Lead Me

Demystify the Holy Spirit in real life

Okay, Galatians chapter 5, beginning in verse 24. It says this those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. And so this is week three. It’s the final week of a series that I’ve entitled Demystify the Holy Spirit in real life. And just by way of review, for week one, we talked about who the Holy Spirit is. And I had three points. The Holy Spirit is a person, not a power. The Holy Spirit is God living in you. And then number three was the Holy Spirit fights for you. And then last week, which was week number two, we talked about what the Holy Spirit does. And we had these three points.

This week I’m trying to think through, as I’ve thought through what I’d want to share to close the series, you know, it’s a great challenge when you’re teaching about something like the Holy Spirit, which is admittedly a very spiritual concept. It’s the Holy Spirit. So it’s a spiritual concept. And so it’s kind of a challenge to teach you something that can actually be helpful to you, not just on Sunday, but on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, at your job, in your family, at school, and also to not be a church that equates the Holy Spirit with just the goosebumps that you feel during a church service. But the Holy Spirit is actually a very practical, very real element of the Christian life. And so that’s what I’m trying to do in this series and in this week in particular, is I’m trying to make it very practical. Just practical teaching.

And so if you’re taking notes, what I would like you to write down for this week is this title, Lead Me. Why don’t you turn to your neighbor and say that? Lead me. Lead me. Lead me. You’re not saying it to them, you’re saying it to the Holy Spirit while you’re looking at them. Heavenly Father, we’re so grateful. We love you so much. We would ask that you speak to every heart in here this morning. And we’re grateful that you would be with us and we’re eager to hear from you. So speak. Thank you, Lord. It’s in Jesus’ name we pray. Amen. Amen.

The Holy Spirit speaks

Well, I’ve got three points for you briefly this morning that I’m going to ask you to write down if you’re taking notes. And this is the first one, and I’m gonna tell you what I mean by this. The Holy Spirit speaks. Write that down. The Holy Spirit speaks. I want you to know something, and you might not know this. This might be news to some of you, but did you know that if you’re a follower of Christ, in fact, why don’t we do this? Let me just get a little roll call to see who I’m talking about. Like if you say that you’re a Christian in here, can you raise your hand and maybe give me like a little woo-hoo or something? Okay, okay, okay.

So if you are a Christian, which is to say you’re a follower of Christ Jesus, you do hear God’s voice. You do, and you might be thinking, you must be talking to the person next to me because I don’t hear nothing. Well, Jesus actually teaches something different. Look at this, John chapter 10, verse 27. He says, My sheep, so that’s you, my sheep listen to my voice. I know them and they follow me. So if you belong to Jesus, you do hear his voice. But here’s the issue: you hear lots of voices. And not just those of you who forgot to take your medication. You know, like you hear, you hear lots of voice. I want you to think about all the different voices that you hear over the course of a day. Your own voice. You know, the person that talks to you most is you. The voice you hear the most is your own voice, your parents’ voice, even if they’ve been gone for years. You hear your parents’ voice, your friends’ voice, your boss’s voice, culture’s voice. The enemy’s voice. And also you hear the Holy Spirit’s voice. And those all swirl together to form what we would call your inner world.

And so the real challenge then is not, how can I get God to speak to me? The real challenge is this. How do I tell which voice is his? That’s the challenge. Right? Because you do hear the Holy Spirit. And that might be a paradigm shift for you. But if you are a follower of Jesus, you do hear God’s voice. And I know that there’s lots of different opinions when it comes to like hearing God’s voice. On one hand, you have people who like just think that they they just hear God crystal clear 100% of the time. The Holy Spirit tells them to get chicken or beef on their burrito. You know, it’s like every little thing is, oh, this is God, blah, blah, blah, blah. And then you got someone on the other side of the spectrum that thinks those people like have a screw loose. And most of us, though, are probably somewhere in between those two.

But I want to say this that no matter where you’re at on that spectrum, I think we all have room to improve when it comes to hearing the Holy Spirit and hearing the Holy Spirit accurately. And so if you were to go up to someone who’s been following God for a long time, like let’s say, uh, let’s say uh Bobette right here, amazing lady. Uh so if you were to go up to Bobette and say, like, well, how, Bobette, how do you tell the difference between the voice of the Holy Spirit and just like a just like an idea you had? How do you tell the difference well? If you were to ask them, they’d probably look at you with a horrified look because they weren’t expecting you to ask that question. But I think probably what you the answer you’d get from a lot of them is this is that they they they don’t know. They don’t know how they know, they just know. Which which is true, but not helpful. Because if you’re trying to learn how to do it, like how can you just say, well, just well, just do it, just listen harder. And it’s like I’m listening, I feel like I’m listening hard, but I don’t know, I don’t, I’m not, I’m not hearing anything.

Well, I think the reality is for people who have been following God for a long time, they’ve learned the feel of it. Am I right there? That it’s it’s it’s it feels a certain way when God speaks, and so they can feel the difference between that’s the Holy Spirit and that’s an idea I had. It’s not like it’s a checklist for them, they can just feel the difference. I’m always amazed when uh I go to like the deli counter and I’ll say, Yeah, I’ll take like a pound and a half of roast beef. And the guy’s like, okay, slap it on the scale, and it’s like exactly a pound and a half, like to the one hundredth. And I’m like, how do you do that? How you know, and so if you were to ask the guy, how do you feel a pound and a half of roast beef? He probably wouldn’t be able to tell you. He’s just learned how to feel it. He can just feel it. And I think I think it’s the same way when it comes to the Holy Spirit is that people have learned to recognize the tone of God’s voice. And so they can tell because they know it.

You know, dogs, I don’t know if you know this. The average dog, not that you’re dogs, but the average dog can uh learn on average, if they if they’re trained, they can learn about 165 words. That’s a lot. I feel like my dogs know four words. Their names, treat, they know treat, they know, and they know off, right? Charlie, off. Like they like they know those four words. But the reality is this is that no matter how much you talk to your dog, they’re only gonna actually understand a tiny fraction of the words that you’re actually saying. But dogs are experts when it comes to tone. And if you want to experiment with this, you know, you you could just go home today and you could go to your dog and just with a nice voice, just say like the most horrible things. You’re such an idiot, you’re just a big fat walrus. You’re you’re you’re you’re like a cat, only dumber. Oh, I hate you, I hate you, I hate you. They’ll love every second of it. They’ll love it. On the other hand, you could do the opposite. You can say, you can say me like nice things in a mean way, and they’ll pee all over themselves because they’re they’re hearing the tone.

And I think there’s something to that. I think it’s a silly metaphor, but I think it’s a pretty good illustration for how you learn to recognize the voice of the Holy Spirit. Is that you just you can recognize his tone. And so the question I have for you is this. What does the Holy Spirit sound like? What does the Holy Spirit sound like? Well, I’ve got three sub points. These are subpoints that have helped me when it comes to recognition. I’m just trying to be as concrete as possible. This is I feel like I’m trying to teach you something that’s hard to teach. But this is, I think, a truth that you can grab on to if you’re wanting to get better at hearing the Holy Spirit.

The Spirit’s voice is tender

Number one, if you’re taking notes, these are subpoints. The Holy the Spirit’s voice is tender. The Spirit’s voice is tender. So God is often quiet. But He’s not, He’s not always quiet. Like sometimes He’s the still small voice, but other times He’s the roaring thunder. But no matter how God speaks, He’s always tender. He’s always tender. That’s the whole that’s the voice of the Holy Spirit. Look at this. Psalm chapter 23, verse 1.

The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He refreshes my soul.

So it’s interesting here that what you have here is you have shepherd language, not drill sergeant language. God corrects, but God doesn’t condemn. So Jesus didn’t come to condemn the world, but to save the world. So he’s not shaming. And so hearing God’s voice doesn’t leave you ashamed. And so if you have an inner voice that’s always heaping shame on you, he says, You’re disgusting, you’ll never change. Why do you even try? And he leaves you helpless and stuck. That’s not the Holy Spirit. And so the the enemy accuses, the Spirit convicts. Accusation is this, you’re disgusting, you’ll never change. Conviction, on the other hand, is this this needs to change and I’ll help you. That’s the voice of the Holy Spirit. This needs to change and I’ll help you. And the Holy Spirit will absolutely speak to you in a way that exposes your heart. The Holy Spirit will absolutely expose uncomfortable things, but He will only do so, He only exposes for the sake of healing and wholeness. He’s always pointing to redemption, not to shame.

And so I uh this is how I say it. I say that the Holy Spirit’s voice is heavy but light. Because he can say some unbelievably challenging things, but at the same time it’s still full of hope and beauty and redemption. So the Holy Spirit’s voice is tender. You can recognize that. And so if there’s a voice in you that says, like you’re such an idiot, maybe God’s telling me you’re such an idiot, it’s not. Because the Holy Spirit’s voice is tender.

The Spirit’s voice is playful

Number two is this the Holy Spirit’s voice is playful. No, really. You can see this all throughout the Old Testament. I don’t have time to get into it, but we could go to the book of Job, and Job and his friends are saying all sorts of like nonsensical things, trying to understand suffering. I’m sure we’ve never seen anyone say something stupid when they’re trying to rationalize human suffering. But that’s what the book is about. And and God shows up and he says, Well, explain it to me. I’m sure you know. Right? He’s playful. He’s saying, Explain all of these things. You sure he says, Surely you know, but he’s playful.

Uh, an example I love is in the book of Genesis. There’s a man named Jacob, and he wrestles with an angel all night. And it’s not super clear whether or not it’s uh an actual angel or if it’s God himself, it’s a little bit unclear. But let me ask you a question. If you’re wrestling with an angel, physically wrestling, or maybe God himself, and he wrestles with you, do you think the point is to beat you at wrestling? I’m gonna say it’s doubtful, like if you’re in a wrestling match with God, I think it probably wouldn’t even take like a millisecond for him to beat you. He just snapped you like a twig. Right? So if God’s wrestling with someone all night, he’s not wrestling to win, he’s wrestling to play. I think of it like a like a kid, like I’ve got a kid and she likes to wrestle, and I wrestle, and between you and me, I could take her. Flying elbow from the top rope, forget about it. The point isn’t to the point isn’t to win, the point is to play.

And if you have any doubts on the playfulness of God, let me win that argument with one word. Are you ready? Jesus. Come on. Jesus is constantly playful. Uh an example I love, Luke 24. So the disciples are walking on this road. It’s a road to Emmaus. Jesus has just been brutally killed. And he has been resurrected, uh, but they don’t know that. In fact, there’s a guy that starts walking with them, and it’s Jesus, but they don’t recognize him. And so they’re talking, and so they don’t know he’s been raised from the dead, so they’re devastated because their master has just been brutally murdered. That’s the way the disciples say in the book of Acts. He said he’s been murdered, and so they’re very sad about it. And so Jesus is just listening to them talk, and he and he comes up and he’s like, What are y’all talking about? Right? And they’re like, Are you like the only person on the planet that doesn’t know what happened? And then look at this. Look at this, Luke chapter 24, verse 19. Jesus says this, what things? he asks. I love that verse. What thing? Jesus says, What things? Like what things happen. He knows exactly the things. He just endured the things. They’re talking about his death. Right? But but but he’s just he’s just playful. He’s he he he plays.

And so you might be thinking, well, what does that have to do with the Holy Spirit? I I think it’s important because I think a lot of us imagine that when the Holy Spirit comes and communicates something to you, it’s always going to be super heavy and it’s always going to be something super serious. But I do believe that the Holy Spirit comes and communicates to us in a way that deflates our drama. You know, you’re sulking, arms folded, you know what I mean? Like someone said something mean to you, and you’re like, and the Holy Spirit, at least this is how it is for me, and he’ll come and be like, Are you done? And it’s interesting because I don’t say that to myself. He says, so I can recognize, I can write. He says, He says, Are you done? And he’s not doing that, he’s not, he’s not mocking me, he’s inviting me to not take myself so seriously. He gives me the gift of perspective. The Spirit’s voice is tender, the Spirit’s voice is playful.

The Spirit’s voice is other

Number three, these are subpoints. The Spirit’s voice is other. And if that seems like an ambiguous kind of weird phrase, it’s because it’s because it is. And what I mean by that is this is that the Holy Spirit’s voice comes from a place that you didn’t see coming. It’s it, you know, like it’s where you know it’s not just you talking with a God label on it. Uh, one of my favorite examples of this is in Joshua chapter 5. Uh look at this, Joshua 5, verse 13. Now, when Joshua is a great man, when Joshua was near Jericho, he looked up and saw this man, saw a man standing in front of him with a drawn sword in his hand. And so this was not actually a man. This is called a Christoph Christophany, which is like a pre-incarnate appearance of Jesus. So Jesus is here. Joshua went up to him and asked this. Listen, here’s the question he asks. Are you for us or for our enemies? Are you for us or for our enemies? Look at this, verse 14. Neither. Neither, he replied, but as commander of the army of the Lord, I have now come. I love that. Are you with us or are you with them? Neither. Right, well, well, well, well, there’s only two sides. You have to pick one. No, I don’t. Well, well, surely you think this or that. Not really.

And I’ve just noticed that that this is it’s helpful for me to know when I’m trying to hear the Holy Spirit is that oftentimes I come to God with, okay, so I’m trying to decide, is it option A or is it B? Which one is it? And then God comes and hits me with a C that I hadn’t even thought of. He gives me another. Be very suspicious of the voice in your head that always agrees with you. Oh, you’re right, son. You’re so wise. Why didn’t I think of that? Oh, that’s what it’s great. It’s probably not God. And for me, that’s one of the ways that I recognize the Holy Spirit is because the other the other voices in my head are always saying the most predictable stuff. You know, I’m angry, and then there’s one voice in my head that wants to replay the conversation over and over and over and over. There’s another one that wants to say, Oh man, people don’t understand you. Your job’s so hard, people, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know what I mean? All of those voices. They just say the same predictable stuff. But then sometimes in me, there’s a voice that comes and says something I hadn’t thought about. And that’s one of the ways that I recognize the voice of the Holy Spirit. He comes to give you a new perspective. The Holy Spirit’s voice is tender, the Holy Spirit’s voice is playful, and the Holy Spirit’s voice is other. The Holy Spirit speaks.

The Holy Spirit fills

Okay. Next, I’d like you to write this down for the main points. The Holy Spirit fills. The Holy Spirit fills. I’m just trying to be super practical here. In the Bible, there’s lots of language about how the Holy Spirit relates to you. And it can be kind of confusing. I was talking to some people this past uh week about it, and it’s like, okay, so we got we got we got like the Holy Spirit lives on the inside of us, and then there’s like the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, right? But then also, isn’t this thing about like the baptism of the Holy Spirit? Is that like a different thing? But then there’s also times when it seems like maybe we’re empowered by the Holy Spirit. So is that what happens when we and it can feel kind of confusing to be perfectly frank.

And so I uh I want to give you three phrases that you can write down. I’m just trying to tease them out biblically so that you can understand in a really clear way. Is number one is this uh is the Holy Spirit lives in you. So we talked about this in week one. Paul says it like this, Romans chapter 8, verse 9.

You, however, are not in the realm of the flesh, but are in the realm of the spirit. If indeed the spirit of God lives in you, and if anyone does not have the spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ.

So if you belong to Jesus, I want you to know this. The Holy Spirit lives in you right now. Scripture teaches. It’s like, I don’t feel it. I didn’t remember, I didn’t, I didn’t, I didn’t pray for that. I didn’t, that’s not, it doesn’t matter. Like that’s that’s part of you coming to Christ. When you’re when you’re born, you know, like the Christian faith, I don’t know if you know this, doesn’t make it doesn’t turn uh bad people into good people, it makes dead people into alive people. And so, and so when that happens, the Holy Spirit comes and takes permanent residence on the inside of you, even when I’m bad, yeah, even when you’re bad. That the Holy Spirit is in you, and and so you don’t have to beg him, that you don’t have to beg the Holy Spirit to come from heaven into earth and to come occupy some space around you. He permanently lives on the inside of you, he live lives in you.

But then listen to this. Number two is this the Holy Spirit comes upon you. That’s something that that scripture teaches, which is separate from lives on the inside of you. So the Bible doesn’t just say that the Holy Spirit lives in you, it also talks about this thing, other places it kind of uses this is what’s called we’re baptized with the Holy Spirit. We’re baptized with the Holy Spirit. Um, just before Jesus ascended into heaven, this is what he told his disciples. Uh Acts 1 5.

For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.

Baptized with the Holy Spirit. And then he explained what that’s going to look like, verse 8.

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and all of Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the world earth.

So these are people that are already following Jesus, but on Pentecost, the day of Pentecost, something separate and secondary also happens, which is they’re baptized with the Holy Spirit. And something powerful and noticeable happens that the Holy Spirit comes upon them, and where they were timid before, they become bold. And so you have the Holy Spirit that takes residence on the inside of you to give you, you know, when you give your life to Christ, that’s that’s what happens. But then you also can be baptized with the Holy Spirit when the Holy Spirit comes upon you and empowers you to do what you’re called to do. So those are both matter, both are important, and both are part of what it means to be a spirit-filled follower of Jesus. The Spirit lives in you, the Spirit comes upon you, and then number three is this the Spirit keeps filling you. The Spirit keeps filling.

Now, a lot of us think about like being filled with the Spirit, it’s just like a binary, you know, it either happened or it didn’t. You know, oh, are you spirit? Are you a spirit? Yeah, you’re a Christian, or you’re a spirit-filled Christian. By the way, no Christian is gonna say no to that question, so you know. Um, or but are your spirit, but what we mean is like, have you experienced this thing known as the baptism of the Holy Spirit? But a lot of people think that being filled with the spirit is something that happens kind of like one time, like, yeah, I was filled with the spirit ninth grade at youth camp. Or like I had this experience with God 12 years ago, and God touched my life, and like, praise God for that. It’s totally real. But look at what Paul says. Uh Ephesians chapter 5, verse 18.

And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but ever be filled. That’s right. Ever be filled and stimulated with the Holy Spirit.

So if if the if you were filled with the Spirit once 10 years ago, that was real, but the Holy Spirit wants to keep filling you. He wants to keep filling you for what God is asking you to do right now. You can’t, you can’t, you can’t work off of the spirit of ten years ago. You need his help right now. The Holy Spirit speaks, the Holy Spirit fills. And so that happens not just the one time, but it’s something that happens continually.

The Holy Spirit empowers

And then my uh third point, and I’m done. You can uh you can get ready. This is the third one. Take take notes and write this down. The Holy Spirit empowers. The Holy Spirit empowers. You know, we live in a world that’s obsessed with power. And I don’t mean that in a good way. Like I turn on the news and I’m like, what’s with all these power hungry, evil people? And so so I think for a lot of us, when we think about power, it kind of like I’m not seeking power, but did you know this that there’s a good kind of power and a bad kind of power? And you can take a good power and turn it into a bad power if you use it in the wrong way.

And so, so for example, I’ll I’ll say this I am physically stronger than my wife. That’s right. Barely. Barely. Is that a good power or a bad power? Mmm, depends on how I use it. Right? Right? Because if I use my power to protect her and to serve her and to carry all the Costco boxes, well, then it’s a good power. Right? But but if I but if I use my power to intimidate her, if I use my power to control her, then that same power becomes destructive. And this is something I tell big guys all the time. We gotta be careful. I know I’m talking only a subset of people, but if you’re big like me, you gotta be careful. Because God has made you powerful. And if and if you don’t know how to control that power, and so you get angry and you take a step closer than you should, shame on you. Because you can’t you can’t use your power like that. God has made you powerful, but you can use that power for good, but you can also use it for evil. And so big guys have to be calm. All people have to be calm, but big people have to be calm, right? Because we have a power, and power can either be good or bad.

And so the Holy Spirit comes and it says this that the Holy Spirit gives us power. That’s why I said, and so we have to be clear though on what kind of power we’re talking about. Because Jesus said that when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, you will receive power. You’ll receive power. Looks Acts chapter 1, verse 8.

But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all of Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.

Here the Greek word for power is this word dunamis or dunamis. Um my dad for uh decades had a drywall company, dunamis drywall. Uh, but it’s the word that we get dynamite from, and so so it means it in the original language, dunamis means strength and power and ability. And so, what does that look like for you in real life? Well, it means this that the Holy Spirit comes and empowers you to witness, to overcome, and listen to me, the Holy Spirit empowers you to keep going. Some of you are exhausted because you’re trying to do spirit-sized assignments with human-sized strength. Sometimes you don’t need a motivational speech, you need power. And so sometimes, sometimes the greatest miracle that God ever does is he doesn’t come and change the circumstance, but he keeps you standing in the middle of them. That’s what he does. Right?

And so when you say, Holy Spirit lead me, Holy Spirit empower me. You’re not just asking him for directions. You’re also asking him for the power to walk that road. Because he speaks to you, he leads you, but he also empowers you to do it. The Holy Spirit empowers. The Holy Spirit speaks, the Holy Spirit fills, the Holy Spirit empowers. Holy Spirit, lead me. Holy Spirit, fill me. Holy Spirit, empower me.

Here’s my closing statement. The Holy Spirit isn’t just a theological concept. One, the Holy Spirit speaks. You do hear God’s voice, and you can learn to recognize it among all the other voices competing for your attention. Two, the Holy Spirit fills. The Holy Spirit lives in you, comes upon you with power, and keeps filling you for what God is asking you to do right now. Three, the Holy Spirit empowers. When you ask the Spirit to lead you, you’re not just asking for directions, you’re asking for supernatural strength to walk the road.