Power Source

POWER SOURCE

Living in the Power of the Holy Spirit

INTRO:

- ILLUS: Imagine that you are going to Best Buy to purchase a new refrigerator. (You get the most high tech fridge out there $3500.)

They deliver your shiny new appliance into your home, put it in place and you stuff it with plenty of all your favorite groceries.

The next morning you go eagerly to the kitchen refridgerator and open the door, but the shelves don¡¦t glide out automatically, they just sit there.

What¡¦s worse, the melted ice cream in the freezer section has run down and is all over everything. Your vegetables have turned color and the milk has gone sour.

o It dawns on you that your top of the line refrigerator is not functioning as you were led to believe it would.

o You pick up the phone, call that salesperson who had sold you this merchandise and when he answers you give him a piece of your evangelical Christian mind!

„X The salesman says, ¡§Well, will you please open the fridge door and see if light comes on?¡¨ NO LIGHT

„X ¡§Would you put your ear down at the bottom and let me know if you hear the hum of the motor?¡¨ NO HUM

„X ¡§If you don¡¦t mind, would you kindly look around the back of the refidgerator and see if the cord is plugged in tight?¡¨ END OF CORD LOOSE ON FLOOR.

„X You come back on the phone and you say, ¡§The cord hasn¡¦t been plugged in but for 3500 dollars that shouldn¡¦t matter! It ought to work just on general principle!¡¨

o That¡¦s when the salesman explains that appliances are intricately designed to have astounding capabilities¡Khowever, they are dependent in nature!

o While they have all the necessary parts to perform everything the manufacturer has designed it to do ¡V they are not able to accomplish this on their own.

o They first need to be empowered by the fire that electricity provides ¡V only then can the parts do what the parts were created to do.

- When you and I gave our lives to Jesus Christ, he gave us NEW PARTS.

(new mind, new heart, new conscience, a new disposition)

- But sometimes it looks like this new thing doesn¡¦t work.

o Sometimes it appears that coming to Christ is like buying a lemon ¡V it just doesn¡¦t seem to function the way we were lead to believe it would.

o That¡¦s why you and I need to understand ¡V we are dependent in nature.

o We were never re-created in Christ to function on our own.

o We need power¡Xwe need enabling from another source to ignite the proper functioning of the new nature God has provided us.

o Christian living only works when we are fully connected to the one source of enabling, God¡¦s Holy Spirit.

- In many ways the Holy Spirit is like the ¡§lost member¡¨ of the trinity¡XMost people just don¡¦t understand Him.

o And yet the H.S. is actually the person of the Trinity who is MOST ACTIVELY WITH US now.

o He is indispensable to your life and mine.

- EXPLANATION OF TRINITY: Ice, Water, and Steam (It is all H20 but manifested in 3 different forms).

- If there were no H.S., there would be no gospel, no faith, no church ¡V no Christianity at all.

- If there were no Holy Spirit there would be no human life, for the Bible says in Gen. 27 that God breathed (or God spirited, into Adam the breath of life.

- If there were no H.S., there would be no Bible because those who wrote it ¡§spoke from God as they were carried along by the H.S.¡¨ (2 Peter 1:21)

- If there were no H.S. there would be no victory over Satan, no restraint of sin, no overcoming of our trials/troubles

- The Holy Spirit is more vital and essential to our life and faith than most of us have ever imagined.

- PROP: This morning (and tonight) I want us to study closely the promises God makes to us concerning His Spirit so you can know and treasure these truths enough to make a lasting difference in your life.

- The better that you know Him, the more you¡¦ll experience everything He is, and everything He has for you.

I. Power to Practice Supernatural Living

- Acts 1:8, ¡§And you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you¡K¡¨

o Power = ¡§dunamis¡¨ ¡V a continual supply of energy.

- The H.S. has been given to every Christian to make real in your own spiritual experience everything the Bible says.

o The Job of the H.S. is to lift this truth off the pages of Scripture and write it on your heart¡Xmaking it alive and vivid.