It's good to see you.

Did you have a good week?

I had a good week.

Yeah.

You ever had one of those weeks where you're just so tired, you're kind of punch drunk?

Everything's funny to you?

That's my week this week.

Everything's funny.

Everybody looks funny.

Everybody looks funny to me today, yeah?

They gave me some Play-Doh up here.

We're going to use that in a moment.

You know, I was just thinking, seriously, I was thinking this week of how, I mention this from time to time, how just blessed I feel to be the pastor here.

I just feel like it's the...

I feel like it's kind of like people ask me about my dream job, and this is my dream job.

What's your dream?

This is my dream job.

And, yeah, you know, I've got Michael around, who's my dream partner in ministry.

the pastoralist.

It's just a good, you know, this is a, it's a good healthy place, you know, no power struggles around here.

You got great elders, got, it's a good place.

And so I was just thinking of that and I didn't write that down.

I just thought, I just felt like saying that.

So there you go.

It's out of the bag.

Now, John 15, I want to read to you from John 15, verse five through eight, John 15, verse five through eight.

One of my favorite passages this weekend.

Verse 5, ready?

I am the vine, not the vines, although I am the vines.

I am the vine, you are the branches.

If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit.

Apart from me, you can do nothing.

If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers.

Such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire, and burned.

If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you.

This is to my Father's glory that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

So I want to talk to you this weekend about the Holy Spirit.

There are going to be two sermons on the Holy Spirit because it's a lot of material.

We're going to hit the basics this week and then next week get into the nitty gritty.

But what I want to share with you at the end of this message, and I'm serious about this, and this is a problem when you're...

you know, dynamic personality, everything's great to you, you know, and I know everything's wonderful to me, but there's something at the end of this message that's taken me a lifetime to discover.

This is the cool thing about being old in ministry, that you discover things about at this point in your life and you can share them with the generation that's quite a bit younger.

So hold on tight.

First of all, a fully devoted disciple of Jesus Christ comes to terms with the reality and the work of the Holy Spirit in his or her life.

If you are a fully devoted follower, if you are the real deal when it comes to following Jesus, you've got the Holy Spirit in your life and you're coming to terms with what that means.

There is no such thing as a Christian, a true Christian, who does not have the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit comes into your life, according to Acts 2, at the point of conversion.

When you truly give your life over to Jesus, And you're baptized into Christ, the Bible says, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Now, you might look around and say, man, if that's true, there are some people, man, they just don't look like, they look like they have the Spirit.

It's the unholy Spirit.

Now, I didn't say that it's, I didn't say that there weren't people who were grieving the Holy Spirit and quenching the fire of the Holy Spirit and suppressing the work of the Holy Spirit.

That's true.

But make no mistake, He saved you to sanctify you.

He saved you to sanctify you, so the Holy Spirit comes into you.

So here's what I want to discuss.

Three sections.

Number one, who is the Holy Spirit?

Number two, what is the gift of the Holy Spirit?

Number three, what is the primary function of the Holy Spirit?

First, who's the Holy Spirit?

National Geographic produced a series called The Story of God, and in the series it featured God himself, Morgan Freeman.

And it only took a few minutes to hear...

Various religious views refer to God as a force, a power, or this kind of binding energy.

There was never a suggestion anywhere in what was produced that God is a person with whom we could relate, enter into friendship, and connect intimately with.

Now, let me be clear.

Now, how many times have you heard a press secretary say that and then give you a convoluted statement?

How many times have we heard that?

It's a popular...

Let me be clear, but then I'm not clear.

Let me be really clear.

The Holy Spirit is not a force, energy, or power.

The Holy Spirit is not an it.

The Holy Spirit is a person.

He is someone, not something.

The Holy Spirit is not a ghost.

There's a reason that word was translated by the King James Version, and it's a bad reason.

The Holy Spirit is not a ghost.

It's not a spirit wandering around without personhood.

And it's not according to Hinduism.

It is not a manifestation of God.

He is not a manifestation of God.

The question is not what is the Holy Spirit, but who is the Holy Spirit?

And the Holy Spirit, according to Scripture, is a person with divine attributes, the all-powerful, all-knowing, all-present third person of the Godhead.

He is co-equal, co-existent, and co-eternal with God the Father and God the Son.

So the Holy Spirit is a person teaching, speaking, interceding, grieving, distinct from the Father and the Son.

Now, There is no perfect illustration to illustrate the Holy Spirit.

There's just not.

And as I've said before, the more pastors talk about it, the more they tend to go and move toward heresy.

Because it is a difficult concept, but not an impossible one.

After all, if God is God, he can reveal himself in three persons, right?

If God is God, there's no limit.

He can do whatever he wants to do.

But the thing that helped me when I was in seminary was, if you take a ball of Play-Doh and you divide it into three balls, All right, we have Plato.

You've got three distinct balls, but each ball is made of the same substance, right?

It's still Plato.

This is different from this, but it's still Plato.

This is different from this, it's still Plato.

The shape and form's a little different, but it's all Plato.

Now, in some respect, it's lacking, but the doctrine of the Trinity says that God is one being in three persons.

Now, this is the only difficult part of the sermon this week.

Stay with me.

What is being?

Being is the quality of essence that makes something what it is.

The Holy Spirit, in essence, is the same as God's substance.

You are made of human substance, therefore you're human.

You're a human being.

The Holy Spirit is a God being because he's of God's substance.

That's the being of the Holy Spirit.

What is the person of the Holy Spirit?

Person refers to the quality of essence that makes someone who they are, who he is, who she is.

So you are a human being, but that doesn't describe your personhood or your personality, right?

The Holy Spirit is of God's stuff, but is also the third person, uniquely the third person of the Trinity, and has a distinct role from the Father and the Son.

So that's why we say God, according to what scripture teaches, and see, people will say, Well, the word Trinity is not in the Bible, no, but the definition concept is everywhere.

Beginning with, let us make man in our own image.

Who's God talking to?

The triune God.

Let us make man in our own image.

God is plural.

Elohim is plural because he, again, is one being in three persons.

And the Holy Spirit and Jesus the Son are equal in essence.

To God, because they are the God substance, God reveals himself in three different ways.

So who's the Holy Spirit?

God.

In essence, God.

In person, he is distinct from the Father and the Son.

And once you were saved, the Holy Spirit came inside to dwell.

Second question.

Now you notice we could have spent a whole sermon on that, but we're moving.

We can only do so much in two weeks.

What is the gift of the Holy Spirit?

I didn't say what are the gifts from the Holy Spirit.

That's next week.

What is the gift of the Holy Spirit?

In Acts chapter 2, on the day of Pentecost, when Peter preaches the first sermon, he says, let all of Israel be assured of this.

God has made this Jesus whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.

When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, brothers, what do we do?

Peter replied, repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.

And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

You're going to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.

The promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off, for all whom the Lord our God will call.

So the gift of the Holy Spirit is not the same as gifts from the Holy Spirit.

The gift of the Holy Spirit is the presence of the Spirit inside you, in you.

He comes into you to live.

He makes his dwelling place in your life, in your soul, your heart, your mind, emotions, whatever.

He's there.

He comes into your life at conversion and baptism.

All right.

Now, the question is, why?

Why does he come in?

Yeah, so we know there are great benefits.

We're told that the Holy Spirit is living in us.

Some of the benefits are, number one, we are looking.

looked at with a filial favor.

We are now in the family.

Everything Christ has accomplished is given to us.

Forgiveness of sin, conquering death, all the blessings associated with promised inheritance.

All Christ's one belongs to us.

That's how you know we're not a Pentecostal church right there because they would have been dancing in the air.

No, I'm just kidding.

I'm just kidding.

But look, this is good news.

That alone should make you dance.

That alone should make you say it's Friday, but Sunday's coming, right?

We have victory over sin.

We have fellowship with the Father.

We can walk into the throne room of God with courage, knowing that we will receive mercy and grace, which is amazing.

We're part of God's family.

We're the sons and daughters of God.

And we get...

think about it.

We get the inheritance folks.

Oh my goodness.

Now I grew up in East Tennessee and we used to hear about stories of inheritance.

We never experienced them, but we heard these stories about when somebody would die, they would actually leave stuff for the people behind.

But in my family, when somebody dies, it costs us about 15 grand to bury them.

We'd never heard of this thing called inheritance.

You know, our family's poor.

The only thing we got was an expensive bill.

And people come into our house and expected you to feed them.

It was expensive when a friend died, but with Christ, all that he owns and all that he possesses, the earth is the Lord's and everything in it belongs to you and me.

So when you're in God's family, all that is his is yours.

Now, before I move on, let us sink in just a moment.

The oceans, you know, the stars and the galaxies, the fruits and the vineyards.

The mountains and the valleys, peace, joy, vitality, it's all yours.

Now, you have a hard time seeing that because you're just facing life day to day, and there's so much tension in your life that you just forget about that, that you're going to win in the end, and everything that your heart desires one day is going to be yours because of what Christ has done.

And on days that you really think about that, you had a bad attitude of gratitude.

You're thankful, and you have a good prayer time, but most of the time, we're distracted by other things.

Even now, we're told that God gives us a deposit of what is yet to come.

And the deposit, the down payment we're given is the Holy Spirit.

And the Holy Spirit right now gives us wonderful things like divine comfort.

In John 14, we're told that the Holy Spirit, by the way, the word is paracletos, which if you've studied Scripture for any length of time, you know that word.

But it means what?

Helper and counselor and advocate.

And we've all experienced that.

We just didn't attribute it to the Holy Spirit.

I guarantee you've had times in your life when suddenly you were overwhelmed with comfort, overwhelmed with guidance and wisdom.

You just forgot about the power that's in you.

So I've used the example of when my mom died and we're all at the tent and it's the graveside service and they're lowering my mom down.

And I was very close to my mom.

The most pain I've ever felt in my life up to this point is the death of my mom.

And so they're lowering her in the ground.

I'm sitting there and I am weeping and suddenly just, I am overwhelmed.

overwhelmed with the love of God.

And suddenly these scriptures start firing into my mind.

He who believes in me, though he dies, yet shall he live.

To die is gain.

These scriptures just started pouring in.

And suddenly I started laughing and my brothers were mad at me.

Why are you laughing, man?

Our mother's going down in the ground.

And I said, no, she's not.

Her body's gone in the ground.

She's been with Jesus three days ago.

And so that's the power of the Holy Spirit.

Taking the word that's in your life and using it as ammunition to comfort you, to guide you, to lead you.

But all these are just deposits.

They're down payments, a fraction of what will one day be the reality where the fullness of God is with us at all times.

That's why there's no sadness.

That's why there's no debt.

This deposit that shows us it's possible.

God now is fully present and we are fully known.

It's going to be a beautiful thing, but that's why we've said in the human condition.

The Spirit and the Word work together to give you the major victories of your life.

We spent a lot of time on that.

Ephesians 6, once again, in addition to all of this, take up the shield of faith with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one.

Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.

The sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.

So the Spirit uses the Word of God as an offensive weapon to defeat the enemies that try to destroy you.

And the more the Word you have inside you, oh my goodness, the more ammunition the Spirit can fire.

And he fires that in times of difficulty.

He activates the right Word at the right time and the right place, and suddenly your countenance is raised.

So who is the Holy Spirit?

In essence, God in person, distinct from the Father and the Son.

What is the gift of the Holy Spirit?

God's presence in you, working in conjunction with the Word of God to teach, guide, counsel, and encourage.

However, okay, now, what is the primary function of the Holy Spirit?

I'm going to take you through a passage just quickly, and then we're going to get back to John 15 with that life-changing nugget.

I know you've read Romans 8 a lot.

I want to ask you to open your mind.

Now, when I say open your mind, I don't mean just open to anything.

Think about what I'm going to take you through right now.

When we study Scripture, and I know there are many well-meaning people, and I know I don't have a monopoly on truth.

I get that.

But there is a science to Scripture, and it's the science of hermeneutics.

And it's called hermeneutics because there is a science, there is an approach to Scripture.

And one of the primary rules of Scripture is that context is king.

We've heard this all of our lives.

So to understand what God is saying, it's very important to understand what is the context.

What is the, oh man, that sounds like something somebody else was saying for a while, but context.

What is the context of Romans 8?

Now let me read to you Romans 8, 29.

Here's what it says.

For those God foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be firstborn among many brothers and sisters.

So you know what we're doing right now, right?

We are studying scripture.

Right now, I'm not meant to give you a pep talk.

We are studying scripture.

And the Bible tells us that those God foreknew, and you've heard me say this before, prognosco, God knew something was going to happen beforehand.

That's different than saying that God determines what's going to happen beforehand.

Because if he foreknows something's going to happen beforehand, it's because he's already there.

He's outside of time and space.

He's not limited by time, so he knows the decisions you're going to make, but he does not predetermine the decisions you're going to make.

You still have the freedom to make them.

He just knows what you're going to do, okay?

But there is something that is predestined.

That's something that he decided that you have no say in.

And why he decided that you have no say in is if you do come to him and call on his name.

He's going to save you and he's going to put his Holy Spirit in you for what purpose?

To be conformed to the image of his son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.

What does it mean that Jesus is the firstborn?

Well, he's our elder brother in a very real way.

And what do we see in Jesus?

Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, mercy, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

Those are called the fruits of the spirit.

What spirit?

The Holy Spirit.

However, if you look at the preceding verse, and you know that the whole of chapter 8, starting with verse 18, is about suffering, right?

It starts with Paul saying that he compares the weight of our sufferings with the weight of what we'll experience in glory.

So he says, if I compare the difficult days I have to go through now with what God is one day going to give me in my inheritance, there's no comparison.

Every verse after that, all the way through the end of the chapter, is in the context of pain, tension, suffering.

Now, in verse 28, he says, And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

That comes before the verse where he says, And those God foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son.

Now, stay with me.

Here's my point.

I've mentioned before, and I've had some emails saying, we would appreciate if you would stop talking about your age, because you're 60 and you're not that old.

I think it's the way I deal with it, Michael.

I deal with it by talking about it and by going to the gym and trying to defeat it, because everybody wants to be like Mike.

Michael, sorry, Michael, yeah.

So there are statements that you hear at the gym all the time, and they're on the walls.

If you've been going to the gym any length of time, you know these statements, okay?

No pain, no gain.

Hurts so good.

Sweat is weakness leaving the body.

The only bad workout is the one you don't do.

Embrace the burn, right?

But if you're my wife...

You don't like any of those sayings.

Your favorite saying is this, unless you fell off the treadmill, nobody wants to hear about your workout, okay?

Now, here's the point I'm making.

All of these emphasize the importance of discomfort when you're attempting to reach your goals.

If you don't have tension, there can be no growth.

If you don't break the muscle down, you're not gonna build it up.

Now, back up a few more verses.

to verse 26 and 27.

In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness.

Now, what is our weakness?

Our weakness is that we want to do the good, but we struggle to do the good.

We're sinners, right?

It's the same word actually used in 1 Corinthians 15 when it's talked about we are sown in weakness, raised in strength.

We do not know what we ought to pray for.

But the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.

And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit because the Spirit intercedes for God's people in accordance with the will of God.

Now, what is the will of God?

The will of God is that we are conformed to the image of his Son.

But we don't know what we need for that to happen.

The Spirit knows what we need for that to happen.

So he intercedes with us with the Father.

Because chances are high, most of us are never going to ask God to send us pain.

But the Spirit will.

The Spirit will look into our lives and say, okay, God, it's time for a little bit of potter and clay work.

He knows what we need.

And that's why later, a few verses later, we're told, sit tight now, this is the goal of your life, that you are conformed to the image of the Son of God.

And then we're told, sit tight now, don't worry, everything works together for good, even though you may not feel like it, everything's working together.

for good, for those who love God and are called according to his purpose.

And what is his purpose?

To make us like Jesus.

The primary role, not the only role, but the primary role of the Holy Spirit in us is to sanctify us, to make us holy.

Now, as a result of that, just quickly, and I got to move quickly because we want to get to this final part.

As a result of that, when the Holy Spirit comes in, you've heard me say that he gives us three things.

Now, he gives us more than that.

But in a way to understand it, he gives us the ability to see and be aware of things we've never been aware of.

He gives us the ability to do things that we never thought we could do.

And he gives us, oh, I love this one.

Of course I do.

I'm a sanguine.

He gives us the ability to feel the presence of God, to feel as if it's feelings on steroids.

Okay.

Feeling.

So awareness, volition.

and the ability to sense the presence of God.

Now, let me go through these just quickly, but really quickly.

When I talk about a greater spiritual sense or sense of spiritual awareness, you may not, I mean, if you've been a Christian for a long time, you may not realize this, but you see things other people don't see.

You do.

You're aware of things other people aren't aware of.

So I remember when I lived in New Zealand, one of my favorite illustrations here is there was a lady in our church, her name is Ruth Turnbull, and she started doing something that I was really grateful for.

And she worked for...

Qantas Airlines.

And she started noticing I was the field director for South Pacific Christian Fellowship.

And they would often send me to the islands in the South Pacific, especially Australia, but other places as well, to check on church plants and how they were developing and to give them advice on how, all right, here's some things you need to do.

Here's some changes you need to make.

So I was doing a lot of flying and she would make sure she kept up with my trips and she would bump me from economy right past business.

into first.

Now, if you've ever been to first class, see, you turn left if you're under business class, but you walk up the stairs if you're in first class.

And once you do that, it's hard to go back.

Because when you walk up there, they just come and say to you, what would you like, Mr.

Vines?

They don't give you a menu.

What do you want?

It's heaven.

Now, the problem is when you start.

flying that way, even though it's a gift given to you and you've not earned, a sense of entitlement comes over you.

So Ruth forgot one time and I was walking in getting ready to walk up those stairs.

Well, actually that's not true because you know, they give you your ticket at the gate, but I go to the gate and you know, I was hoping that what usually happens is the ticket pops out.

Oh, Mr.

Vines, you've been bumped to first.

So that's usually, I go, so I said, you need to get that ticket back in.

Something's wrong.

Excuse me?

Yeah.

Oh, man.

And I remember going into the airplane, turning right, and I'm just being honest.

Here's what I was like late.

No, let's see.

I would have been mid-30s.

And I start thinking.

Man, I got to be back here with these common folk.

I got to go back here with these losers.

Isn't that amazing?

And the Holy Spirit of God, oh my, caught me just so fast and said, you arrogant little entitled.

I mean, the guilt came.

Wait a minute.

What do you mean you got to go back?

These are your people.

These are your people.

And here's, I mean, oh, I'm telling you, it was really terrible.

I thought, I am an evil, evil man.

And here's the thing.

That's actually a good thing because when you have a heightened sense of what needs to go in your life, what needs to be added into your life, what attitudes are not in harmony with Jesus, what actions violate his word, that's proof that he's in you.

So that's the good news because, listen, what you learn as you live life in the order you get is not everybody has that.

Not everybody will have that.

There are many who cannot see these realities.

They've been blinded by the God of this world, the demonic trinity.

They believe that money and possessions are everything, that sex and power are the goals of life, and humility is significantly overrated.

They see humility as a sign of weakness, not strength.

And it's not that they see these things as sinful and futile, but fight against them and fail.

No, they actually see that the way things are, that the way you should live your life is if you're going to win the ultimate game, He who dies with the most stuff wins.

That's the attitude.

That is the pride and the arrogance.

You've had your eyes opened by the Holy Spirit, so you know, according to Mark 8, what good is it for someone to gain the whole world yet forfeit their soul?

And the irony is that you're the ones that are the happy ones.

If you've got the Spirit of God in you, the joy you have becomes central.

Their joy is peripheral.

There's moments of joy, but they live with an awesome sense of what?

desperation.

If you have the Holy Spirit in you, and let me just stop here for a second.

If you don't have a desire in you to pursue holiness, if there is nothing in you, if you think like this, you know what?

I want to be saved, but I don't want to be a disciple.

Are you with me?

I want to be saved, but I don't want to be a disciple.

Brother, sister, listen.

You're totally lost.

There's no such thing as a saved person who's not a disciple.

He saved you for the reason of sanctifying you, to make you holy, for a reason that we'll get to momentarily.

So if you're thinking in your life, I should be less selfish, I should be more generous, I should be more forgiving, I should be more disciplined in what I watch and what I eat and how I'm entertained, I should shun evil, I should embrace the good.

You're becoming less arrogant, less narcissistic, less self-centered, less impure if the Holy Spirit is in you.

Because you see the impurity.

It doesn't mean you're perfect, and it doesn't mean you won't fail.

It just means the will, because it's shaped and influenced by the Spirit of God, is trying to make you holy, which means you want to be holy.

He changes not only what you do, but what you want to do.

So if the desire is not in you, I have to ask the question.

Maybe you thought salvation was a loophole.

Maybe in your mind you thought, okay, I love this.

Pastor Jeff, I am saved by grace through faith.

Boom, I checked the box.

Now, go away from me, Jesus.

I'm going to go live my life.

I checked the box.

I believe you died for my sin.

I'm gone.

Then you're missing it.

That's not discipleship.

The Holy Spirit will give you a greater sense of awareness, but the Holy Spirit will also give you a greater sense of volition.

And that's why in 1 Corinthians 4, the kingdom of God is not mere words, but power.

You are going to be given the power in your life.

We're going to talk more about this, to do things you never thought you could do.

The Puritans referred to the Holy Spirit as the expulsive power of a new affection, which means that no addiction has power over you with the Spirit of God in you.

No sin is your master.

You are freed from the law of sin and death.

You have the power of new life.

So the power of conviction is present, which is good news.

It means the Holy Spirit is in you.

But what most Christ followers don't understand is the power of eviction is also in you.

You have the power to evict things from your life because of the Holy Spirit.

The reason...

That that doesn't happen more than it should is because the truth, it becomes a matter of the word, the will, and the spirit.

So the truth of God's word first has to enlighten you to holiness.

If you don't have that, where are you going to go?

Second, the will then determines to pursue that holiness.

That's you.

And the spirit gives you the power to overcome it.

That order and the reason we never make it past first base is because Most of us aren't familiar with what the word teaches about holy living.

So we don't know what is right and what is wrong.

And then third, oh, I love this.

The Holy Spirit brings a greater sense of feeling.

Do you know that the Holy Spirit is emotional?

You can grieve the Holy Spirit.

That's an emotion.

And you and I have been created in the image of God, which means we too are emotional creatures, which means we desire to feel God, to experience God, to be overwhelmed by his presence.

We feel because God feels.

We are emotional creatures because God is an emotional creature.

I love the fact.

that the Bible teaches us that the Holy Spirit bridges the gap between our spirit and God's spirit and gives us the ability to experience God on a deep, deep level.

So as you read the Psalms, remember we talked about the Psalms last week?

Stay with me now.

In Psalm 84, I love this.

How lovely is your dwelling place, Lord Almighty.

My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of God or the Lord.

My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.

I mean, how many of you...

Every time you're on your way to church, your heart's just jumping.

I'm going to church.

Oh, I'm going to church.

I'm going to meet with God.

I'm going to meet with God's people.

Oh, I'm so glad.

Okay?

Even the sparrow has found a home and to swallow a nest for herself where she may have her young, a place near your altar.

Lord Almighty, my King and my God, blessed are those who dwell in your house.

They are ever praising you.

Better is one day in your courts than a thousand elsewhere.

I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of the wicked.

For the Lord God is a sun and shield.

The Lord bestows favor and honor.

No good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless.

Lord Almighty, blessed is the one who trusts in you.

I love that, that it's possible for you and I to have this unbelievable feeling and emotional experience with God that we can't wait to be near him.

Now, now, we got, that's important.

I moved through it fast.

So now, the gift of the Holy Spirit is to guide us, to lead us, to encourage us, to counsel us, and his primary job is to conform us to the image of his Son by making us have a greater sense of awareness, greater sense of volition, the ability, power to do, and the experience of God.

Two questions emerge, and they're big ones.

The first question is this, why does God want to conform us to the image of his Son?

This is a sermon in and of itself.

I'm just going to give you the short answer and move to the final part.

The answer is evangelism.

This is something I found in a famous preacher's diary, someone that I really respect.

Conformity to Jesus is directly related to evangelism because living a life that reflects Christ's character and teachings becomes a powerful testimony that naturally draws others to the gospel.

Essentially acting as a living example of the good news you are sharing.

It's not just about verbal proclamation, but also demonstrating the transformative power of faith through your actions.

The world...

is looking for inconsistency in you.

The Spirit is looking to build consistency in you.

And now here's the question, and here is the purpose of this message.

If the job of the Spirit, listen now, is to conform me to the image of Jesus Christ and create in me the fruits of the Spirit, why is he doing such a poor job?

Why is he doing a poor job?

Folks, I'm 60 years old.

I'm not supposed to say that, but I am.

Can you help me understand why I struggle with actions and attitudes that I struggled with 30 years ago that are not in harmony with the God I love?

Anybody else?

Remember what I read to you a few weeks ago, your affections in this world and your desires in your innermost being have very little to do with the reality of other options that stir in your heart and soul.

When I was in ministry and I was younger, I would say, man, what's wrong with people?

As you get older, you say, man, what's wrong with me?

Listen carefully.

Hudson Taylor was a Christian missionary to China, founder of the China Inland Mission.

Taylor spent 54 years in China.

If you know his story, an amazing man of God, I want you to listen.

to what he wrote.

My own position becomes continually more and more responsible and my need greater of special grace to fill it.

But I have continually to mourn that I follow at such a distance and learn so slowly to imitate my precious master.

I cannot tell you how I am buffeted sometimes by temptation.

I never knew how bad a heart I had, yet I do know that I love God and love his work and desire to serve him only in all things.

He's saying, the Spirit of God is present in me.

The conviction of the Holy Spirit is present, but my progress is slow.

That's not the end of Hudson Taylor's story.

God sent a man into his life by the name of John McCarthy.

John was also a missionary and had heard of Taylor's struggles, and he sent him a letter.

There are many believe that the letter, the words of the letter, actually were first created by Harriet Beecher Stowe.

But here's what he said in the letter.

Pay close attention.

How does a branch bear fruit?

Not by incessant effort for sunshine and air, not by vain struggles for those vivifying influences which give beauty to the blossom and verdure to the leaf.

It simply abides in the vine, in silent and undisturbed union, and blossoms and fruit appear as a spontaneous growth.

How then shall the Christian bear fruit?

By efforts and struggles to obtain that which is freely given?

By meditations on watchfulness, on prayer, on action, on temptation, on dangers?

No.

There must be a full concentration of the thoughts and affections on Christ, a complete surrender of the whole being to him, a constant looking to him for grace.

Christians in whom these dispositions are once firmly fixed go on calmly as the infant born in the arms of its mother.

Do you realize what he's saying?

He's...

He's summarizing John 15.

I am the vine, you are the branches.

If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit.

Apart from me, you can do nothing.

If you do not remain in me, you're like a branch that is thrown away in rivers.

Such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire, and burned.

If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you will and it will be done.

This is to my Father's glory that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

Is it sinking in yet?

Oh, man.

You think you can be more holy by trying harder.

You tell yourself, I'm not going to, I'm going to stop lying like that.

I'm going to stop deceiving people.

I'm going to stop manipulating people.

I'm going to really get better with my temper.

I am going to stop being so bitter.

I am going to be more forgiving.

And you just list and list and list.

And then you go do it and it works for a while.

And then it's what?

Two steps forward, three steps back.

That is not the way fruit comes into your life.

You don't produce it.

You bear it.

The fruit in your life is a byproduct of something else that's happening in your life.

If you think you can earn it, or if you think you can go and work really hard and be a better person, good luck with that.

Never going to happen.

You'll have some successes, but man, will it be a bitter journey.

Well, what are you saying?

I'm saying that Jesus himself said the Holy Spirit produces fruit when you remain in him.

when you abide in him, when you stay close to the vine.

I mean, are you familiar with the way a tree bears fruit?

The leaves of the tree have tiny pores called stoma, and that enables the tree to take in carbon dioxide.

Carbon dioxide plus water plus sunlight equals glucose.

So as the water is lost through this stoma, an interesting thing happens.

It's like a necessary evil.

Water is lost.

But when the water is lost, a negative pressure occurs where the sap then is drawn up from the leaves, from the roots to the branches to the leaves, and fruit is a result.

So that the roots and trunks are the lifeline to the branches.

If the branch is not connected to the sap, then fruit has no way of being born.

Branches are not designed...

who's the branch?

Who's the vine?

No, the vine is we are the branches.

So if you and I are the branches, we're not designed to produce fruit.

We're designed to have fruit produced through us.

And the fruits of the spirit, peace, patience, kindness, keep going.

The problem with most of us, and we're all guilty.

I am chief of all sinners when it comes to this.

It's taken me 40 years.

The problem with most of us, we think that if we try harder to be good, we can actually achieve it.

Jesus says, you can't.

That the fruit of the Spirit is cause and effect.

The fruit of the Spirit, Galatians 5, is love, joy, peace, forbearance, or patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control against such things.

There is no law.

What does he mean there is no law?

What does that mean?

It means that things aren't going to come into your life by trying harder to do them.

It means that the branch does not bear fruit by trying harder, that the branch Bears fruit because it's attached to the vine.

It's the vine that does the work.

The fruit is the product of the sap that runs from the vine into the branches.

See, this helps us understand what Paul means in Galatians 2.20.

I have been crucified with Christ.

I've died to myself.

I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.

The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God.

I'm not only saved by faith, I'm living by faith.

I'm living by faith.

Who loved me and gave himself for me.

Well, wait a minute.

If I'm saved by faith, how am I living by faith?

I'm living by faith that as I stay in close proximity to Jesus, fruit.

will occur.

The vine is Christ.

I am the branch.

I was grafted in by grace through faith.

Yes.

The Holy Spirit is in the sap that runs from the vine into the branches.

The branch lives, it grows, it bears fruit, not by struggles and effort, but by simply abiding.

Until you get this, oh, you're going to struggle and you're going to beat yourself up and you're not going to have much joy.

When I played basketball, back in the good old days, when I played basketball in college, the has-been that never was, man, that just seems like yesterday, you know?

It's funny how I remember we were playing Covenant College in Lookout Mountain, Tennessee, and they were ranked 15th in the nation, and we had beaten them at our place, and it was a great upset.

And then I go to, we go to their place up in Chattanooga.

And I'm one of those guys, a player, you know athletes, you know what I'm talking about.

You go in the locker room to get yourself psyched up.

You're banging your head against the locker.

Wow!

And so I was a captain, so I'd lean in the chair.

What are we going to do?

Destroy Covenant, everybody says, you know.

Who's going down?

Covenant.

Who's going to be crying after this game?

Covenant.

I had all the sayings, man.

Yeah, it was corny, but hey, it was good in the 80s.

And then we went out and got drilled by 30 points.

So...

And the point I'm making is word is one thing, power is something totally different.

Everybody can talk a good game.

And when it comes to this new life that we have because of the spirit on us, why do some people exude with power and others, man, it's just words.

And here's why.

According to the seed and the sower, there are some people who hear the gospel, but it doesn't take root, which means they don't understand it.

And I really believe that refers in our common day culture to people who think they found a loophole.

The people just say, oh, Jesus saves me by the cross.

I believe in the cross.

And then you have no intention of discipleship or following him.

And somehow you think that's okay.

There is no such thing as salvation without discipleship.

There is no such thing as salvation without sanctification.

Can you imagine me walking up to my wife and saying, I'll marry you, but I don't really want to know you and love you and meet your needs.

I want to get married, but I really have no interest.

Okay, I'm going to be a little brash here because I don't see a lot of young people, but that's like a guy going to his wife and saying, I'll take the sex, but I have no interest in sacrificing my interests.

When you tell Jesus, I'll take the salvation, but I don't want the lordship, it is the greatest insult you can give him.

It means you don't truly understand what he's done.

And then there's a group of people, the word came to them and they received it with joy, but they're too busy to abide.

And because they're too busy to abide, The world chokes them out, just chokes out the gospel.

And then there's a whole group of people who do understand it and who actually do want to live and they do want to produce fruit, but they think producing fruit is producing fruit.

And they say, man, I'm in.

I'm going to conquer my anger.

I'm going to conquer this addiction.

I'm going to stop desiring women this way.

I'm going to stop gossiping.

And because they fail within the first six months, they leave.

Well, this Christianity is useless because you don't understand it yet.

Jesus says it is impossible, impossible.

to bear fruit apart from him.

I am the vine, you are the branches.

If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit apart from me, you can do nothing.

So I say to you, walk by the spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.

For the flesh desires what is contrary to the spirit.

Now notice the flesh still desires what is contrary to the spirit even after your conversion.

Doesn't go away.

And the spirit, what is contrary to the flesh, they are in conflict with each other so that you are not.

to do whatever you want, but if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.

Here we go again.

Do you see what he's saying?

Now, stay with me.

I got to end this, but we've got to close well.

He's saying that you can either choose to live by the power of the Holy Spirit, bringing the sap to the branches, which results in bearing fruit, or you can live under the law.

And the law tells you, try really hard to be good, but it always results in unrighteousness.

It's your choice.

Jesus makes a clear delineation, really.

between or delineation between the vine and the branches.

The two are not the same.

He's the vine, we're the branches.

The common denominator is the sap.

Okay, so the question is...

How do we stay or abide?

This is the end.

How do we abide in the vine?

How do we stay in the vine?

Now I need to end this with three little quick illustrations, and then we're done.

You okay?

I'm sorry.

I really thought I cut this enough, but I don't know.

But this is an important series, and you have to understand.

I don't want to leave you without complete understanding.

Basically, what the Bible teaches you is if you want to live the life that the Holy Spirit is convicting you and empowering you to live, you're not going to do it by working harder, trying harder.

You're going to do it by coming into close proximity with Jesus.

Well, the question is, what does that look like?

You know, what happens?

In Washington, D.C., it's a very interesting place.

On one side of Washington, D.C., you've got the imposing Capitol building.

You've got the White House lawn.

It's quite a spectacle.

Famous people from all over the world, celebrities, power brokers, politicians, all journey every year to the White House lawn.

to the Capitol building, legislating, lobbying, raising money for their cause.

And when they come, there's a lot of pomp and circumstance, a lot of hubba-loo.

Agents go before them announcing their arrival.

Airports are swapped.

Fans, supporters, the media, they're all involved so they can make their statements and make their mark on the world.

What's really interesting, if you've ever been to Washington, D.C., you've got that on one side and what's just across the river?

A town by the name, sitting on the bluff overlooking the city.

Anacostia.

It's a ghetto.

Crime, drugs, hopelessness, sickness, suffering, desperation, poor education, poor housing, children with little or no hope.

Just on the other side, it's the antithesis of the White House and the White House law.

It serves as a natural divide.

Politicians, reporters, celebrities don't cross over.

But on June 1981, a very famous woman who had won the 1979 Nobel Peace Prize came to D.C.

and immediately crossed the barrier.

Probably the most famous person to have visited the city in decades.

It was shocking because when she came, there was no announcement, no airport spectacle, no press conference, no sense of entitlement, expectation of praise.

Who am I talking about?

A little Albanian woman dressed in white, getting out of her car, walking up to the steps of the Assumption Catholic Church.

As soon as word circulated, she was there.

The press hounded her.

Reporters crowded her everywhere she went, shoving microphones in her face, trying to get a word.

She said nothing.

She just smiled until finally a reporter said, what do you hope to achieve by coming here?

And she said, the joy of loving and being loved, to do something for someone else, to lift up, encourage, and inspire the less fortunate.

The press was dumbfounded because they said, everybody always has an agenda.

What's yours?

And there was a gentleman.

who identified with Mother Teresa, who kind of saw himself as on her team.

And he said to her, Mother Teresa, my vocation is to work for lepers.

Teresa stopped, turned around and said, your vocation is to belong to Jesus.

Do you realize she's echoing John 15?

What does abiding mean?

It means that you stay close to Jesus.

How do you do that?

Folks, this is a fundamental attitude of a Christ follower.

who is a disciple.

If you don't care about bearing fruit, you got a bad case of grace abuse.

And I'm not sure you ever understood the gospel.

But if you do have a desire to bear fruit, but you're not having a lot of joy, John 15 and the work of the Spirit is for you.

Stop believing the lie that you can just try harder and produce it, and stop and pause and abide in the vine.

How, Pastor Jeff?

How?

You saturate your life with him, with every aspect of him.

Think about it.

Everyone sits around something.

Everyone is dominated by something.

Whatever that something is has the greatest impact.

If I abide in the gym, the fruit is muscle and fitness.

If I abide on my phone, the fruit is an insatiable lust to be entertained.

If I abide in pornography, the fruit is insatiable lust, period.

If I abide in food, the fruit...

is the destruction of the temple of God.

What you abide or stay close to, that one thing, that person has the greatest influence on your life.

When you abide in Christ, your greatest desire is to be around him.

You enjoy his presence.

You love his word.

You look forward to gathering with his people in the house of the Lord.

You yearn for prayer times and worship.

It doesn't mean that you go on a mountain somewhere and just stay there.

It means that you go ahead and live your life, but the thing you abide in most is worship and prayer and thanksgiving and being around the people of God.

These kind of people, it dawned on me, this is the secret.

When you look at a person, man, they just got it.

They're not doing things any better than you are, except then they're in the proximity of Christ.

These are the people who have worship music in their car, everywhere they're going while they're working.

They're the people who are listening to teaching from some of the greats.

We call them church rats because they always want to be in church.

They want to be with the people.

They want to hang around Jesus.

1 Peter 1, 13, therefore, prepare your minds for action.

Keep sober in spirit.

Set your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

Philippians 4, 8, brothers and sisters, whatever's true, whatever's honorable, whatever's right, whatever's pure, whatever's lovely, whatever's commendable.

If there's any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

The emphasis on the mind.

What are you thinking about?

Why do you think you can constantly be entertained by ungodly things and somehow think you're going to get closer to Jesus?

Why do you think your thoughts?

Listen, can I help you?

Here's a surefire way to get close to Jesus.

Turn off the news.

Turn off the news and put on some worship music.

Your whole demeanor will change.

I think it will cure your depression and anxiety.

Man, I have so much more.

I'm so sad.

I have to stop.

No, I have to, but I am going to say this.

Can I just give you this beautiful imagery coming down out of heaven, out of Zechariah 4, where you have this beautiful, wondrous, powerful, riveting imagery where we see a golden lampstand with a bowl at the top, seven lights attached to the bowl of golden liquid.

And from the golden liquid, we have these two olive branches that pour out the golden oil.

And the two olive trees on the right and the left of the lampstand, and we're told in Zechariah 4.14, they represent the two witnesses.

And according to William Henderson in his book, More Than Conquerors, the two witnesses represent those who bear testimony of the gospel, its ministers and missionaries, as the Lord sends us out two by two, generation after generation, and as signified in the two witnesses.

You and I will be empowered to see things, do things, feel things we've never seen, done, and felt before.

And the question is, according to Zechariah 4, 6, how?

Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, says the Lord of armies.

I don't know why we think we're saved by grace through faith, but sanctification is something that we do.

It's a result of living in close proximity to Jesus.

If you...

Want to allow the spirit to accomplish his work in you.

Don't try harder.

Oh man, I have so much to say.

I'm going to give you one example and then I've got my Bible under my arm.

I'm going.

Listen, listen, guys, pornography is a killer in our culture.

You think you're going to defeat pornography by trying harder.

Oh, I'm just not going to look.

I'm not going to look.

Oh yeah, you will.

Oh, you will.

How do you, how do you, how do you make something that's so hard?

become easy, become a natural result of something else.

I was in a good moment.

I was having one of those seasons in my life where I was in the word.

I mean, deep into the word.

Everybody has them deep into the word.

All I listened to was Keith Green.

Anybody remember Keith Green?

All I remember was reading the Bible, praying.

I would start every morning and I thought it was going to be like 10 minutes.

It was an hour.

And I went in the middle of that season, I went to visit my brother.

And my brother, it's amazing how he knew this.

But my brother was not living with Jesus at the moment.

And my brother said, hey, man, I got this great movie.

Let's go.

I said, man, let's go, man.

Let's go have a drink and let's do this.

I said, man, I don't really want.

And he offered me like 10 things.

Let's go spend, brothers, we're brothers.

Let's go have a good time.

And I denied every one of them.

And he looked at me.

I've never, my brother said to me this, you've been hanging with Jesus, haven't you?

That's what he said to me.

You want to defeat whatever it is that's getting you?

Hang with Jesus and here's what happens.

If you're around Jesus all the time, those desires go.

Because you can't hang out with a master.

They'll actually turn your stomach because you're abiding over here.

Father, forgive me for the length of sermon.

Anything I've said that's consistent with your word, I pray that it would go deep into the heart.

Anything I've said that is not, that would fall by the wayside and be forgotten.

I pray that as we open this chapter.

that all of us would realize the Spirit of God is in us, that we're able to do and to see and to feel things we've never done, felt, seen before.

And if we will abide in you, the fruits of the Spirit become a reality.

In Christ's name, everybody said.

We hope you enjoyed today's message.

If you want to know more about what it's like to be a Christ follower, I want to encourage you to go to oneandall.church.com to get more information, as well as to reach out to us to walk alongside you in this step.

I also want to encourage you to download our One and All app, as we have so many resources there for you.

our daily devotionals, our conversations, podcasts, as well as the sermons, and to know what is happening here at our church so you can get plugged in.

We hope you have a great rest of your week, and we'll end as we always do with one hope, one life in Christ.