Christ our Glory - Part 3

Thank God for bringing us together this morning. This is supposed to be a question and answer period, but I always feel it is wrong, because the questions are very real, but the answer has to come from God. We may be able, by the grace of God, to help remove some of the hindrances that may stand in your way of knowing the will of God. But God is the only one who can answer your question. So, brothers and sisters, I hope you do not expect us to give you the answer. You have to look to the Lord for the answer. I have here with me one question. When we are functioning in the new man, in the spiritual man, are we able to recognize when other believers are functioning in the natural man, in the old man? If so, how can we help? What do we do to encourage the new life of Christ in other believers? Brothers and sisters, unless we are functioning in the new man, in the spiritual man, we will not be able to recognize the natural man in the old man. It is only when we ourselves, by the grace of God, are really functioning in the new man, then we are able to recognize the natural man in the old man. Now, how can we help? What do we do to encourage the new life of Christ in other believers? Brothers and sisters, we realize unless we function in the new man, in the spiritual man, we are not able to recognize in other believers the natural man or the old man. So first of all, I would say by the grace of God, if we want to help other brothers and sisters, first of all, we ourselves need to function in the old man, new man, the spiritual man. Only when we are living spiritually before the Lord, we are able to recognize the natural man in others because by the grace of God, we have recognized the natural man in us. So the problem is, do we have the experience by the Holy Spirit to recognize the natural man in us? If we do not, how can we recognize the natural man in other people? So first of all, I would say if we want to help others, we ourselves must first be helped. We ourselves must be able to recognize what is the natural man or the old man. We have to, by the grace of God, to experience our natural man being put to death through the cross of our Lord Jesus. So first of all, I would say if we want to help others, we need help ourselves first. By the grace of God, He will show us what a natural man is. We all live in the old days in the natural man. This is the way of life to us. But when the mercy of God comes upon us, when His salvation comes to us, we become a new man. That is to say, the sins that we have committed have been forgiven. He has given us a new spirit and the Holy Spirit Himself comes and dwells in our new spirit. The indwell Holy Spirit is in every believer. Life. He is there in the most practical way. He is there to lead us in the spiritual life. He is there to show us what our old life was, our natural life was. He is there to enable us to reject the natural life and allow His new life in us by the Holy Spirit to lead us all. Now this is Christian life. Christian life is an exchange life. Christian life is a life lived not by yourself anymore. Because as long as our natural man lived, we were natural man. But when by the grace of God His salvation came upon us, our sins have been forgiven. But this is only negative. There is a positive thing. And the positive thing is He has restored our spirit into new life. Our spirit was once dead to sins and transgressions. But the mercy of God has come upon us. He has forgiven our sins. He has removed our sins from us. And He has come into our life. He gave us a new spirit. Our spirit was once dead to sins and transgressions. But now our spirit is being renewed into new life. Now this is the beginning of a Christian life. As long as we still live in our natural life, we can never be spiritual. Because that's what we are. By the grace of God, He has saved us. And by Him saving us, our sins are forgiven. He has given us a new life. Our spirit who was once dead is now being quickened into new life. And the Holy Spirit of God came in and dwelt in our new spirit. Now this is the beginning of our Christian life. So brothers and sisters, first of all, I want everyone to be very clear. We cannot live a Christian life. As long as our old man was in charge, our life before God was sinful. We could only sin. That's what we could do. We cannot be righteous. We cannot please God. But by the mercy of God, once salvation came upon us, our Lord Jesus, the Son of God, incarnated and became a man. For thirty-three and half years, He lived a perfect life. He obeyed His Father. Never once did He do anything on His own. He said, I speak because I've heard my Father spoken. I go because my Father has sent me. All His life, He obeyed His Heavenly Father. Do His will. Glorify God. So are the modern transfiguration. Our Lord Jesus was transfigured. He was in glory. Moses and Elijah appeared and they talk about His exit. Brothers and sisters, this is an exciting time. So far as the Lord Himself is concerned, He had every right to ascend from the mount and return to His Father because He has lived such a life of perfection. Thank God He did not. If He should do so, there will be only one person in heaven and that is our Lord Jesus Christ. But for our sake, He was willing to come down from the mount, face Jerusalem, went there, took our sins upon Himself and died in our stead. This is salvation. So dear brothers and sisters, thank God. I believe every one of us here by the grace of God, we have believed. We have believed in Him. We have accepted Him as our Savior and our Lord. He has quickened our spirit from death. He has given us a new spirit and His own spirit came and dwelt within our new spirit. The indwelling Holy Spirit is there for a reason. He is there to lead us in spiritual life. He is there to instruct us, to show us what we should do. You know, before we believe in the Lord Jesus, we live our own lives. We go wherever we want to go. Never ask a question. But by the grace of God, He has revealed to us our sins. He has removed our sins from us. He has quickened our dead spirit into life. His Holy Spirit came and dwelt in our spirit to lead us in the Christian way. We cannot live a Christian life without the leading of the Holy Spirit. So, brothers and sisters, first of all, as soon as we are saved, as soon as the Lord has given us a new spirit, as soon as the Holy Spirit comes and dwells in our spirit, what is our Christian walk? Our Christian walk is to follow the indwelling Holy Spirit. We are no longer to walk according to ourselves. We are to walk as the Holy Spirit leads and guides. And when He is leading, He will usually begin with something small. And if we will obey Him and follow Him, then He will lead us step by step until our new man will take over. And that begins our Christian living. So the question is, what do we do to encourage the new love of Christ in other believers? What we need to do is first of all, we ourselves must learn to obey the leading of the indwelling Holy Spirit. Christian life is not an outward living. Christian life is a inward living. Christian life is a life lived by following the indwelling Holy Spirit. How we thank God that after we are saved, He does not leave us alone. And there's a struggle to find our way. But He comes not only giving us a new spirit, His Holy Spirit comes and dwells in our spirit. The indwelling Holy Spirit has one work to do and He is faithful. He will guide and lead us in all things, small and great. In the beginning, probably He will speak to you in small things. But gradually, if you are faithful and following, it will get bigger and bigger until Christ becomes your very life. So what do we do to encourage the new life of Christ in other believers? It is very simple. What we do is to encourage a new believer to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit. God does not leave us alone to fight for a Christian life. God has made provision for us. He has put His own spirit in us in order to lead us in the way that will be pleasing to Him. So brothers and sisters, the first thing in our Christian life is to humble ourselves and allow the indwell Holy Spirit to lead us. We used to walk in our own way, but no longer. We are here to allow the Holy Spirit to lead us. It is our responsibility to cooperate with the indwell Holy Spirit. Whether our Christian life will grow or not, it depends upon our cooperation with the indwell Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit who dwells in us usually will begin with small things. And if we are faithful in small things, gradually He will lead us into bigger things. Until Christ fully occupies the life of Christ is manifested in us. So brothers and sisters, Christian life is an inward life. It is not an outward walk. You try to do the best you can. No. Christian life is by obeying the indwell Holy Spirit. The more you obey, the more you will be able to obey until Christ is fully formed. Now this is Christian life. So this morning, brothers and sisters, I will put this before all of you. You have the indwell Holy Spirit within you. It is our responsibility to obey Him, to follow Him, to let Him lead you. That will be your spiritual life. And this is all I would like to share.