The Holy Spirit Why He Is So Important

Transcription

1 The Holy Spirit Why He Is So Important A story is told about a traveling evangelist who always put on a grand finale at his revivals. When he was to preach at the church, he would secretly hire a small boy to hide in the balcony with a dove in a cage. Toward the end of his sermon, the preacher would shout for the Holy Spirit to come down, and the boy hidden above would dutifully release the dove. At one revival meeting, however, nothing happened when the excited preacher called for the Holy Spirit to descend. He again raised his arms and exclaimed, Come down, Holy Spirit! Still, no sign of the dove. The preacher then heard the anxious voice of the small boy call down from above, Sir, a yellow cat just ate the Holy Spirit. Shall I throw down the yellow cat? We believe and teach the Trinity, God the Father, Jesus the Son and the Holy Spirit. There is only one God, one God in these three different distinctive persons. The Holy Spirit is referred to as the third person in the Trinity. The symbol for the Holy Spirit might be a dove often times but I promise that a cat cannot eat it. Sometimes people have treated the Holy Spirit as a third wheel. We learn a lot growing up about Jesus and the Father but often times there isn t much taught about the Holy Spirit. But there is something that we need to remember about the Holy Spirit, He is fully God. He is not part God part something else. He is vitally important and needed. This morning we are going to look at why the Holy Spirit is important. Now a lot of people for some reason are under the impression that the Holy Spirit didn t come on to the scene until the New Testament. Some people probably think that He didn t really start doing anything until the Day of Pentecost. But the truth of the matter is the Holy Spirit has been around all along. He wasn t just sitting around chilling waiting for the Day of Pentecost. Matter of fact He was a part of the creation process in the very beginning. Genesis 1:2 says, Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. Now you have to realize that just because it didn t say Holy Spirit that this was a different Spirit, the Spirit of God is the Holy Spirit. When you take that into consideration the Holy Spirit is mentioned 88 times in the Old Testament alone. The Holy Spirit is mentioned in 23 books of the Old Testament alone. Psalm 51 is known as the Psalm that David wrote in his period of grief and confession with what he did with Bathsheba. Listen to what David writes in Psalm 51:11. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Now to what

2 degree David understood the Holy Spirit at this point I am not sure. We know that at this point that the Holy Spirit was not a continual indwelling experience in the life of God s people. We are told in the Scriptures at different points where the Spirit of God left Saul or the Spirit of God came upon Saul. But the Holy Spirit was definitely at work throughout the period of the Old Testament. In the New Testament the Holy Spirit is mentioned 264 times. He is mentioned 60 or more times in the gospels alone. Acts alone mentions the Holy Spirit 57 times. If the Holy Spirit was not so important do you think that it would be so prominent in the Scriptures? Anything that is that prominent in the Scriptures must be important. He is important because He is everywhere in Scripture. From the Old Testament to the New Testament the Spirit is everywhere, literally. Is all we have to do is to look at the words of the Scriptures themselves to see just how valuable the Holy Spirit is. As Jesus was preparing His disciples for His departure He said this in John 16:7: But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. Jesus says it s good for you if I leave so you can have the Holy Spirit. As long as Jesus was in the human body He confined Himself to being at one place at one time. But with the Spirit of God He can minister to the needs of people all over the world at the same time. The Holy Spirit cannot be treated like a third wheel. He is fully God and the Scriptures make it clear that He is valuable. Talking about the Scriptures, on Wednesday nights we have been studying the Gospel of Luke. When you look at the Scriptures the Holy Spirit was such an evident part of Jesus life on earth. If we look in the first chapter of Luke we see that it was through the Holy Spirit that Jesus was conceived and given to Mary. We see the Holy Spirit making an appearance in Jesus life when He was baptized. The Holy Spirit descended in the form of a dove. He was everywhere in the life of Christ. But the Holy Spirit did so much more than to just make appearances in Jesus life. In Luke chapter 4 we see what we call the temptation of Jesus before He begins His ministry. In verse 1 it says, Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the desert. In this one verse alone we are told that Jesus was full of the Spirit and that He was led by the Spirit. Jesus was powered by the Holy Spirit, He depended upon the Spirit s power in dealing with temptations and His actions were led by the Spirit. When Jesus had His encounter with Satan in the wilderness and it was over look at what verse 14 tells us. Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside. Once again we see the power of Jesus coming from the Spirit. Just last Wednesday we came across this verse. Luke

3 10:21 says, At that time Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said, I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure. Jesus joy here was a joy that came from the Holy Spirit. Later you will see that joy is a fruit of the Spirit and we see it in evidence in Jesus life. The Holy Spirit was everywhere in Jesus life. There are other scriptures that show Jesus depending on the power of the Spirit and His leading. Jesus miracles were done through the power of the Spirit. According to Romans it was the Holy Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead. My question is this: If Jesus life here on earth was so dependent upon the power of the Holy Spirit than how can we not live being dependent upon the Holy Spirit? If the Holy Spirit was so crucial in the life that Jesus lived and we are to imitate the life of Jesus than how can we live without the Holy Spirit being an integral part in our life. Not only is the Holy Spirit everywhere in the Scripture and everywhere in the life of Christ, but He is everywhere in our life. In John 16:8 Jesus tells us this about the Holy Spirit, When he comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment. As a young man, AUGUSTINE packed a lot of life into a few years. He was a brilliant professor on the fast track with powerful Roman politicians. Yet despite his success and pursuit of pleasure, his soul was restless. His mother was a devout Christian, but Augustine wasn't interested in Christianity, although he seriously looked into other religions. All the while, his conscience increasingly troubled him as he realized that there was more to life than drinking, carousing, and philosophing. One day, Augustine was in the garden, thoroughly miserable. As he lay on the ground weeping, he kept hearing a child's voice say, "Pick it up and read." Not knowing what else to do, Augustine picked up the Bible, and randomly opened it. His eyes fell on Romans 13:13: "Let us behave decently... not in orgies and drunkenness..." At that very moment, Augustine was pierced to the core over His unbelief and gave his life to Christ. Without the Holy Spirit we would have no conviction of the sin in our lives. It is the Spirit that brings our sin and need for repentance to our lives. If we are not convicted of our need for a Savior then we could never be saved. Salvation is a work of God and the Holy Spirit is absolutely crucial to it. You can t get any more important than that! And when we as believers have done or said or thought something that we shouldn t have it is the Holy Spirit who often times convicts us

4 of what we have done. It is the Spirit of God that works in our life to begin that fellowship with God and to keep that fellowship going. But the Holy Spirit does much more than that in the life of the believer. Our goal as a believer is to become like Christ. It is the work of the Holy Spirit to produce those Christ like characteristics in you. We refer to it as the fruit of the Spirit. Galatians 5:22,23 tells us, But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is now law. If you look at the life of Jesus He had all of these things in His life. If we are to become like Christ those are the things that need to be produced in our life. It is the Holy Spirit working in our life to make these things a reality in our life. Without the Holy Spirit working in our lives then we don t have a chance of truly developing these things in our life. It is the work of the Holy Spirit that sanctifies you. To make that more understandable for some of you, it is the work of the Spirit that sets you apart from the world, that makes you different than the average person. It is the Spirit that works in your life that makes you usable for God. Without the work of the Spirit in your life you look no different than the rest of the world. But when you allow the Spirit to take control in your life the world recognizes a difference in you. The story is told of an elderly woman named Norena, who lived in southern Florida. When a hurricane hit that area, her home was one of many that was severely damaged. Norena received an insurance settlement, and the repair work began. However, when the money ran out, so did the contractor, leaving an unfinished home with no electricity. Norena lived in her dark, unfinished home - without power - for fifteen (15) years. You see, my brothers and sisters, the astonishing part of this story is that the hurricane was not Katrina but Andrew - a hurricane which struck in She had no heat in her home when the winter chills settled over southern Florida. She had no air conditioning when the mercury climbed into the 90 s and the humidity clung to 100 percent. She did not have one hot shower. Without money to finish the repairs, Norena just got by with a small lamp and a single burner. Her neighbors did not seem to notice the absence of power in her home. Acting on a tip, one day, the mayor of the Miami-Dade area got involved. It only took a few hours of work by electrical contractor, Kent Crook, to return power to Norena s house. CBS News reported that Norena planned to let the water get really hot, and then take her first "bubble bath" in a decade and a half. "It s hard to describe having [the electricity]...to switch on," Norena told reporters, "It s overwhelming."

5 But there are Christians out there that have the power of the Holy Spirit available to them but instead of releasing that power and walking in the power of the Spirit they continue to try living in their own power. Living in your own power you miss out so much in what it means to live in the power of God. He can transform your life, but we have to allow the Spirit to take control in our life. Galatians 5:25 says, Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Keeping in step with the Spirit is the only way for us to experience God s power and for Him to transform our lives. You see the Holy Spirit is everywhere in our lives. He is convicting us of sin, He is working in our lives to produce fruit, to bring the characteristics of Christ into our lives. He is transforming us and making us different from the world. The Holy Spirit is everything in the life of the believer. Yes, the Holy Spirit is important. Is all you have to do is to look at how He is everywhere in the Scriptures and He was everywhere in the life of Christ and He is everywhere in our lives to know just how important the Holy Spirit is. He is the third person in the Trinity but He is not a third wheel.