The Ministry of the Holy Spirit — Ernest O'Neill

One of the characteristics that distinguishes all of us here from animals is our mind's ability to reflect and to examine what we're doing and why we're doing it. And sooner or later, all of us direct that kind of attention to life itself.

The Search for Life’s Meaning and the Existence of God

We try to work out why we're here or what we're alive for. And we try to form a philosophy of life of some kind that will guide us through the next 70 or 80 years. You remember that's what we've been talking about over these past weeks.

And we said that if you try to form a philosophy of life, you're driven to deal with certain big questions. And those questions we tried to talk about. You remember we said that if you're trying to find out why you're alive, it is pretty important to discover whether Einstein's hypothesis is true.

His hypothesis was that there was an intelligent mind behind the universe that had planned all this and had put us here. It's pretty important to discover if that's true, because that'll obviously tie up with the way you live your life or what you live it for.

So you remember that we have been dealing over the past month, maybe more than a month, from a purely intellectual standpoint with questions like, is there a God? Is the Bible history or myth? Is Jesus God's son?

Why are we alive? And what I would like to do for the next few weeks is to interrupt the studies in Romans and to try to deal a little more together with how to enter into the reality that Jesus explained to us was the meaning of life.

How to enter into that reality. So loved ones, that's why I'm suggesting that we start this morning and continue for maybe a few weeks to talk about this subject that maybe not too many of us know a lot about.

The Fatherhood of God and the Purpose of Human Life

This ministry of the Holy Spirit. Now I just remind you of our problem. You remember Jesus explained reality this way. He said, in my father's house there are many mansions. If it weren't so, I wouldn't have said it.

But I am going to prepare a place for you that where I am, there you may be also. And you remember Jesus elaborated that through his disciples who wrote the New Testament. And their elaboration goes right along the lines of the elaboration that the prophets provided when they wrote the Old Testament.

It explains clearly that our Creator made us to be his friends. Made us to love him. And in fact, more than just to be his friends, made us to be his children. Made us to live and treat him as a dear father.

Not only in this life, but after the new life begins to treat him like that forever. And that's why we're alive here today. Now if you don't know what it means to treat him as a father, well I'd ask you to think of your own experiences with parents.

I know they're kind of mixed. I mean, some of us have had dads that we were close to. Others of us have had mums that we were close to. Some of us have had loved ones that we weren't close to at all. Some of us haven't had parents.

But the interesting thing is that whatever our father or our mother was like, isn't it interesting that we can tell whether they're a good father or a bad father because we have deep down in our hearts somewhere a picture of what a good father is.

Isn't it interesting that we have that? Even those of us who are crazy and mixed up can still say whether our dads were right or our dads were wrong because we have some picture inside of what a good father would be like.

And we do have this sense that a good father loves you. And he provides for you and he protects you. And he makes sure you have enough food and clothing. And he looks out for you generally. And he helps you to develop your abilities.

And then he helps you to get started in life and to find your place in the world. Maybe more than anything else, when we talk about a father figure, we think of somebody who gives us a sense of security and gives us a sense of esteem and worth.

Above all, it's somebody whose friendship makes life worthwhile. Now, that, Jesus says, is why we're here on earth. To have that kind of relationship with our Maker. To know him like that and to trust him like that.

And just as we used to go to good fathers when we were children, when we cut our knees or we were scared in the dark, so we're to go to God like that. And he will put his arms around us and hug us and he will protect us.

And in the areas where we feel we don't know our way, he will make a way for us. Jesus said, that's the way we're to live with our Father, the God who made us. Now, of course, we all know we're not his children.

We know that. We're creatures of God. We were made by God. Jesus was born of God, but we were created by God. And so, we're in relationship to him much the same way as the family dog was to our parents, you remember.

I mean, the little family dog could pretend to be like the rest of us kids and he could try sitting up at the table or begging, you know. And we said, oh, look at him and give him some food. Or he could jump into bed with us and we'd pretend, oh, yeah, he's a little human being.

But he wasn't a little human being. He was a creature and we were a human being. He would last 14 years at the most. We could last 70 or 80. And it didn't matter how he behaved, he still looked like a little dog trying to be a human being.

And he just didn't have the characteristics that we had through being born in our mother's womb. And he didn't have the close relationship with our mom and dad that we had. And so, he was a creature. And loved ones were the same.

Compared with Jesus, even though he says we were made to be God's children and to treat him as our father, we are created beings and we are just creatures of God. And you know that we find that in our own selves.

Human Inability and the Bondage of the Old Self

We find that just as the little dog would have real trouble playing the flute or would have real trouble reading Shakespeare, so we try again and again to behave like children of God, but it is hard. And we find we're involved in some kind of imitation that we can't keep up.

So, it's very interesting. You come to those crisis moments in your life. Oh, you lose your job or you lose your girlfriend or a crisis comes between you and your wife. And you know the old stomach just churns up and tightens.

And you can't help that anxiety. It seems to work on you immediately. You just tense up. It's as if the old body is in charge of you. You're saying inside, no, no, I need to trust God. Even though I can't see my way through this crisis.

Even though I can't see how we're going to make this up in our relationship. Even though I can't see how I'm going to get another job like that one. Even though I can't see my way through this, I need to trust God.

He is my Father. He knows the way through it. And we try to trust God, don't we? But boy, the old nervous system is tight in there. And you find you're almost being governed by the way your physical body responds to those crises.

And you feel, I want to do it, but I can't. And then you know what you do with the anxiety. And then you go to the icebox, the refrigerator, and you try to eat the anxiety out of you. Or we pop the old Valium or something else.

But it's interesting that we end up, even though we don't want to, we end up trying to use either food or chemicals or drugs or other people or anything to try to get us out of the mess that we're in.

And we try to trust God. But it is hard, isn't it? It's like a little dog trying to play Chopin. I mean, it just hasn't the fingers for it. It just can't read the music. But it's banging away in some fashion and not getting any satisfaction out of it.

And many of us live like that, don't we? We know we should trust God as our Father. We know finally He's the only one who really can do everything because we can see what He's produced in the world. But we can't do it.

And so we often feel like Paul and say, The good that I would, the good I want to do, I can't do it. And the evil I hate, I don't want to keep eating and eating and getting overweight every time I get worried or anxious.

I don't want to use chemicals or other people or drugs to kind of quieten things down. But that evil that I hate, that's the very thing I do. And it's the same with everything, isn't it? I mean, we don't want to depend on what people think of us, but isn't it incredible how much we do?

It just is, you know. You know in conversation how often you find yourself, you want to be interested in what they're saying, but your little old mind is waiting for them to pass some compliment over to you.

Or maybe they're going to say something that will build you up. And you don't want to be looking for that, but it's as if your whole being is made like that. And of course the truth is that we've been doing that for years.

We've been depending on each other for years instead of God, and so our being has become like that. I mean, our personality has become that kind of personality. And in fact, Paul, you remember, at the end of Romans 7 puts it very strongly.

He says, Wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death? And he felt, you know, that the personality that he had was so unsuited to trust God as his Father, and so absolutely enslaved and accustomed to trusting men and women and things and environment and experience and circumstances that it was like a body of death.

And I don't know if you know what a body of death is, but in the old days, if you murdered someone, there were several punishments, and one of them was that they took the body of the murdered person and they tied that dying, rotting body onto your body and you had to walk about with it for as long as it took for the whole thing to fall apart and fall off you.

And so you walked about with a rotting corpse attached to you. And that's what Paul meant, you know. Wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death? And I don't know if you've felt like that, but I think many of us have.

We've wanted to trust God, we've wanted to depend on His opinion alone, we've wanted to look up to Him for our happiness, but we find that there's a kind of body of death that keeps working the other way, a personality that keeps depending on people, looking out for the little bit of praise, looking out for the little bit of approval, looking out for the little bit of money that will get us out of this problem.

New Birth, Crucifixion with Christ, and Freedom from Sin

And loved ones, that's why Jesus said, you know, there's no other way but for you all to be born again. That's the only thing. Because your personality is so absolutely perverted that unless it's recreated all over again, you won't be able to treat God the way I treat Him.

And that's what Jesus said. You see me, I died on the cross, not pleading for my life from the hands of those who could have saved me, not depending on their approval, but I died absolutely confident that my Father was going to bring me through this death and out the other side.

Now, if you're going to live that kind of way, the only way is for you to be completely remade. And you know that that's what Jesus said happened in Himself. He said, you know, in me, my Father put your old personality.

And when I died, it died. And when I was resurrected, there was a new personality of yours that was resurrected in me. And you were recreated in me. And that personality is like mine. And it is able to trust my Father.

And it's able to look to Him alone for approval. And it's able to walk free of the dominance of man-fear and of people's opinions. And that personality is available for you. And you remember his apostle Paul put it like this.

He said, you know, our old self, that old self of yours that gets anxious and gets uptight with the stomach muscles whenever the finances go wrong or whenever a relationship goes wrong, that old self was crucified with Christ so that the body of sin, that body that kept reacting the old way, was destroyed or rendered inoperative or neutralized so that you might no longer be enslaved to sin.

That is, you might no longer be enslaved to people and to circumstances and to things for your security and your happiness and your sense of identity. But that you would be able to trust God as your own dear Father.

And that's the way Jesus put it all, you remember. Now, loved ones, here's the question that I'd love you to begin to think about. If that all happened, how is that made real in you and me today? How is that all made real in us?

I mean, that sounds like the answer. But how is it made real in us today? You see, the power of positive thinking people say by auto-suggestion. You know that from all the books. When by intimidation or I'm okay, you're okay.

Or the power of positive thinking itself. All those books say by the mind, by the mind. You see, what has happened is your mind has got used to manipulating people instead of understanding God. Now, you've just to change that pattern.

Your emotions have got used to trying to enjoy other people instead of trying to enjoy God and give joy to other people. Now, you've got to change that pattern. And you change it by setting your mind against it and for the good pattern.

So, there are countless self-help books. And it's interesting. Do you know that they're all based on a vague memory that God has somehow turned the thing around? Except that they think you make it real in your own life by the power of your mind.

And of course, the lives of people who believe that attest to its failure. Because you cannot reproduce the relaxed, gentle spirit of Jesus by the power of the mind. Now, much religion, including much evangelical Christianity, says, no, not by the power of the mind, but the mind has to believe that you were crucified with Christ.

And then, by self-discipline, you discipline yourself to be like the new person that has been made in Jesus. You notice that both those ways really believe that nothing did change in Jesus. I mean, both of them believe that it's just a wonderful metaphor.

Oh, yeah, our old self was crucified with Christ. Just think of it that way. Just think of it that way. Just think, whenever they're criticizing you, no, I was crucified with Christ. I'm dead, I'm dead, I'm dead.

I don't feel that. I don't feel it. Just think that. Or, whenever you begin to worry about what you're going to do next month to pay the rent, just think, well, I'm crucified with Christ. I'm not here.

I'm not there. And, loved ones, do you see that there are great realms of Christianity and great realms of, really, it's not good psychology, it's perverted psychology, that believe that either by the power of the mind or by the power of the will, you can make this rail in your life.

The Holy Spirit as the One Who Makes Redemption Real

Now, here's the wonderful liberty that Jesus brought us. He knew fine well that you or I could not make that rail in our own lives by the use of our minds or by the use of our wills. That's why He explained to the disciples.

He said, look, I will pray the Father and He will send you another comforter. Even the Spirit of Truth who will be with you and will be in you. And this Spirit of Truth will be a counselor to you. And He will carry on the work that I have been doing in the world.

And, most importantly, He will make rail at you the things that have happened to you in me in eternity. And that's what Jesus said. He said, I'm not leaving you alone. I'm not leaving you desolate. It's to your advantage that I go away, because if I don't go away, the counselor will not come to you.

But if I go, I will send them to you. And this counselor, He called him a he. He called him a he. He said, the Holy Spirit is a person. He and I and my Father existed together before the world was. And the Holy Spirit will be me present in your life.

And He will make rail to you the things that have happened to you in my death and my resurrection. Now, loved ones, I'd just like you to look at one verse there where Jesus says that. So maybe you'd look at John chapter 16.

Jesus’ Promise That the Spirit Would Guide Believers into Truth

And it is a good verse, you know, to learn. John 16 and verse 12. John chapter 16 and 12 through 15. Just those verses. John 16, it's page 940, loved ones. John 16 and verse 12 through 15. I have yet many things to say to you.

But you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all the truth. For He will not speak on His own authority. But whatever He hears, He will speak. And He will declare to you the things that are to come.

He will glorify me. For He will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine. Therefore, I said that He will take what is mine and declare it to you. And the word for declare, loved ones, is from a Greek verb, metesko, and it means to share with you.

And so those verses 14 and 15 run. He will glorify me for He will take what is mine and share it with you. All that the Father has is mine. Therefore, I said that He will take what is mine and share it with you.

And so Jesus said, the Holy Spirit will take the miracle that was wrought upon your old personality in Jesus and He will share it with you. He will make it real in your life. And I think that maybe a lot of us here, just because maybe we are academically inclined, try to make these things real by the power of our mind or by the power of our will.

But, loved ones, Jesus did not leave us to ourselves like that. He said, no, the Holy Spirit is my other self. C .S. Lewis called the Holy Spirit Jesus' other self. He is a real person, the third person of the Trinity.

He can think like us. He can feel like us. He can speak and He can hear us. And the Holy Spirit is here in this room. And He actually is working inside you. And He alone is able to make these things real in you.

That's why nothing happened in the first century until the disciples stopped looking up at Jesus, disappearing into the sky, and began to pay attention to this new master, the successor to Jesus, this person, the Holy Spirit.

Depending on the Holy Spirit Rather Than Self-Discipline

And, loved ones, it's the same with us here. It really is. It doesn't matter how clearly I explain it to you. It doesn't matter what a sharp mind you have and how clearly you can understand it. It doesn't matter how many power of positive thinking books you read.

It doesn't matter how much willpower you use. It doesn't matter how much autosuggestion you practice. The only one who can make this miraculous change in your life, who can enable you to be born again and recreated, a person that finds it natural to trust God instead of to trust people first, the only one who can do that is the Holy Spirit.

And Jesus promised that He would come. And, loved ones, really, all that you see here, you know, this isn't all the result of some Irish fellow who can speak or of a lot of Americans who can give themselves to businesses.

What you see here is the creation of the dear Holy Spirit. And that Holy Spirit knows you. And He is able to make real in you the death and resurrection that took place in Jesus of your old personality and your new personality.

So, loved ones, I would say to you at the beginning of these weeks when we begin to study the ministry of the Holy Spirit, I would ask you, first of all, would you do what I at last started to do? After hearing about the Holy Spirit for years, after learning about it, I used to call it, it in theology, I used to regard it as an influence that came upon a meeting, kind of emotional thing.

But after years of that, I at last took Jesus' word seriously in John 16, that the Holy Spirit is a person. And I began to regard the Holy Spirit as a person. And I began to stop depending on myself alone and my own introspection and my own autosuggestion to make these things real in my life.

And I began to depend on the Holy Spirit. And I remember, I mean, some people say, don't pray to the Holy Spirit. Well, maybe not. But He is talked about, as we'll see next week, as the Spirit of Jesus.

Cooperating with the Spirit in the New Birth

And at the beginning, I simply said, Holy Spirit, I have made no inroads into making this miracle real in my own life. Holy Spirit, will you begin to lead me in this? Will you begin to show me what I have to do or how I have to respond or how I have to act in order for you to make this miracle of the new birth real in me where I cease to be enslaved to people and circumstances and things and I begin to be able to treat my God as my own Father?

And loved ones, if you will honor the Holy Spirit, if you will respect Him, instead of trying to remain God of your own personal spiritual experience, if you will respect Him and begin to listen to Him and do what He says, you'll begin to see the miracle taking place in you.

So that's why I think it is probably important, you know, for us during these next weeks just to talk about the ministry of the Holy Spirit so that you yourself will see that God has made provision for the actualizing of this in your life today.

And it isn't simply up to the power of your mind and the power of your will. It's the matter of cooperating in both of those areas with this dear Holy Spirit who is Jesus' successor. Or somebody said it this way, He's like the executor of Jesus' will.

Jesus left to us a life of power and a life where we could trust God. The Holy Spirit is the one who deals that out to us and who gives it to us. He is the executor of Jesus' will. He makes it real in us.

So, will you begin, if you haven't thought of Him that way, will you begin to think of Him that way so that you see that you have a real friend inside you who actually knows you better than you know yourself and can go deeper than you can go?

Prayer for the Holy Spirit to Make God’s Fatherhood Real

Let us pray. Dear Spirit of Jesus, we believe that You will not bear witness to Yourself. We believe that You will glorify Jesus. And so we believe that we can trust You to hear our prayers. We do believe Jesus' words that You are here and that You are actually in us and that any movements towards God that brought us to this place this morning are due to Your movement within us.

Holy Spirit, we don't know how to make these things real in us, but we believe that that's why You were sent. So we would begin to recognize You and acknowledge You in our lives and we will begin to obey You and respond to You.

And Holy Spirit, we would ask You to lead us in this area where we cannot lead ourselves. And we would ask You most of all to make us God's children so that we can trust Him from our hearts. We ask this in Jesus' name.

Amen.