Review: Who the Spirit Is and What He Does -- 9/30/12

Sunday, September 30, 2012

REVIEW:  WHO THE SPIRIT IS AND WHAT HE DOES

            Though I don’t keep up with the National Football League, I do try to catch some national news to have some idea of what is going on in the world beyond La Luz.  It probably says something about our society that alongside wars, world affairs, and national politics the major news networks use some of their time to report on football.  Because of a labor dispute between the NFL owners and the referees, those referees have refused to officiate any more games until they get what they want, and the owners have refused to give them what they demand.  As a result, substitute referees had to be called in.  Things weren’t going too well until last Sunday, and then things got absolutely chaotic.  Because of modern technology every football fan and many non-football fans in America saw (and saw again and again) what appeared to be a very bad call.  The call just happened to be on the last play of the game and determined the winner and loser.  The NFL officials, players, and millions of fans have weighed in on the situation.

            Here is what I find to be most interesting.  The referee who made the call had some experience as a football referee.  However, the highest level of competition he had officiated was high school football.  I’m not a football expert, but I do know there is a world of difference between high school football and the NFL.  Can you imagine standing there on the field, as the Green Bay Packers and Seattle Seahawks face off for the game.  Those players are expecting a lot out of you today.  The stands are packed with tens of thousands of crazy, screaming fans.  And all the while you realize that millions more are watching you on television.  And if there is any question about a decision you make, the cameras will replay the whole thing from every angle imaginable.  That’s when your mom calls you on your cell phone and says, “Are we having fun yet?”  I don’t know what they pay those substitute referees, but surely it isn’t enough to take the kind of abuse that is poured down on them.

            Now compare that assignment to what the Christian faces.  At first we might think, “There aren’t many people watching me.  I’m glad I’m not in that pressure cooker.”  Think again.  You are living your life in full view of the Creator of the universe.  That includes not only your words and actions, but also your deepest thoughts and motives.  Christian, the stands are overflowing, because Heb. 12:1 tells us we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses.  Of course, those witnesses are on our side, but there is another onlooker who is not our friend.  He walks about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour.  Don’t be fooled; you are his target.  While the results of football games will be forgotten after a few years at most, our decisions have eternal consequences.  The way we live this life is so serious and intense that Jesus said, “And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell.  And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell” (Matt. 5:29-30). 

            Are we having fun yet?  Those substitute referees don’t know what pressure is.  They can retreat to the locker room after a few hours of facing angry fans; we must stand before the Lord Himself and give an account of our lives.  But there is one great difference that I haven’t mentioned.  The problem with those substitute referees is that they are not equipped to face such a demanding situation.  They have not been properly prepared, and they can’t get prepared in a week or a month.  What about us?  Does the Lord say, “Now that you are a Christian, get in there and live right”?  Is it like the Nike commercial, “Just do it”? 

            Praise God that He doesn’t treat us like that.  He doesn’t send us into day-to-day life unprepared.  The God who calls us also equips us.  But how does He do that?  Though we could give a number of answers, there is one thing that stands out above all the rest.  The Lord gives us Himself in the person of the Holy Spirit.  We aren’t alone.  The Father and the Son have sent the Holy Spirit to us.

            For some time now we have been looking at the Holy Spirit.  This morning I want us to take stock of where we are.  Lord willing, next week we will have the privilege of baptizing two new believers.  Today I want us to take some time to review where we have come up to this point.  Then two weeks from today I believe we will be ready to tackle the most direct New Testament commands concerning the Holy Spirit:  “Be filled with the Spirit” and “Walk in the Spirit.”  In preparation for that, I will give you some passages to read and think about and pray over.  So this morning let’s rejoice that the Lord has given us the Spirit.

I.  Who Is the Holy Spirit?

            The first question we must ask is simply, “Who is the Holy Spirit?”  The answer will not be exhaustive by any means, but I want to focus on two important truths concerning the identity of the Spirit.  First of all, the Holy Spirit is God.  Plant that truth firmly in your mind -- the Holy Spirit is God.  Just as the Father is God, the Holy Spirit is God.  Just as Jesus is God, the Holy Spirit is God.  It would not be correct to say, “God is the Holy Spirit,” because God cannot be reduced to the Holy Spirit.  Such a statement leaves out the Father and the Son.  But the Holy Spirit is God.

            Because the Holy Spirit is God, that means that He is personal.  The Holy Spirit is not some kind of powerful force that God uses in our lives.  The Spirit is not an “it”; the Holy Spirit is “He.”  Speaking of Jesus, we would never say, “It bore our sins on the cross.”  It is just as wrong to say of the Spirit, “It gives us life.”  The reason we are not as uncomfortable speaking of the Spirit as “it” as we are speaking of Jesus as “it” is because many of us have heard the Spirit referred to in such impersonal terms.  That is wrong.  Because the Spirit is God, He is personal.

            But how do we know the Spirit is God?  We know it because of the context of the entire Bible.  In the second verse of the Bible we find the Spirit.  “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.  The earth was without form and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep.  And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters” (Gen. 1:1-2).  All through the Old Testament we find the Spirit coming upon people and empowering them to do supernatural things.  And how did Jesus do the mighty miracles we read about in the New Testament?  We find the answer in Luke 4.  Luke 4:14, “Then Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee, and news of Him went out through all the surrounding region.”  News about Jesus spread because of all the mighty deeds He was doing by the power of the Spirit.  Then listen to what Jesus said when He was in His hometown of Nazareth… (Luke 4:16-19) 

So He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up.  And as His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood up to read.  And He was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah.  And when He had opened the book, He found the place where it was written:  “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.”

We sometimes think that because Jesus was God in the flesh, He just walked around doing whatever He wanted to whenever He wanted to do it, but that isn’t true.  Jesus did mighty deeds by the power of the Holy Spirit, who is indeed God.  Jesus later stated that He did nothing on His own, but only what He saw the Father do (John 5:19).  The divine power for doing those things came from the Spirit.

            Now we come to the truth that is almost unbelievable.  Were it not so clear in God’s Word, we wouldn’t dare repeat it.  The Holy Spirit is God, and the Holy Spirit indwells man.  The Spirit of God actually comes to live within human beings.  We looked at this in some depth in John 14.  Let’s read it again in John 14:16-18…

And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever-- 17 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. 18 I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.

Speaking of the Holy Spirit, whom He here refers to as the Helper (Comforter), Jesus says that He “will be in you.”  Jesus told those apostles that He would not leave them as orphans, but He would come to them.  How could that be, because He was getting ready to leave them?  He would come to them through the Holy Spirit, whom He would send in the Father’s name. 

            Many of you are familiar with that little phrase from Col. 1:27, “…Christ in you, the hope of glory.”  But how does the Lord Jesus Christ live within a person?  It is through the Spirit.  In Ephesians we read again and again that we who are true Christians are “in Christ” (1:1,3,10; 2:6,13, etc.).  How can we be in Christ?  It is through the Holy Spirit, who is in us.  It is the ministry of the Spirit to give us this indescribable connection with Jesus.  Though we could say many other things about who the Spirit is, none is so crucial as understanding that the Spirit, who is God, indwells people like us.

            You may remember us noting when we went through this passage in John 14 that Jesus introduces the Spirit as “the Helper,” “the Comforter.”  The word literally means “one called alongside.”  Actually, Jesus referred to Him as “another comforter.”  The word translated “another” speaks of “another of the same kind.”  The same kind as what?  We find the answer by reading I John 2:2, “My little children, these things I write to you, so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.”  That word “Advocate” is the same word that is translated “Helper” here in John 14.  So Jesus is saying that He will send another Helper just like Himself.  Though Jesus was leaving those fearful apostles, He promised to send another like Himself who would come alongside them.  In reality, He would come alongside them by living within them.  Now the Spirit is that one called alongside, our helper, our comforter, our advocate, intercessor, strengthener (see John 14:16 in the Amplified Version).

II.  What Does the Spirit Do?

            Having identified the Holy Spirit as God who indwells man, let’s now ask the question:  “So what does the Holy Spirit actually do?”  We could spend weeks and months and even years answering that question.  Though people have generally given the book of Acts the title “The Acts of the Apostles,” some have suggested a more appropriate title would be “The Acts of the Holy Spirit.”  That is certainly understandable in light of the first few verses of Acts.  Acts 1:1-9…

The former account I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and teach, 2 until the day in which He was taken up, after He through the Holy Spirit had given commandments to the apostles whom He had chosen, 3 to whom He also presented Himself alive after His suffering by many infallible proofs, being seen by them during forty days and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God. 4 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; 5 for John truly baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now." 6 Therefore, when they had come together, they asked Him, saying, "Lord, will You at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?" 7 And He said to them, "It is not for you to know times or seasons which the Father has put in His own authority. 8 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." 9 Now when He had spoken these things, while they watched, He was taken up, and a cloud received Him out of their sight.

Luke’s gospel account tells what Jesus did and taught while He was on the earth.  We see that even while Jesus was still on the earth He gave commands to His apostles through the Holy Spirit.  Then He tells them that they will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.  It is through the Spirit that Jesus will continue His ministry on this earth through the lives of the apostles.  He will live and work in and through them by His Spirit.  So when we read the book of Acts, we get a wonderful picture of what the Holy Spirit does. 

            So obviously, I am not going to try to give an exhaustive account of all that the Spirit does.  As we read earlier, the Spirit was active in the creation of the universe.  All through the Old Testament we see Him working through the lives of God’s people Israel.  We also saw Him providing the power by which Jesus lived on this earth.  What I want to focus on this morning are some of the things the Spirit does in the life of the believer.

            In connection with who the Spirit is, we have already said that the Spirit indwells believers.  But how can that be possible?  How can He who is God come and live in people who have been the very enemies of God?  How can sinful creatures like us become home to the Spirit of God?  The law made it clear that when a person came into contact with a dead body, he was then unclean for a time.  So how can the living Spirit of God live within people whom He describes as dead in their trespasses and sins? 

            Before the Spirit moves into any person, He first does a mighty work in that individual.   Yes, He brings the dead person to life.  This is what we found in John 3, where Jesus dealt with that Pharisee named Nicodemus.  When Nicodemus complimented Jesus by saying that He certainly must be a teacher from God, Jesus responded with the words, “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.”  As a person must be born physically in order to live in this world, so a person must be born again, born spiritually, born from above in order to live in the heavenly kingdom.  Jesus said in John 10:10, “I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.”  Jesus came to give us life, and it is through the work of the Spirit that it becomes a reality.  Yes, we were dead in our trespasses and sins, but God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, has made us alive with Christ.  He did it by His Spirit.

            Yes, the Spirit gives us life, but His work doesn’t stop there.  The same Spirit who makes us alive in Christ empowers us to live a life that we could not live in our own strength.  Put simply, the Spirit gives the believer power.  We must not misunderstand this truth.  Sometimes people take this to mean that the believer will do miraculous and flashy deeds that will amaze one and all.  No, the Spirit does not empower Christians to impress, but to glorify the Father and the Son. 

            The Holy Spirit empowers the believer to live a holy life.  That makes sense, because He is the Holy Spirit.  The word “holy” means “set apart.”  God Himself is holy.  He is set apart.  There is none like Him.  It is the Holy Spirit who continually sets us apart unto God and His purposes.  The term used in the scripture for this process is “sanctification.”  To “sanctify” means “to make holy,” “to set apart.”  In John 17 Jesus prayed that we might be sanctified.  “Sanctify them by Your truth; Your word is truth” (John 17:17).  It is the will of God that we continually be set apart unto God, and this process will set us apart from the world.  Now let’s read I Pet. 1:1-2, “Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ,To the pilgrims of the Dispersion in Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, 2 elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, for obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace be multiplied.”  Also II Thes. 2:13-14, “But we are bound to give thanks to God always for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God from the beginning chose you for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth, 14 to which He called you by our gospel, for the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.”  Do you see it?  “Sanctification by the Spirit and belief in the truth.”  The Spirit works in us to accomplish the work of sanctification.  He will continue to set us apart until the day when we meet Jesus face to face in glory.

            The Holy Spirit also gives us power to bear witness.  We read it earlier in Acts 1:8, “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.”  Lest we think those words were intended only for the apostles, listen again to what Jesus told them in Matt. 28:19-20, “ Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. Amen.”  Those who become disciples are commanded to make disciples of all the peoples on the earth.  In the book of Acts the early Christians demonstrated how the Spirit was able to empower the common people to bear powerful witness to Jesus.  Acts 8:3-4, “As for Saul, he made havoc of the church, entering every house, and dragging off men and women, committing them to prison. 4 Therefore those who were scattered went everywhere preaching the word.”  In the face of ridicule and persecution, these simple believers proclaimed the word of the gospel.  That is what the Spirit can do in our lives.  He can give us power to make the gospel clear through our words and our lives.

            Speaking of the way we live, the Spirit empowers God’s people to love.  Paul tells us in Gal. 5:22 that the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, etc.  At the head of the list is love.  Jesus commands us to love one another, to love our neighbor as ourselves, and even to love our enemies, but that is something that we cannot do it our own strength.  Why not?  Because this kind of love is the love with which God loves us.  Apart from the Spirit, we can’t love like that, but praise God that the Spirit produces this kind of love in God’s people.  We read these words earlier in Gal. 5, “For you, brethren, have been called to liberty; only do not use liberty as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love serve one another. 14 For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself’” (Gal 5:13-14).  Thought the Spirit isn’t specifically mentioned here, the entire chapter speaks of His work.  It is the Spirit who enables you to love your neighbor as yourself.  This is the active testimony that supports our verbal proclamation of the gospel.

            As we saw near the beginning of our study, the Holy Spirit gives us the advantage.  Let’s read again what Jesus told His apostles a few hours before His arrest.  John 16:5-7, “But now I go away to Him who sent Me, and none of you asks Me, 'Where are You going?' 6 But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart. 7 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.”  As it was to their advantage that Jesus leave them and send His Holy Spirit into their lives, so it is better that we have the indwelling Spirit than to have Jesus with us in the flesh.  If you ever think, “If I just had Jesus here to hold my hand and to give me advice, everything would be okay,” understand that if you are truly God’s child, you have something far better.  You have Jesus living within you through the Holy Spirit.  That is to our advantage.

            In all of this, the Holy Spirit glorifies Jesus.  The Lord Jesus said a great deal about the Spirit in John 14-16, but nothing is more important that the little statement recorded in John 16:14, “He will glorify Me, because He will take of what is Mine and declare it unto you.”  While there is a sense in which the Holy Spirit works behind the scenes, we must never assign Him a minor and unimportant role in the whole scheme of things, because there is nothing more important than glorifying Jesus.  When we truly bring glory to Jesus, we do it by the power of the Spirit.  This is His work.  Why does he sanctify us?  To glorify Jesus.  Why does the Spirit empower us to witness?  To glorify Jesus.  Why does He give us the power to love?  To bring glory to Jesus. 

III.  Revisiting Galatians 3:10

            Praise God that He has “sent forth the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying ‘Abba, Father’” (Gal. 4:7).  While there is mystery in His presence and ministry, the Holy Spirit is real and His ministry is powerful.  May God give us grace to learn of Him from the Word and experience His power in our everyday lives.

            Before we conclude this morning, we need to revisit Gal. 3:10.  You will recall that last week we looked at Gal. 3:1-14, as we considered the Spirit and the flesh.  Let’s once again read verse 10, “For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse; for it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who does not continue in all things which are written in the book of the law, to do them.’”  During the week one of my brothers asked me some questions about what I said in that message.  After going back and listening to what I said, I am thankful for those questions.  I know what I meant to say, but that isn’t what I said.  What I communicated was very misleading, at best.  Please forgive me.  The last thing I want to do is to put forth false ideas that will lead us astray.

            The first question that was asked me was something like this:  “Did I hear you say that believers can be under a curse?”  Before I thought, I said, “Yes.”  As I said it, I realized that I didn’t believe that.  Let me be clear.  True believers are not under a curse or in danger of being under a curse, because Jesus took the curse for us.  There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ.  What I intended to communicate is that it is possibly for professing Christians to be under that curse. 

            So who is it that is under the curse?  “As many as are of the works of the law.”  That is, those who rely upon the works of the law.  This verse is clarified by Gal. 5:4, “You have become estranged from Christ, you who attempt to be justified by law; you have fallen from grace.”  In this verse Paul is stating the same basic truth.  Those who are under a curse and those who have been cut off from Christ are those who are trying to be made right with God through their own efforts.  This is what the false teachers, the Judaizers, were teaching.  They boldly said that to trust Christ for salvation was not enough.

            The big question is how we relate this to ourselves?  Last week I asked the question, “When Paul talks about those who rely on their own efforts being under a curse, of whom is he speaking?”  I began to answer the question by saying,  “Immediately we want to say, ‘Non-Christians, those who have not put their faith in Christ.’  But we must see this in context.”  I fear that I gave the impression that when Paul spoke of those under a curse, he was talking about Christians.  No.  What I want to communicate is that Paul was not talking to pagans, to people who openly opposed Christ, but he was talking to professing Christians.  Paul was concerned that some of them were turning away from faith in Christ by receiving a message which taught them that they must add other works to Jesus’ work in order to be saved.  Hopefully most of those Galatians who professed Christ heard his message, understood it, and continued to cling to Christ as their only means of justification.  But no doubt, there were some who were sucked into to this subtle teaching and abandoned faith in Christ alone.  They are the ones who were under a curse, along with those false teachers.

            Do true Christians struggle with doing things in our own strength?  Yes, we all do.  But that does not mean that we are trusting in those works to justify us before God.  And this is precisely where I was unclear last week.  I confess that I struggle greatly with self-reliance.  Such self-reliance is indeed what Paul refers to as “flesh.”  However, I do not believe that I am trying to bring my salvation to completion through my own efforts.  I do not see my own works as aiding my justification in any sense.  However, it is possible for a person to be relying upon his own works for salvation without being aware of it.  That’s why our response to Galatians 3 is critical.  If a person can just shrug it off and not be concerned, there is great danger that he is the very person who is not clinging to Christ alone.  On the other hand, though a Christian struggles with the flesh, when he hears the truth of the Word, he gets a glimpse of the freedom he has in Christ and he longs for more and more of that freedom.  Brothers and sisters, we can take great assurance in that.

              Make no mistake about it, Galatians (including chapter 3) has a very important message for us.  The Lord desires us to live every day by faith.  As we received Christ through faith, we are to walk in Christ through faith, relying not upon our own strength, but upon the Holy Spirit and His power.

            Let me make one other thing clear.  It is okay to question me or anyone else in this church.  We need one another and this is a perfect example.  Perhaps some of you filtered what I said through your own screen and concluded, “Well, this is probably what Ron meant to say.”  But no doubt, some of you were confused, at best.  As one who stands before you often and teaches the Word, I want to be teachable.