Making Room for the Holy Spirit
Rev. Sean Lester
December 28, 2003 morning service
Text: 1st Thessalonians 4:1-12
Introduction
A. Christmas has now passed by in the Lester house, and a new reality has set in for us. Our boys, now five and three years of age, received a bunch of new presents. And they seem to be enjoying them very much. They occupied themselves with their new toys pretty much all day on Christmas day. As usual for this day, we let them go to bed without cleaning their rooms. But yesterday, we made them put their toys away. The trouble is, there was no place for them to put their toys. Their toy boxes were already full of things, some of which they still enjoy, most of which they don’t play with anymore, all of which they insist that they need to keep.
They need to keep the old toys that they have outgrown for sentimental reasons, or as Tim says, "but daddy, it is special to me."
They need to keep the toys that they rarely play with because they just might want to some day.
Therefore, I am left with two choices. One, I can simply buy them another toy box so that they can keep all of their toys. They would like this because it seems to make them feel rich, or something. Two, I can wait until they are at school and ransack their rooms and throw away the old toys and put the new ones in the places where the old ones formerly occupied.
B. Despite the humor in this predicament, there is the underlying truth that all of us big kids like to keep all of our stuff in our lives while asking God to give us more.
1. I like to fill my time with activities that make me feel like I am contributing even if it isn’t something that will cause me to grow. God has better and more challenging things for me, but I want to hang on to what I have and do what stretches me.
2. I need to make more time for personal devotion in my life, but I want to keep spending time doing what makes me feel good, like watching hockey. I want to do both, to simply add more devotion to the schedule of my life.
3. I need to be diligent in raising my family. But there are so many causes in our community that could use my help. I want to help them, but then how do I find the time for my family?
C. My time and energy is the "toy box" that I am asking God to fill with good things from the Holy Spirit. I don’t want to give up what I have, even if it isn’t that meaningful to me, anymore. But I still want more from God. What is the Lord supposed to do? Give me a bigger "toy box"? No, he won’t give me more time in a day, and age has a way of limiting energy so that choices have to be made with what to do with it. In order to have the new experiences with the Lord, I have to make room by letting go of the old ones.
D. The Holy Spirit, who was given to you by the Lord when He accepted your profession of faith, leads you to a deeper relationship with God. He causes you to walk through the fire of sanctification to get rid of the junk, the spiritual broken toys, so that what you have in your faith is precious and eternal.
E. At this time of the year, it is common for people to make resolutions for the coming year, goals that are set that are intended to make their lives more honorable. That is a good thing, as our passage urges: "that as you received from us how to live and to please God...that you do so more and more." That means that it is good to make resolutions to please God more in how we live.
Proposition: There are seven areas of life mentioned in this passage where it is good to resolve to please God more and more.
1. Avoid Sexual Immorality.
A. This is a good time to resolve to please God more and more in the area of sexual purity.
1. If you are in an adulterous relationship, now is the time to repent.
2. If you are looking upon someone with lustful intent, using even their appearance as a means of gaining sexual pleasure, now is a good time to repent.
3. If you are watching sexually suggestive (or actual pornography), now is a good time to repent.
4. If you are exposing yourself to sexual immorality through the internet, television, advertising, and the like, now is a good time to commit yourself to practical steps for limiting your, and your family’s expose to it.
B. Sexually suggestive material gets the hormones raging in your body and makes rational and devotional thought difficult, if not impossible.
Illustration: Several years ago I met a colleague for dinner in a restaurant where a singer was providing live music. My colleague was sharing his heart for ministry, but while he was trying to communicate his vision, I was distracted by the musician who was singing Jim Morrison songs in the background. I couldn’t hear this man’s heart for life while the message of death was being sung. The music caused feelings in me that blocked out the message of life. In order to continue the conversation, we had to leave the room. Sexually suggestive material has the same effect on our spirit’s ability to communicate with God. There isn’t room in your spirit for both.
2. Practice Self-control.
A. Self-control is the act of resisting your emotional response to act out. It is an important distinction between someone who is Spirit-filled and someone who is carnal. Lust is the emotional or mental state of unbalance that demands that something be done to bring things back into balance. The trouble is, those things that seem to bring the emotional or mental state into balance are the same things that destroy life.
B. Lust drives you to:
1. Strike at people verbally and/or physically.
2. Steal things.
3. Eat for pleasure.
4. Do things for the thrill.
5. Use people for your own advantage.
6. Avoid reality through drug and alcohol use.
C. Whenever you feel tempted to act out, there is a lust driving it. And, everyone deals with lust, because everyone is sinful by nature. The difference is that people who yield themselves to the Holy Spirit have learned to control their lusts and not act on them.
D. Here are some goals to set for any area where lust gets the best of you.
1. Recognize when you are starting to "simmer".
Illustration: Lust is your emotions boiling like a tea pot on the stove. Eventually, they blow violently out of the pot.
2. When you start to simmer, get away from the heat and allow yourself to cool down.
3. Confess your feelings to someone who is mature in the word and who will tell you the truth. James say it this way, "Confess your faults one to another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed."
4. Trust God to take care of you. Recognition of what sets you off is the greater part winning the struggle. If you need to take practical steps to avoid things that set you off, do it.
3. Offend no brother or sister in the Lord.
A. You must also take into consideration that there are things, perhaps cultural things, that are not offensive to you, but trigger feelings of lust in others. The passage states that the Lord will take vengeance on anyone who carelessly offends another believer by triggering their lusts.
B. Illustration: I served a church as youth pastor several years ago where a man in the church asked the younger ladies who served on the praise team to wear longer dresses. The man was in his sixties at the time, and it seemed quite odd that he would make the request. After all, this was the 90’s, and legalism was something we should have gotten over. However, the way he made the request was compelling. He taught the adult Sunday School class, and at the beginning of the class he explained that even though he was an older man, his desires and lusts are still active. In a gentle manner, he asked, as a an act of kindness to him, for the younger ladies not to wear short skirts when they served on the platform. How could anyone argue with such a request? The hemlines quickly plummeted.
C. Be careful to examine how you appear to other people. If you become aware of the fact that you cause lusts to simmer in others, change what you can, and be discrete where you can’t.
4. Increase in Love for the Saints.
A. The family of God is held together by the Holy Spirit through faith in Jesus Christ and commitment to His Word. It is a bond of love that is stronger than the family that is held together merely by blood lines. The family of God shares a common destiny, a common faith, and a common experience. The saints, far more than the tribe, clan, or family, deserve and should have your affection. Paul urges you to nurture relationships with the saints more and more.
B. Illustration: Christmas season always brings a spike in the number of domestic crisis for law enforcement officers. I know why, because it seems that all of my life I have been forced to spend the holiday with relatives with whom I have nothing in common, experiencing their arguments and petty feelings, all in the name of family love. Yet, the people with whom I most share a kindred spirit are the Spirit-filled believers. It makes little sense to neglect the family of God for a family born of this world.
C. Remember that one of the characteristics of the Spirit-filled church is breaking of bread from house to house. Make it your goal to show hospitality with a fellow church member with whom you haven’t yet gotten to know.
5. Live Quietly.
A. Literally, make it your ambition not to be ambitious. Ambition brings disquiet to your life. It brings strife and quarrelling.
B. Ambition defined: Ambition is your striving to achieve a goal that you set for yourself. It is opposed to faithful ministry which is how you achieve the goal that God has set for you. Much of what passes for vision today is really selfish ambition. For instance, selfish ambition would drive me to build things, and lead the church into things that would give the appearance of success and God’s blessings, but would neglect the greater calling, that is, to build disciples and lead them into greater sanctified living. But, by being faithful to pastor my congregation, we will arrive at the destination where God wants us to be.
C. Here is a way to set a goal in this area. Take the ministry that you have, and find a way to do it better. Get good at the fundamentals of it. You will be successful at your ministry, and if you are to be raised to another level, God knows where you are at. At work, do the same. In your finances, first learn to live within your means, and trust God to bring the increase.
6. Mind your own affairs.
A. There are two aspects to this:
1. Be diligent to manage your own house well; and
2. Refrain from getting involved in managing someone else’s affairs.
B. The qualifications for an elder or deacon in the church is the ability to manage their own household. That means that they live within their means, they manage their money well, and that their children behave honorably and are believers.
C. In the next few days, it would be good to set some goals for your own household. Unless you are in crisis, set modest goals for the year, one or two things, and accomplish them.
7. Work well
A. In any occupation, believers should be the most cheerful, reliable, and skilled workers in the place. In fact, it is a testimony to God’s faithfulness that a believer is a good employee. Also, it is a requirement that, unless disabled, that believers be employed at some work so that they will not be dependent on others, whether the state or the church.
B. Illustration: There was a small factory owner who once hired an inexperienced, and unqualified Spirit-filled believer in hopes that his character would be enough to cause him to learn the job skills necessary. The young man quickly learned the job and faithfully worked at his job with very few absences and always on time. The owner was so impressed by his good work habits, and production ability, that he asked the employment agency to send him anyone who attended the same church.
C. Only you know what goal that can be set where you work. Can you take less time off for illness? Can you pick up a new and needed skill? Can you become a friendlier co-worker?
Conclusion
A. There is an important rule to remember before I close. In order to add something honorable to your way of life, you have to drop something that is not as honorable or pleasing to God. God is not going to give you more time, more of an ability to have more things clutter your life.
B. Also, you must not make the mistake of thinking that what is being said here is merely a suggestion. It is God’s will that you yield your life to Him more and more. The reason for spiritual impotence, the ineffectiveness to attract people to the life of a disciple, is failure to yield sufficiently the time and energy of your life.
C. So where do we go from here? I encourage you, before you leave, to take a moment to allow the Holy Spirit to speak to your heart. I know his voice has been poking at your heart during this message. Then, make your commitment to live to please God more this year.
