Holy Spirit

Elements is about taking the foundational doctrines of the church, making them personal and understanding how they enhance our relationship with God. What we believe and how we pursue our calling to be Christ followers, will in fact guide our lives as we pray, and attend church, and serve and grow in holiness. Today we finish out, what we would call the Trinity. Which is: God the Father, God the Son And God the Holy Spirit.

It’s really an interesting mystery on the pursuit to understand how to explain the Trinity. God is Eternal, he was and is and will forever be. God is infinite and perpetual. God is unique and alone creator of all things. He alone is not dependent upon the world or anything within. Nothing within the created world serves as a complete model or analogy for him. Nothing in this world adds or takes away from Him.

So, when it comes to trying in our most amazing accomplishments in science, and medicine and any academic pursuit we try to accomplish in life. When it comes to the Trinity, our best answer is this… There is… just nothing… like our God. But that doesn’t stop us from trying to understand the mystery of the Trinity. We use analogies like the Triangle to represent the Trinity. A triangle is one triangle with three sides.

But that is not an adequate analogy. Each side is a part of the triangle. But God does not have parts. The Father is not a part of God, but God himself. Likewise, the Son is not a part of God, but God (John 1:1). Also, we try to use the elements of water. That the trinity is like how water is Wet, solid and gas. But this analogy is also inadequate.

God merely doesn’t appears in three forms. He is God, he is one, but all three. The truth is: God is mysterious and guess what…. that’s ok. Scripture tells us that “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” Isaiah 55:8-9 What we learn is that this mystery of God not being fully known helps us realize that “we are not God ourselves.” We don’t have him all figured out.

We have to trust him…. That’s a huge foundation to what? To our Faith! So let’s talk a little about what we can gather about the Holy Spirit this morning through Scripture. There’s four transformation roles we learn in the Bible about the role of the Holy Spirit. The first is that he is our helper. A helper is one that comforts us, and reminds us, and gifts us. He helps us understand that we are not alone in this walk.

He reminds us that we are who God says we are. I mentioned last week in a world where we are in an identity crisis, Jesus must become our identity. I was photographing this week at the pier in Montoursville and I began to look and listen to the scene and sounds of nature as I read Pslam 65 If we would just stop running around for a moment, we could see and hear creation and how creation is designed to dance and to give praise and honor to GOd.

It is everywhere. Just this morning the sun rose and made everything red for but moment. Reminding me that mercies are new every day. In Pslam 65, the writer tells us that God has clothed the meadows with flocks and the hills gird themselves with joy, and valleys deck themselves with grain. God gave to us, his son Jesus Christ, and he atones for our sins, so that the Holy Spirit can come into our lives and he clothes himself with us.

Think about that… Jesus clothes himself with us. Gideon in Judges 6:34 says, But the Spirit of the Lord Clothed Gidion. Love himself clothes us and we join together with creation in this love filled dance ,singing with full-throated praises! Hallelujah… Jesus says in Luke 19:40 “I tell you,” he replied, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.” How embarrassing it would be if we left this building today, and the rocks gave greater praise than we have this morning.

If you walk out of this service with no adoration and praise in your heart.. the rocks still cry out. The Spirit is our guide. He teaches us, reveals wisdom to us and leads us into all truth. Some might need to hear this.. you don’t have it all figured out. Men… you need to hear this.. you don’t know…. Say it with me.. I don’t know. There… you ladies say…

hallelujah. You missed an amen moment. The holy Spirit is our guide. Paul tells us in Romans 8:14, For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. The Spirit guides us…. He is our cleanser… He convicts us, sanctifies us, and burns up the chaff.. What he does is that he gets rid of the harmful stuff in us. But he doesn’t just make us do it..

it’s got to be released, it’s got to be surrendered. You’ve got to understand something… trouble is out there. And it’s in here (Church)… and it’s in here.. our hearts. Jesus doesn’t tell us follow Him and it will become easy, he say there will be trouble… and we need trouble. Do you have a dream? When God give us a dream. The dream will always be tested. The pressure in your life right now, has a purpose.

It’s not crushing you, It’s pushing what is on the inside of you out of you. Trouble is refining you. Paul says in Romans 5:3-5 3 But that's not all! We gladly suffer, because we know that suffering helps us to endure. 4 And endurance builds character, which gives us a hope 5 that will never disappoint us. All of this happens because God has given us the Holy Spirit, who fills our hearts with his love.

Trouble shows us who we are… are you really committed to him? Are you willing to stand with the power of the Holy Spirit when everything else is falling away? The Trouble in your life will either reflect a deep trust and faith, or it will reflect to us an imitation faith. I say this because that leads me into the fourth truth about the Holy Spirit. While he cleanses us and refine us, and sanctifies us, he also empowers us.

When we say there is no way I can do that. That’s true. God doesn’t give us the Holy Spirit to trip us, but to empower us. Pastor bob has been teaching us in acts, and he reminded us in acts 1:8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” If you are here today and you know that you have been called by God to come and to know his Son Jesus…..

then he also calls you to be empowered. One of the greatest hindrances of the churches in todays age is all we ever do is talk about grace. It’s great, but that not all there is. Grace leads to more and greater things. God wants greater things for you and me… I read this in an article this week.. the writer said: “Every good resolve requires the power of God, because the outcomes he wants are bigger than we can produce.” Has it ever occurred to you that God wants more for you than you do?

He wants to empower us. And perhaps we struggle with faith and seeing where the church is going and being true worshippers of God is because we have no real desire to change and be transformed. One of the main tactics the enemy does is that he gets us believing that we have arrived. One of the greatest bombs that causes Spiritual numbness is the belief that when we get to a certain age, we deserve to be retired.

I’ve praised, and served and did my time… its my turn to be served. Jesus served till his dying breath. Did you ever notice that? The last thing Jesus said, was it is finished. With his dying breath he died on the cross and served for us a sacrifice to the Father to atone for our sins. And then he says, when I go, meaning when he was raised from the dead.

God accepted that sacrifice, I will go and send the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is essential to our walk as Christians. The Spirit Helps, guides, cleanses and empowers us. So what does that mean for us… Well if we can understand those things… then we need to understand that the Holy Spirit comes and he knits himself into our lives and he dwells within us when are born again. God the father has created us in a way that we can understand the role of the Spirit by understanding first that we have been designed for worship.

Paul tells the corinthians: “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; 20 you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.” I corinthians 6:19-20 What does it mean to be the temple? Well as we’ve learned this year. Israel built the temple and it was a place where God resided.

God’s presence was living in what they would call the holy of holies. It was a place where God dwelt, and a place of devoted worship. Now, let’s define Spirit. In greek Pneuma is Spirit. John 3:5 says: Jesus answered, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit.” The second word I want to mention is Pnuematikos.

Pnuematikos means that those are capable of possessing special spiritual revelation or wisdom. Paul refers to Pnuematikos in I corthians 2:13-15 to illustrate how we are built capable of receiving the Spirit. We have the capacity, capability… the necessity to receive God’s spirit. So we take Pneuma The Spirit and Pnuematikos Us as the temple and the result is this.. We are built and designed to receive the Holy Spirit in our lives.

Think about it… you and I have been created to receive the Spirit as the temple of GOd. We become the very dwelling place of God….. worship is not longer let me go and give worship, but now I become worship. Think of the Scripture Psalm 139: “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.” What we recognize is that we are not our own.

We are created and we have been bought at a very intimate price. We being to someone else. The first thing Paul says, in romans is that I am a slave to Christ. He also reminds us in the very first chapter that he is a debtor. We are reminded that we have been created, and we are not our own, we have been bought and we belong to someone else, and so we become slaves and debtors to Christ.

I not sure if this analogy helps. But think of this…. We can go out, and purchase a piece of land. Put a house on it with everything we could ever want. Everything that would make it amazing. But if we do not live in it, it just stays that way, it stays just a house. But when we live in it, and grow our relationship with our spouse in it, and we grow our families in it.

Its then that house becomes a home. A house us just a house until life in it makes it a home. We as the temple is just a building until the Spirit makes residence in us and we become worshippers. I dont know if that makes sense, but what I am trying to say is this… You and I are not meant to be empty houses. We have been designed and created with purpose.

We are knitted together in all of our uniquenesses and abilities, and looks to give glory to God. Remember, we are to have Christ clothes himself in us and we join creation in this dance of love. When we have the Spirit, we have the DNA of the creator inside of us. And because we are born as son and daughters, and we share this spiritual bloodline, We are called to live in harmony with God as our Father, and Jesus as our brother, and the Holy Spirit as our guide.

We have been designed to follow his will. Even right here in this fallen world. I hope you realize that…. You were designed for more and greater things. Designed to love and to live for His glory. To push back the enemy and to storm the gates of hell with nothing but a squirt gun and faith. To bring others into this deep relationship and knowledge. All by having the Spirit within you and being empowered by him.

Ephesians 2:10 says: for we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” You have been helped, guided, cleansed and empowered by God himself. From the inside out! I want to finish todays message with this question… Are you sensitive to the work of the Spirit in you life? There is four thoughts I want to share…. The first one is this…

recognize how God made you. Job 37:5-6 says: “God’s voice thunders in marvelous ways; he does great things beyond our understanding. He says to the snow, ‘Fall on the earth,’ and to the rain shower, ‘Be a mighty downpour.’" He created you and me to be temples. He designed us, so that hey may dwell within us. Secondly, embrace all the functions of the Holy Spirit in your life. The first thing the Spirit does is bring power into your life.

And I’ve said it before, but many christians are living a powerless life because they live a prayerless life. We starve the Spirit in us when we do not learn to pray past our wants and needs and desires. When we learn to pray with full trust on Christ, and we yearn for his plan and not ours. Then we will see mountains move. Yes, faith moves mountains, but listen… prayer moves us, and by faith and in our weakness God then moves the mountains that we thought were unmovable.

Thirdly, practice the presence of the Spirit in you. If you really want a good book, buy the practice the presence of God by brother Lawrence. If you really want to be serious… about growing in your faith. Then come to Sunday school. Come to prayer meeting. Serve in the church. We need Christ filled servants. And lastly, build intentional relationships with people that follow the Spirit. Ya know.. covid brought forth a lot of amazing things.

We have church online now. We can watch unlimited services online… but the fact is… we’ve been designed to be in community. One on one. Face to face. We intentionally offer trunk and treat not just to serve the community, but to give the church the opportunity to connect with the church body and the outside community. We offer the green berry farm for you to come. It’s free! The truth is, relationships can not flourish if we are not present.

And not just present, but be active. Being an introvert doesn’t mean you don’t like being around people. Get that out of your head because that is a bad definition of what an introvert is. An introvert means you do not energize by being around people. Come, mingle, be active, and then go home and recharge. The Spirit within you will always bring you to a place where you will to grow with others.

Some of you have been…. Unaware of the Spirit work…. Or you’re resisting his work…. Today I simply ask, why not pray that the Holy Spirit reins in you today? Why not make that your prayer today… Lord, make me the temple you designed me to be, and help me be a foundational piece of the growth here at Twin Hills. For the glory of your son, Jesus, and for the work you called us into…

may we be, a family. Amen. *