Session 1: Introduction | Who is the Holy Spirit?

[0:23] Good morning. Good to see you.

[0:33] Let me check these microphones real quick.

[1:05] I was just checking to make sure these microphones are on. Well, good morning.

[1:14] See, our help has abandoned us.

[1:20] A backup of a backup. Yeah. It'll be all right. Yeah. So they're going off on a cruise.

[1:27] Welcome back from your cruise. We're going on a cruise later this year. Cruise industry. We're trying to keep that economy moving.

[1:44] Yeah, because he's wanting to go with us because it'll be our come on.

[1:57] Yeah. My dad, he never went on a cruise. He said he spent enough time on the ship in the Navy, so he wasn't getting back on one. I said, dad, it's a lot better.

[2:13] Yeah. I like airplanes once we get going, but I don't know. I just don't like that feeling of not being somewhat in control. Although, then again, floating above 2000ft of water.

[2:35] Yeah. Hopefully you can float your way to safety. All right, well, before we get started on our new lesson, which I will come into in a second, I want to take a moment to talk about the class. How are we feeling about the class? Do we feel like we're learning stuff?

[2:51] Do we feel it's too easy? Do we feel it's too hard? What are we feeling about the class? Anybody got any feedback? It's very important to me, this one.

[3:13] It will be intense. Yes.

[3:18] And we'll talk about this study coming up, but just are we covering the topics that you want to cover? Is there something else you would like to cover? Because I've got in my mind what I'm trying to do here. But it's our class. It's not my class.

[3:37] Right.

[3:42] We all come to church and do what we need to do there, but as far as the outreach okay. And good. I mean, that was the whole point for that, and it helped me. Right. I'm learning, too, and I hope you can use those skills that we've learned and to better communicate with other people and to help you.

[4:09] Right. If you kind of get in a roadblock, because I know that happens.

[4:14] I've had a problem with reading things.

[4:48] That's my goal. Personally, I have a I'll say love hate relationship. Love dislike relationship with those Sunday schoolbooks.

[5:03] Well, thank you.

[5:20] We've got world class education at our fingertips. Okay. So you don't feel like the material is going, like, too hard, but it's not too easy either. Feeling good. Okay, awesome.

[5:34] Well, if you ever have any feedback, I've always said please let me know. Not going to offend me. It's our class, and I want to be effective in what we're doing here. If you're not getting anything out of it, then we might as well not do it and try something else.

[6:04] Different religions compared to ours. I'm glad you mentioned that. That is on my list of topics to do, and in fact, I wanted to do that for this series. But right now, media does not have anything like that. So I am working on that personally, building up something comparing, like, the top ten denominations in the United States or what can we find within a 20 miles radius of here, right.

[6:31] And that way we can better understand our neighbors and communicate with them. The gospel. Yeah, so I am working on that. I like that. It's been on my list for a long time.

[6:55] That's what we're here for.

[7:03] When we're doing that study on the seven letters of seven churches, that was fascinating to me because that guy went to all the locations of the churches.

[7:20] Yeah, that was a good I watched it. Yeah, that was fascinating because Facebook's been tracking what we're studying.

[7:42] So one of the things I'm really trying to get back in the habit of is updating our Facebook group with those kind of links that we share amongst each other, because you texted it to me, but really I want to share that with the whole group, and so I've gotten out of the habit of that. So if you see more Facebook updates on our group I'm trying to do that, but yeah, exactly right. I mean, everything we do in this class, even our indepth studies, there's always more. Right? So there's always a ton of information.

[8:29] Yeah, we try, but I get it. Right? I mean, the whole social media aspect, that's a lot of work. It is a lot of work. Yeah.

[8:40] Well, I'm glad to hear that everybody seems to be getting something out of the class. That's what we're trying to do for, and that's what I hope this next study will help us with. So if you got the text message last night, we're doing who is the Holy Spirit? And it's by a guy named Sinclair Ferguson. Now, I was thinking last night because if you remember for us old timers, we studied the Holy Spirit toward the beginning of I think it was when I started teaching this class, and I actually found my notes on it, 2016, January 2016.

[9:20] And I don't know if that's when I first I can't remember.

[9:27] Okay. Who is the Holy Spirit? Is the name of it. So I couldn't believe like time flies, because that's six years, almost seven years we've been having this class.

[9:43] No, we actually studied the Holy Spirit. Yeah, I think we were in the basement at that time. That's a long time ago. And I will forgive you if you do not recall that study. Yeah, because I just briefly had it in my notes, and I found a little diagram that we had and some notes that we had, and I was like, 2016?

[10:05] Wow. That was a long time ago. But the Holy Spirit is such an important topic. I don't think there's any problem with us studying it again. Plus, we have this new right now resource, so I think it's going to be a good study.

[10:19] Now, you mentioned you peeked ahead and you saw that all the videos are 25 minutes long. This study is a very in depth study, and I chose that for a reason. The Soul Whispers study that we came out of, it was good, like the content and all that, but it's more of a soft kind of skill. It's an art, whereas this is more of a study. Sinclair Ferguson has a PhD from school over in England.

[10:55] He served, as, I guess you call it, minister over there. He served as assistant minister over here in the States, over in South Carolina. North Carolina. He's currently back over in England doing ministry type work there, too. So he's been all over.

[11:15] And I haven't watched this series fully through, but I have watched his conference talks that are online. If you go search YouTube for Sinclair Ferguson, you'll find all kinds of stuff really smart individual, really in depth individual. I think we're going to get a lot of insight from him. Now, when you go on right now, media and this goes for anything, anybody that we look at from different face and everything, there's going to be some points where we don't agree 100%. Sinclair Ferguson comes from what's known as a Reformed background, which is not Baptist.

[11:55] So there are some theological points that we're going to disagree on, although I don't think we're going to find any disagreements on the Holy Spirit and what it means. So I think we're okay. But if there are any points that Baptists disagree on, I'll try to point that out. And I'll try to point out, why do they believe it, why do we believe this? And I always try to bring out all sides of the equation.

[12:26] Yeah, what was his name? Crap, I keep forgetting all these names. Anyway, core Christianity is what we call it. Sinclair Ferguson is a brother in Christ, I have no doubt about that. Just a little bit different belief system, but that goes for anybody on right now.

[12:47] Media if you're going out there looking, and we've had studies like this, they're not Baptist, not all of them. And that's okay. I think that's fine. So just keep that in mind as we go through being like, I don't remember that. And I'll try to bring it up, and if you have any questions, write them down, bring it up and we'll talk about it.

[13:10] But I think we're going to get a lot out of it. Now, why did I choose a study on the Holy Spirit?

[13:21] Because it's the most important thing we have right now. I did a search last night of the top ten Christian songs on the radio today from the Billboard top 40 or whatever. I didn't look through all 40. Nobody's got time for that. But I looked through the top ten.

[13:43] Not one of them mentioned the Holy Spirit.

[13:50] Imagine that. In fact, take a note of our hyminol and see how many songs that we sing about the Holy Spirit. There's a few. But in comparison, I think and maybe this is a Baptist thing because I've talked to friends in other denominations, but Baptists really don't put a whole lot of emphasis on the Holy Spirit, which is really unfortunate because Jesus said before he ascended that, you know, it's to your benefit that I leave.

[14:24] If I don't leave, the Holy Spirit won't come. And in fact, he goes on to say that you'll do more thing greater than me after I leave. And yet we kind of don't put an emphasis on the Holy Spirit.

[15:21] So we talked about some of the differences between being indwelled with the Holy Spirit versus being filled with the Holy Spirit. And I don't want to get too far ahead. I don't want to take some of Sinclair's thunder here, but we're going to go through that because I think in our modern times, we're so scientific in this age of iPhones and technology, when we start talking about spirits and the Holy Ghost, right? It's like spooky. But this is a core part of Christianity.

[15:59] You've heard us talk about the Trinity. The Father. The Son. The Holy Spirit. These make up the Godhead, what we call or sometimes we just say God and we say three persons in one.

[16:12] That makes any sense? But yet, just as Jesus was on the earth like you could see Jesus, right? At some level, somebody could. We could. But Jesus was physically on the Earth and he had a personality and he had a mind, right?

[16:33] The Father is just as real as that and so is the Spirit. They're persons. That's why we say three persons of the Godhead. Now, how are they separate but the same? That's been a debate for thousands of years.

[16:52] We talked about that in our history of Christianity that we did a few years ago. You remember the example that he gave was at one of the big church conferences. I forget which one now, but you're probably talking like 600 to 1000. The year 600 or 1000. How is that the same?

[17:13] Is it more like oil and water where you can shake them up and it's kind of like a salad dressing, but if you let it sit, they separate and they're distinct? Or is it more like wine and water where if you mix those two up, there's still wine, there's still water, but you can't separate it. Right. They're mixed together permanently. And the church council, I think this was nice they're distinct entities, but you also can't separate them like they're tied together permanently.

[17:52] And the best human example that I've heard of this is like think of your role. So for an example of me, I'm Clint, the father. I am a father to children. I'm also Clint the son. I have parents.

[18:09] I am Clint, the husband to divinity. I'm Clint the student, right? Because I went to school. I'm Clint the teacher in my role here, but yet I'm still Clint. I don't know if that's 100% and I don't know if we can fully understand this relationship, but that's kind of the best way.

[18:30] If you could separate me into all my pieces, that's kind of what it would be like. I'd be the same. But also you would only have those attributes for that role. And yeah, I don't think you would see much difference between Clint the husband and Clint the teacher and Clint the father. Like, would there be a commonality you see what I mean?

[18:54] Yeah, I mean, everything has a purpose. Kenny, in one of his sermons, it's been within the past few weeks, explain the Holy Spirit as, or the Trinity as you've got the father kind of like the architect. He's come up with the plans and then he sent his son with the plans as kind of like the general contractor, kind of like to make sure that this happens, kind of supervise, get out anything out of the way that's going to block the workers. And then you have the Holy Spirit who's actually doing the work.

[19:49] Anytime we try to compare God to something on earth, we're missing something. But I think in our finite minds, I think that's as good an example as any that I've heard of. And I think we'll find I've watched ahead some. And Sinclair Ferguson brings us out in his first lesson when he talks about the power of the Holy Spirit. I think that analogy of the architect and the general contractor and the subcontractor makes a lot of sense.

[20:21] And I think it's very important that we kind of understand all the pieces here because Jesus was a critical piece. He got out the main blocker for us, sin. He paid for it. It's now out of the way. And now the Spirit can come in and do the work.

[20:44] Now the Spirit is also inside of us, right. So we're actually being empowered to do the work. And that's what Jesus was talking about. Like, you're going to do greater things than me. And we can see in the early church history that church spread like wildfire.

[21:04] There were miracles happening. And the fact that the church has spread globally from a band of essentially twelve poor homeless people, I think is a great testament to the power of the Holy Spirit.

[21:46] When does the Holy Spirit come into your life?

[22:06] But at the same time, for us, sinclair Ferguson is going to talk about this in his first lesson. But think about this. The person of the Holy Spirit is just as much a person as you or me or Jesus, right. What does it mean to have a personhood?

[22:44] It can. At the same time, we still have that pesky free will where we can I've heard it termed quench the Holy Spirit. So like, say I invite you into my house, okay. And I say, welcome, David Marie. We're going to have dinner.

[23:07] Have a seat. We'll bring out the food and all that. Okay. So you have access to my dining room, but you probably wouldn't like rummage around in my personal bedroom or anything like that, so you would have limited access to my house. Right.

[23:23] And as polite people, we're okay with that. But that's different than if I said, hey, David Marie, come on, Mikasa Sukasa, come on in, and you're going to stay for a while. So if I invite you into my house and I say, okay, kind of assume we're going to stay in the main living area, but don't go rumbling around my bedroom. You have limited access to me. You don't have the full Clint Davis experience, nor would you want to because my bedroom is a total wreck right now.

[23:57] But yet if I welcome you in and I say, Come on in, go anywhere you like, that's full access, right? Well, we can do the same thing with the Holy Spirit. Unfortunately, we can say we accept the Holy Spirit, but then we still kind of want to do this sinful thing right here. And you're limiting the Holy Spirit in your life that's quenching the Holy Spirit. We've got the Holy Spirit at the same time.

[24:32] He's not letting him throughout your entire life, you're like, okay, you are cool to hang out with me during church hours, but during work hours, I'm going to need you to stay in the closet. You know what I mean? And unfortunately, we can do that. And that's that when Paul talks about we're battling between the Spirit and the flesh, that's what he's talking about. And our job, or what we're trying to grow in maturity, is we're trying to let the spirit come in all aspects of our life.

[25:11] And it's hard, right? It's that battle like Paul talks about as a battle.

[25:34] Yeah, it is hard because we're also evil nature, right. The Holy Spirit's inside of us.

[26:11] I think that's what Brian was talking about, right? He talk about that conscious effort.

[27:04] All right. Sorry, David.

[27:19] That is terrible. But where does that come from? That evil nature, right? But I can be honest with you. There have been plenty of times when I'm like, I really want to shoot this person.

[27:35] That's just that spirit in me. And if we're all honest with ourselves, I think we can all say we've kind of been in the same place a certain time. I can think of some specific examples. I was very close, and if it wasn't for my family but that's it, then the Holy Spirit is like, Clint, come on. Come on, man.

[27:58] But we're all like that on the inside. That's just that evil nature. I mean, that's Cain and Abel, one of the earliest stories in the Bible. Do you think Cain had the Holy Spirit inside of him? Yeah, but that's a little bit different.

[28:13] That's Old Testament. We'll talk about that difference.

[29:03] Well, let's talk about that, right? The different sensibilities between different groups. I went down, we got Luke some shots. Luke is our dog, and he had to get some vaccines updated. And so I went down and there's what do you call it, a low cost truck that drives around.

[29:22] And they were over in Peace Tree City. So I went over there, and I get there, I got my dog, and there's a few people in line, all different walks of life in this line. Now, I don't know if they're all Christian or not. I was too busy holding on to my dog because he's a big dog. But let's say even think about this.

[29:47] I drove through Luther's ville to get through here. I passed. You've got rehoboth? Baptist Church. You've got that Primitive Baptist church up there.

[29:57] You've got a United Methodist church. I turned down the street. I passed another United Methodist church.

[30:08] I'm trying to make sure I didn't miss anything. A Baptist church up here and then here. Now, if we're all Christian and we all have, there's not like different holy spirits. There's not like a Methodist. Holy spirit.

[30:22] A Baptist. Holy Spirit. What's going on? We ask ourselves. Yeah, what's going on?

[30:41] Do you think that there's going to be denominations in heaven? No, I don't think so. And Jesus talked about, right, the church. He didn't talk about, like, the Eastern church and the Western church and all. There's going to be one church in heaven.

[30:54] And that's what the Catholics the Catholics have a great idea, right. The universal church. That's what Catholic means. Universal. But they're corrupt.

[31:04] And everything down here is that battle between flesh and spirit. And so this is where denominations come from. Every time you see a denomination, you know that there's been a battle between the flesh and the spirit, and somebody got upset and they split off.

[31:32] Yeah, but at the same time, if you're really in close proximity with each other, because that's the new thing, right? We're non denominational, but what does that mean? There's certain taste involved. So, for example, one of the defining characteristics of the Baptist church is our water immersion baptism. Fully immersed, sprinkling not going to cut it.

[32:04] Right? Now, at the same time, you go up to the Methodist, they'll be fine to sprinkle, right? Because to them, baptism is more symbolic, whereas we take it as more literal.

[32:24] And people get really hot over this subject. Now, I've got my bases covered because I've been sprinkled and baptized, so I'm good either way. But at the same time, Kenny has been very clear up here that it's not the immersive baptism, it's the baptism of the spirit is what saves you water. Well, there's a theme in the Bible about water and cleansing sin, right? That's why there was a great flood, because it cleansed all the sin off the earth.

[33:09] But it is an outward sign. But at the same time, what I mean by literal is that we see John the Baptist baptize Jesus immersively and we see others throughout church history being immersed. But at the same time, if you really think about it, methodists kind of have a point. I can kind of see where they're going from. If you're in a desert environment, lack of water is real, and there's not always a river or a stream.

[33:43] Well, what if you get baptized in the middle of the desert? Maybe you just sprinkle some water on them from your canteen. At the same time, we also know that the thief on the cross wasn't water baptized.

[33:59] And so at the risk of getting kicked out of the Baptist church, to me, immerse of baptism, I prefer it. It's a taste for me. But it's not like a core tenet. Yeah, it's the spiritual baptism and the outward sign goes with it. But if that's unable, if you're on your deathbed or God forbid, there was a lack of water here, I think sprinkling would be okay.

[34:31] But people get hot over this stuff, and that's just one instance. We can talk about the different symbolisms and ceremonies. The Methodists are called Methodists for a reason. They follow a method. It is a more structured service.

[34:50] If you go into they've got the altar boys walk down, light candles. It's very ceremonial, let's say, whereas the Baptist, we're a little more functional, let's say.

[35:11] I'm not going to like the old joke about the Baptist and the Methodist. At least the Methodists wave at each other at the liquor store. Right? You all get that later.

[35:43] Yes, it's a relational that whole point was a relationship, and that's what we're trying to do here. And your relationship with the Holy Spirit is just as real as the disciples relationship with Jesus Christ. That's kind of the bigger point I'm trying to make. And we kind of tamping that down because we're like spooky, but yet at the same time we believe in a God. We have this weird dichotomy inside of us.

[36:48] Why is that?

[36:52] Because they're not of the same spirit. Right. How do we interpret the Bible? If you know me, like if I'm talking to an unbeliever, I do not jump to the Bible for authentication or some type of authority figure because they can't understand it. Right.

[37:13] You've got to have the Spirit, the Holy Spirit to guide you because there's some very difficult Bible, even when you have the Spirit, very difficult, unbelievers not going to understand it. That's why I always go to Jesus Christ. If you can accept Jesus Christ, the Bible comes with Jesus, not the other way around.

[38:04] I agree with that. There is something about experience that helps us learn and understand. And so what I really want us to focus on in this study is the reality of the Holy Spirit and what he gives us. Because Jesus made it very clear that the power of the Holy Spirit inside of us is actually more important for us than he was. Now, maybe I'm miswording that a little bit, because we couldn't even have the Holy Spirit without Jesus, so they're kind of tied together.

[38:39] But for us now, where is Jesus now?

[38:46] He's in heaven, preparing a place for us. Okay. Jesus work for us is done, and he ascended to heaven. So Jesus is actually not here now. The Holy Spirit is with us.

[39:01] Now. Sometimes you'll hear people talk about the church age. Kenny likes this term, the church age, and that's that age between the Old Testament ending and Revelation beginning. Right. What we see in Revelation beginning.

[39:19] So it encompasses the New Testament. It encompasses all of everything up till now, until the end times start. And what is the defining characteristic of this church age, or this age of grace? Sometimes called it's the presence of the Holy Spirit on Earth. Because one of the finding characteristics of the end times is that the Spirit will be withdrawn from the earth, and then people won't have that conscience, like general conscience that we talk about.

[39:55] And then that's when you're really going to see things get bad.

[40:29] Yeah. And we as Christians believe that there is a reality, a moral reality outside of us. That is the standard. And so whether you, I would say, one of the core tenets of Christianity outside of believing Jesus Christ was the Son of God, if you don't believe Jesus Christ was the Son of God, it's hard for me to say that you're a Christian. If you don't believe that Jesus Christ died, paid for your sins and ascended to the Father, it's hard for me to say you're a Christian.

[41:02] Like, it's in the title Christianity. If you don't believe in Christ, you're just anity. There's no Christ in it. But the Holy Spirit comes with that as well.

[41:31] I think the Holy Spirit is a stumbling block because we don't know how to talk about the Holy Spirit. And the whole point of the study is we don't know who the Holy Spirit is. So we're going to learn like this whole study is we're going to learn about who he is or the Spirit is and what he does and how we relate to him. If you've been in church, we understand who Jesus is and how we relate to Jesus. Right.

[42:01] He's king, which means we're not he paid for our sins, we're sinners. Now, we're going to see that same relationship developed in the Holy Spirit, and this will give us a fuller picture of who God is, because the Holy Spirit is part of God. Or scratch that the Holy Spirit is God, but one person of it. And so if we don't understand all the persons of the Godhead to our fullest ability, we don't have a full picture of God. And it's always to our benefit to better understand who God is so we can understand Him and commune with Him and to understand what he wants for us in our life.

[42:48] Why is the Holy Spirit here? If Jesus has paid for our sins, we're good, right? No. Turns out that's just the beginning for the Christian. And so I hope this study will help us to understand more fully who the Holy Spirit is, how we can understand Him, how to communicate to other people, like, who the Holy Spirit is without being, like, spooky.

[43:16] Because he is a person. He's just a spirit. He's a person without a body. And hey, guess what? You have a spirit too.

[43:43] Yeah. We don't really understand it. Early Christians understood this. We've kind of let it die out. It's a bad term.

[43:55] GPS? Yeah, kind of like that. A compass. I was talking to a friend of mine, Joel, over in Calvary Chapel, different denominations. And he was lamenting the fact because he used to be a Southern Baptist minister as well.

[44:14] And he just lamented the fact that the Baptist faith really doesn't even talk about the Holy Spirit. If you go to other Baptist churches, you'll find this I think Kenny has done a very good job of being real with the Holy Spirit and bringing, like, there's certain churches the Holy Spirit is not mentioned because they don't know what to do with it. Right. They'd be like spirits and ghosts, so they just don't talk about it. I think Kenny has done a good job.

[44:44] But if you go somewhere else, if our paths depart, or if you're just visiting, you'll find that most Baptists just don't talk about the Holy Spirit. And that's unfortunate because it really removes the power from our lives. Because if you don't have the Holy Spirit, you're really just left with you doing stuff which is really against the whole point of the Bible because you're dead in sin and trespasses. The whole point of it is God is working through you for you to allow you to do things for God. That's that sanctification process.

[45:23] Yeah. I think this will be a good study for us. Each lesson is approximately 25 minutes.

[45:40] And see, to me, if you believe that there's a God and you believe in Jesus, then the Holy Spirit is not a problem. Each lesson is 25 minutes. They're pretty in depth, so make time during the week.

[46:15] I don't want to sound the wrong way. I try not to give you too much work during the week, but this is such an important topic. I think it's acceptable for me to expect you to watch 25 minutes during a week. That's like five minutes a day. Like, come on.

[46:31] I think we can make this happen. There's 168 hours in the week. We're here for two. So in 166 hours, you got in a week. While you're playing Candy Crush or something, maybe you can watch this video.

[46:48] If you go on. Right now. There's a study guide that's associated with it. It's a PDF. You can download it, print it out for free.

[46:55] If you want a printed copy, you can also just buy a copy. That's up to you. I won't be providing any. And don't forget, if you don't know how to sign up for right now, I'll say this for the website benefit, but you can come back and get me. Go to our website, bborm.org right now, and it will take you to the sign up page completely free.

[47:18] All you got to do is create an account, which is your email address, create a password, you're good to go. It doesn't cost the church anymore, so feel free to share it with your friends, colleagues. I know you're already using it for Christian motorcycle, so it's all there, available. And if you need help, just email me, email the church, send a message, or to the church, Facebook, I get that to you. So be more than happy to help you out.

[47:47] So watch the video. We're going to do one video a week. So watch video one this week. We'll talk about it next week. The study guide questions are there, so if you want to think about those questions, there's also scripture references and the study guide.

[48:05] They're highly helpful. I highly recommend that you read those, and then we'll discuss that. We'll use the study guide as a starting point, as always. And then we kind of meander through whatever questions that we have. So I'm not too rigid on study guides, but they're a good starting point.

[48:24] So that's the plan. Are there any questions?

[48:30] All right, well, with that, I think that's all I have. Trying to think. I feel like I'm forgetting something, but this won't be like that. Yeah, it's a little bit different. And this is in depth.

[49:02] I would watch this at a point where you can focus. This isn't something yeah, so I think it'll be good and take notes. I mean, this is some really in depth stuff, so I think it'll be good. And also, if you're just a fan of English accents, you're going to love this guy because he has just a wonderful English accent. Okay.

[49:24] It's not overpowering, but it's a nice touch. Anyway, I think we're going to like it, and I think we're going to be blessed by this.

[49:36] Yes.

[49:44] In that while a lot of history happening right now. All right, with that said, Brian, will you close us in prayer, please?

[50:11] Amen. Thank you all for coming. See you all next week. And we will start our study or continue our city.