Tonight we’re going to talk about the Holy Spirit. As we talked about last week, when it comes to rest and finding Sabbath in our lives, part of that process is about hanging out with God – being with Him, learning to listen to Him and follow Him. When it comes to this process and how the Holy Spirit fits in we tend to either completely over look Him or I think many people misunderstand Him. So tonight, we’re going to do a few different things to try and figure this Holy Spirit guy out.
To start with I want to open our Bibles to John 14:15-17 where Jesus spends some time talking to His disciples about the Holy Spirit. In these two verses, what is Jesus teaching about the Holy Spirit?
• The Holy Spirit is a gift from God, asked for by Jesus for our benefit
• He is an “advocate” (helper or counselor) which means that 1) He is good for us and 2) that he helps us to live more like Jesus (“leads us into all truth”). I think this is also the reason why Jesus started with verse 15 and how it connects to the Holy Spirit.
• The Holy Spirit “will never leave you” and lives in you. We might compare this to someone’s conscience.
• The most important thing to understand here is actually really easy to miss because it gets lost in translation. What do you think the significance of the word another is in verse 16? The Greek word used her means “another that is just like the first.” (Forgotten God by Francis Chan, pg 34).
Let’s think of this from the perspective of the disciples. They’ve spent 3 ½ years or so with Jesus and here He is telling them that he is going to leave and not going to reveal Himself to the whole world. Now the disciples were expecting Jesus to, in essence, take over the world and lead an earthy kingdom and so they hear Jesus’ words here and they get confused. In 14:22, Judas expresses that confusion saying, “What do you mean? Why are you going to do that?!” What is Jesus saying and what does this have to do with the definition of another in verse 16?
1. When Jesus answers Judas’ confusion, why does he repeat himself in verse 23 sayings, “All who love me will do what I say?” This goes back to two weeks ago when we looked at the fact that Jesus wants us to be God’s ambassadors, representatives and image on earth. In other words, “I’ve shown you how to do it, I’m giving you the Holy Spirit to “lead you to truth” and “remind you of everything I have told you” (verse 26) and now I want you to go and show the world who God is.”
2. The “another” is important because what Jesus is saying is, “Yes, I am leaving but the Holy Spirit is the same as me!” Yes, it was different for the disciples once Jesus left because they could physically see Him anymore but in some ways it was better and more powerful because the Holy Spirit, which is the same as Jesus, now lives in us.
Now that we have a decent idea about what the Holy Spirit is, I want to take a look now at what specifically He does, or can do, for you and I. To do that, I want you all to get into 2’s or 3’s and I’m going to give each group a different passage to look at. Take about 5 minutes, look up the passage and talk together about what this passage teaches us about what the Holy Spirit does for us and then each group will quickly share what they have learned. (Most of the descriptions are taken from Forgotten God by Francis Chan, Chapter 3)
• Luke 12:11-12, Mark 13:11 – The Spirit helps us speak when we are in precarious situations and need to bear witness
• John 14:17, Acts 13:2, Acts 15:23, 1 Corinthians 2:10 – The Spirit teaches us and guides us in the ways we should go
• Romans 8:15-17 – Affirms that we are God’s children
• Romans 8:1-8 – Freed us from condemnation of sin
• John 16:7-11 – The Spirit convicts people of sin
• Romans 8:10-11, 2 Corinthians 3:17 – The Spirit gives us life and true freedom
• Romans 15:13 – The Spirit fills us with hope
• 1 Corinthians 12:7-11 – The Spirit gives us gifts to be used to show the world who God is
• Galatians 5:16-26 – The Spirit produces the opposite of sin and broken relationships
• Romans 8:27 – The Spirit prays for us
Based on all that we have just learned, I want to quickly close with two points and then a video that represents what we have been talking about.
First, what are the consequences of the Holy Spirit in our lives? Based on Scripture I think there are two – 1) A changed life (Acts 2 is a perfect example) and 2) the story of God being proclaimed, whether in word or deed. (Sidenote: If you look in Acts, every single time Luke references that the Holy Spirit came upon a group of people or an individual resulted in that group or person teaching, preaching or sharing God’s story!)
Second, how does one receive the Holy Spirit in their lives? Let’s look at Acts 2:38 for that answer. It says that you should 1) repent of your sins, 2) turn to God and 3) be baptized in the name of Jesus to show that you have received forgiveness. The first two are most often pretty self explanatory but let me explain the 3rd as there are some different views. The heart of this step comes when you look at the specific definition of baptize and the cultural understanding of the usage of the word name. To be baptized in its basic sense means to be immersed and the cultural view and usage of name was a way f summarizing everything about that person – their character, actions, heart, passions etc. So thus, I think the basic way to look at this text is that we are to be fully immersed into the character, integrity, passion and heart of Jesus. We are supposed to become like Christ.
Beyond that there are two forms of baptism that we can into another time…but they are a water baptism, which is probably familiar to many of you, and is the equivalent of a marriage ceremony where you publically make a vow to follow Christ and then representing that by water – either being dipped or sprinkled; and the Baptism of the Spirit which is when someone prays for the Spirit to fill you and He does. This second idea tends to be a little controversial in the church.
End with Skit Guys video and with an opportunity for kids to accept God/Jesus/Holy Spirit in to their lives. Take 5-10 min, if time allows, to sit in silent prayer, tying in the lesson from last week of rest and hanging out with God.
