OPEN: I suspect that almost everyone knows who Bert and Ernie, the Cookie Monster and Big Bird are. They were among the muppet stars on a popular children’s show: Sesame Street. During the filming of each show, some lucky parents were allowed to bring their children on stage and be part of the program. Following one of the shoots, a man named Carroll climbed out of the Big Bird suit to the amazement of one of the little kids on the set.
"Mom," the stunned toddler yelled, "Do you think Big Bird knows he has a man inside of him?"
Did Big Bird know he had a man inside of him??? Of course he did. BUT there is a bigger question for us to consider today: do we realize (as Christians) we have something inside of us?
Jesus told His disciples that when He left, He would send “the Comforter” (or the Holy Spirit): “But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.” (John 16:8)
Acts 2:38 promises us that whoever repents of their sins and is immersed in waters of baptism will receive the “gift of the Holy Spirit.” 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)
Ephesians 1:13 & 14 tells us that that Holy Spirit is the seal of our salvation. It marks us as being owned by God. “And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. 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-- to the praise of his glory.” Ephesians 1:13-14
In fact Rom. 8:9 tells us “if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ.”
The Holy Spirit is our “Connection” with Jesus. The Holy Spirit is the part of “God” that is part of us.
I. That’s why Paul writes what he does to the Corinthians:
Reread 2:12-16. In this passage, Paul tell us that when we have the Spirit of God within us, we have the “mind of Christ.” The Mind of Christ. What’s does Paul mean by that?
What he means is that with the Holy Spirit dwelling within us, we Christians have the ability… the potential to think like Jesus. However, without the Spirit of God there would be a lot of things about God that we could not understand.
IILUS: Three atheists sat in a hotel lobby of an old time hotel. One of them said "I will not believe anything that I don’t understand.” “Neither will I” said another. “Nor will I,” said a 3rd
Now it just so happened that they were overheard by an old Christian farmer sitting close by and he smiled as he overheard the comments of these three men: “Gentlemen,” he said, “on my way to town this morning I saw some geese in a field eating grass; do you believe that?”
The men shrugged "Well, certainly," they replied.
“ Well, I also saw pigs eating grass; do you believe that?"
"Of course," Said the 3.
"I also saw sheep and cows eating grass; do you believe that?"
"Of course," was again the reply.
"Well, the grass turned to feathers on the backs of the geese, to bristles on the backs of the swine, to white wool on the sheep, and to hair on the cow; do you believe that, gentlemen?"
"Certainly," they replied.
Then the old man smiled again as he asked… "But do you understand it?"
II. Because we have the Spirit, we can know things about God that the World cannot
ILLUS: A representative of the gas company phoned the owner of an expensive new home to make an appointment for the service man to come in and light the gas pilots and adjust the furnace. The owner said he’s better meet the man, or he’d never get the furnace going. The caller insisted that his people were well trained and would have no trouble.
"You don’t understand," the owner said, "When your man tries to adjust the furnace he’ll go out of his mind. The thermostat in the entry hall is a dummy for my wife to play with. Only I know where the real one is hidden.
The Spirit helps us to KNOW where the secret things of God are hidden (2:12). However, without the mind of Christ (i.e. the Spirit within) there would be a lot of things we couldn’t understand. We wouldn’t be able to understand the nature of God… why He does the things He does, or why He did what He did in the days of the Old Testament. We wouldn’t comprehend the deeper secrets of the Bible, or the beautiful truths God wants to share with us.
In fact (the Bible tells us) we won’t even know how to pray as we should without the Spirit’s help. Romans 8:26 tells us: “… the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.”
(pause…)
III. BUT, I’m a Christian… and there are times I don’t feel like I understand all that much.
There are times I don’t feel like I’m connecting with God and I feel inadequate. I really want to understand all that the Holy Spirit can give me…but I don’t quite know how. If there is such powerful depth to the Holy Spirit, how do I get it?
There are those who will tell you that if you want to understand the deeper things of God - if you want to tap into God’s Spirit in a powerful way - then you’re going to need to learn something that only they can teach you. You’ll have to get hold of a special spiritual gift that they offer or speak in a tongue you’ve never learned. Develop a “prayer language” or a experience a special physical manifestation of the Spirit’s power. Sometimes such individuals will imply you & I don’t EVEN have God’s Spirit because we don’t do things their way. That type of teaching is nothing new.
Back in the days of the early church, the Apostle John wrote to an early church that: “I am writing these things to you about those who are trying to lead you astray. As for you, the anointing (the gift of the Holy Spirit) you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit-- just as it has taught you, remain in him.” I John 2:26-27
In the early church, these false teachers were telling early Christians that they had to understand “our teaching” and do things the way “we tell you” AND THEN you’ll have the Spirit like you should. Such teaching was leading Christians astray.
A case study in the fallacy of such teachings is the Church at Corinth. In I Corinthians 3:1-2, Paul chastised that congregation by telling them they were unspiritual. (pause…) BUT, how would that be possible? How could that be? Corinth is known in the Bible as THE church with all the spiritual gifts a congregation could possibly want… (I Corinthians 12:1ff).
If they had ALL these gifts that were available in that day why did Paul say they were unspiritual?
IV. The answer is found in I Corinthians 3:3.
They were jealous of each other. They were quarreling with one another. They were acting like “mere men.”
ILLUS: They were like the 2 sisters who’d spent the day fighting with each other. That evening as they prepared for bed, they were still mad at each other. As usual, they knelt beside their beds for their prayers. "Dear God," the 8 yr. old began, "Bless Daddy and Mommy, bless our cat and dog." Then she stopped.
Her mother gently prodded, "Didn’t you forget somebody?" She glared across the bed at her 6 yr. old sister and added, "And, oh yes, God bless my ex-sister.”
That’s the kind of thinking the people at Corinth had developed toward one another.
The people at Corinth didn’t have the Mind of Christ. They weren’t thinking like Christians – they were thinking Pagans. To put it bluntly, they had too much of the world in them and not enough of the Word. If they wanted to be led and filled by God’s Spirit, they needed to think differently than the world did. But how could they learn to think differently than the world does?
V. I think the answer can be found in Ephesians 5:15-21
In this letter to the Ephesians Paul tells us here how to be “filled with the Spirit.” And he starts out with a comparison. He says “don’t be drunk with wine which leads to debauchery (i.e. lack of salvation)” (5:18)
But why tell Christians they shouldn’t be drunk with wine? Such behavior would seem so obviously wrong that it seems almost illogical for Paul to mention it here. In this setting, tho’ I don’t believe Paul was giving a moral injunction against drunkenness as much as he was attempting to establish a contrast between the “controlling effects” of alcohol and the “controlling effects” of being filled with the Spirit.
Visualize yourself outside a neighborhood bar imagine how the drunks look as they come out of the door. The alcohol controls them. It controls how they think (not very clearly), how they speak (they often say things they never would consider otherwise) and how they behave (they have trouble even walking in a straight line).
Similarly, those “filled with the Spirit” will be “under the influence” of the Spirit. God’s Spirit will control how they think, speak and act.
Now, if I want the Spirit of God to fill me in a powerful way... if I want to be led by Him... if I want Him to control how I think, and how I speak and how I act... THEN, I need to make my heart a comfortable place for Spirit to dwell. I need to create an atmosphere within my soul that is a place where God wants to stay. To do that, I need to do the following instructions that are found in verses (19-21).
* I need to surround myself psalms, hymns and spiritual songs.
* I need to learn to give thanks for EVERYTHING and thus create a grateful heart.
* And… lastly, I need to be submissive to others. This last was the key to Corinth’s problem.
Submission would have been the issue that would have changed them from “unspiritual” to a “spiritual” people who were capable of understanding the deeper things of God. Submission.
In the following verses of Ephesians, Paul went on to say how wives should be submissive to husbands, husbands to their wives, children to their parents, fathers to their children, employees to their bosses, and bosses to their employees. Paul never discusses what we should “expect” of others. Instead he focuses on what we should “owe” to others as submissive servants of our God.
Conflict in the home, the workplace, school, and in church comes about because people like you & I expect OTHERS to be submissive to us (not the other way around). When we believe others should serve our needs and understand our desires… that’s what causes conflict.
That’s what causes fighting and quarreling & jealousy. That’s when we end up acting like “mere men.” Because that’s when we reveal that we still have the mind of the world, not the mind of Christ.
CLOSE: BUT, if we have the Mind of Christ. If we set about having the Spirit FILLING us, by surrounding ourselves with Christian music and an attitude of thankfulness, and most importantly – an attitude of servanthood and submissiveness… THEN, (not only) can we avoid fighting & quarreling & jealousy. Then we can actually heal the wounds in others hearts rather than making those wounds worse.
I had the privilege of interning under a preacher from St. Saint Marie, Michigan named Roy Chenowith. Roy had an experience once that helped me understand what true submission is all about. Apparently, in that town there was a man who desperately hated Roy, although Roy didn’t quite know why. At every opportunity, this man made it clear that he despised the preacher from the local Church of Christ. For example, if Roy was walking down the street, and this man was walking his dog on the same side of the street, the man would take his dog and deliberately cross to the other side of the street to avoid having to possibility that Roy would talk with him.
Roy gave this a lot of thought and prayer, and then one day he decided on a course of action. He went out for his morning walk and saw the man who hated him out walking his dog again as usual. And, as usual, the man took his dog to the other side of the street to avoid Roy… So Roy crossed the street too.
Walking up to the man, Roy said “you know I’ve been admiring that dog of yours. What kind of dog is he?”
Stiffly, the other man told him what breed it was. Roy thanked him and walked on.
The next day, Roy again deliberately approached the man and asked him something else about his dog. Day after day, he’d ask what the man fed his dog, what vet he used, etc. etc. etc.
Eventually, the man began to cross the street to greet Roy and engage him in conversation.
What did Roy do? He submitted himself to his enemy and showed love for something the man cared about, and eventually he won the man’s trust and confidence. By doing so, he showed that he had the “mind of Christ.”
SERMONS IN THIS SERIES
Checking Your Spirit Gauge - Galatians 5:16-5:26
Being Filled With The Spirit - 1 Corinthians 2:9-3:4
Witnessing by the Power of the Spirit - Acts 1:8-1:8
