Living the Spirit-Saturated Life

Hello Church Family! This past Sunday, we opened up our sermon series on the Holy Spirit. I’m indebted to authors/Pastors like Charles Stanley, Bill Bright, Jeff Shreve, Billy Graham, Wayne Grudem, David Jeremiah, and more, as I study the person and power of the Holy Spirit. Billy Graham once said that man has two great needs. The first is for forgiveness of sins, and the other is for goodness. The inner man longs for both. I heard a man say, “I need Jesus Christ for my eternal life, and the Holy Spirit for my internal life.” God hears our cries for forgiveness and goodness. God answered the need for forgiveness, on the cross of Calvary through the sacrifice of Christ. God answered the need for goodness through the gift and promise of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. God doesn’t want us to come to faith in Christ and then struggle to live the Christian life. Graham says, “The Holy Spirit is the source of power who meets our need to escape the miserable weakness that grips us. He gives us the power to be truly good.” Our God works FOR us in salvation and then He works IN us, through the Holy Spirit.

In John 16, Jesus is giving some final words of encouragement to his disciples before he is arrested, tried, and then crucified. In verse 17, he says, “It is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I go away, I will send Him to you.”

The disciples had a hard time accepting that Jesus was leaving them. Back in chapter 14, Jesus said he would not leave them orphaned. The plan of Jesus was to send the Holy Spirit, another (of the same kind), to live in them forever. Jesus was physically with the disciples, and it is hard to imagine that someone, just like Jesus, would live inside of us forever. Is it correct to say that Christ lives in us, and the Holy Spirit lives in us? Is it correct to say that God lives within each believer? All of these are true. The triune God lives within each believer through the person of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit then transforms us to look more and more like the Father and the Son. This is why the ministry of the Holy Spirit is so important. Our marriages will look more like Christ. Our friendships and other relationships will look more like Jesus. As we yield to the Person and Power of God living in us through the Spirit, even our thought processes begin to change.

Let’s not miss out on the powerful, life-giving ministry of the Holy Spirit in our lives. I’m looking forward to re-discovering together the Person and Work of the Holy Spirit.

See you Sunday (don’t forget the potluck and member’s meeting afterwards),

Pastor Todd