So glad you're joining us again as we continue on with our examination of the ministry of the Holy Spirit under the covering topic of living life under the New Covenant. As pointed out in previous articles, the Bible says that the NEW Covenant is a BETTER covenant than the LAW (Hebrews 7:22, 8:6). If it's BETTER, then we should want to focus on living under it instead of under an inferior arrangement that for believers in Christ has in fact been set aside (Hebrews 7:18). "What's so much better about the New Covenant," some might ask, and the main answer to that question is that under the New Covenant we're saved by GRACE (undeserved favor) through FAITH instead of by WORKS (Ephesians 2:8-9). Not only that but also all our sins have ALREADY been forgiven and Jesus has made this a PERMANENT Covenant that can never be broken. Here are a few of the scriptures presented in previous articles that speak to these benefits:
Hebrews 9:12 = "...through His own blood, He entered the holy place once for all, having obtained
eternal redemption."
Hebrews 10:12 = "...He (offered) one sacrifice for all sin for all time..."
Hebrews 10:18 = "Now where there is forgiveness...there is no longer any offering for sin."
Hebrews 8:12 = God has chosen under the New Covenant to not remember our sins.
Hebrews 10:17 = "...their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more."
Galatians 3:13 = "Christ has (already, past tense) redeemed us..."
2 Corinthians 5:19 = God has through Christ reconciled the world to Himself and is no longer
counting our sins against us.
Romans 5:13 = Our sins are not being counted against us because we do not live under the Law.
But there's another aspect to this New Covenant that we've been focusing on for the past two months or so which is that the Holy Spirit as an essential part of it has been poured out on all mankind (Acts 2:17) for the primary purpose of providing believers with the necessary POWER (authority and ability) to assist Him in the carrying out of His plans and purposes in the whole earth (Acts 1:8). Please note: believers are called to assist God in achieving His objectives on the earth and to do that we need special empowerment via the Holy Spirit. Fortunately then, under the New Covenant He has come to dwell WITHIN the Believer (1 Corinthians 3:16, 6:19) in order to be easily and immediately accessible (available) in the process of LEADING us (Romans 8:14) to perform the good works that God has assigned to each believer (Ephesians 2:10). In sum, the Holy Spirit is a VITAL part of the New Covenant experience because believers are supposed to be led by Him in FAITH trusting in the truth of the Word.
Our Work on the Earth
As we consider life under the New Covenant, we need to keep in mind what the work is that God is calling us to so that our own agenda doesn't get in the way. From the beginning, God has instructed His people to take dominion (authority) over the earth. In the Garden, he told the man and the woman to RULE over the entire earth, not just the Garden but the ENTIRE earth (Genesis 1:26-28). But before they could accomplish that assignment, they fell into sin and were evicted from the Garden (Genesis 3:23-24) where the Holy Spirit had previously manifested to them (Genesis 3:8) for fellowship and for the purpose of LEADING them to fulfillment of their assignment. Unfortunately, things got more complicated after sin entered the earth but the basic assignment was never cancelled.
Indeed, after the flood the Holy Spirit blessed (empowered) Noah to resume essentially the original assignment (Genesis 9:1-3) but we know from other Scripture that there was already a plan in place to provide a PERMANENT solution for achieving that original plan for bringing His Kingdom to the WHOLE earth. Noah and his descendants weren't going to be able to accomplish the assignment because of sin but they were given a shot at it anyway to show the rest of us that God was NOT about to change His plans and purposes for any reason. And so, when we come to the Apostles in the Book of Acts waiting in Jerusalem for the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, we find that the purpose of that empowerment was reaffirmed as taking the Kingdom of God to the ENTIRE earth (Acts 1:8). Same God, same assignment, He NEVER changes!
How God Empowers
Now we need to understand HOW God empowers us to carry out this plan so we can use what He gives us correctly and do a good job. He could of course do all this work Himself but He's chosen to let us help BECAUSE He loves us. And for the same reason He's been extra careful to provide all the tools we need to get done the particular job we've each been assigned to. Yes, we have to read the job description to find out about the "tools" we can access and how to go about using them. And, we have so seek God and find out what our particular assignment is. MOST Christians don't understand that they even have an assignment much less that it requires them to connect to the EMPOWERMENT of the Holy Spirit to get everything done the right way.
Even if we're understanding the job description, there's a unique problem we have to deal with. All of us come into the Kingdom of God with experiences and habits and values and tendencies and ways of thinking that came from the World and are totally opposite to the ways of God. Yes, we're born again and we're saved but there's a whole process of renewal that we have to go through to get our MINDS renovated to the point where we can be useful. That process is called TRANSFORMATION (Romans 12:1-2) and it will NOT be completed for any believer until Jesus returns to earth. We're all being transformed so we can be increasingly useful for the work of taking the Kingdom of God to the ENTIRE earth. And within that process not everyone has the same assignment. There's a variety of tasks that requires a variety of empowerment. Not everybody goes door-to-door to witness to people. Not everybody goes to Africa or India (or Cuba) to witness to non-believers directly. Not everybody pastors a church or heads up a big national ministry or writes a Christian newsletter. The Body of Christ is a huge organization that requires fund raising, prayer, administration, discipleship, teaching and any number of other things to get the overall job done, and somewhere in all of that we each have to discover what our particular assignment is.
While we're being transformed, each of us must also deal with those old habits and ways of doing things which fortunately DO have a diminishing influence as we progress through TRANSFORMATION. We call those old ways of thinking the FLESH and one of its main objectives is to work against the Spirit because Walking by the Spirit requires FAITH which is anathema to the FLESH. Indeed, the work of the Kingdom is performed by the Holy Spirit working through your reborn spirit, aka, "Walking by the Spirit." Therefore, the objective of the FLESH is to hinder our FAITH as much as possible in order to make it impossible to "Walk by the Spirit" which makes it impossible to fulfill our God-given assignment. In sum, there's a basic biblical principle to acknowledge: the FLESH always sets itself against the Spirit (Galatians 5:17) and the reason we're often ineffective in carrying out our assignments is that we're spending way too much time "carrying out the desires of the FLESH." And of course, the Adversary works through our FLESH so we've got to RESIST him too as we struggle to get out of the FLESH and back to WALKING BY THE SPIRIT.
But the Holy Spirit has empowered us to overcome all this by connecting to what the Bible calls the FRUIT of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23). There are nine of them: love, joy peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Most Christians know there are nine manifestations of the Holy Spirit called FRUIT but they don't understand what purpose they serve or why the Bible talks about them. By way of explanation, the Holy Spirit manifests all nine of these characteristics as He lives and works through each Believer. If we're walking in the FLESH these characteristics won't be in evidence but if we're walking by the SPIRIT they will always be available to block the desires and works of the FLESH. You cannot carry out your assignment in the FLESH so the SPIRIT makes available the exact empowerment we need to overcome the FLESH by FAITH. And believe me, even when you understand these concepts, it's almost a full time job to put down your FLESH so you can WALK BY THE SPIRIT. Indeed, most Christians are scarcely trying to deal with these concepts even though they're clearly articulated in the Word. And that explains why the works and desires of the FLESH are in nearly constant manifestation throughout the Body of Christ.
The Conclusion
In conclusion, the Adversary could care less about which Denomination we belong to or the particular theology it's been teaching. The Devil operates the way the Word of God says he does. I recommend that you review this subject for yourself in Galatians, Chapter 5 with tonight's Bible Study in mind to help give the understanding that God has a specific and constructive purpose for those nine FRUIT that perhaps you hadn't fully considered before. It's not something we should just hurry through without some additional study because we have a job to do and our FLESH will be in the way unless we take steps to overcome it.
The Holy Spirit dwells in us so His FRUIT is already in there too. It's not our FRUIT, it's His FRUIT and it's there for us to access. He's living through us. We're not expected to take His FRUIT over and manifest His characteristics in our own strength. We won't be able to do that until our TRANSFORMATION has been completed. Rather, His FRUIT is there, available for us to connect to by WALKING IN THE SPIRIT. And that's not the whole story: next week we'll look at some additional empowerment called the GIFTS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT that God also makes available to help us carry out our assignment.
Thanks for joining our discussion tonight. We'll be looking for you again NEXT Sunday night on March 20. In the meantime may the Lord bless you with every spiritual blessing (Ephesians 1:3), pushing you to VICTORY in every area of life!
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Sinners' Prayer
If you've never invited Jesus to be your Lord, you can do so today by believing and saying out loud the following simple prayer:
Jesus, I declare today with all my heart that I believe in you and I believe that God raised you from the dead. I acknowledge that my sins have been forgiven for all time and I ask you to come into my life today and be my Lord and Savior. Thank you for salvation and eternal life.
If you were sincere as you prayed, God has already come into your life and you're a new creation, a totally new species recreated in His image. Now ask the Lord to lead you to a good faith-based, bible-teaching church where you can be equipped to fulfill your potential in the Kingdom of God.
When you get a moment have someone help you look up the following scriptures because they confirm what you've done by saying this prayer and believing what you said:
Romans 10:9
2 Corinthians 5:17
Ephesians 2:8
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