Walking in the Spirit - Part 1 — Bruce Wilkinson

The Need to Live the Spiritual Life

As the president of Walks of the Bible Ministries, I'm very convinced that the series we've prepared is exactly the one I'm supposed to give for you. At a large seminary in our country recently, they gave the seniors who had studied four years postgraduate, before they walked across the platform to get their sheepskin, they gave them a questionnaire.

And they asked them, what would you love to know that you don't know, but you think you should have known by this time in your seminary career since it's over? What's bothering you the most? What questions do you have the most?

These are seniors, four years. Question number one, how do you know the will of God? Question number two, how on earth do you live the spiritual life? Now I don't know about you, but when I heard that, realizing that these are the people that then go and pastor our churches and lead Christian organizations, they come out after four years of study saying, I don't know how to find the will of God, and I don't know how to live the spiritual life.

I can give you the doctrines of the Bible, tell you what the Bible says, but I don't know how to do it. I would like to talk to you about how to live the spiritual life in a different way than perhaps you're going to expect tonight.

And I want you to open your hearts a little bit and don't make up your mind about what I'm saying unless it's from the Bible and you can see it for yourself. And I believe all the pieces will come together by Sunday morning.

Empty Religion and the Fire of God

A .W. Tozer, who's one of my favorite authors, I've read all of the 17 books I could find, has a great story in one of his books about the fact of the normal church, a normal Christian. We get together, he says, and we go out in the woods and we gather some rocks and we put together an altar.

And then we cut down a tree and we chop it up and put the wood on top of the altar. Then we go and we find an ox and we slay the ox. We chop it up, put on top of the altar, and then we gather together.

And then we sing about the altar. We discuss the wood. We rearrange the sacrifice. We take up a collection about the next time we're going to do this. And then on the way home we say to each other, you know, I sense there was something missing.

And Tozer in his own inimitable way says, what we forgot is the point of the rocks and the wood and the sacrifice is the fire that's supposed to come down from heaven and devour it like Elijah. We have made our faith, our religion, our Christianity, and I'd like to say our spiritual life, so many times, right but empty.

And that's what this conference is all about. Now I'm going to kind of back up a little bit and take an indirect route to where I'm going. When I think about God, one of the things that I think about him is that he's a giver.

God's Gifts: Scripture, Christ, Salvation, and the Spirit

And that he gives us different gifts. And I listed a few gifts that he gave to us as recorded in scripture. One, obviously, is the scripture. This is a gift. All scripture is given by God. This is a gift from God.

We didn't earn it. He gave it to us. Second thing that comes to my mind is that Jesus Christ is a gift from God. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. So the Savior is a gift.

I remember Ephesians talks about the fact that he himself gave to the church spiritual leaders. Pastors, teachers. Your pastor is a gift from God to you. He may not be the perfect gift you think in your mind, but he is the gift for your church at this time.

God also says that he gives gifts to all believers called spiritual gifts. That has nothing to do with anything we have to say. We don't even know about it when we become a Christian. But he sovereignly, as he wills, gives to all of us a gift.

And that salvation itself is a gift. Not of works less people could boast. And then he gave something called the Spirit. He gave us the Spirit in our hearts, in our lives. Those are six gifts. There are many others, but those are six of them.

Now what happens to a person who doesn't open the gift that God gives? He gave salvation to everyone. Are there any consequences? It's not his will that any should perish. Is there any consequence to the world who chooses not to open the gift of salvation?

Is it a free gift offered to all? Yes. Can whosoever will take it? Yes. I believe they can. I believe that verse. But the tragedy is that some people don't take the gift for whatever reason. And they don't have any of the benefits that follow it.

Eternal benefits. Here's another gift. Many people you and I know are born again. They took that gift. And they have half a dozen at least Bibles of all colors and stripes. But they don't open it. Except on Sundays.

They carry it as if there's power in the carry. But they don't open it. And therefore, do they receive the benefit of the gift that God gave? They didn't receive the benefit. You take a look at every single gift that I've just mentioned.

And we have a choice whether to take the gift and to use the gift. And each one of those gifts have a tremendous negative consequence if we don't unwrap it and use it. Because it has of no value. Now the gift that I want to talk about is the gift of the Spirit in here.

The Holy Spirit and the Divisions of Christianity

I want to talk about the spiritual life. Not the Christian life. But the spiritual life. And the spiritual life is based upon the gift of the Spirit given by God the Father. It's interesting. Of all of the subjects in Christianity that will divide a group of people that quick, it's the gift of the Spirit.

It's not the gift of salvation. It's not the gift of Christ. It's not the gift of spiritual leaders or many other things. But you talk about the Holy Spirit among Christians and you'll typically get in one heated conversation.

In fact, around the world there is not another subject that split more churches than the Holy Spirit. Now why is that true? Obviously we know from Scripture that carnality brings division. And when churches split there's great sin in the camp.

And the goal of the Holy Spirit is to unify. Therefore he is stopped and cannot, for whatever reason, bring unity. And the church splits and many tragedies occur. Why is there such attack on the Spirit?

And who is attacking the truth about the Spirit? I believe Satan is a strategic thinker and has a plan and leverages his activities and is very, very careful in where he invests his strikes against us.

I personally believe that the number one place that the enemy attacks is about the Holy Spirit. I do not believe you and I, normally, would find ourselves arguing about the Spirit any more than we would argue about the Bible.

But we find ourselves not really understanding the Spirit. I listen a lot to people and I watch and I try to learn. And you'll watch people talk, Christian people, talk, when you think about the spiritual life they'll talk about the Bible first, and then they'll talk about prayer second, then they'll talk about, usually not a clear third, maybe service, maybe giving, maybe discipling, but it's the Bible, prayer, other things, and if you're in a typical evangelical group, the Holy Spirit is rarely mentioned on the list.

Am I speaking the truth or am I exaggerating? How many say, well, this is probably true? Good. I think so too. Now, let's say you had a choice. Let's say you could have Jesus Christ here to be with you and us, or you could have the Spirit, and you only can have one.

Let's vote. It's not a hard question. There's only two choices, A or B. You had the choice. Just be honest. It's not a hard question. How many wants Jesus Christ? It's a tricky question. It's not meant to be a hard question, and you've got your defenses up too soon.

I've tried this on people, and every one of the persons says Jesus Christ, of course. And when you ask the question, why? Well, because He'd be right there and I can talk to Him. What else? Well, He can teach me.

Well, what else? And the list goes on. In other words, Jesus is helpful, and the Spirit is good. And I believe in Him, and He lives in me. But when you compare what Jesus can do for me and what the Holy Spirit can do for me, there's no contest here.

I'll take Jesus any day. Now, if I hadn't given you this introduction, the vast majority of you would have said the same thing. The problem is, Jesus says the exact opposite. That's the shocker. Jesus said, if you were to pick between me and Him, it is to your advantage to pick Him.

It is to your advantage to pick Him. It is to your advantage to pick Him. If you don't pick Him, or you don't know Him very much, you haven't unwrapped the gift that is overwhelmingly, from Jesus' point of view, more advantageous to the believer today than His presence.

Jesus Promises the Indwelling Spirit

Let's see if we can't see that ourselves in the book of John, chapter 14. John, chapter 14. I'll be reading it out of the New King James. It's my favorite translation. John, chapter 14 is obviously the upper room discourse, and most of it's in red, because Jesus spoke it, and He speaks in red.

John 14. Verse number 16. Jesus speaking and says, I will pray the Father, and He will give you, now watch carefully, another Helper, that He may abide with you, look at this next word, forever. Who is the other Helper?

Even the Spirit of Truth. The Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him, nor knows Him, but you know Him, for He dwells with you, but He's going to dwell where? In you.

Now, some people think, in practical terms, when you push Him in a corner, there's really only two parts of the Trinity. There's God the Father, God the Son, and the Spirit of the Son. God the Father, Jesus, and the Spirit of Jesus.

Let's just kind of put that away, that's false teaching. There are three parts of the Trinity, there's one God, but Jesus is going, and He is going to send another Comforter, who is with you, but is going to be in you.

It's not the same as Jesus. It's not the same as Jesus, and we'll prove that to you in a moment. But don't confuse that. Look further on in that chapter, chapter 14, verse number 26. Now we receive His name, or the name He is called, we don't really know His name.

But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, now I get some help here, He will teach you all things. Did Jesus teach them all things? Did Jesus teach them all things? If you know the Gospel of John, what's the answer?

No, He didn't have time, and you weren't ready. So He did not teach all things. So from Jesus' point of view, I'm sending the Spirit back to you, because He's going to be in you, and I can't be in you, I'm on the outside of you.

And when we go to bed at night, we can't talk, because I'm sleeping. And if John takes me on a fishing trip, and you want to talk to me, you can't get a hold of me. And besides that, I'm only here for a few years, and I'm gone.

I'm going to die. And I'm going to send somebody else who's going to teach you everything. So Jesus did not teach them everything. He's going to send somebody else who will teach them everything. Jesus was not on the inside, He was on the outside, and next passage is John 15, verse number 26.

But when the Helper, or Comforter, the Paracletos, comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father. So Jesus sometimes says, I send them, and sometimes He says, the Father sends them. Together they're doing this.

The Spirit of Truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of me. Now where is He going to be? Inside of you. And what is He going to do? He's going to tell you about me. Because you don't know everything about me.

You only know this much about me. So the Holy Spirit's going to tell the person who's being talked to, more about Jesus than they know. Interesting. What Jesus didn't say was, I'm going to write everything about me in a book.

It's interesting. I'm going to send somebody inside of you who will testify to you about me. Now about now, you're probably becoming a little bit uncomfortable and wondering, where is He going? I'm going through John.

I believe we're attacking right where the enemy is fighting and winning. Big time. And the truth sets us free. All I want to do to us is read the truth verse by verse and prove it to all of us what Jesus says.

Please don't box around what He says. He's real clear. I'm leaving and I'm sending somebody in my place. He was on the outside, He's going to be on the inside. He'll teach you all things. He'll testify of me.

It's pretty clear. Don't change His words. Don't misinterpret them. Just take them the way He said it. It's kind of clear. Chapter 16, verse 7. This is a critical verse that we're on right now and I want you to see it for yourself.

John 16, verse 7. Nevertheless, Jesus said, I tell you the truth. Go back up to verse 6, excuse me. Verse 5. But now I go away to Him who sent me and none of you ask me where are you going but because I have said these things to you sorrow has filled your heart.

Look here for a minute. So the disciples are saying Jesus is leaving and we'll think about this selfishly for a minute. We'll be worse off without Him. Not only will we be lonely and we'll miss Him but who's going to make the bread and all the other things.

So they're feeling disadvantaged sense of loss. That's why Jesus goes right on in the next verse and says exactly what He wants. Nevertheless, nevertheless even though you do have sorrow and you should I tell you the truth it is to your advantage that I go away.

It's better for you that I go away. It is my belief after counseling hundreds and hundreds of people that it is not the average evangelical Christian's advantage experientially. That when you question an evangelical person about what the Spirit actually did for you yesterday Who?

Yesterday? What did you do last week? Well, what good is it that He's in you? Oh, He's sealed me until I'm dead. Great. So what? Are you with me? Now, let's get a little more practical here. I travel a lot and speak a lot.

Experiencing the Spirit in the Church

I go in certain churches These are both evangelical, not liberal. And the Bible is preached solidly and it's it's it's dead in church. And everybody but the preacher may know it. And even he may know it.

It's lifeless. Verse by verse the truth is being given you feel more tired when you leave than when you came. And you go out of sense of an obligation. But the Bible was preached and it was. I go to churches just as evangelical and you walk in the door and you feel it.

You feel what? Some of you snuck around. What do you feel? You feel a little bit up. That's one thing you feel just speaking it secularly to you. You feel a little electric in the place. Like some people in here are alive And when they start to sing what do you find yourself doing?

You find yourself singing and you find yourself praising God. In the other church you sing the hymns of the faith but if you praise God it's because you did it. In this church there's a lot of handshakes and pats on the back.

On this church what is there? A lot of what? What else? Laughter. What else? Tears. Spontaneous. Fixed. Predictable to the minute. Unpredictable. Which side do you feel more loved? Hello. I'm not going by myself down this road.

Which side do you feel more loved? We don't know what this side is because we've not decided to describe it except the results of it. This side exalts Christ. This side exalts Christ. This side preaches the Bible a little differently than this side.

This side preaches the Bible. This side does one additional thing. It recognizes the Spirit. This side has the doctrine of the Spirit. Now, there are excesses on both sides. I'm not saying this is the right side because that's not my point here.

Many people on this side believe unless you speak in tongues you're not born again. That's heresy. That's what I would call that. Anybody who changes the definition of salvation is heretical. That's clearly not scriptural.

Other people would say you aren't fully sanctified until you speak in tongues. But the scripture is clear when it says not all speak in tongues. So they're wrong as well. But there's a lot of things on this side that are very right.

And that's the part I want to talk about. We've taken this whole bucket and thrown it away and there was something in the bucket called the Spirit of God. And we put it away. And with it, listen to me very carefully.

We've lost the number one power to live the spiritual life. Number one. Nothing close. There's God in us. Therefore, it is my thesis tonight that evangelical Christianity has neglected the gift of the Spirit that Jesus said it is to your advantage that I leave he's better in you than me with you.

Now the next question you should be asking if you're there tonight and you haven't done this too hard with me is you should be saying to yourself well, what does the Bible not what does Bruce or what does this group of people because those two are irrelevant.

The only thing that's relevant is what does the Bible say. If the Bible says some things you don't believe what will you do? Yeah, but what will you do? Well, that's what we're going to be working on.

It's hard work for you and for me. Because the Bible is very clear. And I'll give you we'll go through a lot of verses in the next few moments. It's clear as a bell. And I think many of us don't believe what it says because we have taken this bucket thrown everything about this in the bucket and when we read it, we don't see it.

And when we see it, we don't believe it. And therefore, when you ask the average evangelical Christian what difference is that if we took the Spirit out of your life tomorrow morning what difference would it have made last month to you?

The average person's mouth falls open gets dry and nods. There should be a good answer to that but I don't know. Now, I'm going to go through seven. Seven things. There's more than seven. But seven's perfect.

There are seven things that I want to review for you that the Bible says the Spirit will do in the life of a believer. And as we go through these seven things I'm going to ask you to do something a little bit challenging.

Next to each one of these seven I want you to write it down. Write down the verse. And then I want you to put a number next to each one of these seven between one and seven for yourself. Do a little bit of self-examination.

It's my conviction listen carefully that we have quenched the Spirit so He doesn't speak in our lives and we think it's the norm. We state it again. It is my belief that we have quenched turned Him down the Spirit and we now think that how we live is the norm for Christians.

The only way it's a norm is if it matches one by one with what the Bible teaches. In testing this last week here not quite so carefully as I'm doing tonight the average person in the audience realized going through these seven hardly any of these are true about me but the Spirit dwells within them.

If you can be honest with yourself I want you to find out how much of your life would demonstrate to you to you that the Spirit has been to your advantage and therefore as I give each one of these seven give yourself a little number.

If you say this isn't true of me at all go zero. If you say this is true all the time about me give a seven and then you have the score in between to give what you'd like to do. Don't look at anybody else's or you will go blind.

The Spirit Produces His Fruit

Let's take an easy one because they're going to get hard. Number one what's one thing the Spirit does He says anyway in the lives of believers number one He produces the fruit of the Spirit. Number one write that down produces the fruit of the Spirit and put down next to it one passage it will only take one.

Galatians chapter 5 verse 22 and 23 and then take your Bibles. I know many of you traveled a long way tonight but we need to this is the introduction for tomorrow night you need to get into this so do as best as you can to follow me and I'll see if I can encourage you.

Galatians chapter 5 verse 22 and 23 well known we all memorize this verse a million times but I want to read it it says but the fruit of the Spirit the fruit of the Spirit not of the Scriptures hello not of the Scriptures it's the fruit of the Spirit.

Is that what it says in your Bible? This is an easy one. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace. So that means that if I'm if the Spirit is active in me you will say about me that person is loving all the time.

They will say how come you're filled with joy? They will say what gives you that deep peace? It seems like no matter what's going on you have peace in your life and your ability to suffer long through things and that you have kindness goodness, faithfulness, gentleness that you are filled with gentleness.

You have a great deal of self-control. This passage bothered me for years. I thought it should say but the fruits of the Spirit are because I could have one or two of these at a given moment and feel like I'm doing okay.

But it says no, there's only one outgrowth of the Spirit if he's active in your life and this is listen to me now this is what he looks like when he's doing it. He doesn't have a divided personality and he's not dysfunctional.

It's the Spirit and this is the nature of the Spirit. And therefore if the Spirit the Holy Spirit of God is fully released in my life and your life then this is what the Spirit will look in me and I'll see it and you'll see it more than I'll see it now.

I used to think for years because this was my training that it's really the fruit of determination and self-control. And memorizing Scripture how to slip that in is the way that you get the fruit of the Spirit.

The only problem is nowhere in Scripture does it say that it says it's the fruit of the Spirit. There appears to be two ways to try and get the fruit of the Spirit. One is the way I did most of my life which is through self-control and through renewing my mind.

I will act this way if it kills me. How many of you can identify with me? I'm out on a limb a little bit. Are the rest of you not identifying? You fall asleep. What is the issue here? How many of you can identify with me?

Good, thank you. The rest of you are lying. I'm only kidding. This passage has a different concept and we'll teach about this in a couple more days. It has the concept that says no, it is not in the flesh.

You do not do the fruit of the Spirit through your flesh even well-meaning flesh. You get the flesh out of the way. And if it's out of the way adequately and you're cooperating with Him. These will be true all of them in your life at the time.

Now put a number between 1 and 7 down. If you think you're doing really well give us 7 .5. Number 2. The Spirit teaches. The Spirit teaches. Teaches you. You personally there's three verses I want you to write down.

The Spirit Teaches Believers

Number 1. John 16, 13. John 16, 13. Let's turn and take a look at these one at a time. John 16, 13. However, verse 12 Jesus speaking again. I still have many things to say to you. But you, the listener now cannot bear them now.

So that means the teacher, which was Jesus had a lot of content and understanding to give to the people but they were unable to cope with it. We've all experienced that many times. Therefore, Jesus is a bit thwarted in what He wanted to do but you can't bear it.

If you could bear it, I'd give you more right? However however, when He, the Spirit of Truth has come He will guide you. He will guide you into all truth. For He will not speak on His own authority. But whatever He hears, He will speak and He will tell you things to come.

Second passage. Is this just for the twelve? That's the next question. If you're thinking is this just for the twelve? It certainly isn't. 1 Corinthians chapter 2. And let's prove that to all of us. As you know 1 Corinthians is written to the Corinth church which had more carnality than any other church in the New Testament.

1 Corinthians chapter 2 verses 12 and 13. This book isn't written to the twelve. This is written to a church of carnal believers. 1 Corinthians 2 verse 12 and 13 says. Now we have received past tense.

These are saved people. Not the spirit of the world but the spirit who is from God. Why? Why did we receive the spirit? Answer that we might k-n-o-w know the things that have been freely given to us by God.

Does that mean Paul that if we didn't have the spirit we could not know? Yes. That's what it means. Give me some more information. Alright these things we also speak not in words which man's wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit read the next word.

Say it together. Yes. Yes. Does the Holy Spirit teach? Answer. According to scripture. Yes. Is it just the disciples? Absolutely not. That is not biblical. Rip that thought out of your head. That proves it never again.

Go back and say that's not for me. That's a lie. This is for you. The Holy Spirit is given to you to teach you personally. You're sitting there saying now wait a minute. Ok. More Bible. 1 John chapter 2.

Remember I asked you at the beginning what will you do if you find out what you believe isn't what the Bible teaches. 1 John chapter 2. Obviously this isn't also written to the apostles or disciples. And I'm not going to get into explaining this whole verse because of time.

Just get the big idea. 1 John chapter 2 verse 27. But the anointing which you have received past tense from Him abides in you. That's again the Spirit. And you do not need that anyone. What's the next word?

Teach you. But as the same anointing teaches you please read it in your own Bible the same anointing teaches you concerning all things and is true and is not a lie. And just as it is taught you will abide in Him.

If a person is rightly related to the Holy Spirit do you know what the Holy Spirit will do for that person? Answer. Teach that person. Will it be teaching about Scripture? Of course. Will it help you understand that which has already been revealed?

Of course. But will it teach things more than that to you? Of course. New Testament talks about deep, deep things that are often times in here. But some things are not in here. Sometimes there's only two verses about something in the whole Bible.

We're going to deal with this on Saturday night. There's two verses in all the Bible. That's it. That's it. And this you gotta go and ask for help to know how to interpret that and to apply it personally.

The last weekend I was pleading with the Spirit about a truth I couldn't understand. And the Christian Missionary Alliance denomination is located here in this city their headquarters. And they had a meeting with me that night for dinner.

The president, the two VPs and the director of the Russia Project. One of those men picked me up drove me over to the Marriott here in town before he came I was begging the Lord the Spirit. Please teach me more about this.

I cannot figure it out. Give me some affirmation. The man picks me up in his car. We're driving outside. We cross the bridge. He said, you know I took this and he just started answering my question all the way to the hotel.

And I could not believe it. After the hotel meeting two hours later I got back in. He started talking about something else. He said, would you mind. Would you continue telling me about what you know about this subject right here.

He said, you really want to know? I said, yes. When I came back in the house I was just about shouting because he opened things up to me that I couldn't put together in my own mind. No, no, no. He didn't.

No, he did not. Who did? Yes. The next day I was processing through some pretty heavy stuff and I was really messed with it. Couldn't put it together. Asking the Lord going through the passages on this subject in here.

And finally I brought about 20 books with me this weekend that are over there in the pink house. And I said, Lord, Lord. One of these books is going to give me some insight. Help me with this. And just thought about it a little bit and picked out a couple and sat down on the couch there and picked up one.

Started reading it and got halfway through it. On one page it addresses all four questions. Then Lauren Libby comes in sits down. Tells me about the weekend. Said, Lauren what do you think about this guy?

Oh, I like him. Let me read something to you and tell me what you think about. Excuse me. Tell me what you think about it. I read the page to him. I said, Lauren what do you think about this? He said, I believe that.

I agree with that. I said, so do I. Does the spirit teach? Does the bible teach that the spirit teaches? Yes or no? Yes. Question how often in your life do you never tell the soul. But you know you know you're not trying to ask him to teach it outside the bible.

You're sticking with the scripture. You're bringing it as Corinthians says. Comparing scripture to scripture. Spiritual to spiritual. Truth to truth. Right? That's obvious. How often does it happen in your life?

Scale of one to seven. Write down the number number three. Easy one. The spirit gives spiritual gifts. Spirit. Actually the term would be distributes spiritual gifts. The spirit distributes spiritual gifts.

The Spirit Distributes Spiritual Gifts

First Corinthians chapter twelve. First Corinthians chapter twelve. Verses seven and eleven. We'll skip the parts that make us perhaps uncomfortable tonight. First Corinthians chapter twelve. Let's start with verse one.

So we get the context now concerning spiritual gifts. Brethren I don't want you to be ignorant. I love this passage. Let's skip to verse seven and stay with the big idea. But the manifestation that is when you say what does it mean, manifestation?

Come on, quickly. What's it mean? It makes itself known the making of the spirit known the manifestation of the spirit. How do you know if the spirit shows himself? That's how you know. How does he show himself?

It has a fruit all of them. Really? Yeah. How else does he show himself? Well, he teaches a lot. How else? He gives a gift at least one. Excuse me I apologize about this cold. We'll be sharing it in this pulpit all week.

And I apologize. But the manifestation the proof the outworking of the spirit is given to some of us. Is that what it says? No. To each one for the profit of everybody. Verse eleven. But one and the same spirit works all these things.

And we didn't read those because they bother people distributing to each one individually as he wills. Big idea. The spirit gives to you at the point of salvation a spiritual gift that's not equal to a natural talent.

He sovereignly as he wills gives to each one David Gross a gift. You didn't have it before you were saved. Now listen. If you quench your spirit. If you quench the spirit you don't know much about your spiritual gift.

You're not really quite sure about it. And you don't use it much because it's a spiritual gift. It's given by the spirit and it is the major tool of the spirit using you. And when the spirit is quenched your spiritual gift is lost.

It's there. But it's confused. It's unclear. And you aren't really celebrating it. And you aren't usually focusing your attention on using the one thing God gave you. If however he is unquenched you not only excuse me you not only know what gift he's given to you.