When does God just give up on us?
WATCH
What We Believe, 7 of 11 from July 20th, 2025
"We depend on God to save us every step of the way."
Salvation by Michael Lockstampfor (@miklocks)
SUMMARY
This sermon explores the concept of salvation through the lens of God's unwavering grace. It emphasizes that salvation is entirely a gift from God, not earned by human efforts. Pastor Michael explains the three stages of salvation: justification (being declared righteous), sanctification (ongoing transformation), and glorification (future perfection). The message underscores God's persistent love and the inclusive nature of the gospel, while also acknowledging its exclusive claim that salvation comes through Christ alone.
REFLECTION & DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
💬 How are you, with the help of the Holy Spirit, looking to put Jesus first this week?
💬 What fruit do you need the Holy Spirit to help grow in your life? (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control) Is there a fleshly desire you're nurturing that’s hindering its growth?
💬 If we are going to be a church that wants to collaborate rather than compete, how can we use the gifts God has given us to help us follow Jesus together?
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
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PLEASE NOTE: The following transcript is automatically generated and may contain errors.
[Music]
Introduction
Good morning. As Ryan said, my name is Pastor Mark. I'm the discipleship pastor at Gulfview Grace Church over in Port Richey, Florida, about two hours south of here. We actually did this series at our church a little while ago, and we stole Michael for a week because our lead pastor was on sabbatical, and so we stole him, and Michael actually did this message at our church. And so I said, hey, how can I help you? And he said, well, why don't you return the favor and speak on the Holy Spirit here at Ocala? And I said, okay, I can do that for you. So here I am this morning to kind of share with you.
Before we get started, I just want to share with you a little story, make sure this is working. A couple months ago, our family got the opportunity to go to Kennedy Space Center. We were over on that coast, and so we said, let's sneak over there. Our boys love space. We get to watch the rockets, and even from where we are at our house, we can see them going off sometimes at night if it's a clear night. So we got a chance to go over there and kind of visit. The second day, we went and got to see the Apollo 11 exhibit that's over there. I don't know if you know this, though. Apollo 11 actually went off on July 16th, 1969. The powerful Saturn V rocket propelled the crew towards the Moon, and after a three-day journey, Apollo 11 entered its lunar orbit.
The lunar capsule was named Eagle, with Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin aboard. They actually then landed on the Moon on July 20th, which is today. So on this day in 1969, the Apollo 11 mission landed on the moon where Neil Armstrong became the first human to step onto the lunar surface uttering those iconic words, that's one small step for man and one giant leap for mankind. They came off and actually maybe something you don't know is, sorry, I'm just getting over a cold here. Those are two people that maybe you're very familiar with. We know Neil Armstrong, we know Buzz Aldrin, but there's another name that maybe you don't know, which is a lady named Margaret Hamilton. And her role in the Apollo 11 mission was as critical as theirs was. She was a computer scientist who led the team to develop the onboarding flight software that the Apollo mission used. And so this is the first time that they're using the software to navigate multiple different things at the same time.
Understanding the Holy Spirit
Much like the Apollo 11 mission, many people have ideas about the Holy Spirit, widely ranging and sometimes known, and there's sometimes controversial topics that come up. With it today, we're really going to focus on what the role of the Spirit is in the life of the believer. And so there are other questions that we could look at. But again, this is a summary statement of some of the things that we believe. And so we're not going to cover everything because we're kind of limited on time in that way. But we're going to be able to look at some of them. And perhaps like Margaret Hamilton, we'll understand more of the role. We understand more of the roles that the Father and the Son played in her life. But maybe we have a little bit more questions about what role the Holy Spirit plays.
So we're going to pray here in a minute. It's the pattern here at Neighborhood Church to pray the disciples' prayer. And so we'll start with that this morning. These words, as we've said, are not magical words, but this is a pattern that Jesus gives us. And so we're going to use this to formulate our time and to focus our hearts this morning. So would you pray with me? The words are on the screen if you need them. 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 have also forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.
So if you're new this morning, just by way of reminder or to let you know, we're in this series called What We Believe. And what we're doing is we're taking our statement of faith as part of the Karis Fellowship. And we're going through kind of point by point saying these are 10 of the big things that we believe as a church. And so my church is also in the Karis Fellowship. So if you need to understand what it is a little bit better, you can ask Ryan or Michael. But it's this fellowship of churches who have the same identity, the same mission, where we want to see Jesus made known. And so we're part of that group. And so our church, Golfy Grace Church, shares the same mission statement that the neighborhood churches do. And so we're kind of doing this together as we go along this journey.
The Trinity and the Holy Spirit
Our goal each week has really been to kind of answer one question, which is, what does all the Bible have to teach about this topic? And so, last week we talked about Christ, and we said, what does all the Bible have to teach us about Christ? We looked at, what does all the Bible have to teach us about the Bible? And so these different topics each week, we're taking those and kind of summarizing, if we were to take everything that we see in Scripture, and trying to put that into a statement or a couple phrases, what would we say if we were to summarize those things? And so by nature of that, again, we're going to be missing some things, because there's a lot here. I don't know if you know this. There's a lot to get through. And it talks a lot about a lot of different topics. The Bible is written by 40 different authors over 1,500 to 1,600 years. It's got 1,189 chapters. It's got authors from all over different walks of life. But because we believe that it has one capital A Author, that we believe that God is the author of scripture, we think that God is not a man that he should lie, but he's consistent in all that he says. And so what he says in Genesis is the same that he says in Matthew. And so if Jesus says one thing in the New Testament, what it says about the same topic in the Old Testament is consistent there. And so we're kind of saying, what does the whole Bible teach? Because we think God is the whole author. And so he's unified in what he shares in that text.
This morning, my goal is to kind of restrict myself a little bit because of that. Like I said, there's a bunch of different places that we could go. If you have the printout of our Statement of Faith, there's some in the foyer over there. You can grab those. If you don't have that, I suggest you grab one, keep it with you each Sunday, and write some other notes or references on that or make notes and things on that. I think it's helpful for you to kind of know that. I'm going to restrict myself to three primary passages. That doesn't mean I'm not going to go outside of those, but if you're following along in your Bibles, you have the blue Bibles there in the pews, or in your seats, and then if you have your own Bibles, so we'll kind of restrict yourselves to three big passages. Those passages will have you look up on your own and kind of follow along. If I go outside of those, I'll give you the references on the screen so you can kind of see where we're at in that. And so we're going to start by looking at the statement on the Holy Spirit.
Again, remember, this is a summary statement, not exhaustive of everything the Bible teaches, but it's meant to synthesize some of the primary teachings that we see. And so this is our statement of faith. The Holy Spirit is fully God, existing eternally. He is a person who was involved in creation and the inspiration of Scripture. His work of conviction and regenerating are essential to the believer's salvation. Believers are entitled to the benefits and the joy being filled and walking in the Spirit for empowerment in Christian life, service, and mission. Again, since we're going to restrict ourselves to a couple passages, we're not necessarily going to go line by line through this and break it down, but we are going to review a couple of things before we get into our passages that we've mentioned previously, kind of hinted at, but we want to drill down a little bit more since it's covered in this topic.
You know, Tyler mentioned last week when he did Christology that good theology should humble us and it should affect how we live. We're not necessarily looking to amass knowledge for the sake of knowledge itself, but we want our affections and our attitudes and our actions to be influenced by what we believe. So two weeks ago, we looked at the one true God, and we talked about the Trinity. We said that the Holy Spirit is the third member of the Trinity. So if you've been here with us, this is kind of a review for you. If you haven't, this is kind of where we're just touching back on some of the things.
He is in perfect unity with the Father and the Son, and He shares the same qualities as the other members of the Godhead. He possesses omniscience, omnipresence. He's eternal God. And He's not a force to be wielded like some sub-Christian groups will say. He's not something like Star Wars, the force that the Father or the Son uses, but He is a co-equal person with the triune God. A couple places that we see this, Genesis 1, 1 through 2, first two verses of your Bible, it says, "'In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep.' And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the water." So he's involved in creation there from the very beginning.
The Great Commission and the Holy Spirit
Matthew 8, 28, 18, and 19. This is the Great Commission that you guys read at the end of each service. But Jesus, in this statement, puts the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit all together in one statement showing their equality. He says, "...all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit."
Acts chapter 9, this is the story of Ananias and Sapphira. They sold some land, and then they lied about how much they sold it for. This is the first real test in the new church from within. They've had some challenges from the outside where people are getting persecuted, but now there's a schism within the church itself. And so this comes up, they lie, and Peter said, Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit? and to keep back for yourself a portion of the proceeds from your land. While it remains unsold, did it not remain your own? After it was sold, was it not at your disposal? Why is it that you have conceived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to man, but you have lied to God. And so even in this passage, he said, why did you lie to God? And why did you lie to Holy Spirit? So he's saying they're the same thing. And we could go on and on about this, but we've kind of also already established the fact that we believe in one God, three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
And again, if this is still new to you, on the church's YouTube page, you can go back and review these different messages and look at those things, kind of review them again, or you can look at the blog posts that kind of summarize those things. I know sometimes when we get to this, these are challenging things because for some of us, we're just trying to figure out what does the Bible say, let alone what does all of it say about one thing, right? I don't even know the narrative sometimes, and it's difficult because there's so much there, right? And so there's times where you have to keep putting into, you have to keep repeating things to yourself to get them. When I got saved, I did this thing, it was called the Bible Fast Forward, and it was eight hours through the Old Testament that we did. I did that thing five times, right? just to get the narrative pieces, all right? So there's a part where repetition may need to be a part of your diet to help you get that, but know that those other tools are there for you to use and for your benefit.
So we know that the Holy Spirit is involved in creation. We know that He's God, but we also saw a couple of weeks ago that the Holy Spirit plays a primary role in the authorship of Scripture. One place that you really see this is in 2 Peter, starting at verse 16. Peter says this, "'For we do not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power of the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.'" For when he received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice was born to him by the majestic glory, this is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased. We ourselves heard this very voice born of heaven, for we were with him on the holy mountain. And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you do well to pay attention as a lamp shining in the dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your heart. And he says this, starting at verse 20. He says, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation. For no prophecy was ever the product of the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
Again, God is the capital A author of Scripture, and the Holy Spirit used men from different backgrounds and education levels across different time periods, even different languages, in their unique writing style to give you the exact words that you need to follow and love Jesus. He says this in chapter 1 of 2 Peter. He says, His divine power has granted us all the things that pertain to life and godliness through the knowledge of Him who called us to His own glory and excellence. The fact that the Holy Spirit is the primary, is the author of Scripture, will be important when we get a little bit later on, we talk about this, when we get to our main passage. So if you have your Bibles, we'll get there in just a minute. But our main passage, one of our main passages is going to be John 16. If you're using the blue Bibles, that should be on page 1127. But we know that our Bible can be trusted because it comes from God himself. He is not a man that he should lie. He is faithful and true to do what he says. And it's also because it comes from God that it's unified in his teaching. So the Holy Spirit is God. He's equal to the Father and to the Son in his personhood. He worked to help create the world and all that we see. And he was the author of Scripture.
From the blog post, kind of written off the message from a couple weeks ago, Pastor Michael says this, he says, an infinite almighty creator who knows everything and can see every possible future decided that the best way to communicate with us was to write a book. Not through dreams, not through mystical experiences, but through a book that we can study, examine, and discuss together. So if you have your Bible, again, we'll be in John 16. Again, blue Bibles, that should be page 1127. We're going to start in kind of verse 4b, so you kind of see your Bible probably has a break in the paragraph there. And it says, it starts there in the second half of verse 4. He says, I did not say these things to you from the beginning. Because I was with you. But now I'm going to him who sent me. And none of you ask me, where are you going? But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart. Nevertheless, I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away. For if I do not go away, the helper will not come. But if I go, I will send him to you, and when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment, concerning sin because they do not believe in me, concerning righteousness because I go to the Father and will see you no longer, concerning judgment because the ruler of this world is judged.
The Spirit of Truth
So I forgot to kind of give you guys the context of this passage. Jesus is in the upper room. This is after the Last Supper. He's teaching his disciples one last time before he goes to the cross. And so Jesus saying like, hey, guys, I'm getting ready to leave, but I'm not going to leave you alone. I'm going to send the helper. And so this is one of the clear passages that we get from Scripture about the Holy Spirit in this passage. Again, the Trinity is mentioned. You have Jesus here who's talking to disciples, and he's going back to the Father, and he's going to send the Spirit. And so all three members of the Trinity show up here. He calls the Holy Spirit a helper. And so Jesus is leaving. He's sending his helper, and he says, it's actually better for you that I leave than if I stay. And you're like, I'm not sure that's true. If you could have Jesus here, Jesus said, it's better that you have the Holy Spirit right now than if he was here. So let's break that down a little bit. We have God the Father, we have Jesus the Son or the Savior, and we have the Holy Spirit, the Helper.
It's a word that means to aid or to assist one who is summoned to be by your side. That doesn't sound so bad. You have a personal assistant. Everyone has their smartphones, and we use these different things to help us remember dates and birthdays and phone numbers and all these things. I don't know how to drive anywhere anymore because I just have GPS. And so I came here, and I'm four minutes down the road, and I still use the GPS because I could have just said, go down, turn on 7th, and I would have been here. But we have all these assistants and things that help kind of keep our days in life in order. But this assistant has come to help assist you to do the will of the Father. Some other versions may translate helper as counselor. And so he's the helper and the counselor. He's the word used again as a legal assistant who pleads a cause or presents a case. And so you have someone in your corner on your side pleading on your behalf.
In this passage, Jesus says that he will come to do three things. He said he will convict the world concerning sin, righteousness, and judgment. So I guess we could say kind of conviction is one thing, and there's kind of three areas that he's going to apply that conviction. Conviction is this idea of presenting or exposing something as true and proving that it's truthful. And so this statement makes sense. We said that the Holy Spirit, again, is called the Spirit of Truth. In 1 John 4:6, he says, "We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us. Whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this, we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error." So he's called the spirit of truth, so he's convicting us about what is true. John 15, a little bit earlier in the same time, so Jesus is saying in John 16, "I'm going to send you the helper a little bit before then," in 15, "so if you're there, you can flip over a page or two," but it says, "but when the helper comes who I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me."
So again, the Trinity, you have Jesus there saying that the Spirit will bear witness to him, and you will also bear witness because you have been with me from the beginning. The Spirit is said to be bringing this conviction in kind of three places: sin, righteousness, and judgment. Think of it this way: The Spirit is showing us the wrongness of our sin, the rightness of Jesus, and the failure and the defeat of our old master, the devil. And so he's showing you the wrongness of your sin, the rightness of Jesus, and the judgment on the devil. So the Spirit plays a critical role in us coming to faith in Jesus and helping us to see our need for a Savior, displaying Jesus as the promised rescuer, and how judgment has come upon the serpent. We were going the wrong way, Jesus is the right way, and our old guide has been defeated.
Salvation and the Work of the Spirit
It's the Spirit's work in our salvation where we start to see some use of these technical terms. Again, we'll talk about these briefly, but we're not going to spend a lot of time here because I want to get to some of the other stuff. What is the benefit for you as a believer? But just to have you be aware of these. And this is where some of the controversial things come in. But things like baptism by the Spirit, this idea, this one-time thing that happens at the time of conversion, think of the phrase, the new birth. So if you want to put some references for these down, you can look at these later on your own. But baptism of the Spirit would be like John 3:1-21. Then the Spirit resides in us to continue to work in our lives, which we'll get to more in a minute. This is the indwelling of the Spirit. So the Spirit gives you new life and then comes into you, right? That would be the indwelling as in 1 Corinthians 3:16, the temple of the Holy Spirit. That passage would be one that you would think of.
That's 1 Corinthians 3. And lastly, you're sealed by the Spirit. That's Ephesians 1. So we're all talking about salvation as kind of this big thing, this work the Spirit does in our life, this conviction piece. Our salvation is secure and sealed up tight in God's insignias on our lives, and it assures us that we are delivered safely to heaven. Our future inheritance is legally binding, and the court has all the records sealed up tight. Again, if you want to look at these more details, you can look at, again, John 3, 1 Corinthians 3, and Ephesians 1, verse 13 and 14. One of the commentaries that I was looking at this week kind of summarized this idea this way, and I thought it was helpful. They said this, they said,
"Atonement for sin was necessary for Jesus to save his people from their sins, according to Matthew 1:21. And unless he departed, there would have been no glorified Lord to send the counselor, the Holy Spirit, to apply the atonement."
The Holy Spirit's Guidance and Glorification of Jesus
So back to our passage in John 16, starting at verse 12. So if you're there, John 16, starting at verse 12, it says this, "I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you in all truth. For He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears, He will speak, and He will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me for he will take what is mine and he will declare to you all that the Father has. Excuse me. All that the Father has is mine. Therefore, I say that he will take what is mine and declare it to you."
Two more things for you this morning about the Holy Spirit. Not only does he convict you of sin, but he also guides you in truth. He's the counselor who says what you're doing right now is wrong and harmful to yourself. And instead of doing that, you need to go the other way. He helps you turn from your sin and point you back in the right direction. And he does this primarily through the use of the scripture, which he helped author. So he's the spirit of truth, guiding you in truth, using the truthfulness of God's word to help convict you of sin and turn you the right way. The Spirit uses the Word to guide and direct your life as a believer in Jesus.
But there's also something else that He does. There's something I didn't realize until I was studying for this. I kind of understood this in my mind just because of where I came to faith in, but I didn't have a good way necessarily from Scripture to articulate it until I was reading in this passage and saw it for the first time. If you look at verse 14 closely, we understand that this partly corrects some of the other unbalances that we see and abuses when it comes to regarding the Spirit in the church today. So let's read verse 13, but we're going to really focus on verse 14. "When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. For he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears, he will speak. And he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me. For he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. Therefore I say, he will take what is mine and declare it to you."
Part of what we learn here is part of the Spirit's role is to point to Jesus. It's to elevate Jesus, not to himself, but to glorify himself. And so we see, when you look at Scripture, it says that the Father sent the Son, the Son sent the Spirit, and the Spirit then points back to Jesus. And part of the challenge of our current church culture is to seek after or elevate the role of the Spirit in a way that ends up distorting what Scripture teaches. Jesus here says that part of the Spirit's job is to point others to Him when we get into a dangerous place and we try to do otherwise.
Walking in the Spirit: Galatians 5
So as we kind of wrap up this first passage, can I have a question for you this morning? I want you to begin to think about, I guess I should give you this too. So the Holy Spirit convicts of sin and he guides in truth. Those are the two things that we learned kind of at the end there. If you're taking notes this morning, so he convicts and he guides. But the question for you this morning is this. Are you, with the help of the Holy Spirit, looking to put Jesus first in your life this week?
How this week, if we say one of our values here at Neighbor Church is that we put Jesus first, and the Holy Spirit, Jesus said the Holy Spirit points to Jesus, how are we as a church trying to put Jesus first in our life this week with the help of the Holy Spirit? So let's kind of summarize this section as you think about that. Jesus said, I go to prepare a place for you. I'm leaving to get everything ready for when you come here. When my kids finally come back home for the wedding, when they finally arrive, I will be ready for them. I'm preparing a place for you. But if Jesus is preparing a place for you and for me and all other believers who will join him, then he can't stay here. He must leave. If he's going to pave the way, then he can't do this by staying here.
So he sends the Helper, the Holy Spirit, to be our aid and get us ready. He not only delivers the invitation, that would be conviction, to the wedding through applying the salvation that Jesus purchased for our life, but he also holds on to it to make sure it isn't lost, the sealing of the Spirit. And he stays with us until we arrive at the doors, the indwelling of the Spirit. Our salvation is secure, our invitation is valid. You guys ever seen those people who lose their Bitcoin passwords? There's that one guy who like accidentally threw his away and it was in like the dump and he's like trying to sue the dump to search the rubble for this little password because there's only one way to get it. Your invitation to heaven, if you've accepted Jesus, will never be lost. It is secure because he's holding on to it. So you've got to talk to the Spirit if you want to remove it because he's the one holding on to it for you, not you.
While we remain here on earth, the Holy Spirit, being perfect in sync with the Father and the Son, since he is also God, knows exactly what we need to be ready. And so he uses God's word, the Bible, which he helped author, to help conform our lives to the example laid out for us by Jesus. So that's kind of John 16. Again, we're going a little fast because there's a bunch of things to get through. We're going to be in Galatians 5 now. That's page 1215 in the Blue Bibles, if you have that Galatians 5. This is the passage about the fruits of the Spirit. So these are maybe, if you've been in church for a while, these are passages that maybe you're familiar with. But again, we're trying to pull all these together and say, what does the whole Bible teach us about the Holy Spirit? We'll be in verse 16. Similar to what he says in Romans 8 this morning, the other passage that we read
"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 and the desires of the spirit are against the flesh. For these are opposed to each other to keep you from doing the things you want to do. But if you are led by the spirit, you are not under the law."
Fruit of the Spirit
Part one was kind of about salvation. The second part would be, say, is the word sanctification. It's this idea that as Jesus has saved you, he's beginning to clean up your life and to make you to be the person that he wants you to be. Here we see there's kind of this contrast between walking by the Spirit and gratifying the desires of the flesh. These two things are held in opposition. or he says literally carrying out the commands of the flesh. Here the Apostle Paul, who is the author of this letter, warns us not to crave or to long for the things of our old life. He says, you can't hold on to the desires of the flesh and follow the leading of the spirit. They can't be done simultaneously.
We'll see other places in the scripture where we get similar things where Jesus will say things like, you can't love God and money, right? Or he'll say in Luke 9:62, Jesus said to him, no one who puts his hands to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God. So we have these different things going on here where we say we've got to let go of these things and then pursue these things. If you go back to Galatians verse 19, so we have the spirit and the flesh. It says,
"Sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, darkness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you as I warned you before that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God."
Whether you're following after the Spirit or following after the flesh, it should be easy to distinguish between these two sets of fruits. The things that the flesh wants to do are in stark contrast to the things that the Spirit wants to do in our life. And we can say this is what it means to be filled with the Spirit. It's this idea of the level to which you allow the Spirit to have a controlling influence in your life. It's the degree to which you are submitting to or rebelling against the Word of God. So if he's using God's Word to help conform you and guiding you in truth, it's the degree, being filled with the Spirit, is the degree to which you are being obedient and seeking to follow the Word.
We then have a list of things, although this is not exhaustive, of things that run contrary to the will of God and the guidance of the Spirit, which we just read about. And that list ends with a warning that our lives should not be characterized by these types of behaviors, but instead should be characterized by these fruits of the Spirit that we see in verse 22.
Walking in the Spirit
If we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another. If I could walk up to your life this morning and pick a piece of fruit, what would the fruit look like? If we're saying we want to follow after Jesus, if we want to be guided by the Spirit, if I were to pick a piece of fruit and use the analogy the Scripture uses here, what would it look like? Would I walk away with something that's pokey and bitter? Or would I walk away with something that's bright and sweet? What would it be? Paul gives us this list here of things that should be growing in our lives as a believer in Jesus. And these things should be a result of the Spirit's work in our lives. Things like love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
And maybe you, like me and many others, look at this list and you begin to get overwhelmed. And you say, that's a lot of pressure. I don't know if I can do that. Joy, there's no joy. I gave up patience a long time ago. Gentleness, I don't got it. And I would advise you to turn to the advice of Jesus. Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, Matthew 26. He's praying. So we've had the Last Supper. We've had kind of that talking time we had in John 16 where he's taught the disciples. He's now going to the garden praying before he goes to the cross. He says, "Hey, stay up with me and pray for a little while." He keeps going and they go to sleep. He's like, "What are you guys doing?" And they're like, "Sorry, we're tired." He goes and they fall asleep over and over and over again. And he says this in Matthew 26.
And he came to the disciples and found them sleeping. And he said to Peter, "So could you not watch with me for one hour? Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak." Jesus here acknowledges our humanity, and he encourages us to make prayer a part of combating these fleshly desires. Your flesh may be weak, but you need to know that the Spirit is willing to help you produce the fruits that he's asking you to do. The Spirit is able and willing.
He says, lead us not into temptation. God, help me to resist these things that I'm prone to hunger for. Lead me away from those things, but take me to the place where my life is producing these things. The other thing that you can do is, so we kind of have, we can say, God, help me not to do these things. That's one way you can do that, right? God, help me not to, and then take that list there. You're going to say, Jesus, help me to produce these things in my life.
So, you're going to take that and kind of reverse it in the positive when we close later on this morning. But know that if we have the Spirit living in us, these types of things are what He wants to see growing and maturing in our life.
The Role of Spiritual Gifts
Moving to our second question: what fruit do you need the Holy Spirit to help you grow in your life? There’s a list there from Galatians, but then the second part of that is, is there a fleshly desire that you're nurturing that's hindering that growth? He says you can't hold on to this and this at the same time, so is there something you need to let go of or say, "Jesus, help me forsake, help me give up that thing and help me pursue these fruits?"
One more note about the fruits as we go on: many of these fruits, I don't know if you know this, I didn't think about this until this week, are relational in nature. They're not just benefits for you, right? You're kind to others. You love others. You’re gentle to others. These fruits are proof of a relationship with Jesus, and they're meant to be enjoyed by your neighbors. You produce fruit for others. Through your life and how you live, they are to taste and see that the Lord is good.
Using Spiritual Gifts for the Common Good
And it's with this idea of the benefits to our neighbors that we move into our last passage this morning: 1 Corinthians 12. This is another big passage regarding the spirit. Again, Blue Bibles, if you have that, it's page 1196. I'll give you a moment to find it. We're going to address a few foundational questions on spiritual gifts briefly. Paul says in verses 1-3, "Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be uninformed. You know that when you were pagans, you were led astray to mute idols, however you were led. Therefore, I want you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says 'Jesus is accursed,' and no one can say 'Jesus is Lord,' except in the Holy Spirit."
Paul here wants us to understand spiritual gifts so that we’re not in the dark. There's a concern here about false teachers. The Corinthian church struggled with immaturity, and false teachers were influencing their understanding of spiritual gifts. Verse 4 states that spiritual gifts come from the Holy Spirit. In verse 7, Paul emphasizes that each believer is given a manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. All gifts come by God's choosing, and they should never be used as a benchmark to measure salvation. The gifts are given to believers to benefit the church community.
Paul uses the human body as an analogy for the church, explaining that many parts form one body. It's essential for each member to use their unique gifts for the good of others, fostering unity and collaboration, not competition. Each gift, whether wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, or others, is vital. Finally, spiritual gifts are intended to be used in love—the unifying force that gives these gifts their true meaning.
Conclusion and Call to Action
As we conclude, consider the last question: if you are a church that wants to collaborate rather than compete, how can you use the gifts God has given you to help follow Jesus together? Let’s seek to use our gifts to build each other up in love, encouraging and supporting one another as one body in Christ.
In summary, the Holy Spirit is our helper, guiding us in truth and convicting us of sin. He empowers us with gifts to serve and build His church and cultivates the fruits of the Spirit in us for the benefit of others.
Let us close in prayer: Jesus, we thank you that you came, that you died, and that you rose again. Even though you left us here on earth, you did not leave us as orphans. You sent your Holy Spirit to apply the salvation you bought for us, to seal us, and to secure us. You left us a helper, a guide, and a counselor. Help us to forsake the desires of the flesh that war against our hearts and souls. Lead us away from these things to places where our lives produce fruits that honor you. May you grow love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control in each of us. Through our lives, may our neighbors taste and see that you, Lord, are good. In Jesus' name, amen.
