Such Love—Part VI

Subtitle: Let's Be A People of the Righteousness of Jesus

Philippians 3:2-9; 12-14.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on Sunday, May 7, 2023.

This will be our last message on the love of God through Jesus.  We talked about the Incarnation, and how God loved us enough to become one of us.  We then talked about how he laid that life down in order to Redeem us.  Third, we saw the gift of sending the Holy Spirit in order to live within us.  Fourth, we looked at the gift of a sure, confirmed, faithful record of His dealings with humanity in the Word.  Last week, we looked at the gift of prayer that allows us to communicate with God.  And, today, we will look at the gift of the righteousness of Jesus that God shares with us. 

Of course, these do not exhaust the ways in which God has lavished His love upon us.  However, they go to the heart of what God desires for you and for me.  None of us deserve to have our sins covered by another, and yet God loves us enough to make it possible for our sins to be covered by Jesus.  More than that, He also makes it possible for us to become the righteousness of Christ and to live it out.

It is sad that there are people in the Church who are still confused over just what God desires of those who come to Christ.  The apostles of the first century dealt with these issues, and yet they are still with us today.  It is the tension between legalism and hedonism /antinomianism. 

The legalist focuses on an outward conformity to certain rules and glories in their accomplishment of them.  They generally shame others who do not conform to their list of rules, and very often, they shame themselves internally because they know they fall short.

The word antinomian basically means a person who is against law, or rules.  In this context, it refers to a person who believes that they do not need to restrain themselves with sin because the death of Jesus "covers it all."

Both the legalist and the antinomian miss the heart of God in salvation.  The answer is not in finding the right balance between the two.  We should not advocate having some rules, but not getting to carried away with them.  The answer given by the apostles lies not in satisfying a list or rules, and not in having no restraint (i.e., self-discipline).  Rather, it lies in a transformation of the inner and outer man that is led and empowered by the Holy Spirit.

Let's look at our first passage.

Our confidence should be in Jesus alone (v. 2-8)

Paul continually had to deal with false teachers coming in behind him and bringing confusion into the churches that he had started.  A common false teaching was in this area of teaching Gentiles that it wasn't enough for them only to believe in Jesus.  They also needed to take on the works of the Law.  In this case, Paul deals with the pressure for Gentile Christians to be circumcised.

In verse 2, Paul refers to such teachers in three different ways.  He first uses an Old Testament metaphor for a person who does evil things, i.e., a dog.  Thus, the second way of referring to them, "evil doer," essentially defines the imagery of a dog.  The third reference is "the mutilation."  This is a play on the way that Jews would refer to themselves as "the circumcision."  This was a title of honoring the fact that they had the Law and were obedient to God, as opposed to the Gentiles who were ignorant of the Law and were not part of the circumcision.  However, Paul clearly picks a word that turns this on its head.  They are not the circumcision, they are the mutilation.  Obviously, Paul does not see them in a good light.

Paul tells them to beware, or to watch out for such teachers.  They are not going to help them to please God.

For us today, I don't think there are many groups that are promoting circumcision, but we should recognize that the heart of the issue is not so much circumcision as it is requiring something else to be added to our belief in Jesus.  Why do people tend to think that faith in Jesus cannot be enough to save us?

I think it generally has to do with a confusion about the work of God within believers, both its goal and its power.  Thus, Paul ends verse 2 with the recognition that a believer in Jesus will put no confidence in the flesh.

On what do I place my confidence when it comes to salvation?  What makes me know that I am acceptable, or right, with God?  I'm not perfect, but if I were to die today, would I be allowed into the presence of the Lord?  When it comes to salvation, my confidence should always rest upon Jesus, and him alone.

Thus, Paul emphasizes that Christians are to worship God "in the Spirit."  We are not relying on things of the flesh to draw near to God, but instead, we rely upon the Spirit of God to help us worship the Father.

The false teachers would take aspects of the Old Covenant worship, that were legitimate, and teach that they are necessary for believers under the new covenant.  Again, it is to say that faith in Jesus is not enough. 

The heart of worshiping God is to declare that He is worthy of our faith and obedience, of our trust.  Instead of being led by the Spirit of God who was establishing the faith through these apostles, they are being led by men to resist the Spirit and to establish a different wisdom as their guide moving forward.  It is interesting that Israel resisted the leading of the Holy Spirit in the wilderness when the Old Covenant (which was new then) was being established.  They resisted and retreated into the calf worship that they had picked up in Egypt.  Similarly, there is a resistance again as the Spirit leads them out from under the tutorship of the Law into the life of the Spirit of God.

Paul sees this in an enabling to worship.  We are enabled to worship God and please Him, be acceptable, by the help of the Holy Spirit, not by human wisdom, or skill.

Paul is telling Gentiles that "we are the circumcision" who worship God by the help of the Spirit, rather than by the help of the flesh.  They are the circumcision because they have had their hearts circumcised by God Himself.  By the way, this was spoken of even in the giving of the Law.  In Deuteronomy 30:6, Moses describes God's grace in helping them repent through a spiritual circumcision of the heart.  Thus, even under the Law of Moses, it is made clear that the physical circumcision, which they were commanded to do, was symbolic of an inner work that had to be done by God.  No man, or child, circumcises themselves.  They need another human to do it for them.  Who can help me circumcise my heart?  Only God can through faith in Jesus.

Now that Jesus had paid the price and the Holy Spirit was leading the remnant to believe in Him, the symbols of the Old Covenant were no longer needed.

Again, a true believer in Christ should have no confidence in the flesh.  I wish that this was true of most Christians today.  We are dazzled by the flesh today more than we even understand.  It is wonderful to hear someone sing or play music who is extremely good and proficient.  It is wonderful to see beautiful buildings.  However, it is a different thing if this is what dazzles me and gives me confidence in God.

The word confidence in English emphasizes faith.  However, the Greek word has a sense of persuasion.  They are similar, but there is a subtle difference.  Those who are persuaded by what they see and do in the flesh will miss the work that the Holy Spirit is doing.  Paul mentions this in 1 Corinthians 2:1.  Paul did not come to them with great speech, as the Greeks loved to hear.  He was among them in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling.  However, the Spirit of God showed up in powerful ways.  Salvation had come to them through the work of the Spirit, not the flesh of Paul.  Why would they now retreat back to following the flesh?

It was those who put their confidence in the flesh that had rejected Jesus and put him to death, both Jews and Romans (the Jews in a religious way, the Romans in a secular way).  Even the disciples followed Jesus partially because of the Spirit and partially because of the flesh.  Jesus did great miracles and they were convinced he could save Israel.  Their flesh was already to sit beside Jesus when he took control of Israel.  But then, Jesus went to the cross and nailed the flesh, that they had pinned so many hopes upon, to a cross.  I picture God being so fed up with our hunger for a superman, who is head and shoulders above the rest, to save us.  He sends us our superman and then nails him to a cross so that we can finally get the message.  Quit looking to the flesh to save you!

At the cross, we are shown that confidence in the flesh, be it me, another, or even the mortal Jesus, whether religious or secular, will always sacrifice the work of God's Spirit.  When Jesus was crucified on the cross, the hopes they had put on him in the flesh, on a work of the flesh, were crucified as well. 

It is easy to see this as somehow the message of someone who struggled with obeying God, a loser at obeying God's law.  However, Paul cuts this argument off in verses 3 through 6.  He had been one of the "Olympians" of fleshly religion in Israel so he lists his fleshly accomplishments.  It was outside of Damascus that Saul of Tarsus discovered just how much his confidence in his fleshly accomplishments impressed God.  God struck him blind and rebuked him.  "Why are you persecuting me?"

That is what God thought about the "best" that 1st century Judaism could produce.  I wonder what He thinks about the "best" that 21st century Christianity has produced.

Paul had to choose that day when Jesus confronted him.  To follow Jesus and the Holy Spirit, he would have to let go of everything that he had accomplished, and was trying to accomplish.  Those "gains" were keeping him from following God.  He could not have Messiah and hold on to his confidence in a system that focused on the outward.

In a way, the dynamics in Israel did him a favor.  Those in charge in Jerusalem would not be happy if he chose to follow Jesus.  Persecution would come to him.  He knew up front that to choose Jesus was to leave that system behind.  However, the gentiles in Philippi and other places could probably try to keep the Law of Moses and call themselves believers in Jesus.  Yet, Paul is showing them here why that can never be.  To follow Jesus, to follow the Spirit of God, is to  let go of anything else being the source of my confidence.

We might ask at this point why a person would want to hold onto a system of fleshly confidence.  At the heart of the answer, we should see the desires of our own flesh.  The Law of Moses did not set up a system that was focused on the flesh.  It was the leaders of Israel who had taken the Law and turned it into a flesh-based confidence system.  They did this over the top of the witness of that same Law telling them that they fell short and needed the help of God, the circumcision of the heart that only God could do.

Saul let go of those gains in order to have Jesus, to have "the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus" for whom he went on to suffer (v. 8).  He wanted to know this amazing Jesus even if it cost him everything.

Am I a person of the Spirit who is persuaded by the Spirit of God and who places their confidence on The One in whom the Spirit was without measure?

We have a better righteousness (v. 8-9)

As Paul makes his argument, it was easy for people to portray him as advocating the life of the antinomian we mentioned earlier.  Even today, people will speak about a tension between Pauline theology and that of the apostle James.  However, if you read Paul's letters, you will find that he emphasizes doing righteous things, as much as he emphasizes resting in the righteousness of Christ alone for salvation.

Paul is emphasizing that through Jesus, and the Spirit of Christ, we are given a righteousness that is far better than anything we could accomplish under any flesh-oriented confidence system (be it Jewish or Christian).  Jesus himself stated in Matthew 5:20 that unless their righteousness exceeded that of the Pharisees none of them would enter the Kingdom of Heaven.  He knew that this would shock his hearers because they thought of the Pharisees as the "Olympians" of righteousness.  However, in God's eyes, their external, flesh-based righteousness was as filthy rags.  It fell woefully short.  In truth, Jesus is not setting a high bar here.  He is merely speaking the truth.

So, we must start there as Paul points out at the end of verse 8.  My righteous works in and of themselves are rubbish, garbage.  Let me reiterate that point.  It doesn't just say that they fall short.  It is worse than that.  If I invited you over for dinner and overcooked the meal a little bit, it would fall short of being a good meal.  However, if I put garbage on your plate and attempted to serve it to you, it would be gross and insulting.  It isn't just falling short.  It is on the negative of the scale.

This is not to say that it was wrong to obey the Law of Moses.  It is to say that the human heart tends to turn religion into an external performance without internal change.  Saul's problem was not in trying to obey the Law.  It was in refusing to hear what the Spirit of God was trying to say to him through it.  There were plenty of Jews in his day who heard this message from the Spirit and were waiting for the Messiah to come and clean up the mess that the religious leaders of Israel had created. 

In the book of Romans, Paul saw that the Law of Moses served to slow down their fall away from God while at the same time showing them their true spiritual need.

It wasn't rubbish to try and obey God, but it was rubbish to think that his righteousness was enough to please God.  Our righteousness always falls short of true inner transformation that is led by the Spirit of God when its source is about demonstrating that we are good.

Paul contrasts a righteousness that is from the Law (my performance) versus the righteousness that is from God through faith in Jesus.  He is not against the Law.  It had served its purpose.  However, he is against developing a righteousness that merely adds Jesus to what the Pharisees were doing.  Our performance of the Law cannot be the source of our righteousness.

I picture this as an income tax form religion. We can focus on the letter of God's word, and come up with our list of do's and don'ts.  In a sense, instead of letting the Spirit of God audit our hearts, we make ourselves legalists who audit ourselves.  We create a system of understanding that creates people who are really good at doing their "spiritual taxes," but also others who are terrible at it.  O, well, they should be more like Saul of Tarsus. 

We should be hearing what the Word says to our heart about dead works, but our tendency (in the flesh) is to build a religion that pats certain fleshly people on the back.  They are promoted as "those who can get it done."  Then, the people look up to them as amazingly unsurpassable, religious icons. 

Paul found a different righteousness that day outside of Damascus.  When he quit resisting the Spirit of God and embraced Jesus, he was suddenly right with God, pleasing to Him.  Imagine all of the people that Saul had injured, and in a moment his sins are covered!  "That's not fair!"  No, it isn't because none of us will be saved if God gives us what is fair.  The grace of God was available to a man who had been leading saints off to their death.  Simultaneously, the grace of God was given to countless uncircumcised Gentiles who hadn't been keeping the Law of Moses, and now Paul is telling them that they shouldn't keep the Law of Moses.  They were saved when they obeyed the Spirit and put their faith in Jesus alone.  Paul emphasizes this in verse 9: "through faith in Christ..." 

Yes, I am still doing something, righteousness, but the motivation is different.  I went from trying to show God how good I am so that He will save me, to believing in the salvation of Jesus and following Him by the Spirit.  One has a confidence in us, and the other has a confidence in Jesus.

The confusion between salvation and discipleship (v. 12-14)

There continues to be a great confusion in the minds of many between salvation and discipleship.  This can only be because our pulpits are confused on this issue.  We can muddy the lines between being saved and being discipled.  Yet, ultimately, Paul sees the problem's source as evil workers (v. 2) who infiltrate and promote the confusion.

If you are saved, have salvation, you know that you would be with Jesus in heaven if you were to die today.  Discipleship on the other hand has to do with how much you look like Jesus.  We can too easily make a certain nebulous level of discipleship necessary for salvation, and this is a mistake.  In fact, it is not the Gospel.

How many times did the disciples fail, and were rebuked by Jesus?  I didn't count them, but it was many.  Peter himself was rebuked by the Lord with the harsh words, "Get behind me, satan!"  Yet, were they "kicked off the team?"  Did they lose their place in community of believers?  No.  They didn't work their way into the family of God and they couldn't fail their way out.  There is a caveat to that last sentence, but more on that later.  Salvation is based upon my faith in the righteousness of Jesus alone.  I am saved as long as I am trusting in the righteousness of Jesus to be my salvation.  Discipleship also takes faith in Jesus.  Our weakness in being made more like Jesus does not cancel our place in the body of Christ.

It is clear that Paul in verses 8-9 is talking about salvation.  The righteousness of Christ alone can save me.  However, once we are saved, we are to move on to discipleship.  Verses 12-14 are not speaking of salvation.  Paul is not saying that he hasn't "attained" salvation yet.  It is not the "perfected" who "attain" salvation.  He is talking about discipleship.  He doesn't fully look like Jesus yet!  He is still on the path of discipleship, which ends when we enter the presence of Jesus and are resurrected (see v. 10-11).  Paul sees himself in this process of discipleship, being perfected.  Of course, discipleship is a component of salvation, but the point is that salvation is being a child of God, and discipleship is taking on the family likeness.  We do not lose our salvation because our discipleship isn't going so well at the moment.  God is faithful to treat us as sons and "discipline" us (Hebrews 12:5-6).

The Spirit of God is given to us to enable us to become like Christ.  We need to cooperate with the Holy Spirit by turning away from things in our past and turning towards Jesus.  Union with Jesus is what lies ahead.  The Spirit is leading us "upward" out of sin, and into full communion with Jesus as glorified sons of God.

The ultimate prize is Jesus Himself.  Yet, the righteousness of Jesus is not only about a legal exchange of his righteousness to cover my sins.  Just as resurrection will change our mortal bodies so the believer is in a spiritual transformation process in which we are made to be the righteousness of Jesus.  He is teaching us to live out the righteousness of Jesus.  This is discipleship.  The disciples did not disciple themselves.  They were taught by Jesus and the Spirit of God.  So too, we must be led by the Spirit to become more like Jesus.

If you go back to Philippians 2:12-13, Paul emphasizes that we should "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling."  Many people don't know what to do with that verse because it sounds like the legalists are right.  However, Paul is not promoting a new legalism under a different law.

The key is in the phrase "work out."  This corresponds to the phrase in verse 13 "works in you."  Because you are saved, the Spirit of God has taken up residence within you.  He proceeds to work into you the things of God, and you should work that out into your life.  This is the New Testament picture of a believer in Christ.  We are daily working out what the Spirit of God is working in us.  Why should we fear and tremble?  It is not because God is capricious and may jerk the rug of salvation out from under us.  Rather, it is because I don't trust my flesh and its ability to resist and neutralize the work of the Spirit within us.  I take seriously that God is working in me and seek first to understand it, and then to cooperate with it.  Saul was not taking it seriously.  He was fortunate that the Lord in His mercy rebuked him so severely.

God is not in heaven saying, "Why can't you do it!"  Rather, He is inside of us saying, "Take my hand, and I will help you do it!"  How can I say no to such love?

Quickly, let me just remind us of similar verses from Paul in the book of Galatians.

In Galatians 6:7-8, Paul warns believers that even we who have been saved should be careful because God cannot be mocked.  This is what an antinomian does.  They not only believe that the righteousness of Jesus covers their sin, but that it also covers them continuing to sin without even trying to live differently.  This is to make a mockery of why Christ died.  He did not die to leave us stuck in our sins throughout the rest of our lives.  No true Christian will pretend that they can continue to give themselves to sin, and yet, be covered by their "Jesus insurance."  Jude calls this a "license for immorality" in Jude 1:4.  He then says that such an idea is a "denial" of Jesus.  You cannot put your faith in Jesus and deny him at the same time.  To embrace Jesus is to embrace his righteousness, both for salvation and as the work that the Spirit is doing in you.

In Galatians 6, Paul warns that our life is a sowing.  Your choices and actions are sowing seeds to the flesh or to the Spirit of God.  The seeds to the flesh will only reap corruption and destruction.

So, is it possible for our discipleship to become so bad that we "lose" our salvation?  Paul doesn't use that terminology here, but he does warn that if we continually give ourselves over to the flesh, then we will reap destruction.  He had warned them of this back in Galatians 5:16-21.  He counsels them to follow the Spirit and not the flesh.  He then states that the works of the flesh are obvious while listing some.  Notice that it ends with the warning that those who practice such things will not inherit the Kingdom of God.  Whether they were actually saved before or not, we should recognize that there is a whole class of people in Scripture who knew the truth, were part of the being saved community, and yet perished due to lack of faith.  The children of Israel in the desert, Lot's wife, Judas, and many others, perished and reaped destruction because of unbelief.  Thus, salvation is based upon faith in Jesus, but so is our discipleship.  They did not fall short because their discipleship wasn't perfect.  Rather, they fell short because their sowing to their flesh overwhelmed any faith they may have had in God.

Let me close with reminding us of Galatians 2:20.  Paul died on the day that he met Jesus.  From then on, he quit trying to do what he wanted and lived his life to do what Jesus wanted.  He wasn't perfect in performing that, but it was how he lived.  We are to daily crucify our flesh and its desires.  We are not to live out our desires and purposes, but to live out the desires and purposes of God in our life.

So, how is it that our works that are done by faith in Jesus and listening to the Spirit can be clean and acceptable to God?  They are purified by faith in Jesus and washed by the presence of the Holy Spirit as we cooperate with Him. 

This is a daily battle, but do not lose hope.  The Spirit of God will help you in this battle against your own flesh.  Keep your faith in Jesus, that he has redeemed you (saved you), and work on following the leading of the Holy Spirit to become like Jesus (discipling).  Ultimately, we all lay our heads down in death short of perfectly looking like Jesus, but through death and resurrection, He will finish the work in each one of us!  Amen!

Righteousness of Jesus audio

Such Love III

Subtitle: Let's Be A People of the Spirit

John 16:8-11; John 7:37-39; Romans 8:5-8.

This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on Sunday, April 16, 2023.

We will continue to look at the great love of God towards humanity, but now we are going to emphasize our response to God's great love.  God's amazing overture of love calls for a response from each one of us.  Tragically, some reject His love.  How can we say no to such a love?  Yet, people do it every day.

Our focus today will be on becoming a people of the Spirit of God.  This wording is group-oriented, but we should also personalize it.  I want to be a person of the Spirit of God. 

This is as opposed to being a person of the flesh.  I will talk more about this later, but we should recognize that those who live for their flesh will end up serving the purposes of the devil, the prince of the power of the air, and the god of this world.  Through our bondage to sin, the devil manipulates us on levels that we are not fully aware.  However, the Christian is given freedom from that by the Spirit of God.

Let's look at our first passage.

He directs us to believe in Jesus  (John 16:8-11)

In this passage, we have Jesus explaining to his disciples that he will send another "comforter" to them after he leaves.  This is described further in verse 13 as the Spirit of Truth.  There is no question that this is speaking of the Holy Spirit, or the Spirit of God.

The word translated as "comforter" is a word that describes someone who comes alongside of you for what you need.  Since our needs are various, it is sometimes translated as Counselor, Advocate, Helper, etc.  The Holy Spirit is all of these things and more.  The translation is not as important as understanding what it is saying.  The Spirit would come to help them similar to the help Jesus was giving them, i.e., another Helper to be in his stead.

This sets up a great act of God's love.  He sends His Spirit to dwell within those who put their faith in Jesus.  This Spirit would then fill God's people to overflowing.  Thus, God's love took on the nature of a man, sacrificed that life on a cross for you and me, and then takes up residence within us by His Spirit.  No one back then deserved this, and we have not arrived at a place where we deserve it today.  God simply loves us this much.

Ultimately, humans were designed to operate within intimate relationship with God.  The humbling thing is that we go all over the place morally and spiritually when we do not have a relationship with God.  Without a faith relationship with God by the Holy Spirit, we are forever put off-balance by our flesh through sin.  If it weren't for the gracious work of God's Helper, the Spirit of Truth, the Spirit of God, we would never see our need for believing in Jesus.

In John 16, we see that the Spirit of God is working on people even before they believe in Jesus.  Verse 8 tells us that the Spirit helps unbelievers through the work of conviction.

What is meant by conviction?  The context would influence what is mainly in view.  In this case, it is not a Judgment Day senario, but the Spirit working on the heart of an unbeliever in the present age. 

There are typically three aspects that are tied to this biblical word translated as "convicted."  The first has to do with exposing them to the truth.  As unbelievers, we work very hard to avoid such exposures to truth.  We often minimize, or ridicule, them as they surface in our life and in our mind.  We will typically create mental refutations to these exposures to truth. 

However, the second aspect kicks in with the Holy Spirit refuting our refutations of the truth.  A person may respond in resistance to the Spirit's work of conviction, but they are being hemmed in by Him as life shows them the emptiness of their "fig-leaf" philosophies.  This continues an ever tightening case by the Spirit of God in a person's heart that continually brings them back to a decision point.  We either are moved closer to God or further away.  No one remains static precisely because of the work of God's Spirit.

This brings us to the third aspect of conviction.  It has to do with the concept of proving the truth.  This doesn't mean that the person must surrender.  It just means they reach a point where they are convinced that they do not have a good answer, and the truth stares them in the face proven by God.  God will not force anyone to love Him.  We all still have a choice.  However, to reject God over the top of such conviction is to sear your own conscience, to cauterize your own spiritual eyes, and to harden your heart.

This work of the Holy Spirit's conviction is happening in everyone's life until the day that they die.  We can often underestimate just how much the Holy Spirit has worked on people that we think will never be open to the Gospel.  Some shout the hardest against the Gospel because they are fighting what they secretly know to be true in their heart, and yet don't want to accept it.

Now that we have dealt with what conviction is, there are three particular truths that the Spirit is working to expose, to refute, and to prove to them.

The first of these is sin.  The Holy Spirit convicts sinners of the truth of their sin.  Our society makes a big deal over defining sin.  It wants to define sin because then you can game the system in order to declare yourself not a sinner.  Such definitions are based upon the whims and desires of society, or even myself personally.  Such definitions can never be trusted because a future society (tomorrow, next year, decades, or centuries later) will come up with different ones.  You can never trust such definitions.

This is why the heroes of yesterday are often crucified as the blasphemers of today.  For example, many women who fought for feminism through the last half century are now being thrown under the bus today for the new and improved righteous cause of transgenderism.  I am not commenting on either, but rather, I am pointing out the unstable nature of such ungodly definitions.

Thus, the Spirit convicts unbelievers of God's definition of sin.  That is often done through the effects of the sin and the things they experience throughout life.   By the way, the worst sin really is unbelief.  The two thieves on the crosses next to Jesus were both sinners.  However, the difference was that one believed on him and the other didn't.

We could bring up the Apostle Paul as well.  He is forgiven of murder because he put his faith in Jesus.  However, he is not running around pretending like that is no big deal.  Rather, he pleads with others to join him in this deadly serious love of God.

The second thing the Holy Spirit convicts people about is righteousness, first, that they have none, and second, that Jesus has enough to save all of us.  Most humans are inclined to think that they are good enough, whether they believe in heaven or not.  Notice that Jesus says that the Holy Spirit convicts us of righteousness because Jesus went to the Father.  While Jesus was still on this earth, the people could see for themselves the righteousness of God.  Even sinners instinctively knew that there was something convincing about the righteousness of Christ that was missing in the lives of the Sadducees and the Pharisees.  With Jesus gone, the Holy Spirit is needed to replace that perfect witness.  We need the righteousness of Jesus.

The third thing the Holy Spirit convicts the unbeliever of is judgment.  He convinces us that God's judgment is looming over the heads of the whole world, but also ourselves individually.  He connects this to the fact that the ruler of this world has been judged.  He refers to the devil here, who is the ruler by the fact of his manipulation of sinful men.  If the ruler of this world is judged, then so too are those who serve his purposes.  The Spirit of God convicts us that we are on the wrong side and will not survive judgment, whether globally or individually.

Let's go to our second passage.

He works within the believer  (John 6:37-39)

A convicted sinner is readied and prompted to come to Jesus in faith, to switch their allegiance to Jesus.  In this passage, Jesus gives a promise to those who will come to him in faith.  That promise is the Holy Spirit.

Jesus pictures the Spirit as a river of living water flowing out of the heart of a person who comes to Jesus and drinks of him.  Just as a watershed captures the water that falls upon it and channels it through the ground to streams, then to creeks, and eventually to a river, so too the believer will receive water from Christ that will come forth from their heart like a river of living water.  Some rivers are bigger than others, but he speaks of the Holy Spirit who is immeasurable by definition.

This reminds me of Ezekiel 47.  There, he has a vision of water coming out from the threshold of the temple.  The further out it goes the deeper it becomes, until it ends up at the Dead Sea.  It begins to cure the waters of the Dead Sea until all manner of fish and plants are living in and around it. 

This is a picture of the individual who has the river of living water, the Holy Spirit, springing up within their soul.  Believers should not be a Dead Sea that hoovers up all the grace that God sends its way, but without cooperation with the purposes of God.  We can be like a person eating a plate of "grace" with our head down crying out, "I'm running out; Give me more!"  God help us to wake up to the vast volume of grace that He is pouring out upon us, and see it for what it is, a holy thing from Him.  May we treat it as such.

Instead of fighting against the external workings of the Holy Spirit as unbelievers do, the believer is pictured as cooperating with the internal working of the Holy Spirit.  The same Spirit that led us to believe in Jesus will now work within us to make us a new creation: a disciple of Jesus, and a child of God.  We allow the Spirit of God to spring up within us, and then flow out through us to be a blessing to the people around us.  We are to be a source of the Spirit of God to the people in our life.

Yes, it is true that they don't need people to have the Holy Spirit working upon them.  However,  the work of the Holy Spirit on their conscience is like mercy drops in the dessert.  It is not intended to take the place of our submission to God's will.  The Spirit of God ALSO wants to work through us so that they will hear from Him like a river of living water.  That is so much better than an either-or scenario.

Jesus is telling us that we will become like a river of living water if we come to him in faith.  This is God's purpose and plan.  It will always be more than you ever knew it was because you are cooperating with an unlimited being.  You may feel like you really messed it up.  Yet, ten years later a person is sharing a testimony about how the Spirit of God really broke through to them by your willingness to be used of God.

Yet, even Christians have their struggles with the work of the Holy Spirit in their life. This brings us to our last passage.

Our flesh is hostile to the Spirit of God  (Romans 8:5-8)

In many passages, the apostles use the words body and flesh.  The body speaks of the organized system of physical appendages, organs, and other things, working together in a body system.  It emphasizes the natural and physical aspect of a human, pretty much what you thought.

Flesh can be used as a synonym for body, but also can take on an added sense that body does not have.  It can point to a nature that is rooted in the body, its senses, and desires.  It is sometimes translated as "sinful nature," and this is close.  It would perhaps be better to think of it as a nature that is rooted in the bodily sense, which leads to bondage to sin.  This nature is bent towards the pleasures of the body as opposed to what?  It is as opposed to being rooted in God Himself, the Spirit.

This is what Paul is talking about when he says that our flesh is hostile to the Spirit of God.  We use our body against God's work, but that resistance is directed by an inner nature that is rooted in the wrong thing.

For an unbeliever to surrender to the Holy Spirit, there must be a dying to the desires of the flesh, and a coming alive to the Spirit of God.  This internal battle may have been won at the moment of believing upon Jesus.  However, there is still a battle to be fought.

The Holy Spirit takes up residence within the believer and begins to teach them to root themselves in Him, in Christ, instead of in the desires of the flesh.  Though the flesh has been defeated at this point, there are still innumerable ways in which our inner man is rooted in the sense of our body.  Over time, the Spirit helps us to gain victory over the flesh, i.e., less and less roots down into our sensual nature, and more and more roots into the Spirit of God.

I like the image of Joshua leading Israel into the Promised Land.  It is full of giants and walled cities, i.e., strongholds, but God has promised to giving them possession and victory little by little.  It didn't happen all in one day, otherwise they would not have been able to truly possess the land.  Similarly, Yeshua leads us into the inheritance of our own soul by placing his Spirit within us to help us gain the victory one day at a time, one battle at a time.  This will only be done by a person who lives for the Spirit of God instead of living for the flesh.

In verse 5, Paul talks about what we set our minds upon.  A person of the flesh thinks about the things of the flesh.  They are motivated by a lower nature that is rooted in the body.  It prompts their purpose and desire.  It supplies the "strength" and vigor that they have for going after these things.  Such people spend their lives seeking to maximize their pleasures and minimize their pain.

This doesn't always look the same.  There are some unbelievers that are extremely self-disciplined in order to make money.  Their life may look extremely disciplined compared to another person who is a believer.  We can make our life look extremely noble by working for the most pleasure for the most people.  However, if all of this is driven by our flesh, then it is still for ulterior motives.

Contrarily, a person of the Spirit has their mind set upon the purposes and desires of the Spirit of God, which are the purposes and desires of Jesus, which are the purposes and desires of the Father.  God wants us to help one another to walk by faith in Jesus in love for Him and one another.

Of course, we must be alert to the tactics of the devil, who uses the world around us as pressure and temptation to live for the flesh.  They fill their minds with all manner of fleshly things, but not of God.

So how does this look?  Let's use the example of planning for dinner.  Both the spiritual and the fleshly will eat dinner.  We will die if we go too long without eating.  Thus, the Bible in no way pictures a super-spiritual person never eating.  They will fast from time to time, but they won't entertain notions of never eating.  So, the true difference between fleshly and spiritual thinking goes to the purpose and desire behind it.  The fleshly person only thinks about things of the senses like: what food would I rather taste tonight, what food would best impress so-and-so, etc.  In fact, people may fight and argue over what is for dinner because they are rooted in the flesh.  However, a Christian should not think like this.  We eat in order to better serve the Lord and bring honor to Him.  We make sure that the people we love in our life are getting the nutrition and sustenance that they need because that is part of a parent's duty to their children and dependents.  All things are spiritual things if you are a spiritually minded person.  Whereas, all things are fleshly, including church, worship, prayer, etc., for those who are fleshly minded.  This is why some Christians in churches will fight over the style of music, color of the carpet, who gets the solo, etc.  Let us always ask the question of our Lord, "How can I best please you and honor you in this?

In verse 6, Paul emphasizes that each of these lives has an effect.  A life of the flesh is death.  It doesn't just produce death.  The underlying verbiage says that it is death.  We must ask ourselves,  "What is the fruit of my life?"  Is it pouring death into my relationships and soul?  The fleshly mind can never fix the spiritual problems of humanity.  It can only double down on the problem and create an even worse hell on earth.  In our great human wisdom, we make decisions based upon our gigantic fleshly appetites and hope for Utopia.  We can build all the hospitals we want and even create buildings for mixed worship of all religions, but these things will only bring about more spiritual death.

However, a life of the Spirit is life and peace.  We could even add Galatians 5:22, which speaks of: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, and self-control.  All of these are different facets of God's life, the living waters of His Spirit.  It is possible to enjoy all of the goodness of God's creation and still miss His heart.  This is because we become too enamored with His gifts, and fail to look to the Giver behind the gifts.  It isn't always an either/or situation, but if we were forced to choose between Jesus and all of the comforts and pleasures this life offers, we should choose Jesus.  Yes, God made us to be able to bodily enjoy many things in this world.  But, He never intended us to be rooted in those pleasures and to live for them.

This brings us to the last question brought up by Paul's words.  In verse 7, the question is this.  To what am I hostile, and to what am I submitted?  The fleshly mind is at odds and hostile to the things of God.  The woman who broke the flask of oil upon the feet of Jesus did so because the Spirit of God moved upon her to do so.  However, fleshly minded disciples nearby judged her and openly castigated her for her actions.  The flesh always persecutes the Spirit.

James touches on this in James 4:4.  He warns us that friendship with the world is enmity with God.  He then boldly states that whoever wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God!  He is talking to Christians.  We should note how he addresses those "worldly Christians,"  adulterers and adulteresses!  To live in such a way is to be unfaithful to the Lord Jesus and the Spirit of God that He has placed within us.  Our proper place as a child of God is serving the purposes of our Lord and following His Spirit.  Instead, we are like a wayward spouse, and a prodigal son.  When Christians fall back into fleshly living, it is called spiritual adultery.  We become led by the lusts of our flesh, the lusts of our eyes, and the pride of life.  We may even make it look noble by loving each other in our sin more than the Lord who calls us to help one another live holy.

The grace of God is that Israel did not cease to be Israel when they failed.  When Christians fail, the Spirit of God works discipline in their life in order to bring them back to God.  When God convicts us, it is always, "Take my hand and live!  Let me save you!"  He didn't hang on the cross for us to be an adulterer, and He didn't supply His Spirit for us to ignore Him and live for the flesh.  However, His had can only save us in this life.  We should take hold of it today!

This world cannot be saved with more flesh, even a fleshly life that is covered over with a veneer of Christianity.  I believe that this is what the high priest represented in the days of Jesus.  He was internally a fleshly, spiritually plundered man, but it was covered over with a veneer of God's commands and duties.  He looked like he was serving God to some, but others saw through it.  When God showed up in the person of Jesus and through the power of the Spirit of God, he had nothing internally to hold up that veneer.  He folded and caved in spiritually.  His following of God crumbled before the truth of what he really was.  Christians can be in danger of walking this same path.

Praise God that our eternity does not depend upon just one of our choices.  However, we want to take every single choice seriously, every single day.

May God help us to be a people of the Spirit of God instead of a people who are ruled by the flesh, and therefore, the devil.  Let's be a people who are led by Christ through his Spirit to do the works of our Father in heaven.

People of the Spirit audio

The Proverbs-31 Man

Proverbs 31:1-9.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on June 19, 2022, for Father’s Day.

Today, we will focus on the Proverbs-31 man, and I don’t mean a man who is fortunate enough to marry a Proverbs-31 woman. 

No, we are talking about King Lemuel in verses 1-9.  You may even now be racking your brain trying to remember exactly who King Lemuel is.  This is the only place in the Bible where he is mentioned.  In fact, Lemuel means “king of the Lord,” or “king to the Lord.”

It is important for Christian men, and especially fathers, to focus on following the wisdom of King Lemuel’s mother so that we might be the leaders that He has called us to be.

Let’s look at our passage.

The path of a man who listens to wisdom

Proverbs is essentially written to supply wisdom for those reading it.  In this passage, we are given the instruction between a mother, and her son.  It seems most likely that Lemuel is remembering instruction that took place before he was to become king.  His mother took time to instruct him knowing that he would one day become king.  Perhaps, Lemuel is a nickname that is given to remind him that he is to be a king for the Lord, and not for selfish purposes.  It would be important for him to live, to walk, and to decide wisely.  You could say that the stakes are even higher because his life will impact and influence a whole nation.

It is interesting that wisdom is personified as a woman throughout the book of Proverbs.  This young prince receiving instruction from his mother is strengthened with the connotation that his mother represents wisdom.  All children need parents that will speak wisdom into their life and not folly- remember that folly is also represented as a woman.

As children grow, there is a manifold witness to them.  First, their parents attempt to teach them about life to one degree or another.  Second, a child should be introduced to the Scriptures by their parents.  It is the wisdom of God being witnessed to them.  Obviously, many parents do not teach their kids about the Word of God, so it is the duty of believers to share God’s Word with others.  This is an important witness to wisdom that God intends for them to have.  Third, life itself is the final witness to children about wisdom.  The rebukes of life are pictured in many proverbs.  As a child grows, lives, and makes decisions, they receive feedback from the world around them.

Of course, all kids will reach a point where they will have an adversarial relationship with the wisdom that has been given to them by others.  There will always be a part of humans that seeks to know for themselves.  However, the wise man is one who listens to wisdom.

The Past: We might be inclined to treat verse 2 as simply poetic address, but that wouldn’t be wise.  Lemuel’s mother addresses him in a way that emphasizes his connection to what has come before him.  She puts the question, “What?” to him three times with a different address each time. What is the lesson that she has for him?  She reminds him that he is first her son (and, of course, the son of his father).  She desires him not to only be her son, but even more to be a son of wisdom who lives wisely.  Kids must be instructed while they are young because these are the days when it is most clear to them that they need parents.  A wise parent will not wait until they think their kid is old enough to receive teaching.

Secondly, she addresses him as the son of her womb.  She went through sorrows and labored to bring him into this world.  Though a child didn’t ask to be born, they should still have a healthy respect for the difficulty that their parents, and ancestors went through to bring them into the world.

Lastly, he is a son of her vows.  This picture of a woman making a covenant, or vow, before God in order to obtain a child is all throughout the Bible.  Each of the patriarchs had wives who struggled to have children.  Of course, not all vows are about having children.  Still, she reminds him of her relationship with God and his existence as the proof of that relationship.

Wise men understand their connection to what has come before them in their parent’s home, their hometown, nation, and world.  We should humbly and wisely stand on the shoulders of the past knowing that those who created it are our foundation.

Women:  In verse three, Lemuel was warned about not giving his strength to women.  It is important not to make this say more than it is saying.  First, what is meant in the phrase “give your strength to women?”  Second, we should notice that it is “women,” a plural word.

It would seem strange for this proverb to be warning a man against women and then turn around to point out the quintessential woman, who should be desired by any man, in verses 10 and following.  You might see that proverb as an instruction of a parent to a daughter (be like this), or to a son (this is the kind of girl you want). 

“Charm is deceitful; beauty is passing, but a woman who fears the LORD, she will be praised.”  Finding a woman (singular) that is a good wife takes wisdom and prayer.  Spending the strength of your life with her to bring glory to God is a perfect picture of Christ and his Church. 

So, what is Lemuel being warned of?  He is being warned of focusing the mental and physical strength of his life on pursuing women (plural) and the pleasures therein.  Heaping up a harem of women will only destroy the good that a king can do.  What does it profit a man to have pursued and enjoyed many women in life, and yet to have lost his own soul?  Becoming king is not about getting everything your flesh desires.  It is about glorifying God and serving His People.  A good woman can be a strength to a good man when they are both focused on glorifying God in all that they do.

Intoxication:  Verses 4-7 highlight the error of intoxication.  A man who listens to wisdom is not trapped in intoxication.  Another image would be bitten by intoxication.  Proverbs 23:32-32 pictures wine like a serpent in the cup that stings those who drink too much of it.  “Do not look on wine when it is red, when it sparkles in the cup, when it swirls around smoothly; at the last it bites like a serpent, and stings like a viper.”  Lemuel’s mother warns him that it is important that a king not be given to drinking and intoxication.

Of course, the mother recognizes that there are situations where alcohol might be useful.  She states that wine should be given to those who are painfully dying, or those who are bitter of heart, so that they might forget their sorrow.  However, this is not projected as an answer for those people with any hope in it.  If you are painfully dying, or in the midst of bitter sorrow, God holds a better hope out to us than just alcohol. Yet, for our purposes here, this is not the point that Lemuel’s mother is making.  She is concerned that he not become a drinker.

Intoxication affects our memory.  We would forget the Law of God, and we might pervert justice that is our responsibility.  People who love their family sometimes become stuck in the grip of addiction.  Yet, the sad truth is that alcohol and drugs cause us to forget the thing we should remember.  Under their influence, we lose our inhibitions and do things that are harmful to us and the people we love.  How careful we should be in our lives when people depend on us. 

You might be inclined to protest that you are not a king.  In fact, as a Christian, there is a lost world out there that doesn’t even know that it depends upon Christians who walk soberly and work to bring the light of Christ into their lives.  People’s lives depend upon the decisions we make, whether wise or foolish.  Christ is the ultimate King, Prophet, and Priest.  However, we are to be learning to become more like him.  Therefore, there is a lesser sense in which we have a priestly, prophetic, and kingly duty to lead a lost world to the LORD!

Judging righteously and helping the needy:  Verses 8 and 9 give the true purpose of anyone who is in a position to affect others, whether a parent to a child, or a king to the people.  We should be a voice for those who are about to die before those who care not for their death, and may be even causing it.  This death may be literal or metaphorical.  Christ pleaded the cause of the lost before the religious leaders of his day.  With the woman caught in adultery, Christ reminds them of the gravity of executing someone for sin when you have sin in your own life.  Yet, Christ was not promoting adultery, or any fornication for that matter.  He tells her to go and sin no more. 

Nobody was righteous there that day, but Jesus.  The woman wasn’t righteous and the religious leaders were not righteous.  However, she was the one that no one was speaking up for.  God loved her and didn’t want her to die and go into eternity lost.  Open your mouth is repeated twice.  We cannot be silent, even when powers may attempt to silence us. 

Yet, we should not be shouting our truth to power out of self-serving motivations.  Rather, we are reminded to make righteous judgments.  In John 7:24, Jesus said, “Do not judge according to appearance but judge with a righteous judgment.”  It is not enough to plead the natural cause of the natural poor and needy.  Even greater is the problem of being in spiritual poverty, and being held in bondage by the powers of this world and our own sin.  May all Christian men aspire to be such a man as Jesus was because this is precisely the kind of man that Lemuel’s mother was instructing him to be.

Proverbs-31 Man audio

Responding to the Holy Spirit-Part 2

John 3:28-30; Matthew 9:14-15; John 14:1-3; 2 Corinthians 11:2-4; Revelation 19:4-9

This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on October 31, 2021.

Last week, we looked at the work of the Holy Spirit on unbelievers.  Some are unmoved, some become hostile, but some believe.

Today, we are going to look at those who respond to the Holy Spirit by putting their faith in Jesus as their teacher, savior, and lord.  By the way, notice that each of those three aspects are important.  Putting our faith in Jesus is trusting him both to cover our sins with his righteousness and to lead us into true righteous acts.  It is putting my judgment completely in his hands.

I pray that you are a part of this group.  Let’s look closer.

Believers are pictured as the engaged bride of Jesus

A metaphor of a bride of God is found in the Old Testament in Isaiah 54 and in Jeremiah 3.  This imagery continues into the New Testament.  For our culture, the term “bride” is not generally used until the wedding.  Thus, the New Testament pictures the believing Church as a fiancé, or engaged woman, of Christ.

Of course, for Israel, engagement and marriage were quite different than it is in America.  In fact, our typical engagement to marriage has changed a lot in the last 100 years.  Couples are more likely to live together, be sexually active, and even have children before marriage, if that even happens.  This idea would have been taboo in Israel.

So, let’s look at several passages throughout the New Testament that begin to shed light on God’s purpose for the Church, and why things are happening the way they are.

John 3:28-30.  John the Baptist spoke about this metaphor when his disciples complained that too many people were going to follow Jesus.

John pictures himself as the “friend of the groom.”  Of course, John is both a friend of the groom and part of the bride.  You could say that he is one of the first to believe, and on top of that, he is given a task to prepare the bride for the groom.

John knew that his ministry was meant to bring people to Jesus, and not to himself.  His ministry was never about him, and always about Jesus.  Thus, John was happy to see people leaving in order to go to Jesus.  It is too easy for churches to see people as belonging to them.  They actually belong to Jesus, and we must never forget this.

Matthew 9:14-15.  Jesus was fully aware of this metaphor and used it himself.  The disciples of John had come to Jesus asking why his disciples didn’t fast like everyone else.  By this time, Israel had developed many different feast days, some commanded in the Law, and others added to remember sad dates, such as the temple’s destruction by the Babylonians.  The disciples of Jesus didn’t appear to fast on all of these days.

Jesus pictures his time with his disciples as a betrothal period.  When a groom wanted to propose a marriage, his father would help negotiate things with the bride’s father.  If the proposal is accepted, then the groom goes home to prepare a place for his bride-to-be at his father’s home.  It would be odd to fast during something as celebratory as a betrothal.  This short period of time (3 ½ years) would end soon enough, and the disciples would fast then, as an engaged bride waiting for her groom to return.  Here’s another passage in which Jesus uses this image.

John 14:1-3.  Jesus doesn’t technically use any wedding terms, but in light of the earlier passages, no Israelite would have missed the analogous picture here.  Jesus would go into heaven and make a place for his disciples.  He would then come back to get them for the wedding, never to be separated again.

2 Corinthians 11:2-3.  This is not an exhaustive list of passages, but it makes it clear that this is a big part of the Gospel.   Paul too is part of the Church, the fiancé of Christ, but he has a secondary duty.  He had been sent with the mission of sharing the Gospel with the Gentiles.  Similar to John the Baptist, he sees himself as a spiritual father betrothing his daughter to Christ.  A father guarded his daughter’s chastity against young corrupt men so that she would be acceptable to a future husband.

The spiritual seduction of Eve is represented as a picture of spiritual unfaithfulness, adultery against the intimate relationship they had with God.  We should expect that the same devil will employ similar and more complex tactics of seduction against the bride of Christ.

Revelation 19:5-9.  Lastly, the Apostle John is shown this picture in the Revelation of Jesus.  It pictures a day when this waiting period will be over.  The groom will come and call his bride to the wedding feast.  Notice that this is depicted before the 2^nd Coming. 

Faithful believers are pictured as ready, and clothed in a clean, bright, white, fine linen clothing.  They are ready when the call is given to come to the marriage supper of the Lamb.  This is one of the reasons that I believe the rapture occurs before the end of the Great Tribulation, and perhaps even before it starts.  Believers who are ready will be caught up into heaven in order to receive their rewards and celebrate the new “marriage” to Christ.  Then, they will return with him to cast out the usurpers and join him in his inheritance as Lord of the earth.

An engaged bride prepares herself for the wedding

Being ready employs terminology from the metaphor, but points to spiritual preparations that we must make.  Let’s talk about that for a bit.

The first aspect of being ready is seen in Paul’s 2 Corinthians 11 passage.  We must keep ourselves spiritually faithful to Christ, a chaste virgin bride.  Being chaste involves restraining yourself from pursuing sin and the lusts of the flesh.  Living for the flesh is acid to a marriage and dooms it.

It also involves not yielding to the lustful advances from other men who would represent the devil’s attempts to draw us away from being faithful to Christ.  We fail in this by embracing false teachers, false prophets, and false Christs.  Paul says that we can be deceived by their craftiness, and corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ.  There is far too much sophisticated, human reasoning in the Church today.  The real question is this.  Does Jesus truly have my heart?  Or, have I been drawn away by those who present a Jesus, other than the true Jesus, and a gospel other than the true gospel?

In the book of Revelation passage, we are told that the righteous acts of the saints are pictured as the white dress that she wears.  Now, it is true that our righteousness falls woefully short of Christ’s.  We cannot save ourselves.  However, once we have believed upon Jesus and his righteousness, we respond to the leading of his Spirit through the word of God and prayer.  All of the things that we do for Christ become acceptably righteous before God because they are done in faith to Christ.

The forgiveness of our sins should not lead to us spiritually sitting on our butts, nor living for our flesh.  This would be a bride who has not prepared her dress for the wedding; she isn’t ready.

Lastly, part of being ready is being watchful.  Jesus said in Matthew 25:13, “Watch therefore, for you know neither the day nor the hour in which the Son of Man is coming.”  This was at the conclusion of the parable of the 5 wise and ready virgins.  Of course, there were 5 foolish virgins, but we will speak of that next week.

Too many Christians have become convinced that they will never see the coming of Christ.  Their lives have ceased to be responding to the Holy Spirit and doing the righteousness of Christ.  They will either be caught off guard and miss out on the wedding feast, or they will be caught off guard when they die and stand before Christ.  If he says those dreaded words, “Depart from me; I never knew you,” then that person will miss out and be shut out.  Friend, pay attention to the Holy Spirit today. He is even now warning us to be ready, to get ready!