Tonight, I would like to share a little bit of what we’ve recently  considered on Tuesday Evenings with our young people. It’s been an exciting time of preparation for each Tuesday meeting, and a time of earnestly seeking after the Lord after each meeting as to what was of value in the course of the time spent with our young people. They are a very precious and special group of members of this body, and yet, sometimes, I leave the meeting and wonder why we even bother to have a meeting that they are forced to attend, and without, sometimes, any apparent effort on their part to participate, to listen, or to appropriate what the Word of God says. 
	That’s when the Lord works on my heart to continually hold them in earnest prayer. So what if they don’t seem to pay attention, as long as they are being nurtured in the Love of the Lord, as long as they are being ministered to by the Holy Spirit and from the Word of God. As long we, the fellowship are holding them up in prayer and supplication before the throne of God’s grace, so much are they loved of God, and cared for by God. It is truly a humbling experience to work with these lives that belong to God. Humbling in the very essence of being forced constantly to seek after the Lord as to what to minister, how to minister it, and to keep it all in prayer before Him. It is a time of ministering life, and that life means that I am forced to make certain that what is brought to them is not table-scraps, left-over after the Sunday banquet, but food that will meet their needs, needs which are great and beyond the realization of many of us in this room. The things that they face on a daily basis would cause any of us to be utterly dismayed apart from Christ. So it is that we are constantly seeking to bring them face-to-face with the need for a living relationship, right now, this day, with the Lord Jesus Christ. It can’t be put off until they grow up, just like it can’t be put off until we fulfill the earthly desires of our ambitions. It is vital that they learn what it means to live out from Christ at school, at home, at play, with friends, in the midst of strife, and turmoil and pressures as they grow up in terribly defiled world.
	In line with this, although we have been using a Bible-based curriculum from Scripture Press, the Lord always sees fit to enlarge and to expand our considerations beyond the scope of what is planned, to what is needed. It is amazing just how often our prayer requests before the message lead directly into our study for that evening.
	Our recent considerations have been centered on learning more about the Holy Spirit. It has been an exciting study because we have tried to consider Who the Holy Spirit is and what He does in our lives. I won’t spend a great deal of time this evening trying to relate everything that we have shared about the Holy Spirit. Rather, I would just like to highlight several aspects of some of the work of the Holy Spirit, and to ask you to seek after Him to make known, livingly, the reality of just how much Jesus loved us in giving us the Holy Spirit to minister effectively in our lives.
	The Holy Spirit is mentioned in over 263 passages of the New Testament alone. This should give an indication of the importance that He plays in the life of the Body of Christ. He is the vital element Who makes the difference in our lives as Christians, so let’s briefly look at a few of the ministries of the Holy Spirit as set forth in several verses of the Bible.
	Rom. 8:9 But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you. Now if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. We are indwelled by the Holy Spirit. He resides in us when we accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. This means that we are never without the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives. It is true, that sometimes, unfortunately, we do things that are not pleasing to God, and we wish that we didn’t have the Holy Spirit there as a direct witness of our disobedience. We try to reason with Him and to put Him aside in order to “enjoy ourselves in the flesh”, but that can never be. Once in Christ, always in Christ and always knowing that abiding presence of the Holy Spirit, whether in the righteousness, joy and peace of God, or in the grieving of the Spirit within our hearts as we practice self-desires against God’s desires, He is always there. 
	What a joy it is to know this truth of the Holy Spirit, especially when we need to have His comforting ministry at work in our lives. Friends and relatives can try to give us comfort in our grief, but at some point, they will have to leave us to ourselves. They can not constantly be in our presence, but the Holy Spirit is, whether we wake up in the early hours of the morning in tears and grief, or during our work day, or whenever we are in need of comfort, the Holy Spirit is there to minister and to effectively work to the end that will bring glory to God in each and every situation, even when we are not sure of what the circumstance of our anguish will accomplish. He is there, indwelling us and never leaving nor forsaking us. We are never alone in Christ.
	Acts 1:8 But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth. This aspect of the ministry of the Holy Spirit causes me to be astonished at the love of God in pouring out His Spirit into our lives. Please consider this fact, the Holy Spirit is the One who raised Christ from the dead. All the forces of the enemy were in motion and in action to keep Christ in the grave. Every power that could be mustered by the enemy was exerted to keep the Son of God from rising, yet the Holy Spirit shattered all those forces with the power to bring forth life from that sepulcher. Christ arose triumphant in the life-giving power of the Holy Spirit, and that same omnipotent Holy Spirit now resides in you and in me. It is mind-boggling to consider the fact that wherever we go, we are proceeding forth in the power that set aside the sting of death for all eternity. Our lives should be reflecting the power of the One Who now indwells us. We have no valid excuses, no matter how much we may have convinced ourselves, to deny that the power of God is sufficient to bring forth from our very lives all that would please God and bring forth Glory unto His name.
	This is an area that constantly pricks against our desires. I am continually telling the Lord that this or that about my life is unalterable, that it is just the way I am, or that my natural desires are too strong to be over-come. Then, I find myself facing the truth of Christ Who is now to be the focus of my life, and the One who has overcome all temptation in a life that utterly glorifies God, and that that same account should be true in my being, because of the effective power of the indwelling Holy Spirit, and all my excuses are seen as just that - Excuses for wanting my way instead of God’s way. Yes, there are things about our natural inclinations that are strong, but not too strong to prohibit the Holy Spirit from bringing forth lives that will utterly please God. Yes, our emotions, our temper, our worries all seem valid in the light of our selves, but not in the power of the Holy Spirit to bring forth His fruit of life in Christ.
	John 14:26 But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you. What a wonderful message was spoken unto us by the Lord Jesus Christ in this statement of the teaching ministry of the Holy Spirit, not just for the early church, those who had walked with Jesus Christ on this earth, but for those who were to come, you and me. Just think about the reality of this promise of Christ to each one of us, the great love with which He so lavished upon and in us through the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit. Apart from the ministry of the Holy Spirit, in our hearts, we would have no, absolutely no understanding of the Word of God in all its effectiveness in our beings. This simple concept is imperative to our very daily life on this earth. It is the Holy Spirit Who makes the written words in Scripture to become life in our beings. It is the Holy Spirit, as He ministers the Living Christ in our lives, Who manifests and opens up the very Word of God into us, to bring to our spiritual understanding the breadth and depth and height of the fullness of the Living Christ, not as the historical account of someone who lived almost two thousand years ago, but in life today. 
	As an aside to this, there have been times in my life when I wished that I could have been one of the disciples, living with Christ, walking with Him, listening to Him, being taught of Him and knowing Him in person. Then I come across this passage where the Lord is telling us that He is here, now, through the ministry of the Holy Spirit. The fact is that we are the recipients of a far greater relationship with Christ than even the disciples. They felt the sorrow and the pain of separation from Christ for a time. We have no such anguish. We do not have to leave His presence for rest, or food, or sleep, or work. At all times, through the effective ministry of the Holy Spirit, we are enjoying the fulfilled presence of Christ in our lives. When we have a question, we do not have to make an appointment, we just have to ask. When we need guidance, we do not have to search, just obey. In every aspect, our living relationship now far exceeds any that has gone before because we are truly blessed with the very Spirit of God Who indwells us to teach us His way, and His Thought and His desire for our lives. We are indwelled by the very source of the Word of God to open every truth of scripture, not as theology, not as intellect, but as reality into our lives. It is the Holy Spirit Who makes the Word of God life to be lived rather than theology to be learned. It is the Holy Spirit by Whom every passage of the Word of God becomes understandable to our enlivened spirit, rather than as mere knowledge to be filed away to impress others with our exceedingly useless intellectual abilities. The Holy Spirit is the reason that the Word of God is opened in our beings. The natural man considers the Bible as a great book among many other classics of its time, but we, through the teaching ministry of the Spirit of the Lord, know the Word as our very source of guidance and inspiration and encouragement and reality of what God has ordained for us and for others in the Person of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit is very faithful to teach us in the way of God through the Word, and everything that we are taught is always, always and again with emphasis, always utterly in line with the Word. Any time we are outside of the manifest guidance of the Word of God, we are outside of the teaching of the Holy Spirit. As we learn to obey, so are we taught more and more of Christ and the effective ministry of the Holy Spirit to reveal Christ in us. 
	Romans 8:14 For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. That is another aspect of the ministry of the Holy Spirit in our lives, to lead us in the way we are to go. He is always very clear as to what is required in our lives. There is not one of us who can truly stand before the Lord and complain that we do not know what we should do. The Holy Spirit is constantly and effectively ministering, through His work in our lives, through the revealed truth of the Word of God, through the ministers that He chooses to lead the Body of Christ, through the abrasive effects of spouses, family, friends, co-workers, students, parents and others to make known what is required in our lives toward utter conformity of Christ living His life in us to the glory of God. Our part is the obedience required to allow the Holy Spirit the opportunity to not only guide us, but to be our strength throughout the course of that guidance to the end that God will be completely glorified in our lives, and in the lives of each of the people chosen by God to bring about the utter conformity of Christ living His Life in us.
	There are countless other ministries of the Holy Spirit in our individual and corporate lives which reveal the great love wherewith we have been so loved by God. All of eternity will not be sufficient to fully explore all that God has done in and through His Holy Spirit. I just wanted to touch on a few of the things that have been mulled before the Lord with the young people of this fellowship, in order that we, as a fellowship can encourage them, and take them into our hearts with the realization that they are a vital part of our fellowship, of each one of us through the effective relationship of the Holy Spirit. As He leads, it would be appropriate to give expression of the working of the Holy Spirit to our young people, as well as to each other, to the end that we are more fully focused and desirous that God effectively establish Himself in their lives and in each other’s lives.
	John 14:16 + 17 And I pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever; Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you.
	Monday, March 4, 1996