The Spirit who Gives Life

Amen. Turn in your Bibles to John. The Gospel of John, Chapter 6. I had prepared all week to finish out the Beatitudes. I've got a sermon ready for the Beatitudes. But for whatever reason, this evening in my office, I just, I don't know, I didn't think we should preach it.

I don't know why I'm going to preach it. Just for whatever reason. And not tonight, it really doesn't ever happen to me. So I'm not saying it's something super special or anything like that. I'm just saying, I didn't think that we should do it.

So we're going to look at this text. And I think maybe one reason to consider this text, if I could pick a few reasons, one of the reasons would be, I think that in our theological camp, if you will. So where are we when it comes to the Holy Spirit?

Well, we want to make a very firm stance against what we would call, I don't want to be too pejorative, charismatic chaos, basically the misuse, if you will. And even the besmirching, can I say that word, of the Holy Spirit's role.

But what we don't want to do in standing so firmly against that is to ignore our blessed Holy Spirit altogether. The Holy Spirit is the third person of the Trinity. He's not ranked third. It's like, well, he's third, so he's the third most important.

That's not what we're talking about. The father is the son, the father is number one. The son is the first, it's the father, person of the Trinity. The second is the son, the third, the Holy Spirit. But we're not ranking them in terms of order or importance.

The Holy Spirit is God. And one of the things that the Holy Spirit does is he imparts spiritual life into the lost person's heart so that we can come to know Christ. And all that we talked about this morning in justification, all that we talked about with the righteousness of Christ and believing on Christ and putting our faith in Christ, it is the work of the Holy Spirit upon us.

For left to ourselves, we would turn away from God and go our own way. So I just want to look at one verse here tonight. And I know that we have some things to do after service or monthly business meeting and such, but I want to consider the Holy Spirit's role in giving life.

So would you stand with me and look at John 6, 63, John chapter six and verse sixty three. It is the spirit who gives life. The flesh is no help at all. The words that I've spoken to you are spirit and life.

Father, would you help us to understand this text tonight? We pray that it would honor Christ. It would lift high the Holy Spirit. We would see our absolute dependence on him. For all things that we have, all things that we have that come from Christ are applied to us by this ministry and work of the Holy Spirit, we thank you for what he does.

Holy Spirit, we pray even tonight that you would be in our midst, that you would give us eyes to see and ears to hear hearts that love you. We pray it all in Jesus name. Amen. You may be seated. Let me make a few notes about context.

One is not really contextual. It's just a biblical thought. Some of you perhaps have a Bible tonight where the words written there in verse sixty three are in red. Now, I don't have a problem with those kind of Bibles, the red letter Bibles, if you will.

There's there's nothing wrong. So, like, don't get rid of that. I'm I'm grateful for those. But I do want to make just a brief comment, and that is the words in red don't carry more weight than the words in black.

Right. So you understand that when we confess that the whole Bible is given of inspiration of God and that's the Holy Spirit's role, by the way, we mean that from Genesis one, one to the end of Revelation 22, that the Bible is God's book and it's all the words of God.

So the red letters, if you're reading a red letter tonight, it's not that it carries more significant weight just because it's in red, but we do acknowledge this is spoken here by our Lord as he is incarnate and as he is doing ministry with the disciples in the flesh, he is speaking to them.

And so that's why maybe some of you have it in red. Now, the other thing is, what is this verse referring to? So Jesus says it is the spirit who gives life. The flesh is no help at all. The words that I've spoken to you are spirit and life.

Now, I don't think I have to really build much of a case here, but I will give you a alternate position from what I'm about to preach. But the alternate position is in verse 63. This is speaking of the resurrection.

So the idea is, in this view, that what Jesus is saying is that his own flesh doesn't give life, doesn't won't resurrect him from the grave, it's it's the spirits, the role of the Holy Spirit to bring him back from the dead.

Now, I think that maybe there's some truth there. OK, but I don't think that that's what this is talking about. Let's just do a little contextual work. It says in verse 60, when many of his disciples heard it, they said, this is a hard saying who can listen to it.

So immediately have this context of how do we how do we rightly hear the words of Jesus? Verse 61, but Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, do you take offense at this?

Then what if you were to see the son of man ascending to where he was before? And then our text, it is the spirit who gives life. So the question is, if you can't even listen to this, what is it going to be like when you see the son of God ascend?

How are you going to receive that? So then his answer is, it's the spirit who gives life. The flesh is no help at all. The words that I've spoken to you are spirit and life. But there are some of you who do not believe for Jesus knew from the beginning who those were who did not believe and who it was who would betray him.

And he said, this is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the father. After this, many of his disciples turn back and no longer walk with him. It's my position, then, that verse 63 is not talking about the physical resurrection of Christ.

Rather, verse 63 is ultimately talking about the regeneration of sinners. What Jesus is speaking about in John 6, 63. Is not just there's a way that you can hear the words of Jesus, right? Everyone in this room tonight, for example, have heard the words of Jesus.

There's a way that you can hear the words of Jesus and yet walk away. I don't want to say unresponsive. Every single person who hears the gospel, every single person who hears the words of Jesus responds to it, you understand?

Yet they only respond negatively, they only respond in closing their hearts, they only respond in turning away from Jesus unless what? Verse 63, the Holy Spirit gives life. That's what this text is talking about tonight.

And so let me just walk us through an outline and then we'll conclude. Number one, I want us to observe the unwillingness of sinners. So Jesus says it is the spirit who gives life. The flesh is no help at all.

Now, if we were going to put that in mathematical terms, we would say it this way. The flesh is zero percent help. No help. I think that if you have the King James tonight, I think it says something along the lines of the flesh profiteth nothing, right?

Nothing.

The flesh does not help. Now, what is the flesh? The flesh is us in and of ourselves. It's not it's not just works of the flesh, although that's included. The flesh includes everything about us that is not the spirit's work.

Right.

So the flesh is no help in bringing about spiritual life. By the way, have you ever shared the gospel with someone? I use this illustration often. I don't want to pick on my kids, but there have been times I've shared the gospel of my children.

I've been like, yes, they're getting it.

They're listening.

They look like they're ready. Eager faces. They raise their hand.

Yes.

I'll I'll just say, Johnny, I don't have a child named Johnny, but that way I'm not picking on that. Here's a little Johnny or little Jane.

Raise their hand.

And they've got a question.

Yes.

They're going to ask about the doctrine of propitiation. What do you want, little Johnny? What do you want, little Jane?

Are we eating pizza tonight?

Really?

Is that is that what you're hearing?

OK.

Have you ever shared the gospel with someone and just get a blank stare? We get anger or maybe you share the gospel with the loved one time after time, after time, after time, after time. And you're like, what is going on?

Well, in and of themselves, sinners, it's not the inability of sinners is not it's not like God has created some sort of impossible situation. No, it's that they have an unwillingness. Their inability stems from their unwillingness.

We'll look at a few passages, one, a couple right here in the context. But one, I'm going to ask you to turn over to Romans three, Romans three. The flesh profited nothing. The flesh is how much help in bringing about spiritual life?

None. Romans three, verses 10 through 18. Now, Paul is quoting various portions of the scriptures when he says this. Romans three, verse 10, as it is written, none is righteous. No, not one. No one understands.

No one seeks for God. All have turned aside together. They have become worthless. No one does good. Not even one. The throat is an open grave. They use their tongues to deceive. The venom of asps is under their lips.

Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood in their paths are ruined in mystery, misery and the way of peace they have not known. There is no fear of God before their eyes.

Now, friends, it's very hard, I know, practically to apply this sometimes. But this is the spiritual state of the lost. The spiritual state of the lost is not neutral. It's not like, you know, Satan's on one shoulder.

There's an angel on another shoulder. They're just going back and forth. No, the spiritual state of a lost person is in rejection to the goodness and grace of God. The lost person is unwilling to hear the things of God, unwilling to see the things of God, unwilling to obey the things of God.

This is why Jesus says things like right here in our text in verse sixty five. This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the father. Now, what does that word mean? Can no one can come?

It speaks in terms of ability. Ability, not no one may come. It's not. You know what? Let's see. Little Johnny, can you come to me? Oh, no, you may not come. You're not on the list. That's not what Jesus is saying.

He's not saying you may not come. He says, what? You cannot come. You don't have within yourself the ability to receive Christ by faith. You don't have that ability. He says already in John chapter six, verse forty four.

He says the same thing. No one can come to me unless the father who sent me draws him or flip back to John chapter five. He says it this way to the Pharisees. John chapter five, verse thirty nine. He says to them, you search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life and it is they that bear witness about me.

Now, listen to verse 40. This is so important. Yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life. Isn't that something? The inability of man to turn from their sins and put their faith in Christ is associated, it's not isolated, it's associated with their unwillingness, their refusal.

I think Jonathan Edwards talked about a natural ability and a moral ability. In other words, can any person become a Christian? Well, in one sense. In one sense, you could put it this way, any person that wants to can become a Christian, any person, any person that wants to become a Christian can become a Christian.

What's the problem? The problem is the Bible paints us in a picture that there is none willing. No, not one. There is none who understand. There are none out there today who are seeking God. This is the unwillingness of sinners.

This puts us in a very precarious situation, a very terrible situation. And that is the only way that a man can be reconciled to God is to put their faith in Christ. The problem is nobody wants to do that.

They hear the gospel and it's not that they don't respond. It's not that they can't respond. It's that they respond unwillingly. They hear the gospel and they harden their heart. They hear the gospel and they rage even more at God.

They hear the gospel and they say, no, I'm not doing that. Or they hear the gospel and they say, OK, I believe parts of that. And then I'll add some of the things of my own. The flesh, prophet, if nothing, the flesh is no help at all.

Well, what are we to do? Praise God for the role of the Holy Spirit. So secondly, the unwillingness of the sinner. Secondly, the power of the Holy Spirit. I want to give you an analogy. We turn in your Bibles to Genesis chapter two.

Genesis. Chapter two, Genesis, chapter two and verse seven. Now, what do you note about Genesis two? It is before the fall. Genesis two, verse seven. Then the Lord God, Yahweh Elohim, formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.

And the man became a living creature. Now, I want to give you some similarities between Genesis two and John six, and then I want to give you some differences. Here are a couple of similarities in Genesis two and in John six.

Man cannot help. Right. In John six, the flesh profits nothing. In Genesis two, the same is true. For example, what would it be like just hypothetically? Let's say God told a bear. Go tell Adam to wake up.

Right. The bear says, hey, man, wake up. What's Adam do? Nothing. Why?

He can't. Right.

He's not yet a living being. And so he needs something from outside of him in order to bring him to actual physical life. So there's a similarity there that man cannot help. And there's also a similarity in both John six and Genesis two that God does what man cannot do.

So what Adam cannot do in Genesis two, God does. And what man cannot do in John six, God does. However, there's also some important differences. In the garden, man is entirely passive. That means there's no resistance.

Right. When Adam is laying there lifeless in the garden, there's no resistance to God bringing him into a state of life. Ever since the fall, man is not passive. Man is entirely antagonistic. I think evangelicals a lot have this idea, and I even sense it sometimes in things I read about lost people.

I think we have this idea that men and women and boys and girls are neutral when it comes to the things of God. We tend to look at lostness as a condition instead of rebellion. You understand? We look at lostness as a condition instead of rebellion.

So, for example, this is terrible. It's terrible and there's someone, a family that's connected to us, a woman that we're praying for with this. But cancer is a terrible thing. Cancer is a condition. It is a medical condition.

You don't look at someone with cancer and you say, you know, wow, you have a problem, you need to repent. That's not what you say. Why? They have a medical situation. You pray for them, you help them, you walk alongside them.

You want to be there for them. No, that's not lostness though, right?

That's cancer.

Lostness is not a condition. Lostness is rebellion. Unbelief is not something that someone just catches. It's something that people perpetuate. It's something that people live in. They reject God of their own accord, of their own willingness.

And therefore, lostness is rebellion. So think about this. In one sense, and I'm not the first to say this, I'm confident I've read this somewhere or have heard it somewhere. So this is not original to me.

I just can't quote it right now. But in one sense, the creation of the world is easier for God than the recreation of the human soul. And why do I say that? Now, obviously, there's nothing too hard for God.

It's not that, you know, his power is infinite. But just walk through the analogy. In the creation of the world and the universe, God speaks and there's no resistance. In the recreation of a human soul, I mean, bringing a human soul from the state of unregenerate to regenerate, a state of from spiritual death to spiritual life.

There's no neutrality there. There is resistance. There is antagonism towards the things of God. There is rebellion. There is wickedness. God gets glory in bringing sinners from spiritual death to spiritual life.

When we say, let me speak of this for just a moment. When we say that a sinner, apart from Christ, is spiritually dead, so the text says it is the spirit who gives life. He's talking there about spiritual life.

That's because those who are not in Christ are spiritually dead. It's not that they don't make spiritual decisions. They make spiritual decisions all the time, right? They choose not to go to the church or they they choose to reject God or they choose to ignore the Bible.

These are all sorts of spiritual decision that they make. However, when it comes to making a positive decision for the things of Christ, they never will. They never can. They never will. They are unwilling.

So what is required, Jesus says, is for the spirit to give life. Now, what is it that the spirit does here? I'm just going to give you a few biblical. We could do this probably for weeks. Let me just give you about four biblical ways that this is talked about, and they're all actually referring to the same thing.

They're referring to the sinner moving from a state of spiritual death to a state of spiritual life. So let me give you the first. These are in no particular order. The spirit opens up hearts. So this is from Acts 16.

And it says in Acts 16 that the Lord opened her heart, speaking of Lydia, to receive the things of Paul. That is one of the ways or one of the ideas, one of the angles. If you can, we're all looking at the same event.

We're just kind of looking at it from different angles, different perspectives. It's the same thing going on, but it's all referring to this work of the Holy Spirit in a person's life, bringing them out of a state of spiritual death into a state of spiritual life.

So one of the ways the Bible talks about it is the spirit opening up someone's heart, like he opens up Lydia's. He doesn't open her heart and then give her the opportunity to say yes or no. He opens her heart in such a way that she receives the teaching of Paul.

He opens her heart in such a way that she now has spiritual ears. And what does she say? I want this.

Why?

Because her heart has been freed from the shackles of sin. Another way this is spoken of is not just opening the heart, but giving a new heart entirely. This is from Ezekiel 36. In the new covenant, God promises in places like Ezekiel 36, 25 to 27, that he will give his people a new heart.

So one of the ways that we can think about the spirit giving life is him opening up a heart. Another way that we can think about the Holy Spirit giving life, another angle, if you will, that we can look at, is replacing a heart entirely, taking out this old heart, this old nature.

You know, your heart, being in sin, doesn't desire the things of God. Your heart, as an unregenerate, lost person, it makes up things about God, it makes up things about yourself. It has bad taste buds.

How about that? Let's use that. For example, when you take a little three-year-old and you set them in front of a plate of spinach and you say, eat the spinach, you may be able to, as a parent, get her to eat the spinach.

Can you get her to love the spinach? No. You can't.

Why?

For her to love the spinach, she needs new taste buds. Or her taste buds, eventually, maybe they'll mature. How do you get a sinner from moving away from hating God to loving Him? Their spiritual taste buds need change.

And this is what the Bible's referring to when it means that the Holy Spirit takes out our heart and replaces it with a new heart. Another way this is referred to, similarly, God talks about in Deuteronomy 30, verse 6, circumcising the heart, that this sign that was given to Israel was not just about a physical thing, it was pointing to something that needed to happen to their heart.

That is, God removed the heart's resistance and rebellion, cut it away, and leave them with a heart that loved Him. And then, fourthly, so the Spirit opens the heart, gives a new heart, circumcises the heart.

Fourthly, the Spirit causes us to be born again. This is all the same language. So, for example, in 1 Peter 1, 3, the text says that God has caused us to be born again according to His great mercy. Or in the classic text, when we talk about being born again, what do we look at?

We look at John chapter 3. And Jesus says to Nicodemus, Not you may need to be, or this would be good if this happened to you. He says, you must be born again. So all of this is in reference to the Spirit giving life.

All of this is in reference to the theological term that I've used several times, regeneration, right? This big idea of the Spirit bringing a sinner from death to life. Okay, how does this happen? Again, let me read the text.

We've moved away as we've gone around. Verse 63, it is the Spirit who gives life, the flesh is no help at all. Okay, you can read that. And you can read it a thousand times. You can sit down with someone and you can talk about it.

And you can say, okay, yeah, but what is it that a person needs to do in order to have life? What is it that a person needs to do within themselves to bring themselves into a state of life? And the moment that you start saying, well, they need to, they need to, they need to, they need to, you've neglected the plain reading of this text.

The text says what they can do is how much help to the Holy Spirit?

None, right?

It's the Spirit who gives life.

The flesh is no help at all. So what do we do?

Well, I want to mention, thirdly, our dependence on the Gospel. Now, Jesus says here, the words that I have spoken to you are Spirit and life. Jesus is reminding His disciples in this statement of the spiritualness, if you will, of His kingdom.

The very things, Jesus says, that I have spoken to you, the things about heaven, the things about God, the things about hell, the things about the church, these things are Spirit and life. These things aren't about toppling of empires so much as they are about the kingdom of Christ, which ultimately begins as a mustard seed and ultimately is realized in the church as it's growing, growing, growing.

But Jesus is saying, these are the very words that I say that the Spirit is going to use to bring about this change in people's life. Let me articulate that a little bit better. He's not saying that only my words are used in order for the Spirit to bring about life.

But if I could just maybe flatten this out a bit and give us a big picture. Essentially, Jesus is saying that it's by means of the Gospel that the Holy Spirit is going to affect change in the lives of people.

It is the Spirit who gives life. The flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are Spirit and life. Now, I will admit, sometimes I use that word Gospel and I just assume you know what I'm saying when I mean that.

But let me just be explicit. No need to be remedial, but we need to be reminded time and again of the Gospel. When I say Gospel, I'm specifically saying Jesus taking on human flesh, the Son of God, co-eternal with the Father and the Spirit, being conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the Virgin Mary, being born of woman, being born under the law, fulfilling the law on our behalf, obedient to His parents, obedient to every law of God that we talked about this morning, walking in perfection before the Father, and then dying the death of sinners on the cross, bearing the wrath of God, being our propitiation on the cross for sinners, dying and then raising again on the third day in victory.

These words that I just spoke to you are Spirit and life. Not because they're my words, but because they are the very words of the Scriptures and they are the very words of the Gospel. And it's the Holy Spirit who takes this message and takes hard-hearted sinners and melts their heart of stone and replaces it with a heart of flesh.

There's so much application here. One application is, we must never, ever, ever grow weary of evangelism.

Why?

Because it's not our work. It's ultimately the work of the Holy Spirit. We are the ones who are to go out, to go out, to go out, to plow, to sow seeds, to pray, to share the Gospel, and then we just get to hand it over to the Holy Spirit and we say, here, you take our meager efforts, you take our lisping, stammering tongues, you take these things that we're doing and you bring about the change because we can't do it, right?

We can't.

I can't go out and save anybody. I can't ultimately go out and win any souls, right? I know we talk about soul winning and I like it. I like the terminology, but at the end of the day, I can't win a soul.

It's the Spirit of God who has to work through the proclamation of the Gospel, through the evangelism of the church to bring sinners from death to life. All of our hope is in the Spirit's work through the Gospel.

And so we must never grow weary of evangelism. Another thing, and this is kind of a hot button topic for some people, but if I could just weigh in for a moment, there really is a bit of futility in calling things Christian that are not regenerate.

You're like, what do you mean by that? We talk a lot today about a Christian nation or maybe a Christian school or maybe a Christian family. Can I just say it this way? I'm not saying there's never any validity for that.

But if I put it to you this way, I wonder if it would make sense. The word Christian is much better as a noun than an adjective. I wonder if that makes sense. The word Christian is much better as a noun than an adjective.

And what I mean by that is the word Christian at its base, at its root, means someone who the Spirit of God has opened up their heart and what happens next is, and I know we wanna tease this out into temporal process, but this is all happening simultaneously.

So I'm gonna use Pastor Jacob. There was a time in Pastor Jacob's life when he had resisted the Gospel and then there was a time when the Spirit of God opened up his heart and what happened? He didn't wait around and then say,.

Okay, I'm gonna choose Jesus.

No, no, when the Spirit of God opened his heart, what'd he do? He fled from his sin and he fled to Christ, right?

Why?

Because the Spirit of God worked. So the Spirit worked. And then in response to the Spirit's work, Jacob called out to God in saving faith. And God saved him, right? He had to choose Jesus, didn't he, right?

He had to choose Jesus.

But the only reason he chose Jesus, because he would have never chosen Jesus, the only reason he did choose Jesus is because the Holy Spirit first gave him life. And that's a Christian. That's what a Christian is.

When we begin to use the word Christian as an adjective, I'm not saying that you can't ever do that. I'm okay saying we have a Christian home, okay? And it's okay to have a Christian school and it's okay even, I think, if the terminology's right, definition's right, it's okay even to talk about a Christian nation, but the point is, the further we remove the word Christian from the definition, definitional basis there of regeneration, I think the more problematic we get.

At the base, and some of you are like, I don't even know what you're talking about, but there is a little bit of dust up today in conservative circles about these things. But the point I want to make from the text is the definitional base for a Christian is regeneration.

It is the Spirit who gives life. John Owen said it this way. There are only two types of people in the world. There are those who are regenerate and there are those who are unregenerate. There are those who have life and there are those who do not have life.

Okay, and then let me make a third application and then we'll close. A third application, and obviously hopefully woven in all of this tonight is our utter dependence on the Holy Spirit. Let's just be honest.

If the Holy Spirit really is in charge like this text says He is, then what are we doing not praying more for His work? What are we doing not ordering everything we do by what His word says? If the Holy Spirit is in charge like the text says He is and He is, then we must be a people who are willing to acknowledge that dependence, to cry out to Him for more and to order the things that we do by His word.

But here's the last application and then I'm gonna close. The last application is simply this. I know it's a Sunday night crowd. I know that we're a little bit lower tonight so you say, well, okay, everyone here's a Christian.

But I want you to consider tonight whether or not you have life. Do you have the spiritual life that Jesus is referring to here? Have you been born again? Now, if you hear this and you say, yeah, but Quattro, you said there's nothing I can do about it.

Well, that is one option you could take. You could just take that and you could leave and be like, yeah, well, whatever. Or you could take the Scriptures seriously. You could acknowledge that, yes, you have no spiritual ability and yet the Scriptures also beckon you to seek, to search, to call out, to pray, to believe.

And you can take those seriously and you can go to God and you can say,.

I need your help.

I need eyes to see. I need ears to hear. I need a heart that loves.

Will you help me?

And you can see whether or not God may not answer a prayer like that from a sinner who will humble himself under the Scriptures. And you'll find that if God answers that prayer, you'll find that the humility that was raw in your heart, it actually didn't come from you at all.

It was the Spirit of God at work in you. For it is the Spirit who gives life. The flesh is no help at all. Father, I pray that you would help us tonight to appreciate this theology. You would help us tonight to honor and reverence the Holy Spirit and that we would walk under His influence.