WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:10.000 We started last week Sunday evening series on the Holy Spirit where we're looking across the Bible at different passages that are especially about the Holy Spirit. 00:00:10.000 --> 00:00:17.000 And we're thinking in the series about the identity of the Spirit, the activity of the Spirit, and how we walk in the Spirit. 00:00:17.000 --> 00:00:23.000 So what the Spirit does, who the Spirit is, and how we grow more and more in walking in the Spirit. 00:00:23.000 --> 00:00:42.000 Last week we said from John 14 that the Spirit is personal, that the Spirit is God, that the Spirit is what the New Testament calls the pericaleo, the one who comes alongside and tells us over and over again as Christians when you forget that you are a child of God. 00:00:42.000 --> 00:00:52.000 And this week tonight we go all the way back to the beginning to really get into the depths of who the Holy Spirit is over the next three or four weeks, Sunday nights. 00:00:52.000 --> 00:01:05.000 And we start on page one with verse one, Genesis 1-3, and it's parallel passage which we read from in Psalm 104, both of these texts are obviously about creation. 00:01:05.000 --> 00:01:13.000 And tonight we're going to see a little bit more of the identity of the Holy Spirit in order to know the Spirit more intimately, more closely. 00:01:13.000 --> 00:01:18.000 So three things we're going to see here in these first three verses of Genesis 1. 00:01:18.000 --> 00:01:25.000 First, the breath of God. Secondly, the hovering Spirit. And third, the Holy Spirit. 00:01:25.000 --> 00:01:39.000 Okay, so let's do that together. First, the breath of God. Last week we looked at John 14, but you don't have to go all the way to the book of John where Jesus says, remember Jesus says, 00:01:39.000 --> 00:01:46.000 I'm leaving you and I'm sending the Spirit to you. And then in Acts 2 the Spirit comes. 00:01:46.000 --> 00:01:57.000 You don't have to go all the way to the New Testament. Sometimes I think, as Christians, we think about the Holy Spirit as a New Testament thing, as a New Testament reality. 00:01:57.000 --> 00:02:04.000 And so we think of the Spirit, we think of being, as Jesus said in John 3, to be born again, you need the Holy Spirit. 00:02:04.000 --> 00:02:08.000 Or if you're going to have a gift, a spiritual gift, you need it from the Holy Spirit. 00:02:08.000 --> 00:02:18.000 Or if you want to have a personal experience of God, you need the Holy Spirit. If you want to have empowerment and if you want something big to happen in your life. 00:02:18.000 --> 00:02:24.000 Now look, all those things are true. We're going to get to those things later in the series. 00:02:24.000 --> 00:02:31.000 But Abraham Kuiper, who was the Prime Minister of the Netherlands in 1901 to 1905, he wrote a book about the Holy Spirit. 00:02:31.000 --> 00:02:42.000 And he's asked a question in it that's really fascinating and really helpful. He says, in the life and death of a redeemed Christian, everybody acknowledges the work of the Spirit. 00:02:42.000 --> 00:02:50.000 As we watch the Queen be buried next week, we acknowledge the work of the Spirit in her life. 00:02:50.000 --> 00:02:55.000 Everybody acknowledges the work of the Spirit in the life of a Christian, the life of a Christian who dies. 00:02:55.000 --> 00:03:02.000 But then he says this, but who will trace his work in the movement of the stars? 00:03:02.000 --> 00:03:07.000 But who traces his work all the way to the movement of the stars? 00:03:07.000 --> 00:03:24.000 In other words, Kuiper's saying what Genesis 1 says, and that's that the Spirit is more active, more present, more critical to everything in creation than just our personal empowerment. 00:03:24.000 --> 00:03:29.000 And we see this right here in Genesis 1. There's two things that jump out as soon as you read this passage. 00:03:29.000 --> 00:03:35.000 One, two important lessons here. We said the first one last week, but I'll say it again. 00:03:35.000 --> 00:03:40.000 You don't have to go all the way to the New Testament to learn that the Spirit is God. 00:03:40.000 --> 00:03:46.000 It's right here in Genesis 1. We said it last week, but can you say it too many times? 00:03:46.000 --> 00:03:49.000 The Spirit is God. I think we can say it again. The Spirit is God. 00:03:49.000 --> 00:03:57.000 Genesis 1 tells us that in the very first two verses, in the first verse, it says, God made from nothing. 00:03:57.000 --> 00:04:06.000 We read there, God made the heavens and the earth, meaning he made everything that is spiritual and material. 00:04:06.000 --> 00:04:09.000 All things immaterial and material, God made. 00:04:09.000 --> 00:04:20.000 And from the New Testament, we learned that God did that by the Father, God speaking all materiality and immateriality into existence from nothing. 00:04:20.000 --> 00:04:29.000 And then the very next verse says, and the earth was without form and void. It was dark, but the Spirit of God was hovering. 00:04:29.000 --> 00:04:38.000 And so the first subject of the Bible is God. And the second subject of the Bible, verse two, is the Spirit. 00:04:38.000 --> 00:04:51.000 And so we immediately learned that the God who spoke all materiality and immateriality into the world is also the God who hovers over the waters of the deep at the beginning. 00:04:51.000 --> 00:04:56.000 The Spirit, the Spirit is this God, that the Spirit is the Lord. 00:04:56.000 --> 00:05:08.000 And so we say, Christians for a long time now have been using creeds and confessions for us to say what we believe in short order form. 00:05:08.000 --> 00:05:12.000 And one of the most historic and important creeds is the Nicene Creed. 00:05:12.000 --> 00:05:17.000 And in the Nicene Creed, it says that the Holy Spirit is two things. 00:05:17.000 --> 00:05:22.000 The first thing, the Holy Spirit is the Lord. 00:05:22.000 --> 00:05:34.000 And the Nicene Creed gets that from Genesis one, verse one and two. The Holy Spirit is the Lord because the Nicene Creed says that the Father is the maker of heaven and earth, the Almighty. 00:05:34.000 --> 00:05:40.000 And the Holy Spirit is Lord, maker of heaven and earth, the Almighty. 00:05:40.000 --> 00:05:45.000 And so we say that the one God makes heaven and earth. 00:05:45.000 --> 00:05:50.000 Augustine, the great Bishop of Hippo back in the fifth century, he said it like this. 00:05:50.000 --> 00:05:58.000 He said, by this supremely, equally and unchangeably good trinity, all things were made. 00:05:58.000 --> 00:06:07.000 So that the entire creation bears the stamp of the trinity, that God is writ large by his presence into all of creation. 00:06:07.000 --> 00:06:12.000 Because he made it. Because the Spirit is the Lord. The Spirit is the Creator. 00:06:12.000 --> 00:06:19.000 Because God is Creator. Now there's so many sermons that we're preaching 11 or so on the Holy Spirit that we can get very specific here. 00:06:19.000 --> 00:06:27.000 And we should. And so let's do that. We not only say that the Spirit is Lord and the maker of heaven and earth because the Spirit is God. 00:06:27.000 --> 00:06:33.000 But right here we learn that also at the same time, the Spirit has a distinct role in creation as well. 00:06:33.000 --> 00:06:42.000 And so while God makes the world, we also see from the Bible that God the Father speaks creation into existence. 00:06:42.000 --> 00:06:54.000 God, the Son mediates the creation into existence. And then the Spirit here has a specific role as well in forming the world and making the world. 00:06:54.000 --> 00:07:01.000 Now the way to get at it is actually to think a little bit about the context of Genesis. Genesis one. 00:07:01.000 --> 00:07:12.000 Genesis was written by Moses when Israel was passing through the wilderness in the 40 year wanderings after they had left Egypt. 00:07:12.000 --> 00:07:26.000 And then Moses delivers in some sense a great sermon, which includes Genesis to the Israelites as they are about to cross over a small river to enter the Promised Land. 00:07:26.000 --> 00:07:31.000 So this is the second time they've come up to the Promised Land and Moses is there. He's giving them Genesis. 00:07:31.000 --> 00:07:37.000 And remember, Israel had been slaves in Egypt for 400 years. 00:07:37.000 --> 00:07:43.000 And if you even go back before that, Israel, the people that will become Israel come from Abraham. 00:07:43.000 --> 00:07:50.000 And Abraham had been a man, a pagan who had lived in what will one day be called Babylon at the time. 00:07:50.000 --> 00:07:54.000 It was the land near Babel where the Tower of Babel had been constructed. 00:07:54.000 --> 00:08:05.000 And so the people of Israel are ultimately birthed out of Babylonian origins and then filtered through Egyptian Egypt for 400 years. 00:08:05.000 --> 00:08:12.000 And so there are two things that we know that the Israelites were swimming in all the time, the culture around them. 00:08:12.000 --> 00:08:17.000 One, Babylonian myths about how the world came to be. 00:08:17.000 --> 00:08:23.000 And secondly, if you've been in Egypt for 400 years as slaves, what do you think you're being taught all the time? 00:08:23.000 --> 00:08:26.000 Egyptian myths about how the world came to be. 00:08:26.000 --> 00:08:33.000 And Moses is writing this book to those people who are God's people who have been delivered from both Babylon, 00:08:33.000 --> 00:08:39.000 Babylon back in the day under Abram, and then all the way forward to being delivered out of Egypt. 00:08:39.000 --> 00:08:46.000 Now we have the stories of Babylon and Egypt and what they said about how the world came to be. 00:08:46.000 --> 00:08:55.000 And in both of them, one of the most significant features is that the world came forth from what they say was a water goddess. 00:08:55.000 --> 00:09:00.000 From the water, that the water was the prime thing from which the world came. 00:09:00.000 --> 00:09:08.000 And in one famous Babylonian story, it says that there was a goddess, her name was Tiamat, 00:09:08.000 --> 00:09:16.000 another god, she was the goddess of the water, and another god killed her and cut open her belly, 00:09:16.000 --> 00:09:19.000 and that her organs came forth. 00:09:19.000 --> 00:09:21.000 And that is what the world is. 00:09:21.000 --> 00:09:25.000 The world is the guts of a slain water goddess. 00:09:25.000 --> 00:09:34.000 Now that was the prominent story in the ancient world that was filtered around that the Israelites knew 00:09:34.000 --> 00:09:39.000 that they were prior to Egypt and in Egypt, and Egypt said something incredibly similar, 00:09:39.000 --> 00:09:41.000 and it was incredibly negative of you. 00:09:41.000 --> 00:09:45.000 It meant that the world number one was an accident, that it didn't mean to happen. 00:09:45.000 --> 00:09:47.000 The world number two was not designed in any way. 00:09:47.000 --> 00:09:54.000 Number three, the gods in both accounts made people and certain people to be slaves 00:09:54.000 --> 00:09:56.000 because the gods didn't want to have to take care of the world. 00:09:56.000 --> 00:09:59.000 So humanity is basically a slave race. 00:09:59.000 --> 00:10:03.000 And Egypt said this is why certain people need to be slaves and not others. 00:10:03.000 --> 00:10:08.000 Now these were the big stories, and you see what's happening here at the beginning. 00:10:08.000 --> 00:10:16.000 When God makes the heavens and the earth, in verse number two, it says that the spirit comes down 00:10:16.000 --> 00:10:19.000 and hovers over the deep. 00:10:19.000 --> 00:10:31.000 And that Hebrew word for deep is a word for water, and it sounds almost identical to the word Tiamat in Hebrew. 00:10:31.000 --> 00:10:34.000 You see what Moses is doing? 00:10:34.000 --> 00:10:36.000 He's making fun. 00:10:36.000 --> 00:10:37.000 It's a pun. 00:10:37.000 --> 00:10:40.000 He's saying that, let me tell you the true story. 00:10:40.000 --> 00:10:46.000 In the beginning, God made everything from nothing, and then the spirit of God came into the world 00:10:46.000 --> 00:10:50.000 and stood over the waters and says, you're just a creature. 00:10:50.000 --> 00:10:52.000 You're just like everything else. 00:10:52.000 --> 00:10:57.000 I'll take the deep water and I'll organize it too, just like I've organized everything. 00:10:57.000 --> 00:11:02.000 And he's saying that everything that Egypt had taught the people of Israel and everything that Babel 00:11:02.000 --> 00:11:06.000 and its legacy and traditions had taught the people of the world was completely wrong. 00:11:06.000 --> 00:11:12.000 That there's a God who made something out of nothing and that the spirit comes into the world to do something very specific 00:11:12.000 --> 00:11:18.000 and that's to put the deep, the water, the Tiamat into its place. 00:11:18.000 --> 00:11:20.000 That it's just a creature. 00:11:20.000 --> 00:11:29.000 And that's where we say that the spirit's very specific role in creation is that the spirit takes the world that God spoke into existence 00:11:29.000 --> 00:11:32.000 and puts everything in its place. 00:11:32.000 --> 00:11:39.000 When we look throughout Genesis 1, 4 to 25, and we see the land being divided from the water, 00:11:39.000 --> 00:11:43.000 the sun and the moon being separate as the two lights, all sorts of things, 00:11:43.000 --> 00:11:47.000 humans being designated distinct from animals and plant life. 00:11:47.000 --> 00:11:51.000 Who does that? The spirit of God does that. 00:11:51.000 --> 00:11:57.000 The spirit is the one who organizes, perfects the things that God has made. 00:11:57.000 --> 00:12:06.000 In the U.S. there is an enormous home furnishing store, a store where you, if you want to renovate your house, 00:12:06.000 --> 00:12:08.000 this is the place to go. 00:12:08.000 --> 00:12:10.000 Well, this is controversial. There's two really. 00:12:10.000 --> 00:12:12.000 But one of them is Home Depot. 00:12:12.000 --> 00:12:14.000 You probably know about Home Depot. 00:12:14.000 --> 00:12:16.000 Home Depot. I love Home Depot. 00:12:16.000 --> 00:12:21.000 But Home Depot is basically the same as Home Base here. 00:12:21.000 --> 00:12:27.000 And there was a little commercial that Home Depot used to run all the time and it was a song. 00:12:27.000 --> 00:12:33.000 I'm not going to sing it, but it had a little jingle and it said, 00:12:33.000 --> 00:12:35.000 We make your house a home. 00:12:35.000 --> 00:12:41.000 Well, then I came here and I figured out that Home Base has a strap line and it's, 00:12:41.000 --> 00:12:43.000 We make your house a home. 00:12:43.000 --> 00:12:49.000 Now, I don't know who said it first. I'm not sure if it was the U.S. or the U.K. Home Base or Home Depot. 00:12:49.000 --> 00:12:53.000 I don't know, but the Holy Spirit did it first. 00:12:53.000 --> 00:13:02.000 Okay. The Holy Spirit is the God who makes the house of creation into home. 00:13:02.000 --> 00:13:09.000 He takes the material that God has made and makes it into the Garden of Eden. 00:13:09.000 --> 00:13:12.000 He makes it into the home of humanity. 00:13:12.000 --> 00:13:16.000 He's the perfecter. He's the organizer. 00:13:16.000 --> 00:13:23.000 In the New Testament, there is no salvation without the breath of God coming into your life and giving you life. 00:13:23.000 --> 00:13:31.000 And in the Old Testament, long before, there is no creation without the breath of God, the spirit of God coming into your life. 00:13:31.000 --> 00:13:41.000 And so the word that's translated in verse two, after it says that darkness was over the face of the deep, the deep water, 00:13:41.000 --> 00:13:47.000 the spirit of God was hovering. The word spirit there can also be translated breath or wind. 00:13:47.000 --> 00:13:51.000 The same thing that Jesus refers to in John chapter three when he says you need the breath. 00:13:51.000 --> 00:13:58.000 If you want to have the breath of God in your life, the Holy Spirit in your life, if you want to have life at all, you need the spirit. 00:13:58.000 --> 00:14:02.000 That's not just about salvation. That's about life, period. 00:14:02.000 --> 00:14:06.000 And so let me give you two applications of why this matters. 00:14:06.000 --> 00:14:19.000 One is this. It means that we can never think of the Holy Spirit as playing a minor role in world history until Acts chapter two. 00:14:19.000 --> 00:14:24.000 The Holy Spirit doesn't just show up when Jesus leaves. 00:14:24.000 --> 00:14:31.000 No, not at all. Sometimes I think it's easy for us, if you're a Christian tonight, it's easy to say, 00:14:31.000 --> 00:14:39.000 I see Jesus in the gospels that God the Son became historical in flesh. 00:14:39.000 --> 00:14:47.000 And I can see him there and he shows me the Father, but I don't know if the Holy Spirit is active in my life. 00:14:47.000 --> 00:14:51.000 And that's an important question. Is the Holy Spirit active in my life? 00:14:51.000 --> 00:14:58.000 And look, at least I can ask you this. Are you drawing breath at the moment? 00:14:58.000 --> 00:15:09.000 Because if you are, then the Holy Spirit is active in your life, that in him you live and you move and you have your being, as Paul pronounces in Acts 17. 00:15:09.000 --> 00:15:14.000 That the Holy Spirit is the one who does that. The Holy Spirit gives you life and breath. 00:15:14.000 --> 00:15:19.000 He is the one who takes every embryo and gives it soul, gives it identity, gives it consciousness. 00:15:19.000 --> 00:15:22.000 It's the spirit that's doing that all the time. 00:15:22.000 --> 00:15:32.000 Now secondly, there's something else here significant. Many of us are tempted, we are many of us, 00:15:32.000 --> 00:15:42.000 we're all tempted to say that my life and the good things that happen in my life are largely the results of my accomplishments. 00:15:42.000 --> 00:15:50.000 That my gifts and my talents, the things that I've been able to do, we're prone to think of them as largely a result of me. 00:15:50.000 --> 00:15:55.000 And there's something significant here. 00:15:55.000 --> 00:16:02.000 There's a reason why if you look throughout world history, you look throughout Bible history, 00:16:02.000 --> 00:16:09.000 you see that in almost every religion, in every religion in all of history, apart from Christianity, 00:16:09.000 --> 00:16:14.000 that people are very prone to worship things in nature. 00:16:14.000 --> 00:16:22.000 People are prone to worship sea goddesses or to worship inanimate statues or to worship rocks and trees 00:16:22.000 --> 00:16:30.000 or to worship the mother goddess. And that's not 2,000 years ago, that's today in 2022 in the city of Edinburgh, 00:16:30.000 --> 00:16:41.000 that people are prone to worship nature, either trees and rocks, the sun, the moon, or me, ourselves. 00:16:41.000 --> 00:16:48.000 One or the other to worship the things of nature. Now, let me say that it makes sense. 00:16:48.000 --> 00:16:58.000 Because if we are what God says we are, and we are sinners, and the spirit of the living God is that near to us, 00:16:58.000 --> 00:17:03.000 giving us life and breath. If it's the spirit of God that's holding together creation at all times, 00:17:03.000 --> 00:17:11.000 there's not a single grasshopper, caterpillar, butterfly, none of it that lives apart from the spirit, not one. 00:17:11.000 --> 00:17:17.000 And if the spirit of God is that close to creation, then it makes a lot of sense that we as sinners would get 00:17:17.000 --> 00:17:22.000 creation confused with creator. The spirit is that close. 00:17:22.000 --> 00:17:28.000 And if we're the image of God, it's not surprising that we would say, well, we start to worship ourselves, 00:17:28.000 --> 00:17:37.000 that we get confused because God is that near, is that near, but our rebellious heart's been the truth just a little bit. 00:17:37.000 --> 00:17:43.000 And we fail to see creator, instead we see creature. We worship thing instead of the one who provides the thing. 00:17:43.000 --> 00:17:49.000 And that's why all of that to say is why the Nicene Creed says, remember two things about the spirit. 00:17:49.000 --> 00:17:54.000 The spirit is the Lord, and the spirit is the giver of life. 00:17:54.000 --> 00:18:01.000 Genesis one versus one and two. Secondly, and briefly, the hovering spirit. 00:18:01.000 --> 00:18:05.000 Here in Genesis one, two, there's one more thing we learn about the Holy Spirit. 00:18:05.000 --> 00:18:13.000 It's hinted here, and that's that Moses uses a metaphor for us to understand the spirit's work. 00:18:13.000 --> 00:18:23.000 He says here that the breath of God or the spirit of God, quote, hovers over the face of the deep, over the face of the waters, 00:18:23.000 --> 00:18:30.000 hovers. Now hovers, what does that verb sound like to you? 00:18:30.000 --> 00:18:36.000 There are a few ways to read it, but there's only one place in the rest of the Bible 00:18:36.000 --> 00:18:43.000 where we actually have the same exact Hebrew word in the very specific form of this Hebrew word. 00:18:43.000 --> 00:18:48.000 And it's in Deuteronomy 32 verse 11, and it says this, 00:18:48.000 --> 00:18:55.000 like an eagle that stirs up its nest, that flutters over its young, spreading out its wings, 00:18:55.000 --> 00:19:01.000 catching them, bearing them like an eagle. And it's that word, the eagle that stirs up its nest, 00:19:01.000 --> 00:19:07.000 that flutters over its young. I did the motion, flutters. 00:19:07.000 --> 00:19:11.000 That's the word hovers that we see here in Genesis one, two. 00:19:11.000 --> 00:19:17.000 That's the only time it appears like that. And that means that Moses here is giving us an image 00:19:17.000 --> 00:19:25.000 when the spirit condescended into the world in history, came down above the mighty water, the deep. 00:19:25.000 --> 00:19:31.000 He's saying that the spirit was like a mother bird from Deuteronomy 32 11. 00:19:31.000 --> 00:19:39.000 Moses wrote both books. And he's saying then, it says here that the bird hovered over her young, 00:19:39.000 --> 00:19:44.000 caring for them. And he's saying that not only is the spirit the spirit of God, 00:19:44.000 --> 00:19:50.000 who gives life into the world and organizes it according to the purpose of God, 00:19:50.000 --> 00:19:54.000 but the spirit is the one who also continues to care for it. 00:19:54.000 --> 00:19:59.000 That the spirit doesn't just do it once and leave, that the spirit comes back over and over again, 00:19:59.000 --> 00:20:05.000 always and forever and cares. He is the spirit not only of creation, but also of providence, as we say. 00:20:05.000 --> 00:20:10.000 He provides, he continues to care for us, to care for all of creation. 00:20:10.000 --> 00:20:18.000 We read that in Psalm 104 27 to 30. It said that the spirit renews life, 00:20:18.000 --> 00:20:24.000 that the spirit creates life, renews life, gives life, takes away life. 00:20:24.000 --> 00:20:29.000 So Lord, if we're going to have breath, we must have the spirit. The spirit gives life and takes it away. 00:20:29.000 --> 00:20:34.000 The spirit provides food. The spirit reveals God to the world, that the spirit is doing all these things, 00:20:34.000 --> 00:20:38.000 caring for creation in these ways at all times. 00:20:38.000 --> 00:20:44.000 He creates your life, He creates your soul, not just once in the womb, but He cares for it right now. 00:20:44.000 --> 00:20:47.000 He cares for it. He provides for it right now. 00:20:47.000 --> 00:20:52.000 Now let me give you one more application, one more thing that this means. 00:20:52.000 --> 00:20:59.000 And it's this, that just like we as humans, I think, as sinners, we're prone to look at creation 00:20:59.000 --> 00:21:06.000 because God is so close in read nature as if it's God itself or our own selves. 00:21:06.000 --> 00:21:13.000 In the same way, there's also another mistake because of the work of the spirit that we're prone to. 00:21:13.000 --> 00:21:21.000 And it's this, because we're sinners, we've got to be very, very careful that we don't fail to see 00:21:21.000 --> 00:21:27.000 that the spirit is actively caring for the world right now. 00:21:27.000 --> 00:21:31.000 You know, this mistake can go so far. 00:21:31.000 --> 00:21:38.000 It can take us to a place where we start to say things like, you know, the only good music to listen to is Christian music. 00:21:38.000 --> 00:21:41.000 Only good books to read are Christian books. 00:21:41.000 --> 00:21:46.000 The only things that we can listen to are from the Christian world. 00:21:46.000 --> 00:21:50.000 The only good thing on earth is the church. 00:21:50.000 --> 00:21:55.000 And we, whoa, the Holy Spirit is the one who cares for creation. 00:21:55.000 --> 00:22:00.000 The Holy Spirit is the one who beautifies and gives life and breath to everything. 00:22:00.000 --> 00:22:04.000 The Holy Spirit is the one who gives good gifts to all people. 00:22:04.000 --> 00:22:08.000 It's the reason that we can have society because of the Holy Spirit. 00:22:08.000 --> 00:22:14.000 The Holy Spirit is the common grace gift of God to the world who gives life and breath to everything. 00:22:14.000 --> 00:22:22.000 We've got to be careful that we don't curse that which God gives life to. 00:22:22.000 --> 00:22:26.000 That the problem with this world, in other words, is not the work of the spirit. 00:22:26.000 --> 00:22:30.000 The problem with this world is our sin, but that's what's wrong with the world. 00:22:30.000 --> 00:22:36.000 So that takes us lastly, thirdly, to the Holy Spirit, emphasis on holy. 00:22:36.000 --> 00:22:46.000 One of the ways that theologians will often talk about Genesis 1, 1-3 and all that God is doing here is to say that as soon as we see God enter into the world, 00:22:46.000 --> 00:22:52.000 we see that God makes the world holy, holy. 00:22:52.000 --> 00:22:56.000 That the spirit's work is to make things holy. 00:22:56.000 --> 00:22:59.000 And holy, that's a complicated word. 00:22:59.000 --> 00:23:09.000 Throughout the Bible, it means many things, but the most fundamental meaning of the word holy is for something to do what it's meant to do, 00:23:09.000 --> 00:23:18.000 to be what it's meant to be according to God, and to therefore be a fitting place for God to dwell. 00:23:18.000 --> 00:23:26.000 So something in this world that is holy in creation is when it's, it is what it's meant to be, it does what it's meant to do, as God intended. 00:23:26.000 --> 00:23:31.000 And so therefore it's a fitting place for the living God to come down and dwell. 00:23:31.000 --> 00:23:41.000 And the Holy Spirit's work is to put things in their place, to give them life, and to make them holy for them to be exactly what God meant for them to be. 00:23:41.000 --> 00:23:47.000 In the beginning, he says no to the chaos of the deep, and he makes the world holy. 00:23:47.000 --> 00:23:50.000 He brings the world all the way to the point of the garden. 00:23:50.000 --> 00:23:54.000 Sin steps in and cracks and fissures the world. 00:23:54.000 --> 00:24:04.000 It breaks everything, and yet the Holy Spirit keeps it together, pieces it together, making certain spaces of the world fit, clean, 00:24:04.000 --> 00:24:09.000 so that God might come and dwell even in the midst of a sinful world. 00:24:09.000 --> 00:24:13.000 That that's always been the work of the Spirit from the very beginning of history. 00:24:13.000 --> 00:24:27.000 The Spirit, despite us saying no to God, has been the God who says yes to us by bringing spaces on earth as fit places for God to come down. 00:24:27.000 --> 00:24:33.000 God has always been coming down because of the work of the Spirit making space clean, that God comes down. 00:24:33.000 --> 00:24:36.000 And so listen, this is what this means for you tonight. 00:24:36.000 --> 00:24:46.000 Look, sometimes when you read the Bible, you come to passages, especially in Paul, but I think it's subtly right here, 00:24:46.000 --> 00:24:57.000 where what this passage does is helps a Christian understand what has happened to them, the power that has entered into your life. 00:24:57.000 --> 00:24:59.000 You know, that's what this does. 00:24:59.000 --> 00:25:10.000 This helps us, if you're a believer tonight, if you look to Jesus Christ in faith tonight, what this does is helps you understand what has happened to you. 00:25:10.000 --> 00:25:12.000 What has happened to you? 00:25:12.000 --> 00:25:22.000 And here it is that the logic of the Spirit's work in creation is exactly the same in new creation. 00:25:22.000 --> 00:25:29.000 You see that the power of the Spirit is the God who comes down and makes things holy. 00:25:29.000 --> 00:25:32.000 He makes things fit for the presence of God. 00:25:32.000 --> 00:25:37.000 He takes what shouldn't be there, the chaos of the deep, and he perfects. 00:25:37.000 --> 00:25:39.000 He puts life in its place. 00:25:39.000 --> 00:25:41.000 He makes something to exactly what it should be. 00:25:41.000 --> 00:25:48.000 Now, if you jump to the very end of the Bible in the book of Revelation, Revelation 2.7, you can ask this question, 00:25:48.000 --> 00:25:53.000 who is it that in the end will wipe away the tears? 00:25:53.000 --> 00:25:57.000 Who is it in the end of history that will dismiss the darkness? 00:25:57.000 --> 00:26:00.000 Who is it that will make holy the land once again? 00:26:00.000 --> 00:26:03.000 Who will give us the Garden of Eden that we were made for? 00:26:03.000 --> 00:26:05.000 Revelation 2.7, this is what it says, 00:26:05.000 --> 00:26:11.000 He who has an ear, if you have ears, let them hear this. 00:26:11.000 --> 00:26:15.000 This is what the Spirit says to the church. 00:26:15.000 --> 00:26:25.000 To the one who conquers, I, the Spirit, will grant you to eat of the tree of life, which is the paradise of God. 00:26:25.000 --> 00:26:32.000 That for the Christian, it is the Holy Spirit who will one day perfect your life in this world 00:26:32.000 --> 00:26:35.000 and bring you into a state of glorification to the point where he will say, 00:26:35.000 --> 00:26:40.000 I give to you once again the tree of life in the Garden of God. 00:26:40.000 --> 00:26:41.000 That's the Spirit's work. 00:26:41.000 --> 00:26:44.000 The Spirit makes holy. 00:26:44.000 --> 00:26:46.000 And so what are you to do? 00:26:46.000 --> 00:26:51.000 Ephesians 2.1 says that you're dead in sin, that you're dead in trespasses, 00:26:51.000 --> 00:26:56.000 that you don't deserve to be in the midst of holiness, that you are not holy, 00:26:56.000 --> 00:27:01.000 you're not what you were made to be, you're not perfected, you're not fit for the presence of God. 00:27:01.000 --> 00:27:04.000 What does a dead person do? 00:27:04.000 --> 00:27:09.000 What do you do when all you have is dry bones, old, dusty bones? 00:27:09.000 --> 00:27:12.000 And here's what you do, you don't do anything. 00:27:12.000 --> 00:27:19.000 You need the Spirit of creation who has become the Spirit of new creation 00:27:19.000 --> 00:27:23.000 through the work of Jesus to come into your life. 00:27:23.000 --> 00:27:27.000 That's the one who raises up dry bones, who gives life from the dead. 00:27:27.000 --> 00:27:31.000 And so Romans 8 verse 11 says it outright. 00:27:31.000 --> 00:27:32.000 This is what it says. 00:27:32.000 --> 00:27:36.000 If the Spirit of Jesus, if the Spirit of him, I should say, 00:27:36.000 --> 00:27:40.000 who raised Jesus from the dead, dwells in you. 00:27:40.000 --> 00:27:47.000 He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal body 00:27:47.000 --> 00:27:50.000 through his Spirit who does dwell in you. 00:27:50.000 --> 00:27:55.000 That this, look, if you're a Christian tonight and you have, you've received the Spirit, 00:27:55.000 --> 00:28:00.000 God has forgiven you in Christ through the cross and resurrection of Jesus 00:28:00.000 --> 00:28:03.000 because of the work of the Spirit applying that to your life. 00:28:03.000 --> 00:28:04.000 Look, here's what you got to understand. 00:28:04.000 --> 00:28:06.000 Here's what we understand. 00:28:06.000 --> 00:28:11.000 That the Spirit of God raised Jesus Christ from the dead. 00:28:11.000 --> 00:28:17.000 The Spirit of God put everything and creation in its place and is doing it right now. 00:28:17.000 --> 00:28:23.000 And it's that Spirit who gives life to this fly. 00:28:23.000 --> 00:28:25.000 It's that Spirit. 00:28:25.000 --> 00:28:29.000 It's that Spirit, the Spirit of that power, the power of the resurrection of Jesus 00:28:29.000 --> 00:28:35.000 that is with you and near you, that is your power, that is your life. 00:28:35.000 --> 00:28:37.000 Do you know Him? 00:28:37.000 --> 00:28:41.000 Do you pray in Him, to Him and through Him? 00:28:41.000 --> 00:28:43.000 Do you walk and step with Him? 00:28:43.000 --> 00:28:47.000 Do you look consciously for the agency of the Spirit of your life? 00:28:47.000 --> 00:28:52.000 Charles Spurgeon said this, without the Spirit of God, we can do nothing. 00:28:52.000 --> 00:29:00.000 We are as ships without the wind, branches without any sap and like coals without fire. 00:29:00.000 --> 00:29:11.000 The Spirit of God is your life, your created life, but also the only power of new creation too. 00:29:11.000 --> 00:29:13.000 Let's pray together. 00:29:13.000 --> 00:29:20.000 Father, we ask now that we would know the Spirit in our lives. 00:29:20.000 --> 00:29:24.000 And we pray, Father, that you would wake us up, that you would shake us up, 00:29:24.000 --> 00:29:27.000 that we would be conscious of the Holy Spirit. 00:29:27.000 --> 00:29:34.000 So Spirit of God, come, Spirit of God, we pray, come and meet with us and work in our hearts. 00:29:34.000 --> 00:29:39.000 Change our thoughts and our attitudes, convict us of our sin as we read in our Catechism. 00:29:39.000 --> 00:29:46.000 Teach us how to pray, show us your Word, but more than anything, point us to Jesus, 00:29:46.000 --> 00:29:51.000 the God-man crucified and resurrected for us. 00:29:51.000 --> 00:29:55.000 So Spirit of God, speak to us, tell us that we are children of God. 00:29:55.000 --> 00:29:59.000 And we ask for that. In Christ's name tonight. Amen.