…In the Holy Spirit | We Believe | Rick Atchley

We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible. We believe in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, begotten from the Father of all ages. God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, from the same as the Father, who owns all things in the world. And we believe for us and for our salvation. He came down from heaven. He became incarnate by the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and was made human. He was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate. He suffered and was buried. On the third day, he rose again according to the scriptures. We believe he ascended to heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again with glory to judge the living and the dead. His kingdom will never end. And we believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life. He proceeds from the Father and the Son and with the Father and the Son is worshipped and glorified. He spoke through the prophets. We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic church. We affirm one baptism for the forgiveness of sin. We look forward to the resurrection of the dead and to life in the world to come. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Well, welcome. My name is Rick.

And if you're watching online on a screen in Keller or Dallas or West Fort Worth or in person at North Richland Hills, welcome to the hills. Our church exists to make and grow followers of Jesus. We try to do this together by being with Jesus, becoming like Jesus and doing what Jesus did. So glad you are with us today. One of the ways that we're trying to make followers of Jesus is planting churches. We've planted churches literally from the northeast to the southwest to the northwest to the southeast. And last weekend, I got to be at one of those churches. It's called Create Church in San Diego, just 18 months old. You can see a picture of my wife and I with Jake and Kalia Veda, the planters. You can see that she's about to give birth to a child. And they've given birth to a church in the power of the spirit. And it's a beautiful thing. They had a huge blessing. They moved around to several schools. And then a church that had died had this piece of property available, and they're leasing it, a little church on two acres of land. And you can't imagine in Southern California what a gift that is. We got there an hour early, and there were already a lot of the volunteers praying about what God was going to do that day. They're only 18 months old. They're already about 300 people, already had 50 baptisms. And let me tell you, it is a young church. I was by far the oldest person in the room. In fact, they welcomed me with great joy because they admired that I got to my car to the pulpit without needing a walker, and they honored me for that. It was just such a joy to be there. And I was just reminded again that historically and globally, the church has existed in many equally beautiful expressions.

I've seen churches across the country and across the world, and we're all different, and we're all the same because we are united around the conviction that Jesus is Lord. And it was the urgency to establish this belief about Jesus, his supremacy, and his deity that created what I think is the most important Christian document outside of the New Testament itself, the Nicene Creed. So this is week five of a study of this 1,700-year-old document. I'm grateful to Drew Ritchie for taking week four last week. And what we're doing is we're asking the question, why did these bishops insist that these were essential to faithful belief in Jesus? You recall that at that time, there was a very popular teacher named Arius who was promoting a different view about Jesus, that he was created. There was once when he was not. And so while we can worship him, we worship him knowing he is not fully God. And this is a big deal. The implications of that teaching are immense. And so these bishops got together. Not to have some theological nerd fest, but to ask the question, we have been dying, we've been going to prison for this faith, what are the things we must hold on to? And they met at this church in a town called Nicaea, and one of the bishops that came to that meeting was this guy, Saint Nicholas. That's right, there really was a Saint Nick. He was a bishop in a time when it was very costly to be a Christian, he and many other bishops at that time were arrested, probably tortured. He was revered for his kindness to people on the margins. He was the only child of rich parents, he got an inheritance, and he used it to help children, orphans, young girls who had no dowry and had a future of prostitution.

And so even for centuries after he lived, he was revered. In Northern Europe, they called him Sinterklaasen, which is where we came up with the name Santa Claus. So Saint Nicholas is at this important meeting, and so was Arius, and so Arius is in front of all the bishops contending that Jesus is not fully God. According to the legend, Saint Nicholas got so angry that he stood up, walked to the front of the church, and he hit Arius in the head. Now, you know you're out of line when Santa Claus punches you in the face. What the bishops are trying to do is basically grasp the ungraspable, and that is, what do we believe about God, specifically the doctrine of the Trinity? And where they landed and what the church has taught ever since is that the Christian God exists in three unique persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And so it was critical for them in this creed that we've seen to affirm the deity of Jesus. He is equal to God the Father. But did you notice they also affirmed the equal deity of the Spirit? Now, in their day, insisting that Jesus was fully God was the controversy. In our day, it seems that the role of the Holy Spirit is the controversy. So look again at that part of the creed with me. And they said, we believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life. He proceeds from the Father and the Son, and with the Father and

Son is worshiped and glorified. He spoke through the prophets. In other words, what the bishops are saying is the Holy Spirit should be worshiped and he should be welcomed. Now, can I just be candid? Some of us listening to me right now were raised with a lesser view of the Spirit. I was one of those people. I know this because I remember about 25 or 30 years ago, a new song appeared, glorify thy name. The first verse, Father, we love you, we worship and adore you. Glorify thy name in all the earth. And the second verse, same words, Jesus, we love you. And the third verse, Spirit, we love you. I remember a number of people in our church coming to me and saying, we shouldn't sing that song. I'm not comfortable worshiping the Holy Spirit. Well, the bishops were. They said specifically he's to be worshiped and glorified. I agree with the bishops. And here's why. Here's why we worship the Holy Spirit, because he's God. It says he proceeds from the Father and the Son. They're looking for a verb to try to establish he's got the same essence. Just like I said of Jesus, that he's begotten of the Father, the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and from the Son. They're trying to indicate the fully divine nature of the third member of the Trinity. Please notice I said third member, not third wheel.

Okay, the Holy Spirit is not God-liked. He's not God on the JV, okay? Got some talents, but he's not good enough to make the top team. He is fully divine in his essence. I want you to turn to a neighbor right now. Wherever you're watching and I want you to say the Holy Spirit is God do that right now Okay now I want you to turn to someone else and say and if you don't believe that I just might have to punch you in the face You see as followers of Jesus it is Essential that we view the Holy Spirit The same way our rabbi does because we want to be with him be like him and do what he does And so it's the night before Jesus is going to be crucified. He's about to leave He wants to comfort his disciples. He says this it is better For you that I go away. I think they had a hard time believing that but here's what he said when I go away I'll send the helper the Spirit to you. If I don't go away the helper won't come and so he's Encouraging his disciples by saying your future isn't less of Jesus Your future is more of God because you've been doing God with me You're about to have a future of God in me permanently See, I think sometimes our mistake is we see God as a person Jesus as a person and the Holy Spirit as a power Now this is the mistake that Simon the Sorcerer made in Acts 8 He saw the Apostles putting hands on people and the Spirit coming and many miracles taking place. He said can I buy that? Whatever it is you're you're giving these people this power. I would like to buy it and And Peter turns and gives him as harsh a rebuke as anyone in the Bible ever gets Because you don't buy God You don't obligate God You don't domesticate God. You don't ever put God under your control

God does it work for you? The Holy Spirit is a gift, but he's not a gift you can put in a box Jesus said the Spirit is like the wind He comes and he goes where he wills you don't control the wind and you don't control the Spirit And I think this is what has made the church in our generation nervous the Holy Spirit refuses to be tamed I Can remember when I was a very young preacher I would hear about people in different churches small groups We want to study the Holy Spirit and church leaders will get nervous Now if they said we want to study God, no one got nervous We want to study Jesus. No one got nervous. We want to study the Holy Spirit red flags go up Because we're afraid The Holy Spirit might manifest his presence in a way we're not comfortable with and He refuses to be tamed and I agree with the bishops the church is diminished when we don't embrace the totality of who God is father son and spirit listen to Paul made the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit Be with you all Do you desire fellowship with the Holy Spirit Do you pursue that? Or let me ask a question some of you have never been asked you've been asked do you love God? You've been asked do you love Jesus? Have you ever been asked? Do you love the Holy Spirit? Are you fond of him? You should be Because he's God and because he's good The Holy Spirit is so good. I Heard about a man wanting to go on a vacation in Florida. He's got a dog that he loves

He emails the proprietor of the hotel. Can I bring my dog and The proprietor emails back in my 30 years of running this hotel I've never had a dog steal towels or pictures on the wall I've never had a dog run out on a bill. I've never had to evict a dog for being drunk or disorderly Yes, your dog is welcome at my hotel. And if you'll vouch for you, you can come too What has the Holy Spirit ever done? That we should be nervous No one knew better than Jesus that life with the Spirit is better He had nothing but good things to say about the goodness of the Spirit. And one of his most interesting examples, he says, as broken as you are, you know how to give your kids good gifts. If your daughter asked you for a piece of bread, what kind of dad is gonna say, I'm gonna give you a snake instead? And he said this in Luke 11. You know how to give good things to your children. How much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him? God's not gonna give you anything that is not good. In fact, to not seek the fellowship of the Holy Spirit is to question the goodness of God.

It is good to know and love the Holy Spirit. It is good to experience the indwelling presence of God. It is good to live in a supernatural dimension that every believer can know. So, on Easter Sunday, I've been promising you we're gonna launch a series on the Holy Spirit. I'm calling it Power For More. Why Easter Sunday? What does the Bible say? The same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead lives in you. We are not to settle for less than the supernatural life that God wants to give us. And the bishops understood. Remember, they went to prison. They got tortured. When they're deciding what to put in this creed, they're asking the question, what's worth dying for? What is it about our faith we cannot give up? And they insisted, we worship and glorify the Holy Spirit.

And they gave you a couple of reasons why. One is because He imparts God's life. We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life. And here's what they're saying. They're saying all life is animated by the Spirit. We are unapologetically pro-life as a church leadership because we believe life comes from the Holy Spirit. This has been true from the beginning. The second verse of the Bible, God's about to create. It says the Spirit is hovering over the waters of the earth, gonna participate in what God is going to do. He's the animating force behind every living thing. There's this neat song in the Old Testament called Psalm 104. And the author is just praising God for creation and for trees and flowers and all the wild creatures, all the things you made.

And he sings, How many are your works, Lord? In wisdom you made them all. The earth is full of your creatures. When you send your Spirit, they're created. And you renew the face of the ground. It was the arrival of the Spirit that produced life in Mary's virgin womb. It was the coming of the Spirit that gave birth to the church. And it's the presence of the Spirit that can transform any person into a new creation. This is what Peter is trying to explain to Nicodemus. You must be born again of water and the Spirit. Here's why. Humans can reproduce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life. Now, this is the point that Peter is making in Acts 2, the very first gospel sermon ever preached. The Holy Spirit has ascended.

The apostles are speaking in other languages. People are gathering. What is going on? Peter says, Now, Job prophesied this, that in the last days, the Spirit was gonna come, and men and women, young and old, they're gonna prophesy, and they're gonna have visions. And he starts explaining what Jesus did to bring about this possibility. He was killed, and he's come back from the dead. The very first gospel sermon. Now, listen closely. He did not preach, You need to surrender to Jesus so you can go to heaven when you die. Now, that's true, and that's important. That's not what he preached. He said, You need to surrender to Jesus so heaven can come to you while you're living. That was the point of the sermon, that the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead is now possible for you.

And this is why he ended the sermon with this call. Repent and be baptized, every one of you. The name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit That's why we're having baptism Sunday next week at every campus, but Dallas in two weeks in Dallas We want you to get baptized. We want you to check that QR code We want you to invite your friends and family you could give them no greater gift than to say I want you to witness my Declaration that there's new life possible in Jesus That's a same spirit that raised him from the dead is going to raise me up out of that water in new life And let's be clear about something a lot of folks thinking out. You know what? I have lived a pretty messed-up life I'm like an old muddy clunker and I need to get washed so I can be a clean clunker No, you're not a clean clunker. You're a new car You are a brand new car in Jesus you're thinking pastor. Are you saying? I need the Holy Spirit to go to church. I'm saying you need the Holy Spirit to go to Walmart I'm saying there shouldn't be a single moment of your life That you have to live like somebody who doesn't have the Holy Spirit living in them Paul says anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person The old life is gone a new life has begun and all of this is a gift from God See spirit filled people are walking advertisements for the unleashing of new creation that began when Jesus came and is going to be Completed when he comes again, he's going to make everything new he's going to get rid of every broken thing and you and I filled with the Spirit are witnesses to the future and the future is grace and truth and That's the other thing they mentioned We welcome the Spirit because he imparts God's life and he reveals God's truth Jesus called the Holy Spirit the Spirit of truth more than any other title Because the Holy Spirit is a person

The Holy Spirit has a voice you can hear the Holy Spirit. You can hear him through inner promptings You can hear him through prophetic utterances from other people. You can hear him in the wisdom of the collective community But we hear the Spirit speak primarily through what he's already spoken and that's what the bishops meant when he said he spoke through the prophets and What they're talking about is the sacred text that we call the scripture Listen to Peter Above all you must realize no prophecy in scripture ever came from the prophets own understanding or from human initiative No, those prophets were moved by the Holy Spirit and they spoke from God And this is how they understood those books that have come together We call our Bible not divine dictation But divine direction through human personality the Holy Spirit was guiding the church into truth Look at this in Acts 4 the church is praying You spoke long ago by the Holy Spirit Through our ancestor David your servant saying and then they quote from the Old Testament Why were the nation so angry? Why did they waste their time with futile plans? You see what they were saying is these words that we revere as Holy Scripture They came from David, but they came through the Holy Spirit working in David and this explains What the Bible is? perpetually Relevant you've noticed this, right? This book that is 2,000 years old and older Has an amazing capacity to speak right where we are Because it's not a dead book Its author is the giver of life The Hebrew writer says for the Word of God is alive and powerful It's sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword cutting between soul and spirit between joint and marrow it Exposes our innermost thoughts and desires

You've had this happen. You're reading the Bible And all of a sudden the Bible is reading you And speaking exactly to what you need to hear and deal with and information starts to become transformation The Center for Biblical Engagement just published a study They they looked at over a hundred thousand people over eight years Asking the question. What is the single greatest indicator that somebody is growing spiritually? You know what it is? Read the Bible four times a week Read the flesh 4 times a week Read the flesh Read the Bible regularly if you want to grow in spiritual life. In a fruit命phone Read the flesh four times a week And you know that's true because you don't know any spiritual and Imagine set it free No matter what it takes giants who don't know the Scriptures. It's not going to make sense This is why Satan's always attacking the Bible. This is why he's always trying to get us to discredit the Bible. This is why in any country that he can, he will outlaw the Bible because the Bible is God's truth from the giver of life. And it produces spiritual giants, and it births infants. I've got so many memories of this. One of our first church planters was a man named Chris Travis. He was an atheist.

He's in college, and he bought a King James Bible on purpose because he's an English major. He loved Old English. He just wanted to read something that had these and thous, and beget us, and hearketh, and goeth. And so he's reading in college a King James Bible. And before he graduates, he's a fully devoted follower of Jesus. Now he lives in New York City telling people about Christ. Some of you are familiar with the name R.C. Sproul, one of the greatest theologians of my generation, died a few years ago. He went to college, another unbeliever. He's on a football team. He and a freshman buddy are going to go out and hit the bars. He forgets his cigarettes, so he goes back into the dorm to get them with his friend. And the captain of the football team is sitting at a table saying, hey, freshman, come over here. So they do, and they sit down. The captain's a Christian, but he doesn't try to convince them to worship Jesus. He just tries to talk about the wisdom of the Scripture. And he quotes Ecclesiastes 11.3. Wherever a tree falls to the north or to the south, that's where it will lay. And the Holy Spirit impressed on R.C. Sproul this thought, you're a dead tree and you are going nowhere. And he went up to his dorm room and got on his knees and prayed to Christ. He said, I've got to be the only person in the world converted by a verse about a tree.

But this is because it's not a dead book. It's life in it. One of my favorite stories, Liz Curtis-Higgs, a popular Christian speaker, was at our women's conference about 10 years ago, another unbeliever. She was in the radio industry. She was an atheist, a radical feminist. She was extremely immoral. I'll tell you how wild she was. Howard Stern told her to settle down. And she's in Louisville working at a radio station, and two fellow workmates invite her to church on Sunday and said, well, buy your lunch. And the only reason she went was to get lunch. Went to Southeast Christian Church where my friend Bob Russell was pastor, preaching through the book of Ephesians. He's in chapter 5 on marriage where it says, wives, submit to your husbands. And the two friends said, oh, no, this is the worst possible day to bring Liz to church. And he continues to preach. The same text says, and husbands, you love your wives like Christ loved the church and laid down his life for them. And Liz leaned over to her friend and said, if I met a man that would die for me, I'd marry him in a heartbeat. And the friend leaned back and said, Lizzie, a man has already died for you. And in the one part of the Bible you think least likely to reach her heart, the Holy Spirit planted a seed of faith. And now she tells women all over the world about that faith. Peter said, you've been born again, but not to a life that will quickly end. Your new life will last forever because it comes from the eternal living

word of God. The Holy Spirit is the giver of a kind of life that lasts forever. I thought about that a lot last week. While we're in Southern California, my wife and I drove up one day to Los Angeles to see Lorenzo and Isabel Smith. I told you about Lorenzo back in January. He's a church planner. We supported him in Culver City, California, to begin a church. In October, he was diagnosed with aggressive terminal brain cancer. He's been through chemotherapy, he's been through radiation. There's no visible tumors in the brain now, but the doctors say that happens. But the seeds are still there, we just can't pick them up on scans. This cancer has not gone away. Maybe you have more time, maybe instead of a year, you have two. Now, we know God can heal and cure anything, and that's how we pray. But as we visited, and there were lots of laughter, but there were some tears. We saw a couple that are determined, we're gonna enjoy every day we have. While fully cognizant, we may not have many more days. But they weren't full of bitterness or cynicism. Nobody was angry with God. You know what they were full of? Love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and gentleness and self-control. They are living this supernatural kind of life together because they are full of the spirit of God. When we left our time with them,

I just remember thinking, man, I love God and I love Jesus. And in this specific moment, I really do love the Holy Spirit. And you know what? The Holy Spirit really does love me and you. And he reminds us that perfect love is the future. I've tried in this series to explain the unexplainable, the Trinity. Let me try one more time. The doctrine of the Trinity reminds us that the foundation of the universe is the love of the Godhead. Think about this. Before there was matter, before there was energy, before anything else, what existed? Love. Father, Son, and Spirit. In perfect, joyful, creative, selfless love. And our destiny is a future where anything that obstructs love is gonna be removed. No more cancer, no more war, no more bigotry. Anything that attacks love is going to be removed. And the best paragraph I've read yet to try to explain the unexplainable is this one. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit live in absolute unity of love. The Father glorifies the Son, the Son gives glory to the Father. The Spirit knows the thoughts of God and prays to God for our sake.

The Father has all authority, yet he gives that authority to the Son, and the Spirit speaks on God's authority. Meanwhile, the Son lives in absolute obedience to the Father, for the Son does only what he sees the Father doing, and the Spirit is sent by the Father in the name of Jesus. Do you see that in the Trinity, there's no jealousy, no politics, no power plays? The reason we can't find many good analogies for the Trinity is that we constantly live in such broken relationships that it's hard for us to imagine a community in which there's constant joy and creativity and each person pouring himself out for the others. It sounds crazy, but I think it would be theologically accurate to say, God is a party and you're invited. They did a survey a few years ago in our country. What one phrase would you like to hear more than any other? Number one was, I love you. Number two was, you're forgiven. And number three, supper's ready. And the Spirit wants to lead us to the best party ever because God loves you and God has washed you and God's prepared an amazing table and love will reign and joy will abound and nobody will ever get punched in the face. And so, I am so grateful for the Holy Spirit. And if you are too, then I'd like you to stand

and read the creed with me. We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life. He proceeds from the Father and the Son and with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified. He spoke through the prophets. Oh, Father, Son, Spirit, we worship. and adore you. Father, thank you for loving us so much you sent Jesus. Jesus, thank you for conquering sin and death. Spirit, thank you for living inside and reminding us that our eternity is sealed. Come Holy Spirit, fill our hearts, fill this church, make us more like Jesus. In his name we pray, amen.