The Spirit and the Son
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Imagine that you've decided to go sailing. The problem is that you know next to nothing about sailing. So you to the store and you purchase several books to find out what's involved. You carefully read them and then you talk to a veteran sailor who answers questions for you. The next day, you rent a sailboat. You examine it closely to make certain that everything needed for a successful sailing experience is present and in good working order. Then, you take your boat out onto the lake. Your excitement is at a fever pitch, though you're also afraid. But you follow the instructions you've read and the counsel received from the experience sailor, and you launch your boat into the water. You carefully monitor each step and hoist the sail.
At that precise moment you learn a crucial lesson. You can study sailing. You might even be able to build a sailboat. You can seek from the wisest and most veteran of sailors. You can cast your boat onto the most beautiful of lakes under a bright and inviting sun. You can successfully hoist the sail. But—and this is a big "but"—only God can make the wind blow!
Today we will take a deeper look at the wind of God called the Holy Spirit who is reassurance to who we are and what we believe. We may still today struggle with assurance in a very insecure time. Not know what to believe, confused as to what is true and not true, general apprehension because we just don’t know anymore. But remember… the scriptures do not want us to be in this state. And so the Lord desire us to be certain of who we are and what we believe. Last week we looked at certainty that comes by the love we feel for one another. Today we will look at the evidence of the Holy Spirt’s work in our lives is evidence that we are children of God. Let’s look at it.
And God has given us his Spirit as proof that we live in him and he in us. Furthermore, we have seen with our own eyes and now testify that the Father sent his Son to be the Savior of the world.
The grass withers, the flower fades, but the Word of our God stands forever.
The Spirit
The Son
The first thing we will look at today is the person and work of the Holy Spirit and what He has done and what He will do for us. Lastly, we will look and the person and work of the Son and how in this we will have life and life more abundant.
Thesis: Though sin and the pattern of this world continue to cast a shadow on all that the Lord desires to be clearly seen, it is the power of the Holy Spirit and the Word of God that will bring us into the light and He is in the light and know that we are with Him forever.
I. The Spirit
- Through the Spirit of Holiness.
A. We saw last week how we find assurance that God is really with us with the evidence of the love that we have for other people. When real love exists in our hearts for other people then we see that God truly live in us.
B. Today… verse 13 shows John making the important point that we have assurance we are truly saved because God has given us his Holy Spirit to indwell our lives. More specifically, let me say it this way. We know that God lives in us and we live in Him because we see the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Evidence of His work show that we abide in Him. So what should we be seeing?
C. The Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity who proceeds from the Father and the Son. He was there from the beginning… literally.
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was formless and empty, and darkness covered the deep waters. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the surface of the waters.
D. And it was the Holy Spirit that was promised to us when Christ left the earth to ascend into heaven.
John baptized with water, but in just a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”
E. And now the ongoing ministry of the Holy Spirit is applying the salvation, Christ achieved on the cross, for us by bringing glory to Christ. For many of us the first encounter with the Holy Spirit was the conviction we felt in our hearts when we heard the Gospel for the first time.
And when he comes, he will convict the world of its sin, and of God’s righteousness, and of the coming judgment.
D. Remember when we had come to realize and care about how we have fallen short of God’s law and really felt bad in our souls about what we have done. And we continue even to this day feel the continued renewal in our hearts, continued convicting in our hearts, the continued persuading of our guilt, and the righteousness of our Lord.
E. The work of regeneration in bringing us to life and filling us with spiritual energy… being born again.
Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, unless you are born again, you cannot see the Kingdom of God.”
Jesus replied, “I assure you, no one can enter the Kingdom of God without being born of water and the Spirit. Humans can reproduce only human life, but the Holy Spirit gives birth to spiritual life.
F. But we should know that when regeneration happens it is only the beginning. It is just the start. The work of the Holy Spirit continues.
G. He empowers His people.
But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere—in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
H. Remember when we saw the success of this directive, because this actually did happen we read in Act, it was not a success because of the abilities and strengths of the Apostles, but because of the power of the Holy Spirit. The same Holy Spirit dwells in the hearts of all believers and He desires to empower the body of Christ as they serve to glorify the Lord.
I. The Holy Spirit will indwell and and illuminate all believers.
And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, who will never leave you. He is the Holy Spirit, who leads into all truth. The world cannot receive him, because it isn’t looking for him and doesn’t recognize him. But you know him, because he lives with you now and later will be in you.
J. And in our lives we will see Christ being glorified by the Holy Spirit.
He will bring me glory by telling you whatever he receives from me.
K. The Holy Spirit will bring glory to Christ in all that he does in applying salvation to us. Christ is the point of it all. Christ is the point of all the scriptures that he taches and illumines for us. He is the one to bring glory to Christ when he opens our eyes to see and recognize him. He works so that we can truly love one another and show the world that we really are disciples of Christ.
Your love for one another will prove to the world that you are my disciples.”
L. And the work of sanctification in the lives of the followers of Christ… it is the process of being made holy by the Holy Spirit. There is two points to sanctification one is the mortification of the flesh… killing the evil deeds of the flesh and the vivification of the spirit… bringing godly characteristics.
When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God.
But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!
M. We we see all of these types of things in our lives we can be sure the Holy Spirit is working in our lives and so He is with us.
For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.
II. The Son
- The Savior of the World.
A. And here we have a profound statement that catches the beauty of the Gospel. The good news of Jesus. The world needed saving.
B. The bible says that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. It does not take much honest reflection to see how true that statement really is.
Not a single person on earth is always good and never sins.
C. The wages of sin is death and there is nothing we could do to pay for it. There is no hope in the skill and intellect of mankind to overcome this reality. If man was gonna be saved then God would have to make a way. And he did it by sending His Son to come into the world and take on the burden of the sin of the world.
D. Yes there is a way… because Jesus died for our sins according to the scriptures and he was buried and he was raised on the third day… All who call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.