Dr Charles Stanley - The Power of the Holy Spirit in the Life of the Believer - Part 1

0:00When he sent the Holy Spirit to indow you, listen, that eliminated all excuses for ever in your life of saying to him, I can't do it. He will not have indow you if he had not intended for you to do something in your life and him to do something through your life that you would need the Spirit of God living and working within you. If you follow the Holy Spirit, you have a supernatural power and authority within you to enable you to succeed at whatever God has called you to do. A lot of people know about God and some have heard about Jesus, but not nearly as many, no much about the Holy Spirit. Today, on In Touch, the teaching ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley, we'll hear why it's critical that Christians know the purpose of the Spirit of God. Here's part one of the power of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer. Once you and I have trusted the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior, we begin to immediately learn some lessons or some principles about which we learn to live the Christian life.

1:03But the big mistake we make is this, we learn those principles, we start out utilizing those principles or abiding by them and after a while we feel like we get a little confident and things to go and start going our way. We feel a little success in our Christian life. Next thing you know, we've had a big collapse or we've had a fault or a fall in some fashion. Why is it that somehow, even though we start out right, oftentimes we don't end up right? Well, one of the primary reasons is the fact that we drift away from the very principles that make us a success and whatever we're doing. And oftentimes we think that we are practicing the same thing, but we've gotten so familiar with it. We've become so familiar with the Word of God with the principles, with the messages that we hear, that the next thing you know, we are not practicing them and then we are wondering what in the world's going on in our life. So what I'd like to do in this message, I want to deal with one of those very basic but awesome, powerful principles that will make the difference in whether you live the Christian life victoriously or whether you fail in it. Not only that, but whether you can

2:07fail or whether you succeed in everything else you're doing in life because God has made it very clear in His Word, there is one thing in this light that is so absolutely essential, it is essential every single day, no matter what. So I want you to turn if you will to Luke chapter 24. And in this particular passage, right before Jesus ascends, He gives His disciples a very specific command, absolutely essential to their whole future. That simple command, not only would determine what they succeeded in what they did but also in how they lived. So if you'll notice beginning in verse 44 of the 24th chapter of Luke. Now, He said to them, these are my words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things which are written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled. Then He opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, then He said to them, thus it is written that the Christ should suffer and rise again from the dead

3:10the third day, that repentance for forgiveness of sin should be proclaimed in His name to all the nations beginning from Jerusalem, your witnesses of these things. And notice His next verse, and behold, I'm sending forth the promise of my Father upon you, but you at this stay in the city until you're clothed with power from on high. And He led them out as far as Bethan and He lifted up His hands and blessed them. And it came about that while He was blessing them, He parted from them and they returned to Jerusalem with great joy and were continually in the temple praising God. Now, right before His departure, Jesus said one of the most important things He could possibly have said. He had prepared them for this moment, but now He said to them, I want you to sit down in the city of Jerusalem until you be clothed with power from on high. What I want to talk about in this message is the power of the Holy Spirit and the life of the believer. So what I want to do first

4:12of all is to define what I mean by the power of the Holy Spirit. The power of the Holy Spirit is that divine authority and energy which God releases in the life of every single one of His children in order that you and I may live a godly life and that we may live a fruitful life. The power of the Holy Spirit is that divine energy and listen, that divine energy and authority that God releases in and through every single believer in order that we might live a godly life and bear a fruitful life. So when He talks about being clothed with power from on high, that's the kind of power He's talking about now. Let me just say this, the Holy Spirit cannot be manipulated. You can't make the Holy Spirit do anything. God has given us the Spirit. Therefore we don't have to try to manipulate Him to do anything. The Spirit of God, once He comes into a person's life, listen, He energizes the body, He enlightens the

5:12mind to understand truth and listen, not only that, He inflames our Spirit with a passion of devotion to Almighty God. What I'd like to do in this message is simply this. I want to give you a comprehensive view of the Holy Spirit. I want to start out with something very simple and move it to the more complex. One thing I am certain, if you will listen carefully to this message, if you'll be wise and have to take some notes, you will not only be enlightened probably in some areas, but you're going to be encouraged in your life no matter what your vocation or what God has called you to do. So what I want to do is I want to answer five questions. I'm going to ask you to talk back to me. I'm going to ask you to give them back so don't just sit there. I want you to be able to tell me back because listen, you need to be able to tell someone else when they say, well, who is this Holy Spirit? Where did He come from? What's all this about? I not only want you to be able to answer the questions, but I want you to be able to answer them from an experience that you have in your life as a result

6:15of your relationship to God through His Son, Jesus Christ and the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit in your life. Question number one, who is the Holy Spirit? Well, it's very clear in the Bible who He is and the Bible says that the Holy Spirit, listen, He is a person of the Trinity. The Spirit of the Living God is not a force. He is somebody. He is somebody extremely important to your daily life and mind. If somebody says, well, look, tell me who is this Holy Spirit? Who is the first thing you're going to say? The Holy Spirit is a what? A person of the Trinity. The Holy Spirit is a person of the Trinity. Secondly, the Holy Spirit is a promise of the Father. Notice if you will back in this 24th chapter, what Jesus said, behold, I am sending forth the promise of my Father and He says, you are to stay in the city until you be clothed with power from on high. The Spirit of the Living God is not only, listen, He's not only a person of the Trinity, but He is a promise of the Father. Jesus promised that the Father would send the Holy Spirit. He said, He'll

7:18come and He'll be a helper to you. He'll be a comforter to you. He says, I'm sending Him. Therefore, He is the promise of the Father. And so He had been saying to those disciples all along, there's going to come a time when the Holy Spirit is going to be in you with you and upon you. And at this moment, when He was speaking, the Holy Spirit had not come upon the church as He did a little later on at Pentecost. And so when somebody says, well, who is this Holy Spirit? He, listen, the Holy Spirit is a person of the Trinity. He is the promise of the Father. But thirdly, He is the gift to every single believer. Turn if you will to Acts chapter 2 for a moment. And you'll recall that Peter has preached that awesome sermon at Pentecost and thousands of people are being saved and lives are being changed. And what happens thereafter is certainly evidence of the fact that something awesome happened on that particular day. Listen to what happens. Now in verse 37, when they heard this, they were pierced to the heart and they said to Peter the rest of the apostles, brethren, what shall we do? Peter said to them, repent and let every one of you be baptized in the name

8:18of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Now, so when somebody says to you, who is the Holy Spirit? You're going to say the Holy Spirit is person of the Trinity, promise of the Father, gift to every single believer, right? Now, why in the world did God send him? Why did God send him? Well, he says in this passage, now, notice, he says, you have to sit down in the city of Jerusalem until you be in dude with power from on high. Here's the first reason God sent him. Both of these are equally important, but I want to put this one first. God the Father sent the Holy Spirit, listen, to enable us to do the work God has called us to do. He sent the Holy Spirit to enable us to do the work God has called us to do. Now, let's think about this. If Jesus began his ministry following the Spirit of God coming upon him and a special way for his work, if the apostle Paul began his ministry following the power of the Holy Spirit coming upon him, being baptized there. And if Jesus said to his apostles, you walk with me,

9:19you watch miracles, you've seen me, you've heard me, you have experienced casting out demons and all the rest, but you're not ready to do the work that I've called you to do because it is a supernatural work. You can't do it in the natural because it's a supernatural work. You've got to have supernatural power. What is that supernatural power? It is a divine authority and energy released in a person's life and through a person's life in order to enable them to live a God in life and to live a fruitful life. So he said to them, you wait until the Spirit of God comes. Remember, he said, you should receive power after that the Holy Ghost has come upon you and you should be witnesses to me, both in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, the most part of the earth. And so therefore, Jesus said, you to wait until you be in dude with power from on high. What is that power? Divine energy and divine authority that comes in the presence of the Holy Spirit. Now, when you and I get in the flesh, we get in our own energy and I've certainly been there at times when I absolutely could not do all that I thought I ought to be doing, some of which certainly was not what God was

10:21up to. And sometimes we have the expectations of ourselves more than what God does. But what he's promised to do is enable us and to equip us both in wisdom and understanding and knowledge and energy to do what he has required of us, what he has called us to do and he will make your success at whatever you're doing, when your reliance is upon the Spirit of God because what you're doing, you're looking to him, depending upon him, waiting upon him, trusting him to give you guidance and direction and energy and strength and wisdom to do the job. There's not a single person. Every single solitary believer has the right to claim the presence and the power of the Spirit of God in their life or whatever God has called you to do. Somebody says, well, I'm looking for a promotion and I'm doing my best to convince and persuade and I hope they see my good work. When God sees your good work, He knows how to motivate people to promote you, to wherever He wants you. Listen, you do a good job down here in a small place. God will put you where He wants you. Know why? Because you've proven to be trustworthy to Almighty God wherever you are. He says, you sit in the sit in Jerusalem until you

11:24be in dude with power from on high. If you don't like the way things are going in your life, you don't like the way things are going in your job. Listen, then you get full of the Holy Spirit and then just say, God, all right, here's my life and I'm going to come to that in a few moments. Now I want to see what you do. I see what I do, Lord, what a mess I've made of things. Now I want to see what you do. And my friends, you'll be absolutely amazed at what God will do in your life. I don't care how old you are, how young you are, what your vocation, what your motivation out there is. God will begin to work in your life in a very unusual way. And what we said, that the power of the Holy Spirit is God's divine energy and authority. Listen, and the authority to do what we need to do. You see, don't relegate the work of the Spirit just out there preaching and teaching. He wants them to be involved in every single aspect of your life no matter what it is. You come to some financial decision, you listen to this one, that one and the other one, why don't you listen to God? And listen, you say, well, how do I listen to God? You know how you listen to him? You ask him, God, I don't want, I don't understand exact how to do this. Would you send somebody in my life who is full of a

12:25Spirit who is led by your principles and guided by your principles to help me understand and to make a wise decision? That is exactly what God will do. There are godly people in every field, full of the Holy Spirit, ready and willing to help other godly people who want to know what to do and how to do it. Listen, this is a supernatural life that you and I have. And so therefore he says, to them, you wait till you be in due with power from on high. So every single one of us in, dwell the Holy Spirit. Every single one of us has the right to claim and to call upon the Spirit of God to enable us to do whatever he's called us to do. So the first reason the God sent the Holy Spirit was number one what? To enable us to do the work God has called us to do. Now, does that leave that any believers? No, it does not. Every single believer. Now the second reason, not in necessary in this order. Second reason is to enable us to live the life he's called us to live. Do the work he's called us to do, enable us to live the life he's called us to live. Well, what kind of life is that? He's called us to live a holy life. I can't do that. Well listen to

13:30you, wait a minute. Let's just find out what a holy life is. The holy life is not a sinless life. What is a holy life? A holy life is a life having trusted Jesus Christ as personal and savior that is bent toward God with a devotion and desire for God and a hunger and thirst to live for him. That does not mean we're not going to make mistakes because we all came in this world with a sinful nature. We still have our naturalness. I would have been wonderful if God had taken all of our naturalness away, but he did. So therefore we still have the capacity to sin against God anytime we choose to. If I walk in the spirit and the spirit of God is controlling my life, then surely there's going to be a different kind of lifestyle. If I'm walking in the flesh in our naturalness, our carnality is the Bible calls it whether it's flesh, carnality, or naturalness. That's all the same. And you heard people say, well, you know, what I do is just natural. Sure it is. It's natural for us men if he wants to drink or carry on and corrals and mess up his or her life.

14:32That is the natural way because Paul said in Ephesians chapter 2 verse 1. Therefore he says, now in times past we walked according to the course of this age, the natural lifestyle of this age, which is what? Seeking after, hungry after, thirsting after, lusting after anything, all things, everything that will satisfy this big open gap in my heart. And you see the truth is God's made a place in our life only for Jesus, only he can fill it. And therefore people live their lives, they become discouraged. They say, I've tried to live a Christian life, I can't really ask your question. What part of the Holy Spirit having you living your life when you are failing and having difficulty in hardship? Doesn't mean you're not going to have in a hardship in your life. But God sent the Holy Spirit to enable you and me to live a life we cannot live in the flesh. We can't live it in our own strength. And I think one of the most awesome moments is I look back in my own life. The night that I realized for the first time that I could not live the Christian life, God did not intend for me to live the Christian life of my trying, begging, praying, pleading, fasting and all the things that I tried to do to live a God

15:34of life and felt like an absolute failure over and over again. When I read one single chapter, the first chapter of the little book, they found the secret about Hudson Taylor and recognized what Jesus meant when he said, I am the vine, you are the branch. The branch abides in the vine. He said, I am abiding in you and you're abiding in me. The branch does not bear fruit of itself. Listen, you've never seen branches have to go and try to bear fruit. But the branch just lives off the vine. The set that runs in the vine runs in the branch and that set that comes in the stem and produces delicious grapes. Here's what I did for a long time. I'm over here going, trying to get the fruit. And you know what? I feel just like everybody else felt. The night that I recognized what Jesus meant when he said, I'm abiding in you and you're abiding in me. It is his life in us, his life through us, the Christian life. Listen, the Christian life is this. It is Christ living his life in and through us in the power and the presence and the person of the

16:38Holy Spirit of the living God. Listen, you can't do the work God's called you to do apart from the Holy Spirit. You can't live the life that God has called you to live apart from the Holy Spirit. Listen, it is a supernatural work, supernatural power, supernatural life, supernatural power. And the reason there's so much failure, I think, oftentimes is most people are totally ignorant of the fact that the Spirit of God is an essential part of my life, every single solitary day. So you've heard us talk about putting on the whole arm of God, for example, in Ephesians chapter 6. And what does he tell me? He says, put on the helmet of salvation. And I know how he says it, but I start on the top of the bottom. That's where I put it on. Helmet of salvation. Do what? Protect my thinking. Breastplate of righteousness. Protect my emotions. Go ahead, love truth to be sure I'm walking in it. Sandals of peace because I want to be a peacemaker. Sort of the Spirit, defensive and offensive weapon. And above all, taking the shield of faith, the quench all the fire darts of the devil. Well, let me add something to that. When you wake up tomorrow morning, is what you do. You say, I want to thank you, Lord. First of all,

17:40I realize that I am absolutely dependent upon the Holy Spirit to enable me today. To live the life you want me to live, do the work you've called me to do. Secondly, now I recognize that, but I choose to rely upon the Spirit to give me direction and guidance during this day. Thirdly, Lord, I'm going to trust you. I'm going to accept this done. You're guidance and your direction for me this day. And you know what happens when you get up with a full arm or on, and when you just say, when you go ahead and confess it right up front, I am absolutely told to depend upon you today. You know the problem with that? Most people want to be in control. Most people want to be in charge. Most people want to feel adequate. When I think about all these success books and all these success seminars and things that are out there and people talking about being successful in life and being able to have self-confidence. There is a godly kind of confidence. Being self-confident, you can do it, you can do it, you can do it, you can do it. The Scripture says, no, you can't do it. So you have to decide who you're going to believe. You're going to believe God on them. Now listen, what you have to ask for, listen, you have to ask for what do you want? Do I want life at its fullest in that one way? Now if I just want what the

18:45world has to offer, I can do some of those things in my own strength. But listen, if I want something that counts, and as I said to someone yesterday who said to me, they said, you know, I said, well, how you doing? Well, he said, I have joy, but I'm not very happy in my circumstance. Listen, you know, you don't have to be happy in your circumstance. Probably something about all of our lives we would like to change that we think would make us happier. The truth is we can have a joy whether we have real happiness or not. That joy overrides the difficulty, the hardship, the trial, the tribulations and all the things we have and we don't have there's something about a relationship with Christ. There's a joy on the inside of us. There's intimacy we can have with him. What is that? That's the work of the Spirit of God doing and drawing us to him. My prayer daily many times today is God draw me to yourself because I know that intimacy is the key to a deep sense of abiding joy that nothing in this world can destroy no matter what. God desires that you are not daily, recognize our dependence upon our need of our desperate needs so often of the power

19:47of the Holy Spirit in that light, affirming that to be true in our life, relying upon him and watching to see what he does. Listen, all of us have made messes of certain areas of our life, but you know what? When you depend upon him and see what he does, it's amazing what he can do. And even though no matter what you're going through, he will sustain you through that no matter what. Two reasons he's seen it. Number one, he's sent the Holy Spirit in order to do what? To enable us to do the work, God call us to do and secondly to do what? Enable us to live the life, he's called us to live. The Holy Spirit came to enable us to do the work God has called us to do and to live the life he calls us to live. Dr. Stanley's message encouraged us to allow the Spirit to perform his vital work in us, producing the fruit of godliness and good works. We'll hear more about the

20:51power of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer tomorrow. In the meantime, you can do some studying on your own at ntouch.org. And to listen again, click on the link to Today on Radio. If you'd like to order a copy of today's complete message, the power of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer, stop by our online bookstore. Our web address again is ntouch.org or call or text 1-800-N-Touch. If you prefer, you can write to us at ntouch. Post office box 7900-Atlanta-Georgia-30357. Christians are commanded to speak up about their faith and there are different ways to do that effectively. Keep listening for today's moment with Charles Stanley. Do you take sermon notes on the back of your bulletin? Jot scripture references on the offering envelope? Start keeping things in one place, one organized place, with the in touch note takers journal. This leather soft journal contains

21:53150 pages for taking notes and includes Dr. Stanley's 30 life principles. Find everything in one convenient place with the in touch note takers journal. Call toll free 1-800-Intouch or visit in touch.org. Does your prayer life need a jumpstart? With the in touch praying with purpose cards, the time you spend talking with God will take on a whole new level of energy and intimacy. Beautifully designed and easy to use or to share with a friend. There are prayers to lift up each day of the month along with corresponding Bible verses and more. For your set of praying with purpose cards call 1-800-Intouch or go to intouch.org slash store. You're listening to Intouch. The believer who relies on the Holy Spirit will have an answer for someone who asks about Jesus. Here's a moment with Charles Stanley.

22:53There are times, for example, when I wanted to speak up in the situation and say, let me tell you what God said, let me just say God says, Holy Spirit, just be quiet. Don't say a word. And sometimes our silence is very powerful. For example, if somebody just attacks you in your Christian faith and what you believe in this, sometimes it's very effective to be real quiet. Don't say a word. And then when they finish blowing off about what they believe, what they don't believe is so well. I trust one of these days you'll know the truth and be able to enjoy this awesome personal relationship with Almighty God. It's indescribably wonderful. What do you say? They have to go home and look up at night and think, she's got something I don't have. He's got something. And see deep down inside a lot of that fire stuff is a cover-up. It's a defense. They don't want to hear the truth. So we tell him as much truth as the Lord gives us direction. They may back off and let them soak in it. You can learn more about sharing your faith at ntouch.org. And if today's program has encouraged you

23:57to anchor yourself in God's word, we'd love to hear from you. Today we heard about the role of the Holy Spirit. Tomorrow we'll learn how to walk in the Spirit's power every day. That's Tuesday on InTouch, the teaching ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley. This program is a presentation of ntouch ministries at Lanta, Georgia and remains on this station through the grace of God and your faithful prayers and gifts.