KEY SCRIPTURE: Job 33:4, “The Spirit of God has made me; the breath of the Almighty gives me life.” I hope you are enthusiastic about your salvation this morning. I hope you’re excited about your personal relationship with Jesus.
Do you feel as though you’re reaching your full spiritual potential in Jesus Christ?
Do you feel the Holy Spirit uses your life like a conduit for His Power?
Whether or not you do, it is His will for you to know He is on the move. He never stopped moving. He’s standing by to fill you with a new fire, a new passion and a powerful anointing, but His compelling is for you to come closer than you are right now. He has a special anointing for you, but you are going to have to make a decision to draw nearer to Him than you have been.
Today, the Spirit of The Living God wants to fill you, consume you, make you a life force for the living God. If you’ve been baptized in the Holy Spirit and you think you’ve experienced it all, you’re mistaken. God has more fore every individual here today.
We have underestimated (in a big way) the power and glory of the Spirit of God, and even as I attempt to preach a deeper understanding of the Spirit of God this morning, I will fall drastically short of the Glory of God the Holy Spirit. He is beyond explanation. He is infinite in power, magnificent in Glory: indescribable, indefinable, wonderful, powerful and mysterious…
Are you craving the power of God and thirsty for the outpouring of the Holy Spirit?
I have good news for you today: God is enthusiastic about you today!
Job 33:4, “The Spirit of God has made me; the breath of the Almighty gives me life.”
He wants you to be fired with enthusiasm and filled with power by His Holy Spirit.
I used to work under a pastor who would tell his staff, “If you aren’t fired with enthusiasm, you’ll be fired with enthusiasm!”
I know Jesus is ENTHUSIASTIC about YOU, and that He loves you with an endless passion about because He spent His whole life saving YOU and because He gave you a down payment on the life you’re sure to receive through Him. That down payment is the Holy Spirit.
Eph 1:13-14, “Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit,
14 who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession-- to the praise of his glory.”
I: The ministry of the Holy Spirit of God is to live in and among mankind.
The Holy Spirit: PARACLETE (one called along side) is the life force of God, which lives among us and touches us on a daily basis. He is what we feel when we worship and pray. He is what we experience when we see the manifestation of the gifts of the Spirit, such as healings, miracles, tongues and prophecies, words of knowledge and discernment…
His force stirred the water of the healing pool in Jerusalem and His hand stirs the hearts of broken men and women today. He is the conviction of God unto repentance and the power of God unto salvation. The Holy Spirit has been and always will be on the move, and He is awaiting a people of enough faith to press in and receive the fire and baptism Jesus promised to all His disciples.
Today, the Spirit of God, who gives you life, wants you to live it more abundantly.
He leads men to walk in righteousness.
In Romans 8:4 the Bible tells us to walk according to the Spirit. I have a hunch God means more for us than just the act of living right. According to the Spirit means a lot more than just being holy. How does the Spirit operate? What do you know of how He moves?
He is the presence of God manifest among men. He is the power of God working in and through men. He is the conviction of God bringing men to repentance and delivering them to salvation.
That means living according to the Spirit is more than we’ve thought it to be.
It means being full of the presence and power of God: anointed, blessed, ignited with an unquenchable fire that lights on everyone you get near… That’s the nature of the Holy Spirit!
II: THE SPIRIT OF GOD IS A CONSUMING FIRE.
Illustrate: People coming to church for a cozy and warm cuddling experience with God…
Imagine a marriage scenario where all your spouse ever wants to do is ‘cuddle.’
Where’s the passion? Where’s the action? Where’s the fire?
Just as there’s so much more to the marriage bed than the cuddling, and there’s much more to an encounter with the Holy Spirit of God than what you’ve come to know!
The Spirit is more than just a cozy fire, He is a CONSUMING FIRE!
Ezekiel 1:1, “In the thirtieth year, in the fourth month on the fifth day, while I was among the exiles by the Kebar River, the heavens were opened and I saw visions of God.”
Ezek 1:4-5, “I looked, and I saw a windstorm coming out of the north-- an immense cloud with flashing lightning and surrounded by brilliant light. The center of the fire looked like glowing metal, and in the fire was what looked like four living creatures. In appearance their form was that of a man,”
Ezek 1:12-14, “Each one went straight ahead. Wherever the spirit would go, they would go, without turning as they went.
13 The appearance of the living creatures was like burning coals of fire or like torches. Fire moved back and forth among the creatures; it was bright, and lightning flashed out of it.
14 The creatures sped back and forth like flashes of lightning.”
WHEREVER THE SPIRIT WOULD GO, THEY WOULD GO, WITHOUT TURNING!!!
My friends, these creatures, however amazing, however powerful, found their life and their passion and their fire in the presence of the Spirit of God! Wherever the Spirit would go, they would go, without turning.
Nothing enraptured them more, nothing distracted them, nothing filled them with life more than being in the presence of the Holy Spirit of God!
And the result was they were bright in appearance, full of power, like flashes of lightning!!!
SHOULDN’T THIS DEFINE OUR LIFE AND OUR PASSION FOR THE SPIRIT OF GOD?
THE SPIRIT OF GOD IS A CONSUMING FIRE and HE’S WAITING FOR YOU TO DRAW NEAR. James 4:8, “Come near to God and he will come near to you.”
James 4:8, “Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you.”
III: THE SPIRIT OF GOD IGNITES ALL WHO COME NEAR.
III: THE SPIRIT OF GOD IGNITES ALL WHO COME NEAR.
Illustrate: With a piece of flash paper, how being on fire for Jesus and full of the Holy Spirit is so much more a light to the nations than a cozy experience with God every week…
The paper has the potential, but never reaches it at a distance. It must come in contact with, and be baptized in the fire to be a light to the world!
The Spirit of God is the light and the power of God living among man, touching man on a day-to-day basis. He is a consuming fire, our source of life and our power to be witnesses to the nations in Jesus’ Name. Jesus insisted the disciples receive this promised gift: Baptism in the Holy Spirit before continuing in their ministry to the nations without Him…
Acts 1:4-8, “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit…
8 …you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."”
THE SPIRIT OF GOD IGNITES ALL WHO COME NEAR.
Press in, draw near…
“Well Pastor, I’ve already been baptized in the Holy Ghost and I’ve spoken in tongues.”
Well, I guess you’ve graduated Holy Spirit University then! There must be nothing left for you!
You climbed the Mt. Everest of spirituality! MUST BE A GREAT VIEW FROM UP THERE…
WHATEVER YOU’VE EXPERIENCED, GOD HAS MORE FOR YOU!
You haven’t finished climbing. You haven’t obtained your full share. You haven’t explored all there is to explore or experienced all you’ve been called to experience. PRESS ON & PRESS IN!!!
HOLY SPIRIT BAPTISM IS JUST THE ENTRY POINT FOR MINISTRY: EXPERIENCING GOD 101.
Before His ascension, the disciples knew what it was to commune with God the Son face to face, and in their weakness they experienced His awesome strength. But afterwards, they would need to continue to dwell with God in a real way.
They would need the Spirit of God to lead them and direct them and to endow them with enthusiasm, boldness and power to carry out the will of the Father. Matt 7:21, “"Not everyone who says to me, ’Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.”
But how can we know the will of the Father, except by His Spirit?
1 Cor 2:11, “For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man’s spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.”
Illustrate how no one knows your will as well as the spirit within you.
Therefore, how are we to know God’s will without His Spirit dwelling within us, leading us and guiding us from day to day?
PRESS IN, SEEK THE GREATER GIFTS, DON’T LEAVE TILL YOU’VE RECEIVED!
HOLY SPIRIT BAPTISM IS JUST THE BEGINNING OF WHAT GOD HAS FOR YOU!
Continue to draw closer to God and He will draw closer to you…
Continue to draw closer to God and He will draw closer to you…
HOW?
1: We do this according to the Word of God… Not according to the way some famous TV evangelist did it, not some imitation of what we’ve seen happen to our friends, but according to His Word and His Promise, we wait, we seek, we knock, we receive IN JESUS NAME!
2: We do this by prayer & supplication. Not just talking to God, but pouring ourselves out to God.
Not just babbling on, but stopping to listen to the conviction and direction of the Holy Spirit.
3: We do this in daily worship… With eyes closed, hands raised and knees bent… Broken, spent, at the very end of our humanity and humility, worshipping with our hands extended as much as with our hands raised, hashing out our salvation day to day in ministry, with the work of our hands and hearts, carrying out the will of the Father in the Name of the Son by the Power of the Spirit!
Pray and conclude in worship.
CONCLUSION:
Today, God wants you to make a choice to serve, a choice to love, a chance to press in…
Altar Call/Prayer...
