We were born again to NOT walk like other men …                 but to walk in the Spirit!

Philippians 3:15-16
^“All of us who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you.  Only let us live up to what we have already attained.”

God has already taught us and shown us how He wants us to walk. We need to get off the pier. We need to take a leap, & it will, invariably, be a leap of faith! In order to make the right decisions, it is imperative that we quit making decisions from our flesh and listen to the Spirit.

Hosea 2:15
“[I]will make the Valley of Achor (trouble) a door of hope.”
We all cry in the Valley of Achor; it’s painful. The question becomes which direction are we going to go in dealing with these troubles … towards our flesh … or towards the Spirit, which opens the door of Hope? Our flesh will always have many ideas of how we should escape … but not one of them is from the Spirit.  The Spirit will have us patiently praying “Where is Christ in this situation?”  The flesh will have us wrestling with a mind that just wants to “solve the problem here” … the Spirit will lead us to a heart that wants to taste & hear our LORD’s heart on the matter.  The two are miles apart.  We must wait … patiently … approaching “God’s throne of GRACE with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find GRACE to help us in our time of need.” Hebrews 4:16

Are we going to be one who seeks the things of their own fleshy heart & mind, which includes centering on our problem solving skills, for the sake of self …  or will we seek the things of Christ?

Philippians 3: 12-14
“Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.  Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”

Philippi was the first church that Paul established. It was the church that helped Paul the most in his ministry. The church was being attacked by false teachers telling them that they had to become circumcised to be saved. Paul was addressing this in his letter to them. He was telling them not to trust their flesh … circumcision is of the flesh … but to trust in God. Don’t boast in the flesh, but in the spiritual blessings of God. Paul said that he counted all of his accomplishments in the flesh as garbage. He presses on in the Spirit toward one singular goal … Christ!

Philippians 1:29
“For it has been granted to you on behalf of Christ not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for him.”
Paul clearly tells us that God has given us the gift of believing in Him and suffering for Him.

Philippians 2:1-5
“If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose.  Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus…”

How we respond to our circumstances needs to be from the Spirit of Jesus living in us. We were born again to NOT walk like other men, but to walk in the Spirit!

Paul urges the Philippians to “make my joy complete”. What they did, and  how they responded to one another, affected him. What we do affects others too. It is not just about “me and Jesus”. He created the church … HIS BODY!!! (Ephesians 1:22-23)

He put us in a body for a reason. What we do or don’t do makes a difference in how the Body of Christ functions. We were not saved by the Lord to be “out there on our own” separated from other believers. The gifts we have are for the building up of the Body. We are called to put others before ourselves. It’s all about US and Jesus.

Hebrews 4:16
“Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”
I urge you to memorize this verse because we all have trouble and so desperately need His grace. We need to enter into Christ as we enter our Valley of Trouble. Ask yourself…”Is SELF going to be my supply, or is CHRIST?”

You ARE going to rinse and repeat something … What do you want it to be … responding in the flesh, or responding in the Spirit?

2 Corinthians 1:8-9
“We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life. Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead.”

The purpose of our hardships is to cause us to rely on God, not ourselves. We need to see that what we go through is for Christ’s sake.

Romans 8:18
“I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.”

God is working in us to conform us to the image of Christ. That is His goal. (Romans 8:28-29) Remember the original question, “Which way are we going to go?” When we move toward the Spirit we are aligning ourselves with His work of conforming us to the image of His Son. When we move toward the flesh we separate ourselves from His work in us and put up road blocks that hinder the work of the Spirit.

But God continues to be at work. He disciplines us in His great LOVE to help us to turn back and be obedient children (Hebrews 12:7-10)

In closing let’s read the description of the attitude that was in Jesus:

Philippians 2:5-8

“Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:

Who, being in very nature God,

did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,

but made himself nothing,

taking the very nature of a servant,

being made in human likeness.

And being found in appearance as a man,

he humbled himself

and became obedient to death—

even death on a cross!”

That is a high calling that we all share. Let us press on toward the Spirit when we experience the trials of life that cause us to have to make choices. May we seek the leading of the Spirit and move into the realm of being partakers of the sufferings of Christ so that He can renew our minds and spirits to be more and more like Him.

How we behave comes from how we think.

In Matthew 16:13-20, Jesus asked the disciples “Who do you say that I am?”

When Peter answered, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,” Jesus said he was blessed, because “This was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven.”

How exciting that must have been for Peter, to know that he actually received a revelation from God! And then Jesus called him a rock…a small rock that was typically used to mark the boundary line of a property … Like a sign post, a marker that said “this is the place.”

Yet that that very marker became a stumbling block in verses 21-23, when Peter told Jesus that His suffering, death and resurrection would never happen. How easy it is for us to go from listening to the Lord, to jumping into listening to our own logic or worldly understanding. When we speak from our own opinion instead of waiting and speaking from the Spirit, we will often cause others to stumble.

One of the ALL TIME BEST examples of how we can let our own understanding get in the way of what God wants to do in us is found in Acts 10. God wanted Peter to minister to the Gentiles at Cornelius’ house, but had to give him a vision of the sheet coming down filled with “unclean” animals, telling him to “take and eat”. The LORD had to do this 3 times before Peter would quit saying “never, Lord” and listen, actually be able to hear, what God was telling him. After the 3^rd vision, Cornelius arrived, knocking at the door. Because of the vision, Peter was willing to go with him to enter this gentile’s home, knowing that God had told him it was OK.

God was willing to stretch Peter completely … right through his understanding of what was right, & he had to spend a lot of time explaining to the others in the Jerusalem church exactly WHY he had done this thing of sharing with gentiles.  Peter’s actions, led by the LORD, stretched them all.

How we behave comes from how we think. We need to be walking in the Spirit and interacting with each other as the Word would tell us, not as our own opinions or emotions would tell us. This will lead us to a radically NON-religious lifestyle.  Our LOVE relationship with the LORD will lead us to new ground … new discoveries … brave new challenges!!!

The ONLY way we can live this radical lifestyle is if we prayerfully follow the Spirit’s instructions in
Col 3:1-2
“Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God.  Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.”

In closing we go to
Ephesians 4: 29-30
“Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.  And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.  Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice.  Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.”

Living in this pattern, which is ‘from above’, will send out such a new & exciting message to a lost world that they will watch us closely, perhaps from a distance at first, to see IF they can be LOVED like that too.

I’d encourage you to memorize that last passage (or the most relevant parts of it) & begin to meditate on it.  I will GUARANTEE this … you will be come RADICALLY DIFFERENT!!!  and your life and ministry will NEVER be the same!!!

 

 

We need to build our life on God’s principles, not on our circumstances.

What does Satan do when we start getting serious about our walk with God? He pulls out all the stops and attacks with a vengeance to try and make us retreat. We can’t let him win. Our part in this battle is too important. God has planned His strategies and that includes me. If I am serious, I must keep my armor on and STAND.

John 14:1-6
“Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me.  In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you.  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.  You know the way to the place where I am going.”

Thomas said to him, “Lord, we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way?”

 Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

Isn’t that a common question we all have? “Lord, how can I know the way?” The answer is always…JESUS. When I am following Jesus with my whole heart, I am going the right way. When I get off track by focusing on my circumstances, then I lose my way.

We need to build our life on God’s principles, not on our circumstances. For our circumstances are up and down and all over the place, but God’s principles stay straight and even. They never waver. When we are holding to His principles, we are steady and consistent, and the world looks on and wants to know why. We all go through the same troubles. But when we go through them with God, we go through with peace and victory. That is victory over the devil and his schemes to take us down.

My neighbor, Tom, gave an example of how as he has been walking with the Lord, his extended family is looking on and can’t help but see the difference in him. Some look on and want to know why. Others look on and want to mock him and put him down. We talked about how we as Christians are a sweet fragrance to those being saved, and a smell of death to those who are perishing.
2 Cor 2:15-16 
“For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing.  To the one we are the smell of death; to the other, the fragrance of life.”
No one can look on and not notice.

So our source of strength to be able to keep our eyes off the circumstance is to know who our Father is.
Gal 4:6-7
“Because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, ‘Abba, Father.’  So you are no longer a slave, but a son; and since you are a son, God has made you also an heir.”
We are His sons. We have all the inheritance that Jesus has. That is our source of strength. We need to not rely on our own flesh, but to cry out to our Abba Father.

Galatians 5:1
“It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.”

Galatians 5:6b
“The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.”

Finally, we looked at:

Romans 11: 33-36:
“Oh, the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God!
How unsearchable his judgments,
and his paths beyond tracing out!
“Who has known the mind of the Lord?
Or who has been his counselor?”
“Who has ever given to God,
that God should repay him?”
For from him and through him and to him are all things.
To him be the glory forever! Amen.”

Because of this reality…

Romans 12: 1-2
“Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship.  Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”

Which takes us back to the beginning…Thomas’ question, “how can we know the way?”

God’s plan from the beginning was to put his people in one body…Jesus’ body. We each belong to each other and are each a part of Christ.  We will be held accountable for how we treated the Body of Jesus.  We can’t do our gift on our own…it is for the strengthening of the other members of the body.

Romans 12: 4-8
“Just as each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, 5 so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. 6 We have different gifts, according to the grace given us. If a man’s gift is prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith. 7 If it is serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; 8 if it is encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him govern diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully.”

So let us cry out, “Abba Father.” Let us renew our minds. Let us be ready in faith to follow Jesus down the path that He has prepared for us.