Sons of God, mature sons, huios, have a certain trademark: they are led by the Spirit of God and not by their sinful natures! This crossover takes time and it has to be kept in place, like harnassing a horse, or bridling it to bring it under the control of the master. There is a simple strategy given by Paul in Philippians 2:13-16 that enables any believer to come under the control of the Holy Spirit. Here it is… Listen to this sermon

God is working in you
DIVINE GUIDANCE SERIES No. 1
Andre Pelser

It is God working in you to do His will. The battle you sometimes have within is God working in you to help you obey His inner voice. The fleshly mind is always at enmity with the spirit and there seems to be a tugging going on when you make decisions. This is not a split personality! It is learning to follow the guidance of the Holy Spirit within.

1 John 4:4
4 Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.

Romans 8:15,16
15 For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father. 16 The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:

John 14:23
23 Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.

Philippians 2:13-16
13 For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.
14 Do all things without murmurings and disputings: 15 That ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world; 16 Holding forth the word of life; that I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain, neither laboured in vain.
The King James Version

The way God is at work in you is described by the Greek word energeo that means effective, powerful work! He shows his power and effectiveness by doing a good work in you and me. The good work He has begun He will complete! He will perfect that which concerns you! Be patient! God is not finished with you, yet!

Your will is becoming conformed to the will of God. The Greek word boulomai tells us that your intentions are changing from within: your disposition is beginning to change. You actually begin to desire to do His will! Your will and His will are being tied together like a rope that is twined or like a vine: it is becoming impossible to distinguish between the two!

Because your are beginning to choose the will of the Lord rather than the desires of the flesh and of sin, you are starting to think like God. The root word for pleasing God is dokeo which means you are starting to think like your Lord!

Grumbling and murmering is gosusmus in Greek! Disputing is dialogismos and it means to doubt and to argue. Some religions have that kind of spirit. They are always in the mood for a fight – why? Because they have no peace within! They cannot obey their own religious laws and then want you to obey them! They do not know the Prince of Peace, Jesus Christ and therefore cannot know peace! The kingdom of God on the other hand is Righteousness, Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost – not a series of laws of what to eat and not to eat! Thank God we can enjoy our food with thanksgiving and because the word of God dwells richly in us! That is why we are often rejected and persecuted in society!

We are living in a crooked and perverse generation that does not want the bible in the schools or in government. They reject the word of God. Perverse is diastrepho and that word depicts a distortion and a misrepresentation of God. The world wants to distort people’s image of our heavenly Father and of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. That is why we preach the Gospel of the Kingdom of God: to restore the truth about our Lord and to be representatives of His Kingdom! The basis of diastrepho is strepho and it means to turn right around and distort! Who do you think is behind all this? The devil, the anti-Christ, the false prophets of the world! But thank God in the end the truth always prevails!

Aiphnidios is the word Paul chose to indicate how we are to shine in the world: it means sudden and unexpected, like a light being switched on in a dark place! When we quote the word of God a light goes on in the darkness of people’s minds and at first it is a bit of a shock to them! That is why we get violent reactions to what we say! We are witnesses of the Light of the World and He shines through us!

The secret of believers is taken up in Paul’s apostolic command to hold onto the word of Life and to brandish it like a sword in life: epecho – to pay attention to the word of God and to detain and retain it in your memory and throughout your walk in life. Never be without the word – within! That is how God works within us to do His will: His word is doing it. His word is performing the operation to change us from within! We have to hold onto it and hold it forth in the world and learn to obey it until we want to do His will, naturally!

This is how His Spirit leads and guides us and even shows us things to come!
Amen.