The 3rd Piling – Holy Spirit - Counselor Series

Sermon Brief

Date Written: November 15, 2013

Date Preached: November 17, 2013

Where Preached: OPBC (AM)

Sermon Details:

Series Title: Building a Foundation for a Thankful Life

Sermon Title: The 3rd Piling – Holy Spirit - Counselor

Sermon Text: John 16:5-15 [HCSB]

Essence of the Text: Jesus was stressing His promise of God’s Holy Spirit to comfort, guide and direct the disciples after He had returned to heaven.

Essence of the Sermon: Jesus’ words still stress God’s promise attitude toward the Holy Spirit and what He can and will do for us as believers!

Objective of the Sermon: KNOWING that the Holy Spirit is here to comfort, counsel, admonish, lead, guide and direct our steps is a great reason to live out our lives with a thankful foundation in our attitude and heart!

Introduction:

So far in our series on Building a foundation of thankfulness in our lives we have discussed the 2 main pilings that stabilize and strengthen the foundations of our life!

The 1st piling in our foundation is that God is God and we can know that the creator of the universe desires a personal and intimate relationship with us! He is God we must be thankful… we should LIVE our lives thankfully for Him, in obedience and submission!

The 2nd piling of this foundation of thankfulness in our lives is that Jesus is Savior! We saw that God loved us and wanted to have a relationship with us and so He sent Jesus to pave that way!

We have seen what Jesus has done and who Jesus is to us to us as believers and we have explored WHY it is that we should live THANKFULLY and serve God thru His Son, Jesus!

This morning we will be looking at the 3rd piling within this foundation of thankfulness… it is the Holy Spirit, our counselor and comforter! But let’s also review the underlying premise of our series…

In Phil 4:6 Paul wrote, “…Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and THANK Him [be thankful] for all He has done…”

We all know how easy it is to point the finger of blame when we have trouble in our lives! We all know how when we have trouble in our lives that we can go to God for guidance and deliverance, but in our foundational verse Paul tells us that EVEN though God wants us to bring all things to Him… BUT that we are to do so with a heart of thanksgiving!

So let me ask you, “Do you have ANYTHING in your life today that you are worried about, fretting over, or weighing heavy on your mind?” If so, you can take it to God, but do so with a heart filled with thanksgiving toward God!

God has said in his word that all we need to do is ask and he will provide for us, but Scripture tells us that what we ask MUST be tied to the focus of our lives… I said this last week; God is NOT a prayer vending machine with us putting in our prayers and Him dispensing out our hearts desires…

When we come to God in a heart of thanksgiving, Scripture tells us that God will answer us! When we SEEK HIM, our focus must NOT be on our problems, but focused on Him and what He has done for us!

As I have stated the past few weeks, God is a loving God, but when we approach Him in prayer it has to be with the right attitude & so I believe when Paul speaks about this here in our foundational verse -- the ‘right attitude’ in coming to God is coming to Him with an unashamed attitude of THANKFULNESS for what He has done!

How? How can I possibly have a thankful heart? Or a thankful attitude? You don’t know what is happening in my life… you don’t know what I am going thru? My world stinks! So I don’t understand when you say...

That you can be thankful when you are hurting! But in your pain you can know that God is there and that Jesus is Savior…

That you can be thankful when your heart aches! In your heartache God is present and desires to soothe your soul.

That you can be thankful when all seems lost! At the end of your rope, Jesus is standing with arms open wide… bidding you to surrender to Him!

You CAN live a life of thankfulness in this harsh world… It does NOT come easy! It takes an intentional effort and laser like focus within our hearts on God being God and Jesus being our Savior to help us live a thankful life! But God being God and Jesus being Savior are NOT the only reasons…