The Holy Spirit
John 14:15-18
15“If you love me, keep my commands. 16And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— 17the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be[a] in you. 18I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.
I want to begin today by asking you some questions. You don’t have to answer me – you just have to consider these questions in your heart and answer them for yourself, and of course to God – because He knows every thought of your heart.
Do you want to know God better? Do you want to know more about His wonderful love? Do you want to truly believe that God is for you, and not against you? Do you want to love and appreciate Jesus more? Do you want to know what it is to have love and joy and peace in your heart and life? Do you want to know someone who is able to comfort you, give you counselling, guide you, lead you, help you be strong and so much more? Do you want to be hugely blessed and to be able to be a huge blessing to others?
Because if the answer to any of these questions is yes – then I must tell you this is only possible if you have the Holy Spirit living in you. And it’s not because I am telling you this that you should believe it, it is because this is what God tells us in His Word. So there is another question this morning – a very important question, have you received the Holy Spirit?
Today I want to talk about the Holy Spirit. THE Holy Spirit note. It is not, A holy spirit, it is THE Holy Spirit. There are many spirits. We don’t see them of course but we can see the result of their actions. You and I each have a spirit. It is what makes us who we are. Our identity. We are not spirits but we do have spirits, and this is what gives us the ability to connect with God. But there is only one Holy Spirit and He is God. And we can see from this Bible reading, that Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit would come and live with us. But He doesn’t live with just anyone. There are conditions that must be met, if the Holy Spirit is to live in us.
So I want today to talk about 4 things
Who is the Holy Spirit?
How do we receive Him?
What does He do when He lives in us?
How do we develop a relationship with Him?
So first, who is the Holy Spirit? I have already said He is God. God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. The Bible tells us the Holy Spirit is God. It also tells us that He is our advocate in the verses we have read. This means someone who is on our side and is there to help us. He is described in the Bible as a Helper, Counsellor, Comforter, Guide. Someone who is there to help us in our lives here. He is person with emotions and feelings. We can cause Him joy, we can grieve Him. We can have a relationship with Him. Without Him we cannot please God. Without Him we cannot please God. The flesh – i.e. our natural selves – profits nothing, or counts for nothing. Those who are in flesh, or in the realm of the flesh, cannot please God. So, if you are here today and you want to please God – you need to receive this precious gift of the Holy Spirit.
So, how do we receive the Holy Spirit? Well, the first thing we have to remember is that for the Holy Spirit to live in us, we have to accept Jesus. A few weeks ago we spoke about the Trinity – God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. Three persons in One. So it is pretty obvious isn’t it, that if we don’t accept one of them, we can’t have any of them. So the condition I spoke about it this – believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. God’s Word is plain. If we accept Jesus, then God is willing to give us this precious gift of the Holy Spirit.
And why would we not want to accept Jesus? I love Him because He has done so much for me. He died on the cross, His blood was poured out as a perfect sacrifice for my sin, He rose again and is now continually in the presence of God interceding for me so I know that I can be in the presence of God and not be destroyed because of my sin. And as we heard last week, Jesus is soon coming again and then I will be with Him eternally – or if I die before He comes, I will be with Him. Why would you not want to accept Jesus? If you haven’t already done so, do it now. Why waste another minute or risk death without Him?
And so, if we accept Jesus, then God loves to give us the gift of the Holy Spirit. If we have accepted the Lord Jesus as our Saviour then we can ask God for this precious gift of the Holy Spirit and He loves to answer such a request.
So to my third point – what does He do when He lives in us? What is He doing now in me? Well right at this moment He is helping me to speak. I have asked for His help before I stood up and therefore I know He is helping me to speak to you about these precious truths. But that is just one example. He does so much.
First and foremost He loves to point to Jesus. I have often prayed, Holy Spirit please glorify Jesus to my heart and soul. Because you know, with our natural minds and hearts we cannot appreciate and love Jesus. Isaiah says, there is no beauty in Him that I may desire Him. And that is our natural state. We have to be woken up by the Holy Spirit to love and appreciate Jesus more and more. So He points to Jesus. And He spreads the love of God in our hearts. We cannot understand and accept the love of God without the help of the Holy Spirit. Can you begin to see how important this great person is?
And there is much much more. Are you tired, upset, need comfort? The Holy Spirit will help you. Just ask Him. Do you need wisdom with a difficult decision? The Holy Spirit will help you. Do you need counselling? Are you feeling weak? Are you finding it difficult to forgive someone that has hurt you? Do you need guidance? The Holy Spirit will help you. Do you feel a barrier between you and God? Ask the Holy Spirit to show you if there is sin in your life that needs to be cleaned up. He is always pleased to work on our behalf. But we need to ask for His help and we need to give Him the time to speak to us and help us – which brings me to my fourth point.
How do we develop a relationship with the Holy Spirit? You see we may have the Holy Spirit dwelling in us but this may not be apparent to us or indeed to anyone else. He may not be happy, He may be grieved. It is possible to grieve the Holy Spirit. He is the HOLY Spirit so obviously He will not be happy if there is sin around Him. So if you or I are living in a way that doesn’t please God – in other words, we are sinning (because that’s what sin is – doing what we want rather than what God wants) – then the Holy Spirit will be grieved. He won’t be able to lead and guide us, we won’t feel that love and peace and joy that He can give. We have to make room for Him in our lives, if we are to be fully blessed and if we are to be a blessing to others.
So how do we make room for Him? We have to examine our lives, we have to give Him our time and attention, and we have to speak to Him. The Holy Spirit is gentle, He is a gentleman, He won’t push or fight or force you to make room for Him. That is your choice. God has given us freewill. How we use it is up to us. So, first, we should examine our lives and see if there is anything there that might grieve the Holy Spirit. So many things, some obvious, some very subtle. Galatians 5: 19-26
19Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery,[c] fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, 20idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, 21envy, murders,[d] drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.
22But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. 24And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. 26Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.
Immorality, greed, drunkenness – all fairly obvious – but what about jealousy, pride, rage, lying? Not so obvious. But whatever it is – if we confess this to God and ask Him to help us change what needs to be changed, then He will do this.
then secondly we need to give Him time to speak to us and guide us. How we use our time is so important. The Bible tells us that the flesh lusts or is contrary to the Spirit and the Spirit is against the flesh. We have two natures in us and they war against each other. So the question is, whichever one we feed will be the strongest. If we feed our flesh then it will grow stronger, if we feed our Spiritual life then it will grow stronger. If we spend our life watching and reading rubbish, that will feed the flesh. If we spend time with God and in His Word, that will feed our spiritual life.
Life seems busier than ever. The pace of modern society drains us of vitality, creativity and focus. You’ve heard the adage, “If the devil can’t make you bad, he’ll just keep you busy.” Someone once said, “Busyness destroys relationships.” Most of us are overly busy and many of us don’t know how to fix it.
And busyness will destroy our relationship with God and it will push the Holy Spirit out of our lives. Of course, He will never leave us, but He will retire and we will not hear His voice or be guided by Him. How do we correct this problem? We make it a priority to spend time with God. We prioritise spending time in prayer and reading God’s Word. The Holy Spirit often speaks directly through God’s Word – so if we don’t read it and don’t know it then that makes things much more difficult. It also means we can be tripped up by other spirits and easily get confused. So I would urge you today to make it a priority in your life to spend time in prayer, speaking to God, speaking to the Lord Jesus, speaking to the Holy Spirit – and to spend time reading or listening to God’s Word. That’s why we have Bibles available for anyone who wants one. English and Spanish in up to date language. Please ask afterwards if you would like one.
Thirdly remember to speak to Him first thing and throughout the day – asking for His help. When you wake up, do you leap out of bed and rush into the day or do you pause to pray. Lord I want your will to be done in my life today, Holy Spirit please fill me up and help me to be a blessing to others today. When you feel the anger or the bitterness begin to stir – someone hurts you or insults you – Holy Spirit help me to be gentle, help me to forgive, help me to be like Jesus. These are simple practical matters – but how many of us do them?
So as we make room for this great person in our lives, He will love to take over. And we can be filled more and more with the presence of the Holy Spirit. Billy Graham was asked once why he kept asking to be filled with the Spirit and he replied, it’s because I am a bit like a leaky bucket. So we can keep asking God to fill us with His Holy Spirit but, at the same time, we have to organise our lives and use our freewill to make right choices about how we spend our time. So finally a quick word about being filled with the Holy Spirit. There is a lot of controversy sometimes about this and we need to understand what the Bible teaches us. Yes it is possible to be filled with the Holy Spirit – the Bible tells us this. But the Holy Spirit is God and He does what He wants to do, whenever He wants to do it, however He wants to do it. We cannot demand His presence. Yes we can pray – Come Holy Spirit – but we cannot demand His presence. The wind blows where it will. So be careful, we must speak with reverence and respect to such a Mighty One and we cannot think that we can somehow work ourselves into an emotional frenzy because we are so eager to be filled with the Spirit. He works in so many different ways. Of course, we love the spectacular don’t we! But, in my experience, the Holy Spirit more often works in a calm, peaceful way. Of course, He can act in miraculous ways – look how He came – a violent impetuous blowing. And I believe that sometimes the Holy Spirit will fill someone or a group of people in a special way for some special reason – a definite experience of the infilling and presence of the Holy Spirit. I have had such an experience – but more often, He speaks in the still small voice in our hearts. Zechariah 4:6 ‘Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the Lord Almighty and 1 Kings 19:11-13. 13 11The Lord said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.”
Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. 12After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. 13When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave. Then a voice said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?
So we need to take care – because the Lord was not in the earthquake, His was the still small voice.
And of course there should be a constant filling of the Holy Spirit in our lives as we make room for Him so He will take over more of our lives. He will fill as much of us as we want to be filled – BUT of course that means that I have to move aside. My wants, my desires, my ideas – they have to be surrendered if we want the Holy Spirit to take over.