If the Spirit Dwells in You

Transcript

I’m glad to see the Pierces here today.  We go back a long time, at least as far back as the summer of 1969.  I remember the Pierces during that summer.  That was the summer after my junior year in college, and I had the opportunity to serve in the Houston area as a ministerial trainee during the course of the summer.  I was working that summer with Mr. Frank McCrady.  Not the one who is about my age, but the one who is a whole lot older.  I say that, if you know him he is a good friend and I think the world of Mr. McCrady.  He is over in east Texas now.  But I had the opportunity to spend the summer working with him.  We had actually another term that we used for ministerial trainee back in those days.  We were often referred to as second men, or among ourselves, as warm bodies.  There was a rule that we had in the church, and we still use the same basic rule today, that a minister, just for the sake of appearances and so on, should not visit a younger lady alone.  Now the rule has changed a bit today; we say that he should not, the minister should not visit a lady alone.  The reason for that is because with our ministry today, younger women are all that there are.  But none the less, we still operate under the same basic principle today, so many of us were sent out as warm bodies, so to speak, so that the minister could go ahead and carry out his counseling and we could be there as that second person and avoid any difficulty along that line.  But basically what it gave for us was an opportunity to sit and listen and learn in the process, which by itself was a tremendous opportunity. 

Now Mr. McCrady was never hesitant to put one of us into an awkward position as a part of our training process.  He rather enjoyed doing that, and I was thinking about that as I was preparing the message today.  I remember one particular situation that occurred that summer, and I wonder if you were put in that situation, what would you do?  We were sitting there, he was counseling with a particular gentleman, we were in the church office in this case, which was really an office in the home that the church owned in Pasadena, Texas at that point.  But none the less we were talking with a member there.  I honestly have no recollection of who it was, I just remember it was a gentleman, but he was having some personal difficulties, quite a number of them actually.  And Mr. McCrady was counseling with him and I was of course sitting and listening and trying to learn in the process.   And as we were sitting there Mr. McCrady looked at this gentleman finally because there were so many things that had come up, and he said, “You know, you’re supposed to be guided by the Holy Spirit.”  And he said, “I’m not seeing the Holy Spirit taking a role in your life.”  He said, “Do you even have the Holy Spirit?”  And I remember the man saying, “Well, you know, how can anybody know that one way or another?”   And Mr. McCrady turned and looked at me and he said, “Dave, do you have the Holy Spirit?”  What do you do at that point?   Now, I’m not going to tell you my answer.  I mean, my answer wasn’t the point.  The point was what do you do when you’re put on the spot and you have to answer the question for yourself, whether anybody else is involved or not.  Do you have the Holy Spirit?  Does the Holy Spirit dwell in you? 

Oh I know God makes promises, and we can base our lives upon those promises, as we should.  That’s fine, nothing wrong with that.  But if you’re looking at the evidence, is there evidence you can find that the Holy Spirit really is dwelling, living, in you.  What would you do, put in that particular spot?  Could you answer with confidence, with assurance, that you knew one way or another?   Or would you be more like the man who sat there mumbling, well, how can anybody ever really know, for sure, about that.

It’s not just a theoretical question.   And I think as we approach the upcoming Feast of Pentecost, it’s an appropriate question, one for us to consider.  And as we’re going to see as we go a little bit further today, your eternal life and mine depend upon the answer to that question. 

Most of us, when we think about the Day of Pentecost, very often we focus upon the events that took place in Jerusalem on the Day of Pentecost in 31 A.D.   And that’s certainly appropriate.  I’m sure that next week as you gather together and combine services on Pentecost, you will undoubtedly hear about those events, again that’s appropriate, you should.  God tells the ministry to be ready to preach in season and out of season, and that’s certainly one of the seasonal things that we need to talk about and focus upon at this period of time. 

But the story of Pentecost and its part in God’s plan, actually goes much further than that, it goes much further back, literally thousands of years earlier than 31 A.D.  And I think it’s worth reviewing, at least a little bit as we go forward today, some of those initial instructions as we try to understand a little bit more about the role of the Holy Spirit in our lives. 

Do you ever find yourself asking, “Why does God do something in a certain way?”  Now I’m not talking about anything disrespectful.  I think it’s perfectly appropriate to ask for the purpose of trying to come to a deeper understanding.  One of the things that I think we try to do at Foundation Institute as we give the instruction from God’s word is to focus on some of those things to say, “Why is this happening? Why does God do this?  Why does God say do this, don’t do that?”   I was looking over a copy just yesterday of some of the material that we are beginning to try to put together to add to our base of information for our Life Hope and Truth website.  And some of the things I saw there were really very, very encouraging as they encourage us to look at certain things, but in a number of cases to ask that question, “Why?  Why is it this way?”  

Why is it so important to know whether God’s spirit is living in your life or not?   Why is that important?  Why is it important for you and me to keep the Day of Pentecost year after year?  How does God want the observance of the Day of Pentecost to affect our lives?  Paul wrote that if we want to please God we need to be living our lives in the spirit, not in the flesh.  What does that mean?  What does that tell you?  What does that have to do with the way that you live?  Can you say that you are, today, living your life in the spirit as opposed to in the flesh?  When my alarm goes off in the morning I sure feel like it’s flesh.  I don’t feel real spiritual when that alarm goes off.  Those aren’t the thoughts that come to my mind.  What are we doing?  What does that mean?  Is that what it’s talking about?  We are told that that’s very important, that if you are not living in the spirit you can’t please God.  So are you living in the spirit?  Are you being guided in that way?  How does that concept of being one who has the spirit of God dwelling in them, how does that translate into your daily life?  Is living in the spirit something that just happens?  Or does it involve a deliberate choice, maybe more than one, maybe one that has to be made day by day, minute by minute?   What does it involve?  Are we truly living that way? 

I believe that one of the reasons why God has us observe the annual Holy Days and to focus upon their meaning, is because He knew what kind of a world you and I would be living in.  A world filled with busy-ness.   Sometimes the busy-ness is positive, uplifting, helpful, even maybe involves service.  And they can be good things that we are so busy with.  But we can become so busy that it’s easy for us to lose sight of the plan that God reveals to us.  And if we lose sight of that plan then our lives lose direction, and spiritually, we begin to wander.  It’s not a deliberate choice to turn our backs on God and walk away; it’s a gradual slow process of wandering a little bit further and a little bit further. 

We only need to look at our own history over the past 30 years to easily see many examples of what happens when people abandoned the observance of the Holy Days and the plan that those Holy Days revealed.  People lost their ways.

Probably for many of us when we go through scripture and we read a passage like what we find at the end of Hebrews 5 we read it with interest, and we read it with a certain sense of wondering:   How much does that apply to me?  What does it tell me about myself?  I’ve often been interested in seeing how people react when they read scripture.  Sometimes there are people who read the scripture and feel that what they have discovered is a new way to beat other people over the head with their beliefs.  But generally speaking the scripture is not given to us for the purpose of straightening out someone else, but for examining ourselves.  So I think it’s appropriate that you and I, as we often probably have, read these words and examine ourselves in the light of them.  Hebrews 5 has been talking about the role of Jesus Christ as our High Priest and what that means.  And of course for many of us, I think it’s reasonable to understand that we don’t come from a background of priests, especially high priests.  What we know about that priest system that existed at the time the author of the book of Hebrews wrote, we’ve probably picked up being around the church and some of the history that we’ve learned there.  So it isn’t our basic culture that’s being addressed, though it probably was for those who were the initial recipients of the book of Hebrews.  But let’s pick it up in verse 11 of chapter 5.  It’s talking there in verse 10 about Melchizedek, Jesus Christ being a Priest according to the order of Melchizedek, and then the author says Hebrews 11:5  of whom we have much to say, and hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. 

Now it’s not my purpose to read that to you and have you feel that I am standing here looking at you saying you are dull of hearing.  I don’t know whether you are dull of hearing.  What it tells me is I better examine myself to see if I am dull of hearing, if I’m not listening and paying attention in the way that I should.  For he says in verse 12 how do I know whether I am dull of hearing or not:  For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God; and you have come to need milk and not solid food. 

We use a phrase in our media area that talks about dealing with people, and the phrase is just simply “milk to meat.”   How do you bring people who are first learning the truth from spiritual milk to the meat of the word?  How do you accomplish that, how do you bring them forward in that way?  So it’s kind of based upon this idea.  He goes on to say verse 13 For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe.  (He is not condemned, he is not a terrible person, he is not evil, he just simply has failed to grow.  He stayed spiritually where he or she was a long time ago.  So it describes that kind of an approach.)  Verse 13-14  For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe.  But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil. 

Now there is much to discern in those verses.  There is much to think about, to meditate upon, and that’s fine, that not my purpose today.  But simply to remind us that the author of the book of book of Hebrews says one of the dangers you and I face in living the life that God has called us to live, is a tendency to just kind of carry on, without there being any real growth, growth in knowledge and understanding.  Growth in spiritual truth is something that doesn’t just happen by osmosis.  It isn’t simply a matter of we sit here week after week and in that process there is great growth that takes place.  We certainly hope there will be some, but none the less that’s not going to carry us very far.  It’s going to take an effort on our part to be a people who are discerning good and evil, and who are growing, who are able to use the meat of the word of God, and not being stuck with just the fundamentals. 

It can be easy for us to take for granted the knowledge God has given us about the Holy Spirit.  You realize that most religious people really do not have a correct understanding about the Holy Spirit at all, or its influence on the Christian life.  Most think of the Holy Spirit as a person, a third member of what is, to be honest, an incomprehensible trinity.  Something that you really cannot explain, a mystery, but this is kind of one-third of that incomprehensible mystery.  And that’s what they think of.  They really don’t think much about the Holy Spirit having a role in their lives.  If you asked them, “Do you have the Holy Spirit dwelling in you?” what would most of them say?  What would most Roman Catholics or Lutherans or Baptists, what would they say?  In many cases, and again that’s not a put down of those people, it’s just simply a recognition that

that isn’t really explained very well, it isn’t really understood all that well.  Some, as I was preparing this message I thought well I’m going to look online and see what some of the various religious groups teach about the role of the Holy Spirit and what it does in their lives.  And I was kind of interested that one of the groups, and I’m not particularly labeling a specific denomination, but let’s say that in a generalized term what we would call Pentecostal groups, that as you look at their explanation not only do they teach that the Holy Spirit is a person, or a being – person is probably stretching it a little bit, but a separate being from God the Father or from Jesus Christ – that the Holy Spirit is part of a trinity.  Not only that but they specifically take the time to prove, in their minds, that you cannot say the Holy Spirit is a power.  No, no, that isn’t the proper explanation at all.  Well, that’s what you and I teach, that’s what we believe, that the Holy Spirit is in fact the power of God working in our lives.  Oh no, no, that’s not correct.  So I went through and I read some of their proofs, and believe me, there is nothing there that would convince you they are right.  There is, unfortunately, a misunderstanding.  But they specifically deny that the Holy Spirit is a power; no, no, no, it’s a person.

What about us?  What do we understand?  The concept of the Holy Spirit dwelling within a person in much of what professes to be Christianity, is either misunderstood or ignored.  And yet, what we’ll see as we go further today is that if that Holy Spirit isn’t dwelling in you, then there’s a very serious problem here.  You have no hope.  But if it is dwelling in you, then you have an amazing hope.  So the answer to the question of whether the Holy Spirit dwells in you, personally, is a very important question. 

So before we move into all of that, we’re going to answer, approach the question here, is the Spirit of God dwelling in you.  Before we move on to certain aspects of that, which again I think will be helpful for each one of us as we approach Pentecost, I want to consider at least a couple of concepts that are very important to understanding as a foundational part of this.  First of all the question:  What is the Holy Spirit? And I’m not going to go into a great explanation there, but just briefly.  And second, I think it’s important to ask:  What does it mean to dwell?   Because the Holy Spirit is to dwell in us, what does it mean to dwell? 

Now a full description of the Holy Spirit is beyond the scope of this particular sermon.  It’s important to understand the fundamental truth that the Holy Spirit is not some separate being, a third member of the Godhead, but is instead the power that comes from God in order to accomplish His will.  Now some people have assumed that when you read about the Holy Spirit that well, that’s just strictly a New Testament concept, that just came on the scene there, those in the Old Testament didn’t have any knowledge of the Holy Spirit at all.  That’s not true.  That’s not true at all.  They did not have access to the Holy Spirit in the same way that you and I do, and we’ll see that as we go a little further, but none the less the idea that they didn’t know about the Holy Spirit, no, that’s completely untrue.  There are many places in the Old Testament that talk about the Holy Spirit.  We could begin, for example, in Geneses 1, and verse, oh how about verse 1.  That would be a good place to begin.  We would think that that would take us back about as far as we need to go.  What do we find as we turn to Genesis 1:1?  We find that God records these words for us:  In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And we’ve talked many times about that.  There are so many facets of what those words mean and what they tell us about the great God that has called us and given us the opportunity to be a part of His plan.  In verse 2  The earth was without form, and void (as we understand it chaotic and confused); and darkness was on the face of the deep.  And the Spirit of God (that is, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God) was hovering over the face of the waters.   God in that sense is looking down on what’s taken place.   He is still on His throne in the third heaven, but through the power of His Spirit, God is seeing what’s taking place, what’s there.  That concept of a Spirit of God is introduced from the very beginning. 

Now we could go through a great many more passages that talk about this.  For example, we could talk about where David had committed a terrible sin, a sin of adultery with Bathsheba and the murder of her husband, and we read David’s psalm of repentance in Psalm 51.   And there David specifically says:   Please don’t take Your Holy Spirit from me.  Apparently he understood there was a Holy Spirit, and he understood that Holy Spirit had been working at least with, if not within, him.  When we read the prophecies that are given in the book of Joel we find, and again I refer to this because in Peter’s sermon on the Day of Pentecost in 31 A.D., he specifically spent a good bit of time talking about the prophecy of Joel, when there would be a time when the Holy Spirit was poured out.  Obviously hundreds of years before 31 A.D. there were prophecies, there were passages, there were psalms that talked about the Holy Spirit.  Now why is that important?  Well one of the reasons it’s important is to realize that the concept of the Holy Spirit existed in what we might call the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, the Hebrew scriptures.  It existed there from the very first page, and yet throughout all the time prior to Jesus Christ coming on the scene, at least a period, at least when we’re talking about the writing of this that’s involved, a period of 1,500 years, not once in all of that time did the Hebrew reading people ever come to the conclusion that the Holy Spirit was a person.  Never even crossed their minds to consider it in that way.  And if we were to follow the history further, 300 years after the Day of Pentecost in 31 A.D. is when people finally began to accept this idea of the Holy Spirit as a person.  Totally outside the time of the writing of scripture, totally outside of what God had revealed, human beings came to a conclusion that was erroneous.  For the Hebrew people, the Jewish people, the idea of thinking about the Holy Spirit as a separate entity from the Father, why they would have totally said there is no way that could be true.  They would have immediately rejected it as heresy.  Not there. 

Now I think as we go through some of these things and we read through the passages, especially in the New Testament where it talks about the Holy Spirit and it seems to be using personal pronouns,  sometimes that can be a bit confusing.  I think most of us understand, and yet I’ve often found that when we think we understand, well, chances are some of those things have slipped from our minds.  So let’s take a moment and talk about that.  Why does the New Testament especially refer to the Holy Spirit in personal pronoun terms.  To explain that I want to simply quote to you a section of what we have written on our Life Hope and Truth website.  Again I hope that you use that as a resource that you can go to frequently.  But here is what it says as it talks about grammar and translation issues concerning this aspect.  It says, “There are instances in English translations of the Bible where the pronouns ‘He’ and ‘His’ are used to refer to the Holy Spirit, but this is a matter of grammar and translation, not of biblical teaching.  In many languages, such as Spanish and Greek, nouns have gender.  They are grammatically either feminine or masculine or (in some cases) neuter, whether or not they refer to living things that are female or male.  For example, in Spanish a door is la puerta.  (Close? I hope. I’m not a Spanish speaker but we’ll try. La puerta).  In the Spanish language this is a ‘feminine’ noun, and it is appropriate to refer to a door by the use of a feminine pronoun, ella, which is equivalent to the English pronoun ‘she’.  But in English translation, door is (grammatically) referred to as ‘it,’ since a door is not a female or male person, but a thing.”

Okay, now let me stray from here since I’m not good with Spanish, barely good with English, but none the less we’ll try.  If you look at some of the other languages, I had the misfortune of taking a couple years of French.  Spanish would have been a whole lot more useful.  But anyway, in French, for example, door likewise is feminine.  La porte.  Okay, so if you had a statement that the door is open, it would be la porte and again it would say it is open.  Then you might say would you please close it.  And if you translated directly from the French, it would say please close her.  Now that sounds strange to you and me because in English we don’t do that.  The door is open, please close her.  No strange sound.  But that’s the way you would technically say it if you were to translate it in that way.  Again we can look at other languages, I don’t remember what it is in German, I think it’s neuter if I’m not mistaken, das tur.  So none the less you see that in those different languages you have to use a pronoun that refers to whatever the noun itself was. 

So we go on here from the LHT website.  “A similar situation exists in the Greek language – the language in which the New Testament was originally written.  Jesus refers to the Holy Spirit as parakletos (a ‘comforter’ because the power of God has a comforting and encouraging effect in the minds and lives of those who receive it).”  (It literally comes from two words; para which means beside and kaleo which means to call.  So it literally means to call to your side, to call someone beside you.) “In the Greek language parakletos is a masculine noun.  Therefore, in Greek, a masculine pronoun is appropriate in referring to parakletos.  The translators of the King James Bible carried this grammatical arrangement over into the English in a number of places, such as John 14:16.” (We’ll read that in a moment)  “Thus, in the English translation, the Holy Spirit is referred to as ‘He’.  However, this is no more evidence that the Holy Spirit is a person than the use, in Spanish, of the feminine pronoun …to refer to a door…  Again, these are matters of grammar and translation, not of biblical theology.”   So it’s good for us to remember every once in a while that this has to do with the way we translate things.

Now let’s move on here just briefly to the concept of dwelling.  Now you might say what’s hard to understand about dwell, that’s a pretty simple term.  Well, that’s true, and in fact it may be so simple that we may overlook certain parts of it.  When we examine the scriptures that talk about dwelling, we come to see that it involves more than simply having an object nearby.  It involves a change because of what dwells with you.  For example, and I won’t turn back to this one, but it’s back in 1Peter 3, I believe it’s verse 5, where Peter is talking to husbands.  And he says to the husbands dwell with your wives according to knowledge.  Okay, what do we derive from that?  We derive the understanding that somehow the process of dwelling with your wife is to be affected by the knowledge of God’s truth, that that changes things, that somehow the process of dwelling is more than simply we inhabit the same house, that it has to do with the way we treat someone, with the relationship that exists between us, and the knowledge of God’s truth has an impact upon the way we dwell.  So there is more to it than simply we’re there together.

Now I thought of another example as I was putting this together this morning.  I was reminded, again our guests the Pierce’s may remember this, a number of years ago there was a young couple in the Houston congregation that they were having their very first child.  And it was an interesting experience of course for them, and the young man was giving a speech at our Spokesman’s Club graduation meeting.  In the course of the speech he was talking about the process that they’d been going through, the things that they were learning as they were coming up to the time for the baby to be born. And I remember as he was talking about it he was saying, “Well now, you know, we’ve gotten close to the time, the baby’s not here yet, but it’s almost here, it’s been maybe eight months,” or eight and a half or whatever it is, and he said, “ you know at first it didn’t seem to make a big difference.  But now,” he said, “every night my wife wants me to rub her back, trying to watch her get out of a chair or get into a chair is quite a change because now she’s so far along in this, and sometimes she is very demanding.  And I have thought several times that I really, I can hardly wait for this baby to be born so things can get back to normal.”  (laughter) Yeah, that’s what happened – everybody later on said, “Son, you may as well forget normal. You’ve had your last normal in this whole life.  Once you take that child home it will never be normal again, not in the way that you’re thinking of.”

Okay, what was it like when you brought that first child home, those of you that are parents?  What was it like?  You suddenly had someone else dwelling with you.  And the fact that that child dwelt with you, really made a big change in life.  It wasn’t just something you could kind of overlook.  It wasn’t something like oh well, we can go on doing what we’ve always done before, the way we always did it.  No, as a matter of fact, everything changed.  Dwelling wasn’t just simply a matter of living together; it had an impact upon the way that we do things.

If the Spirit of God dwells in a person, it does much more than simply exist in some dormant state.  It completely transforms that person, his or her thinking, his or her way of looking at life, his or her way of living, relating, deciding, everything.  Do you see that kind of influence in your life? 

Now let’s quickly look at some of the biblical history about this Day of Pentecost thing and kind of get a certain amount in our minds.  Let’s go back to the first time we find this in Leviticus 23.  In Leviticus 23 it’s going to tell us about all of the Holy Days, and I just want to take a moment to look very quickly at what it says about the Day of Pentecost.  Leviticus 23:1-2  And the Lord spoke to Moses , saying, “Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them:  ‘The feasts of the Lord, which you shall proclaim to be holy convocations, these are My feasts.’  Now I think basically there is a lesson there that first of all it says here are the feasts, and the second time when it makes the statement these are My feasts, it’s kind of like it’s saying:  Okay, here are the feasts of God, this is all of them.  There aren’t any others.  You’re not going to go somewhere else and pull in some more feast days, this is it.  I’m putting it all together here for you to see. 

And of course He goes on here and talks in verse 3 about the Sabbath.  Verse 4  ‘These are the feasts of the Lord, holy convocations which you shall proclaim at their appointed times.’

Now let’s drop on down here.  We won’t read all of the details in between about the wave sheaf offering and so on, but let’s pick it up in verse 15  ‘And you shall count for yourselves from the day after the Sabbath, (referring to a time during the Days of Unleavened Bread) from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering: seven Sabbaths shall be completed.’  Verse 16-17  ‘Count  fifty days to the day after the seventh Sabbath; then you shall offer a new grain offering to the Lord.  You shall bring from your dwellings two wave loaves of two-tenths of an ephah.  They shall be of fine flour; they shall be baked with leaven.  They are the firstfruits to the Lord.’  And He goes on and talks about various other aspects of this.  Then finally lets drop down to verse 21  ‘And you shall proclaim on the same day that it is a holy convocation to you.  You shall do no customary work on it.  It shall be a statute forever in all your dwellings throughout your generations.’  That’s kind of an interesting phrase when you think about that.  Those aren’t just words that are thrown in:  in all your dwellings throughout your generations.  It basically means wherever you go, anywhere, these days still apply.  They’re not simply to be kept when you’re in a certain location.  They are days that apply wherever you go and at whatever time you live, these are God’s days. 

Now there are undoubtedly a number of lessons that we could draw from this, and it’s very much worthwhile looking at it, thinking about it, meditating about it, especially in the days that lead up to Pentecost coming next week.  As you examine it you don’t really find any specific Old Testament events that are tied directly to Pentecost.  Now according to Jewish tradition the Old Covenant was given from Mount Sinai on the Day of Pentecost.  That, frankly, may or may not be true.  The timing is about right, so it’s certainly possible that it could be true, but we really don’t have a way to prove it one way or another.  If it is true, then certainly you could draw parallels between the old covenant from Sinai and the new covenant that is made possible by the gift of God’s Spirit. 

But for most of us, the unique events of the Pentecost immediately following Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection, are the ones that most come to mind.  To understand that more fully we might consider that Pentecost 31 A.D. was one of what we would call a crucial hinge-point in the history of God’s people.  Now the concept of a hinge-point is if you can imagine kind of a graph moving along, and it comes to a point where there is a turn.  It may turn up, it may turn down, whatever, but you are coming to a certain direction, and suddenly at a certain point the direction changes.  That’s a hinge-point.  It’s at that point when the direction changes.  Pentecost of  31 A.D. is certainly a hinge-point in the history of God’s plan.  In one sense the overview of God’s plan that we have as we begin with the Passover and move to the Last Great Day, all of that is in a sense an overview, kind of as the crow flies kind of approach.  But as we examine more deeply the history that’s taken place, we find that there are certain hinge-points where things have changed in a different direction.  Oh it’s still moving towards God’s goal, it’s not like God didn’t plan for this.  But there are significant events that take place. 

So what are the significant events of  31 A.D. that are so important to us?  The entire plan that God describes is a process by which God is going to change humans into His immortal sons and daughters.  Every stage along the way – Passover, Unleavened Bread, Pentecost, and so on – focuses our attention on a change in the way we live, a change which forever alters the course of our lives.  Once we come under the sacrifice of Christ shown through the Passover, once, as Paul puts it, our Passover is sacrificed for us, there is no going back to the way of life we lived before.  It is a permanent life-altering change.  The observance of the Days of Unleavened Bread drive home to us the point that even though that only lasts for a week, the way of life we are supposed to be living is a different way of life.  We don’t simply go through it and then go back to where we were.  It’s a different life spiritually.  In a similar way, Pentecost points us to a profound change that forever alters the way we live our lives. 

The period of time between Jesus’ final Passover and the Day of Pentecost must have been a bewildering and exciting time for those disciples in that first century.  Just like the Jews around them, they thought they had a good understanding of the Messiah, what His role would be, what His work would be, how He would carry those things out.  But the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ was completely outside of what they’d expect.  They had in a few short days gone from the depths of despair to brand new levels of hope that they had never imagined.  Things they thought they had understood when Jesus spoke them now had a new meaning, a new depth.  They were beginning to see things day after day that they hadn’t seen before. 

You remember what it’s like when you begin, again if you’ve come especially from some other religious heritage and God’s called you to the truth, you remember what it’s like to open up the Bible and read something and suddenly it makes sense?  You’ve been reading it for years and it really didn’t mean that, and suddenly you open it up and you realize, “Wait a minute, I never saw that before.”  What an amazing thing.  I think the disciples were in a sense kind of going through a similar experience.  They’d heard what Jesus said, they had certain ideas, but now, now things are really changing.  They are beginning to see things with a new depth, a new grasp, and it’s an exciting time.  And yet every time that He appeared to them in that forty days after His resurrection, they had new questions, and they were undoubtedly filled with excitement and wonder, and all kinds of things they wanted to understand.   But they also knew that the time with Him would be short because, after all, He had told them He was going away, and where He was going they couldn’t follow.  So they knew their time with Him was limited. 

We can just try, I think in a sense, to imagine that as the days passed, they spoke with Him, they asked questions,  He taught them, and we are told as you look at that first chapter of Acts that He taught them the things concerning the kingdom of God because their understanding of that hadn’t been accurate and now He’s helping them to understand.  Just kind of imagine this group of men sitting around talking in the evening, probably late into the night.  What about this?  Have you thought about that?  I wonder if this is what that means?  And in the midst of all of that there was a special promise He had given them, a promise that undoubtedly captured their attention.  John 14, during that final Passover  He shared with them, He said many, many important things, and of course we read through this whole section as we observe the Passover, but let’s just pick up a couple of things here.  John 14: 15-17  He says “If you love Me, keep My commandments.  And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper,” (Another helper – it’s that Greek word  parakletos, one called to your side, an advocate.  It was used in the legal profession as the term for your attorney when he stood beside you to represent you and help you in a court of law.  Give you a Helper)  “that He may abide (or dwell, same term) with you forever—the Spirit of truth. (And again I’m not going to get bogged down with pronouns here, so let me just read it the way we would understand it.)  The Spirit of truth, (which) the world cannot receive, because it neither sees (it) nor knows (it); but you know (it), for (it) dwells with you and will be in you.”

He told them the world really doesn’t understand the Holy Spirit, and frankly if you look around you today you will find that it’s just as true today as it was 2,000 years ago.  The world doesn’t grasp the Holy Spirit.  Oh they know the words and they have certain ideas, and they think that you and I are heretics because we don’t believe the Holy Spirit is a person, but none the less as far as their grasp of it, they don’t see it at all.  They don’t recognize it.  Do you?  And I would again say probably in many cases, yes you do.  You have seen the influence of God’s Spirit in your life and in the lives of others.  You’ve recognized the Spirit of God as providing the things that are needed for the people of God.  You may sit and listen to a message, you may read an article, and you feel like wow, it’s almost like God was just speaking to me there.  You understand those things, the influence of the Spirit of God.   You see people that you have known and they actually have changed and grown in amazing ways. 

Now as I was putting this sermon together I actually had an idea that I forgot about.  I wish I’d brought that today.  I was going to bring along a scale, like we have in our bathroom.  It is an evil device!    But I was going to bring it along and I was going to stand on it, and then I was going to tell you I have proof that I have grown since I was at Ambassador College.  I have the numerical proof.  I could bring my blood pressure cuff too, and I could look at those numbers, and they’re higher too.  Now you can’t tell me I haven’t grown, I’ve got the numbers to prove it.  But of course that’s not really quite what we’re looking for.  And that’s not quite the growth that the Spirit of God produces in us. 

You’ve seen people grow, people that you’ve known, especially if you’ve been around the church for a period of time, you’ve seen people change in amazing ways, good ways, positive ways. You see those changes take place.  As He said to those disciples, the world doesn’t recognize that.   The world may look at those people and say well you know they’ve done this or they’ve done that, but they don’t recognize the power of the Spirit of God in bringing about those changes.  But as He said to those disciples, you know that Spirit.  You had contact, not with a being, but you felt the power of God working in your life to help you change, to help you be a different person.  That Spirit, again all those young people that were up here on the stage today, we believe what this verse says, is that that Holy Spirit works with them.  That because their parents are believers and the Spirit of God dwells in that home, that those young people have access to the influence of that Spirit, and it changes them too.  I’ve worked in the camp program enough to know that when I see those young people come in for the camp programs, they are different.  They are different young people than what you find in the world around us.  Even those who direct the camps (we used to go to camp Pinecrest each year) and the people who ran the camp would unabashedly tell our group, “You are the best group we have. You are different than any other group we have.”  They had no idea why.  But we know why.  It’s because the Spirit of God was working with those young people and they were responding to that. 

And He told his disciples that’s what’s happened with you.  The Spirit of God has worked with you, and as a result of that, those disciples who were with Jesus understood things that the religious leaders couldn’t grasp.  Scholars, people who had been educated in those scriptures for decades, didn’t understand what these fishermen and carpenters and tax collectors from Galilee could understand.  And they knew that was because of the influence of the Spirit of God, and what Jesus Christ said to them is that power which has been working with you is going to be in you.   It’s going to be inside of you and become a part of you. 

Drop down to verse 25-26 and He says here “These things I have spoken to you while being present with you.  But the Helper, (the parakletos) the Holy Spirit, (which) the Father will send in My name, (it) will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.”  Did that happen?  Is that what took place in their lives?  Yes it is, it’s exactly what happened.  It brought back things to their minds, things they had never even thought that much about. 

Now in those final days leading up to the Day of Pentecost, let’s go back to Luke 24 and notice what Christ said to them there.  Luke 24 and I’m going to pick it up here in verse 44.  Luke 24:44  They are in Galilee, Jesus is talking with them, and it says verse 44-48 Then He said to them, “These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me.”  And He opened their understanding, that they might comprehend the Scriptures.  Then He said to them, “Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ (the Messiah) to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.  And you are witnesses of these things.”  (You are the ones who will go out and testify, so to speak, that these things are true.  You are the legal witnesses.) 

And then He says in verse 49 “Behold, (remember that word?  I love to talk about that word behold.  It means stop and look at this through a different set of eyes.  Look at this through My eyes.)   I send the Promise of My Father upon you; but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high.”  Now these disciples did exactly what they were told to do there.  He doesn’t say I’m going to send you a person from on high.  I’m going to send  you  power,  power that comes from the very throne of God itself.  The Holy Spirit.  And on that Day of Pentecost, as we read through the story of that day, these men did receive that.  And not just men, the scripture very clearly tells us the women did too.  This promise was delivered to them.  What an amazing thing that must have been. 

Now thankfully for you and for me, what took place on that Pentecost in 31 A.D., while it was in some was a unique occurrence, in the most important ways, it was not a one-time occurrence.  In chapter 2, toward the end, Acts 2, toward the end of that passage as Peter has been giving this inspired message, we pick up the story in verse 36.  He’s been talking about the role of Jesus Christ, how this Jesus of Nazareth has fulfilled all the prophecies that said that God would be sending a Messiah.  And in Acts 2:36 we read “Therefore (Peter is concluding his sermon) let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus, both Lord and Christ, whom you murdered.”  Yes I know I changed the order.  I changed it to what the order is in the Greek, because that’s the emphasis there.  God made Him both Lord and Messiah, and you murdered Him.  It’s a very powerful message.

Verse 37  Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and rest of the apostles, “Men and brethren, what shall we do?”  There was no front here, there was no religious hypocrisy, there was no one rising up to say wait a minute you can’t talk to me that way, my great-grandmother was a good Christian.   No, none of that.  They said wow I didn’t understand, now I do, I see my guilt.  Much as you and I stood before a spiritual mirror at some point in our lives and acknowledged our own spiritual guilt, our responsibility.  What do we do? 

Peter was inspired with some incredible words.  Verse 38-39  Then Peter said to them, “Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins; (that’s all very important but I want today to emphasize the rest of this)  and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.  For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call.”  What an incredible promise.  What an amazing promise.  What an inspiring and hopeful promise.  The promise isn’t just for those people 2,000 years ago.  No, it’s for today too.

Now just a few pages later, chapter 5, Peter and John are called before the religious leaders and they explain there’s more to this than just simply accepting this wonderful gift.  No, you have to do something.  It’s not a matter of earning it by doing it, but it’s a matter that God doesn’t just pour this gift out where someone isn’t ready to commit themselves to living His way.  Acts 5, and notice here I’m just going to break into this, verse 32, they said,  “And we are His witnesses” (as He said they would be) “And we are His witnesses to these things, and so also is the Holy Spirit (as we would understand it) (which) God has given to those who obey Him.”

Now this could be taken a couple of different ways, but the bottom line basically comes down to the fact that if an individual is committed to worshiping God, living God’s way, doing it His way, saying Yes Lord, I want to obey, then to that individual God gives power, power to obey, power to do what God has asked them to do, power to become a different person. 

We probably should note there that in some cases, and I think it’s an important lesson for us, obedience comes before the understanding.  What do I mean by that?  Well, we are told that when the Holy Spirit comes and dwells within you, that it will give you understanding.  And I think, again, if you have received the Spirit of God you certainly recognize that your level of understanding  of God’s truth has grown enormously because of that, not because you’re so intelligent, but because God’s given that incredible gift to you.  But you had to make the commitment of obedience first, and then you came to understand.  In a sense, that’s what Adam and Eve were called upon to do, but they weren’t willing to do it.  God said don’t take of that, you can have all of this, obey Me and you can have the tree of life, represents the Spirit of God, it’s accessible to you.   But they didn’t want to do that.  They wanted to do what they could understand, what looked right to them, and as a result of that they cut themselves and all of mankind off from the tree of life, from the Spirit of God. 

Probably in our lives we’ve had to do much the same thing.  When you learned that the Sabbath was something that God expected you to keep you had to make certain commitments.  You may not have fully understood how God’s going to work things out.  You may have wondered well I don’t know how I’m going to be able to do this, I don’t know how I’m going to support my family, I’ll probably lose my job.  There may be any number of things, but you knew that God said do it and you made a commitment, and lo and behold God brought you through it.  We could say the same thing perhaps for tithing.  How many people have looked at tithing and said I can’t afford to do that.  I’m barely making enough to get by as it is, and now you’re telling me I have to tithe?  But eventually you come to the point where you say that’s what God says to do, I’m going to have to do it.  And amazingly it works, God brings it about.  There are many examples in our lives where we sometimes have to step out in obedience first, and then God gives us the understanding of how it works. 

There are many scriptures that we could turn to that tell us about the influence of God’s Spirit in our lives and how it’s supposed to change us as we move forward in living this Christian way.  Galatians tells us of the contrast between the fruit or works of the flesh and the fruit of the Spirit.  And those scriptures are certainly crucial to evaluating ourselves as to whether the Spirit of God dwells in us.  But I’d like to look at just a very few that perhaps can help us at this point as we are headed toward Pentecost.

Turn back to Romans 8.  Romans 8.  Now the seventh chapter of Romans is a fascinating chapter that talks about how we struggle with ourselves and recognize that though the law is holy and just and good, that we come terribly short of it.  That though the law is spiritual, we sure aren’t.  And he concludes that chapter by basically saying how do I possibly get out of this mess that I’m in.  I keep coming short.  What I want to do, I don’t do.  What I know I shouldn’t do, I do.  How do I get there?  So in chapter 8 of Romans the apostle Paul talks about this.  And he moves forward.  He says, starting in Romans 8:7, The carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be.  (It is beyond the ability of the physical mind, apart from God, to be subject to the law of God, as God intends.)  Verse 8  So then (he tells us), those who are in the flesh cannot please God.  I even heard a sermon given many years ago where an individual said this verse proves that as long as you’re a human being you will never please God.  No it doesn’t.  All you have to do is read the next verse and you understand what it says. 

Verse 9  He says,  But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. (Remember that word dwells, an important word.)  Verse 10-11 Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His.  And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness.  (God’s Spirit leads us to a righteous way of living.)  But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit  (that) dwells in you. 

We ask that question:  does the Spirit of God dwell in you?  It’s pretty important, isn’t it?  If you want life it better be dwelling in you, and it better be dwelling in me if I want life.  It’s a very important question.  But it tells us that if we are being guided by the Spirit of God, if it really does dwell in us, in the sense of that dwelling that transforms, then it gives us a confidence and assurance, even in difficult times, that God Himself has promised we have a future. 

Let’s go back to 1 Corinthians 3.  Again, the book of 1 Corinthians is a rich book when it comes to understanding about the Spirit of God and what it does, especially chapter 2 is a magnificent section about that.  But I want to come to chapter 3, and I want to notice just a couple of verses that he says here about how the Spirit of God is supposed to affect the way you and I live as we relate not only to God but to each other.  1 Corinthians 3:16  Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?  (Like a temple in which God dwells.)  And then he tells us in verse 17 If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him.  For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are.   Now in one passage, I believe it’s in this one, the word you here is a singular form, that talks about how you as an individual are supposed to live your life in such a way that your life is a temple for God to dwell in.  When you come to chapter 6 it’s plural, and it tells us that all of us together compose the temple of God. 

Let’s go back to 2 Corinthians 6, and notice what it tells us here, again about the influence of that Spirit on our lives.  2 Corinthians 6:14  He says Do not be unequally yoked together with unbelievers.  For what fellowship has righteousness with lawlessness?  And what communion has light with darkness?  Now many times we’ve looked at a verse like this and I’ve had people say well, you know, how do you apply that and does that really mean this situation or that situation.  Now sometimes we need to just kind of back away from the microscopic look and say what’s the principle involved here, the principle this is telling me that’s just a little bigger than just the microscopic  place where I may want to apply this.   There is a bond that is created with people when we are around them and with them and sharing our lives with them.  It is a yoking together.  And he says don’t get yourself  in a situation where you are yoked to those that don’t live by the same set of values that you have.     

Verse 15-16   And what accord has Christ with Belial?  Or what part has a believer with an unbeliever?  And what agreement has the temple of God with idols?  (You can’t put those together.)  For you are the temple of the living God. (And it is a plural here, you are, all of you together, the temple of God.)  As God has said:  “I will dwell in them (live) and walk among them.  I will be their God, and they shall be My people.” 

Verse 17-18  Therefore  (Oh, there is a conclusion because of this.  The fact that the Spirit of God is dwelling within His people produces a therefore.  It produces something that’s expected.)  “Come out from among them and be separate, says the Lord.  Do not touch what is unclean, and I will receive you.  I will be a Father to you, and you shall be My sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.”  Those are very powerful and beautiful words that God promises to those who, when the Spirit of God dwells within them, respond to that, and separate themselves from those things which defile.

The influence of the Spirit of God is both individual and collective.  It changes our lives, and it changes the way we relate to one another.  In 2 Peter 3 notice what Peter had to say about this, and again it’s a very powerful message that Peter gives as we look at verse 13.  2 Peter 3:13  Nevertheless we, (He’s been talking about we look at the world around us and we recognize the temporary nature of it; we recognize that everything that’s physical is eventually going to cease to exist, and we are asked the question:  Okay since all these physical things that seem so important are going to be destroyed, what kind of person should you be?)  So we pick it up here in verse 13  Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells.  (In which righteousness, which again is where the Spirit of God leads us, is living, it’s alive, it’s transformational, it’s changing the world that we are a part of, a new earth in which righteousness dwells.)  verse 14  Therefore (again that word) beloved, looking forward to these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, without spot and blameless;  (Spot is generally, as you look in the commentaries, and I think it’s an accurate way to view it, spot is generally talking about some defilement that comes from outside.   The blamelessness has to do with not being defiled by something inside, something that comes from us.  We need to be diligent to be found at peace, without spot and blameless.) Verse 15 and consider that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation – (the fact that God is patient in working with us is what makes salvation possible) as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written to you.

As we prepare for Pentecost, it’s a good time to look at what influence we’re allowing the Holy Spirit to have in our lives.  God’s Spirit doesn’t possess a person, cause him or her to do things that they don’t want to do.  But His Spirit is there to empower us to do good, to change, to be a people that we never thought we would be capable of being.  To empower us to truly be more Christ-like.  In a sense we could say that God’s Spirit has given his children super powers, although we don’t fly, we don’t run real fast, or whatever some of the strange super powers that super heroes seem to have today, no.  But He’s given us the power that no human being has on his own; the power to change what we are into what Jesus Christ is.  And that’s a power that’s far more important than any other super power we could have. 

Ephesians 3, starting in verse 14, the apostle Paul writes:  Ephesians 3:14-19  For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith: that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height – to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.  (This is all a part of the Spirit of God.)  Verse 20  Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever.

Do you have the Spirit of God dwelling in you?  I hope you can see that.  I hope you can examine yourself and see that yes, as a matter of fact, the Spirit of God is there.  It’s been growing.  Sometimes I’ve been holding it back, sometimes I haven’t been using it very well, but it’s there.  I’m a different person now than I used to be because of the influence of that Spirit.  It’s not God’s intention that you go through life wondering, but rather that you see God’s hand in your life, and that you actively use His Spirit to provide you with the understanding, the insight, the wisdom that God Himself wants you and I to have.