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The Lord’s Prayer
Our Father in heaven, Hallowed be Your name.
Your kingdom come. Your will be done On earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our debts, As we forgive our debtors.
And do not lead us into temptation, But deliver us from the evil one.
For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.”
Without a proper response to the Holy Spirit, our lives will be unproductive and our service will be feeble and weak.
To start the new year off we are going to discuss Recognising and Responding to the Indwelling Spirit.
Today we are talking about The Holy Spirit and Our Great Salvation.
Prayer
Father, we thank you for again calling us together that we might worship You in spirit and in truth, and rejoice with one another in the bounty of Your rich gifts to each of us.
We thank You for the manner in which Your Spirit indwells the church to lead us into paths of righteousness.
Lead us now as we give our tithes and offerings for the advancement of Your kingdom’s work.
In Jesus name we pray.
Amen.
Text
1 Corinthians 6:19-20 NKJV
19 Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?
20 For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.
Scripture Reading
1 Corinthians 6:12-20 NKJV
Glorify God in Body and Spirit.
12 All things are lawful for me, but all things are not helpful. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any.
13 Foods for the stomach and the stomach for foods, but God will destroy both it and them. Now the body is not for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body.
14 And God both raised up the Lord and will also raise us up by His power.
15 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a harlot? Certainly not!
16 Or do you not know that he who is joined to a harlot is one body with her? For “the two,” He says, “shall become one flesh.”
17 But he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him.
18 Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body.
19 Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?
20 For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.
Introduction
Jesus Christ came to take away the sins of His people.
John the Baptised declared in 1 Corinthians 15:3 that, “For I delivered to you first of all that which I also received: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures.”
And Peter emphasised the substitutionary nature of the death of Christ in 1 Peter 3:18.
Many people think of salvation only in terms of forgiveness for the guilt of sin and the removal of the penalty of sin.
This is to fall far short of the great salvation Jesus Christ came to provide.
He came not only to save us from the penalty of sin but also to save us from the power and practise of sin.
The Father God wants us to be living, powerful demonstrations of what Jesus Christ can do in the life of those who trust Him as Saviour and Lord.
God is interested in saving us in the present from the power and the practices of sin.
To accomplish this great purpose, He has given us the precious, personal gift of His Holy Spirit as an indwelling presence.
In the Scripture passage for today, we have heard the instructions that God sent through the apostle Paul to the church in Corinth, which declare that we are to glorify God in our bodies.
The closing challenge in verse 20 places before us an imperative, “glorify God in your body.”
Paul was requesting that we reveal the graciousness of God in our bodies.
He was demanding that we demonstrate the presence of God in our bodies.
He was inviting us to introduce God to others by our very being.
Making a positive response is part of the great salvation God wants us to experience through faith in Jesus Christ.
The Father God, through the apostle, called on the people in the church of Corinth to be a place where God dwelled so that the other people of that pagan city could be saved.
To live a profane life of immorality was to defile and to degree the temple, the residence, the meeting place where people could experience the very presence of God.
It is through the Holy Spirit that the people of God experience the presence of God in the present.
- The Holy Spirit came to continue the work of Christ.
The Holy Spirit never calls attention to Himself.
Like John the Baptist, the Holy Spirit is always pointing people to Jesus Christ.
As Luke began writing the Acts of the Apostles, he said that he had dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach, in reference to the gospel we know as the Gospel of Luke.
The Acts of the Apostles would be more correctly thought of as “The Acts of the Holy Spirit.”
The Holy Spirit continues to do what Jesus began to do.
2. The Holy Spirit convinced each of us for our need for salvation from sin.
John 16:8-11
8 And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment:
9 of sin, because they do not believe in Me;
10 of righteousness, because I go to My Father and you see Me no more;
11 of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.
3. The Holy Spirit brought about the new birth when we responded to the gospel by faith.
The same precious Spirit, who brought about conviction of sin and conversion from sin and the miracle of the new birth, wants to lead us in a way of life that will demonstrate to the world that we are the people of God.
4. The Holy Spirit works in creating conflict between our lower fleshly nature and our new nature.
Some new converts experience a great deal of inward tension as they struggle with the presence of evil within them.
Some are quite disappointed to find the life of faith is not a life of comfort and relief from tension.
Perhaps some feel this experience of disappointment because they responded to only a fraction of God’s great plan for them when they received Jesus as their Saviour.
5. The indwelling Spirit is God’s seal of ownership.
The Holy Spirit is also God’s guarantee of our final and ultimate salvation from death and the grave.
Paul affirmed this divine seal of ownership in his letter to the Ephesians, in Ephesians 1:13-14, “In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory.”
In his letter to the Romans, Paul declared that the gift of God’s Holy Spirit is His guarantee that He will give us ultimate and complete victory over death and the Grave. (Romans 8:11)
6. The Holy Spirit has been given to us so that with our cooperation He can produce the fruit that will indicate that we are indeed children of God.
Galatians 5:22-23 NKJV
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
23 gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.
We give our consent to Jesus to become our Saviour.
We must give not only our consent but our continuous cooperation to the Holy Spirit if we are to experience God’s full salvation for us.
By doing so, it is possible for us to glorify God, that is, to make Him known to others.
Living the Christian life is something much more than lifting ourselves by our own efforts.
In reality it is a life of joyful cooperation as the Holy Spirit works within us.
When we recognise Him and cooperate with Him, it is possible for us to glorify God in our bodies in the here and now.
Conclusion.
You have the dangerous choice of making a negative response to God’s great plan for you.
Yours can be the joyous privilege of making a proper response to Jesus Christ.
Listen to him and obey Him as your Lord.
Trust in the abiding presence and power of the Holy Spirit to help you become all that God wants you to be.
Until next time
Stay in the Blessings
Giving
I really want to encourage you to be diligent with your Bible study time, because God has so much more for us than we can get from just going to church once or twice a week and hearing someone else talk about the Word.
When you spend time with God, your life will change in amazing ways, because God is a Redeemer.
Theres nothing thats too hard for Him, and He can make you whole, spirit, soul and body!
You’re important to God, and you’re important to us at www.refinerylife.org
When it comes to prayer, we believe that God wants to meet your needs and reveal His promises to you.
So whatever you’re concerned about and need prayer for we want to be here for you! Or even if you just want to say Hi, you can contact us
2022 IS A YEAR OF REPENTANCE AND BLESSINGS
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