I believe in the Holy Spirit.2023

Scripture/Introduction

Acts 2:1–4 NIV

1 When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. 2 Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3 They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.

and then later, Peter is preaching to the masses gathered in Jerusalem at the time for the Pentecost feast:

Acts 2:14–21 NIV

14 Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd: “Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say. 15 These people are not drunk, as you suppose. It’s only nine in the morning! 16 No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel: 17 “ ‘In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. 18 Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy. 19 I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and billows of smoke. 20 The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord. 21 And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’

Pray.

Intro....

Sometimes hard to grasp....impersonal. We talk about it like a power-up.

overview:

Holy Spirit from beginning to end of scripture gives us a helpful framework.

Holy Spirit in us

Holy Spirit in the world

Holy Spirit from beginning to end

In many ways the Spirit is the way that the bible talks about God’s personal presence in the world. Ruach. Breath of God, energy of God. Terms fall a part because language is limited but they altogether tell a picture. The presence and work of the spirit is in scripture from the very beginning.

Genesis 1:1–2 NIV

1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 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.

Power of God almost personified there in the beginning. Brought a good world to be. And then it does not stop there. Throughout scripture, the Holy Spirit comes on certain people.

First Joseph, the Spirit gives him the ability to interpret a dream for Pharoah....this great pagan ruler and Pharoah who does not believe in Yahweh says:

Genesis 41:38 NIV

38 So Pharaoh asked them, “Can we find anyone like this man, one in whom is the spirit of God?”

Later the Spirit comes to a man named Bezalel that has been tasked with designing the tabernacle. He has been given wisdom and skill to take raw materials and artistically bring them into something beautiful:

Exodus 31:1–3 NIV

1 Then the Lord said to Moses, 2 “See, I have chosen Bezalel son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, 3 and I have filled him with the Spirit of God, with wisdom, with understanding, with knowledge and with all kinds of skills—

The Spirit comes on Judges to empower them for difficult tasks.

The Spirit empowers Saul until the Spirit leaves him as Saul goes a different route.

The Spirit comes on a group of people in the OT called the prophets. The Spirit empowers them to see things in the world the way God sees it:

Here is the problem as the prophets see it:

1. The ruach has made a good world

2. humans have given into evil and unleashed chaos

Hosea says that we have with in us a spirit of prostitution. Something within us, a motivation, a pull away from what is good, right, obedient. We have a divided heart.

3. Prophets said the spirit will come but this time to transform the human heart so that people will love God and others.

Ezekiel 36:26–28 NIV

26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27 And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws. 28 Then you will live in the land I gave your ancestors; you will be my people, and I will be your God.

And the people yearn for this. The Hebrew people saw a different spirit in some. They wanted to have this different spirit of God within them. You see this yearning.

So how is this going to be different? How can we become like Jospeh, Bezalel, Gideon the Judge, like the prophets?!

Is. 32:14-15 says, the day is coming when the watchtower will be abandoned when the Spirit is poured out.

How?!?!?!

4. Centuries pass and Jesus comes....Spirit comes on Jesus...empowering him to heal the new creation....creating life where the once was death

Israel’s religious leaders kill him. but even here....

5. Spirit raises Jesus from death, disciples say so. beginning of new creation.

Romans 8:11 NIV

11 And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you.

But it is not done.

6. Significantly, Jesus breathes on the disciples, “receive the Holy Spirit

7. Not long after, Pentecost so that they could become part of the new creation and live by the energy of God’s Spirit

8. Today the spirit is still hovering in dark places

This is why Peter quotes Joel....what the prophets desperately wanted… what we wanted. it has happened. And all generations will know this!

This is the framework..... that leads us to talk about two moves here...

Holy Spirit in us

First movement then is to talk about the movement of God’s Spirit in human salvation.

Here is the deal, from the beginning Christianity says this not possible without God. There is no striving, there is no amount of religion, there is no amount of effort that the sinner, or the Pharisee can bring, apart from God, that makes all of this possible.

God has not made this presentation and then left us in our sin to sort it out. Even before God’s love through his Spirit is at work even before you know him.

God’s love is at work for you giving you the ability to respond to him.

And in the moment of saying yes to him. His Spirit is poured into your life in a permanent way.

Romans 5:5 NIV

5 And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

This is what Jesus is talking about when he is teaching with Nicodemus and says you must be born again by water and the Spirit.

It quite literally means in the context, you need to new start. A new self. You can’t figure it out. We have this baggage about born again.....

It means new life given to you. It does not have to be a needle in the arm instantaneous moment. It can be a process, it can be without clear demarkations, but what is non negotiable is the new life is new compared to the old.

God’s love becomes something that does not act on you or for you, but now in you. Paul calls us a Temple

1 Corinthians 6:19 NIV

19 Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own;

The very place that God now resides.

Here is the thing, there are many of us that have come to know Jesus. We have prayed a prayer, we have made a decision, we have committed to this thing, but for whatever reason we have kind of scoffed at this idea of the Spirit in us.

If that’s you:

I believe that Jesus loves you. That you are a Christian. But when it comes to the power, the abundant life, and the awareness of the Spirit of God, you are agnostic.

Romans 8: The Spirit interceeds for us

John 16:13 The Spirit instructs, teaches, admonishes

Galatians 5: The Spirit teaches and admonishes, gives the fruit of the spirit....love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. The Spirit truly conforms us into the imagine of his son.

Acts 13, 16:6, and Romans 8:14 : The spirit gives direction and guides

By the way direction....not every answer. God’s will

But listen, what if when we are agnostic on the Spirit, The Spirit will remain unwilling in us.

God is not interested in forcing our hand, but God is interested in bring freedom and abundant life.

Let me talk about something here for a minute that lands this thing on the ground. We live in a time of secularization, this movement of post Christendom in the world. We live in a world where progressivism has sold us this narrative (now listen I am not talking about democrats or partisan politics....so before you start pointing fingers, we have all been affected by it). Mark Sayers brings helpful commentary if you want to learn more.

The progressive secularist narrative is a story of utopia if we as society and individually will just progress. Get smarter, more technology, if we will break the power structures, if we will find our true selves, if we will find a level of enlightenment, social wokeness.....this is how our world can improve infinitely.

Secularist narrative is a pursuit of heaven without God.

Here is the thing....it is failing in our society, and it is failing in the individual level. Let’s talk about the individual level.....as it fails the world tells you its your fault.

your anxious....its your fault. you are doing it to yourself

you are having food thrown at you 24/7, but its actually your fault because you don’t take care of yourself

you look at instagram, and you see all the people there and its your fault that you do not measure up

you are a mom of young children, you are exhausted, you have not slept. and you have not been a walk or run for 7 weeks.....and you look on instagram and there are moms running with a kid under each arm while reading Aristotle.

But it is all fake.

We are having a crisis because there is a gap in the message....

Mark Sayers helps again:

He points out...“The gap between what the cultures promises and what it delivers is getting bigger.”

What is said: “Humans are created spontaneous and unique individuals, humans find meaning through expansive freedom and pleasurable experiences. Humans desires, choices, and identities arise from within them.

Actual definition:

“Humans are actually predictable, unoriginal, and herd like consumers. Humans can be manipulated through environmental cues which shape their behavior in habitual ways which in turns shapes their thinking. Human desires, choices, and identities can be engineered.”

This is how tech and social media and mainstream media make money.

This gap is a crisis and all of us are anxious and effected by it.

It is hitting people hard. Look at me, it is hitting some of us hard.

Here is the thing in Bible Belt South....we think we can just plow through secularism, populism. Progressivism. This begins here with each one of us. By asking the question:

How have I lived without the presence of God? We need an awakening.

Pastor, Carolyn Moore, puts it this way: “We have experienced the Holy Spirit dispensed through an eye dropper so long we have no idea what it means to be filled with the Holy Spirit."

Holy Spirit in the world

Now, these things are not mutually exclusive. They go together. It is in individuals awakened to the life in the Spirit that we become avenues of the Holy Spirit in the world.

Two things (Tennent)

The Holy Spirit Empowers the Church for Global Mission

At the end of Luke’s gospel Jesus tells the disciples:

Luke 24:49 NIV

49 I am going to send you what my Father has promised; but stay in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.”

Then as we have already talked about today, in Acts....the second part of Luke’s narrative. They are filled and told to go throughout the whole world as witnesses. Living temples of God in the world.

We have reduced this word witness to something someone does when they just talk about Jesus a little, maybe. The promise of Scripture, of Jesus, is this filling is the power and authority to go out into the whole world…and listen, for those that have been awakened by the Spirit, your presence in a room changes the room.

The Holy Spirit extends the in-breaking of the New Creation through powerful manifestations of signs and wonders.

Secondly, the Holy Spirit is the in-breaking of new creation. This is the already breaking into the not-yet. Meaning future realities associated with heaven are breaking in the world through the Spirit. What realities?

healing

deliverance

reconciliation

forgiveness of sin

The Spirit brings power and authority through giftings in the supernatural life. Just a quick side here. We like this idea in theory. As a matter of fact we can get behind giftings of wisdom, faith, hospitality. We take our little spiritual gifts assessments and sign up for some ministry at church. But healing? Miraculous powers? Prophecy? These are harder to believe, but why? Simply we believe in the giftings that don’t require much from God.

Closing:

There is so much we could not cover today. Holy Spirit in prayer, giftings, fruit of the Spirit, different expressions across the church. etc. But let me close with a challenge.

Everything in this creed series is about right belief. Right belief is vital to the church, because it brings freedom to run and live and grow in God’s vision for the world. Right practice is born out of right belief. But of all the feedback I have heard from this series....it will mean nothing if there is not a deepening of the Spirit in our lives. An abiding of God’s presence with us.

Renewal throughout the history of the church, was always born in prayer and an outpouring of the Spirit on individuals. Individual renewal comes before corporate renewal.

If anything today, it might just be asking for more.

Or asking for the desire even.

For some, it is an awakening from apathy and an indwelling presence in your life

For all of us it is that the breath of God might once again animate us to be witnesses in the world.