Hebrews 4:12 says: “For the word of God is living and
powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division
of soul and spirit….” My message this morning is at the heart of the Christian
life. It is about discerning and living in the Spirit. We are going to start by
talking about the difference between soul and spirit. It first thought that
might seem like an esoteric topic, kind of like the medieval question of how
many angels can dance on the head of a pin. But I assure you that the
difference between soul and spirit is very practical. Without it we can’t tell
the difference between what is just a thought in our head and what is God. Atheists
think that God is just a thought in our heads, an imaginary Friend invented by
religion to help us cope with the difficulties of life. Those folks do not know
the difference between soul and spirit.
I am going to start this sermon on
with the basic biblical understanding of man. A lot of people think that the
Christian understanding of human beings is that we are a combination of body
and soul - a physical body inhabited by an immortal soul. My philosophy professor
in seminary used to call it the oyster theory – that we are a soul in a body
like an oyster in a shell. That is not the Biblical understanding of human
nature. That is Greek philosophical dualism. It is from Plato and it found its
way into Christianity very early in the history of Christian church. That is
why so many people believe it. But the Hebraic understanding of human nature –
found in both the OT and NT - is that we have three parts. Just like God is a
trinity, so are humans. The Bible has a holistic understanding of human nature.
We are one whole being composed of three parts – body, soul, and spirit.
The body you already know. It is
the physical part of us with five senses. The soul in biblical language is the
psyche. That is actually the Greek word for soul. We get the word psychology
from it. It is what we normally think of as ourselves. It is our consciousness,
our psychological self, what is going on in our brains. It has three faculties
– intellectual, emotional, and volitional. In other words thoughts, feelings,
and decision-making. Sometimes called mind, heart, and will. It is our
personality that we attach our name to.
The third dimension of man is
spirit. Many people are not even aware of this spiritual dimension of the human
life. But for the Christian it is absolutely essential that we discern the
difference between soul and spirit. According to Scripture God is Spirit, and
man at his center and essence also is spirit. The NT describe our physical bodies
as the temples of God. The apostle Paul says to the Corinthians: “Or do you not know that your body is the
temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are
not your own?” In the OT, the temple was a physical structure in which God was
thought to dwell. It was understood that God dwelled in the innermost center of
the temple, called the Holy of holies. That OT temple is a blueprint for
understanding the human being. Our bodies are a physical temple and in the
innermost part of us is the human spirit. Think of it simply as a space in the
inmost part of you. The gospel says that when we surrender ourselves completely
– body, mind, heart and will – to Christ, then the Holy Spirit of God takes up
residence in us and we become temples of God.
The Holy Spirit dwells in our human
spirit. The apostle Paul says in Romans 8:16 “The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children
of God.” There is a human spirit and there is the Holy Spirit. And when we
give ourselves away to God, then God takes possession of us. Christians are to
be God-possessed people. Our spirit is united with God’s Spirit. Jesus said of
his experience, “I and the Father are one.” When we are one with Christ, then
we also have this awareness of being one with the Father. That is exactly what
Jesus said would happen. Jesus prayed, “that
they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also
may be one in Us.” This oneness with God and Christ is the heart of the
Christian life.
The reality is that many Christians
do not have a clue that God dwells within them and that they are one with God.
They think the Christian life is about believing the right ideas about God and
Jesus and living a moral life and being part of a church. All those are good
things and part of Christianity, but they are not the heart of Christianity.
The heart of Christianity is being aware of the Spirit, dwelling in the Spirit
and being led by the Spirit. That is what I want to really get into this
morning. I don’t want this to be a theology lecture. I want this to be a
practical message on how to know this reality of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
There are three points I want to make this morning.
1. The first is Awakening to the
Spirit. In our gospel lesson for today Jesus uses the term “born of the Spirit”
or “born from above.” I wish I could use the term “born again,” the other term
that Jesus uses here. But that phrase has been so badly misused and
misunderstood in the mainstream media since the 1970’s that it is almost
useless now in communicating what Jesus meant by the term. It is all wrapped up
in politics, the culture wars, television evangelists and fundamentalism now.
It is a wonderful phrase, but it no longer communicates well.
So I am going to talk about
awakening to the Spirit. Jesus is talking about a spiritual transformation – a
metamorphosis of our everyday awareness. He describes it in that passage as
seeing the Kingdom of God and entering the Kingdom of God. He is talking about
having our spiritual eyes opened to the Reality of God. He is talking about
experiencing God. He is talking about being vividly aware of the presence of
the Holy Spirit in our lives. I don’t care what you call it; I care only that
we know it in our own experience. What is important is that we be awake to the
Spirit.
In that passage about Nicodemus, this
is linked to believing in Christ. Christ is the Way to God, the mediator
between God and man. We become one with God by being united with Christ and that
happens through faith in Christ. That is the first step – faith in Christ. That
is basic Christianity. But I want to move beyond the basics of faith in Christ
to a daily living experience of the Spirit. As I said, a lot of Christians who
believe in Christ do not have an awareness of the Spirit living within them.
Assuming that most people here
believe in Christ, let me see what I can do to introduce you to the Spirit. It
is not an easy thing to do. It is kind of like trying to describe the color
blue or scent of a rose, but much more difficult. Jesus says it is like
describing the wind. “The wind blows
where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes
from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.” How do you
describe that which is invisible? The Spirit is invisible, and is also
omnipresent – just as much everywhere else as well as in the innermost part of
you and me.
The Spirit is deeper than our
thoughts and our feelings. The Spirit is entirely different than us, and yet at
the same time intimately united with us - because the Holy Spirit is joined
with our spirit. Our true identity is found in the Holy Spirit, which is the
Spirit of Christ. The apostle Paul says, “It
is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me.” The same can be said
of the Spirit. It is not I who live but the Spirit, the Spirit of Christ, who
lives in me. When we look deeply and honestly and thoroughly at ourselves and
discover who we really are beneath all the masks we wear and the roles we play,
then we awake to the Spirit.
Let me try a different approach. Think
of those greatest moments of peace and beauty that you have experienced in your
life – think of those. The times when all thinking stops, and the restlessness
of our hearts ceases, and we are at perfect rest and peace. And we just are. When
we bask in the beauty of the view from a mountain summit or a quiet lake at
dawn – when our human personality is at perfect rest, at that moment we are
aware of that which is deeper than ourselves. We are aware of Spirit. When the
soul – our thoughts, feelings, desires – are quiet, then the Spirit is known to
be present. Awakening to this presence of the Spirit, which is always the
background consciousness of our lives, transforms the rest of our lives.
2. The second point I want to talk
about is Living in the Spirit. Once we become aware of the presence of the
Spirit, then we can practice living in the presence of the Spirit. In our
epistle reading his morning the apostle Paul gives instructions to the
Christians in Galatia on how to walk in the Spirit and be led by the Spirit.
But he mentions that even more fundamental to that is living in the Spirit. He
says, “If we live in the Spirit, let us
also walk in the Spirit.” So living in the Spirit comes first. Before we
can walk, we have to learn to just be in the Spirit. Once we recognize the
presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives and in the world, we move on to
practicing that presence.
There is an old book entitled “The Practice of the Presence of God.” It was written in the 17th century
by a French monk named Brother Lawrence. It is one of the most important books
I have ever read. I highly recommend it. It is a small book, and it is in the public
domain, which means it is free on the internet. Just do a search for it and you
can download it and read it on your computer or ebook reader. Lawrence
describes, much better than I can, how to practice the Presence of God at all
times.
The Holy Spirit is always present
in us and within us as well as around us. It is just a matter of whether we pay
attention to the Spirit or not. That takes practice. The problem is that so
much else clamors for our attention, that we don’t pay attention to the Spirit.
This busy mind of mine is filled with thoughts that want my attention. My
emotions – especially strong ones – try to force me to pay attention to them.
My desires are just the same. That does not even take into account my calendar
appointments, things I have to do and people I have to see. My “to do” list
clamors for my attention. It is easy to go through a whole day paying attention
to all these things, while the Holy Spirit waits patiently for us to glance in
his direction.
Christians can go day after day and
never pay attention to what is most important – God! That is why Jesus says
that the greatest and most important commandment of all is to love God with all
our heart, and mind and soul and strength. When you love someone or something
they are always on our mind. We naturally want to spend time with the people we
love and doing the things we love. If we love God, we will spend time with God.
I am not just talking about making time for prayer and Bible Study and daily
devotions. I am all in favor of people praying and reading the Bible and using
devotional booklets each day. They are great. But I know from personal
experience that Bible study and prayer can become sophisticated ways of
ignoring God. We can spend lots of time talking to God and never listen to God.
We can do Bible study and never listen to what the Lord has to say through the Bible.
We can read those little daily devotionals like the Upper Room, the Daily Bread,
and the Secret Place, and use them only as a way of avoiding really meeting God
directly. They become a substitute for God. A lot of religion is just an
elaborate avoidance of God in the guise of worshipping and serving God.
We can deceive ourselves completely
when it comes to spiritual matters. That is why it is so important to practice
the presence of God above all else. Practice makes perfect, as they say. And if
not perfect, certainly much better! Once you recognize God’s presence, hold on that
like your life depends on it. Because your spiritual life does depend on it.
3. Then Walk in the Spirit. That is
the third point. Paul says, “Walk in the
Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.” “If we live in the
Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.” This is the easy part. Once we
have awaked to the presence of the Spirit, and practice living in that
Presence, then the walking comes naturally. I saw a story on the news about
teaching babies to swim. It had a video of a 16 month old child swimming the
length of a pool – it was not a large pool, but it was still impressive! When
our oldest son Isaac was a baby, the seminary I was attending had swimming
lessons for one year olds. We used to put Isaac under the water and push him to
the bottom and he would grab a ring from the bottom and come to the surface,
holding his breath all the time. It turns out small children are natural born
swimmers. They instinctively hold their breath and kick. I never would have
thought it, if I did not see it for myself. Once they are in the water
instincts take over.
It is like being blown by a wind.
We might not know where it is coming from or where it is going, but it doesn’t
matter. We are one with it. The Holy Spirit is the Wind of God blowing us in
the right direction. It is like we are in the current of a river. The Spirit is
the River of Living Water and we move with the current. Once we are in the river
we move with the water. Once we are in the Spirit we move with the Spirit. All
we have to do is not fight against the current or swim upstream or climb onto
the river bank. All we need to do is stay in the Spirit and the Spirit does the
work. This is living by grace. This is being led by the Spirit. And when we
live in the Spirit, then we will not do the works of the flesh, Paul says. And
the fruit of the Spirit, qualities like love, joy, and peace – and all the rest
– flow naturally into and through our lives. We feast on the fruit of the
Spirit from the Tree of Life. This is Eternal Life in Christ. This is life in
the Spirit.
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