Video Transcript: The Promised Holy Spirit

Last time, we saw some great help from our Lord in being a vocal witness for him that we are his witnesses, that we always are a witness, and that we can do it through the power of his Holy Spirit. Just think now, today, and in our next lesson, we're going to spend a lot of time talking about that dear Holy Spirit. The Bible says that when the world was made, it was the Holy Spirit who put it in order. And then, when we had to be re-created because we were dead in sin, it was the Holy Spirit who comes and brings life into our hearts. 

Here's an interesting thing. You've heard about a paralegal or a paramedical or a paramedic. Para means alongside of. And so, a paralegal is not really a lawyer but is working alongside of. Or a paramedic is not really a physician but works alongside of one. That's a word in the Greek language that means alongside of - para. And there's another word in the Greek language that sort of sounds like ours. It's called kaleó. It means to call. And so, if you put those two words together in the Greek language, you have parakaleó. It means to call to your side. When Jesus said he was going to send his Holy Spirit to us, he called him his parakaleó, the One who is called to our side. That's just a beautiful thought. The Holy Spirit is called the One who is called to our side. Let's pray about it and dig deeper.

Dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for the gift of your Son, the Lord Jesus. And Jesus, we thank you that through you, we've become children of our Heavenly Father. And we would still be dead in our trespasses and sins unless you and your Father had sent your Holy Spirit into our hearts to re-create us into life. And dear Holy Spirit, as we study about you now, we want to know you. We want to be filled with you. We love you and the Father and the Son. Amen.

Well, we've said that the Word for the Holy Spirit means the One who is called to our side, and what we're going to do in this session is look at mostly John 14, 15, and 16. If you want to learn a lot about the Holy Spirit, you don't have to go to another conference, you don't have to read a novel or a book about it. Just read John 14, 15, and 16. Here, Jesus is talking heart to heart with us because he's getting ready to go to the cross. And before he goes, he knows he's going to say to us, you are my witnesses. He knows he's going to leave his Spirit with us. So, here he teaches us about his Holy Spirit. So, let's look at the first verse that we want to look at. 

John 14:16,17, "And I will pray the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to with you forever." Now, that word counselor, again is parakaleó. "I will give you someone called to your side. Even the Spirit of Truth whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees nor knows him. You know him for he dwells with you and will be in you." And what we want to do now is fill in some blanks from that verse. 

Our Counselor will be with us forever. That's the promise. Notice what Jesus said. He lives with us, and he actually is in us. If you don't get these right away, you can pause or you can come back when we've gone through the other verses - because we have a lot of territory to cover. 

The next verse we want to look at is John 14:26. "But the Counselor [the One called to our side], the Holy Spirit whom the Father will send in my name will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you." We're going to get to those blanks, but just think of what Jesus is saying here. He knows us. He knows about our fear. He knows about our lack of urgency. He knows about our disobedience coming up. He was with those 12 disciples for three and a half years. He knew what they were like. Look what he says to them. He says our Counselor is the Holy Spirit. The One at your side is the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit will teach us all things, and he will remind us of everything Jesus said.  Is he taking care of us? Will you believe it? The Holy Spirit will teach us all things and remind of us of everything Jesus said. 

Then, let's look at another verse. John 15:26. "But when the Counselor comes,"-- there we go again, the One who stands by your side-- "whom I shall send to you from the Father, even the Spirit of Truth who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness to me." There's a lot going on in this verse. Let's look at it. Who sends our Counselor? When the Counselor comes who "I" will send. Jesus is sending the one to stand by our side. He always keeps his promise. Where does our Counselor come from? "Who I will send to you from the Father." Isn't that amazing? Jesus says, "I and the Father are One. When I do something here, it's the same thing as the Father does. I will send the One to stand alongside of you from my Father. And he's going to testify to you. He's going to be a witness to you. And what will he testify about? He will testify about me," Jesus said - about Jesus. 

What a complete preparation he gives us in how he provides. Remember, we saw way back in the second week that Jesus provides for us because we have to be vocal witnesses for him. I want to point something out here too when you look at this. Who sends the Counselor? Jesus. Where does the Counselor come from? From the Father. All right. Now, we're talking about the Father and about the Son. And who are the Father and the Son going to send? The Holy Spirit. We're talking about the Trinity. You don't have to use this when you make a vocal witness, because this is stuff way down the road. 

But for us as Christians, we know that God has shown himself to us as one God in three different ways, three different persons - the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And once you see it, it's all through the Bible just like here. We wouldn't have thought about it right away. But all at once, we say, "Wait a minute. The Father, Jesus, they send the Spirit (the Holy Trinity). Praise God.

Let's go on to another verse. It says here, "When he comes, he will prove the world to be in the wrong about sin and righteousness and judgement." The Bible is so rich. We're going to get to those blanks. But every word in the Bible means something. There's no trivia in the Bible. And notice it says here, "When he comes, he will prove the world." I want to point out to you that the Holy Spirit is a person. A lot of times, I hear people talking about the Holy Spirit like the Holy Spirit is a power. Suppose you ask me about my wife and said, "How is your wife doing?" 

And I'd say, "Oh, it's fine." 

You'd say, "That's not very respectful. She's a person."

When you say, "Tell me about the Holy Spirit."

I say, "It's like..." That's not very respectful. The Holy Spirit is a person. That's why the Bible says we can hurt the feelings of the Holy Spirit. That's why the Bible says we can turn the Holy Spirit off. Anyway, the Holy Spirit is a person. Just like God, the Father, is a person and God the Son is a person, God the Holy Spirit is a person. And when he comes, the One who stands alongside of us (our Counselor), our Counselor will convict the world of sin and righteousness and judgement. That's the work of the Holy Spirit. 

Do you know what? Before we became Christians, we were the world. And the Holy Spirit came into my heart and convicted me of sin. I hate sin. I wish I had never had to sin. I wish I never did sin. But he convicted me of sin and of righteousness, about the righteousness of God which can be mine through Jesus Christ. I'll never doubt it again. And of judgement, that God expects things of me. I'm not afraid of the final judgement. I've been judged already. And I'm righteous because I've been convicted of sin by the Holy Spirit, and I've been saved through Jesus. The Bible is good.

Let's look at another verse. John 16:13 and 15. "But when he,"-- [the person]-- "when he, the Spirit of Truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own. He will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. All that belongs to the Father is mine," Jesus said. "That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you." What beautiful words. What does it say here? Our Counselor is the Spirit of Truth. The only way we can go out to be a vocal witness is because we have the power of the Holy Spirit in us. And do you know what gives you your confidence and your strength when you go out as a vocal witness? That you have the Spirit. Who is the Spirit? The Spirit of Truth. And when that Spirit of Truth is with you and as Jesus said, in you, what will he do? He will guide us into all truth. Just think of that. What a confidence that gives us. 

I have a meeting tomorrow with some people. I'm kind of scared, because it's going to be a hard meeting. We have to settle some hard issues of anger and of distrust and of misuse. I've asked people to pray for me. They've written me back and said, "We're praying." And I'm going to take this verse with me tomorrow. "He will guide me into all truth." 

And then, one more thing he says to us here, we have to notice. What he makes known to us comes from Jesus. Jesus said, "The Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you." What a beautiful thought. 

Then, we're going to leave those teachings from John, go to a very important verse in 1 Corinthians 2:12. We're going to come back to this again in a future teaching. "Now, we have received not the Spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God." I want to ask you the question. Why have we received the One who stands by our side? Why have we received our Counselor from Jesus and the Father? He says here, "so that we may understand what God has freely given us." Isn't that great? So that we may understand what God has freely given us. We're going to see in the lesson next time that no one understands the Gospel apart from the Spirit of God. Imagine if we hadn't received that gift. Thank you, Jesus. Thank you, Father, for the gift of your Holy Spirit. 

And then, another verse in John again, but this time in the letter he wrote and not in his Gospel. And John says in 1 John 2:20, 27, "But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and all of you know the truth. As for you, the anointing you received from him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But as his anointing teaches you about all things and as that anointing is real, not counterfeit-- just as it has taught you, remain in him."

Just think about that. He says that we, because we trust in Jesus, we have received an anointing from Jesus. And because of that, we know the truth. And the anointing we have received remains in us. So, let's look at that and fill in those blanks. We each have an anointing. I'm going to talk to you about that in just a minute. All of us know the truth. I do. You do. Remember those ordinary, everyday people? They beat them. They threw them in jail. They threatened them. They killed them. And why were they so confident? They knew the truth. When you know the truth, you speak it. 

And the anointing teaches us about all things. Jesus said he'd provide for us, and he does that. And now, I said that I wanted to talk to you about anointing. This is really great. I think you'll love it. In the Old Testament, the words were written in Jewish. In the New Testament, the words are written in Greek. Then, it's translated for me into English, for you into your language. But originally, the Old Testament was written in Jewish, and the New Testament in Greek.

Now, in the Jewish language, they have a word that means "to pour out." And it was a word they used when they wanted to show that a priest was going to be a priest or a prophet was going to be a prophet or a king was going to be a king. And they would take some specially perfumed oil and pour that oil on top of that person's head. And when that oil ran down. that would be a picture that God's Spirit was on that person to do that work. Are you following me so far? That oil was a picture. Now, what is the word they had in the Old Testament for pouring that out? The word "to pour"? It's the word "Messiah". And they always looked forward to the One who would be the perfect prophet, priest, and king who would be filled with God's Spirit. So, they said, "Someday, the poured out one (the Messiah) will come."

Then, we move into the New Testament and in the New Testament, it's written-- remember-- in the Greek language. The Greek language also had a word for "pouring out." It wasn't Messiah because that's the Jewish word. The Greek word for "pouring out" or "anointing" - get this is Christos. Do you see now why Jesus is called the Anointed One? And do you see also why he is called Christ? Because he is the one on whom God poured out his Spirit to fill him for the ministry.  I just think that's so superb. But more than that, what are you called as a follower of Jesus? You are called a Christian. You are called "one on whom God's Spirit has been poured out." That's what that means. You are a little Christ, a Christian - one who has received the anointing. 

And so, just like in the Old Testament, a prophet spoke for God. You are anointed as a Christian to speak for God. And just as a priest spoke to God for the people, you are anointed as a Christian to speak to God for people, to pray for them, to intercede. And just as in the Old Testament, a king ruled in God's name, so you are a Christian, you have been anointed to live as Christ lived. Isn't that amazing? That's why Jesus wanted us to know so much about the Holy Spirit. One question remains. But do you have the Holy Spirit? Are you filled with the Holy Spirit? In the next lesson, we're going to talk about that - that you are anointed with the Holy Spirit. Praise God.