Boy, does Jesus have a gift for you.

Steve Brown:
Boy, does Jesus have a gift for you. Let’s talk about it, on Key Life.

Matthew Porter:
This is Key Life. We’re here to let you know that because of what Jesus has done, God will never be angry at you again. Steve invited our friend Justin Holcomb to do the teaching this week. Justin is an Episcopal priest, an author, and professor at Reformed Theological Seminary.

Steve Brown:
Thank you Matthew. This is going to be a great week, and I’ve been looking forward to it. Dr. Bishop Justin Holcomb is here, one of the voices of Key Life, a scholar, a man of God, and my friend. And we’re going to talk, and as you know if you’ve been listening, we’ve started a series on the Holy Spirit. And I thought it would be good for us to take a break as we talk about the Holy Spirit and listen to Justin teach us some things about the Holy Spirit. Hey man, thanks for taking time from your busy schedule to be with us.

Justin Holcomb:
Anything for a professor who now calls me friend. So we’ve known each other, like we keep on telling people in 1995.

Steve Brown:
I tell people, I knew you when your hair was down to your belt.

Justin Holcomb:
That’s 30, almost 30 years ago.

Steve Brown:
I know. And I remember when you cut your hair and I remember the reason you cut your hair.

Justin Holcomb:
It worked.

Steve Brown:
Well, no, it did not. It was an amazing statement about you and your willingness to submit, even if you didn’t want to. And I thought, you know, I knew you were bright. But I thought, you know, this is the real deal, and look what God has done.

Justin Holcomb:
Just so listeners know, I cut it so I could, I was worried that when I was applying for PhD programs, people wouldn’t take me seriously. Little did I know, they didn’t care how long my hair was at all.

Steve Brown:
Oh man, that would have added at Emory.

Justin Holcomb:
And cutting my hair didn’t make me dumb, like Samson was making him weak. So, it was a complete dumb decision that I made.

Steve Brown:
Yeah, but you did it for the right reasons. Listen, let’s talk about the Holy Spirit. And we can go in a thousand different directions. One of the interesting things about the Holy Spirit, there’s not a lot about it from Christian writers. And that may be because of the job description of the Holy Spirit, and we’ll get into that this week as we talk about it. But let’s talk about the gift of the Holy Spirit and the person of the Holy Spirit.

Justin Holcomb:
Yeah, let’s spend our time on that. And I think you’re right, let’s, let’s go to that, cause you have your book, Follow the Wind. There’s a few others, another author referred to the Holy Spirit as the forgotten God. One of my friends, Mike Horton, has a book called Rediscovering the Holy Spirit. So, there’s not a lot in Christian history. It debates in early church history were about is Jesus, God or man or both and basics of Jesus Christ, wasn’t until later that the issue about the Holy Spirit came up, you know, after they figured out who is Jesus. And some of the early church fathers known as the Eastern ones, the Cappadocians, there’s one basal about, on the Holy Spirit and we actually start having statements about the Holy Spirit is also fully God, just like Jesus is fully God. So, you have Apostles Creed, Nicene Creed, early Christian statements were clear that Jesus is God. We’re not going to do a whole bunch of teaching on that, that’s apologetics. But the thing we do want to say is the Holy Spirit in this episode is a person of the Trinity and a gift to us. And that’s where we want to unpack a little bit. So, let’s start a little bit with that the Holy Spirit is a person. The language we use for Trinity is God is one in essence and three in persons, the person of the Father, the person of the Son, the person of the Holy Spirit. And that’s important because, the Holy Spirit is not a force. The Holy Spirit is He, not it, the Holy Spirit is not an impersonal force that kind of blows around and kind of gently nudges us in a certain direction and puts spiritual wind on our spiritual faces or something like that. That’s not it. Some Bible verses, now, listen to these things. These are all things, characteristics of someone who, a being who is personal. And so, Ephesians 4:30.

Do not grieve the Holy Spirit.

One does not, you don’t grieve a force. You don’t grieve an influence. I Corinthians 2:11

For whom among man knows the thoughts of a man except the man’s spirit within him? In a way, no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.

The Holy Spirit is a person who himself knows the thoughts of God and reveals to us what he himself knows. Verse 11 continues.

All these are the works of the one in the same Spirit. He gives them to each one just as he determines.

So, he works and the pronoun use there is actually he. The Jehovah’s Witnesses actually in their New World Translation actually translate the language there from he to it, and there’s no reason to do that. Romans 8, and we’ll do two more. Romans 8:26 and 27.

In the same way the Holy Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know how we ought to pray, for the Spirit himself intercedes with us with groans that words cannot describe.

I mean, the Holy Spirit’s searching our hearts, praying on our behalf. Forces don’t intercede. And then last Romans 15:30.

I urge you brothers by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit to join with me in my struggle by praying to God for me.

The Holy Spirit loves and forces don’t love. So, that’s important that when we talk about the Holy Spirit, there’s lots of confusion and big picture, big, big picture is our relationship with God, we receive things from the Father, in the Son, by the Spirit. So, from God to us is from the Father, in the Son, by the Spirit. And then we go to the Father, in the Son, by the Spirit. And so, we’re going to unpack what that means. But the Holy Spirit’s personal, Holy Spirit’s also a gift. It’s a personal gift. And this is the language from Jesus. And this is the beautiful stuff of Luke 11, Jesus is teaching the disciples how to pray, and he says this famous passage about prayer.

Suppose one of you has a friend and goes to him at midnight and says, Friend, lend me three loaves because a friend of mine on a journey has come to me. And I have nothing to set before him. Then the one inside answers, Don’t bother me, the door’s already locked, and my children are with me in bed. Can’t get up and give you anything. I tell you though, he will not get up and give him the bread because he is his friend, yet because the man’s persistent, he will get up and give him what he needs. So, I say to you, ask, and it will be given. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and the door will be opened. For everyone who asks, receives. He who seeks, finds. And to him who knocks, the door will be opened.

Here we go. Verse 11, Luke 11.

Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion. If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?

The Holy Spirit, Jesus is framing the relationship of the Holy Spirit to us as a gift from God. We’re going to unpack what this gift is and does. But the real important part in there is the ask, seek, and knock. We think that we have to be good enough to get this gift, we have to ask hard enough to get this gift, we have to ask sincerely enough, earnestly enough, all the adverbs that kill us, enough to get this gift. And Jesus says, it’s pretty simple, it’s kind of like someone who’s persistent, who says ask, seek, and knock. And so, the encouragement is, ask and seek and knock. I mean, this is the simplicity of receiving the gift of the Spirit. I’m going to stop there and see, cause that that’s enough things to put in the room.

Steve Brown:
Oh, that’s good.

Justin Holcomb:
And what would be helpful for us to pursue.

Steve Brown:
You know, Williams, who was C.S. Lewis’ friend, wrote a number of kind of weird novels. But he also wrote a history of the Holy Spirit, in which he called the Holy Spirit, our Lord, the Holy Spirit. Emphasizing exactly what you’re talking about, the gift and the person of the Holy Spirit. And I think maybe in our prayers, we can be thankful for that reality because as we’re going to see as we go through this series, is that the Holy Spirit creates joy, it reminds us of Jesus, it sends us to Jesus, it brings to mind the things that are necessary to get along in life in a fallen world, it gives us deep wisdom, and it blows like the wind.

Justin Holcomb:
Think about this, the location of the Holy Spirit’s given not to come along and just aid, but to indwell you. If you are in Christ and you trace this out in the Bible, the the Holy Spirit hovered over the waters. And the Holy Spirit was in the cloud and fire taking the Israelites and then in a tabernacle and then in a temple and then Jesus sends the Holy Spirit and making Jesus the incarnate Lord. And then indwells us. And so, the location of the Holy Spirit is not just a force that helps you do better, but is a gift to children of God who’ve been redeemed and saved and God lives in you, in the ministry of the Holy Spirit. God’s not just close God’s in you and bringing those gifts of the conviction of sin, the pouring into our hearts the love of God. That’s the language from Romans. And changing us, sanctifying us, cultivating the Fruit of the Spirit. The glorious thing is that this is a change happening within us, it’s like a time release vitamin that’s inside of us, bringing out the goodness. Not the opposite of some bandage to hold us together.

Steve Brown:
That’s so good. Think about that, that can change your life. You think about that. Amen.

Matthew Porter:
Ask, seek, and knock. Thank you Steve and Justin. That was Steve Brown, along with one of our voices of Key Life, Justin Holcomb. Always a good time when they hang out. And, hey, good news. Justin will be with us all this week, teaching on The Spirit Who Gives Life. So, when was the last time you stopped to consider that Jesus is actually alive right here and active right now? Well, Steve gave a sermon a while back called When Jesus Leaves the Building. In that talk he teaches from Luke 4 on what happens when Jesus is in the building. It is so good, in fact, we would love to mail you that entire sermon on CD for free. Just call us right now at 1-800-KEY-LIFE that’s 1-800-539-5433. You can also e-mail [email protected] to ask for that CD. To mail your request, go to keylife.org/contact to find our mailing addresses for the U.S. and Canada. Just ask for your copy of the CD called When Jesus Leaves the Building. And one more thing. If you value the work of Key Life, would you join us in that work through your giving? You can charge a gift on your credit card or include a gift in your envelope. Or simply text Key Life to 28950 and then follow the instructions. And as always, if you can’t give right now, or maybe just not called to, we get it. But if you would, please do pray for us. Okay? Key Life is a member of ECFA in the States and CCCC in Canada. And we are a listener supported production of Key Life Network.