We have been in a series on first corinthians. We're taking a brief pause to do a mini series on the person and the work of the Holy Spirit. And so last week, we talked about the miracle of the Holy Spirit's work in the christian life. We saw the incredible reality that the God of the burning bush, who appeared to Moses, the God of the pillar of fire that led his people, the God of Mount Sinai, in acts chapter two, comes and rests on and in the believer in Christ. Absolutely incredible. The fire of God's presence in the hearts of God's people. But today, we want to answer the question, okay, now what. What happens then, now that we have the Holy Spirit living in us, what does life in the spirit look like?
So please look at acts chapter one. We're gonna begin in verse four. This is God's word. And while staying with them, he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, this being Jesus, but to wait for the promise of the father, which he said, you heard from me, for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now. So when they had come together, they asked him, Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel? And he said to them, it is not for you to know the times or seasons that the father is fixed by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. And you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and to the end of the earth. This is God's word.
And let's pray. Lord, we pray that you would do what only you can do. That you would breathe and bring life. You would breathe and bring illumination. That you would breathe and bring change. That you would breathe and shape us. Lord, I pray for that, because apart from you, everything we do is in vain. But, lord, with you, all things are possible. So we ask you to be here in the name of Jesus. Amen.
Well, last week I shared a particular illustration I want to remind you of. We talked about this phrase, carry the fire. We as christians carry the fire of God's presence, and we pulled that from, as an illustration from Cormac McCarthy's beautiful and heart heartbreaking novel, the road. And that book. It's a story of a father who is helping his son navigate a wasteland, a post apocalyptic world that will surely depress you. So please don't read it. But I'm giving you the illustration anyway. And he talks to his young son about the importance of carrying the fire. And of course, the young son thinks he's talking about a literal fire. Okay? It's important. And you're in the wasteland. There's no power. We have to carry the fire. Okay. Keep some fire burning. At the end of the novel, you realize that what the father has been teaching his son is not physical fire. It's a fire that the son carries inside of him. And the father has to send his son away into the darkness by himself at one point, but assures him that he carries the fire in himself, in his heart. This is everything the father's been teaching him for the whole novel, sent out into this dark world, and in a much deeper, truer, more eternal and profound sense, we as believers carry the fire of God's presence out into a dark and broken world.
Now, Paul tells us in one corinthians 1213 that we have all as believers been baptized into, or the language literally is plunged into. It's the illustration. We had today been baptized into the spirit, plunged into the spirit and brought out in new life. And that's why he says, john, baptized with water. But you, when the spirit of God comes in this fullness prophesied in Joel two, you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit, so plunged into and brought out into new life by the spirit.
So now what? What does it look like to live as someone, if you are a believer in Christ? What this text says is that you have the fire of the Holy Spirit in your heart. So now what? What does it do?
6 · The unit states the sermon's thesis and previews its three-part structure: the Spirit changes believers from the inside out by bringing nearness to God, transforming them through sanctification, and empowering their witness
Well, here's the simple thing I want to get across today. Carrying the fire changes you. Nothing touches fire and goes away unchanged. Carrying the fire changes you from the inside out. Three ways we'll explore that today. The first is, carrying the fire means living in the nearness of God's presence. Now, one of the chief purposes of the spirit is that we might fully experience the presence of God.
7 · The pastor reads Romans 8:13-16, establishing Paul's teaching that the Spirit enables believers to put sin to death, confirms their identity as God's children, and enables them to cry 'Abba, Father' in an intimate, experiential way
So Paul gives this to us in Romans 813. Now, you can turn there or it'll be on the screen behind me. So we'll be in Romans eight. If you, I guess, did I want to really get flipping around in your bible? Romans eight. You can turn there or you can see it behind the screen. There's going to be a number of scriptures. I'll just warn you, we're going to be going through today. And each time you're invited to turn there or just kind of follow along and keep the text in front of you at acts one, which we will return to at the end. So, Romans 813. For if you live according to the flesh, you will die. But if by the spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received the spirit of adoption as sons by whom we cry Abba, father. The spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.
8 · The pastor traces Paul's argument in Romans, showing the progression from salvation to adoption to experiential nearness—that God not only saves and declares us His children but through the Spirit brings us into felt, experiential relationship with Him
Now, this comes toward the middle of Paul's letter to the Romans. He's been talking to them for multiple chapters about how we've been saved by grace and that through faith we are reconciled to God. We become sons of God. We're brought into God's family. Now, that in itself is a wonder. It could have been that God saved us from our sins but kept us at arm's length. That's not what we see. Instead, we see that God saved us from our sins and then brings us, invites us into his family to live as sons of God with all the rights and privileges of being his children. But not only then does it stop there. Not only are we saved from our sins, not only are we declared to be part of God's family, the spirit, in a sense, pulls us even closer into the nearness of God himself. It's one thing to be declared a child or have a relationship declared over you on a piece of paper, but it's another thing to experience the reality of it.
9 · The adoption story illustrates the distinction between legal declaration and experiential reality—just as the pastor's sister's adoption was legally finalized before he met her but became real when they embraced, so the Spirit takes our legal adoption and makes it experientially real in our hearts
Now, the way I think about it is this. When I was an early teen, my parents adopted one of my sisters from Russia. So they left on this trip. They went halfway around the world to Siberia. And somewhere in Siberia, I think it was in Irkutsk, the judge presiding over the potential adoption banged a gavel, and she declared this little girl to be the daughter of my parents. Now, meanwhile, I'm all the way back here in El Paso, Texas, so I know that this has happened. We get an email from my dad, and it's like, you have a new sister. And I'm excited, but I've never met her, right? So all I have is this email. Until a week or a week and a half later, my parents and her come off the airplane and we greet them, and we kind of, for the first time, embrace as a family. In that moment, the legal declaration became a visible, personal reality to me, to the point that I don't just know in my head, I have a sister. I know in my heart I have a sister. I've sat across from her on many holidays. She lives out with her family in Baltimore, and we're hoping to go be able to see them at some point. And that kind of reality is that the piece of paper became real in my life.
10 · This unit applies the adoption illustration to the theological reality, asserting that the Spirit's work is to move our adoption from head knowledge to heart knowledge, from legal declaration to experiential reality
That is what the Holy Spirit does. The spirit takes our adoption by God from just being a head knowledge thing to a heart knowledge thing, from being a legal declaration over us, to being an experiential reality. And this is vividly illustrated when Paul says, through the spirit, it says, by whom we cry, Abba, father. And the spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. What does that mean?
11 · The Abba illustration captures the intimate, childlike nature of the term—like small children running to embrace their grandfather—showing that this is the kind of experiential, affectionate relationship the Spirit enables believers to have with God
Well, that term, Abba, is what a child in the first century in this area would have called their father. And I get a vivid illustration of this because, you know how grandparents all have different names? You know, your grandparents are pappy or grandma or granddaddy or whatever it is. Abuelo. Abuelo, whatever it is. Well, my dad, his grandfather named to my kids and his grandkids is Abba and so. And it was great. He was smart picking Abba because, like, he's one of the first names out of every kid's mouth because they can't say aunt so and so, but they can say Abba. And you're like, yeah, look, he loves me. And so that's. My dad got an easy win in grandparenting. That's a pro tip. And the beautiful thing about it is, sometimes when my parents would be gone for a while, and then, you know, you know, Abba's back in town, and so we'd go over to Abba's house, and Abba would be there, and my kids would yell, you know, three or four, and then run up to him and kind of jump, and he'd pick him up. That moment, that experiential reality is what Paul is talking about in Romans, chapter eight in his book.
12 · Extended quotation from Dane Ortlund's Gentle and Lowly articulating the Spirit's work of making Christ's heart experientially real to believers—moving from theory to reality, from doctrine to experience, from hearing about love to feeling it
Gentle and lowly Dane Ortland drives us home in some of the most beautiful language I've read on this topic, he says this. The spirit causes us to actually feel Christ's heart for us. The spirit makes the heart of Christ real to us. Not just heard, but seen. Not just seen, but felt. Not just felt, but enjoyed. The spirit takes what we read in the Bible and believe on paper about Jesus heart and moves it from theory to reality, from doctrine to experience. He goes on to say in another section, it is one thing as a child to be told your father loves you. You believe him, you take him at his word. But it is another thing, unutterably more real. To be swept up in his embrace, to feel the warmth, to hear his beating heart within his chest, to instantly know the protective grip of his arms. It is one thing to hear he loves you. It is another thing to. To feel his love. This, he says, is the glorious work of the spirit. And isn't that good news?
13 · Direct pastoral address naming and correcting two errors: the manufactured emotionalism of some churches that creates experiences divorced from truth, and the opposite error of rejecting all subjective experience in favor of cold intellectualism—both miss the biblical vision of Spirit-enabled experiential knowledge of God
Oh, man. Now, look, I'm going to drop into something here because there is a right and subjective. There's a right and appropriate pushback in some churches about experience in the gathered body of Christ because of abuses of other churches taking the categories of experience, experience and pushing them to inappropriate realities or inappropriate practices. So what it works out like is this, that in some church context, in order to feel the feels of being near to God, you got to have the synth just right. You got to have the right chord, and then you have the right lighting, and you have to have the right, like, notes going behind it. And the right feeling kind of in the room. And it's like, okay, now I'm feeling something. We haven't even started singing yet, but I'm feeling the feels right. And some Christians, I would say that, okay, that that may be what you've come from. And in response, you go to, nope, no more feelings. Or another thing isn't just the smoke and lasers of, you know, that kind of a church. It could also be, I can only really feel God if it's this, you know, this historic, ornate church building with candles where it's the, you know, the real beauty of church. When you're sitting in that kind of church, you really feel it, right? And maybe you've come from one of those traditions and your reaction is, okay, no more feelings. We're gonna stop feeling the feels, right? And you just kind of go, I just learn things about God. And I take them in and I nod. That is true. And then the process of being a Christian is I read the Bible and I go, hmm, that is true. And I come on Sunday and I learn things. And I say, also true. And, and, you know, and it becomes this sort of like heartless head to actions, head to actions without the heart ever being involved. And, and I want to say this, if that's where you've landed and different part times of my life, I have gotten there. I have gotten to the point where I'm like, listen, I don't trust my subjective experiences. I'm only going to trust the objective truth. But that led me to basically say, okay, I don't want to all this talk about having a personal relationship with God, get, have a personal relationship with God. My reaction was, no, no, I'm just going to have a true relationship with God. I'm not personal. It's just the truth, you know, and here's the reality. I think from Romans eight and from Galatians four, that's wrong. That attitude of we're not going to experience, we're not going to feel is wrong. We are meant to experience God's presence.
14 · Returns to the carrying-the-fire metaphor to illustrate the error of keeping God's presence at arm's length—believers are meant to stand close enough to the fire to feel its warmth, not maintain safe distance from subjective experience
The living God dwells in the hearts of his people, and the spirit of God helps us to take in and grasp the spiritual reality of God as our father. Right. That we are meant to experience. And so, listen, I just want to make sure we don't over correct that we don't go, okay, no more feelings. No no no. We're all about the feels. If they're governed rightly, if they're informed rightly, we're meant to experience God. Now think about it this way. We talked about the illustration of carrying the fire. Well, I think sometimes in the christian life, the fire of God's presence is in your heart. And maybe it's over here, but you're like, yeah, that seems too subjective and feely and weird. Maybe your family didn't grow up sharing feelings anymore. You're like, okay, no, I'm gonna stand over here. And I know the fire is there and I appreciate it and it's giving me light, but I don't want to be close enough to feel that stuff. Right. And here's the reality. I think Romans eight is an invitation to say, listen, friend, you're meant to be living a christian life. Close enough that you can feel the warmth of God's presence in your life. That is a beautiful thing, a precious thing that you are meant to experience.
15 · Prescribes the biblical means of experiencing God's presence: Scripture (where the Spirit speaks), prayer (communing with God, not grocery-list prayers), the gathered church, the ordinances of communion and baptism, and creation—warning against seeking experience outside these revealed means of grace
And yet I want to give one caution. Then on the other end, often where we go off the rails is how we seek to experience and pursue experiencing God's presence. And so I want to give you a few ways that are rightly informed by scripture. About where and how we're meant to experience the reality of God's presence. And the first one is in God's word itself, right? So, two, Timothy 316 says that the word of God was breathed out by God. Where have we heard that language before? Right? That is spirit language. That is Ezekiel 37 language. It is the spirit of God who, as Peter would say, carried men, bore men along in the spirit to create the word of God that we know today. So here's the reality. You want to experience the spirit. This is where you start, right? You start with the document that the spirit wrote. And sometimes I talk to christians and we're like, man, I just really wish I could feel more of the Lord in my life. And I'm like, awesome. So what are your times in the word? Been? Like, ah, they just feel dry. I just kind of stopped doing that, you know? I'm like, that's madness. If you want the spirit of God, go to the place that the spirit of God has written the very words of God, right? That's where we start. And then in the scriptures, we find a number of practices that the Lord encourages us to pursue, that we then might live in the reality of God's nearness. And the first and foremost is prayer. I mean, this is kind of obvious, but I don't want to assume the obvious. Like, prayer itself must be a part of your relationship with God and not. I don't mean like grocery shopping. Okay, not talking about grocery shopping. Prayers where you bring the Lord a list of groceries, and you're like, here, Lord, I'd like that. Thanks. And then you walk away, right? That's not communing with the Lord. Look at the psalms for an example. Pouring your heart out to the Lord. You're letting him reshape you. You're spending time in the word. You're praying according to the word, right? That is relating to the Lord. You speak to the Lord and you open up the pages of the Bible that he might speak to you. That is a good thing. Also look to the gathering of the saints, right? The spirit promises that where even two or three are gathered in his name, he is there. The spirit of God creates the people of God. He brings these people to life. And so if you want more of the spirit, you should be in the body the spirit created, which is the local church, right? That's where you want to be, right? Even. I mean, there's so many more. Please get out there and explore them. But even today, experiencing the moments of communion and baptism, those are commands of the Lord. And I have found the Lord very faithfully meets us in those moments. I mean, there are moments where I'm taking communion, I'm with the Lord in that moment. And the Lord brings to mind a sin pattern that I have not seen in my life. And in that moment I realize, man, Lord, thank you for being near. Or he comforts me in a way that I need to be comforted. Or as we pursue baptism, as we take that step of faith, it's not as though it saves you, but the Lord, often there's a special grace and empowerment through the spirit that comes as you publicly stand up and declare that you're a follower of Jesus. Right? These are beautiful things. I mean, look, we don't even have time to get into this. Psalm 19 Nature being out and away from normal life to spend time with the Lord or observing the things that God has made to general revelation. Like, these are all things in scripture that we're meant to be pursuing. And yet I think too many christians are like, yeah, but what else? And this is why every once in a while there's like a weird new best selling book about, here's the secret to experiencing the presence of God. And you're like, well, is it in here? Because if it's not in here, I'm not going to do it.
16 · Transition summarizing point one (nearness of God through biblical means) and introducing point two (sanctification as the forge), maintaining the inside-out structure of the sermon
All right, so that is, I think, where we want to land to say, yes, we prize experience, but we pursue that experience through the means of grace that God has given us, and we expect and ask for his nearness to be present. All right, second, I'll say much more about this, but 2nd. 2nd way, we carry the fire into our own experience, our own life. The first is living in the nearness of the spirit of God. Second is living in the forge.
17 · Exposition of Galatians 5:16-17 diagnosing the internal war between flesh and Spirit in believers—many desires are disordered and must be opposed, but the Spirit gives both the desire and the power to change, leading to Paul's command to 'walk by the Spirit
Galatians five is where we're going to be here. Galatians five, Paul is, he's been talking about the gospel for the first several chapters, and now he's going to talk about how to live life in light of the gospel. And so, Galatians five, he says this, but I say, walk by the spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh, for the desires of the flesh are against the spirit, the desires of the spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to one another to keep you from doing the things you want to do. So Paul kind of looks inside of us and sees and shows us that there is a war going on inside of us. There is a war between the old us and the new us. And Paul calls the old us our sin, nature, the flesh. It is the part of ourselves that still wants to go back and pursue the very sins for which Christ died. And we have to be honest that many of our desires are not just natural or neutral, but many of our desires are disordered desires of the flesh and should be opposed. But there's good news. God's grace gives us another power at work in us, and that is the spirit of God. Philippians 213 says, the spirit of God is that which enables us to will and to work for his good pleasure, meaning we want to change, and then we have the power to change. And this is what's happening. This war is going on inside of us. And so Paul says, walk by the spirit.
18 · Refutes the passive 'conveyor belt' model of sanctification—while the Spirit enables and empowers, believers are commanded to actively walk by the Spirit, putting one foot in front of the other in obedience
And I think for too many of us, we would prefer a christian life in which we're saved. We're transformed, we're given the nearness of God. And then we step on the conveyor belt of sanctification, right? Where we just sort of like, we just stand there and it's like, okay, go ahead and sanctify me. Boop, boop. You know, and then we just. We have, like, anger replaced with peace and, you know, hatred replaced with joy, and it's just like, great. I come out the other end, I feel so much better, right? That's not what Paul is saying. In Galatians five, he says, actually it is a call to walk by the spirit. We put 1ft in front of the other. Now, does the spirit bring us to life to enable that in the first place? Yes. Does the spirit enable us to desire, to want, to change and to walk that way? Yes. Will the spirit meet us as we put one step in front of the other? Yes, but the command is still walk by the spirit.
19 · Exposition of Galatians 5:19-25 contrasting the works of the flesh (which exclude from the kingdom) with the fruit of the Spirit (which evidences belonging to Christ), establishing that those in Christ have crucified the flesh and must keep in step with the Spirit
And it's. Well, there's more at stake here than we can imagine. Look at Galatians 519. He says, here's what's at stake. The works of the flesh are evident. What we naturally want to do is evident. Sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies and things like these. Meaning this isn't even a comprehensive list. This is all the stuff that's coming out of our sinful hearts. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But in verse 21, the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control. Against such things, there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the spirit, let us also keep in step by the spirit.
20 · Pastoral confrontation of the congregation's desire for the Spirit's benefits without the cost of sanctification—people want miracles and blessings but resist giving up sinful patterns in relationships, entertainment, work, and marriage
Look, Paul is diagnosing, and he's laying this out. He's diagnosing our hearts and laying this out because we often want all the benefits of the Holy Spirit's power, but we want to keep our lives just the way they are. Right? We don't want to have to give up anything really big. Like, let's be honest. On the scale of what the Lord asks us to give up, one and a half hours on Sunday morning is not that big of an ask, right? Most people are out of work anyway, so an hour and a half. Okay, I could do that. But when the Holy Spirit goes to work, he pushes on other things, right? We don't want to have to give up a relationship that we know is not godly. We don't want to have to change our Netflix cue. We don't want to have to change the way we interact with our boss or coworkers. We don't want to have to change the pattern of resentment that we keep within our marriages. We don't want to have to change those things. But we would like a miracle every once in a while, right? We would like the peace part. We would like the. Like, man, the Lord's doing powerful stuff in my life, and I'm just being blessed part, but we don't want to crucify the flesh. And the. And the picture here is, they go together. They go together.
21 · Extended illustration of the blacksmith's forge captures the painful, repeated process of sanctification—being heated, beaten, cooled, and reshaped over and over until conformed to the right shape (Christ's image)
When the Holy Spirit goes to work in you, in a sense, he puts you in a forge. A number of years ago, I was in California. We went to this old west town that was, like, a recreation of the old west. And it was a hot day already. And, of course, my kids are like, let's go to an even hotter place, the blacksmith shop. And so this poor guy who had the job of being the old timey blacksmith was making, you know, horseshoes and knives and all kinds of stuff. And he was in the. In this blacksmith shop, and there was a giant, roaring, fiery forge, right? And you just watch this guy go to work. He's heating the metal up. He's laying it on the anvil. He's beating it, he's cooling it, he's putting back in the forge, and so on and so forth, and he is just. Sweat is pouring off of him. And I thought, man, the only thing worse than being the blacksmith is probably being that hunk of metal, right? The hunk of. I mean, I'm hot. The blacksmith is even more sweaty, but that piece of metal is having a worse day. That guy's getting heated up and then cooled and then beaten and then cooled and then heated and, like, over and over and over until he's in the piece of metal is in the right shape. And that is what Galatians five says the christian life is like. That is what the Bible calls sanctification, the process of looking more and more like Jesus, of living more and more in conformity with the walking by the spirit.
22 · Applies the forge metaphor theologically, acknowledging that sanctification feels like dying but brings new life—when specific sins (lust, pornography, anger) are crucified, the Spirit brings freedom, dignity, and relational peace, all conforming believers to Christ's image
And look, Paul is clear. There are times sanctification feels like dying. We have crucified the flesh with its passions. There are times where growing in Christ seems like everything in you is dying. And yet when you die to the old things, the spirit brings new life. Look, the reality is this. When you do the hard, crucifying work of putting to death a pattern of lust or casual pornography use, you find that it does feel like you're dying, but you also suddenly find new life. You find that you see people not as objects, but as people made in God's image, full of dignity and worth. People made in God's image are more glorious to you. Your soul is lighter. You breathe the free air without that slavery around you. Or perhaps this, if you put to death a pattern of anger that's been present in your life or your family, it can feel like dying. And yet, as you put together that pattern of anger and you pursue a pattern of peace and self control, you'll find that you come to life, that your closest relationships begin to have more life and peace. And so here is the reality. The spirit of God puts us in the forge. As difficult as it is for our good to make us what he intends for us, what does he intend for us to be? What shape is he conforming us to? The shape of Christ. Meaning we are put into the forge to come out looking like Jesus.
23 · Personal testimony of unhealed illness illustrating that the Spirit's primary work is sanctification, not healing—God's will is to make believers look more like Jesus, even (especially) through suffering that feels like being in a forge
Now, a number of years ago, one of the christian brothers in the church and I. I don't know why, but we just became linked over a particular year because we had a series of painful, difficult health issues that landed us in a succession of doctor's office visits. And so we kind of became like, I don't know, like war buddies of weird medical issues. And so we'd get together and talk like, what skate did you do this week? Oh, yeah, done that one. That's no fun, you know? And what about this? What about that? And so we kind of commiserated. And I remember at different points feeling both for myself and for him meant well. We believe, as we'll talk about in the next couple of weeks, we believe that God supernaturally heals. And we've been praying that God would heal. And yet God isn't healing. And so does that mean the spirit of God is not really here? He's not really here to help us? He's not really inside of us. What is the Lord doing? Why wouldn't he answer that request to heal? Well, there's a lot of things we don't know about why God decides to do what he does. His ways are higher than our ways. His wisdom is higher than our wisdom. But first, thessalonians four three became a huge help to both of us in that era. And this is one, thessalonians four three, this is the will of God for you, your sanctification, meaning this. That God could use his spirit to heal us, but instead, in that situation, he used his spirit to make us more like Jesus. And it's like, man, I don't like doing this. This feels like I'm in a forge. Yep. The spirit says, that's exactly right, because the will of God for you is that you look more like Jesus. A little more. A little more in every area, year after year, until you find yourself in glory. That is the function of the Holy Spirit.
24 · Direct application asking whether listeners are walking by the Spirit and being reforged, contrasting those who seek spectacular experiences with those who bear the fruit of the Spirit through years of faithful walking—the latter shows greater Spirit-fullness and is God's goal
So let me ask you, friend, are you walking by the spirit that the Lord might reforge you into the image of Christ? Often when we talk about the Holy Spirit, we want all of the sort of what we consider the nice stuff, the fun stuff, the comforting stuff, the cool stuff, we want the five steps to a healing ministry stuff. We don't want the here's how to put to death your flesh stuff. And yet here is the reality. The Spirit of God produces the fruit of the spirit in your life. So if you had two people, one who's had all kinds of crazy experiences in the Spirit, but their life is a wreck, and another person that has had maybe one profound experience in their life experiencing the nearness of God, but they have walked with the Lord for decades and look more and more like Jesus. If you stood them up and asked which one of these is more full of the spirit, it would be that one with the fruit of the spirit every time. Right? That is a challenge for us. It's a sobering reality. And it's also a reality that you cannot accept the goodness of the nearness of God without being put into the forge of God, that you might look more like God. Right. You can't get the nearness. I just want the nearness. I want the warm glow. Awesome. Guess what? You're going to get closer to that warm glow than you ever wanted to. Like, I feel so great. No, too close. Too close. Right. That's sanctification. But it's for our good, and it's for a good purpose.
25 · Transition to point three, reiterating the inside-out structure: nearness to God, transformation in the forge, and now mission as light in the world—the Spirit's work moves from internal to external, from personal transformation to public witness
Part number three, living as the light. So we live in the nearness of God. We live in the forest, and then we live as the light. So we're working from the inside out here. When the spirit of God comes to dwell in us, it changes us from the inside out. So first it changes our relationship with God himself, and then it begins to go to work on us, that it changes us in the deepest parts of us. We crucify the flesh, we come to new life in the spirit. But when that happens, something glorious and profound also happens related to our mission in the world around us.
26 · Returns to Acts 1:8, asserting that while the Spirit works in believers for their transformation, the Spirit is also given for mission—to empower witness to others and advance God's redemptive purposes in the world
So if you're still in acts one, look at verse eight with me. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you. And you will be my witnesses in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth. Now, the spirit of God is surely for us individually, right? It's for us to experience his presence. It's for us to look more like Jesus. But it's wrong to say that when God gives us the spirit of God, it is only for us. God gives the spirit of God to us, that it might also be for others that the work he does in our lives might be also for the mission of God to reach and save and help and give light to the world around us.
27 · Defines witness as sharing what we've experienced and know with those who don't know, and argues that this witness is one of the Spirit's primary purposes—the internal work of knowing God and looking like Jesus becomes the basis for external testimony to others
Now, when Jesus says his disciples will be his witnesses, what does that mean? Well, it means that they will share about what they've experienced. They will share about what they know, and they will share about it to others who do not know. And that, friends, that is utterly profound. Because what it means is that the work of God that starts deep in us, that we know our father and experience him, that we begin to look more like Jesus. We then are that work in us triggered by the reality of who Jesus is and what he's done, we then become vessels of witness to everyone around us when that is taking place. That is one of the very purposes for which God sent the spirit.
28 · Exposition of Acts 4:29-31 showing that when believers prayed for boldness to continue God's mission despite threats, God answered by filling them with the Holy Spirit and empowering their witness—illustrating that the Spirit's power accompanies those set on God's mission
In acts four, you don't have to turn there. But in acts chapter four, there's a very unique story that illustrates this. So early on, the church is birthed, and the believers begin to face severe opposition, severe threats from the religious leaders. And so they get together and they have a prayer meeting, which is always good. They get together and they have a prayer meeting, but they do not pray for the things that you think they would pray for. They don't pray for deliverance from the authorities. They don't pray to be filled with the spirit, that they might be able to kind of be comforted. They pray in acts 429, this prayer. Now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness while you stretch out your hand to heal. And signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant, Jesus. That's what they pray. They basically just pray, make us bold. That's their prayer. And how does God answer their prayer? Verse 31. And when they were pray that when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness. Now notice what's happening when the people of God set themselves to be about the mission of God. The power of God then accompanies them.
29 · Pastoral anecdote illustrating that the way to experience the Spirit's power is not nostalgia for past movements but present obedience to mission—witnessing to neighbors brings the Spirit's empowerment more surely than longing for old experiences
Look, that is profound. Now, years ago, one of our pastors was interacting with a member, and the member was expressing, man, I just wish I could see the spirit of God and the Holy Spirit work like he did in the old days. I think their reference point was like the seventies or early eighties. I just wish it would happen that way again. I wish we could experience all that again. And the pastor, I think with a smile, I hope with a smile, but I don't know. The pastor, I think with a smile said, you want to see the Holy Spirit work? Then go across the street and talk to your neighbor about Jesus. And I hope he said it with a smile, but in a punchy way. I don't think he could be more right, because in acts four, what you find is they're not pursuing the spirit just for an end in itself. They are, they are asking for God's power to do God's mission, and God sends the spirit to empower them to do that. So when the believer sets themselves on the mission of God, the power of God comes quickly.
30 · Exposition of Matthew 5:14-16 establishing believers as light-bearers whose good works should shine so that others see and give glory to God—the Spirit's light in believers is meant to overflow into the world to draw others to God, which requires internal transformation producing visible evidence
And when the power of God comes, what does it look like? Well, Matthew five is where I would take you. Then Jesus uses this vivid analogy to help the church understand when he says, you are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden, nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your father who is in heaven. Do you see what Jesus is saying? And I think there is a thread of light that runs from one end of the scriptures to the other here, right. The spirit of God brings the light of God into our own hearts, but that light is meant to overflow and give light to the world around us. And the temptation is that we would not let our light shine before others either, because we have so little of the light of the spirit and his transformative work and our lives, that our lives stand as a contradiction of the gospel. We don't want that. We want to be reforged into the image of Jesus, that the image of Christ might be brighter and shine to more people around us, but we do that for a purpose, that those around in the darkness would see and give glory, meaning that they would come to become part of the family of God, attracted by the light of the believers around them.
31 · Geographic illustration of El Paso's lights glowing on the horizon across dark West Texas plains mirrors Jesus's city-on-a-hill imagery—the church is meant to be a visible glow in the darkness through transformed lives and gospel proclamation working together
Look, I love living in El Paso, because we actually have, in West Texas and southern New Mexico, actually, dark skies. Like, if you've been out on the east coast, there's like a. You know, there's a semi darkness. Out on the east coast. You get like, junior varsity darkness because they're so dense, there's so many people, that the light pollution just cuts off, you know? And so there's kind of this glow everywhere. But in West Texas, especially if you're driving, like, from Midland to El Paso, there is nothing. Right? There's not a human soul. There's some weird, unnatural stuff out there, I think. But there's nothing good on that road for a long miles. And yet, if you're driving in at night, often before you even come into the city, you see on the horizon this glow from the lights of the city. Right? That glow. That is what Jesus is talking about. Because Jerusalem was set on a hill, and as people approached it, they would see this light coming out from it. Jesus is saying, that's you. That's you, church. You're meant to be. By living lives that display the work of Christ, by proclaiming him with your words, by preaching the gospel. All of it is meant to work together, that it might be a light in the middle of a dark and cold world.
32 · Establishes the eternal stakes of mission (hell, eternity, urgency) while acknowledging human inability and celebrating God's power demonstrated in recent baptisms—the church cannot accomplish its mission in its own strength, but God faithfully empowers when believers set themselves to His purposes
Look, the stakes, friends, could not be higher here. Hell is real. Eternity is forever. Time is short. And so the urgency with which we must approach the mission of God with the power of the spirit cannot be overstated. But here's the good news. If it was just up to us and our own power to do what Jesus calls the church to do here, to take the gospel from one end of the earth to the other, it would be impossible. Look, man, I love everybody in this room, but if it was just a combination of our good ideas, I don't think we would do that great. Right? I don't love our chances. But Jesus says when the church of Jesus Christ sets itself to the purposes of Christ, he will bring the power. That he brings the power. Look, it is very unusual that we've had 14 people, even mostly adults, baptized on a Sunday in a baptism service. And even more unusual that we get, like, five more people that put their hand up right after that and say, I want to be baptized. Right. I just want to tell you, listen, I'm on staff here. We had no plan for that. Right? We have no, like, strategy. Like, we're going to see 14 baptisms. This, you know, like, I don't. I can't do that. I can't set that goal. Why? Because I have no power to do it. But here's the reality. God has reminded us this week and last week, he does have the power to do it, and he will surely do it. Amen. That is the power of God accompanying the church. That is about the mission of God.
33 · Final illustration from McCarthy's No Country for Old Men—the sheriff's dream of his father riding ahead to light a fire captures the deep human longing for someone who cares to light the way through darkness, which is the longing of everyone without Christ for the Father and the light they've never known
So let me. Let me end with this, friends. This is what. Whether or not our city knows it and our nation know it and the world knows it, this is what our. The people around us in darkness long for. I'm going to tell you. I'm going to end by telling you about one other depressing book by the author, Cormac McCarthy. If you're sensing a pattern in my reading diet, it is probably accurate. You, again, should not read this book, but I read it for you to retrieve an illustration. And the book is called no country for old men. And it's a story of stolen drug money and murder and evil. And in the end, the bad guy gets away, and the sheriff trying to catch him is an utter failure. Sorry I spoiled it. It's been out for a while. So the author is basically trying to hold up a mirror to our modern society and say, in this modern world of subjective morality, where everybody's just doing whatever they think is right, all it leads to is a wasteland. And the most moral, the guy that keeps the most moral code in the book is actually the villain, which is just this, like, perverse, like, ugh. But he's basically saying, this is what we are. Do you guys see? This is what we are. But then, at the very end of the novel, the sheriff who failed to catch the bad guy has a dream. And in the dream, he sees his. He's riding a horse in the darkness, and his father rides up next to him on a horse, and his father kind of nods at him. And then his father rides out ahead of him. And the main character, the sheriff, knows that the father has gone out ahead to light a fire for them to sit at in the middle of the darkness. And then the sheriff wakes up. And I read that, and it was heartbreaking because McCarthy is accurately diagnosing the deep longing of our world. What our world longs for in darkness and coldness is that somebody that cares about us would intersect their story with our story and then go out and light the way that we might be safe and whole in the middle of a dark and broken and brutal world. Right? Do you see that longing? That is the longing, whether or not they know it, of every person walking the streets of El Paso without Christ. They long for a father that they have never met. They long for light that they have never known. They long for these things because who they are is a person made in God's image. And they long, most of all, that their father would light a fire out in the distance, that they might find shelter and warmth and church. We have the fire.
34 · The conclusion synthesizes the sermon's three movements (nearness, forge, light) into personal application categories, inviting listeners to identify which area the Spirit is convicting them in and to respond in prayer—pursuing God's presence through His means, submitting to His refining work, or embracing mission to those in darkness
Look, this is our charge, friends, to love our father, to allow him to change us, and then allow that work to cast light on the world around us. So would you stand? Let me just encourage you with this. As we close, I want you to. I want you to maybe think about one of the three categories today of what the spirit's meant to do and hold on to that as we sing this final song. Maybe for you, the category you need to hold onto is the nearness of God. Maybe you're just convicted and you realize this morning that you've been sort of in a business relationship with God. That reality of God and who he is has not been a warmth in your life. It's just been another thing, you know? And as we sing, if that's. You ask that God would meet you. Get in front of the means of grace that God says he'll meet you in. But right now, we believe the spirit is active here as we gather. Ask him for help. And then next, if you love the Lord and you want the nearness of God, but you don't want to change, and you know it, then ask the Lord for help. You must change. Being in Christ means being put into the forge, means putting things to death so that other things may come to life. And if there's something, just have this sense. Maybe there's something that's specific that you're holding on to, that you're trying to hold out of the forge, and you're like, okay, you can have the rest of me, and that can be purified, but not this. I gotta hold on to this friend. Maybe in prayer, in this moment, just give it to the Lord. And last, maybe you love the Lord, but you don't love those in the darkness around you. Maybe you're content to just live your life, go home, close the garage door, and kind of seal yourself up till next Sunday. And the Lord would call you, and you feel the Lord's calling you to be a light to your family, to your coworkers, to your neighbors, even people you don't like, even people you don't want to come to the light, right? You were once one of those people, too. So whichever of those categories is there for you, let me pray.