Strengthen the Inner Man - Outline

Sermon  •  Submitted
0 ratings
· 403 views
Notes
Transcript

INTRODUCTION

Welcome
Understanding our Spiritual Life
My experience with this teaching - WALKING
Take notes
Reveal scripture - Ephesians 3:14-19 NKJV
Explore our Spiritual Nature - Who are we really? What is our true identity?
Question - And so the question is who are you? What is our true identity?
Identity
Identity is simply defined as the characteristics determining who or what a person or thing is.
Identity is a complex thing because there are so many things that can go into our identity.
It can encompass external factors like race, gender and age.
It can encompass internal factors like values and beliefs.
Everything you do is connected to your identity.
Behavior is connected to identity.
The good things we do and the bad things we do.
Our values and beliefs. Our morals.
Identity influences what we do.
It even influences how people treat us
Since identity is connected to so many things it’s important we understand our true identity.
And so if our identity can influence what we do, then it really is important for us to understand our true identity.
Question -
How do we get better?
How do we get stronger?
How do we strengthen our inner man?
Subject of Message: Strengthening the Inner Man
Scripture:

13 Therefore I ask that you do not lose heart at my tribulations for you, which is your glory.

Appreciation of the Mystery

14 For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 15 from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, 16 that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, 17 that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height—19 to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

​

Scripture Overview

Writing to the Church of Ephesus
Wrote letter while in prison
Everything is working according God’s will and purpose
Chosen before the foundation of the world
Redeemed and saved by grace not by works
Don’t lose heart
Prayer for Spiritual strength

16 that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man,

Inner Man

What is the inner man
How did God create us?
Who did God create us to be?
How did He design you and me?
​

Original Design

God created us in his image
We bear the imago dei
Image of God imprinted on us and in us
Trinity
One God
Exists as three distinct person
One is essence and three in person
Man
One whole individual
3 distinct parts behind the scenes
Creation

7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.

Body - And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground
Kids poking belly
Spirit - and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life
Soul - and man became a living soul.
Spirit interacting with the body produced soul
Body quickened by the spirit - living, self-aware and self-conscious man
3 distinct parts
Body, Soul and Spirit
Tripartite beings
​

Body, Soul and Spirit

1 Thessalonians 5:23
​

23 Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

​
Closing Letter - Letter to Church of Thessalonica (Blessing or a prayer)
HE Acknowledges Spirit, Soul and Body
Order of significance
Passage people typically go to when discussing our three-fold nature of our existence
Fourth part of our nature missing
Sanctification
Part of us that can’t be redeemed
Redemption is a theological term that means undoing the effects of sin.

Sanctification

Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely

Mentions Sanctification here
Sanctification is part of the redemptive process
NEXT CLAUSE: describes the sanctification process

and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless

​
Spirit, Soul and Body can be redeemed
Redemption is undoing the effects of sin
God created Adam and Eve perfect

Process

your spirit was redeemed the minute you got saved. Your human spirit has been sealed by the Holy Spirit and will be kept until Christ returns.
Your soul has to be renewed. And it is being renewed daily. Your soul is being progressively redeemed.
And your body is to be redeemed when Christ returns.

Flesh

biblical term that is used in the Bible, that is used in scripture
to identify the human nature that is resistant to God.
God says Do Not Lie. Do Not Deceive One Another.
Flesh - Sinful Nature
Not the body
Sinful Nature
gives it’s expression to the body
body is now the form by which the flesh expresses itself
certain desires, needs and proclivities
Pulls you
Wrestle with the flesh
Totally and completely depraved
Part of our nature
example
has to teach a child to lie or
to be selfish.
You will fight all your life with your body reacting to the flesh.
Even after we are born again the flesh is with us.

Flesh after Born Again

we are not in the flesh. Meaning that the flesh does not have dominion over us, so we are no longer forced to follow it’s dictates.
we are not in the flesh, but the flesh is still in us.
Paul
“Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. You, however are not in the flesh but in the Spirit.” (Rom 8:8-9)
“for I know nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh.” (Rom 7:18)
Flesh will not redeemed
Flesh cannot be made holy
It will be annihilated upon our death from this earth and the glory that we will have with him in a glorified body.

Body

Allows us to interact with the world through our 5 senses
See, smell, taste, hearing, feeling
We take information in through our 5 senses and process it.
Conduit through which we are able to experience the physical world
Lowest part of the equation
Because physical - 5 senses - appear more real to us
Experiencing them in a more tangible way - Live and in living color.
Trust what we can see with our natural eyes and feel with our sense of touch more.
Thomas
Jesus appeared to disciples
Thomas did not see him
Would not believe unless he could:
See marks in his hands
Put fingers where nails were
put hand in his side
Week went by did not believe
Jesus appears says see the marks, fingers where nails where, hand in my side
Thomas believes because he has experienced Jesus with his 5 senses
Walk by Faith and Not by Sight
How many of us struggle with believing and accepting things and trusting in things we can’t experience with our natural sense
Faith is believing in and being fully persuaded in the promises of God
Lowest Part - Wasting Away - Trust in the natural more
​

Soul

Personality
Consciousness
God made body, breathe spirit, man became soul
Conscious,
Self-aware
Essence of who we are
We can say it this way
Mind - ability to think
Will - ability to make decisions
Emotions - feelings linked to specific situations
The love you feel you are feeling in the soul,
the anger you experience is happening in the soul.
The choices you make are being made in the soulish realm.
The thoughts that you have, happening in the soul.
scripturally so I’m not just saying stuff to you.
The Mind
Psalms 139:13-14

13 For You formed my inward parts;

You covered me in my mother’s womb.

14 I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;

Marvelous are Your works,

And that my soul knows very well.

So the mind is part of the soul. It says, “and that my soul knows very well.” So your soul has the ability to know.
​
The Will
Job 7:15

15 So that my soul chooses strangling

And death rather than my body.

So our souls can choose. This is our will.
​
Our Emotions
2 Kings 4:27 - Only reading the B clause

Let her alone, for her soul is bitter, and Yahweh has hidden it from me and has not told me.

So we see here that the soul is bitter. This is emotion. So the soul has emotion.
And your mind will and emotions, these three many times work in tandem,
Consider it. Sometimes we can think about something, which triggers an emotions, let’s say of anger which causes you make a bad choice.
Let’s be honest our emotions can get us in trouble sometimes!!
When we talk about emotions THEY say, and I’m emphasizing the THEY. It’s not me.
THEY say that women are very emotional. And I don’t know. That may or may not be true.
But men sometimes our emotions can over rule our minds too. You can be the most logical, rational individual and have this happen.
It happened to Adam. He allowed his love for Eve to cause him to sin. The Bible says that Eve was beguiled.
It says that Eve gave man the fruit and he ate.
1 Timothy 2:14 says, “And Adam was not the one deceived; it was the woman who was deceived and became a sinner.”
So if Adam was not deceived why did he eat the fruit? It was because of his feelings for his wife. His emotions. And so within our soul sometimes our emotions can cause us to make bad choices.
And so as we think about our spirit, soul and body, the soul has a lot of power because it is the force that is doing the action and the feeling and the thinking.
The soul is not the brain. That’s part of the body.
The soul is immaterial. You can’t see, but you can feel it.
If we thought about our whole existence like a car, the car itself would be our bodies.
That’s the outside of the frame of the car. The wheels, the engine. This would be the body.
The driver of the car would be your soul. That’s you. You are in the drivers seat. You decide if you go fast or slow. Whether you turn left or right. Now the navigation system, the thing leading you and guiding you that can either be your spirit or your flesh. See ultimately you are not in control. What do I mean? Yes you are in the driver’s seat, but we are slaves either to our flesh and sin or to the spirit and obedience. One of the two. The question is, who are you going to give control too?

Spirit -our spirit receives life because of the righteousness which is in christ - Well why did you have a good time?

You cannot sense the spirit w/ your natural perception.
When you look in the mirror you cannot see your spirit.
Your brain & five senses can’t perceive the spiritual world.
There is no natural access.
The bible says that which is spirit is spirit & that which is flesh is flesh.
And that’s where we get confused sometimes.
Sometimes we mistake things going on in our soulish realm as spiritual.
Emotions that we have. Thoughts that we have.
We mistake sometimes these things as spiritual because we don’t understand the extent of the spiritual.
That’s why you can sometimes have friends who go to church.
And they say, man we had a good time at church.
You know you can have “Good Church” without the spirit.
Good church!! That’s when people run around, shout, prophesy, lay hands.
They say man, church was good.
Then they walk out the church and you say, “What did the spirit say?” I don’t know, but we had a good time.
What was the message about? I don’t know. What did the spirit say? I don’t know. Well why did you have a good time? Child, they were running all around the church. Shouting. Falling out. Well what did the spirit say about your marriage, about your family, about your situation. I don’t know. And the devil is saying not only did you have a good time, but I had a good time too, because you don’t know nothing.
Transition Here: And so our emotions can deceive us
and so we’ve got to understand the spiritual.
And so know quickly, here is what happened.
Because of sin our human spirits were dead. Not literately dead, but they were separated from God and darkened because of sin and disobedience.
You can see this in Ephesians 2:1 (GNT). The Bible says, in 2 Corinthians 5:17:

17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

The question is where did that change happen? When you became a new creation and old things passed away, Where did that happen? And we are talking about our Body, our soul and our spirit. Did your body change? Think back to when you got saved. Did you get taller? Did your eye color change? What about your ethnicity? Your body did not change.
Your soul, your mind, will and emotions didn’t change. You probably felt something, but a lot of us are still struggling with some of the same things and still doing some of the same stuff. Still saying the same old things and having the same thoughts and urges. Our souls didn’t change. Our souls have to be progressively changed as we continually renew our minds.
So what changed? The change happened in your spirit. Our spirit was made new, instantly the minute we got saved. We received the Holy Spirit and the holy spirit infused with our human spirit and quickened and brought it back to life, reconnected us with God. (Titus 3:5) And now we have all power. The Holy Spirit gives us power. And you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you.
The old unsaved spirit has passed away and we have everything we need on the inside of us in our spirit. Everything that we need God has placed on the inside of you.

our spirit receives life because of the righteousness which is in christ

The problem is it can’t get through.
The spirit wants to lead you and guide you but it can’t get through.
Remember you can’t perceive the spirit with your natural senses. The bible says that which is spirit is spirit and that which is flesh is flesh.

Let me show you this in an illustration:

Ok, so we have these three circles appearing inside each other, appearing like a target.
The outer circle is your body. It’s the part you can see and feel.
Then you have an inner part that can’t be seen but can be felt. That’s your soul. Remember that’s your mind, will and emotions. Notice how your soul touches your body and your spirit.
Your spirit is the innermost part of you. Although it is at the center of who you are, it can’t be seen or felt in a natural way.
So the spirit, it is the core of our being, but most of us operate primarily out of our soulish realm, believing that what we think and feel is reality. But there is a whole other realm that we are missing out on and that is the spiritual. The bible tells us that:
We’ve got to be able to see in the spirit.
The spirit is there, but we can’t see it and we can’t feel it by natural means. So how do we connect to it. Let me show you this: VALVE

VALVE

Our soul is where we feel.
Our soul is where we experience things and it can go either way. It’s looking for a guide.
It can go towards and be lead by our flesh or it can be led by our spirits. It depends on what you open the value to.
And so the way we are led by our spirit is that our souls have to agree with what’s already in our spirits.
Look at this image. We control the valve. We control what we open our soul to. We control what we allow in. So how do we get our soul to agree with our spirits and strengthen our inner man?

Let me give you 3 ways that we do this.

Devout Time to Work on Your Spirit Man
Go back to key verse the first thing that we see is that Paul says:

14 For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 15 from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named

Paul is praying here.
Fervency to his prayer - Among the Jews it was usual to stand to pray
Expression of deep emotion and earnestness
So like Paul, we’ve got to devout time to work on our spirit man by focusing on the spiritual disciplines.
The spiritual disciplines are praying, fasting, meditation and studying God’s word.
This is how we get our souls to agree with what’s already in our spirits.
Here Paul is praying
& w/ real prayer, we begin to think God’s thoughts after him: to desire the things he desires, to love the things he loves, to will the things he wills. Progressively, we are taught to see things from his point of view.
With real prayer our souls begin to agree with what’s in our spirits.
We begin to desire and love the things that God loves
When we study the word of God we are getting our souls to agree with our spirits.
Ultimately what we do when we pray consistently & mediate and study God’s word is renewing our minds.
You are rewiring your mind so your thoughts & will are inline and agree w/the word of God.
But we’ve got to devout time to these disciplines.
However, here is what happens!
We make everything else in our life more of a priority
Instead of being primary we make these disciplines peripheral.
You’ll have people who will go to the gym and work on their physical man, but won’t take time to meditate and pray.
Some of us will binge watch our favorite shows, watch tik tok videos but won’t make time to study God’s word.
Here’s the deal, God has to become the most important thing in our lives.
Bible says delight yourselves in the Lord.
That word delight means find pleasure.
We should find pleasure in spending time with God and make it a priority.
It’s really hard to get in shape spiritually if you only work out on Sundays.
And here is why it is of paramount importance. Because as I told your soul can go either way. It really is like the old cartoons with the angel on one shoulder and the devil on the other. And the spirit is at war with the flesh and your soul is the battleground. But your spirit has a weapon, the sword of the spirit, which is the word of God. Now your flesh has a weapon too. That’s the things in the physical world. That is the desires of the flesh: The lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life. (Get prop = sword) And so here it is your spirit is armed with the word of God. That is if you spent time in the word. Studying and meditating on it. Your flesh is saying this, “Man she disrespected you. Go ahead and curse her out. You know it’s going to make you feel good. She deserves it.” And your spirit is saying, “Love your neighbor as yourself”, “Be kind to one another, forgiving one another” Get back flesh. And your flesh is saying, “You can’t be soft in this situation. If you’re soft today they’ll take advantage of you tomorrow” And the spirit is saying, “repay no one evil for evil. Vengeance is mine says the Lord, I will repay. And so the battle ensues.
But you decide who will be victorious based on whether or not you are devoting time to work on your spirit man so your soul can agree with your spirit and allow your spirit to flow into your soul and take control.
Depend On Your Spirit Man

17 that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height—19 to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge

What Paul is praying is that you would be able to comprehend the love of Christ, the love of God.
the width of it
the length of it
The depth & the height of it.
And he says to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge.
And so he is praying that you would be able to understand something that isn’t understandable.
To understand something that passes knowledge
That is you can’t know it with your head, you’ve got to know it with your heart.
And that thing is the love of Christ, the love of God
Here’s the deal
I know that we know that God loves us
We know that God loves us
But knowledge is informational
It’s like something you learn in Sunday School
But knowing God loves us is different than knowing God loves us.
One is what we process in our human minds through our own intellect
The other is an experience that he gives us from the inside out.
He’s allowing us to know something that under normal circumstances you wouldn’t be able to know.
And so now when I’m faced with a dilemma or I’m faced with a situation or I’m faced with a challenge because I know the love of God here I’m going to trust in him more.
I’m not going to let my external circumstance interfere with my internal reality.
And I’m going to depend on what God has already placed on the inside of me.
This word here, when we say passes knowledge
The Greek word used here is ginosko
There are typically 2 words used for knowledge in the Greek
One is to know by learning, by being told
It’s information
Ginosko means to know by experience
It’s having felt knowledge
Not head knowledge
It’s like knowing something like you know your name
Or like you know the back of your hand
So to know God loves you so much that it changes your activity.
It changes your behavior.
It restricts and it constricts your activity
And so he’s changing you from the inside out.
And see some of us we are out here trying to do this all by ourselves.
Whenever we are faced with a challenge or we have an internal issue we try to fix these problems on our own.
You’ve got some people who watch Iyanla Van Zant fix my life, watch Oprah or read self help books to fix themselves.
God is saying no, no, no I’m working in you both to will and to do my good pleasure.
Depend on me
But we got to get our souls to agree with our spirits and then we depend on our spirit man.
​
Declare Victory in Your Spirit Man
​
The first thing that we did was devout time to the spirit man
Then we depended on the spirit man
Now we can declare victory in the spirit man

that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.

This is a noun clause
That means this part that we just read is dependent up on the first part of the sentence.
And what is that
What we just talked about
Depending on the Spirit Man
That is knowing the love of God
The length of it
The height of it
The width of it
The depth of it
And not knowing it in your head
But knowing it in your heart
That you know, that you know, that you know that God loves you.
And so it says that if you know that
Then you can be filled with the fullness of God
And filled with something means to be in it’s grips
It means that thing becomes the controlling influence in your life
It controls your behaviors and actions
And now you can declare victory
Because to be filled with the fullness of God means that God is the controlling influence in your life
And he is governing all the stuff we just talked about
He is governing your feelings
And your thoughts
And your actions
And your hopes
And when you get sad, or angry or lonely
Because this things will happen because it is part of the human experience.
But when these things happen you are not allowing your emotions to control you.
You are continuing to be led by the spirit.
Now when things are going on on the exterior you are not impacted by it because your inner man is strong
​

7 But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us. 8 We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; 9 persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed

​
Sinner’s Prayer
Dear Lord Jesus, I know I am a sinner. I believe You died for my sins. Right now, I turn from my sins and open the door of my heart and life. I confess You as my personal Lord and Savior.
​
How to be saved
that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.
Related Media
See more
Related Sermons
See more
Copyright 2024 Logos Bible SoftwareFeatures|Pricing|Privacy|Terms of Use|Support