We’re in the middle of a sermon series called “Theology
101”, where we’re trying to learn more about God, because after all, that’s all
theology is, trying to learn more about God. So far, we took at general
look at the trinity, then we looked at God the Father, then we looked at God
the Son. So, as you’d expect, today we’re going to look at God the Holy
Spirit.
We said last week that God the Son, Jesus Christ, is the
member of the trinity we feel like we know the best. God the Holy Spirit
is probably the member of the trinity we know the least. God the Holy
Spirit is kind of the forgotten person of the trinity. We know the Holy
Spirit is there, and we believe in the Holy Spirit as part of the trinity, but
we don’t really understand who the Holy Spirit is or what the Holy Spirit does
or how the Holy Spirit does it, so we really don’t talk about the Holy Spirit a
whole lot.
In the back of our hymnal, there are some creeds, some
statements of faith that all Christians pretty much agree on. Two of the
most famous creeds are the Nicene Creed and the Apostles Creed.
If you look at those creeds, you see statements of our
beliefs about God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. They
talk a little bit about God the Father, talking about how God the Father is the
maker of heaven and earth. They talk quite a bit about God the Son, Jesus
Christ, as we might expect because again, he is the member of the trinity we
feel like we know best.
And then you come to God the Holy Spirit. Know what
the Apostles Creed says about the Holy Spirit? It says “I believe in the
Holy Spirit.” That’s it. Nothing about who the Holy Spirit is.
Nothing about what the Holy Spirit does. Just “I believe in the
Holy Spirit.” The Nicene Creed is a little better, but not much. It
says, “We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds
from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son is worshiped and
glorified, who has spoken through the prophets.” That tells us where the
Holy Spirit comes from, that the Holy Spirt is to be worshiped, that the Holy
Spirit spoke through the prophets, but still it does not tell us who the Holy
Spirit is or what the Holy Spirit was.
Except for one thing. The Holy Spirit is called “the
giver of life”. What’s that mean?
I think it means a few things. Maybe you can think of
more, but here are some of the things it means to me.
For one thing, it is through the Holy Spirit that Jesus
Christ came to earth. In both Matthew and in Luke, when Mary finds out
that she is going to have a child, we’re told that the child is from the Holy
Spirit. We don’t know exactly how that worked and I’m not going to guess
at it. But somehow, the Holy Spirit was involved in Mary giving birth to
Jesus Christ.
So that’s one way the Holy
Spirit is the giver of life: the Holy Spirit helped give earthly life to
Jesus Christ. But of course, there’s more to it than that. Luke
says that at Jesus’ baptism, the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form,
like a dove. Luke later tells us that the Holy Spirit was with Jesus and
helped him resist Satan when he spent forty days fasting in the wilderness.
There are other times that were told the Holy Spirit was with Jesus, too.
So not only was the Holy Spirit involved in Jesus’ earthly birth, the
Holy Spirit was involved in all of Jesus’ life.
And the Holy Spirit is involved
in our lives, too. That’s another way the Holy Spirit is the giver of
life. The passage we read in Acts today talked about how the Holy Spirit
came upon the disciples and led them to testify about Jesus. There are
lots of other passages in Acts that talk about the Holy Spirit coming upon
people or into people to help them, to guide them, to encourage them. The
Holy Spirit helped people in all sorts of ways.
And that’s not something that
just happened a lot of years ago. It happens to us, just like it happened
to the disciples. Paul tells us that our bodies are temples for the Holy
Spirit. He says, “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; you were bought at a price. Therefore
honor God with your bodies.”
“Honor God
with your bodies.” That does not just mean honoring God with physical
things. Our minds and our hearts are part of our bodies, too. Every
part of our body is a temple of the Holy Spirit. Our brains, our hearts,
our eyes, our ears, our mouths, our arms, our hands, our legs, our feet, even
our big toe. The Holy Spirit is a part of all of it. The Holy
Spirit is involved in every part of our bodies and every part of our lives.
Remember, last
week we said that Jesus told us that following him is not just supposed to be
our top priority, It’s supposed to be our only priority. The Holy
Spirit, by being in every part of our bodies and every part of our lives, helps
us do that. The Holy Spirit helps us follow Jesus with every part of our
bodies and every part of our lives. We could never do it by ourselves.
We’re not good enough. We’re not strong enough. But when we
let the Holy Spirit guide us and direct us, when we listen to the Holy Spirit
and do what the Holy Spirit tells us what to do, we can. We can follow
Jesus the way we’re supposed to. Not because of how good or how great we
are, but because of how good and how great God the Holy Spirit is. The
Holy Spirit is the giver of life because the Holy Spirit gives meaning and
purpose to our lives and helps us follow God in our lives the way we’re supposed
to.
And of course, there’s another
way in which the Holy Spirit is the giver of life. Remember another thing
we said last week: it’s through Jesus’ life and death that we get eternal
life. We are sinners. God’s sense of justice demands that there be a
punishment for our sins. But because of God’s love and mercy, God does
not punish us for our sins. Instead, God himself took the punishment for
our sins. God, in the form of Jesus, God the Son, took the punishment,
the pain, the death, that we should get. That means we can have
forgiveness and eternal life.
So that’s another way the Holy
Spirit is the giver of life. It may be the most important way of all.
God the Holy Spirit, acting through the earthly life of God the Son and
acting through our lives, gives us eternal life.
And so, just as we said at the
start of this sermon series, we see the members of the trinity working
together, in unity and harmony. God the Father created life through God
the Son and with God the Holy Spirit. God the Father sent God the Son to
earth to take the punishment for our sins. God the Holy Spirit was with
God the Son as he did that. God the Father and God the Son sent God the
Holy Spirit to come into our lives and guide us and direct us and lead us so that
we can follow God the Son the way he told us to. God in three persons,
but acting as one God, in perfect unity and harmony, with the goal of saving us
from the consequences of our sins and giving us eternal life.
The Holy Spirit helped Jesus,
God the Son, do all the things he was sent to earth to do. Some of those
things he had to do and had to face were hard things. I suspect there
were times when he wished he did not have to face them or do them. Those
temptations he felt in the desert were real, and resisting them was not easy.
But he was able to do it because God the Holy Spirit was with him, to
guide him, to help him resist temptation, to face the things he had to face and
do the things he was supposed to do.
Sometimes we have to do hard
things and face hard things, too. Sometimes we wish we did not have to
face them or do them. But we can do it. We can do it because God
the Holy Spirit is with us. God the Holy Spirit will guide us. God
the Holy Spirit will help us face the things we have to face and do the things
we’re supposed to do, too.
Let’s not allow God the Holy
Spirit to be the forgotten person of the trinity. When we do that, we’re
hurting ourselves. God the Holy Spirit was sent to earth as a gift, for
our good. God the Holy Spirit is here to help us. God the Holy
Spirit is the giver of life. The giver of meaning to life on earth, and
the giver of salvation and eternal life in heaven.
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