So I’m going to talk about my invisible friend, the Holy Spirit. Yet I don’t feel I have the words to convey how wonderful He is. Nor do I fully understand Him and His ways and all that I am to do in relation to Him. He has made clear to me that He lives deep inside me and around me and is with me all the time. He is my helper and teacher and counselor and comforter. He is the down payment of my inheritance. He is power steering for my unruly body. He is the fire that I dare not quench and I can fan into flame that heats me up and enables me to glow and shine, that those around me might see. He is my drink that I drink that gives me joy and peace and courage and there’s no hangover afterward and I am addicted to Him. He is the sap within me by which I bear fruit, and apart from Him I could do nothing. He deserves the praise for any good in me and any good I do. And He is not responsible for any of the foolishness and ugliness that remains in me. He is the personal presence of God and the Lord Jesus.
Now, Tres Dias is committed to focusing on the things that most Christian denominations agree on and not venturing into the areas that will likely stir up controversy among us, and I’ve agreed to talk about this along those lines. So there are some things about the Holy Spirit that I believe very strongly and believe are very helpful to realize, but I am not going to talk about them in this lesson. If you care to know more about what I think, ask me to coffee sometime.
One of the things I’ve discovered about the Holy Spirit is that He’s doing a whole lot more than we perceive. It’s like one of my not proudest moments from several years ago. It was during the first week in which I was trying contact lenses instead of glasses for my vision. I can see around the house fine without corrective lenses. It’s distance that I have trouble with. And this one morning I woke up and didn’t put my contacts in or put glasses on and I got my oldest son ready for school and sent him off to the bus stop. I was standing on my front porch watching him and the other kids at the bus stop and looking around outside. And I noticed everything seemed to look clearer than it normally does when I don’t have my glasses or contacts in. I thought, “Wow, I can make out the details on that kid’s shirt way over there! I can read the street signs! Wow! Weird. Did my eye sight somehow improve? Is it because I’ve been drinking more water recently? Or did wearing contacts for a bit help improve my vision? Or did God heal my vision? Wow!” Then after the bus picked up the kids, I went inside to finish getting ready for the day. I went to the bathroom and there was my contact case, and though I thought, “I don’t really need my contacts, but I’ll put them in anyways to make my vision just that much better.” I took the case and opened it up and saw it was empty, and was reminded yet again that I’m not the brightest. I forgot to take my contacts out the night before.
There was a good while in my Christian life where I did not realize why I was seeing glorious realities that so many people can’t see. I could see that that man Jesus of Nazareth was actually sent for us by God because God so loves us, and He suffered and died for my sins, was raised, is Lord of the Universe and He will come again to set the world right and life has no end for me because I trust and follow Him and he hears me when I pray to Him; I could see these realities and thought it was pretty much due to the good luck of me hearing about it and my own examination of the evidence and reasoning that brought me to see these things. I did not realize the supernatural help that I received, the corrective lenses that the Spirit of God had put on the eyes of my heart. He’d been at work on me when I did not even detect His presence. I can see because of Him, I just didn’t yet know it was because Him. I’ve found through experience that the more I realize how dependent I am on the Spirit of the Lord to see and understand things and to live right and to serve effectively, the more help He will give me. I’m finding that the measure of my humility somewhat determines the measure of His activity in me. The Bible says something like that. It says, “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” (James 4:6)
Let me first share with you a couple Scriptures about…
How the Holy Spirit works on us even before we commit to Jesus.
Likely, like me, you did not detect His presence when He was working on you in these ways. John 16:8, Jesus told His disciples that the Holy Spirit will convict the world of sin and righteousness and judgment. The Holy Spirit works on lost people to bring them to a realization of their own sinfulness, of what true righteousness is and the fact that we will answer to God for how we have lived. In other words, He shows people their need for a Savior.
In I Corinthians 12:3 the apostle Paul wrote that “no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit.” I don’t believe he meant no one could ever possibly utter those three words in order except by the Holy Spirit, like by reading them in a book, but I believe he’s talking about saying “Jesus is Lord” sincerely. Without the Holy Spirit working on a person, the idea that, Jesus of Nazareth, who was put to death on a cross, is now the living Lord of all is unbelievable.
So if you have been convicted of your need for a Savior and that Jesus is the Lord who can save you, then realize that God has looked on you with compassion and mercy and His Spirit has been at work in your life and heart to introduce you to your Savior. In fact Jesus said, “no one can come to Me, unless the Father who sent me draws him” (John 6:44).
One of the next things the Holy Spirit does as we submit ourselves to Jesus as the Lord whom we obey (Romans 6:17-18; Ephesians 1:13), is…
He works a miraculous regeneration of our hearts.
This experience is called in writings of the apostle John, “being born again,” “born from above,” “born of God,” “born of the Spirit” (John 1:13; 3:3-6; I John 2:29; 4:7). It is also called in the apostle Paul’s writings, “being circumcised of heart by the Spirit” (Romans 2:29; Colossians 2:11). He also refers to it as “sanctification by the Spirit,” at least the first stage in the sanctification process (II Thessalonians 2:13; I Peter 1:2). It is also called the “putting off of the old self and the sin enslaved body, and the putting on of the new self that is being renewed toward the image of Christ” (Romans 6:6; Ephesians 4:22-24; Colossians 2:11; 3:9-10). And it’s frequently associated with baptism (Romans 6:1-7; Colossians 2:11-12; Titus 3:5; John 3:5). But that’s one of those hotly debated issues, whether the rebirth can be fully accomplished apart from baptism or not. I’ll just say trust and love Jesus enough to do everything He tells you including baptism and it will all work out and you can receive all He has for you and we can ask Him to clear up the debates when we see Him in heaven.
Let me share with you two Scriptures about this regenerating work of the Spirit. First, John 3, where a leader of the Pharisees named Nicodemus came to Jesus in cover of night so no one would see him talking to Jesus. And Nicodemus said to Him, “Rabbi, we know you must be a teacher from God, for no one can do these miracles you are doing unless God is with him.” Jesus jumped right into what Pharisees like Nicodemus needed to understand. The Pharisees were as sinful as most of the rest of the common people. They just as much needed to be changed and forgiven, but their sins were not as visible and obvious. They were full of pride and self-righteousness and judgementalism and greed and jealousy and lust in their hearts. They just cloaked their sinfulness with a religious façade. And they weren’t about to admit it. They were not complying with God’s commands that were being preached by John the Baptist and Jesus at that time. And by refusing to comply they were rejecting God’s purpose for themselves (Luke 7:29-30) and resisting the Holy Spirit (Acts 7:51). So Jesus said to this leader of the Pharisees, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Even you Pharisees, unless you are born again you cannot see the kingdom. Nicodemus said, “How can a man be born when he is old? What’s he going to do, enter a second time into his mother’s womb and come out again?” So Jesus explained a bit. He said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.” So He clarifies that He’s talking about a birth that has something to do with water and the Spirit of God. He’s not talking about a birth of flesh, which results in a new flesh, a new little living body that resembles the parents from whom he was born. He’s talking about a birth of the Spirit that results in a new spirit, a new heart, a new inner nature that resembles God’s nature and has the ability to grow ever more into His likeness. And it’s not just those with blatant obvious sin like the prostitutes and thieves who need that new heart. It’s also prideful self-righteous religious people.
Something Jesus said later to Nicodemus was, “Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things?” (3:10). Nicodemus should have understood this because the Old Testament Scriptures which he was supposedly an expert on, talk about this inner regeneration of God’s Spirit that must happen if we’re to be in His kingdom. One of those ancient prophecies is in Ezekiel 36. It’s about what God would do in the future for the lost and scattered people of Israel. God said, “25 I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleannesses, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. 26 And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. [A heart of stone is a stubborn unyielding heart that will not listen to God, that will not change or obey. But in the new birth God replaces that hard heart with a soft one that will listen and learn, submit and obey.] 27 And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.” Then He describes how amazingly blessed such people will be. And in verse 31 he mentions a certain effect of receiving a new heart. He says, “Then you will remember your evil ways, and your deeds that were not good, and you will loathe yourselves for your iniquities and your abominations.” Do you ever look back on your old life and the things you used to do for fun and pleasure and your priorities and how you used to talk and treat people, and do you loathe how you used to be, do you find it ugly, disgusting and embarrassing? I do. And that is a wonderful sign, a sign that the Spirit of God has given you a new heart.
After He regenerates us,
He also wants to take up permanent residence inside our bodies, inside the deepest part of us, in our hearts.
Now, when exactly the Spirit comes in to stay is another one of those issues. Does the Spirit come to indwell us the moment we believe? Or when you’re baptized? Or born again? Or at some point later in your Christian life? Or is it that you receive a measure of the Spirit initially, but there’s still more to be received?
I’m not going to wade into those muddy waters and try to clear it up. I’ll just say if you do two things, then guaranteed you will receive the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Obey and ask.
Here’s 3 passages on the relationship of obedience and receiving the Spirit.
Acts 5:32 when Peter was telling the Jewish authorities that Jesus whom they crucified had been raised from the dead and exalted to God’s right hand as King and Savior, then he said. “And we are witnesses of these things, and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey Him.” He gives the Spirit to those who obey Him.
Acts 2:38 is Peter speaking to a crowd of thousands of Jews who were just convinced that Jesus whom they crucified has been installed as Lord of all and they asked what to do (Acts 2:38), Peter told them #1 Repent, which means turn from the way you’ve been thinking and living, forsake the sins in your life that you know of and turn to now listen and learn from and follow Jesus. And #2, be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ. Then Peter made two promises to them. First, that all their sins would all be forgiven. And two, that they would receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Then verse 39, he said, “For the promise [that is the promise of the Holy Spirit] is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to Himself.” The indwelling of the Spirit is for everyone the Lord calls to Himself through the gospel, if we will obey Jesus. And initially when you first believe, obedience involves whole hearted repentance and being baptized in His name. Can you receive the Spirit before baptism? Well, there’s an example of that happening in Acts 10, in the household of Cornelius. But there’s examples in Acts of Christians being filled with the Spirit after baptism. So the Spirit does what He wants, our job is to obey.
One more passage for this would be John 14:15 where Jesus said to His disciples, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, 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.” So He said, “If you love Me, you will obey me and I will give the Helper.”
And something Jesus also associated with receiving the Holy Spirit was asking.
Luke 11:11, he told His disciples, “What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; 12 or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? 13 If you then, who are evil [that is in comparison to God], know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” If you trust Jesus enough to obey Him, you are a disciple like Jesus was talking about in that passage and a dearly loved child of God. And He loves His children more than the best of fathers love their children. And Jesus says you ask for this good gift of the Holy Spirit and He will most definitely give Him to you.
Whatever sin you’re hanging on to, let it go. Submit to the king of heaven, surrender to Him. If you need to be baptized, be baptized. Do whatever you know He’s commanded you to do. And ask. And I hear Jesus promising that you will receive.
Then what? What does the Spirit then do in us? And what’s our responsibility toward Him?
We could talk for a long time about what all the Spirit will do in us. What the possibilities are and how we cooperate with Him. I wrestled not with having something to say about this, but selecting what to say in this little time. Should I talk about how he helps to understand the Scripture and truly get to know God as we do our part as good students and humbly openly listen and study His word? Should I talk about how He gifts each and every disciple with various abilities for serving others? Should I talk about how He bears witness to our spirit that we are children of God or how He intercedes for us when we don’t know how to pray as we ought, or how He will supply us with the strength we need to endure persecutions and trials? I settled now on just a couple of my favorite images of the Holy Spirit.
Sap
God is frequently pictured in the Bible as a farmer who’s wanting fruit, and we are trees or branches on a vine, things like that. The fruit God is after is righteousness and justice. It’s goodness. The main quality of the fruit He desires is love. Not the love that’s common in the world, not just some normal care for your family and those who are nice to you. He wants the love He deserves as our maker, sustainer, giver of every good thing we have and who gave His Son for us. He wants love for our neighbors as ourselves, and even for those who mistreat us, and love for our fellow Christians, such that we lay down our lives for them like Jesus. God wants purity not just in our behavior and words, but even in our thoughts, that we be pure in heart. He wants humility and gratitude. He wants patience, that we be slow to anger. God wants the fruit of forgiveness. God wants meekness where we don’t promote ourselves over others. God wants honesty even when it hurts. God wants self-control, where we don’t do what we want to do when it’s not best for others or the kingdom.
In John 15 Jesus told His disciples, “you are branches.” You’re a bunch of sticks. Sticks on their own, detached from the tree or vine or whatever they came from, cannot possibly bear fruit. It is not in a stick to produce fruit from itself. So many people recognize that about themselves. They say, “I would love to look in the mirror and see an admirable honorable person, a person of amazing love and honesty and self-control and generosity and so forth. But it’s not in me to be like that. Every time I’ve tried to make improvements, any improvement is small and short lived. I soon fall right back into my habits and addictions. It’s so hard for me give God priority in my life and to think about others over myself. It’s so hard for me not to look at women that way or to think that way, or control my temper when wronged.” We are dry sticks on our own. It’s not in us to really bear the fruit of God’s desire.
But Jesus also said to them in John 15, I am the vine. Abide in me and I will abide in you and you will bear fruit. Apart from me you can do nothing.
The only way grapes are going to come from a branch is if that branch is well attached to a good grape vine and the sap of the vine, the life, water, nutrients and DNA of the vine are flowing into that branch. Then somehow in some amazing way, fruit grows from branches that would otherwise just be dry useless sticks.
So Jesus tells us we have the responsibility to abide in Him. That’s His instruction in that passage. Abide in Me. Stay in me. Remain in me. What’s that mean? It’s not normal American lukewarm churchianity, where you connect with Jesus for an hour a week and when you’re in a crisis, but the rest of the time you pretty much do your own thing detached from Jesus. Imagine if Jesus in the flesh came to visit you and decided to stay right next to you all the time. How would you live if he was right with you, as real and tangible as your spouse? You’d wake up in the morning and say “Good morning, Lord. Thank you for the night’s sleep. Thank for being with me. Thank you for loving me so much. What do you want to do today?” And I guarantee you there are things that you would not do, places you probably wouldn’t go, there are things you wouldn’t watch if He was right next to you. I think you’d often tell Him how much you love Him, how much He means to you, how grateful you are to Him. You’d ask Him questions. You’d let Him teach you. I think that’s what it means to abide in Him. To stay aware of His presence and live and interact with Him and engage with Him as though He were right with you, because He is by His Spirit.
See, those disciples Jesus was speaking to had been living in His visible presence for 3 years or so, watching Him, listening to Him, asking Him questions, learning from Him, doing life with Him. And Jesus was preparing for when He was no longer visibly with them and told them I won’t leave you as orphans. I am sending you the Helper from the Father and my Father will be in you. Abide in Me. Stay in Me. Keep living in my presence and interacting with Me, even though you can’t see me. And as we live in Him, He will be at work in us and the fruit that God desires will grow and grow in our lives.
Drink
I Corinthians 12:13, “For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body – Jews or Greeks, slaves or free – and all were made to drink of one Spirit.” We drink of the Spirit, isn’t that interesting?
Ephesians 5:18, “Do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery [that’s what so many in the world do to find a little joy and peace, they get filled with alcohol. But Paul says rather than doing that…] be filled with the Spirit.” In the Greek text it was originally written in what’s called a present tense imperative, which often has a continuous, on-going sense. So it could be literally translated, “…keep being filled with the Spirit.” And we’ll talk in just a sec about how you do that.
But first think about the effects of these two options, getting filled with alcohol and filled with the Spirit.
According to a former physician and pastor, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, “Alcohol is not a stimulant. It is a depressant. It depresses first and foremost the highest centers of all in the brain… which control everything that gives a man self-control, wisdom, understanding, discrimination, judgment, balance, the power to assess everything; in other words, everything that makes a man behave at his very best and highest… it knocks out those higher centers, and so the more primitive elements in the brain come up and take control; and a man feels better temporarily… What is really true of him is that he has become more of an animal; his control over himself is diminished.”
The influence of the Spirit has the reverse effect, as well as making you feel better. While alcohol makes a person more animal like, the Spirit makes a person more God like. The Spirit is described in Isaiah 11:2 as the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. Those are all qualities the Spirit will develop and enhance in a person. There are many examples in Scripture of the Spirit giving someone great courage and boldness and bravery to do amazing things. Bezalel and Oholiab in the book of Exodus, the guys who led in the construction of God’s tabernacle and its furniture, it says were given by the Spirit skill in carpentry, metallurgy, masonry, sculpting and textile work. The Spirit gave David skill as a musician and composer and made his body strong for war. The Spirit enabled Joseph and Daniel to interpret dreams. The Spirit gave Samson superhuman strength. All that is wrong and weak and lacking, the Spirit can correct and strengthen and supply. All that is good, the Spirit will enhance. The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. The Spirit of God will make us everything we want to be and satisfy the longings of our hearts.
I’ve found when you discover how to be filled with Him, then being drunk with alcohol and other worldly pleasures really lose appeal.
How do you drink of His Spirit? How do you be filled with His Spirit? There many things we can do. But here’s some in the context of Ephesians. In Ephesians 4:30, he said do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God, and the verses around it tell you how you would grieve Him; it’s things like lying and hanging on to your anger and stealing and tearing people down with your words. So sin will grieve Him, and not attract Him to fill us. So stop sinning, that’s part of being filled with the Spirit.
Then look at the verses right after he says to be filled with the Spirit in 5:18. The next 3 verses are worded in the Greek text as participles, which just means they modify a statement or command. I believe the participles of verses 19-21 are further explaining how to carry out the command to ‘be filled with the Spirit.’ First, “addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with all your heart…” Worshipping the Lord sincerely from your heart pleases Him and He responds to it. Many times when I’ve been truly worshiping the Lord from my heart, I feel the gradual buildup of peace and joy, and love for Him and people. Second, “giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ…” The God of the Bible hates grumbling and complaining. Remember the griping Israelites in the wilderness?… God was not happy with that, but He delights in gratitude, in us thanking Him as we ought, and He’ll respond. And then verse 21, “submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.” The opposite of that I think would be demanding our way and fighting with each other. And that sort of thing grieves God’s Spirit. But He loves it when we’re humble and we put the needs and preferences of each other over our own. He delights in that. So that’s part of having Him fill us.
We could add other things to how we drink of His Spirit and allow Him to fill us, or to use another NT image, fan into flame the gift of God within us (II Timothy 1:6). We can spend time with Him in prayer and in the word, fasting, giving, partaking in the Lord’s Supper and fellowshipping with other believers. These are all pathways to blessing. These are all ways that we engage with the Spirit and allow Him to minister to us and fill us.
And I don’t think we have yet to realize the possibilities when we are all in and we just let Him have His way with us and we live our lives immersed in Him and interacting with Him.
-James Williams