The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit lesson 15 wrap up, start 16
Mike Doyle · Oct 17, 2021
Holy Spirit (2021-23), No. 35
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261924414359

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

OK, so I've got two questions to do, and then JD will jump in. We had been talking last time about, in questions 6, 7, and 8, the issue of communion or fellowship. And the last question we talked about, what does the author cite? as a distorted view of communion. And one of the things we said that was it's not, as he put it, a dreamy sort of life elevated far above your common duties and affairs. The soul and rapt gaze looking heavenward. The body chiefly prostate in an attitude of prayer. So We get to question eight. In this same vein, the question is, what's the author's response to the statement, I have no time for communion?

And we are sort of smug about that, but I can't tell you how many times in my life, over the last 20, 30 years, people have actually made that exact comment to me. I don't have any time. for the Lord, right, or I don't have any time to hang out in fellowship, or I don't have, boy, where did the Lord go? Not that I went anywhere, but do you have experiences in your life with people that just sort of drift away, or they just dramatically go away, and they just don't seem to have time for fellowship, not only with the Lord, but with fellow believers. And I'm not talking about coming to church only, because that's a great place to fellowship with other believers. The next thing you know, all your friends are non-believers.

How did that happen? Sometimes the Lord hedges his hand, and he uses that to teach us. You know, I was hedged in for years. No friends, all alone in Colorado. You know, Mike, I think this goes a little bit back. I think for the insanity of not having communion, it goes back to the question on the last letter when my lesson was, what in the world gives us rest or peace? What does? Nothing.

And yet we shy away from the communion with Christ. And that's where peace, rest, joy, and everything comes from. It's insanity to walk away from the communion and the intimacy that we have with the Lord. You know, enough to cry, Abba, Father, Daddy. I mean, that's the intimacy that we have and the peace. And that's where all of our joy, peace, and rest comes from. And yet, for some unexplainable reason, we don't spend enough time With him, we spend more in the world and all the, you know, actions and activities here, you know, in politics and relationships and work and everything else.

And yet, there's no rest there. That's an important point, yeah. Mike, let somebody else talk. It's basically the tyranny of the urgent. It's all the allures of the world that just draws you into it. You don't take time to separate yourself from all that and just concentrate on the Lord, and that's what's going to happen. Sometimes you can't. Your circumstances are such that you just don't see a way I've counseled lots and lots of people to say, go to the Lord and say, look, I'm not spending enough time with you. Could you work that out for me? Guess what?

He'll do that. Because he loves our company. Donna did that 30 years ago in a job situation. And within two weeks, he'd solved it. She had a different job, but he solved it. Well, when I, you know, I just think of who is the one who wants us to be focused on the world?

The old man. That's right. And he wants us, you know, just like bindweed, you know, interwoven into the world as much as possible. Yeah. And so when we get all wrapped up in the world, the old man is the focus. And that's one of the real, pushes in the world is to get you wrapped up in it.

I had that experience. The first time in my life, I was in New York City. What an awful place that is. I'm at the 37th floor of the Marriott Hotel in Times Square. It's two o'clock in the morning. I can't go to sleep. You know why? The noise from the city's so loud, I can't go to sleep. And that's the thought that hit me. That's what this city's all about. Lots of noise, lots of this, lots of anything but the Lord just gets you in a position so you never have time for him. the U.S. and It's an insidious process because it happens a little tiny bit at a time.

One day, you get a little unfocused, and then another day, and then another day, and then after a month goes, you're off the rails a little bit. Three months, you're way off the rails. That's my experience. You know what, Jimmy? It's not always a bad thing that gets you off the rails. It's always something that seems really important. that, oh, I got to take care of this.

I can't do this because I have a job situation or I have a family situation that's going to take away from the time of the Lord. Read what Rideout says, which I really thought was good. He says, but how unhealthy is all this? How forced and unnatural?

Whereas the communion of the Holy Spirit is simply sharing in his thoughts. If the word of God engages us, if the love of Christ attracts us, if the will of God controls us, that is participation with the blessed Holy Spirit. I really like that statement because that's what the Spirit is all about. He's all about His word engaging us with God.

The word of God, if it's ignored, you're going to be filled up with something else. It's going to be something that probably appeals to you and is not a bad thing in that sense. And then from the word of God, you learn as you grow in the knowledge and grace of the Lord Jesus that he loves us and that love attracts us.

And that's what you're talking about, Courtney. You get attracted. You guys that are married, why do you go home at night? Because you love your wife and you want to be around her. She's attractive to you. And the will of God controls us, which is the participation in the blessed spirit. That's the thing. If you go to the Lord and say, look, I'm drifting off here. Would you bring me back? He'll do it. Okay. Any more comment on that question? Okay, question nine.

What's the problem with being too much engaged with the results of communion rather than the fact of communion? Everybody understand the question? First of all, let's talk about being engaged with the results of communion. What would they be? Possibly feelings. Then people will be looking for feelings rather than the fact that he is indwelling in us and guiding us into the truth all the time. So a write-out says, joy, freedom, exaltation all flow from communion.

So how do I say this? The Lord Jesus calls us to eternal life, he says, is to know him and the one who sent him. It's knowing him personally, intimately. There's such great emphasis on intimacy or fellowship with the Lord Jesus, which the spirit of God is the one who fosters that. And from that comes this wonderful thing called peace and joy, maybe the benefits.

And the problem is, it's like we pray to the Lord for him to do something, a gift. Like, look at the people we prayed for this morning. If God would do anything we asked, what would we pray for for Carol? What would we pray for for Lem? What would we pray for for JD? Notice how we hardly ever pray that they would have greater intimacy with the Lord Jesus, that they would be able to walk with him closer. No, we've got to get a cast off, and JD is going to need a job, and Lem has so many problems you can't enumerate them. What do you want? What do you want? So we get wrapped up in what God can do rather than who he is. Yeah, I think that, yeah, this is the thing about focusing on the gift rather than the giver. Yeah, you know that but but also caution when we.

We can go, we've had this discussion many times, we can go before the Lord and ask anything, whether it's stupid or not, or self, whatever. Yeah, I didn't say that to discourage you from going to him. Right, I mean, why we pray for him and why we do, we're so self-focused that we only want Carol's cast off and this and that, but that's fine.

He wants us to come before him and ask anything. And whatever the verse is, you can ask anything in my name, And if God, if it's in his will, he will answer. And so we can come with anything and stupid requests. And yet he just wants that intercede. And then it goes back to the Romans where God searches the mind of the spirit in us and intercedes for us in our prayers and all that. So just the point is that we can go anytime, anyplace and ask anything. Well, and in Philippians, he says, with prayer and supplication, make all your requests known to me.

OK. And what does he promise? Peace. I will give you the peace that passes understanding. Well, that's a benefit, right? Can I go to the Lord just to get the peace that passes understanding? Yeah, but you don't get it without him. Because when you go to the Lord with prayer and supplication, what have you done? You've gone to him. I'm here. You know, and I'm laying this out in front of you.

And it's interesting to me whenever I go to the Lord like that, that sometimes if I'm asking a miss about halfway through my request, he changes my mind. Well, we, you know, from whatever I'm thinking to the Lord, whatever your will is, I'm okay with this, you know, and not that you walk out of there with a case of warm fuzzies. That's not what you're there to do, but that's the point of the question. that we do look sometimes for the warm fuzzies rather than the fellowship or the communion with the person of the Lord himself. So if you could get your prayers answered at the expense of communion, which would you take?

OK. Rite Out says, let it suffice here to say that there is never any excuse for the Christian not to be enjoying this communion of the Spirit. I like that sentence. The busiest are not debarred from it, and it is the strength of weakness. Love is the atmosphere of communion, the love of God.

And this love is shed abroad, poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, Romans 5.5. Let our hearts expand under the warmth of that infinite tender love and let them revel in it, be at home in it. Keep yourself in the love of God. That is communion. Fear is cast out. Sin can have no place in the life where the love of God is enthroned. Remember, it is his, not our love that matters.

So, like Courtney was saying, the Lord invites us, encourages us to come to him with all your requests. But sometimes we go to him with thinking that, well, the result of my going to him is going to be something other than what he intends. And we start to focus in on the, focus in on the emotional benefit that I'm gonna get from going to him rather than just the fact that I get to spend time with him. I'm convinced that the Lord creates need in our life just so we will go to him, you know? Because if he didn't, we wouldn't, you know? So it's a really interesting thing.

Every one of us is involved in the child training or chastisement of the Lord, and why does he do it? Well, he gives us, like in Hebrews, he says, so that we can be partakers of his holiness. Boy, you start spending time thinking about what is God's holiness, and he wants me to be a partaker of that? And that child training is how he's going to do it. Well, what does child training do?

It causes me to go to him, because we've all been in circumstances where we could not come up with the answer. So we have to go to the Lord. Well, Stanford used to say, well, you have to trust the Lord has come to that, boys. And then he'd say, and it has to come to that. I think he's right, because we are so focused on something else most of the time, rather than just communion with the Lord Jesus. Well, ultimately, that's to conform us to His image. That's right. That's the ultimate purpose. That's right. And the conformity to His image is to behold His glory in the Word.

Could you say that the need is always there, and that God is just, you know, it's our need to be in intimate communion with the Lord, but we don't realize it. We're so conformed to this world, and we're so intimately involved with this world that we don't realize the need to come to God. I think a mature Christian realizes his need more often and is, without being disciplined by God, he's in communion with God more often, you know? And I'm not there yet. Well, you can get in line behind me. I think that's true of all believers, no matter how mature they are.

Think about how awful the Christian life would be without the Holy Spirit, without the one who constantly is engaged with us, personally and individually. to foster this kind of communion or intimacy based on all the circumstances surrounding. And he somehow has the ability to woo us to Christ rather than push us towards it. Rather than make it a legal thing, it's always a gracious, loving thing that woos us to Christ. Without the Holy Spirit, none of that would happen. and we would end up a bunch of legal theologians. That's what we would be. Yeah, so much here. I had a question that just kind of came up.

Does Christ conform us to his image to suit us for his presence so we can have communion with him eternally? Oh, what a great question. Behold him eternally. So does Christ, say that again, see if you can repeat that. Is the conforming to his image to suit us for him eternally so we may have communion and behold him in intimacy and relation with him? What do you think? That's a great question.

You stumped him. I think it's really good. I was talking over Mark right when he jumped in there, and my perspective was that our flesh does not want to be in the presence of Christ. And that's where we go askew, is that flesh creeps in, and it hates Christ. And Mark's saying, conform it to the image or growing in grace. The more we grow, the more we want to be there.

Our new man doesn't want to be in the world. Our new man wants to be right next to him. That's a good point, Jimmy. Anybody else? We're also, right now, positionally justified, sanctified, and everything, so we don't have to do anything to be ready for heaven. That's right. That's exactly right.

What's great about this question is maybe it's a chicken or an egg question. Which comes first, the chicken or the egg? Do I behold His glory to be like Him so that He can have communion with me? Or does the communion foster the conformity? And I think it's the communion that fosters the conformity. And here's why.

I think the 2 Corinthians 3.18 says, beholding as in a mirror, the mirror is God's word, the glory of the Lord. So that means what? That the word of God is to, for our understanding, why do you go in and read it? You go in there primarily to behold the glory of the Lord Jesus. Yeah, you learn the words and the concepts and the principles and all that goes with it.

But what you're really doing is beholding Christ reflectively, not face to face yet, but reflectively. And that beholding of him has an effect on me. And the effect is, is a conformity to who I'm looking at, to who I'm beholding, you know, an inch at a time. Now, the greater the conformity, the greater the intimacy.

Imagine when one of us goes home to be with the Lord and we go from here to face to face. It says that we will know as we are known. We will be totally, perfectly suited out to take them in. But that's the least taking in we will ever do. We will grow and expand to take in more of Christ for all eternity, I think.

He is the pearl of inestimable value. It isn't this crown thing. That's fine. He's the one I'm after, not the jewels, Him. So, and the more we grow, the more conformity, the more we grow, the more capacity I would say we have to behold his glory, to know who he is, and what happens? Like we're talking about, well, I drifted away last Thursday, and somehow on Friday, the spirit of God said, hey, you drifted, and you go, oh yeah, I thought I was missing something in my life, and back to the Lord you go. That's the spirit's job. That's what he does.

All right, JD, I'm done. You got about 10 minutes. Cool. Okay. Well, good to see everybody. You have to look at my mug for a minute. 10, I guess. Just 10. Well, we're moving to Lesson 16. So this has to do with the anointing of the Holy Spirit. In these 10 minutes, I think I just want to transition and set up what we're going to talk about next week. Just not by a raise or a show of hands necessarily, but how many of you guys have been anointed with the Holy Spirit and what did that look like?

And I saw Nick there for a minute. You have to answer the question now. That's a great question. Yeah. What does it look like? Cause that's what we're getting into. We're going to, we're going to establish what the scripture says. Um, but let's just take the street, you know, you take the street definition.

We've all come from different backgrounds. Um, if you've come from, you know, even denominationally within evangelicalism, there's different views of what the anointing of the Holy Spirit is. We're going to talk about that a lot moving into this next week. In terms of just transitioning from the concept of communion to anointing, Again, we're talking about the person of the Holy Spirit, right?

We're not talking about a simple process that occurs on our behalf as to our relationship with the Lord. It's not just a matter of defining what is communion. I think, Mike, you mentioned, what's the result of that? What's the result of communion? You just said it. It's an entire environment of love. And it is, and I'm going to kind of quote Courtney a little bit here, and maybe he'll correct me, but it's not to say that there aren't experiences or that there are not feelings, but they do, as Jimmy mentioned, they do follow the facts.

So when we look at the fact of communion with regards to the Holy Spirit bringing us into a communion of love, with the son How do we transition so a lot of times we you know in order to? To speak about the person the work of the Holy Spirit right at how to separate a lot of these into categorical chapters, right? We can't find a chapter of communion or uh... anointing in the bible we don't just find a single chapter right like we do with write out these aren't just categories are not just definitions but we have to look across the person of and the work of uh... the son so that we understand uh... the person of the work of the holy spirit. Does that make sense?

These are not happening in separate uh... they're not unconnected to one another and so when we get into this idea of of communion, transferring to, you know, what do we understand about anointing? I think that one of the things that anointing brings about is this idea of, I am now capable of doing something that I couldn't do before. And in the charismatic realm, that leads to a lot, right? What are some of the examples that you might have read about or experienced in your own life, maybe in your past, with regards to anointing? And I'm not getting into the scripture yet. I'm just asking, what is the street definition that you guys have maybe moved along in your relationship with the Lord that's caused you to question some of this stuff? Because it is a question.

Well, the Charismatics would say if you're anointed, then you're going to speak in tongues. OK. So tongues is one of those things. What's some others? Holy laughter. That went a long time. Holy laughter. OK. Holy laughter. I'm going to do a search on laughter in the Bible and see what I come up with.

I think it was maybe Sarai. It was Arum. Yeah, there's no way that's going to happen. She laughed to God. So you've got that one going for you, Ross. Holy laughter. What else? Anointing. Are you anointed? What does it mean? I mean, you've got a full day here. You've got your checklist. You've got your quiet time. You've got your prayer time. You've got, hey, I've got to get into sunny school.

But at the end of the day, if I'm anointed, what does that mean? What are you going to do today that reflects the anointing of the Holy Spirit? I think that's what What sometimes we get bogged down in is that it's about do we have the ability to perform miracles? Can we speak in languages that are unutterable? You know, the gift of tongues and laughter and miracles and healing. Anointing carries a big definition at the street level of Christianity.

Does that make sense so far? Yeah. Yeah. So, um... JD? Yeah? Is everybody, is every Christian anointed? That's a good question. I mean, are you... Well, I'll back up. By virtue of the definition of anointing, you would know if you are not or you are. Right? Interesting. Yeah. Is every Christian, is every Christian anointed? We're jumping ahead, but it's OK. It'll set us up for next week. Yeah. I know I am. You know you are?

1 John 2.20 says, however, you have an anointing from the Holy Spirit, and you know all things. So in that sense, then yeah, every Christian is anointed. There's an interesting part there, Jim, that you mentioned as well. Know all things. We need to get to that one. Yeah, I like that. That's pretty interesting, right? So, question one, and I'm just going to finish question one here and we'll set it up.

What are the Old Testament and New Testament words for anointing in Greek and Hebrew, which in our terms essentially mean the same thing? So there's two titles that we see in Hebrew and Greek that are primary words for anointing, and they relate directly to the work of the Holy Spirit, the person in the work of the Holy Spirit with regards to this. And if what Mike says is true, every Christian is anointed. It would be wise of us to look at what these two words, how these two titles are used throughout the Old and New Testament. Can we think of the two titles that Christ was given? First of all, in the Old Testament, what was he known for coming to do and how was he referred to by Israel? Even before Israel, What is the first anointing that we see in the Bible?

Ah, sweet, I got somebody stumped. Somebody, everybody, because nobody's speaking up. What's the very first anointing that we see? Who is set up? I'm gonna answer number two. What does Messiah or Christ mean? So we're looking at those two titles, and we're talking about the word anointed.

But the first place we actually see this is in Genesis, where you have the promised deliverer set apart for a job. What was the job? He wasn't referred to as Messiah at the time, wasn't referred to Christ at the time. But there in the book of Genesis, he set apart as the promised deliverer.

What does that mean? Deliverer. That's what he was. That's what he was. He was set apart to be a deliverer. All right. Can you say that? Wow. You can see all throughout, especially chapter three of Genesis and even into further chapters, there's right out of the gate, the Lord is setting apart the promise deliverer to do something in the history of mankind. Not just the physical history that we know, but something that I think Mark mentioned a minute ago, the eternal aspect So it's not just the historical understanding of what anointing was and our role of understanding that within the church age, but it's also an eternal thing.

Are you talking about Genesis 3.15? Mm-hmm. Want to read it for us?

Yeah, he says, I will put hostility between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed. He will strike your head and you will strike his heel. So he's already separating Separating the good from the bad. Separating the evil from the good. I think the word separation is really very much important, especially, and I know I'm running out of time here, so the last thought here is that As we start to delve into this a little bit more, that term separation comes up over and over and it's, it's, it's the definition for anointing and we're going to look at that it doesn't have to do with all the capabilities that you get with regards to tongues or holy laughter or. miracles or even prophecies. These are things that are claimed to be the role of the Holy Spirit with regards to anointing. But I love the definition to be a part, to be set apart for a certain role.

What was Christ being set apart for in Genesis 3.15? Like you said, to deliver mankind.

What does that have to do with, Rusty, you mentioned sanctification, justification, glorification, so we have those big theological terms, but being set apart, we have to first of all understand what Christ was set apart for and how that relates to us, and so that's gonna set us up for the following week, but I want you to think about another similar term that has been on my mind, and the term came to my mind about where do I belong?

Do I belong to my career? Do I belong to my job? Do I belong to this special capability of creating wonderful music? Do I belong to, are the things that we might call gifts or we might think of as roles, are we set apart for those things? Where do I truly belong? So in that vein of thought, let's close now, we'll close in prayer, but if you're sanctified and you're set apart, where do you belong?

I think that's one of the biggest questions we have is unbelievers and believers, where do I fit in this whole scheme of things? Does that make sense? I think this study is gonna help us understand where we belong and why, and it changes the entire perspective with regards to things that are happening around us. You know, Hal Malloy used to say that every man has to answer three questions in his life, and if he gets them answered, he's a happy guy. One, where'd I come from? Two, what am I doing here? And three, where am I going? Where am I going? Where did I come from? How did I get here? You get those answered.

Yeah. Well, we'll talk some more about that for sure. All right. Well, cool. I just got started, so it was hard for me to wind down. But looking forward to next week. Any final thoughts before I pray? Father Howie, thank you for this morning and just being able to delve into the reality of our communion that we have with you through the Holy Spirit, which places us into an environment of love.

Yes, it can be experienced, but we know more importantly, it is to be believed, to be beheld by our own faith. Um, as a, as a gift of yours. And so as we recognize you, um, as being love, and as we look at our circumstances, I just pray Lord that, that each of us would take the time to understand, uh, and, and be convicted by your word about where we belong and why we are anointed and, um, who Christ is in relationship to, uh, that wonderful blessing that we have. So I just pray for the next session here, uh, the main service. and ask that you would be glorified through all that is shared and taught, and that we might keep our eyes focused on you, the anointed one, and that we might recognize as we study how we are set apart for the work that you have for us. And it's in your name that we pray. Amen.