Being conformed - what is God doing?
Vern Peterman · Feb 13, 2011
What God Is Doing in Believers, No. 07
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926226201060

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

So we have being conformed, what is God doing? Heading up today's handout here. So last Sunday we looked at this being conformed to the image of Christ in a more general sense and particularly what does it mean to be conformed. But now we're going to move on to something we actually touched on more verbally and that is what is What is God doing specifically? We kind of talked about it in general terms and we didn't do anything in writing so much in terms of what is God doing.

So, it's part of the answer for why did we last week go through the passage Romans 8.28-30 and only cover part of the verses. Well, the reason is because the other part and parts is for today and next Sunday. In this case, we'll be looking at what is God doing and looking at some specifics. Again, just touching the surface, not really getting into all the detail that we could.

The truth is, what is God doing to work all things together for good? We could study the rest of the year. Serious. I mean, what are all the things that God is doing to work everything together for good? we could stay the rest of the year, but we're going to spend just a day on it.

The first thing is when we say all things, there are things in the physical realm and things in the spiritual realm. That's what this diagram that we have on the first page points to. There are things in the physical realm that God is working together for good. There are things in the spiritual realm that God is working together for good.

The all things includes things that are physical and things that are spiritual. And I'm reading from right under the diagram there, things that are spiritual to the end that the spiritual aspect of the believer's continuing person is conformed to the image of Christ. Why do we make the differentiation that continuing person? That's the part that's conformed. Why do we make that differentiation a distinction?

That's right. We're not conforming this body to the image of Christ. We're going to have a new one. Right? So this body is not a part of what is being changed when we say that we're being conformed to the image of Christ. So that's good. What else is not changing in the believer over time? Everything about your position. Yep. Everything about your position. Unchanging. Untouched. Which also has this assurance, those things don't go backwards. There's not only no change forwards, but there's no slipping backwards either in your position. Those things are unchanged and untouchable.

One of the things we pointed out earlier was the new man, who you are in Christ, who Christ is in you, those things are not what change. Those are aspects of our position. Then we talked a couple weeks ago about the difference between being made in the image of God and being conformed to the image of Christ. One of the points we made is we're not being made into Adam again. Not being made into Adam again, we're being conformed to the image of Christ. So we're not going back to the garden.

Now here, we quote again Romans 8.28-30 under this subheading, God is a God of sovereign action, direction, and purpose. So we take those same verses that we looked at previously, but we've got some that are bolded, and that's on purpose. Sometimes we use things on purpose here. And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God and to those who are called according to His purpose, right?

Okay. For those whom He foreknew, He predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be firstborn among many brethren. And those whom He predestined, He also called. And those whom He called, He also justified. Those whom He justified, He also glorified.

So these things that we've bolded are all things that God does, right? These are all things that God accomplishes. God is the one who takes the action, both once for all actions, that is, things that happen once, not to be redone or repeated or varied, things that happen once, once for all, and in ongoing processes. God does both those things, doesn't he? When we say, once for all actions, those are the things, as Carol rightly pointed out, that's our position.

Those things don't change. God did it once. You are in Christ once. Made to be there once. You don't fall in and out of Christ, right? Once for all. God is not running an open-ended experiment. That's the other thing. God did things, he did once for all, he is doing things, but he's not doing it to say, I wonder how this is going to turn out. No, I just wonder what will happen.

One of the examples I give, and Courtney Snickers, he says, that's an engineer. Years ago, I used to kind of work in a part of my folks' farm where there were two anthills. not too far from each other. I thought, well, wouldn't it be fun to see what would happen if you pick up these ants and drop them on the other anthill? And so I picked up a whole bunch of them and dropped them on the other anthill, and boy, that place came busy. It got real busy, and it was all kind of, I mean, instant battle going on. And of course, the ants were all confused, and, you know, if they could say so, they probably ticked off at me. But, God's not doing that to see what would happen. God's not working in our lives to see what would happen.

What is He doing? He's working in our lives to satisfy His will. He is doing Talking about working, he's doing all the things that we have bolded here in these verses, right? God is the one who is pulling this off, working all things together for good to the end that we're being conformed to the image of the Son. And all the other things that are related to that that are bolded here. God is doing these things.

Let's say if God didn't do these things, could we say, you know, it would have been really good if God did these things, but I think I'll just do them myself. Is that something we could pull off? Not so much. I see some smiles and snickers. It's not something we could say, you know, I know it would be nice if God did it, but because He won't or didn't or not sure He's going to pull it off, I'll do it. That's not intended, huh? Right? Not going to happen. We do not have the capacity to do that. How many of you think you're capable of working all things together for the good that you're being conformed to the image of Christ? That's a little rough, right? So, what's that? Oh yeah, oh yeah. Just burn, right? Yeah. Okay. No, He is predestined in outcome, and I think that's something to look at. If we look at our lives, people oftentimes feel like, oh, I'm just lost, and I don't know where I'm going, and I'm not sure how this is all going to turn out.

And there are a lot of things in our lives we can't say, how are they going to turn out? But this is one we most certainly can, because the God of the universe has predestined that this is where it's headed. God's not doing an experiment like I was doing with the anthills, right? just wondering, I wonder how it's going to turn out with Vern, you know? But instead, he is predestined for each believer to be conformed to the image of his son.

It has a direction. What appears to us to be like, just, this is crazy life, and, you know, things happen, and who knows? That's the way it may seem to us, but God's perspective is all the things spiritual and physical are worked together to the good end that were conformed to the image of Christ.

As we put it last week, we showed a picture of this piece of sheet metal that you're trying to form into a shape and so it ends up being You know, you're hitting this piece of sheet metal, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, to make this piece of sheet metal conform to the shape that is set for it. And you can consider that it's being abused in that process. Pardon? You can consider that the sheet metal is being abused in that process. Yeah, here's... Yes. Yeah. It's tap, tap, tap. And we say, we take the analogy and go tap, tap, tap, tap, tap. But the tap, tap, tap, tap, tap is in one case, my kid's sick. In another case, you know, we're on our way to church. We got just enough time and then the tire goes flat. Yeah. You know, this was really great, but we just got a tax hike.

You know, all the different things that happen in the physical realm, and then God's, as we'll see here, working in the spiritual realm at the same time. Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap, tap. All the things that are happening. From one standpoint it seems like, well, this is, life is crazy. But God has an end result that he most specifically has in mind. He has that image of Christ in mind for each one of us here today, and he has in mind something specific, very specific, in each of those little things that happen. Some of them are things that appear random, some of them may be systematic, but all the things that happen are for his purpose.

Okay. Yes? So, if I can interject here, how would you simply define where he has absolute authority and where he allows the world and people to do their own will. Okay. I don't have the diagram in front of me, but the instance we've had previously, and I brought it up enough times I better bring the diagram in. We draw an outside circle and we say that this is God's sovereign will. Okay?

God's sovereign will. God's sovereign will is you as a believer will be conformed to the image of the Son. That is His sovereign will. In the short term, you may, as we'll see next week, do things that are contrary to that. In the ultimate, His will will not be thwarted. In the ultimate, His will will not be thwarted. Is it God's sovereign will that you ultimately have a new body and stand face to face before the Lord? Yes, it is God's sovereign will.

And so is something going to happen to mess that up? No. God is not going to come to you at some later point and say, you know, we tried to pull it off, but it just didn't come together. We're real sorry. No, that's not going to happen. God's sovereign will, it absolutely will happen.

If you are a believer, you will have a new body like Christ's. Now, Holly? Faithful is the use of a word like we have instance of in both English and in the Bible languages where we have multiple definitions. For example, The flesh is the sin nature as it works through this physical body. That's the flesh. Is not also the term flesh all humanity? It's used for that. Is not flesh also just this physical material of our body? Yes. So it has different definitions.

When we say God is faithful, We would say faith is believing in what God has revealed. Well, does God believe in what is revealed? Yes, but that doesn't quite what faithful means. When we say God is faithful, it means He is consistent with who He is and what He has said, He has done, does, and will do. To that He is faithful, which is not quite the same definition for the word faith. as our believing in what God has said. So it's a matter of a different use of a word that sounds the same.

Yeah, well, think about Abraham. Here is this guy raised in a completely pagan environment. Everything about him is pagan. He picks out this guy, Abraham, and he starts making promises to him. He says, whoever blesses you, I'll bless. Whoever curses you, I'll curse. Through you, everybody will be blessed. And let me tell you about this land that I'm going to show you. So he starts making promises to this guy that came out of a completely pagan environment.

So here's Abraham, if you will, the proto-Jew, the one selected out to be head of the Jewish nation. That promise continues through Isaac and through Jacob. God is faithful to the promises he made. Were Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob always faithful? No. They were not faithful. God is. Yeah, it is related to his immutability, it is related to the fact that he is absolute truth, it is related to the fact also that he's all-powerful.

He doesn't make promises that he can't keep. If I told you, you know, if I told you by noontime all of you will have a five-pound gold brick sitting in the front seat of your car, well that might be nice, but I can't pull that off. especially all we do is teaching, right? But I can't pull it off. I could make a promise, but I can't do it.

God is one who not only, when he says something, it is true and he is unchanging, but he also has the capacity to carry out whatever he promises. So here we are. It's been about 3,000 years since the time of Abraham. It's been about 3,000 years. Do you know God is still faithful to the promises he made to Abraham? The Bible talks about the Jewish nation and what God is going to do with those people, and makes promises, and the promise isn't because they're all faithful. But you know he's still fulfilling promises to those people.

There's several percent, I think the number is somewhere around five, percent of the world population is Jewish. Do you know we don't know of any Edomites? and haven't since 70 AD. I'm talking about, here's Jacob's brother, Esau. We don't know anybody who's descended from Esau for sure, but here are the Jews. They're brothers, fraternal twins, and one we have no idea what's happened to them, and the other is a prominent minority of the population. One in every five Nobel recipients is Jewish. Out of one in every 20 people roughly being Jewish. Yes?

Well, that's why the book of Revelations was written and why it can. why you can have faith in it is because that's part of the plan that's going to happen. Just like the new heaven and the new earth. I mean, those are cataclysmic, if I can say the word, changes in the world that are going to happen. These things are not God's best guess. These are things that God knows is going to happen. It includes things that God is determined to happen. When God determines something to happen, it absolutely will happen. Not just God hopes so, or he thinks that's what's going to happen, or it's his best guess. Or he had the best of intents, right? He actually can pull it off.

Let's look at the top of page two. We're going to look through some spiritual and physical influences that are conforming us to the image of Christ. Note that the examples are of how God can work, but not always how God uses his working to conform us to the image of Christ. So this is to point out God's capacity to work in these areas. In other times and places and among other people, groups, God had other promises, purposes, and determinations regarding the outcome of the events that he has with us in the body of Christ. The one first point we have here is God is sovereign over political authority.

And here's Daniel 2. You, O king, he's speaking in Nebuchadnezzar, the king of kings. That's an interesting phrase, right? the king of kings, to whom the God of heaven has given the kingdom, the power, the strength, and the glory, and wherever the sons of men dwell, or the beasts of the field, or the birds of the sky, he has given them into your hand, and has caused you to rule over them. Why was Nebuchadnezzar ruling? Yeah, God is the one who put him in place.

So even when you think of it, what's the impact of this politician being in the position that he is? Well, do you know what's going to happen? You may not like the politician. And this Nebuchadnezzar that he spoke to, I mean, this was the one that went and wiped out Jerusalem and tore the temple all to pieces. Solomon's temple, he wrecked it. Yeah, he moved the people to Babylon, so he did some stuff. It's not all good stuff.

But who gave him the authority? God did. We have people who have political authority, and we have elections and those change and all that, but you know what? God is the one who is ultimately in charge. And that's one reason we don't need to get ulcers and get our stomach all turned into knots over what has happened or is happening or shouldn't happen or all those things. It's not that everything that happens is good. Some things you can look at and say, that's not good. But are all those things, even the politicians, part of the all things that God works together for good in us?

Yep. Yep. So, but we are free to say, you know, this is good or that's not good. We can go ahead and make those judgments. That does not at all conflict with recognizing that God is using those things, political, at whatever scale, to conform us to the image of his Son. Here's the next one, John 19, 10 and 11.

Jesus is speaking to Pilate, and Pilate then says to him, You do not speak to me. Excuse me. You do not speak to me. Do you not know that I have authority to release you and I have authority to crucify you? Jesus then spoke and answered, You would have no authority over me unless it had been given you from above. Same message, Old Testament, New Testament. God is the one who grants authority.

Sometimes even to rulers, you would say, that's not a godly person. And does it mean that everything that that person does is good? Absolutely not. But does it mean that the believers, through what that person does politically, is being conformed to the image of the son? Yes. See the difference there? God is the one who works. Yes.

But in that realm, that's where our will and choices come into because just because a law is made by those in authority does not mean that we have the same sex marriage or a variety of things. We can see it as, okay, it's a law that's been made by those in authority. respect, but does not mean that we have to change. And we haven't gotten to our part in this yet, which is next week, but your point is well taken.

What does Paul write to Timothy? He says, pray for these in authority. To what end? That the gospel might be spread, that we might be free to spread the gospel. So, real interesting, God puts the leader in place, and nobody's going to get there without God bringing that about. But that doesn't mean we just sit there. Because we do have a place and an involvement, and one of those is part of what I just mentioned, and that's to pray for these leaders towards a spiritual end. Towards a spiritual end. The next one, God can work through natural law or miracles and does respond to prayer. Here's Matthew 5 out of the first chapter of the Sermon on the Mount.

I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you so that you may be sons of your father who is in heaven. For he causes, here's this God causes, right? He causes the sun to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. Oh no, it snowed and it got really cold. Do you know God's going to use that to work together for good?

For the good that you're conformed. Oh man, it's getting hot. Same thing. It snowed so much I can't get out of the driveway. Right? It snowed so much I can't get out of the driveway. That, it works together for good. It's a part of working together for good. Or it hasn't snowed in so long that the lawns are all turning brown. Or going to. Right?

God is going to use that in the life of believers. We have the next one here, James 5, 17-18. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the earth for three years and six months. Then he prayed again, and the sky poured rain. God can influence all sorts of things. How do you think people reacted when it didn't rain for three and a half years? What's that? Yeah, what do you think it did spiritually? What do you think they thought of God?

Angry. Yeah, you get people, I'm mad at God because ba-boom, ba-boom, ba-boom. They want certain circumstances. Pardon? And they want it now, yes. I prayed five seconds ago. How come God hasn't answered it yet? We want God to do certain things. Yeah, Holly? Ah, yeah. Was it very interesting? Let's ask that question. I think we'll probably get lost in it, so be careful. Let's ask that question. Is it possible for believers to be praying for opposite things?

It happens in sports all the time. Yeah, it happens in sports all the time. Yeah, pray for rain, yes. I think the folks in the eastern Australia are not praying for rain. They're praying for relief of it. Yes? A believer can be praying for something that's good. It's not evil, but it brings about fellowship with God. Several things. It is possible for believers to be praying even for opposite things. Is it possible for believers to pray the wrong thing? Yes. Is it possible that we pray with the best of intents, but God in fact has another outcome and purpose in mind? Yeah, that can happen too.

He says that He answers when we pray in His will. And that's when we get the goods. Otherwise, we have the comfort of sharing our burden. So, yeah, I think as you look at it, prayer is not our commanding God. We've talked earlier, maybe even in a prior class, talking about the fact that as we pray, there are a lot of different things going on there. And one of the things is that prayer changes us. Another thing is to remember that Romans spells out that the Holy Spirit prays, in fact, correcting our prayers. Yeah, God will have various responses. You might say, no, I've got something else in mind.

Have you ever had an instance where you prayed and the Lord answered it, but a different way than you expected? He probably, a number of us, had that kind of an experience where we pray for something. Yeah, and you say, well, the Lord answered my prayer. It just wasn't at all what I expected. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Didn't Manasseh or somebody pray for an extended life or further addition to their life? Hezekiah prayed for an extended lifespan. And it didn't turn out to be that good, right? Yeah, and there were some bad things that happened because of the extension. God said yes, but it didn't mean that everything that happened as a result of that extension of time was all a good thing.

And conversely, Moses prayed that God would not destroy the Israel nation, and he didn't, and so it continued. So it's interesting how prayer is reflected throughout Scripture. And the Israelites didn't do all that well in many cases, too. But the prayer was still answered.

Better than the Edomites. Yes. You're right about that. I think it's fascinating that in Revelation God stores our prayers in golden bowls. Yes, in the book of Revelation our prayers are stored in golden bowls. God greatly values our prayers. I think that's something to look at.

Does that mean that ultimately they're unanswered? I think the thing is, here's the interesting, unanswered does not mean unvalued. See the difference there? Unanswered does not mean unvalued. And unanswered may in fact be answered but not in the way we expected or the way we were hoping.

So I think as we think about prayer, prayer's got some amazing characteristics to it. God values our prayer. But that's not the same as He always answers exactly and precisely as we ask. I guess in my prayers I never question whether God can do it. Yes. And will is, of course, my personal desire. I want an answer. And you're actually touching on the next circle in, right?

Because you asked about, you know, what is God's sovereign will? There are things that God has determined as sovereign will. The next thing is God is capable of doing things that he still leaves choices up to us, right? So people still can act on something, even though God's will has been revealed, He has not determined what is going to happen. Something can happen based on what we decide.

Norm? I was just thinking, when that came up, that even though God may not answer the prayer as we would like to have it, God is pleased with us because we're communicating with Him, we're in fellowship with Him, and that's what He wants. One of the points we brought up earlier talking about it is, does God need our prayers? In a sense we could say not at all.

Is He capable of doing anything He purposes to do? Yes. He can do it, so He doesn't need us to accomplish it. Does God lack the wisdom? Does God need us to tell Him that Peggy needs to be prayed for? No. So it's not for that. God wants us to communicate with Him for purposes other than some deficiency of God's character or capacity.

Right? Yeah. But I think we're like icing on the... We're also the thorn in His side and we're also the icing on His cake because He doesn't need us to be complete. Yeah. He was complete before any creation. Yeah. And will be. Yeah. Yeah, He chose to have us be involved, not that He needs to have us involved. Let's look at the next one. God can allow problems impacting our human bodies even using Satan.

So here's Job 2.7.8. Satan went out from the presence of the Lord and smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. And what did his wife say to do? Curse God. Yeah, get mad at God. Right? Curse God and then God will kill you and that will cure your boils. Oh, good. Nice solution. Here's 2 Corinthians 12, 7.

And again, in this case, we don't know precisely what the thorn in the flesh was, but apparently it had something to do with this human body, right? Because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me. to keep me from exalting myself. There was apparently an apostolic ability to turn someone over to Satan for spiritual discipline. We have a reference there in 1 Corinthians 5 and 1 Timothy chapter 1.

The reality is that God can allow things in the physical realm, even using Satan to carry those out and still have it work together for good. Can you imagine? Here's all these people trying to bind Satan, right? I bind Satan here and I bind Satan there. What if the thing that Satan's trying to do is what the Lord told him he could do? Yeah, and that's something. It's kind of an amazing thought. Let's take a look at page 3. Now, God doing things in the spiritual realm. There's a couple of areas here we want to take a look at.

The first one is every aspect of our eternal position in Christ and He in us as fixed and untouchable, including our identification with Christ and everything that means in the daily life of the believer. God accomplishes all these things by His grace and those accomplishments are irreversible. Everything about our position that's been done in the spiritual realm, once for all, irreversible. Our eternal position serves as a sound basis, a firm foundation for our being conformed to the image of Christ.

An understanding of our spiritual anatomy, as we looked at during the month of January there, as we explained during the last four Sundays in the month of January, reveals what God has put in place in each believer that does not change, and the parts that does change, that is the spiritual aspect of our continuing person. There are ongoing processes in the spiritual realm, is number two, that result in our being conformed to the image of Christ.

Our being transformed through beholding Christ, who is written word, is a parallel but not identical process. So God uses two parallel processes here. To the other processes that God has in place, we'll be exploring what that means during the month of March.

Yes? What's the difference between conform We will be looking at that next month because this month we'll be looking at conform and the next month at transform. And there is a lot to answer. That's why we'll take a whole month to look at the differences. They're almost synonyms, aren't they? Almost. Both of them have that root forming. But how it comes about is what is different. Now, here's the thing as we look at this. The last paragraph on page 3 has this.

Hal Malloy outlined the ministries of the Holy Spirit for us some years ago. And though some of these are positional and some involve the transforming process, what we've done is to list them on the fourth page here. And what I'd like for us to do is flip over to page 4. Here's the list of ministries. Let's talk about what things are positional and unchanging, what things are having to do with ongoing ministry, and in some cases, what is transforming us.

The Spirit dwells in believers. That is a position that we have. And it's also to carry on ongoing purposes. But that's the first thing. It's a position. The Spirit dwells in believers. The Spirit gives believers access to the Father. This is positional.

We always have that. Does it mean at each moment that we're always taking advantage of it? No. So as a Christian, I always, always, always have access to the Father. But how much I take advantage of that marvelous privilege depends on my own choices, right?

The third one, the Spirit has fellowship with believers. Let's make a distinction. What's the difference between relationship and fellowship? We say my relationship with the Lord is fixed and unchangeable. My fellowship varies. That's my condition. I have the opportunity to have fellowship with the Lord and He with me through the Holy Spirit. Here's the Holy Spirit who has fellowship with us.

But He doesn't force that on us, does He? Is it possible to break that fellowship? Yes. Is it possible to break the relationship? No. See the distinction there? Yeah, I may do something that she looks at and goes, you know, it may just pop her cork, so to speak. But that doesn't change the relationship. The relationship is ongoing. The fellowship can vary. So the relationship is positional. The fellowship is conditional. teaches believers. Is that an ongoing process and conditional or is it positional? He is always doing it, that aspect is positional. Our reception of it is conditional.

And then the Spirit reveals the glory of Christ to believers. The Spirit reveals the glory of Christ to believers. Is that once for all? Done? Or ongoing? It's an ongoing thing. It's an ongoing revelation. The next one, the Spirit transforms believers. That's one we'll be addressing next month. It's a specific ministry of the Holy Spirit that is a process parallel with but not identical to conforming. Seven, the Spirit manifests his fruit through believers. How does that happen? Does it just happen all the time no matter what we do? No. How does it happen?

He didn't list the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5 until he first said, walk in the Spirit. So then when you see what's the fruit of the Spirit, that's the result of walking. Yes. But along with that, there are times that you may not know that he's even producing the fruit, and you look back on it years later and say he did. Here's what's interesting.

We may make choices and not be aware of them. We may produce fruit and not be aware of it. Our consciousness of what God is doing is not a prerequisite. It is not necessary that we be conscious of what God is doing. But if your desire is to have fellowship with God, or to please God, or to walk in the light, as it says in 1 John, then He can work through you, and you may not know that. A number of you have probably had some kind of an experience where you've seen, oh, the Lord used this person, maybe you, completely unbeknownst to you.

You may have said something, or maybe even refrained from saying something. But and then somebody else says, well, you know, when you said that, that impacted me this way. So so I think as we think about it, yeah, we we may or may not be aware or we may only be aware later. And I think that relates to your rewards later as well. Yes. Because you aren't involved in it.

Well, here's what's amazing. Imagine we walk through heaven's gates. Certainly, the Lord's motivated to reward us to the full. Won't it be amazing? We go there and see the Lord and the Lord's rewarding us and we say, wow, I'm mind blown. I had no idea. And he says, that's perfect. Right? That's perfect because it's not the focus on ourselves and trying to keep some kind of personal catalog.

It's just the Lord working through us and that's far better. What's weird is that He rewards us for what He does through us graciously and we are an instrument, not the initiator. But the reason we get the reward is because we're receptive and because we are walking in the light and because we are listening and doing the things we're supposed to be doing spiritually and physically. Let's move on to the next one.

Number eight, the Spirit gifts every believer for ministry. Is that a position or condition statement? It's positional. That doesn't mean that every person is gifted the same, but the fact that every person is gifted by the Holy Spirit for ministry is positional. Whether you exercise that and how you exercise it is conditional.

In recent months I've gotten in contact with a fellow that back in my college years I was backing away from a chance to teach. So he sat down with me and he says, Vern, you're acting out of fear instead of trusting the Lord for this. I said, you're right. So the Lord had gifted me, but I was in that instance not responding in faith and I was pushing the use of the gift away rather than rather than allowing the Lord to use that gift in me.

Okay. Yes, that's a good point. The Lord used my friend to bring that out. Here's the next one. The Spirit empowers believers. And I would actually put three words in there. There are three words that have a nuance of difference. Empowers, energizes, and enables are the three E words that are used in the writings of Paul. The Holy Spirit empowers, energizes, and enables the believer.

They're all positional, right? And that's all positional, right? Those are things that he carries on like one moment to the next. Our reception of that can be thwarted. But he is always doing that. And that's something we'll talk about in part next week.

The Spirit fills believers. The Spirit fills believers with what? With who? What's interesting is the Spirit does fill us with Himself, but there's one other who fills us with Christ. He fills us with Christ. Yeah, the Spirit fills believers. In Ephesians 5.18, there are five verbs that come off of that filling. Unfortunately, our translations often bring those out as some kind of an imperative. The imperative is to be filled. Even wives submitting to your husband is not an imperative in that passage. It is a consequence of being filled with the Spirit. It's one of the five verbs. Yes.

And correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the filling normally present tense and not aorist? So it's not a one-time filling. Oh, it's not a one-time filling. It's a constant ongoing. It's not an accomplished fact. It's an ongoing. Right. Yep. Which means you have to expend it as you fill.

The Spirit desires against believers, sin nature. There is a conflict that is intense and in the spiritual realm emotional between the sin nature and the spirit. Is the spirit going to say, hey look, let's let bygones be bygones to the sin nature and let's kind of work this out and you know make a few compromises here and there and let's kind of get along. Is that the way the Holy Spirit works?

No. Wars. Wars. It is at constant enmity. And you wonder why you struggle with some things. It is the Holy Spirit who indwells you, who is the seal, is the one who is constantly in conflict by fundamental nature, by fundamental nature constantly in conflict with the sin nature. Always. Okay.

The spirit controls the mind of the new man. Spirit controls the mind of the new man. In our diagram, let's look at the diagram on page one. Where's the mind? It's right there in the center and there is a physiological, physical side of this mind. Brain scientists will study. But there's also the spiritual side of that mind. The spirit controls the mind of the new man. The mind of the new man at the soul level.

The spirit frees believers. That's an important one. Why is it important that the spirit frees believers? Here's another one. Is it positional or conditional? Ultimately it starts off as positional. It is the basis for in our condition being freed. So it starts off as positional.

We are freed, but then that gets worked out day by day. Is it possible that we have been freed from something and still remain in bondage? Yes it is. Yeah, a believer puts himself under the law, that's volunteering for bondage. You fall from grace, you volunteer for bondage, you make the choice to do that contrary to having been freed. And we do that, God doesn't do that.

All kinds of churches are going to meet this morning. Some of them already have met. And a lot of churches are going to sit there and pound the law home to people. And what are they doing? They are preaching a message contrary to the freedom that they have because it's positional by means of one of the ministries of the Holy Spirit.

Yes? Doesn't that go along with when Jesus said, my yoke is easy? And it also goes along with appropriation and the fact of understanding position and condition. Because if you don't understand that, you don't understand the freedom. And it's pretty hard to live out something you don't really understand. The distinction of position and condition is huge. Major, major huge. If we don't understand that, we will be chronically confused. And that's what you said yesterday at the funeral, with art.

That's why art was so determined to be here at this church, because it teaches that concept, which does not teach other places. Yep, it is, in most churches, not taught. In most churches, some aspect of law, and we'll see in the main service, mini law. Very few people want to sign up for all 613 laws.

Oh man, I mean, you imagine, oh man, I picked up firewood, you know, on Saturday. It was Friday night and I flipped on a light switch. Oh, you know, you're going to die. Okay. The Spirit guides believers. Is that a once for all or ongoing? Ongoing. This is one of the ways that God works all things together for good. We have the guidance of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit intercedes in prayer. This brings up a subject we were talking about earlier. What if I pray for something and the Lord says, you know, I value that prayer.

But in fact, I intend to answer this differently than what you expected. I shared earlier, everybody in the extended family was praying for my dad's mother, my grandmother, as she was dying of cancer and had not put her trust in Christ for salvation. Everybody was praying for her and everyone in the family who was a believer, myself included, made attempts to try to present the gospel to her.

No response. Her response uniformly was zip-tight. No expression. I'm not addressing that. It's as if you never said anything. That's the way she acted. We kept praying and praying and praying. Which one of us is she going to respond to? Unbeknownst to us, about three weeks before she died, some neighbors came and helped her out because she was suffering from the cancer, but at home, and shared the gospel with her, and she responded. Now, should I get upset because the Lord didn't answer the prayer by one of the family members? No. God answered the prayer, but outside the box. None of us had any idea that that's how it was going to happen.

The Spirit is God's guarantee of His promises to the believer. Is that once for all or ongoing? Once for all. It's once for all accomplished. The guarantee, however, continues. It's a positional thing. However, it has momentary and daily effect. The Spirit is the agent in the believer's sanctification. Sanctify is another word we'll talk about. Growth, maturity, sanctification, right? We'll talk about that. The Spirit assures believers. Why is assurance important?

Yeah, yeah, think about what are the things that Christians doubt? And you pointed one of them, for sure am I saved, right? What are the things that Christians doubt? They doubt their salvation. Good. What else? They doubt the goodness of God. That's very important. Thank you. And the Holy Spirit brings us to the truth. What else do people doubt? God's will? Yeah. I'm not sure. Pardon? Does he know what he's doing? Yeah. The goodness of God and right along with that, can I believe that everything turns out for good? gets worked out for good even if it isn't good.

People doubt His word. I'm not sure I'm going to follow this. So if you think about it, there's a lot of areas where people doubt and those cause Christians in varying ways to stumble, sometimes badly. But we have a ministry of the Holy Spirit of assuring believers. Dealing with the doubt.

So wouldn't this go along with when Paul said in Romans, from faith to faith, assurance, the Holy Spirit as he assures a person, your faith becomes stronger and it grows and becomes a substance because of the assurance. And you know what it sounds like? It sounds like he's changing us. Oh it does. Right? Isn't that exactly it? Yes. There we go. The Spirit glorifies Christ through believers. Christ is glorified. The Spirit can be grieved and quenched by the believer. I thought God was sovereign.

It's possible for us to do things contrary to God's will in areas that He has not fixed and determined. and we can both grieve and quench. What's the difference? What's the difference between grieving the Holy Spirit and quenching the Holy Spirit? Grief is a sadness. And why would there be a sadness? The tragedy in quenched is cutting off or blotting out. So what's the difference? How can we put some words to that? What's the difference between grieving and quenching?

I would suggest to you that actually both of them are deliberate or can be deliberate. So God is a personal being, including the Holy Spirit, right? He is a personal being. Unlike the Jehovah's Witnesses teach, He is not a force. The Holy Spirit is not a force. I would suggest you use conditional.

Here is the Holy Spirit, and so here is a believer who may even know what the right action should be, but chooses contrary to the Holy Spirit's guidance and teaching. Everything acts contrary to that. guidance and direction. So when the Jewish leaders of the Sanhedrin understood that Jesus was the Messiah and they still sent him to the cross, that would be grieving and quenching the Holy Spirit. Well, I would make an adjustment to that because this is specifically talking about church I think what you say has a relationship to it, but specifically this is looking at church-age believers.

So there's grieving, which is basically a not doing what God desires for me to do, or a doing what God desires for me not to do. Quenching is where God, through the Holy Spirit, expresses that I ought to take an action, but I back off from it. Example. Here I'm asked to teach and I'm trying to back away from it. This friend of mine confronted me with that because I was doing what? Quenching the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit was moving me to act in a certain way, but I was saying, no, I don't want to do that. See that? So one is a matter of moral error. The other is a matter of, this is the way the Holy Spirit wants to act, and you are refusing to do that. We're running out of time, so let me read the last couple. The Spirit is the means by which a believer walks. Walk by means of the Spirit. And the Spirit perfects the believer. And we'll talk about that word perfects, too, because that's another what God is doing in the life of the believer. So God works all things, including many of these things we've talked about here, together for good.

But it's still only scratching the surface, because some of these things talked about less than a minute. And we could talk about it a lot more. But let's pray before the noses get up against the glass. Lord, we do thank you for what you've revealed, that you've revealed this because you love us. You want us to know what it is you're doing. You want us to know how amazing and awesome and wonderful those things are. And to have an appreciation of how you're working all things together for good. Even those things that we can look at and say, that's not good. Still, you're working together, even using those not good things. to produce the good that were conformed to the image of your son. We thank you for that marvelous process that you're working out in our lives. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.