The Spirit Lives in Me, So Why Do My Affections Waver?
00:00:00.000 | Pastor John, in pursuing daily joy in God, how important is the permanently abiding
00:00:09.800 | and indwelling Holy Spirit in me? And if indwelling is important, how do I explain
00:00:15.400 | my own personal fluctuating experience of joy in God when the source of my
00:00:19.080 | personal joy, the Holy Spirit, is constantly personally present in me at
00:00:24.240 | all times? That's a really good question because its premises are right. We
00:00:31.440 | do have the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is sovereign. He's God. And so why isn't
00:00:36.240 | He producing His fruits in me as fully as they could possibly be produced? That's
00:00:40.960 | a really, really good question. And one of those fruits is His joy, His patience.
00:00:45.640 | And if you go to the book of Ephesians, there are clues that, in fact, the Holy
00:00:51.680 | Spirit doesn't govern us that way. Ephesians 5, 18, "Be filled with the Holy
00:00:57.640 | Spirit," clearly signals there are gradations of fullness, and that means, I
00:01:04.440 | think, gradations of His control. That is, He is willing to let Himself be more or
00:01:10.800 | less resisted. He says in Ephesians 4, 30, "Do not grieve the Holy Spirit." So the
00:01:17.640 | Holy Spirit is willing to let Himself be grieved by certain attitudes that we
00:01:23.340 | have. That doesn't mean that the Holy Spirit has ceased to be God, that He somehow ceased
00:01:27.440 | to have the power to sanctify us. It means that He has His sovereign reasons
00:01:31.960 | for why He would be willing to be grieved by us. And chapter 1, verse 17 of
00:01:38.000 | Ephesians--it's just amazing how many of these are in Ephesians--Paul prays for
00:01:44.440 | saints that the eyes of our heart would be opened to know our calling and to see
00:01:53.160 | the greatness of our inheritance and the power at work in those who believe. Now, why would he pray that?
00:01:57.280 | Well, because our eyes get dull. And if our eyes get dull, our feelings get dull. And
00:02:03.120 | the Holy Spirit answers that by opening the eyes of our hearts, which means He
00:02:08.960 | could have kept them open, but He has His reasons for allowing there to be these
00:02:13.240 | seasons of seeing less clearly. Same thing in Ephesians 3, verse 18, where Paul
00:02:19.440 | prays that the Lord Jesus--that you be strengthened with power in your heart,
00:02:25.600 | according to His Spirit, that Christ would dwell in your hearts by faith.
00:02:31.360 | That's a strange thing to pray for a Christian, isn't it? We all have Christ
00:02:35.600 | within us, we all have the Holy Spirit within us, and yet he's praying that
00:02:39.840 | Christ would dwell. And I think that means that Christ would dwell manifestly,
00:02:44.160 | that Christ would dwell powerfully, all of which simply says both the Holy
00:02:49.760 | Spirit and the indwelling Christ are there, and they're there always for the
00:02:55.040 | believer. They don't go in and out, but they are there in different levels of
00:03:00.640 | power, different levels of manifestation, different levels of control. And if you
00:03:06.540 | ask me why, why wouldn't He just take us straight there, I would say the same
00:03:13.840 | reason He doesn't knock the devil out entirely, which He could do this
00:03:18.080 | afternoon, He could just end the devil's existence entirely, He could change
00:03:22.360 | history entirely, He could bring the kingdom entirely. Instead, He is working
00:03:27.440 | progressively with us, because evidently He gets more glory through the kinds of
00:03:32.460 | battles Christians fight with their own sin than if we were to just be
00:03:38.280 | transformed in an instant.
00:03:40.520 | Thank you, Pastor John, and thank you for listening to this podcast.
00:03:43.320 | Send your questions to us via email at askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org.
00:03:46.720 | Please include your first name and your hometown. You can find thousands of other
00:03:49.720 | free resources online from johnpiper@desiringgod.org.
00:03:52.920 | I'm your host Tony Reinke, thanks for listening.
00:03:56.680 | [BLANK_AUDIO]