The Indwelling Presence of the Spirit ~ Selected Scriptures!

March 16, 2014 ~ New City Church of Calgary ~ Pastor John Ferguson! Last week we began our journey through the season of Lent by introducing our new series, Keeping in Step with the Spirit to Live the Kind of Life Jesus Died to Give Us. We looked at the last words Jesus gave his disciples in which he promised to send another Helper to be with them. Jesus was literally dying to give them this Gift of the Holy Spiritthe personal presence of God to be with them and in them.!

Intro: Daniel Wallaces testimony, Whos Afraid of the Holy Spirit? Tells the story of a time when his elementary aged son, Andy, was kicked in the stomach at school by a bully. He developed stomach pains & his personality began to change from a happy little comic to a somber, scared, and tired eight year old. Daniels wife one day noticed that there was blood in Andys urine, so they took him to the doctor who performed a sonogram and scheduled exploratory surgery. In the surgery, it was discovered that Andy had a potent strand of renal cell carcinoma, an extremely rare cancer. Andys case was the rst one reported in the US since 1984 & he was only the 161st child ever diagnosed with it. By 1992 less than 10 children ever diagnosed with this strain lived more than two years. !

During this time, Daniel Wallace said he was an emotional wasteland. I was angry with God and found him to be quite distant. Through this experience I found that the Bible was not adequate. I needed God in a personal waynot as an object of my study, but as a friend, guide, comforter. I needed an existential experience of the Holy One. I found a longing to get closer to God, but found myself unable to do so through my normal means: exegesis, Scripture reading, more exegesis. I believe that I had depersonalized God so much that when I really needed him I didnt know how to relate. I looked for God, but all I found was a suffocation of the Spirit in my evangelical tradition as well as in my own heart.!

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Quick Review:! 1. The Holy Spirit is not an impersonal force, but the personal presence of God in our lives.! 2. The Holy Spirit is meant to be the experienced, empowering reality of God in our lives. ! Last weeks homework: Tune in to what Jesus through His Holy Spirit wants to do in your life and through your life. ! This week, we are going to take another step in our journey as we learn what it means for God to be an indwelling Presence both in our life together as a community of faith as well as in our individual lives as followers of Jesus. ! Exploring: You will learn how Christians view the presence of God in their lives, and what it will mean for ! you once you take that step of becoming a follower of the Lord Jesus Christ. !

! The Indwelling Presence of the Spirit ~ Selected Scriptures! ! ! I. The Lost Presence of God! !
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The people of God in the OT understood themselves to be the people of the Presence, i.e., the people ! among whom the Creator God had chosen to dwell and to make himself known to the other nations of ! ! the world. ! 1. The story of Gods rescue of Israel from slavery in Egypt & the incident of idolatry (Ex. 32). ! Ex. 33::3,5, The Lord to Moses, I will not go up [into the Promised Land] among youif for a single moment I should go up among you, I would consume you.!
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Ex. 33:15, If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here. For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people? Is it not in your going with us, so that we are distinct, I and your people, from every other people on the face of the earth?! 2. The Tabernacle & the Temple as the place of Presence of God! Ex. 40:34, Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord lled the tabernacle.! 3. The Glory of the Lord leaves the Temple: Ezekiel 10! 1 Kings 8:10-11, And when the priests came out of the Holy Place, a cloud lled the house of the Lord. for the glory of the Lord lled the house of the Lord. ! Psalm 84:1-2 (NIV), How lovely is your dwelling place, O Lord Almighty! My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the Lord; my heart and my esh cry out for the living God.! The people of Israel became so exceedingly corrupt and vile that God withdrew His Presence.! Eze. 10:18, Then the glory of the Lord departed from over the threshold of the Temple.! 4. The Promise of the Renewed Presence of God! Ezekiel 37:27, My dwelling place shall be with them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people.!

! II. The Renewed Presence of God! ! ! 1. In Jesus! ! John 1:14, The Word became esh and dwelt [lit. tabernacled] among us.! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

John 2:18-22, So the Jews said to him, What sign do you show us for these things? Jesus answered them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. The Jews then said, It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and you will raise it up in three days? But he was speaking about the temple of his body. When therefore he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this, and they believed the Scripture and the word that Jesus had spoken.! When Jesus was forgiving sins, he was saying in effect that he was the new Temple. !

2. In the Church! Ephesians 2:19-21, you aremembers of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. ! 1 Cor 3:16-17, Do you not know that you are Gods temple and that the Spirit dwells in you? For Gods temple is holy, and you are that temple.! 2 Corinthians 6:16b, For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, I will make my dwelling among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people [quoting Eze. 37:27). !
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Something amazing happens when Christians gather as the church: The Bible teaches us that we become a new temple for the indwelling presence of God!! When you become a follower of Jesus, you become a part of a local community of faith that the Bible teaches is the new Temple of God in which he dwells by His Spirit!! Do you see why Jesus said it was good for Him to go so He could send the Holy Spirit? ! 3. In the believer! The amazing thing is that the Spirit not only dwells in the midst of the church, but he has also taken up residence in the individual lives of the people who are followers of Jesus. ! 1 Cor. 6:18-20: Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. ! Main Idea: The Spirit is Gods personal presence in our individual lives AND in our midst ! as we gather for worship and for mission. ! Come together as the church with a sense of expectation.! With what expectations do you come to assemble with other Christians? I think our biggest danger is to ! come as consumers who have no higher expect ions than to be entertained or maybe a little inspired.! Do we come with a sense of expectationan expectation that the Spirit of the Holy God is in our midst? ! Annie Dillard, Teaching a Stone to Talk, On the whole, I do not nd Christians, outside of the catacombs, sufciently sensible of conditions. Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the oor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal ares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping God may wake someday and take offense, or the waking God may draw us out to where we can never return. !

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! 2. Cultivate a sense of the indwelling Presence of God within you.! !

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What Daniel Wallace was essentially saying is that it is entirely possible to go through the motions of the ! Christian life without actually connecting with God? I.e., you can read your Bible, say your prayers, go to ! church, attend small group, even become a professor of NT Studies and a world-renown authority on NT ! manuscripts, and all the while your heart is disconnected with God?! When you cultivate a sense of the indwelling Presence of God within you! He will make you prize the Lord Jesus more.! He will convict you of sin and enable you to battle temptation well.! He will cause you to grow the life of Christ in youwhat the Bible calls the fruit of the Spirit.! He will equip you with gifts for promoting the mission of Jesus in this world. ! If Jesus died to give you the comforting, strengthening, empowering Presence of the Spirit, are you !! experiencing that Presence in your life?
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