The world is full of commands. Have a look at these for example:
Keep left, use the handrail, turn off the taps. None of these are requests! What is the purpose of all these commands? To protect us or to spoil our fun?
The world is also full of warnings. Here are some examples:
The Bible is also full of commands and warnings from God. Many people think that they are there to spoil our fun, when they are actually for our protection and for our good.
In recent weeks, I’ve been dealing with the person and the work of the Holy Spirit. The Bible has various commands as to how we should interact with the Holy Spirit, in order to have a fruitful Christian life. These are mainly in Galatians and Ephesians, for example:
The Bible also has various warnings about things we should avoid, so that we don’t inhibit the work of the Holy Spirit:
There are 5 specific areas that we need to avoid, so as not to stifle the work of the Holy Spirit in us and in the church, and that’s what we’re going to look at over the next 2 weeks.
This might sound like a very negative subject but let me encourage you to see this topic in a positive light. I deliberately focussed on God’s love in the kid’s talk because that’s our starting point. God give us commands and warnings because He loves us so much and wants the best for us and so we need to not just heed them but embrace them as God’s loving discipline.
If you had a blocked drain, then you’d want to get it fixed right? You’d make a call and a couple of guys in a very brightly coloured van would show up, identify the cause of the blockage and remove it. The process might be disruptive and inconvenient, but when drain functions well again, then it’s worth it! Same goes if you have a blocked blood vessel! You might need angioplasty or a stent or even bypass surgery, but if that’s what you need, then you’ll put up with the discomfort and the recovery time because your health is your wealth, as they say.
In the same way, there are things in our lives that block the flow of the Spirit. Things like certain attitudes or lifestyle choices, or maybe a lack of knowledge or understanding about God or the Bible. If we can identify these things and takes steps to work on them, then by God’s grace, we will have a positive outcome, even if it’s a somewhat painful process.
You see, we have the Holy Spirit, the most powerful person in the world, living inside us. Jesus tells us that with the Holy Spirit we should be able to do greater things than He did, but the reality is that we don’t. There are things preventing us from experiencing the power of the Spirit in and through us. The Bible tells us that we should have the fruit of the Spirit in abundance, but the reality is that we’re not as loving and joyful and peaceful and gentle and kind and faithful and patient as we’d like to be, especially when things don’t go our own way. We should be growing in grace and holiness, but many Christians find themselves ‘stuck in a rut’ spiritually, or even backsliding. I think we can safely assume that there is nothing lacking on God’s side, so the problem must be with you and me. Without realising it most of the time, we are stifling the work of the Holy Spirit. And in order to diagnose the problem, we don’t go to the plumber, or the surgeon, or even the minister – we go to the Bible. We have to read the Bible and then allow the Bible to read us.
If you can identify the areas in your life where you are stifling the spirit, and take steps to rectify them, then the result will be a fuller experience of the Holy Spirit. You will feel closer to God; you will have clearer guidance from Him, you will see more of the gifts of the Spirit at work in you and you will be a much nicer person to be around as you become more loving and gentle and patient and all those other good things associated with living out the fruit of the spirit.
Next week, I should have a handout with the key verses, the context of each and the application. I encourage you to take one and work through it yourself. A couple of sermons is not going to sort all this stuff out! I can only provide the tools that you and I need to do this and a few pointers; we all have to work through this on our own with God.
So let’s turn to the first way in which we can stifle the Spirit, and that is by resisting Him. In our reading from Luke 11:47-54, Jesus is denouncing the Jewish religious leaders both past and present for killing God’s prophets because they didn’t like their message. He prophesies that they will persecute and kill the next generation of Christian prophets and apostles, which of course they do. And we find the first example of this in Acts 7, where we come across the first Christian martyr, whose name was Stephen. Stephen is hauled up in front of the Sanhedrin, which was an intimidating assembly of 71 Jewish judges who constituted the Supreme Court and legislative body of the Jews. Stephen defends himself in a long sermon about the history of Israel and how every true prophet of God was persecuted by the religious authorities and then he tells the Sanhedrin that they are no better because they participated in killing Jesus.
Let’s look closely at verses 51 to 53 in the NIV.
51"You stiff-necked people, with uncircumcised hearts and ears! You are just like your fathers: You always resist the Holy Spirit! 52Was there ever a prophet your fathers did not persecute? They even killed those who predicted the coming of the Righteous One. And now you have betrayed and murdered him - 53 you who have received the law that was put into effect through angels but have not obeyed it."
Harsh words! And instead of listening to the Holy Spirit speaking through Stephen; instead of being convicted by the Spirit of their error, they continued to resist the Spirit by stoning Stephen. And who was minding their coats? Saul, the Pharisee of Pharisees, as he described himself.
In terms of applying the concept of “resisting the Holy Spirit” to today we can see three kinds of people. In verse 51, you have stubborn people who don’t have a heart to please God and are not open to what God wants to say to them. They are not necessarily obnoxious people, but as soon as you bring up God they switch off.
In verse 52, you have people who reject God’s messengers and God’s Word. Quite often today, you find people who say they have their own “spirituality” often it’s a New Age philosophy, and they’re not interested in going to church or reading the Bible. This is called a “home-spun theology”. It can sound quaint, but it’s a form of resisting the Spirit.
But resisting the spirit can be also me much more subtle. And in verse 53, you have those who accept the Bible but don’t obey it. People like you and me!
Mark Twain famously said: “It ain't those parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it is the parts that I do understand.”
So in these 3 verses we can see (1) non-Christians who are completely closed to hearing the gospel; (2) Agnostics who have their own ideas about God and life and reject the Bible and those who preach from it; (3) Christians who accept the Bible as the Word of God, but don’t do what it says. All three are resisting the Spirit of God.
Let’s move on - another way in which we can stifle the Holy Spirit is by grieving Him. We find this in Ephesians 4 verse 30:
"And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, with whom you were sealed for the day of redemption."
So what does it mean to grieve the Holy Spirit? Well, the context leading up to this verse is a passage which the NIV entitles “Living as Children of Light”, where Paul contrasts the difference between a Christian’s “old life” (before they come to faith) and their “new life” (after being converted). You can see this on the chart:
He tells the Christians in Ephesians to “put off your old self” i.e. don’t lie or steal, or curse or gossip etc. Instead, he says “put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness” (v24).
This “new self” involves speaking truthfully, encouraging others, being kind and compassionate, forgiving each other etc.
So in this context, we can say that “grieving the Spirit” is when we allow sinful things from our old life, to persist in our new life. As Christians, the Holy Spirit is trying to work in us to bring out all the fruit of the Spirit – love, joy, peace and all those good things, and so when we don’t co-operate with Him and persist with or fall back into our old way of living, we grieve Him.
It's like a young man who gets in trouble with the law and his parents say to themselves: “Where did we go wrong? We didn’t teach him to behave like that”. They are grieved because his behaviour is inconsistent with all their hopes and aspirations for him. Likewise, the Holy Spirit has big ambitions for our lives and He’s trying to steer us along the right path and so when we choose to go the opposite direction, then He is grieved, but thankfully He doesn’t give up on us. There is mercy and grace and forgiveness and a fresh start every day.
We’ll continue this study next week, but we’ll finish up with a response. Let’s take a moment to challenge ourselves with these 2 questions. The first is about resisting the Spirit, the second is about grieving the Spirit.
1. What clear teaching of Jesus am I not being obedient to?
2. What behaviour of mine is not consistent with my ‘new life’ in Christ?
Let’s Pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you for your Word, that comforts us, but also challenges and convicts. We thank you for the gift of the Holy Spirit, our Comforter, our Companion and our Guide. Forgive us when we resist the Spirit by not putting your Word into practice. We thank you for the new life that you have given us in Christ. Forgive us when we refuse to move on from old habits. We know that your way is best, and so give us the grace that we need to live godly lives that please you, for we ask it in Jesus name. Amen.
