Sermon Tone Analysis

God The Holy Spirit

February 22, 2009

*John 14:15-17, 25-26; 15:26-27; 16:7-15*

 

What are some of the things we pray for which God has already done?

Do we pray for spiritual blessings?

Done! Ephesians 1:3 states: /Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, /We come short in no gift says 1 Corinthians 1:7.

Do you pray for holiness?

God made you holy, set apart for His purpose when you came to believe and obey Christ.

Do you pray for God’s power in your life?

Done!

If you have the Holy Spirit in you, you have His power. 2 Timothy 1:7 says God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity but of love and self-discipline.

We have the power!

Do you pray for God to reveal His plan for Cut Knife to you? Believe it or not, God does nothing with our revealing His counsel to His servants.

Listen to what Henry Blackaby says about God’s revelation to us from Amos 3:7

Christians spend much time talking about “seeking God's will,” as though it were hidden and difficult to find.

God does not hide His will.

His will is not difficult to discover.

We do not have to plead with God to reveal His will to us.

He is more eager to reveal His will than we are willing to receive it.

We sometimes ask God to do things He has already done!

The people in Amos's day became disoriented to God and to His desires.

God had revealed His will; the problem was that they had not recognized it or obeyed it.

Amos declared that God does /nothing /in the affairs of humanity without seeking one of His servants to whom He will reveal His activity.

Tragically, there are times when no one is walking closely enough with Him to be receptive to His word (Isa.

59:16; 63:5; Ezek.

22:30–31).

Jesus walked so intimately with His Father that He was always aware of what the Father was doing around Him (John 5:19–20).

Jesus said that if our eyes are pure, they will see God and recognize His activity (Matt.

6:22).

If we are not seeing God's activity, the problem is not a lack of revelation.

The problem is that our sin prevents us from noticing it.

When God is working in your child's life or when He is convicting your coworker, He may reveal His activity to you.

His revelation is His invitation for you to join Him in His redemptive work.

Be alert to God's activity around you.

He will reveal His activity to His servants.

If your spiritual eyes are pure, you will be overwhelmed by all that you see God doing around you!

The Holy Spirit is working all the time!

This morning we’re going to take a brief look at the work of the paraclete – our helper, comforter, consoler, intercessor, advocate.

Parakletos, used as the name of the Holy Spirit by John, comes from the Greek para – meaning alongside and kletos, meaning called.

Today we’ll take a look at the third person in the Trinity – the person of the Holy Spirit.

But first, A farmer and his farmhand went duck hunting.

The farmer said to his friend, "You're always talking about fighting with the devil.

I'm not a Christian, and I never have to fight with the devil."

The farmhand answered, "Boss, if you and I shot two ducks, one was wounded and one was dead, which one would you go after first?"

He said, "Well, I guess the wounded duck."

He said, "That's right.

The devil knows you're a dead duck."

If the devil doesn't bother you, it's because he doesn't have to bother you since you and he are traveling in the same direction.

If you turned around, you'd have a collision with him.

Right now, you are in collusion with him.

There’s a lot of truth in this little story – if you’re no danger to the enemy, he’ll leave you alone.

Once you start living in obedience to Christ, you become a threat to him and you can expect him to react.

The you have to resist him and he will flee from you.

Please turn to John chapter fourteen and we’ll start reading at verse fifteen.

We’ll be flipping to passages in John 14 through 16, but we start with John 14:15-17

/If you love me, you will keep my commandments.

And I will pray the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, to be with you for ever, 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.

/

Now, please look down to verses 25 and 26: /These things I have spoken to you, while I am still with you.

But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you./

Now turn to chapter 15 and I’ll read verses 26 and 27: /But when the Counselor comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness to me; and you also are witnesses, because you have been with me from the beginning./

And, the last passage is found in John chapter 16, starting at verse 7: /Nevertheless I tell you the truth: it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.

And when he comes, he will convince the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment: concerning sin, because they do not believe in me; concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, and you will see me no more; concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.

I have yet many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.

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.

He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you./

In order to summarize the biblical teaching about the Holy Spirit, three indispensible truths must be affirmed, namely the Holy Spirit is a person.

He is a person of Power and influence in the life of the believer.

Second, the Holy Spirit is God, and, third, He has specific functions in the triunity of God.

He is the Spirit of Truth (Jn 16:13), as well as being our Comforter.

He can be grieved (Eph 4:30) and sinned against (Mk 3:29).

He reveals, searches, know (1Cor 2:10-11).

He evaluates situations (Acts 15:28) and punished (Acts 5:3,5).

He is called God in 1 Corinthians 3:16 - /Do you not know that you are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you? /, and God’s attributes are present in Him.

Hebrews 9:14 calls Him eternal.

Romans 8:2 calls Him the Spirit of life who free you from sin and death.

Here John uses two ideas which lie very close to his heart and are constantly entwined in his thought.

The Holy Spirit is a person and the Holy Spirit is God.

Lets look at these two facts more closely.

*1.

The Holy Spirit Is a Person*

The most important passage to support the first truth is John 14–16.

At least three things in these chapters confirm that Jesus thinks of the Holy Spirit as a person not a mere force.

1) Jesus calls him "another Counselor" in 14:16, /"I will pray the Father and he will give you another Counselor to be with you for ever, even the Spirit of truth"/ (14:26; 15:26; 16:7).

When Jesus calls him a Counselor or Comforter, he treats him as a person not a force.

And when he calls him /"another Counselor,"/ he means, "He will be a counselor like /me/."

The Holy Spirit is a counselor like Jesus is—he is a person.

2) In John 14:17, Jesus says, /"You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you."/

Then in verse 25 he says, /"I have spoken to you while I am with you."/

Jesus virtually identifies the Spirit with himself.

/"I am with you and will be in you"/ is the same as saying, /"I am with you and the Spirit will be in you."

/"/You know me now as flesh and blood Son of God.

You will know me soon through the Spirit who will be given to you." /Therefore, the Spirit is no less a person than Jesus is.

3) The Holy Spirit is described not merely as the voice of God's teaching but as a teacher in his own right.

John 14:26, /"The Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things."/

And in 15:26 he is a witness in his own right, /"When the Counselor comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness to me."/

And lest we think that the Spirit is just the extended teaching activity of the Father and the Son, John 16:13 says that the Spirit first hears and then teaches: /"He will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak."/

The Spirit is treated not as a force, or influence, or activity of another person, but as a person in his own right, hearing from the Father and the Son, and teaching and bearing witness to men.

It will make a great deal of difference in your own life if you believe that you are being indwelt and led and purified not by impersonal forces from a distant God, but by a person who in his essence is the love of God (Romans 5:5; 1 John 4:12–13).

Handley C.G. Moule, the former bishop of Durham who died in 1920, gave witness to the importance of the Spirit's personality:

Never shall I forget the gain to my conscious faith and peace which came to my own soul, not long after a first decisive and appropriating view of the Crucified Lord as the sinner's sacrifice of peace, from a more intelligent and conscious hold upon the living and most gracious Personality of that Holy Spirit through whose mercy the soul had got that blessed view.

It was a new development of insight into the Love of God.

It was a new contact as it were with the inner eternal movements of redeeming goodness and power, a new discovery in divine resources.