If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ, (Romans 8:9).
I hope you have been watching A.D. on Sunday nights. This coming Sunday night the episode includes the most important event in the life of the early church. We call it Pentecost. We call it that because it occurred during the Jewish feast of Pentecost, which celebrated the first fruits of the harvest coming in. It was during this festival, ten days after the ascension of Jesus (powerfully portrayed in A.D. last Sunday!) that the Holy Spirit was “poured out” on the early church. Most biblical scholars look to this event as the actual birth of the New Testament church.
New Testament faith is all about how what Jesus did on the cross becomes real in our experience by the work of the Holy Spirit. Let me put together a small picture of all that the Holy Spirit does in the life of a believer:
The Spirit PREPARES us: Before you even become a Christian, the Holy Spirit is at work in your life. As a matter of fact, without the preparation work of the Spirit, you would never come to faith. He convicts us of sin and our need for Jesus, and then he enables us to respond to our recognition of need by helping us say “Yes” to Jesus.
The Spirit INDWELLS us: When we ask Jesus to come into our lives…he comes. But he comes by sending the Holy Spirit to indwell our human spirit. Jesus had a body. According to Paul, he still has a body, (Colossians 2:9). He can’t physically indwell any of us. But because of the nature of God being three-in-one, wherever the Spirit is, Jesus is present. This is why today’s text is so important. If you don’t have the Spirit, you don’t have Jesus.
The Spirit REGENERATES us: Jesus told Nicodemus that unless he experienced a spiritual birth, a second birth, a birth from above (all valid translations of the world “anothen” used in John 3) he would never enter the Kingdom of God. He needed new life. The Spirit gives life. When he comes to indwell us, we come alive again spiritually. Thus, we are RE-generated by the Spirit.
The Spirit TRANSFORMS us: We are all in process as believers. Rather than imposing another set on laws on the Christian, changing our behavior from the outside/in, (which would be futile anyway without giving us the ability to keep them), God begins to work on us from the inside/out. He wants to see us become conformed to the image of Christ. In other words, the Holy Spirit works in our inner being to make us more like Jesus.
The Spirit EMPOWERS us: “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you”. These are some of Jesus’ final words to his disciples. He told them to stay in Jerusalem till they were “clothed with power from on high”. The job he had for them, and for us, requires a different kind of enabling than our human resources. It is the Holy Spirit working in us that enables us to “walk in the Spirit”, which is the primary objective of the Christian life. Without empowerment, we would be limited to living according to the “flesh” or old nature.
The Spirit GIFTS us: Every believer has a set of gifts that have been given them. They are not natural abilities, although they usually combine with our natural abilities to equip us to carry out the call and will of God in our lives. Romans, I Corinthians, Ephesians, and I Peter all have passages dealing with the gifts (charismata) of the Spirit. These gifts are the product of the Holy Spirit dwelling in us, and the Holy Spirit choosing what gifts to give us (I Cor. 12:11).
The Spirit GUIDES us: God wants your life to be “Spirit-led”. The Holy Spirit serves as an inner teacher and guide in our life. He uses the Bible to teach us and he prompts us internally to do the things God wants us to do. My overall sense is that what God desires for our lives, and what Jesus paid for on the cross, is that we would be spiritually mature, Spirit-led, men and women joyfully obeying and serving God and his Kingdom.
Now go back and put all this together. The Spirit PREPARES us, INDWELLS us, REGENERATES us, TRANSFORMS us, EMPOWERS us, GIFTS us, and GUIDES us. Can you see how important this is? He is the experiential agent in the Godhead (Trinity). All the Father planned, and Jesus accomplished, is brought into our experience by the Holy Spirit. What does that look like? Watch A.D. on Sunday and see how the Holy Spirit turns Peter from a coward into a Hero! He wants to do the same with each of us!
To hear more about this subject, check out: http://www.highlinecc.org/go/index.php/teaching/recent-sermons/sermon/18…