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In Zechariah 4:6 God tells his people that the task he's called them to do will be accomplished, "Not by might, nor by power but by my spirit says the Lord of hosts." Only the power of the Spirit of God can enable the people of God to accomplish God's tasks.
But if only the power of the Spirit can make our work effective, what is our responsibility? What part do we play? What does God want us to be doing as we depend on the power of the Spirit? Does relying on the Spirit's power mean I never work or expend energy?
I've heard Christians say, "Look I prayed for the Holy Spirit to help me overcome a certain sinful habit. I prayed for him to make me patient or pure or loving or evangelistic, but nothing happened."
It's as though we have this idea that if the Spirit is really going to work, he's going to have to come and physically pick us off the couch. Carry us to our Bibles. Blow open the pages. Carry us to our neighbors. Forcibly cause us to share the gospel.
But trusting in the Power of the Spirit is never apathetic. It's never expressed in laziness. Spirit-filled people work. When God is stirring up his people the evidence is that they are busy serving him (see a wonderful example of this in Haggai 1:13-15).
We see this principle throughout scripture. Colossians 1:28-29 says, "Him we proclaim,
warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me."
Paul has a God-given task: God has called him to make disciples. And so he's proclaiming and warning and teaching. This is hard work. He calls it toil--it's exhausting work. He says he struggles. But he does this aware that God's Spirit is enabling him and energizing him.
The Spirit-filled life is not a toil-free life. It's not a life without struggle. The Spirit-filled life is toil and struggle energized and enabled by the Spirit.
So if you feel like you're struggling against sin and having to work as you follow Christ, don't think you're doing something wrong. That is the Christian life! Becoming a Christian and being filled by the Spirit doesn't mean that God doesn't remove all need for effort and struggle. Instead he promises to give power in the struggle. And that is what gives us joy in the midst of our work--knowing that our ultimate hope is the power of the Holy Spirit.
This doesn't mean God's Spirit can't powerfully transform someone in an instant. The Holy Spirit can do whatever he wants to do! There are times where the Spirit powerfully frees people from a specific pattern of sin or addiction. There are moments when the Spirit works so that we're given faith or joy and changed in an instant. That's wonderful and we should ask for that and rejoice when it happens.
But the majority of time it seems the Spirit chooses to involve us in the process of transformation. So he doesn't immediately remove the area of temptation--instead he empowers us to resist and pray and fight sin. We're called to "walk by the Spirit" in Galatians 5, which means to be guided by and empowered by the Spirit. We participate in living a life that pleases God's Spirit and turns from our sinful, fleshly desires.
And the wonderful reality is that it's in this process of working and yet relying that we see him powerfully working in us both to "will and to work for his good pleasure" (Philippians 2:13). In these moments we see his power in our weakness and we glorify God. Though this ongoing work of sanctification is slower and involves real effort on our part it's no less wonderful than instantaneous freedom. God is glorified in both.
We could call sum all this up by saying that God calls us to "dependent diligence."
We're responsible to work diligently, to expend energy and effort to honor, obey and please our Lord. And yet we do this fully dependent on the Power of the Holy Spirit to make our work effective.
Does dependent diligence characterize your life? Are there particular areas of your Christian life where you need to rely more on the Holy Spirit? I'd encourage you to ask a few simple questions to help spot self-reliance...
1. What are you not praying about?
We pray and ask God for help in those areas where we realize we need help. Is there any part of your life or spiritual walk that you don't even ask for help with because you think you can handle it? Where do you act without asking for the Spirit's power? That's warning sign of self-reliance. And the best way to reverse it is to humble yourself by asking for his power. "Father, I need your Holy Spirit to counsel this person, to parent this child, to love my spouse, to lead this meeting, to represent you..."
2. Where is your confidence built on your plan, your experience or your will-power?
Where is your hope? When you confront an area of sin, is your first thought your strategy? Is it a list of what you will and won't do? Don't make that your source of confidence. Your hope for change is the power of the Holy Spirit!
And what about the way you counsel other people? When you're talking to your kids or another Christian friend and they're asking for counsel, what do you point them to first? Is it a book? Or a technique you tried for changing? Don't get me wrong, books and plans can be very helpful. But start by pointing them to the enabling power of the Spirit. Stop and pray. Encourage them to humbly ask for the Spirit to fill them and enable them to both will and do what pleases God.
3. Where are you toiling without joy?
Is there any area that you're slogging away at but lacking joy in the Lord? Could that be because you're trusting in your own supply of strength? Take that area before the Lord in prayer. Ask him to fill you with an awareness of his limitless power. Ask him to enable you to work for him and to do it with hope and confidence.
This is an excerpt from the sermon His Work and Our Responsibility.
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Thanks a lot for this post.
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