When I was learning how to drive and in college working for a pizza delivery company that took me all over a new city, I didn’t have access to GPS. GPS systems just were still really new, and really expensive and it was definitely out of my price range as a high school student and college student. So what did we rely on? I had a stack of fold out maps that I kept in the little driver’s door pocket in my car. And when you needed to go somewhere you had to find the right map for that section of the city, and then look up the street in the side index, and find the graph that the address was in and then you had to write down all the streets you had to turn down to get to where you wanted to go. It was less than convenient, but for decades, this is how people got around and got directions to new places.
I remember the day when the MapQuest website came out, and how incredibly helpful that was. Even though I couldn’t afford a GPS system to go in my car, I could easily get on the MapQuest website on the school’s free internet, type in where I needed to go, and print out instructions to get to where I need to go. That saved a lot of time. But for decades, people used maps.
However, whether it’s a fold-up map in your glovebox, or directions printed out from a website, or a GPS app on your phone, the point is that we all rely on directions to get to places that are unfamiliar to us. The same is true for us spiritually. We need a guide. We need someone to teach us how to get to the spiritual maturity that God desires. We need someone to teach us what is true and good in a world full of lies and evil.
This is one of the roles the Holy Spirit takes in the life of the believer. The Spirit teaches us TRUTH. He guides us into all truth. In each person who has accepted Christ as their Lord and Savior, the Spirit dwells and speaks truth to us, and teaches us how to discern what is true from what is not.
Let’s take a look at some of the passages that talk about the Spirit’s role in this way. The first is 1 John 2:27, “And as for you, the anointing which you received from Him remains in you, and you have no need for anyone to teach you; but as His anointing teaches you about all things, and is true and is not a lie, and just was it has taught you, you remain in Him.” (NASB)
I love to preach and teach. These are some of my gifts that I have been given by the Holy Spirit to build up the body of Christ. But as much as I love to preach and teach, and as much as I hope you get spiritual nourishment from these sermons, if you are not relying on the Holy Spirit to teach you apart from my sermons, you are missing out on where the majority of your spiritual guidance is supposed to come from. That’s what John is saying here, that you need to be relying on the Spirit to teach you because that is His role. He will teach you ALL things, John says, and John goes on to say that all the things that the Spirit will teach you, you can trust are true and not a lie. We read two weeks ago another passage John wrote in John’s gospel that the Spirit is called the Spirit of truth. He defines truth and is the one who speaks truth to us, and this truth is what He desires to teach each and every person who calls on Him.
If you want to grow in your relationship with Christ, with the Lord, you better be listening to the Spirit’s teaching, and the Spirit teaches truth through His Word. This is exactly what John says in John 16:13-14, “But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. 14 He will glorify Me, for He will take from Mine and will disclose it to you.” (NASB)
The Bible is the primary way God speaks to us. Hebrews 4:12 reminds us that the word of God is living and active. This is because what God has spoken never ceases to be true or relevant to His creation. Everything that we need to know about living life and living it God’s way is contained in Scripture. It is God inspired, Paul reminds us, and useful for all situations and all our needs. So the role of the Spirit in the life of the believer then, is to speak the words of the Father and the Son, through the word of God, to us in such a way that it guides us into all truth.
1 Corinthians 2:12-16 adds this, and I would actually even start at verse 11, “For who among people knows the thoughts of a person except the spirit of the person that is in him? So also the thoughts of God no one knows, except the Spirit of God. 12 Now we have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God. 13 We also speak these things, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words. 14 But a natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. 15 But the one who is spiritual discerns all things, yet he himself is discerned by no one. 16 For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he will instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ.” (NASB)
No one can know the mind of God, the Father and the Son, except the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit knows the mind of the Godhead because He is part of the Godhead. So if you ever want to know what it is that God has to say to you about anything, your best guidance is going to come from the Spirit speaking through God’s word. It is in this way that the Spirit will give believers the mind of God, the mind of CHRIST concerning all things. The Spirit teaches us truth, He guides into all truth, like a spiritual GPS. That is one of His roles in believers.
We have one more role of His we’re going discover this morning, and that is the role of life-giver. The Spirit gives us LIFE. In Genesis 1, we are told that mankind is created in God’s image, in the image of the Father, Son, and Spirit. Two things we are told time and time again throughout the Bible, both New and Old Testament, is that God is love, and God is holy. This means that we, mankind, were also created to be like Him in love and holiness. This is part of His image that we are meant to be formed in, and this is what life is meant to look like for us, lived in God’s love and holiness.
Romans 8:9-11 helps to add to our understanding of how the Spirit gives us life. “However, you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him. 10 If Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, yet the spirit is alive because of righteousness. 11 But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.” (NASB)
We are not in the flesh, we are in the Spirit, if we believe and have been saved through Christ. Since we have the Spirit living in us, the same Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead, He is also working in us to give us life in the Spirit. We were created to be like Christ, the Son, and the Spirit gives us life like Christ had life, life eternal in our spirits which are alive even in our mortal and perishable bodies.
John 10:10 reminds us of what this life in Christ, life in the Spirit is, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came so that they would have life, and have it abundantly.” (NASB) Life in the Spirit, life in Christ through the Spirit is abundant life. This is the thing we were created for. Abundant life, abundant love, abundant holiness.
And one of my favorite passage of all time, the passage from Galatians 5:22-23 that reminds me of what abundant life looks like on the outside, when I am fully walking with the Spirit and listening to His truth spoken into my life through His Word, I see these things displayed in me, in my heart, in my actions, in my thoughts, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.” (NASB)
When you are walking in the Spirit, spending time with Him through the Word of God and in silence in prayer, seeking His will, listening to His voice, letting Him teach you and guide you in truth, give you life, that life will result in abundant love, abundant joy, abundant peace, abundant patience, abundant kindness, abundant goodness, abundant faithfulness, abundant gentleness, and abundant self-control.
These outward fruit of the Spirit, of life in the Spirit, are a good litmus test as well. If ever you find that you’re love is less than abundant, or your patience is less than abundant, or your self-control is less than abundant, that’s not a sign that you need to make yourself more loving, or patient, or self-controlled, rather it’s a sign that you need to spend more time cultivating and growing intimacy with the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of the living God, who gives life to us. These fruit of the Spirit will only come naturally and genuinely from a deep and devoted walk with the Spirit, and a humble willingness to listen to Him and let Him change us.
These are two of the roles of the Spirit in the life of the believer. He works both to teach us the truth, God’s truth through His Word, to give us the mind of Christ concerning all things; and He works to give us life, abundant life, eternal life like the life that sustained Christ Jesus, made in the image of God, and redeeming that image to attain its fullness in love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. I implore you, brothers and sisters, to let the Spirit work in these roles and to join Him in that work, “until we all reach oneness in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God, [growing spiritually] to become a mature believer, reaching to the measure of the fullness of Christ [manifesting His spiritual completeness and exercising our spiritual gifts in unity].” (AMP)
Questions to form your quiet times this week:
1. Think about and describe a time recently when you knew the Holy Spirit was clearly teaching you something. What was it? How have you changed through what He taught you?
2. What fruit of the Spirit do you see clearly evident in your life as proof of the new life you have in the Spirit? How has this fruit been used to make disciples of those you know?
3. What fruit of the Spirit is less evident in your life? How might you work with the Spirit to have Him cultivate that new fruit in your life as you live more in Him?