The Spirit of Truth
Spirit of Truth
Ezekiel 37:1-3: The hand of the Lord came upon me and brought me out in the Spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of the valley; and it was full of bones. 2 Then He caused me to pass by them all around, and behold, there were very many in the open valley; and indeed they were very dry. 3 And He said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” So I answered, “O Lord God, You know.”
· The Holy Spirit has been present and active since the beginning.
· More than 2500 years ago the Spirit was moving upon the prophet Ezekiel in a valley of dry, dead bones. The Spirit asks Ezekiel a question, “Can these bones live?”
Ø Ezekiel has no self-trust, so he says, “O Lord God, You know.”
· Self-trust is a barrier to moving in the Spirit. Instead, he’s humble, he’s open, he’s ready for something to happen that is beyond his own realm of experience, and he has a sense of expectation. This is how we should interact with the Spirit.
Ezekiel 37:4-6: Again He said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them, ‘O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! 5 Thus says the Lord God to these bones: “Surely I will cause breath to enter into you, and you shall live. 6 I will put sinews on you and bring flesh upon you, cover you with skin and put breath in you; and you shall live. Then you shall know that I am the Lord.” ’ ”
· We learn something essential about the Spirit, He desires life and He wants us to speak life, to prophesy life and to expect life in His Presence.
· The purpose of this message is about getting us more familiar with the Holy Spirit and His agenda. He was with the Old Testament saints and He will be with us in an even greater way because of the cross of Christ.
· Jesus said John the Baptist was the greatest prophet, but we will be greater than he. So if the Spirit did this with Ezekiel, just try to imagine what He could do in you with the Spirit dwelling within you!
· So let’s go back to the words of Jesus and learn more about the Spirit:
John 14:15-18: “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. 18 I will not leave you orphans; I will come to you.
· Jesus’ death and resurrection had a goal, cleanse us from sin, make us new, to fill us with the Holy Spirit, to give us eternal life, and to help us keep His commandments! The Spirit of Truth will abide with us forever, and He will “manifest” Jesus to us.
· The Spirit is not only our Helper and Comforter, but He is also the Spirit of Truth.
· The world we live in is filled with the lies of the enemy. It’s like we have a “truth detector” living within us to help us follow truth. He leads us into the Truth, the Way, and the Life.
John 14:25-27: “These things I have spoken to you while being present with you. 26 But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you. 27 Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.
· Did you know there are some things you don’t need to know and some things you do need to know?
· The Spirit, teaches us “all” things. Please allow me to translate this; the Spirit gives us revelation of the things we need to know.
· For example, unbelievers say the Bible is hard to understand… they do not have the Spirit to give them revelation from the Word.
· When we have Bible study we always humbly ask for the Spirit to give us revelation. He lives in us and He knows us and will not take us deeper than our current desire to understand.
· We study the gospels so we may know the things that Jesus said. We learn these things over and over; we hide them in our heart do that the Spirit has something to work with. If you don’t have word in your heart the Spirit lacks “the tools” to engage you.
Ø I cannot obey the commandments of Jesus if I do not know the things He said.
· We must read the word and hang out with Jesus as our friend, our brother, and our Lord. How can you have a relationship with Jesus if you do not know Him by spending time with Him? And He comes to us in the volume of the book.
· In the context of the verse, Jesus speaks of His peace that He leaves with us in the context of the Holy Spirit. Our brother Paul gives us more info:
Colossians 15-16: And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful. 16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord.
Ø We are to let the peace of God “rule” in our hearts. How are we led by the Spirit? Follow the peace! When there is no peace; stop!
· People are often waiting for the clouds to part and some kind of voice coming from heaven like a Cecil deDemille movie. I’m not saying you will not hear a voice; I’m saying look for the peace of God and follow that!
· You cannot separate the Spirit and the word. The word is in the Spirit and the Spirit is in the word. Expect to hear Him when reading the word. They are a one volume set!
· If you follow only one or the other you will be in error! You will miss it! You will get goofy… or dry like some Christians who are for only one or the other.
· But if you follow the peace of the Spirit you will begin to know grace in your heart, beyond your mental understanding. Grace is the essence of how the Lord relates to us, it will eliminate all fear.
John 16:7-11: 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. And when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment: 9 of sin, because they do not believe in Me; 10 of righteousness, because I go to My Father and you see Me no more; of judgment, because the ruler of this world is judged.
· Jesus death, resurrection, and ascension were to our advantage so we could have the Spirit dwelling within us forever as new creations! He will never leave us or forsake us. If He is for us, who can be against us.
Ø You must see this; He convicts the world of sin. The sinner, as an unbeliever, must be convicted of his sin if he is ever going to come to Jesus-- the remedy for his sin. He must come to the knowledge of his guilt, condemnation, and judgment before God.
· That is why we must preach the truth of the gospel; there is a hell and there is a heaven. Both heaven and hell are a reality and they are forever, so we must choose between life and death before it is too late. This conviction helps him to understand the truth of his situation without sugar coating. This is the Spirit’s job!
2 Corinthians 5:21: For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.
Ø It’s also the Spirit’s job to “convict” the believer of righteousness, not self-righteousness, but the gift of righteousness.
Ø It’s because Jesus has gone back to the Father and is no longer here in person to remind us that He has made us righteous before the Father.
· The Spirit is not here to convict us again and again of sin, no matter what some preacher tells you! The Spirit reminds you if you stumble to get up and keep going, you are still as righteous as Jesus because you have His righteousness.
· This is not a “second class” righteousness.
· It’s not temporary until you mess up. No, a thousand times no.
· You are now a “saint.” You’re not a “sinner” saved by grace. You were never a sinner because you sinned. You were a sinner because you were born that way. In your second birth—you were reborn a saint! Let’s see the practical effects of that:
Isaiah 54:17: No weapon formed against you shall prosper, and every tongue which rises against you in judgment you shall condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is from Me,” says the Lord.
Ø It’s the righteousness that keeps any weapon formed against you from prospering. It’s the kind of righteousness that breaks addiction, despair, sickness and disease. It’s the kind of righteousness that picks you up when you fail.
· It’s a grace gift and through it we will rule and reign in life through the One, Christ Jesus! (Romans 5)
· The Spirit reminds us that the devil is already judged. And those who follow him and are “of” him will be judged too. There is a judgment coming, make no mistake about it. We can take rest in that fact, that the devil will not win no matter how much it looks like he is winning in this age.
John 16:13-15: 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. 14 He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you. 15 All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said that He will take of Mine and declare it to you.
· I love this truth; the Spirit of Truth speaks the things He is told to speak, and He will tell us the things that are still to come. He wants to prepare us
Ø He always glorifies Jesus. Life belongs to Jesus, healing belongs to Jesus, freedom belongs to Jesus!
· And when we glorify Jesus He loves to join in and manifest Himself in our midst declaring the things that belong to Jesus. You want to see healing? Glorify Jesus!
John 7:37-39: On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. 38 He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” 39 But this He spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive; for the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.
· The Holy Spirit dwelling within us Jesus compares to rivers of living water; cool, clear and pure. It is a fountain, never ending, constantly flowing, and satisfying every thirst.
· These are grace rivers-- delivering to us everything that is part of our inheritance from the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ.
· These rivers are abundant overflowing to those around us, like they did in Jesus! Pressed down, shaken together, and overflowing! This is abundant life. It’s radical, it’s wonderful, and it’s beyond whatever we could hope or ask for.
· We are not to swim upstream in the river of the Spirit, we must flow with it.
· There is a condition; we must glorify Jesus! We get to glorify Jesus!
· There’s something else--we can quench these flowing rivers.
· The devil cannot stop it, only we can quench it! When we stop glorifying Jesus, the water begins to trickle instead of flowing. When we put our minds on the things below instead of the things above, the Spirit is quenched!
· One last thing:
2 Corinthians 3:17-18: Now the Lord is the Spirit; and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. 18 But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.
Ø We must see this also; it’s the Spirit’s job to transform us into the image of Jesus. As He frees us from the things that bind us He also helps us focus on Jesus.
Ø We are to behold Jesus in the word.
· James tells us that the word is like a mirror: For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror and after observing himself goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like.
· If you listen to the word, but do not put it into practice you are like people who look in a mirror and see themselves as they are, instead of what they are called to be.
· We are to behold the glory of Jesus in the mirror; as we see Him we are to desire to be like Him…it’s there that we are transformed.