The Holy Spirit - The Forgotten One | Pr Yvonne Chong

You're listening to a message to go from X Church.

We hope this message will light up your day.

So this morning, I'd like to just speak about this

person that is part of the Trinity. You know, the Trinity,

you have got the Father, got the Son, and got

the Holy Spirit, okay? So, and I think for us

as well, as we draw towards the end of the year,

that we want to focus on the Holy Spirit a

bit more because the Holy Spirit himself, you know, this

year our theme for X Church is Revival. And until

and unless, you know, we allow the Holy Spirit to

work in our lives, you know, there won't be transformation.

Revival is transformation. So today, you know, may I just

ask us, you know, just to hear from you guys,

who is the Holy Spirit? You can shout out any answers.

Holy Spirit is God? Helper? Comforter? He is the teacher?

Anyone else? Who is the Holy Spirit that you know

of or who is the Holy Spirit personally to you?

He is your guidance, yes? Very good. Anything else?

Okay.

So for me, for me, okay, and that will also

be the... Sorry, I don't have any slides today. Didn't

manage to have the time to prepare it. But you

can follow along. So if you have your notebook, you

can write it down digitally or physically. I still like

pen and paper. It's just that it's very heavy to

carry around these days. So digital is good, okay? So

for me, all right, the Holy Spirit these days, sometimes

in the church, in the life of the believer, He is.

The Forgotten One. Yeah. You know, whatever that you have shared,

it is very, very true of him. But today, you know,

I would like to title what I want to share as,

you know, Holy Spirit, The Forgotten One. Many, many times, okay,

even as a believer, we.

Sometimes we go in the morning, you know, we're like, okay,

good morning, God. Or sometimes we totally do not even

remember God at all. When we have, you know, our

first wake up, our first, you know, dawn of the day.

All right. And, you know, if you look across different

churches as well, these days, different people that we may encounter,

we talk a lot about God the Father, right? And Jesus,

you know, being also the Son of God, or God

the Son, all right? A lot of focus has been

put on Him as well, preached about. And we know Him,

you know, as our Lord and our Saviour. Really good. And,

you know, we know Him, you know, for the virgin birth,

His miraculous ministry as well. You know, dying on the

cross for us and resurrected from the tomb again, His ascension. So,

But that's a very, very little focus even in our

lives as well to even prioritize the Holy Spirit in

our lives. And sometimes, sometimes, maybe, maybe, maybe because there's

not much of awareness of Him or not much, you know,

talk about Him. Sometimes, sometimes people may associate, perhaps, you know,

in the 90s, people may associate those days associate the

Holy Spirit as, you know, causing people, if I put

it in layman terms, causing people to have, you know,

erected behaviours. Many different, you know, chaotic manifestations in church.

And because of that, sometimes people are like, eh, what's

going on, you know? What is this, quote unquote, weird

behaviour that's happening in the church? and sometimes because of

that people shy away it's like okay and you know

Holy Spirit as well is also you know closely tied

the evidence of being baptised is that we are able

to speak in tongues and sometimes people also shy away

from that as human beings sometimes naturally as our behaviour

right whatever that we feel like it is unknown to

us or seemingly a bit weird to us we will

not try to approach it or understand it further. But today,

I'd like to let us know that the Holy Spirit,

the third inner trinity, it is not a weird thing.

It is not an it as well. You know, we

only use the, is it called a verb? Pardon my English. Okay,

we use it for a thing, right? Like cat. this

pulpit it, right? He is not a thing, but he

is a person. So that's why, you know, we refer

to him as he, all right? Him as a divine person.

And he is co-equal and co-eternal as God the Father

and God the Son as well. All right? So, if,

so the Holy Spirit, you know, I say that he

is a person. some Christians will say like, oh, he's

just a force. Half true because, you know, he's also

likened to the dynamite pirate, Dunamis. He has the Dunamis pirate. Sometimes,

we don't see Him as a person, okay? So today,

I'm going to help us understand a little bit further

about the Holy Spirit from creation, the beginning of time, okay?

So that we will fully understand the context of what

the Bible says of Him. So we will start from

the Old Testament to finally the Holy Spirit being in

our hearts, okay? So the Old Testament, all right, let's

look at, turn to Genesis chapter 1, verse 1 to 2. Okay,

Genesis 1:1–2

so if you're there, you can say yes. All right,

and we shall read it together. I think XTV will

also help put it on screen. Genesis chapter 1, verse

Genesis 1:1–2

1 to 2.

Okay, ready?

Ready? In 1, 2 and 3. In the beginning, God

created the heavens and earth. The earth was without form

and void and darkness was on the face of the deep.

And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face

of the waters. Alright? So point 1, it is from

Genesis 1, verse 1 to 2. To understand the Holy Spirit,

Genesis 1:1–2

we cannot just go to the New Testament, all right?

We are looking from Genesis itself. So it says here

in this verse, you know, that the earth was without form,

but there was light. Before there was light, before there

was land, there was the Spirit, all right? And the

Spirit here in the word Hebrew is Ruach, okay? Ruah, alright?

And what Ruah is, okay, it actually means wind. I

think Ben, you mentioned just now, wind. It means breath, alright? So,

in the ancient concept of the Hebrew mind, right, both

wind and breath is inseparable, okay? We know that there

is wind around us and we can't see it. We

only know that it's present when you actually feel it gushing, okay?

Gushing by you. We see the effects of it, you know,

when trees is being uprooted. We see of it, you know,

when you see your dry leaves flying, you're like, ah, okay,

wind is present. Wind as well causes waves to happen

in the ocean, right? We cannot see breath. How do

you know you have breath? We can't see it, right?

But breath itself is the very essence of life. Without

breath means we are already back in heaven, all right?

In the presence of the Lord, we are already a corpse, okay?

This body is already dead, all right? So, therefore, the Ruach,

the Spirit of God, was and still is invisible, but

He is all-powerful. And His life-giving because He gives us breath.

And the breath that He gives to us is from

the Father Himself, the Almighty. So He is the ever-active

and He is the ever-moving presence of God. The next

part that I want to bring us to, we talked

about the word spirit, understanding it from the root word itself.

The other root word in Hebrew that I want to

bring us to is the word hovering, okay? In Hebrew, okay,

the word hovering, sorry, I can't really pronounce it well,

but it spells as M-E-R-A-C-H-E-P-H-E-T, all right, if you're taking

your notes. So hovering these days, we may first think, okay,

when I say the word hovering, what would be the

first thing that comes to your mind? Hoverboat? Your drone?

Your helicopter? All right. You're like helicopter parents. Sometimes, you know,

they're like hovering over their kids, right? It's not that, okay?

It's not that. But what hovering is, I'm going to

bring us to Deuteronomy 32, verse 11. Okay, let's turn

Deuteronomy 32:11

to Deuteronomy, chapter 32, verse 11. If you're not there,

Deuteronomy 32:11

you can say amen. Fast or y'all? Oh, okay. Digital Bible, huh? Okay.

Shall we read it? In 1, 2, and 3. As

an eagle stirs up its nest, hovers over its yam,

spreading out its wings, taking them up, carrying them on

its wings. Alright, so this word harving here can also

be found in Deuteronomy chapter 32. And it actually describes

Deuteronomy 32 · chapter mention

like how an eagle, mama eagle, okay, hover and broods

over the nest of her young chicks, okay. Fiercely protecting them.

And I know a lot of animals, you know, they

will brood when they, I remember they have younglings. What

is it called, younglings? Chicklings, yeah, anything, okay? Even a

dog as well has, you know, their younglings, puppies. Okay.

They will fiercely protect them. Try taking it from them. Okay,

I used to have pet chickens growing up. And yeah,

pet chickens. And every day, so I have different pets,

different batches of pet chickens. So every day, most of

them were hens. So, you know, with hands, you'll come eggs, right?

Freshly out of the oven every morning or by noon.

And sometimes you're like, okay, you know, since the eggs

are there, she's still sitting on it and definitely, I mean,

there won't be any chicks because there's no cockerels, right? So,

we want to take the eggs. The first thing you

put your hands in, she will start pecking already. Yeah. So,

the only way to distract is sometimes either wear gloves

or put something to push your face and then you

take the eggs out. Even before the chicks hatch, even

just one egg, one lap of egg, they are already

so fiercely protecting. So think about it, you know, the

theological side of this, when it's, you know, the Bible says,

Holy Spirit is hovering. He is brooding over the chaos. Sometimes,

you know, a chaotic life. You know, he's brooding over,

you know, like, ah, it's my first semester. of a

new year in my studies, chaos already. Know that, you know,

the assurance that He's brooding. He's waiting and, you know,

to protect us from any harm, from any danger. And,

you know, so that, you know, we can continue to

live a life more abundantly. All right? Let's, you know,

the word Ruach itself as well, right? In Ezekiel 37,

the prophet Ezekiel, when he was taken out to a

valley filled with dry bones, all right? And when we

look at, you know, dry bones, what does it signify?

It signifies emptiness. It signifies hopelessness. It signifies death, all right?

There's nothing, there's no life in that, all right? And,

you know, God asked Ezekiel, the prophet Ezekiel, can these

bones live? With our natural eyes, you're like, no lah,

definitely not. I mean, bones is bones already lah. The bones,

you know, flesh can't come together again and life can't

come together. But in verse 9 of Ezekiel 37, right,

what did God ask Ezekiel to do? To prophesy breath, alright?

Prophesy to the breath, So the breath of God entered,

you know, in the book of Ezekiel 37, it entered

into dry bones. So it did not just enter the

dry bones, but flesh came together. and these bones came alive,

all right? You know, some of us, you know, here today,

I do not know what we walked into church with.

It may feel like a valley or shadow of death,

you know, the season that you're in now, or, you know,

the week that came from, you know, could be, you know,

could be, You could feel like, you know, it was

just a death week, a deadly week, a week filled

with dry bones, you know, or to the extent, you know,

things may dry out to the extent you feel like

everything is just brittling already, breaking apart. But know that

however much we try to fix our situation, we cannot

until and unless the Ruach, the breath of God comes in.

And who is the Ruach again? The Holy Spirit comes

into our life Every dead situation will resurrect. It could

be relationships. It could be marriages. It could be family

units here. You feel that, okay, it's death. But when

we allow the Holy Spirit to enter our lives, when

we invite Him, the Holy Spirit, like, you know, I say,

you know, He is the forgotten one. Sometimes the most

lonely one in the Trinity because we reject Him. But

we invite him and allow him to come in. Resurrection happens.

Revival happens. Okay. So I'm going to move on now

from the earlier part of the Old Testament to point two. Okay.

So point two, I'm going to bring us to Psalm

Psalms 51:11

51 verse 11. Let's look at it. Psalm chapter 51

Psalms 51:11

verse 11. And if you're there, you can say yes.

Psalm 51, 11. Okay, if you're ready, let's read it

together in 1, 2 and 3. Do not cast away

from me your presence and do not take your Holy

Spirit from me. Okay? So what does this mean? All right.

So in the Old Testament, if you can see here,

the Holy Spirit, if I may use the word, is

temporary with a person. What does that mean? Meaning the

Holy Spirit can leave, He can be taken away. And

we can see different accounts in the Old Testament. The

Holy Spirit came upon kings and prophets and judges for

different specific tasks. but he also could be lifted up

from them, okay? And, you know, this here psalm was

written by David. And he was, why do you think

he wrote this verse? I was looking at it a

bit more. He wrote this verse because perhaps, you know,

he could have seen, you know, his predecessor, King Saul, right?

He had seen the Spirit of God, you know, being

taken away from him. So he was afraid. Like the

Holy Spirit will leave him. But, you know, as we

move into the New Testament, it changes, all right? Why

in the New Testament it changes? Because that's when, if

I use it loosely, you know, Jesus arrived. Jesus was

given to mankind and that changes things, all right? Sorry,

let me just track back a little. In the Old

Testament as well, the teachers, the rabbis, you know, referred

to the Holy Spirit as well as the glory of God,

all right? Or the Shekinah glory. I know somebody has Shekinah,

not that. It's the Shekinah glory of the Lord. And

the Shekinah glory of God was only also limited to locations, okay?

And the Shekinah, glory of God, in the Old Testament

was only limited in the Holy of Holies, okay? In

the temple, in the tabernacle of worship. Alright? So, there were... So,

he could be lifted in the Old Testament. It was meaning,

you know, he's temporary with a person. He was given

to a person for specific tasks only. But he's also

limited to a certain location only. But when Jesus came,

when Jesus came, Let's look at John chapter 14, verse

John 14:16–17

16 to 17. John 14, verse 16 to 17. Okay,

John 14:16–17

if you're there, you can say yes. All right. Let's

read it together in 1, 2 and 3. And I

will pray the Father and He will give you another

helper that He may abide with you forever. The Spirit

of truth, whom the All right. So the promise here

now is He will not be just given to us

for the specific task that God wants us to do,

like the Old Testament. But the promise is He will

abide with us forever. All right. Amen. We have the

Holy Spirit now that will abide with us forever. All right.

And just now, you know, when I started by asking,

who is the Holy Spirit to us? And, you know,

a lot of you said He is our helper. Okay,

and you know, the Greek word, okay, New Testament written

in Greek, the word for, it's not just a helper,

all right? If you look at verse 16, it says

another helper, all right? I'm not just giving you a helper,

Jesus said, but I'm giving you another helper when I leave.

So the word another here in Greek is allos, A-L-L-O-S, okay? Okay?

All right. So what aloes is, okay, let me give

an example. If an apple, okay, when I ask for

an aloes apple, okay, The English word is when I

ask for another apple, you will give me another apple. So,

for example, I send Linus to shop. Can you go

help grab an apple? Can you help grab an apple

for everyone here today? So, I would want... Give me

an apple breed. There are a lot of apple breeds. Ah, Fuji.

Fuji apple. And when he went to S.T. Rossiam down

the road, he went to look for Fuji apple. Cannot

find Fuji apple anywhere. Then he will ask, Pastor Yvonne,

can I get another apple? Still similar, still red, still

high in vitamin C, still high in fiber. Can I

get another aloes apple? Another apple of the same kind,

same quality, same nature. It's just not the Fuji that

you want. What's another similar apple breed that is a Fuji?

Everyone look at Sister Shirley already. Okay, easier. Okay, durian. Durian, easier. So,

you cannot find in Musang King, just get the black thorn, alright?

Same quality, same nature, same niceness, okay? Maybe slightly different

taste profile, but same, you know, same as good quality, alright? So,

what Jesus is saying that although I am gone, I'm

sending you an Elos, another helper that is exactly like me.

He has my nature, he has my heart for people,

he has my love, he has my mind and same

authority and same power as well, okay? So he calls

the spirit the helper or a counselor, all right? The

Greek word here now is parakletos which we all know,

all right? But you know the word parakletos is a

from the root word paraclete. Alright, the root word paraclete

is actually used as a military legal term. Never know, right?

I also didn't know but I was researching more then

I found out, okay? So, he is in the military

term like a paraclete is an advocate. He is the

defense attorney. In military term, defense attorney for the soldiers, okay?

Who stood beside a hostile courtroom or beside a veteran soldier,

and standing back to back to back him up no

matter what. Alright? And not just back him up in

a courtroom, back him up in a chaotic battlefield as well.

The Holy Spirit is our Parakletos. So we no longer

have to enter our battlefields. Sometimes on Monday, you go

into the office, like going to a battlefield like that.

Going to your first class in, I don't know, quantitative studies.

You know, it's like going to a battlefield. But know

that the Holy Spirit is your parakletos. He is there

back to back together with you to fight the battle

together with you to stand in behalf as your defence. Alright?

Your best defence military system is the Holy Spirit. Okay? First...

Corinthians 6, verse 19. Let's read that together. If you're there,

you can say yes.

Yes.

Let's read it in 1, 2 and 3. Or do

you not know that your body is the temple of

the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have

from God and you are not of your own? Alright.

So just like we talked about, in Old Testament, He

was also limited into the Holy of Holies. But now,

moving to New Testament, know that The Holy Spirit is

no longer in that building in Jerusalem, in a temple,

but He is in our body. That's what the Word

of God says, right? Because our body is the temple

of the Holy Spirit now. So know that, you know,

the Creator of the whole universe who was there at

the beginning of time hovering even across the earth, even

when the earth was without form, He was already there.

He is now residing in us, all right, in our heart.

being our greatest helper, our counsellor, our parakletos. And, you know,

that itself, you know, understanding itself is really powerful. And,

you know, nothing in the natural can actually encompass or

embody or explain that fully. Even the closest, closest, you know,

knowing the most powerful president on the earth as your

personal best friend. you know, just your housemate, maybe, you know,

living with you 24-7, right? You know that, you know,

you have extra, extra favour, extra protection there because the

most powerful president is just in your house, all right?

But this is, you know, Holy Spirit itself, the Creator

who was there when creation was formed, is with us.

So we carry the presence of the Holy Spirit, presence

of God wherever we go. wherever we go, and know

that we are not alone. Physically, we may be alone,

but we have God with us. In our studies, in

our darkest times, with the skeletons in our closet, in

our secret place, sometimes externally people may not know, but

in a secret place, in a hidden place, God knows

as well what's going on behind closed doors. Because the

Holy Spirit is with us, all right? Third point I'm

going into as well. The Holy Spirit is a person

that needs to be known, not a power that needs

to be used, all right? Why? Because the Holy Spirit

dwells with us, we need to learn how to relate

to Him, all right? He dwells in us means there's

a relationship, right? Okay, that's my English. Malaysian English coming out.

He is with us already, right? So now we have to,

you know, simple human term is to build relationship with him.

And to build a relationship with someone, it has to

start somewhere, right? you know, when Ben started dating Winnie,

he didn't just suddenly like, I want to date you.

But they started as friends first, right? That was their foundation.

They got to know each other to the point that

he proposed and now, you know, they're going to start

a family together soon. But it has to start somewhere, right?

Relationships has to start somewhere. So our relationship with the

person of the Holy Spirit has to start somewhere. Okay?

And relationship, the only thing that we can... For relationship, right?

It has to be with a real person. Okay? I

read a news somewhere that... I think a lady in Japan,

if I'm not wrong, she married... She created an AI

partner and she actually married the AI partner and took

a weird official vow. It does not happen.

If....

Sometimes people liken the Holy Spirit to, you know, electricity, power,

dynamite power, right? We cannot have a relationship with electricity also, right?

It's just going to be so weird. And we cannot just,

you know, switch on and switch off, right? As well,

we want to just use Him, quote-unquote, okay? Many of

us still mistreat the Holy Spirit. And I was like, okay,

since Jesus said he's our helper, when I need help only,

I call upon him. Like dial 999, 991, 991, right?

Police is 911, ambulance, yeah. So that's our emergency number. Like, okay,

when I need help only, like, help me. I need

emergency fund now, no more finances. God, I ask for help.

Because you are my helper, so be my servant, serve me. No,

he's not your genie, right? He's not your, what's his name? Genie, yes, genie,

the blue guy, all right? He's not just there when

crisis hit, then only we activate him. If we only

do that, then it's not called relationship. Right? Imagine if

Winnie only calls upon Ben whenever she gets into a

car accident, needs her tyre repaired when she's in an emergency.

Imagine how Ben will feel. Yeah, super used and taken

for granted for, right? There's no real relationship there. So,

the Holy Spirit in the scripture itself, uh, is likened

to a personhood, okay? He has very distinctive defining characteristics

of a person, all right? What does that mean? Three things.

He has intellect, the Holy Spirit has emotions, and he

has a will as well, all right? So let me

bring us to the first point. The Holy Spirit has

an intellect. 1 Corinthians 2 10-11 Let's turn to that.

1 Corinthians 2, verse 10-11. If you're there, you can

1 Corinthians 2:10–11

say yes. Alright, let's read it together in 1, 2

and 3. But God has revealed them to us through

His Spirit, for the Spirit searches all things, yes, the

deep things of God. Verse 11. For what man knows

the things of a man except the Spirit of the

man which is in him? Even so, no one knows

the things of God except the Spirit of God. So,

the Holy Spirit, first point, has an intellect. He is

not a blind force. He's not just a wind. He's

not just breath. But He possesses the infinite, unsaturable wisdom

of God. He knows the mind of the Father. And

Jesus said that the Spirit's job His role is to

take care of the things of God and reveal them

to us. So when we read the Bible, a lot

of times it's like, I'm reading but I don't know

what I'm reading. Some of us may love reading books

and novels and stuff. We may take the Bible just

as another novel.

No.

As we read the Bible, ask God to reveal to us.

Ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to us what is

God trying to say to us. And when you begin

your Bible reading with that, right, many times when I

begin with that, suddenly when you read, different verses just

leaps out at you, right? And it comes to life.

It not just comes to life, you know, it does

not just highlight itself to you. Suddenly you're like, eh,

while I'm reading, I can actually immediately apply it into

my situation. It becomes real. So that is the Holy

Spirit teaching us To understand the Word of God, the

Holy Spirit is helping us as well to apply it

into our lives. Because sometimes, without Holy Spirit, when you

read the Bible, when I was a new believer, I'm like,

what is this all about? You know, I don't totally

fully understand. So we need Him to help us. Second point,

I said, you know, the Holy Spirit has a will.

Let's turn to 1 Corinthians 12, verse 11. If you're there,

1 Corinthians 12:11

you can say yes and let's read it together. When one,

two and three, but one and the same Spirit works

all things, distributing to each one individually as He wills.

So the Holy Spirit has a will and He is sovereign,

like the executive of the church, okay? He decides where

we serve He decides what God gives to us as

well and where the gospel advances. In Acts 16, it

also says, and we can also see, that the Holy

Spirit actually forbid Paul from preaching in Asia. He stopped

Paul from preaching. So the Holy Spirit is able to

make sovereign choices as well, you know, to help us

even live in our calling and what God has in

store for us, all right? Third point, the Holy Spirit

has emotions. Wow. We never know that the Holy Spirit

can feel, right? Emotions. It's not just limited like human feeling,

but let's turn to Ephesians 4, verse 30. Ephesians 4,

Ephesians 4:30 Ephesians 4:30

verse 30. You're there, you can say yes. Okay, let's

read it together in 1, 2 and 3. And do

not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you

were sealed for the day of redemption. Okay, so he

has emotions. Let's, you know, think about what the word

grief itself, all right. If the Holy Spirit is just

a force, He's just a power. We cannot actually grieve

a force, right? Gravity is a force. We cannot grieve gravity.

If I drop this tissue box, would gravity feel the ouch?

Would gravity suddenly cry like, oh, I feel the impact? Because,

you know, no, it doesn't, right? We can only grieve

something when it's a person. And only a human being,

someone who deeply cares about us, who deeply loves us,

we can... Yes. We can grieve the person. Yeah. The

person can grieve because of our actions towards them. And

a stranger... If the person does not know us personally,

it's impossible to grieve the stranger, right? But when you

matter to the person and you have done something wrong

to the person, the person can feel it.

Alright?

That's who the Holy Spirit is. Let's apply it, you know,

when I talk about, you know, when we do something

wrong against, we grieve the person. You know, when we know,

even as believers as well, When we sin in our life,

the Holy Spirit is grieved, right? When we harbor bitterness,

when we harbor anger, unforgiveness towards a family member or

a friend, or when we live in unrepentance, you know,

or not repenting from our own selfish ways, Or when

we live in engaging in gossips or slander towards each other,

people around us, that, you know, we do not just

hurt another person. The person that we hurt the most

is the Holy Spirit that lives in us. All right?

He is our paraclete, our dearest friend, and He's also

our advocate. And He does that because He cares, right?

Whoever that does not care for you won't advocate for

you unless they want money out of you, right? Like

the lawyers. They have no strings attached, but they don't

really actually fight for you because they entirely care for you.

So to know the Holy Spirit means we need to

learn how to walk in step with Him, having Him

in our lives so that He's just not left lonely

there and honoring Him. in all that we do and

all that we have. Because even behind the closed doors,

the Holy Spirit is there. God is there with us.

Our actions will grieve Him. You know, the gossips that

we sometimes go through, you know, our minds, what we think,

we do grieve the Holy Spirit. So I hope, you know, that,

you know, we will turn from it and turn towards

the Lord today.

We hope you've been blessed by this message. For more

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God bless.