The Holy Spirit - The Essential Work of the Spirit

Good morning. Please have a seat. So, just a little bit. One other announcement that wasn't mentioned.

! We've got growth groups.! Growth groups are rolling. If you're not in a growth group, you'd like to be in a growth group, please see the welcome desk after. We're putting together some of the extra names just as the growth groups grow.

Move them around. Just want to make sure that you're in a growth group. Now, you might be asking, why would I want to be in a growth group? Several reasons. One, it's a great place to be known and to know others that are here in the church.

It's a way to love and to be loved, to be prayed for, to pray for others. One of the things that we do is we take the week's sermon and we look at it from an application point of view just to make sure everyone's kind of understanding to grow with the sermon.

So, that's my one announcement. So, please turn with me to John chapter 16. That is the passage that Dave read. This is going to be probably one of the hardest sermons to ever preach.

Not because of the topic, but because of the beautiful smell of bacon that's in the air. So, you guys are going to have to, we're going to have to ask the Holy Spirit to kind of wipe that smell away from us for a good 50 to, what, hour and a half as we cover this subject.

But before I go any further, let me just pray. Dear Holy Heavenly Father, we just thank you for the ability to laugh about these certain things, and we thank you for the blessings of being able to serve one another just as those that are in the kitchens that are preparing.

We just give you thanks for the hands that they've been given, the desire to honor us with this brunch. Lord, we give you thanks for this word. I just pray as we deal with this topic that the questions that arise would be the right questions.

They'd be the questions from the text of Scripture, not the questions that arise from the white spaces between, because sometimes, because someone said something, and this morning I'll be saying certain things.

It's not what I didn't say that is the most important, but what I am stating that Scripture says is important. So Father, we give you thanks, and we're going to look at Jesus' words just as Dave read to us.

The importance of the Holy Spirit in the life of the Christian, it is everything. Without the Spirit, we can't even have salvation.

So Father, I pray that we would truly come to understand and not ignore and at the same time not make too much out of these truths, but I pray that you'd place them in the right places of our lives.

Father, I pray that you'd grant us maturity through this sermon. In most holy and precious name, amen. If you are new or visiting, my name is BK. Welcome to our Labor Day weekend.

We're in a series of Romans, and we're getting into Romans 8, and if you read any commentary, any book on Romans 8, it is the favored chapter in pretty much all the Bible, but many people, because there's such beautiful truths that are contained within that chapter.

However, before we get into it, one of the aspects of that chapter is that the Holy Spirit is mentioned over 20 times, over 20 times. No other chapter in Romans does he talk about the Spirit that much.

So what we thought is we would kind of jump in and kind of give us an understanding of the Holy Spirit. So I thought we'd cover two aspects of the Holy Spirit.

Last week, we talked about who is the Holy Spirit, right? We learned that the Holy Spirit is not an impersonal power. It's not some type of mystical influence or a spiritual force, but that the Holy Spirit is indeed a person, and that the Holy Spirit is God, having the exact same attributes as God.

Now, the implications of this, if you don't see them, see if the Holy Spirit were simply a power, influence, or force, we could manipulate that Spirit through our prayers, perhaps our singing and that type of thing.

But the Holy Spirit is a person, and it's wrong not only to manipulate someone in this manner, but it's also just as wrong to attribute, to give certain truths to the Spirit, saying the Spirit told me the Spirit did, but the Spirit did in fact not do those things is a great offense.

What we understand that the Holy Spirit is a person is someone who must be known truthfully, because His God must be honored reverently, and at no point should we ever, ever deliberately misrepresent Him.

We talked about both the blasphemy of the Spirit. It's to attribute the works of God to Satan, and at the same time, for us to take these human works and attribute them to the Spirit that He did in fact not do.

I know they'd be offensive to me if someone claimed, you did something in my name that I did not ask you to, I did not empower you to, and it's the same way of the Holy Spirit.

So this morning, we come to the second question, and that question is, what does the Holy Spirit do? What is His purpose? And to answer that question, I thought we could begin in John 16, and as Dave said, there is a scene to be painted here.

John 16 happens the night before the crucifixion. He's in the upper room with His disciples, and He knows perfectly what's going to happen, and He knows His disciples don't quite get it yet, and He's preparing them for what is about to happen, for within hours, He's going to be betrayed, arrested, and crucified.

Now, it's important to note that these men have left everything to follow Jesus. For three years, they've walked everywhere with Jesus. They've heard Jesus teach.

They have watched Jesus heal the sick, command the storms. They've watched Him cast out demons, and they've even seen Him raise the dead. And now, Jesus tells them that He's going away.

And naturally, they're devastated. In fact, verse 6 says, because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart.

But then He says something that's kind of interesting in verse 7. I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away. Now, just think about what they'd be thinking at this moment.

Wait, wait, wait. How can you, Jesus, you leaving, be an advantage? How could losing the visible presence of Jesus possibly be to their advantage?

Well, I've got a pop quiz for you. All right? If you could have Jesus Christ physically standing beside you, or the Holy Spirit dwelling within you, what would you choose?

See, if you pick Jesus, you do not yet understand how necessary the ministry of the Holy Spirit is you're also seeing the problem that Jesus can only be in one place at one time.

So for you to have that prayer answered, I wish Jesus was with me. He's not with seven other billion people. So what Jesus was saying is that His departure would advance God's plan of redemption.

We know that Jesus would go to the cross, Jesus would rise from the dead, and Jesus would ascend to the Father. And from the Father, Jesus would send the Holy Spirit to live within His people.

You see, without the Holy Spirit, despite Jesus dying on the cross and rising again in three days, there would not be anyone to apply that salvation to us.

see, if you do not understand the workings of salvation, they are brought about quite simply defined by Peter in 1 Peter 1-2. He says that the Father in Heaven planned our salvation, Jesus Christ the Son purchased our salvation, and the Holy Spirit personally brings the reality of that salvation into our lives.

lives. No Holy Spirit means no salvation. So here is the deepest of truths that we need to comprehend.

The Holy Spirit is not an optional addition to the Christian life. The Holy Spirit is not reserved for those people who are unusually spiritual people.

the fact is there is no Christian life apart from the Holy Spirit. See, everything God intends to accomplish in His people is always applied through the Holy Spirit.

You see, that is the truth Jesus wanted His disciples to understand, and it is that truth we must understand before we enter into Romans 8. So this morning I want us to consider four incredible, great, marvelous works of the Holy Spirit.

The first one is going to be the Holy Spirit reveals and glorifies Christ. The Holy Spirit reveals and glorifies Christ. Number two, the Holy Spirit gives us life in Christ.

The Holy Spirit gives us life in Christ. The third point of this morning is that the Holy Spirit makes us like Christ, makes us life so He reveals and glorifies Christ.

He gives us life, He makes us like. And the fourth one, which is a beautiful one, is the Holy Spirit guarantees that God will finish the work He has begun in us.

Amen? So let us begin where the ministry of the Holy Spirit always begins, and that the Holy Spirit always directs our attention to Jesus Christ.

So first point, the Spirit reveals and glorifies Christ. Look at John 16, 8. This is the Holy Spirit reveals and glorifies Jesus Christ.

And it says, and He, when He comes, will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment.

Now, we need to understand this verse before I demonstrate to you how that glorifies Jesus. That word convict, when we hear that word, we often think it means making us feel guilty, right?

But that word means more than that. It means to expose, to reveal. Another way to say it is to bring the truth into light so that a person can no longer have any excuses.

So here are three things that the Holy Spirit brings to light in order for us to see and understand the Holy Spirit. One, sin. Notice it says, He convicts the world concerning sin in verse 9.

Notice He says, concerning sin because they do not believe in Me. Now, we know the world defines sin in all kinds of ways.

Brokenness, mistake, it's a bad decision, it's perhaps the result of our circumstances, but the Holy Spirit exposes something far deeper that exists within the human heart.

If you're with me, way back in Romans 1, I know it's about a decade ago, but when we were in Romans 1, we understood that humanity's fundamental problem is that we actually do not lack the knowledge of God.

Right? We do not lack that knowledge. It says that we know that knowledge, but we actively suppress it. We push it down. We refuse to honor God as God.

We've exchanged His glory for the things that He has made in. The reality is we want God's world, but we do not want God ruling over us.

And in John 16, Jesus brings that rebellion to its decisive point. He says, concerning sin, because they do not believe in me.

So at this point, God had sent His Son into the world. He lived with them for 33 years, these last three years with this ministry, and they have completely rejected Him.

That's why Scripture says, the light came into the world, but people loved the darkness rather than the light. So this idea of unbelief is not merely an innocent lack of information.

It is an expression of a heart that refuses to come under the authority of Jesus Christ. To sin is to reject God's righteous rule over us.

It's to refuse His righteous lordship. And it's a refusal to not come to Him for life.

See, the greatest problem is not merely that people commit individual sins. The deepest problem we have is that we reject the God against whom we have sinned and then refuse the Son He sent to save us.

One of the functions of the Holy Spirit is to expose that rebellion in our hearts. He strips away our excuses and confronts us with this question.

what have you done with Jesus? What have you done with Jesus? Secondly, He convicts the world concerning righteousness.

Verse 10, it says, concerning righteousness because I go to the Father and you will no longer see me. The fact of the matter is the world looked at Jesus and rejected Him.

They declared Him guilty. They considered Him a fraud, a blasphemer, a rebel, so much so they killed Him in the most cruelest ways on the cross.

But did man's judgment stand? No, it didn't. God is the one who judged and Jesus Christ ascended into heaven.

Christ's return to the Father was God's vindication of the Son because if Jesus were a fraud, a blasphemer or a rebel, the Father would never have accepted Him.

Sin could not exist in the holy existence of the Father. What this tells us is that the world's judgment concerning Jesus was completely wrong.

You see, Jesus is the righteous one. And the fact that we know that Jesus is perfectly righteous, it exposes our unrighteousness.

It exposes our unrighteousness. So, He reveals the sin that's in our heart. Well, I'm really pretty good. Well, let's just compare ourselves to Jesus. How do you man up? Oh, geez, I'm not that good, right?

And the third, He convicts the world concerning judgment. It says concerning judgment because the ruler of this world has been judged. What this means is at the cross, Satan appeared to be victorious.

But we all know it wasn't victory, it was his defeat. And Colossians tells us that Jesus disarmed the rulers and authorities and triumphed over them.

And if the ruler of this world has been judged, the fact is, everyone who remains in his kingdom will share in that judgment.

Are you with me? If you're on the non-Jesus side, which is Satan's side, there's no middle ground, God, you're hearing that you will be judged.

See, the Spirit exposes sin, the Spirit reveals the righteousness of Christ, and the Spirit warns of coming judgment. Now, why does the Holy Spirit do this?

Not, is it simply to make me feel miserable? it exposes our guilt so that we will finally stop defending ourselves and finally turn to Jesus Christ in mercy.

It's simply, Lord Jesus, have mercy on me because I am a sinner, I am an unrighteous, and I deserve judgment.

Somebody asks you, what is it is to be a Christian? That's it. It's to cry out to God for mercy. And it's the Holy Spirit that drives you there.

So, how does He reveal this truth to us? The first is He does it through the Word of God. See, this is the big question, right?

First, look what Jesus shared with His disciples at verse 13. It says, when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all truth. What He's talking about, all these things that Jesus has been teaching the disciples, they were just missing it, not understanding it, right?

We know after Jesus had rose from the dead, the Holy Spirit comes to them, and they get it. You know, Peter, the man who, I'll never deny you, Jesus, oh, I denied Jesus three times, would go into, turn into a man after Pentecost who was bold in the power of the Spirit and declared truth.

But at that moment He did not know. So these men, we know, would be responsible for proclaiming Christ and laying the foundation of the church, but even then they did not yet understand everything Jesus had taught them.

But Jesus promised them that the Holy Spirit would, one, guide them into truth, two, that He would bring Christ's word into their remembrance, remembrance, the third thing, it's to reveal the significance of Christ's death and resurrection, and four, lead them as they proclaimed and recorded the truth that Christ intended His church to possess.

So when we read that, that's for the disciples. How about us? How about us today? And that's what I said, God's word, God's word. 2 Peter 1, 21, Peter helps us in our understanding.

It says, for no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. See, this is Peter talking about the writing of Holy Scriptures, the Bible.

Theologians call this inspiration, right? It's the inspiration. The Holy Spirit gave us God's word that is His truth, what He taught the disciples, we now know.

The fact is, the apostles did not invent the message of the New Testament. The Holy Spirit gave them the truth concerning Christ.

The fact is, the Spirit continues His work through the word that He inspired. God. The other way that the Holy Spirit works is that the Holy Spirit opens our heart to understand God's truth.

1 Corinthians 2.14 says that the natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God because they are spiritually discerned.

The fact is, the Holy Spirit does not give us a new Bible. The Holy Spirit does not whisper new revelations that compete with God's Word, but the Holy Spirit opens our minds and hearts so that we understand, we believe, and we obey the truth which is revealed in Scripture.

Theologians call this word illumination. God inspired His Holy Scriptures and then He gives us this illumination for us enabling us to understand.

And we know this. For some of us who were saved when we were older, Bible's kind of sitting there, you read the words, you can understand the grammar, you can understand the history, but the truth of the message just did not penetrate your heart.

heart. So you may know all these things, you may even have respect for God's Word, but if one isn't given eyes to see the glory of Christ or receive the truth as the living Word of God, they are unable to truly understand because it's the Holy Spirit that turns on the light, He opens blind eyes and He takes this truth and presses it upon our hearts.

And all of this leads to the great purpose statement in verse 14 of Matthew or of John 16, it simply says, the Holy Spirit will glorify me, He will glorify me.

If you ever want to know what the controlling purpose of the Holy Spirit is, here's a hint, the Holy Spirit never draws attention away from Jesus Christ.

He never draws attention away from Jesus Christ. He does not exist to make us fascinated with ourselves, our experiences, or our supposed power.

The Holy Spirit exists to glorify Jesus Christ. Here's a test I want to give you. If you really want to know if the Spirit is moving, whether it's in a ministry, a message, or a spiritual claim, this is the truth.

The evidence of the Spirit's work is that not everyone is talking about the Spirit. They're talking about who? Jesus. You see, what is the evidence?

when people are seeing, loving, trusting, obeying, and worshiping Jesus Christ. That is the test of whether or not the Holy Spirit is working.

So simply said, the Holy Spirit convicts us of sin. The Holy Spirit reveals Christ through the Scriptures, and the Holy Spirit opens our hearts to understand that truth.

When we get it, He then turns our eyes away from ourselves and fixes them upon the glory of the Son. That is the primary work of the Holy Spirit.

Now what else does the Holy Spirit do? Well, our second point, the Holy Spirit gives us life in Christ. The Holy Spirit gives us life in Christ.

He doesn't merely reveal Christ, He gives us life. And let me explain how He does this, but before that, let me explain why He does this.

You see, the Bible never describes unbelievers as people who are spiritually confused and need better information. Okay? I want us to understand this.

Romans 1, we know, says we suppress the knowledge of the truth. So it's never, does that person need more knowledge? That's never the answer. Nor does Scripture describe us as basically good, who simply need some improving.

But Ephesians 2 simply says that apart from Christ, we are spiritually dead. not spiritually disabled, spiritually deaf, spiritually incapable.

We're actually spiritually dead. And the truth is dead people do not need encouragement. Dead people do not need education. Dead people do not need a better environment.

The fact is dead people need life. Amen? They need life. And only God can give them that life. And that is through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Jesus explains this so well in John chapter 3. If you remember, a man named Nicodemus, one of the leading religious men of the time. This is a man who knew the Scriptures.

This is a man who obeyed the law. This is one of the most respected, revered people in all of Israel. And you would think if anyone appeared qualified to enter the kingdom of God, it was Nicodemus.

Jesus simply says, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Notice that Nicodemus did not need a religious adjustment.

Jesus Christ didn't consider, well, you're almost there. Keep coming to church, you'll get there. No, no, he said he needed a new birth. That's why verses 5 and 6 it says, unless one is born of water and the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.

That which has been born of the flesh is flesh and that which has been born of the spirit is spirit. See, the fact is human nature can only reproduce human nature.

Education cannot produce spiritual life. Religious activity does not produce spiritual life. Church attendance does not produce spiritual life and nor do Christian parents produce spiritual life in their children.

Only the Holy Spirit can produce spiritual life. This is what the Bible calls regeneration. Regeneration is defined by the sovereign work of the Holy Spirit by which he gives spiritual life to someone who is spiritually dead.

Titus 3.5 says he saved us not by works which he did in righteousness but according to his mercy through the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit.

Greatest work, right? You want to see a miracle? We see them every time someone is regenerated is brought from death to life. So we watched last week people testifying that they were once dead and now alive in Christ.

That is the work of the Holy Spirit because we do not cause our new birth, we do not earn it, we did not cooperate our way into it, it's simply because the Spirit of God opened our blind eyes.

But here's the thing, the Spirit does more than just give us life, it unites us with Christ in his holy people. 1 Corinthians 12.13 says for by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body.

This is often called the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Now I want you to notice when Paul says it happens. he does not divide the Corinthian church into ordinary Christians and Spirit baptized Christians.

And the reason I'm talking about this is because there are certain arms of the Christian faith who believe that you become a Christian but you're not spiritually filled until the Spirit has come upon you which is normally if you are given a Spirit manifestation that is often described as tongues or some other sign to show.

So there's this kind of this pre-Christian and then post-Christian or Christian and then Spirit enhanced Christian. Now there's problems to that way of thinking.

One in this text Paul says we are all baptized into one body. You see the baptism of the Spirit is not a second spiritual experience reserved for advanced Christians or for those who've had a manifestation of the sign gifts.

The fact is the baptism of the Spirit is the once for all work of the Spirit by which every believer is united with Christ and placed into his body the church.

Amen? So if you belong to Christ you have been baptized by the Spirit into his body. And the Spirit also gives us life and unites us with Christ.

That's why Romans 8-9 says if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ he does not belong to him. So the idea that a Christian could be not indwelt by the Holy Spirit is completely against the words and truths of God's Word.

And we're going to examine this statement more carefully when we arrive in Romans 8 but the central truth is already clear. There is no such thing as a genuine Christian who does not possess the Holy Spirit.

The fact is the Spirit does not occasionally visit the believer. The Holy Spirit does not come and go according to our emotions and the Holy Spirit does not simply belong to pastors, missionaries, or unusually mature Christians or those who display a special sign.

The fact is the Holy Spirit permanently indwells every person who belongs to Jesus Christ. This is the great promise.

And to state anything else is a lie and would be a blaspheme of the Holy Spirit. another work of the Holy Spirit is that he makes us his temple.

1 Corinthians 6.19 says that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you.

In the Old Testament the visible sign or the visible glory of God filled the tabernacle and later the temple. But it under the new covenant God does not merely dwell in a building made of stone.

By his Spirit God dwells within his people. And the remarkable promise is that the indwelling Holy Spirit seals us.

Ephesians 1.13 says having also believed you were sealed in him with the Holy Spirit of promise. God what Paul's talking about is a seal marked ownership and provided security.

The presence of the Holy Spirit simply stated this person belongs to God. Paul then says that the Spirit is the pledge of our inheritance.

It's a down payment, a guarantee that the full promise will follow. God has not merely promised that he will complete our salvation.

He has placed his own Spirit within us as the guarantee. So I want you to see the scope of the Spirit's work.

He regenerates us. That's giving life to the dead. He baptizes us, uniting us with Christ and the church. He indwells us, making us his temple, and he seals us.

These are not separate levels of Christianity. These are all works of the Spirit received by every person who truly belongs to Christ.

Christ. Now the implication of this is, this means that a Christian is not simply someone who believes Christian doctrines.

You with me? It doesn't mean that. A Christian is not merely someone who attends church or raised in a Christian home or lives by a certain Christian morality or law.

A Christian is someone to whom the Holy Spirit has given life in whom the Holy Spirit now lives.

See, the Christian life begins by the Spirit, and the Christian life continues by the Spirit. And as we will see next, the great work of the Spirit within us is to make us increasingly like Jesus Christ.

This is my third point. Third purpose of the Holy Spirit is to make us like Christ. We know that the Holy Spirit reveals Christ to us.

The Holy Spirit gives us life in Christ. We also know in Scripture that the Holy Spirit makes us like Christ. Christ. And that is a lifelong work.

We call this sanctification. Some would call it growing in holiness. Regeneration happens at the beginning of the Christian life, and in a moment, the Holy Spirit takes someone who's dead and brings him life, and then progresses to make him or her like Jesus.

sanctification is the continuing work of the Holy Spirit. It's the changing of our desires. It's the confronting of our sins. It's the renewing of our thinking.

It's the ideas where we begin to conform, we get conformed to the character of Jesus Christ. Christ. What this means is it doesn't happen all at once.

And this is good. God is patient. He is long-suffering. He is merciful. He loves us.

And it's the exact same thing as a parent with a child. The child starts off young and gains wisdom and experience over time. It's while children who are eight years old do not drive cars.

Right? They're just incapable. And sometimes we make that mistake of trying to treat new believers or young believers like they're older and mature believers.

And we judge them. We don't show the loving, merciful compassion that Jesus Christ demonstrates to us. It's the role of the Holy Spirit to do that work, not us.

Now the Holy Spirit was active throughout the earthly life and ministry of Jesus Christ. The Spirit was active at his conception in Luke 135.

We read in Matthew 3 that the Spirit descended upon him at his baptism. We know in Mark 1 that the Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness. Luke 4 tells us that Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit.

Acts 10 38 says that God anointed Jesus with the Holy Spirit with power. Hebrews 9 14 says that Christ offered himself to God through the eternal Spirit.

And Romans 8 11 connects the Spirit with his resurrection. Now I want you to understand Jesus never ceased to be God. He did not surrender his divine nature become less than the eternal Son.

But in his true humanity Jesus lived in perfect obedience to the Father and in perfect dependence upon the Holy Spirit. What's the message?

If Jesus Christ depended on the power of the Holy Spirit where does that put us? We need him. Amen? We need him.

See Jesus life shows us what a genuinely Spirit governed human life looks like. And what do we see in Jesus?

We saw holiness, obedience, truth, compassion, courage, gentleness, self-control, a complete submission to the will of the Father.

That is what the Spirit filled life looks like. I want you to notice that Jesus did not become less controlled when he was filled with the Spirit.

You with me on that? And I talked to you last week just about some of the examples that I use where people believe that if they can act in a chaotic and display no self-control that that is somehow a work of the Spirit within him.

That is a complete lie. Jesus Christ displayed perfect self-control. He did not become chaotic. He lived an ordered, purposeful, holy life.

You see, that matters because the goal of the Spirit's work in us is to make us like Christ. 2 Corinthians 3.18 says that as we behold the glory of the Lord, we are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.

And this comes from the Lord, the Spirit. Now I want you to notice the process. The Spirit shows us Christ through the Word he inspired.

As we see Christ more clearly, the Spirit changes us to resemble the Christ we see. And this isn't just simply behavior modification. The Spirit does not simply teach us how to appear more religious, but he begins from the inside out.

And you guys can testify, and this is why it's so important to share your testimonies. Because God changes what we love, right? We used to love one thing we were in the world, and now we do not love it.

He changes what we hate. He changes what we pursue, and he changes how we think. Man, I can look back even thinking at some of my decisions 20 years ago, thinking they were holy when they were not.

And we see this working when the Holy Spirit changes how we respond when we are hurt, when we're disappointed or tempted or opposed.

That's where you get to see the maturity. But there's a warning here. Galatians 5, 17 says that the flesh sets its desires against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh.

What that means is there's real conflict that we will experience. That becoming a Christian does not mean that the battle with sin disappears. It really means that for the first time the battle truly begins.

Before salvation we were controlled by the flesh but now the Holy Spirit lives within us with new desires. He exposes old patterns and he confronts us when we do not resemble Christ.

And he gives us power to say no to the sin that once ruled over us. That is why Paul commands us in Galatians 5, 16, walk by the Spirit and he will not carry out the desire of the flesh.

To walk by the Spirit means that we live in conscience dependent upon him in obedience to the word that he inspired. We do not become holy by sitting passively and waiting for the Spirit to change us, right?

We work hand in hand with God and I know it's hard to understand and praise the Lord that's why God gave us Romans 8. to explain those things. But we are called to obey but to obey in his strength.

We are called to put sin to death not through our power but his power. And we are called to discipline our minds but we are to depend upon him to renew them through his word.

See sanctification is not us working without the Spirit. It's not the Spirit working while we remain uninvolved. It is the believer actively obeying God through the power that the Holy Spirit supplies.

And what does that produce? You know fruits of the Spirit. Galatians 5 love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

these are the qualities that describe the character of Jesus Christ. If I can ask you in a more practical way, how do you respond when someone speaks harshly to you?

How do you behave when no one is watching? How do you treat people who cannot do anything for you? What happens when your plans are interrupted? that's usually time when I get the biggest kick in the pants.

Are you becoming more patient? How about more truthful, more compassionate, more forgiving, more self-controlled?

And do you hate your sin more than you did before? And do you love Christ more than you did before? Because that is where we look for the evidence of the Spirit's transforming work.

And how else does the Holy Spirit make us more like Christ? He gives us spiritual gifts. 1 Corinthians 12 tells us that he equips us to serve others.

These gifts aren't look at me. These gifts are how can I serve you? How can I strengthen this church? And the fourth point that I have for you this morning is, and I've alluded to it, it's the Spirit guarantees that God will finish his work.

The Spirit guarantees that God will finish what he has begun in us. Ephesians 1 calls the Holy Spirit both a seal and a pledge.

2 Corinthians 1, 21, Paul says, and it is God who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us, who has also put his seal on us and given us his spirit in our hearts as a guarantee.

So for those who fear that they will lose their salvation, if you have true salvation, you ain't losing it because God has sealed it and God is guaranteeing it.

God does not begin saving people and then abandon them halfway home. The Spirit who gave us life continues to dwell within us and the Spirit who began making us like Christ will always continue his work and his presence is God's guarantee that one day the work will be complete.

We are not secure because our grip on God is always strong. We are secure because God has placed his spirit within us.

Amen? Listen, if my salvation was based on me, I would have lost it about a hundred times. already. And I'm just talking since last Tuesday. So let me conclude.

What does the Holy Spirit do? Well, one, we know that the Spirit reveals Christ to us, exposes our sin, exposes our eyes to the truth, and directs us to the Savior whom we desperately need.

Number two, the Spirit gives us life in Christ. He regenerates us, He unites us, He indwells us, and He seals us. And we know that the Spirit makes us like Christ.

That's why we're always confronted with our sin, He's always renewing our minds, He's producing spiritual fruit and transforming our character. character. And fourthly, the Spirit guarantees that God will finish His work in us.

One author says that a Spirit-filled life looks like this, it looks like that Christ is exalted, Scripture is believed, sin is resisted, holiness is pursued, spiritual fruit is produced, the church is served, and future glory is anticipated.

See, the Holy Spirit comes to make Christ known and to make us like Christ. Christ. So do not merely ask the question, have I had some experience with the Holy Spirit?

Ask, has the Holy Spirit opened my eyes to Christ? Has the Holy Spirit given me spiritual life? Has the Holy Spirit or is the Holy Spirit producing the character of Christ in me?

Because those are the clearest evidence of the Spirit's presence in your life rather than a dramatic moment. Ultimately, it is a life that is increasingly centered upon Christ, governed by His Word and transformed into His likeness.

Let me pray. Dear, dear, most holy, heavenly Father, Lord, we thank You for this truth of Your Word.

Father, I ask that You would protect us from lies that either embellish or remove the truth about Your Spirit.

Father, there's so much confusion today to a point where some churches don't want anything to do with the Spirit and others have forgotten Your Word and You and are all Spirit.

I would say we tend to side with the all-word, no-spirit side, forgetting this third person of the Trinity and ignoring our greatest resource in living this Christian life.

Father, I pray that everyone here who, I pray that their eyes would be illuminated. They would see not only their sin, but to see that You're their Savior, that Your love was so great for us that You sent Your only Son to die on the cross so that we could have a relationship with You, that we could be forgiven, that we can walk in the newness of life and have that Spirit work in us so that we are no longer the person we used to be and are brought to be more like You.

So, Father, we thank You for Your Word and our understanding of it. I pray that You will redeem us through it.

I pray that we will rest in the truth that You have certainly sealed us until that day of redemption.

What a glory that will be. We ask these things in Your most beloved name. Amen. Amen. Thank you.