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Introduction
Today we celebrate Pentecost which commemorates the coming of the promised Holy Spirit.
In ancient Israel the Holy Spirit came "upon" the people.
When Jesus walked this earth, the Holy Spirit is described as "with" his disciples.
But at that first Pentecost there was a remarkable and dramatic change of events.
The Holy Spirit is described as being "in" us.
We have heard this before but what does it mean that the Holy Spirit is "in" us?
Over the next several minutes I will explore the ministry of the Holy Spirit.
Entire books have been written about the Holy Spirit.
I read one recently that was written by the late Dr. Billy Graham.
I also used material from Dr. David Jeremiah, Senior Pastor of Shadow Mountain Community Church in San Diego, Ca so these are my primary sources for this message, and I give credit to both gentlemen.
First let's understand that religion insists that acceptance with God is tied to obedience to him.
Do enough (i.e.
obey) and you will be accepted by God.
But Christianity is the opposite.
In Christ God makes us his child and then asks us to obey.
A totally different process.
This is the process that Paul follows in Romans 8.
He tells us that the person who has been blessed by the Father is to respond obediently to the Holy Spirit who lives within him.
Yes, it is wonderful to be a child in the family of God, but it comes with some responsibilities.
We are obligated to live in a new way even though as believers we are by no means capable of obedience on our own.
We all learn that if we try to live the Christian life on our own strength, we will be a failure.
And we do fail, don't we?
We've all gone down that road.
Frankly the Christian life is not hard, the Christian life is impossible, apart from the Holy Spirit.
So what God does is put us in his family, then tells us some things that we need to do and then he gives us the Holy Spirit to help us do it.
But there is a wonderful cooperative that goes on here that we can't forget.
Yes, God wants us to obey but he also gives us what we need to obey.
This is sticky for a lot of people.
They say, "I'm a Christian, I'm just going to hang out and let God do his work."
"I'll let go and let God," they say.
They don't want to lift a finger to help themselves, as they think God's is going to do it all.
Yes, God wants us to obey and in the process of obeying, he helps us by his Holy Spirit.
But we can't duck our responsibility.
The Bible says we're to (Phil.
2:12-13 HCSB) ...work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; 13 for God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
God is doing his good work in us.
He has put the Holy Spirit in us.
He wants us to take steps of obedience.
He gives us the Holy Spirit to help us become the people God wants us to be.
1.
We are responsible to the Holy Spirit.
Rom.
8:12-14 (NIV)
12 Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation-but it is not to the flesh, to live according to it.
13 For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.
14 For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God.
Before we became Christians we didn't have any choice.
You might have thought, "Well before I became a Christian, I was a pretty good person, and I didn't do all the bad things.
I did some things that I shouldn't have done."
But what do the scriptures have to say about that?
Rom.
3:10-12 (NIV) As it is written: "There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands; there is no one who seeks God.
All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one."
If you wonder just how corrupt we were read Romans 3 this week and you will be totally convinced.
Even our motives are bad before Christ comes to live within our heart.
But when Christ comes, he doesn't take away the old nature, he just gives us a new nature and enables us to live our lives according to his will.
Rom.
8:10 (HCSB) Now if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.
And that means that when Christ comes to live within our heart, he brings life with him.
The bible calls it abundant life, new life, real life.
We may not understand exactly what happens to us when we become Christians and the process we go through, but something dramatically changes.
2 Cor.
5:17 (ESV) says Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.
The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.
Something happens when the Spirit of God comes to live within us.
Our sins are gone, our guilt is history.
Everything about life has changed for one simple reason that God loved us and sent his Son to die for us and in the process gave us his Holy Spirit to live in our hearts.
And we then are responsible to live this new God-given life and put to death those things which get in the way.
Now here's where we are going to find out how we cooperate with God in the living of this Christian life.
2. We are reinforced by the Holy Spirit in our obedience to God.
Rom.
8:13 (NIV) For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.
When we become a Christian, we still have the old nature.
If you and I are honest with ourselves, we know that.
If you doubt that, just ask your wife or husband.
They will verify the fact that you still have the old nature!
So we don't get a chance to eradicate the old nature.
Paul is not telling us here that there is something you can do make all of those things that are still part of the old nature go away.
Rather he says: You can crucify the deeds of the old nature.
Can we get rid of the old nature?
No, but you can take care of the things the old nature wants you to do, and you can deal with them.
Paul says that as Christians, we will discover that things from our former life that are slipping back into our life and are starting to take hold.
When you become a Christian, you don't simply get rid of old experiences and sometimes things that were true of you before you became a Christian, that's what scriptures call the "flesh".
Sometimes those things surface in our life like the pesky mole in "whack a mole" game.
One day you say, "Man, what am I doing here?
I'm a Christian.
Why is that happening?"
Paul says that when those things happen, you have to crucify those things and you have to take that responsibility and deal with them.
We don't just sit around and say, "Well, I'm just going to wait for God.
Maybe he'll take it away."
No, he won't.
God is not going to do for you what you're unwilling to do for yourself.
But by the Holy Spirit's power, he will help us obediently do what he asks us to do.
What does it mean to crucify the flesh?
There are some characteristics of crucifixion that we all know from Mel Gibson's The Passion movie.
Crucifixion is personal.
You have to do this yourself.
This is not a corporate deal.
This is not something we do together as a church.
We don't come together on Sunday and, together, this weekend, we're all going to crucify the things in our body that shouldn't be there.
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