Suffering for Christ and the Gift of The Spirit

Introduction: The Specificity of Suffering for Christ

0:00 The subject to be addressed in this hour is the gift of the Holy Spirit in relationship to the suffering of the people of God, particularly that suffering that comes to them in the path of unswerving allegiance to Jesus Christ, to his truth, and to the cause of his kingdom. And I need to make it clear at the very outset that I am not addressing directly the ministry of the Holy Spirit to that more general form of suffering, which is the lot of all of God's people. For example, the suffering that comes in conjunction with bodily illnesses and afflictions and disease, natural disasters, disappointed hopes and shattered dreams, and that which some of us know to our constant brokenness, broken hearts, unconverted children, chafing providences, all of which come within the broad scope of the biblical doctrine of suffering, and for which there is an adequate and gracious ministry of God the Holy Spirit. And so for the many who sit here and who in this very moment

1:24 know something of that exquisite suffering related to these various things that I've mentioned, please do not misunderstand. As surely as the word of God is not indifferent to your circumstances, nor is the Lord Jesus as your compassionate high priest at the right hand of the Father, and the Holy Spirit who indwells you and supports you, please do not construe my passing by those dimensions of suffering as a matter of indifference to them. For personally, I am not a stranger to them. I stand before them.

2:03 I stand before you as a man who lives with the reality of a wife of forty-four years fighting a battle with active cancer. Rather, we're going to consider more narrowly those aspects of suffering inflicted upon the people of God by those whose agitation is in reality not with God's people, but with their Savior and their Lord. Those afflictions that are described in the Book of Acts, chapter 8, in conjunction with Saul of Tarsus. Luke describes them in this language.

2:43 There arose on that day a great persecution against the church that was in Jerusalem, and they were all scattered abroad throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. Verse 3, But Saul laid waste the church, entering into every house and dragging men and women, entering into every house and dragging men and women, entering into every house and dragging men and women, committed them to prison, chapter 9 and verse 1. Verse 3, but saw yet breathing threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord. And yet, when the Lord Jesus graciously and powerfully arrests this blind Pharisaic bigot, He did not say to him, Saul, Saul, why do you pick on my people? But his words were, Saul, Saul, Saul, why do you pick on my people? But his words were, Saul, Saul, Saul, why do you pick on my people? But his words were, Saul, why do you persecute me?

3:40 Saul of Tarsus thought his controversy was with the people of God. When in reality, the Lord Jesus tells him that his controversy was with the Lord of his people. It is that kind of suffering to which we make reference in our study together in this hour. I'm referring to the suffering of the eighth beatitude of which we heard in the previous hour.

4:08 Blessed are you when you are persecuted for righteousness' sake. Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake. It is that suffering in its more limited scope that is for righteousness' sake. For the sake of...

4:31 The suffering referred to again and again in Peter's first epistle when in chapter 3 and verse 14, he describes it as suffering for righteousness' sake. No doubt echoes of the very words he heard in the Sermon on the Mount. Again, further in that epistle in chapter 3 and verse 15, he describes it as being reviled for your good manner of life in Christ. Or in chapter 4, or in verse 14, as being reproached for the name of Christ.

5:08 Now that suffering comes in many forms. In its more subtle form, it may be that condescending sneer of the sharp Ph.D. professor who hears in the presence of his class of all places, a student who unashamedly acknowledges his or her confidence in absolute, the truth contained within the pages of special revelation that we call the Bible.

5:40 Or it may be the forfeited promotion by that diligent, earnest young Christian executive who will not compromise in matters pertaining to the law of his God and is bypassed for promotion after promotion of suffering for righteousness' sake. So on one end of the spectrum, there is the condescending sneer, the forfeited promotion, the giggle in the presence of someone who states his or her commitment to biblical morality, all the way on the other end of the spectrum, to the fangs of the lion in the arena, to the flames that lick the body of the martyr tied to his stake and turn his remains into sacred dust and ashes. It is any such suffering across that full spectrum, from the more subtle expressions to the most violent, heartless expressions of men's controversy with Christ, it is that suffering that I have particularly in mind as together we address, the subject assigned, the gift of the Holy Spirit in relationship to the suffering of the people of God in the path,

First Foundational Principle: Union with Christ by Spirit-Given Faith

7:04 of unswerving allegiance to Christ to his word and to the cause of his kingdom now being a pastor and committed to expository preaching in a consecutive way I had hoped that I would have liberty to take up one of those texts that I had already worked on and preached to my own people in the expositions of first Peter which I'm just concluding this Lord's Day I get back God willing we'll finish up the little postscript in first Peter 5 12 to 14 but as I waited upon God and prayed I found myself continually shut up to try to look at this subject in a broader biblical and theological way and so I urge you to gird up the loins of your mind with me I don't have the time to stop and pause and illustrate as I would like to along the way but I have to do what I believe the spirit of God has constrained me to do and I plead with you to work with me as we seek to grasp something of the richness of the biblical teaching on this all important subject and as I've wrestled with it I've come to the persuasion and I'm open to further light and the counsel of my brethren and the input of those masters who sit on our bookshelves and

8:29 teach us but I've become persuaded that if we are to think clearly and therefore to react in a way that is pleasing to God in the face of such suffering that it will help us to understand this suffering in its broad but well-defined biblical context particularly in the context of Christian experience that is set before us in the New Testament and I want us to begin by seeking to grasp a one-way passage of the teaching and I want us to begin to see what we have to offer and what we must do in order to endure the change that God wants us to experience and therefore I ask that we take as it is that we bring out a little bit of the greatest information about the biblical ministry of Christ the rest of us as we look at the Bible is that we have three foundational biblical perspectives that form as it were the tapestry of the biblical subject of suffering for the sake of Christ and the first is this to be a real Christian to be a Christian in something other than name and external appearance to be a real Christian is to be United to the Lord Jesus Christ by the 먹 liberty and the peace of Christ Jesus Christ as He was born and I wish this can continue for his plan we would also like to say this is a two way street we would like to welcome you to the church of Christ to be united to the Lord Jesus Christ by a spirit-given faith. That's the first principle. The foundational biblical perspective to a biblical grasp on the doctrine of suffering, or a grasp upon the biblical doctrine of suffering, is to understand that to be a real Christian is to be united to

9:54 the Lord Jesus Christ by a spirit-given faith. Now, by the phrase, united to the Lord Jesus Christ, I am simply attempting to give a slightly expanded rendering of what is the most fundamental and crucial prepositional phrase in all of the Bible, and it is the phrase, in Christ. In Him, in whom. And some have taken the time to count the uses of that phrase in the New Testament, particularly in the Pauline corpus, and they tell us that there are at least 150 to 160 uses of the little phrase, in Christ, in Him, in whom. And it is not unique to the Pauline corpus. In the Joannine epistles, we find it again and again, and Peter closes, his epistle with the words that the peace of God is to be unto all that are in Christ. They are the closing words of Peter's epistle, so that that epistle comes to real Christians

11:14 insofar as they are in Christ, in union with Christ. As Dr. Ferguson has reminded us in his very first epistle, he says, very helpful book on the Holy Spirit, the phrase, and now I quote him, the phrase, in Christ, summarizes all that it means to be a Christian, and indeed is used as a virtual synonym for Christian, end quote. He then goes on to cite some of the texts that make this evident, 2 Corinthians 12, 2, where Paul says, I know a man in Christ.

11:55 That is, I know a man who is a true Christian, speaking, of course, of himself. And in Romans 16, in verse 7, Paul refers to Andronicus and Junius as my relatives who were in Christ before me. Now, while the scriptures clearly teach that there is a pre-temporal union with Christ, a union in that marvelous, and wonderful disposition and choice of God when he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world, there is a pre-temporal union with Christ taught in scripture. And scripture also teaches that there is a union with Christ when he unites himself to our humanity in Mary's womb, and as our head and representative in his unique, redemptive acts accomplishes redemption once for all, for all of his people who were not only in him in the Father's eternal choice, but in him in his once for all accomplishment of redemption. But the

13:14 scriptures teach us that there is a vital living union with Christ that is not experienced until we are personally, existentially within the boundaries of the stuff that makes you, you, and me, me, are united to the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, I trust that I am not mistaken in assuming in this context that the vast majority of you are convinced that that faith, which from the human perspective unites us to Christ, is not some inherently possessed capacity that the sinner decides to use in order to get right with God by being united to Christ. I trust all of you here, if not persuaded, are at least seriously considering the teaching of scripture that given what man is in Adam, blind, dead, at enmity with God, his ears deaf to the call of God, his ears deaf to the call of God, his ears deaf to the call of God, blinded to the glory of God reflected in the face of Christ in the gospel,

14:35 that until God does an internal work described in different ways in the scriptures and given different terms by the theologians, but that work is such that the very faith by which the sinner in the nakedness of his need lays hold of Christ in the plenitude of his grace, but that work is such that the sinner in the nakedness of his need lays hold of Christ in the plenitude of his grace, but that work is such that the sinner in the nakedness of his need lays hold of Christ in the plenitude of his grace, but that work is such that the sinner in the nakedness of his need lays hold of Christ in the plenitude of his grace, but that work is such that the sinner in the nakedness of his need lays hold of Christ in the plenitude of his grace, but that work is such that the sinner in the nakedness of his need lays hold of Christ in the plenitude of his grace, but that work is such that the sinner in the nakedness of his need lays hold of Christ in the plenitude of his grace, but that work is such that the sinner in the nakedness of his need lays hold of Christ in the plenitude of his grace, perfection of his work and in the glory of his person that that faith is indeed the gift of God so that the apostle without any scruples can say to the Philippians in Philippians 1 29 for to you it has been given it has been granted as the donation of grace not only to believe him but also to suffer for his sake it has been given to believe into Christ it has been given to believe into Christ now think with me what I want to underscore is that that faith which is the work of the Holy Spirit unto union with Christ

16:01 it is that faith which lays hold of Christ uniting us to Christ disposing us to receive Christ for the purposes for which he is offered and on the terms in which he offers himself to us how is he offered to us in the great indicatives of the gospel he is offered to us as a mighty as a willing and as an able savior from sin and its consequences you shall call his name Jesus for he shall save his people apo away from their sins the consequences of sin yes the damnation which sin deserves yes but away from their sins the defiance of sin is the fruitless fall and is the modes clearly from the expopia and marathon and the seduto and in the life itself

The Terms of Union: Embracing Christ as Prophet, Priest, and King

17:28 that the and and eternity each week there is a men everywhere to repent. This is his commandment, that you believe on the name of his son. The trembling jailer cries out, sirs, what must I do to be saved? And Paul has no scruples to say, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. But now picture the Lord Jesus standing before us in the picture we are given to him in Matthew chapter 11. Wonderful words often used in evangelistic preaching against the backdrop of the religious tyranny of the religious experts of whom we heard in the previous hour, who had no appreciation of grace and truncated the demands of the law and in place of God's yoke, which is easy, strapped on burdens that none could bear which they did not lift a finger to bear, Jesus said. And he stands before such people and says,

18:40 come, come unto me, come unto me. An adverb used in an imperative mode, come unto me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. But he doesn't stop there. You Greek students, two aorist imperatives, all of their intensity follow. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly of heart, and you shall find rest to your souls. Do you see how that wonderful gospel overture is bounded? Come, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and it ends with the promise of rest. But in between the initial come, to be relieved of that crushing burden, are the gracious imperatives, take my yoke and learn of me. And surely it is no stretching of the whole thrust of that invitation

20:00 to see that in principle Jesus is saying, I stand before you in my threefold office as prophet, priest, and minister. And I stand before you in my threefold office as prophet, priest, and minister. Then King, as priest I enter in to take the burden. I'm on my way to a place of rejection.

20:19 I'm on my way to Golgotha, when all the billows of my father's wrath will be emptied upon me. Come, all you that labor and are heavy laden, take my yoke. In coming relinquish the wretched tyranny of being your own little God. Relinquish being in the God business, running your life by your own desires, driven by your own passions to be somebody, to have something, to enjoy things.

20:57 Get out of the God business. I, the incarnate God, have rights of government over all who come under the canopy of my grace. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me.

21:16 Give up your silly notions, thinking that your little pea brain, defiled by sin and riddled with ignorance, can understand ultimate issues and know how to please God and how to serve God. Come, take and learn. And don't be fearful. I am meek.

21:44 And lowly of heart.

21:47 Unless I've missed some very critical part in the gospel record. Apart from the Lord Jesus saying in John 12, now is my soul troubled. Where he consciously discloses some inner trauma of the soul. I don't know another place where Jesus describes his own inner disposition as he does here.

22:10 I am meek and lowly of heart. You have nothing to fear. You have nothing to fear in coming, in taking, and in learning.

22:23 But when the Spirit of God works faith in the heart of a self-condemned, consciously needy sinner, and shines upon the face of Christ in the gospel, the Holy Spirit never gives a faith that picks and chooses which part of Christ it will embrace. Never.

The Radical Demands of Discipleship: Self-Denial and Cross-Bearing

22:53 Never. Never. Never. Never.

22:58 Never. Never. Never. Never.

23:02 Never. Never. Again, take Luke 14 25 and following. It was a period in our Lord's ministry when he was at the zenith of his popularity and Luke says, great multitudes went after him.

23:07 And Jesus turned and said to the multitudes, if any man come to me, and hate not father, mother, brother, sister, brother and Crinoline, then they would have the joys of eternal life. Nci put problèmes dit. Yea, and his own life also he cannot be my disciple. And then as if to add insult to injury, listen to what he goes on to say in that very passage.

23:39 Whosoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. And unless we are prepared to stand a Bible on its head and make some fundamental distinction between a true believer and a disciple and adherent to Christ who has been grafted into Christ, then surely Christ has not changed the terms on which he welcomes people into the band of his true followers. And when the Spirit of God is at work, in the heart of a man or woman, boy or girl, regardless of how much content there has been in the gospel proclaimed to that sinner, either in its glorious full-orbed indicatives or in the more adequate imperatives, when the Spirit of God works faith in the heart of a sinner, effecting union with Christ, the sinner comes to Christ on Christ's terms. To the ends for which Christ graciously receives sinners.

24:59 That's why Jesus could say in those kingdom parables, Matthew 13 and verse 44, wherever the kingdom of God is manifested in human hearts, it is like this. Here is words. The kingdom of heaven is like unto a treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and hid. And in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.

25:30 He may have walked by that field a hundred times in the course of his life. And all he saw was a weed patch with nothing on it.

25:40 But one day he is digging around for who knows what, and his shovel makes a penny sound, and he digs up and he finds a treasure. And suddenly, the thing that never was found, is of interest to him. Just that plot of weeds that's on my street. Suddenly, nothing matters in life but having that field because in it there is the treasure.

26:05 The kingdom of heaven is like such an instance, Jesus said. And then he said, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a man that is a merchant seeking goodly pearls. This is not the indifferent man walking by a field and no interest in it. And suddenly all his interest is focused upon it.

26:24 But here's a man on the quest. And he knows the difference between real pearls and bogus pearls and cultured pearls and the real stuff grown in the real oyster all by its own. And he finds one pearl and he says, this pearl is the one that I've sought all my life. And he takes all of his assets and goes down to the bank and brokers and he gets rid of everything he has in order to purchase the one pearl.

26:54 Jesus said, the kingdom of heaven is like, that the Holy Spirit never reveals Christ to the sinner in such a way that the sinner says, well, I'll put a down payment on the field. And if I can adjust all of my other priorities, then someday I might take full title to the field. No, once the treasures discovered everything sold to have the treasure. And likewise with this merchant, this pearl merchant, he doesn't say, well, you know, good businessmen keep the diversified portfolio.

27:39 You don't want to put all your money in one rising stock. It may bottom out on Monday morning. Jesus said, and may God help us to have no controversy with Jesus. Jesus said, this is what the kingdom of heaven.

28:01 And whether it's the case of the person who's indifferent to his spiritual state,

28:09 who's had little acquaintance with the truths of special revelation, and God is pleased to cause him to walk upon a field and to stick, as it were, the point of the shovel of his bustling through life to strike the treasure, or whether it's like some of us put together in our mother's wounds with a sensitive, temperament and conscience and surrounded with the light of special revelation in precept and an example in a Christian home. And there is a yearning and there is a seeking and a reaching out. It matters not across the full spectrum of the psychical, emotional, internal process by which the Spirit of God, whose ways are like the wind brings the elect to Christ at the end of the day, when they are United to Christ. By faith with a faith. It is the gift of God. They are United to Christ in principle, taking a whole Christ with the whole man for the whole gamut of the implications of being his.

29:29 To be a real Christian then, and you'll never understand the New Testament doctrine of suffering for Christ to be a real Christian. Then, is to be United to Jesus Christ in a Spirit given faith.

The Seed of Martyrdom in Saving Faith and the Shallow Gospel

29:47 Do you see wherever that occurs? The very seed of martyrdom is buried deeply in every act of saving faith.

30:02 Think of that. The seed of martyrdom is buried in every act of saving faith. For, you're involved in it as we heard in the previous hour, is repudiation of self as the governing principle of life. If any man would come after me, let him say no to himself.

30:25 The same verb used of Peter when he denied and took maledictions upon himself and oaths. He denied resolutely expressing. I have nothing to do with him. Jesus said, would you be his?

30:40 You do that with, not something external to yourself, but to yourself.

30:49 For if he died for all, he died that they who live, Paul says, should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him who for their sakes died and rose again. Second Corinthians 515. So when a man repudiates himself, and then Jesus said, take up the cross, the cross or his cross. Now, what did those words mean to the average first century Palestinian Jew living under Roman rule?

31:23 When you said cross, you did not think of that lovely wooden structure at the pinnacle of a Christian church, or that gold thing worn around the neck,

31:38 or what I call evangelical icons marketed special kinds of crosses. You'd think of one thing. When you saw a cross, you saw a man who was utterly, thoroughly irreversibly rejected by society, stripped of every last vestige of human dignity, who had no plans of his own. He didn't say to his buddy with a cross on his back.

32:11 Hey, Henry, see tomorrow morning. We'll go fishing down by the lake. That's a quote from old. Tozer.

32:18 He just popped into my head.

32:23 A man with a cross on his back is going to die. His plans, no matter how well laid they have been for the next week and for the next summer's vacation and for retirement. They are done. Finish over with.

32:40 He takes up a cross and only then are we prepared to follow him. If any man will to come after me, deny himself, take up the cross and follow me. You say, but Pastor Martin, that means it's all over. You lose your life.

33:01 Jesus says, you've got it for he that would save his life shall lose it. But he that will lose his life for my sake and the gospel's the same. She'll save it. And my dear friends.

33:18 This is not some advanced super level. The vision of the gospel. It is of the very essence of an experiential grasp upon Christ as he is offered in the gospel. Now, do you begin to see why it's so crucial to start at that very elementary level?

33:44 If we're going to understand why the New Testament assumes that there will be suffering for righteousness sake, suffering for Christ's sake, and it doesn't say with a parenthesis, except in the affluent Western or American and British culture where the gospel has exerted a leavening influence in past generations, in which case there is a lower standard. No, it isn't found in my Bible and to the peril of your soul. You write it in as parentheses in these passages that we've considered. Could it be that the primary cause of the absence of more patent suffering for righteousness sake in our country is because the effects of a shallow truncated view of the nature of true conversion has come home to roost. And we can sit here in this conference. And I don't mean to be. Nasty.

35:01 I've prayed. God helped me to be like Stephen that I will speak with biblical wisdom and with Christ like Grace. But I ask you in the theater of your own conscience. Could it be without trying to be nasty and without trying to be right angled where we don't need to be and to be an irritant in order to just get some satisfaction of a persecution complex.

35:31 But could it be that the reason there's such a peaceful coexistence with so many professing Christians in our country and a society that in a very real sense is showing up Sodom and Gomorrah and there seems to be so little day by day collision. Could it be that there is no real union with Christ to be a real Christian is to be United to Christ. In a spirit-given faith second principle and I may only get the three principles and people you'll have to forgive me. I've never preached this in this way before I'm being strained to address it be patient with me the second principle if to be a real Christian is to be United to Christ in a spirit-given faith. Then here's our second principle to be United to the Lord Jesus Christ by a spirit-given faith. In a spirit-given faith is to be a recipient of the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Second Foundational Principle: The Gift of the Holy Spirit Concurrent with Faith

36:48 Let me give it to you again to be United to the Lord Jesus Christ in a spirit-given faith is to be a recipient of the gift of the spirit not as a work of the spirit spirit subsequent to conversion. Subsequent to passing from. The state of wrath into a state of grace but concurrent with the work of the spirit that is unto faith the Bible teaches there is the gift of the spirit to faith the work of the spirit unto faith the gift of the spirit to faith two pivotal text there are more but two pivotal text Galatians chapter 3 in Galatians chapter 3. We're.

37:41 Paul is with white hot passion defending the truth of a salvation that comes to us by grace alone in Christ alone received by faith alone and he not only sets up this dichotomy between faith and works but between flesh and spirit because as Dr. Ferguson underscored in the previous hour it's where the gospel of grace suffuses us. The heart that there the spirit produces Christ likeness even the ability to love one's enemies and so there is a strong emphasis upon the ministry of the spirit in this epistle that is the the great watershed of a defense of the doctrine of salvation by grace alone in Christ alone by faith alone and in chapter 3 the apostle writes Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law.

38:42 Having become a curse for us all of the accursed mess that was our do as lawbreakers he took in full measure upon himself and their rings throughout the ether to the farthest reaches of space that cry that issued from the depths of his soul upon Golgotha my God. My God why have you abandoned it was in his real substitutionary curse bearing that blessed be God we're released from the curse look at the text Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law having become a curse for us for it is written cursed is everyone that hangs on a tree now notice two purpose clauses that that Christ did this in order to.

39:49 That upon the Gentiles might come the blessing of Abraham in Christ Jesus see the truth in union with Christ another purpose clause in order that we might receive the promise of the spirit how through faith and whether we view the two purpose clauses as sequential or parallel Paul couldn't say both things at once one had to be a first. And the second this much is clear Christ vicarious curse bearing has as its glorious purpose that those for whom the curse was born when they are brought into union with Christ by a spirit wrought faith they would receive the promise of the Holy Spirit do you see that with your own eyeballs in your own Bible you don't even know a word of Greek.

40:51 Just any good translation makes it abundantly clear so that the gift of the spirit is not something that should be the concern of people that are a little bit on the fringe and a little bit wacko and a little bit in balance no it lies at the heart of why Jesus died became a curse for us that upon the Gentiles the blessing of Abraham. In Christ the covenant blessing that I will be their God and they should be my people not in some detached on experiential way but on the basis of the work of Christ and having united us to Christ in Christ the spirit is given to us Ephesians one where the apostle cannot deal in detached theology like a talking head.

41:55 But as he contemplates grounding these Ephesians in the wonder of their salvation in Christ he does so by means of doxology he theologizes by doxologizing verse three blessed be God and the father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenlies now notice where is it to be found in Christ. There it is every blessing in Christ and then he deals with the pre temporal dimensions chosen in him predestined to sonship and then he focuses upon the work of Christ and then he turns to the work of the spirit in verse 13 in whom that is in union with Christ now notice having heard the word of the truth the gospel of your salvation. In whom that is in union with Christ.

42:56 In whom that is in Christ having believed you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise having believed you were sealed here is the gift of the spirit to faith this is not that mysterious powerful work of the spirit beneath the level of our consciousness in its beginnings when God takes out the heart of stone and gives the heart of flesh and the first actings of the spirit. In whom that is in union with Christ. In whom that is in union with Christ. In whom that is in union with Christ.

43:29 In whom that is in union with Christ. In whom that is in union with Christ. In whom that is in union with Christ. In whom that is in union with Christ.

43:33 In whom that is in union with Christ. In whom that is in union with Christ. In whom that is in union with Christ. In whom that is in union with Christ.

43:37 In whom that is in union with Christ. In whom that is in union with Christ. In whom that is in union with Christ. In whom that is in union with Christ.

43:41 In whom that is in union with Christ. In whom that is in union with Christ. In whom that is in union with Christ. In whom that is in union with Christ.

43:45 In whom that is in union with Christ. sinner. You heard, you believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. And he does not assume that this was the experience of only some. It was true of all who were true Christians at Ephesus. Hence he can say in chapter 4 and verse 30, when he moves from the grand indicatives of the first three chapters, and he moves to the therefores in the imperatives of chapters 4 to 6, he says, and do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God in whom you were sealed unto the day of redemption.

The Spirit's Indwelling and the Pentecostal Pattern

44:30 Now this is why when we come to such passages as Romans chapter 8, we should not be surprised that to receive the Spirit and to receive Christ are used interchangeably in the language of the apostle. Romans chapter 8, look at the language very quickly. Verse 9, you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ is in you, Spirit of God, Spirit of Christ, Christ is in you. When the Spirit of God brings the sinner to apprehending Christ as he's offered in the gospel, he receives the Christ who has procured the gift of the Spirit for all of his people. And in being incorporated into Christ, all who are united to Christ by a Spirit-given faith are the recipients of the gift of the Spirit. Therefore, on the day of Pentecost, when Peter's preaching, and again, it's easy to take pot shots, and I don't want to indulge in that

45:56 kind of pulpit carnality. I believe there are sincere Christ-loving people with a passion to reach our generation who, because of a number of factors, have been sucked into the whole concept of a user-friendly message and climate. And I don't want to take cheap shots. But my brothers and sisters, to the law.

46:20 And to the testimony. If they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them. Isaiah 8.20. And when Peter stands on the day of Pentecost with his point of contact being, he overhears people saying, these people are smashing drunk. That's why they're speaking in all of these dialects and languages that are not their native language. And Peter says, you got it all wrong, folks. Too early in the morning. It's only nine o'clock.

46:50 They're not drunk with wine, but this is that. And by expository evangelism, opening up passages of the Old Testament, he brings them clean through to where he shows that what was happening there in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost was the validation that the very Jesus, who with their hands, they took and handed over to the Roman authorities so that Peter says, it was your hands that crucified him. The Roman soldiers were just your tools. Now, you talk about a user-friendly message. You tell people the first time they come to hear you preach, you're murderers of Messiah. And his blood is dripping from your hands. And what happens? It says they were cut to the heart. This Jesus,

47:48 God's made him Lord in Christ. He has given him his official coronation as the message and the king. And now he has shed forth this, which you see and hear. This is the validation that he's everything he claimed to be, the very one you crucified. And then without any psychological manipulation, a hand on the shoulder, coaching them what to pray, they cry out, what do we do? What does Peter say in Acts 2.38? Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ.

48:27 Unto the remission of your sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise. What promise? The gift of the Spirit to every penitent, believing sinner whose faith brings into such an attachment to Christ that they're willing right there in Jerusalem, where they put Jesus to death, to publicly declare, I'm one of his.

48:58 People say, faith isn't mentioned. What Peter is saying, yes, repent. And in that context, demanding baptism meant, repent of your sin, of all that produced it, your blindness, your dead works, your own notions of who Christ should be and how he should come, turn from the whole shebang,

49:24 lay hold of Christ, and be prepared to be identified with him as one of his, Jesus Christ. Join us who form now his living temple. Come be new stones in this temple. Come and be identified with Jesus of Nazareth as Messiah King. And in that coming, there will be remission of sin, and all that we've received from the Messianic King will be yours in Christ. You shall receive the gift of the Spirit. And it's very interesting, and this may help you, some of you who may be sitting here in the room struggling with some of the classic charismatic teaching. And there is classic charismatic teaching.

50:08 Don't dismiss it as all a bunch of nonsense. There's some serious scholars and devout saints. I'm not one of them, but there are some. When it says, they that received his word were baptized, and there were added unto them in the same day three thousand souls, how do we know they got the gift of the Spirit? No mention of tongues, mention of prophecies it says in these all continued steadfastly in the apostles doctrine fellowship the breaking the bread and prayers pentecost in many respects was as much a once for all redemptive event as golgotha and joseph's empty tomb and they receive the spirit who now as the spirit of truth gives them a passion for truth so they attach themselves to the apostles teaching for jesus had promised that by the same spirit those apostles would be led into all truth and so the spirit who's leading the apostles into truth bears witness in the heart of all whom he

51:21 dwells that we're now attached to the truth of jesus as it is mediated through the apostles they continue steadfastly in the apostles doctrine and in fellowship koinonia shared life shared life christ has incorporated this man into the church and into the church and into the church and into the church and into the church plates by his church it comes most often and many I do not know how that many of us have gone cryptic himself and I'm incorporated into him then we've got a bond deeper than our Jewish blood we have a blood-bought bond and we love our own and we want to be with them to nurture and share with them fellowship the breaking of bread most likely a reference to the supper of remembrance tracing back again and again all their newfound blessings as they flow out from Christ and in the prayer for when the spirit is given he is given as the spirit of adoption Galatians 6 version 4 I'm sorry verse 6 because you are sons he has sent forth the spirit of his son into our hearts crying Abba father the spirit does not cry apart from us the best commentary on that text is Romans 8 in verse 15 we have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear but the spirit of adoption whereby we cry

52:40 father and that spirit who is given as the donation of the exalted and risen Christ he gives the filial disposition that the very God before whom we tremble we now call him father not in a cheeky way but we see that in the vicarious wrath bearing of the Lord Jesus God can be both just and not only the justifier of him who believes in Jesus but the unrighteous doctor he can take us into his family and went on the basis of the work of Christ he gives this the status of sons he says that's not enough I don't want them going around just having a slip of paper saying they're my sons and daughters I want them to know it and to feel it and to enjoy it I give the spirit of my son enable them to cry out the Father and my time was gone and I've only gotten two of the principles but I did not accept Jesus to be my father I was the father of my children and I am now the son of my son and I deem it a privilege to be a father of our own and my father it is a privilege to be my own son so I have to stay in church today the words of my life has been the first good and the last good and the last good and the last good and the last good is the result of this but I determined that I would seek to preach out the things that have gripped me. Let me close on this note, that he never gives the spirit of adoption, enabling us to enjoy the filial access to our God, without at the same time stamping us with the image of his Son, and try to get hold of this principle.

The Spirit's Work of Conformation and the Inevitability of Suffering

54:09 I'm patchwork here, trying to throw out two-thirds of what I had hoped to say, unrealistically. The Holy Spirit in us is the executor of the purposes of the Godhead in our salvation. You got that? He works out in us what was purposed for us in eternity, purchased for us in the space-time redemptive acts of Jesus, and now continually sought for, for us by the ongoing intercession of Jesus.

54:52 Don't limit his work to what happened in Palestine 200 years ago. He ever lives, and because he lives, he's able to save to the uttermost. But it's the Holy Spirit dwelling in us as the very presence of Christ, who is the executor of the divine purpose. And what is that purpose?

55:14 Whom he did foreknow, he did predestinate to be what? Conform to the Lord. Conform to the Lord. In the image of his Son, that he, Jesus, might be the firstborn, the prototokos, the chief one, the eminent one, the all-worthy one.

55:36 He predestined us that we should be conformed to the image of his Son, that when God's redemptive purpose comes to its culmination, Jesus will have a family in whom the family, the body, the spirit, the body, and the soul are no more. That is the way to prepare our souls, and for us to be conformed to the image of Jesus, for His momentary likeness is perfectly reflected in body as well as in spirit." Now you think about that and say, what in the world does that have to do with suffering? I think the answer is clear.

56:20 And if it's not clear, read the last part of John 15, know that they'll hate you and if they hate you know that they hated me before they hated you and therefore the Christian in faith union to Christ and by the work of the Spirit 2 Corinthians 3.18 continually transformed into that image from one stage of glory to another while the Spirit of God uses that Christ one as we heard in the previous hour manifesting the disposition of Christ to one's enemies and the Spirit of God owns that in some and makes Christ attractive in those who are like him the more his people are like him the more it will precipitate the hatred of that world that put him to death and would kill him if they could get their hands on him today you see that's why the New Testament assumes this kind of suffering is the lot of old all God's people Acts 14.22 what was the comfort they gave to the new disciples they exhorted them comforted them saying that through much tribulation we must that little particle of necessity day we must enter the kingdom much tribulation on our way to the kingdom Romans 8.16 take the if clause at the end of the verse

57:47 the Spirit himself bears witness with our spirits that we are the sons the children of God and if children then everything then everything heirs heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ if if if if so be that we there's no with him it's suffer with it's the word suffer with the prefix with soon if we jointly suffer in order that we may be jointly glorified for you see what the Spirit of God does with us my dear brothers and sisters when he applies the redemption procured by Jesus in the path in the path of suffering that led to glory everyone in whom that salvation comes as the gracious gift of God is planted in the same path in the application of salvation that Jesus the author and the finisher of salvation walked his sufferings preceded his glory and your sufferings and mine if we're united to him are an indispensable element of true Christian experience and the little I know of it I can testify as my last word never is Jesus more precious

59:14 than when you can say I want to know him in the koinonia the fellowship of his suffering rejection slander misunderstanding bitter to the soul but when they take us into the experiential communion of Christ then you understand Paul's prayer now let us pray our father we thank you that you take our fumblings our pathetic efforts to try to begin to begin to explore the wonders of your grace and to the extent that we have rightly handled your grace and to the extent that we have rightly handled your grace and to the extent that we have rightly handled your word and set out these broad perspectives may your spirit be our inward teacher and may he work mightily for those our father who have reason to question if the Holy Spirit has ever stripped them ever brought them broken naked no conditions bowed down in humiliation and yet in wonder laying hold of Christ oh God oh God deal with such and give them no rest till they know that they are in Christ

60:43 and in Christ have been given the gift of the spirit and therefore are marked for suffering and in the spirit's grace strengthened to suffer we pray for your people our father help us we grieve we mourn that there's so much about us that is so unlike your son have mercy upon us stir us up that we may use every means in utter reliance upon your grace that the work of conforming us to the Lord Jesus may in each of our lives be intensified and oh God help us as that will no doubt raise the ire of a Christ hating world enable us to do what we heard in the previous hour in fellowship and communion with Jesus to be able to love our enemies to do them good as you do good to them hear us we plead in Jesus name Amen