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The Holy Spirit: Invisible, Personal, Powerful - John 14-16

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Today in our series Rediscovering Our Foundations, we consider the Holy Spirit. Most of us have heard of Him, but who is He exactly? What does He do? How important is the Holy Spirit to your personal life, your family life, your work or your leisure time? Perhaps A.W. Tozer was right when he said, "For multitudes of Christians profess today the Holy Spirit is not a necessity. They have learned to cheer their hearts and warm their hands at other fires." It is my sincere prayer that will change for us in the few weeks ahead.

Date Title   ListenNotes Share SaveBuy
1/12/2003
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The Holy Spirit: Invisible, Personal, Powerful
John 14-16
Skip Heitzig
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Message Summary
Today in our series Rediscovering Our Foundations, we consider the Holy Spirit. Most of us have heard of Him, but who is He exactly? What does He do? How important is the Holy Spirit to your personal life, your family life, your work or your leisure time? Perhaps A.W. Tozer was right when he said, "For multitudes of Christians profess today the Holy Spirit is not a necessity. They have learned to cheer their hearts and warm their hands at other fires." It is my sincere prayer that will change for us in the few weeks ahead.
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Rediscovering Our Foundations

Rediscovering Our Foundations

We live in an age where truth has become a relative term. But the Bible leaves no room for doubt when it comes to the absolute nature of truth. Unfortunately, our culture is vastly biblically illiterate. In this series, Pastor Skip Heitzig gets back to the roots of our faith, looking at what the Bible has to say about God, Christ, the Trinity, mankind, the church, heaven, and hell. Learn to stand on a firm foundation in the midst of an unstable culture.

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  1. Power of Person?
    A. Problems
    B. Pronouns
    C. Personality
  2. Dignity or Deity?
    A. Qualifications by Character
    B. Validation by Christ
    C. Designation by Christians

Transcript

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Would you turn in your Bibles to John chapter 14 this evening? We're going to consider some passages of scripture together. We're continuing a series called "Rediscovering Your Foundations" and we're on a very very important subject, the Holy Spirit. Oh by the way, we are joined at this time by radio stations around America. Would you say Hi to our audience on CSN? (applause, cheering)

It was a typical Sunday in a community church, a typical Sunday School class was studying the apostle's creed. And the idea was to have each child say one part that they had committed to memory and then the next child would pick up on the next line and so on and so forth. Well the Sunday came for the class to do that and the teacher said, "Okay, class go for it." And one little boy stood up and began, "I believe in one God, almighty the maker of heaven and earth." And he sat down and a little girl stood up and said, "I believe in Jesus Christ His only begotten Son, our Lord." And she sat down, there was a long silence and the kids looked at each other uncomfortably and finally one little girl stood up and said, "I'm sorry sir but the boy who believes in the Holy Ghost is absent today." And I wonder if that couldn't be said of a lot of people. Those who believe in the Holy Spirit are absent today. In fact, there are many believers in the Lord Jesus Christ who could be described much like the disciples in Ephesus when Paul visited them in Acts 19 and asked them, "Have you received the Holy Spirit since you believed?" Their response was, "We haven't so much as heard whether there is a Holy Spirit." I think there's lots of believers like that, though they have recited a creed, they have theoretically believed, "Yeah right, I'm a Christian, trinity, Holy Spirit." For all practical purposes he's not real. A. W. Tozer said, "The idea of the Holy Spirit to the average church member is so vague as to be non-existent." Some are even afraid of the Holy Spirit and you can just see it in their body language whenever it is mentioned. When you mention, "We're going to study the Holy Spirit, we're going to wait on the Holy Spirit. We're going to see what the Holy Spirit wants." You can see that, "Uh-oh, we're in one of 'those' places, huh?" "Uh-oh, I'm not going to be open to that stuff because I don't want to start jabbering away. I've heard what happens." Yet the Bible mentions the Holy Spirit from cover to cover. It's everywhere. You can't get away from the subject of the Holy Spirit of God. The Old Testament for example mentions the Holy Spirit ninety times under eighteen different designations. The New Testament 260 times under 39 different names. So, you can't escape the Holy Spirit, he's there from Genesis to Revelation. From Genesis 1:2 "The spirit of God hovered over the waters" to Genesis 22 [Revelation 22?], "The spirit and the bride come." He is everywhere, which poses a problem. Where do you begin when you study the Holy Spirit? Now on the other hand, on the other side of the chasm of the spectrum, aren't those who go, "Uh-oh;" they go, "Oh, yeah." In fact you can see it whenever you mention the Holy Spirit in their body language. They're licking their chops, they're rubbing their hand, they're going, "Finally! We're going to speak about the Holy Ghost!" And I would call this group Holy Spirit Heavy. Their theological background and bent has made a huge deal, a magnanimous emphasis on the person of the Holy Spirit. And sometimes it's transferred into their attitude. You know, they alone have the anointing. They alone are Spirit-filled. They alone preach the full gospel. And this groups is phenomenally oriented, that is if a phenomenal event doesn't happen in a meeting, they feel cheated. Or they feel like, "The Holy Spirit wasn't here." They want lots of noise, lots of buzz, lots of pep. If that doesn't happen they feel like, "The Holy Spirit is not a part of this fellowship." Sort of like a steam engine that used to run the trains years ago, they let all the steam go out the whistle rather than driving the train.

The next few weeks we want to look at the person and the work of the Holy Spirit. Who is he exactly? What does he exactly do and how should we respond to him exactly? Now there's a lot of places we could start a study like this. I thought about starting in Genesis 1, "The Holy Spirit hovered over the waters of Creation." But I thought if I do that it won't take two or three or four weeks, that'll take forty fifty weeks. Or you could start at Matthew 1:18, that's the first mention of the Holy Spirit in the New Testament, "Mary was found with child by the Holy Spirit." But I think and safest place to camp tonight is in John 14 because we're going to hear about the Holy Spirit from the lips of our savior. It's the second person of t he Trinity introducing the third to his disciples. So we're going to look at chapter 14 and we're going to begin at verse 15 but what we're doing tonight is answering two questions basically. Who is he? Is he a person or just a power? Is he deity or is he just a dignitary, some powerful entity? And those are important questions. Is he a real person who saves and helps and strengthens and sanctifies and encourages believers. Is he a real person who leads unbelievers to Jesus Christ? Or is he just a force or a power? And you might be thinking, "Well does it really matter?" It does indeed. And the short answer to, "Does it matter?" would be this: If you see the Holy Spirit as merely a force or a power, then you're going to be saying, "I want more of the Holy Spirit." If you see him however as a person, especially a divine person, you're going to be saying, "I want the Holy Spirit to have more of me." And you know what the difference is? Results, that's the difference. Now theoretically we believe that the Holy Spirit is the third member of the holy trinity, he's a person, he's God. That's theoretical. But do we actually think of him that way? Do we even think of him at all?

Now in answering the question, "Is he a person or a force?" Let's just look at these verses together. Jesus says in verse 15, "If you love me keep my commandments and I will pray the Father and he will give you another helper that he may abide with you forever. The Spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him for he dwells with you and will be in you. I will not leave you orphans, I will come to you."

Look down to verse 25, "These things I have spoken to you while being present with you but 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 have said to you. Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you, not as the world gives doe I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled neither let it be afraid." That's what Jesus said and we're going to notice a few things about that. But as we discuss this there are some problems and I just want to bring them to your attention. Problem number one is a historical problem. There have been splinter groups throughout the history of the church that have denied frankly, the personality of the Holy Spirit. All the way back it seems from the very beginning. You know it took four centuries, four hundred years, for the church to articulate what it believed about the Holy Spirit. You know why? Because it wasn't an issue, that's why. It was never an issue. They were preaching the gospel, mentioning the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit and it was nevery an issue. But as you know whenever you turn on a bright light, the bugs come in. And the light of the gospel shone and all sorts of theological bugs started coming in the church denying that the Holy Spirit was part of the Trinity, denying that he was a person.

In 318 AD, one of the Arias of Alexandria, Egypt stated, "Jesus Christ is the essence of God. He was created by God and endowed by the Holy Spirit which was a force merely." During the time of the Reformation there were the Socinians. In the 17th and 18th century there were the deists. All who said the Holy Spirit was either an influence, an impersonal force or an attribute of God. And by the way the church always counteracted that. As far back as 381 AD the Nicean Council, the Nicean creed articulated the very heart, we call it the Apostel's Creed in which it says, "WE believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the lifegiver who proceeds from the Father and the Son. He is worshipped and glorified. So there have been those groups who have denied the Holy Spirit as a person. Arias, Socinians, Deists. And around 200 AD there was a different kind of idea. This was Sybellianism and Sybelliats taught that there was one God who manifested himself in three different forms or modes. They were indistinct one from another, sometimes he was called the Father, sometimes he was called Jesus, sometimes he was called the Holy Spirit. One being called three different things, three different modes or forms of one being.

Now that's old and it's still going on today. People are fuzzy about, well God, right? I was on a chairlift the other day in Wolf Creek, Colorado. I was snowboarding and I had a couple people with me. And so there was a girl next to us from Texas, so I kind of figured "She's got to be a Christian." There was a lot of church groups from Texas. So I asked, "Are you from Texas?" "Yeah." "Are you with a church group?" "No." And started sharing with her the gospel. And she said, "Well let me tell you what I believe. I believe that there is a God but he's not a person, he's an it, that he's some sort of essence or force or cosmic entity. It's out there." So I said, "You mean God's a blob?" She stopped and she goes, "Well no, sort of. I haven't thought through this very well," she said. Even Christians are fuzzy about God, especially the Holy Spirit. Listen to John Lloyd Ogilvie, the chaplain for the United States Senate, "Sadly many Christians settle for two-thirds of God. God the Father is way up there somewhere, aloof and apart from their daily lives. Christ is out there somewhere between them and the Father. The Holy Spirit is some kind of vague force or impersonal power they hear about but they don't know intimately." Let me just ask you, what is your relationship to the Holy Spirit like? It is a personal relationship with a personal being?

So that is the problem historically. There is also a problem biblically and this is what I mean. You've noticed as you've read the Bible that sometimes the Bible describes the Holy Spirit as if he were an it, in impersonal terms. For instance, the word Spirit in the Old Testament is ruach which means literally winds. Ruach codesh, holy breath or holy wind. In the New Teatment, the word for Spirit is pneuma which is literally one's breath. It's a neuter noun. It's a neuter noun so some have thought, "Well then the Holy Spirit really isn't aperson." I mean air is powerful, we know what wind can do in a tornado or a hurricane or if you channel in a pneumatic tool, how powerful air can be. But then that's what the Holy Spirit is, some powerful breath or manifestation of God. We also see theHoly Spirit came in the form of a dove, he came like a mighty rushing wind at Pentecost. He is described as appearing in a flame of fire at Pentecost, he is seen oil in the New Testament. Now, why all these impersonal descriptions if he's a person? Because the Bible is describing not his personality as much as his activity in those things. Let me give you an example. Jesus Says, "I am the bread of life." Does that mean he's literally a loaf of bread? Jesus called himself, "the door of salvation." Should you then picture Jesus as a wooden door on hinges? Jesus is called the good shepherd, does he literally then have a staff in his hand, out there with sheep, a real good one though. God the Father is called a refuge or our rock. He is called a consuming fire. Are you to picture God as a blast furnace of a pile of rocks? No, these are terms, we call them anthropomorphic terms or God described in human language so that we humans get it. WE can understand it, it describes, it's a word picture, it's a metaphor that helps us understand this magnificent being that we glibly call God. For instance, Jesus did this, in John chapter 7 on the last day of the feast he stood up and said, "Whoever believes in me as the scripture has said out of his innermost being will flow rivers of living water. And John said, "But this he spoke of t he Holy Spirit who had not yet been given." What a description, isn't it? This invisible but personal and powerful force and satisfaction contained in you. Now is that true of you? Again, just check yourself for a moment. Are you so filled with the Spirit, it's like a rushing refreshing satisfying spring of water. If people bump into you would they fet splashed with the Spirit? One leader once said that Christianity in America is thre thousand miles wide and a half-an-inch thick.

So that's the problem with this historically there's a problem biblically, but there's also a problem personally. You see the minute you imagine that the Holy Spirit is a force, an impersonal power, a buzz, a hum (like they have up in Taos) rather than a person, you're going to face a problem. And this in my opinion is part of the fault of the charismatic movement who many have been taught to pray, "Fill me with thy power. Fill me with your Spirit. I need more of the Holy Spirit." As if to imply God would put that power at my disposal. Can you imagine how detrimental it would be if you at whim could just speak things into existence by the power?

R.A. Torey wrote a great book on the Holy Spirit in which he said, "The concept of the Holy Spirit as a divine influence or power that we are somehow to get a hold of and use leads ot self exaltation and self sufficiency. One who thinks of the Holy Spirit and who at the same time imagines that he has received the Holy Spirit will almost inevitabley be full of spiritual pride and strut about as if he belonged to some superior order of Christians. I'd like to give you a biblical example, a good contrast, you can just put this in your notes or tuck it in your mind and look later on: A story in Acts chapter 8 versus a story in Acts chapter 13. In Acts chapter 8, the disciples are preaching the gospel in Samaria, there's a guy named Simon who it says believed to some degree. But he saw Peter and John working miracles by the power of the Holy Spirit and he offered them money. And said, "Hey, let me write you a check or let me give you cash, or do you take credit cards? Anything, but give me this power so that whoever I lay my hands on they can receive this Holy Spirit too. Compare that to Acts chapter 13 where it says, "The Holy Spirit said, 'Separate unto me Paul and Barnabas for the ministry whereunto I have called them." See in the first example you have a guy trying to get a hold of and use God. In the second instance, you have God trying to get a hold of use men. Huge difference. What's the difference? Again, results. God will never be used. But God will if you allow him, use you.

So, those are the problems sith it. Look at the pronouns. We read through it but look back at chapter 14 verse 26, "But the helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, He (mark that) will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all things that I have said to you." Look at chapter 15, verse 7, "If you abide in me and my words abide in you, you will ask what you desire and it shall be done for you. By this my Father is glorified that you bear much fruit. So you will be my disciples." That's not what I wanted. Look at verse 26, excuse me (It comes with age you know, they're calling them senior moments) "When the helper comes, verse 26, chapter 15, "whom I send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, he will testify of me. And you will also bear witness because you have been with me from the geginning." Look down at verse 12, "I still have many things to say to you but you cannot bear them now. However, when He (personal pronoun) the Spirit of truth is come, He will guide you into all truth for He will not speak on his own authority but whatever he hears, he speaks and he will tell you of things to come. He will glorify me for he will take what is mine and declare it to you." All told in this section of 14, 15 and 16 there's thirteen personal pronouns Jesus uses when he refers to the Holy Spirit. Now last time I checked, personal pronounds are used for people, not forces, right? Imagine how weird it would sound if I say, "Boy the wind is blowing today and the wind he is strong." "Boy I need air in my tires. And the air he helps my car." There is not one single reliable version of the holy scriptures where the Holy Spirit is referred to as an it. Every reliable scholarly work is the same thing: He, him, whom, personal pronounds.

Also, there's an issue of personality. Did you catch the names Jesus gives to the Holy Spirit? The helper or the comforter, some translations say. The counselor, does that sound like a power to you? Chapter 14, verse 16, "He will teach." Chapter 15, verse 16, "He will testify or speak." Chapter 16, verse 8, "He will convict (or convince some translations say). Verse 13 of chapter 16, "He will guide, he will speak, he will tell. And verse 15, "He will take and declare." I looked up the word just for kicks in Noah's dictionary, Noah Webster. I looked up the word person. And Noah Webster said or Webster's dictionary said, "We apply the word to living beings only, possessed with a rational nature." In other words, to be a person, you need intelligence or a mind, you need feelings or emotion and you need a will. And all those three aspects of personality, the Holy Spirit exhibits. He exhibits intelligence, chapter 15 verse 26, "The Holy Spirit will teach you." Don't you have to know something before you can teach something? Then that would be intelligence.

Then he has will. In I Corinthians 12 Paul says of spiritual gifts, "The Holy Spirit gives spiritual gifts individually as he wills." Or how about this one, remember in Acts 16 Paul is trying to travel. And it says he tried to go to Asia but the Holy Spirit what? "Forbade him" or did not allow him. The Holy Spirit forbade him from going. So he went to Mychia, tried to go to Bithynia but again the Holy Spirit didn't permit him. So the Holy Spirit has a will because you can't forbid or permit anything unless you have a will.

So he has a mind, he has a will, and he has emotion. Think about that, we rarely do. The Holy Spirit of God has emotion. Ephesians 4, "Don't grieve the Holy Spirit of God." Can you grieve an it? No, you can only grieve a him or a her, a person. Wouldn't it sound weird if I said, "Boy, I grieved my plant today. I mean I really angered my plant. He is so vexed. It is so grieved. You know, I was telling it it should change, turn over a new leaf (laughter0 didn't like that. It's grieved. Romans talks about the love of the Spirit, only a person can love. A plant can't love you, electricity can't love you, a force can't love you. So, since the Holy Spirit is a person, listen carefully, any personal relationship at all that we have with God must include the Holy Spirit. You don't have personal relationships with electricity or plants.

So that's the first question: power or person? Answer: Person. Second question: Dignitary or deity? Is the Holy Spirit just some important being like an angelic being or is the Holy Spirit God? Now nothing will heighten your respect for the Holy Spirit than to realize he is God Almighty. Look at chapter ;16 for just a moment, back to verse 12, "I have still many things to say to you but you cannot bear them now. However when he the Spirit of truth will come, he will guide you into all trtuh." For the Holy Spirit to be able to guide you into all the truth, he has to be aware of all the truth. To be aware of all the truth means that he is omniscient, he knows everything. He knows everything. That's a description of God. Then if you look and you don't have to, you can write it down, Psalm 139. Psalm 139, he's omnipresent. David said, "Where can I flee from your Spirit? Where can I go from your presence?" And he says, "I can go anywhere, you're there." So the Holy Spirit is omniscsient, he's omnipresent. We know that he was there at creation, Genesis 1:2 "hovering over the waters." Job in Job 33 said, "The Spirit of God has made me." So, the qualifications of his character show that he is God.

Second, the validation by Christ himself. Go back to chapter 14, verse 16, it's a word you can't escape, you can't miss this. "And I will pray the Father and he will give you a (helper? No, notice) another helper that he may abide with you forever." It's a key word, another. In the Greek language there are two words for the English word another. Unfortunately we have one, they have two. One word is alos, the other word is heteros. Alos means another of exactly the same sort, heteros means another that's completely different. Example, let's say I have a CD and you really like it. You go, "Boy I really like it." "Well that's neat." "No, I REALLY like it." "Okay, you can have it because I'll go get another." I would use the word alos, I'll go out and buy one just like it to replace it. But let's say you took it home and it was all beat up and scratched and skipped. And you say, "Hey, thanks for the CD but it's really lousy." I'd say, "Well, don't worry, I'll go get another." Will I get another just like it? No, I'll get one that's not scratched. Or, you might say, "I don't like this music." "Don't worry about it, I'll get you a" heteros, a different group, one unlike the first. The word that Jesus used for another counselor is the word alos, one exactly like I have been to you. Jesus was the helper, the comforter, the counselor, the friend. He was the miracle worker, he was God in human flesh. But he was going, he was leaving. And he said, "Ah, I'm going to send you a comforter, one just like me. One who is divine, one who can help, one who can do and be all that I have done and been to you." An alos, another comforter, another divine being.

Now the early church understood that. Peter was there listening. And we have not only the qualification by character, we have not only the validation by Christ, we have the designation by Christians of the early church. I want you to turn to Acts 5 and we'll bring this to a close. Acts chapter 5. You say, "I already know this stuff." Tough, look at it again, somebody else needs to and you can share it with them maybe. "But a certain man named Ananias with Sapphira his wife sold a possession and he kept back part of the proceeds, his wife also being aware of it. And brought a certain part of it and laid it at the apostle's feet. But Peter said, 'Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit?'" (If you have a pencil it would be good for you to just circle those words, Holy Spirit) and keep back part of the price of the land for yourself. While it remained, was it not your own? 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." (You may want to circle God and connect the Holy Spirit and God because that's what he's saying. It's appositional, that is this refers to that. The Holy Spirit is God he is saying.) You say, "Well that was just Peter." No, that was just Paul too. And I'll give you a quick example, I'm not going to have you turn to it, just remember it. You know Isaiah chapter 6, most of you, where it says, "The Lord said, 'Whom shall I send and who will go for us?' And Isaiah said, 'Here I am, Lord, send me.'" And so it says, "The Lord said (God said), 'go and say this message.'" Well when Paul quotes that in Acts 28, it's the end of the book, he said, "The Holy Spirit was right when he said" and he quotes Isaiah 6, 'Go and speak these words to the people.'" So what Isaiah said was God speaking, Paul the apostle says it was the Holy Spirit speaking. What does that mean? The Holy Spirit is not only a person, not a power, but deity not a dignitary. That's the conclusion of all this. The Holy Spirit along with the Father and the Son is God Almighty in the Trinity. And we'll study that at another time in the next few weeks, just a whole study on the Trinity.

Now, does all this really honestly truly matter? Does it matter that he is a person and that he is a divine person? Well, Jeremy Taylor put it this way, "it's impossible for that man to despair who remembers that his helper is omnipotent." Isn't that good? "It's impossible for the one to despair whose helper is omnipotent. It does matter a lot. You see, if you don't grasp who he is, you'll never appreciate what he does. If you don't understand his person and personality, you'll never appreciate all the activities of the Holy Spirit. And just look at those churches and movements who have denied the personhood and deity of the Holy Spirit. Look at them. The Unitarian Church, Christian Science, the Jehovah Witnesses, Islam, liberal Protestantism. You want to end up like that?

Also, think of it, if you are not aware that the third person of the Godhead, yes invisible but personal and powerful is living inside of you, it's going to show. It'll show. You'll be like so many like Paul described to Timothy, who have a form of godliness but they deny the power thereof. And you know what will happen? You'll lose interest in spiritual things, spiritual disciplines, prayer, worship. You'll lose your appetite for the word of God. You'll lose your interest in church and the solutions that can be found within the body of Christ. You'll lose your appetite for God-centered preaching. You'll demand fluff in its place. That's what will happen. You'll replace biblical instruction with human counsel, psychotherapy; because they have all the answers, we have nothing. That's what will happen. You'll start replacing a reliance upon God in prayer for a reliance upon people's advice. That's what will happen. You'll become a little-Godder versus a big-Godder if you remember that study.

A. C. Dixon wrote, "When you rely on organization, we get what organization can do. When we rely on education we get what education can do. When we rely on eloquence we get what eloquence can do. But when we rely on the Holy Spirit, we get what God can do." Wouldn't you agree that's a big difference. Isn't it time to just rely on God the maker of heaven and earth, the Almighty. He is not impotent, he is all powerful. And the Holy Spirit is ready to get a hold of you and use you. That's what Jesus was telling these guys on that night, "Hey I'm leaving but good news, great news, great news, somebody's coming. He's going to teach you, he'll reveal to you, he'll impart to you. He'll be everything that I am and was to you.

A lot of cities, their electrical sources come from the flow of water at a dam. And hundreds of thousands of volts of electricity. The source funnels the power out toward different cities. And the cable usually has words on it like "Danger. High voltage. Stay away." Those kind of things. You wouldn't want to touch a hundred thousand volts of electricity. You wouldn't want to hook it directly to your house unless you want to watch it burn up instantly. So engineers have developed transformers to take the voltage and step it down to useful increments. And so if you step it down from hundreds of thousands of volts via transformers to 110, it works, the house works, the lights work, everything works. It's great.

I have a computer that I like to travel with and I always to take the transformer to step it down to 19.6 volts. It'll take anything from 220 to 110 and in-between fluctuating and feed it that 19.6 volts. Otherwise it'll burn up. Last summer I had a razor that I took to Italy, the shaver just burned up, didn't have the right transformer. The Holy Spirit is the transformer, taking the truth of god, the mighty power and truth, life-changing ability of God, that mighty power and gives it to us in increments we can handle, in ways that'll change us, one step at a time, one day at a time. One woman will hear something or feel something or experience something, one man something else and there'll be those changes. Those changes. And sometimes it will be dramatic. And other times it will be invisible at first but then grow. And if we're used to, "I didn't see a huge explosion tonight. But God spoke inwardly to my hear." For you to not think that is the Holy Spirit is detrimental. Paul put it this way in II Corinthians 3, "But we all are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory by the Spirit of the Lord."

Heavenly Father, we have learned in the last several weeks so many things about you. And we want to Lord, we don't want to be fuzzy about the issue of God. Nor of the Holy Spirit, O Lord I want to say it's funny but it's tragic really that the one thing we shouldn't be ignorant of, the Holy Spirit, we are. Clear the fog. Help us to know who the Spirit is, what he does and how we should respond. Lord, though we are human and we cannot fully grasp that which is infinite, we do ask that the Holy Spirit, that he would act as that transformer, taking the truth that Jesus said the disciples had so much to learn and give it to us in thosei ncrements that we can handle, that are lifechanging, that we can be transformed from glory to glory into the same image by the Spirit of the Lord. We want our relationship with you Lord to included the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. And though we're never going to walk away sand fully grasp that. Help us to get a better handle on the person of the Spirit and the deity of your Holy Spirit so that we will never despair. We can face any situation because we realize our helper, the one living inside of us is God himself, omnipotent. We have nothing to fear, there's no situation too big for you. In Jesus' name. Amen.

Additional Messages in this Series

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9/15/2002
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Does the Truth Really Matter?
2 Timothy 4
Skip Heitzig
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Today I begin a new series I am calling Rediscovering Our Foundations. I am concerned about the vast biblical illiteracy that exists in our country in general and in our churches in particular. Truth is commonly seen by our culture as relative and not fixed. Often sentiments such as, "Well, that is your truth, but it's not my truth," are expressed by many. But if truth is absolute, then why not stand up for it? Why be embarrassed about it? What do you really believe about God, the Trinity, Christ, mankind, the church, heaven, and hell?
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9/22/2002
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Is Anybody Up There?
Hebrews 11:1-40;Romans 2:1-29
Skip Heitzig
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We all remember the scene in The Wizard of Oz when Dorothy and her three friends come to approach the Great Oz. Out of the corner of their eye they notice a man pulling levers behind a curtain, working the mechanical, smoke-breathing Oz. The man then reacts by announcing, "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!" But how can they not? The man is the explanation for everything to them. They discovered that Oz didn't really exist! So how do we know that God exists and isn't a fabrication or projection of our own imaginations?
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9/29/2002
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The Bible - From God or From Men? - Part 1
2 Timothy 3:15-17
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In this series, Rediscovering Our Foundations, it's time to consider your own personal foundation. What is the final resting place for your cares, concerns, griefs, surprises and sorrows? Where do you turn for answers to life's deepest questions? What is your authority? How sure are you that the Bible is the inerrant and inspired Word of God? Can you articulate to others the difference between the Bible and other "sacred" religious works?
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10/6/2002
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The Bible - From God or From Men? - Part 2
2 Timothy 3:15-17
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Last week, we discovered exactly what the designation "Scripture" referred to and how books of the Bible were considered as part of the inspired text. We also learned what inspiration means and how God used humans in His process of having exactly what He wanted written down. But anyone can claim inspiration for their work. Yet how do we know that the Bible is the authentic Word of God? Moreover, how can we share with others its uniqueness so they, too, may listen to its message and apply it?
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10/13/2002
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The God Who Knows It All!
Psalm 139:1-6
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A little boy climbed his neighbor's apple tree when he saw their car leave. He didn't realize that while he was stuffing his pockets full of apples, another neighbor was watching through a pair of binoculars and saw the whole thing! God isn't spying on people, trying to catch them doing something wrong; but God is aware of everything. Such a truth has a profound effect on us: it can either be very comforting or else extremely unsettling.
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10/20/2002
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Are You a Big-Godder or a Little Godder?
Psalm 139:7-24
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11/10/2002
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Wholly Holy!
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In this current series, Rediscovering Our Foundations, we've considered some key attributes of the God we know and love. He is omniscient (knows everything); He is omnipresent (everywhere present); He is omnipotent (operates at full power). But there is another key attribute that is seldom considered, yet is fundamentally key in understanding the Bible—God's holiness. Let's observe one man's encounter with this holy God and what it means to us.
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11/17/2002
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Good Man, Mad Man, Con Man, or God-Man?
Matthew 16:13-17
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No other person from history has generated so much controversy and speculation, as well as written literature, as Jesus Christ. Theologians, philosophers, poets and pundits have all weighed in concerning who Jesus is. What is often forgotten is that Jesus can never be overestimated! John said that the, "world itself could not contain the books that should be written" (John 21:25) about His accomplishments.
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12/1/2002
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A King Among the Critters
Luke 2:1-7
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In our current series, Rediscovering Our Foundations, we've come to the person of Christ. Last time, we considered His identity; today, we contemplate His nativity. For the next few weeks, we'll look closely at Jesus' birth, His early years, ministry, and death on the cross, which was the very purpose of His birth. It's my hope that we'll all emerge with a fuller understanding of Jesus and a deeper desire to worship and serve Him. Today, let's look at the strange circumstances of His birth.
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12/8/2002
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Jesus - The Boy With a Purpose - Part 1
Luke 2:1-52; Matthew 2:1-23
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Jesus' upbringing and boyhood has been the subject of much speculation and endless controversy throughout the centuries. Myths have developed about Jesus based (interestingly enough) on what isn't written. The Bible gives us five cameo glimpses of Jesus from early boyhood to age 30. We'll look at three of these today and then two more next week. We discover that Jesus' whole life was marked with purpose.
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12/15/2002
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Jesus - The Boy With a Purpose - Part 2
Luke 2-3
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We don't give much thought to Jesus growing up, developing into adolescence and then into manhood. But of course He did. Luke is really the only New Testament author who gives us information about these early years. He speaks generally about Jesus' growth as well as specifically about Jesus' capacity as a young boy of 12. At each stage of His life, Jesus demonstrated He knew His purpose for His life on earth.
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12/22/2002
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A Lamb at the River
Matthew 3:1-17; John 1:1-51
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When Jesus turned 30, He presented Himself to the nation of Israel in public ministry. His first appearance, however, seemed so out of character for the kind of Messiah that people were anticipating. What was He doing getting baptized in a river with everyone else? John was about to find out—and so was everyone else.
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1/19/2003
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The Gracious and Holy Hound of Heaven
John 16:5-11
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Having understood Who the Holy Spirit is (Person, not just power; Deity, not just dignitary), we now find out what He does, specifically what He does in the world of unbelievers. Since the greatest gift God ever gave to the world was His only Son (John 3:16), it stands to reason that the greatest sin one can commit is to reject the Son (John 16:9). How does the Holy Spirit both sentence the world as prosecutor and yet lead people away from judgment? And what role do we play in all of this?
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1/26/2003
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I Need Somebody, Help! Not Just Anybody
John 14-16
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To live one's life for God in an ungodly world sounds like mission impossible, right? It would be as if we had to do it without help. But be strengthened by this thought: God never intended for us to do it alone! That's why He has provided His people a Helper, the Holy Spirit. This ever-present divine Person is very busy helping God's people become all He wants them to be.
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2/2/2003
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Brand-Spankin' New Apostles!
Acts 1:1-8
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The legendary missionary to India, William Carey, didn't see obstacles; he saw opportunities. He was the "Let's go for it!" kind of guy. In fact, one of his most famous sayings was, "Attempt great things for God; expect great things from God." Carey did both and saw results! The Holy Spirit can take ordinary men and women and do extraordinary things with them. He is the God who "makes all things new" (Revelation 21:5). Such a truth can only create a sense of wonder and excitement in the heart of a child of God. After all, what new thing could God do through you?
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2/9/2003
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Unholy Responses to the Holy Spirit
Ephesians 4:30
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You might say that we live in the "Age of the Holy Spirit." Jesus promised Him to us after He was done with His own earthly ministry. We have seen that He is very active both in the world among the unconverted and in the church among God's own people. But He has one overriding goal-to bring glory to Jesus Christ in every life. What does that mean to us? It means a total surrendering to Him. As Oswald Chambers said, "The Holy Spirit cannot be located as a guest in a house. He invades everything." But what happens when people don't respond to Him rightly? Then what?
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2/16/2003
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How Can Three Be One?
Matthew 28:16-20
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1+1+1=1. Is this new math? No, it's the doctrine of the Trinity. The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God. At the very heart of the Judeo-Christian faith is the belief that there is only One God. Yet the Bible clearly teaches the plurality within the Godhead—three persons who are distinct from one another yet perfectly One in essence. What are we to make of all this? Why is it important? And more fundamentally, how should it affect us personally?
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2/23/2003
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The Exceedingly Un-Holy Spirit
1 John 5:19
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Satan, the prince of darkness, has been around a long time. He has studied mankind for thousands of years, marking his strategies according to what he sees in us and what God's plan for the world is. He hates what God loves; he fights what God establishes. And let's remember, he's got help! Other spirit beings have joined his rebellion and control the system known in Scripture as the world. John even said, "the whole world lies under the sway of the wicked one" (1 John 5:19). What should we know about this arch-nemesis of God in order to stand against him?
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3/2/2003
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Touched by an Angel
Luke 1-2
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As even the title suggests, angels have become popular in modern culture. But whether we know it or not, we've all been "touched an angel." Martin Luther helped us to understand their role by remarking, "An angel is a spiritual creature created by God without a body, for the service of Christendom and of the church." He was partially correct, but angels serve an even greater role than being strictly for the church. Their ministry goes beyond us and is principally concerned with the glory and majesty of God.
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3/9/2003
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Man, Has God Got a Plan For You!
Genesis 1-3
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Alexander Pope once remarked that, "the chief study of man is man himself." That may be true, especially in our culture, but this could also be the reason why mankind is so desperate and spiritually thirsty. Looking only to ourselves rather than beyond ourselves can get pretty lonely! But why are we here? What is the purpose of mankind inhabiting this planet? How can I fulfill the God-given destiny that He originally designed for me?
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3/16/2003
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From Creation to Corruption
Genesis 2-3
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How did we, as the human race, get into the colossal mess we find ourselves in? Was it always this way? And what do Adam's actions, acted out so long ago, have to do with us in this modern technologically advanced age? Am I at all responsible? Can the effects ever be undone? Let's look at these issues in the opening chapters of Genesis.
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4/27/2003
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Church-Building 101
Matthew 16:13-20
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The church was God's idea; it was never man's notion. Jesus Christ is the founder, director, architect, owner and builder of the church. But there is an awful lot of confusion about what a church is supposed to look and function like. Today, we look at the first New Testament mention of the church and look at our spiritual origins. As we are Rediscovering Our Foundations, let's also rediscover our spiritual roots as the people of God.
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5/4/2003
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What Jesus Wants His Church to Be - Part 1
John 17
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The church is not a place, but a people (a called-out assembly of people who gather together and whose heartfelt conviction is that Jesus is Lord). Jesus laid claim on the church—it belongs to Him ("I will build My church"). So then, what does He want His church to be like? What should mark us overall? In Jesus' longest recorded prayer before His crucifixion, He prays for four characteristics that are to mark the people of God. Today we look at the first two.
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5/25/2003
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What Jesus Wants His Church to Be - Part 2
John 17
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Church shopping and church hopping have become one of American Christians’ favorite pastimes. We want a church that suits us, helps us, and pleases us. But since Jesus paid for it, it’s His church (Acts 20:28). So what does He want from us? What should the people of God be like? What ingredients and activities ought to be part of our makeup? In this series, Rediscovering our Foundations, we must rediscover the foundational purpose for our existence as His church.
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6/1/2003
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How to Build a Beautiful Body
1 Corinthians 12:3-22
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6/22/2003
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The Last Days
2 Peter 1-3
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On October 30, 1938, the day before Halloween, the novel War of the Worlds was made into a radio broadcast featuring Orson Welles. As millions of Americans were listening, the play was performed so it would sound like a news broadcast about an invasion from Mars. Many thought they were hearing an actual news account of an invasion from Mars and concluded this was the end. Some even committed suicide as their final fatal act! In Rediscovering Our Foundations, what can we know about the last days of this world and what can we do to prepare?
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6/29/2003
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I'll Be Back
John 13:31-14:6
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A little boy was trying desperately to tell his friends about what Jesus' return would be like. He described Jesus' coming in glory as being "greater than Superman, Batman, and the Power Rangers put together!" Of course even that would be an understatement. Jesus came here 2000 years ago and then left; but He promised to return. What will it be like? What difference should it make to us right here, right now?
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7/6/2003
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The Burning Question
Revelation 20:11-15
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Hell is an eternal and biblical reality that has been relegated to the junk pile of modern myths. Woody Allen once said that hell is the abode of all people who annoy him. The word hell is used on a daily basis in people's dicey language patterns—usually as a fill-in expletive. Of all the Christian doctrines unfolded in Scripture, hell is the toughest one to handle. Most love the notion of a blissful heaven awaiting them; few cling to the idea of a literal hell to punish the lost.
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7/13/2003
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Heaven: Our Final Frontier
Revelation 21:1-27
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Captain Kirk and his starship Enterprise weekly traversed the galaxies on the famed Star Trek episodes. That was fiction! But one day you will inhabit the recreated millennial earth in a glorified body and then explore the vast kingdoms of heaven in the eternal state. That is reality! It will be so different than what you're used to that it's linguistically impossible to convey its vastness. But there's enough here to whet the appetite for heaven!
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There are 29 additional messages in this series.
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