Scripture Text: John 14:5-26
Memory Verse: Now hope does not disappoint, because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us. Romans 5:5
Lesson Aim: To identify the purpose of the baptism of the Holy Spirit and its impact on recipients.
We read in Hebrews 6:4-5 that those who have been made partakers of the Holy Spirit have tasted the powers of the world to come. We have been brought into contact with a power that belongs to the next age, but that is available to us now. The book of Acts is a record of the 1st Century church. Due to the baptism of the Holy Spirit, miracles were a regular occurrence in the early church. Thus, the baptism in the Holy Spirit is the entrance into the supernatural.
We can talk about the New Testament, but we cannot fully experience it without the supernatural. The following paragraphs discuss five aspects of the purpose of the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
1. Power to witness (Acts 1:8). The baptism of the Holy Spirit gives us power to be witnesses of Jesus Christ—not a doctrine, not primarily of an experience, but of Jesus Himself.
2. For prayer. This experience should produce a revolution in the believer’s prayer life. Notice Romans 8:26-27, “Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.”
In this aspect of prayer, the believer becomes a temple in which the Holy Spirit conducts a prayer meeting. When you are baptized in the Holy Spirit you become an instrument of the Holy Spirit praying through you. Ephesians 6:18 encourages praying in the Spirit. You cannot pray always in your understanding; you cannot pray always in your physical body, but the Holy Spirit can.
3. To teach us. “But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things” (John 14:26). The Holy Spirit is the greatest teacher of the Scriptures, and is also the great revealer of Jesus Christ. The Bible is the written Word. The Holy Spirit is the author of the written Word. What better teacher could we want?
4. To guide us. We need supernatural guidance and direction to live in victory. “However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come” (John 16:13). If we live merely in the natural, we will go wrong many times. Noah had a supernatural revelation of what was coming to the earth. He was given the steps to take and the way to safety. Likewise, in these chaotic days we need to have contact with heaven in a very real and personal way.
5. For unity: According to 1 Corinthians 12:13, “For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body.” God had a unifying purpose in baptizing believers in the Holy Spirit. It is not to separate them, but to unite them.
Interact with God’s Word
- What impact was the Holy Spirit to have on the believers? Acts 1:8
- What marvelous powers have believers tasted? Explain. Hebrews 6:1-5
- In what other ways besides talking does the Holy Spirit enable a believer to be a witness for Jesus? Mark 16:15-20; Matthew 5:16, 43-46; John 14:26
- How can a believer show that the love of God is shed abroad in his heart? John 13:35; Romans 13:10; 1 Corinthians 13:4-8
- Since we should not only pray with our intellect, in what way does the Holy Spirit impact our prayer life? Romans 8:26-27
- Discuss what it means to pray in the spirit. 1 Corinthians 14:13-16; Jude 1:20; Ephesians 6:18
- Identify the nine spiritual gifts given by the Holy Spirit. 1 Corinthians 12:1-11, 31; 14:1