Session 2 - Indwelling and Filling of the Spirit — John 3

0:00 Let's have a word of prayer again here before we go into our next little time. Heavenly father, we are thankful for the scripture. We're thankful for the Holy Spirit. This topic that we have here before us this afternoon and father, we we understand that the Holy Spirit while in us also has other functions while we're while we're dwelt with the spirit has other functions. One of those being the understanding of spiritual things.

0:26 We know that the the carnal mind or the natural mind does not understand those things that are spiritual, and so you've placed a spirit within us to be able to apprehend, be able to understand, comprehend the things of the Spirit. We're thankful that when we met the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior, we were born of the Spirit, not born of the flesh, but born of the Spirit, and we have that new life. Father, we want to learn more about it here today. We want to learn more about it. We want to be able to walk in the Christian walk with this joy that was described in last session.

1:03 We'd like to understand how we can employ our our gifts and the spirit to work through us to have to be available for service and father, there's sometimes that we really desire that holy boldness to be able to take a step, a stand for thee. So, we pray as we would continue on here with these matters. We pray for good understanding. We pray for a heart to apply the truths of the scripture in our own in our own life, in our walk with thee. So, we commit this time to thee and pray this in Jesus Christ name, amen.

1:34 Amen. Now, instead of a group response, let's do Let's do an individual. Raise your hand if you got the three R's and you want to rattle them off.

1:50 Tim. Three generation renewing and reversing.

1:55 Very good. All right. How about raise your hand for the second one.

2:02 Scott. Baptized the

2:03 Baptized by the spirit. Right. Into the body. Right. Third.

2:12 Samuel. Sealed. Alright. Actually, third one, it's not the third one but if you want to keep the, we ought, we should keep the order. What would be the third one we discussed last time?

2:26 Yeah. 12. 12. Hey, she raised her hand. What was your name again?

2:31 Rachel. Rachel raised her hand. Go ahead Rachel.

2:34 I was going say no.

2:35 Well, okay, so we have that we had, Tim gave us the three R's, we had the baptism into the body, we had the dwelling and someone already said sealed, Samuel said sealed, and now Rachel gives us the filling, alright? So we've got those those five those five things. We want to remember those because the we're saying that those things happen in that middle section at the point of salvation. Now listen to this, Herbert Lochler said this, No one can receive and obey the spirit and remain the same in life and character. As the Spirit assumes control there will be change clear, definite, noticeable and attractive.

3:27 You know, there's an element to these truths that we're discussing and as we start to grapple, as we start to grasp them and we start to understand that what makes me attractive to another believer? It's the spirit. We've got a bond. We're put into the same body. There's a commonality.

3:50 There's a bridge that's built there, know. And so what allows me to live the Christian life? The spirit. God's given us all the tools that we need. He's given us himself.

4:05 Now we have those five things before us that we discussed that happen at salvation. You may be able to think of more. I'm not saying that's an exhausted list. But for now, we're going to say those are some major components that happen at the point of salvation. Let me ask you this.

4:24 Rebirth, regeneration, renewal. How many times does that need to occur? One time. Everybody feel good about that? One occurs one time.

4:36 To be baptized into the body, the body of Christ. How many times did that does that need to happen? You sure? One time. Okay.

4:50 To be dwelt by the Holy Spirit. The the Holy Spirit taking up residence inside what what Corinthians calls our temple. How many times? One. One time, right?

5:02 Can he go out the back door? He's dwelling, right? He's residing. He's there to stay. How many times does it do we need to be sealed?

5:13 I mean, you think about all the analogies. We thought we talked about the king's seal. Once it's broken, it's broken, right? I mean, the envelope, once you rip it open, it's open. I mean, like so you're sealed once, right?

5:26 Okay? So, we're everybody's and that you you you get a hold of that. You know, Levi, how old are you? 10. Get a hold...

5:38 Hear that as a 10 year old. These things only happen to happen once in my life. If I accept Jesus Christ as my savior, I'm born again. One time, The spirit baptizes me into the body. One time.

5:51 I don't have to wait for a second blessing, right? That that's most often referred to a second blessing. We're going to and you know, I I live my life and I started to question like, am I missing something? You know, is there something more? Like you hear these guys, R.

6:07 A. Torrey, you know, this great revival and you you hear like about these ones that accomplished. I mean, Billy Graham used mightily a god. He wrote a book about the holy spirit. I'm thinking, does he have something in there?

6:19 I'm missing. Maybe Westlake Bible Fellowship didn't tell me everything about the holy spirit. You know, maybe there's something else. I'm just not I'm not I'm not grasping. There's a lot to know about the Holy Spirit but we need to understand when that we're we're placed into that body, it happens one time.

6:47 happen? Why do

6:50 you say that, Ray? Why do you say that?

6:53 Because a

6:54 drunk has

6:54 a big drink in the big room.

6:57 He got the analogy, right? You're staying. Well done. Hey, but wait a minute. Are we noticing a difference?

7:05 Four of these things that we talked about were one time occurrences. Now we got a major difference. Why is filling different? Like why why am I going to have to be over and over filled with the spirit? Little little basis for some confusion to creep in right here too, isn't it?

7:22 Like, okay, I can get, I mean, I only need to be born once, I can deal with that. If somebody is trying to teach me that I need to be born, I need to be like accept Christ multiple times, then I'm then I'm a a red flag goes up for me there, right? If somebody says, you know, you you can lose your salvation. Red flag. Eternal security is taken care of with the understanding of the work of the spirit.

7:52 So, but now this field aspect. Before we get into talking about that a little bit more, does anybody have any questions they'd like to ask? All right. I want to ask you a question. What is the difference between the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and the filling of the Holy Spirit?

8:24 Let's let somebody besides Ray answer this question. I'm just kidding. Mean do you have, somebody want to venture a little guess there? Devin? Okay.

8:51 Everybody follow that? Understand that? I think so there's a difference between the being in the car just being you're dwelling in the car versus actually being in the car and driving the car. You're in control of the car. It's a good example.

9:08 Mister Art Pyle, I'm gonna have to call you next.

9:11 We're involved by the spirit of God. Right. We can't get anymore. Okay. But when we're being filled, we're really allowing the spirit to have more of us.

9:21 There you go.

9:22 And there we... Wow. We can have more control in our life.

9:25 Very good.

9:26 Instead of holding it back.

9:27 Right. Right. So he makes a great point that there's we can't be any more indwelt. Happens one time and it happens adequately, sufficiently, right? But we can be more filled and so that is all goes back to being controlled.

9:48 Our analogy with the being controlled by the spirit. So I'm not does the spirit have me, we know that's or not do I have the spirit, we know that's true, but does the spirit have me, control. Dave, what were you going to say?

10:09 I thought I'd use that analogy, the person sitting in the back seat should not drive the car.

10:15 There you go.

10:15 Yep. Holy Spirit's in the driver's seat.

10:19 Very good. Yep. And given given God, the Holy Spirit, His proper place. Let Him have control. Very good.

10:29 Because you see those little little license plate. If anybody has one here, do not be offended by this, please. You see that one's God is my copilot, right? How about let him be your pilot, right? You know, just God is my pilot.

10:41 And so now let's give who has built a house in here? This is a bad question to ask in a housing market like this. Who has built a house recently? Who's the most recent person to build a house? Bob?

10:57 Well, that you're living, you're a residence. Nobody's built one recently, That was a bad question to ask. All right. We are staying with the Markovich's.

11:10 And

11:12 so I do remember when Bob and Nancy built their house that they're currently in. And so you all pretty much picked out your designs, right? You made some modifications to it, changed

11:26 My wife did. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

11:30 Now do you still have that room down in the basement that's kind of like well, it's just kind of like a Yes. Yeah.

11:39 We still have that room.

11:40 All right. What do you call that room? Now? Well, when you built the house, what did you call it?

11:45 I saw it.

11:45 Oh, what? No. Well, that's what I was thinking. All right. That's the room in the front toward like toward the lake, toward the pond.

11:55 Yeah. Right.

11:56 Got you.

11:57 What's your favorite room in the house, Bob?

12:00 My bedroom.

12:01 Okay. Bob's bedroom. And this is this is this is a good you. You know, most when I was raised, you know, my parents taught me you don't go into other people's bedroom. Like that, like if you went over to somebody's house, you never went in the mom's and dad's bedroom, right?

12:19 I mean, that's just kind of like, you just didn't do that, right? I mean, like so, anyway, Bob and Nancy have invited us over to, there's, we're staying with them during our visit here. And very, very gracious, very nice host. Let's think about this, just another analogy to build into our mind about what we're dealing with when we have the indwelling because I think it's important to understand the differences between indwelling and filling, right? And Devin gave us a good example.

12:49 We've got some good concepts that are out there that line up with scripture. And so now if I were to come to Bob's house and he were to invite me in and say, look, you know, Andy, we're happy you're here. Glad glad you all are here. If you could, you know, just stay right here in the foyer way in in that and then he goes on and does about his own business, right? He he goes about and does does his own thing.

13:27 I am in the house. I have entered the house. I am dwelling there, right? But I've been restricted to the foyer way. I'm a guest in his house.

13:38 I'm going to abide by his instruction or his wishes. He's given me a parameter. Maybe he's a little bit more gracious guest and he says, hey, or a host and he says, I'm going to let you, I'd like you to, you know, breakfast is going to be at such and such time. Your bedroom is the first one on the left, but like other than that please stay in those areas, those designated areas, right? I'm dwelling, I'm functioning there, I'm I'm in the house but have I filled the house, right?

14:11 He hasn't invited me into his favorite room, right? Maybe maybe out in the garage, he's got like a new tool. I would love to see it but he hasn't invited me there. You know. Maybe his son bought a four wheeler that I I would like to see, you know.

14:29 So if Bob would invite invite me out and say, come here. Let me show you these things. Let me and and he invites me. He welcomes me into every part, every part of the dwelling, every part of his dwelling. Right?

15:08 Are there components or aspects of my life that say, Holy Spirit, you don't want to go in there. That's my room. That's my workshop. That's my area. We let the Holy Spirit have control, freedom, evaluate.

15:29 We'll see the Holy Spirit provides a conscience. The Holy Spirit provides a standard. The Holy Spirit is going to provide some control to us. And so that's the filling, the filling, the filling of the Spirit. I appreciate the folks that had given us some comments on that as well.

15:51 That did help us. So we understand the difference between the filling and the indwelling. And so not only that, not only the fact that we're allowing the spirit to have control but we're also allowing or we're also in a potential for that reoccur or happen multiple times. So, let's review our three areas. We had before we accepted Christ as our Savior, the Holy Spirit is doing a work to draw us to Christ.

16:23 As we accept the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior, the Holy Spirit is doing these five things that we've discussed and talked about in some detail. Now we're going to look at the Holy Spirit's work as we go beyond, the day after we're saved, so to speak. You know, it could happen from the point of salvation moving forward. But in our lifetime, as we leave that point on the timeline, my point of salvation as I start growing, I start walking, I start living, I start getting married, I start having babies, you know, we got some expected mothers out there. Congratulations by the way and so, as I live my Christian life, what about the spirit then?

17:13 We already said you all answered well in that some of those things happen one time. Then other things are going to happen or well, only one of those that we discussed, the filling, happens multiple times. We're going to talk about probably tomorrow, why do I need to be refilled? What happens for me to get empty? You know, I do like that billboard sign that has the fry gauge.

17:37 You know, like your fry gauge low. McDonald's is trying to get you to pull into the next stop. What's your Holy Spirit gauge? Like I

17:47 was

17:47 filled. But now, what what's causing that? What's causing that to be like? We're going to talk about that. But let's we want to get, we want to cover, lay some more foundation before we get there.

17:58 So, now, we're into that third segment, right? We had before salvation, during salvation, and now living my life after salvation. What does the Holy Spirit do? In fact, let's just do this, a little popcorn. What are some things that in your personal life that you concepts that you heard like the spirit will do?

18:21 This, you know, the spirit work is doing what in my life? Just let's let's call a few out. Conviction. Conviction. Okay, good.

18:31 Teaching, right? Don? Leading. Leading, guiding, right? Sanctifying.

18:38 Sanctifying. Very good. Exhort. Alright. It might be under conviction.

18:48 Comfort. There you go. That's a good one. So, y'all you're you're on the right track. Okay, you're on the right track.

18:57 Now, do you see where that fits in? The the Holy Spirit to comfort doesn't happen in that god could do. He could comfort a non believer but the the Holy Spirit given, that doesn't happen in that that section before Christ. That's a that's a benefit of being a believer, being one of god's. The now that we're in the life of the believer, we're going to talk about some of these acts and and there are a lot of em.

19:28 Okay? We're not going to cover all of em And so let's look at the first one. You kind of got the flavor, you got the feel for what hitting on. Before we leave filling, though as we're leaving filling, there's one other quotation I wanted to read to you that I thought was worth reading here. Until we are ready to part with all that is contrary to the mind of the spirit, we cannot receive his fullness.

19:59 It's going back to thinking about our analogy with the house analogy. And the even the car analogy. Until we're ready to give him the steering wheel. Are we willing to be made willing for everything to go that that may stand in the spirit's way? It's a question we can ask ourselves.

20:21 Am I willing to be made willing to let everything go that's standing in the spirit's way to having full control of my life? You know, there's something else that I I probably should mention before we move on to the next point.

20:35 Can you read that again, Andy?

20:37 Yes. The whole quotation is this, until we are ready to part with all that is contrary to the mind of the Spirit, we cannot receive His fullness. And here's the question, are we willing to be made willing for everything to go that may stand in the Spirit's way? Herbert Locklear also wrote that quotation. Now, we said that the rebirth, regeneration, renewal happens one time.

21:37 We won't take time to turn back there but let me read it to you. That was Titus three five that we read. Listen to this, not by works of righteousness which we have done, right? Not by me but I did accept god's free gift of salvation. So, that was my part.

21:54 I accepted that but I didn't do anything to rebirth myself, right? Mary, were you born? No. Did you do anything to birth yourself? No, right?

22:06 I didn't do anything to regenerate myself. I didn't do anything to renew myself. All of my righteousness was as filthy rags. I couldn't clean myself. I just made myself more dirty.

22:19 God's work regenerated, renewed me and rebirthed me. Right? How about this baptism by the spirit? Who did that? The Holy Spirit does that, right?

22:39 Me? What am I doing in that regard? I'm not, you won't find it. We're not, we're not told to ask for the baptism of the Holy Spirit, right? That's not instructed in in the epistles.

22:51 Say pray for the Holy Spirit to baptize you into the body. We don't see that. God does it. It's automatic. It's his it's his...

23:00 I can't... I've never thought about it this way, but I can't like say, no, I'm not going into the body of Christ. I want salvation, but I'm not going to the body of Christ. That God is doing that work. Right?

23:17 He's... And maybe you're... If you wanted to make a point about that and say, I could kick in the scream. I'm not going to do that. Know, we'd question, why did you accept Christ as your savior?

23:31 He's got a plan for you, right? Now, how about the indwelling? God is doing that too. Right? I don't have I've let him in.

23:41 He's there. The sealing. My work? God's work. Right?

23:49 The filling. Who's doing that? God is doing that. He fills us, but then he lets us have some influence there. He lets us have...

24:06 There's some responsibility because you know what? I am commanded to be filled. Be ye filled with the spirit. Do not be drunk with wine, an excess of wine, but be ye filled with the spirit. So I have a responsibility.

24:22 I can live my life as a Christian with my spiritual fry tank, my spiritual life tank on E. That's possible. I've seen that happen. I'm dealing with a situation right now where a fellow got saved when he was when he was 10 years old at Mountain Top Youth Camp but has essentially lived his spiritual life. He's 50 years old.

24:50 He's lived his spiritual life on E, right? Still a believer and professes to be saved. But I I can't there's some bearing. There's some bearing in that. There's some bearing.

25:02 I can have some influence. I can have some control. So, you see the difference again. This field is a is a different animal so to speak and so, let's let's go ahead and talk about some actions of the spirit. Actions of spirit.

25:17 Any questions or comments on on that before we move into the new topic? Josh. Good. Alright. Let me let me repeat your question to make sure I understood it.

26:00 Hebrew passage Hebrews six, the tasting of the spirit is that to. Okay. Partial filling or.

26:08 Alright. Well, let's you also referenced the Old Testament. I do want to make a distinction there. In the Old Testament, we would have that as a different situation where basically we could divide it down before Christ and after Christ. Before Christ in the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit would come upon an individual like we have David.

26:34 He comes upon David for a special task. We see him coming upon Saul. He came upon the prophets for a special task. And Samson, the Holy Spirit came upon Samson. We also see the Holy Spirit leaving, right?

26:48 And so at that time, that was a different economy, a different situation. They had not had an opportunity to accept the lord Jesus Christ as savior but they have had an opportunity to believe on god and for god to count it unto them for righteousness, right? So, we we have that. So, that's a different, that's a good question. We don't want to get confused about what we see in the Old Testament in terms of the spirit leaving, right?

27:17 Now, we we will find that the Holy Spirit being god, being consistent, there are some consistent things about the spirit that we'll see in the New Testament. But the fact like you never found being sealed until the day of redemption, that was not in the Old Testament. That didn't happen until after Christ. So there is a difference. Now, in terms of like partial fillings, There would be, I mean, talk about an analogy of a cup, you know, is it can I be a half full Christian?

28:02 I gave you an analogy of a gate, like a gas tank gauge. Those things help us to understand the Spirit has filled us. We can affect the Spirit's work by quenching or by grieving the Spirit. God doesn't put a little tank mark here, but we hinder. We can hinder.

28:27 I can hinder God's work by sin. Right? Sin's always been contrary to God and always will be. That's the reason he dealt with it on the cross. But it's still there's still a penalty.

28:42 There's still a consequence to that sin, and that affects the Spirit's work. Sin doesn't affect those four things that we said never have to reoccur. Sin doesn't affect my rebirth. Sin doesn't affect the dwelling, but it affects the filling. Okay?

29:01 Does that answer your question,

29:02 Josh? Yeah.

29:04 Okay. Good. Right. Very good. Yeah.

29:33 Yeah. You would have that being manifested and we know what when the gift of the spirit was given. I mean God laid that out the Lord Jesus Christ when he met with the disciples, He was saying in Acts chapter one, He says, Not many days hence, I will send the comforter. And when I send the comforter, you're going to receive power. You're going to receive power, and you're going to be my witnesses.

30:00 And so then not soon later it is or very soon later, it is Acts chapter two where the Spirit comes. God's also doing something to transition from that Old Testament to that New Testament period, from the Old Covenant to the New Covenant, And He's going to manifest. The Spirit is going to be manifest in several different ways. We may we'll see how far we get as to whether we talk about let me just we'll take a commercial break to tell you all of the things that we're doing here in this session or in these meetings. We wanted to talk about the work of the Spirit before salvation, the work of the Spirit during salvation, and then the work of the Spirit in the life of the believer.

30:43 Right? And so we're tracking through that. After that, we want to talk about what affects the work of the Spirit in our life. And that those two things. In fact, tonight some homework assignment may be to go through and read what grieves the Spirit, what quenches the spirit.

30:58 We're going to talk about that in a little bit more detail. Then we're going to talk about well, potentially, we'll see how far we get. But you think about the topic of the spirit. Are things that affect the spirit? Then how about spiritual gifts?

31:17 This is the same spirit. Right? The Holy Spirit is a giver of gift. And in fact it says that He distributes to whom He will in the body of Christ. The Holy Spirit distributes these gifts.

31:29 It's an outward manifesting of the spirit. Spiritual gift, a huge topic. Then you got the fruit of the spirit, right? The fruit of the spirit. We've already touched on one of them, joy, as we see in the filling the result, but you have the fruit of the spirit.

31:45 So you see how like, and that's an overview of the things that if we're going to study the work of the Holy Spirit, that would be an overview of a basis about what we would want to understand. And they all build on themselves. They all build because now when we understand what the Spirit is doing in us, we understand who the Spirit is, and we understand how the Spirit works and what hinders and and what just lets the Spirit take full control of me, then really, I mean that's exciting Christianity. Okay? That's that, I mean being saved is exciting, right?

32:48 We're quenching the spirit and we've got this opportunity to experience joy, to experience peace, to experience love toward other people, to be in a body and enjoy it. We can all give testimony that I don't enjoy being in the body sometime. Why? The spirit has put you there. The spirit has united you with the other.

33:13 Are joint and mortared together. You're going to be together throughout all eternity. I don't have the solution to like why we don't enjoy it or why is it so hard sometimes but you've experienced the good but you've experienced the bad but the good is good, right? The good is good. So that was end of the commercial break.

33:39 Any other questions? All right. Let's talk about the first. We'll take we're going break at 05:30, right? We'll take a break at 05:30.

33:52 This time we're going to eat. So everybody will have a little time to go out there, stretch their legs, eat, and then we'll try to come back in here at 06:30, I believe, is the plan.

34:00 All

34:00 right? Let's talk about one action. You all mentioned several good ones. I'll tell you what we do. Since we already we might not take these in particular order.

34:18 There really is no order. I started out thinking about taking them in order of as they occur in scripture but we we mentioned Acts chapter one. Let's turn there. Acts chapter one Acts chapter one and verse eight, we made reference to this, but this may be one of the first things that we see in chronological order as it happened with the New Testament church as the New Testament was being New Testament church was being formed. Let's read...

35:00 Let's go back up to verse four and read that just to get our context. Acts chapter one and verse four, And being assembled together with them, commanded them that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait, this is the Lord Jesus talking, but wait for the promise of the Father which He saith when you have heard of me. For John truly baptized with water, but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Ghost not many days hence. Verse six, when they when therefore they were come together, they asked of him saying, lord, wilt thou at this time restore again the kingdom of Israel, okay? Kind of a a question.

35:41 He he draws them back on track. He they're they're going to go go off track. He says, it is not for you to know the times of the season for the father which he has put in his own power. Okay, referencing god's power. Now, look at verse eight.

35:54 Here's back what he started to try to tell him about the holy the holy spirit but you shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem and in all Judea, in Samaria and into the uttermost parts of the earth. So the first thing we see is twofold. There's a power that comes with the Holy Spirit. And can we get our minds around this? God spoke the world into existence.

36:27 God, we see throughout human history, God said, let there be a flood and he flooded the whole earth. Water came, flooded the whole earth, killed every living thing with the exception of what was in the ark. God in his power said, I want to send my son to be born of a woman, to be born of a virgin and I want that that my son to live a life perfect, to be tested, tested of Satan himself. Would there be any other formidable foe, any other person that could tempt God more than Satan? We would say no.

37:10 But he's tempted of he's tempted of Satan and he he lives a perfect life, offers himself as a perfect sacrifice. And so this we read in Ephesians. We read in Ephesians where it says, God has wrought and and that by by God's power he has raised Jesus from the dead. Right? And so this is the power of God.

37:35 Creation, redemption, control. He's in the boat. I guess there's not any waves on Lake Erie right now, right, because they're frozen. You know, I don't know how big those waves were. Peace be still.

37:52 And He calmed the raging waves in the storm. The power of God. And He says, look disciples, Peter, John, James, when I ascend you're going to receive power, God's power. That's what you and I have. I don't feel like it all the time.

38:13 I don't understand that. But I've got God the Holy Spirit living within me. And you know we talked about the Trinity, God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, three persons, one God, their attributes. Sometimes we think like what's an attribute of God? Omniscience, right?

38:37 All knowing. What's another attribute of God? Omnipresent, everywhere present, able to be everywhere present, can be everywhere present, present with us right now. Omnipotent, right? All powerful.

38:54 Are those attributes assigned to one person of the trinity? All three, right? The Holy Spirit, even though we don't know as much about him, is just as much omniscient, just as much omnipresent, just as much omnipotent as god the father is, god the son, Right? They have a different role. They have a different purpose, but they all agree and they're all one.

39:34 I have my reasons I did that. I come and I understand that the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life and so I can I can explain to you why I made that decision? I have a story to tell, I have my own story. I'm living my life as a Christian. I have got an opportunity to be a witness.

40:01 The Spirit empowers you for witnessing. That's the first action we're going to take a look at here tonight. The definition of a witness is the Greek word means to martyr, a martyr, to give a record, to give testimony. W. E.

40:19 Vine defined the word witness this way, One who can or does declare what he has seen, heard, and knows. One who can or does. And you know, when I read that definition, had to ask ask myself a searching question. A witness. I can do it or I do do it.

40:44 One who can or can or does. We all can do it. We all should do it. We all should be in that does category. And so here we see that we're receiving the power, the Holy Ghost has come upon us and we shall be the witnesses.

41:05 Now remember that quote that I read to you earlier that as the Spirit assumes control, there will be a clear change, clear, definite, noticeable and attractive. When the Spirit's got control I'm attractive to other people. When I'm allowing the Spirit to have control other people will notice that and they'll be drawn to that. Not drawn to me, but the Spirit having control of me. You want a self esteem program?

41:47 Let the spirit have control. You want to be liked by your peers? Let the spirit have control. I'm not suggesting that motive, but I think you see my point. Is that the spirit has control, it's attractive.

42:02 I'm witness. I'm the spirit has empowered me to be a witness. People do want to know what makes you different. People want to know why you can respond in love. They want to know why you're smiling.

42:18 They want to know why you have joy. They want to know why that you choose peace over war. Why you would choose to love the unlovely. The spirit's got control. Remember Joey wanting to take that wallet up here?

42:34 They want to know why Joey turned the wallet in to the lost and found instead of keeping it himself. People want to know that. Somebody steals your cell phone. You send a text and say, I'm praying for you. Send a text to your own number.

43:00 Let's take our break. I'm going to close with prayer again and we'll when we come back, we're going to talk about some more of these actions. Actions of the Holy Spirit. Right other announcement? Okay, good good idea.

43:12 Before I do that, any brothers have any comments or are there any other questions from the floor that before we break for dinner?

43:21 I was thinking about that verse from John three. Born of the Christ said born of the water and of the spirit.

43:27 Yeah.

43:28 Can you expand on the water element?

43:31 Okay. Yeah. The we see the water to typify cleansing, right? So let's look at that. We'll go back to John three to explore that and then we're also going to if you're flipping over to John three, also put your finger in John seven.

44:05 And then somebody else as I'm talking find me that verse that talks about the washing and regeneration. It's in, well, that's Titus. That's Titus. Okay. Yeah.

44:22 Why is water mentioned here? This is a good question and some of the other folks might have some other insight on this, but it's found in chapter three and verse five. Verily, verily, I say unto you, except a man be born of water and of the spirit, you cannot enter the kingdom of God. We understand the spirit right there. We understand that with no problem.

44:45 We've already made a link and a connection to regeneration. The it says the washing of regeneration. We understand that when usually when we wash something, like when you take a shower, you're going to use water tonight, right? When you go to wash your car, not this time of year. But when you wash your car, you're to use water.

45:05 You're using water and a cleansing agent. Well, the cleansing agent is the Holy Spirit, right? In that Titus passage that we read before, we saw that the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit. And so now let's look over at chapter four and well, let's go ahead back to chapter seven like I mentioned before. There is an aspect of water.

45:50 In the last day, this is chapter seven and verse 37. In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried saying, if any man thirst, let him come unto me to drink. We have this description of water being used and the man's soul thirsting, a description. We remember the water at the well, or we remember the woman at the well who's drawing the water. He that believeth on me, as the scripture has said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.

46:27 Notice verse 39, But this he spake of the spirit, referring to as water, right? That they might believe on him and should receive for the Holy Ghost was not yet given because that Jesus was not yet glorified. And so perhaps those verses give some insight as to why water is being used. There's an analogy there. There's a cleansing aspect.

46:57 There's a connection to the washing of regeneration. Does that answer your question? Any other thoughts or comments that could be related to that or related to our topic though? Yeah. Not what's for supper.

47:25 Yes. Yes.

47:41 No, that's fine. Fine. Let's pray. Heavenly father, we do give thanks. We're thankful for answered prayer.

47:49 We're we're thankful father for the Holy Spirit. We may we live in these truths. May we live understanding that we have the full power of god reside residing in us. Father, help us to shape our actions. Help us to to be shaped and and be led of the spirit to be yielded to the spirit.

48:16 We're so thankful for god the father that loved us and gave his son. We're so thankful for God the Son that loved us and has chosen to be obedient to the will of the Father and demonstrated his love that he would die on the cross. We're so thankful for God the Holy Spirit who once the sun had departed, the spirit had come and now resides within us looking for that control, looking for that opportunity to empower us for service. Father, we're so thankful that the spirit brings joy. We're so thankful for the benefits As we've considered this aspect of being a witness, we pray that we would examine our own hearts and that we would know that the Lord Jesus Christ can redeem, can set us free from sin, can put us on a track for eternity, for heaven.

49:26 And then if we've made that decision ourselves, we have a story, a testimony to tell. And so we pray that that would help us in that, that the spirit would take control and help us in sharing that, helping us to share the good news of the gospel with others. So we pray this now. We give thanks for the meal that's been prepared for us. We give thanks for those that have taken part in many different ways and preparing it and so father, we pray these things now in Jesus Christ name.

49:51 Amen.