The Spirit’s Law of Life in Christ Pt. 2

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Spirit Life

Sunday 03/03/20

Series: Do we Really Believe?

Message – The Spirit’s Law of Life in Christ Pt. 2

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Life in Christ

Our KEY text today is found in 2Cor. 3:3, 

“(3) since it is plain that you are Christ’s letter, produced by us, not written with ink but with the Spirit of the living God; not on stone tablets but on tablets that are hearts of flesh.”

You are Christ’s letter, written by the Spirit of God!

We’ve been talking about “Do we REALLY believe?” and in this series so far we have covered…

  • In our Midst
  • Why do we Gather?
  • The Purpose of the Gospel is Life and Peace 
  • Worship is how you walk
  • The heart of true worship
  • The LAW of Freedom
  • Life in Jesus

In these lessons we’ve seen how the primary purpose for ALL believers.

The primary purpose for scripture.

The primary purpose of the local church.

…and…

The primary role of the Holy Spirit in the life of every believer is…

  1. To mature into the image of Jesus Christ
  2. As such to become a living testimony – who is equipped to minister the good news of the Gospel to everyone. To our fellow believers FIRST and secondly to the world!

In our last teaching we learned these basic truths:

  • ALL of scripture is profitable for forming Christ in you – that includes the Old Testament.
  • The Law was NOT the problem – we were.
  • The letter kills but the Spirit gives life – this is true regardless of what testament you are reading.
    • Many within the more liberal divisions within the body believe Jesus’ words carry no weight under the New Covenant because Jesus taught from the Law. This is of course complete nonsense. Luke 16:16 tells us that the Law was until JOHN, but SINCE THEN, the Kingdom of God has been preached. So, Jesus taught the Kingdom of God by drawing from the Law as His source material.
    • Furthermore, even though Jesus taught from the law, He said His words were Spirit and Life. – John 6:63
    • Jesus said the flesh profited nothing – by which is meant that it does not produce what is desired – which is character change – Christ in us!
  • What you get out of the Words of God is largely based upon how you read it…how you HEAR it.
    • Read and revealed by the Spirit it gives life – Like David realized. – Psalm 119:165 & Psalm 119:97, 
    • Read and comprehended by the flesh it gives condemnation and death, like Paul describe his experienced before he came to Christ.  – Romans 7:9-13
  • We are spiritually ONE with God, even though our bodies still resist His influence. – 1 Cor. 6:17; Rom. 7:25
  • Looking into the Word of God is (according to James) looking into the Perfect law of Freedom!
  • Paul, in Romans 8 called this the Law of the Spirit of Life which is found in Christ Jesus!
  • To the degree that we side with our flesh we are looking at the Word of Liberty as if it were the Law of Condemnation. We all agreed, that regardless of what testament you are reading, if you read it from the flesh – it all brings condemnation! When we do this we’ve actually placed the veil (that is to say the flesh) back over our eyes and it obscures the true image of God and the New Covenant. – 2 Cor. 3:13-16; Heb. 6:19; 10:20.

Paul recognized that he was a divided man. With his spirit he worshiped and honored God, but with his flesh he followed after sin. 

After telling us this, Paul concluded his thought this way in Romans 7:24-8:17, 

“(24) What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? (25) I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, with my mind I myself am a slave to the law of God, but with my flesh, to the law of sin.” 8:1-2 “(1) Therefore, no condemnation now exists for those in Christ Jesus,  (2) because the Spirit’s law of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.” 

The Spirit’s LAW of Life in Jesus!

Remember, Jesus said,

“For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself” ~ John 5:26  

IN Jesus was LIFE! John chapter 1 tells us that “In Him was LIFE, and that LIFE was the LIGHT of man” or rather the revelation to man.

As you know – Life is to enter into a living relationship of knowing and trusting with God. 

Jesus HAD that intimate union with God and THAT was the revelation of God to man – that union, intimacy, oneness was being made available through Jesus. 

This revelation was something which mankind, in the flesh, did not comprehend. – Jn 1:5

Which is why God sent us His Spirit.

Now this and what we are about to cover is IMPORTANT because we ARE Jesus’ letter WRITTEN BY the Spirit of God!

John 16:12-15, “(12) I still have many things to tell you, but you can’t bear them now. (13)  When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all the truth. For He will not speak on His own, but He will speak whatever He hears. He will also declare to you what is to come. (14)  He will glorify Me, because He will take from what is Mine and declare it to you. (15) Everything the Father has is Mine. This is why I told you that He takes from what is Mine and will declare it to you.”

  • As His children, Who is it we have received from God? The Holy Spirit
  • Who has the Holy Spirit been sent to us to reveal? Jesus! 

This is where we left off last time.

Let’s turn now to 1 Corinthians 2, which tells us that the Holy Spirit is the ONLY One Who knows God’s mind and He has been given to us that we might come to know all the things God has freely given to us! 

In various ways, John 14-16 reveals that when the Holy Spirit came, He would lead us into Truth – that is He will lead us into Jesus… which would be to reveal LIFE to us! 

In Him was LIFE and that LIFE was the revelation to man. A revelation we could not see or understand until the Spirit came to cause us to see & know!

Remember John 1 tells us that Jesus shined in the darkness, but the darkness did not comprehend it. 

Some translations (and this unfortunately includes the Holman) adopt the secondary meaning of the word “comprehend” as “overcome” – but that is not the preferred translation in that it doesn’t quite fit the narrative nor the flow of the thought being laid before the reader. 

No in this phrase, “the darkness is presented as being so thick that the light could not penetrate it.” Which is NOT to speak to God’s ability, but to man’s unwillingness to allow the light in. 

You see…on the one side you have God revealing Himself within the conscience of every human who comes into the world. So on that level everyone has seen the light. 

On the other hand, you have the devil blinding the eyes of those who will not believe. On that level their unwillingness to believe and their determination to forsake the love of truth, brings the judgement of God upon them Who turns them over to the will of their father the devil who in turn blinds their eyes so they cannot see. [John 1:9; Rom. 1:18-32]

Consider 2 Corinthians 4:3-4, 

“(3) But if, in fact, our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing.  (4) Regarding them: the god of this age has blinded the minds of the unbelievers so they cannot see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, Who is the image of God.”

We need the Holy Spirit to illuminate our darkness.

1 Corinthians 2:9-16 tells us… 

“(9) But as it is written: “EYE HAS NOT SEEN, NOR EAR HEARD, NOR HAVE ENTERED INTO THE HEART OF MAN THE THINGS WHICH GOD HAS PREPARED FOR THOSE WHO LOVE HIM.”  (10) But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. (11) For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God.  (12) Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. (13) These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual.  (14) But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. (15) But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one. (16) For “WHO HAS KNOWN THE MIND OF THE LORD THAT HE MAY INSTRUCT HIM?” But we have the mind of Christ.”

Now remember our KEY verse,

“We are letters of Jesus, written by the Spirit of God.”

WHAT is He writing? What STORY is He telling with our lives?

Also, need to remember HOW this works.

We BECOME what we observe!

God Bless!

I hope this message will bless you richly…not because I taught it, but because it reveals Christ. He alone is our blessing and if in any way – whether big or small, 100% accurate or even just partially so – I have revealed our great God and Savior to you in a relationally knowable way, then this was time well spent on both our parts.

We at Living Grace Fellowship encourage you to place your trust in Jesus Christ, deliberately choosing Him and bowing the knee to Him as your Master and Lord, so as to come to realize Him as your Savior.

You have a special place in God’s family & kingdom. The fact that you exist… that you are His creation, says you were in His heart, you are His delight!

If you do not know Him, please reach out to us. Give us a call at the number located on every page of this website or use our ‘Contact Us‘ page. We would be deeply honored, if you gave us the privilege of introducing you to the Lord. Neither money nor attendance at our church will EVER be mentioned.

If you HAVE been spiritually fed by this ministry and WANT to give, we truly appreciate that and you may do so here, but please understand that all the outreaches of this ministry are FREE for you and anyone to enjoy at no cost.

Blessings!

Pastor Mark

View posts by Pastor Mark

Hi my name is Mark and though I am opposed to titles, I am currently the only Pastor (shepherd/elder) serving our assembly right now.

I have been Pastoring in one capacity or another for nearly 30 years now, though never quite like I am today.

Early in 2009 the Lord revealed to me that the way we had structured our assembly (church) was not scriptural in that it was out of sync with what Paul modeled for us in the New Testament. In truth, I (like many pastors I am sure) never even gave this fundamental issue of church structure the first thought. I had always assumed that church structure was largely the same everywhere and had been so from the beginning. While I knew Paul had some very stringent things to say about the local assembly of believers, the point of our gatherings together and who may or may not lead, I never even considered studying these issues but assumed we were all pretty much doing it right...safety in numbers right?! Boy, I couldn't have been more wrong!

So needless to say, my discovery that we had been doing it wrong for nearly two decades was a bit of a shock to me! Now, this "revelation" did not come about all at once but over the course of a few weeks. We were a traditional single pastor led congregation. It was a top-bottom model of ministry which is in part biblical, but not in the form of a monarchy.

The needed change did not come into focus until following 9 very intense months of study and discussions with those who were leaders in our church at the time.

We now understand and believe that the Bible teaches co-leadership with equal authority in each local assembly. Having multiple shepherds with God's heart and equal authority protects both Shepherds and sheep. Equal accountability keeps authority and doctrine in check. Multiple shepherds also provide teaching with various styles and giftings with leadership skills which are both different and complementary.

For a while we had two co-pastors (elders) (myself and one other man) who led the church with equal authority, but different giftings. We both taught in our own ways and styles, and our leadership skills were quite different, but complimentary. We were in complete submission to each other and worked side-by-side in the labor of shepherding the flock.

Our other Pastor has since moved on to other ministry which has left us with just myself. While we currently only have one Pastor/Elder, it is our desire that God, in His faithfulness and timing, may bring us more as we grow in maturity and even in numbers.

As to my home, I have been married since 1995 to my wonderful wife Terissa Woodson who is my closest friend and most trusted ally.

As far as my education goes, I grew up in a Christian home, but questioned everything I was ever taught.

I graduated from Bible college in 1990 and continued to question everything I was ever taught (I do not mention my college in order to avoid being labeled).

Perhaps my greatest preparation for ministry has been life and ministry itself. To quote an author I have come to enjoy namely Fredrick Buechner in his writing entitled, Now and Then, "If God speaks to us at all other than through such official channels as the Bible and the church, then I think that He speaks to us largely through what happens to us...if we keep our hearts open as well as our ears, if we listen with patience and hope, if we remember at all deeply and honestly, then I think we come to recognize beyond all doubt, that, however faintly we may hear Him, He is indeed speaking to us, and that, however little we may understand of it, His word to each of us is both recoverable and precious beyond telling." ~ Fredrick Buechner

Well that is about all there is of interest to tell you about me.

I hope our ministry here is a blessing to you and your family. I also hope that it is only a supplement to a local church where you are committed to other believers in a community of grace.

~God Bless!