The Spirit's Presence: Our Constant Companion

Well, it is awesome to see everyone here this morning.

If I haven't met you, my name is Russ.

I'm one of the pastors here at Church at the Grove.

And so excited if you are here, especially for maybe the first time or second time.

We we want to say a big welcome to you, and we're glad that you're here.

And you have found us in the second uh week of a series on the Holy Spirit.

Um and so um we sing this song, Come Holy Spirit.

We pray a prayer, Come Holy Spirit.

It doesn't, it doesn't, it's not a prayer as if that God is at our beck and call, or Holy Spirit is at our beck and call, just coming whenever we want them to come, but it's really a prayer, it's a song, it's a prayer of surrender.

Because if you are in Christ, and I shared this last week, if you are in Christ, you have access to Holy Spirit.

You can invite Holy Spirit into your life, and and and we we say this a lot at Church of the Grove.

God comes where He is wanted.

There is a direct connection with our desire and I believe the presence of God through Holy Spirit.

Um I don't know about you, but um uh over the course of the last you know 30 years uh being married, there have been times where even during the time when we had three children and and and we're you know maxed out on schedules on occasion uh because we didn't live close to either one of our families, my wife would would leave with the kids maybe for a day or a day and a half, and and as she had planned this trip ahead of time, I began to dream about what I would do with all that time by myself.

And it and it would on the front end, it seemed like so exciting because I could I can watch what I want, I can eat what I want, and I can wear what I want.

Or that's maybe that's not the best way to think about it.

But she but but but so she would leave and and I would enjoy maybe uh a couple hours, and then all of a sudden the fact that I was alone became more evident, and it wasn't as enjoyable.

Why?

Because I was created for that companionship.

I believe that as I began to hear all these noises in a house, that man, it's much it'd be much better if my wife and kids were here because I wouldn't necessarily focus my attention on the fact that I am alone.

And I don't know about you, but it's just it's different being alone.

It sounds great on the front end, and and maybe you understand this experience that there's there's nobody there to help the time go by faster.

And I think if we're honest, there's the tension a little bit about feeling alone.

And we can have a lot of people around us.

We can even have our family with us, but there's just this understanding that I feel alone.

I am not yielded to the presence of God, and it gives me this idea that I feel alone, even though I know in my mind that he promises that he will never leave us or forsake us.

So, so I think this is the human condition when we realize that we are alone and we need something outside of ourselves.

And God never intended for you to be alone.

He wanted to be a part of your life, he wanted to dwell in you and with you and lead you and guide you.

And how does he do that?

He does it by the power that he makes available to us through Holy Spirit.

And so I'm gonna share with you, just just I hope this will be something you can resonate with.

When we think about Holy Spirit, there's this mystery to the Holy Spirit.

But but think of it this way: God the Father, the Godhead, God the Father is God without skin.

He transcends our humanity.

He is with us, we are created in his image, but he is other than us.

God without skin on.

When we meet Jesus, Jesus is God with skin on.

Jesus is the embodiment of the Godhead in human flesh, in human skin.

So God the Father is God without skin.

God the Son is God with skin.

And then Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, is God in your skin.

It's God in your skin.

And so the Holy Spirit, Holy Spirit just doesn't visit.

This is the big idea for this morning.

What I want you to walk away with, if you don't hear anything else, hopefully you can resonate on this.

You can rest on this.

Holy Spirit doesn't just visit, he makes his home in us.

And if you've got your Bibles, turn Romans chapter 8.

Romans 8 · chapter mention

We're gonna be primarily in Romans chapter 8, just walking through a major portion of this chapter.

Romans 8 · chapter mention

We're in this series called The Familiar Stranger, focusing on the person of Holy Spirit.

We're gonna, how can we, how can we give six weeks?

Because this is part of God's identity.

It's part of God's identity that he would take up residence in us.

How does he do that?

It's through Holy Spirit.

And we said last week, Holy Spirit is not an impersonable, impersonal, it's not an impersonal force that you use for your own benefit.

It is the divine presence of God, and you can walk and you can love and you can journey with him.

You know, love and follow him.

Go if you want to go back, I would encourage you that this series, maybe even more than any other series, would it would be important for you to take the whole series in context and not not miss any part of us.

But today is Holy Spirit doesn't just visit, he makes his home in us.

And here's a few rungs on a ladder.

I want to tie all this together.

And the first rung is this that the Holy Spirit, Holy Spirit dwells in us.

Holy Spirit dwells in us.

And here's what the Apostle Paul says in Romans chapter 8, verses 9 through 11.

Romans 8:9–11

He says, You, however, are not in the flesh, but in the spirit.

If indeed the spirit of God lives in you, if anyone does not have the spirit of Christ, he does not belong to him.

Now, if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit gives life because of righteousness.

And if the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you, then he who raised Christ from the dead will also bring your mortal bodies to life through his spirit who lives in you.

And let's focus on verse 9.

If anyone does not have the spirit of Christ, he does not belong to him.

Very clear statement.

Very black and white.

If you belong to Jesus, Holy Spirit dwells in you.

He lives in you.

That is the evidence that you belong to him, that you belong to the Heavenly Father, that Christ lives in you, that Christ, you acknowledge He died for you, He rose again for you.

And the promise of the Holy Spirit was given there in Acts, and the evidence of God's presence comes in power.

And so when you put your faith in Christ, you have access to the fullness of God.

You have access, and then your journey, your journey with spiritual disciplines, your journey with the practices of our faith, they continue to make Holy Spirit the powerful presence in you and through you.

As you walk, he's at home in you.

Here's what's staggering.

The spirit.

Spirit does not just stop by.

Holy Spirit is not an Airbnb.

Holy Spirit doesn't work in an Airbnb kind of way where you can kind of, he can kind of stay the weekend and then you move on with your life.

No.

He lives in you.

Spirit that lives in you, and it is how Jesus manifests himself through you.

The same spirit that raised Jesus from the dead, Paul says, is the spirit that dwells in you.

And so you look at things in this world, and we we've heard of this occurrence where someone builds a house and either before it's built, or maybe, maybe for whatever reason the house sits empty, and someone moves into that house, they don't own it, they had nothing to do with it, but they move in, and we would call that person or the practice of what they are doing what?

They're squatter.

They're squatter.

It's just the term that we use to identify a person that comes in to take up residence in a place that doesn't belong to them.

They set up their household, they don't pay rent, they haven't put any sweat equity into the home.

And we we might use terms like freeloaders, squatters, but compare that to the experience of God taking up residence in your life.

He's not some unwanted squatter trying to coming in to take residence in your life unknowingly or uninvited.

He comes at the invitation and through the power of God, and he comes as a rightful owner.

You have been bought with the price.

You've been bought with the price, and that price was the life and the death and the resurrection of Jesus.

And so Jesus has paid for your sin, paid for you to have eternal life, and as a result, we make ourselves available to be the dwelling place of the Spirit of God.

And so He doesn't come in our life as a squatter trying to take up residence against our will.

He comes at our invitation, but he doesn't come to partially take up residence.

He comes to settle.

He's not a freeloader.

He fills you, he empowers you, works in you.

And so he lives and dwells in us, but he also promises to lead us.

Spirit leads us.

Spirit leads us as we look at verses 12 through 14.

He says, so then, brothers and sisters, we are not obligated to the flesh to live according to the flesh, because if you live according to the flesh, you are going to die.

But if the spirit you put to death, by the spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

For all those who let those all those led by God's Spirit are God's sons, or you can say God's sons and daughters.

And so Paul is telling us Spirit isn't just a resident, he's our guide.

He doesn't sit in the back seat.

He's the one who wants to take the wheel.

He wants to give us directions.

He promises to talk to us and lead us and guide us as we immerse ourselves in the Spirit, as we immerse ourselves in community, Holy Spirit comes and works within the context of the Godhead and the Son.

God without skin, God with skin, and now he embodies and takes up residence in us.

God in your skin.

And he is a willing and able God.

In verse 13, he said, if you live according to the flesh, you will die.

But if you live by the spirit, you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

And so there we can, I mean, real simple choice.

We wake up every day, are we going to live by the flesh or we're going to live by the spirit?

We live according to what God has manifested through Christ, how he's provided his word.

Tyler Staten's a pastor up in Oregon.

He says there's often a gap.

And he wrote a book called The Familiar Stranger, which has been a big part of our teaching series.

But he said there's often a gap between biblical rumor and lived experience.

So we know what the Bible says, but our daily choices don't match what Scripture says.

But we confess Jesus, but we've not allowed him to take all of us and dwell every part of our body and to regenerate us because he says in John 16, 13, when the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you in all truth.

For he will not speak on his own, but he will speak whatever he hears.

He will also declare to you what is to come.

And so the Spirit promises to lead us.

The question is, will we follow his leadership?

How many of you use the GPS, a GPS to help you find a destination?

I mean, I use it all the time.

My wife doesn't.

She has this inherent GPS inside of her, and she's able to remember everything and find shortcuts and all this.

But I know I need I need a GPS.

But but here's what I've learned.

You can admire the technology.

You can be amazed by how how somebody came up with this concept that would give us directions to a destination.

But if you ignore the directions, you will never arrive at the attended destination.

So this is a lesson for us.

God promises to be our guide and to be, in a sense, a spiritual GPS.

But he's given us his word, he's given us his presence.

We have faith that he is with us, but then we have to surrender and abide by the GPS directions of his word.

And that's why the Spirit's leadership, the Spirit's leadership in our life is a big deal.

We'll come back and talk more about how the voice of Holy Spirit and his leadership, how it works in our lives.

But the question is, will we let Spirit lead?

Spirit's leadership in our lives isn't optional.

It's just part of who we are as the followers of Jesus.

And so he will guide us.

But here's what else the Spirit assures us.

Holy Spirit assures us.

Look at what he says in verses 15 and 16.

He says, You did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear.

Instead, you receive the spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, Abba Father, Daddy.

That's the word daddy.

In Aramaic, and so that's what Jesus, that's how he would talk to his father.

And so we we we receive the spirit of adoption.

We cry out, Abba Father.

The Spirit Himself testifies together with our Spirit that we are God's children.

And if children also heirs, heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with him, so that we may also be glorified in and glorified with him, he assures that we belong to him.

Listen, when you put your faith in Christ, it is through the power of Christ that you are saved.

It's nothing that you can do in and of yourselves, it is all a work of God.

And just as much as that is a work of God, the Spirit seals you for the day of redemption.

Paul uses that language in the letter to Ephesians.

He said he seals you for the day until the day of redemption.

And so you can have the confidence that he's with you.

You say, Well, I don't feel like he's with me sometimes.

That's because his presence is not dependent upon your behavior, it's dependent upon your faith in the object of faith, Christ, who saved us and promised us Holy Spirit.

And so sometimes when we're alone, we're in the dark, and we hear the creaks and the sounds of that this world wants us to focus on, in the midst of all that, Spirit whispers in your heart, you are not an orphan, you're not abandon your mind.

It's theology and it's good theology, but it's also identity.

It's who you are.

And Spirit promises to anchor you in your sonship, daughtership.

What else does Holy Spirit do?

He helps us in our weakness.

Spirit helps us in our weakness.

Verse 26 and 27.

In the same way, the Spirit also helps in our weakness because we do not know what to pray for as we should, but Spirit Himself intercedes for us with inexpressible groanings.

And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit because he intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

So Paul's talking about the indwelling, the Spirit indwelling in us.

We don't know at times, we don't have words ourselves.

So Spirit, we're promised that Spirit will pray through us in conjunction with God's perfect will.

And I don't know about you, but you I don't know if you've ever felt just crushed.

And this is this is imagery we see all through Scripture.

And if you did a study, like even just on an olive and the olive press, it's a beautiful picture of how we you can't get the oil that comes.

And the oil represents the presence of God, the power of God, the healing of God, you know, the anointing of God.

And you can't get oil without the crushing of olive.

So there are times that we feel crushed emotionally, crushed, weakened to our knees, but in the midst of those experiences, when we have spirit in our life, Holy Spirit comes.

And in my weakness, he's my companion.

He can pray for me through me at times when I don't know what to pray, and he dwells in me and helps me continue to mine the dark places of my heart to bring them under the Lordship of Christ.

I don't know if you've been a believer, you might have heard this story at some point.

I mean, I've probably been referred to this story over the past 30, 35 years.

Robert Munger wrote a little book called My Heart, Christ Home.

And he pictures his heart and uses this metaphor of a house, that Jesus comes and lives in that house.

At first it's exciting.

The Lord himself is in my house, and and and but something happens.

Jesus, through Holy Spirit, begins to walk throughout the house, throughout your heart.

And he walks into your library or maybe to the place where you might have books, and he looks at what you fixed your mind on.

And he and the Spirit says, Some of these things aren't fitting for a follower of mine.

Let me replace them with my word, my truth, and my beauty.

And he moves on to the living room or the dining room, and he looks at your appetites and he looks at your desires.

And on the menu are things like pride, materialism, worldly success.

But but Holy Spirit gently says, if you want real satisfaction, it's not found here.

I have food that you do not know about.

And that food is to do the will of your heavenly Father.

He steps into the living room, and that living room is a place for fellowship and conversation.

And Spirit says, Hey, let's meet every day and every morning in this room.

And it can be a place where you can start your day.

You could submit all the busyness of your life to me and depend on me.

Man, this is going great, isn't it?

But then Spirit says, Hey, um, I noticed as I was walking around your heart that you've got a closet.

You've got a closet in the back of the house, and and for some reason I can't I can't open it and I can't find a key.

Open it.

Have you ever rented?

You ever done Airbnb?

I mean, you have access to the whole house, but they usually have one area that's locked off.

And that that is evidence that you're not the owner, that you're just staying there temporarily.

Holy Spirit doesn't want to be dwelling in you temporarily.

He wants to dwell in you forever.

But he's got to have access to every place, even the dark closet that we want to pretend that isn't there.

And so what does he tell us?

He says, Surrender.

Give me access.

And the door's open and you're full of shame.

But Jesus says, I've got this through Holy Spirit.

I'm dwelling in you.

I will take care of this.

You can't do this on your own.

You do it through my power.

And so Munger realized that, yes, salvation and walking in the power of being adopted is needed.

But we also need to understand that Holy Spirit takes up residence, not as a guest, not like an Airbnb.

He wants to take up ownership.

He wants to have a key to every part of your heart.

And I believe that's what Paul is teaching us here in Romans 8.

One of the, probably my favorite chapter in the New Testament.

And he tells us, you're mine.

I haven't just come to visit, I've come to dwell in you.

I will lead you and guide you.

That word dwell in John chapter 1, it's the word tabernacle.

John 1 · chapter mention

He says, I've come to tabernacle.

This is referring back to the Old Testament where the tabernacle would be set up in the midst of the assembly of God's people.

So he is here.

He wants to settle down and take up residence.

And so as we conclude, I just want you to bow your heads for a second.

Let's bow our heads.

And I want you to focus on what we started with.

The Father is God without skin.

Jesus the Son is God with skin.

Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God is God in your skin.

And we might conclude this morning in the midst of all the junk that's going on in our world, in the midst of tragedy last week, multiple shootings.

There's a lot going on in the life of our church.

People are sick.

People are have been diagnosed.

There's just, I don't know about you, but last week I felt this heaviness.

God doesn't, I think he wants us to feel that, but he doesn't want us to wallow in that.

Because he wants us to understand that we have victory in Jesus.

And then in the midst of all this junk, we know that he promises to be with us.

He promises to be in us, and he promises to work through us.

And so maybe you don't know what to pray, and I'm just going to give you one or two sentences that you might, that might launch you into a prayer.

And as we close this gathering, I want you to, I want you to sing, and I want you to worship in such a way as you are confident that God is with you and that He will work in you and through you.

And you might pray something like this Holy Spirit, you are welcome here.

I open the door of my heart to every room, every nook and cranny of my heart and life.

And I ask you to take up residence in me.

Work through me.

And when this broken world looks at us, they don't think about a location or an address.

They don't look at a building.

They say that is a group of people that loves God and loves people.

And it's because we have invited and surrendered and yielded to the power of Holy Spirit.

And now we collectively, we as families, we and individuals, we are God with skin on that a broken world can look at and tangibly say, yes, I want that.

So make this song of prayer.

Make this time a time of surrender and yielding.

If you don't know where to start with, just start with the assurance that you have put your faith in Christ.

Jesus said, the kingdom of God is here.

Repent and believe.

That is a starting place where you repent and turn and put your faith in Christ.

And when you do that, he begins to take up residence in your life.

And our the power of Holy Spirit fills the gap between our salvation and our full sanctification.

And allows us to be God with skin on to the people around us.

Father, would you move as we sing this song to you?

Make it a prayer, an invitation.

It's in Christ's name we pray.

Amen.