The Ways of the Spirit and Our Walk in Spirit

Go ahead and open your Bibles to John 16:12-14.

We are in the second week of our series on the Holy Spirit. In this series, we are striving to help bring some clarity to what can unfortunately be a confusing topic.

There are so many ideas about who the Spirit is and how he operates in our lives.

That’s why we are turning to Scripture to see what God tells us about the Spirit so we can anchor our understanding in truth and bring some clarity to the confusion that sometimes surrounds the work of the Spirit.

Last week, Matt taught us clearly that the Holy Spirit is a person. He is not an “it,” a “thing,” or something akin to the Force.

He is not “God-lite,” like some diet or trial version of God. The Holy Spirit is fully God, just as the Father is God and the Son is God.

The Holy Spirit is how we know that God has not left us alone because he lives in every believer who has put their faith and trust in Christ.

So if that is who the Spirit is, what does he actually do, and how does his work impact how we live?

There is so much we could talk about in answer to those questions, which is why we are spending the next three weeks talking about how the Spirit works in our lives.

Here’s how we are going to focus today on the work of the Holy Spirit:

The Holy Spirt glorifies Christ in our hearts and empowers us to glorify Christ through our lives.

The Holy Spirit points us to Jesus and empowers us to live in ways that honor and glorify God.

We are going to look this morning at what that looks like in general ways, and then for the next two weeks, we are going to talk about more specific ways that the Holy Spirit’s work shows itself in our lives.

We are going to be looking at several different passages this morning, but our home base is going to be the Upper Room Discourse in John 14-17 that Matt preached from last week.

These chapters contain the last words Jesus taught his disciples before his crucifixion. He is laying a foundation for them of what they will need to know and as they try to follow Jesus after he ascends back to heaven after his resurrection.

At least five different times in these chapters, Jesus comforts them by telling them that he is going to send them the Holy Spirit to help them.

Don’t miss the reality that some of the greatest comfort Jesus offered his disciples was that he would not leave them alone but would send them the Holy Spirit.

Let’s read the last section of those statements this morning.

Read John 16:12-14 with me:

John 16:12–14 CSB

“I still have many things to tell you, but you can’t bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth. For he will not speak on his own, but he will speak whatever he hears. He will also declare to you what is to come. He will glorify me, because he will take from what is mine and declare it to you.

As Jesus winds down his conversation with the disciples, he comforts them with the reality that he is sending them the Holy Spirit as a guide.

While the disciples wouldn’t receive the Spirit until a little later, the Holy Spirit now comes to live in every believer from the time they are saved on.

The Spirit’s ultimate goal is to glorify Jesus in our hearts and empower us to glorify Jesus through our lives.

The Holy Spirit accomplishes that goal through in several different ways, so let’s look at a few:

1) The Holy Spirit teaches us.

The idea that he is guiding us implies that he is teaching us, but Jesus already stated it more clearly earlier in his conversation with the disciples:

John 14:25–26 CSB

“I have spoken these things to you while I remain with you. But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and remind you of everything I have told you.

One of the primary roles the Spirit fills in our lives as believers is to teach us.

What is it that the Holy Spirit teaches? He is teaching us about Jesus and what it looks like for us to follow him!

He primarily teaches us through what feels like ordinary moments.

Jesus said the Spirit would remind the disciples of what Jesus told them. We now have that written down in our Bibles!

The Holy Spirit teaches us by helping us understand and apply what we read in our times alone with God and in times studying the Bible together with others.

He stirs our hearts in prayer as we bring our worship and our requests to God.

He can work through circumstances and the church to also learn more about him, but because our hearts are prone to find what we are looking for, we need to make sure whatever we sense the Spirit teaching us lines up with what the Bible says.

The Bible gives us some insight into the kinds of things the Spirit teaches us. Let’s talk about three:

A. Sin, righteousness, and judgment

John 16:7–11 CSB

Nevertheless, I am telling you the truth. It is for your benefit that I go away, because if I don’t go away the Counselor will not come to you. If I go, I will send him to you. When he comes, he will convict the world about sin, righteousness, and judgment: About sin, because they do not believe in me; about righteousness, because I am going to the Father and you will no longer see me; and about judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged.

One way the Spirit glorifies Jesus is by convicting the world regarding our sinfulness.

Before we surrender to Jesus, we don’t recognize or care that there is a God in heaven who loves us and created us for a relationship with him.

We choose to do what we want instead of seeking to honor the God who created and loves us, and that’s the essence of sin.

The Holy Spirit is the one who convicts the world that we have turned from God and need him.

He convicts us with the reality that Jesus, God the Son, lived a perfect life and died a sacrificial death. Now, he sits enthroned in heaven and we are accountable to him for how we live our lives.

Through Jesus’s death, burial, and resurrection, he took our punishment on himself and made a way available for us to be right with God.

This world’s systems try to twist, ignore, or reject those realities, and those who follow it will be judged for not following Christ.

If you understand these realities and have surrendered to Christ, then that is because the Holy Spirit brought conviction to your heart as God drew you to himself.

He exalts Jesus by teaching the world that we have turned from him and need to recognize that we need forgiveness, turn from living life our way, and turn to following Christ.

If you are here this morning and you have not commited your life to Christ, this is where you need to start. If you are understanding these truths and experiencing conviction, that is because the Holy Spirit is working in you to draw you to God.

That’s not all he teaches us, though.

When we respond to his conviction, surrender to Jesus, and commit to following him, the Holy Spirit also teaches us about…

B. Our adoption in Christ

Romans 8:15–17 CSB

15 For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear. Instead, you received the Spirit of adoption, by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father!” 16 The Spirit himself testifies together with our spirit that we are God’s children, 17 and if children, also heirs—heirs of God and coheirs with Christ—if indeed we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.

For those who have responded to his conviction and surrendered their lives to Christ, the Holy Spirit teaches and reminds us of the reality of our adoption into God’s family.

Where we were once separated from Christ, now we have been adopted into God’s family.

He isn’t just reminding us of these things; he is actually the one who brought them about:

John 3:5–6 CSB

Jesus answered, “Truly I tell you, unless someone is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. Whatever is born of the flesh is flesh, and whatever is born of the Spirit is spirit.

The Holy Spirit is the one causes us to be spiritually reborn. He takes us from our old way of life and gives us new life.

He is the one who unites us to Christ and helps us anchor our hearts in the incredible reality that we are now God’s children, adopted through Christ.

On the days when I feel weak, worthless, forgotten, or overlooked, the Holy Spirit is there to shake me out of my self-pity and remind me that I have been adopted into God’s family. I can call out to God as my loving father, and I share in the blessings that Christ deserves.

When I feel tempted to turn from Christ and do what I want instead of what Christ created me to do, the Holy Spirit reminds me that I am part of God’s family now and he has something better in store.

Yes, he convicts us of sin, righteousness, and judgment, but he also teaches us what incredible joy, freedom, and purpose we now have as sons and daughters of God.

In the painful moments of suffering, the Holy Spirit reminds us that Christ has made a way for us to be God’s sons, and nothing can take that away.

The Holy Spirit convicts us of sin, of what righteousness looks like, and of the judgment that is coming.

He reminds us of our adoption and the hope we have in Christ.

Beyond those things, the Holy Spirit also teaches us about..

C. What is true.

John 16:12–14 CSB

12 “I still have many things to tell you, but you can’t bear them now. 13 When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth. For he will not speak on his own, but he will speak whatever he hears. He will also declare to you what is to come. 14 He will glorify me, because he will take from what is mine and declare it to you.

When Jesus spoke these words, the disciples were overwhelmed, confused, and sad.

One of his last statements to them about the role of the Holy Spirit was that he would guide them into all the truth.

In other words, the Holy Spirit is the guide who helps us orient our lives around what is true.

He helps us understand what we need to know in order to trust God more deeply, follow him more closely, and understand him more.

While he can do anything he wants, his guidance typically happens through those same methods we mentioned earlier—he helps us understand God’s Word, we become aware of something through prayer, and at times we recognize circumstances and wise counsel from others that clearly line up with who God is and how he works.

Guiding us into all the truth doesn’t mean he is guiding us into some kind of mystical experience or knowledge. Put that phrase in the context of what Jesus said to the disciples earlier:

John 14:6 CSB

6 Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.

Jesus is the truth, so therefore as the Holy Spirit is guiding us into all the truth, he is guiding us closer and closer to Christ.

When he guides us into truth, it isn’t just an abstract set of principles; he is guiding us towards the very person who is himself Truth.

He is our Counselor and guide, teaching us, convicting us, and directing us.

Other passages teach us that he is changing our very way of thinking and aligning it with the way Jesus thinks.

Every step of the way, he is glorifying Jesus by pointing us back to his death, his resurrection, and his rule over all creation.

As we mentioned in the beginning, though, the Holy Spirit doesn’t just teach us what to do and then expect us to figure it out on our own.

He is also the one who empowers us to carry out what the Lord asks us to do.

I mean, it is one thing to know what to do; it is another matter entirely to actually be able to do it.

So not only do he teach,

2) The Holy Spirit Empowers

The Holy Spirit isn’t just teaching us right from wrong like some self-help author or podcaster. He is sharing Christ’s very life with us.

Through his work in our lives, he transforms our thinking and gives us the motivation and ability to live the life God calls us to live.

He teaches us to see Jesus more clearly causing us to see our sin more clearly and turning desires away from our selfishness and towards a lifestyle that honors Christ.

Just like his teaching, the Spirit’s empowering isn’t usually dramatic and flashy. Instead, he deepens our love for Jesus and strengthens us to walk in holiness.

It is the Holy Spirit’s work that enables us to accomplish our goal as a church of growing as disciples who model love, humility, obedience, and using our influence to share the gospel.

We can frame the empowering work of the Holy Spirit a couple of different ways: what he enables us to stop doing, and what he enables us to do.

First, the negative side. The Holy Spirit empowers us to…

A. Put sin to death.

When the Bible talks about how the Holy Spirit works to help us overcome sin, it often contrasts the flesh with the Spirit. We saw that earlier in John 3.

In that context, we aren’t saying that our bodies are inherently evil. Instead, “flesh” here refers to the sinful desires that put what our bodies want ahead of what God desires.

The Holy Spirit works in our heart to put those desires to death and replace them with the desire to honor God in holiness:

Galatians 5:24 CSB

Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

Romans 8 tells us that as the Holy Spirit kills those desires, he also deals with the actions that come from those root desires:

Romans 8:12–13 CSB

12 So then, brothers and sisters, we are not obligated to the flesh to live according to the flesh, 13 because if you live according to the flesh, you are going to die. But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

Don’t miss the violent imagery here—we don’t play around with sin; through the Spirit’s work, we put it to death.

This doesn’t mean that any of us will be perfect and sinless in this life.

Instead, it means that the pattern in a believer’s life should be that we are learning to listen more closely to the Spirit’s teaching and leading.

As he glorifies Christ in us, he changes our desires and empowers us to stop living lives enslaved by our selfish hearts.

He doesn’t just empower us to stop sinning. The Holy Spirit also empowers us to:

B. Walk in obedience.

Going back to Galatians 5:

Galatians 5:24–25 CSB

Now 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.

Because of how the Holy Spirit changes us when we get saved, we haven’t just crucified that old way of living; now we live by the Spirit.

He enables us to walk in obedience to what God has commanded us.

That’s what we saw in one of the passages Matt highlighted last week:

Ezekiel 36:27 CSB

I will place my Spirit within you and cause you to follow my statutes and carefully observe my ordinances.

He is also working in us to help us live the way God created us to live.

The Holy Spirit empowers us to grow more and more to think and act like Jesus does, walking away from sin and walking in obedience.

As we mentioned before, this empowering is more about our daily growth in Christ-likeness than in dramatic moments.

Over the next few weeks, Jeff is going to talk about some specific ways the Holy Spirit empowers us to walk in obedience and how that shows in our lives.

For this morning, though, let’s look at it a little more generally by thinking through a few questions:

How are you trying to live your life today? Are you trying to figure it out on your own or have you surrendered to Christ and been made new by the Holy Spirit’s work in your life?

If you have been saved, which of these reminders do you need today:

Do you need conviction because you have become to comfortable with sins you are tolerating?

Do you need comfort because you have forgotten that you are a child of God?

Do you need the Holy Spirit to guide you to truth and point you back to Jesus because you have lost sight of him?

Do you need him to empower you to turn away from a sin you have been trying to fight on your own?

Do you need him to strengthen you to obey because God is calling you to step out in obedience in something that you know is beyond your ability?

Cultivate an awareness of the Spirit’s work in your life this week.

He is always working to glorify Christ in our hearts and empower us to glorify him through our lives.

Let’s walk in that reality this week, and let’s pray…