1 Sam 10:6, Then the Spirit of the Lord will come upon you mightily, and you shall prophesy with them and be changed into another man. 
Today we will conclude this immediate consideration of the working power of the Holy Spirit in terms of the baptism and the indwelling power of the Third Person of the Godhead. We do have the assurance, however, that we will never come to the end of His great work. He is the One Who opens His Word to us and in us as we are feed and lead by Him each day of our walk on this earth. We will be singing with the praise and the worship that He instills and evokes in us throughout the course of eternity. There will never be an end to all that the Holy Spirit is and brings forth in the knowledge and the honor and the power and the wisdom of God Who makes Himself increasingly the immeasurable joy and awesome splendor of our walk together on this earth.
As well, it is important to realize that we will never, ever be able to do any depth of justice to this Third Person of the Godhead. The Holy Spirit and the work that He does, as with any of the working Omnipotence, and Omniscience, and Omnipresence of God, is utterly beyond all human comprehension. When we think that we have some grasp of the magnificence and the splendor and the majesty of being so blessed by the Heavenly Father and Our Lord Jesus Christ in the sending forth of the Comforter to indwell and abide in us, we become flabbergasted as He shows ever more awesomely the heart of God in our living relationship with Him. He proves over and over and over again how lost we would be without His guidance, His sustenance, His power, His wisdom, His longsuffering, and His consolation, just to scratch the surface of the glory of His abiding in us.  
Once again, the Apostle Paul continues our deliberation with the encouraging declaration of Rom 12:4-8. Please open to this passage as we thank God for the manner of His work in manifesting everything that the church needs to be the living and vibrant witness of the splendor of God on this earth.
Rom 12:4-8, For just as we have many members in one body and all the members do not have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. And since we have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let each exercise them accordingly: if prophecy, according to the proportion of his faith; if service, in his serving; or he who teaches, in his teaching; or he who exhorts, in his exhortation; he who gives, with liberality; he who leads, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness. 
	This is a tremendous aspect of the work of the Holy Spirit that needs to be detailed and considered as so vital to this fellowship as part of the true Church of God Universal. We are made, by God, to be members of His very own family. Accordingly, we have that place in the hearts of one another in which each one of us is to be considered as a vital part of the whole. It takes so many different parts to be the body that God has designed. The Apostle uses the model of a human body with all the various elements that are all joined together to be a living and functioning person of God’s creation. 
	That is exactly the case with you and with me as we are united in this fellowship. We are here together, brought into place through the work of God. If you will think of how the Lord has joined each one into the body that is before us, held together through the sinuous weaving and interweaving of the Holy Spirit, made to become the testimony of the One by Whom all is brought into being, there is no place for any animosity, or jealousy, or argumentation, or dissention! 
We may have differing ideas and thoughts, we may be at various stages in our growth unto spiritual maturity, but all that has to come under the hand and the working power and the deliberate cutting asunder by God of anything that does not present the perfection of Jesus Christ to all the eyes that are scrutinizing how we are built together. 
	There are different aspects to each one of us that come under the ministry of the Holy Spirit and are molded and shaped into the living and vibrant Church that we are. There are differences in us, as there are differences in the physical body. But there is One Spirit, the Holy Spirit, through Whom we are knit together into a functioning and active testimony of the difference that the crucified, resurrected, and glorified Lord Jesus Christ makes in the course of our single walk on this earth. 
We are not expected to be the bland vanilla copy of each other. No, as each one of us is shaped and molded by the Lord through all the experiences and adventures of our lives, we develop those aspects which make us essential to the whole of the Body of Believers. The Lord works in us each individually in order to produce exactly the functional necessity that He supplies through us to the whole Body. Each one is uniquely prepared to work together for the more perfect testimony of the truth of Our Risen and Glorified Lord Jesus Christ. 
That is why we need to learn to set aside those things which have no eternal consequence. We need to allow the Lord the freedom to mold us and to work with us and to work in us all that is necessary to bless Him in the course of honoring each other. We actively lay down our lives for one another, as the Lord laid down His life for us. We set aside those petty and non-consequential ideas and sentiments which have no place in our unique and awesome relationship in Jesus Christ. 
As it is stated in this verse, which we all must practice under the tutelage of the Holy Spirit, …he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness. We all, together, urge each other to go on in Christ and to not settle for less than the full knowledge of what our life in Him entails on this earth. We stand together against all the onslaughts of this age which tries to tear and to destroy everything that God has created! 
This working together and this union in Him is what the Apostle then describes in 1 Cor 12:4-13 as the means of God to establish and to build and to maintain His Body of Believers through all the necessary trials and tribulations that we face. It is as we are so fit together, working as one Body that the power of this age is fully defeated by the victory that is established in the glorious resurrection of Our Savior and Our Lord.
1 Cor 12:4-13, Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit. And there are varieties of ministries, and the same Lord. And there are varieties of effects, but the same God who works all things in all persons. But to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. For to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, and to another the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit; to another faith by the same Spirit, and to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, and to another the effecting of miracles, and to another prophecy, and to another the distinguishing of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, and to another the interpretation of tongues. But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually just as He wills. For even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. 
	This is a reality after which we need to seek more fully and more diligently concerning the Holy Spirit. The truth is that the Holy Spirit is the same, yesterday, today and forever! These gifts of the Spirit are just as vital and necessary today as they were when this letter was written to the Church at Corinth. 
Therefore we need to poise a number of necessary questions. Where is the evidence of the Spirit within our corporate gathering together in the name of Jesus Christ? Why aren’t we striving after the greater knowledge of God in the matter of having the closeness with the Holy Spirit that will result in these gifts of His presence among us? He is here, but do we really honor Him in the course of the worship of our hearts and our minds? Do we acknowledge that we need Him more and more as each day unfolds? 
The recognition that as we seek Him we will find Him - needs to be more than just a pleasant voicing of scriptural words. It means that there is that upwelling from within us that places our full desire and the complete measure of our yearning to know Him at the forefront of our every consideration! 
	As we are so encouraged by the writer of the letter to the Hebrews in Heb 2:1-4, we must value our relationship and the necessity of our every moment by moment walk with Him. We need to set it at the forefront of our desires and our attention. Please follow along as we read it together. 
	Heb 2:1-4, For this reason we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, lest we drift away from it. For if the word spoken through angels proved unalterable, and every transgression and disobedience received a just recompense, how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation? After it was at the first spoken through the Lord, it was confirmed to us by those who heard, God also bearing witness with them, both by signs and wonders and by various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit according to His own will. 
	Why is this evidence of the Holy Spirit at work and in operation not being fully manifested in us? We love the Lord with all our hearts! We are gathered together in order to worship Him with one heart and in one Spirit! We seek to be led in our worship by the Holy Spirit in the choice of our singing, our prayers, our reading of the Word of God, and the teaching and feeding of the fellowship. Why then is there this lack of the established and wonderful and glorious gift of the working power of God in the manner in which the Holy Spirit can so bless our gathering with the expressions of His might and majesty and glory and power? 
I am not referring to the need to manufacture some evidence of this every time we meet in the name of the Lord. That was one of the downfalls of the emotional stirring up of congregations in the 60’s and 70’s.  
However, there should be that wonderful current of the manifested glory of God which springs forth from a fellowship that has been marvelously and carefully pieced together by and maintained by God. It begs the question, what value, do we, as the fellowship for more than 60 years, with all the growing and flowing together, have in the eyes of Our God? 
That is the concern I put before us! We are in times of immense struggle and dissention and upheaval and crisis and tribulation bordering on utmost chaos in our culture. This is the time in which we should be more bound together with one another by the powerful cords of love and grace and mercy and kindness as baptized fully in both water and the Holy Spirit into the newness of the life of Jesus Christ!
As is so stipulated by the Apostle Peter, in 1 Peter 4:7-19, we are in those times which will result in us either growing together in the Lord, or perishing from the face of the earth! There is truly no other option! Either we surrender ourselves utterly to the Lord and seek Him and the fullness of His presence and His manifest rule in our lives and our fellowship, or we simply break asunder into the decrepit existence and bitter remembrance of what was. 
1 Peter 4:7-19, The end of all things is at hand; therefore, be of sound judgment and sober spirit for the purpose of prayer. Above all, keep fervent in your love for one another, because love covers a multitude of sins. Be hospitable to one another without complaint. As each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. Whoever speaks, let him speak, as it were, the utterances of God; whoever serves, let him do so as by the strength which God supplies; so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. Beloved, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal among you, which comes upon you for your testing, as though some strange thing were happening to you; but to the degree that you share the sufferings of Christ, keep on rejoicing; so that also at the revelation of His glory, you may rejoice with exultation. If you are reviled for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you. By no means let any of you suffer as a murderer, or thief, or evildoer, or a troublesome meddler; but if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not feel ashamed, but in that name let him glorify God. For it is time for judgment to begin with the household of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the outcome for those who do not obey the gospel of God? And if it is with difficulty that the righteous is saved, what will become of the godless man and the sinner? Therefore, let those also who suffer according to the will of God entrust their souls to a faithful Creator in doing what is right. 
	We, as a fellowship, are on the precipice of our walk together. Unless the Lord intervenes and works in every one of our hearts with the desire that we would seek Him and only Him no matter what the cost, no matter what the road we must take, no matter what the trial and tribulation we must bear, then what is the point of our time together? We must set aside all the conflict, all the petty side issues, all the jealousy, all the anger, all the unforgiveness and all the bitterness which prevents the Holy Spirit from showing forth the full measure of His place of honor in our midst!
I do not bring this forth just for your benefit or for my benefit in any measure. We need to search our hearts out before the Lord for the sake of His benefit, His glory, His honor, and His blessing in the testimony that we live before all on this earth. I place before us the question of why don’t we have the greater manifestation of the One Whom we claim as our source of worship and praise and honor to God? 
Can it be because we are not desirous after all that must be done in our hearts to so have the Holy Spirit’s full and free operation! Are we afraid that He will show us what needs to be cleansed away and where there are those roots of bitterness and vile animosities that prevent His obvious and visible expressions of power and wisdom and honor and glory to be seen among and through us?
We close with the following encouragement from 1 John 5:4-8. 1 John 5:4-8, For whatever is born of God overcomes the world; and this is the victory that has overcome the world — our faith. And who is the one who overcomes the world, but he who believes that Jesus is the Son of God? This is the one who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ; not with the water only, but with the water and with the blood. And it is the Spirit who bears witness, because the Spirit is the truth. For there are three that bear witness, the Spirit and the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement. 
	We all claim to believe that Jesus is the Son of God Who died on the cross for our sins. He was then resurrected and raised us up together with Him into the Heavenly realm and made us part of the very family of God. All that we are and all that we do is set in that truth. 
So if it is the Spirit Who bears witness of this fact, then why has He not come upon us mightily and made Himself fully evident in the course of our being gathered together as His people? I truly believe that it is because we are not seeking to know Him in the fullness of laying down every single aspect of our lives before Him! He needs to cleanse and to build and to knit us together into that glorious creation as His Church that will proclaim with all the power of the God-head, that nothing else matters in our lives except Jesus as Lord! 
	When that is truly our single heart, bound so securely in the cords of our familial bond in Christ, then the Holy Spirit will have that freedom and the means to show forth all the spiritual gifts and miracles and signs that have always been seen where Jesus reigns almighty! It is His Sovereignty over every petty and purposeless opinion and division that brings forth the glorious expression of the gift of His Majestic Holy Spirit. So be it and Amen!

	This morning’s benediction is Rom 9:14+15. What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there? May it never be! For He says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion." Amen.