Four Part Harmony - Part B

If you want scriptural harmony, it's the balance of all the Bible truths.

Sometimes I meet a person who zeroes in on one particular little truth that he or she emphasizes. It's like playing one string on a guitar. Ding, Ming, Ming, Ming, Ming. Play them all.

Make beautiful music. Let it all be balanced. It's the Spirit of Truth.

Welcome to Connect with Skip Weekend Edition. Have you ever gone to one of those ice cream parlors where they take your favorite flavor and then mix in your choice of added candies, nuts, or cookie crumbs? You can take the same basic ice cream and end up with dozens of delicious combinations. Well, our understanding of certain concepts in the Bible can be like that.

We start with a basic understanding, but then add in the extras we like to arrive at different conclusions. Today, Pastor Skip is digging into one of the more difficult concepts in the Bible, the Trinity, a truth that definitely comes with dozens of different ideas. And today, Pastor Skip is focusing on John chapter 14.

Here's Skip with today's message. I heard a story about a man who was in front of the White House. Now, this was a long time ago. This was the Abraham Lincoln White House. He was in front of the White House. He was crying. He was crying.

And a little boy walked up to him and said, why are you crying? The man said, because my son is going to be executed. He deserted from his company. This is the Civil War.

He deserted from his company. He's going to be shot. But if I could just see President Lincoln, the guards won't let me in, but if I could just see President Lincoln, I know President Lincoln's reputation, and I know he's a kind man, and he would pardon my son if he knew all the facts of his desertion.

The little boy said, don't cry. I'll take you to see the president. He's my father. And as the story goes, he got an audience with that president.

That man got an audience with President Lincoln, and President Lincoln pardoned that man's son. So two parts in perfect harmony together. God the Father, the Provider, God the Son, the Intercessor. Here's the third, the Holy Spirit. Now, what is the Holy Spirit?

You might ask. Wrong question. Who is the Holy Spirit is the right question. Because you'll notice in just the few verses that we've read, that Jesus uses personal pronouns, right, to describe the Holy Spirit.

Notice them. Whom the Father will send. Him.

He. All of those are words of personality. Listen, the Holy Spirit is not some force or some feeling or some mode of God. When the Bible speaks about the Holy Spirit, the Bible speaks in two ways. The Holy Spirit is a person, and the Holy Spirit is God. The Holy Spirit is a person, and the Holy Spirit is God. That's how the Bible speaks about it. The Bible would say, in a nutshell, there's only one God who eternally exists in three persons. One God existing in three persons. Now, if you don't get that, don't feel disappointed. How many of you don't get the Trinity? Raise your hand.

I'll raise both my hands. I don't completely get it. I believe it. It's declared. I don't quite understand it. So if you don't completely understand it, we'll talk more about the Trinity in weeks ahead. But don't feel bad. Welcome to the company.

True story. Augustine of Hippo, you may remember that name. He was one of the fourth century church fathers in Northern Africa. Augustine of Hippo was trying to figure out the Trinity. And he was a scholar, very bright man, very biblically astute. He was reading and thinking and trying to figure it out.

He goes, I've got to understand, Father, Son, Holy Spirit. He was at the beach one day trying to figure this out, contemplating the Trinity, and he watched. Augustine watched as a little boy dug a hole in the sand and took a jar, a clay jar, his little bucket, went to the ocean, filled it up with water, poured the water into the hole, went back to the ocean, got some water in it, poured water into the hole, went back to the ocean, got water, poured it in the hole, went back.

You got the idea. Augustine finally went up to the little boy and said, what are you doing? And the little boy confidently declared, I'm going to put that ocean in this hole. A light went off in Augustine's mind.

That's what I've been trying to do. I've been trying to take that ocean called God and put it into this hole. My mind, not going to fit, not going to work.

Impossible to take something totally limitless and stuff it into something limited. My own head. But I want you to know something about the Holy Spirit, and we need to know who he is. We need to know what he does, and we need to know how he does it, or else there's not going to be harmony. Notice, first of all, the Holy Spirit is called the helper. Verse 16, I will pray the Father, and he will give you another helper. The Greek word parakletos. It's translated helper, counselor, comforter.

Best meaning is this, one who is called alongside of you to help you. You know what that tells me? It tells me that God knows we need all the help we can get.

Would you agree with that? Do we need all the help we can get? Is the Christian life easy?

No, we need help. It's the Holy Spirit who puts fuel in our gas tank, so to speak. Tim Downe writes these words, watches, cars, and Christians can all look chrome and shiny, but watches don't tick, and cars don't go, and Christians don't make a difference without insides. And for a Christian, that is the Holy Spirit. He's a helper. Something else about the Holy Spirit, he's not just a helper. Notice what Jesus calls him, another helper.

I'm going to pray the Father, and he's going to give you another helper. Now, I want you to get this. You have to understand this to get the point. In Greek, there's two words that are translated in English, another, but they're two different words. There's heteros, which means another of a different kind, and second, there's the word alos, which means another of exactly the same kind.

There's a big difference in those. Here's an example. You go to the store and you buy a CD. You put the CD in your player and you're listening to it, and you say, I hate this. I thought I liked this artist, but I hate this album. I don't want this. I'm going to take it back and get another.

You're going to use the word heteros, another, not of the same kind, but a different kind, something that you would like. But if you buy a CD, plug it in, listen to it, you go, I love this. And a friend listens to it, and a friend goes, I like it too. And you say, keep it. I'll go buy another. You'll use the word alos. I'll buy another one of exactly the same kind.

So you get the point now. Jesus says, I'll pray the Father, and He will give you alos, another comforter, exactly like I've been to you. You've been relying on Me. You've been looking to Me. I've comforted you.

I've been a help to you. I'm going away, but the Father will send a comforter, a helper, a counselor, just like I've been to you. Now in verse 18, He says, I will not leave you orphans.

I will come to you. What is that all about? Well, did you know that in ancient Judaism, whenever disciples, pupils lost their rabbi, they were known as orphanas, orphans. They were teacherless.

They were helpless. The rabbi has left them. I'm not going to leave you orphans.

I'm going to come to you. And that is by sending the Holy Spirit. So He's a helper. He's another helper. Something else to notice about the Holy Spirit. He's a permanent helper.

Look at verse 16 again. I will pray the Father. He will give you another helper that He may abide with you forever. How long is forever?

Well, it's forever. It's not, He'll abide with you for three and a half years, and then He's gone. Or He'll get you jump-started in your Christian walk, and then you're on your own. He'll be with you forever.

He's a permanent helper. You'll notice in verse 17, concerning the Holy Spirit, Jesus says, He dwells with you and shall be in you. With you, in you. Later on, in Acts 1, Jesus said, the Holy Spirit will come upon you.

So notice that. He'll be with you. He'll be in you. He'll come upon you.

Look at it this way. The Holy Spirit comes after us to save us. The Holy Spirit comes in us to sanctify us. And then the Holy Spirit comes upon us to supercharge us, to get us ready and able to do His work, God's work, in this world.

That's the relationship. Something else to notice, the Holy Spirit is a reliable helper. Look at verse 17. He's called the Spirit of what? Truth. He's reliable. He's genuine. He's the Spirit of truth. He's the source of truth, and He'll tell you the truth. He'll tell you the truth about you and about God and His righteousness. He's the source of truth.

He's always about telling people the truth, not just about making them feel good, but telling them the truth. Now, I want you to turn with me to John 16, just a couple pages to the right. John 16.

At our pace, we're going to forget everything today anyway by then. So John 16, verse 7. Nevertheless, I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away, for if I do not go away, the Helper will not come to you. But if I depart, I will send Him to you. I will send Him to you. And when He is come, He will convict the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment, of sin because they do not believe in Me, of righteousness because I go to My Father and you see Me no more, of judgment because the ruler of this world is judged.

I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. However, when He, here's the designation again, 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. Apart from the Holy Spirit, no man, no woman can ever know the truth about their sinful condition and about the righteousness of God and what it takes to get to God. So how can you tell if a person's filled with the Holy Spirit? Now just think about that for a minute. How can you tell if a person's filled with the Holy Spirit? Will they become the lead singer?

Nope. You can tell if a person's filled with the Holy Spirit. If he's the Holy Spirit, the person will be holy. If he's the Spirit of truth, he will be truthful. He will love the truth and it's not just one bit of truth, but the balance of truth. If you want scriptural harmony, it's the balance of all the Bible truths. Sometimes I meet a person who zeroes in on one particular little truth that he or she emphasizes. It's like playing one string on a guitar, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.

Play them all. Make beautiful music. Let it all be balanced. He's the Spirit of truth. Something else to notice about the Holy Spirit.

He's an exclusive Helper. You'll notice it says the world can't receive Him. The Spirit of truth verse 17, 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. The world can't receive the Holy Spirit. You know why?

Because they don't believe in anything they can't see. It's interesting that Missouri is called the show me state. Pardon me if you're from Missouri, but I've always enjoyed that.

I smile when I oversee a license plate. The show me state. You know the whole world is the show me state when it comes to spiritual things. The whole world the whole world says if I can't see it, I won't believe it. Boy, that's a shame.

In fact, that's not even good science. Did you know that right now in this room there's pictures? Right now there's pictures. You can't see them, but they're floating through the air and there's sounds in this room. You can't hear them, but they're floating in this room.

You know what I'm talking about, right? Radio waves, television waves. If you had the right receiver and you could tune into the frequency, you'd see and you'd hear. They're actually here. They're present with us. Well, in 1 Corinthians it says the natural man, that's the unsaved person, cannot receive the things of the Spirit of God. They're foolishness to him. So it takes the Holy Spirit to open up the eyes of that person, open up the heart.

Have you ever talked to someone about the gospel and they don't get it? And you go, don't you see? Can't you see? No, they can't.

They lack the capability. You might as well tell a blind man how beautiful the sunset was yesterday. You go, can't you see?

No. So the Holy Spirit has to sort of put in a new SIM card into our unit, activate us spiritually, convict us of sin and righteousness and judgment so the person goes, lights on, I get it, I see it. It's the work of the Spirit. So that's the third part of the harmony.

He's the helper and I've described in how many ways he helps. Consider now as we close the fourth part of this four-part harmony and that's us. Verse 15, here it is. If you love me, keep my keep my commandments.

Got it? Does it all make sense now? God's part. He's the provider. He writes the score.

Jesus, he's the intercessor, first violin. Holy Spirit, he's the conductor, he's the helper, he's the comforter. We, our part, we're the conformers. If you love me, you'll keep, you'll obey, you'll do my commandments. You know what that means? It means that if we're not obeying Christ, if that's not our lifestyle, I didn't mean you're perfect, but your general lifestyle, my general lifestyle is that of being one in obedience to Christ. If you're not being obedient to Christ, you are fighting the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, all three of them. That's why there's not harmony.

That's why it sounds out of tune because our part is to conform. We're spoiling the melody. Years ago, I had this cool coffee machine. It was an espresso machine. Actually, I could tell my life story based on the coffee machines that I've owned. This was a gift that was given to me by a guy who had it.

He said he didn't want it. It was the old school espresso machine with the little arm on it, had a little chrome metal boiler. You put water in it, plug it in, put on the top, and that water would boil, and you'd press the coffee down.

Loved it. You couldn't tell how much water was in the boiler, so they put a little glass tube on the side connected to the boiler. That was like the gauge. So as the water was in the tube, so was the water in the boiler. If the tube had water up to the top, boiler was full. If the line of the water in the glass tube was halfway, it was half full in the boiler. If it was all the way down to the bottom in the glass tube, there was no water in the boiler. It was the gauge.

How could you tell how much water is in the boiler? Look at the gauge. How can you tell if a person loves God?

Look at the gauge. And the gauge is obedience to Jesus Christ. If you love me, keep my commandments.

So the Trinity has always been in perfect harmony. It's that fourth part that we have problems with sometimes. Look at it this way. My obedience to His voice will make the melody sweeter. My disobedience to His voice will make the melody more sour. So what does the world hear when you're around as they observe your lifestyle? Does the world listen to the music that is produced and go, oh, I hate that? Or do they go, ah, that's music. That's beautiful.

That's the question. Are you out of tune? Are you in tune? Are you marching to His tune? I want to close with an illustration that one of my favorite musicians of years gone back who's now in heaven, his name is Larry Norman. He writes this. And he did it in a song. I'm not going to play the song.

I'll just read this to you. Once there was a tune, and everyone knew how it went. But as time went by, people began to forget until at last no one could remember.

And there was hatred and wars and death. And then one day somebody said, how does the tune go? There is no tune. There never was.

It's only a myth. These were the philosophers. You mean there's no tune at all?

Well, it doesn't really matter what tune you play as long as you play something. These were the religious leaders. And so the world played on. And there was hatred and wars and death. Then one day the people became wary of this song, and they all sat down on the side of a hill.

And suddenly they heard a very strange voice. And someone said, that sounds like the tune. There is no tune. There never was.

There never will be. Well, it doesn't really matter what tune you play as long as you play something. And don't hurt anybody, especially me. But the people listened. And a man appeared before them with a smile on his face and a sad look too. And he was singing the tune. And some of the people began to sing along. And the people who loved him decided to follow him.

But the people who hated him decided to kill him. And they did. And when it was finished, they went back to their houses of philosophy and religion, and they sat down at their tables to eat and drink. Suddenly they were interrupted by a familiar voice. And they ran to their windows and looked outside to see who it was.

It was him. And they became confused and afraid. And they wondered, how could they be rid of him once and for all? And while they were watching him, something very strange happened.

How did he do that? I don't really know, but he's gone. And when trouble goes, you don't ask where.

He'll never return again, I hope. Yet again, they were interrupted. This time they ran out into the streets to lay hold of him, but they couldn't find him. Just a lot of people smiling, and they all knew the tune. And when the people made a mistake, they stopped and listened.

That's how they knew the tune, because they listened. And if you listen, you'll hear it. It's all around you.

Just listen to your radio, watch television, listen to your leaders, to the authorities, to the governments, to the experts. But if you really listen, you can hear another tune. But you have to listen quietly, and you have to listen every day. God is singing his love song to the world. In the person of the Lord Jesus Christ, God so loved the world that he gave his son.

If you really listen, you'll hear the tune. And if you get your life in tune with his life, the harmony will be sweet and melodious. The best way to live is with a life in tune with God. That begins with a relationship with Jesus.

That's where we're in for today. But if you want to learn more about getting your life in tune, about having that relationship with Christ, you can do that at connectwithskipp.com. Just click the Know God link at the top of the page. And you just heard the message, Four-Part Harmony, part of our current in-depth study in the book of John called Believe 879. We'll have more information about that in just a moment.

But first, we wanted to let you know about this month's Connect with Skip resource offer. 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 connectwithskipp.com slash offer. If you'd like a copy of today's message, you can find it at connectwithskipp.com or you can call us and order one at 1-800-922-1888.

Each copy is just $4 plus shipping. Have you ever known someone that not only makes promises, but keeps them? There is one person who has never broken a single promise, and we'll find out more next time, so I hope you can join us right here in Connect with Skip Weekend Edition, a presentation of Connection Communications. Connecting you to God's never changing truth in ever changing times.