The Battle of the Mind- 2

Subtitle: The Help of the Holy Spirit

John 14:16-18, 25-27.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on Sunday, June 8, 2025.

We have been talking about the mental battle that Christians face.  This battle would be too much for us alone.  However, God gives us help through the Holy Spirit.

Moreover, God has helped us all along the way.  He has assisted humanity by acting within time to reveal His plan.  He sent Jesus to pay the price for our sins and lead us into an inheritance that none of us deserve.  He also restrains the full extent of what the devil would do if he could.

Today on Pentecost Sunday, we are going to focus on the help that we receive through the gift of God’s Holy Spirit.  Let’s look at the many different ways that the Holy Spirit helps us.

The Holy Spirit is given to help us (v. 16-18)

At its core, the message of Jesus here is that he is going to send the Holy Spirit after he leaves.  This happened 50 days after his death on the Feast of Pentecost (also called the Feast of Weeks).

The Holy Spirit is not taking the place of Jesus in an absolute sense.  He only does so in the sense of expanding the ability of the man Jesus to teach and lead every believing heart at once.

When Jesus told his disciples that he would not leave them nor forsake them, we can in a snarky manner that he did leave them.  Yes, Jesus physically left, but through the Spirit of God, he is spiritually with every believer in a very real way.  He works through the Holy Spirit.

In verse 16, a word is used of the Holy Spirit that is translated in various ways.  The NASB translate it as “Helper.”  Other versions choose “Comforter,” “Advocate,” and “Counselor.”  All of these can be good translations depending on the context.  In this context, I think that some of them are too narrow.

The Greek Word is technically called the Paraclete in English, and has the idea of One who is called alongside of another for assistance.  There are a multitude of contexts from dire to anxious that would color just what assistance is needed.  In this passage, the emphasis is on the Holy Spirit helping us in the ways that Jesus had been doing.  I think that Helper is the best translation here because it leaves room for all the many ways we can need help.  Whatever we need, the Holy Spirit comes alongside of believers to be God’s help for us, whether comforter, counselor, advocate, even teacher, rebuker, conviction, and the one who disciplines us.  Of course, God can use people in our lives, and He does.  However, there are some things that only God can help us with.

Let me focus on the idea that the Holy Spirit will be a helper like Jesus (i.e., another helper).  Imagine how these disciples would feel.  Israel had waited 15 centuries and before that the patriarchs too.  God was not sending Messiah to do a 3 ½ year work and then just leave.  Yes, Jesus is trying to explain that he is going away.  Yet, at the same time, he wants them to know that the Holy Spirit will be given to them.  The assistance that Jesus had given in those days would continue through the help of the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit would cut through the religious deception and the nationalistic patriotism, to the core of a right relationship with God.

Jesus would continue to work on the heart of his disciples through the Holy Spirit, which is called the Spirit of Christ in Romans 8:9.  In fact, it has actually increased his ability to speak and work in the lives of his disciples world-wide, all at once.

The wisdom of God is in this reality.  It allows for a time of teaching and training mortal believers.  It is good for us to learn to wrestle with our flesh by the power of the Holy Spirit.  We become more like Jesus in this.  It also gives opportunity for people to turn from rebellion against God and switch allegiance to Jesus before he comes to reign on this earth.  This is the mercy of God.  Lastly, as I’ve already pointed out, Jesus is enabled to work beyond an earthly body at one point on the earth.  He can do much more in preparing this earth for the kingdom of God.

Now, God has always been a helper to those who trust Him.  Psalm 46:1-3 says,

“God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.  Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change and though the mountains slip into the heart of the sea; though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains quake at its swelling pride.”

When we look at this passage, we can envision God being a great help in the time of natural disasters, and of course, He is that!  However, these things are also metaphors.  Mountains are often used to picture the great powers that rule on the earth.  The bigger the mountain the bigger the kingdom.  The sea and waters is often used as a picture of the peoples of the earth.  It is also a place where the chaos dragon (satan) swims and lurks. 

Of course, Noah had both the literal and the metaphorical all at once!  Yet, God was His help.  Such things cause us to fear, but we can trust in God, His power over all things, especially death, and refuse to let the fear control us.

Verse 17 of John 14 refers to the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of Truth.  The Holy Spirit was the one who moved upon men to write down the truth that God was revealing to them.  He is a truthful Spirit, but He also comes to reveal the Truth, point to the Truth.  Jesus is the ultimate Truth!

Notice that it says, “whom the world cannot receive because it does not see Him or know Him.”  This is talking about the world system that has conformed to the spirit of the devil, antichrist, error, non-Truth.  That unholy spirit that works in this world is not at all like the Holy Spirit.

Of course, the world can conform to things of Christ in the same way that Judas did.  It can do things in an attempt to look like a follower of Jesus, but in the end, it will never truly embrace the transformational power of Jesus that comes through the Holy Spirit.

This world and worldly Christians are tuned into a different spirit.  They receive and chase after a false-help that only harms those who rely upon it.

Though the world does not know the Spirit of Truth, the disciples of Jesus will know Him because He will be with them and in them.  In relation to the world, we are pressured to conform to a system and an image that is antichrist and anti-Holy-Spirit.  However, when we turn from the world and put our faith in Jesus, we can receive the Holy Spirit, the help of God.

Back in verse 1 of this chapter, Jesus said, “Let not your heart be troubled.  You believe in God; believe also in Me!”  All of this is done in order to encourage his disciples, us, that we are not being left alone in this world as he goes away.  He is shoring up their minds for the things ahead so that they do not collapse under the weight of the enemy’s attacks.  Their minds are set on reigning with Jesus any day now.  But, that was not to be.  Yet, the Holy Spirit would help them to navigate the reality that they would instead be persecuted and abused.

How the Holy Spirit helps us (v. 26-27)

We are going to look at some particular ways that the Holy Spirit helps us in these two verses.  Then, we will look at some other ways from various passages in a rapid-fire fashion.

Jesus had spent a lot of time with these men and had taught them many things in the last three years.  Yet, their heads were full of notions of ruling Israel and kicking out the Romans.  In other words, they weren’t paying attention at the level they should have.  Who can blame them?  Jesus promises that the Holy Spirit would help these men to remember all that he had taught them.  This is one reason we know that we have an accurate record of what Jesus taught.  He promised that the Holy Spirit would help to make this happen.

You and I have not had the same experience as these men.  We need to read the Gospels and the letters of the Apostles in order to know what Jesus taught.  However, the Holy Spirit will then help us to remember the words of Christ, that we have read or heard, when we need them.  At the due season, the Holy Spirit brings things strategically to our remembrance.

Jesus also told his disciples that the Holy Spirit would teach them all things.  It is clearly understood that it would be all the things that God would want them to know and that would be helpful to them.  This is not a guarantee that the apostles would become omniscient and know everything.  We can become fascinated with figuring out things that are only a diversion at best.  This promise is not about that.

In John 16:12-13, Jesus said, “I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.  However, when He, the Spirit of Truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth."  Just as Jesus had counseled them in the moment, so the Holy Spirit would help the early Church to establish a clear record of what Christ taught, and led them to believe through the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is still leading the Church of Jesus, but we need to exercise caution in this area.  We must walk in humility.  All saints wrestle with the Truth of God’s word and their own shortcomings.  The Holy Spirit is here to help us, but we need to listen humbly.  The Pharisees and the Sadducees laid claim to this, but they had abandoned the Word of God for the sake of their own traditions.  They had become antichrist all while claiming to be waiting for the Christ.  Yes, the Holy Spirit will lead us into all Truth, but sometimes that will be despite the contrary efforts of authority figures in the Church.

The Holy Spirit would also help them with peace.  Verse 27 focuses on the peace that Christ would leave with them.  Contextually, the peace is both what he is telling them, and specifically, the peace-giving effect of the Holy Spirit in our lives.  Here are a couple of verses that emphasize the peace that we are given by God.

“You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on You, because he trusts in You.” Isaiah 26:3, also

“For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.  For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.”  Romans 8:5-6.

When the Holy Spirit resides with in us, there will be liberty, joy and peace.

Looking at some other passages, we can add other aspects of the help of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy spirit makes us fruitful in the virtues of God.  Virtues are those moral qualities that are quite selfish without the Holy spirit.  Many of them are listed in Galatians 5:22-23.  Using a fruit metaphor, Paul describes what happens in the life of a person who truly has the Holy Spirit within them.  They will evidence these things (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control).  However, they will be as God defines and not as the culture around us defines them.

The Holy Spirit will work within you to teach you how to love, have joy and peace, how to be patient and kind, how to be good to others, how to be faithful to God first and also to the people around us, how to be gentle and control ourselves.

All fruit trees require pruning.  Some branches are cut off because they are dead and have no life in them.  These represent the works of the flesh that are contrary to the fruit listed above.  However, other branches are cut off to make room for fruit in our lives.  This can be things that are perfectly good, but get in the way of what God is doing in our life.  In fact, when it comes to pruning, there are some things in our life that God will prune Himself, without asking us.  Yet, other things He will not prune for us.  Instead, the Holy Spirit points them out to us and shows us how to cut them off.  Of course, we need to be humble and trust the Spirit of God.  How fruitful do you want to be? 

We can even recognize that some things change rather quickly, whereas, other things only change over long periods of time.  Jesus doesn’t say that you will never fail.  But he does promise that the Holy Spirit will be there to help you.  You may fail, but He will not fail to keep teaching you the better way to live and follow Jesus.

The Holy Spirit also testifies to us that we are the children of God.  This is one of the areas that people struggle with when they first put their faith in Jesus.  Am I really a child of God?  Did I really receive the Holy Spirit?  These are valid questions.  Paul emphasizes the help of the Holy Spirit in this area in Romans 8:15-16.

This inner testimony of the Holy Spirit may be subjective from the perspective of other people, but for you, it is very real.  When people ask me the questions above, I remind them of that first time they knew they needed to turn away from their old life and embrace Jesus.  No one just does that on their own.  I mean no one does that in a real way.  Sure, there are many pretenders, but pretenders always know that they are only posers.  Just as the Holy Spirit first touched your heart and mind in a way that you knew what to do, so He continues that same work.  Yes, there is a mystery to it, but you know it when it happens.  It is He who testifies to you (from time to time) that you really are a child of God.

God did not make us to be slaves to our flesh and useful idiots for the devil.  This world system and the devil do not want you to follow the Holy Spirit.  But, the Holy Spirit testifies to us that we can turn our back on the world and the devil and learn to image our Father in heaven by becoming like Jesus.

The Holy Spirit also helps us pray.  Again, in Romans 8:26-27, Paul speaks to this.  You see, the Holy Spirit not only helps us know what to pray about, but He also fills in the gap when we don’t know what to say.  Perhaps grief has hit you or your heart is overwhelmed by something else.  You may be perplexed and cry out to God in tears.  Like Israel in Egypt, their cries were heard by the Lord.  I don’t think all of them were praying prayers, though some surely were.  Yet, the Spirit interprets the anguish of our heart before the Father.

The picture of verse 27 is that God’s Holy Spirit plumbs the depths of our hearts and relays what is discovered there back to God.  Yet, all of this is done according to the will of God, that is, for our good, to build us up and not to tear us down.

Lastly, the Holy Spirit fills us with power for life and service for Jesus.  God intends for us to be filled with the Holy Spirit.  We see this in Acts 1:7-8.  Jesus wants his people to be filled with the Holy Spirit so that they can have power for living the Christian life, which involves a battle against our flesh, the world, and the devil.  He also gives us power for serving our fellow believers through giftings that are not from a natural source or talent.  It is a gifting directly from the Holy Spirit.  He also empowers us to share the Gospel with those who do not know Jesus.  In fact, Jesus said that the Holy Spirit would empower them so much that they would take the Gospel to the ends of the earth, and people from every nation, tribe, and tongue would become followers of Jesus.  This is exactly what we have seen over the last 20 centuries.  Are you taking your place among this people of power who are enabled to share the Gospel with the lost?

In all of these things, we are being helped by the Spirit of God.  The best way that we can thank Jesus for this gift of his Spirit is by embracing the help of the Holy Spirit in your life today!

Holy Spirit Helps audio

Such Love III

Subtitle: Let's Be A People of the Spirit

John 16:8-11; John 7:37-39; Romans 8:5-8.

This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on Sunday, April 16, 2023.

We will continue to look at the great love of God towards humanity, but now we are going to emphasize our response to God's great love.  God's amazing overture of love calls for a response from each one of us.  Tragically, some reject His love.  How can we say no to such a love?  Yet, people do it every day.

Our focus today will be on becoming a people of the Spirit of God.  This wording is group-oriented, but we should also personalize it.  I want to be a person of the Spirit of God. 

This is as opposed to being a person of the flesh.  I will talk more about this later, but we should recognize that those who live for their flesh will end up serving the purposes of the devil, the prince of the power of the air, and the god of this world.  Through our bondage to sin, the devil manipulates us on levels that we are not fully aware.  However, the Christian is given freedom from that by the Spirit of God.

Let's look at our first passage.

He directs us to believe in Jesus  (John 16:8-11)

In this passage, we have Jesus explaining to his disciples that he will send another "comforter" to them after he leaves.  This is described further in verse 13 as the Spirit of Truth.  There is no question that this is speaking of the Holy Spirit, or the Spirit of God.

The word translated as "comforter" is a word that describes someone who comes alongside of you for what you need.  Since our needs are various, it is sometimes translated as Counselor, Advocate, Helper, etc.  The Holy Spirit is all of these things and more.  The translation is not as important as understanding what it is saying.  The Spirit would come to help them similar to the help Jesus was giving them, i.e., another Helper to be in his stead.

This sets up a great act of God's love.  He sends His Spirit to dwell within those who put their faith in Jesus.  This Spirit would then fill God's people to overflowing.  Thus, God's love took on the nature of a man, sacrificed that life on a cross for you and me, and then takes up residence within us by His Spirit.  No one back then deserved this, and we have not arrived at a place where we deserve it today.  God simply loves us this much.

Ultimately, humans were designed to operate within intimate relationship with God.  The humbling thing is that we go all over the place morally and spiritually when we do not have a relationship with God.  Without a faith relationship with God by the Holy Spirit, we are forever put off-balance by our flesh through sin.  If it weren't for the gracious work of God's Helper, the Spirit of Truth, the Spirit of God, we would never see our need for believing in Jesus.

In John 16, we see that the Spirit of God is working on people even before they believe in Jesus.  Verse 8 tells us that the Spirit helps unbelievers through the work of conviction.

What is meant by conviction?  The context would influence what is mainly in view.  In this case, it is not a Judgment Day senario, but the Spirit working on the heart of an unbeliever in the present age. 

There are typically three aspects that are tied to this biblical word translated as "convicted."  The first has to do with exposing them to the truth.  As unbelievers, we work very hard to avoid such exposures to truth.  We often minimize, or ridicule, them as they surface in our life and in our mind.  We will typically create mental refutations to these exposures to truth. 

However, the second aspect kicks in with the Holy Spirit refuting our refutations of the truth.  A person may respond in resistance to the Spirit's work of conviction, but they are being hemmed in by Him as life shows them the emptiness of their "fig-leaf" philosophies.  This continues an ever tightening case by the Spirit of God in a person's heart that continually brings them back to a decision point.  We either are moved closer to God or further away.  No one remains static precisely because of the work of God's Spirit.

This brings us to the third aspect of conviction.  It has to do with the concept of proving the truth.  This doesn't mean that the person must surrender.  It just means they reach a point where they are convinced that they do not have a good answer, and the truth stares them in the face proven by God.  God will not force anyone to love Him.  We all still have a choice.  However, to reject God over the top of such conviction is to sear your own conscience, to cauterize your own spiritual eyes, and to harden your heart.

This work of the Holy Spirit's conviction is happening in everyone's life until the day that they die.  We can often underestimate just how much the Holy Spirit has worked on people that we think will never be open to the Gospel.  Some shout the hardest against the Gospel because they are fighting what they secretly know to be true in their heart, and yet don't want to accept it.

Now that we have dealt with what conviction is, there are three particular truths that the Spirit is working to expose, to refute, and to prove to them.

The first of these is sin.  The Holy Spirit convicts sinners of the truth of their sin.  Our society makes a big deal over defining sin.  It wants to define sin because then you can game the system in order to declare yourself not a sinner.  Such definitions are based upon the whims and desires of society, or even myself personally.  Such definitions can never be trusted because a future society (tomorrow, next year, decades, or centuries later) will come up with different ones.  You can never trust such definitions.

This is why the heroes of yesterday are often crucified as the blasphemers of today.  For example, many women who fought for feminism through the last half century are now being thrown under the bus today for the new and improved righteous cause of transgenderism.  I am not commenting on either, but rather, I am pointing out the unstable nature of such ungodly definitions.

Thus, the Spirit convicts unbelievers of God's definition of sin.  That is often done through the effects of the sin and the things they experience throughout life.   By the way, the worst sin really is unbelief.  The two thieves on the crosses next to Jesus were both sinners.  However, the difference was that one believed on him and the other didn't.

We could bring up the Apostle Paul as well.  He is forgiven of murder because he put his faith in Jesus.  However, he is not running around pretending like that is no big deal.  Rather, he pleads with others to join him in this deadly serious love of God.

The second thing the Holy Spirit convicts people about is righteousness, first, that they have none, and second, that Jesus has enough to save all of us.  Most humans are inclined to think that they are good enough, whether they believe in heaven or not.  Notice that Jesus says that the Holy Spirit convicts us of righteousness because Jesus went to the Father.  While Jesus was still on this earth, the people could see for themselves the righteousness of God.  Even sinners instinctively knew that there was something convincing about the righteousness of Christ that was missing in the lives of the Sadducees and the Pharisees.  With Jesus gone, the Holy Spirit is needed to replace that perfect witness.  We need the righteousness of Jesus.

The third thing the Holy Spirit convicts the unbeliever of is judgment.  He convinces us that God's judgment is looming over the heads of the whole world, but also ourselves individually.  He connects this to the fact that the ruler of this world has been judged.  He refers to the devil here, who is the ruler by the fact of his manipulation of sinful men.  If the ruler of this world is judged, then so too are those who serve his purposes.  The Spirit of God convicts us that we are on the wrong side and will not survive judgment, whether globally or individually.

Let's go to our second passage.

He works within the believer  (John 6:37-39)

A convicted sinner is readied and prompted to come to Jesus in faith, to switch their allegiance to Jesus.  In this passage, Jesus gives a promise to those who will come to him in faith.  That promise is the Holy Spirit.

Jesus pictures the Spirit as a river of living water flowing out of the heart of a person who comes to Jesus and drinks of him.  Just as a watershed captures the water that falls upon it and channels it through the ground to streams, then to creeks, and eventually to a river, so too the believer will receive water from Christ that will come forth from their heart like a river of living water.  Some rivers are bigger than others, but he speaks of the Holy Spirit who is immeasurable by definition.

This reminds me of Ezekiel 47.  There, he has a vision of water coming out from the threshold of the temple.  The further out it goes the deeper it becomes, until it ends up at the Dead Sea.  It begins to cure the waters of the Dead Sea until all manner of fish and plants are living in and around it. 

This is a picture of the individual who has the river of living water, the Holy Spirit, springing up within their soul.  Believers should not be a Dead Sea that hoovers up all the grace that God sends its way, but without cooperation with the purposes of God.  We can be like a person eating a plate of "grace" with our head down crying out, "I'm running out; Give me more!"  God help us to wake up to the vast volume of grace that He is pouring out upon us, and see it for what it is, a holy thing from Him.  May we treat it as such.

Instead of fighting against the external workings of the Holy Spirit as unbelievers do, the believer is pictured as cooperating with the internal working of the Holy Spirit.  The same Spirit that led us to believe in Jesus will now work within us to make us a new creation: a disciple of Jesus, and a child of God.  We allow the Spirit of God to spring up within us, and then flow out through us to be a blessing to the people around us.  We are to be a source of the Spirit of God to the people in our life.

Yes, it is true that they don't need people to have the Holy Spirit working upon them.  However,  the work of the Holy Spirit on their conscience is like mercy drops in the dessert.  It is not intended to take the place of our submission to God's will.  The Spirit of God ALSO wants to work through us so that they will hear from Him like a river of living water.  That is so much better than an either-or scenario.

Jesus is telling us that we will become like a river of living water if we come to him in faith.  This is God's purpose and plan.  It will always be more than you ever knew it was because you are cooperating with an unlimited being.  You may feel like you really messed it up.  Yet, ten years later a person is sharing a testimony about how the Spirit of God really broke through to them by your willingness to be used of God.

Yet, even Christians have their struggles with the work of the Holy Spirit in their life. This brings us to our last passage.

Our flesh is hostile to the Spirit of God  (Romans 8:5-8)

In many passages, the apostles use the words body and flesh.  The body speaks of the organized system of physical appendages, organs, and other things, working together in a body system.  It emphasizes the natural and physical aspect of a human, pretty much what you thought.

Flesh can be used as a synonym for body, but also can take on an added sense that body does not have.  It can point to a nature that is rooted in the body, its senses, and desires.  It is sometimes translated as "sinful nature," and this is close.  It would perhaps be better to think of it as a nature that is rooted in the bodily sense, which leads to bondage to sin.  This nature is bent towards the pleasures of the body as opposed to what?  It is as opposed to being rooted in God Himself, the Spirit.

This is what Paul is talking about when he says that our flesh is hostile to the Spirit of God.  We use our body against God's work, but that resistance is directed by an inner nature that is rooted in the wrong thing.

For an unbeliever to surrender to the Holy Spirit, there must be a dying to the desires of the flesh, and a coming alive to the Spirit of God.  This internal battle may have been won at the moment of believing upon Jesus.  However, there is still a battle to be fought.

The Holy Spirit takes up residence within the believer and begins to teach them to root themselves in Him, in Christ, instead of in the desires of the flesh.  Though the flesh has been defeated at this point, there are still innumerable ways in which our inner man is rooted in the sense of our body.  Over time, the Spirit helps us to gain victory over the flesh, i.e., less and less roots down into our sensual nature, and more and more roots into the Spirit of God.

I like the image of Joshua leading Israel into the Promised Land.  It is full of giants and walled cities, i.e., strongholds, but God has promised to giving them possession and victory little by little.  It didn't happen all in one day, otherwise they would not have been able to truly possess the land.  Similarly, Yeshua leads us into the inheritance of our own soul by placing his Spirit within us to help us gain the victory one day at a time, one battle at a time.  This will only be done by a person who lives for the Spirit of God instead of living for the flesh.

In verse 5, Paul talks about what we set our minds upon.  A person of the flesh thinks about the things of the flesh.  They are motivated by a lower nature that is rooted in the body.  It prompts their purpose and desire.  It supplies the "strength" and vigor that they have for going after these things.  Such people spend their lives seeking to maximize their pleasures and minimize their pain.

This doesn't always look the same.  There are some unbelievers that are extremely self-disciplined in order to make money.  Their life may look extremely disciplined compared to another person who is a believer.  We can make our life look extremely noble by working for the most pleasure for the most people.  However, if all of this is driven by our flesh, then it is still for ulterior motives.

Contrarily, a person of the Spirit has their mind set upon the purposes and desires of the Spirit of God, which are the purposes and desires of Jesus, which are the purposes and desires of the Father.  God wants us to help one another to walk by faith in Jesus in love for Him and one another.

Of course, we must be alert to the tactics of the devil, who uses the world around us as pressure and temptation to live for the flesh.  They fill their minds with all manner of fleshly things, but not of God.

So how does this look?  Let's use the example of planning for dinner.  Both the spiritual and the fleshly will eat dinner.  We will die if we go too long without eating.  Thus, the Bible in no way pictures a super-spiritual person never eating.  They will fast from time to time, but they won't entertain notions of never eating.  So, the true difference between fleshly and spiritual thinking goes to the purpose and desire behind it.  The fleshly person only thinks about things of the senses like: what food would I rather taste tonight, what food would best impress so-and-so, etc.  In fact, people may fight and argue over what is for dinner because they are rooted in the flesh.  However, a Christian should not think like this.  We eat in order to better serve the Lord and bring honor to Him.  We make sure that the people we love in our life are getting the nutrition and sustenance that they need because that is part of a parent's duty to their children and dependents.  All things are spiritual things if you are a spiritually minded person.  Whereas, all things are fleshly, including church, worship, prayer, etc., for those who are fleshly minded.  This is why some Christians in churches will fight over the style of music, color of the carpet, who gets the solo, etc.  Let us always ask the question of our Lord, "How can I best please you and honor you in this?

In verse 6, Paul emphasizes that each of these lives has an effect.  A life of the flesh is death.  It doesn't just produce death.  The underlying verbiage says that it is death.  We must ask ourselves,  "What is the fruit of my life?"  Is it pouring death into my relationships and soul?  The fleshly mind can never fix the spiritual problems of humanity.  It can only double down on the problem and create an even worse hell on earth.  In our great human wisdom, we make decisions based upon our gigantic fleshly appetites and hope for Utopia.  We can build all the hospitals we want and even create buildings for mixed worship of all religions, but these things will only bring about more spiritual death.

However, a life of the Spirit is life and peace.  We could even add Galatians 5:22, which speaks of: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, and self-control.  All of these are different facets of God's life, the living waters of His Spirit.  It is possible to enjoy all of the goodness of God's creation and still miss His heart.  This is because we become too enamored with His gifts, and fail to look to the Giver behind the gifts.  It isn't always an either/or situation, but if we were forced to choose between Jesus and all of the comforts and pleasures this life offers, we should choose Jesus.  Yes, God made us to be able to bodily enjoy many things in this world.  But, He never intended us to be rooted in those pleasures and to live for them.

This brings us to the last question brought up by Paul's words.  In verse 7, the question is this.  To what am I hostile, and to what am I submitted?  The fleshly mind is at odds and hostile to the things of God.  The woman who broke the flask of oil upon the feet of Jesus did so because the Spirit of God moved upon her to do so.  However, fleshly minded disciples nearby judged her and openly castigated her for her actions.  The flesh always persecutes the Spirit.

James touches on this in James 4:4.  He warns us that friendship with the world is enmity with God.  He then boldly states that whoever wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God!  He is talking to Christians.  We should note how he addresses those "worldly Christians,"  adulterers and adulteresses!  To live in such a way is to be unfaithful to the Lord Jesus and the Spirit of God that He has placed within us.  Our proper place as a child of God is serving the purposes of our Lord and following His Spirit.  Instead, we are like a wayward spouse, and a prodigal son.  When Christians fall back into fleshly living, it is called spiritual adultery.  We become led by the lusts of our flesh, the lusts of our eyes, and the pride of life.  We may even make it look noble by loving each other in our sin more than the Lord who calls us to help one another live holy.

The grace of God is that Israel did not cease to be Israel when they failed.  When Christians fail, the Spirit of God works discipline in their life in order to bring them back to God.  When God convicts us, it is always, "Take my hand and live!  Let me save you!"  He didn't hang on the cross for us to be an adulterer, and He didn't supply His Spirit for us to ignore Him and live for the flesh.  However, His had can only save us in this life.  We should take hold of it today!

This world cannot be saved with more flesh, even a fleshly life that is covered over with a veneer of Christianity.  I believe that this is what the high priest represented in the days of Jesus.  He was internally a fleshly, spiritually plundered man, but it was covered over with a veneer of God's commands and duties.  He looked like he was serving God to some, but others saw through it.  When God showed up in the person of Jesus and through the power of the Spirit of God, he had nothing internally to hold up that veneer.  He folded and caved in spiritually.  His following of God crumbled before the truth of what he really was.  Christians can be in danger of walking this same path.

Praise God that our eternity does not depend upon just one of our choices.  However, we want to take every single choice seriously, every single day.

May God help us to be a people of the Spirit of God instead of a people who are ruled by the flesh, and therefore, the devil.  Let's be a people who are led by Christ through his Spirit to do the works of our Father in heaven.

People of the Spirit audio

The Acts of the Apostles 30

Subtitle: Stephen's Defense VI

Acts 7:44-50.  This sermon was preached by Pastor Marty Bonner on January 8, 2023.

This is the sixth part of Stephen's defense before the Sanhedrin, Israel's high court at the time.  Stephen has reminded them of Abram's call, the Patriarchs, the first attempt of Moses to deliver Israel, God' sending of Moses back to deliver them, the events and prophecy of Moses in the wilderness, and now today, the tabernacle of witness.  The tabernacle is with them in the wilderness, but Stephen's point is significant enough to be broken out as its own point.  He is calling them to remember the Tabernacle of Witness.

Our church buildings are not simply houses of worship.  We sometimes use words without thinking through the full import of what they put across.  However, sometimes words and phrases are used to diffuse the truth of what God is doing in His Church.  We have seen in this Republic the tendency over the years to lump churches into the same boat as synagogues, mosques, scientology centers, wards, etc., with the phrase houses of worship.  Our laws are written equating all of these things, but they are not equal.  There is an intended spiritual sleight of speech that is being used to pigeon-hole Christians.

It would be more correct to call our church a house of the Lord, a house of Jesus, of Yeshua, of Yahweh.  It is a place that belongs to the God who created the universe, and to His Son, the Lord Jesus, God's Anointed Savior.

However, even this misses the greater point that we will talk about today, which is the point of the New Covenant, the New Testament.  It is not about the building, but about the people who gather there.  Everyone who has truly put their faith in Jesus has become a house of Yahweh, the place where His Spirit rests.  More than this, we are being built together into a greater house of Yahweh as a corporate tabernacle.

Think about how this would impact the Israelites of the first century A.D.  This place that was geographically located, and was restricted with laws that gave only the high priest access to the place of God's presence, would now be located within the hearts of believers, of me!  That which I had always been taught to treat as holy and sacred is now me.  I have become a special place where God wants to rest and commune.  Furthermore, the body of true believers are pictured by the apostle Peter as individual, living stones being mortared together by the Holy Spirit in order to create a group of people within whom the Spirit of God dwells.  There is something special, holy, sacred, and incredible about God's Church and their gatherings that the world cannot copy.  There is something special, holy sacred, and incredible about you when you put your faith in Jesus.

In fact, just as Leah and Rachel "built up the house of Israel," so the Church of Yahweh is built up as we walk in spiritual intimacy with God and birth new lives into the Kingdom of God.

No, we are not merely a house those worshiping the works of our hands and the desires of our hearts.  We belong to the King of kings and the Lord of lords over everything in the heavens and on the earth!

Let's look at our passage.

Remember the tabernacle of witness (vs. 44-50)

Stephen calls them to remember the tabernacle that was built in the wilderness.  The tabernacle was a portable tent structure that served as the place of sacrifice and meeting with God. 

The Bible uses several terms of the tabernacle. The first word, mishkan, simply means a dwelling place and is a reference to God dwelling within it.  The other word, ohel, also means dwelling, but at its root is the concept of skins, as in animal skins.  It most often is better translated as tent, even though it came to be used of even permanent structures as Israel transitioned from being a camping society (forty years in the wilderness) to a more established people.  The tabernacle was a tent-like structure with several layers of animal skins sheltering the Holy place, and the Holies of Holies.

Stephen uses the phrase Tabernacle of Witness, which in the Old Testament would actually be the Tent of Witness.  Incidentally, another phrase that is used is the Tabernacle of Meeting.  The word translated as meeting is hard to translate.  It refers to special appointed times, and was used of the feasts of the Lord, both as calendar dates to observe and as prophecies about special appointed times that they symbolized.  However, Stephen emphasizes the word "witness."  The tabernacle was not just the dwelling place of the God of Israel, but also represented His witness, His testimony to Israel and the world.  This word is used of the stone tablets that Moses brought down from the mountain.  He was told to place the Testimony, the Witness, into the ark of the covenant.  The ark was also referred to as the Ark of the Testimony, which was placed within the Tabernacle of Testimony.

The interesting thing about a witness, or testimony, is that it can have a warning aspect to it.  God's law and words to Israel were both a witness of the good that they should do and how God would respond, and a witness of the evil that would come upon them if they did not follow God.  Moses tells them, testifies on God's behalf, that they would be unfaithful to God and that God would kick them out of the land.  Yet, He would later restore them back to the land.  The testimony is a double-edged sword.

So, we should recognize that the testimony is that testimony that God has given of Himself, and it is connected to the place where He dwells.

Stephen points out that God appointed them to build the tabernacle, instructed Moses in how it was to be constructed, and lastly, accompanied those instructions with a visual.  Moses was God's mediator and would relay all of these instruction to them.

Stephen emphasizes in verse 44 that the Tabernacle was built "according to the pattern that he [Moses] had seen."  This comes from Exodus 25:40 where God reminds Moses to follow exactly the pattern that God had "shown him" on Mt. Sinai.

We get this picture in the Bible, and here, of God as a Master Builder.  I know that groups like the Freemasons make a big deal out of God as an Architect, but they are merely ripping off God's true nature for their own fleshly gain.  God is the builder of all creation, and He did not use random mutations to create it all.  When Chuckie Darwin introduced his book On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life (Yes, that is the full title), he believed that the cell would be confirmed as simply a box, like a Lego® brick.  He also mentioned that this theory required all things to be reducible.  You should be able to show how complex things like the eyeball could "evolve" from less complex things that originally had other purposes.  There would be a clear path of reducing an organism from a high level back to a single-celled level and even further.  Of course, over time science discovered that the cell is more complex than a modern city.  In fact, one protein is so complex that the odds of even the smallest of them being created through random mutations are astronomical, and that is just one aspect.  Another problem is that most mechanisms within different species are so complex that we find irreducible complexity.  Several things are useless in and of themselves, but work together to accomplish a particular function.

Though I have taken some time to show the weakness of the Theory of Evolution, it is weak particularly because of the master building, master engineering, that God has done in the creation.  Like any builder, God considered all that He would make in its design, but also in whether it would be worth it or not.  In eternity past, God determined it was worth it.  Remember, the next time you feel that life isn't worth it, that God has said it is worth it, has said that your life is worth it!  Can you trust Him?  He's got this!

God is the builder of David's dynasty, and Jesus is the builder of the Church and the New Jerusalem, its dwelling place for all eternity.  Hebrews 8:5 explains to us that the tabernacle was a copy, a shadow, of the heavenly dwelling of God.  So, God had shown Moses a pattern.  I don't think He showed him blueprints, but most likely gave him a glimpse of the heavenly tabernacle.    We will deal with this point more in a bit, but humans were also built, or fit, to be a dwelling place for God as a replica of the heavenly tabernacle. 

God is the builder of history.  He is the One who tears down and builds up.  No nation rises up or falls, but at God's command.  We will all serve Him.  We will either serve him in righteousness, worthy of reward, or serve His purposes through our wickedness, worthy of destruction.

Stephen then reminds them in verse 45 that the tabernacle was brought into the Promised Land and used up through the days of David, whom God used to conquer all the land that God was giving them.

This tabernacle was more than just a symbol, or a metaphor, for God's presence.  God's presence was actually localized there.  The cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night would actually come down upon the tabernacle and could be seen by the people.  This visible presence seems to move to inside of the temple at some point.  Eventually, the prophets would speak of the Spirit of God leaving the temple and it becoming ichabod, without [God's] glory.

This is in contrast to the temples of the nations surrounding Israel and those in Canaan that they had come to dispossess.  Those temples were ornate and probably made the tent structure that Israel had seem unimpressive.  However, they were mere fictions and wishful thinking that had been taught to them by fallen spiritual beings.  God did not inhabit their temples, and if anything was there, it was a worthless fallen entity that was powerless to help them against the One True God.

It is as if God sees what the nations are trying to do and decides to authorize Israel to make a true tabernacle for Him.  I am not saying that God is reactive because He would have seen this coming and already planned to work it into His purposes.  In fact, we should note the God who created the whole universe, seen and unseen, humbled Himself to be localized in some way in a tent structure in the wilderness with the people of Israel.  This building of dead skins represents when we die to our fleshly nature and become a dwelling place of His Holy Spirit.  It is not the thing that God is wanting, but is only a stepping stone, a prototype that helps us to see.

It was perhaps looking at the temples of the surrounding nations that led David to want to build a permanent structure for God, a temple.  Or, it could have simply been recognizing that he was dwelling in a palace that he had built for himself.  Why don't I build a better place for God?  David then tells the prophet Nathan what is in his heart.  Nathan knows that God is blessing David, so he tells David to go ahead with it without asking the Lord.  Before Nathan even leaves the palace, God pulls him up short and tells him to go back and tell David that it wasn't his job to build God a house.  However, his son Solomon would do it.

In 1 Chronicles 22:8, David explains that he had too much blood on his hands from taking the land.  God did not want the violence of force associated with His dwelling place.  This does not mean that David shouldn't have done what he did.  David fought the battles of the Lord.  Yet, there is more to this than just David's bloody hands.

In 2 Samuel 7, God actually responds to David with the question, "Will you build a house for Me to dwell in?"  Think of it.  A man building a house for the One who built the Galaxies, and the atomic nucleus, whose wisdom and being is truly beyond our comprehension.  God reminds David that He has dwelt in a tent from Egypt to David's day (400+ years).  Hmm, I wonder where God dwelled before the tabernacle?  The tabernacle was not built because God was homeless.  It was built to point to a greater Truth.

Instead, God promises to build David a house (a dynasty) and his son will build him a temple.  This first temple would be built by Solomon.  Yet, Solomon fell away from the Lord towards the end of his life.  Also, the first temple itself, which was supposed to be God's "permanent house," was destroyed in 586 B.C. by the Babylonians (really by God) because Israel continued its idolatry in the face of God.  When they came back into the land later, a second temple would be built, which was in existence during the days of Jesus.  This permanent temple was destroyed in A.D. 70.  God's permanent houses are doing so well.

Solomon and the first temple were a fulfillment of God's promise to David, but they were a falling-short fulfillment that served as a shadow of the true Son of David who would build the true temple of God.  The destruction of the former two temples points to a better permanent home for God.  Jesus is the perfect Son of David who comes forth to build the perfect temple to God.  In fact, Jesus laid the foundation for the third temple while the second temple still stood (for only 40 more years).  The third temple is the True Church of Jesus Christ.  It is a physical temple in that humans have bodies, but it is spiritual in that God dwells in our hearts and minds.  Even this follows the previous template.  Our mortal bodies cannot be the permanent home of God's presence, but He humbles himself as He did in the wilderness and takes up residence within us.  The permanent Temple will also be "built" by Jesus as he resurrects the saints with glorified bodies that are incorruptible.

This brings us to our last point.  God is too great to be limited to a mere building on earth.  Stephen quotes from Isaiah 66 to drive this point home.  This greatness of God is a developing theme throughout the Old Testament.  At first the ark is spoken of as a throne of Yahweh.  The mercy seat had cherubim wings to serve as a kind of backrest.  Yahweh is spoken of as dwelling between the wings and above the mercy seat, sitting upon an earthly throne.  Later, the ark is referred to as God's footstool (Psalm 132:7-8).  Notice that God is getting bigger.  In Truth, God is not getting bigger, but He is incrementally expanding their understanding of just how great He truly is.  The Isaiah 66 passage expands this to the point where the whole earth is God's footstool and the heavens are His throne.  In fact, even the heavens fall short of the full glory of God.  All creation is truly His footstool.

Do you not see that God is not in need of us to build Him a house.  He is already building a permanent house out of us.  We do need to lean into this process and cooperate with God.  Instead of focusing on how nice our building is, we should focus on what kind of dwelling place we are for God.  Am I a shabby, dilapidated temple?  Am I a temple that has been devoid of the word of God like it was in the days of Josiah (2 Kings 22)?  God's time with Israel was a humbling of Himself and yet it was a real thing.  Through unbelief, they missed out on the fullness of what it could have been and ended up losing it altogether (as a nation). 

We too are in danger of hearing this truth and falling short.  In 2 Corinthians 3:16, Paul says, "Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?"  Perhaps, you find yourself saying, "Well, I don't feel like God's dwelling in me."  Really?  Where in the Bible does it say it is only true if you "feel it."  That would be like a husband not following through in the actions of faithfulness because he just isn't feeling it.  "I know God said we would become one, but I'm just not feeling it.  I want a divorce."  We judge ourselves by our own words.  Jesus didn't go to the cross because he was "feeling it."  While we were yet sinners, Christ died for the ungodly!  Love has feelings, but it must never let feelings drive its actions.  It is not even duty that drives love.  It truly is love itself that becomes the driving force behind the actions of love; God is love.

You cannot make yourself a temple of God, but you can cooperate and lean into the work that God is doing, even if you don't feel it.  Walk by faith and trust God to do the dwelling.  Jesus laid the foundation for your spiritual life and the Church as a whole.  He leads us like a master builder in our personal life and in the experience of your local church up to the Church as a whole.  God knows what He is doing so we simply need to trust Him!

You are His desired place of rest for eternity.  Yes, much of life calls for trust and faith in Jesus.  Like a marriage, we come to Christ and embrace his love by faith.  We don't know what all we will face in this life, but we will face it with him for better or worse.  Of course, he promises to work all of the "worse" stuff to our good.  What a deal; what a Lord; what a Savior!  His desire to dwell in you, and within us all, should lead us to turn to Him with all of our hearts.  We are His home, and He is ours!

Defense VI