The Holy Spirit - The Holy Spirit: He's More than "The Force", Part 2

Have you ever tried to make changes in your life, only to find that over time you fall right back into the same old habits again? Would you like to experience victory over those troublesome areas? As a follower of Jesus Christ, you have access to power and resources that can change your life forever. Today, I'm going to show you how you can access that power.

Stay with me. Thanks for joining us for this Edition of Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. Chip's our Bible teacher for this international teaching and discipleship ministry focused on helping Christians live like Christians. Well, in just a minute, Chip will pick up where he left off in his series, The Holy Spirit, by explaining why this third member of the Trinity is more than a spiritual force and is actually way more involved in our lives than we might realize. But before Chip gets going, if this is your first time listening to Living on the Edge or you want to learn more about what we do, go to livingontheedge.org.

You'll find resources on tons of topics and countless programs to enjoy. Or if you prefer, the Chip Ingram app is also a great way to get plugged in with our ministry. Well, if you're ready, Chip begins by continuing to walk through who the Holy Spirit is.

Let's dive in. Second, he possesses the attributes of God. In Genesis 1, he's omnipotent. He's a part of the Spirit, hovers over the earth. He's a part of creation. He's all-knowing in 1 Corinthians 2. He has the very mind of Christ. He's omnipresent. Remember Psalm 139? Where can I flee from your presence? Where can I run from your Spirit? And finally, he's Truth in 1 John, Chapter 5.

It's probably pretty obvious by now, but he is God. The Holy Spirit is co-equal, co-existent, and co-eternal with the Father and the Son. The two classic passages are Acts, Chapter 5, verses 3 through about 5, and then 2 Corinthians 3, 17. And if you know the Acts passage, it's just a great picture. Remember Ananias and Sapphira?

Remember the story? You know, the church is growing, and Barnabas gives this big gift, and he's generous, and I think a lot of people were giving him a lot of strokes for this generous gift, and so pretty soon they go, wow, you know, if Barnabas was getting all those strokes. So Ananias and Sapphira, their sin is not that they gave money and held some back. Their sin was the hypocrisy of saying, the land was sold for this much so they could get the acclaim of people.

Peter said, you know, when you sold up the land, the money, it's yours, you didn't have to give anything. Why did you lie to the Holy Spirit? Two verses later, you haven't lied to men, you've lied to God. In 2 Corinthians 3, 17, the word Lord, the New Testament word used for reference for law, it says the Lord is the Spirit.

So he's a person. He has the attributes of God, and he is God. Now what I want to do is give you a brief overview of what exactly does the Holy Spirit do in a believer's life. But what exactly does the Holy Spirit do in a believer's life? First and foremost, he dwells inside of us. 1 Corinthians 6, 19 and 20, open your Bibles, I want you to look at this one, okay? 1 Corinthians chapter 6, verses 19 and 20, do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit? Who is, where?

Who is? In you. Then he goes on to say, whom you've received from God. You are not your own, you're bought at a price, therefore honor God with your body. First and foremost, the Holy Spirit dwells inside of us.

Okay? Jesus said that would happen. Paul says your body was bought, so your body and my body is called what? A temple. Now, if you've been to any other parts of the world or been to a beautiful church or any world religion, temples have certain characteristics, correct? What do people do in temples?

They worship. And there's usually some level of reverence or sacredness, right, in a temple. And, you know, different traditions do all kind of different things, but a temple is a holy place where people worship that's set apart and that is sacred. And what the apostle Paul is saying is, in this day, you are that temple. You know what real worship is?

What we do is we gather together as the church for instruction and corporate worship, but the real worship of the living God is in temples, not made with hands, and the temples are his people individually and then his people gathered. And so the question that always comes to my mind is, are you treating the temple that is made to worship even half as well as most people treat the buildings in their false religions that they worship in? Is it sacred?

Is it holy? What goes into the mind of your temple? What comes out of the tongue of your temple? What do your hands do that represent that temple? Where do your feet go from that temple? See, worship is offering your body as a what? A living sacrifice. You are living, walking, breathing, infiltrated, dwelt inside out of the spirit of the living God and that's why Jesus would call us light and salt because we are moving temples that breathe and the spirit of God dwells inside of us and he wants to renew our mind and produce in and through us the very life and personality and heart and love of Jesus so that progressively what comes out of your mouth is what Jesus would be saying in that situation through your personality and your heart and your life. And your feet would go where Jesus would send you and your hands would do what Jesus would do because you're a living temple and he takes up residence in you. That's a different picture than trying hard, need to read my Bible, made it to church three times this month, read the Bible three times this week, I gave a little bit more than normal.

What do you think, God? That totally misses the point. That's called religion.

That's called performance orientation. That's called a works righteousness and Paul takes the whole book of Romans to say that's not Christianity. Christianity is the spirit of God manifesting the relationship of the Father and the Son inside of you in connection and abiding, producing his life through you. So what are the ministries? Well, how does it happen?

Where does it start? How do you get connected to the spirit? Well, the first ministry is what's called regeneration. Titus 3.5 says, not by works of righteousness that you have done, but according to his mercy, he has saved us by the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit. You're probably familiar with the very familiar passage of Nicodemus, John chapter 3. Jesus said to Nicodemus, I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he's born of water and of the spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh but the spirit gives birth to the spirit. You're a rabbi, you're a leader in Israel, you should know this. Why are you surprised that I say you must be born from above or born a second time? The wind blows wherever it pleases, you hear the sound but you can't tell where it comes from or where it's going, so it is with everyone who's born of the spirit.

Nicodemus, this isn't rocket science. It's not about all your goody stuff that you're doing. It's not about all the verses you've got done.

It's not that you fast on Tuesday and Friday. It's not that you're a leader in the temple. It's not your external morality. You can't have a relationship with God unless the spirit dwells in you. First John is going to tell us later, this is the record or the testimony God has given us, grace, gift, eternal life. He that has the son has life.

He that does not have the son does not have life. These things I've spoken to you that you might know with certainty that you have eternal life. That's a far cry from I go to church, I'm trying hard, being a good Christian means I'm trying to be a good wife, I'm trying to be a good husband, I hope I'm a better parent, I hope my kids don't get in trouble. All those things may be logical byproducts. That is not the Christian life.

There's cults that have better morality than most Christians I assure you. God says he wants to indwell and that doesn't come from religion. It comes when the spirit of God gives you a spiritual birth and a spiritual birth occurs when I understand that I've offended a righteous and holy God and I will incur his righteous and just wrath because I deserve it because he's holy, but he sent his son Jesus to die upon a cross to cover or atone for all that sin of all men of all time and in the empty hands of faith I can say, Father will you take my sin and appropriate it to your son and would you take his righteousness and allow it to clothe me and will you forgive me and come into my life.

Bam! Regeneration occurs. Now the spirit begins the journey called sanctification of little by little making me more like his son and yes I have the responsibility of renewing my mind and being in the fellowship of God's people and confessing my sin when I struggle, but the moment I'm regenerated, here's what I want you to get. There's certain non-experiential things that occur and there's certain experiential things that occur and grow and these are the ministries of the Holy Spirit.

So I can't go through all the passages, but I just want to give you an overview of what they are. The non-experiential, in other words, the moment you trust Christ, you're baptized into the body of Christ. We'll talk about, we'll have a whole time on baptism and filling and the difference and why, but baptism is identification. The moment you pray and receive Christ having turned from your sin, the Spirit of God picks you up, takes you out of the kingdom of darkness, takes you over here, places you in the kingdom of light and inserts you into this new family called the body of Christ. You may or may not feel anything. That's what occurs.

That's what the baptism is. You're listening to Living on the Edge with Chip Ingram. We'll return you to Chip's message in just a minute, but let me quickly share with you, God has called us to do incredible ministry work all around the world and when you regularly give to Living on the Edge, you're a part of what we do. So consider becoming a monthly partner today, then visit LivingontheEdge.org.

We appreciate your generous support. Well, with that, here's Chip. Then you're sealed. Ephesians 1 says that there's this unilateral seal where the Spirit of God seals you and that's like a down payment, like a guarantee. It's like putting money down. It's the same. It's a financial term of the day.

It's like putting money down on a house. It's the guarantee. The Spirit seals you and it's unilateral and then He anoints you for service and power and then He begins to pray for you and you may not experience that. He's praying for you. He's praying for your righteousness, praying for your protection and He deposits spiritual gifts in you. Now if you've two days, you pray to receive Christ, you've turned from your sin, the Spirit enters your life, you have those spiritual gifts but you may not experience them. You have an anointing to begin to serve but you may not experience it yet.

Here's the best picture I can give you because then we'll look at the experiential ones and some of them are both. When my oldest boys were six years old, I had an amazing, amazing opportunity. I got to adopt them. We went down to the Dallas courthouse and they were my wife's children biologically and we got married and two years later, God gave me the opportunity to adopt them. When I went down to that courthouse, their name changed and they became Ingrams, Eric and Jason Ingram and it was legal.

They were identified from one last name to another last name. They got baptized into Ingramness and then they were sealed because I had a legal document that said for all time they're my boys as much as any other boys I ever got or my little girl and they had an anointing from their father. I had committed that whatever these boys need to be men of God, my resources, whether it's time, energy, teaching, Christian school, whatever it is, they have an anointing. Everything they're going to need to be men of God, I committed to make available and they had a mom and a dad that were praying like crazy and they had all kind of gifts but I want to tell you that from the moment we went in there and signed the papers to the moment we signed the papers, my little six-year-old boy's experience was not one iota difference when they didn't have my last name or when they did.

All those things were true, all those things they possessed. From the moment I adopted them, I don't know if I'll have anything to leave my kids, hope I do. Back then I wasn't sure, believe me, but they've got my name. They were going to be a part of my inheritance and they didn't do anything.

Why? Because they belong to me. That's who you are the moment you trust Christ. Many of those things you don't experience, they're true, you possess, and what you learn is how to live out of those.

What's already true of you. The things you begin to experience, however, is the fruit of the Spirit. As you begin to abide in Christ and his life begins to take shape, all of a sudden there's a byproduct of love and joy and peace and patience and goodness and kindness and generousness and self-control. I still remember, I mean, it was one of the early signs, God does it for different people. Like two weeks into my Christian life, I stopped cussing unexplainably. And that was a major miracle, believe me. And for other people it might be something else, but it was just the fruit of the...

I didn't try, it was like, oh, oh, oh, oh, it stopped. He's the Holy Spirit. And filling. We're going to learn there's one baptism and sometimes it happens, we'll look at all the Acts passages and relax, we're going to have a great time there, but there's multiple fillings.

The word filling has most to do with control. We're commanded to be filled with the Spirit. It's when he gets more of us and you experience it, you experience his power and you have experiences with him and he gives you boldness and courage and truth and things happen in and through you, you think, whoa, this isn't me. And guess what?

You're right. Just like Peter and John, they stepped up against the authorities. Peter and John, silver and gold, have I none. All through the church, when the Spirit of God fills his people, they're courageous, they're bold, they're loving, they're counterculture, they're winsome, they're forgiving, and they're pure. And then you have him, he teaches you. I mean, I remember as a kid, I opened the Bible like twice and it was like, hitherto thine something.

I mean, I even tried a couple of times, I couldn't understand it. When the Spirit begins to reveal what the Scriptures mean. And then you pray and you sit quietly and the Spirit begins to pray with you and encourage you and help you. He gives you assurance, something in your spirit cries Abba, Father. And then he guides you. You actually learn to hear his voice. You have big decisions and you learn to live a life close to him and in God's word and the counsel of wise people. But you ask, I don't know what to do.

And people say, oh, I wish Jesus was here. He's not just here, he's in you. What do you want to ask him?

Ask him. We'd rather call the phone, call a talk show or ask a counselor, ask someone else, some expert. The counselor of all counselors lives inside of you. He longs to tell you what to do.

But you probably have to turn off some of the media, close the refrigerator door, rent one less movie, not buy something every time you feel uptight and realize maybe if you get real, real quiet, you're going to see some stuff you don't like. Because the Holy Spirit is always about producing two things, holiness and love. And sometimes he has to clean out some of our junk.

And it's very threatening to be quiet and to be alone with the Holy Spirit. But I'll tell you what, when you get real and honest and you do, short-term pain, long-term gain. Some of you know what I mean. When you see an ugliness about pride or arrogance or sin or an addiction and when you get out of all the games and all the denial and all the junk that we all do at some level and you bring that broken, all the ugliness and you experience the Holy Spirit's forgiveness and the sense that says, I see all that and it is ugly. And I forgive you.

And I still love you. So many of us are running away from God because the truth so threatens us. He's the spirit of truth. He convicts of sin and righteousness and judgment.

But his heart's desire is always to draw us back. The enemy, condemnation. You're a terrible person. You're a bad mom. You're a bad dad. You're an addict. You'll never measure up to anything. The Holy Spirit is, you are taking that in your body.

You are neglecting that. And you agree with him. Wonderful things happen. And then he gives you spiritual gifts and he uses you and you realize, wow, this is amazing. How does someone receive the Holy Spirit? I've shared John chapter 3.

You have to be born again. In fact, Romans 8, 9 is a great passage. If you don't have the Holy Spirit, according to the Apostle Paul, he says, actually, then you're not in God's family.

This isn't like a supercharger for some Christians. It says, you, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature, but by the Spirit. The Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he doesn't belong to Christ. And so it would just be crazy to start a series together about the Holy Spirit and not ask a very basic question as we close. And this is for you.

This isn't for anybody else. Do you have the Holy Spirit? I didn't say, do you go to church? Didn't say if you're a good husband. Didn't say if you're a nice wife.

Didn't say if you're working hard to be a parent. Didn't say if you give to the church. Didn't say if you've been on a mission trip. Do you have, possess the Holy Spirit?

And do you know that for sure? Because he that has the Son has life. He that has not the Son of God does not have life. And the way you have the Son, according to Jesus, is what? The Spirit takes up residence inside of you.

And the way you get the Son is a gift. You bow your head. You confess your sin.

You own your stuff. And you declare that Jesus, only what you have done on the cross to pay for my sin and your resurrection is my only hope, will you forgive me and come into my life. And in that moment, the Spirit of God enters you.

I want to invite you very specifically and very personally into the moment that I got to share with those that I was teaching. And in that moment, as the Spirit of God was taking the Word of God into the hearts of people, specific people understood, many for the first time, that it is not trying hard to be a good person. The Christian life is not following a set of rules. The Christian life is the living God taking up residence in your human heart.

And that residence occurs when you personally understand that your sin has violated a holy God, that your attitudes that you're less than perfection doesn't measure against the high standard of a holy God. But because of what Jesus has done on the cross in your place, your sins have been paid for. It is done.

It is absolutely done. His death on the cross, His shed blood paid. He is the substitute to pay for your sin.

But that free gift is an offer that must be received by faith personally. And today is your day. Today is the day for you, whether you're driving in your car, listening as you're working out, hearing this on a computer as you do some work. Today is the day to stop everything and say to the God who made you, who died for you and rose from the dead, I want you to know, holy God, that today I want to forsake my sin. I repent and I ask you to come into my life. I receive the free gift of eternal life. And so pray in your heart and in your mind right now, dear Jesus, I believe you died in my place and rose from the dead. I turn from my sin and I come to you. Come into my life. Make me your son.

Make me your daughter. It's an eternal transaction that is supernatural. God loves you. And if you just prayed with me, you may not quite understand all that has happened.

And so you need to do two things. You need to find the greatest Christian or pastor that you know and tell them what you did and ask them for help. And then you need to go to the website and there's a place for new Christians resources that you can get some help immediately to help you understand what's going on and how we can help you grow. It is exciting to introduce you to the family of God. Welcome, my new brother or sister.

Thanks, Chip. Well, if you prayed to receive Christ, we do have a free resource we'd like to put in your hands that was created specifically for new believers. This tool will help you understand what it means to trust in Jesus and what to do next. Request this free resource by calling 888-333-6003 or by visiting livingontheedge.org, then clicking on the New Believers button, that's livingontheedge.org, or call 888-333-6003.

Let us help you get started in your faith journey. Well, Chip's still with me in studio. And Chip, you had a quick word you wanted to share with our listeners, and we have a few minutes left. So why don't you go ahead and do that? Dave, I appreciate that.

I just want to stop and pause with a very select group of people. You're people that pray for Living on the Edge. I know because you write and tell me, and you're people who give financially to Living on the Edge. And as I have communicated the gospel of Jesus Christ, it is the power of God to salvation. And we know that when we share the gospel like this on a broadcast, literally hundreds and hundreds of people come to Christ. And so you're a part of that.

And we have reaped, not because we're special, but because the gospel is the power of God to salvation. But I want to just celebrate that reward and thank every one of you who pray, and thank every single person who gives to this ministry. People's lives will be different forever and ever and ever because of you. Thanks so much.

Thanks, Chip. Well, if you'd like to join us in spreading the gospel and discipling fellow believers, consider becoming a financial partner today. As Chip just said, your support can have an eternal impact on someone's life. To learn more about becoming a financial partner, go to livingontheedge.org or call us at 888-333-6003. That's 888-333-6003 or visit livingontheedge.org.

Ab listeners just tap donate. As we close, would you stop for a minute and pray for Living on the Edge today? We've never seen a greater need for God's truth to go out than right now. And by God's grace, Living on the Edge has provided encouragement, teaching, and personal discipleship resources to more people than ever. So thank you to those who support us in prayer. God is doing amazing things. For Chip and the entire team here, this is Dave Druey thanking you for listening to this Edition of Living on the Edge, and I hope you'll join us next time.