The Spirit that Unifies us with God
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· 7 viewsThe Holy Spirit empowers the believer to be unified with God through Spirit empowered sight and wisdom.
Notes
Transcript
Opening Illustration
(https://www.cnn.com/2017/07/17/health/contact-lens-uk-trnd/index.html)
The British journal of medicine reported in July of 2018 that a woman in England had 27 contacts removed from her eye. She would put them in but wasn't always able to find them, so she just assumed they had fallen out.
Actually, the lenses were slipping to the back of her eye and getting stuck. She just kept adding new ones in, and they piled up. But despite having 27 lenses in her eye, her vision was not 27 times stronger.
APPLICATION
We can add more and more theological information to our minds, but if our hearts aren't transformed, it won't give us a clearer vision of God . Information without the Holy Spirit can't bring about the life that God desires.
"They cannot comprehend or understand, for He has shut their eyes so they cannot see, and closed their minds so they cannot understand" (Isaiah 44:18).
1. Without the Holy Spirit, God’s wisdom is unknown.
1. Without the Holy Spirit, God’s wisdom is unknown.
6 Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away.
7 But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory.
Wisdom comes from the Lord
6 For the Lord gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding;
7 he stores up sound wisdom for the upright; he is a shield to those who walk in integrity,
8 guarding the paths of justice and watching over the way of his saints.
We should pray for wisdom.
5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.
2. Without the Holy Spirit, God is unobservable.
2. Without the Holy Spirit, God is unobservable.
8 None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
9 But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him”—
10 these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.
11 For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.
12 Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God.
The religious leaders of the Jews failed to see who Jesus was without the Spirit enabling them.
26 “Brothers, sons of the family of Abraham, and those among you who fear God, to us has been sent the message of this salvation.
27 For those who live in Jerusalem and their rulers, because they did not recognize him nor understand the utterances of the prophets, which are read every Sabbath, fulfilled them by condemning him.
28 And though they found in him no guilt worthy of death, they asked Pilate to have him executed.
29 And when they had carried out all that was written of him, they took him down from the tree and laid him in a tomb.
30 But God raised him from the dead,
31 and for many days he appeared to those who had come up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are now his witnesses to the people.
32 And we bring you the good news that what God promised to the fathers,
33 this he has fulfilled to us their children by raising Jesus, as also it is written in the second Psalm, “ ‘You are my Son, today I have begotten you.’
God reveals himself through the Holy Spirit to those who respond.
17 And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.
11 For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man’s gospel.
12 For I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.
The Spirit of God is God.
11 For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.
3. Without the Holy Spirit, God is unacceptable.
3. Without the Holy Spirit, God is unacceptable.
13 And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.
14 The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.
Without the Holy Spirit intervening in our hearts we are enemies of God.
7 For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God’s law; indeed, it cannot.
8 Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.
4 You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.
4. Without the Holy Spirit, God’s judgment is unreasonable.
4. Without the Holy Spirit, God’s judgment is unreasonable.
15 The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one.
16 “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.
Those opposed to God see God’s judgments as unfair.
Those who walk with God understand his judgments to be fair.
Because we are united with God, we shine light and understanding about God to everyone with ears willing to listen.
Closing Illustration:
(https://www.bibletimelines.com/articles/the-fiber-optic-you)
ILLUSTRATION
Humans are much like a single strand of a fiber-optic cable. Like the optical fiber, our existence is meaningless unless we are conducting light. And like the optical fiber, none of us have any light of our own. There is only one source of light and that's Jesus.
APPLICATION
Most optical fibers are called "end glow" because light is supposed to come out of the end and not the sides. If an "end-glow" fiber allows light to escape from the sides it is because it has been damaged. When Christians are "damaged" by hardship, pain or suffering the Light inside comes out in the direction of that pain.
Likewise, as we allow God to use us, He shines through us in ways that allow the light to reach others who have experienced the same pain.
"When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, 'I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life'" (John 8:12).
Invitation:
In order to be a people who understand God, we first must know God. Do you know God? Have you surrendered your life to him?
Gospel presentation
Invitation