Good Fruit, Good Root
A podcast dedicated to delving into scripture in order to find a rootedness which produces the fruits of the spirit.
Good Fruit, Good Root
The Holy Guest: The Third Member of the Trinity
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Join hosts Denise and Kyla as they examine the role of the Holy Spirit. How does the third member of the Trinity operate in the lives of both believers and unbelievers? Is there importance in the distinction between Holy Ghost and Holy Spirit? How should we conceptualize this person and how should our conduct be affected by a relationship with the Spirit? All of this and more in this new episode!
Shalom and welcome back to another episode of Good Fruit, Good Root. I'm your host, Kyla. And I'm your host, Denise. And we have a very interesting predicament or situation in the recording of this episode, because we actually sat down and recorded a full episode a few days ago. Right. And the devil lives in technology, specifically technology at a church. I I'm someone that I never attribute things to the devil because number one, I think that scripturally the concept of Hacitan is very narrow and very specific, and that we attribute a lot to the concept of the adversary that's not scripturally backed up. And I also don't believe in the omnipresence of the adversary figure either. But the one place that I do attribute power to him is within technology, because without fail, technology is going to mess up on a church campus. And so we had a Wi-Fi outage that occurred two hours and six minutes into the original recording of this episode, and we lost the entirety of the audio file. It actually came back briefly, like we saw it within Zencaster, and then it just disappeared.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's like life is it was vapor and it was gone. Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_00Here today, gone tomorrow. Um so this is very interesting. First off, please don't be alarmed by the fact that I said two hours and six minutes. I really don't know if the conversation will be that long a second time. But I'm interested to see how conversation flows, if it feels organic having done it a second time. But, you know, all things considered, it's been an extremely busy week for us. We'll get into the visitors that we have staying at our home in just a moment. But even in the midst of such a chaotic week, I kind of enjoy the fact that we had this conversation twice. Right. Because we the first time we attempted to record was on Wednesday. And everything we discussed ended up being like interestingly topical to what you taught on Bible study on Wednesday night. So that was interesting. And then very rarely do we get to revisit the subjects. Normally, when we record, you know, we have the central subject we're discussing, we discuss it at length in the episode, and then we kind of put it behind us. This is a very pre per particularly interesting one to discuss twice. So I'm I'm interested to see how this conversation is gonna go. I am too. Well, all that was even before I asked you, uh, how are you doing? I'm doing well.
SPEAKER_02Uh-huh. That's that's the church face answer. Uh-huh. What's the what's the real answer? The real answer is I am I'm a little tired running on a few fumes, but other than that, just battling a lot in my uh sinuses and stuff and just struggling.
SPEAKER_00I will say your voice quality is better today than it was on Wednesday.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. We've we've we've had allergies going on this week. Uh we've had a severe lack of sleep in our household this week. I'm running on maybe four hours today, which is not not where I like to be in terms of sleep. I'm a solid eight-hour type of girl. But uh we we've had a very busy week because it's it's all it's a good thing. We have visitors with us. Yes, uh, which is relevant to the conversation that we're going to be having, that we have guests in our home, and those guests are Mama, my grandmother, your mother, and Cooper, my nephew, your grandson.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00And it is absolutely wonderful having them with us, but it has kept us very busy. Cooper's sleep schedule. Sorry, Michael and Caleb, if you're listening, they probably don't listen. We can probably get away with this. But you all arrived from Georgia at like 4 a.m. the night that you got in, yeah. And his sleep schedule has not recovered since. He is staying up really late for a seven-year-old. And then it doesn't matter how late he stays up, he's up early in the morning.
SPEAKER_02That's what's gets me about Coop is he's gonna be up after a couple hours.
SPEAKER_00He's always had FOMO. He has. He doesn't want to sleep because he doesn't want to miss anything. So because of his sleep schedule, now our sleep schedules are likewise ruined. Right. So, but like I said, better busy than bored. And in terms of reasons to lose sleep, having him here is absolutely worth it.
SPEAKER_02And we're doing some things to make some make some good memories, and hopefully he'll have a memorable time with us. Oh, I just part of a summer vacation.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I ful I fully believe that he will. And listeners, you can get excited because next week's episode, we will have Cooper on the show for a segment that we're calling Coop's Corner, and he is so excited for his moment in the spotlight. He lives in the spotlight, so this is not a moment for him, it's his entire lifestyle, but he's really excited, so be looking out for that. It's gonna be an interesting conversation that we're going to have with him as we embark on a new series that we're gonna be starting next week. But this week we have to kind of put somewhat of a bow on a series that we've been doing for the past couple of episodes where we've been dealing with the concept of God's descent to humanity and God abiding with humanity. Specifically last week, we talked about uh this the celebration of both Shavuot and Pentecost. Right. And the week prior to that, you know, we had talked about the delivery of the gospel to the Athenians. And so we've just been really dealing with the nature of God and how humans respond to the revelation of that nature. And so today we want to continue that conversation of Pentecost by specifically examining the nature of the third member of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. Right. And I don't know about you, but I feel like the Holy Spirit is the least understood member of the Trinity often, which is kind of ironic because dare I say the Holy Spirit has like the most direct daily impact on our lives. That's not to say that the Father and the Son don't have daily impact, but the Holy Spirit is the one that we're walking most intimately with. He's within us, he's upon us, and he's in the midst of everything that we do, right? And it's not that the son isn't like that, also, but the role of the Holy Spirit is just a little bit more active and direct in our daily lives, per my understanding. And so I I'm really, really interested in diving in and discussing what the role of the Holy Spirit is in the life of just the general human, what the role of the Holy Spirit is in the life of the believer, and how we should commune with the Holy Spirit constantly in our daily lives. But before we dive into that discussion, you're up for God wink of the week.
SPEAKER_02Yes, I am. And uh I have I think a pretty good God wink. Um this past Sunday, as um the people are exiting this the church. I'm one of those pastors that I enjoy standing at the door and uh shaking hands, hugging more necks and shaking hands. And I just I love to do that. I love to see my people and look them in the eyes and that kind of stuff. And so we have a a couple in our church that's they enjoy the podcast, they listen to it, and uh, they were standing at the door telling us about some things that they had um picked up from the podcast. But one of the things that means the most to me, and I it means a lot to Kyla, is this couple has started looking for God winks in their life. They're looking all the time for God to show up in different areas of their life, and it's something that they didn't think about before the podcast. And so Kyla and I were like, man, that's a wink right there to us that we are doing something that is impactful, and we're doing something that is causing people to become more aware of the presence of God in their daily lives. And so, shout out to Mason and Ellie, and we're so thankful that they listen and they had no idea that this week they're our God week.
SPEAKER_00Right. I just love the idea that they're being intentional in their time together to discuss how has God shown up for you in the next of the simple or the mundane. Because I mean, just how much how much more joy would we experience if we all lived that way, intentionally looking for and testifying of the ways that God shows up in our daily lives? Because He does it constantly, He does. So I just it's such a beautiful thing. And yes, shout out Mason and Ellie. Uh I I love hearing their feedback as listeners. So all right. So, as I've already established, we're gonna be discussing the concept of the person of the Holy Spirit today. But before we dive into the scriptures that we are going to be examining, I have a couple preliminary questions that I want to ask you that might seem unrelated, but that they are thematically important to the discussion that we are going to be having. So we're not playing start bench cut this week. Sorry, Mason. He did let us know that he really enjoys when we do that. We will be returning to that format in short order, I'm sure. But for this week, I thought that it was important to establish how we view and how we behave around guests. That's relevant to our discussion and the relevance will bear out as we continue to have this conversation. So the first question I have for you is do you have any like specific behaviors for when there's a guest in your home? Besides cleaning up. You don't clean until there's a guest. No, I do clean up, but when there's guests I'm a different level. It's a different level of clean and uh of showing. So you want so you want to clean before the guest comes in.
SPEAKER_02Oh yes. I want I want to clean before the guest shows up. Uh clean, you know, just make sure that everything's clean and neat. And um one thing I like to do before a guest comes, and um I like to find out what the guest likes as far like food and that kind of stuff. I like to make sure I have the snacks that they want. I like to try to make sure that I have the pantry stocked with stuff that they like, and I like to have the refrigerator stocked with things that they enjoy because I want them to have what they enjoy in my home, and I want them to enjoy the visit. So those those are a couple of things that I do.
SPEAKER_00You know who is the best at that? At reaching out to their guests and making sure they have exactly what they want as far as snacks go. The person that I immediately think of when you start describing that behavior is Nina.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Nina always, anytime going to Nina and Papa's house, she'll ask me what I want, and if I'm bringing a friend, she wants to know what they want. And it's just, it makes you feel like really valued and cherished that she's spending this extra time and energy to make sure that she stocks the exact snacks that you want.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I doing that kind of thing is part of Nina's love language.
SPEAKER_00It is, it very much is. So and she's about got me figured out. She knows to have Oreos and cereal, but she'll be like, what does Sarah want? So I just think that that's so kind that her hospitality extends even to my guests that I'm bringing into her home.
SPEAKER_01Exactly.
SPEAKER_00That I as a guest bring a guest up. So one of the reasons that I wanted to ask this question is when I think of behaviors that people adopt when they have a guest in their home, I inevitably think of a moment in the novel Ghost of a Watchman. And Ghost of a Watchman is, I think, one of the most interesting novels to study in American literature. If you know me at all, you likely know that To Kill a Mockingbird is my favorite book of all time. And Ghost of a Watchman is a novel that was widely touted as a sequel to To Kill a Mockingbird, but it's not a sequel. It's actually the original manuscript that was eventually edited and changed to become To Kill a Mockingbird. But anyone who has read To Kill a Mockingbird, first off, if you haven't read it, please go read it. Everyone, I genuinely believe everyone in the English-speaking world should read that book. But if you have read it, then you'll be familiar with the characters that I'm about to describe. The protagonist and narrator of both To Kill a Mockingbird and Go to the Watchman is a girl named Scout. Her real full name is Jean Louise Finch, but she goes by her childhood nickname of Scout. And then another primary character is Calpurnia, which is the live-in maid of the Finch family. And so Cal and Scout have a very like interesting, somewhat contentious, but very nurturing and important relationship, right? And throughout To Kill and Mockingbird, you know, you're getting the narration from the perspective of like six through eight-year-old Scout, and she kind of views Cal as somewhat of an antagonist to her because she thinks Cal favors Jim and there's all these interesting dynamics. But the role that Cal feels is she's really a surrogate mother to Scout. And so I always really enjoyed that relationship reading To Kill a Mockingbird. I reread To Kill a Mockingbird every summer. I'm actually, I was thinking last week, I think it's time for me to do it this summer, so I'm probably gonna start it and finish it in like two days in the next couple of weeks, and then I'll probably do Ghost at a Watchman as well. But so I read To Kill a Mockingbird every summer from at least age 12, and then Ghost of a Watchmen, I believe, came out when I was 16. Somewhere around maybe 17, I think it came out in 2015, so it depends on it was in the summer, so I just turned 17. So at this point I've read Tequila Mockingbird at least five times, probably even more than that. And when Ghost of a Watchmen came out, there is a scene within it that moved me to tears. And that stands out to me because movies move me to tears a lot, but books very rarely do. And that's interesting because I actually prefer the medium of a book, but something about reaving it doesn't engage my tear ducks very often. Like I can experience a very strong emotional reaction to something, but it doesn't make me cry. But this scene in Ghost of a Watchmen made me cry so hard that I put the book down. And what happens in this scene is Scout is now an adult. She's returning to her hometown of Make Home, and a tragedy has struck. I won't I won't give away all of the plot details of the novel because I don't know how many people that are listening have already read Ghost of a Watchmen, but there's a tragedy that's occurred that affects Cal's family, and so Scout goes to Calpurnia's home, and Calpurnia is now older, and Scout is led into the room that Cal is in, and they start having a conversation, and Scout immediately flags that something's not right in the way that they're interacting with one another. And the realization that she comes to throughout the scene is that Calpurnia is using her company manners on Scout. And these manners are the behaviors that Cal would adopt whenever strangers or visitors, company, guests would come into the Finch House. But Scout was never on the receiving end of those because Scout knew her so intimately and so well. And so the fact that Scout was being treated as a guest or as company by someone that she was supposed to know so closely, so intimately that she shouldn't be treated that way. It, I mean, I squalled and it was just such an an emotionally uh charged scene for me to read. And it it's it just it's never left me how powerful that scene was, this concept of not wanting to be treated as a guest because it's just supposed to be expected that you interact with this person. And so, like also the concept of having once been so ubiquitous and constant in someone's life and now being treated as a stranger, right? Coming in. And just that that that it grieved me. Like it it truly broke my heart. And so it's impossible for me to talk about the types of behaviors we adopt whenever guests are around without immediately thinking of that scene, of this concept of company manners. And the reality is almost all of us have company manners, whether we recognize it or not. In our family, we dub it um performance mode.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Like it's just your behavior changes when people who you are not truly accustomed to and comfortable with are around. So my next question kind of plays into that level of familiarity and comf comfort. After how many visits would you say that you would expect someone to be at home in your space?
SPEAKER_02After how many visits? Um, I would hope they'd be at home in my space in the first visit, but usually, usually they're not. I want, you know, I want them to feel comfortable enough to know that whatever is in there they they have access to. Okay. You know, like the snacks and the stuff in the refrigerator and and all that kind of stuff. I want them to come in and feel comfortable. But usually people are not, you know, you may tell them, you know, make yourself at home, but they struggle making themselves at home. So, um, but I, you know, I would hope very quickly.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's interesting because I want to make others feel at home, but I'm hesitant to feel at home in other people's spaces. And this was something that we we discussed when we recorded originally was that both of us tend to be the kind of people that don't like to take up a lot of space.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Uh we don't want to be an inconvenience, we don't want to be an imposition. But ironically, we both really respect and admire the quality in others when they are comfortable taking up space.
SPEAKER_01Yes, we do.
SPEAKER_00And the example that we both used was my best friend Emily. She was at home on her first visit to our house, I'm convinced. Like she has always just been completely at ease with our family, whether it's family holidays, going on vacations. I mean, she has never, never seemed uncomfortable or as if she was at all hesitant to take up space. And I really admire that. I'm drawn to that in other people. And so I think I agree with you that my desire would be that people feel at home in my presence right away. But it's interesting to me that I myself don't necessarily behave that way. It takes me a good amount of time to feel completely at ease and comfortable in someone else's space. Honestly, I'm the kind of person that I like to invite people into my space more so than going into other people's space. I like it to be on my home turf. Like I I always wanted to hang out at my house, you know, as a kid. So that's interesting. And then my final general question here is how do you think a constant interaction impacts relationship?
SPEAKER_02I think I think a constant interaction uh is important to relationships. Um but as you like Especially when you're you're young, okay. Um, but as you grow older, you find out that you can't always have constant interaction. And so you have some relationships that um you may not have that constant interaction with them, but when you see them, it's like that it's like you pick up right where you left off. You have other relationships from the past, that's not that way, but you have some that um you know you have different relationships are different, okay, because some relationships you get That level of comfort and familiar familiarity with the person and my best friend from from high school right now. If she were to walk in this room, we would be just like we'd never been apart. You know, she's my lifetime, lifelong best friend. Okay. Have we haven't seen each other? I don't know how long. Okay. But because of the intimacy of our relationship when we were young, we don't have to have that constant communication. But there are other relationships in my life. If I don't have that constant communication, they basically begin to disintegrate.
SPEAKER_00So I think it's interesting that you hinged the comfort, even in the midst of lack of communication, on the fact that there is established intimacy there. Right. Right? Like when you have enjoyed a season of true and sincere intimacy, it makes it easier to weather the seasons where maybe you're not communicating as constantly. I, in posing this question, was kind of in uh inferring or implying that sometimes I think that familiarity breeds complacency to a degree. That the more you interact in human relationships, sometimes the less you cherish the relationship because it loses a little bit of the it loses a little bit of the novelty or like the special quality. If you are in constant communication with someone, you almost begin to take it for granted because it's just it's ubiquitous. It's always there. And as a result, like you lose sight of how miraculous it is that you have this love with this person, you know? And so I also think it's kind of interesting that this only really happens in the closest, most important relationships in our lives, like normally a marriage or the closest member of your familial bond. Like those are the types of people that you're gonna spend so much time around that it almost breeds a complacency within the relationship, which is the opposite of what should occur, right? Those are the relationships that you should cherish the most. But you brought out an example for this concept in our last discussion. And it's it was so funny. I wish that we still had this moment from the prior recording because I was going to use this example, but you brought it up organically. Um, and the example you used was when I lived and worked in Washington, D.C. When we moved me to Washington, D.C. for my undergraduate degree, you had a conversation with me where you pulled me aside and you were like, listen, I'm so happy for you that you're gonna live here, but I don't want you to lose the sense of wonder that accompanies you being here. Because, you know, growing up, we had family that lived in the DC area, so we visited it quite often, but it was always such a special novel thing for me to be in the city, for me to be able to visit the monuments and see the majesty of the city. And you had that conversation with me, and I tried really hard to be intentional about not losing that sense of wonder, even though I did my homework at the Lincoln Memorial on a weekly basis. I don't think I ever lost my sense of awe at being at the Lincoln Memorial. And I just think that that's a factor that has to be considered is the intentionality of maintaining the magic and embracing the miracle of human connection and relationship.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I I totally agree agree with that. And uh, and I think you did do a good job at uh because I I I think you still enjoy visiting those places in DC, but it had meant so much to me to see your eyes light up and to see uh the passion that you had for the different places there, and uh I think you did an excellent job of um keeping keeping that intrigue and that whatever fascination. I can remember when the Lincoln was the most peaceful place on earth for you. And so I didn't I just didn't want you to lose that, but with um relationships, I it is amazing how the ones sometimes that we should appreciate the most are the ones that we can become most complacent with.
SPEAKER_00So um, yeah, it's it's it's sad, but it's kind of a commentary on human nature. It is that we naturally, when something is a constant, we begin to take it for granted. Even such a miraculous thing, like a genuine connection. So now I want to ask you a question more directly pertaining to our topic of conversation, even though the questions I just asked are going to pertain to our conversation eventually. But since we are talking about the Holy Spirit today, I thought that it was important to ask you do you remember your first conception of the Holy Spirit?
SPEAKER_02I do remember my first conception of the Holy Spirit because I never heard him called the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_02I always heard him called the Holy Ghost. Okay. And so as a kid that lended um a little bit of confusion on my part because understand, I grew up in a Pentecostal church. My grandfather was a Pentecostal preacher, and so I, you know, I learned at a very young age about the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost. And every testimony service we had at church was the saints would stand up. And I I knew I would never attain sainthood by those standards. They'd all stand up, and they would uh I thank the Lord for baptizing, for saving me, sanctifying me, and baptize me in the Holy Ghost and fire. And when you take ghost and fire and you put them together, it's pretty, it's pretty scary. And back then we didn't have all the images and the things that like from Hollywood and stuff like that can conjure images in your mind. The only ghost that I had like any kind of picture of was Casper, the friendly ghost. And I was so hoping that the Holy Ghost was friendly like Casper, okay? Because I couldn't imagine what the Holy Ghost was like. And then there's you know, there's some kids that thought they were talking about the Holy Ghost.
SPEAKER_00I so I'm glad that you brought up like the conjuring an image and often an image from a movie or television show, because I also obviously was raised in a Pentecostal church and the terminology was always Holy Ghost growing up. And children often just have a negative connotation with the word ghost. And I think that this is part of the reason that the Holy Spirit is often misunderstood, is because when the Holy Spirit is introduced to Christians, especially Christians who were raised in a church environment, there's almost this like aura or air of mystery surrounding it because of the terminology. Exactly. And something about the terminology ghost makes it feel inaccessible. And honestly, if we're gonna break it down to like the simplest form, it sounds scary when you're a kid and you're like, I don't know if I want anything to do with that. So the image I had in my brain of the Holy Ghost, I remember very distinctly as a child in children's church, Miss Janice talking about the Holy Ghost. And the image in my brain was the phantom blot from Mickey Mouse, which is like a villainous character, and it's just like a kind of somewhat formless, shapeless, like cloak of darkness. And that's what a picture, which is so ironic, because like he's the ultimate light, uh-huh. And I'm picturing him as this just like ink blot of darkness. Uh-huh. But that's the image that I had, and the what I was being told and taught about the Holy Ghost, the Holy Spirit, didn't do anything to dispel that image in my head because it was mystified. It was treated as if like it was not accessible to me. Not in the sense like obviously everyone made me aware that I was supposed to have a relationship with the Holy Ghost, but they didn't really tell me what the Holy Ghost was supposed to be to me. I just knew him as this is the member of the Trinity, and you're supposed to be baptized. That's what I knew. That's what I knew is that you have to be baptized with the Holy Ghost and with fire, and you got to speak with tongues.
SPEAKER_02That's right. That's that was the tongues were the issue.
SPEAKER_00Yes. And so, and it wasn't that I was scared of an experience or an encounter with the Holy Ghost. It was just I didn't have an understanding of who the Holy Spirit was or what the role of the Spirit was supposed to be in my daily life because I wasn't even aware truly as a kid that I was supposed to interact with the Holy Spirit daily.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00I thought I was supposed to interact with the Holy Spirit in like important altar calls. And so it wasn't really until I mean, like, obviously I had more of a personal relationship with the Holy Spirit as I continued to mature with my faith constantly throughout, you know, my formative years. But it's really been in adulthood that I feel like I've finally got a grasp on like, oh, this is who this is. Right. And this is what they mean for my life.
SPEAKER_02And see, I I surrendered, fully surrendered my heart to Jesus when I was eight years old. Okay. Then I went on the quest for the Holy Ghost. Okay. Wasn't sure what I was really seeking, but I knew that I was called of God to preach the word. And so knowing that calling and what I knew from being in the church setting, I knew I needed the Holy Ghost. And but I wasn't sure what I was seeking. I sought for I saw for two years, and then I knew I had a distinctive, um, let's see, undeniable experience with him. And I knew that I had received the baptism of the Holy of the Holy Ghost. But that was the calling on my life, I think was part of what drove me to seek the Holy Ghost. Because I knew I needed the the power that comes with the Holy Ghost if I was going to fulfill the call on my life. So I did seek him, but I what didn't know what I was seeking. And when I got baptized, I thought that was it.
SPEAKER_00Right. I think I had a very similar experience where I was saved at six years old. I had a very distinctive encounter with the power and the presence of the Holy Spirit at eight. And I would characterize that as like the true beginning of me walking through the process of sanctification. And then I was baptized with the Holy Ghost when I was 10. It was 7808. And it was a youth camp. I could show you exactly where I was in the tabernacle. Well, I can't because it's not the same tabernacle anymore. Rest in peace. But I, like you, felt like I wasn't even sincerely a Christian until I had the spirit baptism experience because it was so emphasized in our Christian Pentecostal community. And so I was pursuing the gift and not the giver. I was pursuing the experience and not the indwelling. And God still allowed me to have the experience, but I didn't understand it. Right. I didn't embrace the significance of what it was supposed to do to me and for me because I thought essentially it was a box to check on my spiritual resume. And unfortunately, I feel like a lot of people feel that way, or that is a misunderstanding that they have, that they need to check the box of having received spirit baptism without understanding what spirit baptism even is. So hopefully, in our examination of the scripture here, we can kind of get to the core of what is spirit baptism and why should believers pursue it and how can it manifest for believers, you know, what what will that experience look like? But before we do that, we actually need to start at the very beginning. Yes. It's a very good place to start. My favorite theologian, Maria Von Traff, is never wrong. And as I read the first reference to the Holy Spirit in Scripture, I need to ask you one final question. We've kind of already alluded to it, but you know, we talked about Holy Ghost, uh-huh, and that being the only terminology we heard when we were growing up. Do you think that there is importance to the distinction in terminology when we're referring to this third member of the Trinity?
SPEAKER_02Okay. You mean like as as far as referring to Holy Ghost, Holy Spirit, Holy Okay. Yes, I I do. And I think that um in the old covenant, uh because we refer to him pretty much as ghost in the new covenant, um, in the old covenant he shows up, but he shows up as spirit. And so I think that's one reason some people don't make the connection between the old covenant and the new covenant.
SPEAKER_00Well, some people even go so far as to almost believe that what is present with humanity beyond Pentecost is separate when it's not.
SPEAKER_02That's right. That's right. And so I think I think um spirit is a a term that you can that that helps makes it all more congruent from beginning to end. And um so yeah, I I think there's a there's an important distinction.
SPEAKER_00Me personally, I don't really use Holy Ghost.
SPEAKER_02I do sometimes, but it's because it's so deeply ingrained.
SPEAKER_00The only time I say Holy Ghost is when I baptize.
SPEAKER_03Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_00I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. But conversationally or when reciting scripture, I tend to lean towards Holy Spirit just because I genuinely believe that it feels more accessible to people and it's not tied up with all of these mystical or difficult connotations in people's brains. But I wanted to ask that because we're going to talk about the terminology that is actually used throughout the Hebrew scriptures. So the first biblical reference to the Holy Spirit comes at the very beginning. It's Genesis 1, 2. So I will be reading Genesis 1, 1, and 2 in a direct translation from the Hebrew. So it might sound a little bit different from what you're used to hearing. Uh, and I want you to keep in mind, we will discuss the importance and the reason that we're using this translation shortly. We're gonna begin walking through scripture chronologically in just a few weeks here on the podcast. And so I will offer like a full in-depth uh reasoning for why we're using this translation. I don't want to get into the weeds of that right now because it would take away the time for our discussion about the Holy Spirit. So you're I know some people as soon as I start are gonna be like, that's not what it says. But Genesis 1, 1 and 1, 2. When God began to create heaven and earth, the earth being unformed and void, with darkness over the surface of the deep, and a wind from God sweeping over the water. So the word here is wind, but in the Hebrew it's ruach. Uh-huh. And ruach literally means breath, spirit, wind, essence. So we see the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, being present in the act of creation. Now, of course, all three members of the Trinity are active in creation. You know, John tells us that Christ himself is the creator, right? And of course, the Father is often the member of the Trinity that we most readily associate with the act of creation. But we see here that the spirit is also active and present during the process of creation, and specifically that the spirit is hovering over the waters. I also wonder as a kid if maybe this played into my conception at all with darkness being associated, because here we see that the spirit of God is hovering over the surface of the deep where there is darkness. Right. But if we examine the scriptures, we will find constantly throughout them this inextricable link between the spirit and water. Right? The spirit is typified by water constantly throughout the scriptures. The spirit is often represented by water or by physical things that have an association with water, right? And I find that so interesting because obviously the first thing that we think of spiritually when we think of water is that it's a cleansing agent, right? And so the fact that we have this intrinsic link between the spirit of God and water. And then, of course, water sustains us. Water is necessary for human survival at the most basic level. It is the first need other than air, right? Right? We need oxygen, we need water. And so we'll talk about oxygen in just a moment. But this idea of one of the most foundational building blocks for our survival and the thing that cleanses us, and it being rep both of those things being representations of the Holy Spirit and the role of the Holy Spirit, right, in our lives. And so we see here that the Spirit is hovering at the beginning of the Spirit's movement in the Old Testament, in the Hebrew scriptures, the Spirit is hovering over the water. And then if we follow all the way through to the new covenant, the new testament, the first place that we see the spirit physically manifested is at the baptism of Jesus Christ. Right. The spirit descends as a dove and lands on Jesus' head over the baptismal waters. And so this idea that, first off, that the spirit is always involved in the act of baptism, even in water baptism, not strictly spirit baptism, that the spirit is hovering over the waters. And that's what makes the waters transformative, right? Is the hovering of the spirit. And that's we are raised to new life in the spirit when we are immersed into these baptismal waters, and this transformation occurs because of the physical presence of the spirit in these waters. So I just find that so fascinating. And I love to examine scripturally this link between water and the spirit. I personally like to draw the link with water and the spirit and fire in Christ often throughout scripture, which is interesting because you know, at Pentecost, the spirit descends with tongues as of fire. Right. Um, but I just find the the symbology happening constantly throughout scripture of water representing the spirit fascinating and beautiful and really illuminating to our understanding of what it is that the spirit longs to do in our lives.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I I agree. And uh one of my favorite things um is like when we're having a baptismal service for me to ask you to speak before baptism because so many people have never seen the correlation there between spirit and water, even though it seems like it's obvious. Sometimes things that seem obvious are not obvious. And when I've seen people's, I've literally seen in the within the congregation, people's eyes light up and when you make that connection. And especially it's so important right before we we actually enter into baptism for people to understand that the spirit is hovering over the waters in which these people are about to um be immersed. And so um it's interesting. One day we ought to look at, because like you said, you you a like you associate fire with Christ, okay, and we're cleansed by the washing of the water of the word. One day we need to sit down and look at all of the these images because we find that they over they do overlap some.
SPEAKER_00Right, yeah, yeah. I um the the fire and water in like comparison to the spirit in Christ, the the most strong example I have in the old covenant is the fire by night and the cloud by day, because a cloud is con condensation of water, right? Right. And so the idea, I love this idea that in darkness, fire leads us, right? When we are in darkness, the light of Christ shines on us and guides us and directs us towards salvation. Right. And then once we are in light, the daytime, water, the spirit, I like that, guides us and directs us. So that's something I'll go into greater detail with when later when we get to that in scripture. But I just I I love that idea. So that that's one of the places that I draw those respective symbolisms from. But on the topic of Genesis 1 2, and having just had a conversation about the importance of personality. Terminology, I wanted to take just a moment to really embrace the terminology of Ruach and specifically the Ruach Hakkadesh, the Holy Spirit, the spirit, the wind, the breath, the essence of God. And I want to be really clear and offer a very strong disclaimer before I say what I'm about to say. I personally do not like to anthropomorphize God at all. I think that God transcends and is so much greater than any of our human conceptions and all of the limitations that we end up placing on our idea of God when we attempt to view God as a reflection of humanity instead of viewing humanity as a reflection of God. Right. So I don't e I don't even really like to use pronouns for God because I feel like they're inherently restrictive. And as we've been talking about terminology and the connotations that humans attach to terms, yes, God is our father. And he's a loving and a good and a compassionate father. And scripture does refer to him as father. But there are people for whom, when they hear the term father, immediately walls are going to go up because of the experiences that they've had with earthly fathers. And so I don't believe that we should have a conception of God that is tied to gender at all. Because God is not a human. And so and God is an infinite being that encompasses qualities that transcend what we would associate with either gender, right? That is not me saying God is not father. I want to be very clear about that. I just, whenever we start saying he, and whenever we start referring to God through a masculine lens, it places barriers that should not exist, right? And so the reason I'm saying all of this is because personally I find it fascinating that throughout the Hebrew scriptures, ruach is explicitly feminine. The terminology for the spirit is feminine. That God, that both men and women can identify with characteristics within the totality of the Godhead, right? And also the idea that the Godhead itself represents the entirety of the family unit because you have father and you can interpret it as having mother and having son, right? And I just find that really fascinating. And I also think that some of the qualities of the Holy Spirit can be read as feminine, as you know, it's it's a comforter, it's a helper. And we'll we'll discuss that in just in greater detail in just a moment. But the idea of the Holy Spirit fulfilling what in our human conception would typically be a little bit more of a feminine role relationally. And of course, you know, we're gonna read scriptures from the New Testament momentarily that refer to the Holy Spirit with masculine pronouns. I'm not saying that it's strictly one or the other, but I do think that if you're at all interested in terminology and etymology, understanding that the way that the spirit is referred to throughout the entirety of the Hebrew scriptures is feminine is interesting.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. That is that's very interesting. Quick, quick little story here. Um years ago, I was uh teaching a series on covenant, and I had a lady that had been in my Sunday school class, was coming to this Bible study, and um, you know, I was teaching, I would teach on God the Father and how about the covenant that the Father struck and that kind of stuff. And I'll never forget one evening as I finished teaching, uh we just had a time of prayer, and I and invited people to pray they could come forward or whatever. I'll never forget opening, opening my eyes and this lady being at my feet and tears were streaming down her face, and she said, I can call him father now. And she had been had given her heart to the Lord a while before, but because of her experience as a child and being abused and so mistreated, she couldn't in no way to that moment could she ever um connect with God as father, because in her mind a father was someone who was who was abusive and who brought harm. And so that is that is so true that so many people do struggle with calling God father. And I think they that would these kinds of things, uh letting them know that ruach, Hakkadesh, that it has a feminine com connotation, I think that will bring, you know, some someone heard that they they might be able to um understand and relate to the to God in a um in a different way. So I mean it's it's I agree wholeheartedly with you.
SPEAKER_00I think that there are people who feel somewhat othered possibly by the fact that God is strictly referred to as a masculine figure sometimes. I'm sure that there are women who feel as if they can't identify with God as strongly as their male counterparts possibly can. And so I think it's important that all people have an understanding that we are all created in the divine image, and a man is not more in the divine image than a woman, uh-huh. That we are equally reflections of the divine, like we we all reflect divinity equally. And while we're on this, while we're on the subject, let's go ahead and go to the the creation of the human, specifically in Genesis 2, we get a more detailed specific story of how it is that humans came to be living beings. And this is relevant to our conversation about the Holy Spirit because what happens is God fashions the human out of the dust of the earth, and in order for the human to become a living being, the ruach, the breath, the wind, the essence of God is breathed into the nostrils of the human. And that's when the human comes alive. That's when the human develops a consciousness, that's when the human develops the ability to think and the ability to reason. And this is what separates the human from all the other created beings. This is what makes us different and distinct from the animals, is that we have the very spirit of God breathed into us. And I think that it's so important to emphasize that all human beings, if a human is alive, they have the spirit of God within them because that's what makes them alive. Christians don't have a monopoly on the spirit of God. The spirit of God is within every living human being. It's what makes them alive. And we have to emphasize that because we have to accept and embrace and proclaim that all living human beings are deserving of dignity, they're deserving of love, and they are the object of pursuit of the Spirit of God because the Spirit of God longs to be reconnected with itself. And so whether or not people recognize and realize that they have the Spirit of God within them, every one of us has a peace of God within us. And that's why so many of us long for a fulfillment that we seemingly can't find. Right. Because we're longing for reunification with what's already within us. Exactly.
SPEAKER_02It's like we long for that, for that environment that from whence we we came. We we long for that connection, that reconnection. And you know, we've it's always been described as like this big hole inside of ourselves that we're seeking to fill. What it is is, and then the only person that can fill that hole inside of us is Jesus, okay. And so that's what leads us to eventually discovering Jesus as being the way to God, okay. But um that that longing is really the reconnection with the spirit to the spirit, the spirit of God that was breathed into us, connecting to the spirit, which is then that environment through which we were we were formed, you know. Let us make man, and so we're made out of that environment, and we want to connect to the environment, it's just like a fish out of water. A fish on you take a fish, you throw it up on the bank, which is you know, and it flops around because that's not its environment. And that's the way uh I see so many people going through life because they've not had that reconnection, and it's there's like they feel like they're flopping on the bank, and when they can get to that atmosphere, if they can get to that breath, if they can get to their that wind, if they can get to that connection, then they will fully come alive.
SPEAKER_00I think that it's also interesting because of course, like the the point of ultimate emphasis is our desire to reconnect with the spirit of God and with the presence, the manifest presence of God. But it also applies in our relationships with one another as well, because the spirit of God in me can connect for with the spirit of God in you. That's right and it can long to connect with the spirit within specific vessels. And I think that sometimes that's why certain relationships come so easily. It's like there's an innate sense of knowing one another. And you know, it's it's kind of a rudimentary example to use, but at the very top of the episode, we were talking about like how instantly Emily just fit with our family. And it might sound silly, but like I genuinely believe that there's a spiritual component to that. That something within me and something within Emily was always meant to feel at home with one another, that there's a similarity in spirit with us. And of course, yes, there's a similarity in spirit with all of our fellow humans, but some of us just have a more intimate connection because the spirit of God in me connects with the spirit of God in her.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, that I I I agree wholeheartedly with that. That's one reason that um people that are in Christ, you can meet them. Sometimes there's just certain people that suddenly it's like you know them. And it's because of that spirit in them. I'll never forget one time I was leading the choir at Union Grove. And so, um, and Margaret Reed came out of the choir and I reached over and I didn't know her that well. I reached over and I grabbed her and I hugged her. And when I did, you could feel the connection of the spirit of God in me and the spirit of God in her. And when that, when those those two things connected, it was so powerful. And it and she and I, that's a relationship. I could go all kinds of years without seeing her. But when I see her, that connection is always there. And our connection is the covenant connection that has been made by the presence of the spirit of God in our lives.
SPEAKER_00And Margaret Reed is one of those people that just so clearly and evidently carries the spirit of God. Yes, she does. When you're around her, you feel like you've been in the manifest presence of the Holy Spirit. And there are certain people like that. But on this subject of human connection, while we're talking about creation and the role that the Holy Spirit played at creation, like we have to make mention of the fact that after the human is breathed into and becomes a living being, God immediately says it's not good for the human to be alone. Right. That we were made for intimate connection with other humans, not just for connection with God, not just for that vertical connection, but also for the horizontal connection of having communion with our fellow man. And so God says it's not good for the human to be alone. And then God specifically says, what is often rendered in translation, I will make a helper for him. But in the Hebrew, there's a lot more going on here than just simply helper. God says, I will make an Ezergy negdo. And in the Hebrew, Ezerche negdo encompasses the totality of yes, helper, yes, supporter, yes, partner. And it specifically is a helper, a supporter, a partner that is being sent by God to stand face to face and side by side. So within the order of creation, we're meant to have an equality with our fellow human, whether we're male or female, no matter, like no matter age, no matter there's there's no barriers that should make one greater and one lesser within the original intention of the creation of humanity, but we are meant to come into holy unity with one another and to help one another, to support one another, to partner with one another, because this is what the Holy Spirit does for us, and therefore it's what we should do for each other.
SPEAKER_02Exactly. And um one of the things is a comp is it's more than a complement. It's more than one that comes alongside it. It is a completion. A comp the Holy Spirit comes to make us complete and um and to come al come alongside of us to give us um the strength and and the uh grace to to walk this life.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and we can't be complete without the Holy Spirit. No, we cannot. And that's why we're so often longing for something to fulfill us because the only thing that can fulfill us is that reunification of the spirit.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it is something that the thing that we need the most to complete us is the thing that so many of us were afraid of.
SPEAKER_00And it's also the thing that's already within us. Yeah. It's within us, we just don't so often humans don't recognize it. So in order to continue this conversation about who the Holy Spirit is and the role that it plays in our lives, we absolutely have to go to the words of Jesus about the Holy Spirit. And so I actually want to begin with Jesus' words offering the promise of the Holy Spirit. So that's in John chapter 16, verses 5 through 15. Can you read that for us?
SPEAKER_02I sure can. Jesus said, But now I'm going to him who sent me, and none of you ask me, Where are you going? But because I have said these things to you, grief has filled your heart. But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I am leaving. For if I do not leave, the helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you, and he, when he comes, will convict the world regarding sin and righteousness and judgment, regarding sin because they do not believe in me, and regarding righteousness, because I am going to the Father, and you no longer are going to see me, and regarding judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged. I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them at this present at the present time. But when he, the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own, but whatever he hears, he will speak, and he will disclose to you what is to come. He will glorify me, for he will take from mine and will disclose it to you. All things that the Father has are mine, and this is why I said that he takes from mine and will disclose it to you.
SPEAKER_00Alright, so here we have Jesus offering somewhat of a very brief explanation summary of the role of the Holy Spirit and the promise of the coming, receiving of the Holy Spirit to the disciples. This is Jesus on the night of his betrayal and arrest. This is Jesus spending some of his last few moments with his disciples, sharing with them the promise of the Holy Spirit. And so this is one of those passages that like portions of it, maybe like singular sentences, are quoted a lot, but I don't know that it's viewed in its totality very often. And so I wanted us to kind of use this as a jumping-off point for our understanding of within the New Testament the role of the Holy Spirit. So here we have Jesus telling his disciples that it's for their benefit, it's for their betterment that Jesus is going away because he is sending someone for them. And this person that he is sending is a helper.
SPEAKER_02Yes.
SPEAKER_00And again, the term helper is being a little bit restrictive. It's not encompassing the totality of the terminology here because Jesus is literally saying, I'm sending a helper, yes, but a comforter, an advocate, an intercessor for you. There's so much more than just simply helper. This is someone who's going to offer you comfort and peace. This is someone who's going to contend for you and advocate for you and argue your case. And this is someone who specifically is going to pray through you, in you, and pray for you. Right. And so there's so much going on here in the terminology of who this person is that Jesus is going to send for the disciples and for the believers. What jumps out at you in this passage?
SPEAKER_02Uh well, I I want to go to uh verse eight.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_02But now I want to go to verse seven. But I tell you the truth, it's to your advantage that I'm leaving, which you just said that, for if I don't if I do not leave, the helper will not come to you. But if I go, if I go, I will send him to you. Those are the words of Jesus. Okay. And he, when he comes, will convict the world regarding sin and righteousness and judgment, regarding sin because they do not believe in me. And regarding righteousness because I'm going to the Father, and you're not, you're no longer going to see me. And regarding judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged. The way it breaks down sin and righteousness and judgment there.
SPEAKER_00And the distinct audiences, right, that each of these concepts is being introduced in light of, right? Because the Holy Spirit, a lot of times, for a believer, for someone who has been saved, sanctified, filled with the Holy Ghost, to quote the old, you know, terminology and order of things, most people, once they experience that spirit baptism, I the their primary conception of the role of the Holy Spirit in their lives is to convict. Right. Right? But who does it say here that the Spirit is going to convict?
SPEAKER_02It says, and when he comes, will convict the world regarding sin.
SPEAKER_00Mm-hmm. Regarding sin, why?
SPEAKER_02Uh because they do not believe in me.
SPEAKER_00Right. So the role of the Holy Spirit in terms of conviction, according to the words of Jesus, is to convict those who do not yet believe. Which I find very fascinating because growing up in a Pentecostal church, I felt like the role of the Holy Spirit was to convict me, was to check me, was to convince me when something was wrong, right? And I do think that the Holy Spirit obviously does convict. The Holy Spirit convicts often prior to salvation. Because as we've already established, I genuinely believe that every human being has the Holy Spirit within them. And I think the function that the Holy Spirit often plays, even before you recognize or realize who he is or what it is that he's doing within you, is the role of the conscience. This innate sense of this is not good for me, this innate sense of this is not right or this is wrong. I think that that comes from the Holy Spirit being within each of us. But I do believe that beyond salvation, the role of the Holy Spirit is that of partner, is that of Ezekinegdo, is that of Paraclete to come alongside. And yes, the Holy Spirit deals with us in righteousness, which we'll talk about in just a moment, but the conviction of the Holy Spirit is primarily for those who have not yet believed. Right.
SPEAKER_02And what's so what jumps out at me is um so many times we think the Holy Spirit is for the church only. Okay. And we know that for God so loved the world, and Jesus has always been. About reaching the world. The Holy Spirit will come and convict the world because they they're in sin. But so you can have that connection, that reconnection with the Father and with the Son and with the Spirit.
SPEAKER_00I got to give a little bit of credit here because this is one of those verses that, you know, I heard quoted all the time. And when he comes, he will convict. And that's what I heard was that the spirit would convict me as a believer. And it was actually Hannah, shout out Hannah, who probably about a year and a half ago, maybe she and I were having a conversation and she was like, Yeah, it doesn't say that he's gonna convict believers. It says that the spirit comes to convict the world regarding sin because they've not yet believed in me. And of course, we as Christians who have experienced salvation, we still sin, right? But the role that the Holy Spirit plays in our lives is not strictly to convict, but it's to instruct us in righteousness. And I love the way that it describes it here. It says, regarding righteousness, because I am going to the Father and you are no longer going to see me. And I love the idea that while Jesus was present on earth, as long as you could see Jesus, you had the perfect example of righteousness. But now that Jesus has gone to the Father, now that Jesus has returned to the heavenly realm, we now need the Spirit to lead, guide, instruct, direct us in righteousness because we don't have the clear view of Jesus. So the Spirit reveals Jesus to us so that we might live righteously. And of course, we're going to fall short. But if we've experienced salvation and we have a revelation of who Jesus is, we don't need conviction in the sense that we did prior to salvation. Because if Jesus is within us, we know when we've done wrong. And all that is necessary for us to be rectified is that relationship with Jesus Christ. And so Jesus is constantly renewing us, refreshing us. We're being continually conformed to his image. And so we can progress in righteousness, never attaining perfection on this side of eternity. But the role of the spirit is not, there's not a negative connotation to what the spirit is doing. The spirit is lovingly instructing us on this is how to be more like Jesus. And the more we become like Jesus, the more righteous we become, the less sinful we become.
SPEAKER_02Right. So I I I love that the explanation and regarding righteousness, because he was the express image of God. And then that's the image we're to be made into. And that's this the spirit working in us will mold us and shape us into that image.
SPEAKER_00So and then I I gotta make mention of regarding judgment because the ruler of this world has been judged. Judgment's not for humans. Judgment is not it, there's something specifically for unbelievers here. There's something specifically for believers here. But judgment is for neither of those categories here in this passage. Judgment is for the ruler of the world. Right. The adversary of our soul is who the spirit longs to judge. The spirit, and see, I feel like so many people, as children, develop this conception of the spirit of God just waiting for them to mess up. Like the spirit of God is longing to flee from them once they've messed up, once they've fallen into sin or habitual sin or whatever. But the reality is here it says like the purpose of the spirit is not to judge us, to judge the ruler of the world. The spirit longs to be in relationship with us, not to forsake us.
SPEAKER_02And what it actually says is the ruler of the world has been judged. So I love that that that he has he has been judged. His his fate is sealed. Okay.
SPEAKER_00But it's not not so for humanity. That's right. Right? We're there's not a bygone conclusion that any of us are to experience condemnation because Christ's atoning sacrifice is all sufficient. There's nothing beyond the scope of his power or his authority, and all who call upon the name of Jesus Christ will be saved. So all can experience salvation. That's right.
SPEAKER_02And then uh you brought out that word condemnation. There's therefore now no condemnation to Christ. That's right, to those who are in Christ Jesus. So then, of course, I love the the next part where it's he talks about uh I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them. You can't you can't take them at this time. But when he, the spirit of truth comes, so here he's the spirit of truth, okay. He will guide you into all the truth. And for he will not speak on his own, but whatever he hears, he will speak. And he will disclose to to you what is to come, okay. But I love that part that you're not ready to receive this right now.
SPEAKER_00And immediately the the thing I think of there is, well, first off, we we have Cooper visiting us right now. And Cooper and Cooper loves to have very in-depth conversations, but there are certain things that he doesn't need to know about yet because he's seven, right? And he needs to enjoy his chin sense of childlike wonder and his innocence. And so sometimes he'll ask me about subject matters that are frankly too mature for him. And I have to be very direct and tell him you you can't know about that yet. And I'm I'm reminded of uh Corey Tinboom gave an example of her asking a question about a subject matter that was too mature for her, and her dad brought out a suitcase and loaded it down with, I believe, books and told her to lift it. And it was too big, it was too heavy, she could not lift it. And he used that example to explain to her there are certain things that you are not made to lift yet. And so I carry the suitcase for you because you can't yet bear it. And there will come a time in your life where maybe you'll be able to wield the suitcase and you can have that knowledge and you can have that understanding. But for now, because you're a child, you don't have the strength to withstand this, to lift this. And I love the idea because that that painted such a loving image of her father in my brain, that he was so intentional in explaining this to her and so intentional in protecting her and preserving her in that way. And that that's the way that God operates with us. That he only withholds for our benefit and for our protection. He doesn't withhold to be vindictive or to be difficult or to make things confusing for us. If he's withholding from us, it's because we're not yet ready to save. That's right. But when we are ready, then he will lavishly pour things out on us.
SPEAKER_02That's that's so good and that's so true. I I love that um the story of of Corey and her father. It just makes it um, it just paints the perfect picture.
SPEAKER_00So it absolutely does. I did want to just point out the verbs that are used in reference to the spirit of truth here. So it says that the spirit will guide, right? The spirit will speak, the spirit will hear whatever he hears, he will speak. So we know the spirit guides us, the spirit speaks, the spirit hears, the spirit discloses, and the spirit glorifies. And I think that that, like if we could just break it down to those verbs, that really tells us what the role of the spirit is. The spirit longs to communicate with us, the spirit longs to guide us, and the spirit longs to glorify Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, the it's the Holy Spirit is the communicator. Uh, he uh um Paul wrote in his salutations a few times that um the Holy Spirit is the one who communicates the love of Christ into our hearts, he's the communicator of love, the communicator of the love of God. This is kind of uh one thing you um yeah earlier in the original text, you know how the spirit was hovering. The spirit, I believe, was waiting to hear. Because when the when God spoke, that's when the spirit could move. And so I love that because here the Holy Spirit, when he hears what God has to say to us, the Holy Spirit hears, and the Holy Spirit communicates um what what it is the Father is trying to say to us.
SPEAKER_00And I also love the idea that the Spirit hears God, but the Spirit also hears us.
SPEAKER_01Yes, he does.
SPEAKER_00Because that's the role of intercessor, right? The role of intercessor is the same as the role of prophet in the Hebrew scriptures of representing humanity to God and representing God to humanity. And so we often think of Jesus Christ as our intercessor, and yes, he is, but scripture also tells us that the spirit is our intercessor. And so the idea that the very spirit of God listens to us, right? It hears what we have to say, and it longs to communicate with us, not in a one-sided way, but in a reciprocal way. It wants to speak, but it also wants to hear. And that's that's really, really beautiful.
SPEAKER_02I'm just how how desperately did God want to be able to communicate with us and us communicate with him? That he gave us the spirit who prays when we don't know how to pray. He gave us the spirit who hears us and intercedes for us. He gave us his son who sits at his right hand who intercedes for us. I mean, he took he took down every wall of block communication so we could communicate with him and he could communicate with us. That should let us know how much how desperately the father wants to be able to communicate with his children and us to be able to communicate with him. He took care of it all.
SPEAKER_00Yes, he gave us so many avenues for communication. Yeah. Um, so yes, the spirit communicates, the spirit glorifies, which we're going to talk more about in just a second. But before that, the spirit guides and it guides us in all truth. And I don't, I'm not going to read the entirety of this chapter or anything, but in terms of the spirit guiding, I think that we have to look at the terminology and the wording used in Luke chapter four, because this is when Jesus begins his earthly ministry in earnest. This is immediately after the spirit has descended upon him at his baptism. The spirit has descended on him in the manner of a dove. And after the spirit descends upon him, the spirit immediately begins to lead, guide, direct, prompt him. And so the first verse of Luke chapter 4 says, now Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led around by the Spirit in the wilderness. So it's the Spirit that leads Jesus. And Jesus is full of the Holy Spirit. And then it, of course, in this narrative is when the adversary appears to Jesus and begins to tempt him. And Jesus is only able to withstand this temptation because he is full of the spirit and because he is being led by the spirit. So after the temptations occur, Jesus then enters the synagogue and begins his public ministry. But the manner in which he enters is described as this. It says in verse 14, and Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread all through the surrounding region. I just feel like we have to mention this because if Jesus, if God himself, if another member of the Trinity, while incarnate, while here on earth, had to rely on the guidance of the Spirit and was only capable of withstanding things under the power of the Spirit because he was full of the Spirit? How much more important, how much more imperative is it that we as created beings be led by the Spirit, be guided by the Spirit, and operate in the fullness of the Spirit, having the fullness of the Spirit of God dwelling within us. Like, how integral, how paramount must that be to our walk? If this was the way that Jesus Himself had to walk.
SPEAKER_02Right. He came and walked that way to show us the way to walk. So it was such a revelation to me when I began, when I realized that everything that Jesus did after his baptism, and when the Holy Spirit descended upon him, you find him speaking by the Spirit, being led by the Spirit, being guided by the Spirit, being constrained by the Spirit. Jesus, that was the example of how we could live. He had to come as that example. And that example was to communicate to us, you can walk in the Spirit, you can be empowered by the Spirit, the Spirit can guide you, the Spirit can constrain you, the Spirit can lead you. And so when I saw that, that that's how Jesus operated. And that's that's the that's the example for us to follow. It was life-changing for me. Because, you know, I thought the Holy Ghost was there just so I could have an experience with him every now and then, a couple of goof goosebumps and a few tongues. Okay, but I found out he wanted to be active and activated in every area of my life.
SPEAKER_00Absolutely, absolutely. And so since we're discussing the fact that the spirit guides us and the spirit leads us and the spirit empowers us, and since you know Jesus, as an example, showed us the role that the spirit can play in our lives, I think now we have to go to the spirit being received and the words that Jesus spoke about the reception of the Holy Spirit. So honestly, I think it's a miracle that we made it an hour and 20 minutes into a discussion about the Holy Spirit without going to Acts 1.8. Yes. But now I think that we must. So I actually would like it if we read from the beginning of the chapter, from Acts 1 1 through 8.
SPEAKER_02Okay. Um it says the first account I composed, Theophilus, about all that Jesus began to do and teach until the day when he was taken up to heaven after he had given orders by the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. To these he also presented himself alive after his suffering by many convincing proofs, appearing to them over a period of forty days and speaking of things regarding the kingdom of God. Gathering them together, he commanded them not to leave Jerusalem, but to wait for what the Father had promised, which, he said, You heard from me. For John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now. So when they had come together they began asking him, saying, Lord, is it at this time that you are restoring the kingdom of Israel? But he said to them, It is not for you to know periods of time or appointed seasons which the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses, both in Jerusalem and all Judea and Samaria, and as far as the remotest part of the earth.
SPEAKER_00So Acts one eight, I would contend, with an American Pentecostal congregation, is probably one of the most often quoted scriptures. But it's so interesting to me because we we pointed this out when we had this discussion on Wednesday. It literally starts with but, uh, which lets you know that it's a clause that is attached to a larger sentence.
SPEAKER_03Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_00And yet most people only recite Acts 1, 8. Right. They don't recite seven and eight. They don't even recite six through eight. They just recite that eight. Uh, which is interesting to me, because even if you just recite eight, I feel like we still miss the emphasis of eight because so often the emphasis is placed on the word power. Would you agree with that?
SPEAKER_01Oh, yes.
SPEAKER_00That it's the power of the Holy Spirit that you're going to receive. And that the understanding often seems to be that the power is the manifestation. The power is the operation of the gifts. The power is the fact that you are going to speak with other tongues, right? And we're going to dissect the gifts in just a moment. But so often what's skipped over is what it is that we are being empowered to do by receiving the Holy Spirit. Because if you read this entire introduction, the emphasis here is Jesus Christ. The emphasis is the resurrection and the proofs that Jesus has provided in his time here on earth between resurrection and ascension. The emphasis is on Jesus delivering this promise. And the purpose of the promise and the power is so that we can be witnesses of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_02That's right. So we can give testimony or testify of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00Right. And so it's not about speaking in tongues and not, please hear me. I'm not trying to discredit or depreciate the role of spiritual gifts. As I said, we're going to talk about those in just a moment. But the purpose of the gift is to testify of Jesus Christ. That's right. Is to give proof that is impossible to ignore that Jesus is real and that the gospel message, the message that Jesus is, is impossible to ignore.
SPEAKER_02Right.
SPEAKER_00And so I just that's why I thought that it was so important to read the entirety of this introduction, because yes, the spirit longs to move and to operate through gifts, but the purpose of the gifts is to raise high, to exalt, to glorify the name of Jesus Christ so that more people can experience salvation because of what it is that He has done. That's the purpose of the promise. And that's the power, that's what we are supposed to be empowered to do, right? Is to bring people to the salvation of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_02I've seen so many throughout my life, I've seen so many people who got exalted, self-exalted. Imagine this, self-exalted, because they had experienced some of the gifts of the Spirit. Okay. And so the total um reason for the gifts has nothing to do with any kind of self-exaltation. It all has to do with exalting Jesus Christ. And that's that's why the gifts are given. That's why the experience, the promise of the Father is there to glorify and exalt the Lord Jesus Christ. And if the church would begin to exalt him, if we begin to lift him up and exalt him, then sons and daughters will be drawn into the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00And that's, you know, this goes back to the conversation that was had in the episode that came out last week of the distinction between Babel and Pentecost. The reason that the ministry of Pentecost was effective, the reason that the sermon that Peter gave was able to bring souls into the kingdom was because the express and sole purpose of that ministry, of that sermon, was to exalt the name of Jesus Christ. At Babel, humanity sought to exalt itself and it got us nowhere. At Pentecost, humans sought to exalt Jesus Christ and it got them everywhere. It was the birth of the church. And that's the express purpose of the church is to exalt the name of Jesus Christ. Because that's the name of Jesus is what saves people. The name Jesus literally proclaims, Yahweh saves. And so if we will exalt that message and if we will exalt the man, Jesus Christ, then we will see lives changed and people saved. Because that's what God longs to do. And that's why God gave us the advocate, the helper, the comforter of the Holy Spirit to empower us to be about the work of Jesus Christ and to see souls brought into the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_01That's right.
SPEAKER_00He didn't give us the gifts just so we could have a really awesome church service. That's right. He gave us the gifts so that we could enlarge the church.
SPEAKER_02I'll tell you something that just struck me as as you were speaking, is you know, we're not supposed to quench the moving of the Holy Spirit. And everybody attributes that to a church service only. But I I wonder how how how m often has the body of Christ quenched the moving of the Holy Spirit. By not exalting Jesus, by not allowing him to move upon them, speak through them, and glorify and exalt the name of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00And how often have we quenched the moving of the spirit because we're looking for the spirit to move in the church service and within the four walls, but we're not expecting the spirit to necessarily move in compelling us to show kindness to this random stranger on the street? Right. We're not necessarily expecting the spirit to move and hand this money to this homeless person. Right. You know, or we're almost scared to allow ourselves to be prompted by the spirit. Because what if the spirit prompts us to go up and speak about Jesus in public to this stranger? What if the spirit prompts us to just begin to pray aloud in public? And people don't want the movement of the spirit like that, which is so, so ironic because they'd claim that they want all these awesome manifestations in the midst of the church service. You know, they want to speak in tongues, they want the gifts to operate, but they want it in a specific category and in a specific time. And the purpose of the spirit is for it to be a constant communion.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00For the spirit to well up within us and flow out of us as we move throughout our daily lives. Exactly. But we don't all we don't always look for the movement of the spirit outside of the walls of the church as much as we do within the walls of the church.
SPEAKER_02Exactly. And and a lot of times the way he moves within a service has to fit a cer certain uh let's see format too, you know. Anyway, it's to me years ago I I did a a study on what I called the forgotten one, the forgotten member of the Trinity, which was the Holy Spirit. And um I was overwhelmed then because of how he had been misunderstood and how he had been forgotten because we all all the time, and please hear me. I love God the Father, I adore God the Son. So many times we just disregard God the Holy Spirit, and um right now I think I am experiencing some convict not conviction, instruction and righteousness. Instruction and righteousness of how so many times we neglect to allow him to move just as we go through our the mund the mundane of life. We forget to look for the Holy Spirit moving in the mundane. I had a I had someone come up to me Wednesday and they wanted to talk about the mundane of the mundane of life, the mundaness of their jobs and that kind of stuff. And the truth of the matter is if we'll be open to him, if we will seek him, if we'll if we will give him if we'll give him the invitation into our day, he'll he will be there, he will manifest and he will show up. But we gotta we gotta want him to show up so we can glorify Jesus.
SPEAKER_00And however Jesus wants to be glorified. That's right. So what's what Jesus says here in distinguishing the work of the Spirit from all the work that has been done previously is he specifically says, John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit. And that's how we categorize the experience of Pentecost is the baptism of the Holy Spirit. And yes, at Pentecost, those that were assembled spoke with tongues. Tongues descended as fire, and they spoke with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. I do want to make mention that the reason that they spoke with tongues was so that every person present at Jerusalem could hear the gospel sermon in their native tongue. That's right. Because the Holy Spirit longed to communicate with people in the manner that they could receive. And so the gifts of tongues were not for the believers, but for the unbelievers, which Paul talks about in some of his epistles, right? That the purpose was so that people could hear of Jesus. So the baptism of the Spirit has always been about exalting and glorifying Jesus Christ. And I feel like that gets lost sometimes in the pursuit of the gift, is we want the gift for what it can mean for us and not necessarily for what it means for others. Right. But the purpose of the gift is to be able to minister to others, to move under the empowerment of the spirit, to testify of Jesus Christ to other people, to try to bring other human beings back into that holy union, that reunification with the Spirit of God. So the Spirit graciously does give gifts to us as believers. And these gifts are described in First Corinthians chapter 12 in one of the epistles of Paul. And these gifts are an integral part of spirit baptism. So I do want to ask you before I read the chapter concerned with spiritual gifts, or at least a portion of the chapter, when you hear spirit baptism, when you hear Jesus say that the Holy Spirit is going to baptize, how would you define, how would you characterize the baptism of the Holy Spirit?
SPEAKER_02Wow. The baptism of the Holy Spirit um is a I want to be I want to be careful here because you made reference to something earlier. That um so many times people who have not experienced the baptism of the Holy Spirit, they feel like they're either second-class um Christians or whatever. There's no such thing as that. Okay, but the baptism of the Holy Spirit is a definitive and an indelible work of the Spirit. It's some something that you can experience, and He desires for everyone to experience Him in this way. It is like I think it's called baptism because it's immersion in Him, it's being immersed in Him, entering into Him and Him filling you and Him being upon you. And you know, we will probably talk about upon and in and all of that kind of stuff, but it is immersion in the Holy Spirit of God. And I know you have a really good um way of describing it.
SPEAKER_00And so I've well I give full credit to Ray Dawson, who he is able to put very complex spiritual concepts very succinctly and clearly in a manner that I feel like most people can understand. And so, as we've previously established, I genuinely believe that every living human being has the spirit of God within them, right? By virtue of being a living being, the ruach of God has been breathed into you. And that's what gives you a consciousness, that's what makes you a being of higher, a higher level of creation than the animals. Ray Dawson puts it this way: You have the Holy Spirit. Spirit baptism is when the Holy Spirit has you.
SPEAKER_03Right.
SPEAKER_00So, as you said, yes, it's it's immersion, it's surrender, it's obedience, it's saying, none of me and all of you, Holy Spirit. It is giving complete ownership over your actions, over your speech, over every aspect of your identity, handing it over wholly and completely to the Holy Spirit, so that the Holy Spirit has free reign over all that you do, all that you think, all that you speak. And so, yes, it is it's a definitive act, it's a work of grace that is conducted by and through the Holy Spirit and by and through Jesus Christ as our Holy Spirit baptizer. And so I do believe that once you have experienced spirit baptism, that the spiritual gifts begin to operate in earnest in your life. And so, scripturally, yes, the initial evidence of being spirit baptized is speaking in other tongues. I do think that part of the reason that that is always the scriptural manifestation is because it's the most immediately observable. And as we've said, the purpose of the gifts is they are to unbelievers. And so speaking in tongues is the most immediately observable gift to an unbeliever, right? Because if the spiritual gift of faith is in operation in your life, that might not be immediately observable to someone else. Exactly. But speaking in tongues is immediately observable. But speaking in tongues is one of only nine spiritual gifts that Paul outlines in his writings. If we were to poll a hundred lay people, how many of them do you think could list for me all nine of the spiritual gifts? Maybe 15%. So 15 out of 100? Yeah. I can do that math. Can you just hey I'm proud of you? I can do that math. Um, it was my understanding there would be no math. But yeah, I I would I would guesstimate round about something similar. I think that some could, but not as many as probably should be able to tell me the spiritual gifts. So I'm gonna read uh 1 Corinthians 12, 1 through 13. So this is the Apostle Paul, and he says, now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be unaware. You know that when you were pagans, you were led astray to the mute idols, however you were led. Therefore, I make known to you that no one speaking by the Spirit of God says Jesus is accursed, and no one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit. So see, Paul is clearly saying here, the exaltation of Jesus Christ only comes by the leading, guiding, and prompting of the Holy Spirit. That's how you can distinguish is this the Holy Spirit of God is does it exalt Jesus Christ? Then he says this. Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit, and there are varieties of ministries and the same Lord. There are varieties of effects, but the same God who works all things in all persons. But to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. For to one is given the word of wisdom through the spirit, and to another the word of knowledge according to the same spirit, to another faith by the same spirit, and to another gifts of healings by the one spirit, and to another the effecting of miracles, and to another prophecy, and to another the distinguishment or the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, and to another the interpretation of tongues. But one and the same spirit works all of these things, distributing to each one individually just as he wills. For just as the body is one and yet has many parts, and all parts of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ. For by one spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one spirit. And then Paul goes on to talk about how it would profit the body nothing if the entire body was composed of fingers or of eyes. Because if the entire body's eyes, then where's the hearing? And so the totality of the body is needed for the body to function in the way that it was created to function. And this is what he's saying about the church that each of the spiritual gifts needs to be in operation in order for the church to function in the manner that it was created to function, for the purpose that it was created to function. For the church of Jesus Christ to operate at full capacity, we need all nine gifts flowing. Right. And the reality is not all of us were created for all gifts. We were created with a specific gift to flow out of each of us. Me personally, I have experienced spirit baptism through the manifestation of speaking in tongues, but tongues are not my spiritual gift. I feel very strongly that either word of wisdom or word of knowledge is my spiritual gift. Perhaps I have both. But I know that certain spiritual gifts are not my primary spiritual gift, right? Discernment of spirits maybe is not my spiritual gift. It definitely is Michael Riley's my sister's, right? What do you think your spiritual gift?
SPEAKER_02Oh my goodness.
SPEAKER_00If you had to pick one as your primary spiritual gift.
SPEAKER_02If I had to pick one, I would I would hope that it would be wisdom. Okay.
SPEAKER_00So you you you think we have the same spiritual gift? Huh? You think we have the same spiritual gift?
SPEAKER_02I do. I I we are cut from a lot of the same cloth.
SPEAKER_00I agree. Do you know what I think your spiritual gift is though? I think yours is prophecy. Really? Because first off, I'll share a little quick story. Um, when I was youth pastor here a few years ago and I was teaching on the spiritual gifts, I defined each of them, which we're not gonna necessarily take the time to do in this discussion here. But when I defined prophecy, I made sure to distinguish that prophecy is not simply telling the future or being aware of information that you shouldn't be aware of as a human. I told them the definition of a prophet, which is a person who represents humanity to God and God to humanity. And immediately all the students were like, that's Pastor Denise. Oh, that's what she does. Aaron very loudly and vocally immediately was like, That's Macy. That's what she does. And so I think, yes, you communicate truths that have not necessarily expressly been revealed to the totality of humanity yet. Like you speak things that are not yet fully in existence, but you do such a good job of representing the heart of God to your fellow man and representing the needs, the desires, the expression of your fellow man to God. So I think prophecy is your spiritual. She's crying. Um, this is why we aren't on video yet, because you don't want to. We we tear up a lot. People wouldn't believe just how moved we are during these conversations. It's the subject. It is. But all nine gifts need to be in operation. And it it's not good for me as someone whose gift is not, let's say, discernment of spirits, to sit back in envy of someone who is. Right. Because I need to understand and I need to embrace that God created them with that gift and me with this gift, and brought us into the communion of the saints, brought us into holy unity with one another, so that their gift can complement my gift and my gift can complement your gift. And when we all come together as a corporate body, Jesus can be exalted simultaneously by all nine gifts flowing in a church service. And that should be the desire of the church to have each gift manifest. And sometimes I feel like we exalt specific gifts, maybe even at the expense of others. So do I. And we need them all because the spirit moves in them all, and Jesus is glorified by them all, and the Father is revealed in them all. And so we need all nine in order to be the church that we were created in birth to be.
SPEAKER_02Oh, I I I agree. And that's when you have all nine operating, um, that's when the church is a complete functioning unit. Okay. And um you you would experience um some of the things that we talk about the church being um sometimes the church the church is not.
SPEAKER_00Overstatement of the century, yeah.
SPEAKER_02But if you have all nine, all the nine gifts, well, we said while ago, he's the completer, then you have a complete body, and then you would uh you would find needs being met, people being cared for, people being taken care of, and uh because Jesus is exalted and because the Holy Spirit is fully present.
SPEAKER_00Since I brought up conversations that I've had with the young people in this church about spiritual gifts, uh we have a young person in the church, shout out Mink, who is very cognizant and aware of how the gifts operate to the point where she readily embraces speaking in tongues as a gift that is still in operation, but she wants things to be done correctly and in order and in alignment with scripture, which I respect. That's just an innate desire that's been within her for the entirety of the time that I've known her. And so she and I have had many conversations before about times when the gift of tongues has manifested in church services without there being an interpretation given to the body and how that bothers her. And yes, I do believe that when tongues are given for the edification of the church, that in that an interpretation of tongues should be given. But I wonder, and I actually personally do believe that what happens sometimes when an interpretation is not given is that the person to whom the gift of interpretation of tongues has been given is either one not present in the service for whatever reason when they when the original intention was that they should be present, or option two, maybe they're not spiritually mature enough or they haven't fully given themselves over to the spirit enough to allow the interpretation to flow out of them. And so sometimes I find myself being grieved in the midst of a church service when I can sense that a gift needs to be operating, but the vessel for its operation either isn't there or isn't given over in obedience to the moving of the spirit yet. And not in a haughty way or a condescending way at all, because I I know me personally, there's probably been times that I was supposed to open my mouth and share my gift and I didn't. But I just I long for the day when the church of God, the the church of God, the church that belongs to God, not the denomination, but when the church of Jesus Christ fully gives itself over and is truly spirit baptized, right. To the point where ownership of the church and operation of speech and of action within the church fully belongs to the Holy Spirit. Because I can't imagine.
SPEAKER_02I cannot. We've we've not seen it. And so we're but I hope that we do. I do too.
SPEAKER_00Anything else you want to say on this passage in First Corinthians before we go to our final passage of scripture to examine today? No, I don't have so we're we're we're not necessarily fully done talking about the gifts because we're going to talk about them in light of the next passage. But just as there are nine gifts of the spirit, there likewise are nine fruits of the spirit. And I feel like we would be remiss if we only talked about one because they have to be viewed in tandem with one another. Yes, they do, I believe. So would you mind reading to us out of Galatians when Paul defines and uh enumerates the fruits of the spirit six.
SPEAKER_02But I say, walk by the spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. For the desire of the flesh is against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh, for these are in opposition to one another, in order to keep you from doing whatever you want. But if you are led by the spirit, you are not under the law. Now the deeds of the flesh are evident, which are sexual immorality, impurity, indecent behavior, idolatry, witchcraft, hostility, strife, jealousy, outburst of anger, selfish ambition, dissentions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these, of which I forewarn you, just as I have forewarned you that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such things there is no law. Now those who belong to Christ Jesus crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let's follow the Spirit as well. Let's not become boastful, challenging one another and envying one another.
SPEAKER_00I think it's interesting that Paul here ends on the concept of envy again. You know, he was too he was concerned with the concept of envy in relation to the spiritual gifts of how we shouldn't envy one another. And now you're detailing the fruits. He again is cautioning them let's not be envious of one another. But I find it so Fascinating that Paul here is juxtaposing to contrary ideas. Right. The desire, the will of the flesh, and the desire and the will of the spirit. And we as humans, we comprise both. We have both flesh and spirit. The spirit of God is within us, but we're made of human flesh. And I think that these contrary desires that are at war within us, this, this, this explains why so many humans feel tormented in their human existence, right? Because our desires are at war. And so we feel often as if we're at war with ourselves, right? Because we we have desires of the flesh, but we also have desires of the spirit. And so I think that it's really important that we conceptualize that all human beings have such great capacity for evil, and all human beings have such great capacity for good. Right. And both are in existence and at war with one another within us constantly. And that we make the decision of which side of ourselves to indulge. And when we give ourselves over to the spirit, then we indulge the latter list that Paul provides here. But innately within us, there are desires for the former things, right? For and I think I love Paul's list here because he starts out really harsh with terminology that like immediately everyone would be like, well, I wouldn't do that, you know, sexual morality, witchcraft, all these things. But then very quickly, hostility, strife, jealousy, outburst of ange, anger, selfish ambition, dissension, factions. Dissension and factions. Portions of identity that seek to divide us from one another are sinful. Yes, they are. What a concept. Do you think political parties count as factions? Uh I would think so. I would think so too. That's so interesting. And they lead to dissension, right?
SPEAKER_02This idea of when you bring those into the body of Christ.
SPEAKER_00Exactly.
SPEAKER_02Exactly. It's kind of like we're we're Christian first. Okay. Then we're countrymen second. Okay. And so so many times we get that uh we almost live our lives in directly opposite of that. Like, well, first I'm I'm uh an American and I'm a Republican American or I'm a Democrat. Okay. And when you do that, you immediately bring dissension and division. And so you have to come under the banner of Christ and being a Christian first.
SPEAKER_00And the the truth is that's the only aspect of our identity that should matter. That's right. If we really identify ourselves with Jesus Christ, then we don't have any other section of identity. Right. That's all that we are, is conformed to the image of Jesus Christ. But all of us have been guilty of hostility, of strife, of jealousy, of outburst of anger. And I think it's so interesting because Paul outlines these first before introducing us to the concept of the fruits of the spirit, because what we find is that the fruits of the spirit are in essence the antidote to these things. And so I've seen it borne out in my life that I have tendencies towards this former list that Paul provides. I'll use the example of an outburst of anger because I hope that people that know me now at this stage of my life find this difficult to believe. But as a child, I had a horrible temper. And I was prone to outbursts of anger. Usually Michael was on the receiving end of those. So sorry, Michael, but you're not listening, so you're not hearing my apology. But genuinely, I am repentant of the fact that I was prone to outbursts of anger. And it's so interesting to me because I wouldn't say that it was a concerted effort on my part to rid myself of my temper. What was a concerted effort on my part was to draw closer to Jesus Christ, was to walk faithfully with the Holy Spirit. And as a byproduct of that pursuit of my priority being relationship with God, a byproduct of that was that my temper lessened over time, was that I saw self-control borne out in my actions, was that I embraced kindness and gentleness and goodness at the expense of my hostility, my strife, my jealousy, my anger, right? And so the idea that the fruits represent an antidote to the desires of our flesh. Right. I think that that's that that's very fascinating. I also don't think that it's at all accidental or coincidental that while there are nine gifts, there's likewise nine fruits. No, I I agree. And in my experience, I think that the gifts are often emphasized in the modern Pentecostal church more so than the fruits. Right. Would you agree with that? Oh, absolutely. And what I find so interesting and so fascinating is the gifts, I always, this is the way I always say it, the gifts of the spirit reveal to me nothing about you. Because the power, the authority, the of the gifts is reliant entirely on the spirit. It has nothing to do with you. And in fact, expressions of spiritual gifts communicate nothing to me about your spiritual maturity. Right. Because scripture tells us that the gifts are without repentance. And I personally have seen quite intimately the gifts of the spirit flowing out of someone who was not given over fully in obedience to the spirit anymore. Maybe they had been at some point when the gifts began to flow, but they were not living a repentant, surrendered life. Right. And the fruits of the spirit were nowhere to be found in their actions. But the gifts were there. And so the gifts don't impress me. Do I desire them? Do I want them in operation in the church? Absolutely. But what reveals to me something about the believer is the fruit. Exactly. You know, Jesus told us that the trees will be identified by them. Jesus cursed the barren fig tree because his desire was for fruit. And scripture tells us that trees will be known by their fruit, not by their gifts. Right. Your gifts don't tell me anything about you. Your gifts don't identify you. You are not your gifts. Exactly. But your walk is characterized and your walk is revealed by your fruit.
SPEAKER_02Well, I believe that's why Paul went right into the next chapter from after the chapter you read the other day.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Do you want me to let you go there? Well, I mean, I want us to talk about the fruit.
SPEAKER_02Okay. All right. I'm sorry. But um anyway, but that's what I was gonna say. If you if you don't have love, it none of it means anything if you don't have the fruit of the spirit. The gifts are not gonna win the world. Okay, the gifts are not gonna go, they're they're not winning the world. Now, we could go out in the world and operate in the gift, in a gift, and maybe reveal something because I'm thinking of Brenda Anderson right now. Brenda met a lot of people on the street and the gifts, the spirit operated in her life, okay. But what the world is gonna is looking at is the fruit of the spirit. The fruit. Do we look are we full of love? Okay, do we have peace? Can I tell you that people out in the world, they have no peace. What they need to see is a peaceful life. They can see that, then they'll they're gonna they're gonna desire to have that fruit in their life. So the fruit is what is going to to reach the world. The world is going to see the fruit. And so the world's not the world's not concerned with our gifts.
SPEAKER_00Well, the thing to me that always stands out is gifts can be replicated.
SPEAKER_02They can.
SPEAKER_00Fruits can't be.
SPEAKER_01That's right.
SPEAKER_00And we see that throughout scripture, that you know, the the magicians of Pharaoh are able to recreate the signs and the miracles, right? The witch of Endor is able to commune with the dead. Miraculous things can be done outside of the power of the spirit. So it doesn't prove to me that you're operating under the spirit of God. Right. What proves to me that you are daily walking with the spirit of God is the fruits. Exactly. And you know, we're the podcast is called Good Fruit, Good Root. The fruit that you bear will reveal to me where your roots are planted. And I will know if you have a sincere relationship with God, and I will know that you have been empowered by the Holy Spirit to walk according to the righteousness of God if you are bearing fruit in your life, if you're showing love, if you have joy inexpressible, if you're a person of peace, if you're patient in all things, if you're kind to your fellow man, if you are truly good, if you're faithful, if you're gentle, if you have self-control, these are the things that testify to me that you actually have a relationship with the Holy Spirit of God. Because the reality is when you experience that holy reunification, all of these things overflow as byproducts of that. Because you're at peace, because you're feeling immense joy, because you're returned for the to the purpose for which you were created. And so this is how the Holy Spirit is revealed and is testified to in your life, right? Not by the gifts, but by the fruits. And so that's that's my constant prayer is Lord, let your fruit be evident in my life. Let my roots be firmly planted in you so that I can bear the fruits of your spirit. Exactly. So in order to kind of bring this all back around, I did want to make mention, you already mentioned it, but Paul leads directly from discussing the gifts into the love chapter. We go straight from the discussion and the descriptions of the spiritual gifts in 1 Corinthians 12. And he concludes that chapter by saying, I'm gonna show you a more excellent way, right? He earnestly desire the greater gifts and let me show you what is greater. And then he begins discussing love, right? And this is when he says, you know, if I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I become a clanging brass or a sounding symbol. If I have the gift of prophecy and I know all the mysteries and I have all knowledge. So he's he's literally listing gifts, speaking in tongues, the gift of prophecy, the gift of knowledge, the gift of faith. None of it amounts to anything without love. Right. And the fact of the matter is, God is love. Jesus Christ was the ultimate manifestation of love. And so when we show love, we are exalting and glorifying Jesus. And we're revealing the nature of God to this world. And so none of it amounts to anything, none of the gifts matter without the fruit. And I think that it is important and that it's not coincidental at all that the first fruit that is listed is love.
SPEAKER_05Oh, right.
SPEAKER_00Because everything else is born out of love. Right. That's what we have to first and foremost be rooted in is the love of God, and that will overflow and outflow from us as a love to others if we're sincerely rooted within that. And then it's through the power of the Holy Spirit that we are able to show that love. Even when someone seems undeserving of it, even when it seems outside of the scope of our ability as a human, the Holy Spirit will grace us to show love to that person, to show love in the midst of that situation. And so the Holy Spirit pours out the love of Christ within us. And because of that, the love of Christ is able to overflow and flow out of us. So we began this whole discussion with me asking you some general questions about having a guest over, how long should it take for you to be entirely comfortable with a guest? How do you behave when you are going to be hosting a guest? And if being in constant communication diminishes your awareness of the beauty of having that guest. And so we talked about the terminology of Holy Ghost. We talked about the terminology of Holy Spirit, but you personally really love to view that third member of the Trinity as the holy guest. Right. Can you explain why you like that terminology so much?
SPEAKER_02Because I I think it's a more appropriate term, okay, because um what one of the meanings in the Greek is guest, okay. And um, when you consider that when you invite them into your life, and you invite them um to rule and to rule in your in your life, um just the the uh the the idea the Holy Spirit's gentle. Okay, I know he comes in power, and we talked about the power and all that kind of stuff, but the Holy Spirit is gentle, and the Holy Spirit does not force his way into anyone's life. The Holy Spirit waits for an invitation to enter your life. He waits for an invitation to um move in your day. He is a guest and he's waiting for the invitation to come to come be a part. He may be in me, but if I don't invite him, if I don't entreat him to to uh move and all, he's not gonna move. If you don't give him that total ownership. I don't give him that total ownership. And so to me, when I heard holy guest, it was like that's it. That's who he is. He he's the holy, he's the holy guest.
SPEAKER_00And so um, yeah, I I love that terminology also, and I love the way that you you know break it down and explain it, and I think that it is interesting to think about the holy guest in light of the way that we discussed human guests earlier, because you, the first thing you said about when you host a guest is that you like to clean for the guests, you want to make the environment better for the guest. And I think that it's so interesting to think about that in light of the holy guests because how often do we as humans we want to to try to clean. We want to try to get to a point where it will be desirable for the spirit to inhabit when the reality is, you know, as we point out, the spirit's already within us. That's right. And the truth of the matter is we have no ability to clean ourselves up outside of the movement of the Holy Spirit. We need the guest is what's needed to bring the cleansing. That's why it's tipped the guest is typified by water, it's a cleansing agent. And so we need the guest, the holy guest, to cleanse our temple. We need the holy guest to make us clean. We can't make our house more presentable.
SPEAKER_01No.
SPEAKER_00What makes us presentable is what we house. That's right. And we house the holy guest. And then we talked about uh how we as guests like to take up less room, you know, when we are the guests, but that we admire and respect and think it's so incredible when someone is comfortable taking up room. And the reality is, you know, as you pointed out, the holy guest is gentle. The holy guest takes up the amount of room that we provide for it. But if we will make room, the holy guest will fill up whatever space we provide. As much room as we give that guest, that guest will take up. Right. And so I hope that in my life I'm always giving the Holy Guest total control, total room to operate and to move freely within my life. And then we talked about the notion of constant communication creating complacency. And I said that it's so ironic because like human connection is such a miracle, but we lose sight of the miracle sometimes because it's just ubiquitous and it's just constant. And the reality is we get to be in constant communion with God. We get to constantly communicate with the divine through the movement of the Holy Spirit. And that's such a miracle. There's no greater miracle than that we as humans get to communicate with God Himself. And we get to do that through the person of the Holy Guest because God is constantly within us, because the Holy Guest is within us. And so my prayer is that God would never allow me to become complacent because of my familiarity, but that I would always maintain a view of the miraculous, the miraculous nature of my relationship with the Holy Guest, that I get to house God Himself within me. And that I would never become just comfortable and familiar with that to a degree that I lose sight of how incredible and incomprehensible it is, that God himself abides within me through the Holy Ghost.
SPEAKER_02Right. So I believe, knowing you, that if you could maintain live in Washington, DC, and maintain uh your uh awestruckness at the majesty of that city, I fully believe that you will always maintain being awestruck at the fact that the Holy Gest takes residence inside of you and he flows out of you to others, and there's that the mandate and the mission and your purpose is to allow him to flow out of you and to see others come to know, come to the realization and find the connection of the Holy Guest.
SPEAKER_00Amen. Is there anything else in the comparison in in the terminology of Holy Guest that you want to bring out before we come to a close here? No, I don't think so. You don't think so? You think we've covered it? I think so. I mean, this is a topic we could discuss for years. There's so much, even while we've been talking, things have and we had to be so like conscientious and we were limited in how many scriptures we could examine because there's there's so many. We could have like we could w walk through the totality of scripture with through the lens of the Holy Ghost, the Holy Guest, the Holy Spirit. And so we are going to begin moving chronologically through scripture in a couple of weeks here, and I'm excited about that. And I'm sure that this will be an ongoing topic of conversation of what is the role of the Holy Spirit. What is the role of the Holy Spirit for believers and what's the role of the Holy Spirit for unbelievers? Because the reality is the Holy Spirit is within us all. That's right. We all have the Spirit, but I'm so thankful that I'm someone that I hope the Spirit has me. Yes. So before we close, I gotta do my prices pullpick. Um and so I, you know, as I said at the top of the episode, uh, I got four hours of sleep last night. And so this episode is officially sponsored by a lot of caffeine, specifically caffeine from sheets. We tend to do sheets runs before we before we begin recording. Um, and so there have been a couple of times lately where I have been filling the pulpit here at New Life, and I have not been able to get much sleep the night before. And usually it's because of travel or you know, what whatever. It's it's not because I'm not trying to be a good steward or get sleep, but you know, circumstances have fallen in a way that I haven't been able to sleep much. Um, and so it's happened twice now uh where I have had to drink an energy drink in the morning, the morning, Sunday morning, in order to prepare me to to fill the pulpit because I don't want my brain to be sluggish. And obviously I'm aware that it's the Spirit of God flowing through me and out of me that's communicating with his congregation, but I still want to make sure that I'm, you know, peppy enough in my delivery. So I uh a couple of weeks ago drank like a a full a lani. Before preaching. And I thought it was so funny because I walked into service and I walked up to Mink. It's funny because we've already mentioned her once. Um, and she was at the back of the sanctuary and she was like, What's up? And I was like, Hey, listen, I'm I'm only telling you this, which now the whole world knows, but well, not the whole world because but the listeners of the podcast. But I was like, I drank an Alani this morning. I want you to watch me and let me know if like you notice anything different in my delivery and how I am in the pulpit since I've got an energy drink in my system this time. And she was like, Alright, we'll do. So after service, she beelines for me. And she was like, you know, your speech wasn't any different. Your talking was exactly the same. But I was watching your feet and you moved so much more. And I did, like, I was like all over the sanctuary that Sunday. And so I just thought that it was very funny that she noticed that that was her immediate response was that it didn't affect my speech, but it did affect my movement on the stage because I did pace back and forth a lot. And so I gave credit uh the next Sunday that I was preaching under the power of the Holy Spirit and Alani. And so, you know, again, Alani, if you would like to sponsor us, you do you do give the fuel for this podcast quite a bit. Um but yeah, preaching under the power of the Holy Spirit and Alani. It got the job done twice now. I'm not trying to make a habit, right? But it's it's it's good to know that you know it does put some pep in my step, but it doesn't change my delivery.
SPEAKER_01Right. That's that is good to know.
SPEAKER_00So now if I ever can't sleep, I can always preach under the power of the Holy Spirit and a lot of Holy Spirit first, yes, definitely. But Alani in there as well.
SPEAKER_01So that's that's a good one, babe.
SPEAKER_00All right. Anything else before we close this episode out?
SPEAKER_01No, you think we've I think we've covered it.
SPEAKER_00All right. Well, this has been good fruit, good root again. Stay tuned for next week's episode. It should be a really exciting one with Cooper joining us for some of the conversation, and we will be embarking on a new series, and it this will be our final series before we begin going through scripture in its chronological order. So we hope that you will listen as we embark on this new series. It's one that we're really excited about. But until then, this has been Good Fruit, Good Root Shalom.
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