The Holy Spirit and God's Will, Pt. 1

This past Sunday morning, we began a two-week study of the Holy Spirit, focusing mainly on his role in guiding believers to understand God’s Word. Two passages of major importance in our study were John 14.16-18, 26, and 1 John 2.26-27. Our point of emphasis was the teaching ministry of the Holy Spirit.

Our underlying purpose as a group is the development and maintenance of a biblical worldview. Our worldview is our perspective on life. We should have a position from which we “see” our world and our lives. From this theological vantage point, with Scripture as our lens, we can perceive life as life truly is, not as it appears to be. Thus, we will be able to make the right decisions for the right reasons.

Now, as we pointed out in our study time, for a biblical worldview to be meaningful, we have to know where we are headed; we must understand God’s will, his plan for our lives. Only then will we know where we are going. One consideration, by the way, must be taken into account as we attempt to discover God’s personal plan for each of us. First and foremost, God is interested more in who we and than in what we do.

We can do all the “right” things and still be spiritually immature or lost. Attending church on Sunday, a life-group during the week, tithing, and many of the other things we are supposed to do can be done by a lost person. But, if we are a follower of Jesus, one of those people on the fringe, as Bro. Darrell reminds us, we will do what God wants us to do. So, right practices will be an outgrowth of a right relationship with God.

As we talked about the Holy Spirit and his ministry to believers, we also pointed out the impossibility of understanding the Trinity. The Holy Spirit is one person of the Triune Godhead. God the Father and God the Son are the other two. I will not go into all we had to say about the divine mystery of the Trinity, other than to point out how impossible grasping an infinite reality is for a finite mind. In the final analysis, we accept the doctrine of the Trinity solely on the basis of faith.

What is important for us to know is God has condescended, or accommodated himself to human beings. The Father sent the Son, who came into this world in obedience and humility in order to do for humanity what humanity could not do for itself. He made reconciliation with God a real possibility through his death on the Cross. Each of us as individuals, and all of us as a race, because of our sin, were separated from God. Only He could restore us. We are reconciled only as we trust Christ for the forgiveness of our sin.

Once restored to a right relationship with God, we must realize we have been restored to wholeness. Now that God has made us whole (cf. Col. 2.10), we are able to do what God wants us to do. Paul wrote to the Philippians, “For God is at work in you both to determine and to do his good pleasure.” In other words, the moment one becomes a believer, the Holy Spirit takes up residence in that person’s life and begins changing him in his present existence into what and who we are in our spiritual and eternal existence.

Again, though, the question arises, “How do we know exactly what God’s plan for us is?” Well, this coming Sunday we will look at how we are equipped by God to know what he wants us to do. Our main text will be Ephesians 5.15-18. Paul outlined for the Ephesian believers two categories of people: those who know God’s will and those who don’t. One group is called wise, the other unwise. One, by thoughtful interaction with the Holy Spirit, has come to understand God’s will. The other, simply by not thinking, has failed to grasp the nature of God’s plan. Knowing God’s will is not a great mystery. Knowing God’s will is a result of a right relationship with God through the Holy Spirit and God’s Word. We’ll see this Sunday how this all plays out.

Assignment: What does wisdom mean in the Bible? You can respond to that question by posting your comments (anything from one word to several paragraphs) on this blog. Your responses will be confidential.