Spirit-Filled Jesus
A.W. Tozer rightly noted that, "the Spirit-filled life is not a special, deluxe edition of Christianity. It is part and parcel of the total plan of God for His people." And yet, the person and work of the Holy Spirit are oft some of the most misunderstood and egregiously taught beliefs/practices of the Church. For this four week mini-series, we’re going to dive into the topic of the Holy Spirit with special attention given to his role in the formation of the Christian and the Church.
This first week we spent a significant amount of time going through a crash-course on the Holy Spirit. We cleared up the oft misunderstood nature of the personhood of this member of the Trinity by saying that, “the Holy Spirit is a person — He has the attributes of personhood, performs the actions of persons, and has personal relationships.“ We also jotted down a few notes about what Scripture says about him:
He has insight (1 Corinthians 2:10-11).
He knows things, which requires an intellect (Romans 8:27).
He has a will (1 Corinthians 12:11).
He convicts of sin (John 16:8).
He performs miracles (Acts 8:39).
He guides (John 16:13).
He intercedes between persons (Romans 8:26).
He is to be obeyed (Acts 10:19-20).
He can be lied to (Acts 5:3), resisted (Acts 7:51), grieved (Ephesians 4:30), blasphemed (Matthew 12:31), even insulted (Hebrews 10:29).
He relates to the apostles (Acts 15:28) and to each member of the Trinity (John 16:14; Matthew 28:19; 2 Corinthians 13:14).
After that, we talked through a few areas of confusion about the work of the Spirit — from emotionalism and fabricated hype to flat-out rejection of his presence. We concluded by looking at the humanity of Jesus. It was in his perfect humanity, not his divinity, that he had such a miraculous and powerful partnership with the Holy Spirit. This is good news for us because we are being formed into the image and likeness of Jesus. As we grow into him — into what it really means to be human — we will grow in our relationship and partnership with the Holy Spirit as well.
Check out the sermon below.
Resources:
The Bible Project — Holy Spirit
The Bible Project — God
God Inside Out by Simon Ponsonby
More by Simon Ponsonby
Forgotten God by Francis Chan