We have covered so much ground in studying our ‘word of the year,’ holy, that I sometimes forget where we started. So I went back and looked. After giving holy some meaning, some biblical context and definition, we spent the weeks of Lent looking at all that it means for something or someone to be set apart as holy. As sacred. Righteous. Made right with and for God.
Sanctified.
What we have yet to do is talk about how we become holy, or sanctified, so starting next Sunday we’ll begin a series doing just that. But before we do, let’s lay a little foundation even as we round-out this series on Holy Spirit – because the important thing we need to carry with us from this exploration of the Third Person of the Trinity is that the only way humans can ever be made holy is by the work of Holy Spirit in us.
Of course, with that statement comes the clarifier that none of us could be made righteous without the work of Christ on the cross, without His death, resurrection, and ascension. Because without His sacrifice and His Spirit dwelling in us, we’d function much like the Israelites of old. Following rules but failing. Stating facts about God but struggling with true faith. No real transformation. Nothing close to actual holiness.
Holy Spirit in us is the game-changer. Just look at the Eleven as an example. For three years they walked with Jesus yet struggled to grasp what it was He had actually come to do as Messiah. Even after His resurrection, they still missed the point. In the moments before His ascension, Jesus sets the stage and gives His final instructions to them. Watch as the Eleven respond with their burning question. Jesus says,
“‘Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. For John baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ Then they gathered around him and asked him, ‘Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?’”
Acts 1:4-6
For all their belief in Jesus as Messiah, for all the ways they stuck by and walked obediently with Him, they still clung to the idea of Messiah as a Soldier-King who would defeat the Romans and restore Israel to the Jews. Focused on life and faith in God as it always had been, they had missed so much of the ‘new’ Jesus was ushering in.
Until Holy Spirit.
The confused followers of Jesus huddled in the upper room as they prayed and waited. But when Holy Spirit blew His breath and fire over them and in them, everything changed. Lightbulbs clicked on as they saw all the connections between the old covenant and the new one. Courage replaced fear. Words about Jesus and what He’d accomplished flowed from their lips in so many different languages that each person in the crowd of Jews gathered in Jerusalem heard the good news in their own dialect or language (see Acts 2:1-13).
Then Peter – stubborn, acting-before-he-thought, Jesus-denying-Peter – stood before this crowd of thousands and preached an unrehearsed sermon that connected all the dots of prophecy and history to Jesus as Messiah. And in the end, three-thousand people gave their hearts and lives to Jesus Christ (see Acts 14-41).
In an instant, the disciples were forever transformed by Holy Spirit’s presence in them. We can follow their actions and decisions throughout the rest of Acts and see that Holy Spirit made it possible for them to live faithful, faith-filled lives even in the midst of persecution, false teachers, and the challenges of merging the old with the new. Through it all, they grew more sanctified; they learned to live more holy – because in them dwelled Holy Spirit, the Sanctifier.
Life in the Spirit
We’ve spent an entire summer looking at who Holy Spirit is: the One who makes us a new creation in Christ, who restores and refines and refreshes, who leads and guides and defends, who speaks God’s truth and convicts our hearts of all that is false. He is the One who helps us grow and pray and find the love, peace, and joy of the Father. He assures us of our salvation even as He gifts us in order to strengthen and encourage the Body of Christ.
Holy Spirit opens the door to conversation and relationship with our Most Holy God in heaven, the One who was completely unapproachable before Christ came to earth. In fact, without the Spirit in us we wouldn’t be able to look to or call on God as ‘Father’ (Romans 8:15).1 As such, we wouldn’t be considered God’s children without faith in Jesus, without Holy Spirit in us (John 1:12; Galatians 3:26).
Holy Spirit not only becomes the sign of our position and status as children of the Father and co-heirs with Christ (Romans 8:17), but He is the “Agent of Sanctification.”2 He’s our means of transformation – the One who helps us shed our old selves and put on the new self (Ephesians 4:22-23). The Spirit washes and sanctifies us at the moment of our salvation (1 Corinthians 6:11), and He helps us become more and more sanctified along this ongoing journey of spiritual formation (Hebrews 10:14).
Holy Spirit makes it possible for us to be holy!
The Fruit of Living in the Spirit
When we open our hearts and minds and spirits to the work of God, by way of His Spirit in us, we will notice changes within our inner being. And, people around us will notice differences in our demeanor and responses. We call these the fruit of living in the Spirit.
Of all that Holy Spirit does in and around and through us, His deepest motivation is to magnify God in all He does.1 And when the Spirit produces His fruit in us, God is mega-glorified; He is magnified in our eyes and for everyone else who knows us because God is displayed more clearly for who He is! Our fruit-filled lives make Him more fully known.
In his letter to the Galatians, Paul describes this fruit. He actually names the character traits that signify the Spirit’s work in us, that point not to how great we are but how much we are like Christ:
“The Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”
Galatians 5:22-23 NLT
Fruit. Singular. “One fruit with nine characteristics.”1 The more we lean into the work Holy Spirit wants to do in us, the more these fruit become realized in us. For instance, the more we live from love and joy and peace, the more we live like Jesus. As we grow in patience and kindness and goodness, the more we reflect the heart of the Father. And as we demonstrate faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, we can trust that we are, indeed, living more from the Spirit and less from our flesh.
This quick overview of what it looks like to live with the fruit of the Spirit scratches the surface of what there is to learn about them and how they grow within us. But for now it suffices to know that without Holy Spirit in us, we cannot, in any real sense of the word, be any of these fruit. We might strive for peace or self-control, but we will never truly achieve them apart from Christ’s Spirit in us.
In this series, we’ve learned that unless Holy Spirit dwells in us, we aren’t actually Christ followers. But this is not a moment of condemnation; rather, it’s an encouragement – because if you have believed Jesus as Messiah, as your Lord and Savior, then Holy Spirit is in you! And with Him in each of us, we can shed all the old and pick up all the new God has for us. We can be helped and taught and led if we give the Spirit space to do His work in us.
It is my most sincere prayer that each of us can move into the next stage of our walk with the Spirit more confident of His presence in us, as well as His power to do great work in and through us so that we might have the spiritually abundant life Jesus promised us – and be able to live fruitfully for His Kingdom. May we trust that the Spirit will strengthen us for all we face and feel even as He pours the Father’s love into our hearts. May we join Him in the work of sanctification so that we may look and live more and more like Jesus everyday.
This week’s prayer comes from two worship songs, “Move In Me” and “I’ll Wait for You.”3 I can’t help but think of the Eleven disciples who obediently awaited Holy Spirit’s arrival and how they discovered just how lost and low-powered they were without Him. May we make these words our prayer. Holy Spirit,
I can’t breathe without You
I can’t sing without You
I can’t be who I’m suppose to be without You
I would stray without You
I would break without You
I would waste away all of my days without You
If you wanna move, move through me
If you’re gonna move, move through me
Holy Ghost come down pour Your Spirit out
I don’t want to chase the wind
When I was born to breathe You in
Holy Spirit, come and move again
I know You love to make things new
So make our hearts an upper room
We wanna look just like You
Holy Spirit, You are all I want and all I need
Come again and fill me with Your power and Your strength
I’ll wait for You, I’ll wait for You
Gift of Jesus, come on in
Your power’s never known an end
You are our portion, You are enough for us
You promised that You’d pour Your Spirit out
Sons and daughters, come receive Him now
[Holy Spirit], You are our portion, You are enough for us
In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey of exploring Scripture for a deeper, fuller understanding of Holy Spirit. As if God had planned this all along (wink, wink), our next series, Pursue Holiness, picks right up where today’s series ends. Better equipped with an understanding of what ‘holy’ means and who the Trinity and the Holy Spirit are, we are ready to dive into the life of sanctification Jesus died for and that Holy Spirit is on the job for! See you here next Sunday!
Resources: I love sharing with you the books, podcasts, articles, and anything else that has inspired, encouraged, or taught me. These are humble offerings with no expectations.
- 1 – Tara Leigh Cobble in The Bible Recap for Galatians in episode 329
- 2 – Biblehub for the Greek word for ‘be made holy’, hagiazo
- 3 – Both songs in our prayer, “Move In Me” and “I’ll Wait for You,” are found on our Holy Spirit Playlist on Spotify for this entire summer. Next week, we’ll have a brand new playlist for our brand new series!
- My monthly newsletter, The Abiding Life, goes to email inboxes the first week of each month to those who have subscribed on my website. I also post them on Substack. My most recent edition can be found there, and you can subscribe for future newsletters on Substack, here.
- Many of you have found me on Substack. Thank you so much! And, if you’d like to listen to (rather than read) these weekly posts, you can do so on Substack. It’s easy to see and use the audio bar across the top of each post. While you’re on Substack, check out the ministry I’m blessed to be part of, the Devoted Collective.
Rhythms: As my newsletter’s title infers, we seek to develop an abiding life in this space — a place where we can get informed but also be transformed as we learn to abide in God’s presence throughout our days. I like to think that developing rhythms is one way to aid us in our desire to become more Christlike.
- The rhythm we’ve been employing for our summer Holy Spirit series has been in the category of a weekly experience. The whole idea of leaning into an ‘experience’ rather than so much a ‘practice’ is to help us train our brains and spirits to look for and receive actual experiences with Holy Spirit — a settling of our minds, hearts, and bodies. An overpowering flow of love or warmth. A word or image that builds faith. A sense of knowing something strongly or of being pulled toward something/someone. Holy Spirit moves in us in so many ways that experiences are widely varied, but in each of them is a deep sense of right-ness, goodness, holiness. Our flesh may get a little nervous if Holy Spirit prompts us to do something or we may even wrestle with Him, but these are all normal responses to new experiences. Growth comes when we allow ourselves to be led by faith in the One who loves us enough to die for us — even if we’re a bit anxious. It’s my deepest prayer that we will never cease seeking Holy Spirit, receiving all that He has for us, and trusting Him enough to follow however He leads. For our final week, let’s get before Holy Spirit and ask Him to make Himself known to us in very real ways!
- We’re all called to share the truth about who Jesus is. One way you can do that is by sharing this site and telling others your own stories of faith experiences. May we use our whole selves to tell others about our holy God!!
Featured Photo is a stained glass window at Church Vitral in St Potin, Lyon, France; Photo by Thaï Ch. Hamelin / ChokdiDesign on Unsplash
“All the Bits and Pieces” Photo by Zrng N Gharib on Unsplash.
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