JN 14:15 "If you love me, you will obey what I command. 16 And I will ask the Father, and
he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever-- 17 the Spirit of truth. The
world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him,
for he lives with you and will be in you. 18 I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to
you. 19 Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I
live, you also will live. 20 On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are
in me, and I am in you. 21 Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who
loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show
myself to him."
“Mom, I Promise I will be home by 8pm”........ Maybe your Friend....... Hey, I Promise I
will be there to help you..........” Maybe your Mom or Dad.......... Hey, We promise we
will come to the next game, well come to the next this...... the next that......
Your Boss..... Hey, I Promise your next on the list to get promoted...... Your next on the
list to change positions...... Promises......
I Promise to love you through sickness and in health, for richer for poorer, til death do us
part...... Promises.....
Sometimes Promises arn’t kept..... that’s a reality of our life isn’t it?
But you need to realize that there are people who do keep their promises, there are some
promise Keepers out there.... they may be hard to find..... there may not be as many as
their should be.... but they do exist.
This morning I want to turn your attention to the Greatest Promise Keeper we have ever
known.... I want you to realize that your Faith and Trust in God is on solid Ground with
God, because He always keeps His promises, He never Fails, He’s never late.... He’s
always right where we need Him to be... Amen?
For the next three weeks leading up to Pentecost Sunday, I am going to be preaching on
“The Promise”. As a Christian in the 21st Century living in our society and are world
today, if there is anything we need to take hold of, it’s there’s anything the Christian needs
to understand and experience, it’s the infilling, the experience of walking step by step with
the Holy Spirit, God’s great Promise to us.
There is no other place as a Christian that you can recieve the Power that you need to live
a Holy Life, except through the indwelling Spirit of God, living in you, and through you
everyday. HAVE YOU EXPERIENCED THE PROMISE?
This morning I am going to talk to you about How to Experience the Holy Spirit’s
Presence in your life.
Next Week, I am going to share with you the Holy Spirit’s Purpose....
And on Pentecost Sunday, I will share with you the Holy Spirit’s Provision....... So
your not going to want to miss these important messages.
I read about a man who was looking to buy a Refriderator for his new apartment, he just
graduated from college and was starting a new job, and now he was getting to move into
his first apartment... he was really excited about all the new possiblilites in his life.
If you have ever shopped for a new Fridge, you know all the bells and whistles that you
can have..... of coarse with his new job, he could afford the best model, so he ordered the
one that could do everything except make your sandwich.... it was top of the line.
In his excitement, he also decided he needed some food for his new fridge so he picked
up his grocieries for the week and went home and began to stock his fridge with all his
good food.
The next morning he ran into the kitchen excited to pull out that cold milk and have some
breakfast. He was shocked when he opened up the fridge door to discover the milk was
spoiled, the ice creame was running out of the bottom of the freezer door, and the
vegetables were already getting that bad color to them... you know the kind..... the kind
that are in your frideg because the’ve been there for two months......Anyway, he came to
the conlusion... His new fridge wasn’t working properly.
This new college grad decides to call the store and give them a peice of his mind.... the
man on the phone says, “I don’t understand it.... Open the door and see if the light comes
on.” The man opens the door... no light.
“Put your ear up close to the refrigerator and tell me if you can hear the hum of the
motor.” The man does as he’s told.... No hum.
He says, “Go to the back and look for the cord.... see if it’s plugged into the the
energy source”...... There’s a long pause..... the young college grad realizes he forgot to
plug in his new fangled Refridgerator........ He comes back to the phone and says, “it
doesn’t really matter, for as much as I paid for this fridge it should have worked anyway.”
and hung up the phone.
The truth is it doesn’t matter how nice, how expensive your appliance is.... it
won’t work with out being plugged into the source of energy, right?
The same is true about our Spiritual Life... Unless we are plugged into the Holy Spirit, and
His power, our Christian life just won’t run, it just won’t make sense, it will be empty, and
everything will spoil and run onto the floor of life.
When God created you, When He saved us, He gave us all the necessary parts for
Spiritual life and victory. But we are dependant creatures. We have not been designed to
work on our own. Only as we are empowered by the indwelling Holy Spirit will we
produce what our lives are suppossed to produce. If your not relying on that power
today, don’t be surprized if the milk of your life is spoiled, and the ice cream begins to
melt.
The Holy Spirit is God’s Supernatuaral fift to make the new being we have become alive
and real. The Holy Spirit is the heart and soul of the Christian faith and the victorious
Christian life, and if we don’t get plugged into him we will continue to experience defeat
after defeat.
This next statement is really important... you might write it down.
The Holy Spirit is necessary to make sure that our knowledge about God is
transformed into an experience with God. This doctrine of the the Spirit filled life is like
Freon of God’s Grace that flows through our new nature, keeping our spiritual lives at a
tempature that, like an expensive Refridarator, protects us from spoil and ruin and keeps
us fresh for God and nourishing to others.
This morning we are going to begin our study by looking at one of the foundational NT
passages for understanding the Person and work of the Holy Spirit. I’m talking about the
Upper Room conversation that we have read, Jesus delivered this message on the night of
the Last Supper and the night of his Betrayal. It was here He promised His followers that
God the Father would send them “another Helper.” v. 16.
This was not one of the greatest moments in the lives of the disciples. This was
what you would call a spiritual downtime. Everything was going wrong. Judas had
shown himself to be a traitor and had just left the room on his way to betray Christ. One
of the 12 was a Benedict Arnold.
More than that, Peter had just been toldl that within the next 24 hours he was
going to publicly deny Christ, (John 13:38)... And the Jews wanted to get rid of Christ and
all His followers, so the disciples had reason to be afraid.
Then came the worst blow. Jesus told them, “I am going to go away to prepare a
place for you. You can’t come to Me until I come for you. I am not going to tell you
when I will come for you, but trust Me.” 14:1-3
Thomas reacted right away. “Jesus, you have got to be kidding. We put all of our eggs in
your basket, and now You tell us You have to leave us. Jesus, we had enough problems
trying to make it with You here. How in the world do You expect us to make it if You
leave us? v.5 Legitimate Question wouldn’t you say?
So this is the tension filled, late night environment in the upper room in Jerusalem that
night, when Jesus introduced His disciples to the ministry of the 3rd Person of the Trinity:
16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you
forever-- 17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees
him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.
Before you leave here this morning I want you to understant this truth..... Your not alone
Christian, you have a personal friend, a Counselor, the Spirit of Truth that will never leave
you, nor forsake you as long as you call upon the name of the Lord...... What a Great
Promise.
Let me share some things you need to understand about the Holy Spirit.
Jesus assured His followers that night that even though He would leave, they would not be
left alone. There would be another Divine Person who would take His place in their
midst. This Person would be with them as Jesus had been with them for comfort,
strength, and guidance, but this Person would also be IN them. Jesus wanted the disciples
to know He was going to send them a Somebody, not a something.
How do we know the Holy Spirit is a Person instead of just a force or an “it”?
Because He bears all the attributes of personality: intellect, emotion, and will.
The Holy Spirit’s intellect is demonstrated by the fact that there are things He
knows with His mind. RO 8:26 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness.
We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us
with groans that words cannot express. 27 And he who searches our hearts knows the
mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with
God’s will.
Also the Holy Spirit’s emotions or feelings are seen in the fact that He can be grieved.
30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day
of redemption.
His will is seen in the fact that He acts with intentionality or purpose:
11 All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he gives them to each one,
just as he determines.
Only persons intend to do things.
We are talking about the person of the Holy Spirit, it’s important to understand that the
Holy Spirit is not an “it”, but a real person.
The Bible uses personal pronouns for the Holy Spirit. Jesus referred to the Spirit as “He”.
The Spirit refers to himself in the first person and also speaks His thoughts intelligibly to
others, something only a person can do...... 2 While they were worshiping the Lord and
fasting, the Holy Spirit said, "Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to
which I have called them."
When God saves us, then, He calls us into a personal relationship with the Holy Spirit. In
fact, God wants us to enter into intimate communion with the Spirit’s Person. It is for this
reason we are not to sin against the Holy Spirit.
One of our foundamental problems is that we look for the wrong thing first when it
comes to the Holy Spirit. People talk about their need for Holy Ghost power. Now make
no mistake about it, we do need Holy Spirit power. But only after we have met the Holy
Ghost Person.
When we deal with the Holy Spirit as a power first, then you are always looking
for the power and you just may miss the Person.
What many Christians want are power surges to live the Christian life. They want a boost
to take them to the next spiritual level. Many people come to church on Sunday morning
looking for a Holy Spirit “OOMPH” to get them rolling and carry them through the week.
They leave church all fired up.
But if you leave with momentary Holy Ghost power without a relationship with
the Holy Ghost as a Person, as God, you will wind up with a Holy Ghost deficit in your
spiritual life. The Holy Spirit is a Person we can know and relate to, not just a force or
power to be used.
This morning my desire is to live a minute by minute relationship with God through the
Holy Spirit. I’ve come to understand that there’s no other way to keep the relationship
where it needs to be. I can’t just show up on Sunday’s and check in like a kid who’s been
out playing all day........... This relationship is so vital, it’s so important to my spiritual
health that it must be entered into daily..... a personal walk with a friend.
Have you found the Helper that God promised us?
Have you plugged into your Spiritual source of Power, are you being refreshed daily by
His presence in your life?
I believe there are many people who have been saved, who are striving to live a good
Christian life, but somewhere, somehow they managed to not plug into the source, and
now their Christian experience is dead, there’s no life, it’s just a bunch of things I got to
do to try and make it to heaven......... It’s become a Religion to try to practice, instead of a
relationship to live in and to enjoy.
Friends, One of Satan’s biggest weapons is to just leave you in church, to lead you away
from the relationship and lead you to be comfortable in your religion. If Satan can get you
to just practice your Religion, but not know the personal Relationship with God Through
the Holy Spirit.... He has succeeded and your Religion won’t allow you to make into
heaven..... and he will have tricked you..... along with millions of other church going folks.
There’s Power in the Christian Life.... but it’s Found in the Person... In the very Spirit of
Christ who has been given to us as a Friend, as a counselor, as a Helper. Will you cry out
to Him today and ask God to fill you with the Holy Spirit, to Introduce you to the Person
of the Holy Spirit and begin to live the Christian Life the way God intended.... moment by
moment, with a friend walking beside you.
Come Holy Spirit I need you.
