The Characteristics Of A Spirit Filled Life

Title- The Characteristics Of A Spirit Filled Life

Passage- :23-24

Introduction

A lady answered the knock on her door to find a man with a sad expression. "I'm sorry to disturb you," he said, "but I'm collecting money for an unfortunate family in the neighborhood. The husband is out of work, the kids are hungry, the utilities will soon be cut off, and worse, they're going to be kicked out of their apartment if they don't pay the rent by this afternoon." "I'll be happy to help," said the woman with great concern. "But who are you?" "I'm the landlord," he replied.

Attention-

Attention- We laugh at that little joke but there is an unfortunate amount of truth in it…and an especially unfortunate amount when it comes to believers and those in the church

And we make excuses…my parents, my environment, the lack of this or too much of that and if nothing else fits the devil made me...

Problem- The problem with human beings has not changed since the garden of Eden... we have sin and as a result we make this life about us...

-Our wants

-Our dreams

-Our plans

But what happens when we ignore the Holy Spirit and go our own way is that we are no longer the beacon of hope this world is looking for.

As we saw last week, the Holy Spirit develops in us fruit that is for the purpose of what....giving away.

How do we develop these fruits? Are there areas in our life that will look different?

CPS- In the life of the obedience believer the Holy Spirit will develop godly characteristics.

The believer that is walking in step with the Spirit will no longer look to what makes his flesh happy but what will honor his Savior

Interrogative (CPS in a question)- What areas will the Holy Spirit develop in the life of an obedient believer

Transition- In these verses John will give us three areas that the Holy Spirit will develop.

The first area of development is...

I. The Development Of Faith

1 John 3:23a

Explain- The Bible is a book of faith.

We accept it by faith, we read it by faith, we obey it by faith.

-It is often said that the Bible is God’s love letter to his people

-It is also a love story…remember back to our study through Ezra, we had worked a good portion through the book and we came to the realization that the book of Ezra, as much as it was about expeditions and planning and building programs was really God’s love letter to His people.

Here in this verse John is using a word that isn’t necessarily translated as faith, but in the context we see that John is referring to a belief that has faith.

The 10 commandments are not a list of rules or do not’s....they are a display of God’s tender compassion to keep his children from harm.

John wants us to know that as we live in obedience to the Holy Spirit we will grow in belief…we will grow in faith.

The Exodus....God’s love displayed in making a way for his children to be freed from slavery

Another work that could be used here is trust. As we step out and trust God and in turn God responds in His faithful character we begin to develop trust in God.

The Gospels are about one thing…the mission of Jesus Christ to satisfy the divine love of God

Here John is dealing with God’s love...

How do we know Christ abides in us? by the Spirit which was given to us....how do we know we have the Spirit? The Spirit will develop in us faith.

How do we know Christ abides in us? by the Spirit which was given to us....how do we know we have the Spirit? The Spirit will develop in us love.

Illustrate- I remember the first few times I did car repairs by myself. It was probably a brake job or something but when I was done I was fairly certain I had done it correctly. So I took the car for a test drive and everything seemed ok…But what if I missed something…so you drive a little further the next time.

Illustrate

After the fourth of fifth brake job I would hardly feel the need to do a test drive?

Why?

The development of trust in my ability to do a brake job. I had faith in my work.

Argumentation- The world wants to tell us there is no God…If there were a God he wouldn’t be such and such....

Argumentation

Apply

Apply- Step out in faith…try Him…God is faithful and will prove to you his faithfulness.

I believe that the second development flows from the first,

Transition-The second area of development is...

II. The Development Of Love

1 John 3:23b

Explain- Say what you what but all throughout the pages of Scripture the theme is love...

-It is often said that the Bible is God’s love letter to his people

-It is also a love story…remember back to our study through Ezra, we had worked a good portion through the book and we came to the realization that the book of Ezra, as much as it was about expeditions and planning and building programs was really God’s love letter to His people.

The 10 commandments are not a list of rules or do not’s....they are a display of God’s tender compassion to keep his children from harm.

The Exodus....God’s love displayed in making a way for his children to be freed from slavery

The Gospels are about one thing…the mission of Jesus Christ to satisfy the divine love of God

Here John is dealing with God’s love...

How do we know Christ abides in us? by the Spirit which was given to us....how do we know we have the Spirit? The Spirit will develop in us love.

Illustrate-

Argumentation- The world around us has a definition of love…but their definition of love is very skewed from the Biblical definition of love.

What the world calls love is not love

Apply

John uses a word for love here that this world knows nothing about. The word he uses has the idea of selfless love.

When we transitioned from the first point to the second I said that I believed that the the second point (love) grew out of the first (faith)

What I meant by that is that as we learn the faithfulness of God the unfaithfulness of man will no longer be our focus or our anxiety…

READ A SECOND TIME

When we understand the faithfulness of God we can selflessly loves others with the confident trust that regardless of their response or lack of…God will work it for our good.

How do we know Christ abides in us? by the Spirit which was given to us....how do we know we have the Spirit? The Spirit will develop in us faith.

Illustrate

Just like the second point grew out of the first, I believe this third point grows out of the first two.

Argumentation

Apply

Transition- The third area of development is...

III. The Development Of Our Faithfulness

1 John 3:24

Explain

Here John tells us that “he that keepeth his commandments dwelleth in him.”

What John is telling us is that through stepping out in faith and through a biblical love we will develop faithfulness…we will learn to abide or to remain.

There are times that the Bible challenges us and at first what the Scriptures say do not make sense…but after consistently abiding in truth we learn that the Bible really does have the answers to life.

Then the next time the Scriptures challenge us, we are quicker to step out in faith.

After a while it becomes almost natural to respond in obedience to the Word of God.

What would we call that? Faithfulness

How do we know Christ abides in us? by the Spirit which was given to us....how do we know we have the Spirit? The Spirit will develop in us Faithfulness.

Illustrate- The first time this truth became apparent to me was in the area of loving what I have referred to before as porcupine people.

I knew that the Bible told me to love them but it was hard....they were all prickely...

I was told to push down on it harder with the press

Love you neighbors…love your enemy…speak the truth in love…the parable of the good Samaritan....

If you push down too hard the tooling shatters and pieces fly all over the place.

But when you, as point one showed, step out in faith....then as point two showed, love selflessly…and as the third point, faithfulness, I saw them soften…and open up…and I could proverbaly hug them and not walk away pulling out all the quills.

So, in faith I pressed harder with the press and it came back to 90 degrees.

After several years at the shop and only shattering a couple tools I regularily ran the machine this way…wh

Argumentation

Apply

How did that work?

Through the process of faith, love and perseverance…the problem leading up to this revelation was that to implement this into our lives we need to understand that this life is not about us.

Each character trait that displays Christ’s work on our behalf and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is displayed in humility, not pride.

The biggest problem to our seeing the Holy Spirit in our lives is us…not the world around us, not our spouse, not our upbringing

We are our own greatest hinderance to the Holy Spirit working in our lives.

Conclusion

Review of the Principles and the Sermon Proposition

In the life of the obedience believer the Holy Spirit will develop godly characteristics.

How

-Step out in faith

-Love with a selfless love

-Persevere in developing in yourself faithfulness

Then the world will see Jesus in you.

Final Statement

Closing Hymn