The Spirit Dwells: Obedience as Evidence of Love

Church, I don't know about you, but I'm thankful for the ministry of the holy spirit that gave us the word of God, aren't you? Because without the spirit of God, we have no inspired scriptures. We have no illumination of truth. We have no conviction sin, no understanding of the gospel, no assurance of salvation. But because we do indeed have the holy spirit, we do indeed have those things. It's a blessing to have the work of the Holy Spirit in your life. Not as some impersonal force, not as as an emotion or a feeling, not as goosebumps during the singing time, but but the third person of the Trinity, fully God, eternally existent, dwelling within the believer, and actively conforming us into the image of Christ. [01:00:20] (63 seconds)

If the Holy Spirit doesn't draw attention to himself, he points people to Christ. He magnifies Christ. He convicts sinners concerning Christ. He illuminates the words of Christ. He conforms believers into the image of Christ. And that means, again, that whenever someone claims that the spirit of God has led them into something that is error or contradiction or rebellion or confusion or doctrinal falsehood, we can know with certainty that it was not the holy spirit leading them to that because the holy spirit authored the word of God. And the last time I checked, he's not going around contradicting himself. [00:57:35] (39 seconds)

And so if someone says to you, you know, the holy spirit was was was just speaking to me yesterday, and and he told me, you know, x, y, and z. If if somebody says that to you, right? And and like like x, y, and z, if you will, is nothing but heretical drivel or it's not true or it's in conflict with the word of god. Then you reject it outright because the holy spirit will not contradict that which he has already said. That's why Jesus says that the spirit will bring to remembrance everything that I have commanded you. And so just as a word of encouragement to you, if you feel like, man, feel like the Lord is really is really speaking to me right now, test it by this book. And if it disagrees with this book, then I hate to inform you, it wasn't God. [00:55:54] (51 seconds)

The believer obeys Christ not because he's trying to climb his way into God's favor, but because God has already brought him near through the cross and the empty tomb. And the more the believer walks in fellowship with Christ, treasures the words of Christ, yields to the spirit of Christ, the more he experiences comfort and assurance and nearness of God in his life. That's what Jesus is pressing into his disciples here. He's saying, look. The world is not gonna experience that kind of fellowship with me because the world does not love me. The world wants the gifts of God while rejecting the authority of God, but those who belong to Christ, if you have put your trust in Jesus, you will experience something the world can never counterfeit, is genuine communion with a living God. [00:52:35] (51 seconds)