We are going to look at the person and the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. We must establish firstly who we are and what our relationship with God is meant to be.
Genesis 1:26-27 Then God said "Let Us make man in Our image, according to our likeness, let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth..So God created man in His Own image; He created him male and female He created them.
Man was created in the image and likeness of God, now we know that God is Spiritual in his nature, and so we too are Spiritual in our nature. John 4:24 says God is Spirit, and those who Worship Him must worship Him in Spirit and in truth. 1 Thessalonians 5:23 says May now the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely and may your whole Spirit, soul and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. So we see from this that God is Spiritual and so are we. Our spiritual nature is the very essence of who we are, it is the very thing that separates us from the animals. Jesus spoke the animals into existence but with man he formed us out of the dust of the ground and in Genesis 2:7 it says that he breathed into his nostrils and he became a living soul. This imparted both spiritual life and physical life, in fact it is the spirit of man that gives him life. We live in a physical body and have a soul which consists of our mind, will and emotions. Our soul is not eternal but our spirit is because God is eternal. When Adam sinned in the garden in Genesis three he died spiritually, spiritual death is simply spiritual separation from God, Adam still had a spirit but he was no longer in spiritual relationship with God. We see in Romans 5:12-19 because of Adams disobedience we all died spiritually, we were born spiritually separated from God.
Gods desire was and still is that man can come back into the spiritual relationship that we had with him before sin entered into the world. In Ezekiel 36:27 it says "I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes and you will keep My judgments and do them . and again in 37:14 "I will put my Spirit in you, and you shall live and I will place you in your own land. Then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken it and performed it" says the Lord. Here God is promising that He will restore back to us that spiritual relationship by giving us His Spirit to live in us. In John 14:16-17 Jesus said; "And I will pray the Father and He will give you another Helper that you may abide with me forever, the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him or knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. Here we see Jesus says that his disciples will have the Spirit of God in them.
So how do we have our Spiritual lives restored ? In John 3 we see Nicodemus, a religous leader, comes to Jesus looking for answers, he says to Jesus that he knows that he is a teacher come from God because no one could the things that Jesus did unless God was with him. Jesus answers him by saying "Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you are born again, you cannot see the Kingdom of God" Jesus is very much aware that Nicodemus is looking for answers by the statement he made when he came to Jesus. The word see in his reply means to understand or comprehend. In 1 Corinthians 2:14 Paul says; "But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are Spiritually discerned" and in verse 12 he said that we have not been given the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, for the very reason of understanding the things of God. This confirms exactly what Jesus was saying to Nicodemus. Nicodemus does not understand what Jesus means because asks how can he enter back into his mothers womb. Jesus then goes on to explain that he is talking about a spiritual birth. He compares being born of the flesh and being born of the spirit. That which is born of the flesh and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15:50 that flesh and blood will not inherit the Kingdom of God. To have our Spiritual relationship restored we have to be made alive again Spiritually, and this is what being born again means. Paul put it this way in Ephesians 2:1 And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins. and in verse 5 Even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ; by grace you have been saved and raised us up together, and made us sit together in Heavenly places in Christ Jesus.
So how do we receive the new birth, how are we born again ? Romans 10:9-10; That if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. Through simple belief of who Jesus is and confession of Him as our Lord and Savior we are born again. It is at this point that Jesus breathes on us, as He did with Adam in the garden at creation, and He imparts spiritual life back to us, our spirits are born again or brought back into relationship with the Father. We see this in John 20:22; And when He had said this, He breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit, if you forgive the sins of any they are forgiven, if you retain the sins of any they are retained." It was at this point that the disciples were born again.
So we have seen that God's desire and purpose is that we would be brought back into relationship with Him and that it is through the new birth or through us being born again that this happens, so who is the Holy Spirit and how does He impact our lives and what is His purpose in our lives.
Firstly we must establish that the Holy Spirit is God, in Genesis 1:2 we see there that the Spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters, in John 4:24 Jesus said, "God is Spirit and those who worship Him must worship Him in Spirit and in truth." In 2 Corinthians 3:17 Now the Lord is the Spirit and where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty. These verses show us clearly that the Holy Spirit is God. In Psalm 139:7-8, David speaking with God says, "Where can I go from your Spirit? or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend into heaven, you are there, If I make my bed in hell, behold You are there." God is omnipresent, His Spirit is omnipresent. Acts 5:3-4; But Peter said; "Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and keep back part of the price of the land for yourself? While it remained, was it not your own? and after it was sold, was it not in your control? why have you conceived this thing in your heart? you have not lied to men but to God." Again we see through these verses that the Holy Spirit is God, God is omnipresent, the Holy Spirit is omnipresent, Ananias lied to the Holy Spirit and Peter said that he had lied to God.
1 Corinthians 2:10-11; But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of man except the spirit of man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. These verses show us that the Holy Spirit is the one that knows the deep thing of God, and that He is the one who reveals them to us. John 16:13-15; However, when He, the Spirit of truth has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you of things to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take what is Mine and declare it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine, Therefore I said that He will take of Mine and declare it to you. This is an interesting passage, it really shows us the person of the Holy Spirit, some say that the Holy Spirit is not a person, but just an active, impersonal force, yet we see here that the holy Spirit has the ability to hear and then to take what He has heard and then repeat it, namely to us. Not only that, but the Holy Spirit has His own authority, but the interesting thing that we see, is that the Holy Spirit, while He is God is subject to Jesus. He does not speak on His own authority, but only what Jesus speaks to Him. This gives us a glimpse into the authority structure that is within the Godhead. So this all establishes the fact that the Holy Spirit is in fact God, the third person of the Godhead.
So now let us take a look into what role the Holy Spirit has played in our lives, and what His role is in our lives in the future. In John 14:6 Jesus said; "I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me." In John 11:25-26 Jesus also said; "I am the resurrection and the life, He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die, do you believe this?' So Jesus is saying here that we can only have life in Him, and that it is only through Him that we can come to the Father, so what is the role of the Holy Spirit in this? John 16:7-15 ; "Nevertheless I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you. And when He comes He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness and of judgment; of sin because they do not believe in Me, of righteousness because I go the Father and you see Me no more, and of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged. I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. However, when He, the Spirit of truth has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take what is Mine and declare it to you. All things that the Father has are mine. Therefore I said that He will take of Mine and declare it to you." Jesus said here that unless He went back to heaven, the Holy Spirit would not be able to come, but that after He had ascended He would send Him, and when the Holy Spirit came He would convict the world, those outside of Christ, of sin, because of our unbelief before we came to Christ, the Holy Spirit convicted us of our need for a Savior, we saw the gravity of our sin, He convicted us of righteousness, because Jesus was now sitting at the right hand of the Father, we can now be made righteous, and of judgment, because Satan is now defeated and already judged, and if we don't come to Jesus we will be judged along with him. It is the Holy Spirit that draws us to Jesus and then through Jesus we can come to the Father, now knowing Him as our heavenly Father. That is not the end of the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
See what Jesus says in verse 12 of John 16, "I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now." Remember what Jesus said to Nicodemus in John 3:3 that unless a man is born again he cannot see the Kingdom of God, the word see there actually means to understand or comprehend, so until the disciples were born again they would not be able to understand the other things that Jesus was wanting to share with them. We see in John 20:19-23 the disciples are gathered together and Jesus comes and appears in the midst of them, showing them that He is truly alive, that he has been raised from the dead, as He had promised, we see in verse 22 that Jesus breathed on them and said; "Receive the Holy Spirit, if you forgive the sins of any they are forgiven them, if you retain the sins of any they are retained." it is at this time that the disciples are born again. When Jesus breathed on them He imparted spiritual life to them. This is what happens to us when we come to Christ and receive Him as Lord and Savior. Jesus imparts back to us the spiritual life that was lost through the fall, the Holy Spirit comes into our spirit, This is what Jesus was talking about with Nicodemus when He said "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." We are now born of the Spirit. As it says in John 1;13; Who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of the will of God." As Titus 3:5 says; Not by works of righteousness that we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior.
So now that we have come to Christ through the Holy Spirit convicting us, Jesus has now imparted spiritual life to us and we have been born again through the Holy Spirit and we now have the Holy Spirit living in our spirit. Jesus said in John 16 that when we have the Holy Spirit He is the one that will guide us into all truth, that He will take what He hears Jesus say and speak that to us. As we read the word, spend time in prayer, meditate on what God is showing us and saying to us, it will be the Holy Spirit that will that reveals the truth to us.
So how else does the Holy Spirit operate in our lives? We see in Matthew 28;18-20 and Mark 16:14-18 that Jesus commissions his disciples to go out into all the world and make disciples, He tells that He now has all authority in heaven and on the earth, and it is as they go out in that authority that they will be able to preach the gospel and perform miracles. But then we see something quite interesting in Acts 1, Jesus tells them that they are not to leave Jerusalem yet, but that they are to wait until He has baptised the with the Holy Spirit. He tells them that when they are baptised in the Holy Spirit that they will receive the power or the authority to be His witnesses. We see the fulfillment of this on the day of Pentecost, when the disciples are in the upper room praying and the Holy Spirit is poured out, We see in Acts two that the disciples are all sitting in the upper room and when the Holy Spirit is poured out He comes and sits on them, the religous concept that the Holy Spirit appeared as little tongues of fire on their heads is wrong. It says in Acts 2:2-3 that they were sitting down and that the Holy Spirit sat on them, when some one is sitting down and you sit on them, you sit in their lap. The Holy Spirit came and totally immersed them in fire, the same as what Moses saw at the burning bush. The word baptise means to immerse, to totally cover it, if you baptise something in water you totally immerse into the water. The disciples were totally immersed in the fire of the Spirit, this is what John the baptist said would happen, that Jesus would baptise us with the Holy Spirit and with fire. I know myself when I was baptised with the Holy Spirit I burnt from head to foot. The heat of the Holy Spirit consumed me, and I began speaking in tongues. This is what happened to the disciples on the day of Pentecost. We see on the day of Pentecost the fulfillment of what the prophet Joel had said, that in the last days God would pour His Spirit out on all flesh. The day of Pentecost was the first of the last days. We see the twofold function of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, Peter, who had previously denied Jesus, now filled with the Holy Spirit, stands up and preaches that amazing message, witnessing to who Jesus is, he was speaking under the power and the authority that he now had in the Holy Spirit, and we see that the Jews who heard him preach were convicted by the Holy Spirit, and they cried out and asked what they must do. Peter told them that they needed to repent, give their lives to Christ, and be baptised, and they too would receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Not only them, but their families and to all who came to Christ as God called them.
So we can see that the Holy Spirit has a number of functions in our lives, He is the one who convicts us of our need to come to Jesus in the first place, the one who shows us that we need Savior, it is the Holy Spirit that gives us new life through being born again, born of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit is our teacher and the one who leads us into the truth of Gods word. It is through the baptism of the Holy Spirit that we are able to walk in the authority and the power that Jesus gives us. It is through the Holy Spirit that we are able to operate in the gifts of the Spirit within the church, as we see in 1 Corinthians 12, 13 and 14 and again in Romans 12.
It is so vitally important that we do not neglect the person of the Holy Spirit in our lives, Ephesians 4:30 says; Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for day of redemption. We need more and more as we walk with Jesus to come to know the Holy Spirit in our lives, because the more we know the Holy Spirit, the more we will know Jesus, because Jesus dwells in us through the Holy Spirit. So let this be your prayer and my prayer, Ephesians 3:16-21 That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ might dwell in your hearts through faith, that you; being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and the length and depth and height to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us. To Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever AMEN.
So we have seen that God's desire and purpose is that we would be brought back into relationship with Him and that it is through the new birth or through us being born again that this happens, so who is the Holy Spirit and how does He impact our lives and what is His purpose in our lives.
Firstly we must establish that the Holy Spirit is God, in Genesis 1:2 we see there that the Spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters, in John 4:24 Jesus said, "God is Spirit and those who worship Him must worship Him in Spirit and in truth." In 2 Corinthians 3:17 Now the Lord is the Spirit and where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty. These verses show us clearly that the Holy Spirit is God. In Psalm 139:7-8, David speaking with God says, "Where can I go from your Spirit? or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend into heaven, you are there, If I make my bed in hell, behold You are there." God is omnipresent, His Spirit is omnipresent. Acts 5:3-4; But Peter said; "Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and keep back part of the price of the land for yourself? While it remained, was it not your own? and after it was sold, was it not in your control? why have you conceived this thing in your heart? you have not lied to men but to God." Again we see through these verses that the Holy Spirit is God, God is omnipresent, the Holy Spirit is omnipresent, Ananias lied to the Holy Spirit and Peter said that he had lied to God.
1 Corinthians 2:10-11; But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of man except the spirit of man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. These verses show us that the Holy Spirit is the one that knows the deep thing of God, and that He is the one who reveals them to us. John 16:13-15; However, when He, the Spirit of truth has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you of things to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take what is Mine and declare it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine, Therefore I said that He will take of Mine and declare it to you. This is an interesting passage, it really shows us the person of the Holy Spirit, some say that the Holy Spirit is not a person, but just an active, impersonal force, yet we see here that the holy Spirit has the ability to hear and then to take what He has heard and then repeat it, namely to us. Not only that, but the Holy Spirit has His own authority, but the interesting thing that we see, is that the Holy Spirit, while He is God is subject to Jesus. He does not speak on His own authority, but only what Jesus speaks to Him. This gives us a glimpse into the authority structure that is within the Godhead. So this all establishes the fact that the Holy Spirit is in fact God, the third person of the Godhead.
So now let us take a look into what role the Holy Spirit has played in our lives, and what His role is in our lives in the future. In John 14:6 Jesus said; "I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me." In John 11:25-26 Jesus also said; "I am the resurrection and the life, He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die, do you believe this?' So Jesus is saying here that we can only have life in Him, and that it is only through Him that we can come to the Father, so what is the role of the Holy Spirit in this? John 16:7-15 ; "Nevertheless I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you. And when He comes He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness and of judgment; of sin because they do not believe in Me, of righteousness because I go the Father and you see Me no more, and of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged. I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. However, when He, the Spirit of truth has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take what is Mine and declare it to you. All things that the Father has are mine. Therefore I said that He will take of Mine and declare it to you." Jesus said here that unless He went back to heaven, the Holy Spirit would not be able to come, but that after He had ascended He would send Him, and when the Holy Spirit came He would convict the world, those outside of Christ, of sin, because of our unbelief before we came to Christ, the Holy Spirit convicted us of our need for a Savior, we saw the gravity of our sin, He convicted us of righteousness, because Jesus was now sitting at the right hand of the Father, we can now be made righteous, and of judgment, because Satan is now defeated and already judged, and if we don't come to Jesus we will be judged along with him. It is the Holy Spirit that draws us to Jesus and then through Jesus we can come to the Father, now knowing Him as our heavenly Father. That is not the end of the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
See what Jesus says in verse 12 of John 16, "I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now." Remember what Jesus said to Nicodemus in John 3:3 that unless a man is born again he cannot see the Kingdom of God, the word see there actually means to understand or comprehend, so until the disciples were born again they would not be able to understand the other things that Jesus was wanting to share with them. We see in John 20:19-23 the disciples are gathered together and Jesus comes and appears in the midst of them, showing them that He is truly alive, that he has been raised from the dead, as He had promised, we see in verse 22 that Jesus breathed on them and said; "Receive the Holy Spirit, if you forgive the sins of any they are forgiven them, if you retain the sins of any they are retained." it is at this time that the disciples are born again. When Jesus breathed on them He imparted spiritual life to them. This is what happens to us when we come to Christ and receive Him as Lord and Savior. Jesus imparts back to us the spiritual life that was lost through the fall, the Holy Spirit comes into our spirit, This is what Jesus was talking about with Nicodemus when He said "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." We are now born of the Spirit. As it says in John 1;13; Who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of the will of God." As Titus 3:5 says; Not by works of righteousness that we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit, whom He poured out on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior.
So now that we have come to Christ through the Holy Spirit convicting us, Jesus has now imparted spiritual life to us and we have been born again through the Holy Spirit and we now have the Holy Spirit living in our spirit. Jesus said in John 16 that when we have the Holy Spirit He is the one that will guide us into all truth, that He will take what He hears Jesus say and speak that to us. As we read the word, spend time in prayer, meditate on what God is showing us and saying to us, it will be the Holy Spirit that will that reveals the truth to us.
So how else does the Holy Spirit operate in our lives? We see in Matthew 28;18-20 and Mark 16:14-18 that Jesus commissions his disciples to go out into all the world and make disciples, He tells that He now has all authority in heaven and on the earth, and it is as they go out in that authority that they will be able to preach the gospel and perform miracles. But then we see something quite interesting in Acts 1, Jesus tells them that they are not to leave Jerusalem yet, but that they are to wait until He has baptised the with the Holy Spirit. He tells them that when they are baptised in the Holy Spirit that they will receive the power or the authority to be His witnesses. We see the fulfillment of this on the day of Pentecost, when the disciples are in the upper room praying and the Holy Spirit is poured out, We see in Acts two that the disciples are all sitting in the upper room and when the Holy Spirit is poured out He comes and sits on them, the religous concept that the Holy Spirit appeared as little tongues of fire on their heads is wrong. It says in Acts 2:2-3 that they were sitting down and that the Holy Spirit sat on them, when some one is sitting down and you sit on them, you sit in their lap. The Holy Spirit came and totally immersed them in fire, the same as what Moses saw at the burning bush. The word baptise means to immerse, to totally cover it, if you baptise something in water you totally immerse into the water. The disciples were totally immersed in the fire of the Spirit, this is what John the baptist said would happen, that Jesus would baptise us with the Holy Spirit and with fire. I know myself when I was baptised with the Holy Spirit I burnt from head to foot. The heat of the Holy Spirit consumed me, and I began speaking in tongues. This is what happened to the disciples on the day of Pentecost. We see on the day of Pentecost the fulfillment of what the prophet Joel had said, that in the last days God would pour His Spirit out on all flesh. The day of Pentecost was the first of the last days. We see the twofold function of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost, Peter, who had previously denied Jesus, now filled with the Holy Spirit, stands up and preaches that amazing message, witnessing to who Jesus is, he was speaking under the power and the authority that he now had in the Holy Spirit, and we see that the Jews who heard him preach were convicted by the Holy Spirit, and they cried out and asked what they must do. Peter told them that they needed to repent, give their lives to Christ, and be baptised, and they too would receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Not only them, but their families and to all who came to Christ as God called them.
So we can see that the Holy Spirit has a number of functions in our lives, He is the one who convicts us of our need to come to Jesus in the first place, the one who shows us that we need Savior, it is the Holy Spirit that gives us new life through being born again, born of the Spirit. The Holy Spirit is our teacher and the one who leads us into the truth of Gods word. It is through the baptism of the Holy Spirit that we are able to walk in the authority and the power that Jesus gives us. It is through the Holy Spirit that we are able to operate in the gifts of the Spirit within the church, as we see in 1 Corinthians 12, 13 and 14 and again in Romans 12.
It is so vitally important that we do not neglect the person of the Holy Spirit in our lives, Ephesians 4:30 says; Do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, by whom you were sealed for day of redemption. We need more and more as we walk with Jesus to come to know the Holy Spirit in our lives, because the more we know the Holy Spirit, the more we will know Jesus, because Jesus dwells in us through the Holy Spirit. So let this be your prayer and my prayer, Ephesians 3:16-21 That He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, that Christ might dwell in your hearts through faith, that you; being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and the length and depth and height to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us. To Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever AMEN.
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