How the Holy Spirit Helps - Brandon Scalf

Heritage Church Tulsa

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Alright, everyone, grab your Bibles and turn with me to John. John chapter 16, that's going to be

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John's Gospel. And we will be looking specifically at chapter 16, verses 7 through 11.

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And the title of this evening's message is, How the Holy Spirit Helps. How the

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Holy Spirit Helps. So if you would, please stand with me for the honoring and reading of God's holy, infallible, and all -sufficient

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Word. I will begin reading in verse 5 for the sake of context.

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Verse 5 of chapter 16, this is the Word of God. But now

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I am going to him who sent me, and none of you asks me, where are you going?

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But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart.

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But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away.

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For if I do not go away, the advocate will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.

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And he, when he comes, will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment, concerning sin, because they do not believe in me, and concerning righteousness, because I go to the

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Father and you no longer see me, and concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged.

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The grass withers and the flower fades, but the Word of our God stands forever. Amen. Amen. Go ahead and have a seat and get your eyes on verse 7.

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Get your eyes on verse 7. It should go without saying, and it should be no surprise, when

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I say that the Christian world, or the world that claims to be Christian, is confused at the very least about the person and the work of the

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Holy Spirit. You don't have to drive too far in this city to find places of quote -unquote worship that promote a mystical, experiential

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Holy Spirit that is experiential not by having our lives and hearts sanctified by the

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Word as it is preached, not by the leading and guiding of the Holy Spirit or regeneration for that matter, but experiential in the sense that people are told if they want to experience this

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Holy Spirit, they must turn off their brain and feel. They must experience the

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Spirit. They must not learn from the Spirit or so on and so forth.

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Oftentimes, these places of worship bring along with it chaotic displays of supposed spiritual power.

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They will be quote -unquote slain in the Spirit. But you see, this isn't even the worst of it.

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Some churches, even in our own camp, neglect the Holy Spirit altogether. So on the one hand, you have an overblown understanding or a misrepresentation or dishonoring of the

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Holy Spirit. And on the other hand, you have a complete and woeful neglect of the Holy Spirit, pretending as though he is not present or active anymore.

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Though those are the fringe, they do exist. These people reduce the

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Holy Spirit to a distant and passive bystander, and that is a shame.

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But as we look at the text that we are looking at today, it's going to become quite apparent that Jesus leaves no room for such errors.

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As a matter of fact, the text that we are looking at today is one of the most powerful and potent verses as it pertains to the

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Holy Spirit and his work. Jesus here in John chapter 16 is going to teach us through him teaching the disciples that the

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Holy Spirit is not some mystical abstract force. He's not some power that causes us to be slain and to roll around on the floor and bark like dogs.

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Nor is he distant, nor is he absent, but that he is very active and that he is very present.

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And most importantly of all, he's not a chaotic force, but a helper, an advocate for the people of God and for the glory of Jesus Christ the righteous.

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He's going to show us, in other words, that the Spirit of God, especially as it pertains to his word, does spiritual surgery.

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He confronts sin, he convicts of righteousness, and he reminds us of the coming judgment.

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And he does all of this to exalt the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ.

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He's going to show us how to live the Christian life apart from counterfeit spirituality.

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And counterfeit spirituality is very prevalent today. So if we want to escape it and we want real authentic spirituality, we got to listen to Jesus and what he has to say about the

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Holy Spirit. And so as we look at this text, as we begin to examine it, verse 7,

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I want you to see first and foremostly that the Spirit helps, because that's what he is, the helper, by his personal presence.

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That's my first point. The Spirit helps by his personal presence. If you look with me at verse 7,

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Jesus says, I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away.

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For if I do not go away, the advocate will not come to you.

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But if I go, I will send him to you. Now, if we are to understand this text, we need to understand what's happening in its context.

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Because context is king. It's what governs how we interpret the scriptures. If we back out of the context and we read the verse, we can make it say just about anything we want to.

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So what's happening here? Jesus is standing before his disciples and he is essentially, in the most comforting way possible, rebuking them.

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And he's rebuking them because he has told them that he is going to be crucified, that he will be killed, that he will ascend to the

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Father, and that he is leaving them. And instead of them wondering why that is, they really are, you know, given over to self -absorption.

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We know this because that's what it says. He says,

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I am going to him, in verse 5, who sent me, going back to the Father. And none of you ask me, where are you going?

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Why are you not asking me where I'm going? That's important to your redemptive historical happenings.

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He says, but because I have said, verse 6, these things to you, sorrows filled your heart.

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So instead of you asking, why do you need to leave, like you should be asking, you're crying about it.

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You see, Jesus had really been the armor that stood in front of the disciples.

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The hostility was centered on him. But it was about to transition.

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In the flow of redemptive history, the hostility would then turn to the disciples after Jesus is gone, and they would become the object of hostility.

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And so they were worried. They were worried that that was so. They were worried that they wouldn't have their teacher anymore.

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And for those who believed he was the Messiah, they would not have God with them anymore. But as are all disciples a little silly, much like us, they didn't see the end.

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They didn't see what Jesus was up to. And so he begins to tell them. And the first thing that he tells them is to borrow another preacher's saying.

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He says, the spirit in you is going to be better than me besides you.

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You see, the spirit helps by being personally present.

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He says, it's better for you that I go away.

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Jesus begins here in verse seven by saying, but I tell you the truth. Now, this is important to consider because Jesus always tells the truth.

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But what he's doing here is he's raising this truth to a higher degree. Much like in the gospels, he might say something to the effect of verily, verily,

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I say unto you or truly, truly, I say to you, depending on which translation you are using.

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And that is just to heighten the sense of what he is saying. Much like we would use an exclamation point or yell in the

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American culture. But here in this culture at this time, Jesus is raising this truth to a higher degree than all of the other truths that he is saying.

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And what is that? That it is to the advantage of those disciples and every disciple after him that he would leave, that he would depart, that he would go away.

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That is what this means. The disciples were troubled at the thought of Jesus' departure. And they thought that his physical presence was end all be all, that it was everything, that if they were going to succeed in their

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Christ -honoring life, as it were, they needed Christ with them. But Jesus insists that his going away was not a net loss.

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Rather, it was a net win. It was gain. It was gain.

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And really, this is a reversal, a redemptive reversal of all redemptive reversals.

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And what do I mean by that? This seems to be the way that the economics of the gospel seem to work.

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And by that, I don't necessarily mean money. I just mean the way things work, right? He who saves his life will lose it.

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But he who loses his life for my sake will find it, right? We must die to self in order to have true life.

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And here, Jesus is saying, I have to go away for things to get better for you. And the reason he said that is because his departure, his leaving this world, this earth would usher in the

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Spirit's arrival, bringing his divine presence into their very hearts.

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It is, verse 7, to your advantage, Jesus says, that I go away.

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For if I do not go away, the advocate will not come. In other words, if I do leave, then the Spirit will come, right?

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That's the opposite. That's the negation. But if I go, I'll send him to you. The Spirit is better than Jesus being here and now because the

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Spirit is the Spirit and he can be at all places at all times. He can indwell me and he can indwell you. Jesus is just standing beside them.

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And it's his Spirit that needs to flood them. And in order for him to leave, he must.

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Or in order for him to come and be sent, he must be sent. Samuel Rutherford says it like this.

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Christ's bodily absence is our gain. For the Spirit brings him nearer to us than ever.

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So why does it say here, advocate? And why am I interpreting that as the

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Holy Spirit? Well, the reason for that is because the word used here is used of the

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Holy Spirit elsewhere. But also the context in which it exists helps us to discern.

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First of all, he's going to go into what this advocate will achieve.

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And this advocate will achieve things that only God can achieve. And not only that, but in verse 13, he expands upon this, moves from the world to the disciples personally and says, but when he, speaking of the advocate, the

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Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth. So here we are speaking, of course, of the second member of the

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Trinity, the Holy Spirit. And here it's, here he, he is called what?

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The advocate. Other translations will use the word helper because he helps.

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And because this Greek word here, paraklete, means one who comes alongside.

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One who advocates and helps. The Spirit, in other words, is someone who is beside you because he is in you.

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He is intimately involved in every believer's life in a way that Jesus could not in his earthly body.

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So do you see why this is better? Well, I hope you do, but it's going to get a little bit more exciting than that.

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But before we move on, I want to ask you this question. As good reformed people, you probably don't fall into the camp of say, the crazy charismania, but you might not think about the

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Holy Spirit being very present in your life. So let me ask you this, Heritage. Do you live as though the

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Holy Spirit is real? Do you live as though he is present? Do you live and think about his involvement in your

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Christian life? Or do you see him as a passive observer, but not your constant companion that is ultimately working to remind you of Christ's truth, comfort you in trials, and lead you into holiness?

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Do you see that? Do you feel that? Do you hear that? The presence of the

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Holy Spirit is the greatest help that any Christian could have ever.

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Why else would Jesus say it would be better if he left? So the

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Spirit helps by being pervasively present. Secondly, the

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Spirit helps by powerfully and persuasively prosecuting through the type of preaching that only the

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Spirit can do. Now, really this point is the Spirit helps by powerfully and persuasively prosecuting.

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But as you will see, this prosecution that is happening is more like a sermon being preached.

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So I wanted to add that there. He goes on, if you look with me here at verse 8.

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And he, when he comes, you see this personhood being mentioned over and over and over again.

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It's a he. And it's he that's a person. But we went over that this morning and I won't get into that in full detail.

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He's not a force, he's a person. And he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment.

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And then the rest of the verse is explaining what he means by that. He is, when he comes, verse 8, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness.

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What we're about to see and what he's trying to get across is that the Spirit is the most effective preacher that has ever existed in the history of all creation.

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He preaches never to tickle ears, but to pierce and to change hearts.

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And his sermons are aimed at exposing sin, revealing righteousness, and declaring judgment.

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You see, at best, the only thing that I can do here is to motivate you to consider Christ. Hopefully, maybe.

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But if the Spirit does not intercede, that's not happening. And no one's life is changing if the

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Spirit doesn't show up. In fact, it's the only reason that preaching works in the first place.

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When I'm preaching, it's as if there's two of us here. The Spirit has to do the applying.

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And here it says that he is convicting. Or in some heightened spiritual sense, you could say exegeting.

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Although you don't want to take that too far. But what's happening here is they're looking at the fact that Jesus is about to be under trial.

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And he's about to die. He's about to be crucified. And then he's about to ascend into the heavens. But what

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Jesus is saying is that actually, I'm not about to be on trial.

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The world's about to be on trial. And there's a prosecutor coming. And his name is the

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Holy Spirit. And he is the advocate. And he's going to deal with those who are actually guilty.

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The word convict literally means to expose. It means to prove guilty. It means to convince.

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And so what's happening here is that the Spirit is going to come. And he's going to help.

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And he's going to help by first and foremostly convicting the world of some stuff.

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Now, I want to pause here. Because I want you to consider what's being said. Jesus is giving, at this moment, the most explicit reasoning for why the

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Holy Spirit is going to come. And he is giving us the playbook as to what the

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Spirit is going to do. And in nowhere does it say anything about any of the doctrines that these charismaniac churches preach.

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He didn't come to give a word of knowledge. He didn't come to give a prophecy. He didn't come to give all of these other sorts of things.

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He didn't come to heal people of their diseases. Now, did the

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Spirit give prophets a word? He did. Does the

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Spirit heal? He does. But he does so in accordance with the very purpose and mission that he's been given.

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And it has nothing to do with us just being just blessed because of it.

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If it's not—which we'll get to this in a minute—if it's not pointing to Jesus in some sort of way, it's not the

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Holy Spirit. If it's making a bunch of man, it's not the Holy Spirit. So he came to convict.

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He came to expose. He came to prove guilty. And he came to convince.

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He came, in other words, to change hearts. Now, this is a little confusing because if you study the book of John, you know that John uses the word world in a numerous amount of ways.

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When he speaks of the world, sometimes he's speaking of the elect. Sometimes when he's talking about the world, he's talking about the ungodly.

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Sometimes when he talks about the world, he's talking about those people who live in the world who will respond to Christ and be regenerated.

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This is that time. He's speaking about the world filled with people who will, in fact, respond to the

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Holy Spirit's helping. They will be cut to the quick and by the preaching of the apostles, right?

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Because they're about to take this message out. The word here, convict, is to expose, right?

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There's a good word picture here in Acts chapter 2, verse 36, 37, when Peter is preaching, and something happens to them when the

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Holy Spirit begins to act. It says, therefore, this is Peter speaking, let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made him, speaking of Jesus, both

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Lord and Christ, right? Both Lord and the Messiah. This Jesus whom you crucified.

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Now, when they heard this, the people listening, right, the people in Israel, they were pierced to the heart.

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They were pierced to the heart and said to Peter and the rest of his apostles, men, brothers, what should we do?

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And, of course, he says, you know, repent and believe. So the Holy Spirit has come to convict and to pierce the heart.

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James Montgomery Boyce says this of this passage, the Spirit here convicts the world of its error concerning sin, righteousness, and judgment so as to convince people of Christ's truth in such a way that many repent, believe, or are saved.

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So this Spirit, the Spirit of truth, the advocate, the

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Holy Spirit, the second member of the Trinity, will come when Jesus goes away and he will do it by exposing, by proving guilty, by convincing, by prosecuting those who will stand trial in front of Jesus on that day, right?

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And if you weren't here this morning, go listen to that. Now, let's take these in succession because he's going to expand on what he means by that, right?

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What is the Holy Spirit doing when he helps? Of course, according to verse 8, he's convicting the world concerning sin, righteousness, and judgment, but now he's going to, like any proper preacher, break it down.

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He's going to say, this is what I mean by what I just said. So let's look at what

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Jesus meant by looking at what Jesus said. Jesus says, first and foremostly, when the

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Spirit comes, he's going to do what? Well, I've already said it, but here it is again. He's going to convict the world concerning sin.

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So verse 9, concerning sin because they, speaking of the world, do not believe in me, right?

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Because the world is mentioned in verse 8, that's the antecedent. Concerning sin because they, the world, do not believe in me.

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So the first thing that the Spirit is coming to do, according to Jesus, the first thing that the

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Spirit is concerned about doing now is convicting the world of its sin. Here's what you need to consider in relationship to this point.

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People do not know that they're sinners. They need to be convinced of it. They need to be told that they are, in fact, sinners.

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And so if you're going to be a gospel preacher, you need to understand that the Spirit's work through your preaching is one to convince people that they're really not all that awesome.

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Now that's a hard pill to swallow, because the world is telling you how awesome you are all of the time, every time you turn on the

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TV, unless you disagree with those people who are telling you that you're awesome. A famous example of this is

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Joel Osteen, who pastors, quote unquote, one of the biggest churches in the world. His name has been dropped here a few times, but I don't know that this has.

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He was on Larry King, and he's being interviewed and asked about his church and Jesus and about his belief system.

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And one of the things that he was asked is, well, you don't ever mention sin in any of your sermons.

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Well, why is that? And he said something to the effect of, well, people already know that they're failures.

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People already know that they're sinners, that they make mistakes. First of all, he's confusing mistakes and sin and all kinds of weird stuff.

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But then he says, which is even more revealing, they already know that. They need to be encouraged.

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They need to be lifted up. Now, listen, sometimes we need to be encouraged. Sometimes we need to be lifted up.

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But thinking well -thoughts about ourselves is not the thing that we struggle with, especially according to scriptures.

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It's not thinking low enough about yourself. Now, there's, you know, another sermon here to be preached about spiritual depression, these sorts of things.

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There is a type of self -abasement that goes too far in these sorts of things, especially when you're reminded in Romans chapter 8, for example, that there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

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To be humble, to live in a level of self -abasement that's biblical is, as I've heard it said before, it's not thinking less of yourself, per se.

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It's thinking less of yourself. Or, yeah, yeah, thinking of yourself less.

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That's what it is, right? But we also need to understand that it means looking at the reality in the face.

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And the reality in the face is that we are sinners, right? And we are not righteous, and we deserve judgment.

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And that's really the overarching point here. Spoiler alert, that we are sinners, that we need an alien righteousness because we lack righteousness because if we do not get that, then we will stand in judgment, and we will be judged and sentenced to life in hell with the ruler of this age who has already been sentenced to hell.

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So the role of the Spirit, first and foremost, is to expose the world's guilt, to expose your guilt.

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But specifically in context, it's not just sin in the ethereal sense. It's a very pointed one, and that is this.

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Look with me back here at verse 9. Concerning sin, because they do not believe in me.

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So in context, it's specifically talking about the sin of unbelief. And of course, at the root of all sin, unbelief is there.

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It's a refusal to trust in and seek Christ. And what the

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Spirit does is he shines his light, so to speak, on the darkness of every human heart, and he exposes the rebellion that exists there.

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So you say you believe the gospel. And so I want to say, I hope that's true. I want to believe that that's true.

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Where do you start when you think about the gospel? Because to believe the gospel is to believe the bad news about humanity and its fall into sin.

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R .C. Sproul always used to say, famously, you know, that you can't see the good news apart from a backdrop of horrible bad news.

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Right? Because good news is not good news if there's no bad news. And the bad news is that you rebel against God, that you hate

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God, that you sin against God, that you think you are God, that you have a crown around your head that you have placed there because you think you are

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God. And you live your life apart from Christ.

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So the Holy Spirit comes to convict the world in two senses. First, like the prosecuting attorney, he secures a verdict of guilty against the world.

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Guilty for not believing in Christ. But then second, the Holy Spirit also brings this guilt home to the human consciousness so that men and women are disturbed by sin and seek alleviation from it.

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One commentator put it like this. The world's deepest misery and the lostness do not consist in its moral imperfection, but in its estrangement from God, number one, and its refusal to allow itself to be called out of that condition by the one whom

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God has sent for that purpose. So in other words, the

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Spirit comes to convince us of our sin and our refusal to take

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God up on his offer, to see that we are estranged from the God who made us because of our rebellion.

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That's problem one. And then problem two, we look the other way when help is offered. Jeremiah Burroughs says the

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Spirit lays sin bare, stripping it of all its excuses and ornaments. I wish

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I was a Puritan. The Spirit lays sin bare, it shows us and it strips it of all the excuses and all of its ornaments.

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And it does that by showing us Christ. When you think about acute courtroom, because we're talking about prosecution, not to be confused with persecution, children.

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Persecution is when people are hating you because of something that you believe, namely like following Jesus. Prosecution is when a lawyer is trying to prosecute you.

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That is to make it evident to everyone around you that you are guilty to prove your guilt.

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And that's what the Spirit is doing. It's like that, a courtroom. Now children, I want you to pay attention to me here for just a second.

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I want you to think about that courtroom imagery that I just told you about. Now imagine that the lawyer got up that was trying to prosecute you in this imaginary scenario where maybe you did something wrong.

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And the evidence against you was undeniable, right?

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They found your car keys, your favorite drink with your fingerprints on it at the scene of this quote -unquote crime.

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Not that you would do a crime, but we're just, we're dreaming here, okay? What would you say in that moment?

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Would you say, oh, that wasn't me? Or would you admit what actually happened?

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Would you actually admit that you were guilty? Well, this is what is being said here, that the

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Spirit is like that lawyer and He brings the evidence to us of our guilt before God.

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Every time a sermon is preached, every time we open up the Bible, the Spirit is convicting us and bringing evidence against us.

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And the question is, where will you turn? In on yourself or somewhere else? Everyone, when this truth becomes so apparent to you, do not whisk it away.

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Don't harden your heart when the Spirit speaks through His preached word and through the word itself.

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Take it in. Believe it. Don't cherish it, but see it for what it is, right?

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Because the Spirit wants you to repent of your sin. He doesn't want to condemn you for it. There's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

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As a matter of fact, in some ways, you should cherish it when you're confronted with that reality. And why do I say that? I say that because as Martin Luther once said, whenever sin is brought to my forefront,

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I praise God because Jesus only came to save sinners. Jesus had one person to save and the

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Holy Spirit convicts one people of their sin, and that is sinners. If you were not a sinner, if you were not convinced of this guilt, then this doesn't apply.

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Praise God, it does. Amen. The second thing is concerning righteousness. So once again, the question becomes, where do we turn once this has been convicted?

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We're not trusting in Christ and taking Him up on this offer.

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This is concerning righteousness. Verse 10, and concerning righteousness, it says, because I go to the

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Father and you no longer see me. Now, this is an interesting thing to consider. What is

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Jesus saying here? Well, commentators are split. And what I mean by that is there are a couple of different ways to look at this.

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The first one is when Jesus is saying that the Spirit will come and secondarily prosecute or preach, as it were, with undeniable and efficacious results,

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He's going to do so concerning righteousness. Now, is this righteousness talking about the righteousness that we see in Christ on those whom

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He preached to? Or is it actual righteousness of Christ?

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In other words, is He saying concerning the righteousness that you should attain to or the righteousness that is in Christ that you get by following Jesus Christ?

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Well, in some ways, I don't think you need to necessarily make the distinction between the two.

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But here, I think what's being said is that the Spirit will come and has come rather at this point, right?

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We're on the other side of the cross to reveal true righteousness, not the righteousness that the world thinks it has.

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And here's what I mean by that, right? The world's standing in judgment, the world is standing and it is on trial.

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And Jesus is saying that this prosecuting Spirit is coming down on them. And here's the deal.

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Not only do people not think that they're sinners, but in the reverse, they think that they're actually pretty swell, that they are very righteous.

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Everybody thinks that they're good, right? Have you ever met a person outside of a

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Christian, especially, who was like, there's nothing good in me and you can't trust a word I say and my heart is dark and wicked among all things?

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No, the non -Christians are the most self -righteous people who think that they have the complete understanding of who they are, who everyone else is, and how the world works.

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They are righteous. They are good people. As a matter of fact, that's one of the biggest critiques against Christianity.

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Oh, those people think that they're so much better than us. That's a pretty self -defeating, self -revealing statement.

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Because in that, you're assuming that you're better than them. How dare they think that they're better than you?

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Oh, God is funny. English is funny. The way that sinners reason is funny.

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Right? But the righteousness here that is being spoken about, like I said, it's true righteousness and it's the righteousness that is found only in Jesus Christ.

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Jesus' ascension, Him going to heaven after His crucifixion to the Father, demonstrates

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His perfect obedience and sufficiency of His atonement and the sending of the

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Spirit. So in other words, what I'm saying is when

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He is saying that the Spirit is going to come, He's not only going to convince people of their sin and particularly the sin of unbelief, but He's also going to convict them or convince them or expose to them the reality that righteousness is one that comes from outside of them.

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It's not something that comes from in here, but outside. And this is really one of the biggest theological debates throughout church history.

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Is it our righteousness plus Christ's righteousness? Or is it just our righteousness that makes us acceptable before God?

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Or is it Christ's righteousness? But we assert here at Heritage that it is

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Christ's righteousness and His righteousness alone that makes us worthy to stand before a holy

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God. The reason that we can, as Ephesians chapter 1 -3 says, stand before God, which

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I believe it's 1 -4, in love and be holy and blameless, is because He makes us holy and blameless.

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First, forensically. First, by declaration. First, by having it paid.

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And then secondly, by working it in us. It is Him from beginning to end. It is purchased by the blood of Jesus and perfected by the

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Spirit. And here, it is telling us that this alien righteousness is not only something that He convinces the world of, but if you look at the rest of your

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Bible, that the Spirit gives and works. Charles Spurgeon says it like this,

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The Lord takes a man, even when he is sinful and conscious of that sin, and makes him righteous on the spot.

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It's pretty precise. But, righteous on the spot, by putting away his sin and justifying him by the righteousness of faith.

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A righteousness which comes to him by the worthiness of another, namely

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Jesus Christ, who has wrought out a righteousness for him. Beautiful.

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You can stand righteous before God, because of God, for God.

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Which is why Romans chapter 5, verse 1, Paul says, Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God, through our

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Lord, Jesus Christ. So what is this great promise of this verse?

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Not only that the Holy Spirit will convict, will expose the world of sin, which neither you or I can do, by the way.

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We would like to be able to convince the people around us that they're sinners, but we're not good at convincing ourself of that.

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We need the Spirit to reveal that to us. We need the Spirit to reveal that to the people that sin against us.

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But he also will direct them to Christ, where alone true righteousness can be had.

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Which, by the way, if you're not paying attention, we all lack. We need it from him. So the

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Holy Spirit, you see, what he is coming to do, his mission, his purpose, is to convict us of our sin, of unbelief in Christ.

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To reveal to us the righteousness that we lack, and that we need, and that we only find in Christ.

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And now thirdly, and this is my last point here, at least in this section, is he does his prosecuting or preaching concerning judgment.

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Now before we look at judgment, let me ask you this question, children and parents alike.

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Before we think about judgment, let me ask you this. Are you tempted to trust yourself, or tempted to trust your own righteousness, or quote -unquote good behavior, as the reason to why

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Jesus will smile at you in judgment day, or crush you?

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When you get to heaven and you are asked, why should I let you in, as old preachers used to say, is your answer, because I've done this, this, this, this, and this, is the wrong answer.

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If you're going to say, because of this, it needs to be this, you should let me into heaven.

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Because I fell at the foot of Jesus Christ, and I let his righteousness pour all over me.

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And you should not let me in here. You should not let me in here, apart from the fact that Jesus Christ lived the meritorious life that I should have lived.

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He died the death that I deserve to die. And in the goodness and graciousness of God's salvific plan in history, he extended to me his arm of salvation.

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And if I would grab hold of that by faith, that he would accept the merits of Jesus Christ the righteous on my behalf.

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That's why you should not judge me harshly, but you should let me in.

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It's him, not me. That's the only thing that you did. And you didn't even do that. The spirit says that you're given the faith to even do that in the first place.

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What a God, what a spirit. Do you see, as we begin to unpack this, that the spirit is actually way better when you think about him biblically, than when you think about him in the ways that all of these other sects and groups do, that twist him and make him some sort of genie in a bottle.

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So concerning judgment, go with me here back to verse 16.

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Look at 11. Concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged.

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Now, one of the things that I often say when I start talking about hard things is this, it is my job to tell you the truth.

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It's my job to tell you what the Bible says. And it's your job to deal with it.

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It's your job to make a decision. It's your job. Now, it's your job as the spirit works in you, don't hear what

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I'm not saying, but it's your job. And it does not make me happy to deliver such news, but thankfully the spirit is here to help it sink in.

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The reality is, friends, judgment is sure. There is coming a day when each one of you, myself included,

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I don't get a pass because I stand in front of this pulpit on judgment day. In fact, the Bible makes the argument in James chapter 3 that I will actually be held to a greater strictness because I'm doing this.

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So woe to anyone who desires to do this and won't take that reality seriously.

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If you're not willing to stand in front of Jesus and be judged harsher than everyone else, then stay away from the pulpit.

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But everyone, everyone will stand before the Lord Jesus Christ and they will answer for the deeds that they have done in the body for good or for evil.

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There's a picture in Revelation chapter 20 verses 11 and 15 that it speaks of this white throne judgment.

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And I want to read it for you. It says this beginning in verse 11, John is having this vision, the same

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John who wrote this text here. He's been given this vision and he says, then I saw a great white throne and him who sits upon it from whose presence earth and heaven fled away.

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Is that your picture of Jesus? And no place was found for them.

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Then I saw the dread, the dead, the great and the small standing before the throne and books were opened.

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And another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books according to their deeds.

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And the sea gave up the dead, which were in it. And death and Hades gave up the dead, which were in them.

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And they were judged every one of them according to their deeds. Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire.

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This is the second death, the lake of fire. And if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.

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It absolutely breaks my heart that there will be people who sat in these pews and who rejected Christ over and over and over again and will stand in judgment and answer for every time they neglected to receive the truth that was given.

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We will stand, you will stand, we will stand in judgment. And we will either be sentenced to a life, eternal life of pain where there is gnashing of teeth and no ability to undo that decision.

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Or we will be welcomed into God's presence. I don't even like the way I said that because the truth is you're in God's presence either way.

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Like the idea that God doesn't oversee hell is something in a fiction fairy tale. Jesus Christ has been given the keys of death and Hades.

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The reason that hell is hell is because Jesus pours down his wrath and judgment on those people forever.

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And we know that this judgment is real because he says in verse 11, the second half of the verse, because the ruler of the world has been judged.

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The reality is friends that Christ will do the judging and he has already judged and he has judged the ruler of this world.

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It's speaking of course here of Satan. Ephesians chapter two calls him the prince of the power of the air. And his influence is still in the world.

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It says here that the spirit declares here the defeat of Satan and the certainty of judgment for all who follow him.

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Friends, I don't know if you thought about this way, but the cross is both the victory of Christ and it is also the condemnation of the enemy and of his wicked followers.

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Heritage, do you understand that you will stand in front of judgment someday and not believing that it's real will not save you.

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It won't, but there is a way is to lean into the spirit as he convicts of sin.

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As he convicts and convinces you of a need for alien righteousness. And as he speaks to you about judgment, the spirit then when he is prosecuting or preaching assures us that ultimate judgment is coming.

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Christ's victory was, is and will be certain and it's on his coattails that you ride to heaven or you don't ride there.

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At all, but the spirit will convict those who are his, those who are

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Christ's, who was given to him by the father of this very reality. And it will drive them.

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It will drive us to repentance. He regenerates them.

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He calls them. He regenerates them. He calls them. He woos them, right?

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He covers them in the blood of Jesus Christ and he progressively sanctifies them over time. He changes a dead heart that will not respond to spiritual stimuli that hates

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God, that sins into a heart that beats blood red for Jesus.

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That's better than any healing that Benny Hinn could zap into anybody, which he's not doing that anyway, but that's better than any check showing up in the mail.

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That's better than any charismatic thing you can insert in there that they make so much about.

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This is a bigger miracle, the changing of a heart than even the creation of the universe.

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And the spirit does it. If the theme has not embedded itself into your heart yet, this is my last point, and it sums up all the other points.

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The spirit helps by primarily preaching Christ. What is the spirit here to do?

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Well, if it's not clear already, it's going to get much clearer. Jesus sends his spirit to make much of him.

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To make much of him. If you look with me down here at verse 14, we don't have time to do all of the exegesis up to this point, but he says this.

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He, speaking of the spirit, will glorify me for he will take of mine and will disclose it to you.

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This, of course, is on the backs of verse 13, which says that the spirit of truth will guide his people into all the truth.

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And that truth comes from who? Jesus. Where is his truth found? The word.

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You cannot separate Jesus from his word. And so if you want to know all the truth, you listen to Jesus, not a prophet.

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You listen to the prophet, Jesus Christ the righteous, as his words have been recorded by the apostles who heard them.

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But when he comes, the spirit of truth, he will guide you, verse 13, into all the truth, for he will not speak from himself, but whatever he hears, he will speak.

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And he will disclose to you what is to come. That happened, didn't it?

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In the verbal plenary inspiration of the Bible, where the

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Holy Spirit used the apostles to write down their word. And it says that his purpose, his primary purpose, is to glorify.

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To glorify Christ. And this here is emphatic. In other words, what

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I'm trying to say is, if it's not clear already, the Spirit's work, the Holy Spirit's help, is centered around the person and work of Jesus Christ, the righteous.

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The one who covers sin. The one who gives righteousness. And the one who will stand over judgment.

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And if it's not pointed on Jesus, and it's pointed on anything else, it's not what the Spirit came to do.

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And it's not, hear me on this friends, helpful. It's not helpful.

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You might think it's helpful, but it's not. It's not helpful. The Spirit's central mission is not man -centered, it's

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Christ -centered. And it's to draw attention, not to even himself.

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This is what's so damning about Charismatic, of the Charismatic Variety, it was so damning about it.

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Because it actually draws attention to the Holy Spirit. And the

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Holy Spirit is not in the game of making much of himself, sorry. He exists, although ontologically, maybe the word exist is an interesting one to use, but we'll just say that.

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Exist. Exist to glorify the Lord Jesus Christ.

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He takes what belongs to Christ, His truth, His salvation, His glories, and He presses it on the hearts of His people.

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That's what He says at the end of verse 14. He will take of mine, and He will disclose it to you.

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Now here, what's happening is some sort of, and be mindful of language here, and how it seems to fail, but a

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Trinitarian dance, as it were. Right? Much like the Father gives the

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Son, those whom He would die for, the Son dies for those people, and then the

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Spirit applies the salvation of the people that Jesus died for, and that the Father planned that He would die for.

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This is a Trinitarian redemptive effort. And we covered that, and as we looked at Ephesians chapter one.

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But in the same way, in the same way, just as the Son brings glory to the

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Father, so the Spirit exists to bring glory to the Son. And the

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Father glorifies the Son. You see, the members of the Trinity, though they are one

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God, and the economic Trinity exists to glorify the other.

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John seven, verse 18 says, he who speaks from himself seeks his own glory, but he who is seeking the glory of the one who sent him, speaking of God, the

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Father of Jesus, He is true, and there is no unrighteousness in Him. John 17 four, I glorified you on the earth,

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Jesus says, speaking of the Father, having finished the work which you have given me to do.

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And so here in verse 14, we are reminded that the Holy Spirit exists to glorify the

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Lord Jesus Christ, to point to Jesus Christ, to show the beauties and glories of Jesus Christ, to convict us of our sin, of unbelief in Jesus Christ, and also to point to His righteousness that is alien, that He achieved on our behalf, that He would be the judger of the one who is judged.

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There is this continuity between the Father and the Son, and between the

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Father and the Spirit, and the Son and the Spirits, which quote one commentator said, the persons of the

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Godhead are collaborating in the task of divine self -disclosure, that is revealing themselves or himself rather.

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Jesus' possession is the full revelation of God. John 1 18 makes that case when it says, no one has seen

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God at any time, the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained Him. And in John chapter five, verse 19 and 20, it says, therefore

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Jesus answered and was saying to them, truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing from Himself unless it is something

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He sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in the same manner.

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For the Father loves the Son and shows Him all things that He Himself is doing. And the Father will show Him greater works than these so that you will marvel.

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So we see what God is up to by looking at the face of Jesus Christ. And now that He's gone, the

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Spirit takes Jesus' self -revelation and gives it to us through the word and the preached word.

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That comes from the word, by the way, not apart from the word. It's all about the word. Spirit takes what is

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Jesus' and draws from that reservoir, not some other reservoir.

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Not good feelings, not good vibes, not whatever. And He advances the revelation of Jesus Christ from the word.

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God's definitive self -disclosure. We see

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God in the face of Jesus Christ and the Spirit gave the apostles this word as a full disclosure.

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And the Spirit then through the word works to convict of sin, convict of righteousness, and convict of judgment.

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That's why John Calvin said, for as soon as the Spirit is severed from Christ's word, the door is open to all sorts of craziness and imposters.

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Why does he say that? Because all is fair in love and war, I guess, when

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Christ is cut off the head of your Christianity, when it's cut off of the work of the

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Spirit. You can't talk about the Spirit without talking about Christ, in other words.

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And the Spirit doesn't work apart from glorifying Christ. That's the point. Children, I got one more for you before we close out.

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John Calvin, who you hear me reference a lot, I know you don't know him. He doesn't live down the street. He's been dead a long time.

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He is a theologian. But he used to talk about the earth being the theater of God.

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And what he meant by that was that redemptive history playing out in the world is essentially a play.

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Not like a real play, but like, it acts kind of like a play, where we get to see

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God working throughout history and in the lives and hearts of people. And the person who is the main character is

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Jesus Christ. So if you think about that,

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I want you to think about that same reality. I want you to think about a stage. I want you to think about a play.

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Have you ever been to a play? Have you ever been to a play? Well, you're kind of at one right now.

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And what I mean by that is these lights right here, if we had our own building, they probably wouldn't be here because they just shine directly into my eyes.

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But that's kind of what a play is like. There's somebody back there, not here, but at a play especially, who has this big circular thing.

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And it's a light that focuses on the main character and follows them around the stage.

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And so John Calvin was saying that like, that's Christ, he's the main character, right? Well, in our fake play that we're talking about that doesn't exist, it doesn't matter who the character is, but it does matter who the character is in real life.

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And of course it's Jesus Christ like John Calvin is talking about. But here's what

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I'm trying to get at. The guy who's holding the spotlight in the back that's focusing on Christ in Calvin's theater or in this play that you're thinking of in your mind, that's the

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Holy Spirit. His job is to hold the light on the main character.

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And the Holy Spirit's job in your life is to hold the spotlight on the main character and it's not him, right?

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When you go to a play and you see how well, you know, the only one I even know of is like Wicked.

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That's a play, right? I don't know if you're supposed to see that. I have no idea what, it's a Disney movie. Well, actually I can't say that anymore, right?

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Weird rabbit hole. The reality is that's what the

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Holy Spirit exists to do, to put the strobe light on Christ.

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The audience doesn't focus on the operator, but on the actor. That's where I was going.

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I lost my train of thought. I'm back now. So we don't worship the guy with the spotlight. That's what

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I was trying to get at, right? We don't worship the guy in the spotlight. Although it's a little different because we do worship the triune

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God, but we don't make much of the guy in the strobe light in as much as we make of the person that's in front of the strobe light.

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Or not strobe light, that's for parties. Anywho, let me ask you this in closing.

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Does your understanding of the Spirit align with this Christ -centered vision? If it doesn't, it's not a correct view of the

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Holy Spirit. He's not given to satisfy our desires for health, wealth, and prosperity, nor is he there to satisfy our constant need for experiences, but to exalt

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Jesus in our hearts. So in closing, the

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Holy Spirit is the helper or the advocate who prosecutes, who points us to Christ, convicts us of sin, and assures us of righteousness and judgment.

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He prosecutes like no other. He preaches like no other because all of his preaching is efficacious.

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He works not through chaos, but through clarity, always exalting the name, the person, and the work of Jesus Christ.

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It doesn't get better than that. And you know how I know that? Because that's what God wanted him to do.

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Christ is that awesome. Pray with me. Father, we thank you for your Spirit. We thank you for the work that he does in the world.

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And we thank you that he guides us into all truth through. And we thank you that you have transformed our lives into lives that seek to honor you.

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And we thank you for the righteousness that you have given us that is wholly a gift. We ask that you would help us this week to live and love out of these realities.