Discerning God’s Will through God’s Spirit
Discerning God’s Will • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Intro
Intro
Typical intro stuff…
Reminder of the stool illustration again.
Last week we covered Discerning God’s will through God’s word.
Now we are talking about Discerning God’s will through God’s spirit.
I’ll tell you, this message is quite a bit different than last weeks because of the topic. We are essentially doing a systematic study…
Foundation: Christians have the Holy Spirit.
Given first to the apostles.
4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.
Now to all believers.
13 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,
He is the spirit of Christ.
Turn to Romans on this one…
9 You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.
It’s not that the Spirit and Christ are exactly same…no, they are different persons of the trinity. But rather, than they have the same will and work in tandem for that will. The will of the Spirit in you, is the will of Christ, is the will of God.
So you need to understand that, just like our stool illustration, if it’s the Spirit’s will it’s God’s will…it’s Christ’s will.
So the spirit is the spirit of Christ. There’s still a ton more to know about him…next is..and found in this passage still…
He brings new life.
9 You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. 10 But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 11 If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.
What does that mean?
When we say the spirit brings new life…we don’t mean that he saves you…Christ saves you…but it does mean a couple things…the first and not a main point of tonight but worth mention is that he represents your new life.
It means that the presence of the Spirit within believers testifies to the new life they enjoy because of the righteousness of Christ that is now theirs.
So righteousness has been given to you from Christ…and the Spirit testifies to the new life that you get to live. It represents the new life you have as the seal of your salvation…
But…it’s not only that he brings you new life by representing it…he also brings new life by being the vehicle in which it is applied to your life.
How does he do that?
By equipping you.
Look at it this way…
Let’s say you’re driving.
You started in your old life - point A.
And you’re heading towards salvation and heaven - point B.
The highway you take is your new life in Christ. It’s the only way to salvation and heaven…the way that is Christ.
So old life point A, heaven point B, new life in Christ the highway…The Spirit is the car that is empowering you and equipping you to reach your destination.
Just like the car equips you to drive the highway, the spirit equips you to live your new life and drive that path of salvation straight to heaven.
How does he equip you? Quite a few different ways…
To speak the gospel.
11 And when they bring you before the synagogues and the rulers and the authorities, do not be anxious about how you should defend yourself or what you should say, 12 for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say.”
So he represents your new life…he empowers you to speak of that new life through the gospel…and, this is where we begin seeing our answer to how does the Spirit help us discern the will of God…
To live the gospel.
Helping you understand God’s word.
12 Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. 13 And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.
14 The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. 15 The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. 16 “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.
Helping you remember God’s word.
26 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.
Helping you live according to God’s word.
Declaring it to us.
13 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.
Convicting us.
17 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.
So how does this all relate? How do we put all these together and come to an understanding of how to discern God’s will through the spirit??
If you remember how God’s word, or understand how God’s word applies to your situation…that’s the Spirit of God helping discern the will of God.
If you are convicted by something you did, or are doing…that’s the Spirit of God helping discern the will of God.
If you are emboldened or impassioned to do something, that’s the spirit of God helping you discern the will of God.
If you are confused or don’t understand what to do, that’s the Spirit of God helping you discern the will of God…by telling you to turn to him, call to him, seek him.