The Holy Spirit (Part I)

Grace Fellowship Church

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All right, let's go to the Lord in prayer. Father God, we come before you,

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Father, in the name of your Son, Jesus Christ, whose righteousness we have received through faith, and we rely upon everything that he did and everything that you've promised.

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And I pray that, Lord, right now our reliance would be upon you. I pray that each of us would pay attention to your scriptures and that they would have their intended effect in our hearts, that we may bear fruit pleasing to your sight.

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Please help us, Father, we pray for your Son's namesake. Amen. Okay.

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Well, we're going over the third part of the

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Statement of Faith. It's actually the fourth. So we're following on the heels of the doctrine of Jesus Christ.

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And just as we've talked about the doctrine of the Trinity, which would include the

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Father, we've talked about the doctrine of the Son, now we're talking about the doctrine of the Spirit. I'm going to read our statement.

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The first part, it says, The Holy Spirit is fully God, equal with the

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Father and Son. He glorifies the Lord Jesus Christ, convicts unbelievers of their need for Christ, and imparts spiritual life through regeneration.

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I'm going to read Acts 19, verses 1 and 2.

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The book of Acts 19, first two verses. And it happened that while Apollos was at Corinth, Paul passed through the inland country and came to Ephesus.

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There he found some disciples, and he said to them, Did you receive the

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Holy Spirit when you believed? And they said, No, we have not even heard that there is a

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Holy Spirit. What would I tell you if you answered the way they did?

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I've not even heard that there is a Holy Spirit. Well, first I would recognize that you're not a disciple of John the

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Baptist, because that has long since faded out of history.

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You can't be a disciple of John the Baptist, and so the context is different. But I would begin by saying,

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The Holy Spirit is fully God, equal with the Father and Son. Then I would prove that since there is one

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Creator, as Isaiah 44, 24b says, I am the Lord who made all things, who alone stretched out the heavens, who spread out the earth by myself.

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And then, that like the Father and Son, the Spirit, too, is reported to create everything.

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Job 33, 4, The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life.

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If there is one Creator, only one, who by himself created all things, gives life to all things, gives breath to all things, and that the

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Spirit is said to create, then I would prove that the Holy Spirit is fully

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God. I would prove that this equality is not only seen in Him being

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Creator, but by the titles He bears. In 2 Samuel 23, 2,

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He is called both Lord, He is called God, He is called even the

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Rock of Israel. In 2 Corinthians 3, 17, He's called the

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Lord again. And the Lord in all capitals in the

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Old Testament would mean Yahweh, the covenant -keeping God, the one who is self -existent, the one who doesn't need anything, doesn't depend on anything, but whom

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Israel must depend on, whom God is going to save from Egypt.

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That same God is the Holy Spirit. I would say then that this equality means that the

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Holy Spirit has divine attributes. When we're talking about the

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Spirit of God, we're not talking about something that is separate from God, but something that is

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God Himself, and He has divine attributes. God is eternal. And eternal means without beginning and without ending.

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And in Hebrews 9, 24, it says that Jesus offered His sacrifice through the eternal

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Spirit. Not only is there eternity to the

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Spirit of God, but there's omniscience. Omniscience, meaning that the

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Spirit of God knows everything. In Isaiah 40, the turning point in the book of Isaiah, Isaiah 40, verses 13 to 14, says,

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Who has directed the Spirit of the Lord, or what man shows him his counsel?

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Whom did he consult, and who made him understand? Who taught him the path of justice, and taught him knowledge, and showed him the way of understanding?

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The answer to all those questions is no one. No one teaches

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God anything. And the Spirit of God cannot be taught.

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He cannot be directed into the right way of justice. The Spirit of God is all -knowing, and that is also just.

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Not only is there eternity and omniscience, but there is the attribute of omnipresence.

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Omnipresence. In Psalm 139, as David considers how he cannot go away from the presence of the

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Lord, he says in verse 7, Where shall I go from your spirit? Or where shall

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I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there.

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If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me.

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If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me, and the light about me be night, even then, even the darkness is not dark to you.

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The night is bright as the day, for darkness is as light with you.

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Where you came from, where we came from home to come here, the Spirit of God was there.

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When we came here, the Spirit of God was here. And the Spirit of God does not cease to be at our homes.

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The Spirit of God does not cease to be with any other Christian in the world. The Spirit of God does not cease to be in any other place in the world or in the heavens.

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God fills the heavens. Even the heaven of heavens, the highest heavens that you could stretch out to, it cannot contain

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God. The finite cannot contain the infinite. And so the Spirit of God is everywhere equally present.

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His center is everywhere. His circumference is nowhere. God in His fullness is right here, right now, just as equally as He is 20 light years away from here.

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Not only that, but there is omnipotence, meaning He's all -powerful.

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He can do whatever He pleases in the heavens, in the armies of the heavens, among mankind, anything

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He wants. And this is shown in His power to create. In Genesis 1 -2 and in several verses in Job, it talks about how the

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Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters, how He was creating the heavens and causing them to shine with luster.

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Not only that, but to give life when God breathed into man the breath of life.

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Breath in Hebrew, just as it is in Greek, is the same word for spirit.

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It's the same word for wind. The Spirit of God came and gave life to Adam.

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And in Psalm 104, it says that God sends forth His Spirit and renews the face of the ground.

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He gives life to creatures by His Spirit, or breath.

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Not only that, but there's working of miracles. Think of the virgin conception, the conception of the

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Son of God in the womb of Mary. That's an impossibility.

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More impossible than to create everything out of nothing is to secure a sinless conception in the womb of a woman that has known not a man.

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Not only that, but in resurrection, it was the Spirit of God that was active in the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

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The Spirit of the Father was active in raising

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Christ from the dead, just as active as He is in raising believers from the dead. Resurrection. And not only that, but the works of Christ.

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The works of Christ were done by the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus went into Galilee in the power of the

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Holy Spirit. Power was with Him to heal. Power was with Him to do miracles, and it was the power of the

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Holy Spirit. Jesus didn't rely upon His own power, but upon the power that He was empowered by from God, the

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Spirit. Not only that, but to cast out demons, even the prince of demons.

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If the Holy Spirit is more powerful than the most powerful demonic agent in creation, then the

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Holy Spirit is all -powerful. In Matthew 12, in Luke 12, in Mark 3, we have the debate that Jesus has with the

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Pharisees about their claim that He cast out demons by Beelzebul, the prince of demons.

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And He says, no, I cast out demons by the Spirit of God. It's by the Spirit of God that He binds the strong man and then plunders his goods.

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So the Spirit of God is active in casting out demons. That's omnipotence.

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And then also, He empowers believers. He gives strength to those who have none, and He increases their might.

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Not only that, but there is the attribute of love. God is love, and in Romans 5, it says that God pours

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His love into our hearts by His Holy Spirit. Now, if you think about this, the

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Spirit of God is not just a conduit, not just a pipe through which

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God pours His love, but He is the very person

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God uses to distribute that love in our hearts. Again, the finite cannot contain what is infinite.

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A little bottle cannot contain the whole ocean. It's the

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Spirit of God Himself that is able to communicate that love to believers. That's something that I cannot do.

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That's something that you cannot do. That's something that no angel can do or any other part of creation can do, but God must be able to do.

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And then, I don't know if you've ever thought of this, but holiness and spirituality is also attributes of the

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Spirit of God. His very name is the Holy Spirit. God is

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Spirit. God is holy, holy, holy. The fullness of God's essence is in the

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Holy Spirit. I would then say that this equality is seen in the order that He has with the other persons of the

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Trinity. Matthew 28, the Great Commission, verses 18 and 19.

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Jesus says to baptize His disciples in the name, singular, of the

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Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. But not only is there that order of Father first, second, the

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Son, and then third, the Holy Spirit, but there's also every other combination of order in the

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New Testament. Father, Son, Spirit. Father, Spirit, Son. Son, Spirit, Father. Son, Father, Spirit.

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Spirit, Father, Son. Spirit, Son, Father. I think there's actually one lacking, but that goes to show, and it's not just there's not a bunch of baptismal mandates in the

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New Testament, but there's, may the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of the

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Holy Spirit be with you. There we go. Christ, the Father, the Spirit. And then we have in Revelation 1 where it talks about how grace and peace to Him who was and is and who is to come, that's the

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Father. And then from the seven Spirits of God, that's the Holy Spirit. And then from the

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Lamb that was slain, the Son. So that equality is seen in that the

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Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are put together, doing things equally, giving grace and peace equally, administering fellowship equally, empowering equally, and doing things that no mere creature could do and that no, that God would not give to a creature to do.

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I would then refute the error of those who hold that the Holy Spirit is merely

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God's power or the extension of His presence and action by reducing that to absurdity, quoting

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Jesus in Acts 1 .8 when He says, To them that believe that the

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Holy Spirit is only God's power, a mere force, that would mean that Jesus is saying to His disciples, or in Luke 4 .14,

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That makes no sense. Scripture doesn't work that way.

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The Holy Spirit is the agent that gives that power. He is not power itself.

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Scripture is not repeating itself. Jesus is not just saying words.

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I would add to that by alluding to the fact that the Holy Spirit is clearly a person.

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Now, this is something that in the statement we haven't, we've made clear by saying that He glorifies the

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Lord Jesus Christ. That's important because Scripture itself uses personal, masculine pronouns.

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There's no feminine pronouns for the Holy Spirit. It doesn't flip around to he, she. There's he and there's it, but there's still he.

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Not only that, but the Holy Spirit speaks. The Holy Spirit said to Philip, go and join yourself to this chariot.

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Not only that, but the Holy Spirit speaks through David in the Scriptures and through Jeremiah in the

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Scriptures. The Spirit says things and then as we saw before in Hebrews 9 with the writing of the

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New Covenant in Jeremiah 31, He adds things. The Spirit is thinking.

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The Spirit is adding. The Spirit is writing. The Spirit is breathing out Scripture.

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Not only that, but He searches. He knows. In Genesis 6 He contends with man.

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He fights. A force can't fight. We can use a personification that the wind fought against us, but that's not what it's saying here.

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Also, the Spirit leads. People, personalities, persons lead other people.

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If you are led by the Spirit of God, then you are sons of God. The Spirit leads. Not only that, but He distributes gifts as He wills.

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There's discernment. There's thinking. There's distribution.

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There is will there. Those are all properties of personhood. Not only that, the

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Holy Spirit can be sinned against. I can't sin against electricity.

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Okay? You could swear at fire.

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That is a force of nature. And it would not be sinned against.

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You could say something against wind or fire or water, but it would not be blasphemed.

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Scripture says that we can grieve the Holy Spirit.

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In Isaiah 43 it talks about how the wilderness generation vexed the

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Holy Spirit. That through their testing

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Him, through their complaints and unbelief, the Holy Spirit was vexed.

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And, of course, there's the unpardonable sin of attributing the work of Christ attributing the power of Satan to the work of Christ, to the work of the

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Holy Spirit in Christ. Not only that, but we can have fellowship with the

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Holy Spirit. The fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. This is something that only you can have with another person.

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You can't have fellowship with a dog. You can't have fellowship with a table. You can't have fellowship with a force.

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You can't have fellowship with anything like that. You can have fellowship with other people. You can share with other people.

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And also, He has a priority and desire to glorify Christ. I would then segue into how all of Scripture is the work of the

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Holy Spirit to glorify Christ. Have you ever picked up the Bible and thought this, that this is all the work of the

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Holy Spirit? And yet, it's not pointing His direction.

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It's pointing away from Himself to the second person of the Trinity, to the

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Lord Jesus Christ. From start to finish, the Scriptures, though breathed out by God, though it is the work of the

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Spirit of God, it is His work to exalt Jesus Christ, to point to Christ in the promises, in the types, in the shadows, so that everything is fulfilled in Christ.

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Genesis 1 -1 is alluded to when it says, in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

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And then every gospel account, except Luke, starts with the beginning of the genealogy of Jesus Christ.

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The son of Abraham, the son of David, the son of Abraham. The mark, the beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

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And then John, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was

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God. This is all alluding to the Old Testament, using the language of the

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Old Testament, so that when we look at Genesis 1 -1, we see it through new eyes, that this is about Christ creating all things.

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So that in Colossians 1, Paul is right when he says that all things were created by Him and for Him.

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Everything in creation was created for the sake of Jesus Christ.

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In Ephesians 1, God has a plan to unite all things in heaven and on earth in Christ.

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And so then, the Holy Spirit has no contrary purpose to that of the

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Father, but it is to exalt Jesus Christ, to point to Christ, to lead people to see

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Jesus Christ for who He is in the promises. And the very first promise of Christ is in Genesis 3 -15, where after Adam and Eve had sinned,

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God didn't need to do this. He doesn't need to give mercy. He doesn't need to give grace.

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He doesn't need to give any kind of waiting time or probation for them before He inflicts

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His wrath. He could justly come down and destroy His enemies, Adam and Eve, and count sin to all of us and just cut us off forever.

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But instead, in His grace, He manifests, He shows

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His plan to save. When He says to the serpent,

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I will put enmity, hostility, between you and the woman and between her offspring, sorry, between your offspring and her offspring,

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He shall crush your head and you shall bruise his heel.

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From then on, the ball gets rolling and everything is pointing towards Jesus Christ.

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It's a search for who this seed is. It wasn't Abel. And it wasn't

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Cain. And it wasn't Noah. And it wasn't Abraham.

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It wasn't Isaac, ultimately. It wasn't Jacob. It wasn't

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Judah. It wasn't David, even. It wasn't Solomon, in all

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His glory. But all of these things and all of the events surrounding them, the ark, the building of the temple,

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Moses in the wilderness, feeding the people in the wilderness, the judges crushing their enemies and delivering

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Israel, all of these things are meant to point to Jesus Christ, so that the glorifying of Christ, the exalting of Christ, is not just something that happens since Jesus Christ is glorified and He pours out the

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Holy Spirit, but it's something that the Holy Spirit has been active in since the beginning. Everything was meant to be founded upon Jesus Christ.

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When we look at Adam, our eyes should turn immediately from him to the second

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Adam, Jesus Christ. When we look at the covering that was given to Adam and Eve in Genesis, our eyes should immediately turn to the atonement of Jesus Christ.

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When we look to the ark of the covenant in Moses, our eyes should immediately turn to the propitiation that Jesus Christ offered

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Himself. He's the high priest. He's the sacrifice. He's the labor.

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He's the tabernacle. He's the temple. He's everything. He's all in all.

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And so, as a church plan for application, if we are a church that is all about the

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Holy Spirit, we talk about the Holy Spirit, we are just, every message is inundated with the

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Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit is always on our lips, that gives a false balance because the

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Holy Spirit Himself is not all about Himself, but about pointing to Jesus Christ, about glorifying

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Christ and His work. And so then,

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I would go to all of Scripture, how that it points to Jesus Christ, how that it is the work of the

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Holy Spirit, and then I would say that this was fulfilled in the first coming of Christ and that He as the

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God -man was immediately acted upon by the Spirit. He did everything that He did relying upon God's provision for Him.

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Jesus didn't act independently. Jesus wanted to know His Father's will. He craved it more than food and He did it, not in His own power, but in the power of the

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Holy Spirit. He rejoiced in the Holy Spirit, Luke 11 says. He did His miracles in the power of the

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Holy Spirit and then He promised that the

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Holy Spirit would be sent. In Acts 7, on that great day of the feast where Jesus says, if anyone is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink and as the

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Scriptures has said, out of His belly will flow rivers of living water.

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Jesus is alluding to this promise that's throughout the warp and woof of the Old Testament prophets, that God is going to give streams in the desert, that this dynamic, powerful, life -giving work of the

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Spirit is only available through Jesus Christ. In Isaiah 32, verse 15 and following, basically

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Jerusalem is going to lie in ruins and there's going to be exile to Babylon and there's going to be exile to Assyria and everything's going to get destroyed and there's going to be lamentation until the

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Spirit is poured upon us from on high and the wilderness becomes a fruitful field and the fruitful field is deemed a forest then justice will dwell in the wilderness and righteousness abide in the fruitful field and the effect of righteousness will be peace and the result of righteousness quietness and trust forever.

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My people will abide in a peaceful habitation in secure dwellings and in quiet resting places.

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In Isaiah 35 it says the wilderness and the dry land shall be glad, the desert shall rejoice and blossom like the crocus, it shall blossom abundantly and rejoice with joy and singing the glory of Lebanon shall be given to it, the majesty of Carmel and Sharon, they shall see the glory of the

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Lord, the majesty of our God. It's hard for us to imagine this because we've never really

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I don't know, has anybody been to a desert? Here? In BC?

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Okay. Not as arid as an actual desert.

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I think it's a legit desert. Okay. Okay, well imagine going through all of that sand and no water and then seeing a stream break out and gush water and then all of a sudden around on the sides of the stream there's just life and greenery and freshness so that it is beautiful.

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There's a bunch of flowers and they're all blossoming and big trees are blooming.

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That's what's going on here and this is not just this isn't physical, this isn't something like Israel's hope was in the desert literally becoming a life -filled place where there's a bunch of water.

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Their hope was in the Holy Spirit giving life to this dead nation that has withered away in exile as pictured in Ezekiel 37 as dry bones that are scattered on the face of the desert.

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It is the spirit of God that does this and it's only through the

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Lord Jesus Christ. In Isaiah 44 it says, Ezekiel 36,

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And at the very end of Ezekiel the last part in Ezekiel 39 right before it is an airtight eight chapters of the temple it says, upon the house of Israel declares the

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Lord God. Look life is in Christ fullness of life, newness of life eternal life, not just never ending existence but actual life as it's meant to be lived in the presence of God.

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It is the Garden of Eden heaven on earth right here and right now and in its fullness and resurrection in the new heavens and new earth only through Jesus Christ and so even the texts of scripture that talk about the

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Holy Spirit are pointing to Jesus Christ He is the source

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He's the well that you drink the water of life from even the texts of scripture that talk about the pouring out of the

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Holy Spirit are pointing to Christ. Secondly the

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Spirit convicts unbelievers of their need for Christ and imparts spiritual life through regeneration.

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We believe this because people are so dense that we actually need this that we didn't wake up one day and decide to be a

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Christian because we had figured it out we had done all the appropriate study we had compared all the other world religions and thought that this one is the best it makes the most sense you and I are

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Christians if we are Christians because the Holy Spirit worked in a way that we couldn't see we couldn't taste, we couldn't smell sometimes we couldn't even feel and yet the

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Spirit of God showed us our need for Christ. How did He do that? I don't know but that is something that He does so that in John 14, 12

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Jesus is promising this work of the Spirit not

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John 14, 12 sorry,

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John it's going to be John 16 John 16 when

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He says, nevertheless I tell you the truth it is to your advantage that I go away for if I do not go away the

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Helper capital H Helper will not come to you but if I go

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I will I will send Him to you and when He comes He will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment concerning sin because they do not believe in me concerning righteousness because I go to the

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Father and you will see me no longer concerning judgment because the ruler of this world is judged.

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You know what? The Holy Spirit shows people that they are lost without Christ and that Christ is who

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He says He is and powerfully in a hidden way, a way that we can't understand, we can't calculate

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God works in children's minds and in children's hearts God works in older people's hearts

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God works in the kitchen God works on the death bed

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God works at rock bottom with somebody. God works when somebody is in the highest place of authority and they have everything they think they need and everything they dreamed of and God shows them their barrenness, that they lack one thing and it's the only one thing they need and it's

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Christ and so we preach Christ to people.

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We can give them law. This is where you've fallen short God demands righteousness you're made in His image and He's written the requirement of His law on your heart.

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You ought to obey God and you ought not to even expect anything from Him. You cannot stand upon your own righteousness before the throne of God.

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There's nothing you could do in and of yourself to please God and yet God demands no less than conformity to Him in His perfection and yet for all of that, if we bring them to how people have fallen short of the glory of God in that they've not honored their father and mother in that they have sinned by lying by stealing, by killing, by committing adultery by dishonoring

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God in His name and by having other idols, idols of the heart real physical idols, attraction to something other than God, even though we could bring all of those things, yet it is the

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Spirit of God that points them to Christ Christ is sufficient to be the

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Savior of everyone who stops relying upon themselves and just falls upon Jesus Christ looks to Christ in His majesty especially as crucified the one that the scriptures point to that was crushed for our iniquities and in a sweet violence, the kind of power that is exhibited in spring opening the leaves,

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God the Spirit works in our hearts to turn on the lights, to open our eyes to give ears to actually hear the voice of the

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Good Shepherd and to rely upon Jesus Christ to come off of ourselves to stop our excuses, to stop our wandering to stop our objecting to God's authority and to comply willingly to trust in Jesus Christ, the

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Spirit of God does that, when Jesus said you must be born from above it's not something that we can produce and if the wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it you don't know where it comes from or where it goes to, and so is everyone who is born of the

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Spirit then you can't nail regeneration down to being baptized because you don't know when you're going to be regenerate it happens when

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God wants it to happen and so we can't baptize you in order for you to be saved you must be born from God and you can't bring it on yourself because John 1 .12

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says that He gave the right to become children of God who were born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man but of God it's

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God who imparts spiritual life He is the one who produces that life you didn't come into the world by your own power you didn't decide to descend your mother's birth canal it was

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God that brought you out and so it is in the spiritual realm if you are here a

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Christian you're here because God birthed you into spiritual life that you have something that is not your own, it is a gift from God you've been raised with Christ just as powerful even more powerful than God speaking everything into existence

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God raised Christ from the dead and raises believers with Christ this is the

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Holy Spirit who does this so our reliance in evangelism is not in our tactics our reliance when we tell people about Christ is not that we were so persuasive in our arguments not that we had every answer to their question not that we've studied every world religion to know apologetically how to defend the faith it's not because of anything from us we rely upon the

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Spirit of God and we need to pray and trust Him to work behind the scenes when we pillow our heads we are farmers and we go and plant we go throw the seed in and we go to bed we can't do anything the flesh is no help at all it's the

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Spirit who does everything both in conviction and in imparting spiritual life through regeneration now these things go hand in hand you could have conviction yet not be born again

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I stood up with a man the other day who gave me all of these reasons for why he thought he was a

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Christian and none of them were actually biblical reasons none of them were evidences that Scripture gives of somebody actually being saved he said he was convicted at times, he had conviction that just points to the fact that your conscience is working maybe the

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Spirit is working in your heart to wake you up and say, look, you need to get saved you need to actually deal with this that doesn't mean you're saved he brought up baptism, again it's the

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Spirit of God that works in a sinner's heart it's not you touching water, or water touching you he brought up going to a camp and becoming clean from his addiction and now he speaks differently and he's turned a new leaf that could be completely void of true repentance if the

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Spirit of God has given you life there is not just, oh yeah, I was doing so well for a couple years, and then now

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I'm backslidden, and I've been backslidden forever and I don't do anything for God and I don't go to church, and I don't have any desire to read the

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Bible what the Spirit of God does is a permanent work the

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Spirit may work in a man and carry him so far propping him up to receive blessing a clear outward call of the

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Gospel conviction, and illumination people understand the truth of the

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Gospel but carry him no further than an un -regenerate nature can bear before it becomes regenerate where, when, who, and how far is up to him when we have people come in here and they're under the preaching of the

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Word and they're stirred up, be excited and pray but also trust, you know what unless God does it, it's useless unless the

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Lord builds the house, we're laboring in vain unless the

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Lord gives them new life our all is nothing but the

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Holy Spirit does give new life are you born again in order to be a member of the church you need to be born again, there's no other way you can't be born in a

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Christian family that doesn't work, just like being born in a garage doesn't make you a car being born in a

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Christian family doesn't make you a Christian are you born again people say, well

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I was born gay I was born a homosexual and so that's the way that God made me you need to be born again

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I was born with tendencies to hate people and kill people you need to be born again everybody's born with sinful tendencies everybody's born with sinful desires because of Adam, you need to be born again you need to repent and believe the good news that the

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Holy Spirit has filled Scripture with so full and you need to be born again does anybody have any questions?

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Nafi, do you have a question? Is it a question about the teaching?

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I'll go to Steve and then if you can think of your question, I'll come back to you Steve, brother

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I would say that there is no problem with that as long as they don't do what this guy

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I just talked to yesterday or the day before said I don't even pray to the Father, I just pray to Jesus I don't want to pray to the

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Father, I pray to Jesus only the persons of the

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Trinity aren't at odds with each other neither should we the

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Son is prayed to Stephen calls upon the Lord Jesus Lord Jesus, receive my spirit there's nothing wrong with praying to the

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Son and there's nothing wrong with praying to the Spirit yeah, in Hebrews 1, the imprint of the

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Father, of His nature yeah the unity of God in His essence is something that we need to believe as fact and revelation, and that's really not a problem

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I'm just curious, subordination in the

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Trinity what is your take on that? so he asked a question about the subordination or the submission of the

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Spirit to the Father or the Spirit to the Father and Son and what is my take on it?

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well, there's, as far as I know, only two positions and that's basically, from eternity past God, the relationship within the

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Trinity has always been that the Spirit is submitted to the

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Father and submitted to the Son and the other position is that that submission is only something that was to carry out the work of creation the work of redemption the

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Spirit applies the work of Christ at this juncture, I think that I am of the opinion that the

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Spirit of God submits to the Father and the Son as a matter of course in creation and redemption

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I don't think that it implies that the Holy Spirit is inferior to the

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Son and the Father, just as I don't think that the Son submitting to the Father means he is inferior to the

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Father and that usually is the way that those who say it's eternally past, that's the way it's always been it plays out to be, is that there is an inferiority as well, so, that is technical yeah

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Naphtali, I come back to you, do you have a question? okay, that could definitely happen where somebody is spiritually attacked, they're not saved in my case that was kind of the way it was

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Naphtali for spiritual attack, God used that to really humble me, I didn't want to go outside,

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I didn't want to go drink I didn't want to do anything, I just wanted to read my Bible and pray, and the

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Lord used that to eventually save me, that can happen,

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I'm not saying that happens every time, I'm saying that, Naphtali God gives new life to people through His Spirit and sometimes

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He works in that way and sometimes He works in another way sometimes

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He works in a way where a child is born into a Christian family, they don't know when they trusted Christ, but they know that they had come to trust in Christ and the

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Spirit of God worked in them in that way any other questions?

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no? sounds good this sermon is from Grace Fellowship Church in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada to access other sermons or to learn more about us, please visit our website at graceedmonton .ca