Gift of the Holy Spirit

Introduction

With all that’s going on, do you realize that it is now less than four months to Christmas? Where has this year gone? And if 2020 holds true to form, it’s probably going to be something kind of like a Tim Burton kind of Christmas, it’s not. But Christmas usually evokes to the mind the idea of gift giving. Or if you’re like me, gift getting. And so, as we often do, we want to begin the lesson this morning with a question. What’s the best gift you ever received? For me, it’s easy. I don’t remember the year exactly. It was either 1972 or 1973. I got something that was brand new on the market. New invention called one of the best inventions of the world. Called the Nerf Football.

It was brand new. And it seemed so passe now, but at that time it was revolutionary.

To get a nerf football. Best gift I ever got.

And after I told him and described that nerf football and described my excitement and elation and how many hours I spent playing with that Nerf football, and then it was the best gift I’d ever gotten. He just silently paused and said, Well, my brother gave me his kidney.

And I said, But you don’t understand. What’s the best gift you ever received? You may expect that in this setting, that’s somewhat of a loaded question. Turn with me, if you will, to the book of Acts, chapter 2. And I want to remind you that if you’re a Christian this morning, if by the grace of God and your obedient faith, you’re a child of God this morning. I want to remind you what the greatest gift you ever received. In Acts chapter 2, on that famous day in that beautiful sermon comes to the conclusion, and Peter and the apostles had convicted them specifically in their role in the conspiracy to kill the Son of God. And generally had convicted them of a life of sin. And as they should, they cried out, What shall we do?

And that famous reply in Acts 2, verse 38, Peter said to them, Repent and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. And you know the rest of that story. About 3,000 that day did what Peter and the apostles told them to do. They repented. And they were baptized that very day. And we were confident that God was true to his word through that inspired speaker, and they received the gift of the Holy Spirit. If today you’ve demonstrated the same faith that they have, if you have turned your back on a life of sin as they did, if you’ve been baptized for the mission of sins as about 3,000 were on that day, then be confident that you’ve received the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Any other gift pales in comparison to that gift. This morning I’d like for us to spend our time together just examining that gift. And we really want to do two things as we talk about the gift of the Holy Spirit. Number one is we want to answer the question, what is that that they received and that we receive when we repent and are baptized for the remission of our sins? What is that gift that I received? What is the gift of the Holy Spirit? And then, secondly, and maybe just as important, is let’s grow to cherish that gift and appreciate the wonderful gift that God through his Son gave us when we’re saved. And so let’s talk about that gift of the Holy Spirit and try to examine what it is.

1. What Is the Gift of the Holy Spirit?

Let’s just start here in our chapter, chapter 2 of the book of Acts.

Jesus had commissioned these apostles to continue his mission and to go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. That began here on this day of Pentecost. And Peter and the apostles laid out really two cases in this first sermon. Number one, that is, Jesus is the Christ. The one most recently put to death was all that he said he was. And the second case that he laid out to that audience is that you killed him. And so let’s look at this sermon just briefly this morning. It’s really a brief sermon, and so it won’t take us much time to examine it and to look at the theme. Really, the theme is not just that Jesus is the Christ, but how Jesus was demonstrated to be the Christ.

And the greatest demonstration and the greatest proof of that claim that he was the Christ, the Son of the living God, the greatest demonstration and the greatest proof of that was the resurrection. That’s the theme of this gospel sermon. Begin with me in Acts chapter 2, beginning in verse 22. Where the inspired speaker says, Men of Israel hear these words. Jesus of Nazareth, the man attested by God to you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know, him being delivered by the determined purpose and foreknowledge of God, you have taken by lawless hands, have crucified and put to death. That was your, let’s pause there. That was your estimation of him. You esteemed him worthy of ridicule, punishment, suffering, and death.

But what was God’s estimation of him? It already been demonstrated in the signs, wonders, and miracles that he’d performed, but it’s going to be greater demonstrated when he says in verse 30, uh, excuse me, uh in verse 24, whom God raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that he should be held by it. You viewed him worthy of death, God viewed him worthy of life. You killed him, but God raised him up. For David says, verse 25, for David says concerning him, I foresaw the Lord always before my face, for he is at my right hand that I may not be shaken. Therefore my heart rejoiced, and my tongue was glad. Moreover, my flesh also will rest in hope. For you will not leave my soul in Hades, nor will you allow your holy one to see corruption.

You’ve made known to me the ways of life, and you make me full of joy in your presence. And David argued, or Paul Peter argues from that prophecy of David when he says in verse 29, Men and brethren, let me speak freely to you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his tomb is with us to this day. Therefore, being a prophet and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that of the fruit of his body, according to the flesh, he would raise up the Christ to sit on his throne. He, for saying, foresee this, spoke concerning the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in Hades, nor did his flesh see corruption. This Jesus, God raised up, of which we’re all witnesses.

Do you see the theme of this sermon? The theme of this sermon is that Jesus is the Christ, and he was demonstrated to be the Christ by his resurrection. The resurrection is the theme of this message. And so he goes on to say, verse 34, for David did not ascend into the heavens, but he says himself, the Lord said to my Lord, sit at my right hand till I make your enemies your footstool. Therefore, let all the house of Israel know assuredly that God has made this Jesus whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ. He speaks of the resurrection. He speaks of the prophecy of David in the Psalms that said, You will raise me up. And Peter says, David wasn’t talking about himself. He was talking about Jesus.

Jesus received that prophecy, or of that promise. It was promised to Jesus that he would be raised from the dead. Peter and these apostles on the day of Pentecost declare that promise was fulfilled in that he has raised him up. Then again, famously in verse 37, they heard this, they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, men and brethren, what shall we do? Peter said to them, Repent and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins. And you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. What is the gift of the Holy Spirit? What had he just been talking about? The resurrection of Jesus Christ. In fact, back up to verse 33 again.

Therefore, being exalted, speaking of Jesus, being exalted to the right hand of God, and having received from the Father what? The promise of the Holy Spirit. Jesus received the promise of the Holy Spirit. What was that promise? You’ll not leave my soul in Hades, nor will you allow my flesh to see corrupt. The promise was the resurrection. It was called the promise of the Holy Spirit in verse 33. And then Peter says, you repent, and you be baptized for the remission of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. But keep reading. That’s not the end of that sentence. Verse 39, for the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call.

You will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, because the promise is to you. What promise? Well, what promise had he been talking about? The promise of the resurrection that Jesus received. And he says, if you’ll repent and be baptized, you’ll receive that promise as well. You’ll receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. What we realize in the New Testament is that at our conversion, when we do what these people did and were told to do by the inspired messenger, we’re raised from our death in sin and made alive in Christ. A resurrection takes place when we become a Christian. Look with me in the book of Acts, chapter 13. Let’s connect some dots here. In Acts chapter 13, the apostle Paul is in Antioch of Pisidia.

And notice what he says. Let’s begin Acts 13, verse 29.

Acts 13, verse 29, the inspired apostle Paul says, now when they had fulfilled all this that was written concerning him, they laid him down, they took him down from the tree and laid him in a tomb. Verse 30. But God raised him from the dead. Same message, same sermon, basically, in Acts chapter 2. He was seen, verse 31, for many days by those who came up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, who are witnesses to the people. And we declare to you the glad tidings. The promise that was made to the fathers. God has fulfilled this, this promise, in that he’s raised up Jesus as it is written in the second Psalm, you are my son. Today I have begotten you. Skip down to verse 35.

Therefore, he also says in another psalm, you’ll not allow your holy one to see corruption. Paul, much like Peter before him, says, You killed him, or he was killed, and God raised him up, and that fulfilled the promise made to the fathers. And what does he say that promise was? That God would raise him up. The promise is the resurrection. Skip over a few pages to Acts chapter 26. The Apostle Paul is in these series of trials, and in Acts chapter 26, he’s before Agrippa. And remember, Paul is saying, he started that uproar between the Pharisees and the Sadducees when he brought up the resurrection back up in chapter 22 and 23. And now he’s before Agrippa, and he’s saying why I am under trial and under arrest is because I’m preaching the resurrection.

And notice what he says in Acts 26, beginning in verse 6. And now I stand and am judged for the hope of the promise made to God our fathers. To this promise are twelve tribes, earnestly serving God night and day, hope to attain. For this hope’s sake, King Agrippa, I am accused by the Jews. And so he says, Why am I in trouble? What have I been preaching? I’ve been preaching the promise. What promise are you talking about, Paul? Verse 28. Verse 8. Why should it be thought incredible by you that God raises the dead? What was the promise? The resurrection. That’s the promise that Jesus received when he was raised from the dead. And that’s the promise the scriptures tell us we’ll receive if we’ll repent and be baptized.

We’ll receive the gift of the Holy Spirit for the promises to us. What promise? That we too will be raised from the dead. One underpassage under this point. Turn to the book of Ephesians, chapter 2.

We’ve already received a portion of that promise. The down payment, so to speak. We haven’t been like our Lord. We haven’t been raised from the grave to go back to heaven. But we’ve already experienced a resurrection, haven’t we? If you’re a Christian. And that resurrection is portrayed in Ephesians 2, when he says, and you who were dead in trespasses and sins, in what you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the Spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we once conducted ourselves in the lust of the flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others, but verse 4, but God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.

By grace you have been saved. He says, if you’re a child of God, you’ve been raised. You’ve experienced a resurrection, a spiritual resurrection. You were dead in your trespasses and sins, but now, because of the remission of your sins, the forgiveness of your sins, you are now alive. You’ve been raised from the dead spiritually.

And all of this foreshadows the final resurrection. This gift that you’ve received of being raised from your death in sin and made alive in God through Christ Jesus is the promise of a future resurrection. You have to experience the spiritual resurrection from your sins in order to have the promise, the same promise Jesus was given and received of a bodily resurrection. Look over in 2 Corinthians chapter 5. This gift, this forgiveness of our sins that raises us from the dead, foreshadows that future resurrection. And again, that’s why it’s called a promise. Look in 2 Corinthians chapter 5. 2 Corinthians chapter 5, he says, For we know that if our earthly house, that’s speaking of our physical bodies, for if our earthly house is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

For in this, that’s this earthly house, this physical body, in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation, which is from heaven. If indeed having been clothed, we will not be found naked, for we who are in this tent groan, being burdened, not because we want to be unclothed, but further clothed that mortality may be swallowed up by life. Now he who prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the earnest of the Spirit. That last phrase has been translated variously. It literally just reads, the earnest of the Spirit. Similar grammatical layout to the idea of the gift of the Spirit. When you say the gift of the Spirit, or the earnest of the Spirit, there’s two ways to interpret that.

And they’re both allowed grammatically, the context really needs to determine it. And that is the Spirit itself is the gift, or the Spirit is the giver of the gift. And so in this passage in 2 Corinthians chapter 5, he again is talking about the resurrection, isn’t he? Leaving this earthly tent, gaining that building which is from God that’s eternal in the heavens. And he says, He who prepared us for this thing, how did he prepare us? By washing away our sins and raising us from our death in sin, to be made alive in God. That’s how he prepared us. For this very thing has given us the earnest of the Spirit. The word earnest is really the idea of a down payment. A payment that would be promise for a future greater payment.

If you buy a house, you have to put a down payment, which is just a fraction of the full prize. But that down payment is intended to guarantee that I will pay you the whole thing. So what’s the earnest of the Spirit? It’s the gift that foreshadows the promise. That we’ve been raised, we’ve been resurrected from our death in sin to be made alive in Christ, which is a down payment for the full price when we’ll be raised from the grave and receive the promise of the Holy Spirit that Jesus our Lord received. In Ephesians chapter 1.

In speaking of our Lord, in whom are all spiritual blessings, Ephesians 1 verse 13 says this, in him you also trusted after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, in whom also, having been having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, which is a guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession to the praise of his glory. You were sealed by the Holy Spirit of promise. You were given this down payment. You were raised from your death in sin. You receive the gift of the Holy Spirit until he says, the redemption of the purchased possession. What’s the redemption of the purchased possession? It’s the promise of a resurrection. So what’s the greatest gift you’ve ever received?

2. What Do We Do With This Gift?

If you’re like those on the day of Pentecost who responded positively to the gospel message and obeyed the gospel, the greatest gift you’ve ever been given is that you were raised from your death in sin. Which was the gift of the Holy Spirit, which promised and foreshadowed a future resurrection that you, like our Lord, your soul will not be left in Hades. And you’ll receive a new body, an incorruptible body, 1 Corinthians chapter 15 tells us. That’s the greatest gift you’ve ever received. And if you’re not a Christian, that’s the greatest gift that God is waiting to give you. Let’s close with this passage, the book of Colossians, chapter 3. What do we do with this gift? Colossians chapter 3. He had told them in the book of Colossians and chapter 2 that they had been buried and raised in baptism.

Another foreshadowing of this resurrection, that they had been buried and raised with him in baptism. That’s Colossians chapter 2. And so now he argues this in Colossians chapter 3. If then, verse 1, Colossians 3, verse 1, if then you were raised with Christ. How were they raised with Christ? They hadn’t experienced the physical resurrection yet, but they had experienced that Ephesians 2 resurrection, hadn’t it? They had been raised from their death in sin. If you’ve been raised with Christ, seek those things which are above where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above and not on things of the earth. For you died. And your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, notice this, here’s the fulfillment of the promise.

When Christ, who is our life, appears, then you will also appear with Him in glory. That’s the promise. That if you receive the gift of the spiritual resurrection from your sins, that’s a down payment. That’s a seal or a guarantee that the promise will be fulfilled when Christ comes and we will appear with Him in glory. The only way that can happen is being raised from the dead. What a wonderful gift. What a wonderful promise our God has given us. If you experience that gift, do you have that promise, that guarantee of the Spirit? That when that trumpet sounds, and this life and this earth will be no more, that you’ll be raised from your grave to live in eternity in heaven. The only way to receive that promise is to receive the gift of salvation.

Conclusion

To repent and to be baptized. Those people had already demonstrated their faith. And they were told to repent and to be baptized for the remission of your sins. And you, just like Jesus had, you can receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, for to you is the promise. Would you receive that promise this morning? Would you experience the gift of forgiveness of your sins, of being raised from the dead, then why not come to Him? If you’re watching us online and you want to study these things further, and you want to know what this gift is and how you can attain this gift and have that promise of eternal life, then reach out and come as together we stand and as we sing.