"The Neglected Gift" - Ronald L. Dart

what has the holy spirit led you to do recently it was paul who said it for as many as are led by the spirit of god they are the sons of god so since we are the sons of god it's only fair to ask then how have we been led by the spirit of god but then for me that raises an obvious question i guess sometimes i get a little too analytical but nevertheless i will raise the question how do you know it is the holy spirit leading you and not your own wants your own desires your own objectives i've heard people preachers sometimes non-preachers other times who have said and attributed for example a uh a bad case of indigestion that the holy spirit put me in the bed and kept me from going over there so god must not have wanted me to be there uh they lost their job because they hadn't been working very hard at it and the holy spirit must not have wanted me to work there for there he got me out of that company to go on to work in another one you know you can see what i mean that it's very easy for us to make a false attribution to the holy spirit and yet at the same time the spirit should be leading us in our lives from day to day is it where has it led you recently where have you gone that you might not have gone if the holy spirit had not led you now this is not an easy question then i may not have the answer to it but it's not just this question of where does it lead you it's the holy spirit does a lot of things we know from the bible that the holy spirit is a teacher what has the holy spirit taught you recently holy spirit is a revelator how does the holy spirit reveal to you what has it approved or disapproved of your works of the things that you do how can you know what has what witness has the holy spirit given to you and what has it forbidden you to do that you otherwise might have done now all these things the bible tells us routinely that the spirit does these things but how can we know and how can we tell the difference between the leadership of the holy spirit the bad case of indigestion it's a valid question i can't give you the answer to that there is too much about the working of the holy spirit that we simply do not know it's important for us to distinguish between what we know and what we guess at between what is revealed and what is not revealed because it's in the confusion of the two elements one what we definitely can know and then those things which we can only guess at or have conjectures of it is in not discerning the difference between these two things that a lot of mistakes get made one of the most important keys to understanding the bible is recognizing the difference between what we know and what we think we know there actually are you know mysteries in the bible there are things in the bible that really are mysteries some are mysteries because we have not solved them yet we have not found the answer yet and someday we may some are mysteries because they are simply beyond our kin they are unknowable to the human mind they are not revealed god doesn't feel that we have any need to know it and so he doesn't bother to tell us that doesn't of course keep us from wondering about them nevertheless but it seems to me that the place to start when you're dealing with something like this with what is known to get your feet firmly on on solid ground or on the rock of things that you do know and that you can be confident in that otherwise you know with if you don't nail those things down you could easily go astray i'm going to give you four of these things today the first one is simple the holy spirit is itself a gift we oftentimes speak of the gifts of the spirit without recalling the fact that the holy spirit itself is a gift today is the anniversary of that great day of pentecost when the disciples were empowered with the holy spirit the story is familiar enough and i'm not going to go back to start at the beginning but i want to read you one short segment out of peter's great sermon on this day because it is important his answer to a question that he was asked it's in acts 2 verse 37 when the people heard what peter had said he had powerfully convicted his audience they were cut to the heart and they said to peter and the other apostles brothers what shall we do peter replied repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of jesus christ for the forgiveness of your sins and you shall receive the gift of the holy spirit two things one you can know that the holy spirit is a gift of god and second you can know that you have received that gift you can have confidence in it if we repented of our sins and we were baptized we can rest assured that we have been given the gift of the holy spirit we do not need to be assailed by doubts we know it by faith trusting god to follow through peter said repent be baptized in the name of jesus christ for the remission of sins and you will receive the gift of the holy spirit you can take that to the bank there is no reason to equivocate no reason to wonder at all but what are the consequences of knowing this particular small thing there's a section i want to take a little time with this one because it's an important passage of scripture it's in first corinthians chapter six chapter six i'm going to begin reading to you in verse 9 to read up to the point that i wish to make as i go through this in chapter 6 verse 9 paul says don't you know that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of god make no mistake about it he says neither fornicators nor idolaters nor adulterers nor effeminate nor abusers of themselves with mankind nor thieves nor covetous nor drunkards no revilers nor extortioners shall inherit the kingdom of god what a list it's a fairly obvious list one would think and yet here it is it means so quite clearly not just anybody and everybody's going to the kingdom of god here's a whole long litany of people who will not go then he says something else and such were some of you and i have no doubt that was they read this little litany out in the corinthian church and perhaps even as i read this litany out to you here today i may have pinched someone a bit in the process but that's okay paul then says such were some of you but you are washed you are sanctified you are justified in the name of the lord jesus and by the spirit of our god then the next section is a little awkward especially the king james version and i really think the niv has it right at this point because they insert quotation marks to indicate that what paul is doing is quoting what the corinthians said and giving his answer and so paul writes here with quotation marks starting everything is possible for me in quote but everything paul says is not beneficial you may say quote everything is permissible for me paul says but i will not be mastered by anything you say food for the stomach and stomach for food paul says but god will destroy them both the body is not meant for sexual immorality but for the lord and the lord for the body that's what paul says the body is not intended for that now listen to what he goes on to say and god has raised up both raised up the lord and will raise us up by his own power don't you know that your bodies are the members of christ shall i then take the members of christ and make the members of a harlot are we supposed to take your body and join it somehow to a harlot this is a real problem but corinth it's not a terribly unreal problem for us either but nevertheless in corinth where there were temples here and there with temple prostitutes it was a fairly common occurrence and the implication is that some of the corinthians hadn't quite got it out of their mind yet perhaps you can understand why what paul says don't you understand that he which is joined to a harlot is one body for he's the two he says shall be one flesh he that is joined to the lord is one spirit then he says flee fornication every sin that a man does is outside the body but he that commits fornication sins against his own body now we could argue for hours about what you mean out of the body and in the body but that's not where paul's going what paul is saying is you can argue about all the sins in the world you want to but fornication you sin against your own body why is that important verse 19 what don't you know that your body is the temple of the holy spirit which is in you which you have of god and you don't belong to yourself anymore you're not your own to do as you speak please you are bought with a price therefore glorify god in your body and in your spirit which are gods don't you know that your body is the temple of the holy spirit which dwells in you now what are the consequences of this simple truth what's the holy spirit doing there snoring nothing asleep is your life untouched by it are you undirected by it are you not led by it are you not taught by it doesn't the holy spirit influence the way you live your life on a daily basis is that influence completely subliminal to you you're completely unaware of it that you don't even know that it's there but if you don't know how do you know that it's doing anything but that you have maybe quenched the spirit that you have squashed the spirit that the spirit of city is in you but it is doing nothing because you aren't listening to the spirit we don't think much about spirit i don't you know we just really don't have it in a conscious mind to think consciously we don't credit the things that happen to us to the spirit we don't say to ourself well the holy spirit did lead me to go this way i felt led by the holy spirit to make this decision i feel that the holy spirit kept me from making that stupid mistake we don't attribute things to the holy spirit why don't we perhaps it's because we're not sure perhaps it's because we're not in tune perhaps we just don't know we know two things so far about the holy spirit we know it's a gift of god and we know that the holy spirit dwells in us but there's a third very important thing that we need to know the holy spirit that is in us works it doesn't sleep it works the reason the holy spirit is in us the reason it dwells in us be it is there to make a difference if we are to be led by the holy spirit to me that means that the spirit of god actively leads in our lives the question is whether or not we are prepared to follow that's another very long it's not terribly long but a longer scripture in paul's writings that i want to take you to it's in romans chapter 8. this has sometimes been called the holy spirit chapter i'm not going to read it all to you but there is a part of it that i think we need to consider romans 8 and verse 8. so then they that are in the flesh cannot please god and i would say that that little statement right there probably summarizes the way a lot of people feel they feel i'm flesh and blood it's not possible for those that are in the flesh to please god i can't please god no matter how hard i try so why try i can't please god so i just you know some people i think just give it up but the problem is that's not where paul stopped he said they that are in the flesh cannot please god but you are not in the flesh but in the spirit if so be that the spirit of god dwells in you if you have repented if you've been baptized you have received the holy spirit of god the spirit of god dwells in you and you are not in the flesh therefore you can please god something that before your baptism and before receiving the holy spirit you couldn't do but now you can if any man has not the spirit of christ he is none of his and if christ is in you the body is dead because of sin but the spirit is life because of righteousness but if the spirit of him that raised up jesus from the dead dwell in you the spirit of him who raised jesus from the dead dwells in you then he that raised up christ from the dead shall also quicken your mortal bodies by his spirit that dwells in you that spirit that lives in us is instrumental in our resurrection it is by that spirit that god is going to bring us back to life again and give us eternal life therefore brethren we are debtors not to the flesh to live after the flesh if you live after the flesh you shall die but if you through the spirit do mortify the deeds of the body you can live and this is where the structure the struggle begins to come in that whenever the spirit of god comes into us and begins to live in us a struggle is started that will go on for the rest of your life it is a struggle between the drawings of the spirit and the drawing of the flesh and in fact the spirit and the flesh are opposed to one another because the flesh has appetites that we naturally want to fulfill many of these appetites are harmful to us and some of them are harmful to other people and the spirit of god in us tells us don't don't indulge those appetites you may not do this you may do that you may not do the other all these revelations are available to us and so the struggle begins within us and many people have sometimes expressed the feeling after baptism that the struggle to obey god the struggle to live the life was harder after they were baptized than it ever was before yeah it was because of the simple fact that now the fight is on before you were giving in you were going into flow you were accepting it and now there is something inside of you that says no you can't do that no we can't go that way this is a better way walk you in it this is what begins to take place he says as many as are led by the spirit of god they are the sons of god and that makes that question i ask at the beginning of the sermon pertinent doesn't it how have you been led by the spirit of god recently what has it led you to do what has it led you away from what has it has it urged you to make a change in your life about has there been any leadership of the holy spirit as many as are led by the spirit of god they're the sons of god because you haven't received the spirit of bondage to fear and this is a very important characteristic of the spirit of god it is not a fearful spirit it is not a spirit of bondage you have received the spirit of sonship whereby we cry abba father the spirit itself bearing witness with our spirit that we are the children of god man that's a profound statement it reveals for the first place that i have a spirit that there is a spirit in me and that somehow or that the spirit of god bears witness with my spirit and through that identification perhaps more than than that perhaps through that communion i know that i am a child of god and not of this world if we're children then we're heirs heirs of god joint heirs with christ if so be that we suffer with him that we may be glorified together for i reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that shall be revealed in us and that glory is totally bound up in the holy spirit the indwelling of the holy spirit and the work of the holy spirit inside the life and the body of a human being so we know that the holy spirit in us leads and we have a pretty good idea of the direction of that leadership we also know that the holy spirit teaches us leads us teaches us and helps us to understand things that otherwise we might not know in first corinthians chapter 2 verse 9 paul says this as it is written eye has not seen nor ear heard neither has entered into the heart of a man the things which god has prepared for them that love him it's a staggering thing to consider you know it has to be so that you can't see you kevin heard it doesn't even enter into the heart of a man what god has in store for us but god has revealed them to us by his spirit there are some of us who now are able to see through the bible and through the leadership of the spirit then and by his spirit what god has in store for us things our eyes have not seen things our ears have not heard but nevertheless we can begin to understand them the spirit searches all things the deep things of god what man knows the things of a man say the spirit of man which is in him even so the things of god knows no man but the spirit of god and one scene one assumes from this that there is something in man there is a non-physical element in the human brain that elevates the mind of man above the mind of animals and it is because we now have that spirit that is in man that we are able to understand the things of a man i used to tell how that every day during the days of unleavened bread i would sit down to my old bird dog and hold her by the chin and begin to explain to her that these are the days of unleavened dog biscuits i did it because just because i wanted to kind of illustrate for myself and my dog the meaning of this particular passage of scripture i can understand the meaning of the the days of unleavened bread she can't she's a dog now what paul is saying is that there are the things of god that are just as remote from you and me as the days of unleavened bread are from my dog except that she knows she gets a different dog biscuit during those days that's all she knows and has no idea why and here we are jumping along the world in the dark not having any idea what god has in store for us just as blind to his purposes as a dog or a cat would be unless or until the spirit of god opens our mind opens our heart and enables us to see what he has in store for us and what it means now paul says in verse 12 we have received not the spirit of the world but the spirit which is of god why so we might know the things that are freely given to us of god which things also we speak not in the words which man's wisdom teaches but which the holy spirit teaches that's why i ask him what has the holy spirit taught you recently paul says comparing spiritual things with spiritual we're talking about things now that are really not not reachable by man without the help of the holy spirit and the implication of that is that the bible that you hold in your lap which can be held by any number of people in the world today and virtually every language of man under the face of heaven can be read and understood but the implication is there's more than you'll find on the printed page because eye has not seen ear has not heard it hasn't entered into the heart of the man what god has prepared for us but it is revealed to us through his spirit we speak these things comparing spiritual things with spiritual but the natural man doesn't receive the things of the spirit of god they are foolishness to him he cannot know them because they are spiritually discerned but he that is spiritual judges all things yet he himself is judged of no man for who has known the mind of the lord that he can instruct him but we have the mind of christ wow that's quite a statement we have the mind of christ and the only way that can be true is because of the holy spirit which dwells in us which teaches us which leads us which forbids us which encourages us which points us directs us and gives us things that we other would not know now could it be when we have to sit there with blank expressions on our face when we say how has the holy spirit led you recently could it be that we are simply not attentive could it be that the leadership of the holy spirit is there but we're just insensitive to it we we don't realize it one of my concerns i'll be honest with you is i might start interpreting my feelings as the leadership of the holy spirit spirit people have faked it you know there are people who will come and tell you well the lord spoke to me stood great statue at my foot of my bed gave me this message that i would go here i should do there i should build this building or i should do that and they weren't telling the truth some people sometimes they make it up sometimes they had a dream which was nothing more than eating the wrong things before they went to bed and they interpret the dream their way to mean that you ought to send them money and you should know something's wrong with that right off the bat there are charlatans on every corner all the times you turn around who are quite willing to tell you these things and it started very early there's an interesting passage back in the eighth chapter of the book of acts which i think is worth taking a moment with because it relates relates to this subject the eighth chapter of acts the church has been scattered out of jerusalem by persecution they had sat around there i guess long enough god said it's time to get out and take the gospel to the world philip went down to the city of samaria we're told in verse 5 and preached christ to them and the people with one accord gave heed to the things that philip spoke seeing and hearing the miracles that he did because philip went up there healing people and performing miracles unclean spirits with a loud voice came out of many that were possessed with them and many taken with palsies and many that were lame were healed they were getting up and walking and there was tremendous joy in the city there was celebration going on because of what peter was able to do but there was a certain man named simon which before time in the same city used sorceries and bewitched the people of samaria giving out that he himself was some great one demonic maybe trickery probably because in fact magicians can make you believe almost that black is white and white is black and it's all done by trickery and everybody knows that when you go to see one of these shows by by magicians but he says everybody gave heed to him from the leaders least to the greatest saying this man is the great power of god to him they had regard because of a long time he had bewitched them with sorceries but when they believed philip preaching the things concerning the kingdom of god and the name of jesus christ they were baptized both men and women now this is really interesting because all of them were saying that man is the great power of god here comes philip and not very long afterward these same people were being baptized giving their lives to god receiving the spirit of god and turning their lives around then simon himself believed also and when he was baptized he continued with philip and wondered beholding the miracles and the signs which were done because this is important to him now when the apostles with jerusalem heard samaria had received the word of god they sent to them peter and john who when they were come down prayed for them that they might receive the holy spirit for as yet the holy spirit was fallen upon none of them they had just been baptized in the name of the lord jesus why god did this one that this way we can speculate on but we'll pass over that for right now then laid they their hands on them and they received the holy spirit now when simon saw that through the laying on of the apostles hands the spirit was given he offered them money saying hey give me this power that on whoever i lay hands he may receive the holy spirit simon wanted the power i presume for the power's sake and the fact that he gave them offered them money for it gives you a hint as to what he planned to do with it think about it it showed where his value system was peter said your money perished with you because you have thought that the gift of god could be purchased with money the holy spirit is the gift of god you have neither part nor a lot in this matter your heart is not right in the sight of god now knowing that you are led by the spirit should give you great boldness you know when you're making a decision under the leadership of the spirit of god you can go ahead without any fear without any concerns for yourself you can know i'm doing god's will i'm on the way doing what god wants but one can only do god's will with that kind of boldness you can't go charging off after your own agenda doing your thing and again i keep coming back to my question again how can we know we have to try the spirits the bible is naturally our standard and we have you know indications in the bible to tell us how to go about trying the spirits but if you have thought about it you know that there are hundreds and thousands of life situations that the bible does not directly address you know you have decisions to make every day that the bible doesn't tell you it gives you the law of god you have ten commandments bang bang bang right delayed out they are separated into categories love of god love of your fellow man and then there are all manner of laws in the bible that interpret these things and they make quite an impressive list but you know at the same time that there's not enough information there if there were enough information there we wouldn't be having all the discussions all the questions all the arguments all the things that we go through from time to time about what is god's will about this or that does the holy spirit have any role in guiding you through these things i don't know how the holy spirit works i just know that it does and i know that that's what you've got to depend on you have got to ask god to give you his spirit you've got to ask god to guide you through his spirit because as you live your life you're going to face a lot of hard questions in which the bible does not have a clear and definitive answer for you you're going to run into situations that because of changes in technology that the bible never you know foresaw or if god foresaw them he wasn't able or didn't include it concluded he would not try to explain them to man four or five thousand years ago what was going to happen now but in any case we face questions and wearing technology that the bible is silent on we are going to face more questions as medical science pushes frontiers forward and we are able to do things with you know embryos and fetuses and so forth and you'd be able to use body parts to change you know to move body parts from one you know from a fetus into a another another one to save a life with the other one you know it's combined life that way we're going to be able to do things with dna that we never even imagined and the question is going to arise the bible doesn't say what does the holy spirit say and each of us in our own heart and our own mind are going to have to deal with questions that right now we either we could not know perhaps being sensitive to the holy spirit can help us through a time like that the biggest problem from my perspective is knowing when the holy spirit leads and when it is not leading when it has not decided when it is my idea the apostle paul made this statement or actually i think it was luke that made the statement a book of acts he said we tried to go into bethenny we couldn't go there and were forbidden by the holy spirit to preach the gospel in asia how'd he do that and how did paul know now it could be that a storm a landslide closed a road a customs inspector and a bad attitude any number of things could have happened to turn paul back and not have them go into asia and yet paul could have said with a little persistence we can get around this we can go forward he didn't say that whatever it was that happened he said we were forbidden by the holy spirit he didn't say we were prevented by circumstances he didn't say some bad things happen and we thought maybe god didn't want us to go up there he said we were forbidden i don't know how he knew that the answer is the correct answer is we don't know how he knew that and we probably shouldn't speculate but at the same time each one of us faces questions as to whether or not we can attribute something to the holy spirit or whether we're engaging in divine name dropping and the fact of the matter is the leadership of the holy spirit is very personal and whether or not the holy spirit led you to this or didn't lead you to it is not my business it's yours and the accountability is also yours the holy spirit was an active presence to the apostles in a way it does not seem to be to us i can only conclude that from reading through the new testament and i suppose in a way that's not terribly surprising perhaps it can't be the same for us as it was for the apostles but should the holy spirit be a non-presence for us are we are we in the opposite extreme to where we sort of muddle through life knowing that the holy spirit is in us but not having a clue where it's taking us what it wants of us where god would like for us to go i don't have a definitive answer to this but i do have some ideas that i want to leave with you to before we get to the fourth thing that we can know about the holy spirit there's a familiar passage of scripture in galatians 5 verse 22 it's the cataloging of the fruits of the spirit the fruit of the spirit is love joy peace longsuffering gentleness goodness faith meekness and temperance now that's a nice list that's a nice list in fact i like to be around people who exhibit these things people who are loving joyful peaceful long-suffering they're gentle they're good their faith they have faith they're they're meek people they're temporary people there's good neighbors these are good fellow church members good brothers and i'd like to be thought of as one person like that i'd like to be to see these fruits in my life they are fruits that can be evident to a person who is being led by the spirit so this is one clue that we have one set of standards we can we can apply to the movements that take place in our lives as to whether the holy spirit is leading or something else is going on where do we go in relation to these they that are christ's have crucified the afflict we have crucified the flesh with the affections and the lusts if we live in the spirit let's walk in the spirit let's not be desirous of vain glory provoking one another envying one another now there we have a contrast goodness gentleness peace love joy or provocation envy picking at one another there is this is this is one of the things that we can look at to evaluate where we are being led what we are being taught where we think god is taking us now there is another fruits of the spirit passage by the way this is the one that is most readily recognized the one we tend to go to first but there is another one and it's found in ephesians the fifth chapter i'm going to read quite a bit of the chapter not merely the section the one verse that has to do with it because i think the whole thing here is very relevant to where we're going ephesians chapter 5 verse 1 he says this be you therefore followers of god as dear children it's a the word follower basically if it comes from a greek word which means to imitate and i've often used the example of a boy that i used to know who so imitated his father that that whenever i'd watched see his dad walking across the college campus with a real he had bad knees and he had a peculiar rolling gate as he walked and see him and his son walking across the campus and to see his son who had perfectly good legs walking exactly like his father was a real revelation to me be you imitators of god as dear children and walk in love as christ has loved us and given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to god for a smelling savor but fornication and all uncleanness and covetousness let it not be once named among you as become saints now these are things which i think would start showing up among people who are being led by the spirit no filthiness nor foolish talking nor jesting which are not convenient but rather the giving of thanks for this you know no whoremonger nor unclean person nor covetous man who is by the way an idolater has any inheritance in the kingdom of god and of christ not a partial inheritance not a bad piece of land he doesn't have any inheritance in the kingdom of christ let no man deceive you with vain words for because of these things comes the wrath of god upon the children of disobedience now don't be partakers with them for you were sometimes darkness but now you are light in the lord walk as children of the light for the fruit of the spirit remember i said there was another fruit of the spirit passage the fruit of the spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth proving what is acceptable to the lord don't have any fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness but rather we prove them because it is a shame even to speak of the things that these people do in secret but all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light for whatever makes manifest is light whatever it is that gets shown that that is showing things up that's light and that's one of the things that the holy spirit does it shines a light on things and makes them obvious makes them manifest lets you see things you otherwise might miss so he says awake you that sleep rise from the dead and christ will give you light see that you walk circumspectly not as fools but as wise redeeming the time buy back that time the days are evil so don't be unwise but understanding what the lord is don't be drunk with wine whereas in excess but be filled with the ah would god we wish that we could be and the way the bible speaks of being full of the spirit it implies that you can sort of be not quite so full of the spirit and i imagine most of us would describe ourselves as sort of half full or maybe less we have it but certainly did not feel filled with it what happens to make the difference i don't know i can tell you in simple terms all i can tell you is that the insensitivity to the spirit the unawareness of the spirit the unwillingness to be led by the spirit makes a difference but listen to what he says be filled with the spirit speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs singing and making melody in your heart to the lord the poetry the songs beautiful you know the music and the songs which we can learn by memory which praise god these are the things that make the difference with the filling up of the spirit in our lives giving thanks always for all things unto god and the father in the name of the lord jesus christ giving thanks i would say that's one of the things that helps fill us up but there's one more important thing we need to know about the spirit it's implied by what i've been reading it's very easy very easy for us to overlook in the night of the last supper jesus had a lot to say to his disciples we always read through this at the passover service we start with john 14 and make our way on through john 17. he had a lot of very important things but in john the 14th chapter in verse 15 he made a statement that i don't know you don't exactly overlook it but sometimes i think the implications of it don't come home jesus said in verse 15 if you love me keep my commandments and i will pray the father and he shall give you another comforter that he may abide with you forever even the spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive because it doesn't see him doesn't know him but you know him he dwells with you he shall be in you i will not leave you comfortless i will come to you by the way comfortless is a greek word orphanos from which we will get the word orphans i won't leave you orphans i will come to you but the father will give you another comforter now the greek word that jesus uses here and it's remember that that i should say that john does the greek word is parakletos and you begin to wonder well why does jesus refer to the holy spirit as a a comforter i stumbled onto something interesting about the root of this word in a curious passage in second corinthians it was many years ago when i first noticed it that the king james translators have unaccountably botched this section the niv guys were correct to be consistent throughout which they are because they take the same greek root and translated comfort comfort comfort comfort or comforter all the way through either in noun form or verb form but in five short verses here in second corinthians the first chapter paul uses the same greek root ten times ten times he uses this word in five short chapters and you run across a play on words like that you go wait a minute what is he driving in what is it i'm supposed to get from this the greek root is which is the verb expressed as parathesis in the noun or adjective construction it's translated in the king james version as comfort or consolation you'll notice them in your bible now i want to read this to you from the king james version but perhaps making some corrections second corinthians chapter 1 verse 3 blessed be god even the father of our lord jesus christ the father of mercies and the god of all comfort and that's an odd thing to say because you know god puts us in some downright uncomfort uncomfortable situations from time to time and israel had to walk out of egypt on foot through the desert i would not say that they were comfortable out there but nevertheless he's called the god of all comfort who comforts us in all our tribulation that we may be able to comfort those who are in any trouble by the comfort where we ourselves are comforted of god notice the play on this this repetitious use of the word driving at something here for as the sufferings of christ abound in us so our consolation abounds in christ and i have no reason no idea why the king james translators switched to consolation here because it should read as the sufferings of christ abound in us so our comfort abounds in christ for whether we be afflicted it is for your comfort and salvation which is effectual in the enduring of the same sufferings which we suffer whether we are comforted it is for your comfort and salvation and our hope of you is steadfast knowing that as you are partakers of the sufferings sows you shall be of the comfort what do you mean comfort there's something about all this said i know when i first read through this and even when i first began to realize it should be the same word all the way through it there's something about it that bothered me i never could quite get my mind around what do you mean god of all comfort and of comforting one another and so i sent out to do a a word study throughout the new testament it's quite a job in those days i didn't have a computer to do the work and i basically took the old strong's concordance in the englishman's greek concordance sorry hebrew concordance no greek concordance and worked my way through every instance in the bible that had anything to do with it some 140 of them and as i ran the study it slowly dawned on me that in modern terms comfort or consolation didn't quite say what paul and the others in the new testament who used that word are driving at the best renderings of the english words for this are in courage encouragement and encourager whenever you find that word that pericles or parquet parakalel in the new testament that's the word that as you read it begins to make sense and so i went back and i look again at second corinthians 1 blessed be god even the father of our lord jesus christ the father of all mercies and the god of encouragement who encourages us in our tribulation so we can encourage those who are in any trouble by the encouragement whereby we are encouraged by god and all of a sudden made a lot of sense to me because as a minister i had been through this little thing time after time after time it got uncanny for a little while in my early ministry that and it took a while for it to dawn on me but i would go through some trial some miserable situation some problem i'd gotten myself into and struggling with i would pray i would you know god would help me through it and i would be all encouraged because i came out the other side of that within weeks sometimes i'd be on a visit in somebody's house and run into precisely the same problem that they were going through it was uncanny and i was able to encourage them with the encouragement whereby i had been encouraged of the father just exactly like paul says it is here so as the sufferings of christ abound in us so our encouragement abounds by christ and whether we are afflicted it is for your encouragement and salvation which is effectual in the enduring of the same sufferings which we suffer or whether we are encouraged it's for your encouragement and salvation and our hope of you is steadfast knowing that as you are partakers of the sufferings so you shall be of the encouragement and you know this brings me to one of the most important things you can know about the holy spirit the holy spirit is an upper not a downer number four the holy spirit is an encourager not a discourager jesus said i will send you the holy spirit i will send you an encourager another encourager from the father and those who are led by the spirit encourage they do not discourage some time ago i got a letter from a woman who was lamenting her situation at the church she had been attended she said one day i was driving home from church and it dawned on me that week after week when i go to church i feel worse coming home from church than i did when i was going she was discouraged she was down and she decided that she was overdue for a change now i will concede that the holy spirit will oftentimes correct and that the correction will hurt but the correction of the holy spirit when you have recognized where it comes from and you know where it is going is not discouraging it's encouraging because you know that god is with you he knows he's straightening you out you know he's put no you know he's putting your feet on the right path and it is lift you may you may in the short term feel a little bit worse but week after week year after year the holy spirit discouraging forget about it it's not that way the holy spirit is an upper not a downer i really learned a bitter lesson on this one time i'd given a sermon i'd really rat rattled the windows of the of the place i was preaching i thundered the gospel out i had preached with great fervency and i was talking to a fellow after the sermon he said something to me it really set me back on my heels and he meant it as a compliment he said mr dart when you preach like that i just don't think i'm gonna make it and i boy i i thought long and hard about that for my objective in the sermon was not to discourage it was to encourage it was to you know let's say maybe chastise a little bit but chastise to greater accomplishment to go upward and onward and and get yourself moving toward the kingdom of god that remark that fellow made to me that day which he made out of a full heart was something of a watershed for me because i knew that the holy spirit would not take that man in that direction and that therefore in that sermon i was not really led by the holy spirit and i had to make some changes in the way that i was going to speak to people now i said all that to say that i believe that we should be more sensitive and more responsive to the work of the holy spirit in our lives we should know that the holy spirit is with us we should be listening for the holy spirit we should be groping for the holy spirit in which direction it wants to take us and there's this short statement from second corinthians 13 verse 14 paul says this he's actually concluding may the grace of our lord jesus christ and the love of god and the fellowship of the holy spirit be with you all king james version says the communion of the holy spirit and communion is a very interesting word when we commune with someone the image that i have is of two people sitting side by side with their heads bent toward each other talking earnestly about things that are on their mind fellowship and communion and god grant that we in our lives may have the grace of the lord jesus christ and the love of god and we also may have the communion of the holy spirit in our lives

Channel: BornToWinCEM

Views: 1,343

Rating: 4.8333335 out of 5

Keywords: Born to Win, Ronald L. Dart, CEM

Id: oOpO3t4hK8Y

Length: 47min 26sec (2846 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 11 2016