The Holy Spirit: Empowering the Believer

empowering the believer. Are you experiencing the power of the Holy Spirit in your life? Or is your life very easily explained in your energy and your strength, your knowledge, your wisdom, your skill and your ability and your talent, your life is being lived out? Is what you're accomplishing in life what you're able to do or is it the result of the presence of the Holy Spirit in your life? Well these are good questions that you not need to ask ourselves because sometimes a person can't tell whether it's what they're doing or what God is doing in their life. We're in a series entitled "The Power of the Holy Spirit in the Life of the Believer." And that is exactly what I want to talk about in this message and that is the Holy Spirit empowering the believer. So if you'll turn to Acts chapter 1 once again, and I want us to read the first eight verses of this chapter because in here is the promise of our Lord concerning just that, the promise of the power of the Holy Spirit. If you'll recall the Bible says that when you trusted the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Savior, the Holy Spirit came into your life to dwell. Why did He come in there to dwell? He came in there in order to express and release the power through you and me necessary to live the life that God has called us to live, necessary to do the work that God has called us to do so that everything He does in our life is an expression of His supernatural power. And since this is a supernatural life that God's called us to live and it is a supernatural Lord whom we serve and a supernatural enemy whom we face, God has given to us a supernatural power in order to face, to live and to do the things He's called us to do. And so as Luke begins writing the book of Acts, he says, "The first account I composed theophilus, about all that Jesus began to do and teach, until the day when He was taken up after He had by the Holy Spirit given orders to the apostles whom He had chosen, to these He also presented Himself alive after His suffering by many convincing proofs appearing to them over a period of four days, and speaking of the things concerning the kingdom of God, and gathering them together He commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what

the Father had promised, which He said, "You heard from Me, but John baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now." And so when they had come together, they were asking Him saying, "Lord, is it at this time you're restoring the kingdom to Israel?" This was always on their mind. He said to them, "It is not for you to know the times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority, but you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and even to the remotest part of the earth." Has it ever occurred to you that that one promise in Acts chapter 1 verse 8, "The promise of Holy Spirit power is just as available to you as it was to those apostles, those followers of Jesus Christ in the day in which He made the promise and in the day in which the Holy Spirit came in Pentecost." You see, every single believer is in dwelt by the Holy Spirit for a very specific reason, and therefore if the Holy Spirit is indwelling us, and He says, "When the Holy Spirit comes, you shall receive power after that the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and ye shall be witnesses unto me," that same Holy Spirit power is available to every one of us. Now, when we talk about the power of the Holy Spirit, we're talking about supernatural power. We're talking about power and capacity and energy and vitality, that which God releases in those for us, or releases through us, that cannot be explained any other way. And that is that God is willing, whatever He calls us to do, to energize us and to equip us and to enable us and to strengthen us to do whatever it might be. If it requires a supernatural power, God is going to provide it. If it is supernatural wisdom or supernatural strength or supernatural knowledge, whatever it might be, God will do in your life and mind whatever He promised, and He says, "You shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost has come upon you." with certain conditions, part of which I wanna talk about today. But I wanna begin primarily here by talking about the poverty of spiritual power

in this generation. So ask yourself this question, Lord. Is there a real poverty of spiritual power in my life? Am I working on human strength and human energy? Am I going on my own knowledge and understanding and experience in past or am I trusting in the power of the Holy Spirit living inside of me? Am I fearful God of walking into this situation without you? Or am I willing to go on and confidence in my own strength and energy? You see, sometimes the most talented, gifted people are the most difficult to ever learn to trust God. You know why? Because they feel so self-confident because of maybe their education, or their gifts and talents and abilities. And so what would cause some of us to cry out to God and to depend upon Him? They just walk in, no dependence upon God. And sometimes a very impressive, the only difference is this. If you look down the road at the consequences of that kind of living, there's no fruit. Oh, it gets puffed up in the beginning, but there's no consequence, a consequential fruit down the road. So what we have to ask is this, God, do you need to send something into my life

that maybe may not be too pleasant for me to understand what it means to live in the power of the Holy Spirit and to have to cry out to you on my knees. Oh my God, if you don't, I can't. And you see, sometimes that's what it takes to keep us from drifting, for something to anchor us as we drift toward the falls. Well, listen to these promises of the Spirit because the promises to all of us, and we read it in the eighth verse here, that you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. And you shall be witnesses under me, both in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, the uttermost, the remotest parts of the earth. That's where I'm sending you, and this is how I'm equipping you, I'm sending you in the power of the Holy Spirit. He says in Luke 24, when he sent them out to preach, and he said, "Repentance and forgiveness of sin is to be preached." He says, "In verse 48 of Luke 24, you are witnesses of these things, the things that he had said to them, what he had done. And then look in verse 49, "And behold, I am sending forth a promise of my Father upon you, but you to stay, sit down, wait, in the city of Jerusalem, that is, until you clothe with power from on high."

He said, "You're not ready until you clothe with power from on high." So the promise is there, and he said to them, "What I'm gonna ask you to do, you're not capable of doing, but I'm going to send you the Holy Spirit, and he will empower you to do it. But don't go out there and get started until you have experienced the Holy Spirit." Now, at Pentecost he came, baptized him in the body of Christ, in dwells every single believer, so somebody says, "Well, I'm still waiting, you don't have to wait. If you've been saved by the grace of God, there's no waiting to be done." The Spirit of God came in and sealed you and resides within you as a believer, and is ready, willing, capable of releasing through you and me the supernatural divine energy. Listen, not only within us to accomplish and to achieve, but through us in the lives of other people whom God wants to influence because of your life. And you see, often times we are fearful of doing what God has caused to do, and it's real simple. We are fearful because we project in our mind ourselves into that situation on the basis of what we feel like we're capable of doing, we say, "Oh, Lord, there's no way I can do that." And you see, we're not to look at it from our perspective. We're to see it from God's perspective. God's perspective is this, "I told you, before I left,

I will send you the Holy Spirit. I have sent him into your life. Now you have within you all the power, you will ever need all the energy that you'll ever need to do whatever I call you to do." You see, we don't get any more of the Holy Spirit than we already have. It's a matter of getting involved in what God has caused to do so that God can release and demonstrate that power in our life. Listen, you never get too old, nor are you too young And He's given this promise over and over and over again in different ways, He's given the promise. And of course, if you'll notice in Acts 4, 31, you remember the other big parameter in the head? Look at that, if you will. And notice again, I want you to see something going on in all of these verses. He says in verse 31, when they had prayed, this is Acts now, when they had prayed, the place where they were gathered together was shaken. They were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak the word of God of boldness. And the congregation of those who believe were of one heart and soul and not one of them claimed that anything belonging to Him was His own, but all things were common property to them. And with great power, the apostles were giving witness to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus and abundant grace was upon them all.

Now, you're not gonna have to do any waiting. We don't have to wait till the spirit comes. He's already there. The question is, are we willing to obey God to do whatever He requires of us that will require of us His power to do it rather than doing our own strength and energy? Now, so I want us to look at this whole idea of the pursuit of the power of the Holy Spirit, the pursuit of the spiritual power. Now, the power of the Holy Spirit is equally available to every single child of God. Don't get personalities mixed up with what God promises in His word because God's promise of the Holy Spirit powers to every single believer. And you see, if our motivation, if our motivation is, for example, if I came out here on Sunday morning and I'd ask the Holy Spirit to fill me a fresh in anew and to demonstrate His awesome power so I could preach better, so you would be impressed. I'm here to tell you God would have nothing to do with that because that's not the purpose. The purpose is real simple. The only primary, the only biblical motivation for asking God to fill us with the Holy Spirit is to live the life that He's called us to live and to achieve or to accomplish

or to do those things that God wills that we do. So it is what? It is for us. It is for victorious living and effective service. And God is so willing. He's willing to release His power within you as a believer in your office, where you work, in your home, where you live, among your friends as you socialize, the power of God should be the normal. Listen, when He says, out of our innermost beings shall flow rivers of living water, that should be the norm for us, not the exception. And yet, if I'm not willing to attempt anything for God that's beyond my human capacity or capability, why should God release any power, any energy, any divine power? Listen, don't be satisfied with less than finding out what your potential is. Why drift through life? And just go through life doing your thing when the Spirit of God, the power of the Holy Spirit, living and abiding within you, is willing to demonstrate what God can do with your mind and your spirit and your heart and your body. You don't know that you'll never discover that as long as you're satisfied just getting by in the Christian life. And some of you are young. You've got 30, 40, 50, 60 years ahead of you.

What's your goal in life? Just to make a living, get along, do your thing, have security? Let me ask you a question. Do you have enough spiritual curiosity within your heart, enough real genuine godly desire to find out God, what could you do with me? What will you do with me? Don't project on God what he can't do. Don't tell him, well, I just had a bad start and things just not going my way or I married the wrong person or I did this or I lost that and never had the breaks. All of that is the devil's junk. You know what God wants? He just wants you to step up and say, "Lord, here I am, here's all of me." What can you do with one man or one woman totally committed to you in whom the Spirit of God is demonstrating his awesome power? And you can't answer that question. But let me ask you a question. Is there not enough something on the inside of you that is not willing to be satisfied with what you know about God? Probably most Christians are satisfied knowing some scriptures, being able to quote their favorite ones, the ones that have to deal with trouble and need and fear and all those things.

And what do we mean by the power of the Spirit of God? Do you not have enough real, genuine, godly curiosity to find out? I'll tell you how you'll never find out. Come to church, sitting on a church pew, listening to sermon, singing songs, and bowing your head to pray, and just sort of moving through life. You'll never find out who God's. I'm telling you, it just grieves my spirit when I find people who don't really care about what God's up to. When your potential is absolutely fascinatingly, incomparable. You want the power of the Holy Spirit in your life? You want to find out what God will really do? Or you just want to drift through life, end up one of these days saying, "Well, you know, I've sort of made it. I've done the best I could." That's not a verse in the Bible that says something to do the best I can, not one single one. I'm not to do the best I can. Listen, listen to this man Paul. Turn if you will to 2 Corinthians chapter 3. God used him in the most unusual ways. He didn't do the best he could. That was never in his mind to do the best he could. I love these verses. Chapter 3 of 2 Corinthians verse 4, listen. And such confidence we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything is coming from ourselves. But our adequacy is from God who also made us adequate as servants of a new covenant, not of the love of the law. He didn't do the best he could. That was never in his mind. Listen to what he says. Right into the Corinthians and reminding them of the spirit in which he came to preach to them, he said in chapter 2 verse 1, "When I came to you brethren, I did not come with superior art of speech or of wisdom proclaiming to you the testimony of God." He said, "That's not the way I came." He said, "First of all, I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ to him crucified." He said, "My message was singular." And he says, "You want to know the spirit in which I came?" Verse 3, "I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling." Well, the world says today, listen, don't give us that weakness, fear, and trembling. We want strong men and women. We want men who've got clout. We want men and women who are strong and who've got determination. We want folks who are confident and bold. Then Paul wouldn't have made it. "I came to you in weakness, fear, and trembling," but oh, listen, the rest of that passage. "And my message and my preaching were not in persuasive words of wisdom. I wasn't trying to do it my own strength, but in what demonstration of the Holy Spirit and

of power that your faith should not rest on the wisdom of men, but on the power of God." He said, "I didn't come to you as a personality. I didn't come to you as an intellectual. I didn't come to you as a man of great wisdom or position." He said, "I came in weakness, fear, and trembling, singular message." Jesus Christ crucified. And he said, "My goal was real simple. I just wanted you to see a demonstration of the Holy Spirit and of power, not the wisdom of men." Inadequacy? Right. Not bad at all. It's part of the key. Now what are the requirements for allowing the Holy Spirit? Do you remember what Jesus said? He said, "Let everyone come to me who thirst. Let him that thirst come to me." He said, "Out of his being, out of his innermost being, shall flow rivers of living water, life-giving water." That's power. What are the requirements? Well, there may be many, but I think we can put them in several things here. First of all, purity of heart. I've said it before and I said again, "If your heart's not pure, if you're holding anything between you and God, rebellion toward God, I don't care how beautiful it may appear to you how good how how Here's what you have to ask. You see, part of our problem is we don't believe what God says. We believe that somehow we can hold on to sin and still have the blessings of God. No, we can't. Isn't it amazing that people will hurt and suffer and hurt and suffer and cause all kinds of pain and heartache and holding on to sin while all the time. If they wouldn't let it go and repent of it, God will clean up the whole mess. Purity of heart and supernatural power are great companions and you can't have the power without the purity of heart. Secondly, obedient spirit. I didn't say just obey God, I said, obedient spirit. I mean that it's our lifestyle to obey Him. I mean by that dad simply this, that you could not do a greater service for your family than for you and your wife to bend your young children's heart toward obeying God very early in life so that it's their very lifestyle to obey Him. But it takes time, example, instruction, explanation, patience, love and devotion. And if you're too busy for all that, you're too busy to train up your children the way that they should be trained. And obedient spirit means that it's my natural response to obey God and it is an exception when I don't. If we want the power of the Holy Spirit, you see, the power of the Holy Spirit doesn't come in spurts. The power of the Holy Spirit, He says out of His in the most being shall flow, not drip, flow, rivers. Listen, not little creeks, rivers of living water, life giving power.

An obedient spirit. That is that you and I come to the place that we are willing to repent of anything and everything that God surfaces in our life in such a fashion that is best we know our heart. We can say God, I am forgiven, I am clean, Lord, here's my life. Listen, anything that keeps coming up, if you don't deal with it, it's not going to work. Thirdly, a humbled spirit. As purity and power are inseparable, pride and power do not mix. That's spiritual power. They won't mix. You can't have those two. You can't have pride and spiritual power. They never mix. So you have to ask yourself the question, which do I want? And then number four, involvement in ministry. Every single time that the power of the Holy Spirit is being expressed, these folks are in ministry doing something, whether it is to you and your family, or whether it is to somebody on your job, or whatever it might be. Well, he didn't say in his in the most being shall rise up this well of water. He said out of his in the most being shall flow out. Why? Because God's power is for the purpose of what? Showering himself through us in somebody else's life. That's what the Christian life is all about. Giving ourselves away. It may be to one person, or it may be to many people, but involvement is a key. Another key, another requirement is persevering prayer. Let me explain why. I didn't say just pray, persevering prayer, because as you and I pray, as it is our habit to come to him, what does that do? That keeps our heart pure. That keeps our spirit bent total beance. That keeps us humble before the Lord. And that keeps us finding his direction for involvement in ministry. You show me a prayerless man or woman. I'll show you a person who knows absolutely nothing about the power of the Holy Spirit. And the last requirement is real simple. It is simply trusting him to do what he said. God, I'm stepping out by faith in what you told me to do. And if you don't do it, God, I'm going to be an absolute failure. I'm going to trust you to enable me, empower me in this given situation. Look at that list. Purity of heart. Spirit of obedience, are you willing? Humility of attitude, are you willing? Involvement of menis in ministry, are you willing? Persevering in prayer, are you willing? And believing what he promised, are you willing? If you forget everything else which I hope you want, this is going to ring in your ears. I guarantee it.

You're going to ring in your ears, what is my potential for God, if I gave him everything. Bye. [Music]