[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hey, thanks so much for listening to this message. My name is Jason and I'm one of the ministers here at the Madison Church of Christ. It's our hope and prayer that the teaching you hear today will bless your life and draw you closer to God. If you're ever in the Madison area, we'd love for you to stop by and study the Bible with us on Sundays at 5pm or Wednesdays at 7pm if you have questions about the Bible or want to know more about the Madison Church, you can find us
[email protected] be sure to subscribe to this podcast as well as our Sermons podcast. Madison Church of Christ Sermons. Thanks again for stopping by. I hope this study is a blessing to you.
[00:00:37] Speaker B: Alright, so week two of learning about the Holy Spirit and kind of like I mentioned last week, we'll just, basically we're just going to pick up where we ended from the week before.
You know, I'll try to have 45 minute chunks of material but it may not always be so kind of wherever we get to, we'll just start there in the next week. So last week we had finished and we were talking about the prayer the Jews called the Shema, which is the main point of that is to focus on the fact that God is one God. And as we now understand the three persons of God, it doesn't change the fact that that God is still one. So any understanding that we have of the Holy Spirit needs to start there, needs to start with the fact that we have one God and God is one, regardless of the fact that he's three persons. And we may not always understand that. I don't know that I always understand that. Kind of mentioned last week. It's something I think you think about and meditate your whole life and sometimes you feel like you got it a little more than others.
But I think it's good that we think about it and we meditate on it our whole life.
A couple things I wanted to kind of finish up from, that is, and I have the Hebrew there at the bottom.
But within this verse, within verse four, you have two of the two most common names or words used for God. We have his proper name, Yahweh.
Like I said this would be God's proper name. And Yahweh is basically a form of Hebrew. I am, it's where it comes from.
But that's the name that God used and that's the name he was known as. And we see this word.
I should have counted, but it's hundreds of times in the Old Testament. It's throughout the Old Testament.
So the other common name for God is Elohim. So this is more of a title. This would be more like the word God. It would be the title that he uses. And he goes by other words and names as well, but these are the two most common.
So the Jews really emphasized the oneness of God and they understood the oneness of God.
And as you read the Old Testament, that's certainly an emphasis.
But even within the Old Testament, there are what I would call hints of the Trinity, hints of his nature as a three person, one God.
And one of those hints we can see actually in the word Elohim.
Elohim, this word for God is actually a plural word.
So it's really guides in a plural form.
But when they use it in a sentence, they would use the singular verb to go with it.
In all but, like one or two cases, they would always use the singular verb. So even though it was a plural word, he was still singular in the sentence structure. So there's always been a lot of question about what that meant. There was questions among Jewish rabbis and scholars about what that meant, that Elohim was this plural word. And they had different ideas about that.
One was that his glory was so great that it took a plural word to describe Him.
One was.
It's called the intensity of majesty.
So it's like the royal we, if you're familiar with that, that idea of God referring to being referred to in a plural form.
But I see it as a hint that there's more there than just Him. He is one. But there's more there. Right? There's something else to investigate. So I think there's hints of the Trinity just in his name.
There's also some examples of normally God is used with singular pronouns, but there are, I think, four examples of where God is actually referred to with plural pronouns.
Let us make God in our image is one of those. Three of those are in Genesis, one of them is in Isaiah.
But most of the other times it's singular pronouns that are used to describe God.
So what did the Jews then think about the Spirit of God? The Spirit of God was a common term throughout the Old Testament.
What did they think that meant? If there was one God, what was the Spirit of God? They thought of the Spirit as really an aspect of God or an attribute of God, not in the way we think of the Spirit now.
So I think in the light of the New Testament, though, as we look back, we look back at some of these words with a fuller Understanding of who God is as a Father and a Son and a Holy Spirit.
I think reading back into the Old Testament with that light from the New Testament, you know, I think it makes a little more sense. So some of the things that they kind of struggled with trying to figure out, I think make more sense to us now as we're talking about and thinking about the Trinity.
Alright, so that kind of takes us. We already hit on this. That kind of takes us to the Trinity. I wanted to dive into that a little bit more.
I also wanted to mention some of the first, some of the terms that are used for the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament, he's really referred to in four ways. Sometimes he's just called the Spirit, simply the Spirit.
Sometimes he's called the Spirit of the Lord.
And when you see that word Lord in all caps in your English Bible, that was translated from Yahweh.
So he's the Spirit of Yahweh. So he carries the name Yahweh.
He is Yahweh.
He's also called the Spirit of God, and that's the Spirit of Elohim, that form of that.
And then he's also called the Holy Spirit. He's actually only referred to the Holy Spirit three times in the Old Testament, a couple times in Isaiah and once in Psalms.
But throughout the New Testament, that's the way he's usually referred to is through the term Holy Spirit or sometimes just Spirit, but just rarely in the Old Testament. But you do see that.
So kind of diving into the Trinity. We mentioned this, but we mentioned this last week. But in Jesus baptism, we see the three persons of the Trinity. They're all present and all active. We see the Father as he speaks, the voice from heaven as he speaks that he's pleased with the Son. We see the Son in the person of Jesus and the one being baptized. And then we see the Holy Spirit in the form of the dove. So we see all three of those there present at Jesus baptism.
But also in the Great Commission, we're told to baptize in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.
Putting those together as equals in that phrase clearly signifies that there's three persons there and they all share in that work that happens at baptism, But then kind of focusing on the one God side of that.
So I want to look at some terms in the New Testament and we'll just work through these.
So Romans 8, 9 is the first one we'll look at.
You, however, are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit.
If in fact, the Spirit of God dwells in you.
Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.
There's a lot we could dive in on that verse, and we probably will come back to that later in the class. But the main thing I wanted to point out here in that verse is that here in the same sentence, the Holy Spirit is referred to as the Spirit of God and the Spirit of Christ. He's referred to by both terms here within the same sentence.
So he's referred to in different ways.
The next one I wanted to look at is in Acts, chapter five.
And this is the story of Ananias and Sapphira.
And this is when Ananias was confronted by Peter for his sin and his lying.
So starting in verse three, verses three and four, it says, but Peter said, ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back for yourself part of the proceeds of the land.
While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not at your disposal? Why is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to man, but to God.
So at the beginning of this he says, ananias, you lied to the Holy Spirit.
And then at the end of this, he says, you lied to God.
The point being, those terms were interchangeable to Peter as he's speaking to Ananias. So lying to the Holy Spirit and lying to God were the same thing.
Just pause here.
So why do you think Peter emphasized here his lying to the Holy Spirit here at the beginning of this?
Yeah.
[00:11:09] Speaker C: In John it says that the Holy Spirit is going to come and convict the world regarding sin. And I wonder if maybe the Holy Spirit was working in their heart to tell them, hey, maybe I shouldn't lie about this. But then they just went ahead and did it anyways.
[00:11:26] Speaker B: I don't know.
Yeah, I think. I think that's pretty much what I would say. Yeah, I think it's the fact that Ananias and Sapphira had the Holy Spirit dwelling in them and they were meant to be a temple that had the Holy Spirit. And the fact that they lied means that they were lying to the God that was in them.
I think he's trying to emphasize the fact that the Holy Spirit is dwelling in them.
And in their lying, they're basically defying the Holy Spirit that's inside them.
At least that's my take on it.
But the main point here is that lying to God and lying to the Holy Spirit are really interchangeable ideas.
Yes.
[00:12:20] Speaker D: In John 15 it does talk about the counselor coming, who is the spirit of truth.
And maybe that's why he was mentioned, because they're lying and the Spirit is the spirit of truth. So I don't know if that has anything to do with it.
[00:12:35] Speaker B: Yeah, definitely. Certainly could. Yeah.
Yeah.
[00:12:40] Speaker C: Verse 31, chapter 4, it says when they had prayed, they were gathered together. And then it says they were all filled with the Holy Spirit, Spirit. So then in chapter five it's saying you ask, why has Satan filled your heart to lie? So it's like the Holy Spirit is already there filling you up and then you allowed Satan to replace.
[00:13:07] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, that's a good point.
And they had a choice in that matter. Right?
Yeah, good thoughts.
Alright, so next one is 2 Corinthians 13, 17, 18 says, now the Lord is the Spirit. And where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.
And we all with unveiled face beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another.
For this comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
And again, just kind of pointing out the interchangeable nature of how these terms are used.
We like to put things into very defined categories, but he seems to be kind of flowing between calling, saying it's the Lord, saying it's the Spirit.
Lord generally meant Jesus in the New Testament, sometimes, sometimes when they use the word Lord, it might have been talking about the Father, but whichever one was, he talks about the Lord, then he talks about the Holy Spirit, and he kind of flows between one and the other and kind of using those terms interchangeably.
I also want to look at John 10:30.
It's a real short verse just from Jesus. He says, I and the Father are one.
And of course, when he said that the Jews picked up stones and tried to kill him. When he said that, then he continues the conversation. And then down in verse 38, he basically repeats that when he says, the Father is in me and I am in the Father.
And again they, they tried to arrest him, so they knew what he was saying. He was claiming to be God, he was claiming to be equal with God in these words. And he saw oneness between himself and the Father.
So again, just trying to unpack the idea of the Trinity, this oneness, but yet this three persons, and kind of what that means. And again, it's just something, as we look at the verses, we just kind of meditate and think about, you know, exactly how that plays out.
Look at one more and this one's in.
This one's in 1st Peter 3:18.
We'll start. I have 3:19, but we'll start in 1 Peter 3:18.
So this one is.
This one's kind of a challenging passage.
Can kind of trip some people up, I think.
I think it's one we can come up with some creative interpretations, exotic interpretations of what this might mean as we try to figure this out.
But just to read here, 1 Peter 13, 18, 19.
For Christ also suffered once for sins the righteous, for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the Spirit, in which he went and proclaimed to the spirits in prison because they formerly did not obey. When God's patience waited in the days of Noah, while the ark was being prepared, in which a few, that is eight persons, were brought safely through water. All right, what in the world?
Okay. Like I said, we got.
There's a lot of interpretations that are put forth. Some, I think are kind of exotic.
I think what this is saying is probably a lot more boring than some of those ideas.
I think there's a key to understanding this. If you look back at first Peter 1, verse 11, and you're kind of picking up in the middle of a sentence here in verse 11. But he says, inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ.
We'll just go back to 10 so we can get the whole sentence.
So verse 10 concerning this salvation. The prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours, searched and inquired carefully, inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories.
So who was the one inspiring the prophets as they prophesied of Jesus?
The Spirit.
And Peter here specifically calls it the Spirit of Christ.
So was it Christ? Was it the Holy Spirit?
Does it matter?
I don't know if it matters. I think we're kind of in the area where it's really the oneness of God. And I don't know that it matters too much that we try to figure that out and sort that out.
But the point is, Peter saw Christ working through the prophets, through the Holy Spirit.
And I think that's what he's saying here in First Peter 3:19 as well. So he's saying that Christ preached to the people in the days of Noah through the Spirit.
So how did he do that? I think it's through the Spirit that was working through Noah.
I think that's the boring interpretation of what this Means is the Spirit was working through Noah as he preached to the people in his day. And they refused to hear him. But nonetheless, the Spirit was working, was working through Noah.
But Peter says that was actually Christ working as well through the Spirit as he preached to Noah. So it was actually Christ. So the point is, sometimes scripture kind of conflates which one's doing what Is it the Spirit, is it Christ? And we probably get more wrapped up about that than the Scriptures do, I think, because they're all working together.
They are working in concert and cooperating.
All right, afraid to ask, but any thoughts?
[00:19:36] Speaker E: Not on that, but another verse on the Holy Spirit, the scariest verse in the Bible, Matthew 12, 31, 32.
And you can add it to any corner. I don't expect you to.
I'm not going to put you on the spot, but, you know, if you blaspheme.
[00:19:51] Speaker B: Is that the blasphemy? Yes. There's no.
[00:19:53] Speaker E: There's no forgiveness. There's no turning back.
[00:19:55] Speaker B: Yes, we'll definitely add that to the list.
All right.
Key takeaway, though, is what I have down here, the God of the Old Testament, the God of Adam and Abraham and Moses and David and Israel. The God of Israel, we normally think of that as the Father, but the God of the Old Testament was the Father. The God of the Old Testament was the Holy Spirit. The God of the Old Testament was Jesus. They were all present and active throughout the Old Testament. They're the same God.
And we see references to the Holy Spirit throughout the Old Testament. We see hints, hints of the Holy Spirit. Throughout the Old Testament, we see hints of Jesus. No direct references that I am aware of, but we, I think, see hints of Jesus as well.
[00:20:47] Speaker E: Unless you want to call the angel of Yahweh to be Jesus.
[00:20:50] Speaker F: Just a whole different conversation.
[00:20:51] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. So there's, like I said, maybe some questionable references, possibly.
I don't want to get into that one, but.
Yeah, but the point is all three. All three have been there from the beginning.
All three are the God of Israel and they are all one.
All right, so next, this is a thought question. Don't answer this, but what is the purpose of the Spirit?
I say don't answer it because it's kind of a trick question. I don't normally like to ask trick questions, but this one's kind of a trick question.
When you think about what is the purpose of the Spirit, there's kind of an implication that, well, the Spirit was made for some purpose.
And that would be the wrong way to think of the Holy Spirit. He wasn't made. He doesn't exist for some purpose. He exists because he is. He exists because he is the I am. He's been there from the beginning.
So in that sense, there's no purpose for why he is. He just is.
If you think of it, kind of, what's the purpose behind what he does, a purpose that originates from himself. Okay, that's probably a proper way to think of it.
But his purpose behind what he does is the same purpose for the Father and the Son, and that is to redeem mankind so that he can dwell with us.
That's his work. And he works at that. From he has certain works, the Father has certain works, and Jesus the Son has certain works in achieving that purpose.
Homework I was meant to give you last week and didn't.
So here's the homework was think about what the word spirit means.
We'll give you five seconds to think about that, then we'll go into that topic.
So this week, last week, and really this week, too, are kind of foundational, kind of foundational stuff. As we really get into weeks, kind of 3, 4, 5.
I think we're going to hit a lot of great topics.
This week's going to be a little different, but I do want to spend a little time just looking at this word and what it means, what it means in the Old Testament, what it means in the New Testament. So we'll kind of dive into that a little bit.
So what do you think when you hear the word spirit? So we'll just start with that question.
There's no wrong answer because it's whatever you think when you hear the word.
I mean, you said Casper, but I think ghost. I think when we think spirit, we might think ghost.
A lot of things we might think of.
[00:23:48] Speaker E: He is called, well, some translations, he's called the Holy Ghost.
[00:23:52] Speaker B: Yeah, the King James version uses Holy Ghost.
Most other versions don't use that anymore.
So what does this word really mean then?
So we want to dive into that a little bit. And like I said, this is kind of foundational.
And then we'll move into some great topics. I think some. Some of you may love this, some of you may want to get on to something else, but I think there's something we can learn just by doing a little bit of word study and looking at this word.
So the word for spirit in the Hebrew is ruach.
It's used 378 times. It's a very, very common word.
And I have some of the uses of it as well.
74 times.
And these are my counts. I literally went through and counted. Okay, so if I were to go count again, I might come up with little different numbers because there's a couple times, like is this lowercase s or uppercase s? There's some where it's not clear and the translators made a choice. And there's a couple times where I might have made a different choice.
But anyway, 74 times spirit is referring to God, at least by my count.
122 times he's referring to spirit and some other. It's the word spirit, but used in some other.
Some other meaning, not referring to God. It also means wind and breath. But there's other uses as well that we see the actual when God wanted to walk, when God's mentioned that he would walk with Adam and Eve in the cool of the day, that word is actually ruach.
So he's probably saying I used to walk with him in the breeze of the day is probably what he was saying.
So there's a few other uses as well.
Alright, so I want to look at Genesis 2, 7.
And it says then the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.
I think there's so much in this verse.
This verse is so instructive.
It's kind of a. I would call it a pivotal verse.
For one, it tells us what man is.
And the way I like to refer to it is we're basically living dirt.
So God formed us from dirt and made us alive.
So the way I describe this is we're living dirt.
But it also points out that that life that we have comes from God.
It's a gift.
And the way this was described is that God breathed into man, giving him life.
So this kind of connects us back to that word ruach, the idea of ruach being breath, but it also carries with it the idea of life. And it's a recognition that the life that we have is ultimately a gift from God.
It's given to us by God and our lives depend upon him moment by moment.
When you think about breathing, I think it's a constant reminder that our life depends on Him.
So we breathe about every four seconds.
That's a lot of breathing. I figured up I probably breathed about one and a half billion times at my age. So a lot of breathing. And we don't normally think about it, it's just something we do.
But I think one of the reasons that we do this is so that it's a constant reminder of our dependence on God.
Every breath we take, it's a reminder that.
That our lives depend on him and we can't go that long without breathing.
We can.
I don't know how long you can hold your breath.
Maybe a minute or two.
Most people can hold their breath a minute.
My son actually trained to do free diving, and he had to train to hold his breath two minutes in order to be able to do that and dive down, I think, 10 meters.
But two minutes is pretty good if you can hold your breath that long.
If you hold your breath that long and you haven't trained, your cognitive ability starts to suffer.
If you go without breathing for like three minutes, you can start to have some brain damage. Even at five to six minutes, unless you're an elite and have really trained at five to six minutes, you're probably going to have brain damage and possibly could die anyway. So we can't go very long without breathing. It's a constant reminder that our lives depend on God and it's a gift from God.
So that word for breath is ruach. It's the same word for spirit.
So the idea that the Jews had of this word was that their very lives were. Were gifts from God and were held in his hands.
So there's a couple of words actually for breath, ruach and neshamah. Job kind of uses these interchangeably, may not spend a whole lot of time on them, but basically, as we look at these verses from Job, it's basically a recognition that his breath comes from God.
And we'll just look at the first one. It says, as long as my breath is in me and the spirit of God is in my nostrils.
So the word breath there. The first word, breath is neshama, and the second one is the word spirit there is ruach.
But you can kind of see these words used interchangeably.
[00:29:52] Speaker F: David in Ezekiel, chapter three talks about the dry bones come to life when the rogue enters it. So again, it's talking about that being life.
Getting those tribals in Ezekiel.
[00:30:08] Speaker B: Absolutely.
And we will definitely hit on that story later in the quarter. It's one of the stories that we will hit. But yeah, that's an important story that really points out that our life comes from God. And in particular, I think the spirit has a role in that.
I think that's what these words are trying to lead us to is an understanding that our life actually comes from the Spirit of God.
Also, I want to look at some other verses that kind of talk about this.
I want to look at Ecclesiastes 12:7.
So this is words of Solomon, and he says, and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the Spirit returns to God who gave it.
So what he's describing in this is he's describing death.
So throughout the book of Ecclesiastes, he's been talking about how he's.
He's tried all these different things. He's basically had it all. He tried everything.
So this is kind of his concluding thoughts. He's like, in the end, basically, we're all going to die.
This breath that we have, God's going to take it back and we're all just going to return to dust. In the next verse after this one, he says, vanity of vanity. Everything is vanity. So he doesn't.
Solomon doesn't have a lot of hope in those words as he says that. Where's his hope?
He sees life ultimately, at least as expressed here in Ecclesiastes. He sees it as meaningless.
In the end, does he see it.
[00:31:58] Speaker F: As meaningless or does he see it.
[00:32:00] Speaker B: As.
[00:32:04] Speaker F: You see it now? It's there now, and it's dawn, like a baby.
[00:32:09] Speaker B: Yeah, I think he's saying he sees it as vanity. So the word vanity actually can mean vapor. It actually can also mean breath. It's a different word, but it can mean that.
So he could be talking about the shortness of it, but I tend to think he's talking about the vanity of it because in the end, we basically are all going to die and God's going to take our life, and we're all going to die.
So.
So in the Old Testament, we talk about resurrection. And you could be right, I could be reading this a little wrong, but.
[00:32:45] Speaker F: I'm not even saying you're reading it wrong. I'm just adding a different perspective.
[00:32:48] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely.
But there are certainly plenty of verses in the Old Testament that do talk about hope and resurrection. So these are the other ones I have up here.
So his father, Solomon's father, actually wrote Psalm 16.
He says, for you will not abandon my soul to Sheol, or let your Holy One see corruption.
So David had a hope that when he died and went to the grave, went to Sheol, he wasn't going to stay there. There was hope. There was hope for him that God would bring him, bring him out of that Job also expresses that same hope.
He says, for I know that my redeemer lives, and at the last will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God, whom I shall see for myself and my Eyes shall behold and not another. My heart faints within me.
So again, while they didn't have a full understanding of the resurrection and what that meant because they hadn't experienced Christ, they did have hope. And they did have hope that even after death they would have life again and they would get to see God.
Isaiah also expresses that hope and he says, you dead shall live, their bodies shall rise. You who dwell in the dust awake and sing for joy.
And then finally, Daniel 12, two, maybe the most well known of the Old Testament verses that talk about resurrection.
It says, and many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life and some to shame and everlasting contempt.
And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky above.
And those who turn, many to righteousness like the stars, forever and ever.
Alright, so Daniel had hope, Isaiah had hope, Job had hope, David had hope of a resurrection. Even after they died, even after they lost their breath, their life after it returned to God and their bodies died, they had hope that they would have life after that.
All right, so pause there and see what comments you have.
[00:35:07] Speaker F: Why does it say many of them?
[00:35:10] Speaker B: Where?
[00:35:10] Speaker F: In Daniel 12, verse 2. Why does it say many of those who will sleep in the dust, who awake?
[00:35:17] Speaker B: Yeah, that's a good question. So Jesus refers to this in John 5 when he says that basically everybody's going to be resurrected. Some are going to be resurrected to eternal life and some are going to be resurrected to face judgment.
So I think Jesus clarifies that basically everybody is going to be resurrected in some way, some to eternal life and some to judgment.
Why he says meaning, I don't know, but I think Jesus clarifies that for us.
Alright, so the word spirit, some other uses, it doesn't always just mean breath or life.
It says Pharaoh's spirit was troubled.
So he had this attitude.
His attitude within him was troubled, his inner being was troubled.
Exodus 6:9. The people did not listen to Moses because of their broken spirit and harsh slavery.
So broken spirit, in this case it's not talking about their life or their breath, it's talking about their inner being, their emotions.
They were sad or upset is what that's referring to.
Numbers 5:30 is similar. A spirit of jealousy comes over a man that's not talking about a being coming into a man, that's just talking about his attitude, his inner person.
So spirit was used in that way.
Hannah the same way in 1 Samuel 1:15, Hannah was troubled in spirit due to her infertility.
So she was troubled in spirit.
Alright, so we're going to try to sum up ruach in the Old Testament and how the Hebrews understood this word.
It literally meant wind or breath and it oftentimes was translated that way. And you have to look at the context to figure out how to translate it. But that was its literal meaning.
But it carried with it also the meaning of life.
So that we, when it says that man had ruach, it means that man was living. That's what distinguished man from the things that weren't living. Whether it was somebody that was dead or whether it was a rock. The fact that we have this breath in us is what distinguishes us.
So in that sense it would just refer to life, but it can also refer to our inner being or inner person, our emotional state, or even our character.
It can also refer to that.
We haven't got into this a whole lot yet. But when it referred to God, so when spirit was referring to God, the Jews didn't understand that to be a person of the trinity.
They didn't believe that.
But what they did believe is that it was basically an attribute of God. It was his presence or his empowering, life giving presence.
So that's kind of how they thought of this term spirit of God, when it referred to him.
So what it did not mean, it's not referring to an immortal soul. That's not the idea. It's more about our life.
But they also didn't see it as sharply separated from the body.
So they saw man as one, as kind of united being.
Not this kind of dualism which where we have a body and we have a different thing called a spirit. And the spirit kind of inhabits the body. That's not really the way they thought of it.
When they thought of the idea of you have a spirit, it basically meant you have life within you.
It's what made you alive. It's your breath, it's what made you living. It's what made you different from somebody that was dead. Or it's what made you different from the rocks and the other things that didn't have life.
That's the way that they would have thought of it.
So they saw man as a whole man, not as this kind of split half and half, half and half man.
Alright, so if we sum all that up, we look at all that. So what does spirit mean? And that kind of takes us back.
We kind of asked, what do you think of when you hear the word spirit?
I think to me the idea that kind of sums all that up.
It's an unseen power.
So it's something you can't see. And a couple people mentioned this.
So it's an unseen power, but you know it by its effects.
And of course we now have a lot better understanding of the Holy Spirit as a person of God.
But that's his nature.
We don't see him, but we can see what he does. We can see his works in the world.
We can see the things he does, both in our life and in the rest of the world.
And that's how we come to know him, is through seeing his actions and seeing the results of his actions.
Alright, we're going to leave it there. I think the second bell.
So I'm pretty sure we'll get to this next week. But I put some papers by the door. It's a homework assignment.
So what I want to do, what I want to do next is we're going to go through a bunch of verses. And as we look to see what does the Spirit do, I think that will give us a picture of who he is. So we're going to look at a bunch of verses. What I want you to do is just look up those verses and write one or two words about what does the Spirit do.
So if you would do that and then we'll plan to go over that next week. We'll see you next week.
