One Heart Church
Holy Spirit | Holiness | Michael Holton
And we're going to continue on with Holy Spirit series. So welcome if you're new to one heart, welcome if you're on the live stream too. So today we're going to look at the person of the Godhead who is. Yes, so Holy Spirit is God. So this God the Father, God Jesus who is God the Son and then Holy Spirit who is God. So you have God, this one God in three parts, three persons, one God, something that our limited minds can't get our heads around in this earth. We won't fully understand it until we get to heaven. I've heard of heaps of analogies but they're all full short because we just we can't get at grasp in our brains. They're a bit a little bit too small currently. But later on we'll go ah, I get it now. And so it's interesting that Holy Spirit, his name, his named Holy Spirit, so his name wasn't love spirit or mercy spirit or peace spirit, even though he is all these things. But his identity is characterised specifically by his name which is Holy Spirit. So his name is based on the fullness of his holiness. So holy means set apart. It means pure and righteous is what holy means. So the Holy Spirit is pure and righteous. And so when you think of holiness, I don't know what comes to mind, but holiness isn't, you walk around with a frown on your face and you never have any fun, you never laugh. You're just holy and you don't, you stay in your house and you pray all day and fast, constantly 24/7. You're like a monk up on the top of a mountain isolated because you're so holy. Holiness is being full of joy, full of love, full of peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. So who wouldn't want to be holy if all of those benefits are part of being holy? So God created many spirits initially. He created the angelic spirits and then a third of them fell from heaven and became demonic spirits and he created human spirits. We'll have a spirit, but none of the spirits that he created are inherently called holy, but holy spirit is. And the amazing thing is that we can become one with holy spirit and he in turn can make us holy. Isn't that awesome? And I know pastor of life is disclaimers, I haven't got one, but if there is a disclaimer for this, it would be watch out for the pointy bits. So he can make us holy. So this becomes true in the spiritual realm, the moment that we accept Jesus, the moment that we're saved, the moment that we repent, we're born again, holy spirit comes to unite with us, then we are instantly absolved from all sin and take on the righteousness of Christ. So we become instantly holy, set apart to God, totally pure and righteous. There's a good quote that I saw last night that I'll get up if I can by Charles Spurgeon. He's an old fellow now. He was around in the 1800s, I believe. You stand before God as if you were Christ, because Christ stood before God as if he were you. I love that. You stand before God as if you were Christ. So when you're saved, you stand before God as if you're Christ, because he stood before God as if he were you and took your punishment so that you can be called holy and righteous. And the second way that this happens is that it also becomes a reality in our very character and speech and activities over time in our life as we submit ourselves to holy spirit and he works in us to conform our heart, our mind, our actions, our words, our speech, our activities, into his mind, heart, speech, motivations, activities. He starts to conform us throughout our lives. And if we can go to the next slide there, in Hebrews 10, 14, because by one sacrifice, he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy. So in this one sentence we see that when we become Christians, he has made us perfect instantly. But then he starts on this process of making us holy. And so we're in the process. We are those, if you're a Christian, born again Christian today, you're of those who are being made holy throughout your life. And I remember the moment Holy Spirit came to dwell in me and with me. It changed my life forever. So the moment that he came into my life, my desires shifted and changed. I wanted to reject sin. I wanted to please God. I wanted to do my life differently as the moment that he came into my life. And there was a power within me to actually do that. So I had peace and joy for the first time in my life. I had hope and an eternal future. I saw God and I knew the fullness of God and he was love and he was holy. And at that moment I was weeping for the sins I had committed through my life to that point. Why was I crying before my sins? Because I saw at that moment how I'd hurt people's lives, how I'd damaged their lives, by my actions, by my words, up to that point. And also how it damaged me in the process. Because damage other people and you also damage yourself in the process. So Romans 6, 19 to 22. I put this in human terms because you're weak in your natural selves. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body and slavery to impurity and to ever increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness. When you are slaves to sin, you are free from the control of righteousness. What benefit did you reap at the time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death. But now that you've been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness and the result is eternal life. So we're all slaves to something, rather a slave to sin or a slave to God. An unwilling slave to sin I will say or a willing slave to God. We can only be one of those two things. And so up until that point that Holy Spirit came into my life, I had worked all of my life for sin and only reaped death. But when this happened, it meant that he could enable me to live better and reap life in the process. That's what Holy Spirit can do. So the next slide, 1 John 3 19, "No one who is born of God will continue to sin because God's seed remains in him. He cannot go on sinning because he is born of God." Wow, what an amazing scripture. He cannot go on sinning because he has been born of God. So it wasn't that I mustered up the strength to change my behaviour, to not do right, to do differently in my life. It was the fact that Holy Spirit came to dwell in me and so I couldn't help it. The Holy Spirit was in me. I couldn't help but change my life. I couldn't help but change how I did things because he was living in me. So I couldn't go on sinning. So it's not all been plain sailing from then on. I mean, you know, you still live in the fleshly body. You still, until we get to heaven, there's that constant day-to-day battle to account the sinful nature dead, as the Bible says, and to choose to submit to the Holy Spirit and walk in the Holy Spirit and see good. But, you know, the difference is that before I didn't have a choice, my only choice was sin. My only choice was death but from that point on I could choose to submit to Holy Spirit and start to reap life from my life. So in 1 John 2, 27, but as his anointing teaches you about everything and is true and is no lie, just as it has taught you, abide in him. Now, in 1 John chapter 2, it talks about the anointing of the Spirit and it talks about being born again as children of God and the Spirit teaching us to abide in God through submitting to Holy Spirit's push to pursue holiness and not continuing in sin which will eventually kill us if we keep going after it. And Holy Spirit teaches us this because sin is deadly, it's displeasing to God and in a Christian life, it causes a level of disconnection with God. So if a Christian sins, it doesn't mean that they instantly, God instantly casts them away. You're instantly rejected from God, but it does mean that there's a level of disconnection. If you're caught up in a sin in your life, a level of disconnection will occur, there'll be an associated death, there'll be discomfort, stress, loss of joy, loss of desire for the things of God. That's what happens when a Christian starts to have a sin that takes hold in their life. And another way you could put it is like the dove, the dove flies away. In Matthew 3, 16, when Jesus was baptized immediately, he went up from the water and behold, the heavens were opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him. So this is interesting, up until this point, it doesn't mean that Jesus didn't have the Holy Spirit up until that point. He was God. The Holy Spirit was in him. He was full of the Spirit, but this separate anointing of the Holy Spirit, because the first 30 years of Jesus' life are relative obscurity. If you ask people up until that time, who's Jesus, that's how he's that bloke up the road, carpenter helped his dad. He never sinned, he did things right, but it was no notoriety. He was in the temple teaching as a child and stuff, but his ministry exploded at this point. It was like a separate anointing of the Holy Spirit because he took on all the limitations we have. He had to minister under the same conditions we minister. So he needed the Holy Spirit enabling as we do and a larger awareness of covering the Holy Spirit, the fullness of the anointing and then enabling for ministry characterised by holiness and it was represented in the form of a dove. So a dove is a gentle bird. It's a peaceful bird. So birds you can startle. I'm not saying the Holy Spirit is easily startled or timid or anything like that, but the picture here is that a dove doesn't like noise. So if you get caught in sin, it's like you're banging pots and pans in your spirit and the dove will fly away because there's too much noise going on. There's no peace and there's a noisiness in your life and the dove flies away. It never left Jesus because he never sinned, so it remained on him. It says that the dove come and remained on him and it remained on him for the rest of his life. I remember after the Holy Spirit came into my life. I got caught in a sin, in an issue that was related to the fear of man surpassing the fear of God and I got caught in this trap and the moment I got caught, the moment I know it was instant, the moment my foot got caught in that trap, the dove just flew away and I was devastated. I didn't understand at that time that God hadn't left me, but it was this special anointing, this special fullness of his presence and awareness of him that had lifted off my life. And so the dove only returned when I got out of that situation that I fell into after a number of weeks repented and coming back on the path that God had for my life. And so hearing the Holy Spirit, in Matthew chapter 11 verse 15, are you listening to me? This is Jesus. Are you listening to me? Really listening. If Holy Spirit is in your life, then he'll progressively make you more and more holy. If you sin, he will immediately convict you to repent and to make good and get back on track. And if you get caught in an ongoing sin, he'll work on you till you get out of it. That's what Holy Spirit does. So if you are a Christian today, if you're born again Christian and you're able to sin, sin is a word we don't use much in today's language, but it means that you're doing something that's wrong, that's not right in God's sight. And we know what they are. It's not like we need someone to explain us necessarily what's right and wrong. We inherently have that knowledge. But if you're able to sin without a contrary scripture to that thing coming to mind or any twig of conscience or any regret or any conviction, then you're in a dangerous place because you've hardened your heart to hear the Holy Spirit. And so you can't hear him anymore if you're in that place. So if that is the case, then God will send a very direct voice to try and get you back on track, a prophetic voice. At one point, most of you would know King David, a man after God's own heart, he got caught in the trap of sin. Pastor Rob mentioned a couple of weeks ago, Bathsheba on the roof. He wants her. He's seen her bathing and he wants her because he's the king and he has the power. So he says, "Get me that woman." And the servants say, "Oh, hang on a minute. But isn't that your eye as wife?" So even before he goes down this track, there's a warning from God through his servants, "Hey, isn't that somebody's wife? Should you really be doing that?" But he doesn't listen. He just plows through, gets this woman, commits adultery with her, and then sets up, you know, this deceitful thing to kill the husband, sends him out, you know, put him in the hottest part of the battle and he's killed. And this goes on for at least nine months. They know it was at least nine months because the baby that was conceived from that thing was born when Nathan come. And so it's at this point, you know, he was caught in it for at least nine months and he got blinded to it, hardened to it. Maybe he somehow justified it until he couldn't hear the voice of God anymore. He probably believed he was still good with God on track with God's plan and nothing was wrong, but he was deaf to the Holy Spirit and he was deceived. And so Nathan comes to him and I won't read everything he says, but I'll summarize it. Nathan comes to him and he says, you know, this story about, oh, there's this rich man and he's got heaps of sheep and, you know, he needs one to, you know, for this event that he's holding. But then he sees this poor man who's only got one sheep that he dearly loves so dearly. And then this rich person comes, takes his, the poor man's sheep and leaves him with nothing. And King David is infuriated. He's like, right, that guy's going down. That's a shocking thing to do. Let's get him basically. And Nathan goes, you're, you're the man. And some, and so this direct, very direct voice comes to him and he, and he, the light's gone. And he finally sees, you know, what God's been trying to tell him all along, but it took the voice of Nathan to come directly and say, hey, you're the man. And so he was, and David repents and his life comes back on track after that, even though there's consequences to what he did. But looking at his response to David, it seems that David still thought he was righteous. He still thought he was on the right track with God. He looked at others and could see their sin and judge it, but he couldn't see his own. Was he still anointed to be a victorious king under God? I doubt it. I think his life would have just gone downhill from there if he hadn't gotten back on track with God and God's plan for his life. But God didn't give up on him. He was still God's son. God wanted to get David back on track. So he sent Nathan to open David's eyes to his own hypocrisy and come back under God's protection and back on track with the plan for his life. So maybe I am a Nathan to you today. Maybe I'm that direct voice saying, hey, God's got a great plan for your life. He loves you. Like, get out of that thing. Like, get out of it. Get back on track. He'll restore you back onto the plan he has for your life. But don't think that it's that it's nothing because sometimes we can have a tendency to see it as just a small thing. And it clears out his tent as dead flies give perfume a bad smell. So a little folly outweighs wisdom and honour. So I've worked with Christian leaders in the past. Overseas on missions particularly in other places. They were doing great things. Amazing things. Like so many amazing things. Preaching the word of God with power. Praying for people. Feeding people. Doing all sorts of things. But then I hear them swear. I hear them say, if this, I'm like, hang on a minute. And they don't bat an eyelid. Like, it's not a new Christian that's just, you know, a couple of weeks in their faith. It doesn't know any better. This is a seasoned man in God. And they come out with that. And it's like, all their ministry was tainted. That doesn't matter how much perfume there was, that word, those words were the fly that made the whole thing stink. And the honour they would have obtained for their ministry was lost. That was the point a bit. Actually, there's another point a bit coming. But, you know, if you're a minister in Christ in any capacity, and we all are, if we're born again, then, you know, hear that, hear God's voice, let your conscience be sensitive to the Holy Spirit. Let your conscience be sensitive to the word of God and what's written in the scriptures. Don't be deceived by the devil, because he can deceive you to think that you're in a close, buddy-buddy relationship with Jesus, and he's, we're like this, you know, we're like this with Jesus, when you disregard the black and white voice of God in the scripture and think nothing of it. If you can't hear the shout of scripture, then why do you think you can hear the whisper of the Holy Spirit? The scripture is the shout of God. If you can't hear that, how do you think that you can hear the stills small voice of the Holy Spirit speaking to you? I've heard, I've even heard a Christian leader say that the Holy Spirit spoke to them about whatever scenario it was, correcting them actually, and in the correction, the Holy Spirit used a profanity when they're correcting this guy, and it's like, it's not the Holy Spirit you're listening to, there's some sort of demon spirit that's coming to correct you there, because it's like, I don't know, but sometimes you just shake your head a bit, but, you know, the Holy Spirit, it was a counterfeit spirit that they were listening to, leading them along an unholy path. So the Holy Spirit speaks holy words, conducts holy actions, and brings holy gifts and holy manifestations. So if a voice or manifestation is hurtful, unholy, foolish or degrading, it's not Holy Spirit manifesting, it's a demonic spirit manifesting, so, and we need to be able to see the difference. And so, very the next side, Genesis, pursuing after holiness, so Genesis 39, 11 to 12, you'd know, if you're a Christian, you'd know the story of Joseph. One day Joseph went into the house to attend to his duties, none of the household servants was inside. Potiphar's wife caught him by this cloak and said, "Come to bed with me," really left his cloak in her hand and ran out of the house. So some people fall into the trap of the devil to see how close to sin you can get without actually sinning. So it's like, let's see, let's see how much wine I can drink before I'm sinfully drunk, like if I can have four glasses, five, but I'm technically probably not drunk. Or let's look at this level of sexual images, it's only, you can't see much, but it's not in the realm of pornography, so that's alright. I can stay in this sort of area. Or let's hang out with my opposite sex colleague without anyone around. And, you know, we'll just have a chat, we'll just be together and just comfort each other in our situation. But we won't commit adultery, we won't go that far. You might as well say, "Let's see how close to the edge of the cliff we can get before we fall off. Let's see how close I can put my hand to this fire before I get burned. Instead of playing with it, why not be like Joseph, and stay as far away from the edge as possible? Why not do all we can to please God? Why not flee in the other direction when the allure of sin comes and follow the Holy Spirit's leading and his call for us to pursue holiness?" So God had a plan for Joseph's license because Joseph stayed on the path of holiness and fled from temptation. The plan wasn't damaged and derailed and stalled. In the same way, God's plan for our lives will continue to progress and grow as we flee sin and submit ourselves to Holy Spirit and follow his leading. Otherwise, like King David, it will be stalled and held back until we are restored. In Galatians 5.25, "Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit." So Christianity is not just about being born again and made alive to God as amazing as that is. After that, it's about walking in agreement with the Holy Spirit and we learn that throughout the rest of our lives, how to do that and keeping him step with him. So the Holy Spirit's plan for us in Ephesians 3 20-21, "Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more, then all we ask or imagine, according to his power, that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus' reality generations forever and ever I am in." So God will take us further than we could think or believe or imagine according to the Holy Spirit working in us. And so the more the Holy Spirit works in us, the more his plan will be outworked in our life. It's a quite a simple and quite equation of just submitting to the Holy Spirit and he will work more and more things through us. And so if the music team can come up, we'll bring it to a close. So we'll just stand today as the music team comes. We'll just stand please. So it's all through Holy Spirit. It's all of Holy Spirit and all the glory goes to God through Holy Spirit or the Holy Spirit. Have you on a say. So if you haven't had the Holy Spirit come into your life, if you haven't made that choice to say I'm done with this life, I'm done with trying to do things I mine. I'm done with this independency and thinking I can change myself and I'm sick of this sin in my life that's just wrecking my life. I'm just wrecking my life and wrecking others' lives. There's opportunity for you to right now to ask Holy Spirit to say, "Hey come, would you come into my life? I want to change. I want things to change in my life. I want to become a new man, a new woman. I want to be set free from this and set on a path." You know, that God has some of my life. The plans he has for us are good and he wants the best for us. And so he doesn't just, this message isn't just to say, you know, you're not shaping up. You're not doing good enough. It's to say, I have a plan for you and this is the way that you chart your cause. This is the way I get you there and it's no other way. God can't, just, you can't do it any other way. This is the way it has to be done. And so if we put that prayer up in this, oh, it's up there. Thank you. So I'm going to give you opportunity to do that right now. This isn't some sort of prayer that you just, I remember saying this prayer. My mum and dad telling me when I was a kid, they said, you know, if you say this prayer, you know, Jesus will come into your life, your life will change. And so I was like, "Oh, okay. I better not say this prayer." You know, I don't want to say it. It's going to happen. And then eventually I sort of just said it and nothing happened because I wasn't sincere. I didn't really want it. I just said it. But if you really want it today this morning, then you can repeat this along with me. So let's, let's all say this together. And if you, if you really believe this in your heart, things are going to miraculously change from you from this point on. So let's read this out. Dear Jesus, I believe you are the Son of God who died on the cross and rose again to forgive my sins. I ask that you forgive me. I give you my life and invite you to be my Lord and Savior. Today I am born again. I trust my future into your hands. In Jesus name, I pray. Amen. Amen. If you said that for the first time, don't be shy. Let us know and we'll do our best to help you along the course that God has for your life. Two timid just to finish one more verse. Two Timothy chapter two, 20 to 22. In a large house there are articles not only of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay. Some are for noble purposes, some for ignoble. If a man cleanses himself from the ladder, he'll be an instrument for noble purposes, made holy, useful to the master, and prepared to do any good work. Believe the evil desires of youth and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart. And so this has written, Paul wrote this to Timothy, a young man in God, and he was essentially saying to Timothy, you have a choice Timothy. You can choose not to pursue holiness, which will essentially mean that God really can't use you that much. Or you can pursue, you can choose to cleanse your life, you can choose to pursue Holy Spirit and submit to him and become more and more holy and become more and more useful to God, and more and more active in the works that God has for your life. So Paul was saying to him, you've got the choice Timothy and encouraged him to go in that direction. And so some of you, when I was praying this message, I just believe that some of your young people have a calling in God to influence many thousands of people, ultimately outside of Lincoln, even in larger cities, and it's a specialised call like Paul to reach many. Not to be greater than others, a call in Portland can be just as significant in God's eyes, but God's call and purpose for your life. And it starts just saying yes today to the leading of the Holy Spirit, and to start walking in the path of increasing holiness that he has for your life and he'll sort out the rest. He'll take you where he wants you to go, and he'll do through you what he wants to do through you. So young or older as we close, if you just want more of Holy Spirit, more to become more like Jesus, you want God to take you where he wants you to go, and to do the things in you and through you that he wants to do in you and through you, then we're going to pray. So would you let's all close our eyes, and if you just want more of Holy Spirit, or you just want to say Holy Spirit, I just want to fix this area, I just want to get that out of my life. I've heard what you speak to me, I just want to get that out of my life, or you just want more of Holy Spirit to just to grow in Him more and see more of His work in your heart and your mind and your life, then why don't you put your hands out in front of you as we pray. Father, we pray this morning. Holy Spirit, we thank you that you're in this room. Holy Spirit, we honor you. Holy Spirit, just come and rest on us like that dove. The dove did on Jesus and let it never leave, let it never fly away from us. Let us always be sensitive to you, let us always be knowing what you're speaking to us. Lord, open our ears. God, let our conscience become sweet again and tender again and not dulled. Holy Spirit, lead and guide us. We pray on the plan you have for our lives. God, we don't want to miss it because we do dumb things. But God, we know we can't do it in our own strength. It's all you, so we need more of you. And God, we submit ourselves more to for you this morning in Jesus' name, Amen.