In this sermon, the speaker explains that the Holy Spirit, as God's presence within believers, can experience grief when Christians act contrary to His promptings, and can experience joy when they obey Him. He emphasizes that the Spirit dwells in believers, so their attitudes, thoughts, and actions create an atmosphere that either honors or grieves Him. The talk offers concrete, everyday examples—declining a phone call during prayer, restraining angry speech or social‑media posts, and stepping out in obedience to a prophetic word or spiritual gift—to illustrate how choosing to obey the Spirit brings a palpable sense of relief and joy. The speaker calls for reverence toward the Spirit’s presence, encouraging listeners to make their lives a comforting dwelling place for Him, thereby experiencing His pleasure rather than His sorrow.
Chapters
Don't grieve the Holy Spirit. Think about that. That means the Holy Spirit has feelings so that when you do something you know you're not supposed to do, it hurts him. And when you don't do something you know that the Holy Spirit is asking you to do, that hurts him too. Don't grieve him. Let your life be comforting to the presence of the Holy Spirit. You are his dwelling place. Does he feel at home in you? Does he feel at home in your life? The atmosphere that you set with your attitude, with your actions, with your thoughts, thoughts, does that atmosphere honor the Holy Spirit or does it grieve him? Here's the good news though. The Holy Spirit loves us enough, yes, to be grieved by us, but that means he loves us enough to be pleased by us. You may have experienced this before, and if you've been in prayer or you've been studying the word or devoting your life to him, then maybe you've had moments like this to where maybe you're going to pray and suddenly the phone will start ringing and you go to pick up that phone, but instead of answering it, you decline it because you say, Holy Spirit, I'm with you right now. You could actually sense the joy of the Spirit. Or maybe you're wanting to say something. Someone's really making you mad and you really wanna get back at them. And, or you wanna post something online and you go to say it, you go to post it. And then there's that moment where there's that, the Holy Spirit speaks to you and you don't wanna grieve him. So you say, okay, Holy Spirit, I will refrain. And the moment that you refrain, there's like this holy relief that rushes over you. That's the joy of the Holy Spirit. He's pleased with that action. Or maybe the Holy Spirit is telling you to witness to someone or to speak a prophetic word or to exercise a spiritual gift in some way. And you're wrestling with yourself and you're saying, well, I don't know if I wanna do that. And there's this back and forth in your mind of questioning whether or not it's God or questioning whether or not you have the proper motives. And finally you just say, okay, Holy Spirit, your hand is weighing heavily upon me. I'm gonna obey you. And you obey him. And suddenly you sense that joy, relief, it's because you obeyed him and you pleased him instead of grieving him. There has to be this reverence for his presence.
