Personal Divine Assistant
Personal Divine Assistant
We’re going to talk about someone today that without his presence here in the church we would not be here. Remove him and God’s work in the church ceases. He is the most underrepresented misunderstood person who also happens to be absolutely central to our Christian life. Jesus was born of a virgin by his power. Because of him Jesus was led to the wilderness to be tempted by the devil giving us victory over Satan. Without him there would be no Bible, he inspired it and led the writers. Without him there would be no Christians. You think we have war and terror now, without his restraining power it would be utter chaos. When Jesus left this earth he sent him to do all we would ever need to live righteous. He is the most indispensable factor in determining whether you and I win or lose spiritually whether we fail or succeed as Christians. Of course I am speaking of the third person of the triune God the Holy Spirit.
There was a problem near the end of Jesus’ earthly ministry and that same problem exists today. Jesus asks us to be Christ like in our life yet we know that we fall woefully short of His standard.
If you have ever said to yourself, “Lord, I want to follow you I believe in you but I don’t think I can accomplish what you require.” You were exactly right about yourself. If you said, “I don’t believe I have what it takes.” You are again correct in your self-evaluation. You are just like the disciples If you’ve ever said to God, “just show me what to do or better yet just show me a miracle & I’ll be satisfied”, then this is the sermon for you.
When you start talking about the Holy Spirit you gotta start in the Upper Room of that 2 story flat in Jerusalem at the Last Supper. This was not one of the greatest moments in the lives of the disciples. It was here that Jesus told them he would be leaving. This was what we might call a “spiritual downtime”. Everything seemed to be going wrong. Judas had left the room to betray Jesus. Peter would publicly deny Jesus three times. The Jews wanted to get rid of him and his followers so the disciples had reason to be afraid. But the kicker of the moment came when Jesus tells them in John 14 that he was not only going to leave but they wouldn’t be coming. At least not now. He didn’t tell ‘em when He would return just that when everything was ready He would be coming back. Thomas reacted immediately, “you must be kidding...” “You’re leaving after we just sold out for you and you’re not taking us with you!”
There was tension in the room of the last supper because the disciples knew this couldn’t be a worse time for this announcement. While Jesus was here they had enough problems and probably were just starting to “get it” and understand what kind of a king he was, an unconventional king a servant king but one with a master plan for Christian living let’s read it. (John 14:16-17)
READ. PRAY.
The disciples’ dilemma is the same dilemma we have today. We believe in Jesus Christ as our personal savior yet Jesus left and sent us a Helper whom we don’t quite understand.
Maybe this illustration will help you see what I mean when I say we have Jesus but we’re not experiencing the Holy Spirit. It’s like having a $10,000 check sitting in your wallet but not being able to experience the blessing of the money. It’s just sitting in our wallet with a lot of power to buy. But unless you know how to deposit it so you can draw on it, the check does you no good. That’s what it’s like in our walk when we have been given the indwelling Holy Spirit yet we aren’t experiencing His presence.
I just want to answer two questions today with the time we have to tackle this vast doctrinal truth.
What is the Holy Spirit? and How do I get more of the Holy Spirit? I believe that those have to be right up there with the top questions the majority of people have about the mysteries of the Holy Spirit.
He’s Personal
First off the Holy Spirit is a person not a force or an “it”. The Bible refers to him as one who bears the attributes of intellect, emotion and will, only persons have characteristics like this. In our text today it refers to him using personal pronouns him and he. We know that God calls us into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. He also calls us into a personal relationship with the Holy Spirit. V.17 reads, “But you know Him, for he lives with you...” Too often we refer to the Holy Spirit as a power, make no mistake we do need Holy Ghost power, but only after we have met Holy Ghost person. No different from Jesus, until we get personal with him we can’t experience the benefits of the savior. You cannot deal with the person of the Holy Spirit without dealing with the relationship he wants with you.
The Holy Spirit is a person we can know and relate to not just a power. So we know that he is a person know also that he is divine.
He’s Divine
Some characteristics of this person are found in his name. Our text calls him a Helper and the Spirit of truth. Helper in the Greek is parakletos which means someone who is called in. We know that he was sent by God but it’s the reasons he was called in that give us an idea of His ministry in our life. He was called in because we needed to know how to live.
So he prays for us when we don’t know what to say he prays through us with moanings and groaning. He gives witness of who we are in Christ, reminding us that we belong to Him. He gives expert advice when we need help and don’t know what to do. He is called in when we are depressed and down and he puts new courage into our hearts and minds. And always the paraklete is called in to comfort in a time of need. Comfort today is thought of mainly with sorrow or someone who sympathizes with us when we’re sad. The Holy Spirit does that yes but that is not his limit. The work of the Holy Spirit in our life is to assist us with coping with things. He takes away our inadequacies and enables us to cope with life. The Holy Spirit takes away our defeated life and substitutes it with victorious living. The Holy Spirit How To’s include;
Showing us how to worship, love, father, husband, think, feel, decide, work, and how to obey, the holy spirit’s ministry is to get us to live God’s standard of living.
God has called in our Personal Divine Assistant to Help us Live on God’s Standard.
Our very own PDA. He is the third person of the Godhead called alongside to assist us with the difficult task of living for Christ! What Jesus is saying is, “I’m going to pray for you, my work on the cross is done but you’ll have to continue on, don’t fret because I’m sending you out on a difficult journey.” Remember I’ve sent you someone, the paraclete, who will guide you, he’s your personal counselor. You’ll know exactly what to do, he is the Spirit of truth. He’ll enable you to accomplish all that the father requires.
So the better question is not , “what is the Holy Spirit?” but “Who is the Holy Spirit?” He is God’s Spirit working in us not instead of us not in spite of us but through us. Which leads us to our next question, “how can I get more of the holy spirit?”
Yesterday I left my PDA (other one) behind my personal digital assistant. Many of you have one but each of us use them to varying degrees. I have put enough information in mine to tell you a lot about me and what’s important to me. My name, wife’s name, kids name w/pictures are all on there. B’days, holidays, holy days, anniversaries (don’t forget them). A Calendar of not just where I’ve been but where I’m going and with whom, some days have a 10 year reminder. Correspondingly how much of yourself you’re willing to give your PDA can make your life easier. The influence the Holy Spirit has over us works much the same. To the degree that we give more of ourselves to this personal divine assistant is the degree that we live our lives by the power of the Holy Spirit. Some of us have things on our PDA’s that God would not be happy about, to varying degrees, the memory is being used up with filth. If the place in you is filled with sin than there is no room for the Holy Spirit. If you want to experience victory, joy, peace, success, favor and the blessings of God you’ve got to receive the call from his “still small voice”. Some of us know and hear God’s Spirit calling yet hit the ignore button on our PDA. It’s time to start receiving His call. The first thing we’ve got to do is make room in our lives, our memory is full, the internal memory is filled with the dirt of sin the places where the filling of the Holy Spirit belongs.
God has called in our Personal Divine Assistant but we have Him Blocked; Lives Filled with Filth
So the better question again is not, “how can I get more of the holy spirit?,” but “How can I give more of me to the Holy Spirit?”
Washed with the Spirit
Does anyone know what that piece in the middle of a top-loading washing machine is called? The part in the middle that moves back and forth and turns the clothes? I’m going to call it an Agitator…. What is the purpose of the Agitator?
Its sole purpose is to cause havoc for the dirty clothes… it’s there to shake and separate the clothes from all the dirt and grime that may be in or on the clothes, right?
As soon as we are saved, the Holy Spirit moves into our hearts, but He doesn’t have our heart to himself… even though we have been saved from our past sins, there still remains some things of the world that we are still fond of… these things of the world have a way of attaching themselves to us like dirt on clothes… they can stain us, they seemingly won’t come out.
The Holy Spirit, being Holy….His nature doesn’t allow Him to live in a dirty environment, so He begins to gently and lovingly agitate and shake…convicting us of the things that need to leave our heart…. and only when we come to a place in our lives where we are willing to remove all the dirt…can we truly be Filled with His Spirit. Until then, our spiritual life may feel like we are in a washing machine…. The Holy Spirit constantly, because He loves us so much, agitates within us, convicting us of the things that need to be removed from our lives…. The truth is it is God’s will for all to be filled with the Spirit…. But it’s your choice to listen to the Spirit of truth heed the advocate and hear the expert advice of the Paraclete your PDA.
We don’t get more of the Holy Spirit until we give more of ourselves to him. We don’t get more of him until we rid our lives of the things that take up the space where he belongs. Sin is filling up our lives when God wants us filled with His Spirit so that we can live spiritual lives led by the spirit having spiritual victories on our way to living for Christ.
Here’s What I want you to Know;
God never intended for us to be alone or do it alone. He knew we wouldn’t be able to please Him on our own. God knew the divine proportions of our task, being Christ-like is impossible apart from Him. So he called in our personal divine assistant to help us continue the work of the Son.
Here’s What I want You to Do;
Follow what Jesus modeled for us in v.16, Jesus says, “I will ask...” We need to pray to the Father as we ready ourselves to receive the leading of His promised Spirit. Pray with the confidence that you have done the dirty work of preparing your life to stay away from sin and confess remaining sin in expectance of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit knocks at the door of your heart he doesn’t force His way in he waits to be received. My prayer is that you are readying yourself for him in joyful expectance. Amen