The Twofold Working of the Holy Spirit Part 3
We have been studying the working of the Holy Spirit in our lives. How to hear from the Holy Spirit or the voice of God, developing our prayer life, the power of our prayer language and demonstrating the fruit of gentleness, kindness and goodness.
In developing your prayer life, we talked about the what prayer is, speaking from your heart and pouring out your soul and heart to God. We discussed thee different types of prayer and how to utilize these one at a time or in combination to talk with Father God.
Always remembering that everything should be made with thanksgiving. (Phil.4:6).
We talked about the power of your prayer language or praying in tongues, how it builds up your spirit, it is the scriptural way to praise God, it also builds up your faith and strengthens your spirit.
Today, I want us to look at exactly what it is the Holy Spirit does in our lives, the actual working of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
The Holy Spirit has a dual role in our lives. The Holy Spirit dwells in us and upon us. These are two different and distinct roles and I want us to study carefully each one.
Today we will spend our time looking at the Holy Spirit dwelling in us, our salvation.
Titus 3:4-7: But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared,
- not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit,
- whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior,
- that having been justified by His grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.
This is talking about your salvation experience, the new birth. Jesus is the living proof of God’s loving kindness toward us. God sent His only begotten son, Jesus to die for us. It is our belief and acceptance of that death and resurrection that leads to our rebirth. When we accept Christ and the finished work of the cross, we heard the Word of God and The Holy Spirit comes into us and we are born again, we are a new creation.
2 Corinthians 5:14-18: 14. For the love of Christ constrains us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died;
- and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again.
- Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh. Even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him thus no longer.
- Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
- Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation,
- that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.
The Living Bible translated it this way:
2 Corinthians 5:14-19: Since we believe that Christ died for all of us, we should also believe that we have died to the old life we used to live.
- He died for all so that all who live--having received eternal life from him--might live no longer for themselves, to please themselves, but to spend their lives pleasing Christ who died and rose again for them.
- So stop evaluating Christians by what the world thinks about them or by what they seem to be like on the outside. Once I mistakenly thought of Christ that way, merely as a human being like myself. How differently I feel now!
- When someone becomes a Christian he becomes a brand new person inside. He is not the same any more. A new life has begun!
- All these new things are from God who brought us back to himself through what Christ Jesus did. And God has given us the privilege of urging everyone to come into his favor and be reconciled to him.
- For God was in Christ, restoring the world to himself, no longer counting men's sins against them but blotting them out. This is the wonderful message he has given us to tell others.
We have become new creatures, a brand new person, inside, in our spirit and this was accomplished by the “washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit.”, which God the Father, poured out abundantly on us.
So we are born again, through the working of the Holy Spirit, but it is also important for us to understand that after the rebirth, the Holy Spirit dwells in us.
John 14:16-18: 16. "And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever,
- "even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you.
- "I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.
We have become children of God, we were not left orphans.
Romans 8:15-16 15. For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, "Abba, Father.''
- The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God,
The spirit bears witness with our spirit because He dwells within us and joins with our spirit to confirm our new birth.
So the first working of the Holy Spirit is salvation and regeneration of our spirit. Our spiritual nature is changed, we now have the Spirit of God indwelling in us.
Ezekiel 36:26-27: 26. "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.
- "I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.
God promised to put His spirit in us and cause us to walk in His ways. How do we accomplish this, God’s Spirit dwells in us, but we don’t always walk in His ways.
To totally fulfill this promise, we must be open to the working of the Holy Spirit within us. We have to submit to His leading and cooperate fully with Him.
There are several steps we need to take to submit to and cooperate with the Holy Spirit
- Have constant renewals of the Spirit. To keep you strong spiritually we have to have constant renewals of the Holy Spirit.
2 Corinthians 4:16: 16. Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day.
Our body is dying, the understanding of the gift of divine health through the finished work of Christ can prevent or slow it down, but it will eventually wear out and die. But our inner man is renewed everyday, if we do what we are supposed to do.
Ephesians 3:14-16: 14. For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord
Jesus Christ,
- from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named,
- that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened
with might through His Spirit in the inner man,
We are strengthened through His Spirit. The way we accomplish this is to spend time
With God in prayer and reading of His Word.
Isaiah 40:31: 31. But those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they
shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall
walk and not faint.
Eagles live to be very old. When an eagle gets too old his beak become dull and
brittle and he is no longer able to hunt or eat. So what he does is go somewhere and
beat and scrape his beak on a rock until it comes off, then another one grows and he is
able to hunt, eat and his strength is renewed. This is what we have to do, beat off our
“beak” on the “Rock of Ages, Christ Jesus” and believe God to strengthen our inner
man! The word wait is the Hebrew Word, Gavah. It means to bind together by
twisting, to expect, gather together, look patiently for. It is not sitting around waiting
on God to do something. It is spending so much time with Him, that you are bound
together, entwined, gathered together. You cannot be entwined with God and not have
your spirit renewed. Waiting through prayer, and studying the Word are the ways to
renew your inner man.
Renew your spirit by praying in tongues and with the understanding. (Jude 20).
Then wait on the Lord, be quiet before Him and let Him talk to you. Clear your
mind of all clutter and get your spirit quiet before the Lord and listen for Him to talk to
you. He will speak to you through the small inner voice, the Word or maybe even
through a sermon or lesson. You may even hear Him speak in special occasions. But
if you do not spend time with Him and listen, you will not hear or recognize His voice.
Romans 12:2: 2. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the
renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect
will of God.
Spend time feeding your spirit with the Word of God. “Faith cometh by hearing and
hearing by the Word of God.” You cannot know God, if you don’t spend time reading
His Word. It is through study and meditation on His Word that we truly know what God
Thinks about things and His promise for us.
- Walk in the Spirit: When the Holy Sprit dwells in you, there are benefits. God’s nature is deposited in you, and is manifested through the fruits of the spirit.
Galatians 5:22-25: 22. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
- gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law.
- And those who are Christ's have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
- If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.
When we have the Holy Spirit in us, we have these characteristics, we need to yield
to them and let them be manifested in our lives. Notice the first of these is love, I cannot stress enough, the importance of walking in love toward others.
1 John 3:14: 14. We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love the brethren. He who does not love his brother abides in death.
Love is the most basic component of God’s Character. God is love!
1 John 4:7-11: 7. Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone
who loves is born of God and knows God.
- He who does not love does not know God, for God is love.
- In this the love of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only
begotten Son into the world, that we might live through Him.
- In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be
the propitiation for our sins.
- Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
Clearly love was the driving force behind every action of God, in sending Jesus to
die for us and it should be the driving force in all our actions also.
We also need to walk in godliness. We need to exhibit a life that is pleasing to God and glorifies Him in everything we do.
1 Timothy 4:8: 8. For bodily exercise profits a little, but godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of the life that now is and of that which is to come.
Galatians 5:15-21: 15. But if you bite and devour one another, beware lest you be consumed by one another!
- I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.
- For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish.
- But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
- Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, licentiousness,
- idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies,
- envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
We cannot be filled with the spirit and walk in the flesh, we cannot yield to both at the same time, we can only follow the leading of one at a time, the flesh or the spirit.
You cannot serve two masters and if you let your flesh dominate you, you are not walking in the spirit.
We have looked today at the indwelling of the spirit, which is the new birth and how it affects us.
John 4:14: 14. "but whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.''
The Holy Spirit is the fountain of water springing up into everlasting life and it is inside us to help us, strengthen us as individuals and to bless us.
Next month we will look at the Baptism in the Holy Spirit which is the spirit upon us.
It is for power to do what God has called us to do. The Holy Spirit in us, blesses us, the Holy Spirit upon us is so we can bless others.