THE MINISTRIES OF THE HOLY SPIRIT FOR THE BELIEVER

Goal: To learn and live out the truth concerning the ministries of the Holy Spirit in daily living

Introduction

There are too many believers who sincerely believe that as Christians they can on their own learn God's Word, live as His witnesses, laud as His worshippers and labour as His workers. When they pray to God the Father, they ask only for power - power with man and with God. What they fail to realise is that God the Father has given each of them on the day of their acceptance of Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Saviour more than they ask for - the Holy Spirit, the Third Person of the Triune Godhead (John 14:16; Acts 2:33; Rom 8:9, 15; Gal 4:6-7; Eph 1:13-14). These believers fail to recognise the reason for the Father's gift of the Holy Spirit in each of their lives. So they depend on their own enthusiasm and energy when the Spirit is in them to exercise and empower them to be Christlike when they are occupied with the Lord Jesus in the daily study of His Word and obedient to Him through devoted submission to His Word.

Besides, many believers presume that because they have the Holy Spirit in them they can behave as they like and can still live and even labour for Christ. They fail to realise that by their sins they may have given great occasion to the enemies of the Lord to blaspheme His Name. Unless each of them judges and confesses his/her sins, the Holy Spirit will not prompt and power those (with unconfessed sins) to do anything at all for the Lord. For the Triune Lord God will never have anything to do with sins. The Lord Jesus has made every provision for God the Father to forgive, cleanse and restore any believer who has judged and confessed his/her sins (1 John 1:3-10, 2:1-2) so that none can give any excuse for remaining in their sins (unjudged and unconfessed to God the Father).

We will study the ministries of the Holy Spirit for the believer under the following sub-titles :

[A] Relationship with the Sovereign in His walk

[B] Reliance in the study of His Word

[C] Reality of the Spirit in His work

[A] Relationship with the Sovereign in His walk

John 4:24, 15:4-5, 7-8; Rom 8:15; 1 Cor 12:3; Gal 4:4-6; 1 John 1:1

It is one thing to claim that we have a personal relationship with God the Father through faith in the Lord Jesus. It is another thing to realise that personal relationship with Him in our daily living. The Lord Jesus told the woman of Samaria in John 4:24 "God is a Spirit: and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth." Can we human beings though redeemed realise a personal relationship with a Spirit-Person, God the Father? No! Too often we have reduced it to a relationship with another human-person. This is a reason for many believers to look within their self-life too much or for external factors to rouse their emotions to confirm their relationship with the Lord. Our personal relationship with the Lord will have some semblance to human relationships but it will be basically altogether different.

The Holy Spirit reveals in Gal 4:4-6 that the Son of God became a Man in order that we, human

beings, can become children of God to enjoy the Spirit-relationship with God the Father and the Lord Jesus through His Spirit indwelling the believers. During His earthly sojourn, the Lord Jesus had a real human-person relationship with His disciples as revealed in 1 John 1:1. However there was no way for human beings to maintain a Spirit-Person relationship with the Lord Jesus. Hence before His return to His Father by the way of the cross, He told His disciples in John 14:16-18 that He would ask the Father to send His Spirit in His Name (John 14:26) to indwell each of them so that He could continue with them in a Spirit-Person relationship. The gift of the Holy Spirit in each believer is the Father's gracious and grand provision for believers to relate with, rely on, resort to and resource in the Lord Jesus after His return to His Father. For it is only by the Spirit that believers can realise a personal relationship with God the Father and the Lord Jesus.

However before the Holy Spirit could indwell each of them, the Lord Jesus had to die for every one of them to settle the sin-question during the three hours of darkness on the cross. Having purged their sins, He sat down glorified at the right hand of God the Father. Having received of Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, He has shed forth this outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost). Acts 2:33 explains the truth of John 14:16, 26, 15:26, 16:7.

The mission of the Holy Spirit is so vital to each believer in his walk with, worship of, witness to, work for and word on the Lord that Jesus Christ spent the evening before His crucifixion to share the truth as a Friend with His disciples in John 14 to 16. The Holy Spirit reveals clearly in Rom 8:9 that without Him no one belongs to Jesus Christ and in Rom 8:15 and 1 Cor 12:3 that without Him no believer can call God "Abba, Father," and Jesus Christ "Lord". Of course His grand and great purpose is to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ in the life of each Spirit-filled believer (John 16:14).

It is only by depending on the Lord by His ungrieved Spirit (the Advocate or Comforter in the believer) that the believer will be able to have a personal relationship with the Sovereign in His walk. As told by the Lord Jesus to His disciples in the Upper Room, the dependence on the Lord is evidenced by abiding in the Lord Jesus and He and His Word in each of them (John 15:4-5, 7-8). Any believer walking in the Spirit will be very sensitive to sinning against the Lord (through misrepresenting Him or His Word or sinning against any one) because he or she is walking in the light for the Triune Lord corporatively or individually (as Persons) is light. Like Job or Isaiah, the believer will judge himself/herself and confess his/her sins as convicted by the Holy Spirit (Job 40:1-5, 42:1-6; Isaiah 6:1-8). It is the believer walking in darkness (ie far from the Lord) who sins against others without realising that he/she has sinned against the Lord (Psalm 51:4) or misrepresents or disobeys or disregards the Lord and His Word without recognising his/her sins against the Lord.

[B] Reliance in the study of His Word

John 14:21, 26, 16:13-15; 1 Cor 2:9-16; 1 Pet 2:2-3; 2 Pet 3:18; 1 John 2:20, 27.

The Holy Spirit reveals in 1 Cor 2:13 that the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God e.g. His Word. They are foolishness unto him. Hence he cannot understand God's Word when he reads or studies it as God's Word can only be understood in reliance on the Holy Spirit. It does not matter whether the unrepentant sinner is a Doctor of Philosophy (in Theology, Divinity or any other discipline) or he/she studies God's Word under the ministry of God-given teachers (gifted Bible teachers).

Any believer, e.g. a bus driver, a nurse, a technician, a gardener, led by the ungrieved Spirit through his/her focus on the Lord in consistent study of His Word and faithfulness to Him in constant submission to His Word will learn to know more and more of the Triune Lord God and His truths. The Spirit-filled believer is an able student of God's Word because he or she is motivated and moved by the Holy Spirit to search the scriptures, discern between truth and error and rightly divide the Word of Truth. Since the Holy Spirit is in each believer to enable him/her to learn God's Word, He states in 1 John 2:20 that the believer (without unconfessed sins) knows all things, the things of God revealed in His Word. The Holy Spirit reveals in 1 John 2:20, 27 that when a person confesses Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour, he or she is indwelt by the Holy Spirit, the anointing (unction) from God the Father and the Lord Jesus. As the Holy Spirit abides in the believer permanently, He enables the believer walking in the light to discern between truth and error. Hence when the Holy Spirit is grieved by the unjudged and unconfessed sins, the believer will not be able to know the difference and cannot grow in grace and knowledge of the Triune Lord.

Many Bible teachers and writers go astray on the Holy Spirit's assurance to every believer in 1 John 2:27 "But the anointing which you have received of Him abides in you, and you need not that any man teach you". They do not realise that by their comments they actually sin against the Spirit in every believer by limiting what He could do to enable him/her to learn His Word as clearly stated in 1 Cor 2:14-15. They also fail to realise that what the Lord told His disciples in John 14:26 are more than the revelation of His Word to the New Testament writers. His promise that the Holy Spirit will teach you all things certainly applies to every believer who looks to the Lord by His Spirit to learn His Word in his/her devoted, dependent and diligent study. These writers exaggerate the teaching effectiveness of the gifted Bible teacher by their failure to acknowledge the truth that the Holy Spirit is the One Who convicts or convinces the listener or reader of His Word which results in repentance, faith and/or transformation in the listener/reader. They forget that any gifted Bible teacher with unjudged and unconfessed sins will not be able to teach the truth as the grieved Holy Spirit will leave

him to his own devices and wisdom which will be of no value to the Triune God or the listener or reader (of the books by such gifted Bible teachers).

Many believers have been confounded by God's Word that you will know all things because they cannot even understand simple truths! The problem lies with them and not with God's Word. If they have taken heed to what the Lord Jesus said to His disciples in John 14:23, they will know that obedience, the evidence of agape love for the Lord, is the only way for any believer to know Him and His things more and more. As the Lord Jesus has said in John 14:16 and the Holy Spirit has confirmed it in 1 John 2:27, the Holy Spirit will teach all the things of God revealed in His Word for each believer to learn. However, the growth in the grace and knowledge of the Triune Lord depends on his/her love for the Lord by not only learning but also living His Word as led by the ungrieved Spirit in His daily walk, worship, work and witness throughout each day. Hence occupation with and obedience to the Lord and His Word is the key to knowing all the things of the Triune Lord God as given in His Word. Besides each believer who desires to know God's Word has to judge and confess his/her sins the moment he/she sins against the Lord by disobeying or disregarding or despising Him and His Word or in sinning against any one. The grieved Holy Spirit will instantly cease to prompt and power the sinning believer to learn His Word.

[C] Reality of the Spirit in His work

The ungrieved Holy Spirit will keep on carrying out His essential and excellent exaltation of the Lord Jesus by exercising and empowering every Spirit-filled believer to -

It is seen from above that to be filled with the Spirit is not some unique emotional experience that comes during a crisis but the evidence of the believer's occupation with the Sovereign Lord in the reading of His Scripture and the example in his obedience to the Saviour lovingly and his readiness to serve Him among His people. Of course, believers can do most of the above things without being led by the Spirit, but those who abide in the Lord and His Word in them will be able to see the differences in the life and labour of those who pretend to have been led by the Spirit to do these things.

It is the love of the Triune Lord for the believer walking in the Spirit that makes him/her to learn of and live, labour and long for, the Lord in reliance on His Spirit for the working out of His ministries in him/her. Indeed it is God the Father Who works in each believer through the Lord Jesus by His Spirit both to will and to do of His good pleasure (Phil 2:13).

LIFE APPLICATION/QUESTIONS

1(a) Can any Christian on his own be Christ-centred or Christlike? Why?

TEST (b) Why are you as a Christian on your own cannot produce the fruit of the Spirit?

Discuss the difficulties.

"2(a) What do you understand by the term ""being filled with the Spirit""?"

(b) How can you be filled with the Holy Spirit? What evidences do you have to prove

that you are being led or controlled by the Spirit?

HSfill01 ltl 170498

3(a) Why have God the Father and the Lord Jesus given the Holy Spirit to dwell in each

believer?

" (b) Have you been filled with Spirit? As a Spirit-filled or -controlled or -led believer, what"

have you done in the past year and will do to prove it?