Do You Have The Spirit? Part 1 Series

Do You Have the Spirit?

JCC 18.04.10 pm

Read Jude

Key verse: These are they who separate themselves, sensual, having not the Spirit. Jude 1:19

Sensual, literally, ‘animal-souled: as opposed to the spiritual, or ‘having the Spirit’

It is translated, ‘the natural man’

Read1Cor 2:-16

The natural man CANNOT receive spiritual things

Why do we expect people to understand us?

Unless the Holy Spirit gives them a glimpse of God, they will never see

It is not about what you know, but who you know

Too many churches have people who are not awakened spiritually

How do we know?

Because they don’t move, they don’t grow as in character and they have nothing to show the world that would make them want it

Man is, body, soul, and spirit

God's design is, that it is ‘the spirit, that is the receiver of the Holy Spirit, this unites man to God

Our spiritual man should rule the soul but most of the time it’s the other way around

But in the animal, or the natural man, the spirit is like the animal soul, which is earthly in its motives and aims

It cannot see let alone move into spiritual realms

So the conclusion here is, they will never please God

Only spiritual things please the Lord

The ‘carnal’ sink even lower, for these move in the flesh, the lowest part and the corruptible side of man's bodily nature

Again they cannot please the Lord

These ‘having not the Spirit’: his spirit is not in its normal state as God intended from the beginning

John 3:5, 6-7 Jesus answered, 'Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit' KJV

Flesh cannot enter the Kingdom

Do you really understand this statement?

There are some who even sit with us each week that will never enter the Kingdom of God!

The impact if this verse alone should make us want to run to the feet of Jesus and ask for a spiritual awakening

Lord I want to be sure that I’m entering the Kingdom

Lord I’m not perfect, but in Christ I can be

Lord Help me to see with spiritual eyes and not with my mind

Do you want the assurance that you are the wheat and not the chaff?

I do?

A farmer separates the wheat from the chaff

What would he rather have?

Quantity or quality?

He may seem to have a lot, but he cannot sell the chaff, it is good for nothing

Only to be thrown away

It’s hard to tell how much chaff there is, but throw it up in the air and the two separate

The wind takes away the chaff and that is why it says that these are they blow around by every wind of doctrine

The real evidence is in those who remain

If you feel God is throwing you up in the air, rejoice, he is seeing what you are made of

We want the church to be as large as possible

But on the other hand, we have no wish to see the church multiplied at the expense of purity and quality

This verse suggests three things: first, there has to be an examination: Have we got the Spirit?

Secondly, there is a concern: If we don’t have the Spirit we are sensual

Thirdly, a suspicion: There are many people that separate themselves

I’m only going to look at the first 2 today

1. Examination: Have we got the Spirit?

Have I the Spirit?

This does not deal with any externals of religion

It doesn’t say do you go to church?

Do you read the Bible? etc

But we have to look within us for the answer

Even if your morals are outwardly as pure as the law, you are still unsaved

This was the message Jesus was trying to warn the Pharisees about

You that have the Spirit, even though you do wrong things, you are saved because of what Christ has done and your acceptance of Him

You are destitute of the essential part of salvation which is the Spirit of God dwelling in you in you haven’t received Jesus

So have I the Spirit?

Have you the Spirit?

And what is the operation of the, Spirit?

How can we discern it?

Now the Spirit operates in different ways, all of them mysterious, and supernatural

All of them bearing the real marks of God’s own power, and having certain signs following so that they may be discovered and recognised

The first work of the Spirit in the heart is a work in which the Spirit is compared to wind