The Holy Spirit
Notes
Transcript
Why are thieves silent? Because stealing is not aloud.
Why did the chicken go to the gym? To work on his pecks!
I don’t know about you, but the Holy Spirit scared me a little growing up... didn’t understand it... didn’t really talk about it.. it wasn’t until I really started reading the Bible for myself that I realized there had to be a little more going on than what I was seeing in my every day life… and today is where we see Jesus introducing the Holy Spirit for the first time to his followers in the book of John, this is what it says Jn 14:16-17
16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever,
17 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.
And this is where we are this morning, and I want to stop, because I kind of agree with Francis Chan, as he calls the Holy Spirit, The Forgotten God, in his book. I think we kind of miss this side of God because we are timid when it comes to talking about this thing we cannot see and do not really understand. And Lets look at when the Holy Spirit actually comes into the picture for the first time in Acts 2:1-4
1 When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place.
2 And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.
3 And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them.
4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.
And this kind of freaked some of them out to a point in such a way they thought people had already been out and drinking… remember Jesus had said in our scripture this morning the world cannot receive the spirit and doesn’t know him… so all the things they are seeing are incredibly strange to the world that is there with them. They don’t get it… so it must be all these other guys are hitting the sauce a little early today.
14 But Peter, standing with the eleven, lifted up his voice and addressed them: “Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and give ear to my words.
15 For these people are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day.
16 But this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel:
So he is telling them, listen, you should all understand this, you know the scriptures, you have it under control, all the stuff you have memorized is what you are seeing happen right now. it all relates back to what you
already know about it Joel… and then he is going to quite the scripture from Joel 2:28
17 “ ‘And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams;
18 even on my male servants and female servants in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy.
19 And I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke;
20 the sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day.
21 And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.’
So he is saying here is the power of the Holy Spirit that God has promised us and it is upon us... it is here... don’t bw afraid, this was something we have known would come to us and you are seeing it happen right before your eyes. Do not fear!
And when it comes to our world, we act like the Holy Spirit is dead... now, we believe he
does the things that we understand, don’t get me wrong... but when its something outside
of our comfort zone we write him off. Because we can’t explain it, we like to only really believe in things that we can easily explain. We have God in a box, and we have the Spirit in a box as well, we kind of talked about this a few weeks ago when we talked about the gifts still happening in our lives today, but we have this ideal for how we see the things of God working and what we think he can do, and anything outside of that is just weird and strange.
And I have said before I have been in churches where… and then the opposite.. and the healthy place is right in the middle. Now I am not pulling out the snakes today, so don’t start to worry, but lets talk a little bit about the Holy Spirit
So what exactly is the Holy Spirit for in our lives?
The holy spirit of God lives in US... the same spirit that raised Jesus from the Grave.... is alive in you Paul tells us in Romans 8.
Have you ever wished that you could just walk with Jesus like the disciples did... guess
what! You can/are!
So When THE HOLY SPIRIT comes into our lives he will GIVES give us power to do many things... but
the first thing the holy spirit does is give us the power of salvation
Of Salvation
5 Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.
6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
Your mom gave you physical birth, but the spirit will give you spiritual birth and transform
you and make you born anew....
And this is what we are wanting to share with the world, this idea that Jesus came and made a way for us to be born again to have this relationship with him. And there may be some of you here this morning asking the question,
How do you know that you are his child?
16 The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God,
The power of the spirit leads us to salvation and then the spirit speaks to us and says you
are MINE... and we can know we are his.... and there are some denominations and teachings that say you cannot say you know you are going to heaven, to know that you are saved, but that is just not true, the HS gives us the power of salvation to know we are savd.
The second thing the Holy spirit will do is give us power
2. To Walk in God’s Will
We have been talking about this a lot lately, doing the will of God and not the will of self.
Listen to what Jesus will tell us in just a few weeks:
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.
The Holy sprit will lead you to walk in God's will.
Speaker in your ear.... during an interview at tv station… counting down the time back from the commercial… telling and giving direction to the producer which camera to cut to.
Hear in your ear the voice of the one that knew what was happening....
Same thing happens with the Holy spirit he will enable you to walk in the will of God and
guide and direct you in your entire life if you take the time to stop and listen.... practice
this... ask him what to read....
This week... Ken... they were sick... and I was able to pray for them more... and the spirit
will lead you and empower you...
Example of walking through the building....and praying…
Jn 16:13
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.
And so we know we can pray and the spirit will guide us in our live and tell us which way we are to go and what the will of the Lord is, often times I think we pray and say the Lord hasnt spoken to us because we are only wanting him to direct and answer and guide us in one way, and when he gives an answer we do not want, we think we are not hearing from God.
So the Holy Spirit Will give you the power
1. OF SALVATION.
2. TO WALK IN GOD’S WILL.
and thirdly
3. To Share Christ Boldly
What if I don't know what to say. And you may be intimidated to share because of that I may mess it up. What if i dont know the bible... so instead of sharing you hold back... But
the holy spirit will give you the power... even the apostle paul knew this.... and he was
intimidated sometimes... and he wrote this...
4 and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power,
5 so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.
My abilities weren’t that great...but when I opened my mouth the holy spirit came and
reached out. Even now... the holy spirit will speak... and personalize this message to you...
Same thing will happen to you... you may not know what you are going to say.. but you
open your mouth and it comes out... and you may not know the answers to questions... but
they ask and the holy spirit will call scripture to mind that you haven't heard in a long time.
Like I didn’t even think I knew that verse... but the holy spirit will give you divine boldness...
and there is a great example of this... when peter and john were released from sanhedrin...
they go back to pray...
31 And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness.
As God empowered them... not their own knowledge... but by his power…and they sought the lord, and he heard, and he answered… and he gave them the power to speak with boldness..
Are you allowing the Holy Spirit to move and share the gospel with the world around you with Boldness, or are you excusing your way out of it?
So the Holy Spirit Will give you the power
1. OF SALVATION.
2. TO WALK IN GOD’S WILL.
3. To share Christ Boldly and fourth
4. To Live a Holy Life
When the spirits of darkness try to get you to live an evil live... the holy spirit can guide and
enlighten you....
5 Those who are dominated by the sinful nature think about sinful things, but those who are controlled by the Holy Spirit think about things that please the Spirit.
6 So letting your sinful nature control your mind leads to death. But letting the Spirit control your mind leads to life and peace.
Without the Holy Spirit we are vulnerable to the temptation of the evil one... but the holy spirit will renew your mind. WIll you be controlled by the spirit or your mind...
Before you were a christian sinning was a lot of fun and there are some people it makes uncomfortable to say that, but the truth is we sin when we don’t know Jesus because we like it… we don’t like sinning per se, but we like the acts that are sinful… but once you become a christian it makes you feel miserable and convicted.... Why?
Because it makes you feel like living a holy life.... it fights against it... and there is this battle going on... and the holy spirit will show you the way out of your sin...
The bible tells us there are fruits of the spirit in Galatians 5.... but goes on to say...
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.
There will always be a battle for you... the forces of the enemy will always want you to do the enemies will. And the question is are you losing the battle and following the will of the enemy or are you allowing the power of the HS to guide and direct you to live a Holy Life.
1. OF SALVATION.
2. TO WALK IN GOD’S WILL.
3. To share Christ Boldly
4. To Live a Holy Life and fifthly
5. TO make difference with your Spiritual Gifts
Directly from God that will empower you to make a difference in this world....
4 while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.
A couple places... you can look...
Some gifts... wisdom... supernatural wisdom.
Discernment... people or places... dont know why
Prophecy call things out before they are there… And this is one of the more difficult ones.. because people think of the worldly view of nostradomus or somethign like that, but rarely was that biblical prophecy normally told people of the destruction of living against the will of God…
GIving
Speaking in other tongues
Interpreting
Serving....
Encouragement.... when people are down you lift them up...
Administration.... orgainzie things
Evangelism.... lead peple to Christ....
Mercy...
Teaching....
It is a gift God gave you to use in his church and this world...
7 A spiritual gift is given to each of us so we can help each other.
That includes you...
Lets talk about two pieces of
SPIRIT-FILLED ADVICE
Whatever you do...
DON’T RESIST THE SPIRIT. The direction • and the voice...
How do you resist it? Sometimes the spirit is prompting you.... you just know it... God wants
you to do..... and at that moment you have choice... you can obey or you can resist//// don't
resist it...
In fact Stephen before he was stoned... he said this...
51 “You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so do you.
Dang son! Thats bad... The bible says you can actually quench the holy spirit if you throw
water enough and you will one day not be able to hear him....
Secondly whatever you do..
18 And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit,
What does alcohol do if you drink too much? makes you weird... makes you lose control...
don’t let some substance take you over... instead let the holy spirit take you over... let him
speak at all times... you walk not by sight but by faith....
Lead the spirit filled life...
He gives us the ability and direction to do what he called us to do.
GOD’S PROMISE TO YOU!
38 And Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
39 For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself.”
