Thought for the Week - 1st September 2019

Pastor Gareth Watkins

Romans 8: 14

14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.

 

Being born again refers to a new start, a new beginning, and to be a spiritual child. Born afresh. It doesn’t matter whether you’re 15 or 50. God doesn’t want us to stay in that place. What does He want us to do? God wants us to grow, to mature, and to become sons and daughters of God. He wants us to carry that anointing and that spiritual maturity into the lives that we then begin to live. We’re not meant to stay in the place where we found God. We’re meant to go on. The Bible teaches that salvation is the very beginning of your walk with God, and following on from that is your life in God.

In Romans above, we read that “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God.” This is not babies of God, but sons of God. This to me reads of a person who has been born again and found their salvation in God, and now they’ve grown up into a mature son of God. They’re moving onward. They are led by the Spirit of God.

Who considers the Spirit of God in the things that they do in their daily lives? If we don’t, then we need to start being led by the Spirit of God. We need to be led in how we speak, where we go, how we’re perceived, our sinful nature etc. If we don’t do that, then would we become a son of God? Will we mature in the Christian things without the Spirit of God? The answer is no. We will not mature, we will stay where we are, and may even backslide. But if we’re led by the Spirit of God, we will become a son of God. The Spirit of God will change us.

He leads us into maturity. He doesn’t lead us backward to weakness, to sins, to troubles. He leads us onwards into maturity, so that we can carry the place the God has created you for before the beginning of time. He leads you to this new Christian life. It’s exciting! It’s blessed. You will be looked after, you will have healing, you will have friends, you will be lifted up, you will have future and a hope, and you will have peace in your heart. God will give you everything you need to live this life that He wants you to, because you will be led by the Holy Spirit.

The opposite of that is true if you’re not led by the Holy Spirit. You’re not going to be blessed, you’re not going to have peace, you are going to be confused, and you are going to have chaos. But if you’re led by the Holy Spirit, the outcome is certain. So I encourage you, find salvation if you don’t know Christ as you’re saviour, and to be led yet even more by the Spirit of God.

We’re not meant to remain as spiritual babies.

I spoke to a man last week who goes to a church that doesn’t believe in the Holy Spirit. He started to talk to me about the consequences of people who are led by the Spirit, and the things that happen within the churches that the Holy Spirit is at work in. Everything he listed to me we see in our church. For example, he asked if we see people come who have been involved in the occult. And we occasionally do. They come to seek cleansing from their sin, peace, and freedom from the evil one. Suddenly, this man started to listen. He was surprised. He asked if people get baptised and speak in tongues. He knew the principles of being led by the Spirit, but for some reason goes somewhere where they don’t believe in it.

Being led by the spirit takes us into the very best that God has for us. The very best. That very best spills out into our families, our children, and all around us. The Holy Spirit is as real to us as our natural mother, father, or friend. He’s not just “other” that we talk about like a chemical reaction that may not happen because you don’t know how to make a chemical reaction. This is a reality, just as going into a room where your parent or friend may be, the Holy Spirit is there or He’s not.

Jesus Christ said that when He went to the Father He would send another, a comforter to us. A person who will lead us. It’s not an “it”. He’s a “He”. We need to refer to Him correctly – He is part of God. Jesus said of the Holy Spirit that He will come and lead us into all truth.

In John 14: 16-17 we read:

16 And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever
17 the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you.

 

Jesus knew He was going to be crucified, rise and go to heaven. He knew He wouldn’t be on earth forever and would be gone from the disciples. He knew they would need help, and the help that would be provided would be for them to be receive inwardly and would be with them forever. Do we need His help? Yes we do. Do we need a Spirit of Truth? In a world of misinformation and fake news, we need to know the truth. The Holy Spirit will reveal things to you and me by way of truth. That’s the power the Holy Spirit brings.

He’s not impersonal. He knows you personally. He knows when you’re at your weakest. He knows when you’re at your most vulnerable. He knows what things you need to learn in order to be led by Him.

He put all the stars into space. He knows the stars by name. Even a sparrow doesn’t fall to the ground without Him knowing. If He can know those details, He can surely know what’s going on with you and me. In that detail, we can be led by the Holy Spirit. Isn’t it wonderful that God cares so much for each one of us, that He’s given us something so intimate and personal? That He can love us inwardly and care for us, that we can go on to that day where eternal life comes for us?

It’s not impersonal. It’s not a set of rules. It’s not a creed or a learned script. It’s personal for each one of us.

In John 16: 12 we read:

12 “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.
13 However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come.

Jesus Christ is speaking to you directly and personally, through the Holy Spirit. God has created a way for us to be spoken to directly through the Holy Spirit. It starts off with the simple question: do we believe, and do we confess it with our mouths. Then all these things start to be brought into place, as we are led by the Holy Spirit.

Apart from the Holy Spirit we can’t live rightly. Apart from the Holy Spirit we can’t mature and we can’t grow. Apart from the Holy Spirit we can’t mature.

The Bible says that we are going to have a time where we’ll need Him more and more. The world is becoming an ever more polarised place. It’s going more and more out of control. There’s chaos in our country, in our towns, and in our world. We need to have more and more leading of the Holy Spirit.

We need to come to God privately and confess the things we’ve done wrong. Confess the things we’ve done against the Holy Spirit. We need to confess our hard hearts that have blocked the Holy Spirit from moving in our lives. We need to speak to God about moving into our hearts, moving into our lives, and moving through our thoughts. We can do it quietly and privately.

If we are going to be led by the Holy Spirit into maturity, there is a need to move on a bit. There is a need to be led yet further still.

Amen.

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