Gregory Dickow - The Holy Spirit, God's Answer for Your Every Need
We're talking about the Holy Spirit today and specifically this morning, I want to talk about the Holy Spirit, God's answer for your every need, God's answer for your every need, and how many know that God knows exactly what we need and God knows how to answer. And the Bible says, my God will supply all of our needs according to his riches and glory. And I think the greatest riches of God is the Spirit of God. The greatest riches of God is his presence. The presence of God is the greatest riches of God. To get into that in a couple of moments.
But I want to take you to John Chapter 20. Let's start there, John. Chapter 20, verse 19. He leaves them with three parting gifts. The first gift he leaves them with after his resurrection is peace. He says peace to you. And then in verse 21, he says it again, peace be with you. How many know that this world is full of stress? This world is full of anxiety. This world. World is full of depression. And God gives us what we need for whatever emotion or whatever stress or whatever conflict that is going to exist in this world. How many know you can have peace in the midst of the storms of life? Jesus at peace in the storm, and he slept in the midst of it. The disciples were freaking out, but Jesus was asleep in the back of the boat. Why? Because he had the Holy Spirit living in him. He had the peace, the living in him. He had the assurance that God was with him. He had the assurance that his presence was more powerful than the problem.
Do you know that the storm was not the problem? The real problem was their fear. The storm was not the problem. The problem was they were afraid and they were ignorant of God's presence here. Jesus was in the back of their boat and they're freaking out. How many know? Sometimes you don't even realize what we have. We don't even realize who's with us. We don't even realize what we've got. We don't even realize that we've got Jesus at our side. We've got the Holy Spirit living inside of us. We got the Word of God, the promises of God, the power of God. There's nothing to be afraid of. No matter what storm you're going through, you have peace in the midst of the storm. Then he says, as the Father has sent me, I send you the second gift he gives them is purpose.
You know, every one of us is going to go through times where we feel like we feel low about ourselves. We feel discouraged about life. We feel like we haven't accomplished much. You get to thirty and twenty and thirty. You still dreaming big dreams. You get to forty and you're like, what? Why haven't I accomplished much? By the time you get to fifty, maybe you're in a mid-life crisis. Maybe you're wondering what am I really, you know, have I really accomplished anything in this life and and. And is there more? And you get discouraged. You make bad decisions when you're discouraged. But what I'm trying to tell you here is Jesus prepares us for whatever we're going to face by giving us this beautiful gift called purpose. He said, as the Father has sent me, I also send you he gave these disciples purpose. He gave them a reason to live.
Everyone here has a reason to live. Everyone here has a purpose. Everyone is here by God's God's design. You were God's idea. You were God's idea. You were God's idea. You were God's idea. You were God's idea. You were God's idea. You were God's idea. You were God's idea. Hey, everyone say I was God's idea. You know what? Every idea God has is a good idea. God never came up with a bad idea. He always has a good idea. And you're one of his ideas. So you're good. And everything's going to end up good because God's ideas never fail. Name one thing that God ever created that ever failed. Say man, man failed. But Jesus was there to be the second Adam to make sure that whatever man did, Jesus did. And he fixed what man did wrong because God never makes man or anything. That is a bad idea. It's a good idea. It has some bumps along the way. It has some bruises along the way. But everything God makes is a good idea.
And you were his idea, you're God's design. You're created by him, created in his image, created like him, and when you start believing that about yourself, you're going to live on purpose. You're going to live with goals. You're going to live with dreams. You're going to live with vision. You're going to live with joy. You're going to live with confidence. You're going to get through anything. You're going you're going to power through any pain you're experiencing. You're going to power through your past. You're going to power through your problems. You're going to power through your pain because you have a purpose. We don't have a purpose. You're going to be bored when you don't have a purpose.
When you're not aware of your purpose, you're going to be bored in life. When you're not aware of your purpose, you're going to be depressed in life. When you're not aware of your purpose, you're going to be discouraged in life. But when you're aware of your purpose, you will power through anything to see that purpose come to pass. So the first thing Jesus gives in is parting gifts as he leaves to be ascended to the Father, he gives peace. The second thing he gives is purpose. And the third thing he gives you got it. It's power, he says. And when he said this, he breathed on them and said, Receive the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the power of God. The Holy Spirit is the motor of God, the engine of God, the muscle of God. The Holy Spirit is the part of God that gets stuff done. He's the part of God that lives inside of you.
The Father is in heaven and Jesus is seated at his right hand. But the Holy Spirit is the God part inside of you. And he doesn't live next to you. He doesn't live above. You are beneath you. He lives in you. Now, people have said to me for years and, you know, people have been saying this for years, is that wouldn't it be great if Jesus was next to me? What if what if I would have been there? I wish I would have been there when Jesus walked the Earth or I wish Jesus was here today. But I want you to know something. And wouldn't that be great? So if Jesus is linked to your arm today, just think about what that would be like for you to walk around and Jesus is linked to your arm. I mean, if you ever got sick, he would just lay hands on you and you'd be healed.
If you ever got discouraged, he would look at you and smile and encourage you. If you're ever out of breath, he'd breathe into you breath. If you're ever afraid, he'll give you peace. If you're ever worried or anxious, he'll calm your nerves. He's right there next to you. If you ever if life is ever throws you a curve, he'll catch it and intercept it and intercede for you and make sure that he turns that situation around. I mean, Jesus being with you, if you ever hungry, he knows how to find fish. He knows how to man here, just say let's go fishing over here and man, you drop your net in there, drop your your fishing line in there and you'll have a fish before you know it with some money on the side. Come on. Who's with me. Jesus is so powerful. So you go you're one of your family members is suffering.
So you just walk up there and Jesus is there and he heals them of their suffering. He walk into the hospital and you heal everyone you're with because Jesus is with you. I mean, think about how awesome that would be. And yet Jesus said when his disciples who had been with him for three years, Jesus said in John, chapter 16, verse seven, and look at what Jesus said in the New American Standard Bible. He says, But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away. We think it would be to our advantage if Jesus was at our link to our right arm, our left arm. But Jesus said, is to your advantage that I go away for if I do not go away, the helper will not come. But if I go, I will send him to you. Talking about the Holy Spirit, of course. And you know, I like the the good news translation of this verse.
And there are several others that say it this way. But the good news translation verse seven says he said, Jesus said it is better for you. The New American Standard says its to your advantage. But the the good news Bible says it is better for you that I go away. Who what could be better than Jesus? What can be better than Jesus linked to your harm? Well, here's one thing that is better than Jesus linked to your arm, the Holy Spirit living inside of you, the Holy Spirit living inside of you. And in John Chapter 14, look at what he says the Holy Spirit will do in verse sixteen. He says, this is what the Holy Spirit will do. John, chapter 14, verse 16. He says, I will ask the father and he will give you another helper and he will be with you forever. Not just with you, but look at what he goes on to say. That is the spirit of truth whom the whom the world cannot receive because it does not know. It does not see him or know he knows him, but you know him because he abides with you.
Everybody say with you and he will be in you say in you. So not only is he with us, he is with us. God with us. That's Emmanuel. That's what Jesus came to do to be with us. But the Holy Spirit came to be in us. Listen, we've got to get Holy Spirit conscious. We've got to get Holy Spirit conscious. We got to get God inside. Conscious, in other words, is not God up there in heaven and you down here suffering and trying to obey his commands. It's the Holy Spirit inside of you working in you to bring about God's purpose in your life, no matter how bad it looks right now, no matter how far you feel from God's purpose in your life, you have the power inside of you now for God to bring it to pass. And he is at working. You watch this.
Watch this first Corinthians, chapter three, verse sixteen. He says, Do you not know? Look at what he says. Do you not know that you are the temple? Of God and the Spirit of God dwells, a new Spirit of God dwells in you, the Spirit of God dwells in you. You know, it says you're the temple in the Old Testament, whenever they would build a temple to the Lord and dedicated fire would come from heaven and consume the sacrifice and the building would be dedicated with fire. So that's why in Acts chapter two, verse three, they were all gathered together at the day of Pentecost. If you go in fact, if you go to chapter two, verse one, look at what it says, let's just start there or go there and start at the beginning of that Chapter X, chapter two, verse one.
When the day of Pentecost come, they were all together in one place where there's something about being together, there's something about gathering. I know that people have philosophies about church. They've been burned. And I've seen people and heard of people, stories that they got heard at a church. So they don't go to church anymore. They are the church at home and they are the church wherever they go. And and while that's there's an element of truth to that, there wasn't going to be any power flowing if they weren't together.
There's something that happens when we come together. There's something about being connected. There's something about gathering with other believers, because God believes in community and God believes in family and God believes in togetherness and God believes in unity. There the Lord commands the blessing. And they were all gathered together on the day of Pentecost in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven, a noise like a violent rushing wind. And it filled the whole house where they were sitting and what does it say? And there appeared to them tongues as a fire, distributing on each one, each resting on one of them, or they rested on each one of them and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit.
Now watch this in verse four excuse me, in verse three, it says, The Holy Spirit came and there were tongues of fire on every one of them. And we all are like, wow. Oh, oh. Like, we look at that and we believe that verse. Man, can you imagine tongues of fire resting on every person? Can you imagine the tongue of fire coming out of heaven and resting on a person's head? That's what they witnessed. That's what they experienced. And we all believe that. But you know what the problem is with religion that picks and chooses some some verses and some beliefs and then leaves the rest out. Verse four says, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit was giving them utterance. And you know what we're like, oh, a lot of Christians are like, oh, I don't believe everybody should speak.
I don't know if tongues is from God. I don't know. That's hard to believe that if you're speaking in tongues, that it even makes sense to God. That's so weird. Speaking in tongues, praying in tongues. Who is praying tongues. You just got done believing in verse three that a tongue of fire rested on somebody's head and you got a hard time believing in speaking in tongues. That's that shows you what religion has done to the church and what religion has done to Christians, where we could believe that God could part the Red Sea. But then we question you really believe in speaking in tongues. That we believe Jesus could part the Red Sea, that God could part the Red Sea, but that he can't heal your body. Well, you know, God doesn't always heal people, you know, you sometimes you just God's trying to God sends that sickness to teach you a lesson.
You know, I think that God sent the Bible to teach us a lesson. I think we have the Word of God. Sickness and disease never taught me anything except this. Don't eat that again. Am I in the right place here? How many think sickness it was sent from God? When sickness comes, you nobody's like. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Jesus. Oh, this is so great. It's amazing. I'm going to do that again. I'm going to eat food poisoning again. I can't wait back. Poison everything, poison me, poison me until I die and let me really give God some glory. Nobody does that. You know why? Because you know, in your heart of hearts, healing is God's gift, not sickness. Nowhere, nowhere in the Bible does Jesus make someone's condition worse. He always makes their condition better.
Everyone who's blind was healed. He didn't blind the seeing person, he healed the blind person. He didn't make deaf those that heard he made those that were deaf to be able to hear. He didn't make plans. People leper's. He made lepers cleansed. He didn't read the already living. He raised the dead. He didn't take. Food to make people hungry. He gave. Food and fed the multitudes, we got to get our perspective right on what God's like. Because religion has painted this dark, mysterious picture about God. Well, you never know. Sometimes God says yes and sometimes God says no. Where where is that? Where is that in the Bible? Well, we just know it in life. Well, you got to have to decide what you're going to believe is the basis of your life.
If the Bible is the basis or if people's experiences are the basis of your life, you have to choose what is going to be the foundation of your life. For me, the foundation of my life is the Word of God. Man, if the Bible says, speak to the mountain, I'm not going to let the mountain speak to me. I'm going to speak to the mountain. If the Bible says here, I want to give you this beautiful gift called Praying in Tongues, I'm going to Shalah Belmondo. Come on, man. I'm a verse eight. And it says, How is it that each of us hear them in our own language to which we were born? Parthians and Medes and Islamists in Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontius Asia, Nigeria paraphilia Egypt, districts of Liberia, Cairene, Rome Jews, proselyte Cretans Arabs. We hear them in our own tongues. Speaking of the mighty deeds of God, this is what happened.
The day of the Holy Spirit came, He brought people together and there was unity and everyone was hearing about the mighty deeds of God. And the thing that brought everybody together was the Holy Spirit. Verse twelve. Look at what happens in verse twelve. Let's keep going. And they were all continue to be in amazement and great perplexity, saying to one another, What does this mean? And but others were mocking and saying they are full of wine. They've been drinking. But Peter, taking a stand with the eleven, raised his voice. This is my one of my favorite scriptures. It's the funniest verse. He raised his voice and said, Menaged, in all you live in Jerusalem. Let this be known and give heed to my words. Let he said, for these men are not drunk, as you suppose.
Notice what he says. These men aren't drunk, as you suppose, because it's only the third hour of the day. He said, guys, if it was nine o'clock, they would be drunk, just some comic relief in the Bible. He said this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel. Who said in the last days? I will pour out my spirit upon all mankind and notice what the Holy Spirit does when he comes upon all mankind, that means this is this is the Holy Spirit heals all the inequality. The Holy Spirit heals all the racism, the Holy Spirit heals all the divisions. The Holy Spirit heals all the gender inequality. Look at what he says. I will pour out my spirit on all mankind, your sons and your daughters shall prophesy there's equality between boys and girls, he said, and your young men shall see visions and your old men shall dream dreams.
There's equality among ages, even on my bond servants, both men and women, I will pour out my spirit. There's equality among male and female, and they shall prophesy. But I want you to go back and see sons and daughters. Young and old, male and female. All the nation's. All people. Who possibly could bring all these people together and heal a broken world divided by gender, divided by race, divided by color, divided by age, divided by social economic status, divided by nation, divided by language, who could bring all of them together? And bring power into their lives. That leaves them changed forever and gives them the power to change the world forever. Only the Holy Spirit, beloved the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit is so important and we've made it to be where you're baptized in the Holy Spirit, makes you some sort of weirdo when really baptism in the Holy Spirit breaks the barriers, brings equality, releases the power and gives you the ability to prophesy and to speak to the mountain and speak to the dry bones, come back to life, dry bones. That's what happens when you get a hold of what the Holy Spirits presence means in your life. The Holy Spirit is God's presence in your life. It's God's presence everywhere you go, it's God's presence to fill and to heal the central problems that every human soul experiences. The Holy Spirit heals loneliness. He heals sadness and he heals powerlessness.
Do you know that every one of our problems, every one of our circumstances and situations that happen in life put us in a condition where we either where we either have sadness, loneliness, or we have a sense of powerlessness. And, you know, the Holy Spirit is the solution to all three of those things. The Holy Spirit delivers us from sadness by bringing us his joy. The Holy Spirit delivers us from unhappiness, I should say, unhappiness or sadness. By bringing us joy, he delivers us from powerlessness. By bringing us his power and he delivers us from loneliness by bringing his presence where he says, I will never leave you nor forsake you. Where else can you go and find that kind of quality, that kind of that kind of equality, that kind of power, that kind of freedom, that kind of deliverance?
You know, they did a survey and found in America 50 percent of the people in this country actually would say they are lonely. You know why? Because sometimes, even though we have people in our lives, nobody can unzip you and come and live inside of you. Fact is, is if they could, then you'd have twice as many problems as you have now because you'd have your problems and now you'd have their problems, too. But what the Holy Spirit does is he comes to live inside of you and he's the problem solver. He's the comforter, the teacher, the encourager, the coach, the helper, the prayer Cledus, the power of God, the living and and the breathing spirit of the living God. And he comes live inside of you to equip you and to empower you to live victorious in this life.