John 14:16 "Helped by the Spirit"

i want to welcome you to steadfast hope i'm steve lawson joined by kent stainback and we're coming to you from dallas texas the iconic herb's house and we've got a great study today we're going to be talking about the ministry of the holy spirit in the life of the believer kent so if you would take your bible and turn with me to john 14 and verse 16. we're in the upper room discourse and the title of this is helped by the spirit helped by the spirit can i i don't know about you but i need a lot of help living the christian life and the lord knew that and the lord has taken care of that in that he has put within us his holy spirit to enable us to persevere and to press on in the christian life so john 14 verse 16 let's begin by just reading this passage jesus said i will ask the father and he will give you another helper that he may be with you forever i can't i think what i want to begin by saying is the christian life is not hard it's impossible it's beyond hard it's impossible to live a holy life in the midst of such an unholy world to be surrounded by all the pressures and temptations of the world to be confronted by a real devil to live with the weakness of our own flesh all of these factor into the great difficulty it is quite frankly to live up to the standard that god has for us and he's not going to lower the standard one bit of course we can't live up to it but we need help to be able to at least stretch forward as best the spirit will give us power and so that's why he makes this promise to his disciples the night before he was crucified he is about to leave and of course the question in their minds is well if you're about to leave how in the world are we going to make it and jesus says i've got it covered i'm going to ask the father and he's going to give you another helper so i want to talk about this but this is great encouragement for us because jesus in his physical body is not sitting at this table right here with us however he's actually inside of us by the person of his spirit and that's what jesus is saying so this verse begins i will ask the father and he will give you another helper he will give the fullness of the holy spirit to believers he says he will give you he doesn't give to the world the holy spirit he only gives to his true disciples who have been born again who have denied themselves and taken up a cross to follow christ and it says he will give you the the word give would indicate there's nothing we can do to earn the holy spirit it's a gift that the father gives to all true believers and when he says another helper those two words are really important the word another in the original language means another of exactly the same kind so we could say jesus will give another jesus now there's not another jesus but there is another person who is of the same character in the same essence as jesus and that's the third person of the trinity the holy spirit that is of whom he speaks and so the holy spirit is not like the junior member of the trinity um who's awaiting an upgrade to be all that the son and the father is no the holy spirit is co-equal and co-eternal with god the father that's who enjoy is enjoying us and he says i will give you another helper that word helper means literally one called alongside to help he's called alongside of us to help us live the christian life and he is in us and you say what so what is he doing to help us well kent he is here to comfort us when we're hurting in fact some bible translations say i will give you another comforter further he is here to counsel us when we're confused he's with us to exhort us when we're complacent he's with us to strengthen us when we're weak and to encourage us when we are downcast he does all of this and the fact of the matter is even more and he concludes this verse by saying that he may be with you forever so ken here's the point we're never alone no matter what the valley no matter what the desert no matter what the trial no matter what the darkness of night when even when we go through the most difficult times and that's what lies ahead for these disciples the holy spirit is with us through thick and thin in fact he is in us through thick and thin so i need this help to live the christian life or i'm going to fall flat on my face every time so we are helped by the spirit that's our devotion for today now we need to talk about this kent all right you need to open up and tell us how much you need this help kent now just go ahead i do need the help confession's good for the soul just go ahead and open it up well i know a lot of us we could we we only have a few minutes to talk about this we need a lot to talk about we could go into a series right now and so we'll help help kent needs yes yes the help i need but let's talk about what people many of our viewers are thinking and they say this i need more of the holy spirit i need more of the holy spirit i don't feel his presence how do i get more of the holy spirit and there are several questions in that question so i need you i need you to take that you are so crafty i need you to take that and answer a few questions out of it all right here's the deal the holy spirit is omnipotent he is all sufficient he is has all deity he is all deity and possesses all deity the fact that that's not enough for you is kind of laughable no you don't need more of the holy spirit the holy spirit needs more of you which is to say we need to be placing ourselves as a living and holy sacrifice on the altar before the lordship of christ and giving ourselves a fresh in submission to the holy spirit but we have all the holy spirit we shall ever have because he is everything that jesus is and that god the father is so good question so just to clarify steve yeah many people have heard their whole lives that you know at a certain time mature level in your christian life whatever that might be there is another level of the holy spirit that you might get or you're able to receive or a second blessed second blessing yeah not explain that yeah well the the only second blessing there is is to come to understand you received everything when you were regenerated and born again uh ephesians 1 verse 3 blessed be the god and father of our lord jesus christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in christ we received all of the blessing of god the moment we were converted and came into the kingdom of heaven and so in christ we have everything and so there is not a second installment or deposit of the holy spirit that we receive now there may be a greater release of his power at certain points in our christian life as we confess sin as we as we repent as we allow the word of christ to richly dwell within us there can be a greater experience a greater sense yeah and and even a greater sense of the spirit is with me and living in me but you don't receive more of the holy spirit you don't get him in halves in other words we'll give you half of the holy spirit when you're converted and then 10 years from now you go off and and you get serious with god and well okay we'll give you the other half of the holy spirit it doesn't work that way you received all that the holy spirit is the moment you were converted steve one more question here i think we have time for yeah is that you had mentioned that some people think that the holy spirit is a junior member of the trinity yeah and i'd like for you to speak a little more to that that and explain that the holy spirit was given to magnify our lord yeah is it does that have something to do with the fact that we don't talk as much about the holy spirit the holy spirit is not um not as prominent not as prominent can you speak to them yeah the holy spirit's primary ministry is to focus us upon jesus christ uh is not to draw attention to himself though in the scripture we have teaching about the holy spirit but the preeminence belongs to christ there's no jealousy within the trinity even god the father said this is my beloved son listen to him and the holy spirit is taking the things of christ and reveal them to us and so any movement that is of god has jesus leading the parade and the holy spirit is standing by the side pointing us to look to christ and if there's any movement that has the holy spirit out in the point you know it's off base and has left the reservation it's headed in the wrong direction because christ is always at the helm that he would have the preeminence in all things colossians 1 18. that's a great word kent this is a great devotion this has really encouraged my own heart i trust that it's encouraged your heart as well thank you for joining us for steadfast hope and i pray that you can be a regular part of our devotions day by day god bless you

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Length: 11min 2sec (662 seconds)

Published: Mon Sep 13 2021