The Holy Spirit and the Believer's Life
Being Fed in Worship and Study of the Scriptures By the Triune God
Howdy,
For the first quarter of 2025 at Bethany we’ve been walking through the Doctrine of the Trinity. As March begins we are going to be considering the work of the Holy Spirit. Without a doubt the most misunderstood of the members of the Godhead. Some will treat Him as merely a messenger, kind of the Mercury of the Trinity. Others will draw down the Holy Spirit to just being a feeling that we experience, in other words that the Holy Spirit should only be seen as a lower case “s” spirit, or how people use the word spiritual. This is part of the reason why you will hear folks say that if you don’t feel God’s presence then it is a sign of your lack of spiritual vitality and you are in some way then missing the Holy Spirit in your life. But that is not how we are to see these matters. Job notes that even though he doesn’t get the perception in his senses of God’s being there he knows different due to the fact as David expresses in Ps. 139 that wherever he is God is, because of the reality of the existence of the Holy Spirit.
Much of what we deal with in life where we feel alone and by ourselves can be rectified by the simple resting in who the Holy Spirit is. We see there is much practically to be learned by studying the person and work of every member of the adorable Trinity. We can hamper our own walk with Christ when we allow ourselves to be told that meditating on the deeper things of the Bible is only for theologians and preachers. That we are too busy to be in the word looking into the fruitful grace at offer in the bounty of the unsearchable riches of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. If our time looking into the Great Comforter in our sermon series is worth anything I hope it pricks your heart to do the work to build upon the milk of the gospel with the meat of truth. I can promise you it isn’t only worth it, but it will never seem like work while you are in it.
Another aspect of this worth considering is how our devotional moments can only be improved the more we understand who our God is. To go back once more to the psalms listen to David from Psalm 18, “In my distress I called upon the Lord, and cried out to my God; He heard my voice from His temple, and my cry came before Him, even to His ears.” Because of his experience he learned that he could call out and be heard, as he says in Psalm 123, “Unto You I lift up my eyes, O You who dwell in the heavens. Behold, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their masters, as the eyes of a maid to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the Lord our God, until He has mercy on us.” Due to what he knew of God in Psalm 18 when Psalm 123 comes around he lifts his eyes up to Heaven in full faith without fear that despite their having to wait upon the mercy, he has no doubt that the mercy is coming. We who do not have the same kind of detailed direct revelation that David specially had are actually in a better place than the King of Israel because we have the full testimony of the Lord from Genesis-Revelation which a hundred lifetimes could not exhaust.
Every time we dive into the word we have the promise of the Holy Spirit that not only will He feed us in Christ, but that the word will never return without having accomplished exactly what our Savior intends for it to do. Part of what this means for the goodness of the people of God is that we are rewarded with our desire to go deeper into the Bible. It is never a wasted moment to listen as the Lord speaks and as we prayerfully interact with the heaven-born wisdom found in the Old and New testaments. As I noted yesterday when Peter encourages his readers to make their calling and election sure (2 Peter 1:10) it is attached to the promise that as they search out these blessings the Holy Spirit will use it as a means of encouragement towards not falling away from the faith which they have received by grace. We are never to be fearful of what God’s word can do, even when it challenges us to change our ways and to take a different path than what we are on. The mercies of the Spirit’s comforting brings healings to a broken heart, broken as much by our own sin as what anyone else may have done to us at some point.
From a practical level this is one of the reasons why the church, and Bethany specifically, offers multiple teaching opportunities during the week, and especially on the Sabbath Day. Our knowledge of the good things of God are enhanced through community engagements with the Bible together. While I may be teaching and leading that doesn’t mean I am not being fed as an example. The study I personally do to get ready for Sabbath School, Sunday Morning Worship, Sunday Evening Worship, and Wednesday Nights are all a joy precisely because I get to be more and more in the word and learn even more, not just so I can regurgitate it during lessons, but I myself grow closer to Christ in these labors, which are not really “labors” at all. We should likewise see that any time we spend in fellowship under the leadership of the Holy Spirit that it beats without question anything else we could have been doing during that time. Our hearts are enriched by the promises fulfilled, especially when we use the means of God’s grace to grow.
In closing, there is a wonderful gift which we have received as the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son in the innerworkings of the unity of the Trinity. These things again are not for the theologians and ministers alone. God is for every believer. He’s the same one that the Israelites were to teach their children about in the Great Shema from Deuteronomy 6 as they walked upon the road and sat at the table at Supper. As you lead your kids in family worship don’t shy away from the catechism questions which stretch your own understanding so that not only can you grow together in the knowledge of the truth, but further learn to enjoy the worship of God as you sit together in the power of the Holy Spirit in pews resting in Christ’s salvation.
Here's a word:
https://www.crossway.org/articles/how-the-holy-spirit-helps-us-read-scripture/
Blessings in Christ,
Rev. Benjamin Glaser
Pastor, Bethany ARP Church