INDWELLING AND WALKING

A couple of weeks ago we started a discussion on the Holy Spirit.

We started with a an overview of who the Holy Spirit is.

We showed you in scripture how this phrase is true.

The Holy Spirit is God and is equal to the Father and the Son.

We briefly touched on some of the things that the Spirit has to offer but we recognized a gap between the promises of the Holy Spirit in scripture and what we see in the church today.

This week we are going to focus more of the roles of the Holy Spirit in your life and how we must choose to experience the things that the Holy Spirit is offering us!

Today, we are going to talk about two phrases in scripture about the HS. The indwelling of the Spirit and walking by the Spirit.

You got your notepads ready??

So, lets take a walk through scripture together and see how it all started with a prophecy from Ezekiel and a promise from Jesus.

Ezekiel 36:26–27 ESV

And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.

John 14:15–17 ESV

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.

Keep your finger here, we will be right back here.

In John 14-17 Jesus is giving His final message to the disciples before He is arrested.

And apart of His message includes a promise of Helper, the Spirit of Truth.

The world will not be able to see or receive Him but He tells His disciples. Right now, He dwells with you and soon He will be in you.

That is a promise that Jesus makes His disciples right before He is arrested.

Do you want to see the moment that promised is fulfilled?

John 20:22–23 ESV

And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you withhold forgiveness from any, it is withheld.”

So, according to John, as soon as Jesus is resurrected, the first time He appears to His disciples is the first time Jesus can fulfill that promise. And He does.

Jesus breaths on them and they receive the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

This is first time in human existence that God and man were made one. Closer than a husband and a wife. Closer than a brother. God and man made one in perfect union.

These disciples witnessed Jesus’ death on the cross and very recent defeat of sin and death. They see Jesus with the eyes and obviously believe in their hearts that Jesus is who He said He was. They obviously believed He died and was resurrected.

I believe that at this moment the first NT believers crossed over from death to life. I believe these were the first people on earth that their sins were removed and the righteousness of Jesus Christ was counted towards them.

They were now seen as righteous and holy in the eyes of the Father and therefore could receive the perfect and holy, Holy Spirit.

These men’s 3rd cylinder started firing and new creations were created!

Now for you and me, this moment happens when we receive Christ as our Lord and Savior, when we hear the good news of the gospel and put our faith in Jesus Christ.

Ephesians 1:13–14 ESV

In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.

When you hear the word of truth and believed in Him, you were also given the Holy Spirit. You were made righteous in the eyes of the Father and because of Jesus’ righteousness, you were able to be made one with God.

Somebody give me a praise God for that! Thank you Jesus for your blood and for putting Your Spirit inside of us!

But one question we can ask is why? Why give us the Holy Spirit? What are some of His roles in our lives?

Now, this is not a complete list. We are going to be going over some more today and next week.

But go back to John 14-16.

The Holy Spirit will teach you all things and bring them to you memory.

John 14:26 ESV

But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.

The HS will bear witness or teach you about Jesus! He shows you and tells you about Jesus! Personally and through His Word.

John 15:26 ESV

“But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me.

The HS brings conviction to us and the world.

John 16:8–11 ESV

And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment: concerning sin, because they do not believe in me; concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer; concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.

The HS guides us into all truth.

John 16:13 ESV

When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.

And the HS, in all that He does, glorifies Jesus.

John 16:14 ESV

He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

These are just a few of the benefits and promises of what the Holy Spirit bring into our hearts and lives when we receive Him.

We will circle back on some of these throughout these studies over the coming weeks. But I wanted to you to see what Jesus said that the HS was going to do for us.

So, that is where we get the understanding and belief of the indwelling on the HS at the moment of salvation and what He starts doing for us.

Now, I want to talk about another phrase that we use when talking about the HS. and that is walking by the Spirit.

What is it? Why should we?

First, know this, when we receive the HS at salvation, no where in scripture does it indicate that we receive a part or a portion of the HS. However, it does talk about how the HS is a person and there is a relationship here.

Relationships take work and take sacrifice.

I believe that God gives us full access to all that the HS has to offer but we are still human beings and need to develop a deeper, closer relationship with Him to receive more of the benefits of the HS.

We have been talking about this all year with Jesus. We receive Him as our Lord and Savior, but as we walk with Him, we learn about Him, we surrender more to Him, and trust Him more, and the more that we know Him, the more we allow Him to be for us.

The same goes for the HS. We receive all of Him, but as we walk with Him, we learn more about Him, we surrender more to the HS and learn to trust Him. The more we know about the HS and lay down our lives to Him, the more we allow Him to be who He wants to be for us.

John the Baptist said this about Jesus, but I believe the same mentality is true about the HS in our lives.

John 3:30 ESV

He must increase, but I must decrease.”

Another version says, I must decrease so that He might increase.

So, let’s finish our time this morning with this thought and these passages.

WALKING BY THE SPIRIT IS OUR CHOICE, FOR HIS GLORY AND OUR BENEFIT.

I know that you have hear this passage before. Don’t shut down. Listen to these words.

Galatians 5:16–25 ESV

But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.

So, here we see the great battle for the mind that we all acknowledge. There is a war within our minds. Between the desires of our flesh and the HS.

We all know its there. We feel it every day.

Paul talks about doing the things that he doesn’t want to do.

There is a war but we are not fighting it alone and without instructions.

The verse tells us to choose to not walk into the desires of our flesh. Verse 24 says that we must crucify the flesh in our lives with its passions and desires. Put them to death. Yes, that means all of them!

We must choose to not walk into them. We must choose to walk by the Spirit.

We must not surrender our lives to the sinful desires of our flesh!

We must surrender to the desires of the HS for our lives.

And HE will produce fruit in your life.

He will produce the singular fruit of the Spirit with its multiple layers.

He wants to produce love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control in your life for His glory and your benefit!

He wants you to experience these in your heart and in your mind! What a wonderful God that we serve that knows that all the riches in the world in a useless promise without peace and joy that comes from Him.

He bypasses all the “stuff” in this world and offers what everyone in the world universally needs.

Love.

Joy.

Peace.

The world offers some many things to try to fill these slots in our lives. But only God holds the key.

If you let Him, He can fill your heart and mind with love, joy and peace.

But most days or every day, we choose to walk in the desires of our flesh instead of surrendering to Him and we wonder why we don’t have these things in our lives!

I know what you thinking, how do I “walk” with the Spirit? (walk around)

“Tell me the how not just the what!”

Okay, let’s look, how do we “walk by the Spirit”.

Romans 8:1-8

Do you see it? To walk by the Spirit is to set your mind on things of the Spirit. Set your mind on things eternal.

Philippians 4:8–9 ESV

Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. What you have learned and received and heard and seen in me—practice these things, and the God of peace will be with you.

Who is true? Who is worthy of honor? Who is pure? Who is lovely? Who is worthy of commending? Who is excellent? Who alone is worthy of praise?

Our Lord! Our God!

Say it with me yáll!

Do all that you can do to think about GOD!

Do all that you can do to think about Jesus! Do all that you can do to think about the Holy Spirit!

Look at these verses!

The mind set of the Spirit is LIFE!!

To walk with the Spirit is PEACE!!

To walk with a mindset on the Spirit produces love, joy, peace, and all the fruit in your life!

Do all that you can do to think about God!

The battle begins the second we wake up.

Many of us wake up everyday and immediately start thinking about our flesh, our desires for the day, our plans. What we want to do that day. We say, extra sleep is the key to our happiness for the day.

And we wonder why we don’t have the fruit of the Spirit in our lives.

We must everyday, wake up and lay ourselves down.

We must everyday, wake up and die to our fleshly desires.

We must everyday, wake up and surrender the day to the HS.

We must everyday, wake up and set your mind on the Spirit and all that God is!

Do you see the importance of starting your day with the Lord?!

Do all that you can to set your mind on Him!

But don’t just start your day surrendering and then picking right back up like you didn’t just say that. Do all that you can to think about God all day! As often as you can think about Him!

Instead of checking of Facebook, check on His book!

Are you thoughts leading you to stress? Think on Him.

Are you thoughts giving you anxiety? Think on Him.

Is negativity and complaining ruling your mind? Thank Him and praise Him!

This isn’t legalism. This is LIFE! This is peace! This is our joy!

This isn’t a burden or a law! This is our breath! This is the Spirit! This is the beginning of all that the Spirit has promised to be in your life.

There is a gap between what we see are the promises of the Spirit in His Word and what we see in our lives. But the problem is not on His side. Its on our side. We choose so many things over Him.

Do you want the HS in your life? Do you want His life, joy, peace, and love in your life?

Do you want it enough to lay down all the things that have never fulfilled you?

Today, would you decide today, that things are going to be different?

Here is what I ask of you today? Don’t come up to me afterwards and tell me what you thought about the message today. Come up to me next week and tell me how you applied this and experienced the Holy Spirit this week. Apply this and then tell how your week was.

This message can’t change your life, but this application from His Word can.

Deal?

Let’s pray.

This morning we talked about two phrasing used in scripture about the Holy Spirit.

Next week, we are going to talk about two more.

Being filled by the Holy Spirit

and baptism of the Spirit