Sinclair Ferguson - The Holy Spirit Today

my remit the one given to me was to speak about the Holy Spirit today and at first when I saw the program it looked to me as though dr. Gavin had been asked to speak on the Holy Spirit yesterday and I was being asked to speak on Holy Spirit today which reminded me of a very famous story from the life of Carole Bart the European neo orthodox theologian when he visited Washington and said he was too tired to give a lecture but he would answer questions Carole Henry who was then the editor of Christianity today in the glory days of I think was the first on his feet and he said I'm Carole Henry from Christianity today with dr. Bock us answer this question if the members of the press who were who are here today and the press photographers had been at the tomb at the resurrection of Jesus would we have had anything historical to report and to photograph and a somewhat irritated Carole bar snapback did you say you are from Christianity today or Christianity yesterday the witch cowl Henry had the smarts to answer Christianity yesterday today and forever so this is what I now realize many both speaking on the Holy Spirit yesterday today and forever and so I want to move in our saviors teaching in this session from yesterday to today verse 15 if you love me you will keep my Commandments and I will ask the Father and He will give you another helper to be with you forever even the Spirit of Truth whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees him nor knows him you know him for he dwells with you and will be in Europe I will not leave you as orphans I will come to you yet a little while and the world will see me no more but you will see me because I live you also will live in that day you will know that I am in my father and you and me and I in you and just in parentheses here it seems to me there is something going on here rather like the apocalyptic discourse of Jesus where there are some things that seem to focus particularly on the event of the resurrection and its future significance and bound up with that which very much correlates to what dr. Gavin was saying this morning bound up with that is this that deal which seems especially to look forward to the consummation of his exaltation and the gift of the Spirit in that day you will know that I am in my father and you and me and I in you whoever has my Commandments and keeps them he it is who loves me and he who loves me will be loved by my father and I will love him and manifest myself to him Judas not Iscariot he of course has left the room by this point said to him Lord how is it that you will manifest yourself two eyes or not to the world jesus answered him if anyone loves me he will keep my word and my father will love him and we will come to him and make our home with him whoever does not love me does not keep my words and the word that you hear is not mine but the fathers who sent me these things I have spoken to you while I was still with you but the helper the Holy Spirit whom the father will send in my name he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have sent to you peace I leave with you my peace I give to you notice the world gives do I give to you let not your hearts be troubled neither let them be afraid you had me say to you I'm going away and I will come to you if you loved me you would have rejoiced because I'm going to the Father for the father is greater than I and now I've told you before it takes place so that when it does take place you may believe I will no longer talk much with you for the ruler of this world is coming he has no claim on me but I do as the father has commanded me so that the world may know that I love the father rise let us go from here that was something that could be left off and then I could see what about Paul Levy I was reflecting the other day that it would be possible as a young twentysomething to begin your ministry in one Church in John chapter 1 verse 1 and then close your ministry with the last verse of John's gospel never having left John's gospel and I imagine even in the light of the exposition this morning that just reading these verses makes all kinds of connections between the johannem record of the Ministry of Jesus and the teaching of the the the Luke acts combination and the exposition of the Apostle Paul of the significance of the ministry of the holy spirit and I think it's important and helpful for us to set this in the general context because what generally speaking Jesus does here in the upper room in this discourse is to provide a kind of foundation for our understanding of the gospel in our understanding of the knowledge of God and it's a very striking thing to me that it's within this particular context that Jesus spent so much time speaking to his disciples about the members of the Trinity and their interrelationships with one another and I say that because this of course is the ultimate context for the ministry of the holy spirit his being within the unity of the the being of God his distinctiveness in being the person who is called Holy Spirit and it's significant because at least in my own experience in the Christian life and in the Christian Church I think most Christians have responded to the doctrine of the Trinity by regarding it as the most speculative and the least practical of all Christian doctrines but the fact that what Jesus does here as he speaks to his disciples is to weave into his exposition of himself the interrelations of the Trinity this his and their greatest hour of crisis underlines for us that ultimately the Trinity is not the most speculative doctrine but the least speculative doctrine because it is the mystery that makes sense of all other men visit mr. ease and the firm must in its very constitution be the most practical doctrine of all otherwise in the context of crisis Jesus would never have sought to elucidate in words that we struggle to comprehend the mystery of the mutual indwelling of the persons of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit and this of course comes to a kind of climax or on one theme climax in John's Gospel when he says to them having spoken about the way in which the Holy Spirit brings us into the fellowship of the Father and the son that this is actually eternal life it is to know God it is to know him as father it is to know him as the father of the son and in the son alpha this is eternal life and all of this of course is accomplished by the Ministry of the Holy Spirit because he is not only as Augustine like to say the bond of love between the father and the son who brings us into communion with the father and the son so that we are able to say our communion is with the father and with his son Jesus Christ as John will exclaim in his first letter the Holy Spirit also therefore the bond of knowledge the bond of knowledge between the Lord Jesus and the father he does everything in the power of the Holy Spirit and therefore he is also sent to us as the bond of our knowledge of God Father Son and Holy Spirit and it's within that general context that Jesus then emphasizes this special focus that I want us to think about this afternoon on the spirit as the spirit of Christ the situation that Jesus explains to them they probably already of some sense of this is that Jesus is about to go and so the beginning of the chapter in verse 2 I am going and verse 3 I am going and in verse 4 I am going and then in verse 5 but Lord we don't know where you are going so Jesus is going from them but then and what must have seemed to them rather mysterious statements he tells them that he's not only going from them but he's going to come back to them and it seems to me without going into the details that some of those statements have a primary focus on the resurrection but not the resurrection as it were extricated from this unified fabric of the death resurrection burial and resurrection ascension and heavenly session and ultimate sending of the Holy Spirit so that he has in view as a kind of unified whole although at one point with one emphasis at another point another emphasis this one single Christ event does people used to call it that comes to its consummation not just in his resurrection sometimes you know people say the resurrection changed everything but not if you read the New Testament accounts what changed everything was the connectedness between the resurrection the Ascension and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit Simon Peter could no more have preached his Acts chapter 2 salmon three days after Jesus resurrection than he could have flown in the air and so I think it's important to see the connectedness and the distinctions here and the see marriages in different ways Jesus says them for example I won't leave you as often as I will come back to you and that's not just a generality that's something that's at least initially fulfilled in the resurrection isn't it it's like almost the first thing he says what what are you to go and tell my disciples but I'm ascending to my father and to their father and was so accustomed to this fatherhood concept that he's speaking about this in a completely new dimension from anything Old Covenant believers experience because they don't characteristically come to God as this kind of father and certainly not as the father of the Messiah and so in the resurrection he doesn't leave them as orphans but it's clear from everything else he says that that is realized existentially for them only when the Holy Spirit poured out upon them on the day of Pentecost so he is not only coming back in the resurrection but he is also coming back in the spirit I will ask the Father and He will give you another helper that asking is a post ascension asking I should those verses that dr. Gavin spent so much time on this morning have you ever heard anyone emphasized those verses is this not the lost element in redemptive history that something happened between the father and the son upon the Ascension he asked the father I will ask the Father and He will send you another Paraclete another helper and the great thing is that he will be with you forever and so you have this massive sense pre crucifixion and therefore pre resurrection ascension and pre Pentecost of the massive significance in Jesus thinking in a sense this is this is Jesus further exposition of his of John's words isn't it about the the giving of the spirit but the Spirit was not yet because Jesus had not yet been glorified and and no he's he's he realizes now in retrospect that Jesus actually was expounding this to him before he left them for the class and it's this that explains ultimately what they're not able to understand when he says to them you should have rejoiced that I was going away well of course they should have rejoice they dread having you know they dread they dread dr. Gavin that was utterly incomprehensible to them and it's part of our own exposition of Scripture that we that we send this how incomprehensible this is because actually it would be as incomprehensible to you I've listened to three addresses this morning I think that was jaunty we said in our opening session when the Word of God is preached Jesus preaches himself okay so let me put it this way if the Word of God is preached in the power of the Holy Spirit let us hope that the Word of God is now being preached to us in the power of the Spirit so answer this question instinctively which would you rather have Sinkler Ferguson expounding John's gospel or the presence of Jesus at Electra so you could tell his height recount to your grandchildren the cover of his eyes no ultimately how long or short his hair really was remember forever the accents in which he spoke remember that demeanor that he had remember the the personality it's a no-brainer isn't it you would rather have Jesus here I mean you'd rather if Jesus he had even that having dick Gavin okay but you remember how he goes on to say it is to your advantage but I go because if I don't go the spirit will not come and we need to see and even feel the logic of that in order to understand what is going on here and in order not to be blasé about the giving of the spirit or the significance of the giving of the Spirit because as Jesus is teaching them here in John's Greek account of course Jesus is going to send this as our loss pal acquittals and the the technicians tell us of this is true of all languages isn't that those distinctions that you find when you first learn my line which are not always true in the way the languages use that the difference between our loss and heteros another of the same kind and another of a different kind doesn't actually always work that way but there surely no doubt whatsoever that it works here and that the whole stress here is the reason the reason they should be glad is because of the intimacy of the relationship between the Sun and the spirit who is going to come he will come as palos Parakletos a different person with an absolutely integrated post ascension ministry you know the rest of the year trying to expound this passage I just want to I want to kind of and I'm not closing my eyes to do this but I want to just put my finger into the text here and pull on a few loose for ads that will that will in a in a kind of their systematic way help us to understand to sense even to feel all that Jesus is communicating to them and through them ultimately to others and I want to do this by way of of word pictures that it seemed to me to be they're not used at the foot of a letter in the passage but they express for us so so this is systematic theology rather than biblical theology in that sense I want to use not necessarily although partly though the word pictures that are used here to help us to help us to know God as god the holy spirit given to us in his specific capacity as the spirit of christ paul's expression of course in romans chapter 8 because what Jesus is teaching them and that's the point of chapter 14 and verse 17 you know him because he dwells with you and he will be in you it's also the point of chapter 14 and verse 28 you heard me say to you I am going away and I will come to you and if you loved me you would have rejoiced because not just because I'm going to die and rise but because I'm going to the Father no I think there are some makes a thesis of Scripture that are almost beyond one's ability to state dogmatically but it seems to me that we ought to understand that when Jesus says to them okay I'm going away and the Spirit will come you know him because he is with you and will be in you is not dispensationalist distinction in the broad sense of that term this is not as is sometimes said this is Jesus way of answering the question what's the difference between the experience of the Old Covenant believer New Covenant believer the Old Covenant believers eases with him by the spirit New Covenant believer Jesus is edited by the spirit now Jesus is speaking here redemptive historically how do they know him they know him because he was with them so where is he this who will be sent where is he with them well he's with them and the one who is actually speaking to them and this is this is the big thing with the massive thing two grants and that is that when the Holy Spirit comes to us he comes to us in this distinct New Covenant office as the Spirit of the Lord Jesus Christ and that is dispensational leap forward of massive proportions so what are the pictures the first one is this the spirit of Kant the spirit of Christ who as it were presses on with the Ministry of the Lord Jesus I mean we've all said to congregations when we started preaching on the actually apostles that shouldn't they call the Acts of the Apostles and hopefully we've not said to them it should be called the acts of the Holy Spirit and we understand from Acts chapter 2 it's the acts of Jesus Christ in the power and person of the school through the Ministry of the Apostles Jesus makes it plain that when the Spirit comes to the Apostles he will come to them in his capacity as teacher and in this sense he is actually a los Parakletos because Jesus has these past three years of being their teacher and he makes this clear in this passage that they've heard his words for example in verse 24 the word that you hear is not mine but it comes to you with all the authority of the Father and verse 25 the I've spoken these things to you and they'll be brought to your remembrance and they even call him teacher and when the Holy Spirit comes it will be to your advantage because he will come and teach you as the Spirit of the Lord Jesus things that you have not yet ganas and so he says he very specifically says on that day you will know what you do not see yet to know so what is it that the Holy Spirit comes to teach them and by way of application what does it mean that he comes also to be the teacher of the Christian Church well we can use Paul's language first of all he comes to teach them the deep things of God he makes a point of saying in John 14 as well as all in Frisco in thien's the world cannot receive this but when Christ is received and the Spirit comments then the Spirit reveals to us in Jesus Christ the deep things of God and he says this for example in verse 20 of chapter 14 in that day which I think is looking beyond the resurrection simpliciter and perhaps through those several week occasional seminars to the Ascension and the day of Pentecost on that day you will know that I am in my father and you are in me and I in you remember what Augustine says about time you ask me what time is I wish I knew what it was before you asked me the question I can ask a similar question what does the preposition in mean it seems to me that even in my English standard version there is the single most profound usage of the preposition in in any language in the statement on that day you will realize that I am in my father and you are in me and I you what is that that's the day when the Spirit comes and he takes what belongs to Jesus Christ and he shows it to them and this is what they discover of course we tend to truncate this don't we because we are so we are so into union with Christ in our community nowadays unlike reformed communities you know maybe some time ago we are big into union with plants but we still have it on the on the horizontal level and Jesus uses the horizontal level but the horizontal level is rooted in the vertical level but he is in the Father just as we are in him and he is in ours no what does that mean well we've just got some we've got some hints for example at the end of chapter 15 he had spoken about the way in which this is in verse 31 the way the Son of Man would be glorified and God will be glorified in him if God is glorified in him God will also glorify him in himself and glorify him at once it's just like there are there are these little concepts thrown out by the Lord Jesus to help us understand that we are we are actually entering into the holiest place of all here and that part of what it means to be able to say our communion is with the father and with his son Jesus Christ the righteous is not that we keep that at the horizontal level but that we are actually gazing in wonder and love and praise on this ultimate mystery of the universe that what the Holy Spirit does is shine his light upon the inner life of the eternal and what emerges of course in John's Gospel is that the father and the son of this mutual passion to glorify one another because the father and the son of this mutual desire to love one another and those two facets very much interweave in John's Gospel on the one hand that the father is loved by the Sun and everything the Sun does he does because he he lovingly obeys his father I me of this this amazing picture of Jesus saying I don't do anything except what I've seen my father do I don't say anything except what I've heard from my father this is my love but in a way that is and there's an even more striking emphasis in John's Gospel on the Father's love for his son and especially in Jesus words in John chapter 10 when he says the reason my father loves me is because I lay down my life and you see you can you can sense I think by this point that John the Apostle got it he got what happened at the cross he got what happened in Jesus cry of dereliction if I could put it this way he understood that as aware above the above the darkness the father was singing my Jesus I love thee I know thou art mine if ever I loved my Jesus it is now and so John apart from anything else is such a key to help us to understand how distorted the gospel of the way people view the gospel sometimes becomes and has become and some of the accusations made against the the classical doctrine of the because it's not the classical doctrine of the atonement the classical doctrine of the atonement is if I can put it this way and throw Paul perfectly the father never loved his son so much as when his son in loving illusions died the cruel death of the Cross because he loved his father and the spirit you see shines shines light on this this is not a this is not a shining into mysticism I mean in the bad sense whatever mysticism and the good sense might be I mean it here in the bad sense this is a shining into the reality of the relationship between the father and the son and it leads it leads us now in the full light of the revelation of Scripture to wonder and love and praise so he reveals the deep things of God and also he reveals the great heights of grace because this preposition in not only connects the son to the Father and the father to the son it connects the son to the believer and the believer to the son and therefore the believer also to the father because when the Spirit comes there will be an end well when the spirit comes there will be a union formed between the Sun and the believers and John records the explanation for this it is when the Spirit comes he will teach you all things now again we need to be you know we need to say okay just hold that thought for a minute and let me explain it to you you were not there you're not speaking to you you're not speaking directly to you any more than he's speaking directly in there to you although it's not impossible when he says go and sell everything you have give it to the pool and come and follow me so it's an oddity actually it's an oddity in many evangelical Christians lives that they want to apply this step well the Holy Spirit will be me into all truth how do we know that that's the case a because we won in the Roman is speaking to them and we execute this the way we execute everything Jesus says but also because he explains to them what that means and without going into the details at what it means is but the the spirit as the Spirit of Truth is being given to the Apostles inter alia with a very specific ministry that will enable for the whole church after Pentecost the application of the knowledge of Christ who is the truth to every believer and you remember how he does this he says when the Holy Spirit comes he'll remind you of everything that I've said when the Holy Spirit comes he'll take what is mine and you'll show it to you when the Holy Spirit comes he'll lead you into all truth when the Holy Spirit comes he will show you the things to come now what does that sound like that sounds like a summary of the New Testament and and in his prayer you can see this is the deal the father gives the word to the son the son gives the word to the Apostles the Apostles give the word to the church and to the world to all who will believe in me through their word so a sense it couldn't it couldn't be clearer than this this is not some individual or even carper of mystical experience this embedded into the whole teaching of Jesus is that this is going to come to the church through the apostles and and through the giving of the New Testament the Gospels everything he said leading them into all truth to understand what he said and the narrative of his life leading them into the understanding of the nature of his person and his work and leading them to understand the things that are still to come and so if we ask the question if we ask the question so how does this map into ours well the answer is as we've already heard that what the Holy Spirit is given inter alia to accomplish through the apostles is the new Canon of the New Testament and it's there and then Jesus adds this but when the Spirit comes he will end well and so that is a genuine correlation remember Oh Calvin puts it you know you know we are we not placing the word above the Spirit he says no door because the Spirit who interprets the word does the spirit who gave the word and he comes to illumine the word how does he come to illumine the word not by me doing my technical exegesis my guess is is possible to be one of the best technical exegetes in the world and not to believe a single word of it but because he comes as the Spirit of the Lord Jesus and as the spirit of the Lord Jesus he illuminates don't take this illustration to false conclusions but you know maybe you were one of those damaged Goldin as I was teachers would would complain about you and say I wish I could get inside your head and rearrange things so there was a correlation between your understanding and the truth of the matter and this is what the Holy Spirit does and he does it through the pages of the Scriptures he reveals the deep things of God and he reveals to us the great heights of grace second the Spirit of God comes to us as advocate now Parakletos as you know is translated you know it's it's one of those every man does the translation was right in his own eyes I think there is a general agreement that had a clear to us calling someone alongside you has in against this cultural background it has a kind of it has a kind of legal nuance of course we need to be careful about just what we mean by that but notice that just as Jesus has been their teacher and the Spirit comes some Jesus has been their Paraclete he has been their advocate and this whole passage is chock-full of expressions of Jesus advocacy of them he has been the one who has helped them all through his ministry I know he says the Holy Spirit is going to come and swear in the New Testament Jesus is the Paraclete he not only died and was raised but not only is at the right hand of God but he is there as the Paraclete we have an advocate with the father Jesus Christ the righteous but now it seems because he has this emphasis on the Spirit coming to the church coming to the believer in dwelling the believer but the Spirit of Christ is the advocate within so what's he doing there the chief thing he's doing is vindicating the Lord Jesus that's the chief thing he's doing and it's out of his desire to vindicate that is to show the exultation of the Lord Jesus let thus Jesus goes on to say in 16 8 to 11 when the Spirit comes he will convict the world of sin and righteousness and judgment now again that's the verse that we kind of you know we slide into the application and there is an application is actually originally a prophecy it's a prophecy of Peter Sirmon on the day of Pentecost it confirms that the Ministry of the Spirit on the day of Pentecost is to point people to Christ because you'll notice the way in which Jesus expresses it that is often I think ignored when he comes he will convict the world of sin and righteousness and judgment concerning sin because they do not believe in me concerning righteousness because I go to the Father and you'll see me no more concerning judgment because the ruler of this world is judged the spirit's convicting ministry is prophesied here to be Christ centered and Christ exalting and this is exactly Peter's burden on the day of Pentecost these are the very things that his preaching does he he exalts Jesus Christ he he accuses them of not understanding who Jesus really is and for not believing in him and he confirms that the meaning of Pentecost is that this one has actually gone to the Father how do we know that Jesus has gone to the answer because the Holy Spirit has come and he is vindicating the Lord Jesus and baphu in the exultation of the Lord Jesus producing a sense of sinfulness and need and shame that causes people on the day of Pentecost to cry out what must they do and of course this continues in a sense have become a typical Ministry of the Holy Spirit but there's something that's really worth noting here and that is as the as the as the grammarians tellers probably Parakletos here has a legal background you know we are inclined to think that the Holy Spirit is like the law firm of roids Gaffin and Ferguson but that's not the context if you're living in this world and you are in trouble with the law you don't go to somebody else who is putting a plaque outside in brass I will charge you a fortune with all respect to lawyers you go to your best friend the person who knows you best and longest and you say will you be my patter feet will you stand alongside me will you bear witness to me and so here the motif that's often emphasized today of Jesus being on trial in John's Gospel is kind of universalized Jesus is always on trial before the watching world but there is an advocate for Jesus he's sending into the world and if I can if I can put it this way and this may you know this may not resonate it mean be helpful and if it's not helpful don't even dream of remembering that I said that we need to understand that the whole context of Jesus ministry the whole context of Jesus ministry is that the Holy Spirit has been his best friend he's been with him from the womb and he will accompany him to the cross guard him in the tomb he will be raised through the spirit of holiness and isn't it interesting at least I find it interesting so I'll say it but later on when he says to them you will be witnesses okay so we've still got this legal connotation here this is not chapter two in your book on how to do evangelism you need to be a witness that's not what witness means he was still about this legal connotation he says no you you you will be my witnesses because you've been with me from the beginning and the Holy Spirit is my witness chapter 15 verse 26 when the helper comes whom I will send to you from the father the Spirit of Truth oh praise God that the Spirit is the true witness to Jesus the Spirit of Truth and I will send him to you from the father because he proceeds from the father and he will bear witness about me and then you see there's a parallel so we we don't get the parallel unless we understand the first member of it but in at least if we understand the second member of it it sheds light on the significance of the first member how is it that they can be witnesses to Christ two witnesses to Christ because they've been with him from the beginning why is it that when a new apostle is chosen whatever you think about that the new apostle must be somebody with us from the beginning and there's no doubt echos of John 1 and Genesis 1 even and us he has been with me from the beginning but he's especially be with him from the beginning of his ministry and awfully is able to build witness this is why all these other things are true because he is the Spirit of the Lord Jesus the Spirit of Truth and he is as I say Jesus best friend I'm like a best friend I had a friend who who used to be introduced to introduce me by saying you know one of the delights of having friends is that you're able to introduce your friends to your friend and this is what the spirit dies he is the best friend of Jesus who wants to make his people Jesus best friends no matter of the Opposition there may be to it because he has been with Jesus from the beginning and his witness praise God is both reliable and as permanent I was telling the Gibson brothers last night but somebody once said to me you've lived in the United States too long and you may think that when I tell you what the third thing I want to focus on here is the spirit comes to us in the capacity of teacher Jesus is the teacher the spirit continuous that ministry Jesus has been their counselor the spirit continuous that ministry and the third thing is and this this may appeal to the minority gender in the room when the Spirit comes he comes in the capacity of a home maker now where do I get that no that's what Jesus says he is right at the beginning I mean this is this is a family scene you have seen this you've got visitors coming home for Sunday lunch and your wife says right while you're speaking to people I'll go home and I'll get everything ready for the gas well that's what Jesus says he's doing he says at the beginning of chapter 14 I'm going to go but I'm going to my father's house and there are many rooms and I'm going to prepare a place for you Jesus in that sense is is leaving them as the one who is can I put it this way he's going to get heaven ready for them so that they'll be at home there so that they'll enter into the Koinonia that is actually the hospitality of the father and the Son and the Holy Spirit just to think of it the Blessed Trinity wants to give us wretched sinners hospitality and Jesus is everything he's doing is actually - he's going to cleanse everything Hebrews says in order to in order to get things ready for you but when the Holy Spirit comes it's the other way around Jesus goes to get things ready for us the spirit comes to get things ready for him he's not gonna leave us as orphans but do you notice what he actually goes on to say this is I find this just this is unspeakably moving to me in chapter 14 and verse 23 poor Judas not the really poor Judas not Iscariot Lord how is it that you will manifest yourself to us are not to the world and jesus answered him if anyone loves me he will keep my word and my father will love him and we will come to him and make our home with him you know there's a sense in which that single picture helps us to understand at the existential level what the Holy Spirit is sent to us to do he sent saw to what in our lives that our lives will be a dwelling place for God in the spirit we are if I can put it this way without seeming unseemly when we're we're we're the Trinity will be comfortable where there where there won't be any nooks and crannies where we'll they're not brought into the best rumen and kept out of the rest of the shambles but where the Blessed Trinity come through the spirit of the father and the son to to indwell us and this applies both to the church and to the individual doesn't it must never lose sight of this ecclesiastical perspective but this is this is this is what the Blessed Trinity wants to do in our churches to turn our churches into family homes and my goodness if if if there is something about what God does in his people that has an unusual power in the world of which we're living this is surely part of them in a world of dysfunctional families of homeless people I mean spiritually homeless people as well as physically homeless people dysfunctional people people who have who are searching for an identity people who don't know that the whole fabric of intelligent thinking has been pulled from under their feet and they've not noticed it and they're on a sea of relativism and they hate what Christians believe although they've almost no idea when Christians actually believe and then they encounter the family of God and although they don't have language to express it there is a there is a sense and some of them hate it all the more for this reason there is a sense that this is how family has meant to be I know our failures as a church you know in the broadest possible sense I know about the skin of dogs but I find in church the only place where I can watch my grandchildren being saved speaking to older people where I see older people taking an interest in them well the rich and the poor are brothers and sisters the wise and the simple help one another how what's the explanation of our it's because we read the book on how to do church drop oh no it's nothing of the kind that's as bad as unbelieving exegesis it's because the Holy Spirit has come and he's transformed this group of people and he's he's made them family I just you know just to go off on a banana binge you know I over the years I've encountered parents who almost keep their children back from the church because they get child rearing right and I want to say to them to your brother and sister you need to understand that in all history apart from Adam and Eve God never gave to parents all the gifts they need took the one child for Jesus Christ remember remember that amazing statement and the Acts of the Apostles it's a nice chapter 5 after the Ananias and Sapphira incident when in one sentence we were told what seemed and suddenly would seem to people to be virtually contradictory things nobody would dare join us Lord nobody would dare join this church and in the next breath look saying people were crowding in what's the explanation well this is the explanation because they were filled with the Holy Spirit and applies of course to us individually now I say this may not be particularly helpful to you but I think it actually emerges in terms of using ordinary language about the structure of what Jesus is saying that this is what the Holy Spirit comes to do in your life - you know I've never felt CS Lewis was a great theologian but because he borrowed so much from a worse theologian who happened to be a Scotsman George MacDonald he had some great illustrations and he he in mere christianity he pulls up like this he says imagine yourself as a living house God comes in to rebuild that house first perhaps you and understand what he's doing he's getting the drains right he's stopping the leaks and the Roofus you knew those jobs needed doing and so you're not surprised but presently he starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make sense what on earth is he up to the explanation is that he is building something quite different from the house you thought of he is throwing up a new wing here he's putting on an extra floor there he's got plenty of money incidentally he's running up towers he's making courtyards you thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage but he is building a palace because he intends to come and live in it himself you know maybe this is a age incidentally the reason dr. guffin and I are dressed the way we are is because we are old resting and reformed and because we have a radical passion to stand out from the conformists and so we agreed to dress this way that's that's just finally here are some ways in which this I think this perspective really helps us remember what dr. defin was saying about the Holy Spirit Christ glorifying in the sense self-effacing homemaker you know we you know my wife and I we have filled in endless forms for endless government agencies over the years and it comes - so what does she do and if you know she you know her disposition to say I don't do anything and actually she's the reason I think this way because she lives her life what people say to me I wish I couldn't be your wife I don't know your wife and she's actually she's actually got my name you know nobody knows what her maiden name was except a few of the cool a-hole I said well rare song debt is related to this union between us and behind the scenes as seeking your glory we're both sinners understand she makes the home I may have made the money that she makes the home and and not only is that true but the other thing I've noticed that is is true is the the absolutely vital element of this form of it because one of the things I notice is that the home does not function and if you really knew me I mean I'm doing the one thing I do in an orderly way at the moment I'm sending out of the way if you knew me you would understand I can basically live in chaos but she's the one who makes the homework I'm not drawing any analogy between the Lord and my Cleo's she's the one who makes everything work and the only thing I've noticed as this I'm pretty sure it's true but all of this draws from our children an extraordinary sense of devotion to her for what she does for hearts and we must never forget that part Jesus says the Spirit doesn't come to glorify himself but to glorify me that should not be taken as the foundation of a logical argument that says so we should not glorify hoist them the fathers of the church eventually emerged with this notion but we worship the holy spirit together with the father and together with the son because the Holy Spirit produces in us this vital intimacy with the Lord Jesus Christ and well those are just a few loose threads really let me let me in closing just make this point Jesus is speaking about the Ministry of the Spirit mini-cons and the Ministry of the Spirit is a sovereign Ministry of the Spirit but we understand that the wonder of the Ministry of the Spirit is not that the absolute sovereignty of the Spirit paralyzes our responsibility and you'll notice that there is woven into this a focus of our response to the Lord in verses 15 and 16 of chapter 14 you know him because he's with you and he will be in you and I'll asked the father and the father will come and send a holy spirit but what then will happen whoever has my Commandments verse 21 and keeps them he it is who loves me and he who loves me will be loved by my father and I will love him and manifest myself to him we will come to such and you see the wonder of all this is that you know now that we feel something of the way of what Jesus is saying you know this isn't something that we you know we go into darkened room and try and work on this is actually something that comes down to us from the sovereign spirit as he ministers to us through this apostolic word and we find ourselves as it well that's standing reaching out and maybe in some of your churches are actually allowed to do that reaching out to him and saying just as you have sown about your son your spirit has taught us to sing about you and him that you are our Father that he is our Savior and the Spirit is our teacher our Paraclete that's pretty cool Lord we thank you for your word and for the richness of it we've often told our people all of us it was those nice words about John's Gospel about it being a being at being a pawn that an elephant an alarm can both enjoy we thank you that youth we thank you that you have given us so many books through the Spirit in the New Testament so that we can see the facets of the jewel of your being your magnificence as the one we call father and the glory of our saviors work and the wonder of the spirits ministry Lord as we think about his ministry as as coming in this way we do we do want to remember this corporate dimension and pray for the churches from which we are apart for a little season but your spirit will work in us a love for our fellowships akin to your love for them in spirit and that we may more and more and become dwelling places of God in disturbed we thank you for this day and all you've taught us we clearly would sustain us that we may be here to continue to focus on you even as we come from the exposition of the Old Testament and the exposition of the New Testament to some of theology we pray as we come later on to doxology that truly we will be even here a community suffused with the love of the Holy Spirit when we ask it in Jesus name you

Channel: Matt Newboult

Views: 1,528

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Id: UGbPxcRfEEI

Length: 64min 56sec (3896 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 12 2018