| Unleashing The Dominion Power Of The Holy Spirit Part V |
Pastor Steve Holt
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Mountain Springs Church
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| Download Notes |
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| 09/09/2007 |
Unleashing the Dominion Power of the Holy Spirit V:
The Peace of Abiding in the Spirit II
Last week we looked at one of the most powerful passages in how to walk in the Spirit found in the Bible, John 15.
We talked about the fact that we cannot find true peace without learning to abide in Christ. The context was the need for peace in our lives.
This is the evening before Christ is about to die on the cross and He is preparing his disciples for difficult times…
John 14:27
- If you are a believer in Christ and His follower, you have “peace with God.” He is your friend and Savior.
- But to grow in the “peace of God,” we must practice an up-to-date, abiding in the Spirit.
Read John 15:1-17
- Christ is the trunk of the vine, and we are the branches.
- If we abide in Him, we will bear much fruit.
Three great abiding commands are given:
1. Abide in Me
2. Abide in My love
3. Abide in the Word
And then 3 great rewards or results are promised:
1. You will bear much fruit in your life (6 times)
2. You will have your prayers answered (twice)
3. You will have joy in your life (twice)
Vs. 6
- God wants to see fruit! God is economically aware. He really wants to see fruit from His branches, and if they are not producing fruit, they will be cast out. They are a burden to Him and the church.
- Life and seasons prune us…relationships prune us.
- Ex. It seems that as our eyes go bad, we can start learning to see better. As our hearing goes, hopefully our spiritual ears begin to hear better.
- This is a warning to those who are playing church but really don’t want to live for Christ.
- Jesus spoke as much about hell as He did about heaven! Hell is not a real popular subject today, but it is real, and everyone who hasn’t given his life to Christ, will really go there.
Matthew 10:28-33
And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell…32 "Therefore whoever confesses Me before men, him I will also confess before My Father who is in heaven. 33 But whoever denies Me before men, him I will also deny before My Father who is in heaven.
Vs. 7
- The very first command given to Adam was “to be fruitful and multiply.”
- You were created by God to be fruitful; it is your God-given destiny.
- You were born to multiply, to reproduce!
- G. Campbell Morgan says that the first half of the verse is the flaming sword, like the cherubim at the Garden of Eden guarding the way to the tree of life.
- If we abide in Him, if we abide in His Word, THEN, we can ask whatever and experience fruit in our lives!
- First we must abide! We are to abide in God’s Word; this is the main life-giving tool God has given us for abiding in Him.
- God’s honors His Word above His name!
- We are conformed into the image of Christ as we abide in God’s Word.
Psalm 119:9
How can a young man keep his way pure?
By living according to Your word.
- Not by memorizing, but by “keeping God’s Word”, by applying it.
John 17:17 Jesus said:
“Sanctify them by Your truth, Your Word is truth.”
Ephesians 5:25-26
Husbands, love his wives, just as Christ also loved the church…26 that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of the water by the Word.
1 John 2:14
I have written to you, fathers,
Because you have known Him who is from the beginning.
I have written to you, young men,
Because you are strong, and the word of God abides in you,
And you have overcome the wicked one.
- The importance of the Word of God must be experienced. The power of the Word will change you!
- You will be different if you read God’s Word!
- I don’t understand prayer, but my life is different when I pray.
- The Bible is not a biology book, or history book, no, it’s alive and deep, and it cuts down into your soul and spirit.
- It divides our soul and our spirit man! You can’t be separated from the soulish man unless you abide in God’s Word.
- Abide: settle down, rest in Him!
God does not answer prayer so that you can get things done; He answers prayer that He might get things done!
- As you abide in His Word, you will receive revelation! You will sense those inner promptings of the Spirit.
- It really matters how much time you spend in God’s Word. It takes time.
- It means if you will settle down, and rest, and His Word’s are settling in you, you will know what to pray. You will know His will.
Vs. 8
- John is telling us what a disciple really looks like:
1. They are abiding in God’s Word.
2. They are seeing prayers answered.
3. They are bearing good fruit in their lives.
- Prayer becomes a dialogue, not a “Santa wish list.”
- Throughout the day we talk to Him.
· He says to you, “Look at the sadness of these people.”
· Prayer is an adventure…open communion.
· The abiding disciple is bearing fruit!
Galatians 5:22-23
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.
Vs. 9
- Not only is Jesus loving us with the same love that the Father had for Him, but the Father is loving us with the same love that He loved Jesus with.
- That is hard to grasp. I really don’t understand that kind of love.
- It takes a while to comprehend this.
- It is love eternal; He has loved us with a love that is eternal.
- It is a perfect love, and yet He let His Son die on the cross…and He will prune us.
- It takes a lifetime to understand such love.
Vs. 10
- In other words, Jesus is saying, “I’m not asking you to do anything I haven’t done.”
- God wants love from us! That is the greatest thing God wants from us…LOVE!
- We bless the Lord through obedience! Obeying His commands really is the key to understanding God’s love.
- But we must understand that the power of obedience is a love relationship.
- Ex. There was once a woman who was married to an angry and demanding husband. He constantly commanded her to do this and do that, and she dutifully obeyed but with sadness and depression. The husband died. A few years later, the woman met a man who really loved her. They were married and he was a man of grace and love for his wife. One day as the woman was cleaning and working at home it dawned on her that she was doing all that her first husband had demanded and even more, but she was doing it all out of joy and desire…she was obeying because she loved her husband…she wanted to serve him.
- We obey because the love of God is abiding within us.
- This is the overflow of the Spirit filled life…this is being Spirit spilled.
Vs. 11
- Joy is different from a feeling of being happy. Joy is a deep sense that everything will work out because God is in control.
- Joy is not a feeling; it is a deep confidence by faith.
- Ex. Last week we had a very foggy day and the fog covered the mountains and the Colorado Springs valley area. You could not see the mountains because of the clouds, but the clouds were still there. Nothing had changed though the clouds had rolled in. The mountains were still steadfast, the stars in the sky were still brilliant. Our feelings don’t affect God’s facts! The clouds don’t affect the fact that the mountains and stars still remain.
- Feelings come and go, as do the clouds, but the mountains, and the stars remain, and so does God’s love.
- Don’t trust your feelings…this stuff works with or without your feelings.
- Ex. How would you feel if a guy wanted to show you his new car, and when you got in, he put the keys into the glove compartment and he said, “I just put gas in the tires.” How comfortable would you be? There are car laws, the key goes in the ignition, the gas goes into the gas tank. There are laws you must obey if you want joy and love in your life
- If you abide, you will experience joy…full joy!! Full joy!!
Vs. 12
- What a challenge! It would be a whole lot easier if there weren’t so many people.
- Ex. I’ve been married over 20 years and sometimes it stresses me out when I talk to someone who’s been married for 50 years and they’re still going through the same stuff we are. How many times does our spouse not understand us?
- It’s hard to understand when people don’t understand.
- It’s hard when people book it and take off when the going gets tough.
- Guess what? You can’t do it if you are not abiding.
Vs. 13
- There is no other love like this!! This is the love of Jesus through the Holy Spirit.
- It is a demonstrative love, not a theory.
Vs. 14-15
- Ex. Many of us were raised in different religious backgrounds. Some with bells and smells, and many of us have a fear of God: a fear and a love.
- “Lord, I know you are majestic, high, and lifted up, but I want to be your friend.”
- That would be blasphemous if it wasn’t Jesus saying it.
- Not a servant, but a friend.
Vs. 16
- Jesus was the One who said, “Follow Me” to each one.
- That truth is still true. He found you, you didn’t find Him.
- He called you. He was never lost; you were.
- We didn’t sign up. We got drafted.
- It’s amazing that He wanted us.
- Charles Spurgeon once said, “I know that Jesus chose me before I was born, because He would have never chose me after I was born.”
- He chose us for a relationship.
Vs. 17
- These are not suggestions; these are commands from Jesus.
- This is the Spirit spilled life. It’s all about love.
- A love that is expressed to Jesus; it is vertical.
- A love that is expressed to others around us: horizontal.
- It is impossible without abiding in His love through laying down your life for people.
This sermon was produced at Mountain Springs Church in Colorado Springs, with Senior Pastor Steve Holt. www.mountainsprings.org |
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