Introduction and the “Third Wheel” Concept
Today we’re going to be talking about ‘The Holy Spirit is God.’ As believers in the Trinity, we know that, but sometimes to me it seems like the Holy Spirit is treated as a third wheel of the Trinity. I mean, some of you people have been married a long time, but do you ever remember being a third wheel? Hanging out with a couple and you’re by yourself?
It’s got to be a lonely feeling sometimes. I got used to it. I don’t think it’s too bad. But for God, for the Holy Spirit, it is bad. We need to treat the Holy Spirit as a co-equal person of the Trinity like He is, and He is God. Amen.
It’s even more important than that because the Holy Spirit, as we’re going to see, is God in us and is our lifeline to God at this point in time in history. So, we’ll be thinking about that. But the way that the Holy Spirit is treated as a third wheel is that we give attention to the Father, especially in the Old Testament.
We know Jesus is hidden throughout the Old Testament, but in the New Testament He’s revealed as the Savior and we study Him a lot. But it seems to me like, the Holy Spirit is not studied quite as much, or is not paid the respect that He deserves. And that becomes a detriment to each believer because we don’t know how to channel the Holy Spirit, or to respond to the Holy Spirit, or be mindful of the Holy Spirit.”
And this is a problem in our life because, as we’re going to see, He’s the one that’s convicting us of sin and leading us and guiding us. So if we’re not paying attention to Him, we’re just lost out there and we’re clinging on by a thread. So, it’s not because the Bible doesn’t teach the Holy Spirit as a co-equal person of God. We know that from the Bible. The Bible teaches that the Holy Spirit is part of the Trinity: Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. We’re baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. So that, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, is God. It’s one God, three persons.”
But when Jesus left the earth, the Holy Spirit became the full-time representation of God on earth. And He’s working in the world and He’s trying to bring people closer to God and Jesus. So He’s doing that through us. The way God set it up is that the Holy Spirit lives in us, and then we take the Gospel into the world. And while we do that, He’s working on both sides of the equation.
I would say is that the devil is out there working to get us to ignore the Holy Spirit. And that’s what it really boils down to. So instead of focusing today on the ways the devil is doing that, we’re going to focus on what the Bible says. And we’re going to look at how the Holy Spirit is God and how He works in our lives so that we can choose Him over ourselves and over our evil desires.
The Romans Road is a way we commonly describe the Gospel so that we can easily understand it and kind of put it together.
- We know from Romans 3:23 that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. That means we’re all on the same position of needing a Savior to pay the price for our sins.
- Romans 6:23 tells us that the wages of sin is death.
- Romans 5:8 tells us that while we were yet sinners, God demonstrated His love for us and Christ died for us.
- Romans 10:9 says, ‘If we confess with our mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in our heart that God raised Him from the dead, we will be saved.
So that’s a pretty simple way of putting it, right? We all need a Savior. The wages of sin is death. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. He paid the price for that, and now if we just believe and respond to Him as our Lord, we can be saved. Agreed? Okay, good. That’s a good start.
But how do we arrive at that conclusion? How do we come to know all that? Obviously, we just read in the Bible, but Romans 10:17 says that faith comes from hearing. And how do we hear about the Bible the most? Preaching. People preach the Word. We can read it for ourselves, but, if we’re going to come to know it, we need to hear it more than once, hear it over time.
The most common way we do that is preaching. So then, the Bible also tells us in Romans 1:16 that the Gospel is the power of God unto salvation. So specifically, we need to hear the Gospel preached. And as we’re doing that, the Holy Spirit is speaking to us and we start to realize, ‘Hey, this is actually true,’ right?
There’s the formula there. We have to hear it, we have to believe it, and then we believe those certain things that we talked about. Then after we do that, Matthew 28:19 says we’re to be baptized in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. At that point, once you believe those things, you’re saved, and then you get baptized following in obedience. Then the Holy Spirit is really beginning to work through you. We’re going to kind of pause there for a minute because the Holy Spirit is working in us before we ever get saved, and He continues. That process begins with conviction.
Convicted, Not Conflicted or Condemned
I want to look at John 3:16 through 21. The beginning part of this is fairly common. You know John 3:16. You might not even have ever heard the Bible before and you hear that verse. But these other verses are key. I know I point to them all the time, but they’re some of my favorites and they help me to understand what’s going on. But let’s read John 3:16-21.
“For this is the way God loved the world: He gave His one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world should be saved through Him. The one who believes in Him is not condemned.
The one who does not believe has been condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the one and only Son of God. Now this is the basis for judging: that the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil.
For everyone who does evil deeds hates the light and does not come to the light, so that their deeds will not be exposed. But the one who practices the truth comes to light so that it may be plainly evident that his deeds have been done in God.'”
John 3:16-21 (New English Translation)
In John 3:18, it says for people who have not believed in Jesus, there is condemnation, right? If you don’t believe in Jesus, you’re destined for hell. That’s just plain simple fact. That’s why Jesus came, to keep us from going to hell. He’s paid the price for our sins so that we can go to heaven, right?
In that, because Jesus came, He gave us a way to not be condemned. So it’s telling you simply that if you believe in Jesus, you’re not condemned. If you don’t believe in Jesus, you are condemned. He didn’t come to condemn those people; they were already condemned. He came to take us out of condemnation, if we were just to believe, right? ‘For God so loved the world, He gave His only begotten Son’—I’m going to quote the King James—’that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.’ Right? That’s why He came.”
The other verses in that, 19 through 21 especially, are telling us that there is conflict in people. We have the desire to choose evil. Before we believe in Jesus especially, we are conflicted, in that we have this sinful nature. And once we hear about Jesus and what He did for us, it’s like, ‘Wait a minute, maybe I shouldn’t be acting this way.’ And so that’s where the choice lies: Do I want to keep acting this way and choose to ignore Jesus, or do I want to come to Him and put away this other lifestyle that I’ve been living?
You are condemned, you are in a state of condemnation. You start to hear, the Holy Spirit’s working on you, now you’re in conflict. And then if you choose to believe in Jesus, now you are convicted of that sin and you make that agreement, that step toward Him in a profession of faith. You see how that kind of evolves out of sin and death and then works its way toward life in Jesus? So He doesn’t want us to be condemned, He doesn’t want us to be conflicted.”
The Outlook of the Holy Spirit and Mortification of Sin
If we do choose to believe in him we should be in a total state of understanding that we are now on God’s side. We have agreed to make Him Lord of our life and to live outside of sin and to agree to follow his commandments. At this point the conflict is gone. Now the sinful nature is still in us and so there is going to be a kind of grinding of the gears.
But we’ve already agreed to be on God’s side. So what that means is that when we recognize through the Holy Spirit’s conviction that we’re doing something wrong, we respond to it correctly in the way that God has asked us to, and that is through confession and repentance, so although we may feel conflict from time to time we’re not really in a state of conflict. I want you to understand that before we go on because we have already agreed to be on God’s side, right? So that’s a different idea than before we’re saved.
The people that don’t choose Jesus they’re actually making a choice to remain in sin. They don’t want to be told that their lifestyle is wrong. They don’t want to be told that they need a savior. They don’t want to be told that they have to repent and give that stuff up. That is why they’re condemned and in that conflict. We want to have the conviction. I tell the people all the time they say ‘I’ve been convicted of my sin that I’m doing and I’m disappointed in myself or whatever.’
Well first of all you should praise the Lord that you’re convicted because people that are stuck in sin they might feel a little bit of conviction but it’s not weighing on them. They are choosing to continue in the in the evil. So being convicted is a good thing. It means that the Holy Spirit is working in you. We choose to turn from our sin and accept Jesus as the son of God who died for our sins and we make him Lord of our life. That’s what God wants us to do, and that’s what Jesus died for.
Now let’s look over at Romans 8 1-12. I’m going to tell you this right now i got a lot of scripture today so you might want to be thumbing ahead. You might beat me there. Hopefully I got some of them marked. Romans 8 1-12 it’s always good when you have a lot of scripture too. You let the word preach itself. It’s easy. Alright so Romans 8 1-12 says:
‘There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the lifegiving spirit in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death. For God achieved what the law could not do because it was weakened through the flesh.
By sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh and concerning sin he condemns sin in the flesh so that the righteous requirement of the law may be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the spirit.
For those who live according to the flesh have their outlook shaped by things of the flesh but that those who live according to the spirit have their outlook shaped by the things of the spirit.
For the outlook of the flesh is death but the outlook of the spirit is life and peace because the outlook of the flesh is hostile to God for it does not submit to the law of God nor is it able to do so those who are in the flesh cannot please God you however are not in the flesh but in the spirit if indeed the spirit of God lives in you.’
Romans 8:1-9a (NET Bible)
Let’s stop right there for a second. We know the Spirit of God lives in us if we believe and if we have made Jesus our Lord and Savior, right? Have you done that today? Is Jesus your Lord and Savior? Do you believe in him? That’s going to be important for the rest of the sermon. Now, if you haven’t, you can make that choice today. But if you have, we are still going to have some interesting stuff to say. So bear with me alright. So continuing on:
“Now if anyone does not have the spirit of Christ this person does not belong to him but if Christ is in you your body is dead because of sin but the spirit is your life because of righteousness.
Moreover if the spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you the one who raised Christ from the dead will also make your mortal bodies alive through his spirit who lives in you so then brothers and sisters we are under obligation not to the flesh to live according to the flesh for if you live according to the flesh you will die but if by the spirit you put to death the deeds of the body you will live.”
Romans 8:9b-13 (NET Bible)
It’s actually Romans 8:1-13. So, our outlook has changed. As believers we don’t have the same outlook that we were talking about in John 3:19- 21. We have accepted that our deeds were wrong. We have let them be exposed by the light of Jesus and we have accepted that they were evil. We have repented from them and we have turned to the Lord Jesus as our Savior. So that is our state. Our outlook has changed and now it’s shaped by the Spirit. What the Holy Spirit wants us to do, what the word of God tells us to do, that should be our outlook.
Instead of death, our outlook is life and peace. We’re not thinking about, ‘oh man if I die tomorrow I’m going to hell, or I don’t believe in that so if I die I’m going into nothingness.’ We believe that if we die, we are going to heaven. Therefore, our whole life is pointing toward that moment. It is shaped by the idea that we need to do what God wants us to do. We need to live our life for him just because we love Him, and because He has already given us this security. Amen? We have to have our outlook be that the Spirit is what allows us to please God right”
Now that we have the Holy Spirit, we can do it. It is our new life and our new purpose to please God. But we are under obligation to live by the Spirit and put our sin to death. That is key. If we want to please God, we have to put our sin to death. Mortification, put it to death, anything that is in our life that is bad we need to put it to death, end it.
Too often we let sin continue in our lives and it festers up and it bubbles up and then it just bursts. And we feel the effects of it. And it really can ruin our life. Or not ruin our whole life, but ruin part of our life. And it can hurt our witness. It can cause all kinds of problems in our life. So it is important that when the Spirit convicts you of your sin, you take hold of it and you eliminate it from your life.
The Bible also tells us if anything is causing us to sin, cut it off. So whenever we identify a problem, if this is a problem, cut it off. Get rid of it. We don’t need it. We can go back to the horse and buggy days and the post office and stuff like that. No, seriously though, if anything has caused you to sin get rid of it. It’s not worth it. We have to eliminate it from our lives. God is not going to do it for you.
Except through force. There are times where there are consequences for sin. He’ll let those consequences come to pass. We’ve experienced that in our life sometimes. It’s called learning the hard way. You don’t want to learn the hard way with God. You don’t, and sometimes he’ll warn you and he’ll have things happen in your life, and it’ll be warnings, and it’ll be lessons, and if you keep not listening to it eventually it’s going to be where you’re not even having that happen to you. God is just letting you go. He is letting your choices play out and the consequences for those.
So when God is convicting you he’s helping you he’s trying to steer you right and if you respond by cutting it out and mortifying your sin getting rid of that sin he is going to bless you and he’s going to create more opportunities for you to live out your life for him so it’s very important that we respond to that conviction and listen to the Holy Spirit and get rid of that sin.
Discerning the Holy Spirit is God
Let’s look over at John 16:7-15 which says, ‘But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I am going away; for if I do not go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you.’
Now, this is Jesus talking before He died and rose again, but He’s He’s telling them in advance that He has to go away so the Advocate will come. That’s the Holy Spirit.”
Verse eight: ‘And when He comes, He will prove the world wrong concerning sin and righteousness and judgment; concerning sin, because they do not believe in Me.’
So that’s what we were already talking about. He’s going to convict and lead people to understand that they need Jesus.
‘Concerning righteousness, because I am going to the Father and you will see Me there longer.’
That is the Holy Spirit continuing what Jesus did while He was on earth, even even now to this day, He’s telling us that we need righteousness, and we then continue the message of Jesus just like He did, by living it out.
“‘And concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world has been condemned.’
He’s telling us that we need a Savior and that we’re going to face judgment when He died.
Verse 12: ‘I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but will speak whatever He hears, and He will tell you what is to come. He will glorify Me, because He will receive from Me what is mine and will tell it to you. Everything that the Father has is mine; that is why I said the Spirit will receive from Me what is mine and I will tell it to you in a little while.’ That’s the end of 15.”
All right, so the Holy Spirit is continuing the ministry of Jesus. I said that the Holy Spirit convicts us of sin, the need for a Savior, and the coming judgment. People ask, ‘How do I know it’s the Holy Spirit telling me something?’ Have you ever had that question? How do I know it’s the Holy Spirit and not the devil? How do I know it’s the Holy Spirit and not myself? Well, the answers are here. It says, first of all, it has to be true and biblical. That’s in verse 12 and 13. It’s not going to contradict what God has already said via the Bible.”
The Bible is true. So it’s very important that we believe the Bible is true for everything else, to believe in Jesus, to understand the Holy Spirit, we have to believe the Bible is true. And so if we do that, we know that when the Holy Spirit speaks to us, we can go into the Word and say, ‘Oh, He’s already told us this here.’ Or we can say, ‘He’s telling me something similar or under the same principles, but it is in agreement with what the Word said.’ The Holy Spirit will never contradict what’s in the Bible. This is what God gave us as a guideline and our answers are in here.
So now I can relate to that, right? He can be telling us to go witness to someone. Well, He told us to witness to people in here too, right? That kind of thing. Well, He’s telling me to love my neighbor. Well, that’s already in here too. But He specifically might be saying, ‘Go talk to your neighbor and invite them to church.’ Right? That’s not exactly stated here in the Bible. You see what I’m saying? So it’s going to be in agreement with this, and it’s going to be good and it’s going to be true. That’s our guideline for understanding it’s the Holy Spirit.
Now, if that’s our will and that’s the Spirit’s will, that’s even better, right? You don’t have to discern in that case. But we always have to be discerning that it’s the Holy Spirit telling us things. And then, I didn’t put the verse but I think it’s verse 14, it says that it’s going to glorify God. So what the Holy Spirit is telling you, it has to be true, it has to be biblical, and it has to glorify God. That’s how He operates and that’s in John 16.
Now also, there’s a tidbit there, verse 15, that says everything that the Father has belongs to Jesus, and the Holy Spirit has everything that belongs to Jesus. So God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, they all share the same stuff, right? They’re all God. That’s evidence of the Trinity right there in that verse.
So we’re building our case here, right? And we’re still understanding the conviction and how the Holy Spirit is operating. There’s one more in this section:
“Now this is the Gospel message we have heard from Him and announced to you: God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with Him and yet keep on walking in the darkness, we are lying and not practicing the truth.
But if we walk in the light as He Himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we do not bear the guilt of sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us.
But if we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous, forgiving us of our sins and cleansing us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His Word is not in us.”
1 John 1:5-10
“My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous one. And He Himself is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for our sins but also for the whole world.
Now by this we know that we have come to know God, if we keep His commandments. The one who says “I have come to know God” and yet does not keep His commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in such a person. But whoever obeys His Word, truly in this person the love of God has been perfected. By this we know that we are in Him. The one who says he resides in God ought himself to walk just as Jesus walked.”
1 John 2:1-6
Now we are all going to immediately say, ‘Well, I’m not perfect, right?’ Well, that’s what the verses just said. It said if you say you have not sinned, you’re a liar, right? And then it’s telling us to walk like Jesus. So how do we do that? Mortify our sin. We have to end our sin.”
We have to be working to get rid of sin in our life. We can’t just say, ‘I’m forgiven, I’m going to live however I want.’ That’s not what we’re supposed to do to God. We’re supposed to respond to Him as Lord of our life by getting rid of sin, be trying to become more and more like Him. And we can only do that through the Holy Spirit of God, right?
So I want to walk you through these verses here. We make the initial confession of sins and turn to Jesus. We’ve already stated that’s the first thing we have to do. When we mess up, we confess and we repent. And we have to do that because we’re always moving to become more like Jesus throughout our life.
So I like stocks. When I think about the Holy Spirit especially it says in another verse we’re going to read that He’s our down payment for our salvation. When we think about our life, we’re supposed to be on this long-term upward trend. I’ll use Microsoft, it’s probably been one of the best performing stocks of the last 25-30 years. When you look at Microsoft’s long-term chart, it looks like this: straight up, about a 45-degree angle. When you zoom in, you’re going to see more ups and downs. All right, that’s the same with our life.”
We have our ups and downs. We have times when we’re performing well for the Lord, when we have times when we’re not doing so well. We have times where we’re flat. And so we try not to focus on that; that is the inner movings and the daily workings of the Spirit. But when we zoom out and we look at our long-term chart, it should be going like this. Now, it’s not going to be the same for everybody, and it doesn’t have to be that way.
There’s times where bad things happen and we respond badly. We might have a dip like 9/11 or the housing crisis. Those were dips in the economy, or COVID, right? Well, we want a V-shaped recovery. We want to have, when there’s a dip in our life, we want to turn it all over to God. And when we do, He will help us move back toward where we were, get back on the right path.
So don’t get weighed down when you make wrong choices, when you’re not doing well. Turn it all over to God and get back on the right track. And we do that by responding to the conviction of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is always working against our sin nature to make us more like Christ. It’s good that we feel convicted of sin. I’ve said that a bunch; I can’t emphasize that enough. But that tells us that the Holy Spirit is in us or working in us. If you haven’t quite believed yet, you’re feeling convicted, that’s good too, and you need to turn over to the Holy Spirit.
But once we do turn over to the Holy Spirit and accept Jesus, now that conviction reminds us that He’s in us. People that don’t believe in Jesus don’t have this like we do. When we run into problems in the world from unsaved people, we shouldn’t really be surprised. It might strike us because we’re not used to it, but we got to realize that they don’t have the same conviction we do.
They have a different standard, and it’s really no standard. It’s the standard of evil or godlessness. We shouldn’t be too surprised, and we don’t need to condemn them. We need to understand that they need a Savior and we need to share the Gospel with them and to understand it from that perspective.
We also have the evil people whom the Bible describes, that their consciences are seared and that they are wolves and we are sheep, you know? There are evil people out there who have just completely given up and turned their life over to being evil. So we need to watch out for them too, but the Holy Spirit is going to help us identify them and keep us safe from them.
We recognize the Holy Spirit’s convicting us of sin, and we know that we aren’t conflicted or condemned anymore. And we immediately put sin to death when we come across it. We put it out of our minds and out of our lives, and we cut it out at the source like a tumor or a disease, right?”
You don’t just say, ‘Oh, I’m not going to do that, I’m going to choose to ignore that today.’ No, you need to find out what is causing you to want to sin, get to the bottom of it. If you cut it all out… I watched a really gross video about this tumor, but the idea is the same, right? If you leave some of it, it’s just going to grow back. You have to get all the way down and get all that bad tissue out. And sin is the same way: you need to figure out what’s causing it and eliminate it from your life.”
The Holy Spirit Lives in Believers of Jesus
Now that we’ve understood how the Holy Spirit is working we can move on to the fact that he’s dwelling in us as believers so let’s look at Ephesians 1:13-14 i mean that was a really long section but it’s so important to understand how the Holy Spirit’s working because if we don’t we’re not going to be able to identify that he’s living in us we’re going to we’re going to say ‘Yeah the Bible tells me so.’ And that’s good but we need to understand how he’s working so we can identify him in our lives so we just did that”
Ephesians 1:13-14 says ‘And when you heard the word of truth the gospel of your salvation when you believed in Christ you are marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit who is the down payment of our inheritance until the redemption of God’s own possession to the praise of his glory.’
So once again you hear the truth the gospel of your salvation you believe in Christ at that point you are marked with the Holy Spirit and that is your that is a guarantee that you’re in line to receive heaven that you’re going to heaven when you die.
That’s important because that’s going to define how you live your life right so it’s also marking that we own full redemption that u that marking of the Holy Spirit means we’re paid in full our sin debt is paid so we need to recognize that and it it possessing a mark means that we’re ransomed in full so Jesus has taken our sin and he has ransomed us he paid the price at that point.
Now let’s look at 1 Corinthians 3:16 we’re going to start doing a little fact so bear with me this way some of this stuff is just a matter of fact kind of stuff but it’s important that we understand it and grasp it 1 Corinthians 3:16-17 says ‘Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s spirit lives in you if someone destroys God’s temple God will destroy him for God’s temple is holy which is what you are.’
That’s important too god God lives in us. What does that mean? He goes everywhere we go. Scary thing. He sees everything we do. He’s always with us when we’re doing it right so we need to use that to help us to live better. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. I don’t want to go back and preach an old sermon.
God is always with us so we need to be mindful of that we need to be respectful of that but we also need to be assured by that. Don’t always use it to be afraid. Do it in a healthy way but we should be using it to say ‘Man I can face anything because God’s with me.’
Right here it says ‘Nobody can destroy God’s temple.’ Right now they can hurt us physically but we’re we’re going to heaven. We have God. Nothing can take God away from us. We need to use that in our life. Not just know it but to live it, to believe it, to feel it as we’re going and doing God’s work right.
John 14:16-17, “then I will ask the Father and he will give you another advocate to be with you forever the Spirit of truth whom the world cannot accept because it does not see him or know him but you know him because he resides with you and will be in you.”
Why do we clash with the world because they don’t understand us. Why do you go to church on Sunday because I’m trying to please God. I’m trying to grow in him. I’m trying to fellowship with my brothers and sisters. I’m trying to worship him.
Well that’s silly. Why do you do that? They don’t understand. They don’t get it. So how how are they going to get it? We have got to tell them about it. We have got to share the gospel with them. We have got to preach the Bible to them. That goes back to the beginning but until they get the Holy Spirit in them, until they make that choice to believe, they’re not going to understand.
What do we do? We keep doing it, and and eventually, hopefully, they’ll get it. But we don’t turn and we don’t start going with them and say ‘Yeah you’re right i don’t need to go to church this week.’ We need to always be doing the things of God”
Some people are going to persecute you for living by the spirit that’s we talked about that a few weeks ago in Matthew 5:10. They are going to. They might mock you or tease you about how you’re living. Like ‘Hey we’re going to the bar.’ I’m not going to do that. I don’t want to hurt my witness. I don’t drink and I don’t want people to see me at the bar. Then you know the next day see me at church’ that kind of thing.
Things that people in the world do that we don’t do. They’re not going to understand it and they’re going to persecute you when you make those choices. I’m not pushing you telling you how to live per se in that situation but I’m just using that as an example when there’s things that the world does and we don’t want to participate in them we’re going to get persecuted for that kind of stuff.
Some people are also going to glorify you since you live by the spirit that was another recent sermon both of those are from the sermon on the mount Matthew 5:16. Just as people are going to persecute you when you go against the world, when you are a light in the world and when your light is shining in the world they’re also going to be people that glorify God because of it.
Using that same example some of you might not like it but that’s okay. So when when you make that decision someone might pull you aside and say ‘Hey man I respect your choice to not go to the bar with them guys and I understand where you’re coming from. Or I don’t agree with you but I respect what you’re saying because you’re practicing what you preach.
There are going to be some people who don’t understand and there’s going to be some people who actually say ‘Hey I respect that.’ The reason we have to do this is because 2 Corinthians 5:20 it basically says we are the visible and tangible ambassadors of God. Everything we’re doing out in the world is a witness. Some people aren’t going to like. Some people are going to be drawn to God by it. So we have to be mindful of the people that are going to be drawn to God by it.
The people that don’t understand and don’t respect us, that’s okay. That’s just a part of a life for Jesus. We’re not living to please people. We’re living to please God. The purpose is so that more people will come to him. Think about how you came to know Jesus. Were there people out there in your life that were being good examples? Or at least was there someone who invited you to church? Or was there at least someone who gave you a Bible?
There’s always a person involved in how we come to Christ some way somehow. That’s how God has chose to use his church. That’s why he started off with 12 disciples and then it grew and it went through time and we’re each connected to God through the the act of another person. It’s probably usually a person that has the Holy Spirit living in them, so it’s like a chain or the circle of life”
Jesus asked the father and this is going back to John 14, Jesus asked the father and he gives us the paraclete to be with us forever. That’s another name for the Holy Spirit. He’s the advocate, a helper, a counselor, and he’s called to our side. That means there’s nothing we have to face alone. That is persecution, and prosperity, good times, and bad. Nothing. We are never facing anything alone. The Holy Spirit is preparing us guiding us and comforting us in every situation. Whatever the situation calls for. We need to be confident of that as we live our life.
Yielding to God the Holy Spirit
Now the next section is yield. Look at Romans 6:12-15.
‘Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its desires, and do not present your members to sin as instruments to be used for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who are alive from the dead, and your members to God as instruments to be used for righteousness. For sin will have no mastery over you, because you are not under the law but under grace. What then shall we be? Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? Absolutely not.’
Romans 6:12-15 (NET Bible)
We’ve talked about this a little bit already, but it’s our choice not to sin. It says it right there: ‘Do not let sin reign in your mortal body.’ God is not going to cut off sin from your possibilities. It is your choice to sin or not. It’s your choice to come to God or not. We must choose to present ourselves to God daily, to yield to Him and let Him use us for good every single day. Every moment of every day we have to be mindful. And you know, I preached this before, but we have to hear, listen, and obey to the Holy Spirit. He’s—God is speaking to us, right?”
This goes back to the idea of Him being the ‘third wheel.’ People will try to teach or—or believe that the Holy Spirit is not working in our lives actively, daily. But that’s not true. He is always working in our lives, trying to bring us closer to Him. He’s guiding and directing us every moment of every day. So we have to be in tune with that and mindful of that, and make the choice to yield to it. That’s just the way it is. Look at Galatians 5:13-26.
For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity to indulge your flesh, but through love serve one another. For the whole law can be summed up in a single commandment, namely, “You must love your neighbor as yourself.” However, if you continually bite and devour one another, beware that you are not consumed by one another.
But I say, live by the Spirit and you will not carry out the desires of the flesh. For the flesh has desires that are opposed to the Spirit, and the Spirit has desires that are opposed to the flesh; for these are in opposition to each other, so that he cannot do what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
Now the works of the flesh are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity, depravity, idolatry, sorcery, hostilities, strife, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish rivalries, dissensions, factions, envying, murder, drunkenness, carousing, and similar things. I am warning you, as I have warned you before, those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness’—going out of order—’and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
If we live by the Spirit, let us also behave in accordance with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, being jealous of one another.
Galatians 5:13-26 (NET Bible)
Crucify the flesh with its passions and desires.’ Right? Putting sin to death. ‘ Right? So it’s not a competition. We all are on the same race. We’re all trying to eliminate sin from our lives, become more like Jesus, serving Jesus all the way. Do not use your freedom as an opportunity to indulge the flesh. Live by the Spirit. In a free-will system, we have to be led by the Spirit. That means we have to yield to the Spirit. Since we have that choice, we have to choose Him.”
And we’ve gone through all the fleshly desires and the opposition that we face, but there’s a spiritual battle going on. The devil wants you to choose sin. All those things that we list that are evil. So we have to always choose God and be on His side. As Luke 9:23 says we need to take up our cross daily and follow Jesus. Just to reiterate that again: we have to be consciously choosing Jesus each moment, every day.
The Holy Spirit Gives Assurance of Salvation
All right, now we’re going to talk about assurance of salvation. Titus 3:5-8. So we have Him living in us, we’ve chosen to yield to Him, but we have to be assured. Because if we’re constantly doubting our salvation, we’re going to stumble. We’re not going to be doing these things.”
He saved us, not by works of righteousness that we have done, but on the basis of His mercy, through the washing of the new birth and the renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us in full measure through Jesus Christ our Savior; and so, since we have been justified by His grace, we become heirs with the confident expectation of eternal life. This saying is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on such truths so that those who have placed their faith in God may be intent on engaging in good works.
Titus 3:5-8 (NET Bible)
Now, there are many verses in the Bible that talk about this, but when we declare Jesus rose from the dead, Jesus’ blood washed away our sins, and now we’re living our life for Him, right? Not because we did good works, but because of His grace and mercy. We always have to remember that, right? It’s not because of what we did, but now that He has given us grace and mercy, we’re free to do these good works.
I think people are afraid to preach good works because they’re so focused on teaching people that good works don’t save you. Good works do not save you, yes, but that’s why we do good works because we’re now saved. It goes hand in hand. I can’t even stress it enough because so many people out there teaching that—they’re just afraid to teach good works, but that’s what God created us to do.
He pours out the Holy Spirit into us, the Holy Spirit regenerates us in Christ and He gives us a new life, and that purpose of that new life is to serve Him. He’s marked and sealed us with salvation. So why is it so important? Why does Paul stress this? Because those that place their faith in God have to be intent on engaging in good works. Just like getting rid of sin is a daily choice, doing good works is a daily choice. It’s what we’re here for.”
Look for God to give you opportunities. There are people out there hurting and dying and just—they have no spiritual life. They’re dead in their trespasses. They need Jesus. They need someone to love them, to show them the love of Christ. Everywhere we go, all day. So pray that the Holy Spirit will show you these opportunities and these people. They’re everywhere around us, and it’s our purpose on earth. And conversely, Satan doesn’t want us to do this. He’s always trying to give us distractions.
And I said I’m only going to preach about the distractions—you know what they are. You know what he’s doing every single day to distract us. It’s—it’s everywhere now. You can’t even start listening because we’ll be here for another two hours, right? So just be mindful of that. Satan’s attacking you, trying to keep you from doing good works because he doesn’t want these people out here to see the love of God, and he doesn’t want them to hear the Gospel—and go to hell. That’s right.”
By this we know that we reside in God and He is in us, and that He has given us His Spirit.’ So how do you know you’re saved? You got the Holy Spirit among all the other things we’ve listed. ‘And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world. If anyone confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God resides in him and he in God. And we have come to know and believe that the love that God has in us.
God is love, and the one who resides in love resides in God and God resides in him. By this, love is perfected with us so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment, because just as Jesus is, so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears punishment has not been perfected in love. We love because He loved us first.
1 John 4:13-19 (NET Bible)
We are supposed to be confident on the day of judgment. We’re not supposed to be worried about what happens when we die. We know that when we die, we’re going to heaven, right? That gives us the ability to worry about other things and not worry about that most important thing. So we need to be worried about how we’re going to serve God today instead.
And so we have the Spirit. Read verse 15 again: ‘If anyone confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God resides in him and he in God.’ So have you confessed that Jesus is the Son of God? And if he—if you have, He resides in you. That’s your—that’s your assurance of salvation right there.”
We also reside in love. There’s a second assurance: we reside in love. That means we love God and we love our neighbor. Do you love God and your neighbor? Sure, we can love Him more, but do you love God and your neighbor? That’s the question for yourself.
Now here’s the tough one according to verse 14—let me read it again: ‘And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent the Son to be the Savior of the world.’ Are you sharing the Gospel? That’s—that’s an assurance of salvation. If you—if you have believed that Jesus is the Son of God, you confess that, you’re residing in love, and you’re sharing the Gospel—that is how we are—we have assurance of salvation.”
So if you don’t have assurance, if you’re going through your life and sometimes you’re worried and you don’t know for sure if you’re saved, come back to this. Ask yourself: ‘Have I confessed?’ Yes. ‘do I love God or my neighbor?’ Yes. ‘Am I telling others about Jesus?’ I’m going to do it today, right? That’s how you get assurance.”
Conclusion, Summary, and Application
In conclusion, the Holy Spirit is not the ‘third wheel’ of the Trinity. He is God. He is God in us. The devil wants us to sin, He wants us to indulge the flesh, doubt our salvation, and to not do good works. That’s what he’s trying to do. He wants us to not trust the Bible so that we don’t trust Jesus and we end up going to hell. So we have to trust the Bible and we have to learn why we can trust the Bible as well. The devil’s strategy is to make us believe that the Holy Spirit is the third wheel instead of a co-equal person to the one true God.
If he can convince us that the Holy Spirit isn’t important, or not as important, then we’re losing because we don’t understand all these things we just talked about, that He’s living in us, that He’s convicting us, that we are yielding to Him, and that we can be assured of our salvation through His presence in our life.”
So watch out for the devil doing that. He wants us to completely ignore the Holy Spirit. Why does he want us to completely ignore the Holy Spirit? Because the Holy Spirit convicts us of sin, guides us into truth, lives in believers of Jesus, assures us of salvation, makes us more like Jesus, and leads us into our life of good works, right? We have to not ignore the Holy Spirit, we have to listen to the Holy Spirit. How do we overcome our enemy, the devil, and evil? You have to be sure that Jesus is the Son of God who died for your sins and that God raised Him from the dead.
If you have not believed in Jesus today, if you haven’t made Him your Lord and Savior, while we’re singing an invitation is your time to come up and confess that Jesus is your Lord, that you believe that God raised Him from the dead and that He is your Lord. How do you do this? We have to hear.
Preaching the Gospel of Jesus builds faith, and the more we hear it, the more we’re going to be open to it. If we don’t hear it, we’re not going to be open to it. If you are sure of what the Bible teaches, you can be sure about Jesus and you can be sure that the Holy Spirit is living in you.”
Once the Holy Spirit is living in you, life is about three things: yielding to the Holy Spirit instead of sinful desires so that you become more like Jesus; loving God and loving people so that others see Jesus in you; and telling the good news of Jesus to others so they can be saved. That is why we’re here folks. So if you want the Holy Spirit today, you’ve heard the Gospel, now is your chance to respond. So as we sing, please come to the front and make that decision for Him, telling us that He is your Lord and Savior and that He’s risen. Let’s pray.”
You can watch this sermon below starting around the 30:38 mark.