The Holy Spirit makes our faithful efforts supernatural

Class Outline:

Sunday February 12, 2023

 

People in the past thought Darwin’s theory of evolution was a great breakthrough. Some still do.

 

In Darwin’s time and for decades after, people were looking at cells in microscopes that would be in museums today and that didn’t have the magnification of what we can do today.

 

But then our microscopes became far more penetrating and we came to understand just how complex even the simplest of cellular structures really are. Appropriately, at the same time our telescopes were also advancing. We were looking out as we were looking in. Like the cell, we thought the universe around us was pretty simple. But then we got a deeper look, and just like the cell, the incredibly huge and the incredibly small were both far more complex than we ever imagined.

 

 

 People slap on simple explanations and most people buy them, but we know that the amount of fine tuning in the physical laws that make it all work, if they were to happen at random, would be mathematically impossible. Can you figure it out in detail?

 

Let’s get smaller …

 

Diagram of cilia motor (flagellum).

 

 

This hair like structure is found on simple bacteria like E-coli or salmonella. It spins around and propels the cell like a tiny outboard motor.

 

Inside a simple cell there is something like a busy city at rush hour going on continually with power plants, energy transport, information exchange, public transportation, and whirring motors.

 

Things in this world are more complex than we can possibly imagine.

 

People know this and are content to live without understanding how it all works. There is spiritual application to that.

 

People are also content to hold on to false theories that these truths completely disprove. There are spiritual ramifications of that.

 

We must understand that though the work of God in us, which is our spiritual lives, is beyond our understanding, we must use what we know to know the truth, in other words, to let go of our false theories which we had in the past.

 

What is also complex, and probably even more so, is how God works in our lives.

 

In this lesson we are going to be looking at the nature or experience that happens in the ministry of the Holy Spirit to believers and in our next lesson (or two) we’ll be looking at how the believer is to be filled with the Spirit. How God works in us and the way in which we cooperate can be looked at through the simple revelation of God’s Word. Problems arise when we try to know more than is revealed [hence my opening illustrations]. The mechanics of God working in us are beyond us. It is best to be like a child in faith (not intellect) as when you look at the heavens. Enjoy the sky and the stars rather than calculate all their distances and compositions. Look at the rotted food, and rather than discern how the flagellum motor works in the salmonella living inside it, just don’t eat it.

 

EPH 5:18

And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit;

 

Getting to understand the nature of the filling of the Spirit is important. Although the command to do so is only found in this verse, it speaks to the other mentions of the Spirit’s work in the believer mentioned in other places of the New Testament.

 

The word “filled” means to fill up in both the material and the immaterial sense. If a believer isn’t filling his life with the Holy Spirit, what is he filling his life with? (Wednesday’s message: 2/8/23).

 

The filling of the Holy Spirit is a supernatural influence, inspiration, clarity, impulse, wisdom, understanding, and power from within.

 

What other manifestations can you think of?

 

The Holy Spirit is the source of all vital spiritual experience in the life of the Christian. For big events (David and Goliath things) and everyday needs (studying scripture, praying, applying truth to the current circumstance of life).

 

 

Context helps us see this clearer.

 

EPH 5:15-21

Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, 16 making the most of your time, because the days are evil. 17 So then do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. 18 And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit, 19 speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord; 20 always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father; 21 and be subject to one another in the fear of Christ.

 

Alert (“careful” is the Greek verb “see!” as a command), wise, opportunistic (making the most of your time, for there is a lot of evil around you), understanding of God’s will, not a life that throws away God’s gifts, active joy expressed from the source of God, always thankful for everything to the Person of the Father and Son and to others in their Name, and in the fear of Christ subject and serving to the body of Christ.

 

God the Holy Spirit is going to make our faithful efforts supernatural.

 

 

You won’t look different (well, in some ways you will) but the high performance is not in anything the flesh desires, but in the will of God.

 

But what does it mean to be filled with the Holy Spirit? He doesn’t leave you, but as Christ told us, the Holy Spirit would be in us and with us forever.