Various passages. This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty on June 11, 2017.
Over the last several weeks we have looked at some Old Testament passages that promised the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, and at the actual event on the Day of Pentecost when it began. Today we will look at the next step. What does it mean to live your life in the Spirit of God? Get ready to thumb through the Bible because we will look at 4 different passages to get an overview of what it means to live in the Spirit.
John 14:15-18. As Jesus meets with His disciples, he points out a sequence that He desires. They will obey his commandments because they love him, and he will send the Holy Spirit so that they will not be left alone. Though it seems simple, we need to start at recognizing that Jesus always keeps his word. If you have put your faith in Jesus then the Holy Spirit is present in your life. In fact, in 1 Corinthians 3:16 we see the Apostle Paul reminding the Corinthian Christians of this truth. “Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” It seems impossible that someone could become a follower of Jesus and not understand this essential truth. However, more than likely the problem is not knowledge, but recognition. It is the plan of Jesus that each of his followers have the Holy Spirit dwelling in them and filling their life.
To live a Christian life without relying on and listening to the Holy Spirit cannot last long. It is more than forgetting that you have chains in your car when you are unable to get over a snowy pass in the winter. The Holy Spirit is not some inanimate and impersonal tool that we can forget about. Rather, it is like forgetting that the One who created snow is not only in your vehicle, but can also teach you how to drive in the snow properly. He will even take over the controls if He has to do so in order to keep you safe. So life in the Spirit begins by recognizing that Jesus has been faithful and the Holy Spirit dwells in me. Though the Spirit dwells in us, He wants to fill our life. For this to happen, there are some things to which we should pay attention.
We have to lose the idea that we can “go it alone,” or that we have to go it alone. Jesus has a purpose in giving us the Holy Spirit. The word in verse 16 that is translated “Helper” in the NKJV comes from the sense of one who comes alongside another. Thus the help can take on many different forms: comforter, director, instructor, corrector, and defender. If Jesus though his disciples needed the Holy Spirit, how can we think that we will fare any better? Jesus didn’t just give us the Holy Spirit. He also gave his disciples one another when he commanded, “Love one another as I have loved you.” So clearly Jesus does not want us to do this all by ourselves.
So what tempts us to go it alone? We are tempted to leave the Spirit behind because He often leads in a way that our flesh does not like. The constant pull of our flesh away from the Spirit, and the constant pull of the world upon our flesh, makes it easy to say you are a Christian, but not rely upon the Holy Spirit. We are also tempted to leave other believers behind because they are too much like us, not perfect yet. Thus it seems to difficult to work out problems between one another. Love challenges us on every front and we can walk out on that task. Just as Eve was tempted by the things her flesh wanted, so we are tempted by things that our flesh want. We must learn to say, “No,” to our flesh and “Yes,” to Jesus.
So recognizing that He is there should then turn to praying for His help every day. The Holy Spirit will help you in many ways without you even asking. However, there are some things that God, in His sovereignty, will not do unless we ask. Recognizing His presence and purpose enables us to notice His help more often when we haven’t asked for it. This is encouraging. Also, praying for His help in both general and specific ways will open the door for Him to do more things in our life than if we didn’t pray. So start your day with recognition of His help already, and with a heart of gratefulness ask for His help for today. I am not saying to become some kind of greedy kid who wants everything. But, rather to be a grateful child who is coming to a loving Father. Holy Spirit, help me to face the difficult situation facing me.
We should also pray for a Spirit Baptism or Infilling. As I said earlier, the presence of the Holy Spirit is a given when you are a believer in Jesus. However, being filled with the Spirit is something that we need to seek for everyday. These two words, baptism and filling, refer to two different metaphors. Baptism refers to the picture of water and being completely immersed or dipped into the Spirit. I am not just standing next to the water or ankle deep in it. I am wholly surrounded by the Spirit. There is no part of my life that is not impacted by the help of the Holy Spirit. The second word “filling” refers to the metaphor of a house. The human body is a house of sorts for the human spirit within that uses it to interact with the material world. At salvation the Holy Spirit enters our “house” and lives with us. However, there is a big difference between the Holy Spirit being in the house and filling the whole house. The Holy Spirit wants to fill and influence every part of our life. The truth is that this is not intended to be a onetime thing. Our daily experience is that there are times that we are more open to the help of the Spirit than others. Through prayer we are wrestling with our flesh and making room for the Holy Spirit to fill us. Now some people historically have testified to a big, powerful experience. Others have testified to a slow, growing influence in their life that began at salvation. Regardless of how it looks, the focus should never be on what it looks like. The focus is on the Holy Spirit actively working through us day by day. Moses parted the Red Sea, but David didn’t. David slew the giant Goliath, but Jeremiah didn’t. So let go of what you think or others have told you it must look like and simply pray each day for the Spirit of God to come into every part of your life and fill you with Himself. As you cooperate with the Holy Spirit, your life will present a unique and special witness of the power of God to the world around you.
Romans 8:1-2; 5-10. When I preached this on Sunday, I had this as my third point. However, I now think it is more natural to be presented second. Now that we know the Spirit is present and are daily inviting Him to fill our life, we must focus our life on the purpose of God. In Romans 8 we see that there is a struggle within us between living for our own fleshly purposes and living for God’s spiritual purposes. Jesus has a particular purpose that He wants us to accomplish by the help of the Holy Spirit. So we should learn to focus upon it. Now there will be some purposes that are specific to you and God will reveal them to you as you pray for the Spirit’s help. However there are several purposes that He has for us all and they are a good foundation for our life in the Spirit.
This passage is pointing out that one of the purposes of the Spirit is to help us to be free from and have power over our flesh and sin. Too many Christians think that Jesus has forgiven their sins, so it doesn’t matter how they live. Whatever I do, it is okay because Jesus has covered it all. But, this is just wrong-headed. We need to learn to say, “No,” to sin. Yes, we have been set free from the death that sin brings us, but Jesus also wants us to be free from its present tyranny in our life. This is a spiritual battle, but it is not only unseen. There is an outward and visible freedom that comes into the life of the person who has the Spirit of God helping them against sin. The addict can become free from their addictions by the help of the Spirit of God, and the sinner can walk away from the sin that so easily ensnares him, by the help of the Spirit. This is a battle that takes place over the course of our life and as the Holy Spirit directs us. Now this passage not only points out the purpose of being free from the desires of our flesh, but also that our motivation must never give in to the flesh. Our desire must be to walk in harmony with the Holy Spirit’s purpose and with the Holy Spirit’s help. This is a daily battle of facing our flesh and its desires, and also listening to the Spirit instead.
Now let’s look at another passage in Galatians 5:19-26. Here we see that another purpose of the Holy Spirit is to manifest evidence that He is inside of you. If we do not follow the Spirit then our flesh leads us into being manipulated by the devil. Paul makes it clear that it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out the works of the flesh. He gives an extensive list, but not exhaustive. The reality of the Holy Spirit within us works to make an inner difference. But this inner difference will also have a surface expression within our life. In the past, people have made the mistake of being to judgmental about what those exact changes should be. But, they have also made the mistake of being to tolerant of things that should not continue in the life of someone following the Spirit. It would be a tragedy if we had a single rose in the garden of our heart surrounded by weeds galore. In this case we can use the old gardener joke, “the Garden of Weedin’.” Our life is partly about weeding out those desires of the flesh and the things they have produced in our outer life. Over time the fruit of the Spirit not only becomes visible, but also grows. Just as the works of the flesh are obvious, so are the fruit of the Spirit. I won’t go through the list, but I want to use several of them to recognize the difficulty of the day we live in.
You notice that Paul ends the list by saying, “against such there is no law.” In other words, it is universal that you do not see laws in any society that say, “You must not love.” That said, there are commands and laws that say, “You must not call that thing love.” Thus societies have a tendency to redefine what they think is love, peace, kindness, etc… Christians are to love, not as society dictates, but as the Spirit of God dictates. So the world will tell a parent that they should not teach a child to worship Jesus only. Rather, the child should be shown all the options and helped to make their own choice. As nice as this may sound to some, it is a recipe for disaster and no true act of love. So the parent who loves their child enough to teach them the truth about Jesus and this world, is seen as a child abuser and that is socially frowned upon. Similarly, it is love that tells someone that God’s Word says their life of sin jeopardizes their future. Yet, the world today increasingly calls this intolerance, and bigoted hate speech. So the Christian has a tension of listening to the Spirit of God and producing fruit in their life that the world around them doesn’t always like.
It has been recognized by saints down through the ages that at the end of the day, I must be emptied of me and filled with Jesus. Not in a way that erases my personality, but rather in a way that removes the works of my fleshly desires. In order to fill something it must first be emptied. Or, for those scientifically inclined people among us, when you fill a cup with a liquid, it will displace whatever is in it (including air). Thus, to receive the wisdom of Christ, we must let go of the wisdom of ourselves, and the wisdom of this world. To receive the life of Christ, I must first let go of the life I have created without Him. This emptying and being filled is a daily part of life in the Spirit. He will not conk you over the head and drag you somewhere. He is not in our life as a tyrannical dictator, but rather, as a helper who cares about us. In fact, He loves us. As John the Baptizer once said, “He must increase, but I must decrease. May God fill us with this attitude.
Ephesians 6:10-18. Now that we have a direction or the “what” of where we are headed, let’s talk about the “how.” The Holy Spirit is not just taking us to a destination, but He travels in a particular way, that is the Way of the Lord. We need to do life God’s Way as opposed to our way. In Ephesians 6 Paul speaks about the spiritual warfare that is going on around us and how we need to be ready to participate in it. If we are going to become more like Jesus then we are going to have to do so with recognition of the influence of the spirit realm. Our battle is not against people, but those spiritual beings that are blinding and manipulating them. Yes, the world is a bad place because people have trouble refraining from things that bring sorrow, pain, and suffering. In this sense it is our fault. However, we cannot ignore that the Bible makes it clear that these things are made worse by the work of these evil spirits. They and their deceptions are the real problems. So how do you fight against spiritual beings? Of course you do so spiritually.
Paul speaks of putting on the Armor of God, which is: Truth, Righteousness, the Gospel of Peace, Faith, Salvation, the Word of God, and prayers. We won’t extensively go through each of these. But Paul takes the time to connect each of these spiritual things to a part of the equipment of a solder. Thus he is emphasizing the importance of each one of these. If we look at Truth, we should recognize that it is not only important to live based upon the Truth of God, but also to be a truthful person. Similarly, we live based upon the righteousness of Christ, but also try to be a person who lives out that righteousness as well. We are both prepared by the Gospel of Peace and prepared for helping others with it. We also notice the protection that a soldier has for his brain, is spiritual in nature for the Christian. In other words, the enemy often attacks our mind, through faith and trusting God’s salvation, we are able to resist and extinguish these attacks. He ends with the offensive part of this list: that is the Sword of the Spirit (The Word of God) and prayer. With the word of God we are able to recognize the work of our enemy and neutralize it. In prayer we intercede with Heaven to overrule the work of these spirit-beings and take time to make sure that we are daily equipped with all that God has given us.
So Christian, take time to stop today and recognize that Jesus has made the Spirit of God available to you in order to accomplish His purposes in the way that pleases the Father. May God help us to start each day in prayer, inviting Him to fill us with God’s purposes and in His ways. This is living by the Spirit.