[0:00] This message was recorded at Vision Baptist Church in Alpharetta, Georgia. This is the next message in our series on the book of John entitled, Jesus is God.
[0:15] I hope he is your everything. Like that song said, I hope you love him like that. What a tremendous song. What a tremendous Savior we have. Tremendous privilege to serve him. Amen.
[0:26] I hope that is in your heart. Well, I want you to open your Bibles to John chapter 14. While you're turning, three things. I want you to pray for Allison Clapp. She's in the Dominican Republic.
[0:40] Everybody's sick on her team but her. Pray for her. She'll make it through. They're doing some medical work down there, so we'll be praying for them. A guy named Vicente Garcia, who is a Mexican that was illegal living in America, that God saved while he was over at the church in Alabama.
[0:59] Brother Ronald Tobias went through the church and preached. He surrendered to be a missionary. Left here and went to Peru knowing he'd never get back into America, most likely.
[1:10] Studied, went through the Bible college. Left and went to Burkina Faso, worked for Brother Keith Shoemaker. And two nights ago, he was held up at Knife Point. And so they were robbed.
[1:22] They got his computer and his cell phone and some money, probably $1,500, which is a lot in his economy. And they're very afraid right now. They're not even staying at their own home. Probably going to have to rent another house and try to get a guard to help watch.
[1:35] Brother Keith has the guard 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And I'd like to ask you to pray for Vicente and Gabi. And they are wonderful people. We support them as a church.
[1:46] And I hope that you'll pray for them. They're on the front lines in a rough place doing a great work for a great God. And I hope that you'll pray for them. The missionaries have already raised over $1,000 for them.
[1:59] They're going to try to replace everything at least and get some extra money. So if you'd pray for them, I think the other missionaries are going to take care of them. And, you know, before I preach just a few minutes to you, I'd like to say to you that camp is very important.
[2:14] And we ought to realize the opportunity and the privilege that we have to work in these kids' lives. As a missionary working in Peru, I knew one thing. If I could get the kids away from everybody else, get them away from all their usual places, get them away from their cell phone for a little bit, get them away from all the games that they play and have a time alone with them, that God would do a great work in their life.
[2:36] And I saw God shake lives and do great things. And so I want to challenge you to be helping with that. As I was sitting there, you know, I think Betty and I, I want to give $100 and just I'll keep buying the suppers every Thursday.
[2:50] But, you know, some of you could do that. If we give $100 of us, some families in this church are sacrificing big time to take care of the meal every time. We give an offering, but some family paid for that meal.
[3:01] They're probably putting way over $100 in this before it's over, especially if you kind of labor a lot more than that. Why don't you pray about maybe helping? We'll get some money to Brother Trent so he can get some of these kids and get them to camp and let God do a work in their life.
[3:16] If they come back to their home, they may never be a missionary, but they'll serve God and be used of God and be a stronger Christian for it. So I hope you'll pray about that. Take your Bibles to go with me to John chapter 14.
[3:28] John chapter 14, if you would. And we're going to read three verses. And I want to talk to you briefly about the Holy Spirit working in the lives of goers and senders and goers, goers and senders.
[3:41] As I read the passage and I was preparing for tonight, trying to think about it being goers and senders. And we're in a passage or we're in a part of the Bible now where we'll be talking about the Holy Spirit for several services.
[3:52] I want you to think of three major lessons tonight that lead to showing us how the Holy Spirit works in our life. And so read with me, if you would, John 14, 16 through 18.
[4:05] The Bible says, And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another comforter, that he may abide with you forever. Even the Spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him.
[4:19] But we know him, for he dwelleth with you and shall be in you. And I will not leave you comfortless. I will come to you. I wish you to underline in verse 16, with you.
[4:33] He's going to be, he abides with us forever. In verse 17, he dwells with us. And in that same verse, the next words, and he shall be in you.
[4:44] Holy Spirit, I ask you to work tonight in this service. I pray, God, that you would get a fire built in our hearts. Help us along to serve you and to have your power. I pray, God, that you would bless in every area of our ministry.
[4:57] Holy Spirit, deal with hearts tonight as we try to learn truths from your word about you and about your ministry. And I'll give you great honor and glory and praise. In Jesus' name, amen.
[5:08] Well, the first thing I want you to look at, if you got the Bible, Ephesians chapter 5 and verse 18. You know that we are commanded to be filled with the Holy Spirit. In these verses, God's sending the Holy Spirit.
[5:21] He's about to. And Jesus tells him, I'm going to send you another comforter, the Spirit of truth. That he's coming to this earth. And he's going to be with us, abide with us, dwell with us, and be in us.
[5:34] But in Ephesians 5, 18, the Bible says, And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess, but be filled with the Spirit. So I'd like to talk to you just a second about what it means to be filled with the Spirit.
[5:46] Some Bible verses. And then I'm going to walk you through three stages of how I believe God wants to work in our lives through the Holy Spirit. You noticed, with you, with you, in you.
[5:56] You've already seen that. He is here, abiding, dwelling in us. But how are we relating to him? To be filled with the Spirit. You can write this somewhere in your notes there.
[6:07] It means to be controlled by or consumed with him and his power and his work and his person and what he's doing in our lives. In Colossians 3, 16 and 17.
[6:20] We've gone over this before. But would you look at this verse with you? This is a parallel passage. You've got Ephesians 5, 18. You've got Colossians 3, 16. When you talk about being filled with the Spirit, you can leave alone the spooky, weird kind of stuff that you might think of when you think in terms of Pentecostalism.
[6:40] Or you think in terms of saying, look what we're filled with. We're filled with the Word of God. Look at verse 16. Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.
[6:57] Next verse, please. Verse 17. And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father. That's a parallel passage.
[7:08] The Word of God dwells in us. I want God's Word to move into me and to begin to work in me and to have his power in me.
[7:19] We're to be singing and teaching and challenging each other. Our hearts are to be filled with grace and goodness and sweetness that comes from the Lord Jesus and his Word working in our hearts.
[7:30] We are, we so fill ourselves with the Word of God and the things of God that we're saturated. Bible, Scripture, soaked. Spirit-filled Christians.
[7:41] And so what happens is, we talk about being filled with the Spirit. It's like, hey, we want to be so full of God's Word that it begins to affect the way I think. It begins to affect the way I act.
[7:51] It's constantly in my heart. It's constantly in my mind. We're to be filled, controlled by. Now, you know what? You already hear something? That's not something wild or spooky. That is, hey, I just got saved.
[8:03] And I give myself to God. And when I give myself to God, I want the Holy Spirit to work in me. And the Holy Spirit speaks Bible-ese. And so I want the Bible to move into me so God can speak and work in my life.
[8:15] Be filled with the Spirit. Second thing, we're to learn to walk in the Spirit. We're to learn to walk in the Spirit. Look, if you went to Galatians 5, 16. This I say then, walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.
[8:30] Walk in the Spirit. That's one thing. The first step is I want to be filled. So I give myself so God begins to work in me. I give myself so the Bible gets put in me. I give myself so God's Word is having an integral part of my life.
[8:44] And we get saved. You know, the Holy Spirit moved in. He lives in you right now. He abides in you. He dwells in you. He's with you. And He wants to fill you. He wants you to be consumed with Him.
[8:57] You say, what in the world does that mean? It's kind of like a newlywed guy when he gets married. You know, the truth is when a guy gets married, I mean, he is just so eat up with his wife. That's all he can think about.
[9:07] That's all he wants. He's at work. All he has in mind is getting home. If they're separated, they're just missing each other because they're just eat up with each other. That's all that's on their mind.
[9:18] You know what the Lord wants? He wants the Bible to be so real to me. Now then, the next step is I'm going to walk in it. I'm going to learn to let what God's doing in my life through His Word affect everything.
[9:29] Look, if you would, at Romans chapter 12 and verse 2. Romans chapter 12 and verse 2. The Bible says, Now, how am I going to walk in the Spirit?
[9:49] I'm going to find out what God's will is. I'm going to find out what God's work is. I'm going to let God do a work in me. And you see, what's going to happen is my mind is going to be renewed.
[10:00] And I'm going to be able to figure out this is what God wants. This is how God wants me to live. This is His Word moving into me. This is His Word. And I'm beginning to live that. You're not the same person you were because you are born again.
[10:13] Now you're going to take steps to make your practice reflect your position. You know that you're saved. You know that you're perfect. You know that you're a new creature. You know that you're a saint.
[10:24] You know that you're sinless. And all that's in position in heaven. Bill, we're in really good shape. But who I am and who I'm going to be and all that's really true about me isn't always reflected in how I'm acting and living right now.
[10:37] I may have all that. I may be all of that. But I may not be living like that. If you ever have one of your children that is really your child, really is, really has your genes, really is a part of your family.
[10:50] But they just don't live like sometimes you're like, my goodness, where did this kid come from? Where in the world did he learn that? That's not the way daddy wanted him to be. That's not the way mama wanted him to be. You ever been there?
[11:01] So sometimes your position isn't reflected in your practice. So now we're going to work on that. We're going to fill our heart with the Word of God. We're going to sing it, think about it, change the way we think.
[11:11] Here's a great passage on how to walk in the Spirit. Look at James 4, 7 and 8 with me. Look at James chapter 4, 7 and 8. This is like walking in the Spirit text. This is like walking in the Spirit text.
[11:23] James chapter 4, verse 7. Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw nigh to God and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
[11:39] If you look at this, wait a second. There was a time I thought being filled with the Holy Spirit was something really electrifying was going to happen to me. I thought it might almost be Benny Hinn style.
[11:51] I knew there wasn't anybody going to touch me with their hand and knock me down. I knew it wasn't going to be Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker slinging light blades at me. But I just thought something was going to happen and I was going to be praying and all of a sudden, and something big happened to me and I was a new guy.
[12:10] But here's more of a guy, Jesus' brother, a guy who lived with him, a guy who walked with him, a guy who knew. This is how he put it. Look at what he said. Number one, write it down.
[12:20] He said, submit. Number one. You know what the first step to being controlled by the Holy Spirit is? Giving up control. You know what the first step to being filled with the Holy Spirit and led by the Holy Spirit and guided by the Holy Spirit is to give up control.
[12:34] What did he say here? Submit yourselves, therefore, to God. Submit yourselves, therefore, to God. You've got to give up control. You have to resist Satan. First thing you do is you say, God, what do you want me to do?
[12:45] God, how do you want me to live? God, what's the plan you have in my life? God, where are you directing me? God, what's the word of God say? He said, where did I get all that? Where do I know what God's directing me? Well, you got it all written down. That way nobody comes up with any weird junk.
[12:57] Nobody goes home and says, I was praying and the Holy Spirit of God led me. And what he led me to do was divorce my wife and kill a man. No, that's not in here. So he didn't lead you that way. Amen. God led me.
[13:08] God led me to split a church and cause big rebellion. No, he didn't. That's not written in here. So how does God speak? He speaks through his word and he speaks in our heart. So the first thing you do is you submit to God.
[13:20] But would you notice what it starts with? It starts with submitting. It doesn't start with you getting a bigger position. It doesn't start with the Holy Spirit making somebody big out of you. It starts with you submitting to him to be controlled by him.
[13:33] Then as soon as that happens, you got to resist the devil. Because as soon as you start living for God, the second you make a decision, God's word says, he wants me to do this and I love him and I want to do it.
[13:47] And so I submit. And as soon as you take that first step, the devil will be breathing down your neck and he will be saying, no, no, no, no, no, no. You're misunderstanding it.
[13:57] No, no, no. Don't be a fanatic. And he'll do everything he can to get you back off track. And so here it is. Submit and resist. Submit and resist. Everything in you screams out that you should be allowed to make the decisions and that God's ways do not make sense.
[14:13] Resist and obey God. Next thing you see, as you see where your practice doesn't line up with the Holy Spirit and his position in the Bible, you know what happens?
[14:23] It's going to be sin confessing time. So look at the next part. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, purify your hearts, you double minded. You know what's going to happen if you fill with the spirit, control with the spirit, full of the Bible, letting the word of God live in your life and walking that way every day.
[14:40] You're going to be taking steps. And here's the thing. Listen, it doesn't give you a haughty spirit. It gives you a humble spirit. It doesn't make you feel like you're better than other people. It makes you feel like you need more of his direction.
[14:50] And you take a step and the Holy Spirit says, I don't like that. And you say, okay, I don't, I won't do that. And the Holy, then you fill up your heart with the Bible. You say, God, forgive me for taking steps and doing things that don't please you.
[15:01] And you cleanse yourself. You purify yourself and you walk closer to God. It's a constant thing of, oh, that's not what you like. That's not what you like. You know, Betty often jokes that when I die, when I die, she's not going to get married again.
[15:16] And the reason that she's got, I think it's a joke because I think she'd find better looking and more money. Amen. Man, but anyway, but anyway, you could laugh. But anyway, but anyway, as you know, Betty says, I wouldn't have enough time to get another one trained.
[15:30] I mean, if you knew the wild stallion she married and the meek, mild coat that she has now, who just says, yes, ma'am, I do what you say. That's a joke.
[15:40] You can laugh there too. If you understood, I mean, slowly over the years, things changed over the years. We learned to know each other. You know what the Holy Spirit's doing? He's walking in, you're walking in the spirit because you, you decided I want to do what God wants me to do.
[15:55] I want to change the way I am. And every step you take, he just keeps guiding you and directing you and you keep confessing and moving on. One more verse on this point. James 1 21.
[16:07] James 1 21. Our lives are going to be filled with constantly putting away and adding things. Let me tell you, you're not going to arrive. You haven't arrived and you're not going to arrive.
[16:18] Nobody in this room is where they ought to be. The guy who is where he ought to be is in a casket. Because when you see Jesus, you will be like him, but you ain't looking at him now.
[16:28] So I know you ain't like him. Say, man, you are not like him. You're still got to grow. Look what James 1 21 says. Wherefore, lay apart all filthiness, all filthiness, all sin, all things that don't please God.
[16:41] Superfluity of naught is just a bunch of naughty junk you're doing. And receive with meekness the engrafted word which is able to save your souls. The word and the spirit show us that things aren't clean and they aren't right.
[16:53] And we seek out what is really true from the word of God and add that into our lives through the work of the Holy Spirit. Number three. Third thing. We desire to not quench or grieve the Holy Spirit.
[17:06] Now, this is an amazing set of verses. We'll read two verses right here. But it's amazing. I surrendered to God to do whatever God wanted me to do. And I let him. I say, I'm yielding myself to your control. I decide to walk in that position.
[17:18] And the third thing I want you to look at is I'm not going to resist him and I'm not going to quench him. I'm not going to. I'm not going to hinder his work in my life. First Thessalonians 5 19 says quench not the spirit.
[17:30] Don't. In Spanish, the word for quench there is turn it off. Don't. Apagar. Don't snuff it out. Don't quench it. Don't throw a wet blanket on the flame. Don't stop for God from working.
[17:42] Can I just say sometimes I feel like we have a problem with that in our church? You know, I mean, sometimes we're pretty stiff around here. And, you know, we don't. We're like, I mean, I want God to work in my life, but I want nobody to know it.
[17:56] Amen. Ephesians 4 30 says and grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby you are sealed under the day of redemption.
[18:06] When he's at work in our lives, he will cause us to remember the word of God. Guess what he does? You know what he does? He constantly says, Austin, this is what I said. Austin, this is what I said.
[18:17] Austin, that's how they wrote the New Testament, by the way. It was him causing them to remember what he said. Look at John 14 26. Again, it says he will, he will sit.
[18:28] He will shall teach you all things and bring you into all things to your remembrance. Whatsoever I've said unto you, as he brings his word into remembrance, you decide to obey him and not quench him.
[18:41] I'm going to quit. I want you to listen to this. Here's what ends up happening. We have become expert Turner offers, expert quenchers and expert grievers.
[18:55] Most of us have lost what it means to be sensitive to his leadership. Most of us have no idea. As I walk around, it's not my money. So tell me what to do with my money.
[19:05] It's not my time. So tell me what to do with my time. It's not my talents. Tell me what to do with my talents. Most of us have lost that. And we've got into a routine and a rut. And that's the way we live.
[19:16] But it is God that works in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. Let me give you the practical application. You should set your affection on things above, on the things of God.
[19:29] Like daily Bible reading and discussions with others that love God and love talking about his word and preaching. You should try to live out what God's putting in your heart through his word. You'll be sensitive to what he puts in your heart.
[19:41] How is your life affecting what's happening with your time? How's your thought life affecting what's happening with your time and your talents and your money? You see, once I get a God mind, once I get the Bible in my head, all of a sudden it's not like this is my money.
[19:55] It's like it's his money. All of a sudden it's not this is my time. It's his time. These are my talents. No, all of a sudden it is I'm his and everything I have belongs to him. And it changes the whole way I look at things.
[20:06] It changes the way I look at my checkbook. It changes the way I look at my time, my watch, my calendar. It changes all of it. Do you feel prompted and convicted about sin and things that are not pleasing to God?
[20:16] Do you feel prompted and convicted about things that aren't pleasing to God? Do you feel impulses about what you ought to do? Not out of guilt, but out of love?
[20:27] Because the word of God is transforming how you think. That affects you as a sender and a goer. You know, our church ought to get to the point where as senders, we're all sitting here going, however the Lord guides me.
[20:38] Here's my wallet. God, I'm a sender and it's my job to help them get out there. And then, you know, sometimes we're like, I don't like them always asking for my money. I don't like them always.
[20:48] Why do they always get for it? It's all about me and not about what God wants. It's not about where does God fit in this situation is. I don't like it that way. Of course you don't.
[20:59] That's called quenching. Of course we don't like this whole world evangelism idea. It's certainly not a man-pleasing idea. It affects your attitudes as a sender. Oh, it affects your attitudes as a goer.
[21:10] It'll prompt you to give out tracts and to witness and to mention Jesus. You'll have both negatives that say don't do and stop as well as positives that say do and start.
[21:22] Are you sensitive? Are you sensitive? Something happens when sin creeps in.
[21:33] When sin creeps in, it slowly begins to erode and we lose our sensitivity. There was a David who sat on a hillside with a harp and wrote scripture and said, The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
[21:46] This guy wrote, Blessed is the man that walketh not in the chalceding of the valley. This guy wrote psalm after psalm. He was so sensitive. He was so open. He wanted God to speak to his heart.
[21:57] And then one day, slowly, maybe it was because age tends to do this to us. Age tends to move us to where we're a little more set in our ways and we're stubborn. And that's the way we want to do things.
[22:08] And it's kind of the mellowing stage. And mellowing is like right before we're rotten. You know, amen. And so we move into that stage. But there was old David.
[22:19] And then slowly, David decides not to go into battle. And David decides not to do some things. And David goes up on the rooftop of his house. And you can know for sure that the second he looked over and saw Bathsheba taking a bath, that the Holy Spirit said, Dave, that's not right.
[22:34] But by now, he's used to not being sensitive. And little by little, he fell into a big trap of sin because every little thing he did wrong, he just kept taking it and he lost his sensitivity.
[22:49] He couldn't feel it. He couldn't know this isn't right. He couldn't hear it. He couldn't see it. He couldn't remember it. He knew better. He knew better.
[23:00] By the way, you know that by the time he was caught, he was like, I knew better than this. I can't believe I got this far. But when we lose that, when we quit letting the Bible fill our heads up, when we quit saying, fill our hearts up, when we quit saying, I want to walk in the Spirit, and when we start quenching him and grieving him, we're just a step away.
[23:24] A step away. From sin, deadness, coldness. It plagues our churches everywhere in the country. You go in church after church, and there are the cadavers still living of dead Christians that no longer fill.
[23:42] There's still the people, the songs don't move them. The preaching doesn't move them. And by the way, sin doesn't even bother them any longer.
[23:53] Are you? Sensitive. Father in heaven, I love you, and I praise you, and I thank you for the opportunity to be here. I pray that your name would be honored and glorified. I pray, God, that you'd help us to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit.
[24:06] I pray you'd help us to say we're going to walk in the Spirit and fill our hearts with the Spirit, be filled, be controlled, be consumed, fill our minds and hearts with your word, that we are walking that so that it becomes an everyday part of our lives, and that we'd be sensitive to not quench nor grieve what you're doing in our lives.
[24:25] Would you work? Would you move? Would you magnify yourself? You have been listening to Austin Gardner, pastor of Vision Baptist Church.
[24:36] For contact information, location, service times, or more audio and video recordings, log on to www.visionbaptist.com. For more, visit BIGGAD.com.
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