The Holy Spirit: A Person to Know

Well, good morning, Church at the Grove.

My name is Russ.

I'm one of the pastors here.

Excited, all of you here, especially if it's your first or second time.

So so glad.

And I want to say thank you again.

Last Sunday was such a blessing, and it was just a great first Sunday and three services.

And so you know the 845 looked very similar to this morning last week, probably more packed last week.

And then the 1015 and 1145 gatherings were probably half full, and which is great because every empty chair, even as you look around, every empty chair is an opportunity.

An opportunity.

And now the work really begins.

Who do we invest in?

Who do we have relationships?

Who is it in our life that may be close to us but far from God?

And so as we begin this new series on the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, the title of the series, Familiar Stranger, it comes from a book on the Holy Spirit.

And so why would we call it a familiar stranger?

Because it's one thing to be aware of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

And so in my personal life and the theological training that I've had, I'm so thankful for it.

I'm thankful because it was rooted in Scripture, where the Word of God is valued, and the Word of God is held high as being, you know, because it's God's words to us.

But my experience was that there was a lot of emphasis, and I was taught to see the Father and the Son more and to be more familiar with them than the Holy Spirit.

And so I went to a Baptist seminary, and I say this, and I don't say it from a critical standpoint, but but a lot of us who have some Baptist background, the emphasis wasn't necessarily equally distributed between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

The emphasis sometimes is on the Father and the Son and the Holy Word.

And the word is important, but we need the Holy Spirit.

We need to embrace a personal relationship.

It's a common experience that I'll go into a store like Kroger, which my wife doesn't let me shop because I'll go in to get two things and I come out with six bags of peanut M and M's.

But so I don't go in much, but when I do go in, it's sometimes I go and think I'm gonna grab two things and I run into three people and I come out 45 minutes later.

But I enjoy that, but a lot of times when I see people, they're familiar, but I don't I can't remember their name.

And I've always thought I was pretty good with names, but sometimes I just don't remember.

And so that that's a familiar stranger.

Somebody who's familiar, I recognize them, but I don't really know them.

And so it's not really a relationship, it's more of an acquaintance, a familiar stranger.

So as we begin this series, and today specifically, it it may feel, to me it felt a little bit academic or a little bit seminary-ish.

But it's an important foundation.

And as we look at this morning, it's a bit of a of a launching pad into the rest of the series, but today it's really straight, systematic theology about the Holy Spirit.

And what is systematic theology is when you look at particular doctrines and beliefs that we find in Scripture and we gather and develop a doctrine or a belief system based on all the scriptures that we find in different places that describe, and in this sense, as we teach and help you understand that you can experience so much more than just that salvation experience.

You can experience what it means to walk in relationship with God, and that comes through the power of the Holy Spirit.

What is the Holy Spirit?

What is it?

Maybe you've heard about it, maybe you've had, you understand the Holy Spirit.

You want to walk in the fullness of the Holy Spirit.

But here's the big idea for this morning is that the Holy Spirit is not an impersible, impersonable force.

It's not an impersonal force.

It is a person that we have relationship, and it's a person we we know and understand through loving and following in a relationship with the Holy Spirit.

So the Holy Spirit is not an impersonal power we use, but a divine person we know, love, and follow.

And so, as we're in this series, who is the Holy Spirit?

What does he want to do in us and through us?

And how do we how do we lean in to the Holy Spirit to experience everything that God wants for us?

And the Holy Spirit, it's not something for us, it is God in and through us.

And so sometimes you just need to know it's not about us, it's about God and how he wants to live and be seen and recognized in us.

I'm gonna tell you something.

After this past week, I don't know that we've ever needed to lean in to the Holy Spirit more than the age we're in.

And I come, Lord Jesus.

Come, Lord Jesus.

And so lots, lots of things, heavy, a heavy spirit.

Multiple shootings.

Many that are that are taken, that were that were take that took place out of uh spite and hate and disagreement of ideas.

And so so listen, one thing I loved, you know, and all of these things together, what's happening in the Middle East, what's happening with Russia and Ukraine and even now potentially moving into some of the European countries, there's there's conflict.

There is there's a jockeying for power.

And so we we've got to be willing to lean in to the Holy Spirit.

And so this is a this is a contentious topic.

Over the course of 30 plus years in ministry and being around ministry, um, I've seen a lot of churches have a lot of division on the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is not meant to bring division, Holy Spirit comes to unify us and work in us despite the potential differences we may have.

And so we don't want to divide, we want to teach and bring clarity.

Um, in the 2014 Legionaire Ministries that was founded and led by R.

C.

Sproul, one of my favorite theologians.

Um, he's gone on to be the Lord in the past several years, and so they conducted, they conduct a state of theology.

This is 2014, so just a little bit dated, and it was aimed at uncovering common belief heresies in the modern church.

And so they asked participants, and the answer was true or false on this statement.

The Holy Spirit is a force, not a person.

And that was on the survey.

51% of the respondents said true, 42% said false, 7% said they didn't know.

In contrast, the the 2022 State of Theology survey showed an increase.

60% of committed Christians answered that statement as being true, that the Holy Spirit is a force and not a person.

Now that's a bit scary.

It means that nearly two-thirds of the American church, American believers, they believe the Holy Spirit, which is the third person in the Trinity.

God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit, that they believe he's a force.

I don't know if that comes from Star Wars or or or or um, you know, what do you call it?

Um, you know, science fiction, or I don't know, but but I'm telling you, it's it's a dangerous belief.

The Holy Spirit is in reality a person that we can know that can know us.

So one of the biggest things we miss today is is understanding how we access the gap between our salvation and our standing in the presence of God, whether it's through our own passing, physical death, or Jesus comes back, there's a gap there.

And the gap is what will determine whether we live for Jesus, speak for Jesus, follow him daily rather than have just a one per week meeting with him.

And so A.W.

Tozier says this he says, if the Holy Spirit were withdrawn from the church today, 95% of what we do would go on, and no one would know the difference.

If he had been withdrawn from the New Testament church, 95% of what they did would stop, and everybody would know the difference.

You see it?

You go read Acts, and then you look at the church today, we seem a bit anemic at times.

Now, God is, I think, bringing revival.

God is stirring, God is working, and God promises I will use all things together for the good.

And that was one of my prayers this week.

God, use these things for your good.

Billy Graham said this.

He says, everywhere I go, I find that God's people lack something.

They are hungry for something.

Their Christian experience is not all that they expected, and they often have recurring defeat in their lives.

Christians today are hungry for spiritual fulfillment.

The desperate need of the nation today is that men and women who profess Jesus be filled with the Holy Spirit.

Walk in the fullness.

This is why the series matters.

So this morning we're going to start with the words of Jesus in the Gospel of John, chapter 16.

John 16 · chapter mention

We're primarily going to be in John 16, John 14, probably coming back to some of these scriptures multiple times these series as we pull together and study the doctrine of the Holy Spirit.

So Jesus says this in John 16, verses 5.

John 16:5

He says, But now I'm going away to him who sent me.

And this had to be a bit mysterious for the disciples.

This is prior to Jesus' death, his arrest, his brutal beating, and his crucifixion.

So he's telling his disciples, I'm going away.

To send him who sent me.

And they said, Where are you going?

He said, Yet because I have spoken these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart.

Nevertheless, I'm telling you the truth.

It is for your benefit that I go away.

Because if I don't go away, the counselor, that word is a word that is synonymous with Holy Spirit.

He is a counselor, he is a comforter.

He's the one that comes and guides us into truth.

So he says, it's best for you that I go away.

This is something we we talked before, we come back to, that the spirit inside of you is better than Jesus beside you.

And so Jesus says, I have to go away.

Because that way I can send the comforter, the counselor, Holy Spirit.

Paraclete.

That's the word in the Greek.

The one who will come and guide you.

So who is the Holy Spirit?

Now this is going to be, I'm going to go quick through this, and it that's what it feels a bit, you know, a bit academic or seminary-ish, and but who is the Holy Spirit?

In John 14, Jesus gives us a couple of verses that give us some insight.

And he says, I will ask the Father, and he will give you another counselor to be with you forever.

Say that word forever.

He is the spirit of truth.

The world is unable to receive him.

You look at how the world responds to truth.

You look at some things that happened this past week.

God, God, when God is on the move and God is at work, the enemy doesn't want to let that pass by.

He's not going to let it go.

And so the spirit of truth, the world's unable to receive him because it doesn't see him or know him.

So we need to see him.

We need to know him.

We need to understand him.

But you do know him because he remains with you and will be in you.

So here's three things that Jesus teaches us right here.

The first one is the Holy Spirit is a person.

The Holy Spirit is a person that go back to the big idea.

Not an impersonal force just for us to use, but a person that leads us that we can know, love, and follow.

He's a person, he's not a power, he's not a thing.

I don't know.

I'm guilty of this.

Sometimes I put a direct article in front of Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit.

Sometimes I'm guilty of saying it instead of he.

But one of the things I have I've tried to practice over the course of my ministry that I learned early on is the Holy Spirit is a person.

And so I need to relate to him in a personal way.

So the pronoun, you don't need a direct article.

You say he, he, he, I, he is my, he is with me, he is inside me.

The Spirit in me that dwells with you, and he will be with you.

What does this call us to?

It calls us to relationship.

It calls us to going beyond just knowing and knowledge, but to experience him.

But but just like a relationship we have, we how do you how do you develop a relationship?

How do you get to know a potential spouse or your spouse?

It's through relationship.

And you could you can live in the same house and be and be living with somebody that is a familiar stranger.

Well you're supposed to be intimate up close.

So the Holy Spirit, when we forget about the Spirit, we're really forgetting about God.

And so the Holy Spirit is God.

God the Father, God the Son, God Holy Spirit.

And so the Spirit is God.

Spirit and God are both words that are used interchangeably throughout Scripture.

And even diving in more particularly the New Testament.

So the Holy Spirit is God, but the Holy Spirit is also eternal and holy.

When we read through the Gospel of John, we see the promises that Jesus makes to his disciples.

I will be in you and I will be with you forever.

In the book of Hebrews, we we read that it was through the eternal Spirit that Jesus offered himself unblemished to God.

Hebrews 9 14.

The Spirit is not a flighty, whimsical, you know, just impersonal force.

It is a person.

He comes and lives inside of us.

He's an eternal being.

He is transcendent.

He is other than us.

You see several instances in Romans, among others, where the Spirit is referred to as holy.

Also, the Holy Spirit has his own mind and he prays for us.

Romans 8, 27.

And he who searches our hearts, who is the he that searches our hearts?

Knows the minds of the Spirit because he intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

Sometimes you don't know what to say, you lean into the Spirit.

And it says there in Romans, sometimes it's just groanings and utterings.

We don't, we may not know what we're trying to communicate, but the Spirit works in us to pray through us back to God a perfect prayer.

In 1 Corinthians 12, we see how the Holy Spirit gives all of us gifts.

But here's what we do.

I don't know if you've ever experienced this, but as I grew up, we have it, we had an extended family that we would exchange gifts with, but but we we didn't always get to meet them right at Christmas.

Sometimes it might be in between Christmas and New Year's, and sometimes it was after after New Year's.

And so what would happen after Christmas, there would be presents and gifts remaining under the tree that were unwrapped.

I don't know about you, but as a child, I just could, you know, unwrapped gifts were just not part of the equation.

So I remember as a child getting in trouble because I got into one of those gifts.

But you know what?

There's a gift that God gives you that needs to be unwrapped.

It doesn't need to remain on a shelf or under a tree.

It needs to be a part of your life.

And so you take that gift, and God will give you gifts of the Spirit that He talks about in more detail.

We'll come back to that.

But the Spirit wants to work through every one of us, and He has a plan for the church, Capital C, big church, all around the world, but he's also got a plan for Church at the Grove in Walton County, in Walnut Grove, in Social Circle.

I think he's not finished with us growing and planning and establishing presences and a presence in different communities.

The Holy Spirit, here's some of the theological terms.

The Holy Spirit is omnipotent, omnipresent and omniscient.

Now, what do those mean?

It's joining together two words.

One means all or all-encompassing, and then God, the omnipotent means that God is all-powerful.

Omnipresent means God is beyond time and space.

Omniscient is all God is all-knowing.

So the Holy Spirit has those characteristics.

Isaiah 40, 13 says, Who can fathom the Spirit of the Lord or instruct the Lord as his counselor?

What he's saying is that the Spirit of God is transcendent.

It is a deity, it is divine.

Then the Holy Spirit has emotions.

The Holy Spirit can feel.

How do I know that?

Because the Apostle Paul wrote in Ephesians 4, uh chapter 4, verse 30.

He says, Don't grieve God's Holy Spirit.

You were sealed.

You were sealed by him for the day of redemption.

So don't grieve.

So how do we grieve the Holy Spirit?

We grieve the Holy Spirit when we when we put our faith, we repent and believe in Christ.

At that time, God makes his Holy Spirit available and he takes up residence in our heart.

But we choose every day if we're going to surrender to the Holy Spirit's leadership, or whether we keep keep it things to ourselves and ignore how God wants to lead us and guide us.

And it fills in the gap from our salvation, between our salvation and our meeting Jesus in person.

How do we know?

How do we become the church God's called us to be?

How do we follow?

And if we don't tune in to this and tap into the Holy Spirit, we grieve Him.

So, how do you respond when you hear this?

How do you respond?

John Bevere says this, and he's still living based in Nashville.

One of my daughter's friends works for John Bever.

He writes books on the holiness of God, the character of God.

Here's what he says about the Holy Spirit.

He says, in order for us to enjoy a healthy, vibrant relationship with the Holy Spirit, we must be sensitive to the things that bring him sorrow.

So, how do you grieve the Holy Spirit?

When you now call upon and confess the name of Jesus and you decide, you know what, I'm going to figure out the rest of my life on my own.

Rather than saying, you know what, Jesus has saved me.

Now I want all that God has.

And so I want to invite and pray and say, Come, Holy Spirit, lead me and guide me.

And so sometimes when we talk and sing songs that say, Come, Holy Spirit, it should be a prayer and it should be a daily, weekly reminder that we're called to lean in.

We're called for more.

Why would we spend so much on this foundation as we teach over these next next five weeks?

It's because the Holy Spirit is not an impersonal power that we use.

It's a divine person we know, love, and follow.

So listen to this.

We can welcome him or we can ignore him.

We can honor him or we can grieve him.

We can walk with him or we can resist him.

And so we're going to conclude this time.

We're not rushed.

We're on time with our schedule, which means we don't have to rush through a song to get out of here.

I want us to sit in the presence.

I want this song to be a prayer.

And here's my challenge for you this week.

What is one thing that God might want to call you to do or ask you to do?

It's based on his word that I know I can't do in my own strength.

But I need, I need to lean into the Holy Spirit.

And sometimes here's what I've learned.

If I lean in and God gives me direction, if I don't respond and obey, then the next time I'm looking for God's direction and God's will, sometimes it may not come as clearly.

And if if you resist him over and over, he becomes a stranger.

And so this week, and you say, Well, Russ, I don't even know what you're talking about.

How about this?

At some point you're going to cross paths with somebody, and you're going to be able to tell that they're there, and they may even tell you that bad things are going at taking place in their life, things that are painful.

And so sometimes it's not hard to pick up on that.

And if you want more clarity, here's something I've learned.

I'll ask people a simple question.

How can I pray for you?

And you know what I found?

That 99.9% of people are not offended by you asking if you can pray for them.

Just ask them, can I pray for you?

Can I pray for you?

And that's just a challenge for this week.

A challenge.

Vladimir Sadchuk, he's a Ukrainian pastor here in the U.S.

He says this.

He says, all Christians have the Holy Spirit, but not all Christians walk in him.

And so the rest of this morning, I want it to be about how we respond to God's leadership and the Holy Spirit.

How are we treating?

How are we leaning?

How are we receiving and following the Holy Spirit?

So can we spend a moment in prayer?

And then our team is going to lead us in a time where we sing and make this song a prayer to the Lord this morning.

So would you pray with me?

Let's just pray together.

Father, we thank you.

We thank you for the truth of Scripture.

We thank you for the ability to be taught and to understand the truth that we learn about Holy Spirit.

And so we ask you, Father, would you work, would you send?

Would you move by the power of your Holy Spirit?

God, lead us.

Give us a tangible way.

And you've given it through Scripture.

You give it through the promises that you share, that you will guide us into truth through Holy Spirit.

So this morning, Father, would you speak to us?

Would you lead us?

Even as we close this time and we respond to you.

Would you guide us into truth?

Would you lead us, maybe even to speak to someone this morning that we know that needs to hear encouragement?

And so even during this time, if you want to pray for one another, if you need prayer, come find one of us, me or Jonah, or one of our leaders in our church.

Father, lead us and guide us, God, as we lean in to Holy Spirit.

It's in Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.