Lon Solomon Ministries
Holy Spirit
Now, if you were to ask the average Christian to make a choice today and you gave him two options, option number one was having things the way they are right now and option number two were having the Lord Jesus come back to earth, having him walk with us and talk with us and eat with us and sleep with us physically as he did the disciples and if he gave the average Christian a choice and said which of those two would you rather have, I wonder which one most Christians would choose. Well, having been to Israel several times, having listened to people talk, having watched how they loved to walk where Jesus walked, I suspect most Christians would probably choose option number two. Most of them would say, boy, I'd love to have Jesus back walking with me, talking with me, holding my hand, sitting on the mount with me. And yet, folks, I think it's important that we let Jesus himself tell us what he thinks. In John chapter 16, he said this, "Nevertheless, I tell you the truth. It is expedient for you that I go away. For if I go not away, the comforter, the Holy Spirit will not come to you, but if I depart, I will send him unto you." The Lord Jesus makes it clear that option number one, that is with him in heaven as he is now and with the Spirit of God here on the earth in fullness is really our best option. And what that means is that the Holy Spirit must be about the business of doing some amazing and some wonderful things for us as Christians, and he is. And that's what we want to talk about this morning in part six of spiritual boot camp. Spiritual boot camp is our series where we are reviewing the basics of the Christian life. And part six this morning is the person that is who he is and the work that is what he does of the Holy Spirit. Now, the Spirit of God, let's talk about who he is. The person of the Spirit of God, the Spirit of God, we cannot understand what he does until we understand who he is. The Spirit of God, first of all, is a person. The Holy Spirit is not an it. The Holy Spirit is a he. The Holy Spirit is a person. In the Greek language, folks, there are three genders. There is masculine, there is feminine, there is neuter. And the word numa or spirit in the Greek is a neuter noun. Now, we know enough from English to know that every time you substitute a pronoun for a noun, every time you substitute a pronoun for an antecedan, it always agrees with its antecedan in what? Gender, right? And gender. Any of you folks take English? Number and gender, that's right. And so, in the New Testament, since the word numa is neuter, every time we find the Spirit of God substituting a pronoun for the word spirit, we should find a neuter pronoun, but we don't. As a matter of fact, every time we find that situation, what we find is a masculine pronoun. For example, John chapter 16, and I will send him masculine unto you. John 16, and when he is come, he will convict the world, et cetera, et cetera. John 16, how be it when he, the Spirit of God, is come, he will do this, and he will do that, and he will do the other. Now, folks, God knows the rules of Greek grammar. And for God to purposely defy and break the rules of Greek grammar means he must have had a reason. He must have had a purpose, and his purpose was to let us know beyond any shadow of a doubt that even though the noun in Greek language for spirit may be neuter, the Spirit of God himself is not neuter. He is masculine. It is a person. It is a he that we are dealing with. And as you go through the Scripture, you find everywhere you go, the marks of personhood when the Spirit of God is referred to. For example, Romans 8 says he has a mind. 1 Corinthians 2 says that he knows the deep things of God and teaches them to others. The Bible teaches us that the Holy Spirit has his own will. For example, 1 Corinthians 12, he gives out spiritual gifts according to his will. Acts 8, he told Philip to get up and go meet the Ethiopian eunuch. Acts 13, he called out Paul and Barnabas to the work that he had chosen for them. Acts 16, he told Paul where he could and where he could not go as he was going on his second missionary journey through Asia Minor. The Spirit of God has a will and a mind of his own. He can be lied to. Acts chapter 5, he can be resisted. Acts chapter 7, he can be obeyed. Acts chapter 10, he prays for and intercedes for the saints, the Christians of this world before the throne of God and he has feelings. The Spirit of God has feelings because Ephesians 4 says that the Spirit of God can be grieved. You can make him sad. Folks, you cannot make an inanimate object sad. Go try to make a rock sad today, would you? You can't make a rock sad because a rock doesn't have any feelings. Why? Because a rock is not a person. But the Spirit of God is and you can grieve him. All of these biblical facts make it clear that the Spirit of God is not some impersonal force, not some influence, not some vague power somewhere. But the Spirit of God is a personal being. He is a he, not an it. Now the Bible also says that he's a very special kind of person. He is God. He is deity. The Bible says that the Holy Spirit is as much God as God the Father is and as God the Son is. The Bible declares that the Spirit of God, Psalm 139, is omnipresent. That is, he's everywhere like God. The Bible declares that he's omnipotent Isaiah chapter 40. The Bible declares that the Spirit of God knows the deep things of God that only God knows. First Corinthians 2, the Bible declares that the Spirit of God was involved in creation, Genesis 1, in the creation of man, Genesis, Job 33, in the writing of the Bible, 1 Peter 2, in the virgin birth, Luke 1, in the regenerating of people who believe in Christ, John chapter 3, all of which are things that the Bible says only God does. In Acts chapter 5, Peter says to Ananias and Sophia, you remember they lied to the Holy Spirit? They came and lied about their money. And Peter said to them, "Who why has Satan filled your heart that you should lie to the Holy Spirit?" And then he says, "For you have not lied unto men, but unto God." Now in his mind, lying to the Holy Spirit and lying to God were exactly the same thing. And in Matthew 28, that great missionary verse that we all know, "Go ye therefore into all the world and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of," notice, "not names, but one name of the Father, the Son, in the Holy Spirit, the point is that name being singular means that there is just one being with three persons and all three of them are equally God. There is God the Father, there is God the Son, and there is God the Holy Spirit." The Council of Constantinople, the date 381 A.D., there was a meeting of bishops to solve this problem because there was some confusion about the deity of the Spirit of God, and here's what they said. And I quote 150 Orthodox godly bishops got together and agreed, "We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the life-giving one who is to be glorified along with the Father and along with the Son." End of quote. And folks, that is Orthodox doctrine. That is right doctrine, and that is what the Word of God teaches. The Spirit of God, who He is, He is a person, and He is God. Now, what does He do? What's the Spirit of God do? Well, may I say to you that the work of the Holy Spirit is so enormously broad that there is no way we'll be able to cover it this morning. In fact, we won't even begin to cover the high spots hardly this morning, and I'm going to leave some things out, particularly I'm going to leave out any detailed discussion of the spiritual gifts that the Holy Spirit gives, namely the charismatic gifts, speaking in tongues, etc. And the reason I'm going to admit that is because right out in our book for you, we have 12 tapes, an album entitled "Tongues, Healings, and Miracles," a biblical perspective that you can go out there and buy right after the service. And in that series, we cover just about every issue related to this that you might want to know about. We talk about Holy Spirit baptism and prophets, what a prophet was. Are they still around today? We talk about apostles and faith healers, and does God want every Christian to be healthy and wealthy all the time? We talk in there about is the modern day charismatic movement, the fulfillment of Joel 2's prophecy. What exactly is the gift of tongues? What about private prayer languages? And if you've got any questions about what we believe and how we understand the Bible on any of those issues, my advice to you is go out there and buy the tapes. I don't have time this morning to go through all of that. However, we are a non-charismatic church when it comes to the gift of tongues. However, let me may add a word of balance because we really need it. When it comes to the Holy Spirit, we are determined, even as a non-charismatic church, that we're not going to make the mistake so many non-charismatic churches make. And that mistake is they throw out the baby with the bathwater, that mistake is they downplay the tremendous ministry of the Holy Spirit for fear of sounding Pentecostal. Now folks, you walk into so many non-charismatic churches today and you can sit through an entire service without ever hearing the Holy Spirit mentioned one time. And if you mention the Holy Spirit to anybody, you can watch the antennas go up. And you can watch. People are saying, "Who said that? Who said that?" You'll hear him mention a lot about God. And man, you'll hear him mention a lot about Jesus, but you won't hear the Spirit of God in many of these places refer to ever. And believe me, I understand why and how things got that way, but this is a gross overreaction. Folks, the church age is almost exclusively the age of the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Almost all the work of God that's being done today on this earth is not being done by God the Father specifically or God the Son specifically, but by God the Holy Spirit. And to try to run the ministry of the church without the Holy Spirit is craziness. To try to run, to teach people to live their Christian lives in victory without the Holy Spirit is craziness. To try to reach lost people for Jesus without the ministry of the Holy Spirit is impossible. The Holy Spirit is the key member of the Trinity when it comes to the work of God in this age. And trying to do the ministry of the gospel without emphasizing the Holy Spirit is like trying to run a car without gasoline. It cannot be done. And so you will hear us talk about the Holy Spirit. It doesn't mean we're a charismatic church. It doesn't mean we speak in tongues, but we don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater, folks. And you cannot do the ministry without the Spirit of the living God. Can I get amen? Hey, thanks, folks. Now, what are some of the ministries the Spirit of God does for us in the church age? You'll never be able to copy all these down. Don't even try. You can get a tape, all right, if you don't know all these. I'm going to give them to you quick. Number one, the Spirit of God is the one who convicts and convinces sinners they need Jesus Christ. If you have somebody that doesn't know Christ and you want to pray for them, let me tell you what you need to do. What you and I need to do is to pray, John 16, that the Spirit of God would open their mind to see who Jesus is, that the Spirit of God would grip that person with an awareness that they are a sinner before a holy God, and that the Spirit of God would convince them they need Jesus Christ in their lives. You want to really pray for a lost person. That's how you pray for them. The Spirit of God is the one who regenerates, who brings new birth to those who believe, John chapter 3. The Spirit of God is the one who gives assurance to us every single moment of every day that we belong to Almighty God, Romans 8. For the Spirit of God bears witness with our Spirit that we are the children of God. The Spirit of God also indwells every believer, 1 Corinthians 3, baptizes every believer into the body of Christ, 1 Corinthians 12. Praise for us before God, Romans 8. Guides us through all of life according to the will of God, Romans 8. Comforts us, encourages us in the trials of life, John 14. The Spirit of God illuminates our minds so that we can understand spiritual truth, 1 Corinthians 2. The Spirit of God empowers us to worship God properly and correctly. John chapter 4, for those who worship God have got to worship Him, how in the Spirit, by the help of the Spirit of God and with truth. The Spirit of God gives the spiritual gifts to serve the Lord Jesus with 1 Corinthians 12 and He also gives us the supernatural power we need to make those gifts work. Acts chapter 1, and you shall receive power when the Spirit of God comes on you. The Spirit of God is the one who restrains evil in this world so that the gospel can move forward. If the Spirit of God were taken out of this world, evil would inundate this world so fast, it would make your head swim. Second Thessalonians 2. And finally, the Spirit of God is the one who brings unity to the body of Christ, Ephesians 4, and liberty to the ministry of the body of Christ. Second Corinthians 3, and power to the witness of the church for Jesus, Acts chapter 2. That's just some of the things, folks, that the Spirit of the living God does. God help us, never to minimize the importance of the Spirit of God in the age that we're living in. Without Him, you could never have been saved, folks. Without Him, nobody could ever be saved, folks. Without Him, the church could never achieve anything for Jesus Christ today. Thank God for the ministry of the Holy Spirit in our age. Amen? Amen. Now there's one other ministry that the Holy Spirit does that I want to talk to you about in great detail in the time I've got left, and that is this. And on this one, I urge you to take some notes. You ready? The Holy Spirit, in light of all these other things He does. Let me tell you one more. The Holy Spirit lives the Christian life. You say what? No He doesn't. You say, I live the Christian life. No you don't. Not if you live it right. If you're living the Christian life correctly, the Holy Spirit is living the Christian life. Now folks, what I'm going to share with you, first of all, is somewhat difficult to communicate in words and make sure everybody understands it. I'm going to do the best I know how. But you're going to have to put on your thinking caps here, because some of what I'm going to share with you right now is going to challenge and go against everything you have ever been taught about how to live the Christian life. And what it's going to mean is that you're going to have to be willing to forget about the other stuff, at least for the moment, and listen to what I'm saying. Don't argue with me now. If you want to go home and argue later, that's fine. But now listen and ask the Spirit of God to open your heart. It has been my experience as a pastor and as a Christian, that for most Christians, the Christian life is a drag. We hide in under a nice Christian smile. We come into church and we smile and we say, "Hi, hey, how's it going? Great, praise the Lord. God bless you. Oh, yeah, in God, great, a wonderful, amen. God bless you." But underneath all of that, folks, for many, many, many of us, it's all a fake, because we know that our lives really don't have the power, the joy, the vitality, the dynamic that the Bible talks about. That we read when we look at the people who lived in the Bible. We read, Jesus said, "I have come that they might have life and that they might have it abundantly." And yet somehow, it seems like the life of abundance that Jesus claims to have given, we seem to have missed. Many of us, after years of trying and years of struggling, have simply given up and we've just assumed that what Jesus said about the abundant life is ideal, that nobody can ever get there and that the way the real Christian life is in real reality is struggle instead of rest and impotence instead of power and timidity instead of boldness and worry instead of peace and failure instead of victory and heaviness instead of joy. And we figure that even though Jesus talked about an abundant life, this is the reality of it all and this is what we've got to get used to. That's not right. You say, "Well, what's the problem?" The problem is that most of us were taught to live the Christian life wrong. Most of us were taught to live the Christian life wrong and nobody did it to you diabolically. Nobody said, "Oh, I'm going to go teach him how to live a Christian life wrong." Nobody did that. Somebody who led you to Christ or somebody who discipled you, somebody taught them how to live the Christian life wrong and in the best of motives, they taught it to you. And if you've discipled anybody, you've probably taught it to them. And even though the way you've been taught to live the Christian life may not have been working great for you, you come into church, see all these other people smiling and saying, "Praise the Lord," you say, "Well, it must be working for them." Maybe something's wrong with me and what you don't realize is they're all looking at you and saying, "Well, it's working for him." Must be all right. Something must be wrong with me. And all of those plastic smiles, folks, just cover up the bankruptcy of the whole system. Now listen, I want to tell you how to live the Christian life right. And I don't care whether you've been living in a week, a month, a year, or 50 years, if you've been living it wrong, this is the time to change. Most of us, as Christians, were taught to live the Christian life by works. God never operates on the basis of works with anybody. That isn't how the Christian life starts, that isn't how the Christian life ends, and it's not how it's lived in between. The Christian life is a supernatural life. It is a life that is marked by the supernatural love, the supernatural joy, peace, patience, gentleness, goodness, self-control of God radiating through our lives the fruit of the Spirit. And a new Christian may not be able to be mature, but he is able to be spiritual. If you're a brand new Christian, you probably have people say to you, "Well, you know it a few years, you learn the Bible, and you grow, and then you're going to be mature." Well, that's probably true. You'll be mature in terms of your judgment, but a lot of us assume that means that I can't be spiritual or do anything for the Lord until I grow up to be a seasoned believer. That's a lot. I led more people to Christ in the first year I was saved than in the next eight when I was going to seminary and learning Greek and Hebrew and knowing all about the Bible. I got dumber as time went on, folks. I want to tell you. I really did. Because when I first became saved, when I first came to know Christ, I knew I didn't know anything, and the only alternative I had to live the Christian life was to depend upon God to do it for me. And it worked great. And then I went to seminary and I got all messed up. And I'm not saying seminary did it. I don't know who messed me up. It's like plaque. It just happens. But I got messed up. And the more I learned about Greek and Hebrew and theology and about living for the Lord and the more Bible verses I memorize, the less effective I became in my Christian life. Now, does that make sense to you? Sure it does, because a lot of you have done the exact same thing. And the reason is because very subtly, listen, very subtly, I began to leave depending on the Holy Spirit plus nothing to live the Christian life and began depending very subtly on what I was being taught. Many of us, when we first become Christians, are taught by somebody who means so well to live by works. They give us the wheel illustration. They tell us, all right, here's what you need to do. You need to study the Bible, you need to pray, you need to witness and you need to fellowship. And if you will do that, God will give you an abundant, fulfilling, vital life and you will have the spiritual life you want. So we do these four things and we do them over and we do them over and we do them over and we do them over, expecting them to give us this power and vitality and they don't. And the reason they don't, listen very carefully is because this is an attempt to produce a supernatural life with natural things, with the works of man and it cannot work, it will never work. And yet that's how most Christians live the Christian life. Listen to them talk. You wouldn't believe how many Christians I counsel who come and say to me, well, you know my Christian life, it's real, I mean, I'm not doing well, I'm down and I'm busy. You know what I need? You know what I need, Pastor? I know what I need. I need to read the Bible more. No, they don't. It's not what they need at all. I know people who know the Bible backwards and forwards and have some of the worst Christian lives I've ever seen. They say, Oh, I need to pray more. That's what I need. No, they don't. I know people who stay in their room and pray for an hour and come out and are the worst witnesses for the Lord in the world. You know what they need? I'll tell you what they need. They need to let the supernatural power of the Spirit of God control their life. They need to depend on the Spirit of God to give them the joy and give them the vitality that they're lacking. They need to stop depending on their own works even though their good religious works to produce something supernatural because it can't. Look, the Galatians had the same problem. They were being told that if you do certain things, there wasn't Bible study witnessing fellowship and prayer. There's were being circumcised, eating kosher food and keeping the law of Moses, but it doesn't make any difference what you're being told. The point is they were being told do certain things and you will have an abundant life. I want you to see what God says to them. He says chapter 3 verse 1, "Oh foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you that you do not obey the truth?" Verse 2, "This only what I learn of you, did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law or by the hearing of faith?" How did your Christian life begin? That's what he says to them. "Did you guys get saved by the works of the law or did you get saved by believing and relying upon God's grace?" Well obviously, they got saved by believing on the grace of God. Verse 3, "Are you so foolish having begun in the Spirit, are you now going to be made perfect by the flesh?" Folks, God always deals with man on the basis of grace. He has the only way God deals with man. And I want you to write down three words. I want to try to put some handles on this for you. Let me make it practical. Three words, willingness, helplessness, and yieldedness. If you can't remember them, just remember why, W-H-Y, willingness, helplessness, and yieldedness. That is the way God deals with Christians from start to finish. Watch. How did you get saved? "Lord, I really want to get saved, willingness. But God, I can't save myself, helplessness. Lord, you save me. I'm going to depend on you and you alone. You do the work, yieldedness." All right, now let's go to the end of the Christian life. Go into heaven. "Lord, I really want to go to heaven, willingness. But God, I don't know where heaven is. And if I knew I couldn't get myself there anyway, helplessness, Lord, I'm just going to relax. You take me there." You see it? Now, what Paul is saying to these people is, if that's the way it starts, and if that's the way it ends, why in the world would God switch systems in the middle? And the answer is he doesn't. He doesn't switch systems. The way I live in victory every moment of every day as a Christian is exactly the same. "Lord, this morning, I want to go out and live a day for you. I want to live above my temper. I want to live above my lust. I want to live above all those things, God, willingness. But Lord, I am totally helpless. I've been fighting with this stuff for years and haven't beaten. Helplessness? God, I'm going to go out today not trusting my own gutting it out efforts. Lord, you work in me today. You give me the supernatural power to live above these things, yieldedness. You hear it? And folks, that is how you live the Christian life. And it's not really you living it anymore, is it? It is the Spirit of God as you yield, living it through you." That's why Paul says Galatians 2.20, "I am crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I'm I'm still alive physically, yet not I, but Christ lives in me and the life that I now live in the flesh. I live, watch, by faith in the Son of God." You see that? He's not talking about faith in the Son of God to save him. He's already saying he's talking about faith, reliance, dependence upon the power of God every single moment of every single day to live the Christian life through him. And Paul says the life that I live in the flesh, that's how I live it. You want to know why Paul was a man of power? You want to know why Paul was a man of victory? It's because Paul wasn't any different than you and me. He was just a man. The difference was he was a man who had learned to draw his resources every day, not from himself, not from his Bible reading prayer, witnessing and fellowship, but from the Spirit of God directly through his life. And that's why I said the Spirit of God lives the Christian life if it's lived right. Now please don't go out of here and say, please don't do this. That Solomon said he's against Bible study. I'm not against studying the Bible. I'm all for it. Please don't go out of here and say that I said prayer is not important. I did not say that. Please don't go say I said witness-imming fellowshiping is not important or that I'm against the navigators. I'm not any of those things. What I said was that those things are not the cause of an abundant, vital Christian experience. They are the overflow of it. Folks, if I am witnessing in power, I am witnessing because the Spirit of God is already filling my life. And he's really doing the witnessing. If I am fellowshipping right, if I am praying right, I am doing so in the power of the Spirit that is already filling my life. These are outflows of an abundant life, not the cause of it. And you know what? If most Christians insisted on trying to get to heaven, the way they insist upon trying to live the Christian life, they'd end up in hell. Because most of us live it by works. As many of you know, I was in New York this past week with Jews for Jesus and I was there on campaign. We went out on the streets and we wore T-shirts. If you were Jewish, you wore a T-shirt that said Jews for Jesus. If you were Gentile, you wore one that said "Goyam" for Jesus. And out we win. And we hit the streets four times a day for two two and a half hours each with a bag of tracks over our arms, about 1,000 to 1,200 in a shot. And we went to Times Square in the subways, down to Wall Street, Battery Park. You name it. And we were there. There was about three and a half dozen of us. The intensity of the schedule was unbelievable. And the intensity of the people of New York City, folks, made it that much more unbelievable. And it was a great opportunity for me as a person to depend on the Holy Spirit's resources instead of my own. I went out every day, listen carefully, not trying to have stamina, not trying to have the strength I needed for that day, but going out and saying, "Lord, I don't have the stamina I need today, but I'm going out by faith anyway and I'm depending on you, you give me the stamina I need." God did it. I went out every day not trying to have boldness, not trying to have fearlessness. I went out every day saying, "Lord, you know I'm a coward, but God, I'm going out by faith and you give me the boldness I need out there on the street." You know what? He did it. I went out every day saying, "Lord, I do not have the ability to show love to these people, to show patience to them, to show tenderness with them, and I'm not going to go out trying to do it. I'm going to go out saying, "God, I know I can't do it. You love those people through me." Folks, I was cussed at by women. I mean to tell you, the women cussed me out worse than the men. It was incredible. I just couldn't get used to a woman standing here cussing me out. Maybe I don't know. Anyway, we were threatened. I was threatened. I was assaulted. I was laughed at, ridiculed. I was standing in the middle of Broadway in 39th and had somebody come by and knock a hundred tracks out of my hand at lunchtime. I'm down on my knees trying to pick all these things up. People are stepping all around me and all over me. Called a lady fishing in my bag of tracks when I wasn't looking, taking them and throwing them away in the trash can. Unbelievable. That lady come by me on Friday and say, "I don't want you in my town." I said, "Well," I said, "I wasn't aware it was your town. I'm sorry." Had a guy come by Friday on the last day, took a track from me, read it, hit me upside the face three times with it. Hey, I'll tell you something else though. We handed out a million and a half tracks. They've handed out in almost three weeks, 220 some decisions on the street and 10 to 12 calls a day from unsaved Jewish people getting this material and calling up for more information. "Hey, is the grace of God sufficient, folks?" Hey, man. He said, "Why were you getting treated like that? I don't know. I think it was my southern accent. I really do." And the time I felt in the worst danger to be perfectly honest with you was on the ride back to the airport on Friday night. I got in with this Russian lady who had defected from Russia and I'm still convinced she thought she was driving a MiG instead of a cab. But anyway, a MiG. A MiG is a plane, folks. A MiG. All right. Now look, you say, "Well, long we are so impressed with you. What do you want? A medal?" No, I don't. I'm trying to tell you something, folks. I'm a coward. You say, "Well, you probably went up there and you said, 'Hey, no problem. Streets of New York, no problem. No, I didn't. I was terrified. I don't mind telling you. My heart was going like this. Oh, sure, I was terrified. But the reason that I was able to have a victorious week is because I didn't go on those streets depending on me. I went on those streets depending on the power, the spirit of God every moment of every day to give me the power and the joy and the boldness that I needed." And he did it because I was living the Christian life right, depending on him and not myself. I didn't go out saying, "I will not lose my temper. I will not get discouraged. I will not hate these people. I will not end up in jail for clobbering one of these folks. But I will trust the Holy Spirit to see me through and give me everything I need to make my life and my attitudes, my words and my reactions, what they want to be. And when I would be standing out there and something like that would happen, I'd immediately cry out and say, "Oh God, I need a little extra grace right now." And it's always there. You know what the spirit of God really taught me? As I headed back to Washington, he taught me. He said, "You know, Lon, the reason you were so, it was so easy for you up there on the streets to depend on me is because you knew that you were in way over your head. But Lon, if you could just see your life in Washington in the everyday routine pieces of life, if you could see it the way I see it, you'd realize you were in over your head there just like you are in New York. The only difference is you're more aware of it in New York and if you will come back and if you will depend on me every day instead of yourself like you did up there, you won't believe what I could do." And folks, that's the same way for you. You're in over your head every day. You may not realize it, but in terms of really living for Jesus and really honoring Him through your life. You are in over your head every day and so am I. And what God wants is not us walking out of our house every morning, "Oh, I'm going to get it today. Oh, I'm going to try hard today. Oh, I'm going to live above sin today." No, you won't. You've tried that already and that didn't work. What you need to do is walk out of your house and say, "God, I know I'm not going to be able to do it today except that I'm trusting you to do it through me, God." That's what it means to live by grace. That's what it means to live by faith and that's what it means to have the holy Spirit live the Christian life. You're just along for the ride. Ah, I wish I had more time to talk to you. I'm about out here. We went over to see a couple across from our church building. A few years ago, they had visited the church and they were older that, "Well, I better be careful." They weren't that old. They were 50. That's bad, isn't it? That's awful. All right. They were, they were not a young couple, folks. And the lady that we went to see had cancer. She had liver cancer. I didn't know that at the time. Her husband was a PhD in physics. He worked for the Department of Defense. They'd been a Methodist church all their life. And we went over and talked with her and shared with her how she could know Jesus Christ. And at the end of the time that we shared, in fact, Milly was with me. You remember this, Milly? At the end of the time that we shared, we said to her, "Would you like to receive Christ?" And she said, "Yes, I would." And she turned to her husband, whose first name was Boyd. And she said, "Would you like to receive Christ?" And he said, "No." We said, "All right." She said, "That's okay." She said, "Honey, do you mind if I do?" He said, "No, go right ahead." So she prayed with us. Ah, what a joy. And we left and I said to this man, Boyd, I said, "Look, Boyd, if you change your mind or you begin thinking or the pressure gets too much and you decide that you really do want to give your life to Christ, you call me." About six weeks later, I got a phone call. And it was Boyd and he called me up and said, "Can we have lunch together?" And I said, "Sure." So out we went to a restaurant and we sat down at the table. He said, "Now look, before we get into anything, before we start talking, before we order, anything else, I want to tell you something. I want to get it straight right from the beginning." I said, "Great." He said, "Last night I went up in my room." He said, "I got on my knees." He said, "I said, "God, I don't think I know exactly how to do this, but whatever it was, Solomon said I need to do, I'm going to do it. You come into my life and take over." He said, "Now, was that right?" I said, "Brother, that was close enough. Amen." Now, when his wife died about three months later, and when she died, I said to him, I said, "Boy, I want to teach you how to live the Christian life right from the start." When you feel the grief rolling over you, when you feel like it's just too much, when you feel like you're going down for the third time, I do not want you trying to cope with that in your own strength. I don't want you trying to grapple with that in your own strength. I don't even want you to try in any way, shape, or form to handle it. What I want you to do is, whether you're riding down the beltway in your office, lying in bed, watching television, eating dinner, doesn't matter where you are, I want willingness. Oh, God, I really want to walk with you. I really want victory. I want helplessness, but God, this is rolling over me. I can't deal with it, and I want yield in this. Lord, I need grace. Right now, I need supernatural grace to deal with this. I have never seen anyone in my 17 years, almost, of being a Christian. Deal with the loss of a loved one, with more victory than that man dealt with. And you know why? It wasn't because he was special. No, more special than you. It wasn't because he knew the Bible, or new Greek, or new Hebrew, was a theology student. He didn't know anything. He's a baby in Christ. The reason was we taught him right from the start, how to depend on the Spirit of God for power, and not himself. I wonder what you're depending on to beat your temper. I wonder what you're depending on to overcome your lack of patience. I wonder what you're depending upon to beat lust in your life. I wonder what you're depending on to beat materialism in your life, or to give you patience with your children, or to respond properly to people who rub you the wrong way at work. What are you depending on? Are you gutting up before you go? Are you depending on Bible study, prayer, reading, witnessing, and fellowship? Or are you going every day into battle, depending upon the Spirit of God plus nothing to give you victory? When Jehoshaphat said, Lord, we don't know what to do. Our eyes are upon thee. You know what God said? He said, Jehoshaphat, don't worry. The battle is not yours anymore. It's now mine. Why? Because Jehoshaphat gave it to him. And folks, God's never lost a battle. Let me urge you. You have areas of your life where you struggle. Don't try to change them all at once. Just take one. Take one small area of your life where you struggle. And this week, say, Lord, I'm not going to try to beat it. I'm not going to try to overcome it. I'm not going to ruin it. I'm just going to commit it to you every day, God. And I'm going to trust you and expect you that right when I'm teetering on the edge and about to lose it, Lord, I'm going to cry out to you. And you give me supernatural resources to deal with it. Take it away, God, and deal with it. Folks, I guarantee you, you do that right, and you won't believe what will happen in that area of your life this week. And then extend it to another area and another one until God by His grace enables you to make a whole lifestyle exactly that way. That's what it means to live by grace. And that's one of the most precious reasons that God gave us, the Spirit of God. May God bless you. And more importantly, may God change your life as a result of what we've heard this morning. Let's pray. Father, thank you for the joy of being taught the Word of God this morning by the Spirit of God. And Father, I pray that you would communicate to our hearts as only you can the truth that we've talked about, that you're a person, that you are God, that you do all these great things in this world, and most importantly, that you are the one. You are the one who lived the Christian life, not we. Our job is to yield to you and let you do it through us, God, to radiate through us the power of Almighty God. Lord, for most of us, this is a new concept. For many of us, it's something very revolutionary even though we may have been Christians for a long time. God, I pray today that you would convince us it's right and that you by your Spirit would lead us by the hand step by step and teach us a new way of living, the right way of living the Christian life that brings the abundant life that Jesus promised us is ours. Lord, teach us I pray, how to live in such a way that that abundant life becomes real for every one of our lives. Father, we commit ourselves to you now. Thank you that those who trust you wholly in any area of their life find you wholly true. Help us do it, Lord, this week for your glory. In Jesus' name, we pray. Amen. [Silence]