Grace Church
257 Kendall Street
Burlington, WI 53105

(262) 763-3021

The Spirit Who is not ghost John 16:5-15 We Believe Sermon Series  #13 George Bernard Shaw said that “Both optimists and pessimists contribute to the society. The optimist invents the airplane, the pessimist the parachute.” I did an “unearthly” thing last Thanksgiving. In fact our whole family did it. Thinking back over my lifetime (which is now more than four decades), I have done many adventurous things. I’ve even done a few crazy things; some I think would qualify as mischievous, risky, and on a few occasions, dangerous. To retain a bit of pastoral dignity, I’ll refrain from sharing all of those things that I have done. But this morning I do want to tell you about this unearthly thing that we did last Thanksgiving. (Incidentally, I checked Webster’s for unearthly to make sure it was the word I want. It means "supernatural, not terrestrial, not mundane...weird, fantastic." So unearthly is the right word. Being an earthling, I found it to be wonderful.., downright exciting. You see, we defied gravity. Now because I have done it so many times, it’s not the thrill that it once was. But since it was our boys’ first airline experience, they were eagerly peering out the windows. Now I have to confess we didn’t do it on our own, earthlings can’t do that. We needed help from a power outside of ourselves, and that posed a bit of a problem because that power happens to be invisible. And that’s where things get a little "eerie." How did I know it was invisible? I looked. As a matter of fact, sometimes I’ve stared. I’ll stare at the wings as we roar down the runway with the jets full throttle. And I’ve kept looking to see if I could see the power that would make my unearthly experience happen. Now some of you are thinking, “Come on, Scott, get a grip! Here I was thinking you did something spooky, like really weird, something like an exorcism that only a pastor would do, but you just flew." And you’re right, that’s exactly what I did. But you have to admit, even though it’s now a common thing, it’s still amazing. That invisible force held our plane 30,000 feet above sea level for several hours both going and coming. And not one of us inside the plane ever saw what did it. To borrow a line from Star Wars, “the force was with us.” Invisible, yet present.   While we do not think of it, air is a force with incredible strength. It can snap a tree in two or demolish a landscape. Given enough velocity, air becomes a devastating wind. Energized by a hurricane or tornado, it can clear out an entire mobile home park in seconds. There is phenomenal power in that invisible stuff! If you contain it in a network of hoses and valves and put it under enough pressure, it can bring a massive commercial bus or tractor-trailer rig to a screeching halt. It’ll even stop a train engine pulling over a hundred cars. It will break thick concrete on a driveway or a freeway if it’s pushed through the right tools. It will loosen or tighten the lug nuts on your car’s wheels if funneled into the right mechanism. In fact, it can lift massive amounts of weight. The manager of a granite quarry in North Carolina once said, “We supplied the granite for the municipal building in New York City. We can lift an acre of solid granite ten feet thick to almost any height we desire for the purpose of moving it...We can do it as easily as I can lift a piece of paper.” How? Air. That’s all, just air. You can’t feel it. You can’t see it or smell it (unless you live around Chicago). You can’t, except in most technical ways, measure it or weigh it. But it keeps you alive every minute. If I took air away from you this morning for just five minutes, you would become brain damaged. We cannot live without it. Yet when we fly or apply our brakes or watch a mechanic work on our car, we think nothing of it. Amazing stuff, this thing called air. So what? Well, never think that because something is invisible it is therefore unimportant or weak. You may be surprised to know that the Bible talks a lot about air. The Old Testament calls it ruach, the New Testament refers to it as pneuma. We get our word pneumatic from the New Testament Greek word. The English Bible, however, doesn’t translate either one as air. Usually, its translated breath. "God breathed into man the breath of life." Or it’s called wind, “like a mighty wind." Or it is translated spirit, as in the “spirit of man” or “the Holy Spirit.” In Scripture a number of synonyms are used for the Holy Spirit—words like helper, advocate, comforter, convicter, restrainer, exhorter, and reprover. He is portrayed too by symbols such as a dove, fire, wind, even water. In John 7 we read of this power being called "living water." Turn to John 7:37-38, “On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, ‘If anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink. Whoever believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him’.” And just in case there is any question about what He was referring to, the next verse explains, “By this He meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in Him were later to receive” (John 7:39). Jesus was referring to the Spirit of God, the third member of the Trinity. Let me paraphrase verse 38, “From the believer’s inner life there will be a reservoir of enormous, immeasurable power. It will gush forth. It will pour out like a torrential river that causes rapids, waterfalls, and endless movement to the ocean.” That’s the idea. It’s not a picture of some blasé, passive force. The Spirit of God is the dynamic of the Christian life. Like air, the Spirit may be invisible—but let’s never be misled by equating invisible with impotent. This Spirit is vital to life. We human beings are so impressed with what we can touch and weigh and see that when it comes to something that is invisible, we pass it off. We get so used to that power that we tend to think nothing more of the force than a Monday‑morning flight. Christians all around the world need the reminder that the most powerful force in life is something we can’t even see, so powerful we are secured eternally until Jesus Christ returns, turning our destiny into reality, ushering us into eternity. Now that’s powerful. And until that time, the Holy Spirit is ready to work within us and move among us in revolutionary ways, transforming our lives. Please never think that something is insignificant because it’s invisible. This third paragraph in the Apostles’ Creed states our belief in the third person of the Godhead, the Holy Spirit, just as the previous two have stated our belief in God the Father and in the Son, Jesus Christ. At first glance all the third part of the Creed seems to say is that we believe in the Holy Spirit and five other points of doctrine. But there is so much more here. These five blessings listed are the work of the Holy Spirit. They are His ministry now. The Church without the Spirit would be a body without life. Genesis tells us that after six days of Creation that on the seventh God the Father rested. We know that after Jesus ascended into heaven, after His ministry on earth was done, He sat down at the right hand of God. Scripture never tells us that the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Godhead rests, because His work is not complete. With this third paragraph the Apostles’ Creed echoes the trinitarian character of the Christian faith. But we find ourselves speaking (and I feel very conscious of it just now) as though we are walking around on eggshells, uncertain of where to place our feet next or how hard to step, afraid that with every clumsy step we take in our theological clodhoppers, we’ll crush a thousand distinctions and qualifications that must be made. Perhaps nowhere else do we feel like such theological bulls in the china shop as we do here in the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. It’s an extraordinary paradox, isn’t it, that God as God meets us most immanently and intimately while being most indefinable and inscrutable.    God is closer to us than we are to our own souls but when we attempt to speak of the God who is closer to us than we are to our own souls, God as Holy Spirit, we find ourselves groping about, rummaging through a bag of metaphors, symbols and images, like children rummaging through a toy box, picking up first this toy and then another, finding that none of them is really what we are looking for. The very nature of the Holy Spirit makes it difficult to get a clear picture of who the Holy Spirit is. And the Spirit never points to the Spirit. Always the Spirit points to another, always away from the Spirit. The Spirit is consistently self‑effacing, as someone has said. The Spirit is the self‑emptying act of God. Yet the Spirit is so personally God in God’s self‑emptying that the Spirit is not simply an action but is a divine person. But how do we visualize, comprehend, understand such a person? How does one get a handle on air? Add to that the fact that a tremendous amount of confusion and controversy exists about the Holy Spirit today. You can visit churches today where people experience hysterical laughter said to be inspired by the Holy Spirit, or you can go places where people fall down on the ground, where they even growl like animals...all in the name of the Holy Spirit. A generation ago, A. W. Tozer, wrote that when the average Christian thinks about the Holy Spirit “he is likely to imagine a nebulous substance like a wisp of invisible smoke which is said to be present in churches and to hover over good people when they die.” As we carefully make our way through our study this morning, let’s begin with... 1. Some things that the Holy Spirit is not. Many misunderstandings surround the identity of the Father and the Son, and understanding of the Holy Spirit has also been subject to distortions. These distortions have been acerbated by the use of the impersonal pronoun it (instead of He), which we still find in the King James Version, and in the many older books and liturgies that have been influenced by this. Then, some interpreters, influenced by radical feminist theology, gravitate to the Holy Spirit because they believe him to be the feminine manifestation of God. The New Century Hymnal, compiled and amended by mainline denominations, removes references in the older hymns to God as Father, King, Lord, Son of God, and so forth. In their place are such vague terms as, "All‑Inclusive One," "Great Spirit," or "Source of Being." And in some circles, feminine imagery is acceptable, with "Womb of Life," "Mother," and "Partner," becoming popular replacements for the masculine terms. Similarly, the creeds are changed to read “God’s only Child," instead of, "Son," and, "I believe in God the Father‑Mother almighty." In some revised forms of the Nicene Creed, one now confesses faith in the Holy Spirit, who proceeds from the Father‑Mother, and from the Child." There are clearly some things the Spirit of God is not. Let me point out three or four erroneous ideas that many people have about the Holy Spirit. In fact, when people return to their roots and attempt to explain their beliefs, they are often most confused about the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. Often you will hear Him called an "it,” so let’s start there.   A) The Spirit is not an "It," but a distinct personality. The Holy Spirit is a distinct person. He is a "Him," a "He." He is a “Who,” not a what. He is someone, not something. Listen to how the Lord Jesus referred to the Holy Spirit, John 14:14‑17. Did you catch that? “The world cannot accept Him, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. But you know Him, for He lives with you and will be in you.”  You’ll notice that the Lord Jesus speaks of Him as a "He," suggesting personality. There are many qualities of a person that are attributed to the Holy Spirit. It is possible to have a relationship with the Holy Spirit. For instance, Paul told the Ephesian Christians, "Grieve not the Holy Spirit." You can only grieve a person; you can’t grieve an idea, a force, or an impersonal entity. The Holy Spirit is seen in Scripture as a person. He has personality. Please make a mental note. Virtually all of the cults deny that the Holy Spirit is a person and has personality. They all declare that He is an "it." They all agree in denying that the Holy Spirit is a person. Some of them will boldly say, "Show me in the Scripture where it says that the Holy Spirit is a person.” And, to be candid, the Bible never clearly says that the Holy Spirit is a person. Before the cultists become too ecstatic over that, let me also mention that nowhere does it say in the Bible that the Father is a person. You will look in vain for any statement that says that the Father is a person. And yet, the attributes of personality are everywhere ascribed to the Father, just as they are the Holy Spirit. Nowhere in any reliable version of Scripture is the Spirit of God referred to as "It."   B) The Spirit is not passive, but active and involved. Turn to John 16:7-8, 13-14. The Holy Spirit is not lying around, taking it easy, relaxing, casually kicking back within us. Oftentimes we can sense that He is present. On some occasions His presence is so real, so obvious that it’s almost as though we can touch Him. When He moves among a body of people, He mobilizes and empowers them. They become sensitive, motivated, spiritually alive. They are cleansed. They are purged, enthusiastic, actively excited about the right things. Who hasn’t been in meetings where His presence made the place electric? Never doubt that the Spirit of God is incessantly on the move. As with air, we cannot see Him; nevertheless, He is hard at work convicting, guiding, instructing, disclosing, and glorifying. Just a few of His activities! He’s involved and He’s active.   C) The Holy Spirit is not imaginary, but real and relevant. Let me remind you that just because you cannot see the Holy Spirit, do not assume He is not there or is not real. Just before Jesus ascension back into heaven, He met with a group of His followers. They had questions. He had answers. He also had some crucial news regarding the Spirit Who would soon come to take His place, Acts 1:8. Those are familiar words to most Christians, packed with significance. Note especially that the Spirit is no imaginary, vague hope. That is a promise from our Savior. It is as if He were saying, "You will have His presence, and wherever you go He will be in you. He will empower you. He will be your ‘dynamic’...a real and relevant force in My plan for your future."   D) The Holy Spirit is not a substitute for God, He is God. Jesus’ farewell discourse in John 14-16 makes it very clear the Holy Spirit’s part is not to lead the Church beyond Jesus into some other truth. The Holy Spirit is not to draw attention to Himself but to draw attention to Christ. He is to take the teachings and truths of Christ and clarify them for us and in doing so, bring glory back to Jesus Christ. J. I. Packer tells the story of a lovely cathedral in Vancouver, which is spectacularly floodlit at night. One would be foolish to take a stroll by that cathedral at night and stare into the brilliant lights. And that’s not the intention of those who put them there. Instead, the purpose of the lights is to help us enjoy the view of the cathedral. In the same way, says Packer, the Holy Spirit is not given so He may bring attention to Himself, but in order to expose the glory of Christ amid the dark night of sin and death. We need the Holy Spirit to illuminate Christ, because it is Christ who is the focus of our wonder. Yet the Holy Spirit is God and the third person of the Trinity. While Christians have been known to fight for the deity of Christ, and we certainly should. But what about the deity of the Holy Spirit? Tucked away in the book of Acts is a seldom‑mentioned story about a couple who paid the ultimate price for their hypocrisy. Woven into their brief biography is a statement of the Spirit’s deity, Acts 5:1-4. Please connect those two parts, when they lied "to the Holy Spirit" (v. 3),they "lied... to God" (v. 4). Before going any further into this doctrinal treasure house, let me ask you to imagine what it means to have the presence of the living God within you. Just pause and ponder that. The third member of the Godhead, the invisible, yet all‑powerful representation of deity, is actually living inside your being. His limitless capabilities are resident within you, since He indwells you. You think you can’t handle what life throws at you? You think you can’t stand firm or, when necessary, stand alone in your life? You think you can’t handle the lure of temptation? Well, you certainly could not if you were all alone. You–alone– can’t do that anymore than I can fly alone. But with the right kind of power put into operation, the very power and presence of God, you can handle it. You can do it. As a matter of fact, all the pressure will be shifted and the weight transferred from you to Him. It’s a radically different way to live. And because He is God He can handle it. Now I’m starting to sound a little authoritative about this awesome truth. The fact of the matter is that we know very little about how He does it—only that He is able to do it. It reminds me of the teacher standing before a group of fifth graders. He looked over his class with a wry smile and asked, "Does anybody here understand how electricity works?" And Jimmy, one over‑anxious little boy sitting toward the front of the class, lifted his hand high in the air and said, "Yes, I understand electricity." A bit surprised, his teacher looked at him and said, "All right, Jimmy, would you explain electricity to the class." Jimmy suddenly put his hands over his face and said, "Oh...last night I knew, but this morning I’ve forgotten." The teacher gave this tongue‑in‑cheek response, "Now this is a tragedy. The only person in all of history who ever understood electricity, and this morning he forgot it!" I have to confess that this morning I’m feeling a little like Jimmy. The deeper we get into this subject, the more there is to discover. We must come to grips with what we can understand Scripture to be saying about the Holy Spirit. But then we must leave the rest with Him. Like electricity, we need Him, though we cannot fully explain how He works. But what I don’t understand, I can still enjoy! So don’t let it trouble you if you struggle with trying to define and divide meanings of words and ideas and thoughts about the Holy Spirit. Some of these things are infinite and unfathomable. The Holy Spirit exists in an invisible realm. He is a power and a force you will never see, though you are convinced of the force Himself. You will only see His working—the results of His enabling, His filling, His guiding. But when He, the Spirit of God, is in control, it is nothing short of awesome. 2. Some work that the Holy Spirit accomplishes. It’s a good rule of thumb that whenever God does anything big, the Holy Spirit is clearly in evidence. When God was active in creation, the Spirit of God "was hovering over the waters." He was an energetic force in creation. When God sent his Son into the world in the Incarnation, He was conceived by the Holy Spirit. When the Lord Jesus went into the wilderness to confront, head to head, the evil one, we read that He was led there by the Spirit, and after the great conflict, He came out in the power of the Spirit. When the Lord Jesus went to the cross for our redemption, Hebrews tells us it was through the eternal Spirit that He offered Himself. When God wants to raise him from the dead, Paul reminds us of "the Spirit of Him that raised up Christ from the dead." And so in creation, in the incarnation, in temptation, in crucifixion, in resurrection, the Holy Spirit is indeed the energy of God. Then what happened? We received the Scriptures, the Scriptures that are food for our souls, the Scriptures that are our life itself. It’s no surprise to discover that Peter tells us the Scriptures were written when holy men of old were carried along by the Holy Spirit. When Paul reminds Timothy that all Scripture is God‑breathed, the same idea comes out, Spirit‑breathed, Spirit motivated—and that is why they are inspired for our good. When God does anything big in a person’s life in regeneration, it is because that person has been born of the Spirit. So the rule of thumb applies that whenever God is energetically moving in the affairs of men, His Spirit is the energy of this activity. In creation, incarnation, temptation, crucifixion, resurrection, inspiration, and regeneration, the Spirit is at work. This activity of the Spirit is what the Lord Jesus speaks about in John 16. Notice two particular directions of his activity: first of all, toward the unbeliever; secondly, toward believers.   A) The activity of the Spirit toward unbelievers. You may be surprised to know that the Holy Spirit is involved in the unsaved world. He works among the unsaved at all times. As a matter of fact, in one of Paul’s letters to the Thessalonians, we read that the Holy Spirit is actively involved restraining sin (2 Thes. 2:7). Do you have any idea how much evil would be on this earth if the Spirit of God were suddenly removed? His omnipresence is like a worldwide envelope of righteousness, a bubble of invisible restraint. He holds a great deal of evil in check. But when He is removed, literally all hell will break loose on this globe! Thankfully, He currently restrains sin. John 16 tells us that the Holy Spirit "convicts the world concerning sin, righteousness, and judgment." That’s comforting to me. It frees me from the need to moralize when I’m in a group of unsaved people. I don’t have to try to convince lost people about how unrighteous they are. They already know they’re unrighteous. How? The Spirit is already convincing them! I don’t have to fly a big flag over my home that reads, "We’re pure and holy, you’re dirty and nasty." My ministry is not to convince someone else that they’ re really bad people. That’s the Spirit’s ministry. "He convicts the world of sin, because they do not believe on Me." His convicting work is much more effective than mine ever could be. Merrill Tenney offers a timely word regarding the meaning of convict. “Convict means to refute an adversary completely, to prove guilt so as to bring an acknowledgment of the truth of the charge. It implies a successful action against an opponent that results in establishing his guilt.” The word is a legal term that means to pronounce a judicial verdict by which the guilt of the culprit at the bar of justice is defined and fixed! The Spirit does not merely accuse men of sin; He brings them an inescapable sense of guilt so that they realize their shame and helplessness before God. The Holy Spirit performs an open‑and‑shut case of convincing. Many without Christ struggle with their guilt and unbelief. They try every way in the world to run away from it—through a bottle, through drugs, through travel, through activity, through education, through philosophy of some kind or another, through education, or some other means of escape. It’s the inescapable guilt that haunts them. The Spirit not only convicts the world of sin but also of righteousness. He is like the prosecuting attorney saying, "These are the facts. Here is the evidence. All these things demonstrate guilt." And they are without excuse in light of facts and evidence. There is simply no way the lost can measure up to God’s righteous demands. They may try, but the Spirit of God will convince them of their need. It’s about eighty miles from the beach in Milwaukee directly across to the beach in Michigan. I could probably locate several folk in Milwaukee who can jump off a dock out into Lake Michigan fifteen or so feet. A few could jump twenty feet. We may find some phenomenal track star who can jump twenty‑five feet. But we’ll never find anyone who can jump all the way to Michigan. No one on earth can do that. If you want to get across Lake Michigan, you have to take a boat. The Spirit of God makes it clear that all have sinned and fall short of perfection. Every person who comes into the family of God has been worked on ahead of time by the Spirit. And His irresistible ministry has been, "You are guilty. You are lost. You are a sinner. You are separated from God. You are spiritually depraved. You are distant from God without hope...lacking in righteousness. You must have Christ in order to measure up to the standard of perfection God requires." And judgment? Jesus also taught that the Spirit would convince the world of judgment. “When He comes, He will convict the world...in regard to judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned.” (vss. 8, 11). When human sin is confronted by the righteousness of Christ, inevitable judgment is evident. And the reason it’s so significant is because the ruler of this world (Satan himself) stands judged. That means that Satan was judged at the cross. And every moment that Satan exists since the cross, he stands judged. Each tick of the clock moves him a little closer to his doom. He’s a defeated foe. The prince of the world stands judged. And the point is clear: If that’s true of the prince of the world, it’s certainly true of the lost person. When human sin is confronted by Christ’s righteousness, condemnation is self‑evident. Every day the unsaved person lives is one day closer to judgment. The Spirit continues to convince the lost of inevitable judgment. One of the reasons this is so vital is that we need to take the neurotic stress out of evangelism. Not the zeal or the passion, but the panic. Our responsibility is to communicate the Lord Jesus, to present the righteousness of God, to tell everybody we meet as often as we can that the Lord Jesus died for them, rose from the dead for them, offering hope beyond the grave...that there is forgiveness and cleansing, a relationship with God through faith in His Son, if they will only believe. BUT it’s not our job to convince them that they’re lost. That’s the Spirit’s job! We’re to tell them about the bridge of hope in Jesus Christ, inviting them to "Get on it. Get on that bridge."   B) The activity of the Spirit toward believers. The Holy Spirit works in believers’ lives as well. “But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on His own; He will speak only what He hears, and He will tell you what is yet to come. He will bring glory to Me by taking from what is Mine and making it known to you. All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you” (vss. 13-15). The Holy Spirit not only takes the Scriptures and makes them clear to us, He takes circumstances in which we find ourselves and gives us insight into them. He takes pressure and predicaments, then uses them to mature us. He guides us into all realms of the truth. He matures us. He nurtures us. He comforts us when we are fractured by fear. He tells us there’s hope when we can’t see the end of the tunnel. He gives us reasons to go on, though we get up in years and it looks like death is near. All of that is included in the thought, "He guides us into all the truth." The beautiful part of all this is that He doesn’t speak on His own initiative. He’s not a maverick, just telling us what we would like to hear. He’s taking truth from "the things of Christ," and He discloses them to us. In fact, Jesus promises "He will glorify Me."   Conclusion: D. James Kennedy writes, "I once saw a great machine that filled almost a whole huge room. It was moving mightily with thousands of parts whirling and turning out its product. But all of a sudden it stopped! People began to scurry about, trying to fix it. The problem? Very simple. Someone had disconnected the power source and all of that massive machinery was of no more use than a pile of junk. And so it is with our Christian lives: Unless we have the power of God, then all that we know and all that we have learned will mean nothing. Our lives will be impotent, filled with discord and strife, instead of the joy and peace and love of Christ. These come with the power, and power comes from the Holy Spirit.” The doctrine of the Holy Spirit is a demanding study. Jesus Himself waited until the last possible opportunity before beginning to instruct His disciples. Even then, they were ignorant until the Spirit came upon them and revealed Himself to them. The same is true for us, until we experience the answer to our prayer: Spirit of God, descend upon my heart; Wean it from earth, through all its pulses move; Stoop to my weakness, mighty as Thou art, And make me love Thee as I ought to love.