VIDEO: -OLOGY INTRO SLIDE 1 -OLOGY PNEUMATOLOGY June 19 th, 2016 INTRODUCTION Good Morning! Welcome to Fox Valley Christian Church! We are digging into the ologies of the Christian faith. We are looking at what we believe and why. This has been a journey. To this point we have talked about - Bibliology - The Bible, God s Word - Theology God - Angelology Invisible Creation; namely Angels and Demons - Anthropology Man, Sin, and Death - Christology Jesus, the Son This week we get to talk about the third part of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. When we talked about God, we said that God is one and God is three. There is one God and He has three parts or three persons. Do I fully understand how this works? Nope. Does the Bible clearly lay it out that there is only one God, but that He has three distinct persons? Yep. So that is what we believe, that is what we know.
Today we are going to talk about the third part of the trinity, the Holy Spirit. This is one of those things in the Christian faith that I find so many people ignoring. It is one of the subjects that they just steer clear of and claim ignorance. On the other hand, I see people over emphasize the Spirit or maybe a better way to say it is, they have an inappropriate understanding of God s Spirit and fantasize what the Spirit actually does, because He is unknown and mysterious to us. So, we are going to take a good look at the Holy Spirit today. In order to do this, we are going to look at Him in the same way that we looked at the Father and at the Son. We are going to look at His nature and then we are going to look at His works. NATURE OF THE HOLY SPIRIT THE HOLY SPIRIT IS A PERSON The first and great characteristic that must be understood about the Holy Spirit is that he is a person. There are those that want to deny the personhood of the Holy Spirit. They would tell you that the Holy Spirit is a thing and should be referred to as it, they would tell you that it is God s impersonal, invisible force or power. Jehovah s Witnesses is an example of those that do not believe in the personhood of the Holy Spirit. So what does the Bible have to say? 1. LOOK AT WHAT JESUS CALLS HIM JOHN 14:16
SLIDE 2 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate (ἄλλος παράκλητος), who will never leave you. Jesus says He will give you another another advocate, allos parakletos. This is a twofold demonstration of His personhood. A parakletos is a counselor, similar to an attorney. This in and of itself is a personal concept. Also, the word allos means another of the same kind. He is not just saying another advocate, He is saying God will give you another advocate of the same kind as me. Therefore, the Spirit must be personal like Jesus. 2. THE BIBLE PUTS THE SPIRIT IN LISTS PARALLEL WITH OTHER PERSONS MATTHEW 28:19 SLIDE 3 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, ACTS 15:28 SLIDE 4 28 For it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us to lay on you no greater burden than these requirements: The Holy Spirit is in the same list as the Father and the Son, put alongside them. If they are persons, He is too. The Holy
Spirit is also acting in the same way that the Apostles are. Both agree that it is good to not lay greater burdens on the Gentiles that are accepting Christ as Lord. 3. THE HOLY SPIRIT DOES THE KIND OF THINGS THAT PERSONS DO a. Intellectual Activity 1 CORINTHIANS 2:10-11 SLIDE 5 10 these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. SLIDE 6 11 For who knows a person's thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. b. Volitional Activity (freewill) 1 CORINTHIANS 12:11 SLIDE 7 11 All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills. c. He speaks ACTS 8:29 SLIDE 8 29 And the Spirit said to Philip, "Go over and join this chariot."
ACTS 13:2 SLIDE 9 2 While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, "Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them." d. He teaches JOHN 14:26 SLIDE 10 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 that I have said to you. e. He experiences emotions ISAIAH 63:10 SLIDE 11 10 But they rebelled and grieved his Holy Spirit; therefore he turned to be their enemy, and himself fought against them. Jesus compares the Spirit to himself, the Bible puts the Spirit in other lists with persons, the Spirit does all kinds of things that persons do and 4. THE HOLY SPIRIT IS TREATED LIKE A PERSON a. He is lied to ACTS 5:3 SLIDE 12 3 But Peter said, "Ananias, why has Satan filled your
heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back for yourself part of the proceeds of the land? b. He is insulted HEBREWS 10:29 SLIDE 13 29 How much worse punishment, do you think, will be deserved by the one who has trampled underfoot the Son of God, and has profaned the blood of the covenant by which he was sanctified, and has outraged the Spirit of grace? 5. FINALLY, THE HOLY SPIRIT IS REFERRED TO AS HE JOHN 15:26 SLIDE 14 26 "But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me. THE HOLY SPIRIT IS DIVINE SLIDE 15 The next part of the nature of the Holy Spirit He is not just a person, but He is divine. He and God are one. 1. DIVINE CHARACTERISTICS ARE APPLIED TO HIM a. He is eternal HEBREWS 9:14 SLIDE 16 14 how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without
blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God. a. He is omniscient We saw this earlier in 1 Corinthians 2:10-11 1 CORINTHIANS 2:10-11 SLIDE 17 10 these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. SLIDE 18 11 For who knows a person's thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. b. He is omnipotent PSALM 104:30 SLIDE 19 30 When you send forth your Spirit, they are created, and you renew the face of the ground. 2. HE IS SPECIFICALLY REFERRED TO AS GOD ACTS 5:1-4 SLIDE 20 1 But a man named Ananias, with his wife Sapphira, sold a piece of property, SLIDE 21 2 and with his wife's knowledge he kept back for himself some of the proceeds and brought only a part of it and laid
it at the apostles' feet. SLIDE 22 3 But Peter said, "Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back for yourself part of the proceeds of the land? SLIDE 23 4 While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not at your disposal? Why is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to man but to God." The Holy Spirit is a person and He is divine, He is the 3 rd part of the trinity. So then, what does He do? SLIDE 24 WORKS OF THE HOLY SPIRIT THE HOLY SPIRIT GIVES US KNOWLEDGE During the first week of this series when we talked about God s Word, the Bible. We saw that the Holy Spirit is the ultimate source or origin of the Bible. This is undisputed among Christians. There is too much Biblical evidence. 2 SAMUEL 23:2 SLIDE 25 2 "The Spirit of the Lord speaks by me; his word is on my tongue.
2 PETER 1:20-21 SLIDE 26 20 knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation. SLIDE 27 21 For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. 1 CORINTHIANS 2:13 SLIDE 28 13 And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. This is what Christians agree on, God s Word, the Bible, has been inspired by the Holy Spirit. SLIDE 29 But what about other knowledge? Does the Holy Spirit give us the ability to understand the Bible? Are people still given divine revelation by the Spirit? This is where people disagree. Let me tell you why people disagree here first, then we will seek to have an appropriate understanding of the power of the Spirit and His ability to give us knowledge.
Why do people disagree on the level at which the Spirit gives us knowledge? 1. There are false prophets. There are people that lie and say, God gave me this special knowledge and then they lead people away from God. They lead people to do things that God does not want them doing. There are people who are deceived by sin, temptation, Satan and they believe they are given a special revelation from God, when it is just our enemy trying to lead people away from God. Because of this, there are those that say the Spirit does not lead us into understanding scripture. He does not reveal to us the meaning of scripture, He merely gave us scripture. This group believes that the apostles were given a special understanding from the Spirit, but no one else. They refuse to believe that the Spirit could give us understanding, because they are afraid of all of the false prophets that have emerged claiming to have special revelation. This is a better safe than sorry approach to the power of the Spirit. 2. We want God to reveal Himself without having to seek for Him There are so many people that just want special revelation. God let me understand the mysteries of your word. And then we read and whatever we feel like that
scripture means, we accept that as the Spirit s leading and divine revelation. This is dangerous, but we do this because we don t want to put in the time to seek God in His word. We just want God to lead us into understanding now. So there are two camps because of these views. One says that the Spirit reveals the mysteries of the Bible and we don t have to put in the work to know God, He just makes Himself known. The other camp says that the Spirit does not lead us into understanding, He gave us God s Word so we could seek Him. I, personally, cannot throw myself into one of these two camps. Because on one hand, I know that we are supposed to seek God. We have been told this throughout the entirety of Scripture. It takes effort on our part to know our creator. But we have been given God s Spirit; as an advocate, a counselor, a guide. Throughout all of scripture we see Him leading people into understanding. He is God. He is all knowing and all powerful. We can t limit God and say that He is unable to lead us into understanding. The most appropriate way to address the Spirit and knowledge is to seek God. To really seek to know Him. Not to seek a quick fix. God make me all knowing, just because. But God, I want to know you and I am going to set out to seek you please by the power of your Spirit lead me into understanding. We need to seek Him fully knowing His divine power and ability to lead us
into understanding and to correct our course when we begin to misunderstand. See the heart of this is why do we want to know? Why do we want knowledge? What are we seeking? Are we seeking so that we can prove our will or are we seeking His will? If we are genuinely seeking His will, His heart, His righteousness then I fully believe that His Spirit has the power to lead us into understanding. THE HOLY SPIRIT GIVES US POWER One of the other great works of the Holy Spirit is that He gives us power. I believe that this aspect of the Holy Spirit is what leads us to sometimes have a misunderstanding of the Holy Spirit. Let me explain what I mean. We agree that the Holy Spirit inspired all scripture. So we fully understand that He has been working with humanity since the very beginning. We know that He is God and that He is preexisting and that before creation He was. We know that He was active in creation. But when we think of the Holy Spirit we think of His works in the New Testament and we don t quite understand what His Old Testament purpose was. So we ignore His working in the Old Testament all together. So, the Holy Spirit gives us power and He always has, it has just changed over time. Why and how?
1. The Holy Spirit s work in the Old Testament He was active in creation and He was active in inspiring God s Word, but outside of that in the Old Testament we see that the Holy Spirit gave various abilities to individuals in order to enable them to perform special tasks and ministries. a. He equipped various men to be great leaders; Moses, Joshua, Saul, David b. He gave the gift of prophecy to a large number of men from Moses to Malachi c. He equipped a large number of Israelites with gifts of craftsmanship When we see the Holy Spirit giving power in the Old Testament we see that He worked upon people rather within them. What I mean is that in the Old Testament we do not see the Spirit giving out moral or spiritual power. Instead it was an external influence, He equipped individuals physically or mentally. But He did not equip them from within, spiritually. You can sum up His work in the Old Testament like this. i. The Spirit s gifts were not given to all God s people, even among the saved in Israel ii. The Spirit s gifts were given to equip for service, not to sanctify inwardly iii. The Spirit s gifts were temporary and lasted only as long as the need for the person s services remained
iv. A person did not have to be a believer to receive this type of empowering (Balaam) 2. The Holy Spirit s work in the New Testament The Holy Spirit works different in the New Testament though. Why? Because of Jesus. Jesus came and changed the world forever. He changed the world through His birth, through His life, through His death and through His resurrection. Jesus existed well before He ever came, but when He interacted with the World in a way that He never had before, everything changed. The same thing happened with the Spirit. He has always existed, but then Jesus tells us that the Holy Spirit is going to come in a whole new way. The Old Testament prophesied Jesus and it also prophesied the coming of the Holy Spirit. Ezekiel prophecies that the Holy Spirit will no longer just work upon God s people but that He will work in them. EZEKIEL 36:26-27 SLIDE 30 26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. SLIDE 31 27 And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in
my statutes and be careful to obey my rules. So how does the Holy Spirit work in us now? Well there are 3 primary ways that the Holy Spirit works in us now. SLIDE 32 a. Before Conversion Before conversion, before we accept God as Lord, the Holy Spirit s primary work is to convict us. To make us aware of our need for a Savior. JOHN 16:8 SLIDE 33 8 And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment: The main way that He does this is through God s Word. The power of the Bible is always the principal agent that leads to faith and repentance. The Bible is inspired by the Spirit. SLIDE 34 The Spirit also convicts us and leads us to repentance by helping us to understand God s Word, by working on the heart through confrontation, encouragement, relational witnessing, memories, in times of heartache and struggle.
b. During Conversion The Spirit is also at work during conversion. At the very moment that we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior the Spirit is working. He is working in our Baptism and He is working in regeneration. In the next several weeks are going to look at salvation. In these weeks we will talk more about what the Spirit does at the moment of conversion. For now, remember we talked about the three forms of death; spiritual, physical, and eternal. At the moment of conversion, the Spirit begins to work in us through regeneration, this is the process of resurrection from spiritual death. He gives us new life. This is an inner regeneration and it is something that we did not see in the Old Testament, before Christ. It is a new work of the Spirit. c. After Conversion After conversion we see the Spirit working in two ways. i. He lives inside of us and continues to sanctify us, to give us the power to live a holy life. ii. He equips us to make God known. He gives us gifts all kinds of gifts so that we can remove any barriers that prevent people from knowing God. He does not give us gifts for our personal benefit, they are
not so that we can boast, they are not for any other purpose than to continue the mission that we have been sent on and that is to know God and to make Him known. CHALLENGE The Holy Spirit is not a thing; He is our personal God. He is part of the trinity. He is active in our lives right now. Some of you have the Holy Spirt convicting you and working on your heart. Leading you to repentance. Some of you have the Holy Spirit living in you, sanctifying you, purifying you from sin, making you holy and empowering you to go and make Him known. I want to challenge you today that if the Spirit is working on you and working on your heart, do not ignore Him. He knows what is best and wants what is best for your life. Listen to the truths of His word, accept the free gift of Grace that Jesus has given you by taking your place. Let Him give you spiritual life and renew you. If the Spirit is alive in you, working in you, sanctifying you, empowering you I want to challenge you today to not be complacent. Don t rest on your salvation alone, but take full advantage of the power that He is giving you and go and make God known. Let s pray.
PRAY COMMUNION MEDITATION Something here