The Holy Spirit Testifies to Christ

Carl Baum has been sharing on the Holy Spirit throughout the month of January. I have been encouraged by this series, as I hope you have. I was impacted on the message about the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament. I was really excited to see the Holy Spirit working to bring about God's purposes without fail, and it was also surprising how few people in the Old Testament were filled by the Spirit, only Moses, seventy elders, a few judges, two kings, and many of the prophets. It is amazing to think how strong a contrast that is to the pouring out of the Holy Spirit at and after Pentecost, even up to the present time.

It's that work of the Holy Spirit until now that I want to talk about. In I Corinthians 12:3, it says,

Therefore I tell you that ... no one can say, "Jesus is Lord," except by the Holy Spirit. I Corinthians 12:3

I want to take a little while to testify that “Jesus is Lord,” how I came to Christ, and the role that the Spirit had in it.


Actually, I've gone to church my entire life. My parents are faithful church-goers, and I was there nearly every Sunday. I went to Sunday school classes and participated in youth group. I went on retreats, participated in dramas, and even read the liturgy in a few special youth services. If anyone looked at my outward appearance on Sunday, they would say, “This guy is saved and following the Lord.”

But, I was not saved. I was involved in sin. I was scheming and planning to try to get into more sin. I was a miserable, lonely and somewhat bitter person.

Keith Green once said, “Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than going to McDonalds makes you a hamburger.” I can actually remember telling my youth pastor, “I don't understand why we talk about Jesus so much. Why don't we study more about Moses or some of the other guys in the Old Testament.” I honestly did not understand why Jesus was so important even though I had spent over 500 hours warming a pew, an equal amount of time in Sunday school and taken communion no less than 20 times. I was about as lost as the day is long. I Corinthians 2:14 says,

The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, --I Corinthians 2:14

So, there I was. Full of information from church and the Bible, but it was meaningless to me. Fortunately, God “wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth.” (I Timothy 2:4) And this story has a happy ending.

Proverbs 16:9 says, “In his heart a man plans his course, but the Lord determines his steps.” I shared once before how I decided to honor my Dad and apply to Clemson, but I had no intention of going to school here. Long story short, here I am. Also, as a freshman, I had a senior for a roommate. He was in mechanical engineering. He was a Christian, and he went to church at Clemson Community Church. My first Sunday at Clemson, he said, “Where you going to church?” “I dunno,” was my response. “Well, come on, you're going with me.” That was a critical moment for me. I was so accustomed to going to church, that I was not going to disagree. But, if he had not asked me, I would have easily stayed home that Sunday, and maybe the next, and who knows where that would have led.

Okay, so I was still not saved at this point. Going to a different church does not automatically bring you to Christ either. My roommate was involved in Campus Crusade, so some of the staffers from Crusade started following up with me. One guy came by my room, and shared a salvation tract with me. I had heard all the stuff in that tract in my childhood church-going, so I didn't understand my need any better than before. Later on, a couple of guys shared a tract on the Holy Spirit, and that really hit my heart.

I had no idea that God had a plan for everyone's life. I had never heard that the Holy Spirit was our empowerment from the Father. Before this point, I thought that the Holy Spirit had the best job in the Trinity. He just sat around and ate potato chips and watched reruns on a black and white in heaven. My thinking was not “spiritually discerned.”

I want to share a couple of things from this tract because they were so transformational for me. Maybe they will be helpful to some of you as well.

Have you made the wonderful discovery of the Spirit-Filled Life?

You can find the entire tract located here: http://www.greatcom.org/english/spirit.htm

I prayed the prayer in the tract, and I meant it when I asked the Holy Spirit for power. I didn't stop smiling for two weeks after that. Just like John Newton wrote, “how precious did that grace appear the hour I first believed.” There was no church retreat where people come forward for the altar call, there was no special music. There was just the blessed assurance of Jesus Christ. C.S. Lewis wrote a book about his salvation experience. The title of that book is Surprised by Joy. That was exactly how I felt. Something I had known about nearly my entire life, finally had meaning for me. I was saved for all eternity, and this confused, bitter, lonely sinner was certainly “surprised by joy.”

So, in my salvation experience, the Holy Spirit was directly involved in bringing me to that point both in my circumstances (coming to Clemson, my roommate's influence), and in my understanding of the truth (what is the ministry of the Holy Spirit). We see this played out again and again in the book of Acts as Carl shared last week. Also, many of you who are here today can share stories about how certain people came together, or how you were drawn to people who would be instrumental in leading you to Christ. I encourage you to share those stories to encourage and reach others for Christ. It will bless you to retell it, too.

We're going to take communion in just a moment, but I wanted to share about the first time that I took communion in my parent's church after I was saved.

For the 10 years before I was saved, I did not recognize the body of the Lord, when I took communion. And as it is written in I Corinthians 11, I was eating and drinking judgment on myself. I had no Savior, I had no Lord.

I'm pretty sure it was Easter my freshman year about 6 months after I had gotten saved. It was a very special occasion for me. I remember being excited to see the bread and the cup on the table. It was an opportunity where I could demonstrate the change in my life. In my heart, I was saying, “God for all the times I've taken the bread and the cup without a clue, for all the times I did not understand the point, for all the times I disregarded and trampled on your sacrifice by my attitude and my sin, I'm sorry. I did not understand what you did. I did not realize how perfect and holy you are. I did not realize what you went through. I did not understand why you did it. I didn't know that you suffered a horrible and painful death for me so that I could come to heaven and live eternally. Thank You for your forgiveness. Thank You for saving me.”

At the last supper, when Jesus showed the disciples how to break the bread and take the cup. That is an incredibly intimate moment between God Most High and the disciples and ultimately to all believers. We are a part of that special moment. We can have confidence that our sins are forgiven because the debt of our sin has been paid by the perfect sacrifice of Jesus dying on the cross.

The Holy Spirit also testifies to us about this. First he says: "This is the covenant I will make with them after that time, says the Lord. I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds." Then he adds: "Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more." And where these have been forgiven, there is no longer any sacrifice for sin. Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful. Hebrews 10:15-23