The Helper Helps

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

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Welcome to the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church. Kungsvinger is a beacon for the gospel of Jesus Christ and is located on the plains of northwestern

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Minnesota. We proclaim Christ and Him crucified for our sins and salvation by grace through faith alone.

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And now, here's a message from Pastor Chris Roseberg. The Holy Gospel according to St.

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John, the 16th chapter. Jesus said,

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Now I am going to him who sent me. And none of you asks, where are you going? But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart.

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Nevertheless, I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away. For if I do not go away, the helper will not come to you.

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

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

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I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth.

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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.

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He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you, all that the

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Father has is mine, therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

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This is the gospel of the Lord. In the name of Jesus. Amen. Ah, the

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Holy Spirit, that's what we're going to be talking about today. We Lutherans get accused of not believing in the Holy Spirit, it's kind of weird.

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But what we don't believe is that the Holy Spirit was sent for the purpose of making you bark like a dog or cluck like a chicken or roll around on the ground uncontrollably or for you to summon angels from Africa in order to save Trump's failed presidency.

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You see what I'm saying here. That's not what the Holy Spirit is sent for. In fact, you're going to note that what Christ says the

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Helper is going to do, well, there are many Pentecostal churches who say that this is not the proper work of the

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Holy Spirit. They say if you're going to get a message from God, God's going to speak directly to you, whisper things into your heart, he's going to build you up, not tear you down, he's not going to make you feel bad, he's going to make you feel good.

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Right? The Holy Spirit is like a good sugar rush. Right? But I apologize.

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Today, rather than giving you sugar, we're going to apply a little bit of salt. I have to be sparingly with the salt nowadays.

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Hypertension, you know. So, all of that being said, Jesus says in our Gospel text, I'm going to him who sent me, none of you asked me where you're going, but because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart.

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And indeed, can you imagine hanging out with Jesus for three years? How amazing that had to have been.

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And then, they're at the end of this, because Christ is going to go to the cross. He's going to die.

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He's going to rise again. He's going to then ascend to heaven, and he still has work to do on our behalf in heaven.

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It says, but because I have said these things, sorrow has filled your heart. Nevertheless, I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go, for if I do not go away, the helper, the parakletos in Greek, he will not come to you, but if I go,

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I will send him to you. And when he comes, pay attention, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment, concerning sin, because they do not believe in me.

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And here's where Jesus puts his finger on the problem. If we were to think of it, we talk about root, we talk about fruit.

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When we talk about sin, sin is the fruit. What's the root? Unbelief.

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Now, a lot of people say, well, our problem is that we don't obey. The reason why you don't obey is because you don't believe.

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And so, that's the problem that Christ is addressing. And so, the Holy Spirit is going to convict.

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He's going to make you feel bad. He's going to convict you and say, you're guilty.

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You are guilty of not believing. You are guilty of disobeying. You are a sinner in need of a savior.

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And then, what's the Holy Spirit going to do? Well, he's going to placard and glorify Christ by pointing you to his saving office.

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Jesus, in putting his finger on the actual problem, is saying the same thing as other passages of Scripture.

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Hebrews 11, 6 says, Without faith, it is impossible to please God. For whoever would draw near to him must believe that he exists, and he rewards those who seek him.

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Without faith, it's impossible to please God. So, you can try all you want. You can be as good as you want to be.

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Try it as hard as you want. It's going to amount to nothing. Because without faith, without belief, it's impossible to please

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God. It's not difficult. It's not challenging. It's not hard. It's impossible.

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John says it this way in John 3, 36. Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life.

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Whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.

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You see, this is what the Holy Spirit is going to convict us of, is all the different ways in which we do not believe

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God. We do not trust Christ. We trust ourselves. We trust the world.

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We trust money. We trust politicians, which I don't understand. That's a very foolish thing to do. Christ says this,

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God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.

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God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

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Whoever believes in him is not condemned. Are you saying that if somebody believes that Jesus is their

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Messiah and the Savior, and they're in prison for murdering somebody, that they can be forgiven? Yeah.

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That's exactly what I'm saying. I'm also saying this. Whoever would include Hitler.

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Whoever would also include Calvinists, but don't let them know that. If you understand what

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I'm saying. Whoever believes in him is not condemned.

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Whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only

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Son of God. So the Holy Spirit is going to convict us of sin, righteousness, judgment, because we do not believe.

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Because he who has not believed in the name of the only Son of God is condemned already. This is the judgment.

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Light has come into the world, Jesus says. People, they love darkness rather than light, and that includes you and me.

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We all love darkness. Isn't that just terrible about us? It's true. So rather than the light, because our works are evil.

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Their works are evil. But everyone who does wicked things, hates the light, does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.

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But now listen to this, verse 21. Whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.

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And here's where we see the connection with our Old Testament text. And our Old Testament text is glorious.

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Note here, Isaiah says, You will say in that day, I will give thanks to you,

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O Yahweh, for though you were angry with me, your anger turned away, so that you might comfort me.

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Behold, God is my salvation. God is.

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And that's the point. Christ has saved us. He has borne your sin in his body on the cross, languished in the wrath of God in your place as your substitute, so that you can be clothed in the righteousness of Christ, so that you can be forgiven and pardoned, and God's wrath would be turned away, not because of your deeds, not because of your piety, but because of Christ.

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Christ has become our salvation. And because of this, Isaiah says, I will trust and I will not be afraid.

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And we Christians, because of what Christ has done, we have that confidence that we can approach the throne of grace and do not need to fear the wrath of God, because Christ has taken that for us, so that we can be forgiven.

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For the Lord God is my strength and he is my song. God has become my salvation and yours.

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So that what may be seen, Christ says, so that whatever that may be clearly seen, that his works have been carried out in God.

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And you'll note here, Christ saying that he's going to send us a helper is an important thing, because we need the helper.

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You do not have the strength necessary to fight your own sinful flesh, the temptations of the devil, the world as well.

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You don't have it in you. And if you remember last week, you had to suffer through that sermon last week, because the sermon last week was all about Christ promises us what?

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Suffering. Christ promises us difficulty, sorrow, now joy when he returns.

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And then you'll note, every one of God's children, Hebrews says, he scourges them.

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And this is not a fun experience. Being convicted of sins makes you feel bad about yourself, rightly so.

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Enduring the suffering and the cross that God lays on us is difficult. It's hard.

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You don't have the strength to do it. And if you were to somehow look at the world around you and compare yourself in your suffering, in your obscurity, in the difficulties and the trials that you're going through, and your lack of poverty, any millionaires here?

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Nope, no, not a one, right? In your lack of poverty, and you can then look at the pagan world.

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Have you noticed that pagans could do really well financially? If you don't believe me, just look at those

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Russian oligarchs. They're not exactly known to be the most pious fellows. But man, have you seen their yachts that the governments are trying to seize?

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Those things are bigger than Noah's Ark. How is it that these evil people have such wealth?

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It's easy for us to look at them and go, They're blessed. I'm cursed.

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What's the point of believing in God? It doesn't seem to have any earthly advantage for me.

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That's what it feels like. And the helper, the paraclete, helps us to bear the fruit of the

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Spirit and to bear up and to not think falsely like this. People who are billionaires running around in yachts are not blessed by God any more than people who lived somewhere comfortably in the middle class or even in the high end of the lower class are somehow cursed by God.

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That's not the case. And so in this regard, I found the

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Psalm of Asaph, which is Psalm 73, to be quite helpful in this regard. Because here in this psalm,

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Asaph kind of speaks experientially in a very Hebrew mindset, if you would, about how

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God has helped him in the midst of the difficulties that he went through as a believer in Yahweh.

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Asaph writes in Psalm 73, Truly God is good to Israel and to those who are pure in heart.

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And by the way, that's you. That's me. God has replaced our heart of stone with a heart of flesh.

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Christ has circumcised our hearts in the waters of baptism. We are reckoned righteous for the sake of Christ.

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So Asaph continues, But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled, my steps had nearly slipped.

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Why? Because I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. For they had no pangs until death.

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Their bodies are fat and sleek. They are not in trouble as others are.

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They are not stricken like the rest of mankind. Therefore, pride is their necklace.

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Violence covers them as a garment. Their eyes swell out through fatness.

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Their hearts overflow with follies. They scoff and they speak with malice. Loftily they threaten oppression.

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They set their mouths against the heavens and their tongues stretch through the earth. Therefore, his people turn back to them and find no fault in them.

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It's scary when you think about it. Let me give you a modern day example. Have you guys seen any of the documentaries regarding Jeffrey Epstein?

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Okay, terrifying on so many levels. But the one thing I found to be the most terrifying is that this guy, when he was first charged with trafficking young, underaged women, he was actually able to work a deal out with the government and he would spend the night in a prison.

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He did that for a long period of time but spent his day doing what he normally does. And in the midst of all of that, when you see when he's on trial, the video evidence of what he said when he was asked, there was a smugness to him that was satanic.

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This is a guy who had wealth and power, hobnob with the wealthy, the powerful, well, the bright and shiny among the human race, right?

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They all went to visit him on his island. We won't talk about what happened there, right?

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But all of that being said, how quickly did all of that come? How many days was he in prison before he committed suicide?

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If he committed suicide, right? Suicide, right? How do you think he died?

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Did he die well? You see, it's easy for us to look at the wealthy and the powerful and think that somehow they're blessed, but they're not.

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Was Epstein blessed? Not even close. The whole time he was cursed.

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And in his smugness and his arrogance, he had no fear of God. And so Asaph continues.

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So they say, how can God know? Is there knowledge in the Most High? Behold, these are the wicked.

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Always at ease, they increase in riches. All in vain

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I have kept my heart clean, Asaph says, and I washed my hands in innocence.

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What's the point? What's the point of being a Christian, obeying God's commands? There doesn't seem to be any earthly benefit to it.

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There's not supposed to be in this life. And without the work of the

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Holy Spirit, we can easily get tripped up with this mentality. For all the day long,

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Asaph says, I have been stricken and rebuked every morning.

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Ah, God scourges all of his sons. If I had said

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I will speak thus, I would have betrayed the generation of your children. But when I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task, until I went into the sanctuary of God, and then

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I discerned their end. You see, he goes to the sanctuary of God, and who is it that straightens

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Asaph out? God does. How? Through his word. Through the

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Holy Spirit, the living, active word of God opens up his eyes to see the truth, discern their end.

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It says, truly you set them in slippery places, and you make them to fall to ruin. How they are destroyed in just a moment, swept away utterly by terrors.

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Like a dream when one awakes, O Lord, when you rouse yourself, you despise them as phantoms.

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When my soul was embittered, when I was pricked in heart, when I was brutish and ignorant, I was like a beast towards you,

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God. Nevertheless, I am continually with you, and you hold my right hand.

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You guide me with your counsel, and afterwards you will receive me to glory.

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This is the work of the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit who holds our hands, guides us into truth, who strengthens us and helps us to have the strength to mortify our sinful flesh and its passions, and even these false thoughts that the strikings of God, the scourgings that we receive are somehow a curse rather than his love.

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God's word teaches us. The Holy Spirit guides us, counsels us, and after all of this work of the

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Holy Spirit, we, like Asaph, will be received into God's glory. Whom have

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I in you but heaven, Lord? And here's where Asaph touches the point, and this is the bit.

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The most important thing missing in your life, I'm going to say this, it is not power, it is not wealth.

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The most important thing missing in your life isn't even the love of somebody of the opposite sex.

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The most important thing in your life is Christ.

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He is your greatest need. Absolutely your greatest need.

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And this is why the Holy Spirit must convict us of our unbelief, because we don't believe that.

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We think that the greatest need that we have has something to do with what this earth offers.

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Is it any wonder then that when God scourges us, He takes those things from us, so that the only thing we have left is

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Him. So Asaph puts his finger on it.

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Whom have I in heaven but you? There is nothing on earth I desire,

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Lord, beside you. My flesh and my heart, they may fail.

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And that's an understatement. I always complain about it. Every week I look worse. My flesh and my heart, they're failing.

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But God is the strength of my heart. He is my portion forever. For behold, those who are far from you, they will perish.

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And you put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you. But for me, it is good to be near God.

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I have made Yahweh Elohim my refuge, so that I may tell of all of your works.

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We need the Holy Spirit to help us to see this, to convict us of our unbelief, so that we may recognize that Christ is our salvation, that we need nothing except for Him.

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And then Christ continues an important part. And I would note, anybody who's a Pentecostal needs to take note here.

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Jesus says that when the Holy Spirit comes, He refers to Him as the Spirit of truth. The Holy Spirit is not a trafficker in lies.

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The Holy Spirit is not, well, how shall I say it? He's not aloof when it comes to people who are speaking lies.

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If you remember the second commandment, second commandment, you shall not take the name of the

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Lord your God in vain. I could ask Brenda, see if she has it memorized. What does it mean, right?

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But I won't put her on the spot, right? She's one of my catechumens.

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So, second commandment, you shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain. What does this mean? That we should fear and love

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God so that we do not curse, swear, use satanic arts, lie or deceive by His name, but call upon it in every trouble, pray, praise and give thanks.

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So when people in the name of the Holy Spirit, in the name of having the gifts of the Spirit, in the name of the continuing gifts of the

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Spirit, get up and they twist God's word, mangle it, preach themselves and utterly take out

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Christ from the biblical texts in order to glorify them, their pursuit of signs and wonders and stuff like this, they are traffickers of lies.

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Lies are not from the Holy Spirit. They are from the devil. So when the Spirit of truth comes,

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Christ says He's going to guide you into all truth. He doesn't guide us into lies. For He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever

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He hears, He will speak, and then He will declare to you the things that are to come. And here's the next bit.

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He will glorify me. The Holy Spirit convicts us of our sin and our unbelief.

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He comes to guide us into truth, and He glorifies Christ. I remember all the way back in my days at Concordia University, I had a professor who talked about the

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Holy Spirit. He's the PR guy for Jesus. This is the way he described Him. And so he would say, if you were to see the

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Holy Spirit and say, hey, Holy Spirit, how's it going? First thing the Holy Spirit would say, have I told you about Jesus?

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Let me tell you about Jesus. Have you heard what Jesus has done for you? Man, Jesus is the bee's knees. He's the

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Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. You need some Jesus. He'd be worse than that ShamWow guy.

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Remember that guy? Jesus, wow. That's what the

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Holy Spirit is into. The Holy Spirit is not about glorifying Himself. He's pointing us to Christ.

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He'll take what is mine. He will declare it to you. This is what the Holy Spirit is about.

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But we live in a day when people in the name of the Holy Spirit speak lies and they are constantly trying to glorify

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Holy Spirit, who's interested in glorifying Christ. They've got things backwards, upside down, and inside out.

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And so we'll note here, this truth aspect is not something that we can just wink at and think, well, it's not that big a deal.

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It is everything. John puts it this way in 1 John. He says, children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that Antichrist is coming, so now many

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Antichrists have come. And here's where we've got to point this out. When people sit there and go, well, what

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John was referring to is political leaders in the Roman system.

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That's not the totality of it. He is talking about here people who are

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Antichrists in the church. The big one's coming, and there's a lot of little ones along the way, and they were already present in the church at the time of John.

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Many Antichrists have come, therefore we know that this is the last hour. By the way, John wrote this epistle against the

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Gnostics. And by the way, the Gnostics are alive and well. They never went away.

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They've been with us the whole time, hiding in plain sight. So know this is the last hour.

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They went out from us. They were not of us. If they had been of us, they would have continued with us, but they went out so that it might become plain that they are not of us.

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But you have been anointed by the Holy One. What's John referring to here? Ah, he's talking to Christians.

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Anointed by the Holy One? It might be the Holy Spirit. Is that not what happened to you in the waters of baptism?

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Peter says, repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the

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Holy Spirit. When you were baptized, you, like Christ, were anointed. God, the

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Holy Spirit, descended on you, made his temple inside of you. You have been anointed by the

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Holy One. And then he says this, y 'all have gnosis. Y 'all have knowledge.

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He's saying that to punk the Gnostics who talk about the secret knowledge. John says, you already got it.

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You don't need to be initiated into this secret Gnostic society stuff. So I write to you, not because you do not know the truth, but because you know it, and because no lie is of the truth.

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I don't want to hear somebody say, well, that prophetess over there, she's really doing a lot of good work.

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No, she's not. She's a false prophetess. No lie is of the truth. No lie is of the truth.

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She couldn't handle a biblical text correctly if I wrote her sermon for it, and all she had to do was read it out.

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No lie is of the truth. Who is the liar, he says? It's the one who denies that Jesus is the

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Christ. This is the Antichrist. He who denies the Father and the Son. No one who denies the

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Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also. So let what you have heard from the beginning abide in you.

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And listen to those words again. This is a full sentence. Let what you heard from the beginning abide in you.

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Let me put it on a timeline. Christ, 33 AD, dies, rises again from the dead, ascends into heaven, and then that Pentecost, the

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Holy Spirit is sent by the Father and the Son. Yeah, both of them sent them. Let the Orthodox know that.

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Just saying. He sends the Holy Spirit, and then decades later, when

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John writes his epistle, in the face of the Gnostic heresy, which was wreaking havoc in Ephesus and other places.

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Wreaking havoc. What does he point people to? The things that were spoken and preached at the beginning.

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We do not need any innovations when it comes to Christian doctrine. None whatsoever.

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John says, he says, let what you heard from the beginning abide in you.

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There is not Christianity 2 .0. There is no innovation when it comes to doctrine.

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If a doctrine is new, it is not true. Straight up.

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And John, here, in the living, active, Holy Spirit -inspired epistle, tells us that we are to listen to what was preached from the beginning, and you know the only place you can find that?

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In the Bible. When the Holy Spirit comes, the

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Spirit of truth, He will guide you into all truth. And all truth was preached at the very beginning of Christianity.

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No innovations necessary. So if what you heard from the beginning abides in you,

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John says, then you too will abide in the Son and in the Father. And this is the promise that He has made to us.

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The promise He has made to us is eternal life. I got a little worked up, but that's what happens sometimes, right?

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But all of that being said, again, Christ tells us that the

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Holy Spirit, it is to our advantage that He has sent Him. And we'll note that the real work of the

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Holy Spirit is not some appendage to Christianity, it's at the very heart of Christianity.

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It is part of His promise. The Holy Spirit given by God the Father and the

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Son, who convicts us of our sin, leads us into truth. He's the one who speaks the truth and glorifies

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Christ. He is a gift from the Father and the

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Son, and a gift that we dare not overlook. This is why

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Augustine taught us all those centuries ago that we as Christians should pray to the

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Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit, Your commandments command that I do this thing and not do that thing, but in and of myself

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I do not have the strength to mortify my sinful flesh and to obey Your commands, so I ask

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You humbly that You would give me that strength. And He does. Holy Spirit, it is really easy for me to despise the cross that God has given me.

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It is hard for me to deny myself. It is easy for me to look enviously at the, well, the wealth and the power and the follies of the rich and the wealthy and the powerful and those who do not believe, and to despise the scourgings that I receive from my

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Father in Heaven. Please help me to bear up under them and to see the truth, and see that what is happening to me is out of God's great love, not because of a curse.

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This is what the Holy Spirit does in us. And this calls us to repent of ignoring the

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Holy Spirit, not believing Christ, not believing the Word regarding the role of the Holy Spirit, or worse, even believing the new innovative doctrines that are churning out like new

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Kias from that factory in Korea. Just new heresy, new heresy, new heresy, they're coming off the factory line like you wouldn't believe.

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And trust that Christ has done this all. But you'll note then, the work of the

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Holy Spirit in helping us to recognize that God is our salvation, that Christ has bled and died even for these infractions of His law.

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For believing falsely, for breaking the first and the second commandment, that God has become our salvation.

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Christ has bled and died for this. And then at the end of the work of the Holy Spirit in this life, we will, as Isaiah says, with joy draw water from the wells of salvation.

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And we will say in that day, give thanks to Yahweh, call upon His name, make known His deeds among the peoples, proclaim that His name is exalted.

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Sing praises to Yahweh, for He has done gloriously. Let this be made known in all the earth.

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Shout and sing for joy, O inhabitant of Zion, for great in your midst is the

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Holy One of Israel. And great in our midst, indeed, is the Holy One of Israel. Because God, the

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Holy Spirit, through the word of Scripture has assured us that where two or more are gathered, Christ is truly present.

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He is present here today to feed us His body and blood, to forgive us of our sins, to strengthen us through His word, and all of this because the

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Holy Spirit is glorifying Christ now even in the preaching of His word. Indeed, great in the midst of us right now is the

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Holy One of Israel. In the name of Jesus, amen. If you would like to support the teaching ministry of Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, you can do so by sending a tax -free donation to Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, 15950 470th

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Avenue NW, Oslo, MN 56744 And again that address is

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Kungsvinger Lutheran Church, 15950 470th

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Avenue NW, Oslo, MN 56744 We thank you for your support.

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