To convict the world of sin, what did Jesus say?
Because they believe not on me. The Holy Spirit convicts people that their unbelief is a sin, and they want to do something about that sin of unbelief. Today on Connect with Skip Heidzik, we'll see how the prompting and enabling of the Holy Spirit is active in believers and unbelievers alike, and certainly active in the apostles through the book of Acts. But first, here's a resource that gives you a glimpse into those who have sacrificed their life for the sake of the gospel. Today's modern martyrs actions mirror the courage of a long line of brave Christians. And as believers, it's important that we know the heroic sacrifice of those who gave it all for the Christian faith so that we too can boldly stand for Christ.
But most of these modern stories are unknown. We want to help encourage and strengthen you with the stories of those who've paid the ultimate price to share their faith so you can hold fast to the truth by sending you a copy of the New Book of Christian Martyrs. In this update to Fox's Book of Martyrs, Johnny Moore and Jerry Patengale highlight key martyrs of past centuries and feature stories of contemporary martyrs around the world. You'll be encouraged and inspired as you discover that men and women are still standing firm for the truth. The New Book of Christian Martyrs is our thanks for your gift of $50 or more to keep messages like this one today on the air for you and others, equipping you to know God's word and follow His will.
Call 800-922-1888 or give securely online at connectwithskip.com slash offer. We'll be in John 14 today in addition to the book of Acts. So let's join Pastor Skip for this study on the Holy Spirit. It's not your job to convict people of sin. You're not very good at it.
I'm not very good at it. Whenever Christians try to be the convictors, it doesn't come out as convicting. It comes out as condemnation. That's what happens when we do it.
When you leave it to the Holy Spirit, it drives a person down to the place where they see their deep need of a Savior and they desire forgiveness. Not like 13-year-old Elizabeth. 13-year-old Elizabeth was congratulated because she sold, get this, any Girl Scouts in here? She sold 11,200 boxes of Girl Scout cookies. One girl, Elizabeth, 11,200 boxes. She was on the news and people said, how did you do it? You know what she said? She said, you got to look people in the eye and make them feel guilty.
That might work selling cookies. It doesn't work sharing Christ. It's the Holy Spirit's job. And so when we look at the New Testament book of Acts, and we will, we see Peter on Pentecost standing up and preaching. And it says, do you remember how many people got saved that day? 3,000 souls got saved on Pentecost. That wasn't because Peter was a great exegetical preacher and analyzed the text with such precision. It was because the Holy Spirit of God convicted people and it says, listen to what it says, and they were cut to the heart. They were cut to the heart. And they said, what must we do? And Peter showed them what they must do. So the Holy Spirit will convict the world of sin.
Now there's something else I just want to make note of before we go on. Notice that it's in the singular, not in the plural. He doesn't say the Holy Spirit will convict people of sins, but of sin. It's not like he's going to come along and say, that was wrong, that was bad. It's not like he's going to convict people of individual sins like stealing or lying or speeding.
I find that most people aren't convicted if they speed anyways. Or murdering or adultery. No, your conscience will do that. The Holy Spirit, rather than convicting of individual sins, he'll convict of sin. And more particularly, he will convict you of the sin your conscience will never convict you of, and society will never convict you of.
And you know what that is? Unbelief. He'll convict the world of sin.
What did Jesus say? Because they believe not on me. The Holy Spirit convicts people that their unbelief is a sin. And they want to do something about that sin of unbelief. Now it takes the Holy Spirit to convince a person of that. Because you know what? Most worldly people don't see unbelief as a bad thing. They see it as a good thing.
It's almost a badge of honor to them. Well, I'm just so smart. I'm just so intelligent. That's why I don't believe. I can't believe. I'm just smarter than all you Christians.
I don't have a crutch like you have. And so they look at unbelief not as something that's a sin, they see it as a mark of intelligence. Jesus said it's sin. In fact, it's the worst sin of all. Because it's the sin of unbelief that prevents people from being forgiven for every other sin. So the Holy Spirit will convict the world of sin because they believe not on me. Now let me just say a word to you. If you are closely related to an unbeliever, you're married to an unbeliever, you have an unbeliever living in your house, you're around an unbeliever a lot. If that's true, you make sure you get special prayer before you go home tonight. And I mean that seriously.
Let us bear that burden with you. Because one of the hardest things to do in life is to share the same space with an unbeliever under the conviction of the Holy Spirit. When a person is convicted of their sin, but they haven't surrendered yet to Christ, they are miserable to hang with. They'll say the meanest things, they'll do the harshest things. A person under the conviction of the Holy Spirit can be a tyrant, can be hostile. So conviction is a good thing, but if you're living around somebody who has it, it can be a hard thing. So the Holy Spirit will convict the world of sin.
Next, look at the text again. He'll convict the world of righteousness, Jesus said. Of righteousness because I go to my father, chapter 16 verse 10, and you see me no more. The Holy Spirit convicts people of righteousness.
What does that mean? He convinces people that they are not good enough in their own righteousness. They're not good enough. Their own good deeds, religious works, righteous behavior isn't good enough. What does the Bible say about our righteousness?
It's like what? Filthy rags before God, filthy rags. The Holy Spirit is the one who convinces a person that their righteousness, whatever they measure that by, isn't good enough. You know the world has the standard of righteousness, right? And you know what it is typically?
It's typically this. Well, I'm not perfect, but I'm not as bad as some. So if they were to map out righteousness, it would sort of look like a thermometer or a gauge, okay? At the very bottom would be like the worst possible person in solitary confinement for doing the most heinous things ever in the world.
So that's the bottom tier, you know, all the bad criminals. Then you go up a little bit, you know, up to 20 degrees or 20% or 40%, you get a little bit better people, then a bit better people and better people. It's always fun when they say that, say, well, where are you on that scale?
Just point to a number, just curious. But then on that same scale, 100, well, that's God. That's the white hot perfection of God. And nobody can be perfect, so I'm better than a lot of other people. So it's a floating standard of righteousness.
Okay. Then Jesus comes along, and when Jesus came along, he demonstrated a completely different kind of righteousness. And he blew their minds when he said to them things like this, unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the most religious people you can think of, scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of God.
Ouch. That was a hard sermon to hear. And then in the same sermon, he said, be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect. He drew the line at 100%. Well, how would that make anybody feel hearing that? Not great, right?
Not a pat on the back. My righteousness has to be better than the religious dudes. I'm sure if I heard that sermon for the first time, there was a sermon on the mount, by the way, I'd feel like Isaiah the prophet, he had a vision of God. Remember what he said when he saw the vision of God? Remember what he said when he saw the vision of God? Did he say, wow is me? I'm lucky I saw God. I'm going on Christian TV to show people my new book, I saw God.
What did he say? Woe is me. Woe is me, he said in that vision. I'm a man of unclean lips. I dwell among a generation of unclean lips, and my eyes have beheld the Lord.
So, when you stand next to the perfect one, it shows how imperfect you and I are. An illustration I go back to is, years ago I was asked to speak at the Billy Graham Training Center. I've spoken there for many years back in North Carolina, and it was a thing that I did every year, and I was speaking that night, and that was okay.
I love doing that. I love speaking. I love speaking to believers, but that afternoon I was at Dr. Billy Graham's home. We had lunch, which was a privilege, and he said to me, I'm coming to hear you speak tonight. Well, I've never put myself in the Billy Graham category, but if I said to you, if you were going to speak, hey, I'm going to come listen to you speak tonight, you might go, well, you just stay home, and that's what I'm thinking. Just relax.
You have a busy life. You're like, you're a televangelist. Just hang out, because I'm going to come and hear you tonight, and okay, to make matters worse, you know what my topic was at the Cove? Evangelism. So I am going to speak on evangelism with the world's greatest evangelist in the house, in history. He's seen more people come to Christ in his ministry than any person who has ever lived, and I'm going to talk on evangelism.
Hello. It was just so hard to get that message out, and then before I went up to speak, they said at the Cove, now not everybody here who comes to these meetings is saved, you may want to give an altar call. I said, great, I'm going to give an altar call to the guy who does altar calls all the time with great success, but I mean, all of that just, I just realized, you know, it put me in my place, okay, in a good way. It's like, he's Billy Graham, and I'm not, but here goes. So in the same manner, you never impress God with your righteousness, because he's so perfect. He's perfectly righteous, but, and this gets to the point, Jesus came and died atoning for our sins, and he ascended into heaven, and when he ascended into heaven, it was as if the father said, now, this is the righteousness that I will accept.
His righteousness is perfect, and he ascended into heaven and sat at the right hand of the throne of God. It's as if God was saying, this is the righteous life, the righteous standing, the righteousness I will accept. So the Holy Spirit then convinces us that we are sinners, but he tells us what to do about it. He convinces us we need to stand in Jesus imputed righteousness, it just means he gives it to you, he confers it upon you when you believe in him. So he makes you feel really bad that you're a sinner, but then really good, because you're standing in his righteousness. As Paul said in one of my favorite texts in Philippians, and by God's grace, we'll get to it, one day on Sunday morning, when Paul said, when Paul said, and being found in him, not having my own righteousness, which is by the law, but the righteousness which comes through faith in Jesus Christ. I am not standing in my goodness, my righteousness, my background, my pedigree, my religion, the religion of my parents and grandparents.
I'm found in him, having his righteousness and not my own. So the Holy Spirit convicts the world of sin, he convicts the world of right of judgment, or of sin, of righteousness, and then third, go back to the text, he convicts the world of judgment. And it says of judgment, because the ruler, notice that, or prince, the ruler of this world is judged. What the Holy Spirit does, part and parcel of the work of the Spirit with an unbeliever, is to show them not only are they a sinner and that Jesus has perfect righteousness for them, but if they push his righteousness away and say, I don't want to receive Christ, I don't need Christ, the further conviction is that there is a judgment that is coming and they are standing right in judgment's path, that there is such a thing if they reject the righteousness of Christ. And Jesus says that is proved by what happened to the ruler of this world.
When Jesus died on the cross, Satan's fate, his doom was sealed, it was set. Now I just want to say it's always healthy, it's always healthy, it's always healthy when somebody is nervous about judgment. I hear people say, you know, I don't like churches that speak about judgment.
I do, I'm sorry. I do, because people need to know the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. And if you say no to Christ, there is a judgment that is coming, and that's the work of the Holy Spirit as well. And it's always a healthy sign when I find somebody who's worried about where they're going to go when they die.
That's good. God uses guilt so that it can be alleviated at the cross. I was a chaplain for the FBI for a number of years, and I'll never forget a meeting that I had with one of the agents. He came to my office and he was embarrassed. He kind of paced around a little bit and he goes, I don't know how to say this, I just feel weird.
And so he finally got around to saying, you know, I'm a special agent, I use a firearm, I put myself in harm's way, I've shot at people, I've killed people, I've had people shoot at me, and I've never worried about it, ever. But he said, the weird thing is I'm getting on an airplane to go to Washington DC to headquarters, and I'm worried about flying and dying. And he said, I feel weird, like, where am I going to go when I die? And then he goes, isn't that weird?
No. That's one of the smartest things you could ever say or feel. And we had a wonderful lengthy conversation at the end of which he bowed his head and received Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. That's the Holy Spirit that convicted him of sin and righteousness and of judgment. So it's the Holy Spirit that pursues us and testifies that Jesus Christ is what we need. That's the Holy Spirit with a person, okay? Second, the Holy Spirit comes inside of us, go back to verse 17 of John 14.
Love that sound. John 14 verse 17, the Spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees him or knows him. But you know him for he dwells with you, we just covered that, and will be in you. That's future tense, will be in you. Okay, so here's a glass, here's a pitcher. Here's the water inside the pitcher. I'm placing it next to the glass. What is the relationship of the water now to the glass? It's with the glass, that's all, right? Just with it. They share the same table space.
But if I do this, then what is the relationship? Wait, they sealed it for me. They sealed it for me. Yeah, let's put this out here so he cannot pour. Okay, hold on, there we go. Okay, now, okay, so now, now where is it? What is it? What's the relationship?
It's in. So you just used a different preposition. You know, a preposition. Remember prepositions, by the way? Remember English? Okay, prepositions.
Okay, it's kind of fun to go over these things like, oh no, English class. Prepositions tell us how nouns and pronouns work, right? So, the first preposition it's with, that's when it was here.
Now I poured it, so now it's in. That's a different preposition, and Jesus uses that. He dwells with you, and he will be in you.
This is the church age now. The holy something happened at Pentecost that brought the Holy Spirit into the lives of believers that happens since that happened on the day of Pentecost to every person in the future, and that is the Holy Spirit comes in. When you receive Christ as Lord and Savior, the Holy Spirit comes inside of every single believer. He dwells with you.
He lives inside of you. Now, in the Old Testament, there are records, and we don't have time to chase it all down because of time. We're only doing three weeks, but in the Old Testament, there are certain people that the Holy Spirit came with and around and upon or in for a very special task.
For example, a judge by the name of Othniel. Othniel, it says, was filled with the Holy Spirit so that he could perform a task. King Saul, it says, he was filled with the Holy Spirit. He became the king of Israel, not a great king, by the way, but then the Holy Spirit departed from him, and that's what David meant in the Psalms when he said, take not thy Holy Spirit from me because he saw what happened when the Holy Spirit said adios to King Saul. He thought, I don't want the Holy Spirit saying adios to me, but it was that tentative relationship, but now in the church age, we as believers have the Holy Spirit living in us 24-7, all the time.
It's not like, oh, you wake up and he left during the night, you don't know where he went, so you better get him back. He dwells permanently with believers 24-7, maturing you, sanctifying you, and a number of other things. 1 Corinthians chapter 3 verse 16, Paul says, do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Holy Spirit of God dwells in you? In you. In you. 1 Corinthians 6, your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, same word Jesus used, whom you have from God, you are not your own, you were bought at a price, therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit which are God's.
Okay, now listen carefully. This happened in the church age on the day of Pentecost. On the day of Pentecost, something happened that changed the relationship of the Holy Spirit with every believer from that day forward who is in Christ. And as I will show you, this is what is meant by the term the baptism with the Holy Spirit. The baptism with the Holy Spirit. Baptism. Baptizo. You know what a baptism is, we had a baptism this weekend.
What do we do with people? We put them in and under, we immerse them in water. Baptizo means to immerse in. So the baptism, you are immersed in something and that is this, the Holy Spirit comes inside of you to dwell within you and then he puts you in or immerses you in the body of Christ called the church. That's the baptism with the Holy Spirit. By the way, Jesus predicted it and before him, John the Baptist predicted this. John the Baptist said this in Matthew 3 verse 11. I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance.
But he who is coming after me is my dearer than I whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. Jesus came along and repeated that prediction, Acts chapter 1 verse 5. He said for John truly baptized with water but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now.
Hey do you mind since I have water here? Now it really is in me. Okay so we are baptized, we are put into, we are immersed in the body of Christ. Every single believer in Jesus Christ is immersed into the church, the body of Christ. Baptism with the Spirit, he puts you in a group, a family, the body of Christ. 1st Corinthians chapter 12 verse 13, for by one Spirit we were all baptized. He's writing to Corinthians they were far from being perfect or holy or awesome or powerful.
We were all baptized into one body whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free and we have all been made to drink into one Spirit. That's Skip Heintzig detailing how the work of the Holy Spirit is present within us. Find the full message as well as books, booklets and full teaching series at connectwithskip.com. God wants us to know him deeply and intimately through study of his word.
That's why we share these messages to help you connect to God through his word and grow in your walk through an intentional relationship with him. And when you support this ministry you keep these teachings available to you and to so many others around the world so they too can grow and connect with God. Just call 800-922-1888 to give a gift today. That's 800-922-1888 or visit connectwithskip.com slash donate.
That's connectwithskip.com slash donate. Thank you. Come back tomorrow as Pastor Skip examines a life fully devoted and surrendered to God. I look at this as a principle. When your life is surrendered to and you live for the God of glory you will see the glory of God. You'll experience the glory of God. And some don't experience that. Perhaps it's because that singular focus on the God of glory is not where it should be in your life. Connect with Skip Hyten is a presentation of Connection Communications connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.
