? It's never there except in my devotions right. Therefore how much are you walking with the spirit? Oh not much right. How you doing?

Yeah. It's hard work. Don't give up. Stay at it. Stay at it. So every time Every time you're aware of your thoughts. Listen to me every time you're aware of your thoughts ask yourself. Where are they?

Where are they and if they're not under the activity of God bring them under. Until finally it starts staying. Now as I've been meditating on this and practicing this I'm asking the Lord the question.

How do you stay active in life and Keep your mind captive in Christ. And That almost feel like it's a computer like if you can just I'm trying to get a board picture here. How the computer can be working on an active process and over here.

It's also stayed In the hard disk. It's there. It's processing. It's So that you're active you're watch this note you're active but you're in the presence and The second you stop thinking and talking you're there you're not here to bring yourself back.

So I believe both can be true. I can be talking to you and be practicing the presence on a deeper level. Yesterday I shared with you that a few times I recognized with people. I did not have the fruit of the spirit.

Which then told me I stopped this. Flesh came out. Oh repent. Depend bring it back under. Actively dependent. Lord. I cannot have the fruit of the spirit on myself. I cannot do it. I am helpless. I depend upon you for the fruit of the spirit.

Forgive me for my carnality. Now live through me active dependence. Explain the truth. Depend. Make sense. Do you know what walking by the spirit is? Don't grieve. Don't quench. Walk in walk in. Where is he right here?

How much can you walk with him all of the time? When you walk with him more and more you wake up in the middle of the night in the middle of a prayer. In the middle of it, you're not starting it you find yourself praying.

How many have ever done that? Yes, it's true, isn't it? And you can finish a conversation with somebody and when you finish you realize you've been praying. You have a co-processor two of them active.

Active dependence. You don't have one co-processor. You have to. Now I'm gonna take about a few more minutes and I'm gonna end last night when I went back. I bought maybe 25 books with me here about these kinds of things and I was.

I've been reading them throughout the week and thinking about them and last night. I came back to my room 1130. I think it was by time. I sat down. And I was saying Lord Encourage my heart that I'm teaching right things.

I know that's from the Bible and it's right, but encourage me a little. And I picked up this little book. I stuck in my briefcase. Oswald Chambers is one of my favorite writers and in an unbribed soul and I had read this a few times in the past 1983 and so forth and Here's the first paragraph.

Spiritual Disciplines and Daily Scripture Reading

Perhaps a central feature in the teaching of Oswald Chambers the central feature is the insistence. That the true pattern for the experience of the Christian is the life of Christ. The Christian ideal now listen carefully.

It's a complex sentence. He often writes like that. The Christian ideal is not the outward and literal Imitation of Christ. It's not the outward imitation of Jesus but It's the living out of the Christ life implanted within by Yes, exactly by the Holy Spirit.

If you'd have heard me you'd have heard me say all right now. Does spiritual maturity do the disciplines of spiritual life help in this big-time? There are many spiritual disciplines over 20. I'm gonna talk about three of them for about 11 minutes one Be in the word every day period.

No secret about that. You all know that if you have a hard time with that Then get a Bible and read through it get the daily walk get the closer walk. I'm right in the middle of going through it again this year.

Last year I took a book of the Bible and read it every week and then a new book every week and Meditated that way the year before that was closer walk this year. I'm coming back to daily walk. It's wonderful I got so much food this morning.