Questions Christians Ask: What About the Holy Spirit?

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Helping people know, enjoy, and glorify God.

For more information about Grant Parkway, visit GrantParquay.org.

Let's pray together.

Lord Jesus, we don't come to you today, God.

We don't come to you as sleepy people coming to caffeine.

We come to you like birds coming to seed.

We don't need simulation.

We need nourishment.

And so we just kind of, with our with our hearts open, we just kind of cry out to you, God.

And so uh speak a word that has our name on it today.

Say something that makes sense but also makes a difference.

That's what the Bible's about.

It's not a list of rules written by a bunch of guys a long time ago that we outgrew because we're hip and we're progressive thinkers.

Uh we repent of being uh that big on ourselves and that small on you.

And so let the bigness of God kind of settle down on us today and settle in on us today.

That's our prayer, God.

We pray it in Jesus' name, and everyone said, Amen.

You can have a seat.

If you've got a Bible, I invite you to take it and open it up to uh Luke chapter 4.

Luke 4 · chapter mention

And if you don't have a Bible, there's one on your row.

I'm on page 859.

Uh and if you're our guest today, let me say, Welcome.

My name is Neil.

I'm the lead pastor here at Grand Parkway, and you can just call me Neil.

Someone asked me in the foyer, they said, What do we call you?

And I said, The most high reverend would be great.

I would give you a list of the things my wife calls me, but that you then that you would want to do that.

Let me ask you to do one thing, by the way, before we get into this.

If you're on your row and there's some empty seats in the middle, would you kind of just scoot in?

Uh we have a we have a good problem and that more people want to come.

And so there's always room on the front row, but no one wants to sit there.

Uh and so if you just scoot over, no big deal, and we'll kind of when people come in, they can slip in on the ends, okay?

Uh, if you're a guest today, we're in a series entitled What uh Questions Christians Ask.

Uh we kind of live with this illusion that your big questions are kind of before you come to faith, and then when you become a Christian, you don't have any more questions.

Let me say this: look at me.

Some of the biggest, darkest questions you will ever have will come after you come to faith.

And so we're not having a having said that, I don't have a big dark question for you.

Uh we're answering different questions.

Like a couple weeks ago, we answered the question, what happens when we die?

Last week, is the Bible really reliable?

This week, this is a question I get asked a lot.

Uh, what about the Holy Spirit?

Or there's one guy who came to me, he's been a Christian about three months.

He said, So, what's the deal with the Holy Spirit?

He said, I I read in the Bible and talks about the Holy Spirit a lot, but I go to a church and they don't talk about the Holy Spirit at all.

Uh, and so I said, That's a long answer.

I might have to buy you lunch.

He goes, Great, buy me lunch.

And so, uh, what about the Holy Spirit?

And so I just want to look at the life of Jesus in Luke chapter 4, and I'm gonna teach a little bit, and then to end, we'll just spend some time just just thinking, Clyde or worship pastor, come back.

Luke 4 · chapter mention

He may sing over us.

There's no pressure.

We're not gonna dim the lights in hum kumbaya or anything.

Uh and then at the end, myself and some of our pastors and elders will be available down front.

If you've got any questions, or if you're kind of going through something, you want somebody to pray with you, we'll be available, okay?

Hello?

There you go.

The Bible says this.

What about the Holy Spirit?

The Bible says this in Luke chapter 4.

Luke 4 · chapter mention

And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness for forty days, being tempted by the devil, and he ate nothing during those days.

And when they were ended, he was hungry.

And the devil said to him, If you're the Son of God, command the stone to become bread.

And Jesus answered him, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone.

And the devil took him up and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time, and said to him, To you I will give all this authority and their glory, for it has been delivered to me, and I give it to whom I will.

If you then will worship me, it will all be yours.

Jesus answered him, It is written, You shall worship the Lord your God, and him only shall you serve.

And he took him to Jerusalem and set him on the pinnacle of the temple, and he said to him, If you're the Son of God, throw yourself down from there, for it is written, He will command his angels concerning you to guard you, and on their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.

And Jesus answered him, It is said, You shall not put the Lord your God to the test.

And when the devil had ended every opportunity, excuse me, every temptation, he departed from him until an opportune time.

And Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee.

And a report about him went out through all the surrounding country, and he taught in their synagogues, being glorified by all.

I love the subtle things the Bible says.

Like there at the end, it says, and a report went out about him through all the surrounding country.

Let me give you a question to think about this week.

And it's simply this if a report went out about you and your Christian faith, what would it say?

In my truck, I have a 2012 Ford F-150 pickup because men should drive trucks.

And every once in a while the screen will come up and it'll say, Would you like to send a vehicle?

Would you like to receive a vehicle report?

I'm like, oh, absolutely.

Dink yes.

And so I get a report, it tells me all the all the specifics about my truck.

The Bible says the report went out about Jesus through all the surrounding area.

So if there was a report about you and your faith that circulated through your entire company, what would it say?

I want to focus in on there's three phrases that the Bible uses, Luke uses there to talk about Jesus.

The first one is, it says, and Jesus full of the Spirit.

And then secondly, in the same verse, it says he was led by the Spirit.

And then you read a little bit, then it gets down to the very bottom down there, and it says, And Jesus came out in the power of the Spirit.

And let me just lay all my cards on the table and say this.

I think Jesus is the greatest example of what it looked like to live in a relational dependence on the Holy Spirit.

And you say, What do you mean?

Let's take the first point, full of the Spirit.

What does the Bible mean when it talks about being full of the Spirit?

I said, Jesus is the greatest example we could ever have.

I mean, just think about this when you read this, okay?

Jesus, the Son of God, sinless Savior, Messiah, fulfillment of every promise God ever made.

And the Bible says he was full of the Holy Spirit.

We think Jesus walked around glowing, kind of reading people's minds.

But the Bible says, and here's the only big phrase I'll use this entire time, okay?

Most of us have this over-exalted Christology and this underdeveloped pneumatology.

What I mean is that we think about Jesus, we think it's easy to kind of go, well, Jesus did that stuff because he was the Son of God.

Yet the Bible says that he emptied himself of some of his glory.

That's why in John chapter 17, he's getting ready to go back to heaven, take his rightful place at the right hand of the throne of God.

John 17 · chapter mention

And Jesus prays to his father and says, Give me back the glory I had with you before the world began.

So he gave up some of that glory.

So when he comes to earth, he's fully God and he's fully man.

And it's easy to kind of think, well, Jesus did what he did because he was God.

I'm going to tell you, the Bible teaches Jesus did what he did because he was full of the Holy Spirit.

Which is why he gets to the end of his life in ministry and he says to his disciples, These things you shall do in greater, because I go to be with my Father.

See, we we we got to have this overrealized Christology and this underrealized pneumatology is a big word, means theology of the Holy Spirit, because that's the only way we can explain our inconsequential lives.

Because if Jesus says, Hey, I've left you an example, I came as a human, lived, I was fully God, but I was also fully man to not only live a sinless life, to die on the cross as payment for your sins, but also this to give you an example of what's available to you.

Are you with me?

Do I have your attention?

Some of you are like, where are you going with this?

I'm not one of those kooky guys, late-night TV, that breathes on people and throws a bed sheet on them.

That's not what the Bible's about at all.

And we'll get to that in just a minute, okay?

Because there's here's the reality.

Most of us are scared of the Holy Spirit because we got our thoughts about the Holy Spirit from people's excesses.

And that's not where you get it.

You should get it from the Bible.

The Bible says Jesus was full of the Holy Spirit.

Listen how Peter described the life of Jesus to a man named Cornelius, who was a Gentile, he was an unbeliever at this time.

But he's explaining what he's like in his ministry, and he says, Hey, you you heard about how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power.

How he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him.

Now hear that again.

He says, You heard about how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power.

Again, I'm telling you, Jesus did the things that he did because he lived full of the Holy Spirit and power.

And how he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil.

For God was with him.

Now let me just stop and say this.

As Christians, we're never told to receive the Holy Spirit because when you become a Christian, God lives inside of us by his Spirit.

Let me say that again.

As Christians, you're never told to receive the Holy Spirit.

Because some people, this is an unbiblical excessive teaching that some people believe it's kind of, well, you become a Christian, and then if you want to break through to the next level, you got to get baptized with the Holy Spirit, and they kind of make you think, oh, so you go around looking for these experiences and you try to find in your experiences what can only be had in your identity.

When you become a Christian, the Bible says it like this in Romans chapter 8, verse 9 anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to Him.

Romans 8:9

Hello, you don't become a Christian and not get the Spirit of God living inside of you.

Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to Him.

But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness.

If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his spirit who dwells in you.

Let me demonstrate it this way.

In 1993, I married my wife.

We moved in together.

We were broke as broke could be.

We could not even pay attention, okay?

I remember getting excited.

I came home from the grocery store and we could afford crescent rolls, and I just thought, whoa! We baked them bad boys up.

We were so poor, our stove had two burners on it, and that was it.

You had to light the oven every time you used it, and it smelled like rat droppings in there, and I was kind of like, mmm, they're crescent rolls.

Come on out of there.

I remember we pulled them out and set them on the counter and just looked at them like they were the crown jewels or something like, and I was thinking, how many should I let my wife eat?

But we we would but here was another big expenditure.

Remember when you first got married and you were kind of struggling, which by the way, if you're single or you're dating, you're thinking about getting married, you never have enough money.

Just go on get married, okay?

That's the best part of it.

Because here's the thing we would splurge and buy Hershey's chocolate syrup because my wife loves Hershey's chocolate syrup, and she didn't just love it.

She would get a glass of milk and she would.

And I would just sit over there watching it, kind of going, it's not a journal entry.

Shut up, shut up.

And she would watch it just kind of spiral down, and it would settle down to the bottom of the glass, and she would just go, look at that.

I mean, it looked like the bottom of a riverbank.

I mean, it had mud.

And I would be like, Why don't you just put the syrup in there and then put a splash of milk on top?

Shut up, shut, shut up.

And she'd stir it up.

I mean, I almost I think she stirred it and let go, and the spoon just stayed right there.

It just didn't fall over.

I was like, Well, now our 17-year-old does the same thing.

Matter of fact, last week we ran out of Hershey's chocolate syrup, and it was a national crisis.

She unscrewed the lid, poured milk in the empty thing, put the lid, and shook it up.

It was like, hey, white trash, what are you doing, okay?

We ain't putting water in the ketchup bottle anymore, okay?

Go get some stuff.

And she's like, Dad, we don't have any more chocolate syrup.

Because she does the same thing her mom does.

I mean, it is just, it's syrup with a little bit.

Why do I tell you that?

Because the Bible says when you became a Christian, God put the Holy Spirit inside of you.

And some of you here explains your life.

It's kind of when you put that Hershey syrup in there and it just settles to the bottom of the glass.

Some of you, if you're really a Christian, you do have the Holy Spirit, but see, it's like a glass of milk with chocolate stuff in the bottom.

And what when you stir it up, it becomes chocolate milk.

When you learn to live full of the Holy Spirit, the difference in who you are gets manifested in how you live.

And some of you live with this constant sense of guilt, like, oh man, I just, oh, I just can't.

Oh the Bible over and over and over.

It's not, you gotta receive the Holy Spirit.

The Bible does say to Christians, be filled, be full of the Holy Spirit.

First Corinthians chapter 6, verse 19, Paul's telling people, hey, don't sleep around.

1 Corinthians 6:19

Actually, it says, don't be immoral.

Don't be immoral.

Why?

Here's why.

Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God?

Your body is the house that God lives in by His Spirit.

Now, what happens when we're full of the Holy Spirit?

What does that mean?

Well, the Bible talks about that.

It's not some people say, well, you've got to be full of the Spirit and you've got to speak in tongues as evidence.

That's not biblical.

Tongues is a gift, okay?

Service is a gift.

No one says, hey, you're gonna be filled with the Spirit, and then you're gonna be a servant.

That's not sexy.

No one wants that.

No, no.

You, when I became a Christian on July 5th, 1982, God came to live inside of me by his spirit.

And so ever since then, I do life, I'm not taking something external and trying to make it internal.

I'm taking something internal and trying to get it out of my life.

I'm trying to live in such a way because here's the deal, we'll come to this in just a minute.

When you get full of the Holy Spirit, it's no longer about trying to manage all the no's in your life.

It's trying to live in light of the yes that God's put inside of you.

It's not, I don't want to do that anymore.

I don't want to do that.

It's okay, God, what do you want to do?

And that's what you were created for.

You say, now what do you mean when how do you know when you're full of the Holy Spirit?

It's a question I got asked me one time.

I said, actually, the Bible talks about that.

Ephesians chapter 5, verses 15 to 21 say this.

Ephesians 5:15–21

Paul says, Look carefully then how you walk.

Not as unwise, but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.

Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is, and do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery.

Now stop right there.

There's a big word debauchery.

You didn't use that this week, did you?

Your kids didn't come home.

Where you been?

I've been out committing debauchery.

Come here, I'm gonna whip you, and I don't even know what that means.

The Bible says, do not be drunk with wine, because that is debauchery.

I'm not gonna ask you how many of you in this room have been drunk, because most of you have been drunk before.

Amen?

Yeah, that's what I thought.

Yeah.

Debauchery is unrestrained excess.

There's things that you gotta be drunk in order to do.

Like white men get on the dance floor.

Before I was a Christian, I used to me and my buddies used to sneak in.

When we were 17, 18 years old, we sneak into this club and we'd go over there, and we had fake ideas, they were great.

And the bouncer would all I know you got you guys aren't of age.

I'm like, man, I got an ID.

Yeah, whatever.

Go ahead.

Stamp my hand, boss.

We'd go in just to hang out and be there.

We'd partake of some beverages, and then usually it took, you know, a lot of uh, if they're gonna drink beer, a lot of that, or they'd come around with tequila shots.

Tequila makes white people think they can dance.

And so my friends were always like, hey, why don't you go on the dance floor?

Because I don't drink tequila.

I'm not a hard liquor man, but I'd look out there and all my friends were doing the same thing.

The white man over by.

And I'd like, hey man, get out there, McClinton.

That looks bad.

That looks like they got a bunch of people living in a crippled house and put them out there on the dance floor.

That's what tequila makes white people do.

Guess what that is?

That's debauchery.

I took a guy home one night.

He was so drunk he didn't know where his shoes were.

We got to his truck.

I said, Hey man, what happened to your boots?

I don't know, man.

Them good boots.

How drunk you gotta be to lose your boots?

That's debauchery.

That's what the Bible says.

Now stay with me.

Here's what it says: it says, hey, do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery.

But you see, be filled with the spirit.

Now, if you're gonna, the church gets real hard about don't be drunk with wine.

Hey, if you're gonna kick people out who get drunk, then you ought to kick everybody out who's not full of the spirit.

Oh, we're meddling now.

Yeah, he says, hey, but be filled with the spirit, addressing one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with all your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.

How do you know when you're full of the Holy Spirit?

The Bible tells us right here in Ephesians 5, three things happen.

Number one, joyful worship.

He says, singing, making melody in your heart to God.

I love when we start in, the worship team starts.

And by the way, you you don't have to sing a certain way.

You don't, I'm tone deaf.

Everybody here that works here knows it because I walk around and I sing a lot.

I don't even know I'm singing, but I walk by someone's desk, they're kind of like, hey, hey, what's happening?

I'm just singing and making melody to the Lord in my heart of howitz.

Okay?

Uh like yesterday I had to come down here and work on some stuff, and I listened to the whole album of Johnny Cash live at Folsom Prison, and I'm a better man for it.

Uh and I knew every word to every song, okay?

You see, when you're full, here's the deal.

When you're full, what you're full of comes out of you in a joyful way.

So what happens when you're full?

It's just this joyful expression of worship.

Secondly, this disgratitude.

This gratitude.

There's a young man that goes to our church.

He'll be in the next service.

His name is Prevez.

He's from Pakistan.

I used to call it Pakistan when I lived in East Texas, but now that I'm more urban, it's Pakistan.

Uh he and his family are from Pakistan.

And he was sharing the gospel over there, and he was leading so many Muslims to Christ, they put a price on his head.

They said, We're gonna kill you.

And so the United Nations had to get him out and get him into a sanctuary state.

And so they went and moved him to Thailand, and then after being in Thailand for a while, they relocated him here to Houston, and so he and his family are part of our church.

Why do I bring up him?

Every time I talk to him, he says the same thing.

Pervaze, how's it going?

Oh, thanks God, thanks God, thanks God.

And I'm like, thanks God, my car started this morning.

I've never thought that in my life.

It is so convicting to be around him.

We'll go to he invited us to their house for dinner, my family and I, and they just moved into their first home.

Uh, and and they had a on these white plastic tables like we have back here at the church in their formal dining room.

And I said, Provez, can we buy you a table?

Oh, thanks God, we have table, we have table.

No, this is one of those things they sell at Sam's.

And this is your formal dining room.

Oh, thanks.

And we got folding chairs and they don't match.

Oh, but thanks God, you are my home.

Thanks God.

He said, Thanks God so much.

I was like, I need to think of something to be thankful for.

Hey, by the way, if you gotta think of something to be thankful for, you're probably not full.

And I'm not telling on you, I'm telling on me.

Because what the Bible says is, hey, what happens when you're full?

There's this joyful sense of worship, this deep sense of gratitude.

And then thirdly, there's mutual submission.

Mutual submission.

That's what he says there in the last part.

He says, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.

Submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.

Let me just tell on myself.

I'm sure I'm the only man that does this.

Uh, but I I go home sometimes after a long day, and I think there's no way anybody in this house could be as tired as I am.

So I'm gonna walk in and sit down, and I want all these women here to serve me.

Now I don't say that.

You say, how many wives do you got?

I got one, I got two daughters.

I want them to serve me too.

I don't say that, but I kind of walk in kind of like, man, I've been up, I had a six o'clock breakfast meeting, I walked out of here, it's 6.15.

That's a 12-hour and 15-minute day, by the way.

Here's how you know you're not full of the spirit.

You keep score.

Oh, yeah.

Here's how I know I'm not full of the spirit.

And so I go home every once in a while.

My wife is part-time work job.

She works here part-time and she's crazy busy, and I go home and I'm kind of like, yeah, the kitchen's kind of messy.

I want to help my wife out and show her how the kitchen should look.

And so I go to pick up all the dishes and put them in the dishwasher, and I open the dishwasher and it's full of clean dishes, and my work just doubled right there.

And I'm like, what in the world?

I didn't want to have to unload the dishwasher and then load it back, and then I gotta bend under here and give them a little dishwasher, ice cubes, and put it in there.

And I mean, this is more than I signed on for.

I worked a 12-hour day to day.

That is not the confession of a man who's full of the Spirit.

Because when you're full of the Spirit, things don't offend you.

You you you you don't keep a you don't keep a record of wrongs.

You just kind of, hey, yeah.

Why?

Because you're submitting to one another.

The Bible says it like this mutual submission.

What does it mean?

Philippians chapter 2, verse 3 and 4.

Philippians 2:3

Do nothing from rivalry or conceit, but in humility, count others more significant than yourselves.

Let each of you look not only to his own interest, but also to the interest of others.

I gave you a question a minute ago.

Let me give you a command now.

This is a point of application.

Here's what I want you to do if you're married.

I want you to do this week.

I want you to relate to each other like your spouse is more important than you.

Y'all just did the Scooby-Doo thing.

What you talking about, Willis?

Yes.

Yes.

Right out of the Bible.

Yes, right here.

Count others more significant than yourselves.

Because, see, sometimes I count what I do as more significant.

But the Bible says that's not it.

Your identity, count others is more significant than yourself.

So if you're a man and you're married or you're dating somebody, I want you to count her this week as more important than you.

And I want you to tell her every once in a while, hey, you're more important than me, so what can I do to bless you?

Some of you women got this look on your face.

When monkeys fly.

This jerk, he's a selfish pig.

He's got a curly tail in his pants.

You just can't see it.

Yeah.

But hey, you gotta start somewhere.

You gotta start somewhere.

Now, by the way, uh, I told you earlier when you get full, when you hit when you when you're full, it's no longer no, no, no, no, no.

You get to live in the yes.

Let me give you an example of what I mean in this.

Past week I went out uh I here in town place I get my vehicle service and got my oil changed and uh they had to replace a part of my truck and I went back and and they said, Oh man, we don't have the hardware.

I said that's no big deal.

I said, Come back tomorrow, we'll have it later after I went back.

But when I went to get my truck, I opened the door, and there was a pack of cigarettes right there, and I thought, Lord, it's a ram called in the thicket.

Uh and I picked it up, and it said, Cam was blue and black.

And cigarette packages are really cool looking now.

My dad smoked, they were just plain.

And I was gonna throw it away, but I thought, well, and I opened it up and there was one left in there.

And I was like, Man, I don't want to throw that away.

So I walked over to the guy back in the shop.

I said, Hey man, I think you left your cigarettes in my truck.

And he looked like I'd caught him robbing a bank.

He was like, Oh man, I'm so sorry.

I said, No, I just fumbled all over myself.

What I wanted to say was, hey, smoking's a bad habit, but it don't make you a bad person.

But instead, I went, uh.

I walked back to my truck and I was like, that was smooth right there, man.

Hmm.

Sardet wrote a song about me, smooth operator.

Next morning, remember, now talking about being full.

Next morning I'm laying in bed, and the Bible says, set your mind on things above.

So a lot of times I wake up in the morning and I'm like, Lord, I just want to think about things above.

I don't want to get just stuck in this world.

And so, Holy Spirit, what do you I want to be full of the Spirit?

I want to be living the yes.

I don't want to just behavior modification.

I want to, I don't want to just not sin.

I want to do the right thing.

And God brought that guy back to my mind and said, Hey, I want you to bless him.

And I said, Lord, all I know about him is he smokes camel crushed cigarettes.

You want me to what?

So I got in my truck and I drove my little self out here on highway 90, passed uh down to the Walgreens down there.

I walked in, I said, You got camel crushed cigarettes?

And the lady looked at me and goes, Why are you asking?

I go, Yeah, I don't look like a smoke dude.

She goes, No, you don't.

And I said, Uh, you really want to know?

Because this morning, Clear as a bell, the Holy Spirit told me to bless this cat that smokes these cigarettes.

I want a carton of them.

She goes, You know how much they are?

That's reason enough right there to quit smoking if you smoke.

Because dang! I went home and said, we were gonna eat out tomorrow night, but we're now having sandwiches.

The lady said, Oh, I've only got eight packs and ten packs coming to carton, but I'll give you these two packs of bowl for a carton price.

Just put them in a bag.

So I drive down there to the guy, I found out his name, and I walked back in his shop.

I said, Hey, you you left sugar?

Remember me, you left a sugar?

And he's like, Yeah.

I was like, Oh, this felt stupid.

I was like, Yeah, this is not gonna go well.

And I said, Hey, I want you to wear this out you out, but this morning I was laid in bed praying, and he's like, uh, and I said, I just said the Lord want me to bless you.

I think you've been through enough in life.

So here.

Oh, no, you smoke camel crush, right?

And he's like, Yeah.

And I said, here's a carton of them.

Just smoke away.

And again, I just thought, that ain't smooth right there.

I just said to a man, smoke away.

Awesome.

So if you're visiting today, I do not advocate smoking.

I've never smoked a day in my life, not cigarettes anyway.

Uh and unlike President Clinton, I inhaled, okay?

Uh a lot.

Anyway, Jesus, say with me, your church, stop laughing.

Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit.

Look at me.

Jesus did what he did, was able to do what he did, what he's able to do, not just because he was a son of God, but because he lived with a state of dependence on the Holy Spirit and his Father to leave you and I an example of how we live.

Second thing the Bible says is that he was led by the Spirit.

Latter part of verse 1, and Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, was returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness for 40 days, being tempted by the devil.

He ate nothing during those days and they were ended.

He was hungry.

If I didn't eat for 40 days, I'd be beyond hungry, I'd be cranky.

By the way, I don't have time to go into this, but the enemy will attack you and tempt you at your point of greatest need.

He just will.

And he had to eat for 40 days, and he says, hey, turn these stones into bread.

That's why, by the way, married people, that's why the Bible says, do not put each other off except for a short amount of time and then come together again lest you be tempted.

Because the enemy is going to attack you at your point of greatest need, the thing where your appetites are the most out of balance, the thing you want the most.

But the Bible says Jesus was led by the Spirit.

The Holy Spirit leads us into the will of God for our lives.

The reality is that most of us live at such a pace that we seldom experience being led by the Spirit.

Instead, it's like someone I had lunch with this week.

He said, I said, Well, how's it going?

He said, Well, I get up every morning and just go with my best guess.

And I was waiting for the punchline to come.

There was no punchline.

That was it.

And I thought, wow, that's scary.

What do you mean be led by the Spirit?

If you're in Luke, turn to the right to the book of Galatians.

We'll be done here in about six minutes.

You still with me?

Galatians chapter 5.

Galatians 5 · chapter mention

I'll start reading in verse 16.

This is what the Bible talks about being led by the Spirit.

Galatians 5, 16 says this, but I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.

Mark that in your Bible.

Don't just talk to your kids about behavior modification, about not doing bad stuff, this, that, and the other.

Teach your kids to walk in the spirit, and sin will lose its attraction for them.

That's what the Bible says.

But I say walk by the spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.

For the desires of the flesh are against the spirit, and the desires of the spirit are against the flesh, for they are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things you want to do.

By the way, again, don't have time to plumb the depths of this.

But when the Bible says there, they're opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things you want to do.

The flesh is not to get you to do wrong things.

The flesh works to keep you from doing the right things.

Don't miss that.

Your flesh, the enemy, the devil, and your flesh, you it the last thing it wants is for you to do the right thing because when you start doing the right thing, you start being led by the Spirit, you experience the pleasure of God, the favor of God, the sense of well-being over your soul.

You just all of a sudden sin just doesn't appeal to you that much anymore.

The Bible says to keep you from doing the things you want to do.

Verse 18, but if you're led by the Spirit, you're not under the law.

Mark that.

Because that doesn't mean what we want it to mean.

He said, but if you're led by the Spirit, you're not under the law.

Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and these and these things like that, things like these.

I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

Against such things there is no law.

And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with his passions and desires.

You say, What do you mean?

There's a command, then there's a commentary.

The command is in verse 16: walk by the Spirit, be led by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.

He keeps going in verse 25, and he says, Since, or if we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.

Let us not become conceited, provoking one another and envying one another.

He says, Hey, walk by the Spirit, you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.

Verse 18, but if you're led by the Spirit, you're not under the law.

Here's what we do in the church.

Look at me.

We just teach the law, we teach rules, we take things out of the Bible, in the Bible, out of context, and we turn them into like life coach moments.

Like, for example, I was up here at the Starbucks at Greatwood, mining my own beeswax, waiting on a friend of mine.

I got there early so I could just read.

So I was reading, ended a chapter in a book I was reading, put it down, pulled up my Bible, started reading in one of the baristas, which just means employee who doesn't pay attention very well.

But anyway, that's a Latin word, barista.

The guy was he's kind of doing his thing and he comes over and he goes, Oh, you're reading the Bible?

Are you a Christian?

And I said, Yeah, I said I'm a Christian.

I said, I'm looking for a good church in town.

Can you recommend one?

And he said, Oh, yeah, he said, You ought to come to my church.

I said, Why should I come to your church?

He goes, Oh, my pastor teaches the Bible.

And I said, What do you mean he teaches the Bible?

He said, Well, right now we're in this series called The Nine Characteristics of Healthy Relationships.

And I thought, you didn't just say that.

Because I thought, where's the list of nine things in the Bible?

Oh, love, joy, peace, gentleness, kindness, patience, faithfulness, and I said, What are there?

He goes, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Because here's what we do: we don't say, hey, this is the fruit of the Spirit.

If you led by the Spirit, these things will just manifest themselves in your life.

We teach you how to be loving, how to be joyful, how to be patient, and all that stuff.

And here's the problem with that.

You don't need the Holy Spirit then.

Teach people, and I said, Does your pastor say anything about the Holy Spirit?

And he went, Who's that?

And I just said, You got something you could can you put some Bailey's in here?

And he said, What's that?

Never mind.

I only heard about it from sinners in my church.

Here's the thing.

If you're not careful, you can go to church and get a bunch of life coach tips about, you know, nine characteristics of a healthy relationship.

That passage's got nothing to do with relationships.

It's got everything to do with walking in the spirit.

Now, why did I tell you what I told you?

Okay?

Here's why I told you what I told you.

Verse 18, he says, hey, if you're led by the Spirit, you're not under the law.

He gets down to verse 24, verse 23.

He says, Against such things, there is no law.

Here's what I'm saying.

Remember when your kids were little, you had to get a babysitter every time you left the house?

Movies no longer cost$20 and now cost$40 because you've got to pay that punky kid?

And you're just kind of like, and sometimes you start running the numbers and doing the math.

Well, if we go to dinner in a movie or dinner and out downtown to see a play or go to a concert or whatever, that's you know, oh, never mind.

Let's just stay at home.

But there comes that day where you think, okay, y'all are old enough to watch yourselves.

And for us, it was about 12, 13.

We said to our oldest, our kids are five years apart.

Hey, we think you're old enough, we're not gonna, we're just gonna go down the road to dinner at Nick's and we'll be right down the road, just kind of test run.

And we're there 15 minutes, we get a phone call from our six-year-old.

Madison's using the teacher tone on me.

I don't know if I don't know if you know this, man, but when you're when your wife hears from the children, she's no longer listening to you.

She's thinking, how long till we can get back so I can check on them kids?

So I was like, we need to get this to go.

No, they're fine, they're fine, they're fine.

Ten minutes later, ring, ring, ring, ring, ring.

Madison's trying to be boxing me.

Like, put her on the phone.

Hey, Matt, you be her her her sister, we'll be her parents.

Well, Dad, she's just not being obedient.

She needs to learn some things.

Can I get two to-go boxes here?

But now we're spoiled because they're 17 and 11.

They can kind of manage themselves, and we just kind of we just kind of go.

We're like, hey, mom and dad going to dinner, and they're like, we're not going.

No, you're not going.

I relish the thought of you not going.

Stay home and eat leftovers.

We're going to Carabas.

Bah.

Why do I tell you that?

Look at me.

Shh.

When the Bible says against such things there is no law.

If you're led by the Spirit under the law, look at me.

Don't miss this.

What God is saying is you don't have to be babyset by the law anymore.

You're big boys and girls.

You're tired of living in sin and trying to manage the no.

You've now living in the yes of walking in the spirit.

That's what he means.

Jesus was full of the Spirit.

He was led by the Spirit.

And thirdly and finally, he comes out in the power of the Spirit.

One of the first things the Bible tells us about the Holy Spirit is that he comes with power.

Acts chapter 1, verse 8.

Acts 1:8

He says, And you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you'll be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the end of the earth.

See, the enemy understands that.

He understands that when you got the Holy Spirit, you got the power of God living inside of you.

So what does he do?

He seeks to diminish this power through your disobedience, which is why he tempts you.

And this is free.

The three temptations that Jesus faces in the wilderness, by the way, when you hear the phrase in the wilderness, think the children of Israel in the wilderness.

It's the same temptation that they faced back in the Old Testament, and they were faithless.

But faithful Jesus is faithful.

He doesn't give in to the temptation.

And so, what do you mean?

See, this power in the power of the Spirit, it's not kind of like I'm going to have this experience and I'm going to get more power.

Look at me, beloved.

You got all the Holy Spirit you're ever going to get and all the spirit you're ever going to need already inside of you if you're a Christian.

So where's the power from?

When you stop sinning.

That's why the Bible says, grieve not the Holy Spirit.

Don't quench the Spirit.

So I it's not an experience.

It's just simple obedience.

Power for the Christian life is not found in our experiences, but it's our identity.

It's spirit-filled people who stop sinning.

So we no longer grieve the spirit or quench the spirit.

So there's just power being manifested in our lives.

This is the power of the spirit.

It's not ours, it's not our personality, it's not our gifts.

It's not, oh, that person's got, you know, just a unique gift set.

No, no, no, no, no.

There comes a point where you gotta just stop being babysat by the law.

You gotta stop being told, do this, don't do that, do this, don't do that.

No, no, no.

You're just done with that, and all of a sudden it's yeah, it says, Lord, what do you want me to do today?

I'm listening.

I'm full, I'm being led by the Spirit.

That's when you live in the power of the Spirit.

Let me ask you a question this morning, we'll be done.

What power is manifesting itself in you these days?

Because some of you, if you're not careful, you're just gonna do your best.

You're gonna live your entire life just mustering up the energy yourself.

And the Bible says, hey, in Jesus, in the power of the Spirit.

Where did that power come from?

He didn't give in to temptation, he didn't grieve the Spirit of God inside of him.

Let me say to you, beloved, and we'll be done today.

That same power is available to you and me.

I'm not saying you're gonna be Jesus.

I'm saying God lives inside of you by his spirit.

And when we stop quenching the Spirit, when we live in a place of fullness, and we live in a place where we're led by the Spirit.

We don't just get up every day and go with my best guess.

All of a sudden, we're capable of more than we could ever accomplish on our own.

And that's biblical Christianity.

Stand to your feet, let me speak a blessing over you.

Hold your hands out.

The yes of God towards you is bigger than all the no's you've given him.

Because of your addiction, your disobedience, your stiff neck, and your hard heart.

His yes is still holding out to you.

And it's bigger than all those no's.

Today depart and walk into the yes of God for your life.

In the name of the Father, and the Son, the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Bless you.

You're dismissed.