Amen. We're going to start at
our alphabets as we have been contemplating the work of the
Spirit of God. And we left off at the alphabet O. And we will
begin to work with that in our previous outline. But if we can
just pull up our alphabet, we'll just start there. We have been
taking into consideration the person work of the Spirit of
God, the critical doctrine that is essential to a proper understanding
of Christianity. Without it, your articulation
of Christianity will not only be flawed, it will be heretical. And as we are compelled by verse
2 of Acts chapter 13 to consider the specific work of the Spirit
of God on the level of missions, that is his job. The job of the
Spirit of God is to affect missions, to bring about the salvation
of sinners. He does a whole lot more. But
in the area of men and women being gathered together in the
name of Christ and being justified and sanctified and therefore
ultimately glorified, it is the work of the spirit of God to
take what Christ purchased at Calvary Street and apply it to
the hearts of sinners. He does that through the church.
And so we saw in verse two how he had stated, and we'll get
back there in your new outline, the missionary work of the spirit.
separate unto me Barnabas and Saul for the work where unto
I have called them to do. And so we are considering now
aspects of the work of the Holy Spirit. Having already acknowledged
his personhood, his personal attributes, his predicates as
a person, we disavow notions of the Spirit of God being a
mere force, some entity that is non-personal, that does not
have rational properties, Volitional properties, emotional properties,
or relational properties. Persons have rational, volitional,
emotional, and relational properties. That's what persons are. They
are rational beings with intellectual capacities, volitional drives,
emotional drives, and they are relational. They are beings that
are aware of themselves and are aware of others and are made
for relationship. That's what persons are. An inanimate
thing does not have that capacity. And so the spirit of God being
fully personally acknowledged in the scriptures as being the
third person of the blessed triune Godhead also has a work like
the father is a person with his work. The son is a person with
his work. So the spirit of God is a person
with his work. And I would assert to you as
we work through the rest of Acts, the book of Acts chapter 13,
we're going to be more acutely aware of his presence. And one
of the reasons we are now slowing down is in order for us, you
and I, to take him personal, singular, masculine pronoun,
him more seriously. He will be the cause for your
joy, your success, your happiness, Your fruitfulness in the gospel
when Jesus says without me you can do nothing He meant without
the Spirit of God who now represents him in the earth. We can't do
anything So we read in what it is in Zechariah chapter 4 verse
6 not by power nor by might but by my spirit saith the Lord it
is incumbent upon the people of God to Recognize the presence
and the power and the pervasive nature of the Spirit of God neither
to distort him nor nor deny him, but to acknowledge him in the
truth. And that's what we want to do. So we're starting at the
last alphabet that we were working on last week. We stopped at not.
There are things about the Holy Spirit that are not like the
Holy Spirit is not seen by everyone in the world. He is not understood,
rather, by everyone in the world. He is not seen, therefore, are
rather comprehended. That's what the word seen means
in your New Testament, largely The word see in the New Testament
is a very, we call it a, it's a term that has multiple meanings.
It's an idea that when you use the word see, we're not talking
about a univocal concept where it only has one meaning, visual
seeing. So the word see in the scriptures
largely means to perceive, to comprehend, to be aware of, to
understand profoundly, And so when Jesus says to the rulers,
you have neither seen his shape or heard his or comprehended
his person talking to the Jews. He wasn't talking about physical
scene. He was talking about comprehending. So we use the term seen in a
form of speech when we say we understand, oh, I see what you
mean. When I say I see what you mean, I'm not visualizing, I'm
comprehending. So it is with the spirit of God.
He's not comprehended except by the people of God. Now, when
we say that, what that means is that the presence and awareness
that a believer has of the spirit of God is something that the
spirit of God must do for you. He is everywhere present. He
is omnipresent. He is everywhere working. He
sustains all things. The word of God is clear on that.
But the very creatures that should know God intimately through him
don't know him at all because they are not aware of his person
or his work until he reveals himself to us. And so we saw
this in John chapter 14 verse 17 where Jesus said to the disciples,
I'm sending you another comforter. He's going to be with you and
he's going to be in you whom the world does not know. For
it has neither seen him nor comprehended him, but you do. And so the spirit
of God is not understood. He is not seen that is perceived
and he's not controlled. This is where we left off last
time. One of the heresies in the evangelical church today
is the notion that you can take this force, which is perceived
as an impersonal being and kind of put them in a bottle and package
him and sell him to people or give him to people. When you
talk about having the authority to impart the Holy Spirit to
someone, you are talking foolishness. When you make the assumption
that you have a formula by which you can communicate the Holy
Ghost, who is himself God, and therefore absolutely sovereign,
that you have control over him and can impart him to someone,
you are a fool and self-deceived to think that you have that prerogative.
No man has that prerogative. He operates sovereignly. And
while in the Bible there are multiple metaphors that are analogous
to the ways he worked, One of them is what Jesus said in John
chapter three, the wind blows where it wills. You can't tell
from whence it comes or where it goes. Even so, those that
are born of the spirit of God, a rebirth experience is an act
of God sovereignly and no human being has the capacity to control
that. And so he is sovereign and therefore
not comprehended. The next term that we deal with
is the term order should be in the singular, but you can use
it in the plural. One of the evidences, uh, one
of the manifestations of the spirit of God is his job of bringing
order to chaos. The job of the spirit of God
is to bring order to chaos or out of chaos. He takes chaos,
which is the work of, a non-determined or non-predestined or non-purpose
entity and puts order, arranges and structures it so that it
has purpose and ultimately beauty. So we see in Genesis chapter
1 verses 1 and 2 where it says in the beginning, God created
the heavens and the earth, right? And the earth was without form
and void. Right? That's a Greek term that
basically says we have the material, but we don't have any purpose
yet manifested. And then it speaks in the next
verse about the spirit of God moving upon the waters, correct?
Moving upon the waters, separating the waters, dividing the waters
from above and the firmaments from the water below, and then
creating the day and creating the night and God calling the
night, darkness, night, and the daylight, and beginning to put
order and structure and purpose to creation. Day one, this, day
two, that, day three, the other thing. You guys remember that,
right? That's the orderly work of the spirit of God. And in
fact, in the book of Job, uh, Job declares that what the spirit
of God does is garnish the heavens, garnish the heavens. God has
by his spirit, garnish the heavens. And the word there means to bring
clarity to the raw material that's there. And likewise, in a spiritual
sense, uh, you and I, are human beings who apart from the presence
of the spirit of God in our life are darkness and we walk in chaos
until God orders our life. You and I are walking in darkness
and we are operating in chaos. We are confused. We are ignorant. We are living lives of destruction.
We are like Genesis chapter one, verse two, that we are void and
without form. And in fact, Jeremiah uses that
to describe the condition of Israel in a state of apostasy.
I think you would agree with me that our lives do not begin
to arrange themselves and order themselves in any kind of effective
way until God gets ahold of us. Is that true? Right. So there
are so many loopholes and so many empty spots in our life,
so many places in our thinking, in our conduct, in our character,
in our behavior, the litany of, or the legacy of our life ultimately
amounts to confusion and vanity apart from the work of God in
our hearts. And so what Paul said in 2 Corinthians chapter
four, around verse six, is that God calls us the light to shine
out of darkness, having shown in our hearts to give us the
light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus
Christ. And so what I'm emphasizing here is that order is one of
the evidences of the presence of the spirit of God. This is
true, not only in creation, this is true, not only in the hearts
of believers, but this is true in the life of the church as
well. So the verse we'll look at now is first Corinthians chapter
14, verse 33, where the apostle Paul is dealing with the invasion
of the devil in the church at Corinth. Now the church at Corinth
is the body of Christ. They are believers. Um, and,
and yet they're having some problems with structure and order and
government in the church. And in fact, um, while we are
going there, yeah, you can leave it right there for a moment there.
Um, when you think about first Corinthians chapter 14, which
is a very controversial chapter with regards to a misuse of the
gifts, a misapplication of the gifts in the church, and particularly
the gift of tongues, of which it's treated in terms of the
category of gifts in 1 Corinthians chapter 12. When you get to 1
Corinthians 14, for those of you who haven't been under my
teaching for years, here's what you can know. Chapter 14 is the
CEO of the gifts of the Spirit. I use a little acronym. It's
called C-E-O or acrostic, C-E-O. And this is important to know.
What's going on in 1 Corinthians? What's going on is the CEO of
the work of the apostle Paul, helping them to understand that
the spirit of God brings clarity. He brings edification edification
is building up, but it cannot be done with clarity. And he
brings what order clarity edification and order. That is the CEO of
first Corinthians 14. His emphasis is clarity. How
shall the people respond if the trumpet doesn't give a clear
sound? And so we push back against promoting
chaos in the church. We push back against promoting
just abandonment to our emotions in the church. We push back on
that because it's not reflective of the nature and character of
God. You guys following me? There can be. There can be a
pseudo structure and pseudo order among men that doesn't have the
spirit of God either. But where the spirit of God is
working, there will always be an ordering, a clarification
and edification. You and I can be edified if the
whole of our life functionally is like having dyslexia. You
and I cannot be edified. Our lives don't go well if we
have our priorities all mixed up. If we're driven by passions
that are contrary to good order and purpose in our life, you
and I can't be edified. Edification requires intelligence,
it requires order, and it requires knowing what you're doing to
put into place everything necessary to build the house of your life.
And that's the work of the Spirit of God. Listen to this, for God
is not the author of what? So wherever you see confusion
promoted, know this, that the Holy Spirit has not authored
that work. Wherever you see confusion, do
not ever attribute it to the Holy Ghost. Now, I know that
sounds utterly antithetical to our present evangelical church
age, but I warn you, you will not have the biblical endorsement
if you embrace that notion of the expression and manifestation
of the Spirit. He's not the author of confusion,
but of what? Peace, as in some of the churches
of the saints. Right. See, so the Apostle Paul,
who was one of the chief architects, that's what the word is in First
Corinthians chapter three. God made me. a chief architect,
a major foundation builder, a major architect in the kingdom of God.
He knew the blueprints. He knew the rules. He knew how
the house was to be built. And he's saying to the ministers
in Corinth, listen, you guys have allowed people to come in
and you have become disorderly. You are out of order. And this
disorder will disintegrate the church and it will leave a bad
witness in the mouth of people who are looking on to you. So
we state that the kingdom of God or the work of the spirit
of God is to produce order. And that's what it teaches. There
is another verse too. I forget what the other verse
is. It might be verse 40. There it is. Look at it again.
Let all things be done, what? And what? Right. So now notice
what he says. He says, let all things be done
decently in an order. right? And he had stated about
seven verses earlier that he guarantees the church at Corinth
that he's operating by the spirit of God. So, um, order and decency
is one of the evidences of the spirit. All right, let's keep
going, going back to our PowerPoint, uh, so we can continue to work.
Okay. The next, um, the next set of alphabets we'll go to
now after order, which is one of the works of the spirit of
God is that he, unifies our key. He prayed that we get there.
We kind of get a little quacky. Are we on the right page? Okay,
here we go. P M and N O P. He prayed the spirit of God praise. Now, now watch the phrase that
I'm about to say here. He assists the believer in communion
with the father for what he assists the believer in communion with
the father for effectiveness. Now, when we get to Romans 8
in our sermon series, we will be a lot more critical with that
text because again, that text is misinterpreted often as being
the believer speaking in tongues and therefore the spirit speaking
through the believer to God. But the text would not actually
bear that out. When you look at it very solidly,
exegetically, that is exclusively the work of the spirit of God,
communing with the father, because the job of the spirit of God
is to search out the will of God. His job is to search out,
that is to bring to pass the will of God. What that means
is when you and I go to the father in prayer, because of the filial
love that we have to him and the right and privilege to talk
to God, if our prayers are amiss, Or if our prayers are invalid,
if our prayers do not correspond to the will of God, well, fundamentally
what the spirit of God does is shake out all of the junk that
has no reason to get up to the father. I hope that was a good
enough analogy for you. The father doesn't have time
for our junk. That too is a human euphemism. But what the spirit of God does
is make sure that our prayers are effectual. When the spirit
of God is not in our prayer life, our prayers are not effectual.
They're just human, as it were, expostulations that may or may
not get to the presence of God. But looking then at Romans chapter
eight, verse 26, just so you can have your eyes on it. And
let's think about the implications of that statement for just a
second. Because what we're trying to do is just give ourselves
a little time to resonate on the thought of the importance
of how involved the spirit of God is in our life. And so far
we've seen that he's, he's deeply involved in our life, right?
Now here's how close he comes to our life for as believers,
that he get involved in our prayer life. So the spirit of God gets
involved in our prayer life because he knows we need help even in
our prayer life. Have you ever prayed in the flesh
a whole lot? If you want to admit it to tell
the truth, That's the prayers that like once you start launching
into that prayer, immediately you take an exit off the highway
down some other path that has nothing to do with prayer. Even
though your mouth is running off with words, your heart is
way over in Timbuktu or in some other foolishness. That's not
prayer. That's just talking. And I have
given this advice for those people who find themselves that when
you're just talking, You can take this advice, you don't have
to. If you wanna work on your vocabulary, you can just keep
talking. But when you know your heart is not in it, stop talking. Because you're deceiving yourself,
you're not deceiving God. Because God hears the heart.
What God hears is the voice of the heart. Are you guys hearing
me? He hears the voice of the heart.
It's the heart that God hears And so sometimes we're running
off at the mouth, but our minds are way over and yonder. You
know that. Stop talking. Take a moment to listen. Confess. God, I'm not talking to you.
I'm talking to myself or somebody else. So since I don't have a
prompting to talk, let me get on up and go do something else.
That's much more honorable than just running off at the mouth.
Unless you want to try to press in. Sometimes we might have a
burden on an issue and we really do want to talk to God. We know
we should talk to him. And so we'll go to praying and
then our mind gets to drifting, right? If we're not disciplined.
Now, if you want to fight to get back, you can fight, but
make sure your fight is not by yourself because you can fight
to get back and you're still in the flesh, even though you're
trying to concentrate. When what you should say is, Lord, you
know, I want to pray, help me. Help me, help me to pray. That way it's a reciprocating
experience that has satisfaction because who likes to talk to
someone who's not there? In other words, it's a one-sided
exercise and it should not be. And remember, when it comes to
prayer to God, and most Christians don't get this, the quantity
of your prayer means very little. So I'm gonna help a few people.
Now we all need to do better at prayer. So I'm not letting
you off the hook. Cause you know, you can talk
to your girlfriend on the phone for five hours straight without
even taking a breath. You won't even go to the bathroom.
So I'm not letting you off the hook. But what I am saying is
that be mature about what prayer is about. It's about quality. and therefore a quality prayer
that lasts a minute has more effectiveness than a quantity
prayer of seven to 10 or 15 or 20 and the heart's not in it.
Are you guys following me? So our master said in Matthew
chapter six, do not be like the Pharisees who think that they're
heard by their much speaking. See, they love getting out into
the public market and having people listen to them when they
pray. Well, when you do that, if you're praying conscious that
other people are listening to you, you're praying to them,
not God. Got that? It's done. So therefore,
prayer is a discipline. It's a real discipline. How to
contain or confine your thought processes to focus on God when
you're talking is a discipline. How to be able to block other
people out while you're talking to God is a discipline that requires
the basic aspiration of communion with God. It requires that. We
don't always have that. We don't always want to talk
to God. And so we can be distracted by a bunch of things. When you're
distracted by a bunch of things, stop praying because you're really
not ready to pray. I'm not making some sense. Just
stop praying. God's got you. If you're here,
he got you. But what he wants you to do is talk to him, not
pretend that you're talking to him. And he definitely doesn't
want you to pretend to talk to him while you're really hoping
that other people are listening to you. Christianity is filled
with this show religion where everybody thinks that everybody
else ought to see what you're doing. Take Matthew six and treat
it deeply. Because what Jesus taught us
in Matthew 6 is do not let your religion be largely to be seen
of men. Because at that point you're
manipulating and prostituting God so that you can get the accolades
of men. And a man can't help you. Our
church folk can't help you. Even Christian believers can't
help you at the end of the day. You guys follow what I'm saying?
But the Holy Spirit can help us. Likewise, the spirit also
help with our what? That's right. The word is weaknesses. His job is to help our weaknesses
for we know not what we should pray. That's one weakness. We
don't often know the infirmity inherent in that is ignorance. We often do not know what to
pray because we're ignorant of the word of God. So because we
don't have a sufficient knowledge of scripture, our prayers largely
are pagan, materialistic, selfish and narcissistic. Have you noticed that often when
we pray, if we're praying things that we know not of, we're largely
praying about issues pertaining to us, their supplicatory, and
they're asking God for things. Have you noticed that? God, I
need this, I need that, I need this, I need that, I need this,
I need that, I need the other thing. If your prayers are largely
prayers of supplication on that end, you really don't understand
prayer as you ought. Then you don't understand that
the design of prayer is not to just give God a list like he
don't know. He does know. Do you guys follow
that? So, so, so the weakness is often,
we don't know what we should pray for as we are, because we're
not as knowledgeable about the word of God as we should be.
Because what the word of God would do is frame your mind and
frame your understanding and therefore frame your affections
so that your prayers will line up with the word of God. And
when they line up with the word of God, then there'll be more
apt to be biblical prayers. Am I making some sense? And I'm
not talking about quoting Bible verses in lieu of praying. Cause you can quote Bible verses
and be ignorant of those Bible verses. And you're still ignorant.
Like a lot of people will quote verses during their prayers.
And unless those verses are quoted accurately in context and mean
something, are you doing this parenting Bible verses? God knows
there's no light in that as well. Am I helping somebody? So it's
very important that you don't try to be something that you're
not with the most important person in your life. So the presence
of the spirit of God is to help you in your infirmity. And if
you're infirmed in the area of knowing how to communicate to
God, when you go to him, say, Lord, help me. Just that simple. Help me pray. Help me pray. Likewise, the spirit also help
with our infirmities, for we know not what we should pray
as we ought, but the spirit itself make it what? All right, so there
you go. So now tech, technically speaking,
this second line, the second clause is his work, not your
work. It's his work, not your work.
Your work started back up at line one and part lines one and
two. The spirit is helping our infirmity
line two for we know not what we should pray as we are. That's
where you and I are. So we're, we're weak in terms
of direction, weak in terms of expression, weak in terms of
Passion weak in terms of zeal. And so the spirit now comes along
and helps our pitiful prayers You got that So he makes intercession
for us and we'll get the Romans They will understand the groaning
part two with groanings, which cannot be what? Right. So now
be careful that that last line is not substituted for speaking
in tongues. It's not there's no connection
most people say it all the time, but the language is very clear
I mean Logically speaking if we're speaking in tongues, we're
uttering That's if we're speaking in tongues we're uttering we
may not know what we're uttering other people may not know what
we're uttering That's an argument in itself, but he makes groanings
which cannot be what? That's right. So we take the
language for what it says. We're not going to make it to
be a demonstration of utterance That's rooted in our alleged
speaking in tongues and say that's the Holy Ghost praying through
me You guys follow that logic Very important, very important.
All right, let's go to our next one. Going back to our outline now,
not only does the spirit of God pray, he assists the believers
in communion with the father for effectiveness, but he quickens. I love this, this is an old English
word that means to be brought back to life or to give life.
Zoe is the root word. He gives life, he brings life. He brings vitality, he quickens,
he raises the dead. He does that on a number of issues,
but largely it has to do with him bringing you into the kingdom
of God through the new birth and sustaining the totality of
your life as the life giving spirit by which we all live,
move and have our being. He gives life to our Christianity. He quickens. So first Corinthians
chapter 15 verse 45 speaks to this and it speaks to this in
a whole bunch of other ways. And so it is written, the first
man Adam was made a what? Living soul. The last Adam was
made a what? Quickening spirit. That's right.
Now, again, when you look at verse 45 of first Corinthians
15, what we're talking about is two heads. The federal head
of the human race that's fallen is Adam one. The federal head
of the human race that has been redeemed is the last Adam, the
Lord Jesus. Now follow this. Adam one is
a living soul. That means he's a mortal and
he's subject to death. He's subject to the curse. That's
what happened when we fail. We are living souls. We will
live forever. If we're lost in Adam one for
an Adam one, all what die, but in the last Adam, we shall be
made alive. That's verse 22 of the same chapter.
Don't go there in Jesus Christ. We shall be made alive and notice
what it says. And the last Adam was made a quickening spirit,
a life giving spirit. And what that means is that the
hallmark of his work is to bring life, to raise from the dead. And that would be true, not only
in the ontological sense of the new birth for believers, but
in every area of our life. Like you need the spirit of God
to quicken every area of your life, to bring to life every
area of your life that needs to be quickened. That might be
your prayer life. It might be your life of reading. It might be your witnessing. You need him to help you in all
those areas. He brings life. That's what is being stated here.
In fact, This here is a promise of the totality of the life of
the people of God, finally in the eschaton, when both soul
and body will be renewed and glorified. Like right now in
regeneration, we're born again. And so if any man be in Christ
Jesus, he's a what? Right. But there's a body that
we still operate in that's dead. Our physical bodies are dead.
So there's a conflict within us because there's a part of
us that's alive and there's a part of us that's dead. Right. So
this part that's dead has to right now be assisted and aided
by the spirit of God to comport with the desires of our heart.
Like the spirit of God has to help our bodies. This is what
we're learning in Romans 6 and 7 and 8, that you and I need
help to do God's will. Like you won't, by your own strength,
move out in any act of obedience without the grace of God. For even though the spirit is
willing, the flesh is weak and without the assistance of the
spirit of God, the mere weakness of your flesh will only leave
you willing. So I'm going to say that again,
because I'm happy you missed that. So you remember when Jesus
went to the garden of Gethsemane and he was on the brink of the
crucifixion and he demonstrated as the obedient son of God what
it meant to depend upon the father? And so he didn't press into his
suffering in the flesh. He went and prayed and he took
Peter, James and John and said, go with me while I pray and pray
with me for one hour. Remember that? Pray with me for
one hour. Most people would fail the prayer
test of one hour, right? Be honest. Last time you prayed
a whole hour. All right, there you go. So don't lie. Don't don't play
games. We're weak. Aren't we weak? Right.
So our master was showing the disciples how important it is
to truly depend upon God. So he comes to the brink of his
test and he's showing the disciples that you're going to need God
when it's your turn to be tempted and tried. And so they get to
hear the master crying out to the father for help. You guys got that for help. and
being honest with the father about not wanting to go through
this mission because he does not want to be separated from
the father. It's not that he didn't want to die. It wasn't that Christ didn't
want to die. He was not afraid of death. What he did not want
to experience was separation from the father. His holy soul
abhorred the notion of the father turning his back on the son and
leaving him in the midst of darkness and damnation for a season that
was repugnant to him. And so he asked if there be any
other way. And at that point of partition,
grace was granted the human nature to say, not my will, but I will
be done. Now you guys following this now
watch this. And then the angels came and strengthened him. Okay. So that, that account teaches
how desperate we are for God's help to break through and do
what God has called us to do. See, that's real prayer. What
you saw in Luke 23, uh, I think it's 23. Yes. That's real prayer. Sweating great drops of blood,
pleading with the father to give me grace to break through. That's
real prayer. Now, Jesus prayed all the time.
Frequently, didn't he? The disciples were so jazzed
by the prayer life of Christ that they were compelled one
day to say, Lord, teach us how to pray. I mean, it just seems
like you've got this thing down. And they knew that their prayers
compared to the prayers of Christ were pathetic. And their petition
was noble and just. And he talked about prayer. He
laid it out. So like Matthew chapter six,
when we go into verse 10 and following, Jesus says, when you
pray, pray in this manner. Or when you pray, pray with this
in view. You guys remember that, right?
Our father who art in heaven. And you know how folks go through
the formulary? Dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah,
dah. You're not praying. You're just talking. I mean, you can do it. You know,
we, we, we just, we do, we do that, right? Our father who art
in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be
done. Right now, watch this. If the
heart is not in every line of that statement, it's a rope prayer,
just like the Pharisees. Are you hearing me? It's a rope
prayer, just like the Pharaoh. In other words, God is not a
genie that you move him through incantations. Are you guys hearing
what I'm saying? So now what you need to do is
go back through the prayer and understand the meaning of the
prayer. Because it's the meaning of the prayer that Christ was
conveying to the disciples. That the heart disposition of
true prayer is first and foremost hollowing the Father. Since we
have the spirit of adoption by which we cry, Abba Father, it's
assumed, we hollow Him. So we don't take the Father lightly.
He is the preeminent one on his throne from which everything
else flows. So when Jesus included us into
that structured prayer of propriety, he says, our father who art in
heaven, your name alone be holy. That's an attitude that you go
to prayer with. You guys follow that? Our father
who art in heaven, your name alone is holy. and there is no holiness outside
of that name. Everything else is desecrated. Even my prayers. Thy kingdom come. Now we're setting
forth a petition. Your kingdom come. You know what's
amazing about that proposition? Immediately we are saying in
our prayer, this is not about me, this is about you. You gotta
follow that? And so I'm not going, Heavenly
Father, Give us this day. So that's the narcissism in us.
We might knock on his door, call him heavenly father, make sure
we get the right door down. But as soon as he opened the
door, daddy, I need some bread. No, don't start right there.
Start with hollowing his name. Secondly, submitting to the perfection
of his will be manifested in our lives. Like right there,
the second line, Thy will be done. We'll wipe all of us out. Because you're not praying for
God's will, you're praying for your will. Think about that notion. Think about our father who art
in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come. Well, what
does that mean? That means more than anything,
you want to see a manifestation of God's kingdom in this world. More than anything, you want
to see a manifestation of God's kingdom. Now, the son of God
gave us that set of instructions. Hollow the father, yearn for
the kingdom, and then submit to the will of God, a sovereign
God. You know what that means? No
matter what's happening, God's your God, and I'm not here to
turn, twist your arm and make you do what I want you to do.
You guys follow that? So even before we get into begging
for bread, What we are doing is capitulating to the sovereignty
of God and yearning for God's glory to be manifested in the
presence of the kingdom Let's see now we really take that kind
of stuff for real our life would correspond with that Am I telling
the truth If we really took the Lord's prayer, that's what they
call it For real our lives would correspond to the priority of
the gospel because that's what we're telling the father. We're
telling the father, father, most important is your name. Secondly,
or penultimately, your kingdom. And as a consequence of your
kingdom, your will. We don't think like that. Ladies
and gentlemen, we do not think like that. We jump past the father
right down to, I need some dollars, daddy. It's true. It's true. The prayer is awesome
though. It's wonderful. I have never
in my life preached through the Lord's prayer. Cause I've been
grappling for 35 years with trying to live it out. Let alone preach
it. See like I could actually preach
the Lord's prayer and not be living it out. So I thought I'd
better leave that Holy ground alone until my life is right.
So it hasn't lined up enough yet for me to preach it. Because
I don't want lightning to strike me while I'm exegetically expounding
the Lord's prayer and getting waxing eloquent and anecdotal. And he says, son, you don't know
anything about what you're talking about. So I've left that alone. Out of all of the things that
I've preached, I've left the Lord's prayer alone because of
that. The work of the spirit of God
is designed to quicken every area of our life so that it has
vitality, so that it has purpose, so that it has clarity, so that
it brings about edification. And yet our bodies are so weak,
so weak that we constantly fight around that. Again, we'll deal
with that more fully in Romans chapter 7, which is what we're
coming up to now. That chapter is masterful in
dealing with what we call the conflict. Let's go back to our
PowerPoint. I want to get through this so I make sure I open up
the next point in our outline. So not only does the Spirit of
God assist the believer in communion with the Father for effectiveness
through prayer, but he quickens. He is the life-giving power that
makes the supernatural. He is the life-giving power that
makes the supernatural. Now, subtly, if I were to just
add one more line to that, it simply means that the Spirit
of God is the efficient means by which the will of God is brought
to pass in our life, okay? Then also is he represents, he
represents. What do I mean by that? He's
the executor of the covenant terms. So like the spirit of
God is present in the world to represent Jesus. Jesus was present
in the world to represent the father. You guys follow that?
This is the basic logical, what we call subordination in the
economy of the Trinity. The Father is being glorified
through the Son. The Son is being glorified through
the Spirit. The Spirit is here to unfold and to execute the
covenant terms. There's a covenant that Christ
has effected. It's a covenant of redemption
and mercy and grace. Out of it falls all the blessings.
The job of the Holy Ghost is to execute the blessings of the
covenant, to give those blessings to those whom the Father has
chosen in Christ, sinners. every spiritual blessing in heavenly
places. All of the promises of God, yes
and amen, in Jesus Christ become a reality only by the executorship
of the spirit of God, only by him. Without him, all we're doing
is speculating about theological things. So that's his work and
in that we are reading Hebrews chapter 10, verse 26 through
29. Let's look at that briefly, Hebrews.
10, 26 through 29, just to get a little bit of a glimpse of
that particular proposition. Verse 26. Now, let me start back
at verse 25. Not forsaking the assembling
of ourselves together as the manner of some is, but exhorting
one another And so much more, as you see the day approaching,
the apostle Paul, having already told the saints to draw near
to God back in verse 22, hold fast. And then he says, let us
provoke one another to love and good works. But you can't do
that if you're abandoning the local fellowship. That's verse
25. And then he says in verse 26, for if we sin willfully after
that, we have received the knowledge of the truth. There remains no
more sacrifice for sin. Verse 26 has to be understood
in the context of his lengthy exhortation to the Hebrew Christians
not to return back to work's religion, i.e. sacrifices and
offerings, covenant keeping, circumcision, Sabbath days, and
those things, because to do that is to reject the once for all
atoning work of Jesus Christ on Calvary Street. You guys follow
that? That's the willful sinning. After the gospel has come to
you and me, and the gospel says that Christ has finished the
work, he has atoned for sins, no more sacrifices for sin. And
then we turn around and say, yes, but, and then we have to
now add to what he did something that we do. We have rejected
the truth of the gospel. There remains no other sacrifice
for sins, but that which Christ has accomplished once for all.
And if we abandon that single solitary way, then you and I
are open for judgment. Verse 27, but a certain fearful
looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour
the what? So now mark the last line of verse 27, it will devour
the adversaries. Who are the adversaries? People
who reject the gospel, who deny the atoning work of Jesus Christ.
the accomplished redemption of Christ on the cross and say either
there is another way or we need to add to what Christ has done.
These are adversaries to the gospel. You guys follow that?
And what the writer to the Hebrews is saying is that individual
can expect the fiery judgments of God to be laid upon them should
they teach that salvation is Christ plus our salvation is
by some other means. Verse 28, and we'll see it now
in verse 29, my point. He that despised Moses' law died
without mercy under two or three witnesses. Of how much sore punishment,
suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy who hath trodden under
foot the Son of God? That's the second person. and
hath counted the blood of the covenant, that's the death and
sacrifice that actually affects the covenant. You guys see that?
And hath counted the blood of the covenant. Watch this now.
Wherewith he was what? An unholy thing and hath done
despite unto the spirit of what? Grace. That's right. So the last
line says that the spirit of grace is the net effect of the
atonement that Christ accomplished. The spirit of grace is the one
that brings the gospel to you and tells you about what Christ
has accomplished. And if we reject that gospel,
we are rejecting the spirit of God. Well, that's what Israel
did. That's what the Pharisees did when Christ came along and
did all the miracles and all the healings and said that he
was the way, the truth and the life. And they rejected him.
Christ said, be careful. You can reject me. You can reject
my father. But if you reject the spirit of God, there is no
forgiveness in this life, nor in the life to come. the danger
of rejecting the explicit revelation of the work of Christ where your
conscious knows in fact that there's no possible way that
this man can be anything other than what he claimed to be by
the miracles that he accomplished and by the eloquence and clarity
of his words. Why am I rejecting him? If I
am rejecting him, I'm rejecting the spirit of God. It's a very
dangerous place for legalist and self-righteous people and
people who are trying to get right with God to be. And that
last line is a technical term, the spirit of grace. And what
that really does mean in terms and covenant terms is, is he's
the one that graciously imparts covenant blessings. And when
we reject the gospel, we reject him. All right, let's go back.
Let's work through our last few points. So he prays, he quickens,
he represents second Corinthians three 18. You don't have to go
there. All we with open face behold, as in a mirror, the glory
of the Lord, we are transformed. from glory to glory by the Spirit
of God. What does the Spirit of God do?
He works through the preaching of the Word to transform us into
the image of Christ. Is that true? That's 2 Corinthians
3. This is an amazing, that's an amazing truth, isn't it? That He takes the Word preached
and transforms our life so that we're being conformed to Christ.
And therefore, He ought to be carefully acknowledged. Finally, He seals us. Does the
Spirit of God seal us? He protects the property of the
father and the son from perishing. That's an interesting proposition,
that last line there. So in 2 Corinthians 1.20, we
quote it all the time, Ephesians 1.13 and Ephesians 4.30, where
it talks about the spirit of God by whom we have been sealed. That too is a technical term
with regards to the work of the spirit of God in taking the property
that Christ purchased and protecting that property until it reaches
its final destination. That particular Greek word for
seal there is a term that is used for a king or a dignitary
who stamps a seal on clay. And that seal has certain insignia
on it that identifies that property as being owned by that dignitary.
And it means that that property is precious and to be protected
and not to be tampered with. And so the spirit of God seals
the believer so that the believer does not perish. Do you know what that means?
That without the spirit of God, you and I could still perish.
That's right. Without the spirit of God, we
could perish. So now think about this for a moment. I know I'll
be messing with you with this, particularly if you don't think
through things like what regeneration is and what faith is and what
sanctification is, what mortification is, and even this concept of
sealing. The work of the Spirit of God
must seal us to secure us, because if he does not seal us to secure
us, left to ourselves, we would fall away. So I'm going to say
that again. The work of the Spirit of God
must seal us in regeneration, because if he doesn't seal us
to secure us, We may be brought nigh to the gospel. We may even
be a partaker of the Holy Ghost as Hebrews 6 says. We may even
be knowledgeable about the word of God, involved in kingdom work.
But if the spirit of God is not really operating with the objective
and assignment to bring us all the way to glory, we will still
perish. This is quite interesting because the notion is what's
going on in the life of the believer qualitatively at regeneration
that apart from the spirit of God, he can still perish. Well, what's going on is he's
been given a life, but that life is not sustained except by the
God that gave that life. Are you guys following the logic?
So this what this does when you follow it through scripturally
is it allows the warnings in the scripture to have meaning
to you. Like there are people who are presumptuous about their
salvation. And you know what they'll say? I'm saved. So I'm
good to go. but they have no regard for the
need of the Spirit of God to constantly work in their life
to help make their calling and election short and to keep them
all the way. Now, the Word of God promises
that objectively, does it not? The Word of God promises that
we are kept through the power of God by what? Faith. However,
the point is, is that we are kept by the power of God. We're
not kept by our own strength, nor are we kept by our own faith.
We're only kept as the spirit of God sustains us all the way
through until the state of immutability occurs at glorification. Did
anybody misunderstand that? Immutability is when we reached
that point in our life where we are in the presence of God
finally on that last day where all things now are made new and
we are eternally with him, both body and soul. We will never
then have to hear the warnings of scripture. to make our calling
and election sure. We will never have to have to
hear the warnings of scripture again, make sure that we're bearing
fruit. Now we do, we have to hear all that right now because
we could be presumptuous and we could still be lost. Judas
Iscariot thought for sure he was saved. Are you hearing me?
Ananias and Sapphira thought for sure that they were saved.
Lots of people thought for sure they were saved, who when they
ran up on that one particular test, that exposed them for not
depending upon God discovered that they weren't. So these kinds
of exhortations that I'm yielding to you right now are designed
for this purpose, that you do not presume upon your salvation
independent of a continual work of the sovereign spirit to get
you to glory. So Philippians 1.6 will say,
he who hath begun a good work in you will perform it until
the day of Jesus Christ. That's an objective truth with
regards to him, not you. Am I making some sense? All right,
teaches. Does the spirit of God teach?
Right, he's the great educator of the believer. Educating the
believer in the gospel is his pedagogical role. In the Old
Testament, it was the law. In the New Testament, it's the
spirit. The goal of the Spirit is bring Jesus into reality in
our life through the law. But you and I are not taught
through the dead letter of the law. We're taught by the Spirit
of God through the gospel. Are you guys understanding that?
Very important concept. That's John 15, 26, Psalm 43,
10. Let's see if we can get our way
through our last few. Okay, here we go. The Spirit
of God unifies. You guys see that? The unity
of God, the faith, and the church is his assignment by all that
are above. Ephesians chapter 4, 3, just
show you that. You know how you hear sometimes
in our churches or by some people that we need to be in unity? The church needs to be unified.
I hear that all the time. Pastor, we need to be unified. We need to be brought into unity.
And if you've listened to me carefully enough, you know what
I say to them all the time? We are unified. The church is
unified. The church is not waiting to
be unified. That's a delusion. The church is unified. Well,
what about all these denominations and separations and different
views and different interpretations? That's the flesh. That's mankind
with its twisted notions and distorted views upon God and
his wanting to actually chew off more than he can handle when
it comes to claims of knowledge. But the reality is, is Christ
established the totality of the unity of the church upon his
death at Calvary. And when you read in John chapter
17, father, I will that those that you have given me be one,
even as we are one, that's not like that statement is not like
a request for something to be done or an imperative for something
to be done. That's an indicative that was
fulfilled the moment that Christ died on Calvary street, every
believer in Christ, is already one. So I'm gonna say that again
and just read the verses for it. Every true believer that's
in Christ has been made to be one because our unity is the
work of the spirit of God bringing us into the body of Christ. Like,
so now watch this. You can't be more unified in
the body than the day you're born into the kingdom of God.
From that day, you can get less unified. in terms of our notions
and our ideas and our choices to identify with denominations
and churches and groups of people, and then forge theological constructs
and formulate ideas of doctrine. And those ideas of doctrines
will be adverse to other groups. And now we enter into a trajectory
of hostility and conflict. Remember what I talked about
on Sunday, ladies and gentlemen, about not falling prey to the
flesh and ending up fighting brethren to brethren as the kings
did when judah fought with israel and god allowed israel to beat
judah down because judah was under the assumption that because
they had the true gospel it was there right now to go around
and destroy every other doctrine rather than to worship the true
and the living god and restore the faith in jerusalem and bring
about a love and beauty and a spectacular devotion to God so men and women
can be drawn to Jerusalem? No, they thought that they turn
around and now do apologetics and polemics and go to war with
the liberal church. You guys remember that, right?
And what God did was allow Amaziah to smart for it. And it stripped
the kingdom of the glory. That was because he was more
interested in fighting than he was in worshiping God. Are you
guys hearing me? He was more interested in fighting
over doctrine than exalting Jesus Christ and making him central
in the life of the people of God. See, the people in Judah
at that time, they were all jacked up even though they were in the
right church. And what the job of Amaziah was to do was to get
those people on fire for God again and committed to the gospel
again, not running around trying to fix their liberal brethrens
unorthodox and heretical ways. Make sure that your own house
is right first. Am I making some sense? I just
want to impress at home because that's one of the tactics of
the devil. Now watch this. One of the tactics of the devil,
and this really is so for men. You know, you might have a few
women like to run around and argue and debate doctrine, but
this is really true for men. Men will be distracted by arguing
doctrine when they really should be committing their lives to
God. that you will never, you, you
won't look anywhere on the internet and find me debating with men.
Back when the internet first came out a hundred years ago,
I was around then. And, uh, so I peruse the internet and I used
to get in, in, into blogs and debate with guys over this doctrine
and that doctor and the other doctor. And about a couple of
years in, it began to dawn on me that this is futile. This is empty. The only thing
it does is produce pride and perpetual division. It might
create cliques and groups, but it doesn't exalt Christ. It's
a waste of words. And there's a funky attitude
that dominates that whole tenor. Now I've been out of it for years.
I mean, maybe 15 years I've been out of it. but I still believe
it's still that same way today. That the character is not godly,
that the debates are not civil, that the arguments are not rational,
that they don't know how to speak the truth in love per se and
hold the tension between respect and charity and the characteristics
of Christ while at the same time setting forth propositional truths
in a logical syllogistic fashion, theologically speaking. No, we
end up becoming carnal and fleshly and that's a pure waste of time
and it's sin against the Holy Ghost. It's sin against the Holy
Ghost. Are you guys following that logic?
Sin against the Holy Ghost. And so what I am stating is that
if a believer understands that the moment that he or she or
they are born again, they are as united to the body of Christ
as they will ever be. The only thing you and I can
do is get further away on a practical level, not on an ecclesiastical
or an ontological level. If you're born again, you're
unified. Your unity can be realized and it can be benefited and it
can be of edification to others to the degree that you understand
that and walk in that. But you cannot understand that
and then go about trying to affect unity in the little sphere of
your own circle and actually create disunity. Not unity with
Christ. Not disunity with Christ and
not disunity with the true body of Christ. The spiritual body
that's made up of every believer from every nation, kindred, tribe,
and tongue who are authentically part of the body of Christ. That's
one unity that Paul is talking about here. What I'm talking
about is when men or women fail to understand that unity and
then operate from that unity to promote more unity, even though
they may not be able to affect it because of the mystery of
the kingdom. And the mystery of the kingdom is this, that
within the larger body politic of the church, There are liars
and heretics and false prophets and false teachers who impede
the manifestation of the unity. Am I making some sense right
there? So I'm gonna say this again so that you guys can get it.
The unity of the spirit that the believers already have is
to be endeavored to keep, not to accomplish or to procure. We are to endeavor to keep it.
So the humble disposition is this, it's already there. What
do we do then? We peel back everything that's
contrary to Christ so that that unity can be manifested. We peel
back everything that's contrary to Christ so that that unity
can be manifested. We remove everything that exalts
itself against the knowledge of Christ so that that unity
can be manifested. We remove all of the debris,
all of the rocks and the stones that cause people to stumble
so that that unity can be manifested. Am I making some sense? so that
the unity can be manifested because underneath all of the rubble
of the history of religious efforts on the part of men is a glorious
unified body called the church of Christ underneath all the
rubble. Who here is not persuaded of
that? I think you can raise your hand. I'm not going to kick you
out of the church. You know that. Uh, when I settled this particular
perspective on unity, it liberated me from an impossible task. And do you know what that impossible
task is? Just in case you're asking, it's 2000 years of wood,
hay and stubble that has been heaped on top of the gospel by
the denominations that are presently existing, trying to maintain
their dead orthodoxy and dead churches. Your job in mind is
not to try to undo that, We, you, you and I can't undo that
by debates and arguments and polemics. The only thing that
you and I want to do is as effectively as possible, point people to
Christ and where people are attached to God through Christ by his
spirit. We're brethren. You guys got that? We're brethren.
You may not like me, but you still have to love me because
we're brethren. If you've got the same gospel that I have,
and you love the same Lord that I love, and you are begotten
by the same spirit, we're brethren. And that's gonna be proven at
the end of time. That's gonna be proven at the end of time.
The wood and the hay and the stubble, when the Lord catches
us up, all that's falling down. Do you understand that? No denominations
will make it into glory. Not a one. No affiliations, no
associations, no sybillis, no shibillis. The only thing that's
going to make it into glory are authentic Christians who believe
in Christ alone through faith alone, by grace alone, according
to the word of God alone. Just strip right down to Jesus. So funny. So like when I'm, when
I'm helping people cross Jordan, We got five more minutes. When
I help people cross Jordan, you know what crossing Jordan, who
doesn't know what crossing Jordan is, I can tell you. Y'all don't
know what crossing, that's a metaphor for dying. So crossing Jordan
is when you got to cross over into eternity, because the Jordan
River is a symbol of death. It was a symbol of death for
Israel coming out of the wilderness, going into the promised land.
It was a symbol of death when John the Baptist baptized the
people in the River Jordan in preparation for Jesus. It was
a symbol of death when Jesus had to get baptized. Jordan is
a symbol of death. It's the same place that Naaman
the leper was baptized seven times, dipped seven times in
order to be clean. It's a symbol of death. And so
the old folks, the old school theologians would talk about
crossing Jordan, right? When I'm helping folks cross
Jordan, it does not matter at all what church they go to, went
to, wanna go to, you got to peel all that off. Well, I want you
to hear this now, to be light for the flight. As soon as you
say I'm Baptist, you're too heavy to get in. As soon as you say
I'm Pentecostal, way too heavy to get in. Way too heavy to get
in. As soon as you say I'm Episcopal
Methodist, that's too long. The kingdom of God is like the
hood. We don't work with seven, eight, nine, 10 syllables. Episcopal
Methodist, You know how some churches have these long hyphenated
names? You go to Oakland and there's
three churches on every block in Oakland. And some of the names
are so long, they're like chapters. Just the names are chapters. By the time you say that name,
you would have dropped out of heaven right on into hell. Going to heaven is as simple
as three words. Are you ready? Faith, end, Christ. Faith in Christ. When I'm sitting with a Catholic
and they're struggling crossing over, Pastor, what should I do?
What should I do? I would say simply drop everything you thought
you knew. And answer this question. Do
you trust Christ as your only hope for glory? Yeah, I do, Pastor.
Yes, I do. Yes, I do. Then I see you on
the other side. I'll see you on the other side.
Because see, that was enough faith, not only to cleave to
Jesus, but let the barnacles of religion go. Are you hearing
me? It can't be Christ plus my church. It can't be Christ plus my baptism,
plus my ties, plus my giving, plus anything. It has to be Christ
alone. That's what it has to be. That's
the narrow way. That's the narrow way. We've
talked about it long time ago. You can't bring nothing with
you to get in. You got to drop it all at the
door. And the only way you get through that narrow door is Jesus
alone. See, this is what our father,
our heavenly father taught. Peter, James, and John, when
they wanted to start a denomination on the Mount of Transfiguration.
Remember that? Peter stood up and said, Lord,
we're going to have the Baptists, Pentecostals, and the evangelical
booths up here. Let us build three booths, one
for you, one for Elijah, one for Moses. Remember that? Moses,
Elijah, and Jesus. Peter had no idea what he was
doing. And before Peter could get the
words out of his mouth, the father said, hey, hey, hey, hey, stop. This is my beloved son. Hear
ye him. And when the smoke cleared, they
saw no man but Jesus alone. And that impression helped Peter
and John and James understand that it's not Jesus plus the
law. Jesus plus the prophets is Jesus
alone. Are you guys following that?
That's what that was about. And therefore, they were ready
now to preach Christ and Christ alone. And that's the work and
insignia of the spirit of God. Anywhere you go on planet Earth,
any vacation you take, any excursion you go through anywhere in the
world, when you meet real, authentic Christians, here's what you know.
They love Christ. And when you tell them the truth,
they receive it with open arms. That's the evidence that you
are part of the body of Christ. Endeavoring to keep the unity
of the spirit and the bond of peace. Verse four, watch this. There is one body. You see that?
Not two. There's only one body. We call
that the church, isn't it? And there is one what? That's
right. By which the church is born,
grows, matures, and serves. One spirit. Even as you're called
in one hope of your calling. What is that calling? It's the
gospel calling. You know, I've been called by
the gospel as second Thessalonians chapter two, verse 13 and 14.
We've been called by the gospel. We've been called by the spirit.
We've been called into the body of Christ. One body, one spirit,
one calling, not two gospels, only one gospel. Verse five.
Watch this. Watch this. One Lord. How many Lords? One faith, one body of doctrine
that constitutes the person and work of Jesus Christ is only
one faith and one what? Right. And do you know that those
two last articles are argued by denominations all over planet
earth? So the tongue speakers say the one baptism is speaking
in tongues. Church of Christ said the one
baptism is water baptism in the name of Jesus Christ in the churches
of Christ. That's what the churches of Christ
say. Then you have your one is Pentecostal who say the one baptism
is in Jesus name. You see how they divided it up
already all over the map. missing it. Water baptism is
not what's in view here. This is the baptism of the spirit
that brings every one of the believers into the body of Christ. That's first Corinthians 12.
He baptizes us into the body of Christ. It's not about getting
the formula right or wrong. That's not it. So it's one baptism. Go on to the next verse. One
God and Father of all who is above all and through all and
in you all. Now, do you see the one God there? That's the one God, one Theos
and Father Pater of all. See the all four times? All,
all, all, all. That's not every single individual
in the world. That's only talking about the
church. You guys see that? Be careful
of using terms like all in a universal sense. It's a very narrow construction. Very narrow. And so you see this
unity from the Father, to the Son, to the Spirit, to the baptism,
to the faith, to the believer that is the body of Christ. There's
a unity between the body and the triune God that constitutes
the one. You guys see that? And it goes
all the way up to the Father. The Father is the pinnacle of
our salvation. He's the pinnacle of our salvation.
He's the concrete singular grounds of our unity between him, the
son and the spirit by which we are the body of Christ. That's
what God is doing in the world. He's bringing together every
member into that one body. And that one body is a consequence
of the work of the one triune God. That's what that is. Let
me see. Are we, let me go back and make sure that I'm done.
I want to make sure I get done with the alphabet so we can go.
Okay, good. So now not only does he unify,
he also vindicates, vindicates. And so the spirit of God has
been working in the world to protect the true gospel and the
person and work of Jesus Christ since the beginning of time.
If you and I are saved today, it's because of the vindicating
work of the spirit of God. He protects the gospel. There
are areas in the world where the gospel was preached and is
no longer being preached. And so the spirit of God will
go in a place, as we're going to see when we get back to acts,
he'll planet church, our body of believers, and that body of
believers will proclaim the truth. And then over time, there will
be a departure from the gospel, a departure from the gospel.
And then the spirit of God will move to the next work. That's
what's going on when it says he will, he vindicates. He affirms
the truth of Christ and the church. W, he is the witness. He witnesses to us and he witnesses
through us. There are three that bear record
in heaven, the father, the word, and the spirit. And there are
three that bear record on earth, the water, the blood, and the
spirit. It's the spirit that's bearing record in our lives and
through us to other people that the gospel is true. That's Acts
5.32 in 1 John 5, 7, and 8. His universal presence, power,
and holiness makes credible our witness. Does that proposition
make some sense? His universal presence, power,
and holiness makes credible our witness. In other words, our
witness is only effective to the degree that the Spirit of
God is working in our life. And finally, the last two. I
like this one, the Spirit of God is a yes man. What do you
mean he brings to pass all the will of God? There's in the scriptures. The Spirit of God is represented
by a servant the analogy of a servant You guys remember in the Old
Testament Abraham looking for a wife for his son Isaac you
guys remember that and his servant Eliezer goes out to hunt her
down and the the interaction between Rebecca and and the servant
was is a magnificent picture of the Holy Spirit going to work
hunting down a bride for Christ So the Holy Spirit is the yes
man to the will of God. He confirms everything that Christ
has accomplished. He brings to pass everything
that the Father purposes through Christ. And so we've quoted it
before, 1 Corinthians 2.10, 2 Corinthians 1.17, Zechariah 4.6, not by power
nor by might, but by my spirit, saith the Lord. And he is the
zeal of God. The spirit is the effectual zeal
by which the purposes of God It's done. That's Isaiah 9 7.
And again, Zachariah 4 6. What do we mean by that? As we
close out on the alphabets, the spirit of God is a critically
important person in your life in mind. He is to be viewed as
a person. He is to be loved. He is to be
fondly cherished, but he is also to be obeyed because without
him, we can do nothing. So we're on closing prayer and
then we'll take up our other outline next week. Father, thank
you for this time. Thank you for our class tonight.
Thank you for allowing us to work through some of the works
of the spirit of God. If it wasn't for him, we'd be
nothing. We'd have no life, none whatsoever. As we go our way, be with us
as we go home. Be with us as we prepare to worship
you on Sunday. Be with your people all around
the world. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. God bless you guys.