Spiritual Decay

One of the dangers of spending time with the preacher and being in conversation with the preacher is that you may find that something we have discussed will shape or in some way inform a forthcoming sermon. In discussions with my mother and my mother-in-law, there was a little discussion at one point about how we feel in terms of whether we feel young or not. I’ll not go into the details of the particulars of the conversation, but we were just discussing this idea of feeling young, no matter what may be going on in the body, the feeling of youth within the mind and within the heart.

Well, there’s a truth to that spiritually as well, in which there is a contrast between what may be true in the outward and what may be felt and known and enjoyed in the inward. And you find that in our text this morning of 2 Corinthians 4:16, “For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.” The apostle states the great privilege of bringing the gospel to men and women, to even his own hurt, the suffering, the affliction, all the difficulty of the trials and persecutions that came upon him and those with him, trying to advance the gospel into other regions and areas.

Those in Corinth had benefited. They had benefited from the advance of the Word of God to their area. They had received the Word of God. They had believed on the Lord Jesus Christ as the Messiah. And yet it was through tremendous suffering and difficulty for the apostle and those with him. And yet he faints not.

So, what he says in verse 16, “For which cause we faint not. We’re not going to faint. We’re not going to give up. We’re not going to let the difficulties that you reap the benefit of stop us, but we have to suffer. Though our outward man perish, though there’s great affliction on the body, though there’s the natural wear and tear upon the physical frame, yet, praise God, the inward man is renewed day by day.” We are able to continue because the inner man is renewed. It enjoys this power of God within the soul, this renewing within the heart, and allowing us then to continue, steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord. “For as much as you know, your labor is not in vain in the Lord.”

Well, I don’t know whether you feel young or not. That’s not really the question this morning. The question is, if we were to align the inner with spiritual vibrancy, if there was a feeling of youth within the soul, is that how you feel today? At the close of this year, do you feel a vibrancy within the heart and soul in relation to your walk with God? Whatever’s going on externally, whatever’s happening in the body, whatever sicknesses you may have endured recently or throughout this year, whatever suffering you have come through, how is the inner man? Can you testify with the apostle to this renewing daily within the soul?

There’s a part of me that wants to believe that there is an inevitability about this text, that just as there’s an inevitability about the outward man perishing, God by His grace and by His Spirit will most certainly renew His people in the inner man. And there’s truth there. I think you could argue that case. God is not going to let go of any one of His children or allow them to totally decay or deteriorate spiritually. He’s going to work in such a fashion as to renew them. But at the same time, personal experience and the Scriptures warn me not to assume spiritual renewal is always happening.

I don’t imagine for one second that I look down upon this congregation today and can say with conviction that every single believer is enjoying renewal in the soul right now and has done so through the over 300 days of this year. I know that because I know my own heart. I know my own experience. As I say, even the Scriptures, there are many prayers where believers long for revival, for renewal, for God to come afresh. We mention them even already in prayer, the desire for a restoration of joy, God desiring truth in the inward parts, these things to be real in your life and in mine all the time, and it’s not always the case.

So what I want to do this morning, where my thought was stimulated by looking at this text and thinking about the subject of spiritual decay. Now, that’s taking the negative slant, and I grant that to you, but as I thought about focusing on the positive to bring out the truth, I felt the power would be felt more if we look at the negative and drive towards the positive. Because at the end of the day, sometimes, when we go before a doctor and he’s telling us news, he doesn’t just tell us, “Here’s what you’re meant to be.” He begins by saying, “Here’s where you are, and this is where you’re meant to be,” and tries to lead us into that place. He tells us about the decay, as it were, before He tells us what the medicine may be.

So we’re looking at spiritual decay this morning, and we have three heads which we will consider with God’s help: the recognition of it, the repercussions of it, and the remedy for it. The recognition, repercussions, and remedy. Those are the three words that we will tie our thoughts around as we consider this subject. It’s an important subject, beloved. It’s an important subject.

You think about how important it was in a bygone age in which, of course, today we don’t really have to think about this, trying to figure out ways of preventing food from decaying. The survival depended upon how well we could preserve what it was we harvested, what it was we would grow, and so on. Our forefathers had to figure out ways of preserving food for as long as possible, preventing it from decay, because if it decayed, it was no good to anyone. The same is true spiritually. If you decay, you are no good to God, and you are no good to anyone else. So it’s most important that we do a little assessment of our own hearts at the close of the year, and I think no better day than as we come to a day of prayer.

Where am I with God? How am I getting on? And I’m not really even thinking about casting our mind all back through the year and looking at the ups and downs of the year. We’re talking about right now, this moment here. This year may have been a good year spiritually for you, but right now, even in the last couple of weeks, there has been a decay or a rot that begins to set in. The busyness of holidays, being off, being out of routine, the effect upon that, maybe causing you to stumble in the normal discipline of your routine of seeking the Lord and reading His Word and other habits and so on, all of that can have a compounding effect. It’s not the way to see out the year.

So wherever you are, however much decay there may be set into your soul, I trust that this will be of benefit to you. It’s certainly been of benefit to me as I have meditated and prepared this for you. So first, the recognition of it. Again, the apostle says at the opening of our text, “For which cause we faint not.” We don’t lose heart, that’s the idea. We do not give in to the weariness of the challenge, of the difficulties, of all that we endure. The external circumstances may weigh us down. Paul certainly was weighed down by external difficulties, and you may be able to enter into that feeling. Today, there may be external matters that are pressing upon your soul. Yet despite what the apostle faced, and it should be the case for you and for me also, this is not an excuse for decay within the soul.

There should be this renewal within our inner man. There should be an internal experience of renewal for those joined by faith to Jesus Christ. We will get to develop this a little more, but I just want you to think about that. The profession of being joined to Jesus Christ should produce daily, ongoing renewal of the soul for every one of us. But rot can creep in. Spiritual decay can happen. It comes almost imperceptibly. We don’t invite it. We’re not encouraging it. We’re not wanting it, and yet it comes in and does great damage.

You’re well aware, I’m sure, of the story of Samson. A spiritual giant in many regards, a man that God is using, a man used to great influence in his own generation, yet the sobering words given to us, familiar to us all, I am sure, in Judges 16:20, when he arises, he wist not that the Lord was departed from him. In some way, there was a departure of God from his life. I’m not saying he died an unbeliever. I’m not saying he was an unregenerate man, but the language is designed to press upon us this sense that the power of God that enabled him to do what he did had left him. God’s favor, God’s strength, the empowering to be the judge that God intended him to be, departed. And the sad remark is he was not even conscious of it. He wist not that the Lord was departed from him.

A believer may keep the outward motions of their Christian faith, attending services, fulfilling certain ministry responsibilities, and yet the inward life is withering. So how might you discern it? How might you recognize this decay in the soul? I’m just going to mention these things because I’ll develop them a little more when we consider the repercussions. But first, you may discern, you may recognize, first, in your relationship to God’s Word. This is basic. We’re not dealing here with something that is profound in the sense of the newness of it. But your relationship to God’s Word is a telltale sign of whether there is decay. Are you reading it to hear from God and learn of Christ? Is your experience that which is referred to in the first Psalm? “His delight is in the law of the Lord.” His delight. Is that your relationship to God’s Word right now? Do you take it up in the sense of hearing from God, learning of Christ?

Your relationship to prayer— is prayer routine? Do the words currently seem forced even when you do pray? Maybe you’re not even praying. Does God seem distant? And then your relationship to sin, your relationship to God’s Word, your relationship to prayer, and your relationship to sin. These three things. Do you discern a declining zeal for holiness? Does sin feel like a threat to your purpose and to your joy, or just an unfortunate occurrence that you easily brush off? Your relationship to sin tells a lot.

We are not in a world where we are going to eliminate sin. You know that. We don’t believe in this world that even those regenerated by God, by His Spirit, can utterly eliminate sin. If we believed that, we wouldn’t have the reading of the law. We wouldn’t form our consciences so that we might depart more and more from sin because we would just say, “Well, we don’t have a problem with this.” This isn’t a problem that needs to be addressed. It’s not something that needs to be taught or instructed.

No, sin is an ongoing problem. We’re very conscious of it, and you see the lament of the Apostle Paul: “The good that I do, I do not. The evil that I would not, that I do.” The struggle in the soul. And how are you relating then to this experience of sin? When you feel like sin is a threat to your purpose and your joy, then you’re probably thinking it right. But when it’s just this unfortunate occurrence, that’s too bad, then there’s perhaps a form of decay that’s set in.

And then you mask it. You mask these things. The fact that there’s no real proper relationship to God’s Word, or prayer, or sin—the relationship is all messed up. It’s not what it should be. You cloak it then in religious busyness. You have a schedule filled with ministry, trying to substitute a real heart walk with God, and you can’t. We turn our outward participation into a veneer for spirituality, all while the inner man erodes.

So, the recognition of it. Secondly, the repercussions of it. What are the repercussions? So we think about this. If there is not this inward man being renewed day by day, there’s a lot we can’t do for the outward man. There may be some things, but ultimately the fall is going to win that battle, the world in which we are in. It’s not going to ultimately win because Christ raises, but you know what I mean. We’re all going to die should the Lord tarry in His return. The outward man will perish, but the inward man should be renewed day by day. And if it’s not, if there’s decay, what are the repercussions? I want to think about this in two ways. First, upon our behavior. There are repercussions upon our behavior, and then repercussions upon our experience. Upon our behavior, and upon our experience.

What are the repercussions upon our behavior? Well, it ties into some things we’ve already said. There’s neglect of communion. Neglect of communion. A theme in Scripture is that God desires His people to be in fellowship with Him. You have this language for us even in Genesis 4. You see that in the days of Seth, there seems to be a spiritual quickening and it says, “To call upon the name of the Lord.” The summary of their vitality, the summary of them getting where they needed to be is that they began to call upon God, communion. Go through the Scriptures. Go through the Scriptures for yourself and assess how frequently the whole sum of the Christian experience is highlighted in words that reflect communion. They wait upon God. They call upon God. Language to that effect. It fills your Bible. Because the heart of our religion is that it brings us into and sustains communion with the living God. It’s amazing. And it ought to be the ongoing experience, and it ought then to reflect the renewal that there should be within our hearts daily.

Our Lord Jesus taught His disciples, gathering them close to Him just before His death in John 15, “Abide in me and I in you. Abide in me.” This should be something that marks you—that you abide in Me, you’re marked by this communion and fellowship with Me. And if you don’t, you’re going to find out that you can do nothing. Without me, you can do nothing. This abiding is not merely intellectual acknowledgment of Christ, but an active daily, right—because if we’re going to be renewed daily, it has to be happening every day—a daily cleaving to Him. You’re going to Him in fresh, new experiences of faith, of love, of desire, of interest, of obedience.

The life of grace must abide in the source of grace. I don’t have to argue this point, you know this. If we do not intentionally abide in Christ, we will wither, and our best attempt to live for God will be in vain. So how is your communion? How is your behavior? Looking at behavior, how is there a neglect of communion? And of course, I put my arms around prayer and the Word and the means of grace in general.

The next Lord’s Day, you’re going to come and sit at the Lord’s table. How is your communion? You don’t just have communion in the moment. You’re meant to carry into the Lord’s table the sense of communion. It’s not a place for reintroductions.

Neglect of communion. Engagement with the world, our behavior. The repercussions of decay not only cause a neglect of communion, but you can see it in our engagement with the world. Timothy is warned by the apostle that, “No man that warreth entangleth himself with the affairs of this life, that he may please him who hath chosen him to be a soldier.” That’s in 2 Timothy 2:4. And this engagement with the world, if you’re going to war for God, you can’t entangle with—and he just puts his arms around the generality here—the affairs of this life.

Now, you can’t avoid the affairs of this life, but it’s the entanglement with them. It’s how you get wrapped up in them, lost in the midst of them all, losing out with God because of them, or at least that’s your excuse. In the parable of the sower, which our Lord tells and is recorded for us in a number of the gospels, He speaks there of that which ends up choked by the thorns. And it illustrates the care of this world and the deceitfulness of riches. The things of this world entangling around our hearts and souls, choking out the Word.

Now, your task, Christian, your task is not merely to do your duty. Your task is not just to engage in your responsibilities, but to do so with the power of God. This is what the apostle is saying. The reason why he doesn’t faint in the midst of all the trials and the difficulties is because the inner man is renewed. The outward man, he can’t do anything for that. It’s constantly deteriorating. He bears in his body the marks.

Sometimes I wonder if the Apostle Paul walked in through the door of the church, what our response might be. Because I hazard a guess that by the close of his last few years of his life, let’s say, he probably wasn’t the prettiest to look at. He probably bore around his face, around other visible parts of his body—not to mention parts that are not visible—real, real scars. Real wounds, stoned, beaten, whipped. These things leave their mark. He was near death. That mark was upon him. But he’s renewed.

The power of the spiritual life, the vitality of abiding in Christ, the engagement with God in a heartfelt way, daily renewed him day by day. So despite the frailty of the outward, this vessel of clay that seems so fragile, yet this vitality within the soul kept him just pressing on. Compelled to do God’s will every day of his life. So your task is to be in this world, engage with the responsibilities of life, with the power of God. The responsibilities are not intended to choke your relationship with God. Financial concerns, social events, household duties, personal ambitions—these things can become so dominant that they edge out God. They shouldn’t.

The never-ending pursuit of knowledge, the whirlpool of entertainment can displace your devotion to Christ, and you lose the capacity to delight in the gospel. So it affects your behavior. You get entangled with the world. You’re neglecting communion, entangled with the world, but also surrendering to sin.

The repercussions of the inner decay will result in a surrender to sin. Ephesians 4:30 warns, “Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God.” Grieve not. It’s a warning. The Holy Spirit who abides in the life of the believer, the Holy Spirit who is given to the believer, who produces life and sustains that life in the believer and maintains union with the living God, the Holy Spirit—you say, “Well, how does that look mechanically?” I don’t know. We’re dealing with the divine. But the Spirit can be grieved. That’s what Paul says. Can be grieved.

You believers—we’re not talking about out there, we’re not pointing the finger at unbelievers. He’s not casting some judgment upon those outside the walls of the body of Christ, so to speak. He is looking, He is eyeballing those who profess faith and says, “Don’t grieve the Spirit.” And we grieve the Spirit with hidden and unconfessed sin, which offends the Holy Spirit. He has hindered them, as it were, in His transforming work.

And I think we can underestimate at times the power of one sin to destroy the entirety of our spiritual frame, to decay the inner man. Just one. That’s all the devil needs, is to work into your life one dominant sin that causes this rot. You know it, some of you are aware of it. You put even fruit all together in a fruit bowl, some fruit causes faster decay. If you put that banana near the rest, everything is going to just—you’re going to see a hastening of the decay. One sin. One sin. One sin surrendered to, one sin that you give allowance, that you give space to, one sin you will not kill, one sin you will not fight, one sin that you allow to live on will rot your whole inner life.

Of course, this has its own effect, doesn’t it? Whatever the sin might be, harboring resentment, allowing lust to live on, pride unchecked, envy unrepented of. These things need genuine repentance. What happens when we neglect it is there’s a dulling of the conscience. A dulling of the conscience. Tell me, how are you going to make the right decisions in life with a dull conscience? You’re not. You will not. You dull your conscience, you will make poor choices.

So these are the repercussions upon our behavior. Affecting our communion, how we relate to the world, how we relate to sin. But then also, repercussions upon our experience. There are repercussions then upon our experience. A number of these we may mention. First, our loss of joy and assurance. You lose a sense of joy and assurance. David’s plea after a period of backsliding was, “Restore unto me the joy of Thy salvation.” Give it back, Lord. Restore it. I have enjoyed it, but it’s absent now. Please restore it. Sin robbed even the most fervent of men of joy, taking away his spiritual happiness.

So when we slip into spiritual decline, the sweetness of God’s presence recedes. Our joy evaporates. And with that, of course, a sense of assurance too. It’s not just the robbing of joy, but assurance begins to be a problem. Now, it may not be a problem for someone who’s never saved in the first place. They can sin on. It seems as if Judas wasn’t quite aware of the decline that was going on in his heart and life. Well, of course not. He never was the Lord’s in the first place.

But the loss of assurance. Objectively, you’re grounded in Christ, and yet He can feel alien to you. And so the subjective experience of peace is marred by the guilt or the shame or nagging doubt. And you wonder why. You wonder, why am I in this position? Why? Go back to the real problem of your life. Assess what truly is the battle, where the battle is fought and won. It’s not in some, again, the issue always ties back to sin. Even if your lack of assurance is just doubting God’s promises, I mean, it’s still sin. But you can allow something to come in and decay your heart and life and eventually even the most grounded believer begins to question, “Am I really saved?”

Loss of joy and assurance, ineffectiveness in service as well. A weathered heart, a weathered inner man, a decaying inner soul and being affects the outward service. Now many of us, because of responsibility, because of habit, because of long years of engagement in a certain pursuit or activity, we can stay on that track like a train that can’t be stopped. We can be going on hurtling along. But there’s no driver at the wheel. There’s no inner life. We’re just moving along because of habits, a form of mechanical service void of genuine power.

The Sunday school teacher who’s done it for years may continue to explain the Bible lessons to the children, but the passion, the heart to get the Word across, the feeling to see the children transformed is not there. And the preacher, likewise, keeps delivering his sermons, keeps studying and bringing something and gets up to say something, but where is the conviction of God? Where’s the comfort of the gospel? Where’s the power? Ineffective. And all we’re doing is robbing our opportunities for spiritual fruit.

So this decay, the repercussions of it upon our experience, not just upon our behavior, but upon our experience—the loss of joy and assurance, and effectiveness in service, but also chastening. The repercussions, thankfully, also bring chastening as unpleasant as it may be. As one of the marks of God’s love for His children is His willingness to discipline His children. He’s willing to discipline you and me. Revelation 3:19, “As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten.”

This chastening comes in too many ways that I can’t begin to list. And I’ll just say this as well, and I’ve said this before, but let me say it again. It is rarely your job to discern chastening as a third party, to discern chastening in the lives of others, rarely. Now, I know how tempting this can be, especially as parents. We look at our growing children, and they start to make some silly mistakes, and we begin to come in there and say, “This is God chasing you,” and tell them this, and I think we need to be careful. Be really careful, because you’re never quite sure what God is doing. Is that we need to be really cautious about judging what someone else is enduring as definite chastening for sin. I mean, literally what it is, is a claim to have personal insight into providence. And you don’t. You don’t.

However, I say rarely, I don’t say never. The Apostle Paul certainly looked at those in Corinth and told them why they were enduring their chastening. The way in which they were going about the Lord’s table was resulting in the chastening hand of God, causing sickness, causing, it would appear, even death. But as for each man especially, each woman, each young person to assess in their own heart, what is God doing through this? Why am I experiencing this? What is my Father teaching me? He is always, let me clear up some things for you. He is always assaulting sin in your life. He’s always on a work of purification. He’s always endeavoring to proactively enable you in your conformity to Jesus Christ. These things are always going on.

So whether we know exactly is this some chastening thing or is He just causing spiritual growth in me in some way, in some ways it’s not always necessary to understand that, but I say it’s for you to search your own heart. Do not continue in a path where it feels like there’s a chastening hand against you and go on imagining that there’s not. Those chastening hands are meant to restrain, they’re meant to induce fear, fear of God and a correction of your ways. And as painful as it may be, let me tell you, it is a reflection of God’s covenant faithfulness, that He would care so much to look upon you as one of His own and in some way affect things or move in your life to produce something good in your heart. That’s a mercy.

When you think of our text, “Though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day,” God is willing, let me say to you, God is willing to hasten the decay of our outward frame if it results in the renewal of our inner man. He is more concerned with the latter.

Finally, the remedy. We’ve seen here the recognition, the repercussions. What’s the remedy? How do we enjoy what the apostle enjoyed? Yet, yet the inward man is renewed day by day. The inward, the inner being, the soul is renewed. How? How can you remedy any decay? Maybe you don’t have decay. But certainly, as I was going over this, I could feel decay in my own soul. What’s the remedy? First, honest confession and repentance. You can’t ignore that. There has to be honest confession and repentance.

Psalm 139, “Search me, O God, and know my heart.” I love that. I love how David is, despite all of his knowledge and all of his spiritual experience, he recognizes the limitations of his powers and invites God to know him and search out his heart and reveal to him if there be any wicked way in him. “Test me, Lord. Show thoroughly what there is in my heart. Identify the hidden sin. I want to repent, but bring it to light. I want to name it, so let me know it.”

Repentance, beloved, is a thorough work. It’s not some surface level experience. It’s thorough. It involves the heart. It involves the mind. It involves the whole being. It’s not superficial regret. It is a full acknowledgment of sin and its seriousness accompanied by a decisive desire to turn away from it. And you can’t do this without God’s help. Repentance is a grace. No, this message, far from saying “Go and do better,” this message says to you how much you need God’s help today and every day. Paul can’t renew his inner man himself. There must be confession and repentance.

And what’s glorious about being a Christian? Listen, is that you are best equipped to be the most honest person on the planet about the realities of your heart and life. You have promises. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. He is faithful. I can depend on God. Hear my cry, though I have come a thousand times, ten thousand times and more. If you confess, He is faithful. He is just.

Just. Oh, how that word penetrates the whole context, doesn’t it? He’s faithful and just. He’s just. Why? Because He’s not forgiving everyone who’s sorry about things they have done. He is forgiving those justly. And justly means there’s the necessity of the atonement. There’s the necessity of a Son. There’s mediatorial work. There’s a necessity of there being a real legitimate answer for sin that puts it away and allows God to unleash all that sin deserves, but not on you. So that He’s just, sin is not being overlooked, it’s being paid for in full by His Son. It’s being paid for, all of it, all of it, the worst of it, to the most apparently insignificant of it. It is all being paid for, so when you confess it, He is faithful, He is just to forgive. He’s going to take your sin as it were and see it placed on His Son, and there it’s paid for in full, and you go free, forgiven.

What a healthy private prayer life, dear Christian, is to make real confession of sin. Name your sin. Seek for the power to overcome specific sin. When you discern something needs to be put right, then put it right. It’s not easy, I’m telling you right now. All in your mind, I don’t know if the Lord is working in your heart right now about something. And maybe He is, and I know right now there’s like this little raw nerve. And you’re like, “No, no, no. They have to do it, or that’s not my problem, or that’s not really an issue.” And there’s all this rawness around that whole thing. And there’s no anesthetic for it. No, you have to feel it, right? There’s no way I can numb it for you. You have to feel that, because that feeling is partly a gift and a mercy from God. That feeling that makes you so resistant to confess and put things right. When you finally triumph by God’s grace over it, it lodges in your memory. I do not want to have to go through that ever again.

Oh, God’s grace to overcome. No, this isn’t a time for painkillers. This is a time for feeling the pain, for feeling what God is putting His finger upon and realizing He’s saying, “Confess it, Christian. Get rid of it. Put the matter right.”

So, honest confession and repentance, renewed focus on Christ. How can they be renewed day by day without going to Him? We mentioned this on Tuesday morning at the prayer time. We were talking about this whole idea of beholding Christ, looking to Christ, considering Christ, and the emphasis of John’s gospel in relation to this. Well, John records the same in the book of Revelation. He portrays Christ in that letter, where Christ says, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock.”

Now, this is a church that is self-satisfied, right? If ever there was a self-satisfied church, it was the Laodicean church. “We’re rich and increased with goods. We have need of nothing.” So they thought. And Christ stands outside the door. Oh, what pity, what mercy is in His heart as He knocks on that door. And not only does He knock, as I have said before, I think, to you, not only does He knock, it’s one thing to knock on a door, right? We do this. We knock on doors and maybe we don’t get an answer straight away. So we knock again, and we knock again. And maybe we stand for quite a length of time wondering. Because you know someone’s in there. It happened to me not that long ago actually. I was standing at a door knocking and knocking. I knew someone was in there, but there was no answer. They kept knocking and finally, I was like, I’m gone. I sent them a text. Let them know I’d been there.

Christ, Christ stands so long, knocking at that door, that eventually He has a letter written while He’s still standing at the door, and addresses it to the church. Here, John, write this. Send it to them. And I’m still here. I’m still here knocking, waiting for that letter to be delivered, for them to read it, and for them to realize I am still here. What patience. What patience. That patience reflects what He’s desirous to do. What is it all about? Why is He knocking on the door? If any man hear my voice and open the door, I will come into him and will sup with him and he with me. It is fellowship. It is communion. It is relationship. It is intimacy. It is enjoying His nearness. And He wants your nearness. And you to know His. And He stands waiting for it, that you may have your focus on Him.

You’re renewing. The inward man being renewed day by day is a daily beholding the Lamb of God. It’s right here. It’s every day. It’s not one time. It’s every day going to Him, dwelling upon Him, thinking about His suffering, considering His five bleeding wounds for me, His precious bloodshed, all of His suffering, all of His agony, to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself, not another. God was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself.

Finally, daily dependence on the Holy Spirit. There needs to be daily dependence on the Holy Spirit. It’s not just an honest confession and repentance. And it’s not just a renewed focus on Christ. It is a daily dependence on the Holy Spirit. As I mentioned, Paul is not renewing himself. Paul is being renewed. And this is the Holy Spirit’s work. Oh, how He loves to renew the heart. Day by day, every day, He’s there. You wake up, the Holy Spirit’s there saying, “I’m here to renew you, believer. I’m here to make it fresh to you. I’m here to empower. I’m here to bestow wisdom on you. I’m here to help you advance in likeness to Jesus Christ. I’m here to give you a kind of patience that doesn’t come natural to you. I’m here to give you the kind of love that the world can’t comprehend. I’m here to fill you with joy and peace. And I am here to work in you both to will and to do of God’s pleasure.”

Yes, to renew. It’s constant, isn’t it? It’s continuous. Renewed. That’s the idea. Renewed. The inner man is renewed day by day. Constantly going on, this ongoing renovation of the heart being changed, the life being transformed. Not accomplished by raw determination, but by faith. We sing about it sometimes. “Holiness by faith in Jesus, not by effort of thine own. Sin’s dominion crushed and broken by the power of grace alone.” I wish we understood that more. I think there is a dangerous way in which we step out of grace in justification and into works in sanctification, and it is erroneous. God makes you like His Son, and you need Him. You can’t afford to live your life without Him. You can’t afford to go through a day without His help and His power.

Isaiah 44:3, this is what we need today in this day of prayer: “I will pour water upon him that is thirsty.” I will pour water upon him that is thirsty. What? What are you sending? What’s He sending? What water? What water? Riches? Is that what He’s sending? No, no. Perfect health? No, no. The water is Himself. It’s the Holy Spirit. Out of your belly shall flow rivers of living water. This spake Jesus of the Spirit.

We are coming today. Pour water on us, Lord. It’s Yourself. It’s Your Spirit that works in us, that renews us, that empowers us, restoring spiritual vitality, reorienting us so that we live for God the way we should and not grieve the Holy Spirit. That dryness is eliminated. Freshness is real. We walk humbly before God in gratitude every day, no matter what’s going on. Thank You, Lord. Rejoicing in the Lord always. Can I say rejoice? In everything give thanks. This is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. That takes the power of the Spirit. It’ll take more than an Instagram quote to enable you to do that the way God intends. You need the Spirit of God to be at work. So do I.

So why does this matter? Spiritual decay cannot go on unaddressed. If it is left unaddressed, Christian, it will lead to a compromised witness. It will lead to broken relationships, a loss of spiritual joy, and you will not be able to live the Christian life. Your heavenly Father calls you to a walk with Him that is vibrant, in which He has supplied His Spirit in order for that life and vitality to be enjoyed and experienced by you daily. You are to cultivate it. That’s what this message is about. Cultivate it, desire it, pursue it, pray for it, long for it, incline your heart towards it. Look at the bleeding Son of God and ask, Does that warrant my best or not? Should I be living with life and vitality, or should I allow myself to begin 2025 in a backslidden condition?

The psalmist said, “My soul thirsts for thee.” May God give us grace, let’s pray. Oh that we understood how much the Lord Jesus wants to come near to us, draw near to us, empower us, use us. Christian, don’t be satisfied with some second-rate experience. David wasn’t, was he? Backslidden, away from God, guilty of awful sin. He did not desire simply to tread water for the rest of his life. He wanted to get back where he once was.

Lord, help us. Renew a right spirit within us, we pray. I ask that each of us would pursue that and that we would be empowered to that end. Lord, I acknowledge I can’t do it. I can’t do it for me, and I can’t do it for anyone in this room. I pray, in Jesus’ name I pray. Send the Holy Spirit. May we know daily spiritual renewal. Lord bless our fellowship. Prepare us for the season of prayer. Send renewal, not just to one of us, or to a few of us, but send renewal to all of us. Send revival. Send revival. Do what Thou hast done, yea Lord, even today. Would You revive us again?

May the grace of our Lord Jesus, the love of God our Father, and the fellowship of the Spirit be the portion of all the people of God and evermore. Amen.