How to Do the Impossible

Adriene Rogers was a motivator, an encourager, and a leader of the faith. He was also passionate about presenting scriptural application to everyday life circumstances, and you'll hear that in today's message.

Now, let's join Adriene Rogers. Now take God's Word and find John chapter 14, and then find verse 12, and when you've found it, I want to ask you a question. Don't read the verse yet, but I want to ask you a question before you read the verse.

How many of you are believers in Jesus Christ? Would you lift your hand? Okay, now I'm going to read the verse.

All right, take your hands down. Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also, and greater works than these shall he do, because I go to my Father. Now, I'm not going to ask you to lift your hand, but how many of you equal and exceed the works of Jesus?

Now, don't lift your hand one way or the other, because I don't want to embarrass you. Now, he said, Jesus said, if you believe in me, the works that I do, you'll do, and greater works, and he said, I'm a believer. Question, are you equaling and exceeding the works of Jesus? Well, you say, pastor, I'm really not, but didn't he say if you believed in him, you would? Well, who's right? You or him? No, he's right, but we happen to be wrong.

We're not wrong here. You know, there was in a battle, the holder of the flag got out in front of the regiment and a man said to the sergeant, sergeant, the flag is out ahead of the regiment. Shall we bring the flag back? He said, no, let's bring the regiment up to the flag. Now, what we need to do is to take this verse and not bring it down to our experience, but to bring our experience up to this verse.

Would you agree? Other than trying to dumb this verse down, let's pump ourselves up with spiritual power and do what God wants us to do because most of us are unbelieving believers. Now, what he is telling us to do on the surface seems to be impossible.

The title of the message is how to do the impossible. The impossible becomes possible by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit of God. Now, here's what I want you to see, that indeed we can, should, and will not only equal, but exceed the works of Jesus Christ if we understand the ministry of the dear Holy Spirit of God. Now, you read verse 12, but let's go on down to verses 16 through 18 and that will help explain it. Jesus said, and I will pray the Father and he shall give you another comforter.

Notice, and if you have a Bible like mine, the word comforter is capitalized. It's a person that he may abide with you forever, even the Spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him. But ye know him for he dwelleth with you and shall be in you.

I will not leave you comfortless. I will come to you. Now, when Jesus said, I will come to you, he's not talking about what we call the second coming of Jesus Christ, what he's talking about is the coming of the Holy Spirit into our lives. The Holy Spirit is going to come, and when the Holy Spirit comes, Jesus said, I am the one who is coming because Christ and the Holy Spirit cannot be separated. The best definition I know of the Holy Spirit or a good definition is Christ in the Christian. Now, he is to abide in the Christian.

Notice what he says here. He will abide in us, and I will give you the Holy Spirit, another comforter, that he may abide with you. Now, the word abide is an interesting word.

It means to settle down permanently. Ron Dunn, who's now in heaven, one of my dearest friends, one of the greatest preachers that I ever knew, said something that I've never been able to forget, and I quote frequently. He says, our heart is not a hotel or a checkout time, 12 noon on Sunday. When the Holy Spirit of God comes, he comes to live in us, and he comes to abide in us. Now, look at this scripture again. He says, I will not leave you comfortless.

Do you see that? I will come to you, in verse 18. The word comfortless literally means helpless orphans. Now, he's saying you're not going to be like a child when your parents have deceased. You're not going to be like a street waithe. I'm not going to just turn you loose. I am coming, Jesus said, I am coming to dwell with you permanently.

I'm not going to leave you as helpless orphans. Now, when Jesus said, the works that I do, you will do, and greater works than these, sure you do, that promise is made possible by the coming of the Holy Spirit of God. Now, four things I want you to learn about why the Holy Spirit of God has come and why we should not only equal, but exceed the works of the Lord Jesus Christ. Why has the Holy Spirit come? First of all, to produce the works of Jesus. It is the Holy Spirit of God that produces the works of Jesus.

Now, notice in John 14, verse 16 again, he says, Pray the Father, and he shall give you another comforter, another comforter that he may abide with you forever. Now, the emphasis is on the word another. In the Greek language, there are two words for another. One word means another of a different kind. The other means another of the same kind. Let's talk about transportation. You say that you said you have a horse and you're going to say, I'm going to get another kind of transportation.

I'm going to get a bicycle. So, that means another, and they would use the word another of a different kind. But the word Jesus uses here is another of the same kind.

I like this bicycle so well, I'm going to get another bicycle. That is, another of the same kind. Now, Jesus said, I will send you another comforter.

He's not saying another of a different kind. He is saying, you're going to receive someone just like me. And that's the reason, skip down to verse 18, he says, I will not leave you comfortless.

I will come to you. So, when the Holy Spirit comes, who is coming? Jesus or the Holy Spirit? Both.

Yes, there's no distinction. The Holy Spirit is Christ in the Christian. And so, why did Jesus say, the works that I do shall ye do? Because Jesus said, I'm still going to be doing them.

I'm still going to be doing them. Now, there's a book written, I read it as a teen. Most of us read it, what would Jesus do? How many of you read that book? Yeah, what would Jesus do?

Well, what's the import of that book? These people got to thinking one day, what would Jesus do if he were here? And we're going to do what Jesus would do.

And I love the sentiment and then there's a sense in which we all ought to do that. But really philosophically, if you think about it, there's some problems there. First of all, it implies we would know what Jesus would do. Jesus will surprise you.

He was always surprising people. That's the idea that you can just determine and figure out what Jesus would do. There's another problem with that. It presupposes that if we knew what Jesus could do, we could do it. All I have to do is figure out what Jesus would do and do it. Friend, there can't anybody be Jesus but Jesus. And if we determine what would Jesus do, we probably wouldn't get it right all the time. So if we did have it right, all we would be would be little cheap tin imitations of Jesus, stumbling around trying to do what Jesus would do. What would Jesus do if he were here?

Here's the third problem. He is here. He is here. He's not way off yonder beyond the blue peering down through the clouds saying, now you work it out.

He says, I will come to you. I will abide in you now. So the Christian life is not lived by you. It's lived by Jesus. There's only one person who has ever lived the Christian life and his name is Jesus. If it's lived where you live, it will be Jesus Christ living that life in you.

That's the secret. He is here to do what needs to be done. And so he says, the works that I do shall you do.

Why? Because I'm coming to you. I will be in you.

There's only one that is producing those works in you. Now, we need to understand that it is better that Jesus went back to heaven and sent the Holy Spirit. Now, most of us think, wouldn't it be wonderful if we could just have lived back yonder when Jesus was here in the flesh, walking the shores of Galilee?

Wouldn't that be wonderful? Friend, we have the advantage over Peter, Paul, and James, and you, and Bartholomew, we have the advantage. Now, I know we don't intellectually believe that, but it is true. Let me prove it to you. John 16, verse 7, nevertheless, I tell you the truth.

Now, Jesus is speaking. Nevertheless, I tell you the truth. It is expedient for you that I go away. Do you know what the word expedient means?

It's better, necessary. It is expedient for you that I go away. If I go not away, the comforter will not come unto you, but if I depart, I will send him unto you. Now, Jesus said, if I stay here, you can have the blessing of the Father, which is the Holy Spirit, not only Jesus with you, but Jesus in you, abiding in you forever, and that is better. You see, in Bible times, Jesus is over here with Mark. He's not over here with Ken, because in his flesh, he's one place at one time, but because he has gone to heaven and sent the Holy Spirit, Jesus is with me everywhere I go, and he's with you everywhere you go, and none of us ever have to say, oh, Lord, if you'd only been here, if you'd only been here.

You see, it's expedient for you. It's better for you that I go away, because never will any Christian ever have to say, oh, Lord, if you had only been here, he is here. He's alive and well and living in you. In a Christian, Christ is living on this earth. Jesus Christ is the invisible part of the visible Christian, and the, he is in us, and we are the visible part of the invisible Christ.

He is, he is in us. Now, there's a man named Stuart Briscoe, who's also a friend, dear man of God, great preacher. Stuart Briscoe said, when I first got saved, I gave my heart to Jesus Christ, going out to live the Christian life, just whistling.

He said to himself, this is so easy. But then after a while, he stumbled and fell a little bit. He said, this is more difficult than I realized. This Christian life is hard. Then after a while, he began to say, this Christian life is impossible, no longer easy, no longer hard, impossible. And then he discovered the fullness of the Spirit and the power of the Holy Spirit.

No longer did he say it's easy or hard or impossible. He said, it is wonderful, it is wonderful. Christ in you. Why did the Holy Spirit of God come to produce the works of Jesus? It is Christ in us now, living the Christian life. All right, now, number two, not only did the Holy Spirit of Christ come to produce the works of Jesus, but he has come to protect the will of Jesus, to produce the works, to protect the will. Now, you are not your own.

You belong to Christ. Notice here in chapter 14, verse 26, but the comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I've said unto you. Let's zero in now on the word comforter. It's the Greek word parakleitos. And what it is, is a fancy word for lawyer. It's a fancy word for lawyer, the parakleitos. In 1 John chapter 2, verse 1, is translated advocate. If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, even Jesus Christ the righteous.

It's the same word, parakleitos. It's a word for lawyer. Now, Williams translates this, whom the Father will send to represent me. Now, what does your lawyer do for you?

Well, your lawyer protects your rights. He defends you. He stands up for you. Now, what the Holy Spirit does, not only does he produce the works of Christ, because he is Christ in us, but he, the Holy Spirit, protects the will of Christ.

He represents the Lord Jesus Christ in me. In the Old Testament, there were families that lived together like clans. And they would have a lawyer, a parakleit, an advocate. And in tribal disputes, he would plead the family cause. He would guard the family name.

He would protect the family interest, and he was called a parakleit. Now, that's what the Holy Spirit of God has come to do in you, is to plead the cause of Jesus, to guard the name of Jesus, to protect the interest of Jesus in your heart. Jesus is my advocate, but the Holy Spirit is Jesus' advocate. The Holy Spirit of God is the advocate that lives in me to protect the rights, the privileges, the will of the Lord Jesus Christ in me, protecting Jesus' rights. Jesus is my advocate, protecting my rights before the throne. If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.

Satan is like a prosecuting attorney. And he says, do you see what Adrian did? Do you see how he failed? You ought to condemn him. And Jesus steps forward and says, Father, he did fail, but he is mine. I died for those sins. I atoned for those sins.

I paid for those sins, and I plead his cause. And Jesus as my advocate makes intercession for me. But the Holy Spirit makes intercession for Jesus. The Holy Spirit is representing Jesus' rights in my life.

Now, how does he do that? It is called conviction. Have you ever done something that you ought not to do and the Holy Spirit blows the whistle in your life? Have you ever felt someone speaking to you and say, you're wrong? You ought not to act that way.

You ought to live that way. Confess that, forsake that. Why?

Who is that? What is that power that is convicting me and you and he does for me? I don't know what he does for you, but he does for me.

He blows the whistle on me and says, Adrian, you are out of bounds. What is he doing? He is protecting the will of Jesus. He is an advocate representing Jesus in the Christian. Now, he is there to produce the works of Christ. He is there to protect the will of Christ. Thirdly, he is there so you can perceive the words of Christ.

You need to understand Jesus. So the Holy Spirit is there to help you to perceive his Word. Look, if you will, in John 14, verse 26. But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you.

And then in John 16, verses 12 through 13, Jesus said, I have many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth, for he shall not speak of himself, but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak, and he will show you things to come. Now, thank God, I can perceive the words of Christ because the Holy Spirit of God is my teacher living in me.

To help me to understand things I cannot understand. I could not study to preach unless I could pray. Often I sit at my desk and I pray, Lord God, teach me, help me to understand because we do have the dear Holy Spirit of God teaching us. Let me give you a corresponding scripture.

You might want to turn to 1 Corinthians 2, verses 9 through 14. But as it is written, eye hath not seen nor ear heard, neither hath entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. Now, what he's saying is, there's spiritual truths that you don't get through the eye gate, through reading and observation.

There's certain things that you don't get through the ear gate by the auditory means. And then he says, there's certain things that you don't conjure up emotionally. Eye hath not seen, ear heard, nor has entered into the heart of man the emotions, the things which God has prepared for them that love him. But now notice what he says, but God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit. For the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knoweth the things of a man save or accept the Spirit of man which is in him?

You don't know Adrian like I know Adrian. I don't know you like you know you. But notice, what man knoweth the things of a man except the Spirit of man which is in him? Even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.

Only God knows God. Now we have received not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God, that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Suppose I could take my Spirit and put it in you, then you'd understand me. What God has done is taken the Holy Spirit and put him in you. And that's how you can understand God.

Notice, notice what he says. Verse 12, For we have received not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God, that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God, which things also we speak, not in words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth, comparing spiritual things with spiritual, but the natural man. The word natural man means a man apart from Christ, but the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness unto him. Neither can he know them, for they're spiritually discerned or spiritually understood.

You might as well expect your dog to understand opera as to expect a natural man to know the things of God apart from the Spirit of God. Why the Holy Spirit? To produce the works of Christ, to protect the will of Christ, to perceive the words of Christ so we can know the only way that we can know and truly understand is to have the Holy Spirit of God in us.

It's so important. John 16, verse 14, He shall glorify me, for he shall receive of mine and shall show it unto you. That's the reason that Jesus becomes very intimate and very precious to us and we have insights. We know things that the world cannot know because we have the dear Holy Spirit of God.

Now, here's the last reason that I want to mention tonight. Obviously, there are many more, but not only can we do the impossible because through the Holy Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit produces the works, protects the will, enables us to perceive the words of Christ, but the Holy Spirit of God is given to promote the worship of Jesus, to promote the worship of Jesus. John 16, verse 14, look at it. He shall glorify me.

He shall receive of mine and show it unto you. Now, what does the Holy Spirit of God do in me? The Holy Spirit of God in me glorifies the Lord Jesus Christ. What is the mark of a Spirit-filled man? That he speaks in tongues, that he does miracles, that he can unpick divine mysteries. I'll tell you the mark of a Spirit-filled man is that he glorifies Jesus Christ.

That's the mark of a Spirit-filled man. The ministry of the Holy Spirit of God is to glorify Jesus Christ. Now, I love the dear Holy Spirit of God, but I want to give you a warning. Beware of any movement that has the Holy Spirit for a figurehead. Now, I'm not denigrating the ministry of the Holy Spirit because I said he is Christ in the Christian, but some ministries seem somehow to have shifted a little bit, and it's like now that you have Jesus, now you need to go on to the Holy Spirit. Sometimes people ask me, Pastor, have you received the second blessing? And I say, oh, yes, I have.

Tell me about it. The second blessing is discovering what I got in the first one when I got Jesus, and I'll tell you what. I've received the third blessing, and that's discovering I didn't discover it all in the second blessing. Friend, you can go deeper into Jesus, but you'll never go beyond Jesus, never beyond Jesus, and if you see a parade and it's being led by the Holy Spirit, there's something wrong. If you see the Holy Spirit standing on the sidelines and pointing to Jesus, leading the parade, there's something right. I'm not putting down the Holy Spirit of God.

Thank God. I'm talking tonight about being filled with the Holy Spirit of God, but I am saying that Jesus is glorified by the Spirit of God. A Spirit-filled man, a Spirit-filled church will make much of Jesus Christ.

That's what it's all about. You'll never go beyond the Lord Jesus Christ, and he, the Spirit, has come to promote the worship of Jesus. By the way, this is the key to being filled and staying filled. Some of you are preacher boys here tonight, and you pray, Dear God, fill me with the Holy Spirit. Why do you want to be filled with the Holy Spirit?

I want to be a great preacher. God says I'm not interested. Well, God, fill me with the Holy Spirit.

I want to understand the Bible. The Holy Spirit says ho-hum. Well, fill me with the Holy Spirit.

I want to be a soul winner. I couldn't care less, God says. Well, fill me with the Holy Spirit. I want to live a holy life again, ho-hum. Something's wrong.

Let's try one more time. Lord, I want Jesus Christ to be glorified in my life. Is that what you want? That's what I want, too.

Let's get together. God will fill you with the Holy Spirit. By the way, he may make you a great preacher and help you understand the Bible and help you to be a soul winner and live a holy life.

But you see, all of those are subsets of the main thing, and that is the glory of Jesus Christ. That's why the Holy Spirit has come. He will not speak of himself. That means he's not the origin of his own teaching. He takes the things of mind, Jesus says, and he will show them unto you.

He will teach you these things. Now, friend, that's how our Lord intended for us to equal and exceed what he has done. We say, Pastor Rogers, how can we exceed his works? He raised the dead.

Well, let me tell you something, friend. All of the miracles that Jesus Christ did, the miracles of glory, only typified and portrayed the miracles of grace. If a person in a wheelchair were to come here tonight, paraplegic, and I were to walk down here and lay my hands on that individual, and before your eyes, shriveled limbs would pulsate with life, and that individual would leap from that wheelchair and begin to glorify God in such a way that it was a bona fide miracle that no one could deny it.

Next Sunday or the next time we had a meeting, you would not be able to put people in this building with a shoehorn. It would be crowded if people were being healed physically. Now, if physical healing is that important, and it is to many people, I want to ask you a question. Did Jesus Christ heal everybody? Did he?

No. Many times he would say after he healed people, don't tell anybody about this. There at the pool of Bethesda, many were sick. He chose one man and healed one man. He didn't heal everybody. But we have a world today full of miracle mongers who want everybody being healed because they think that's so great. But now let's suppose rather than somebody here in a wheelchair, let's suppose a 12-year-old child comes forward and says, I want to give my heart to Christ. If you were here last Wednesday night, I took a roving microphone and went back there, and way back over yonder was a child. She looked at me about 12 years of age, and she talked about how she'd been saved.

Some of you remember that. She said, after 9-11, I realized I needed Jesus. I cannot tell you how that blessed my heart to hear that child speak of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. I want to tell you something, friend. The greater miracle was that little girl greater than somebody in a wheelchair throwing their crutches away.

Now, you may not believe that, but let me tell you why. For Jesus to heal the sick, all he had to do is just simply say to be healed. But to save that little girl, he died in agony and blood.

His blood was shed to save a soul. A college student asked his pastor, do you think there's life on other planets? The pastor said, no, son, I really don't. He said, well, now, pastor, you think about it.

You think of the billions and billions and billions of stars and universes and galaxies, all of that out there, don't you think, that somehow there's life on other planets? He said, no, I can't prove there is or there isn't, but I really don't believe there is. He said, then, tell me, why did God go to all that trouble to make all that? The pastor said, what trouble? Universes drip from his fingertips. You listen to this pastor, the only time God Almighty had any trouble was when Jesus died on that cross.

In agony and blood, he died to save a soul. That, my friend, is why that miracle is greater than this miracle. That is the great miracle. You talk about exceeding the works of Jesus when you and I and all of us take the gospel around the world, not to a little land of Palestine, but around the world by the power of the Holy Spirit of God who lives in us to produce the works of Christ, to protect the will of Christ, that we might perceive the words of Christ, that we might practice the worship of Christ by believing in him.

And I believe it's time we brought the regiment up to the flag rather than bringing the flag back to the regiment. Why don't you ask the Holy Spirit of God to do a fresh work in you as I want him to do in me? Would you pray and thank God for the gift of the Holy Spirit of God? And would you ask that he would renew and refresh you and that you might equal and exceed the works of Jesus, not in quality, but in quantity? Now there's so many of us, and I pray to go around the world with Jesus in each one of us.