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Not
Legalism
On a very practical note, how do we live a life of self-control? We know
we ought to live a life of self-control; but, for the most part we don’t
know how we do it. Before we plunge right in, let’s be sure we know what
we’re talking about. We have to understand that the fruit of the Spirit
is self-control. It is not merely the curbing of a bad habit; it is not
merely not doing something. It’s the Spirit doing a work in my life.
It is not that I just give up
doing something that is harmful to me. It’s not a matter of
"not"; it’s not what I don’t do. That’s legalism. Don’t
do this; don’t do that; I don’t do this; I don’t go here: that’s
the way of legalism. "Not": is the way of works - what I do
"not" do. It’s thinking, because I do "not" do that,
I must be acceptable with God. That is "not" self-control.
Legalism would mean that a rule has been imposed on me from the outside
and that rule keeps my appetites and desires in check. But, that’s all.
The external approach, with legal laws of control, is sort of like putting
a muzzle on a dog who has been biting the postman’s leg. You put the
muzzle on the dog and sure enough the dog doesn’t bite the postman’s
leg, but there is still the desire under that muzzle to bite the postman’s
leg. In the average church, there’s a muzzling of all the members of
that church, they dare not do something, but within them there is this
great and mighty desire to do it, even though they don’t do it because
an imposition of a rule has been placed upon them. That is not
self-control. That is pure legalism: the form of discipline legalism
exerts is entirely different.
Not
Muzzling, but Replacing
We are not speaking of muzzling; we’re not talking about curbing habits.
Self-control is completed, or comes to fulfillment, where the appetite
that has tried to take over and rule has now been replaced, so that it is
not only restrained; it is replaced. It is being replaced by the Holy
Spirit working within us the very life of Jesus. That’s what we’re
talking about. That pounding urge to sin that comes arising from our flesh
has now been swallowed up, has been brought to death, and it has been
brought to death in order that it’s opposite, the Spirit working within
us, brings to pass the very life of Jesus.
Ephesians 5:18 says, "be
not drunk with wine" wherein is excess, "but be
filled with the Holy Spirit." It’s not saying only, "don’t
get drunk"; plenty of people aren’t drunk but they don’t have the
fruit of the Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit is not simply curbing
something, it is replacing that sinful appetite with the life that is
generated by the Spirit. It is saying don’t be stimulated by wine, but
rather let your stimulation be the Holy Spirit.
Let’s look at Ephesians 4:25,
"therefore, laying aside falsehood"
- you might say there it is, curbing, no listen, "therefore,
laying aside falsehood, speak truth, each one with his neighbor."
You’re not only not going to lie, you’re going to speak truth. Be
angry, the next verse says, and yet do not sin. In other words, there is
an anger that is under the control of the Spirit, you may want to get our
cassette from the Fruit
of the Spirit on Gentleness, which is meekness, and you’ll
see what we mean by that. It isn’t just stop lying, it’s rather a
replacing a habit of lying with the Spirit of Truth.
What about verse twenty-eight:
"let him who steals, steal no longer."
OK, there’s the negative, curbing it, you say, one who steals, steal no
longer, there it is, curbing it. No, you can’t steal anymore, that’s
true, but you replace stealing. You don’t just leave a void there; you
put something in its place. Rather than steal, "let
him labor, performing with his own hands what is good, in order that he
may have something to share with him who is in need." This
is not just stopping stealing, it is replacing the stealing with doing
something for another’s need, and that’s through labor. So, on the one
hand you took from people and put them in need, now, it isn’t only that
you stop doing that, rather, you get an extra job to earn the money to
fill people’s pockets with money. You see the point? It’s not only
restraining, it is replacing with something.
All right, look at verse 29,
"let no unwholesome word proceed from your
mouth." There’s the negative: restrain the bad language,
but we’re going to replace it, with only such a word as is good for
edification according to the need of the moment that it should give grace
to those that hear. So, where your words tore and lacerated people, now
you’ve replaced it with a different kind of word, that is the fruit of
the Spirit. It says, "let all bitterness,
wrath, anger, clamor, and slander be put away from you along with all
malice. And be kind to one another, tender-hearted, forgiving each other
just as God in Christ has forgiven you." Do you get
the point? It’s not just skipping something, stopping what you’re
doing, it’s replacing it with the very life of the Lord Jesus Christ in
you.
Don't Be a
"NOT"
Have you noticed that many of
people are simply just "not"? Poor creatures, they just
don’t. They don’t do this; they don’t go there; they just don’t.
Probably they’re the most boring people in the world: they just don’t.
They’re hollow; they’re shallow. It’s almost like you’d have liked
them better before they became a Christian. To them being a Christian is
just "don’t". At least before they were a Christian there was
something to them, but now they’ve just become hollow people. They’re
like a scare-crow in a field. That’s not what the life of the Spirit is;
that’s not the fruit of the Spirit; it’s a kind of religion.
A CHOICE
The fruit of the Spirit indeed
takes out, but it puts back in the exciting dynamic life of Jesus Christ.
Now, this doesn’t mystically happen to us. It isn’t that we’re just
sitting there one day and we’re zapped with the Holy Spirit. No, it is a
deliberate, and a continued faith choice in which we are empowered by the
Holy Spirit, and I’ve said this before, we cannot produce this life of
the Spirit: it is the fruit of the Spirit, not the fruit of our trying and
our struggling; we can’t produce it, but we are actively involved in
faith choices by which we grow in this. Does that make sense?
There’s a good verse in 1
Timothy, it says, "Timothy, don’t listen
to old wives tales." I have a feeling that the old wives
tales are the tales that tell you that you can be instantly holy by doing
certain things; that you can be instantly holy by somebody zapping you: by
an evangelist’s hands or whatever, and that you will then be made a
perfectly new person. I’m afraid that’s an old wives tale; it doesn’t
work. And Paul goes on to say, "but
rather exercise yourself unto godliness."
Godliness means a life which is
derived from God. Godliness means God who lives within you is the source
of your life. Exercise yourself into godliness. That word exercise in the
Greek language is gymnasticize. We take that word over into English
whenever we go to the gym to exercise ourselves. So, what Paul is saying,
is go to the gym and exercise yourself unto godliness. There’s no
zapping, no mystical experience here, no sudden arrival. Have you ever
been to a gym? Fitness doesn’t happen in one workout; it doesn’t
happen in several workouts. What you are going there to accomplish takes
time and plenty of effort and decisions to exercise yourself in the
endeavor. Over time you get to where you can lift more and carry more; you
build up gradually.
The word means to train, in order
to bring about new habits. It means daily sustained work. If you’ve been
to a proper gym, you will have seen athletes there. If you’re around
athletes, you’ve seen it’s a serious job; they don’t go there to
play. They’re serious about what they’re doing. When you go to the gym
you expect the experience to be painful; you expect it to be strenuous. It’s
not a place you go to hang out. You go there to work; and everybody there
wants to be there for the same reason.
But, don’t forget what I said:
self-control is something that arises within me; and I do put off this and
put off that because I want to. I choose to do this because I desire to be
who I am in Christ; I desire to live a life that is consistent with the
Christ that is my life. Self-discipline is imposed from the outside. It’s
just "put on" your list of rules. But, self-control is the
Spirit arising within you. So, Paul said, go to the gym and exercise
yourself in godliness on a daily basis. Sometimes there will be pain;
sometimes you’ll feel you aren’t getting very far, but, you keep on;
it’s OK, you’re getting where you want to go. You’re letting this
godliness be seen coming from you. It says, train. In other words, you
organize your life toward godliness so that His life within you may be
seen to it’s fullest affect.
HOW?
But, I ask it again, how? How do
we do this practically speaking? How? If you’re just a typical Christian
you’ve had reactions, desires, appetites arise from your flesh this very
day that you don’t particularly want to be there, and you’ve had
reactions to people of anger and jealousy, and you didn’t want these. It’s
sort of like a zoo of appetites. It’s a zoo at feeding time: every
desire is demanding attention! Demanding fulfillment. As a matter of fact,
that’s probably the key word to what we’re talking about: these
appetites demand. They demand.
What do you do? How do you train
your spirit in this gymnasium, your spirit that’s indwelt with His
Spirit, how do you train? How do you train so the Spirit of Christ rules
in your life? How in all of life do you become more than a conqueror? How
do we restrain and replace our appetites? That’s the how we’re talking
about: that’s the subject of this study.
All right, I’ll try to put it
in a sequence. Number one, it’s got to begin with the Word of
God: the scripture must be given a very large place in our life. Scripture
has got to have a space in our mind worked out into practical obedience.
One of the earliest commands to the people of God, to Joshua for example,
says, this book of the law shall not depart from your mouth; but, you
shall meditate on it day and night, so that you shall be careful to do
according to everything that is written in it. Did you notice it says,
"it shall not depart from out of your mouth"?
The Hebrew people, at least in the Old Testament, for a long time, did not
know how to read silently, to read in their mind. When you belonged to
Israel, the way to read was to read out loud. Devout Jews would even be up
in the night, walking through the house, reading scripture out loud and
praying, because they chose to do this in an out loud manner.
"This
Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth" is
saying that when they were speaking they were to be speaking that which is
contained in the Book of the Law. What you say, what comes out of your
mouth, it will never depart from being the thing that rolls off of your
tongue. When you speak, what rolls off of your tongue will be that
expressing what is already written in the law of God. It says, meditate.
Meditate means you go over and over and over again in these scriptures.
Over and over and over and back in your mind, like a dog with a bone that
won’t let go, chewing and chewing. You’ve got to chew at it and get
the very marrow out of it. It’s always in your mouth, it’s always
being cogitated in your mind, and the result is you’ll bring it into
your lifestyle. It’ll come into your life.
In the scripture you have the
self-revelation of God. God telling us what He’s like. God told us what
He’s like because if He hadn’t, we would never know. Every religion in
the world is a monument to man’s brain and man’s invention. They are
all trying to find out what God is like. But, when I come to the
scripture, it reveals to me a God that I couldn’t even think of, He’s
beyond my imagination. He brings to me His truth, which again my heart
couldn’t have come up with. He brings to me His plan of salvation. I
couldn’t ever have dreamed of that. It wouldn’t make sense to me. I
receive a Messiah, a crucified Savior? It really doesn’t make sense
until I realize the wisdom of God. If I say it’s foolish, then the
foolishness of God is wiser than men.
This incredible revelation of
God: is Truth. Now, I live in a world and I’ve lived here long enough to
get used to it. In it I am bombarded with lies all the time. These are out
and out lies. They come through the media, through our education system…we
get used to those lies. We say, that’s just the way it is. You don’t
even question these lies sometimes because you’re so used to them. Have
you ever lived near railroad tracks? When you live there day after day
after day, a train can go by and actually shake the walls of your house,
but when somebody visiting there asks, what’s that sound, you don’t
even hear it. The trains going by all day long; you’ve learned to ignore
them.
We live in a world where we no
longer react. Put it this way, one evening of watching television will
show you all the works of the flesh, but portrays these works as expected
behavior of normal adults. That being the case, my flesh, these appetites
we’re talking about, is in league with the world’s lies. Those lies
are the enemy on the inside. The flesh says, that’s right. Because the
flesh cannot be subject to the law of God. Romans 8 says it isn’t and it
can’t be. So, my flesh hears the television, hears those lies, reads
those lies, sees those lies, lives in those lies. If that’s all I take
in, pretty soon my flesh is agreeing with those lies. And it may convince
me. Flesh will argue, how narrow minded can you be? The lies are affirming
and giving validity to my fleshly appetite. That is happening to us all
the time.
You don’t really have to watch
all-night TV. The lies come at us from all over the place, all the time.
So, I have to have something outside of me to say what is right and what
is wrong. I need an absolute. Do you know what an absolute is? If you’re
a builder, there’s the plumb line. When you build a wall you hang a
weight on a piece of string and hold it up next to the wall. The plumb
line tells you whether the wall is straight or not. The wall always looks
straight to us when we put it up, but when we compare it to the plumb
line, we find that it’s not straight at all. It shows you how far off
you are.
Or, when you’re in the middle
of the Atlantic, you need a compass which tells you which way is magnetic
North, or otherwise you’re going to go around and around in circles and
you won’t know where you are. You’ll think you know where you are,
where you feel you are, but without a compass you won’t really know the
reality of where you are.
ABSOLUTES
And why do we say that it’s
8:00 on Saturday evening, for example? What right do we have to say it’s
8:00 p.m. Saturday? I may feel like it’s Wednesday. And you may think it
feels like Sunday at three o clock. What makes one of us right? People say
they believe in alternate lifestyles, why not alternate time pieces? That
makes about as much sense. Isn’t truth, truth? Isn’t truth what it
means to you? Your truth is your truth and my truth is my truth. Right?
That’s what children are being taught, that there are no absolutes.
I’ll tell you why it’s 8:00
on Saturday night: because there’s a place on the river Thames in
London, called Greenwich. And that is where time begins. It’s called
Greenwich Mean Time. At regular intervals across the Atlantic, an hour apart, time
is set according to that standard, until here, our clocks are accurate
because of the standard set in Greenwich Mean Time is an
absolute. It has nothing to do with your feelings; it has nothing to do
with it being your truth or my truth. It is truth. It stands on its own.
Its an absolute.
Have you ever seen that little
diagram in the cockpit of a plane that shows a tiny representation of the
plane? I asked the pilot once, why do you need a picture of your plane
right here in front of you when you’re flying? You know what your plane
looks like; you know what you’re flying in. He explained that when you’re
in the clouds and fog you can’t tell whether you’re upside down or right side
up. You could be heading straight down at the ground, or aiming right out
into space; your feelings are confused, the pilot will tell you. So, the
pilot has to fly the plane watching that picture in the cockpit. The
diagram of the plane shows him the true position of the plane in the air.
It indicates whether the plane is balanced, if it’s level, if it’s
going down or going up.
You see, that is the Word of God.
There are times when my feelings and my appetites would take over my life;
I’d drive myself straight into the mountains of lust. Other times I
might go into outer space of fantasy. To prevent this, I have to watch the
Word of God. It is my plumb line hanging down. It tells me, this is Truth,
whether you like it or not. Don’t argue with it. Don’t let that Word
depart from your mouth. You’re to be always speaking in accordance with
what the Word of God says. God’s Word is the plumb line, the gyroscope,
the compass. Without it, I’m going to driven by my appetites and the
wind of my feelings.
The Word of God, the Absolute,
has got to be outside of my feelings. Otherwise, it would be useless to
me; I would always be going by what I feel is best. Truth has got to be
something outside of me, and God has given us His Word. He’s given us
His Word in print, no less. He’s given us a revelation of Himself, of
Truth. So, the scripture says, "Thy Word,
have I hidden in my heart, that I might not sin against thee."
That says it really. His Word is
hidden in my heart. That word "hidden" in the Hebrew language,
is a fascinating word. It means to hide a treasure or a supply over
against a coming emergency. You don’t know if the emergency will
actually come or not, but you are well provided for in case it does. You
have hidden it just in case it happens. You have supply. Another way of
saying it is, "I’ve laid up Your Word in my heart; I’ve prepared
myself against the coming day." So many times people pull out their
Bibles in the midst of the crisis when they could have, by self-control of
the Holy Spirit, been storing up and laying aside the Word of God in their
heart all along. The scriptures teach us to keep His Word hidden in us, so
when the day comes and we are clobbered on the side of the head by our
appetites, we will be OK, because we’ve got the Word hidden in us and it
will keep us from sin.
In Ephesians 6 it tells us to
wield the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. One way to
translate that in the Greek, is the sword which the Spirit gives. It is as
if we have an armory here, of the Word of God within us, and the Spirit
says, here, you need this one; I’ll hand you this knife; take this. He
gives us the particular word from God’s Word that we need now. He draws
it out of our armory. The Holy Spirit is the one that takes that word I’ve
studied and memorized and I’ve learned and He gives that word, and it’s
the spoken word, the Greek word is "rhema." God’s
Spirit speaks His Word that I’ve put in my heart. He pulls it out at the
right time and we have plenty of supply for whatever the need is.
DAVID
In the last lesson we were
talking about David. Remember how he memorized the scripture? Think
how difficult it would be for David to memorize scripture in his day.
There were no published copies of the scriptures; I don’t know where he
got his copy, but by the time he was a teenager, facing Goliath, he had
memorized much of Deuteronomy. He could quote those principles and
concepts to Goliath, which he had learned from the Word of God. All of
David’s psalms are peppered and salted with references to the Word of
God that he had, which was basically Deuteronomy and the first five books
of the Bible.
If I want to know how David lived
his life with self-control, he was able to because he was filled with the
Word of God. I think it’s very significant that when Satan came to Jesus
to try to put the hook into His desires and appetites, Jesus did not
respond with some divine fit; He just simply countered with, "it
is written." That’s how He responded to Satan. So if you
would live a life of self-control, take the scriptures seriously. The book
you hold in your hand, called the Bible, is the Word of God. It is. The
Spirit breathed into that book; the words are Spirit breathed. Pray that
that same Spirit that breathed that Word into being, will breathe out that
Word and speak it into your heart. Memorize it. Become totally familiar
with it, backwards and forwards.
You say, well, I can’t. Oh,
come on, give me a break. I won’t embarrass you, but I bet if I were to
ask you if you could recite scripture, there would be somebody beside you,
someone you know who can quote scripture. My mother in her seventies, for
the first time in her life, began to memorize scripture. She memorized
entire booklets from the Bible Memory Association. She could quote one
after the other. I could tell her where it is; she could quote it. I could
quote it and she could tell me where it is. She didn’t even start that
until she was in her seventies. Don’t tell me that you can not bury
yourself and immerse yourself in the Word of God. If you’re a sportsman,
you can probably quote statistics about homeruns and batting averages and
names of people on teams and what year they won the World Series. You know
all of those things; how come you don’t know the scripture? I’m not
trying to send you on a guilt trip; I’m just saying, don’t tell me you
can’t memorize, because you do memorize.
"HOW"
CONTINUED
Number two, what we have
to have is a greater consciousness of the Holy Spirit’s presence than a
consciousness of the howling desires and appetites of the flesh. I can
learn, and I use that word carefully now, to realize the presence of the
Holy Spirit: to realize He’s here. Or, maybe another way of wording it,
is to be deliberately present to Him. I have an entire album of four
cassettes, four hours of study on BEING
PRESENT TO GOD. You need to get that album and listen to it, because
this is very important in living the Christian life. You can be around
people and not be present to them. Isn’t that correct? You can walk
through their midst and not even realize they are there. Just ask most
wives I counsel and you’ll see that’s the way their husbands are many
times.
I want to tell you this: if we
are not consciously present to the Holy Spirit, we are going to find that
we are present to our flesh and our appetites. Do you hear me? There’s not
a third place to be. You are either present to the presence of the Holy
Spirit, or you are present to your fleshly appetites and cravings. There
is no neutral ground. Remember what I’m saying. Self-control is not
just saying, NO! It’s not just saying, I mustn’t, or I shouldn’t.
Self-control is a "no",
but it is birthed in the enveloping consciousness of the presence of the
Holy Spirit: the Eternal "Yes". It isn’t just a cold,
dead, "no". It isn’t even a "no" that’s based on
the scripture. I know people who know the scripture and they’re dead as
they can be. It isn’t just knowing the scripture says, you mustn’t do
this and you mustn’t do that. This "no" that self-control says
to an appetite that is seeking to take over, is a "no" birthed
in the conscious presence of the Holy Spirit. We’ve got to learn to
realize that conscious presence. If we are just saying, "no",
then we are really present to our flesh. Because what we’re celebrating
is our ability to say, "no" to the flesh. And we get proud of
that. If that be the case, you don’t need a prayer meeting, you just
need a West Point type military training. They’ll teach you to have an
iron will, so you can say, "no!". No, we’re not talking about
that. We’re not celebrating our iron will, because ninety-nine per cent
of us don’t have an iron will. We’re not celebrating our ability to
say "no", we’re celebrating that the Holy Spirit is our life.
BE PRESENT TO
HIM
Let me say it this way, to be
consciously present to the Holy Spirit of God, will swallow up all fleshly
appetites and desires. Christ in you does not have a problem with
over-eating. Christ in you does not have a problem with anger. Christ in
you does not have a problem with pornography. Christ does not have a
problem with foul language. I could go on and on. I’m telling you: who
you are in Christ is who you really are. That’s the reality. That’s
who you really are.
Be who you really are. Because
Christ in you does not have a problem with the flesh. And if you walk in
the Spirit, the scripture says, you will not fulfill the lusts of the
flesh. Galatians 5:16 in the Amplified Bible says it clearly. "But,
I say, walk and live habitually in the Holy Spirit, responsive to and
controlled and guided by the Spirit, then you will certainly not gratify
the cravings and desires of the flesh." If I can
only learn to be present to the Holy Spirit, consciously there, He
swallows up those pounding desires of the flesh. It is a command: walk in
the Spirit.
THE GUARANTEE
It’s also a guarantee, if you
do this you will not carry out the desires of the flesh. So, it is a faith
choice. I respond to the command. It is an act of will, responding to the
Spirit who dwells within me and it is His strength that produces in me the
fruit of the Spirit which is self-control.
Jesus used the word
"abide". "If you abide in me."
Abide is a very interesting word. It means to live with actually. But
there are two words in the Greek to talk about "living with."
One describes where you live. Whenever I come home after being out of
town, I don’t ask myself, "where will I abide tonight?" I know
if I’m in Austin, I’m going to abide in my home. But, if I’m in
Chicago, when I arrive there, I’m going to ask the question, "where
will I abide?" There is a choice to be made. That is the same as this
word here in the Greek. It’s a choice word. It doesn’t mean,
"well, of course I live there." It means, right now, I can live
here, but I don’t have to. You are going to be making a choice all the
time. Jesus said, "abide", that is, make the choice to live in
Him, and be present to Him living in you.
THE CHOICE
Jesus is calling us to choose at
all times, under all situations, to make the conscious choice to abide in
Him. This is exactly what Brother Lawrence was talking about in his book,
when he said, "practice the presence of God." It’s the
deliberate choice: I am going to be in His presence. In other words, we
never wait for His presence to mystically happen to us; we choose to be
present to Him in all situations. If you’re waiting for a feeling, then
you’ll always be examining your feelings. Did I do it right? Did I do it
enough? Did I do it correctly? That is the way religion teaches Christians
to be and it’s wrong. You live in the truth: that Christ in you is who
you are. You don’t wait for a feeling; you live in the truth regardless
of what your feelings are telling you.
That’s what David said, "even
though I pass through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no
evil, because you are with me." No matter what I feel, I
know He is with me, and therefore I choose not to fear. One of the ways to
do this, is to take a period of time every day, morning or evening. Just a
few minutes where you get somewhere quietly and deliberately realize that
God actually fills this place. Turn your attention, turn your whole being,
toward His presence. He is. You’re not asking Him to come. He is here.
Where ever you are, He is there. It isn’t begging. You aren’t asking
for anything. You’re just being. You’re not even talking. You are just
being present in His realized presence. You are simply letting Him love
you and being present to His love in that moment. It takes us out of the
realm of theory; it isn’t just believing in His unconditional love; I’m
sitting here actually letting Him love me. If my mind begins to wander, I
bring myself back, consciously. Sometimes I might just repeat the word,
"Abba". Because I want to be present to His love as my Father.
You may ask, "well, what can
that do?" Well, wait and see. It will amaze you. Do you know what
David refers to this presence as? Listen to this, David calls it all
through the psalms: "the secret place of the
Most High; the shadow of the Almighty." My favorite
is, "under the refuge of Your wings."
Get our album on this entitled SEE GOD, MOST HIGH
AND ALMIGHTY.
I take refuge under the wings of
God. It’s in all of our lives if you want to look for it. Carve out the
time to just be in His presence. But, I want to warn you right now what
the flesh will do. You will put it off; you will say, later, you will say,
not now, I’ve got to do this first. That will occur. You will just not
find time. But, I’m not asking you to have a prayer meeting. I’m just
simply asking you to stop, be still, and enter into the presence of God’s
love for you where you are. This is important. It’s very, very
beneficial. If you’re at the office, or wherever you are, just realize
God is present in this place and you are performing your tasks within the
holding of Him within His love. He is present and you must be present to
Him. Whenever I say I’m too busy, it’s just simply my flesh saying
that God is irrelevant to this situation.
HE IS PRESENT
TO YOU
Think about it. He chooses to be
present to us. "Behold, I stand at the door
and knock." That’s what Jesus says. That was said to
Christians that were too busy. Don’t think that was for lost sinners.
Jesus said to the Christian who was too busy, "I
stand at the door and knock and whosoever opens" …It
would appear that in all your busy-ness, and it is a church door that He
is knocking at, He is saying that My presence appears to be irrelevant to
you. "If anyone in there can hear My Voice
(listen to His voice) open the door." Make a faith
choice. Open the door and we’ll have fellowship together.
So, He takes the initiative.
Right at this moment, His presence is surrounding you where you are. Be
present to Him. We are to respond to His presence. We’re not trying to
get to His presence. He is present. We’ve got to get out of the idea
that "the Presence of the LORD was there this morning." Are you
suggesting He might not have been there? Or that you were somewhere that
He wasn’t? These are silly things we say. If you felt the presence of
the LORD, it’s because you chose to. That’s the truth. He is there.
We’ve seen how David did this,
how he exercised himself in the presence of God. Let’s take some
scriptures. Psalm 23 for sure. When was it written? We went over
how Saul pursued David in the wilderness. David was hiding in the caves
and Saul was hounding him. David sat down in the middle of all that and he
let himself be bathed in the presence of God. Strong tradition tells us
that Psalm 23 was written there in the wilderness while Saul was pursuing
David there. David, in the middle of all this pressure, instead of
reacting to the pressure, says, the LORD is my shepherd. I shall not want.
In the middle of that pressure David declared the LORD was his shepherd.
He says, He makes me to lie down in green pastures. In the Hebrew, it is
lush, green meadows. You just feel the peace coming over him in that
desperate situation. He leads me beside still waters. And that’s when he
says, even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…even
though, he’s close, but he’s not there yet. It’s getting so bad that
he might go there. He says, even if it comes to this, and I walk through
the valley of the shadow of death, (and incidentally the shadow of death
is even worse than death because in death you’ve gone to be with Jesus.
But the shadow of death is when that dark, cold cloud comes over your
life, and you shiver because of the presence of death. But, you’re not
dead.) He goes on to say, even though I walk through the valley of the
shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me! That’s it.
Another one that was written
around the same time, Psalm 27, (in that period in the wilderness
David wrote a lot of psalms), says, The LORD is my life, my salvation,
whom shall I fear? You see, Saul is coming after him, foaming at the
mouth, but David says, "whom shall I fear?"
He’s talking about Saul, but he says he should not dread what Saul can
do because God is protecting him. When we’re right in the midst of it,
when evil doers have come against us, when our adversaries are a host
camped about us, that’s like Saul and his army. David tells us, "my
heart will not fear. Even though they all rise against me, You shall be
Present." Do you notice how David strengthens himself in the
LORD? He’s not asking God to be his shepherd; he’s not asking
God to be his life. He’s declaring that God IS these very things
to him. He IS my shepherd. He IS my life. He IS my
shield. He IS. David is realizing the presence of God for who He
is.We have to learn to live in the "is"ness of God, in
His presence, all the time.
TELL HIM THE
TRUTH
Now, let’s go further. There
are times in the presence of God when you feel those hot tears coming down
your face; your insides are ripped out. What do you do in that situation?
What did David do? What you do is tell the only person it is safe to tell
how you feel. You say, this is what my desires are and I don’t know what
to do with them. So, I am telling them to You. I’m telling You, as wrong
as these feelings are, this is how I feel. Oh, Father, listen to me. I can
trust You, I can rely on You, I am telling You whatever may already be the
truth. You already know it, but let me just tell you the truth. This is
what I’m dealing with. This is how I feel. And this is what I want to
do. And this is what I want to happen.
You confide in Him. You don’t
tell yourself. That was Saul’s problem. When Saul was afraid, he kept
his fear inside. When he was angry, he kept his anger inside. It grew into
bitterness, and he cultivated a whole greenhouse of resentment. It spun
into murder because he kept it inside. David’s genius was that when he
was really hurt, when even being in the presence of God didn’t dispel
it, then he spilled the whole lot out to God and he said, this is how I’m
feeling right at this minute. I’m just dumping it on You.
He didn’t keep it in himself;
he took it to God. He never went to other people and said, this is what I’m
feeling about so and so. No, because that’s gossip. And anyway, why
poison their spirit with what’s happening inside of you? This is the
reason that he didn’t go to Saul and kill him. He had the feelings to
kill him; he had the appetites. But he didn’t go within himself, he didn’t
go to other people, he didn’t go to the object that gave him the pain;
he went to God.
There are many psalms, but I’ll
take the one that I think says it best. You remember Ahithophel? He was
David’s dearest friend. When the chips were down and Absalom seemed to
be winning the battle against David, Ahithophel turned tail and went over
to Absalom’s side. It was a dirty trick: a low, treacherous thing. When
David heard of it, he just fell apart. But, instead of raging, instead of
going to all his friends and telling them, he went immediately to
recognize the presence of God. And he says in Psalm 55, "give
ear to my prayer, O God. Do not hide Thyself from my supplication. Only
You God know what I am feeling…my heart is in anguish within me; the
terrors of death have fallen upon me. Fear and trembling are come upon me;
horror and fright have overwhelmed me." He’s
saying, You know what I’m going through. My own son is against me, and
my best friend has walked out on me. Then he says in verse twelve, "it
is not an enemy that reproaches me and taunts me. Then I might bear it.
Nor one who has hated me, who insolently faults himself against me. Then I
might hide myself from him. But, it was you, a man my equal, my companion,
my familiar friend. We had sweet fellowship together; we used to walk to
the house of God in company. I could bear it if it had been an enemy."
David is saying, God, this is what I am feeling. This was my dear friend.
Do you know what else David said?
He said, let death come fully upon them. Kill them, God, kill them. Let
them go alive into hell. That’s what he said because that’s what he
felt. It is safe to tell God how you feel. God knows what you feel anyway.
If you’re ever going to get rid of it, you’ve got to say it. But say
it to Him. Let it out to the only person Who can handle it. I know some
who are raised in churches who say good Christians don’t feel like that.
They deny the truth that that’s how they feel. Therefore, it’s never
dealt with. Oh, hear me, you can trust Father to love you as you tell Him
exactly how you feel. You say, Father I wish he was dead, and you think,
oh, good Christians wouldn’t say that. Hey, look at me. I tell you, good
Christians do say that, and they say it to Father. It is what you do with
it that counts.
"HOW"
CONTINUED FURTHER
Self-control comes when I can’t
just let it disappear in the presence of God. In that same presence, the
third thing I do is tell Him this is how I feel. I say, "You know
my weeping heart; You know how that person ripped me to pieces. Yes, You
do know, but I’m telling You. And You know my feelings right now, but I
am telling You. I want the man to die. That’s what I want. But, I’m
handing it over to You. I can’t handle this." In doing this I am
handing it over to God to do what is right.
That is self-control. You
recognize the presence of God as you live in His presence, and when life
becomes too hard to bear, you tell Him. You tell Him your deepest thoughts
and your deepest fears and some of these things you would be ashamed to
tell anyone else. It’s not a shame to tell Him. The blood of Jesus
Christ keeps cleansing us. But, in telling Him, I don’t believe that
what you are doing is sinning. I believe you’re going to the only
psychiatrist worth going to. You’re confessing on the only couch worth
resting on. And you’re telling the truth to the only Person who can do
something about it. And at the end of every psalm, when David spills out
his heart, and sometimes you wonder if he’s ever going to get to this
point, at the end he says it’s OK. It’s all gone now. What did he say
at the end of Psalm 55? At the end he says, "But
as for me, I shall call upon God; the LORD will save me. He will hear my
voice; He will redeem my soul in peace. God will hear and answer. Cast
your burden upon the LORD." He’s got it. It’s
OK.
Be in the presence of God, let
Him minister life to you, and if necessary put every one of your burdens
and cares on Him, dump them on Him, in language that expresses your
spirit. You can walk away from there clean, strengthened, and whole, and
in control, in the power of the Holy Spirit; as you saw David in control.
The man who wrote those psalms is the man who could creep up behind Saul
and cut off the end of his robe, yet choose not to kill him. How could he
choose not to kill him? He could do it because he had already gotten rid
of those feelings to God. Do you see what I’m saying?
CONCLUSION
So, what do we have? You have the
Word of God, and you have the Spirit of God, whose Presence
you are coming to be aware of, and in His presence you realize Who He is.
And you let Him be to you Who He is. And if necessary you give Him
the feelings that could, if ever let out, become ravening beasts. But,
because they’re given to Him, they become little pussy cats and it’s
OK, they’re gone.
So, there it is: living from the
Holy Spirit and manifesting in your life the fruit of the Spirit which is
self-control. God bless you. Amen.
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