Galatians 5:25, 6:1
What If I Am Not Spiritual?
\\#25\\ points out that it is possible to "live in the spirit" but not to
"walk in the spirit." What is the difference? To live in the spirit is to be
saved. Every believer receives the Holy Spirit once saved, but that does not
mean that they are spiritual people. To walk in the spirit is to have a
relationship with the Spirit. The two are not the same.
Paul makes mention of it again in \\#6:1\\. That they are "spiritual." Every
Christian should strive to be spiritual but many are not.
So for a Christian, there is something to be besides SPIRITUAL. Questions come
to my mind:
What are the other options?
Would we want to be any of them?
How can we become spiritual?
Tonight, take a sheet of paper and write down six words. The first is spiritual.
That should the goal, but all are not. Let’s list our alternatives and see what
it might take to move us further along the pathway to spiritual.
The road to becoming spiritual is not a single path. Every Christian is at a
different place and God is preparing every Christian in His own unique way; yet
there are somethings that we would all agree mark a spiritual person and the
addition of these things should move everyone along the pathway.
I. Prayer is the mark of a spiritual person.
A. Verses
1 Thessalonians 5:17 Pray without ceasing.
2 Chronicles 7:14 If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble
themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then
will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.
Acts 1:14 These all continued with one accord in prayer and supplication,
with the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus, and with his brethren.
B. The problem of our prayer life is not in our knowing but our doing.
1. We know we ought to pray.
2. Most know how to pray.
3. Most even know for what they ought to be praying.
4. The problem is that we simply do not pray.
C. The disciples perceived this problem \\#Luke 11:1\\
"Lord, teach us TO pray."
D. I have learned some truths over the years about prayer:
1. Prayer engages God.
a. Prayer is not preparation for the work. It is the work.
b. There is little need of preaching if I do not pray.
c. There is little need of witnessing if we do not pray.
d. There is little need of attempting if we do not pray.
2. Prayer accomplishes when human effort fails.
a. Prayer changes situations when conniving does not.
b. Prayer changes hearts when arguing will not.
c. Prayer changes problems when worrying does not.
3. Prayer provides the fellowship that Jesus died to give us.
4. Prayer separates the spiritual from the carnal. Prayer is the
single most separator between spiritual and CARNAL.
E. The 2nd word is CARNAL.
1. You can be many things without praying but you can not be
spiritual.
2. The word CARNAL is not necessarily a bad word.
3. It is where every new-born Christian begins.
4. Prayer alone will not make you spiritual but without it, you can
never become spiritual.
II. What is known about the Bible is a mark of a spiritual person.
A. Verses
2 Timothy 2:15 Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not
to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth
1 Timothy 4:13 Till I come, give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to
doctrine.
B. We know nothing of God apart from the Bible.
1. The things of God are both unknown and unknowable apart from God
revealing it in the Bible.
2. You would think that as needful as the Scripture is to us, we
would be diligent students of it.
a. It tells us how to prosper.
b. It tells us how to make a marriage.
c. It tells us how to raise our children.
d. It tells us how to have peace.
e. It tells us how to get along with people.
f. It tells us how to fix problems.
C. We are called living stones in a spiritual house.
1 Peter 2:5 Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy
priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.
1. Jesus is the Foundation but even so, stones need additional support.
2. To build a house, a frame of pillars is needed.
3. The pillars in this spiritual house are the truths of God’s Word.
4. A Christian is only as stable as the Foundation he rests upon and
only as strong as the pillars of truth he leans against.
D. Knowing the Scripture separates the spiritual from the foolish.
E. The 3rd word to write is the word FOOLISH.
Matthew 7:26 And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them
not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand:
III. What you do is the mark of spiritual.
A. Verses:
James 2:18 Yea, a man may say, Thou hast faith, and I have works: shew me thy
faith without thy works, and I will shew thee my faith by my works.
James 2:20 But wilt thou know, O vain man, that faith without works is dead?
B. Here I am not speaking of the great and super-spiritual things you
do but of the everyday simple things you do. Such actions
speak volumes of our spiritual condition.
C. We are not measured by our chapter headings but by our pages,
paragraphs, sentences, and even our punctuation marks.
1. being faithful to church
2. being faithful to work
3. clean language
4. having the right entertainment
5. honest
6. diligent
7. disciplined
8. industrious
9. thorough
10. thoughtful
11. kind
C. What we do separates the spiritual from the hypocrites.
1. Here is our 4th word, HYPOCRITE.
2. A hypocrite is one who claims to be something he is not.
3. Claiming to be spiritual or even Christian without your actions
backing it up is hypocrisy.
IV. What we do not do is the mark of spiritual.
A. Here we often get accused of being judgmental.
1. You are not judgmental when you decide to stop doing wrong and to
start doing right.
2. You may be judgmental when you decide for someone else what is
right or wrong.
B. Need to learn the difference in commandments and convictions.
1. Commandments are the rights and wrongs that God gives us. No
debating those.
2. Convictions are the rights and wrongs you determine for your
life based on principals and precepts taught in the Bible.
C. In making those convictions, remember what the Bible teaches.
1. Do not follow the world in sinful acts.
2 Corinthians 6:17 Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate,
saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you,
Ephesians 5:11 And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness,
but rather reprove them.
2. Do not love the world in its wickedness.
1 John 2:15 Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If
any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
D. The things that you will not do separates the spiritual from the
worldly.
1. Here is our 5th word, worldly.
2. Worldly is not the same as carnal.
3. Carnal can be unlearned and is a natural state of growing.
4. Worldliness connotes a choice. You knew but you choose anyway.
V. Seeking the Holy Spirit’s guidance is the mark of spiritual.
A. \\#Gal 5:16-17, 25\\
B. The Holy Spirit is a person and should be treated like one.
1. We reverence the Father - Designer and Architect of all things.
2. We reverence the Son - God in flesh who made all of God’s plans
reality.
3. We should reverence the Spirit who works in the affairs of men.
C. We should reverence the Holy Spirit by:
1. Praying to Him.
2. Do not just seek the Holy Spirit’s blessing but rather seek the
Holy Spirit.
3. Do not grieve Him.
4. Get to know Him.
5. Yield to Him.
D. Being lead by the Holy Spirit will separate the spiritual from the
the religious.
1. Here is our 6th and last word, religious.
2. The word does not sound too badly but in the use I am giving it,
it is.
3. Without the Holy Spirit guidance, we become merely ritualistic
zombies, following the dead patterns of worship left to us by
our ancestors.
4. Religion without the Holy Spirit is death warmed over.
Through out this message, I have drawn attention to what we would be (in
contrast to spiritual) if we do not have these marks.
1. If we do not pray, we become carnal.
2. If we do not know the Word of God, we become foolish.
3. If we do not do the right things, we become hypocrites.
4. If we do not abstain from the wrong things, we become worldly.
5. If we do no follow the Holy Spirit, we become merely religious.
These are our choices. These are our alternatives. You may be one of more of
them. I hope we will all choose to be spiritual.
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