We're in John chapter 14 through 16 once again, where we've been camping the last few weeks. And we're going to look at some passages that we have already looked at though with a whole different slant noticing an entirely different emphasis of those parts. Thomas Edison had an assistant and it's said that one evening his assistant was frustrated that they had worked so hard and saw nothing of all their efforts. And he complained saying to Edison, "you know it's too bad that we work so hard and see no results." And Edison put his arm on the young lad and smiled and said, "Oh, we have lots of results. We've just discovered 700 things that won't work." That's a good attitude. I've discovered things that don't work and one of them is to try to live the Christian life alone without help, by yourself. You were never intended to do that. You were intended to be empowered and to be infused to do so. You know it's frustrating to not have help when you really need help.
Several years ago when my son was just an infant, we decided to take a drive and look far and wide and see this great state of ours. So, we had no idea where we were going, we'd go down south and take this turn and that turn and see a bunch of sand and volcanoes. And we end up in this little town called Carrizozo, the thriving metropolitan area of Carrizozo. Well I had this old Volvo that broke down. It needed a fuel pump. And I went into a place and I said, "Can you look at this car?" And they looked at it and they said, "you need a new fuel pump." And I said, "Well great, can you have one, can you put one in?" They laughed at me. They said, "There's not fuel pump like this for miles." Well at the same time my so who was an infant was getting sick and throwing up. So I'm getting concerned and I think, "At least I need a doctor. Do you have a doctor?" And they laughed again, "There's not a doctor for miles. There's a nurse that comes through once every two weeks." So I felt like we really needed help but there was no help at that point to be found.
Some believers don't know of the help that is available to them. Oh, they've heard of the Holy Spirit. They know if they read the right version that he is called the Helper. But it seems like they don't know because it seems like they're content to live their whole lives without acknowledging or relying upon him except in a severe emergency.
Sometime back actor James Garner was in the hospital and he explained how he got there. He said, "This guy ran up to my car, grabbed me through the window and began to beat me up. I fell out of the car onto the ground and the same man kicked me repeatedly." And he said, "But I could tell he was tiring. And if he'da kept it up for five more minutes I'da had him." I read that and I laughed too and I thought, "That's like a lot of us. We're content to get beat up by the world, by the enemy without relying on the Spirit for help.
We discussed in our series on Foundations and the last few weeks on the Holy Spirit, who the Holy Spirit is and what he does in part. We discovered he's a person, not just a power. We discovered that he is deity not just a dignitary. And we discovered that he's busy, he's active in the world. He's busy convicting the world of sin and righteousness and of judgment. But tonight we're going to focus on what the Holy Spirit does for us, God's people, children of God, followers of Jesus Christ in these passages John 14 through 16. And we find that the Hly Spirit is active not only in the world out there but he's very active in the church. Not just one church, not just our church, I mean the church, universal of Jesus Christ, all those who truly believe in Christ. All of his church, segments of our church, the Pentecostal church, the Methodist church, the Presbyterian church, the Baptist church. You know, we may not be disagree with every group but be careful about how you speak about other Christians. You're going to have to spend forever with them. Do you ever think about that? Some of the very people that will be with you in heaven are those who disagree with you about baptism or speaking in tongues, some of these other issues; it's a long time to spend with somebody.
I feel tonight as I have felt last week and the week before sort of like that mighty warrior from the Native American legend who came out from the mountains and for the first time in his life saw the Pacific Ocean. He was so inspired that he took a clay jar and he waded out into the waters with his clay jar and he was dousing it underneath the waves. And somebody saw him and asked him what he was doing. And he said, "Back in the mountains my people have never seen the great waters. I carry this jar to them that they may see what it's like." And that's how I feel tonight. I feel like we have this subject that is so vast, so awe-inspiring, so powerful. And to explain and describe is like trying to put the Pacific Ocean in a jar. It's tough to do, the subject is infinite, our minds are finite and the preacher is inadequate. But here we go, let's look at what he does for us. He is the Helper. That's sort of the practical term that Jesus gives to them, the Helper's practical activity toward us.
Look at chapter 14, a passage we've already looked at. Verse 16, he introduces the subject that evening, "And I will pray the Father and he will give you another helper that he may abide with you forever." Now you notice the term there, the Helper. Some of your Bibles don't say that. There's several different translations of that word because it's one of those cornucopian words, it has a variety of shades of meaning because it's just such an intense word, it's packed with meaning. For instance, the King James Bible it's called the Comforter. The New King James that I'm reading out of, the Helper. The New Living translation and the New International Version he's called the Counselor. The New Revised Standard, the same word is advocate. The Nestle Allen Greek New Testament, the Encourager. Eugene Peterson's translation, The Message, he's called the Friend. Another translation, the Intercessor. Why? Why so many translations of one word? Because it's one of those incredible words. Para cletos is the Greek word, it comes from two words that are combined. Para which means with or alongside of, kaleo to call on. So it means in a literal sense, to call alongside of somebody else or to stand with somebody else. It was an ancient term used in the law courts of the council for the defense, somebody who would plead somebody's case before the court. And so he's called here the helper. Something even more fundamental: Notice Jesus doesn't promise help as much as a person, the Helper. Now I hope you don't think I'm splitting hairs, I think there's a big difference between just help and the Helper, big difference. Example: Let's say you're in a big city and you're lost. Would you rather have directions or a guide? Would you rather have somebody say, "Take a left, take a right, then go down two miles under the underpass, over the overpass, past the subway, dodge the bullets on Fifth Avenue, and you'll get there." Or would you have them say, "Tell you what, I've got time, let me take you there personally as your guide. I'll help you." So it's not just help, we're promised a Helper, in the person, the divine person of the Holy spirit. In fact, listen to it in the Amplified Bible. Jesus says, "I will give you another helper." And here it says, "One called to stand constantly by us who is ready to take part in everything in which his help is needed." And that's good news, I need all the help I can get. Do you ever feel in life that the trials, the temptations, the responsibilities are just too much? They are, if you do it alone. So this is good news, practical news, "I'm sending you a helper."
Notice that this person is an exclusive helper. Jesus says, "The world cannot receive him. 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." We've received him, the world can't receive him. They don't see him, they're not aware of him, they don't even think about him. Let's think in terms of communication: Right now in this building at this very moment there are radio waves and television waves. So in their raw form there are all sorts of pictures here right now, all sorts of musical genres right here right now in forms of waves. You don't see them, you don't hear them. But if we had the right receiver, we could pick them up and they would be translated into visual or auditory information and we would enjoy them. The world doesn't receive the Spirit, doesn't get help of the Spirit, until that worldly person receives Christ and then the Holy Spirit will come to them. Have you ever shared the gospel with somebody and you get frustrated and you explain something to them and you think, "This is masterful. What I just said was masterful." And they're looking at you like, "Huh?" And you say, "Can't you get it, don't you see?" No they don't It's like trying to explain today's sunset to a blind person. They lack the ability to enjoy it. They don't receive it. Notice something else before we move on, this helper is a live-in helper. Jesus said, "He will abide with you forever," that he dwells with you. That means you have 24-hour roadside help. He's always with you, he doesn't work 9 to 5 and take weekends off. He abides with you forever. Herein lies the secret to victorious, as we call it victorious Christian living. It's this ongoing abiding relationship where we rely upon this helper, who is with us all the time. That's what Paul said, "Walk in the Spirit and you won't fulfill the lusts of the flesh."
A man was an alcoholic, he was converted, he was successful in sort of warding off the temptation for several months. One day however he walked past a bar. And the odor of the alcohol made its way to his nose and it was so tempting to him. It was as if it drew him in and he wanted a drink so bad. He then noticed right across the street was a café with an interesting sign, "All the buttermilk you can drink," it said, "for a dollar." He went in and had glass after glass (now this presupposes you could do that, I mean I hate buttermilk) he filled himself so full to the brim with buttermilk, so satiated was he that he couldn't have a sip of alcohol at that point. There's a secret there you see. It's like what Dwight L. Moody once said, the evangelist to his audience, he held up a glass, an empty glass. And he said, "There's air in this glass, how do you get it out?" And one person said, "You pump it out." Moody said, "It won't work, you'll create a vacuum, shatter the glass." Any other suggestions?" And several made them. Then he took a pitcher of water and filled it. He said, "There's the air, it's gone, it's filled with water." He said, "the secret in living the Christian life isn't sucking out, vacuuming out one sin at a time as much as being filled with the Spirit of God, the Helper around the clock."
Now let's get more specific, that's generic. That's the helper's practical activity. Let's look at the Helper's particular activity, what exactly does he do. And we'll have to move quickly on this and we're going to look in these chapters as well as three other places in the New Testament. First of all, the Holy Spirit helps us with the truth about God. If you go back to chapter 14, but this time the 26th verse, take it in verse 25, "These things I have spoken to you while being present with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name. He will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all things that I have said to you." Skip ahead to chapter 16 and look at the 13th verse, no go back to verse 12 it helps to do that, "I still have many things to say to you but you can't bear them now. However 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." Now this answers a question. The question is how did twelve fishermen without any education at all, who didn't even understand a lot of what Jesus said and were distracted half the time, remember enough to write down the four gospels? And the only answer isn't because they were brilliant guys, is the power of the Holy Spirit. Because even during this episode of the upper room they were confused about the future. They didn't understand God's plan. They don't know why Jesus has to go to the cross. They don't get the whole idea of he's going away. They're filled with sorrow. And they're arguing about who will be the greatest in the kingdom. So they're confused now but Jesus said, "Don't worry, the Spirit's coming, he'll bring all things to your remembrance and," Jesus said, "He will guide you into all truth." Look at verse 13 once again of chapter 16. It says, "When he (notice what he's called here) the spirit of truth and he guides you into all truth." That's one of his titles, the Spirit of truth. That is, he is the source of all truth and he tells people the truth about their sin, about God's righteousness and about God's judgment. He tells t he truth. He's the spirit of the truth. But there's an important word left out in your translation and mine. He's called the Spirit of the truth. In Greek, the word the is there. In our translation it's not, it just says the spirit of truth. The original translation is tah pneuma taz alaltheos. Or literally, THE spirit of THE truth. So, it's not generic truth we're talking about. It's not 2+2=4, well that's true. No, no, no, it's the body of the truth centering in Jesus Christ. That's the term tah celathios, the truth. How can you tell if a person's filled with the Holy Spirit? They are filled with THE truth as taught by the Spirit concerning Christ. And it will be balanced truth. When the Spirit of the truth is filling you, it's not that you'll emphasize one truth and forget the rest, or another truth and forget the rest, it's this balance of the truth in beautiful harmony together.
So the Holy Spirit is our teacher, our tutor. And I bet you've experienced something like this: You open your Bible, you've read it a dozen times before, maybe a hundred times before. But suddenly you read it and it's like a light goes off. You understand it, you get it, you notice something that wasn't there before but it was, you just weren't there before. And you go, "Wow!" What just happened? Illumination just happened. Illumination. It's where the Holy Spirit shines the light on something that's already bright, he just makes it brighter and you understand it. Martin Luther said, "If God does not open and explain the holy writ (the scriptures) no one can understand it. It will remain a closed book and be enveloped in darkness." Let me encourage you to do something. I want to encourage you to not be content with being sppon-fed Christians, where you rely on somebody else telling you what it says. There's a place for that, there's gifts in the body of Christ for that, they're called pastors and teachers. But don't rely totally on that, any more than you would rely on a study Bible with its notes for the truth. How about daring to learn how to study the Bible on your own so that you can get it right from the source. Right from the source. I've told you before about that family driving through Florida, thousands, millions probably, of orange trees on either side of the road. They'd stop into a restaurant. They'd order, "Orange juice." The guys says, "I'm sorry we have no orange juice, the machine is broken." What's ironic is that there's millions of oranges around them, there's at least a dozen oranges on the table. But there's no orange juice because they had depended so heavily on a machine that "They can't squeeze it on their own." Hey don't rely too heavily on the preaching machine, the teaching machine, the books machine, the radio and television machine. Learn to hear the Spirit's voice as he teaches you all truth. So, that's particular. He helps us with truth about God.
Second, according to Jesus, the Holy Spirit helps us with our testimony for God. Again, you've read this last week if you were with us but go back to chapter 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 and you also, you will bear witness because you have been with me from the beginning." Get the flow? With the Holy Spirit's testimony to us in the truth, he then works his testimony through us to the world. What he puts in us, he wants to pour out from us. So he's a helper in that. He's a helper in leading us into the truth. He's a helper with our testimony for God. Think of the disciples. Remember their marching orders? What were the disciple's marching orders? The great commission. What is it? Go. Right? Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. But then do you remember what Jesus said in the gospel of Luke. He said, "Wait." Go. Wait. Okay, well which is it? "Wait in Jerusalem until you are filled with power on high." And then we turn to the book of Acts and we see it all unfold. Acts chapter 1 verse 8, Jesus promises, "And the Holy Spirit will come upon you." Or, "You will be filled with the Holy Spirit and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth." So, the general marching orders are go, testify of me. But you need to wait and get the power to do it first. When you have the power to do it, then you'll be able to go for it. So, the Holy Spirit is our dynamic, a real and relevant force to helps us stand up in the midst of a squabbling, angry, hostile anti-Christ world and give a testimony for Christ.
I love the story about the valiant captain whose sword was feared by all of his enemies. The king heard about this guy and this sword and he demanded the sword be brought to him for examination. And the king looked over the sword of this valiant captain and said, "I don't see anything unusual or special about this sword. I don't know why anybody would fear it." The warrior heard about what the king said and he sent a message back, "Your majesty, with all due respect, you only looked at the sword, not the arm that wields it. Had you studied that you would have understood its power and its mystery." Isn't that the way it is? We look at some people and we go, "I don't get it. I don't get it. They're just, they're even kind of weird. And God uses them." You may be thinking that right now. (laughter) It's because we're only looking at the sword, not the arm that wields it.
That's the particular help the Holy Spirit gives. Peter, prime example. He denied Jesus to a girl, a servant girl in a courtyard. "I don't know him." And he swore, he cussed. And we see him a couple chapters later in Jerusalem on Pentecost preaching the gospel with boldness and power. What happened to Peter? The Holy Spirit happened to Peter. That's why Charles Spurgeon said, "If there was only one prayer that I might pray before I die it would be this, 'Lord, send thy church men filled with the Holy Ghost and with power.'
So, the Holy Spirit is our particular helper. How does he help us? With the truth about God. With our testimony for God. Third, with talking with God. Now I want you to turn to Romans 8 for a moment. And if you don't want to turn there, don't. But I'll turn there and I'll read it to you. Romans chapter 8, verse 26, and probably now with the background we've given you you'll see it in a different light. Romans 8, verse 26, "Likewise the Spirit (that's the Holy Spirit) also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for like we should, as we ought, but the Spirit himself (notice again, not itself, himself) makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. Now he who searches the hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit because he makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God." Now notice that, the Spirit helps. Now there is a word that is a rare New Testament word which means to help somebody carry a burden or a load. So get a picture here: We're carrying this load, this burden. We're powerless, we're weak. But the Holy Spirit comes along and he helps us carry this load, so that his power, his strength offsets our weakness. And where's the weakness? It's in talking to God. I am weak when it comes to knowing the will of God. People ask me so many times, "Skip, what's the will of God in this?" My answer usually, "I don't know." I don't. "You don't know, what are you doing being the pastor?" "Well I just, I don't know." It's a weakness, it says it's one of our weaknesses. We don't always know the will of God in situations, do we? But we pray. But you've got to know, you've got to know that it's a waste of time to pray for something that's contrary to the will of God. So there's the weakness. Example: I see somebody suffering, I'm going to pray God will deliver them from suffering, from pain, from disease, whatever it is. However, what I may not know is God is actually using that trial and temptation and hardship to refine, to polish, to mold. So I find myself sometimes praying in direct opposition to the will of God. Whew, help is on the way. The Holy Spirit knows our weaknesses. And we're told here that we don't know what to pray for but the Spirit himself makes intercession for us. I love that. So I might be saying, "Lord, I need a brand new speedboat." I don't know what I'd do with one around here, but... And the Holy Spirit might says, "Rather, cancel that. He doesn't know what he's talking about. That's his weakness. What he needs is a '67 Chevy with two gears in it that don't work." You know I say that because there was a time when I prayed for a new car. And you know what the Lord gave me? A '67 beat-up car, gray, bondoed, one of the gears was broken, I had to skip first, go into third. Three speed with a reverse, no muffler. I paid $37.50 for it. Why didn't God give me what I wanted? It's my weakness. The Lord knew what I needed.
Norman Harrison writes, "Were we left to ourselves and our own effort in prayer, we could not be heard. We would be as impotent as a telephone without electricity. As electricity gives carrying power to the human voice, projecting it for thousands of miles, so the Holy Spirit performs a like service winging our worship petitions and aspirations to the Father." So many times we pray for stuff we don't, we don't know what we're asking. Peter did this. Jesus said, "I'm going to Jerusalem, let me tell you what's going to go down before you get there so you know about the situation. I'm going to be betrayed, they're going to beat me up and kill me. But I'll rise from the dead." Peter goes, this is his prayer, "Farbeit from you Lord. This should never happen to you." This is Jesus' response: "Get behind me Satan." You're not thinking like God but like men. And so we have the Holy Spirit in particular helping us in our talking to God.
Now go I Corinthians 12, the Holy Spirit helps us in our truth about God, testimony for God, talking with God; there's a fourth: our unity in the church, our togetherness in God. Now I'm not going to read it all, just a couple verses. I Corinthians 12, Paul says, "Look how marvelously God has woven the church together, the body of Christ. One spirit, different gifts" (whole variety). Look at verse 11, "But one and the same Spirit works all these things distributing to each one individually as he wills. For as the body is one and has many members but all the members of that one body being many are one body. So also is Christ. For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body whether Jews or Greeks, slaves or free, and have all been made to drink into one Spirit." Now even folks who know the truth about God and have a testimony for God and speak with God don't always get along with each other. You noticed that? We notice the disciples argued, didn't they? We notice in the New Testament, Paul and Peter had an argument about representing the law versus grace. We know there was a contention among Paul and Barnabas. There was a contention in the church at Jerusalem in Acts chapter 15. So there's not always this smoothness as far as agreeing on everything. So what does it mean then to have one spirit and unity in the body, the very thing Jesus prayed for on that night after the upper room? HE prayed that "they may be one Father as you and I are one." What does it mean to be together in unity under one Spirit functioning together? It basically means this: You and I are Christians the same way, so that there are distinctions. That's Paul's point, there's no distinctions. There's no distinction economically, there should be no distinction in gender, because you're male or female. There should be no distinction when it comes to education or nationality. We're all one in Christ. And why are we all one in Christ? Simply because we've all been rescued from the same hell by the same savior. That's enough reason to get along. That's the unity of the Spirit. Jesus said that when we do that, you remember his prayer in John 17, "Father I pray that they be one as we are one so that the world may believe that you sent me." Now that's revealing. When the world sees our love for each other, our unity together with each other, they want in. They go, "It must be real. It must be real."
There was a security guard that was working in a mental institution. A friend went to see this guy, he noticed something bizarre: Here's this one guard watching a hundred, guarding, in charge of one hundred mentally unstable people, what they called inmates. One guard, a hundred inmates. His friend said, "Aren't you scared that these people are going to get their heads together and rebel?" The guy kicked back in the chair, put his arms behind his head, laughed and said, "Listen, they're in here because they can't get their heads together and work cooperatively together. Don't you get it?" Very suggestive, isn't it? It suggests that to try to preach the gospel without unity in the church is insanity. It's nuts. We'll never get anywhere with the world until there's unity in the church. That's why we're told by Paul, "Endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace."
Fifth and finally before we move to ur closing, look at Ephesians chapter 1. Ephesians chapter 1, I'm moving quickly on this, you could spend a week in each one, we don't have the time. the Holy Spirit helps us in particular with our truth about God, our testimony for God, our talking with God, our togetherness in God. Fifth and finally, with our transferrance to God. How do we get from here to there? What guarantees that we're going to go from here after we accept Christ to there, to heaven? Well look at Ephesians chapter 1, verse 13. "In him (that's Jesus) you also trusted after you heard the word of the truth, the gospel of your salvation, in whom also having believed (notice) you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise who is (if you old King James the earnest, my translation the guarantee or literally down payment) guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession to the praise of his glory." That speaks of two things: ownership and security. Ownership and security. This is how it worked in ancient times: When somebody bought something, the owner or a representative of the owner would take the ring of the owner, the signet ring, and smash it into a seal made out of wax or clay. And that represented ownership, he bought it, he purchased it. And it's going to go from this port to that port, so that at the next port the owner would be there and look at the seal and say, "Ah, that's my impression, that's my seal, that's my merchandise."
You've been sealed by God. Let me ask you this question just to think about through the night: What impression do you leave with people when you meet them? Do they see the impression of your heavenly Father? "Oh, I can see you're owned by God, you live differently, you talk differently, you think differently. The impression that I see with you is that you belong to God." Then it says in verse 14, he's the guarantee or the down payment quite literally of our inheritance. You see, the Holy Spirit is the first installment. First installment.
When a young couple gets married, they all dream of having a home, t heir first house. And they'll save and they'll save and sacrifice and get up enough and they'll bring in this down payment. And they go to the bank and they sign these intimidating reams of papers for 40,000 lawyers that are involved, but they put money down, a down payment. It might only be five, ten percent of the entire house. The down payment doesn't pay for the house but it's a promise that there's more payments to come, thirty years of them usually. The Holy Spirit living in us, helping us is the first installment, a guarantee to us, that one day there's more to come. One day we'll be in heaven. One day we'll be glorified, a brand new body. One day we'll be in the visible perfect presence of God himself. And that's guaranteed, that's security. If you're in Christ today, you'll be in Christ there, transferred from one port to the other. In other words, what God has started, he won't give up on, he's guaranteed the rest.
Okay, let's close. Let's go back to John. John chapter 15. Now I've gone from general to specific and I'm going to kind of go back to general. We've seen that the Holy Spirit is generally our helper, we've seen particularly how he's our helper. But now I want you to look at the helper's predominant activity. This is why he helps. This is the motivation for it all. This sums it all up. Chapter 15, verse 26, "When the helper comes whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of t he truth who proceeds from the Father, he will testify of me. And you also will bear witness because you've been with me from the beginning." I'm not going to read it again but you remember last week's text beginning in verse 5? And he says on down there, "The Holy spirit when he comes he will convict the world of sin, righteousness and judgment. Of sin because they don't believe in Me." I'm tying this thread together. Now go down to verse 14, "He will glorify ME, he will take what is MINE and declare it to you." As we put all of these verses together, we understand, we get the idea that the overarching predominant activity of the Holy Spirit is to point to Jesus. Right? I mean what does the Holy Spirit testify of? Jesus. What sin does he convict the world of? Not believing in JESUS. Who does he glorify? JESUS Whose things does he take and reveal to us? Things of JESUS. So, the Holy Spirit then is like a stage director shining the light, the floodlight on the main actor Jesus, making sure that he gets all the applause, all the glory.
Outside the church we have floodlights so that at night it's shining on the building, you can see the building. They're designed not so that you can see the light. You know, we don't have them shining in your face as you come in, so that you go like this. they're shining on the building, so that the building gets all the attention, not the light itself. The Holy spirit is the floodlight shining on Jesus saying, "Look at him, glorify him, come to him, it's all about him." That's his predominant overarching, motivating activity: to draw our attention to Jesus Christ. Now that only makes sense, since the Old testament has one subject: Jesus. The New Testament has one subject: Jesus. You'd expect the Holy Spirit to have one mission: Look at Jesus. It's all the way through the Bible. Do you know what that means? That means you should beware of any movement, any organization, any church, that emphasizes the Holy Spirit to the extent that it detracts from Jesus Christ. IT's not a move of God. It's all about the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit's saying, "Wait, time out. I'm invisible. It's not about me." You never read the Holy Spirit saying, "What about me, man? I'm part of the Trinity. I want people to think of me, sing to me, pray to me." No, it's all about Jesus. So, when we emphasize the Spirit, whether it's his movement, his gifts, we emphasize the noise, the excitement, to the extent that Jesus himself is detracted from, we're grieving the Holy Spirit who came to say, "Look at Jesus."
So how do you test teaching, how do you test preaching? Does it magnify Jesus? Does it glorify Jesus? Does it point to Jesus? How can you tell if a person's filled with the Holy Spirit? Do they love Jesus? Is it all about Jesus?
A city slicker went out to the country bought a farm, bought a cow. First experience with a cow. Invited his neighbor over one day, and he said, "You know I don't understand it but the cow went dry." Neighbor said, "Now that's unusual, what do you mean?" and the guy said, "Well let me just tell you, if anybody loves animals it's me. If anybody's kind to animals and considerate of animals, I've been so considerate to this cow. In fact, I don't even milk the cow unless I need milk. And if I only need a quart6 of milk, I get one quart, not two, not four, just one." His neighbor, the country farmer said, "That's your problem. That's why the cow went dry. The only way to keep the milk flowing isn't to get as little as possible but as much as possible."
The Holy Spirit's relationship to us is to be a helper so that our lives glorify Jesus Christ. If you only seek his help in emergencies, you're missing out on the joy of the flow, of the daily infilling of the Holy Spirit. That's why Paul used the present tense in the Greek. "Be being filled with the Holy Spirit."
Heavenly Father, we've covered a lot of territory. The stuff that Jesus revealed, that his disciples would learn. But tonight we walk away understanding or revisiting for some of us, reinforcing the truth that life is so tough we're never meant to go it alone but to be empowered. Lord we have seen some of the ways that the Spirit that Jesus left here for us helps us. And so Lord I pray that we would be aware and rely on and be in touch an din tune with the way the Holy Spirit wants to embolden us, help us pray, helps u talk to the world, understand the truth, so that our lives would glorify and magnify Jesus Christ just as he does. In His name we pray. Amen.