Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Monday, November 11th. The Spirit of God is vital in the lives of all believers. Let's find out why in today's podcast titled The Power of the Holy Spirit in the Life of the Believer. Once you and I have trusted the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior, we begin to immediately learn some lessons or some principles about which we learn to live the Christian life. But the big mistake we make is this. We learn those principles. We start out utilizing those principles or abiding by them. And after a while, we feel like we get a little confident and things are going to start going our way.
We feel a little success in our Christian life. Next thing you know, we've had a big collapse or we've had a fault or a fall in some fashion. Why is it that somehow, even though we start out right, oftentimes we don't end up right? Well, one of the primary reasons is the fact that we drift away from the very principles that make us a success in whatever we're doing. And oftentimes we think that we're practicing the same thing, but we've gotten so familiar with it. We've become so familiar with the Word of God, with the principles, with the messages that we hear that the next thing you know, we are not practicing them.
And then we are wondering what in the world's going on in our life. So what I'd like to do in this message, I want to deal with one of those very basic but awesome, powerful principles that will make the difference in whether you live the Christian life victoriously or whether you fail in it. Not only that, but whether you can fail or whether you succeed in everything else you're doing in life, because God has made it very clear in His Word. There is one thing in this life that is so absolutely essential.
It is essential every single day, no matter what. So I want you to turn, if you will, to Luke chapter 24. And in this particular passage, right before Jesus ascends, He gives His disciples a very specific command, absolutely essential to their whole future.
That simple command not only would determine whether they succeeded in what they did, but also in how they lived. So if you'll notice, beginning in verse 44 of the 24th chapter of Luke, now He said to them, These are my words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled. Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures. And He said to them, Thus it is written that the Christ should suffer and rise again from the dead the third day, and that repentance for forgiveness of sin should be proclaimed in His name to all the nations, beginning from Jerusalem, you witnesses of these things. And notice this next verse, And behold, I am sending forth the promise of My Father upon you.
But you are to stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high. And He led them out as far as Bethan, and He lifted up His hands and blessed them. And it came about that while He was blessing them, He parted from them, and they returned to Jerusalem with great joy and were continually in the temple praising God. Now, right before His departure, Jesus said one of the most important things He could possibly have said.
He had prepared them for this moment, but now He said to them, I want you to sit down in the city of Jerusalem until you be clothed with power from on high. What I want to talk about in this message is the power of the Holy Spirit and the life of the believer. So what I want to do, first of all, is to define what I mean by the power of the Holy Spirit. The power of the Holy Spirit is that divine authority and energy which God releases in the life of every single one of His children in order that you and I may live a godly life and that we may live a fruitful life. The power of the Holy Spirit is that divine energy and listen, that divine energy and authority that God releases in and through every single believer in order that we might live a godly life and bear a fruitful life. So when He talks about being clothed with power from on high, that's the kind of power He's talking about.
Now, let me just say this. The Holy Spirit cannot be manipulated. You can't make the Holy Spirit do anything. God has given us the Spirit.
Therefore, we don't have to try to manipulate Him to do anything. The Spirit of God, once He comes into a person's life, listens, He energizes the body, He enlightens the mind to understand truth and listen, not only that, He inflames our spirit with a passion of devotion to Almighty God. What I'd like to do in this message is simply this. I want to give you a comprehensive view of the Holy Spirit.
I want to start out with something very simple and move it to the more complex. One thing I'm certain, if you will listen carefully to this message, if you'll be wise enough to take some notes, you will not only be enlightened probably in some areas, but you're going to be encouraged in your life no matter what your vocation or what God has called you to do. So what I want to do is I want to answer five questions. I'm going to ask you to talk back to me.
I'm going to ask you to give them back, so don't just sit there. I want you to be able to tell me back because, listen, you need to be able to tell someone else when they say, well, who is this Holy Spirit? Where did He come from?
What's all this about? I not only want you to be able to answer the questions, but I want you to be able to answer them from an experience that you have in your life as a result of your relationship to God through His Son, Jesus Christ, and the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit in your life. Question number one, who is the Holy Spirit? Well, it's very clear in the Bible who He is, and the Bible says that the Holy Spirit, listen, He is a person of the Trinity. The Spirit of the living God is not a force. He's somebody. He is somebody extremely important to your daily life and mine. If somebody says, well, look, tell me, who is this Holy Spirit?
What is the first thing you're going to say? The Holy Spirit is a what? A person of the Trinity. The Holy Spirit is a person of the Trinity. Secondly, the Holy Spirit is a promise of the Father.
Notice, if you will, back in this 24th chapter, what Jesus said, Behold, I am sending forth the promise of my Father, and He says, You are to stay in the city until you be clothed with power from on high. The Spirit of the living God is not only, listen, He's not only a person of the Trinity, but He is a promise of the Father. Jesus promised that the Father would send the Holy Spirit. He said, He'll come and He'll be a helper to you. He'll be a comforter to you.
He says, I'm sending Him. Therefore, He is a promise of the Father. And so He had been saying to those disciples all along, there's going to come a time when the Holy Spirit is going to be in you, with you, and upon you. And at this moment when He was speaking, the Holy Spirit had not come upon the church as He did a little later on at Pentecost. And so when somebody says, well, who is this Holy Spirit? He, listen, the Holy Spirit is a person of the Trinity. He is the promise of the Father.
But thirdly, He is the gift to every single believer. Turn, if you will, to Acts chapter 2 for a moment. And you'll recall that Peter has preached that awesome sermon at Pentecost and thousands of people are being saved and lives are being changed.
And what happens thereafter is certainly evidence of the fact that something awesome happened on that particular day. Listen to what happens. Now in verse 37, when they heard this, they were pierced to the heart. And they said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, brethren, what shall we do? Peter said to them, repent and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Now, so when somebody says to you, who is the Holy Spirit? You're going to say the Holy Spirit is? Person of the Trinity, promise of the Father, gift to every single believer.
Right. Now, why in the world did God send Him? Why did God send Him? Well, He says in this passage, now notice He says, you are to sit down in the city of Jerusalem until you be endued with power from on high. Here's the first reason God sent Him.
Now both of these are equally important, but I want to put this one first. God the Father sent the Holy Spirit, listen, to enable us to do the work God has called us to do. He sent the Holy Spirit to enable us to do the work God has called us to do.
Now let's think about this. If Jesus began His ministry following the Spirit of God coming upon Him in a special way for His work, if the apostle Paul began His ministry following the power of the Holy Spirit coming upon Him, being baptized there, and if Jesus said to His apostles, you walk with me, you watch miracles, you've seen me, you've heard me, you have experienced casting out demons and all the rest, but you're not ready to do the work that I've called you to do because it is a supernatural work, you can't do it in the natural. Because it's a supernatural work, you've got to have supernatural power. What is that supernatural power? It is a divine authority and energy released in a person's life and through a person's life in order to enable them to live a godly life and to live a fruitful life. So He said to them, you wait until the Spirit of God comes. Remember He said you shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost has come upon you and you shall be witnesses to me both in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, the uttermost parts of the earth. And so therefore Jesus said you're to wait until you be endued with power from on high.
What is that power? Divine energy and divine authority that comes in the presence of the Holy Spirit. Now when you and I get in the flesh, we get in our own energy and I've certainly been there at times when I absolutely could not do all that I thought I ought to be doing, some of which certainly was not what God was up to. And sometimes we have the expectations of ourselves more than what God does. But what He's promised to do is enable us and to equip us both in wisdom and understanding and knowledge and energy to do what He has required of us, what He has called us to do and He will make your success at whatever you're doing when your reliance is upon the Spirit of God because what you're doing, you're looking to Him, depending upon Him, waiting upon Him, trusting Him to give you guidance and direction and energy and strength and wisdom to do the job.
There's not a single person, every single solitary believer has the right to claim the presence and the power of the Spirit of God in their life of whatever God has called you to do. Somebody says well I'm looking for a promotion and I'm doing my best to convince and persuade and I hope they see my good work. When God sees your good work, He knows how to motivate people to promote you to wherever He wants you. Listen, you do a good job down here in a small place, God will put you where He wants you.
You know why? Because you've proven to be trustworthy to Almighty God wherever you are. He says you sit in the city of Jerusalem until you be endued with power from on high. If you don't like the way things are going in your life, you don't like the way things are going in your job, listen, then you get full of the Holy Spirit and then just say God all right, here's my life and I'm going to come to that in a few moments. Now I want to see what you do. I see what I do, Lord. What a mess I've made of things.
Now I want to see what you do. And my friends, you'll be absolutely amazed at what God will do in your life. I don't care how old you are, how young you are, what your vocation, what your motivation out there is, God will begin to work in your life in a very unusual way. Remember what we said, that the power of the Holy Spirit is God's divine energy and authority, listen, and authority to do what we need to do. You see, don't relegate the work of the Spirit just out there preaching and teaching. He wants them to be involved in every single aspect of your life no matter what it is.
You come to some financial decision, you listen to this one, that one, and the other one. Why don't you listen to God? Unless you say, well, how do I listen to God? You know how you listen to Him?
You ask Him, God, I don't understand exactly how to do this. Would you send somebody in my life who is full of the Spirit, who is led by your principles and guided by your principles to help me understand and to make a wise decision? That is exactly what God will do. There are godly people in every field, full of the Holy Spirit, ready and willing to help other godly people who want to know what to do and how to do it.
Listen, this is a supernatural life that you and I have. And so therefore, He says to them, you wait till you be in do with power from on high. So every single one of us in dwelt by the Holy Spirit, every single one of us has the right to claim and to call upon the Spirit of God to enable us to do whatever He's called us to do. So the first reason that God sent the Holy Spirit was number one, what? To enable us to do the work God has called us to do. Now, does that leave out any believers?
No, it does not. Every single believer. Now, the second reason, not necessarily in this order, second reason is to enable us to live the life He's called us to live. Do the work He's called us to do, enable us to live the life He's called us to live. Well, what kind of life is that? He's called us to live a holy life.
Oh, I can't do that. Well, wait a minute, let's just find out what a holy life is. The holy life is not a sinless life. What is a holy life?
A holy life is a life having trusted Jesus Christ as personal Savior that is bent toward God with a devotion and desire for God and a hunger and thirst to live for Him. That does not mean we're not going to make mistakes because we all came in this world with a sinful nature. We still have our naturalness. Now, it would have been wonderful if God had taken all of our naturalness away, but He didn't.
So therefore, we still have the capacity to sin against God anytime we choose to. If I walk in the Spirit and the Spirit of God is controlling my life, then surely there's going to be a different kind of lifestyle. If I'm walking in the flesh, in our naturalness, our carnality as the Bible calls it, whether it's flesh, carnality or naturalness, that's all the same. And you've heard people say, well, you know, what I do is just natural.
Sure it is. It's natural for a lost man if he wants to drink or carry on and carouse and mess up his or her life. That is the natural way because Paul said in Ephesians chapter two, verse one, therefore, he says, Now in times past, we walked according to the course of this age, the natural lifestyle of this age, which is what? Seeking after, hungering after, thirsting after, lusting after anything, all things, everything that will satisfy this big open gap in my heart. And you see, the truth is God's made a place in our life only for Jesus, only He can fill it. And therefore, people live their lives, they become discouraged. They say, I've tried to live a Christian life, I can't.
Well, let me ask you a question. What part of the Holy Spirit have in you living your life when you are failing and having difficulty and hardship? Doesn't mean you're not going to have any hardship in your life. But God sent the Holy Spirit to enable you and me to live a life we cannot live in the flesh. We can't live it in our own strength.
And I think one of the most awesome moments as I look back in my own life, the night that I realized for the first time that I could not live the Christian life, God did not intend for me to live the Christian life, but my trying, begging, praying, pleading, fasting and all the things that I tried to do to live a godly life and felt like an absolute failure over and over and over again. When I read one single chapter, the first chapter of the little book, they found the secret about Hudson Taylor and recognized what Jesus meant when he said, I'm the vine, you're the branch. The branch abides in the vine.
He said, I'm abiding in you and you're abiding in me. The branch does not bear fruit of itself. Listen, you've never seen branches after they go and trying to bear fruit, but the branches lives off the vine. The sap that runs in the vine runs in the branch and that sap that comes in the stem and produces delicious grapes.
Here's what I did for a long time. I'm over here going trying to get the fruit and you know what? I failed just like everybody else failed. The night that I recognized what Jesus meant when he said, I'm abiding in you and you're abiding in me. It is his life in us, his life through us, the Christian life. Listen, the Christian life is this. It is Christ living his life in and through us in the power and the presence and the person of the Holy Spirit of the living God. Listen, you can't do the work God's called you do apart from the Holy Spirit. You can't live the life that God has called you to live apart from the Holy Spirit. Listen, it is a supernatural work, supernatural power, supernatural life, supernatural power.
And the reason there's so much failure I think oftentimes is most people are totally ignorant of the fact that the Spirit of God is an essential part of my life every single solitary day. So you've heard us talk about putting on the whole armor of God, for example, in Ephesians chapter six. And what is he talking about? He says, put on the helmet of salvation.
And I know how he says it, but I start in the top to the bottom. That's where I put it on. Helmet of salvation, do what? Protect my thinking. Breastplate of righteousness, protect my emotions. Girdle of truth, to be sure I'm walking in it. Sandals of peace, because I want to be a peacemaker.
Sword of the Spirit, defensive and offensive weapon. And above all, taking the shield of faith to quench all the fiery darts of the devil. Well, let me add something to that. When you wake up tomorrow morning, here's what you do. You say, well, thank you, Lord. First of all, I realize that I am absolutely dependent upon the Holy Spirit to enable me today to live the life you want me to live. Do the work you've called me to do. Secondly, none do I recognize that, but I choose to rely upon the Spirit to give me direction and guidance during this day. Thirdly, Lord, I'm going to trust you. I'm going to accept is done your guidance and your direction for me this day. And you know what happens when you get up with a full armor on and when you just say when you go ahead and confess it right up front, I am absolutely totally dependent upon you today.
You know the problem with that? Most people want to be in control. Most people want to be in charge.
Most people want to feel adequate. When I think about all these success books and all these success seminars and and things that are out there and people talking about being successful in life and being able to have self-confidence and there is a godly kind of confidence of being self-confident. You can do it. You can do it. You can do it. You can do it.
The scripture says, no, you can't do it. So you have to decide who you're going to believe. You're going to believe God of them. Now listen, what you have to ask for. Listen, you have to ask for what do you want? Do I want life at its fullest?
And that's one way. Now, if I just want what the world has to offer, I can do some of those things in my own strength. But listen, if I want something that counts.
And as I said to someone yesterday who said to me, they said, you know, I said, well, how you doing? Well, he said, I have joy, but I'm not very happy in my circumstance. Listen, you know, you don't have to be happy in your circumstance. Probably something about all of our lives we would like to change that we think would make us happier. The truth is we can have a joy whether we have real happiness or not. That joy overrides the difficulty, the hardship, the trial, the tribulations and all the things we have and we don't have. There's something about a relationship with Christ. There's a joy on the inside of us. There's intimacy we can have with Him.
What is that? That's the work of the Spirit of God doing a drawing us to Him. My prayer daily many times a day is God draw me to yourself because I know that intimacy is the key to a deep sense of abiding joy that nothing in this world can destroy no matter what. God desires that you and I daily recognize our dependence upon and need of our desperate needs so often of the power of the Holy Spirit in our life affirming that to be true in our life, relying upon Him and watching to see what He does.
Listen, all of us have made messes of certain areas of our life. But you know what? When you depend upon Him and see what He does, it's amazing what He can do. And even no matter what you're going through, He will sustain you through that no matter what. Two reasons He sent Him. Number one, He sent the Holy Spirit in order to do what? To enable us to do the work God called us to do.
And secondly, to do what? Enable us to live the life He's called us to live. Thank you for listening to The Power of the Holy Spirit in the Life of the Believer. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, stop by InTouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.
