Evidence Of The Spirit

1. Suffering produces endurance.

There are many ways to suffer. We suffer in this life due to things that happens to us externally.Things that may be outside of our control. A lost job. A lost loved one. Financial loss. Loss of health. These things happen to all of us in life, but we are not expected to just give up.

Illustration: When people were jumping off of buildings to their death due to the financial crash during the great depression, it wasn’t poor people killing themselves. They were used to being without. Because of the fact that they had been poor all of their lives they knew how to make due until times get better. They knew how to endure until the end. Suffering produced an endurance in them.

But sometimes when the bible speaks of suffering , it’s talking about suffering internally. The type of suffering we can control. For example; A person that has a problem with alchoholism suffers cravings in the flesh. The bible says endure the craving. Become steadfast in the craving don’t fall, suffer it.

If you learn how to suffer the craving you all of a sudden learn how to control it, as long as you don’t fall to it. And in due time you learn how to endure it. Thats what it means when Scripture tell us that suffering produces endurance. Now I used alcoholism as an example. But any kind of craving or tendency that you may have internally that offends God has to be worked out. Whether that craving be a bad attitude, sexual, emotional, whatever. All of these tendencies we have internally we must learn to suffer it until the ability to endure the craving becomes a habit.

2. Endurance produces character.

When you learn the ability to say no to the cravings of the flesh, and you suffer it instead of falling weak to it, you become a person of character. Because it doesn’t take someone standing over you in order for you to do the right thing. You may be a kleptomaniac. Stealing is a stronghold that you actually suffer from. But you know that scripture says thou shall not still. If you learn how to suffer it long enough without falling to it they can hire you as a clerk at the bank because you learned through habit the ability to control it. Now where you once was weak, instead of giving yourself excuses to offend God, you’ve developed a godly character. Now people can trust you with their money. That’s how suffering produces in you. And the bible says we should rejoice in it. You have been fixed where once you had a character flaw.

3. Character produces hope

Now here is where the preaching began. For the life of me as I was studying this passage I couldn’t figure out how character produces hope....Illustration:God gives us character as a measuring tool. You have a measuring tool, a meter at the side of your house and in front of your house. One measure your water flow, water meter, and one measure the flow of electricity that’s going into your house. If the electric company comes to your house and he’s checking that measuring meter, and because for some reason you decided to act like the electric bill don’t exist that month, he will cut that meter off. No meter, no electricity. Now the electric company wont be calling you no more. They have no reason to. You have no electricity. You have no more power inside your home. In the same way character is a power meter by which you are able to measure the power that is working in you. What am I saying.

Proposition (repeat)

Character is the meter by which you measure the evidence- of the work that the Holy Spirit is doing in you.

If you haven’t had a character adjustment since the day that you heard the gospel, and your character is as flawed as it was when you first heard, then the power of the Holy Spirit that is working in you is unmeasurable. If the power is unmeasurable then where is the evidence of your salvation? How do you know whether you are saved or not.

Because the Spirit uses suffering to produces endurance that produces character. And character produces hope. How do you have hope if your character is flawed, it’s not godly. You have no evidence of it.

In 2 Cor. 13:5 it says examine yourself whether ye be of the faith. The ESV Bible is more clear. It says examine yourself to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?

The process by which Christ is working in you is through the work of the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit purpose is to produce godly character in you. What good are we if we are displaying the same character flaws as the world.

We are called to spread the image of God all over the world. We are ambassadors of Christ. If we be ambassadors we are to look like him. So Gods calling includes the fixing of our character flaws. And that’s done inside of us through the work of the Holy Spirit.

And when He the Holy Spirit began a good work in you he will complete it, Phil 1:6. He’s not gonna produce endurance in you without fixing your character.

It’s one thing to witness the work of the Spirit externally. But experiencing the work of the Spirit internally is an experience that only those who’s had it can understand it.

It’s not a work of your own. It’s not a 12 step program. It’s a spiritual experience that manifest itself through your willingness to obey Christ.

So before we look for the movemnt of God in the world and among others, we need to look into ourselves and measure His work he is performing in us. Is my character improving? Has he strengthened me compared to my former self?

So how does character produce hope.

When you know that you know that you know that the Spirit of God is the reason why all of a sudden you don’t have the urge to do some of the things that you used to be weak to, then that work is the evidence that you have been choosing by God.

Many are called, but only a few are chosen. And when you know that you’ve been chosen, immeasurable joy fills your’e heart. Because the character that He produces in you is the hope of the believer.