The Spiritual Man

I have here on this list, anybody else have anything they'd like to announce before we turn the time over to Jeremy? All right. Well, Jeremy, if you want to come on up and we'll pray for you. And if the rest of you would please stand while we pray, that would be a blessing.

All right, let's bow for prayer. Thank you, God, for all you've done. We just commit our day into your hands.

Thank you for the beautiful weather. Thank you, Lord, for each person that's gathered here. I pray that you would send each of us home with a blessing.

Thank you for already encouraging us in song and in children's lesson and in book study today. I pray that you would just continue to add to what you are doing among us, Lord. And bless Brother Jeremy.

Just anoint him and anoint each of us as we listen. I pray, God, that you would just help us to go home humble and filled with the grace you want to give to the humble. We just pray, God, that you would show us, Lord, what you would have us to know and learn and understand.

And guide the events of the next week or two as some travel, as some come home, as we just pray for those that are gone right now. And as they arrive back home, just guide and direct them with safety traveling. We just pray, God, that you would fill us and use us now.

Help this morning to be a blessing. Help it to build your kingdom. In Jesus' name, amen.

You can be seated. God bless you. Thank you.

Morning. If you would, take your Bibles and let's turn to 1 Corinthians 3.1. 1 Corinthians 3.1. Paul says in verse 1, he says, and I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. The title of the message that I have labeled it is The Spiritual Man.

I wonder what you would think if Brother Mark would call you up one day and tell you, you know, I can't really think of you as spiritual, but as carnal. How many would like to hear that message? What would you think if he said to us as a church, I can't think of you as a spiritual church, but as carnal, as babies? I know I wouldn't want to hear that, much less how would we like it on Judgment Day when we stand before the Lord. And he says, you know, your life didn't result to being a spiritual man.

It resulted to being a carnal man. That would be even worse than hearing it from Brother Mark. I'd like to try to, the best I can, give a message and a teaching on this subject.

If you would, let's turn to Galatians chapter five. All the while, you know, one of the things that anybody who is teaching may fear is, you know, if all we do is go away with more knowledge, what good does it do us? This book is here only to lead us to Christ. The scripture says, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.

Jesus is the word. He wants to dwell in our hearts. And when we come together, that is the purpose.

It's not just to be fascinated by the words on this page and give great sermons and oratory lectures, but it's to lead us to becoming more like Christ. By Christ who dwells in us, to giving more to Christ. And that's the burden I would have for us this morning.

Galatians chapter five and verse 16 says this. This I say then, walk in the spirit and you shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. For the flesh lusted against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh.

And these are contrary the one to the other so that you cannot do the things you would. But if you are led by the spirit, you are under, you are not under the law. Some of these words we don't use as much in this context, but it says the flesh lusts or it has a great strong desire that is contrary, that is opposite of the spirit.

And it says the spirit has a strong desire that's opposite of the flesh. Have you ever felt that battle in you right here? You know that strong battle within our hearts that you may not even know somebody is battling it out right there in their heart, right there in their soul. The flesh has a strong desire and the spirit has a strong desire.

And the question is, which one's gonna win the battle? Not just one time, but which one's gonna win the battle each and every time. Let's turn to 1 Thessalonians in chapter five in verse 23. As he's ending this letter to the Thessalonians at their church there in Thessalonica, he says this, and the very God of peace, this seems to be a prayer for them.

The very God of peace sanctify you wholly. And I pray God that your whole spirit, your whole soul and your whole body be preserved blameless under the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is he that calleth you who also will do it.

He ends his prayer here for the Thessalonians. He says, I pray that your whole spirit, your whole soul and your whole body be preserved blameless. So what I'd like to do today is give a teaching on this concept that what we are made up of.

Interestingly enough, God is a triune being, right? Do you think about it? God has a body in a sense, Jesus Christ. He came to this earth. He came in the flesh.

He has the Father, which is, he constitute what we call God, and he has a spirit. We are made in God's image. God likes to do things in threes.

Look at the temple, for example. You have three parts. You have the outer court.

You have the holy and the most holy place. God likes to do things in threes. And when he created you, it appears as I'm reading the scripture here that he made you in three parts.

Turn back to Genesis chapter, I think it's chapter two. We can see this right at the beginning. These three parts, verse seven.

And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and he breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living soul. So we see three parts here. We see, first of all, the body.

He took the dirt. He formed man out of the dust of the ground. He made the outer shell, what we call the body.

He breathed into it the breath of life. That's actually, in the Old Testament, the word for spirit. He breathed into it a spirit, and it says he became a living soul.

So as we saw in Thessalonians, we have a body, and we have a soul, and we have a spirit. Now, this could be an interesting teaching. We can all go home and say, wow, we know more about knowledge.

You know, we know more about diagrams and facts, but that's not, this is the fear I had with bringing it, was if that's all we go home with, it did us no good. The question, and the thing, my burden that would be is that we would be able to identify what is our soul, what is our body, and what is our spirit, and we would be led by the spirit. So first of all, let's draw three men up on the board representing what we're talking about.

This brings back a lot of memories. When I was a child, I sat under many, many, many teachings under my wife's head, and he used to draw this over and over and over. But he'd draw his three strict men, stick men.

He was very adamant, too, because what I'm doing, I think I'm doing wrong. He would always say, the Bible says spirit, soul, and body. It doesn't say body, soul, and spirit.

But for the sake of today's, I want to end with spirit, because that's the most important part. So first of all, and maybe you can help me, we all have a body, and it was created out of the dust of this earth, and it is to get in connection with this world. What are some of the things that we have in our body that help us connect with the world? Maybe that's a hard saying, but.

I'm going to draw a big circle here. What's that? Yes? So give me one of them, Brother Mike, thank you. Sight.

Sight, okay. So I'm just going to draw this body here. We'll put it up here, body.

That's your outer shell, and God's given us senses into that outer shell. What else? Hearing. Hearing, okay.

Feel. Touch, yes, touch. Taste.

I guess we're doing this today. Smell. Okay, so, is that all of them? I think it is, right? Yeah.

Okay, so we have our senses into our body. It's what drives us. And what we just read, I'll put the title up here in our body, I'll put carnal.

Now, sometimes carnal seems to be a very churchy word. We hear carnal and we immediately think sick. But in Hebrews it says, you had carnal ordinances and it was talking about things in the temple.

So carnal just means earthly, just means fleshly. So we'll put it right here, body, and we'll put a little dash here, carnal. That's our carnal senses to this world.

So when I say you are a carnal man, it would mean that you are walking by your senses. You're walking by your body, what your body is desiring. Now that certainly would most likely equal sin.

But what are some of the other things that happen in our body? We get hungry, right? We get, what's another thing? This sermon's gonna be a little more interactive, so just prepare yourself. We get tired, yes. What else do we get? Thank you, thirsty, that's good.

Jesus said, my soul thirst, or yeah, however he said it, my soul thirsts. What else do we get? Leave it to Roger, he was giving a joke. We get pain, right? You ever, after working on that roof yesterday, I came home and I was like, oh man, get the calcium out because I am so sore.

So those are things our body brings in and things that can drive us, honestly. Let's just think about Eve for a minute. She was tempted.

What did the devil tempt her with? Her vision, it was pleasing to the eyes. What else? It was good for food. Now the last one I'll leave because that's the next part.

So the first two temptations to Eve were it was good for food and it was pleasing to the eyes. What was the first temptation to Jesus after not eating for 40 days? He said, command these stones. If you're really the son of God, command these stones to be made bread.

You see how the devil likes to use this thing we call our body that was made from the dirt? Now, so in a sense, this body of ours, it's our way of being conscious of the world. Can you imagine not having touch, not having sight, not having hearing? You couldn't even experience this earth. But the beauty we can see with our eyes and the beauty we can hear when we come and sing, all these amazing things.

It's our world consciousness. Now, the second thing he gave us was a soul. I'll draw a second circle.

Now, this one maybe is a little harder for us to draw some going in to our soul, but what are some openings into our soul? All this opened up, maybe somebody knows right away. Does anybody have any ideas what are openings just as our body has these openings in what are the sensory inputs into our soul? Anybody got any ideas? Emotions. Emotions, thank you.

That's perfect. Anybody else wanna take a guess? Okay. Our thoughts.

Okay, I'll put that as mind. Our mind or our thoughts or our intellect can be in our soul. What else? Is that? Pride.

Pride, okay. I'll put it for that, I'll put your will. You have a will that can make decisions.

Now, what's interesting about this is our soul has given to us kind of like a dark room. Kind of like a dark room, you take a picture of a camera with a camera and you go and you take that film and you put it into a dark room and you work with all the chemicals and out comes this picture. Our body takes these things in and through emotions, through our mind, which could be memories, knowledge, intellect and through our will, it affects things.

It affects everything in us, right? Your soul is that place that really could be translated as you, self. It's who you are. Did you notice the song George led this morning? Arise my soul, arise, shake off thy guilty fears, is it? Notice the song is talking to the soul.

The soul is where all those emotions are, doubtings, discouragements, fears. And what is the song saying? It's saying, arise, get out of this pit. Stop looking here, look here.

It's actually talking to our soul. And there's actually many verses, even David himself says, my soul wait thou only upon God. You see how the soul is who you are.

It's your makeup, it's even your personality. You know, are you this bubbly, exciting person? Are you this person that seems to always see the negativity? That is your soul, that is who you are. Here's some verses we can think about to prove it's our mind.

Lamentation says, my soul hath them still in remembrance. Psalm says, how long shall I take counsel in my soul? Notice that, you ever lay in bed at night? I think Glenn, you talk about this, just if you have a big project, you know, you're thinking through every angle and you're taking counsel in your soul. Proverbs says, knowledge is pleasant to my soul.

Acts says, the unbelieving Jews stirred up the Gentiles and made their minds. Notice how even the Greek word for soul is translated minds. He made their minds evil, affected against the brethren.

So that's our mind, it takes counsel, it's translated mind, still in remembrance, memories. Here's some verses on emotions. And if any of you want these afterwards, there's just so many.

I know you girls take notes and that's great. But if you want any of these verses, just tell me afterwards. But in Job, he says, my soul is weary of my life.

You ever feel like that? I know people get to that place where they're just like, just take me Lord, I'm done. I don't wanna live anymore. That's your soul.

He says, Job says, I will speak in the bitterness of my soul. That's where bitterness is. First Samuel says, all the people were bitter in soul.

Remember this one, this is a classic one we know, Psalms, why are you cast down, O my soul? See what's cast down, see what the emotions, where that all is. So another time he tells his soul, return O my soul to your rest. Does that remind you of Jesus? He said, all you that are heavy and weary and heavy laden, come to me.

And what does he say? Learn of me, I am meek and lonely and you will find what? For your souls, you see that? Your soul is that place where it gets stirred up and gets emotional or discouraged, it gets cast down. And it's a place we can also find rest. It's also a place that we can find lust and desire.

Even in the Old Testament, and this is a weird verse, but God told them to sell all their things and come to the temple and he said, and buy whatsoever your soul lusts after. Now, of course, that's an old English word. We would say, buy whatever you desire and sit before the Lord and drink it.

It was like a holy vacation and they went to the temple. So notice it says, whatever your soul lusts after. So you have a desire there, that's where your desires and they come through all of these outer ways.

Now, we also have a will and I wanna give you a couple of verses to prove that. In Psalms, David said, give me not up to the will of my adversaries. Did you hear that? That is actually translated will and it's the word for soul.

In Chronicles, now set your heart and your soul to seek the Lord your God. Set your heart to seek. Notice that, it's a will.

It's setting our soul, sorry, to seek the Lord. Ephesians, doing the will of God from the heart. You see that? There's this, there's a will involved and that word heart is also soul.

Translated heart, but it is soul. So here's a quote from the early church. This is origin.

And he said, it appears the soul is something intermediate. Something in between the body and the spirit. Between the flesh and the spirit.

Now, our last thing is our spirit. We read in Thessalonians, I pray your whole body. Spirit, I should say that right for my father-in-law's sake.

But your whole spirit, I should make this a little bit bigger too. Your whole spirit and soul and body. Now, I, you know, this could get a little bit interesting because I, I mean we could have some ideas.

What are ways into our spirit and out of our spirit? I've seen people say that it's, you know the end of Corinthians it says, now abideth faith, hope, and love. So I've seen people put faith here, hope, and love. I don't want to make a doctrine of that, but those are some ideas.

But what is our spirit? So our body is our carnal place. Our soul, and I'm gonna just put here because it actually is translated in the New Testament natural, and we'll look at that in a minute. But this is our natural place.

When the New Testament says you are just natural, it's actually the word for soul. You're soulish, we can say. But finally, are you spiritual? This is the, we can put spiritual here, I'm not gonna write it in the room.

This is our connection to the world. The soul is our connection to ourself and others. Think about that for a little bit.

It's how you know about who you are, it's all your feelings, and it's how you relate to others. But your spirit is the place that connects with God. Does that make sense? And how do we know that? God said that they that are spiritual must what? Does anybody know the verse? Must worship him in spirit and in truth.

So our spirit is the deepest part of a man. There's verses that say, may you be strengthened with all might according to his glorious power. There's phrases that may strengthen an inner man.

This is speaking of the deepest part of man. Paul says he serves God with his spirit. Did you hear that? He serves God with his spirit.

It says about Jesus, when he perceived in his spirit. This is a deep part of man. It says Paul went at Athens, remember he was grieved in his spirit.

He says when he was pressed in his spirit. This is a place where God brings certain spiritual convictions. We could say our consciousness is there.

You know that place that's very quiet in you? You're doing something wrong and all these emotions are screaming out. But there's this really small little voice saying, don't do it, don't take that step. That's your spirit.

Your soul's the one screaming all the emotions like that person, that feeling, all that's coming out of your soul. But your spirit is the one that's your conscience. Don't do it, don't yell at him, don't do this or that.

It's a very small voice most of the time. And the Bible says that deep inside there, he puts the Holy Spirit. And it says his spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are the sons of God.

So the place, the deepest part of you is where God can tell you, you are my son, child. So that song we sang, Arise My Soul, Arise, was saying shake off the guilt. Notice the rest of the song is all looking to the spirit, not to the flesh, not to the soul, but it's ensuring itself in the promises of God, if you notice in that song.

It's looking to the spirit to direct itself and not looking to its own emotions and its doubts and its discouragements. So in this deepest part, we have our conscience. We also have our intuition.

That's, well, for example, Matthew, Jesus, remember when they were falling asleep and they were supposed to be praying and all that? And he says, the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. See, you have something deep in you that says, ever come to a sermon like this? And, you know, or maybe some other brother preaching and you're like, man, yes, amen, let's go do that. Oh, yes, and you know, we're gonna fast this week.

And we're all like, yes, amen, we're all gonna fast. Then the day comes and all of a sudden it's like, oh, well, you know, I've got to work today and I don't do very good for my employer when I fast because I get weak. And you know what that's all coming from? That's not coming from your spirit.

That's coming from both your soul and your body. And it's no different than Eve. It's no different than Jesus when he tempted them with what? The simplest things.

The spirit was the one that was sitting here. Remember, George, you said, I wish we could just be here all day long, that one Sunday? Because that's your spirit that's becoming encouraged and excited to follow the Lord. And then we get out there in the world and we're like, oh man, my soul, my body is here with me all the time.

So we also experience communion with the Lord in our spirit. I can give you a couple verses. Out of John four, it says the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth.

Romans 1.9, whom I serve with my spirit. Romans 7.6, we should serve in newness of spirit and not in oldness of letter. And lastly, I already read this, but the spirit himself bears witness with our spirit.

Now, one last thing that's really neat about this is God promises in the Old Testament that he will place his Holy Spirit way down here. What a, when you think about that, that's like such a humbling thing that God would do that. But he says back in the Old Testament, he says, and I will put a new spirit in you.

Now this isn't meaning that they didn't have a spirit, but he will change it. He will give a new fresh spirit. See, and we can talk about this in a minute here.

I'll just keep moving forward about Eve and what happened there. But he says, I will put a new spirit within you and I will put my spirit in there. So down deep in our heart and our spirit is the Holy Spirit.

Now let's go back to Genesis three and talk a little bit about the garden of Eden and what went wrong. Genesis chapter three, it says, the spirit, sorry, the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field, which the Lord God made. And he said unto the woman, yea, hath God said, immediately questioning God's word, you shall not eat of every tree of the garden.

And the woman said unto the servant, we may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the trees, which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, you shall not eat of it. Neither shall you touch it lest you die. And the serpent said unto the woman, you shall not surely die.

For God doth know that in the day you eat thereof, then your eyes will be opened and ye shall be as gods knowing good and evil. There's a lot here. Let's keep reading.

And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and it says, pleasant to the eyes and to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof and did eat and gave also unto her husband with her and he did eat. And the eyes of them both were opened and they knew that they were naked and they sowed fig leaves. Now, think about this a little bit.

Before she ate that, she did not have, they did not have the knowledge of good and evil. We're not even used to that idea because we are all born with the knowledge of good and evil. In fact, we just think it's normal and maybe even good.

But before she ate that, she did not have any knowledge of good and evil. In fact, it says when she ate it, her eyes were opened, which means her physical eyes were already opened, right? They could see, they could walk around, they could not hit into trees. Something changed deep within inside of her after she ate.

Something in her soul, I would say, changed. And it says now after she ate that fruit, she could know the difference between good and evil. The devil even told her that you shall be as gods.

Notice what he's tempting her with that something in her deepest part, probably her soul, could now be more independent from God and would know good and evil. Notice God's response to this down in verse 22. And the Lord God said, behold, the man has become as one of us.

God didn't say that what happened wasn't true. They really did. Something did change and they became as one of us.

They now know, it says, the difference between good and evil. And now, lest he put forth his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat and live forever. Notice, it wasn't sin that caused them to die.

It was not eating of the tree of life anymore. Jesus said, or God said, you may not eat of the tree of life anymore. If we leave them in the garden, they will continue eating the tree of life and keep living forever.

Something inside of the woman died and changed. I would even suggest that maybe this something in the spirit, this connection with God, that at one time was led by God for good and evil. If God wanted them to know about it, it came into the spirit and came out from the soul.

And Adam and Eve did as was directed. I would suggest that something happened here, this connection to God, and they became soulish. They became natural.

They became gods unto themselves. Now we can discern between good and evil with our emotions, with our knowledge, with our intellect, with our mind, and we can be run by our own selves now. Maybe I don't have it perfect, but something changed at least.

Something major changed. Back to that thought in Galatians. So the spirit has different desires than the body.

The body has different desires than the spirit. Now listen to this quote. This is from Irenaeus.

He says this. This Irenaeus, or Jeremy Brackett. How do you say the name? I'm talking to you.

Is it Irenaeus or Irenaeus? Irenaeus, thank you. Irenaeus, this is what he says. Early church quote.

There is that which is between these two. And if you're reading the context, he first talks about the flesh and he talks about the spirit. And he says there is that between these two.

The soul. The soul is sometimes indeed raised up by it, speaking of the spirit when it follows the spirit, but sometimes the soul sympathizes with the flesh and falls into carnal lusts. So even these early church guys seem to understand that we are a triune being and this is us in the middle and we're at battle every day with this or this.

Which way are we gonna direct our heart? Which way are we going to build up our faith? Hebrews four. Let's go there. Another crucial verse to see.

Hebrews chapter four. Why don't somebody read it for me? Verse 12. Hebrews 4.12. For the word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing thunder of soul and spirit and of the joints and marrow and is a discerner of the thoughts and intent of the heart.

Okay, the word of God. The word of God comes into our triune being, it says, and it's like a two-edged sharp sword. It somehow cuts and divides.

Now, what I would suggest is from the time of Eve, these two things got all mixed up. I mean, that's what happened when her eyes were open and she became as gods and they had the difference of knowledge of good and evil. Now, they knew.

But God comes in now with his word as we become a Christian with his spirit and he, like a sharp two-edged sword, he divides these two things. He separates these two things that have been interconnected, kind of like cancer just grows all over your kidney and pretty soon, you can't even tell it's taking over the whole kidney. That's what kills you.

It just grows all in it. But the word of God comes in like a sharp surgery and shows us our spirit and our soul. Am I seeing that right? And notice what it says.

It discerns the thoughts and the intents. That is super powerful. And I know many here have this as an experience where you're about to do something, you're thinking on something, whatever, and something says right in there, you're doing this for the wrong motive.

I could be preaching this whole sermon for the wrong motive. And when I get up before God someday, he's gonna say, it was all wood, hay and stubble. If I'm trying to please you, right? Even deep in our spirit, we can know if our thoughts and our intents are for the right thing.

I could have you all faked out and tricked out that I'm the most holy guy. And if I, and I could be enamored with these doctrines, but if I'm not walking in that spirit and following the spirit and letting him discern between the two, I'm in a bad place. Okay, let's turn over to 1 Corinthians chapter two.

I need to leave a little time here. So I'm gonna quickly read through this. Verse nine, it says, 1 Corinthians two and verse nine.

But as it is written, I have not seen nor ear heard, neither has entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for them that love him. But God has revealed them unto us by his spirit. For the spirit searches all things, yea, the deep things of God.

For what man knoweth the things of a man save the spirit of man? What the deepest part of you, your spirit can be a discerner. It can show you with the spirit's help, your thoughts and intents. So what things knoweth a man save the spirit or only the spirit of inside of us show us what our motives are.

Even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the spirit of God. Even God's got a spirit and he knows the deepest parts of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God.

There's that HS in our spirit that we might know the things that are freely given us of God. Which things also we speak not in the words which man's wisdom teaches, but which the Holy Ghost teaches comparing spiritual things with spiritual. And then he goes on, but the natural man, this is the word for soul, the soulish man.

What does it go on to say? The natural man receiveth not the things of the spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him. Neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned or spiritually judged. The only way that you can judge things spiritually is by the spirit, which with the Holy Spirit in you, the natural man, this guy here, it's all foolishness to him.

Now that's my burden today, is that are we growing to be spiritual men? Are we growing to be walking by that spirit versus our soul, versus our emotions, our will? Think about the wise man and the foolish man. The wise man built his house on the sand, right? It's unstable. It's a little water comes in, you know, it sands like you sit there and move and you just go deeper and deeper, right? But the spirit is deeper, right? What was down lower that he had to dig down to? A rock.

These emotions, our mind, our will are all very unstable things. We have to dig down into the deepest part of us, which is the spirit. And that includes the will.

That includes, I mean, okay, think about this for a little bit. We can come here all day long and sing wonderful songs about moving spiritual songs that move our souls and our emotions. We can raise our hands to the Lord and say, we worship you Lord, right? I could go home and I could study with my mind and my intellect and just know the scripture inside and out and it will be useless if it hasn't reached past the will, which is in our soul.

And it has to reach all the way down to where our spirit is directing our soul. Do you see that? You're this little guy in between and you're the soul looking either at your body or at your spirit. Which one are you gonna follow? Which one are you gonna listen to its dictates? Now, here's a question.

I asked my wife this last night. I'll ask you guys this. How do you strengthen your spirit? Interactive time.

How do you strengthen your spirit? Okay, faith cometh by hearing and hearing the word of God. What is the word of God? Jesus, okay. Where? Jesus where? The Bible, okay.

So back up to Roger's question, he said, or answer, he said, Jesus, if Jesus is the word, where, how is he changing us? Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. If Jesus is the word, how is he changing us? He's changing us because he's in us, right? It said, he has become a life giving spirit. He has, as he's in us, he's changing us as we die to self, okay? So the word of God, Jesus said, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.

He said, the words I speak to you are spirit and they are life. Okay, what are some other ways we can build up our spirit? Prayer. Anybody think of a verse that talks about building up our spirit with prayer? How about this one? It says, building up yourselves and your most holy faith.

Can anybody complete it? Praying in the Holy Ghost. Think about that, what does that mean? We're praying in the Holy Ghost to build up our spirit, to build up our inner man, okay? Paul even said this, he said, I will pray in my spirit and I will pray in understanding. This is our, this is our understanding, right? It's our mind, well.

He said, I'll pray in my spirit and I'll pray in my understanding. You ever hear that verse that says the spirit makes groanings, you know? Wonder what that would be like, to be so seeking God that we're just groaning, you know, and the Lord just knows what we're praying for in our spirit. That would be a holy man.

Okay, what else can we do to build up our spirit? Any other ideas? Worship, yes, amen. Worship, he says, God is spirit and they must worship him. Did you know the word worship, we think of it as, and I'm not saying this isn't worship, but we think of worship because of what we've been told that it's like on a Sunday with a lot of loud music and all that.

Sure, that's worship. Do you know that real worship is bowing your will? That's the truest form of worship. You know, the first two times the worship shows up in the Bible is when after everything Job lost, it says he bowed and worshiped.

And Abraham, when he took his son up to burn him, you know, he said he worshiped God there. Think about that, that's the ultimate worship. Present your bodies, a living sacrifice, which is your reasonable, did you know a lot of translations put worship there? That's your reasonable worship, is presenting your bodies, okay? What else can we do to build up our spirit? We've got the word, we've got prayer, we have worship.

There's not any one right answer, but just think about it. Praise, amen, yeah. It says he inhabits our praises.

Christian fellowship, if you're an extrovert, and if you're not, then it doesn't. Okay, what about our meditation? Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are good, report, pure, lovely, all those things, think on these things. What about music? Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching yourselves with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.

This is how we build up our spirit. What about waiting on God? In patience, possess ye your souls. So here's the, I only have a couple more lines here, so we're almost done, and thank you for your attention.

But here's the question. Have you ever heard, well, what's wrong with it? You know what I mean, like, well, what's wrong with listening to that music? Well, what's wrong with listening and reading that book? What's wrong with listening to those audio stories? What's wrong with reading that article? You ever thought those thoughts? I have a question, and this is probably the burden of the whole sermon. When I get online and I read an article about, I don't know, anything interesting, World War II and the tanks and how they built them and how they did these amazing things, name it, what am I feeding? Am I feeding my spirit? I'm for sure feeding my soul, right? If I listen to an audio story about, you name it, but just something entertaining, something interesting, what am I feeding? You know, I've been thinking this last week about country music, lots of songs in there.

What's wrong with the words? I mean, they just talk about marrying my girlfriend next, down the street. I mean, that's the one I just heard the other day. It was like, hey, I just wanna be a hometown, I just wanna marry a hometown girl.

Like, oh, what's wrong with that? The question is, what is it feeding? Is it feeding your spirit? That's the question. Maybe instead of asking what's wrong with it, we should be asking, what are we feeding in everything we listen to, everything we do, everything we read? Maybe we should ask, what are we feeding? Because for us to feed this, the natural man, all day long, do you think you will hear this when the time comes that you need it? I don't think so. And we can do it in, we can do it as religious people, too.

Get on and read Greek words and read church history. Is it feeding the spirit, is the question. It's like eating carrots versus chips.

Now, when you first are presented with the option, which one do you think you would want? Burritos, thank you. Thank you for your honesty. Now, if you ate carrots long enough and kale long enough, did you know you could actually get to a place where you actually like the stuff? And not only that, but you prefer the stuff? Like, you would look over at the chips and you'd say, that, like, makes my stomach.

I know some of you are making faces, like, how could this be possible? But it's true. My wife told me that years ago, she used to drink soda. She started drinking water as a normal thing.

Now, she disdains soda when she sees it. Oh, I don't want to feel the way that would make me feel. I just want the water.

You know what's happening there? She has developed an appetite for something that makes her stronger and feels better. I mean, really, seriously, I like to eat salads. I mean, I actually asked my wife, can you make me a salad today? Because it actually makes you feel better.

If I just ate a bunch of white bread, I would feel young. And it's no different here. What are you feeding? Are you feeding your spirit, like, kale and carrots? Or are you feeding Doritos and ice cream goes to the soul? I mean, it's the truth.

I hope you get the point. Galatians chapter five. We're almost done.

Galatians 5, 24 and 25. And they that are Christ have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. If we live in the spirit, let us also walk in the spirit.

I remember way back when I first started waking up to all this stuff, years ago, and I lived in Washington. I loved this verse. I put it up on our wall, like, in massive form.

They that are Christ have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. You could replace that lust with desires. They that are Christ have crucified the flesh with its affections and its desires.

If we live by the spirit, let us walk by the spirit. So my heart today is that we would really see, are we spiritual, are we carnal? Ask the Lord, be honest. If you are carnal, and maybe you're carnal in an area, be honest with it.

God just wants honest people. The second we make excuses and sit here and try to tell, well, Lord, you know, I'm carnal. Just forget it.

Just be honest with God. I'm carnal in this area. I'm carnal in lots of areas.

I allow, maybe it's our body. I allow my taste to direct me too much. I allow my sense of touch to take me places I shouldn't.

I allow my hearing, maybe it's these things. I hope that we would come to a place where we would see that when these emotions come and these doubts and these discouragements and all of these anger and frustration, these are all from our natural place. They're not from our spirit.

Listen to these promises. For which cause we faint not, but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. That's like saying in modern English, my spirit is eating kale every day, not Doritos.

My inward man is renewed. Even though my body's dying away and I am weak and I'm in pain, my inward man is being renewed. Listen to Ephesians three, that he would grant you according to the riches of his glory to be strengthened with might by his spirit.

In the inner man. But guess what? You have a will. So don't think that you're just gonna go home and it's magically gonna happen.

You have to die to some things, reckon yourself dead in deed to God, in deed to sin, but alive to God. Listen to this, 2 Corinthians 5, 7. For we walk by faith and not by sight. That's what the calling of Christianity is.

And Jesus promised us, he that believeth on me as the scripture had said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. Think about how God works. Out of his belly, out of his inward.

God wants to work out, inward, out, right? That's how it was in the garden of Eden. It started off here and worked out. The devil wants to work outward in.

He wants to tantalize you by these things and these things. That's a way we can tell which one is it. God wants to speak in his spirit and work out.

The devil wants to work in like he did with both Jesus and Eden. So pray for the Holy Spirit. Pray for the be strengthened in the inner man.

Pray that from your inward, most parts from your belly can flow rivers of living water because we want to hear it on that day. Not just Brother Mark saying, this is a spiritual church. We want to hear God say, you're spiritual.

I can speak to you as spiritual and not as carnal. Thank you for your time. Well, thank you, Brother Jeremy, for that teaching and these, well, the illustration.