Holy Spirit gives identity

May 5th 2024

Series: Who is the Holy Spirit?

Sermon Title: Holy Spirit gives us identity

Topic: Journey to help us learn who the Holy Spirit was, is, and will always be and how the Holy Spirit is active in our lives today.

Key Passages: Genesis 1: 1-2 & 26-27, Genesis 2:7

Sermon Blurb: In today’s message, we will explore the first words in the Bible about the Holy Spirit and see from the very first moments of creation that the Holy Spirit gives us identity!

***1st week ODD months add communion & target message at 15 pages.

***1st week EVEN months add space for dedication, baptism, or ministry highlight & target message at 15 pages.

***Green in sermons means illustration, something we are looking for a response from, and/or a picture that goes on the screens.

***Yellow means what is yellow will be on the screens and in the handout.

Sermon:

Hello Family Church!

Family Moment –

Start with something personal from your family life recently to help people get to know you.

Celebrate salvation’s / re-dedications / baptisms last week.

Those of you who are new, or newer, to Family Church we are SUPER happy you are with us today!

We are in a series that is taking a DEEP dive into who the Holy Spirit actually was, is, and will always be.

We spent the first two weeks of this month looking at how we KNOW the Holy Spirit is a person just like Jesus or God the Father.

Last week we talked about the Trinity….

How God the Father.

The Son Jesus.

The Holy Spirit….

How they are ALL the SAME…

And how they are ALL different…

We waded into one of the hardest things to understand about God to try and help us better understand the AMAZING God we have!!!!

PAUSE

Today, we are going to keep building off that foundation and begin looking at how the Holy Spirit was active and moving in the Bible….

Starting today, we are going to begin in the Old Testament….

Or the first ½ of your Bible….

And we are going to look at how the Holy Spirit was present there…

After we spend some time learning about that, we will move into the New Testament….

Or the second half of your Bible…

And do the same thing: look at how the Holy Spirit was present there.

Sound good church????

PAUSE

Now grab your Bible and open it up to

Genesis 1

As you are getting to Genesis 1 let me say this…

The name “Holy Spirit” is EXCEEDINGLY rare in the Old Testament.

However, there are around 100 references to God’s Spirit in the Old Testament.

There are around 400 references to the “wind” or “breath” of God as well.

And there are LOADS of passages that talk about the “spirit” and it can be hard to determine if we are talking about our human spirit or God’s spirit…..

Especially because there is this connection with God’s Spirit and ours!

PAUSE

So, this is going to be a fun journey!!!!

And by the way…..

New Person Bible Connection:

If you do not have a Bible, that is ok!

After service, we will give you an AMAZING leather-bound study Bible!

Just go to ADD YOUR CAMPUS PLACE and get one for FREE!!!

PAUSE

Genesis 1: 1-2 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.

Stop reading there church…

Do you see it?

From the VERY beginning of the Bible…

Before we hear anything about Jesus…or the Son of God…or even God the Father…

The FIRST part of Trinity… which we talked about just two weeks ago….

The FIRST part of God we learn about is the Spirit of God…

PAUSE

Have you ever paused to think about that?

In our culture, people talk about Jesus a lot, in good and bad ways.

In our culture, people talk about God the Father, in good and bad ways.

However, in our culture, do you ever hear people talk about the Holy Spirit?

I am not talking about in church…in the community…on the news…

Never…

Even in church culture…unless it is a Pentecostal church we rarely talk about the Holy Spirit…

PAUSE

Interesting…how that is TRUE…and yet…the start of the Bible it is God creating…

And the Spirit of God hovering…

Look at these verses again…put it back on the screens..

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.

The world was devoid of everything…

Formless…

Empty…

Dark…

And the first anything to give shape, mass, substance…anything was the Holy Spirit…

That comes before the waters…

Before anything…

So interesting that the Holy Spirit, who is without form, who is above or beyond substance, mass, shape…was the first thing to give us those things!!!!

PAUSE

Now drop down to verse 26…

And note the phrasing here…

Genesis 1:26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky,

over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.”

Pause there for a second…

Note the US….OUR…

Again, God is one person…which we will see in a second…

But God is also three people…which we see here and in verse 1&2..

God the Father…

God the Son…

God the Holy Spirit…

In the US…the THREE of US…make mankind in OUR image… OUR Likness…

And we will be LIKE God in that we will RULE over the world FOR God….

Let’s read verse 27…

Genesis 1:27 So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

Church…

People say to me often, “I wish I knew what God was like.”

“What God looked like.”

“What it would feel like to be with Jesus like the disciples were.”

Church…

To see God you only need to look in the mirror…

Like God is one and three…God is diverse…and so are we!

And you CAN be with God, just like the disciples!

When you give your life to Jesus the Holy Spirit, God’s Spirit, LITERALLY comes to live inside us!!!

We actually get to be CLOSER to God than Jesus’ best friends were!!!

Yes, they got to talk with Jesus…

Walk with Jesus…

Eat with Jesus…

But Jesus was not with them 24x7x365…

He was not there at every moment to guide them.

The Holy Spirit is there for us 24x7x365!!!

The disciples did NOT get that until much later in their relationship with Jesus!

We get that at DAY 1 of our faith in Jesus!!!

That is what I call GOOD NEWS!!!

PAUSE

And I want to read that last verse again and point out something else.

I know what I am about to say some people will not like.

I know what I am about to read…and affirm what God said…will offend some people.

However…

I want to share this because the Bible says it and not teaching truth inside a culture that wants to deceive us is also NOT loving.

And our goal as a church is to help us learn to define our lives and our values by the Bible and NOT define our lives, values and beliefs by our ever changing culture…

27 So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

Church read how that ends..

male and female he created them.

Male and female he created them…

I know just that one statement is not called hateful by many people.

But I did not write that.

I did not create people.

I do not get to define how God created people.

I do not get to re-define how God created people.

And I understand we live in a culture that almost every day is adding another gender…

As of the time I was writing this sermon I googled, “How many genders are there…would anyone want to guess how many it is now?”

81…

PAUSE

Church…

God says he created 2.

Our world might say we have discovered 79 more…

But God says, I created two in my imagine…

So, what should that tell you???

What should it tell us IF there are 79 more genders???

What that should tell us is the 79 are created in SOMEONE ELSE’S image…

And please hear me…

If you are listening to this and you struggle with gender identity…

PLEASE don’t tune me out…

GOD loves you!

I love you!

I am NOT saying you cannot feel like you’re not like other kids…

I am NOT saying you cannot feel like you are another gender…

I am NOT saying you cannot feel like you were born in the wrong body.

I am NOT saying you cannot feel better in the other genders’ clothing.

I am NOT saying you cannot a lot of things…

PAUSE

But what I am saying is God said he created us in HIS image…

And God’s image is male and female…

And what the means if we FEEL we are something else.

If we want to re-define our gender…

That means we are creating our image to be like someone that is NOT God…

PAUSE

Let me explain this in a way I think we ALL can relate to…

Pull out your phone….

This is an iPhone…

This was created by Apple…

Now I could take this to my friend who works Google…

And I could tell them this is an android phone…

And he would laugh at me and tell me why it is not and how it will never be…

I can redefine it was something else…

But just because I redefine it….

It is NOT make it something else…

I can even pull out chips…

I can change the icon on the back of the phone…

I can install android apps on it….

But it is NEVER stop being what it was created to be….

Church….

The Devil….is the god of confusion…

The Devil is the god of trying to tear down everything God created…

And we can allow the devil to change us…

We can allow the devil to redefine us…

But here is the GOOD NEWS!!!!

NO MATTER what we CANNOT change who we were created to be…

We cannot change who we ARE!!!!

NO MATTER what we try and change….

We are still created like God…

And no matter how far we run God will always accept us back….

Here is the point church write this down….

We need to defined our lives by Bible, not culture.

Repeat….

PAUSE

I hope you hear our heart in sharing that.

It is not to judge anyone…

It is not to condemn anyone…

It is to help you simply know that God’s design if different from the world’s…

PAUSE

Let’s keep reading…Move over to Chapter 2…

I want to show you the next reference to the Holy Spirit, which will tie to where we started today...

Genesis 2:7 Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

Remember where we started?

The Holy Spirit is referred to many ways in the Bible.

And we will not look at every one but again, close to 400 times the Spirit is reference as wind, breath, etc.

And notice that God created us.

And what gave us life was the very breath of God.

What gave us life was the power of the Holy Spirit.

God’s Spirit in Chapter 1 gave us definition and form.

Now, in chapter 2, we also see the Holy Spirit gave us life.

PAUSE

We are not like the animals.

We are not like the birds.

We are not like the fish.

We are different.

We were created to be LIKE God.

They were not given God’s image.

They were not given God’s spirit.

We were created to rule over all of God’s creation…

We did not evolve from creation…

We were created to rule over God’s creation…

We were created to steward God’s creation…

PAUSE

Church…

I know this was a lot today…

I know this was probably not what a lot of us thought we would learn about when it came to the Holy Spirit.

Honestly, as I started working on this sermon, I didn’t think it would go this way either….

But I trust in the leading of the Holy Spirit.

Let me share your life application with you today….

For those of you who are new, or newer, to Family Church.

We end our messages with a Life Application.

It is simply something to help you go home and process this message with someone else.

Something to help you continue to ponder how you can apply today's message into your life.

So here is what I want you all to spend some time processing and talking with someone about.

Life Application: Evaluate who really defines things in your life. Is it the Bible or is it other things? How could you better align your life with the Bible?

As a result of today’s message, I will _________________________.