Air

Series Intro

You Can Survive

The Rule of 3’s

The Necessity of Air

As human beings we can only live out air for about 3 minutes. Air is a substance that everyone one of us needs. We need air so regularly that God created us with a autonomic nervous system

The autonomic nervous system is somewhat similar the idea of Prevenient Grace. Prevenient Grace is the activity of God that draws the non-believer to Christ.

Just like we need Air to breathe from the minute we are born until the minute we die, we also need the Holy Spirit working in our life’s.

There are time that we become aware of our breathing.

There are times or should be times when we become aware of the Holy Spirit’s presence.

When do we become aware of our breathing patterns? Normally, when we have trouble breathing. We become aware of our breathing when the air is missing. We will even say things like “I can’t breath” , “I got the wind knocked out of me.”

The church is in a time where it needs to focus on it breathing! It needs to focus on the Holy Spirit. Why? Because God is missing in the Church! In an blog post written by Cary Nieuwhof, draws the readers attention to the idea that God is missing in the church. People come to church looking to meet with God. Problem is that people are telling us they are having difficulty finding Him!

Now, we could as the church just say, “Well they are wrong!” But we do that to our determent. Why? Because we live in an age where perception is reality so we can’t ignore this criticism. We can’t just say, “Well they are wrong! God is here!”

What do we do about this problem in the church? We have to develop our spiritual maturity. We need to learn about God. We need opportunity to meet with God. We need the Holy Spirit to make God the Son and God the Father real to us so that we as His Children turn around and show a dying world that God is real.

Desperate for Air

Go back with me to June 14, 1962. President Kennedy is in the oval office. The Soviet Union is our worst enemy and Albert DeSalvo’s first victim would be found at 77 Gainsborough St, Fenway, Boston. Who was Albert DeSalvo? What was he known for?

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What was one thing that 12 of these 13 women had in common? As they felt their live slipping away because their air supply was cut off by DeSalvo, they had one thing in common: A desperation for air.

As a church and as individuals are their things in your life that are spiritually strangling you? Your job? Your health? Your finances? Your relationships? Your lack of time spent with God in His Word? What is killing your spiritual life? Do you feel the desperation for Air? Do you have a desperation to be in the presence of the Holy Spirit? We say we want our spirits to be alive to His Spirit, but are we desperate to be with the Holy Spirit? Are we as desperate for the Holy Spirit to be in us as these 12 women were for air in their lungs back in the 1960’s when the Boston Strangler was taking their lives? I submit to you that we will not see the Holy Spirit move in our lives and the life of the church until we are desperate and start to seek the Lord!

You want your church to live? To get out of the clutches of the enemy as the devil tries to strangle you to death? You have to get desperate and say I will seek the Lord at all cost. I want the Holy Spirit to breath on me and use me! I want God to save me and save my church from clutches of the enemy.

Life with Air

As I was putting this sermon together I though about talking about life with no air which of course is death, but I wanted to go from a positive angel. Then I got to thinking about life without air which of course is impossible. For us to live we have to air, but we I also thought about the fact that life is easier the more air you have going in and out of lungs. Don’t believe me as a person on oxygen is life is easier or harder with a greater amount of air coursing through their lungs. Or since you are plaines people go up in the mountains and do some work or play hard. The things that you do in this lower altitudes becomes more difficult the higher up you. In fact, there are mountains in the world that you climb them you have to take a bottle of oxygen with you.

But how does this work in the life of the Christian? Well I believe Scripture tells us that the christian life can’t be done without the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives. In fact, a person can’t even come to Jesus to have their sins forgiven unless the Spirit draws them. The Christian life is to be lived in the Spirit and the more we communion, fellowship with God the Father, God the Son and the Holy Spirit the more our lives can be lived with purpose.

I think most people are trying to find purpose in their lives by what they do. I believe that we are to find purpose as Christians not by what we do but our purpose is to be defined by our relationships. Of course, the primary relationship that we are draw purpose for our lives is our relationship with Christ. If you want purpose in your life develop your relationship with God the Father, through grace of the Son in the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. That is were humanity was to define who were are but unfortunately we now define our purpose in life by what we do.

What we do in life should flow not from the work we do but from our relationship with Jesus. Out our relationship from Christ flows to things: Our purpose in life and what we do in life. If you remember the chief end of humanity is according to the westminster short catechism is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever. There is only one way that we can glorify God and enjoy him forever and that is through our relationship with him.

This is important because it will change how you live our your Christian life. I talked with someone this week about the difficultly they have in doing a daily devotion, reading their Bible and all other things we are to do. Prayer, devotions and reading our Bibles becomes easier the more spiritual air we have. In other words the more we develop our relationship with the Holy Spirit the easier it become to pray, have devotions and read our Bible.