Family Church Waterlooville

Throughout the Bible we see how the Holy Spirit has filled people with a purpose and for a purpose. The gifts are ours for today and are always for the profit of all.

Today’s message by Pastor Andy Elmes is the fourth in the series “Turn the Power On” and is titled “Walking with the Holy Spirit”. Andy speaks about the Holy Spirit today and how He lives in us and what we can expect from this. Last week Andy spoke about us hosting the presence of God in our lives. Today Andy speaks about the purpose of God’s Spirit in our lives; we have the indwelling of God or the inner presence of God within us and ongoing unbroken fellowship with the Holy Spirit. This means an ongoing walk with the Holy Spirit every day! The Second book of Corinthians 13:14 (NIV) says “May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.”

The Holy Spirit is likened to many things in scripture….a dove representing the peace of God; fire which has refining capabilities; oil as in the power in a lamp and also for anointing and also wind, like the mighty rushing wind in our lives. Andy then spoke of four aspects that the Holy Spirit does and provides for in our lives.

The Holy Spirit is our helper; we experience divine help as in John 14. This means we have an invisible assistant to help or assist us and also comfort us. God’s plan was not just to leave us after salvation but to provide the Spirit to assist us in our lives. We are not vulnerable or abandoned as orphans, we are children of God. We do need to accept this help and reach out for it though!

The Holy Spirit is also our teacher. John 14, 25-25 (NIV) says “All this I have spoken while still with you. But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you”. The Holy Spirit comes to be the teacher within us helping us to understand what we couldn't understand with our own ability or reasoning; but without mocking or scorning. So the Spirit will help us discern what the words of scripture really mean, rather than us just reading it as any other book for example. Jesus said that when the Spirit of Truth has come, He will guide us into all truth. He will not speak on His own authority, whatever He hears He will speak. The Holy Spirit is listening to the conversation of the Father and the Son and He's transmitting what's being said by God into our hearts and helping us to understand. This is Revelation knowledge - He says He will tell us things to come.

Thirdly, the Holy Spirit is there to be our Leader and our guide. John 16:13 (NIV) says “But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth”. The Lord has provided his Spirit within our lives to guide us and to lead us in the things that we're doing, but also the things yet to come. So are we just making it on your own? The Spirit is now the leadership of God in our lives and we should be looking to Him for all direction for the way forward. We all need a guide in our lives.. In Acts 8:29 (NIV) it says “The Spirit told Philip, “Go to that chariot and stay near it”. If Philip had ignored this guidance, the eunuch he met would never have been baptised.

Lastly today Andy spoke of the Holy Spirit being the refiner in our lives, to sort out and get rid of the things in our lives that ought not to be there any longer. Although we are partakers of a new divine nature, old habits die hard. The Holy Spirit is there to put these things, thinking, mentalities etc. to death. Romans 8:12-13 (NIV) says “Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation—but it is not to the flesh, to live according to it. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live”. Here, Paul is telling us that to put to death the misdeeds of the body or the old nature will enable us to live free.

The key agenda that the Holy Spirit has for us is to make us Christ-like. Jesus has placed His Spirit in us and as we yield to His Spirit we become like the one whose Spirit now resides within, which is the spirit of Jesus Christ. Powerful verses are in 2 Corinthians 3:17-18. The Lord is the spirit and where the spirit of the Lord is, there is Liberty freedom.  We all now with unveiled (married) face are a bride of Christ beholding as in a mirror the glory of The Lord (ie see the glory of the Lord) which is now in us because the Holy Spirit resides inside us. 

God's will is the advancement of His kingdom and in order to possess what God has for us, we need to embrace all He has for us personally and corporately. 

This week’s message in the series Turn The Power On is titled Welcome Holy Spirit. To fully walk or experienced the power of God in our lives we must experience three baptisms spoken of in scripture. These are the baptism into Christ which is our salvation. The Holy Spirit does this. There is also the baptism in water representing the burial of the old life; this baptism is done by other believers. When a person comes out of the water of baptism, their life is being resurrected into a new way of being - the New Creation life. The third baptism is to experience the infilling or the baptism of the Holy Spirit. This is where the power of the Holy Spirit is released in our lives. This third baptism is spoken of in each of the four Gospels.

Now if Jesus knew that he needed the baptism of the Holy Spirit to live out the life that God wanted him to on the earth, how can we presume for a moment that we don’t? John 1:32-34 (NIV) states ‘Then John gave this testimony: “I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him. And I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’  I have seen and I testify that this is God’s Chosen One”’.

This was a different moment with Jesus from some in the Old Testament (Samson, Gideon…). The Holy Spirit came upon Jesus but remained with him and from this moment Jesus was led by and empowered by The Spirit in his everyday life. Having God’s Spirit come and live inside us is a very significant thing!....as His Spirit floods our lives everything else that's flooded our lives will leave. His presence will drown out every other noise in our lives. All lives have now become His Temple or His Dwelling Place. The Holy Spirit is now longer in a box or the Ark of the Covenant as in the Old Testament, but now lives and resides in us, in our human bodies! We are now invited to host the presence of God.

As Spirit-filled people we now recognize the Holy Spirit is now living within us and we dedicate our lives to hosting His presence. Everything changes when we recognise this. Understanding that there is a remaining indwelling presence of God residing in us causes transformation in the life of the believer. Jesus said he would never leave us now, even until the end of the age he will be with us as we host his presence. The record of our sin has been removed – holy cannot sit next to unholy. In First Corinthians 6 verses 18 onwards, Paul addresses the Corinthian church regarding ungodly behaviour. Our lives are not our own any more, they have been bought with a price, and we are temples of the Holy Spirit. This means we are no longer mere human! Where God is celebrated all other authorities fall (1Samuel 5 :3). With God’s Spirit in us, nothing is impossible!

Opposition can come from many directions, which will try to hinder the building process. Nehemiah gives us key principles to apply which will enable us to build even while facing discouragement and opposition.

This is week two of a series called Turn on the Power. The message today is titled Be Filled With Power. The series is about knowing the power of God and His divine ability in our daily lives.

In John 7:37-39 we see Jesus making a prophetic statement for our experience the other side of the cross where we now live! – NIV “On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, ‘Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.’ By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.”

In the verse here Jesus qualifies the statement by saying that this Spirit would emanate from the centre of our being, our belly, our heart, our inner most self…..So His holy spirit was not to live in buildings, but to live in those who were and are His followers. Jesus was announcing in that scripture that which was fulfilled in the day of Pentecost.

A key question to ask now is how does a person experience this situation or the baptism of the Holy Spirit personally? It’s profound maybe but simple as it involves faith, just as in anything we receive from God. Did we receive the Holy Spirit the moment we believed? It's not about straining, attaining or travailing but receiving! There is no Holy Spirit part 1 and part 2! The Bible says we are born of the Spirit, belong to God and His Spirit now lives in us - we are temples of the Holy Spirit.

Some people unfortunately have received the baptism of salvation, but not yet experienced the baptism or the infilling of the spirit, so have not yet experienced the power of the Holy Spirit in their lives. Gods plan was to reposition us in salvation and empower us. The filling of the Holy Spirit is relationally oriented, rather than us being in a special place, building or meeting. We can receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit, the infilling of the Spirit by other people praying for as Paul did in scripture, but also by simply coming to God and asking in prayer. Often we wait for something to ‘fall on us’ rather than experiencing something that God is now releasing from ‘within us’. This is not something outside of us but a releasing of that which is dwelling in our inner most parts (John 7 scripture again).

Often when people don't experience the power of God or the ability of God in their lives, it's because a section of their lives has not yet been submitted to God. We must come before God saying “Lord, I will not hold back an area of my life”. We need to be being regularly refilled or infilled with the Holy Spirit just as our cars require refuelling. In Ephesians 5:18 scripture tells us to be filled with the Spirit rather than wine that leads to debauchery. Paul is telling us not to be satisfied with broken things giving momentary pleasure but with the Holy Spirit. Other translations say “Be filled with the Holy Spirit”. This is the present continuous tense, ie an ongoing reality or experience in the life we live for God. This needs to be our daily prayer.

This is week two of a series called Turn on the Power. The message today is titled Be Filled With Power. The series is about knowing the power of God and His divine ability in our daily lives.

In John 7:37-39 we see Jesus making a prophetic statement for our experience the other side of the cross where we now live! – NIV “On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, ‘Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.’ By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.”

In the verse here Jesus qualifies the statement by saying that this Spirit would emanate from the centre of our being, our belly, our heart, our inner most self…..So His holy spirit was not to live in buildings, but to live in those who were and are His followers. Jesus was announcing in that scripture that which was fulfilled in the day of Pentecost.

A key question to ask now is how does a person experience this situation or the baptism of the Holy Spirit personally? It’s profound maybe but simple as it involves faith, just as in anything we receive from God. Did we receive the Holy Spirit the moment we believed? It's not about straining, attaining or travailing but receiving! There is no Holy Spirit part 1 and part 2! The Bible says we are born of the Spirit, belong to God and His Spirit now lives in us - we are temples of the Holy Spirit.

Some people unfortunately have received the baptism of salvation, but not yet experienced the baptism or the infilling of the spirit, so have not yet experienced the power of the Holy Spirit in their lives. Gods plan was to reposition us in salvation and empower us. The filling of the Holy Spirit is relationally oriented, rather than us being in a special place, building or meeting. We can receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit, the infilling of the Spirit by other people praying for as Paul did in scripture, but also by simply coming to God and asking in prayer. Often we wait for something to ‘fall on us’ rather than experiencing something that God is now releasing from ‘within us’. This is not something outside of us but a releasing of that which is dwelling in our inner most parts (John 7 scripture again).

Often when people don't experience the power of God or the ability of God in their lives, it's because a section of their lives has not yet been submitted to God. We must come before God saying “Lord, I will not hold back an area of my life”. We need to be being regularly refilled or infilled with the Holy Spirit just as our cars require refuelling. In Ephesians 5:18 scripture tells us to be filled with the Spirit rather than wine that leads to debauchery. Paul is telling us not to be satisfied with broken things giving momentary pleasure but with the Holy Spirit. Other translations say “Be filled with the Holy Spirit”. This is the present continuous tense, ie an ongoing reality or experience in the life we live for God. This needs to be our daily prayer.

Like Nehemiah, for any task ahead of us, we need to be prepared and to count the cost in order to finish strong! Being mindful of being a blessing we need to "Do it" - do it afraid if necessary, do it because it's right and do it well, with a spirit of excellence.

Today saw the start of a brand new series (Turn The Power On). Earlier, we spoke about being awoken by God, being set apart and living surrendered to His will, the result being that we can be ready for God to use us. If we have a desire for God to use us, this will not be in our own strength, but by God’s power and ability operating in and through us. The next four weeks is about turning the power on in our lives - living a Spirit filled life and how it was always the plan of God for us in the Salvation that he provided for us.

God's plan in Salvation was not just to reposition us but also to empower our lives. 2 Corinthians 5 tells us that the “the old has gone, the new is here!” (NIV verse 17).

Ephesians 1:13 says that we've been sealed by the Holy Spirit but also but we would be filled with the Holy Spirit. We need to know that the word of God reveals we are to be filled with the spirit for the work of regeneration. Sealing us in the Spirit labels us but being filled with the Holy Spirit enables us to live a Spirit filled life – real Christianity!  Romans 8:9 even states (NIV) “if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, they do not belong to Christ”. A few verses later it says “For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God”. In reality, it’s impossible to live the Christian life God expects without His spirit in us enabling us.

We shouldn't settle for being a powerless church when the Bible says that his church should actually be a people of power and authority that make a difference on earth. The messages in this new series over the next three or four weeks will lay out how God intended us to be repositioned with a brand new life, but also that we would know His Spirit coming to live inside of us to enable and empower us to be all that he says we can be. The Bible teaches that God Almighty places His own Spirit in the lives of those he has redeemed - a powerful perhaps radical statement yet totally true. The next few weeks is about establishing the reality of this.

If you've never experienced the baptism of a power of God, if you've never seen God turn up his power on in your life, why not take a moment to ask Him today. We're going to come back next week and carry on this new series about turning on the power in our lives.

Our lives are represented as those Living Stones conforming to the image of the Chief Cornerstone. Throughout this message we learn HOW God builds US. The prison doors are open but we need to do the walking out through those doors by applying His ways, His principles and His Word to our lives.