©1998 Larry Huntsperger
Peninsula Bible Fellowship
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7/26/98
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Spirit v/s Talents
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7/26/98 Spirit v/s Talents
We have taken a few weeks
to look once again at a topic
that surfaces frequently
in both my thinking and my teaching.
We are looking at how our Lord
moves us from a flesh-based Christian life
to a walk with Him based upon
the presence of His Spirit within us
and His commitment to live through us.
This series started several weeks ago
when we took a morning
to look at the two basic types of flesh
responses we Christians wrestle with.
We called the first one fearful flesh.
The fearful flesh is that flesh response within us
that causes us to look at ourselves
and see all those things within us
that we believe disqualify us
from a truly effective Christian life.
We see ourselves
filled with flaws
and failures
and sin patterns
and personality traits
and emotionally damaged areas from our past
that all go together to effectively disqualify us
from a truly effective or productive walk with
God.
And then we looked at what we called the boastful
flesh
that afflicts many other Christians.
The boastful flesh also looks to the flesh
for the resources to live the Christian life,
but rather than seeing
all the things the disqualify them
from effective Christian living,
they see all the things
that they believe QUALIFY them
for effective Christian living.
They see their natural talents,
their self-confidence,
their abilities to do well
things that others can't do at all,
and charge into the Christian life
with guns blazing
and confident heads held high.
The fearful flesh looks to their flesh
and is overwhelmed with their inability
to pull it off
because they are keenly aware
of their own failures
and limited gifts and talents
and tremendous load of baggage from the
past.
The boastful flesh looks to their flesh
and is overwhelmed with their obvious ability
to pull it off
because they are keenly aware
of their superior gifts and talents
and tremendous load of potential for
success.
And we have seen in our study thus far
that the problem with both groups
is identical -
they are both looking to their own flesh abilities
for the resources to live the Christian life.
One group is running away from the battle as fast as
they can in fear,
the other group is running toward the battle as
fast as they can in pride
and self-confidence,
and both of them are running toward
disaster.
And perhaps I should remind us
of the definition we are using
for "the flesh" in this study.
The FLESH, as Paul defined it for us
in Phil. 3:1-6 included:
everything we bring with us into this world at birth,
and everything we can accomplish
and achieve through those things
we brought with us into this world at
birth.
It is all those things
that equip us for
or disqualify us from success
in our competition with our fellow human beings.
IQ,
creative abilities,
personality,
physical appearance, etc.
We have been using
two passages as our anchors
in this study so far.
One was spoken by Christ Himself
in John 6:63 where He says,
It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh
profits nothing;
The second was written by Paul
to the Corinthian church
in II Cor. 3:5-6 where he says,
2 Cor. 3:5 Not that we are adequate in
ourselves to consider anything as coming
from ourselves, but our adequacy is from
God,
2 Cor. 3:6 who also made us adequate as
servants of a new covenant, not of the letter
but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the
Spirit gives life.
Then, two weeks ago we took one more step in our
thinking.
Having seen that our natural flesh abilities
can never either equip us for
or disqualify us from
effective Christian living,
we then looked at the first step
in the two-step process
God seeks to lead us through
in shifting us from a flesh-based walk with Him
to a Spirit-based walk with Him.
No child of God
ever has or ever will
quickly or easily let go
of his confidence in the flesh.
But until we do
life in the Spirit at any level
can never become a reality in our lives.
And the first thing God will seek to accomplish
in the lives of all who long for
a truly effective walk with Him
is to lovingly wrench from our grip
our focus on
or confidence in our flesh abilities.
With the fearful flesh
this often involves placing us into situations
in which we feel totally unqualified
and then allowing us
to see Him effectively
and skillfully use us and the situation for His
good.
With the boastful flesh
this often involves allowing the boastful
flesh
to place the full weight of his confidence
on his own fleshly abilities,
and then allowing him
to crash and burn big time.
Now before we go any farther with this
I want to take just a couple of minutes
to place this whole flesh/Spirit discussion
into a lot broader setting.
I know that some of you
are probably wondering
why in the world we're spending weeks on
this thing anyway.
What is the big deal
with all of this stuff about
whether we are operating in the flesh
or in the Spirit?
Well, a big part of the answer to that
rests in what is really going on
between us and our Creator,
what He wants from us
and why.
There is a tragic misunderstanding
running rampant throughout the Christian world
that suggests that a big part of the reason
God calls us to Himself
is so that we can do things for Him.
Of course He loves us,
and He calls us His children,
but PRODUCTIVITY is really the crucial issue.
There are an awful lot of things
that need to be done in this world
and God needs people to do them.
In this deception our value to God
and our status with God
is seen as being dependent upon
our productivity for God.
The more I can motivate myself
and others to do God's work
the better I'm doing.
I had a verse pointed out to me last week
that beautifully states the flaw
in this kind of thinking.
It's found in the 17th chapter of the book of Acts.
In this passage Paul is talking to a group of the
intellectuals in Athens,
explaining to them the true nature of God.
In Acts 17:24-25 he says,
Acts 17:24 "The God who made the world
and all things in it, since He is Lord of
heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples
made with hands;
Acts 17:25 nor is He served by human
hands, as though He needed anything, since
He Himself gives to all people life and
breath and all things;
...nor is He served by human hands, as
though He needed anything, since He
Himself gives to all people life and breath
and all things;...
It is the height of human arrogance
ever to assume that we could offer God
anything that He really needs.
Anything I could ever do for God
He could do for Himself
far better,
far faster,
and far more effectively.
He doesn't need me
or what I do
or what I offer Him.
When my daughter, Joni, was about 5 years old
she and I went over to help a friend of mine
move into his new house.
Joni played outside in the yard
as my friend and I carried box after box
from the truck
into the house.
Several times throughout that process
Joni came up to me
and said, "Daddy - I want to help you do
your work".
She loved her daddy
and wanted to help Him with all his heavy
hauling.
Each time she asked to help
I explained to her that
the loads were far to heavy for her to carry.
This was "Daddy work"
and it was far too hard for Joni to do.
But she kept asking,
so when it came time to carry the couch into the
house
my friend took one end,
and I took the other.
But I dropped my end way down low
so that Joni could put her little hands
along the bottom edge between my hands.
Then, together we walked slowly into the house.
When we got home that evening
the first thing Joni said to my wife, Sandee,
was, "Mommy, I helped daddy do his
work."
That's just the way it is
in our efforts to do the work of God.
Human flesh,
even incredibly gifted and motivated flesh,
cannot do the work of God.
Only God can do the work of God.
I let Joni help me carry that couch
not because I needed her help,
and certainly not because it made it easier,
but because I love her,
and I wanted her with me,
and I loved the things that happened
between us
when we shared the project together.
God has chosen to live in us
and work through us
not because we are such great tools
for the work that needs to be done,
but because He loves what happens
between us and Him in the process.
He lowers the couch down to a level
that allows us
to place our little hands along the bottom edge.
He walks at a speed
that makes it possible for us
to trot along next to Him.
The truth is
our involvement makes the whole process
far harder for Him.
It meant His having to take on human form,
suffering hideous abuse at the hands of His own
creation,
and undergoing an agonizing physical death
for us.
But in His value system
the cost was worth it
because it made possible
the restored relationship
between us and Him.
I bring all of this up
at this point in our flesh/Spirit study
because it goes to the heart of why any of
this matters at all.
You see, underlying all that God says to us
in this whole area of learning to live
on the basis of His Spirit within us
is His desire to recreate within us
a life of trusting dependance upon Him.
It's not all that complicated.
This whole hideous mess began
when the human race,
in the persons of Adam and Eve,
shook their fists in the face of God
and said, "We can do quite well without you,
God",
and declared themselves independent of their
Creator.
Every one of us come to God
with a total life history
founded upon that same attitude of
independence.
The heart of all true Christian growth
is the process of reversing that life attitude one
step, one area at a time,
bringing us to the place where we can say,
"Lord, I need You,
and Lord, I can trust You here."
But that feeling of dependance upon God
is a terrifying feeling for the flesh.
The fearful flesh says,
"Lord, I'm afraid to trust your truth and your
life within me because you might fail me."
The boastful flesh says,
"Lord I don't need to trust your leadership and
your life within me
because I can do this for You myself just
fine."
But God says,
2 Cor. 3:5 Not that we are adequate in
ourselves to consider anything as coming
from ourselves, but our adequacy is from
God,
2 Cor. 3:6 who also made us adequate as
servants of a new covenant...
That is not something we do,
that is an attitude toward life,
and toward each event in life
that God seeks to build into us.
It is a two-step process -
Step #1 is breaking our confidence in ourself, - our
Flesh,
and then step #2 is building our confidence
in His life within us, - His Spirit.
I know that one of the things
we have found frustrating with this study so
far
is the apparently fuzzy distinctions
between what God accomplishes through
us by His Spirit
and what we accomplish
through our own natural talents and
abilities.
I want to close today
by trying to erase some of that fuzziness.
Those of you who were here a few weeks ago may
remember I shared with you
an incident during my high school years
when one of my aunts
noticed my public speaking skills
and suggested I should go into the
ministry.
She looked at my natural abilities and talents, such as
they were,
and found an occupation at which
she thought I might have a shot at success.
I then told you that
if I would have taken my aunt up on her
suggestion
the result would have been
a purely flesh-based attempt
to do the work of God,
and as such it would have been
absolutely no value
in the true work of the kingdom.
Then I promised that somewhere along the way
I would come back to that illustration
and explain the difference between
what my aunt suggested
and what I've actually ended up doing.
And let me just state the principle,
and then I'll apply it to my own experience.
Before God can ever effectively use
any natural talent or ability in our life
He must first build into us the
understanding
that it is His Spirit alone,
and never our talent or ability
that brings about any good that may result.
What that means is that
before God can ever effectively use
any natural gift or talent
He must first shatter our confidence
in the ability of that gift or talent
to bring about any good for the Kingdom of
God
apart from the Holy Spirit through that
talent or gift.
EX. I came to Christ my sophomore year in college.
I was majoring in speech at the time.
I began dabbling in public Christian speaking
during my Junior year in college.
When I began
I assumed that Christian speaking
was like any other type of speaking -
the results depended upon
the skill of my presentation,
the emotional impact of my illustrations,
the style and effectiveness of my
delivery.
In other words,
my confidence rested in the ability of my flesh
gifts to accomplish the work of God.
During the years that followed
God lead me through
a training program designed to teach me
that it never had been
and never would be my talents or the lack of
them
that accomplished or hindered anything
of value in the Kingdom of God.
Time and again He carefully set me up
for Spirit-success when my flesh failed,
and spiritual disaster
when my flesh was doing great.
EX. Christian Women's groups...
In the broad pattern of our lives
God does tend to match us to situations
and positions that blend well
with the natural talents and gifts He
gave us at birth.
But before God can ever effectively use
any natural talent or ability in our life
He must first build into us the
understanding
that it is His Spirit alone,
and never our talent or ability
that brings about any good that may result.