A 7-fold survey of the work of the Holy Spirit

Now back to Paul's letter to Ephesians and chapter 1. Ephesians 1 and we're going to read first of all verse at verse 13. In whom you also trusted after that you heard the word of truth the gospel of your salvation in whom also after that you believed you were sealed with that holy spirit of promise which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession unto the praise of his glory over to chapter 4 and verse 29 let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth but that which is good to the use of edifying that it may minister grace unto the hearers and grieve not the holy spirit of god whereby you are sealed unto the day of redemption let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice and be kind one to another tender-hearted forgiving one another even as god for christ's sake hath forgiven you and chapter 5 verse 17 wherefore be not unwise but understanding what the will of the lord is and be not drunk with wine wherein is excess but be filled with the spirit speaking to yourselves and psalms and hymns and spiritual songs singing and making melody in your heart to the lord giving thanks always for all things unto god and the father in the name of our lord jesus christ submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of god now i was wondering really how what i have in mind would fit in with what we've been able to hear already today i think our brother mccandless gave us a a bit of a survey on the title jesus of nazareth and brother frank he reminded us similarly a survey of the christians battle and our brother william just gave us a survey of the role of that anointed cherub down to when he will be confined forever in the lake of fire now i've just made that up to get you to buy into what i'm about to say because this is what i'm going to do i want to give a survey a seven-fold survey of the role and work of the holy spirit in the life of a believer and brother william's uh reference there in first john greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world so i've just highlighted in my own meditation here seven things about the spirit of god that is true about his work his person his role in every believer okay and so it's not seven because this is all there is actually in the drive on the way here i thought of another so it's not seven because of completion or whatever seven is supposed to mean but it is seven because i've stopped at seven for the purpose of the okay so we're going to look at seven things about the holy spirit you know as as our brethren have been mentioning but just in case for younger believers our age is uniquely the age of the holy spirit it began the day of pentecost when the spirit rushed in and it will end when he that restraineth is taken away the role of the spirit of god in the church and and and universal church okay so this is very uniquely our period of time it is the age of the holy spirit and while there are so many differences even in in the few of us who are here today different callings for the lord's use and different places we all live the one thing that is true of every believer is you are a possessor of the holy spirit of god romans 8 makes it clear if anyone has not the spirit of christ he is none of his and so i think for all of us but especially for young believers because this is kind of the feature that marks our era our age and because this is something that is true of you it would be good to have some idea of who the spirit of god is and his role in us so i've got seven of them i'm going to just go through them i'll give them all to you like uh like pegs and then we'll go through them first of all he has a convicting work this is luke chapter 15 the woman who sweeps the the house a picture of the he has a convicting work by the way a pre-conversion convicting work okay a pre-conversion convicting work you say you better explain that good i'm glad you're all awake i'll do my best convicting number two he has a creating work this is john chapter three that which is born of the flesh is flesh that which is born of the spirit is spirit he has a creating work number three that was number two number three he has a confirming work how do i know i'm saved how do i know i'm a believer and we read that here in ephesians 1 sealed with the spirit in romans 8 he has a comforting work the spirit bears witness the spirit makes intercession for us there's a comforting work another ephesians is big a letter big on the holy spirit but another crucial chapter is romans chapter 8 if you wanted to look look at that and get a handle on it so he has a comforting work then here in ephesians 5 i put it as a controlling work that's what it means here to be filled with the spirit number six he has a conflicting work we didn't read that but in galatians it talks about the spirit lusts against the flesh and there is this conflict going on not merely between believers and the devil but between the spirit and the flesh and so there is a conflict a conflicting work and lastly a conforming work and that again is romans 8 you say seven points how long is this going to be not long not long we're just going to go through them hang a hat on each peg and then i'll sit down first of all a convicting work the lord jesus is the one who's speaking there in luke chapter 15 and he speaks about the role of the father as the one who waits and runs when the prodigal returns the good shepherd the role of the son who goes out and picks up the sheep and the role of the holy spirit who sweeps the house and disturbs the mind and uh just seems to clear away things to find the lost silver and we all but we believe that the bible teaches that that before someone is saved there is a work that the spirit of god is doing that's why by the way some of us have just commented among one another here we are at the end of the summer and you look back at the summer meetings and maybe there's been some blessing here and there if there has been blessing it is not because necessarily it's been great preaching but because the spirit is at work god is at work there's a sense in which when somebody is truly saved we should have a sense of fear god is working here because it takes god and so the spirit of god is working sweeping away the dirt people come into a meeting feeling good about themselves not thinking anything about their sin they're just pretty good people and all of a sudden they say i felt bad i felt disturbed it's the work of the spirit of god now there is an idea out there uh and maybe what you would call reform circles that this work that the spirit of god does in convicting is irresistible that he disturbs a person to the point that by hook or by crook to use theological language there that that person is going to be born again and the spirit of god is going to sovereignly grab that person from the kingdom of darkness and make them come into the kingdom of his son now that idea as far as i can tell is not found in the bible the bible teaches that the spirit of god is at work before a person is saved but it never teaches that that work cannot be resisted i think we just heard even earlier today it is hard for thee to kick again to resist to resist and so yes the spirit of god's work we all probably can relate maybe loved ones family members people that you bring into sunday school who maybe for years have resisted and it's no failure on the spirit of god right but at the same time there is a work that is being done before a person is saved where the spirit of god is bringing things into that person's mind so pre-conversion convicting work number two the creating work how is a person born again for those of you who are saved how were you born again how did that all happen you say a verse came into my mind and i understood i'd never be in hell and well i i think for simplicity i think the hymn has it right when it says that as soon as my all i ventured on christ's atoning blood as soon as i rested on christ now listen the holy spirit entered and i was born of god how is a person born again it is a work of the spirit of god i didn't realize that when i was saved at 11 i understood that because jesus christ was wounded for my sins i wouldn't be punished for my own but something happened when i was 11 and i don't know how old it was for you but the spirit of god entered and you were born again you were given divine life eternal life and so he has a creating work it is a work of the spirit of god that's why by the way one of the good gauges a good measure of whether a person is truly saved is the fruit of the spirit right there are a lot of things that a person can put on and a person can be around assembly life enough to learn the lingo but there is that fruit of the spirit because that is how a person is born again so there is a convicting work and a creating work just i don't think i mentioned this just in the spirit of god is a person okay he is not a force or an influence he is a person as much a person if i can use a poor expression as god the father and god the son we were thinking this morning a little bit in the breaking of bread there about the trinity and how it all worked together in our salvation there's a subject to boggle the mind for a bit the trinity i remember a man he's in heaven now and uh in my home assembly i'm sure he's uh he had never i don't think he'd ever been to ankeny but i'm sure he spent many many times in iowa mr crawford and he corrected some of the sunday school teachers one day because you know they were bringing up water and they were bringing up a three-leaf clover and they were using different things and in his own gentle way he was just saying that you know you will never find anything in this world that god is like because there is nothing that god is like there is nothing that god is not like a three-leaf clover god is not like water that exists in three states god is not like body soul and spirit of a human being god is not like an egg these are our own analogies and our limitations god by nature is transcendent there is nothing like god and so all of our analogies best we can do we're trying they all fall short but the spirit of god is as much a person of god as the son of god okay so anyway convicting creating confirming how do i know i'm saved maybe there's somebody here struggling with that at a bible conference you wouldn't be the first person how do i know i'm saved i'm struggling with many doubts i i go back to that time and i wonder what i believed back then and how do i know well the bible points you in romans chapter 8 and again here in ephesians 1 romans chapter 8 tells us this that god has sent forth the spirit of his son into our hearts whereby we cry abba father and so the spirit of god in a believer testifies to that believer that you are a child of god it is his work how does the spirit of god do that well the spirit of god has one great tool it's the word that's why that's why people say sometimes when they come to a gospel meeting or a gospel series i know we have them for those who are lost but one of the great results is some of the christians come and they say if i wasn't saved before i've been saved all over again what happened the spirit of god used the word and testified you're a child of god it's great great to have that happen so he has a confirming work that i know i'm a believer i cry abba father i have access in relationship with god it's the work of the holy spirit ephesians 1 says it like that it says in that's what we read upon believing you were sealed with the holy spirit as we've already touched reformed theology let's just do it again uh sometimes i just don't know where these ideas come from to be honest i i mean these guys some of the men i've i've listened to them they're smarter than me but they have this idea that the spirit of god takes up a work in in a person and by sovereign sway he regenerates them made alive and the first thing they do as a child of god is believe the gospel because nobody could believe the gospel who's just a dead sinner of course the bible says upon believing you were sealed with the spirit of god the bible says that look and you will live nicodemus believe and have eternal life so i don't know where it comes from i've tried to look into the greek myself and i haven't found it yet but maybe i have to read some roman catholic no i shouldn't go there maybe i have to read some different documents to find out where it all came from no the bible makes it clear that the spirit of god enters and confirms that a person is saved and it's beautiful here william was taking us to that day of ultimate redemption and we are sealed sealed with the spirit of god can never be lost can never lose our salvation and so a confirming work a comforting work likely even here in our audience today there are believers who have been through trials even in the last and the last little while i love that reference in romans chapter 8 it says the spirit makes intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered what do you think that means some people think that means that the spirit of god speaks a heavenly language and you know god can't really understand our prayers so the spirit takes our prayers and makes it known i just have a problem i don't know god can't understand our prayers that's just doesn't sit right with me i think what it means is there are times and you know this some of you who've been on the road a lot longer than the speaker you know that there are times where you've gotten to a point where you've gotten down to pray and you can't get the words out groanings that can't be uttered nothing formulated not our father we come into the presence no just the groaning of a heart and and how can that be known but the spirit of god he is so intimately connected with you as a believer that he takes those groanings that cannot be uttered and he speaks them in the presence of god that's the role of the holy spirit it's a comforting work there in romans 8 with all the persecution tribulation distress and all that these believers are going through the apostle paul says the spirit of god can take those groanings that you cannot utter and you can make them well known in the presence of god and so it's a very comforting work there are times where i know even well even for myself not to speak of myself there have been occasions where you just don't have the words but thank god that we have that person as we already heard about in us and so every one of our needs is known in the presence of god comforting so convicting creating comforting confirming comforting okay we'll go to this one controlling controlling be filled with the spirit brother frank mentioned this in his ministry there in ephesians 6 using the word filled in a different with a different idea there my wife comes from a hutterite colony i don't know if you know hutterites around here in iowa there's three groups anabaptist group hutterite minunite amish shout out david yoder um different in their theology and but similar in some ways it's dead religion so one of the things that happens when people decide to leave is some of them can swing quite a way to go to something exciting i was back at one of the colonies uh just not too long ago and visiting and a guy had left and he had joined a church um we would know them as a charismatic group and he came up and we were talking and as far as i know he's a he's a true believer and he was asking me what i do and what amanda and i my wife and i and um and he says do you teach your converts to be filled with the spirit and i said uh what do you mean and he told me what he meant he said that really what you need to do is now they need to invite the holy spirit to have and take over their life and the way that they will know that happens is they will be able to miraculously speak in tongues and maybe they will have other signs with it like the the power to heal diseases and other things like that but that is the way they'll know is the miraculous and the supernatural and i thought no we don't do any of that no and i went home and i didn't think anything of it you know i thought man that guy is wonky until i was going with a very uh dear but very um conservative older believer a widow actually in our home assembly and we were taking a trip to another assembly and it was just me and my wife and her we were driving down and in this assembly um she was commenting the about the person who was instrumental in planting it she had a great deal of respect for this brother and i just asked her i said well what was the secret with his preaching this brother she had a lot of respect for him and uh what was the secret and she looks over at me and she says joey it was spirit filled and my mind goes back to this kind of crazy guy at the hutterite colony and i thought oh no that brother was definitely not doing any of that he wasn't he wasn't speaking in tongues was he he wasn't up there doing some kind of fancy what do you mean spirit filled and i was so i i got to this passage ephesians 5 now you notice did you did you notice it is a command if i can put it in the lingo of that brother we should be teaching our converts to be filled with the spirit it's a command in ephesians 5 paul says do not be drunk with wine wherein is excess but be filled with the spirit and then he says that a person who is filled with the spirit what will it look like will it look like gifts of miracles will it look like speaking in tongues no he says it will be people who speak to themselves and psalms hymns spiritual songs number one singing and making melody in their heart number two they will be thankful number three and they will be submissive number four verse 21 those ing words participles they're called those are the four ways that you will know that a person has been filled with the spirit and then as our brother mentioned he picks out the last one submitting and he looks at it in three relationships husbands and wives i guess wives are meant wives and husbands children and parents servants and masters so just that you say what's the point of all that so the husband in ephesians chapter 5 is not merely the christian husband but the spirit filled husband you notice that because the husband's instructions come to a husband who is first verse 8 verse 18 filled with the spirit now that's very helpful to me because the standard for the husband here is way up here so whatever it means to be filled with the spirit i'm going to have to have that happen if i'm going to be able to be the husband in ephesians 5 or the child or father or employee or employer so i wondered what does it mean and as i looked at it i started to find out that it is a very important verse people have said it's one of the most important commands there's an expositor who has said that if you cannot fulfill this command you cannot fulfill any other command wow now as we've as i've tried to mention feebly here the spirit of god is a person okay so you cannot get more of a person whether it's to your benefit or detriment a young indian man from michigan has indwelt this little community center in ankeny i'm here now you can't get a thousand of me you're like thank god you can't get a thousand joseph bakers to come here there's only one of me there's only one spirit of god he has indwelt you so what does it mean when he fills you is this like a gas tank that you drive and you say well mine's running on e here i'd like to get more of him somehow so i'll go to about 10 bible conferences and get it all the way up no no it doesn't work like that again he's not an influence he's not a goo he's a person so as we heard i think it was mentioned yesterday by one of the brethren we cannot get more of him but he can get more of us and that's what it means to be filled with the spirit that's what the word i put over my outline here controlled controlled so many analogies have been used the analogy of of sails on a ship and as the sails go up then those sails get filled with the wind and then the wind controls the boat right or you have the two people in the car and there you are as the driver and if you can imagine it reverently here the holy spirit as the passenger well the holy spirit is indwelling the car but it's a different thing when the and the holy spirit drives the car now he controls right and so just to use my myself for an example i have right now indwelt this room what would it look like if i filled it it would mean that i would have sovereign control i get to decide what color i want the walls and whether i want carpet here or hardwoods i'd get to decide what i wanted for lunch i'd want the same thing i i you know i would have sovereign control and that's what it means when the spirit of god fills it means he has control over every area in my life so let me stop and ask you some young people here does he have control how about the internet browsing who has control many a young man young sister even knows something about private browsing clearing search history you know all of those things are they can be very real strong temptations maybe even to the point of an addiction i don't know but you know if the spirit of god would fill right fill and have control have his sway as one of the as one of the hymn writers put it the way that i guess appealed to me because you know you hear all these analogies i like what one guy said he says you know when the spirit of god entered you when you were saved he became resident he says when he fills you he becomes president i said i know something about the president don't you yeah he said oh i know the president he's got control well at least it seems like he does doesn't he yeah god wants the spirit of god not just to be resident oh he's in me i'm saved i'm a believer but to be president to have control over my life what will that look like how will that look like in my in my job in my family in my marriage in my work for the lord you see that's it's very practical it doesn't go on to talk about oh the spirit of god is going to fill you and now you're going to be able to do miracles you're going to be able to speak in tongues no he says the spirit of god will fill you and you will have interaction with believers that are spiritual if i can put a simple summary over verses 19 and 20 right and so the spirit filling work works itself out in normal christian behavior wouldn't it be great if you followed what i've just said there wouldn't it be great to go to spirit-filled conferences you say i like spirit-led ones okay spirit-filled or the spirit of god is having his sway you say what would that look like i'm i'm wondering here in ankeny or my home assembly what would it look like if if our assembly was spirit-filled is all of a sudden the whole community going to be saved well i think what it looks like the apostle paul kind of spells out in 1 corinthians 14 he gives instructions the instructions of the spirit and he tells those believers to follow them and he says if you follow them he says there's somebody who's going to come in and they're going to confess these are the nicest people in town no it doesn't say that they're going to say we've never heard such good they're going to say god is in you of a truth god is here you see that's the work of the spirit of god and so he controls now how does he control you say i'm supposed to let him have sway have control what does that look like in my life well it's interesting if you were to put ephesians 5 beside the sister epistle sister letter colossians similar things are said and it goes into similar relationships except in colossians it doesn't say be filled with the spirit in colossians it says let the word of christ dwell in you richly so how does the spirit of god how do i know if my life is under the sway the filling of the spirit of god is it under the control of the word of god remember the apostle john wrote some things to seven churches and it says these things saith the spirit what was it that the spirit said to those churches well the things that john wrote the things that john wrote down so i can have my life filled and controlled by the spirit in and to the extent that i bow to the word of god okay so i i what i want to do with this expression maybe there's nobody who struggles with that here i want to remove it from the airy fairy the sensational the fantastical and bring it right back to what the bible says okay this is a fairly straightforward teaching and the reason it's straightforward is because god wants this for you and i he wants us to have spirit filled lives and so this is his controlling work that brings me to number six conflicting again in my meditation on this i thought well if the spirit of god wants to have control of my life why doesn't he just do it he's god after all he's already indwelt me why doesn't he just have full control of my life and that is because i can resist him okay this comes back to even what we said before conversion there's a conflict and we read about it even here in ephesians 4 it says do not grieve the holy spirit so the holy spirit wants to have control right he wants to fill to use this word just remember it's in contrast to alcohol too much alcohol a person gets drunk and they are under the control of the spirits they're called spirits aren't they and when a person is under the control now the apostle says of the holy spirit but we can resist him as it says here we can grieve him that to me is very solemn grieving the holy spirit i can resist his work in me how well it gives a list of sins that maybe we don't talk about too much i just mentioned maybe struggling with something like pornography you know that's not one of the sins mentioned here that does grieve the holy spirit but what's mentioned here is corrupt communication bitterness wrath anger clamor evil speaking grieves hurts the holy oh don't forget he is the holy spirit of god so i that's very solemn to me that i can hurt him he's a person after all you know i try to be tough up here but you know you could hurt me couldn't you he could say something i hurt me you could hurt him hurt him and so that's why sometimes our lives aren't filled and controlled we've hurt him we shut certain doors of the house and we've said oh spirit of god you can have sway here but not here and so that's the conflicting work but lastly just as i sit down the conforming work i enjoyed this uh on the way here to ankeny you know the spirit of god he has come into my life and to every believer here if you are saved he has indwelt and possessed your life sealed i love it just by the way how it says here grieve not the holy spirit of god whereby you are sealed i like that in other words you can grieve him yes but never to the point that he'll leave you're sealed you'll never have to pray like david don't take your holy spirit from me no sealed with the spirit but the conforming work what's the work the spirit of god is doing what's the big aim he's aiming at romans 8 says he's has a renovation project going on on me we all have a renovation tape around us and he wants to conform us to what what's his goal to the image of god's son that's the work of the spirit of god he wants to make us like the lord jesus and so you'll go easy on me and i'll my best to go easy on you because we're all under renovation and some of us needed more renovations maybe than others now that's a lie we all needed the same massive renovation it wasn't just replace the wallpaper or paint the ceiling no the whole thing was and the spirit of god thankfully is at work at work renovating remodeling and his great aim isn't it amazing one day you are going to be like his son the lord jesus i was thinking this morning it made me smile the different brethren taking part some were focused i'm sure you caught it on the loftiness of christ where he left and others were talking about his stoop one sunday afternoon we left the breaking of bread there in jackson my little brother and i we had both taken part one of us had focused on the high position that christ had as eternal god the other one had focused on his stoop you say well those are big things to think about what were you guys doing on the way home we were fighting which one was better yeah i was saying that no no i i think i think the big thing is how high he was and my brother was like oh no the big thing was how low he came and you would think oh you're smiling up there must have been a friendly battle oh it went from the theological to the carnal we were going at it and maybe it was raising in volume and the spice was going you know all of a sudden my mom dear mom she turns from the from the passenger seat she says boys just think about how high he's lifted you not how high he was or how low he came just think about how high he's lifted you now theologians would say i'm not sure about your mom you know what that that made us just trip over our lip a little we just we just got quiet have you ever stopped to think how high he's lifted you we sang this morning far far above a restless world that wars below let me ask you why should any of us not be part of that world that wars below only by the grace of god were we saved only by the grace of god is the spirit of god taken resident and done his renovations and is doing his renovations in our life but one day we will be satisfied when we awake with his likeness when we are like his son to god be the glory great things he has done once poor vile sinners now look like his son what a renovation all because of the work of the spirit of god so these seven things you can add more to it i haven't talked about the gifts of the spirit and all the some other things but convicting creating confirming comforting controlling conflicting conforming and god bless his word and may the lord continue to help us to yield to the spirit of god so that he can have more control in our lives