8.16.26 | Larry Truitt

Sugar Plain Friends Chruch: Good morning. Gab your Bibles we're going to the book of John, chapter three. John chapter Yeah. But some of you should just be this is gonna be memory stick up here doesn't work all the wa as well as it should say. John chapter three, verse eight. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but cannot tell whence it cometh or whether it goeth, so is every one that is born of the Spirit. That's King James Captain. in the early nineteen seventies we were living in Wyoming It's kind of interesting. the house we lived in wasn't it was a shack. It was a shack. And I and I'll I'll have to share this with you. When we we moved out there, I was expecting dirt floors, honestly. So when we got there, I was happy. Laverna cried when she saw what we were gonna be living in. And You could you could actually look outside the walls sometimes and see right that's how bad it was. And I think we had a light bulb in the living room and a light bulb in the kitchen and no water. We had running water. I had to run to the town and pick up water. We had a trash can. we'd get the water in and we had a path, not a bath, a path. You had to go across the ditch and it was it was interesting. But we were right at the foot of the Rockies. I mean right at the foot. It was the continental divide was not very far from where we lived. And it was beautiful. You could just go out there, smell that sage, and it was great. But it was different. The weather was kind of interesting. I don't know if it was because where we live, the mountain, the way the winds would come down through the mountain, I don't know. But there was one day The winds were over a hundred miles an hour. And there's no trees out there. I remember when we were driving out there we went a hundred and forty seven miles and there wasn't one tree at one hundred and forty seven miles. there were utility poles and mailboxes that said branch six miles or whatever, and that was it. So you didn't have to worry about limbs falling on you or anything like this because there was nothing out there to fall. And I thought, this is gonna be interesting. I'm gonna go outside and see if I can walk in that. I didn't know it was a hundred miles an hour at the time. They told us if it came out in the news later that the winds were over a hundred miles an hour. So I went outside. and tried walking in the in the wind to respond. I started leaning forward and I thought, I wonder how far I can lean. And I kept going further and I was about like this and the wind was holding me up. And I was trying to go. Now I f if that gust would have gone away, I'd have been flat on my face. But it wasn't. It held me up. Now I couldn't I couldn't stand there too long because it was kicking up the sand. We had no I think we had two or three blades of grass in the yard and the and the rest were just sand. I planted the garden. Only one bean came up. And it's open range there. I got up one morning and there was probably a hundred and fifty cows out there and ate my bean. So it was kicking up all this and I couldn't I couldn't stand the sand hitting me, so I I went in. Now here's here's what I I found that was kind of interesting. couldn't see the wind. Has anybody ever seen the wind? We see the effects of the wind, correct? We can hear the wind. We can feel the wind, correct? But we can't see the wind. And that's what Jesus was talking about here when he said that the Holy Spirit is just like the wind. You can't control it. You don't know where it's coming from or how it's getting there or where it's going. Now we can harness the wind, we can put windmills up and probably get some power from there, but we have no control of the wind whatsoever. And here's here's the thing that is interesting. Wind can be very, very powerful. I've seen pictures, I haven't seen it in re real life, but I've seen pictures where tornadoes have taken straws and drove the straw into a tree. That's pretty powerful, wouldn't you say? And when when you look at the power of a tornado, what is it? It's wind. That's what it is, it's wind. It's come together and it's clashing and and the next thing you know Got damaged. We can see the power of the wind. The Holy Spirit is the same way. We can't see the Holy Spirit. Now that doesn't mean the Holy Spirit doesn't exist. It's not imaginary. He exists. And here, I want to say this. saying this kindly, okay. Stop doing this now. The Holy Spirit is not a it. Okay? It is not an it. The Holy Spirit is part of the Godhead. The Father, the Son, and the Spirit make up the Godhead. So don't call the Holy Spirit an it, because he's not an it. He's very powerful. He's part of the Godhead, but we cannot see the Holy Spirit. Can we? No place that you can find the scripture and you can see the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not imaginary because He exists, but we can see the power of the Spirit. Now, this passage in Scripture actually comes when Jesus was mocking to Nicodemus. And Nicodemus said, We know that you're from God and you're great teacher and and all this and he realized there was something missing in his life. He'd seen the things that Jesus was able to do and he realized that he was lacking in something. And Jesus didn't talk about his miracles, he didn't talk about how important his sermons were. He went straight to the point and he said, Nicodemus, you must be born again. What he said, you must be born again. Now, that birth is a spiritual birth, and that birth comes about because the Holy Spirit speaks to our heart. The Spirit speaks to us and directs us in the direction of God. He brings conviction upon us. This is the power of the Holy Spirit. We don't see the Spirit But we can see the effects of the Holy Spirit. We can feel the power. We can feel the presence. We can look around and we can see how the Holy Spirit changes lives. Now, that's pretty powerful when you think. And what God was doing was giving to us something that would guide and direct us in our life. We don't have to see the Spirit. We just have to be able to know He's there. The Holy Spirit dwells within us. And the book of Romans it talks about the same Spirit that raised Jesus Christ from the dead. That same spirit dwells within us. Did you get that? Dwells within us. Now that's a spiritual being dwelling within us. We are the temple of God, and the Spirit of God dwells with us. That's pretty powerful. Now, Jesus told his disciples, he said, I have to go away. But I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to send something that is going to change your life forever. I'm going to give you power. And that power is through the Holy Spirit. Remember when he went. just before he ascended into heaven he told the disciples, Go to Jerusalem. He said, I want you to go to Jerusalem, tarry there until you be and do good. You get that power. Now, this is the wind has power, so does the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit has the power to change our lives. The Holy Spirit has the power to enable us to live the life that God asks us. We cannot in our own live the Christian life. Are you aware of that? We can. It it's not easy. Try to be good. It's easier to be bad than it is to be good. And if we try within our own selves, our own being, we're going to fail. We're going to fail every time because we do not have the power to live the life that God wants us to live. That's why He gave us the Spirit to lead and guide and direct us in all ways of truth. That's amazing, amazing. can't see the Holy Spirit but I can see the Holy Spirit move in the lives of people. Now here's how we know that the Spirit is working in someone's life. There is What's the fruit? And the fruit of the spirit is love, joy. Gentleness, peace, meekness, long suffering. These are things that we have in our life that we show that the Spirit dwells within us. Now Not everybody has the same blood level. Do you know that? We we don't all have the same level of the fruits of the Spirit because this is a growth process. If you've been a Christian for forty years, you ought to have a little more fruit than somebody who just got saved. Well you should. Okay. And I heard one person say, Well, I've been in the wave for forty years and somebody told him to say, Well, if you got out of the way we can get things done. And that's probably right, because a lot of times th we we look at what God has done for us and we stagnate. and we don't have the fruit that we should have. But he gave us the Holy Spirit and the fruits of the Spirit are exemplified in the life that we live. That's why people looked at the disciples and said, Behold how they love one another. There was something about them that was different. It was so different that people said, I want that. I want that. What was it that they wanted? They wanted the power that comes with the ability to live the life of Krishna. You can't see it. But I can see the effects of the Holy Spirit. I can feel the presence of the Holy Spirit. You can feel the wind, correct? But you can't see it. You can feel it. You know it's there. You can feel the power of that wind as it's buoyed against you. It's the same with the Holy Spirit. We can feel the Holy Spirit in our Not soon. Jesus realized that in this life it was going to be difficult. He knew that. That's why he told his disciples, I go away, but I'm not going to leave you alone. I'm going to send you a comforter. I'm going to send somebody who will be with you always. That you know that. You can feel the presence of the spirit in your life. Now, I may not be able to see the spirit, but I can feel I can see the effects of his power in my life as he changes us and brings us closer to God. And here's here's the thing that I find kind of emergency. There are two commandments that used to to bother me. Be ye holy, because your father which is in the heavens holy. Woe. Being holy. That's pretty powerful stuff there. As holy as God. Did you get that? That was a command. That is a command. And the other command was be ye perfect. Woe. I don't know how I'm gonna be perfect. The perfection that Jesus is talking about is not a human perfection. God's contention is not against our humanity. We'll never be perfect in the human way. Do you know that? Never. You're never going to make it. But yet we are perfect in the sight of God. How can how can you be perfect in the sight of God and still be human? That's pretty hard, is think about it. He gave us the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit guides us and directs us in the will of God. And as long as we are in the will of God, God looks on us and says, That's the best they can do. It's their and this is what I like what Paul said reasonable service. Did you get that? That's in Romans, if you don't know. I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your body a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. God has provided the Holy Spirit the guide and directness of He gave us the power and the authority to live the life that He requires. I cannot do it on my own. I cannot live the Christian life without the Holy Spirit in my life. Here. And if we try, we're going to fall flat on our face. The wind's not going to be holding up. It's going to be gone. And down on the face you go. That is what happens when the Holy Spirit is not in our life. We will fall on our face every time. It is the power of the Spirit that holds us up and keeps us in the center of God's will. He has made the provisions for us to live a life that's impossible to live. Well no. was the schoolmaster who brings to Christ because nobody could keep the law. couldn't keep the law. And God says you've got to keep the law. If you don't keep the law, you die. You have to keep the law. But we can't keep the law. Well, I guess you die then, don't you? It was impossible to keep the law because the Holy Spirit hadn't been given. If you look in the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit did not dwell within the hearts of anyone in the whole in the Old Testament. Here's what you would hear. And the spirit of the Lord came upon them. and dwell in them. You see, in the New Testament, it's different because we can live the life that God wants us to live as long as his spirit is within us. That's the difference. The wind bowl it wherever it wants to. It can go wherever it wants. We don't know where it's gonna go. We don't know what direction it's gonna go in. It can go where where it wants. The Holy Spirit can go wherever he wants. We can't control the Holy Spirit, do know that? We can't box him up, put him in a bulletin and say, We'll have the spirit between eleven o'clock Button thirty. Then you can go back home while we Head off to the restaurant and get their food. See the the spirit doesn't work that way. That's not the way you can't schedule him. You can't make him do what you want him to do. He controls our life. Do you get that? He controls our we don't control him. That is why surrendering to the will of the spirit is so important. We sing the song, I surrender all to Jesus, I surrender. Why? So we can live the life that God wants us to live. Because we cannot live unless we have surrendered to him. So when Jesus was talking to Nicodemus, he said, Nicodemus, get your act together, you gotta be born again and Nicodemus didn't understand what he was saying, and he was telling him This is a spiritual birth, Nicodemus. You have to have the spirit within your life that you're going to live the life that you should live. We have to have the spirit within us. If we don't, we cannot live this life. We will fail miserably. We have to have the Holy Spirit dwelling with us. Let's bow our hands. Our Father, we thank you. That you have given to us the Spirit to guide and direct us, to lead us in all ways of truth. Grant to us the wisdom and the power to live the life that you've required us to live. That within ourselves, Lord, we can do nothing. You've given us the power and the authority that we can live this life. Do the things that you've asked us to do, knowing that it is through the Holy Spirit that these things are accomplished. We pray that you search our hearts, see where we are, Lord, examine us. Help us to rely upon the Holy Spirit to guide and direct us in this life. And go with this and keep your hand upon us. In the name of Jesus we pray. Yeah. Shake hands, be friendly.