The Power of the Spirit
Life in the Spirit, Part 3
There was a mental hospital that devised a very unusual test to determine whether their patients were ready to go back into the real world. They took the mental patients who looked like they were making progress into a room where they had a water faucet that was turned on, and water was draining onto the floor. They handed the patient a mop, and the patient was told to clean the floor. The essence of the test was to see how long it would take the patient to turn off the water faucet, as to indicate whether they understood the source of the problem. You can imagine what it would be like to be one of those patients who perpetually mopped the floor, but who never turned of the tap. They never got around to solving their dilemma—all they did was mop all day long.
Unfortunately, a lot of Christians are like those mental patients. They spend years trying to mop up the junk in their life, not understanding that they have to turn off the tap. It really doesn’t matter how hard you mop, how hard you mop, how much help you get to help you mop. If you don’t get around to turning off the source of your problem to begin with, you can spend the rest of your life mopping.
A lot of us have things in our lives that don’t belong there. We know it, and we spend a lot of time trying to mop it up. We spend money trying to fix it. We go to counseling and seek professional help to get it fixed, we talk to friends to get it fixed, we take medication to get it fixed, but like the patients in the mental hospital, it just gets messier and messier.
One of the great failures of the Christian life for all of us is not understanding the source of our dilemma and the power to overcome it. Each of us has a problem. The problem is how to deal with ongoing evil that we can’t seem to get rid of. No matter how hard you try, evil keeps on jumping up; even when you don’t want it, it jumps up. If you boiled all of our problems down, it results that people are innately sinful. Any problem in our world you can tie back to that fact, that men are evil.
Even redeemed people have problems. They are on the way to heaven, but sometimes only they know it. Because for some reason, we can’t seem to beat this problem, this bad habit, this sin pattern. This is not a new
problem. Paul struggled with the same thing. Look at how Paul describes his own struggle in Romans 7:
I don’t understand myself at all, for I really want to do what is right, but I don’t do it. Instead, I do the very thing I hate. I know I am rotten through and through so far as my old sinful nature is concerned. No matter which way I turn, I can’t make myself do right. I want to, but I can’t. When I want to do good, I don’t. And when I try not to do wrong, I do it anyway. I love God’s law with all my heart. But there is another law at work within me that is at war with my mind. This law wins the fight and makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin?
Romans 7:15, 18-19, 22-24
I want to talk to you about the power of the Holy Spirit.
The Indwelling of the Spirit
The Importance of the Spirit’s Power is seen in the fact that you and I are trapped in what Paul calls ‘this life that is dominated by sin’. We are trapped, and you don’t get un-trapped until we die, and the body of sin goes into the grave. Our bodies full of sin is unfixable. There are no repair shops you can go to fix this body of sin. The reason why that is because each of us has a sin principle that has infiltrated our bodies.
Now, this is very important because this sin principle starts with you—not with your neighbor. We’ve gotten into the habit of blaming somebody else for our’ body of sin.’ “Well, if they didn’t do that to me, I wouldn’t have responded this way.” No, you need to understand ‘They didn’t make you do anything’; you’re
‘body of sin’ did its thing. Bu there is Good News! Romans 7:25:
Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. So you see how it is: In my mind I really want to obey God’s law, but because of my sinful nature I am a slave to sin.
Romans 7:25
Then he comes to Romans 8:2…
For the power of the life-giving Spirit has set you free you through Christ Jesus from the power of sin that leads to death. For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace, But you are not controlled by your sinful nature. You are controlled by the Spirit if you have the Spirit of God living in you. The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. And just as he raised Christ from the dead, he will give life to your mortal body by this same Spirit living within you.
Romans 8:2, 5-6, 9, 11
The Good News today is that God has put the solution where the problem is. The problem is ‘in you’, so you don’t need help outside of you, you need help in you. We call that the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. God looks at you and me and sees a mess. God knew He had to do was ‘show up where the mess is.’ He placed His Spirit in you.
A lot of things run by electricity. But sometimes you don’t have an outlet to plug into. They resolved that problem today because they have invented ‘battery packs’—you can carry the power with you. When you see Television cameraman and they have to take footage, the story doesn’t always take place next to a power outlet. Around their waist, the TV cameramen carry battery packs. In other words, they can act on a moments notice because the power is always where they are. They don’t have to look for an outlet; they are an outlet, because they have the battery pack around their waist.
If you know Jesus Christ today, you don’t have to find electricity to deal with your body of sin, you are electricity, because the Spirit of God dwells in you. You have an internal battery pack that is ready and willing to address the issue of sin whenever it shows its head. But it all depends on where you mind is set. Because he says
in verse 6…
For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace.
Romans 8:6
Do you know the reason why we don’t deal with our anger? With our immorality? With our greed? With our selfishness? With all of the things that are against the cause of God? Because our mind doesn’t want to deal with it. We feel better when we get mad. We like it when we are not living right. We are self-satisfied when we are greedy. Because our mind is set on satisfying the flesh, rather than our mind being set on satisfying the Spirit, we satisfy the flesh rather than satisfying the Spirit and we wonder how come I am not having a satisfying life? We never turn on the battery that is given to us to be used, because it is a mind problem.
You can never blame anyone else for your sin but you. Don’t say, “My wife made me mad so I had to hit her.” She may have made you mad, but you were the one out of your own sinful flesh that sought the need to retaliate. Also, don’t say, “The devil made you do it.” That is another lie. The devil can’t make you do anything.
So who causes you to sin? James 1 says…
But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death.
James 1:14-15
When a person decides in their own mind that they are going to rebel, nobody makes you do it. All people can do is make it convenient for you to do it. You have to do it. The issue today is that God has supplied you a power pack called the Holy Spirit, and He is in you. You don’t have to find Him. You don’t have to hunt for Him. You don’t have to pray for Him. You don’t have to track Him down. All you have to do is be you, because if you’re a Christian, He is in you. He is automatically there because He goes wherever you go.
You have to understand that you put Him in a predicament to do whatever you do, because He is there with you. The importance of the Holy Spirit is in the fact that because sin is an indwelling problem, God has supplied an indwelling power through an indwelling Person called the Holy Spirit whose job is to overcome the temptation and power to rebel against the standard of God by giving you the strength and enablement to overcome any temptation.
To put it another way, for you to sin now, you have to climb over the Holy Spirit, because it is no longer a power problem. The Holy Spirit indwells you. The Holy Spirit—the solution to the sin problem is in you.
The Imperative of the Spirit’s Power
Ephesians 5:18 says…
Do not get drunk with wine, which will only ruin you; instead, be filled with the Spirit.
Ephesians 5:18
There is a lot in that small verse. “Do not get drunk with wine, but be filled with the Spirit.” There is a number of things I need to say here.
First of all, once you accept Jesus Christ the Spirit indwells you automatically. But the Spirit does not fill you automatically. Paul says, “You must be filled with the Spirit.” That is something you do. The verb plhrouvsqe, translated be filled, is a present passive imperative. He is saying that it is a continuous condition that is a command. The Holy Spirit is there, but you must activate Him. He calls that process the filling of the Spirit. He is indwelling you, but in order for Him to be activated, you must do that.
All of us have cars. In each one of our cars is a battery. The battery is indwelt in the car. You have an indwelling of the battery. It is there, it is charged, and it is all the power you need to get to where you are to where you want to go. You do not have a battery problem or a power problem if you have a working car. But the fact of a battery does not equal getting where you want to go. For in order for the battery to work, the ignition must be engaged, and you must do that. That is not something you can wish or hope. You can’t sit in your car after service and say, “I wish to be home”, and expect the battery to engage. It is not a power problem. It is not a presence problem. You have all the power you need under the hood. You have the presence of the battery, and you have the means to get home. But if you don’t turn the key, you don’t get home, and you can’t blame the battery for not doing its job. You are the problem.
So it is with the Holy Spirit. The battery has been placed inside you to take you to the will of God—we call that the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. He is placed inside you to take you to successful Christian living, to bring you a victorious Christian life. You don’t have a battery problem. But you ask, “How come I keep loosing this battle?” Because you’re sitting down wishing for the battery to work, rather than turning the engine on. How do you turn the engine on? By the filling of the Spirit.
What does He mean by filling of the Spirit? He tells us in this verse. He says…
Do not get drunk with wine… Ephesians 5:18
Whatever the filling of the Holy Spirit is, it is comparable to being drunk with wine. When a person gets drunk, he doesn’t wish to get drunk or hopes to get drunk—he drinks to get drunk. He doesn’t luck his way into drunkenness. He has an active role in him getting drunk. He doesn’t sit on the other side of the room and say, “I wish you to intoxicate me.” He has to take an active effort to become drunk.
Now, what is similar to being drunk with wine and being filled with the Spirit? There is one major similarity. In both cases, you act unnatural. If a policemen stops him on the side of the road and asks him to walk the line, he doesn’t walk like he used to walk—he staggers. He doesn’t talk the way he used to talk—he slurs his words. He doesn’t act the way he used to act. His entire personality changes. He has a different outlook on the world. All of these changes occur. Why? Because he is now being controlled by another substance.
Let me tell you what liquor does. Liquor transforms the person. Personhood is made up of three things: intellect, emotion, and will; or to put it another way, to think, feel, and choose. What alcohol does is that it affects the brain so the thinking is changed. It affects the feelings so a person feels differently. And it affects the will—they make different decisions.
For example, a quiet man will get loud if he is drunk. A man who can’t stand singing will bellow great songs if he gets drunk. A passive man becomes aggressive; a person who is afraid of his shadow may think he can fight Mike Tyson if he is drunk. In other words, he is not being himself. Often when a person gets drunk and then becomes sober, they will say, “I don’t know what got into me.” I know what got into them! What got into them was alcohol, and what alcohol does is that it changes the person from what they were into something totally
different.
Do not get drunk with wine but be filled with the Spirit. Ephesians 5:18
The Spirit does the exact same thing that alcohol does—it makes you act unnatural. He makes people who couldn’t control their temper able to control their temper. He makes people who couldn’t control their looking at other women able to control wandering eyes. He makes people who couldn’t control their greed to control their greed. He makes people who couldn’t control their cussing tongue to control what comes out of their mouth. They say, “I don’t know what got into me? Any other time, I would have beat him up! But this time, I could ‘love my enemies’”—that’s what it means to be filled with the Spirit! He makes you act unnatural. He makes you act outside of yourself. He does exactly what alcohol does, only for the glory of God.
Now Paul makes a huge point about talking about drunkenness in the negative. When people get drunk, they always hurt somebody—whether it is someone else or themselves. The problem of being drunk is that being drunk is a negative state. He compares that with being filled with the Spirit. Whereas being drunk with wine deteriorates you as you act outside of yourself; being filled with the Spirit embellishes you as you act outside of yourself. Being drunk causes you to do negative things, being filled with the Spirit causes you to do positive things. People are attracted to what liquor offers and what it invites the person to do.
When somebody is drunk, they are under the influence. That is what God wants. He wants Christians to be under the influence of the Holy Spirit. He wants the Spirit of God to control your walk, to control your talk, control your thinking, control your actions, and control your movement. When the Spirit of God controls you, He is going to move you to accomplish the goal of God in your life—to become like Christ and to bring Him glory in every aspect of your life.
The issue on the floor is not ‘Whether you will be influenced’, but ‘What will influence you’? It is either your flesh or the Spirit. People are looking for a lot of things to influence them today. Sometimes they look for other people to influence them. Other times, they look for other things to influence them. And our world has plenty of ‘toys’ designed to influence you; to get you to live apart from the supernatural empowering of the Holy Spirit. What God wants is His Spirit to influence you.
If you are a Christian, the question is not “Do you have the Spirit?”, but “Does the Spirit have you?” Does the Holy Spirit have access to your life so that you are under His influence, so that He can move, direct, and steer you so that you can stagger to the Glory of God. So when the world says, “Walk this line”, you stagger all around it, because it is not for the glory of God. When the world says, “Live this kind of life”, you stagger all around it, because that is not the kind of life God calls you to live. You act unnatural.
To put it another way, if you are filled with the Spirit, you should be surprised at yourself. You know when people sober up, they get embarrassed when hearing what they did when they were drunk? You out to be pleasantly embarrassed. “You mean I said that? I witnessed to that person? I didn’t blow my top?” There is nothing more exhilarating than to have the Spirit make you do what you know you would not naturally do—because you can only blame it on the Spirit. He makes you act unnatural.
He makes you love your enemies. Who ever heard of such a thing as loving your enemies? Everybody knows ‘what goes around comes around’! But what He does it make you act unnatural! He makes you act outside of yourself, and He does it from within.
This will save you a lot of money! It will keep you from going out and buying what is already in you. It
has already been provided for you.
Do not get drunk with wine (don’t be under the influence of that substance) but bring everything under the control or influence of the Holy Spirit.
Ephesians 5:18
We have looked at 2 terms. Indwelling, which means He is in you, and filling, He wants to control you.
Now folks, this is the acid test of your Christian life. A man or woman under the control of the Holy Spirit, does not say, “This is the way I am; I was born this way!” That line doesn’t matter anymore. A person under the control of the Spirit doesn’t say, “My father had a temper, and my grandfather had a temper, so I have a temper too. That is just the way I am!” “My daddy was racist, and my granddaddy was racist, so I am racist.” No! A man under the Spirit says, “My grandfather may have ran around on his wife, my daddy may have ran around on my momma, but for some strange reason, I am committed to being a one-woman man!” What God does is that He makes you different from the way you are. So don’t give me the line “This is the way I am!” No! That is the way you are in the flesh! But what we want to talk about is, “How are you in the Spirit?” We want to pass the buck by saying, “Well, this is my personality. This is how I was raised. This is what my teachers taught me.” We’re talking about acting unnatural, not acting like you were expected to act, raised to act, or like you have been acting all your life. This is a supernatural enablement—that is what God offers. This is powerful!
The God of the universe sitting down in your soul, saying, “I can make you different!” It comes with the free salvation—no charge! Be controlled by the Spirit. Now the question is ‘How?’ How are you filled with the Spirit? What do I do? I know He is in me (if you’re saved). If you are not saved, then He is not in you. You are trying to turn on the car with no battery. If you are saved, He is in you, but that doesn’t mean He is working for
you, because you have to turn on the ignition. What is the key?
The Ingredients of the Spirit’s Power
3 things. When you want to start a car, you put the key in the ignition, turn the key, and put the car in gear.
1. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit.
And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption.
Ephesians 4:30
By the way, that means you can’t loose it, because you are sealed, and the seal can’t be broken until the day of redemption. The day of redemption is when you go to heaven. Unless you’re bigger than God and can break the seal.
“Do not grieve the Holy Spirit.” What happens when you grieve someone? You sadden them. You make them unhappy. You make them feel bad. Let me tell you about the Holy Spirit. He is like some of our wives—very sensitive. He gets upset quickly. He is grieved.
The picture of the Holy Spirit in the Bible is that of a dove; a very sensitive and delicate bird. The Holy Spirit is very sensitive. Now, what makes the Holy Spirit sensitive? Sin. Don’t make the Holy Spirit unhappy. You make the Holy Spirit unhappy when instead of moving toward righteousness, you entertain unrighteousness.
That is why in verse 29, He says…
Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth... (He has to do with your talk) Ephesians 4:29
Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, with all malice.
Ephesians 4:31
He is saying that you grieve the Holy Spirit when you insist in a direction of flagrantly rebelling against things you know that are not pleasing to Him. You grieve Him.
Husbands, when you grieve your wife and make her very unhappy, and you say, “Honey, I know I have made you miserable, but come into my arms!” You’ll wind up hugging yourself! Why? Because when you grieve your mate, you cut off fellowship. You still have a relationship with your mate (you’re still married), but you have no fellowship. Your not intimate anymore, you don’t have happy feelings toward one another.
The same thing happens when you sadden the Holy Spirit. You don’t cut off relationship, but you do cut off fellowship. That is why you can’t go to the Holy Spirit and say, “Be close to me,” because He is grieved. You can’t say to Him, “Holy Spirit, minister to me!” because He is grieved.
One of the many reasons why we don’t ‘feel’ the Holy Spirit is because He is miserable most of the time. He is hanging out with you while you drag Him around to unrighteousness. He is living in a house where He is miserable. Any of you wives like that? (Don’t raise your hands!) He is living in you; you are the temple of the Holy Spirit, so all you are doing is making Him miserable. From the time you get up in the morning until you go to bed at night, you are dragging Him around while you are using any old kind of language, living angry, vindictive, greedy, selfish—all the things that make Him miserable, but He is in your house until the day of
redemption. He has a miserable existence in you. You can’t say, “Holy Spirit, come hug me!” He is not available.
2. Do not quench the Spirit
Do not quench the Spirit… 1 Thessalonians 5:19
The word quench means to suppress or oppose something. It is what you do when you pour water on fire. You suppress it. You keep the flame from burning. Do not quench, or throw water on the fire that the Holy Spirit’s trying to burn in your soul.
You ask, “How does that happen?’ The Holy Spirit speaks to your conscience. We have a conscience, which is our control center for right and wrong, good and bad. The Holy Spirit says, “Don’t.” And then we begin to rationalize and say, “But I could do something far worse. So Holy Spirit, you ought to be glad I am not doing that. Now, I know you want me to do this. This is not this, but it is better than that, so be half-happy!” What you have done is you have suppressed, or quenched the Spirit. You tell Him to ‘back up.’ Once you do that, and you continue to do that, the Bible says, “You sear your conscience.” In other words, you burn it so you don’t feel it any more. Now, you don’t even hear the voice of the Holy Spirit, and there is no ‘burning’ inside. When you feel the burning of the Holy Spirit, what He is trying to do is get your attention because once you yield to the Holy Spirit, there is nothing like the fire that will set off in your soul.
When the Holy Spirit said ‘Don’t do this’ to your conscience, and instead of pushing Him down, you let Him go and He burst forth, He bubbles up to be this flame, and you wind up on fire for Him. But the moment you suppress it, there is no more heat. So don’t quench the Holy Spirit, don’t suppress His work. Don’t stop Him from pricking your conscience.
My pastor growing up described the quenching of the Spirit this way. Let’s say your heart, instead of being heart-shaped, is shaped like a square, as is continually turning. When you become a Christian, the Holy Spirit is placed inside of you. When the Holy Spirit convicts you of something—an attitude, an action, a habit—and you choose not to listen or change your ways, a convicting scalpel of the Holy Spirit lops off a piece of your heart because you chose not to change. Through every work of conviction that you don’t change, more pieces of your square-heart get lopped off until, after a while, the Holy Spirit’s convicting scalpel doesn’t even phase your heart anymore; you are not bothered by the Holy Spirit. You have a seared conscience.
This is some serious stuff, people. Anytime the Spirit convicts you of something or tells you to do
something and you don’t do it, you become hardened to the Spirit’s voice. Don’t quench or suppress the Spirit.
3. Walk by the Spirit
But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. Galatians 5:16
One of the greatest promises in all the New Testament. Walk by the Spirit. He uses the word walk. Not leap. You can’t jump from where you are to where you want to be; you have to walk.
Now, how do you walk? You put one foot in front of the other. Walking is one act of dependency on top of another. When I walk, I place all of my weight on one leg at a time, and I believe that my leg is strong enough to hold me up, so I rest all of my weight on it. Walking is forward movement, one step at a time, placing all of your dependency on one foot at a time.
What happens when a person breaks their legs? The doctor gives them two crutches. These crutches are perfectly fitted to their height so that they enabled to do what they cannot do by themselves. Crutches bear the load that they cannot bear on their own.
God says, “You try to live this Christian life on your own, you’re legs can’t hold you up. Your flesh is not strong enough. But I have given you crutches; I have given you the Holy Spirit. So instead of you putting down your leg of flesh, put out the crutch of the Holy Spirit, and let Him hold you up.” If He can create the world, He can hold you up. Walk in the Spirit. Don’t depend on your New Year’s resolution. Don’t depend on the power of
positive thinking. Commit yourself to the power of the Holy Spirit.
How to Walk in the Spirit.
How do you do it? There are two ways you walk in the Spirit. The Bible says that…
1. The sword of the Spirit is the Word of God.
2. Pray in the Spirit.
First, Be in God’s Word. You have to be in God’s Word and do what it says. You have to learn to take the Bible and use it, not just take the Bible and hear it.
Remember Jesus in the wilderness with the devil? The devil tried to tempt Jesus, so what did Jesus do? He quoted the Bible. One of the greatest things that you can do is memorize scripture, so that when Satan comes to try to get you to walk in the flesh, you can stab him with the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.
You ought to be able to have a Bible study with the devil. “Satan, you want me to do this, but the Bible says do that.” Once you cut him with the scripture, he will leave. What God does is that He gives you the Word of God (not just a sermon every Sunday), but the daily power to be in God’s Word every day so that when Monday comes, you’re ready.
Secondly, pray in the Spirit.
Pray at all times and on every occasion in the power of the Holy Spirit. Ephesians 6:18
Pray about everything. You don’t say a quick word while you go to work and that covers the day. You don’t say a prayer at night “Now I lay me down to sleep…” and expect that you are walking and are filled by the Holy Spirit! That is not what the Bible means by prayer!
Prayer is, “Lord, my wife is upsetting me right now. My wife is making me mad. And in my flesh, I want to retaliate; I want to get back. But you have made me brand new. You have told me that ‘Greater is He that is in me than he that is in the world.’ So right now, I call on the Spirit of God and engage Him by applying the Word of God which says, ‘Be angry, and do not sin.’ By talking to you and hiding your Word in my heart so that I might not sin against you, I turn on the power under the hood of the Spirit for you to take me beyond my anger into me loving her, even though loving her is the last thing I want to do.”
Praying in the Spirit is calling on the Spirit when you need Him, not waiting for the end of the day or before you eat to pray. Which means, “You pray without ceasing.” You pray on your way to work, You pray while you’re at work. You pray when the supervisor’s making you mad. You pray when people are tempting you. You pray when you come home from work. You pray before you come in the door of your house. You praying before, during, and after the meal. You pray as you’re playing with your kids. You pray when you climb in bed by your spouse. And you pray when you get up the next morning.
You pray in whatever circumstances arise in which you need the Holy Spirit to turn the battery on. Whenever you need Him, you call on Him, quote the Word of God, and watch yourself act unnatural. That is how it works. That is walking in the Spirit. Being filled with the Spirit.
We have an extra bedroom in our house where guests can stay. Often times I have to tell my boys when there is a guest I the house, “Don’t go back there; there is someone back there. Don’t make so much noise, because we have a guest sleeping.” We try to make it easy for the guest to be at home.
Church, there is a guest in your house. His name is the Holy Spirit. Can He be at home? Don’t make Him live in a dirty room; make the Holy Spirit at home. Just like you tell you’re kids, “There is a guest in the house,” God is saying, “There is a guest in your house.”
The question is very simple: Is there Holy Spirit is as excited about what you’re doing as you are? Because you’re making Him do it, too. If the Holy Spirit is not as excited as you are, then you shouldn’t be doing it. Because what God wants is to be at home in your heart. He wants to be at home in your life.
