Sermon Notes August 9, 2015 You Asked for It: What Is the Role of the Holy Spirit in My Life?

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3 Sermon Notes August 9, 2015 You Asked for It: What Is the Role of the Holy Spirit in My Life? Big Idea: Application:

4 Discussion Questions How does what you eat and drink affect the way you feel? Why don t we see the same powerful things happening today that we see occurring in scripture? Why does Paul command us to be filled with the Holy Spirit? What things in your life make you leak out the Holy Spirit? How will you submit to God daily in order to obey Paul s words to be filled with the Spirit? Bible Reading Plan Chronological 2-Year Reading Plan: Week 84 Monday Matthew 22 Psalm 119:9-24 Tuesday Mark 12 Psalm 119:25-40 Wednesday Matthew 23 Psalm 119:41-56 Thursday Luke Psalm 119:57-64 Friday Mark 13 Psalm 119:65-80

5 Monday Be Filled Be filled with the Spirit. Ephesians 5:18 There are moments in life that are packed with significance, but nothing like the moment you are born again. The instant you are saved, you go from death to life (Romans 6:13). Your heart of stone is replaced with a heart of flesh (Ezekiel 36:26). You go from a spiritual orphan to an adopted son and daughter of the King of Kings (Romans 8:15, 23). If you surrendered your life to Jesus as Lord and Savior, you are saved, and NOTHING can snatch you from the hand of your Heavenly Father (John 10:28). You are sealed with the Holy Spirit (Ephesians 1:13), and the same power that raised Christ from the dead has changed you, filled you and made His home in you (Romans 8:11). And yet when Paul wrote to the Ephesians church, he told them to "be filled with the Holy Spirit." (Read Ephesians 5:15-21.) If the Holy Spirit only played a role in our lives at the moment of salvation, Paul would have used the past tense of the verb to identify that we were done being filled. Instead, he used the present tense to denote the continual need for His filling. Now the meaning of being "filled with the Spirit" is a point of disagreement in Christian circles, but this analogy might help us understand its significance in our lives. Once we are in Christ, our transformation is startling. Paul described a Christ follower as an entirely "new creation." The engine of our old lives that was wired for sin is replaced with a new one that is wired for God's glory. That engine is designed to run most effectively on the fuel of the Holy Spirit. The spiritual transformation brought to us by faith through grace will not change, but the fuel level for this new engine will. Even on the best of days, life will consume our energy, and on the worst of days, we will choose to run on the empty calories of our sinful choices. So each and every morning, we need to be filled with the fuel of the Holy Spirit. When the great evangelist D.L. Moody was asked why he needed to be filled with the Holy Spirit, he replied, "Because I leak." Regardless of how life treats us, this side of heaven you and I will always drip fuel from our fleshly tanks. So when Paul told the Ephesians to continually be filled with the Holy Spirit, he was not just describing one special moment. He was revealing an essential habit. Life is going to run you dry, and every step of the way life could reveal your leaks. You are going to run on something. Make sure it is the moment by moment filling of the Holy Spirit. Over the next few days we are going to unpack several aspects of the Holy Spirit's role in our lives.

6 Tuesday I've Got Jesus. Why Do I Need the Spirit? Suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind Acts 2:2 The title of this devotion is the title of the opening chapter of pastor and author Francis Chan's book Forgotten God: Reversing Our Tragic Neglect of the Holy Spirit. If you have ever wondered what the role of the Holy Spirit is, you are not alone. The third person of the Trinity is one of the most debated and forgotten aspects of the Christian life, and our neglect of Him has been to our individual and collective determinant. To make this point, Chan began his book with a quote from A.W. Tozer: We may as well face it: the whole level of spirituality among us is low. We have measured ourselves by ourselves until the incentive to seek higher plateaus in the things of the Spirit is all but gone (We) have imitated the world, sought popular favor, manufactured delights to substitute for the joy of the Lord and produced a cheap and synthetic power to substitute for the power of the Holy Ghost. How many of us are running through life under our own power? Not sure? Let me ask it this way: How many of our lives look anything like the book of Acts? The early Church was marked by boldness in the face of great persecution. The Church today is marked by fear in the face of great comfort. Even though he wrote more than 50 years ago, I believe Tozer describes our times perfectly. Our love of the world and lack of attention to the Holy Spirit has led us to seek manufactured delights that are no substitute for the joy of the Lord. We look nothing like the Early Church because we have neglected the very force that made them successful. The bottom line is this: we need the Holy Spirit to fulfill the reason we have Jesus. Our relationship with Christ is meant for more than just our personal get out of hell free card. Jesus was made known to us so we can make Him known to the world. Read Acts 2. On the day the Holy Spirit descended on the Early Church, thousands were added to the faith. Over the coming weeks and years, the world was radically changed by the power of God at work in the people of God. Why don't we see that same movement of God today? Perhaps we have forgotten our need for God the Holy Spirit. We live in a world that is desperate to see the Spirit of God at work in us. Ask Him to help you see the ways you have neglected or ignored His work in your life. He has a role to play in you so that you can fulfill your role in God's plan.

7 Wednesday The RoleS of the Holy Spirit "And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper." John 14:16 If you were given the choice between having the Holy Spirit in you or having Jesus walk beside you as He did with the disciples, what would you choose? To some extent, many of us would be tempted to choose the latter, but Jesus said it was to our advantage for Him to go. "For if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you." (John 16:7) The Holy Spirit is a Helper who can do more good for more people. However, we miss out on all the benefits of this Helper when we are ignorant of the roles He is intended to play in our lives. Helper In John 14:25-26, Jesus said These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. 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 that I have said to you." The word Helper in the original Greek is the term paraklete. Like many Greek words, its full meaning is difficult to capture in one word. It communicates that the Holy Spirit is our counselor, comforter and advocate. Why do we think we could ever survive let alone thrive without this help? Convicter In John 16:8 11 "And when [the Holy Spirit] comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment: concerning sin, because they do not believe in me; concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no longer; concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged." The Holy Spirit is the One who convinces the lost they are sinners in need of a Savior. He is the One who reveals the sin of believers in light of the righteousness of Christ. He also reminds us of the judgment already wrought against the enemy and the certainty of God's victory. Teacher To the church in Corinth Paul wrote, "For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual." (1 Cor. 2:11,13) I cannot teach myself spiritual truth. The brightest minds that ever lived cannot comprehend the mysteries of God on sheer intellect alone. It takes the Spirit of God to teach us the truth of God. The Holy Spirit is our teacher of spiritual truth. Interceder One of life's most startling truths is that through Christ, the God of the universe is on our side. In fact, He is always acting on behalf of those He loves. Not only is Jesus sitting at the right hand of the Father always interceding for us (Hebrews 7:25), but we also have the Holy Spirit of God speaking for us even when we can't find the words. "Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words." (Romans 8:26) Are ALL these roles of the Holy Spirit actively engaged in your life?

8 Thursday Sins against the Holy Spirit "Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God " Ephesians 4:30 The Bible warns us and the world of the sins we can commit against the Holy Spirit. Some of them can only be committed by nonbelievers, while others could be committed by believers. The following items are a list of sins against the Holy Spirit compiled by Pastor Greg Laurie: A believer can lie to the Holy Spirit. Lying to the Holy Spirit means to pretend to be something you are not to go through the motions of living the Christian life without really meaning it in your heart of hearts. "These people draw near with their mouths and honor Me with their lips, but have removed their hearts far from Me" (Isaiah 29:13). A believer can grieve the Holy Spirit. Grieving the Holy Spirit means to make sad or sorrowful. When we allow bitterness to poison our lives or we slander others, we are grieving the Holy Spirit. "And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice" (Ephesians 4:30 31). A believer can quench the Holy Spirit. Quenching suggests extinguishing a fire. Unbelief can certainly hinder the working and moving of God's Holy Spirit (see Mark 6:4 5). This sin is also committed when the Holy Spirit leads you to do a certain thing (share your faith, pray more, take a step of faith) and you flatly refuse. "Do not quench the Spirit" (1 Thessalonians 5:19). A nonbeliever can resist the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit seeks to speak to the heart of the unbeliever and lead him to God. There are those who are convinced of the truth of the gospel, yet who refuse to yield their hearts to God. "You stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit; as your fathers did, so do you" (Acts 7:51). These words were spoken by the early Christian martyr Stephen to the unbelieving Sanhedrin shortly before his death. A nonbeliever can insult the Holy Spirit. It is the office of the Holy Spirit to present the saving work of Jesus Christ to the unsaved. A person insults the love of God by saying that he does not really need God's gift of salvation, or by insisting that Christ's death on the cross was unnecessary or unable to save him. To resist the Spirit's appeal is to insult God and to cut off all hope of salvation. "Of how much worse punishment, do you suppose, will he be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace?" (Heb. 10:29).

9 Friday Lung Capacity And even now you are not yet ready. 1 Corinthians 3:2 To wrap up this week, let's review where we've been and evaluate where we are. We have been grappling with the phrase "be filled with the Spirit" from Paul's letter to the Ephesians. In his book Baptism and Fullness, Pastor John Stott provides some powerful insights on this important phrase. First, it is in the imperative mood: Be filled is not a tentative suggestion, a mild recommendation, a polite piece of advice. It is a command that comes to us from Christ with all the authority of one of his chosen apostles. We have no more liberty to escape this duty than we have the ethical duties which surround the text, for example to speak the truth, to do honest work, to be kind and forgiving to one another, or to live lives of purity and love. The fullness of the Holy Spirit is not optional for the Christian, but obligatory The verb is [also] in the present tense The present imperative be filled with the Holy Spirit indicates not some dramatic or decisive experience that will settle the issue for good, but a continuous appropriation Perhaps an illustration will help at this point to show that the fullness of the Spirit is intended to be not static but a developing experience. Let us compare two people. One is a baby, newborn and weighing seven pounds, who has just begun to breathe; the other is a full-grown man, 6 feet in height and 180 pounds in weight. Both are fit and healthy; both are breathing properly; and both may be described as filled with air. What, then, is the difference between them? It lies in the capacity of their lungs. Both are filled, yet one is more filled than the other because his capacity is so much greater. The same is true of spiritual life and growth. Who will deny that a newborn babe in Christ is filled with the Spirit? The body of every believer is the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 6:19); are we to suppose that, when the Spirit enters his temple, he does not fill it? A mature and godly Christian of many years standing is filled with the Spirit also. The difference between them is to be found in what might be called their spiritual lung-capacity, namely the measure of their believing grasp of God s purpose for them. How has your spiritual lung-capacity changed over the last month, year? or decade? Too many of us don't have ten, twenty or thirty years of experience walking closely with Christ. We have one year of experience thirty times. Are you growing in your understanding of who God is and what He would have you do, or are you, like too many in the Church today, stuck on go and spiritually stunted? Read 1 Corinthians 3:1-3. If you find yourself still living off spiritual milk, it is time to let the Holy Spirit loose in your life to do what He was sent to do to help you grow to be more and more like Jesus.

10 Weekend Last Words I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God 2 Timothy 1:6 When someone is facing death they tend to focus on what is really important. Frivolous and unnecessary conversation and jokes seem pointless. They talk only of things that are close to their hearts and they say it in a way that reveals the condition of their hearts. Consider the last words and legacy of two famous men. Henry David Thoreau, the writer who was known as a stubborn, arrogant individualist who is said to have loved a snowstorm more than Christ and wanted nothing to do with the church died on May 6, Shortly before his death, his aunt asked him if he'd made his peace with God. Thoreau responded to her with his final cynical words "I didn't know we'd ever quarreled." Contrast Thoreau's legacy with the great evangelist, D.L. Moody's deathbed words. He was reported to have turned to his boys who were at his bedside and said, "If God be your partner, make your plans large." The next four weeks we will lean in close to the Apostle Paul as he writes the last known letter from prison before his execution. We ll learn what was important to him, and in doing so, we will see the heart of Christ for lives. In preparation for this weekend's sermon read 2 Timothy 1. Prepare for Worship As you prepare your heart for worship on Sunday morning read Psalm 70 and thank God that He is our help and our deliverer. Pray for the World: Kazakhstan The Republic of Kazakhstan is the ninth largest nation in the world. The semi-desert nation dominates the geography of Central Asia and lies along important and historic trade routes between the east and west. Less than one percent of the nation's 16 million people are Evangelical Christians. The Kazakh Church continues to grow in number and stature. From virtually no Kazakh believers in 1990, there were about 15,000 in 2010! They meet in over 100 Kazakh-speaking congregations. Two-thirds of the country s raions (districts) have a Christian witness. Pray for further growth (the growth rate is slowing) and maturation. Kazakhs are taking on greater leadership in churches and reaching out cross-culturally in significant numbers. (Taken from operationworld.org)

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