12.14.2014 The Forgotten Person of Christmas

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12-14-2014 (It is the Holy Spirit) from Grace Summit on Vimeo.

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Matthew 1:18 Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows: when His mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit.
The forgotten person of the Christmas story is The Holy Spirit. Not often do we have the Holy Spirit mentioned – very rarely is He brought out. We are talking about Immanuel – God With Us – and we know that God, in Jesus, came to be with us, through the Person of the Holy Spirit.
Some churches may over-emphasize the work of the Holy Spirit – but many ignore the work of the Holy Spirit.
The young adult group is doing a series by Francis Chan, the Forgotten God, on the role of the Holy Spirit.
John 14:16-17 NIV
And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.
The context – they are troubled because He is explaining that He will be leaving – to be crucified – let not your heart be troubled – I go to prepare a place for you and I will receive you into that place and there is room for you in My Father’s house – but in the meantime – I have a gift for you – like, your reservation – a downpayment – a promise for you that you will have a place in My father’s house. Like making a reservation – “Would you like to guarantee that with a credit card?” – it is an assurance that no how late you got there, there would be a room for you. And the Holy Spirit is a deposit, a guarantee that we will be with Him.
The concept of the Holy Spirit dwelling in us – there is a lot of theology behind it – and I will not go there today – but what does it mean that the Holy Spirit dwells within us?
1 Cor. 6: 19 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and that you are not your own?
Romans 8:15 For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, “Abba! Father!”
First – it means that God can be with us continually. When Jesus walked the face of the earth, Jesus could only be where Jesus could be. But He is saying – when I leave you – I am sending the Spirit so I can be with you always.
Romans 5:5 and hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
Having the Spirit inside of us means we can know and experience God’s love inside of us. This verse says that His love is poured out through the Spirit coming into our hearts. The full weight of His love fills our being, so we can know on a constant basis, His deep love for us. Our greatest need is to know that God loves us. To have confidence – and it is through the Spirit that we understand that – and without the Spirit inside of us, we will never get that. The Spirit is a constant reminder. And the Spirit of God pouring into us allows His love to flow through us to other people.
We, in and of ourselves, are incapable of loving the way that Jesus loved us – the way that God wants us to love – but because the Spirit lives inside of us – we are able to do that.
Ephesians 3:16 that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man,
Because the Spirit lives in us – we have power and grace to experience a transformed life. The Spirit gives us POWER – He gives us GRACE.
2 Cor. 3:18 But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit.
The Spirit is always working inside of us to transform us into the image of Christ. That is why – as you go through your day – all this stuff happens to you! You have a conflict with someone at work – and you ask, why do I feel this way – and He is trying to get you to respond to people as God would have you respond.
The Holy Spirit empowers us to do what we cannot do in our own effort.
This is all well and good. This sounds wonderful – great to know – the Holy Spirit lives inside of us – and some of us may be thinking – I just don’t feel it – it is not my experience very often – I don’t experience a transforming power in my moment to moment life. When I am stuck in traffic, there is no transforming power taking place.
This is a common problem. It goes back to The Forgotten God thing – think of the language we use. We go to a conference – or to church and the worship and message are extra special – and we say things like, God really showed up today! Not even close to correct language! He always shows up! You know who finally showed up? You!
We say our worship service begins at 9:30 or 11:00 – but it doesn’t! It began at “all eternity past” – and what happens at 9:30 or 11:00? This congregation comes to be a part of that which has been going on for eternity past!
What I would like to do: Four practical ways to be more aware of God’s Spirit in our lives.
Genesis 28:16 Surely the Lord is in this place, and I was not aware of it.
God is here – and all of a sudden, we become aware of it.
4 practical ways –
Romans 8: 26 In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words;
We get fixated on the phrase, groaning too deep for words –and we think – what is that? But in our fixation on that, we forget to read the next verse:
27 and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.
There is a continual conversation – think of it this way – inside of you is this continual conversation taking place between the spirit who dwells in you and the Father and the Son. It is the things of your life – and when we pray - we are joining in that conversation. That should change our view of prayer.
Ecclesiastes – when you draw near to the house of God, draw near to listen.
First, listen for the conversation of the Trinity about your life.
Have you ever been the person who walks into the room late? And then, launch into a conversation without thinking about what the original conversation was about?
We do that in prayer sometimes.
In my experience – my human frailty – brokenness – weakness – I have been unable to express, inward, what God is doing in me. That doesn’t mean I groan, but nothing comes out because I don’t know where to go with it – and at that point, we need to believe that the Spirit of God is communicating with us from the Father. It might just be tears that come – and that could be the spirit praying in our lives.
Sometimes His concerns for us are deeper than words can express – especially in relation to those deep needs. We are great at those external needs – I am sick, I need healed – someone is in debt and needs money – but there are internal things that we aren’t even aware of.
On the other hand – there are times where God’s praise and glory are much higher than we can express. Maybe in one of those classic Christmas carols – how did they express it like that? It is like the Spirit needs to express it because we are unable.
A few simple practices – Pray the Bible – the Psalms, the Prayers of Jesus, and the prayers of Paul – just pray them! Who inspired the Bible? The Holy Spirit moved upon the writers. When you are reading a prayer of Paul or the Psalmist – do you know who else’s prayer it is? The Holy Spirit! He wrote it!
God have mercy on me! Let your light shine upon me! Preserve me! When I pray the psalms – I pray things that I don’t even have the capacity to put together.
Ephesians 1:16b while making mention of you in my prayers; 17 that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of Him. 18 I pray that the eyes of your heart [x]may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the [y]saints, 19 and what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might... Ephesians 3: 14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name, 16 that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with power through His Spirit in the inner man, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; and that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, 19 and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.
Who prays like THAT? I can’t think of those things! But I can go to God’s word – and through the words of the Spirit of God, I can offer things to Him that I could never offer on my own. Things – where I can only begin to understand what is written. But it can become part of my prayer life.
You can make it your own or pray it like it is – both of them count! It is a simple practice – I’d say, once/day – take a small prayer and pray it back to God. There are 150 psalms.
Another way – Guidance and discernment
John 16: 13 But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. 14 He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you. 15 All things that the Father has are Mine; therefore I said that He takes of Mine and will disclose it to you.
The Holy Spirit helps us to discern what He is doing and to understand what He wants us to do. I will not talk today about understanding the will of God – that is a series in and of itself – but I will say that God wants us to know His will – He does not want to hide it from us – and He makes it known through the working of the Holy Spirit.
One problem – we only tend to go to God for the big decisions – but what I have discovered – we cannot expect to recognize God’s direction at the moment of the Big Decision – if we don’t practice the discernment of God’s will in the mundane moments of our lives.
You learn – like Jeremiah said – how can you expect to run with horses in the thicket of the Jordan if you fall down in times of peace?
Once/day would be good – but if you can do it morning, afternoon, and evening – it is even more encouraging.
Ask God – what do You have for me today? It focuses your attention on what is God doing in my life. Then halfway through the day – God, how am I doing with this? Are there things you want me to do? How am I getting along with others – is it looking like what You want it to look like? Then in the evening – How did I do? Where did I miss it?
What it does – it makes you aware that God is present. He is inside you, wanting to guide you. That is His role. But we are often not aware of it! There is only one way to be aware of it – BE aware of it! Practice being aware of it!
Third – to be aware of the Holy Spirit – look for Him in the interruptions of your day. Jesus went to a wedding – and enjoyed the festivities – and what happened. His enjoyment was interrupted by His mother. The wine has run out! And what happens? Jesus performs his first recorded miracle.
Another time – was passing through the crowds – had no intent to stop – but a man of limited stature – vertically challenged! Zaccheus – aka Johnny Football – and Jesus’ travel is interrupted and in that interruption changes Zaccheus’ life for eternity.
Read the gospel – and see how many of His miracles are performed during an interruption.
“If we knew that the most important things we ever did would occur as the result of interruptions, how might we live differently?”
Third practice is this – we have been studying the soul in our small group
The guy who leads it said this: “You must ruthlessly remove hurry from your life!”
This does not mean that you are not busy – you can be busy without being hurried – here is what I do – you will need to find your own thing – I need to tell myself when I get in the car – I am not in a hurry. In a car – that is not the place to be in a hurry – it is internally devastating.
When I am talking with people – I want to have the focus that they are the only person in the world.
“If we knew that the most important things we ever did would occur as the result of interruptions, how might we live differently?”