The Ministry of the Holy Spirit XII - Living Grace Fellowship

Sunday 05/11/14

Topic: Review: The Spirit within / the Spirit upon I

Series – The Ministry of the Holy Spirit XII.mp3

Click here to watch the video.

Key Text:

John 14-16

The Spirit within / the Spirit upon

Below is a summery of what we covered…

He is the Comforter
He is the guarantee or down payment of our salvation (God is lavish in His gifts)
He is called the spirit of truth and He is the One Who reveals truth (a.k.a. – Jesus)
- Jesus said, “If you love me – I’ll manifest myself to you”. If you want to know Christ, you do not try harder you surrender more! The Holy Spirit is the One Who reveals Christ. Don’t resist His work in you which calls you to love Jesus and He will complete the work in you and cause you to “see” Christ (understand Him, be intimate with Him – He will be manifest to you).
- We are told that the world will not see Christ once He left, but we would.

There is a distortion of the passage in John 16 which tells us that when the Holy Spirit comes He will convict the world of sin and the believer of righteousness. This is NOT what the verse says! Let’s read it,

“And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment:” ~ John 16:8

The verse is clear all by itself that the ones being referred to are the world, but it is made even more clear by the next statement.

“Of sin, because they believe not on me;

Of righteousness, because I go to my Father, and they see me no more;

Of judgment, because the prince of this world is judged.” ~ John 16:9-11

Now the word “they” is often translated as “you”, but in all reality neither actually appear in the Greek, it is simply the word “see”, and the audience is understood by the context.

So how do we know that it is the world and not the church He is convicting of righteousness?

Well, the first reason is because that is what He said! Secondly, it is because of what He said earlier. He told them in chapter 14 that He was going away and that when He left the world would “see Me no more, but YOU WILL SEE ME.”. So obviously, this is referring tot he world for they are the only ones who can’t see Him.

Why is this important?

Because a very popular teacher named Joseph Prince has written this misinterpretation of this verse in his book, Destined to Reign and many of those who follow Prince believe it just because he said it, even though the text clearly does not say such a thing. This thinking makes it easier for a person to deny that the Holy Spirit would convict a Christian of sin, because He only convicts us of our righteousness. Well, I do NOT deny that the Holy Spirit convicts us of WHO WE ARE in CHRIST and as such He does in fact, convict us of our righteousness, but He also convicts us of sin as well.

He is our Peace – “Peace I leave with you” meaning, the ability to walk with God in agreement and tranquility = the Holy Spirit is the One who causes this in you.
He takes the wisdom of God and causes us to see it as wisdom, while the world see it as foolishness.
- Examples of this are…the virgin birth, the miracles of Christ, Christ being dead for 3 days and then raising from the dead…These things are impossible and so appear “foolish” to the world that anyone could believe it as true, but to the believer – it is God’s wisdom.

This reminded me of a song from Michael Card called God’s Own fool,

Seems I’ve imagined Him all of my life
As the wisest of all of mankind
But if God’s Holy wisdom is foolish to man
He must have seemed out of His mind
Even His family said He was mad
And the priest said a demon’s to blame
But, God in the form of this angry young man
Could not have seemed perfectly sane

Chorus
We in our foolishness thought we were wise
He played the fool and He opened our eyes
We in our weakness believed we were strong
He became helpless to show we were wrong
So we follow God’s own Fool
For only the foolish can tell
Believe the unbelievable, come be a fool as well

The Holy Spirit is also the “anointing” we have received from God Who teaches us all things and reveals who is of God and who is of the antichrist – 1 Jn. 2:18-29

We encourage you…give it a listen!

Pastor Mark

View posts by Pastor Mark

Hi my name is Mark and though I am opposed to titles, I am currently the only Pastor (shepherd/elder) serving our assembly right now.

I have been Pastoring in one capacity or another for nearly 30 years now, though never quite like I am today.

Early in 2009 the Lord revealed to me that the way we had structured our assembly (church) was not scriptural in that it was out of sync with what Paul modeled for us in the New Testament. In truth, I (like many pastors I am sure) never even gave this fundamental issue of church structure the first thought. I had always assumed that church structure was largely the same everywhere and had been so from the beginning. While I knew Paul had some very stringent things to say about the local assembly of believers, the point of our gatherings together and who may or may not lead, I never even considered studying these issues but assumed we were all pretty much doing it right...safety in numbers right?! Boy, I couldn't have been more wrong!

So needless to say, my discovery that we had been doing it wrong for nearly two decades was a bit of a shock to me! Now, this "revelation" did not come about all at once but over the course of a few weeks. We were a traditional single pastor led congregation. It was a top-bottom model of ministry which is in part biblical, but not in the form of a monarchy.

The needed change did not come into focus until following 9 very intense months of study and discussions with those who were leaders in our church at the time.

We now understand and believe that the Bible teaches co-leadership with equal authority in each local assembly. Having multiple shepherds with God's heart and equal authority protects both Shepherds and sheep. Equal accountability keeps authority and doctrine in check. Multiple shepherds also provide teaching with various styles and giftings with leadership skills which are both different and complementary.

For a while we had two co-pastors (elders) (myself and one other man) who led the church with equal authority, but different giftings. We both taught in our own ways and styles, and our leadership skills were quite different, but complimentary. We were in complete submission to each other and worked side-by-side in the labor of shepherding the flock.

Our other Pastor has since moved on to other ministry which has left us with just myself. While we currently only have one Pastor/Elder, it is our desire that God, in His faithfulness and timing, may bring us more as we grow in maturity and even in numbers.

As to my home, I have been married since 1995 to my wonderful wife Terissa Woodson who is my closest friend and most trusted ally.

As far as my education goes, I grew up in a Christian home, but questioned everything I was ever taught.

I graduated from Bible college in 1990 and continued to question everything I was ever taught (I do not mention my college in order to avoid being labeled).

Perhaps my greatest preparation for ministry has been life and ministry itself. To quote an author I have come to enjoy namely Fredrick Buechner in his writing entitled, Now and Then, "If God speaks to us at all other than through such official channels as the Bible and the church, then I think that He speaks to us largely through what happens to us...if we keep our hearts open as well as our ears, if we listen with patience and hope, if we remember at all deeply and honestly, then I think we come to recognize beyond all doubt, that, however faintly we may hear Him, He is indeed speaking to us, and that, however little we may understand of it, His word to each of us is both recoverable and precious beyond telling." ~ Fredrick Buechner

Well that is about all there is of interest to tell you about me.

I hope our ministry here is a blessing to you and your family. I also hope that it is only a supplement to a local church where you are committed to other believers in a community of grace.

~God Bless!