Our study of the Book of Acts showed us the critical role the Holy Spirit had in the lives of the first believers, and in the explosion of the church. If we are going to see God do in our day what he did in the First Century we are going to need a deep experience with the Holy Spirit as the early believers had. We’ll be focusing on getting to know the Holy Spirit and his work in and through us over the next few weeks. Today we’ll try to answer the question, “Who or what is the Holy Spirit?” We’ll learn that the Bible gives a very clear answer to our question. Understanding the nature of the Holy Spirit helps us understand how we can have a deeper relationship with him.

We’ve learned that the Holy Spirit is a person and that he is divine, a member of the Holy Trinity. In this message we turn from focusing on who the Holy Spirit is in his essential being to who he is to us. We’ll learn he is the promised Spirit who has come to dwell in every born-again believer in Jesus. We’ll want to discover some of what that means to us, but before that we’ll answer a few questions: who does he dwell in, when does he come in to dwell, and how do we know he is dwelling in us?

The baptism of the Holy Spirit has been the focus of some unfortunate misunderstanding that has caused many Christians undue stress. Today we’ll discover exactly what the baptism of the Holy Spirit is, when it occurs, and what we are to experience as a result of it.

We are never commanded to be indwelt by the Holy Spirit or baptized by the Holy Spirit, but there is something we are commanded to do: to be filled with the Holy Spirit. In Acts we saw believers filled with the Holy Spirit or full of the Holy Spirit. What does this mean? How is a person filled with the Holy Spirit? What can we expect if we are filled with the Spirit? We’ll discover all of that in this message.

Being filled with the Holy Spirit has a deep impact on a believer’s life, but the impact is not to end there. As we’ll discover, immediately after commanding us to be filled with the Holy Spirit, Paul describes four ways in which this filling will be demonstrated. Each of these involves a different significant relationship in our life. All our closest and most important relationships are in the path of the Holy Spirit’s moving in our life. Rivers of living water (John 7:37-39) do flow out of those who are filled with the Spirit.

We’ve already discovered the critical importance of the Holy Spirit in the life of believers. However, there is a lot more to be said than what we’ve already covered. In this message we’ll focus on three critical needs in the Christian’s life that the Holy Spirit takes care of. In all, there are ten ministries of the Holy Spirit we’ll need to cover in order to do this.

The church owes its existence to the Holy Spirit. Without the Holy Spirit there would be no church, as we learned from our study of Acts and our earlier studies in this series. We readily think of the absolute necessity of the Holy Spirit’s work in expanding the church into the world in fulfillment of Jesus’ promise in Acts 1:8, but the Holy Spirit is also carrying on other work in the church that is critical to its life and health as well. In this message we’ll look at seven on-going ministries the Holy Spirit has in the church today.

Does the Holy Spirit have anything to do with non-Christians? After all, he is the special gift of Christians and plays an essential role in their lives. Does that mean his work is restricted to believers? We’ll quickly learn the answer to that question is no, and we’ll then discover four key rioles the Holy Spirit is playing in the lives of non-Christians we know and in non-Christians everywhere.

So far our study of the work of the Holy Spirit in Christians and in the church has been extraordinarily positive and encouraging. However, we must take a little time to issue a warning about our relationship with the Holy Spirit. As powerful as the Spirit is, we can actually hinder his working. This is quite serious, so today we’ll discover four ways we might be guilty of doing this and have a chance to examine ourselves to see if we are hindering the Spirit’s work. Let’s be open to his conviction as we listen today.

Every Christian has been given at least one spiritual gift so that all of us can be involved in ministry, Our gifts make us valuable to others in the body of Christ and their gifts are important to our own spiritual health and growth. What spiritual gifts are, how they are given, what some of them are, and God’s purpose for giving them will all be in focus in this message about the further work of the Holy Spirit in believers’ lives.