We're going to continue our look at the ministry
of the Holy Spirit. We are in a doctrinal study and sometimes
we dig a little deep and cover some more narrow aspects of theology. And sometimes we give a kind of general overview,
a little bit more simple, straight-forward sort of beginning understanding of these various
doctrines. And in doing so, we endeavor to speak to those
who have been around a while, and who know and understand the great themes of theology,
and at the same time talk to those who are new and need a basic understanding. And tonight, as we saw in our last look at
the ministry of the Spirit, we're really talking about a very basic understanding of the work
of the Holy Spirit. I think it is obvious to all of us that the
Holy Spirit is the member of the Trinity who gets the least attention. We have many, many songs that are written
and sung about God, about the glory of God, the character of God, the mighty work of God
from creation through redemption. We have hymnals filled with songs of praise
to God. We have many songs, perhaps even more, about
the marvelous realities of the person of Christ and the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. In fact, there seems to be no end to the songs
that are written about our Savior. We have far fewer hymns and far fewer songs
that are dedicated to the person and work of the Holy Spirit. He is included here and there as a verse,
or in a reference to the Trinity, but there is not just a substantial hymnology related
to the Holy Spirit and that leaves us a little on the short end of giving worship to the
third member of the Trinity, worship which is due to the Spirit. We are also unlikely to tolerate a doctrinal
error regarding the nature of God. We run, as it were, to rescue God from heretics
and from those who would speak of Him in a way that is not a true reflection of His nature. We do all we can to protect the character
of God and the work of God. We do the same for Christ. We are exceedingly eager to make sure that
there is no misrepresentation of the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. We are careful in defining the facets of the
incarnation, of the nature of Christ, the inhumanated God, the God in human flesh. We are eager to understand every nuance of
His redeeming work, to understand the cross and the significance of the cross and the
great doctrinal themes of redemption in all their fullness and in all their minute detail. Careful indeed we are when it comes to God
and Christ. When it comes, on the other hand, to the Holy
Spirit, we...we tend to be far more tolerant of misrepresentations of the ministry of the
Holy Spirit, which, by the way, abound everywhere. We don't often come to the rescue of the great
truths concerning the Holy Spirit. I have endeavored through the years to do
that from time to time, a number of years ago wrote a book called The Charismatics in
an effort to call into question an unbiblical movement misrepresenting the work of the Holy
Spirit. I had no idea at the time that the movement
would continue to expand far beyond what I saw when I wrote that book back in the seventies. I wrote another book called Charismatic Chaos
which endeavored to look again at that misrepresentation of the Holy Spirit in that particular paradigm
of sanctification that we know as the Charismatic Movement. It was also a few years after that, that I
felt the need to address the issue of the paradigm of psychology and much of what I
was preaching and teaching, not just here but in pastor conferences and other opportunities
I had around the country and around the world, was to try to define a true biblical understanding
of sanctification apart from the intrusion of human psychology. But again I often felt like a voice crying
in the wilderness, like I was swimming up stream against the evangelical trend which
was an ever-expanding Charismatic Movement and an ever-expanding Psychological Movement. Then came the Pragmatic Movement where we
have pretty well defined the idea that we move ahead in our spiritual lives by techniques,
by certain means and modes of operation that we can learn if we sit under the right teachers
and apply the right principles. And pragmatism has done the same thing, it
has deemphasized, it has deprioritized, it has in some cases almost banished the Holy
Spirit away. There's very little talk in the pragmatic,
market-driven ministry of evangelicalism today about the work of the Holy Spirit. So I come again with the same sort of agenda
that I have occasionally through the years and that is to call our attention back to
the reality of the person and the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Having a true paradigm of sanctification,
a true understanding of the work of the Spirit is critical because false paradigms of sanctification
cannot restrain the flesh, they cannot lead away from sin, they cannot lead to spiritual
growth and spiritual effectiveness, nor to the glory of God. The church has very weak doctrines regarding
the Holy Spirit, His person and work, and a very great tolerance for errors concerning
the work and the ministry of the Holy Spirit. And so, we're looking at the issue of how
the Holy Spirit ministers to us who are in the family of God. And we started as a good departure point with
Galatians chapter 3 and a question that is posed in verse 3, "Are you so foolish, having
begun by the Spirit are you now being perfected by the flesh?" We will, if we think about it, and think about
it biblically, remember that our salvation is a work of the Spirit. We are begotten again by the Spirit of God
through the means of the Word of Truth. We are born of the Spirit as we were talking
about even this morning. So we understand that our new birth, our regeneration,
our conversion is a work of the Spirit of God. It is not by blood, or of the will of the
flesh or of the will of man but of God through the Spirit that we have been saved. And then having begun in the Spirit, that
is begun our life in Christ in the Spirit, are we so foolish as to think that spiritual
perfection can come through the flesh, through some human means? And the answer to the question, of course,
is we ought not to be so foolish, we ought to recognize that as we were regenerated by
the Spirit, we will be sanctified as well by the Spirit and only by the Spirit. Now we looked at the beginning at the saving
work of the Holy Spirit. We talked about four things, that the Spirit
convicts of sin. Jesus said in John 16 He would send the Spirit
and when He comes He would convict the world of sin and righteousness and judgment. This is the initial work of the Holy Spirit
in saving a person, to convict that person of their sin. This is not natural to man. This does not come by the will of man, as
we saw in the words of Jesus who said concerning the rich young ruler, that this man is trying
to do by himself something that is impossible. He cannot change his own life. Even conviction of sin, even the work of the
Law rendering him guilty before God under a curse and headed for eternal judgment is
a kind of conviction not natural to humanity but supernaturally granted by the Spirit of
God. So He does the work of conviction. Flowing out of that is His second work, He
produces out of that conviction penitence, or repentance. It is also the work of the Holy Spirit to
cause the sinner to repent. Thirdly, the Spirit energizes the gospel in
the individual heart. It is the Spirit who makes the gospel alive. It is the Spirit who quickens the gospel. Even in its preaching, 1 Peter 1:12 says,
"The gospel was preached by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven." That is, it was preached so that it penetrated
the heart and in a transforming way. And, of course, then fourthly the Spirit does
the actual work of regeneration, being renewed, being given new life. That's the saving work of the Spirit...conviction,
repentance, energizing gospel truth in the heart so as to elicit faith and the work of
regeneration. That's all the work of the Spirit. Salvation is all the work of the Spirit. Like the wind, it blows where it wills. It comes from wherever it desires to come. It goes to wherever it desires to go. We have no control over it, we can only see
its effect. So is the Holy Spirit. He does what He wills with whom He wills when
He wills, even in the work of regeneration, as Jesus was pointing out to Nicodemus. So it is the work of the Holy Spirit. Now at the time of salvation there are a number
of other things that the Spirit of God does. According to the Scriptures, very clearly
the Spirit of God immediately takes up residence in the life of every believer so that 1 Corinthians
6:19 says that we are the temple of the Spirit of God. Romans 8:9 puts it this way, "If any man be
in Christ, he has the Holy Spirit. If any man have not the Spirit, he is none
of His." So the Spirit of God takes up residence in
the believer. First Corinthians 12:13 puts it this way,
"We are baptized by Christ through the Spirit into the body." And so there is a baptizing work that Christ
does by means of the power of the Spirit, placing us in the body of Christ. That's all at the very moment of salvation. We should conclude also that at that very
moment the Spirit secures us unto eternal glory. The first chapter of Ephesians makes this
very clear, that we're given the Holy Spirit as a seal, that is we are sealed unto the
day of redemption. So we receive the Holy Spirit, it takes up
residence in us. The Spirit of God then by His power places
us into the life of the church, the body of Christ. The Spirit secures us unto eternal glory. There is even a separating work of the Holy
Spirit. It says in 1...1...2 Thessalonians, rather,
chapter 2 verse 13, that we have been sanctified by the Spirit and faith in the truth, meaning
set apart from sin. Sin no longer has dominion over us. We are set apart from it by the work of the
Spirit. And another thing the Spirit does, according
to 1 Corinthians chapter 12 verses 4 to 7, is the Spirit of God grants to us ministry
capabilities, supernatural ministry capabilities. These are called the gifts of the Spirit. All of this converges at the very moment of
our redemption, from conviction and repentance and faith in the gospel, this whole regenerating
work to the Spirit taking up residence in us, the Spirit baptizing us in to the body
of Christ, securing our eternal glory, separating us from sin and giving us ministry, spiritually
supernaturally endowed ministry capabilities, all of this occurs at our salvation. So that's how we begin in the Spirit. It is a powerful, powerful Spirit dominated
thing to become a child of God. It is a great, mighty, pervasive, lasting,
permanent work that is supernatural and is carried out by the Spirit of God. If you think about it Trinitarian sense, it
is the Father who elects, it is the Father who draws, it is the Son who pays the price
to purchase the redeemed and it is the Spirit then that applies the work of the Father and
the work of the Son to the individual. Now that we possess all of these things by
means of the Holy Spirit who has taken up residence in us so that we are as long as
we are living in this world, indwelt by the living Holy Spirit, what is His ongoing work? Having begun in the Spirit, how are we then
perfected in the Spirit? Last time I gave you a couple of things to
start. Number one, the Spirit brings us increasingly
into intimacy with God. The Spirit brings us increasingly into intimacy
with God. You heard John say when he was giving his
testimony tonight that he knows God, that he knows Christ, that he loves Christ, that
he knows there's a personal relationship with the Lord that exists in his life. This is the work of the Holy Spirit. This is the Spirit's ministry. And we pointed out a couple of verses, I will
just briefly remind you of because they're important ones in this regard. Romans chapter 8 verse 14, "For all who are
being led by the Spirit of God are the sons of God, you have not received a spirit of
slavery leading to fear again, but have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry
out Abba, Father." Abba Father means daddy. All of a sudden we think of God as our papa,
as our daddy, no longer a distant, awesome, fearful, transcendent figure not to be toyed
with, but all of a sudden we have been moved into a sense of intimacy with God where we
rush in to His presence like little children, calling Him Papa in the most endearing way
and we do it without fear, and that is because of a certain attitude, a certain disposition
that has been wrought in us by the work of the indwelling Spirit. And it says so in verse 16, the Spirit Himself
bears witness with our spirit that we're the children of God. This is the work of the Spirit, to confirm
to us that we belong to God in such a true and intimate way as to be able to call God
our Papa. The same wonderful truth is laid out for us
in Galatians chapter 4 where it says in verse 6, "God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son
into our hearts, crying Abba Father." When we speak to God with familiarity, when
we speak to God with intimacy, when we talk about our God being personal and knowing God,
this is the work of the Holy Spirit. The second thing that I pointed out to you
last time, not only does the Spirit bring us into intimacy with God, but He illuminates
the Scripture...He illuminates the Scripture. We looked at 1 Corinthians chapter 2 and won't
go through it again in detail, but remember what it says there, "God has revealed the
things which eye has not seen, ear has not heard, neither can enter into the heart of
man, God has revealed them through the Spirit...through the Spirit. And the Spirit has given them to us...verse
13...not in words taught by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual
thoughts with spiritual words." God has taken spiritual truth, God the Spirit
has taken spiritual truth and put it in spiritual words in the Scripture so that in the Scripture
we have the mind of Christ. And as we learned from 1 John, we also had
the indwelling Holy Spirit who is an anointing from God who teaches us all things. So we have the Word authored by the Spirit,
spiritual truths put in spiritual words. And we have not only the Scripture authored
by the Spirit but we have dwelling in us the teacher of Scripture, the anointing that comes
from God. All right, number three, and we'll move long
in our little outline on the basic ministries of the Holy Spirit, He glorifies Christ to
us...He glorifies Christ to us. Let's look at John 15 for a moment...John
chapter 15, verse 26. And here our Lord says, "When the Helper comes,
or when the Comforter comes, when the parakletos , from two words, to call and to be beside,
when the One who is called to come alongside beside us, when He comes whom I will send
to you from the Father, that is the Spirit of Truth..." He's talking about the Day of Pentecost, talking
about the time when the Spirit of God is dispensed. "He is the Spirit of Truth who proceeds from
the Father, He will bear witness of Me." He will bear witness of Me. In chapter 16, if you go down to verse 14,
the same thing is said again. Actually verse 13, "When He the Spirit of
Truth comes, He will guide you into all the truth." That's what we just saw in the second point. "He will not speak on His own initiative,
whatever He hears He will speak and He will disclose to you what is to come." This, of course, relates to the inspiration
that came by the means of the Spirit to the writers of Scripture, but it goes beyond that
as well. He is the Spirit of Truth. He guides us into all truth in the Scripture
and as the true interpreter of Scripture residing in us. Then verse 14 says, "He shall glorify Me for
He shall take of Mine and shall disclose it to you." This is the wonderful ministry of the Spirit
of God, it is to point us to Jesus Christ. Now if you'll look at 1 Corinthians chapter
12, you'll see this in a completely different context, but a very important one...1 Corinthians
chapter 12. In the Corinthian church there was a debacle
going on in the name of spiritual gifts. People were speaking gibberish as if it were
a true gift of language from God. It was a kind of pagan gibberish, a kind of
esoteric experience that is still common in some pagan environments. They were sometimes speaking, thinking it
was the Spirit of God and they were actually cursing Christ. This could be be because they actually on
some occasions spoke a language given to them somehow, or spoken through them by demons. Demons were using the disarray of the Corinthian
church to misrepresent the truth and to blaspheme Christ. And so he says to them in verse 1, "Concerning
spirituals, I don't want you to be unaware. You know that when you were pagans you were
led astray to the dumb idols, however you were led." When you were in paganism, you were led away
into mindless kind of experiences, led astray to the dumb idols, certainly by demons. And I want this to be made known to you, no
one speaking by the Spirit of God says Jesus is accursed. Can you imagine that in the name of some spiritual
gifts from God, they were cursing Jesus? Paul says no one ever speaking by the Spirit
of God says Jesus is accursed. "But on the other side, no one can say Jesus
is Lord except by the Holy Spirit." The Holy Spirit is concerned to exalt Christ. Anyone who exalts Christ is doing so under
the influence of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit always leads us to ascribe
glory to Christ, to ascribe lordship to Christ as the one glorious divine person who is our
Savior and our Redeemer. Not only to lead us to salvation, it's not
just to lead us to salvation. I believe that Jesus Christ is really the
theme of all the Scriptures. He was He Himself who said on the road to
Emmaus that He was the theme of the Old Testament. He said, "Search the Scriptures, they speak
of Me," earlier in His ministry. And on the road to Emmaus He began at Moses
and all the prophets and holy writings and showed them all the things concerning Himself. He is the theme of the Old Testament. He certainly is the theme of the gospels. His gospel is the theme of the book of Acts
and His redemptive work is the theme of all the epistles and His glorious return is the
theme of the book of Revelation. And so He is the theme of all Scripture so
that the Holy Spirit continues in applying the truth of Scripture to us to point directly
to the glory of Jesus Christ. And what does He have in mind? Look at 2 Corinthians chapter 3 for just a
moment, 2 Corinthians chapter 3 and the last verse in this great chapter. Second Corinthians 3:18, Paul says, "We all
with unveiled face," unlike Moses who had a veil over his face in his experience of
the glory of God in the Old Testament, the veil is off, "we behold as in a glass clearly
unveiled the glory of the Lord." We don't see things in a shadowy way, as Moses
saw when he was tucked in to the side of a rock and looked out and God let the glory
pass by him, only the back part of it, not the full glory. We don't have a diminished view of God such
as Moses did. We don't have, nor does the church of Jesus
Christ have, a veiled view of God. In Christ God is unveiled in a greater way
than ever in the Old Testament, and He will one day be unveiled in a fuller way when He
comes in His Second Coming and displays Himself in that glory which we will enjoy in eternity. But for now, the veil is off as it was on
in the Old Testament. And we look in a clear glass and see the glory
of the Lord. And where is that that we look? It is in the Word of God. This is where His glory is revealed. It is revealed in the Scripture. And as we continue to see the glory of the
Lord revealed in Scripture, verse 18 says, "We are being transformed into the same image. We move from one level of glory to the next." This is ascending levels of glory. Another way to say, we become more and more
like Christ. As we gaze at His glory, we are being transformed
into the same image. What image? The image of the glory of Christ that we see
in Scripture. One of the reasons that we always preach Christ,
one of the reasons that I never can be content to be out of the gospels of Christ is because
Christ must always be on display. He must always be the focus of everything
because as you gaze at His glory, you are transformed into His image, moving from one
level of glory to the next, to the next. This is a typical biblical way to talk about
an ascending or increasing glory. And who does the work? End of verse 18, "Just as from the Lord, the
Spirit." So the Spirit not only shows us Christ at
the time of our salvation energizing our faith in the gospel, but the Spirit continues to
disclose to us the glory of Christ and as that is disclosed to us through the Word which
He has authored and through the illumination as we read the Word, we are literally being
transformed into the very image of that glory by the work of the Holy Spirit. So in an ongoing way, He glorifies Christ
to us and shapes us increasingly into the glory of Christ. You remember what Paul said in Galatians 4:19,
"My children with whom I am again in labor until Christ is formed in you." Any faithful pastor understands that we want
God's people to be like Christ. This is the prize of the upward call for which
Paul gave His life. He pursued the image of Christ. As we gaze on the glory of Christ, a transformation
takes place. It is a in some ways an imperceptible, in
some ways a slow not monumental transformation, it is a gradual moving, ever-increasingly
up the glorious ladder toward the full image of Christ. This is done by the work of the Holy Spirit. And He does it through the Word which is where
the glory of Christ is revealed and displayed. Number four, the Holy Spirit personally guides
us into God's will. Now you want to be careful when you talk about
this because you have a lot of people running around today saying you need to listen for
the voice of God, God wants to speak to you, be sure you tune in somehow and listen to
His voice. And that can get a little bit dangerous. We're not talking about impulses. We're not talking about some kind of experience
that you can feel. That can be very dangerous. What we are talking about is that there is
a supernatural moving of the Spirit of God providentially in the life of a believer in
the direction of that which God purposes. And sometimes we don't even know it until
it's done. I can think back to a...well, for example,
my wife Patricia, I married her, I thought it was in the will of God. But I didn't have any supernatural inclination. There wasn't any halo over her head. There wasn't any supernatural work of God
by which He spoke to me out of the darkness and said, "Marry this girl." I wanted to marry her, I knew that. I didn't want to marry anybody else ever,
I just wanted to marry her. And I thought my life was right and so I thought
that if I did what was right the Lord would be leading me. And so I married her. I had no idea what my life would be like,
and she had no idea, right? She still has no idea of what's coming. We had no idea of what the future looked like. We had no concept of where it would go. God knew where it would go. God knew exactly what I needed. God knew exactly what the plan was and who
the perfect helpmeet was. The Spirit of God led me. Now this wasn't easy for the Spirit of God
because when I began to notice her, she was engaged to somebody else. That's a serious problem. In fact, it was so far down the road that
she had wedding invitations for the wedding to that guy addressed in the trunk of her
car and she was supposed to take them to the post office. Who restrained her? There's no question. There's no question. Now at that time she didn't know what a good
thing she was getting (laughter). But the bottom line was, what is going on
here is this amazing moving of the Spirit of God who stops a young girl from sending
out wedding invitations and she really doesn't know why. And at the time, I had no power to deal with
that. But God knew everything about it and God knew
the person I needed for my life and to be the mother of my children and the grandmother
of my grandchildren, and to be my partner in ministry. And His subjective ministry is that kind of
personal providential guidance. And you say, "Well how do..how do...how do...how
can you be sure that you're going to follow when it happens?" And the bottom line, and I've said this for
years and years in teaching young people, you just make sure that you're walking with
the Lord the way you ought to walk, and if you're walking with the Lord in obedience
to His Word, that's what it means to walk in the Spirit. And if you're walking in the Spirit, He'll
walk you right into the place He wants you to be. Why did I come to Grace Church? Well there were a couple of other churches
in other places that had talked to me about being a pastor. One was on an island in Hawaii. That had a small appeal. Another one was a church in Long Beach and
why here? I came here...I didn't hear any voices from
God. I didn't hear any signs from heaven. But it was so obvious that God was leading
me here, more obvious when I arrived, more obvious now than ever. And this is back to Romans 8:14, "As many
as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God." He doesn't just start you out and then leave
you on your own. You go from there. It's a little more dramatic, for example,
in the book of Acts in chapter 13 of the book of Acts. "There were in Antioch...at verse 1...in the
church that was there prophets and teachers, Barnabas and Simeon who was called Niger,
and Lucius of Cyrene, and Manaen who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul,
while they were ministering to the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, 'Set apart
for Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.' And when they had fasted and prayed, laid
hands on them, they sent them away. They were sent out by the Holy Spirit." Now obviously the Holy Spirit spoke in that
day before there was the Scripture completion and there were various miraculous things going
on in the apostolic era. That's not the point. That's not how the Spirit of God works now. But the point that I want you to notice there
is that the Spirit of God does determine who He wants to go where. And that hasn't changed. And so we can have the confidence that the
Spirit of God providentially is going to direct us. It's not going to be a feeling. It's going to be the unfolding of His will
and to be in the middle of it, you need to make sure you're walking in the Spirit which
means to be walking consistently in obedience to the Word of God. And we'll look at that when we get down our
list a little further. I love what it says in Acts 15. "It seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to
us to lay upon you no greater burden then these essentials." Now that's walking in the Spirit. It seemed good to the Spirit and to us. Here's the confidence that they were operating
in the direction that was consistent with the work of the Spirit. Acts 16, they passed through the Phrygian
and Galatian region, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the Word in Asia. And when they had come to Mysia, they were
trying to go to Bithynia, the Spirit of Jesus didn't permit them." Now look, here they are again. In some cases it seems good for the Spirit
to have them go this way. It was the Spirit's will to separate them
out of the Antiochian church and send them elsewhere. On another occasion, the Spirit stops them
from going in a certain place. The phenomena of that apostolic era are different...were
different than now. But the same Spirit exercises the same purposes
and the same will to have us go here and not go there. And if you want to enjoy the fullness of the
Spirit in a life partner, in a life career, in a ministry, it behooves us then to be in
the Spirit and that is to be walking in the Spirit, and that is to be walking in obedience
to the Word of God so that we are under the Spirit's control. So the Holy Spirit provides intimacy with
God. The Holy Spirit illuminates the Scripture. The Holy Spirit glorifies Christ. And the Holy Spirit guides us into God's will...not
by violence, not by violating our inclination, but by supernaturally bending our will, supernaturally
changing our desires and by providence, the ordering of circumstances. The Holy Spirit stirs the heart as well as
illuminating the mind. Psalm 143:10, "Teach me to do Thy will." Psalm 119:35, "Make me go in the path of Thy
commandments and therein do I delight." A.W. Pink described this leading of the Spirit
with these words, "Those who are directed by this divine Spirit are moved to examine
their hearts and take frequent notice of their ways, to mourn over their carnality and perverseness,
to confess their sins and earnestly seek grace to enable them to be obedient." Now as you pray that way and as you live that
way, the Spirit of God directs your life. It's such a wonderful way to live. It's all I've ever known in my life. It's all I've ever known. The Spirit of God led me to the right woman. The Spirit of God led me to the right church. The Spirit of God led me to the right school,
the right ministry, the right people to work with. My life is filled with people that have all
been dropped into my life by the Holy Spirit. It's amazing...it's amazing. In fact, it's overwhelming to have the Holy
Spirit drop so many gifted people into your life. People say to me, "How do you do so many different
ministries? How...how do you do all that?" And my answer is I don't do all that, I just
basically show up here on Sunday and preach and everything else happens because the Lord
through the work of the Spirit has drawn into this ministry a myriad of gifted people. And I look at all these people and I say they're
all gifts of the Holy Spirit. They're all given to me by the providential
working of the Holy Spirit. And I hope that all these folks also feel
that all the rest of us are given to them by the Holy Spirit. Just an amazing thing to live your life, never
look back, never second guess. People say to me, "If you had your life to
live over again, what would you do different?" My answer is, "I'm not in charge of my life...I'm
not in charge of my life. My life has happened to me, I haven't made
it happen." I still don't understand why it happens the
way it happens. But what an adventure. If you just stay in the place where God wants
you to be, then you're going to walk in the Spirit and you're going to just walk right
in to the areas of the will of God that the Spirit has for you. Well, I'll give you one more and then I'll
save the last few for next time. I'll be gone a couple of weeks so it will
be a few weeks before we get back to it. Number five, the Spirit ministers to us through
the body of believers. And I wanted to say this because it fits what
I've just been talking about. God surrounds us with people by His Holy Spirit. He draws us all together in a way that creates
mutual ministry for maximum impact. This is not just a church where people sit
in a pew and listen to somebody talk. This is not just a religion with adherence. This is, by the definition of the New Testament,
a body of believers. We are the body of Christ. We have common life, the life of God, and
we've been put together like a body is put together, with all the necessary parts for
total and complete efficiency spiritually and to accomplish the will of God. And all the parts have to be there. We have to have people who have the gift of
leadership and the ability to preach and teach and minister. We have to have those who can discern the
knowledge of Scripture and apply the wisdom of the Word of God. We have to have people who serve and people
who have the gift of faith who can pray. All of those functions, all of those ministries
are crucial to the body of Christ. Look at 1 Corinthians chapter 12 and we'll
see how this is the work of the Holy Spirit. First Corinthians chapter 12, verse 4, "There
are variety of gifts, but the same Spirit....the same Spirit, the very same Spirit by which
we can say Jesus is Lord, is the one who empowers all of these gifts." We're not talking about somebody like a gifted
child, that's a different use of the word all together. We're not talking about your ability to play
the violin, or being precocious mathematically when you're six years old. We're not talking about your IQ, we're not
talking about your athletic skill. Those are human things. We're talking about spiritual gifts here,
spiritual abilities, ministry abilities. They are given by the Spirit. There are a variety of ministries, same Lord,
variety of effects, same God. There are differing abilities, they function
in different ministries and they have a variety of effects. It's all the same God. It's all the same Lord. And it's all the same Spirit. "But to each one," verse 7, each believer,
"is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good." Every one of you as a believer, has the manifestation
of the Spirit through a ministry ability. The Spirit of God has given you a ministry
ability for the common good. It's not for you, it's for us...it's for us. To one is given the word of wisdom through
the Spirit, to another the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit, another is faith
by the same Spirit. And then there were in the apostolic time
gifts of healing, miracles, to another prophecy, the distinguishing of spirits, various kinds
of tongues, interpretation of tongues. One in the same Spirit works all these things
distributing to each one individually just as He wills. Every individual has a manifestation of the
Spirit in a ministry ability in apostolic time...and that's a whole other study for
another time. There were sign gifts which are miracles,
healing, tongues, interpretation of tongues. Romans chapter 12 also has a list of gifts
that needs to be compared to this one, Romans chapter 12, talks about one body, all members
do not have the same function, verse 4. We who are many are one body in Christ, individually
members one of another. We have gifts that differ according to the
grace given to us, prophecy, service, teaching, exhortation, giving, leading, showing mercy. In 1 Peter 4 you have two categories, there
are the serving gifts and the speaking gifts and they are manifold and multi-colored. And they are all given us by the Holy Spirit. That's what verse 11 says, 1 Corinthians 12:11,
"One and the same Spirit works all these things." This is the amazing thing. The Lord by the Spirit collects all these
people together so that we can mutually minister to one another in fullness that there might
be a manifestation of the full glory of Christ through His body which is the church. That's why we are commanded in Hebrews 10,
and this is...this is an important command, familiar to you, Hebrews chapter 10 verse
24, "Let us consider how to stimulate one another to love and good deeds." How do we do that? Through our gifts...through our ministries
to one another. "Not forsaking our own assembling together
as the habit of some." Don't be like some who aren't here all the
time. "Don't forsake the assembly, but rather encourage
one another all the more as you see the day drawing near." We meet together for mutual ministry. We meet together to stimulate one another
to love and good works. You could add to that all the list of the
one anothers in the New Testament, exhort one another, pray for one another, love one
another, rebuke one another, reprove one another, restore one another, and they go on and on
and on. This is how the body of Christ functions. All of this "one another," all of this gifting
is the work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit then has an ongoing ministry
through the body of believers. My gift is not for me, it's for you. Your gift is not for you, it's for me. And we're all enriched by the multiplicity
of Spirit-given, Spirit-energized gifts. So when you think about the Holy Spirit, spend
some time worshiping the Holy Spirit. Worship Him. Worship Him the same way you worship Christ. Worship Him the same way you worship God the
Father. I know we don't have enough hymns to sing
to the Holy Spirit, we need to write more. Worship the Holy Spirit as the One who has
regenerated you, as the One who has drawn you into intimacy with God, as the One who
has given you the Scripture and is illuminating you to understand that Scripture, as the One
who is showing you the glory of Christ, as the One who is personally guiding you into
the will of God, orchestrating all the issues of your life in the direction of God's will,
as the One who has placed you in the body and gifted you and all the people around you
for mutual ministry. Why? Let's look at Ephesians 4 and we'll stop there
and see how this mutual ministry works. Ephesians 4 verse 12, it talks about the equipping
of the saints for the work of service...the equipping of the saints for the work of service
to the building up of the body of Christ. Why? Until we all attain to the unity of the faith
and the knowledge of the Son of God to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs
to the fullness of Christ. What we want is a body that looks like Christ's. I appreciated what Rick said a moment ago
when he said that people who come to the conferences go away not just talking about the teaching
but talking about the ministry of the people. That is as much the work of the Holy Spirit
as the teaching and the preaching is. And that is the fullness of the body manifesting
the fullness of Christ. That's what a church should be. People should come to a church and they should
say the teaching is obviously empowered by the Holy Spirit. But so is the loving and so is the fellowship
and so is the mutual ministry at every level. It is obvious that the ministry of children
and young people and adults is energized by the Holy Spirit. It is obvious that the ministry to the needy
and those that are suffering is energized by the Spirit of God. It ought to be pervasive so that Christ is
manifest everywhere because we have reached what Paul calls the measure of the stature
which belongs to the fullness of Christ. Well, my time is gone and I have a couple
of other important ones, and then a kind of final picture about how to walk in the Spirit,
but we'll save that for next time. Holy Spirit, we come before You now to worship
You and we ask forgiveness for grieving You, for quenching You, for not giving to You the
honor and the glory that You are due. You are as worthy as are Christ, You are as
worthy has God the Father, You are all glorious, You are wondrous, You are majestic, You are
eternal. We worship You. We give You praise and honor and thanks for
implementing all that the Father and Son have set in the eternal decree to unfold in the
plan of redemption. We thank You for convicting us of sin, leading
us to repentance, quickening our hearts under the power of the gospel, for regenerating
us, we thank You, O Holy Spirit, for the ongoing work of sanctification, separating us from
sin further and further. We thank You for coming to take up Your residence
in us though we are unworthy. We thank You for placing us into the body. We thank You for equipping us with ministry
capability that is supernatural. We thank You for glorifying Christ increasingly
to us and shaping us into His image. We thank You for leading us, to understand
the Word and to know Your will in the providences of life. We thank You for drawing us into the place
where You want us to be, enriching our lives with such good gifts. Thank You for putting us in the body of Christ
where You can minister to us not only in our own lives but through the lives of those who
surround us in the fellowship. We love You. Teach us to love You more and to rejoice in
You. May we never, never assign to You those things
that are not Yours. May we never cheapen You. May we defend the integrity of Your ministry
as revealed in Scripture. May we defend Your honor and Your glory. May we be true representatives of Your work. May we put Your work on display by the way
we live individually. May it be obvious that we are Spirit-filled,
Spirit controlled, and Spirit led for there's no other explanation for our spiritual impact
as individuals. And may our church respond so to Your powerful
influences through the Word and through Your internal leading that we might come in the
exercise of all our ministries to the very fullness of Christ, that Christ truly would
be on display. We know this pleases You, for as Christ came
to show us the Father, You have come to glorify the Son. And we praise You and we thank You for this
work. We thank You that You sealed us to eternal
glory and the seal can never be broken. You have secured us to our heavenly destination,
for that as well, we praise You. And we commit again to walk in obedience to
the will that is revealed through Scripture, that we might truly walk in Your power and
in Your direction and know the fullness of joy that You grant for the Kingdom of God
is righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Give us that joy in fullness, we pray, in
Christ's name. Amen.
