07-04 The Inner/Outer Man

➡ Paul, the voiceover for a ministry called Your Daily Bread, discusses the importance of strengthening our spiritual connection with Christ. He emphasizes the need to understand and strengthen our ‘inner man’, which is our spiritual self, to truly experience God’s power. Many Christians struggle with this, leading to personal and spiritual difficulties. Paul encourages us to allow the Spirit of God to refresh and renew our inner man daily, helping us overcome worldly challenges and grow spiritually.

Hello, my name is Paul, and I am the voiceover for a ministry provided to you by Jim Pugh at God is Government called Your Daily Bread, taken from Christ’s teaching of the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6.11. This is a daily devotion ministry focused not only on uplifting Scripture, but Scripture that will grow your spiritual connection with Christ. We hope that you receive these devotions to uplift you, encourage you, but most importantly, advance your knowledge base of the Holy Scriptures. Today’s focused discussion will be on understanding our inner and outer man. For the Christian to really get God’s power through Christ turned on, for the believer to really know the energy that is there in operation, he starts with this concept of inner strength.

Ephesians 3.16 pulls prayer for the Christians, that you would be, first of all, strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man. Now this is a very basic concept, and we really want you to get it. It is a very important and essential doctrine for the life of the Church of Christ, for your life. Here is the first step, strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man. Now this is where it all begins, if you’re going to know the power of God in your life. And you know, most Christians, as I say, never really experience it.

They sort of limp along, they can’t resolve their home conflicts, they have hassles getting along with their family, they can’t seem to adjust to the job, the neighbours give them problems, they’re sort of weak, they’re sort of infirm on the inside, when challenged with an incredible or important opportunity for service to Christ. They feel inadequate, they try to do the best they can to be an example of Christ, but they falter, they have internal anxieties and pressures and problems, they’ve got to go to the Christian counselling centre, they’ve got to get help.

You know, most Christians never ever get to Ephesians 3.20, never, they don’t even know what it is to see exceedingly abundantly above all they can ask or think operating in them, they don’t even know that. But it isn’t God’s fault, it is theirs, because the energy is there, the availability is there, the engine is there, the riches are there, it’s only a matter of appropriation, and it’s a sad thing that Christians, as well as the rest of the world, suffer from a weak inner man. That’s what he is trying to overcome here.

The inner man is the real issue. You have a weak inner man. You suffer from frustration and mental strain and emotional and spiritual imbalance. Sometimes we, as Christians, find ourselves in a position where we don’t seem to be able to control it either. Maybe it comes out in the things we say, or the things we think, or the things we do that are unacceptable to God. A failure to be obedient to follow up on spiritual resources, whatever it is, but very often it happens even to Christians. Sometimes we lose the struggle with the inner man.

Now what is the inner man? What are we talking about? Well, we don’t have to get too heavy about this. The inner man is just the real you, the inside you. Now we’ve spent a lot of time on the outer man. Maybe that will help you to see the inner man by contrast. Now you all took good care of the outer man this morning. We all look lovely, wonderful. Some of you took especially good care of the outer man. You got up this morning, and immediately you faced the outer man in the mirror, and you brushed it, and you fixed its teeth, and then you put on its face if you’re a lady.

And if you were a man, you took it off, you know? You’re very concerned about the outer man, and you went immediately downstairs after you had clothed the outer man, and you fed the outer man. And hopefully you did, because it’s good for you to be fed, because then you’re alert, and your mind can function, and you got the outer man wonderfully prepared. And you came here, and now we’re endeavouring to minister to the inner man. The inner man is just the real you. It’s just the spirit and soul part of you.

And that’s the thing that needs to be strengthened. Let me show you the contrast of the two, by having you notice 2 Corinthians chapter 4 verse 16, where Paul contrasts both. He’s talking here about a situation of persecution, which he was caught in, as was common. He had been perplexed, and he had been distressed, and he had been persecuted, and he had been cast down, and he had been bearing in his body the dying of the Lord Jesus. There was a lot to suffer in his ministry. Death was working in him, he said.

But he says in 16, for which cause we faint not. In other words, even though we’ve got a lot of trouble on the outside, a lot of hassle on the outside, a lot of persecution and so forth, we don’t faint. Though our outer man perishes, watch this, yet the inner man is renewed, or better refreshed, day by day. Now you see, Paul was never preoccupied with the outer man. He says, God delivers fresh strength to that inner man every day. That, beloved, is the process of growth in the spiritual life, your inner man being strengthened, your inner man being revitalized and renewed every day.

In 2 Timothy 4, in verse 17, Paul talks about the fact that the Lord came to him in a time of distress, and strengthened him, giving him victory over the lions that would have devoured him. Paul was very conscious of strengthening the inner man. Now watch this, the outer man decays, the inner man accelerates and ascends. Keep that in mind. As a Christian, as you get older, your outer man declines. You can’t avoid it, it just happens. The older you’ll get, the further it declines. And the older you get as a Christian, and the more you grow as a Christian and are refreshed every day, actually, spiritual growth, leaving the base, say of your outer man, does not go like this.

Spiritual growth does not ascend up like that, it goes like this, because the outer man diminishes, declines and decays, while the inner man ascends. Which means the older you get in Christ, the older you get, as you’re renewed by the Spirit, the further away you come from the outer man, the less concerned you are about it. Now, if you’re getting old, and you’re concerned about it, and you’re getting old, and you’re afraid of dying, and you’re getting old, and it bothers you a whole lot, then I would venture to say that your inner man is not ascending in proportion to the declining of your outer man.

God has a way of just making that all right. So what are we seeing then? Paul says, our outer man may be perishing. It’s a process he’s talking about here. But our inner man is revitalised, increasing, richer, deeper, stronger, every day. The key thing then, go back to Ephesians, the key thing here is to start with it. You be strengthened with might by his spirit in the inner man. In other words, that you allow the Spirit of God to do that revitalising, refreshing, renewing ministry day after day. Now, the inner man’s got to be strong, or you can’t fight the world, the flesh and the devil.

The inner man’s got to be strong, or you can’t overcome. The Apostle Paul had that battle, didn’t he? In Romans 7, the 7th chapter of Romans, Paul is saying, in my inner man, I delight in the law of God. Romans 7.22, I delight in the law of God in my inner man. You know, it wants what is right, it wants what is right, but he says the things I want to do, what? I don’t do, and the things I don’t want to do, I do. I have a weak inner man, it has the right desires, but I have this outer flesh that messes it up.

And, you see, he says, oh, wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death. And then he says, I thank God through our Lord Jesus Christ. But he just, he doesn’t know the answer yet. He just says, I know it’s in Christ somewhere, but I just don’t know where it is. And then you go into chapter 8, and all of a sudden he discovers the Holy Spirit, and how the Holy Spirit works, and he says, the law of righteousness is fulfilled in me through the walk in the Spirit.

Chapter 7, he had a weak inner man. Chapter 8, he discovered the Holy Spirit, and all of a sudden the Spirit strengthened his inner man. You say, well, what’s the key? Galatians 5, 16, walk in the Spirit, and you’ll not fulfill the lust of the flesh. That’s, it’s a simple truth. Walk in the Spirit. The New Testament word walk is the word of daily conduct. Conduct your daily life in the power of the Spirit. Conduct your daily life yielding to the Spirit. Conduct your daily life with a consciousness of the presence of the Spirit of God.

That’s basic. We must be Spirit controlled, Spirit filled, Spirit conscious. And that means walking in the Spirit. You can’t just remember the Holy Spirit every so often. Walk in the Spirit. The walk is the picture of a step at a time, every step taken in the energy and the power and yieldedness to the Holy Spirit. You say, well, in order to do that, you’d have to be thinking about the Holy Spirit every time a decision came. That’s right. Exactly right. And you say, well, if I go around thinking about the Holy Spirit all the time, you know, I’d be like the bruised and bleeding Pharisees.

You know, there was a group who lived in Jesus’ time that were called the bruised and bleeding Pharisees. They thought it was a sin to look at a woman. Every time a woman came up, they closed their eyes and they kept running into buildings. We don’t want you to be, we don’t want you to be stumbling around, smashing into the walls. But if you’re going to be controlled by the Spirit, then you must be conscious of the Spirit. You say, well, how do you do that? It’s very simple, very simple.

You fill your mind with the Word of God. You see, in Ephesians 5, 18 it says, be filled with the Spirit. A parallel passage, Colossians 3, 16 says, let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly. It’s the same thing. You allow the Word of God to saturate you. Thy Word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against you. As I hide the Word in my heart, as it saturates me, it begins to control my thinking processes. And as it controls my thinking processes, then the Spirit of God brings it to mind instantly at the point of each decision.

And then when I yield to that, one step at a time, I strengthen my spiritual muscle. Every time I yield to the Holy Spirit, I exercise my spiritual muscle and I get a little bit stronger in the inner man. Paul said, I can do all things through Christ who, what, strengthens me. But I’ve got to yield to him. I’ve got to yield to his Spirit. I can’t do it apart from him. He, Paul, is praying that our inner man would grow strong as we yield to the Spirit. You’ll never do that until you’re in the Word of God.

We all receive the Spirit. You say, but how do you do that? Just spend the equal amount of time studying the Word of God and intermittently talking to God about what he says in his Word. You will literally be revolutionized. But you see, we don’t do that. We, you know, for us, it’s we worry about that outer stuff and the inner man limps along until Sunday. And you come here and say, oh, John MacArthur, he’ll give us a good old shot in the arm. We’ll be all right for another week, Mabel.

See? I see you’re really not, you’re really not taking. How would it be if you only ate on Sunday? Can’t do it. When you feed the inner man with the Word of God and you feed that in, what happens is the inner man has truth in its frontal lobe, if you will. And when decisions come, the first thought is the Word of God and the Spirit has a handle to turn you into God’s will. And once you’ve exercised your will toward the Holy Spirit, you’ve strengthened your spiritual muscle.

And that’s how you grow. Now, people think, well, I don’t know if I could ever get to that level. You see, I’m just sort of a class two Christian. I, and you know, and you think of a missionary or you think of a pastor or somebody as sort of a spaced out, strange, they’re up there on some spiritual level and oh, it would be wonderful, but it’s so beyond us. No, the only difference between you and me is I’m here and you’re there. That’s the only difference.

I’m talking and you’re listening. That’s the only difference. Same world, same flesh, same devil bugs me. Somewhere as a Christian you begin and you begin to say yes to the Spirit of God. The Word of God is in you. The truth is there so that you can respond to it. The Spirit of God gives you the impulse to what is right to do. You do what is right. You strengthen your spiritual muscle. The next time it’s again strengthened. The next time more, more, more. Finally, it becomes the flow of life. You’re beginning to operate on another plane.

You begin to respond most automatically. And you know what happens? I’ve always defined spiritual growth as this. Spiritual growth is the decreasing frequency of sin. You see, the more you exercise your spiritual muscle, the more you yield to the Spirit of God, the more the Spirit of God controls your life, the less sin is there. It’s never the absence of sin. It’s the decreasing frequency of it. And by the way, the more you grow and the more it decreases, the more heinous it is when it does show up. That’s what it means to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man.

And you can start right where you are. You can start by absorbing the Word of God by saying yes to the Holy Spirit. Maybe you’re tempted to be angry. You’re tempted to be lustful. You’re tempted to be thoughtless. You’re tempted to be prayerless. You’re tempted for whatever it is. Instead of saying yes to the temptation, say yes to what you know is right. And you’ve exercised your spiritual muscle. You’re a little stronger. And that’s the process that Paul is after. Are you concentrating on the inner man? You will never get your ignition on until you do.

You will flounder around in impotence until you do. If you want to ever get to Ephesians 3.20, you’ve got to get to Ephesians 3.16 first. You will never know what it means to have exceedingly, abundantly, above what you can ask or think happening in you until you’ve started in verse 16. Until it is a daily routine for you to yield to the power of the Holy Spirit. And by that I simply mean to obey what you know is right before God. As the Spirit of God gives the right impulse in your life, you say no to temptation.

You say yes to the Spirit. You’ve exercised spiritual muscle. You have been renewed that day. You have been refreshed that day. And though your outer man got one day older, your inner man got one day stronger. And gradually, you’re growing away from the mundane. You’re growing away and you’re coming closer and closer to the God of your salvation. Further and further away from the things of this world that don’t matter and less and less preoccupation with them. Thank you for joining us in this exploration of our inner and outer man.

Until next time, remember to keep the faith, stay strong and continue to shine your light in the world. To hear these daily devotions of your daily bread, please log on to goddessgovernment.com. Goodbye and may your faith always lead the way. [tr:trw].