Relationship With the Holy Spirit — Vlad Savchuk

The Holy Spirit as the Forgotten Person of the Trinity

Christianity today has a new trinity, it's called God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Scriptures. The Holy Spirit has become the forgotten God. The Holy Spirit in the Pentecostal circles has been reduced to speaking in tongues.

In charismatic circles he's been reduced to shaking and baking and being slain. But the Holy Spirit is the most important person on the earth today. God sent the Holy Spirit so that you can know him the same way disciples knew Jesus.

The same way disciples knew Jesus is the same way God the Father and the Son expects you and I to know the Holy Spirit. Disciples were not professionals, disciples were not priests, disciples were not religious elites, they were normal average in fact very weak broken people.

But because they spent time lived with Jesus day in and day out in three and a half years it changed their life drastically. The Holy Spirit is given today to every single believer. You don't have to occupy a position in church, you don't have to have extreme powerful spiritual gifts, your dad didn't have to be a pastor and your mom does not have to be a prophetess, the Holy Spirit is given to you and you can have the same relationship with the Holy Spirit disciples had with Jesus.

Your life can change because of that relationship if you learn to cultivate the relationship with the Holy Spirit. And that's what I would like to talk to you for a few minutes, how to cultivate relationship with the Holy Spirit.

And so if you're taking notes I want you to write this down. I like to give points, it's just the way I am. And so you can write things down, note takers are history makers. And if you don't take notes, post on Instagram points.

Because I see some people they don't take notes, all of their notes is on Instagram stories. It's like in this way I remember you know the message. I just put a point with a pastor's picture or the picture of the lights or those of you Instagram influencers, you're looking for that proper angle of your Bible shadow and you know and God bless you if you do that in Jesus name.

Every Christian Has the Holy Spirit but Not Every Christian Walks in Him

Whatever that helps you to remember. Book of Acts chapter 3 and verse 2. A certain man lame from his mother's womb was carried whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple which is called beautiful to ask alms of those who entered the temple.

Who seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple asked for alms. And fixing his eyes on him with John, Peter said look at us. And he gave him his attention expecting to receive something from them.

Then Peter said silver and gold I do not have but what I do have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk. I'm going to take an application of this story. The literal interpretation of this story is a guy was lame from his mother's womb.

He was brought to the front of the church building if I could use it like that to ask for donations and Peter and John was running low on funds that day. That does not mean they never had gold or silver.

Just that day they were running very low in their in their pockets and instead of giving this man another penny or dollar or 50 they raised this man and he was healed. Application from this story I would like to apply today to every person in this room because like this man many people in this room watching us on YouTube and Facebook Christians in general are lame Christians.

Lame not in the sense the world calls something lame you know hashtag lame not that lame. I'm talking about lame is what he had is what we have. He had legs they didn't walk. Legs came with birth. Walking always comes with exercise.

When you're born you get legs right? Legs don't come two weeks later, two years later, you don't get born and then because you wash dishes you stop pooping, crying, whining and then the almighty God ships your legs in UPS as an addition or an upgrade to your existence.

No you didn't earn them, you didn't work for them, you didn't apply for them, you didn't deserve them. At your birth you were born with legs. At the same time at your birth you didn't walk out from your mother womb, you got dragged out and nobody in this room walked from the hospital to their to their home.

You got carried from the hospital to the home. Why? Because these legs though they came at birth using them did not come at birth. Walking with them did not come at birth. It took time, it took falling, it took exercise, it took looking at other tall people who walk and say man that's possible.

I don't have to crawl, I don't have to be dragged, I don't have to be carried, I can actually walk. One day these little tiny things can carry me as well and not only they can carry me, I can put a backpack on my shoulder and these legs can carry me.

Every Christian when they got born again God gave them the Holy Spirit at the time of their second birth. During your first birth you got legs, during your second birth you got the Holy Ghost. The Holy Spirit did not come when you started to speak in tongues contrary to Pentecostal opinion.

Holy Spirit did not come when you got perfect. Holy Spirit did not come as an upgrade of walking faithfully for three years. Holy Spirit did not come when you got water baptized. Holy Spirit did not come when you memorized your favorite Bible verse.

Holy Spirit did not even come when you became a member of your local church. He came at the time of your salvation. Somebody give God some praise for the Holy Ghost. Write this down, point number one, every Christian has the Holy Spirit but not every Christian walks in the Holy Spirit.

Every Christian has the Holy Spirit, not every Christian walks in the Holy Spirit. Some of us have the Holy Spirit in the same way a lame man had his legs. We have them, we're aware of them, it's just we don't know what to do with it.

And the only reality of who Holy Spirit is in our Pentecostal life is that I speak in tongues. I got the tongues. I remember one person says I got the Holy Ghost and I said when? When I spoke in tongues and that's our whole ceiling of experience with the Holy Spirit.

Who is a Christian who has the Holy Spirit but doesn't walk in the Holy Spirit? Few things you can mark about that Christian is they carry the Holy Spirit, the Spirit doesn't carry them. They have the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit doesn't have them.

They get brought to church, they constantly beg for secondary things. There's something missing in their spiritual life and they live their life crawling in the flesh, pulling everything through the strength of the flesh.

Imagine for a moment how slow will you become physically if you did not have the use of your legs. Can you imagine how many things you can carry right now without the use of your legs? Would you be able to carry your children without the use of your legs?

Would you be able to cook without the use of your legs? Would you be able to move around without the use of your legs? Your life will be so restricted if you couldn't walk. The lame man had legs, they just did not carry him.

Many Christians today, their life does not differ from people who are not believers and it's not because they don't have the Holy Spirit, it's because they don't walk in the Holy Spirit. You may think walking in the Holy Spirit belongs to the special people, to the elites.

If walking in the Holy Spirit belongs to the pastor, bishop, apostle, prophet and evangelist, then does walking physically belong to the businessman, president and a politician? Walking with legs belongs to every human being.

Walking in the Holy Spirit is a privilege and an honor, responsibility and a right of every Christian. You might not preach on the stage, you might not even have a small group, you might not have a ministry that looks like a ministry in the eyes of somebody else, but the Holy Spirit was given to you, not only so you speak in tongues, but so that you can walk in the Holy Spirit.

So you can have Him carry the weight of your life. So you can have Him enable you to live a life that is holy. So that Christian life is not striving, but it's surrender. The Christian life is not natural, but it's supernatural.

That there are things in your life that will happen that you can't explain. Not because you're super duper spiritual, but because you're simply a normal Christian who walks in the Holy Spirit. Amen. Point number two, to walk in the Holy Spirit, we have to talk to the Holy Spirit.

Fellowship With the Holy Spirit as a Person

To walk in the Holy Spirit, write this down, we have to talk to the Holy Spirit. The shift that happens in our relationship with the Holy Spirit is this, is when He stops being oil, dove, fire, wind, manifestation, an attitude, an atmosphere, force, power, or some kind of a hot heat, tingling feeling.

See the Holy Spirit can manifest itself like that, but the Holy Spirit is none of these things. The Holy Spirit is a person. The Holy Spirit is God and He is a person. Jesus said, I will send another.

The word another is the same word as if you are going to a restaurant, Chick-fil-a for example, and you got yourself a sandwich, you liked it so much, and you come back to the person in the front and you say, can I get another?

Meaning exactly same sandwich I just ate. Another sandwich. And what that means is this, is they have to make you exactly, now it's not the same one that you just ate because that one is in your stomach now, but it's exactly same thing that you just ate, just another one.

When Jesus says, I will send you another, what does that mean? That means the same way He lived with disciples, this another will live with you. The same way disciples didn't pray to Jesus, but they talked to Him every day.

People ask me, can you pray to the Holy Spirit? Of course you can. But He wasn't given to you so you pray to Him. He was given to you so you fellowship with Him. He was given to you so you walk with Him.

He was, He's living with you right now, the same way Jesus lived with disciples. The greatest event that happened in the history for you as a Christian was not when Jesus lived with disciples, it's when the another is living with you.

Jesus was with disciples physically for three and a half years. They left Him, denied Him, forsook Him and one guy committed suicide. When the Spirit came upon these disciples, none of them left Jesus.

He was no longer physically with them, but none of them was shooken and betrayed the Lord. They died for Him and they shook their cities for Him. Holy Spirit with you is better than Jesus with you. That's why He said, it is to your advantage that I go because if I don't go, He will not come.

My friend, today you have an access to something greater than what disciples had. It's called the Holy Spirit. He wants to be to you what Jesus was to His disciples. But in order to walk in the Holy Spirit, you have to talk to the Holy Spirit.

But let me break this down a You have to stop seeing Him as an experience, dove or fire. You have to see Him as a person because that's who He is. He is a being with a personality. He's not a ghost. He is not a force, a wind.

He is a being with the personality. He's as real as you are. And not only the Holy Spirit is a person, but this is what you and I must understand. Is this person, the Holy Spirit has a gift for you. This gift is not tongues.

This gift is not even word of knowledge. This gift is not even conviction of sin. This gift is not even healing and deliverance from demons. This gift according to Corinthians, it says that the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and of the Holy Spirit.

Watch this. It does not say fellowship with the Holy Spirit. The same way it does not say love to God, grace to Jesus, but love of God, grace of Jesus, and fellowship of the Holy Spirit. That means it's something the Trinity gives to us, not something we give to them.

God the Father gives you love and you get filled with His love. Your daddy might have not loved you, told you that he loves you. He provided for you and said that's enough. But you come to Heavenly Father, He gives you love.

Jesus says, come back, come to me. And Jesus gives you grace. Grace is not mercy. Mercy is if you were speeding and you didn't get a ticket. That's mercy. Grace is if you were speeding and the police officer gave you a check.

That's grace. It's getting what you don't deserve. So Jesus gives you grace and then you fool after grace and love. And the Holy Spirit says, wait, I got something more. You're like, Holy Spirit, I'm so full already.

I don't have room for dessert. He says, listen, what I got to offer you is not dessert. It's the main thing. Holy Spirit, what do you have to offer me? I go to Pentecostal church. I already speak in tongues.

Holy Spirit says, no, no, no. I have something to offer you. Fellowship of the Holy Spirit. Meaning, I want to be to you what disciples were to Jesus. Many of us, we get the love and grace and we leave.

Holy Spirit has fellowship to give to you. What does that mean? That means He wants to fellowship with you more than you will ever want to fellowship with Him. And you know what the Bible says in Corinthians, the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you.

Be with you. Not always, but with you all. Let's read the verse. Second Corinthians 13, 14. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.

Turn to your neighbor and say, all is you. All means, in Greek means all. In Hebrew it also means all. You know what all means? It means that last person that's sitting right now, all the way in the back, you're included in that.

The person that sits on the third row right here, you're included in that. All means you. Meaning the Holy Spirit has a gift for you as well. It's interesting when we think of the Father, we know that God loves everyone.

None of us ever disqualify ourselves from the love of the Father. We're like man, I'm the recipient, I qualify. Why? Because I need that love. When we think of grace, every sinner qualifies for grace.

The moment it gets to the Holy Spirit, most of us right away say, well you don't understand. Like He's holy and I'm everything but not holy and that doesn't belong to me. I want to tell you something, the fellowship of the Holy Spirit belongs to you the same way that grace belongs to you, the love belongs to you and you can't walk in the Holy Spirit if you don't talk to the Holy Spirit but you will never talk to the Holy Spirit until you remove this garbage out of your head that you're not good enough, that somehow you're not spiritual enough, that somehow you're not worthy enough, that somehow you've messed up too much, somehow you're so inconsistent you keep losing Bible streaks on your version, your version Bible app.

You're so inconsistent with your prayer life. Man, if you would only wake up a little bit earlier then the Holy Spirit will speak to you, then the Holy Spirit will have fellowship with you. If you would have only not finished your fast at noon instead of finished at the end as you were supposed to and the Holy Spirit will have fellowship with you.

All means all, those who fast and those who don't, those who pray and those who don't, those who read the Word and those who don't. All of us are included. We don't try to be holy to get the Holy Spirit.

We live in the Holy Spirit and He makes us holy. I want to encourage you today relationship with the Holy Spirit is the greatest thing about Christianity. Everything else is, everything else flows out of that.

Learning to Know the Holy Spirit Personally

Miracles flow out of that. Breakthrough flows out of that. I remember when I traveled overseas to one particular person. We took all the money that we had. It was a crisis in our ministry, crisis in my personal life, spiritual crisis.

Nothing bad was happening. It's just nothing good was happening. That was my crisis. What I was reading in the Bible, I wasn't seeing that in the ministry. We went for years without seeing people getting water baptized.

We went for six months without even doing an altar call for salvation. You know, I could count how many people got healed when I prayed for them in 10 years on one hand and it would only take two fingers.

Yes, we prayed there with the water from TB Joshua and things were happening but when we prayed without it, nothing else was happening. When the youth group was very, very small and I don't have a problem with small but I know that God had more people that He wanted to reach and there was this crisis in me.

Oh God, I want to see a revival. We took all of the money that we had. It was about $10 ,000. We were saving that for a house and we flew. I knew a minister who was seeing healings, four or five hundred people were getting saved every single Sunday.

Demons were coming out, people were being healed, churches were being planted and I'm like man, I want to see, I want to see like 0 .5 of that in our own ministry and I remember we came, we laid the finances at their ministry, we sowed and I, we got on our knees and we said, could you pray?

I don't want the money. I don't want money back. I don't want the house. I just want one thing. I just want God to move. He got me up and He said, He says, you're missing the whole point. He said, you don't need miracles.

You don't need power. He says, you already have the power. He says, you just don't know the Holy Spirit. I was like, what do you mean you don't know the Holy Spirit? I was like, I'm Pentecostal. Like we, we got the, we got Holy Spirit figured out.

Like He actually only belongs to us. Of course, I never said that to him but that's what I was thinking. I was like, what do you mean I don't know the Holy Spirit? I've read five books on the Holy Spirit.

The top books on the Holy Spirit, I've read them. I taught on the Holy Spirit. I speak in tongues and I remember He said this. He says, I'm not going to pray that God will give you power. He says, I will pray that God will help you and introduce you to His Holy Spirit.

And I honestly felt when I came home, like I was a beggar asking for miracles. All I needed to do is learn how to walk. I came back six months later, you know, no miracle started to happen but Holy Spirit became more real.

I'm talking about He became as real as this room right now. I would set up a chair in my prayer room for the Holy Spirit. Now, it was only symbolic to help my mind see Him as a person. I would begin to talk to Him every morning.

I would begin to talk to Him in my thoughts in a drive. It wasn't that I prayed more. It wasn't that I fasted more. It was just something this person that I known about, He became so real. He became so personal and something started to happen.

I started to feel His presence during the service. I felt His presence before but this was different and then His anointing started to flow. People start getting saved. People start getting healed. We started to experience more deliverance.

The church started to grow. Today, since that point, we don't see one service when somebody doesn't get saved. And I can tell you, your secret, the secret to supernatural is the Holy Spirit. And this is the amazing part, everyone has Him.

It's, you don't have Holy Spirit Jr. You don't have Holy Spirit, the weak one. You don't have Holy Spirit, the different one. You have the same Holy Spirit Jesus had. You have the same Holy Spirit I have.

I have the same Holy Spirit that another person has. But the problem with us is that a lot of us, we think we disqualify ourselves from the fact the Holy Spirit wants to have us. He wants us. He loves us and we're not bad enough.

We're not weak enough. We are not inconsistent enough. We sometimes look at people like, man if I would wake up at five, if I would fast 40 days, if I would give all my money, then yes Holy Spirit will use me.

Listen, He wants you the way you are. He loves you. Look at the kind of knuckleheads Jesus chose to be His disciples. Those guys were weirdos. Those guys were crazies. Those guys were not perfect. They were immature.

They were arrogant. They were ego-driven, insecure and Jesus took them. If you're like disciples, Holy Spirit will take you. Allow Him. Your life will change. Your life will change if the Holy Spirit becomes real.

Moving Beyond Tongues to Personal Communion

Speaking in tongues is not enough if you don't know Him as a person. I had this um this guy, he he's a marine, lives in Hawaii right now. He got saved in our ministry, our Nufo. Nufo, we call him He got saved.

It was at the time me and my wife just moved in into our new house and by the church and I went to speak in Minnesota. I think it was Minnesota and we didn't have a tv and so he went and bought a new tv at Costco and put it in my house, hanged it on the wall and I come back and he's like, hey this is my tie to the church.

I said, a tv in my house, a tie to the church? I was like, I don't think that's how that works. I was like, but while you figure out your theology, I'll keep the tv. A year later Nufo moves to Hawaii.

I lost contact with Nufo but do you know that I use that tv still? You know it's possible to speak in tongues and have absolutely zero close relationship with the Holy Spirit. You can use the gift and not know the person.

I want you, I want you to go from just speaking in tongues to speaking to the Holy Spirit, getting to know the Holy Spirit. I'm all for speaking in tongues but God has his gift called the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.

What does that look like? It's when you talk, how do you fellowship with your wife? People ask me, so what do you say to the Holy Spirit? That's like you coming to me and say, what do I say to my wife?

I don't know, that's your wife, you figured that out. I don't know, whatever you want. I mean but is there anything I cannot say? It's the same way if you come to me and you say, is there anything I cannot say to my wife?

I said, well that's going to be a problem if there are things you cannot say to her. The Holy Spirit is your closest friend. You can talk to him about anything. You don't have to have prayer to talk to him.

You can talk to him in the car. You can talk to him in your bed. You can talk to him in the morning. The moment you wake up, let first thoughts be Holy Spirit, I love you. Holy Spirit help me. You don't have to feel tingling.

Feathers don't have to fly from heaven. Gold dust doesn't have to hit your bed set. Just talk to the Holy Spirit. If you want to walk in the Holy Spirit, you have to talk to the Holy Spirit. But to talk to the Holy Spirit, you have to break every cockroach in your head that says, you're not good enough.

Remove every garbage thought in your mind that says, he won't talk to you. You're not precious enough. You're not holy enough. Get that out of your head. He loves you more than you imagine. He wants to be with you more than you fathom.

Walking in the Spirit Overcomes the Flesh

He is your Holy Spirit. He is with you. He is in you and he will use you for the glory of God. Can somebody say amen? And then the last thought and we're going to pray is in Galatians it says, walk in the Holy Spirit.

I say walk in the Holy Spirit. Paul says, and you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. The last thing that I want to share is this. Walking in the Holy Spirit is the secret to overcoming lust of the flesh.

Deliverance is one thing. I see deliverance doesn't get your flesh out. I wish it would have done. But deliverance casts demons out. Deliverance does not cast the flesh out. Every person has a flesh and there's a problem because many of us, we fight with our flesh.

But there's a better way to overcome your flesh. It's not to fight your flesh. It's to walk in the Holy Spirit. And the Bible says you will not fulfill lust of the flesh. Notice it doesn't say you won't have lust of the flesh.

Notice it says you won't fulfill lust of the flesh. And notice that it doesn't say don't fulfill lust of the flesh so you can walk in the Holy Spirit. Which is how many of us read this verse. If I can only stop watching this.

If I can only stop doing this. If I can only start doing this and start doing that then I can walk in the Holy Spirit. Actually it's the other way around. If you could only walk in the Holy Spirit then you will stop doing this, start doing this, and start doing this.

You are ready right now to walk in the Holy Spirit. Everything else that you're giving yourself excuse for and you say this area needs to change, this area needs to improve. In fact those areas will never permanently improve until you walk in the Holy Spirit.

Walking in the Holy Spirit helps you to overcome the temptation of the flesh. Holiness is not a result of striving. It's a result of surrender. Righteousness, walking righteous. I'm not talking about being righteous but walking righteous is not a result of pushing, striving.

It's a result of surrender. That's why the character of a Christian is not called the work of the flesh. It's called the fruit. You know what that means? The spirit produces it. As long as you're working on it, it's not his fruit.

It's your work of the flesh. Many of us, we work on our character and guess what we get? Anger, wrath, and jealousy. Why? That's the work of the flesh. When you work on it, it will produce work of the flesh.

If you stop working on your character and start working on your relationship, Holy Spirit will affect your character and he will get the credit and it will be called the fruit of the Holy Spirit. Not the fruit of prayer, not the fruit of fasting, not the fruit of Bible reading, not the fruit of church attendance, not the fruit I tried harder, not the fruit of therapy, not the fruit of counseling, the fruit of the Holy Ghost.

People will say, why are you so peaceful? And you wouldn't say, well it's because I meditate. Well, well it's because I do this and I do that. It will be the Holy Spirit. And see that's the problem with many of us.

Our character is a mess because we work on it. Let it shock you. If you want to destroy your character, work on it. Jesus never told disciples to work on their character. He just called them to follow him and he says, I will make you.

He said, abide and you will bear fruit. We take all of our energy to work on our issues. He says, take that energy and work on intimacy and watch me change your character and then you'll be able to say, it's the fruit of the Holy Spirit.

He worked on it. He helped me to be more patient. He helped me to be more loving. He helped me to be more self-controlled. He helped me to be generous and he helped me to be good. Not because I worked on myself but because I maintained an intimacy with him and he changed me as a result.

Never once you see in three years disciples of Jesus working under anger. In fact they had a lot of issues. You know the only thing that they did? Stayed with Jesus. He changed them. He will change you.

I'm not in any way saying that you don't need to deny yourself. I'm not saying you need to pick up your cross. What I'm saying is that take the emphasis from changing yourself and put all of that emphasis on being with the Holy Spirit.

I guarantee you, money back guaranteed, your character will change. All the husbands, I know you forget to hug your wives and bring flowers. You forget maybe this and forget that and you're like, man I need to become better, better, better, better.

I need to become a better husband. No, no, no, no. You need to become a better follower of the Holy Spirit. When you become a better follower of the Holy Spirit, you will be a better husband. Being a better husband is very, very difficult job and then on the top of that your wife tells you, you need to be a better father.

You're like, oh my God, being a better husband is really hard. Being a better father is a lot harder and then you go to work, you need to be a better employee. You need to be a nicer manager. Come on, can you stop being so rude and mean?

You're so harsh, your words are so, so piercing. You need to become a better boss and then every place you go you need to become better and better and after that you're like, I'm tired. You're like, man I quit.

And God's like, finally the one thing God says, become better with me. What about the other areas? Trust me, God knows how to touch all of these areas through His Spirit. You tried your way, it doesn't work, I can guarantee you.

I give you a challenge for the rest of this year, come to your spouse and say, I quit trying being better. I stopped doing that but I'm gonna start becoming a follower of the Holy Spirit. I remember a young man I met this week and he says, Vlad, marriage is on the rocks.

It's very challenging and I said, what's happening? He said, I don't know, I can't talk to my wife. I'm like a closed book. I don't want to open up. I was like, you've been married for so long, how were you before?

He said, I don't know what happened. I just, I'm closed. I feel like I'm losing her. She is very heartbroken. I need to work on myself and I said, what about the Holy Spirit in you? How's that doing? He said, oh that's even worse.

I said, so Holy Spirit is grieved, your wife is grieved. I said, which one you're gonna work on? He's like, well of course the one that you know, the screams the loudest which is my wife right now. I said, that's your problem.

I said, work on the one that cries the quietest right now. And the Holy Spirit is extremely grieved. He's not guilt tripping you. He's not mad at you. He's very disappointed and He misses you. He's like, He really misses you right now.

Just come back to Him. Come back to that relationship. I'm like, whatever that looks like, however that looks like that's and I cannot tell you how to have that intimacy with Him. The same way I cannot tell you what for you to do with your wife in the bedroom.

That's between you and the Holy Spirit. How you connect with Him is your mystery. But I said, come back to Him and leave your wife alone for a second. Give a week and I can tell you the Holy Spirit will give you feelings for your wife that will be out of this world.

He will give you attentiveness to her, gentleness to her. He will remind you on the way when you pass Albertsons to pick up flowers or Costco on Thursday morning because they bring fresh ones. I'm like, Holy Spirit will make you a better husband than any school course or a book could ever make you.

But I was like, please don't flip this, don't flip the script and start first. We're trying to be a better husband. Walk in the Holy Spirit and you will not fulfill the lust of the flesh. Not don't fulfill the lust of the flesh so you can walk in the Holy Spirit.

I want to minister that word today to you. Let's rise.