Senior Pastor, Robert Dennison, preached this message on February 15, 2026.
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Audio Transcript
Today we’re continuing our series on our statement of faith, exploring Bible doctrine. We’re talking about the Holy Spirit and his work in our lives. Scripture is our primary source. The Bible speaks itself as the inspired and infallible word of God that speaks with final authority concerning truth, morality and the proper conduct of humanity. It is the sole and final source of all that we believe.
Our statement of faith is just a concise summary of our core beliefs. It does not exhaust the extent of our beliefs. And today we’re just looking at one verse basically for each of the different parts of the statement. But there is a vast amount of scriptural text that we could be looking at to look at these things more in depth. Would you read together with me what we state about the Holy Spirit in our doctrinal statement?
We believe that the Holy Spirit, in all that he does, glorifies the Lord Jesus Christ. He convicts the world of its guilt. He regenerates sinners, and in him they are baptized into union with Christ, adopted as heirs in the family of God. He also indwells, illuminates, guides, equips and empowers believers for Christlike living and service. May we pray?
Heavenly Father, we ask that you would give us a better understanding of the importance of the Holy Spirit, that we are indebted to you, Father, and should have great gratitude for the relationship that he has with us moment by moment in his indwelling presence. That he is our friend and he is our guide and he is our comforter. We thank you that you have not left us alone when Jesus ascended back to be at your right hand, but that we have your presence in your spirit at all times. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.
First, we believe that the Holy Spirit and all that he does glorifies the Lord Jesus Christ. When Jesus promised that another one like him would come, that the comforter would come, he tells us in John 16, when the Spirit of truth comes, that he will glorify me because he will take from what is mine and he will declare it to you. When the Holy Spirit indwells within us, he speaks to us and leads us to glorify Jesus Christ in all things. He’s also a test for other teachings that we hear. He’s a test for other people that we speak to.
He’s a test for books. He’s a test for messages. He’s a test for music. In all of these things, if they do not glorify the Lord Jesus Christ as the Son of God, as our Savior, then those things are not of God, because we know that the Holy Spirit will always glorify the Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit convicts the world of its guilt.
Jesus also said, when he comes, he will convict the world about sin, righteousness and judgment. About sin, because they do not believe in me about righteousness, because I am going to the Father and you will no longer see me. And about judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged in regard to sin. If the Holy Spirit were not working in the lives of individuals, none of us would recognize the problem with sin. None of us would be concerned about how it separates us in our relationship from God the Father.
The Spirit convicts the world of sin in showing us that we are broken and we are in need and help that has to come from another source that we cannot provide for ourselves. When Jesus was with his disciples, he was able to instruct them hourly, day by day on how they were to live in regard to righteousness, having a right relationship with the Lord. But now that Jesus is not with us, we all have the Holy Spirit as believers that he is teaching us how to live our lives in righteousness, how to live our lives in such a way that we please God the Father. And he in judgment reminds us that Satan has been defeated at the cross. We no longer are bound to him or to his control.
He can have influence on our life, but we can refuse to give in to that because he has been judged at the cross. And with that, the fact is that God is the judge. And ultimately everyone will stand before him. Those that are not believers will be judged on the fact that they never accepted the gift of salvation. And those of us that are followers of Christ will be judged according to how we have lived our lives, whether they’ve been in obedience to the Lord or not.
In the matter of salvation. The Holy Spirit regenerates sinners. And when the Holy Spirit regenerates a person, he performs a supernatural, instantaneous act of giving spiritual life to us who are dead in our sin. God promised this in Ezekiel chapter 36. Let’s read there together.
God said, I will also sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. The Holy Spirit part of what he does for us, he cleanses us. God says, I will cleanse you from all your impurities and all your idols. I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you. I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh.
I will place my spirit within you and cause you to follow my statutes and carry carefully observe my ordinances. It’s the work of the Holy Spirit that He cleanses us, that he gives us new life, that he doesn’t just change us on the outside, but God says we get a completely new heart. The Spirit that is within us comes to life. And it’s new. We no longer are cold in our approach to the Lord.
We no longer are distant to him, but our hearts warm up to Him. They become hearts of flesh. And the very special thing that God promised was that one day the Spirit of God would be in all of us. Because in the Old Testament we see him moving from person to person. Sometimes he was on a person for a while and then he would remove himself.
But once Jesus Christ came, he died on the cross for our sins. And then he sent the Spirit that all of us now, once we place our faith in him, have the Holy Spirit residing in us. It’s a supernatural transformation. It happens by the Holy Spirit that we are regenerated and made alive. It’s not dependent on anything that we do.
Jesus talked to Nicodemus in John chapter three, and he described this as being born again. It’s having a new life. There’s a drastic change in us from being dead in our sins to being alive in Christ. Next we read that the Holy Spirit baptizes us into union with Christ. And there are three types of baptism that are mentioned in the Gospels.
One was the baptism of John. That he was baptizing people with means of repentance to prepare their hearts for the coming of the Savior. But John baptized with water. But Jesus promised a greater baptism. The one that doesn’t just affect you externally, but changes you on the inside would come by the Holy Spirit when he came at Pentecost.
There’s another baptism, and that’s water baptism. That happens not before salvation, but after we place our faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. It’s just a representation externally, as a witness to others, of what the Holy Spirit has already done inside of us by cleansing us by burying us with Christ and raising us to walk a new life. Therefore, we have this command in Matthew. Go therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
The physical baptism that the Church acts upon is just a picture of what the Holy Spirit has done. And I’ll just mention again, we have a baptism coming up in March. I believe it’s on the 22nd. If you’ve never been baptized as a believer, you need to be obedient to the Lord Jesus Christ so that you can walk with him in accordance to his word. When we are baptized, we are placed now into union with Christ.
In 1 Corinthians, we read, for just as the body is one and has many parts, and all the parts of that body through many are one body, so also is Christ. Your body is not just one part. Your body is made up of multiple parts. And all of those parts are important. And if the least of them, your toe gets stubbed, your whole body suffers with it.
And so it is that the Church represents the body of Christ, and the Holy Spirit baptizes us into union with God. It says, for we were all baptized by one spirit into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, it doesn’t matter who you were or who you are. We were all given one spirit to drink that we might function together appropriately, as God has ordained. The Holy Spirit has also adopted us as heirs into the family of God. Not only has God saved us from our sin, not only has he freed us that we might serve him, but he’s gone another step to make us his very children.
When the time came to completion, God sent His son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And then in Titus 3, we read that he poured out His Spirit on us abundantly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that having been justified by his grace, we may become heirs with the hope of eternal salvation. Adoption in the time of the Roman world, when they were in control, was a much better situation to even be a biological child, because the biological child, if they upset their parents, they could be disinherited. But if you were an adopted child, the law kept your parents from ever disinheriting you. It was a permanent relationship.
And so it is. Adoption is pictured by God, that that’s what he’s done with us. We are eternally within his family. The Holy Spirit next, He indwells, he illuminates, he guides, he equips, and he empowers believers. He does all of these things for Christlike living and service.
In Second Corinthians 5:17, we read, Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. And see, the new has come. It’s as if you’ve been placed into a job that you’ve had no training, you’ve had no experience, and you have no clue what they do. It’d be like if you sent me somewhere and said, you are now a nuclear scientist.
I’d have no knowledge of it. I wouldn’t know what to do. The whole world would be endangered by me pressing buttons or whatever. I would need a lot of what? Instruction.
I would need a lot of guidance. I would need someone there right beside me making sure I didn’t press the wrong button at the wrong time and explaining everything. That’s what the Holy Spirit does for us. He makes us a new creation, but the only way to live it out is by what he does for us. And that’s what this sentence talks about.
So let’s look at each of these words. The first way that he gives us Christlike living in service is that he actually indwells us. In John 14, we read, he is the Spirit of Truth. The world is unable to receive him because it doesn’t see him or know Him. But you do know Him.
We know him in a very powerful way. And that is because he’s not only with us, but he is with us and he is in us. The Holy Spirit is closer to us than the closest person in our life. He is living inside of us. And day by day, we need to acknowledge his presence.
We need to appreciate his companionship. We need to also take good care of our bodies that are his temple. Imagine being close friends supposedly with someone, and you never acknowledge they’re in the room with you. Imagine somebody supposed to be your close friend and you don’t appreciate their companionship. It’s going to create a separation in your life from them.
So it is with the Holy Spirit. He’s in you, but you need to acknowledge his presence and you need to appreciate it. In First Corinthians, we read, don’t you yourselves know that you are God’s temple? He’s no longer just in the tabernacle. He’s no longer in the temple.
He’s not in some country far away. The Spirit of God has chosen to live inside of us. And we’re told that if anyone therefore destroys God’s temple, if you don’t take care of your body, you’re not only messing up your body for yourself, but you’re destroying God’s holy temple because that is what you are. It’s important that we take care of ourselves so that we can more fully live for Christ and perform his acts of love and kindness in the world to lead people to Him. The Holy Spirit also illuminates.
He sheds light on. He helps us to understand the things that we would not understand. We read in Ephesians, chapter one, I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father would give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened. And that’s what the Holy Spirit does.
He helps us to understand God’s Word. He helps us to do this so that we can know, that we can know with certainty the hope that we have because of his calling. The Holy Spirit helps us to understand how prosperous we are in the wealth of God’s glorious inheritance that he has for the saints. And the Holy Spirit gives us a greater understanding of the immeasurable greatness of how powerful God is to us, that he is capable of all things according to the mighty work of his strength. Scripture says that those that do not have the Spirit within them, all of God’s Word is foolishness.
But the Spirit begins to work in people’s life to illuminate them to what the Scriptures say, what the Gospel is. And then once we accept Jesus Christ and what he has done for us by faith, then the Holy Spirit continues to make things. Things make more and more sense to us. True believers have understanding of God’s Word because the Spirit is illuminating it to them. Those that are not true followers of Jesus Christ are not going to understand God’s Word.
They’re going to read it, and they’re not going to get anything out of it unless the Spirit is giving them that understanding to lead them to faith. The next way that he helps us with Christlike living and service is that he guides us again. Jesus in John 16 said, when the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He’s like the GPS that you have. He’s like the map that we used to use.
He’s like a person giving you directions in the car, how you’re supposed to drive. It’s up to us to seek his guidance. GPS doesn’t do any good unless you follow it. A map doesn’t do any good unless you read it. So it is the Holy Spirit wants to guide you in your daily living, your weekly living, how you make out your plans for the future.
But you have to seek him to desire to hear what it is he has to say to you. The Holy Spirit also equips us.
We are incapable of living a life for Christ without His help. He gives the church everything that we need so that we can function together. So it is that we have this text here. It’s one of three on the gifts of the Spirit. Let’s just list some of them here.
But it says that the Spirit equips us a Manifestation of the Spirit is given to not some people in the church, but each person. And those gifts are given to each and every one of us so that everyone can benefit from it for the common good. To one is given a message of wisdom, but it comes through the Spirit to another, a message of knowledge by the same Spirit, another gift, faith comes by the same Spirit. And to others, the gifts of healing by one spirit to another, the performing of miracles to another, prophecy to another, distinguishing between spirits to another, different kinds of tongues to another, interpretations of tongues. But one and the same Spirit is active in all of these, distributing to each person as he wills.
When people come to faith in Jesus Christ, he is there to equip you with everything that you need. And he also equips the church as one body by giving everybody something different to do. Everyone in our church has a gift to help the local church. Therefore, it’s our responsibility to learn what those gifts are and then to use them, not to put them on the shelf. And the gifts that God gives us through His Spirit, and we’re not supposed to ever retire from using those.
We’re to continually use those. If your heart were to retire from functioning today, what’s going to happen to your body? It’s going to become unhealthy and die. So it is in the body of Christ. We are all to be serving him with what the Spirit equips us to do.
The Holy Spirit for Christlike living, in service, empowers believers for Christ like living and service. I’m sure the early disciples, the fishermen, those that were not trained, they’re like, well, how in the world can we carry this on? We don’t have the knowledge, we don’t have the strength. We don’t have the talents, we don’t have the abilities. And Jesus said, you don’t have to worry that you don’t have what it takes, because I’m giving you the Spirit, and he will give you what it takes.
In Acts 1:8, we read, you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come on you, so that you can be witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. We cannot live the Christian life without the work of the Holy Spirit and His power in our life. And if you say, I’m incapable of doing these things, that’s the right attitude. But the next step is to say, in my incapacity, the Holy Spirit is capable to empower me to do everything that I need to live like Christ. Now, God, as in any other relationship, he asks us to cooperate with the Holy Spirit.
We can completely refuse to listen to Him. We can completely refuse to acknowledge that he is there to help us. And I just want to give us some things that we can do to to help you grow in your relationship to the Spirit. Just as you grow in your relationship with your best friend and your family and your spouse members. There are things that you can do to either help you to grow closer together or that can push you apart.
You can cooperate with the Holy Spirit by daily yielding and surrendering to Him. That means you’re submitting to him, your life, every part of it. That daily you say to the Lord, I’m submitting to you my thoughts, my emotions and my actions so that the Spirit is control of those things instead of me being in control myself. We need to learn to promptly obey. Act immediately on the Spirit’s promptings, even when it is difficult or feelings are contrary.
You may be reading through a passage of scripture. You may be hearing this message on Sunday morning and your heart is pricked. You have this thought, you know, I need to act on what I just heard. I need to quit doing this thing or I need to start doing something other. Those promptings, those thoughts, that’s the Spirit speaking to you, saying, you need to move in this way.
Or you might just be sitting at your desk and someone in your head says, you know, call so and so and tell them you want to pray with them. Don’t think that’s because of what you ate for lunch. That’s the Holy Spirit prompting you to do something. And as you listen to the Holy Spirit and you listen to God’s Word and the promptings that you have in your mind when you promptly obey, you’ll learn to hear his voice more and more. You can also develop and maintain spiritual disciplines.
There are a number of things that you can do to help you to grow in your relationship with the Lord. You can engage in Bible intake that can be listening to messages, reading scripture, reading devotionals, listening to podcasts, actual doing Bible study yourself. Spend time in prayer, get together for worship with other believers. Spend time sharing the gospel, serving, making sure that you’re wise in your stewardship, that you are giving to the work of the ministry through your tithes and offerings, but also also by giving of your time and your talents for service, fasting, just spending time in silence and solitude with God, writing down your thoughts in a journal, spending time learning more about the Lord Jesus Christ. All of these help you to cooperate with the Spirit so that he can speak to you and you will ascertain his voice.
Scripture tells us to avoid two things about the Spirit. One is to don’t grieve him, and the other is don’t quench him. Whenever there is sin in your life, God is saddened. The Holy Spirit grieves because he sees how the sin is going to hurt you and is going to hurt other people. Therefore, it’s important that we resist temptation, that we abandon sins and habits and attitudes that may sadden the Spirit.
But we can also quench the Spirit by throwing cold water on his promptings when he asks us to do something through his word or just by what we internally sense. And it’s like a flame that he wants to begin to grow in our life. If we throw water on it, it doesn’t allow a chance for that thing to grow. And lastly, learn to cultivate sensitivity to the Holy Spirit. Learn to be aware of the Holy Spirit’s presence throughout the day and look for his promptings for direction.
I think the Holy Spirit speaks to us a lot more times than we realize that he is a friend, says something to encourage us. That’s the Holy Spirit working through that person to encourage you. You read something in the text when you’re reading the Bible about what you should do or what you shouldn’t do, or maybe just a word of encouragement. If you understand that, give glory to God that the Spirit is leading you. When things happen during the day.
Don’t just say, well, it’s just a coincidence. It could be the Holy Spirit moving in your life and leading you to do things or protecting you from things that could happen. If you are obedient to Him. Yield and surrender promptly. Obey, develop and maintain.
Avoid grieving and quenching and cultivate your sensitivity to the Spirit so that you can cooperate with him and experience the power of God working in your life. Experience the direction that he wants to give you. And all of this is that we might glorify the Lord Jesus Christ and bring more people to faith. Will you bow with me in prayer? And Father, we thank you for the Holy Spirit.
Help us not to neglect thinking about him and appreciating Him. Father. He’s not a lesser part than you and the Son, Father. And we need to be in constant appreciation of all that you are doing for us. Help us to learn to cultivate a relationship with him that’s closer and more open and more sensitive so that we can live by his leading and by his power.
In Jesus name we pray. Amen. We’re going to have some prayer team members at the back of the church today. If you just need to talk to someone and pray about something in your life, they will be there to encourage you and do that with you. They’re also available to share with you more about the gospel, how you can have a right relationship with the Lord by making a decision today to follow him in faith.
So we ask that you stand as we sing. If you need to speak with someone, just make your way immediately out towards the past. I mean, towards.