The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit Finish lesson 43 Start Lesson 44

Okay, this is probably, we are in Lesson 43 of the Person and Work of the Holy Spirit, and we're in the last question, Question 5. And it's an interesting question because it should bring out a lot of discussion, but we'll see. The question is, why is it important for us to know Jesus as Lord. Why is that important? And if you have the book, it's page 245 and 46. And so I'll talk a little bit about what Rite Out says. As he has his place at the right hand of God, So the spirit never rests till Christ is enthroned in the heart of the saint.

Is that a big deal? Maybe ask this question. Can you honestly say in your own life today that Christ sits on the throne of your heart? As a matter of fact, Donna and I were sitting at home talking before we came to church. We went right to that. We somehow talked about that issue. Can you honestly say that? It's interesting that the Holy Spirit is involved in that work. One more sentence.

The word Lord means master. sovereign owner, one whose right it is to give his word and ours is to obey. Well, we don't like that, do we, if we're honest? Isn't Christianity all about what he's done for me? Am I not the center of everything? What do you think? I was going to say, Mike, When I first came in contact with dispensational theology, that's not something I grew up with. I'd never heard the word.

But, you know, when I first was introduced to it, you know, there's a lot of combating lordship theology. And so, you know, the idea of Christ enthroned in my heart, you know, became almost a challenge to the gospel of grace, because Lordship Theology has made it a precondition for salvation, you know. Until you enthrone Christ as Lord of your life, you know, you're not even saved, kind of a thing. Right. And so then to come, you know, to teaching like this, I have to really understands, you know, what he's saying, because in our in our attempts to combat lordship theology, we want to, we don't want to throw out the baby with the bathwater, maybe, I don't know, you know, like, we know this isn't a precondition for salvation. But yet, the fact that Jesus Christ is Lord, um, is nonetheless true. It's just that our, our, you know, the full, the full Lordship as, you know, of Jesus Christ, um, isn't what, isn't what has saved me. Yeah. So, um, with, with, uh, you know, I like what you said, Miles, because the Lordship people, If you think about it, if you're a leader, pick on John MacArthur, because he's a good one for this. Sooner or later, it comes to your mind, well, why isn't the herd coming along? Why aren't the sheep going in the direction I want them to go in? And what can I say to them that's going to get them off the dime?

Well, lordship salvation is one of those things. that you've got to stop thinking about yourself and you've got to make Lord Jesus Lord of your life or you don't have a guarantee of salvation. Well, that would get your attention, wouldn't it? You would think, oh, well, I guess I better do that. But then, you know, by Tuesday, you're back thinking about yourself again and you're thinking, oh, am I really saved? I have to make it all the way to the end and maintain this Lordship thing.

On the other side of that coin is God operating in grace, and that's what write-out's all about. Jesus Christ should be the Lord of everything I do, but that doesn't happen overnight. You know, it's an influence, I think, that the Holy Spirit persuades us of who the Lord Jesus really is. Who is he? That he's God, that he's a God-man, that he's a Savior, that he's in his role as God as Colossians and other places talks about who he is.

And we learned slowly to depend on him for everything. I say everything. for most things that grows all the time. Somehow God has taken it upon himself to demonstrate to his sons that he's worthy of their obedience. And he does it in such a gracious way that I am not under shackles of any, I'm willingly doing this.

It's a persuasion. And that's one of the great works, I think, that the Holy Spirit does. He gradually, as Rite Out says, he gradually substitutes man's thoughts and opinions for a simple phrase, thus saith the Lord. Because my mind is full of garbage. from the world, and it's self-centered, and it's self-aggrandizing, and it's self-preserving, and for the Spirit of God to come along and persuade me to sell out to somebody else, and I mean sell out to Christ, only He could do that.

And, you know, Mike, I think what's interesting is in the Lordship kind of position, it really all comes back to my exertion of self-will to, you know, to make Jesus Lord of my life almost really it's really it's me making myself, you know, an unwilling servant to Him, essentially, rather than what Raido's talking about, where, like you're saying, you know, the Holy Spirit convinces us of his right and our need for his lordship. Yeah. It's not an authoritarian thing, or you ought to be doing this. It isn't that kind of thing. It's a persuasive We lost your audio, Mike. So I'm back, right?

Sue Ellen asked me before class, we were talking in the hall, she said, what is it about Catholics that they don't really go to church and practice their religion, but they never walk away from Catholicism? What holds them? What do you think holds them there like this? Fear. Huh? Fear? Is that what you said? Yeah. Fear. So how do they deal with those times that the spirit interrupts their fear and adds to their fear? Or says to them, like he used to say to me before I was saved, you know, eternity is a long time. Then you go to church. Then I go to church, right?

I think it falls right into what the flesh wants, is to do something. It's a bondage to do something and the fear, if I don't do something, and that's the flesh really providing that fear. You need to do something. In the Catholic Church and many religions, denominations have that you know, you have to do something and the flesh just absolutely loves that and I think that's where the Catholicism it's you know, that's all what you do and how you stand up sit down fight fight fight, you know, you got it all this you got to do that you got it, you know, and and it's the flesh just absolutely relishes that and And the fear is if you don't do that, ooh, you know, so the it's totally flesh driven I think You know, for us, I think back, and I totally agree with what Miles was saying about Lordship, you know, it's kind of, you hear that, you know, Lord, it's like, oof, you know, Lordship and that, but, you know, I guess to enthrone Him on your heart, I don't know if I could ever say that while I'm In the flesh, I mean, yes, I'm walking with the Spirit and maybe it's that where it's enthroned in my heart when I'm walking with the Spirit, but what about, you know, Friday at 2 o'clock when I forgot about that, you know? And enthroned, you know, is that a temporal thing or is it a permanent thing?

Yeah. You know, from the Lord, I look at it as, you know, from the identification, He's my life. It's not, you know, that's who I am. Is that in the Spirit? Is that, you know, enthroning Him? You know, is this, I guess I'm rambling, but is it positional or conditional? You know, positionally, I'm placed in, you know, with Him in the heavenlies. Conditionally, am I, you know, enthroning Him?

And I also think of the other is that, you know, the enthroning part in Romans, you know, present your members as slaves to righteousness. We're bond servants. You know, that's where kind of the Lord, he's the Lord, I'm a slave to righteousness. Yeah.

One of the things that the Lordship guys do not do is they do not teach the righteousness of God. They don't know what it is. They don't know what God's character is. They view him as a monarch in the white tower that if you don't, he's going to hammer you. But God's righteousness is anything but that. It's love. His basic quality of righteousness is that he loved. God so loved.

In Lordship salvation, any kind of system, any kind of system, whether it's Lordship or any kind of religion that puts you under a tyranny of, I should be doing this, you miss the love. The really fundamental thing is, the law forces me, which includes making Jesus the Lord in my life, forces me to look at myself and see how I'm doing.

Have I done that? Am I maintaining it? Where the righteousness of God and the love of Christ will gradually, through the work of the Spirit, get you focused on Christ, and He becomes the most important thing to you, even to the sacrifice of yourself.

And there was no strain. You see that? I thought it was interesting how he discusses this at the end of the book. Right at the end. Understanding or seeking through, you know, cross sanctification. Right. The Holy Spirit has a whole process before you get to this point. Yeah. And even amongst grace-based believers, there's still Well, I should be, or I ought to, or I didn't, or I, you know, as soon as you get I in there, you know, it looks like all of our people are falling away.

So, I think that, I think that Rideout has got it right. Rideout, right. This one paragraph, He says, there is a gradual substitution of man's thoughts and opinions for the simple, thus saith the Lord. The result is not merely that there is this or that command ignored, but human thought and human will substituted for the will of God. That's a really profound statement. The problem is that my will will substitute God's will. It'll do it every time. Because I'm concerned about what benefits me. I could care less if it benefits God or not. Jesus died for me. You get the me part? You know?

So he says, therefore, the Spirit of God ever leads to the recognition of the sovereignty of Christ. He's always there doing that, but he does it by wooing us, not by commanding us. You see that? And so, as we spend a lot of time talking about the love of Christ and knowing him, an intimate personal fellowship with him. If that's not in place, there's no wooing. It's commands. You see that? It's just commands. Otherwise, you find yourself with a tell me what to do and I'll do it mentality. You know?

So, last, what do you think about that? And then, Courtney, you're up. What I've laid out and Rydat lays out, that the Spirit of God is the one who, over time, leads us to the recognition of the sovereignty of Christ. And he does it by wooing us. What do you think about that? You guys don't feel wood? I think that's pretty cool.

And it's totally opposite of, of, you know, me, me deciding that I will make him Lord, you know? Yeah. Yeah, that's a great point. Yeah, I did when, when you cut when you just take a look at why do you do what you do? Is it because you can't help it? Or, I've got to prove. I've got to prove to God that I care about Him. Really?

When the Spirit of God reveals Christ to you, you don't have to do anything. Paul just gazed at the glory of the Lord Jesus and it knocked him over. The Word of God is designed to reveal Christ to us. And by revealing Him to us, it has a residual consequence and how we view him.

I don't have to be persuaded like that Donna loves me and I love her. We just do. We thank God for that every day. It's the same thing with the Lord. I don't have to be persuaded about that. I've already been persuaded about that. Yeah, I think it goes back to, you know, I'll touch a little bit on mine, what commandments does the Lord have for us? Not many commandments. In fact, I can only find one.

Otherwise, it's logical imperatives, which you know that, but as far as with the Lord, all of the things that Paul teaches in John 17, it's intimacy, it's knowing what is eternal life, to know Christ. What is, you know, it's all about, 2 Peter 3, 18, to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus. It's all about us knowing Him, and as we focus on that, as many of the hungry hearts, that's the object of our affection. And you don't have to be trying to do that. Once you have that love for the Lord, you're drawn to it. And it's not a work or an effort or anything like that. It's a desire to be with, you know, it's my life.

It's a desire to know Him. It's to know who I am in Christ. In the book of Romans, The very first time that the Holy Spirit is mentioned is in Romans 5. What's he doing there? What does it say about him? The Holy Spirit sheds abroad in our hearts a love for God. That's the very first thing he does. The first thing he does, he sheds abroad in our heart the love of God. I'm struck by these verses that we've been studying on Sunday too, that God systematically gets every human being on the planet in the room with their mouth shut.

They're all there guilty, and now he's going to hammer them, right? He's got them. He doesn't hammer them. He, what does he do? He demonstrates his righteousness. And what's his righteousness? God so loved. That's what he gets them to shut their mouth about just so that they'll listen about his righteousness, which is, I love you.

I created you in my image. I want you with me. And so it gets to be these perpetrators of Legal Christianity, Lordship Salvation People, are... I don't have a word to describe what they do. They keep you away from the love of Christ. That's really what they're doing.

Okay, Courtney, you ready? All right. Hopefully you can hear. So we are in Lesson 44 now. This is really the end of the book. This will be the, I believe, the last lesson we have, Lesson 44, before we move on to the next topics or book we're talking about. So this is it. I think it's, yeah, well, the book 247 through 254.

Actually, on this one, there are so many good parts in there. I don't like usually reading and things like that for when teaching. But there are so many good things in this last section that Rideout brings out that I think he just really nails it. We'll have questions and all that, but on this one, I find myself reading more of what Rideout has to say.

He just put it in a really nice concise love of God. And at the end, as we're done and saying, after all this, the Holy Spirit, kind of very just, you can tell this was a, he was, these were talks that he gave and they're just transcribed and edited or, you know, cleaned up. And you can tell this is the end of it. And he's just expressing, after all of what he's talked about, the Holy Spirit at the end. You can just see his heart in these end messages for him. So I encourage you to read this. If you haven't been reading or what, I'd really encourage you for the last section, 247 through the end of the book. Just really good things. But I will be reading several of them, just because they were so good. Lesson 44, question 1.

What is the hope attached to righteousness? Was it the hope of salvation? So it's not the hope of salvation for us. You're getting it all too good. It wasn't the hope of justification or payment of our sins? So I reverse the question. If we have righteousness imparted to us, what hope does that provide for us? If you flip it around. If we have righteousness imparted to us, what does that provide for us? Is it something? If you have righteousness, what do you get when you have the righteousness imparted to you?

Life. Life. And what is that life? His life. His life. That's right. It's his. And, you know, the other thing which I was on these is that, you know, terminology and what we use today is, is this hope secured or unsecured? You know, when we say hope, man, I hope, you know, today I whatever. You know, I hope today, I hope today, you know, it's not that.

This is secured. This is a hope that cannot be broken, cannot be lost, cannot be diluted. It is a secure hope. And what Joanne says is true. It's not a thing. It's not, you know, that called a salvation. This is the hope of Christ. Christ himself. It's a person. The Lord Himself.

If we have righteousness imparted to us, we can be in His presence. The righteousness imparted to us, what does that allow us to do? Be with Him where He's at. Ephesians 2. Where are we placed right now? In the heavenlies. Can we do that without His righteousness imparted to us? Can we sit at the right hand of God with Christ? if we're not righteous? You can't.

So the hope attached to righteousness is a person, which then gives us the ability or the right to be with him where he's at. That's incredible, you know, if you think about it. So, if we have the righteousness imparted to us, we can be in His presence. The Holy Spirit teaches us to wait without doubting for us to be with the Lord.

Go ahead. You know, one of the things the write-out says is that we are in the midst of a growing creation. We have not yet the inheritance which we hope for. I mean, we've got to talk about that. Yeah. Well, this almost goes back to your question about enthroning. What is the focus of your life? Is it the chaff that we live in today, all the stuff that goes on? It certainly can be.

And that's what I say, a lot of times it is. panic mode this morning on some stuff, you know, and it was like, oh my, it was just, I couldn't, huh, huh. I'm like, we're not focused on, but the Lord answered and I'm very excited about that. So that was, I'll tell that later, but it was like, you know, I've just panicked about something and it was like, oh my gosh, I was sweating. And, and so the, uh, and then he answered and it was like, man, I feel like a thousand times, but my focus was off him. Yeah. And that's where the panic comes from. I go back to the scripture, be anxious for nothing. We've been over that. Be anxious for nothing. Be panic for nothing. Don't panic. Well, I failed that miserably this morning.

But then the piece, the answer piece, it's like take my focus off him and what happens? That's when the panic, the anxiety, whatever, and I'm really that way. So it's kind of a crazy thing this morning. But again, with him as your focus, what happens in the world? You focus on that? You focus on what's ever going on with you?

No. Well, he makes an interesting point. He said we do not have as yet the inheritance that we hope for. And, you know, you talk to other believers all the time and somewhere in the conversation is the comment, well, I hope he comes today. You know, there's a real desire to enter into the fullness of what he's prepared.

And the more you go, the more you grow, the more you look forward to, boy, along with that, but there's another element of that, that is, if I'm here to serve Him, then that shouldn't make a difference, or it doesn't make a difference, because your focus is somewhere else. Because that's really what we're here to do, is serving.

Yeah, you know, that's what I was saying, the bondservant, the slaves to righteousness, that's what we are called for. You know, we're not a slave to sin anymore, we're a slave to righteousness. Well, again, what does that righteousness impart to us? or slave to be with him where he's at. That's not a bad slavery, to be a slave or have him as your master, not as a condition of salvation as we've discussed. It's not that, but it's this ability to be with him where he's at and the focus. That's the thing we're waiting for. I wonder about that a lot of times. kind of a rabbit trail is, you know, I'd love to be home with the Lord.

I mean, no mortgages, no politics, no, you know, daily strife, no watching the news and getting frustrated or whatever. You're done with all that. You're done. And you're in face to face with the Lord. You know, why, why, you know, why Lord, do you still have me here? You know, take me home. But it's like I think of things, your heart things or what Alan went through and things. I'm reminded that when he comes through that, guess what? He's not done with you. He's got stuff for you to do. And that's the encouragement. Why are we still around? Because he still has stuff for us to do. He has the things that he wants us either to grow, to do, whatever. He's not done with us yet. That's exciting, you know, actually. Or to function passively. Function passively. I mean, yeah, it's not that we have to do to earn anything.

He's still just not done with us yet. Either through our growth in, you know, in our relationship with him, or he has things for us to accomplish, you know, the Romans, you know, that, whatever, I can't, he has works laid out for us. We're still here, so we still have things that he wants us to do. That's exciting. Otherwise, the minute we're done with that, guess what? We're home. We're still here, and he still wants us to be with him, grow, and know him better. That's kind of exciting when you think about it. Yes, we're looking forward, but he's not done with us yet. But we look forward to that. That's exciting.

Who doesn't want to be with the Lord? I don't think there are any elections in heaven. I don't think there's mortgages, salaries, employees, cars that break down. Well, yeah, that's number one. We don't have any of that, but I mean, just the environment we live in today is so different than what we will be in eternity, and that's the hope of this inheritance.

Yeah, we looked at it from the point of view of, and I agree with everything you said. He has a serious return. Turn the mic on so they hear. Sorry. I just always, so we hear you, but the people in Never Never Land hear. We hear you for a purpose, but what if we think, well, in God's eyes, we already have the inheritance that we hope for.

It's done. It's done. As far as he's concerned, we still have to struggle here. Maybe we don't have to, but we do. We panic and et cetera. It's done, as far as God is concerned, isn't it? Oh, yeah. Yeah, I mean, and that's the thing. I mean, looking forward to the inheritance, the hope of righteousness. Yeah, if we just look at it that way, He's taking care of us there, He's going to take care of us here, and until we get to be with Him.

It's just what I failed this morning, being anxious for nothing, you know, by prayer and supplication. And what will He do? He will guard your heart. What does that mean? I have the peace of God, the rest that he promises us, all the things. If you really put all this together, it's a pretty good picture. It's when we fail that we don't do these things that the panic ensues or whatever. It's that hope of righteousness. The link to that is what does that mean? The hope of righteousness means we can be in his presence. And that's what the hope is for future.

We will be in his presence without the sin nature, which is going to be, I can't, you know, that's a weird even think about without the sin nature. What is, what is my life going to be like without me? I can't imagine. I mean, being dragged down by the sin nature, you know, this morning, you know, panic mode, stupid, you know, but in heaven, we're not going to have that.

So that's the hope, that's the desire, is to look forward to that. So how God has us operating, we're to operate by faith. We're to believe. But we need to be persuaded about that, about those things. And that's the job of the Spirit. He persuades us to the point where we're, yeah, we enter in by faith, but we really own it. We trust God implicitly about what The Spirit not only has shown us, but persuaded us about, you know. You know, from day one in this, we've been a year and a half in this, what, you know, it still to me comes down to He's there to convince and convict us. Convince us of what's true about us, you know, and convict us of those things that, you know, are chaff. And it's to convince us. And what does that mean? Convince us so we believe. We believe what's true about us. Believe what He says is true.

And and that's the job of the Holy Spirit after all of this I still come down to those that he's there to convince and convict us and to show us Christ Was that are you kidding me? Wow, I didn't even get through all of number one Well, we'll get back on that but you know one of the ones that will continue on question one again, what what this stems from is Galatians 5 5 and For we, through the Spirit, by faith, are waiting for the hope of righteousness." That's really the verse where Rydot comes from. We'll start next week on question one again and finish it and some of the things that Rydot says, just some great things that he has in his book on there. So again, I encourage you to read the end of it, 247 through the end of the book. So, all right, let's close. Heavenly Father, we thank you. We thank you again, again, just for your plans and not ours.

It is just amazing as we just have been looking at for a year and a half or more of the Holy Spirit and what you have him doing in our lives and what a joy it is to know that he is 24-7, all the time, just pointing us to Your Son and just growing us in the knowledge and the grace of Your Son. We thank You for that. We thank You that it's a permanent indwelling. It's never to leave us as the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Again, as we have discussed briefly this morning, the hope of righteousness, which that hope is that we, through the imparted righteousness that you've given to us, that we can spend an eternity side-by-side, face-to-face with your son in the heavenlies. Revel in that fact, and thank you for that.

And again, it's nothing that we have done. It's solely by the Lord Jesus paying for all our sins, but then you graciously offering us salvation through faith. And we just thank you for that plan. We just pray, again, just that we all, throughout this day, that all that we say and do will honor and glorify you. And it's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.