Part I–The Holy Spirit   By Sondra Peters

The night before Jesus’ death, he said to his disciples:

Acts 1:4-5  “Do not leave Jerusalem until the Father sends you the gift he promised, as I told you before.  John baptized with water, but in just a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”

In Acts 2 the gift, the Holy Spirit was given to 3000 believers.  This occurred on Pentecost, which was a Jewish Holy Day. Today is Pentecost, but more importantly today is the birthday of the Christian church.  3,000 people heard Peter’s first sermon that day and then they received the Holy Spirit and the Christian church was born, approximately 1,985 years ago today.

At this point, Jesus had ascended to heaven, but he had already talked about the holy spirit, just prior to his death. In Acts 15 he told his disciples that since the world hated and persecuted him, the world would hate and persecute his followers.

Hate comes in all forms:  school-age children want to fit in, but Christian children stand out and are often made fun of because of it.  In this age of casual sex, singles, whether young or old, are harassed because of their policy of abstinence.

May 15 marked the start of Ramadan, the Islamic Holy month, when Muslims fast and pray for 30 days. During this season, many Christians in Muslim countries are exposed because they don’t participate in fasting or calls to prayer.  Exposure can be fatal.

After warning his followers that they would be persecuted, Jesus said this in John 15:26-16:15:

John 15:26 “But I will send you the Advocate [or Comforter, or Encourager, or Counselor] the Spirit of truth. He will come to you from the Father and will testify all about me. 27 And you must also testify about me because you have been with me from the beginning of my ministry.

John 16:1  “I have told you these things so that you won’t abandon your faith. 2 For you will be expelled from the synagogues, and the time is coming when those who kill you will think they are doing a holy service for God. 3 This is because they have never known the Father or me. 4 Yes, I’m telling you these things now, so that when they happen, you will remember my warning. I didn’t tell you earlier because I was going to be with you for a while longer. 5 “But now I am going away to the one who sent me, and not one of you is asking where I am going. 6 Instead, you grieve because of what I’ve told you. 7 But in fact, it is best for you that I go away, because if I don’t, the Advocate won’t come. If I do go away, then I will send him to you. 8 And when he comes, he will convict the world of its sin, and of God’s righteousness, and of the coming judgment. 9 The world’s sin is that it refuses to believe in me. 10 Righteousness is available because I go to the Father, and you will see me no more. 11 Judgment will come because the ruler of this world has already been judged. 12 “There is so much more I want to tell you, but you can’t bear it now. 13 When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own but will tell you what he has heard. He will tell you about the future. 14 He will bring me glory by telling you whatever he receives from me. 15 All that belongs to the Father is mine; this is why I said, ‘The Spirit will tell you whatever he receives from me.’ New Living Translation (NLT)

So, prior to His ascension Jesus warned believers that they would be persecuted, but that He would send the Holy Spirit to help them. And He did on Pentecost. The Trinity is not an easy concept to grasp.  And of the three (God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit), the Holy Spirit is the most difficult.  The scriptures have a lot to say about the Holy Spirit, though.  So, let’s take a look.

Here are the top 10 things we know about the Holy Spirit:

10.  What the Scriptures say:  He is our helper.

John 14:15-26 “If you love me, obey my commandments. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate [from “paraclete”—one definition is “helper”, who will never leave you. 17 He is the Holy Spirit, who leads into all truth. . . . But you know him, because he lives with you now and later will be in you. 18 No, I will not abandon you as orphans—I will come to you. 19 Soon the world will no longer see me, but you will see me. Since I live, you also will live. 20 When I am raised to life again, you will know that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. . . . 24 What I am telling you is from the Father who sent me. 25 I am telling you these things now while I am still with you. 26 But when the Father sends the Advocate as my representative—that is, the Holy Spirit—he will teach you everything and will remind you of everything I have told you.

Jesus said that when he ascended to heaven, he would send another helper.

What does the Holy Spirit help us do?  The Holy Spirit helps us to suppress our own human nature or spirit and instead show God’s spirit.  My own human nature can easily be anger, resentment, jealously, pride—those are just the ones off the top of my head.  I’m sure we could brainstorm and come up with many more.  What is the fruit of God’s spirit?

Galatians 5:22-23  But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!

Let me read you this quote from one of my favorite authors:

“Fruit” is singular—“it’s a package deal. [I looked it up—“fruits of the spirit is not in the Bible—only “fruit” of the spirit.] The Holy Spirit contains all of these things [that is, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control] and you lack nothing when you are filled and operating from His spirit.  If you find yourself lacking in any area, you need more of Him, not more of a particular line item.  . . .   The only way to walk in the spirit is to be filled with the spirit.”
John W. Andrews, The Outlaw Preacher– Redemption.

Another of one of my favorite authors/Christian radio host, Brant Hansen says:

“Emotions are fruit.  Bump into a tree and see what falls.  Sometimes it’s love and gentleness and forgiveness—like when a parent forgives someone for taking the life of his child.
There was a high-profile preacher of a mega church who fired the assistant preacher because he was just a little too popular.  Bump into a tree, or shake it, bother it, or threaten it, and see what falls.  Sometimes it’s jealousy, anger and power plays.  Now you see what kind of tree it is.
Jesus was rejected, betrayed, tortured and before he died he said, Father forgive them because they don’t know what they’re doing.  Bump into a tree and see what falls.  Sometimes it’s compassion and mercy and love.  Now you see what kind of tree it is.
There was a CEO of a Christian ministry who had been told that Brant, who is a radio host and public figure, slandered his name on FB.  It wasn’t true, the man had been misinformed.  Brant said that the man contacted him and proceeded to say that he would crush Brant.  Bump into a tree and see what falls.  Sometimes its lawyers.”
Brant Hanson in Blessed are the Misfits

Allowing the Holy Spirit to help us is an active choice.  Just because we have the Holy Spirit within us does not mean that our own nature of jealousy, hate, anger, pride, pity is automatically repressed. If I want the fruit of the Holy Spirit, I have to repress my own nature.

How do I repress my own nature of jealousy, anger, pride, pity?  When I realize that my own nature is coming to the surface, or when someone bumps into my tree, I call out to God!  “God please fill me with you (your spirit) from the soles of my feet to the top of my head!  Overpower my nature, please!”  The more you put this into practice, the more the Holy Spirit’s nature becomes your nature.

What if my nature just explodes forth without any warning, with no time to call out for help? And let me say right now, not all of us struggle with a reactive nature—you know what I mean, flying off the handle, etc.  On the outside, we may be pretty calm, but on the inside we’re exploding.  We also need to call out for help to repress our inner thoughts.

Start off each day with prayer and study, commune with God throughout the day.  Practice giving others the benefit of the doubt—and giving others the benefit of the doubt is not, “He can’t help the fact he just cut me off; he’s just stupid.”

Remind yourself that your neighbor, your spouse, the driver who just cut you off, is not perfect, and what he has done to do to tick you off, you have done that or worse to others. Put others first (esteem others better than yourself, Philippians 2:3).  Stay close to God through prayer and study so that His Spirit, the Helper, can help you.  The Helper is all powerful, but He doesn’t force His will or his help on you.  You have to want it.

1 Peter 2:9   . . . you can show others the goodness of God, for he called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light.

How else can we show the goodness of God or be like Christ without the Helper?

Living the Christian life is not easy, but we have help!

Galatians 2:20  My old self has been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. So I live in this earthly body by trusting in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

To quote John Andrews again:  “We don’t get to run our own program anymore . . . we don’t lean on our own understanding anymore, . . . we allow the spirit of God to direct our thoughts and actions.”

What else does the Holy Spirit do to help us?  He helps us resist the temptations of the devil. Whether it’s food or drink or porn or anger, we can go it alone or we can call on The Helper.

To further demonstrate how the Helper can and will help you, check this out:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5kwaewtPDE

9. What the Scriptures say:  The Spirit is our Counselor, comforter, encourager.

John 15:26-27  “But I will send you the paraclete [or Comforter, or Encourager, or Counselor, intercessor,] the Spirit of truth. He will come to you from the Father and will testify all about me. 27 And you must also testify about me because you have been with me from the beginning of my ministry.

He helps us in our prayer life when words and thoughts fail us thus making intercession for us.  So He advocates on our behalf to God.

Romans 8:26  And the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. For example, we don’t know what God wants us to pray for. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words.

 

The Spirit “counsels” us through Scripture, giving us words of encouragement and instruction.  Do you have a favorite scripture that encourages you?  Here’s one of mine:

Psalm 46:10  Be still and know that I am God.

The Spirit comforts us when we pray.

Have you ever worried about something in your sleep?  I’m a worrier by nature anyway, so it’s bound to happen to me, but fortunately it doesn’t happen too often.  But one particular night I was worried about something while I was half asleep/half awake.  It was about a situation that had occurred during one of our weekly outreach sessions with kids.  My mind was going through various solutions to the problem and then the resulting scenarios (i.e.  if I approach the person and he’s innocent, will I scar him for life?  If I ignore it, and he’s not innocent . . .).  Interspersed with my, “If I do this . . .” I was praying, “What do I do?”  Remember, I was half asleep.  Then, I was interrupted with these words spoken slowly in my head, “I’ve.  Got.  This.”  That woke me up!  I thought about what just happened for about ten seconds. I responded with, “Oh, okay. Thank you, God.” And went soundly and peacefully asleep with a smile on my face. When I think of that, and I do often, I think, “Be still and know that I am God.”  For me, that scripture will always be followed with, “I’ve got this.”

The Holy Spirit encourages us by reminding us of times when our prayers have been answered.  I hope that each of you has had a moment that you knew without a shadow of a doubt that God answered your prayer.  It may have been a problem that some might consider trivial, but to you it was important.  And you called out to God for help and the answer was without doubt from God.  I’ve had that happen to me.  And later, perhaps years later, when I’m going through a trial and I wonder if my trial is too trivial for God, the Holy Spirit has brought to my mind, “Remember that other time—I didn’t ignore you then and I’m not ignoring you now.”  We tell the kids, God always answers prayer; it’s just that the answer may be no or not yet.

8. What the Scriptures say:  The Spirit proves.

John 16:5–11   Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. When he comes, he will prove [bring to light, expose, refute, convict and convince] to the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgment: about sin, because people do not believe in me [unbelief]; about righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; and about judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned.

a. Unbelief

The Holy Spirit will convict the world of its sin of unbelief.  In due time. Unbelief is the most prevalent sin of the world, and the sin that condemns lost sinners. A person could “clean up his life” and remain in unbelief and thus continue to be lost.

There are plenty of people who believe there is a God, and they may even believe that Jesus died on the cross for mankind (let’s call that a “yeah, whatever” attitude), but they haven’t turned to God–it’s not personal to them.  There’s no conviction. They haven’t said, “Sign me up!  I want that!”  I find it hard to fathom that a person can believe with every fiber of his or her being and not say to God, “I’m yours!”

When we are younger, we know the value of exercise and eating right—it’s a “yeah, whatever” knowledge.  It’s not until we’re older and we develop fatty liver, diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure–When those things have an impact on our lifestyles, when we can’t do the things we want to do, that’s when we really know the value of exercise and eating right.  Just as there are two degrees of the word “know”, there are at least two degrees of the word “believe.”

Knowing about God is not the same as knowing God.

On a scale of one to ten, when the rubber hits the road, where is your belief?

Do you recall the story in Mark 9 where a father brings his son to be healed of a demon?  The disciples aren’t able to rid the child of the demon, so the father asks Jesus to heal the child “if you can.”  Jesus says, “What do you mean, “If I can? Anything is possible if you believe!”  The father says to Jesus in verse 24, “I do believe, but help me in my unbelief!” In other words, “I believe, but not enough!”  And who did the father of this tortured son go to for belief?  You got it!  The first Helper.  And you can go to the other Helper who came when Jesus ascended.

What makes me different from an unbeliever?  Simply, I was “called,” and then I accepted.  You may wonder where I get that term.

Galatians 1:15  But even before I was born, God chose me and called me by his marvelous grace.

Acts 2:38  Peter replied, “Each of you must repent of your sins and turn to God, and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for [because of] the forgiveness of your sins. Then you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39 This promise is to you, to your children, and to those far away all who have been called by the Lord our God.”

I didn’t do anything to deserve this calling (we call that “grace”), but I am very grateful for it.  Why do we believe and others don’t?  We are called, but only those who answer that calling receive the Holy Spirit.  Eventually, at the right time (see John 6:44, 2 Peter 3:9-15), all will have the opportunity to receive the Holy Spirit, turn to God, and know Him, but that’s another sermon for another day.

Just a couple of weeks ago, during our outreach program with kids, one of our young teens approached me.  She told me that a pastor had ridden on their school bus and had told them about “age of accounts”.  I surmised she was talking about the age of accountability and she confirmed it.  She wanted to know what I thought about it.  You know, I want to give kids a simple answer because I hate it when I ask someone in the know a simple question and I’m finished listening long before he’s finished answering.  But I didn’t have a simple answer for my young friend.

Having given it a lot of thought since then, here’s what I think I said or wished I said:  first of all, I hate it when scare tactics are used and this “age of accountability” is a scare tactic.  God wants us to come to Him not out of fear, but love.  He is so compassionate and tender hearted towards us.  Second, nowhere in the Bible is an age of accountability ever mentioned.  But it does say that all have sinned.  Babies sin, teens sin, adults sin.  We’ve all broken the two great laws.  We haven’t always loved God with our whole hearts nor have we always loved our neighbors.  We’re also guilty, at one time or another, of unbelief, the great sin of the world.  And God says that the punishment for sin is death (see Romans 6:23).  No exceptions.  You might say, “That’s not fair!  Babies don’t know any better!”  But, you see, that’s really not an issue.  The wage, the penalty, the punishment, the price of sin is death, but someone—Jesus—took our punishment on himself!  The price has been paid.  We, no matter our age, are forgiven. (see 2 Timothy 1:9, 2 Cor 5:21 & Heb. 2:17-18)

 

b. Righteousness

John 16:5-11  5 “But now I am going away to the one who sent me, and not one of you is asking where I am going. 6 Instead, you grieve because of what I’ve told you. 7 But in fact, it is best for you that I go away, because if I don’t, the Advocate won’t come. If I do go away, then I will send him to you. 8 And when he comes, he will convict the world of its sin, and of God’s righteousness, and of the coming judgment. 9 The world’s sin is that it refuses to believe in me. 10 Righteousness is available because I go to the Father, and you will see me no more. 11 Judgment will come because the ruler of this world has already been judged.

Note that what the Holy Spirit proves to the world is not unrighteousness but righteousness. What righteousness is this? The righteousness of Jesus Christ.  The righteousness that we’re talking about is the very nature of God!  It’s his mercy, his grace! The fact that he arose from the grave, then ascended to heaven convinces many of Jesus’ righteousness.  Receiving the Holy Spirit, as Jesus said believers would, further proves His righteousness.

When he was here on earth, he was accused of being a blasphemer, a lawbreaker, a deceiver, and even of the devil!  Does anyone believe that now? The Spirit of God reveals the Savior in the word and in this way glorifies him (John 16:13–14).

The Holy Spirit convicts us of our sin and then convinces us of the need for righteousness.

 

c. Judgment

John 16:5-11  5 “But now I am going away to the one who sent me, and not one of you is asking where I am going. 6 Instead, you grieve because of what I’ve told you. 7 But in fact, it is best for you that I go away, because if I don’t, the Advocate won’t come. If I do go away, then I will send him to you. 8 And when he comes, he will convict the world of its sin, and of God’s righteousness, and of the coming judgment. 9 The world’s sin is that it refuses to believe in me. 10 Righteousness is available because I go to the Father, and you will see me no more. 11 Judgment will come because the ruler of this world has already been judged.

Jesus took away the power of sin, of guilt, of death.  We are no longer enslaved by sin, guilt, or the threat of death.  Jesus is referring in verse 11 to his judgment of Satan that was affected by his death on the cross. Satan is the prince of this world, but he is a defeated prince. Satan has already been judged and the verdict announced. All that must take place is the executing of that sentence, and that will occur when Jesus returns in glory.

*****

There’s so much to talk about regarding the Holy Spirit that I had to divide this into two sermons. This concludes Part I—The Holy Spirit, but I will leave you with one point (let’s call it a tease) that is profound and we will cover next time, and that is, The Holy Spirit is the personal presence of God Himself!

*****

Sources:  There is very little in this sermon that I can claim as my own, except for the anecdotes.  If you’d like to go to the source, here they are:

Andrews, John.  The Outlaw Preacher – Redemption.  2014

Davis, Martin. The Christian Doctrine of God Father, Son and Holy Spirit, AsiAfrica Ministries, Inc. www.AsiAfricaMinistries.org.

Hansen, Brant. Blessed Are the Misfits: Great News for Believers who are Introverts, Spiritual Strugglers, or Just Feel Like They’re Missing Something, Kindle Edition, Thomas Nelson Publisher, 2017.

Henderson, James.  “The Holy Spirit at Work.”  Grace Communion International.  2014 https://www.gci.org/god/spiritwork

John 14:25-27.  Matthew Henry Commentary.  https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+14%3A25&version=NLT

 

John 16:10. Matthew Henry Commentary. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+16%3A10&version=NLT

 

Johnston, Ted.  “The Holy Spirit’s Three-Fold Ministry.” GCI Equipper. https://equipper.gci.org/2018/04/sermon-for-may-20-2018-pentecost

 

Kroll, Paul.  “The Holy Spirit Is the Personal Presence of God Himself.”  Grace Communion International.   https://www.gci.org/god/presence

 

Morrison, Michael.  “The Deity of the Holy Spirit.” Grace Communion International.  https://www.gci.org/God/deityHS