It is God who enables us, along with you, to stand firm for Christ. He has commissioned us, 22 and he has identified us as his own by placing the Holy Spirit in our hearts as the first instalment that guarantees everything he has promised us. (NLT).

Yesterday, we saw that Jesus is ‘God’s ultimate ”Yes,”…;

Also, that Jesus is God the Father’s ‘Yes’ to all His promises;

We saw, too, that we add our own ‘Yes’ as we believe these promises, and glorify God thereby.

But can’t we also say, looking at today’s verses, that the Holy Spirit is God’s ‘Yes’ in our lives, assuring believers that we will receive all that the Lord ”has promised us”?

This is how Eugene Peterson renders verses 17-22 in ‘The Message’:

 Are you now going to accuse me of flip-flopping with my promises because it didn’t work out? Do you think I talk out of both sides of my mouth—a glib yes one moment, a glib no the next? Well, you’re wrong. I try to be as true to my word as God is to his. Our word to you wasn’t a careless yes canceled by an indifferent no. How could it be? When Silas and Timothy and I proclaimed the Son of God among you, did you pick up on any yes-and-no, on-again, off-again waffling? Wasn’t it a clean, strong Yes?

 Whatever God has promised gets stamped with the Yes of Jesus. In him, this is what we preach and pray, the great Amen, God’s Yes and our Yes together, gloriously evident. God affirms us, making us a sure thing in Christ, putting his Yes within us. By his Spirit he has stamped us with his eternal pledge—a sure beginning of what he is destined to complete.