The Holy Trinity. The 3-in-1, 1-in-3, God Almighty. We join the hosts of Heaven in giving honor and praise to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit as we sing the angelic hymn, “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, the whole Earth is filled with Your glory.” (Isaiah 6:3)
Today is designated Trinity Sunday. Today is the day we see that God Almighty especially blesses Christian believers, in that He chooses to reveal His triune nature to us through Holy Scripture. It is because He has revealed His One-God-in-Three-Persons existence that Christianity is set apart from, and in opposition to, all other religions in the world.
Friends, the reality is that all religions are not the same. Understand this, and understand it well. All religions may be wrong, but because they are diametrically opposed to one another in beliefs and doctrine, all religions cannot be correct! Christianity stands apart from all of the others.
Jesus says, “I Am the Way, the Truth, the Life and no one comes to the Father except through Me.” That statement is either true or it is false. It either applies to everyone, or it applies to no one! God either is a three-in-one God, or He is not. Scripture teaches that He is.
In these times, most Christians are very familiar with the first two persons of the Godhead, God the Father and Jesus Christ, God the Son. But the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, is not so well known or understood. That situation is entirely understandable. The reason we are so much less knowledgeable about the Holy Spirit than we are regarding the other two Persons of the Trinity is explained in 1 Corinthians 2-14. It is there that we are told that the Holy Spirit is resisted, ridiculed and misunderstood.
The verse reads: “The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God (resisted), for they are foolishness to him (ridiculed), and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned (misunderstood).” So today we are going to try to increase our knowledge and understanding of just who the Holy Spirit is and what the Holy Spirit does.
The first question needing to be answered is, “Who is the Holy Spirit?” It is extremely important to understand that the Holy Spirit is not an it! The Holy Spirit is a person. (No, He is not a flesh and blood human being type of person, but a spirit being having His own distinct personhood. Therefore, it is proper to ask, “Who is the Holy Spirit?” rather than ask, “What is the Holy Spirit?”)
The answer to the question, “Who is the Holy Spirit?” is very simple. The answer is, “The Holy Spirit is God.” “Pastor,” you ask, “how can you say that?” I am so glad you asked. Let’s look at 1 Corinthians 2:4-5. We see in these passages that the Spirit’s power is also called God’s power.
A little farther on in the chapter we see that:
Okay, but what does the Holy Spirit do? What is His job description? One of His main functions is to empower us to share our testimony with others. A couple of thousand years later, it may seem to us in this day and age to be highly unlikely, but in reality the apostle Paul experienced all of the same difficulties in sharing his testimony back in his time as we do today. Paul could identify with every objection or excuse we can come up with right now for not sharing our faith with others.
Listen to what he told the Corinthian church at the beginning of 1 Corinthians 2. Paul says: “When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ, and Him crucified. I came to you in weakness and fear, with much trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power.”
Wow! What excuse do we have for not sharing our faith with those who need to hear it?
Paul says in verse 4, “My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power.” If we will grasp on to those words and make them a part of our very being, they will set us free from our doubts and concerns regarding our qualifications. We also will, in demonstrations of the power of the Holy Spirit, step forward and share Jesus Christ with everyone.
When many Christians are asked about why they do not share their faith more often, one of the most common responses given is, “I don’t know what to say!” I have been there myself. The apostle Paul was there too. We just need to remember that the central figure in our testimony must be God and the topic should be what God has done for us.
Just what is the most important thing that God has done for me? It is the same thing He has done for you and for every person ever born. Paul tells us what that “something” was. Paul says, “For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.” There it is! The most important thing God has ever done for us was being crucified Himself in the second person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ, in payment for our sins, yours and mine. That is the message we must put forth to those who need to hear it. “God demonstrated His love for us in this: while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” The Holy Spirit empowers us to spread that message throughout the land, if we will ask Him for that power to do so.
But why would we ask Him for that power? What is our goal in sharing our faith with others? Paul again answers that question in verse 5: “So that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power.” Friends, everyone rests their faith on something. But not everyone is putting his or her faith in the right thing. Many people rest their faith on their money, possessions, health, good looks, job, other people, false gods and false teachings. The list goes on and on.
Many people, even some so-called Christians, put their faith in their own good works. Make no mistake about it, the people who put their faith of eternal salvation on those things are not saved. The Holy Spirit reveals to true seekers that the only way to gain eternal life is by accepting the finished work done on the cross of Calvary’s hill by Jesus Christ. He and He alone died on that cross in order to pay our sin-debt to God the Father.
The Holy Spirit empowers us to grow in our faith and gain the “mind of Christ” as He reveals it to us through the word of God. The more we have the mind of the Lord, the less we have the mind of the flesh. We can only obtain this mindset through the help and cooperation of the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit, the Third Person of the Almighty Triune God, empowers us to share our faith and grow in Christian maturity. But even more importantly, He opens our spirit to the will of God and brings to us the opportunity to receive eternal salvation and everlasting life.
Maybe you are here today and have been placing your hope of salvation on those things that you have done, are doing, or might do yourself, instead of what Christ did for you. If that is the case, then know that today, right now, you can be set free from the penalty of sin. Right now you can receive the Holy Spirit into your heart and life. Right now you can gain eternal salvation and life everlasting.
Let us pray. “Oh Lord, we give you thanks and praise that you are indeed a God who loves His children. We thank you that you send your Holy Spirit to come and live within everyone who truly seeks a personal relationship with you.
“I know there are some here today who have been putting their hope of salvation in their own good deeds and personal works. I pray right now that you would, through your Holy Spirit, open their minds and spirits to your awesome power and give them the courage to take the step into everlasting life by asking you, for the sake of Jesus Christ, Who died on the cross for each one of us, to indeed come and dwell within their hearts and beings. For you have promised that everyone who calls on your name will be saved.
“I ask all of this in the all-powerful, holy name of your Son, our Savior and Lord, Jesus Christ. Amen.”