In The Beginning Series

In the Beginning

Holy Spirit Series

CCCAG July 23rd, 2023

Scripture- Gen 1:2

Intro:

When I was a child, and I attended worship services, everything was done in a very ritualistic way. We would walk into church, and see the worship song page numbers on the little block displays on the pillars, mark the page in the hymnal with our bulletin. Then we would go through the brief order of confession and forgiveness. Everything was very preplanned and set in stone.

In fact, there is an entire calendar sent down from the denominational headquarters that says exactly what songs to sing, what sermon topic to preach on, which scriptures to read, and how the service should be planned.

As part of this plan, they would occasionally recite one of the creeds of the church. Usually, it was the Apostle’s Creed since it was the shortest, but occasionally an older pastor would use the Nicene Creed which was much more in depth.

Is anyone familiar with the creeds? Basically, they are just statements of what we believe. I put it the Apostle’s Creed on the back of your bulletin if you are interested. It’s a good thing to memorize.

If you look at the Apostle’s Creed, you’ll notice there is a mention of the Father in the beginning, a lot about Jesus, and then one line toward the end about the Holy Spirit.

As part of being confirmed, you had to memorize and recite in front of a pastor two of the four creeds available. I chose the Apostle’s Creed, since it was the easiest one to do, and the Nicene Creed.

The Nicene Creed does a little better of a job describing the person and work of the Holy Spirit, when it says this-

I believe in the Holy Spirit

The LORD the giver of life

Who precedes through the Father and the Son

And through the Father and the Son He is worshipped and glorified

He has spoken through the prophets.

Soon after being confirmed, my parents didn’t make me go to church anymore, so I stopped going unless I was up north with my grandparents.

When I was living there, Church was non-negotiable.

Aside from my time up north, I spent the next 9 years living apart from God and His church, until April of 1993 when I accepted a friends invitation to attend his church’s Easter program that he was involved with. That was on a Friday night, and I let him talk me into coming to church on Sunday.

Talk about a culture shock.

I went from the extremely liturgical Lutheran Church of my youth- a service I could still quote to you verbatim today, to what seemed to me at that time to be a completely out of control, chaotic mess that was a Pentecostal service. People were dancing, waving their hands. Some guy stood up and rang a lap around the church clapping his hands.

I’m thinking, “What the heck did I just get into”

However, I felt a presence I had never felt before.

I can only describe it as an overwhelming weight pressing in on the deepest parts of me. It was both terrifying, yet I was also drawn to experience it more.

It was my first conscious experience with the Holy Spirit. This mysterious figure that we had only briefly touched on in confirmation classes was now becoming very real to me and I had no idea what that meant.

I tell you that because today we will begin our study in the Holy Spirit.

As I was praying about what to speak and teach on this year, God impressed upon me that I had not really talked a lot about one of the most important things that Jesus restored to us by his death on the cross- access to the Holy Spirit dwelling both on the inside of us, and being filled with the power He brings.

So this morning, we are beginning a study on the Holy Spirit. It will last a few weeks, and we will build on a firm foundation of who HE is before we talk about what He does.

Let’s open with a word of Prayer

Like everything, let’s start our study on the Holy Spirit in the beginning-

Turn to Genesis chapter 1, and we will see the first mention in the bible of the Holy Spirit.

I. In the beginning

I want to make a quick note for all of us from your local theology nerd. Genesis was originally written by Moses. Moses complied all of the oral tradition that existed before him, and wrote Genesis in the ancient Hebrew Language.

The Hebrew Language is considered to be a near eastern language, meaning it rides the lines between how people in the Far east (Asia) and people in the West (Europe) communicate.