SA Ep81 - Articles of Faith #5 THe Holy Spirit

SA Ep81 - Articles of Faith #5 THe Holy Spirit

In this episode, we focus on the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. The Bible teaches that the Holy Spirit is not an influence or force, but God Himself, the third Person of the Trinity. We will look at His role in conviction, regeneration, indwelling, sealing, sanctification, and service. This episode will also address common misunderstandings and show why the Spirit’s work is essential in both salvation and daily Christian living. The Holy Spirit is not an optional subject. He is central to the life of every believer.

Transcript

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Welcome to the Seeking Approval Podcast. I'm Dr. Chris Smelser from Iliad Baptist Church. You know life moves fast, and faith is not meant to be rushed. I want to take some time and slow down with you and have some honest conversations from the Word of God about daily living. So join me here today on Seeking Approval. Most people are comfortable talking about God the Father. Many will even talk about Jesus. But when it comes to the Holy Spirit, there is often a lot of confusion, silence, or even complete extremes. Some ignore him altogether, others misuse his name, and many even misunderstand who he truly is. But if we're going to understand the Christian faith, the Christian life, we must understand who the Holy Spirit is, because without him, there is no conviction. Without him, there is no new birth. Without him, there's no growth. Without him, there's no power. And can I say without him, we don't have the word of God? The Holy Spirit, the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, is vitally important in all that we do. And when we're looking at the Holy Spirit, we're dealing with a truth in the Word of God that is very personal and absolutely essential. It's possible for a person to speak to God in general terms and still remain distant. It's possible to talk about Christ and still remain at arm's length. But when the Bible speaks of the Holy Spirit, that brings us face to face to the very present and active work of God in our heart and in the lives of men. You see, the Spirit of God is the one, he is the, can I say it this way? I'm not trying to be disrespectful. He's the workhorse of the group. He's the one that is getting it done. You know, a lot of times, uh, you know, you look at the you know, the president uh of the United States and you know, the one we have now currently in 2026, uh, he's constantly doing something. He's constantly getting things uh signed, uh having meetings and all those things. And he works. But he has staffers. He has people under him that are that are high ranking that they're they're the workhorses. They're the ones that's I mean, when he gives a command, these people go to action. They're in the meetings, they're they jump on the planes, they they go to wherever, do to do whatever it's commanded to do. There's some workhorses, and that's why the staff is so important. I mean, in the church, you have you know the pastor, which I'm I'm uh I'm blessed and fortunate enough to be able to carry that title. It's uh I carry it with honor, but I don't carry it with um with haughtiness because I don't think that I'm I'm worthy of it. I don't know that I'm uh altogether capable of it, but God has put me in this position, and I'm gonna try to do the very best I can. But I can assure you that I try my best to work harder than anybody else in that church. Just as I think that a man should be the hardest working person in his house, I don't say that to slight women at all. I'm saying as a man, we should be the hardest working people in our house. And I think that the pastor ought to be the hardest working person in that church. But I know full well that without some of the people on our staff, I would be a miserable failure. Because that there's some folks on the staff at church that are absolute workhorses. I mentioned something and people are going to work. I said, boy, it'd be nice. You know, what about what do you think about doing you know such and such or this thing? And people are already trying to figure it out. I mean, it's amazing. It's amazing. I talked about doing a uh uh preaching from the rooftop revival. Next thing I know, one of the men in the church has got a platform built that that fits the roof pitch of our church. He's got it mounted, ready for me to go up there and stand so I don't have to stand on the slope of the roof. I can actually stand on a little flat surface while I'm on the roof preaching. I mean, boom, like that. I mean, it's just it's amazing. It's and the Holy Spirit is the one who is active and present and working in our lives. Jesus said, if I go away, I'll send you a comforter. I'm gonna send somebody who's gonna be down here in the trenches with you every single day. And the psalmist wrote in Psalm 23, David wrote, That yeah though I walk through the valley of shadow of death, I'll fear no evil. For thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. You are with me, is what it says. You're you're right here with me. And that's that's the work of the Holy Spirit, that He is with us at all times. It's God dwelling among us. And if we're going to understand the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, then we have to understand that the Holy Spirit is not an impersonal force, I guess I might say. Not some spiritual energy that we can conjure up in some seance. He's not a vague influence that just kind of moves through the world. He's real. The Bible speaks of him as one who teaches, who guides, who speaks, who convicts, who comforts, confronts. You can be grieved. We can grieve the Holy Spirit. Think of that. We can grieve the Holy Spirit. These are not actions of some force. These are actions of a person. Uh I mean, it's kind of uh uh anthropomorphic, but it's a person. I mean, it's that this is something that has you know uh actions to it. In Acts 5, Peter confronted Ananias and said that he had lied to the Holy Ghost. And then in the same passage said that he had lied to God. That's not a figure of speech, that's a clear statement that the Holy Ghost is God. They're equal. The Father, Son, the Holy Ghost, the Trinity. So understanding the Holy Ghost or the Holy Spirit, it's important because it shapes how we will relate to Him. You don't have fellowship with a force or with some inanimate object or a feeling. You have a relationship, a fellowship with something that's real. How do you grieve an influence? How do you not obey a a a power of some sort? How do you resist something that's not real or ignore him or yield to him? And these are all the things that the Bible say that we must do. You see, it was the Holy, it was the Holy Ghost, it was the Holy Spirit that moved holy men to write the word of God. As God spake, they were moved by the Holy Spirit to write these things down. These are not just ordinary men writing what they felt like. These were holy men being spoken to by a holy God, being moved by the Holy Spirit. And this Spirit is the one that convicts our life. He's the one that will that will cause us to uh when we do something uh that we ought not to be doing, that will bring that shame upon us, and say, you know what, I shouldn't do that. He's the one that will convict us and and draw us to Christ. You see, you don't have to be awakened. I've said this many times, and I and I reject everything about Calvinist doctrine. Everything. And we don't have to be awakened by God. We are convicted by the Holy Spirit unto salvation. We cannot, the Bible says we cannot come to God, to Jesus Christ, lest we are convicted, lest we are moved by the Holy Spirit. So from conviction, the Spirit then moves into regeneration. In John 3, it says, except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God. Now there's a lot to discuss in that verse that we're not going to discuss right now. We'll discuss later when we come to baptism. Except a man be born of water and of the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. But what we're saying here is salvation is not simply turning over a new leaf. It's not reforming our behavior or adopting a religion. It's a supernatural work of God in the soul of a man through the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the one that gives the life to a person where there was no life, that eternal life, that all things become new. That's the work of the Spirit. The Bible does say that we are dead in our trespasses and sins. But we're not awakened first and then have salvation. We are awakened when we have salvation. We are brought out of that dead because the wages of sin is death. We are all destined to die and live in eternal death and damnation unless we receive Jesus Christ. And the only way we receive Jesus Christ is the conviction of the Holy Spirit, and then the Holy Spirit is the one who brings that new life in us and makes us a new creature. And at the moment of salvation, the Spirit comes to dwell with us. This is what we call the indwelling of the Spirit. Romans chapter 8 makes it very clear that if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. That means that every true believer is indwelt by the Holy Spirit. That's why we can say that if a person that says they're saved and has never lived it, has never shown a desire to be of God, to do the things of God, to live a life that's pleasing unto God, I doubt that person's salvation. That doesn't mean they're not saved because I have no ability to pronounce damnation or salvation on anyone. But we are called to look at the life of others, to inspect the fruit of someone's life, and if there's no fruit being bared, there's no life to that. That's seen in the fig tree. It looked healthy. There was leaves, but no fruit. People can possibly even look like they are, but they're not saved. If there's no indwelling of that Holy Spirit, and with that indwelling becomes comes the sealing, seal-se-a-l, i.g. sealing of the soul of the believer. It's talked about in Ephesians. Paul talks about Ephesians 1, uh, 13, 14, being sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. There's a couple different types of seal. One, there's a uh a seal of uh like a freshness, we'll say. It's a seal that uh when you when you pop open those green beans in the middle of winter that you canned back in the in the spring summer. And man, they smell just like the day when you canned them. Get them out and cook them, taste like you just plucked them out of the garden. That sealing, okay. If you're saved when you're a young child and you live a long life on this earth, no matter how long you're here, when that time when death comes, that seal has kept your soul fresh and ready. So there's that sealing. But then there's also the seal of ownership, security, authenticity. That's like the the stamp on a document. You know, the the this is a royal seal. This this thing belongs to the governor. This thing belongs to the president. This person belongs to God. He gives us that seal. There's many things that the Holy Spirit does. He he convicts, he uh he brings salvation upon people. Um there's the indwelling, the sealing of people. But he also works in sanctification. What is sanctification? That is the setting apart, the setting aside, the not being like everything, everybody else in the world. So he doesn't just bring you in in salvation and then leave you there unchanged. He works in the life of the believer to help them conform to the image of God. And he uses the word of God, he uses circumstances, correction, conviction to shape believer. That's why I say he's the workhorse. I mean, he's doing look at the work he's doing. I mean, Jesus did all the work on the cross, don't get me wrong. But in the in the everyday, day-to-day, this, I mean, he is doing the work. He's putting in the time. And he produces what the Bible calls the fruit of the Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit. When you look at the fruit of the Spirit, and this is interesting, there's um how many was there? One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine. Okay. Nine. And of those nine, we can divide them into two categories, internal and external. How you deal with things inside and how you deal with things outside. So there's love, that's what you how you affect other people. Joy, that's you on the inside. Peace, that's you on the inside. Long suffering, it's how you deal with other people. Gentleness, how you deal with other people, goodness, that's on the inside, faith inside, meekness inside, temperance outside. You can divide these into how you deal with yourself and how you deal with other people. So the Spirit is not just changing how you deal with other people. He's not just changing how you deal with things on the inside yourself, he's changing every part about you, inside and outside. He's changing you. That's why you can see the mark of Christ on folks who have been saved. Because there's going to be a change in how you act and react and respond and uh how you just handle things on a daily basis. The Spirit not only works into sanctification, but he empowers. Acts 1.8, Jesus said, But ye shall receive power. After that, the Holy Ghost is come upon you, and ye shall be witnesses unto me. Wow, we got power? What kind of power do we have? I don't think we got power like uh you know, superhuman power where we can fly or lay our hands on somebody and or breathe on them and you know, cast out their disease or illness. There was a time for that during the apostolic preaching. He gave God gave or Christ gave special abilities during that time for a certain reason. So I think those are gone. I think the apostolic powers are gone. But we do have other power. That is the power to stand, the power to not grow weary in well-doing, the power to being steadfast. When everything seems when you've done all to stand, stand. Well, how are we standing? In the power of the Holy Spirit. Go back to Psalm 45 when it's talking about the bride, the king's bride. This is a beautiful picture of the church and being the bride and Christ being the bridegroom, and it talks about the bride there and it says she stands. That word stands is a passive, passive verb. She's not standing under her own power, she's standing under the power of something else. Why is she standing under the power of the blood of Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Ghost? So, how does this give you and I a better day today? Why does this matter in my walk? I mean, uh, preacher, I'm on my way to work. I've got a hard day today. I've got this thing happening, that, this other meeting. I got a hard day of you know, laying brick or whatever it is. I'm I'm sick, I'm laid up in the hospital bed. How in the world is this going to help me in my daily walk? I think that's pretty evident. You've got a workhorse. You've got somebody there that is real, that is, that is present, that indwells you that gives you power, that gives you the strength, that gives you the this vitality of life, that's going to walk with you through the valley of shadow of death, it's going to be right there all the time. So I pray today. I pray today that you will grow more, and not just in your strength, but in the strength of surrendering to the Spirit of God, to not grieve the Spirit of God. Because to walk in the Spirit is to live in the reality that God is at work in you. And when we realize that, it changes everything. Thank you for joining us today on Seeking Approval. You know, our faith oftentimes grows in quiet places. I hope today's conversation gave you something worth carrying throughout the rest of this day. And join me, Dr. Chris Spelser, again next time as we continue thinking, learning, and walking together. Until then, grace and peace to you from seeking approval at Gilead Baptist Church.