The Fellowship Of The Holy Spirit

The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit

“The Fellowship of the Holy Spirit"

{Audio File: https://mega.nz/#!PcEklKDS!QiibLY3ibJw3_Pv7tF6yI0GSANcrQpI7yp0BS4HDT90}

In our series on the person and work of the Holy Spirit we’ll be taking time to really get a handle on not only Who the Holy Spirit is, but also the work of the Holy Spirit within our lives and within the life of the church. And the reason is because this great doctrine has been kind of muddied up within the church.

And let me just say that what we’re going to be talking about today will literally blow some of you away as you now consider what the Holy Spirit desires to do, and who He wants to be in our lives.

In Paul’s closing remarks in his last letter to the Corinthian Church he said,

“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.” (2 Corinthians 13:14 NKJV)

This word, “communion” in the Greek language is the world “Koinonia,” which is most often translated as “fellowship,” and the fellowship that Paul is talking about is what we should be having with the Holy Spirit.

But why is Paul so adamant that we need fellowship with the Holy Spirit? Isn’t having fellowship with the Father and Jesus enough?

To understand, there are three major categories or aspects about relationships and fellowship that are involved, and each one plays an important part in our relationships with the Holy Spirit, and why we need to have fellowship with the Holy Spirit.

Last time we were together, we made it pretty clear that the Holy Spirit is not only a person, but He is the 3rd person of the Godhead, and therefore, He isn’t some force or influence. And again I need to make this point, and that is we can’t have fellowship or a relationship with a force or an influence. We can only have fellowship and a relationship with a person.

And so having this communion, this fellowship with the Holy Spirit involves three aspects of every relationship.

1. Companionship

Fellowship means companionship, it means sharing life together. Companions are those who freely and willing interact with one another, but for there to be companionship there needs to be communication.

Can you imagine traveling for any length of time with someone who doesn’t say a single word? It’s where we’re traveling in a car and the person sitting next to us just sits there with a blank look on their face not saying a word?

Or maybe as we’re traveling and the other person cranks up the radio, or puts in a pair of ear pods so they can’t hear us, even if we wanted or needed to say something.

Now, let’s take that into our fellowship with the Holy Spirit. We spend days at a time not saying one word to Him. We also become so busy and there’s so much noise in our lives that there’s no way we could even hear Him when He does try to say something.

Another thing that is stopping our fellowship with the Holy Spirit is that we don’t think of Him as a person, but rather as something other, like a bird or a flame, or as some supernatural apparition, like a ghost.

You see, the reason we don’t have fellowship with a bird is because people will call us a birdbrain, or we don’t have fellowship with fire because we don’t want to get burned. And if we ever do run into a ghost, we usually run away.

Michaela told me a story of her first encounter with a Pentecostal church. Michaela grew up Catholic, but when they moved to Las Vegas one of her neighbors said she and her brother needed to come to church. And it was one of those Holy Ghost churches.

Well, somewhere during the message or worship some of the ladies started to shout out “The Holy Ghost is here, the Holy Ghost is here,” and they were falling down. Well she and her brother, who were just little kids, ran out of the church and down the street crying “There’s a ghost in the church, there’s a ghost in the church,” and the lady who brought was running behind them trying to catch them.

But this wasn’t the way it was with the first church. Look at the type of fellowship the Apostle Paul had with the Holy Spirit.

“And now I am going to Jerusalem, drawn there irresistibly by the Holy Spirit, not knowing what awaits me, except that the Holy Spirit has told me in city after city that jail and suffering lie ahead.” (Acts 20:22-23 NLT)

This was an ongoing conversation Paul was having with the Holy Spirit. Notice that in every city he went he and the Holy Spirit were having this conversation, and the Holy Spirit was telling Him what to expect, that is, the persecution he was going to experience and what he was going to suffer for the sake of the gospel message.