Vintage Spirit; John 16:4b-33

Jay began the lesson today with something I’ve heard James Abrahamson (www.apttoteach.org) has said at times; that as we examine the Scripture, it is also examining us both in terms of our motivations, but also in terms of our understanding of Who Jesus is and His role in our lives (something Jim has spoken of is the idea of functional messiahs, not necessarily Jesus [career, health, family, etc.]).
How is this possible, you may ask? The Holy Spirit works through the Word as we search it with hungry hearts; it is He who will hold our hearts up to the Light of Scripture as we study it and, if we allow Him, will show us ourselves in a way that we had perhaps preferred He not do so.
• One of the truths that the Spirit does illumine in the Word is that Jesus is God; this is seen especially well throughout the Gospel recorded by John in the “I Am” statements
o “I Am the Bread of life…” (6:35)
o “I Am the Light of the world…” (8:12)
o “I Am the Door…” (10:9)
o “I Am the Good Shepherd…” (10:11)
o “I Am the Resurrection and the Life…” (11:25)
o “I Am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life… (14:6)
o “I Am the True Vine…” (15:1)
• Our understanding of Who the Holy Spirit is (as Jay said) is lacking if we mistake exactly Who He is and His role in our lives
o He is God
o Without the Holy Spirit, the Truth, Power and Presence of God are irrelevant to us
o Jay spoke of Pastor Francis Chan and his work Forgotten God (and web-site, http://www.forgottengod.com) that is a call to the Church to be reintroduced to Who the Holy Spirit is
 “God put His Spirit in us so we could be known for our power. Sadly, most believers and churches are known for talent and intellect rather than supernatural power. What’s worse is that we’re okay with it.”
 “While no evangelical would deny His existence, I’m willing to bet there are millions of churchgoers across America who cannot confidently say they have experienced His presence or action in their lives over the past year. And many do not think they can.”
 “Perhaps we’re too familiar and comfortable with the current state of the church to feel the weight of the problem. But what if you grew up on a desert island with nothing but the Bible to read?…Having read the Scriptures outside the context of the contemporary church culture, you would be convinced that the Holy Spirit is as essential to a believer’s existence as air is to staying alive. You would know that the Spirit led the first Christians to do unexplainable things, to live lives that didn’t make sense to the culture around them, and ultimately to spread the story of God’s grace around the world.”
o In light of what Pastor Chan is saying we should all examine carefully our own understanding of Who the Holy Spirit is and how we have allowed or rejected His ongoing work in our own lives
In the section of the Gospel Jay taught from today, Jesus’ disciples are obviously worrier, frightened men because of what He has just shared with them about leaving them. Jesus recognizes this and seeks to give them reassurance
• He tells them (vs. 7) that it really is for the best that He leaves them, but that doesn’t seem to make sense to them
• He tells them that unless He does leave, the Holy Spirit (Helper, Comforter) will not come
o Previously Jay has spoken of how with Jesus present, there was a localized focus of how/where/when God was working (to an extent)
o With the Holy Spirit within each believer, however, this presence is spread throughout the world wherever the Church is and His power can thus be manifested around the world unless we limit Him
• What then does Jesus teach us about the work that the Holy Spirit does
The Holy Spirit does the work of the Father
• He will convict the world regarding sin
o The Spirit will reveal the ‘real’ Tony whenever I search the Scriptures as well as Who God is, not necessarily the same as whom I’d imagined Him to be
o What you worship (as Jay taught) is what you become
 Probably few actually bow down and worship a literal idol, but how many of us worship at the altar of career, sensuality, or pride
 As I’ve heard Jim put it, “We worship at work, work at play and play at worship.”
o Isaiah, in his commissioning by God, was faced with an impossible task, to proclaim God’s Word to a people who were stiff necked and obstinate, inherently rebellious and unwilling to listen (Isaiah 6: 9-13)
 It would be like being given a task by your boss and then told that it would be impossible to accomplish
 It would take a miracle to do such and that is exactly the lesson God was teaching Isaiah (and us) regarding the work He wants us to accomplish through the Holy Spirit
• Pastor Chan spoke to how in far too many instances, the churches today accomplish things without any thought or intervention of the Spirit
• With all the talented and skilled people at CHBC, it would be far too easy to accomplish great things totally apart from the work of the Holy Spirit; to quote the great theologian, Frank Sinatra, “I did it my way.”
 The miracle that would be necessary for God’s work to be done in any people is best seen in Ezekiel 36:26; “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.”
o This miraculous transplant is one of the works of the Holy Spirit (and one that, at least in my own case, is something that is required to be repeated at frequent intervals)
o God’s amazing grace and love toward us is one of the major lessons of the Parable of the Prodigal and revealing the heart of God toward all who sin (all humanity) makes the alternative to believing in Messiah all the more horrific
 The punishment of Hell (Gehenna) is far more than eternal fire
 The real punishment of Hell is the forever separation from the One Who loves us as no other; God turning His back upon those who chose to go there forever
o A song by Phillips, Craig and Dean illustrate (imagery from the Parable of the Prodigal) the heart of our Loving Father, When God Ran: (http://www.songlyrics.com/phillips-craig-dean/when-god-ran-lyrics/)
o You cannot out sin Grace, you cannot go so far that God’s Love will not run to rescue you; there is only one sin that is unforgiveable and that is unbelief in Messiah the King

• He will convict the world regarding righteousness (self-righteousness)
o This puzzled me when I first encountered it in Scripture; why would God want the Holy Spirit to convict us about righteousness?
o As Jay pointed out, it is not true righteousness that the Spirit convicts us of, but of our own self-righteousness where we declare that We are the Way, We are the Judge of what is right and good and we are able to determine our own destiny
 Invictus is a poem written by an unknown person but dedicated to Robert Thomas Hamilton Bruce (1846-1899), and is frightening of its portrayal of such self-righteousness
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeoning’s of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
 Self-determinism is right in line with the theories and ideologies of the Enlightenment, but runs contrary to Scripture and our call therein to total dependence upon the Holy Spirit’s enabling power in our lives
• He will convict the world regarding judgment
o Jay spoke of “…soul surgery…” (going back a bit, something in my case that is necessarily repetitive, like a patient undergoing multiple bypass surgeries and then heading on down to Hardees (or whatever) and feasting on fat, grease and carbohydrates) and referenced the man ostracized by the church at Corinth
 This man had caused pain to the church, but Paul states (2 Corinthians 2:5) that he too has been hurt as well
 The punishment meted out by the church, however, has gone on long enough and Paul is admonishing them to forgive him and welcome back into fellowship (vss. 6-8)
o Some judgment is needed, but not to the extent of producing shame that, as with Judas, caused isolation and death
o Jay then spoke on how Dr. Paul Brandt discovered that lepers lost the sensation of pain; that this lack of feeling pain led them to literally burn, cut or wear off their extremities
 This loss of pain receptors in the lepers is similar to many (most?) in the church who seem to have lost their sensibility to sin
 As the lepers will bring injury and eventual death upon themselves, so we will die unless we allow the Holy Spirit to sensitize us to our own sin
The Holy Spirit ushers in the Age of Adoption
Jesus speaks to the heart of the matter for the disciples; how now they will have sorrow while the world rejoices, but that sorrow will be turned to joy and exultation (vs. 20)
• The example of a woman in labor, suffering the pain and grief of labor for the joy of bringing a life into the world (though some pain and grief are yet to be realized at the moment of birth)
• He reassures them that the trials and suffering they will be going through will be worth it all and they will have a joy that no one can ever take away again
• Jesus then (vss. 23-33) introduces something so radical to the Jewish mind of that day (and still is to me!), that God the Father loves me and wants me to enter into a familial relationship with Him
o A weak analogy is if the president called me and invited me to the White House and giving me permanent access to him at any hour of the day, telling me that from that day onward I would be known as his son
o Jesus says something so much better, however, as we are invited to be family with God the Father
 No longer outsiders or orphans; we are adopted as children of God
 Sister Sledge, in her hit We Are Family, has said something that should be true of all believers:

Everyone can see we’re together
As we walk on by
And we fly just like birds of a feather
I’m not telling no lie
o Can others ‘see’ Jesus when they watch us? That is the miracle that God longs to bring about in all of us through the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit
• When we pray, we pray to the Father in the name (authority) of Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit
How can we become serious Spirit people?
• Everyday ‘stuff’ in our journey Home
o The Word of God
o Prayer
o The Church (mainly the local church as well as the universal, world-wide)
 Preaching/teaching
 Community
 Mission
• Jay then shared a ‘three-step’ manner of seeking more of the Holy Spirit’s presence in our lives
o Believe in the regular means of Grace
 Go where the Holy Spirit is at work
 Henry Blackaby once said, “…wherever you see the Spirit at work, go there and join in…”
o Ask for Him…duh!
 Before rising from bed, ask for His presence
 Confess your inability to do anything without Him
o Seek to live a life that demonstrates that the Holy Spirit is at work and is inexorably attached to my life
Am I living a life that any unbeliever can live?
Am I an undercover operative or do I wear the uniform openly?

Jay’s comment at the conclusion, “Jesus is not physically present in this room” made me want to shout “Hallelu-Yah!” as that means the Holy Spirit is present in all of us to equip us to do the work of the Kingdom.

Jay began the lesson today with something I’ve heard James Abrahamson (www.apttoteach.org) has said at times; that as we examine the Scripture, it is also examining us both in terms of our motivations, but also in terms of our understanding of Who Jesus is and His role in our lives (something Jim has spoken of is the idea of functional messiahs, not necessarily Jesus [career, health, family, etc.]).
How is this possible, you may ask? The Holy Spirit works through the Word as we search it with hungry hearts; it is He who will hold our hearts up to the Light of Scripture as we study it and, if we allow Him, will show us ourselves in a way that we had perhaps preferred He not do so.
• One of the truths that the Spirit does illumine in the Word is that Jesus is God; this is seen especially well throughout the Gospel recorded by John in the “I Am” statements
o “I Am the Bread of life…” (6:35)
o “I Am the Light of the world…” (8:12)
o “I Am the Door…” (10:9)
o “I Am the Good Shepherd…” (10:11)
o “I Am the Resurrection and the Life…” (11:25)
o “I Am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life… (14:6)
o “I Am the True Vine…” (15:1)
• Our understanding of Who the Holy Spirit is (as Jay said) is lacking if we mistake exactly Who He is and His role in our lives
o He is God
o Without the Holy Spirit, the Truth, Power and Presence of God are irrelevant to us
o Jay spoke of Pastor Francis Chan and his work Forgotten God (and web-site, http://www.forgottengod.com) that is a call to the Church to be reintroduced to Who the Holy Spirit is
 “God put His Spirit in us so we could be known for our power. Sadly, most believers and churches are known for talent and intellect rather than supernatural power. What’s worse is that we’re okay with it.”
 “While no evangelical would deny His existence, I’m willing to bet there are millions of churchgoers across America who cannot confidently say they have experienced His presence or action in their lives over the past year. And many do not think they can.”
 “Perhaps we’re too familiar and comfortable with the current state of the church to feel the weight of the problem. But what if you grew up on a desert island with nothing but the Bible to read?…Having read the Scriptures outside the context of the contemporary church culture, you would be convinced that the Holy Spirit is as essential to a believer’s existence as air is to staying alive. You would know that the Spirit led the first Christians to do unexplainable things, to live lives that didn’t make sense to the culture around them, and ultimately to spread the story of God’s grace around the world.”
o In light of what Pastor Chan is saying we should all examine carefully our own understanding of Who the Holy Spirit is and how we have allowed or rejected His ongoing work in our own lives
In the section of the Gospel Jay taught from today, Jesus’ disciples are obviously worrier, frightened men because of what He has just shared with them about leaving them. Jesus recognizes this and seeks to give them reassurance
• He tells them (vs. 7) that it really is for the best that He leaves them, but that doesn’t seem to make sense to them
• He tells them that unless He does leave, the Holy Spirit (Helper, Comforter) will not come
o Previously Jay has spoken of how with Jesus present, there was a localized focus of how/where/when God was working (to an extent)
o With the Holy Spirit within each believer, however, this presence is spread throughout the world wherever the Church is and His power can thus be manifested around the world unless we limit Him
• What then does Jesus teach us about the work that the Holy Spirit does
The Holy Spirit does the work of the Father
• He will convict the world regarding sin
o The Spirit will reveal the ‘real’ Tony whenever I search the Scriptures as well as Who God is, not necessarily the same as whom I’d imagined Him to be
o What you worship (as Jay taught) is what you become
 Probably few actually bow down and worship a literal idol, but how many of us worship at the altar of career, sensuality, or pride
 As I’ve heard Jim put it, “We worship at work, work at play and play at worship.”
o Isaiah, in his commissioning by God, was faced with an impossible task, to proclaim God’s Word to a people who were stiff necked and obstinate, inherently rebellious and unwilling to listen (Isaiah 6: 9-13)
 It would be like being given a task by your boss and then told that it would be impossible to accomplish
 It would take a miracle to do such and that is exactly the lesson God was teaching Isaiah (and us) regarding the work He wants us to accomplish through the Holy Spirit
• Pastor Chan spoke to how in far too many instances, the churches today accomplish things without any thought or intervention of the Spirit
• With all the talented and skilled people at CHBC, it would be far too easy to accomplish great things totally apart from the work of the Holy Spirit; to quote the great theologian, Frank Sinatra, “I did it my way.”
 The miracle that would be necessary for God’s work to be done in any people is best seen in Ezekiel 36:26; “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.”
o This miraculous transplant is one of the works of the Holy Spirit (and one that, at least in my own case, is something that is required to be repeated at frequent intervals)
o God’s amazing grace and love toward us is one of the major lessons of the Parable of the Prodigal and revealing the heart of God toward all who sin (all humanity) makes the alternative to believing in Messiah all the more horrific
 The punishment of Hell (Gehenna) is far more than eternal fire
 The real punishment of Hell is the forever separation from the One Who loves us as no other; God turning His back upon those who chose to go there forever
o A song by Phillips, Craig and Dean illustrate (imagery from the Parable of the Prodigal) the heart of our Loving Father, When God Ran: (http://www.songlyrics.com/phillips-craig-dean/when-god-ran-lyrics/)
o You cannot out sin Grace, you cannot go so far that God’s Love will not run to rescue you; there is only one sin that is unforgiveable and that is unbelief in Messiah the King

• He will convict the world regarding righteousness (self-righteousness)
o This puzzled me when I first encountered it in Scripture; why would God want the Holy Spirit to convict us about righteousness?
o As Jay pointed out, it is not true righteousness that the Spirit convicts us of, but of our own self-righteousness where we declare that We are the Way, We are the Judge of what is right and good and we are able to determine our own destiny
 Invictus is a poem written by an unknown person but dedicated to Robert Thomas Hamilton Bruce (1846-1899), and is frightening of its portrayal of such self-righteousness
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeoning’s of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
 Self-determinism is right in line with the theories and ideologies of the Enlightenment, but runs contrary to Scripture and our call therein to total dependence upon the Holy Spirit’s enabling power in our lives
• He will convict the world regarding judgment
o Jay spoke of “…soul surgery…” (going back a bit, something in my case that is necessarily repetitive, like a patient undergoing multiple bypass surgeries and then heading on down to Hardees (or whatever) and feasting on fat, grease and carbohydrates) and referenced the man ostracized by the church at Corinth
 This man had caused pain to the church, but Paul states (2 Corinthians 2:5) that he too has been hurt as well
 The punishment meted out by the church, however, has gone on long enough and Paul is admonishing them to forgive him and welcome back into fellowship (vss. 6-8)
o Some judgment is needed, but not to the extent of producing shame that, as with Judas, caused isolation and death
o Jay then spoke on how Dr. Paul Brandt discovered that lepers lost the sensation of pain; that this lack of feeling pain led them to literally burn, cut or wear off their extremities
 This loss of pain receptors in the lepers is similar to many (most?) in the church who seem to have lost their sensibility to sin
 As the lepers will bring injury and eventual death upon themselves, so we will die unless we allow the Holy Spirit to sensitize us to our own sin
The Holy Spirit ushers in the Age of Adoption
Jesus speaks to the heart of the matter for the disciples; how now they will have sorrow while the world rejoices, but that sorrow will be turned to joy and exultation (vs. 20)
• The example of a woman in labor, suffering the pain and grief of labor for the joy of bringing a life into the world (though some pain and grief are yet to be realized at the moment of birth)
• He reassures them that the trials and suffering they will be going through will be worth it all and they will have a joy that no one can ever take away again
• Jesus then (vss. 23-33) introduces something so radical to the Jewish mind of that day (and still is to me!), that God the Father loves me and wants me to enter into a familial relationship with Him
o A weak analogy is if the president called me and invited me to the White House and giving me permanent access to him at any hour of the day, telling me that from that day onward I would be known as his son
o Jesus says something so much better, however, as we are invited to be family with God the Father
 No longer outsiders or orphans; we are adopted as children of God
 Sister Sledge, in her hit We Are Family, has said something that should be true of all believers:

Everyone can see we’re together
As we walk on by
And we fly just like birds of a feather
I’m not telling no lie
o Can others ‘see’ Jesus when they watch us? That is the miracle that God longs to bring about in all of us through the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit
• When we pray, we pray to the Father in the name (authority) of Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit
How can we become serious Spirit people?
• Everyday ‘stuff’ in our journey Home
o The Word of God
o Prayer
o The Church (mainly the local church as well as the universal, world-wide)
 Preaching/teaching
 Community
 Mission
• Jay then shared a ‘three-step’ manner of seeking more of the Holy Spirit’s presence in our lives
o Believe in the regular means of Grace
 Go where the Holy Spirit is at work
 Henry Blackaby once said, “…wherever you see the Spirit at work, go there and join in…”
o Ask for Him…duh!
 Before rising from bed, ask for His presence
 Confess your inability to do anything without Him
o Seek to live a life that demonstrates that the Holy Spirit is at work and is inexorably attached to my life
Am I living a life that any unbeliever can live?
Am I an undercover operative or do I wear the uniform openly?

Jay’s comment at the conclusion, “Jesus is not physically present in this room” made me want to shout “Hallelu-Yah!” as that means the Holy Spirit is present in all of us to equip us to do the work of the Kingdom.