Holy Spirit Series Part 2

The Deity of the Holy Spirit & His work in man’s Regeneration

 

Tonight we are continuing our series on the HS / focus tonight - The Deity of the Holy Spirit & His work in man’s Regeneration

A)The first I want to look at briefly – 2nd I want to consider in some greater detail

 

B)1st the Deity of the HS – Deity means that He is God – Trinitarians

1)   We see that in the Book of Gen. – Let us make man in our image

 

C) Compound unity – speaking of 3 separate beings but there is a oneness

 

In Considering the Deity of the HS: Note first that the HS is called God

A)Acts 5:3,4 3But Peter said, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and keep back part of the price of the land for yourself? 4While it remained, was it not your own? And after it was sold, was it not in your own control? Why have you conceived this thing in your heart? You have not lied to men but to God.”

 

2nd Divine attributes attributed to the HS

A)Heb.9:14 13For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh, 14how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?

 

B) First distinction the HS is ETERNAL

 

PSA 139:7-10 7Where can I go from Your Spirit?

     Or where can I flee from Your presence?

8    If I ascend into heaven, You are there;

     If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there.

9    If I take the wings of the morning,

     And dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,

10  Even there Your hand shall lead me,

     And Your right hand shall hold me.

 

C) The HS is omnipresent – Everywhere at once – no escaping

Luke 1:35 35And the angel answered and said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God.

 

D) HS is Omnipotent – All powerful

 

Jn 14:26 6But 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.

 

JN 16:12,13 – He will guide you into all truth

 

E) The HS is omniscient – He is all knowing

 

So we see that 4 Distinct Divine Attributes are Attributed to the HS

 

DIVINE WORKS

A)Job 33:4 – Creation of man – The Spirit of God has made me,

     And the breath of the Almighty gives me life.

 

B) 2 Peter 1:20,21 – The inspiration of the scriptures 20knowing this first, that no prophecy of Scripture is of any private £interpretation, 21for prophecy never came by the will of man, but £holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit.

 

Now those are just a few verses that – testify of the Deity of the HS – that He is in fact God – Now lets consider his role in man’s regeneration

A)First consider man’s need to be regenerated – John 3

 

B) Jesus meets w/ Nicodemus : Born again spiritual rebirth

1)    Nicodemus was the teacher in Israel – but the reason that he didn’t understand these things he wasn’t spiritually alive

 

C)He was a sharp man who knew about God but He didn’t know God

1)    Knowing of God is a work that only the HS can do in us / To enter into that Kind of relationship we have to enter into a Spiritual Dimension

Think of it in this way Genesis 1 there is a distinction in Creation Plants animals & man

A)Plant life has a body – but not a soul

 

B) Animals – they have a body but also a soul – conscience an intellect

     1) Your dog knows instinctly when he has done wrong -

 

C)Animals have a consciousness – mobility / intellect  in animals – migrate 1,000’s of miles to places they have never been –

 1) Instinct planted with in DNA

 

So animal kingdom completely different from plant kingdom

A)Plants – body – but no soul – animals have a consciousness – a soul – knows right from wrong

 

B) Man is different still - a living spirit

 

C) Man was able to have fellowship with God

  1) Fall – sin –spiritually dead /so  there is the need for man to be born again – not of the flesh – body of the soul – intellect but of the spirit

 

D) Man still has a body and he has an intellect – he has a soul – ability to know right from wrong

 1) But an intellect cannot resurrect a human body –

 

Think of it this way You wouldn’t thin of saying to your tomato plant – like you would say to your dog – here fetch –

A)Here’s some miracle grow – stand up beg

 

B)No a plant has body – but no intellect – your tomato plant is not going to do those things no matter how much miracle grow you give to it

1)   But you would do that to your dog –

 

 

C) Well the same holds true a man who is not spiritually alive although he might posses the greatest intellect in the world –

1) he doesn’t have the capacity in spiritual things – any more than a plant has the capacity to role over and do trick.

 

D) An although the mind is a fascinating thing – the mind – the intellect alone is not able to carry on a relationship with God

 1) There has to be a spiritual birth – there has to be a spiritual exchange

 

Jesus illustrates this in His relationship w/ His Disciples –

     Turn to JN 14

 

A)The SCENE: Upper room on the night before the Crucifixion /

1)    He has just washed their feet- taking the role of the servant / exhorted them to treat each other the same /

 

B) Given them a New Commandment – Love each other as He has loved them ( He shares w/ them that they are all going to forsake him that night)

1)   Peter is going to deny Him – ( Troubling stuff)

 

C)But then He says in ch.14:1 Don’t be  troubled He tells them that He has to go away to His fathers house to prepare a place for them

1)   But He is going to come again to receive them to Himself

 

D) By this time their heads must be spinning – but notice what Jesus says next v.16-20 ( pay attention to the language)

 

Jesus says I am not going to leave you as orphans – but I am going to send the Helper – the spirit of truth

A)The World doesn’t Know him but you do – because He is w/ you –

   Why did they know Him ? Ho

 

B) The HS was Christ – and He was in Christ – since Christ was w/ them, The Spirit was w/ them

 

C) But now He was leaving them – Ch.16:7 7Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you.

 

They lived together for 3 ½ yrs / They had been friends / Which is something that we sometimes fail to realize about Jesus & His Disciples

1)   We can have this sort of Austere Perception of Jesus & His Disciples

      ( Monks ) Especially if you grew up in Church /

 

C) We fail to realize that for 3 ½ yrs they hung out together ( Gospel RD)

 

We don’t picture them like that – but they probably brushed bees out of Jesus’ hair – Long hair bees – watch out Jesus

A)They probably took splinters out of each others fingers & feet / I bet they BURPED ( We don’t think about stuff like that )

 

B) They spilled things – did Jesus ever knock over a cup? Did Peter ever spill something on Jesus – razed for the rest of the day by the  others

 

C) Did they ever have to tell Jesus he had a piece of Spinach stuck in his teeth ( Lord that was a good teaching but …….. in your teeth )

1)    Imagine all the meals they spent together / all the conversations / the Joking

 

D) Imagine the hard time they gave James & John after Jesus called them the  SONS OF THUNDER – And now here they come ………..Thunder !!!!!

1)   They laughed together / they cried together they were comrades

 

They had come to depend upon HIS personal presence W/ THEM

A)Their inner action w/ Him centered around their Physical senses –

John put it this way 1jn 1:1

1That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life ( Touch / saw / Heard )

 

B)They laughed  cried – comrades

 1) They has seen incredible things – walking water/ raising the dead – feeding 5,000

 

C)Issue taxes – go down sea fish – coin – handy guy to have around

 

D)They spent significant time together – they had come to depend upon his physical presence

 

Imagine the disciples reaction to so of the Kooky things that are propagated in the Church today – Healing Explosion - / HS Electricity

A)They wouldn’t care about any of that – what they longed for was His Presence – His communion – His Fellowship – not a side show

 

B) Up to this point all of their interaction w/ them has been according to the 5 senses – what they could See/ Smell/ Taste/ Touch/ & hear

1)   But all of that was about to Change – they were going to need to develop a new Sensory Organ – Spiritual discernment

 

C) Remember what Jesus said to NIC. You are the teacher in Israel & you don’t understand these things – Nicodemus needed to be born again

1) That is where that spiritual discernment comes from

 

 

Turn to 1 Cor.2:9 9But as it is written:

“Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, Nor have entered into the heart of man

     The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.”

10But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. 11For 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. 12Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.

13These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the £Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual.

 14But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.

A)The natural man speaks of the unregenerate man - no matter how brilliant he is– brain is a good thing – thank God for technology –

1) But in regards to spiritual things the natural man doesn’t have the capacity to discern spiritual things –

 

B)they are foolish to him/ spiritually discerned

1) They are not seen with eyes – tasted with tongue – this goes beyond the 5 senses

 

B)Think remember how it was reading the bible before you were saved -  - boring – yawner

1)   Something happened when born again – author is living in your heart –

   perception

 

C) Consider church before you were saved/ Boring – killing time

My house war /    girl I liked

 

D)Guy can study bugs – not know a bug – bugs life

 

Problem in the church today all these  higher critics Unregenerate men who study the book -  but don’t know the author –

A)The bible is not a book!

 

B)God has given us His words – the things dear to his heart – important to Him

 1) As He has given us His holy spirit to help us understand and to help us put in into practice

 

15But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one. 16For “who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct Him?” But we have the mind of Christ.

 

 

 

 

We have the mind of Christ – remarkable statement –

A)what this is saying to us is – we are unlearning – our dependency upon the physical and we are learning as children of God a new faculty called discernment

 

B)Prior to conversion – our entire lives we have learned everything we know through our senses

1) But now – the things of the spirit are communicated to us an entire different way –

 

C)Because his personality actually penetrates our personality and that truth is implanted within us without the uses of our senses

1)   And the Bible says we have been enlightened / Blinders lifted – the light has come on

 

D) Before Christian – went to church had the info – but nothing happened –

With senses – We had experienced a church experience

 1) And it wasn’t until I was born again that all of that it came alive within and it had nothing to do with senses

 

E)It has to do with a spiritual birth

 

So How does this Spiritual birth take place & what role does the HS play in it – 2 verses & we are done

Jn 15 26“But when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me.

 

John 16:7-10 Nevertheless I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away; for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you; but if I depart, I will send Him to you. 8And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: 9of sin, because they do not believe in Me; 10of righteousness, because I go to My Father and you see Me no more; 11of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.

 

A)rev.3:20  Knocking drawing -