Various texts
We are into week four of our series of sermons on foundations of our faith. Thus far we have talked about Paulâs three stages of salvation: justification, I have been saved; sanctification, I am being saved; and glorification, I will be saved.
This morning we come to the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. When we are accepted by Jesus, when we are saved, we are given the Holy Spirit as a guarantee of our salvation. We become the temple of the Holy Spirit. Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 3:16
Donât you know that you yourselves are Godâs temple and that Godâs Spirit lives in you?
Who is the Holy Spirit? Last October, in a series of sermons from the Apostlesâ Creed, I talked about the Holy Spirit and this is how I began that message.
Does the Holy Spirit get upset when people ignore him? For many years, the Evangelical church in the US was accused of being Bitarian rather than Trinitarian because it talked about the Father and the Son but almost never about the Holy Spirit. Did the Holy Spirit feel like a third wheel in the trinity? Did the Holy Spirit ever want to say to the church, âWhat am I, chopped liver?â Should we try to make it up to the Holy Spirit by praying to him as well as praying to the Father and the Son? We sing a lot of songs about Jesus. Should we sing more songs about the Holy Spirit? Should we sing a third of our songs to the Father, a third to the Son and a third to the Holy Spirit so no one feels left out?
The problem with all these questions is that they assume there are three gods who compete for attention, but that is not the case. There is one God who is triune: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit does not need equal time. To pray to the Father is to pray to the Son and Spirit. To praise the Son is to praise the Father and Spirit. To submit to the Holy Spirit is to submit to the Father and Son. There is one God, not three gods.
There is one God but it is as if God presents himself in three different ways. God the Father is the creator of the universe, the first person in the Trinity. Jesus said only the Father knows the time of his return. God the Son is the human manifestation of God, our savior. Jesus is the one seated on the throne before whom every knee will bow and every tongue confess that he is King of kings and Lord of lords. God the Holy Spirit is the power of God in this world. It is through the Holy Spirit that Godâs will is accomplished.
There is one God but three different roles. And even here they are not so distinct. God created the universe but the Holy Spirit hovered over the waters at the beginning in Genesis and Paul in Colossians and the writer of Hebrews wrote that through Jesus everything was created. There are different roles but one God so we cannot always make clear, separate job descriptions to define each person of the Trinity.
You can see the problem in talking about the Trinity. As soon as I talk about the Holy Spirit I am talking about a person and in our minds that person is separate and distinct. But as I have mentioned in other sermons, the difficulty is that we are too limited to comprehend the complete view of God and so we are easily and understandably confused. We can only understand what is confined to our universe in time and space. God who exists in dimensions beyond the limits of our time and space is going to be far more than we can grasp.
When the church has focused on God the Father and God the Son but ignored God the Holy Spirit, the triune God has not suffered – the church has suffered because we have limited ourselves to only a part of the work of God in the world. The Holy Spirit does not have self-esteem issues that we need to correct; we have an inadequate view of God that deprives us of all that God has to offer.
When you talk about God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit, be deliberate about resting in the mystery of what we cannot comprehend. Donât be nervous about making seemingly contradictory statements. When we talk about the Holy Spirit we do so as if he were a distinct person, but we do that because we have no other way of talking about the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is God just as the Father and the Son are God.
Be careful not to become confused by the Trinity. We worship one God in three persons. The persons are not separate in being but they are differentiated by roles. God the Father sent Jesus to be our savior and when Jesus ascended, the Father sent the Holy Spirit. When we pray, we pray to the Father, through the Son, in the power of the Holy Spirit. But we pray to one God.
What is the role the Holy Spirit plays?
The first and most important role is that he came to glorify Jesus. In Jesusâ teaching about the Holy Spirit in John 16 he said
[The Holy Spirit] 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.
âHe will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.â
J. I. Packer tells the story of a beautiful cathedral in Vancouver, which is spectactularly floodlit at night. It would be crazy to visit the cathedral at night and stare into the floodlights. For one, you would probably damage your eyes and secondly, the purpose of the lights is not to be looked at but to light up the cathedral and expose its beauty in the night. In the same way, says Packer, the Holy Spirit is not given so he may bring attention to himself, but in order to expose the glory of Christ amid the dark night of sin and death. We need the Holy Spirit to illuminate Christ, but it is Christ who is the focus of our wonder.
This is why in our worship this morning, on a Sunday when we are focusing on the Holy Spirit, we sang songs of praise to Jesus. This is what the Holy Spirit wants us to do. This is why the Holy Spirit came, to lift up and bring glory to Jesus.
When the church ignores the Holy Spirit, it fails to lift up Jesus and glorify him as we should.
The good news for us about the coming of the Holy Spirit is he is present with us. We were not rescued and then left to get along as best we could; we were rescued and then God came to be present with us, to help us and prepare us to spend eternity in his presence.
Richard Lovelace titled this good news: I am not alone! When we give our lives to Christ, we become the temple of the Holy Spirit. We are no longer alone.
Let me share four ways this is good news to us.
The first I talked about two weeks ago when I shared the good news of our sanctification, the second stage of salvation in Romans, I am being saved.
From the moment the Holy Spirit comes to dwell in us, he begins to work in us, to help us be transformed into the person God created us to be. The great news of sanctification is that we are not alone in working to be more like Jesus; the Holy Spirit is working with us as we cooperate by abiding in Christ and exercising spiritual disciplines.
We are not alone in our efforts to become more like Jesus. We are not trapped in our character flaws with no hope of ever being different. Who we are today is not who we will be tomorrow. We can and will change to become more like Jesus, if we abide in Christ and cooperate with the Holy Spirit in our sanctification. I do not need to repreach this sermon this morning.
So let me move to the second way I am not alone! is good news for us. With the presence of the Holy Spirit in my life, I have a built-in accountability partner.
I have talked before about my practice of shoplifting before I became a follower of Jesus. Most often, I stole books. But then a friend encouraged me to pray and ask God to reveal himself to me. I began to do this and one day when I went to the bookstore to steal a book, I walked inside and realized God was watching me. I knew God was present and that I was not alone and so I turned around and walked out of the store. I couldnât steal a book if someone was watching me do it.
The presence of God in our lives means we are never alone and part of the work of the Holy Spirit is to convict us of our sin. We know when we are doing something displeasing to God. And when we sin, we pull the Holy Spirit along with us into our sin. We grieve the Holy Spirit, which Paul, in Ephesians 4:29â32, warns us not to do.
Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. 30 And do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for the day of redemption. 31 Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you, along with all malice. 32 Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.
What does Paul mean by writing that we should not grieve the Holy Spirit? Well, look at the context. The verse before talks about not allowing corrupting talk to come out of our mouths. The verse afterwards talks about putting away bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, slander and malice. And then the next verse gives the positive. âBe kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.â
When you become a follower of Jesus, you no longer travel alone. The Holy Spirit dwells with you. So wherever you go, the Holy Spirit goes with you. If you step into a meeting and are meanspirited or gossip, you bring the Holy Spirit with you into your evil behavior. If you are bitter or angry, you are bitter and angry in the presence of the Holy Spirit. And when you drag the Holy Spirit into evil behavior, you grieve the Holy Spirit. We grieve the Holy Spirit by sinning.
Paul talked about this in his letter to the church in Corinth. Prostitution was an important part of the daily life of the Corinthians. Prostitution was part of the worship at the temple to Aphrodite. So some of the new believers thought since faith in Jesus was spiritual, it did not matter what they did with their bodies and they could continue with the cultural practice of prostitution.
But Paul wrote to them: 1 Corinthians 6:15â20
Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! 16 Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, âThe two will become one flesh.â 17 But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. 18 Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. 19 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, 20 for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.
When you go to a prostitute, you drag the Holy Spirit along with you. When you have sexual relationships outside of the covenant of marriage, you do this with the Holy Spiritâs presence. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit with your sin.
When you sit down at the computer and begin clicking your way into pornographic websites, you are not alone; the Holy Spirit is being pulled along with you. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit.
When you sin, you sin against God because God is present with you and you bring God into your sin. This is why when we sin, we sin first and foremost against God. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit.
The presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives helps us to live a life pleasing to God. The Holy Spirit helps to hold us accountable for our behavior. We still need other brothers and sisters to come alongside us to hold us accountable. They are part of the team that helps us to grow to be more like Jesus, but the Holy Spirit is the leader of that team. That is good news.
A third way I am not alone! is good news for us is that the Holy Spirit leads us and guides us. The presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives is like having a built-in GPS that not only tells us what direction to take but also tells us what to do.
Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness. Paul was led by the Spirit about where to preach and where not to preach. Phillip was led by the Spirit to share with the Ethiopian eunuch. Peter was led by the Spirit to go to the home of Cornelius. John was in the Spirit when he had his revelation on the Isle of Patmos. And in the millions of lives of those who have followed Jesus through the ages the Spirit has continued and continues to lead us.
As we read through the Bible, listen to the counsel of friends, pay attention to the circumstances of our lives, the Holy Spirit leads us. Most of us do not hear the Holy Spirit through an amplifier. We have to listen for the still small voice, as the Scripture describes it, of the Holy Spirit. Even this is misleading because rarely do people hear a voice at all. We have thoughts that come to our mind and over time we become better at discerning when a thought that comes to our mind is from the Holy Spirit or just our imagination. We have to learn to discern the leading of the Holy Spirit, but he is constantly speaking to us.
Let me give some examples.
I had a conversation one day with a leader of a Christian organization about some leadership struggles they were having. I felt that I should get the leaders together and warn them about the danger of their struggles. Was this the leading of the Holy Spirit? Should I stick out my neck and intervene in their ministry?
The next morning when I opened my Bible to read, the passage I was due to read in my Bible reading program began at II Timothy 2. I came to verse 14 and read this:
Keep reminding them of these things. Warn them before God against quarreling about words; it is of no value, and only ruins those who listen.
It was clear to me as I read this verse that God was telling me to get the leaders together and speak to them.
Very often God speaks to us through the Scriptures and this is one of the reasons it is important for us to read the Bible throughout the week. If we are not reading the Bible, we are shutting off one of the principle means of the Holy Spirit communicating with us.
The Holy Spirit also speaks to us through thoughts he puts in our minds. Let me illustrate this with a story one of my Moroccan friends told me.
My friend was walking in Centreville near to the train station, waiting for an all-night prayer meeting to begin. He went into a store to buy something and when he got the change, rather than put the twenty dirham note in his wallet as he normally did, he felt God telling him he should put it in his front pocket. So he did. He continued to walk and pray for the city and as he did, he saw a woman walking in front of him. She was well dressed but he sensed God telling him he should give her the twenty dirham note.
He resisted because in this culture to give a woman walking on the street twenty dirhams could be misunderstood. It was not culturally appropriate to give her this money. But he kept sensing this thought that he should give her the twenty dirhams. Finally he went up to her and said, âExcuse me. I know this may seem strange but I want to give you this,â and he put the twenty dirhams in her hand and walked away.
He continued walking around and praying and as he came back to the place where the prayer meeting was going to take place he saw the woman again on the street. She came up to him and said she had been looking for him. She asked him, âI need to know why you gave me this money.â He told her, âI am a Christian and was walking around, praying, when I felt God tell me I should give you this money. I know it is not culturally appropriate. You are a well-dressed woman and I did not want to insult you. But I kept sensing God tell me to give you the money and so I did.â
The woman said, âI had bought some diapers for my baby and then when I wanted to go home discovered I had not brought enough money with me and did not have enough to pay for a taxi. I was just asking God what I should do when you came up to me.â
She had tears in her eye and my friend was able to share with her about the love of Jesus in his life. My friend was able to be the arms and pocketbook of Jesus in this womanâs life because he had learned to obey the promptings of the Holy Spirit.
I have not had a story so dramatic as this, but as I go through my day, I try to be alert to anyone God may want me to help and I try to be obedient to what I sense God wants me to do. I want to be available to him to love people in his name. As we listen, God uses us in the lives of others.
We are the temple of the Holy Spirit and as we listen to his voice, we will be led to people he wants us to love in the name of Jesus.
Sometimes we are led by a combination of Scripture, thoughts that come to us, and circumstances. My decision to sell my company in the US came because I paid attention to the little details in my life and wondered if they had any significance.
If you are not in the habit of taking time to pray and read Scripture and reflect on what you have read and reflect on what comes to your mind when you pray, you will miss out on God speaking to you, you will miss out on the opportunity to have beautiful feet bringing good news to someone God loves. You will miss out on the direction God is trying to bring into your life.
A fourth way I am not alone! is good news for us is that the Holy Spirit comforts and encourages us.
One of the Holy Spiritâs roles within the Trinity is to pour out Godâs love into our hearts. In Romans 5:5 Paul wrote:
And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.
This is not a one time pouring. The tense in Greek indicates that it is a continuous pouring. It is not a trickle. It is not a continuous drip, drip, drip. It is like a downpour in a dry land that soaks up every drop of water to be deeply refreshed.
The love of the Holy Spirit is like a hug and what makes this hug meaningful is that we are being loved by someone who can be trusted. We will not have our pocket picked while we are being hugged. The one hugging us will not later betray us. We are being hugged by someone in whom we can have absolute trust.
We are being loved by someone who loves us and we can be confident of the Holy Spiritâs love for us because the love of the Holy Spirit is the same love that led Jesus to the cross to die for us.
We are being loved by someone who has our best interest at heart. The Holy Spirit does not have any selfish motivation for loving us. The Holy Spirit does not love us so that we can do something the Holy Spirit wants us to do. The love of the Holy Spirit is the unconditional love of God which demands nothing of us and loves regardless of our behavior. There is nothing we can do that will make the Holy Spirit love us more and there is nothing we can do which will make the Holy Spirit love us less.
We are being loved by someone whose intent is to serve us. The Holy Spirit is at work in us to mold us and make us into the holy person the Father sees us to be through the perfection of Jesus. The Holy Spirit comforts us, counsels us, leads us into truth.
To receive the hug of the Holy Spirit is to feel loved, secure, and in the image of Psalm 134, to be like a weaned child in its motherâs arms.
To borrow a bit from Romans 5:6, this hug comes to us at just the right time. This hug comes to us when we are in need. And it is because we are in need that this hug will always be so wonderful.
There have been times in my Christian life when I have been worried and anxious about something and have stopped to quiet myself and pray and reflect and I have experienced the peace of God which passes all understanding. It is a deep, meaningful, refreshing hug that changes my world view.
In John 14:15â16 Jesus taught:
âIf you love me, you will obey what I command. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you foreverâ
The Greek word for the Holy Spirit in this verse is paraclete and the NIV translates it as Counselor. Many translations translated this as Helper. The KJV says Comforter.
The difficulty in translating paraclete is that it has so many meanings. The Holy Spirit is so many things to us because all of our experience of God in this world is through the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not limited to being our comforter, but he is that as well as much more. When we read in Isaiah 40:1â5
Comfort, comfort my people,
says your God.
2 Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
and proclaim to her
that her hard service has been completed,
that her sin has been paid for,
that she has received from the Lordâs hand
double for all her sins.
this is the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. The Holy Spirit is our Helper who works to make us more holy. The Holy Spirit is our Counselor who leads us and guides us.
As a follower of Jesus, you are not alone. When you feel trapped and helpless, you are not alone. When you feel abandoned and rejected, you are not alone. When you feel unworthy and discouraged, you are not alone.
Jesus saved us and set us on a solid rock but when we are anxious and fearful, that rock becomes very slippery and we fear we will fall off. Our minds become distracted and we forget who we are and to whom we belong. We need to be reminded of the truths upon which we stand as Christians.
Richard Lovelace encourages us to remember each day these four foundational truths. ((Taken from Dynamics of Spiritual Life by Richard Lovelace. Chapter 4, Primary Elements of Continuous Renewal)
1. I AM ACCEPTED! (justification)
Because of my relationship with Christ, when God sees me, he sees me not as a sinner but as his perfect and holy child. The blood of Christ covers my sin.
I can trust God. He will not reject me. His love is not dependent on my behavior. Nothing I do today will make him love me more or less tomorrow. I am his special child, loved and accepted with no strings attached.
2. I AM DELIVERED! (sanctification)
Sin has no power over me. The power of sin to rule my life has been destroyed in the cross of Christ. The Holy Spirit is working with me to transform me into the holy child God sees me to be.
By faith I claim the power of God at work in me, transforming me from sinner to saint.
I have hope! What I am today is not what I will be tomorrow.
3. I AM NOT ALONE! (indwelling of the Holy Spirit)
The Holy Spirit lives within me. Each day I need to open myself to the Spirit, sharing all my thoughts and plans. I need to spend time in silence, allowing the Spirit to speak to me, to guide my thoughts. I need to continue to be open to the Holy Spirit throughout the day in a relationship of communication and communion, checking my thoughts with my knowledge of the Word.
