Worship in the Power of the Spirit

    Since we’ve been out for a couple of weeks, it’s worth doing a little review. In January, I started a sermon series on the Doctrine of Worship that will take us all the way through the end of July. My goal is to look at every aspect of worship, beginning with who it is that we worship. We started out by understanding that the one true God is different than all other false gods because he is the God who covenants with his people. He is slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. This, in turn, means that our God is a personal God, and he reveals himself in three persons, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – or as the Christian Church has called it for centuries, the Trinity. As I’ve already explained, the Trinity is a great mystery of the faith, and the best way we have to understand it is by understanding the roles of each person of the Trinity. We’ve already seen that God reveals himself as the purposeful creator and loving father when we looked at the person of God the Father. We’ve also seen that God reveals himself in the person of Jesus Christ, who is the Word, Image, and Son of God. 

Now, today we come to the third person of the Trinity - the Holy Spirit. Unfortunately, the Holy Spirit typically gets a bad rap for one of two reasons. Christians either make the mistake of overemphasizing the importance and work of the Spirit, or we underemphasize it. Some charismatic denominations almost exclusively focus on the Holy Spirit, and they place a great deal of importance on the power of the Spirit. Others (and we Baptists tend to be guilty of this) – perhaps in reaction to the more charismatic denominations – don’t talk about the Holy Spirit at all. So, I want to spend as much time as I can today looking at the nature and work of the Holy Spirit. I want you to understand that the Holy Spirit is the personal, powerful, presence of God with His creation. To see that, we are going to start where we have for the last few weeks, in Ephesians 3:14-21, but we are also going to span the whole of the Bible as we seek to understand God better. Let’s start by reading the passage together and praying for the work of the Spirit in our lives this morning.

As we’ve revisited Ephesians 3 each week, I’ve gone back to verses 16-17 repeatedly to highlight the unity between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We find in those two verses that God the Father grants to believers the power of the Holy Spirit. The result of that power is the presence of Christ in our hearts. In this powerful statement, we find two truths that I want to mention briefly. First, the New Testament teaches that the Holy Spirit “proceeds” from both the Father and the Son. If you just go to your favorite Bible app on your phone or go to BibleGateway.com and search for the phrase, “Spirit of”, you’ll find that half the time, the Spirit is called the “Spirit of God”, but other times he is called the “Spirit of Christ”. So, one of the works that the Holy Spirit does is to make the presence of God the Father and the Son known to his people.

Second, Paul says in verse 16 that the primary work of the Holy Spirit is to give us “power”. The Greek word used here is “dynamis”, from which we get our word, “dynamite”. Now, this is important to understand, especially for us Baptists, because we tend to sanitize the work of the Holy Spirit. When we read Paul praying that God’s people would be “strengthened with power through the Spirit”, he’s not praying that God would give us a little encouragement for our daily struggles. He’s not praying that God would make us psychologically stable or help us to feel better about our relationships. He’s praying that we would EXPLODE with the power of God in our lives! He is praying that the Holy Spirit would give us such boldness in our witness, such fervor in our work, such fearlessness in our public righteousness that people would be stunned by the inexplicable power with which we live! But, sadly, that’s not the way we live. Instead of living as though we have the very real presence of God in our lives, ready to grant us supernatural wisdom for any situation we may face if only we would pray, we pursue worldly wisdom from some TV guru and when it doesn’t work out we blame it on God. Instead of boldly telling our friends and neighbors about Jesus Christ and watching as God works the miracle of salvation, we fret over how our words will be taken and whether it’s the right time or not. To some degree, I think these behaviors stem, in part, from a lack of understanding about who the Holy Spirit is. So, in the time we have left, let’s consider three characteristics of the Holy Spirit.

First, the Holy Spirit is a person. To see that, flip over to John 16:1-15. There is much we could say about this passage, but I want you to notice three personal attributes of the Holy Spirit that Jesus brings out here. First, notice that the Holy Spirit is spoken of in personal terms. In verses 7, 8, 13, and 14, Jesus uses the personal pronouns “he” and “him” to refer to the Holy Spirit. It is a pet peeve of mine that Christians will often make the subtle mistake of calling the Holy Spirit “it”. But, in Scripture, the Holy Spirit is always a “he”, not an “it”. This matters because the Holy Spirit is not a impersonal force. He is a full, personal member of the Trinity.

Second, notice in verse 7 that Jesus gives the Holy Spirit the title of “Helper”. The Greek word actually means far more than “helper”. It’s actually a legal title similar to our concept of a defense attorney. For the believer, the Holy Spirit is an advocate who comes along side of us and defends us.

But, Jesus also does an interesting play on this idea, which brings me to my third personal attribute. Notice in verse 8 that Jesus says that the Holy Spirit will convict the world of righteousness and judgment. See the play on words? To the believer, the Holy Spirit is an advocate who defends his own, but to the unbeliever, he is a prosecutor who convicts of sin and judgment.

This brings me to the second characteristic of the Spirit. The Spirit is powerful. To see this, I just want you to take a stroll with me through the Bible. Think back with me all the way to the beginning. The first time that we see the word, “Spirit”, in our Bibles is in Genesis 1:2, and there we find that, as God is creating the world, the Spirit is hovering over the face of the deep. The Hebrew word that we often translate as “Spirit” is “ruah”. It literally means “wind” or “breath”. So, when we read that the Spirit of God was hovering, it literally says, the “Breath of God” was hovering. Here is why that matters. Later on, in Genesis 7:22, it records that terrible judgment of God in the flood, and as the flood waters are rushing over the earth, we read that “everything in whose nostrils was the breath of life died.” That word for “breath” there is the same word used for “Spirit” in Genesis 1:2. So, one way that the Holy Spirit is powerful is in the fact that He is the life-giving power of God. When God created the world, life came to be by the power of His Spirit. When God formed the shape of a man out of the dust of the earth, that clay became a living being only when God breathed his Spirit into man.

Now, we see something even more beautiful in the New Testament. Remember, the NT is written in Greek, and the Greek word for “Spirit” is “pneuma”, which also means “breath” or “wind”. It’s the root word for our “pneumonia”. There is a masterful way that Jesus plays on this word in John 3:1-8. We don’t have time to go there and read it, but you should go read it this afternoon. Just to remind you of what is going on there, remember that Nikodemus comes to Jesus at night because he wants to ask how someone can enter the kingdom of God, and before he can ask his question, Jesus tells him that in order to see the kingdom of God, you must be born again. Now, Nikodemus, the good Pharisee, asks how he might do that. He’s even willing to consider entering his mother’s womb a second time. But Jesus tells him, in verse 6, “unless you are born of water and the Spirit, you cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, you must be born again.” Understand what Jesus is saying here, because this is another way that we Baptists tend to diminish the work of the Spirit. Jesus is saying that the only way that you can be saved is if the Holy Spirit causes a second birth in your life. Just like Adam was a lump of clay until God knelt down and breathed His Spirit into him, so too you were a dead man walking until God changed your heart through the power of His Spirit. The conversion of any man or woman from rank sinner to believing saint is a miracle that is wrought by the power of God’s Spirit alone.

So, the final characteristic of the Holy Spirit that I want you to see is that the Spirit is the real presence of God. There are numerous passages in the NT that make this point, but for the sake of time, let’s look at Acts 1:8. Here, Jesus promises his disciples that the power of the Holy Spirit will come upon them, and when he does, they will be his witnesses throughout all the world. This passage is just one example of how God is with us in the presence of His Spirit. The Spirit enables us to understand His Word. The Spirit gives us Godly wisdom. The Spirit convicts us when we sin. The Spirit gives us the words to pray when we don’t know how. The Spirit empowers us to tell others about Jesus. And the Spirit reminds us that we belong to God.

Friend, the Holy Spirit may this very hour be calling you to salvation. It may be that you have heard every argument, you know all the facts about Jesus, you’ve heard all the stories, and now you feel the conviction of the Spirit calling you to profess faith in Christ. Won’t you come and trust in Jesus today? 

Brothers and sisters, whether we know it or not, we have the powerful presence of the Holy Spirit at work in us, even this very moment. I’ve been asked many times by believers why they don’t feel the power of the Spirit. Let me suggest one reason: perhaps you don’t experience the power of the Spirit because you don’t trust him to act. Like in the parable of the Talents, you have received the gift of the Spirit, but you’ve horded it, thinking that there is no way you can put this power to use. Instead of sharing the Gospel, you shrink back and allow any little excuse to prevent you from seeing God at work through you. Instead of stopping in any moment of need to pray that God would give you wisdom or strength, you choose to bull through and do it by your own might. Experiencing the real power and presence of the Spirit is not some magical trick or some second blessing. It’s as simple as being obedient to the difficult things to which God has called you. If you are in Christ, you have his Spirit. Now live like it!