What is the Holy Spirit

Introduction to the series

Survey Results top of the list

So in response to the overwhelming response about your desires to learn more regarding the Holy Spirit, every Sunday in October, both morning and evening lessons will be aimed at obtaining a better understanding of Holy Spirit, and we will attempt to answer the pressing questions that so many people have still today.

Questions like:

What or who is the HS?

How does the HS dwell in me?

What does the HS do? Both in the world and for me personally?

Does HS baptism happen today? and When did it happen in scripture?

and of course the big one that always get’s everyone’s attention, “What about miraculous gifts of the HS?

These are all great questions, and many of them, if not all of them, were toward the very top of the list of things you chose to study about.

So first off this morning I want to assure you that you are not alone.

Illustration: You know, when I was in school there was a situation that I always hated finding myself in. Do you remember being in class and the teacher asks a question and you are pretty sure that you are the only one in the room that doesn’t know the answer? Like the teacher would ask the question and everyone elses hands would shoot up confidently and you are sitting there with your hands under the desk just sick at your stomach because you have no idea. But even though we don’t know, what sometimes happens? You find your hand going into the air too. And the entire time you are just praying that that the teacher doesn’t call on you because you don’t know, but you don’t want to be seen by others as not knowing.

at the thought that the teacher is going to call on you to answer a question that clearly everyone else knows, but you don’t?

Man my stomach gets all weird feeling just thinking about it.

Well I think sometimes we carry that fear with us into adulthood. You’ve probably heard about the fear of the unknown, where we fear things that we don’t know about, but there is also a fear of not knowing. And all too often this fear of not knowing is used by Satan to keep us from growing, to keep us from asking questions regarding spiritual matters because we feel like surely everyone else knows about this, and I don’t want to be seen as the only one that doesn’t.

So the first thing I want to assure you of this morning, is that when it comes to the Holy Spirit and any questions you might have, rest assured that you are not alone in having them.

Throughout church history, there have been fewer things as misunderstood, misinterpreted, lied about and lied to, misused and under appreciated as the HS.

Now you might be asking, what do you mean misused, lied to and lied about?

Well throughout history many so called Christians have used the HS as an excuse to do and say just about anything.

There have been throughout history, past the time for man initiated miracles to take place, people that have claimed to use the HS to heal the blind and the lame. They have loudly proclaimed “You’re healed!” only for the person to stay blind or wheelchair bound. Now is that not lying?

There have been people claim that the HS came to them and gave them additional revelation into God’s plan and has started entire movements of division, wrecking the unity of the spirit. Is that not lying and misuse?

On a smaller scale I bet you’ve likely heard someone come up to you and tell you that the HS revealed to them something in a dream or by some other way, and what they say was revealed to them contradicts scripture, or it is amazingly beneficial for them.

Illustration: Boy and Girl and the HS.

Now I don’t believe that everyone that lies about or misuses the HS does it maliciously, but it does happen, and it happens a great deal. We know that, so even though when you look around at the religious world and everyone seems to raise their hands confidently knowing exactly what they are talking about regarding the HS, don’t let that fool you into thinking that anyone has it all figured out.

In fact, let me be the first this morning to go on record as telling you that I do not have it all figured out.

The question

Actually, I think that is the best thing for us to do this morning as we begin our study over the course of this month.

The best starting place when we start talking about the HS, is to acknowledge that we don’t know everything, and we cannot know EVERYTHING.

I don’t care if you’ve been studying it for your entire life, and now you are 80 years old, you might know a lot, and that’s great, but you don’t know everything, and the second you claim you do is the second you prove that you don’t.

Listen church, the most underutilized words when it comes to understanding God and his Glory and Majesty and how he works is “I don’t know.”

One Biblical writer named Bernard Ramm commented,

To profess to know a great deal about the Spirit of God is contrary to the nature of the Spirit of God. There is a hiddenness to the Spirit that cannot be uncovered. There is an immediacy of the Spirit that cannot be shoved into vision. There is an invisibility of the Spirit that cannot be forced into visibility. There is a reticence of the Spirit that cannot be converted into openness. For these reasons one feels helpless, inadequate, and unworthy to write a line about the Spirit.

The Mysterious Spirit

But that isn’t to say that there is nothing to know. There is plenty to know. And I believe that there is plenty to know that can keep us out of making very large mistakes such as misusing and lying about and to the HS.

But first it will be helpful to try to understand why the HS is something that has been so misused and misunderstood throughout history.

To start with, we need to understand the the very words that scripture uses to describe the HS can often be a challenge in and of themselves.

The spirit is first mentioned in the scriptures at the very beginning of the Bible. Look with me at Genesis 1:1-2

Genesis 1:1–2 ESV

1 In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was without form and void, and darkness was over the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

Ruach

Illustration: hand in front of mouth and say ruach.

Now I’ve tried this in private in various different ways, and there is no way that I could say it without feeling something hit my hand.

No not saliva, though the end sound of that word might produce that, but what I felt was my breath hitting my hand, and I’m sure you did as well.

This word is a very breathy word, which is fitting because that is also what this word means in Hebrew.

If you were to look outside today and see the leaves blowing in the wind, you would say that is being cause by what?

Right, and that is what this word means in Hebrews, it means wind, or breath, and especially as it relates to vitality or energy.

Pneuma - Also wind or breath or spirit.

Where we get Pneumatic, like a pneumatic tool that is energized by air.

And so just the very words that are used to describe the Holy Spirit in scripture can be ambiguous and often give translators trouble. In fact, the New Revised Standard Version of the english bible translates spirit in as “a wind from God,” instead of the spirit of God.

So because of this there can be confusion in understanding what is meant where, and often times we are left to decipher the meaning from the context surrounding Ruach or Pneuma.

On top of that confusion, imagine trying to explain the wind to someone who had never been outside. Who’s never experienced it’s force or beheld what it can do to a tree?

You probably could eventually come to convey what you are talking about, perhaps by using your breath and a feather, or by blowing bubbles across the room.

but in essense you would be trying to describe an invisible force of mysterious origins.

And though you might be able to explain what it is, I think it would be significantly harder to identify where it comes from, and where it is going.

Turn with me to the book of

John 3:3–8 ESV

3 Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” 4 Nicodemus said to him, “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother’s womb and be born?” 5 Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. 6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. 7 Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again.’ 8 The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

Now we often miss the significance here of this passage, because the same words are used here but translated properly for us into english.

v. 6 That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the πνεύματος is πνεῦμά.

v. 8 The πνεῦμά blows where it whishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the πνεύματος.

Jesus further expands this sharing of the word Pneuma to tell us that there are some aspects of the HS that are a mystery to us.

Now don’t misunderstand, there is for certain things here that Jesus expected Nicodemus to understand, He says as much in the next verse, but at the same time, there are some things about the HS that we don’t understand.

I mean think about it, we consider ourselves pretty advanced in our understanding of the world and the weather and how things work, but even if you went and asked the best meteorologists in the world, which we are lucky enough to have here in Oklahoma, if they understand EVERYTHING about how the wind works what do you think they would say?

Well they better not say they do, because we all know that they can’t get that forecast right everytime do they?

But does that cause them to give up? Does that cause us to lose all faith in them?

Of course not, we still consult them and trust them to keep us from making plans that will put us out in harms way during storm seasons. We believe them when they say a hurricane is well off sure enough not to want to take a boat out that way right?

In the same way I believe that we can know enough regarding the HS and how he works within the world to keep ourselves out of dangerous theological waters. To keep us from lying to and about the HS, and to better know the God who we worship.

So while it’s true that there is a mystery, and that the as says

Deuteronomy 29:29 ESV

29 “The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things that are revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.

Yet those things which are revealed to know enough regarding the HS and how he works within the world to keep ourselves out of dangerous theological waters. To keep us from lying to and about the HS, and to better know the God who we worship.

And so hopefully that encourages you and motivates you to want to be here for every lesson of this series, and shows you why what we believe about the HS matters.

The Person of the Holy Spirit

What I would like to do quickly with the rest of the time this morning, is point out something that I believe is important when beginning any discussion regarding the HS.

If you go back to my illustration of trying to explain wind to someone who has never been outside, you would try all sorts of things and use all kinds of words, but I guarantee you what you wouldn’t say is that the wind was a person.

I mean that would surely make you a crazy person, they might even make you trade places with the one who had never been outside right?

So all too often Christians are also guilty of referring to the Holy Spirit as an “it” as if the HS is some kind of impersonal force that exists in the world without thinking or without a purpose, and nothing could be further from the truth.

It is important that we understand that the HS is not an “it” but is indeed a “HE”

How do we know that you might be asking?

Well there are several tests that we use as humans to determine if a someone is to be considered sentient, that is, having the ability to perceive, to reason, and to think.

And one of the milestones is if a person is able to know that they exist, essentially, if they use the word I or if they refer to themselves.

For example, Podium is an it, an object, I am a person.

And this matters because when we refer to living people it the pronoun “it” do we not degrade them and take something away from them?

Illustration: Shambra being pregnant. Calling kids “it”

So shouldn’t we have the same feeling toward the God we worship?

Turn with me to

Acts 13:2 ESV

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.”

I want you to notice who came to the church at Antioch and what He told them.

The Holy Spirit said set apart for ME Barnabas and Saul, for the work to which I have called them.

Now listen, that sounds like a person speaking to me.

Turn with me over to

John 14:15–17 ESV

15 “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, 17 even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.

Notice the masculine pronouns Jesus uses here “Him”, and “He”

Turn over to chapter 16 and you could read 4-15, but I’m just going to read

John 16:12–15 ESV

12 “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. 13 When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. 14 He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. 15 All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

He will guide you into all the truth, HE will not speak on HIS own authority, but whatever HE hears HE will speak, and HE will declare to you the things that are to come.

Don’t you think we ought to speak of the HS in the same way, with the same respect as Jesus did? Is there not a huge difference in referring to this podium as “it” and to you as a living person who God treasures as “it”.

Conclusion

I’m not going to have time this morning to go into the HS as God, We will cover that tonight

I pray that you are looking forward to this study this month, I encourage you that if you are interested in coming to a fuller understanding of the HS that you not miss a lesson this month as I believe that they build off of one another, and I believe that this is a critical place to start.

Because I believe when we see the HS as divine person of the Godhead, that we are less likely to restrict Him in our minds as only being about one thing or another as is so often the case in the world today. All to often people want to bind the HS as some kind of impersonal force that creates miraculous gifts, and when we do that we who believe that those miraculous gifts served a purpose that is no longer needed get accused of quenching the spirit. I don’t want to get ahead of myself, but I don’t think that statement could be any further from the truth.

Instead I think a lack of knowledge and understanding of the spirit leads to us lying about the Holy Spirit and misusing Him and causing the world to see Him as a fraud.

My challenge for us as we go throughout this week is to spend some time in prayer being thankful for the HS. You might not even know what exactly your thankful for just yet, and that’s OK, just acknowledge his presence, His role in Creation, His role in giving life, His role in teaching through the scriptures.

Acknowledge God the Spirit.