This morning I want to start a short series on the Holy Spirit.

1 While Apollos was at Corinth, Paul took the road through the interior and arrived at Ephesus. There he found some disciples 2 and asked them, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” They answered, “No, we have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit.” (Acts 19:1 -2).

We throw around words like Trinity, Holy Spirit, Predestination, Election and others that many here know real well. But there are others who have no clue. It seems to them like we are talking a foreign language. It is not that they don’t believe what we say, they just don’t understand. So for those of you who know about the Holy Spirit, who have opinions on the Holy Spirit, you can listen and verify what I say about the Holy Spirit.

To those who have not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit, let me define the subject matter that I will cover.

I am going to talk today generally on the Holy Spirit. The next four weeks I am going to talk about the spiritual RIBS that come with the Holy Spirit. At the moment of salvation, we receive these spiritual ribs. I will talk about those ribs over the next four weeks. The “R” in “Ribs” will stand for “Regeneration. The “I” in “RIBS” will stand for “Indwelling.” The “B” in “Ribs” will stand for “Baptism.” And the “S” in “Ribs” will stand for “Sealing.” At the moment of conversion we are regenerated, indwelt, baptized and sealed by the Holy Spirit.

But who and what is the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is God.

When we say to you, the Holy Spirit is in you, we are saying in effect that God is in you. When we say that the Holy Spirit inspired scripture, we are saying that scripture is inspired by God. When we speak about Holy Spirit conviction, we are saying that God is convicting us.

So far I think that most of you are with me. Now we come to areas of confusion. When we say that the Holy Spirit is God, we mean that the Holy Spirit is one person of the trinity.

This is another term that we throw around that may be well to be explained. When we speak of the trinity, we say that there are two aspects of God that are contradict one another, yet are equally true.

The first is that there is only one God. The Bible is very clear on this. The book of Deuteronomy tell us clearly, 4 Hear, O Israel: The LORD our God, the LORD is one. (Deuteronomy 6:4). To this all Christians say, “Amen.” We worship one God. We worship the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. We worship the God of Israel, the one who created the heavens and the earth.

The second aspect is what brings about the contradiction on the human level. We say that this one God is made of three distinct persons. Though there is only one God, this God is Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

Our Jewish friends say, “Nonsense!” How can three be one? The Jehovah’s Witnesses say, “This can’t be true. How can you say you worship one God when you worship three?” They do not understand what the Bible teaches and because they do not understand, they reject it.

What we do not mean that this one God comes and shows himself as a Father at one time, a Son at another, and a Holy Spirit at another. Rather, it is the nature of this one God to be all three at once.

In scripture we find that the Father talks to the Son and the Son to the Father. The Father and the Son send the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit points people back to the Son and to the Father.

So in what sense are these one? We say, “They are one in nature. They all are made of the same stuff. The concept of God is so foreign to anything we have ever seen that we cannot explain it well. But the Bible teaches this.

For example, in Matthew 28:18 we find that Jesus said, “Baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” One name, the name of God, three persons. Now some have said that the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit is Jesus, but this is simply wrong.

1 Now a man named Ananias, together with his wife Sapphira, also sold a piece of property. 2 With his wife’s full knowledge he kept back part of the money for himself, but brought the rest and put it at the apostles’ feet. 3 Then Peter said, “Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for the land? 4 Didn’t it belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn’t the money at your disposal? What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied to men but to God.” (Ac 5:1 -4).

Peter makes it clear. Verse 3, Ananias had lied to the Holy Spirit. Verse 4, Ananias had lied to God. And there are other verses that show this as well.

But I want to move on. The Holy Spirit is not only God, the Holy Spirit is a person. By this I mean that some will teach you that the spirit is a force from God. We think of a person and we will say, “Their spirit filled the room.” Or we might say, “I was convinced by the force of his spirit.” This spirit is a power that comes from someone. We might call it presence or the like.

So why is this important? Why is it important that we identify the Holy Spirit as God?

First, as I have tried to show, this is what the Bible teaches. If we teach otherwise, we teach falsely.

Second, life eternal is knowing God. Knowing God means to some degree knowing the trinity. The God if the Bible said, “Let us make man in our image.” If we do not accept the trinity, the God we worship is not the true God. God either is three in one or he is not. Life eternal is knowing the true God.

Third,

But I will tell you that the Holy Spirit is more than a force, the Holy Spirit is a person.

Let me explain a little Greek to you and then we will look at some English. In the Greek language you have three options when it comes to describing a noun. It can be masculine, feminine or neuter. If a word has a masculine ending, usually any words that modify the word will have the same ending so that you can know they are connected. Why some are masculine, feminine or neuter is not totally clear. But the masculine and feminine endings are put on words that are either male or female or were considered in that culture to be that way. So also, when a masculine noun is defined by a pronoun (he, she or it), he is always used. So also when it is feminine you would use she and a neuter would be it.

For example, if I were to tell you about a ship, what pronoun would us use? Would you use he, she, or it? Many of you would use “she.” The feminine form would hold true. If I talked to you about a mountain you would use he or it. It is used for something impersonal.

So what pronoun is used with the Holy Spirit? We would expect if the Holy Spirit is just a force, or the presence of God that the Greek language would us “it.” If the Holy Spirit is more, than we would use “he.”

13 But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. (John 16:13).

So let’s summarize. The Holy Spirit is God and the Holy Spirit is a person. He (not it) is God.

Thirdly, The Holy Spirit is the presence of God in our world today.

This is why we need to talk about the Holy Spirit. In the Old Testament we find glimpses of Jesus and the Holy Spirit working. But most of the activity is generated by God the Father. In the New Testament we find Jesus, who is God and the second person of the Trinity, coming and living among us. What a tremendous person. He showed his deity by the miracles he did. He healed the blind, helped the lame walk. With a word he stilled the waters and fed the multitudes.

We know the truth about Jesus, he only stayed on this earth a short time, about 33 years. He was crucified on a cross for your sins and mine, rose again, and ascended into heaven. He is no longer on this earth.

What he did was send the Holy Spirit into this world. In our day, in our time, the presence of God in us and among us is the presence of the Holy Spirit.

You might not know it. The Holy Spirit has no ego. His purpose is to point people to Jesus. So when you hear people talk about Jesus, the Holy Spirit is pleased. When people reject Jesus and his teachings the Holy Spirit is grieved.

We look at things on a human level. Someone asks you, “Why are you in church this morning?” We answer, “I like the pastor, I like the people, they are friendly, I had to go, something inside me just said I needed to go today.”

But in reality, the Holy Spirit is drawing you. He is leading you. He is the presence of God in our world and is working to convict the world of sin, righteousness and judgment.

You thought about yelling at your kids. You were so mad. You felt this anger well up inside you. But you didn’t. Someone asks you, “Why didn’t you blow up? Your answer on the human level would be, “I didn’t think it was worth it. I was afraid I might hurt them if I let go, I knew it would be wrong, so I didn’t.” But on a spiritual level, the Holy Spirit was God’s presence working to keep you from sin.

The Holy Spirit is God. He is a person. He is the member of the trinity that is working in the world today. And he has done something in and for you at the very moment you received Jesus Christ as your Savior. There are four things in particular that I want to emphasize. These are discovered in the acronym “RIBS.” When you came to Jesus, you were regenerated, indwelt, baptized and sealed by the Holy Sprit.

These four wonderful truths will be discussed in the next four weeks.