About 20 years ago, a delivery truck was taking a special shipment to the San Mateo County Convention and Visitors Bureau in California… and it got lost. The delivery truck driver stopped at a gas station and asked for directions.
Now ordinarily this wouldn’t have been unusual. People get lost all the time. I get lost and I’m sure you get lost every once in awhile. And of course even delivery truck drivers will get lost occasionally.
What made this incident so odd was that - in the back of the truck were (pause) 50,000 glorious new maps of the area from a map company. The truck driver got lost - even though his truck had 50,000 maps INSIDE of it… maps that could have easily helped him find his way to his destination had he only had access to them.
Nowadays that type of thing isn’t likely to happen because we have GPS units.
ILLUS: I have such a GPS unit on my “Smart Phone’
I think they’re called “smart phones” because they’re smarter than I am.
It’s not only a phone, it’s an alarm clock, and day planner;
I can play games on it - I can send e-mails and search the Internet.
I can get today’s weather and news.
But it also can be a GPS navigational device that can help me know where I’m at and where I’m going.
Now I had to have my son help me figure out how to do this but (I demonstrated the GPS on my EVO 4G smart phone, having programmed in the destination of my home, and having the GPS navigational unit “speak” initial directions to my house)
INSIDE my phone is the power to find all the information I could possibly want to know. I have all kinds of resources inside my phone. But I still have be CONNECTED to the cellular system to get all the benefits it offers.
APPLY: In the same way - Paul told the Corinthians that they had all the resources and power of God dwelling within them but they didn’t seem to be CONNECTED w/ the Spirit like they should have been.
Now, as churches went back then, Corinth had all kinds of manifestations of God’s Spirit. just flowing through their people:
· They had people there how could heal you by simply touching you.
· And prophets who could declare God’s will to the congregation (they didn’t have very many of the New Testament books and letters we have).
· And people who could speak in languages they’d never learned, which in Corinth was an extremely useful gift that allowed these residents of this famous seaport the ability to preach the Gospel to many of the different cultures and languages that frequented their city.
· And the list of such Spirit given gifts went on and on and on.
Now, at this church we believe that many of those miraculous gifts died when the Apostles died, but the fact is - those folks in Corinth HAD almost every conceivable miraculous spiritual gift you could think of.
Now what’s intriguing is - in spite of having all those marvelous gifts… the Corinthian Christians were missing out on KNOWING what God’s Spirit could fully mean to them.
In verse 19 Paul asks them
“Do you not KNOW that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God?… I Corinthians 6:19
In other words: God’s Spirit could have empowered them to do mighty things, but the Corinthian Christians seemed to be more inclined to use Spirit just to entertain themselves. They didn’t seem to realize that the Spirit was more than just an interesting plaything. It wasn’t just a toy they could bring out and play with for awhile and put back on shelf.
God’s Spirit was a powerful part of who they were.
God’s Spirit was the force INSIDE them that could make them all God created them to be.
Now, there are few basics about the Spirit that we need to review before going further.
1. You can’t be a Christian if God’s Spirit is NOT inside you.
Romans 8:9 tells us “…if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ.”
Ephesians 1:13-14 goes further and says:“…Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession…”
2. You received that Spirit when believed, repented and were baptized into Christ.
The Ephesians passage we just read emphasizes the central importance of belief in becoming Christians… but then in Acts 2, Peter explained to the crowd at Pentecost (who’d come to believe that Jesus was the Messiah and they had crucified Him) "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” Acts 2:38
Jesus said much the same thing in John 3:5
Jesus answered (Nicodemus), "I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit.”
For the first few centuries after Christ, the church universally taught that this statement by Jesus (in John 3) meant that our being baptized with water into Christ and God’s giving us His Spirit happened at the same time.
So if you’ve believed in the name of Jesus, repented of your sins, confessed Jesus as your Lord and been buried in the waters of Christian baptism YOU HAVE THE SPIRIT OF GOD.
And once you rec’d that Spirit you have access to a wealth of resources:
· You were marked by God as belonging to Him (Ephesians 1:13-14)
· You have a direct line from God presence to your heart (I Cor. 2:14-16)
· God’s Spirit is there to help you when you pray (Romans 8:26-27)
· His Spirit is inside you to help you develop powerful character qualities; such as Love, joy, peace, patience, etc. (Galatians 5:22-23)
· And (just like a GPS device) God’s Spirit helps you to know where you’re at and where you’re going.
As a Christian you have all of that - and more - at your disposal.
But now, is that all there is to having God’s Spirit?
Is that ALL you get?
Or, is there a way to download more of God’s Spirit into my life?
ILLUS: I took my phone over to Sprint and they helped me download a couple of programs that improved my cell phone.
Can I do that with God’s Spirit?
Well, yes, we can.
One way of downloading more of His Spirit is described in Eph. 6:17
“Take the…sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God”
What is the “Word of God’?
The Scriptures.
Thus, the Bible is the Spirit’s Sword.
I have the potential of downloading more of God’s Spirit every time I read God’s Word.
It’s not just a book filled with stories and commandments.
Hebrews 4:12 says
“…the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.”
How does God’s Word do that?
How does it have this power to work inside my soul and Spirit?
How does it have the ability to judge my thoughts and attitudes?
Where does it get the power to be “living and active” and to penetrate my life?
The Bible gets its power through the Spirit that dwells within you and I.
Thus every time you open the Bible to read a portion of it…God’s Spirit has the opportunity to guide you to just the right passage of Scripture and then directs that to just the right part of your heart to teach you correct you, rebuke you, and train you to be a man/woman of God.
The Bible is not just a collection of stories and commandments
It is the mind of God!
It is His will for our lives.
And it given power and substance because there is a very live and active power inside you
That’s why things like
· Bible studies
· Sunday School
· and Daily Personal Bible studies are so important.
These are times when we allow ourselves to be exposed to God’s Spirit through God’s Word.
Additionally, Ephesians 5 tells us that (beyond studying and applying the Bible to your life) you can download God’s Spirit by some other very simple activities.
In Ephesians 5:18-21 God commands us to “be filled with the Spirit; speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord; giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ; submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.”
In other words… there are three simple things you can do to “be filled with the Spirit”…
… to make the Spirit a powerful force in your life/ download His improvements into heart
1. Sing. Speak to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord. Sing at church/ home/ car/ shower – fill the air with music that reminds you of God and His love for you.
2. Give thanks. “Giving thanks always for all things unto God” Remember what God has done for you… ALWAYS… never quit.
3. Serve others. “Submitting to one another in the fear of God”. Find ways of showing love to each other/ serving each other.
When you and I do these things we make our hearts comfortable for God’s Spirit.
ILLUS: If you came over to my home and found clothes scattered all over the place, that the house hadn’t been swept in 3 years, that mold was growing out of the refrigerator…how inclined would you be to stick around and visit?
Not very.
But if I picked up, swept up, and cleaned up my house, you’d feel more welcome and inclined to stay around.
Essentially, that’s what singing to God, praising God and submitting to others does to our hearts. As we do these things, we make our souls more welcoming to God’s Spirit so that he comes in and works inside of us.
Now it’s very possible the Corinthians did stuff like that.
It’s very possible they regularly studied their Scriptures.
And it’s very possible they did a lot of singing and praising God.
But there seems to have been at least one thing they failed at.
And because of that failure, they risked destroying the power of God’s Spirit.
What was that failure?
Well, it seems they were trying to access to the power of God’s Spirit’s … and still live like Pagans. They seemingly even had a proverb they cited to justify their life choices. They had apparently said something like:
“Now that I’m a Christian - I’m free. Everything is permissible for me” (1 Corinthians 6:12) “I can do what I want to do, because I’m free in Christ.”
And so Paul wrote them and said: "Yes, everything IS permissible for me"— but not everything is beneficial. "Everything is permissible for me"— but I will not be mastered by anything. 1 Corinthians 6:12
Then he went on to explain that (for example) you can eat what you want to eat as a Christian. You’re no longer under the Old Testament regulations that branded some food as clean/unclean.
You’re free to eat anything now…but not all food is going to be beneficial for you.
If you live on a diet of Big Macs and French Fries… you’re free to do that
But there will be a cost:
You’re going to get fat!
And you’ll hurt your heart and other bodily organs.
You’re free to eat what you want… but it’s not always going to be good for you.
ILLUS: Another way of looking at this has to do with my phone. In order to get the full use out of my phone, I’m told you need to download some APS. Now “aps” is short for applications.
Applications or aps – are programs that tell this phone what to do.
For example, I can download an “ap” that makes it so I can play games like Euchre, Solitaire, Spades, Wheel of Fortune, and so on.
Or I can download an “ap” that allows my phone to…
· play music
· or do special calculator functions
· or take a certain kinds of pictures
· or to even read the Sunday Comics (I did that this morning).
If you can think of something to do with a phone, somebody has created an “ap” to let you do it. Some of these applications cost money. Some are as cheap as 99 cents and others can cost upwards of $50 or $60 and more. But the vast majority of those programs are free.
That’s great!
But while I may be free to download whatever I want - not everything is beneficial for my phone. Some of those “aps” that I can download can actually hurt my phone. Some of them can cause my phone to crash and shut off. Some can make it so other programs won’t work
I may be free to download whatever I want to this phone but not every program is compatible with how the phone is supposed to work.
And what Paul is saying in I Corinthians 6 is this:
You might be free to do what you want as a Christian but some things are going to hurt you. Some things are going to crash your system. Some things are going to hurt your walk with God Because some things are not compatible with the Spirit who dwells inside you.
Notice what Paul writes
“Shall I then take the members of Christ and unite them with a prostitute? Never!
Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body? For it is said, "The two will become one flesh."
BUT he who unites himself with the Lord is one with him in spirit.
Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a man commits are outside his body, but he who sins sexually sins against his own body. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own” I Cor. 6:15-19
What Paul is saying is this:
For us to allow sexual immorality into our lives is not compatible with God’s Spirit.
Sexual immorality and God’s Spirit can’t co-exist in the same body, because you’re supposed to be a temple of God. Sexual impurity will create a malfunction between you and God’s Spirit. Sexual impurity will shut down the Spirit’s power in your life so that your Christianity will be out of whack.
In short, sexual impurity will damage God’s Power for your life. Giving in to sexual immorality is the one thing that does the most damage to our Spirituality. And that’s because that type of sin directly competes for your soul with God’s Spirit.
And so Paul says: FLEE SEXUAL IMMORALITY
Because you’re either going to be united with a prostitute (immoral relationship) or you’re going to be united with God’s Spirit. You can not do both.
The most obvious application is not to sleep with someone who’s not your spouse!
And don’t visit those Internet sites where you can meet “interesting people” to form relationships with.
But it also means… don’t let sexual immorality into your home.
Christians shouldn’t be watching TV shows like “2 And A Half Men” or “Desperate Housewives.” We shouldn’t be subscribing to HBO and Cinemax where women not only prance around in skimpy outfits… they often don’t any outfits on at all. We should be renting movies with nudity. We shouldn’t be buying magazines with scantily clad women (like Sports Illustrated swimsuit). And we shouldn’t allow ourselves to view pornography on your computer.
Now, this is particularly difficult for men. Most pornography is aimed at men, because men are visually stimulated by nudity. To protect myself against this temptation, I’ve partnered with someone who I’m accountable to - nothing kills temptation like knowing someone else is looking over your shoulder.
ILLUS: IF you have a problem with this kind of sin, find someone you can trust
· someone you can share with
· someone you can make a promise to be open and transparent with.
· someone who will ask you hard questions like “have you looked at pornography since we talked last?”
If you don’t know anyone you can share with…. Call me and I’ll set up an accountability relationship with you myself.
CLOSE: My point is this: You have access to one of the most powerful forces in the Universe.
Romans 8:11 tells us that “…if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you.”
God’s Spirit is not some dead weight that takes up space in your life.
God’s Spirit is a powerful force that can enable you to live your life for Jesus in ways that would amaze you. But without that power… your Christianity will be practically worthless.
ILLUS: This last week, I left my cell phone out in the van for a couple of hours. When I got back I found the heat inside the vehicle was overwhelming, and so was the heat that radiated from the phone. As a result of all this heat my cell phone was dead. It refused to turn on. It seems exposing the phone to such excessive heat killed the battery…and it needed to be replaced.
My carelessness killed my battery.
And without that battery my phone was worthless
We must not be careless in how we deal with God’s Spirit because He is the source of God’s power in our lives. But you can’t have that power until you first give your life to Christ. That’s why we offer an invitation at the end of every service…
