THE MINISTRY OF THE HOLY SPIRIT # 2. 1 Corinthians 12:1; 4-11.
This is the second part of The ministry of the Holy Spirit.
In the first message we looked at that the Holy Spirit is a person.
We also looked the fact that The Holy Spirit has a Ministry to become our guidance Counsellor before we are saved.
Then we looked at the truth that The Holy Spirit is Gods signature that we are part of the family of God. We saw that 2 Corinthians 5:5 tells us that we are made for the purpose of having the Holy Spirit within us. Then we looked at the fact that many Christians never receive all of the Holy Spirit that the Lord wants them to have. One of the main reason for this is that most Christians don’t realize that what we receive of the Holy Spirit at salvation is but the first installment of the promise of the Lord. I also shared with you that another key reason is that when we seek to have all of the Holy Spirit in order for that to happen the Holy Spirit must have every bit of our lives.
1. The Holy Spirit is Gods Coach that is given to help us walk, act and live like Jesus.
Would you please underline those last three words. The word Live in Greek carries the meaning of a person actually walking. The Christian walk is one that begins with salvation and from there it is an uphill walk. You have often heard me say that it take great courage to live the Christian life. You may remember that I shared with you that after salvation we try to live our lives the way we think that Jesus would want us to live. One of the key factor of the Holy Spirit activity in our lives is to get us to the place where the Holy Spirit has every bit of our lives. During this process we will find the following.
A. There will be conflict within us.
Galatians 5:16. Live by the Holy Spirit's power. Then you will not do what your sinful nature wants you to do.
We will have conflict between what we want to do and what Gods Holy Spirit wants. I believe that this is one of the area that most Christians have a major problems with simply because they never open door # 2 and walk through. After walking through door #1 we do a pretty good task of living our Christian life the way WE THINK THAT THE LORD WANTS US TO LIVE. Every saved Christian fit here. We live by the knowledge that we have acquired, whether it was in church, from a friend, from books and from the education system. The Holy Spirit task is to guide us to the right knowledge but since we are running our lives He can only make suggestion and show us the way we should go. The final choice is our alone. The problem is that since our natural desires are still in control usually the choices we make are more in line with our natural desires than our Spiritual desires. Because we are saved our choices, though they may favour the natural they still have a lot of the Spiritual influence. We need to understand that during this time every choice we make is filtered through all the information that we have acquire and the task of the Holy Spirit is to get us to pick His suggestion over everything else that is there in our minds. I know that I have probably picked on this subject a lot but this is one of the area where the final choice that is made usually has nothing to do with the teachings of the Word of the Lord. We have an epidemic in the evangelical church of young people living together in sin and the church not even mentioning it or say that it is wrong. When two young Christians come to this place in their lives they look at what is happening in the world and in the church and because the church has decided that the Lord God is wrong and they are right these young people end up living in sin.
SPIRITUAL PRINCIPLE: The only way for our lives to progress spiritually is to keep in step with the Holy Spirit.
B. There will be conflict in the world.
Galatians 5:25. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is God’s coach that is given only to those who accept the offer of Grace and mercy. After salvation the Holy Spirit is in every Christian as a guidance counsellor and the Holy Spirit task is to lead that Christian to a deeper relationship with the Lord. If that Christian is in the habit of rejecting the urging of the Holy Spirit then they will come to a place where they will not even hear of sense the Holy Spirit in their lives. When the Holy Spirit is working with the unsaved he doesn’t have the effect upon their lives the way the Holy Spirit is suppose to effect Christians. Jesus said that in the world you would have trouble. In other words if we are alive, the world we live in is going to do a very good job of trying to mould us into something that isn’t of the Lord. The Lord wants to help us to live our life in such a way that our lives reflect the standard of the Lord.
John 14:26.But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you.
John 15:26.When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify about Me.
John 16:13.But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come.
Jesus has given us the Holy Spirit with the idea of helping us not only with our decisions but to encouragement to take the next step in the Lords purpose for our lives. If we are to live so that we are not pressed into the mould that the world wants of us then we must follow the Holy Spirit coaching.
3. The Holy Spirit is all the help that we need to live our Christian life the way that Jesus wants us to live.
Beloved there is nothing wrong with reading books and listening to TV sermons. The Holy Spirit can use these items to teach us but they are not to replace the ministry of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Beloved I want you to know that I have seen where this has actually happen. In those situations it is almost impossible to get that person to listen to the truth.
Do you remember me talking about opening doors so the Holy Spirit is allowed all of our lives?
The more of us that the Holy Spirit has the more of the Holy Spirit we have with in us.
The Holy Spirit won’t force us to change nor will He make the decision for us if we haven’t walked through door number 2. Since the Holy Spirit empowers our lives we can only grow spiritually as we allow the Holy Spirit to leads and guide our lives. We can’t grow any farther spiritually than what the Holy Spirit control of our lives. The spiritual life of following Jesus Christ is not an easy stroll through the park and it is a life long process.
4. The Holy Spirit Ministry in a Christian life depends entirely on that Christian.
Please allow me to say this as plain as I can. Having the Holy Spirit in one life doesn’t keep them from sinning if they have decided to do something they shouldn’t. Having the Holy Spirit in one life does give a Christian the power to say no and refuse to sin if they chose to use the power of the Holy Spirit. I have come across a lot of Christians who seem to think that just because they have accepted Jesus Christ offer of forgiveness that they can do whatever they want. I have also come across those who feel that since they have been saved that they can’t sin. I have also come across those who are so scared of the Holy Spirit that they won’t allow Him to effectually work in their lives.
If we chose to allow sin to invade our lives by refusing to obey the Holy Spirit leading then we must accept the conquences that come with our choice. I know that I have said this before but I feel that I should say it again. The Holy Spirit will not make you do anything that you don’t want to do. The Holy Spirit is always the perfect gentleman. When a person gets saved the Lord wipe the slate clean. As the person lives their lives for the Lord they will come to a place where the Holy Spirit convicts them that they are doing or they are about to do something wrong. The Christian stops and looks at what they are doing and obeys the Spirit. Sometimes they look at the situation and they think they aren’t causing anyone any harm so they keep going. Because of the disobedience sin has entered their life. The Holy Spirit task has now changed from one of coaching/guiding to one of convicting and encouraging the Christian to seek forgiveness and get rid of the sin. We need to understand is that the Holy Spirit will continual to convict us until one of two things happen.
First we make the right decision so that our relationship with the Lord can be fully restored.
Second we ignore the Ministry of the Holy Spirit and we truck on living our life. The thing is we have put a obstacle in our relationship that is now between us and the Lord. This problem develops when we refuse to listen to the Holy Spirit.
If Christians continue to carrying on with their lives and they don’t seek forgiveness to take care of the sin; what happens is that we get to the place where they don’t hear or sense the ministry of the Holy Spirit working in their lives. As we continue to live our lives our way and we continue to disobey the Holy Spirit these acts of disobedience will interfere with our relationship and with our ability to fulfil the purpose of Jesus Christ in our lives. The other side of this is that continual disobedience will cause us to develop callous on our soul so that what the Holy Spirit is trying to say doesn’t affect us any more. Finally our life comes to the point where there is so much sin and disobedience that the Holy Spirit can’t live in us any more because we have driven Him out of our lives by our disobedience. Now this doesn’t happen in the twinkling of an eye. This happen over time and if we are willing to seek forgiveness we can have our relationship restored.
Romans 8:9. If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ.
There are times when Christian have refused to go any further in their Christians lives and made a decision to actually turn away from the Lord.
5. The Holy Spirit Ministry requires that He equip us for ministry.
1 Corinthians 12:7-11-- Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. To one there is given through the Spirit the message of wisdom, to another the message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues. All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he gives them to each one, just as he determines.
The Corinthian Christians like many Christians today were greatly confused about the role of these spiritual gifts in their lives. Paul devotes three entire chapters to this topic. We know from Pauls teaching that every Christian is given at least one spiritual gift.
A. The Holy Spirit gives each Christian gift to be used within the Christian community so the community can be built up and strengthened.
Spiritually healthy churches are ones where Christians are using the gifts of the Holy Spirit for the glory of the Lord. One of the problems that we have today is that there is so much stuff that is attribute to the Holy Spirit that actually has nothing to do with the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Today we have churches that believe the ministry of the Holy Spirit was something that was supposes to happen only in the first century. They believe that these gifts are no longer required today. These gifts are given by the Holy Spirit and there is no mentioning of the fact that they are only for the first century Christians. These gifts when given are under the absolute control of the ministry of the Holy Spirit. The reason for this is because the Holy Spirit is the only one who knows the spiritual need of the people who are present. They aren’t determined by me, or by you, or by the church. When we don’t use the spiritual gifts the Holy Spirit has given us to build up the Christian community it is the church that suffers because these gifts are really gifts to the entire Christian community. I want you to remember that Satan loves to try to duplicate the real gifts of the Holy Spirit by getting people to think that if they are barking or driving a bike that they are operating under the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Just because something is happening in church doesn’t mean that it is of the Lord. We must remember that Satan goes to church and if he can get the Christian to go in a direction that is opposite of what the Holy Spirit wants then Satan has stopped the Christian from becoming everything that the lord would have them become. The spiritual health of any church is determined not by how powerful the worship service is, not by how effective the speaker is, not by how great the facility is, but the spiritual health of any church is determined by how many individual members are using their spiritual gifts in ministry.
On Tuesday morning September 11, 2001 Dawn Robinson followed her usual morning routine while getting ready for work. Which consist of her morning quiet time where she prays for God’s leadership throughout the day. Shortly after arriving at work in New York City she made her way to her office in the south tower of the World Trade Center. At 8:45 a.m. she heard a loud boom and looking out her window saw smoke from the north tower. A voice came over the intercom and informed everyone that no was in danger and stay where they where. Dawn says that immediately she felt a compelling urge to get out of the building. Then she said she had a very intense feeling of Closter phobia. So she immediately began making her way to the stairs. Dawn then says, that about 75% of the people she came in contact with were following the advice from the intercom system and where going back to their offices to continue working. Never the less Dawn continued making her way down the emergency stairwells. When she made it to the 42nd floor at 9:03 a.m. Flight 175, a bowing 767 hit the south tower slamming into the area of the building where Dawn’s office was located. God put an urging in Dawn hearts. What if she would’ve brushed it off? What if on Tuesday morning Dawn skipped her quiet time, or didn’t pray for God’s leadership on that day?
