Guide, Speak, and Glorify
Notes
Transcript
12 “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear.
Jesus has clearly been speaking to the disciples and telling them what is to come
But, He knows that His time is short…and He has much more to say to them!
Man, to have been one of the disciples and walked and talked with Jesus for 3 years would have been awesome!
How much do we think that Jesus taught and told them in 3 years?
Yet, He has more to speak to them! He obviously can’t so He will send someone who can.
And the person that is to come is:
13 But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.
There are many people that believe that God does not talk to them.
However, as we look at what the Holy Spirit does, it seems pretty clear to me that He does speak
The next sentence literally says He will speak, but before we get there…
When we look at the word translated as “guide” here it might help a bit to look at the meaning of the Greek word…
It means to “guide in learning,” to “teach,” or to “explain” - so some sort of verbal explanation
One of the jobs of the HS is to teach us…
To guide us into all of the truth!
Hal Perkins, who came out a year ago and did a revival used to say, and maybe he wouldn’t like me sharing this, but he would say that the main 2 things that we need to do in the christian life is
to recognize the HS and to respond to the HS
If we can do those two things, everything else will fall into place..
“What about reading our bible?” - the HS will tell you to do that! Or going to church, or giving, or praying for someone? The HS will tell you to do that to?
And, we can be sure of this because He will only speak what He hears…and we know that He inspired the writers of scripture..
So, when the scripture tells us that we should read out word, or gather with other believers, or give or pray, we can be sure it of the HS!
It would do us wise to discipline ourselves to hear the HS!
How do we hear the HS? - great question!
I believe that the HS most often speaks in a thought.
Now to be clear, not all, maybe not even a lot of our thoughts are of the HS. But, could some of them be?
Well, certainly! If not, how would we have even been saved to begin with?
At some point, we had a thought to go to some location where we heard the gospel…or maybe we had a thought to open a bible and read it…
17 Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.
So, if we have a good and perfect gift…who is it from?
According to James, from the HS, it is from God!
Now, perfect here is the greek word “telios” it can be translated as other things such as “complete, fully developed, etc.” so maybe not perfect in the sense that is without blemish, but in the sense that it does what it is intended to do…
For example, and I think Hal uses this example, if I have a writing pen, that I broke in half, in our context we probably wouldn’t call it perfect, we would say it’s broken
However, if I could still write just fine with it, it would still be telios, perfect in the sense that it does what it is intended to do
So, if we have a thought that is good and does what it’s intended to do, it’s probably from the Lord!
Paul tells us in
5 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.
So, how do we know if a thought is from the HS? We take it captive and make it obedient to Christ!
Is it something that Christ would say? Is it consistent with His word? Is it of His character?
How many thought have you had during this sermon?
Think about 5 of them….how many of them would be considered good and perfect?
You see, when we have thoughts, they come from 1 of 3 places
Our flesh…our own wants/desires/context
Enemy - we don’t want to admit this often, but the enemy is the Father of lies and temptation…
HS - this is where we want to be!
I think before we are saved or when we first become a christian, most of our thoughts are probably our flesh
That’s who we’ve followed our who life!
But,
2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.
and
2 Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.
So, once we become saved and make Jesus Lord, we need to take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ
Which we know what is obedient to Christ by His word
16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17 so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
So, as we know the Word and we are focusing out thoughts on the Word our minds are transformed..
So, I think as we grow in our relationship with the Lord and our minds are renewed, more of our thoughts become like God’s!
But through this whole process, we have the HS giving us thoughts, we may not recognize them until our minds are transformed…
So, back to the scripture
13 But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.
We have the HS guiding us into all the truth and speaking, but not on His own, but only what he hears.
Who else only spoke what He heard?
49 For I did not speak on my own, but the Father who sent me commanded me to say all that I have spoken.
So, we have Jesus speaking only what the Father told Him to speak and now we have the Holy Spirit who will only speak what He hears.
This is such a beautiful picture of the unity of the trinity…both Jesus and the HS only speak what they hear..they are all united in purpose!
The HS will speak to us, only what He hears and, He will tell us what is yet to come…
13 But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.
This is a difficult verse, now isn’t it?
I actually read this verse several months ago and wrestled with it! I believe the word, yet, I’m not sure how many times I can say that I knew what was going to happen before it did…
I looked up different commentaries and that is quite a journey.
People are all over the place on this verse…
A few, honestly, just skip this part of 13 and don’t touch it…
One I read was a little funny because they said that Jesus wasn’t talking about the future, just about the death, resurrection and ascension…
Ummm… problem is, that is the future…Jesus hadn’t died yet
Another semi-comical one was similar in that they admitted Jesus was talking about future events, but is was exclusively what was about to happen to Jesus, His death, resurrection, and ascension..
But, there is still a problem…when did the HS spirit come?
The day of pentecost, which was after the death resurrection, and ascension of Jesus…So, how could this only mean the death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus, if they didn’t even receive the HS until after?
Commentaries are funny because they are people, they are flawed, but they are helpful!
So, what does Jesus mean when He says that the HS will tell us what is yet to come? I’ll let you wrestle with it!
I think Jesus means exactly what He is saying here. I think the HS can and does, tell us what is to come.
I’ll just share that I wrestled with it, because my experience didn’t match the Word. I believe the word over my experience so I just prayed about it!
I have some thing that I could share, that I won’t today about times I think the HS has told me what is to come before it happened.
I’ll let you guys pray about it!
Now, I will say to be cautious of people claim God told them something will happen. We can’t divorce this verse from the next 2
14 He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you. 15 All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you.”
As the HS speaks, He is glorifying Jesus! And it is Jesus who is telling Him what to make known to us!
So, if someone says the HS told them something that is counter to the Word and the person of Jesus and what has been revealed in Christ, it’s not from the Lord!
The HS is not going to speak counter to what is revealed in Christ!
The Father is fully revealed in Christ.
So, if someone tries to say that have new revelation about the person and character of God that is not revealed in the Word and in Christ. Run far and fast!
I had a gentleman come one Sunday morning, a couple years ago and told me that visited him and that there was a specific door to God that was not found in any churches, but in one specific place and was the only way to God
I just asked him where this idea was in scripture and his response was “when I met with God, it was before any of this (referring to scripture)”
And he told me that we shouldn’t have churches like we do or pastors like myself and that if I died with the keys of this church in my pocket, that I would not go to heaven
Here’s the problem, he claimed to have some revelation about God that is not found in the Word, and some way to God that was not complete in Christ, and so he was wrong.
Everything that we need to know about the heart and character of God is revealed in scripture and in Christ!
So, be cautious when someone says “God told me.” Test it with the Word, pray about it, seek Godly counsel
Might be from God, might not.
As we wrap up this morning, let’s remember that the when the HS is in us, He guides into all the truth, which Christ, He will only speak what He hears from Christ and what will glorify Christ.
And what He hears from Jesus, He will make known to us!
So, the questions this morning:
How often do we listen for the HS?
How many thought do we take captive and make them obedient to Christ?
Is it possible that the HS speaks to us more than we recognize?
How diligently are we to listen for and to God?
I encourage you this week to slow down, and listen.
Listen when you pray. Listen when you read the word. and listen when your brothers and sisters in christ are speaking.
Try to recognize something good and perfect! See if maybe it’s God!
We are going to respond this morning and I think the Lord wants to speak to us. I am happy to pray with you!
Worship and prayer Tuesday night is another great time to have other pray with/for you! Maybe the HS will speak through someone!