One Spirit
John 6:60-69
Andrew Root story from Faith Formation in a Secular Age:
"We talked about faith absent any language of transcendence or divine action. Here we were talking about “faith,” and yet we had made no assertions about faith having anything to do with a realm beyond us, with a God who comes to us in death and resurrection, Spirit and transformation."
“Good, because the church has no future without youth. I really believe if anyone is going to save us, it will be the young. But first, we’ve got to keep them.”
“Since the days of the youth movement, church youth work has often lacked that element of Christian sobriety that alone might enable it to recognize that the spirit of youth is not the Holy Spirit and that the future of the church is not youth itself but rather the Lord Jesus Christ.”
–Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Where one acts, all act.
Where one is present, all are present.
The Father is Creator.
The Son is Redeemer.
The Spirit is Renewer.
Yet, these distinctions must not turn to divisions in our concept of God.
The Trinity cannot be divided.
John 6:60-69
60 Therefore, when many of his disciples heard this, they said, “This teaching is hard. Who can accept it?”
61 Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, asked them, “Does this offend you? 62 Then what if you were to observe the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? 63 The Spirit is the one who gives life. The flesh doesn’t help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and are life. 64 But there are some among you who don’t believe.” (For Jesus knew from the beginning those who did not believe and the one who would betray him.) 65 He said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted to him by the Father.”
66 From that moment many of his disciples turned back and no longer accompanied him. 67 So Jesus said to the Twelve, “You don’t want to go away too, do you?”
68 Simon Peter answered, “Lord, to whom will we go? You have the words of eternal life. 69 We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.”
The Action of the Holy Spirit:
The Spirit convicts the world of sin (John 16:8–11).
The Spirit reveals and glorifies Jesus (John 16:12–15).
The Spirit empowers our confession of Jesus as Lord (1 Cor. 12:3).
The Spirit gives us new birth (John 3:5–6).
The Spirit gives us new life and a new status as children of God (Rom. 8:10–11, 14–17).
CSB Ephesians 3:14-19
14 For this reason I kneel before the Father 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named. 16 I pray that he may grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power in your inner being through his Spirit, 17 and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. I pray that you, being rooted and firmly established in love, 18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the length and width, height and depth of God’s love, 19 and to know Christ’s love that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
The Holy Spirit is not an accessory to your life; He is your life. But you will either live today by what you can see, or by the unseen presence of the Giver of life.
• Ask daily to be filled — Begin each day this week with Paul’s prayer from Ephesians 3:14–19. Pray it for yourself, slowly, asking God to do it in you.
• Name your ‘visible’ crutches — Identify one area where you’ve been relying on what you can control, measure, or predict rather than on the Spirit.
• Practice Spirit-listening — Set aside a few minutes in your day (morning, lunch break, evening) simply to be quiet before God, asking the Spirit to speak or nudge you. Journaling can be helpful.
• Act in faith — When you sense the Spirit prompting you to do something this week—encourage someone, confess sin, serve, step into a risk—obey quickly, even if you can’t see the outcome.
