WHO IS THE HOLY SPIRIT? (2 of 2)

Unchanging Faith ❧ Part 12

Selected Passages ❧ Pastor, Dr. John Denney

Some time ago I read about an old American Indian legend that tells of an Indian who came down from the mountains and saw the ocean for the first time.  Awed by what he saw, he asked for a quart jar.  Taking the jar, he waded into the ocean and filed it to the brim.  When he was asked what he intended to do with it, he responded, “Back in the mountains my people have never see the Great Water.  I will carry this jar to them so they can see what it is like.”  This morning we’re going to continue with part two of: Who Is the Holy Spirit? I have to tell you that preparing a message on the Holy Spirit is like trying to capture the ocean in a quart jar!  

Over the course of the last two-thousand years hundreds of thousands of books have been written on the different subjects of the Bible.  But one that is the least talked about and the least understood is the Holy Spirit, so much so that a surprising number of self-identified Christians don’t even believe the Holy Spirit is real. They see Him merely as a symbol of God’s power and presence.  In their minds, He is not the third Person in the Trinity who is co-equal and co-essential with the Father and the Son.   Responding to this, pastor and author Francis Chan wrote a book called: The Forgotten God.  It is largely because many believers today don’t know Who the Holy Spirit is that their lives are marked by powerless, changeless living.   

The Bible has a great deal to say about the Holy Spirit and how He works in our lives.  A couple of weeks ago we saw that the Holy Spirit is not a “what” but a “Who.” He’s not a symbol but a Person. He is not imaginary, He is real.   The Bible clearly teaches He is the third Person of the Godhead. Some refuse to believe this because they can’t wrap their minds around it. How can 1+1+1+1? Yet, the Bible plainly teaches God is One and yet three Persons – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  One father after carefully teaching his children about the Trinity asked them a trick question: Of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, which of them is God?Natalie, his four-year-old daughter, answered: The tallest one.  This morning we’re going to answer two questions: What does the Holy Spirit do? And why does it matter? 

1. What does the Holy Spirit do?  I feel like I’m giving you only a quart jar’s worth of the ocean of information we could cover.  Let me give you Seven Major Ministries of the Holy Spirit.
   1. He convicts. Jesus taught that after His resurrection He would send the Holy Spirit.

When He comes, will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment (John 16:8, NAS).  Jesus tells us what the Holy Spirit will bring conviction to the world regarding the truth about sin, about being right with God through faith in Christ alone, and about the coming judgment if they reject God’s Son.  It’s not our job to convince others there is something wrong between them and God.  Most unbelievers struggle every day with their guilt and unbelief.  Why do you think so many people are addicted to drugs and alcohol? Why is it people are constantly filling their lives with work, travel, pleasure, education, noise, busyness? They’re trying to silence the inescapable sense of guilt that comes from the Holy Spirit.  When Peter preached at Pentecost it says the people were “pierced to the heart” because the Holy Spirit convicted them of the sin of unbelief (Acts 2:37).  

The Holy Spirit also convicts people of righteousness.  It is a historical fact that Jesus died on the cross and rose from the dead. You can deny it but you cannot disprove it.  Many have tried and they became believers in the process!  The Holy Spirit opens their eyes to the facts of Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection. That God in Christ was reconciling the world to Himself no longer counting their sins against them (2 Corinthians 5:19).  And coming judgement should they chose to reject God’s offer of forgiveness.  It’s not our job to convince others they’re lost and they need Christ. That’s the job of the Holy Spirit.     

1. He saves. A little less than a week ago we celebrated my grandson’s first birthday.  

That brought back memories of a very long and trying night we spent waiting for him to be born – especially his mom! But all of that changed instantly when she held him in her arms.  For nine months she nurtured that little life through her own body sustaining him.  Yet, his life didn’t come from his mom.  She passed on that life that was given to her from God.  Just as a child receives physical life from his mom, so a person must receive spiritual life in order to go to Heaven.  That spiritual birth is brought about by the Holy Spirit.  You probably did not understand it at the time, but when you trusted Christ it was the Holy Spirit that you were born spiritually.  In Titus 3, Paul tells us: He (God) saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out upon us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior (Titus 3:5-6).  The Holy Spirit brought you to Christ and He saved you in Christ.  I’d say those are two incredibly important things to know about the Holy Spirit! 

1. He indwells. Shortly before He was crucified Jesus told His disciples He would be

leaving them to go back to Heaven.  But He left them with this promise: I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever…and will be in you(John 14:16-17).  You may remember the word Jesus used for another means Someone exactly like Jesus.  The Holy Spirit is exactly like Jesus because He is God!  But Jesus didn’t stop there.  He also told them the Holy Spirit will be IN THEM!  In the OT the Holy Spirit would come upon believers for temporary periods of time.  In the Gospels Jesus was with believers.  But from Acts 2, the day of Pentecost forward, the Holy Spirit now dwells within believers permanently.  God gave the promise of the indwelling Holy Spirit in the prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel more than five hundred years before Jesus’ birth.  Why is this such a big deal? Someone has said, I need Jesus for my eternal life and I need the Holy Spirit for my internal life.  There are a lot of other reasons as well, but the Bible says: If anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Him (Romans 8:9b). 

1. He baptizes. 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(1 Corinthians 12:13).  When we hear the word baptize, we typically think of water baptism.  But that’s not what this verse is saying.  It is referring to Spirit baptism.  The moment you trust Christ, the Holy Spirit not only indwells you, but He baptizes you into the Body of Christ; you become a part of the eternal family of God you were made for.  For a number of years we watched a documentary series called: Long Lost Family. People who’d been separated from their birth parents or families longed to be reunited with them.  Something deep inside of them wanted to reconnect with the family they came from.  Until they are reunited, they never quite feel at ease.  The same is true for believers. When we trust Christ, the Holy Spirit brings us into the family we made for.  For the first time, we know we belong.  That’s what it means that the Holy Spirit baptizes us into one body.   

1. He seals. And now you Gentiles have also heard the truth, the Good News that God 

saves you. And when you believed in Christ, he identified you as his own by giving you the Holy Spirit, whom he promised long ago. The Spirit is God’s guarantee that he will give us the inheritance he promised and that he has purchased us to be his own people. He did this so we would praise and glorify him (Ephesians 1:13-14, NLT). There are two key things these verses are telling us. One, you receive the Holy Spirit the moment you place your trust in Christ. And two, the Holy Spirit is God’s guarantee that your eternal destiny is Heaven. Just as a seed has the fullness of the plant already contained within it so we as believers being indwelt by the Holy Spirit have the fullness of God’s promise of Heaven to come.  He seals us for Heaven.  

1. He gives gifts. But one and the same Spirit works all these things (gifts), distributing to

each one individually just as He wills (1 Corinthians 12:11, NAS). The Holy Spirit not only convicts us, saves us, indwells us, and baptizes us, but He gives us gifts as well! The purpose of these gifts is to build up other believers. But to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good (1 Corinthians 12:7).  Peter goes on to tell us that every believer without exception has been given at least one gift from the Holy Spirit.  This gift is a spiritual gift.  You weren’t born with it.  It’s not a natural gift.  It is a special ability God gives you the moment you become a child of God. There are four key passages that give a list of gifts, but they’re not exhaustive (Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12, Ephesians 4, and 1 Peter 4). A natural gift may or may not be used to serve God, but the very purpose of a spiritual gift does. Many believers don’t know they have a gift, but they do.  Your gift has a great deal to do with God’s purpose for your life.  Eddie Gibbs put it the best when he said: An unused gift is a wasted life.  If you don’t know what your gift is, that’s okay.  Nowhere does God tell us we must know what gift we have before we can serve Him.  But it is by serving Him you discover your gift.  There is a Spiritual Gift’s test available as a handout in back as well.  

1. He causes us to bear fruit. Not long ago I was reminded of the adage: People don’t 

change.  Sadly, that maxim is true.  Left to ourselves we seldom, if ever, change.  But it’s a whole different story when the Holy Spirit comes into our lives.  He changes us! He has changed my life! But He more than changes us, He empowers us for ministry.  Unless we have the Holy Spirit, we are powerless for ministry.  

Years ago, the well-known medical doctor and paster Dr. Paul Brand was speaking to a medical college in India on Matthew 5:16: Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven. In front of the lectern was an oil lamp, with its cotton wick burning from the shallow dish of oil.  As he preached, the lamp ran out of oil, the wick burned dry, and the smoke made him cough. He immediately used the opportunity. “Some of us here are like this wick,” he said. “We’re trying to shine for the glory of God, but we stink. That’s what happens when we use ourselves as the fuel of our witness rather than the Holy Spirit. Wicks can last indefinitely, burning brightly and without irritating smoke, if the fuel, the Holy Spirit, is in constant supply.”  

Paul tells us in Ephesians 5: Don’t be drunk with wine, because that will ruin your life. Instead, be filled with the Holy Spirit(Ephesians 5:18, NLT).  Paul’s not saying we need to be filled because the Holy Spirit leaks out of us – though sometimes I think there are a lot of leaky Christians.  He’s saying keep on being filled. Or keep on being controlled by God not the things of the world.  Continue to surrender to God’s will for your life.  The more you surrender the more God uses you.  The less you surrender, the less God can use you.  

II. Why does it matter?  Oh, foolish Galatians! Who has cast an evil spell on you? …Let me ask you this one question: Did you receive the Holy Spirit by obeying the law of Moses? Of course not! You received the Spirit because you believed the message you heard about Christ. How foolish can you be? After starting your new lives in the Spirit, why are you now trying to become perfect by your own human effort?(Galatians 3:1,2-3, NLT).  Notice how kind and loving and tender Paul is? He calls them out! What made Paul so upset with them? Because they did not understand the importance of the Holy Spirit in their lives.  They knew He had a role in their salvation but not in their sanctification.  They did not understand their ongoing need of the Holy Spirit as their Helper to live the Christian life.  They were trying to live the Christian life in their own power.  The same is true for many believers today.  We start with God but try to finish on our own. The Holy Spirit is like the electricity in your home. Your home can be fully wired but full useless unless you have electricity.  Like electricity, we need Him though we cannot fully explain how He works.