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Week Five

Session 5

HOLY SPIRIT

The lesson begins at 38:03. Streamed live on Wednesday May 6, 2020.

Big idea

The Holy Spirit's presence matters.
The Weekly Challenge: Invest in being led and empowered by the Spirit.
"I believe in the Holy Spirit"
Grasping Truth
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"I believe in the Holy Spirit"

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He is the third Person of the Trinity.
The Holy Spirit is not a force or an 'it'; He is a Person, with emotions (Isaiah 63:10), a will (1 Corinthians 12:11), speech (Acts 13:2), and actions (John 15:26). He is just as much God as Jesus is God and the Father is God (Acts 5:3-4. He is eternal (Hebrews 9:14), omnipotent (Luke 1:35), omnipresent (Psalm 139:7-13), and holy (John 14:26).

He was a part of your conversion.
The Holy Spirit convicts people of the evil of sin, the standard of righteousness, and the judgment coming for sinners (John 16:7-8). He is at work in any person who recognizes their need for a savior. He baptizes converts into Christ (1 Corinthians 12:13, Galatians 3:27, Ephesians 4:5). He regenerates spiritually dead people to make them new living breathing creatures with new hearts (2 Corinthians 5:17, Titus 3:4-6). He indwells and seals every Christian until the day of salvation (Romans 8:9, Ephesians 1:13).

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He abides with you now.
Because every Christian is indwelt by the Holy Spirit from the moment of salvation, we can say that if you're a Christian the Holy Spirit is always with you. As He abides with every Christian, He teaches spiritually understood things (1 Corinthians 2:10-11, John 16:13-15, Ephesians 1:17-20), He testifies about the truth of Christ and our adoption (John 15:26, Romans 8:16), He gifts us for the church's common good (1 Corinthians 12:7-11), and He leads us (Galatians 5:16-18) by convicting us of right and wrong, giving us the strength and motivation to walk in Him, and showing us the truth as our Counselor and Comforter.

He changes you from the inside out.
The end result of having the Spirit indwelling you, filling you, and leading you is putting sin to death (Romans 8:13) and bearing His fruit (Galatians 5:22). It is a life that is changed in our beliefs by the Spirit, in our affections by the Spirit, and in our actions by the Spirit. Instead of our old way of pleasing the flesh by doing what we wanted, we walk in the Spirit as He leads us and exhibit His nature instead of the flesh.

If We Let Go
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We will miss out on God's presence.
The Spirit offers boldness instead of fear (2 Timothy 1:7), peace in the middle of chaos (Galatians 5:22-25), and comfort in the middle of pain (John 14:26). If you're ignoring the Spirit's presence you're ignoring God's presence and your greatest Comforter's presence.

We will miss out on the power to live differently.
Without the Holy Spirit, we have to try to do it all on our own, which we cannot do. So, we will continue to wage war fruitlessly against sin, continuing to sin, pleasing the flesh, and doing what we feel like instead of what God wants. We will be locked in a maddening cycle of wanting to be different but never being able to be.
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We will miss out on our Counselor.
Without the Spirit, we have to try to figure it out all on our own, which we cannot do. We won't turn to Him for conviction, truth, direction, or wisdom, which means we will be directionless, anchorless, and tied to human opinions. The Bible will become lifeless and tiresome, spiritual things won't make sense, and we will be left wandering through life doing our best but not getting it.
Holding Fast
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1. Sow to the Spirit.
Sowing means spreading out seed in the hopes of a harvest. In this instance, to sow means to apply time, energy, thought, and resources to invest in something - and that something is your relationship with the Holy Spirit. Ephesians 5:18 tells us to be filled with the Holy Spirit, which means to be led and empowered by the Spirit. We should seek to be filled with the Holy Spirit by prayer, singing, reading, meditating, listening, and obeying.
 
2. Pray to understand.
More than simply having a Bible, and more than even reading the Bible, holding fast to belief in the Holy Spirit results in asking the Holy Spirit to guide you to the truth in Scripture. We must recognize that our ability to understand the spiritual truth the Bible is communicating is based on the Spirit's work in us, and thus we must turn to and ask the Spirit for help.
 
3. Humble yourself to obey.
Do you try to pick yourself up by your bootstraps when you sin and just try harder next time? Then you might not be trusting in the Holy Spirit as much as you claim. Instead of trying to psych ourselves back up, we should lower ourselves to go to the Holy Spirit for help to obey God.
 
The Weekly Challenge

I believe...

The Holy Spirit's presence matters.

Therefore, I...

Will invest in being led and empowered by the Spirit.
Additional Resources

Additional resources - to help you grasp and hold on to more

Check out all the resources for Authentic Christianity in a World of Counterfeits at the Resources page!
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