My Relationship With The Holy Spirit Series

Well, if you’ve got a Bible, now is a good time to get it out. If you don’t have a Bible, there should be one in the pew in front of you. If you don’t have one in front of you, look down the row and see if you can get your hands on a copy of God’s Word. It’s going to help us today because we have too much to get to. The title of the message is “My Relationship with the Holy Spirit”. Part II of the four part series on the person and work of the Holy Spirit – who He is, what He does. Today is what is our relationship with Him? What does it look like? How do we live being led by the Spirit of God? And then things that we can actually today to be filled with the Holy Spirit in a new and a fresh way.

The gospel of Jesus Christ (some people believe) is a set of moral principles that Jesus outlined by the way that he lived that if applied to our lives will make us better people; will make us morally better; and really affect all of the way that we live our life – a moral set of principles. Other people think that the gospel of Jesus – the Good News – (gospel means good news) is good news specifically for those who are experiencing injustice – for the orphan, for the poor, for the marginalized, for the widow. True, that is part of the gospel – the social aspect of the gospel.

Other people think that the good news that Jesus brought to the earth is a set of facts of the ministry and life of Jesus including his death and resurrection when believed will tip a person into the kingdom of God. So you believe in the facts that are on the page about Jesus (who He is, what He did for us) and when you believe them then that tips you into the kingdom of heaven and then basically you live your life (yes, you try to be like Jesus), but you essentially you live your life knowing that in the end you are in the kingdom. You are saved because you believed and are associated with the facts of the Messiah, Jesus Christ.

Well, all of those have some truth in them. The gospel of Jesus, the Good News – Jesus brought some great news for humanity – the Good News is more than all three of those. The Gospel is not merely a set of moral principles that we follow with our life (although we do); it’s not only a word for social justice for the oppressed and marginalized (although it is); and it’s not just a set of facts that we believe that get us into the kingdom (although it does). The gospel is a way of life. The gospel isn’t something that we encounter and then we move on to our life. The gospel – we live in the gospel truth. We live in the truth that Jesus died for us, died in our place for sin, and that affects everything that we do in our lives. It has to because of the fact that Jesus took my place. He took the wrath of God that was rightly deserving for me. He paid for it with His shed blood on the cross and now I am associated with Jesus, the Messiah.

Jesus came to earth and he was associated with people. Do you remember Jesus was baptized by John the Baptist? He got up to be baptized and John the Baptist said, “I can’t baptize you. I need to be baptized by you, Jesus.” Because John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance from sin – turning from sin and turning to God – to God’s way. And John recognized that and here Jesus is coming, the Son of God, the Messiah. He doesn’t need to be baptized. “I need to be baptized,” John says. But Jesus says no this is to fulfill all righteousness. What was that? What is Jesus talking about? Well, it’s that the Messiah would be associated with the people and so he is associated with the people in his baptism. He is identifying himself with the nation of Israel and greater we see as the New Testament unfolds, he is associated with humanity – with men and women. Jesus is associated as one of us and in that he is our Messiah so that now we can be like the song said, “Knowing You”, found in Jesus not having the righteousness of our own that comes from doing good things, but having the righteousness that is in Jesus Christ. So we are found in Jesus now and that is the gospel that changes our lives and affects the way that we live. It affects the way that we do our jobs. It affects the way that we live our lives. The gospel.