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Talk at Alpha Gathering, Wednesday, November 18, 2009

“Who is the Holy Spirit?”

Before I begin let me share the outline that you have in your folder. (The Outline is at the

end of this paper) This outline is meant to engage you in the topic. I’ve left some “fill in the

blanks” for you to fill in as I’m speaking. I would encourage you to save all of the outlines that

we’ve done in Alpha. Through these outlines you have an outline of the basic questions of faith.

The other way you can use this outline is for your own personal Bible Study. I’ve shared

a number of Scriptures in the outline. One thing you could do is go through each of these

Scriptures and see how they relate to the topic of the Holy Spirit. These Scriptures can give you

a chance to grow in your understanding of the Bible.

I am just scratching the surface in my talk about the Holy Spirit tonight. One part of the

Alpha course is the Holy Spirit weekend. In the Holy Spirit weekend a group takes either two

days (they go as an overnight) or one day to study the Holy Spirit. Because of all that we have

going on at Chain of Lakes we’re not doing the weekend. If we do Alpha again, we certainly

could do the weekend. During the weekend the three topics that Alpha encourages groups to

address are “Who is the Holy spirit? What does the Holy Spirit do? How can I be filled with the

Holy Spirit?” Tonight I’m just covering one topic, “Who is the Holy Spirit?’ We’re just getting

a taste of this topic.

I love speaking and preaching. It seems that every week in Alpha I’ve said something

like, “this is a really important topic.” Or—this is the most important topic we’ve had. I really

feel that way with the Holy Spirit. I am passionate in talking about the Holy Spirit

Part of my interest in this topic of the Holy Spirit is so many misunderstandings about the

Holy Spirit exist. We did Alpha twice in Plainview. Both times we used the videos and both

times we did a one-day retreat on the Holy Spirit. I remember the first retreat we did. People
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were really excited to receive some teachings on the Holy Spirit. They shared with me that they

had never been taught about the Holy Spirit before. This was fabulous. It grieved me that they

had never received much teaching about the Holy Spirit.

At this retreat one of the people at Plainview referred to the Trinity as God the Father or

Creator, Jesus and that other guy.

Question for group? HAVE MANY OF YOU RECEIVED MUCH INSTRUCTION ABOUT

THE HOLY SPIRIT?

I think there are some normal suspicions about the Holy Spirit. We Presbyterians are

known as “head” people. What we think about God is very important to us. At Chain of Lakes I

want to change this perception of Presbyterians. I want us to be known as people or disciples

who focus on the head/heart/feet. Know God with our head; love God with our heart; serve God

with our feet.

On the whole we Presbyterians are not good with the heart—we’ve sometimes suspicious

of experience If someone came up to us and said, “I feel very filled by the Holy Spirit; I can just

feel God, how would many of us react? If that happened it would be easy to think the person is

on something.

Just yesterday I had a conversation with a woman who was walking by our office. Every

week I put a Bible verse on a white board outside our office. While I was doing this yesterday

this woman came up to me and started talking to me. She identified herself as growing up in the

Pentecostal movement. I shared with her that I love talking to Pentecostals. I shared with her

that some of my favorite colleagues in Plainview spoke in tongues. I said that I don’t speak in

tongues, but I respect people who do. She was surprised, almost taken aback, that I, a

Presbyterian, is so open to one of the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

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Let’s encourage conversation about the Holy Spirit at Chain of Lakes. Let’s not be

suspicious.

Another obstacle to appreciating the Holy Spirit is the way the church has labeled the

Holy Spirit throughout the ages. Remember part of the Apostles’ Creed

“I believe in God the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth. And in Jesus Christ his only
son our Lord. Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost.”

I found this explanation from the Internet on why the Holy Spirit has been called the Holy Ghost:

It is only the King James Version of the Bible which uses the term “Holy Ghost.” The term
“Holy Ghost” occurs 90 times in the KJV. The term “Holy Spirit” occurs 7 times in the KJV.
Most likely because of the King James Version of the Bible people looked at the 3rd part of the
Trinity as the Holy Ghost.

What’s interesting is that in using the term “ghost” the KJV translators did not intend to
communicate the idea of "the spirit of a deceased person." The KJV was originally translated in
1611, the word "ghost" meant the living essence of a person.

In the 21st century a spirit can mean the essence of a departed person or something demonic or
paranormal. As language evolved, people started saying "ghost" when speaking of the vision of
a dead person while "spirit" became the standard term for life or living essence, often also for
"soul."

How people understood ghost in the 17th century is how we understand spirit
How people understood spirit in the 17th century is how we understand ghost.

Let me be clear that the Holy Spirit is not a ghost.

Who is the Holy Spirit.

Let’s look at some Scripture

In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, 2 the earth was a formless void
and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the
waters (NRSV)

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

2
Now the earth was [a] formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the
Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. (NIV)

One translation for Ruah is the wind from God (NRSV); another translation is the Spirit of God

(NIV). The Hebrew word is ruah. (spell it out). The English translation of ruah is wind. One
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way to describe the Holy Spirit is the “wind of God.” Whenever we read of the wind of God in

the Bible, this is a tip off that we are reading about the Ruah—

Look at some other examples.

Exodus14:21

Then Moses stretched out his hand over the sea. The Lord drove the sea back by a strong east
wind all night, and turned the sea into dry land; and the waters were divided.

Set it up—Sea in front of Moses and Pharaoh in back of him

What caused the Red Sea to separate in front of Moses? The wind, or ruah

Genesis 8:1-2
But God remembered Noah and all the wild animals and all the domestic animals that were with
him in the ark. And God made a wind blow over the earth, and the waters subsided.

Ruah is the wind

Holy Spirit is the wind of God

To say that the wind of God is the only way to describe the Holy Spirit is not correct. I’m giving

you one term—really it’s a metaphor to describe the Holy Spirit.

On my Facebook page I shared that I was talking about the Holy Spirit, and I encouraged

people to submit questions.

Is the Holy Spirit male or female?

Is the holy spirit a defined form like a person or formless like the wind?

Male or female question. This is one of those seminary type of questions that will cause people

to debate theology. This question comes out of the Inclusive language debates that were fairly

strong about ten years ago. This whole question of Inclusive language could be a six week study

in and of itself. I’m going to take 15 seconds on it.

We can’t define God by pronouns or gender. God is much more vast than that. We use

human terms to describe God because our language requires it. Third person singular pronoun in

the English language is he, she or it. I don’t like using “it,” so the choices left are “he” or “she.”
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The Bible was written in a patriarchal time, so “he” was used. This led to the concern that the

only image of God is masculine. Fair concern.

I try not to use gender pronouns. I’ll say “he” from time to time. I wouldn’t have a

problem if someone said, “she” to describe God. What I’m not going to do is question

someone’s faith because of the pronouns the person uses to describe God.

Is the Holy Spirit a defined form like a person or formless like the wind? My response is

“yes.” The Holy Spirit is God—just as much divine as God the Father or Creator or Jesus. The

Holy Spirit can do anything the Holy Spirit wants to do. Could be a defined person and be

formless. We can never capture God and in this case the Holy Spirit by human language.

Back to the outline. Where does the Holy Spirit originate? As Presbyterians we believe

that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father or Creator and the Son. There was a split in the

church over this issue. In 1054 the Orthodox Church became a separate branch of the Christian

faith. They did not believe that the Spirit proceeded from the Son—only from the Father. This

split had originated hundreds of years earlier. As Presbyterians we believe that the Spirit comes

from both. Let me share one example of the Spirit proceeding from the Son, from Jesus.

John 20:19-23

The Holy Spirit, the wind of God, is literally the breath of Jesus.

Knowing this information could lead us to experience prayer in a different way. I

encourage all of us to pray every day. Say during our prayer time tomorrow we would close our

eyes and imagine Jesus breathing on the disciples. While we are imagining this we are also

focusing on our own breath. Then imagine Jesus breathing on us and saying, “Receive the Holy

Spirit.”

Try this
Close your eyes
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Imagine Jesus breathing on the disciples

Imagineus breathing in and out
As we are doing this, imagine or think of Jesus breathing on us and saying “Receive the
Holy Spirit.”

Where is one place that the Holy Spirit resides?

Jesus shared with his followers that the Holy Spirit resides in their heart
Holy Spirit resides other places, but this Wind of God, this breath of Jesus resides in our
hearts.

Baptism
Baptize in the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit
Sacrament—sign and seal of grace
We believe that the Holy Spirit is sealed into us in our baptism.
Who here has been baptized?
The Holy Spirit is within you.

What’s powerful is we don’t have to do anything to make the Holy Spirit be present in our heart.
The Holy Spirit is already within us. The wind of God, the breath of God is always with us.
There is nothing that any human or institution can do to take the Spirit away from us. We always
have it.

It’s not like we snap our fingers or say some special words or go through some special exercises
so that we make the Holy Spirit show up. The Holy Spirit is always with us.

Sometimes we can do some activities that lead us open to the presence of the Spirit. We don’t
make the Spirit come, it’s just we’re more receptive to the Spirit.

When we went to California for the NCD conference the six of us participated in a

service on the last day. It was a beautiful service of singing and Scripture and prayers. Then we

were asked to pray together. The six of us stood in a circle with Doug Cushing, my coach.

There was music playing in the background. We were just opened up. I prayed with

passionately; doug prayed passionately. The rest of us prayed passionately—shared our joys and

hurts. Some of us started crying.

It’s easy to joke and laugh about the experience. Let’s claim it for what it was—we we

opened to the presence of the Holy Spirit. Our tears weren’t a sign of weakness—they were a

sign of God’s presence. The Spirit was always present, but we participated in some activities
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that opened us to the Spirit. So we didn’t do anything to cause the Holy Spirit to be present—we

just opened ourselves to the continual presence of the Spirit.

Do you see the difference?

What does it mean to be a Spirit-led congregation? This is a critical question for us as a

church. I could talk about this for a long time. I just want to share one simple point. It’s our

personal relationship with God and the Holy Spirit that will have such an impact on our

congregation. Ultimately the church is a spiritual institution. We use techniques—like

marketing and programming and we have strategies and tactics. I am in favor of all of these. At

our core we are spiritual beings. When we as individuals experience a deep connection to God

we can’t help but share this with others. When we experience the Holy Spirit on our journey

other people will take notice. Others can’t help but see it. When we experience and are

connected to the Spirit there is almost this light that comes out of us. That light is very, very

contagious.

When this happens in a congregation suddenly something just clicks. Suddenly the

church is not about the pastor or a leader or a marketing campaign or demographic information

or a web site. These are important—yes. Suddenly the church is about God and how God’s

spirit is moving among us.

I just want you to know that is something that I’m willing to give my life too seeing. To

help people experience the Spirit.

I’m sure a lot of us want to know how we are going to grow beyond our 20-25 families

that have participated in an event. We will do this through marketing and personal invitation and

good programming. But ultimately our growth will come from the spiritual energy that we

experience and share. When we share that spiritual energy other people will just feel it.
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I go to a lot of churches—especially this last year. I’ve been in a different church almost

every Sunday—many of them Presbyterian—since I started in February. This week I’m

preaching at the Presbyterian Church in Buffalo. Within two minutes of being in a congregation

I can almost tell you the spiritual energy that exists. I can’t describe it rationally, but I can sense

the depth of spiritual energy that exists.

When we were at the NCD conference in California one of the speakers was from Kenya.

Fabulous and humble speaker. He said rely on God and not strategies or tactics. I wouldn’t go

quite that far because I believe in tactics. But sometimes we can replace strategies or tactics for

our reliance on God.

You hear me encourage you to pray and read the Bible and come to worship and

participate in a small group. I do this for you—of course. But I do it for others. Because when

you become open to the Holy Spirit—and this can happen through prayer and bible reading and

worship—then you can’t help but bring other people to the congregation.

This is so powerful when this happens. I experienced this frequently in my ministry at

Plainview. We couldn’t have experienced all that we did at Plainview if God hadn’t been

leading us and we hadn’t been open to the direction of God. Sure we used strategies and tactics,

but at our core our ministry was about God and the working of God in our life.

One final point—we’ve already experienced that at Chain of Lakes.

We experienced it when we put together our Purpose Statement

We experienced it when we found this worship space
We experienced it when I was able to live at Presbyterian Church of the Way
We experienced it when we had six people go to the NCD conference
We’ve experienced it in Alpha
We experienced it when we discovered Jennifer as our Administrative Assistant
We experienced it when many of us took meals to Gary.
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Last question I’ll just brush over—what does it mean to be lead by the Holy Spirit in my

own life? Look for God everywhere. Be open to the leading of the Spirit. Pray, read the Bible,

claim the workings of God that I mentioned last week, attend worship.

Let us pray.

God, all of us here are on different places on our journey.

What a privilege to link arms tonight on and be in this room.
Help us be Spirit-led people who make up a Spirit-led congregation called Chain of Lakes
Church.
May the Holy Spirit be for us not a confusing doctrine, but instead be the clear present activity of
God in our lives.
Lead us—to be Spirit-led people.
In the quiet of this time, may each of us pray silently share our own desire for a deeper-Spirit led
life. As each of us do this may you show us God, the next step that we can take on this journey.
Let us have a time of silent prayer—where we each share our own desire for a deeper-Spirit led
life. May we receive suggestions for the next steps that we can take on our journey
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Outline
“Who is the Holy Spirit?”
Alpha Week 6, November 18, 2009
Introduction
Topic that Alpha does on a weekend—address three questions
Who is the Holy Spirit? What does the Holy Spirit do?, How can I be filled with the Holy
Spirit?

Obstacles to appreciating the Holy Spirit

• Normal suspiciousness—especially among Presbyterians

• The Holy Spirit is not a Ghost

1. Who is the Holy Spirit?

The Holy Spirit is the Ruah (Hebrew)
English translation. The Holy Spirit is the wind of God
Scriptures Genesis 1:1-2
Whenever we read the wind of God, this is a tip off that we are reading about the Holy
Spirit

Other examples
Exodus 14:21
Genesis 8:1-2

2. Where does the Holy Spirit originate?

As Presbyterians we believe that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son
Split over this issue in the church
The Orthodox branch of Christianity believe that the Holy Spirit only proceeds
from the Father

Biblical examples—John 20:19-23

3. Where is one place that the Holy Spirit resides?

4. What does it mean to be a Spirit-led congregation?

One Core Value that we are proposing: “God owns the church”
What does this mean?

5. What does it mean to be lead by the Holy Spirit in my own life?