Opening Prayer and Introduction

God, that is just a true statement: when you are glorified, it is for our good. And I pray that you would be glorified tonight in the teaching of your word and the hearing of your word, that we would not go away unaffected. God, I pray that you would give the kids here, the students here, ears to hear, that your Holy Spirit would be active in our hearts. God, I pray that you’d make my teaching accurate. Most of all, God, I pray that you would be glorified. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

All right, have a seat. Are all the boys on spring break? What happened? That might be my new favorite song.

All right, Kiki is handing out note sheets for tonight. If you don’t have one, raise your hand. If you need a pen or a pencil, we have those coming down. If you don’t have a pen, raise your hand. It is so helpful to engage your mind by using a pen and a pencil. That’s a good principle for Bible study. It’s a good principle for listening to sermons. Don’t listen passively, but take in what you hear and then write the implications from what you hear in your own words on your note sheets.

Excuse me.

After camp, we had a little break to learn about what God says about friendships and influences. And now we’re going to be jumping back into what we’ve been doing all year, with a few breaks. We’re going to be jumping back into the Fundamentals of the Faith series. If you guys are doing that—if you’re not, you should start. If you are, it’s time to get your book out with your family.

We’re going through Fundamentals of the Faith chapter by chapter. We’re not doing the chapters here, but we’re taking the lessons. We’ve learned about what the Bible is and how to understand it. If you go all the way back to August, we learned about God and his attributes. We learned about the person of Jesus and his work on the cross. We learned about salvation. And now we are learning about God the Holy Spirit. So if you are going through this at home with your parents, this would be time to break out that chapter on the Holy Spirit.

There is a lot of bad teaching about the Holy Spirit. And honestly, maybe in your life you haven’t been influenced by bad teaching. Maybe you have. Maybe there’s just a lack of thought about the Holy Spirit. I hope that after today you have a better idea of who the Bible says the Holy Spirit is, and that you understand your dependence on him, your need for him, and the worship that you should offer him.

The Trinity: Three Distinct Persons, One God

So, first, God the Holy Spirit. And you’re going to see this on the top of your note sheet. Before we jump into who God the Holy Spirit is, something we’ve made reference to all year but maybe haven’t talked about specifically is that God is three distinct persons, but one God. What’s the name of that doctrine? You guys know the word for that, Haley? The Trinity. Yeah, the Trinity. That word is not in the Bible, but the concept it teaches, the truth it teaches, is all over the Bible.

If you hear somebody say something different about the three persons of God than what you hear today—like, “Well, there’s three separate gods,” or “There’s one God that exists in three different forms at different times,” or if somebody denies the deity of any one of these persons of God—that should be warning bells in your mind to run from whoever is teaching that. The Bible is very, very clear on this point. Even if we can’t liken it to anything else in life, there’s nothing else in our life like this. There’s nothing else in our experience like this triune God: three distinct persons in one God.

We have to know who God actually is, and God reveals himself this way to us. Let’s look at Matthew 3:16, and we get a glimpse of what it means that God is three distinct persons while being one God. There’s not three gods. There’s one God. And yet here, as Jesus is being baptized, let’s see what happens. This is Matthew 3:16. I have it on the screen for you, but I love the pages turning. It’s good to open up your own Bible and see it on your lap for yourself.

It says, “When Jesus was baptized”—so this is God the Son; we learned about Jesus, that he is fully God—“Jesus was baptized. Immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw”—saw who?—“the Spirit of God.” So God the Son sees the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on him. “And behold, a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.’” Whose voice was that? God the Father. How many persons are seen here? Three, right? How many gods are there? There’s only one God.

Notice that there are three separate and distinct persons acting simultaneously in different ways. This is obvious, but there are people who deny this, and this text is clear. There’s the Son being baptized, the Spirit descending, and the Father speaking. So all three—the Son, the Spirit, and the Father—are God. The Father is God. The Son is God. The Holy Spirit is God. And there’s only one God.

God does not change forms. He’s not the Holy Spirit sometimes and God the Father sometimes and the Son sometimes. That’s not what the Bible teaches at all. He always has been God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. The Father is not the Son. The Son is not the Spirit. The Spirit is not the Father. And it is right for us to treat all three persons as God and worship. We can worship God when we worship all three persons. It’s right to pray at times to Jesus, right to pray to the Father, and right to pray to the Spirit.

It would be great for you, as you read the Bible, to look for each of the distinct actions of each of the distinct persons of God. You know the questions that we ask—what’s the second question we teach you to ask in God’s Word? What does this teach you about God? It’s good for you to notice when one of these three persons of the Trinity is at work. What is he doing?

The Father chooses before the foundation of the world. The Son gave himself for those the Father chose to save. And the Spirit renews those who were saved and produces fruit in them. So you have all three persons working together in salvation. Back at the beginning, in creation, what do you have? God said—one God—what did he say? He said, “Let us make man in our image.” There’s one God creating: three persons. All things were made through the Son, and there wasn’t anything made that was made except what was made through Jesus. So we can start to learn the distinct roles of the three persons of this one God. That would be a good thing for you to do in your reading.

Similarly, in baptism, what did Jesus teach us? Matthew 28:19—you can just see this; you don’t have to turn there. Jesus said, “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name”—is that singular or plural? How many names are we supposed to baptize in? One. The name of God: in the name of God the Father and of God the Son and of God the Holy Spirit. This is all over the Bible.

The Bible doesn’t teach us how to wrestle with there being three in one and how it works and then give us clues. It teaches us some very specific things. When the Bible says it, we believe it.

The Bible is clear that these three persons of God are equal in essence—they’re all God—distinct in person, and different in function. Let me say that again. They’re equal in essence. They’re all God. Each person is God. They’re distinct in person. We said that the Father is not the Spirit; the Spirit is not the Son. And yet they’re different in function. They are all worthy of worship, always together. They’ve always been together from eternity past, and they are always cooperating. In all that God does, there is one God who eternally exists as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Father initiates, the Son complies, the Spirit executes the will of both.

The Holy Spirit Is God, Not a Force or an Experience

And so with that, we learn the Holy Spirit is God. We know that. The Holy Spirit is not a force and not an experience. He is God. You might think—and because of the way the Holy Spirit is treated in some churches, especially charismatic circles, or even just in the world—he has the word Spirit in his name, and our culture likens spiritual things to forces, especially an impersonal force. Some people might think of the Holy Spirit as just an impersonal force or an experience to be had. The Holy Spirit is not a force, not an experience. He is God.

Let’s look at Jesus’ teaching. You can turn to John 14:26. So Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, chapter 14, verse 26. Look what Jesus says. And I love it. Look at how you see all three persons of the Trinity here. See if you can see them. “But the Helper”—and that Helper is the Holy Spirit, right? He says it right there—“the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name.” Right there, already in just those words, you have the Father sending the Holy Spirit in Jesus’ name. “He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said.”

Jesus is talking to his disciples about when he leaves, and he says a few chapters later, it’s actually better that I go. The disciples are going to be scared. They’re like, “In just a few hours, you’re going to die.” They’re learning. And then he’s going to go, and he’s going to be gone. And we know in Matthew it ends, “Lo, I’ll be with you always, even to the very end of the age.” Jesus says, “It’s better for me to go, because if I go, who gets to come?” The Holy Spirit.

You might think, “It would be really cool to have Jesus on earth with us.” And there will be a day soon where we will be on earth, and those who have trusted in Jesus, in his millennial kingdom and beyond, where we will be on earth and then in the new heavens and the new earth, and Jesus will be there, and that will be glorious.

But for right now, in our mixed condition, we are born in sin. You are born with a sinful nature, dead in your trespasses and sins. Jesus says it is better right now that he leaves and that he sends his Helper. And that Helper, he tells his disciples, will teach them all things. The apostles would remember what Jesus said, and they would understand the teachings of Scripture, and they would write those things down because the Holy Spirit would teach them.

It says “he”; it doesn’t say “it.” I want you guys to lock into your brain right now. I’ve heard people say—and I think I’ve probably heard some of you say, and that’s okay, it’s an honest mistake—but let’s not make it anymore. When we talk about the Holy Spirit, he is a he. And that’s what it says here. That’s what Jesus says. When the Holy Spirit comes, he will teach you all things. He’s not an it, not a force, but one of the three co-equal persons of God.

Elsewhere in the Bible, what does the Holy Spirit do? He teaches. In Acts 8:29, he speaks. In 1 Corinthians 12, he distributes spiritual gifts. In John 16, he convicts the world of sin. In 1 Corinthians 2, he searches hearts, and in John 15:26 he testifies. Again, he teaches; he guides in Acts 16:6. Romans 8 says of the Holy Spirit that he has a mind. Ephesians 4:30 shows that he has emotion. 1 Corinthians 12 says he has a will. This is not a force. This is God.

So if you’re at John 14:26, look back just a few verses at John 14:16. Look what Jesus says. “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper.” He tells us later who that Helper is, right? The Holy Spirit. He will be “with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, for he dwells with you.” And get this next part: “He will be in you.” Jesus says that the Holy Spirit will come, and he doesn’t just stay out in the world somewhere, but in his people. The Holy Spirit dwells in them.

That’s why it’s to our advantage that Jesus goes away. Think of where God was before, in the Holy of Holies, locked up. Remember, you couldn’t get there. Jesus went away, he died, it’s finished. God the Spirit comes, and he dwells in his people. That’s amazing.

The Holy Spirit Indwells Believers

And that’s our next point. Every believer has the Holy Spirit from the moment of salvation. We’ve learned that the Holy Spirit is God, and the Holy Spirit indwells believers. Could you turn to Romans 8? Go to Romans chapter 8. This whole chapter would be great for you to read. Let’s look at verse 9. And Paul here is speaking to Christians. So Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, Romans, chapter 8, verse 9.

Paul’s talking to Christians, and look what he says. “You, however”—and when you see a however, it’s always a good thing in the Bible. Say, “Okay, well, he’s comparing it to something else.” You see what he’s comparing this to? Look at verses 7 and 8. He’s comparing you Christians to one who is in the flesh, living according to the way they were born, with their mind set on the flesh that’s hostile to God. That’s the way we’re all born. And that’s what non-believers are from the mind. Their thoughts and their intentions and their actions are not neutral to God, not sometimes good, not sometimes bad. Right?

Just a few chapters before, in Romans 3, it says, “No one does good, not even one. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and if any are to be justified, they’re justified by grace through the payment that’s in Christ.” But here, contrasted with the flesh and those who are hostile to God and those who are in the flesh who cannot please God: you Christians. So this isn’t everybody in this room, but this is everybody who’s a Christian, everybody who has turned to God in faith. Everybody.

“You are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you.” So does that mean the Spirit of God dwells in some Christians and not in others, and then if God dwells in you then you’re in the Spirit? No. Look what it says next: “Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ”—that’s the Holy Spirit—“does not belong to him.” And if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness.”

Do you see what this is saying? Every believer—not pastors, not just mature believers, not the spiritual ones, not only the obedient ones in the moment of obedience, but every believer from the moment of salvation—has the Holy Spirit in him or her. The Holy Spirit isn’t someone you lose and gain and say, “Oh, I have the Holy Spirit today. I don’t have the Holy Spirit tomorrow. I need more Holy Spirit today.” That’s not the way this works. The Holy Spirit, if you are his, is in you.

Elsewhere it talks—the Holy Spirit is a seal, a guarantee of your salvation. If you have the Holy Spirit, you can’t lose him. He changed you. He indwells you. You are his, and he guarantees your inheritance that will come. So if the Holy Spirit is in you, you’re his. And anyone who doesn’t have the Holy Spirit is not God’s.

The Holy Spirit regenerates believers, makes you new. The Holy Spirit convicts them of sin, reveals truth through Scripture, nurtures our heart with God’s love, intercedes in prayer when we’re weak, dwells within us, seals our salvation, and then produces spiritual fruit that transforms our character. So I’m going to say it again: those who do not have the Spirit do not belong to Christ, and all believers have the Holy Spirit.

Does that make sense? There’s teaching that you may hear that is not consistent with that, but that is the consistent teaching of Scripture. Where else does it say this? Ephesians 1:13—I referenced it. You don’t have to turn there. You can write that down. All believers are sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, and he is the guarantee of salvation. So all believers have the Holy Spirit. 1 Corinthians 12:13 says that all were baptized into one body by one Spirit.

You might hear somebody call that the baptism of the Holy Spirit. That is a biblical concept, the baptism of the Holy Spirit, but it is not something that happens—if you guys have seen a charismatic view of that, it would be that you’re baptized with the Holy Spirit, now you start speaking in tongues gibberish, and maybe you heal somebody and you do some crazy thing, and then a few hours later you’re back to normal. No. Nowhere in Scripture is that the teaching or the mark. Instead, you were baptized into one body by one Spirit at one time. That means you were submerged in the Spirit. The Spirit is in you. When did that happen? When you believed. Do you ever have more of the Spirit, or do you ever have less of the Holy Spirit? No. You either have the Holy Spirit in you or you do not.

You don’t earn his presence. He doesn’t come in you when you please him, when you do enough good stuff. When does the Holy Spirit come and indwell a believer? The moment they believe, when you confess, turn to God in repentance and faith, and believe. And from that moment on, you are saved. You are God’s. You cannot fall away if you truly are his.

And why will you persevere? We talked about this at camp in the Q&A. All those who are truly God’s will persevere. And we read John 10, right? “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them. They follow me. I give them eternal life. They will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand.” Why will you never fall away? Well, Jesus hangs on. And Jesus says, “And the Father gave them to me, and no one’s greater than the Father.” So you will not fall away because the Father is involved. Why else won’t you fall away? Because if you believe, if you’re his, he gives you his Holy Spirit, and the Spirit will cause you to persevere.

Turn to 1 Corinthians 6:19. This would be a good memory verse. I’m going to encourage you guys to memorize passages of Scripture. Don’t just let that pass over your mind and say, “Yeah, that’s something good I should do someday.” That’s something you should do today. That’s something you should make a regular discipline in your life—memorizing Scripture so you can meditate on it and let it affect you. But what does 1 Corinthians 6:19 say?

“Do you not know that your body”—and this is talking to the Corinthians, who were not exactly strong Christians here. We’re learning about that in the morning. These are, in one sense, carnal Christians. But the ones who really were Christians, this is a true statement—“Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God?” You see again, the Holy Spirit is in them. So who sent the Holy Spirit? God the Father. “You are not your own.” If you are a Christian, do you not know that in your body you have the Holy Spirit?

The idea here, if you go up, is don’t sin with your body. Don’t sin with your body, especially sexually. Why? Because you have the Holy Spirit in you from God. God gave you the Holy Spirit so that you would glorify God in your body. “For you were bought with a price.” Who paid that price? God the Son. See them all three working together: Holy Spirit in you, God the Father sending him, the Son purchasing you, Christian. So what’s the conclusion? Underline that at the end of verse 20: “So glorify God in your body.” And you’re going to do that through the function of the Holy Spirit in you.

You don’t need more of the Holy Spirit if you’re a Christian. You have him. But you do need to be controlled by the Holy Spirit.

The Normal Work of the Holy Spirit and What Spirit-Control Looks Like

The normal work of the Holy Spirit is to make believers godly. There was a unique period in the first-generation church expansion where, when people were controlled by the Holy Spirit—you see this in Acts 2—the Holy Spirit came. They were waiting in the upper room, right? Jesus said, “I have to go so that the Helper can come, the Holy Spirit can come.” Jesus left, they went to the upper room, and they’re waiting, and the Holy Spirit comes.

In that moment there was a unique period in the expansion of the early church when people were controlled by the Holy Spirit. What sometimes was shown was something you could call sign gifts. You could see all the people of all the different countries in Jerusalem. The Holy Spirit comes, and people start speaking in languages that they didn’t know. They were controlled by the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit at work, and they were able to preach the gospel. They were able to teach in a language that they never learned in order to expand the gospel—not with silliness, not with chaos, but with a purpose. God’s purpose, enabled by God the Holy Spirit, at a unique stage in church history. And some of the apostles even performed remarkable healings like Jesus performed.

But then, and now—even then, in the midst of all that—you don’t see a lot of teaching that this is the normal practical function of the Holy Spirit. Instead, you’re going to see all throughout the New Testament that the normal function of the Holy Spirit, at that time and now, is shown by—get this—living in a God-controlled way, demonstrated by turning from sin, being characterized by love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control. Being controlled by the Holy Spirit is shown by speaking and singing truth to other Christians, giving thanks to God, and submitting to one another.

If you say, “I want to be Spirit-controlled”—as we’re going to look at in a second—in Colossians 3 it says that this shows up in being submissive to one another and obedient to your parents. You should want God the Holy Spirit. If Jesus died to purchase you and God the Father sent him and he’s now in you, Christian, you should say, “Please have control of me.” And that’s what we’re going to see next.

Believers Are Commanded to Be Filled With the Holy Spirit

Believers are commanded to be filled with the Holy Spirit and to walk by the Holy Spirit. Now, something I want you to know about this word filled: you might think of the word filled like, “I need to fill a glass of water. My spirit glass is empty today. I need a little more Holy Spirit. God, will you fill my cup up? It feels empty.” That’s not what this word means at all.

Think more like sails on a boat, right? You have a sailboat, and the sails are filled with wind. The wind is the controlling filling. Let’s look at some passages to see this command to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Turn to Ephesians 5:18. You’ll see it up here on the screen. This is a command, not optional.

Right before this command—“be filled with the Holy Spirit”—it says, “Do not get drunk with wine.” Have you guys ever seen anybody drunk? You probably have. They’re not controlled. They’re not in control of themselves. Their flesh is out of control, and they’re being controlled by their flesh. Whatever they want to do, they have lost the ability for self-control.

So a Christian, who should be under the control of the Holy Spirit—don’t get drunk with wine, don’t do drugs, don’t do something that would make you lose control. Don’t go without a full night’s sleep if you can help it. Just so you know, a lack of a full night’s sleep—if you pull an all-nighter—physiologically, your reaction time and your decision-making are actually very similar to if you were just drunk. This doesn’t say don’t stay up all night. This says don’t get drunk. But the contrast is: be filled with the Holy Spirit. Don’t get yourself in a situation where you are going to be out of control. Don’t get in a situation where you will not be able to walk as a wise one.

Do you remember the verse right before this? Look, think, step. “Look carefully how you walk, not as unwise but as wise. Don’t waste the time. Redeem the time. Understand what the will of the Lord is.” How can you understand what the will of the Lord is if you’re a Christian? Who do you have in you? God the Spirit. So don’t do anything or expose yourself to anything that would make you not Spirit-controlled.

So don’t get drunk, but rather be filled. And what are the things that being filled with the Holy Spirit looks like? It’s not the super-spiritual things that the world thinks of. It’s addressing one another in psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, making melody in your heart to the Lord, telling each other truth. This is why we sing songs out loud. This is the Holy Spirit in us. As we sing truth to God, we are also singing truth to each other. We should encourage each other with the truths that we sing and the truths that are in God’s Word outside of just our formal singing time.

Being filled—being controlled by the Spirit—will show itself in addressing each other with God’s Word, especially with songs, and in being thankful. You see it? Giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Hey, there’s all three persons again. Submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.

Then if you look at the rest of chapter 5 and into chapter 6, what are the other ways that being filled by the Spirit plays itself out? Wives, submit to your husbands. Husbands, love your wives. Children, obey your parents. Fathers, don’t provoke. And then it goes on: slaves, obey your masters. Masters, be good masters to your slaves.

There’s another passage that looks almost exactly like this: Colossians 3:16. Same author, but what does he say? He says, “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly.” And you see those exact same lists there. It’s almost word for word. It’s certainly concept for concept. What happens when the word of Christ dwells in you richly? Well, you teach and admonish each other in all wisdom, and you sing songs to each other. You have thankful hearts to God. Wives submit to their husbands, and husbands love their wives, and children obey their parents, and fathers don’t provoke.

So this concept of the Holy Spirit—maybe before today he was mystical to you, someone you didn’t understand, and when you think of the Holy Spirit you think primarily of tongues and laying on of hands for healing and things that he doesn’t tend to do today. But this isn’t the picture in the Bible. The picture in the Bible is that the Holy Spirit indwells believers to make them godly, to make them more like Christ. Being filled with the Spirit, therefore, is—if it’s not saying too much—it is very closely tied to letting Christ’s Word dwell in you richly.

If you want to be Spirit-filled, first off, you have to have the Spirit. You can’t fake this. The kind of life that God calls you to as a Christian is impossible for you to live apart from having the Holy Spirit. You might be able to fake it, but what did Romans 8 say? Apart from the Spirit, you cannot please God. It’s not going to work. So believe, trust in God, repent, turn to him in the gospel, and then fill your heart and mind with the kinds of things that the Holy Spirit would love to use to bear fruit in you. This is where we’re going to end.

Walk by the Spirit

To walk by the Spirit is to live under his control rather than gratifying the flesh. Paul says in Galatians 5:16—you guys probably, some of you know this verse. Some of you might have the fruit of the Spirit memorized. He says, “Walk by the Spirit.” Right? Right before Ephesians 5, where it says be filled by the Spirit, what is he saying? Walk. Walk not as unwise but as wise. Take every step, every decision of your life under the control of the Holy Spirit, not gratifying the desires of your flesh. That would be the things that you want, the things that feel good.

The desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, but the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh. These are opposed to each other. You see what it says? The Spirit opposes the flesh in you, the fleshly, the sinful part of you.

Before you’re saved, you cannot please God. Once you’re saved, you’re now in this mixed condition where you have God’s Holy Spirit. You have a new heart, but you still have your flesh. And the flesh and the Spirit are opposed. There will be one day, Christian, where you are not in a mixed condition, where you will see him and you will be changed. You’ll see Jesus and you’ll be changed. He’ll get rid of this body. He’ll get rid of your sinful nature, and you will only be able to please him.

But for now, praise God, we have the Holy Spirit to do what? To keep you from doing the things you want to do. That’s crazy. Like, “I want to do the things I want to do.” Not if you’re a Christian. If you’re a Christian, you want to do the things God wants you to do. So your prayer should be, “God, let me be Spirit-controlled so I don’t do the things I want, but I do the things you want.”

The fruit of the Spirit—evidence that you have the Spirit—is when you do the things that comport with godliness, where you have love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, and self-control. And right before that, there’s a list of things that show that the Spirit is not controlling you.

How to Be Filled by the Spirit and Walk by the Spirit

Put off what feeds the flesh, and pursue godliness together. I want to keep it simple as we wrap up. How are you to be filled by the Spirit? How are you to walk by the Spirit? Well, put off what feeds the flesh. Put off, run away from what feeds the flesh and what promotes sin. That might be friends. We’ve talked about that. That might be the kinds of friends you hang around with.

It says elsewhere in 2 Timothy, “Flee youthful lusts.” Flee the things that would lead to sin and pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace. Pursue the fruits of the Spirit along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. So how do you be filled with the Spirit? Put off what feeds the flesh and promotes sin, and pursue godliness together.

Stay close to faithful believers. Confess sin. Confess sin. Read. Memorize. Meditate. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. You don’t just read the Bible in the morning to check the box or because you’re supposed to, but because the Holy Spirit in you, if you’re a Christian, uses what is in God’s Word to control you. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly so that you can speak God’s Word, so you can have a thankful heart to God, so that you can be obedient to your parents.

Read, memorize, meditate, pray for help, obey what you already know. A Spirit-filled student, a Spirit-filled Christian, is not one who talks about spiritual experiences, but one who’s increasingly marked by obedience, gratitude, humility, and Christlike speech.

If you do not have the Spirit, if you’re doing this like religion—“I need to come. I need to clean myself up. I need to just try harder”—or maybe you don’t even care about God and what he thinks, you can’t fake this. You can’t say, “Okay, I’m going to do something that looks like fruit of the Spirit.” God sees through it. God only accepts what he produces. And he will produce glorifying life in you through his indwelling Holy Spirit.

So let’s go to discussion groups and for the next 20 minutes discuss this, get your questions answered, and really, if you’re a Christian, resolve to be Spirit-controlled, filled by the Spirit, and walk by the Spirit.