The Spirit in Which We Walk

There is a stillness that comes to the soul in trusting the Savior. And even with all of our occupations and concerns and all the noise of this world, the Lord is gracious to calm our souls, reminding us that He's on the throne. that he's loved us with an everlasting love, that he's working everything for our good. And there's nothing else that can take the place of that. I'm thankful to be here with you tonight to meet with our Lord again as he's promised to meet with us.

I need my soul stilled to be reminded who He is, what He's done for me. Let's read our text in 2 Corinthians 12. Verse 17 is where we'll start tonight, but let's look at verse 16 to remind us. Actually, we'll start in verse 16 and read verse 15 to remind us kind of where we are in the context. In verse 15 of 2 Corinthians 12, the apostle writes, and I will very gladly spend and be spent for you, though the more abundantly I love you, the less I be loved.

But be it so, I did not burden you. Nevertheless, being crafty, I caught you with Gal. Did I make a gain of you by any of them whom I sent unto you? I desired Titus, and with him I sent a brother. Did Titus make a gain of you? Walked we not in the same spirit? Walked we not in the same steps? And we'll stop there with the subject tonight being the steps, the spirit and the steps that we walk in. What does he mean by that? And what's he talking about in these verses?

Let's ask the Lord to meet with us. Father, thank you for your word and for your divine providence that's led us here, that's brought us here. Thank you for the blessed privilege it is to meet in your name as your family. Thank you for, though we've forgotten you this week and all the time, thank you for not forgetting us. You shower us with blessings every moment. Help us to worship you tonight, Lord, to attribute worthiness unto you, who alone are worthy. cause us, Lord, evermore to trust and lean upon you more and more as we hear of you and learn of you. To the glory of your name, in Christ's name we ask it. Amen. Now, this seems like a sort of a disjointed passage of scripture, but if we remember the context, Even verse 15 there, just a brief context we read, we see how that Paul feels and what he's experiencing with his church at Corinth.

It seems that they love him less and less, but the Lord has put them on his heart more and more. And their lack of love is expressed in the fact that they've received these false prophets. And behind Paul's back, they've spoken of his weakness in the flesh, how that he's not an impressive speaker, that he's not a dynamic personality, that he doesn't... Well, we'll see in this whole study tonight what he wasn't and what they were longing for and desiring. As we've seen throughout the whole context of this part of his letter to the Corinthians regarding that receptiveness to false prophets and defaming of the apostle, as they had done.

And again, he's addressing the whole church, so we don't know how many or who exactly or what the percentage was of people, but it was a general problem. It was a real problem, or he wouldn't have addressed it to all of them as he has in this letter. But let's start with verse 16 again.

Be it so, there, but be it so, that's a way of just saying suppose. Suppose that I did not burn you, Nevertheless, being crafty, I caught you with guile. Maybe that's what happened. Maybe I wasn't personally burdensome to you, but I sent Titus. And he was the bad cop. He went and he said, did I make a gain of you by any of them that I sent to you? Maybe I came and wasn't burdensome to you. I was mild and I was humble before you.

But maybe I did it by craft, by Bagal sent Titus then and then he made gain of you. Did any of them, verse 18, I deserve Titus to go to you and with him I sent another brother. Did Titus make a gain of you? Walked we not in the same spirit? That's what I want us to kind of get to the heart of tonight in the scripture. What's this spirit in which we walk?

So he's saying suppose that I was no burden to you, but I could have been crafty. I could have sent a representative to you. I could have told them to be burdensome, to make a gain of you, so that no bad reputation would be attached to me, but it would serve the same purpose.

Nope, didn't do that either. Didn't do that either. I don't see Paul bringing that up, that specific circumstance, unless that had been pulled off by others who did exactly that. But all those who preach the gospel walk in these same steps without craftiness, without making a gain of the people of God, without making merchandise of men, as the scripture puts it, in another place. They don't walk in those steps. That's not the spirit in which we walk. And we all walk in the same steps because we all have the same captain. We all have the same captain of our salvation. We all serve the same Lord. We're all in the same army. And we serve at the will of the same master.

And Paul is still drawing this contrast. They were saying, look at him, look compared to these people. Now he's saying, okay, let's look at me compared to these people. So he's drawing a contrast right back at him and showing the real difference between them has nothing to do with how dynamic or winsome they are, but it's whether the gospel of Christ is being preached or not. It's whether they're using diabolical means to make gain of these people or not. And so he's drawing this contrast between himself and the false prophets, the anti-Christ ministry that was being put upon them now, being burdensome to them, And consider tonight with me what Paul describes as the spirit in which they walked, the manner in which they conducted themselves as contrasted with false religion. The problem in this Corinthian church that Paul is addressing here in this part of the letter is that some, as we've said, many maybe, preferred to be burdened.

That's what was happening to them. They were being burdened. And they liked it. A burden was put upon them. They were made a gain of by false prophets, and they loved it. That's what they wanted. They wanted to be fleeced. Look at the Antichrist religion of our day. What do they love? What do they crave?

Tithing, and doing this, and going to visitation, and being in the choir, being active in the church, and being burdened with the law. The Antichrist fake church puts the burden of the law on people. They guilt people. They threaten them with hell, and they bribe them with heaven. And they eat it up. They absolutely loved it. We want religious activities. that we want to be shamed if we neglect them.

Give us something to do to be saved and to stay saved so we're always guilty, but we can still feel good about ourselves because though everything's up to us, nobody's perfect, and I can always walk an aisle and rededicate my life to Jesus. I've been in the middle of it. I know exactly what goes on there, and I know why, and so did the apostle.

I'll just rededicate. I'm going to feel guilty because of all the burden of the law on me. I'm going to feel bad all the time. I'm going to be guilty for even having a television set at my house. Religion is going to do that to me. But I'm going to go walk down an aisle and rededicate my life to Jesus. I'm going to quit watching the television set, at least for a couple of weeks.

Then I'll start feeling guilty again. Rededicate, rededicate, rededicate. It's a whole system of works religion. that they were in the middle of. It's not new. This was around 40 A.D. Take our money, put us to work, threaten us with hell and bribe us with heaven. We can't get enough of it. That cult over there in College Grove that preaches the gospel of Christ crucified, and that's all they do.

Who would go there? That's all they do. They don't have anything for the young people. They don't have anything for single women or men. Or divorce people their preachers not educated. He doesn't have a doctorate in theology. He's not very dynamic or even smart. It's just Christ this and Christ that got no use for no use for it. I see people asking about churches in the area quite a bit. And you know what they're always looking for? I want to find a church that's contemporary.

I want to have a great music program. I want to be involved in the music program. Or I want something that's got a lot for the young people. I want my son to get involved in the youth ministry. Or something like that. It's involvement. It's activity.

Nobody ever even comes close to saying, I want to hear about the Savior. I want to hear what Jesus Christ did for sinners. I want to know how to be saved. Not even close. And it's over and over and over. It's the fundamental religious system of our day.

The Antichrist religious reprobates in Matthew 7.22, you know what they, they were in face-to-face with the Son of God, and they said, look at all of our wonderful works. We sang in the choir. We went to visitation every week. We made decisions. We gave, we tithed and gave above.

All for you. We did all of that for you. And our Lord said, depart from me, you that work iniquity. I never knew you. That's where religion is right now. All of it. Every bit of it. You tell me where that isn't happening and I'll go see what's going on. I want to hear about it. I want to know. Get me involved in the church. Make me do stuff. Manipulate me. I love it. I love to be manipulated.

I love to spin, you know, give. Because that makes me feel good about myself. And that's the point of religion, to feel good about yourself. In the Garden of Eden, Satan said, I know God has this agenda, but what about yourself? It's exactly the same message now. I know what God says about salvation, but what about you? What are you getting out of it?

We can't spell church without you. Apostle Paul was just a simple, humble, unassuming, but faithful gospel preacher, and it wasn't enough. Listen, this man is anointed by the Son of God himself to be an apostle of Jesus Christ. We don't like him. He's too bland. He's too weak. He's not a good speaker." It hadn't changed. It hadn't changed.

Yeah, when it's Christ and all Christ and only Christ, that's only enough for those who love Christ, who love the Lord Jesus Christ. In fact, for those who love Christ because he first loved them, that's the only way anybody ever loved him, it's completely the other way around. They can't abide all of the religious noise. Only Christ will do for them. You start doing some weird religious stuff, we're out. Got no use for that. It's mutual.

Those whom the Lord Jesus Christ loved from the beginning, and predestinated, Romans chapter 8, 28, and called and justified and glorified in Christ, rather than engaging in all of the wonderful works that these religious people were talking about in Matthew 7, 22, by the way, if you want to look that up, rather than talking about their wonderful works, you know what they do? Psalm 40 in verse 5, O many, O Lord my God, are thy wonderful works. which thou hast done, and thy thoughts which are to usward. They cannot be reckoned up in order unto thee. I would declare and speak of them. They are more than can be numbered.

What is his wonderful works? Did you come tonight to do some wonderful things or to hear about some wonderful things that God has done? Big difference, life and death difference. Psalm 107, eight, oh, that men would praise the Lord for his goodness and for his wonderful works to the children of men. Psalm 111, four, he hath made his wonderful works to be remembered. We're remembering him tonight.

When our works, you remember when they said to the Lord, what about all of our wonderful, look at our many wonderful works. The Lord said, depart from me you that work iniquity. That's what our works are. The best of our works are iniquity in the sight of God, apart from Christ. The scriptures are clear about that. Paul said, as a believer, there is in me that is in my flesh dwelleth no good thing. He hath made his wonderful works to be remembered. What wonderful works. Are you talking about David? The Lord is gracious and full of compassion. His works are works of grace and love toward his sheep.

The greatest expression of love, the very definition of love, according to the Apostle Paul, he said, herein is love. Not that we love God, that's not it. Your love has no place in the definition of love. but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation for our sins. Christ on Calvary crucified equals love. Turn with me to Acts chapter two, please. Verse one, Acts two.

And when the day of Pentecost was finally fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as of a rushing, mighty wind. And it filled all the house where they were sitting. And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as a fire, and it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. And there were dwelling at Jerusalem Jews, devout men out of every nation under heaven.

And religion has got a hold of that. And they say, oh, if you got the Holy Spirit, if you don't speak in tongues, you don't have the Holy Spirit. Let's find out what people do who have the Holy Spirit. The Lord enabled this miracle of speaking in other tongues so that people could hear the gospel. That's it. People from all different nations were in the area. And language barriers don't keep the Lord from having his gospel preached to people. But look what they did, look what they really did.

They spake it with other tongues, but what were they talking about? Verse 6, now when this was noised abroad, The multitude came together and were confounded, because that every man heard them speak in his own language, and they were all amazed and marveled, saying one to another, Behold, are not all these which speak Galileans? And how hear we every man in our own tongue wherein we were born? Barthinians, and Medes, and Elamites, and the dwellers in Mesopotamia, and in Judea, and Cappadocia, and Pontus, and Asia, and Phrygia, and Pamphylia, in Egypt, and in the parts of Libya about Cyrene, and strangers of Rome, Jews, and proselytes, Cretes, and Arabians. We do hear them speak in our tongues." What were they saying?

The wonderful works of God. There's the miracle. That's what the Holy Spirit does. You're not gonna speak in tongues, because for one thing, that gift was clearly given to the apostles and everyone to whom the apostles conferred that gift. Those to whom that gift of speaking in other tongues for the simple reason is that God uses means. If you don't understand what a man's saying, you're not gonna hear about God. He uses those means, and so that language barrier meant nothing to God. He just had them hear it in their own tongue.

But when that gift was conferred by the apostles to another man, that man could not confer it on others. I can show you that in the Scripture if you're interested enough in trivial things like that. Don't want to know about it. But that's not the point of this. That's not the point of it.

When the Holy Spirit came upon them, they spoke of the wonderful works of God. They spoke about what God did in eternity for His people when He loved them with an everlasting love and chose them to salvation. They spoke of the wonderful works of God when He sent His Son into this world to be the propitiation for our sin. They spoke of the wonderful works of God on the cross when the Son of God cried, it's finished, and all of our redemption was obtained before God, and our sin was put away by the sacrifice of Himself.

That's what they spoke. The same thing we're talking about tonight. That's what the Holy Spirit does. There were different miracles to cause the clear result, and I could show you where that's the reason the miracles were given in the scripture, if you want to talk about it later. But they did that in order to get people to listen and hear the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. God gave those to confirm the word that was preached. The very language of scripture confirmed the word that was preached. It's all about the word that was preached. The only hope for sinners is the gospel, not speaking in tongues.

That was something the Lord used for a little while, and now he don't. But I'll tell you what those whom his spirit is upon are still doing. They're still preaching the wonderful works of God to this day, and they always will as long as God enables them to. They weren't just putting on a magic show there. They were preaching Christ and him crucified. The greatest miracle is not how they heard, but what they heard. The wonderful works of God are how that he has mercy on sinners by the life and death of his son.

Moses asked God, show me your glory. And God said, I'm going to make all my goodness pass before you. And what God, what was condensed down to the point where Moses could see it in a moment. How do you see the glory of God? Like, show me the glory of God right now. We've preached for 40 years and haven't come close. to exhausting the glories of the Lord Jesus Christ.

How do you show somebody in a moment, but when God condensed it down and showed Moses what he could that wouldn't kill him, here's how God characterized it. I'll have mercy on whom I will have mercy. He expressed his sovereignty and his love for mercy. He delights to show mercy on sinners, and that mercy is in the Son of God who gave himself for sinners and nowhere else.

Our so-called wonderful works are the very reason that God will send us to hell. Look that up later, Matthew 7, 22, and you tell me if that's not so. The specific reason that he sent those people to hell was because of their wonderful religious works. Our works are vanity, but God's works are not in vain.

What God does, no man can let it, the scripture says, and that means nobody can stop it, nobody can prevent it, nobody can thwart it. When God does something, it's done. That's what he did on Calvary. He finished the work of salvation for his people. It is by and because of the wonderful works of God, the perfect, spotless, righteousness, and effectual, all-sufficient crosswork of the Savior that we're saved and will be forever with him because of what he did.

Sinners are not saved by their life of accomplishments, but by the death that Christ accomplished. There's a world of difference now between works of the law in order to be saved, which read Romans chapter three, read the whole Bible. If you do anything, even if you keep the law that God ordained, In order to establish righteousness before God, Christ will profit you nothing, and you have no hope in this world or the next. But the difference between works of the law in order to be saved, which Paul said there in Romans 3, by the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified in God's sight. There's a difference, though, between that and good works of love because we've been saved.

Once we're saved without works, God will put us to work. Not until, not before, cause and effect, cause and effect. A believer will never describe any work as wonderful except what Christ did. We're gonna fall and fail every day. But there's just no way a believer is ever gonna call any work wonderful. I think we've been stripped of that, don't you? Except what Christ did. Even our works are his work, did you know that?

Turn to Ephesians 2. I just put down Ephesians 2 10 in my notes, so I'm going to turn over there. We're going to read a little bit more than that. A little bit above that. Verse 8. Let's just read, we're gonna have some extra time tonight, I'm gonna be very brief, so let's look at the first one.

And you, talking to the church at Ephesus, the people of God, you have he quickened, made alive, that's what that word means, made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, wherein in time past you walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air. All these free willers, they're Satan's puppets, every one of them. free will, free will, free will, and they're puppets of the devil the whole time. There ain't nothing free about them, or any of us, by nature. The spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience, verse three, among whom also we all had our conduct, had our conversation of conduct, in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others. by nature as we're born into this world with our old, evil, corrupt, Adamic nature. Hopeless. What's gonna make the difference but God? God's gonna do something, not you. You're not gonna turn over a new leaf. You're not gonna make a decision. God's gonna have to do something for you that you can't do for yourself now.

And bless God, he's rich in mercy. he's rich in mercy for his great love wherewith he loved us even when we were dead in sins hath quickened us together with Christ By grace are you saved, and hath raised us up together and made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus." What does that mean?

Well, the Lord Jesus Christ is now our second Adam. As we were represented all by Adam in the garden, and because Adam sinned, we all sinned in Adam as our representative, our federal head. Even so now, the Lord's referred to the second Adam in this regard.

Everyone whom he represented in his life and his death, he represents in glory now. He is our intercessor, but he's also our mediator and our representative before God. We're seated in the heavenlies in Christ. He went there for us. The high priest went into the Old Testament tabernacle on behalf of all the people. Our great high priest went into the tabernacle not made with hands, into the very presence of God the Father for us. That's our representative. He sits there and intercedes for us. And made us sit together in heavenly places in Christ. Verse seven, that in the ages to come, he might show the exceeding riches of his grace and his kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.

For by grace are you saved through faith. And that's not of yourselves. You think you just decided to be saved one day, like a religion talks about? No, no, that's not of yourselves. It's the gift of God. Not of works. Not of works. Not your wonderful works, not your evil works, not any of your works. Lest any man should boast. There's not going to be any glorying in the presence of God. All the glory goes to Him.

For we, verse 10, are His workmanship. created in Christ Jesus unto good works which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. Even our good works are his work. Referring directly back to our text now in the language of our text, the spirit in which we walk and the steps that we take are all taken because of Christ, straight at Christ.

Paul said, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God. Where is it, Paul? In Christ Jesus. How about us? The steps in which we walk because of him and at him. His walk, his unspeakable gift, his work, his will, his way, not our works, But His worship, that's the way we walk. That's the spirit. That's the steps that we take by His grace. And thank God, and may it always be so. Amen.

The Spirit in Which We Walk

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The Spirit in Which We Walk

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