My Name Is ....holy Spirit (Hagios Pneuma) Series

Scripture: Ezekiel 36:26–28; John 14:15-17; Acts 2:38

Series: Names of God

My name is ….. Ruah Qodesh – Hagios Pneuma – Holy Spirit

INTRO:

Grace and peace this morning in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

We are only a few weeks away from celebrating Halloween. About 50 years ago, Halloween was mainly celebrated by children under the age of 12. They would go from house to house and pick up a few pieces of candy and come back home and sit down and try to eat as much as possible before their parents would take it all away from them.

Children would dress up like all kinds of things. You had your Spiderman, Superman, Wonder Woman, Underdog, Batman, Bugs Bunny costumes along with Cowboys, Princesses, Pirates, Clowns and of course the ever-present sheet over the head as a ghost. Very rarely would you see a teen or an adult dressed up or going to some type of party. Halloween was considered a minor holiday and it was usually a low-key affair.

That is no longer true. Today not only are children dressing up but more and more teens, young adults and even middle-aged adults are taking the time to dress up for trick or treating or just partying. Today, Halloween is over a 12-billion-dollar enterprise in the United States with over 700 million dollars being spent making sure that your pet has at least one or two Halloween costumes.

While we still have the Princess costumes and the Spiderman costumes we are seeing more and more people dressed up as witches, vampires, Axe murderers, Saw victims, Beetlejuice and the like. And while there is still an avalanche of candy for both children and adults there is a growing number of adults that are using the Halloween season to carouse, drink and hook up with someone.

It’s the spirit of the age, or so say the articles and news reports.

It is a time when we see all kinds of spirits out and about. Spirits that the Bible refers to from the book of Genesis to Revelation.

Now, we all should understand that we do have spirits at work in our world. Some of those spirits are evil and demonic in nature. The Bible refers to the following spirits at work today in our world:

+The Spirit of Fear +Demonic spirits in general

+The Spirit of Heaviness +The Spirit of sexual impurity

+The Spirit of Pride +The unclean spirits

+The Spirit of dullness +The Spirit of deceit

+The Spirit of bondage +The Spirit of Anti-Christ

No doubt at one time or the other we have seen one or more of those spirits at work. It could be at the workplace or it could be in the home. But it is true that we do have some evil spirits that are active at work today.

It is also true that greater than any of them is another spirit. It is one of the names that God uses to identify Himself – it is the Ruah Qodesh, it is Hagios Pneuma – It is the Holy Spirit.

I thought it would be good for us this morning to not focus on the evil spirits or those that want to harm us as humans but instead to focus on the Holy Spirit. For it is the Holy Spirit that is to be our focus as Christ followers.

I have a handout to give you this morning and after everyone has received theirs, we will take just a few moments to look at six different aspects of the Holy Spirit. Six things that the Holy Spirit wants to do in and through our lives:

*HANDOUT

THE HOLY SPIRIT

The Holy Spirit is known by many names and titles, most of which denote some function or aspect of His ministry. Below are some of the names and descriptions the Bible uses for the Holy Spirit:

1. Author of Scripture

“For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit” – 2 Peter 1:21

“All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the person of God may be competent, equipped for every good work.” – 2 Timothy 3:16-17

The Bible is literally “God-breathed,” by the Holy Spirit. The Spirit co-labored with the authors of the books to record what He breathed into their hearts and minds. When you think about it, that is amazing. Our God does not seek to just hand down things from the heavens but chooses to work with and through His creation to speak to all that will listen.

Perhaps think of it this way: It’s like a ship that is moved through the water by the wind in its sails, so the biblical writers were assisted by the Spirit’s guidance and direction.