The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit lesson 34

OK, so we are in Lesson 34. Everybody got a copy of the questions in Lesson 34? OK. I'm making more of an effort now to put both the page number from the book, if you happen to have the book, and the PDF. So they're both in there. on both of them sometimes. The questions are sort of dug out of the paragraph. But that's good, because it forces you to look.

So we're talking about the Holy Spirit in power. And the first question was, will the one lead of the Spirit understand what the will of the Lord is? Will the one lead of the Spirit understand what the will of the Lord is. Question clear enough? In other words, if you're led of the Spirit, will you understand, have an apprehension, comprehension of what the Lord is? I think it's a good question for us because a lot of times we make Decisions based on what we think might be the leading of the spirit which are really more circumstantial than his leading Right on said the one so So is one lead of the spirit intelligence in divine things will be prominent Think that means that intelligence in divine things would be prominent and That's an easy sentence to understand. It means the mind of the Spirit would be the forefront of your mind.

You would begin to see things the way He sees them and be able to respond as He would have you respond. He says, Rite Out says that He will discern, understand, what the will of the Lord is. Can you say that about everything that's going on in your life?

No. No. I don't think we do. I mean, a lot of times when we have a trial show up, you know, we will say, oh, this must be something from the Lord, but a lot of times we might say that, but we're not really buying that. I shouldn't have been doing this or I shouldn't have been doing that and because I was doing this or because I was doing that now I have a trial and maybe looks like I might have made God a little angry. What's that? I'm being punished. Or the big why. Why me? Why is this all happening to me? You know like there's some sort of independent free agency was picking on you.

You know, the story I've told a hundred times about Sharm Sherman, who was the head of the basketball team for the Athletes in Action, and he used to come to the Tuesday meeting. He lived in Denver. He came in one day and I said, Sharm, how's your day going?

He said, Oh, Satan was picking on me. And I said to him, Satan doesn't know your name, nor does he know your address. He doesn't know where you live. If he did, you would be a really important guy and a big threat to him, but you're not. He said, well, where does he live? I said, well, number one, he's not omnipresent, although we all think he might be. He can only be in one place at a time. He lives in Washington, D.C. So, I mean, but we think like that. We think, oh, you know, the devil, well, it's one of his surrogates. Or take the other side of the spectrum. You have something really great happen to you. And who gets the credit for that? The Spirit of God or you?

Unfortunately, citing all the Hungry Heart, yesterday's Hungry Heart was exactly that about child training. Many have the wrong idea of the word chasing. We think perhaps that it represents God as having a big stick in his hand and knocking us about all the time. You have only to make a mistake and down comes the of the father is not all what the word means. The word chastening simply means child training, which has to do with sonship. Sonship in our father's mind is to have people who are reliable and responsible, who know in their own hearts what is right and wrong, and do not have to be constantly told and admonished. But I mean, you do one thing wrong and a big stick's coming down.

That's totally wrong. As a matter of fact, I sent that hungry heart to Aaron Chutt. He thanked me. I hope he read it before he thanked me. You know, right up makes a point. He said, here we are at the mercy of no vague impressions, which we may blindly follow.

I think that's a really cool thing to understand that believers are to be very intelligent about what's happening in their life. with it, understand, source, and who they are in Christ. It's like when you read, like we're studying John's Gospel on Wednesday nights. It's amazing how often the Lord Jesus makes it clear to those people that he's talking to that he never does anything of himself, he only does what he sees his Father doing. In other words, he's totally dependent on the Father, and he never never makes an independent decision to do something that is not the will of the Father. Is that applicable to us too? I think it is.

But that takes intimacy with Christ and spiritual intelligence, which is what he's talking about, and the ability to understand that it's God who works all things together for good. Yeah, not only is it, I mean, it's pretty simple to say that and understand it, but does he really trust him about that? Mike, I think one thing that sticks out to me here is that the Holy Spirit deals in clarity and truth, you know, and I think it's very, very important. He says we're not at the mercy of, you know, vague impressions. Because that is often how we operate. We're like, well, I kind of feel like Yeah that but you know, even though we talked about, you know, the big sticker.

Well the Lord he does discipline But in those events where there's something, you know It's clear. It's it's you know clear and immediately so And there's no like well, I wonder if that's because of this that you know But But I think the next sentence there that our patience and faith may be tested by lack of guidance, I think that's actually quite often the case. I was talking to Alyssa about this last night, and I said, there's so many issues, so many circumstances where we're wondering where the Lord is leading or where he's guiding. And I said, well, you know, the Lord wants intimacy with you. if he just wanted to boom forth his will from the clouds, you know, he could do that.

But it's that it's kind of like, you know, in a marriage relationship, you know, we always, you always get the joke like, well, the wife wants you to read her mind. It's like, well, she kind of does. She wants you to, because she wants intimacy with you. She wants you to be picking up on those subtle, the subtlest little things without having to say it openly.

And I think it's very much the same with Lord. He desires intimacy with us. And so he's often, guiding in subtle little ways that we may not have realized until afterwards, but it's not just giving us always this, you know, this direct statement. It's these little things that as we walk in intimacy with Him, we're knowing the mind of Christ, in a sense. That's good, Miles.

I think that's exactly accurate. Have any of you read Andrew Murray's book, Waiting on God? A little 35-page book. And it's actually a devotional, but 30-some pages. And the title is what it's all about. What's it like to wait on God? How much do you learn of Him by waiting for Him to do something or to tell you something? So I recommend it to everybody. It's available. You can get it in a lot of places. Probably you won't be able to download it for free. But it's exactly to this point.

If I'm sitting there with the Lord for however long, a month, two months, and I'm waiting for Him, what am I learning? I'm learning about Him. Because I'm waiting with Him. I'm waiting for Him to make the move. go forward or backwards until there's a confidence that he says, move. So I'd recommend that to you.

The last thing Rideout says is that Paul's vision of the man of Macedonia formed the basis of a clear discernment of what the mind of the spirit was. Now I can't imagine sitting around waiting for my phone to ring because I have a clear vision of JD calling me. That's not going to happen.

But we do get clear visions about things from the Word about how things ought to go together. And it may not happen bang, bang, bang, but there's a direction and an instruction given in that kind of thing. And maybe you got it from just reading the word or like a hungry heart or something like that. And you think, oh, that's an answer to something that I've been mulling over for a while.

And I see where we're going now that I didn't see before, but I don't see it happening by 2 o'clock this afternoon. Does that make sense? There may be a time, a time frame in there where I know what's going to happen, I just have to wait. Who understands what the will of the Lord is? Let's get down to some mechanics here. We're walking by the Spirit. We're living our life.

This is saying that he will discern and understand what the will of the Lord is. That his thinking will be prominent. His intelligence will be prominent. I think it's a believer he's talking about. Yeah. It's interesting though. Is it the believer that's discerning? Or is it the Holy Spirit discerning for the believer? Yeah, that's interesting. Is that answer in Romans 8, 31, 32?

I think that's where that discussion is. Let's get it up there and see. You know, in paraphrasing, we don't know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit intercedes. What I like about that, you ought to talk about this, Courtney. It's one of your favorite verses. I was going to say, I think 1 Corinthians 2 sheds some light on that as well. You know, no one knows the mind of the Lord but the Spirit. And we have the mind of Christ. Yeah. And we do. I mean, that's a definite statement that we do have the mind of Christ. So this is a superpower, so to speak. No. Right? No. No, but listen where I'm going with this. Just one moment.

This is the believer's ability to be led of the Spirit and discern spiritual things unlike they could ever do without the Spirit. So what I'm suggesting is that us walking with the Lord enables us to have this kind of intelligence to discern things around us that are spiritual. When I can't discern, when I can't figure things out, I gotta ask myself, who's doing the discerning? Am I walking with the Lord here?

Because This comes back to, you used to give me grief about this. All the time. Well, you give me grief about everything. You might get some more right now. Your calling in life. About how we don't understand what's going on. You used to say that, now you...

The overriding thing is, and this is where it kind of came down to it, is we know that God is doing His purposes. I may not understand all the intricacies of that, but I know that the direction is from Him. And I think that's where, you know, kind of where he came down to it is that I may not know that, you know, the disturbing what's going on today and why this happened or whatever, but I know it's in a direction to draw us to His Son, to conform us to His image, all those different things. We may not understand what's going on today, but the direction is still in the same direction. And that's by God.

When you were talking, I'm thinking a military metaphor showed up in my mind. The major of the battalion has a direction, and he makes it known to his subordinates, and everybody knows we're going from here to there. the captain or the lieutenant of my platoon and the sergeant of my squad and the guy next to me, we all know where we're going. But that doesn't mean that I'm going to get to know my leaders intimately. And I don't think God does anything that doesn't include intimacy.

I know the direction, like I know that I'm either going to die or be raptured. I've got one of two things happening. But if I, if I, when I die, how's that going to go? Or when I'm raptured, how's it going to go? Am I going to be aware? You know, I'm like, I think that if the day that I die, the Lord will come and get me personally and take me with him.

That kind of intimacy, I think, is what the Holy Spirit tries to foster in a believer. So not only do I know the direction and the principle that he works all things together for good. But I get to walk with them. I get intimacy with them way beyond the marching orders.

I think one of the things that Courtney was talking about is that having intelligence, spiritual intelligence, guidance, that's what we're talking about here. Whether it's my kids trying to decide how to handle a certain situation at school or it's us trying to decide how to handle a co-worker or sickness or whatever your life is throwing at you, there's a spiritual intelligence available in the Spirit that will allow you to have an understanding about what you're doing and where you're going and why you're there that sometimes is not intricate.

We were talking about Job 42.2 this week and it says, I know that you can do all things and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. So that at the very least we have an intimacy with the creator of the universe who has a purpose that cannot be thwarted and that's a spiritual understanding without knowing any intricacy whatsoever. You have an understanding of, my creator's got this under control.

I trust him about that. I think that's where the Lord's been beating into me for years now, is the two things that I go to is the sovereignty of God and Romans 8, that he loves you, and we cannot be separated from his love. I think with those two foundational things, a trial, He still loves you. In blessings, He still loves you. And sovereignly, He's in control of everything.

You know, my thought was, like if I called you up on the phone and said, you know, Courtney, I've got a problem. Will you help me with it? What am I looking for? I know you're going to tell me those things. I'm looking for something more than that. I'm looking for Does he know that God really does love him? And can he say, look, here he is, and he's a lover, and I can see it. I think that's spiritual intelligence. I can see what's happening. I can see that it's just not language.

I think there's a privilege for us being led of the Spirit to ability with the Lord in our mind, because He created us for fellowship. He created us in His image so that He could have this fellowship with us. And He's given us the Holy Spirit so that it's intimate and it's real, but it's always connected to His word. So regardless of not knowing all the details and how they're going to turn out, I can back up and just almost sit at the top of the hill with the Lord and He can say, all of these things are under my control.

I'm giving a silly analogy, but there's nothing that you're going to go through that won't include my love for you through it, and my purpose. And that settles the believer in the midst of anything. It doesn't mean that it's easy, and it doesn't mean that it feels good, but mentally that's an intelligence and a prominence of the Spirit's guidance in our life.

And I think that's what Whiteout's really trying to get at here, and I think it's important that we We understand that you don't always know the left and the right direction, that you know the creator, you know the lover of your soul. And I think that's demonstrated when somebody does come to you, or you go to somebody else. You're not looking for Bible verses. Right. I mean, the Bible, I may be looking for an explanation of a verse, What I'm really looking for is the playing out of that verse in the person's life, so that I can trust them.

And that's why we care if an unbeliever knows the Lord, because they can't discern these things. They can't understand these things. And even when we're thinking about working with believers, we want to know Are they walking with the Lord? Otherwise, they're not discerning these things from the point of view of the Lord Jesus.

And that's why I think for our family, we have to ask ourselves quite often, are we trusting the Lord right now? Because we can get into long rants about what we think is going on in our life. And then we all of a sudden are like, hmm. We're not discerning things spiritually, we've just broken them down quite logically, and that seems great, but we don't have a spiritual discernment that we're sharing, and so what does it come back to?

Fellowship. And that's what's so beautiful about this part of the work of the Holy Spirit, is that this is where relationships get mended, this is where clarity gets given. To Myles' point, there's clarity even in the midst of total fog. Yeah, and that's where timing happens. The right timing is critical in this, because sometimes I know the right thing to do, but I just don't think it's the right time to do it.

That's right. You know. You know, another one that always comes is the Philippians 4-6. about be anxious for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your request be made known to God but the answer is in the peace of God which surpasses all comprehension will guard your hearts and your mind in Christ Jesus. Again, I come to you. Yeah. I'm all over the lot.

If you're not living that, then you can quote it to me and I don't, okay. Yeah, you know I think but again I go to the body concept the reason why I come into somebody else is is for Comfort in the body, and I think so to edify and to help to you know that one has one member of the body hurts You know we all do and I think that's when you come to somebody It's you know for comfort and direction you know it also is you know situation. Maybe not.

And that's why I say I don't think maybe the prayer to get you out of it is just to comfort you that God is in control of this and He's allowing it and He loves you. Those are the things that I come to. I can't explain everything why I say to you, but I know He's in control of it and He loves you. And you know you may have to go through this and yeah, you know and that's just know that he's he's in control And I'll walk with you.

Yeah, and I'll be there right. I mean, that's that's yeah I Know that we're this is great by the way. This is stuff. That's just real street level stuff here, and I love the the verse that you just brought up there and Because anxiety is a big thing.

And what does anxiety come from? Whether it be on a world stage or on a personal stage, maybe you don't know where you're going to get your next paycheck, or you don't know where you want to go to school. There's anxiety around all of those things. But anxiety comes from not knowing. If you know something, maybe you're still a little bit anxious, but a lot of anxiety comes from not knowing the unknowns.

What's going to happen here? What's going to go there? But I think one of the things that we're pointing out here is that you can back up into this environment of prayer and supplication and find yourself at peace with God in the middle of a completely unknown situation that you have no idea how it's going to turn out. There is a place for peace in the midst of the anxiety that comes your way.

And that's with a person. And it's just really, I say superpower, but my point is that it's a gift from the Lord that we have access to that we rarely understand in the midst of the turmoil. It's like that verse, and I don't know where it is, but it's in my mind.

I know who I have belief in. I know who I believe in. And I'm able to... You're persuaded that he's able? Yeah, he is able to keep that which I have entrusted unto him until that day. Wow. You know, some guys call me up and want to talk about their marriage and I say, well do you look at your wife this way? No. You don't trust her. Because you don't trust you.

So it leads into the next question which is, how does one become intelligent in the things of God? Now that we took 40 minutes to set up question one, I'll prompt a little bit. Rite Out says, but to be intelligent in the things of God means to have a knowledge of his mind as given in his word. What a great answer that is. The knowledge of his mind as given in his word. To discern, we must have those principles of truth only found in scripture, and the scriptural man is ever a lover of the Word of God.

So, when I was looking at this, I was thinking, boy, this is more than just being able to memorize. This is more than just having a bunch of letters after your name that start with P, H-D, you know. This has to do with, like J.D.' 's been talking about, the knowledge of his mind. I know him personally and intimately.

Like he says, lover of the word of God. There you go. Because that's where you learn it. Probably the best Christian counselor I've ever run across in my life was Al Malloy. And he had this great principle. You come to him with your super problem nobody can solve. And he would say, okay, the very first meeting you get to lay out your problem. So make sure you get it all in. Because the second meeting we're never going to talk about your problem again. We're going to go into God's Word and see what he says about your problem.

Perfect way to look at it. It's perfect. So you can express all of your anxieties and all of whatever is going on. And he says, we got it all down? Good. Let's put a period there. Now let's go into God's word. And we'll see what God says about your problem. And it's there. It's there. I thought, boy, that's just, in my mind, all the psychiatrists in the world, if they knew that one thing, it would change the whole profession of psychiatry. they'd stop dealing with the sin nature, you know. Hey Mike?

Yes? Is that right there the flesh lusts against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh? I think so. I think so because the flesh is a, dare I say it's an operating system and part of its tenets are fear, anxiety, defeat, But arrogance underneath all of that, I got this.

Whether I got it or not, I got this. It's almost like the Lord says, you got this, do you? Let's see how this trial goes. Miles Stanford used to say, you have to trust the Lord, it's come to that. And then he would pause a minute and he'd say, and it has to come to that.

And I think that's how you learn about the Lord as you find yourself in a position. I have nobody else to go to but Him. Now there may be some other member of the body of Christ that you can go to and share and who will walk with you and you know them. But really the point is focusing on the Lord Himself and His Word.

What does He say? intellectual way. Yeah, I love that. But as controlling his thoughts and lighting his conscience and guiding his affections, he is placed at the disposal of the Holy Spirit, the instrument by which he will be made of quick understanding. He will know the mind of the Spirit and thus be guided. How immensely important is this?

Yeah. And again, it's, you know, it's the cold, I mean, you can read it. As you've said many times, you know, there are going to be a lot of those people who are in heaven with their books and they're this, walk right by the Lord and never see him. Yeah, yeah, out of my way. I got to get to the, you know, the library. So I think that's really, really key. I mean, and that I think is some of the spirit, you know, I think about that somewhat as a spiritual growth.

A lot of times we can read it, but we don't understand it or we don't, you know, make it part of our life or something. I don't know how to say it, but it's, you know, we look at it but we don't believe it, I guess is the thing. It's a really interesting thing because there are plenty of biblical scholars around, you know. But there are very few of them that you would want to walk with, you know.

And there's, I think everybody in the body of Christ is to be like that. One hurts, we all hurt, kind of thing. And that we can, you know, there doesn't need to be any secrets in the body of Christ because the flesh is the only thing that keeps secrets. The great thing of the Holy Jesus is that he's always trying to lay out who he is. And the grace that he has brought with no impediments at all. You know, come to me. All of you, come to me and I will give you and then the list never stops.

So, I think you're right and I think that the affections is such a big part of it and I think the reason affections are not a big part of contemporary Christianity is because there's been such an insert of law over the top of it. I say a different way, and we've had these discussions too, but I think it's a different way.

Everybody's put feelings over over the word and so feelings becomes a a negative Well, it becomes a negative to Believers who believe in the word because oh we can't be like those Charismatics or we can't we because they you know But I always go back in this where we've had our discussions to is that what is the fruit of the Spirit? Love joy peace, but those are all emotions. Those are all emotions Love is an emotion. Joy is an emotion. Or a feeling. But it's got to be based on the Word. And the other is, He promised you rest. Just as we were saying, Matthew, come to me, all who labor, and I'll give you rest.

Sometimes we make it so sterile and cold, this relationship, but it's not. It's a very intimate, personal, loving relationship. I think the problem with emotion is the foundation of the way you go at things. You're missing the controlling factor, which is God's Word, and your own will to believe And God gave us a spirit and a soul, and a soul has a lot of properties in it, and we have elevated emotion above all the rest of the properties. Right, and that's wrong. It is. Not that emotions are bad, but they are to be controlled. We're all to be controlled by the spirit, through our own spirit. But it's not that I love the Lord. I'm resting in the Lord. I have joy in the Lord.

All these things, those are not bad things. And again, to one of those verses, consider it all joy, my brethren, when I encounter various trials. Joy? How do I have that joy? Yeah. Well, it's, you know. You come over to my house, I have a jar, and the kitchen says warm puzzles. I think that, so there's a positional aspect to joy. I should stop talking anyway.

It's in the class, but it's interesting there that God does not give us these attributes of the Holy Spirit's result of working in our life, like joy, peace, patience, and especially guidance here. These are worked out both positionally and conditionally. And that's the life of being led of the Spirit that we live in. And oftentimes we don't get to experience what we know to be true. And that's a foundational truth about the Christian walk. We don't experience joy right now, but we know that there's joy in the Lord because He is in control.

He's sovereign and He does love me. And it puts things into perspective despite my circumstances. And there's a joy in that. And there's a joy in going through that because you're doing it. There is. How is it? But that's the James verse. That's the James verse. That's really the James verse.

Consider all joy. Yeah. I mean, it's not like, whoopee, I'm being tortured. No. But it's, you know, you have that inner peace, which is you pray and you get the peace that surpasses all understanding. That's how you have joy in that, hey, the Lord is still in control. So, no, that's exactly where that verse comes. I'm not like, you know, yippee, you know, it's great that I'm being tortured. But it's okay to have joy, is what your other point is, is like, we should. joyful moments of being in fellowship with the Lord and with others.

One last comment about these Lovejoy preach stations. They're all things done to us, nothing originated by us. Oh, right. We've got to close. Father Howie, thank you again. Thank you for the discussion and talking about your Word. and how our life goes as we grow in the knowledge and grace of your dear Son, because of your Spirit. We pray in the Lord's precious name. Amen.