What Does The Holy Spirit Do - part 1

What Does The Holy Spirit Do?

In John 16:7, Jesus made the audacious statement that It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send Him to you.

How crazy is it to think that there would be a situation that would be better than Jesus walking the earth in the flesh. And that we live in that situation! Last week we focused on who the Holy Spirit is – I can summarize in two phrases: the Holy Spirit is a Person, and the Holy Spirit is God.

Today we are looking at what the Holy Spirit does. A good place to start is the day of Pentecost, a celebration that happened fifty days after Passover.

Acts 2:1-4, 14-21

2 When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. ² Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting.³ They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. ⁴ All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.

¹⁴ Then Peter stood up with the Eleven, raised his voice and addressed the crowd: “Fellow Jews and all of you who live in Jerusalem, let me explain this to you; listen carefully to what I say. ¹⁵ These people are not drunk, as you suppose. It’s only nine in the morning! ¹⁶ No, this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel:

¹⁷ “‘In the last days, God says,
    I will pour out my Spirit on all people.
Your sons and daughters will prophesy,
    your young men will see visions,
    your old men will dream dreams.
¹⁸ Even on my servants, both men and women,
    I will pour out my Spirit in those days,
    and they will prophesy.
¹⁹ I will show wonders in the heavens above
    and signs on the earth below,
    blood and fire and billows of smoke.
²⁰ The sun will be turned to darkness
    and the moon to blood
    before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord.
²¹ And everyone who calls
    on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

The Holy Spirit showed up in a real way that day, and nothing has ever been the same. The problem is that we’re unsure of how things aren’t going to be the same. I’ve heard all sorts of things attributed to the Holy Spirit that really don’t have anything to do with Him. For example, there are some pastors or church leaders who never plan their worship gatherings or write their sermons, expecting the Holy Spirit to “show up” and do all of that for them. Hey, there are times when that works. Like the time when my small group had a dinner, and nobody planned what to bring, and it completely worked out with salad, appetizer, entrée, dessert. But without order and planning, the meal usually ends up being a whole bunch of beans, a bag of chips, and a cake. I knew a pastor who said he was relying on the Spirit to give him Sunday’s messages… but in his case, that was just his excuse for laziness. On the other hand, there are churches where order and decorum are the hallmarks of their worship services – if someone raises their hand in worship, people will talk. But in some churches, they say that the Holy Spirit inspires them to raise their hands in worship, to dance to the music, or to share testimonies or prophecies during worship. There are entire denominations who believe that speaking in tongues is the sign of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and go as far as to say if you don’t speak in tongues, you don’t have the Holy Spirit.

The problem is that when we think in these terms, we often unconsciously limit the Holy Spirit to only working during our worship services and only in very limited (and honestly not very biblical) ways.

So, what does the Holy Spirit do? Well, part of that goes to who the Holy Spirit is. Know that because the Holy Spirit is God, the Spirit will never go against God’s will. I once had someone tell me that they felt like the Holy Spirit was telling them to do something that was contrary to biblical teaching, but since it just had to be the Spirit, and well, who am I to go against him? God does not contradict God.

But if you learn who the Holy Spirit is, you will learn about some of the things He does. John 14:26 says that He will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. In fact, Jesus goes so far as to say that the Spirit will not speak on his own; he will only speak what he hears. (John 16:13)

So the Holy Spirit will speak, but this isn’t the case where you can go to one or another Person of the Trinity and get a different answer. God is God is God. This is why John can write Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. (1 John 4:1).

To fully understand the ministry of the Holy Spirit, we have to realize where we are without Him. We cannot even approach God in our natural sinful state; we don’t recognize God at all. But the Holy Spirit goes before us, in what John Wesley called “Prevenient Grace,” calling us, wooing us. Romans 5:5-6 reminds us that it is by the Holy Spirit that God has poured his love into our hearts; while we were powerless – meaning we couldn’t do anything to save ourselves or even to approach God ourselves – Christ died for the ungodly.

The Holy Spirit approaches us with Truth, convicting us of our sin. When He [the Holy Spirit] comes, he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment: (John 16:8) Our culture doesn’t like to admit that there is a such thing as sin anymore, that everyone gets to choose what is right and wrong. I think I know the difference: right is when I do it, wrong is when someone does it to me.

When we continually ignore the Holy Spirit, our hearts become dulled and calloused to His voice, and, in turn, we don’t recognize sin as sin. Romans 1 has the whole continuum, which culminates in the sad commentary: Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed, and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent new ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them. (Romans 1:28-32)

If we continue to ignore the Holy Spirit, God says, “You want to ignore me? Fine, then do what you want. But you’re going to be apart from me.” If you want to see how this plays out, turn on your TV. Almost every so-called reality TV show glorifies sinfulness, and our culture not only approves of these things but begs for more.

Why is this? Because those who live by the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. (Romans 8:5)

In a word, the sinful nature is selfish and self-absorbed. I know this first-hand. On my own, I only think of myself. It’s only by surrender to the Holy Spirit that I am willing to follow what God desires instead of what I want.

According to Romans 8:8, Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God. There are no two ways about it. You can’t have both. You are one or the other. You are controlled by the Holy Spirit or you are controlled by the sinful nature, and if you are controlled by the sinful nature, you cannot please God. On the other hand, as we see King David imploring God in Psalm 143:10 Teach me to do your will, for you are my God; may your good Spirit lead me on level ground.

If you want to know God’s will, ask. But David asked for more than a knowledge of God’s will, David asked for the empowerment to do God’s will, for the Spirit to lead him on level ground. In this room, I see a bunch of people who don’t need to know more of God’s will – I see people who need to do God’s will. And you’ll need the Holy Spirit for that.

You see, it is only through the Holy Spirit that we even have the freedom to do God’s will. Romans 8 is a good place to park for a while, and in fact, your homework this week is to read and re-read Romans 8. In Romans 7, Paul writes about his struggle with sin. I’ve told you before that when I was a little kid, I didn’t understand that adults struggled with sin; I thought it was supposed to be easy once you accepted Jesus. But Paul puts those thoughts to rest in Romans 7, detailing his personal struggle with sin, culminating in 7:24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?

That’s the context of Romans 8, where we read first that There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. (Romans 8:1-2) One of the roles of the Holy Spirit is setting us free from our lives of sin. There are sins we just cannot overcome on our own. Working harder sometimes doesn’t work, because it’s not just a matter of behavior, it’s a matter of transformation. When Jesus tells Nicodemus that “No one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again,”(John 3:3) Nicodemus is right to be upset and confused, because no matter how much plastic surgery you put yourself through, and we can probably all think of some Hollywood actor or actress who has tried, nobody can take a day off their age, let alone be born over again. We have overused the phrase “born again” to the point where it lacks its shock value, but think about it for a moment…

Jesus told Nicodemus that Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. (John 3:6). Did you get that the only way to see the Kingdom of God is to be born again, and the only way to be born again is by the Holy Spirit? The good news is that this birth sets us free from slavery to sin. As 2 Corinthians 3:17b tells us, Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

Let me make a distinction: in his death on the cross, Jesus took upon Himself our sins, and they were buried with Him. He took our place and bore the penalty for our sins. So in that sense, Jesus bought our freedom. We are no longer declared guilty. But in our flesh, even having been set apart by God, we wage war. But the Holy Spirit gives us the freedom that we do not have to continue in sin!

In fact, when we struggle most, the Holy Spirit helps us pray (Romans 8:26-27) the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our heart knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will. What an amazing picture, that when we are at our weakest, we are really at our strongest. When we relinquish control to the Holy Spirit, when we realize that we don’t even know what to pray for, then the Spirit intercedes.

I think this is a good place to stop this week – it should be a lot to think about. Remember your assignment, to read Romans 8. If you came this morning and you are feeling overwhelmed by your own self-centeredness and sinfulness, it might just be the Holy Spirit speaking to you. If that is you, it’s time to allow Him to give you freedom. If you have not accepted Jesus, today is the day to accept him. The Holy Spirit is the one calling to you today – just as He called to so many on the day of Pentecost, where three thousand were saved from their sin and punishment in hell, just as He saved many more each day in the early church.

If you have accepted Jesus, yet you still can’t shake the compulsion to sin – you aren’t growing in Christ’s likeness, it is time to let the Spirit set you free. It is time to allow the Holy Spirit to renew your mind, to admit your weakness and to let him intercede for you.