I Believe in the Holy Spirit
John 14:16-20
The Apostle’s Creed is divided into three major parts. The first part expresses what we believe about God the Father, the second states what we believe about God the Son, and the third is what we believe about the Holy Spirit. It affirms our faith in God the Father, as “almighty” and the “Creator of heaven and earth.” The Creed then goes on to affirm our faith in God’s “only Son, our Lord, who was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried; he descended to the dead. On the third day he rose again; he ascended into heaven, is seated at the right hand of the God the Father, and will come again to judge the living and the dead.” It delivers quite a comprehensive statement about the Son of God, but when the creed comes to the third person of the Trinity we simply say, “I believe in the Holy Spirit.” Perhaps it is indicative of how bewildered we are about just who the Holy Spirit is and what place he holds. Just who is the Holy Spirit, and what does this Holy Spirit do?
First of all, we need to understand that: The Holy Spirit is a person. The Holy Spirit is not a thing, or an it. He is not merely a force, a power, or a phantom. One of the unfortunate leftovers of the King James Version of the Bible is the term “Holy Ghost.” A Ghost is a poor picture of the person of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is simply the Spirit of our Holy God. He is a person who is part of the Godhead — the Trinity. He expresses all the aspects of the wonderful personality and being of God. It is the Holy Spirit who convicts us of sin, helps us to repent, thrills us with the new birth and fills us with the indwelling presence of God. He guards us, encourages us, strengthens and empowers us to live for God. He protects and sustains us spiritually.
While Christ was on earth he was only able to be in one place at one time. He was limited, but he knew that when he left the world he would send his Spirit into the world to minister effectively and personally to everyone on the face of the earth. Jesus said to his disciples, “I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever — the 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 in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you” (John 14:16-18). The Spirit of Christ comes to us in the Person of the Holy Spirit.
The second point is: The Holy Spirit is personal. Because he is a person, our relationship with him must be personal. Before we are even aware of it, the Holy Spirit is at work in our lives. In fact, he is at work in your life right now. Whether you can feel it or not, or whether you can see it or not, he is there working in you. He is busy in ways you may or may not notice; creating conditions to help you understand your need of God and empower you to live for him. He is trying to draw you to the One who knows you best and loves you most: Your eternal Lover, Creator, Father and Friend. Jesus said one of the purposes of the Holy Spirit was to convict the world of sin and convince it of its need of God. He said, “But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. When he comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment” (John 16:7-8).
The world does not understand its need of God. It does not even recognize its dependence on God. We do not know how to come to him. That realization comes only by the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. He is the One who helps us to see our sin and our need of God. We did not even understand that we needed to come to God until the Holy Spirit revealed it to our minds. After I became a Christian I could see the ways in which the Holy Spirit was working in my life in order to bring me to God. I wasn’t even aware of it until I gave myself to him and my spiritual eyes were opened. I did not know that God loved me enough to work in my life in order to bring me to him — I did not realize he was anywhere around. It came as a shock and surprise. I thought he loved good people, but I had no idea that he had that kind of love for me.
There are perhaps people here who think that what I am saying may be true for some people, but not for them, because they are not important enough for God to bother with, or not good enough. But let me tell you that no matter who you are, no matter what you may have done, God has a special love for you, and a special need for you that no one else can fill. You alone can satisfy that longing in his heart. And the Holy Spirit is trying to tell you that right now.
But the Holy Spirit has to help us come to God. He has to awaken us spiritually, open our blind eyes, and help us turn away from the sin that is taking our lives in all the wrong directions. That is to say, he has to help us understand our need of God, feel genuine sorrow for our apathy, resistance and rebellion against God, and give us the inner desire to turn away from those things and truly follow God. By myself I cannot feel sorrow for sin. I can only feel sorry that I cannot do them anymore. I wasn’t sorry for the things I had done. I had no desire to be any different. It took the Holy Spirit to make me see that I was rebelling against God and losing out on life. It took the Holy Spirit to make me grieve over the ugliness of my sin and want to be different. I was not even convinced that I was wrong, or that I had done all that much to be sorry about, until the Holy Spirit helped me to see my true condition.
First, the Holy Spirit brought me to a place of genuine sorrow and repentance, then he relieved the very sorrow that he had created. He helped me to see my guilt, and then he took away the guilt. For one awful moment I had to see the ugliness and destructiveness of what I was doing, then he took it all away for eternity. I’ll take that kind of guilt any day — a true guilt that comes from an honest look at myself as God sees me. Not a vague, lingering guilt that you can never get over, but a guilt that can be washed away as soon as it comes. It goes away the moment I honestly face it and say that everything that God has shown me about myself is absolutely true. There is a joy and a relief in that experience that can be equaled nowhere else.
And what a wonderful experience it is to be clean and free! How much better is this open and honest relationship with God than the cold ritual of religion. We are living on crumbs when God has spread a banquet before us. Years ago a woman wanted to return to England to visit her family. She saved her money for a long time in order to buy a ticket on the ship that would take her across the sea. After years of saving and doing without she finally could afford the ticket, but she could not afford to buy any meals on the ship. So she packed several packages of crackers in her suitcase and lived on crackers and water during the voyage. On the last day of the voyage the captain spoke to her and asked if she were enjoying the meals on the ship. She explained that she could not afford them and had been eating in her cabin. In shocked surprise the captain explained that all the meals were included in her ticket. She had been living on crackers when she could have been enjoying a banquet. Like that woman, many people are unaware of what is available to them through the power and presence of the Holy Spirit. The banquet comes included with the ticket. There is power, freedom and joy that comes with the Holy Spirit.
What a difference there is between just having a mere set of beliefs, or even good values, and this great experience with the Holy Spirit. True religion is something that comes from the heart, not something we do or perform. Formal religion, by itself, can never please God. In fact, it can be the final hold out on God. You know what I am talking about. God starts to put his finger on your life and call you to real repentance and a relationship with him, and instead of being honest, you point to your religion and say, “Look at this God. I have always tried to live right. I believe in You. I have always gone to church. I sang in the choir and served on the committees. Why I have even read the Bible occasionally. What more do you want?”
Let me explain what God wants. It is more difficult than any job in the church. It is more expensive than the contribution of the largest giver. God does not want your activity or your money — he wants you, and nothing else will do.
It is so much more than just belonging to a religious organization, paying your dues and doing the best you can. Something actually takes place in your life — a change occurs. The Bible says, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!” (2 Corinthians 5:17). Theologians call it regeneration. We are regenerated, recreated, reborn, changed. We are actually different. We may not always feel it or realize it, but we are different. Our standing before God is totally new. We have a different outlook on life, a different name, a different direction, a different destiny, and a different Father. We do what he wants us to do, rather than what we want to do. Our motive is to please him, rather than to please ourselves. We have a future, a hope, and a place in his Kingdom, for we belong to him. He is actually living within us, and moves us inwardly to live for God and be a part of bringing about his kingdom “on earth as it is in heaven”. It is not an outward religion that motivates us, it is now an inner Person who moves us and creates an inner passion for being a part of God’s plan for the world.
I believe that a person can change, because I believe in the Holy Spirit. I believe there is hope for you. I believe there can be a new beginning, a new power, a new you when the Holy Spirit comes into your life. The Bible says, “Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God — children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God” (John 1:12-13). It is as simple as saying, “Forgive me. Cleanse me. Come live in me and make me yours.” It takes all our excuses away, because we can no longer say: “I want to be different, but I can’t.” On your own you cannot, but with him living inside there is nothing that you and God together cannot handle or change. There is no habit that cannot be broken, nothing that cannot begin to be different, because there is a Holy Spirit.
You need to realize that the real power for change comes only from the Holy Spirit. The Bible says, “You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ” (Romans 8:9). All the religion in the world will do you no good, but a heart willing to admit it is wrong and in need of God will be filled with his Spirit like a cup at the bottom of a mighty waterfall.
The third point is that: The Holy Spirit purifies us. When I am filled with his Spirit he teaches me that I no longer belong to myself. As the Bible says, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). Now I belong to God, but the best part is this: God belongs to me. The Holy Spirit has created a relationship between us that is full of joy and love. It actually defies description.
Now, it is also true that the more I live for God the more I realize there are parts of me that have never yet heard of God. There are new things that I discover about myself all the time that I do not like, but they are things that I can give to the Holy Spirit and have him renew as they come up. I will never reach the perfection I desire, but with God as my Father and my Friend, and his Spirit living inside, it is not a thing of defeat, it is a life of growth and victory. His Spirit shows me what I am like, and then he shows me what he is like — and what I can be. I have the privilege of becoming more like him, and he is patient with me in this process of change.
John Ross of Surrey, England, tells this story: “Karl Barth, the famous theologian, was on a streetcar one day in Basel, Switzerland, where he lectured. A tourist to the city climbed on and sat down next to Barth. The two men started chatting with each other. ‘Are you new to the city?’ Barth inquired. ‘Yes,’ said the tourist. ‘Is there anything you would particularly like to see in this city?’ asked Barth. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I’d love to meet the famous theologian Karl Barth. Do you know him?’ Barth replied, ‘Well as a matter of fact, I do. I give him a shave every morning.’ The tourist got off the streetcar quite delighted. He went back to his hotel saying to himself, ‘I met Karl Barth’s barber today.’ Each Christian is a temple of the Holy Spirit, a person in whom Christ actually dwells. But how often we sit next to other believers, eat with them, sing with them, yet fail to see we’ve been in the presence of Christ himself.”
We need to recognize the presence of the Holy Spirit in each other. He is in us and will never let us go. The Bible says that the Holy Spirit seals us for the day of redemption. (Ephesians 4:30; Ephesians 1:11-13; 2 Corinthians 1:21-22). He is not going to let us go. He will not throw us away when we make a mistake. He has the power to keep us in the family of God until Christ returns for us. The Bible says he is “...able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy” (Jude 1:24).
The Holy Spirit can do all of that for you. He can help you to see your need of God. He can show you your guilt and relieve your guilt. He can change you, live in you, comfort you, empower you to live for him and keep you until the Lord comes for you; all of that and more — much, much more. The Bible says, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts” (Hebrews 3:15). Let God do what he is longing to do for you. Why resist joy? Why run from peace? Only the Holy Spirit can bring you to God, and only pride can keep you away.
Pride almost kept my friend Don away. Don was a very active person in the church. His family had been in the church for years and held most of the offices in the church. He sang in the choir, was a respected attorney in town and looked on as a leader in the community as well as the church. But the day came when Don had to decide whether he was going to continue doing his religious duty, or actually have a relationship with God. When he made his decision and opened his heart and life to the Spirit of God, there was a dramatic difference. It was not observable by most people, except for the smile on his face and his softer approach to people, because Don had always been a good person and active in church. But the difference was internal. There was a new peace in his heart, and a quiet assurance about his relationship with God. He was captured by a new joy and motivated by a new love. His enthusiasm for the things of God was catching, and soon there were many people he helped to come into a relationship with God for themselves. He is still leading small group Bible studies and introducing people to the One who changed his life from the inside out. Only the Holy Spirit could have prepared Don for that kind of inner change, and only the Holy Spirit could have brought about that kind of rebirth. It is the same relationship that God desires to have with you. And it is yours the minute you open your heart and mind to his wonderful Holy Spirit.
Rodney J. Buchanan
June 3, 2012
Amity United Methodist Church
rodbuchanan2000@yahoo.com
I Believe in the Holy Spirit
(Questions for Discussion)
1. What is the purpose of the Holy Spirit?
2. What is the nature of the Holy Spirit?
3. The Holy Spirit is called the paraclete in the original language of the New Testament. It is a word which can mean comforter, encourager, or helper. It literally means “to call to the side of.” The Holy Spirit calls us to his side to comfort, encourage and help. What does this do for you?
4. Read John 14:16-20. What does the Holy Spirit do for us and why is this important?
5. How can we relate to the Holy Spirit?
6. What does the Bible mean when it says that the Holy Spirit lives within you? What does this do for you?
7. Read John 16:7-8. What does the Holy Spirit do in the world?
8. Read Romans 8:9. What does this verse say about a moral person who believes the right things, but has no experience with the Holy Spirit?
9. Read 1 Corinthians 6:19-20. How does this verse help you to see your body in a different light?
10. Pray this prayer: “Come into my life Holy Spirit. Cleanse me and fill me. Make me your temple.”
THE APOSTLE’S CREED
I believe in God, the Father almighty,
Creator of Heaven and Earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord.
He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit
and born of the Virgin Mary.
He suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried.
He descended to the dead.
On the third day he rose again.
He ascended into Heaven,
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy and universal Church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting.
Amen.
