breakthrough is up to you sermon series new wineskins, what are you thinking
Gal 3.v5,6
Therefore He who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among yous,does He do it past the works of the police, or by the hearing of faith?— 6just as Abraham "believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness."
Paul was maxim here "Galatians, there is a supply of the Spirit, a supply of the life of God, a divine flow, a river of life, the anointing to work miracles
Think Galatians, how did that river begin to period in your midst?
- Did you piece of work for it, did it come up because of your obedience to the Law?,
or
- Did the Spirit menses in power in your midst considering you believed the gospel, considering you received past faith the promises of the New Covenant?
Can I put that question in another manner, for I believe that this is a question we as a church building need to hear and accept the right answer to, if we too are to know a free flow of the life of the Spirit in the midst of us.
- Did you make the Spirit move because of your performance, your obedience to the commands of God?
Or
- Did you allow the Spirit move because of your faith in His promises?
I recall that is such an important question; how does the Spirit operate in the Church, in response to what, religious activity or faith, that information technology would be good to remind ourselves of what Jesus said.
.John 7.v37-39.
sevenOn the last day, that bang-up 24-hour interval of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, "If anyone thirsts, permit him come to Me and drink. 38"He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water." 39Merely this He spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive; for the Holy Spirit was non all the same given, because Jesus was not even so glorified.
Notice hither a bully truth that Jesus declares nearly the flow of the Spirit in the life of a believer.
How does someone receive the period of the Spirit, the river of life from God?
John writes "He spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive." We receive the Spirit by believing, not past doing.
Jesus did non say, He who works for me, out of His eye will flow rivers of living water, but He who believes in me.
What I want to show you this forenoon is the bang-up truth that Paul alleged to the Galatians and the Colossians and all His churches; that
The way the Spirit flows in the life of a laic does non change from the way He flowed on the mean solar day you lot got saved.
He always flows by the grace of God, through faith.
. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; information technology is the gift of God, ninenot of works, lest anyone should boast.
What I am going to show you today is the Spirit moves in the church, in your life and mine, from first to last (your first day to your last) by the grace of God……
and the moment we turn abroad from believing that our conservancy, from first to last, is all past grace, we will discover that nosotros have turned away from the supernatural power of God and dorsum to the natural efforts of men.
The river of miracles dries upwardly.
So the river of the Spirit flows by the grace of God through faith.
River City Church building, we are not chosen to make the river flow, merely to let the river flow.
Today we are going to be talking again most a subject area that you are going to get very familiar with this yr; the difference between the Old covenant of the Law and the New Covenant of Grace.
Difference between Former and New Covenant is the difference between doing and but being.
You don't practise sonship, you simply be a son.
I don't practice annihilation to be a son of God, through faith in Christ, every believer has been made by His grace, past His gift, a kid of God
But as many as received Him, to them He gave the correct to get children of God, to those who believe in His name: xiiiwho were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of human being, but of God. John 1.v12.xiii.
The Quondam Covenant and the New Covenant are worlds apart.
Which globe are you living in?
Biggest difference is the difference between Law and Grace.
This departure centres effectually the issue of operation.
. Whose performance are you relying on; ………………….Yours or Jesus'?
Believers like yous and I accept been robbed of the joy and the peace of our salvation, robbed of force, because nosotros have repeatedly attempted to try and concord the New Wine (the life of the Spirit in us) in an one-time wineskin called 'My Functioning.' X2
What did Jesus say would happen when we try and put new wine in an onetime wineskin?
Matt2.v22
And no 1 puts new wine into old wineskins; or else the new wine bursts the wineskins, the wine is spilled, and the wineskins are ruined. Simply new wine must be put into new wineskins."
The New covenant of Grace does not fit into the Quondam Covenant of the Law.
You cannot mix Law and Grace, because like that fermenting new wine, Grace is too powerful to be held, to be ministered through the medium of your or my performance.
If you could earn grace by your obedience to commands it would not be grace, for grace is unmerited favour.
I think that virtually of usa have no trouble understanding grace in terms of our salvation experience, when nosotros got built-in once again.
We understand that as stated in Ephesians 2.v8
For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that non of yourselves; it is the gift of God, 9not of works, lest anyone should avowal.
We clearly understand that our justification in God'southward sight, the forgiveness of all our sins, was an act of grace on God'due south role that we did nothing to deserve.
It is a gift.
We all learned as children what you practise with a souvenir, you merely receive it and nosotros did that by believing.
For by grace you have been saved through faith…..it is the gift of God.
Gifts take the most wonderful effect on us…..they produce joy.
When we were children, receiving a gift was an occasion of great joy.
At present that many of united states of america are parents, we accept come to see that the giving of the gift, gives equally much joy to the giver equally to the receiver.
This holds truthful for the gift of grace.
The Lord spoke of the joy in sky when one person receives the gift of the grace of salvation.
And and so for many of us who have received this gift of grace, our about joyful experiences as believers were at the time of our salvation.
If we can meet a connection between a believer's joy and their experience of grace, then information technology comes as no surprise for u.s. to hear and so many talk of those days after they were first saved equally a fourth dimension of great joy and peace and indeed freedom.
Often the prayer of David can be heard on believer'south lips.
"Restore unto me the joy of my salvation."
What I want united states of america to ask ourselves is…..why do so many believers in the church have to pray that prayer, asking God to restore their joy of salvation?
What happened to the joy of our salvation?
The question I am asking is….
Who or what is robbing us of our joy? (and past implication our liberty)
At present that is an important question to ask, for when yous rob an individual or a church of their joy, you rob them of their forcefulness and their witness.
Inquire yourself why is it that the ordinary person in the street, if they were thinking they would like to go somewhere to accept a cracking experience of joy during this twelvemonth of culture, how many of them would accept visiting a church at the top of their listing?
How many of them would put church at the bottom of their list?
The sad truth is that for most folk who go nowhere on a Sunday morning, a church building would be the last place they would consider going to find joy.
Time for another question…
Where does the joy get?
How is it that subsequent to salvation, for so many folk, our joy appears to leak out of us and and so out of the church?
The answer I desire to nowadays to you is very simple.
Burst wineskins always leak.
The reason why so many of us, as individuals and churches, cannot agree our joy, is that nosotros keep trying to concord the new wine of the life of Grace in an old wineskin chosen Performance.
We embrace grace at the hour of our salvation and for grace read joy.
But and so ever so subtly we buy into the belief that now that nosotros have been saved by grace, we have to complete the job of salvation ourselves by all the works a good Christian is supposed to do.
Later on all everybody knows that skilful Christians
- read their bible every day,
- pray for hours,
- go to all the church building meetings they are costless for,
- give generously and generally live exemplary lives every bit a witness to others.
In other words for many of us, nosotros have believed that our justification was by grace and faith, we merely believed the truth of it and the Holy Spirit did the residual, but our lives since then, our sanctification, the setting aside of our lives unto God, living holy lives, we have come up to believe is something that is down to our all-time efforts.
The moment nosotros showtime to believe that; that somehow we tin better our standing with God by our own efforts, that we tin wrestle out of Him more than blessings through disciplining ourselves to pray harder or fast longer or requite more than, so we have stepped dorsum from the New Covenant of grace and gone back to the Sometime covenant of the Law.
Now we are back in the waiting room of religion, waiting for God to relent and give us what we demand, rather than standing in faith, rejoicing that we already accept, in Christ, all we need , every bit Paul declared to the Ephesians,
Blessed be the God and Begetter of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blest us with every spiritual approving in the heavenly places in Christ,
We take been graced with what we demand and it will manifest in God'due south good time and in the meantime I am not going to mumble and complain but I going to sing and rejoice by faith, considering by the grace of God it is my privilege to alive a supernatural life and it is supernatural for an apparently arid person to sing.
It is the sweetest most powerful song in the world, the song of the Lord, the song of religion is a song of victory. It is the song of sky and the devil must flee when he hears it, for He can't stand up the sound of heaven, the audio of the presence of the anointing…joy.
listen once again
For by grace you lot accept been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, 9not of works, lest anyone should avowal.
If we cannot boast near our justification, about Jesus dying for all our sins, so neither tin we avowal nigh our sanctification, about living the life of Christ, a life set up apart unto God.
No human being can boast in any part of His salvation.
The just way that boasting can be ruled out entirely then, is if our sanctification, our earthly lives being made holy, is also a work of grace that nosotros receive by faith, that it as well is not "of ourselves" but of the Spirit of God.
In other words that nosotros don't have the new way of being justified before God, past grace and faith and endeavour and comport it in the sometime way of being sanctified before God, by the offer of the sacrifices of our easily. (our best efforts, our performance)
If we want to know why our experience has appeared at times so dry, where the leak is, that keeps draining away all our joy, then nosotros only demand to retrieve that the giving of the souvenir; (grace) and joy get together and and then nosotros need to ask ourselves, …..
"Are we still receiving the gift, the grace of God, as much today equally nosotros were on the twenty-four hour period of our conservancy, or is the truth that subsequently some fourth dimension in church, we picked up the thought that God expects united states of america to end the job that He started, that we are expected to at present make ourselves holy, by prayer/fasting and any other work that will discipline our flesh.
Is that what has happened?
Take we turned away from
- simply receiving, back to earning.
- simply existence, dorsum to doing.
Have we backed away from grace and and then backed into the Law?
Well we have already mentioned two means we can tell.
- Loss of joy.
To requite a new laic the idea that God is judging them by their performance and so is withholding some blessing from them that they could receive by trying harder, is the surest way to burst their wineskin of joy. For the source of our joy is His menstruum of grace into our lives past His Spirit and to have our optics of faith off His grace and set up them on our operation is to cut off our supply of joy.
Why practise we demand to go along receiving grace?
7. The Grace of God is the power of God to live the life of God.
- Boasting.
If you today are comparing yourself with other believers and because that you are doing amend than them in some area, and so in that area yous have come back under the Law, for you cannot avail of grace and boast at the aforementioned time.
The apostle Paul warned His churches repeatedly virtually falling back under the law, under the thought that we can earn some reward from God through bettering our Christian performance.
He called it "putting confidence in the flesh".
Nosotros call this legalism and Paul had to proceed alert them because often afterward he had left a place, some legalistic Christians, (Judaziers) would come in among his new converts and tell them that they weren't complete Christians unless they did something more than simply go along to put their faith in the grace of God .
There was no end of things people were starting to exercise to add together to their salvation, to endeavor and complete by works of the flesh what had begun past a piece of work of the Spirit; from
- getting circumcised,
- to avoiding certain foods,
- to avoiding or keeping sure days or fasts or feasts.
Paul was absolutely unequivocal in his condemnation of any try by anyone to add whatsoever work to the grace that God continued to minister through His Holy Spirit, considering He knew that the grace of God is the power of God to alive the life of God.
· To the Philippians He declared that they didn't demand to become circumcised because "nosotros are the circumcision, who worship God in the Spirit, rejoice in Christ Jesus, and have no conviction in the flesh"
· To the Galatians "This just I want to acquire from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the police, or by the hearing of faith? 3Are you and so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you lot at present being fabricated perfect by the mankind? ….
He who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among y'all, does He do it past the works of the law, or by the hearing of religion?
Present tense; Keeps on supplying. Why would we turn to our performance, when at that place is still today a constant supply by grace of God's Holy Spirit.
Only I want to finish by showing yous what Paul declared to the Colossians, most how they were to acquit, walk in the life of the Spirit
- To the Colossians.
Turn to Col 2.
Paul describes himself equally in conflict. He is in agony over them as in the pains of childbirth. He knows that equally young believers they are vulnerable to faux teaching.
What is he so concerned about?
He is concerned that someone would come up in and burst their wineskin, and then rob them of their joy and strength by telling them that they were non consummate as Christians unless they added to the work of the Spirit some work of their own.
Col 2.
V6
As y'all have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, sevenrooted and built upwardly in Him and established in the organized religion, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving. 8Beware lest anyone cheat you through philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men, co-ordinate to the basic principles of the world, and non according to Christ. 9For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; 10and yous are consummate in Him, who is the head of all principality and power.
Equally y'all accept therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him
Your walking in Him, your sanctification, your life as a believer, must be lived on exactly the same basis/principle as how yous were justified, how you lot first received Him; nothing of you, all of grace.
He gives you by His Spirit everything you need, to be who He has called y'all to exist.
Y'all receive it by faith, by believing that you lot already have what you need, that in Him you are complete, for in Him is an endless supply of grace, of power to live the life of God and we receive that enabling, that life today in the same manner we did originally; …by faith, by but believing that our Begetter in sky is as good and generous as He says He is.
- Hither is the truth that protects you against anyone deceiving yous and stealing your joy and your forcefulness.
- Here is the truth that sets you free Christian, if you have been lured back into believing that God is withholding something from you lot because at that place is something more you have to practice;
- some fast that you accept not however fasted,
- some flavour of prayer that y'all have not still prayed,
- some banquet that y'all accept not even so kept or not yet avoided.
The truth is that the grace of God is so generous, that you received everything of Him at your salvation. He has withheld nothing from y'all.
Don't you know….Yous are always with me and everything I have is yours.
This is the truth that sets you costless from performance, from the sometime mindset of the law, that if I obey more I will become more of a reward.
Last Important question.
Why do we do information technology?
Why practice we skid dorsum into thinking that nosotros demand to piece of work harder equally believers if nosotros are to receive more blessing from God?
Answer: Because we have failed to sympathise that ..
under the New Covenant, the blessings of God are no longer a reward, they are an inheritance .
Yous don't earn an inheritance….you simply receive information technology.
During the week I heard a news report that an old lady had died in Dublin and left 500000 euros to an animal clemency in Limerick.
I used to look after a lot of little onetime ladies cats.
Think how I would feel if I got a letter in the postal service this week that said that a piffling old lady whose cat I used to treat had died and left me 500,000 pounds in her will.
What would happen to my joy level?
Until I read some small print farther down the letter….I inherit the money on my 99th birthday………. if I am still alive.
At present what has happened to my joy level?
Now all I tin can meet before me is a lifetime of effort to exist strong plenty to win that reward.
That'south what has happened to many of united states of america in the church.
We got saved and total of joy at the grace of God and then some well pregnant brother or sister introduced us to some fine print about the need to complete what God had begun, fine impress about doing your all-time if you really wanted to receive God'due south best
And ever since and then many of us take slipped out of the political party/the joy of God's grace and delight in united states and gone back into the fields of religion to try and earn from Him what He has already freely given.
If yous stay there, you are in for equally miserable a time as the elderberry blood brother.
You will spend years expecting God to requite you this or that in response to all your years of skillful service to Him, but your experience will be that you don't get so much from Him as an old goat.
Considering how tin can he give y'all again, what is already yours in Christ?
Let me declare to you again the words of the Spirit to River City Church in this hour.
Don't yous know Church, y'all are always with me and everything I accept is yours!
Therefore River Urban center Church, He who supplies the Spirit to yous and works miracles amid you, does He practise it by the works of the constabulary, or by the hearing of religion?
Is it past grace, through organized religion or by our works that the river of His Spirit flows?
Then let united states of america rest from our religious works and let us go back into the party of our salvation, the grace of God, from which we slipped out the dorsum door.
At that place is an endless supply of the grace of God to run across every need in this identify and all we accept to do to see the river flow is to start singing the song of faith, the song of victory and it is a vocal about the grace of God.
I fully believe in the laying on of easily for impartation and healing…..but to receive the truth that sets you lot free, you need only believe.
Source: https://www.rivercityapostolic.org/blog
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