The Work of Holy Spirit
The Comforter • Sermon • Submitted
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the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.
The spirit of the Lord speaks through me,
his word is upon my tongue.
The spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
because the Lord has anointed me;
he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed,
to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and release to the prisoners;
When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.
But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.
When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.
and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.
When we think about God, we understand that He is the Supreme being, who is Sovereign, the Creator of all things, who has the divine plan that is working out for His purpose.
We know that God loves us all, He created us in His own image and wanted to redeem and restore by sending His only Begotten son, Jesus the Christ, to save us from the penalty of sin. We know that God is love, God is a God of justice, God is powerful and almighty, He is from everlasting to everlasting.....yes we know all these things about God and much more, but Who is the Holy Spirit?
Truth be told, some of you have probably had that same question. You knew that He is part of the Trinity, the third member of the Triune God, but maybe that was the extent of your knowledge of the Holy Spirit.
I’ve heard that some describe the Holy Spirit as part of the Godhead....like a man can be a Son, a Father and a Grandfather. Though a man may be a son, father and Grandfather, he is not three persons as God is, but instead is one person who has three titles.
I’ve also heard the false analogy that the Trinity is like how water can be ice, liquid and steam. God does not go through three different states. The Persons of the Holy Trinity co-exist; the different forms water may take cannot. In other words, Water cannot be ice, liquid and steam at the same time. It may be between two stages such as when ice is melting, but this isn’t coexisting, it’s transforming.
It may seem difficult to understand the who the Holy Spirit is, because the Spirit is difficult to visualize and some of the terminology in the older English translations refer to the Holy Spirit....as the “Holy Ghost”........ And if truth be told....that left many people who grew up with the older translations.....thinking of the Holy Spirit …thinking of Him as a Ghost or something inside a white sheet.
For the Believer the Holy Spirit is active and working in our lives.....living within us. Through the Holy Spirit’s work we feel God’s presence and His power.
I believe that in order to get an understanding of the Holy Spirit....we must look at the original language of the Bible.......in the Old Testament.....we find Hebrew......and in the New Testament.....we have Greek.
The Old Testament scripture refers to the Holy Spirit as ....the ruah or yah weh ruah!! When translated it means......wind, breath, breeze.....or spirit
The New Testament scripture refers to the Holy Spirit as pneuma......or the paraklet meaning the spirit.....and the advocate, helper and intercessor.
We can’t look at every single passage that refers to the Holy Spirit and who He is..... in our limited time this morning. So I’ve selected just a few representative passages that will allow us to determine the role of Holy Spirit and why that is relevant for us. So I want to encourage you to spend some more time this week, looking for some additional passages.
I believe we can get an understanding of the role and work of the Holy Spirit is by examining our text this morning.......
Let me suggest that the Holy Spirit gives lifeHe Gives Life
Let us go back to the book of the Beginnings.......Genesis.....and Look at the text in....
the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.
We see this clearly in the creation account in Genesis where the Holy Spirit makes His first appearance in the Scriptures in the second verse of the Bible
In the text that the Holy Spirit.....is the ruah.....the Wind from God....that swept over the face of the waters.....during the creation of earth.
The Holy Spirit, as part of the triune God, was present and played an integral part in the creation. This is confirmed later in the account of the creation of humanity later in Genesis 1:
Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness…
(Genesis 1:26 ESV)
Notice the plural pronouns there – us and our. All three persons of the Godhead – Father, Son and Holy Spirit – are present at and involved in creation and in giving life to man. This idea is confirmed in the book of Job when he says...
“The Spirit of God has made me,
and the breath of the Almighty gives me life.”
As I mention before you know, the word for “spirit” in both Hebrew, the language of the Old Testament, and Greek, the language of the New Testament, can also be translated wind or breath.
And knowing that breath is required for life just further confirms the idea that the Holy Spirit is the giver of physical life. We will find out later in this series.......that He is the giver of spiritual life as well.
I believe that scripture gives us another example of who and what the Holy Spirit does
He Equips Us
He Equips Us
The spirit of the Lord speaks through me,
his word is upon my tongue.
The Holy Spirit....is the Spirit of the Lord and often equipped many to speak....and to serve God and His purpose.
The Holy Spirit used David in his prophetic last words ...
“The spirit of the Lord spoke through me”
********
Isaiah prophesied the words of Jehovah Himself .....
The Spirit of the Lord’s words pass over here into Isaiah....
who was has appointed as the Mediator of His gracious counsel
The spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
because the Lord has anointed me;
he has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed,
to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and release to the prisoners;
One of the people we see that the Holy Spirit equipped was Samson.
Sampson’s life is a great example of the Holy Spirit equipping God’s servants.
Every time God wanted to use Sampson to serve Him, He equipped him by placing the Holy Spirit upon him. One of those events occurred when the Philistines came to attack God’s people:
When he came to Lehi, the Philistines came shouting to meet him; and the spirit of the Lord rushed on him, and the ropes that were on his arms became like flax that has caught fire, and his bonds melted off his hands. Then he found a fresh jawbone of a donkey, reached down and took it, and with it he killed a thousand men.
The equipping of the Holy Spirit in order to serve God provided physical skills, ability and strength as well as knowledge.
I believe that the Holy Spirit still equips God’s people to serve Him....and not just limited to the physical realm.
In most of the passages we looked at, the Holy Spirit came, rushed, or was “upon” the individual.
Only a couple of places where the Holy Spirit “filled” or was otherwise was described as being “in” someone.
We see that the Holy Spirit’s role is to empower and equip that person
I believe the we also see part of the nature of the Holy Spirit
Looks at the text in ....
When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.
He Guides Us
He Guides Us
One of the natures of the Holy Spirit is that He gives us guidance into all truth......
Jesus said to them, in the first part of verse 13, “But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth.” For the disciples, this scripture was fulfilled as the Holy Spirit helped them write what we call the New Testament.
The Holy Spirit would lead the disciples into what was to come, including the death and resurrection of Jesus.
Today, the Holy Spirit continues to lead us into what is to come, as we yield daily to God’s leading, and seek His next step for our lives
As I mentioned before, this is only part of the essential nature of the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit.....is not only the Spirit of Truth......
He is the Spirit of Holiness.....
The bible reminds us in Romans 1:3-4
the gospel concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord,
He is the Spirit of Life....
Romans 8 and 2 declares.....
For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death.
He is the Spirit of Glory.....
If you are reviled for the name of Christ, you are blessed, because the spirit of glory, which is the Spirit of God, is resting on you.
He is the Spirit of Wisdom and Understanding.....
I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him,
He is the Spirit of Grace and Supplication
And I will pour out a spirit of compassion and supplication on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that, when they look on the one whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn.
He is the Spirit of Judgement and fire
once the Lord has washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion and cleansed the bloodstains of Jerusalem from its midst by a spirit of judgment and by a spirit of burning.
He is the Eternal Spirit
The nature of the Holy Spirit provides all that we need in life.
He Gives Live......He Empowers and Equips and His nature Gives us Truth and much much more.......but I believe there is something else......
I believe that He can teach us everything we need to know.
I believe He is our Advocate....
He Comforts Us
He Comforts Us
But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.
Jesus promises us that we will have ....the Paraklete......
The KJV says that He is our Comforter..
The word comforter in this context means “called to one’s side”.
Jesus is saying there is going to be one who will be called to your side.
I don’t know about you saints, but I’m so thank that we have a Comforter......
We have the Holy Spirit who stands beside us in our darkest moments.
We have the Holy Spirit who stands beside us in when our hearts are heavy.
We have the Holy Spirit who stands beside us in our storms of despair.
We have the Holy Spirit who stands beside us even when all is well.
The word comforter also gives us the idea of helper. Not only is he there beside us but he is helping us. This gives us the idea that not only do we not have to “do it alone” but we have someone who knows what they are doing and is willing to help. That is this “Holy Spirit” the comforter.
Oh how important this role is. He is our helper. He is the one who will lead us to make the right decision. He is the one who will guide us.
As the comforter we learn that he is always present.
The second characteristic that is shown as him being the comforter is that he is present with us and plays and active role in our lives.
Now it is good to have a companion but the Holy Spirit is more than a companion he is active. He is active in our lives he is active in the church.
He is our teacher
With this idea of being present and active we learn that he is our teacher. Jesus said in 14:26 “He shall teach you”. As a Christian and better yet as a Spirit-filled believer the Bible becomes more than words, paragraphs, and pages but it becomes alive. It becomes alive with the very presence, personality, and character of God.
Jesus promised us that the Holy Spirit would teach us & help us remember His teachings.
The Holy Spirit and the Word work together to give us correct instruction on what Jesus taught the disciples
As we study the Bible we can trust the Spirit to implant the truth in our heart and mind, convince us of God’s will and remind us when we stray from it.
He is our advocate
This leads us to our final meaning of the Greek word par-ak’-lay-tos. It means comforter but it also means advocate. He is our advocate.
It means “one that pleads the cause of another, one that defends or maintains a cause”
He Loves Us
He Loves Us
and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.
For the believer...... hope is certain because God’s love is assured to us by the Holy Spirit’s ministry within the core of our being (our hearts).
You see, at just the right time when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this. While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
“Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more, shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! For if, when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! Not only is this so, but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ through whom we have now received reconciliation.”
Through the ministry of the Holy Spirit, God pours out His love to us!!
My brothers and sisters......that ought to make you shout.....to know the work of the Holy Spirit
He Gives Us Live
He Equips Us
He Guides Us
He Comforts Us
He Loves Us