How To Make The Holy Spirit Happy Series

HOW TO MAKE THE HOLY SPIRIT HAPPY

Ephesians, Part 8

Eph 4:17-30

We’re in a series on the book of Ephesians.

If you have your bibles turn to Eph chapter 4.

I titled this message HOW TO MAKE THE HOLY SPIRIT HAPPY,

The reason is verse 30,

it says,

And do not bring sorrow to God’s Holy Spirit by the way you live.

Other versions translate it, do not grieve the Holy Spirit.

We can make the Holy Spirit unhappy,

we can grieve him,

by the way we live.

And if that’s true,

then it also has to be true that we can make the Holy Spirit happy

by the way we live.

You can go home from church today

and live in such a way,

that you will make God’s day,

you’ll make him happy.

He’ll be sitting there watching you with a big old smile on his face,

because of the way you live.

Now how can you live like that?

The apostle Paul wrote this letter to the Christians in Ephesus,

and he tells them in this chapter,

some very practical ways

to start living so that they will make the Holy Spirit happy.

So we’re going to look at those today.

When I was being trained as a Navy pilot, about 20 years ago, one of the schools you had to go through was a Survival school,

which trained you to survive in case you got shot down behind enemy lines.

At the end of the classroom portion,

they transported us out into the California desert for 3 days, and the only thing we could bring along was the clothes on our back. We were living off the land,

eating roots, and cactus.

In fact the best meal I got was when we caught a rattlesnake and a rabbit, we added a bunch of roots, and we made a stew out of that, but since we had near 100 guys out there, we didn’t get much of that stew,

so we were pretty hungry,

but we were also filthy dirty.

After 3 days in the wilderness, living and sleeping in the same clothes

with no water to wash in,

you can imagine how dirty we got.

in case you can’t imagine….. (SHOW PIC)

Think of a time when you looked like that.

When you were really, really dirty,

and you just could not wait

to throw off those clothes and jump in the shower,

and soak for a while,

and then put on some nice clean clothes.

Well that’s the image Paul uses in this chapter.

Its like he’s telling you to take off your old grimy, smelly clothes

that you’ve been wearing way too long,

and get a shower and then put on sparkling clean clothes.

In Verses 22-24

Paul tells us to do 3 things,

Paul tells us in verse 22 to take off, or put off, our old self,

that’s like taking off old clothes

verse 23 he says our minds have to be renewed,

that’s like getting a shower,

and in verse 24 he tells us,

then put on our new self.

that’s like putting on new clothes.

Talking about clothes,

I was talking with Pastor Chris last week,

and he told me how he can get away with packing a lot less clothes when he goes on a trip.

He told me, I’ve found a way to pack only one-fourth as much underwear as I used to. I can make the underwear last 4 times as long.

I asked him, how do you do that?

How do you make your underwear last 4 times as long.

He said, Oh, its easy.

Right side out, wrong side out,

frontwards, backwards

Paul says, first,

1. PUT OFF YOUR OLD SELF.

Eph 4:22-24 NIV

put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires;

NLT

throw off your old evil nature and your former way of life

This is like taking off those dirty smelly clothes.

Every time we do a baptism here at the Vineyard,

I read from Romans chapter 6,

because it describes what baptism is all about.

But these verses also talk about our old self.

In Rom. 6:5 it says,

Since we have been united with him in his death, we will also be raised as he was. Our old sinful selves were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in our lives. We are no longer slaves to sin. NLT

When you became a believer,

its like your old self (or your old way of living)

died with Christ,

so that sin doesn’t have any power over you now,

you’re no longer a slave to it.

The reason that you can take off that old self, that old way of life,

is because when you become a believer,