How God Promises To Help You The King's Church International Audio Podcast

The reality of life is that we all need help, and that we need help at every age and stage of life. Jesus talked about the Holy Spirit as the one who would help us.  
  
The Holy Spirit, is not an ‘it’ but a person: He is a He. The Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity, but often described as the neglected person of the Trinity. Many have heard and know about the Father and the Son, but need to know a bit more about the Holy Spirit. 
  
Jesus spoke about the Holy Spirit and He made incredible promises about Him which are as life-changing for us today as when they were first given: 
 
1. The promise of the Holy Spirit is for every believer (Joel 2:28-29; Numbers 11:25; Mark 1:8; John 16:6-7) 
2. The promise of the Holy Spirit brings new life (Ezekiel 36:25-27; Romans 3:10-12; Ephesians 2:1,4-5; John 16:8; John 3:6) 
3. The Holy Spirit brings the presence of God to live inside us (John 14:16-18; John 15:9-10; Ephesians 3:14-19; John 14:27; John 15:11; Acts 16) 
4. The Holy Spirit will be your teacher (John 14:26; Jeremiah 31:33-34; John 16:13) 
5. The Holy Spirit gives us power to share our faith (Acts 1:8; Acts 2:38-39; John 7:37-38) 
 
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1. The promise of the Holy Spirit is for every believer. Several centuries before Jesus was born, the prophet Joel recorded a great promise from God about the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on all people (Joel 2:28-29). This is an astonishing promise that every Christian can take hold of. This promise is available for all people: it is equally for men and for women, and no-one is too young or too old to receive it. It is especially for those who serve in low positions. It is for the servants, slaves and handmaids. It is for ex-prisoners, those in debt, distress or discontented. No one is discounted. All are precious in God’s sight. In the Old Testament, there were just over a hundred people who are recorded as receiving the Holy Spirit, and that includes the seventy elders who received a share of Moses power at the same time (Numbers 11:25). The anointing of the Holy Spirit came upon roughly one person every 120 years. But at the day of Pentecost, Joel’s prophetic promise was fulfilled and about 120 people were filled with the Holy Spirit in one go. That’s more people in one day than the previous four thousand years combined! And that was just the start. We are living in a time that has seen the largest number of spirit-filled Christians in the whole of history. John the Baptist knew Jesus would usher in the Holy Spirit (Mark 1:8). Jesus Himself declared it to His disciples too (John 16:6-7). We are very fortunate that the invitation to receive the Holy Spirit is so generously offered to us, and we must never devalue it.  
 
2. The promise of the Holy Spirit brings new life. 600 years before the Pentecost outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the prophet Ezekiel also received a great promise from God about the life-changing work of the Holy Spirit (Ezekiel 36:25-27). This means we can be cleansed from bad attitudes and sin, have our hard hearts softened with compassion, be restored to life and relationship with our Father in Heaven. The Bible makes it clear that we are all dead men walking until we receive Jesus’ death for us. It’s not just that we’ve committed sins, but our human hearts have turned completely away from the God who created us, feeling we are free to do anything we want (Romans 3:10-12). Jesus told His disciples he had to be handed over to death to pay our ransom (Ephesians 2:1,4-5). Now, while it was Jesus’ death on the cross that brings the payment for salvation, it is the Holy Spirit who comes alongside us to soften our hearts, urging and appealing to us to turn back to God (John 16:8): 
- He convinces the world of sin: awakening your conscience to recognise how you have rebelled and done wrong;  
- He convicts the world of righteousness: to see that your self-righteousness is filthy compared to the righteousness of God