Based on the book “Follow The Wind, Our Lord The Holy Spirit” by Steve Brown
First, the Bible teaches that the Holy Spirit is a person – not a principle, a feeling, or a work. Ephesians 4:30, Paul says that we must not “grieve” the Holy Spirit. You can’t grieve a principle. In Acts 5 Ananias and Sapphira “lie” to the Holy Spirit. You can’t lie to a principle. Throughout Scripture the Holy Spirit is referred to as “He,” not “It.” For instance, Jesus says this: “But when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me” (John 15:26).
So it is important to recognize that the relationship between the Holy Spirit and the believer is a relationship between two persons with personalities. Why is this important? Because the communication of the Holy Spirit to us, His work in us, and His work through us is a relational work. We can learn about the Holy Spirit but we must strive to know Him. Living with my parents and siblings for 20 years allows me to tell you a lot about them. I know a lot about them and they know a lot about me. I could probably even describe them to you so you would “feel” that you knew them too. The fact is that no matter how much I described them to you, you would know about them but you would not truly know them. It is the same idea with any discussion of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is not a doctrine but rather, a person who relates to persons in a personal way.
Second, not only is the Holy Spirit a person, He is the Third Person of the Trinity, so whatever can be said about the Triune God can be said of the Holy Spirit. Beginning with the Council of Nicea in A.D. 325 and running through the councils of Constantinople (A.D. 381), Ephesus (A.D. 431), and Chalcedon (A.D. 451), the leaders of the church took unprecedented steps to formulate doctrines of the Christian faith that would be accepted and proclaimed by the universal church. A creed was born out of the Council of Nicea, which centered on the nature of the Second Person of the Trinity but dealt with great care, biblical accuracy, and precision with the doctrine of the Third Person of the Trinity also. This is what the creed said about our Lord, the Holy Spirit: “(We believe)… in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and the Life-giver, that proceeds from the Father, who with Father and Son is worshiped together and glorified together, who spoke through the prophets…” Who do you say that we can pray to? Before you answer that let me make something clear: If the Holy Spirit is the Third Person of the Trinity, then His work is God’s work, His comfort is the comfort of Jesus, and His teaching the teaching that originates from the “throne room” of the universe.
Third, not only is the Holy Spirit a person and the Third Person of the Trinity, but He and His work are clearly referenced in the Scripture. The Holy Spirit is involved in creation (Gen. 1:2; 2:7); He is the motivating power of creation, humans, and animals (Job 33:4; Ps. 33:6; 104:29-30); He is the revealer of God’s message to God’s people (John 16:13-15); He applies the message of God in the lives of believers Neh. 9:20); He convicts the world of those things necessary for salvation (John 16:8-11).
The Holy Spirit is intimate with God’s people, calling them to God (Isa. 61:1); teaching (John 14:26); bestowing salvation (John 3:5-8); giving faith, knowledge, wisdom, and understanding (Isa. 11:2; 1 Cor. 2:14-16); sustaining (Ps. 51:10-12); giving assurance of God’s love and salvation (Rom. 8:12-17); and reminding them of heaven (Rom. 5:2,5; Eph. 1:13-14; Rev. 22:17).
We see the Holy Spirit transforming believers (2 Cor. 3:18; Gal. 5:16-25); granting gifts that build up the church, the body of Christ (1 Cor. 12; Eph. 4:7-16); giving the church discernment (John 16:13; 1 Cor. 12:10-13); giving Scripture and prophecy (2 Tim. 3:16-17; Joel 2:28-32); and always pointing to Christ, the Head of the church (John 15:26-27; Eph. 3:2-6).
When we are bound, the Spirit gives us freedom (Rom. 8:2, 12-17); when we are afraid and
depressed, the Spirit lifts us up (John 14:15-18);
when we pray improperly, the Spirit interprets and intercedes for us (Rom. 8:26). The Spirit regenerates (John 3:3-8), indwells
(Eph.
The Bible has a number of symbols or images for the Holy Spirit. He is seen as oil (John 3:34), fire (Acts 2:3), a dove (John 1:30-34), a seal (Eph. 1:13), and a guarantee (Eph. 1:14).
The Holy Spirit will never leave us. The Greek word for guarantee means literally a “down payment” or “an initial payment on a purchase”. In modern Greek it is the word used for an engagement ring. He is with us always when we don’t even realize it. Did you ever read the Bible and have a verse leap out at you and it was exactly what you needed at that very moment? Your friend the Holy Spirit did that. Did you ever experience a time when you thought you were going to die from the pain of loss? Perhaps it was the death of a loved one, the end of a relationship, or the betrayal of a friend. Then for no reason the burden was lighter and you thought to yourself, I can do this. The Holy Spirit was showing you what it will be like when “God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away” (Rev. 21:4). Did you ever “try” to witness to someone and that someone thought you had lost your mind while you were stumbling over your words hoping that they were making some kind of sense? Then “something” happened and it all came together. The words were powerful, the concepts clear, and the person looked as though they were actually getting it. That “something” was the Holy Spirit.
One of the key figures who contributed to the doctrine that came out of the Council of Nicea was St. Basil the Great (A.D. 329-379). His work “On the Holy Spirit” explained quite clearly the importance and reality of God’s Spirit as the Third Person of the Trinity. This is what Basil wrote:
Through the Holy Spirit comes our restoration to Paradise, our ascension to the Kingdom of heaven, our adoption as God’s sons, our freedom to call God our Father, our becoming partakers of the grace of Christ, being called children of light, sharing in eternal glory, and in a word, our inheritance of the fullness of blessing, both in this world and the world to come. Even while we wait for the full enjoyment of the good things in store for us, by the Holy Spirit we are able to rejoice through faith in the promise of the graces to come. If the promise itself is so glorious, what must its fulfillment be like?
However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth. (John 16:13)
There are three aspects of truth that are important in the Christian’s life: first, the fact of truth, second, the perception of truth, and third, the experience and reality of truth in our life. It might have been Andy Rooney who told about two philosophers who were observing fish in a pool. The first said, “Those fish are happy fish.” “You, not being a fish,” said his colleague, “cannot know if they are happy or not.” “Any you,” the first replied, “not being me, cannot know if I know they are happy or not.”
Elaine Showalter wrote a book about hysterical epidemics, which makes the point that truth is sometimes hard to come by. She writes:
In the Midwest, a nurse with chronic fatigue syndrome commits suicide with the help of Dr. Jack Kevorkian. In Yorkshire, a young Gulf War veteran struggles with a mysterious illness that has destroyed his marriage and his career. In California, an executive is disgraced after his daughter, who has been treated by her therapist with the hypnotic drug sodium amytal, says he abused her when she was a child; the court later awards him half a million dollars’ damages. In Massachusetts, a Pulitzer Prize-winning Harvard professor claims that little gray aliens are visiting the United States and performing sexual experiments on thousands of Americans. In Oklahoma, accused bomber Timothy McVeigh tells his lawyers that the government planted a surveillance microchip in his buttocks during the Gulf War. In Montana, right-wing militias announce that the federal government, armed with bombs and black helicopters, is chemically altering the blood of U.S. citizens as part of its conspiracy to create a New World Order…
When well-meaning crusaders see hysterical syndromes in the context of social crises and then publicize their views through modern commnunications networks, these misconceptions can give rise to epidemics and witch-hunts.
The question to you is: how does one know? And, further, how does one know that one knows? A Chinese philosopher once said: When one dreams that one is a butterfly, how does one know, when one awakes, whether one is a butterfly dreaming that it is a person and asleep or a person awake who has dreamed that he of she is a butterfly?
We are going to talk about the Holy Spirit and His relationship to our knowing the truth. No matter how much you deny the reality of truth, there is something innate in human beings – a “knowing”, which causes us to know that something must be true and that truth will somehow have to do with one’s life. If there is no God, there is no value. If there is no value, there is no meaning. And if there is no meaning, then we are all turnips and nothing matters. That is the logical bottom line of atheism. You can say that there is no absolute truth until you try to live that way. What are some absolute truths? Some examples are murder is wrong, math is accurate, Hitler is an evil man, and pain is bad.
So the question is: which truths are true? How does one know? Where do Christians get off claiming they have all truth? Why would anyone say that the Bible is true any more than are other religions’ writings? Why should we commit ourselves to one religious truth to the exclusion of other religious truth? The short answer to those questions is: the Bible. The Bible tells us what is true and what isn’t. The Bible is the measurement of truth and especially those truths that relate to God and His will and way for us. Paul wrote, “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Tim. 3:16-17). The process whereby the writers of the Bible were led to write truth is called “inspiration.” And the One Who initiates, oversees, and brings to completion that process is our Lord, the Holy Spirit.
Do you know why you know the Bible is true? You know because you know because you know…. It’s what the Holy Spirit has done in you enabling you to accept and internally apply the objective truth of Scripture. Read what Paul has to say in 1 Corinthians 2:10-16.
The Holy Spirit is given to God’s people because they are in desperate need. The question you might have is that if God loves me and nothing I can do will make him turn away from me, why do I need the Holy Spirit? Why should I want to be any better than I am? Assuming I want to be better, how can I get better? What is “being better”? The formal word for this is called sanctification and it is the work of our Lord, the Holy Spirit. This is where many Christians misunderstand their role in their salvation. They assume that while justification (being saved) is the work of the Holy Spirit, sanctification (getting better) is up to them. The first and primary biblical directive for getting better is acknowledging that you need to get better and that you can’t get better by yourself. Bruce Foggerty wrote a poem that gives a great picture of not doing it ourselves.
I pushed my little plastic mower
Around the yard of my universe
Trying to help God mow.
God didn’t need my help,
But He let me tag along –
Feeling important.
Back and forth I labored
In neat little rows wasting the years,
Oblivious to the absence of any real motor
Or cutting blade in my machine.
I made rumbling sounds to heighten
The sense of my own importance,
And occasionally emptied my press Clipping
Bag of imaginary accomplishments.
Lawn finished, I attacked
The hard edges of my life
With my toy weed-eater, hacking
At perceived problems that had
Sprouted on my landscape.
The great I AM softly chuckled
When I finally ceased struggling as
At last I realized, He had long ago
Installed Astroturf.
The work of the Holy Spirit is to make us better. The only requirement is that we know that we must be better. The Holy Spirit is attracted to those who are sinners and who know it. Sanctification is much like justification, in that the qualification for both is not being qualified. The following lays out 5 C’s that the Holy Spirit does for the process of making us better.
Jesus said that when the Holy Spirit came, He would “convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment” (John 16:8). After one has come into a saving relationship with Christ, the Holy Spirit still convicts of sin and of righteousness, but not judgment (Rom. 8:1). The Holy Spirit convicts us of what is true in our lives – that which is good (righteousness) and that which is not (sin). The business of the Holy Spirit is to reveal to us God’s will for us and to affirm in our hearts that what has been revealed is right and proper.
He confirms who we are and Whose we are. The work of the Holy Spirit is to tell us that God is quite fond of us, that God won’t be “turned off” by anything we do, and God will never let us go. Jesus said in Luke 11:13, “If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!”
He conforms us to the likeness of the Second Person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ. In Galatians 5:22-26 we read “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.” If you are wondering if God is working in your life, check out the following tests.
When you find that you are feeling more love for unlovely people, people you don’t particularly like, it is the work of the Holy Spirit.
When you find that there is a sense of joy about your life, without necessarily a change in your circumstances, know that the Holy Spirit has been at work.
When you find moments of peace that circumstances can’t destroy, you’re not going crazy, it is our Lord, the Holy Spirit.
When you find yourself being patient in areas where before you would have been quick-tempered and angry, you will know that it is the Holy Spirit.
When you find yourself kinder than you have been before, maybe even in the face of people who aren’t kind to you, that is the Holy Spirit.
When you notice that you are better than you were before, doing right things just because they are the right things to do – balancing your actions, not against the bottom line, but against God’s commandments in your life, and working for what you know to be right, it is the Holy Spirit at work.
When you are surprised with the gentleness with which you turned away an angry friend or family member, when before you would have been quick-tempered, you know that it is Him.
When you are strongly tempted but are able to say no, though you wanted to say yes, you have seen the work of the Holy Spirit in your life.
Jesus promises this: “If you love Me, keep My commandments. And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.” (John 14:15-18) God in His wisdom has indicated that He knows about our confusion. He understands about the difficulty of trying to live a Christian life and to be faithful to whatever His will is for us. He is not unaware of our shortcomings and our desperate need for help. That is why the Holy Spirit was given to each believer that we might have the help we need.
In Ephesians 5:25-27, we read “Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her, that He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word, that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish.” The Holy Spirit has a special place of residence, concern, and compassion, and it is the church. The church is His project. He is molding the people of God so that they can demonstrate with their model what God is like, how He treats those who turn to Him, and what He gives to those who are His own. The question is: How does the Holy Spirit do it? In 1 Corinthians 12:4-7, we read “There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are differences of ministries, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of activities, but it is the same God who works all in all. But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all.” In other words, the Bible teaches that every Christian has a gift given to him or her by none other than the Holy Spirit. That gift, whatever it is, is vital for church maintenance; and without the gifts given by the Spirit, we are incomplete.
For all of us to be used by the Holy Spirit we must accept the truth that we all have a gift to use given to us by the Holy Spirit. You must pray to God and ask Him to reveal this gift to you. After you have done this, ask yourself 5 questions to help to seek out your gift.
What do I like to do for my God?
As you try different ministries, what does God bless?
Where do your brothers and sisters in Christ affirm you?
What are your opportunities? For example, you may think that your real gift is giving. But if you don’t have anything to give, it is a fairly good indication that you don’t have the gift of giving. If you think you have the gift of music and can’t sing or the gift of encouragement and have the disposition of a serial killer, those are probably not your gifts.
Where is your burden? What pushes our buttons? What makes us stand up and sing the “Hallelujah Chorus”? Incidentally, we should never let a Christian guilt us into accepting a burden that is not really ours, nor should we be one of those Christians that do that. Our gifts are different because our burden is different.
The gifts of the Holy Spirit are primarily found in four places: 1 Corinthians 12-14; Romans 12:1-8; 1 Peter 4:7-11; and Ephesians 4:1-16. Do you believe that these lists hold the only gifts the Holy Spirit gives? Do you believe that some or all of these gifts are no longer given to Christians? Regardless, we don’t have to go it alone. Christians use their gifts together as one body. A story was told about a man whose car had run into a ditch. He needed help, found a farmer, and asked if the farmer would use a horse or a mule to help pull the car out of the ditch. The farmer said that he had only one mule, Dusty, and that the mule was blind. “But,” said the farmer, “we can try.” Dusty, the old, blind mule, was taken to the ditch and hooked up to the car. Then the farmer yelled out, “Pull, you mules! Go Dusty, go Sammy, go Billy!” Sure enough the old, blind mule pulled the car out of the ditch. The man who owned the car thanked the farmer but had a question: “Why did you refer to Sammy and Billy when there was only one mule?” “Oh,” said the farmer, “Dusty couldn’t have done it if he thought he had to do it by himself.”
First, we struggle, and sometimes we fail big time. This is probably because no one is perfect. I recently read a story and a riddle. There was a perfect man who met a perfect woman. After a perfect courtship, they had a perfect wedding. Their life together was, of course, perfect. One snowy, stormy Christmas Eve, this perfect couple was driving along a winding road, when they noticed someone in distress. Being the perfect couple, they stopped to help. There stood Santa Claus with a huge bundle of toys. Not wanting to disappoint any children on the eve of Christmas, the perfect couple loaded Santa and his toys into their vehicle. Soon they were driving along, delivering the toys. Unfortunately, the driving conditions deteriorated, and the perfect couple and Santa Claus had an accident. Only one of the passengers survived. Who was the survivor? The Perfect woman. There is no Santa Claus and no such thing as a perfect man!
Second, we are finite. The psalmist says:
As for man, his days are like grass;
As a flower of the field, so he flourishes.
For the wind passes over it, and it is gone,
And its place remembers it no more.
Psalm 103:15-16
There are a lot of implications in being human. For instance, we are going to die. And between now and then, there is going to be a lot of pain, a lot of fear, and a lot of failure.
Third, we are fearful. Paul wrote about this to Corinth when he said, “I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling” (1 Cor. 2:3). Paul was human and, like us, probably stayed awake at night with the human fears we all have. He struggled with fear and probably did until he got home.
Fourth, we sometimes doubt. Does anyone have any examples of doubt in the Christian life? The Holy Spirit is our friend and will help us to deal with our doubts and fears. Jesus promised: “And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.” (John 14:15-18)
Paul wrote, “In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise; who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory.” (Eph. 1:13-14)