Meeting The Empowering Presence Of God Series

POOR MAN ACTUALLY LIVING ON OIL FIELD

Dr. Bill Bright of Campus Crusade for Christ tells this story of a famous oil field called Yates Pool:

During the depression this field was a sheep ranch owned by a man named Yates. Mr. Yates wasn’t able to make enough on his ranching operation to pay the principal and interest on the mortgage, so he was in danger of losing his ranch. With little money for clothes or food, his family (like many others) had to live on government subsidy.

Day after day, as he grazed his sheep over those rolling West Texas hills, he was no doubt greatly troubled about how he would pay his bills. Then a seismographic crew from an oil company came into the area and told him there might be oil on his land. They asked permission to drill a wildcat well, and he signed a lease contract.

At 1,115 feet they struck a huge oil reserve. The first well came in at 80,000 barrels a day. Many subsequent wells were more than twice as large. In fact, 30 years after the discovery, a government test of one of the wells showed it still had the potential flow of 125,000 barrels of oil a day.

And Mr. Yates owned it all. The day he purchased the land he had received the oil and mineral rights. Yet, he’d been living on relief. A multimillionaire living in poverty. The problem? He didn’t know the oil was there even though he owned it.

Many of us can live feeling we don’t have enough to make it… that we don’t have enough to meet all the needs and challenges of life…. when there is another whole source of provision and power at hand. > The Holy Spirit.

Will begin a series… focusing on the Spirit-filled live. This morning … begin with Christ’s own introduction of the Holy Spirit. If the very title “Holy Spirit” has become quite familiar, perhaps overlaid with connotations and correlations… set them aside… hear afresh.

John 14:15-18, 22-26 (NIV)

"If you love me, you will obey what I command. 16And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever-- 17the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. 18I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.

…Then Judas (not Judas Iscariot) said, "But, Lord, why do you intend to show yourself to us and not to the world?"

23Jesus replied, "If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. 24He who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.

25"All this I have spoken while still with you. 26But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.

John 16:6-7, 12-15

Because I have said these things, you are filled with grief. 7But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.

…"I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. 13But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. 14He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. 15All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you.

Jesus opens up the God-head… expands the fullness of God.

Jesus introduces us to the Holy Spirit as…

1. A person

May seem common enough… but it can still be missed in our actual relationship… especially in an age that has fashioned so many ideas about impersonal spiritual power.

> Your relationship to the Holy Spirit is a relationship to a person.

· He thinks – Acts 15:28

Acts 15:28 (NIV)

It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us not to burden you with anything beyond the following requirements:

· He speaks – John 16:13

John 16:13 (NIV)

But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.