Ask For More of the Holy Spirit - Tim Conway

"What Father among you

if his son asks for a fish

will instead of a fish

give him a serpent?

Or if he asks for an egg

will give him a scorpion?

If you then who are evil

know how to give good gifts

to your children,

how much more will your heavenly Father

give the Holy Spirit to
those who ask Him?"

Now, brethren, I would
just challenge you here.

How much more will your heavenly Father

give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him?

One thing I want you to see right off

and absolutely clearly

and make no mistake about:

These are saved men

asking Jesus to teach them to pray.

These are not lost men asking Jesus

how to be saved.

Now that's important

because the way to be saved

is not to ask God for the Holy Spirit.

You understand that, right?

Because there can be
a misunderstanding here.

People can look at this and they can say,

well, if they're asking
for the Holy Spirit,

maybe that means that they
don't have the Holy Spirit

and people that don't have the Holy Spirit

are lost people,

and so you go the Father and
you ask Him for the Spirit,

and basically, if, you know,

Paul says this in Roman 8,

if you don't have the Spirit,

you don't belong to Jesus Christ.

Right? So maybe it's people

who don't have the Spirit,

who don't belong to Jesus Christ

coming to the Father to get the Spirit

so that they can get saved.

I don't know if any of you
have ever thought that,

but that is obviously not what that means.

What you have is you have the idea

of a child going to his father,

which is very consistent
with the disciples

asking Jesus to show them how to pray

to their Father.

And that's how Jesus started, right?

Pray this way: "Father..."

"Our Father..."

So, what does that mean?

Obviously every single Christian

has the Holy Spirit,

so if we already have the Spirit,

and if the Spirit once
takes up residency -

by the way,

one of the promises connected

with the New Covenant

is that God's going to
give His Spirit to us.

He's going to put His Spirit within us.

And if we don't have that Spirit,

what is it? About Romans 8:9 I think?

If we don't have the Spirit,
we don't belong to Christ.

And obviously, we don't go

having the Spirit, losing the Spirit,
having the Spirit, losing the Spirit.

Once that Spirit is given,

He is with us always.

Forever.

Jesus said that.

Jesus said that this Comforter was coming,

and He would be with them forever.

And so what do we make of that?

Why are we praying for the Holy Spirit

if we already have the Holy Spirit?

Well, it's interesting,

if we look at the parallel passage

over in Matthew 7,

it doesn't say "Holy Spirit" there,

it says "good things."

It almost seems to me like

what Luke does is He reaches

in the bag of good things

and He brings out the best thing.

And why would I say the best thing?

Because Jesus, back there

in that area where John started -

the John 14, 15, 16 realm

where Christ is leaving His disciples -

do you know why He was telling them

that He was leaving them peace

and that they ought not to be afraid?

Because He was telling
them at the same time

that He was going away.

He was going to be taken away,

but He said this to them:

Look, it is more profitable for you

that I go and the Holy Spirit come.

There is something

about having the Holy Spirit

that is more profitable for the church

than if Christ remained here bodily,

earthly Himself.

And Jesus realized it.

The Holy Spirit was going to unleash

such power into the church.

You think about just what happened

in the life of Peter.

Here's Peter walking with Christ

bodily on the earth,

and look what he was like,

versus when Christ leaves,
the Spirit comes,

now Peter's filled with the Spirit,

where before he was denying Christ

in front of little girls.

Now he's standing boldly
before the Sanhedrin

and he's proclaiming Christ.

And Christ Himself said

Peter was going to go all the way

to laying down his life for Christ.

The Spirit of God

endued the church of God

with power from on high.

And basically, I think the way

we want to take Luke 11,

how much more will our Father

give the Holy Spirit to them that ask.

It's the idea of the
influences of the Spirit,

and we all have to admit

that even in that early church,

they had the Spirit there.

The Spirit came down on that church

on the day of Pentecost.

But some of those very same men

upon whom that Spirit fell in that day,

we find later accounts

where filled with the Holy Spirit

there was boldness,

there was all sorts of things
breaking out in the church.

The power of God is not
static in the church.

You can't come to that
conclusion by the book of Acts.

You can't come to that
conclusion historically.

You can't come to that conclusion probably

if you've been a Christian
any length of time,

you realize it in your own life.

In the life of the church,

we have ebbs and flows.

Brethren, a pastor friend has said,

brethren, if we have such
promise in the Scriptures,

every time we come to pray,

we ought to be asking for the Holy Spirit.

For what?

What does the Holy Spirit
bring to the church?

It brought to that early church

boldness and courage

to proclaim the Gospel.

The Holy Spirit brings the Word to mind.

Remember? He said if they get imprisoned

or they're brought before these leaders

that don't worry ahead of time

what you're going to say?

Have you guys ever experienced that?

You've been in a situation -

maybe you haven't been in prison,

but you've been in a situation

where immediately you needed something

and God gave it to you.

Brethren, He brings the
fruits of the Spirit.

The chief one is love.

You just can't get away from it.

The New Testament is basically this:

Christ gave a new commandment.

That commandment is a commandment of love.

That is the greatest test of Christianity.

Love.

And the Spirit is the one
Who gives it to us.

A love for Christ Himself.

A love on the horizontal
plane for one another.

A love in the church.

We heard about peace.

He gives that peace.

My peace I leave with you.

Where does that peace come from?

We find in Galatians 5 distinctly

that peace comes from the Spirit of God.

This Spirit is the one Who gives gifts

to the church.

Do we want gifts?

Do we want laborers?

Do we want men and women

who have abilities to minister,

to show mercy,

to give, to teach, to serve?

Absolutely!

All that gamut of gifts.

Even the supernatural element.

Brethren, it's the Spirit of God

that gives those things.

The Spirit of God is that Spirit

which we are warned against quenching.

Quenching has the idea

of throwing water on a fire.

You throw water on a fire,

it diminishes its heat.

It diminishes its light.

The Spirit is what infuses the church

with light and heat.

We need to pray for the Spirit.

When the Spirit helps us,

when the Spirit empowers us,

it's only then, brethren,

that we can advance

and we can take ground.

It's the Spirit of God

that puts that fire in the
hearts of men and women

to go forth, to lay down their lives

for the Gospel's sake,

to sacrifice.

It's the Holy Spirit that we need

in order to have a powerful Gospel.

It's the Holy Spirit

that causes men to be born again.

We want to see life in this church.

We want to see growth.

Don't we find also,

what is it about 2 Thessalonians 2:13?

1 Thessalonians 2:13

We find there, brethren,

we are sanctified by the Holy Spirit.

Sanctification. Any kind of growth.

Don't we also find in 2 Corinthians 3:18,

that by the Lord Who is the Spirit,

that's how we behold the glory of Christ?

And are transformed into His image

from one degree of glory to another?

Brethren, the Spirit of God

is also an intercessor in our prayers.

We find that in Romans 8.

The Spirit is a Spirit of adoption.

And He bears witness with our spirits

that we're children of God.

Beloved, do we want
assurance in this church?

I'll tell you what,

it's when we have a hope of salvation,

and a deep-founded assurance

that you can lay your
life down for Christ.

People would go around

doubting, wondering,

not sure if they're in,
sure if they're out,

very difficult for people like that

to really launch out and
do anything for Christ.

Brethren, we need the Spirit's power

and His working in our midst.

And what we have here is a promise.

What we have here is disciples

coming to Christ and saying,

"Teach us to pray."

And He wraps up this whole
instruction on prayer

with this: be persistent.

Ask and seek and knock.

And above every other thing

that He talks to us about asking for,

He says seek from your
Father the Holy Spirit.

I believe that when it says
ask for the Holy Spirit,

the idea is that we are to ask

for His influences,

for His fiery influences.

Brethren, we don't want
to quench that Spirit.

We want to ask for it.

Did that about use up that 20 minutes?

Pretty close.

I just leave you with this thought.

"How much more will the heavenly Father

give the Holy Spirit to
those who ask Him?"

Did you catch those last words?

To those who ask Him.

Brethren, you let your Calvinism

take you in a direction

where you logically start to conclude

that your prayers don't matter -

James says you have not
because you do not ask.

Brethren, if you've got
a sort of Calvinism

that doesn't believe that statement,

then dump it.

Prayer matters.

God hears prayer.

God gives the Holy Spirit
to those who ask.

Jesus does not say

that if you don't ask, don't seek,

don't knock, God is sovereign,

God has His decrees,

and He's going to do it anyways.

He doesn't say that.

He says He gives the Holy Spirit

to them that ask.

Brethren, God forbid we get to the end

and we find we could have had more

if we would have asked for it,

but we just didn't ask.

God help us to not get to that place.

Amen.

You're dismissed for the moment.