(Laying Hold on Eternity) Knowing the Holy Spirit as Our Helper — Zac Poonen

Laying Hold of Eternal Life Through Knowing God

This is the third in a series I started last evening on the subject laying hold of eternal life. This is eternal life. To know the only true God, that's what Jesus said in John 17 verse 3. And in 1 Timothy 6 verse 12, Paul said to Timothy, lay hold of eternal life.

Now, eternal life is not something we just get once and we have it forever, no. It's something we have to lay hold of and possess more and more and more and more. And when Jesus said in John 17 verse 3 that eternal life is knowing God, it's just like getting to know someone more and more and more and more and more, whether it's knowing your marriage partner or knowing your friend or even getting to know your own father better and better as you grow up from childhood.

God wants us to know him more and more and more. And the more we know him, the more we lay hold of eternal life. And eternal life is not living forever. It is partaking of God's own life because the definition of eternity is something that has no beginning and no end.

Eternal life is a life that had no beginning and has no end, which only God has. And when he gives us that life, we have eternal life, but we need to know it more and more and more and more. And Jesus himself said this comes through knowing God, and God is in three persons.

So in our first study, I was looking at knowing God the Father as our Father. That's where everything begins. The foundation of our Christian life is to be knowing that perfect love with which God loves us.

And then in our second study, we looked at knowing Jesus Christ as our Lord, not just as our Savior, but knowing him as our Lord, one who has complete authority over everything in our life. And now we want to look at the third part of it, knowing the Holy Spirit as our helper.

The Holy Spirit’s Ministry on Earth

There's a lot of confusion concerning the ministry of the Holy Spirit in the world today. I would say that generally speaking, Christians are more confused concerning the ministry of the Holy Spirit than perhaps any other doctrine in scripture.

And that's not surprising because that's exactly what the devil wants. Get you confused about this most important person of the Trinity. The Father never came down to earth at any time. Jesus came to earth and the devil did his best to confuse the Jewish nation about the ministry of Christ.

He got most people to turn against Christ. Most people rejected him, but a few understood. Today Jesus is in heaven. It's the Holy Spirit who is on earth ever since the day of Pentecost, just like Jesus was on earth for 33 and a half years in Palestine.

It's exactly the same. He's the third person of the Trinity on earth. The only difference is that Jesus came with a body and the Holy Spirit has not come with a body. But if we can see, exactly like the second person of the Trinity was on earth for 33 and a half years, the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, has been here for nearly 2 ,000 years to carry on the ministry which Jesus began.

And that's why the Acts of the Apostles begins with these words. Let me read it to you. Acts 1, verse 1 reads like this. This is written by Luke and Luke is referring here to the first book that he wrote, which is the Gospel of Luke, which was a description of the life of the second person of the Trinity on earth.

And how does he describe that? He says, the first account I composed, O Theophilus, about all that Jesus began to do and teach. Acts 1, verse 1. This is the first verse in the Acts of the Apostles. And he describes his gospel in these words, all that Jesus began.

Read that carefully. The Gospel of Luke is a description of all that Jesus began to do and teach, meaning that the Acts of the Apostles is a description of all that Jesus continued to do and teach, this time through a spiritual body.

In the Gospel of Luke, it was through his physical body. In the Acts of the Apostles, it's through his spiritual body. And that work has continued till today. And that is through the ministry of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit needs your body and my body, because he's come without a body. Jesus came with a body. And so the Father could do, manifest his nature through that body to all the people in Israel, wherever he traveled.

Sent to Reveal Christ to Our Own World

And now, Jesus said, it's better that I go away, because if I'm here, it's only a few people that will be able to see what God is like. But if I go and I send the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit comes and fills many bodies across the earth, then people everywhere will begin to see what God is like.

That is the purpose with which God sent the Holy Spirit. And that's what you need to ask yourself if you're born again. Is that purpose being fulfilled in your life? Do people who look at your life and observe it, get a little idea of what God is like?

Of God's love and compassion, purity, humility? Do they see a little bit of what Jesus is like? That's the thing that's challenging my heart. I think of two verses in the Gospels. You put them together, this is what you get.

Jesus once said, in John 14, If you have seen me, you have seen the Father. You don't need to see the Father. If you have seen me, you have seen the Father. And then he said to his disciples in John 20, six chapters later, after the resurrection, Now, he breathed on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.

And then he said to them, let me turn you to that verse. It's in John's Gospel, chapter 20. It says here in verse 22 and 23. John chapter 20, verse 22 and 22 first. Peace, sorry. He breathed on them and said, receive the Holy Spirit.

And verse 21, not 23, verse 21 now. Before he breathed on them, he said, As the Father has sent me, so send I you. Having said that, he breathed on them. Said, this is how you're going to do it. Okay, but here's your ministry.

As the Father sent me, I send you. It's a fantastic calling. As the Father sent Jesus into the world, he sent you and me to different parts of this world. It's like a young brother in one of our village churches once got up and gave the way he got a revelation on John 3, 16, which I have never heard before.

And it's thrilled my heart so much. I've always shared it wherever I've gone. John 3, 16 is a very well-known verse. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.

And this young brother got up and said, you know, all of us have a little world of people whom only we know, whom nobody else knows. And that's true of every single person sitting here. There are certain people in this world who only you know.

Your wife doesn't know them, people you meet at work perhaps. And your neighbors, your relatives, whom nobody else in this auditorium knows. There's a little group of people which is your world, whom only you know.

God so loved that little world that he sent you, his son, his daughter, into that world, so that in that little world they might hear the gospel, that they might not perish, but have eternal life. Boy, that was a revelation to me too.

As the Father sent me, so send I you. And then he breathed on them, said, receive the Holy Spirit. He says, you can't do it. I mean, just because you've got an exhortation saying, as the Father sent me, I send you, and you say, okay, I'm going to do it.

You're not going to be able to do it. You need the power of the Holy Spirit. And so he breathed on them, and they received the Holy Spirit. So I see there that the reason why he breathed on them was so that they could go out and fulfill that calling.

Reflecting the Father and Jesus

Now, what did the Father send Jesus for? In John 1, 18, it says, Jesus came to earth and explained the Father. That's why he could tell people at the end of his life in John 14, if you have seen me, you have seen the Father.

Now, put these two verses together. If you have seen me, you have seen the Father. As the Father sent me, so send I you. When I put them together, you know what I get? I should be able to tell people, if you've seen me, you've seen a little bit of what Jesus is like.

Think of that. Can your wife say she's seen a little bit of what Jesus is like by looking at your life? Or your husband? Or your neighbor? Or the people you work with? Or the people who irritate you on the roads by not obeying the traffic rules?

This is our calling. And I'll tell you this, it's no use studying or hearing about the Holy Spirit if we don't first understand why do we need the Holy Spirit? Now, there are all types of people saying all types of testimonies about the Holy Spirit today.

Some people said, I got a shock. Well, you don't need the Holy Spirit to get a shock. Put your finger in an electric socket, you'll get it. He hasn't come to give us electric shocks and tingles down our spine.

There are many other ways to get that. But to show people what Jesus is like, well, you can't get it any other way except through the power of the Holy Spirit. We got to keep that clear in our mind. That's why we need to know the Holy Spirit, just like we know the Father.

And we know Jesus as our Lord and our forerunner and our example. We need to know the Holy Spirit in our life, the working of the Holy Spirit. So that's what I want to share with you a little bit today so that we lay hold of eternal life.

Eternal life is to know God. And the Holy Spirit has come to help us to lay hold of this eternal life by working in us. So to begin with, the first thing that the Holy Spirit does when he comes into our life, as soon as we are born again, is what we read in Romans chapter eight.

Let me read this verse to you. Romans chapter eight and verse 16. Romans 8, 16 says, the Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God. I've been preaching the gospel for 50 years, and I've never gone, nearly 50 years, and I've never gone up to somebody and told them, oh, you're saved.

You're a child of God. How do I know? I don't know his heart. He may have said those words with his mouth, Lord Jesus, come to my heart. I don't know whether he's sincere or not. I don't know whether he's just repeating some words.

I leave that to the Holy Spirit. That's his ministry. We read in this verse, the Holy Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. I can trust the Holy Spirit to do that. And he never makes a mistake.

How do you know that you're a child of God? Two things. You need God's word that says, as many as received him, to them he gave the power and authority to be children of God. And the Holy Spirit, it's a double witness.

It's like all electric appliances and bulbs and everything work with two wires that make contact. You can never have electricity with just one wire, anywhere in the world. You need two wires. And when you put on a switch, all that that switch does is make those two wires touch.

That's all it does. But when the two wires touch, things happen. The gadget runs, the lights turn on. It's like that. And the word of God plus the Holy Spirit, there's light. And that's how we have an assurance in our heart that our sins are forgiven.

It's not enough to know the word. You need the Holy Spirit bearing witness with you. Don't be satisfied with some man, even if it's the greatest man of God coming in, telling you you're saved. He may be wrong.

He doesn't know your heart. Seek for the witness of the Holy Spirit that tells you you are a child of God. And God, the Holy Spirit will give that to you. If you're really sincere, you've opened your heart and said, Lord, I'm a sinner.

I believe that Christ died for my sins. I come to you as a sinner with blaming nobody else in the world, but myself for my sins. I believe that Jesus died for me and rose again. And I want to turn from my sin.

I want to receive Jesus as Lord of my life. I guarantee if you have said that sincerely to anybody, the Holy Spirit will bear witness. I've worked with people in India who are illiterate. It means they can't even read.

They've got to get somebody else to read the Bible to them. And I know that they have that witness in their heart. The Holy Spirit bearing witness to them. They can't even read the scriptures, but the Holy Spirit bears witness to them that they are children of God.

This is the most important requirement to start the Christian life. The Holy Spirit bearing witness. You are a child of God. It says in Romans 5. Let me tell you something else the Holy Spirit wants to tell you.

Romans 5 and verse 5. Romans 5, verse 5 says, hope does not disappoint because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit. That's the other thing the Holy Spirit wants to convince you about.

This means two things. First of all, that God loves you. And as a result of that, the Holy Spirit, first of all, He pours that love into our heart. God's love for us. It's got to begin there. Then from the abundance of that, it overflows and then we begin to love others.

The reason why many Christians are not able to love others is because they haven't, their hearts have not been flooded with an assurance that God loves them. I tell you, your whole attitude to other people will change completely for the better when you are convinced that God loves you just as you are.

Not after you change. Why do you wait for other people to change before you start loving them? I'll tell you why. Because you think God will love you only after you change. That's a lie. God loves you as you are.

And when I understood that in my heart, I could love people just as they are before they change. God changes you by first loving you. And you will change other people by first loving them. That is God's way.

It's not the human way. The human says, I'll love you when you change. But not God. The Holy Spirit pours the love of God in our heart. It's like if I were to take a fire hose and spray this room, every nook and corner would be flooded with water.

Every little crevice the water would go into. And that's how the Holy Spirit shows me in every little area of my life, God loves me. God loves me. Every situation I see, God loves me. God loves me. God loves me.

He just assures me of that and it changes my life. You'll have no more complaints in your life when you realize that God loves you. Many Christians haven't experienced that because they haven't opened up to the Holy Spirit.

They're waiting for the electric shock or the tingle down the spine, which won't help you at all. Not even speaking in tongues. Now I'm not against speaking in tongues. I speak in tongues and I've spoken in tongues for the last 33 years.

And it's a great gift. God doesn't give it to everybody. It's like gift of teaching. God's given me a gift of teaching for many years. He doesn't give it to everybody. He gives different gifts to different people.

You accept what he gives. So I'm not against it. But what I say is speaking in tongues is not the mark of the fullness of the Holy Spirit. The mark of being filled with the Holy Spirit is the love of God flows out of your heart to other people.

That's the mark of being filled with the Holy Spirit. So that's the second thing we need to know. First of all, he assures me I'm a child of God. I need that witness more from him than from anybody else in the world.

Second, I need to be flooded every nook and cranny in my heart with assurance that God loves me just as I am. And progressively he will change me. But his love for me is unchangeable because God is God and God is love.

And the more I'm assured of that, as I said, this love begins to flow out to other people. I want to turn now to John's Gospel, chapter 14. See, there was a big difference between the Holy Spirit ministry in the Old Testament and now after Jesus died on the day of Pentecost.

The Holy Spirit’s Indwelling in the New Covenant

Something significant happened on the day of Pentecost. I want to turn to John's Gospel, chapter 7. I was talking to you about this love flowing out of our heart to others. And Jesus described it here in John chapter 7 like this.

Verse 38. John 7, 38, he said, He who believes in me. And that, there's no other qualification. You know that you can be saved if you believe in Jesus Christ. According to this verse, you can be saved, you can be filled with the Holy Spirit if you believe in Jesus.

There's no extra condition. He who believes in me, that's all. You don't have to fast, you don't have to pray, but you've got to trust completely. And trust in the New Testament means opening up completely our heart to trust him.

From his innermost being will flow rivers of living water. And this is the love of God flooding our heart and flowing out. And then he goes on to say in verse 39, John 7, 39. This he spoke about the Holy Spirit whom those who believed in him would receive.

And then it says the spirit was not yet given because Jesus was not yet glorified. You say the spirit was not yet given because Jesus was not yet glorified? How did David have the Holy Spirit? How did Elijah have the Spirit?

How did Elisha get a double portion of the Spirit? How did Gideon have the Holy Spirit? How did Samson get the part of the Holy Spirit? There's a big difference. The Holy Spirit was not yet given means not given in the way he was going to be given on the day of Pentecost to indwell people.

In the Old Testament, he came upon people. It says about Gideon in Judges 6, 34, the Spirit of God clothed him. It's like a robe that you put on and you can take off. You know, Samson would put on that robe when he fought a lion and he'd take it off when he was with Delilah.

That's how it was. You could do that in the Old Testament. Some people try to do that today as well, but it is not meant to be like that. And it was like that with Gideon too. He put on the robe, the Holy Spirit came on him and he fought the Midianites and won a battle for Israel and then he'd take it off.

And do you know that he made idols? This man who was clothed with the Holy Spirit made idols later on and worshiped them. This is how it was in the Old Testament. David had the anointing upon him. He could kill Goliath.

But when he met Bathsheba, he took off the robe. It's the same old story. And anyone who lives like that today is living like an Old Testament person. We have to say to such a person, even if he's a pastor or preacher or anybody, oh, the Spirit is not yet given for this guy.

He doesn't know the new covenant ministry of the Holy Spirit. A lot of Christians are in that condition. They've got gifts, but they don't have the Spirit indwelling them. They're like Samson, who can do a mighty work for God and then go and commit adultery.

But here it says the Spirit is given another way in the New Testament where He comes and floods our heart. And what does He come to do? Jesus spoke about it in John chapter 14. We got to know the Holy Spirit.

This is what it means to lay hold of eternal life. Eternal life is to know God. And I want to know the Holy Spirit. I want to know what He does for me so that I can experience it. You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.

It says in John 14, Jesus said about the Holy Spirit, in verse 16, John 14, 16, I'm going to ask the Father and He will give you another helper. Now, in the King James Version, it says comforter. And that doesn't really give us, it's not just, you know, comforting us and say, oh, don't worry, it's okay.

That's not all He says. He's a helper. The 16th century meaning, English meaning of comfort, comforter comes from the word fort, which is in the middle of comforter, F-O-R-T. It's a strengthener. That's the meaning of comforter.

If you really want, the words have changed meaning. Like charity means something different today than it meant in the 16th century. Comforter meant something else. The comforter means the strengthener, the helper.

The Greek word is a word called paraclete, which means someone called alongside to help me, called alongside to help me. It's like if I'm walking with a little child and we come across a big wall and he can't go over the wall, I help him over the wall.

That's what the Holy Spirit does. I come to a wall called lust. Oh, and I can't get over it. The Holy Spirit takes me over. I come to a wall called fear, anxiety. These are all walls I can never climb.

The Holy Spirit helps me over the wall. Just like a grownup takes a child and takes him over the wall. He's a helper. Whenever I come across a situation which looks impossible, but God wants me to go over that, the Holy Spirit is a helper.

It's wonderful to have the Holy Spirit. If Samson knew the Holy Spirit like that, he'd never have sinned with Delilah. If David knew the Holy Spirit like that, he would never have sinned with Bathsheba.

He's a helper, but they didn't have the Holy Spirit inside. They only had him on the outside for ministry. But the Holy Spirit in the day of Pentecost onwards has come inside to help us to fulfill the will of God, to go forth as the Father sent Jesus and Jesus sends us to fulfill that ministry, to reflect Christ to the world around us.

And it says here further in John chapter 16 about the Holy Spirit. It says here in John 16 and verse 14, referring to the Holy Spirit, he says, he will glorify me because he will take of mine and show it to you.

Making Jesus Our Hero

You know, the Holy Spirit's come to glorify Christ. He's come to show me the glory and the beauty of Jesus as I read the Bible. And Jesus becomes my hero. I've been to, well, I see sometimes the rooms of young people with huge posters of their heroes.

It could, sometimes it's unfortunately some rock star or it could be some sports, sports, someone who plays basketball or football or something like that. And you know, these young people are gripped by that.

They want to be like that. They want to be like that person. They want to comb their hair like that person and play ball like that person, et cetera, et cetera. Imagine if Jesus became your hero. Imagine.

That's what every Christian should have. We don't have a picture of Jesus, but we do have a picture of Jesus in the gospels. And the Holy Spirit shows me that. This is the one who is to be your hero. You should live like him.

I tell you, it would revolutionize your life if Jesus became your hero. If you said, if he really became your hero, you say, Lord, I want to live like you. I want to speak like you. That if ever a word comes out of my mouth, which is not Christ-like, I'm going to be convicted about it immediately.

It happens. We all stumble, especially in our speech, James says. We stumble, we stumble, but the godly man is the one who recognizes it immediately and apologizes. Apologizes to his wife or husband or brother or whoever it is.

Sorry, I'm sorry, or co-worker in the office. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said that. Forgive me. You know, we stumble. We all stumble, but the godly man immediately takes back what he's recognized is wrong.

So the Holy Spirit comes to help us in all these things. The Holy Spirit shows us Jesus. He becomes our hero. And we see how he lived a life where he was always so gentle. And he was only hard on religious hypocrites.

He was never hard on people who hurt him or even spat on his face or called him the devil. And when he becomes my hero, I say, Lord, I want to be like you. I want to be like you. Just like that young fellow wants to play football like that hero of his.

This is what will happen when Jesus becomes your hero. And then the Holy Spirit will show you this is how he behaved in this circumstance. This is how he behaved in this circumstance. This is how he lived.

This is how he did. This was his attitude to money. This was his attitude to women. I tell you, your eyes will become pure if Jesus becomes your hero. Because he will show you. He'll immediately, the Holy Spirit will immediately tell you something's wrong.

It's wonderful. I'm so much more blessed. You are so much more blessed than David was. And everybody in the Old Testament. That's why Jesus once said in Matthew 11, verse 11. He said, the greatest man that ever was born between Adam and Jesus, the greatest was John the Baptist.

He said that himself. But he said, the person who enters the kingdom of heaven, that's someone who comes into this new covenant life through the Holy Spirit, can rise higher than the greatest of all men born from Adam to Jesus.

That's an amazing statement. For so many years of my Christian life, I never understood that. That I can live a life higher than every Old Testament saint? Well, if you don't believe it, of course, you won't have it.

You know, it's one of the things in the Bible is, you never get what you don't believe. It can be written there, but you don't get it. It's like if somebody sends you a check for a million dollars and you just look at it and keep it in your drawer, nothing will happen.

You know that. It can be a genuine check sent by some multi-millionaire who loves you. But, I mean, it's a sort of a fictional scenario, but anyway, if you get it, I'll tell you if you get it, don't just keep it in your drawer.

Go and quickly deposit it in the bank before a man changes his mind. That's what we got to do with the promises of God. God won't change his mind. His promises are like checks, but you get nothing from it if you don't believe.

If you don't believe, this is for me. It'll never work. And there's a verse like that in James one, which says, if a man doesn't believe that God will give him that, let not that man think he'll receive anything from the Lord.

He will receive nothing because God's promised it, but he won't get it. There are many examples of that in scripture. One example is in the Old Testament, where God promised the Israelites when they were in Egypt through Moses, he called the elders and said to them, I give you two promises, he said.

Faith, Grace, and Victory Over Sin

This is in Exodus three. I'll take you out of Egypt and I'll bring you into Canaan. And do you know out of all those elders who stood listening to him, they never experienced the second part of that promise.

Not one of them, because they didn't believe. One part was experienced coming out of Egypt, but when it came to the second part, they came to the borders of the promised land two years after they came out of Egypt.

They didn't believe that God could take them in, that the God who delivered them from Pharaoh, the most powerful army in the world. They didn't have faith that he could deliver them from some inferior army of the Canaanites.

That's why they never entered. And if you believe that God can forgive your sin and you come out of Egypt, but you can't believe that he can fill you with the Holy Spirit and help you overcome all the sins in your life, you won't experience it.

It's like that. It's according to your faith. Be it unto you, oh, I wish I could spread this everywhere that you don't get according to your desire. You get according to your faith. You don't get according to God's desire for you.

You get according to your faith. You can get a check from God. You don't cash it. You don't get it. And that's why we need when you read a promise like this, like I said just now in Matthew 11, 11, that under the old covenant, you could rise to such great heights.

But the least person, the least means anyone who is living subsequent to the day of Pentecost, who's accepted Christ as his Lord, can rise higher than the greatest Old Testament saint. I say, yes, Lord, it happens.

You say, well, I'm not so sure. I guarantee it'll never happen in your life. What's the difference between you and me, then? It's not that God favors one and doesn't favor the other. It's just a matter of faith.

You and I got the same check. I cashed it in the bank. You kept it inside your drawer. That's the difference. That's what's happening to so many Christians. You shall know the truth. The truth shall set you free.

So this is why the Holy Spirit's being given. He's come alongside to help us climb these walls, kill these giants that we're not able to kill otherwise. I want to show you a title of the Holy Spirit in Hebrews chapter 10.

In Hebrews chapter 10, we read of a title given to the Holy Spirit. He's called here in the last part of verse 29, Hebrews 10, 29. He's called the Spirit of Grace. It speaks there about insulting the Spirit of Grace.

The Holy Spirit. Now, we've heard a lot about the grace of God. But the one who communicates that grace is the Holy Spirit. He's called the Spirit who gives grace. Now, I want to tell you what grace can do for you.

What the Holy Spirit, when he comes, what does this grace of God, which, by the way, is a New Testament word, it's not found in the Old Testament. In its New Testament form, John 1, 17 says the law came through Moses.

That was Old Testament. But grace came through Jesus Christ. There was no grace on earth before Christ came. John 1, 17 is clear. And even after Christ came, people could not experience it until the Holy Spirit came on the day of Pentecost.

Then he could communicate that grace. What I want to ask you to check up now is to see whether you have experienced this grace in all the four areas that I'm going to mention now. Number one, Ephesians 1, verse 7.

The Holy Spirit communicates to us that we have forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace. Forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace. Ephesians 1, verse 7. That's the first thing.

He assures us. I don't want that assurance from anybody else. I don't want some human being, however great a man of God he may be, to tell me my sins are forgiven, because that man of God is not going to sit on the on the throne in the day of judgment, judging me.

I want the Holy Spirit to give me that assurance that according to the riches of God's grace, all my sins have been forgiven. There's no record of it. The blood of Jesus has cleansed it out completely.

The blood of Jesus was shed for the sins of all humanity. But more than 90 percent of humanity have not got their sins forgiven. Why is that? Because you got to repent and you got to believe. And so I want to be sure that I have really repented and believed.