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! Introduction
I would like to do a little demonstration for you this morning.
I have here a jar.
Let the jar represent your life.
Sometime in your childhood you make a choice to disobey your parents and you commit your first sin.
As life goes on, you lie, you cheat on a test, you think things you shouldn’t, you gossip, you do some other sin.
Before long, you have a life full of things for which you feel guilty.
They clutter up your life and create all kinds of problems for you.
That is what sin does.
How do you get the sin out of your life?
If you try to pour it out, some always stays.
If you try to pick it out, you can’t get all of it out.
Even if you succeeded in getting it out, very soon more would get in.
The only way that you can get rid of it is if you pour in some water and soon it is all out of your life.
Today is Pentecost, when we remember the day on which God sent His Spirit into the world.
Although it gets little coverage in society or even in the church, it is one of the great days of celebration.
At Christmas we celebrate that God came among us in the person of Jesus.
At Easter, we celebrate that God provided a way for us through the death and resurrection of Jesus.
Today, we celebrate that God has not abandoned us, but continues with us by His Holy Spirit.
Although the illustration is a little simplistic, it presents for us a picture of the only way in which we can have victory and that is by the Holy Spirit.
It is only as the Spirit of God applies the blood of Christ and renews our hearts that we will find freedom from sin and only as we are filled with the Spirit that we begin to live in victory over sin.
This morning, I would like to look at Scripture to see exactly how it is that God’s Spirit does the work of renewal in us.
!
I. God’s Spirit In Salvation
            The renewing work of God by the Holy Spirit begins in the work of salvation.
!! A. Convicts Of Sin
            It starts right at the beginning because apart from the work of the Holy Spirit, we would never realize that we have sinned.
John 16:8, speaking of the Holy Spirit says, “When he comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment…”
I think that most people would agree that they do wrong things.
They may describe them as slips, they may not see them as that serious, but they all know that they do wrong.
The work of the Holy Spirit is to convict people of the seriousness of that wrong.
Most people will not realize that sin is a violation of the righteousness of God or that sin will result in judgement.
They do not know that sin always leads to death.
The Holy Spirit is the one who begins to work in a person’s heart before they are believers and convinces them of the desperate need of a saviour.
If we don’t know that we are lost, we will not seek the Saviour.
The Holy Spirit helps people understand that they are in need.
As the Spirit does that convicting work in us, we need to respond by confessing our sins.
Confession of sin is, simply the admission that the guilt and conviction we sense in our hearts through the Holy Spirit is right.
We have done wrong.
Apart from admitting that, we will not be saved.
!! B. Renews
            After confession, the second step is that we receive the gift that God has for us in Jesus Christ by faith.
We often talk about putting on the light, but how much do we have to do in putting on a light?
We don’t provide the electricity, we don’t glow like a filament.
All we really do is throw a switch which allows the electricity to cause the filament to glow.
In a similar way in salvation, we talk about being saved, but how much do we really do in salvation.
All we do is repent and receiving God’s gift.
What we forget is that there is a lot more going on.
What is going on is that when we believe, the Holy Spirit comes in and cleanses our heart.
He washes us clean of our sin and he renews our hearts.
Salvation itself is not an act that we do, it is an act that God does in us by His Holy Spirit.
Just as we could not clean out the Styrofoam, so we cannot clean the sin out of our hearts.
It is the Holy Spirit who does that renewing work in us.
Titus 3:5,6 says, “he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy.
He saved us through the washing of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us generously through Jesus Christ our Saviour.”
I Peter 1:2 agrees with this truth when it says, “who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by his blood…”
Apart from the cleansing work of the Holy Spirit, we cannot be saved.
!! C. Seals Our Redemption
            When the Holy Spirit comes into our lives, he also does another thing related to the work of salvation.
The Holy Spirit affirms that we are children of God.
There are so many verses that reveal that we can know that we are saved and that knowledge of salvation is a work of the Holy Spirit.
Romans 8:15,16 says, “For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship.
And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.”
The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.”
If we are able to say “Father” to God, then we know that we are children of God.
God’s Spirit within us affirms that we belong to Him.
The work of the Spirit affirming that we are children of God is also described in Ephesians 1:13, 14 which says, “And you also were included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation.
Having believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory.”
That verse tells us two things that the Holy Spirit does.
It is the Spirit who is a seal in our hearts.
A seal on a document marks ownership.
The Holy Spirit marks us as belonging to God.
He gives us the assurance in our hearts that we belong to God.
The Spirit also is the deposit.
Just as a deposit on a purchase guarantees the full purchase price and the completion of the deal, God’s Spirit guarantees that one day, we will see God face to face.
Because we already, have God in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, that presence of God is the deposit that guarantees that we belong to God and will one day be with him.
This is the work of the Holy Spirit in us in salvation.
He convicts of sin, renews us within and assures us that we have been accepted by God.
We cannot be saved apart from what the Spirit of God does.
I praise God for His Spirit who has applied the gift of salvation to my heart.
!
II.
God’s Spirit In The Christian Life
            But we know very well that even though we have been saved, many times sin still comes into our life.
If the Spirit has come in and removed the sin, why is it still there?
Why do we still continue to sin?
Spirit of God continues to work in us.
He not only washes us at salvation, but continues to work in our lives throughout our life to make us into new creatures.
We often make a mistake in thinking that we will renew ourselves by our own efforts.
It is as if we think that since God has cleaned our jar, now it is up to us to make sure that we don’t let any more dirt into it.
There is certainly truth to that, but it is not only at the level of our effort.
God’s Spirit continues to work in our life with his renewing power.
The wonderful thing about having the Spirit in our lives is that he continues to work in us.
Let us examine several passages of Scripture which teach that.
There is a Greek principle of philosophy that says, “like is known by like.”
When a person who knows about computers talks about bytes and ram and skuzi drive and so on, a person who also works with computers understands what he is talking about but the rest of us go “huh?”
When some of you tell jokes in Low-German, the rest of you who grew up with Low-German as your first language all laugh but the others of us who do not have that knowledge go (hand over head).
When God wants to communicate His word to the people of the world, it is a mystery.
They do not understand.
But listen to I Corinthians 2:6-16.
(read)
            If like is known by like then, God’s Spirit knows what God is thinking.
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