The Holy Spirit

Introduction

One of the things that I have wanted to do for quite some time now is to visit the Holy Land.

There is so much rich history there and it would be very exciting to see all of these biblical sites that we read about in our Bibles.

How cool would it be to visit the Sea of Galilee where Jesus and his disciples traveled or even the Mount of Olives where the greatest sermon of all time was preached.

My wife Lindsey used to work at Delta Airlines and still has the benefits to where we could fly there for free.

This seems like it would be the trip of a lifetime, so why am I not taking advantage of it?

If Lindsey and I were to fly to the Holy Land, we would be complete strangers to this area.

For one, neither of us speak Hebrew so we would be at a disadvantage as far as our language.

Secondly, neither of us would know where anything is.

If we were to go, between translating and geography, we most likely would not see a majority of the things we want to see.

What is the solution?

The best bet for us to get the full experience is to sign up for a tour of the Holy Land.

If we were to sign up for the tour, we would have a guide that is familiar with the language there and knows where all the biblical sites are that we want to see.

He would also be able to explain the history behind them and provide facts and details that we never would have known if we had gone by ourselves.

This makes the tour guide a valuable resource to this experience and is essential to getting the whole experience on the trip.

Transition

In the message today, we are going to be discussing the Holy Spirit as it relates to the Apostles Creed.

As we look deeper into who the Holy Spirit is, we will see that he is a lot like the tour guide of the Holy Land.

Navigating the things of God without the Holy Spirit is like going to a country and not knowing the language or the geography.

The lack of the Holy Spirit leaves us as a stranger in a foreign land with no understanding.

Although the Holy Spirit is a lot like the tour guide that we read about, he is also so much more than that. Let's take a look!

Isaiah 11:2

The text for today will be Isaiah 11:2.

From this verse, we will be able to understand who the Holy Spirit is, what he does, and what makes him important to the Apostles Creed.

Isaiah 11:2 reads, “And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him,

the Spirit of wisdom and understanding,

the Spirit of counsel and might,

the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.”

Who is the Holy Spirit?

The first thing that I would like to point out in this verse is that it is discussing a prophecy of the Old Testament regarding the Christ that was to come.

In the very first line of this text, we are able to see who the Holy Spirit is.

It says “And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him.”

There are three persons being mentioned here in this passage.

We see the Spirit, The Lord, and “him.”

We know that the “him” is regarding the person of the Christ.

We also see the Spirit, who will rest on him.

Finally, we see the Lord whose Spirit it is that shall rest on him.

This part of the passage right here shows us that we are dealing with one God, in three persons; The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit.

To answer our question as to who the Holy Spirit is, the Holy Spirit is the third member of the godhead.

The Holy Spirit is God.

I would love to explain to you all how God can be three in person, one in being, but that is a great doctrine we will not have time to discuss today.

As we focus on God in the person of the Holy Spirit, we will see that the Spirit has a unique job.

And because the Holy Spirit is God and has a unique job, I find it important that he would be mentioned in a creed discussing our faith.

The Work of the Holy Spirit

Regeneration

I told you at the beginning of this message that one of the things that I really want to do is visit the Holy Land.

Although this is a strong desire for me now, there was a time when I would have had absolutely no desire to visit this place.

If somebody would have offered me free tickets to a tour, I probably would have made no effort to get off work and free my schedule to make it on this trip.

It would appear that I was a completely different person today than I was at the time when I had no desire for this trip.

What happened in my life that caused such a change?

The Holy Spirit had worked in my life something called regeneration or you may know it as being born again.

Before we are born again, we are so in love with our sin that we have no desire to seek God for salvation.

Seeking God would require that we leave our sin behind and before we are born again, we see absolutely no reason to do that.

We as humans tend to do what seems natural to us. We are all born sinners so the natural thing for us to do is sin.

The Bible tells us in Ephesians 2 that we were dead in our sins until God made us alive together with Christ.

When we are born from our mother's womb, although we are alive physically, we are dead spiritually.

We are disconnected from God and in love with our sins even as a babe. Everybody is born this way.

When we are made alive, this is the regenerating work of the Holy Spirit that takes a dead person and brings them to life.

This is the same Spirit that brought Christ to life in the resurrection.

When the Spirit of God rests on us, we are made a new person, regenerated, or born again.

Wisdom and Understanding

Not only does the Holy Spirit bring us to spiritual life as we have seen in regeneration, but the Spirit also gives us wisdom and understanding.

I once had no interest in the things of God before regeneration, and now that I have an interest there are a lot of things I want to know.

John 15:26 says, “26 “But when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me.”

The Spirit is our tour guide regarding the things of God.

This is a foreign place to us being that we come from a faraway place called the land of sin.

A person that has never used math before in their life does not just wake up a math scholar, but they must be taught by someone who is.

Who knows God better than God?

God is the most knowledgeable person regarding the things of God and we have him as a teacher in the person of the Holy Spirit.

In 1 Corinthians 2, it describes the Spirits work of understanding and wisdom as to having the mind of Christ.

This is why when we read our Bibles or hear God's word preached, we pray that God would help us understand because it is God that is responsible for our understanding.

When we try and do this on our own, it is once again like we are going to the Holy Land without the tour guide or trying to understand calculus when you don’t even know the answer to 2+2.

Counsel and Might

Once we are born again, we are a new creation.

This new creation has a strong desire to know the things of God which are taught to us by the Spirit.

Like the typical infomercial that we see on the T.V., “But wait, there's more!”

Our text says, “The Spirit of counsel and might.”

What exactly does this mean?

When we are walking in the Holy Land with our tour guide, he might see us standing by the edge of a cliff and tell us that we might not want to stand there because the rocks are not that sturdy.

Our tour guide might see us standing by a pool of water and tell us that the water is not safe to drink.

The Spirit of counsel and might acts as the tour guide letting us know what's wrong and what's right.

This is called “Spiritual Discernment.”

When we are living a life that is not in line with the way the Bible says we should be living, we grieve the Holy Spirit in us.

Like a good counselor, it will let us know where we are going wrong in our lives.

Not only does he let us know when we are doing wrong, but he gives us the power to do what's right.

When we are born again, all of our old sinful desires don't just disappear.

We still have temptations that we must battle with.

The sin we are being tempted to commit is the opposite of what the Spirit would want us to do, so when we have two polar opposites living in us, it causes a war.

Our sinful nature known as the flesh is wanting us to keep sinning whereas the Spirit is wanting us to do good.

The Holy Spirit is stronger than the flesh which gives us the power to repent or turn away from the sin in our lives.

When I was first born again, a lot of my sinful desires disappeared immediately whereas some remained.

In this new life, I continued to watch TV Shows and Movies that I used to watch not thinking anything of it.

After a while, I realized that watching these shows was grieving the Spirit in me.

Although they may be suitable for people my age outside of the church, we don't have the spirit of the world as they do but the Spirit of God, and I felt convicted that these shows were not appropriate for a child of God to watch.

I used to listen to bad music and even make it before I was saved, and after I while of being saved I started once again to feel convicted that this wasn't fitting to a child of God.

The Spirit of counsel and might lets you know how to live a godly life and gives you the power to live it.

The Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord

Proverbs 1:7 says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.”

The Holy Spirit causes us to be born again, teaches us the Scriptures, teaches us how to live, gives us the power to live that way, also gives us knowledge through the fear of the Lord.

What is the fear of the Lord you may be asking?

The Lexham Bible Dictionary describes this as “A religious expression conveying either devotional piety or the dread of punishment.”

When speaking of devotional piety, fearing the Lord means to submit to his commands and respect him.

When speaking of the dread of punishment, we understand that he means what he says when he says “Repent or Perish.”

No matter which two of these you are talking about, this is only made possible through the Holy Spirit.

Since the Holy Spirit makes us alive to the things of God, teaches us the things of God, and gives us discernment to the truth, it reveals to us that God is worthy of all praise, honor, and glory.

What makes the fear of the Lord the beginning of wisdom? The fear of the Lord is the most important thing that you could know.

If you know everything in the world but do not have the fear of the Lord, everything else is useless.

The fear of the Lord is the wisest thing that one could know, the most useful, the most beneficial, the most necessary, it is the beginning of knowledge.

Closing

We have seen how important and necessary the Holy Spirit is to the Christian life.

The Holy Spirit takes us as spiritually dead people and brought us to life.

The Holy Spirit teaches us the things of God, teaches us what's right and wrong, and gives us the power to obey God's commands.

The Holy Spirit places the fear of the Lord in our hearts that we might respect him and realize everything that he says is true and that he means what he says.

So how we do apply what we have learned about the Holy Spirit?

Now that we realize that he is the source of our wisdom and understanding, we must stop trying to be smart in our own eyes but rely on God to teach us the things concerning himself.

The truth is that we all lack complete wisdom and have much learning to do.

James 1:5 says, “If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him.”

If there are things of God that you are having trouble understanding today, I want to challenge you to pray regarding these things that God may give you wisdom about them.

If you don't receive something on your first prayer, keep praying until it is revealed to you.

We now realize that the Holy Spirit is our counsel and might.

Are there things in your life that you feel may be grieving the Holy Spirit?

If so, I want to challenge you to repent of these things in your life.

Some of these things may be really hard to repent of.

If that is the case, I want to ask that you would pray about them or even ask for help from a spiritual leader in your life.

Whatever challenges may lie ahead for you in this area, the Holy Spirit is more than enough to help you with these things.

Finally, the fear of the Lord.

There may be some people here today that have never been born again and have no fear of the Lord in their hearts.

I want to challenge you today, that if you realize what God says in John 3:18 is true, that you would repent from your sinful ways and believe in our only hope, the Lord Jesus Christ.

The verse says, 18 “Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.”

Believe in the name of the Son of God today, right now, the Lord Jesus Christ.

We are not promised another day.

The time is right now to break up with your old dirty sin and pursue what is worthy, the Lord Jesus Christ.

Let's pray!