In the light of our Lord's words,
that as you would that others do unto you, even so do unto
them, for this is the law and the prophets, I am determined
and have made it a matter of conscience that I will not encroach
upon the time that I know we all anticipate, when our dear
sister in Christ, Johnny Erickson Tada, will speak to us. And so
I must forego many things I would like to say, I must forego anything
approaching a proper exhortium for you rhetorical students and
plunge immediately into the very massive and weighty subject assigned
to me in this conference. The subject to be addressed in
this hour is the gift of the Holy Spirit in relationship to
the suffering of the people of God, particularly that suffering
that comes to them in the path of unswerving allegiance to Jesus
Christ, to his truth, and to the cause of his kingdom. And
I need to make it clear at the very outset that I am not addressing
directly the ministry of the Holy Spirit to that more general
form of suffering, which is the lot of all of God's people. For example, the suffering that
comes in conjunction with bodily illnesses and afflictions and
disease, natural disasters, disappointed hopes and shattered dreams, and
that which some of us know to our constant broken hearts, unconverted
children. chafing providences, all of which
come within the broad scope of the biblical doctrine of suffering
and for which there is an adequate and gracious ministry of God
the Holy Spirit. And so for the many who sit here
and who in this very moment know something of that exquisite suffering
related to these various things that I've mentioned, please do
not misunderstand. As surely as the Word of God
is not indifferent to your circumstances, nor is the Lord Jesus as your
compassionate High Priest at the right hand of the Father
and the Holy Spirit who indwells you and supports you, please
do not construe my passing by those dimensions of suffering
as a matter of indifference to them. For personally, I am not
a stranger to them. I stand before you as a man who
lives with the reality of a wife of 44 years fighting a battle
with active cancer. Rather, we're going to consider
more narrowly those aspects of suffering inflicted upon the
people of God by those whose agitation is in reality not with
God's people, but with their Savior and their Lord. Those afflictions that are described
in the book of Acts chapter 8 in conjunction with Saul of Tarsus,
Luke describes them in this language. There arose on that day a great
persecution against the church that was in Jerusalem. And they
were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria
except the apostles, verse 3, but Saul laid waste the church. entering into every house and
dragging men and women, committed them to prison, chapter 9 and
verse 1. But Saul, yet breathing threatenings
and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord. And yet when the
Lord Jesus graciously and powerfully arrests this blind Pharisaic
bigot, He did not say to him, Saul, Saul, why do you pick on
my people? But his words were, Saul, Saul,
why do you persecute me? Saul of Tarsus thought his controversy
was with the people of God, when in reality, The Lord Jesus tells
him that his controversy was with the Lord of his people. It is that kind of suffering
to which we make reference in our study together in this hour.
I'm referring to the suffering of the eighth beatitude of which
we heard in the previous hour. Blessed are you when you are
persecuted for righteousness' sake, blester you when men revile
you and persecute you and say all manner of evil against you
falsely for my sake. It is that suffering in its more
limited scope that is for righteousness' sake, for the sake of Christ. The suffering referred to again
and again in Peter's first epistle when in chapter 3 and verse 14
he describes it as suffering for righteousness' sake. No doubt
echoes of the very words he heard in the Sermon on the Mount. Again,
further in that epistle, in chapter 3 and verse 15, he describes
it as being reviled for your good manner of life in Christ. Or in chapter 4 and verse 14,
as being reproached for the name of Christ. Now that suffering
comes in many forms. In its more subtle form, it may
be that condescending sneer of the sharp PhD professor who hears
in the presence of his class of all places a student who unashamedly
acknowledges his or her confidence in absolute truth contained within
the pages of special revelation that we call the Bible. Or it
may be the forfeited promotion by that diligent, earnest, young
Christian executive who will not compromise in matters pertaining
to the law of his God and is bypassed for promotion after
promotion, a suffering for righteousness' sake. So on one end of the spectrum
there is the condescending sneer, the forfeited promotion, the
giggle in the presence of someone who states his or her commitment
to biblical morality all the way on the other end of the spectrum,
to the fangs of the lion in the arena, to the flames that lick
the body of the martyr tied to his stake and turn his remains
into sacred dust and ashes. It is any such suffering across
that full spectrum from the more subtle expressions to the most
violent, heartless expressions of men's controversy with Christ. It is that suffering that I have
particularly in mind as together we address the subject assigned,
the gift of the Holy Spirit in relationship to the suffering
of the people of God in the path of unswerving allegiance to Christ,
to His Word, and to the cause of His kingdom. Now, being a
pastor and committed to expository preaching in a consecutive way,
I had hoped that I would have liberty to take up one of those
texts that I had already worked on and preached to my own people
in the expositions of 1 Peter, which I'm just concluding. This
Lord's Day I get back, God willing, we'll finish up the little postscript
in 1 Peter 5, 12 to 14. But as I waited upon God and
prayed, I found myself continually shut up to try to look at this
subject in a broader biblical and theological way, and so I
urge you to gird up the loins of your mind with me I don't
have the time to stop and pause and illustrate as I would like
to along the way, but I have to do what I believe the Spirit
of God has constrained me to do, and I plead with you to work
with me as we seek to grasp something of the richness of the biblical
teaching on this all-important subject. And as I've wrestled
with it, I've come to the persuasion, and I'm open to further light
and the counsel of my brethren and the input of those masters
who sit on our bookshelves and teach us. But I've become persuaded
that if we are to think clearly, and therefore to react in a way
that is pleasing to God in the face of such suffering, that
it will help us to understand this suffering in its broad but
well-defined biblical context, particularly in the context of
Christian experience that is set before us in the New Testament. And I want us to begin by seeking
to grasp three foundational biblical perspectives that form, as it
were, the tapestry of the biblical subject of suffering for the
sake of Christ. And the first is this. To be
a real Christian, to be a Christian in something other than name
and external appearance, to be a real Christian is to be united
to the Lord Jesus Christ by a Spirit-given faith. That's the first principle. The foundational biblical perspective
to a biblical grasp on the doctrine of suffering or a grasp upon
the biblical doctrine of suffering is to understand that to be a
real Christian is to be united to the Lord Jesus Christ by a
Spirit-given faith. Now by the phrase, united to
the Lord Jesus Christ, I am simply attempting to give a slightly
expanded rendering of what is the most fundamental and crucial
prepositional phrase in all of the Bible. And it is the phrase,
in Christ. In Him. In whom. Some have taken the time to count
the uses of that phrase in the New Testament, particularly in
the Pauline corpus, and they tell us that there are at least
150 to 160 uses of the little phrase in Christ. in him, in whom. And it is not
unique to the Pauline corpus. In the Joannim epistles we find
it again and again, and Peter closes his epistle with the words
that the peace of God is to be unto all that are in Christ. They are the closing words of
Peter's epistle. so that that epistle comes to
real Christians insofar as they are in Christ, in union with
Christ. As Dr. Ferguson has reminded
us in his very helpful book on the Holy Spirit, the phrase,
and now I quote him, the phrase, in Christ, summarizes all that
it means to be a Christian. and indeed is used as a virtual
synonym for Christian." He then goes on to cite some of the texts
that make this evident. 2 Corinthians 12, 2, where Paul
says, in Christ. That is, I know a
man who is a true Christian, speaking, of course, of himself.
And in Romans 16 and verse 7, Paul refers to Andronicus and
Junius as my relatives who were in Christ before me. Now while the Scriptures clearly
teach that there is a pre-temporal union with Christ, a union in
that marvelous and wonderful disposition and choice of God
when He chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world,
there is a pre-temporal union with Christ taught in Scripture.
And Scripture also teaches that there is a union with Christ
when he unites himself to our humanity in Mary's womb. And
as our head and representative in his unique redemptive acts
accomplishes redemption once for all for all of his people
who were not only in him in the Father's eternal choice, but
in Him, in His once for all accomplishment of redemption? But the Scriptures
teach us that there is a vital living union with Christ that
is not experienced until we are personally, existentially, within
the boundaries of the stuff that makes you, you, and me, me, are
united to the Lord Jesus Christ. Now I trust that I am not mistaken
in assuming in this context that the vast majority of you are
convinced that that faith, which from the human perspective unites
us to Christ, is not some inherently possessed capacity that the sinner
decides to use in order to get right with God by being united
to Christ. I trust all of you here, if not
persuaded, are at least seriously considering the teaching of Scripture
that given what man is in Adam, blind, dead, at enmity with God,
his ears deaf to the call of God, blinded to the glory of
God, reflected in the face of Christ in the gospel, that until
God does an internal work described in different ways in the scriptures
and given different terms by the theologians, but that work
is such that the very faith by which the sinner in the nakedness
of his need lays hold of Christ in the plenitude of His grace,
lays hold of Him in the perfection of His work and in the glory
of His person, that that faith is indeed the gift of God. So that the apostle, without
any scruples, can say to the Philippians in Philippians 1.29,
For to you it has been given Karidzo, it has been granted
as the donation of grace, not only to believe into him, but
also to suffer for his sake. It has been given to believe
into Christ. It has been given to believe
into Christ. Now, think with me. What I want
to underscore is that that faith, which is the work of the Holy
Spirit, unto union with Christ. It is that faith which lays hold
of Christ, uniting us to Christ, disposing us to receive Christ
for the purposes for which He is offered and on the terms in
which He offers Himself to us. How is He offered to us? In the
great indicatives of the gospel. He is offered to us as a mighty,
as a willing, and as an able Savior from sin and its consequences. You shall call His name Jesus,
for He shall save His people, apo, away from their sins, the
consequences of sin, yes. The damnation which sins deserves,
yes. But away from their sins, the
defilement and the pollution, yes. From the tyranny and the
bondage and the practice, yes. He's Jesus who saves from sin. And He is offered to us freely,
sincerely in the Gospel. And as He offers Himself to us,
the gracious indicative is followed by God's gracious imperative. He commands all men everywhere
to repent. This is His commandment, that
you believe on the name of His Son. The trembling jailer cries
out, Sirs, what must I do to be saved? And Paul has no scruples
to say, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. But now picture the Lord Jesus
standing before us in the picture we are given to Him in Matthew
chapter 11. Wonderful words often used in
evangelistic preaching. against the backdrop of the religious
tyranny of the religious experts of whom we heard in the previous
hour, who had no appreciation of grace and truncated the demands
of the law, and in place of God's yoke, which is easy, strapped
on burdens that none could bear and for which they did not lift
a finger to bear, Jesus said. And he stands before such people
and says, come, come unto me. Come unto me, an adverb used
in an imperative mode. Come unto me, all you that labor
and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. But he doesn't
stop there. You Greek students, two aorist
imperatives with all of their intensity follow. Take my yoke
upon you. and learn of me, for I am meek
and lowly of heart, and you shall find rest to your souls. You see how that wonderful gospel
overture is bounded? Come, all you that labor and
are heavy laden. And it ends with the promise
of rest. But in between the initial come
to be relieved of that crushing burden are the gracious imperatives,
take my yoke. and learn of me. And surely it
is no stretching of the whole thrust of that invitation to
see that in principle Jesus is saying, I stand before you in
my threefold office as prophet, priest, and king. As priest,
I enter in to take the burden. I'm on my way to a place of rejection. I'm on my way to Golgotha, when
all the billows of my father's wrath will be emptied upon me. Come, all you that labor and
are heavy laden. Take my yoke. In coming, relinquish
the wretched tyranny of being your own little god. Relinquish
being in the God business, running your life by your own desires,
driven by your own passions to be somebody, to have something,
to enjoy things. Get out of the God business.
I, the incarnate God, have rights of government over all who come
under the canopy of my grace. Take my yoke upon you. and learn of me. Give up your
silly notions, thinking that your little pea brain, defiled
by sin and riddled with ignorance, can understand ultimate issues
and know how to please God and how to serve God. Come, take,
and learn, and don't be fearful. I am meek and lowly of heart."
Unless I've missed some very critical part in the gospel record,
apart from the Lord Jesus saying in John 12, now is my soul troubled,
where He consciously discloses some inner trauma of the soul. I don't know another place where
Jesus describes His own inner disposition as He does here,
I am meek and lowly of heart. You have nothing to fear in coming,
in taking, and in learning. But when the Spirit of God works
faith in the heart of a self-condemned, consciously needy sinner, and
shines upon the face of Christ in the gospel, the Holy Spirit
never gives a faith that picks and chooses which part of Christ
it will embrace. Never, never, never. Again, take Luke 14, 25 and following. It was a period in our Lord's
ministry when he was at the zenith of his popularity and Luke says,
great multitudes went after him. And Jesus turned and said to
the multitudes, if any man come to me and hate not father, mother,
brother, sister, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my
disciple." And then as if to add insult to injury, listen
to what he goes on to say in that very passage. Whosoever
does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. And unless we are prepared to
stand a Bible on its head and make some fundamental distinction
between a true believer and a disciple and adherent to Christ who has
been grafted into Christ, then surely Christ has not changed
the terms on which he welcomes people into the band of his true
followers. And when the Spirit of God is
at work in the heart of a man or woman, boy or girl, regardless
of how much content there has been in the gospel proclaimed
to that sinner, either in its glorious full-orbed indicatives
or in the more adequate imperatives, when the Spirit of God works
faith in the heart of a sinner, effecting union with Christ,
the sinner comes to Christ, on Christ's terms, to the ends for
which Christ graciously receives sinners. That's why Jesus could say in
those kingdom parables, Matthew 13 and verse 44, wherever the
kingdom of God is manifested in human hearts, it is like this. Hear his words. The kingdom of
heaven is like unto a treasure hidden in a field, which a man
found and hid, and in his joy he goes and sells all that he
has. and buys that field. He may have
walked by that field a hundred times in the course of his life,
and all he saw was a weed patch with nothing on it. But one day,
He's digging around for who knows what, and his shovel makes a
tinny sound, and he digs up, and he finds a treasure. And
suddenly, the thing that never was of interest to him, just
that plot of weeds that's on my street, suddenly, nothing
matters in life but having that field, because in it, there is
the treasure. The kingdom of heaven is like
Such an instance, Jesus said, and then he said, the kingdom
of heaven is like unto a man that is a merchant seeking goodly
pearls. This is not the indifferent man
walking by a field and no interest in it, and suddenly all his interest
is focused upon it. But here's a man on the quest,
and he knows the difference between real pearls and bogus pearls
and cultured pearls and the real stuff grown in the real oyster
all by its own. And he finds one pearl and he
says, this pearl is the one that I've sought all my life. And
he takes all of his assets and goes down to the bank and brokers
and he gets rid of everything he has in order to purchase the
one pearl. Jesus said the kingdom of heaven
is like that. The Holy Spirit never reveals Christ to the sinner
in such a way that the sinner says, well, I'll put a down payment
on the field, and if I can adjust all of my other priorities, then
someday I might take full title to the field. No. Once the treasure
is discovered, everything's sold to have the treasure. And likewise
with this merchant, this pearl merchant, He doesn't say, well,
you know, good businessmen keep a diversified portfolio. You
don't want to put all your money in one rising stock. It may bottom
out on Monday morning. Jesus said, and may God help
us to have no controversy with Jesus. Jesus said, this is what
the kingdom of heaven And whether it's the case of
the person who's indifferent to his spiritual state, who's
had little acquaintance with the truths of special revelation,
and God is pleased to cause him to walk upon a field and to stick,
as it were, the point of the shovel of his bustling through
life to strike the treasure, or whether it's like some of
us, put together in our mother's wombs with a sensitive temperament
and conscience and surrounded with the light of special revelation
in precept and in example in a Christian home, and there is
a yearning and there is a seeking and a reaching out. It matters
not across the full spectrum of the psychical, emotional,
internal process by which the Spirit of God, whose ways are
like the wind, brings the elect to Christ at the end of the day,
when they are united to Christ by faith. With a faith that is
the gift of God. They are united to Christ in
principle, taking a whole Christ with the whole man for the whole
gamut of the implications of being His. To be a real Christian then,
and you'll never understand the New Testament doctrine of suffering
for Christ, to be a real Christian then is to be united to Jesus
Christ in a Spirit-given faith. Do you see, wherever that occurs,
the very seed of martyrdom. is buried deeply in every act
of saving faith. Think of that. The seed of martyrdom
is buried in every act of saving faith. For involved in it, as
we heard in the previous hour, is repudiation of self as the
governing principle of life. If any man would come after me,
let him say no to himself. The same verb used of Peter when
he denied and took maledictions upon himself and all he denied,
resolutely expressing, I have nothing to do with him. Jesus
said, would you be his? You do that with not something
external to yourself, but to yourself. For if he died for
all, he died that they who live, Paul says, should not henceforth
live unto themselves, but unto him who for their sakes died
and rose again." 2 Corinthians 5.50. So when a man repudiates
himself and then Jesus said, take up the cross or his cross. Now what did those words mean
to the average first century Palestinian Jew living under
Roman rule? When you said cross, you did
not think of that lovely wooden structure at the pinnacle of
a Christian church or that gold thing worn around the neck. or
what I call evangelical icons, marketed special kinds of crosses,
you'd think of one thing. When you saw a cross, you saw
a man who was utterly, thoroughly, irreversibly rejected by society,
stripped of every last vestige of human dignity, who had no
plans of his own, He didn't say to his buddy with a cross on
his back, hey, Henry, see tomorrow morning we'll go fishing down
by the lake. That's a quote from old Tozer. He just popped into
my head. A man with a cross on his back
is going to die. His plans, no matter how well
laid they have been for the next week and for the next summer's
vacation and for retirement, they are done, finish over with. He takes up a cross, and only
then are we prepared to follow him. If any man will to come
after me, deny himself, Take up the cross and follow me."
You say, but Pastor Martin, that means it's all over. You'll lose
your life. Jesus says, you've got it. For he that would save
his life shall lose it. But he that will lose his life
for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it. And my dear friends, this is
not some advanced, super-level version of the gospel. It is
of the very essence of an experiential grasp upon Christ as He is offered
in the gospel. Now do you begin to see why it's
so crucial to start at that very elementary level if we're going
to understand why the New Testament assumes that there will be suffering
for righteousness' sake, suffering for Christ's sake. And it doesn't
say with a parenthesis, except in affluent Western or American
and British culture where the gospel has exerted a leavening
influence in past generations, in which case there is a lower
standard. No, it isn't found in my Bible. And to the peril of your soul,
you write it in. as parentheses in these passages
that we've considered. Could it be that the primary
cause of the absence of more patent suffering for righteousness
sake in our country is because the effects of a shallow The
truncated view of the nature of true conversion has come home
to roost. And we can sit here in this conference,
and I don't mean to be nasty. I've prayed God help me to be
like Stephen, that I will speak with biblical wisdom and with
Christ-like grace. But I ask you in the theater
of your own conscience, could it be that without trying to
be nasty and without trying to be right angled where we don't
need to be and to be an irritant in order to just get some satisfaction
of a persecution complex, but could it be that the reason there's
such a peaceful coexistence with so many professing Christians
in our country and a society that in a very real sense is
showing up Sodom and Gomorrah. And there seems to be so little
day by day collision. Could it be that there is no real union with
Christ? To be a real Christian is to be united to Christ. in
a Spirit-given faith. Second principle, and I may only
get the three principles, and people, you'll have to forgive
me. I've never preached this in this way before. I'm being restrained
to address it. Be patient with me. The second
principle. If to be a real Christian is
to be united to Christ in a Spirit-given faith, then, here's our second
principle, to be united to the Lord Jesus Christ by a Spirit-given
faith is to be a recipient of the gift of the Holy Spirit. Let me give it to you again.
To be united to the Lord Jesus Christ in a Spirit-given faith
is to be a recipient of the gift of the Spirit, not as a work
of the Spirit subsequent to conversion. subsequent to passing from the
state of wrath into a state of grace, but concurrent with the
work of the Spirit that is unto faith, the Bible teaches there
is the gift of the Spirit to faith. The work of the Spirit
unto faith, the gift of the Spirit to faith. Two pivotal texts. There are more, but two pivotal
texts. Galatians chapter 3. In Galatians chapter 3, where
Paul is with white-hot passion defending the truth of a salvation
that comes to us by grace alone, in Christ alone, received by
faith alone. And he not only sets up this
dichotomy between faith and works, but between flesh and spirit,
Because, as Dr. Ferguson underscored in the previous
hour, it's where the gospel of grace suffuses the heart, that
there the Spirit produces Christ-likeness, even the ability to love one's
enemies. And so there is a strong emphasis
upon the ministry of the Spirit in this epistle that is the great
watershed of a defense of the doctrine of salvation by grace
alone, in Christ alone, by faith alone. And in chapter 3, the
apostle writes, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law,
having become a curse for us. All of the accursedness that
was our due as lawbreakers, he took in full measure upon himself. and their rings throughout the
ether, to the farthest reaches of space, that cry that issued
from the depths of his soul upon Golgotha, my God, my God, why
have you abandoned me? It was in his real substitutionary
curse-bearing that, blessed be God, We're released from the
curse. Look at the text. Christ redeemed
us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us,
for it is written, cursed is everyone that hangs on a tree. Now notice, two purpose clauses,
that, that, Christ did this in order that upon the Gentiles
might come the blessing of Abraham in Christ Jesus, see the truth,
in union with Christ. Another purpose clause, in order
that we might receive the promise of the Spirit, how? Through faith. And whether we view the two purpose
clauses as sequential or parallel, Paul couldn't say both things
at once, one had to be a first and a second, this much is clear. Christ's vicarious curse bearing
has as its glorious purpose that those for whom the curse was
born, when they are brought into union with Christ by a Spirit-wrought
faith, they would receive the promise of the Holy Spirit. Do
you see that with your own eyeballs in your own Bible? You don't
need a word of Greek. Just any good translation makes
it abundantly clear. so that the gift of the Spirit
is not something that should be the concern of people that
are a little bit on the fringe and a little bit wacko and a
little bit imbalanced. No, it lies at the heart of why
Jesus died, became a curse for us, that upon the Gentiles the
blessing of Abraham in Christ, the covenant blessing that I
will be their God and they shall be my people, not in some detached,
unexperiential way, but on the basis of the work of Christ,
and having united us to Christ, in Christ the Spirit is given
to us. Ephesians 1. where the apostle
cannot deal in detached theology like a talking head, but as he
contemplates grounding these Ephesians in the wonder of their
salvation in Christ, he does so by means of doxology. He theologizes
by doxologizing. Verse 3, Blessed be God and the
Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every
spiritual blessing in the heavenlies. Now notice where is it to be
found? In Christ. There it is. Every blessing in
Christ. And then he deals with the pre-temporal
dimensions chosen in him. predestined to sonship, and then
he focuses upon the work of Christ, and then he turns to the work
of the Spirit in verse 13, in whom, that is, in union with
Christ, now notice, having heard the word of the truth, the gospel
of your salvation, in whom, that is, in Christ, having believed
you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. Having believed,
you were sealed. Here is the gift of the Spirit
to faith. This is not that mysterious,
powerful work of the Spirit beneath the level of our consciousness
in its beginnings, when God takes out the heart of stone and gives
the heart of flesh, and the first actings of that are repentance
and faith, the work of the Spirit unto faith. Now the sinner embracing
Christ and in Christ given the status of a son, God now gives
the spirit of his son to every such believing sinner. You heard, you believed, you
were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. And he does not assume
that this was the experience of only son. It was true of all
who were true Christians at Ephesus. Hence, he can say in chapter
4 and verse 30, when he moves from the grand indicatives of
the first three chapters, and he moves to the therefores and
the imperatives of chapters 4 to 6, he says, and do not grieve
the Holy Spirit of God in whom you were sealed unto the day
of redemption. Now this is why when we come
to such passages as Romans chapter 8, we should not be surprised
that to receive the Spirit and to receive Christ are used interchangeably
in the language of the Apostle. Romans chapter 8, look at the
language very quickly. Verse 9, you are not in the flesh
but in the Spirit. if so be that the Spirit of God
dwells in you. But if any man have not the Spirit
of Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ is in you, Spirit
of God, Spirit of Christ, Christ is in you. When the Spirit of God brings
the sinner to apprehending Christ as He's offered in the Gospel.
He receives the Christ who has procured the gift of the Spirit
for all of His people. And in being incorporated into
Christ, all who are united to Christ by a Spirit-given faith
are the recipients of the gift of the Spirit. Therefore, on
the day of Pentecost, when Peter's preaching, And again, it's easy
to take pot shots, and I don't want to indulge in that kind
of pulpit carnality. I believe there are sincere,
Christ-loving people with a passion to reach our generation who,
because of a number of factors, have been sucked in to the whole
concept of a user-friendly message and climate, and I don't want
to take cheap shots. but my brothers and sisters,
to the law and to the testimony. If they speak not according to
this word, it is because there is no light in them. Isaiah 820. And when Peter stands on the
day of Pentecost with his point of contact being, he overhears
people saying, these people are smashing drunk. That's why they're
speaking in all of these dialects and languages that are not their
native language. And Peter says, you got it all
wrong, folks, too early in the morning. It's only 9 o'clock
in the morning. They're not drunk with wine,
but this is that. And by expository evangelism,
opening up passages of the Old Testament, he brings them clean
through to where he shows that what was happening there in Jerusalem
on the day of Pentecost was the validation that the very Jesus,
who with their hands they took and handed over to the Roman
authorities so that Peter says, it was your hands that crucified
him. The Roman soldiers were just
your tools. Now you talk about a user-friendly
message. You tell people the first time
they come to hear you preach, you're murderers of Messiah,
and his blood is dripping from your hands. And what happens? It says they were cut to the
heart. This Jesus, God's made him Lord
in Christ. He has given him his official
coronation as the messianic king, and now he has shed forth this
which you see and hear. This is the validation that he's
everything he claimed to be, the very one you crucified. And
then without any psychological manipulation, a hand on the shoulder,
coaching them what to pray, they cry out, what do we do? What does Peter say in Acts 2.38?
Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus
Christ unto the remission of your sins, and you shall receive
the gift of the Holy Spirit for the promise. What promise? The
gift of the Spirit. to every penitent believing sinner
whose faith brings into such an attachment to Christ that
they're willing right there in Jerusalem where they put Jesus
to death to publicly declare, I'm one of His. People say faith
isn't mentioned. What Peter is saying, yes, repent,
and in that context demanding baptism meant Repent of your
sin, of all that produced it, your blindness, your dead works,
your own notions of who Christ should be and how he should come.
Turn from the whole shebang. Lay hold of Christ and be prepared
to be identified with Him as one of His. Join us who form
now His living temple. Come ye new stones in this temple. Come and be identified with Jesus
of Nazareth as Messiah King. And in that coming there will
be remission of sin and all that we've received. from the Messianic
King will be yours in Christ. You shall receive the gift of
the Spirit." And it's very interesting, and this may help you. Some of
you who may be sitting here and struggling with some of the classic
charismatic teaching, and there is classic charismatic teaching. Don't dismiss it as all a bunch
of nonsense. There's some serious scholars
and devout saints. I'm not one of them, but there
are some. When it says, they that received
his word were baptized, and there were added unto them in the same
day three thousand souls, how do we know they got the gift
of the Spirit? No mention of tongues, no mention
of prophecies. It says, and these all continued
steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine, fellowship, the breaking
the bread, and prayers. Pentecost, in many respects,
was as much a once-for-all redemptive event as Golgotha and Joseph's
empty tomb. And they received the Spirit,
who now, as the Spirit of truth, gives them a passion for truth.
So they attach themselves to the apostles' teaching. For Jesus
had promised that by the same Spirit, those apostles would
be led into all truth. And so the Spirit who's leading
the apostles into truth bears witness in the heart of all whom
he dwells that we're now attached to the truth of Jesus as it is
mediated through the apostles. They continue steadfastly in
the apostles' doctrine and in fellowship, koinonia, shared
life, shared life. Christ has incorporated this
man into himself and I'm incorporated into him. Then we've got a bond
deeper than our Jewish blood. We have a blood-bought bond,
and we love our own, and we want to be with them to nurture and
share with them fellowship, the breaking of bread, most likely
a reference to the supper of remembrance, tracing back again
and again all their newfound blessings as they flow out from
Christ, and in the prayers. For when the Spirit is given,
He is given as the Spirit of adoption. Galatians 6, Galatians
4, I'm sorry, verse 6, because you are sons, He has sent forth
the Spirit of His Son into our hearts, crying, Abba, Father. The Spirit does not cry apart
from us. The best commentary on that text
is Romans 8 in verse 15. We have not received the spirit
of bondage again to fear, but the spirit of adoption whereby
we cry, Abba, Father. And that spirit who is given
as the donation of the exalted and risen Christ, he gives the
filial disposition that the very God before whom we tremble, we
now call him Father. Not in a cheeky way. But we see
that in the vicarious wrath-bearing of the Lord Jesus, God can be
both just Not only the justifier of him who believes in Jesus,
but the adopter. He can take us into his family. And when on the basis of the
work of Christ, he gives us the status of sons, he says, that's
not enough. I don't want them going around
just having a slip of paper saying, they're my sons and daughters.
I want them to know it and to feel it and to enjoy it. I give
the spirit of my son and enable them to cry, Abba, Father. and
my time was gone. And I've only gotten two of the
principles, but I determined that I would seek to preach out
the things that have gripped me. Let me close on this note,
that He never gives the spirit of adoption, enabling us to enjoy
the filial access to our God without at the same time stamping
us with the image of His Son and try to get hold of this principle. I'm patchwork here trying to
throw out two-thirds of what I had hoped to say, unrealistically.
The Holy Spirit in us is the executor of the purposes of the
Godhead in our salvation. You got that? He works out in
us what was purpose for us in eternity, purchased for us in
the space-time redemptive acts of Jesus, and now continually
sought for us by the ongoing intercession of Jesus, don't
limit His work to what happened in Palestine 200 years ago. He ever lives, and because He
lives, He's able to save to the uttermost. But it's the Holy
Spirit dwelling in us as the very presence of Christ, who
is the executor of the divine purpose. And what is that purpose?
Whom He did foreknow He did predestinate to be what? Conform to the image
of His Son, that He, Jesus, might be the firstborn, the prototokos,
the chief one, the eminent one, the all-worthy one. He predestined
us that we should be conformed to the image of his Son, that
when God's redemptive purpose comes to its culmination, Jesus
will have a family in whom the family likeness is perfectly
reflected. in body as well as in spirit. Now you think about that and
say, what in the world does that have to do with suffering? I
think the answer is clear. And if it's not clear, read the
last part of John 15 and the early verses of John 16. Because
we become, and I say it reverently, little Christs in the world that
put Him to death. And He said, if they've hated
Me, know that they'll hate you. And if they hate you, know that
they hated me before they hated you." And therefore the Christian
in faith union to Christ and by the work of the Spirit, 2
Corinthians 3.18, continually transformed into that image from
one stage of glory to another, While the Spirit of God uses
that Christ One, as we heard in the previous hour, manifesting
the disposition of Christ to one's enemies. And the Spirit
of God owns that in some and makes Christ attractive in those
who are like Him. The more His people are like
Him, the more it will precipitate the hatred of that world that
put Him to death and would kill Him if they could get their hands
on Him today. You see, that's why the New Testament
assumes this kind of suffering is the lot of all God's people.
Acts 14.22, what was the comfort they gave to the new disciples?
They exhorted them, comforted them saying that through much
tribulation we must, that little particle of necessity, day, we
must enter the kingdom. Much tribulation on our way to
the kingdom. Romans 8.16, take the if clause
at the end of the verse. The Spirit himself bears witness
with our spirits that we are the sons, the children of God,
and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs
with Christ. If, if, if, if so be that we,
there's no with him, it's suffer with. It's the word suffer with
the prefix with, soon. If we jointly suffer in order
that we may be jointly glorified. You see what the Spirit of God
does with us, my dear brothers and sisters. When he applies
the redemption procured by Jesus in the path of suffering that
led to glory, everyone in whom that salvation comes as the gracious
gift of God is planted in the same path in the application
of salvation that Jesus, the author and the finisher of salvation,
walked. His sufferings preceded His glory,
and your sufferings and mine, if we're united to Him, are an
indispensable element of true Christian experience. And the
little I know of it, I can testify as my last word. Never is Jesus
more precious than when you can say, I want to know him in the
koinonia, the fellowship of his sufferings. Rejection, slander,
misunderstanding, bitter to the soul. But when they take us into
the experiential communion of Christ, then you understand Paul's
prayer. Now let us pray, and please brethren,
in the light of these sobering things, if God's ministered to
your heart, express your gratitude by giving thanks in your heart,
say an amen when I conclude in prayer, but it just may be my
hypersensitivity, but my spirit would be grieved if you clapped.
I can't help but believe that's directed to me, and that's the
last thing I want. So let's pray. Our Father, we thank You that
You take our fumblings, our pathetic efforts to try to begin to begin
to explore the wonders of Your grace. And to the extent that
we have rightly handled Your Word and set out these broad
perspectives, may Your Spirit be our inward teacher, And may
He work mightily for those, our Father, who have reason to question
if the Holy Spirit has ever stripped them, ever brought them broken,
naked, no conditions, bowed down in humiliation and yet in wonder,
laying hold of Christ. O God, deal with such and give
them no rest till they know that they are in Christ. and in Christ
have been given the gift of the Spirit, and therefore are marked
for suffering, and in the Spirit's grace strengthened to suffer. We pray for your people. Our
Father, help us. We grieve, we mourn that there's
so much about us that is so unlike your Son. Have mercy upon us. Stir us up that we may use every
means in utter reliance upon your grace that the work of conforming
us to the Lord Jesus may, in each of our lives, be intensified. And, O God, help us, as that
will no doubt Raise the ire of a Christ-hating world. Enable
us to do what we heard in the previous hour in fellowship and
communion with Jesus, to be able to love our enemies, to do them
good as You do good to them. Hear us, we plead in Jesus' name,
amen.