The Forgotten God? Part 3

Today on Summit Life with J.D.

Greer. Most Christians still think of the Holy Spirit like an electrical charge. If you get the conditions right, you get your heart right, it comes into you. The feeling, the sensation. But he's not an it. He's not a feeling.

He's not a sensation. He's a person. A person with emotions. A person that you can grieve. A person who speaks. A person who loves and delights in you. Welcome to Summit Life, the Bible teaching ministry of pastor, author, and theologian J.D. Greer.

I'm Molly Venovich. I think it's safe to say that for many of us, the Holy Spirit is talked about as something that you experience during worship. When the music crescendos, your emotions surge, and the hair on your arms stands up. Or when we're praying about a decision and we feel that warmth in our chest, we think that's him telling us which way to go. Now don't get me wrong, the Spirit can for sure be at work like this in us. But today, Pastor J.D. explains that the Holy Spirit's role in your life is way bigger and way more real than goosebumps. We're in the book of John chapter 14 with a message called, The Forgotten Guide. I'm gonna list five or six things here for you over the next several minutes, depending on how much time we, oh who actually believes that?

I'm gonna do all these for other, we got time for them or not. Number one, number one, he inspires and he illuminates. That's in verse 26.

He inspires and he illuminates. Verse 26, he will teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance that I have said to you. Now that is two different promises there to two different groups of people. To the apostles who were hearing this live, this is a promise of inspiration. Jesus was promising that the Holy Spirit would bring back to the minds of the apostles everything that Jesus had said flawlessly and help them record it so that future generations could have a record, a reliable record of the things that Jesus said, taught and did. So for them it was a promise of inspiration. For you, okay, now, that verse 26 is a promise of illumination.

Illumination. You might think if you're new to Christianity that you've never had any interaction with the Holy Spirit, but you have if you believe that Jesus is Lord. First Corinthians 12 three, no man can say that Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit. Which means that if you come to a place where you're convinced of the Lordship of Jesus, that's not something you came up with in your own.

The Holy Spirit put that in you. Philippians 2 12, it is God who works in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. Which means if you desire to know God, that's something the Holy Spirit did inside of you. Second Corinthians chapter 2, if you have spiritual interest, genuine spiritual interest, Paul says that's not something you came up with, that's something the Spirit of God put inside of you.

So if you have any spiritual interest at all, the Holy Spirit has been at work inside of you doing this. Illuminating, teaching, clarifying, bringing these things to mind for you. So that's one, is he inspires and he illuminates.

Number two, he manifests God's love to believers. That's in verse 21. You see in verse 21 it says that the Holy Spirit will manifest.

The word manifest is probably not a word that you use much in day-to-day language, but it means to make known. It means it makes you feel. It's what Paul is talking about in Romans 5-1 when he says the Spirit sheds abroad the love of God in our hearts.

It's like he pours it over us. The fullness of the Holy Spirit is those times when he takes the attributes of God and he manifests them to you. He makes you feel them. Here's the definition I've given you of the presence of God. The presence of God is when the Spirit of God makes the attributes of God come alive to you. What the Holy Spirit does is he manifests God to you. Number three, he is our counselor, verse 16. He's our counselor, verse 16. The word translated as helper in verse 16 is the word paraclete.

Paraclete literally means somebody who stands beside you to speak for you. This is what Paul meant when he said the Spirit bears witness with our spirit that we are the children of God. Another dimension of him being our counselor is what he says to God on our behalf. He stands alongside of us and calls out to God on our behalf, not just to us, but he calls out to God on our behalf.

Think counselor in this sense like a lawyer, your legal counsel. Now again, he is another counselor which means the first one was Jesus. Jesus is our advocate before the Father. He stands by the Father's side and he advocates like legal counsel with God for us. Now I've told you that for years that never, you know, I never really knew what exactly that meant.

You know, because I thought it basically meant that Jesus was standing before God doing something like this, like standing up in front of God going like, I know, I know, seriously? Would you give the guy one more shot? Could you give him a little leniency? I mean, I know he screwed up again, but just one more time, God the Father, would you please, you know, not zap him for his sin, just give him a little grace? And that never brought me a lot of comfort because I didn't know when I was gonna come to that point where Jesus was like, I am not going to the Father again about that one. You are embarrassing me, son.

I ain't doing it. I am not going to the Father again. Or when the Father would be like, seriously, that's six years same sin? It's time that we teach this guy a lesson and we just like zap him for his sin. That didn't bring me a lot of comfort, but Jesus is not standing before the Father right now pleading for leniency. Jesus is standing before the Father right now as my advocate pleading for justice. And what he's saying to God is something like this, you cannot punish JD for that sin because you punished me for it.

And it would be unjust of you to give two penalties for the same sin. I took it in his place, that means you give him forgiveness because you gave me wrath. You've got to bless JD, not because he deserves it, but because I am worthy to be blessed and because I gave him that as a gift. Jesus is a counselor who demands God's blessing for you.

The Spirit is another counselor who, get this, right now, right now, is representing you before God from your heart demanding that God give to you the blessings and the goodness that Jesus has purchased for you. Every single one of you that is a believer have him right now praying for you. My first pastor, Dr. E.C. Sheehan, who coincidentally was Chris Gaynor, one of our worship pastors' grandfather, used to say this. He'd ask him to pray about something in your life and he would say, I will, I will. But I want you to also know that, I also want you to know that Jesus is praying for you.

And if I forget, he'll remember. Jesus is right now praying for you, honestly, whether you can feel it or not, demanding on your behalf that God give you the goodness and the blessing, not that you deserve, but that Jesus has purchased for you. By the way, this is what Romans 8 26, a verse that confuses a lot of Christians, is actually talking about. Romans 8 26, likewise, the Spirit helps us in our weakness, for we don't know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings, too deep for words. Now, many people say that this verse is a reference to tongues. Like, you know, you got these things you don't know how to pray about, so the Holy Spirit groans in you through these tongues and it comes out not in English. But it cannot be a reference to tongues for two reasons. First, Paul is saying that this is something the Spirit does for every believer, and 1 Corinthians 12 30 clearly says that not every believer has the gift of tongues. But even more importantly, listen, the Greek phrase that is translated too deep for words means literally cannot be uttered, which would exclude utterances in tongues. He didn't say it cannot be articulated in English or Greek or Hebrew.

He said it cannot be uttered, period. This is not a reference to tongues. What it is a reference to is the fact that the Spirit of God is constantly, right now, asking the Father for the blessings that Jesus has purchased for you.

What kind of hope does that give you? That he's asking for the blessings for your family that Jesus purchased, not the ones that you deserve. He's asking for God to give you what Jesus purchased.

He is your counselor. He calls out to God on your behalf. Number four, he points to Jesus. He points to Jesus. Look in chapter 15, verse 26. When the counselor comes, he will testify about who? About me, he said, about Jesus. Chapter 16, verse 14. He will glorify who?

Me, Jesus, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. That is his role, to point to and glorify Jesus. Theologian Dale Bruner calls the Holy Spirit the shy member of the Trinity. The Holy Spirit never directs attention to himself. He never glorifies himself. He never points to himself.

He points to Jesus. He's like one of those, like a floodlight on the Washington Monument. There are millions of people who light up the Washington Monument. There are millions of dollars of lights that light up the Washington Monument.

You have never noticed any of them. You know what you notice? You notice the Washington Monument. All those lights, you never will even know where they're located.

They exist so that the Washington Monument will stand brilliantly lit against any kind of sky. The Holy Spirit is a glory that directs our eyes to Jesus. And that's how you know that a lot of the places that claim to be filled with the Holy Spirit are not. Because in those places, the supposed Holy Spirit glorifies himself. Where the real Holy Spirit is present, all the attention's on Jesus, period.

That's what it says. He never wants people looking at him. He wants them looking at Jesus. The gifts of the Spirit are never to call attention to themselves. They're given to Jesus.

C.J. Mahaney, a full-on charismatic, says this, quote, all the gifts from God, including the gifts of the Spirit, are intended to direct our attention to Jesus and create fresh affection for Jesus. That's how you know that a lot of the people who claim to have great spiritual gifts do not really have them because they use those gifts to direct attention to something else besides Jesus.

Where the Spirit is, Jesus is glorified, period. Preachers who are filled with the Spirit are the ones that are always talking about the cross. A Spirit-filled preacher is one who doesn't talk much about himself. You ever get around these guys where they're like the hero of every illustration they tell?

They're always talking about their wisdom and their insight, and they've got all their creativity coming out in their series, and this is what I think about this, and all my experience. A Spirit-filled preacher is never talking about himself. A Spirit-filled preacher's always talking about Jesus. Spirit-filled preachers never talking that much about you. You hear some preachers, and it's all about what you ought to do. You do this, and you do that, and do this here, do that there. Right here, we call those doo-doo preachers, right?

Because they're always talking about what you're supposed to do. A Spirit-filled preacher isn't talking so much about what you're supposed to do. He talks about what Jesus has done. Spirit-filled preacher's not even one who talks much about the Spirit. Again, he will glorify me. John 16, 14, a Spirit-filled preacher talks a lot about Jesus and the cross. Charles Spurgeon, one of my preaching heroes, 19th century, London, England.

You say that, I love this. He said to his congregation, I sometimes wonder that you do not get tired of my preaching, because I do nothing but hammer away at this one nail. That one nail is the glorious news of Jesus Christ crucified in our place, and that in response, he is worthy of the highest devotion and most fervent worship. By God's grace, as your pastor, that is all I ever, that's the only nail I want to keep hammering on for you.

I don't want you to really know that much about my wisdom, because I ain't got that much. I don't want to spend my time telling you all this stuff we ought to do for our community, because you don't have that much power. What I want to do by God's grace is to continue to hammer away at this nail of lifting Jesus up, because when Jesus is lifted up, all the spiritual fruits we want to see produced in your life will be produced in your life, will be produced, and when Jesus is lifted up, he'll transform our community, because he said he would draw all people to himself. So by God's grace, that's what I want to keep doing is just saying, hey, not me, not anything else, just Jesus. And if we can keep him lifted up and you in all of him, guess what?

Everything else will just come along naturally. Number five, he empowers for ministry. He empowers for ministry. Jump down to chapter 16, verse 6. We're only going to touch on this, okay, because this is more of what we're going to deal with in the weeks to come, right? But I just want to give you this week a 30,000-foot view flyover of everything, all right?

So it's like taking a sip of water from a fire hydrant. I realize that, but we're all going to come back to all this. I'm just going to give you a little appetizer, all right? John 16, verse 6. Remember, the night before Jesus died, he's telling him he's leaving. But because I've said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart. That's understandable, right? Jesus is leaving.

You'd be bummed to. Verse 7. Nevertheless, I tell you the truth. You understood things.

It's to your advantage that I go away, because if I don't go away, the helper will not come to you. But if I go, I'll send him to you. Would you just think for a minute about that statement? I mean, seriously. They should be glad that Jesus is leaving. How cool would it have been to have Jesus as your companion for about three years? How cool would it be for you to spend the next three years walking side by side with Jesus? You ever think about that? You're having a party. You run out of Cheetos. Jesus multiplies the Cheetos so that there are plenty for everybody, right? You got a headache?

Boom. Jesus zaps away your headache. Your dog dies. Your dog gets run over. Jesus resurrects the dog back to life.

Your cat dies. Jesus helps you dig the hole so that you can bury the cat away forever. Because Jesus feels about cats the way that I feel about cats.

Seriously, how cool would it be to have Jesus by your side? Yet, he says that if you really understood things, you would rejoice that he went away because then the Helper would come. Is there any way in your life that that verse is true? Is there any dimension of your experience with God that would make that true?

Because you know something? Jesus was not prone to exaggeration. He wasn't a rhetorical flourish guy. When Jesus made a statement like that, he fully intended to back it up. He says this, John 14, another equally absurd statement on the surface. John 14, 12, Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do, and greater work than these he will do, because I'm going to the Father. Okay, seriously, anybody in here ever done a greater work than Jesus?

Anybody? Anybody ever raised somebody from the dead? Anybody ever walk on water? You ever feed 5,000 with five loaves and two fish? Anybody ever preach with greater clarity than Jesus preached with? You ever pray with a greater understanding of the mind of God than Jesus had? Huh? You ever been crucified and forgave people from the cross as they crucified you? You ever been resurrected from the dead?

Anybody? Anybody here legitimately stand up and be like, yep, I've done greater works than Jesus. So what does he mean? What does he mean by it? It can't mean that you would do a greater work than Jesus because Jesus' works are unmatchable, right?

We can't reproduce those. What he meant, what he meant was that the collective power of the Spirit of God on individual members of the Church would be greater than if even he himself stayed on earth with the Spirit located in one place. What kind of impact do you think we have on our community if Jesus was on our staff?

I mean, how cool would that be? Let me introduce you to our youth pastor, Jesus Christ. I mean, that would create a buzz at Chapel Hill, right? Do you realize that Jesus said, who again was not prone to exaggeration and not one for rhetoric, that the impact and power of the Summit Church with each member filled with the Spirit is greater than if Jesus himself joined our staff team?

Are we experiencing that at our church? That's what we're going to talk about in weeks to come is how that is not supposed to be a dream. That is supposed to be reality.

Here's where I want us to land today, right? This is the big takeaway for you this week, and this is what runs through all these. I want you to realize that he is a person. He is a person.

You see, most Christians still think of the Holy Spirit like an electrical charge. If you get the conditions right, you get your heart right, it comes into you, the feeling, the sensation. But he's not an it. He's not a feeling.

He's not a sensation. He's a person, a person with emotions, a person that you can grieve, a person who speaks, a person who loves and delights in you. And see, that means when you reject God's Word, you're rejecting a person. And some of you right now that are not walking with Jesus, you're not listening to God's Word, that's what you need to think about. It's not that you're just less moral than the rest of us.

It's not that you're an exceptionally bad person. It's just that you love other things more than you love Jesus. And that's what Jesus said, John 14, 23.

Did you catch that? If any man loves me, he will keep my word. The reason you don't keep Jesus' words is because you don't love Jesus. You love other things more than Jesus. That's why you won't obey him.

I'm not saying you're an exceptionally bad person. I'm just trying to get you to the root of the issue that it's a heart problem. That's why you need a new heart, because your heart loves other things besides Jesus. When Jesus created you for himself so that you could love and know him, that's why your heart's condemned. That's why you need to be saved. That's why you need a new heart, because God created you so that your heart would love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind. That's why you need to be saved, because you have not rejected a religion.

You have not been less moral than you should. You have rejected the love of a person who created you and gave himself to you. It means that for you that are believers, you are walking with a person. We're not talking about just being a better Christian by being obeying a few more rules and getting a little more spiritual and come to church and give a little bit more money. We're talking about you learning to commune with a person, a person that delights in you, a person that you can grieve.

Let me ask you this right now. Are there things that you are doing now that you would not do if you were aware of the Spirit's presence in your life? I don't mean right now at this moment, but I mean are there are things that you are are there things you're doing in your life that you wouldn't be doing if you were aware of the Spirit's presence in your life?

Think about the ways that you, what you entertain yourself with, what you do. I mean imagine that you were cooking a meal for the person you loved the most and you knew they had a peanut allergy and you covered the meal with peanuts. Is there any way possible you could say that was done in love for that person? How do we say that we love God and then entertain ourselves and consume our lives with things that break his heart? You know we Christians, we love to decry moral corruption with our mouths and then sit around and giggle at it on TV. How could we possibly say we love God and then laugh at what God calls an abomination and what drove him to a cross? Friend of mine defines sinful lust this way. I love this.

Look at this. Sinful lust is entertaining ourselves with the things from which Christ died to free us. Sinful lust is entertaining ourselves with the things from which Christ died to free us. By the way I am not saying that super spiritual Christians are so isolated from the world they like never see TV. I grew up in a culture like that where like you know it's like the more spiritual you were the you know you could usually in our culture it was like if the word had three curse words or the TV program had three curse words or less it was okay.

If they said damn the third time you were out right much less like the you know the f-bombs and the aspect you just never even touch that stuff you know it's just like that you isolated yourself. I'm not saying that because the Holy Spirit never tries to take you out of the world ever. He leads you in the world but see there's a huge difference in enduring sin and entertaining yourself with it. While you're in the world you have to endure sin but there's a whole different it's altogether different to have to endure it and to entertain yourself with it.

Spiritual maturity is when you feel about sin the way that God feels about it and in the world you'll have to endure it the same way that Jesus had to endure it because you hung out with prostitutes and sinners but that's totally different than willfully entertaining yourself with it. And of course I'm not saying you can ever get yourself clean enough for the Spirit of God. The blood of Jesus has to make you that way. But what I am saying is that after the blood of Jesus has cleansed you and he abides in you I'm saying that if you love him won't you respond by delighting in what he delights in and by bringing joy to his heart because he's a person. Have you ever begun to relate to the Holy Spirit that way? Have you ever begun to walk with God that way?

You see there's a whole dimension out there that some of you've never touched and my prayer is that the Summit Church would begin a new season that you individually begin a new season of life right now where you walk in the Spirit. Are you experiencing his power? Are you feeling him pour his love over you? Have you felt him moving inside of you?

Do you know him as a person? Were you still stuck in the trappings of religion and never moved to relationship and walking with God? Are you walking with God today?

That's the most important question that you'll ever wrestle with. But if you'd like to learn more about what it means to be a follower of Christ let me encourage you please visit us online. You'll find blog articles and sermon archives that will help you learn more about what a relationship with Jesus looks like.

Just go to jdgrier.com. We're in a new teaching series called Rushing Wind. We're discovering who the Holy Spirit is and how he works in the church today. And to help you personally apply what you're learning with us each day we'd like to send you a brand new 20-day devotional book by J.D. also titled Rushing Wind, Understanding the Holy Spirit. Also titled Rushing Wind, Understanding the Holy Spirit.

Don't let anything keep you from experiencing the power that the Holy Spirit makes available to each one of us. This devotional resource is our way of saying thanks when you donate to support this ministry. Your giving helps people across the country and even around the world to access J.D. 's Bible teaching without cost getting in the way.

All so that they can dive deeper into the gospel message with us. Give and request your copy of J.D. 's 20-day devotional today. Call 866-335-5220. That number again is 866-335-5220. Or give and request the resources online at jdgrier.com. And if you don't receive our e-newsletter yet, be sure to stop by the website to sign up. You'll get ministry updates, sneak peeks of our new resources, and Pastor J.D.

's latest blog posts. Sign up today at jdgrier.com. I'm Molly Bidevich inviting you to join us again Friday when we continue our study of the Holy Spirit on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by J.D. Greer Ministries.