The Dynamic Ministry of the Holy Spirit 2

Pastor Mike will be speaking on The Dynamic Ministry of the Holy Spirit 2. He will be in John 16: 1-5.

When you come to Christ, you don’t instantaneously have all the knowledge that you need and understand as you’re trying to navigate this journey of faith. But God progressively unveils His truth as you are faithful and obedient to what you already know.

Hello this is Pastor Mike Sanders from the Open Door Church and this is Hope Worth Having Radio Broadcast. Jesus sent the Spirit to empower every Christian. When you think about what a powerful statement that is, Jesus said I am with you and He wants us to know that His presence is manifested in us through the power of His Spirit.

And so today we’re going to be continuing our study on the dynamic ministry of the Holy Spirit found in John 16 verses 1 through 5 and let’s start studying together about the dynamic ministry of the Holy Spirit.

If you have your Bible I want you to join me in the Gospel of John, the Gospel of John chapter 16 and we’re going to specifically cover the verses 12 through 15. We’ve been in this study of the Gospel of John and specifically the dynamic ministry of the Holy Spirit and we have covered verses 1 all the way through verse 11 and we’ve been learning about the ministry of the Holy Spirit.

I remind us this morning that all of God’s work in us and through us is done by the ministry of the Holy Spirit of God and that the Spirit of God works effectively and efficiently through us that we may be able to accomplish all that God has called us to do.

The Holy Spirit is the power of the church and more specifically the Holy Spirit is the power of every day. believer. The Bible teaches us that the Spirit of God lives and dwells within every child of God.

The Bible says in Acts 1 .8, you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you and you shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth. We come to our text this morning and we’re reminded of the ministry of the Spirit and the apostles are receiving instructions from Jesus and He is helping them to understand that it won’t be long that He soon will die on a cross and He soon will be resurrected and ascended into heaven and how important it is for them to understand the ministry of the Spirit of God.

He reminds them that He will not leave them comfortless. And so as we study this text, we’ve already learned. that when we think in terms of the dynamic ministry of the Holy Spirit we first see that the Spirit of God encourages believers.

In verses 1 through 7 we broke that down, we looked at those, we remember this morning that the Spirit of God encourages us through His ministry of comfort. He is called the comforter. And how often do we need comfort, church?

It is very true that we as believers need the comfort of God. And it is that comfort that comes to us through the power of the Spirit in the times of adversity in our life. He is not only a comforter, but He is a counselor.

He encourages us not only through His comforting ministry, but His counseling ministry as He continues to work in helping us and teaching us and tutoring us that we may obediently be faithful to the Lord Jesus Christ.

He encourages us by being a helper. Here’s what I want you to remember, church. The Greek word is perikaleia, which is the idea of someone coming alongside and picking you up. And this is the Spirit of God who lives in us.

He is within us, but He also comes alongside us. And He picks us up in those discouraging days. And He helps us to keep on pressing on for the Lord Jesus Christ. He supernaturally works in our life and helps us to have the strength to carry on with what God has called us to do.

Now, when we come to verse 8 through 11, we learned that the Spirit of God and His ministry is not only to encourage believers, but it is to reprove unbelievers. in verses 8 through 11 of chapter 16 we are reminded that he reproves us of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment.

Many times as a pastor a new believers will say to me, Pastor Mike thank you for saving me and I say look I never saved you, Jesus saved you, amen. I just was there and trying to help you but the point is that it’s Jesus who does the saving and they’ll say well Pastor Mike you helped me and I say yeah but really it was the Spirit of God that opens your mind and enlightens your heart and help you to come to the understanding of your sinfulness and the recognition that you needed a Savior and that Jesus Christ is that Savior who died for your sins and that by placing your faith in Him you can have eternal life for the Scripture says to us that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.

How wonderful is that truth? And so the Spirit of God in his dynamic ministry, he is the one who encourages believers. He is the one who reproves unbelievers. But this morning I want to finish up on this last point that the Spirit of God guides believers.

We pick up in verse 12. The scripture says, I have yet many things to say unto you. This is Jesus speaking to his disciples and he says, you cannot bear them now. How be it when he, the Spirit of truth is come, he will guide you into all truth for he shall not speak of himself but whatsoever he shall hear that shall he speak and he will show you things to come.

He shall glorify me for he shall receive of mine and shall show it unto you all things that the Father have are mine and therefore said I that he shall take of mine and shall show it unto you. The Spirit of God referred to as the Spirit of truth in our text this morning.

The Holy Spirit of God is our guide into all truth and we see this message that it is consistently taught by Jesus Christ. We back up into chapter 14 of the Gospel of John and we note in verse 17 that the scripture says even the Spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive because it seeth him not neither knoweth him not but you know him for he dwelleth with you and shall be in you.

Note that he is called the Spirit of truth. Then we jump down to verse 26 of the same chapter for And the Bible says the comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, He shall teach you all things and bring all things to your remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you.

We come to chapter 15 and verse 26. Again Jesus still teaching on the ministry of the Holy Spirit, reminding us that He would guide us into all truth. It says in verse 26 of chapter 15, but when the comforter is come, whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of truth, which proceedeth from the Father, He shall testify of me.

And so in our text again, Jesus reminds the disciples that the Spirit of God is the Spirit of truth and that He guides believers into the truth. The word guide here has the idea of explaining, of instructing, and leading.

And so this is what the Spirit of God does. The Scriptures tell us in Galatians chapter 5 verse 18 that if you are led of the Spirit, these are the fruits that you will manifest. This is the fruit of the Spirit that will be evident in your life.

And so we are to be led of the Spirit. We are to be led of the Spirit of truth because He guides us into all truth. The Holy Spirit teaches us. And when He teaches us, He teaches us the truth, the truth of God.

Listen to John again in 1 John 2, 27. He says the anointing which you have, talking about believers, the anointing which you have received from Him abides in you. And you do not need that anyone teach you, but as the same anointing teaches you concerning all things and is true and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you will abide in Him.

Don’t misunderstand the text. He’s not saying you don’t need a pastor to teach you. You don’t need a Sunday school teacher, a Bible study leader to teach you. He is saying that the Spirit of God will teach you and that the Spirit of God will always teach you in truth.

And that even if you don’t have a teacher, and even if you do not have someone who is breaking down the Bible, you have the Spirit of God who is the greatest teacher that lives inside of every believer.

And if you are truly led of the Spirit, you will know the truth and the truth will set you free. And there are many believers who need to be set free. Yes, I know that we are set free from sin through the power of Christ, but we have so many myths that we believe.

We have so many things in our mindset and perspective as believers, we are not guided in truth because we are not. not allowing the Spirit of God to teach us. The Spirit of Truth is the Church’s divine teacher.

Martin Luther put it like this, and I quote, the Bible cannot be understood simply by study or talent. You must count only on the influence of the Holy Spirit, end of quote. And so believers sometimes can turn the Bible into an academic book.

Or maybe as some have tried to tell me that it’s just full of allegories and it’s really not truth. Friends, when we come to the Word of God and we open it up, we must come with a heart that is filled and led by the Spirit of God.

And that we must desire that the Spirit of God would illuminate His truth to us and that He would teach us and show us exactly what God would have us to know through His Word. Now, I want you to take your Bible, go to 1 Corinthians 2, and I want to begin in verse 12, because I just want you to again to see what I’m trying to tell you is that the Spirit of God is your teacher, that the Spirit of God is the one who shows you the truth.

Now, we have received not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God, that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. I just want to stop there for a second. All that God has for those who love Him, all that God has for those who believe in Him.

What do you mean, Pastor? Back up in the text, verse 9. As it is written, I has not seen nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for them that love Him.

Now, this verse is often used in relation to heaven, but in its pure context, it is that as believers we have inherited so much in Christ and that it is the Spirit of God who teaches us that we may know all the things that have been given to us freely in Jesus Christ, verse 13, which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teachth, but which the Holy Ghost teachth, comparing spiritual things with spiritual.

It is the Spirit of God that teaches us and notice that He works in conjunction with the Word of God. For the Apostle Paul says that it’s spiritual things with spiritual. It is that we understand what the Spirit is teaching us as we compare what we are learning spiritually with the Word of God, spiritual things with spiritual things.

We do not just randomly jump out there and start believing or embracing truths that are not lining up with the Word of God, but we are checking. and double -checking. We are comparing, we are contrasting, we are analyzing as the Spirit of God is leading us and teaching us.

Verse 14, the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God. He’s referring to the unbeliever. The unbeliever does not receive the things of the Spirit, for they are foolishness unto him.

Neither can he know them because they are spiritually discerned. But he that is spiritual, I want you to get this. This is how important the Spirit of God is in your life. He that is spiritual judges all things.

He examines all things. Yet he himself is judged of no man. For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him, but we have the mind of Christ. Now Paul is not teaching that people can somehow be unaccountable.

But He is saying that there is no need for there to be any examination of our life if we are living in light of the leadership of the Spirit of God as we are following His truth because the Spirit of God and the Word of God are holding us accountable and thus we are blessed with the discernment of the Spirit of God because we judge all things in light of the Spirit of truth that lives within us and the Word of God that has been given to us.

And so we are not naive, we are not gullible, led astray, we are not buying into every wind of doctrine that just simply blows through the evangelical Christianity, every fade that pops up, we’re not just jumping on the bandwagon, but rather we’re always comparing spiritual with spiritual.

That whenever we hear teachers of the Bible, whether they’re in the church, outside the church relating to, they may not be in our local fellowship, but they’re teaching on the internet, they’re teaching in other platforms, that we’re always comparing spiritual with spiritual and notice this, He says, you have the mind of Christ.

Did you know that? God has never asked us to disengage our minds. He’s never called us to emotionalism, but rather again calls us that we would live in the Spirit of truth and that we would follow the leadership of the Spirit of God in our life and the Spirit is the source of our spiritual knowledge.

Isaiah 11 verse 2 says the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon Him and the Spirit of wisdom and understanding the Spirit of counsel and might the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. You and I are blessed with the Holy Spirit who is referred to.

as the spirit of wisdom and understanding and counsel and knowledge. So we have this available to us, and yet so many times we fail to access the spirit of wisdom that God has for us. Jesus teaches us that the spirit of truth will guide us.

So I want you to note just three things about this spirit of truth that are very important in its guidance in your life. First, I want you to see the progression of truth. Look at verse 12. He says to his disciples, I have yet many things to say unto you, but you cannot bear them now.

Jesus had told much information to his disciples. It was difficult for them to accept everything that he was saying. They were having a hard time digesting his coming suffering, his coming death and resurrection.

and ascension into heaven. They did not fully grasp the totality of all that Jesus was giving them. And yet Jesus did not even give them all that they needed to hear. And he did it progressively. He gave them the truth progressively in the minds of the disciples.

They were still looking for a political king. They were looking for a Messiah that would somehow relinquish the tyranny of the politics and the Roman empire upon them. And so they saw Jesus in this light hoping that somehow he would restore Israel to all of its grandeur and all of its majesty.

And they believed that somehow he was gonna lead this great revolt that would overtake all of the Roman empire. And Jesus says, I can’t even tell you everything because you can’t bear it. And so it is as the spirit of God leads us, we must recognize that just as the spirit led the disciples later into further truth after Jesus was gone, so it is that the spirit of God leads us into further truth as we grow in our faith.

The truth is progressive. Everything that you’re learning in Sunday school, everything you’re learning in your small group, your Bible studies, everything you’re learning from the pulpit of the open door church, that’s just the teaser.

That’s just the beginning for you. That is just to stimulate the mind and the spirit to wanna research and dig deeper and to know the ultimate truth of what God has for us. But it is something that is given to us progressively.

Jesus would refer to his disciples. and he would say to them, how is it that God could entrust, if you will, all the riches of his truth to any believer if they can’t even handle the simple management of finances?

You might think, why would those two go together? Because Jesus said that where your treasure is, that’s where your heart is. And see, if your heart is not aligned with God and all that he’s entrusted to you materially and temporarily, and all that he is entrusted to you physically, if you cannot manage that in such a way that it brings glory and honor to God, why would he entrust more to you when it relates to the spiritual truths of God?

The spiritual riches of God. Many Christians have put a lid on their life and they cannot go much further. And it is because of their unwillingness to grow in their faith. They just want a little bit of Jesus.

just enough to get them by and they do not maximize all that God has for them and that He progressively teaches them the truth. The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 3, 18, we all with unveiled face beholding as a mirror in the glory of the Lord are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory just as by the Spirit of the Lord.

How is it that this progressive truth takes root in our hearts by the Spirit of the Lord that He is changing us, that He is shaping us into the image of the Lord Jesus Christ and it is done progressively.

When you come to Christ you don’t instantaneously have all the knowledge that you need and understand as you’re trying to navigate this journey of faith but God progressively unveils His truth as you are faithful and obedient to what you already know and many Christians they want to know before they obey but in God’s kingdom and in His economy you obey and then you know and so as you trust God as you obey Him then He unveils more of His truth to you to help guide you in your walk with Jesus Christ.

So the Holy Spirit shines God’s word in your heart and helps you to understand the truth. That’s why John said in 1 John 2, 20, you have an anointing from the Holy One and you know all things. He’s not saying that you know everything and we know people who think that they know everything, amen?

But the point is this is the potential of knowing all of God’s truth that has been revealed to us in His word is available to you to the power of the Spirit and that is that as you and I yield to God’s truth what we know then we will grow.

Now look Jesus put it like this. Jesus said if you’ll be faithful and a little I will make you a ruler or a leader of much so if you’ll be faithful in the little truth and be true and you be obedient and faithful to what God has already revealed to you that he opens more truth in to your life and this is what you and I are called to do is that the Holy Spirit will illuminate and instruct our minds as we are faithfully learning and growing first Peter 2 to like a newborn infant long for the pure spiritual milk then buy it you may grow up in to salvation I know many believers don’t want me to say this but I must say it to you this morning that there are many believers that need to grow up and you might feel that’s harsh that’s offensive pastor only the more recognition that you need to grow up is that God calls us to grow up in the faith.

He calls us to grow up to desire the milk of his word so much that we want to grow, that we want to move forward. Many of us would be disappointed if our children never left the bottle of milk and didn’t move on to the vegetables and the meat and the normal eating patterns.

We would be disappointed if our children never grew physically, emotionally, intellectually. If our children never grew, we would be kind of very disappointed and maybe frustrated. But yet so many Christians accept mediocrity in their spiritual knowledge and they accept remaining an infant in Christ.

Listen, your infancy, your maturity in Christ is not based upon the longevity of your faith, but it is based upon your hunger and your desire and your faithfulness and obedience to God and that as you hunger for his righteousness and thirst for his righteousness in your life, you will be feel.

There’s not only the progression of your truth, but I want you to know the extent of truth. Verse 13, the text says, how be it when he the spirit of truth is come, he will guide you in to all truth, not some truth, not just a few truth, but all truth.

Now don’t go out here thinking that you’re going to be able to walk on Penn State campus and you’re going to be able to immediately graduate within a day or two in biology. He’s not talking about that kind of truth, he’s talking about spiritual truth.

And what he is saying is that the extent of this truth, all of God’s truth that is revealed to us through his word is available to us. That’s why the psalmist prayed in Psalm 73 verse 24, thou shall guide me with thy counsel.

You today may be struggling with decisions and choices in life as to what should you do? Friends, I’m telling you that all truth is available to you and that as you come to God, it is the Spirit of God who will counsel your heart and lead you into all truth.

The Spirit’s guidance in a Christian’s life is always joined together with the truth of God’s word. Now many times people will come to me and they will say, Pastor Mike, this is God’s will for my life.

And I know that what they are doing violates the word of God. And I tell them all the time that the Spirit of God would never lead a true believer to disobey the word of God. And so as we’re trying to figure out God’s will in our life, as we are trying to experience and tap into the extent of His truth.

that He makes available to us through the Spirit of Truth. Let us remember first of all that as we strive to know the will of God, it must begin with prayer. That prayer is an important ingredient to God’s will.

And that even when you and I do not know how to articulate what we want to say to God, that it is the Spirit of Truth that knows our hearts and extends that to the throne of God according to Romans 8, 26.

But also as I’m trying to figure out God’s will for my life, I’m not only praying, but I’m researching God’s principles in His Word. I am making sure that what I am thinking about this decision lines up with the Bible.

That we are following God’s truth. There are many great principles in God’s Word that can guide us in our choices, our decisions for the Lord. And thirdly, I am seeking counsel from God’s people because the Bible says there is safety and there is wisdom in a multitude of counsel.

How should we seek out all this truth by listening to the advisors and counselors? To be teachable, be the kind of person that doesn’t feel like, hey, I know it all and nobody can tell me what to do.

But to come with a spirit of humility and say I want to learn and here’s what I’m thinking and I want you to help me and to making sure that I’m getting and tapping into all of God’s truth that He has for me.

But the final P that I have for understanding God’s will is not only prayer and not only principles and not only people, meaning God’s people, but His peace. You see, God gives peace. It’s a peace that passes all understanding.

It’s a peace that He settles in your heart that this is His will for your life. friends that there are things that God may call you to do or not to and some may disagree and some may really be upset about it.

But if you have the peace of Christ that is ruling your heart, if you have really given this as a matter of prayer and diligence of wanting to honor Christ, then I promise you that he will give you a peace that passes all understanding.

The disciples could not understand why Christ had to leave them, so he showed them that his return to the Father made it possible for greater ministry because of the coming of the Spirit of God upon them.

And that’s what John chapter 16 is about, is that Christ has given us the dynamic ministry of the Holy Spirit within us and through us and around us and this is what we covet as we are praying. that the Spirit in its fullness will be upon us as we serve Him and honor Christ, our Lord and Savior.

This is Pastor Mike Sanders reminding you that in Christ there is hope worth having.