The Holy Spirit plays an active role in the lives of believers from salvation to glorification. Sometimes, it’s not always evident or clear what that role is. We’re in the middle of our closer look at what He does, learning how He helps us and why Jesus said it was to our advantage that He go away and the Holy Spirit comes (John 15:7). This week we’ll look at how the Holy Spirit helps in our witness.
One way to think about helping with our witness is that it’s the other half of helping with salvation. We saw in the first post that the Holy Spirit works in the heart of the hearer. He also works in the one doing the speaking, preaching, teaching, testifying or witnessing. This fits with the Spirit’s purpose of bringing glory to Christ. After all, someone coming to Jesus for salvation brings Him glory.
The Spirit helps our witness in a at least three ways.
The Spirit gives us clarity.
Paul explains, “We also speak these things, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual things to spiritual people” (1 Corinthians 2:13). When the truths of God–especially the gospel–are delivered in a way that they connect with the hearers, the Spirit is at work. We see examples in the early church like Stephen in Acts 6. He made his case for Christ’s messiahship so strongly, it was irrefutable. They didn’t believe but they couldn’t argue with any of the truth Stephen presented. Another example was Philip in Acts 8 who was able to clearly trace the gospel through the eunuch’s reading in Isaiah.
In the same way, the Spirit can help us with just the right word or example when we need it. (This is not to say we should be lazy or unprepared.) But we shouldn’t be afraid to speak up when an opportunity arises. We’ll come back to this in just a moment.
The Spirit gives us power.
We shouldn’t conflate that Spirit-given clarity with just gifted oratory. We’ve all heard captivating speakers or even storytellers. But when we witness for Christ, there’s more going on. Even the Apostle Paul experienced it. “My speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of wisdom but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power” (1 Corinthians 2:4).
When we witness, people will never be convinced or persuaded solely because of the compelling argument we make. The words have power because the Holy Spirit’s power infuses them.
The Spirit gives us the opportunity.
“When the Counselor comes, the one I will send to you from the Father — the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father — he will testify about me. You also will testify, because you have been with me from the beginning” (John 15:26-27). The Spirit is at work in and through our encounters with others. He prepares the hearts of the hears and then once the prep work is done He moves us to speak.
Because of this we can have confidence when the Spirit nudges us to tell our story. Now this doesn’t mean that if a conversation doesn’t end with someone professing faith in Christ that the Spirit wasn’t in it, or we spoke out of turn. It means our job was to plant a seed, or even water it. Someone else will be there to see the fruit. We never have to feel pressure to “close the deal” when we tell someone about Jesus. Our responsibility is to be obedient and faithful. The Spirit is responsible for the results.
Let’s resolve to take the opportunities and speak what the Spirit gives us to say in His clarity and power.