This World Needs the Holy Spirit

Happy Sunday! Today we continue in our study of the Holy Spirit. Well, sort of. I wasn't planning on this one, but today's sermon deals with current events in our world, and it points to the great need for the Holy Spirit. In recent weeks, we have seen a tragic picture of what happens when people reject the Holy Spirit.

On May the first, my sermon was entitled "Empty Is Not Good," and I spoke of the dangers of an empty life. In the past few weeks, we have seen new scars on our nation as a result of empty lives. In Uvalde, Texas, 22 people were killed and, I think, 27 were injured in a school shooting. In Buffalo, New York, ten were killed and three injured in a grocery store.

And current events: our Supreme Court is under attack because of the possibility of overturning Roe v. Wade. Politicians are downright hateful to one another; the language is hard to listen to. In the Southern Baptist Convention, many people are devastated by the news of sexual sins of pastors and the cover-up that followed. I've chosen just a few of the headlines from the month of May. I've not mentioned the war in the Ukraine are other injustices all over this globe.

What in the world is going on? You know, don't you? This world needs God. This world needs Jesus. This world needs the Holy Spirit. People may say, "Where was God during the shootings?" And skeptics love to say things like that.

God is blamed for all sorts of things. It wasn't God that shot those innocent children in Texas or those shoppers in Buffalo. It was someone who was void of God. If the 18-year-old, whose name I will not mention, had devoted his life to Christ, none of this would have happened.

And let me say this about the scandal in the Southern Baptist Convention: if those who are on the list had walked in the Spirit daily, these things never would have happened. We need to understand just how vital it is that we ask the Holy Spirit to walk with us every moment of every day. It only takes one bad day to ruin a reputation you've built a lifetime building. We can't take any time off from yielding our lives to the Holy Spirit.

Listen to these words from Galatians 5, verses 16 and 17. Paul says, "So I say, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won't be doing what your sinful nature craves. The sinful nature wants to do evil, which is just the opposite of what the Spirit wants. And the Spirit gives us desires that are the opposite of what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other, so you're not free to carry out your good intentions." Isn't that true?

I want to repeat the last part of Galatians 5:17. "These two forces," your flesh and the Spirit, "these two forces are constantly fighting each other, so you're not free to carry out your good intentions." You see, without the Holy Spirit, our plans and good intentions will never happen. Never.

Graduations are occurring all over right now, and it's an exciting time. I doubt that if you ask a senior today if they planned one day to be on drugs or an alcoholic or in prison or a total failure, I doubt they'd agree to that. They'd argue, "No, I didn't plan to be there. I don't plan to be that way." I doubt anyone plans for those things. The class of 2022 has great plans, like every other class, but without the Holy Spirit, all of our plans are in jeopardy.

Remember the example from Matthew 26. Jesus went to Gethsemane to pray before he was turned over to be crucified. He took Peter and James and John with him, and he asked them to pray. He told him in Matthew 26:38, "I am deeply grieved, even to death. Remain here and stay awake."

Jesus came back after praying for an hour or so, and he found these three great disciples sleeping. He told them to stay awake and pray, and they took a nap. And giving an explanation for this, Jesus said, "The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh, the flesh is weak." And it is.

Peter, James, and John were trying this on their own. The Holy Spirit had not come to them as it would on the day of Pentecost, and we're going to talk about that next week. Because our flesh is weak and we have a sin nature, our need for the Holy Spirit is great.

Back to Galatians 5. Listen to these words from verses 19, 20, and 21. There we are told, "When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outburst of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God."

That list from Galatians sounds like modern times, doesn't it? People living without God are capable of all sorts of evil. We have seen too much of that as of late. Today I want to encourage you to walk with God daily. Seek the Holy Spirit, and don't take a minute off.

Pray for this world. We need revival. Join me next week as I dive into the day of Pentecost, found in Acts chapter 2. Thanks for watching. Let's pray together.

Lord God, this world needs you more than ever. We need revival. We need people to come to know Christ, to be saved, and we need those that are safe to walk in the Spirit daily. In the news, there have been stories of people claiming to be Christians doing horrible things, and people without God doing horrible, unspeakable things, and none of us are immune.

But if we walk in the Spirit daily, we'll bear good fruit, not bad. Help that to be all of our goals, and help us to pray for this world. Holy Spirit, come. In Jesus' name, amen. God bless.