The Christians Hour

Mike Breaux: You're listening to The Christians Hour. Thank you for joining us today. It's a joy to have you with us. The Christians Hour is a ministry of Gospel Broadcasting Mission, where we use radio and media to proclaim the good news of Jesus Christ to the ends of the earth.

Today, we're continuing our series entitled "Some Things Never Change." In a world where everything seems to be shifting—our cultures, values, technology, and even circumstances—we are discovering the unchanging truths we can confidently build our lives upon.

When we think about God, it's often easy to focus our attention on God the Father and on Jesus Christ His Son. Yet, many believers know far less about the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity. And yet, throughout Scripture, we see the Holy Spirit actively at work: guiding, convicting, comforting, empowering, and transforming God's people.

Jesus promised His followers that we would not be left alone. He sent the Holy Spirit to dwell within us, to strengthen us, and to help us live the life He's called us to live. Today's message, Gene Appel, lead pastor of Eastside Christian Church in Anaheim, California, reminds us that the Spirit still empowers.

No matter what challenge you may be facing today, you do not have to face it alone, not in your own strength. Because the same Holy Spirit who worked powerfully in the early church is still at work today: guiding God's people, producing spiritual fruit, and empowering us to live faithfully for Christ. So, how can we become more sensitive to the Spirit's leading? How can we learn to walk in step with Him each day? Here's Gene to share more.

Gene Appel: I was born in 1960. So I've lived through the entire hippie '60s, disco '70s, yuppie '80s, blockbuster video '90s. Friends, just in my lifetime, I've seen a lot of change. I've watched with my own eyes human beings go to the moon for the first time. I've seen computers as big as this room shrunk down to the size of this phone.

I'm old enough to remember the world's first heart transplant. I even remember life prior to Post-it notes, which entered our lives in 1981. How did we live without Post-it notes? I remember when the term "internet" was what fishermen tried to get their fish to do—enter the net.

Twenty-six hundred years ago, the Greek philosopher Heraclitus said life is like a river; it's in a continual state of change. He said you put your foot into the river and take your foot out of the river. When you put it back in the river, it's a different river because the river has moved on. In a world that's constantly changing, isn't it good to know there are some things that never change?

Isn't it good to know that there are some things that are just rock solid, unmovable, unshakable, and will never change? For instance, Hebrews 13:8 says, "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever." He never changes. In a world that's constantly changing, the Bible still speaks to us. It's still a foundation on which we can build our life.

Jesus said in Luke 21:33, "Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away." Today, I want to talk to you about the power that is getting us through this season. It's a power that I can't imagine enduring this season of life, or any season of life, without. Listen, it's a power that's available to you.

One thing that never, ever changes is the power of God the Holy Spirit. So, the title of my message today is "The Spirit Still Empowers." There's a principle in the universe. This may sound real simple, but it's profound. I've learned that things work best when they're plugged in. Your refrigerator, your microwave, your television, your phone charger, your electric car all work best when they're plugged in.

What happens when I get plugged into the power of God the Holy Spirit in my life? The Bible tells us exactly what happens. Second Timothy chapter one, verse seven says, "For the spirit that God has given us does not make us timid. Instead, his spirit fills us with power."

Jesus put it this way in Acts 1:8: "You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you." But I'm convinced many of us are not plugging into the power. I know why that's true: because many of us are confused about the work of God the Holy Spirit. He's like the least known person of the Trinity to us.

In John chapter 14, Jesus is in the upper room and He's just told His disciples that He's leaving them and He's going to a place that they can't come right now—to heaven. They're shook up about it. They're disturbed by it. He says to them, "Do not let your hearts be troubled." They were like, how is that possible when You're leaving us?

Jesus responds with these words in John 14, verse 16. He says, "I will ask the Father and he will give you another helper," some versions say "comforter," "who will stay with you forever. He is the spirit who reveals the truth about God. The world cannot receive him because it cannot see him or know him, but you know him because he remains with you and is in you."

Two things I want you to notice about this passage. The Holy Spirit is not a gut feeling. The Holy Spirit is not a force, but is actually the person of God. Why is that important? Because if you don't think of the Holy Spirit as a person, you will never have a personal relationship with Him.

Second, while Jesus was leaving them, notice He says, "But God the Holy Spirit will be with you and in you." In John 16, Jesus said that it's better that I go away and send the Holy Spirit. You're like, how could it be better? It was so cool when Jesus was on the earth and people could be with Jesus. Can you imagine how great it was to be with Jesus?

If you ran out of food, He could multiply your fish and loaves of bread. If you were sick, He could make you well. If your dog died, He could raise it from the dead. But Jesus is saying when I'm gone, the presence of God will no longer be limited to where I am geographically. God the Holy Spirit will be in all of you who follow Me, wherever you are, and that's better.

So what I want to do today is walk you through five ways that you can plug into the Holy Spirit's power in your life—five ways the Holy Spirit of God empowers you. Number one: the Holy Spirit empowers salvation. No matter where you're at in your spiritual journey right now, even if you're just exploring Christianity, the Holy Spirit is working to convict every one of us of our sin, of our need for Jesus.

In John 16, Jesus is talking about the Holy Spirit and He says in verse eight and nine, "When he, the Holy Spirit, comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment; in regard to sin because people do not believe in me." So the Holy Spirit, even now in this moment, is working to convict those of you who don't believe in or follow Jesus yet.

It's a pretty common experience for me after a service for someone to stop and say something like, "Gene, do you have cameras in my house? Can you read my mind? Because I feel like you were talking right to me today." Ever had that experience? Or you come to church and you go home and you just can't get this whole Jesus thing off your mind and you lie awake at night. Do you know what's really going on? That's God the Holy Spirit convicting you of your need for salvation, and it's why you just can't let it go.

Some of you right now can't even explain what is going on in your soul and why you're even here today, but there was something drawing you here. There's something shifting in you. You can't explain it. I can. God loves you and His Holy Spirit is convicting you so that you will experience the power of His salvation through Jesus.

Not only does the Holy Spirit have the power to convict us of our need for salvation, but once we experience salvation through the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus and faith in Him, we receive the gift, we receive the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus said that He would start living in you.

We're not God; He's God. He's living in us. Look at Acts chapter two, verse 38, where it says, "Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit."

It fills me with joy to know that so many of you have experienced Acts 2:38 and you have received the power, this gift of the Holy Spirit. Not only are your sins forgiven, and not only are you going to heaven when you die, God is now living in you.

Now, it would be incredible if, when we came up out of the waters of baptism, we opened our eyes and we were in heaven. But for most of us, we come up out of the waters of baptism and we find ourselves still here on earth saying, "This is amazing and I know God has done something awesome inside of me, but now I'm going home to the same family, to the same job, the same financial struggles, the same temptations staring me right in the face."

So here's the second part of the good news of the Gospel. Number two: the Holy Spirit doesn't just empower salvation; he empowers your transformation. The big theological word for this is "sanctification." I know some of you don't want me to use big theological words, but my theory is if you can order at Starbucks, you can use these words. If you can order a triple venti, half sweet, non-fat caramel macchiato at Starbucks, you can understand sanctification.

If you're empowered by the Holy Spirit when you're tempted to sin, the Holy Spirit empowers you if you'll trust in Him to overcome the temptation. Now let me tell you something you've probably never heard a pastor say before, but I'm going to say it: sin is fun. It really is. It bothers me when I hear pastors say sin is not fun. I'm thinking, well, then you're not doing it right. Because if you're doing it right, it's fun.

But listen to me: the Bible teaches that sin is fun for a season. The thing we all need to understand is that sin always carries consequences. You may be here right now and saying, "Well, Gene, I'm living in sin right now and there's nothing bad happening to me." I would just simply say, just give it time. Because as many of us have learned the hard way, it always comes with consequences.

Romans chapter eight, verse six says, "So letting your sinful nature control your mind leads to death, but letting the Spirit control your mind leads to life and peace." Think about it. Before you're a follower of Jesus, sinning can be a lot of fun and you don't even necessarily feel bad about it.

Once you're a follower of Jesus, once you're filled with the Spirit, sin looks fun, but then makes you miserable. You feel convicted and you feel like I shouldn't be doing this. Why do you feel that way? Because the Holy Spirit in you empowers your transformation, your sanctification. There is always a way out of your sin when you are filled with the power of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit gives you the power of salvation, the power of transformation, and number three: he empowers us to share Jesus confidently. He will give you the power, the wisdom, the words to talk to others about Jesus confidently. Some of you may be like me and you get real nervous, you get real intimidated about just the thought of having a spiritual conversation with even someone you know.

You're real nervous about just attempting someone who loves you to come to church and sit with you. You think, "Well, I'd like to foster some spiritual conversations with people I care about, but I don't know what to say, or I may mess it up, or they may ask me a question and I won't know the answer to it, or they might ask me something about the Bible and I'll be clueless." So rather than go there, we often just hold back.

If that's you right now, which I bet it's most of you right now, I want you to know you're in good company. Even the Apostle Paul was a little insecure about some of his preaching. He wrote this in First Corinthians chapter two, beginning in verse four. He said, "My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom but on God's power."

In other words, he says my abilities were not all that great; I'm not an incredible speaker. But when I opened my mouth, the Holy Spirit came. He just did what only He can do. That's what I love about the mystery of like what I'm doing right now. So many times when I'm standing here, I just feel like my words are so inadequate today.

But I trust that the Holy Spirit will say things to you, maybe that I'm not even saying, and apply them to your life. Like I'll say something and then, whoomp, the Holy Spirit just personalizes it in you and your life. You walk away going, "God spoke to me today." Why? Because He did.

He will say things to you that didn't even come out of my mouth because the Holy Spirit is personalizing the message for you. The same goes when you're trying to have like a spiritual conversation with a family member that you love, a friend, a neighbor, someone you work with. You think, "I don't know what to say." I'm nervous, and all of a sudden, the Holy Spirit comes on you and you just have this boldness and confidence and you just start telling your story.

Then they might ask you a question and you think, "I don't know how to respond to that." The next thing you know, you're quoting some Bible verse and you're going, "Where did that come from? I didn't even know I knew that verse." It's the Holy Spirit prompting you, guiding you, giving you divine confidence.

The Holy Spirit gives you the power of salvation, the power of transformation, the power to confidently share Jesus, and number four: he empowers your spiritual gifts. In other words, when the Holy Spirit is in you, He also brings some special supernatural abilities and gifts that God wants to use if you'll let Him to make a difference, to be a changemaker.

Look at First Corinthians chapter 12, beginning in verse four. It says, "There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work. Now to each one, the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good."

That's saying God the Holy Spirit gives each of us different kinds of gifts, different ways to serve. We each are unique; we each have different gifts. God determines what our gifts are, not us. He didn't give us a website to go to shop from to choose our spiritual gifts. You and I had no more to do with determining our gifts than we did in determining who our parents would be, what the color of our skin would be, what the shape of our nose would be, or the part of the world we would be born in.

There was an interesting sign outside of a Colorado dude ranch. It said, "We have horses for everybody: for fast people we have fast horses; for slow people we have slow horses; for big people we have big horses; for little people we have little horses; for people who have never ridden horses before, we have horses that have never been ridden before."

In God's ingenious design of His church, He gave us all different gifts. There are gifts for big people, little people, young people, old people. It doesn't matter. If everybody in the family of God is using their gift, do you know what happens? All the needs get met; nobody's overworked in the process; nobody burns out; nobody needs to be jealous of somebody else's gift because God distributes the gifts.

Listen, because there's somebody who needs to hear this today. Maybe you're just on the sidelines right now and not really using your gift in the church of Jesus Christ. I believe the Holy Spirit wants to convict you today that it's time to get into the game or to get back into the game.

Maybe it's time for some of you to pay attention to the work of the Holy Spirit today and get in an environment where the Holy Spirit can empower and use your spiritual gifts and change lives. The Holy Spirit gives you the power of salvation, the power of transformation, the power to share Jesus confidently, the power to make a difference with your spiritual gifts, and number five: the Holy Spirit empowers you to heal—to heal when you're broken, when you're hurting, when you're grieving, when circumstances have just hammered you.

What do you do when it feels like everything is collapsing around you? Everything is closing in. Where do you turn? Second Corinthians chapter one, verse three: "All praise to God, to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. He is the source of every mercy and the God who," don't miss this word, "comforts us."

Notice that word "comfort." It comes from the Greek word paraklesis, which means to come alongside to help. God the Holy Spirit is referred to in the Bible as the Paraclete, the one who comes alongside. If you're a lawyer, you know what a paralegal is: one who comes alongside to help you. If you jump out of an airplane, you take the comfort of a parachute for a softer landing. God the Holy Spirit comes alongside of you to be the healing balm for a hurting heart.

Listen, for anyone who is grieving a loss of any kind, for anyone who is in pain today, for anyone who is lamenting loss, you have a God who can come alongside you and walk with you from an extraordinary perspective. Because Jesus did more than just take our guilt and our sin when He died on a cross; He also took our suffering and our pain. The Bible calls Him a man of sorrows acquainted with grief.

Think about that. Of all the gods that human minds have ever devised and worshipped, it's only the God of the Bible who suffers with us and grieves with us and comforts and heals human beings. I want you to experience the presence and power and comfort and healing and transformation of God the Holy Spirit at work in you. I want you to plug into the power.

Mike Breaux: How about you? Are you relying on the Holy Spirit's work in your life, or are you trying to navigate life's challenges in your own strength? If you're a follower of Jesus Christ, take heart. We've been reminded that God has given us His Spirit to dwell within us. You're not alone. Whatever circumstances you may be facing, you can walk forward with confidence, knowing that God's Spirit is actively at work in your life.

If you're still exploring your faith, perhaps God is using His Spirit right now to draw your heart towards His. Maybe you've become aware of your need for forgiveness, or you're seeking purpose, or hope, or peace. That conviction is not something to ignore. God loves you and desires a deep personal relationship with you through His Son, Jesus.

The Bible tells us that salvation is found in Christ alone. Through His death and resurrection, Jesus made a way for us to be forgiven and restored to God. If you've never placed your trust in Him, today could be that day. Don't wait.

Our thanks to Gene Appel for that encouraging message today. And our thanks as well to Acappella Ministries for their music of worship. If you'd like to hear this program again or stream it online, visit us at thechristianshour.org. There you'll find all this year's programs, and you can download today's for free. You can also listen on your favorite podcasting platform by searching The Christians Hour.

If today's message impacted you, we'd love to hear from you. Would you send us an email at thechristianshour@gmail.com and share how God used this program to encourage you today? And if you've enjoyed this broadcast, we invite you to also partner with us as we take the Gospel to some of the most remote and unreached places in the world.

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