Say Yes to The Holy Spirit

Intro:

Opening: As I grow in Christ, I have come to the conclusion that one of the main issues in my life is controlling my emotions. I have to tell you - our emotions get us in more trouble than just about anything else. Emotions are a good thing - they give life flavor - but when they are handled the wrong way, they get us into lots of trouble.

We live in a society that tells us to base our decision on emotion If it feels good, then it must be right. But Biblically, this it not right.

When your spouse is really giving you a tough time, you may feel like lashing out in anger - but it’s not right.

When your Child says something smart and you’re tempted to scream back, it might feel right, but it’s not.

Students when you’re on that date and you’re tempted to do things physically - it may feel right - but it’s not.

So How do you get these things under control?

You learn to tell them NO Something called Good, old fashion, self-discipline. YOU SAY NO! But this is not as easy as it sounds…Because we all fail at this everyday. So what are you supposed to do?

The key, I think, is to create an atmosphere in our lives where we begin to say no to our flesh and our negative emotions and we say yes to the Holy Spirit.

I want to talk about the word “Atmosphere.” You see, having the right Atmosphere makes all the difference in the world.

Earth, this planet that we live on, has an atmosphere.

This atmosphere is a layer of gases that surrounds the earth. This atmosphere protects all life here on earth and enables us to live here.

By contrast, if you were to go to another planet without earth’s atmosphere, you would die!

You see - the right atmosphere means the difference between life and death.

In your life and in my life we create atmospheres. Atmosphere is also defined as a pervading mood, environment or influence. In other words it’s the tone or the feel of something. For instance -

If you wanted to set a romantic atmosphere what would you do?

If you wanted to set an atmosphere for sleep what would you do?

If you need an atmosphere that keeps you awake what do you do?

Here’s the real question - If you want an atmosphere in your life where you have love joy, peace, self-control, and where God is able to work - what do you do?

Biblical Background - Paul in, writing to a Church in a place called Galatia, is going to tell us what we need to do.

Biblical Text - Let’s look at Galatians 5:16-24

Galatians 5:16–24 NLT

16 So I say, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won’t be doing what your sinful nature craves. 17 The sinful nature wants to do evil, which is just the opposite of what the Spirit wants. And the Spirit gives us desires that are the opposite of what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other, so you are not free to carry out your good intentions. 18 But when you are directed by the Spirit, you are not under obligation to the law of Moses. 19 When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, 20 idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, 21 envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God. 22 But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things! 24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there.

Points

Say Yes to the Holy Spirit

Saying yes means we take direction from Him (16)

When faced with a choice - what does God want me to do?

This means yielding to Him

When you yield to something you are surrendering to it.

In our lives, yielding to the Holy Spirit means we are surrendering ourselves to Him.

It means when there is a conflict between what we feel and what we know God’s word says - We make the decision that God’s word wins.

When your tempted, you say yes to the Holy Spirit (SUBMIT TO HIM) and the Devil flees! James 4:7 says, “Submit yourselves then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”

You see what’s happening in that verse?

You say Yes to God and all that he wants (Submit) and No to Satan and all He wants (Resist) and eventually, Satan gives up and moves on.

Saying yes means we take time to listen to Him speak

You cannot know what God wants if you never take time to listen to Him

Some of you try and distract yourself with phones, tv, friends, etc.

You feel good for a while - but then when you get alone you begin to feel bad again.

Maybe this feeling is God trying to tell you that all that stuff that you distract yourself with isn’t really what you need. It doesn’t seem to really be working anyway.. Maybe next time you’re alone you start to feel bad about life - maybe you should go to God with that.

When’s the last time that you took time alone just to be silent and listen to God talk?

Illustration - Don’t tell me their name, but how many of you know someone who monopolizes the conversation. It’s always about them. You can never get a word in! I feel like God gets this 10 time worse than any human being on planet earth. He’s trying to speak and all we are doing is yapping at him.

This coming year - take time to be silent

Take time to cut off the TV, the phone, the computer - and get alone with Him.

Get rid of some of the distractions in your life.

Simplify things a bit. You see, GOD WANTS YOUR ATTENTION!

He wants your undivided attention.

We want to multi-task everything nowadays.

It’s almost like a game to see how many things we can do at once - But you cannot multi-task your spiritual growth.

And there needs to be a moments in your life where God gets your undivided attention.

Saying yes means He will help us!

You and I cannot muster up enough will power to overcome our sin and bad habits!

In Fact, this is what Paul was writing this whole letter about - This whole Church had been trying really Hard to do it on their own. He tells them instead - Only the Holy Spirit, working inside of us will do it! Look who produces good fruit in our lives - Galatians 5:22 But in order for him to work - You have to say yes - You have to open the door.

Illustration - I have a swimming pool at home and I have a guy that comes each week and puts the chemicals in the pool for me and makes sure that the system is clean. Everyone once in a while I forget to leave the gate open for him to come in and do his job. I’ve hired him, but because I didn’t leave the door open, he can’t get in to do his work. This is what happens with the Holy Spirit. Saying yes to Him opens up the door so that he can come into our lives and work. Reading our Bible, praying, coming to church, and all of those things we do - they are just doors that he uses to come in and do what he needs to do. It’s not about “trying harder” it’s about saying yes to him and watching as he comes in and helps us.

Illustration - There’s this stupid song int the Movie Frozen that says this - “Love is an open door.”

This is how it works with the Holy Spirit in our lives - Jesus Loved us and gave himself for us.

We love him and we say - I want to know you. I want to know more about you and who you are and how incredible you are. I want to spend time with you.

And we say yes to God - and the door of our hearts begins to open to Him - and he begins to come in and change us.

And we start doing what’s right not because of some rulebook - but because he loves us and we love him.

I can’t do it on my own Come in and help me I’ll do what you ask

Saying yes begins to create a new atmosphere in our lives

Why is all of this important - Atmosphere

Do you have an atmosphere that brings life or that is slowly killing you?

Some of you in this room have set atmosphere’s in your life that are choking the life out of you.

You stay so busy and so distracted that you don’t have time to pray or read God’s word.

You have friends that need to go

You have habits that need to go

You come to church but you’re just here - you’re not really engaged

All these things are choking the life out of you!

As we say Yes to the Holy Spirit, He starts to grow something called the “Fruit of the Spirit” in our lives. - In other words - the Atmosphere starts to slowly change.

Fruit takes time to grow Fruit takes some work Fruit has to be tended to

Illustration - I have a grape fruit tree in my yard - and it doesn’t produce much of anything worth eating. Want to know why? I don’t pay any attention to it. I don’t do anything with it. If I want it to grow for real I probably ought to go get it some fertilizer and water it and take care of it. Most of us want the right things to magically spring up in our lives - but good things don’t come up without us paying attention to our lives and saying yes to the Holy Spirit!

Conclusion

So What? The Atmosphere Challenge - For the next 2 weeks, I challenge you to recreate the atmosphere in your life by saying “yes.”

Put down the cell phone, the TV, the iPod, the Video Games, the computer for 10min each day and Say Yes to spending time in prayer and reading God’s word.

Say yes to choosing to worship and pay attention in every service you are at here at Church.

Say yes to Obeying God’s word - Honoring your parents, listening to your teachers, and doing all the other stuff you know is right.

Open up the door to God and all he wants for your life! Say Yes to all these things - and see if the atmosphere in your life doesn’t start to change.