The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit lesson 44 cont.
Courtney Hemenway · May 14, 2023
Holy Spirit (2021-23), No. 109
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261931173438

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

We are on lesson 44, the last lesson for the class on Holy Spirit. We have, let's see, on question three, week three, so I think we can maybe get through these. I'm ever hopeful that we can do it. We can get on to the next study, which is Pidas, but this has been fantastic. The last chapter again, as I've said each time, I encourage you to read the last chapter of Rideout's book. He just summarizes and gets to the real details. kind of the personal, intimate aspects of the Holy Spirit, and the relationship between the Holy Spirit, the Lord Jesus, and God the Father. And it's just, he does a great job of that. Like I said, I kind of don't usually read directly from what the write-out has, but there's so many good things he had on this one that I ended up doing a lot of that.

So, question three, lesson 44. In 1 Corinthians 11-26, is there anything left to be done before Christ comes for us? If we read 1 Corinthians, I'll read 23-26, and we might just be reading this later today. For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus, in the night in which he was betrayed, took bread, and when he gave it thanks, he broke it, and he said, this is my body, which is for you.

Do this in remembrance of me. In the same way, he took the cup also after supper, saying, this cup is a new covenant in my blood. Do this as often as you drink it in remembrance of me. For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes. So, at the inauguration of the Lord's Table, Christ gives the command to do this. I'm gonna basically share some of this in the Lord's Table, we're gonna have that later. I always ask the question, are there other direct commands from the Lord for us to do things, do this? Can you think of anything else where he said, do this, a direct command? That's a question, I couldn't find it.

So with that, I take that as, hey, this is probably pretty important. If the Lord himself is commanding or saying, do this, my ears go up and I think, the Lord wants us to do this. This is something so important. And remember, what was the time frame of this?

Right before he went to the cross. So, you know, he was thinking of us, he was thinking of what we need to do. The only thing which is he commanded us to do is to remember this, remember in the Lord's table. So again, I think it's incredibly important that right before he goes to the cross, he tells us to do this. So I take that as being a very important thing for us to do.

But is there really anything else for us to do? before he comes? Is there anything? There are logical imperatives where if we do this, logically this will happen, but is there any other things that we have to do before he comes? The Unmeritorious Act, Ingrid's favorite word.

That's the only thing really for us is to believe him. That's the only thing, that's really what I have, is there's nothing except believe what he says about us. Believe what is true. Believe that he is coming. And I'm gonna touch on that in the Lord's Supper. I mean, this is all very germane to what we're gonna share at the Lord's table here in just a bit. An important thing, we are to do this until he comes. That's the only thing we're supposed to do. And other than that, it is just believe what he says in the scripture, what Paul lays out for the church, who is us. So there's nothing else for us to do.

Yeah. The command is to remember. And you remember by celebrating the Lord's table. But the remembrance is the most important part of it, that we remember what Christ has done. And I'll touch on that. The do is, what is the do? It's to remember. Which I'll touch on later today is, until he comes. But the do is, what are we supposed to do? We're to remember. That's the key. And then the third part is, until he comes.

And there's so much that goes into what It's way more than just remembering that he died for our sins. I mean, once you start getting into Paul's epistles, you find out that, oh my goodness, this death that we're talking about here changed everything. Everything is different now. And so, all of that, the more you learn about crucifixion, the more there is to remember, maybe you can put it that way. I should just bring out my notes for the Lord's table that I'm going to share. There's so much in it. Is it just remembering his death? Yes. But what does that do to you, remembering death? What does that all entail?

I mean, yes, our sins are paid for, we already did that, but that's really not part, I mean, that was a separate deal between the Father and Christ. Salvation is what was graciously given to us through faith. And so, what we remember in his death is that he paid for all our sins, but the gracious act of salvation through faith was given to us. that opportunity. And then all of the things that Paul expounds upon that we have as believers is true.

And it's true of us right now. And so the remembrance is what he did, but then what it links to is that makes us want him to come. That wants us to long, to desire to have him come. And then what we saw last week, which I expressed, I'd never seen that before. The spirit and the bride say come. The spirit wants him to come. You know, that's incredible. He wants the bride for the bridegroom. That's incredible. That's what his desire is, to have the bride and the bridegroom come together.

And so, yeah, that was a big eye-opener when I was studying those questions. So, let's go right out. So, there's nothing else for us to do. We just have to believe, and that's really the non-meritorious act of trusting in what the word says about us, what the Holy Spirit convinces us is true about us. So, there's nothing else. So, Wright states it this way.

But as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you do show the Lord's death till he come. As we look back on Calvary, we also look forward to his coming. How perfectly his grace has linked those two events together. He left nothing undone at the cross, nothing to be worked out in an interval before he could come. No work of purifying, of making us faithful, as rounding out his work. No, that work is complete, that nothing is left but to look and long for His coming. I thought that was tremendous. That's the only thing left, just to look for His coming. We'd love it right now. They don't have basements in heaven. They don't have that. They don't have that. They don't have flooding. They don't have any of that. I think all of us would love to have the Lord come back today. and avoid all the crud that we deal with. But, as I always say, we're still here, that means you've still got stuff for us to do.

And it's to form the image of Christ in us. That's ultimately the goal of the Spirit, is to form that image and to form us as the bride of Christ. Thoughts? I haven't thought about the fact that The longing, or the looking forward is, yeah, we have all, you know, there's lots of trials and suffering, there's lots of this and lots of that, but the real issue is Him. That's the issue. I say jokingly about, we don't have politics, we don't have basements, we don't have that.

But it is, and what really brought out in that last question, what we're looking at, it's the bride and the bridegroom. That's what we're looking for. It's the bridegroom, it's the bride. We're looking at the bridegroom. We want to, you know, giving away all of it, you know. turned down the aisle, if you were married, if you went through the ceremony, and I said, when Ingrid turned down the aisle, I was a mess. You know, longing and seeing what, yeah, I know you're surprised. You know, and that, but that's, think of that compared to seeing the Lord as the bridegroom. We are the bride, and that's the longing.

We get rid of all this stuff, and the other thing which I try to explain is, what is our life gonna be like without a flesh? I think my mind is so trashed out that what is my mind gonna be without the flesh irritating it all day long? I can't even comprehend what my thought pattern would be without the flesh. And it's wonderful. I don't have all these distractions. And I can purely look at my savior's face, the bridegroom, unimpeded, unimpeded, with a pure love for him. How do you describe that?

I don't know. Do you think any of that's possible now? I don't know if I could understand it. I mean, I really don't. That's why I said, what is it with it? I mean, that's really rabbiting. You know, what is it? What is it without your flesh irritated, you know, and your mind going off into all the stupid things? What is it? What is your mind to be like without all that? You know, that's just, I, that's something I can't even comprehend, you know, but then a pure love to Christ, the bridegroom, what the hell is that going to be?

That's the longing. Yeah. Yeah, to see that, to be part of that. So, yeah. Any other thoughts? Yeah, it's just, yeah, it's amazing to think of. That's the longing. Nothing else to do but long for His coming. And yeah, the other is that as we've spent a year and a half or two years on this is, The convincing and convicting us, that's the conforming us to the image. He's forming the bride. When you see what a husband's supposed to do for a bride, the washing and the making, and he speaks of that as the church and Christ. That's what the Holy Spirit's doing for us right now. He's preparing the bride.

We're being prepared. So, other thoughts? All right. Question four. The Spirit is sent from heaven by the Father to win. Well, I'm getting way ahead now. So, the Spirit is sent from heaven by the Father to win what? For Christ. So what is the Spirit coming to win for Christ?

A bride. He's coming. That's what he's here for. To secure a bride. To wash the bride. To prepare the bride. To form the bride. For what? The other part of the triune God that the Spirit is part of. He's forming the bride for Christ. The bridegroom. and the love and the intimacy between the Godhead, what do you think? He wants that bride perfect for the other part of the triune God. He wants that bride united to the bridegroom as soon as possible. He's longing for it. He's saying, come.

Yeah. Notes I put together for What I discovered was is that there's a lot of positional, what we call positional truths contained in what baptism represents. And that it's all from the viewpoint that this acquisition of a bride the second someone is saved, they're qualified to be the bride. Which means that even though we're dogged by the sin nature, it's really, we're separated from it. Because that's what the Word tells us. Right, positionally we are right now. So my faith as a believer is based on what we call positional truth.

I read in the Scripture that the old man's gone, swept away. Well, you know, being someone who, like every other believer, who seems to have to fight with that situation all the time, I think you have to make up your mind as to whether God's telling you the truth or not. That's the spiritual maturity and growth. I look back at Paul in Romans 7. Here's the guy who had three years with the Lord, and he's going, I want to do this, but I can't. I don't. That's the joyous part before we get to Romans 8. But he struggled too.

I think that's the spiritual maturing the growth that a believer goes through. He's taking us through this growth, and it's the renewing of the mind, it's the transforming us to Christ, and that's the Holy Spirit's job. And then we look at what a husband and wife are supposed to do in the washing, and then he says, I speak of Christ in the church. That's what the Holy Spirit's job is right now, is forming in us that image of Christ. even though positionally we're there, and once we step into eternity, we don't have all the distractions and all that.

Yeah. I had a kind of a discovery this week, like you did last week about this, that the Lord, I don't know if I can verbalize it, the reason we are not under judgment is because there's nothing to judge. Right. It's God. Yeah. I stand before the Lord, in the Lord Jesus, in all of his righteousness, and no matter how much experience I have with the flesh and sin and all of that, That has been so completely taken care of at the cross that there's nothing less for God to judge me about. Because I've already been judged in Christ, and I've already died.

All your sins have been paid for. Gone. That's why a lot of believers beat themselves up on sinning. The only thing you lose in there is fellowship. It's all been done. Why beat yourself up for the sins that you've committed or will commit when it's all been paid for?

The thing you do is you lose fellowship when you're stepping out, you're not walking in the spirit. And what you lose is the fellowship. The longer you stew in your own sins is the longer you lose fellowship. Confess that's not who I am in Christ, it was stupid, move on.

Yeah, or be anxious for nothing. Yeah, bring it all before him and he'll guard your heart. Right, in other comments, but yeah, right at, put it this way, and this again, you know, he came to win a bride for Christ. God gave up his son, the son of his bosom, to death and raised him up by his glory from the dead. He has made him heir of all things, having put all things into his hands and seated him in his own right hand. But it is God's purpose that his son should have a bride. to be associated amazing grace in the glory which as son of man he has gained but he will not subject his son again to ignominy.

I had to look that word up. Anybody know what that word is? What that means? Public shame or dishonor. So he's not going to put his son again to any public shame or dishonor and reproach. He shall not again come in lowliness to the earth. So the spirit as messenger is sent from heaven where Christ is to earth to win for him a bride. That's the purpose. We're the bride.

That's amazing. I like the word win. Win, yeah. That's how he does it. Yeah. He woos us. Woos us. Brings us in. And he's conforming us to the bride that Christ deserves and wants. That's what he's forming in us. So, how did, well, yeah, here we go. I keep jumping ahead because I'm studying the, how did Christ make us qualified to be his bride? How did he qualify us to do that? How did he qualify us to do that? Was it a test that we took?

Did we go down to the gist of the piece and we qualified to be the bride? We signed up for something, we did the 10 spiritual pushups, I think it's the same as baptism, right? You're being placed into union. And because you've been placed into union with Christ, you now qualify as the bride. Yeah, which is amazing. Thinking that he's qualifying us to be his bride by putting us into himself. Go figure that one out. Who planned that one? Who earthly could plan that one? You know, that's why this is all, you know, beyond what we could ever think or imagine.

That he qualified us by putting us into himself, dying, allowing us because all of our sins were paid for and then graciously offering us through. And the only thing I had, there's only one thing I said that we, that, that makes us qualified is believe. It's the only thing that qualifies us is that we believe. I was listening to Kali on something else this week, and he said, he asked the question, he said, what makes you qualified for salvation? You know what his answer was?

Wretchedness. Wretchedness, realizing you're wretched. If you don't know that you're wretched, you don't qualify. Well, I dispute that a little bit, and positionally we're qualified. And if we don't, you know, right. But to qualify that you first have to know you're a sinner and need a savior. So yes, the pre-step to being a believer is the understanding that you need a savior. So I think that the Christian life is really taken up with learning all that you are in Christ, and all that he is, and you are in him.

And the fact that there isn't anything that he left undone. Yeah, there's nothing more to do that. And so, you know, we'd like to talk about our sins and that kind of thing. But we're talking about an entirely new man. That's we've been recreated in with everything is different and new. And that's what I think of the conditional qualification process is finding out who you are in Christ and what all that is.

And it's so gracious, it's overwhelming. Yeah, no, and it's a process. Yeah, it is. You know, it's the conforming. It's not conformed, we're conforming. It's a continuous action of conforming us to the image. Renewing is a continuous, renewing our mind. It's the growth. So I want to read Ephesians 2, 1 through 9.

And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedient. Among them, we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath. even as the rest, but God, being rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ, by grace you have been saved, and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. So, in the ages to come, He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and not of yourselves. It is the gift of God, and not a result of work, so that no one may boast."

Again, we're going to be displayed showing the riches of His grace. He's going to show His bride off for eternity. showing the grace that he brought forth, showing this love that has no bounds. He's going to show us off for an eternity, the bride that was united to him. Think about that one.

So, other than our simple act of faith, what did Christ do to make us qualified to be his bride? What did he do to qualify us? What did he do before? He had to be placed. We had to move from the ground of the old man to the ground of the new man. But what did he do to do that? He had to die. He had to die. And so do we. And so do we. So he gave himself up for us, his bride to be. That's amazing. This is where I get into the Ephesians too.

Husbands, love your wives just as Christ also loved the church and gave himself up for her, so that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of the water of the word, that he might present to himself the church in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she would be holy and blameless. Is that us in Christ? So husbands also ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his own wife loves himself, and for no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ also does the church, because we're all members of his body. For this reason, a man shall leave his father and mother and shall be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is great, but I'm speaking with reference to Christ and the church.

He made us holy and blameless to be his wife, to be his bride. We didn't do anything other than believe. He gave himself up. He died. He went to the cross, took all our sins to suffice God the Father about the sin issue. But he did it ultimately to love us and for us to become his bride.

I would say, too, there's another element of this, and that is, up until the time that Christ shows up on the planet, God is dealing with one human being, and that's Adam, and all that he is. And even like in Noah's Ark, he wiped out, what did he say? All flesh is gone before me, except for these guys. And they continued afterwards to produce from what they were. They're sinners.

So enter Christ into the equation. He's an entirely different man. And he becomes the man that God now deals with all humanity through. And he doesn't deal with Adam anymore. Adam wasn't suitable, but Christ is. So, like a lot of the brethren used to say, you need to change men.

And that's, you know, it's one of those sayings that you think, you know, it's really profound, but I do need to change men. I think about, well, who am I? I'm not from Adam anymore. You know? He eradicated everybody, what, eight people, whatever's eight?

The sin issue continued right through there. Why wasn't it kind of taken care of at that point? Like, these people, but the sin issue, the strain, the strain still goes through, right? And yet, you know, waiting for, which, you know, we'd have to die for the sins ultimately, so. Let me just finish this one, then I think we're gonna be done. Then we can have only one question. I did two questions today, or three. But right out says this, you notice the order here.

Christ's love is the source. His sacrifice of himself, the ground upon which he could save her. As a result, he can sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of the Word, new birth and all else. All is to culminate in a glorious presentation to himself of a bride who will be neat companion then for Jesus. Such is grace, beloved brethren, grace shown to me and you.

What shall we say to these things? What shall we say? should we say to this, you know, as the bride, as we're being prepared for the bridegroom. All right, we'll have one more question next week, and then we'll start on Titus. Yeah, and I'll do an overview of Titus tomorrow, or next week.

Okay, all right. Thank you again, just for what you have in your word, and just the amazing position that we have As believers, one, that we have eternal life through the gracious gift of salvation through your son and believing in your son. And that alone is just amazing grace. That is unbelievable, but it is believable because you said it, and again, that is only one component.

You're preparing us to be the bride for your son, the Lord Jesus. And what that means to each and every one of us, that that should form in our hearts a longing for that marriage ceremony, when the bride and the bridegroom come together and are united eternally. And we thank you for that hope. It's not in doubt. It's certain. the bride will meet the bridegroom someday face to face and have that eternal relationship with Christ and you father and we just we thank you again just for your word and all these things that explain the joy and all the the blessings we have through knowing your son. Thank you for this time.