Life with God: The Spirit

We wrap up our series on enjoying and experiencing God. We've been looking at the Trinity, the concept of a triune God, how God is three persons in one. But how significant it is for us to understand the triune God because God relates to us in such an incredibly intimate way, because He is three persons in one. He is the God who has existed in community for all of eternity and then has invited humanity, out of grace, into that community. And so for us to think about how we can enjoy God, how we can experience God, is to get to the heart of understanding the Trinity, how God is Father, Son, and today, we focus on the Holy Spirit. At the start of this series, we mentioned how one of the early church leaders by the name of Tertullian, who lived in the second century AD, once likened the Trinity to a flower.

He said that God the Father is the unseen, embedded power deep in the ground, the root system for this flower, giving life, giving direction to the rest of the flower. But in the same system, the same flower, the same entity is God the Son, who is the green shoot that breaks into the world out of the soil, giving expression to the root system that has given life to it, giving shape to the plant. And then God the Holy Spirit is the flower's beauty and fragrance. Seen, yet sometimes unnoticed.

Able to be sensed, engaged and experienced, but sometimes not regarded. The work of the flower's fragrance, however, and the colour, the beauty of it, is to magnify it. Is to magnify its wonder and beauty of the whole flower itself. That is the work of the Spirit. And I think that's just a really wonderful way.

I mean, it's always simplistic. It will never really capture the Trinity, but it's a wonderful way to think of how the persons in the Trinity can work together and do work together. And so this morning, we're going to be reflecting on the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit is not an it, but a He, a person, not a force, a sort of a thing we can tap into as people say, we tap into the Holy Spirit. No.

He is the one that taps into us. He is the one that comes into us and interacts with us. And I believe the Holy Spirit is the one person in the Trinity that is the most misunderstood, one of the most underappreciated persons within the Godhead. Over the last hundred years, there have been all sorts of controversies surrounding the Spirit, especially revolving around the gifts of the Spirit, and they've all caused some sort of confusion and a muddying of the water, in my opinion, that have taken the attention off the Holy Spirit and placed it on far less important things.

Like what the Holy Spirit can do, what the Holy Spirit gives. And so my hope is to again just rightly and humbly pay attention to the wonderful, gracious Spirit of God, who is a He and not an it. Not an object, but a person who is right now, right now, as we are speaking, working amongst us, talking to us, reminding us, confirming in us. And so Holy Spirit, we ask Your blessing on this time together.

I want you to have a look with me to Galatians 3, where we begin this morning. We're going to look at a significant passage in Paul's writing explaining the work of what God has done to rescue humanity through the Son, who we talked about last time. But today, we see how the Son and the Spirit and the Father work together wonderfully. In Galatians 3, and we'll start from verse 26. Galatians 3:26. Paul says, for in Christ Jesus, you are all sons of God through faith.

For as many of you as were baptised into Christ, you have also put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek. There is neither slave nor free. There is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring and heirs according to the promise.

I mean, the heir, as long as he is a child, is no different from a slave, though he is the owner of everything. But this child is under guardians and managers until the date set by his father. In the same way, we also, when we were children, were enslaved to the elementary principles of the world. But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.

And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father. So you are no longer a slave, but a son. And if a son, then an heir through God. So far our reading. We mentioned this passage a few weeks ago, again when we started talking about the Trinity, and I highlighted there the working of the Son, the Father, and the Spirit in this work of salvation.

The passage we read is a wonderful explanation of how Christians move from one state of existence in our lostness into another state of existence, our adoption into God's family. And Paul begins by using an illustration of a young child who is the heir of a great estate. And while he is underage, while he is a minor, Paul says he is no different to a slave. He is in the household of this family, but he serves his father as a slave since he is subject to the guardians and the managers. In Paul's illustration, the law is the guardians and managers. But when this child comes of age, he comes into an inheritance.

Now this is the picture Paul says of all humanity. All human beings are slaves before coming to Christ. We are in a sense all bound by the law. Even if we've never heard of the Bible, even if we've never heard of Moses, slavery is our natural state apart from God. There are only two existences explained to us in the Bible for humanity.

Either humanity are slaves, or we are sons and daughters. Either slaves or sons and daughters. Why? Because in our natural selves, our relationship with God is non existent. We don't know God.

Even if we know about God, we don't know God as Father. Because something called sin is in us, and that breaks intimacy with God. And so slavery is the natural state for someone who is bound by God's law, trying to appease the one who is above them, the person who owns them. And we inherently know someone has created us and owns us, but we think we must relate to this Master in a slave-master relationship. But before we come to faith, we are desperately trying to live in some way to please God as Master, rather than as Father. And so Paul is beginning to explain that all of that changes through the work of Jesus Christ and applies to us by the Holy Spirit.

And so if we are essentially slaves because we're underage minors, bound by the rules of the law that are our managers and our guardians, sort of limiting the effects of sin but not setting us free from it, the question is, how do we become inheritors, heirs, members of the family? And Paul explains this in verse 4. He says, when the time had fully come, at a particular point in time, in our space and time, God sent His Son. And Paul explains that Jesus, the Son of God, redeems those under the curse of this law.

All the penalties associated with this breaking of God's law, He pays for. And Christ, having paid our penalty, satisfies the requirements of the law. But then He invites us, and He transforms us from being underage minors, not unlike slaves, to becoming full sons and full daughters of God. And so you see, in a sense, before we become Christians, we've belonged to another dad. A dad. This dad is Satan.

And even if we never thought of him that way, even if we thought we were living completely free from a Master, completely free from some sort of spiritual dad, you have, you may have been thinking, you've been making all the decisions on your own by your own free will. Deep down, you knew God, or you knew about God. And all you wanted to do was to be as far from Him as possible. And you thought you had freedom in doing that. You thought you were the own captain of your fate, but that, Paul says, was all a deception.

You were never free. You were as much a slave then as you are a slave as Christians now, into righteousness. Your master, Paul says, was Satan, and instead of God the Father, the Father you were working desperately hard to impress, even thinking that you were doing it for yourself, was Satan. Several years ago, my sister, my baby sister Christine, was in a musical for her school.

The musical was Annie, the story of the red-headed orphan looking for her parents. My sister played Annie. We were very proud of her. And it was all very cute because we could see our sister running around with a giant red afro on stage. But it was also my first time hearing the story of Annie.

And I remember really enjoying in the story the stark contrast between the evil, alcoholic mistress, Miss Hannigan, and the kind and gracious, wealthy Mister Warbucks, who tried to help Annie to find her parents. But after realising that her parents had passed away, Mister Warbucks adopted Annie into his family. The picture of that is something of what Paul is describing here, of when we have put our trust in Jesus. We once belonged to the evil Miss Hannigan. You know that song, it's a hard knock life, where they're scraping their floors and washing and working very hard.

That is so that Miss Hannigan would give them some bit of food. They slaved away in order to win Miss Hannigan's approval, and it was never good enough. And Paul is saying, there came a day where we were moved from the household of Miss Hannigan into the household of a Father with inheritance we don't know the ends of. A household where we find all the love we've ever needed. Paul says, in God's perfect timing, the Father sent the Son, born of a woman.

Paul emphasises that. Born of a woman, a real human being. God sent a man called Jesus, who was then born under the law as all human beings are, into a state of obligation to God's law. But Jesus was uniquely able to redeem those under the law because He could do what none of us can do. He lived the perfect life, and He satisfied the requirements of that law.

The term to redeem that is used here is a technical term that Paul uses. And it's actually he uses it very intentionally, because it was a term relating to what would happen if a Master paid for a slave to be set free. Paying their full price. Jesus pays, or redeems, the full price by completely fulfilling the law's demands. And therefore, He is able to finally fully set free.

Paul says, not only is Jesus able to redeem us, but He obtains for us the full rights of sons, full rights of children. Through Jesus, not only have we been taken away from the terribly unloving dad called Satan and the horrible slavery of sin, we've been placed into this generous home, this warm home of our Father in heaven, God. And so not only did God remove in one way, or not only did Christ remove the penalty we deserved, but Jesus also gives us the blessing of sonship that He deserved. Not only are we cleansed, but we receive the blessing, the righteousness of being a full son through that process. Why am I explaining all of this when I'm talking about the Holy Spirit?

Because the Holy Spirit makes this true in our lives. We can only believe that because of the work of the Spirit. This incredible coming of age story of being minors, underage kids coming into the inheritance, that is accomplished through the work of the Son. But the marvellous thing about the Holy Spirit is He is the gentle, kind servant of both the Father and the Son, working to convince our hearts of its truth. And so the Spirit, who is just as much a person in the Trinity as the Father and the Son, with His own independent will and action, becomes the active person in the Trinity working to apply the will of God the Father and the actions of God the Son.

Paul says in verse 6, God sent His Spirit. So in verse 4, it says God sent His Son. And then verse 6 parallels it and says God sent His Spirit. And therefore, as Jesus' sending was so real, is the sending of the Spirit. As effective as Jesus coming to us was, so effective is the Spirit's coming to us.

And the Holy Spirit begins to apply the reality of this sonship, the reality of this adoption. And Paul says He now enables us to cry out, Abba, Father. And there are a few things to point out from this little verse, this little phrase that is just so, so important for us to know. Firstly, the original word in the Greek to cry out refers to a deep and profound and loud shout.

There's a deep, profound passion and feeling associated with this cry. It's guttural. It is part of you. Secondly, this calling out, Paul says, is directed to God. It refers to a direct communication with Him.

More specifically, you could call this a really passionate prayer. Just like a child doesn't come to their parents with a very thought-through speech, you know, that they're just going to share, you know, they've worked ten minutes on this speech. No. You see a kid come to mom and dad, and they say, mom, and they just have to think a little bit. They have something to say, but they just have to think it out while they're speaking.

Just as a child has that access, they know they have that time with mom to just think it through with them. It's the same sort of direction, the same object of our prayer. We can go to God as Father. We can experience an intimacy and a spontaneity with Him that a father has with his child. Thirdly, the idea that we can cry out to God and expect something in return implies a sense of God's real presence.

Just as a child calls out automatically to Daddy when there's a problem, when there's a question, so Christians experience the work of the Spirit that enables them to feel the reality of the nearness of God. We know God is at hand. We know God is aware of our situation. And then lastly, that word Abba is baby talk. It's dada.

It's mama. It signifies the intimacy and the love and the assurance that we have of God being our Father. Again, just as a toddler can simply assume that a parent loves them and is there for them, so Christians have the overwhelming boldness and certainty that God loves them completely. And so the security and the openness that we have is like God's open, dad arms welcoming us to come and speak with Him. And so the Bible says that while Jesus enabled us to be adopted into God's family, it is the Holy Spirit who enables us to feel as though we belong there.

The Holy Spirit enables us to call God, the Creator of the universe, Abba, Father. And so the Holy Spirit is busy working every day, every hour, every minute, to transform our hearts into the heart of a child, away from the heart of a slave. But there are some wonderful implications of this that we also can and should think through. So the first point is that the Spirit of the Son is turning us into God's kids. But the second implication that comes from that then is that we are given new desires and a new power.

This is the work that the Holy Spirit is doing in us. Paul writes elsewhere in Romans 8, and it's he uses very similar words in Romans 8 than he did in Galatians. He writes in Romans 8:5, for those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. So Paul is again setting up this tension. These two natures, these two states of existence.

For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law. Indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. Verse 9. 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. But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. If the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you. The Spirit gives life, Paul says.

Here's the amazing thing. The same power that raised Christ from the dead is living in you if you're a Christian. The Spirit of God who breathed life supernaturally into the decaying, rotting body of Jesus three days in the grave, is the same Spirit who is living in us if we are Christian. If I was to ask you, when last have you experienced the power of the Spirit? You might struggle and sort of think, when have, when last have I been involved in some miraculous power? Some incredible healing?

But this is what the Bible is saying. All that is alive in you is all that is good in you. And so every part of you that does good as a Christian is a miracle inspired by the Holy Spirit. All the good that you do is done in the power of the Spirit, from beginning to end.

It means that if you have faith in Christ now, you're enjoying the Spirit's life. When you are willing to serve God, you are enjoying the Spirit's life. When you are saying no to sin, even though you will mess up again tomorrow, when you are saying no to sin now, you are enjoying the Spirit's life. We may not be perfect in this life. In fact, you may say, KJ, I need a lot of work.

But the incredible truth is that when you have placed a simple trust in Christ, the Spirit comes to live inside you. And you start doing things now that bring pleasure to God. That's an incredible promise. And they please God. That's the thing.

Even if they don't look very pleasant, in God's eyes, they are beautiful. It's like, again, those lovely drawings we get from kids when they come back from kindergarten. They've drawn Mommy and Daddy and whatever, and you look at it and you just think, wow, this is gorgeous. Objectively, it is rubbish. They're not good drawings.

But you put it on the fridge. And in fact, maybe you have to do a bit of extra, oh, so who is this blob here? Oh, that's Daddy. Okay. You might write underneath it, that's Dad.

Who is this? Oh, that's the dog. Okay. That's the dog. But in our eyes, it is beautiful.

It's the same with our attempts. It is the same with the good things that we do in our life. They are beautiful to God, our Father. But that is the work of the Spirit working in us. The Father delights in us because of the Spirit in us.

And because of the Spirit in us, our hearts want to delight our heavenly Father. Some people say to me, but, you know, I just struggle so much. How, how can I be assured that I am even a Christian? Friends, the question, if you're asking that, it's already saying so much about what the Spirit is doing in you. If you want to be His child, that is the work of the Spirit in you.

Don't lose hope. The second thing, and this is the final point for today, is that because of the Spirit, we have hope even when we groan. Romans 8, a little bit later on in verse 15, says, for you did not receive the spirit of slavery in order to fall back into fear. You have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom, through whom we cry, Abba, Father. There's that word again.

The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. The Holy Spirit bears witness to us, tells us you are children of God. Jump forward a few verses to verse 22. Paul says, for we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we await eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.

The reality Paul is explaining here is that we know as Christians, even as adopted children of God, we haven't been plucked out of this world. We haven't been taken away by God, raptured up to heaven, because there's still a plan, there's still a purpose for God in this earth. God chooses to keep us here for now. But because we're still here on earth, we experience, along with everyone else, everything else, the pain and the suffering of this world. The Bible paints the picture of the whole of creation being in the pains of childbirth.

And and just like our mums here will tell you, it's painful because you are looking forward to the joy that is about to come. That the pains of childbirth comes with expectation. We are waiting for God to make everything new again. And Paul says, even as people who have the Spirit, living children of God, we also will groan in this life. But we groan with hope.

We groan with expectation. We groan with resilience. Why? Because we are children now. Home is where our family is, and we are going home.

And right now, even though we have been adopted into God's family, the adoption is only partial. The paperwork is being filled out. No. That's probably the wrong way. It has been filled out.

But creation isn't liberated yet. Our bodies are not yet redeemed, even though our souls might be. When we experience pain now as Christians, we experience it with a sense of longing for something better to come. There's a profound sense of nostalgia when we experience pain, because we know that is not what it's meant to be like. This is not what we are meant to live through.

We miss something that we know deep down we've been created for. And so when we go through pain as Christians, we groan under the weight of that pain, but it's not a groan of hopeless frustration. Paul links this groan back to the cry of Abba, Father. Yesterday, I was at a barbecue and I saw a little two-year-old toddler playing at the park. He was very friendly, very cheeky, full of life, very cute.

But all of a sudden, a little Scottish terrier came along to play with the boy. Not his, not his dog, just from somewhere else. And all of a sudden, things changed. That little cheeky, friendly little boy turned to be this anxious, terrified little kid, as he was so afraid of this puppy. And instinctively, as the threat of this cute little dog became an overwhelming reality, the boy threw up his arms and just shouted, Mommy.

Paul links our cry of Abba, Father in the same way. It's the groaning of his children. Dad. Paul says all of creation is groaning. Hopefully, some of that groaning leads to some of that creation acknowledging Him as Father, desiring Him as Father, but we know that not all of it will.

But for the Christian, that groan is the word Daddy. And it's the Holy Spirit who does that in us. Paul sums it up then in verse 26 of Romans 8, where he says, likewise, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. It means that every one of our prayers is laced with the interceding work of the Holy Spirit.

Every single one of our prayers. He is speaking on our behalf. He's correcting our faltering motives. He's correcting and remoulding our faltering words. Because the Spirit lives in us, we have the unshakeable hope that when we speak, God listens.

And so the wonderful thing about a triune God, as we wrap up this series, is that we have a God who so intimately works with us, dwells with us, that He would send Himself into our hearts. He would send Himself, His Spirit, into our hearts to create within us and Him this incredibly complex and circular relationship. The Spirit's groans may be wordless, but the Father knows what the Spirit has in mind. And what the Spirit has in mind perfectly matches the will of the Father. Your groan is therefore taken up by the Spirit, presented to the Father in a form that matches the Father's purpose of transforming you into the likeness of the Son.

The long and the short of it is the Holy Spirit is transforming and transfiguring our groans so that they become part of the means by which God is accomplishing His purposes in our lives. And the greatest purpose is to make us like His glorious, beautiful Son, Jesus. And so friends, I want to remind you this morning that every groan you utter, from the sigh you make when you get out of that chair, feeling the old aching joints and bones, even that groan, to the groan of bereavement and loss, to the groan of knowing things are not right. All those groans are invitations to enjoy the hope that we have in the Spirit. For some of us, these groans add to having many opportunities each day to look forward with eager expectation to the day that God will make it right again. And He will.

He will. Let's pray. Holy Spirit, this morning we direct our prayer to You because we trust and we believe that You are as close to us as our own breath. We pray that You will fill us, and by filling us, that You will renew us, that You will enable us to keep in step with You, that You will develop in us the gifts and the fruit of the Spirit. That we may be able to live and be transformed more fully into the image of the beautiful Son, our great older brother.

God the Father, we pray to You because we know that we can. And God, we ask that You will be giving us every bit of encouragement, every reminder that we are Your kids, that we belong to You, body and soul, in life and in death. And we pray, God, that we will never ever see ourselves as slaves any longer. We ask, Lord, that You will make us realise when we fall into the temptation to trust and lean on our thinking, on our actions, on our lives, comparing ourselves to others, comparing ourselves to impossible standards, even Lord. Help us to see that when You, when You see us, You see beautiful children.

And Father, then help us to be so moved by this, so encouraged by this, to have such a great vision of what You have done for us and are busy doing in us, that we will cast off shackles, we will cast off habits, we will cast off ways of thinking that are counter to all of these things that we have received. Thank You for the good news of Jesus. Thank You that He has made it possible to be brought into this relationship. And Holy Spirit, thank You that You are enabling us to cry out, Abba, Father.

In the name of Jesus Christ, through the will of God the Father, by the power of the Spirit, we pray. Amen.