The Holy Spirit: With, In, and Upon

One of the works of the Holy Spirit is to open the heart of the unbeliever to salvation, to Christ himself. So it was God the Holy Spirit that awakened your need to receive Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior. That feeling you got, that thing that was happening inside of you before you said yes to Jesus, that was the Holy Spirit all along, the hound of heaven. You might not realize it, but the Holy Spirit is even active in the life of an unbeliever.

Today we continue our countdown of Skip's top 40 messages on the Connect with Skip Heitzig YouTube channel. In the number 14 spot is the message the Holy Spirit with, in, and upon. In it, Skip reveals the deeper role the Holy Spirit plays in your life and the lives of others. Now we want to tell you about a resource that will nourish your soul with God's amazing truths. There's a top 10 list for just about everything, but what about a top 10 list that can actually impact your faith?

Skip Heitzig's top 10 messages will really make a mark. Here's a sample from what most people don't know about heaven. Somebody once said there are going to be at least three surprises in heaven. First of all, who's there that you thought would never make it?

Second, who's not there that you were sure would make it? And then number three, the fact that you yourself are there by God's grace. Hear Skip teach on heaven, hell, and the end times, and topics like the Holy Spirit and true happiness. And when you give $35 or more today, we'll also send you Reload Love, Lenya Heitzig's book about the founding of a ministry that's been helping children victimized by terror for nearly two decades. Visit connectwithskip.com to give today and get Skip's top 10 messages on CD, plus your copy of Reload Love by Lenya Heitzig or call 800-922-1888. We'll be in John chapter 14 today as we study the Holy Spirit.

Here's Skip Heitzig to begin. What I'm going to be doing with you is sort of considering the relational journey that the Holy Spirit takes in our relationship with Him, a relational journey He takes with each of us. So I'm going to be talking a little bit about the baptism with the Holy Spirit, and I'm going to be talking about the filling of the Holy Spirit. But let's look at John chapter 14 verse 15. If you love me, Jesus speaking here, if you love me, keep my commandments.

And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever. That's the eternal nature of the Spirit. The Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him, but you know Him, for He dwells with you and He will be in you.

Well let's begin with that first point that I mentioned. The Holy Spirit comes after us. He pursues us.

You might say He chases us. Look at verse 17 once again. The Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him, but you know Him, for He dwells with you.

Stop right there. He dwells with you. The Holy Spirit was with you before you got saved. That's how you got saved, because the Holy Spirit was with you.

You go, what do you mean with me? He was hanging around to make you feel really bad, so that you would do something really good, and that is come to Christ. For that to happen, the Holy Spirit has to have some kind of a relationship with an unbeliever, and that relationship is He comes with the unbeliever, and I'll show you what He does in just a moment.

We just read it last time, but we'll drill down this time. The Holy Spirit has been called by some the hound of heaven. I don't know if you've ever heard that phrase. The hound of heaven is something that some people, preachers, writers, Christians, they call the hound of heaven, preachers, writers, Christians will use in referring to the Holy Spirit. It's a term that comes from a poem written in the 1800s by a man by the name of Francis Thompson. He wrote a poem called the hound of heaven. Thompson had been a medical student. He dropped out of medical school. He got addicted to opium. He was in deep depression. He tried to commit suicide, but the poem 182 lines of this poem are his testimony of how he ran from God and tried to get away from God as far as possible, but the Holy Spirit, the hound of heaven, pursued him, chased him, was with him to bring him to salvation.

Here's just a couple lines of his poem to get the flavor of it. I fled him down the nights and down the days. I fled him down the arches of the years. I fled him down the labyrinthine ways of my own mind. Then he describes God's pursuing him with these words, but with unhurrying chase and unperturbed pace.

I love that. It's like, you know what? I was running. God just kept coming and just kept coming and he was determined.

He was unrelenting to chase me down and get a hold of my life. That's the work of the Holy Spirit. He's with the unbeliever. Now what does he do when he's with the unbeliever? Jesus in John 15 verse 26 says, he, the Holy Spirit, will testify of me. Or another translation says, he will tell you about me.

Or another translation, he will speak plainly about me. That is, one of the works of the Holy Spirit is to open the heart of the unbeliever to salvation, to Christ himself. So it was God the Holy Spirit that awakened your need to receive Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior.

That feeling you got, that thing that was happening inside of you before you said yes to Jesus, that was the Holy Spirit all along, the hound of heaven. Now go to chapter 16 please of John. John 16 in verse 7, familiar territory.

Nevertheless I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away, something I'm sure the disciples did not agree with when he said that, for if I do not go away the Helper will not come to you, but if I depart I will send him to you. And when he has come, now watch this, when he has come he will convict the world of sin and righteousness and of judgment, of sin because they do not believe in me, of righteousness because I go to my Father and you see me no more, of judgment because the ruler of this world is judged. Jesus said the first thing the Holy Spirit does is convict the world of sin. So when the Holy Spirit is with you, you're running, he's walking right after you, he's chasing you, he's chasing you, and every time he gets close to you, you start feeling weird about you, you start getting convicted about your own sin.

He convinces you that you're a sinner, that's the idea of this, he will convince people in the world that they're sinners. Here's how it works, before anyone can ever figure out that they need a savior, they have to figure out that they're a sinner. Unless you realize, man I'm in bad shape, you'll never look for a savior. As long as you think I'm good enough, I'm religious enough, I'm holy enough, you'll never look for help. Jesus said only those who are sick need a doctor and you have to admit that you're a sinner, so it's the Holy Spirit's job to convict the world of sin. Now have you discovered most unbelievers are not convinced of this? Yet, you don't give up on them, you pray for them, the Holy Spirit's, just keep praying the Holy Spirit will chase them.

The hound of heaven, sick them, Lord in Jesus' name. You pray for that, you pray for that conviction of the Holy Spirit, because most people in their natural thinking are not convinced of the Holy Spirit. You pray for the Holy Spirit, because most people are not convinced that they are. Most won't admit that they're a sinner, they don't even tolerate the idea or the word sin. In fact, when it comes to what we call sin, what they will often do is blame their environment. Well I'm not a sinner, I am this way because it's it's how my my parents made me eat spinach when I was a kid, and I now I act like this, it's their fault, it's my environment. Or they blame it on their genetic structure, their genes.

Well I have a genetic propensity to get really angry, that's why I beat people up all the time, I'm so violent, I can't help it. No, the problem is you're a sinner, and sinners need saviors, and the Holy Spirit is really good at this. It's amazing, the world can deny it, but I have watched in a flash of time, in a moment of time, the Holy Spirit shine His bright light of conviction, and make people aware of their need. And by the way, by the way, that's His job, not yours. It's not your job to convict people of sin, you're not very good at it, I'm not very good at it. Whenever Christians try to be the convictors, it doesn't come out as convicting, it comes out as condemnation. That's what happens when we do it.

When you leave it to the Holy Spirit, it drives a person down to the place where they see their deep need of a Savior and they desire forgiveness. Not like 13-year-old Elizabeth. 13-year-old Elizabeth was congratulated because she sold, get this, any Girl Scouts in here? She sold 11,200 boxes of Girl Scout cookies. One girl, Elizabeth, 11,200 boxes. She was on the news and people said, how did you do it?

You know what she said? She said, you got to look people in the eye and make them feel guilty. That might work selling cookies, it doesn't work sharing Christ. It's the Holy Spirit's job. And so, when we look at the New Testament book of Acts, and we will, we see Peter on Pentecost standing up and preaching, and it says, do you remember how many people got saved that day? Three thousand souls got saved on Pentecost. That wasn't because Peter was a great exegetical preacher and analyzed the text with such precision. It's because the Holy Spirit of God convicted people, and it says, listen to what it says, and they were cut to the heart. They were cut to the heart. And they said, what must we do? And Peter showed them what they must do. So the Holy Spirit will convict the world of sin.

Now something else I just want to make note of before we go on. Notice that it's in the singular, not in the plural. He doesn't say the Holy Spirit will convict people of sins, but of sin. It's not like he's gonna come along and say, that was wrong, that was bad. He's not like he's gonna convict people of individual sins like stealing or lying or speeding. I find that most people aren't convicted if they speed anyways. Or murdering or adultery.

No. Your conscience will do that. The Holy Spirit, rather than convicting of individual sins, he'll convict of sin. And more particularly, he will convict you of the sin your conscience will never convict you of, and society will never convict you of.

And you know what that is? Unbelief. He'll convict the world of sin.

What did Jesus say? Because they believe not on me. The Holy Spirit convicts people that their unbelief is a sin. And they want to do something about that. And they want to do something about that sin of unbelief. Now it takes the Holy Spirit to convince a person of that. Because you know what? Most worldly people don't see unbelief as a bad thing. They see it as a good thing.

It's almost a badge of honor to them. Well, I'm just so smart. I'm just so intelligent. That's why I don't believe. I can't believe. I'm just smarter than all you Christians.

I don't have a crutch like you have. And so they look at unbelief not as something that's a sin. They see it as a mark of intelligence. Jesus said it's sin. In fact, it's the worst sin of all. Because it's the sin of unbelief that prevents people from being forgiven for every other sin. So the Holy Spirit will convict the world of sin because they believe not on me. Now let me just say a word to you. If you are closely related to an unbeliever, you're married to an unbeliever, you have an unbeliever living in your house, you're around an unbeliever a lot. If that's true, you make sure you get special prayer before you go home tonight. And I mean that seriously.

Let us bear that burden with you. Because one of the hardest things to do in life is to share the same space with an unbeliever under the conviction of the Holy Spirit. When a person is convicted of their sin, but they haven't surrendered yet to Christ, they are miserable to hang with. They'll say the meanest things, they'll do the harshest things. A person under the conviction of the Holy Spirit can be a tyrant, can be hostile. So conviction is a good thing, but if you're living around somebody who has it, it can be a hard thing. So the Holy Spirit will convict the world of sin.

Next, look at the text again. He'll convict the world of righteousness, Jesus said. Of righteousness because I go to my Father, chapter 16 verse 10, and you see me no more. The Holy Spirit convicts people of righteousness.

What does that mean? He convinces people that they are not good enough in their own righteousness. They're not good enough. Their own good deeds, religious works, righteous behavior isn't good enough. What does the Bible say about our righteousness? It's like what? Filthy rags before God.

Filthy rags. The Holy Spirit is the one who convinces a person that their righteousness, whatever they measure that by, isn't good enough. You know the world has the standard of righteousness, right? And you know what it is typically?

It's typically this. I'm not perfect, but I'm not as bad as some. So if they were to map out righteousness, it would sort of look like a thermometer or a gauge. At the very bottom would be like the worst possible person in solitary confinement for doing the most heinous things ever in the world.

So that's the bottom tier, you know, all the bad criminals. Then you go up a little bit, you know, up to 20 degrees or 20 percent or 40 percent, you get a little bit better people, then a bit better people, and better people. It's always fun when they say that, say, well, where are you on that scale?

Just point to a number, just curious. But then on that same scale, 100, well that's God. That's the white hot perfection of God, and nobody can be perfect, so I'm better than a lot of other people. So it's a floating standard of righteousness. Okay, then Jesus comes along, and when Jesus came along, he demonstrated a completely different kind of righteousness, and he blew their minds when he said to them things like this, unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the most religious people you can think of, scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of God.

Ouch. That was a hard sermon to hear. And then in the same sermon, he said, be perfect just as your Father in heaven is perfect. He drew the line at 100 percent. Well, how would that make anybody feel hearing that? Not great, right?

Not a pat on the back. My righteousness has to be better than the religious dudes. I'm sure if I heard that sermon for the first time, there was a sermon on the mount, by the way, I'd feel like Isaiah the prophet. He had a vision of God. Remember what he said when he saw the vision of God? He didn't, he didn't, did he say, wow is me. I'm lucky I saw God. I'm going on Christian TV to show people my new book, I saw God.

What did he say? Woe is me. Woe is me. Woe is me, he said in that vision. I'm a man of unclean lips. I dwell among a generation of unclean lips and my eyes have beheld the Lord.

So when you stand next to the perfect one, it shows how imperfect you and I are. An illustration I go back to is, years ago I was asked to speak at the Billy Graham Training Center. I've spoken there for many years back in North Carolina and it was a thing that I did every year and I was speaking that night and that was okay.

I love doing that. I love speaking. I love speaking to believers, but that afternoon I was at Dr. Billy Graham's home. We had lunch which was a privilege and he said to me, I'm coming to hear you speak tonight. Well, I've never put myself in the Billy Graham category, but if I said to you, if you were going to speak, hey I'm going to come listen to you speak tonight, you might go, oh would you just stay home? And that's what I'm thinking, just relax.

You have a busy life. You're like, we're televisions, just hang out because I'm going to come and hear you tonight. And okay, to make matters worse, you know what my topic was at the Cove? Evangelism. So I am going to speak on evangelism with the world's greatest evangelist in the house, in history. He's seen more people come to Christ in his ministry than any person who has ever lived and I'm going to talk on evangelism.

Hello. It was just so hard to get that message out. And then before I went up to speak, they said at the Cove, now not everybody here who comes to these meetings is saved. You may want to give an ultra call.

I said, great, I'm going to give an ultra call to the guy who does ultra calls all the time with great success. But I mean all of that just, I just realized, you know, it put me in my place, okay, in a good way. It's like, he's Billy Graham and I'm not, but here goes. So in the same manner, you never impress God with your righteousness because he's so perfect. He's perfectly righteous. But, and this gets to the point, Jesus came and died atoning for our sins and he ascended into heaven. And when he ascended into heaven, it was as if the father said, now, this is the righteousness that I will accept. His righteousness is perfect.

And he ascended into heaven and sat at the right hand of the throne of God. It's as if God was saying, this is the righteous life, the righteous standing, the righteousness I will accept. So the Holy Spirit then convinces us that we are sinners, but he tells us what to do about it. He convinces us we need to stand in Jesus imputed righteousness.

It just means he gives it to you. He confers it upon you when you believe in him. So he makes you feel really bad that you're a sinner, but then really good because you're standing in his righteousness. As Paul said in one of my favorite texts in Philippians, and by God's grace, we'll get to it one day on Sunday morning, when Paul said, and being found in him, not having my own righteousness, which is by the law, but the righteousness which comes through faith in Jesus Christ. I am not standing in my goodness, my righteousness, my background, my pedigree, my religion, the religion of my parents and grandparents.

I'm found in him having his having his righteousness and not my own. So the Holy Spirit convicts the world of sin. He convicts the world of right of judgment or of sin, of righteousness, and then third, go back to the text, he convicts the world of judgment. And it says of judgment because the ruler, notice that, or prince, the ruler of this world is judged. What the Holy Spirit does, part and parcel of the work of the Spirit with an unbeliever, is to show them not only are they a sinner and that Jesus has perfect righteousness for them, but if they push his righteousness away and say, I don't want to receive Christ, I don't need Christ, the further conviction is that there is a judgment that is coming and they are standing right in judgment's path, that there is such a thing if they reject the righteousness of Christ. And Jesus says that is proved by what happened to the ruler of this world. When Jesus died on the cross, Satan's fate, his doom was sealed.

It was set. And I just want to say it's always healthy, it's always healthy when somebody's nervous about judgment. I hear people say, you know, I don't like churches that speak about judgment.

I do, I'm sorry. I do because people need to know the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. And if you say no to Christ, there is a judgment that is coming and that's the work of the Holy Spirit as well. And it's always a healthy sign when I find somebody who's worried about where they're going to go when they die.

That's good. God uses guilt so that it can be alleviated at the cross. That's Skip Heitzig's number 14 message on our Top 40 Messages countdown. It's from the series Expound Holy Spirit. Find the full message and more of Skip's teachings organized into playlists that take you through the entire sermon series at youtube.com slash Calvary ABQ. Now here's Skip to tell you about how you can keep encouraging messages like this coming your way as you help connect others to God's truths. God's Holy Spirit lives in us.

Why? To help us live out our faith in this world. And our heart is to come alongside of you to do the same.

That's why we work to make these Bible teachings available to friends like you. And you can help connect even more people to God's Word today through a generous gift. Here's how you can give now to impact others lives with God's truth. You can give online at connectwithskip.com slash donate. That's connectwithskip.com slash donate. Or call 800-922-1888.

800-922-1888. Thank you. Tune in tomorrow as Skip Heitzig shares another top 40 message and debunks some of the false ideas people have about heaven explaining what you can really expect from your eternal home. Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications. Connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.