If you’ll turn with me in your Bibles, our first scripture passage comes from the prophet Joel in chapter 2. Beginning with the 28th verse, Joel writes:
‘And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. Even on the male and female servants, in those days I will pour out my spirit. And I will show wonders in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke. The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved; for in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem, there shall be those who escape, as the Lord has said, and among the survivors shall be those whom the Lord calls.’
From the prophecy of Joel, we turn to Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, his first letter, beginning in the sixth chapter at the ninth verse:
‘Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed; you were sanctified; you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
All things are lawful for me, but not all things are helpful. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be dominated by anything. Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food, and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is not meant for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. And God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power.
Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never! Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, the two will become one flesh. But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexual immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.’
This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Let us pray: Heavenly Father, you have given us your word. You have spoken by the prophets, you have spoken by your Son, you have spoken by the apostles, and we hear them today. Open our ears to hear, our hearts to understand and receive the difficult words you give to us at times. We ask that you make them as honey in our mouth and as well in our stomachs so that we may appreciate them, that we may understand them, and that you may put them to good purpose in our lives. In Jesus’ name we pray, amen.
Following Christ’s death on the cross, his disciples felt abandoned, lost, alone, discouraged, and afraid. They had come to believe in Jesus as the Messiah and as God’s Son. They had placed all of their trust, all their hopes and dreams, into their expecting him to inaugurate an earthly messianic kingdom—hopes that only a week before had appeared to be on the cusp of fulfillment with Jesus’s triumphant entry into Jerusalem.
But now their teacher, their protector, their master, and their friend was dead. He was gone, having passed out of this world, having gone where they could not follow. They had lost their source of hope; their Emmanuel was gone. Jesus, the perfect expression of the Lord’s glory and presence, had passed away from their view. They were very much like the exiles back in Babylon, feeling abandoned by God and alone, frightened of an uncertain future.
Except, unlike during the exile, God’s presence did not leave them because of the Lord’s judgment, but because of the false accusations and the judgment of wicked and unscrupulous men. But God never forgets or abandons his people, even when we feel like he has. When our hope is in Christ Jesus, it is never lost because he is faithful, and he always keeps his promises.
On the third day following his crucifixion, Jesus rose from the dead and appeared to his disciples. Their hope was miraculously renewed; their faith in him was rewarded, even if they did not yet fully understand it. After his resurrection, he explained even more things to them. He helped them to understand everything that had passed, and he reminded them of all the things he had said before his death, and of the things which were still yet to come, particularly the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Writing in Luke, he says, ‘And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you, but stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.’
Now, most of us here know the story of how on the day of Pentecost, after Jesus ascended into heaven, the Holy Spirit was poured out onto the apostles, manifesting invisible tongues of fire above their heads and with the miraculous sounds of language they spoke to all the gathered crowds. Particularly, Peter spoke of this fulfillment of Joel’s Old Testament prophecy concerning the pouring out of the Lord’s spirit onto his people, and also many other prophecies regarding Jesus.
Where, by his preaching and the work of God’s Spirit, some 3,000 people were added to the fellowship of the church. This new ecclesia of God’s redeemed people was united together by a shared faith in Jesus Christ, redeemed people joined by the presence and power of the Holy Ghost.
The Acts of the Apostles further chronicles the growth of this church across the length and breadth of the Roman Empire, and this growth is punctuated by notes of the Spirit filling believers. Paul also repeatedly writes about the gift and presence of the Holy Spirit being given and received as a sign of a Christian’s union with Christ.
Now today, this morning, there are three things we want to consider about this gift of the Holy Spirit: his dwelling within us as believers, who is it that receives this gift and who receives him; what does his indwelling presence mean and do to us; and what do we do now, now that God the Holy Spirit dwells within us?
See, the prophecy of Joel as a whole is rather interesting. It is one of the minor prophets, so-called because of its length, not because of its importance. The prophecy greatly concerns the coming day of the Lord. While most Christians are very familiar with the passage we read this morning, since it’s quoted and expounded by Peter there on Pentecost, much of the rest of the prophecy tends to be ignored, except by those who spend their time looking in the Bible and looking at the news, looking for signs and dates and times for Christ to return.
However, the historical and literary context of prophecy is always important for understanding it better. The principle interpretation of this passage from Joel was clearly expounded by Peter, but there are still more things to understand from it, particularly that the gift of the Holy Spirit is a sign of God’s favor given specifically to his chosen people—a sign of Emmanuel, truly the sign that God is with us by dwelling within every believer.
Regarding the context, first, we do not really have a good understanding of exactly when this prophecy was written. Unlike with Jeremiah and Isaiah, or Ezekiel and the others, there are no details establishing a particular date. But by its internal evidence, it is likely to have been written either after the fall of the northern kingdom but before the fall of Jerusalem, or was written after the reconstruction of the temple following the Babylonian exile.
But generally, the historical and scholarly consensus leads us to believe that it was the earlier time. Secondly, who was this prophecy written to and for? Who was the intended audience? Joel was a prophet in the land of Judah, and this prophecy is addressed to the elders and all who live in the land, calling particular attention to drunkards, being sinners, the priests, and all the other ordinary people of the land and of the Jewish religion.
This prophecy calls them—and us—to repentance, calling them and us to return to the Lord in faith and devotion. So responding to the people’s anticipated repentance, God replies with promises of material and life-sustaining blessings, with restoration from the privations and trials that they were suffering. Promising them that ‘then you will know that I am in Israel, that I am the Lord your God, and there is no other; never again will my people be shamed.’
However, it’s important to note that these blessings were not equally promised to all people, or even to all the people of ethnic Israel. Joel speaks also prophecy concerning the judgment of the nations, upon all those who have persecuted God’s faithful and upon those who have been faithless in not trusting in him alone, promising that in his coming judgment, the Lord will be a refuge for his people, a stronghold for the people of Israel.
These promised blessings and security were only for God’s covenant people, Israel, because by this time the nation of Israel, the northern kingdom, was gone. So, it’s only for his called and chosen people, his elect. The blessings are only for those individuals whom God collectively calls my people.
Third, who then are God’s people, Israel? There are important differences to remember when thinking of ethnic Israel and elect or covenantal Israel—differences which become quite stark and clear following the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost. The difference depends upon which covenant they’re a part of. All of ethnic Israel was covered by the old covenant, the covenant made and ratified at Mount Sinai with Moses—that particular covenant of works, the law that the people repeatedly broke and so suffered the penalties and curses of, particularly that generation that was brought out of Egypt.
This was never a covenant which would earn them eternal salvation, but it is one that did cost them temporal blessings. Alternatively, elect or covenant Israel consists of all of those that are called by God to be inheritors of his covenant promise. That covenant promise is given to Abraham, but not to Isaac, but not to Ishmael, to Jacob but not Esau, and all of their spiritual heirs in faith, which includes us, the church.
So while the prophecy of Joel may have been given for all the people, the promises of salvation and hope contained within have only ever been for God’s elect. They are the intended and responsive audience for this divine proclamation.
So, understanding this, Joel’s prophecy regarding the Holy Spirit, his gift, becomes more clear. Because all does not always—in fact, all rarely ever—means all people. This is not a universal outpouring of the Spirit onto everyone, but it is universally poured out on all who believe in Christ. And it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, and your young men shall see visions. Even on the male and female servants, in those days, I will pour out my spirit.
When the prophet declares that God’s spirit will be poured out on all flesh, he’s declaring something new and radical. He is clearly declaring this to be upon all the flesh of covenant Israel: your sons, your daughters, your old men, your young men, your male and female servants—everyone who is a part of the household of God, his adopted and chosen Israel. The totality of God’s people would receive his Holy Spirit and not the wicked masses.
This is a radical idea of communion and unity between the Lord and his creation, never before considered or experienced by man. Throughout the Old Testament, God’s Spirit is rarely seen directly active in the lives of the multiples of God’s people. His presence is only ever known or experienced in one or two individuals at a time; only rare and exceptional individuals, only those who are used by the Lord for special and holy purposes ever received the power of the Holy Ghost.
Bezalel and Oholiab were the first people scripture describes as filled with the Holy Spirit. Moses declared them to be such for the purpose of design and crafting all the implements to be used in the tabernacle. Many of the judges over Israel were said to be filled with the Spirit, or at least to have God’s Spirit on them: men like Othniel, Gideon, Jephthah, and Samson. King Saul was gifted with the Holy Spirit until the Lord removed it for his disobedience. King David and the prophets were also given the Holy Spirit to preach God’s holy word and to call his people to faith and repentance.
But especially the Christ, the long-form Messiah, was prophesied to have God’s Spirit. Isaiah prophesies concerning him in chapter 11, saying, ‘There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit. And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the Spirit of counsel and might, the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.’
And so we remember the Spirit descending upon Jesus at his baptism, and when Jesus was baptized, immediately he went up from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened to him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, coming to rest on him.
Lastly, we have Jesus’s own declaration of the prophetic fulfillment in his Nazareth synagogue, saying, ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.’ All these individuals were empowered to be extraordinary, but now Joel prophesies that all of God’s chosen will share in this gift, in this blessing, and that is extraordinary.
He wrote, ‘And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved; for at Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be those who escape, as the Lord has said, and among the survivors shall be those whom the Lord calls.’
Those who receive his Spirit are them who call upon the name of the Lord, are them who shall be saved, are those whom the Lord calls from among the surviving and believing remnant of both ethnic Israel and the rest of humanity. Those whom God calls are those whom he saves; they are those who call upon his name; they are those who have been given his Holy Spirit and faith to believe in Christ.
Paul echoes Joel when he writes in Romans, ‘For those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those whom he predestined, he also called; and those whom he called, he also justified; and those whom he justified, he also glorified.’
And so that answers our second question: What does the presence of the Holy Spirit within believers do to and for us? The gift of the Holy Spirit is personally transformative for us. He gives us the confidence of our faith; he is our comforter and our teacher, opening our minds to the truth of God’s word and of who Jesus is.
His work is the work of transforming us, regenerating our hearts to hearts of flesh instead of stone, putting off the old man for the new creation in Christ. He applies the obedience and grace of Christ to us, removing our sins, giving us instead the righteousness of Christ, and raising us to eternal life with him. The Spirit is he who cleanses us and makes us holy vessels fit for our King.
When the Holy Spirit moves in, he comes in with a plan of renovation. We are all like old houses—decrepit or neglected, falling apart at the eaves—while God’s Spirit is the great contractor coming in to repair and rebuild. You might think that you only need a light remodel, like replacing kitchen counters or maybe the tile in the bathroom, but more often than not, the Spirit needs to go into full demolition mode.
He will throw out all your old furniture, tear down your walls, replace the floors, change all of your decorations, even changing the color scheme until you are reflective of King Jesus, who has bought this home. And that’s only the beginning. While the new floors are going in and the paint is drying, he’s also working on your facade.
Before he is done, you will have an external physical transformation as well as internal spiritual restoration. The Holy Spirit’s work within us is never complete this side of glory. This old house becomes the Holy Spirit’s new house; you are being made a dwelling fit for the King, a mansion pleasing to God.
And the good news is God does not consider you as some fixer-upper. Jesus is not a fix-it-and-flip-it investor looking to make a quick buck. He and his Spirit are resident restorers. The Holy Spirit is not preparing you to be a home for Christ so that then, after you are good enough, then Christ will move on in. No, he moves in and dwells inside you while you are still at your most decrepit, most dangerous, and most ugly point.
He moves in not for you to remain the same, but for you to be changed. He is 100% invested in you. Just like any other house in need of that kind of love, it’s going to be painful and unexpected challenges will appear. You, the house, will be absolutely no help in making these divine improvements. In fact, you and I will be often the greatest adversary and the greatest resistance to every change until we finally accept that they are for the better, for our advantage, until we finally get out of the Spirit’s way and stop resisting him, submitting our lives and our will to Christ.
Friday, August 13, 2004, was a day that changed my parents’ and my lives. You can liken it to a born-again experience in some regards because suddenly our lives prior to that day became known as BC: Before Charlie. Hurricane Charlie was a category 4 storm with winds that peaked at 150 miles an hour. It made landfall near our home in Port Charlotte, crossed Charlotte Harbor, and then proceeded north, following the Peace River.
The storm devastated the region, and in many ways, Charlotte County has never truly recovered. Our house was ruined; we lost the roof, flooding from the top down, our skylights blew out, palm trees were torn out from the ground, and our pool cage was ripped off with parts of it being found further down our canal, twisted up with other cages.
Because we learned after the fact that a mini tornado had traveled down our canal during the storm. Fortunately, in the Lord’s providence, we were all safe and unharmed—us, our cats, and our birds. Sorry, Charlie; God is good all the time. Our home was ruined; black mold set in because of all the wet getting through the sheetrock into the wooden studs. Our home was in the worst condition any standing structure could be in without being condemned and razed.
Before the Holy Spirit moves into the heart of those who claim Christ as their Lord and Savior and begins his cleansing work of regeneration, our spiritual condition is worse than that house following Hurricane Charlie. But like what the Spirit does within us, my parents’ home was slowly restored. The interior was reduced to an open floor plan; walls were torn down and rebuilt, new ceilings were installed, carpet was replaced, new furniture was purchased. Many family mementos were preserved, but many others were not. My parents had a new tile roof installed, replacing the old shingles.
The house was repainted, the yard was cleared. The house had been restored, but it was also transformed. It was the same house, but it was also different and new. I have no idea what the total financial cost to my folks was, but I do know the emotional toll that all three of us have suffered, and I can testify to the spiritual benefit which we all gained from the experience.
We were also fortunate in that my Uncle Greg was a Florida contractor, so we had a lot of help in restoration from our family, and we are all still so very grateful. But though I do not know the financial cost to renovate from Charlie, I do know what the cost was for our spiritual renovation: God’s only son, Jesus, who died on the cross for our sins so that we might be washed clean and made good, and even better than new.
We are also blessed that we have a family, like my uncle, to help. Here in the church, helping each other with our spiritual transformation. We encourage one another, disciple each other, teach and counsel one another, supporting each other and, most importantly, loving one another. We can offer additional perspectives and viewpoints; we speak into each other’s lives, identifying areas where we need growth, repentance, or forgiveness. This is part of the Holy Spirit working inside of me and inside of you. Thank you, Jesus.
Still, since their house was restored, my parents have continued working on it, tweaking it, making improvements, making repairs, taking care of the home because the work is never finished. Just like the Spirit’s work within us will never be finished this side of glory. He keeps working on us; he keeps chipping away at all of our bad until we are finally what we are called to be: righteous.
And he will keep working on us until we are brought home to heaven or until Jesus returns for all of his saints. Now Paul asks the Corinthians and us: ‘Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?’ That was once us, but by the grace of God, no longer.
The Holy Spirit is the one who makes us to be righteous; he sanctifies us. He is the one who transforms us from being sinners into saints, into the holy ones. Now, today, we’re not going to delve into that long list of sins and sinful identities which Paul lists here. Suffice it to say though that it is a list running the whole gamut of sin of different examples, violations of the Lord’s Torah.
But understand it is not an exhaustive list; it is only a few examples of the many sins which every one of us is guilty of. But God, by the Holy Spirit, has washed us, sanctified us, and justified us in Christ Jesus. Our sins have been forgiven and have been removed as far as the east is from the west, so we are now numbered among the righteous in him.
So that we share in his inheritance, Paul writes here what is one of my favorite verses in all of scripture: ‘And such were some of you.’ The operative word here being ‘were,’ as in you no longer are. Those sins and those identities no longer apply to you; they do not describe you; they do not define you.
Only your status as being in Christ, united with him in the Spirit, defines you. You have been changed, transformed by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, and claiming any other identity for yourself—anything other than Christ as the core of who you are—is idolatry.
It’s very easy for any one of us to fall into that trap of idolatrous identity. It is not confined just to those who claim a homosexual identity or those who identify as a race descriptor or being a political or national identity, like Republican, Democrat, liberal, conservative, American, or immigrant, or even an identity as Presbyterian, Baptist, Roman Catholic, Calvinist, Armenian.
Those things might be descriptive of you, of some part of you, but none of those are who you are. Whenever one of those descriptors transitions from being an identifier to an identity, whenever they become the definition of who you are, becoming your core instead of being in Jesus Christ, you deny the new creation by going back to what you were.
If you claim any identity for yourself aside from or in addition to Jesus, then that is not evidence of the Holy Spirit indwelling you. Instead, it is evidence that you might well remain in your sin and need to repent. Christians are no longer who they were; those things are in the past; they’re done and gone. Our sin and sinfulness do not define us.
Our sin is never who we are, for if we’re filled by the Holy Spirit, then we are justified in Christ and have been made righteous by the cleansing work of the Spirit.
So now what? Now that we have our spiritual renovator living inside of us, what do we do now that our bodies have become a dwelling place for the Holy Spirit? We’re now mishkans; we are now tabernacles for the Holy Ghost.
Paul says, ‘Your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you.’ For every temple is made for a dual purpose: as a dwelling place of divinity and second, as a place for the worship of that divinity. The tabernacle of the wilderness was a portable temple, and we Christians are mobile dwelling places of the Holy Spirit, carrying Christ within us and worshiping him with our whole being.
Now that we’ve been regenerated, now that we are changed, now that we are no longer who and what we once were, we must live differently, living our lives in the constant worship and devotion for which we were created. Our lives after our spiritual rebirth are how we glorify God in our bodies.
Now we flee from the sins of our past, rejecting them in all we once were. Now we live striving to help our neighbors, to love our neighbors, helping those who need help, serving others selflessly because of what Jesus has done for us, doing those things commonly called the fruits of the Spirit.
So, as the Holy Spirit works inside of us, transforming us, cleaning us up, and rebuilding us, so too our outward appearance—how we live, what and how we say, and even how we look—will begin to change to resemble who we are on the inside. We are being conformed to the image of Christ, no longer conformed to the ways of this world.
We are being transformed, for as our heart goes, so goes our minds; and as our minds go, so goes our lives, living, loving, going, and doing as our Savior desires.
Now we do these things imperfectly because we are still works in progress, for we are constantly but slowly being made better by this residence and presence of the Holy Spirit. The presence of the Holy Spirit indwelling believers is our emotional and spiritual source for confidence and the surety that the Lord has not abandoned us and will never abandon us.
We are called by God who has elected us to be his dwelling place on earth, both as individual believers and as the greater church body, until he calls us and brings us to dwell with him in the New Jerusalem. He is forever our Emmanuel.
Now that the Holy Spirit dwells inside you, you will always have a comforter, a teacher, friend, and advocate near at hand. Now we want to live obedient to Christ and be worthy of the grace he has already given to us.
We are now tabernacles of God’s Spirit, united forever to our Lord Jesus, who dwells in us. We are not our own; we were bought for a very expensive price, and we have a holy resident renovating us. So glorify God with your body, heart, mind, and soul forevermore. Amen.