So in 1 John chapter five, we
looked at verse 10. We are gonna work our way through
verses 10 through 12, dealing with what we are now contemplating
is the inward witness. The inward witness. As John says, the inward witness. He that believeth that Jesus
is the Son of God hath the witness inward, in himself. himself and so we are talking
about what that means for the Spirit of God to be operating
in our life again verse 10 he that believeth on the Son of
God hath the witness in himself and he that believeth not God
hath made God a liar because he believes not the record that
God gave of his son and what we did last week was to start
to look at some of the things by which the Spirit of God assists
and aids the believer in actually manifesting an authentic witness
to the things that that individual believer has not personally observed,
personally saw, personally testified to. And yet every believer in
Jesus Christ, if they are born again, has what is necessary
for them to be considered an authentic witness. We talked
about this on a legal level, that on a legal level, you and
I cannot be an authentic witness in a court case of events that
we were not there to personally see, personally observe, personally
testify to. That would make us perjurers
or liars with regards to the testimony. So it's necessary
for another witness to be in our life, to reside with us and
in us to authenticate our testimony. We can bear record with what
the word of God says is true about what was said about Jesus. We can bear record with what
the apostles said was true about Jesus, but we cannot ourselves
bear record, firsthand record, credible record or testimony
or witness to those things because we were not there. But what qualifies
us to bear record in a legitimate judicial fashion is because the
third person, the spirit of God was there all along supervising
the events of the incarnation, the life, the sufferings, the
death of Christ, the resurrection of Christ. He is, as we learned
several weeks ago, the standing witness. He was the witness that
was sent from the father and sent from the son. According
to John 14 and 15, the father being in heaven, the son having
returned to heaven, the spirit being here now to bear record
to the world through the gospel and by the believer that the
things concerning Jesus Christ are true. This makes the believer
an agent of God's testimony by virtue of both the scriptures
and the indwelling spirit in their own life. This makes you
and I, if we are believers in Christ, credible witnesses of
these things. And by the way, This is also
what makes the non-believer illegitimate witnesses of the things of God.
A non-believer cannot testify to the things that scripture
speaks of because the non-believer does not have the internal witness,
does not have the eternal witness, does not have the omnipresent
impeccable spirit of truth by which he or she or they can say
even to the laying down of their lives that Jesus Christ is Lord. They cannot testify to that without
the Spirit of God. And so we began to look at what
is in your outline under defined verses 10 through 12, the internal
prevailing witness of the Spirit. And we began to look at what
I enumerated eight things with reference to the work of the
Spirit of God. And in John chapter 16, we saw how Jesus said that. And when the spirit of God has
come, he will show you the things of mine, show you, show you. So, uh, we talked about the idea
of him revealing. That's what the word show means.
It means to declare plainly. It means to declare fully. It
means to reveal. That's what that word show means
in John chapter 16. In fact, if you're new with us,
you better go there so that you can see it with your own eyes.
And John chapter 16, this is what Jesus was saying to his
disciples. When I leave, I will send another
comfort to you, comforter to you. And he will take the things
of mine and he will show them to it, show them to you. So we
see in John 16 verse 13, How be it when he, the spirit of
truth has come, he will guide you into all truth for he will,
he shall not speak of himself, but whatsoever he shall hear
that shall he speak and he will show you things to come. And the idea of the fully reveal,
to testify to, to make known, to declare, to open up. And we use the idea of unveiling. And one of the books in the New
Testament that fully explicate this idea of showing on the part
of the Spirit of God is the book of Revelation. The revelation
of Jesus Christ is the unveiling of the majesty of Christ, the
sovereignty of Jesus Christ, the authority of Christ, the
rule of Christ from heaven over all of the affairs of the world.
Without the book of Revelation, you and I don't know what's going
on in heaven. And that unveiling, that's called
the apocalypse, The unveiling of the glory of God in Christ
is what the spirit of God gave to the apostles who wrote it
down and you and I have it now. The job of the spirit of God
is to manifest Christ's glory to us. We looked at another word
that actually is in John 16 before the word show, and that's the
word to guide, to guide. You'll notice that it says it
in John chapter 16, verse 13. How bid when he, the spirit of
truth has come, he will guide you into all the truth in the
original language. This is definite article there.
And in your outline, you see the word show. You guys see it
is on Angelo on Angelo. Angelo is the Greek word for
messenger or message is the term from which we have the word angel. An angel is a messenger of God. The preposition or the prefix
Ana, like Anastasis means again, this messenger will make plain
or open up or guide you. He will take you and bring you
into an understanding of the things that, uh, that, that God
would have us to know. He will tell us, he will declare,
he will report, he will make known. That's what the idea of
Ana Angelo is. The next word, is the word guide. You have the word teach in your
outline, but the next word is guide. Guide is a term that we
learned last week, literally means to take a person by the
hand as if they were blind and lead them down the course or
down the path or in the way. And Jesus used this term in Matthew
15 when he says, if the blind lead the blind or guide the blind,
they both will fall into the ditch. And the same word is used
in Romans chapter two, where in Romans chapter two, Paul admonished
the Jewish believers who presumed that they were qualified teachers.
Go with me and your Bible to Romans chapter two. Just look
at that word once so that we can see how it is that the spirit
of God guides the believer in Romans chapter two. This is what
the apostle was saying as he was investigating the claims
of those who are, uh, teachers. He says over in verse 18, let
me start at verse 17 of Romans two, behold, you are called a
Jew and you rest or you put your confidence in the law and then
you make your boast of God. This is a classical Jew. One who's boast is in God by
virtue of his confidence in the law and you know his will and
you approve of those things that are more excellent being instructed
out of the law. Now, Verse 17 and 18, you know
what the apostle Paul is doing as he's talking to his Jewish
brethren, he's basically reflecting upon his own pedagogical background. For he was a Jew, he was a Pharisee,
he knew explicitly and in great detail what it was like to be
brought up under the Jewish legal system. So he's simply talking
to men that he knew would be thinking along these lines. And
notice what he says in verse 19. He says, and you are confident
that you yourself are a, you see the word guide of the blind,
a light of them, which are in darkness, an instructor of the
foolish, a teacher of babes, which have the form of knowledge
in the truth of the law. So you notice what he does. He
stacks on top of that initial initial verb to guide the metaphors
that are inherent in this kind of verb. A person who guides
someone is a person who takes them by the hand because they
are blind. He serves as a light for them because they are in
darkness. He serves as an individual who
is instructing people who are so absent of knowledge that they're
called foolish. He is a teacher of babes. And
he has a form of the knowledge and the truth. So you understand
then that what it's saying about the person that's being guided
is that they are utterly dependent upon this person who is doing
the guiding. What we learned last week is
that it is imperative for the believer, the Christian, to recognize
how utterly he or she is dependent upon the spirit of God to guide
them. To sit there and to actually
work through some application would take a long time, but I
think it's due. I'm not gonna do it at extent,
but we probably have all discovered over the course of our Christian
walk that sometimes like a little child who often wants to snatch
his hand out of the hand of his parents. You remember those days
when that child just thought that they could do it themselves?
Just no, I can walk myself. No, I know where I'm going. That
you and I have in our ignorance and in our youth and in our naivete
have frequently taken our hands out of the hand of the spirit
of God and sought to walk our way down this course, which requires
walking by faith, which is not something we do naturally. God
has to teach us how to walk by faith. And over the years, as
you grow and mature, dependence upon the spirit of God becomes
more normal to us because we become more humble. And it's
kind of a oxymoronic thing too, because the more you grow in
dependence upon walking by the spirit and walking in dependence
of the spirit of God, the more you are considered mature. to
the extent that you and I are trying to work it out ourselves.
It's so funny because it must have been right after the Bible
study last Friday. We were, we, we kind of landed
on this word, which we'll make our way through it. Guiding.
I remember watching one of the little kids. Cause after the
study, they kind of run around and play, enjoy this big auditorium.
And the one little child was, um, well, Oh, sorry. It wasn't
here or somewhere else, but the analogy stuck with me. It was
a little child. a little Asian girl and she had
her hair in front of her face, long bangs covering her eyes,
right? Maybe one or two years old and she's walking and the
bangs are in front of her and she falls flat on her face. Now
her grandfather was behind her. He's an old man. The child was
walking much faster than him. The child falls on his face.
The grandparent goes to pick up the child, but the child pops
back up and continues walking and falls again. splatters, I'm
thinking the child is going to cry. No, the child is proud. The child wants to get up and
wants to walk on his own. She doesn't want grandpa to hold
her by the hand. Her problem is she's blind. Right? But it's interesting because
she knows she has to get to a point where she can walk by herself.
Well, what you and I are called to do is to walk in the spirit.
And in doing so, we will not fulfill the lust of the flesh.
but very often because of our natural innate pride, we don't
want to have to rely upon God that much. Well, what Jesus is
saying to the disciples, which by application would defer to
us, is that by nature, you and I are blind of spiritual things,
but that by nature, you and I are foolish when it comes to the
wisdom of God, that by nature, you and I are babes, by nature,
You and I are ignorant of truth and God has to lead us by the
hand. And I think the sooner we learn how to be led by the
spirit, the better off we will be, the less falls we will have,
the less bruises we will have. The idea, however, certainly
means to be guided in such a way that the person who is being
guided by the spirit is totally dependent upon the work of the
spirit of God to reveal to them those things that are essential.
And I'm, uh, I'm looking at Acts chapter eight. I'm also looking
at Acts chapter nine. What's interesting about this
metaphor is, uh, of the guide being guided by one who is holding
the hand of an individual that is functioning as a blind person.
Is that, do you remember when the apostle Paul was persecuting
the church and he was on the Damascus road in pursuit with
papers from the high priest to take Christians and a cost them
And he met the Lord of glory. Remember that? And the Lord of
glory knocked him down. And by the time he had come to
that point of humility and acknowledgement, Lord, who are you? What will
you have me to do? God blinded him. And he was blinded
for several days. Remember that? And the text said
in Acts chapter eight, that someone had to lead him by the hand to
take him to a house on a street called straight, where he had
to pray for several days until he received the spirit of God,
until his life was radically changed. And that's the idea
that you and I are so utterly dependent upon God that we are
blind, blind. So we have to be guided by the
spirit of God. We have to be taught that next
word that we dealt with last week, the senior out loud to
teach. That's in John chapter 14, to
teach, didaske, from which you and I get the term teaching,
didaske. um, is a Greek term that means
to educate, educate. And, uh, it's, it's, it's a,
it's a Latin term that means to, uh, teach in a didactic form. It's a very structural, uh, educated
form. John chapter 14, take a look
at that again, uh, just for the record in John chapter 14, John
chapter 15, Notice what it says over in John chapter 14 verse
26, but the comforter, which is the Holy ghost, whom the father
will send in my name, he shall teach you all things and bring
all things to your remembrance whatsoever I said to you. So
now it's quite interesting as we work through this catalog
of things that the spirit of God must do to help the believer.
The disciples walk with Christ for three and a half years for
three and a half years. And he said, you still need this
kind of close, high maintenance attention when I leave in order
for you to execute your office as apostles, in order for you
guys to be authentic witnesses of the gospel. And again, notice
what it says. He shall teach you all things
and bring all things to your remembrance. And here are the
things that he's going to bring back to the remembrance of the
apostles. Have them write it down. Whatsoever I have said
unto you. whatsoever I've said unto you.
So now with that, we said also last week, which is very important
when you're contemplating the ministry of the spirit of God,
it would be a fallacy for you and I to believe that the work
of the spirit of God is a work that he does as an independent
agent so that he has his own unique methodology. He has his
own unique message. He has his own unique approach
to ministry. That would be a fallacy. When
you carefully listen to the assignment that's given to the spirit of
God, his job is to take the things of Christ and show them to us. His job is not to appear or manifest
himself in sort of an autonomous, independent fashion so that we
get this unique vision of the spirit of God. The role of the
spirit of God will never be to act in a way contrary to the
character, person or work of Jesus Christ. He is here as a
witness to Jesus. Just as you and I have learned
for years, Jesus came to be a witness of whom? The father. And so Jesus
never did anything outside of the will of his father. He never
functioned in a manner of conduct that would have been contrary
to the father. He never said anything different than the father
told him to say. This is the constant expression
of Christ through the gospels, where he demonstrates perfect
subordination to the father. I did not come to do my own will,
but the will of him that sent me, I do not speak my own words,
but I speak the words of him who sent me. I only do those
things that please him. And the idea again, ladies and
gentlemen, is that When Jesus came, he came to bear witness
of the Father. When the Spirit of God was given
by Christ in the Father, he came to bear witness of the Son. So the idea or notion that the
church would have around the ministry, the person and work
of the Spirit of God as being this bizarre force that's engaged
in all these weird manifestations that have absolutely no similarity
to the character, the decorum, the purpose and scheme of Jesus
Christ is alien to the scriptures. You must know that. He has no
prerogative right or objective to manifest himself in such a
way that he calls people's attention away from Christ to himself.
That would be rebellion within the Godhead. That would be rebellion
in the godhead and that would that would actually constitute
a false witness Remember out of the mouth of two or three
witnesses. Let every word be established, right? So if jesus
is bearing record of the father jesus can only say those things
that he has heard and seen of his father You know what? He
said and if the spirit is going to bear record of the son the
spirit can only say those things which he has heard and seen of
the son So the spirit of God, who was the resident witness,
he's the witness down here. Remember, there are three that
bear record in heaven, the father, the word, and the spirit. There
are three that bear record on the earth, the water, the blood,
and the spirit. These three are given to the
church, the ones that are on the earth, the water and the
blood. That's the message of the gospel, right? The water
and the blood. And the spirit of God has been
carrying the message of the gospel through the apostles and in the
written word for the last 2000 years to humanity. Western culture
you and I at this present time who are called believers in Christ
are believers because of the effectual Prevailing inward witness
of the Spirit of God through the gospel by which we come to
say Jesus Christ is the Son of God Then it comes to our turn
and that's the purpose for the Spirit of God's presence in the
life of the believer so that the believer can now be a vocal
mouthpiece for God in an authentic and legitimate way. So it would
also follow, wouldn't it, that if Jesus was a credible witness
of the father, by only saying those things that he saw and
heard that his father did, and not stepping out of line, not
stepping out of purpose, not stepping into his own limelight,
as it were, and if the spirit of God is only gonna teach us
those things which Christ gave him to teach, then the church
is not gonna say anything contrary to the harmonious witness of
the spirit of the son and of the father, is that right? All
we can say if we are authentic witnesses of what is that, all
we can say is that which has been written and revealed to
the apostles by the spirit of God because of his faithful obedience
to the son and to the father. And that really is the challenge
of the New Testament church. The challenge of the church today
is to bear legitimate and authentic witness. So we are guided because
we depend upon him. We're taught because we are ignorant.
And the gospel is revealed to us in this magnanimous apocalyptic
revelation, declaring full testifying of the Spirit of God to us because
we have no way to peer into eternal things or heavenly things. We're
not qualified. God has to open the heavens and
reveal himself to us for us to know anything about it. And that's
the purpose of the Spirit of God. Thus, we move to the fourth
aspect of the Spirit's work, and that is empowerment. You
see that, right? A, B, C, D. So the next word
is to empower the believer. And this is where Jesus told
us in Acts 1, verse 8. Let's go there now and let's
take a look at the idea of empowerment. In Acts 1, verse 8, this here
is a response to the question of the kingdom of God coming.
The disciples asked that question in verse 6. When they therefore
would come together, they asked him, saying, Lord, wilt thou
at this time restore again the kingdom to Israel? And he said
unto them, it is not for you to know the times or the season,
which the father has put in his own power. And then he says in
verse eight, these words, but you shall receive power. Do you
guys see that? You shall receive power. Now
we wanna deal with that a little bit carefully tonight in terms
of what it states, because once again, the idea of power, that's
the word dunamis, dunamis, from which we get the term dynamite,
but we're gonna fix the John Wayne notion of dynamite tonight.
because this is the fallacy that goes on in the church too. Jesus
says, but you shall receive power, dunamis, power, power. After
that, the Holy Ghost has come upon you and you shall be witnesses
unto me, both in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the uttermost parts
of the world. We talked about that last night in biblical theology
class, the intelligent work of the Spirit of God as the resident
agent and witness of the Father and the Son in the church, the
intelligent work of the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God does
not work in a whimsical, havoc fashion. He doesn't simply just
kind of blow radically all over Timbuktu. There's a lot of work
to be done to recover the false notion that the Spirit of God
is just so mysterious that he's whimsical. No, he is an intelligent
being. First of all, he's a person.
The Spirit of God has personality. He has will, he has volition,
he has intelligence, he relates to us in a very intelligent subject-object
way. We have that testimony in the
scripture. The Spirit of God should not be viewed as a mere
force. That would be a fallacy of understanding
the Spirit of God. He is a person, right? You guys grasp that. So in the
same way, the son is a person, the father is a person, the spirit
of God is a person, and his personality then therefore also relates to
us who are believers in an intelligent fashion through the word of God.
So when you go through the book of Acts carefully, and I'm thinking
about going through Acts next after we do 1 John, I may do
it here in the Friday study or I may do it on Sundays, but going
through Acts will be really good What you will learn is that the
work of the spirit of God in the book of acts, we call it
really the acts of the spirit of God, even though it's also
called the acts of the apostle, the apostles, his work was very
intelligent. He knew what he was doing. He
knew where he was going. He knew what would be required
to advance the gospel to all the world. His work would be
specific. It would be deliberate. It would
be intentional. It would be powerful. It would
be influential. It would be successful. All of
those adjectives that I've just used is true, not only of the
cultures of the world to which the spirit of God would go, but
it's true of every believer as well. The Spirit of God is intelligent. He is rational. He is propositional. He deals with us in terms of
truth, claims. He is influential. He is targeted
or he is purposeful. He has an objective. He knows
where to find you. He knows how to head you in. He knows how to bring you to
the place of submission to the Lordship of Jesus Christ. He
knows how to lead and guide you. He's not just the way I want
you to think about that for a moment as we work through the concept
of empowerment, how, um, how volatile our life would be if
we were led by an unintelligent force. that would simply take
us and lead us and drag us around in some type of maniacal fashion
whenever it wanted to. How chaotic our life would be
if we were just seized upon by the Spirit of God. He would just
take us up and run us hither and thither without this, as
I said, mechanism of intelligence, rationale, propositional truth,
telling us on an intelligent level in our mind and our heart,
based on the Word of God, this is what He would have us to do.
how tyrannical that would be. And you know what I'm describing? I'm describing paganism. I'm
describing the pagan demonic spirits that get a hold of people
and cause them to have seizures and fits and manifestations that
are borderline torturous and tyrannical. I'm describing not
a relationship, but an abusive slavish control And the spirit
of God has never anywhere in the scriptures ever demonstrated
himself like that. You guys follow me so far? Now
this is very important because again, in the present hour, all
around the world, people are fascinated by and wanna get a
handle on the third person. And many of our churches are
teaching the third person in a way that really corresponds
not with the biblical testimony, but with the pagan spirits of
the Hindus and the Africans and the shamans and all of the pagan
religion manifestations around the world. And if nothing is
confusion, that would be confusion where in the church we have the
same manifestation of pagan control, tyrannical outburst and chaos
in the name of the Holy Ghost that is explicitly seen in these
pagan religions. You see what I'm getting at?
It's a dangerous notion then for you and I to fall prey to
the idea that the spirit of God is merely a force. Now, having said that, it does
not mean that he is not powerful and it does not mean that the
scriptures don't use the metaphorical language to identify or represent
or signify the dynamic of the spirit. You guys got that? It
doesn't mean that the scriptures don't do that. John chapter three,
Jesus said, the spirit is like the wind that blows here and
there. You can't tell from which it
comes, neither where it goes. Even so, are they that are born
of the spirit? Now, if you take that metaphor
and once again, make that a personality of the spirit, rather than representing
understanding that it represents an aspect of his dynamic, not
his personality, you're gonna fall prey to defining the spirit
according to paganism. When our Lord Jesus spoke about
the spirit of God being like the wind that blows hither and
thither, you don't know from whence it comes or whence it
goes. It means that he's transcended and that your intelligence by
itself cannot dictate or determine when or where and how the spirit
of God will work. You and I cannot simply hogtie
God and tell him to act. For instance, You cannot grasp
the wind in your fist, as the proverb says. And therefore,
because the spirit is pure spirit and you and I are carnal and
fleshly, we're actually talking about two categories of reality,
aren't we? And because he's sovereign, because
he's God, because he's intelligent, he's rational, he's propositional,
he does what he wills in accordance with the son and accordance with
the father, but not in accordance with our will. He is sovereign. And because he is sovereign,
you and I are submissive to, are relegated to, subjugated
to his action. This is why I'm always amazed
at when churches have what would call, what would be called revival
services and set dates. Like they get on the Holy Ghost
calendar and say, Mr. Holy Ghost, would you actually
show up on these dates? Cause we're going to get all
the people in and we want you to show up and we want to have
a Holy Ghost revival, right? And that's what people do. And
if you have been around Christendom long enough, you know that all
that you basically get out of those meetings is a lot of hyper-emotionalism
and existential behavior patterns that often result in a bunch
of tears and crying and so on. no intelligent clarity in terms
of biblical prophecy, no exaltation of Jesus Christ, no revelation
of his glory advanced in the soul, no real edification of
the mind and heart towards God through the spirit, which is
what his job is to do, to reveal Christ to us. And that is a profound
tragedy when that occurs, because now what we are doing is attributing
to the spirit something that is either carnal and fleshly,
or we are attributing to the spirit something that is demonic. And it really is not the spirit
of God at all. Listen to what he says. But when
you shall receive power, you shall receive power after the
Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost has come upon you and you shall be
what? Witnesses unto me. So now what the text is teaching
is the objective of the spirit of God is to empower you and
I to be what? Witnesses. And when you follow
the book of acts all the way through that's exactly what it
does the spirit of god uh... came upon that early church the
Apostles at that time and the those who were with them in the
upper room and They were filled with the Spirit of God and the
language says they spoke in tongues We'll deal with that later on
down the line. It didn't say they spoke in Babel It didn't
say they spoke in a unknown language. It said they spoke in a tongue.
We called that look those are Languages, that's what the word
means glossolalia means languages just like anybody's dialect And
what you discover in Acts chapter one is that the spirit of God
qualified the people in the upper room to speak in the very languages
of the 17 nations who had come to Jerusalem as proselyte Jews. And all of a sudden on that day,
the disciples who were only qualified to speak in their own dialect,
the 120 in the upper room are now able to speak to 17 nations
all at once. Do you know what we call that?
We call that power. And I want you to follow what
I mean by that. It's an intelligent act of authority
to break through a barrier or a limitation that human ability
has no capacity for. The power to break through the
language barrier is a phenomenal gift from God. If, for instance,
I only know English and all of you were representing several
different nations and you did not know the English language,
I would have to either learn all of your dialect, and that
would take time, and then I would have to take time to speak to
each one of you in your dialect, or the Spirit of God would empower
me to witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ in your dialect
right at that moment by opening up and understanding in your
mind and opening up my mouth to be able to speak in your dialect
the wonderful words of God. That breakthrough allows the
floodgates of Christian revelation to immediately impact the masses
that are right there. Are you guys hearing what I'm
saying? So then when we talk about power, here's what we're
talking about. We're talking about the targeted, controlled
objective of God to break through a specific barrier essential
for the advancement of the gospel. When we're talking about power,
we're talking about a targeted, specific work of God to break
through a barrier for the advancement of the gospel. So God targets
people groups. He doesn't work in a, as I say,
a chaotic way. He targets people groups. Notice
what the text says, so that you will be my witnesses where first
in Jerusalem. So in Jerusalem on that day were
Jews, Judaizers, and then all the pagans who were proselytes
who had come for Pentecost, right? These are all 17 nations in Acts
chapter one. You're going to be my witnesses
here in Jerusalem. So can you imagine what took place at Pentecost
on that day? These people who had never heard
the gospel in their own language, all of a sudden, watch this,
watch this. God's talking to me in my language. An immediate breakthrough from
what was previously the mission that if you wanted to learn about
God, you had to come to Jerusalem. Now God's coming to your house
with the gospel and speaking in your language to your people
group. The privilege that each one of
those 17 nations had to hear the gospel in their own language
and then to be confident that they could take the gospel back
to their people group was and must have been absolutely phenomenal
in their mind. Because otherwise they would
have had to have told the gospel to their own people and said,
you guys got to come to Jerusalem. You got to become Jewish proselyte.
You've got to learn Hebrew. You've got to learn Greek in
order to become Jews and worshipers of Jehovah. No, not now. The
gospel has not come to Jerusalem. The gospel is go to all the nations. And that's the dynamic of the
power. And in your outline, this is
what I say. The objective of the dunamis
is to equip us, is to furnish us, It's to enable us, it's to
strengthen us, it's to qualify us. And do you see that last
particular attribute? What is that? Produce. Right,
produce. So then it does take the spirit
of God, whether you know it or not, for you and I to be effective
witnesses of Christ. It takes the spirit of God. This
is a good study, I can tell you. It takes the spirit of God for
you and I to be able to witness effectively to people. in a way
that will result in either their conversion or their clarity of
mind concerning biblical truth. So just for a moment, let's think
this through. I'm gonna try to make sure I wrap this page up
and the other pages, what we're gonna get into next week, the
study concerning prayer and believing is really a good study as John
is gonna work us through the issue of what to pray for and
what not to pray for. That's gonna be a very good study.
But here's what I would say. You and I must recognize that
no matter how intelligent we may become in terms of biblical
truth, how much knowledge we may acquire, your knowledge and
mine is not adequate enough to break through the prejudice of
the mindset of people who do not believe. What is required
to bring people to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ is the work of
the spirit of God. The spirit of God has to assist
your witness and mine to break through the minds and hearts
of men and women, because we all have issues. We all have
prejudices. The vast majority of the human
race who does not know the true and the living God, not only
do they have an aversion to God in terms of just being falling
creatures, hiding behind the trees, wearing fig leaves, that's
the metaphor, right? But as I've been contemplating
lately, The average individual actually has a rift with God. They got an argument with God. They're at aught with God. They're
mad at God. If you talk with people who have been exposed
to religion or exposed to the Bible or exposed to Christianity
or all the various alleged forms of Christianity, and you peel
back the layers of their thinking and tell them to be honest with
you, They've got a thousand butts and questions against God. Is
this true? So here's something that you
and I need to think through. How am I going to be effective
in my witnessing to men and women? When I have not thought through
the fact that the vast majority of them have a thousand questions
for which they build a fortress against the propositions of the
gospel. I need the spirit of God to help
work through and break down that resistance, that hostility, that
enmity, that rift. I need the spirit of God to help
do that, to help break down the rift. You do too. And particularly
where you and I are living at the present day, because we're
not dealing today with virgin people. What I mean by virgin
people is we're not dealing today with people who don't have an
awareness of what the Bible says. We're not dealing with people
today who don't know about church. Quite frankly, much of the offense
is a consequence of the church, quite frankly. And we need to
bear that guilt, too, because we're part of the body. So we
don't get to stand on the outside of the church and say how bad
the church is. We're part of it. And we may inadvertently
have also contributed to making people not want to hear the gospel
because of our assumptions or our flawed approaches or our
inability to recognize all of the offenses that church folk
bring to the table that cause people to not want to hear the
message of the gospel. You guys hearing what I'm saying?
So it really does require on our part as Christians to take
seriously what it means to be led by the spirit, to be taught
by the spirit, to be guided by the spirit, to be shown the glories
of the gospel by the spirit. And most of all, Wanting to be
productive wanting to be productive. You remember what jesus said
in john chapter 15 I you have not chosen me But I have chosen
you that you should go forth and bring forth much fruit and
that your fruit should remain Now in the context that's referring
to the apostles, right? It is And the context is referring
to the apostles, but I want you to take that charge that christ
gave to them inherent in that charge is his will I want you
to go forth and bring forth much fruit. And I want your fruit
to remain. That's a charge that was imposed
upon and endowed upon the apostles, which they could never fulfill
in themselves. It wouldn't be possible for those
11 men who stumbled all over the place for that three and
a half years when they were with Christ to be able to, on their
own, achieve the goal of winning any one person to Jesus. You
and I don't see one record at account where the disciples on
a one-on-one basis won somebody to Christ. For three and a half
years, they were being taught. For three and a half years, they
were being educated. For three and a half years, Jesus was guiding
them by the hand. Jesus was the resident comforter. He was the resident spirit of
God in their life. For three and a half years, he
was qualifying them. For three and a half years, he
was revealing his father's glory and his own glory to them by
the things he said, by the things he did, by the places he went,
how he engaged with people, how he talked to people, how he endured
people, how he hung out with sinners indiscriminately, how
he was patient with people. Ladies and gentlemen, are you
hearing what I'm saying? So those 11 men, 12, one of them totally
missed the whole point, Judas Iscariot, But those 11 men have
the absolute blessing of being with God incarnate and seeing
what it's like to be an authentic witness filled with the spirit
of God and being able to bear fruit to the glory of the father.
And so what Jesus said is, I want you to do what I did. How do
we know that? Because in John chapter 20, this
is what he did. He said, as a father has sent
me, so send I you. And he breathed on them and said,
receive you the Holy ghost. that was a prophetic act on the
part of the head of the church to say shortly you will receive
the same endowment that I received by which I was able to do the
works that I did of which he said in John 14 greater works
than these you shall do. So the church has been endowed
with the third person who is no less God an agent right along
with the Son and the Father in the creating of the universe,
the ordering of the universe, the sustaining of the universe.
The Spirit of God is not some, again, some limited force. He's
God. He's God. Now, if we believe
in the biblical view of God as being almighty, omnipotent, omniscient,
all wise, all knowing, impeccable, immutable, unchangeable, then
we're talking about that kind of person with those attributes
being in us, right? that true that's remarkable I
can't even believe it I'm just gonna be I'm gonna be honest
with you right now just to help a few of you out cuz see some
of y'all might oh yeah I believe it I shoot think this through
for a moment we're talking about God right are we talking about
God listen And so there is an extreme tension going on in my
mind. I'm talking about a massive tension.
I'm talking about the God who spoke the universe into existence
by divine fiat ex nihilo. He just spoke it into existence.
And he's supposed to be in me. I can't even get my children
to act right. You know, this is a real quandary. Is this a real quandary? This
is a real quandary. And so what we come to discover
is this, that the relationship between the believer and the
spirit of God is one of a humble, humble predisposition upon the
privileged elect child of God with his majesty. It is a humbling
thing to know. And this is what we're going
to be dealing with when we turn the corner. These things have I written unto
you that you might know that you have eternal life. It's a
humbling thing to know that you have eternal life and that you
can make the claim that God is in you. And yet you see so many
limitations, so many weaknesses, so many undone things, so much
lack everywhere. And that's true. And, you know,
it begs the question, so what does it mean for you, God, to
be in me? And I think that that, I think
that that, that question done in a, or asked in a very humble
way of, uh, of desiring and longing for God to use us is exactly
what is in view here. When we talk about the spirit
of God has been given to us in order to, uh, assist us in witness. The word Dunamis is used in Romans
chapter one, 16 and 17. Let's go there for a minute.
Let's look at a couple of them. We've got about 10 minutes or so to go. In Romans
chapter 1, 16 and 17, the apostle Paul says this concerning the
concept of power in relationship to what you and I are discussing.
And I really do personally want to know the power of God in a very Christ-centered way. I wanna know the power of God
in a very Christ-centered way. I'm old enough now as a Christian
to know that the vanity of simply being able to resource God to,
as it were, pull proverbial rabbits out of the hat or trick people
or impress people with theological knowledge or some special power
or some special insight is not the purpose for which he has
called me into a relationship with him. The objective for which
God gives us the spirit of God is not for us to showboat ourselves. This is the fallacy of the Christian
church as well. We must admit that Christ has
not been exalted as he should be in the Christian church. There
are way too many personalities who actually are still in the
limelight and the glory of Christ. And as such, they are not only
obscuring his glory, they are impeding the power of the spirit
of God, which is really designed to reserve and aimed at glorifying
Christ. So I don't want to continue to
perpetuate that in my own life. I don't want to simply be a personality
that people know for which now they are detracted from looking
to Christ and are fixated on me. I want to be able to in a
crystal center through the prism of the revelation of God in Christ
made manifest in the scriptures, his attributes and characteristics,
his personality, his methodology. I want that to be the fruit that's
in my life as a consequence of the spirit of God conforming
me to the image of Jesus Christ. You see what I'm getting at?
I want to be conformed to Christ. This is what Paul meant when
we get there in Philippians chapter three, that I might know him. That's epigenosis, a deep, profound,
intimate covenant relationship with Christ. I want to penetrate
into the relationship with Jesus Christ in a way that I might
be conformed to the image of Christ, knowing that that requires
a kind of death in order to access me towards a kind of resurrection
that will conform me to the image of Christ in order for me to
be productive for him and his glory. Did you guys get that?
I wanna know him, which is gonna require my death was going to
access me to a resurrection that's going to allow the spirit of
God to work mightily in me, not for my glory, but for his glory
and the edification of the church and the salvation of sinners,
which is the produce that Christ said to the disciples, I sent
you forth to bear fruit and that your fruit should remain. So
my mind is working through my relationship with the spirit
of God. My mind is not presuming upon
the inheritance of the spirit to just have it so that he can
do what I want to do. If I if I maintain a thought
on the subject of my relationship with the spirit of God, I would
have to say that if I am taught properly, I am a brand new born
again babe in Christ. And the spirit of God has to
feed me with the milk of the word, granting me the desire
of that sincere milk of the word that I might what grow. So I
have to be committed to growth. I can't do anything by way of
service for the Lord without first the prerequisite work of
growing in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord. The Spirit of God
has to grow me up. He has to educate me. And we've
talked about these levels of the concept of his pedagogical
work in our life. We are nepios, N-E-P-I-O-S, newborn
babes. As a newborn babe, I don't have
the capacity or qualification to speak because babies don't
talk. All babies do is drink the milk. When you're a brand
new baby in Christ, you don't start opening your mouth trying
to explain scripture. Your job is to learn scripture.
So you find faithful teachers, faithful Christ expositing teachers. And because you discover a hunger
for God's word, you enjoy the word. You let the word of God
dwell richly in you. You get full and enriched with
the Word of God, and then you start the gradual humbling practice
of walking by faith. Over time, as you learn scripture,
you learn how to share the Word of God here and the Word of God
there with your family, friends, and what have you, because you're
a witness now, and you're going to bumble it up for a while because
you're trying. And that takes you back to Calvary,
asking for forgiveness, asking for more grace, asking to grow
you because you are discovering now that you are not as successful
in reaching your mother and father and sister and brother, aunt,
cousin, all that. Not so much because of what you say, but
because of how you say it. And because of the motive of
your heart in the way you said it, there was too much of you
there. Am I telling the truth? So I
need to discover that the spirit of God is not going to be subordinate
to my will. I'm going to have to be subordinate
to his will. And then you're going to be taught that, whoa,
just like a child labors in agony to grow up. Do you guys remember
that time when you were seven, eight, nine, 10 years old? I
can't wait till I'm grown. I can't wait. I can't wait. I
can't wait. I can't wait till I'm grown. I can't wait till
I'm grown. And you start acting grown way
before you're grown. You know, you start hitting the
teenage years. I'm, I'm dealing with this with my 12 year old
now driving me crazy. My last child, I don't want her
to grow up. I don't want trend to grow up,
trend, stop growing. Cause all the rest of them grew
up too quick and are gone. Some of you adults know what
I mean. They just grow up and out of the house. My wife is
glad she's growing up. She didn't did her 30 years,
she's glad. I don't want Trin to grow up, but every day I look
at Trin now, she's a young lady. And she started to dress like
a young lady. Trin, put your tennis shoes back
on, your sweat clothes, go play. But you know, intuitively, because
she's starting to discover some of her maturity elements, she
wants to now start mimicking be more mature, right? She's
getting ready for high school, all that kind of stuff. And sometimes
we can act more mature or we can think that we're more mature
than we really are. This is true in the Christian
life too. It's true in the Christian life too. In the Christian life,
you have to slow down and become much more patient. But to do
that is to go back to square one, where we were talking about
holding the hand of the spirit of God, realizing that we are
blind, that we're dumb, that we're foolish, that we don't
know anything. And when God teaches you that, You will then begin
to discover how he can work through your humility to influence people
to come to Christ because you're out of the way. Got it? It's a work of the heart. It's
a work of the mind. It's a work of the attitude.
The attitude can be just a gargantuan wall between us and the people
we're trying to reach. Your doctrine may be right. Your
attitude is just off the chart. It's like the Hulk tearing up
everything. You know, and it takes time to
discover this, doesn't it? You know, Lord, just after a
while you get so tired of yourself, you just don't want to say anything,
right? I'm done with this. Lord, if
you're going to save him, you're going to save him. Now that becomes
that that particular repose is an advancement in your understanding
that in truly, if he's going to save them, he's going to save
them. But if he's going to save them, he's going to use us to
save them. So now we're in a twit because he uses means, right? We're in a twit because you remember
the apostles. Listen, I told you three and a half years under
the master, they didn't get their diploma and run out and tackle
the world. After three and a half years,
you know what they said? I'm going fishing. Remember that? They had been humbled. They were
wore out for trying to understand things they weren't qualified
for, for trying to mimic things for which they weren't qualified
for, for trying to embrace to themselves work that was done
through them. Remember when Jesus sent them
out as the 70? And Lord, the devils are subject to us and
all listening. Remember how excited they were?
Man, you should have saw we cast out devils. We did this. We did
that. Jesus. Listen, you got it wrong. Your
rejoicing shouldn't be in your ability to cast out devils because
that wasn't your ability in the first place. That was the spirit
of God. Your rejoicing should be that
your names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life, that you
are secure for eternity. Now you can slow down and enjoy
the process. Because right after they boasted
about what they did, they couldn't even cast a devil out of a little
boy. So failure is part of the process,
isn't it? Humility is a critical component
to growth and the empowerment of the spirit of God in our life.
That's what I mean. In Romans chapter one, verse
16 and 17, here's what the apostle says. I am not ashamed of the
gospel of Christ. He says, because it is, that's
our same word, the power of God unto salvation to everyone that
believes. Now he knows this experientially, doesn't he? He opposed the gospel
for years. He blasphemed, he killed people,
didn't he? The apostle Paul was a terrorist.
Do you guys understand that? He was a terrorist. And God knocked
him down on the Damascus road. But when he knocked him down
on the Damascus road, the spirit of God had already been working
in his life previously. Remember what the Lord said,
Saul, Saul. You can't kick against the goals,
brother. That gold was getting him. It
was prodding his conscience every time he heard the message of
Jesus Christ by one of those humble Christians. As much as
he tried to marshal all of his Jewish theology against the propositions
that Jesus was Lord, even to the point of becoming hostile
and persecutory, it still did not overcome the light that penetrated
his conscience. Jesus is Lord. Jesus of Nazareth
is the Messiah that we've been looking for. He tries to overthrow
it with opposition, hostility, rage, murder, death, blasphemy,
turning people from saying that Jesus is Lord, doing everything
he could to stop it. But you know, the light penetrates
the darkness anyway, doesn't it? So finally, by the time he
gave up, he was already wore out. And that's how God works
in our life, too. Have you ever come to that point
where you just, I give up? Now you and I are submitting
to the sovereignty of God. Now the sovereignty of God can
take you and I and mold us the way he wants to and use us the
way he ought to. So it says, I'm not ashamed of
the gospel for it's the power of God and the salvation to everyone
that believes, to the Jew first and to the Gentile. For therein
is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith, as it is
written, the just shall live by faith. Go with me to one more
verse, 1 Thessalonians chapter 1. I just want us to look at
a couple of verses there. The idea that I'm talking about
is power. And then I'm going to run quickly through the other
four Maybe, maybe not. This idea of
witnessing is very important. 1 Thessalonians 1. I want you to just see how this
is used in relationship to the church at Thessalonica. Let me see. I might be dealing
with 1 Thessalonians 1. So I'm going to use in the first
Thessalonians chapter one, I'm going to start at verse, um,
verse five and go through verse eight. Then I want to go through,
uh, go to second Thessalonians chapter one, verse nine through
11. The apostle Paul commends the church at Thessalonica because
they were so receptive of the gospel. And here's what he says.
Verse five for our gospel came not unto you in word only, but
also in, here's the word, power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in
much assurance, as you know what manner of men we were among you
for your sake. Now, if one wanted to encapsulate
all that we were talking about tonight, the idea of submission
to the Spirit of God, the work of the Spirit of God in our life
to bring us to a place where we become effective witnesses
in the lives of other people, Because believe it or not, there
are people who hold to the faulty assumption that as long as you
got the gospel right, you can be effectively used by God no
matter how raggedy your attitude is or how raggedy your conduct
is. And I don't believe that for a moment. I don't believe
for a moment that God will use me if my attitude is carnal,
fleshly, self-centered, arrogant, puffed up. I don't believe for
a moment that he will use what I say. I believe I will be too
huge of a stumbling block in front of people for God to be
able to use that. And here's what the apostle Paul
says over in verse five. Our gospel came to you, not in
word only. In other words, we didn't just give you words, but
God assisted it with his power. That's what we're talking about,
right? And in the Holy Ghost and in much assurance, as you
know what manner of men we were among you for your sake, Do you
see how coupled with the message is the work of the spirit of
God? Because the apostles carried themselves in a certain way.
Their conduct was such that if you read chapter two, they will.
It's very. The apostle Paul went through
lengthy explanation. to explain to the church at Thessalonica. When we were with you, we were
not like the men who were covetous. We were not like the false prophets
who came to you merely to acquire your money. We were not like
people who were ravening wolves in sheep clothing. We were men
among you like a mother that nurtured her children, cherishes
her children as those who worked and provided for our own resources. We didn't take a thing from you.
We shared the gospel with you patiently, kindly, gently, and
the gospel had a major impact in your life. So Paul understood
not only is the propagation of the gospel or the proposition
of the gospel essential, but a proper ethic on the part of
those who share the gospel is essential as well. What's the
net result? Verse six. And you became followers
of us. And you became followers of us
and of what? Which, again, implies when you
and I are productive witnesses, people are going to be willing
to mimic your character. You became followers of us and
of the Lord. See that? And ladies and gentlemen,
this is the reason why God became incarnate. just for that purpose. The incarnation was in order
for us to see what the hypostatic union of deity and humanity looks
like. Are you hearing me? Because we
can contemplate the transcendent nature of God in terms of his
incommunicable attributes in his ontological nature as spirit,
as sovereign, Universalist, powerful, infinite, glorious. On all of
those transcendent terms, omniscient, omnipotent. And those terms don't
have immediate application to us until they are brought together
in a person. And that person walks among us
and lives among us and manifests the glory of the Father among
us in a way we can go, oh, now we see how it's done. Are you
guys hearing what I'm saying? And we beheld his glory, the
glory as of the only begotten of the father, full of grace
and true. The word was made flesh and dwelt
among us. And there's a real sense in which
that is the aim and objective of the believer too. Since we
get to open our mouths and say, God is in us. Again, we can just
stop and start praying when we make that statement. because
it's just phenomenal, isn't it? So if God is in us, why is he
there? As a witness, witness how in
my life, right? So we have an enormous task in
front of us in terms of bringing our lives, our bodies, our minds,
our souls, our conduct in subjection to biblical truth so that God
can work in us and to work through us for his glory. And you became
followers of us and of the Lord having received the word of God
with much affliction, in much affliction, with joy of the Holy
Ghost. Go with me now over to 2 Timothy
1, 2 Thessalonians 1, just one verse, I'm gonna shut it down
here. 2 Thessalonians 1, and this is what the Apostle Paul
says to this same church who has gone through tremendous persecution
for this very thing that you and I are talking about. He's
comforting them with the return of Christ and Christ taking vengeance
on their enemies in verse 8 and in verse 9 He says in 1st 2nd
Thessalonians 1 who shall be punished with everlasting destruction
from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power
When he shall come who's coming Now watch this ladies and gentlemen
to be glorified where in the Saints. Do you see that? when
Christ comes he's going to be glorified in the Saints and That's
a whole theological subject itself. And to be, watch this, admired
in all them that believe. Because our testimony among you
was believed in that day. Wherefore also we pray always
for you that our God would count you worthy of this calling and
fulfill all the good pleasure of his goodness and the work
of faith with what? Now watch this, that the name
of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you and you in
him according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ. Do you see the implications of
that statement? He's making it very clear that his prayer is
that they would be counted worthy of the kingdom of God, right?
And therefore, he's praying that the Spirit of God would work
in them in such a way that they would be effectual witnesses
of his glory to the people to whom they were called to be witnesses.
After all, that's the purpose for which God has called them.
And by the way, the concept that you and I are thinking about
in this category of empowerment is produce. I'm just gonna state
it for the record. And then I'm gonna leave that
here. Next week, we're gonna close out with witness. what it means
for the spirit of God to bear witness with our spirit, for
him to keep us, conform us and glorify us. And then we'll move
into the question that John raises about what it means to pray believing. But the idea of produce bearing
fruit is the idea of the presence of the spirit of God in our life
with the aim of him being able to use us to that end. And if your, your heart is like
mine aching, to want to be able to share the gospel with people
and they respond positively to it? Don't you get tired of witnessing
the people and nothing good comes out of it? Don't you get tired
of that? Don't you get tired of the negative stuff that comes
out of sharing? It's humbling, isn't it? So then
the thing that you and I will have to embrace This is a concept
we'll have to embrace. I've talked about it before,
but I think it evades us. This is the concept we're going
to have to embrace. We're going to have to embrace
the concept. If we're going to be used, you're going to have
to die. Okay. So I want you to think
that through because that's a counterintuitive frame of reference thought process. You mean in order for me to be
fruitful for your honor and glory, I have to accept this process
of a constant humiliation, a constant being broken, a constant being
laid low, a constant being disappointed, a constant being devastated,
a constant... Yep. Yep. And I will say this, if
we don't accept that process, If we don't accept the process,
we may be saved, but we won't be productive. Okay? Because we will have abandoned
the same way our master had to go in order for him to be exalted. See, he had to humble himself
and become obedient, even unto death, even the death of the
cross. He had to make himself of no
reputation. He had to be found in the form
of a servant. And all of those are what we
call the condescending glory of Christ. And it's true with
believers too, that the way the spirit of God works is humbling
us. So there's this, these seasons
where things just don't seem to go right. Y'all don't know
what I'm talking about. They just don't go right. But
now if our theology is right, And we are in these seasons where
things don't seem to go right. It must be right. Because all
things work together for good. And everything is working after
the counsel of his own will. And God is allowing things to
occur in our life that our outward man would perish, that our inward
man would be renewed. And that if we humble ourselves
under the mighty hand of God, He will exalt us in due season
and that God resists the proud. And he gives grace to the humble.
And there might be one other person in this room besides me
that's proud. Do you understand what I'm getting
at? And I think after a few years,
you pretty much learn quickly that that really is the lesson. Humility before exaltation. that
there's going to be an acquiescence and a yielding in a learned submission
to God before he will do things through us that will have a lasting
and eternal effect on people's lives. Where we will know, you
know how come God did that? Because he had to take me a long
way down to get me out of the way in order to be able to use
me to bless people. So when they saw what they saw
in me, it was very clearly the work of grace instead of my own
agenda, my own plan, my own ambitions, my own goals, my own objectives. And he's going to do that in
the closest, closest regions of our life. Do you guys understand
what I mean by that? I'm talking about right at home.
That's the stuff we don't like. you know, have to be a witness
to my wife. God, can you use somebody else
to save her? Got to be a witness to my husband.
He ain't listening to me. Yeah, I bet he not listening
to you. Oh, I got to be a witness to
my mom and my dad and my children. Didn't I tell That's the toughest
stuff. That's the work, isn't it? Oh,
we want to leave Jerusalem. We want to quickly go to Samaria. Lord, make me a missionary over
in Uganda. No, you got to be a missionary
right here in Oakland and Hayward first. Then I might send you
to your brothers and sisters in Uganda. They got their own
problems. Let's pray. Father, thank you
for this time. Thank you for an opportunity
to once again be taught by your word, by your spirit, what it
means to be a witness. We thank you for his witness
in our life and how he has so plainly manifested Christ in
all of his redemptive glory to us so that we can say from the
heart that we believe that Jesus is the son of God, that he both
died and was buried and rose again the third day and that
because he lives, we shall live also. We thank you for his justifying
work, his sanctifying grace and his glorifying promises. As we
go our way, give us traveling mercy, prepare our hearts to
worship you on Sunday, we pray in Jesus' name, amen. God bless
you.