The Holy Spirit with Keri Folmar
Today we get to hear from Keri Folmar about the gift of the Holy Spirit and how we experience the love of God through this third person of the Trinity. This conversation is both deeply theological and deeply applicable, and we pray that it leaves you in awe of the love of the Holy Spirit and all the benefits of God that are available to you as a believer indwelt by the Spirit.
NOTES & QUOTES
“[The Holy Spirit] proceeds from the Father and the Son. Augustine has called him ‘the love between the Father and the Son,’ which is so deep when you really think about it.”
“He is a gift from the Father and the Son to every Christian.”
“There are not two classes of Christian. Every Christian is filled with the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit dwells within every person for whom Christ died.”
“The Holy Spirit is a person of God, but as you just said, he works through the Scriptures and he inspired the Scriptures. It's his Word and he illuminates the Scriptures. Of course he's going to use them in our lives, right?”
“The Scriptures and the Church. That's what I saw studying the Holy Spirit more and more, that God does extraordinary work through the Word of God and the people of God. The ordinary means of grace are how he does extraordinary work.”
“What's vital is that we know the gospel of Jesus Christ and we get them to the Scriptures, because the Scriptures are the inspired Word of God and they work in people's hearts.”
“You have to persevere, and we can persevere with these people because we know that it's only by the work of the Holy Spirit that people can be saved.”
“What we do as Christians is we share the gospel, we invite people to repent of their sins and put their trust in Jesus, and we get them in front of the Scriptures. That's the wood and the fodder, and the Holy Spirit comes along. He's the only one who can light the match and start that fire. So we pray and we proclaim.”
“[The Holy Spirit] was there in all of the covenants. At creation, he's hovering over the formless earth, he's poised and ready to execute God's creation through the Word, like it says in John 1. He’s there in the new creation, and every newly-created human being is by the power of the Spirit (John 3). As God breathed into Adam's nostrils, that was the breath of life, right? He breathes his Spirit into people and they become new creations in Christ.”
“Illumination, sanctification, preservation, and glorification. Illumination: [the Holy Spirit] inspired the Scriptures. They are God-breathed, and he illuminates them to our lives—that's what Hebrews 4 says, that they're living and active. The Holy Spirit makes those words living and active in our hearts.”
“Sanctification: the Holy Spirit works in our hearts. He brings about the fruit of the Spirit, and as he works through the Scriptures and through suffering in our lives, as we pray, as we see our sin, he shows us our sin and then gives us the ability to repent of it daily.”
“As we look more closely at Jesus, we are transformed. And how do we do that? Through his book and through his people.”
“We have this great inheritance, and our inheritance is God himself. Ephesians 1 tells us that the Spirit is our guarantee of that inheritance. He comes into our hearts and we're sealed with him. He's the down payment of our eternity with God face to face. So that's preservation for our glorification. Glorification is when we see Jesus face to face, when we become like him. We're transformed into the image of Christ, from one degree of glory to another. But then when we see Christ face to face, the Spirit perfects that transformation. We're glorified and like Christ.”
“A lot of people will look for some sort of sign or for a peace in their heart. And they think, ‘That's the Spirit telling me what to do.’ But sometimes sin can cause peace in our hearts because we give up the struggle. We sometimes are much more comfortable when we're just giving in to sin. So we don't want to rely on a feeling and we don't want to rely on a sign out there for guidance because those are such uncertain things. What we want to do is we want to immerse ourselves in the Scriptures. We want to saturate our hearts with the Scriptures, and then those Scriptures counsel us.”
“David said in Psalm 11 that ‘my heart counsels me at night.’ And that was right after talking about immersing himself in the Scriptures or delighting, meditating on the Word. When we do that, we're counseled by our own hearts because our own hearts have taken up so much of the Scriptures that we're all about delighting in God and doing his will. And so when the Scripture talks about knowing God's will, it's never talking about knowing what to do for the future. It's talking about knowing how to do it. It's talking about obeying the Lord and knowing how to live our lives.”
“It's about the fruit of the Spirit. We make these decisions every day, right? And sometimes we make really big decisions for our lives, like who to marry, what job to take, how to school our kids, stuff like that, big decisions. What God is concerned with is that we live in a way that honors him. It's not so much the actual decision that we make, but it's the way we make the decision. Are we living out with the fruit of the Spirit? That's how we live according to God's will.”
“I now see the Spirit as involved in everything. So it's not just the spiritual things that I do, but it's in interacting with my husband, it's folding the clothes, it's all of these things. The Spirit is totally involved in our lives. He dwells in me always.”
“I'm more thankful for little things because I see the Spirit's work in everything.”
“I'm quicker to forgive other people, at least I try to be. I try to think of them as Spirit-indwelled people too, if they're believers and who are deeply loved by God.”
“It amazed me, honestly, the love of God. When you study the Spirit, you cannot help but see that God created out of his love. He created the universe out of his love and he recreates people, he brings people to life out of his love. That's what the cross was all about, right?”
“God is just and the justifier. So he hates sin, and that's out of his love too, his love for his own glory and his love for his people. So he hates sin, he wants to do away with it, and he sent Jesus to die on the cross for sinners like us. What great love is that? And how will he not also give us all things if he gave us Christ?”
“I saw God's love in a deeper way, and that enables me to love other people in a deeper way.”
“I experienced God’s love more deeply, so it drives me to want to spend more time with him. And my communion with him is deeper because I've studied the Holy Spirit and been amazed at these things.”
RESOURCES
Scripture: Delighting in the Doctrine of Scripture by Keri Folmar
The Holy Spirit: Delighting in the Doctrine of the Holy Spirit by Keri Folmar
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
What has your understanding of the Holy Spirit looked like? How has it grown or changed since you came to faith?
Are there ways that you lean on the Holy Spirit in your day-to-day life? What does this look like?
What does it look like for you to participate with the Spirit in the ministry you engage in?
Do you feel like you are able to speak to or communicate with the Holy Spirit? What does this look like for you?
What might you do or implement based on what you learned in this week’s episode?
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IMPORTANT NOTE
Journeywomen interviews are intended to serve as a springboard for continued study in the context of your local church. While we carefully select guests each week, interviews do not imply Journeywomen's endorsement of all writings and positions of the interviewee or any other resources mentioned.
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