Spiritual Blessing Of God
- Details
- Sunday Morning Service
- Jeremy Richards
- Copalis Community Church
- 25 August 2024
- 2 Corinthians 13:14
- John 14:15-19
- John 16:5-9
Directing the movements of butterflies and birds as they make their thousands of mile journeys. He is directing spiders. He's directing everything. And you and I are part of a group of people called the church. And we are, like Jason said, also to be moved.
Though we're independent, though we exist independently, we come together, collectively, controlled by his spirit, working in our lives where we accomplish things, just like Paul says, that sometimes we are his hands or his feet or different parts of his body, that we work together to accomplish his will. Well, we're going to second Corinthians, and we are looking at the blessing of God upon his church. Those individuals who have received his spirit are members of the body of Christ, have the opportunity to receive a spiritual blessing from him. We see that in Ephesians and first Peter. This blessing is for those who are found in Christ.
It says in verse one, chapter three of Ephesians, blessed Beveridgesthe, the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, that this place of blessing that God wants to pour out on believers is only found in the person of Christ. Those who sit with him and are washed by his blood have a heavenly inheritance that is spiritual. This is different from the physical blessing that you and I oftentimes desire and receive, a spiritual blessing that is made available through that work of Jesus Christ to us. I would just like to say before we start that his spiritual blessing is at times at odds with that blessing that you and I hunger for. It is not always what you anticipate, the thing that you want to happen, or the needs that you feel that you have, though important and real, are not necessarily that blessing which God wants to pour out in you.
But if we want to be spiritually satisfied, and I believe that you and I, as individuals being created in God's image and given a spiritual nature, have no ability to be satisfied with physical things, though we may like physical things. You might like to eat, you may like to take Sunday naps. I'm not saying that's not a part your nature, but to be spiritually satisfied, it takes a spiritual blessing to be able to satisfy you. You cannot be content with physical things when you find yourself pining away because you lack something physically, you're looking in the wrong place. So we're going to look and finish this verse in chapter 13, verse 14 about the way in which God blesses us.
We see it was a threefold work. We see that Jesus Christ, in his position of blessing in chapter 13, verse 14, of two corinthians, that his way in which he blesses us spiritually is through his grace. He is that arresting work which pursues and arrests sinners on their way to destruction. He wants and his goal and blessing, even though these individuals walk contrary to him, away from him. He is the one that finds the prodigal son in his worst state.
He looks for them, he pursues them, he chases them, and he arrests them there. And he gives them a heart to turn and look towards God. That is a beautiful work that he does. I pray that he has found you and I there. The second one we see is the love of God.
And we see the Father's love through this, that he decides out of his own nature to show his love to us because of the rich mercy that he has. The last one we're going to look at today is the way in which the Holy Spirit blesses us. It says in chapter 13, verse 14, the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen. Let's pray.
Oh, Father, Lord, we do come in this time. Lord, desire us of that work that you want to do in us. Father, forgive us for being a physical people focused on physical blessings. Lord, I pray you just help us to recognize in this short time that desire in us for this spiritual blessing. We ask in Jesus name.
Amen.
I think sometimes we're a little bit concerned talking about the Holy Spirit. And there's different things that the Holy Spirit does. There's gifts, there's offices. But here I'm going to go to John and more. Just look about the nature of the Holy Spirit.
Why his he to come back. In Ephesians it says, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen. The way in which the Holy Spirit, as a member of the Trinity, wants to bless us is that he might commune with us. He is described as our comforter.
We are given that spirit, according to romans, that by which we cry out, Abba. Father Jesus says in chapter 16 of John that in this world you will have tribulation, but do not be overcome. My peace I leave with you. I'm not saying this completely right. I have overcome the world.
You and I have been given a part of walking in a world that is essentially at odds with the teaching of Jesus Christ. It is not a surprise to Jesus. Jesus says, hey, look, if they persecuted me, they're going to persecute you. Jesus said that those who. Excuse me, Paul said that those who desire to live righteous in Jesus Christ will suffer persecution.
Here we're given a forward view of what's going to happen to us. But the promise, the blessing of God on our lives through the Holy Spirit, is that while we walk on the road filled with persecution, while the difficulties of this life, if we choose to enter the narrow gate, are hard, while the upward path is a difficult one to walk on, we are given the promise that if we walk there, there will be someone to comfort us.
What this is trying to say is there is a difficult and hard walk that you and I are going to walk on if we follow Jesus Christ. But we are given the promise of a comforter. As I look at this, we are given two options. When Jesus says that following him, that we should count the cost, because the building of a spiritual house is difficult. Because against that house, there will be individuals that want to destroy that work, that because this is going to be a hard path, and that he will give us a comforter to be with us on the path, he is not saying that the other path doesn't have difficulties.
He's not saying that the broad gate that everyone walks on is going to be smooth forever. He is definitely saying that to follow Jesus Christ, you should be prepared to take up your cross and walk after him. And if you take up the rock cross, he is going to be there to carry your yoke with you. What he is not saying is there will not be a burden if you take the Broadway. Everyone hear what I'm saying.
What I am trying to communicate is that if you follow Jesus Christ, you should be prepared to encounter difficulty. But if you're willing to walk with Jesus, there is a comforter to walk with you and to carry the burden for you. What I am not saying is that you choose to reject Jesus Christ and walk on a Broadway is that there will be no difficulty. What I'm trying to say that if you choose and reject Jesus Christ, you just have no comforter in your tribulation. In the trials that you will experience, they may be delayed and further off than you can see, but it means that when you experience them, you will have no one to share your yoke with you.
It's a hard enough thing to walk this life and the trials that we encounter, it's even harder to walk them without someone who is your friend.
This life is painful. And though you may just take the easy road, like something being flushed down the toilet, it doesn't mean that it's easy in the long run. It only means that if we don't have the comforter. We're not comforted in it. If to walk alone, he can pull you out of the ditch.
But if you walk by yourself, who can help you? So we're going to look at the Holy Spirit. And I know there's a lot of confusion regarding this, and we tend to sometimes want a goosebump feeling. And we think the Holy Spirit's job is to make the hair rise up on our skin or give us an euphoria that causes us to raise our hands or something of this nature. And I'm not trying to deny that sometimes that the Holy Spirit does give us a pleasing feeling.
But it's more important than seeking that thing which the world seeks. It's more important for us to look at scripture and say, okay, what was the Holy Spirit given to us for? And to focus on that thing rather than a physical pleasure that we may experience when the Holy Spirit we feel is with us. So we're going to go to chapter 14 of John.
It says, if you love me, in chapter 14, verse 15 of John, chapter 14, verse 15, we'll be here probably for a bit. It says, if you love me, keep my commandments, and I will pray the Father, and he will give you another helper, that he may abide with you forever. The spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. I will not leave you orphans.
I will come to you here. Jesus, in anticipation of his final work and victory during his three years of ministry on the earth, is anticipating his departure. He has physically walked with individuals for three years. That benefit that he was able to bring to them, to be their master and their teacher and their guide, was a physical work that he was able to bring to them. Jesus Christ, being fully God and fully man at the same time, laid down all the tools or instruments of the Godhead and accepted that form of physical being that you and I possess.
He laid down, though the tools of the Godhead were constantly at his disposable, absolutely available to him at every moment. He chose to lay those tools down for his time on earth. That means that type of character that he possessed eternally was laid down for a moment. So all that he could affect on the lives of those around him was the same influence that you and I, under the complete control of the Holy Holy Spirit, could also do. Here we see that he was only available to these individuals in his flesh.
He was limited in his flesh by what he could do. Okay, so he is now saying here the disciples who had been under his direction receiving things from him, now he's going to tell them that there is going to be something he is going to leave with them. All right, verse 19. A little while longer and the world will see me no more. But you will see me because I live.
You will live also. This work, because of Jesus resurrection, there is still going to be life after Jesus Christ. Him personally, in the flesh is gone.
Okay, we're going to switch now to chapter 16, verse 516. Saint John 16 five.
Okay, 16 five. But now I go away to him who sent me. And none of you ask me, where are you going? But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart. 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. But if I depart, I will send him to you. Here we're given the promise of Jesus Christ that even this benefit that he offered to these physical disciples at that time, that there was going to be a benefit above and beyond what jesus could do, that the Holy Spirit would do in their lives. This holy spirit was going to come.
This comforting work is going to be available to you and I as a result of Jesus's victory on the cross and his sending his spirit to us. So that's going to do a work, this blessing that's going to come upon us. Here we go in verse eight. And when he has come, he will convict the world of sin and of righteousness and of judgment. So when the Holy Spirit comes, he's going to have a threefold work of ministry which he wants to accomplish in the lives of people.
This work is going to be of such a benefit that Jesus says it's going to be even more than he could do physically, right? This is going to be his spirit. As Jesus was limited physically to his physical body, the Holy Spirit is not going to have the same limitations, but he's going to have a threefold work. Now, we're going to just look into and delve into that threefold work there in verse nine of sin, because they do not believe in me of righteousness, because I go to my father and you see me no more of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged. I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.
So we see the Holy Spirit is going to pick up this work that Jesus started here on earth with the disciples and the individuals. He have impact worth and it was going to continue that work. The first part of it is of sin, because they do not believe in me. Jesus, when he was on the earth, was an individual preaching repentance towards God. He said, repent for the kingdom of God is at hand.
He was a preacher. In showing people what sin is, we see. Over and over, people came to him and said, have mercy on me, a sinner. They came to him and saying, this is who I am. They recognized something in his life that convicted them of sin.
We are like individuals drowning in a sea, cumbered by weight. If you remember, in D day, there were in some places, landing craft filled with soldiers. And these soldiers were fully drecked out in their gear, backpacks, all their stuff, boots. And their goal, upon landing upon the beaches of France, was to storm that beachhead and accomplish a victory for the allies in this great battle. Right?
But some of the captains or the people in charge of these landing craft were either confused or misled. And they encouraged or told those soldiers to leave their landing craft before they were on the beach.
And so they were obedient to that call. And as that front went down, they went over the edge, only to find there was no solid ground underneath them. And how many of them drowned. We sometimes lose the individual pain of a great event like D day, but you can imagine an individual soldier in ten or 12ft of water with their backpack and their boots and their rifles and their gear, struggling to just gain one more breath of air. We are like those individuals burdened with a load of sin, drowning.
We are condemned already because of our sins. And Jesus came to show us what sin is. He came to communicate. But when the Holy Spirit comes, he is going to continue that work which Jesus started. He is going to convict the world of sin.
We're going to come back to all of these in the end. The second thing that the Holy Spirit is going to do is he's going to convict the world of righteousness. Jesus Christ came to a select group of people, to a specific spot on earth, and he began to show them what real righteousness was. Up till that point, people thought that a very clever and clean looking people, a very ornate and fancy looking people, a very religious people with loud prayers and purposeful sacrifice, were the righteous people. But Jesus began to teach and tell them.
He said, you have heard that. It was said to those of old, you used to think that a righteousness looked this way, but I am going to teach you that that is not a righteousness before God. And he began to show them what real righteousness is. The Holy Spirit is going to continue that work of showing a true righteousness. Because Jesus goes to the father.
He is going to continue that work of showing righteousness. What real righteousness? Righteousness of the heart, because he is going to the father and they will see him no more. He is going to, in verse eleven, convict the world of judgment because the ruler of this world is judged. While Jesus walked on the earth, he was absolutely clear that he was that strong Mandev coming to wrest the control of the strong man away from him.
He was going to come into his house, though guarded, and take that work back from the devil. He is going to destroy the work of the devil. So all of these things the Holy Spirit is going to do.
Sometimes I think and I look, and maybe you have the same feeling. And I'm just like, like Elisha. And I take my, my cloak and I hit the water and I'm just like, where is the God of Elijah?
If this is the Holy Spirit's work, I'm just like, Holy Spirit, where are you? Has he disappeared? Has he shrunk back in secret? Has he afraid of the confrontation that he might experience in our culture? No.
The Holy Spirit is active and ready and willing to work. Let's continue. Then we'll go back to those verses. It says in verse twelve, I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them. Now, however, when he, the spirit of truth, has come, he will guide you into all truth, for he will not speak on his own authority.
But whatever he hears, he will speak and he will tell you things to come. He will glorify me, for he will take of what is mine and declare it to you. All things that the father has are mine. Therefore, I said, he will take of mine. Declare it to you.
We see here that the Holy Spirit's work is a work that he is doing in the lives of believers. That work. If you and I sometimes shake our head and kind of scream and are perplexed, what is God doing? Doesn't he have control of this situation? Doesn't he recognize what's happening on earth?
The Holy Spirit's work is one that he wants to do through you and I. And so I would like to look back at these things just real quickly to close that work which the Holy Spirit is desirous of doing in the world. He is desirous of accomplishing that work through you and I. How much we allow the Holy Spirit to work in our lives is not expressed in our euphoria or how much we raise our hands or our spirituality, our loud prayers. It is expressed in these three things.
Verse nine, sin, because they do not believe in me. How much we allow the Holy Spirit to work in us and through us is indicated by our conviction of sin in our own hearts. Whether or not we recognize sin is the degree in which the Holy Spirit works through us. It's interesting. I don't know if anyone uses bad language around you.
Anyone? Does that happen? I find myself wondering sometimes. So we were unloading hay yesterday, and a lady was using her excavator to unload the bales off the trailer, and she made a mistake, and it didn't work out the way she intended to. And she just like, right?
And then she looks at me and she's like, sorry. I was like, why do people do that to me? Why? Why at the lumber store do they look at me and apologize? Don't I buy materials just like anyone else?
My money is green. Why did they apologize to me? The truth is, how much has the Holy Spirit really convicted us of sin? The amount or the degree in which the Holy Spirit has convicted us of sin is the degree in which the Holy Spirit works through your life to convict other people of sin. The amount or the degree that we have become soft on sin, allowed sin to come in, taken part of the things of sin will be the amount that the Holy Spirit is able to use you to convict your neighbor of sin.
The degree in which we enable the Holy Spirit to convict us of sin is the same degree in which the Holy Spirit is able to use us to convict others of sin. Some people in this congregation have wanted the work of the Holy Spirit in their life. The way to start is for God's graceful and kind hand, his loving presence, to come into our hearts and say, Lord, there might still be a wicked way in me. There's a chance. Now, I'm not trying to assume something in your life, right?
I'm not just trying to play the prophet here, but there might be a small opportunity from my perspective, if I'm still a piece of, then there's a chance that God hasn't absolutely finished in you either. Right? There's just a chance that he still could find a crevice, left, right his way, in which he does. It is beautiful. I'm not saying it doesn't hurt.
I'm just saying the final outcome is so beautiful. I blew up at my son the last Sunday, I think, and he started telling me something. And I'm like, jesus Richards, don't say that. And you know what my son said? If you're going to talk to me like that, I'm not even going to talk to you.
I'm just like, oh, God, I was late to church because I was on my face.
And he was right. He was absolutely right. But it hurt so bad. My righteousness was so beautiful to me and it hurts so bad to give it up. But do you know what?
Thank God for my wife, my son. I apologize. I asked him for. He was doing what's wrong. He knew it.
But I was doing what's wrong and I asked him for forgiveness. I tell you what, it hurts so bad to ask for forgiveness. But the fruit of that work, which the Holy Spirit did in my heart and his, leaves me praising God. Today I am so thankful that today I'm not as big a brute as I was last Sunday. The conviction of sin is a work which the Holy Spirit does in our life.
Verse ten, it says of righteousness, because I go to my father and you see me no more. Jesus's life was one of absolute clarity. He showed people clearly what real righteousness is. People had a full understanding that it wasn't a priestly or a physical righteousness that was important to God. You and I now are left without the physical Jesus, that now the Holy Spirit is active doing that work, trying to show the world what real righteousness is and the vessels that he has to do it are you and I.
But you and I are tainted with a righteousness that looks like the Pharisees. When you pray, do not be like the Pharisees, for they love to pray. Standing on the street corner, it says, I tell you the truth, they have their reward, that reward which they wanted from a spiritual right, a physical righteousness. They got it. But if we want to show a real righteousness, has to be one of the heart the world is looking for a real righteousness demonstrated through Christ's work.
In our hearts. We are that individual to show that it is not just a religious work that is being accomplished in our heart, but a one that is from the heart, that demonstrates to others that there is a righteousness that is not accessible by the works of people's hands, but only through Jesus Christ. The last one we're going to look at is of judgment, because the world, the ruler of this world, is judged. Jesus Christ came to show that the kingdom, the freedom of Satan, had come to an abrupt end through his work. And now the Holy Spirit has come to continue that work, to show that Satan's kingdom has been destroyed.
If you remember, Abijah, right? Abijah was the son of David. This is after, I believe, his son, Absalom, name's right, had presumed to be king, and that was dealt with. But then Adonijah also, when David was sick and on his bed, Adonijah presumed to be king. And he gathered people together to him, to a big party.
He invited one of the priests. He invited Joab, the leader of the army, and they were having this party, right? And the goal of this party is to eat and drink and show favor to people. And then at the right moment, they're going to stand up and say, long live KINg Adonijah. Right?
And the impetus from that moment is going to spread from that position to all of Israel. And Adonijah is going to establish himself on the throne of Israel instead of David, his father, who is sick and dying. This is the moment he's counseled. He is ready. We're going to do this.
But at the same moment, back in the capital, someone gets word of it and they tell Bathsheba and Nathan the prophet. And so they come up with this scheme to go into David and say, david, did you really say that Adonijah is going to be kingdom? And then Bathsheba would come and say, didn't you say that Solomon would become king? And then we're going to bring this issue to David. David hears about it, the scheme works, or the interaction works, and David says, you know, no, take Solomon.
Put him on my own donkey, put my crown on his head. Take the paraphytes and the Cherethites, the royal troops, send them with him. And then we're going to go to this place and anoint Solomon king of Israel. When they do this, the sound is heard in Adonijah's party. They say it sounds like the earth is splitting.
The sound was so great. Right before that moment, there had been real encouragement in this little party. Adonijah is going to be king. But when they heard the sound, the mood changed. Everyone, everyone began to depart secretly, and they filtered away like sand through an hourglass.
Why? Because what they thought had been an authority no longer was. They recognized that Solomon was now king. And any attempt at showing fealty to a janijah was a misplaced and may endanger their heads, which it did. There was a ruler of this earth who has been judged.
The earth has split and shook. The sound of the noise has reached the heavens. That that individual who had been at one time ruler of this earth has been absolutely defeated. That Jesus Christ now reigns absolutely confidently and only on his throne. No one is there trying to get a piece of it.
No one's there trying to say no. It's partly mine. It is absolutely securely in his possession, and no one has ever raised a word or made a peep as a result. So my question is, this is the body of Christ. Then why in the world are you still in Adonijah's party?
Are you the last one there? Are you picking up scraps of food under the table? What are you trying to get there? When the voice has screamed out so thunderous that Jesus now reigns on high? Would you pick up a morsel that he has left?
Would you say that Adonijah still has something to offer you? Close in Ephesians, it says in chapter two, verse one, and you he made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sin, and once you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the heir, the Spirit, who now works in the sons of disobedience. The Holy Spirit is active this earth. He is working in the lives of believers, gently and so lovingly, with such beautiful work, convicting them of sin. And through that, convicting the world of sin, he is at work demonstrating to individuals that his righteousness is an inner righteousness and using that as a light that shines upon the whole world to show what real nijousness was.
He is taking a people and showing them that the ruler of this world is judged, and they are fleeing the enemy's camp. They don't want to be caught with anything in their possession that once belonged to their own master.
That work which he is doing, I believe, should be encouraged in your and I's life to so respectfully and honorably, without judgment or legalism, to come before that Holy Spirit who has proven so kind to you and I, and to lay our lives before him to see if there be any unclean thing in me, to allow us him to demonstrate in us a kind of life that is pure and holy, to turn us off of that path in which we once walked.
That work, I believe, will go to affect our world. It says, if judgment begins in the house of God, what will be the end result for the world? If it begins with us, it's going to spread and do something beautiful in our hearts and in our community. Come on, pray for us.
Father, we come to you in Jesus name, Lord, not because of any righteousness which we possess, Lord, but only as a result and a benefit of that work which Jesus accomplished through the cross in shedding his blood for our sins that while we were still enemies, he died for us, Lord. And as a result, Lord, if we could in some way ask for your spirit to work in our hearts, Lord, we would ask it. Lord, you command us. It says that he who asks it says ask, seek and knock. But it says ask for the spirit, Lord, who will be given to us.
Lord, that you love us as your children and that you're willing to give it so. Lord, we timidly and somewhat afraid, Lord, just ask you to protect us from false spirits, lord. But when you do speak, Lord, in such a beautiful way, Lord, motivate our feet, Lord, open the door ahead of us, Lord, allow us to walk through where for sure we would have not before, Lord, protect us from any condemnation I ask, Lord, in Jesus name, amen.