-The Holy Spirit-
I. What is the Holy Spirit?

a. This is certainly a good question for us to ask. But before we start to answer it, does anyone have a problem with the question I asked? How about the phrasing? I should have asked, who is the Holy Spirit and not what is the Holy Spirit. So first thing we can do right now is mark out what, and I want you to actually mark it out and put who above it so that you’ll remember that it was a bad way to ask the question. That will help us to remember that we are not talking about a power, or a force, or a feeling, no we are talking about a person of the trinity. It’s kind of like if I had asked What is Jesus Christ? Or what is the Father? That question sounds really funny. So, let’s try to answer this question who is the Holy Spirit.

i. The Holy Spirit is God.

1. There is a very dangerous mindset out there that has to do with the Holy Spirit. When Nick preached about the Holy Spirit a little while ago he made a big deal about a mistake that a lot of people make. He said that he can’t stand it when people call the Holy Spirit an “it” because what they should call Him is a “He”. The Holy Spirit is a He just as much as the Son is a He and the Father is a He. Like I said earlier, we don’t call Jesus an it because He is a person, and so is the Holy Spirit. And I want to give you three reasons why He’s a He and not an it. The first reason will come from Matthew 28:19-20. You see that here the Holy Spirit is put on an equal playing field with the Father and the Son. He’s not the 3rd string of the trinity. No He is fully God just like Jesus Christ and the Father are fully God. So don’t be tricked into thinking anything otherwise. I think a lot of the times when we call the Holy Spirit an it we think that He is just a power but the Holy Spirit is not just a power and here is the second really good reason why. You don’t have to go there but in Acts 10:38 Peter tells of how “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power.” So if the Holy Spirit means power then we have to read it like this…”God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with power and power”. That doesn’t really make much sense. So let’s be convinced right now that the Holy Spirit is as much God as the Father and the Son and that He is fully God.

II) What are the actions of the Holy Spirit?

a. I doubt if we had the rest of the day that I could tell you all the actions of the Holy Spirit. So this isn’t going to be a complete list. But hopefully we’ll get an idea of how important the Holy Spirit is for us as believers. Studying and coming to know Him more this week has helped me to love Him more and want to need Him more. So I’m hoping we’ll see how great and needed He is for us.

i. He causes rebirth: John 3:5-8. Most of us are probably pretty familiar with the story of Nicodemus. He wanted to know how a man could be born again if he was already born. But what he didn’t understand was that when Jesus was saying “born again” he was talking about being saved from a life of sin and eternity in hell. Nicodemus didn’t get that. So in this passage Jesus is talking about getting saved. He’s talking about rebirth which is known in theology as regeneration. We will study what regeneration means later on in this book but for right now we want to look about how the Holy Spirit is active in saving people. The only reason anyone we know is saved is because the Holy Spirit has wished that it would be that way and has caused them to be born again so that they can enter the kingdom of heaven. Think about what this means. When we share the gospel, the only way the person we are sharing it with will hear us out and believe is if the Holy Spirit causes them to be born again. When pastor Nick preaches on Sunday mornings or Brett on Sunday nights, the only reason anyone will get saved through the hearing of the gospel is if the Holy Spirit moves in their hearts to cause them to be born again so that they can one day enter the kingdom of heaven. The only reason I am saved is because this Holy Spirit has caused me to be able to see and hear with eyes and ears that can understand the truth of the message that Jesus Christ brought. If that doesn’t help us realize how much we need Him then I don’t know what well. Because we know that the work of the Holy Spirit is fully and totally needed in order that people would come to Christ.

ii. He seals our salvation. Ephesians 1:13-14. So the Holy Spirit causes us to be saved and then He also seals our salvation for us meaning that He guarantees it with Himself. Maybe that was kind of confusing. Someone tell me what else the word “guarantee” means here. What’s your bible say it can also mean? Down payment, that’s right. And what is a down payment? If I were to go out and buy a house I would put a down payment on it by paying for only some of it. And what I would be saying by doing that is ‘hey, I don’t have all the money to buy that house right now. But I want to buy it. And I want to own it. So here is the money I do have to show you how serious I am about having it and if you give it to me then I’ll give the rest to you later’. God has done something similar through the Holy Spirit. He is in a way saying to us ‘Son or daughter, you cannot come to heaven yet. You must live by faith in this world first. And there are more sheep to come to the shepherd before Christ returns. So you must wait. But here is a down payment. The Holy Spirit. God Himself will be with you until you come to receive your final inheritance.’ And we have been “sealed” with this Holy Spirit. When I say sealed what do you guys think of? I think of a sealed envelope, or a sealed treasure chest, or maybe the phrase ‘seal the deal’. But anyway, we know that sealed means secured. It’s not up in the air. And neither is our salvation because we have been sealed with the Holy Spirit. Oh what a great promise we have. Without this promise we would be men without hope. The Holy Spirit is almost an engagement ring to us. All believers make-up what we call the church which is also known as the bride in scripture. And the church of God will one day come to its’ Husband which is Jesus Christ and this bride who is the church will be with Him forever. We will be with Jesus Christ forever someday! Soon the waiting Jesus will no longer wait but will come. But not yet. He has not come yet. But let us praise God now that the powerful Holy Spirit is with us and is for us.

iii. He bears witness: The scripture for this part of the lesson will come from Romans 8:15-16. So here we see Paul telling the Romans “listen guys, you didn’t get the Holy Spirit to fall back into a life of sin. You have the Holy Spirit to praise God. And this Holy Spirit is bearing witness to your spirit meaning that He’s telling you you’re God’s children.” We all know what it means to be adopted right? Well when we become children of God by being born again to love Him, we are also adopted. We are adopted from our old father Satan and are given a new father who is God. This is also a theology term known as ‘adoption’. But here’s the thing about adoption. Even though we as believers are adopted into God’s kingdom as His children when we are saved, sometimes we can doubt. We may doubt that God would really love us, or really care about us, or want what’s best for us. This could be because we aren’t thinking about the gospel enough. It could also be because we are trying to live in sin comfortably and God’s children can’t do that. But either way things like this can make us seriously doubt if we are God’s children or not… We may say something like this to ourselves ‘God I know you say you love me as a son, but I don’t feel that way. I feel like I’ve been kicked out of your house. I feel as if I’ve shamed you to the point where you don’t love me anymore”. And when God’s true believers start feeling this way that is when they need the Holy Spirit to bear witness to them. To remind them that they are truly God’s children and He does love them and only wants what is best for them. We need Him to remind us that even though we fail, God is faithful and does not fail at whatever He desires to do. And this is what the Holy Spirit does.

iv. He glorifies Christ. This is by far one of the most glorious things I have run across in my studying of the Holy Spirit. Go to John 16:13-15 and we will see what Jesus tells His disciples about the Holy Spirit. Wow, sit and think about that for a few minutes. Okay so this passage of scripture tells us that the Holy Spirit glorifies Christ because Jesus says Himself “He will glorify me”. How exciting could this possibly be? The Holy Spirit is taking what is Jesus Christ’s, mainly the good news of the gospel, and He is telling it to people everywhere. He’s been doing it for over 2000 years and He continues to do it even right now. He gives humans the most important message and at the same time glorifies Christ by doing this. The Holy Spirit loves this. He loves to glorify Jesus. He wants Him known. It’s why He causes people to be born again, it’s why He gives the message of the gospel power, it’s why He seals our salvation, it’s why He convinces us that we are God’s children. It is all to spread the fame of Jesus Christ’s name. He wants Jesus known and honored and He is always working to shine light on Jesus. Think about the love that the Holy Spirit is showing in doing this. First of all, He wants Jesus glorified and he works to make it happen. Secondly, He wants Jesus Christ’s followers to know, and trust, and hope in the best message ever heard which is the gospel. So, while convincing us that the most important thing we can do is to trust in Jesus, He is also glorifying Jesus. What a display of love to us.

III) What do I do now?

a. This is a very good question. Knowing all these things about the Holy Spirit should cause us to do something. It should change the way we live somehow. So here’s three things of application. Before we do that there is one last scripture I want to look at. Check out John 16:7. Think about being one of Jesus’ disciples when He said this. They’re scared because He has said that He’s going away. And Jesus says to them that it’s good for Him to leave them because when He does He will send a “Helper”.

i. The first part of application is that we can trust the Holy Spirit. If we believe the words of Christ then we can believe these words of Christ when He says that the Helper is of more advantage to us. The Helper is more helpful to us. And the helper wants us to trust Him. Ephesians 4:30 says that we can grieve the Holy Spirit. That’s an interesting word. We may grieve when a family member dies, or we may grieve when we see a friend make a really really bad decision. And the Holy Spirit cares about t followers of Christ so much that He also grieves. It grieves Him to see us ignoring His instruction and doing what is against Him. But it grieves Him because He wants us glorifying Christ. Which is the best thing He could ever want. So let us trust Him.

ii. We can also worship the Holy Spirit. If you’ve been amazed this morning at the work of the Holy Spirit and are starting to realize how much we need Him and depend on Him then you can worship Him. Don’t hold back from praising Him. He’s worthy of our affection and our thoughts because He is God.