Supernatural Series: the Helper

Tonight I want to talk about the Holy Spirit and how having the Holy Spirit in your life will make you a superhero of the faith. But I don’t want to just preach about it, I want to give each of you an opportunity to seek the infilling, as evidenced with speaking in tongues. So I am going to preach fast, you ok with that?

First off, I am hoping that you all are familiar with the Holy Spirit. It’s a gift that Jesus promised us in multiple places in the new testament. Let’s read John 14:15-19 to give you an idea.

“If you love me, keep my commands. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live.

Understand that the Holy Spirit is a secondary gift. The first, of course, is salvation, which comes from belief in Christ, and what He did for you on the cross, covering your sins with His innocent blood.

The Holy Spirit is what draws you to Christ. And it dwells in you when you receive Christ. But the Holy Spirit can do much more than that!

A great way to explain it is with this iPhone and a paper bag. For this example, let’s pretend the iPhone is the Holy Spirit (it’s powerful, can do a lot of things) and you are the paper bag. When we accept Christ, the Holy Spirit comes in us. (place paper bag over the iPhone) But there is a greater purpose than just being in us. The iPhone is a powerful device, just like the Holy Spirit is extremely powerful, effective. When we become infilled (ask for the lights to shut off and turn on flashlight ap) then the Holy Spirit spills out of us and effects the world around us. We have suddenly tapped in to power that we had never had before.

See, those first verses we read in John are such a great testimony to us. When Jesus went to be with the Father, to prepare a place for us, He didn’t leave us alone to fend for ourselves. He sent this great helper. The scripture says “I will not leave you as orphans.” Jesus didn’t abandon us. He left us in great hands.

So why do we need the Holy Spirit? That collection of verses gives us several great reasons.

First off, the Holy Spirit is a Truth Serum. Ok, so the Word calls it the spirit of truth, but I thought truth serum sounded pretty cool. You can’t lie with a truth serum, it seeks out the whole story.

John 15:26 When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father—the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father—he will testify about me.

This truth serum testifies to the truth. Like a witness in a court of law, the Holy Spirit points the way to the truth, illuminates truth. How handy is that? It also exposes untruth, meaning it brings lies out into the open. Remember last week, we talked about how Satan is a deceiver? The Holy Spirit is your best weapon against Satan’s lies. When you are filled with the Holy Spirit, you are lead into all truth, you are able to discern lies from facts.

Secondly, the Holy Spirit is our Trusty Sidekick. Counselor is the biblical word for it. Think Robin to your Batman. The Holy Spirit is there to help us and strengthen us. Just like any trusty ally. He intercedes in prayer for us. What does that mean? Have you ever needed to pray and you just couldn’t find the words to speak? The Holy Spirit helps you pray from deep down in your heart.

Romans 8:26 tells us

In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.

When you are beyond words– that’s when your prayer language, speaking in tongues, is such a blessing. The Holy Spirit will help you negate your circumstances and deal with your heart. He’ll help you pray the things that you can’t find the words to speak.

The Holy Spirit is our trusty sidekick in more ways than just intercession, which is pretty awesome on it’s own.

He also promises to be with you. He’s going to comfort and encourage you in difficult situations. I found an amazing example of that one of my favorite books, The Shack. In the book, there is a little girl, about five years old, who is violently kidnapped and taken into the woods to be tortured and killed. As the little girl is being driven into the woods, she’s tied up in the back seat of the killers truck, terrified. She has a vision of the Holy Spirit, whispering comforting words to her, alleviating her fears, strengthening her. I understand that the book is fiction, but that is exactly what the Holy Spirit does. He reminds us that this world is not our final destination, He continually comforts us by pointing us to Jesus.

Another role the Holy Spirit plays in our life is that of Teacher. Really cool, relevant, wise teacher. Think, Professor X type teacher. Because Professor X can read minds, he’s extremely powerful and wise. The Holy Spirit knows all as well, and leads us into truth, leads us into knowledge. He teaches all things to us, and explains the mysteries of faith.

Professor X is also very good, always fighting for justice. The Holy Spirit is, well, holy. And His holiness leads us into holiness. Just walking in the Holy Spirit (with His infilling) brings dramatic life change.

The last role the Holy Spirit plays in our life is that of the arc reactor. You know, from Iron Man. It’s the glowy thing in the center of his chest that provides him with excessive strength and keeps his heart going. The Holy Spirit does the same thing for us, He powers us up! The infilling of the Holy Spirit is an influx of power unlike any other on earth. The point of this power is to be witnesses for Christ. With the infilling, you will obtain a boldness you never thought possible of your personality before. And that boldness will bring others to Jesus.

(altar workers come forward)

So the Holy Spirit illuminates truth, comforts us, teaches us and empowers us. That is why we want Him in our lives, need Him. So I promised I would preach short tonight, I want to give you opportunity to spend some time seeking the Holy Spirit. The word promises us in Acts 2:39 that the Holy Spirit is for every believer. All you need to do is surrender your life to God. Ask Him to fill you. Tell Him you long for greater relationship with you. God longs to give you this gift.

If you have already received it, it’s time to use your gift again. Speaking in tongues is not a one time experience. If you’ve done it once, you can do it again. Any time you choose to. Begin by praying and seeking God. Ask Him to fill you again. Start praying for your neighbor.

I have purposely built time into this service to pray and ask for the Holy Spirit. If you want to turn around in your chair and seek Him, you may, or you may come forward to pray with one of our leaders. The altar is a great place to seek God. There’s something about that act of submission, getting out of your comfort zone, getting down on your knees. It shows your submission to His lordship.

I urge you to pray out loud. Begin to worship Him, call out His name. Tell Him what you love about Him. What you are thankful for in Him. Ask Him to fill you up. Don’t sing. This is not a time to sing, this is a time to praise and ask for His Spirit. At some point you will need to just make a noise that doesn’t make sense. Don’t be afraid of it, just allow it to happen. It doesn’t matter if you sound silly, just let the Spirit flow through you. You’ll sound silly for a few moments and then the Spirit will take over and do something beautiful with it.

Leaders, pray for these students. Call on God with them, ask God to fill them up! We are participating in a miracle!

Students, don’t give up. Just keep pressing in! He longs to give you this gift! You need this power in your life, you need the Holy Spirit!

Supernatural Series: Lucifer

1.) Any of you watch crime shows? CSI? Special Victim’s Unit? Criminal Minds? All of those shows have to do with Criminal Profiling.

Criminal profiling, is a behavioral and investigative tool that is intended to help investigators to profile unknown criminal subjects or offenders. Basically, it’s getting a clear picture of the motives and thought processes of the enemy, or criminal.

Tonight I’d like to do a criminal profile on Satan. Why on earth would I want to do that? Because Satan is real, and he’s after you and I and will not be content until he’s captured our souls. In any battle, it’s important to know your enemy. So this evening, we are going to explore three characteristics of Satan.

First, he is a distracter. Well, where is the harm in that? We all get distracted. In fact, some of you are distracted right now. J But Satan knows that if he can distract you, he can keep you from your true purpose, which has everything to do with God and giving Him glory through your life.

How does Satan distract you? He’ll keep you busy. Too busy putting out fires in your own life to even think about the people around you. “Because of my house, which remains a ruin, while each of you is busy with your own house.” Haggai 1:9

Our personal plans and feelings and stuff keep us focused on our own life, rather than the great commission. Satan doesn’t even have to entice you to sin if he can just keep you too busy to be about God’s work.

He will also distract you with temptation. Temptation is tricky, because it is everywhere and you can’t control that. But you can control your reaction to it. What should that reaction be? To FLEE!! Run away, run away!! (monty python blip here?)

Another way to deal with temptation is to pray and ask God to remove it from you. Matthew 6:3 “And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.” Our public enemy number one is who the Bible is referring to as ‘the evil one’. Another verse in 1 Corinthians promises us that God will always provide a way out. Always.

So we now know that Satan is a Distracter, He’s either keeping us busy or tempting us with sin. Be on the lookout for this tactic, it’s probably his sneakiest.

2.) Satan is a deceiver. 2 Corinthians 11:14 says “for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light.” He pretends to be a good guy. He promises good things; an easier life, no consequences, better opportunities.

He misleads us, misrepresents. Presents false information or information out of context. He’s a big fat liar! Ah, but he’s a sneaky liar. He’s a good liar. And a good liar will mix just enough of the truth into their story that you will buy into it, hook, line and sinker. Do you know what that phrase means? Hook, line, and sinker? It’s fishing phrase. It’s when a fish takes the bait. They swallow everything that the fisherman has put in their path. What happens next? Jerk! The fisherman is tugging that line and hard as the fish may try to swim away, he’s getting reeled in and tossed into the frying pan for supper. Or at the very least, a good chunk of him is getting left on that hook.

It’s the very same for us. Satan feeds us a line. It usually starts with something minor, say, if you cheat on this test no one will know and I’ll just do better in the class. He usually throws in a supporting argument, or a justification. Besides, you’re a really good student anyway, you do fine in your other classes, this teacher is just really unreasonable. And soon enough you’ve compromised yourself. It may not be cheating on a test. It may be lying to your parents. Or shoplifting something minor like a lip gloss or a lighter. It may be dating the guy or girl that your parents explicitly told you not to date. It may be trying that first beer or smoking that first cigarette.

See Satan is a smartypants. He knows that if he can just get you to compromise a little bit the first time, then the second compromise will come easier. Meaning he won’t have to work so hard, and you will let your guard down faster. And soon, you will be compromising so often that you don’t even think about it anymore.

Our youth pastor growing up told us that sin will always take you further than you ever wanted to go.

I have an interesting example for you. How many of you have been bitten by a flea? I’m not saying you have fleas, but maybe you have just been bitten by one. I have. It’s not a huge deal, just a little pinch and it may itch for a bit afterwards, right?

How many of you have heard of the Bubonic Plague? Or the Black Plague? It was responsible for 75 million deaths in the 1600’s. Turns out, the Black Plague was caused by flea bites. The fleas caught the infection from rats, when the rats died, the fleas looked for a new host and gave it to people. 2 out of every 3 people infected from a flea died within four days.

Sin is kind of like that first flea bite. It just seems like a small deal at first. You don’t realize that you’ve infected yourself with something that will ultimately consume you and destroy your life.

The first tiny bite is one of Satan’s favorite tactics. Because he is a deceiver who looks for opportunities to entice you into sin.

3.) The last attribute of Satan I want to discuss with you tonight is that he is a destroyer.

The reality is that Satan’s fate has been decided. God shared his end-game with us all the way back in Genesis 3:15 when he told us that the offspring of man will ‘crush the head’ of the serpant. The serpent is Satan and Jesus is the offspring of man that will crush his head. It is only a matter of time before Satan’s destiny is fulfilled and it is a Lake of Fire. Revelation 20:10 tells us just that: “And the devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and false prophet had been thrown. They will be tormented day and night for ever and ever.”

Satan’s promised demise is no surprise to him. He knows his destiny. He sealed his fate long ago. Now he’s just seeing who he can take down in the process. Like that movie, Drag Me to Hell. Rob and I were appalled at that movie, why would anyone want to see it? Because that is what Satan truly is trying to do.

If he’s going to have to suffer hell, he wants you to as well.

So Satan is a destroyer. He is doing his best to drag you along with him on his path of self-destruction. He’s proving the old saying “misery loves company.” Satan longs to make you as miserable as he is.

There is a scripture that paints a very clear picture of Satan’s plan for your life. It is found in 1 Peter 5:8. “Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.”

I had dream about this one time. I dreamt I was swimming in a public pool, early in the morning. It wasn't crowded. I was really enjoying the cool of the morning and the cool water against my skin. Very invigorating. I finished up my swim, climbed out of the pool and walked out of the fenced in pool area towards my car. Right away I felt like something wasn't right. I could see people up in trees, and after a moment I realized the object of their terror - a tremendous hungry lion was out of his cage. I know this because he was dragging a big chain from a collar on his neck, along with a chunk of his iron cage. Of course, he immediately spotted me and I knew I was lion bait. Quickly, I assessed that running wasn't an option (he'd only be playing with his food before he devoured it) so I pulled my towel over my body and huddled on the ground as still as I could. I could feel him approach me, sniffing me out. I was terrified for a moment, at the sound of his pads approaching. I felt the lion open his cavernous mouth and place it over my head, literally encompassing my head is his open jaw. In this moment I was no longer scared, all the Bible stories of lions and salvation downloaded into my brain. I just whispered an internal prayer, telling God if it was my time to go and it was going to be like this, I was ready. But I also told Him I believed He could still save me if He wanted to. We hung there for an eternity, long enough for me to wonder if I had already passed from this life to the next. Then, the lion picked himself up and closed his mouth and walked away, distracted by some other more interesting food perhaps? As soon as he had left the immediate premise, I quickly climbed the nearest tree, which wasn't very tall and probably no trouble for a hungry lion. The rest of my dream was spent debating whether or not I should take the risk of changing trees or running to my car (several hundred yards away) and wondering why no one had called animal control yet. My cell phone was in my car...

I realized when I woke up how the dream was exactly like real life. We just go about our daily lives and forget that Satan is seeking who he may destroy. The reality is, a hungry predator is on the loose looking for it’s next meal. Satan is a destroyer.

Altar:

So how do we counteract the fact that Satan is a distracter, a deceiver, and a destroyer. Is it hopeless for us?

Not at all. Remember Satan’s future? He is fighting a losing battle.

Romans 16:12 “The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. The grace of our Lord Jesus be with you.”

The son of God reigns in your heart. Jesus is with you. He will guide you if you just allow Him. If that weren’t enough, He also sent His Holy Spirit to empower you, and we are going to talk a lot more about that next week.

We can overcome Satan’s accusations by Christ’s blood and the word of God. Reading your word, understanding the battle plan for the fight you are in, that is huge in defense against this enemy. In fact, with an accurate understanding of the battle, you can move from defensive to offensive, where you are actually taking territory back from Satan!

Mark 3:27 says “In fact, no one can enter a strong man’s house without first tying him up. Then he can plunder the strong man’s house.”

In this scripture Satan is the strong man and the plundering refers to taking back the lost. Armed with scripture and the Holy Spirit, we literally have the authority to reclaim what the devil has taken from us.

So tonight, have you realized that the devil is a distracter, a deceiver and a destroyer? Do you need to kick him to the curb in your own life? Do you need to call out the names of lost loved ones that he has claimed? That is what we are going to do right now.

Divide into small groups. Share together if Satan has been winning the war in your life. Share the names of loved ones that need to be won back to Christ. Pray together over your own lives and the lives of the lost loved ones.