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Uttered last week and then tackle this subject so I can do it justice. So that will be next week, Confronting, well, Clarifying Christian Liberty and Confronting Legalism. Now let's turn our thoughts to the ministry of God's Word this morning.
If you have your Bibles, and I hope you do, take them and turn with me to Luke chapter 4. Luke chapter 4. Luke chapter 4, coming back to our study of the personal work of the Holy Spirit. Again, focusing in our attention on the Spirit's ministry in, through, and to our Lord Jesus.
Luke chapter 4 and verses 14 through to 21. Title for the message this morning is Anointed with the Holy Spirit and Power, the Holy Spirit in the life of Jesus, and as I said, this is part two of that message.
Luke chapter 4 and verses 14 through to 21. Luke 4, one of the first public addresses in Jesus's ministry. In the Gospel of Luke, it's the first one. And I start here because Jesus is speaking here, and he speaks directly about the relationship of the Holy Spirit to his own ministry.
And so I thought this would be a good place for us to start this morning as we dive into our exploration of God's Word. So Luke chapter 4, verses 14 to 21. I did actually test it this week, so the slide should actually work if you want to read along with me.
I'll invite you, as I normally attempt to do, to read the odd-numbered verses. I will read the even-numbered verses. I promise you guys it will actually work this week. Luke chapter 4 from verses 14 through to 21.
If you're able to do so, would you stand with me out of reverence for God's Word? Luke chapter 4. Okay, someone turn me down a little bit. I think I'm ringing just a little bit. Somebody could turn me down.
That would be great. Thanks, Eddie. Luke chapter 4 from verse 14 through to 21. As always, brothers and sisters, these are God's words. Then Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the entire vicinity.
He came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. As usual, he entered the synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood up to read. The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free the oppressed. He then rolled up the scroll and gave it back to the attendant and sat down, and the eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fixed on him.
Jesus said that heaven and earth would pass away, but his words would by no means pass away. Let's pray together, invite God's help as we come to this portion of his Word. Our Heavenly Father, we would ask that as we open up your Word once again, thinking about your Son and our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the ministry of the Holy Spirit to him, we ask that we would know the Spirit's help even as we talk about him.
May he open our eyes that we would see wonderful things out of God's law. May he grant us all open hearts to receive what his Word has to say. And above all, may the Spirit draw our eyes to Jesus, because as Jesus himself said, he would testify about him.
May that be reality even this morning. Pray for myself, it's a kind of battle, a cold that's coming on. Pray that you would grant me strength that I may proclaim your Word faithfully. In the words of the old hymn, breathe on me breath of God, fill me with life anew that I may do as thou wouldst do, and love what thou wouldst love.
Asking Jesus' name, and for his sake. Amen. Please be seated this morning. Well, as I said, we are continuing a message that we began last week on the subject of the Holy Spirit and the person of Jesus.
For those of you who missed the message last week, it's available on our website, excuse me, it's available on our website, redeemingmedford .org. I finally got around to fixing a bunch of the broken links, so that should be now available.
With that said, on the first page of your study guide this morning, I'm kind of giving you a summary of why I said last week. We kind of began with a basic proposition last week, which was that Jesus is not just a man filled with the Spirit, but he is the man of the Spirit.
That from the beginning of his earthly life, right through to his resurrection, he was enabled and empowered by the Spirit to be our prophet, priest, and king. To prove that point, I said that we were going to take a little journey through the life of Christ, and we were going to be looking at the life of Christ from the perspective of the Spirit's involvement.
And so we kind of took three stops on the journey. I said we'd pause, and then we'd pick it up. First of all, we began by looking at the Holy Spirit and the incarnation of Jesus. So when Jesus took on flesh is what the word incarnation means.
When Jesus took on a human nature, we saw from both Matthew's Gospel and Luke's Gospel that the Holy Spirit was the one who was the means by which that human nature was created. We took some time to read a quote from John Owen, the Puritan, who had some helpful thoughts about how it was that the Holy Spirit brought about the human nature of Jesus.
And so he was involved in the incarnation in that way. We then took some time and focused on Christ's baptism, that interesting event that is mentioned in all four Gospels. And as we took some time to think about the Holy Spirit's role in that, we saw that the Holy Spirit basically empowered Christ to be prophet, priest, and king, and commissioned him for that work at his baptism.
It's not that Jesus became the Son of God at his baptism, no, he was always the Son of God. But in taking on this mission in a formal sense, as it were, he needed the power of the Spirit. And so that's why all four texts, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, all refer to the fact that the Spirit comes on him, descends on him, falls on him in the form of a dove.
We then took some time and we thought about the Holy Spirit and the temptation of Jesus, the fact that the next thing that happens after he is commissioned to be our prophet, priest, and king is that he is propelled by the Spirit into the wilderness.
And it's the Holy Spirit who leads Jesus into this temptation and provides him the strength that he needs to emerge victorious. So that's kind of a short summary of where we got to last week. This morning, I don't want to be before you too long, we want to continue that journey.
So we started it last week, let's finish it this week. And I want us to continue that journey through Jesus's life with three more stops. So we, like I said, we did three last week, let's finish off the journey with three more stops as we consider the relationship between the Spirit and the Savior.
And as we do so, we're doing so not just to kind of learn some information about the Spirit's work in the life of Jesus, but also to find out what we can learn for our own walk with God as we look at Christ.
So three more stops this morning that I want us to consider. Like I said, I don't want to be before you too long. Consider with me, first of all, the Holy Spirit and the earthly ministry of Christ. The Holy Spirit and the earthly ministry of Christ.
Now, there's so much I'd love to say about this subject, and I don't have all the time in the world. In the study guide this week, and last week as well, I recommended a resource by an author called Mark Jones.
He's a Presbyterian pastor up in Vancouver, Canada. And he wrote a book back in 2015 called Knowing Christ. Knowing Christ, I would argue, is one of the best books in print on the person and work of Christ that you can get today.
Thankfully, it's still very much in print by the Banner of Truth. I highly recommend that to you. He takes way more time and way more detail than we can in a single sermon, so I commend that to you. Now, I think last week I asked this, and if not, I'll ask it this week.
If you were to ask the average Christian, how is it that Jesus did the things he did? How did Jesus do all of those amazing miracles that we read about in the Bible? How is it that Jesus has so much, like, so much energy and life in his ability to preach constantly?
Yes, we see he gets tired because, again, he's fully man, and so he experiences exhaustion. The human body is not made to run forever. And so, yes, he gets tired. Yes, he gets weary. But it seems as though you read the life of Jesus in the Gospel, and he just seems so vivacious.
He just seems so full of life. How is it that Jesus was able to do what he did? I would venture to say that if you asked most evangelicals, they would tell you, well, the reason why Jesus could do all of that is because he was God.
Almost as though what happened was there was a human side to Jesus and a divine side to Jesus. And Jesus generally lived on the human side. But every once in a while, Jesus kind of cheated and tapped into his divine side, did the stuff he needed to do, and then jumped back into his human side.
Well, first of all, that's not good theology. The Church has historically confessed from the beginning that Jesus is one person with two natures. Not there are two sides to him. No, he's one person. How is it that he can have both a human nature and a divine nature?
The Bible doesn't tell us. It just says that he does. As a human being, I have no category for it. All I know is being human. You only have a category for just being human. But Jesus was both human and divine, and yet the two were joined together in such a way as, while there is a distinction between them, they're not one and the same.
That being said, do I think it's accurate to say that, well, Jesus did all his miracles because, well, he had a divine nature unlike us, and therefore he could do all this stuff? Well, no, no. I don't think that's entirely accurate.
You remember last week I quoted that book by Mark Jones, and he asked this question, quote, What room exists for the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of Christ? This question deserves a careful answer.
After all, most Christians believe that Jesus performed miracles because he is God. But the Scriptures present a more nuanced picture, especially since there are others in the Bible who perform miracles who were clearly not God.
Given the plethora of references to the Holy Spirit in the life of Jesus, we must be able to give a meaningful role to the Spirit, end quote. Well, Dr. Jones says it's a more nuanced picture, and I agree with him.
So for a moment, let's consider what Jesus himself says about how he did his ministry. First of all, Jesus tells us that it was the Spirit who inspired his preaching. The Spirit inspired the preaching of Christ.
So I had us read Luke chapter 4, and the reason I had us read Luke chapter 4 was because it's right out of Jesus' mouth that he says, look back at verse 14 through 19 with me, then Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit.
Okay, so he's still in the power of the Spirit, just as he was when he was in the wilderness. He's now left the wilderness, and so he returns to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, the text says, and news about him spread throughout the entire vicinity.
He was teaching in their synagogues, verse 15, being praised by everyone. He came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. As usual, he entered the synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood up to read.
The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him, and unrolling the scroll, he found the place where it was written. Now this way gets interesting. Verse 18, the Spirit of the Lord is on me because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to, note the language again, proclaim release to the captives, recovery of sight to the blind, to set free the oppressed, verse 19, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. So three times in those verses, Jesus talks about something involving speaking, something involving ministering.
He says, well, the Spirit of the Lord is on me, and he's on me so that I can preach good news, so that I can proclaim, as he says, release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, in verse 19, that I may proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.
Can I pause for a second and ask you a question? Have you ever given thought to why so much of Jesus' ministry is not spent doing miracles, it's spent teaching. You read the life of Christ, whether you read one of the Gospels or you read all four, and Jesus spends so much of his time preaching and teaching.
In fact, keep a finger here in Luke 4, turn me to Mark 1, Mark chapter 1. Mark chapter 1, again this is early in Jesus' ministry, Mark's Gospel is kind of the somewhat condensed version of events, and as Mark kind of condenses and gets straight to the point, verse 38, Jesus is speaking here, and he said to them, let us go on, us referring to the disciples who he's already called, let us go on to the neighboring villages, so that I may preach there too.
I want to draw your attention to that last line. This is why I have come. We don't have time to go chasing that rabbit, but you read the Gospels and Jesus only ever tells us two reasons why he came. The other text, for those of you taking notes, Mark 10, 45, the Son of Man did not come to be served but to serve and to give his life a ransom for many.
So Jesus says, okay, I came to die, but he also says I came to preach. I don't agree with everything he said and did, but I believe it was the evangelist Billy Graham who said that God had one son and he made him a preacher.
I think there's some truth to that. If I can once again kind of park the bus, as it were. I find it interesting that we live in an age, even in the church, even in circles that would say, okay, we take the Bible seriously.
I find it interesting that preaching gets such a bad rap. Think about it. Even in wider culture, we use the word preaching like it's an insult. Oh, he sounded really preachy. Oh, he's preaching at me.
We say it like someone's being insulting when they do that. Even in circles like ours, where we claim to have a very high view of this Word of God. I've been around church circles long enough. I've kind of just seen it.
There's a growing antipathy to the preaching of God's Word. As a church, we're committed not just to the Bible as the Word of God, but also to the Spirit-empowered, Christ-exalting, exegetically faithful preaching of that Word.
Why do we make such a big deal of that? What does that have to do with the ministry of Christ and the Spirit in relation to preaching? Well, this week, as I was preparing, a Bible teacher from the 19th century, his name was Francis Beattie.
He was writing about Christ's work as a prophet, and he said this that I found interesting. He said, quote, It may be interesting to note an inference which can be properly made at this point in regard to the nature of the officer of the minister of the gospel.
It is evident from what has just been said, and like I said, he's just been speaking about Christ as a prophet, that the office of the gospel minister stands closely connected with the prophetic office of Christ.
It does not, therefore, stand directly related to the priestly office, so that in no proper sense are the ministers of the gospel to be regarded as priests, nor should they assume any priestly functions.
So, pause for a second. He's simply saying that when we think about the nature of the minister of the gospel, in some traditions, so if, like me, you're from the UK, we have a state church, the Church of England, ministers in the Church of England are typically called priests.
Not all of them like being called priests, but that's typically what you're ordained as. You're ordained as a priest. He's saying, well, no, ministers are not priests, and he's going to explain why in just a moment, but they do stand in some sense connected to, it's interesting, he doesn't say they are prophets, he said, but they stand connected to Christ's work as a prophet.
He goes on to say, they are but the mouthpieces of the church as she seeks to declare the message of God to the world. They are the stewards of the manifold mercies of God, and they are to interpret the word and declare the message to the world.
Behind all of this lies the prophetic office of Christ, and to this office, that of the gospel ministry is directly related. Christ alone is the priest at the altar, and his servants are ministers, not priests.
BT's point is a really simple one, that every time the word is faithfully and accurately proclaimed in the power of God's spirit, Christ's work as a prophet is being pushed into time and space. It's being brought to bear on God's people.
The preacher is not a prophet. I don't claim full divine authority, I don't claim that I can predict the future, neither does Brian or Pastor Joe or anyone else who preaches to us. None of us claim that we have a hundred percent infallibility and we speak for God a hundred percent.
To the degree that we seek to be faithful to this word of God, we are in a sense a mouthpiece for Christ who is the great prophet of God's people. And that's a ministry that Jesus was only able to do, as he says in Luke 4, because the spirit empowered him.
But not only did the spirit empower the preaching of Christ, he also empowered the miracles of Christ. He also empowered the miracles of Christ. Turn with me to Matthew chapter 12. Matthew 12 and verse 28.
Matthew chapter 12 and verse 28 through to 32. To give you the context, Jesus has just driven, excuse me, a demon out of a possessed man. And as usual, Jesus' good friends the Pharisees had something to say about it.
So verse 24, you don't need to turn there, but I'll read it quickly. It says, when the Pharisees heard this, they said, this man drives out demons only by Beelzebul, the ruler of the demons. Beelzebul was literally the pagan god served by the Philistines.
He was the lord of the flies. By the way, if you've ever read the book Lord of the Flies, that's where he got the name from, because that's what Beelzebul means. It became kind of a pejorative nickname for the devil.
Well, like I said, Matthew 12, verse 28, hear what Jesus says in response to the Pharisees saying that, oh, he's basically doing these miraculous works by the power of the devil. Verses 25 to 27, Jesus says, listen, a kingdom that's divided against itself can't stand.
If the devil, if I'm doing these things by the devil's power, that don't make any sense, because then the devil's fighting against the devil and his kingdom won't stand. That was Jesus' very polite way of saying, you guys are being stupid.
Verse 28, if I drive out demons by the spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. How can someone enter a strongman's house and steal his possessions unless he first ties up the strongman?
Then he can plunder his house. Anyone who is not with me is against me, and anyone who does not gather with me scatters. Therefore, I tell you, people will be forgiven every sin and blasphemy, and let me pause and say, because of what Jesus does on the cross, that is absolutely true.
There is no such thing as an unforgivable sin in this life. The only unforgivable sin is if you choose to reject the one way of salvation. God can't forgive you if you keep rejecting his way of being forgiven, but if you repent and turn to Jesus, Jesus is right.
People will be forgiven every sin and blasphemy, but know what he says, but the blasphemy against the spirit will not be forgiven. Whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man, it will be forgiven him, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit, it will not be forgiven him, either in this age or in the one to come.
Well, without getting into the weeds about what exactly does Jesus mean here, that this thing can't be forgiven, again, I take the view, as I just said, that what Jesus is speaking about here is the willful rejection of him and the Spirit's work in him, which again happens every time that a person refuses to believe in Jesus.
If you keep refusing to believe in Jesus, you cannot be saved, but again, know how Jesus ties his ability to do these miracles to the Spirit of God. Luke 11 20 is the parallel passage to this, and in Luke 11 20, Jesus says, if I drive out demons by the finger of God, again, that's a pull from the Old Testament, where the finger of God is always used in connection with God's power.
You see, far from doing miracles kind of like parlor tricks, where like I said, he kind of taps into his divine side, does a trick, and then kind of goes back to his human side. No, the Spirit of God was at work in Jesus, announcing and confirming him as God's anointed one.
Not only do we know this because Jesus himself says it, we know it because those who follow Jesus agreed. I'll put the notes, the passages there in your study guide. Acts chapter 2 and verse 22. Fellow Israelites, listen to these words.
This Jesus of Nazareth was a man attested to you by God. Literally, this was a man that God put forward and said, yes, this is the one. Well, how did God do that? He was attested to you by God with miracles, wonders, and signs that God did among you through him.
So again, this is Peter speaking, and Peter has the understanding that Jesus did these miracles, well, God did them through Jesus. We read it last week. Acts chapter 10 and verse 38 is where the title of our message comes from.
Again, Peter is speaking. He says, how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. And what happened? And how he went about doing good and healing all who were under the tyranny of the devil because God was with him.
Jesus does these powerful works, these mighty signs, these great miracles, precisely because the Spirit was at work in him making them happen. Now, I've got to pause for a second because this can start to go very left if you don't put some guardrails in place.
So allow me to put a couple of guardrails in place. First of all, when we say that Jesus was empowered with the Holy Spirit, that does not diminish the fact that he was fully God. There are some people who say, I've had Jehovah's Witnesses try to pull this with me.
By the way, I've not actually met a JW since I moved to Medford. I know they're here, I just never met one. But when I lived in London, I used to encounter them almost every weekend. I remember one time they come to the house talking about Jesus.
I was like, yeah, well, what do you think about Jesus? I was like, well, I believe he's fully God and fully man as the Bible teaches. I believe that right now he's at the right hand of the Father and one day he will come back and establish his kingdom.
And the very nice lady who was kind of going back and forth with me was like, how can you say that he was God when the Bible says he was anointed with, remember they don't call him the Holy Spirit, they say Holy Spirit.
He was anointed with Holy Spirit. How can you possibly say then he was God? No, no, no. Saying that he was empowered with the Spirit does not diminish the fact that he was fully God. And the reason it doesn't is Jesus explicitly says that he is God throughout the New Testament.
So the fact that the Spirit empowered the ministry of Jesus doesn't diminish his full deity. Secondly, and this is where I want to deal with something that's very contemporary to our day. Jesus' anointing and empowerment with the Spirit is highly different to our need for the anointing and empowerment of the Spirit.
So yes, Jesus lived life in full communion with his Father and with the Spirit. But the reason why and the magnitude of that filling is completely different to us. I need to say that because for some of you who are familiar with movements like Bethel Church, and if you don't know Bethel Church, you probably know the music.
If you're unfamiliar with them, they teach that Christ's life is the blueprint for all Christians. So all that stuff you see Jesus do in the Bible, all those miracles, all those signs and wonders, every Christian is supposed to do those.
And the reason why, if you read the sort of, well not the founder, but the lead pastor of Bethel Church, Bill Johnson, wrote a book years ago called When Heaven Invades Earth. When he wrote that book he said, one of the reasons why we know this to be true is Jesus comes to earth, he doesn't come as God, he comes as a man who's filled with the Spirit.
Well if Jesus is a man who's filled with the Spirit and he's able to do all these miracles, well you as a Christian, if you're filled with the Spirit, you should be able to do miracles too. And on the surface, it sounds like a logical argument.
Except, again, the Bible presents Jesus' coming as fully God and fully man. Second of all, Jesus comes with a very specific mission. He comes, 1 John 4, 14, the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the world.
If he's come as the Savior of the world, none of us are here as the Savior of the world. I might pause and say some of us may like to act like we are the Savior of the world, but we are not actually the Savior of the world.
Jesus' empowerment and anointing with the Spirit was of greater magnitude than anything we will ever experience in this life. I believe, again, it's the apostles in the book of Acts who say that God gave Jesus the Spirit without measure.
You put all those together and I will simply respond to the folks like Bethel and groups like them who take this view, no, you do not have the power of the Spirit the same way that Jesus did. That being said, 1 Peter 2, 21, it's clear though, for to this you are called because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in his steps.
Yes, you can't be filled with the Spirit the same way Jesus was, but it does point to us, or it does point out to us that Jesus is our example in this. That yes, he is our Savior and he is our Redeemer, and for those who turn from their sin and place faith in him, he will save them.
Yes, he is Savior and Redeemer, but he is also Lord and example. And I do think you can make this point, that if Jesus needed the power of the Spirit, if Jesus needed the anointing of the Spirit, albeit in a different measure and for vastly different purposes, how much more do we need the power of the Spirit?
Think about it, if Christ's life was one of endless submission to and walking in and empowerment by the Spirit, if I can be so bold this morning, what makes us so arrogant to think that we can go through life and not even think about the personal work of the Holy Spirit?
It's very clear from reading the Gospels, and these are just two passages I highlighted because they were really easy ones to get into. But over and over and over again, Jesus makes reference to the fact that his earthly ministry happens because the Spirit was active.
But second of all, consider with me the Holy Spirit in the death of Christ. The Holy Spirit in the death of Christ. Well, if we fast forward to the death of Christ, once again I'm going to argue that the sort of tragic neglect of the Holy Spirit that we have sort of rises to the fore a little bit.
I mean, think about how little the Spirit factors in to our Gospel presentations. How many Gospel presentations have I heard? Like I said, I grew up in church. I turned 30 this year. Well, I turned 30 last year.
I'm 30 years old. I grew up in church. My dad is a pastor, for those of you who don't know. I've heard hundreds of Gospel presentations, good, bad, and ugly. And it surprises me how often the Holy Spirit barely gets mentioned.
We'll talk about the Father. We'll obviously talk about the Son. But at best, the Spirit is often treated like he's a footnote. In our sort of circles where we believe in the doctrines of grace and what have you, we may talk about the fact that the Spirit is the one who grants regeneration, leading to faith.
Okay, we may talk about that. But again, that's a maybe. Just this week I read a bunch of the most good, they're not bad, they're very faithful, Gospel tracts that are out there, and still the Spirit's barely mentioned in connection with the atoning work of Christ.
But turn with me to Hebrews chapter 9. Hebrews 9. Hebrews is my favorite book in the entire New Testament because of its teaching on the new covenant and all the privileges that we have because we are in Christ.
In Hebrews chapters really 7 through 10, the focus is on the priestly work of Christ. The fact that Christ's priesthood is far superior to the priesthood under the old covenant. That where the old covenant had a perpetual offering of sacrifices which couldn't even keep the priest pure.
He had to offer sacrifices and cleansing for himself and then he could offer for others. Christ's sacrifice is once for all and it's perfect. The author of the Hebrews is expounding that in Hebrews chapter 9.
Look with me at verse 11. Hebrews chapter 9 and verse 11. He says, but Christ, having contrasted the ministry of the old covenant, verses 1 through 10, he says, but Christ has appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come.
In the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is not of this creation, he entered the most holy place once for all time not by the blood of calves and goats but by his own blood having obtained eternal redemption.
For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a young cow sprinkling those who are defiled sanctify for the purification of the flesh. Please pay attention to verse 14 with me. How much more will the blood of Christ who through the eternal spirit offered himself without blemish to God.
How much more the blood of Christ who does all that cleanse our consciences from dead works so that we can serve the living God. The author of the Hebrews could have been perfectly fine to just say well how much more the blood of Christ cleanse our consciences from dead works so that we can serve the living God.
He could have just said that and he'd be perfectly accurate, perfectly orthodox, all good. But the spirit of God who inspired the author to the Hebrews inspires him to write that it was through the eternal spirit that Jesus offered himself without blemish to God.
Well this is where it gets a little interesting I think. We talk about the gospel, we talk about the perfect life of Christ, his active obedience, the fact that he fulfills the demands of the law that we were unable to fulfill and thus achieves a perfect righteousness from the day of his birth to the day of his death.
We talk about his passive obedience, passive referring to his passion, his sufferings, the fact that he then goes to the cross and he takes on the punishment for sin, the suffering for sin that we all deserve.
That active and passive obedience couldn't have happened if Jesus was not empowered by the spirit. And the author of the Hebrews makes us to understand that it was through the eternal spirit that he offered himself without blemish to God.
The priests under the old covenant labored and labored and labored to keep themselves pure so that they could offer sacrifices that were acceptable. But Jesus is without blemish precisely because of the work of the Holy Spirit, precisely because the spirit empowered him, because the spirit strengthened him, because he was in communion with the father and the spirit.
Because of that he was able to live the life that we could not live and to die the death that we deserved. And so we should not treat the Holy Spirit like he's a footnote to the good news of the gospel.
Actually he is integrally connected to it. I promise you this morning I wasn't going to be before you long. The spirit was active in the earthly ministry of Jesus. He was active in the death of Jesus.
Finally this morning consider with me that the Holy Spirit was involved in the resurrection of Christ. The Holy Spirit was involved in the resurrection of Christ. The final stop in our little journey through the life of Christ is what I would consider to be the pinnacle of Christ's life.
In theology we talk about Christ's state of humiliation and Christ's state of exaltation. His humiliation basically covers his entire incarnation right through to the point of his death. And his exaltation begins at his resurrection, continues now with his ascension and his session at the father's right hand, and will one day come to culmination when he returns.
But when you read the New Testament, the New Testament helps us to understand that in terms of Christ's earthly life, the pinnacle was his glorious resurrection. And when you read the New Testament it's explicit that Christ's resurrection was empowered by the Holy Spirit.
Turn me to Romans chapter 1. Romans chapter 1 verses 2 through 4. This is the introduction to the letter of the Romans. Paul verse 1 says that he is set apart for the gospel of God and then in verses 2 through 6 he explains what this gospel is.
I want to focus on verses 2 through 4 because he says he sets apart for the gospel of God, verse 2, which he, referring to God, promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures concerning his son Jesus Christ, our Lord, who was a descendant of David according to the flesh and was appointed, here's where it gets.
Now some of your translations will say that he was declared to be the son of God or proclaimed to be the son of God. That word can be translated all of those. I think there's actually a good case that declared or proclaimed might be the better translation.
But either way, the point remains the same. That Jesus was declared, appointed, set forth as the son of God. All the claims that he made of himself, what the father said about him when we talked about this in his baptism, all of that happened and was vindicated by the resurrection.
And the resurrection happened according to the spirit of holiness. That it was the Holy Spirit who was the means by which Jesus was able to rise victorious over the grave and to put, as it were, the seal on the glorious and beautiful work of salvation that he achieved on our behalf.
If we can be so bold, the resurrection was God's amen to the work of Christ and that resurrection, Paul tells us, happened in line with, according to, the spirit of holiness. But Paul has some more to say about this.
Tell me to Romans chapter 8. Romans chapter 8, this will be our last passage this morning. Romans chapter 8, look at verse 11 with me. Romans chapter 8 and verse 11. Paul says, and if the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you, then he who raised Christ from the dead will also bring your mortal bodies to life through his spirit who lives in you.
Now in the interest of being exegetically faithful for a moment, technically Paul isn't directly talking about the Holy Spirit. How do I know that? Because he says, if the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead.
So here his point really is about the father's work. But I would say that indirectly the spirit is being mentioned here. And I think it's because of the parallel that Paul draws in the second half of the verse.
He says, if the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you, then he who raised Christ from the dead will also bring your mortal life, bring your mortal bodies to life, excuse me, through his spirit who lives in you.
So catch the parallel here. The father raised Jesus from the dead by the power of the spirit and Paul's point is that the father will give life to us and he's not talking about the resurrection, he's talking about in the here and now.
That's the whole other sermon which we'll get to when we talk about the spirit's work in the believer. But the father will give life to us and to our mortal bodies through the spirit. So while he's not directly talking about the Holy Spirit's role in the resurrection, he is making the point that the means by which the father was able to do that was through the spirit.
That the spirit's energizing power that was at work in the resurrection is the same energizing power that's available to us in Christ. As I wrap it up this morning, I don't know about you, but as believers we desperately need strength, don't we?
I mean as God's people on mission in this world, we desperately need power, don't we? And I'm not talking about a weird emotionalistic experience when I say that. I mean a day-to-day moment-by-moment strengthening for when things get tough, for when things get challenging, for when it seems there's this one problem after another, one thing after another.
We need the power of God, don't we? I think, why would I devote two messages to the spirit and the ministry of Jesus? Why would I take the time to kind of march through the New Testament and show us the relationship between the spirit and our Savior?
Well, I want to go back to that question that I asked a little earlier in this message. If Jesus, our Lord and Savior, our prophet, priest, and king, our great example, if He was so dependent on the spirit, if He could not have done anything without the power of the spirit, again, why do we often live as though we have no need of Him?
For those of us who know the Lord, my hope is that as I've shown you the ministry of the spirit in the life of Jesus, my hope is that I've given you a sense of the fact that far from just being a footnote to the life of Jesus, He was integral.
And if He was integral to the life of Jesus, who, can we all agree, had infinitely greater advantages than all of us? If He needed the spirit, how much more do we? And that should be an encouragement to us to pray often, to pray regularly for the empowerment and the enlightenment and the strengthening of the spirit, limited as we have it in our mortal bodies.
We should be praying for all of that because we need it. I want to say a word for those of you who don't know Christ, as I closed this morning, the Father anointed Jesus with the spirit for the explicit purpose of Him being our prophet, our priest, and our king.
He's a prophet to deal with our ignorance. He's a priest to deal with our sin. He's a king to deal with our rebellion. All of these things are offered to you in the person of Christ. And whoever comes to Him, John chapter 6, He will never turn away.
So if you don't know Him, come to Him. He was filled and empowered by the spirit for this very purpose. If you don't know Him, come talk to one of us. We'll gladly spend time with you and let you know how you can come to know Him as well.
For now, let's pray together and we'll wrap up our service. Heavenly Father, we thank You that Your Spirit was active in the life of Jesus, that He empowered, He strengthened, He invigorated the life of Christ with such divine power.
We pray that we too would seek the enabling and the empowerment of the Spirit for all of life. I pray for those who don't know You. I pray that that same Spirit would be outworking them, taking this word that they've heard and causing them to reflect upon their need for this great Savior.
Be with us as we conclude our service of worship now. We ask You in Jesus' name for His sake. Amen. Well, beloved, would you stand with me as we conclude?
