Sermon
What We Should Know About The Holy Spirit
October 11, 2003
Pastor Donald Sheley

We decided that during the fall season we would explore some of the great doctrines of our Christian faith. Tonight, we come to, I think, an extremely interesting subject. In fact, when I started studying and started writing notes for you, I realized once again how much of the New Testament almost on every page and almost in every chapter we have the subject of the Holy Spirit, so our subject is immense. So what I decided to do was maybe we'll divide the subject into three areas of study, and if we don't get through one phase, the Lord willing, we'll take the next phase next Saturday night. In our notes you'll also notice that I've included all the Scripture verses and I trust that all of you have your notes.

Let's follow along. What You Should Know About The Holy Spirit. Acts 1:4-8, And being assembled together with them. He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the Promise of the Father "which" he said "you have heard from Me; for John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now." Therefore, when they had come together, they asked Him, saying, "Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?" And He said to them, "It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority. But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth."

Then in Acts chapter 2: "When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place. And suddenly there came a sound from heaven, as of a rushing mighty wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting. Then there appeared to them divided tongues, as of fire, and one sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance."

And then in John chapter 14: "These things I have spoken to you while being present with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name. He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you."

And you'll notice that I mark all of my notes that have the Scripture verses in yellow, and you can see that most of our lesson is in Scripture verses tonight. And I just touched the surface of the various verses that relate to the Holy Spirit. I would like to divide our study into three specific areas of thought. First, let's consider the Holy Spirit as a person, the third person of the Trinity. Secondly, let's seek to understand the work of the Holy Spirit in His regenerating work in our lives as a believer. And thirdly, let's explore what the work of the Holy Spirit is in the life and ministry of the Church.

So in our study we're going to consider the person of the Holy Spirit. Our second phase we will think about the Holy Spirit and our relationship to Him, not only before we came to Christ but now that we're believers, and then our third area of thought, we would like to talk about the Holy Spirit's work with the Church.

Now in His farewell discourse, Christ made it clear that just as His own advent was foretold by prophets and angels, He now announced that advent into the world of another, coequal with Himself, His divine successor, His other self in the unity of the Godhead. Jesus said, "I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. However, when He, the Spirit of truth has come. He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said that He will take of Mine and declare it to you. A little while, and you will not see Me; and again a little while, and you will see Me; and "because I go the Father."

And then again, you'll notice a number of these passages we took out of John chapter 14, 15, and 16 because there is so much in those three chapters concerning the work of the Holy Spirit.

John 14:16, Jesus said, I will pray the Father and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever-the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you.

Verse 26, But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you. When the universe was created God the Father spoke the powerful creative words that brought it into being, God the Son was the divine agent who carried out these words. Because the Bible tells us that, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God. He was in the beginning with God. And all things were made through Him and with Him, nothing was made that was made.

Now speaking of Christ Paul writes: "He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created that are in heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created through Him and for Him."

So in the creation of the world, God the Holy Spirit was active because the Bible says in Genesis 1:2 that He was moving over the face of the earth. His Spirit was moving over the face of the earth. So all three members of the Trinity are equally and fully divine and they are all involved in the creation. God's plan; Christ was there in the creation, and the Holy Spirit was active in moving across the face of the waters.

Now when Scripture discusses the way in which God relates to the world, both in creation and in redemption, the persons of the Trinity are said to have different functions or primary activities. Now let's stop there for a moment. When we start discussing the Trinity, as all of you are aware, we believe as Christians and it has been this way all through the 2000 years of church history. We believe that God has manifested Himself as God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. All three are one; all three are coequal; all three are eternal, but all three are one.

You say, Pastor, I can't get my mind around that one. In our finite human minds we can not, but when you read the Scriptures we are introduced to the concept of the Trinity right almost in the chapter it said, God said let us make man in our image. You have the implied duplicity in the Godhead in the very front pages of the Bible. A concept it's hard for us to grasp -- God manifests Himself as God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. All three are equal and all three are one.

There is an explanation and it's not correct, it's heresy, but you can understand why down through the centuries it has been accepted by so many people as an explanation of the Trinity -- it's called modalism. Here's what the ancient people thought: we're going to try to explain the Trinity so we're going to say God reveals Himself in three distinct persons. In the Old Testament we have God the Father, in the New Testament we have God the Son, and in the age of the Church we have God the Holy Spirit. Thus, that particular position in trying to explain the Trinity says, God manifested Himself in three different persons in the process of world history. Now that sounds quite logical, but it's not what the Scripture says. The Bible tells us that from the very beginning Christ all things were made by Him. He's the Creator. God planed it, Christ created it, and the Holy Spirit moved across the face of the water and brought it to fulfillment. So from the very beginning pages of the Scripture, you have the involvement of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit -- the Trinity. Now let's read on.

We have noted these different functions in relation to the creation of the world. Now in the work of redemption, God the Father planned redemption and then He sent His Son into the world. "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life." Then again in John, "For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me. This is the will of the Father who sent Me, that of all He has given Me I should lose nothing, but should raise it up at the last day. And this is the will of Him who sent Me, that everyone who sees the Son and believes in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day."

So after Jesus ascended back to heaven, the Holy Spirit was sent by the Father and the Son to give redemption. So here's what we're saying, that in the creation of the world we have the Trinity at work, in the redemption of mankind God makes the plan, Christ comes to die on the cross, the Holy Spirit is sent to bring His plan into its rich fulfillment in the lives of all who will believe. All three are involved.

Now notice, Jesus speaks of the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name. But He also says that He Himself will send the Holy Spirit, for He says, If I go, I will send Him to you, and He speaks of a time when the Counselor comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth. Now it is especially the role of the Holy Spirit to give us regeneration, or a new spiritual life, to sanctify us and empower us to service. So in general, the work of the Spirit seems to bring completion the work that has been planned by God the Father and begun by God the Son.

Now let's consider the person of the Holy Spirit. Now the reason why we start with the person of the Holy Spirit is because back about 200 or 300 years ago there was a move across the field of theology that the Holy Spirit was not a person, that He was only an influence, that He was a divine energy, but He was not a person. That was heresy. Now that heresy invaded right into the modernism that is being taught, and that's the reason why some today refer to the Holy Spirit as an it. He is not an it. He is a person, but that thought comes out of 200 or 300 years of heresy saying that the Holy Spirit is just a divine energy or something that God sends out, but He's not a person.

Now let's read on: The Holy Spirit is not a mere something," but a divine someone. If He were only a mere influence or a force, the scriptural method of describing Him would be contradictory and unintelligible. Once the truth of the Spirit's personality and work are realized, they open up to one a life of blessedness and power. Now the Holy Spirit possesses the true element of personality. So when we say that the Holy Spirit is a person, then we're going to go to the Scriptures and find defining Scriptures that characterize Him as a personality or as a person. So that's what we want to do.

As we usually associate personality with a body, it is somewhat difficult to comprehend the Spirit's personality seeing He does not have a material form made up of hands, feet, eyes and mouth. In other words, it's hard for us with our finite human minds to say, how does a spirit that hath not body have a personality? What we are apt to forget is that those parts of the human frame are not characteristics of personality, they are just channels of such and simply represent the human body, that is, they belong entirely to the body.

Personality is made up of distinctive features and elements known as heart, mind and will. Now that's true. We are known as persons. Our personality is how we think, how we act, how we respond. People think of us as persons in the light of those three distinctive characteristics. Now they know we're tall, short, fat, bald headed, curly haired...whatever. They see us as a form, but when we think of a person...I think of Marge as a lovely lady I've known for many, many years; faithful to her church, loving God with all of her heart, loving her children. I think of her personality in terms of how I have observed her over the years. That's true of all of us.

Personality, it has been said, is the capacity for fellowship. The very quality which was most singularly characteristic of Jesus manifests itself in the Spirit, only more universally, more intimately, and more surely. Being able to think, to feel and to will, the Spirit has the capacity for fellowship, which is not possible without personality.

Now the heart is the seat of affection, and with it we love or we hate persons or things. And Paul speaks of the love of the Spirit. Without a heart comfort is not possible, and so the early saints said that they could walk in the comfort of the Holy Spirit. In other words, sensing His presence they felt that assurance, that sense of His being.

Grief is also an element of the heart. And it says the Spirit can be grieved. So I took just a few of the items of the Scriptures and showed that the Holy Spirit has a heart in that He has expressions of emotions, and feelings, and can be grieved.

The mind is the source of intelligence, and reason, and knowledge. With our minds we think and we plan, and devise, and we comprehend. That the Spirit has a mind is evident from the study of His manifold activities. There is a beautiful precision of thought, of order, plan, intelligence in all His works. The incomparable Scriptures, for example, prove His perfect mind. We have the mind of the Spirit, and with the mind the Spirit of God has moved on the hearts of men and we have the Scriptures; and you see precision, you see logic, you see that in the work of the Holy Spirit.

Paul refers to the mind of the Spirit, and what a mind He has. We speak of a person as having a mind of his own. The Spirit has a mind of His own, indicating thought, purpose, and decision. In other words, folks, if we went through the Scriptures, we would find over and over again where the Holy Spirit is presented as one who is thinking, who is acting, who is purposing, and those are the characteristics of personality.

Let's take one other: With our wills we act, we decide, giving expression thereby to our thoughts and our feelings. And true personality consists in preserving the balance between the heart and the mind and the will. When we study the Book of Acts, we note the will of the Spirit more than in any other phase of His personality. For example, it was the Spirit who commanded and removed Philip. It other words, you remember the Spirit comes upon Philip and He moves him from one place down and he speaks to the eunuch, gives him the message, baptizes him, and then the Holy Spirit takes him away. It was the same Spirit that exercised authority over Peter in Acts 10 verse 19. Peter is praying and he's up, he's waiting for dinner to be made, and he sees this sheet let down from heaven, this vision, and the Spirit of God tells him that he's to rise up and eat. And Peter said, never, I've never eaten anything unclean. So he has this experience, and when the experience is over, men are standing at the gate from the house of Cornelius and he now knows that he's to go, they are Gentiles, and he's a Jew, but that vision told him that God had opened the door to the Gentiles; and it says, the Spirit bade me go. So you have an activity of the Spirit exercising will on Peter.

Let's go to another one: It was the Spirit who restrained and constrained Paul. You have, again, the work of the Holy Spirit moving on Paul. He's ready to go to one part of the world; the Holy Spirit doesn't allow that. So what I did here is to take and prove the point of His personhood. He has personality by a heart that can be touched by expressions that we understand, he has a mind that thinks, and he has a will that acts and those are the defining characteristics of a person. Now I bring this out folks, again, because you'll hear of people who talk of the Holy Spirit simply as an influence. He is the third person of the Trinity, and he has all the characteristics of personality.

So, we conclude that the Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity, active in the creation of the world, and possessing all the characteristics of personality. Please remember that the Holy Spirit can be grieved, He can be blasphemed against, He can be insulted, and He can be lied to. Again, a person has to be a person in order to receive that kind of treatment. So if the Spirit of God is simply an influence, then, there is no need to concern ourselves about man's treatment of Him, for influence is incapable of recognition, feeling and action. But believing Him to be one of the Persons in the Godhead, we must treat Him as a Person, applying ourselves to Him as a Person, glorify Him in our hearts as a Person.

Now let's stop there because I've added another page of notes, and I just want to enlarge upon this idea of the person of the Holy Spirit. When we realize that the Holy Spirit has personality, I relate to Him as a believer, He has related to me in His act of regeneration in the work of sanctification, I now see Him as a person. And again, I say this because some people have asked me and said, Pastor, we worship the Lord Jesus Christ, we worship God, is it proper and is it scriptural for us to worship the Holy Spirit? And yet again, if I had time, there are numerous passages where the Holy Spirit is honored as an object of worship.

Someone wrote that hymn that deals with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, it's a hymn that honors all three of the Trinity. Some have asked the question, Pastor, is it proper for us to pray to the Holy Spirit? Well if the Holy Spirit is coequal, coeternal, with the Father and with the Son, then why would it be improper for us to pray to the Holy Spirit? You say, but to the Scriptures say we pray to the Father. But I have found many, many times in my deepest moments of prayer, I'm praying: precious Spirit of God, I need You.

The Bible says in Romans 8:26 that it's the Spirit out of groanings that are within our heart who causes us to pray the will of God. So it's important for us to realize He's not an influence, He's not just a force; the Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity. He deserves my love, my respect, and my worship. He's a person to which I can direct my prayers to. And you say, Pastor, I've never heard that. What I've done is gone over the Scriptures and I said, I want to understand the Holy Spirit as a person.

Someone has written: Whenever Christianity has been a living power, the doctrine of the Holy Spirit has uniformly been regarded equally with the atonement and justification by faith as the articles of a standing or falling church. He says, the gift of the Spirit is the crowning mercy of God in Jesus Christ. The great thing in Christianity is the gift of the Spirit, the essential vital central element of the life of the soul and the work of the church, is the person of the Holy Spirit.

Now I'm reading from my inserted notes folks...they are not there. There is no spiritual good communicated to anyone but by the Spirit. And whatever God in His grace works in us, it's by His Spirit. The Holy Spirit is recognized as God. Personal pronouns are ascribed to Him. Jesus used the personal pronoun He when He spoke of the Holy Spirit. He called Him the Helper, the Comforter, and this designation is applied both to the Holy Spirit and to Christ; and since it expressed personality when applied to Christ, it must be so when it's applied to the Holy Spirit.

Personal acts are performed by Him. In regeneration, He says, Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. Again, He teaches, These things I have spoken to you while being present with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name. He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.

The Holy Spirit is involved in guiding us and teaching us, and here again, proving His personhood as part of the Trinity. Look at what Jesus said in John 16:7-15, Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you. And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: of sin, because they do not believe in Me; of righteousness, because I go to My Father and you see Me no more; of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged. Now I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come.

Jesus said, as the third person of the Trinity, the work of the Holy Spirit in our world is to convict of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment to come. That's why when I say, when we realize the importance of the Holy Spirit, we realize that all the spiritual activity that's taking place in our world today is the direct work of the Holy Spirit. When people's lives are touched by the Spirit of God and they sense conviction of sin, that's the work of the Spirit of God; and nobody can come to the Father unless the Holy Spirit has touched his heart and convicted him or her of that sin.

One of the frustrations sometimes that comes as a Pastor -- I can prepare, I can pray, and I can preach with all my heart, but I live with one very important truth and that is unless the Spirit of God is moving and touches that heart, that person has no capacity to understand divine things or even to respond. That's why it's important when we walk into the sanctuary, Holy Spirit of God may You do Your eternal work in the heart and lives of men and women today. Because it's the Holy Spirit that convicts of sin. It's the Holy Spirit that convicts us of righteousness and of judgment to come.

So as a person God sets the plan in motion, Christ comes to this world dies on a cross, ascends back into heaven, but He sends His Holy Spirit into the world to do the spiritual work of drawing men and women to a knowledge of Jesus Christ. It's all the work of the Holy Spirit. No one can come unless the Spirit draws them.

Now I've noted one other thing. He searches out the deep things of God and reveals it to the believers. Paul writes in the Corinthians, and here again is the work of the Holy Spirit as a person, But as it is written: "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, Nor have entered into the heart of man The things which God has prepared for those who love Him." But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us of God. These things we also speak, not the words which man's wisdom teaches but with the Holy Spirit. For the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him and he can not know them.

The work of the Holy Spirit, when we come together, is to take what truths we learn from here. I can try to be as clear and as explicit and sometimes even confusing in trying to express something. I have to depend, and you have to depend, on the Holy Spirit to take those divine truths and reveal them to our own hearts. It says the natural man, the man who does not have the Spirit of God within him, cannot even grasp spiritual things. It's the Spirit of God at work within us, within our world, that helps us to grasp spiritual truths. That's why the Holy Spirit is so exceedingly important.

You know, one of the great dearths, and you'll find this as you talk with people, very seldom is the subject of the person of the Holy Spirit spoken of the within the life of the church. I had a lady come to me sometime recently and she really shocked me. She said, Pastor, I was waiting to see today how many times you would refer to the Holy Spirit before the service was over. And she said, I only heard of you speak of Him twice. Now God knows my heart. I never want in any way to degrade the Holy Spirit, nor ignore the Holy Spirit.

I realize that what we are as persons, as believers, what our church is in our community, is what the Holy Spirit of God has helped it to be. It's not anything I've done. I am totally aware of my need for the Holy Spirit in speaking to you, for the Holy Spirit's presence to be with us so that hearts can be ministered to and minds can be opened by the Holy Spirit. I'm fully aware that, so I don't intentionally ignore the work of the Holy Spirit. But one of the things that always is a deep concern of mine as a Pastor is when the Holy Spirit is of really emphasized and then He becomes the center focus, and then all of His gifts and all of the manifestations, and all of a sudden you'll find churches where the focus of Christ drifts away and the focus is all on what the Holy Spirit does.

And the great challenge in our ministry and the great challenge in the our own individual lives is to keep that beautiful balance thanking Christ for what He's done, recognizing the Holy Spirit has made it possible for us to understand, it's the Holy Spirit that's empowering us, but all of them are God's gift to us in the Trinity.

Now we don't have really time to start on the second phase because this really...how does the Holy Spirit affect us? What was the work of the Holy Spirit before I became a Christian? What is the Holy Spirit doing within me as a believer? And what we're going to do is make the work for Holy Spirit very personal next Saturday night, the Lord willing. Tonight, we recognize He's not an influence. He's not some force out there. He is the third person of the Trinity; coequal with God, coeternal, coinvolved in everything. Thus, I honor Him, I recognize His divine personhood, I realize that what I am is by His presence and by His power and I honor Him as a person -- the Holy Spirit. Amen?

Spirit of God, we know we are wrestling with areas of thought. For us to grapple with this whole concept of the Trinity, all we can do is simply voice the truths as we know them from the Scripture. We see that very, very clearly that God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit work as one. Our salvation and our world is what it is because of the work of the Trinity. And Lord Jesus we never want to be guilty of ignoring the work of the Spirit. We sit here this evening, and I stand here recognizing the importance of the Holy Spirit's work in our world; drawing us, convicting us, keeping the spiritual balance that exists within the world. We recognize the importance of the Holy Spirit, and we honor the spirit of God.

And our prayer is that the Holy Spirit will have full reign in our own hearts and our own lives. Sometimes, Spirit of God, it may seem that we ignore You, we won't do that. For what You've done drawing our hearts, lightening our minds, searching the deep things of God and revealing them to us, helping us to understand spiritual truth -- we recognize that this is all of You, Spirit of God. Tonight we honor You, we worship You, and we love You for what You've done in our hearts. Thank you Spirit of God. Thank you Lord Jesus. Thank you heavenly Father. Wonder of wonders when that day comes and time shall be no more and we are in Your presence. We'll understand all of these great divine mysteries. What a day that will be. Until then, we worship You. In Jesus' name, and everybody said...amen. God bless you.