If you want to turn in your Bibles
to 1 Peter 1, I would like to bring a message on the sanctification
of the Spirit today. The sanctification of the Spirit
in 1 Peter 1. We've begun a series on 1 Peter
and this is, I think, the third message. So I pray the Lord would
bless us from his word in our endeavor to look at this epistle
that the apostle Peter was inspired by the spirit of God to write
to the church generally speaking. He says this in first one to
the strangers scattered throughout and he lists all these places
and he's talking about those who were dispersed. from Jerusalem
and were living in these various places. He himself wrote this
book from Babylon, which is in modern day Iraq. And so he opens
it up with these powerful words. We would normally open up a sermon
building up to this, but he leads the entire book with these words.
Notice, he speaks to them, he calls them as the strangers scattered
throughout because they were strangers in a sense that they
were strange in the lands that they were and strangers in the
one they believed compared to those who they were living around. He says, elect according to the
foreknowledge of God the Father. Elect according to the foreknowledge
of God the Father. And we looked at that a couple
of weeks ago. What a blessed thing it is. It's
meant to be a blessed thing. He speaks about our relation
to God as Father. And he speaks to us as having
been chosen by God the Father. And this message that Peter is
bringing to them, especially in the first 11 or 12 verses,
is meant to come to them with the greatest comfort. And the
greatest comfort, the message of the greatest comfort is our
salvation by God. Elect according to the foreknowledge
of God the Father. God knew his own before the worlds
were ever created. To know to God in this sense
is a saving knowledge, a knowledge of love, a knowledge of choice. He sovereignly chose them in
Christ. And this knowledge of God, which was in him before
the world was created, was for a purpose. Rommel spoke about
that. And that purpose was to conform
us to the image of his dear son, which means that we would also
be brethren because the ultimate purpose of God was that Christ
should be the firstborn among many brethren. And in our considering
this last, the last time we considered 1 Peter 1 verse 2, where we saw
that God cannot fail in his purpose, he shall not fail. So that our
confidence and our assurance is in God's purpose. Nothing
that God thinks will ever fail. He will do all his thoughts.
He has spoken it. He will also bring it to pass.
And because he purposed this to give to his son a great number
of children to save them and to bring them and to make them
his sons through the redeeming work of Christ and the regenerating
work of the Spirit of God, he speaks of that here in the opening
as a great comfort and assurance to God's people who were suffering
in this world. because he's supporting them
in their sufferings with the Word of God, concerning their
salvation, made by God the Father in eternity by his eternal decree,
out of his eternal love for them, and all out of his grace. And
in that purpose that God ordained, he also predestinated the means
by which we would be saved. Not only did He choose us in
Christ to salvation, but He chose us through sanctification of
the Spirit unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus
Christ. And to these people, chosen,
known before, in love by God the Father, chosen to salvation
in Christ. set apart by the Spirit unto
obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. He says
to them, grace to you and peace be multiplied. The Bible is a
family book. It's written to God's children.
And even though it's broadcast, it's proclaimed to all the world,
It's really meant for them. So whenever God speaks in scripture
of us and our salvation, he's talking to them, those who are
chosen by God the Father, known before in his eternal purpose
of love and grace in Christ, and given his spirit to know
it too, to set them apart. So this is the opening part here.
in 1 Peter chapter 1. Consider the great love of God
the Father to so speak in tenderness and care to his people, such
a powerful eternal truth as his own purpose and grace. It cannot
fail. Christ will be rewarded with
all that God committed to give to him on occasion of him fulfilling
that everlasting covenant to bring a people to God by himself
making himself their surety, substituting himself under their
sin, bearing their sins and the curse of God against them for
their sins, Christ did that. And that act of his, all of his
life, sufferings, and death was a righteousness, the righteousness
of God imputed given to us out of free grace alone by the sovereign
act of God. Now, he says here, not only were
we chosen, elect, and known in love by God the Father and put
in relation to Him as our Father and we as His sons by this act
of God, this eternal act, but we were sanctified or we will
be sanctified through the Spirit of God. And so today I want to
consider the sanctification of the spirit, the sanctification
of the spirit. And the first question I want
to answer is, who is the spirit? In scripture, the spirit is called
the spirit of God, the spirit of God's dear son. He's called
the spirit of Christ. He's called the spirit of grace,
the spirit of truth, the spirit of glory. He is called the Lord,
the Spirit. And in all of these names, what
we understand right away is that the Spirit of God is God Himself. He is the Lord, the Spirit. third person, as we say, in the
Holy Trinity. Now, those words are not in Scripture
as I've spoken them, but they're the truth that Scripture presents
to us. In the very beginning, in Genesis,
God said, let us make man in our own image. And who was he
speaking to? The Godhead. Let us make man
in our own image. And then In Abraham's case, remember God
said, let us go. The three that appeared to Abraham
in the desert, when he sat in the tent's door, represented
God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. And
throughout scripture, we see this trinity Within the Godhead
there is one God, only one, but in the Godhead there are three,
the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. And the Spirit is called
the Spirit of God because He's God's own Spirit. And we can
see many things about him. And I want to first turn to Acts
chapter 5, if you would, so we can see here that the Spirit
of God is not only God, but he is a distinct person within the
Trinity, and yet one with God. In Acts chapter 5, in verse 1,
it says, there was a certain man named Ananias with Sophira,
his wife, and they sold a possession. They sold some land. and they
kept back part of the price, and his wife also being privy
to it, they connived together to do this, they conspired together
to do this, and they brought a certain part and laid it at
the apostle's feet. Not all, but a small portion
of it. And Peter said, Ananias, why
has Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost? Now,
in the King James Version, the translation, the word ghost is
really just another translation of the same underlying word in
the Greek, which is pneuma, which we recognize that word P-N. I
think E-U-N-A, or E-N, whatever, pneuma. I'm horrible at spelling
in the air. I have to write things down.
But we get the word pneumatic from it, all sorts of air tools. It means the wind. the wind,
and the spirit. And so in the translation, they
often translate this word, pneuma, as spirit, and sometimes as ghost,
because to them, a spiritual being, a ghost, was effectively
the same as that underlying word. But understand what Jesus said,
the wind bloweth where it will. And you hear the sound of it,
but you can't tell where it's coming from or where it's going.
So is everyone that is born of the Spirit of God. The wind and
the Spirit in John 3, where Jesus said those words, are the same
word. So he says you have to be born
of what? Wind and water of the Spirit and of the truth of the
gospel. Okay? But here, Peter asks Ananias,
and I think it's an interesting thing, I'm not going to spend
much time on it, but I pointed out to you, he asks Ananias as
though he is accountable for this, because he is, why has
Satan filled your heart? Now let those words cause you
to tremble. Why has Satan filled thine heart
to lie to the Holy Ghost and to keep back part of the price
of the land? While it remained, was it not
thine own? And after it was sold, was it
not in thine own power? Why hast thou conceived this
thing in thine heart? Notice, thou hast not lied to
men, but who? But to God. The Holy Spirit is
God. That's what you can draw that
conclusion here. You have lied to the Spirit of
God. You have lied to God. Now turn
with me to Genesis chapter one. Actually, before you get to Genesis,
go to Psalm chapter 33. In Psalm 33, I want you to see
this before we go to Genesis one. He says in verse 6, and I encourage
you to read the entire Psalm, but he says here, Psalm 33, verse
6, notice how powerfully the truth comes from the pages of
Scripture. By the word of the Lord were
the heavens made. What does that say about God's
power? It says that His Word as Himself is absolutely sovereign. Nothing can resist the Word of
God because He is sovereign and what He says will be done. No exceptions. By the Word of
the Lord were the heavens made. What power did it take to create
everything we know in creation by His Word? The infinite power
of God Almighty. By the Word of the Lord were
the heavens made, and all the host of them by what? The breath
of His mouth. So here we see the Word and the
breath. We see the Word of God spoken,
but we also see the Word of God in the person of the one who
spoke it, the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the Word of God. But we
see it also spoken of as the breath of his mouth. There is
almost an indistinguishable, and yet a distinguishable, between
the word of Christ and the spirit of God. He says in John 6, 63,
the words that I speak to you, they are spirit and they are
life. That's how closely connected
the words of Christ are with the spirit of God. Who wrote
scripture? It was holy men of old, spoke
as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. It was breathed out by
God in 2 Timothy chapter 3. Scripture was the word inspiration
and breathed out by God are equivalent. So here we see that the entire
creation was brought out of nothingness into its present condition by
the word of God. by the breath of his mouth, and
that's speaking about Christ and the Spirit. Notice verse
7. He gathereth the waters of the sea together as a heap, he
layeth up the depth in storehouses. Let all the earth fear Jehovah,
fear the Lord. Let all the inhabitants of the
world stand in awe of him. For he spake, and it was done. He commanded, and it stood fast. The Lord brings the counsel of
the heathen to nothing, to naught. He maketh the devices of the
people of none effect. The same word that spoke creation,
the same spirit, is the Lord who brings the counsel of the
heathen to nothing. And he brings the devices of
the people to no effect. Consider the cross. The counsel
of the Lord stands forever, the thoughts of his heart to all
generations. In the devices, the design of
Satan, now turn to Genesis, in the design of Satan, chapter
one of Genesis, Satan's design was his demise. It was his ruin because the counsel
of the heathen and Satan's kingdom and all of the ungodly was brought
to nothing in the cross of Christ. In Genesis chapter 1, we see
something amazing about the work of the Spirit of God. God himself
is working here, and he works. We understand that Jesus Christ,
God created all things by Jesus Christ and yet Jesus Christ spoke
and it was his spirit that he breathed out and he caused these
things to come to pass. So we see God the Father by Jesus
Christ through his spirit creating all things. And so the creation
of this universe is attributed to God. And so he says in verse
one, in the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. And
the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the
face of the deep. Everything that God initially
created was without form. It was void, empty, and darkness. It could bring out nothing of
itself. There was no amoeba to produce
life or that consisted of life out of which everything would
evolve. There was no such thing. It was all darkness and void. And notice in the second part
of this second verse, and the Spirit of God moved upon the
face of the waters. Now in Revelation 17, 15, God
says that the waters are the people, the nations. And so when
God speaks in Genesis 1, we have to understand that God is speaking
through the physical creation of a creation and a world spiritual. So he's going to create a spiritual
world in the context of this universe. And so what we see
here, consistent with 1 Peter 1, verse 2, where he says, God
designed, he purposed, he chose us to salvation in Christ Jesus,
according to his foreknowledge, his love that came before and
known unto God are all his works from the foundation of the world.
He called the people out of this world that were upon whom he
had set his name, remember Acts 15, 14 through 18? Here he's
telling us that the Spirit of God moved upon, he brooded over
the waters and the darkness and the void, and then what happened?
Now, I want you to notice what happens here in this first chapter
of Genesis. The Spirit of God is acting according
to the Word of God, Christ the Son, according to the will of
God the Father. But notice what He does, the
Spirit of God, in His work. He's going to separate. He's
going to divide. He's going to make a distinction.
In all of these things, notice what he first does. And God said,
let there be light, and there was light. There's the word of
God. Nothing resists it. There was no light. He commanded
it, and the light shined out of the darkness. In verse four,
God saw the light, that it was good, and God did what? He divided
the light from the darkness. This is the spirit of God. Setting
apart light from darkness. The gospel? versus all the religions
of the world. His people, he sanctified us
from all the other peoples of the world. Notice the next part. And God called the light day
and the darkness he called night and the evening and the morning
were the first day. And again, verse six, and God
said, let there be a firmament or an expanse in the midst of
the waters and let it divide the waters from the waters. Water's
above, water's below. And what do you think of when
you think of water's above and water's below? Well, you think
of everything that's spiritual and heavenly in the above and
everything that's earthly and fleshly in the below, don't you? And so, since the waters in Revelation
17, 15, for example, represented the people, God's dividing his
people. He's dividing the heavenly things
and spiritual blessings that he gives to them in Christ. Christ
himself is the man from heaven. He came into this world, he was
born, and he brings us to God. So, he divided the waters from
the waters and he said in verse 6, let there be a firmament or
expanse in the midst of the waters, let it divide the waters from
the waters. And God made the firmament and divided the waters
from under the firmament from the waters which were above the
firmament and it was so. And then again in verse 8, God
called the firmament heaven and the evening and the morning were
the second day. And verse 9, God said, let the
waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place and let
the dry land appear. And it was so. So now God is
separating from all the waters. He's creating dry land. Remember
in Revelation 21, he says that when the new heavens and the
new earth, there will be no more sea. What is left? Only God's people in glory. And
so here we see again and again the Spirit of God is separating
and dividing and making a distinction between things above and things
on earth. Between God's people and the
rest of the world, the dry land representing the people of God.
And then he says, here also, you could say, the church. He's
bringing the church, he's sanctifying his people, he's setting them
apart. And then he said, in verse 10, God called the dry land earth,
the gathering together of the waters called he seas, and God
saw that it was good to do this separation. And God said, let
the earth bring forth, now notice, grass and herb yielding seed,
and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is
in itself upon the earth, and it was so. bring forth trees
with fruit in them, and immediately we think in our mind that the
Spirit of God produces the fruit of God's work in us, doesn't
He? Isn't everything that we do, faith and love and the meekness
and humility, all these things are the work of the Spirit of
God, the fruit of Him working in us? So in all these things,
he calls the grass, we're like grass, the herb of the field. And yet, within all of this,
he has the fruit tree, bearing fruit. And so we see this division
here. And then he goes on, he creates,
he calls in verse 14, God said, let there be lights in the expanse
of the firmament of heaven to divide the day from the night.
Again, there's a division, day, night. day and night, and let
them be for signs, for seasons, for days and years, and let them
be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon
earth. And it was so. And God made two great lights,
the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule
the night. He made the stars also." We could
consider what those things mean, but we know that the Lord Jesus
Christ is the Son of Righteousness, don't we? Malachi, he is the
son of righteousness. The brightness of God's glory
is seen where? In Jesus Christ. And so the moon
and the sun are the lights of this world, aren't they? And
Jesus said, I am the light of the world. And to his disciples,
he said, you are the light of the world. So here we see Christ
in his church giving light in this world. It's the only source
of truth is what God has said in scripture. written by the
Spirit of God through men chosen of God, enabled to express it
perfectly according to God's mind. Now, I bring all this to
your attention so that you can see here that whether it be later
on the fish of the sea, he causes them to come forth into abundantly,
every moving creature that has life in it, in the sea, whether
in the sky, whether on earth, all these things represent the
fact that God, the spirit of God, is bringing his people out
of this world and is represented in all these things where he
divides these things and brings forth these things and separates
and makes a distinction in these things. So the foundation of
the Spirit's work in our life is laid in Genesis. And Genesis
could be considered, the first three chapters of Genesis could
be considered really the whole of the Bible, all in seed form. And so we see that here. Now,
I want to also consider here, first we said that the Spirit
of God is God himself, and we called him by the names God gives
for him. He's the Spirit of God, the Spirit
of Christ, the Spirit of his Son. The Lord, the Spirit, and
now we want to consider some of these things, what the Spirit
of God does. The first thing that occurred
to me as a question here is why does God tell us what he does
by his Spirit? We can't see him. That might
be one reason. We wouldn't know of his work
if he didn't tell us. So that's the first thing. But
why does God tell us about his spirit? Why does he say, through
sanctification of the spirit, can we control him? No. The Spirit of God is sovereign,
just like God the Father is sovereign. We know that God the Father is
sovereign. He created all things according to His own will. He
chose us in Christ Jesus according to His own will, according to
His own purpose and grace. We know He's sovereign. We know
the Son is sovereign. Jesus said that the Son gives
life to whom He will, from the dead. The Son quickeneth whom
He will. and He reveals the Father to
whom He will. So the Son is sovereign, and
the Spirit also is sovereign. Look at John chapter 3. He's
sovereign as God, and He does the work in our salvation that
he does in John chapter three. So hold that question. Why does
God tell us about his spirit? Well, first of all, because we
can't see him and we wouldn't know it unless he told us, but
in John chapter three, he's going to tell us these things. Now,
I want to drive you into the conclusion here that because
the spirit of God utters God's words, Because he wrote Scripture,
he's the author of Scripture, and his words cannot fail, and
he is God, then we must understand that the message that the Spirit
of God gives to us is the message we are, A, to believe, and B,
to tell, right? This is it. This is it. What
is that message? Well, first consider in John
chapter 3 here that the Spirit of God is sovereign. In verse
8, the wind blows where it pleases, or listeth, as it says in the
King James Version. The wind blows where it pleases,
this is the physical analogy, and thou hearest the sound thereof,
you can't see it, but you cannot tell whence it cometh and whither
it goeth. So is everyone that is born of
the Spirit. You can't control Him. You can't
initiate Him. You can't resist Him. He is like
the wind. Unseen, unpreventable, and uninitiated. You cannot create Him. You can't
make Him do things. The wind blows where He pleases. That's the Spirit of God. And
in that statement is a statement of the sovereignty, the sovereign
work of the Spirit of God. Now, consider the fact, the question,
why would God tell us about his spirit? First of all, to know
that he is God, that he is sovereign, that all of creation is accountable,
attributable to his work. And you can see his almighty
power in that and his wisdom. that he is doing the will of
God in all these things, but also because in that creation
and by his utterance, we hear the word of God, the message
from God. And here we see that in order
for us to hear, in order for us to understand and receive
that message, he has to do something almighty, which is to birth us,
sovereignly birth us as children of God. He has to do something
in us. He has to operate in us. And so he says here, you can't
tell where the wind comes, you can't tell where it goes, so
is everyone that's born of the Spirit. Nicodemus answered and
said to him, how? How can these things be? Now,
Jesus is answering that question. And what is the conclusion of
his exposition or his answer to that question? He says, Jesus
answered him, are you a master of Israel and you don't know
these things? Verily, verily, I say to you, we speak that we
do know and testify that we have seen and you receive not our
witness. We're telling you things we know. We're telling you things
we've seen. Who is he talking about? Well,
he's talking, first of all, about himself. But he's talking about
the witness of the spirit through his words. And the words he spoke
were the words of his father. We speak what we know. In verse
12, if I have told you earthly things and you believe not, how
shall you believe if I tell you of heavenly things? And here
you go. Here's the answer to the question,
how can these things be? No man has ascended up to heaven,
but he that came down from heaven, even the son of man which is
in heaven. The Son of Man is Christ, the Son of God in our
nature. He came from the Father. He came into this world to save
his people. He descended. Having descended,
he accomplished his work and then ascended, and he's reigning
as sovereign in heaven. When he spoke these words, it
was as if it was already done, because he calls those things
which be not as though they were. His word is eternal. What he
said then was eternally established. What he said then was accomplished
by himself, the son of man. God gave all things into his
hand. He rules over all things. He's
the one speaking to you now. You see this? Here's the message,
the message of the Son and the message of the Spirit. As Moses
lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so. Why was that serpent lifted up
in the wilderness? The people had sinned. God sent
the serpent to bite them and they were dying. Many died and
many were dying. And they cried to Moses, we're
dying. Pray to God. And God told Moses,
take a serpent of brass and make him and fasten him to a pole.
And you tell the people, all who look shall live. And as many
as looked, lived. And so Jesus said, as Moses lifted
up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be
lifted up. What did that serpent represent?
their sin hanging on the cross and the curse coming upon him
for that. The curse was upon the people,
they were dying because of their sin, therefore lift up the serpent
and the serpent would be cursed bearing their sin. That's what
he's teaching here. He says, even so must the Son
of Man be lifted up, made sin and cursed, that whosoever They
look to the serpent. The word look is equivalent here
in the spiritual to believing in him. All who look and live,
all who believe Christ, should not perish. They won't experience
the destruction from God that they deserve, but they will be
given eternal life. Now that's the message of the
Son, and that's the message of the Spirit, and it is that Word
of the Son spoken by Him through the Spirit. that gives life and
birth to the children of God. And it is known by them, that
sanctifying work is known by them because He separates them,
He gives them faith in Christ and Him crucified. They don't
look at the Spirit's work, they look at Christ. And looking at
Christ, the evidence the work of the Spirit of God in them,
just like creation evidenced the fruit of his work when it
separated light from darkness, the land from the sea, the fruit-bearing
trees from the herb and the grass of the field, the fish in the
seas that were made, and the fowl in the air, and the things
on earth that are walking about, all those things. that God made,
and finally when he said, let us make man in our image, and
in the image of God, Christ came, and he is the one who was given
all things, and his people are made in his image, and so we
see the work of the Spirit of God, don't we? How do I know
that the Spirit of God has given me this life and this birth,
made me his son? I don't find it by looking for
that faith within. I find it in looking to Christ.
The evidence of life is a faith in Christ and Him crucified. You see? And this is so important.
Now look at Colossians chapter 2. In Colossians chapter 2, we're
going to see the same thing there in a different way. These things
are throughout scripture, and Peter is drawing them into such
a summary statement here. He's reminding these suffering
Christians who are suffering unbelievable agony in this world
compared to what we ever suffer, and yet he's using them to teach
us where our comfort and our salvation is. In Colossians chapter
2, beginning at verse 9, in him, in Christ, dwells all the fullness
of the Godhead bodily. Now in John chapter 3, the gospel
of John chapter 3 in verse 34, God says that he did not give
his spirit to Christ by measure. In other words, he had the fullness
of the spirit. So whatever he said, he said
as if the Spirit of God, it was, speaking directly through him.
His words were never wrong. He never said anything that had
the slightest error in it, and it was always perfectly according
to the Word of God. And all that he did also was
enabled by the Spirit of God. The fullness of the Spirit was
given to Christ as man. The only man that was ever done
for. Because, he says here, in Him
dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. In Christ,
God dwells. All that is true of God is true
of Christ. And the Godhead dwells in Him. In fullness, and notice the same
word fullness here is used of us, and you are complete in Him. Now there's the gospel, isn't
it? In Christ, we are complete. That's where our completeness
comes from, from Him. And speaking of Christ, he says,
which is the head of all principality and power. Now notice in verse
11, in whom also, in Christ, also you are circumcised with
a circumcision made without hands, in putting off the body of the
sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ. Jesus died. He died for our sins. Our sins
were put upon Him, and when He died, the body of our sins was
put to death. It was cut off. That was the
circumcision, spiritually, of Christ, when the uncleanness
of our flesh, our sinful body, the body of our sins was cut
off. All right? But in Him, we died also, so
that our sins were cut off from us in His death. We died when
He died, our sins were cut off, and that's called a circumcision,
the circumcision of Christ and ours in Him. But notice verse
12, buried with Him in baptism, because in our baptism, it expresses
what happened. We died with Him, we were buried
with Him, we rose with Him. buried with him in baptism, wherein
also you are risen with him." Now notice these words very carefully.
Through the faith of the operation of God, who raised him from the
dead. So our resurrection is a spiritual
resurrection, and it's the result of the operation of God. And
what is that operation producing? Faith. We're raised with Christ,
and that resurrection with Christ in our soul, in our spirit, by
the Spirit of God produces faith, the fruit of faith in Christ,
and is consistent with what Jesus told Nicodemus. All those born
of the Spirit look to Christ and Him crucified, as their all.
Now I'll go on and read verse 13, and you, being dead in your
sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened,
made alive together with him Why? Having forgiven you all
your trespasses. Because Christ justified us and
God does not impute our sins to us, He gives us life. The
basis of our life is the righteousness of Christ imputed to us. The
foundation of our life by the Spirit is the work of Christ
for us. God the Father chose us, Christ
redeemed us, and the Spirit applies that. He quickens us, He makes
us alive. This is the work of the Spirit,
the sanctifying work of the Spirit. I encourage you to read Ezekiel
37. God tells Ezekiel the prophet,
you speak to this valley of bones, dry, dry bones. There's no life in them. They're
disjointed, separated one from another. and command the wind,
command the spirit to blow on these bones, and they shall live. And so Ezekiel does, and the
bones come together, bone to his bones, and God tells him
after just seeing the bones connected, he says, now, speak again and
command, and life, flesh came upon those bones, and they all
stood upon their feet. This is representing the work
of the spirit of God, giving us life through the word of God
concerning Christ and him crucified. who is the one sent by God to
give his people life. Look at Philippians chapter 3.
It's before Colossians. Philippians chapter 3. Notice
the result of the operation of the Spirit of God. This is his
work. Philippians 3 verse 1. Finally, my brethren, rejoice
in the Lord. Now, we have every reason to
be glad, because our joy is God's joy in our salvation. We know
that there's lots of reasons in this world for sadness, and
an entire book, Ecclesiastes, was written by Solomon to show
the futility and the vanity that's in this world under the sun.
But in Christ, we have every reason to rejoice. And this joy,
Jesus said to his disciples, my joy I give to you, that your
joy might be made full. Remember? He gave them his joy,
he gave them his peace, he gave them his victory, he gave them
his spirit. And so he says here, finally,
my brethren, rejoice in the Lord. And then he does something here
that is good for us to know. To write the same things to you,
to me, indeed, is not grievous, but for you it is safe. What
do we preach week by week? Don't we preach the message of
Christ and him crucified? Isn't that what he gave his disciples
to preach? And isn't that the message of
this book, and therefore the word of the spirit to us? It
is, and that's why we preach Christ and Him crucified, because
for us, it is safe. It is safe. Beware of dogs. Dogs go around, they're unclean
animals, and some of them wear collars, just like the false
teachers and false preachers of this world. Dogs. Beware of
the evil workers, beware of the concision, those who mutilate
themselves in order to try to make themselves acceptable to
God. No, it's not by what you do,
it's Christ alone. Verse three, for we are the circumcision. The Spirit of God has circumcised
us in our heart. He's given us faith in Christ.
And we who are the circumcision, notice, we worship God in the
Spirit. We cannot even worship God except
for by the Spirit of God. He goes on. And we rejoice or
we boast, we have confidence in Christ Jesus and the flip
side of that is that we have no confidence in the flesh. Anything I think, anything I
mean to do, anything I strive to do or anything I do is flesh. apart from the Spirit of God.
And so we have no confidence in that before God. Our only
confidence is Christ. We boast in Him. Our confidence,
the word rejoice there means to boast as in confidence. Our
confidence is in Christ. A runner on the field, he boasts
in his legs, in his lungs. Our strength is the Lord. The
Lord is my salvation. That's it. The Lord is my salvation. Can my salvation therefore fail?
No. Can it fall short? No. Will it
be perfect and complete? Absolutely, because the Lord
himself cannot fail, and he's complete. And so these things
teach us that the work of the Spirit in us is the only way
we can receive the benefits of the gospel in our own personal
experience. Christ did his work in history
outside of our personal experience, and the Spirit is given to us
by him on his throne because of what he did in order that
we in our lives might believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and
see what God has done for us in Him. That's the sanctifying
work of the Spirit of God. And what a blessed work it is.
Why would God tell us about the Spirit of God? Because He is
God. because we are utterly dependent
upon Him, and because, and for several other reasons, and because
we must believe Him. And what has He said? Jesus Christ
and Him crucified. And this is the greatest comfort,
He's called the Comforter, because the comfort we receive is that
the message of God, the Spirit of God speaking to us is Christ
and Him crucified, and we have found Him. We have found him
of whom Moses and the prophets and in the Psalms has written,
Jesus Christ and him crucified, reigning on the throne of heaven,
given all things because he finished the work of our salvation. Will
he complete it? Absolutely. Do we trust him for
it? Absolutely. And so now let me
take you to one more text of scripture in John chapter seven.
And there's so many that we could go on and on, really, in John
chapter seven. It's interesting that Jesus said
that when the Spirit of God comes, his own Spirit, whom he would
send from the Father, he said in John 14 and 15, he won't speak
of himself. He'll take the things of mine
and show them to you. He'll glorify me. That's what
he would do. And so the Spirit of God does
that powerfully, sovereignly. with a resurrecting power, with
a birthing right as the sovereign Lord, who does give us this liberty
in Christ to know that all of our salvation is in Him. In John
chapter 7, in verse 37, notice this, in the last day, that great
day of the feast, which was the Feast of Tabernacles, Jesus stood
and cried. Now this is the very last day.
You would think that after seven days of feasting, these people
would be full and they wouldn't have any need at all. In a physical
sense, that should have been the case, but he says these things
because now he has come to fulfill this feast. He says he stood
and he cried and he said, If any man thirst, let him come
to me and drink." Notice, you're thirsty. Where did that thirst
come from? God put it there. How? By His Spirit. What did
you thirst for? You thirsted for what only Christ
could satisfy. Let Him come to me and drink.
Where do we find the water that we are to drink? The water of
life. Christ crucified our bread and
our meat and drink. We find it in Christ and Him
crucified. We find it in Him. We go to the Lord Jesus Christ. We ask Him for it. You said,
whoever is thirsty, come to you and drink. Lord, I'm thirsty.
Or, Lord, I need to be thirsty. Please give me the thirst and
give me the water to quench my thirst so that in my drinking
I will be taking from you. Verse 38. He said, he that believeth
on me, that's the drinking, as the scripture has said, out of
his belly shall flow rivers of living water. It wasn't just a rivulet, and
it wasn't just a creek. It wasn't even just one river.
It was rivers, plural, of living water. But he says in verse 39, this
spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should
receive. For the Holy Ghost was not yet
given, because that Jesus was not yet glorified, was not yet
come, really. or given, but a lot of theologians
have gotten tangled on this to say that the Spirit of God was
not in God's people until after Christ ascended to the throne. But we know that that's not true
because there's several places in the Old Testament where a
mention is made to the Spirit of God with His people. Nehemiah
9.20, and I won't go there, is one. In Psalm 51, David said,
don't take your Holy Spirit from me. In 1 Peter 1.10, the Spirit
of Christ was in them when the prophets spoke of old time. So
there's many places in scripture where all the prophets spoke
by the Spirit of God. So we know that he was in his
people, he was in the church. But what hadn't happened was
that the pinnacle of the giving of the Spirit had not yet come
because Christ had not yet been glorified. And what did it mean
for Jesus Christ to be glorified? But that he had finished the
work and that he would then send his Spirit into the world to
do what? Accomplish the bringing of his
sheep to him through the preaching of the gospel. He would enable
Christ's apostles to preach the gospel with power, so that the
spirit attending the preaching of his gospel would give life
to his people as to dry bones, and that he would raise them
from the dead, though they were dead in sins. But God, who is
rich in mercy for his great love, wherewith he loved us, even when
we were dead in sins, has quickened us together with Christ, for
by grace you are saved. So the pouring out of the spirit
of God on Pentecost was the open work of God to bring together
His people in Christ, out of this world, to seek His sheep
and to call them and to draw them to Christ by His own power,
under the preaching of the gospel, to believe on the Lord Jesus
Christ, so that out of their belly, would flow rivers of living
water. They would live by that gospel.
They would live upon Christ. A daily renewing, a continuous
strengthening, ever pointing us to Christ every moment of
our life, throughout our life, directing us to Him through the
gospel. This is the work of the Spirit
of God, sanctifying God's people according to God's eternal purpose,
according to Christ's accomplishments for them. Jesus Christ himself
said, you come to me, you believe on me if you're thirsty. And
I tell you this, out of your belly shall flow rivers of living
water, because he speaks of the Spirit of God. He told the woman
at the well, if you knew the gift of God, then you would have
asked him, and he would have given you living water. So why
does God tell us about His Spirit? Not only those things I've mentioned,
because He's the sovereign Lord God, that our salvation depends
on Him as much as it depends on God the Father and God the
Son. so that we're utterly dependent. And we see that the message of
the Spirit is concerning Christ and Him crucified, but because
we know we need to go to the Father and ask Him to give us
of His Spirit. Go to the Son, Jesus Christ,
on His throne to give us the grace of His Spirit. And we depend
upon Him to illuminate our minds to the truth of the gospel. We
can't do it. We're utterly dependent on God.
This last week I was telling Denise I was reading in John
chapter 11 through the end of the book and I was overwhelmed
by the fact that that so many people like Peter and Judas and
Pilate and the soldiers were carried along as it were upon
the torrential current of their own character and their own disposition
and nature and all of it in the context of God's sovereign will,
accomplishing his will in every minute detail. And yet it teaches
us to go preemptively Because we are carried about, not only
by our own nature, but also by the will of God, we must go to
Him and ask Him to use, to find a way to open the door that in
our lives we would see Christ and be carried about by His Spirit
to look to Him at all times. So that in our lives we live
by faith on the Son of God and we live according to His grace.
The Spirit of God is the pouring out of God's grace to us in Christ. Grace upon grace. Rivers of living
water. All of it accomplished by the
Lord Jesus Christ for our eternal salvation. And this is the message
Peter uses to comfort these believers in Christ in the midst of the
most severe trials in this world. Be patient. Though you suffer
these things, look to Christ. Let's pray. Lord, we feel so
inadequate because we are in ourselves completely inadequate,
insufficient to do one thing to accomplish your work. And
yet, you've given us a sight. And with that sight, you've given
us life and faith. And with that faith, we come
to you now looking to the Lord Jesus Christ and asking him who
sits on the throne of eternity, on the throne of grace, to give
us your spirit, that we might both believe on him and proclaim
him, that we might hear his word and live upon him and glorify
God. You do sit on the throne. You
created all things. You must create us new in Christ.
You must birth us. You must raise us from the dead.
You must renew us day by day. You must uphold this grace and
faith you've given to us. You must be those rivers of living
water ever directing us to the Lord Jesus Christ in whom we
have life. And we pray, Lord, that you would
do this work, not for anything in us, not for anything we have
done or yet shall do, but in spite of all that we are in ourselves,
according to your grace, to magnify your great salvation and grace
in the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray these things in Jesus'
name, our Savior and Lord, amen.