The Holy Spirit Gives us Everything We Need
2
Peter 1:3-4
His divine power has given us
everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who
called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very
great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the
divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.
We
have been talking about the Holy Spirit for months here. Ever since the Holy
Spirit encounter, we at St. Marks have been focused on the Holy Spirit. Who He
is, what He does. In John 14:12, Jesus tells his followers: I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith
in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these
[new things!], because I am going to
the Father. Jesus is promising us that we will do even greater things than he did because he is going to
the Father and sending us the Holy Spirit.
His divine power has given us
everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who
called us by his own glory and goodness.
I
want to ask you a question: Is anything too hard for God? The answer is that
nothing is impossible for God. Nothing. OK, follow me here. God has given us
Himself, in the Person of the Holy Spirit, who lives within us. If the Holy
Spirit lives in us, what is too hard for us? Nothing!
Because
God, in his divine power, has given us everything we need. Everything. In
giving us the Holy Spirit, God has given us everything we need for life and
godliness. God has given us everything we need for life and godliness, and that
everything has a name and that name is the Holy Spirit.
One
of the problems in life is that we often live by fear instead of faith. It is a
sad thing when the church lives and makes decisions out of fear instead of by
the Holy Spirit. Just think back to familiar Bible stories and think what would
have happened if Bible heroes had acted out of fear.
Noah
would have stopped building the ark when his neighbors started in on him.
Abraham would never have left his land to head to a land God promised him.
David would never have defeated Goliath, and Israel would have been defeated by
the Philistines. Nehemiah would never have rebuilt the wall of Jerusalem.
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego would have just gone ahead and bowed to the
statue of King Nebuchadnezzar. Peter, Andrew, James, and John would never have
left their fishing boats to follow Jesus. None of the disciples would have
preached. Paul would have just shut his mouth.
And many of us have
slipped into a life based on self-preservation. We live in fear. What would
happen if God had a fantastic purpose for us? What if God actually believed
that His people would do even greater things than Jesus did while he was on
earth? What if God actually thought we could?
What
might we look like if we stopped being afraid? There are times when people are
afraid of what God might call them to do. This is a big problem for churches.
What would happen if God calls us to reach out to those people? What would happen if God called us to restructure our
personal lives in order to give to God generously and not live hand-to-mouth as
a church? Maybe you are afraid to trust the Holy Spirit in everything. Maybe
you are afraid to trust the Holy Spirit with your money. When the Bible talks
about giving, some people think the tithe is optional. It wasn’t meant to be
optional. But with the New Testament, the tithe was abolished as the required
giving. No longer were Christians required to give 10%. No, now we are required
to give 100%.
God
has already given us 100% of himself – at our baptism, we received all of the
Holy Spirit. So we don’t need more of God, but it’s about God receiving more of
us.And when God has a hold of all of us, every
bit of every one of us, then God can (and will!) do amazing
things through us. Sometimes people come to me wanting advice or prayer, but
often they want an easy fix, but honestly if you want to fix
anything that has become such a problem that you’re willing to ask someone for
help, then it’s going to be hard to fix it.
But
you don’t have to do it on your own! God has given us everything we need. He
gave us himself, and he is sufficient for us.
God
called us by his own glory and goodness – everything about him – his character,
and because of his character, he has made promises to us. What has God promised
us? God promises us himself.
Often
Christians simply try to overcome our sins on our own, to change behaviors. We
work really hard to do it on our own, but truth is, only God can do this. Scripture
tells us that God gives us his promises so
that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the
corruption in the world caused by evil desires.
Sometimes
we hear phrases like “escape the corruption in the world” and think that it
means we need to keep ourselves apart from everything in the world. We can’t
allow ourselves to be around non-Christians or in places where non-Christians
gather.
Friends,
escaping the corruption in the world doesn’t mean hiding. It doesn’t mean walling
yourself off from the world. It doesn’t mean pretending that the world doesn’t
exist. But scripture says that receiving God’s promises, we may participate in
the divine nature. We now have a part in God’s nature! If that’s confusing to
you, it just means that we now do what God does because God has replaced our
will with His and our power with His. So instead of hiding from the world in
fear of having the world corrupt you, we live our lives doing what God does.
And what does God do? God goes into the place where He is needed most. God
didn’t shun the world, but instead sent Jesus Christ into the world. And Jesus
went out and socialized and ate with the “sinners and tax collectors.”
Obviously Jesus never walled himself off from society.
I
want to also recognize here that Peter declares that the corruption in the
world is caused by our evil desires. Jesus was able to be among the worst
temptations because he did not share our evil desires. Why not? Because he was
totally 100% submitted to God the Father’s desire, not his own. Remember when
he was in the Garden, before his arrest? He prayed “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me; yet not my will, but
yours be done.” (Luke 22:42) He was completely submitted to God’s will.
Therefore he remained uncorrupted. But be warned, sometimes God even uses our
suffering and overcoming temptation to mold and shape us into His image.
Because
many times when we struggle again and again and again with the same sinful
desires and behaviors the problem is not primarily a behavior problem. It’s a heart
problem. That’s why it’s not enough to just avoid sinful behavior. We have to
let God get at the root of the problem, to transform us!
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