The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit lesson 15 continued
Mike Doyle · Oct 10, 2021
Holy Spirit (2021-23), No. 34
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261924357710

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

So to set this up, we are in lesson 15. We had gotten down to question four, which is a follow-on on question three, which what does the word communion mean? And we talked about fellowship. That's what communion is. It's just fellowship. And we believers have fellowship or communion one with another. What's the thing that unites us? It's Christ that unites us. What's the other thing ancillary to that that would unite us?

I think it's the same doctrine. and the spirit. I really think that has a lot to do with it. I noticed on this conference we went to, those 60 people that went to it are pretty much like-minded. They allowed it so that they didn't agree on everything, but on the basic things they did. And it creates a communion amongst them. They weren't arrogant about it. because these are some really bright people, you know, PhD type guys, but they were all just, we didn't feel like a stranger from the minute we walked into the building, you know, and they didn't know us from anybody, you know, so communion.

Does the church cause communion? Yeah, it does. So question four was, what does communion of the spirit mean? Go ahead. The write-out says that communion of the Holy Spirit means sharing or participating in his thoughts, affections, and purposes. That's right. That's what write-out says. And I really like that answer. That's why I picked it. Participating in the thoughts. The affections and the purposes of the Holy Spirit. Like-mindedness. Like-mindedness. What was the Spirit's job? What job did the Lord Jesus give to him in the Gospel of John?

When I send a comforter, he will do what? It will remind you of everything I taught you. He'll be the one, he will be the vehicle through which not only do you understand what I've been teaching, but what is gonna be taught after me. But his job is to reveal God's thoughts to you. Because without him, we would never think spiritual thoughts. And then I love this part. His job is to, so we can participate in the affections of God. How cool is that?

We forget sometimes that God is a loving God and that he wants us to know him so that we can be loved by him and respond in kind. That's something that the Holy Spirit does. You don't wake up one day and just decide, well, I'm going to love God. No, you wake up one day because you realize, gee whiz, God loves me. He really does. This is not just words, that he does love me. And he proved it by giving his life for me. Just me, if I was the only one, he'd have done it.

You know? And sometimes I think we get academic and too academic and don't leave enough room for the infections of God. Jim. This implies, though, that we have to know something of his thoughts, affections, and purposes, and it doesn't come about immediately. It just comes out through a process. What's the process? Well, it takes time to learn, and you have to be in his word. There you go. kind of know it, at least, if not study it. And it's better to study, but most of us don't. Well, there's no substitute for God's Word, because it's the vehicle He uses to reveal Himself to us. And when He's revealed to us, in that sense, the love is part of what He is.

Mike, this morning, in one of the Hungry Heart, I highlighted this in mine. I thought this was good. Truth is received in the mind, assimilated in the heart, and manifested in the walk. Right. So, I mean, that's the truth, the infamous facts and the tracks and all that. It's the truth first, in the mind, but then assimilated in the heart, and then it's manifested in the walk.

And we can't do any of that. How do we assimilate? It's tough. But that's the Holy Spirit convincing us of those truths. I mean, we receive the truth, but then he's the one assimilating in the heart. And with that, we manifest in the walk. But he's the one assimilating in the heart. That's his job.

But I thought that was really good this morning. Yeah, have you got the Hungry Heart with you? I got it on. Can you go to, do you have it like I do? How do you go back like a few months, Jim? I don't know how to do that on the phone. You can scroll to the bottom. Yeah. Scroll to the bottom. And there's a bunch of dates. The bottom shows the current month. Anyway, somebody go to 629, Hungry Heart.

There was a paragraph there that I was looking at this morning. I should have copied it, but I addressed this very issue of knowing but also affections. I think affections are a critical part of this. You know, some churches are all about emotions and feelings. Other churches are all about doctrine and academics. But doctrine and feelings and emotions are not necessarily the affections of God. They're not a bunch of warm fuzzies because it's an intelligent love that God has for us. He's not sappy about it. set your affections on things above.

And the last part of Rideout's answer is, there's thoughts, affections, and God's purpose. So many times in a believer's life, he assumes that he knows what the purpose of God is, or he's got a catchphrase. What would you say, there's more than one purpose, but the ultimate purpose is what? What's the ultimate purpose of the Holy Spirit when it comes to the Lord Jesus?

What's he trying to accomplish? Well, he's trying to conform us to the image of Christ. So why would he do that? Why would he do that? So that we can think God's thoughts after him and so that we can enter into the affections of Godhead. That's why he does that. Because he is not going to teach the sin nature, your old man, the thoughts of God. He's not going to do it. And he isn't going to show affection for your old Adamic nature. Why not? Because he crucified it.

That's why. to maybe make that a little clearer. Sometimes, early on in our Christian life, we don't understand who we really are. We're so identified with the old man that we think, that's who I am. Well, guess what? In Christ, that isn't who you are. In Christ, you're all these other things. that the word of God tells you. You're a new creature. You have a new heart, a new mind, a new everything. You're totally new. And that creature walks by faith. He doesn't walk by emotions. He trusts God. He doesn't live under a law system. He lives under a grace system.

So. New believers have amnesia. Well, they don't have enough information to even have amnesia. But if you're not taught, I'm convinced that if you're not taught identification truths, you're not taught position and the work of the Holy Spirit, then really the whole mindset is to try to add Jesus onto me, old Adam. That's exactly right. to make the old man Christian.

That's not, that isn't the purpose of the Holy Spirit at all. God's your servant. Yeah. Yeah. God's my servant. Phil said that's a great line. Who's driving that? Yeah. The old man loves it. He's the one doing that. Sure. He'll try everything. Yeah. I need this God, I need that. That's exactly right. He's the iron boy. Yeah, and you'll find with lots of believers, not to be critical about them, but you'll find that a lot of times their prayers betray them. Because they're asking God to do stuff to fix up their old man.

And they don't have a clue, wait a minute, I have been crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live. What got crucifixion and death as separation? What I get separated from? That old guy that I'm really in love with, I have spent my entire career trying to make him something special. Well, guess what? I got separated from him. And now I've got to learn a whole new man. Thank God for that. So with that in mind, is there communion among believers and why is there communion among believers? They've got common thoughts, they're in Christ. Common thoughts? We can say that we're all children of God.

Children isn't some sort of label. When I went to the conference I had to put my name on You know, I might, and with where I came from. So you'd go up and meet people and they're looking at your chest rather than in your face. Where are you from? Oh yeah, okay.

But with believers, we have a common life. When we say we're all children of God, we're all sons of God, we share that same life. We're all family. The separation between us and non-believers is as far as east is from the west. Contemporary Christianity tries to modify Christianity to go into the world and adopt their policies to try to win some of them over. When you're evangelizing somebody, what are you really saying to them? You're in the world, you're in sin, and you're gonna go to hell. I want you to leave where you are and come over here to Christ. It makes it tough. It makes it tough.

One of the guys at the conference said, just somebody mentioned about Alcoholics Anonymous. I have nothing against Alcoholics Anonymous. He said, yeah, it's great. He said, all those sober guys are marching to hell. I used to say, When I'd stand up, I'd say, I used to be an alcoholic. They didn't like that. No, you are one. It's in the seas, yeah.

So if we have communion with one another because we're sons of God, the other thing is that we love his word. And that's, I think Jim talked about that a minute ago. There's a camaraderie around God's word. And we have a common life. We have the resurrected life of Christ. We have common objects. And that's what makes for communion or fellowship with one another. I mean, it's the family aspect. We're part of a family, but it's deeper than that.

It's the shared life, and it's one spirit. I think that's the kind of interesting part that we have, is it's a shared spirit amongst all of us. It's the exact same spirit in every one of us. Same life, same spirit. That's why when you go and you you find a believer, you immediately have kind of rest or peace or, you know, just a familiarity. Because it's the shared spirit in life.

And I think that's the thing that, you know, you went to Duluth and you felt right at home. I felt right at home. You walk in and, you know, and why is that? You don't know these people from Adam. I don't. And yet you walk in and the whole reason is that shared spirit, I think.

The same spirit is in everyone there, and you in the same. And it's just something that I think all believers kind of feel or understand when you come to somebody who is a believer. And it's because the spirit's resonant in both. Same spirit. So want to follow the rabbit trail for a minute? So you meet a believer that you had not met before. And they are steeped in Reformed theology. They're all about keeping the law and doing the rituals and all of that kind of thing. Do you feel a communion with them?

Not so much. Not so much. That's a good answer. In Adam, you do. Well, let's say they're believers. They're genuine believers. They have the life and you have the life. identifiable in them, you know that they're a believer. But their methodology in living the Christian life is based on legalism rather than grace. lesser.

I feel almost sorry that they don't have the liberty that we have. I think I feel more that they're constrained and they're a believer, and I feel sorry for them that they aren't living the life that Christ said. So it's not as much that I'm lesser. Maybe it's just I feel more like you have this freedom, why aren't you? And it's the mis-teaching or the misguided or whatever. I mean, I've known Catholics, I've known who are believers, but they're constrained by it. And I feel so sorry that they have to, you know, that they're still following that.

You guys on the web hear that? Yeah. Okay, good. I was just going to say, look how Paul treated believers that were based on legalistic practices. He loved them dearly, but he was tough with them. Yeah, he was. You'd know automatically that there's a type of sorrow in their heart. Yeah, there is. That gives me a sorrow. Well, not a sorrow, but I identify with it. Right. Jim?

Immediately, there's a camaraderie right there. You can feel the love. Your love really goes out to that person. There's a spirit between us that is the same. Not knowing anything about them, I can accept them, and it's just a perfect communion. But as I get to know them further, and know their theology, then I feel sorry for them. But immediately, not knowing anything about them, you can see them.

You can see God's Spirit in them. So I think we can conclude that because we're all sons, we have a union one with another in terms of life. We may have hermeneutics, theology that's totally different. based on law versus grace kind of thing. Because I know, I get in conversations with believers who are law-based, and they think that I'm living more in the world than I am in Christ. That freedom to them scares them to death. We were in Hawaii a couple of years ago and met Dean Bowman's pastor at South Maui Calvary Chapel.

I started talking about grace and he said to me, grace is the scariest thing there is. I said, no, it's the most hated thing there is. He said, why do you say that? I said, because it doesn't give your old nature any room to do anything. You have to be totally dependent on the Lord to walk in grace. You can't go to him and say, well, I'm going to do 50 and you do 50. No, it's all or nothing when it comes to grace. And you discount the ability of the Holy Spirit and the resurrected life of Christ to actually control your behavior. It's like, why do you love God? Because it's said so in the book? No, because he first loved you. That's why you do it. And it isn't something that you sat down and thought about loving God. You just do. Part of the life.

You know, so the other Mike is that we have some family members who are more covenant based. And I think it's how limiting is that to earthly, you know, and it's like, You're positioned in heaven now, and all these earthly promises are so limiting compared to what we have in Christ and what we have in our position. you know, try and bring that up because it's so, you know, it's so biblical to be, you know, covenant based. All these true in Israel and all the, you know, they're the keeper of, you know, and, and, you know, this is, this is where it's at. And it's hard to, hard to argue that one because, you know, oh, you're going against, you know, Israel and all the covenants and all that's a great place.

And it's like, no, that's not, you know, not now, not now. No. Well, in Timothy, when there's the admonition to rightly divide the word of truth, that's a really important issue there. Divide what from what? Adam from Christ. Law from grace, Adam from Christ, position.

Yeah, all of the things that. And you know what's interesting? Identification shows up in Romans chapter 6, right? So if Romans is the first book of Christianity, and the sixth chapter of the first book gives you identification, do you think it's really high spiritual truth, or do you think it's just normal stuff that every believer ought to be walking in? It's normal. It's not high truth. Come on.

Every believer should know and have some understanding that they were co-crucified with Christ, buried, and resurrected. and have some understanding of what that means. I never really heard and understood that I was seated in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. Covenant theology doesn't teach that. No. You know, Reformation theology, Covenant theology. No. I'm not seated in heaven.

You haven't gotten there yet. I haven't gotten there yet. I'm working to get there, you know. That's right. I never heard that until it wasn't really pointed out to me and pounded into me until I got into this church. Yeah. See, if I as a reformer teacher can keep you or can have the rabbit out, the carrot out in front of you, then I can keep you moving. There's no understanding that, boy, if I got it all to start with on the very day that I was saved, that that is a greater motivator than anything else. And they look at it as the opposite way. They think, oh, if we can keep people moving, we can keep them in Christ.

Well, love keeps me in Christ. Well, that's the point. And Chester McCauley made a great point about that, and he did four tapes on grace. He said that grace is the greatest motivator ever. Nothing is a greater motivator than grace, which is God's unlimited unmerited blessing to us based on the totally adequate work of Christ on the cross. You start with that premise and you don't have to ever worry about whether you're gonna be motivated or not. If you're showered in blessings all the time, including your trials, then that motivates you to do what?

To wanna be with them, walk with them, and that dirty, nasty word, obey. You can't help but do it. All right, last question on this issue, or not the last question, but what's the main factor of communion among believers? What would you say is the number one thing? death, burial, and resurrection, and Christ's ascension.

It's beyond that. Well, that's part of it. That's the mechanics of it. Let me get this here. Common life. Common objects and common communion. Yeah. Yeah. Common life in Christ and common objects. Right. That's part of what the main communion factor is. Right out says this, thus we have life by the spirit, a common object with the spirit who is Christ, so we share and participate with him in our little measure. That, I believe, is the main factor in communion. The main factor is the fact that Christ is the object and the focus of every believer.

How did I get there? Yeah, the identification, position, all of that's important. The work of the Spirit's important. But do you think the Holy Spirit's object is the Lord Jesus Christ? Him personally, just Him? Or is He self-centered? What do you think? You ever think about what the Holy Spirit's object is, himself? No. No. What's his object?

It's a father and a son. He recognizes that the son is the one that human beings can know. That's why he is a man. Look and live. Yeah. The Lord Jesus said that eternal life was to know me and the one who sent me. So eternal life isn't a commodity in a bottle. Eternal life is knowing, intimate knowing, of the Lord Jesus. He reveals the Father, and the Spirit's job is to reveal Christ. It all centers in Him. See? And guess what? The Spirit's life centers in Christ and the Father, too.

So as we progress, and especially when we go to glory, imagine what that life's gonna be like. that we, as opposed to the souls of just men made perfect, the Old Testament saints that are in heaven right now, we are going to share in this intimacy between the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, hooked in. We won't have time to worry about whether the Broncos are going to win or not. I hope that your tomatoes ripened. I like what Stoney says.

There are four types of death in the Old Testament. One is the Red Sea. The next one is the death, burial, resurrection of Christ. And the third one is the brazen serpent. And he says, you may know the first two, but the third one, do you know this? And then the fourth is Jordan. But the grazing serpent, I see that as me in Christ dying, buried, resurrected, ascended and seated.

Look and live. What's the Jordan River then? What's the Jordan River represent? crossing into crossing from where to where in our in our about us from the old to the new that's right from out of adam out of the world to christ and adam the jordan river death to life that's right from death to life what were the 12 stones those were the stepping stones that carried the jews in there I thought the 12 stones were representative of each tribe in Israel.

They were. They were. The point being is this. We're carried into the promised land. And the vehicle that carries us across there is our faith. Just like the Jews. The first group who died in the desert over 40 years didn't get to go in. Why? They didn't have the faith to do it. What allows a believer in 2021 to walk across the Jordan River into Christ and to rest in him?

It's faith. You have the understanding, you've read the word of God, you know where you've been positioned, and you just rest there by faith. You don't have to do spiritual pushups, you don't have to prove to God you deserve to be there, because you don't. You're there because he puts you there. But you don't get to enjoy it unless you rest by faith in what he's already done.

Also, we walked across the Jordan on dry ground. We didn't have to swim across the Jordan. No. We didn't have to be immersed into the water. No. We just walked across on dry ground because Christ paid the price. Yeah. Christ did all the work. That's exactly right. It's kind of like Jesus walking on water. I'm not sure that's analogous. OK. Oh my goodness, I'm running out of time.

What does the author, in question seven, what does the author cite as a distorted view of communion? I'll kick it off by saying this. Many Christians have a very unhealthy, distorted idea of communion. They think of a dreamy sort of life, elevated far above its common duties and affairs, the soul in rapt gaze, looking heavenward, and the body chiefly prostate in an attitude of prayer. I love that. Get down on your hands and knees. And I really think, especially the reformers, that's what they view it as. You know. That's worse. Oh, it's terrible. It works your knees. If you've got arthritic knees like me, you never make it. The second thing he says is this thought. has peopled the convents and monasteries with those who thought communion too holy a thing to come even outward contact with the world.

So I'm in Duluth, Minnesota, and we're looking for the church, right? And I drive by this thing that says entrance to the monastery of whatever, and I thought, I hope I don't have to go there. I need to take a left turn. But here's this beautiful 50 acres with this building in the middle. And having grown up a Catholic, I've been in a couple of monasteries.

And the kind of ascetic life that they live there, it's just awful. And what they're trying to do is purify the flesh through, not allowing themselves to enjoy anything in the world system. They don't realize that it has nothing to do with enjoyment of anything in the world system. It has to do with Christ as all in all. And he isn't in the monastery.

A guy told me years ago, he said, you know what the problem with those monks are? I said, what? He said, when they go into the monastery, the sin nature goes with them. You know? And the sin nature keeps them doing their thing. Imagine one day if one of those guys woke up and found out, I'm free of my sin nature. I'm already free. He'd be looking for the exit. Like Martin Luther? Yeah. Yeah.

The last point that Rideout made was, but even where such extremes are not reached, how many twist the thought of communion into a certain state of feeling or into certain strange and rare experiences? Many would say they have no time for communion because business and family cares press too much. I mean, how do I say this? I can repeat my golf story. When I was just a young believer, I was saved through the auspices of Young Life, right? And they had a fundraiser every year.

It was a golf tournament at Cherry Hills Country Club, pretty nice place to play golf, right, Bob? I got there a little early and I went out to the driving range and I'm hitting balls. And the guy next to me is a guy, I didn't know him very well, but he was on staff with Young Life. And boy, this guy could hit straight as an arrow, 280 down the fairway. I just got one right after another. I just marveled at this guy. So I said to him, wow, I said, you can really hit the ball. He said, golf is my thing. I said, I thought Jesus Christ was your thing. Needless to say, that guy and I never became close friends. But it hit me that there's all these little things in a believer's life that get in the place of Christ.

That doesn't preclude that, can you go to Bronco Games? Absolutely, you can go to Bronco, well, Courtney can't go. That was really nice. You know, I kind of have issues with this one, too. No feelings. Are we that sterile in our relationship with him? That's a good point. I don't want to get to that point, because Romans 8 is that I can cry out, Abba, Father. That's a personal, feeling relationship with him. And then I go to, what are the fruit of the Spirit? Those are all You know, expressions of emotion that we have through the spirit. Joy, peace, love, all those things.

So I don't want to be sterile that it's, you know, oh great father, you know, that's what I say. I don't want to be that. I think there is a feeling of family that I can cry out daddy. That's the intimacy that I have. I never want to get to a point where I'm so foreign or so robotic or sterile that I don't have a feeling. I have a great feeling for the Lord. I had that same concern years ago, and I called Miles Stanford up about it. I said, Miles, how do you know?

You go through a spiritual experience, and you have high emotions about it. and you're just overwhelmed. His answer was pretty astute. He said, when you have one of those, no matter what it is, go into the word of God and see if you can verify it. Does the feeling line up with the word of God? If it is, if it does, you're fine. If it doesn't, you have to discard it. So if I get all excited because I'm in a charismatic place where everybody's got their hands up in the air and the spirit's working, and I start to feel euphoric.

Well, I can't find scripture that backs that kind of thing up, but I can find, easily, Romans 8.28, or If the spirit begins to show me to you the degree to which the Lord Jesus loves us, are you going to have an emotional reaction? Sure you are. Absolutely. But we're not to walk by emotional reactions. We're to walk by faith. which means that you gotta have God's word there.

I mean, it's things like when you just said at the beginning of this, that was one of the best things I did was go to Duluth. Why is that? And it wasn't that it was a sterile feeling. You were in believers that were into the word and part of, you know, the family that you were part of. Yeah. And that's the comfort, that's the joy, I think, of the fruit of the spirit. Yeah. Is that you were in like-minded people who were have that relationship with Christ. You could see it, feel it, and it was joyful. And that's the fruit of the Spirit, I think.

Yeah, Courtney, like Thursday, we started at 9 in the morning and we didn't finish until 9.30 at night. And it was like, you know, everybody that spoke, about every two minutes it was like, wow. And then another wow. And I'd look over at Donna and she'd go, And we walked out of there at 9.30, totally exhausted, but not feeling exhausted. That's the joy. Yeah. That's an emotion of feeling because you're with like-minded believers. Yeah. And that same spirit is working in all of you. Yeah, I agree.

And I actually prayed there that we would have that here because I think that's critical. It's absolutely critical. You know, when Miles described Holly Hills in 1979 when I first came here as the frozen chosen, I hope we're past that a long way. Amen, brother. We'll finish up the rest next week.

Let's pray. Father, how thankful we are for your spirit and your word, but mostly your son, the Lord Jesus, who is the one through whom we get to know you. We thank you for the grace that we're under. Thank you that you are always implementing and showing us how that grace operates so we can rest in it and live in it. and function. Thank you. We pray in your son's precious name. Amen.