Skip to content The. Only. God.: The Advantage of The Holy Spirit Jan 5 · 56 min ...more
The. Only. God.: The Advantage of The Holy Spirit
January 5, 2025 · 56 min
Pastor Jeff emphasized the importance of the Holy Spirit in the lives of believers, highlighting that the Holy Spirit is God and serves as our Helper. He reassured the congregation that the Holy Spirit empowers, convicts, seals, and guides us, enabling us to live out our faith in a way that glorifies Christ. Pastor Jeff also discussed how the Holy Spirit is actively involved in our spiritual growth and how we must remain open to His leading. Ultimately, the message reinforced that relying on the Holy Spirit is essential for a fruitful Christian life and for making Jesus known in the world. Speaker: Jeff Schwarzentraub
Series BRAVE Church January 5, 2025 · 56 min · BRAVE Church
Pastor Jeff emphasized the importance of the Holy Spirit in the lives of believers, highlighting that the Holy Spirit is God and serves as our Helper. He reassured the congregation that the Holy Spirit empowers, convicts, seals, and guides us, enabling us to live out our faith in a way that glorifies Christ. Pastor Jeff also discussed how the Holy Spirit is actively involved in our spiritual growth and how we must remain open to His leading. Ultimately, the message reinforced that relying on the Holy Spirit is essential for a fruitful Christian life and for making Jesus known in the world. Speaker: Jeff Schwarzentraub ...more Show the full description Show less Pastor Jeff emphasized the importance of the Holy Spirit in the lives of believers, highlighting that the Holy Spirit is God and serves as our Helper. He reassured the congregation that the Holy Spirit empowers, convicts, seals, and guides us, enabling us to live out our faith in a way that glorifies Christ. Pastor Jeff also discussed how the Holy Spirit is actively involved in our spiritual growth and how we must remain open to His leading. Ultimately, the message reinforced that relying on the Holy Spirit is essential for a fruitful Christian life and for making Jesus known in the world. Speaker: Jeff Schwarzentraub
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Pastor Jeff Schwarzentraub serves as president of Pastor Jeff Ministries, a national and global ministry designed to equip believers and challenge them to take
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0:00 Well, morning. Will you help me welcome all of our brave campuses that are worshiping with us today? Also want to extend a happy new year to each and every 1 of you, and as you know already,0:12 we begin every calendar year on the first Sunday by starting 21 days of prayer and fasting. We'll be gathering on all of our campuses from 6 to 7 Monday through Friday, and from 8 to 9 on Saturday mornings. If you do0:23 not pick up a prayer journal, please pick 1 up on your way out. These can be helpful to you. You can date it, you can take notes, you can write whatever you want. If you have your own questions, things you'd rather do,0:34 that's great. This is just to be a help for you to grow closer to the Lord Jesus Christ. And as I've said many times, the goal of us praying together as a church is that we as a church would fall more in love with the0:44 Lord Jesus Christ. Amen? Amen. And with that, let's continue our worship this morning as we seek the face of the Lord and get ready to hear from his living and active word. Would you pray with me? Our father in heaven,0:54 we give you all the glory, honor and praise, and we thank you for your son, Jesus Christ, the God man who came to this world and died on the cross for our sins, rose from the dead and ascended into heaven, who's coming1:05 back to judge the world. We thank you for your Holy Spirit that you've given to each and every believer who dwells in all of us who know you. And we pray this morning, Lord, that you'd be helpful to me as I preach your1:14 word because we as a people believe that every time your word is faithfully and accurately proclaimed that you are speaking. So our prayer this morning is speak Lord for we're ready to hear. And so now for all those who
1:25 have gathered who desire to hear the Lord Jesus Christ speak directly to you, who will believe what he tells you and who will by faith put into practice what he shows you. Will you agree with me very loudly this morning
1:35 by saying the word, amen. Amen. We've been studying the person of the Lord Jesus Christ and what we talked about was the fact that he came to this earth as the God man is incarnate flesh. He served a ministry. He had a
1:47 message that he was gonna die on the cross for the sins of the world, be raised from the dead, and he fulfilled everything he said he was going to do, and then he ascended into heaven. And I think for many Christians
1:56 sometimes, if you were asked this question, think about this question. If you could have Jesus Christ come back here and just live with you on a day to day basis, live in your house, and but to do that, you would need to
2:07 exchange all the gifts that he's given you and all the different things, but you could have Jesus Christ living with you. How many would say, I'd take that right now? I wouldn't, but that's what the disciples said. The
2:19 disciples said the same thing because Jesus, after he had done everything that he was going to do, ascended into heaven and he told them before he went that that's exactly what he was going to do, and the disciples were
2:29 saddened by this. And so he began to give them a teaching and he told them at that time, which you're gonna hear about in the scriptures today, that it's actually to their benefit that he goes away. It's actually
2:39 advantageous to them that he goes away because he promised that if he went away, he would send another called the helper or the holy spirit to be with them forever. And this gift of the
2:51 holy spirit is even better than having the presence of Jesus on this earth. And we need to understand why that is. Because for many people, when it comes to the person of Jesus, there's doctrinal
3:03 things that we can talk about that are refreshing. But if you've been in the church for a while, you've heard a lot of them. But when it comes to the person of the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, there's a
3:12 lot of errant teaching, there's a lot of people that have had different experiences in churches, and some get so far caught up in experience that we call them holy rollers. And many of us
3:24 say, if that's what it means to have the Holy Spirit, I want nothing to do with that. That's craziness, and so we go a different way and we call ourselves the frozen chosen. You know, God selected us, we're good, we're
3:36 fine. Don't ask me to be emotional about anything. But if we really don't understand who the holy spirit is, those are the 2 extremes that we'll go to. But what I believe is that God's given us the Holy Spirit for every
3:45 person who believes, and that he's busy doing ministry, and the more you understand that the person of the Holy Spirit and who he is, the more you're gonna grow in your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. So as we begin this
3:57 month to take a look at the Holy Spirit, we're gonna look at all sorts of different things because every time we talk about the Holy Spirit, first people's question, what do you believe about speaking in tongues? That's
4:06 all people wanna ask. We'll talk about tongues. We'll talk about miracles. We'll talk about anything that the Bible reveals, and we'll take a look at it from a biblical perspective. But let's take a look at who this Holy
4:16 Spirit is and why he is advantageous to us. So if you have a copy of the scriptures this morning, I invite you to turn your Bible to John chapter 16. John chapter 16, we're gonna be in verses 5 through 15. And I'm gonna
4:28 highlight 4 truths for you this morning about the Holy Spirit so that you will understand him better. You will know who he is and you'll be able to respond to him.
4:39 In John chapter 16, starting in verse 5, Jesus says, but now I'm going to ask him who sent me and none of you ask me, where are you going? But because I have said
4:51 these things, you To you, sorrow has filled your heart. So again, like I said, Jesus is telling them, I'm going to the father, you know I'm going to the father, and yet you guys are so sorrowful. And here's the
5:02 interesting thing, Jesus has just got done explaining to them what he's going to do. That as the God man, he's gonna go to Jerusalem, he's going to get crucified, he's gonna be rejected, he's gonna be dead on a cross.
5:14 3 days later, he'll rise from the dead. So he is gonna go pay for the sin of all humanity. That's what he's doing. So Jesus is seeking the father even that very night, he seeks the father and says, if there's
5:26 any other way, let's do it that way, but not my will, dad, your will be done and he goes to the cross. So here, Jesus, in the most significant part of his ministry, going to die for the sins of the world, is very, very
5:37 concerned and wants his disciples to pray, and what are they worried about? They're worried about themselves, because Jesus told them it was gonna be hard, and Jesus told him that he was gonna be leaving. And like many
5:46 disciples, they were far more concerned about themselves than they were about Jesus. And that's where they are right now because they don't want Jesus to leave. They've spent 3 and a half years with him. They've heard
5:56 what he's done. They've watched what he's taught. They've been with him. They've seen him do miracles. They've seen him do all sorts of different things and speak with every different member of society. And now he's
6:06 leaving and they don't want him to go. But notice what Jesus says. In the very next verse in verse 7, he says, but I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage. That means your benefit. It's it's good for
6:18 you. It's to your advantage that I go away for if I do not go away, the helper will not come to you. In other words, he says this, if I don't go away, I can't
6:30 send you the helper. The Greek word is parakletos. It means to come alongside. It's someone that's going to help. In other words, here's what Jesus was telling his disciples, those that had spent 3 plus years with him.
6:41 He was saying, you need help. You need help to do what I'm calling you to do. And if I don't go away, I can't send the 1 who's gonna come help you. So it's to your advantage that I'm going away. Friends,
6:52 there is the advantage of the Holy Spirit because for many believers in Christ, they come to Christ because they realize they couldn't do it on their own. They they they couldn't get this Christian life done. They they
7:04 saw what God required and they couldn't do it. So they repent and believe that Jesus is the Christ, but they spend the rest of their days as Christians now believing that they can do it by themselves. I got news for you.
7:15 You can't. If you could, he wouldn't have needed to send a helper. Okay. Listen. Look at your neighbor and tell him you need help. Okay. You need help. You
7:27 can't live the christian life by yourself. Okay. Back up here. Some of you needed that word more than others apparently. I saw married couples like, finally, he's given me a chance to talk. Alright.
7:39 We all need help. We can't live the christian life independent of the holy spirit. So I'm gonna give you 4 truths about the holy spirit of who is this helper and what is he doing? And the first is the most significant
7:51 truth I'm gonna tell you in this entire series. Maybe the most basic and the most profound, but the most important. The first thing I'm gonna tell you about the Holy Spirit is that he is God.
8:03 He is God. I thought of different ways of writing that out and clever ways. I I couldn't get around. He's just God. And you need to know that when we've shown the the picture of the Trinity, which I
8:15 think we have, if we can put that up on the screen. When we've shown the picture of Trinity, we we've told you that the Godhead is made up of 3 distinct persons of 1 complete essence. It's 3 in
8:27 1. It's not 3 individual gods that make up the Godhead. It's 1 God in 3 distinct persons, and there's no way of explaining how that works. The father has always been the father. The son's
8:39 always been the son, and the holy spirit has always been the holy spirit. And to be God, you've always had to existed. So the father is not the son of the spirit. The son is not the father of the spirit, and the spirit
8:49 is not the father of the son, but they're all 1 God together. And that's our Godhead and that's who we serve. And you need to know this, that the Holy Spirit is God. Okay? Let me give you some truth
9:01 from God's word that will show you that. First of all, in creation, we learned that Jesus Christ created all things. In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. And in Colossians 1 15,
9:12 all things, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, things visible or invisible were all created by Jesus. But if you take a look in your Bible in Genesis chapter 1, where it says, In the beginning, God
9:23 created the heavens and the earth, you will also see in verse 2 that the earth was formless and void and darkness was over the surface of the deep and the spirit of God was moving over the surface of the water. So
9:35 where's the Holy Spirit in creation? He's right there. So before anything's created, you have the Holy Spirit. And what is the Holy Spirit doing? The Holy Spirit is waiting and waiting and waiting until Jesus gives the
9:47 word to create, and then the Holy Spirit moves at the word of Jesus. The Holy Spirit is still moved by the word of Jesus. Amen? And so you see the Holy Spirit in creation before anything's created, there's the Holy
9:58 Spirit. We also see the Holy Spirit at the baptism of Jesus. In John chapter 3, in John chapter 3, I'm sorry, Matthew chapter 3 in verses 16 and 17. Matthew
10:10 chapter 3 verses 16 and 17, after being baptized, Jesus came up immediately from the water. So you have the God man standing in the Jordan river and behold, the heavens were opened and he saw the
10:22 spirit of God, that's the holy spirit, descending as a dove and lighting upon him and behold, a voice out of the heavens said, this is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. So you have the God man Jesus Christ
10:33 standing in the Jordan river, you have the heavenly father speaking words, and at the same time, the holy spirit is descending like a dove. You have all 3. You have the trinity God right there that we can see a picture
10:45 of at the Jordan. There's even more. Do you believe this book? It's not rhetorical. Do you believe this book? Okay. I believe this book is in Aaron.
10:57 I believe it's authoritative. I believe Genesis 1 1 through Revelation 22 21 is all of God's word. That God wrote his word and that nothing he speaks goes against this word and that everything in this word is true
11:09 and that this word will last forever and ever. Amen? That's what I believe. That's what I proclaim. That's what I preach. That's what I teach. Even parts I don't understand fully. I don't need to understand fully. God
11:19 understands and he's right. But who wrote this book? Who penned these words? You'll hear a lot of people in our culture say, well, it's just a bunch of men over a period of time that wrote this book. That's not
11:31 what the Bible says. In second Peter chapter 1 verses 20 and 21, it says, but know this first of all, that no prophecy of scripture is a matter of one's own interpretation for no prophecy was
11:42 ever made by an act of human will. No prophecy. Nothing written in this book was some human being that sat down and said, I think God is like, I had a revelation, I think God is like, nothing happened like that.
11:55 But what happened? But men moved by who? The Holy Spirit spoke from God. The Holy Spirit again is referred to as God. So who wrote this book? The Holy Spirit wrote this book. So everything in
12:07 this book is the Holy Spirit writing to show you who Christ is. So every time you read this book, this is the Holy Spirit's words revealing who Jesus Christ is. So everything in this book
12:18 is true because the Holy Spirit wrote the book. So we have the holy spirit in creation. We have the holy spirit at Jesus' baptism. We have the holy spirit who wrote the word. You see the holy spirit, throughout the new
12:29 testament when he leads Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil, and he's there ministering to him. You see the holy spirit all throughout Jesus' ministry. You see him in the old testament. We're gonna talk
12:39 about this in a little bit, where he would come upon people for a period of time and then leave. But in the new testament, it's a little bit different that we'll talk about. But if I can give you just even 1 more proof
12:48 text just to show that the Holy Spirit is God, I would take you to acts chapter 5. You remember this story about a couple named Ananias and Sapphira. Unfortunately, it's the only thing we know about this couple.
12:59 Unfortunately, that's what the Holy Spirit put in this book. And what happened was this couple had decided when everybody was bringing all their goods together to give to the church, And Ananias, the husband had sold a
13:10 piece of property and said that he brought all of it to the church to give to it when he had only brought some of it, which was totally fine. You don't have to give all your money to the church, but he lied about it and
13:20 said, I'm giving all my money from this. And so here's what happened. But Peter said in acts chapter 5 verse 3, Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the
13:32 Holy Spirit? So who did he lie to? Okay, let's I'm gonna do this 1 more time. We're in school now, okay? Why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the holy
13:43 spirit? So who's he lying to? The Holy spirit. Okay. So he's lying to the holy spirit and to keep back some of the price of land. While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not
13:54 under your control? Why is it that you conceived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to men but to God. He lied to the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit is? God. Holy
14:06 spirit's God. You need to understand this. Most people in the church do not understand this. Here's how they think of the holy spirit. They think of the holy spirit as a force, as an
14:17 it. Let it fill this room, let it help and let it the Holy Spirit is not an it. Pronouns matter. Pronouns matter in our culture
14:30 because if you're in utero a boy then you're he him and if you're in utero a girl, you're she her. That's just how pronouns work. In the Godhead, pronouns matter too. The
14:41 Holy Spirit is not an it. Don't refer to the let it, let it, let it. The Holy Spirit is a he. The Father is a he. Jesus is a he. The Holy Spirit is a he. He is not a
14:53 force. He's not a force just to make you tingle. He's not a force just to make you feel good. He's not a force just to make you act crazy. He's the God of the universe.
15:05 He's the third person of the Trinity whose job is to make Jesus Christ look very very good. And when the Holy Spirit is doing his job right, Jesus is getting a lot of glory and the father is
15:17 being honored. That's the Holy Spirit's job. The Holy Spirit is not about you. The Holy Spirit is not to make you feel good. The Holy Spirit is about making Jesus look
15:29 good. And you need to understand that because revival is not a force or a feeling or emotion where we just play music until we can't stand it anymore and we're all
15:41 revved up and now we're all fired up and revival's breaking out. That's like a Metallica concert. Right? I mean, that is not revival. Revival is when the holy spirit is putting Jesus on such
15:52 display and making him look so good that people in that community are repenting and believing that Jesus is the Christ and they're bearing fruit to show that Jesus is the Christ, and they're living for him. Because
16:04 that's the Holy Spirit's job to make Jesus look good. Amen? So pardon me if I don't think that every time people get excited, there's revival breaking out. When Jesus is being elevated
16:16 and the word of God is being put above people and his word is authoritative and people are placing themselves under the word and Jesus is being elevated, that's when revival's breaking out. That's what that looks like.
16:27 So don't miss this point because we're gonna talk about a lot of different ministries and gifts and ways in which the Holy Spirit works. But when we talk about the Holy Spirit, we're talking about God. He's God, He's not
16:38 a force, He's not an it, He's not He's not less than. He submits to the Son and the Father but He's not any less than. The beauty of the trinity and why Paul uses it when he talks about marriage of wives submitting to
16:49 husbands is not because wives are less than their husbands. They're equal. They're 1. But just like the holy spirit submitted to the son and the father and like Jesus submitted to the father, wives are submit to their
16:58 husband. It's a picture of the Godhead. Right? The Holy Spirit's God, Jesus Christ is God, the father is God. Amen? Are we clear on that? We have to be clear on this or we're gonna miss out on what we see and the Holy
17:10 Spirit's job is to make Jesus Christ look really, really good and to magnify his name. Amen? Let me give you a second truth. A second truth is the fact that not only is He God, but He empowers believers.
17:22 He empowers believers. Notice this, He said in verse 7, I tell you the truth, this is your advantage that I go away for if I don't go away, the helper will not come to you. Notice what he says next, but if I go, I will
17:34 send him to you. How do we know that Jesus made it back to the father when he ascended? Because he sent the holy spirit. That was a sign I made it back. I'm at the right hand of the father. I'm ruling
17:46 in power over the universe. I sent the Holy Spirit back. And in acts chapter 2, we see the Holy Spirit come upon the apostles, and what do we see them do? They start speaking in tongues and
17:57 that there is other languages and it's clear that it's other languages because people are saying, we heard God in our own language. There's they're preaching the gospel and they're like, how do they know this language?
18:07 How do they know that language? Those guys are from Galilee, they don't know anything. And they're preaching the gospel in all these different languages, and the Holy Spirit was uniting the church, and the Holy Spirit
18:16 has come. So I'm gonna tell you what's so important about the Holy Spirit coming and why is he advantageous and why do I need a helper? Cause Jesus promised just 2 chapters earlier in John chapter 14
18:28 verse 16, he said, I will ask the father and he will give you another helper that he may be with you for how long? Forever. That is the spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive because it does not see him
18:40 or know him, but you know him because he abides with you and will be in you. So let me give you 5 ministries that happen when the Holy Spirit gets ahold of your life. 5 ministries that
18:52 happen when the Holy Spirit gets ahold of your life. Here's what he does. The first is called regeneration. He regenerates you. And he has to regenerate you because the Bible says there's no 1 good, no, not 1 and at the
19:04 wages of sin is death. So all people are born spiritually dead. You're born spiritually dead. I'm born spiritually dead. Everybody's born spiritually dead. So the biggest problem that you have in this life is not
19:16 where you're gonna attend school or who you're gonna marry or how many kids you're gonna have or what house you're gonna buy, or how are you gonna steward your finances or who you're gonna hang out with or what city
19:23 you're gonna choose. None of that stuff's as important as this. You're dead apart from Christ. That's your number 1 problem. That's the number 1 problem of everybody on the planet. So that's why Jesus said in John
19:35 3 and Nicodemus, you must be born again. What do you mean? Because you're physically alive, but you're spiritually dead. Well, who is the 1 in the Godhead who makes you
19:46 alive? The Holy Spirit. Notice what he says in Titus chapter 3 in verse 5. He says, he saved us. And let me just make this clear. You didn't save yourself and you
19:58 didn't even participate in it. It wasn't like God looked down at you and you're doing some good things and you said, I think I'll choose God and he's like, okay, I'll choose you too. Let's let's come together. This will
20:06 be perfect. No. He saved you. You didn't find Jesus. Jesus found you. He saved us what? Not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness. He didn't pick you because
20:18 you're good. He didn't select you because you kept the law. He didn't look at you and say, great job. No, no, no. But according to his what? Mercy.
20:30 Mercy means this, I'm not gonna give you what you deserve. You deserve punishment, I'm gonna give you blessing. That's mercy. You were caught, you were guilty, but I'll pay the penalty, you go free. That's
20:41 mercy. Here's what mercy is. You because of your deadness and your rebellion because you've rebelled against an eternal God since you were conceived and came out of the womb and took your first breath and have been
20:53 rebelling against God ever since, you deserve hell. And if God sent every single person to an eternal hell, he's just in doing so. He's holy in doing so because he can't bring
21:05 sin into his presence. So what does he do? He doesn't save people according to their righteousness. How does he save them? According to his mercy. What should we be praying for? Lord have mercy.
21:17 Lord, save me. Lord, don't save me because of what I've done, save me because of what I haven't done. Lord have mercy. When Peter went down in the water, remember his 3 word prayer? Lord save me. He needed
21:29 help. That's how God saves by his mercy. How does he do it? By the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit. Who does the work? The Holy Spirit does.
21:42 Every single believer that has that's every single believer has been born again, and the only way to be born again is for the spirit to take your dead soul and make it alive. If you've been born again, you say, I didn't
21:53 know all this stuff was going on. You don't, there's there's myriads of things the Holy Spirit did the moment you were converted. But when you repented and believed in Christ alone for the forgiveness of your sins that
22:03 he died for you and paid it all, that he rose from the dead, that he's the only Christ and you repented and believed at that moment, you were regenerated by the Holy Spirit. He saved you, he made you alive. He's the 1
22:14 who we give praise to for making his life. The Holy Spirit regenerated you. So he said, don't know if I believe in the Holy Spirit. If you're a believer, you do. Because the Holy Spirit is the 1 who's made you alive.
22:23 Amen? Yeah. At the same time that he regenerates you, you know what he does? He baptizes you. He baptizes you. Notice in first Corinthians chapter 12,
22:35 first Corinthians chapter 12 verse 13, he gives a picture of what this looks like. And this is what I call the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Now, there are many people who are solid believers who believe
22:47 this a little differently than me. We'll talk more about this when we go, but I believe this is the clear teaching of scripture. Notice what he says. He says, for by 1 spirit, we were all baptized. Who's that? That's
22:58 every believer. We were all baptized into 1 body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, we were all made to drink of 1 spirit. So here's what baptism is. Baptism means to
23:10 immerse. So it means to repeatedly dip or immerse. So let's say you had a white cloth and you were gonna baptize it in purple dye, you would repeatedly dip it or you would immerse it in until the white cloth became
23:21 purple. That's what it means to baptize. So baptism happens. There's spirit baptism that happens at the moment that you're converted. What do you get baptized into? You get baptized and immersed into Christ.
23:33 Positionally, you're seated with Christ. You're you're with Christ and you get placed into the family of God, which is the church universal. So at the moment that you're converted, you get
23:45 baptized into Christ and immersed into Christ and you become part of the church universal. Meaning if you live in India and you're Indian and you are born again, you're part of the church of Jesus Christ. If you're from
23:56 Israel, you're part of the church of Jesus Christ from Germany, from America, wherever you're, you're part of the church. And what happens is when you get baptized into Christ and you're baptized into the family, guess
24:06 what you're gonna start doing? You'll start looking for other believers because you'll wanna be around them. When people get saved, they want to be around other believers. You go from thinking those Christians are so
24:18 weird, they're dorky, they're the Where do I find 1 of those? I'm just like them. Right? That's what happens. Right? That's the baptism of the Holy Spirit. You've been immersed into Christ. Positionally, you're seated in
24:29 the heavenly places. That's what happens. Kim and I have helped with Billy Graham crusades and different things and have done counseling for them. And you call these people after they make professions of faith. And even
24:39 the Billy Graham association will tell you only about 4 percent of those people actually make their way into a church. Now, I don't know statistics as to who's actually converted and who's not converted. And I'm all for
24:48 the proclamation of the gospel anywhere at any time. But what I'm telling you is when you have a true believer, you don't need to quote follow-up with them to have them find a church because if they're a true believer
24:57 and they've been baptized into Christ, they'll wanna find 1. That's what happens. When Philip led the Ethiopian eunuch to Christ and baptize him and disappeared, he didn't need to say, well, you need to go find a church
25:08 and here's he assumed the eunuch would find a church. Why? Because he's a Christian. And when you're a Christian, you'll wanna be around other Christians. It's part of the baptism of the spirit. That's what the baptism
25:18 of the spirit is. So when I'm asked a question or if you're asked a question, have you been baptized with the spirit? Your answer is Okay. Let's try again. Cause somebody's gonna ask you this. Have
25:30 you been baptized with the spirit? Have you? Yes. If you're a believer, you have. You've been baptized into Christ. You've been baptized into the family of God. So you don't need to go looking for this other baptism
25:40 thing that makes you speak in tongues and do all sorts of things. You don't need to do You've been baptized into the family of God. Let me give you a third 1. A third third work of the Holy Spirit to empower believers as
25:51 he seals you or a better way of saying it is he he marks you. So in Ephesians in chapter 1, verses 13 and 14, he talks about exactly what happens at the
26:03 moment you come to Christ. He says in him, you also after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation, having also believed means you've heard the gospel, you place your faith and trust in
26:14 Jesus, you were sealed in him or marked in him with the Holy Spirit of promise who is given as a pledge of our inheritance with a view to the redemption of God's own possession to the praise of his
26:26 glory. So when a person who is dead in their sins is regenerated by the spirit, baptized in the family of God at the same moment that that all of that happens, this also takes place.
26:38 This is what happens to a believer. They are sealed or they're they're marked. And what that means is it's like a it's like a deposit or a down payment. So the Holy Spirit is saying, I got you. It's
26:50 earnest money. It's as good as done. So positionally, you're in the heavenly places. If you were to die today, I'm presenting you faultless before the Father. In the meantime, practically, you're still here. We're still
27:01 growing in things. We're still working out things. But you're marked means this. If you're a believer in Christ and in Christ alone, it means that what Jesus Christ paid for on the cross, there's been an initial
27:12 deposit placed on your life, that's a guaranteed future payment in the future. Means you can't lose your salvation. Now, I get pushed back on this, people say, well, I know a person that was with Christ and now they're
27:23 not with Christ. Listen, I taught the parable of the soils, did I not? I don't believe in the eternal security of the hardened soil. I don't believe in the eternal security of the rocky soil, and I don't believe in the
27:32 eternal security of the weedy soil because I don't believe any of those people are Christians. But in the good soil that produces 30, 60 or 100, I guarantee you're gonna be in heaven. So as a believer in Christ, if
27:43 you've been regenerated, you don't need to spend your time saying, am I going to heaven? Am I going to heaven? Did I do it right? Did I get it right? He did it right. Yeah. He paid for you. He saved you. He it. He
27:55 made the down payment. It means this, you belong to him. It's like when you put earnest money down on a house, nobody else can take that house, it's yours. When the holy spirit puts earnest down on you, nobody can take
28:06 you. Jesus says, no 1 can snatch you out of my hand, no 1 can snatch you out of the father's hands, you belong to me. That's what happens at the moment that you believe. Is that good news this morning or what? That's
28:17 really good news. So let me give you a fourth 1 that happens. You've been regenerated, baptized, sealed, and marked. You didn't even know all these things were going on. Now you guess what? You've been indwelled. There's
28:27 the indwelling presence of the holy spirit. And the indwelling presence of the holy spirit is what Jesus promised back in John 14, which I read to you earlier, that he will ask the father and give you another
28:39 helper that he may be with you forever. So the holy spirit when he comes, he comes to indwell you forever. In Romans chapter 8 in verse 9, he talks about the spirit of Christ and how important this
28:51 indwelling is in the life of every single believer. He says this, Romans 8 9, however, you are not in the flesh but in the spirit if indeed the spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not
29:03 have the spirit of Christ or the holy spirit, he does not belong to him. Do I have the holy spirit? Do I have the holy spirit? If you're born again, you have the holy spirit. And not only do you have him, but guess where
29:13 he resides? In you and guess how long he dwells there? Forever. You talk about good news? Yeah. That's good news. He's in you forever. He
29:25 indwells you. He's with you. Colossians 1 says, it's Christ in you, the hope of glory. Do you know what that means? That means that because he's in
29:37 you, he can help you live and make possible what is impossible without his presence in your life. As a non believer, you can't live holy. As a believer
29:49 with the Holy Spirit in your life, you can. Not necessarily perfectly, but what? Increasingly all the time. And that's the that's the difference. It's like last night. I got home from
30:00 vacation last night. We got home about 8 and ready to get into my own bed and great stuff and apparently, because I don't know anything about mechanics in my house. We have a water pump that was broke because my kids
30:10 were saying, dad, there's no water. No water in anything. We couldn't get any water so we end spending the night with Kim's parents and it was fine. But my friend told me, know, you should look at a YouTube video. So
30:23 he pulls 1 up, it's 10 minutes long. He starts scrolling through it and I'm thinking, what are we doing here? Because this guy's looking at the same thing I'm looking at on my wall and he's like, I don't wanna pay the
30:34 money for this. I'm just gonna take it apart. And he starts pulling it off the wall. He starts talking about a thing called like a motherboard or something. Don't know and starts moving wires. He's like, look all the
30:42 money you'd save and I'm like, I would destroy my house. But can you imagine like watching the YouTube video wouldn't do anything for me but if the guy that fixed it could come live inside of me,
30:54 and then I could see the video, and then he's talking to me in my head and saying, here's how you I'll move your hand here. I'll do this. Could do it with his help. Friends, as Christians, you have a helper on the
31:06 inside to do in and through you what you could never do by yourself. Amen? And yet, so many people when you ask them, hey, this is how God's asking you to live
31:18 as a husband, is how God's asking you to live as a wife, This is what you need to be as a child. This is what you need to do in school. This is what you need to in your job. I I can't do that. You're half correct. You
31:27 can't. But with the Holy Spirit inside of you, it's possible. You can. That means there's no sin that's too great to overcome. It means there's no marriage that's too far
31:39 gone to be saved. It means there's there's no, you know, do you understand what I'm saying? What you couldn't do, your bad habits that you couldn't change before you can change, you lived in immorality, but it's possible
31:50 with the Holy Spirit to live morally. Did you know that? That's why we can't make excuses. We can make excuses if it was like Jesus, you're God, you could do it. I'm not, I can't. He's like, right. But I put God in you
32:01 and he can and he's in you. That's why as a believer, you'll constantly be hearing conviction about things you need to change because it's the Holy Spirit working in you to grow you
32:13 in ways that you weren't living before. Amen? And that's the indwelling presence of the spirit. So I'm always concerned with people that I I don't know if the Holy Spirit's in me. If you're new to the faith, I get it or
32:25 if you haven't been taught this before, get it. But when when I read the word, I I hear things in my heart. I I I sense what God is saying, and I I know he's talking to me about different things. Why? Because
32:37 his spirit lives in me, and I'm a different man than I was before his spirit lived in me. And I'm continuing to be a different man because he lives in me. Let me give you a fifth 1. And this 1 that
32:49 is not automatic. This one's partnership, and we'll be talking about this in the coming weeks. But this is the this is the filling of the spirit. And the filling of the spirit, 1 of the verses it comes from is Ephesians
32:59 chapter 5 and verse 18, where he tells them, do not get drunk with wine for that is dissipation or debauchery, but be filled with the spirit. He's like, don't get drunk because when you're
33:11 drunk, it's not you that's acting, it's the source inside of you that's helping you make the bad decisions you make. If you've been around people that drink too much, it's no longer
33:22 them saying the things, it's the alcohol saying the things or the drugs saying the things or if you happen to be at our 4 o'clock Christmas service and people are cussing at me, it happened to be alcohol that's
33:34 doing the work. You you understand what I'm saying? Because it's controlled. I say don't get drunk, don't be controlled by that but be filled with the spirit and filled doesn't mean that the Holy Spirit is like a you
33:43 know, you're like a balloon and he's feeling it. That's not what it means. Filling is this, it's control. Don't be controlled with alcohol, be controlled by the spirit. Let the spirit take over.
33:55 When you're filled with the spirit, it means you're yielding to Christ. It means before your feet hit the floor in the morning, you're saying, Lord, today is your day. This is the day you have made. What does my life
34:04 need to look like? What attitudes do I need to prepare for? What needs to change in me? What does my behavior need to look like? Lord, prepare me for everything that's coming down my day because I wanna be yielded to you
34:13 in any given moment so that as I'm doing what you're calling me to do, I'm a reflection of you. And you can be more and more and more controlled by the spirit, more filled with the spirit. We'll talk about
34:25 this. When you're not, you can be a Christian and you can actually grieve the spirit. Did you know that? Grieving the spirit is when you know the Lord's called you to do something and you don't do it and you feel on the
34:36 inside like, oh, man, I did it wrong. I shouldn't have done it that way. Shouldn't have said that. I shouldn't have done that. And you do that over and over and you grieve the spirit. And then you then you say things
34:45 like this. Well, I hear a lot of Christians say, maybe I'm not a Christian anymore. No. You're definitely a Christian because non believers don't grieve the spirit. You're a Christian, but you're not living out and being
34:55 controlled by what the spirit wants you to be controlled by. Because as I've said many times from this pulpit, he doesn't come in to be resident, he comes in to be president. He comes in to take over and so as he's
35:05 speaking to you, if you're not gonna do what he says, you can grieve him and if you do that long enough, you can quench him for a while. You're like, I don't really hear God anymore. I don't know what happened. Well,
35:15 here's what happened. There were things that the Lord was showing you to do that you never did, and you never put them into practice. And I know the prayer I pray before every sermon is that you would hear the Lord
35:24 believe what he says and put into practice, and maybe that sounds rote, but if you actually do that, you will continue to be filled with the spirit. That's what it means to yield to Christ. And the spirit of God is
35:35 active in your life, teaching you these very things so that you can do that, which means if you're a brand new believer or you're a seasoned believer, every single 1 of you has been regenerated, baptized, marked and
35:46 dwelled and you can be filled to the full where you where you are. Amen? Ain't that good news this morning? And here's why this is so important because there's so many believers that don't know this and then they think,
35:57 well, I heard what pastor Jeff said or I heard my pastor preach the bible. I just can't do that. It's too hard. It's not hard. It's impossible apart from the spirit of God taking over your life and
36:09 yielding to him. So he is God. He empowers believers. Let me give you a third 1. He convicts the world. He convicts the world. Notice what he says in verse 8
36:21 and following, And when he comes, this holy spirit that the world doesn't see, the world can't see the holy spirit, the world can't recognize the holy spirit. And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin
36:31 and righteousness and judgment. Concerning sin because they do not believe in me, concerning righteousness because I go to the father and you no longer see me, and concerning judgment because the ruler of this world
36:43 has been judged. So when the Holy Spirit comes, what's he gonna do? He's gonna convict the world of 3 things, sin and righteousness and judgment. Sin. Sin is not just bad things you do. That's a effect of
36:55 your sin. Sin is this, he's gonna convict the world that Jesus is the Christ, that he's the only way and that you're rebelling against him. And if you keep going your way, you will get what youShow more
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