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Jun 01, 2025

The Speaking Holy Spirit

Passage: Acts 1:1-26

Preacher: John Repsold

Series: Holy Spirit in Acts

Keywords: scripture, holy spirit, prophecy, inspiration, illumination

Summary:

The first chapter of Acts gives three references to the Holy Spirit's work in the writing and inspiration of Scripture as well as alludes to how the Holy Spirit in the believer illuminates the Scriptures we have been given so that "the light goes on" for each of us spiritually whenever the Spirit in the Word and the Spirit in us completes the circuit. This message looks at how all that works together so that God's Word comes alive in us.

Detail:

The Holy Spirit Speaks

June 1, 2025

 

Fellowship Question:  Tell someone about how God has spoken to you recently using His Word.

INTRO:  Complex language is one of those things that sets humanity off from the entire animal kingdom.  That’s not to say that animals don’t communicate.  They do, but not in complex language or ideas.  While whales and porpoises along with birds and insects may use sounds to communicate distress or danger or satisfaction, we have never found a school of fish holding philosophy or business classes in which they debate the pros and cons of Existentialism or Keynesian economics.  While there may be many reasons for that, one of them is certainly that they lack the ability and mental faculty to either speak and hear in multiple complex sounds or they simply lack the brain function necessary to think with the complexity that all human languages demand.

            Human communication, and language in particular, is one of those “made in the image of God” things that sets us off from the rest of creation.  There are other things like morality and conscience or abstract reasoning and spirituality that tell us we’re made in the image of God as well.  But language and our ability to understand it, the world and one another t through language, is uniquely human…and divine. 

            We all know that, as wonderful as human communication is, it is fraught with challenges, difficulties, misunderstanding and miscommunication.  Words and sentences get mixed up, misunderstood and misinterpreted.  When that happens, we usually suffer—emotionally, relationally and physically. 

            It’s hard enough for us as humans to clearly and accurately understand each other, even when we’re speaking the same language. But move communication outside or our species and we’re faced with a whole new set of problems.  How do I communicate with a bear in a way that it doesn’t see me as a threat and attack.  How do I communicate with a bird with a broken wing that I’m there to help, not harm?  We exist in the same world but our realities of existence are vastly different as our the ability to communicate. 

            This is something of the challenge God and we face in seeking to communicate with human beings across the divine-human divide. We are “different species” to say the least. 

While God created us to be able to communicate with Him and, to some limited degree, understand Him who is infinite, theologians have another term for how different and, in some ways, impossible it is to understand God.  They say God is “inscrutable” or “difficult to understand”—so different from us that it is impossible for us to fully or sometimes accurately understand Him. 

ILL:  For example, the fact that God is triune or tri-unity—3 persons in one being.  Like an ant trying to make sense of an automobile engine, I just can’t wrap my mind around it.  But it is a reality God tells us repeatedly and in different ways that He is, according to the Bible.  So, we keep wrestling with that truth and discovering why the tri-unity of God is such a great reality.

REVIEW:  in a short series on the Holy Spirit in the book of Acts.  It’s also a brief study of the Holy Spirit in the life of the church, God’s family in this age in history.  We saw last week from Acts 1 what the Holy Spirit does to baptize us into Christ, to fill us with himself and to empower us with gifts to do his work in the world. 

This week Acts 1 calls our attention to how God communicates with us by means of the Holy Spirit and how that can inform and shape our experience with God.  Just where does Dr. Luke tell us about that in Acts 1?

Acts 1:1-2-- I wrote the former account, Theophilus, about all that Jesus began to do and teach 2 until the day he was taken up to heaven, after he had given orders by the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen. 

            According to this verse, Jesus was moved by the Holy Spirit to give instruction, literally “orders”, to his Apostles during His 40 days post-resurrection on earth.  The Holy Spirit was prodding and moving Jesus to teach them yet again what they needed to focus on. 

NOTE:  Jesus, the Son of God, God in human flesh, lived a life moved and directed in significant ways by the Holy Spirit. After being baptized and having the Spirit come upon him, we’re told that the Holy Spirit led him into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil (Mt. 4, Mark 1, Luke 4).  When that experience was complete, Jesus returned to Galilee “in the power of the Holy Spirit.”  Every part of His ministry, particularly his teaching ministry, was Holy Spirit led. 

APP:  Why is this significant?  Because Jesus is modeling for us how our lives are to be lived in connection with Him, the Father and the Holy Spirit.  Jesus didn’t have some sort of relationship with the Father and the Holy Spirit unattainable to us. He communed with the Father and the Holy Spirit just as we are invited to.  He heard from them what he was to communicate and command others to do just like we are invited to do. 

            This is why, in Mark 13:11, Jesus could say essentially, “When you are hauled before public officials for your faith, don’t worry about what to say because the Holy Spirit will tell you what to say.”  This was the experience of Jesus:  the Holy Spirit is a teacher (John 14:26) who was promised to us as the One who would both remind us of what Jesus has said as well as “teach you all things.”   

The next reference to the Holy Spirit in Acts 1 comes in verse 8—8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the farthest parts of the earth.”   Here the term “witness” means just that—someone who testifies to what they have seen or heard. 

            Again, notice the verbal nature of the work of the Holy Spirit with us.  When we are under the Spirit’s leadership and control, we will be moved to tell people about what Jesus is up to in our lives.  As one of you noted last week, THE most frequent effect of being filled with the Holy Spirit…being under the leadership/dominance of the Holy Spirit…is faithful witnessing to the work of God in our lives. 

Lastly, beginning in Acts 1:16, Peter is speaking to the 120 waiting those 10 days for the promised Holy Spirit to come.  “Brothers, the scripture had to be fulfilled that the Holy Spirit foretold through David concerning Judas—who became the guide for those who arrested Jesus— 17 for he was counted as one of us and received a share in this ministry.” [Now skip over to vss. 20.]   20 “For it is written in the book of Psalms, ‘Let his house become deserted, and let there be no one to live in it,’ and ‘Let another take his position of responsibility.’

            The first quote in vs. 20 is from Psalm 69:25 while the second is from Psalm 109:8.  Even before the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, Peter and the remaining Apostles recognize that the Holy Spirit has been very active in communicating through the Scriptures.  Here David is recognized as the writer in Psalms that the Holy Spirit used to write “scripture” in a prophetic way.  David may not have known fully how his words would apply to the promised Messiah, but the Holy Spirit did and so moved upon David that he wrote them by the Holy Spirit 1,000 years earlier.

            Here’s the truth I think we need to take from these verses about the Holy Spirit’s involvement in the creation of Scripture:  If you want to hear God speak, your life must be soaked in the speech of God—the Scriptures. 

            The early church did not go looking for supernatural manifestations of the Holy Spirit; they went to the Word of God to interpret the supernatural that God was doing in their day.  God spoke to them from this Word.  They ordered the church and their lives from this Word.  And they understood that this Holy Spirit that had been promised to them was the same Spirit of God that had spoken to and through saints of old in the Scriptures they now had. When they needed further direction, they looked to the Spirit-breathed Scriptures.  That was the dominant “voice” of God for the early church. 

            This is why the preaching of the Word has assumed a central part in worship services of many churches world-wide.  This is why Bible studies are so vital for so many Christians when we gather.  This is why time in the Word as frequently as we can (hopefully daily) is so important.  If you want to hear the voice of God, you must understand that God has and is speaking in this Book. 

            One of the sad realities of the history of God’s people is how quickly and readily we depart from cherishing the Holy Spirit-spoken Word of God.  Israel kept the temple rituals while abandoning the cherishing of the Word of God.  And, in short order, they became apostate and fell under God’s hand of discipline. 

            That same drift is the biggest danger, I think, facing the contemporary church.  Every single Christian denomination in decline today is there because, at some point, they started departing from believing that the Bible is the “inspired, authoritative, God-breathed Word of God.”  Just as in the Garden of Eden, apostacy and sin always begin with a doubting of the words of God.  “Did God really say…don’t eat that fruit?  Don’t hate that person?  Don’t sacrifice that child to a god of your making?  Don’t engage in that expression of immorality, etc.?

            That drift happens when we stop believing that “the scripture has to be fulfilled that the Holy Spirit foretold through” Moses or David or the Prophets of Matthew or Paul or John.  The belief we hold to that Scripture is inspired by God through human writers is not some newly-invented theology.  It is as ancient as this Book.  Both the human authors and the ancient readers believed that.  Let me briefly show you how we know that.

            Let me work in reverse from the N.T. to the O.T. 

  1. New Testament authors understood both the O.T. and most (if not all) of the N.T. to be God-inspired, God-given, God-breathed Scripture. A couple of examples should suffice (besides Acts 1:16).
  • Paul believed it: 2 Timothy 3:14-17-- 14 But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, 15 and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

While Paul doesn’t specifically define what he includes as “all Scripture”, we know that at the very least, he is referring to the O.T. books accepted by the Jews as authoritative, i.e. the Law, the Prophets and the books of poetry (Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon). 

  • Peter believed it: 2 Peter 1:20-21— Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation of things. 21 For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
  • Peter even believed it about Paul’s writings: 2 Peter 3:16—Speaking about Paul, Peter writes,  “He [Paul] writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other 

Scriptures, to their own destruction.

  • Jesus believed it: Matthew 5:17-19-- “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18 For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished. 19 Therefore anyone who sets aside one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. 
  • Jesus quoted extensively from the Pentateuch (all 5 books), Psalms and 8 of the 16 prophetic books. Just in case you’re wondering how literally you should take, for instance, the book of Jonah, Jesus tied the literal interpretation of Jonah being 3 days in the belly of the great fish with his 3 days in the tomb (Jonah 2:17; Mt. 12:40). 
  1. T. authors’ belief in the inspiration of the O.T.
  • Many of them explicitly stated they saw their writings as from the Spirit of God. Here’s 1 example:  Isaiah 59:21-- “As for me, this is my covenant with them,” says the Lord. “My Spirit, who is on you, will not depart from you, and my words that I have put in your mouth will always be on your lips, on the lips of your children and on the lips of their descendants—from this time on and forever,” says the Lord.  (See also 2 Sam. 23:2-3 & Jer. 1:9)
  • Hundreds of times that the O.T. authors attribute their words directly to God by the phrase, “Thus says the Lord.”
  • Hundreds of times they directly quote God with the phrase “The word of the Lord” or “Thy word….”
  • The fulfillment of often minute and very specific prophecies (Ex. Micah 5:2—Jesus born in Bethlehem). One-quarter of the Bible is prophetic.

If you want to dive into this more deeply, stay tuned next year when we roll out a 10-week class on Mosaic’s doctrine that will examine inspiration, inerrancy and the cannon of Scripture in one of those sessions. 

APP:  the point today for us to carry with us is that when we come to this Book, we are coming to words unlike any other in existence.  Many people can write inspiring literature.  But the Holy Spirit has written, through the minds, hearts and pens of the human instruments of Scripture, words that bring completely truth and the fullest of life forever. 

The connection between the words we have here and the Holy Spirit of God is, at minimum, a divine mystery.  I would prefer to say that the Holy Spirit is so integrally connected to these words that whenever we read them or hear them or meditate on them, we are able to encounter God himself.  The Bible is the only book whose author is always present when you read it.

Between the Holy Spirit that is in us and the Holy Spirit that is in these words, there is the potential that the divine circuit gets completed and the spiritual lightbulb goes on just like a light switch completes the electrical circuit when you walk in a dark room and flip it on. 

John 6:63-- The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you—they are full of the Spirit and life.

            Which all brings us to the final and very personal work of the Holy Spirit uniquely, with each of us, when it comes to His inspired Word and our interaction with it.  That circuit can be completed and yet it’s possible that the light still doesn’t go on, or if it does, it is rather dim at times.  There is another work of the Holy Spirit that causes this unique Word of God to come alive and bring real life.  It is called the Spirit’s work of ILLUMINATION.

            Illumination refers to the work of the Holy Spirit in helping us both properly interpret & apply the Word of God. They are two sides of the same coin—sound interpretation and sound application. Just because the Spirit of God was deeply engaged in creating this Word and is integrally involved IN this Word now doesn’t mean that when I read it, my understanding of it is spot-on.  But when we are operating under the control of the Holy Spirit and using sound interpretation, I believe the Holy Spirit will guard us from bad interpretation and instead lead us to wise, enlightened, sound understanding of any text. 

            That doesn’t absolve us of learning how to study God’s Word accurately.  That is something the Spirit of God is pulling all of us towards if we are really filled with the Spirit.  He who authored this book and communicated what can lead us into all truth does not want to see us reading it in misguided fashion.  He wants us to “get” what He intended to communicate.  Illumination is when the Holy Spirit helps us understand a given text as it actually is. It is, as R.C. Sproul, Jr., says, “His work as the perfect exegete, helping us poor exegetes try to stay out of trouble.”  [https://rcsprouljr.com/what-is-the-doctrine-of-illumination/]

            And once we “get” the intended meaning of a passage, the Holy Spirit in us is not content to just let the process end there.  His passion is to “screw in the light bulb” so that the flowing electricity of understanding produces the light of personal enrichment.  As we come in contact with the power of the Holy Spirit-breathed Word, that very same Spirit that flowed into and through the Apostle Paul or John or Matthew as they wrote wants to speak just as powerfully to me about where and how that Word can be applied to my life, my heart, my thoughts and words and deeds. 

            There are a couple of passages regarding this that are important to consider.  First, John 14:26. 

The context is Jesus speaking to his Apostles about the coming Holy Spirit whom he calls “the Counselor” here. “But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.”  Clearly, in this context, Jesus is assuring the Apostles, some of whom will be the human instruments He uses to write the N.T., that the Holy Spirit will be working with them in that process to tell them what they need to know as well as remind them of what Jesus said.

            So, what part of that promise applies to us?  While God is not giving me new revelation on a par with Scripture, what He is promising to do by the Holy Spirit is to “teach [me] all things” that I need to know in order to grow in Jesus Christ just as much as the Apostles themselves grew.  In the process of doing that, it is the Holy Spirit that will also be reminding me of what Jesus and the whole of Scripture has to say to me in the situations and life challenging me. 

            The second passage is in 1 Corinthians 2:12-13.  Paul, speaking about the truth he has received from God to pass on to us through the work of the Holy Spirit, says this:

12 What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. 13 This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words. 

            The very content of the Scriptures is “spiritual realities” given to us with “Spirit-taught words.”  No other writings in all of history explain spiritual realities like the Bible does.  No other book in all of human history contains words that God wants to use to teach us what we need to know to grow in grace and the knowledge of Jesus.  Something very spiritual and very Spirit-filled can happen when we engage these words with a ready heart, a God-dominated mind and a Spirit-filled soul. 

Obstacles to Illumination:  There is plenty in our own souls that can get in the way of the Holy Spirit illuminating His word to us.  Our own foolishness, our ignorance about how to correctly handle God’s word, our own indifference and spiritual rebellion, and even our own traditions and pre-conceptions about what God is doing can hinder a fresh and accurate understanding and application of God’s word.  That’s why the Holy Spirit is also known as the great Convictor—convicting us and the world of sin, righteousness and judgment.  He’s always trying to remove those obstacles to making this Word fruitful in our lives. 

APP:  So how does this translate into daily transformation in our encounters with God the Holy Spirit in His Word?

#1.  Without the presence of the Holy Spirit in you, there is no possibility that the “circuit” of divine illumination will happen to you.  Therefore, trust in Jesus who gives the Holy Spirit.  You must be “born again” by the Spirit through faith in Jesus Christ. 

ILL:  My father reading the Bible before knowing Jesus as his personal Lord and Savior and after meeting Christ.  Night and day.

[CALL to faith in Jesus.]

#2.  Assuming that you are already convinced that being in God’s word on a daily basis is vital for your connection with the power of God (which may be a BIG assumption), HOW we approach our time in the Word is critical.  I cannot sit down and read this like I would any magazine or novel and expect to have the spiritual light go on.  So, here is what I would encourage you to do to help the lights go on when you open this book:

  • Prayer: Stop and PRAY.  It may be as short a prayer as, “Lord, please open my eyes, my heart, my mind to what you want to say to me today in your Word.”  Or it may involve a few minutes of asking God to clear out distractions, sin in my soul, spiritual cobwebs, etc. 
  • Persistence: Read until the light goes on…until something in the text speaks to your heart, your circumstances, your life.  That’s when the Spirit of truth has been able to take His Word of truth and apply it with power and meaning to your life. 
  • Personal Journaling: Jot down what the Holy Spirit has illuminated to you --in a simple sentence or two in a running journal. Then you can go back at the end of the day or week and be both refreshed and encourage by what God did with that truth. 

The Holy Spirit of God has been and continues to speak to God’s children.  And He continues to want to complete the circuit with His power and presence that brings light into our darkness and power into our weakness. 

 

Psalm 119:130-- The unfolding of your words gives light; it gives understanding to the simple.