Turning Point

David Michael Jeremiah: If you're a believer, the Holy Spirit is already resident in your life. But is he president of your life? The one you rely on to guide and govern you each day. Today on Turning Point, Dr. David Jeremiah continues his new series, The Holy Spirit You May Not Know, and explains why the spirit belongs in the driver's seat. Listen as David introduces the conclusion of his message, The Promise of the Spirit.

Dr. David Jeremiah: And thank you for joining us today for the daily edition of Turning Point. We're so happy to have you with us. I'm David Jeremiah and it's my wonderful privilege to be your teacher and host each day as we meet. And we've been doing this for a long time. Over 40 years we've been doing this together for many of us, and so grateful for the many of you who have been faithful listeners and encouragers and supporters. So grateful for all that you do because together we've been able to do so much.

Today we're going to finish our discussion that we began yesterday as the introduction to this series on the Holy Spirit gets off the ground. We're talking about the promise of the Spirit. How the Lord Jesus told us ahead of time that he was coming. And the Holy Spirit is called the promise, the promise of Jesus, that he would send someone to take his place after he went back to heaven. The Holy Spirit was poured out upon the church on the Day of Pentecost and we have been blessed because of that ever since.

We'll explore some of the ways it touches us as we open our Bibles together in just a moment. Before we get to our lesson, let me tell you that during the month of June, our resource for the month is the full-length book, The Holy Spirit You May Not Know. I wrote this book as I was teaching this material in church as a pastor, and the book has just been released.

The world changed on the Day of Pentecost 2,000 years ago, and an upstairs room was filled with the presence of the Holy Spirit. The Bible says that on that particular day over 3,000 people were converted when the Holy Spirit was set loose, when Jesus sent the promise. And we'll talk more about that as we open our Bibles together today. And I want to ask you to open your Bible with me to John 14 verses 16 and 17. We'll continue and conclude our discussion of the promise of the Spirit.

As important as the Holy Spirit is, he never preempts the place of Christ. On the other hand, wherever Christ is magnified, you can be sure the Holy Spirit is at work. His task is to make much of Jesus. This is a word needed in our generation, men and women, because there are groups today who have elevated the spirit in such a way that Jesus is almost lost. To be sure, the Spirit is God. We do not need to make him God. He already is. But his place in the Trinity is to glorify Jesus Christ.

And when the Spirit is doing his work in your life, you will not be going around talking primarily about the Holy Spirit. You'll be talking about Jesus. You will be talking about Jesus Christ because the Spirit comes to lift him up. Spirit-filled Christians, men and women, are Christ-centered Christians. Like John the Baptist who said, "He must increase, but I must decrease."

So the Holy Spirit comes first of all to promote Jesus Christ. And if you get yourself into a group and all of a sudden Jesus Christ gets lost and the Holy Spirit becomes the whole discussion and the gifts of the Spirit and speaking in tongues and all of this takes over, whenever that happens, you know something's not right because the Holy Spirit did not come to promote himself. He came to promote Jesus. And if you're filled with the spirit of Jesus, you'll be filled with the spirit itself. That's the way that works, and that's what the Bible teaches. So he's here to promote Jesus Christ.

Secondly, the Holy Spirit has come to provide strength for believers. I want you to know that's very special to me, especially during these days. I'm sure it's special to some of you even though you may not know what's going on. John 14:16 says, "I will pray the Father and he will send you another helper." How many of you could use another helper? We could use a little help, couldn't we?

Jesus called the Holy Spirit helper. That word has the meaning of someone who comes alongside of you, who walks beside you. The word is parakaleo—call alongside of. He comes to strengthen you. The Holy Spirit is the one who comes with strength. He's the divine strengthener. Someone once said the Holy Spirit is the rod of iron in your back. The Holy Spirit is the one who gives you the backbone to do the things you don't have the courage to do.

How we need that today. How we need that in our world today, in our churches today. We live in a time of immense pressure and without the Spirit's strength, we will collapse. Think of Simon Peter. He's a great illustration. On the night Jesus was betrayed, Peter denied the Lord three times. When confronted, he swore, "I don't even know the man," speaking of Jesus. What a pitiful picture of cowardice.

Yet wait 40 days, and that same Peter stands before a hostile crowd on the Day of Pentecost and proclaims Jesus Christ crucified and risen, and 3,000 people are converted. So you say, what made the difference between Peter on the night before Jesus died and Peter 40 days later? Two things: the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the coming of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit transformed Peter from a coward to a courageous preacher. The Holy Spirit was the steel in Peter's backbone. He was the source of his power. And that's what Jesus promised. He said, "I will send you another helper." He is the strength we need to live boldly and faithfully in a hostile world.

If you only ever do the things you think you can do, you will never do the things God called you to do. I'm sure it would surprise you that many times I don't feel like preaching to you on Sunday. I'm tired. Maybe I've had a busy week or I'm not feeling good physically. But one of the most wonderful things in the world to be a preacher is to stand up here and feel weak and know that the Holy Spirit has filled you with his power. Sometimes it's almost like I'm standing over here watching someone else preach because the Holy Spirit is doing it.

In 1966, a 22-year-old English woman named Jackie Pullinger boarded a ship with little more than a suitcase and a few dollars and a prayer. She had asked God to show her where to get off. At every port the ship stopped, she felt no peace until the ship docked in Hong Kong. There, God led her to Kowloon Walled City, a lawless maze of alleys ruled by gangs and filled with heroin addicts and street children.

Jackie moved into a tiny room in that dark city. She had no money, no program, and no plan. All she had was the Holy Spirit. At first she felt helpless. But when addicts came to her for prayer, she discovered something astonishing. Many of them who got prayed for were delivered from heroin without withdrawal pain. Doctors couldn't explain it. Jackie simply said, "I discovered the Holy Spirit is stronger than heroin. I just show up and he brings life."

Her ministry became known as St. Stephen's Society. It has since helped thousands of people recover from drug addiction. Former gang members have become pastors, addicts free, and broken lives became whole. We may never walk into a walled city of crime and addiction as Jackie did, but all of us know what it's like to feel powerless. And it is in those very moments that the Holy Spirit comes alongside us to help us and to strengthen us and to enable us to do what we could never do if he weren't active.

The Bible says, "You shall receive power after the Holy Spirit has come upon you." The Bible says, "I pray that from his glorious unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit." The Bible says God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind. Ladies and gentlemen, one of the purposes of Holy Spirit is to give you the strength you don't have without him. He gives you the power, the courage, to do things you would never do on your own. He becomes the source of God within you.

He comes to promote Jesus Christ. He comes to provide strength for Christian living. Here's the third thing: the Holy Spirit comes to point us to the truth. Jesus said this about the Holy Spirit in John 14:26: "But the helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you."

And two chapters later, Jesus said, "I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. However, when he, the Spirit of Truth has come, he will guide you into all truth." Truth is almost lost in our world today, is it not? You wonder if anybody really even knows what the meaning of it is. People talk about their truth. It's just another way of describing their deception and lies. But the Bible says there is truth, and Jesus Christ is the truth.

And sometimes as we look at what's going on in life, we need someone to help us understand the truth. What is truth? In John 14:26, Jesus explained that the Spirit would be the disciples' helper and that he would teach them everything they needed to know and even bring back to their mind the words he had already said. In John 16, Jesus said there was more truth waiting for them, but they weren't ready for it yet.

He said he would handle that too. When the time came, he would give them the truth that they needed at that moment. So the same spirit still teaches us today, reminding us of God's Word when we need it most and leading us into deeper understanding as we grow. If you've ever memorized any verses, you know that sometimes when you're in a situation, that verse will pop into your mind. Who does that? The Holy Spirit does that.

The Holy Spirit brings to your memory the things Jesus has already said so you have that verse when you need it the most. And sometimes what I've discovered is, and I don't know if this happens to you, these are verses I haven't even reviewed in a long time. And if you told me could you say that verse and do it perfectly, I couldn't. But the Holy Spirit can, and he brings that verse back to your mind. So when you're in the midst of the situation, you know exactly what it is you should say because the Spirit of Truth is working in your heart.

The Holy Spirit comes to promote Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit comes to provide strength for your life. The Holy Spirit comes to point you to the truth. And here's the one that I love maybe the most: the Holy Spirit comes to pray for us. The Holy Spirit prays for us. Listen to this. Did you know that you have two prayer partners? One is in heaven, the Lord Jesus Christ, who ever lives to make intercession for you at the right hand of the Father. And the other lives within you, the Holy Spirit.

Romans 8:26 and 27 says, "Likewise, the Spirit also helps in our weakness. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. 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." Paul says the Spirit of God prays for us when we don't know how to pray.

Have you ever been in a situation where you didn't know how to pray? You tried to pray, the words wouldn't come, you couldn't put your thoughts together. It was such a deep problem, you didn't even know how to address it. That's something we can all picture, something we've all experienced. It's like the little boy who knelt by his bed and he folded his hands and whispered, "God, A-B-C-D-E-F-G," all the way to Z.

And his mother smiled and asked what he was doing. He said, "I don't know what to pray, so I just gave God all the letters and he can put them together anyway he wants." There are times when praying feels almost impossible. Life can get so stressful or painful that we don't even know what to say to God. I remember one time years ago when I was going through cancer.

I was going to the hospital and they were going to do a biopsy of my spleen. And when they told me how they were going to do that, I didn't want to do it. We were in the operating room where they were getting ready to do it, and the doctor said something about do you want to pray? And I couldn't pray. Donna was there and she prayed great, but I couldn't pray. But I knew that the Spirit of God was in that moment, that he was helping me.

When you can't even put your words together, the Holy Spirit is there and the Bible says he makes intercession for you with groanings that cannot be uttered. Oh, what a precious thing that is. Someone has said in prayer it's better to have a heart without words than it is to have words without a heart. And when the heart cannot find words, the Holy Spirit makes intercession with groanings too deep for words.

Have you ever felt so sad or mixed up inside that you couldn't find the right words? Maybe you just didn't know what to say, you sighed, you groaned, you whispered Jesus' name. Paul says in those moments, the Holy Spirit takes what's in your heart, even if it's just a sigh, and he brings it to God. He understands what's going on inside you better than you understand yourself.

It's like when you ask a friend to pray for you, but you can't really explain what's wrong. The amazing thing is you don't have to explain anything to the Holy Spirit. He already knows your worries and your struggles, and he carries them straight to God's throne. The Spirit takes those wordless longings and he shapes them and he lays them before the Father through the intercession of Christ.

No wonder God answers prayer. Prayer is the combined work of the Holy Spirit within us, the Son beside the Father, and the Father receiving the request. Did you know when you pray, the entire Trinity gets involved? It's no wonder God answers prayer. So the personality of the Holy Spirit, the priority of the Holy Spirit, the purpose of the Holy Spirit. And let me talk with you for just a moment about the permanency of the Holy Spirit.

In the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit's ministry was much different than it is today. In the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit would come upon people for certain occasions. He came upon Samson for feats of strength. The Holy Spirit came upon Gideon for leadership. The Holy Spirit came upon the prophets for their ministry. But his presence was just temporary. He came and went according to the purposes of God.

But notice carefully what Jesus said about the Holy Spirit now: "And I will pray the Father, and he will give you another helper, that he may abide with you forever. The spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees him nor knows him, but you know him." Now here is a phrase that tells you the difference between the Old Testament and the New Testament. In the Old Testament, he is with you. In the New Testament, he is in you.

Aren't you glad you live in the New Testament days? We don't live in the Old Testament. The Bible says that when you become a Christian, you are baptized in the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit becomes your possession. In fact, the scripture actually says if you don't have the Spirit, you can't be a Christian. You don't have to wait for the Holy Spirit. You don't have to have some ecstatic experience and then you get the Holy Spirit.

When you get Jesus, you get the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit comes to live within you. So if you're a Christian, you have the indwelling Holy Spirit. He's living within you right now. You may not feel it, you may not know it, you may not understand it, but it doesn't make any difference. It's still true. The Holy Spirit indwells every single believer.

I met a man once who told me that he'd been away from God for 16 years. He'd come to Christ as a boy, but he'd wandered so far. That night he returned in repentance. 16 years of rebellion had not driven the Holy Spirit away. The Spirit had been resident all along, convicting him, drawing him until he came back. That's the difference between having the Spirit as a resident and having the Spirit as the president.

He may live in your life, but he longs to reign in your life. And joy comes not just from having the Holy Spirit within you. Joy comes when the Holy Spirit within you is sitting on the throne of your life and he's running the show. And you're not doing this on your own, but you're asking God to help you. Perhaps that is why some of you are miserable. You know Christ and the Spirit is in you, but you've pushed him to the side and taken charge of everything yourself.

The conviction you feel even now is the Spirit's way of reminding you that you will never know peace until the Holy Spirit is the president of your life. Don't just accept him as the resident; anoint him as the president. Do what he says. Tell him that you want to be under his authority and do what he tells you to do. The Bible says God's Spirit will not always strive with man. That means that when the Holy Spirit is speaking to you, don't take it for granted because he may not speak to you again in such a way.

I think of that often when we come to the end of a sermon and I ask you to give your heart to Christ. Some of you say, well I think I won't do that today. Maybe I'll do it next time. You don't even know if you're going to have a next time. But one thing you can't be sure of: will the Holy Spirit still be striving within your heart then as he is today?

Years ago in Europe, a young man and woman were walking together along the banks of a wide river and their conversation turned to a friend they both admired. "Mary has such a radiant personality," the young man remarked. His companion smiled. "She really does. But what do you think makes her that way?" They walked in silence for a moment and then the path opened to a clearing with a clear view across the water.

On the opposite bank stood an ancient stone castle, its towers rising against the sky. And the young man pointed. He said, "When I was a boy, I loved to sit here in the evening and watch that castle. And you could always tell what was happening inside by the light in the windows. If only a few people were home, just a dim glow showed. But when guests arrived, the place came alive with brightness."

"I'll never forget the night a member of the royal family visited. Every single window blazed with light and the castle seemed to shine from within. It was unforgettable." He paused and then he said, "That's how I explain Mary's radiance. She's entertaining a royal guest. She's got the Holy Spirit within her, shining through her." So it is when the Holy Spirit lives in us. He fills every room of our heart with light. And when others see on the outside, it's simply the glow of his presence.

There's an old French film called Jean de Florette. It takes place in the hills of Provence after the First World War. A man named Jean, a city tax collector, inherits a small farm, and he moves there with his wife and his little daughter. He's full of dreams and he's convinced that with enough effort he can make the rocky land flourish. But there's one big problem: there's no water.

The ground is dry. Jean doesn't realize that a strong hidden spring is right beneath the property. So instead, day and night, he straps barrels to his donkey and trudges to fetch water from a distant source. The heat is brutal. Work never ends, and he wears himself out trying to survive. Sadly, Jean never discovers the spring. His health breaks down from the constant strain and he dies without ever tapping into the water that was already his.

That's a picture of a lot of us. we exhaust ourselves trying to find help somewhere out there. We're running around from one specialist to another, reading one email, one internet post, trying to find the answers to our problems when all the while the Spirit of God is right here living inside of us. Jesus called him rivers of living water. He is our inexhaustible supply. And the question is, are we going to wear ourselves out like Jean or are we going to draw from the Spirit who's already in us?

So many Christians I know try to do the Lord's work in the energy of the flesh. How impossible that is. The Lord's work can't be done in the energy of the flesh because the Lord's work is way too big and too hard and too difficult. You need the Spirit of God within you to do the work of God, to live the life of God.

And my question to you is, have you ever come to the realization that within you is that power, the power of the Holy Spirit? If you're a Christian, if you have put your trust in Jesus Christ, I'm making an announcement today that may surprise some of you: you already have the Holy Spirit living within you. You don't have to get him. You don't have to go to a conference and try to find the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit lives within you. The Bible says if there is no Holy Spirit within you, you're not a Christian. So now that you have the Holy Spirit, what are you going to do about it? Are you going to let him give you the wisdom? And in these next weeks, I'm going to try to help us do that and learn how to use the Holy Spirit's power as he intended us to do it. I don't know about the rest of you, I find a great need for this in my life right now. And I know that God has promised to meet that need through the person of the Holy Spirit.

Here's the other thing you need to understand: if you don't have Jesus, you don't have the Holy Spirit. If you're not a Christian, you just can't put any of this into operation because you have to have Jesus to have the Holy Spirit. When you come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit comes to live within you. So if you're interested in all the things we've talked about, the first thing you need to do is put your trust in Jesus Christ as your savior.

Don't wait any longer. Do it now. You have no idea what you're missing by holding out on Jesus. He's come to give you everything. Eternal life and not just that, but spiritual power. If you just trust him, if you just put your faith in him. And that's the most important thing. The Holy Spirit came to empower us with the gospel so that we could share the message I have just shared. That God loves you and Christ died for you and he wants you to be one of his own.

If you will put your trust in him, that can happen today. By the way, if you make that decision, let us know because we have a whole packet of material we'd like to send to you that will help you understand what happens next. I hope you'll let us do that. Tomorrow we will begin two days of discussion of what it means to be born of the spirit from John chapter 3. This is one of the chapters in this brand-new book, and this is the lesson tomorrow. I hope you'll join us then as we continue our discussion of the Holy Spirit you may not know. I'm David Jeremiah, and it's my privilege to be your teacher every day. Thank you for joining me. Have a great day. We'll see you next time.

David Michael Jeremiah: Today's message originated from Shadow Mountain Community Church and senior pastor Dr. David Jeremiah. Drop us a note to let us know how God is using this ministry in your life. Write to Turning Point, P.O. Box 3838, San Diego, California 92163. Visit our website at davidjeremiah.org/radio or call 800-947-1993. Ask for your copy of David's new book, The Holy Spirit You May Not Know. A valuable resource that's yours for a gift of any amount. You can also download the free Turning Point mobile app for your smartphone or tablet, or search in your app store for Turning Point Ministries to access our content. Visit davidjeremiah.org/radio for details. This is David Michael Jeremiah. Join us tomorrow as we continue The Holy Spirit You May Not Know on Turning Point with Dr. David Jeremiah.