Open our spirit to the Holy Spirit
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Intro:
23 Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Today is Pentecost Sunday, the day where the the Church was baptized in the Holy Spirit. The title of my message is, [Open our spirit to the Holy Spirit].
For thousands of years, world history shows that people had an understanding of the supernatural. People, from peasants to kings, nations, from small territories to vast empires, believed in good and evil.
The Roman Empire, which was the ruling nation at the time of the New Testament, had twelve gods:
they had a god of thunder and lightning
a goddess of women and fertility
a god of war
a God of travelers and tradesmen
a god of the sea
a goddess of love and beauty
a god of music, archery, healing, poetry and truth
a goddess of hunting, archery, and animals
a goddess of wisdom, learning, arts, and industry
a goddess of agriculture, harvest, and the seasons
a god of blacksmiths and volcanoes
and a goddess of hearth and home
To add to their belief in many gods, they worshipped Caesar, their emperor as a god. All of this changed though, when one of their emperors, Constantine, converted to Christianity and made it the official religion of the Empire.
The focus moved from many gods to One God, who sent His Son Jesus. And for centuries, people believed in God and the supernatural realm.
They believed in angels, demons, dreams, miracles, and God’s involvement in life and society. But that began to change in the 1750s through the 1800s.
People stopped looking at the spiritual and focused on the rational. It was more about science and explanation. People began to ignore the spiritual.
Then in the 1940s and 1950s, scientists shifted the focus away from an imaginary god and held that science will answer any and every problem.
And now we live in a day where many have closed themselves off to God and His work. But Paul shows in our text, that God wants to preserve our WHOLE spirit, soul, and body.
God wants to touch and help our ENTIRE being.
But one of the tactics of the enemy is to get people to ignore certain parts of our makeup and close that part of themselves off to God.
For instance, there are some who have closed their souls off to God. They are not concerned about the condition of their soul and where they will spend eternity.
I remember going with an older man to witness to another older man who was not saved. He heard about eternity and the condition of his soul. He even acknowledged he was not saved, but he would not give his life to the Lord. He closed himself off to God’s activity in his soul.
Some have closed their bodies off to God. They do what they want with their bodies and do not care if it honors God or not. Others have closed themselves off to God’s healing power in their bodies, knowing God can heal, but not believing He will heal them.
Then there are those who have closed their spirits off to God. Scripture describes the spirit as the inner man or woman. The person we are— our feelings, emotions, or thoughts.
I find it interesting that One of the members of the Godhead is the Holy Spirit. We too have a spirit, our inner self. Scripture speaks of the spirit:
8 But immediately, when Jesus perceived in His spirit that they reasoned thus within themselves, He said to them, “Why do you reason about these things in your hearts?
59 And they stoned Stephen as he was calling on God and saying, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”
9 For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit in the gospel of His Son, that without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers,
We do ourselves great danger if we allow the enemy to cause us to ignore any part of ourselves— spirit, soul, or body. For God is interested in EVERY part of us!
Today, I want us to specifically focus on our spirit and why our spirit, our inner person, needs the Holy Spirit.
The enemy has systematically worked throughout history to get people to ignore their spiritual nature. But I want us to see how we can open our spirit to the Holy Spirit.
I have three points, [Open to the Promise of the Spirit], [Open to the Power of the Spirit], and [Open to Praying in the Spirit].
Let’s begin
1. Open to the Promise of the Spirit
1. Open to the Promise of the Spirit
1 There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.
2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.
Because God is interested in the WHOLE PERSON, He made a way for US to find freedom from sin and the penalty of sin, which is death.
Paul, in writing to the church in Rome, presents a promise for every person who will place their faith in Jesus. Notice the word condemnation.
In the original language, the word condemnation means more than guilt. It focuses on the punishment that the guilty person receives.
Because of sin, each of us deserved the death sentence. Our sin condemned us to death. But now, Jesus stood in our place and died for us.
Where we deserved death, He gave us life.
What should we do now?
Paul tells us to walk in the Spirit, for the Spirit has made us free. Literally, we are liberated and delivered from the bondage of sin.
At one time, this WHOLE PERSON, was entrapped by sin. Our bodies were bound, our souls headed to hell, and our spirit under the dominion of the enemy.
But now, we can and should walk in the Spirit.
What is one promise of the Spirit?
When we open our spirit to the Holy Spirit, we have the promise that God will let us live and walk in the freedom and liberty!
The Holy Spirit can set us free from:
the temptations of the enemy
the fear that so often consumes
the questions that we can’t seem to answer
the worry that paralyzes us
the from a future without Christ
When we close our spirit from the work of the Holy Spirit, we shut the door on a life of freedom, one without condemnation.
But when we open ourselves to the promises of the Spirit, we belong to Jesus and His life-giving Spirit gives us freedom!
Because of the Holy Spirit, the case is closed, God will set us free through His Spirit!
2. Open to the Power of the Spirit
2. Open to the Power of the Spirit
5 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.
9 But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His.
10 And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.
11 But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.
Once we’ve opened ourselves up to the promise of freedom that the Spirit offers, we make room for the power of the Spirit to operate in our lives.
Instead of living a life dominated by sinful nature and sinful thinking, we allow the Holy Spirit to control us and we live in a way that pleases the Holy Spirit.
Think of that for a moment, God gives us POWER over the sinful nature.
Sin, which dominates, is very powerful. None of us can adequately overcome sin in our own power.
I have noticed every time I seek to overcome temptation through sheer will power, I end up giving into temptation. But when I depend on the power of the Holy Spirit, then God gives victory over temptation.
So we see when we open our spirit to the power of the Spirit, we have victory over sin.
But Paul makes a strong assertion, anyone who does not have the Holy Spirit does not belong to Christ.
When close our spirit to the Holy Spirit, we give the enemy an opportunity to control us. But Satan’s power can never come against or overcome the power of the Holy Spirit.
When we accept Christ as our Savior, the Holy Spirit takes residence within us. To explain this pivotal truth, Paul reminds the reader of what happened when Jesus rose from the dead.
We see that the Holy Spirit is the One who enabled Jesus’s body to leave the tomb. And the same Spirit lives in us. When we open our spirit to the Holy Spirit, He gives us life and power!
14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.
15 For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.”
Furthermore, the Holy Spirit leads and guides us. When we face questions about what to do and where to go, we can be led by the Spirit.
Paul shows that those who are led by the Spirit are sons and daughters of God. And because of this relationship with God, we can call Him Father.
What power the Holy Spirit possesses. We were ALL born into sin, but through the power of the Spirit, we are now adopted as God’s children.
Who provided this adoption? The Holy Spirit.
The more I read about the Spirit’s power, the I want to open my spirit to the Holy Spirit.
It reminds me of the song we sing, the power, the power, gives victory over sin and purity within.
Let’s open our spirit to the Holy Spirit’s promises— He will give us FREEDOM!
Let’s open our spirit to the power of the Spirit— He has power over sin, power to give new life, and power to make us God’s children.
3. Open to Praying in the Spirit
3. Open to Praying in the Spirit
26 Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.
27 Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.
28 And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.
If the first two points did not convince me to open my spirit to the Holy Spirit, this point does. The Spirit, who is every strong, comes along side us in our weakness.
I love how God works. When we think of the word weakness, think of being paralyzed, unable to do anything. There are times in our walk when we feel weak and incapable:
To weak to pray
To weak to praise
To weak to worship
We run out of the words to say and because of what we face we do not feel as though we have the strength or power to move forward.
God saw a day when this would happens, so He promised:
26 But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.
The Spirit, our helper, the One who acts on our behalf, our advocate, our counselor, and our comforter, helps us in our weakness.
How does He help?
When we do not know how to pray, the Spirit Himself makes intercession through us!
When we pray in the Spirit, the Father knows all that the Spirit says as the Spirit pleads to God on our behalf.
Look at in this way:
The Spirit knows what we need to say when we cannot put it into words
The Spirit also knows that the Father’s heart is for us and will align our desires with God’s will
How do we pray in the Spirit?
4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance.
I find it interesting that God selected speaking in tongues as the initial physical evidence of the baptism in the Holy Spirit.
When the Early Church recieved the Holy Spirit’s power, the Spirit began to pray through them in languages they did not previously know!
Praying in tongues, or in the Spirit, was not an isolated event that occured on the day of Pentecost. Instead, praying in the Spirit was a common part of the New Testament experience.
20 But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit,
There is a supernatural realm where we can go where God gives us the ability to pray in the Holy Spirit.
Here is where many close the door, mostly due to lack of understanding. When we close the door to praying in the Spirit, we limit the chance to have the SPIRIT pray through us in our weakness.
As we pray in the Spirit, we pray the will of God for our lives, even when we do not understand the words coming out of our mouths. That is okay, for praying in tongues or praying in the Spirit, is not for speaking to each other, but speaking to God.
So when I pray in the Spirit, which I believe we should do every day, I am allowing the Holy Spirit to use my mouth to pray through me straight to God, but I benefit because as I pray in the Spirit, I pray the will of God for my life!
15 What is the conclusion then? I will pray with the spirit, and I will also pray with the understanding. I will sing with the spirit, and I will also sing with the understanding.
We need to open our spirit to let the Holy Spirit pray through us! When He does, He prays God’s will for our lives, He builds us up on our most holy faith, and He edifies and encourages us.
Close:
God is interested in EVERY PART OF US. He is concerned about our whole spirit, soul, and body.
When we close a part of ourselves off to God’s influence, we miss out on God’s ability to transform every part of us.
Bodies— who believes that God still heals?
Souls— who believes that God is concerned about our eternity?
Spirit— who believes that God wants the Holy Spirit to work in our spirit?
Today, I believe that the Lord wants us to open OUR Spirit to the Holy Spirit.
But the choice is ours, the Holy Spirit will NEVER force Himself upon someone. He comes by invitation. But when we do open our spirit to His Spirit, life gets so much better.
He promises to free us from condemnation and the penalty of our sins.
17 Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.
There is NO sin, addiction, hurt, or problem that the Holy Spirit cannot bring freedom.
He promises to give us power.
8 But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
He will enable us to do what is humanly possible— overcome sin, make us sons or daughters of God, or help us reach others for Him.
He promises to help us pray in the Spirit
46 For they heard them speak with tongues and magnify God. Then Peter answered,
We can pray and praise God in the Spirit!
For the past few weeks we’ve looked at People God Trusts. I prepared to preach on that today, but I stopped and asked the Lord, should I preach on the Holy Spirit today.
Instantly God laid this message on my heart, and I believe it is for EVERYONE IN THIS ROOM!
Let’s not close our spirit off from the Holy Spirit. Satan wants us to ignore the inner person. If we do, we miss out on all that God has for us.
So the altar service is simple— who wants to open your spirit to the Holy Spirit?