Encouraged by the Holy Spirit

Transcript

Rob McFarlane: 0:58

Today we're going to look at Acts chapter 9 and verse 31 and talk about being encouraged by the Holy Spirit. Let's read Acts chapter 9, verse 31 in the New International Version of the Bible. Then the church throughout Judea, Galilee, and Samaria enjoyed a time of peace and was strengthened. Living in the fear of the Lord and encouraged by the Holy Spirit, it increased in numbers. Now we need to understand the context of this verse in the book of Acts. In Acts chapter 1 and 2, we see the church born, commissioned by Jesus and empowered by the Holy Spirit. In Acts chapter 3 and 4, we see wonderful things happen. A man who was crippled is healed, and the apostles are told not to speak in the name of Jesus. The church starts to grow in wonderful ways, and it's all forward movement until Acts chapter 7, where the first martyr, Stephen, is killed, and in Acts chapter 8, the church is scattered and is spread all over the place as they went from Jerusalem. Today I would like to reflect on the phrase we see in this verse, encouraged by the Holy Spirit. And I'd like to ask and answer three questions. Number one, who is the Holy Spirit? Number two, what does it mean to be encouraged by the Holy Spirit? And number three, how does the Holy Spirit encourage us? Let's look at question number one. Who is the Holy Spirit? Now Jesus introduced us to the person of the Holy Spirit in John chapter 14, verse 16 and 17, and verse 26. Let's read those verses together. And I'm reading from the English Standard Version of the Bible. And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another helper to be with you forever, even the Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him or knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. And then verse 26. But the helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. Now I want you to notice Jesus introduced the Holy Spirit to us as a person. He calls the Holy Spirit a He, not an it or a force or an experience. The Holy Spirit is a person. In fact, the Holy Spirit is equally God as God the Father and God the Son. We understand that our God is a Trinity. Now, even though that word Trinity is not used in the New Testament, the concept of the Trinity runs throughout the New Testament. For example, God reveals Himself in three persons: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Here's a familiar verse where we see the Trinity described. It's 2 Corinthians chapter 13 and verse 14. And many people know this as the grace. Let's read it together. It says, May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Notice, from the Lord Jesus we get grace. From God the Father we get love, and from the Holy Spirit we're drawn into fellowship. God wants us to develop a relationship with Him, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Question number two. Let's read it again and I'll point these out to you. It says, And I will ask the Father, and He will give you another helper to be with you forever. Even the Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him or knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. Here Jesus tells us the Holy Spirit will come alongside us. He will dwell in us and he will be with us. I love that. I love the fact that we have the Holy Spirit who comes alongside us as our comforter, as our helper. Now it's interesting that the word translated encouraged in Acts chapter 9, verse 31 is the Greek word paracletus. It can be translated to encourage or comfort. It literally means being called to one side. This is the same word that Jesus used, which is translated helper or comforter in John chapter 14, verse 16 and John chapter 14, verse 26. Now we need to understand this word in its fullness. And a helpful version to understand this is the amplified version. In John chapter 14, verse 26. In the amplified version, it says this. But the helper, and then it describes who the helper is: the comforter, advocate, intercessor, counselor, strengthener, and standby. The Holy Spirit will come in my name. I think it's just wonderful to know that we have the Holy Spirit who will be our helper, our comforter, our advocate, our intercessor, our counselor, our strengthener, and our standby. He wants to help us. Question number three. How does the Holy Spirit encourage us? Well, I'd like to look at four ways today that the Holy Spirit encourages us. And the first we see in John chapter 14, verse 26, that the Holy Spirit guides us into truth. Let's read this verse, John 14, verse 26, together. It says, But the helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. Now there's two ways that this verse can be applied. First of all, directly to the disciples who became the apostles who Jesus used to write the New Testament. He said to them, The Holy Spirit will bring to remembrance everything that I've said to you. What Jesus taught in the parables, in his teachings, in the in the Beatitudes, as He interacted with people, the Holy Spirit brought that to remembrance so they could write it down and we could have the New Testament. The second application is that the Holy Spirit, who authored the New Testament, would be with us and will help us understand the scriptures. Now, when you read the Bible, don't just read it on your own. Don't just read it with your own thinking or your own understanding, but ask the Holy Spirit to reveal truth to you. Remember, we read the Bible not to learn more about the Bible, but we read the Bible to learn more about God. And the Holy Spirit wants to bring us into fellowship with the Father and the Son through the Scriptures. The second way that the Holy Spirit encourages us is with God's peace. He gives us God's peace. Let's look at John 14, verse 27. Jesus said, Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you. Not as the world does, do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. Here, just after he's introduced the Holy Spirit, he tells us that his Holy Spirit will give us God's peace. God wants to give you peace in the midst of the storm. He wants to give you peace in a time when perhaps the future is uncertain and we're not sure what's going to happen next. We can have God's peace in our hearts and in our minds. What a wonderful gift! What an encouragement for us to have. Now let's go to the book of Romans and we're going to look at two verses in Romans that show us how the Holy Spirit encourages us. Number three, He fills us with God's love. Let's read Romans chapter 5 and verse 5. It says, God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. The Holy Spirit fills us with God's love. Now that word poured into us doesn't mean a trickle or just a sprinkling, but it's a gushing, it's an infilling that overflows out of our lives. That's what God wants to do with us. He wants to fill us with his love and he wants it to spill out on those around us. I firmly believe that if we've been spending time with God, it's evident by the love of God shining through us for other people. He wants to pour his love in us and through us by the Holy Spirit. And finally, number four, he assures us that God is our Father. Let's look at Romans chapter 8, verse 15 through to verse 17. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry Abba Father. That word Abba can also be translated daddy, by whom we cry, Daddy, Father. Verse 16. The Holy Spirit wants to remind us that we are loved by our Father in heaven, that we can come into his presence and receive help in time of need, that he is our daddy God. We can have a close, personal, living, ongoing, and growing relationship with God the Father, God the Son, through the fellowship of the Holy Spirit. You can receive the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. You can receive the love of God and you can have fellowship with the Holy Spirit. So we've seen the Holy Spirit encourages us in four ways. He guides us or leads us into the truth. He gives us God's peace. He fills us with God's love. And he assures us that God is our Father, that we are children of God. Let's bow our heads and let's pray. Father God, thank you that you sent the Holy Spirit to lead us into all truth. You sent the Holy Spirit to give us your peace, and you sent the Holy Spirit to remind us that we are accepted as children of God, adopted as your children. Holy Spirit, we thank you that you who have begun a good work in us will bring it to completion. We ask these things in Jesus' precious name. Amen.