Traits of the Soulish Life

Ephesians 4:15a

Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

The verse that we’re studying is Ephesians 4:15, where Paul prays that we would grow up in all ways
into Christ. We’ve talked about how it is God’s will that we would have a whole conversation with
him and a whole closeness to him, and before we’d appear to each other in the mornings, that we
would have real communion with him.

I think, Martha, you implied, as I could guess is true of many of us, that it is so easy for the
quiet time to just deteriorate and just be a quickie. Of course, that’s not the Father’s plan for
us — but that we would have a whole life with him and conversation with him, before we ever left
the bedroom where we’re quiet with him. That that would be the tenor of our lives anyway — whether
it ties to our morning quiet time or just our whole attitude to life — that we would come to life
and to each other with a whole life inside ourselves that we had with God — the whole life of joy,
delight, and love.

Then that we’d meet each other and would be filled with that, and the cup would overflow to each
other. We wouldn’t be so much hit by what Martha’s face looks like, what Greg’s face looks like, or
what the weather is like — but we would be filled with this life inside and we would just spill it
over to others.

Of course, I know it from the human animal spirit of a little Belfast boy {referring to himself}. I
used to come down in the morning and I would pull my mother’s apron strings because it would annoy
her. I’d say, “Hi mum.” It was as if your whole being was filled with life. But it didn’t matter
if anybody else had life or not — you were full of it. That’s God’s will for us.

God’s will is not what that silly little fellow {referring to himself again} did. But it’s God’s
will that his life — our whole love of him, our whole delight of him — would fill our lives so
that we were going down from our rooms not to see, “I hope somebody says something nice to me
today,” or, “I hope somebody treats me right,” or, “I hope it’s a good day, or the sun shines,” or,
“I hope that the job goes better than it did yesterday.” But his will is that we are so full of life
that we’d just meet each other filled with it, with what the Bible often says, “a cup overflowing”
— and that would pour out to each other.

Of course, that would swamp anybody that came with a sour face. It wouldn’t be an effort on your
part, to say to yourself, “I should not resent them. I should not give them a sharp answer for the
comment that they’ve made to me.” But your own heart would be filled with generosity, magnanimity,
and a whole delighted life. It will just flow out to them, fill them, and touch them.

Then that you’d tackle the day that way. You’d know what God wanted you to do. Not by some spooky
voice coming into you — but in your conversation with him and your whole relationship with him,
you’d know what you were to do, what you had to do as far as the world was concerned, and what he
wanted you to do in that opportunity that you were given. So our life would go like that.

That’s what we talked about was God’s plan. That’s the spiritual life, where you would get from
your inner life with our Father, a whole direction and a whole feeling about life that would spill

out to everybody else.

Of course it’s turned absolutely the opposite way. We know it. On this diagram, it’s gone the
other way {pointing to the diagram}. It’s not come from there, through communion with God and to
other people. It’s come this way—from the outside world and all of us. Most people are in that
state, the unregenerate state, and they live this way {pointing to the diagram, where people look to
the outside world and people for their life}. They look at things for their sense of security.
That’s how they think security comes to them.

They get up in the morning and think, “How do I make sure I have enough money today to get through,
or enough money to retire on, or enough clothes to keep myself warm?” Regarding the whole thing of
significance, they think, “Are they treating me right? Are these people regarding me as I really
ought to be regarded in my important position and state? Are people giving me the significance that
I ought to have? They’re giving it to Posh Spice Beckham and to David Beckham, and they’re giving
it to Elvis. But are they giving it to me?”

“I’m going to demand that they do this. This person that I’ve met doesn’t seem to be treating me
right. That other person, they’re ignoring me and they’re paying attention to all the other people.
Why is that?” So, most people live on that level. Most people are not getting anything from
communion with God {pointing to the diagram}.

They’re unregenerate. They have no contact with God at all. They depend on whether it’s, “Thank
goodness it’s Friday. Thank God it’s Friday. Are the circumstances such that they make me happy?
What kind of day is it going to be today? Oh, it looks a bit gloomy. It’s one of those sad old
days.” Or, “Is it going to be a good day? Because it’s Friday, and I get off today and I have the
weekend to look forward to, and it lifts my spirit.”

That’s the way the whole world lives. It tries to get from things, people, and circumstances —
security and happiness. It’s a world in which they just feed each other. They feed each other
dissatisfaction on the whole, because these people never give you enough to give you the sense of
significance that you’d get from your Father. These things never give you enough security — the
kind of security that you’d get from him who owns the cattle on a thousand hills. It’s the same
with the circumstances, especially as life goes on. The circumstances are never enough to give you
the happiness that you can only get from the one who lives forever.

So, most of the world is very unhappy and dissatisfied. And that’s the way we ourselves start off.
Then we’ve talked about how you become aware that God actually does care about you, and does
actually love you. You begin to sense that he is merciful towards you, that he does forgive you,
and his attitude to you is one of acceptance.

As you come into the new birth, you begin to get a little bit of life through communion. Very
little. We have our little prayer times, our little quiet times, we get something from God, and it
helps us. And we get some ideas at times of what he wants us to do.

Often it’s a bit like the Old Testament people. It comes in a dream, or it comes in a sudden
vision, or often I’m afraid it comes still from these people {pointing to the diagram where it shows
the people in the world}. Somebody that we respect says something, and we say, “It witnesses with
my spirit.” So we get a little bit of guidance — like in the Old Testament when the prophet comes
along, or the priest says something, or our dads or mums say something to us. So a lot of our

guidance still comes there {pointing to “The World” part of the diagram}. But we do get a little
intuition that guides us too.

The conscience of course is filled with laws — filled with the old ideas that the unregenerate man
has, because he’s brought up in a certain society that will not allow you to eat people, because
you’re not cannibals. But it will allow you to do other things. On the other hand, it won’t allow
you to murder.

So you have certain laws that govern your conscience in there {pointing to the diagram}, and most of
us live that kind of half-life, as it is. It’s a little alive to God, but generally it’s working
much on the same basis that it was before — depending on things, people, and circumstances for
these things {the significance, security and happiness we seek}. It’s generally concentrating on
enjoying the things, generally on using the people, and generally on being ruled by the
circumstances.

Even though you’re born of God, you’re still actually carnal. You’re still living from the outside
in, not really from the inside out. There’s that great battle there that comes to us: are we really
willing to live dependent on God’s love alone, and are we willing to die to these things {the things
we’ve often looked to in the world to give us happiness}? That’s what we have called the baptism of
the Spirit, or having a clean heart, or being filled with the Spirit, or coming into the second
blessing, or coming into sanctification.

We’ve talked about that as dying to self — which allows the Holy Spirit to begin to fill us, and to
begin to get our life going really from the inside to the outside. So we start to experience that.
We start to experience a freedom from our slavery to these things. At last, we realize that in
Christ we were crucified to these things, and the world was crucified to us, and we begin to
experience a little of this rejoicing. Beginning to rejoice in him and enjoy him more than the
things, and we don’t to these things now to enjoy. That frees you from a great slavery to things
that takes place in the carnal life.

It’s the same with the people. You die to what people think of you. You die to whether they praise
you or don’t praise you, and you are alive to God. You realize at last that your life is hid with
Christ in God, and his love is the only one that is important.

It brings you to a freedom from your circumstances. You die to whether this is a nice comfortable
bed that you have, or whether this is a nice group of people that you’re with, or whether the things
look good for the coming summer. You die to those circumstances, and you begin to be freed from the
world. So this step from carnality into the baptism of the Spirit brings a great deliverance for
us.

What I think we are surprised at, is that we find our soulish functions still operate the way they
used to. They still are not really submissive to the Spirit of Christ that fills us. They still
operate in the way they’ve been operating for 10, 20, or 30 years, and we find that we have a
soulish life that actually is the one that relates to the world more than the Spirit-filled life
that goes on inside us.

We find, for instance, that our mind still has a tendency to try to manipulate things around.
Manipulate the bank account around so that the money problems will work. So there’s a part of us
that reminds us the cattle on 1,000 hills are his, and he will supply you as he supplied the birds.

But still we tend to do a little calculating on the side.

Now our mind still tends to think, “Yes, now how much money have I in the bank, and will that meet
what I need in the future?” It isn’t so much even the calculating of those things, as that your
heart tends to be tied to it. You tend to be drawn out to that.

You like to think, “This is purely an intellectual exercise. That’s part of what the mind ought to
do. It ought not only to understand what God is giving through the intuition of my spirit, and to
understand how to express that in my life, but it ought also to be able to size things up, to know
the industry averages, and to know what’s what, and to be able to do the calculations. That’s a
legitimate function of the mind.” But it is that our heart tends to be laying emphasis on that.

Our heart tends to say, “Yes, yes, and therefore, how are we going to manage these things so that
they work? How are we going to make them work?” So we work still in the old soulish way. Even
though we are justifying it by saying, “Yes, there is a right purpose.” It’s true — there is a
right function of the mind. The mind is here to be able to calculate, “That’s three feet, not two
feet. Yes, it’s out of gas. I ought to put gas in it.”

It is meant to do that. But only as long as your heart is not tied to that, and thinking that
that’s the only thing you can do — that your success, or your ability to do God’s will, comes from
your mind’s ability to size things up and make them work. That’s where the soulishness comes in.
The soulish tendency is still to depend on the mind, not to live in the midst of the Father’s
plenty. But, to have in mind, “Oh yes, now the Father will supply all my needs. But this is the
situation of the money and this is really what I’m depending on.”

So you’re spiritual, in the sense that you have life coming from God that has filled you, and did
bring a momentary deliverance. But your day-to-day life is lived on the mind’s appreciation and
understanding of the world — not on your mind’s understanding of God’s intuition to you. So in a
way, your conscience is constraining your will, and that’s a move forward from the carnal life. But
still, when it comes to directing the mind and emotions, you find that they are still operating in
the same old way.

The same with the emotions: you’re filled with the Holy Spirit, and the conscience is constraining
your will to know that the only thing that matters is that God himself loves you. But, still you
think, “Well, yes — but it’s important to know what people think of me. And it is important to be
able to read people. It is important to tend to people. And it’s important to tend to people from
the point of view of what they need, or how you can help them.”

But the tendency of the soulish life is to depend on those people — to use them for your own
happiness. So, if they don’t make you happy, you’re rather discontented with them. If they’re
critical of you, there are knots in your stomach. In a way, you’re still experiencing the torture
and the pain that the world can inflict upon you, even though you know that your Father loves you
and that his love is the only thing that matters — and it doesn’t really matter what people think
about you.

Yet still, your soulish tendency is there for your emotions to depend on what people think and say.
So you think to yourself, “Am I slipping back into the old self? Am I slipping back into my
dependence on what people say about me?”

It’s not really that you’ve lost the fullness of the Spirit. But you really have never allowed him
to remold and to renew completely your mind and emotions, so that they are still attached here
{pointing to the diagram}, rather than attached to your spirit. They are still governed by the
world of things, people, and circumstances — rather than by your spirit.

It’s the same with the circumstances. You’re very clear that there is a delight and joy in the
maker of the dawn and the maker of the sunset, that is far beyond the sunset itself and far beyond
the dawn. The joy and delight that you have in the one who makes the sky is far more wonderful than
the sky itself, and you sense that.

But you’ve still got emotions that were uplifted by the beauty of the sunrise. And to some extent
it’s not wrong — except that the degree of delight that you get from those circumstances can draw
you back into a similar dependence on a dark thundering rainy day, or on circumstances that don’t
look so wonderful for the summer vacation.

So the emotions are still in a sense tied to circumstances. They haven’t been completely renewed so
that they get their main life from the Father himself. And of course, what we’re facing there is
what Watchman Nee regards as strong, strong trends, tendencies, and ways of operating — strengths
he would call them — that have to be broken. And God often has to use circumstances to break
those.

Often it’s finally when the dear dad dies. Often it’s finally when your best friend no longer
really seems to be your best friend. Often it’s when these things grind you so tight that there’s
no way that you can make it work financially. But often God has to allow us to come into breaking
experiences that destroy us.

I don’t know where you are, but it may be that some of us are operating there {pointing to the
diagram} and have not come yet to a spiritual life where the enjoyment of things is replaced by this
true rejoicing in our relationship with God. Where our tendency to use people has not been utterly
wiped out, and we truly love people and are free from depending on people. Where instead of being
ruled by our circumstances, we begin to rule the circumstances as spiritual overcomers who have
overcome the world.

The clear revelation that I got in the twilight hours last night, was that many of us are carotid.
The word has to do with the heart. Many of our arteries are blocked by cholesterol plaque. That is,
we’re living so much that way that everything inside us is becoming carotid.

That happens, I think, because if you’re all worked up about what these people do to you, then
you’re under strain. It doesn’t matter whether it’s just that you’re concerned about whether you’re
doing your job right. That’s part of: “Am I doing my job right? Am I up to this? And do these
people think I’m doing the job right?” Or, “This situation here, how am I going to make it through
this? How am I going to pay the bills at the end of the month? How am I going to sort out the
bills of the business?”

That creates strain in our bodies. Our arteries are under strain, our veins are under strain, our
muscles are under strain, and our life is getting stiffer and stiffer as the years go by. That
happens when we live this old soulish life. Of course, especially when we live a carnal life, but
even when we live the soulish life, instead of getting younger and younger as the years go by —
which I’m convinced is the Father’s will because he makes all the things new — we get older and

older. We will die earlier than we need to die.

So I got that very clearly, that these things are not just spiritual truths. These affect your
health, your life, and your whole physical being. We are either being renewed day-by-day by the
life of Jesus pouring through us and in us. Or we’re getting old, strained, and becoming more
carotid day-by-day. So it is a reality. It’s a reality as this diagram shows — whether we’re
living from the inside out, or whether we’re still partially living from the outside in.

I’m preaching to myself as to you. It doesn’t matter where we each are or what we each think. The
fact is this applies to all of us. We’re either living in the full, free, fresh life of Jesus and of
his Father — or we’re living this old half-life — either carnal or soulish. The Father has set
the whole thing up so that that’s the life {pointing to the diagram}.

This is reality. That’s probably the truth that we should bring home to each other this morning.
This {pointing to the diagram of life working through the world to people, our body and mind, and up
to God) is unreality.

These aren’t just ways to do things – these are destroyed. This has already been destroyed by the
Father in Jesus. This is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. That’s why God makes it
possible at all, because he wants us to choose this. So he’s made it possible to choose the other
too.

You’re right. He has made this kind of ridiculous half-life possible — so that we would have a
choice between that tree and this tree. We’re here to make that choice.

So I’d encourage you to look at it straight head on and choose. Let us pray.