This past Sunday marked the beginning of a new sermon series led by Pastor Ephraim Musiba titled: “The Holy Spirit And…”. The 3 part series focuses on the role of the Holy Spirit in the lives of believers, the role of the Holy Spirit in evangelism, and the power obtained from the Holy Spirit. 

To help shed light on these key functions, Pastor Musiba relied on the Book of John Ch 16 vs. 5 -16: “but now I am going to Him who sent me. None of you asks me, ‘Where are you going?…That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what He will make known to you.”

To provide greater context, Jesus spoke these words to His disciples just before He was crucified. He informed them of His impending departure and in turn, His disciples were disappointed After all, they had grown accustomed to being in their Savior’s presence. Yet, despite this eventuality, Jesus insisted that it was better that He leaves as He was aware that the Holy Spirit would come after Him.  More importantly in order for the disciples to spread the gospel, it was pertinent that He returned through the Holy Spirit so that each disciple could carry Jesus on their separate evangelical journeys. 

The first thing to note within this passage is that Jesus identified the Holy Spirit as part of the Holy Trinity. God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit belong to one entity. Furthermore, Jesus also revealed the many roles that the Holy Spirit plays in the lives of believers. The Holy Spirit is our Helper, Comforter, Encourager, Friend and Advocate. Once we accept Christ as our Lord and Savior the Holy Spirit embodies God’s personalized spiritual messenger sent to each one of us to guide us in our daily walk. Without the Holy Spirit, it would be impossible to overcome the struggles that we encounter in our daily lives as Christians. To this extent, the Holy Spirit serves 3 essential functions:

1: The Holy Spirit helps us get right with God

When we are drowning in sin, the Holy Spirit convicts us to turn away from evil and instead get right with God. The Holy Spirit directs us to Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior and shows us that we need Jesus in order to rectify our relationship with God. Subsequent to this, the Holy Spirit also shows us what we need to do to reshape our lives away from sinful acts and instead walk in God’s light. 

2: The Holy Spirit helps us grow in Christ

Once we accept Jesus as our Lord and Savior, the Holy Spirit helps nurture our spiritual growth so that we do not remain stuck as spiritual infants. It is God’s expectation that we will not only turn our attention to Him but also cultivate a relationship with Him and serve out His purpose for our lives. This requires consistent sanctification, The Holy Spirit guides us in this direction through the word of God and also reveals the truth of God’s word to us in our own individual circumstances.  Similarly, the Holy Spirit also helps point out areas in our lives that we are currently struggling with and need to work on.  If we are to truly measure our growth as followers of Christ, we should also carefully look inwards and ask ourselves whether we are harvesting the fruits of the spirit of Love, Joy, Peace, Gentleness, Kindness, Faithfulness, and Self Control.

3. The Holy Spirit gives us Power

Living as a Christian in our day to day live is becoming increasingly difficult. We are consistently surrounded by temptation and are also surrounded by a world that is increasingly drifting away from Christ. Yet, despite this reality, God calls us to not only be Christians in conduct but to also evangelize and spread the gospel of God.  The Holy Spirit helps overcome the initial difficulties of being a believer in an unbelieving world and also gives us power to carry out our mandate of doing the work of God, living a Christ like life and saying no to the world and yes to the things of God. On our own, we will cave in and compromise, but with the Holy Spirit we will keep pushing, trusting in God, and persevering to fulfil His purpose.