“The Spiritual Christian”

What Kind of Christian Are You? Sermon Series

“The Spiritual Christian” (Part #2)

KEY PASSAGE: 1 Corinthians 2:14–16 (NASB)

This morning, as we conclude our praise and worship service, I want to remind us of the six special blessings from the hand of the Lord in Psalm 103, verses 3 to 5—Your forgiveness, healing, redemption, love, satisfaction, and renewal. Father God, we have experienced Your forgiveness because we trust in Jesus. There is no satisfaction in this world, but we have satisfaction in Christ, the Bread of Life, and the Good Shepherd who leads us into green pastures. And so, we “Thank You” for all these special blessings. For this and many other things, we give You all the glory, honor, and praise, and let the church say – Amen. [Amen]. You may be seated. Worship band, thank you [again] for leading the church into a time of praise and worship.

The Lord’s Supper (Holy Communion Exhortation)

[We will move on to our Communion Service] As we partake of the Lord’s Table this morning, I want you to examine yourselves before partaking of the Lord’s Table. Jesus paid the price of our salvation, and may we remember that sacrifice, suffering, and service as we take communion and fellowship with a living Savior as our hearts reach out to Him by faith. This is not a funeral. The funeral has already taken place. The mourning lasted only three days. [And] Then came the victory. Today, we celebrate life, a life given and a life granted. So, let’s celebrate the resurrection and the life that comes with it. May we celebrate the Lord’s Supper until Jesus comes again.

Let us go to God in prayer. Father God, [You] were satisfied with the death of Jesus for our sins on the cross, and if anyone finds themselves in Your Son Jesus by faith, You are satisfied with them. The bread we are about to eat represents Christ’s body in Matthew 26:26, and the cup represents His blood, which was poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. For those who are sick in their body, I pray for healing as they eat Your body and drink of the blood. We pray all this in Christ’s name. Amen.

We will pass around the communion element, and our worship team will lead us with a worship song.

TITHE and OFFERING

We will call on the ushers to pass around the plates to collect our tithes and offerings. Please follow the instructions on the screen on how to give to the church. The worship team will lead us with a song as we collect our tithes and offerings.

WELCOME

Please stand up, greet some folks around you, and welcome them to worship. We welcome you [all] again to our Sunday Worship Service and are glad to have you in God’s house. Our first-time visitors, please stand so we can see you. We also welcome all who join us online.

ANNOUNCEMENT

· I want to say “Thank You” to all those who helped out week last week Sunday during our Thanksgiving Potluck. We had a wonderful time, and I was able to talk to some of you to get to know you. And to all the men who showed up yesterday to our Men’s Breakfast, I want to say “Thank You” for coming. I know some of us were not at the Men’s Breakfast yesterday, but I want to thank all the men who showed up for fellowship, to encourage and pray for one another.

· Wednesday Night [Remember] is our Bible Study Connect at 7:00 p.m. Please join us on Wednesday night to STUDY THE WORD OF GOD. Kenney Hughes, our Music Director, will teach Bible Study on Wednesday. We are close to finishing up the Book of Romans.

• Saturday, December 7th at 8:00 a.m. is our Corporate Prayer Meeting.

• Women's Breakfast is on Saturday, December 14th at 10:00 a.m.

• Our Church Leadership Meeting is on Saturday, December 21st at noon. To all our church leaders, please take note of the date and time.

PRAYER FOR ILLUMINATION

Let us go to God in Prayer:

May the Lord use this message today and the days from our sermon series “What Kind of Christian Are You” to break our bad habits. We come on the heels of a busy week, our Father and we have been busy through the morning, and now we can be quiet before You. I pray that You quiet our hearts, calm us, and relieve our anxiety. Begin now to break our habits of simply doing the religious thing on Sunday morning and leaving unchanged and unmoved. I pray that You make this day significant and speak to us as if You and each of us were sitting together in our [own] family room talking, listening, thinking, with plans to change in any areas You suggest. Address needs, Lord, and I pray that You will not find us resistant or denying them, but may we acknowledge them – it is me, O Lord, most in need of what You are saying today. Please speak to us directly, convict us where we need to go, guide us clearly in areas where we are confused, and provide us with a map that will give us hope to locate and pursue the destination. Watch over those men and women in uniform today who are in difficult places [Dangerous places]. May they press on with courage and confidence. May those who lead them in battle do so wisely with discernment. Comfort their families at home and bring them back safely to us when the victory is won. These offerings that we gave today come from You. [For our] treasure will be nothing were it not for Your wonderful provision and generosity. I pray that You will find us faithful as we give generously and joyfully. In the name of Jesus, we pray. Everyone says Amen.

DECLARATION of FAITH in GOD

Let us stand and say the Declaration of Faith in God together.

SERMON INTRODUCTION

Our objective in studying the Word of God is not to entertain you; that will pass fast. Not to motivate you, that will pass fast, but to explain [to you] what the Bible means. [To explain to you the meaning of the Word of God]. Then, you can go back to [the Word of God] as a point of reference with understanding. And so my task as a teacher of the Word of God is to show you what it means and, perhaps, along the way, to inspire and encourage you. To help you [to better understand] what it means. And so we want this morning to discover what the Word of God means by what it says in our text for today. If you leave this service and understand what these verses mean, that is exciting because this is God’s Word to you. One of the many problems in the Corinthian church was the Christians' failure to break with human philosophy. The Corinthians lived in a very immoral and humanly intellectual society, a world based on reason and [the lusts of men]. When they became Christians, they dragged this kind of immorality and freethinking into the church.

Two weeks ago, we talked to you about the Carnal Christian. We said that the word carnal means fleshly. It means to operate out of our humanity, out of the reality of our humanness, which has been stained, tainted, and condemned by God. One of the strongest verses in the Bible is that ‘in the flesh, you cannot please God [Him], ’according to Romans 8:8. Those in the flesh cannot please God. In your humanity, perspective, approach, and worldview, it is impossible to please God. At the end of 1 Corinthians 3, verse 3, Paul describes for us living out of our humanity, “As living like people of the world.” Being human but simply human, being just like everybody else, walking like people of the world. To walk is to live a certain way, to carry yourself a certain way. Paul says you are living, operating, and thinking like everybody else! You are walking like the folks of this world, and Paul calls this the Carnal Christian. In verse 1 of Chapter 3 of First Corinthians, Paul says, “I could not speak to you as spiritual but as fleshly,” or carnal, if you will.

SERMON EXPOSITION

The flip side of that is the Spiritual Christian, [the one] who is not reduced to looking at life and living like people of this world. He is called the Spiritual Man. In Chapter 2, verse 14 of First Corinthians, he is differentiated from the natural man, which says, [Watch This] “But the natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God.”

The natural man is the unbeliever, the non-Christian. He is natural, and he is ..… like everybody else. He thinks and walks in his humanity, and [he is] called natural. He is of this earth’s order. He is what nature produces, and so he is natural. The problem with being a natural man is that the natural man cannot welcome the things for the Spirit of God, in other words, to live out of your humanity. For me to live out of my humanity means that I cannot receive—I do not welcome—in fact, it can go so far as I might even be offended by the things of the Spirit of God. That is the natural man, and that raises a question.

Why is the natural man this way? Why can’t the natural man receive the things of God? Why not? Because they are [foolishness] to him. That is because the natural and spiritual man, or the carnal man living like a natural man, are opposite in nature. They lived in two different environments.

SERMON ILLUSTRATION 1

When you drive, you have an AM band and an FM band. The two are distinct; you flip from one to the other because they are [two] different frequencies. The natural frequency is the frequency of the man who does not know God or the Christian [who is] living like the man who does not know God. He is a natural man.

The other frequency is the spiritual man, the Spiritual Christian, who operates based on this different approach to life. Many of you are wearing glasses. You are wearing glasses so that you can see things [clearly]. Unless you are wearing glasses for style or fashion, the implication is that you can read better and see things better. Distortion is clarified because you are walking around with something that gives you or that gives you a clearer perspective on what you are looking at.

[Watch This] The purpose of the Spirit of God is to give you God’s clarity on what you are looking at. That is the spiritual man or [The Spiritual Christian]. When you walk into a 3-D Movie, they hand you glasses because the nature of the picture is such that you get an inaccurate view without the glasses. You get a clear view that appears to leave the screen and jump out at you because your sight line and glasses have been designed to take you deeper into the picture [into the movie].

SERMON EXPLANATION

And the carnal Christian or the non-Christian accepts this distorted [altered] view as normal. You hear it in our conversations: We sound like the world, [We] talk like the world, [We] agree with the world, and it becomes part of our [normal] view because we live like natural men. We do not zero in on God’s frequency. We do not seek to get God’s perspective on the issues we are dealing with [in our lives.]

Paul says, you know you are either a non-Christian or a Christian thinking and operating like a non-Christian because the Christian point of view seems meaningless to you. He says in verse 14, “For they are foolishness to him.” The natural man will say, “It doesn’t make sense, that is crazy, that is impossible, that is not normal.” A natural man has a rejection of God’s point of view. The natural man does not accept God’s view, and the Greek word, accept, means to welcome. You can know the carnal Christians because they are offended when you give them the Christian perspective. They get offended when you give them God’s point of view.

God’s design for every believer, me, you, [and] us, is that we would be spiritual men and women. And then, in verse 15, Paul makes a profound statement. He said, “Who is spiritual?” Paul tells us who is spiritual. “He who is spiritual appraises all things,” Paul says [a spiritual person] is the one who appraises all things. When you appraise something [a house or an expensive piece of jewelry], you examine it for its real value. To appraise something is to evaluate or to [examine] something to determine its value or what it is [really] made of. Paul says the Spiritual Christian is the one who evaluates ALL things. In other words, they consistently look at everything from God’s point of view. That is the spiritual Christian. All things … and they don’t pick and choose … none of us is perfect, but we must consistently evaluate things from God’s point of view.

You are a carnal Christian [or natural Christian] if you have accepted Jesus Christ but operate from a natural point of view. You are a Spiritual Christian when it is normal for you to look at things with your glasses on. You put on your glasses, you wear your glasses, and you live life from a divine point of view. You live from God’s point of view. It is the way you flow … it is how you roll. This process is accomplished because you are operating by the Spirit of God. The Spirit … Paul says are your eyeglasses. The spiritual man wears eyeglasses to evaluate things from God’s point of view.

Paul spent quite a while in this Chapter [talking] about the wisdom of God versus [vs.] the wisdom of men, God’s approach to things versus [vs.] man’s approach to things. Those are two different frequencies. How your neighbors feel and what God says are two different frequencies. How your parents raised you and how God wants to raise you are two different frequencies. What the media says and what the Word of God says are two different frequencies. If you have overlapping frequencies, you get [confusion]. You have a misunderstanding.

When you come to church on Sunday and [you] get God’s view and go on Monday and get the world’s view, you wind up with a confusing view because you are mixing frequencies. People often want to know why the Word of God is not working—because you have overlapping frequencies. You are trying to be an AM and FM Christian. [you are a Christian between two opposing views]. Paul makes this point in verse 10 of First Corinthians Chapter 2, “For to us God revealed them through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches all things,……..” Here is our phrase, “all things, “even the depths of God.” [Even the deep things of God].

SERMON ILLUSTRATION 2

The Spirit of God searches all things. Guess what you have in the spiritual realm? You have Google Search Engine. Google is a search engine. Alright. … Google is a search engine that allows you to get to everything and find everything. You Google it, [and] you locate it. Well, God has given every believer a search engine, and it is the job of the Holy Spirit to search all things … and guess what? The spiritual man appraises all things….– the spiritual man evaluates all things. He does a Google search of all things! He seeks the Holy Spirit’s point of view on things. Let me tell you what the Holy Spirit’s job is. The Holy Spirit’s job is to locate God’s perspective and then deliver it on the screen of your life. Alright. That is the job of the Holy Spirit.

SERMON EXPLANATION

The Holy Spirit’s job is to bring up God’s perspective to the life of a believer. “For who knows (verse 11) the thoughts of a man, except the spirit of a man which is in him. Even so, no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.” In other words … only God knows God. Only God knows God, and everybody else can only say, “I think.” Only God knows God, so if you want to know God’s perspective, you must go to God! You cannot just have a human point of view. God must tell you who He is. We must get God’s point of view on everything. [On every issue we are dealing with in our life]. We must get God’s point of view.

Verse 12 says, “We have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from GOD so that we may know the things freely given to us by God.” Please notice the word ‘freely’ … freely given to us by God, that God wants to gain you access to the deep things of God for all of life, all things, for you to evaluate it from God’s perspective. How is this done? Verse 13 tells us. Verse 13 says, “Which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom.” That is the natural man. “But in those taught by the Spirit combining spiritual thought with spiritual words.” In other words, God takes the truth of His Word and implants it into the thinking of your mind—Spiritual thoughts with spiritual words. The Word of God, spiritual words, is designed to affect spiritual thoughts so that the Spirit [the Holy Spirit], who takes the Word, wants to influence the thinking based on that Word. [Based on the Word of God].

This process is called “The Anointing” in 1 John 2, verses 20, 27 and 28. He says, “You have received the anointing!” He says, “You have received the anointing, and when you have received the anointing.” he says, “You do not need anyone to teach you.” That’s a [deep] statement. He says, “When you have the anointing, you do not need anyone to teach you.” We are told to teach the Word of God, but what does he mean by “you do not need anyone to teach you?”

He means when you have the anointing, you don’t need to go outside God’s will for your solutions! In other words, you don’t need men instructing you anymore. He says when you have Google … you don’t need to buy Encyclopedia —because you have a system, [And it is called the Anointing]. [Watch This] Every true [Faithful] Christian [has the capacity to] be taught by the Holy Spirit of God based on spiritual words that inform spiritual thinking. Paul calls the folks who consistently operate this way the [spiritual man]. [The Spiritual Christian].

The problem today [with] many Christians is that we want to be part-time spiritual Christians. And because we are satisfied, [so] many Christians are satisfied to be part-time spiritual; they have to live with part-time joy, [part-time peace], [part-time power], [part-time deliverance], and [part-time healing]. Because once the Spirit of God sees that you have interjected a foreign frequency, His still, small voice has been quieted, and the alarm of the anointing doesn’t go off—The Holy Spirit is stifled! [The Holy Spirit is suppressed].

Many of us have rooms in our houses with dimmer switches where we can turn up or turn down the light. We call this process of the Holy Spirit, turning up the light, illumination. That is, turning the light up to light up and brighten; it is called illumination.First, there is revelation. The work of the Spirit is to take revelation … that which God has revealed, lift it like a 3-D movie off the big screen of the Bible, and turn Revelation into Illumination. The picture or the principles jump off the page of the Bible and come out of the screen.

And then, illumination brings about transformation. [Watch This] Revelation leads to illumination, [and] illumination [leads] to transformation. And all this is done through the work and power of the Holy Spirit. When you receive information and Bible teaching without trying to cultivate intimacy, you don’t receive illumination. You get the [illumination] when your eyes open. Open to see what? You begin to see things. [You begin to see the deep things of God].

In Psalm 119, verse 18, David says, “Open my eyes, that I may behold Wonderful things from Your Law.” He says, “Help me to SEE.” The job of the Holy Spirit, which He only does in spiritual people, is to help you experience the information in the Bible. And then Paul brings this home in verse 16. He says, in verse 16, “For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he will instruct Him?” That is a question. The question is – Who has known the mind of the Lord? Let me state this question another way—Who can figure God out?

Do you know anybody who can instruct God? How can you teach somebody who has created everything? How can you teach somebody who created everything and can answer ‘What If’ questions?” God is the only One who can answer the question that begins with the word ‘suppose.’ [Watch This] God is the only PERSON who knows what was, what is, and what is to come; God knows what could have been. So, the question on the floor is, “Who will instruct God?” And the obvious answer is “nobody!” No human being can instruct God! But why is Paul raising this question? Because of the last phrase, “For who has known the mind of the Lord that he will instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ!”

[Watch This] Christ knows the mind of God. You have the mind of Christ. Paul says, “You have the MIND of Christ!” There has been an impartation into you, and you have access to divine signals. You have the mind of Christ, [You have] access to the anointing and the Spirit of God!” When you travel at the Airport Security gate, they have X-ray machines that will show and detect everything. The X-ray machine goes beneath the surface and exposes you.

FAITH APPEAL, CALL to ACTION and ALTAR CALL

YOU HAVE THE MIND OF CHRIST Paul says at the end of verse 16! Is [there] anybody here walking [around] or driving around with an eight [8]-Track tape in your car? I don’t think so … I don’t know of anyone who drives around with a cassette recorder anymore in their vehicle. You have a Sirius XM Radio or CD player in your car. And the CD player is starting to become obsolete. If you bring the OLD STUFF … the tape, [the cassette tape recorder] to a new piece of equipment, the CD recorder … the CD recorder cannot play that back to you because it doesn’t take the old piece of equipment. Why? Because IT IS A NEW INSTRUMENT! IT IS A NEW EQUIPMENT.

Paul says that once you become a Christian, you have been given a new piece of equipment. It is called the MIND OF CHRIST! AND IT DOESN’T TAKE ALL TAPES! IT DOESN’T RECEIVE IT! You bring out worldly stuff and say, “Jesus, play it!” IT WON’T EVEN FIT INSIDE; IT WON’T EVEN GET INSIDE … because Christ doesn’t play the OLD stuff. That stuff is unredeemed. Your unredeemed humanity, Paul says, “You have been given a new piece of equipment, [And that is] the Mind of Christ.” And the Spirit of Christ only plays that which is consistent with the mind of Christ. The minute you bring old stuff, you [bring] it to the church and say, “Play it, Jesus!” “Play it, Jesus, play it, Jesus!” … You will discover that it won’t play because the [piece of] equipment you now have as a believer is called The Mind of Christ! Many of you were at the praise and worship service this morning because you set your alarm clock for a certain time, and your alarm clock woke you up.

Your alarm clock woke you up and no longer allowed you to stay asleep. You were ALIVE, but you were living in a dream world. But when the alarm went off, when it was set, you were awakened to the real world. Some of you didn’t have to set your alarm because your alarm is set within you. In other words, you woke up at 7:00 or 8:00 a.m. this morning. After all these years of waking up early [in the morning], your alarm clock is built inside you. To become a spiritual man [or a Spiritual Christian], you start [off] by setting your alarm. Planning to be intentional about getting the Word of God and getting with God’s people—you must do it with a purpose. Let it become your way of operating because the goal is….. God desires that we become Spiritual Christians, which means we consistently evaluate everything from God’s point of view. Once we act on what we evaluate, the Spirit of God catches the signal and transforms our lives for God's glory!

YOU HAVE THE MIND OF CHRIST.

God bless you.

I want to invite those who don’t have a relationship with God. If you are here today and don’t have a relationship with God, I have good news [for you]. God the Father gave us His only Son as a substitute for the sinful world. In other words, if you are a sinner, Jesus died in your place and bore your sins. Salvation from sin is through Jesus…requires a simple act of faith. When you trust in Jesus alone as your sin-bearer, the Bible says divine judgment is removed, and you will receive eternal life given to you freely by God. If that is you, please come up so we can pray for you. And if you are here today and need prayer, please come up so we can pray for you. Let’s stand on our feet.

BENEDICTION [CLOSING PRAYER]

Let us pray.

Father God, help us to preach the gospel at all times and, if necessary, to use words. Deal with [us in] areas where we have cultivated many bad habits in private. [And then] we perform behind the mask in public. Please forgive us for that bad habit that we have not broken. Show us a fraction of the value of living as Christ Jesus taught. Help us to have THE MIND OF CHRIST. Help us not to be like the majority and, at the same time, [not to be proud of the fact] that we are different. Help us to live the life that ought to be lived for Your glory and then get out of the way that You might convey the message. Thank You to all those who patiently listened to this sermon, and may this message make a difference even this week in the name of Jesus, I pray. And everyone says, “Amen.”

God bless you. We will see you next week at 10:30 a.m.