The Hound of Heaven - Part B

Welcome to Connect with Skip Heitzig Weekend Edition. We're glad you've joined us for today's program. Connect with Skip Heitzig exists to connect you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times through verse-by-verse teaching of His Word. That's why we make messages like this one today available to you and others on air and online. Before we kick off today's teaching, we want to let you know that you can stay in the know about what's happening at Connect with Skip Heitzig when you sign updates. When you do, you'll also receive Skip's weekly devotional email to inspire you with God's Word each week. So sign up today at connectwithskip.com.

That's connectwithskip.com. Now let's get into today's teaching from Pastor Skip Heitzig. She broke the record. Somebody said, how did you manage to sell that many boxes to people? She said, it's not that hard. You've got to look them in the eye and make them feel guilty.

That might work with Girl Scout cookies. It doesn't work with the gospel. It's not your job. It's the job of the Holy Spirit to bring conviction. Case in point, Peter filled with the Holy Spirit, post-Holy Spirit coming on the day of Pentecost. He spoke to the crowd. And while he spoke, listen to what it says. And when they heard these words, they were cut to the heart. Another translation says they were convicted in their hearts. They weren't convicted in heart because Peter was a masterful sermon maker. He was a fisherman.

He was just kind of learning this stuff. They were cut to the heart because the Holy Spirit was convicting the world of sin. And they said, Brethren, what must we do?

That day 3,000 people were saved. I want you to notice what it says in verse 8 and verse 9. Notice it's sin in the singular, not in the plural. He will convict the world of sin, not sins. And verse 9 of sin, not sins because they do not believe in me.

Rather than just convicting the world of particular sins of bad behavior like murder or adultery or stealing or speeding, I've discovered the conscience, if it's working correctly, does a good job of handling those things pretty well in most people. But rather, the Holy Spirit will convict a person of sin, singular, and especially the kind of sin that the conscience will never convict a person of, and that is of unbelief. Unbelief. The world doesn't think unbelief is a sin. If you ask an unbeliever, do you think your unbelief is a sin against God?

No. Do you think murder is a sin? Okay, I can agree that murder is bad, but I don't think unbelief is bad. The world doesn't see that as a sin. In fact, many worldly people see unbelief as a badge of honor. You've heard it. You know, I'd really like to believe like you because you're just so simple-minded. Me, I'm a little more intelligent than the average bear. I'd like to believe that. I really would love to believe that, but I'm just too smart for that stuff. So they see their unbelief as something to be sort of enshrined.

They're proud of it. But it's actually the worst of all sin because it's unbelief that prevents the forgiveness of all other sins, of sin because, He said, they do not believe in Me. Only the Holy Spirit can convince a person that unbelief has to be dealt with. By the way, if you happen to live with anybody who's under conviction or work around or be around somebody in close proximity who's under the conviction of the Holy Spirit, be sure to let us know so that we can support you in prayer. If you're around a person under the conviction of God and they just are stubbornly fighting Him, they can act horribly and say hostile things to you.

It's hard to live around those who are living under conviction. True story, there was a professional golfer who was playing a tournament with Jack Nicklaus, President Gerald Ford, and Dr. Billy Graham. This was years ago. He was playing a tournament. At the end of the tournament, somebody asked that professional golfer, hey, what was it like playing golf with the President and Billy Graham? This man said, I don't need Billy Graham stuffing religion down my throat. Well, what was weird about that is come to find out the entire golf game, Billy Graham never brought up God or religion at all.

But the fact that he was there playing and this man knew who Graham was and what he stood for was just enough to bring that conviction to the surface. I don't need him stuffing religion down my throat. So the activity of the Holy Spirit in the world is to convince people that they're sinners, number one. Number two, to convict the world of righteousness. And then it says of righteousness, verse 10, because I go to my Father and you see me no more.

Let's unpack that. The Holy Spirit is going to convince people that they're not good enough as they are, that their own righteousness won't cut it before God. The world has a relative righteousness, their own brand. For most people, their righteousness is like a thermometer, you know, the ascending degrees on a thermometer.

And they'll categorize everybody according to degrees. In many people's minds, criminals, they'd be, you know, like way down low. They have maybe 20 percent righteousness. They're bad. They're convicts. They're in prison.

Maybe they did something really bad. But, you know, there's glimmers of hope in their life, so let's give them 20 percent. But then there's those who are better than the convicts. They act a little bit better.

We'll give them 40. Then there's still better men and better women. Maybe they're up to 60 or 80 percent. Then at the very top of the thermometer is God. He's 100 percent.

Nobody can match him. But these same people are banking that God in eternity is going to grade on a curve and that probably if you make 75 percent or above, you pass. You go to heaven. So these people who see relative righteousness will say, well, I'm not perfect. That's God.

But I'm not as bad as those people. So their motto in life, even if they're very religious, is like the Avis Renicar motto, we try harder. How do you get to heaven? We try harder. I'm going to be righteous.

I'm going to be good. It's a self-righteousness. The Holy Spirit will convince a person it's not enough. That relative righteousness is not enough, because here's the deal.

When Jesus hit the scene, when Jesus Christ came, he preached and presented, demonstrated a whole different kind of righteousness. In fact, he even said, which of you can convict me of sin? No one could. They tried.

They couldn't. He preached the Sermon on the Mount. It's a lovely sermon, but boy, there's enough in it to make one go, I don't match up. This is what he said in the Sermon on the Mount. Unless your righteousness exceed that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. And they would have thought, really?

Because the scribes and the Pharisees are like the best. Unless my righteousness is better than theirs, I don't go to heaven. Even the Sermon on the Mount, toward the end, he said, therefore be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect. If I'd have heard that, I would have said, I've lost hope.

There is no hope. I cannot match that standard of righteousness. I feel now like how Isaiah felt when he saw the Lord and said, woe is me, I am undone. Have you ever stood next to somebody who is an expert in something you're boasting about or practicing? Let's say you're in a conversation and you say, hey, I've been into this whole new thing lately, and then standing next to you is like the guy who invented it. Awfully embarrassing. Closest thing I can think in my life is I was asked to speak at the Cove, the Billy Graham Training Center, some years ago, and my topic was evangelism. I'm okay with that.

I can talk about that. But not when Billy Graham is in the audience. And that afternoon I was at his house and he says, I'm coming to not to hear you speak.

And I thought, no, please, don't do that. But he showed up. So now it's a whole different feel to speak about how to do evangelism when the world's greatest evangelist is sitting there. And to make it worse, right before I spoke, the moderator that evening said, Skip, we believe that not everybody here is saved necessarily just because they come to the Cove. We'd like you to call people to faith to do an ultra call.

I go, really? So now transfer that into what we're talking about. We can't brag about our righteousness when you're standing next to the righteous one any more than you can brag to NASA about, look, I made a paper airplane.

Isn't that cool? Then cut it. So it's the Holy Spirit's job that will convince a person, you're not good enough on your own. This righteousness won't cut it before God, and the standard is the life of Christ. So here's the deal. Jesus said of righteousness, because I go to the Father and you see me no more.

What does that mean? Jesus died on the cross for our sin, rose from the dead and ascended into heaven. When he ascended into heaven at the right hand of the throne of God, it's as if God was saying, this is the righteousness I will accept.

Here's the standard. This is the righteousness I will receive into my presence. You're listening to Connect with Skip Heitzig Weekend Edition. Before we return to Skip's teaching, we want to help you and the children in your life see the timeless story of Christ from cradle to cross with Nate Heitzig's new book, Christmas Under the Tree. Told through the eyes of an unlikely character and graced with illuminating illustrations, this gripping tale is rooted in the limitlessness of Christ's love and helps young readers understand why Jesus left heaven to be born under and die upon a tree. This exciting resource, along with a companion audio experience, are available to you now as our way of saying thanks for your gift of $25 or more to reach more people with God's love through Connect with Skip Heitzig.

Go to connectwithskip.com slash offer or call 800-922-1888 and request your copy when you give. Now, let's get back to Skip for more of today's teaching. So the Holy Spirit convinces people that they're sinners in need of a Savior, convinces people that their own righteousness isn't enough, but the one that Jesus will provide for them is enough. And only the Spirit of God can do that. He did it in the life of Paul.

We're going to be taking a tour of the journeys of Paul the Apostle. Paul the Apostle, a very religious, Jewish, zealot, rabbi, wrote these words in Philippians. Everything that was dear to me I count as loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Jesus Christ for whom I have suffered the loss of all things and count it as rubbish. That I might be found in Him, not having my own righteousness which is of the law, but the righteousness that comes by faith in Jesus Christ.

That's the idea here. The Holy Spirit convinced Saul of Tarsus, who became Paul, that he was a sinner in need of a Savior, that his righteousness wasn't good enough. He needed what Christ would provide for him. And number three, notice, he'll convince or convict the world of judgment. And then in verse 11 of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged. It's the Holy Spirit's job to convince people that judgment is real and they're liable for judgment.

That if they reject the solution for their sin, if they reject the righteousness that God provides, then the inevitable consequence will be the judgment of God. And that is proven to them by what happened to Satan when Jesus died on a cross. When Jesus died on the cross, Satan tried to throw everything he could at him. He was unsuccessful. And when Jesus died on our cross, effectively splitting or destroying Satan's hold on people, Satan's doom was sealed.

You say, it was? Because for the last 2,000 years since the cross happened, Satan's done a pretty good job at messing up our world. That's right. That's because he hadn't been sentenced yet. That's coming.

That's coming. But the point is, is just as Satan was destroyed effectively on the cross, everyone who follows him is going to end up in the same way, and that is the judgment of God. I always think it's healthy when a person gets a little worried about becoming judgment of God. When anyone's cavalier about it, I don't care what happens when I die. I'm ready to face God.

I have a few questions to ask Him. I get a little skitter. It's like, I want to move five feet away. I just don't like lightning strikes.

I had an FBI agent in my office some time back and he was very interesting. He said to me, you know, I'm on the SWAT team and I've had guns pointed at my head a number of times. I've stood in the face of death on many occasions. Because it wasn't until recently that I'm suddenly afraid of dying.

I'm afraid of what's going to happen to me when I die. And then he quickly turned to me and says, that's kind of weird, huh? And I said, no, it's not weird.

And he goes, well, it makes me feel like a pansy. I said, I think it's one of the best things I've ever heard. I think it's one of the healthiest things is to feel worried about what's going to happen to you when you die. And I was able to talk him through that and through that led him to Christ, faith in Christ, to do something about that feeling of judgment.

Because when a person pushes away the conviction of the Holy Spirit, I don't care about that. It's not a good sign. Did you know that before the Titanic sunk that somebody wired the ship and warned them that there were huge iceberg masses, ice flows in the area? The operator on the Titanic wired back these words, shut up, we're busy. Now think of those words for anyone on the Titanic. Shut up, we're busy. How many people today, you talk to them about God. Shut up, I'm busy. Shut up, I want some fun.

Go away. So the Holy Spirit has a task to do. The disciples need him, that's undeniable. His activity is to convince the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. I want to close with this thought.

His agency is unremarkable. You see, the Holy Spirit's gonna do the work of convicting, but he's gonna use normal, unremarkable people, you and I. Look at verse seven and verse eight.

We'll close with this. Nevertheless, I tell you the truth. It's 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. Those 11 disciples gathered around him at that moment, you.

And then follow that up with verse eight. When he has come, and the implication is come to you, I'm gonna send him to you. And when he has come to you, then he'll convict the world of sin and righteousness and judgment. In other words, it's the Holy Spirit doing the conviction, but he's gonna use us as the agents of that, our words, human channels, human channels. How does the Holy Spirit do all this work in the world, you and I? Making ourselves available for him to do that in a conversation you have at Starbucks, at school, in the neighborhood, on the phone with relatives.

That's how he'll do it. You know that every conversion in the book of Acts, that there's a human agent involved in bringing the gospel and bringing conviction. Think of Peter on the day of Pentecost. It says they heard what Peter spoke. Peter was the speaker. It was the word of God, but Peter was the agent. Simple Peter, the fisherman.

It says they were cut to the heart. Now, some of you might be thinking, yeah, but what about Saul of Tarsus? I mean, he had a vision. That wasn't a human agent.

That's true. He had a vision of Christ. But remember what Jesus said. He said, Saul, Saul, it's hard for you to kick against the goads. You know what goads are?

Those are the things that prick an animal. He was speaking of the goads of conviction. It was Saul of Tarsus who heard Stephen give a testimony.

And he watched Stephen, and he heard Stephen, and he watched him die. And seeing that brought conviction. Listen, look at this man die for Christ, for what he believes. That brought conviction to his heart.

And Jesus said, it's hard for you to kick against those goads, isn't it? So in all of the cases and acts, we see the Holy Spirit working powerfully, but through normal people. God does miracles.

He always has, always will. He can send visions and dreams. I've heard of Muslims who have come to faith around the world. There hasn't been an evangelist, but God has given them a vision or a dream, and they've received Christ because of that. But normally, the Holy Spirit will use human beings to bring the conviction of sin and righteousness and judgment. That's the normal means through the believer's human channels. Have you ever thought of what it was like or what it would have been like to receive Peter's resume?

I mean, because these guys were very unimpressive, the apostles. Well, what would Peter's resume read like? Let's say Peter says, I want to join your mission group. Here's my application. Okay, well, let's see your resume. It says here, Peter, that you like to fish a lot and that you're pretty high strung, and it says here by others who have written about you that you get angry very easily. In fact, it says here that one time you actually cut off a guy's ear trying to protect God. I don't think we can accept you on our team, Peter. Next, and let's say the next resume is James and John.

They're brothers, so they're together. Boy, this is very troubling. I read here that you once wanted to nuke an entire village in Israel.

You remember the story they said about the Samaritan village. Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven and destroy them? This doesn't look good. Do you guys have ties to Al Qaeda? Are you terrorists? You wouldn't work on our team.

Or what about Thomas' resume? Boy, this does not look good, Tom. It says that you're the party pooper of the bunch. We do not want you. You're so negative. You get my point? All of these people that were gathered around Jesus at the time were unremarkable.

They were normal. You look inside the Holy Spirit's toolbox. You may find a brilliant one here or there or an articulate one here or there, a talented one here or there, but mostly you just find us. God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise.

What's their secret? The Holy Spirit. Active daily in those chance encounters you have by what you say and what you do. Somebody once said, yeah, there's four Gospels, but there's actually five Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, and you. And that author said, you are writing a Gospel, a chapter each day by the things that you do and the words that you say. People hear what you say and they see what you do, so what is the Gospel according to you? According to your words, according to your life, a lot of people won't read the Bible.

They're not going to pick up this book and start reading necessarily, but they're going to read your life. If the Holy Spirit is in you because you're filled, not with sorrow, but filled with the Spirit. Now, if you bump a pitcher, what comes out? Whatever's inside the pitcher. If people bump you in your life, what comes out? Whatever you're filled with. If you're filled with anger, that'll come out. If you're filled with frustration, that'll come out. If you're filled with the Holy Spirit, that'll come out. We're glad you've joined us today. Before you go, remember that when you give $25 or more to help reach more people with the Gospel through Connect with Skip Heitzig, we'll send you Nate Heitzig's new children's book, Christmas Under the Tree, which includes a companion audio experience.

Just in time for Christmas, this book will help young readers understand why Jesus left heaven to be born under and die upon a tree. To request your copy, call 800-922-1888. That's 800-922-1888. Or visit connectwithskip.com slash donate. For more from Skip, be sure to download the Connect with Skip Heitzig app where you can access messages and more content right at your fingertips. We'll see you next time for more verse-by-verse teaching of God's Word here on Connect with Skip Heitzig weekend edition. Make a connection, make a connection at the foot of the crossing. Cast your burdens on His Word. Make a connection, connection. Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never changing truth in ever changing times.