The Blessings of Salvation, Part 4

across years ago in preparing
some pre-marriage counseling questions was a concept that
was promoted by a number of different people and I guess written about in great
detail by one particular individual whose name escapes me. It’s not
important. The concept went something like this that your spouse may
not hear the way that you’re communicating your love to her. And what he proposed is that
we have different love languages and some can be, you know, physical
closeness. Some is gift giving. Some is
just plain hard work. That’s the one that men usually
fall back on the quickest. But the idea was that what we
need to do is listen more carefully and listen more broadly at all
the different ways that our spouse may be communicating their love
to us. And that we also, as spouses,
must work harder at communicating more broadly through various
mediums that love. Well, it’s an interesting point,
and I think there’s some truth to it, but certainly like anything,
it was so far overplayed. I thought of that this week with
regards to this passage. And I think that it’s very true
with the child of God that sometimes we forget to listen to God as
he is expressing his love for us. We begin to forget the basic
truth that God loves us. That’s where Paul is headed in
this section that we’ve already begun. It’s a section that really
points out the fact that God is giving to us a life of divine
assistance. We’ll get there in a moment.
Here’s how Paul got there. He began the subject of salvation
back in chapter three, verse twenty one, and he told us all
about salvation and how we may now own it. It is justification
by faith. It is faith alone in Christ alone. And God judges us, deems us,
considers us righteous. Well, from there, Paul went on
to both defend and argue for justification by faith. And so
we have a good picture of salvation thus far. But there’s one thing
that Paul hasn’t even done, at least not until chapter five.
Paul hasn’t even begun to talk about all the blessings that
come with salvation. Now, I don’t mean to say that
Paul hasn’t touched on any. Certainly, as soon as you begin
to talk about justification by faith, that we now stand righteous
before God, that prefigures the fact that our sin has been dealt
with. That certainly is a blessing. The fact that we will be in eternity
in heaven forever, that is a blessing. And Paul has alluded to those
things, but he hasn’t enumerated one after another the blessings
that attend salvation. And that’s where we are. We’re
in chapter five and we’ve begun to look at those blessings. We’ve
seen a couple so far in chapter five, beginning in verse one,
we saw that the first blessing is a life of peace with God. And we saw how easy it is to
gloss over that and to downplay that great subject. That whereas we once were at
war with God and it was a bloody war, a death match, a fight to
the end. Now, God, through his son and
through his son’s work on the cross, he has enacted a peace
treaty. And now, by God’s grace, we have
peace with God, a life of peace. We are at peace with God. It
was the second blessing. woven into that discussion, those
opening two verses. Not only do we have a life of
peace with God, we now have a life of confident worship. That’s
what we drew out of that last sentence of verse two. We exult
in the hope of the glory of God. We praise God. We almost boast
in the fact of all of the things that God has accomplished in
the salvation of His people. We exult in the hope of the glory
of God. We’re not hopeful in the sense
of wishful thinking. We have great confidence that
what God has begun, he will finish and we will enjoy him in glory
forever. And we began just last Lord’s
Day. In the third blessing. The third blessing we saw began
in verse three and continues all the way down. It’s a life
of divine assistance, a life of divine assistance. If you
would go with me all the way back to verse one, let’s take
this, get a running start on verse three through eight. Therefore,
having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through
our Lord Jesus Christ. Through whom also we have obtained
our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand
and we exalt in the hope of the glory of God. And not only this,
but we also exalt in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings
about perseverance and perseverance, proven character and proven character,
hope and hope does not disappoint. Because the love of God has been
poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit. who
was given to us. For while we were still helpless
at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. For one will
hardly die for a righteous man, though perhaps for the good man,
someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates his own
love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died
for us. We began last week considering
this difficult statement that not only do we exalt. I mean,
it’s easy to to come to that equation in the affirmative. It’s easy to exalt in the hope
of the glory of God. Once we began to see that the
glory of God is the full manifestation of God himself, that Christ will
be glorified and that we will be glorified with him. How can
we not exalt in that? How can we not boast in our praise
of what God has accomplished? But the difficult expression
that follows. Not only this, not only an exaltation
in the hope of the glory of God, but an exaltation of our tribulations. It seems almost absurd. But that’s
exactly what Paul is saying. And the two go hand in hand.
In fact, the two enhance one another. We exult in our tribulations. We don’t exult in the tribulation
in the sense of embracing it as a as a pleasant thing. But we do exult in the tribulation
because of what it works in us. The tribulations are exactly
what they present themselves to be. We hope that it might
mean something different. But the more we look at it, it’s
exactly what it means. Pressure, trouble, pressure from
out, pressure from within. It’s just difficulty, whether
it’s from persecution or just the difficulties of living in
a fallen world. It is pressure, tribulation,
struggle. And it isn’t easy. So what exactly
was Paul urging? Was Paul urging us just to tough
it out? Paul urges us to embrace these
tribulations as friends. And there is, as Paul pointed
out, a process in doing this. The process, he begins in verse
three and courses down all the way through the beginning in
verse five. And it’s a it’s a it’s a simple
process. But it takes time. It takes the
grace of God. Look at the process. How do we
exalt in our tribulations? Just by way of quick review,
Paul says, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance. The
first thing that we’ve got to do is remember that these tribulations
have a purpose in our life. They are God designed. They’re
God ordained. They come into our life for the
purpose of making us stronger, making us durable, making us
able to stand up under such difficulties. First of all, tribulation brings
about perseverance and perseverance. We build upon that once we’ve
begun to endure trials and tribulations, once we are able to stand under
them, that perseverance brings about, I would insert, proven
character. We don’t start as Christians
with proven character, do we? It takes time, it takes seasoning,
it takes maturity in the Lord and it takes an application,
a constant application of the grace of God. There was a third
step that we saw, not only. Knowing this tribulation would
bring about perseverance and applying that perseverance, ultimately
bringing about proven character. But that proven character, bringing
about hope. The more we see the success of
the Lord Jesus Christ and His grace in our lives, the greater
our hope becomes. God is doing it. We see Him at
work. Perseverance brings about proven
character. Proven character brings about
hope. And I would, for your sake, I would say the last sentence
like this. And hope does not disappoint
because it brings about experiencing the glory of God. Remember, that
is the great hope. That’s what Paul already dealt
with at the end of verse two. We’ve set our hope on the glory
of God, and it is a settled confidence, this hope. It’s not wishful thinking. The more we know God, the more
we walk with God, the more we apply His grace, the greater
our confidence to the point where hope we know will not be disappointed
because God who has begun a work within us will complete it. And
one day we will be glorified. What great encouragement. Now
we can begin to stand up under these trials. Now we can begin
to see why Paul says exalt in your tribulations. But we don’t
have the means. We don’t have the means yet.
He isn’t saying to us, tough it out, get up, pull yourself
up by the bootstraps. Paul is going to lay out precisely
how the Christian lives and thrives, even in the midst of trial. And so we come to that third
element. We’ve begun it. I introduced
it last Lord’s Day, but there was a third element in this divine
assistance, not only the need of divine assistance. We saw
that tribulations are what they are. They’re difficult. They’re
hard, in a sense, from from a certain human standpoint, they’re even
impossible. How does the Christian do what
the Christian does when it seems so utterly impossible? Not only
the need of divine assistance in the process of divine assistance,
which process we just coursed through, but thirdly, we introduced
last Lord’s Day, the assurance of divine assistance. And Paul gives it to us in verse
five. He says, not only this, we exult
in our tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about
perseverance, perseverance, proven character, proven character,
hope and hope does not disappoint because the love of God has been
poured out within our hearts. You can do this. Because you
know the love of God, because the love of God has already been
poured out within your hearts, you have at least the motivation
to do so. To stand up under these trials,
because you know that these trials are not an evil to you, they
are intended for your good. What Paul means to do here is
to build upon the argument that he’s already introduced the strength
of these reasons, these purposes for hoping in God, for hoping
in the midst of trial, for hoping our way through that trial. It’s
the love of God. What Paul has already shown in
our call to him and our justification in Christ In the willingness
and the ability of God to begin the work, we are to glance back
and to see the loving hand of God, even in these things. What
Paul gives us here is, as one’s called it, the ground of assurance. The ground of assurance is not
the strength of our purpose. It’s not our willing our way
to tough our way through these trials. or a confidence in our
own goodness, but the love of God. It is because God is a loving
God that we have the motivation to stand up under these trials
as having been already sifted through His loving fingers. Paul says, because the love of
God. That little phrase is used a number of times in Scriptures.
It refers to a love that God eternally gives of himself specifically
to others. It is a it is a person to person
kind of love. That phrase, as I said, is used
numerous times in Scripture to speak of God’s magnanimous affection
for his children. You remember it from pardon me,
second Thessalonians two fives. May the Lord direct your hearts
into the love of God, almost seen as a stream of grace where
the Christian is directed to step in. Romans 839 points to
the fact that once you step in, you can’t step out. Nor heights,
nor depth, nor any other created thing will be able to separate
us from the love of God. The phrase, even though not explicitly
used on other occasions, certainly God’s love is used throughout
the Scriptures in abundant measure to remind his children constantly
of his abundant love for them. It’s a recurring theme. This
isn’t just to a few. John 3, 16. For God so loved
the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes
in him shall not perish, but have eternal life. That is love. Ephesians 2, 4 echoes the same,
but God and that following on the heels of the desperate news
that we are wicked sinners before him. We are dead in our sin,
but God being rich in mercy because of his great love with which
he loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made
us alive together with Christ. Second Thessalonians 2.16. Now
may our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God our Father, who has loved
us. Paul almost talks about it almost
as matter of fact, but he can’t help but to constantly insert
and to remind the Christian of God’s incredible love for us. Titus 3, 4, likewise, also following
on the heels of our wicked former life. And Paul says, but when
the kindness of God, our Savior, and His love for mankind appeared,
He saved us. It’s interesting there in that
particular passage, the word for love that Paul used in that
particular context is unique, but it draws out the flavor of
God’s love for us. And you’ve heard this word before.
Philanthropia. It’s from where we get our word
philanthropics. It is pity for man’s state. It is pity, God’s pity upon us. This love is a practical love.
This love looks down upon us and grieves and moves accordingly. God didn’t just feel sorry for
us and walk away. God pitied us and his pity moved
him to send his own son to die for you. As one said, it was his love toward
mankind, expressive of the fact of his feeling of pity toward
man, although God hates the sinner’s sin, God loves the sinner and
yearns to save him. 1 John 4 says God is love. Should it surprise us that He
exercises that towards us? That He shows it so abundantly
towards us? It shouldn’t. God is love. It is His nature. And it is manifest
in all that He does regarding His creation. Nothing happens
that isn’t a loving gesture of God, that isn’t lovingly allowed. It is that precious attribute
of God that moved God to procure our salvation. It is the more
precious because it is free. God was not obligated to love
us. We deserve the opposite. One commentator noted of God’s
love in this particular context, that God’s regard for the happiness
of his creatures flows from his self communing attribute of his
nature. In other words, God being who
he is, couldn’t help but communicate that tremendous attribute of
his love in the true sense of the word is a living goodwill. It is God being God towards his
children. A.W. Tozer said it. even more
graphically when he said, from God’s other known attributes,
we may learn much about his love because God is self existence. His love had no beginning. He
is eternal. His love will have no end. He
is immense. His love is an incomprehensibly
vast, bottomless, shoreless sea before which we kneel in joyful
silence and from which the loftiest eloquence retreats, confused
and abashed. God has shown us himself in his
love given to us. No wonder Paul In seeking to
kind of flavor this or color it for us or to get us to grasp
the extent of this love uses a very familiar imagery for all
of us. The love of God has been poured
out. Speaking of just almost an overwhelming
flood that has been bestowed upon us. Now, in the Middle East,
especially in the context in which this was given, water,
that precious commodity on a hot day, refreshing and encouraging
and even bringing life itself to the needy. No wonder Paul
used this imagery. But this love, said one Puritan,
refers to the abundant measure of the sense of God’s love to
us, which is communicated to His people and poured out into
their hearts through all the faculties of their souls, moving
and captivating their affections. In other words, it isn’t just
that God sprinkled the rain about throughout the lands and that
we can look out and see the love of God. We know that to be true.
Even the song that we read today testifies of that fact. We can
look and see the love of God. But this love of God was poured
out into our hearts, as we’ll see in a moment. What he’s talking
about here is the abundance of measure. It didn’t come drop
by drop. It came abundantly, literally
lavishly upon the Christian. One faithful commentator said
it this way. He said, to communicate abundantly,
this love of God does not descend upon us as dew in drops, but
as a stream which spreads itself abroad through the whole, filling
it with the consciousness of His presence and favor. God didn’t
just dole it out little by little. God doesn’t have to ration it
at all, remember? He poured it out. He poured it
out abundantly. So that we were nearly overwhelmed,
if you begin to ponder, as we will in a moment, the extent
of the love that God has shown to his people. So there’s nothing odd about
this word, about Paul using this word, that God’s love having
been poured out on us to express this idea of a completely unselfish
lavishness It’s a beautiful image, really. Once we as Christians begin to
grasp the greatness and the depth of God’s love for us, it will
instill in us a steadying confidence in the lover of our souls. We
know that he means us no ill. We know that he will grant us
the grace to endure any trial. And once we’re there, our hearts
will be emboldened by his grace. To nobly face whatever trials
or tribulations his providence allows to come our way, won’t
it? One pastor said it this way,
the most overwhelming truth of the gospel is that God’s pardoning,
that God loves sinful, falling, rebellious mankind so much. that he gave his only begotten
son, that whoever believes in him would not perish, but have
eternal life. If God loves us with so great a love before we
were saved. You know where he’s going. If
God loved us with so great a love before we were saved, when we
were still his enemies, how much more does he love us now? What a powerful thought. What a truth that is to the Christian. That I know God sent His Son. I know that He saved me while
I was a sinner. I know that He didn’t get a good
deal with me, and yet He loved me. And now here I am, 10, 15
years, 20 or more into this walk with Christ. How much more I
know does He love me? If I pause and I take it in,
but I want you to look one last little prepositional phrase appended
to the end of that statement. It’s enough. Paul could have
stopped right there, but he wanted us to know the details of this
benefaction from the Lord. He said, because the love of
God has been poured out within our hearts. You know what he
says there? That this is tangible. This is
concrete for the Christian. This is palpable. It’s real.
We know it. We don’t have to just accept
this by faith as something that will be bestowed over time or
in the future. The love of God poured out within
our hearts is knowable. It’s experiential. When we come
to Christ in faith, we immediately get a sense of God’s love for
us. And remember, It’s God’s kindness
that led us to repentance in the first place, right? The Christian
life proceeding forward is one continuous opportunity to experience
and enjoy the love of God if we are in Christ. And we fail
to sense the love of God, it’s our sensitivity that has been
dulled, not God. It is not God that has withdrawn
his love for one moment from the Christian. Martin Lloyd-Jones had just a
liberating discussion of this very point. He said this is a blessing, this
love of God is a blessing, though not appreciated or understood
by those who have never received it. In other words, he says the
non-Christian has utterly no ability whatsoever to enjoy or
appreciate the love of God. This is a Christian blessing. This is a blessing which, though
not appreciated or understood by those who have never received
it, is yet most assuredly enjoyed by many of God’s chosen people. We scarcely know how to describe
it. Isn’t that true? We scarcely
know how to describe it because it consists chiefly in an impression
on the mind, occasioned by manifestations of the love of God in the soul. We don’t know how to describe
it, but we know that he loves us. We don’t know how to express
this affection that God has shown only to his children, but we
feel it nonetheless. He said, far from being something
that you can deduce as the result of an argument, he says, I scarcely
can put it into words. Any man who knows it can scarcely
describe it because it is something internal and experimental, something
you are absolutely certain of, but so glorious that it is difficult
to find the words to express it. No wonder, no wonder we reduce
it in Sunday school, right, to the kids. Jesus loves me. This
I know. For the Bible tells me so. It
doesn’t get any more simple than that. And so we have, in a sense, the
motivation to stand up under these trials, God has loved us. But we’re talking about divine
assistance, we’re not just talking about talking ourselves out,
talking our way through this difficulty and pulling ourself
up. We’re reminding ourselves daily
and constantly that God loved us. We ought to be able to endure
this. We’re talking about divine assistance. We’ve seen the need
of divine assistance. We’ve looked at the process of
divine assistance. We’ve seen the assurance of divine
assistance that God does love us. He’s not going to leave us
now. The agent of divine assistance. That’s what we need. We need
the agent of divine assistance. That’s what Paul tells us at
the end of verse five. Hope does not disappoint because
the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through
the Holy Spirit who was given to us. Conservative Christians
always wiggle in their seats when they begin. Somebody begins
to talk about the Holy Spirit, right? All nervous that if we
start talking about this, we’re all going to be charismatic and
we’re going to walk out speaking tongues and all that other stuff.
You know, what was interesting is for me to observe how little
opportunity I’ve taken. To expound upon the ministry
of the Holy Spirit. Today is the day. Paul is basically
giving us the proof that our hope is not going to be disappointed. When the final day comes. The
fact that God’s amazing, generous love for us is going to be fully
manifest, we know it. We have a settled confidence
in the soul because of that, and that is a fruit of the ministry
of the Holy Spirit. The fact that we know that God
loves us is a ministry of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Let’s
pause and reflect upon the ministry of this third person of the Trinity
that we treat so. So rarely. The Holy Spirit, the
third person of the Trinity, as you know, possesses attributes,
intellect, emotions and will. As God, he manifests all of God’s
attributes in perfection, eternality, omnipresence, omniscience, all
of them perfectly. The primary function of the Holy
Spirit is to administer or carry out God’s wishes, administer
God’s decrees. He is, if you will, the executor
of God’s decreed will. What God decrees, the Holy Spirit
carries out, bar none. As such, the Holy Spirit affected
the plan of salvation. He affected Christ’s incarnation. He carried out the written revelation
of God’s word. And even today, the Holy Spirit
is not idle, the work of ministry is not done, God’s plan of redemption
has not been completed. And so today, just as John 16
says, he is convicting the world regarding sin and righteousness
and judgment. The fact that you are ever convicted
of sin. Remember when we prayed about
confession here a half an hour ago? If you were convicted of
sin, that is the love of God manifesting itself within you
through the ministry of the Holy Spirit. That’s what he’s given
for. That’s why he’s there. Some people, they come to me
and they talk about, oh, I’m so convicted. That’s a sign of
life. That’s a sign of hope. As I said, the Holy Spirit was
present and active, not just a bystander at creation, the
Holy Spirit was a co-creator with the father and the son.
At creation. This is not, you know, some third
tier, some lackey that God uses occasionally for his purposes.
This is the third member of the deity of the Godhead. And God
says he dwells in you and he dwells in you for God’s own purpose
to make you time after time like Christ. God’s word says that
on the day when the earth was created, it was still formless
and void. The spirit of God was moving
over the surface of the waters. He was there and present and
active. Talk about usefulness. The Holy Spirit is the one that
superintended the inscription of God’s word. He’s the one that
moved to have men write it down. Second, Peter testifies of him.
No prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation,
for no prophecy was ever made by an act of the human will,
but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God. Nobody wrote
anything on their own. God communicated it to man by
means of the Holy Spirit, speaking through human authors. Those
authors eventually compiled God’s written word. The ministry to
Jesus Christ was another major feature in the plan of redemption
for the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit participated
fully in Christ’s ministry here on earth. He was the cause of
conception. He came upon Christ in the form
of a dove. The Holy Spirit led Christ into
the wilderness. This was powerful, powerful ministry. The initiation of God’s church.
was another major effort. Conducted by the Holy Spirit.
According to God’s decree during his earthly ministry, Jesus promised
to send a helper and in fulfillment of that, the new ministry of
the Holy Spirit began at Pentecost. During the earthly, pardon me,
during that early period of the church, the Holy Spirit manifested
numerous sign gifts throughout that season. And the Holy Spirit
continues to build his work. If anything good happens in the
church in our day and age, it’s due to God at work through the
Holy Spirit. You say, well, that’s all fine
and good, and I, you know, I get kind of a general picture of
God’s love that I’m not really feeling it, you know, not really
feeling God’s love for me personally, based on the work of the Holy
Spirit. Let’s talk about that. See, for those who are chosen
by God before the foundation of the world, they are by a special,
instantaneous work of the Holy Spirit regenerated. They are
literally brought to life by the Holy Spirit. They are reborn
from a state of deadness and sin to a state of newness of
life. Now, are you beginning to feel
the love of God ministered to you through the Holy Spirit?
You see, regeneration is completely and wholly a work of God. The
sinner is entirely passive, but once enlivened and once we begin
to hear about the truth of the gospel and our need of Christ,
the individual comes to saving faith in Christ and then begins
a grand and glorious adventure, an adventure of love communicated
through the Holy Spirit. As I mentioned a moment ago,
the Holy Spirit was promised by Jesus before he departed this
earth. Before Jesus left to go back
to the father, he promised to send a helper, a called alongside
one. The helper who would continue
to teach his followers. And even down to this moment.
In addition to illuminating the scriptures to the believers eyes,
opening our eyes to things that we could not figure out on our
own, the Holy Spirit teaches every believer spiritual things
so that they might better know and serve God. The Holy Spirit
is active and living within you, dwelling in you and teaching
you. And he continues the life of
this work of God in the process of sanctification, as we’ll see
in a moment. You say positionally, I’m already I’m justified, I’m
good. I stand righteous before God. That’s true. But you’re
far from sanctification. Just ask your wife. Positionally, in Christ, a believer
is already justified before God, but practically speaking. In
practical terms, a believer is far from perfected in holiness,
and that’s the ministry of the Holy Spirit continuing to work
out. That process of sanctification
in the believer’s life, if you were convicted today in prayer,
that is the love of God being poured out within you through
the ministry of the Holy Spirit. That is God bringing you to maturity. As I already pointed out, the
Holy Spirit immediately takes residence in the Christian, immediately
upon regeneration, the Holy Spirit dwells within him. The Holy Spirit
then begins to grant every believer gifts and he empowers them with
God’s grace for avoiding evil. And performance of any good that
we do. That’s how we can exult in our
trials. That’s how we can begin to bear
up under the difficulties of life. See, and it’s not surprising
that the Holy Spirit would use Paul because the Spirit had seasoned
Paul substantially. From the very moment that Paul
was converted, Acts 16 records this. They passed through the
Phrygian and Galatian region, having been forbidden by the
Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia. We don’t know at all
what that was that prevented Paul. We do know who was behind
it. The Holy Spirit. All of those
impulses and promptings, Paul traced them directly back to
the Holy Spirit. And so from his earliest moments
of ministry, Paul was constantly had a sense of the direct influence
of the Holy Spirit in his ministry. As such, that very subject became
a cornerstone of Paul’s teaching, as we’ll see here momentarily. Paul began to just announce to
everybody what was going on in his life through the ministry
of the Holy Spirit. Romans eight, which we’ll get
to one day, so The requirement of the law might be fulfilled
in us who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to
the spirit. It was a sphere of life. It is
a path that Paul considered this life in the spirit. Galatians
5 16. I say walk by the spirit. The
spirit is within you walk with him. That’s because the Holy
Spirit is to be the source and the spring of every spiritual
need for the believer. I think about it. The Holy Spirit
provides from the very beginning, the sure access to heaven. Ephesians 2 through him, we both
have our access in one spirit to the father. The Holy Spirit
is the provider of all all things necessary for ministry. 1 Corinthians
12, 7, to each one is given the manifestation of the spirit for
the common good. 1 Corinthians 12, 11, one in
the same spirit works all these things, distributing to each
one individually as he wills. If you have any capability, if
you have any ministry gifting, if you have any serviceability
to the body of Christ, it’s because of the love of God poured out
within you. through the Holy Spirit. The
Holy Spirit, as I’ve already pointed out, is the great instructor
who graciously works through us. First Corinthians 2.3, which
things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom,
but in those taught by the spirit. You know, the things that I heard
in seminary, they kind of fade real quickly. But when we go
to God’s Word, right? God distills through His Word
and speaks through us by way of the Holy Spirit. The Holy
Spirit is the great means of a healthy prayer life. Paul told
the Ephesians, with all prayer and petition, pray at all times
in the Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the very sphere
and core of our worship. Philippians 3. We worship in
the Spirit of God. Back to the passage before us. The passage before us this morning
says that the Holy Spirit was given to us. This was a gift
of God. Only God could have given it.
And what could God have given any greater? He had already given
his son. The son is leaving and going back to heaven. God could
have given no greater gift than to give the blessing and the
ministry of his son poured out within the believers hearts.
Paul says he’s given the spirit as a pledge. Second Corinthians
five, five. John, first John, three, twenty
four, we know this, that he abides in us by the spirit whom he has
given to us, it was a gift, it was a gift of God for us. The Holy Spirit was given by
God to those who believe in his son, Jesus Christ. The Holy Spirit
was given by God for the purpose of sanctification, as we’ve already
seen, and is replete throughout Scripture. Paul spoke of it in
the book of Titus, Titus chapter three, he mentioned that when
the kindness of God, our Savior and his love for mankind appeared,
he saved us not on the basis of deeds which you have done
in righteousness. This is an echo of the passages
we’re in. But according to his mercy, by
the washing of regeneration and renewing by the spirit, that’s
where it starts and where it starts, it proceeds. Peter likewise mentioned the
sanctifying work of the spirit in his opening chapter, it is
the Holy Spirit, it’s always the Holy Spirit. that first awakens
in us, as one Puritan said, the faint desires and longings for
God and goodness who convicts us of our sin and leads us to
the cross where that sin is forgiven. It’s the Holy Spirit. It’s God that has begun this
work. It’s God’s love that is manifested through the spirit.
And so our sanctification is the great end of the Holy Spirit’s
work. And tribulation is particularly
suited as a tool in the Holy Spirit’s hand. To that very end. The Holy Spirit was given to
us as a pledge of future glory, and it’s the Spirit’s task to
lead us, to glorify us, to sanctify us to that day. It’s a constant
reminder, really, this pledge of God’s love in the gift of
his son and a down payment on this future enjoyment of God’s
glory. The Holy Spirit was given as
an encouragement to a current, a modern day, a moment by moment
confidence. 1 John 4, 3, By this we know that
we abide in him and he in us because he has given us his spirit. And so overall, the Holy Spirit
is the communicator, as we saw, of the love of God. The Holy
Spirit is the one that imparts that good and faithful blessing
to us. The present work here of the
spirit. Is the pledge, the down payment,
if you will, of that glory for which we hope as believers in
Christ Jesus. Romans 8 16 says the spirit testifies
With our spirit that we are children of God, we have that confidence,
we have that assurance. Second Corinthians says it likewise,
he who establishes us with you is Christ and anointed us is
God who sealed us and gave us the spirit in our hearts as a
pledge. And you begin to see. That is,
it isn’t so much you who can bear up under these trials. It’s
the spirit testifying of the love of God who can assist you
divinely in the endurance of these trials. It’s not that we can do it, it’s
that God can and that God has already begun it. What Paul wishes
to do here is instill in us a confidence, not in ourselves, but in God.
In himself. There’s one Puritan said it in
closing. The gift of the spirit is enjoyed
in common by all the saints. In all of whom the Holy Spirit
dwells and who are habitations of God through the spirit. Everything
in us that is good is the effect of the spirit of God, the lowest
degree of humility. And godly sorrow for sin and
a sense of the love of God. are not to be found in any of
the children of Adam until they are enlightened by the spirit.
The Jewry says nobody who doesn’t know Christ can even have a sense
of these things that we enjoy in such abundance. Nor can they
be maintained for one moment in the soul. Without his sacred
influence. We desperately need the grace
of God to stand up under trials. We desperately need the ministry
of the Holy Spirit communicating to us and constantly reminding
us of the abundant love of God. In our lives. Let’s go to him
for that. Our merciful God, we humble ourselves
before you, we are indeed a poor and needy people. We are so prone
to forget about Your overwhelming love for us. And yet, when we
pause and just glance at some of the Scriptures that testify
of the effects of Your love for us, not just the sending of Your
Son, but all of the blessings that came from that, the salvation
that we have come to enjoy, And this process of sanctification
that we now bear under. And this hope of future glory. That we long for. Lord, we thank
you and praise you for the ministry of your spirit, this divine assistance. That you have provided. For the
sanctification of your children. that one day we will be glorified
together with Christ. Father, we thank you for Paul’s
words to us. We pray these things in Jesus’
name. Amen. O pray, my Saviour, meet me,
what have I to ask of Thee? Can I doubt His tender mercies? Who will I have in my heart? Heavenly peace, divine assaulter,
Here by faith in Him to dwell. For I know whate’er befalls me,
Jesus, through it all things well. For I know whate’er befalls
me, Jesus, through it all things well. All the way, my Savior lead me,
To Thee aligning my way. Lead me, praise for every child,
Lead me with the living way. Though my weary steps may falter,
And my soul a thirst may be, Gushing from the rock before
me, flow a stream of joy I see. Gushing from the rock before
me, flow a stream of joy I see. All the way my Savior leads me,
for the fullness of His love. Perfect rest to me is promised
in my Father’s house above. When my spirit flowed immortal,
wings it’s flight to realms of day. This my song through endless
ages, Jesus led me all the way. This my song through endless
ages, Jesus led me all the way. you