God’s people, army of the Spirit.

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Richie_2uk

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#1
God’s people, army of the Spirit.

The many references to the Holy Spirit in the book of Galatians, makes it clear how vital the Holy Spirit is. The church is the great task force of the Spirit, born, directed, sustained, and assured of victory by the spirit. The Holy Spirit has important rolls to play as you will see Paul says a lot about the Spirit; let’s look at 7 of them. There are lots more, but let’s focus on these 7 that comes to mind.

1 The Spirit represents Jesus (Galatians 4: 6) The Holy Spirit does not ‘do his own thing’ He is the Spirit of Jesus; see also in (John 14: 26 and 16: 7-15) Which means he continues the work of Jesus, reflects the character of Jesus, and makes Jesus real to people.

2. The Spirit creates life: (Galatians 4: 29) Being a Christian is quite simply to be born by the power of the Spirit. To receive the Holy Spirit as God’s gift is like starting life from scratch in a totally new way (Galatians 3: 2-5). Just as the Spirit was involved in the world’s creation (Genesis 1: 2) so he is involved in the Christian’s new creation. God promised centuries ago that he would do this.

3. The Spirit gives assurance: (Galatians 4: 6) When we are tempted to doubt, the Spirit reminds us of the incredible relationship that we have with God by giving us a strong inward conviction that God is our Father. Abba, ‘Not the famous music band called ABBA’ but Abba, the word for Father used in many versions stresses the intimate nature of our relationship but it is also a term of great respect.

4. The Spirit gives strength: (Galatians 5: 5). The full potential of our salvation cannot be realized in this world. Sometimes when we’re under pressure or discouraged we may be tempted to give up. But the Spirit holds on to us and helps us to endure the hardship until our full victory can be finally enjoyed.

5. The Spirit provokes conflict: (Galatians 5: 16-18). Some of the hardship comes because of the Spirit’s life within us. The Spirit is holy and so is strongly opposed to our fallen natural desires. So the new life of the Spirit fights a civil war sort to speak with our sinful desires. What matters though, is that ‘the Spirit has the upper hand and increasingly wins. He cannot do otherwise’

6. The Spirit produces fruit: (Galatians 5: 22-23) Just as an apple tree produces apples ‘OBVIOUSLY’ Because it has a source of life of an apple inside it, so we have the source of life of Jesus inside us and can now reproduce his character in our personality. ‘No better description of Jesus character could ever have been given than the fruit of the Spirit’.

7. The Spirit expects obedience: (Galatians 5: 25) we have seen what the Spirit does for us. But it is obvious that we need to express the Spirit’s life. We are to live our lives under his control. We do this through the obedience to God and love for others, ‘We cannot expect the Spirit to work in us if we are not prepared to express his work. All input and no output makes for a stagnant pool!’