What does the person and work of the Holy Spirit look like in the life of the believer, in the family, and the church? In this podcast, we discuss the filling of the Holy Spirit in church and family life.

� Welcome to the Church and Family Life podcast. Church and Family Life exists to proclaim the sufficiency of scripture and we're here today to speak about the sufficiency of scripture particularly in the person and work of the Holy Spirit in the life of the believer and we want to just bring various passages of scripture to help us understand the beauty, the goodness of the power of the Holy Spirit, what it is and really how much we need and want to submit to the person of the Holy Spirit. We want to talk about the practical work of the Holy Spirit. So Jason, boy, there's a lot of places we could go. Too much for 25 minutes.

Too much. Yeah, that's right. So where do we start? So I think that actually is the operative question where do we start and let me start commenting on that by saying where we don't start It's really sort of a fatal blow to a right understanding, a biblical understanding of the Holy Spirit, to start in Acts chapter 2 on the day of Pentecost as if the Holy Spirit was born on the day of Pentecost. He wasn't born at all.

He's a co-equal member of the Trinity from eternity past through eternity future. When you look at Genesis chapter 1, the Spirit of God is hovering over the waters. When you look at sort of this first chapter of the Bible, when you look at the last chapter of the Bible, Revelation 22, the Spirit and the Bride say, Come, inviting people to come and drink of the living waters. So there is a Genesis 1 through Revelation 22 testimony of the person and work of the Holy Spirit. So really, what we should be doing is building a Genesis to Revelation framework to understand this person of the Trinity, and then we can rightly understand the day of Pentecost in Acts chapter 2 and 1 Corinthians 12, the gifts of the Spirit within that framework.

To do otherwise is really deadly. Amen. Yeah, so you've just sort of given us a biblical, theological understanding, a way of thinking about the Holy Spirit, not from one text particularly, but from the testimony of the word of God, which is the only way to study such a thing. Right, there's a rich testimony of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament, but maybe just in terms of what we'll read during this time we could start in John chapter 7, John chapter 7 verses 37 through 39. This is Jesus, On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.

He who believes in me, as the scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. But this he spoke concerning the Spirit whom those believing in him would receive for the Holy Spirit was not yet given because Jesus was not yet glorified. So I think we would come from this text and say it's impossible to overestimate the role of the spirit in the life of the believer because Jesus says this is this is rivers of living water welling up in the in the heart of the believer and it's the spirit of truth that Holy Spirit is the spirit of truth. So, you know, what's flowing out? Well, it's lots of things.

It's the spirit of love. It's the spirit of truth. And we could, you know, go through a number of different categories. Spirit of Christ. Spirit of Christ.

So when you're filled with the Holy Spirit, you're filled with truth. Hey, isn't it wonderful when you're with a brother whose mind is filled with the word of God and when you're talking about something, that's what comes out. Those are some of the most helpful conversations I ever have it's always such a blessing it always makes me think boy I wish my heart was so full of the truth is this guy you know but you know to say I want to be filled with the Holy Spirit also means that you fill your mind with the truth. You can't be filled with the Spirit without the truth. So it's not just a feeling that you have, it's actually a category of scripture called the truth.

It's not just emotional, It's actually didactic. And when believers experience that, they're actually experiencing a fulfillment of what Jesus promised in John 16, when he says that the Spirit will lead us into all truth and bring to remembrance the things that Jesus said. So it might feel very quote unquote natural to you when that happens, oh, like this popped into my mind, a remembrance of something that Jesus said but it's actually a fulfillment of a promise that Jesus made that the spirit would help us to remember the things that Jesus said. Isn't that amazing, you know, when you're like when you're preaching, when you're preaching things come to mind that were not in your notes and they were the things of truth they were phrases from scripture that pop into your mind that's the spirit of God so here's another text that I think is important as we consider the Holy Spirit and it's from Peter's second letter so 2nd Peter chapter 1 verse 20 Peter writes this knowing this first that no prophecy of scripture is of any private interpretation, for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit." So what's Peter saying here?

He's saying the Holy Spirit is the author of scripture. Sometimes scripture or the Bible is pitted against the Holy Spirit as if that could ever be appropriate or possible. The Holy Spirit loves scripture. The Holy Spirit is the author of scripture. The Holy Spirit comes and throws light on scripture and makes it actually a living book sharper than any two-edged sword.

Why is the Bible different than every other book? Well, authorship, the Holy Spirit authored it and the Holy Spirit comes indwelling the believer as an indwelling tutor or teacher that throws light on scripture and helps us to understand what he's authored. Yeah, so when somebody comes and says, I have a word from the spirit for you, It ought to be consistent with the word of God or it's not from the spirit of God. They probably should just quote scripture after making that claim. Yeah.

So, John 7.37, which you quoted really grabbed me in the early years of my Christian life. I couldn't believe it when I read it. It was so beautiful. I thought this is what it means to be a Christian to have rivers of living water flowing out of you. I was so stunned by that.

And you can see that in people's lives. Things begin to flow out of their lives that you never saw before. It's the work of the Spirit. Probably the richest, deepest, widest teaching on the Holy Spirit in the Bible is in three consecutive chapters in the Gospel of John. John 14, John 15, John 16, Jesus keeps coming back to the topic of the person and work of the Holy Spirit.

And this was actually him teaching his disciples at the Last Supper. So this is the night before Jesus died. He's pressing on them the truths about the Holy Spirit. Let me just read a little from this first chapter of those three consecutive chapters. John 14 beginning in verse 16, Jesus says, and I will pray or I will ask the Father and he will give you another helper that he may abide with you forever.

The Spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees him nor knows him, but you know him for he dwells with you and will be in you. So the � is set forth as a person who will be with the believer and actually further than that, more than that, richer than that, will be in the believer, a permanent, indwelling presence of the believer, and he's called the Spirit of Truth here. So he's a teacher of truth in the life of the believer. I think we would just affirm that he takes the Word of God, the Bible, and makes it real, makes it understood in the believer. And that's one of the ways in which he leads us.

And he's called another helper here. Sometimes that's translated comforter, sometimes it's � because it has a breadth of meaning which sort of collects up all those things. You know, this text I preached when I was 26 years old in my seminary chapel. Okay. Another helper.

I will not leave you as orphans. So I've been thinking about this one for a long, long time. And it's interesting in the context of this message, you know, Jesus has just announced that he's leaving. He's leaving them. I mean, you think about the most important, this is the one who is calming the seas.

This is the person who's turning water into wine. And he's telling his disciples, I'm leaving. Imagine if your wife comes to you and I'm leaving. I mean, this was jarring. This was a very, very difficult moment.

And so that's why he starts out with comfort. � and he will give you another helper. So why another helper? Well, because Jesus has been their helper for the preceding three years. He's been their teacher of truth and he's been leading them.

But just like you said, he's getting ready to leave. He's a day away from the crucifixion and then he'll be resurrected, then it'll be within 40 days then he'll ascend and he'll no longer be with them but they are still going to have a teacher of truth and still going to have a leader, and it's going to be this indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit. And he uses a word for another helper that's significant. It's telling. There are two primary Greek words for another.

One is another of a different kind and another is of the same kind. And he uses the term another of the same kind. In other words, I'm sending you another helper like me, another helper of the same kind, the same kind of person that I am. Later in that same chapter, John 14, I think a minute ago I said it was John 16, but it's here in John 14. Let me just read verses 25 and 26.

� 25 and 26 Jesus says, these things I have spoken to you while being present with you but the helper the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you. So again this indwelling teacher and one who actually brings to remembrance. So that makes me think a couple of things. One is it makes me very happy that I'm not at the mercy of human understanding. Human understanding ebbs and flows.

It comes and goes. It's stronger, it's weaker. I don't want to be at the mercy of it. I want to have one who can teach me all things that's much more dependable than human understanding very same thing with human memory I don't want to be at the mercy of human memory what a comfort it is to have an indwelling person in in my life who I can depend upon to bring to remembrance the things that Jesus said. Yeah, for your comfort, to turn around your emotions, and for your truth, to turn around your thinking.

You know, and he's, this is a person, one of the, you know, most commonly misunderstood matters of the ministry and the work of the Holy Spirit is that the Holy Spirit is not a force. The Holy Spirit is a person. The Holy Spirit is a divine, uncreated person, the third person of the Trinity. And it really matters if you think the Holy Spirit is a force, you'll misunderstand what's happening. But if you regard the Holy Spirit as a person who speaks, who brings truth, then it's a completely different proposition.

Paul in Ephesians, I think, settles the matter forever when he says do not grieve the spirit a force of presence and it isn't grieved So really the personality of the Spirit, the personhood of the Spirit comes through in that. I think God the Father, I know a lot of fathers, that personalizes it. God the Son, I am a son, I know sons, I have a son and so that personalizes it. We think of a Holy Spirit, we don't have as ready a frame of reference for that and so it leads to this misunderstanding. � is as personal as God the Father, is as personal as God the Son.

And we can know Him, have fellowship with Him, we can grieve Him, we can quench Him. You know, if you think of the Spirit as a thing instead of a person, like you're saying, what person we can grieve when we can quench, then you think of the Holy Spirit kind of like an electrical outlet. You go plug into the power, you know, that you're going to tap into some kind of power source. But that's really, really wrong thinking because you're dealing with a person who speaks words, of course as you mentioned earlier, are in the Word of God. And, but, you know, people think that to be filled with the Holy Spirit is to be, to tap into a source, some kind of source of power.

And that's why people, you know, think of, some people think of the power of the Holy Spirit in terms of speaking on what people call tongues, what the Bible calls tongues, or, you know, being slain in the �n Spirit. Well, that's actually, the Bible doesn't talk about the Holy Spirit that way. I mean, we can talk about tongues, what we think that is, but that, I don't want to get too distracted about that. I think there are languages, there are human languages that God used to communicate the gospel. It wasn't gibberish.

They were understood and people were saved and it wasn't a force. It wasn't a feeling. It was truth that was being communicated through the speaking of tongues. While we're talking about spiritual gifts and particularly these supernatural manifestations, I think it ought to be said that the charismatic view doesn't actually magnify the influence of the spirit in the lives of the believer. I think it actually significantly diminishes it because it takes the priority off of these rivers of living water that sustain and propel the Christian forward, teaching truth, bringing to remembrance the things that Jesus said, giving us this impulse that says Abba, Father, within us, sealing us.

These things are all more important in the life of the believer than any supernatural act that might be done that's sort of external to the believer. And it takes the emphasis off of these bread and butter things that the Christian needs to live and make progress in the world and puts it on something that can devolve into circus tricks. You know, and this is interesting in the context of what you read. I'll just read verse 15, the first verse in the sequence. If you love me, keep my commandments, then he says, and I will pray the Father, and he will give you another helper that he may abide with you forever.

So it's in the context of keeping the commandments. You know, if you love me, keep my commandments and I will pray to the Father. So, it's the commandments of God. Every commandment of God is a commandment of love. Every law of God is a law of love.

We could talk about that extensively, but when a person's filled with the Spirit, they're filled with love. It's the Spirit of love. But that comes from the desire to keep the commandments of God. �n us from grieving the spirit. When you look at that word, it really has to do with offending or making sorrowful.

We can do through disobedience to God we offend this indwelling presence. So I'd like to take us to another spot if I could. It's sort of a shift. Galatians chapter 4. Galatians chapter 4 verses 4 through 6, Paul writes this, but when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons." Then he says this in chapter four, verse six, and because you are sons, God had sent forth the spirit of his son into your hearts crying out, Abba, father.

The... This is often known as the internal witness of the spirit. Well, what is that? It's this impulse that the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit gives to the believer that says, God is my father, Abba, father. And if you trace those two words, it's kind of double father.

Aaba is the very familiar, tender term for father in the Greek language, and then repeating, you know, aba, father, this tender personal word. You trace that back, the first occurrence of it in the New Testament is Mark, the Gospel of Mark in Gethsemane. It's how Jesus is addressing his father in heaven. So God puts this indwelling person within the believer that gives us the same impulse. God is my father, my very personal, my tender, loving father, the same impulse that Jesus is expressing in the Garden of Gethsemane.

It's really remarkable. Ephesians chapter 1, Paul says that we're sealed by the Holy Spirit, who is a guarantee of our inheritance. So there's something in me as a believer that has this impulse that knows that I know, that I know, that I know that God is my father. He's tender towards me, that he loves me, that he has sealed me, meaning he's marked me as his own. I am his own and my inheritance is guaranteed.

You really are bringing out kind of the tenderness the tender-hearted feeling of the believer toward God to want God. You know it's very interesting in the family life codes in the New Testament in Ephesians 5 and 6. The family life codes, of course, begin in Ephesians 5, 18, which begins with, do not be drunk with wine, but be filled with the Holy Spirit. And then he goes on to itemize what that looks like in the life of the believer. And of course, he begins, first of all, in the relationships with the Church, you submit to one another, then he moves on to wives, submitting to their husbands, husbands loving their wives.

And then he goes on to children, honoring and obeying their parents and fathers not exasperating their children and then on into the working world in chapter 6. But the family life codes are all hinging upon the work of the Holy Spirit. It's not enough to say, you know, I'm supposed to lead my family. This is a man who's filled with the Holy Spirit. It's not enough for a wife to respect her husband.

It comes from her heart. It comes from the Spirit of God working in her heart. The family life codes assume the filling of the Holy Spirit. There are things that you do in family life, but there's a way that you do them. And it's by the Spirit.

It's the Spirit of love, the Spirit of truth. You know, family life is really meant to be love central, you know, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. All of these are fruits of the Spirit. So the family life codes hinge upon that thing. It's not just doing the right thing.

It's not just saying the right thing, but in the right way by the power of the Spirit. And I think that's an incredibly important point. That the spirit indwells a believer, abides in a believer in an ongoing way. You could draw the wrong conclusion from that, that there's no difference in measure. But what's being told by the command of Paul in Ephesians chapter 5 to be filled with the spirit is there is a difference in measure.

So he here's a text which has really rebuked me many times, and it's Luke 11, verses 9-13. It's very familiar ground let me read it Luke 11 9 through 13 Jesus says so I say to you ask and it will be given to you seek and you will find knock and it will be open to you for everyone who asks receives and he who finds seeks finds into him who knocks it will be opened. If the son asks for bread from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish? Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion?

If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him? So a couple of comments on that. One, it has to be to children of God. This is about a father and his children, and this is brought figuratively into the spiritual realm. Our God, our Father, and his spiritual children.

So believers are actually told to ask God their Father for the Holy Spirit because he stands willing to give you more abundance of the presence, the work of the Holy Spirit in your life. That doesn't mean that believers aren't always indwelt by the Holy Spirit, but that means that they can have more. We should seek more. God stands willing and ready to give more of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Amen.

Well, so we about run out of time here to talk about this. Is there any last thing you want to say? And then we'll just wrap this up, but what a wonderful thing God has done. Yeah, my only parting shot would be, because of charismatic excesses and really the reproach, I think, that it brings on Christianity in many ways, there is a counter-reaction that makes us sort of afraid of the leading of the Holy Spirit. Well, the leading of the Holy Spirit is thoroughly biblical.

The whispering of the Holy Spirit, practically audible or very discernible things into my ear on a minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day thing is not known anywhere in the Bible. So people should stop baptizing their inclinations. They should stop blaming all their bad ideas on God. It actually shuts down a good counsel from your Christian friends when you say, God told me. Because how are they supposed to do it?

Now they're supposed to contradict the voice of God. Well, it probably wasn't the voice of God. � is speaking to us for sure when we're reading our Bibles. Everything else ought to have a different level of kind of critical evaluation against what we read in the scriptures. But that isn't to say that the scripture doesn't incline us towards things.

He really does. He really does take an active leading role in the life of the believer. And just because we're not charismatic should make us afraid to say that or to affirm that or be glad about that. I mean, I think we should love the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives and not be afraid to feel too deeply and things like that just because there are charismatic excesses. Yeah.

Amen. Well, what a wonderful thing to consider. And hey, thanks for joining us on the Church and Family Life podcast. And what a blessing it is to have a God who supplies all that we need. And so much of it through the person and the work of the Holy Spirit.

So in all of our doings, let's seek the Lord and cry out for the filling of the Holy Spirit. Thanks for joining us on the Church and Family Life podcast. We'll see you next time.