The Marks of a Good Church: Spirit-led & Word-fed

• View transcript

  The Marks Of A Good Church-Spirit-led & Word-fed

  Download transcript

  Turn in your Bibles to 1 Thessalonians 5:19-20. And this morning we will continue to look into the Word of God and see just a wonderful truth about our relationship with God this morning. That as we have been in this final section of 1 Thessalonians 5:14-22, we've seen fellowship described, not just in commands given for us to obey, as if the Christian life is come to Christ, and then here's just all these commands and get them right or it's over. Actually, what we have seen in the last few weeks is the form of verses 14 to 22 is what really grounds us in our relationship with God, both the father, the son and the spirit. That when we look to these commands and we don't just see them individually, but actually look at them collectively, it's kind of like looking at a tapestry. If you've ever looked at a beautiful tapestry on one side, you might see a bunch of individual threads and it could kind of seem disconnected. And though each individual thread has a color and you can follow that color throughout it, you wonder what it actually looks like put as one...put together. And then you flip that tapestry over and you see this beautiful picture that was, uh, this beautiful blanket or tapestry or whatever illustration you want to use and see how it all comes together. And really, that's what I've been wanting us to see in looking not just at individual commands from verses 14 to 22. Those are important. Don't get me wrong. We want to obey the Word of God. But what you step back and see in this last section is not just Paul kind of off the top of his head, throwing out these imperatives to follow. He's actually teaching something about our relationship with God in the way we relate to each other, which is an expression of our fellowship with Jesus Christ. Those two verses in 14, actually 12, 13, 14 and 15, because it includes how we deal with leadership in the church, how we treat those who are leading us, but particularly in 14 and 15 when we're talking about caring for unruly people and faint hearted people and helping people that need help. That's an expression of your love for who?...your love for the Lord. That we never detach those things. We don't just hold over here. Oh, you know, I really love God. And look at me love God. Look at me, praise God. Look at me singing to him. Look at me study. And it doesn't land on how we actually treat other Christians. In Jonathan Edwards book Religious Affections, he said one way to tell a hypocrite, a false believer is to see a lack of symmetry in their life. You know symmetry...equal parts. But if my Bible was, you know, asymmetrical. It's really heavy on one side. And this part isn't. You would say there, you know that that's not balanced. And he says one way to detect a religious hypocrite, a person who's just going through the motions, a false believer is even if they say they have this great love for God...this passion for God. And you don't see it balanced out by their love for people. And so when we look at those two verses from a few weeks ago, help the weak, encourage the fainthearted, admonish the unruly. If we just take those as, okay, there's some more commands in the Bible. And even we might want to fulfill them. But we don't see that how we treat our brothers and sisters in Christ is the symmetry to how we love the Lord. There's something out of proportion to our faith. Are you with me? That he even talks about in that book proportionality. That even going back to those two verses in 14 and 15, if I just want to love the Christians that are lovely, you know, the people that don't have problems. Those people don't exist, do they? I mean, every one of us in Christ has a problem somewhere deep down in our hearts, either buried away that needs exposed or on the surface. And he says there's a proportionality to true faith. You know that if you look at verse 14 and you say like, yeah, I'm just, uh, I'm not down with the unruly. They're too much for me and those faint hearted people. Jeez. You know, it's like hanging out with Eeyore. And it's like, just give me the the really teachable, right? You know, what is it?...F.A.T... faithful, available, teachable. That's the disciple I'm going to make. Brother and sister your faith is out of proportion. And I dare say, if that's the way you live your Christian life, that you only have time for the people with no problems, you might question whether you have the love of God in Christ in you. Because he found you and sticks with you in your problems. He doesn't discard you when you get unruly or your faint hearted, or your weak. He comes and meets you where you're at. So when I say this has a beautiful picture...a tapestry of our relationship with God it is because 12 to 15 in chapter five really are how we love and care for those in Christ is a picture of how we love and care for the Lord Jesus Christ. He told us that. What you did for those people you've done to me because we're the body. He's the head. So it's all down line. And that's just about Christ. And then we saw two weeks ago, verses 16 to 18, if you look there rejoicing and praying and giving thanks. Again, aren't these, uh, hodgepodge of commands just kind of thrown out there? They all find themselves rooted in God's will for us in Jesus, that our fellowship with God, our Father is one of continual joy, continual thanksgiving, continual prayer. Because just like a normal human relationship, those are all the best of relationship, aren't they? When you're going and hanging with somebody that you you really look forward to spending time with, I mean, your heart disposition is usually you're finding things to rejoice in together, give thanks for together. On the opposite side of that, if there's, you know, a relationship that's fractured, it's usually probably consists of grumbling and complaining and you can't find joy in it. So we see in those three verses that it's our fellowship with God that's expressed there, God the Father. And then this week and the next week, we will move into our fellowship with the Holy Spirit. Then in 19 to 22, though, these again look like individual commands. And in and of themselves I could spend the next four weeks in these four verses and we get a lot of mileage out of them. But I don't want the disconnect them that your fellowship with the Holy Spirit in 19 to 22 will be seen in the expression of how you obey these commands. Just as it was with God the Father in 16 to 18. And just as it is with God the Son in 14 and 15, I don't want our minds to be removed from this idea that as we talk about, uh, verses 19 to 22, we're talking about your relationship with the Holy Spirit who lives in every Christian from the moment of your salvation. You have a relationship to god the Father in Jesus Christ the Son through the Holy Spirit. Which is amazing to think about, isn't it? I mean, this is why it should blow our minds coming to the Word of God to learn these things again, afresh, anew. I have a relationship with a triune God whose father, son, and spirit. And just as there are particular ways I relate to different people in my family, for instance. It's still all my family. But how I understand my relationship with God the Father and God the Son and God the Spirit we are guided in a very practical way in this section. Which should help you, I think, as you're wondering and asking the question we often ask, how do I relate to the Holy Spirit? What's that relationship like? Is it the same as my relationship with Jesus? Is it same as my relationship with God the Father? Some of those questions will be answered today if I do my job. And really, the big picture here is this...that as we connect verse 19 and 20, so if you don't have a Bible, maybe find one in the in the seat back in front of you. We have extras out there. Um. That it comes down to this when we're talking about our relationship with the Holy Spirit. That's the point Paul is making here to this young church is don't restrain the person and work of the Holy Spirit in you by rejecting the power in the work of God's Word to you. There's an inseparable connection in your life right now as a Christian, between the work of the Holy Spirit in you to the work of the word on you? These are not enemies to be reconciled. These are partners in the gospel. Jesus Christ has left us His Spirit and His Word. That's what you got to work with when it all is said and done. Well, you might say, what about the sacraments? Well, we only understand of how to take the sacraments by what?...the Word of God. What about fellowship in the body of Christ? We only know how to relate to one another by what?...the Word of God. So we need to be word fed and spirit led Christians. And here's the problem and why I'm bringing this up is we can make a a false dichotomy between the two. And most of that is just our evangelical baggage, isn't it? It's just the churches we were raised in, the people that we were raised around. Now, if you're a new believer in Christ here, you've never been in a church before. Then this is kind of like a primer on what it means to have a relationship with the Holy Spirit.

  And how that is again inseparable from how you receive the Word of God. But if you come in here with some baggage from church experiences, even me talking about the word and the spirit together, you're like. For those who might be from a church background where it was just about the Word of God, very little taught about the Holy Spirit, because that's, you know, that's getting into that charismatic stuff. You know, your guard could go up there. Or maybe you were raised and around a very spirit led congregation...so-called. And the moment somebody wants to question anything like, hey, can we check to see if, like you just do in a 360 off the stage, has anything to do with worship? You're like, uh, quenching the spirit. No, brother one, I don't want you to break your ankles every time we sing. And, you know, then the people in the front row are going to have to back up, you know, no stage diving. I'm drawing these extremes to, to show that, look, um, what we have here is gold, because Paul isn't going to let us make a straw man up of one to the neglect of the other. In these two verses in 19 and 20 he is saying, look, the Holy Spirit is in you, Christian. And you feed that flame. And you've also been given the Word of God, Christian. And you feed that flame with the fuel of the word. And what God has brought together here let no preacher separate. So let's look at 1 Thessalonians 5:19-22. Now I'm only going to get through 19 and 20 today, and then you'll have to come back next week for 21 to 22. 21 to 22 will be more talking about the gift of discernment and how to discern between, as it says, good and evil. But what we're going to see today is very simple how to be a spirit led and word fed Christian, and those things work in harmony.

  1 Thessalonians 5:19-22, "Do not quench the spirit. Do not despise prophetic utterances, but examine everything carefully. Hold fast to that which is good. Abstain from every form of evil."

  Father, open our eyes to illuminate the spirit inspired word to us today and help us to be doers and not just hearers. Amen.

  All right, let's just get right to it. Verse 19, Don't restrain the person of God's Holy Spirit. Verse 19, don't quench. And that word, you know, wow...is it a Gatorade slogan back in the day, something about quench your thirst or I don't know what it is. You know, I'm getting old here, David, and but, you know, you think of well, what is it to quench? What is it to? Well, it's it's something to be satisfied. Now in the sense of don't quench something is don't go douse a bunch of water on a fire because you're going to put it out. And that is what Paul is equating, uh, between this, um, relationship with the Holy Spirit as he works in this church in Thessalonica in AD 50. And what he's going to get to in 20 to 22, which is talking about how we deal with the teaching of the Word of God, preaching, study, proclaiming all of it. But the first admonishment, the first prohibition is don't quench, don't put it out, don't snuff it out. Keep the fire burning. Maybe you had some friend that always would tell you that kind of their sign off. Uh, I had an older mentor of mine still emails me to today, and that's his closing line in the email. Keep the fire burning. And, um, you know, fight the good fight, whatever. You borrow that expression and that that's what Paul is writing to this church that he loved, that he was only there for a short amount of time. And that would have understood as much as they could understand within 20 years of Pentecost what the connection was between the Holy Spirit and fire. Um, he doesn't have 1 Corinthians 12 to 14 to teach about, does he? He doesn't, in case you didn't know. It wasn't going to come for another decade. Um, he hasn't even actually been to Corinth yet to plant that church. So we don't get to cheat and look ahead yet. But what we can do is look back and say, what might this church have known about the Holy Spirit that would help them understand his warning not to quench him? So they would have known Acts 2, right? that when the Holy Spirit descended 50 days after Christ went back up to heaven, well, 50 days after Passover, 40 days after Christ went back to heaven, that, um, the spirit appeared, falling as tongues of fire. And again the phrase appeared as just as in Jesus baptism, the Holy Spirit descended like a dove. He wasn't a dove. He wasn't fire. It's what you would have seen with your eyes. And then, um, told your brother...you would never believe what I saw today. It was. It was crazy. All these people were gathered in Jerusalem, and, um, they just started being able to speak in languages that nobody else would have taught them before. And how did it happen? Well, it was like this like flames of fire, tongues even just descending on their heads. And you'd be like, what? Like, did their hair light on fire? No, brother. It was like it...like it hit them and there was a glow or whatever it might have been. So we have to remember when we hear language of quenching and don't put out a flame and don't extinguish the flame of the Holy Spirit that Paul's just trying to help us get a picture of it, of the Holy Spirit's presence in your life as a Christian, burning on the inside. And you got to keep him fed, just like you got to feed a fire. Otherwise it goes out. And he's saying, don't do the things that're going to put this fire out. The only other clear connection we get from Paul's writing on this would be when he's talking to Timothy in 2 Timothy 1, and Timothy is timid. And so Paul is trying to encourage some zeal and encourage some strength and atta a boy and he says, kindle afresh the gift of God that's in you. As in fire that thing up again. You're starting to cool off. You're getting fearful of man. Kindle afresh the gift of God through the laying on of hands that happened to you, Timothy. But outside of that, there's there's not a lot of language in Paul making this connection between the Holy Spirit and fire, although there is a lot of other language in the Gospels about it. And this is where we have to understand and use precise language, because otherwise you just kind of use some clichés around the church. I remember when I got to this church, 2011, um, Matt Redman, we sang him last week, had a great album. I think it was just called bless the Lord maybe, or something like that is where 10,000 reasons came from. And he had another jam on there that I don't remember the name of the song, but there was a certain lyric and it was like my first month here and uh, um, it was like a welcoming song. Some of you remember this. I want to say like, let your praise be our anthem, let your something down, and, uh, we are here for you. And it was, you know, this idea of, here we are. We're excited to worship you today, God...Love it. No problems with it. There was a lyric...your hearts are open. Nothing else is hidden. You are one desire. Oh Lord, let your fire fall down. And I was in the back. And I mean, people are into this jam. It was, you know, it was a rager. You know, it really got you fired up, pun intended. And a guy singing near me like it hit that line. Because that line let your fire fall down. And he's like, looks at me. And he's like, yeah. And in my mind just immediately goes to a situation Jesus had in Luke 9:54-56. I'm sorry. It's just the way I am wired. I hear lyrics of songs and I'm thinking about what they mean, not just saying them. And when James and John saw that these people were rejecting the Lord. They say, Lord, do you want us to command fire to come down from heaven and consume them? And that's what I like. This guy was really fired up. And I'm going, like, is that what you're calling down, bro? I said this in my heart, of course, because Jesus turns and rebukes them and says, you don't know what kind of spirit you are of. For the Son of Man didn't come to destroy men's lives, but to save them. And that's what I mean, just about being discerning and even in what you sing. I get it. It's it's poetry. It's it's art. Music is. And we can borrow language, and we don't have to be so literal. But really, when we talk about the spirit and fire. Um, even listen to this. John the Baptist, Matthew 3:11-12. As for me, I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, and I'm not fit to remove his sandals. Here's a good thing. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. And again, everybody's like...purify those people. Listen what he says next. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will thoroughly clear his threshing floor. And he will gather his wheat into the barn, and he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire. You see both next to each other. Okay. Great, we want in Christ...born again. The imagery of fire through the Holy Spirit's regeneration of your heart. Changing you from the inside is like a picture of that impurity being burned away from your blackened heart, purifying it...cleansing your sin...as white as snow.

  That's purifying, isn't it? But then John the Baptist turns on a dime and is like, and by the way, there's also an unquenchable fire for those that don't repent. Savvy? Put them next to each other. Take them both. Sing about them both at the same time. So when we get to this, don't quench the spirit, it's pregnant with a lot of other meaning, isn't it? In taking a glance at just your New Testament alone helps us to say what then is he trying to say about quenching the spirit? I mean, we all certainly don't want to break this command. We don't want to put his fire out in us. But what would it mean for us to put his fire out? And again, we could just immediately kind of say, well, I think what this verse means to me is...and then you buckle up for a ride, don't you? Or you can say, maybe just look at what it immediately connects to. I mean, where does it go right after that? So we understand verse 19 by understanding the next verse, verse 20. Do not despise prophetic utterances. And there is my point from the beginning. Don't resist or reject the work of the spirit in your life by how you respond to what?...the Word of God. So now we're not falling into these camps, or I'm this word person and I'm this spirit person, and you go, you don't. Paul's not going to let you do it. And this is the great thing here, it's the early church. This isn't um, again, years later, he's going to write to the Corinthians as they're using all these gifts. And we studied this this time last year...I Corinthians 12. And there's he says, you have all the gifts, Corinth. But, man, you're just getting together and it's just crazy town. You got to figure out how to use these things. Uh, at this church, the maybe, at the very least, all we would be able to connect between what could be quenching the fire of the spirit at this church is when you look back to chapters four and five, and it's either false living or false teaching, which is what quenches the spirit in the most broadest way. Because he's the spirit of truth according to John 14. He's the Spirit of truth. That's his ministry. He wants to guide and direct believers to the truth of Jesus Christ, Jesus person, and Jesus words and his works. So you can look back in chapters four and five of this letter and you see, well, there were people who were living, uh, false lives, as in they were committing sexual immorality and they weren't repenting of it. And he had to say, that's not God's will for you, that'll quench the spirit. And we've talked about that already. If you have unconfessed sin in your life, unrepentant sin in your life, you're not going to have the joy of the Lord...period. You're not going be able to rejoice always. It's going to steal the joy. So that could be what quenches the Spirit's work...sin in our lives. That's understandable. But also bad teaching. And that's where we twice saw Paul talk about people that are uninformed about the return of the Lord, worried about those who have already died, and will they ever see them again when the Lord returns...Chapter 4:13-18 and then 5:1-7. So I'm just trying to kind of set the table here. To say what could have been happening that he has to say, hey, don't douse the spirit. And immediately after that, he's going to say, here's what usually happens to douse the spirit. When you despise prophetic utterances. That your relationship to the spirit is related to your relationship to the Word of God. And you keep those hand in hand. You don't pull them apart. That's how you live the Christian life. And this is teaching that they would have also known. Again, we don't have to skip ahead, but we could look back. I mentioned John 14. You could turn there pretty quick. Um, go back in your Bibles to John 14, because the clearest teaching on the person and work of the Holy Spirit for the believer's life comes in the upper room. Why Jesus waits to the end of his ministry to teach on this the night before his death...because well, it's his prerogative. But two, he was with the disciples. That's important. Keep that in your mind as we read the ministry of this Holy Spirit. He was with these guys for three years. And then he goes to say, John 14:16-17, "I will ask the father, and he will give you another helper, that he may be with you forever. That is the spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it doesn't see him or know him. But you know him because he abides with you and will be in you." So these guys have just been with Jesus for three years, and they're starting to get nervous. Not just because he's like, the time is now. My hour has come. It's on. I've been telling you, the Son of Man must be rejected, betrayed, crucified and rise again. And now's the time. So they're worried. And you hear that language. Don't be afraid. Don't be worried. My peace I give to you. But then he says, look, um. I've been with you this whole time. I'm going away. But I'm sending somebody else. So look at verse 16. I will ask the father and he will give you another helper. So that first and foremost, if you're new to the faith and you've been thinking about the Holy Spirit as an it. It's not an it. He's not energy. He's the energizer. As in he's he's a person. He's spirit. But he's a person just like God the Father is spirit. Nobody's ever seen him. The son came to reveal the unseeable father. Now the spirit comes to reveal to us the son whom we haven't seen but did come. It's not a surprise when you look at how anybody is coming to understand a relationship with God...God the Father, And what did Jesus say his whole life? My will is to do the work of the father. I'm here to reveal him. I'm here to glorify him. What he says, I say. So now he's taking that baton and passing it to another. Because what's the Holy Spirit's role today? To reveal who Jesus the Son is to you. And in revealing the son to you, he reveals the father. So when he says, I'm giving you another helper and thank you, Vicki, he is the comforter. That's another Bible translation of helper. Another way to translate that would be the counselor, advocate strengthener...any of those titles are fine. But notice the word that comes before it...another one. As in, well, who was the first helper? Jesus is. He's the first comforter. He's the first counselor, he's the first advocate, but he's going away. And in John 16:7 he says, I tell you the truth, it's to your advantage I go away. And they're like, no, it's not. Yes it is. Because if I don't go away, the helper won't come to you. But if I go, I'll send him to you. As in, I've been bound in space and time and body to one place at one time. And when I'm with you guys, you seem to do pretty good. The moment I'm away from you guys your faith is gone and the ship starts to sink. And I got to walk on water to get to you. So he's saying, I've been with you this whole time, and I'm going to give you another helper. And when we hear the word another in the English language, we just have, um, that word another. But it doesn't differentiate for us...another of the same kind or another of a different kind. And in the Greek, though, this word for another helper is a word that means one of the same kind. It's a different as in, here's I'm giving you something else, but it's one of the same kind. Um, if you go to. Galatians. Uh, the word another...there is a different word in the original, and that's a word meaning, one of a different kind. And that's why Paul, uh, can say in Galatians 1, if some who are wanting to preach another gospel, Galatians 1:6. I'm amazed that you are so quickly deserting him who has called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel, which is really not another. That's one of a different kind. And that's what he says...out of here. That's why Galatians, as I told you, I think last week, is the only letter that gets no warm fuzzy welcome. You guys have abandoned Christ for a new gospel, a different gospel altogether.

  The word here for another is one of the same. So I'm sending you another helper. That he may be with you forever. That's a personal relationship. How personal is it? Look at verse 17. You will know him because he abides with you and will be in you. You can't get any closer than that kind of relationship. I abided with you. Jesus is saying, but I wasn't in you. Like I'm actually standing here talking to you guys in the upper room. He's going to stick with you. That's what the word abide means, John 15. Remain with you. Be close to you. Never leave you. Matthew 28, I'll be with you to the end of the age. But they're like, no, because you're about to.... It's because my helper is coming one of the same as me. He'll counsel like me. He'll comfort like me. He'll be there for you like me. He'll strengthen you like me. But he's in you. Not just with you. That's the personal relationship you have as a Christian with the Holy Spirit. He is with you always. And because he is with you always, Christ is with you always. So, it's not a better deal if you're here sitting right

  now and your life is falling apart. And you go, and if only Jesus would show up at my house today. If only I could see him. And I get we want to see him. 1 Peter says you long to see him. Your long to be with him. You love him even though you haven't seen him. But we could probably all agree that if we would, just like Christ would be out in our car today when we got in, we would be floored. Uh, if you remember Revelation chapter one, John sees him and falls as a dead man. So you would wreck your car. But he says there's no advantage to that. He says, I've given you the Holy Spirit. And everything I can do He can do better...that song. I mean, he does say. John 14:12. Truly I say to you, he who believes in me, the works that I do, he will do also and greater works than these. What greater work can be than the work he did, unless he sends his spirit to indwell every born again believer, to take his hands and feet and his message and go to the whole world. And he says you'll do greater works than these, because I go to the father and he just says, down in 16, I'm going to the father to ask of him to send the spirit.

  So how mind blowing is it for us today that we have the spirit? Personally, each one of you. That's why I went on my little rant last week, or whenever it was, that we don't need to ask him to fill this space. Are you in the room, Christian? He didn't depart from you. Even if you were nasty on the way over to somebody. It's true. You may have quenched him by bad attitude, a short word, sin you've committed recently. But he didn't leave you. Promises he'll be with you. So when you fill this space, he fills this space. But to the degree your life is submitted to him. You're being led by him. And the fruit of the spirit of love comes through you when you greet somebody in this place, and you have joy in the Lord in this place, and you are gentle in this place, and you're at peace in this place, and that comes out whether you sing or pray or listen. The Spirit's in this place. I'm not wondering, is he going to show up? You know, the only person I can take care of is me. And he has to show up in me. Meaning, I have to live in such a way that I'm not doing something to quench the work I'd like him to do through me, through the preaching of the word. Just like you have some service to give today here, you have some way to impact somebody's life in Christ. But if you just kind of come shrugging and ambivalent and like, you know, I'm just going to do my own thing. Please don't leave here and be like, yeah, I need to find a church where the spirit's there. Were you there, believer? Then you brought him here. But if you're quenching, dowsing...whether by belief or behavior...that's on you. That's not on him. So the first point is don't resist the work of the spirit.

  But now we'll see that a spirit led Christian pulls up to the table of a doctrinally healthy meal and is a word fed Christian. Go back to 1 Thessalonians 5, because right on the tail of this don't quench him is don't despise prophetic utterances. Despise is simply a word for show contempt, disregard, uh, you know, view despairingly have disdain for the teaching of the Word of God in any way, shape or form, whether that's your personal devotional life. Spending time in the word...with God. Asking the spirit to illumine the scriptures and invigorate your heart and fan into flame your love for him through the word. Or sitting under the teaching of the Word of God, presently saying, you know I'm fighting it. I'm tired, I'm drowsy. I didn't get my coffee. But like, you're actively engaging this sermon, this word. You're thinking about, not how this person that annoys you could apply it, how you can apply it. So I thought that guy was asleep, but apparently he's with me. He's my buddy. It's the Word of God that we could despise. And I know you're like, well, why wouldn't it say the Word of God? What's up with this prophetic utterance? But hang with me here. It's this despising, rejecting, showing contempt for the Word of God that is most directly connected to how we quench the Holy Spirit. And that's back to my initial premise, my main idea. As you reject the Word of God, resist the Word of God, you're shutting the door on the Holy Spirit's action in your life, his work in your heart. You can't take them apart. They come together as one. He uses that word. That's the fuel for the fire. And if you remove that fuel, you got no fire. You're running on fumes. Now all this about prophetic utterances. The word prophetic utterance was a really simple word just for telling forth the Word of God...some revelation. Now this will fall into two categories. God reveals himself through the word...all throughout the Bible. Is it new or has it already been said. So when you think of like Old Testament prophecy, it's something new. It hadn't been written before. Isaiah 53 reveals who the Messiah is going to be. It points us forward. It's new teaching...who to look for, what to look for when he comes. So when you read Isaiah 53 and the Word of God is opening your eyes to it, you're going, oh, I'm looking for this Messiah, and he's not going to be, um, this high and esteemed and accepted king like the Jews expected. He's going to be rejected, marred beyond appearance. Despised among men. Broken for our iniquities, pierced through for our transgressions. And then you read the Gospels and say, oh, it's him. Or revelation, whatever...you go through the Old Testament and it's all pointing forward to Christ. And that was a new word. That was a new revelation. And then these apostles and prophets in the New Testament got the same thing. They were able to reveal what God had said about who the Messiah is. It's Jesus. That's the Gospels. The epistles are now explaining who he is and what he came to do in greater degree. And then the book of Revelation tells us about his return. So there you have it. It's done. So any word from God now that we have is it something that's already been said and you stand on that word and you tell forth, or there's a view of prophetic utterance that is this new word that God gives you privately, that now you could go around telling people, you know, what's going to happen. That would not be forth telling. If you want two categories, that would be foretelling...f-o-r-e. I'm predicting versus what I do when I stand up here i don't predict anything. I tell forth what already has been said, f-o-r-t-h. So forth telling is a prophetic utterance in the way that we define it, which is the word has already come. And by way of application, I can lay the Word of God on your conscience. And through the Spirit's work, you feel the weight of it and do something about it. Because if you don't, and here is the forward element. If you don't respond to the Word of God as it's preached or as you read it and you're convicted by it. There are warnings for what's going to happen to you. So that's why we don't despise it.

  So the difference, I mean, trying to, like, practically illustrate this...me standing up here saying, if you are not in Christ today, repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Be saved or you will perish. That's not me being a prophet in the sense of predicting your future. All I'm telling you is what God has already said. That's all it is. And it will come to pass if you do not respond in repentance and faith. Apart from Christ, you will perish. Now me standing up here and saying, God told me that if the city of Hickory does not repent by next Friday, a portal is going to open up in the sky and fire is going to come down and wipe us out. I would hope you would walk out at that point. One guys eyes in first service got real big. I said, bro,

  an illustration. But you get guys going around saying that kind of crazy stuff and they have no, no authority whatsoever to say, I have seen in the future by way of a vision from God, and we need to do this or we're going to perish. Now you could stand up and say, I, I heard God tell me that if people who are out of Christ don't repent, they will perish. And I'm going, yeah, I agree with you 100%. So what's so predictive about that? What a fourth telling is, is it's less about the word predictive and more about this idea of prescriptive. That I'm prescribing the Word of God to you in warning some, and in encouraging others. It's a prescription like a doctor writes and they say to you, if you don't take this medication, this is probably what's going to happen. So he prescribes it and he says, without this thing, you're going to die. You don't get the surgery, you're going to die. He doesn't tell you a date. He doesn't tell you exactly how, when and where, but he knows the outcome if you don't take that prescription, doesn't he? And you could ignore them, and that's the prescriptive nature of telling forth a prophetic utterance that we're not to despise. We take it dead serious. So I can look out here this morning and on the authority of the Word of God, open up to any Scripture that gives these type of warnings. If you're a person that thinks you can play around with sexual immorality, Proverbs 6:27, says, can a man take fire in his chest and his clothes not be burned? Can a man walk on hot coals and his feet not be scorched? So is the one who goes into his neighbor's wife. Whoever touches her will not go unpunished. I don't need to have a view of your future, that if you mess around with sexual immorality, that is your fate. Because Galatians 6 says, God is not mocked. What someone sows, they will reap. And you can go through the rest of Scripture and follow those warnings and say, listen, God's not messing around. He doesn't even give you his timeline on it. He doesn't tell you how close can you get to the sin? How long can you stay in the sin? How far? No he doesn't. He just says, listen, what you sow, you will reap...period. And if you want to mess around with that and think lightly of that just because it hasn't come around on you yet...God won't be mocked. I mean that is any prophetic word of warning in the Bible. Just as a prophetic utterance of encouragement isn't something that we should. Oh, is this guy predicting? No. He's just they're encouraging you. I remember, um, a mentor of mine, a good buddy back in the day when I was in my 20s. Um, he was a pastor out in California. And, I mean, he was so good at giving me a prophetic utterance of encouragement and exhortation. Why? Because he knew the word of God really well. I was hanging at his house on a Thursday night. I was about to leave for Yosemite for the weekend. And, you know, he, uh, he's a large man, which helps him be able to, like, put his hand on me and look through my soul. And he's like, well, you know, because I was just like, I'm going up to Yosemite, hang with some friends, climb some stuff...have a good time in creation. You know the heavens declare God's glory. And he's like, Adam, redeem the time, for the days are evil. I'm like, okay, I will. Only because at the very least, you're six foot seven, £280 and you could swallow me whole. But then he took that exhortation into this. Listen, you're going up and going to have this great time in God's creation and be hiking. And don't just enjoy general revelation there. Tell them of Christ. So I did, and I wouldn't have thought to do it if he didn't have that prophetic utterance for me. What did he do other than took advantage of the moment? He redeemed the time to bring me a word of exhortation that I wouldn't waste mine. There's nothing magical or mystical about that. But it does mean you are in tune with the Word of God. You're feeding on it. And the spirit is leading you to speak up and say something once in a while, or all the time. I mean, guys just have been encouraging me a lot as I've been telling some of the elders we were hanging out a couple days ago about going away for an anniversary and where I was going, and, you know, they just had words of encouragement for maximizing that time and enjoying the time away with my wife. And I would say usually at the end of that like, hey, man, that was a good word. You know, I wouldn't have thought of that. And I'm not talking about like a place to go eat. You know, how to redeem the time, the conversation, to have the things to appreciate when you're getting some time away. I put that under this category. Why? Because I could sit there and say, hmm. I should enjoy my wife in the days of my youth. Let me test that. What? That would be holding in contempt something very clear from Scripture. I may not always come out that clear if somebody's quoting the Bible word for word, but you get the gist of it. That as you maybe have that questioning, rejecting disposition and you may have reason for it, as I mentioned at the beginning, based on your background, but do know that when it is the Word of God already revealed, being exhorted to you and implored...whatever it might be, to just immediately, like, cross your arms and think like nobody speaks to me but the Word of God. That's arrogant. They might have been used or moved so much by the Holy Spirit to bring you that word.

  Now we'll get in next week. You have to come back. To learn about how do we test it, which is called discernment. But that's not this week's sermon. That's verse 21 and 22. As we think about this today and kind of bring it to a conclusion...we have to remember something very vital. In fact, the most important thing about the Holy Spirit's ministry. Because if we ever lose sight of this, you can go off in any wrong direction that the primary ministry, the essence of the ministry of the Holy Spirit since the time Jesus sent him back till now, is to enlighten our eyes and inflame our hearts for the glory of Jesus Christ. That's what he's trying to do all the time. He does it in a number of ways. I mean, the way in which you use your spiritual gifts to serve other people. How people can teach and preach and evangelize and disciple. Yeah, he can use a lot of different ways, but he's all aiming all those different works that he is doing through Christians to the same end. And not just he's trying to hit a general target. And if he gets close, like, oh yeah, you know, that didn't the center of the target he's always aiming at and has been since he came, is the glory of Jesus Christ. He's not okay with kind of missing the mark...a few rings out and saying, like, you know, miss the mark of glorifying Christ. But it was so cool when all those, um, Christians were just serving people for the sake of serving. It's not. He's not satisfied with that. His goal is for people to see and Savor Jesus Christ. Proclaim Christ, promote Christ. That's what he came to do. And he does it in lots of different ways. And so this morning, when you're thinking about how you know...what could the spirit be doing in my heart this morning as I sit here and listen? If you're not in Christ, he is speaking to you. And he's not trying to tell you, Hey, look at me. Look at the spirit. Pay attention to the spirit. No, he's saying listen to Christ. Look to Christ for your salvation. Now the one who works that salvation out in your heart right now, if you're not in Christ, is the work of the Holy Spirit. But the Holy Spirit isn't the one who died on the cross. He's pointing to Christ. He's saying, look to the cross. Look to the Son. Look to the one who's hanging there dying in the sinner's place. Look the one who is raised from the dead three days later and is now ascended at the right hand. Look to Christ, listen to Christ. He says, come to me if you're weary and heavy laden, repent of your sins, or else you will die in them. The ministry is about Christ. What the spirit is doing is he is focusing all the attention on him. He offers you salvation in Christ. He points to the son. Just as when then you see the son, and then you understand the father, that this God who for some of you was this just generic deity in the sky, and you've never known him personally. And the only way you know the father is through the son, and the only way you see the son for who he is is through the work of the spirit. And how does he work in your heart right now? Well, he's enlightens the eyes of your heart. Whatever darkness, whatever veil, whatever you couldn't see of who Jesus is, he comes through. He bursts through in light. And that's why in this moment right now, there might be thoughts that you're having about who Jesus is as the Son of God and what he did that's moving some gears that haven't been moved in a while...rusted. Because you're saying that's Christ...the Savior, the son, the Redeemer. The one who atoned for my sin. The one who stood in my place.

  The one who gives me his righteousness. The one who takes away my sin. That's Christ. Who's that helping you to believe it? Breaking through the darkness into your heart and bringing in light...it's Christ, but the work is through the spirit. Just as if you felt cold and distant and far from God, and there's warmth coming into your heart. That's the Spirit's work. Why? Because it's light and heat...that flame. And that you feel something for once again. And it's not because of my pleading with you, my earnestness. It's just that you would know Christ. It's just that you would know him, like I know him...personal. He gave his life for someone like me. I want you to know him too. But my tears and pleading can't take you there. You've got to be open to the spirit, enlightening the darkness over the eyes of your heart and warming the coldness of your heart because it's dead if you're not in him. There's not a heartbeat. Only the spirit can bring you to life. And you have to plead, save me, the sinner. And if you do that, he is faithful and you could trust in him right now where you're sitting. He comes to you where you're at, you don't have to come and get closer to me or closer to the stage or talk to somebody afterwards. He speaks right to your heart. That's the ministry of the spirit to come and bring conviction for your sin. But then bring redemption in the son. Would you trust him today?

  And for the believers in the room. You have to remember that as the bride for the moment you turn the corner and walk down the aisle. The groom never takes his eyes off of you. They're fixed on you in love from the moment of your salvation until he comes to get you. And nothing will separate you from the love of God in Christ. And when you feel that the least, the spirit is working in you the most, to pour abroad in your hearts, to shed abroad like a deluge, like a flood, the love of God poured out by the spirit, Romans 5:5 tells us. That even if you as a Christian feel that distance, feel that cold, feel that darkness...the Spirit uses the word to remind you you're not as far as you think you are. You are not be on the reach of the almighty hand of God and His Son. He saved you once. He can't bring you home? Is the spirit so weak that he could work in your life, Regeneration? He could take you from death to life. He can open your eyes to see the glory of Christ, that you would want to follow him. And now he can't finish the deal with you. He can't bring you home. He can't help you get over that sin. He can't help you fight that doubt. What work does the spirit have to do once you've been saved? It's to bring you all the way...not leave you behind. Not wonder has his presence departed from me as David feared in Psalm 51. He didn't because he can't, because the promise from Christ to the believer is...he makes his home in your heart. He's with you. But you've got to believe that with everything in you, at every moment of the day. That's faith built upon the promises in God's Word. Although you've not seen him, you love him. And then with joy inexpressible, you cannot wait for the day to see him face to face. That's the illuminating work of the Holy Spirit, making the glory of Christ shine as bright in our hearts as if we were standing in his presence.

  We all with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord...the spirit.

  Let's pray. Father, we thank you for revealing yourself to us through your son. And Christ, we thank you for sending us the spirit who revealed you to us. Nothing in any of that had anything to do with us. We are the recipients. You are the giver. And so we sing praise to you this morning, having once seen your glory in salvation from glory to glory as we come to your word and your spirit illumines our hearts and enlightens our eyes...were transformed into your likeness. And yet we long to see you on that day. So do that work we pray this morning. Amen.