Knowing God is Loving God Part 8a: The Holy Spirit

Sunday Morning | April 19, 2026 | John C. Majors | Louisville, KY

In Part 8a of Knowing God is Loving God, Pastor John taught that the power of the Christian life flows directly from our connection to and dependence on the Holy Spirit. Drawing from John 14:15–27, he explained five key aspects of who the Spirit is: our Helper who comes alongside us, fully Holy and set apart, the very Breath of God (pneuma) who brings life as seen in Ezekiel 37, truly God Himself as affirmed in Acts 5, and the Spirit of Truth who reveals God’s reality. He then highlighted three essential works of the Holy Spirit in the believer’s life: He dwells both in and with us, fulfilling God’s promise of a new heart; He teaches us and brings Jesus’ words to remembrance; and He produces a deep, lasting peace within us. Ultimately, the message emphasized that a vibrant spiritual life is not powered by our own strength, but by living in close dependence on the Holy Spirit.

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Transcript

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Thank you. Isaac, it's great to have you back. It was nice that you got a break as well, but we always appreciate having you lead, and it's great to be back in our series on knowing God is loving God. We've been walking through the chapters of this book called You Are a Theologian, and this week we'll be talking about the topic of the Holy Spirit. Obviously, we've already been singing on that. Who is the Holy Spirit? How does he work in our lives? What does he do? There's a lot of confusion in the world around that topic. Yesterday I needed to trim up part of our yard, kind of in the back area near some woods. And so I got out the weed eater, and I walked down there. And you know how this goes. It takes forever to start those things up. Like when you buy it, they show you right away. Yeah. Just one. It starts and never does that again. Ever. And so I'm down there priming in, yanking it, priming it, checking it, yep, there's fuel. You know a half hour goes by, my right arm's just about to fall off. And then finally, I think maybe something's wrong. And I look down and of course, I don't know why they put this. I think this is evil, that the manufacturers even come up with this. But there's a switch on there that turns the fuel off and on. Why would I ever want it off? Of course it was off and I flipped it on. And on the next pull, it starts right up. And there's something with that where many times in life you're trying and you're trying and you're not connected to the power source. You know what I'm saying? I think we all want to live the spiritual life full of power. We want to experience the abundance that God has for us at the source of his power. But a lot of times, we're not connected to it. We're not taking advantage of it. We've got our weed eater and we're swinging it around, wondering why it's not doing anything when we haven't turned on the fuel. The power for us in the spiritual life is the Holy Spirit. And I want to make sure as much as we can, we understand the Holy Spirit and are connected to the Holy Spirit. That's where you're going to experience the fullness of the spiritual life in fact, that's going to be the theme of our message today and next week. And I've put that in your notes. I'm just going to read it. I want you to look at it here at the top of your notes. It says the key idea of this week, the power in your spiritual life is found in the strength of your connection to and dependance on the Holy Spirit. If you want to live a power filled spiritual life, and we all want that, you've had those moments where you feel the power of the Holy Spirit working in you, and it's a whole different thing. But if you want that, the power in your spiritual life, reading it again, because it's an important statement is your connection. It's found in the strength of your connection to and dependance on the Holy Spirit. That's where you're going to find the power. Live out the power of the spiritual life rooted in the Holy Spirit. You know, last week we had Bob Russell come and speak to us. Bob Russell, who built Southeast Christian into what it is today, speaking to tens of thousands every week, came to our church, came to speak to us and encourage us. He was a huge encouragement. I don't know if you got time to interact with him. I mean, this says a lot about what a class act is. He stayed for the picnic. He hung out. I mean, he was here as long as anybody wanted to talk to him, interacted with tons of people afterwards, he spent time. John, I would just want you to know I'm really encouraged about what God is doing at Valley View, and he shared a number of different things he saw here. I put those in the midweek update. You have to go back and read it if you didn't read it. But he just spent some time loving on us and encouraging us. But he also challenged us. You know, if you were here in the service, you felt it. Make sure you're spreading the Word of Christ. Make sure you're investing in others. Make sure you're talking about what God has done in your life. Make sure you're inviting others that can only happen successfully in the power of the Holy Spirit. Walking in the power of the Holy Spirit. That's how we want to go about any aspect of our spiritual life. So today we're going to look at John chapter 14, because we could look all over Scripture to talk about the Holy Spirit. I just want to look at one passage on the Holy Spirit. We're going to talk this week about who is the Holy Spirit. Who is he? What does he do? That'll be this week. Next week will be. How do you live out a spirit filled life? So this week, who he is, we've got to understand who he is. Before we talk about how we live in the power and influence of him, we're going to be in John chapter 14. And so if you have a Bible, turn there. If you don't have a Bible, we have those out in the lobby for you. We'd love for you to have a copy. You can turn there as well. John 14, in that Bibles on page 858. In fact, I'm going to do what Bob did. I'm stealing ideas I, any good idea I have I stole from somebody I try to give him credit. Obviously, Bob had this idea last week. I've seen others do it, but let's stand for the reading of the word. Let's all stand together. As I read through this. I don't know that we'll do this every week, but sitting out in the congregation experiencing it last week, I, I appreciated that, I enjoyed that. So let's do that. And I'll read in John 14 verses 15 through 27 and listen along while I read. if you love me, you will keep my commandments, 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 nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells within you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you yet a little while, and the world will see me no more. But you will see me because I live. You also will live. In that day you will know that I am in my father, and you in me, and I in you. Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me, and he who loves me will be loved by my father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him. Judas not Iscariot, said to him, Lord, how is it that you will manifest yourself to us and not to the world? Jesus answered him, if anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my father will love him, and he will come to him and make our home with him. Whoever does not love me does not keep my words, and the word that you hear is not mine. But the fathers who sent me these things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. And here's probably the key verse that we'll focus on today, 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. Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you. Thank you for your word. Lord. Help us to be aware of your spirit with us as we study your word. Amen. You can be seated. Here we have in John chapter 14, the section of Scripture often referred to as the Upper Room Discourse. The disciples have gathered in the Upper Room. This is where they're going to have, the Last Supper they didn't know was the last one, but it would have been the meal to celebrate the Passover together. Jesus has already washed their feet. He sent out Judas to go do what you're going to do to betray Jesus. And now they're now they’re together, and Jesus has given them just some final teaching. Here's our last few moments together. I've got some powerful words to share with you. This is one of the longest sections where Jesus just teaches people you know. We have the sermon on the Mount in Matthew. We have the sermon on the plain, and Luke here is just as long of a section, one of the longest sections of Jesus just teaching and what he's reminding them of and telling them here now is I am going to go away. They don't understand it. They don't get it. Where are you going? Why? How is it? But I'm telling you, this is important because you're going to remember this. In fact, I'm going to give you the Holy Spirit to help you remember it. You're going to need to remember it. Times are going to get hard. You're going to have to lean on what I'm saying right now. And they don't understand it. They don't get it. It'll come to mind later. And the key part of what he's teaching them about is something that is changing in the way he interacts with his people, and that he's giving them the Holy Spirit. And he's talking to them about the Holy Spirit. And they had some familiarity with the concept of the spirit. But things are changing. And he's telling them, you have got to be dependent on the Holy Spirit. And so here's what he says about the Holy Spirit. I'm going to look at a few words that describe who he is and what he says here in chapter 14, and the very first word he uses. And this will be the first word in your outline to describe the Holy Spirit is the word helper, right? You see that word in verse 16? I will ask the father. He will give you another helper. He says that as well. In verse 26, the helper, the Holy Spirit, he describes the Holy Spirit as a helper. Now that's the word in the ESV. If you have other translations, you'll see it's translated differently. In fact, it's one of those words that gets translated differently across a lot of translations. That's often the sign that the Bible scholars are struggling with. What's the best way to try to convey this complex word? So you see, like the NIV uses words like advocate. And by the way, each translation has a strength and has a weakness in whatever word they decided to choose. We come up with the word advocate. I love the power of that word, someone who's fighting for you on your behalf, but it also has maybe a little too legal, a little too formal, or we don't only want to view God that way. So the NIV also, and other versions, the same Bible, when they updated the translation, they call him counselor advocate might feel a little too too harsh, too formal. Counselor, that's someone who comes alongside you, helps you process life, maybe gives you advice, but that also may feel maybe a little too official. Maybe a little too formal. So the message it's a maybe more of a paraphrase than a translation, but he he translates it as friend and I loved it. I mean, don't we all love to view God as a friend? And Jesus even said that to his disciples, I'm I no longer call you servant. I call you friend. But yet also that can sometimes feel maybe a little too familiar, a little too close to God. We should have maybe more respect and reverence for him than just we would our normal friends. One translation just called him the Paraclete. That's just the Greek word that is here. We don't know what else to say, so we'll just take that Greek word and put it in English. He's Paraclete. That's kind of a cop out, I think. We don't really want to take a stand. You can see they're all wrestling with how do we sum up this word that describes the Holy Spirit and how he comes alongside us? And he does all that. He helps us. He guides us, he comforts, he intercedes. He's our advocate. The important point to take away from this is that we all desperately need that. None of us are going through spiritual life on our own. We can't figure it out on our own. We gotta lean on the power of the Holy Spirit. We do this in everyday life. You've had someone else in life you've had to lean on to get through. Sometimes I remember a guy coming to me. I was going through a very hard season. He was a good friend and he came to me and said, John, I can tell you are struggling to get through this season and you need someone to help you get through it. And normally I would have been like, leave me alone, weirdo, you know? What are you doing? I got this. But I knew he was right. And I said, thank you, let's talk. And he sat and listened to me for hours, whine and complain and go on and on. And he listened and he asked questions and he engaged, and he helped, and he counseled and he comforted, and he challenged. And then he said, let's do it again tomorrow. And I thought, who why would you go through that again? And I wept because of the love he showed me to just listen, to come alongside. And as powerful as it was that he did that, the Holy Spirit, even more so, is there to come alongside, to help, to be with you. So first he describes him as a helper. Now the next three words all work together that I'm going to mention here. They build on one another and two of them are very obvious and they build towards the third. The first is that he is holy. Thanks, John, for the brilliant flash of the obvious that the Holy Spirit is holy. But this is important. This is number two in your outline. This is important to highlight and to point out because we're building towards this third, fourth point in the outline. And when you look at the Old Testament and you look at the idea of spirit, you don't see the words holy and spirit together hardly at all. Just a few times, just three times. Famously, in Psalm 51, David says, take not your Holy Spirit from me. But mostly he just talks about the spirit. But the concept of holiness is very strong in the Old Testament. The idea of holiness is the idea that something is set apart. But God is separate, set apart. He's holy. When Moses was approaching the burning bush, he said, this is holy. Take off your shoes. This is a holy place. Don't come any closer. Irreverently. This is different than normal life. When God was ready to pass down the law and Moses was to go up on the mountain and receive it, and the people started to approach the mountain, he said, don't come any closer. Do not even touch it. Don't get any closer. This is holy. The angels around the throne. They repeat over and over again. Holy, holy, holy. Isaiah said, I am a man of unclean lips. I fell down on his face. There's something about his holiness, his separateness that's unlike normal life. It's set apart. And you know what? Maybe you have had some of those holy moments. You know what I'm talking about. You go through the normal life, daily life, routine, even your spiritual life. But then there's these holy moments that stand out. I mentioned on Easter, I felt like I had one of those when I went over to Garry Ott’s house right after he had passed away, and I watched Barbara, who set aside her own grief in the minute. Her husband of many years, 50 plus years, who just passed away, set aside her own grief for a moment and just started ministering to the EMTs. Do you know Jesus? Do you believe in Jesus love? For me, that was a holy moment. I thought, I need to stay as still as possible right now, I'm not even going to breathe if possible. There's something happening here that's not normal life. This stands out. It's set apart from the normal, just busyness of life where we blow past everything. I don't know if I would have the strength to do that. You've had those holy moments as holy as that was and as holy as any moment you've had. He is even more infinitely holier than that. And we were connected in to the Holy Spirit. We get just a glimpse of that. We get a taste of how holy and special and amazing he is. So he's holy. But he's also number three, another brilliant flash of the obvious. He is spirit. Holy spirit, we're looking at both sides of that word. He's holy and he is spirit. So the spirit, that word spirit. And I've put this in your notes in the New Testament. It's the word pneuma. It's where we get the word pneumatic. If you think of air powered tools or air powered devices, and the word just can literally mean movement of air, it can mean wind. It often means breath. That's what I would feel in that line. There. Breath equals life often in Scripture. You think of when God shaped Adam, he shaped him out of dust. But until he breathed life into him, he wasn't alive. It was just dust. Still. But he breathed life into him. It gave him life through his breath. If you think of Ezekiel 37 and you've you've probably heard that story of the the vision of the valley of dry bones. It's the valley full of dead, dry bones. And God reassembles the bones. They take on shape of a human. But then they take on flesh. But they're still not alive until he breathes life into them. It's his breath that gives life. This is the idea. This is the foretaste. This is the picture of how the spirit comes into us and gives us life. And if you know Christ, the spirit is in you and his breath, his life, the power of his life is in you. And look, you've experienced this in life in terms of the difference between something being full of power and not, and just using the word pneumatic. Whenever you take your car to get the tires rotated and you come back home and you get a flat tire and you've got to change the tire, it takes every ounce of your strength to get that wheel off, because they had pneumatic tools, they had impact drivers, air power drivers, and all I have is this rusty old ten year old tire iron that's been sitting in my trunk, and it probably doesn't even fit right, and I can't get enough leverage on it. They use the tool with power. And so when we think of the Holy Spirit, we want to be leaning on the power that he has that's available to us. How many times in life are we just ignoring that, trying to strong arm it ourselves instead of leaning on the power of the Holy Spirit? He is holy. He is spirit. And this leads to the fourth one. All this points to the reality that He is God. The Holy Spirit is God. He's not just maybe an apparition that resembles Jesus or some force of the father. He is the third member of the Trinity, and he's not third like he's lesser third of three, equal in value, fully God. In fact, acts chapter five, I've listed in your notes. We're not going to turn that right now, but this is a section of Scripture that speaks to his divinity, because that's the section where Ananias and Sapphira both had sold a piece of property. And then they lied about how much they sold it for so that they could give less to the church, but still get all the credit and look really great. And they called him out on and said, don't you see, when you lied to the Holy Spirit, you lied not just to man, but to God, putting the Holy Spirit on the same level as God. The other thing that's interesting here about the Holy Spirit is just the fact that we often get it wrong in terms of how we talk about the Holy Spirit. If you've listened carefully, whenever I've talked about the Holy Spirit today, I've said he, the Holy Spirit is a he, not an it. If you look in verse 26, Jesus uses he of the Holy Spirit, the helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the father will send in my name. He will teach you all things. This is important because this personalizes the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit, and we use the word spirit. And if you're a King James, follower of the Holy Ghost makes him even more hard to understand, more or less real. The Holy Spirit is a person of the Trinity, someone you can know and follow and trust and love. And he is a real person, not just an IT. Some made up entity that we may try to maybe have a hope of understanding. No, he's real. I mean, imagine if when I met you, I only referred to you as it. Never as he or she, you know, just it. How depersonalizing is that? I think sometimes in our mind, we've had that this part of the confusion here is legitimate. It goes back to the Greek language where they have gender in their language. You know, Spanish is like this. Things can be feminine or masculine. We don't really have that in English. Well, in Greek there's a neuter category as well. And the Holy Spirit follows the neuter gender. That doesn't mean he's an it, because the he pronouns are used of him he, Holy Spirit, personal God. All of this is driving towards the reality of how we view the spirit rightly. He is God. He is holy. He's our helper. He's personal. He is there for you. In fact, here is how he is described number five in your outline. He is truth. Look at verse 17. Back at 16. I will ask the father. He will give you another helper to be with you forever. Even the spirit of truth.

John 4: 22:22

24. It talks about this. It says those who worship me must worship in spirit and truth. The Holy Spirit, a key part of who he is, someone who is leading you into truth. And this is important because sometimes in some denominations, in some Christian circles, you get this idea that if I'm really spirit led, I'm being led somewhere novel, somewhere new, somewhere no one else has thought of that stands out as different. And look, by the way, there are times where the spirit leads you places you hadn't thought of before, you hadn't seen before. But it should never contradict Scripture. It should align with the truth of Scripture. If you have a thought and think, I think God told me this and it contradicts Scripture. He didn't tell you that he will lead you into truth. The spirit guides you into truth, not error. And so if you're feeling confused, if you're feeling like I'm not sure what to do, continue to cry out, Holy Spirit, would you guide me and lead me and wait on him? Many of the big mistakes I've made in life are when I could not wait patiently for the truth to become clear. Don't get out ahead of him. Wait on him. He is truth. He will guide you in truth. That's just a little bit of who the spirit is. Just in one chapter of Scripture, we could look across all of Scripture and see a lot about how the Holy Spirit is described. That's a little bit of who he is, but it also says some here. In fact, I want to look at three things about what he does. Just a couple of things mentioned here about what he does. The first is look at verse 17 again, the spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. This is what the spirit does. The spirit actually dwells in you. Everyone who knows Christ has the spirit dwelling in you. You don't have to wonder. I wonder if I will ever have access to the Holy Spirit now, just like my weed eater had gasoline in it and I wasn't taking advantage of it, no, the spirit is in you. You may not be fully realizing the power of the spirit in your life, but he's in you. He is there. Jesus says this to his disciples. He will be in you. He will be with you. This is a difference between, by the way, the Old Testament and the New Testament. And in the Old Testament the spirit would often come upon people, and not everyone. And it was often a moment for empowering leaders. You see him come upon Samson. The spirit rushed upon him. It gave him power for leadership. You see him come upon David to lead the nation. You see him come upon the prophets to give them wisdom. But then you also see the spirit leave. He left Saul. He departed from Saul. So you see the spirit come and go. And it doesn't seem to come upon everyone. But you see the power associated with the spirit. But when we get to the New Testament, in fact, this was predicted in Ezekiel 36. Flip over there. I talked about the valley of dry bones. But if you look at Ezekiel, this is one of the prophets in the Old Testament, called one of the major prophets because the books, one of the longer ones. This would be a few pages over, you know, Psalms is about in the middle. Ezekiel will be over. More towards the New Testament a little. And if you have a church Bible that will be on page 685, but in there there's a couple of passages that point to the promise of the New covenant, or things will change. The Old Covenant was driven by the law, but then predicted there was a moment in Ezekiel where he said, and other books said as well, you see in Jeremiah, you see in Joel, they'll come a day where things will change. It's not just about the outward external law anymore. Look at what he says in chapter 36. Let's look at verse 25. He says, I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleanness and from all your idols. I will cleanse you. I'll give you a new heart and a new spirit I will put within you. I'll remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes, and be careful to obey my rules. You shall dwell in the land that I give to your fathers. You shall be my people, and I will be your God. He's saying, there will come a day where my spirit will live in you, to guide you, to direct you. You don't just have to depend anymore on an external law. But I will be within you. I will change your heart. I will renew your heart. I will make it new. Many believe that when John is talking, when Jesus is talking with Nicodemus in John chapter three and he says, you, you must be baptized with water and spirit. He's talking about this passage. You got to be made new. It's not just about following an outward set of rules. The spirit will come in you and dwell in you and change you. That's part of what he does. But secondly, look at what else he does. Number two, in verse 26, 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. Teach and bring to remembrance. The Holy Spirit is within you to teach you, to guide you, to bring things to remembrance. Now, this would have been especially important for the disciples in this time, because they don't know what's about to happen. And when Jesus leaves, they're wondering, how are we going to get through this? He's going to bring to remembrance the things he had told them, to guide them, to help them. But this is true for us as well. This applies to us as well. How many times has the spirit brought to remembrance his Word? Maybe you're on the verge of sin. Maybe you're pointed a bad direction and he brings his word to mind. And he brings to remembrance what he's called you to do. In fact, in John 16 it says, part of what the Holy Spirit does is he convicts of sin. And the powerful part of that is he doesn't convict of sin to shame you. His conviction is not to beat you down, but it's to restore you. I mean, how many times has he brought to light sin in your life? And that may have been overwhelming, but when you repent and seek him and follow him, that brings life. That's how you find spiritual life. I'm going to set aside the sin that he's brought to mind. I'm going to repent of it, and I'm going to follow him. I'm going to do that in his power, not my own. We depend on him to do that, to bring that to mind, to teach us, to guide us, and to do it according to his word and following his word. Lastly, number three. All this leads to what we see in verse 27 when we're living the spirit filled life, when the spirit is guiding, teaching, bring to remembrance dwelling within you. Here's where this leads. Verse 27. Peace I leave with you. My peace I give to you, not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. If you're living a spirit filled life, if you are leaning on the Holy Spirit to guide, direct convict, lead. That is the pathway to peace. I don't know about you, but I want peace. I think most everyone is struggling to find peace in this day and age. People are so weighed up with anxiety. He even says it here. Don't be troubled. Don't be afraid. Find peace. When I'm driving and I find myself. Let's say, frustrated with the whole rest of the world. Every single other driver on the road has never learned how to drive rightly like me. That's a sign that it's not everyone else. If everyone else around you frustrates you, it's not them. That's usually sometimes. Eventually I go, oh. I am leaning on my own strength right now, not the Holy Spirit. That is a sign that I'm not prayed up, that I'm not in the word enough, that I'm not depending on the Holy Spirit. The gasoline is turned off in my heart. It's a red flag. It's a signpost. But when the Holy Spirit, when the power of the Holy Spirit comes to life in you, it changes everything. I was talking with a mother this week, and we were talking about how God has worked in your life and in your family. And she said, let me tell you, John, my daughter, she used to be the meanest person you could ever meet. Like, really? Oh, yeah. No, she was terrible. She was hard to be around. She was angry and difficult. I was like, I think I got it now there's more. You need to hear it more. Let me tell you how terrible she was. No one wanted to be around her. I was like, okay, I get the picture. But one day she came home from church and she said, mom, something changed today. I don't know what it is, but something changed. Tell me, God is at work in my life. And from that day forward she went from the person demanding angry. No one wanted to be around by her own mother's description. To loving, caring, giving, serving. And she says, now, John, let me tell you, she will do anything for anybody. I love being around her. I'm so proud of her. That is what the Holy Spirit does. There is someone in your life that you're thinking, I don't know if he could do that. He can. He may not, but he can. Don't give up hope. Walk by faith in the power of the Holy Spirit. Whatever you're facing, the Holy Spirit is more powerful. And if you depend on him, you can experience that peace. Let's pray. God, we thank you for the power of your Holy Spirit. We know I think most of us know in theory you live within us. And yet I think there's many days we wonder. Or many days where I wonder, am I leaning on the Holy Spirit or on myself? It doesn't feel like I'm. I'm not strong enough. I'm not doing it right. God, would you help us to grow and knowing who you are and leaning on you and loving you more and as a result, loving others and honoring you? May we feel the fullness of your power in our life today. We want to live a spirit filled, powerful life. I want that I know everyone here wants that. Would you give us a breakthrough? Would your spirit just fall on us fresh today? May we become overwhelmed with your presence. May we experience the glory of your goodness. Thank you, Jesus, that we can gather. We love you. Amen.