Our Triune Nature (Part 1)
Our Triune Being Part 1
Intro. How well do you think you know yourself? Like do you know why you do what you do? Do you know why you are happy, or why you are not happy or unfulfilled? OR why when you crave some things you can resist but there are other things you cannot?
How many of you think you know yourself REALLY well? How about kind-ofwell? How many of you really don’t know why you do what you do?
I am beginning a new series of lessons today that I believe they will help you understand yourself a little bit better. And hopefully as you consider these teachings you will learn to have more control over what you do, decisions you make, and hopefully you will act more in line with what God wants for you, which will make you feel happier so you more peace of mind.
At times these sermons may seem more like Bible studies than sermons, but I believe what you will learn in these lesson can be life changing.
So let us begin.
Who are you? A better question may be, ‘What are you?’
You are a triune being. What do I mean by this?
Well, you are a spirit, you have a soul, and at present you live in a body.
When you look at me there is a whole lot more to me than you can see with your eyes. And the same is true when I look at you, there is a whole lot more to your being than what I can see.
Unfortunately we have a very bad habit of basing our opinions and judging others, and deciding things about them based on what we see, or don’t see when we look at them. That’s not the best thing to do because there is more to see than what you can see with your eyes…. Because, we are a spirit, we have a soul, and at for now we just live in this body.
Turn to 1 Thessalonians 5:23 it says “May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
So first of all Paul’s prayers is that God Himself, that is the God of peace (that is the peace makers, the peace giver, the peace provider).. that He would…
“ sanctify you through and through.” Do you know what it means ‘to sanctify’? Basically it means to set something apart for holy use, or set something apart for God’s service. So Paul’s prayer is that God would sanctify you through and through (in other words, ‘all of your parts’ – thru and thru…. So that you will be more useful Him.
Then Paul goes on to mention these parts, “ May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
So basically he tells these Christians, ‘May your whole being, body, soul, and spirit be kept sanctified and kept blameless for God’s use until Jesus returns.’
Why remind his reader of this? Because if you think about it, each of us belong to God. We are His. You don’t belong to anyone else. The Bible tells us in 1 Corinthians 6:20 and 7:23, that we were bought at a price. We were redeemed or bought back by God with the blood of His son Jesus.
As a Christian, that is one who publically accepted Jesus and His perfect sacrifice for the salvation of our eternal soul, you have no right now to get up every day and do any and everything you want to do, or anything you feel like doing. We have been set apart (or sanctified by God) for His use. We should not be doing the unholy things that everybody else is doing in this evil world.
You have a destiny, a God given destiny now, and there are some things that our heavenly Father wants you to do, and also not do as His children.
In God’s plan, there are no mistakes, and He has a plan for you. You are not a mistake. As a matter of fact God had something in mind for you even before He knit you together in your mother’s womb. (Ps 139:13-16)
“For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
So in 1 Thess. Paul wanted to remind those Christians that we are to use every part of our being, (our body, our soul, and our spirit) for God’s glory, for He has set apart these parts for His Holy use.
After He returned to the Father, Jesus sent ‘the Helper, His Holy Spirit to live inside believers to help us achieve this end. He knew we would need help to become what He began to do in our spirit at the new birth, at our baptism. There we were set free and cleansed of our former sins and the Holy Spirit was sent into us to help us mature and become what we are meant to be, hopefully glorifying our Lord and becoming a blessing to others.
How many of you recognize that you were bought at a price by God? How many of you recognize that now as a sanctified believer you are not free to indulge in all the garbage of this world, that now you have been set apart for God’s holy use?
So Paul recognizes and mentions the three parts of our triune nature as being body, soul, and spirit. And by mentioning each part it seems as though he also recognized the importance of each individual part for God’s use.
As a Christian, I believe it is important to know and understand these parts of our own being a little better. Better because each part has a huge impact on our life and what we do with it. (for each part is different)
It is very hard for believers to walk in victory if they don’t understand and discern what is of the spirit, or of the soul and the body. Each part can pull us in a different direction (and not always in a positive direction).
It is important for us to learn how to discern the difference and learn to go more with our spirit and less with what our flesh and soul wants.
Why is that important for us? Because as Christians the Holy Spirit of God, which has indwelled us as believers does not interact with our flesh, nor with our soul, at least not directly. Rather, God’s spirit has made His home in us, that is in the place where our own spirit abides, because God Himself is a spirit. (John 4:24)
And as God’s own Spirit interacts with our spirit, He teaches, He influences, He helps, He counsels, He prompts, and even convicts our own spirit. And the more He does that and the more we listen to Him, the more it will influences our soul (that is our mind and emotion, where we want and think and feel). And eventually it will influence our flesh, and others will see fruit of that by how we act and by what we do.
Unfortunately most people have this all backwards, even Christians. We listen to the flesh and what it wants more than to the spirit which knows better.
The body of flesh says, ‘I want it, I need it, it feels good, it smells good, it tastes good, it pleases me and I want it now!’ It wants to be pleased, it wants to be pampered.
But the Bible teaches us to be careful and avoid doing what the body wants, desires, and craves.
Galatians 5:16 says “16 So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are in conflict with each other, so that you are not to do whateveryou want.”
I hope that you are beginning to see where we are going with this and why there are so many unhappy, miserable Christians. It is because their flesh is screaming to do one thing and they give in to it, but their spirit who is wiser is telling them to do something completely different so there is no peace.
In Romans 7 the Apostle Paul wrote: ‘21 I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22 For in my inner being (you could say his spirit) I delight in God’s law; 23 but I see another law at work in me, (or in his flesh) waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? 25 Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!’
So there is this battle going on inside of us. Gal 5:17 said ‘the flesh desires what is contrary to the Spirit,’ But a little further down in Galatians 5:22f it says, “the fruit (or the byproduct) of the Spirit love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.”
So this person who chooses to follow the spirit’s lead does not to give into their flesh’s whims every time it is tempted and desires something. Rather they hold back and listen to those gut feelings, what the spirit tells their conscious.
Not say that you will never be tempted, that lusts of the flesh are just going to disappear and go away. But rather verse 16 says that ‘if you walk in the Spirit’ (that is by the choices you make) then by making these right choices and choosing to go with the Spirit of God you won’t fulfill the desires or lusts of that sinful, fleshly, nature which is screaming at you and trying to get you to give in and get you in trouble.
Just because your flesh would love a big banana split followed by a huge piece of chocolate cake doesn’t mean you are going to eat that. Or just because you body would love to stay in bed, and sleep, and not go to work each day, you are going to do that. And just because the flesh would love to put a huge vacation on your charge card that you can not afford, doesn’t mean that you are going to do that.
Just because you like what someone else has, it doesn’t mean you are going to allow your body to go and steal it from them.
There are some good things that our spirit has taught our ‘mind of flesh’ or soul already, and the Spirit of God wants to take us further or deeper into God’s will for your life.
If you want, you can choose to control the flesh and resist certain things that you thought you could not. And likewise as a Christian you can take that even further because God guides and helps by His Holy Spirit. We don’t have to do what our flesh feels like doing or even what our mind of flesh is tempted to do.
Unfortunately more people give in and pay more attention to what the body wants, and craves, and what the ‘mind of flesh’ thinks or feels than what our spirit is trying to tell them, a spirit that is now guided by God, and knows best.
So in this series of lessons we are going to go deeper into this and I hope to help you understand the different parts of your being and how they can influence you. I pray that in doing so you will choose to sanctify those parts; each part of your being for God’s holy use.
I believe that if you learn to do this and learn to listen to and walk more in the spirit and act on it’s promptings, I believe you will be happier and the fruits of the Spirit that Paul talked about in Galatians 5 will become more evident in your life.
God is a God of peace and He wants to bless you with that peace, and sanctify you thru and thru, and that’s not going to happen of you keep ignoring Him and His divine guidance. So what did we learn here today:
– #1 You are a spirit, you have a soul (that is a mind, your individual personality, it’s where you want, you think, and feel) and for now the Spirit and soul live in a body.
– #2 Because you belong to God, if you want to be happy and fulfilled in Him, & since He sanctified each of those parts for His holy use, we need to make some choices: a) to learn to listen to Him more b) and then do what He says.
– #3 As difficult as all this may sound right now, we need to remember that Jesus did not leave us without someone to help us do this. He has sent His own Spirit, His Holy Spirit into us at our baptism to help us grow and mature and become more like Him. We have an awesome power within us and He is just waiting for us to hear and learn from Him, and do what He teaches us.
(Sermon series based on material produced by J. Myers)
For more lessons click on the following link: http://granvillenychurchofchrist.org/?page_id=566
All comments can be emailed to: bfronzek@gmail.com