Let's begin reading in Galatians 5:13: "For, brethren, you've been called unto liberty; only use not liberty for an occasion to the flesh; but by love serve one another. For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. But if you bite and devour one another, take heed that you be not consumed one of another. This I say then, walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that you cannot do the things that you would. But if you be led of the Spirit, you are not under the law."
Okay, then look over here at verse 24, same chapter. "And they that are Christ's have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit."
Father, we come, and we ask you tonight that You would open Your Word before us. That the reality of who we are in Christ would rise up fresh before us and that it would rise up big on the inside of us and that we would see ourselves tonight, Lord, as You see us. That we would see ourselves tonight, Lord, as You created us and Father, we ask as this revelation becomes real, that we would walk in the power of it and that Your glory would be seen in us. And Father, we'll give You all the glory for it in Jesus name, amen. Praise God...
Walking in the Spirit, Part 2
August 8, 1979 • Pastor Star R. Scott
Let's turn to the book of John, and continue our study on living in the Spirit. We spent a couple of weeks of introduction primarily showing you the sin in man. Man is a spirit; he has a soul; he lives in a body. We hit very briefly on some of the aspects of living in the flesh. We have touched briefly on some of the areas of spirit, and what we will do now that we have introduced the fact that man is a trinity, is to take each of these areas in detail and share from the Word of God how you are created, and how you are supposed to function spiritually, so that you can live victoriously every day of your life. How many of you would like to live without ever sinning again in your life? Would you? It's possible; it's been provided for us through the redemptive work of Jesus, and we are capable of walking sinless as we saturate ourselves with the Word of God. This is what we want to discuss.
Turn to John's Gospel, the fourth chapter. We will start this evening dealing with the spiritman, something we must understand before we can realize the magnitude of the new birth. So we will start the study right from the beginning: understanding what it means to be truly born again. How many of you have been born again? Okay. We will find out something in our study tonight. How many of you have been bornagain for 30 years? Okay, we have a few. Has anybody here been bornagain for 35 years? Okay, we have got a couple there (you are going to tell on yourselves in a bit, ladies). Forty years? That got them; they probably have been, but they are not going to admit it. Thirty-five was the maximum. Thirtyfive years after being born again, these ladies are just beginning to find out what the new birth is really about. Would you say that's so, Maxine, after all of these years of knowing that you were born again, that you were going to heaven? Father is beginning to reveal to people like this what it means to be a spiritual being and how to live through your spirit victoriously, bringing your soul and your body into perfect discipline. You might have been saved for 35 years, 50 years, or 70 years, without knowing what it means to be born again. That's where we will start; so turn to John's Gospel, Chapter 4, verse 24, and let's pick it up right here: "God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him," those who will commune with Him, "must worship Him in spirit and in truth." Okay, now; here is something that is very simple, and yet we must realize this: God is (what?) Spirit. God is a Spirit. How are you going to worship Him? In spirit...
Walking in the Spirit, Part 3
August 15, 1979 • Pastor Star R. Scott
Let's turn to the Gospel of John this evening. John's Gospel. We want to use the Scripture that we opened with last week. As long as we're dealing in the area of studying the spirit of man, that man is, in fact, a spirit, that he has a soul, he's living inside a body, we're going to be using this particular verse of Scripture. And in John's Gospel, the fourth chapter, verse 24, the Scripture says this, "God is a spirit." God is a spirit.
Now, man was created in the image of God; wasn't he? And God is a spirit. So, man was created in His very image, he was created a human being. He was created a spirit being that had a soul and abides inside a physical body. God is a spirit, and those "that worship Him must worship Him"-how? "In spirit and in truth." Okay, so, let's say it together. "God is a spirit: they that worship Him, must worship Him in spirit and in truth." There's only one way, then, that we're going to worship God. How is it? "In spirit and in truth." There is no other way.
You can't worship God out of your mind. You can't worship God with your body. You must worship God from the spiritual being that you are, and the only way to effectively worship God is for the Word of God to find its place in your spirit, and the Word of God will come forth through your spirit and bring worship to God. It's the only way that it can be done. It can't be done intellectually. It can't be done any way in the fleshly realm. Those that worship God "must worship Him in spirit and in truth."
Now, that does away with the thinking that the way to tell whether God is in this place or not is whether you get goosebumps. Amen? Goosebumps don't have anything to do with worshiping God. Amen! It does away with the idea that you have to have great oratorical dissertations/sermons that come forth and tickle the ears of men, because you can't worship God in the soulical realm. You can't worship God from your mind...
Walking in the Spirit, Part 4
August 29, 1979 • Pastor Star R. Scott
Let's turn to the book of John and start off with our basic text for our study of living in the Spirit. John's Gospel, Chapter 4, verse 24, "God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth." God is a what? Those "that worship Him must worship Him in…and in…" So, that means there's only one way to worship God. You can't worship God through your mind. You can't worship God through the physical actions of worship. There can't be traditions, there can't be certain actions that you go through. There's only one way to worship God; you worship Him from your spirit with the Word, praise God. So, this is really the only way that you can worship God. You can't worship God without the Word. You can't worship God without being free in your spirit.
We were just hearing from the sister right here that's involved with people that are born-again, but they're trying to worship God intellectually. They're trying to apprehend God through a book and this is not a book, my friends. This thing is a living entity. The Word of God is alive and it's powerful, praise God! And that Word is living. It's not something that is apprehended academically or intellectually. It's something that's discerned in the spirit of man. It's a source of food. It's a living entity within our spirit and when we worship God we worship Him in spirit and in truth. "Thy Word is…" (John 17:17). So, we see that this is the way that God has called us to worship. We also know that man is a trinity; right? He said, "And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly…spirit, soul and…" (1 Thessalonians 5:23). So, man's a trinity. Man is a spiritual being. He has a soul comprised of emotion, intellect and will, and he lives inside a physical body...
Walking in the Spirit, Part 5
September 5, 1979 • Pastor Star R. Scott
Okay, let's pick up where we left off last week. Praise the Lord, let's turn to the book of John and open this up with our main Scripture for this particular series. I have no idea how long we're going to go, so we'll just go until we get done, and then sometime later, we'll do it again and learn more. You can't exhaust the Word, can you? You can take a subject, and you could study it the rest of your life, and you'll never wring everything that the Spirit of God's put into it. It's there, and we can continually learn and draw it. The Word of God is profitable to us, praise God, for instruction into righteousness.
Okay, John, the fourth chapter, verse 24. John's gospel, fourth chapter, twenty-fourth verse, and let's say it together, "God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." Okay, we worship Him how? In spirit and in truth. So, we've been sharing, then, for the last weeks: you can't worship God out of your mind, it's impossible. You can't worship God physically; though your mind and your body can be used by your spirit as instruments to bring praise and honor to God, they can't worship God, they're only instruments used in the ministry of worship to Father; okay? The worship comes directly from the indwelt spirit of man. The spirit of man is that that's recreated by the Word of God, that's brought back to life, it's made in the image of God, and is created for the purpose of allowing us to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. That newborn spirit is created after the image of Him that did what? After the knowledge of He that what? Created us. So, we find right here then, that this recreated spirit is operating in the realm of the knowledge of our Creator; your spirit is capable of flowing in the knowledge of God. Your spirit-man's capable of apprehending all spiritual truths, think about that. And the Scripture says that everything that could be revealed has been revealed to us...
Walking in the Spirit, Part 6
September 12, 1979 • Pastor Star R. Scott
We are continuing in our study: Walking in the Spirit. We have been having a great time as the Lord has been ministering to our hearts. Let's turn to John, the fourth chapter. Some of you might know this verse by now. I don't know how long we have been in the study, but we know one thing: we haven't come anywhere close to finishing; so we'll just continue to have a good time in the Lord's ministry to us. We will talk about hearing the voice of God over the next session or two: how to hear the voice of God, how to be obedient to the voice of the Spirit of God speaking to your spirit, how to know when it's God speaking as opposed to your mind coming up with different ideas, and how to know when the Spirit of God is leading you in a certain direction or pressures are pushing you. These are the things that we want to understand as we start dissecting the spirit tonight and as we get into the three phases of the spirit of the reborn man.
Now, what are the three aspects of the spirit? How many of you remember? They are intuition, conscience, and communion. So, for right now, put them in your notes, either in columns across or down and divide your page into three sections with the headings, "Intuition," "Communion," and "Conscience."
John, the fourth chapter, the twentyfourth verse, says, "God is a spirit: and they that worship Him must worship him [how?] in spirit and in truth." So, apart from worshiping God from the spirit man through the Word of God, you cannot worship Him: you cannot worship Him out of your mind; you can't worship Him with your flesh; you can truly worship God and have communion with God only through your spirit man. It's the only possible way that it can be done...
Walking in the Spirit, Part 7
September 19, 1979 • Pastor Star R. Scott
Let's get our notes out and if you don't have any, get some. Because you'll want to put this down and put it into different categories as we share Scriptures with you this evening. What we're doing, we've been studying walking in the Spirit for a number of weeks now. Last week we began to take the spirit of man and dissect it, somewhat, so that we could understand it better.
The spirit is comprised of three areas. What are they? Intuition, communion, and conscience. Okay? Man is a trinity in himself. Man is a spirit, he has a soul, and he lives inside of a body. Man is a trinity in every function. The mind, the soul that is comprised of: emotion, intellect, and will. The body is basically comprised of flesh, bone, and blood. You can see these things continuing through God's creation. Last week we began to break the spirit down and started dealing with conscience a little bit. We were sharing that your conscience could, in fact, be your guide; amen? If your conscience is saturated with the Word of God. If your conscience is not full of the Word of God, then we saw in our study a few week prior to that, that the spirit of man could be deceived, the spirit of man could become hardened, the spirit of man could become filthy and in need of being cleaned up. All of these different aspects that can take place in the real you. Now, we've got to do this before we can get the most of this study. We have to realize that we, the real man, is the guy that is living inside of here that has been redeemed by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ entirely. Our spirit has already realized the fullness of redemption. The body is still waiting to realize the fullness of redemption's plan. Did you know that? Did you know that the mind is still waiting to receive the fullness of redemption's plan? I fully believe that after Jesus comes back for us-soon, I hope-soon. I believe that when He comes back for us and we split out of this particular environment that we're in, and this body is changed in a moment and a twinkling of an eye, I believe that our mind will no longer operate at 10 percent of its capacity, but we'll instantly begin to move at 100 percent of our mental capability. This body being corruptible will put on incorruption. We who are mortal will put on immorality. That's going to be the full realization of redemption. But the mind and the body are continually being renewed day-by-day in the realm of the spirit waiting for the fullness of redemption; but your spirit, the real you, has already received the fullness of redemption's plan. That man inside of you, that new creature is made perfect, praise God, after the image of He that created us. That's neat! That is really exciting when you begin to understand what the new birth is all about. When you begin to realize that the real you, that guy inside there, cannot sin, praise God! As long as he is walking in fellowship with the Word of God and Jesus is abiding in Him and His Words are abiding in us, then praise God, we are not capable of sinning. You get away from the Word, you back away from the Lord and you can come back into moving in sin...
Walking in the Spirit, Part 8
September 26, 1979 • Pastor Star R. Scott
Okay, the fourth chapter, and let's look down here at the twenty-fourth verse: "God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth" (John's Gospel). "God is a Spirit: and those that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." How do we worship God? Okay, do you worship Him with your bodies? Out of your minds? In spirit and in truth. And we're going to take up our last segment on our study of the spirit-man. Now, we'll be referring to the spirit throughout the rest of the study, but we've focused in on the spirit-man. We've tried to-in no way have we exhausted it, but we've gone probably a lot further than most have ever delved into the spirit and dissected the spirit, its operation, the things that the spirit can produce when it's moving under the power, the energy of the Word of God, the fact that this spirit-when it's under the direction of the Holy Spirit-is capable of leading us into truth. Your spirit-man is able to digest the Word of God and to assimilate all of the knowledge and revelation that God has for us. Your spirit-man is able to sustain your physical body with life. Think about that. Your spirit-man is able to sustain the physical man with life. As long as that spirit is saturated with the Word of life, the body will live until you're ready to go home, until God calls you, and you and He are in agreement and you check out of here. Praise God!
And, you see, this is the way that it's supposed to operate, and we see, then, that all of this ministry that's been coming into our spirit has to be, then, released into the mind and into the body to become effective in this realm that we're walking in, the natural realm. We've seen that we're spiritual beings; we've seen that we are spirits; we worship a Spirit. We see that our spirit is the factor that produces life. We see that the spirit is eternal, but we're living now in a realm that's governed by time and space. How many of you realize that you're governed by time and space in this physical body? That's why Jesus had to die. You see, the fullness of the ministry of Jesus-do you realize that the fullness of Jesus' ministry did not end with His death and resurrection? Did you all know that? Did you know that He was not through, His ministry did not end, He's ascended back to the right hand of God our Father and ever lives to make intercession for us? Did you know that Jesus came back in the person of the Holy Spirit? Do you realize that as long as He was in this physical body, He was limited by time and space?...
Walking in the Spirit, Part 9
October 17, 1979 • Pastor Star R. Scott
It's been a little while since we were in the study, so let's go back to John, the fourth chapter. We'd like to read this Scripture verse. We'll be dealing with this passage of Scripture a few more times before we're done. Fourth chapter and the twenty-fourth verse, a Scripture that you've become familiar with, I'm sure. And the Scripture says, "God is a Spirit: and those that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth." Amen? Okay, let's say it together. God is a Spirit and those that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. Okay, let's say it one more time. God is a Spirit and those that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. Okay. Now, what about the mind? How does the mind enter into this thing? We've been dealing now, I don't know how many weeks, maybe four, five, six weeks on dealing with the spirit-man, but we know that man isn't a spirit alone. He is a spirit; he has a soul and he lives in a body. Now, since God's created us as a trinity, we realize then that there's a function to be carried out by every one of these portions of our being. We know what the body is. It carries us around, right? You couldn't eat without your body. A lot of us would be lost, man. Hey, what are you going to do if you can't spend eight hours a day eating, or however long we set aside for meals. No, that's sleeping that's eight hours, isn't it? Some sleep three and eat eight.
The body has a function, and its more of a function than just carrying around your brain. The soul aspect, the emotion, intellect and will. The body was created by God, ultimately, as a mechanism that would never fail. It would be eternal. This body was created to never know death. This body was created to never experience pain. This body was created to move in such a way of the existence of time and space that we're aware of, that we exist in today, in total dominion over it. This body was created so that it could be carried into and out of the pure spiritual realm. That's the way it was ultimately created. Now, because of the fall, the body has been limited to the natural or the sensual realm. But it wasn't created that way in the beginning. And we know from the fact that Jesus comes and appears in a glorified body that can still eat, that can still be touched and yet can go in and out of buildings, right? He can appear and disappear. There's no blood in it. He says, "Touch me." He says, "A spirit doesn't have flesh and bone, like you see me." And yet the body that you're going to have one of these days is going to be very tangible. No blood in it. You'll be able to see it, touch it, eat, and have all of the sensual experiences that you have right now that are pleasurable. And yet you won't have to worry about any kind of malfunction...
Walking in the Spirit, Part 10
October 24, 1979 • Pastor Star R. Scott
"Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be" (Romans 8:7). Now, that's a powerful sentence. The word "enmity" is the exact opposite of agape. We find out that the carnal mind, under the dictates of the flesh, under the man of sin, is at total enmity with God. It's a hatred of the things of God. First Corinthians says that the carnal mind can't receive the things of God because they're what? Spiritually discerned. You can only understand them with a mind that's being directed by the Spirit. Remember, the mind is neutral. Okay? The mind is really neutral. You have the carnal mind and you have the spiritual mind; right? So the mind is neutral and it'll go whichever way it's influenced by the strongest force. If we're, then, moving in the area of carnal activities, it's a very simple thing to remedy. All you have to do is draw back and make a quality decision to spend more time in spiritual matters than you do in carnal matters. That's all. We seem to think that it takes some kind of great formula that has to be established and it's going to take at least twenty-five years of dedication and repentance and prayer and fasting, when all it takes is a quality decision to say, "Wait a minute. I'm not going this way anymore." The spirit-man is alive. He's down there ready for you to go that direction anytime; amen? He's there speaking out and saying, "Let's go. This is the way we're supposed to go." You have to allow that spiritual man to be heard clearly in the mind, the quality decision made in your heart, the bringing of the mind into subjection, the feeding of the inner man with the Word of God and, then, you are going to stand incorruptible. This is what we want to deal with a little bit tonight.
Romans, Chapter 12, "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies…" Okay now, that's important here because we're talking about the carnal mind. The body, the flesh, is trying to put itself in control over your mind, your will factor, "…that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice." It's not going to do God any good dead; amen? You have to yield your members as instruments unto righteousness. It's not going to do God any good laying on slab somewhere. So, we're not to kill the body; we're to present it as a living sacrifice, a sacrifice given up to be controlled by the Spirit, the renewed Spirt, under the auspices of the Holy Spirit. "Present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your [spiritual] service. And be not conformed to this [world's system] but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God." Now, what is the perfect will of God? Okay...
Walking in the Spirit, Part 11
November 7, 1979 • Pastor Star R. Scott
We had a good time last night. I preached for two and a half hours, and we just had a super time. Father moved by His Spirit in a great way, and we give Him all the glory and the honor for it. People are hungry for the Word of God; amen? And I tell you, I never get tired of it myself, and I'm looking forward to what the Lord has for us this evening.
We're going to deal with the flesh a little bit tonight. We've been dealing, I can't remember how many weeks now, in the walking in the Spirit. We found out that God is a Spirit, and those that worship Him must worship Him (How?) in spirit and in truth. You're not going to communicate with God in the natural realm with anything that's going to be lasting. Now, God can hear our natural voices; we know that. We know that God can actually manifest Himself in a way that appears to be human. We know that angels can manifest themselves in the appearance of human bodies, all of these different things, but we've got to remember that God is a Spiritual Being; amen? And to really communicate with Him, we must communicate with Him in spirit and in truth. That means it's got to be in conjunction with the Word of God.
You can't make up your own rules. You've got to come to God in truth, in agreement with the Word of God. And, you know, one of the things that's caused a breach, actually, between the body of Christ and the relationship with Father has been the traditions of men. We've got to take all the traditions of men-and I say traditions of men, and each of us has our own little thing that computes in our minds. Some of us immediately think, "The Catholics!" Right? Some say, "It's the Baptists," the Assemblies of God, whatever else it might be; we've got to take every tradition of man and put it aside. Jesus said because of the traditions of men, you've made the Word of God of no effect. It hasn't been able to operate in your life. We've got to come to the place where we stand before Him purely and say, "Father, I'm going to worship You in spirit, from my spirit directly in communication with You, and I am now submitting myself to Your Word and whatever Your Word says is truth. I'll bring my mind and my body in conjunction with the Word of God. I'm going to bring it into conformity to the Word of God." This is the way that we have to worship Father...
Walking in the Spirit, Part 12
November 14, 1979 • Pastor Star R. Scott
I know from experience, dealing with people, that this study has changed a lot of lives. People have begun to see who they are in Christ, the fact that they are spiritual beings, that they don't have to be governed by their flesh, that they don't have to believe what their bodies are telling them, and that the mind can, in fact, be renewed and washed with the washing of the water of the Word. As we finish this teaching, we want to take a look again at the body. We have spent a long time dealing with the spirit of man: the fact that man is a spirit. Those who worship God must worship Him in spirit and in truth, the Scripture says. The Scriptures say that, if you walk in the Spirit, you will (what?) not fulfill the lust of the flesh; amen? So, we want to see this evening, concerning the man walking in the Spirit, how this flesh must respond to that spiritual man. What we have been sharing with you for these last months isn't theory. The flesh must respond, must walk in obedience to, the regenerate man. The flesh must obey the Word of God so long as that inner man is continually being saturated with the Word of God. If we will reckon that we are, in fact, dead to sin and alive in Christ, the life that we now live in the flesh (Paul said in Galatians) we live (how?)-how many of you know what that says?-by (what?) the faith of the Son of God. It doesn't say that we live it by faith in the Son of God (amen?); it says we live this life by the faith of the Son of God. You see, Jesus is in you: your victory is by His faith. That's what this is saying: The life that you now live, you are now living by the faith of the Son of God. You and Jesus have been made one. He is dwelling in your spirit. You are flesh of His flesh, bone of His bone. You have been joined to Him, you are one spirit with Him. Your spirit and Jesus cannot be separated any more than the Godhead can be pulled apart. We now have been made one with Him. So, your victory is in realizing the oneness that you have with Jesus in the spiritual man.
You see, that's Jesus living down there. How many of you believe that, if Jesus were given full reign of your body, He could keep it in line? He proved it with His body, didn't He? Amen. Well, who is living in us? It's Christ in us, the hope of glory; amen? Jesus has been made one with us; He is living in our spirits. So, in actuality, Jesus is the one who has control of our physical members-if we will recognize what the new birth is all about. This is what we want to try to nail down as we finish this study...
