Tested and True Love

But the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. Because if we think about the Trinity, the father, the son and the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit really is the most mysterious person in the Trinity. You see, in the Old Testament, the father is revealed very clearly and the son vaguely. In the New Testament, the father and the son are revealed very clearly, but the Holy Spirit vaguely. It's only in the age of the church. It's only an hour. ministry now that the gospel or that the Holy Spirit reveals himself more clearly. You see, if we look at scripture, we see the spirit is inspiring all of scripture, but the spirit is doing his work. He is proclaiming the son throughout scripture. So it's right to be somewhat cautious about the Holy Spirit. But it's wrong to be afraid of the Holy Spirit. What we have to do is realize that we have to have the courage to protect the mystery of the Holy Spirit, we have to have the courage to declare everything we can say about the Spirit. You see, I'm I'm a very rational person. Well, I like to think I'm a rational person. I like to think about and talk about those things that I can understand. Now, God, I can't wrap my head around him. I can't comprehend him, but I am thankful that he has declared himself in such a way. He's spoken to us in such a way that I can think his thoughts after him. There are doctrines that I love to think about because he has explained so much. I can say a lot about them. I can explain their rationale and their logic. The Holy Spirit is not one of them. The Holy Spirit cannot be put in a box. Packaged, here's your doctrine of the Spirit. With all the trimmings and all the edges cut off cleanly, no, the doctrine is mysterious and we must have courage to protect and declare the person in the work of the Holy Spirit. This morning, we're going to look at 1 John, chapter four, verses one to six, short passage. And I think a very easy passage in terms of its focus, but we're going to discuss the complexity of who the Spirit is and what he does. This morning, we're going to look at how we can trust the ministry of the Holy Spirit. How we can trust the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Turn with me in 1 John, chapter 4, verses 1 to 6. Beloved, do not believe every spirit. But test the spirits to see whether they are from God. For many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God. Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God. And every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. This is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you heard was coming and now is in the world already. Little children, you are from God and have overcome them. For he who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. They are from the world. Therefore, they speak from the world and the world listens to them. We are from God. Whoever knows God listens to us. Whoever is not from God does not listen to us. By this, we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. Let's also remember the context of 1 John. If we go back to the context, There's the church that John is writing to. And the church has been confused. The church has lost their assurance because false prophets have come in. They've declared things that are contrary to God's Word. And they're proclaiming a different gospel. And it has to do with a different Christ, a different Savior. And John here is saying, listen, the false prophets, you can figure them out this way. It's their message. And their message is inspired by a particular spirit. See, anyone who's proclaiming to tell you the truth of God has a source for his proclamation. It's either the spirit of the Antichrist or the spirit of God, the spirit of the Father, who the Son sent to us so that we can know Him. Here, the particular problem is that some have come into the church to declare lies. They've come into the church to declare falsehoods. And what is difficult about many of the lies that we hear in the church with these false prophets is that they're half-truths. They're similar to what God has declared, but they're not the full counsel of God. They're not the truth of God that builds up the church. So here we see there are false prophets and there's true prophets. There's false preachers, there's true preachers, there's the spirit of the Antichrist that's behind the false and there's a spirit of God that's behind the true. Now, let's look at the spirits that inspire each of these different. Prophets. First, you have the Antichrist. This spirit either denies the full deity of Jesus Christ or the full humanity of Jesus Christ. or the complete work of Jesus Christ. The spirit of the Antichrist is speaking falsehoods about our Savior. See, the best way to kill the army is to take off the head. The best way to make us not work in the kingdom, the best way to make us inefficient in the kingdom work, is to make us doubt the king. And so, these Antichrists, they come in and they proclaim falsehoods about our Savior. The first way they deny our Savior is to deny His humanity. And this is the very particular one that John is addressing. Look there in verse two. By this you know the Spirit of God. Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God. And every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God. That key phrase there. The Spirit of God and those who proclaim from that Spirit are proclaiming that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. That God Himself has taken on Himself a complete humanity. So, there was a group called the Gnostics. And they believed that all of the material world is evil. And so, they would declare that God couldn't take upon Himself material likeness. God couldn't unite Himself to our materialness, our stuff. But no, we have to confess that Jesus Christ is the God of all the created world. Therefore, it's not evil. And that Jesus Christ took upon Himself, not just any old material, but the material of us. Jesus Christ, God Himself, took upon a humanity. Jesus Christ, God Himself, took upon a created nature. See, the danger in denying Jesus' full humanity is that it's denying salvation. The early church came up with a rule, and I love rules because they help summarize the truth of Scripture and they help us read Scripture. This was the rule. Whatever is not assumed is not redeemed. And that's nice. It's simple. You can write that down. Whatever is not assumed is not redeemed. You can remember that easily. And as you're reading Scripture, you can read that from Scripture. And what that basically is saying is whatever Christ does not assume in our likeness is not redeemed. If He does not take upon our human nature, our human mind, our human soul, if He does not take upon an entire humanity, Our entire humanity is not redeemed. He has to take upon everything about us, because everything about us is offensive to God. Everything about us in our rebellion against God has to be atoned for. So only those parts of us, our desire, our nature, our will, our souls, has to be taken on by Jesus Christ. Because without Him being our substitute, Those things are not redeemed. The second heresy or the second way the Antichrist tries to cut off the head is by denying his divinity. Now, that's not the particular problem here, but it is a problem that we should talk about. You see, whenever you deny Jesus's divinity, you deny his power. When you deny Jesus' divinity, you're denying that He is able in His infinite power to redeem us from our infinite guilt. It is the wrath of God that we have to stand before. And an infinite Savior has to save us from an infinite wrath. See, we have to confess that Jesus Christ is Almighty God Himself. And we have to confess that that Almighty God added to Himself a human nature. Because that's the problem. Our sin as humans are an offense to God. And in that one person, Jesus Christ, He reconciles us. In that one person, Jesus Christ, He takes away the offense by dying for our sin. And He reconciles us and reunites us to God. Thirdly, and maybe the most dangerous heresy that the Antichrist has proclaimed is that Christ's work is incomplete. Christ's work is incomplete. This declares that, yes, Jesus Christ died on the cross for your sins. Yes, Jesus Christ rose again and he's going to return. But his work alone isn't enough to save you. You need to do something else. You need to be baptized to be saved. You need to be circumcised to be saved. There's an entire book about that, Galatians. You need to do X, Y and Z to be saved. No, you need to believe in Jesus Christ and His complete work. There's nothing you do after Christ. He completed it. He did it all. He said it is finished. One of the greatest heresies that the Antichrist declares about our Savior, is that we add something to what He accomplished for us. See, this is so dangerous because it puts us right back into our sin. It builds up our self-righteousness. It gives us a false sense of security in what we do instead of giving us the absolute security which is only found in what He has done. You see, friends, the point this morning is that we are supposed to have assurance and the Holy Spirit who points us to Christ. The false prophets, they point us to a false Christ. The false prophets, they point us away from Christ and to ourselves. But no, we are supposed to have assurance in the Spirit who points us to Christ. The Holy Spirit, the most mysterious member of the Trinity, the third person of the Trinity. Now, think about the ministry of the Holy Spirit throughout all of Scripture. When Jesus Christ comes down, the Spirit falls down upon Him at His baptism to proclaim, this is the Messiah. The Holy Spirit anoints Him throughout all His ministry. The Holy Spirit is sent by the Son because the Son said, it is to your advantage that I go away. And the Spirit comes so that He can convert you. He can convict you. He can lead you. You can abide in Him. He will protect you and keep you and preserve you. You see, the Holy Spirit is the most mysterious member of the Trinity, but he's actually the boldest member of the Trinity. He's the loudest speaking member of the Trinity because he's constantly proclaiming the Son is the Savior. The Spirit has come not to proclaim himself. That's why he's mysterious. Now, when the Spirit inspired the scriptures, what was it all about? Jesus Christ. Everything in Scripture points to Jesus. He is the yes and amen of every promise. The Spirit's work is to indwell us, to illuminate our eyes so that we can see the Savior. The Spirit's work is to come inside of us and convict us of our sins so that we confess to the Savior. The Spirit's work is to show us that we are completely dependent upon Him for everything. You see, the spirit comes to point us to Christ. The spirit comes and he blows wherever he wills, as it says in John three. But he's blowing us to Christ, the spirit moves in a way that's mysterious, but he's always pointing us to the one begotten son. Who has come to take away our offense before God? See, one of the things that confuses us so much about the spirit is that. We know Him in our experience of Him. And that's what's scary. See, I can tell you about the doctrines of justification and the intricacies of it. It's still a mystery, but I can explain it a lot better. The Holy Spirit. That's something that we have to experience. See, I like being a rational Christian. I like the stuff I can think about logically and write a paper about it and present it to you and say, here, this is what you have to believe. There you go. No, the Spirit is scary because we have to experience the Spirit. The Spirit is scary because we have to be illuminated and convicted and converted by the Spirit. Too often we put the experience of the Spirit over against doctrine. That's confusing to me. Why would we put the Spirit who inspired all of the doctrine against the Spirit's experience? Does it make sense? We so often will say, no, all the right doctrine, it quenches the Spirit. No, all the right doctrine allows us to experience the Spirit properly. All the right doctrine allows us to know the Spirit. All the right doctrine gives us the proper boundaries so that we can experience Him properly. Now, as I look at this text and how we can know the Spirit, it's the Spirit who proclaims Christ. It's the Spirit that proclaims Him in His fullness of His person and His power and His work. And as I thought about it, let's talk about experience more because we need to be bold here. And as I listen to a number of sermons on the text, you can go and you can hear all the negative. The spirit doesn't do this. The spirit doesn't do that. You can go hear that on sermon audio. There are lots of sermons that tell you what the spirit doesn't do or how you can't experience the spirit, such as laughing or barking. And those are extremes. There's plenty of people who want to tell you how you're not supposed to experience the spirit. I want to be more positive this morning and tell us how we can experience the spirit. What is an experience of the spirit? What is an authentic experience? of the Spirit. Well, they all have one principle. A true experience of the Spirit leads us to think more about Christ and less about ourselves. If it's a true experience with the Holy Spirit, it's an experience that leads us to think greater thoughts about God and Jesus Christ and less about ourselves. You see, the one problem with a lot of the experiential Christianity, it's about my experience. Now, as I've already said, the Holy Spirit is about pointing us to Jesus Christ. If it's a true spiritual experience, we think less of ourselves and more about Christ and His glory. So here are three ways, and this is not an exhaustive list, three ways in which you can know you're having an experience with the Holy Spirit. First is that you were cut deep in the heart over your sin. You were cut in your heart to hate the particular sins that are always enslaving you and tripping you and tempting you. When you come to hate that which resides in your own heart, you can trust that is an experience of the Holy Spirit. When that Spirit brings you to hate what is in you and long for Christ and His redemption, that is an experience of the Holy Spirit. When you come to terms that you have offended God, that you are overwhelmed with how your heart rebels against Him. Friends, that is an experience that only comes from the Holy Spirit as He has come to convict us. The second way we can know that we have an experience with the Holy Spirit, when we're overwhelmed by the glory of God. You see, we can have an ecstatic experience. We can have a high on life experience. But if it's not an experience that makes us think, I am so low and God is so great. We don't have any reason to think that's a true spiritual experience of the Holy Spirit. Unless we come before God and we say, woe is me because the glory of God is so great. Woe is me because God is such a holy and powerful and beautiful God. And I am so ugly in my sin. I don't know if we should believe we're having a true experience of the Holy Spirit. We must long to see God in His greatness and ourselves in our weakness. And really, what's the third and most explicit in Scripture, actually, way to experience the Holy Spirit is not to experience Him in a This is the most exciting day of my life kind of experience. To experience Him in suffering. Paul desired to participate in the sufferings of Christ. Paul desired to participate in the sufferings of Christ so that he could identify with Christ. So that he could know more about the salvation that he has in Christ. If we want to experience the Spirit, We should pray that He would show Himself in the midst of our sufferings. We should not avoid sufferings. We should not seek to surround ourselves with nothing but comfort. Rather, we should pray that we could participate in the sufferings of Christ. And whenever you're experiencing the Holy Spirit, you will participate in the sufferings with joy. You will find yourself persevering. Being upheld, being comforted in the midst of those sufferings. We know we're experiencing the true Holy Spirit when we're being convicted of our sin and being pointed to Christ. We're being overwhelmed with the glory of God in our own smallness. And most explicitly in Scripture, when we're suffering and persevering. Friends, this morning you need to have assurance in the Holy Spirit. In His person and work. Regardless of how mysterious He might be. Look at verse 4. Little children, you are from God and have overcome them. Speaking of the Antichrist. For He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. This is a reminder and an addition to what He's already declared in chapter 2. You have overcome the evil one, little children. The church. See, as we go through life, we are suffering. If we're going through life as a Christian, we are suffering because the strings of our heart are always being played by the Antichrist. The temptation to deny Christ. The temptation to deny Him in our words and our actions. The temptation to buy into thee the light of sin. The temptation of the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, the pride of possessions. See, we're suffering and we can be overwhelmed by the power that is fighting against us. But here, John gives us a sweet reminder. God himself. Who is greater than the evil one, who is greater than any antichrist and is greater than our own sin, he dwells within us. The Holy Spirit of God that was hovering around creation. The Holy Spirit that anointed Jesus Christ in His ministry. The Holy Spirit that has come because Jesus said, all authority in heaven and earth are with me, and I am with you, and He is with us in the Holy Spirit. That is within you, Christian. That is the power that is in your grasp. That is the power that you have to live in. Do you seek that power out? Do you submit to that power when the conviction comes? Or do you give in to the temptation? Do you submit to Him when He says you are low? Worship the great God. Or do you say, I'm too busy? Do you submit to Him and abide in Him? What a great power. What a great gift. Now, given the day, I want to speak directly to Sean for a moment. All of your greatest strengths, everything everyone sees in you in terms of your natural gifts and talents. They're worthless for the ministry of the church unless they're used by the Holy Spirit. Nothing we say or do, none of the decisions we make will do anything unless the Spirit uses them. That goes for all of us, but particularly, Sean, today, I charge you, be in prayer constantly. Know that even our greatest strengths, they can be used as the greatest vice in the church if not used by the Holy Spirit. We're very thankful that we see you submitting to the Holy Spirit. That's why we're recognizing you. And I've already voted on you to be a deacon. Brother, we charge you. We want to follow you. And you need to follow Christ. And follow Christ by submitting to that power that dwells within you. So, the first thing we wanted to see was that we can have absolute assurance in the Holy Spirit. The second thing we must see is that, well, as John gives the most clear declaration here, we must be discerning when hearing the gospel of Jesus Christ. We must be discerning when hearing the gospel of Jesus Christ. The whole point here is that false prophets have come in. And this isn't just in John's day, it's in our day. False prophets have come in and they are corrupting the gospel of Jesus Christ. And he gives us some tests. He gives us some tasks as we listen to the person. The first task is, is it about Jesus Christ? Is the message you're hearing about Jesus Christ? Is it a full declaration of who Christ is? Or is it just a morality? Is the message just telling you how to be a better person? How to be a better citizen? No. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is not about being a better person. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is about being a sinner in need of grace. Now, obviously, I'm preaching to you on how to judge me. It's an interesting dynamic to be up here right now doing this. Thankfully, this coincidentally falls just a week and a half after I've given you a vision for what I want a sermon to be. Anyone in the church can see this, can look at it. I tried to lay out exactly what I think a sermon should be from Scripture so that you can hold me accountable. See, the church is supposed to hold the pastor accountable for what he declares. So the first thing I want you to do is to make sure that I am always proclaiming Jesus Christ. It's not about me. It's not about how clever I am. It's about Christ. It's about declaring Him from Scripture. But when you're judging what I say, judge me according to Scripture. Judge me according to the clarity by which Scripture declares truth. The most practical application I've come up with is that I don't talk about me to other people. If you need to talk about me to other people to confront me, that's fine. But if you see a problem, it's gossip to go talk about it with other people. I'm a big boy. I've been corrected before. And I trust that any correction you have has been led by the Holy Spirit. And if I am possessed by the Holy Spirit, we're going to unite together around that correction. We see a great model of a correction in Acts 18. Priscilla and Aquila. Apollos is proclaiming eloquently, but he's not proclaiming the full counsel of God. So what do they do? Do they stop him in the middle of the sermon to correct him? No. They take him home. They give him care and edification and proper correction. Let this be how you talk to me as a pastor and let it be how you talk to others because you're going to hear a lot of other people preaching. Sunday nights, the men of Jefferson Park Baptist Church are going to start doing the devotions. Sean Agnew is speaking tonight. So, if you have something to say, corrective, constructive, make sure you do it in prayer. Make sure you do it in kindness. Make sure you do it for His edification and building Him up. Make sure you do that for all of us who proclaim God's Word. Finally, the most important way I want you to think of how you should be correcting me in the proclamation of the Gospel. Just pray for me. Nothing I say up here does anything to you unless the Spirit uses it. I could be Charles Spurgeon reincarnate, which would mean I would be very clever and you would laugh a lot. Which would mean I would be very witty and have great sayings. But unless the Spirit actually takes the most witty And those profound declarations, they're worthless. They're gongs sounding off. Now, unless the Spirit takes the words proclaimed, unless those words are faithful and the Spirit takes those words, they fall by the wayside. Now, we need to be in prayer for one another. We need to be in prayer for the words declared that they actually take root in the heart and they change us. Another application is not just judging me according to what I proclaim, but let's be careful how we judge others and what they proclaim. It's easy to look down upon others who are ministers of the gospel. And they may proclaim a gospel different than the way you would want to hear it. But the point is not to belittle them, to gossip about them, to make fun of them. That's not godly. When you hear the preachers that may have a different theology, but they're proclaiming the same Christ. Either correct them or pray for them. An example, a lot of people in my reformed circles like to make fun of Billy Graham. They like to say negative things about Billy Graham. Billy Graham had the opportunity and the calling to proclaim the gospel to more people in a lifetime than anybody else has ever had. That was a great gift from God to him. He was obviously called out by God to do that. For someone to make light of that. For someone to try to correct his theology when he had the highest calling of any one of our generation. That's making ill of God. That's puffing yourself up and not making God and His ministry great. So, the first test is to test the message. The second test is to test the fruit of the message. Notice that John actually says, you know The Spirit of God in verses 2 and verses 6. You know the Spirit of God. Now, how do we know the Spirit of God? How do we know that each other know the Spirit of God? Well, this is one of the reasons that the Spirit is somewhat scary is because there's been abusive people there. For instance, I'm having a six month study of Luther and a fellow named Thomas Munster just came up. We don't know of him. He's actually from Wittenberg, just like Luther. Same era, same time period. He was a reformer. But he had a very radical theology. He had a belief that anyone who had the Spirit could see the Spirit in other people. Literally. Not just evidences of the Spirit, as we would say, but you could actually see the Spirit in other people. And everyone who's possessed by the Spirit should go off and kill the ungodly. The Spirit was leading him, he says, to identify everyone who is supposed to be the army of God and then go and kill all those who are not possessed by the Spirit. This is what makes us scared of the Holy Spirit. Because people can use this mysterious person as an excuse to go off and do dangerous damaging things to the gospel. Now, we know the Spirit because He indwells us. We know the Spirit because He cries out in our own hearts, Abba, Father. We know the Spirit because He has convicted and converted us and illuminates our eyes to see Jesus Christ. We experience the conviction over sin. And we know the others. We know each other in the Spirit because we see the evidences of grace. that only the Spirit could produce. As we look at how we can experience the Spirit and experience the true fruit of knowing the Spirit of God, we have to promote a humility within ourselves to submit to His power, to submit to how He loves us and cares for us. One of the most amazing things I see in my own life and in other Christians is that as they mature in Christ, A great ironic thing happens. As they grow in grace and in doctrine and in understanding of God and His glory, they grow in hubris rather than humility. They grow to look down upon how they used to not be so smart and so intellectual about God. And then they look down upon others who are like the way they used to be. How? How is that the fruit of the Spirit? Well, we have to realize that anything we know about God is a gift from the Spirit. How can we possibly grow in hubris when the Spirit is the only one that has ever... We depend upon the Spirit to give us any knowledge that's worth knowing. No, friends, we must realize in humility that the Spirit's been carrying us like a baby all these years. The Spirit's been carrying us in our infirmities, in our rebellion, to know God deeper. We also need to realize that we will not grow in our love for Jesus and one another unless it is by the Spirit. We must pray boldly to grow in Godliness. This is a prayer that is according to God's will. Are we praying to the Spirit? Will you reveal more of God to me? Will you show me the Father? Will you show me the son? Will you show me my sin? That's how we'll see the fruit of knowing the spirit. Finally, we'll end with this warning. The fruit of hearing the gospel. If I'm proclaiming the gospel. If you're possessed by the spirit should be your conviction? I want you to think about this. Have you sat here for weeks hearing the gospel? Maybe months? Maybe years? Hearing the gospel preached and not been convicted? Do you sit here every week and not get convicted. There's two things for you to do. One, analyze me. Am I proclaiming the gospel? If yes, you have a lot of soul searching to do. You have a lot of weighty depth to get into. How is it that you can sit here week after week after week and not be convicted? Not be drawn to repentance. Not be drawn to love God more. Friends, if that's you, be scared. Be encouraged. Be challenged, rather, to pray. That as you hear the Gospel preached, and again, I am willing to accept that there's an if there. If you are hearing the Gospel preached, And you are not responding with conviction, with conversion, with repentance. Be afraid and be challenged to pray that God will start using these words to truly change you and conform you to His image. Let's pray. Oh my God, we are faced with a weighty matter. The proclamation of your word and the right response to it. The proclamation of your great truth and how to experience it truly and faithfully. Let your spirit move. What else can we ask? Speak to us through your spirit, Lord. Don't let us quench you. Don't let us deny You. Move in such a way that we abide in You. Move in such a way that we cannot change the way we think, change the way we love, change the way we behave, change the way we speak about one another and to one another. Change the way most of all, Lord, that we praise You as our great God. In your holy name we pray, Amen.