God's Holy Spirit

Who was alive in 1883? Okay, I guess none of you will remember this. In 1883, the greatest volcanic eruption known to man took place. Some of you may have read about it. It was the explosion of Krakatoa. Krakatoa was an island situated in the Sundra straits between Javan, Sumatra, and what was known at that time as the Dutch East Indies. Krakatoa was an island approximately 18 miles square, so it wasn't just a very small island. There was a volcanic eruption that took place.

The initial explosion began on August 26, 1883, and on August 27, 1883, it blew its top. The blast had a TNT equivalent of some 100 megatons, so it was like a 100 megaton atomic bomb going off. It was heard 2,300 miles away in Australia. Imagine an explosion that takes place in Miami, Florida. Just give us a comparison. We hear it here in Montana. We give you an idea of how far away that was. Some accounts even estimate that the explosion was heard 3,000 miles away. It generated a wave, or I won't just say a wave, it generated waves that traveled 8,000 miles and reached as far as Hawaii and South America. The greatest wave reached the height of 120 feet and killed 36,000 people when it hit land, especially the coastal towns of Java and Sumatra. The shockwave that was generated by this volcano eruption circled the earth four times, so this was not a little explosion. It was a powerful explosion. Five cubic miles of debris were produced and settled over in an area of 300,000 square miles. The dust cloud blocked out the sunlight purging Jakarta 100 miles away and the total darkness in the daytime. It just totally blackened everything. It produced brilliant red sunsets for years afterwards, as well as dropping the earth's mean annual temperature a few degrees. People are worried about the earth warming up. Well, I think the book of Revelation talks about eruptions in the future and I think we'll find that we may have a reverse of some of those trends taking place. There was a British ship referred to as the Pole that was several miles away from Krakatoa when it blew up. The sailors stated that they saw an island rise up out of the water and then just disappear. So when the explosion, the final explosion, took place it was as if, you know, a rocket underneath the island blew and went up and then just sunk beneath the water and completely disappeared. There was a noise when this blew up was described as the loudest noise ever heard by human ear. The noise was heard in Victoria Plains, Australia some 1,700 miles away and they described it as artillery going off. They thought somebody was firing a big cannon, that type of a piece. Those located in Java and Sumatra said the noise was so loud it was like a hurricane going over. So, you know, they were 100 miles or so away. It was just an incessant constant noise that took place one wave after another that took place that assaulted the ears of people. There were a series of explosions that culminated in one final explosion. Now the reason for that was when the initial explosion took place on August 26th, lava was spewed into the air and part of the island was lowered.

Ocean water began to steam into the hole that was created into the interior of the volcano. Every time the water would rush in, it would meet the hot lava and turn to steam. Now there were tons of water pouring into the middle of this volcano, but it turned into steam. There was a huge mountain of steam for a whole day ascending up into the atmosphere until finally the ocean overwhelmed it.

When it did, this is when the big explosion took place and totally rocked it. One man who was located along the coast of Java said when the explosion took place he was looking out over the top of the water. He said he saw a new island emerging. Then he realized it wasn't a new island, it was water and there was a huge wave headed his way. It was at least a 50-foot wave of water.

He started to run, but he couldn't outrun the water. The wave picked him up and carried him inland and he was knocked out by a log and when he woke up a few hours later he was sitting up in the top of a tree. He was two miles inland so the water had picked him up, rushed him inland, and when it receded dropped him into the top of the tree and saved his life. There was a warship in Sumatra that was picked up and carried inland two miles. The terrain was 30 feet high and so he just moved it inland and dropped it. I think in describing this, I've read a number of articles over the years dealing with this, I think we realize that within the Earth's surfaces there are tremendous powers, tremendous energy. When volcanoes go off, earthquakes take place, tornadoes take place, hurricanes, there's a tremendous amount of energy. How many of you have ever been involved in a tornado or hurricane? We've been around a few of them. Some of you will remember a few years ago down in Florida when Andrew came through Miami and homestead and just flattened that area. We had a number of members in the church at that time who were affected by this. In fact, the call went out that there were over 30 members, but either had their roofs blown off or had shingles and holes in the roofs and needed help. So we were in St. Petersburg at the time. We got a crew of men. We happened to have a man who was in the roofing business. He emptied his warehouse, took all these rolls of papers, plywood, shingles, and so on. I don't know how many of there were 20 or so. We had contractors who brought their bulldozers down. We went down, and I've never seen an area. I mean, you couldn't tell one street from another because all of the trees had been stripped. All the signs were down, and there was no way of figuring what street was what. But in that one day, we covered 30 houses and at least got tar paper on the roof because there was an incessant rain after that. And many of them had more damage done by the rain than by the hurricane. But there is a tremendous amount of power that is harnessed in this earth. In the book of Revelation in the future, the Bible says that every mountain will be lord, every island is going to be exalted. Can you imagine a time when the Himalayas, these mountains out here, are going to be lord? They're going to be flattened and the islands are going to be exalted. This earth will be wrenched with tremendous powers and forces that our minds cannot even begin to imagine.

And yet, the energy contained in the earth is absolutely nothing compared to the Sun. We receive energy from the Sun, as we know, and we have faith that it's out there. We haven't seen it in a while, but it is out there. The Sun is 866,000 times the diameter of the earth and has more than 1,200,000 times the volume of the earth. The Sun radiates 330 trillion horsepower of energy to the earth's surface daily. Now, yeah, you know, I'm throwing out figures that might as well say two cart loads because we don't really comprehend what 330 trillion is, except it's a big number and it's more than, you know, we know. The earth's surface is constantly being bombarded by radiated energy from the Sun. The Sun radiates 1.5 horsepower of energy per square yard of the earth's surface. That's 4,600,000 horsepower per square mile. When you count the whole earth's surface, that's 330 trillion miles, or 330 trillion horsepower of energy. Now, to put that in perspective, the total energy the Sun emits in a single second is greater than the whole amount of energy that the human race has used throughout its history. Just in one second. So, you know, in one second, the earth, I mean, the Sun is producing a fabulous amount of energy. The earth intercepts at any given time about one, two billionth of the energy being generated by the Sun. So, just think, the earth, here's the Sun, here's the earth, 93 million miles away out here.

Sun's radiating the energy in all directions. In one, two billionth of it hits the earth's surface, and we received 330 trillion horsepower. So, how much energy is being spent off into space from the Sun? It truly is amazing. Now, we realize that the Sun is one star in the Milky Way galaxy, and actually it's only a medium-sized star. There are much, much bigger stars producing much more energy being radiated out from them, power and energy. Scientists tell us there are billions of stars in the Milky Way galaxy. The Hubble telescope has been able to penetrate deeper into space than we have ever been able to from the earth with our telescopes here, and there are billions of more galaxies in the universe than were originally imagined. It's just absolutely mind-boggling. It only took a pea-sized fraction of uranium in an atomic bomb to destroy Hiroshima.

The Sun converts about four million tons of Sun mass into energy every second.

The Sun is just one medium-sized star in our galaxy of a hundred billion. Other stars, our galaxy is one of an estimated 250 billion galaxies, each probably having a hundred billion stars or more. You start talking about numbers like this, and our minds cannot phantom that. Each is converting matter into energy at the rate of millions of tons every second. Now my question to you is, where did all of this come from? Where did all of this power originate? Where did it come from? Now, the evolutionists would like us to believe that at one time there was the Big Bang, and there could have been a Big Bang. God could have done it that way.

But somehow, hovering out here in space was a concentration of matter, and one day it blew up. And, you know, it went out there and it keeps expanding, and somehow all of this energy and power is there. But where does all that power, all that energy come from? What should we learn from this? In the Bible in Romans 1.18, let's go over to Romans chapter 1 and verse 18, I want you to notice what the Bible tells we should learn from all of this.

Romans chapter 1 and verse 18, For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth and unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made. The earth was made, the sun was made, the moon was made, the stars were made. So God's divine or invisible attributes are clearly understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. God says there is no excuse. We should be able to look at what God has created, especially the universe, and see God's eternal power and see His divine nature, and know what kind of God it is who created it. We also be able to look up into the heavens and look under our feet and see the tremendous energy that is locked up in the universe, and this ought to tell us something that the Bible reveals, that one of the names of God is God Almighty, the Almighty God. The God is superior than anything that He has created. He is more powerful, that the energy that is stored in these bodies called the stars and the Sun come from God. Let's notice a scripture over here in the book of Hebrews, chapter 11. Hebrews the 11th chapter that explains a little bit about this. We find that faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen. Chapter 11 of Hebrews, verse 1. For by it the elders obtained a good testimony. By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God so that the things which are seen, the earth we can see, the stars we can see, the sun we can see, were not made of things which are visible. So they were made out of what? Things that were invisible. Who is invisible? Well, God is.

What God has done, and don't ask me exactly how He did this, God is, as we will see, all power. And somehow God was able to take spirit and configure it in such a way that it became visible. And within that is stored up vast amounts of power and energy. And you split an atom and boom! Power, energy, is released. And what it does, it gives us an inkling of how great God is. It gives us just an inkling. We begin to understand a little bit about His magnificence. Let's go back to the book of Psalm 19 and verse 1. Psalm chapter 19, and we'll begin to read here in verse 1. We find that the heavens declare the glory of God, and the permament show His handiwork. Day unto day utter speech, and night under night revealed knowledge. So what you find is that the heavens speak to all races, all languages, all people. As verse 3 says, there is no speech nor language where their voice is not heard. So I don't care if you speak Swahili, Chinese, Montana, English, whatever it might be. You can look up into the heavens, and you can see the power there. You can feel the power on this earth, and you can know the might and the attributes. Because not only does it reveal the power of God, it says it also reveals His attributes or His divine nature. So we can learn about the divine nature of God. Now why did God create such a huge universe? I'm sure there are many reasons, and God hasn't revealed them all to us yet. But one of the most obvious is to leave mankind without an excuse. You can't look up into the heavens at night and see the sars there and begin to learn a little bit about them. Without realizing, there had to be a tremendous power behind that to create it. And not only to create it, but to sustain it and to hold it there. How can we doubt His power and His ability when we observe the heavens? How can we doubt that God will come to our aid, that God will assist us, that God will help us? You know, sometimes we say, well, can God do such-and-such for me? The question is never can He. You know, He has the power, and there is no force that can withstand God. God could have only created the Sun and the Moon, put it out there. And there would certainly have demonstrated God's greatness in His power, but He's done much more. Let's go back to Colossians 1. I read this yesterday, but I want to focus on something different than what I focused on yesterday. Colossians 1.15.

Well, let's just read verse 16. By Him, referring to Christ here, by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible. Yesterday we talked more about the invisible. Let's talk about the visible today. The visible Sun, the visible stars, Moon, the galaxy, all of those things were created by God. As such, He has more power than they do. You and I, human beings, are able to create.

We have the ability to make rockets, to send man to the Moon, to devise computers. We can say those things are, I mean, would we say those things are greater than us? A rocket may contain more power and fuel than we do. You know, that's true. But we designed it. We created it. We brought it into being.

We discovered the laws that govern it. So therefore, we are greater. And the Bible reveals that God's, excuse me, that God certainly is greater. Verse 16 says, all things were created through Him and for Him. And so you find God has created everything, that He is more powerful than the creation that He made. God created all things by the power of the Holy Spirit.

The Father and Jesus Christ are more powerful than their creation. They brought it into being with all of the energy contained in it. And they're able, you find that Christ sustains the whole universe, as Hebrews chapter 1 says. So how much power does God have? There are no limits to God's power. He is the Almighty God. He's all powerful and He has existed for eternity. There's no limit to His power and authority. I guess when you break it down, you can say, well, God's more powerful than all of the atoms contained in the earth than the Sun, all the stars that have been created.

In fact, the Bible says that God calls all the stars by name. Now sometimes we have trouble remembering our own name, don't we? We wake up in the morning, we say, who am I? But do we ever have trouble remembering other people's names? Well, I certainly do. And that's one thing that I always wish. I wish I could remember everybody that I meet, that I could remember his or her name. Well, think of all the billion stars out there, and number one, do you and I have a vocabulary that we could call them by name.

And secondarily, would we even remember it? But God does. So it begins to show a vast difference between what? Between us. Even though we have a mind, we can have contact with God, we have limited ability to create, think, design, plan like God does, it is very limited compared to God.

And we have to realize that there is nothing in the universe that is more powerful than God Almighty and His Spirit. Now that's something, that's a fundamental truth that we should never forget. Because quite frankly, we do. When we go through trials and tests, we begin to lose sight of some of these basic principles. There's nothing that you can know, that you can understand, or you can discover that is greater than God. He's it. He is all-powerful, Almighty. Now the startling truth that God reveals and what this Holy Day is all about is that God wants to share that power with us.

And He is willing to share it now and to give us some of that power. Luke 24, as you will remember, Luke wrote the book of Luke as well as the book of Acts. Let's go back to chapter 24 in the book of Luke in verse 46. Luke 24, 46. And He said to them, Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary, for the Christ to suffer, to rise from the dead the third day, that repentance and remission of sin should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. And you are witnesses of these things, and behold, I send the promise of my Father.

I send the promise of my Father upon you, but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are in dude with power from on high. Now I want you to notice where the promise from the Father comes from. It comes from on high. It's not of the earth.

It is from God. In Acts chapter 1, we find the same thing where Luke describes it here, describing basically the same situation, but adding some more details. And being assembled together with them, He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father. So notice again, this is the promise that comes from the Father. Now we read yesterday Titus 1.2, God cannot lie that when He promises something, He will do it, which He said, you have heard from Me. For John truly baptized you with water, and you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.

In verse 7, He said to them, it is not for you to know the times of the seasons, but the Father has put in His own authority. But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, in all Judea, Samaria, and to the end of the earth. So that power would make it possible for us to do the work of God, the priests, the gospel.

But God also gives that power to overcome, to change us. Now in chapter 2, we come to the day of Pentecost, and we find in chapter 2, beginning in verse 1, now when the day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven as a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. Then there appeared to them divided tongues as a fire, and one set up on each one of them, and they were filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. And so we have here the inspired sermon that was preached on that day.

So one of the greatest events in the history of mankind occurred on the day of Pentecost in 31 A.D. On that day of Pentecost, 1973 years ago, the Church of the Living God began, the New Testament Church. God began to dwell in man. God began to dwell in him. And the greatest mystery of God began, that is how man can become a part of the family of God. How God can take bags of dirt, that's us, and change us into members of his family. God began to call the first fruits to salvation.

Pentecost is the Feast of First Fruits. Now in chapter 2, verse 38-39, I want you to notice here is the great summary statement of Pentecost and what it means. Verse 38, then Peter said to them, repent, let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. So this explains how to get the Holy Spirit.

You have to repent. Have your sins forgiven. For the promise is to you.

Remember, this is the promise from the Father. The promise is to you, to your children. So the promise is to us, to our children, to all of you young people sitting here, to our children, and to all who are a far off. Indirectly, he's referring to the Gentiles here. The Jews were near, the Gentiles were far off.

Just jot down Ephesians 2.13.17, because this expression is used again there, Ephesians 2.13.17, As many as the Lord our God will call. So it is up to God to call. He is the one who calls.

So now we can become a part of the firstfruits and the children of God, the Church of God, the called out ones of God. So what is the Holy Spirit? And what does the Holy Spirit do for us? Well, the Holy Spirit is the life essence of God.

Now, when I say life essence, what is your essence? We are composed of what?

Flesh and blood. What keeps us alive? Well, the Bible says that the life is in the blood, as well as the air that we breathe in. And so our life essence is contained in the flesh.

God is not flesh. John 4.24 says God is spirit. Let's read that. I referred to it yesterday, but John 4.24. We find that God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. You can't worship God any old way that we think of or devise.

We have to do it according to what God says. We're flesh and blood. God is spirit, and He is able to live in a different dimension than we do, a different plane. Spirit is invisible.

It is the human dimension or the physical dimension, but it is more real than the physical.

God is called the Eternal. Now, in John 15.26, there's an interesting Scripture. You may not know the controversy around John 15.26, but let's read it. It says, When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you, from the Father. So where does the Spirit come from?

It comes from the Father. Why is He known as the Father? Well, I'll give you one guess or two guesses, and the second one doesn't count. What does the Father do? He doesn't need the get. He's the one who passes on through the relation He has with His wife, a sperm cell that unites with an egg, and you have a new life created. We're the egg.

Who's our Father? Well, God is. So it says, I shall send to you from the Father the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father. He will testify of me. Now, major churches have split over John 15.26. This was the leading cause of the split between the Western Orthodox Church and the Eastern Orthodox. The procession of the Holy Spirit. Where does it come from?

Does it come from the Father, or does it come from Christ? And there has been this debate down through the centuries. Well, you find that it says here clearly, proceeds from the Father. Now, Galatians 2.20, though, describes that the Spirit of God, once it comes to live within us, through that Spirit of God, Christ lives in us. God has given to Christ the ability or the responsibility of bringing the Church to perfection. He is the head. We are the body. So, therefore, Galatians 2.20 states that He lives in us. It is through the Spirit of God that Christ lives in us. The Holy Spirit is that Spirit that gives us a connection with God. You know what that means? That means that the very power of God resides within us. That we have a connection with God, and it's through the Holy Spirit that we know that God created everything. Genesis 1 shows that it was the Spirit that accomplished the creation. It says the Spirit hovered over the waters, and God commanded. The Spirit then was used, that power was used to bring it about. God uses that same power to maintain the whole universe in perfect harmony. You and I sometimes have trouble maintaining our cars, our lawns, our computers, our houses, our yards, our roads. But God sustains the whole universe and does a lot of other things on the side. So what we have to realize is how powerful God is. Why does God give us His Spirit? What is the purpose of that Spirit in our lives? Well, I want you to notice something about the Spirit of God that you may not have just thought of in this way. God's Spirit is not there for us to misuse or to use in a wrong way. It is the power of God, and it enables us. The Spirit of God is an enabler.

It enables us. It empowers us to become spiritually effective and to overcome in the spiritual realm where we're lacking. Human beings do not have the ability to do spiritual things.

It takes the Spirit of God. The ability to accomplish whatever task, whatever responsibility, whatever duty God gives to us, and the ability to overcome and to grow comes through God's Spirit.

Human beings, all of us, there's not one of us sitting here who doesn't feel this way, tend to feel inferior. There seems to be an innate thing built into us. We feel inferior.

Let me give you a secret. We are inferior. We are vastly inferior to God.

In 2 Corinthians 1, verse 19, let's notice what the Bible says about Christ.

For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us, by me, Sylvanias and Timothy, was not yes and no, but in him was yes.

For all the promises of God are in him are yes. God doesn't vacillate back and forth. They're sure they're yes. In him, amen, meaning so be it, to the glory of God through us.

He who establishes us with you in Christ and has anointed us is God. We've been anointed with the Holy Spirit, who has also sealed us. Notice there is a sealed place upon us.

And given us the Spirit in our hearts, in our minds, in our hearts, in our very being, as a deposit.

So when God gives us the Holy Spirit in our heart, it is a deposit. A deposit on what?

Well, the word here means, in essence, a down payment.

It's a pledge for what we will inherit in the future. What is it that God will give us in the future? It is a spirit body. Today, we have God's Spirit, and it is a pledge. It is a down payment, so to speak, on what we will inherit entirely in the future. That's what God is saying here.

We're sealed, sort of like an envelope, anciently, that when they would send it by courier, they would take wax, and they would put a seal over that wax. You could tell if somebody broke the seal and got into it, because the seal itself would have been broken. You and I have been sealed by that spirit, and we've received it in our heart. It is a deposit on what we will receive in the future. Now, in Colossians 1.19, Colossians chapter 1 and verse 19, we read this, for it pleased the Father that in Him, referring to the Son, all the fullness should dwell. All the fullness of the Godhead dwelt in Christ and does today.

This means the sum total of all the power of God, the divine nature of God, the attributes of God can also not only be found in the Father, but are found in the Son. As I mentioned to you yesterday, one of the big problems in Galatians and Colossians, these two books go together, is Gnosticism or the teaching of the Gnostics. They tried to claim that Jesus Christ was nothing more than just another angel, that He was a created being. Well, we know from John 1 that He wasn't created, that He existed with the Father. They were co-eternal and they existed from the beginning. And you find in Him all the fullness should dwell. And the fullness here is an implication of the fullness of God, of His attributes and of His nature, His power.

Now in chapter 2, Colossians 2 verse 9, for in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.

Now verse 10, this applies to us, and you are complete in Him who is the head of all principality and power.

So you and I are complete in Him. The word complete and the word fullness come from the same root word, meaning God gives us what is needed. Every attribute that we need comes to us through Christ. If Christ dwells in us, as Galatians 2.20 says, God's Spirit dwells within us.

Every attribute that we need comes through Christ to us. And the Holy Spirit is like a conduit to pass on to us those attributes, that power, what we need to overcome. The Holy Spirit of the seed is planted in us in the ability to do things spiritually, to think spiritually. It imparts attributes. It gives us the power to overcome. Our problem is that we've got to stir that Spirit up.

We've got to use the Spirit. It's there. God has given us what we need. Now how do we know that?

John 1. Let's go back to John 1 and verse 10.

We find a very interesting scripture that's very easy to overlook. Beginning in verse 10, John 1.

He was in the world, and the world was made through him, and the world did not know him.

He came to his own, and his own did not receive him. Christ came to the Jews. They didn't receive him. But as many as received him, to them he gave the right to become the children of God.

We are the children of God. We've been given that right, that responsibility, even to those who believed in his name, who were born not of blood, nor the will of the flesh, nor the will of men, but of God. And the word became flesh, dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory. Now notice verse 17.

No, actually, let's go to verse 16. And of his fullness, now we know that in Christ dwells the fullness of the Godhead, and did bodily, of his fullness, we have all received. All of us who have God's Spirit have received of his fullness.

And grace for grace. Now, I do not profess to fully understand all of the implications of this Scripture. I think there's more there than I'm stating to you.

But what I think is clear, that we have the right to be the sons of God, and we have received of his fullness, and that means that those divine attributes of God dwell within us, the power of God. And part of that fullness that Christ had has come to dwell within us.

So the Holy Spirit is the life essence of God. It is also the power of God.

And the principal purpose for giving us the Holy Spirit is to give us life, to give us the means, the method, the power, the strength, the energy to overcome, the triumph. God doesn't give us his Holy Spirit to give us physical life, because we have that. Physical life is only temporary.

God is giving us something so that we can have eternal life. In 2 Corinthians 5, beginning in verse 14, we find that we are a new creation in Christ. We're just not the old man made over.

You and I are not like an old house that is being remodeled.

What God is doing is tearing the old house down and building a new one.

We are to be new. And as we read here in verse 14, for the love of Christ constrains us because we judge thus if one died for all, then all died. And he died for all. Christ died for every human being.

That those who live should no longer live for themselves, but for him who died for them and rose again. So we are to live for Christ. And you realize the tremendous price that he paid.

Therefore, from now on, we regard no one according to the flesh, even though we have known Christ, according to the flesh, and now we know him thus no longer.

He was not in the flesh any longer. He was resurrected a spirit being.

Therefore, anyone is in Christ. That's you. That's me. He is a new creation.

And old things have passed away. Behold, all things have become new.

When I say new, I mean you. As I tried to explain, God is not just taking us and trying to redo us, remodel us like you'd remodel a house. God is doing an entirely new creation.

And that new creation means there is a new life within us.

We read yesterday how our life is hidden in Christ and our life is Christ.

He is in us. And so therefore, as we yield to God, the Holy Spirit then develops the character of God. It is a new creation. God has begun a spiritual creation in us. He's imparted his life, his nature, his attributes to us. Galatians 5, 22 says we have the fruit of the spirit.

Fruit means literally fruit or that which originates or comes from something. God, in part, is very nature to us. The Spirit of God gives us what we need to help us to start to live like God lives. You and I are to live like God lives.

You need to always ask yourself, how would God treat so and so? What would God think?

You'll let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus. As Philippians 2, 5 says, we are to have the mind of God. We are to live on a God plane level in our relationships with each other.

Now, that's hard, isn't it? We're human. We react human. We have human emotions.

We are in a world that's influenced by Satan the devil. Through his Spirit, we are to begin to treat each other like the Father and Son treat each other, and we're to learn to be that way.

So we become entirely new. In Galatians 5, let's go over the book of Galatians chapter 5 here, where it talks about the fruit of the spirit.

I want you to notice verse 16. I say then, walk in the Spirit.

If you've got the Spirit of God, walk in it. That means live in it.

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 the one to the other, so that you do not do the things that you wish. But if you be led by the Spirit, you're not under the law. You're not under the law's penalty. Now in verse 24, those who are Christ have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.

You know, we read those sometimes, and they just seem like religious expressions.

But we are to live in the Spirit, and we're to walk in the Spirit. We're, in the Lord's, how we walk, how we live, has to be motivated by the Spirit. What does the power of God do for us?

What does it accomplish in our lives? Well, it gives us the right motivation. It gives us the right outlook on life. The Spirit of God is not given to us to use selfishly or carnally or to try to impress others. The church in Corinth, many of them had the gift of speaking in tongues, and they impressed one another. You know, they'd get up and they'd speak in tongues, and nobody could interpret, and you know, they tried to impress people. You find that there are gifts that God gives to us, and some of them are what we would call demonstrable gifts.

They are gifts like tongues, things of that nature that are demonstrable, and then there are the quiet gifts that God gives to us. Let me show you in 1 Corinthians 12 that God gives us His Spirit and God gives us gifts through His Spirit. There's not a one of us sitting here today that if you have been baptized and had hands laid on you, you have the fruit of God's Spirit, and you need to stir that up. But God also imparts to every one of us gifts.

There's not a one of us here who does not have at least one spiritual gift, and I don't have to go back and read all the parables about gifts. But notice here why God gives us these gifts in verse 7. The manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the prophet of all. God gives us His Spirit so that we might profit everyone, the whole body, not just ourselves. They're not to be used for the selves but for others. Let me show something you hear in 1 Corinthians 12. I might just mention it. It talks about some of these more demonstrable gifts. It talks about wisdom, knowledge, healings, discerning of spirits, prophecy. Many of you may say, well, I don't have the gift of prophecy. I don't have the gift of knowledge or wisdom or whatever. Let me show you. There are gifts that sometimes we don't consider gifts, but they are gifts that come from God. Chapter 12 of the book of Romans. Chapter 12 in verses 4 through 8.

As we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function, don't have the same purpose. My toes don't have the same purpose as my ears.

I smell with my nose. I walk with my legs. I hear with my ears. I see with my eyes. They all have a different function. So the Bible says God places us in the bodies that pleases Him.

We don't all have the same function. If we did, then we would be like a body with one big eye, and that's all we would do. We could see real well, but it doesn't go anywhere.

So we notice, being many, verse 5, are one body in Christ and individually members one of another.

Having been gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them. Now, let's notice the gifts that God gives.

If prophecy, let us prophesy. Prophesy here doesn't always mean foretelling the future.

It means inspired preaching to be able to inspire other people to motivate them.

Our ministry, let us use it in our ministry. The word ministry simply means service.

And I know that there are many of you here who are tremendous examples of service to other people, who go out of your way to serve and to help in any way possible.

We were talking the other day, I think, in a private conversation of a widow that my wife and I knew years ago. She was in her 80s, and she took care of the elderly.

And she was always, she served meals on wheels. She went into rest homes, and she said, These old folks need help. And she was in her 80s. She did this until she was in her 90s.

Well, she was a tremendous example of service. She didn't say, I'm old.

In fact, she was serving meals to people in their 60s. And she was in her 80s.

She was in her 80s. He who teaches, let him do it in teaching. This is a gift, teaching.

Service is a gift. He who exhorts and exhortation. I've been exhorted since I've been here by different ones. Exhortation to exhort somebody to encourage others is a gift. He who gives with libera...

excuse me, with liberality. There are those who have the ability to give. Maybe God is blessed in a way. Who can give. He who leads, do it diligently. He who shows mercy with cheerfulness.

You know, showing mercy is a gift from God. Many times we are able to have gifts and show them in ways that we don't even realize that they truly are gifts. God gives us His Spirit to help us to give us the power to overcome our weaknesses. To give us the strength to grow in His character. To give us the power to serve one another. To help us into His Kingdom. The Spirit of God guides us into all truth. It teaches us. It brings all things to our remembrance. It is a comforter. It helps us. And I'm sure as we go through the rest of the day, we'll hear much more about that. In Romans 8, 26, one scripture here that I'd like us to focus on.

We find in verse 26, Romans 8, Likewise, the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses.

You and I are weak and we need strength. We need power. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit itself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. But through the Spirit of God, God is able to convey our thoughts back to God and through Christ. Now, He who searches the heart knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God. So God has called us. He knows our state. Do you think God doesn't know that we're human? We have weaknesses. We have faults. Sure, He does. But He loves us in spite of it. And God has said, Look, I will help you. I'll give you a helper. I give you a comforter. I give you the power, the strength. And God does that so that we can have the strength to overcome. Why is the Spirit of God not more evident in our lives? And sometimes it is. Sometimes we find that it doesn't seem to be there. It seems we struggle so much to overcome. We fall short. We find habits and problems seem to overwhelm us. Sometimes we want to quit, give up, throw in the towel. I read a scripture to you yesterday, and I want to finish with this in 2 Peter 1. That is one of the promises that comes from God. In verse 3 here, 2 Peter 1 verse 3, that God says that He will do for us.

Now, I read to you to begin with, and we discussed, about the power that God has.

But notice here, as His divine power, that's the Holy Spirit. And when hands were laid on you, you were given that divine power. There is a connection with God. Now, the problem is that power has to be renewed on a daily basis. That's where you and I fall into a pitfall sometimes. We go days, sometimes weeks without studying or praying. But we have to make daily contact. We overcome daily. We grow daily. It's not the fact that spiritual growth.

One of these days, I'll do something, and I'll be a spiritual giant across the landscape.

Now, spiritual growth is day by day. How do our children grow?

Do they grow an inch a day? Sometimes you might think so. Anybody who has sons we have five sons. You know, you'd buy them pants, and two months later, they look like they're almost up to their knees. You know, they just grow. But our children grow how? A little bit every day.

Now, somebody who hasn't seen them might see them in a year, and wow, how you have grown. But it is day by day. And the same thing is true in the spiritual realm. We grow daily. And so, we have to stay close to God on a daily basis. And that means that we pray and we study. That's why we were asked to do those things. And if so, then His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life, eternal life, spiritual life that we need to be developing, and Godliness, so that we can be godly, live a godly life. What did we read earlier? Well, that we partake of the fullness of Christ. So, everything that we need, as it says here, is given to us. By which have been given to us, exceeding great and precious promises, that through these you may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped corruption that is in the world through lust.

So, brethren, God promises to give us this power. We don't want to be like somebody who would live close to Boulder Dam, Hoover Dam, whatever the name is today. Are you a power source?

Maybe a hydroelectric plant or an atomic plant, and all of the electricity being generated.

And yet, our house is the only light we have in our house is a little candle we stick in there.

Well, if we try to do things on our own, it's like having a little candle. There's a little light there instead of that house being hooked up to the power source. So, that boom, the lights come on, and there's power there. When electricity comes into a house, you know what it does? Not only does it run lights, but you can run a microwave off of it. You can have a stove. You can heat.

Do all kinds of things. When God's Spirit comes into our life, it imparts all kinds of attributes to us. It gives us power. We become a light to the world. We become an example, but God gives us the strength and the energy to be able to do many things.

So, if I could summarize it, let's remember we need to get out more and look into the heavens.

And I would say that you have the blessings here, much more than we do in Cincinnati, to be able to do that, to go out of doors at night, without a lot of lights and what man is created. Look up! See the stars. See the heavens. See what God has created. When you do, remember Romans 1, do not forget that the divine attributes of God, His power and divine nature, are revealed through that. And we need to be constantly aware that that great God who created all of that is our personal Father. He called us. He handpicked you. He put you here. And He wants you in His kingdom so that you can work with Him in eventually saving all mankind.

So, brethren, God wants to, and He does, share that power with us. And He will give us everything that we need. Let's just make sure that we tap into that power, that unlimited power, that comes from God.