Believer’s Basics #9 – Holy Spirit (Part B)

He speaks about returning to that relationship that he had with the Father long before we were around. John 15 verse 26, But when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of Truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me. That's what he does. He testifies of Christ. Well, what are we supposed to be doing with everything we do? Testify of Christ.

To hear more information about Cross Reference Radio, specifically how you can get a free copy of this teaching. Today, Pastor Rick will bring us part two of his message called Holy Spirit in John chapter 14. Jesus still speaking in his discourse on the Holy Spirit to his disciples. He says, I will pray the Father and He will give you another Helper, there's that word parakletos, that He may abide with you forever.

That's a long time, because He is eternal, because He is God, the Holy Spirit. And there in that verse in John, again we have the Trinity. I, Jesus Christ speaking, He mentions the Father and He mentions the Holy Spirit. Again in the same chapter, John says in verse 26 of John 14, But the Helper, the parakletos, but the Helper, the Holy Spirit. So he clarifies this, he makes it very clear, I am speaking to you about the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name.

He, personal pronoun, will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you. Do you see why He is the representative, the resident, the representative of Jesus Christ on earth? Because Christ told us, that's why. This does not block Christ out. Still, Christ says, wheresoever two or more are gathered, there I am in the midst.

Well, that's true whether He's disciplining the church or individuals or not, because He said, I will never leave you nor forsake you. So Christ is always with us, but He is with us as far as we can tell in the presence of the Holy Spirit. The truth, the life, the glory and the grace. Sounds like we're talking about Christ, well we are, but we're also talking about the Holy Spirit. In John 14 verse 17, the Spirit of truth, Jesus said, I am the way, the truth and the life. Well this Holy Spirit is the way of truth, the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees Him nor knows Him, but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you. Well this is a believer's basics, so I'm not going to open that up when we get into the Spirit of God being beside us, leading us to salvation and then in us once we are saved, then coming upon us in that anointing of the Holy Spirit, that filling of the Holy Spirit as the disciples experienced at Pentecost and not before.

Not as it was at Pentecost. Romans chapter 8 verse 2 tells us that He is the Spirit of life. Again, Jesus said, I am the Spirit, pardon me, I am the truth. I am the way, the truth and the life.

He's a lot more too. But Romans 8 says, for the law of the Spirit of life in Christ has made me free from the law of sin and death. The Holy Spirit working inside is not a competition. Some of you married couples need to learn that. Marriage is not supposed to be a competition. The wife is not trying to be one of the guys. And the guy certainly isn't trying to be one of the girls. If we can remember this in church, in our Christian walk also, the key to good relationships is that it's not a competition.

We are working together in rhythm. That's the goal. 1 Peter chapter 4 verse 14, If you are reproached for the name of Christ, blessed are you, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests upon you, so you catch that the Spirit of glory. That's the Shekinah in the New Testament. Again, you cannot fragment the Godhead. It's only presented to us in such a way that we can begin to understand God enough to serve Him with our whole heart, mind, soul and strength and to find that He is distinct from everything else that we know. Hebrews 10, 29, Of how much worse punishment do you suppose?

He will be thought worthy who has trampled the Son of God underfoot, counted the blood of the covenant by which He was sanctified, a common thing, and insulted the Spirit of grace. Well, you cannot insult an it, but you can insult a person. You can really insult an animal. You can get them pretty angry, but you really can't. No animals, you hurt my feelings.

You're speaking lowly of me and I don't appreciate it. Well, animals don't think that far. It's all instinctive with them.

I'm not saying they don't have feelings and they're blushing, and all of a sudden they're cute and all that. I'm not taking any of that away, but not on this level, the Spirit of grace. So He gives strength. He gives strength to love. You're going to need that if you're going to follow Christ. He gives us courage. You're going to need that if you're going to follow Christ. And, of course, He gives us power, energy to pull it off.

But this is not a one-time, boom, you got it. It has to be refreshed often because of the flesh, the sinful nature that we are saddled with in this life. And so when Paul says God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and love and a sound mind, he's very serious about this. He'd been living it himself. How many times did Paul, even at one point in Corinth, God had to, the Lord Jesus came to Paul and said, Paul, don't worry, stop being afraid.

I've got people in this town. Now the Lord, when He says don't be afraid, that doesn't mean, well, you won't get a few stonings here and there. He just says in the face of those stonings, be brave. Carry out the mission. What is the objective, Paul? To preach Christ.

That's what I want you to do without the fear and certainly without the insanity. Another verse that a lot of Christians, I think, don't contemplate because sometimes we find our brothers and sisters or those pretending to be brothers and sisters, I don't know, we find them not of a sound mind and blaming the Holy Spirit for it. And that is a contradiction to what the Bible teaches. Loveless Christians are a contradiction to Christ.

And each one of us needs to understand that. I think sometimes I look back and say, you know, if I'm sitting on the other side of what I'm preaching right now, I could be saying, yeah, I failed there. But in all fairness to God, I can also see a lot of victories that I have that I would never have without Him that otherwise would not be mine. So it does work in spite of some of the failings.

There are so many victories. Let me tell you about all the times that I've been loving to people that I like to slap. First, list of names because I keep a list. No, I don't. Well, He proceeds from the Father sent by the Son. As the Son proceeds from the Father. Just read John chapter 17, Christ's prayer. And He speaks about returning to that relationship that He had with the Father long before we were around. John 15 verse 26, But when the Helper comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of Truth who proceeds from the Father, He will testify of Me. That's what He does. He testifies of Christ. Well, what are we supposed to be doing with everything we do?

Testify of Christ. And so as to His work, as I alluded to or mentioned earlier, He introduced physical energy into physical creation. Genesis chapter 1 verse 2, The earth was without form and void, and darkness was on the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

That word for hovering in the Hebrew means to shake or to move. He was working. He was holding things together and starting things up. He was at work at creation. He has inspired the Scriptures. We know that. Now, again, this is a believer's basics.

There are more things I'm leaving out than I'm putting in. So rather than use the verses that we're always very familiar with, for instance, all Scriptures are given by inspiration of God. Does God breathe? Rather than use that verse, I'll use this verse, 2 Peter chapter 1, For prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. Is the Holy Spirit moving, doing something at work? Laziness is not a virtue. I know sometimes we might forget, lose sight of that, but it is not.

If you're going to have any gains in Christ, it is because of hard work by the sweat of your brow. They come in no other way. Well, anyway, the Holy Spirit, he's like, picture a train, a locomotive. I wish we had locomotives now because they looked like they were taking you somewhere, you know, making all that noise and steam.

How can you beat that? Now there's just this hum of clean energy and, anyway. But picture you're the locomotive. The rails that you travel on, that's the Scripture. The steam, the energy, that's the Holy Spirit.

It takes three to tango, if you put it that way. I don't know if I should have used that as that last part, but anyway, coming back to what? Quickly, eject, eject. Think about that, being used by the Spirit. The Scriptures hold you on track.

If you get off, you have derailed and there is a train wreck. But if you stay on the rails and the power of the Spirit is your thrust, your energy, you, the locomotive, will reach your destination. His work is with Christ. Through the Holy Spirit, the incarnation of Christ, the coming of God in human form to earth, was affected by the Holy Spirit. Luke chapter 1, verse 35. And the angel answered and said to her, that would be Mary, the Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the highest will overshadow you. Therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God, which to the Jew is God the Son.

There ain't no mistake about that. You walked into a synagogue and said, I am the Son of God. You would get a beat down if you could not back it up and Christ had to deal with that throughout his walk. Because you, being a man, make yourself to be the Son of God with the charges against him. Make yourself equal with God, they said. And he was saying, hey, the shoe fits, the sandal fits. I am the Son of God and my miracles are testimony to that as well as my virtuous life.

You got nothing on me. They should have said, you know, he got a point. We need to submit to him. There's no one like him. And so there we see the Holy Spirit with the Holy One at the conception or the giving of the Spirit, I should say. We see him at the baptism. We see him in the wilderness with Christ. We see him at the preaching of Christ, the casting out of demons. When John the Baptist baptized Christ in front of everyone, John said, I saw the Spirit. It was like a dove coming down upon him. John told someone that.

It appears no one else saw it but John. Then in the wilderness, of course, the Bible tells us he was led by the Spirit into the wilderness. Mark uses the word driven because Mark is writing to Romans. And Romans, in those days, what they understood was work and hard work. All roads lead to Rome. Well, who built those roads? A lot of work goes into building a road. You don't just get the weeds out.

You have to, you know, there's a lot more involved. And they understood action. And so when Mark writes, he said that he was driven by the Spirit.

Yeah, we got that. Luke, of course, and John, he was led by the Spirit. When he preached, when he cast out demons, Luke 4, verse 18, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me, Jesus said. This is when he entered the synagogue there in Nazareth and he opened the scriptures to this verse from Isaiah and he applies it to himself. He says, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed. Christ chose to act not in his inherent omnipotence.

He could have when he said, I'd call 12 legions of angels and put an end to all this right now. He chose to be under the control of the Holy Spirit. So we read in Matthew chapter 12, verse 18, but if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, surely the kingdom of God has come upon you.

If I cast them out by the Spirit of God, that's what he said. Then there is Pentecost. See, we just covered the age of the gospels, the age of Christ from that perspective. Then there's Pentecost, the birth of the church. The Holy Spirit had been ministering to believers.

King David, after he sinned, he prayed to God, take not thy Holy Spirit from me. But things were ramped up now at Pentecost. The mission was now focused, had a global focus, and not angels. Angels were not assigned the delivery of the gospel. We sinners are assigned the delivery of the gospel. And so the human spirit at Pentecost was now indwelt by the Holy Spirit in a way that had everything to do with pointing to Jesus Christ. Yet when Adam sinned, the Holy Spirit departed. You could say the lamp went out. But at the time of conversion, the Spirit returns to the human that would have him, and he indwells the human spirit.

He relights the lamp. One verse I'll take to make that point, 1 Corinthians 3, verse 16, Do you not know that you are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you? See, when Paul wrote that, he's right again. At the 1 Corinthians, the church was a mess. And Paul writes it, and do you not know who you are? What is going on?

You are the temple of the Spirit of God, a holy God. Why are you behaving this way? They struggled with that. Paul makes a trip to Corinth to try to straighten things out. That didn't go well. And you know, if you've ever been involved in trying to repair a broken relationship, you make mistakes.

I don't know if I should do this or say this, but maybe it will work, and it's a disaster. Well, in the end, though, you lose the battle, and you win the war. That's how it was with Paul and Corinth. So when I struggle to find my joy in the faith, and yet I continue with my duty, nonetheless, if I say I don't have to have joy to go at the objective, I would like it. But I still, if I don't have joy, I am still required to obey orders. I don't get a pass.

And it is the Holy Spirit that upholds me. Back in 1977, I know sometime in the summer of 77, I was in Barcelona, Spain. Well, I was living on a ship. The US Navy decided to chauffeur me around the Mediterranean Sea for several months, and they're pretty good at that. Well, one of the port of calls was Barcelona, Spain, and I wanted no parts of it.

I didn't mind seeing the city. I just didn't want to get there the way the Navy wanted me to get there. And the reason why is because the ship, the troop carrier that I was on, I was with a bunch of jarheads, too. It was a trip of 20 minutes by this little Liberty boat through the port of Barcelona to the dock, to the landing dock. And there were these huge merchant ships there. I mean, these things were gigantic. And this little, you know, little Mike boat, this little boat, it holds about 120 men or so, was what was taking us.

And at night, you can't see anything. You got sailors, affectionately known as squids, holding lights, little flashlights. And what made it worse was that about four months before it was our turn to go to Barcelona, a Liberty boat, just like the one we were on, at night was struck by a Spanish merchant ship. There were 123 Marines and sailors on that little boat. Forty-nine of them died. One of the Marines that survived shipped over.

In other words, when his six-month cruise was up, instead of going back to the States, he decided he wanted to go again. Anyway, so I asked him, how did you survive? He said, I was so drunk, someone held me up underneath the boat that was pinned down in a pocket. That's how I survived. I find the Holy Spirit holds me up when I'm pinned down, when I would otherwise not survive. This is the work of the Holy Spirit in your life. This is why He's always encouraging us. You know, dragging the knuckles is not good for you. Hold chin up, chest out, stand up straight, because I am with you. But we are so touchy-feely. We want to feel it.

I'd breathe. There are songs. There are times I don't feel like singing songs. Well, I mean, if I don't like the song, I sort of silent protest and just mumble it.

But when you come to church, maybe you don't feel like singing. Or I give in or bust through it. If you bust through it, I think, from my own experiences, you will be better off after. You still may not feel giddy, but you will be better off.

You will say, I'm glad I did that. And so when I struggle to find my joy, it is the Spirit of God that holds me up. But witnessing is the primary role of the believer's life, and he enables us to do that.

Believe it or not, remember I mentioned Paul was told to go to places and not be afraid and still took beatings in the process because the objective was not to have Paul feel wonderful about everything and have this sweet life, but was to preach Christ, which he did. Acts chapter 1, Jesus told the disciples, But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem and in all Judea, Samaria, to the end of the earth. When he says, you shall receive power, he doesn't mean to show off how holy you are. He's connecting it with witnessing.

You shall receive the ability to witness that you never had before, but you're going to have now, and this is for us. Some of you are too afraid to share Christ. Some of you may have compromised your witness, and you've got damage control to do. But those of you who are afraid, why are you afraid? Well, maybe you're afraid of what people will think about you.

You've got to get to a place where you don't care when wrong people think about you. It's different if their charges are valid, but if they're wrong and you're right with Christ, then what they think doesn't count. We depend only on Christ for our righteousness, our salvation. We are dependent upon the Holy Spirit as our only spiritual power because this is the assignment He has been given.

Christ came into the world to glorify the Father. The Holy Spirit was sent into the world to glorify the Son. John's Gospel, chapter 16, verses 13 and 14, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth, for He will not speak on His own authority. But whatever He hears, He will speak, and He will tell you things to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you. The role of the Holy Spirit is about lifting up Jesus Christ. Jesus said, if I be exalted, I will draw all men to Me.

All men who will receive it will come. This is the process that we have been invited to enjoy, entrusted with, blessed with. Salvation is the work. He is at work in salvation. The whole redemptive work was in the Spirit of God. Hebrews, chapter 9, verse 14, How much more shall the blood of Christ through the eternal Spirit, who offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God, as opposed to idols and little statues and other little things that everybody else was worshiping. Our God is living, and He is not to be communicated in statue form. John 16, verse 8, When He has come, He will convict the world of sin and of righteousness and judgment to come.

As I mentioned earlier, this is what He does, and this is what we are to do when we share the gospel, because we also give the solution, the upholding influence of the Holy Spirit. You know, you're not guaranteed these things if you don't exercise them. They're not automatic.

They are automatically made available. But if you do not avail yourself, if you disqualify yourself, then you miss out. This should stir us to action, not to discouragement. Thanks for joining us for today's teaching on Cross-Reference Radio, the daily radio ministry of Pastor Rick Gaston of Calvary Chapel Mechanicsville in Virginia.

We hope you've been blessed by this Believer's Basics series, exploring the fundamentals of what it means to follow Christ. If you'd like to listen to more of this series or share it with someone you know, please visit crossreferenceradio.com. We encourage you to subscribe to our podcast, too, so you'll never miss another edition. Just visit crossreferenceradio.com and follow the links under radio. Again, that's crossreferenceradio.com. That's all for today. We hope you'll tune in next time to continue studying the Word of God, right here on Cross-Reference Radio.