The Holy Spirit - Witness to Christ - Talk at Butler Cru, 11/11/2011

I’m Derek, and I’m on staff with Cru here.  Before we look at God’s word, let’s ask him to empower us to hear, understand, and apply it. 

Father, we can only approach you because you poured the condemnation we deserve upon your Son Jesus.  And so it is based on his representation before you that we ask you for your mercy.  Open our ears to hear of your greatness from your word.  Cause us to become people of prayer and people of proclamation.  Amen. 

We’ve been in a series called ‘Witness.’  A witness is someone who has observed something and then reports it.  A Christian witness, therefore, is someone who has come to know Jesus Christ personally, and who proclaims who he is and what he is done to others. 

We’ve already seen that all Christians are called to be proclaimers of the excellencies of Jesus Christ and his death.  Tonight, we’re going to look at Witness and the Holy Spirit. 

But before we begin to unpack that, I want to tell you explicitly what I desire and have been praying for. 

Goal:  That we would together regularly pray for God to glorify Christ in and through us.  (x2)

Some of you will instantly respond negatively to this, because you don’t want to get together to pray.  Frankly, that’s unacceptable.  God instructs Timothy, a Pastor, with these words, “First of all the, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all types of people… I desire then that in every place the men should pray…” (1 Timothy 2:1, 8). 

So the command exists, but let me tell you the good news.  Even if this seems like a ‘tall order’ to you, the power to do so exists.  That’s where the Holy Spirit comes in, and that is the point of tonight’s talk. 

Point:  The Holy Spirit’s primary role on earth is to bear witness to Jesus Christ.  (x2) 

Jesus said this before he was murdered and raised to life: “When the Helper comes, whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, he will bear witness about ME.” (John 15:26) 

Therefore, because he is doing so, we will regularly gather to pray that he would glorify Christ in and through us. 

I realize this might raise some questions.  So tonight, I’ll be seeking to answer the following questions:

1)            Who’s the Holy Spirit? 

2)            Why should we care? 

3)            What’s the Holy Spirit do? 

4)            What should we do? 

First, let’s address the question, “Who is the Holy Spirit?” 

The reason we have to ask that question is because our culture is full of misinformation about who the Holy Spirit is. 

If you’ve seen “The Italian Job,” you’ve seen the part where Seth Greene’s character is in a train station, calculating the total number of what they’ve stolen.  He stands up and yells, “YEAH!!!”  And then after everyone’s staring at him, he explains, “Got the… Holy Spirit… you should get on it… it’s a good train.” 

Unfortunately, that reflects the way that the Holy Spirit has been portrayed.  Like a force.  An irrational emotion.  A substance that preachers on TV with their own private jets can manipulate, and pass on to people by smacking them in the head so that they fall down writhe as if they had epilepsy. 

He’s been portrayed as a Genie God, who if you just get riled up enough in your emotions, will grant you a healthy, wealthy, easy, American-dream filled, idolatrous, world-exalting, God-diminishing, best life now. 

And at the very least, he wants you to talk in gibberish on TV while wearing enough make-up to make The Joker from Batman look like he’s underdone it. 

But who is he really?  The Holy Spirit is God himself.  God’s word says, “…no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God” (1 Corinthians 2:11).  The Holy Spirit knows.  And he knows all God’s infinite and holy thoughts.  He is God! 

He is our Creator; Job 33:4 says, “The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life!” 

And he does whatever he pleases.  Jesus taught, “The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.  So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit”(John 3:8). 

It is he who gave mankind the words of the Bible.  Paul, talking about his own writing and the writers who wrote Scripture, says, “We impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit…” (1 Corinthians 2:13). 

And it is he who raised Jesus from death to be the ruler of all creation: “He was manifested in the flesh, vindicated by the Spirit” (1 Timothy 3:16). 

So who is the Holy Spirit?  He is God himself.  He does as he pleases! 

Second question: why should we care? 

Because some of us here tonight are more anxious about exams and papers than we mourn the presence of sin – “Blessed are those who mourn” – Matthew 5:4. 

Because some of us are more excited to give someone our opinions about athletes or politics than you are to proclaim Christ – “...that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations” (Luke 24:47). 

Because some of us are more concerned with getting a special ‘spiritual feeling’ by singing the right kinds of songs than we are with the words that the Holy Spirit has authored. 

Because some of us, if we even do pray, pray that God would just remove our pains.  We pray for things like Aunt Millie’s cat who may have asthma.  And we do not pray for the glory of God through the advance of the Gospel. 

Because some of us, walking to the cafeteria, are more concerned with what might be for dinner than the fact that nineteen out of twenty people we might pass on the way to the cafeteria are under God’s righteous judgment.  “…whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him”(John 3:36). 

Because some of us are more concerned with what the people in this room will think of us after the meeting’s over than the fact that thousands of people within a few square miles of this building are ignoring the God who created them, by whose will they even continue to exist.  “For from him and through him and to him are all things.  To him be glory forever!  Amen.”  (Romans 11:36) 

Because some of us, who grew up in church and know we should do ‘Christian’ things, as I give you this list – don’t care, have no appetite for the word of God, have no true love for him, and are bored by God’s word.  Your life looks no different from anyone else’s, and there is no evidence of heartfelt obedience to Christ in you – just apathy. 

I say these things with fear and trembling.  And I do not bring them up to make you feel bad, but to show that you and I have a radical, deep, moment-by-moment need for God himself to transform us.  And that’s why we should care about the Holy Spirit. 

That brings us to our third question:

What’s the Holy Spirit do? 

We already saw John 15:26.  “When the Helper comes, whom I will send you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about ME.” 

I’ve spent the last few days studying all of the explicit mentions of the Holy Spirit in the Bible.  And a lot of times, when we think about the Spirit, we think about tongues or miracles or healings.  And he did things like that on special occasions. 

But primarily, we see him doing one thing – causing people to proclaim God’s word. 

Here are a couple examples:

“Then the Spirit of God clothed Zechariah the son of Jehoiada the priest, and he stood above the people, and said to them, “Thus says God, ‘Why do you break the commandments of the Lord…?’” (2 Chronicles 24:20)  

“’My Spirit that is upon you, and my words that I have put in your mouth, shall not depart out of your mouth, or out of the mouth of your offspring, or out of the mouth of your children’s offspring,’ says the LORD…” (Isaiah 59:21). 

And the New Testament says this about the Old Testament Scriptures that were written before Jesus – that the authors were “inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories” (1 Peter 1:11). 

So the Holy Spirit has always been doing one main thing since he created the world – bearing witness about Jesus. 

This is good news for two reasons. 

First, we need the Holy Spirit to show us Jesus personally.  Jesus has died and risen from the dead and complete pardon from God is granted on that basis to all who submit to him.  The Holy Spirit is the one who brings us to Christ for salvation. 

And not only at that point of salvation, but he continues to reveal the glories of Jesus to us.  Paul prayed that God “may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being so that Christ may dwell in your hearts…” (Ephesians 3:16-17). 

So the Holy Spirit communicates Christ to us, and we need that since we would never see his glory on our own. 

But there’s a second reason that the Holy Spirit’s witness to Jesus is good news.  He not only shows Jesus to us – but he shows Jesus through us – by making us witnesses for him. 

Jesus told his disciples, before he ascended into heaven, “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses” (Acts 1:8). 

And when Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to live with all his people, the first thing that he did was to cause them to tell ‘of the mighty works of God’ (Acts 2:11), so that thousands of people from all over the Roman empire would understand and here, and so that over 5,000 in one day would trust Christ Jesus. 

So that’s the good news!  The Holy Spirit communicates Jesus to us – he shows us Jesus so that we can know him.  AND – he bears witness through us so that we bear witness for Jesus. 

So – last question – what do we do? 

You might say – okay, great that he bears witness to Jesus.  But I still feel like I’m not ‘seeing’ it. 

We’ve all been there.  But that doesn’t mean that you should stay there. 

You need to do three things

1)  Repent.  You need to decide that you are going to passionately follow Jesus. 

2)  Remember.  Look at the Spirit’s word, and what Jesus accomplished. 

3)  Request.  Ask God to help. 

There’s an amazing example of this pattern in Acts chapter 4.  Peter and John had just been arrested for publicly proclaiming the resurrection of Jesus from the dead.  They’d been threatened not to.  And then they go back to their friends and tell the story. 

“And when they heard it, they lifted their voices together to God and said, ‘Sovereign Lord, who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them, who through the mouth of our father David, your servant, said by the Holy Spirit, ‘Why did the Gentiles rage, and the peoples plot in vain?  The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord and against his Christ’ – for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you appointed as the Christ, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand and your plan had predestined to take place. 

See what they’re doing there?  They’re remembering the truth.  Jesus is the Christ!  The Son of God!  And God is in control.  They’re having a Bible study.  And then look at what they do next

“’ And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness’” 

See what they’re doing?  They’re making a request from God.  Asking him to transform them.  And let’s see what God does:

“And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness.”  (Acts 4:24-29, 31). 

So God shows up.  The Holy Spirit gives them boldness and they go out proclaiming Christ.  I don’t know about you, but that is exciting to me.  And that’s what we’re called to do. 

One more example.  You’ve heard the Lord’s prayer.  Jesus gave it to us as a pattern of how we’re to pray.

“Pray then like this: ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.  Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.’” (Matthew 5:9, 10)

‘Our Father.’  That implies we’re praying together as a group.  It also assumes a relationship with God through Jesus. 

‘in Heaven’ – though he loves us and we know him; he’s GOD in heaven – and we are his creatures. 

‘Hallowed be your name’ – That means ‘glorify your name!’  And we’ve seen how God does that – by his Holy Spirit bearing witness to CHRIST in and through us. 

‘Your kingdom come…’  - in other words, cause me to do your will.  Cause others to do your will.  RULE over us!  And how does God do that?  By the Holy Spirit bearing witness to Christ. 

So what shall we say? 

The Holy Spirit is God himself.  He glorifies Jesus Christ the Son.  He does that towards us – so let’s dig into his word.  And he does that through us – and so we need to come together to ask God to make us bold to proclaim his word. 

I believe that God deserves the glory of Christ being proclaimed.  And I believe we will only do that if we begin by coming together to ask him to change us and to change our world.  And if we do, the Holy Spirit will act. 

Pray with me right now…