How do believers allow the Holy Spirit to make their lives wonderful?

Class Outline:

Tuesday February 7, 2023

 

Imagine if you were a teenager and your parents trusted you. You matured enough that they weren’t helicopter parents. They gave you your space and you made good decisions that pleased them. They even gave you the car keys.

 

Do you know, that if you are a believer in Jesus Christ as your Savior, who died to pay for your sins, that you are indwelt by the Holy Spirit so that you can have the power and the wisdom to be pleasing and trusted by God the Father in heaven?

 

All believers have the Holy Spirit within us forever. He is there to make our lives wonderful.

1CO 6:19

Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you?

 

Today, we are going to see how we allow the Holy Spirit to make our lives wonderful.

 

Let’s imagine two people. They’re young adults, late teens / early twenties.

One is given a list of things that has two columns, one side consists of what they should do and alongside it a list of things they shouldn’t do. Let’s say that it contains the time they should get up in the morning, what things they should say to people, what prayers to say and at what times to say them, what to eat and not eat [no fast-food ever, no sugar ever], how long they should work and what work to do, what they should wear on what days, the place they should go to worship on Sundays - and the list of ought not to do are things like never drink alcohol, never smoke tobacco, as well as many other immoral things that most of us know are sins.

The second person is not given a list. The second person is told that they are trusted to know right and wrong - being entrusted with God’s revelation through His word. The second person is told to live by faith and make their own determinations on what to do and not do, where to go, what work to do and how long, etc. Person two is also told that there will be repercussions to their decisions. If they make wrong ones they will suffer. But, they are to live and walk by faith, entrusted to learn wisdom from God.

 

Which one would you prefer to be? All of us would love to be person 2. It’s freer and more fun.

 

You long for this life. You’ve likely imagined what it would look like - wisdom, power, joy, and love. If you are a believer and know something of the Scriptures, you know that the life I’m referring to looks like Christ.

 

But how? It’s sounds great and all, but how do I live a life of faith and get my decisions right and live holy and sanctified? Don’t I need the list and the threats of cursing for violations? No. You don’t.

 

I’m going to tell you today how to do this. There is a qualification, however. The only qualification is that you have believed in Jesus Christ as your Savior - that He died on the cross for your sins and by His sacrifice you are forgiven of sin and given eternal life.

 

Now, how do we live the wonderful life of Christ. From one angle it is easy. From another angle it is hard. The hard part is that you have to go for it every day. The easy part is that as you do, you will become so spiritual that the production of goodness and light through you will become as natural as breathing.

 

Being the type of person who is divinely virtuous is like a brick building. Each brick is a day that you walked by faith in God’s will trusting the Holy Spirit within.

The house built upon the rock is the one who hears the Lord’s words and acts upon them. Every day of doing this is a brick in the wall.

 

But if we are under the law every day, trying to be good for any other reason than Christ has given us life, trying to be good therefore for our own reasons and so in our own power, then we will not build a virtuous life but a prison built on rules but lacking God and therefore lacking goodness.

 

GAL 5:1

It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery.

 

The yoke of slavery was the Law in their case. In our case it is life lived for another reason than Christ Jesus.

 

GAL 5:2-6

Behold I, Paul, say to you that if you receive circumcision, Christ will be of no benefit to you. 3 And I testify again to every man who receives circumcision, that he is under obligation to keep the whole Law. 4 You have been severed from Christ, you who are seeking to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace. 5 For we through the Spirit, by faith, are waiting for the hope of righteousness. 6 For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision means anything, but faith working through love.

 

At any given moment I can be spiritual. But it is only when I desire to be spiritual in every place and to every person every day that my spirituality develops into a mature lifestyle that becomes common for me. So Christ told us to seek first His kingdom every day and not worry about tomorrow. This is why every day is an opportunity, no matter what is happening in that day, your walk with the Holy Spirit and faith in what you are to be is a day of building towards that maturity.

 

GAL 5:13

For you were called to freedom, brethren; only do not turn your freedom into an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another.

 

GAL 5:16

But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh.

 

We walk by faith and not by Law. We learn what the spiritual life looks like and we go for it every day by faith. When temptations come upon us, when we begin to get selfish, when we feel like we don’t have enough or the right things, or that we are not enough, or that life suddenly seems to become dark and depressing, or our sins are weighing heavy upon us; we know by faith that our life is one of light and the Holy Spirit is in us to give us the ability to walk in the light.

 

EPH 5:7-10

Therefore do not be partakers with them; 8 for you were formerly darkness, but now you are light in the Lord; walk as children of light 9 (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness and righteousness and truth), 10 trying to learn what is pleasing to the Lord.

 

In other words, when I come to know what light of life is, if I choose to walk that path, I know beyond doubt that the Holy Spirit, God almighty, is going to make that walk a reality with all the blessings that come from it.

 

The Law of the OT was like the list in my opening illustration. In this age, in Christ, the Law is fulfilled by Christ and taken away and we are not given another list, but the Holy Spirit to indwell us.

 

GAL 5:22-26

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. 24 Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

 

25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. 26 Let us not become boastful, challenging one another, envying one another.