The Power Of The Holy Spirit, Part 1

Today on Fellowship in the Word, Pastor Bill Gebhardt challenges you to become a fully functioning follower of Jesus Christ.

You're going to receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. Notice, He doesn't tell them they're going to have success. He doesn't tell them that there's not going to be a struggle. He doesn't tell them they can make a living at this. He doesn't tell them they're going to be popular.

He doesn't tell many of that. He tells them simply, you're going to have the perpetual, empowering presence of the Holy Spirit. He said, I want you to think about this.

You're going to have power to change the world. Now my question to you this morning is, do you ever think about this at all? See, do you think about this? Do you think about the fact that you have the power within you to change the world? See, I think most Christians are like, nah, I don't really think so.

I don't think that's the case at all. Thank you for joining us today on this edition of Fellowship in the Word with Pastor Bill Gebhardt. Fellowship in the Word is the radio ministry of Fellowship Bible Church located in Metairie, Louisiana.

Let's join Pastor Bill Gebhardt now as once again he shows us how God's Word meets our world. It's Christmas time. This is a time when you do shopping for your friends and your family. If you're looking for a couple of things, I have some things I'd like to sell you this morning. I mean, the first thing I want you to imagine is I'd like to sell you a fire engine red tricycle. It's got tassels from the handlebars, got a little bell on it, a little tyke can make noise as he drives around on his bike. And I'm going to offer it to you for a half price.

So I mean, it's a really good deal. It only has one thing more you need to know. It only has two wheels. Okay, guys, it's a tricycle with two wheels.

But he's going to have to learn to ride a two-wheeler anyway, right? Now for adults, what I have for you is a tripod. It's beauty, top of the line, lightweight, fits on any camera you can possibly imagine. It's that good a tripod.

It packs very easily into its carrying bag. And as you might imagine, it only has one thing different about it. It only has two legs. All right, that makes it lighter. I mean, from that point of view.

And it's half price. You see, when I talk like that, you might be thinking, you know, I'm not really convinced by that kind of an argument. It's very hard for us to see any value in a two-wheel tricycle or two-legged tripod.

They don't seem to have any value to us at all. But the mistake that I think is often made by us as believers is, for many of you, that's exactly the kind of faith that you have. You have a two-wheel tricycle or two-legged tripod. And what I mean by that is if I say to you, I want you to think of God the Father. And you might say, well, I'm kind of in awe of God the Father. You know, he's the divine planner. He's, boy, he's big.

You know, he's really big. Well, tell me about, what do you think about God the Son? And you say, oh, I love Jesus. You say, I really embrace him.

I mean, I really love him. I love what he did for us on the cross. And then I ask you about God the Holy Spirit and pretty much get almost no response at all.

I'm not sure. It's always interesting to me. People would describe to me God the Father. Of course, they're wrong, but they'll describe to me God the Father, God the Son. And then it gets to God the Holy Spirit and it's like, well, I don't really know. But God the Holy Spirit is mentioned over 100 times in the Word of God. Do you realize that Jesus speaks more about God the Holy Spirit than he does about the church? He speaks more about God the Holy Spirit than he speaks about marriage?

To Jesus Christ, God the Holy Spirit is so important, he talks about him so much, that the very last words that Jesus ever spoke on earth before he ascended is about God the Holy Spirit. Would you open your Bibles to the book of Acts chapter 1? The book of Acts chapter 1, verses 6 through 8. From my point of view, Acts chapter 1 and verse 8 is one of my very favorite verses.

And the reason for it is it has a lot to do with my experience. Whenever I was, I think in my second year, my first year at Dallas Seminary, we took a class called Bible Study Methods, and that is, how do you study the Bible for yourself? And you do it on the basis of three stages. You observe the text, you bombard it with questions. You say, what do I see here? What's really here? Who, what, why, where, when, all that kind of thing. The second stage is you interpret the text.

You do word studies, you understand grammar and syntax, you give it historical context. And then the third stage is you apply the text. You apply it to your life the best that you can.

And in this first stage, it's called observation. And Dr. Hendrick said, what I want you guys to do is I want you to look at Acts chapter 1 and verse 8, and I want you to make 25 observations about that single verse. And so we all dug into that, and I can remember thinking, you know, I'm going to impress the guy. I've always wanted to impress someone like Dr. Hendrick, so I said, I'm going to impress him. So I wrote down 40.

You know, I thought, he'd be really impressed. Well, when I got to class, I kind of wish I hadn't because he said, no matter how many you wrote down for class, we're not collecting the papers. I want you to do 25 more for the next class.

And so now I had to do 40 plus at least 25 more. I enjoyed that class, by the way, so much that I ended up grading for Dr. Hendrick's in that class. And I graded that class for the next three years while I was at the seminary. And so consequently, I got to grade all these papers that came in. And I had students that had between 150 and 200 observations of Acts 1-8. That sounds really impressive, but I mean, some of them were so lame, it was not not really that good.

Once you get about 30 or 40, you're kind of a no man's land. But the point was, so this verse, this verse has always meant a lot to me. And so what you're going to see here is it says in verse six, when they came together, they were asking him, saying, Lord, is at this time you're going to restore the kingdom to Israel. They're just they they just can't wait to get the messianic kingdom. They is this the time that you're going to come back now as a messiah and you're going to rule over the whole world out of Jerusalem?

We're going to get the Romans out of here. And Jesus just says to them, no, God has kind of a different plan here. He said, it's not for you to know the times or epochs which the father is fixed by his own authority. They're asking the son. He talks about the father and then he says this, but you will receive power.

When the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth. I want you to think about that. What Jesus ends up saying in this verse is God has a plan that's worldwide. A whole plan to the remotest part of the earth.

God has a plan for the whole the whole world. And that his plan are these 11 guys. He's got 11 guys here because you're the plan. That's what the plan is. Now he's speaking to us and we're still part of the plan, but he's speaking to these 11 guys.

And this undertaking is amazing. I want you to think about who these guys are. They're uneducated. Most of them are blue collar. They really never probably left anywhere but Judea and Galilee. They probably never went anywhere.

He said you're the plan for the whole world. They're not sophisticated in any sense of the word. During his three year ministry them they demonstrated weak faith over and over again. How many times do you say to them all you men of little faith. They don't have faith. And at times even in the ministry they're disobedient to him.

He just asked him he said hey could you guys at least stay awake. Why I pray tonight the night before the crucifixion because I mean after tomorrow I'm going to experience the wrath of God. Die for the sins of the world.

And they fell asleep. And he says I mean if you look at it from a human point of view this about as hopeless an endeavor as something could be except for two things he says in that verse. He says you receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. This isn't going to be about you this is going to be about the Holy Spirit of God.

This is going to be God at work. The Holy Spirit of God. And he says and you are going to receive power. Power.

The word is dunamis. We get dynamite from it. All right. This is power. You're going to receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. Notice he doesn't tell them they're going to have success. He doesn't tell them that there's not going to be a struggle. He doesn't tell them they can make a living at this. He doesn't tell them they're going to be popular.

He doesn't tell many of that. He tells them simply you're going to have the perpetual empowering presence of the Holy Spirit. He said I want to think about this you're going to have power to change the world. Now my question to you this morning is do you ever think about this at all. See do you think about this. Do you think about the fact that you have the power within you to change the world. See I think most Christians are like no I don't really think so.

I don't think that's the case at all. I want to give you sort of a picture of the Spirit of God this morning. Go with me to Job chapter 34. Job the book of Job chapter 34 two verses tucked away in there 14 and 15. I want you to understand who he is.

More importantly I want you to understand what a difference he can make in your life. Job 34 verses 14 and 15. Elihu is speaking to Job and this becomes scripture and he says this. If he should determine to do so. He's speaking of the Spirit of God.

He said if he should determine to do so. If he should gather to himself his spirit. And his breath. All flesh would perish together. Man would return to dust.

What's he mean. The Holy Spirit of God is the source of all life. He's the source of what we call life.

Remember Genesis chapter 1 verse 1 we all know that God created the heavens and the earth and we got all that. But second verse says in the Holy Spirit moved upon the waters. The Holy Spirit is the life giver. He gives life that's the kind of power we're talking about. He gives physical life to God's creation. That's what the Spirit of God does.

But there's a lot more than that. Go with me now to John chapter 3. Gospel of John chapter 3. Jesus is having an encounter with a brilliant man. A member of the Sanhedrin.

A great teacher in the nation of Israel. A Pharisee and his name is Nicodemus. It says in verse 1 that there was a man of the Pharisees. His name was Nicodemus.

The people were the Jews, part of the Pharisees and the Sanhedrin. It says this man came to Jesus by night because he didn't really want any of his colleagues to know he went. And he said to him, Rabbi, we know that you have come from God as a teacher for no one can do the signs that you do unless God is with him. That's called in our world flattery.

You know that. The first thing you do to save someone you're just meeting you flatter them. You always say something back and you think we're building a bridge here. Jesus is in the flattery. He just ignores it. He doesn't say a word about it. He just looks at Nicodemus and says, truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. This is like cutting out 10 paragraphs of discussion.

Let's just get to the point. Unless you're born again, unless you're born a nothin from above or again. Unless you're born again, you can't see the kingdom of God. Now, Nicodemus didn't even know what born again means. And Nicodemus would assume as a Pharisee of Pharisees, a member of the Sanhedrin, if anybody's going to see God, it's going to be me.

Jesus said, no, unless you're born again, you can't. Nicodemus fights back and says, how can a man be born when he's old? He cannot enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born.

Can he? The inference of the question is absurdity. Both he and Jesus know that. It's like Jesus saying that to him. Jesus said, truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water, our physical birth and the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh.

That's the water birth. That which is born of the spirit is spirit. He said, do not be amazed that I said to you, you must be born again.

The wind blows where it wishes in and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it's going. So is everyone who is born of the spirit. What Jesus is saying here is that the Holy Spirit of God is the midwife to being reborn.

When you were reborn or born again, it's because of the work of the Holy Spirit of God. The Holy Spirit is not just the giver of all physical life. He's the giver of spiritual life as well. You see, he is the one who convicts us of our sin. He is the one that brings us to Christ. And so the Holy Spirit is the giver of physical life.

He's the giver of spiritual life. But he's not done with you once you become a believer. Go with me to Galatians chapter 5, the book of Galatians chapter 5. And Paul was talking to born again Christians just like you and me. And in Galatians chapter 5 and verse 16, Paul says this, he said, But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you'll not carry out the desire of the flesh. When he says walk by the Spirit, Paul always means live by the Spirit. You need to live your life by the Spirit of God. He's saying that to those believers and to us as well. If you're going to be a Christian, you have to live by the Spirit of God. And you have that choice.

That's kind of up to you. Notice what he says. He said, For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, the Spirit against the flesh. He said, For these are in opposition to one another, and so that you may not do the things that you please. By the way, that's a description of your life and mine. Spiritually speaking, you and I are schizophrenic.

We're all that way. We either want to carry out the desires of our flesh or we want to carry out the desires of the Spirit. He's indwelling us.

But notice this choice is going to be up to us how we go. Notice then he says this. He said, But if you're led by the Spirit, you're not under the law. He said, The deeds of the flesh are evident.

They are immorality and impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, disputes, dissensions, and factions, envying and drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. He said, Of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. He said, The flesh just brings about sin.

That's what it does. He says, So why would I want to live a life of sin? Some of you struggle with that. You know that. And I'm reading that list that describes the way you behave.

You see, you say, Why would I want to live that life? He says, But the fruit of the Spirit is love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness and faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. He said, Against such things there is no law. The fruit of the Spirit. Notice what it doesn't say. It doesn't say the fruits of the Spirit. Christians misunderstand this verse. This is the fruit of the Spirit.

In fact, all these make up just the fruit. All right? Because here's what Christians have told me.

They'll say something like, You know, I love people, and I have joy at some of the time and peace. I got to work on patience. I'm not very patient. That's not what he's talking about here. That's called the human good of your flesh. Some things you're better at. Some things you're better to resist. But he's not talking about that. He's saying when the Spirit of God controls your life, you bear this fruit.

And think about this. Fruit, when you bear fruit, it's always in context of relationship. You can't have fruit without relationship. For example, you can't have an apple if you don't have an apple tree. You see, you have to have an apple tree if you're going to have apples.

It's always based on relationship. Jesus in John 15 picked it up and said, Look, I'm the vine. You're the branches. You see, the only thing you need to do is stay attached to me. You need to abide in me. He said, If you abide in me and I abide in you, you'll bear much fruit.

He said, Apart from me, you can do nothing. The whole idea of fruit, the Spirit of God bears the fruit. And notice this fruit. When you look at it, he said, Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

You know who that is? That's Jesus. You bear the character of Christ. The Bible calls that being conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. He said, If you allow the Holy Spirit, if you walk with the Holy Spirit, he said, you'll bear this kind of fruit in your life.

Now, I want you to think about that. The Spirit gives all creation physical life. He gives those who are born again spiritual life. He produces the character of Christ within us. He empowers us to be a witness, according to Acts 1.8, for Jesus Christ.

According to Ephesians, he produces unity in the context of the church, of so many diverse people with different backgrounds. And according to Romans, he intercedes for us, Paul says. He prays for us. When we're not sure how to pray for ourselves at all, he said, I'll do that for you. He is the spiritual dunamis of our lives. The Spirit of God is the power of our lives. And yet for many of us, we don't even seem to realize it.

And for a lot of us, we never utilize it in our lives at all. So Paul has a prayer. Ephesians chapter 1. Paul is going to pray.

And what's interesting is this chapter starts out wonderfully, and then Paul breaks into prayer. In the beginning of the chapter in verse 3, he says, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. How many blessings has God given you if you're a child of God in the heavenly places?

All of them. There's no blessing, he said, I won't give you. You have all that. So it sounds like it's a done deal then.

This is going to be great. But there's something between the blessings and heaven. You and I call that life. We've got to get up every day and go to work.

We live in families. We have a context to live out our faith. We live on a cursed planet. We have sinful bodies. Our flesh is sinful. So Paul says, I want to pray for you. And in verse 18, he says this. I pray that the eyes of your heart will be enlightened, that you will know what is the hope of his calling, what are the riches of the glory of the inheritance and the saints, and what is the surpassing greatness of his power toward us who believe. These are in accordance with the working, the strength of his might, which he brought about in Christ when he raised them from the dead and he seated them in his right hand in the heavenly places.

Why did Paul pray this? Because potentially you and I may never experience this. He's praying for you and he's praying for me. You may never experience this in your life. You see, there's no guarantee you'll experience this.

You're going to have a lot to say whether you experience this or not. The first thing he said, I pray that the eyes of your heart would be enlightened. You see, there has to be, as what he said in Romans 12, a renewing of your mind.

I've got to think about this differently. Secondly, he said that we don't know the hope of his calling. Do you know the hope of the calling of God?

Now, that's a bad word in English. You've heard me say it many times, hope, because I think for a lot of Christians, hope always means to cross your fingers and hope. That's never what the Greek word means. The Greek word hope means future certitude. Jesus is coming back. That's called the blessed hope of the church. So the hope of his calling is the surety of heaven, the surety of eternal life. He said, I want you to know the hope of your calling. I say it over and over again. The worst thing that could happen to you can't happen to you.

I read the end of the book and you win. You see, why? Because a lot of Christians don't know that. They don't know that. They don't have peace. And the reason they don't have peace is they don't know the hope of the calling. It's a surety.

It's a guarantee. It comes from God. He said a lot of them don't realize the inheritance. And again, what are you going to inherit?

And the answer is everything. You've been listening to Pastor Bill Gebhardt on the Radio Ministry of Fellowship in the Word. If you ever miss one of our broadcasts or maybe you would just like to listen to the message one more time, remember that you can go to a great website called oneplace.com. That's oneplace.com and you can listen to Fellowship in the Word online.

At that website you will find not only today's broadcast but also many of our previous audio programs as well. At Fellowship in the Word, we are thankful for those who financially support our ministry and make this broadcast possible. We ask all of our listeners to prayerfully consider how you might help this radio ministry continue its broadcast on this radio station by supporting us monthly or with just a one-time gift. Support for our ministry can be sent to Fellowship in the Word 4600 Clearview Parkway, Metairie, Louisiana 7006. If you would be interested in hearing today's message in its original format, that is as a sermon that Pastor Bill delivered during a Sunday morning service at Fellowship Bible Church, then you should visit our website, fbcnola.org.

That's fbcnola.org. At our website you will find hundreds of Pastor Bill's sermons. You can browse through our sermon archives to find the sermon series you are looking for or you can search by title. Once you find the message you are looking for, you can listen online. Or if you prefer, you can download the sermon and listen at your own convenience. And remember, you can do all of this absolutely free of charge. Once again, our website is fbcnola.org. For Pastor Bill Gebhardt, I'm Jason Gebhardt thanking you for listening to Fellowship in the Word.