The Forgotten God?

Introduction

Good morning from my office to your living room or bedroom.

Do you have you coffee? I’ve got my Diet Dr. Pepper!

The governor shared on Thursday that

So, today I’d like to start a series of messages on the Holy Spirit.

The one thing that has connected us all while we’ve been apart as a church is the Holy Spirit living within each of us as believers.

The Spirit is our connection with God Almighty and with each other as brothers and sisters in Christ.

I want to go beyond just doctrine, but to be able to show us our the Spirit is vital in our daily walk with Christ.

Now this can be a touchy subject for some.

Usually two different camps that people fall into regarding the Holy Spirit.

On one side, you have the hyper-charismatic:

They are always talking about the gifts. To the extreme to the point of being scary.

These people assume that the Holy Spirit always coincides with preacher yelling or the crescendo of the music.

These folks know an emotionally experience, but not much doctrine about the Holy Spirit.

On the other side you have the “Doctrine Only” Christians.

They believe in the HS, but He’s more of a theory than anything else.

He explains how some things happen in the Bible, but that’s about it.

They know all the doctrine, but don’t the fellowship or communion with the Spirit.

He’s just a force or theory.

It’s easy to get divided over our belief of the Holy Spirit, but the Spirit was given to the church to unite us not divide us.

So, my prayer is for us to put our biases aside and just see what the Scripture has to say and go with that.

If you don’t like my interpretation, that’s fine.

That’s why we have the Spirit to guide us in truth and sometimes, we get it wrong.

So let’s see what we can learn together over the next few weeks.

As I was preparing for this series, I came across some material by J. D. Greear, who is our current president of the SBC, and it provided some great information about our subject.

We are going to walk through John 14 this morning and see what Jesus had to say about the Holy Spirit.

This is the teaching that Jesus gave his disciples at the Last Supper the night He was arrested.

He’s about to leave them and gives a very powerful teaching to them to prepare them to carry on His mission after He leaves.

I’ve taken this title from Greear because sometime we put so much focus on the Father and Son we often forget about the Holy Spirit.

It’s like a story I read

Years ago a Southern plantation owner left a $50,000 inheritance (equivalent to about half a million dollars today) to a former slave who had served him faithfully all of his life.

The estate’s lawyer notified the old man and told him the money was deposited at the local bank in his name.

Several weeks went by and the former slave never called to ask for any of his inheritance.

After several years, the banker called him and told him he had the $50K available to draw upon at any time.

The slave said, “Sir, might you be able to spare me $0.50 for a sack of cornmeal?”

That’s a lot like most Christians.

We’ve got this incredible amount of wealth, power, fellowship with God available to us, but it’s still in the bank untouched.

We don’t have any idea what we have because we’ve never sought it out and use the power given to us through Holy Spirit.

John 14:16-26

Who Is The Holy Spirit?

In verse 16, the word “Another” indicates that He is of the same kind as Jesus — in other words, He is God Himself as Jesus is God.

Huh? This is a reference to the Holy Trinity.

G. Campbell Morgan said the best name for the Spirit is “the other Jesus.”

There is one God who has existed eternally in 3 persons

Revealed to us as Father, Son and Holy Spirit

All God, but different in roles, purposes and position. The same, yet different.

It’s hard to understand and you are in good company.

Look at what Jesus says about the Holy Spirit in this passage. They are almost contradictory:

Vs. 17, “I’m going away; then He (the HS) will come to dwell with you.” Distinction.

But then he says, Vs. 18, talking about the coming of the Holy Spirit, “I will come to you.” So, it’s not Him that is coming, but it is Him.

Or how about this one, vs. 23, “If anyone loves me and keeps my word, Jesus says, the Father and I will come and make our home with him.” In the Spirit, you also get the Father and Son.

The Father, Son and the Spirit are distinct Persons, so you can talk about them separately; but they are all God, so that in having one you have the presence of all 3.

Someone once said, “We believe in the Trinity not because we understand it, but because it is revealed to us.”

What Does Holy Spirit Do? He Inspires and Illuminates

Verse 26, “But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and remind you of everything I have told you.”

One promise here is for the Apostles

The Spirit would help them remember all things Jesus had said to them and clarify their meaning so that they can record them in the Scriptures.

In other words, Jesus promised to bring back their memories, flawlessly, all that Jesus had taught, acted, and did and to clarify it.

In the youth group meeting on Zoom this week we talked about the Bible being inspired by God.

That He guided the authors to write His words the way He wanted, but allowed them to use their personalities, writing styles, etc.

However, it was the perfect word of God, so we can trust it for our lives today.

Like guiding a child while learning to walk.

The second promise was for us, the church.

The Spirit will help us understand the word by illumination.

He won’t reveal to us anything new, but He will help us understand what’s in the Word.

That’s what illumination is - the light bulb moment, the Ah Ha moment

The Spirit help you believe in Christ, by you being convinced in your heart “Jesus is Lord.” 1 Cor. 12:3 says that is fruit of the Spirit

Later in 2 Cor. 2 we are told that man cannot perceive the spiritual things, but the Holy Spirit gives us understanding.

In times of darkness the brings Jesus words to our situation. Romans 8, “The spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. Psalm 23 also.

In times of temptation He brings Jesus’ words to our mind.

When we’re sharing the gospel He brings the words to our mind as well.

In Luke 12, Jesus told his disciples, “Don’t worry about what to say… the Holy Spirit will tell you what you should say.”

So He illuminates our minds in the Scriptures, teaching us the promises of God, reminding us of them, and helping us to feel them.

He “Manifest” God’s Love To Us

In verse 21, Jesus says that through the Holy Spirit He will reveal, manifest, or make Himself known to us.

Manifest means “makes you feel”

Romans 5:5, “God’s love has been poured out in our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.”

There are times when God’s love is so real to you that you can feel it.

It comes alive.

That’s the presence of God.

One theologian said, “The presence of God is a felt sense of the attributes of God.

It’s when the Spirit makes the come alive in you.

There’s just a sense of the majesty and beauty of God in His heart.

What about when I can’t feel it, He’s still there.

He Is Our “Counselor”

The word translated as “helper” in vs. 16 is the word paraklete.

Some translations say “comforter,” but that makes the HS sound like He’s a quilt or something.

Some say “counselor,” you might think of a marriage counselor or a camp counselor and I don’t think that’s the image Jesus is going for here

Paraklete literally means someone who stands beside you to speak for you.

Para means “alongside.” “Kaleo” means “speak.” He “speaks alongside of.”

Remember the word “another.”

He’s like Jesus was to the disciples.

Jesus walked alongside of them, calling out to them the promises of God.

For example,

When you begin to put yourself down or condemns yourself, He responds with Romans 8:1, “There is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus.”

Or when going through tough times, He reminds us from Hebrews 13:5, “I will never leave or abandon you.” He’s there going through it with us.

The Spirit will remind us of the love and assurance of God’s love to us.

Another aspect of being our counselor is that He stand alongside us and calls out to God on our behalf advocating with Jesus that our penalty has been paid.

He also aids us in our prayers

Romans 8:26, “In the same way the Spirit also helps us in our weakness, because we do not know what to pray for as we should, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us,al with unspoken groanings.”

This means the Spirit of God is constantly asking the Father for the blessings that Jesus has purchased for me.

One man said, “Jesus is praying for you. If I forget, Jesus will remember.”

He’s doing it even when you don’t feel it.

He Points To Jesus

In John 15:26 it says, “When the Counselor comes—He will testify about Me.”

John 16:14, “He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.”

That’s His role.

Theologian Dale Bruner calls the Holy Spirit the “shy member of the Trinity.”

The Holy Spirit does not point to Himself or glorify Himself.

Like a floodlight.

That’s how you know a lot of the places that claim to be filled with the Holy Spirit are not, because in those places the supposed Holy Spirit glorifies Himself.

Where the real Holy Spirit is present, all the attention is on Jesus.

Period.

He never wants people looking at Him; He wants them looking at Jesus.

The gifts of the Spirit are never to call attention to themselves; always to Jesus.

C. J. Mahaney, a full-on charismatic, says, “All gifts from God, including the gifts of the Spirit, are intended to direct our attention to Jesus and create fresh affection for Jesus.”

That’s how you know a lot of the people who claim to have great spiritual gifts don’t really have them, because they use them to direct attention to something else.

My desire is for us to be a Spirit-filled church, where we point people to the cross, to Jesus.

I want us to talk about Jesus all the time and look to the cross everyday.

I want to be a Spirit-filled preacher who points to Jesus in every message I preach.

Charles Spurgeon: I sometimes wonder that you do not get tired of my preaching because I do nothing but hammer away at this one nail. That one nail is the glorious news that our glorious Savior paid it all in our place and in response he is worthy of our highest devotion and greatest service.

That’s my goal, pray for me to be able to do that.

He Empowers Us For Ministry

I want to mention this briefly this morning and go into more detail next week.

John 16:6-8, “Yet, because I have spoken these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart. Nevertheless, I am telling you the truth. It is for your benefit that I go away, because if I don’t go away the Counselor will not come to you. If I go, I will send him to you.”

Think about what He is saying to them.

They’ve had Jesus with them, teaching, probably taking care of them in sort of way.

How great would it be to have Jesus with you everyday?

When the Holy Spirit comes, “ he will convict the world about sin, righteousness, and judgment:”

Why? Because He will work in you and through you.

Jesus said in John 14:12, “Truly I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do. And he will do even greater works than these, because I am going to the Father.”

Wow, who has done “greater works” than Jesus?

Hey, are we experiencing that?

Imagine if Jesus Himself were on staff at our church.

What would our ministry be like?

Are we experiencing something greater than even that?

We are supposed to.

It happens in answer to our prayers.

The Holy Spirit is supposed to, in response to our prayers, sweeping through our families and our neighborhoods.

What’s The Takeaway Today?

For a lot of Christians think of the Holy Spirit as like an electrical charge.

If you get the conditions right, get your heart right, “it” comes into you.

The feeling. The sensation.

But He’s not. He’ a Person, a Person with emotions.

A person who can grieve.

A person who speaks.

A person who loves and delights in you.

When you reject God’s word, you are rejecting a person.

John 14:23, “If anyone loves Me, He will keep my word.”

The reason you don’t keep His word is that you don’t love Him.

And you need to be honest yourself.

It’s not a moral issue, it’s a “you love other things more than God issue.”

And that is why your heart is condemned and you need to be saved.

When you are a Christian, He lives inside of you and that means that you are walking with a Person …

Who goes where you go and sees what you see.

Are there things you are doing now that you wouldn’t do if you were aware of the Spirit?

Spiritual maturity is when you feel about sin the way God feels about it.

In the world you have endure it, but that is totally different than willfully entertaining yourself with it.

Of course, can never be “clean” enough for the HS; the blood of Jesus makes you that way.

But, in response to what He did to save you and clean you, won’t you love Him and want to prepare yourself for Him?

Do you know Him as a Person?

Are you experiencing His power?

Have you let Him pour His love over you?

Have you felt Him moving inside of you?

Prayer

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