May the Fourth Be With
You? And Also with You? - Purity 722
Purity 722 05/04/2022 Purity 722 Podcast
Good morning,
Today’s photo of the “mountains majesty” of a morning view of the
Sierra Nevada mountain range in the backdrop of Lone Pine California comes to
us from a friend’s recent epic journey out west. Apparently they had checked into their modest
accommodations in Lone Pine in the middle of the night, and were totally
surprised by the stunning view that what was literally across the street.
Well, it’s Wednesday again and I thought a view of the Sierra
Nevadas was a good way to represent hump day and decided to share my friends
experience of surprise as a fitting analogy of how we can be surprised and
amazed at, not only the beauty of His creation, but by the presence of God in
our lives!
Today is also May the 4th, and today Star Wars
Enthusiasts may greet you with “May the
Fourth be with you!” to enjoy the play on words that echo’s that scifi classic’s
line “May the Force be with you”.
When I hear phrases like that, my upbringing in the Roman
Catholic church almost conditions me to reply with: “And also with you!” as the
catholic mass would encourage its participants to say that in response, when the
priest or someone in the congregations would say “Peace be with you”. That might be showing my age though because wouldn’t
you know it, the Catholic Church tradition has changed and now the proper
response to “Peace be with you.” Is now “And also with your spirit.”
“And also with your spirit”? When did they change that?
But I guess a little change is to be expected when new popes
come into power and have the authority to change church tradition with a papal
edict. Who said the Catholic church wasn’t
a “spirit-filled” church or always did things the same way?
I’ll just leave that there and encourage all who listen to or
read this message that it is through faith in Christ ALONE that we are saved,
not in church tradition or in the adoration of, or via petition through, the saints
that we are forgiven and accepted by God.
Anyway all of these things, May the Fourth, the surprising
presence of God in our Life, and “also with your spirit” has me thinking of
that Third Person of the Godhead: The Holy Spirit and how He can be misunderstood
as a “force” instead of a person.
Because I am pressed for time in the morning, I can’t give too
much time presenting the evidence for the personhood of the Holy Spirit so I am
sharing a link to article on Blueletterbible.org by Don Stewart (https://www.blueletterbible.org/Comm/stewart_don/faq/the-identity-of-the-holy-spirit/05-is-the-holy-spirit-a-person.cfm)
that thoroughly explains the following six ways that the Holy Spirit is a
person:
“The Holy Spirit Is a Person
The fact that the Holy Spirit is a person can be observed in six
ways.
1. He has the
characteristics of a person.
2. He acts like a
person.
3. He is treated
as a person.
4. He has the
ministry of a person.
5. He is mentioned
in connection with other persons.
6. He is the Third
Person of the Trinity, and therefore, is personal.”
Like, I said there is a link on the blog in which Don Stewart uses
scripture to thoroughly supports each of these six points, and I invite you to
check it out so you will know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Holy Spirit
is not a “force”, He is a person.
He just happens to person who is God, is a Spirit, and indwells
those who put their faith in Jesus Christ!
So, as point 6 in Stewart’s
article states, the Holy Spirit is very personal and we can know that He is
with us in two very significant ways.
1. The Holy Spirit will convict us of sin.
John 16:8 (NKJV) Jesus speaking about the Holy Spirit said:
8 And
when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness, and
of judgment:
The “he” in this verse demonstrates
that Christ considered the Holy Spirit a person but this verse also gives us a
clue of how the Holy Spirit will interact with us. The Holy Spirit convicts us of our sins. In that function, He causes people to see
their need of a Savior, Jesus, and He causes believers to repent of their sins
and walk in the newness of their lives in Christ.
Us “sinners saved by grace” are
guided by the Holy Spirit to turn from our old sinful ways and to be more like
Jesus by living a righteous and holy life through the Holy Spirit’s power. It
is through faith and through the Holy Spirit, that we can love God more than
our sin and cause us to have a change of heart and mind that will transform us
into the people God wants us to be. The
Holy Spirit helps us with this process in the second way He works with us.
2. The Holy Spirit
will lead us into all truth.
In John 16:13 (NKJV) Jesus says:
13 However,
when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth; for
He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will
speak; and He will tell you things to come.
The Holy Spirit speaks the truth of
God’s Word and reveals to us the truth of our need for Jesus as Our Lord and
Savior but He doesn’t stop there. As we
turn to God and walk in the Spirit, the Holy Spirit will reveal more information
to us. We experience this when we develop
new insights and understanding of the word of God and the way things really
are. The Holy Spirit shifts our paradigms as He shows us what we need to know
to be faithful followers of Christ.
God’s presence in this world,
through His creation, through His word, and through the Holy Spirit working in
and through believers, can be a big surprise for those of us who thought
Christianity was just a set of rules and regulations, who thought of Christianity
as a religion rather than a rich relationship with the living God.
This discovery, that God was real,
alive, and active in the life of believers, was a game changer for me and that
is why I will spend the rest of my life encouraging people to “keep walking and
talking with God”. God loves us and He sent Christ to save us and He gives those
who put their faith in Jesus, the Holy Spirit to guide us. More than a “force” the Holy Spirit is a
person who will speak to your spirit to encourage you to walk in His ways and
to experience His fruit. Christ wanted
us to have life and life more abundantly and He gave us the Holy Spirit to get
us there.
So don’t be surprised. God has been
here all along and just like the light of day revealed the Sierra Nevadas to my
friend, the light of the word of God and the power and presence of the Holy Spirit
in our lives can show us that we have never been alone and can lead us to the
life God always wanted us to have.
______________________________________________________________
Today’s Bible verse comes to us from “The NLT Bible Promise Book
for Men”.
This morning’s meditation verse is:
Psalm 149:4 (NLT2)
4 For the LORD delights in his people; he crowns
the humble with victory.
Today’s Bible verse confirms that the Lord delights in His people and He
crowns the humble with victory.
What the NLT calls victory, the NKJV and other versions of the Bible
calls salvation. The NKJV and other
versions also refer the “crowning” that the NLT speaks of as a process of “beautification”
as the Lord makes the humble beautiful with salvation.
Forgive my sentimental heart of a newly wed but I got an experiential
taste of the “beauty of the humble” this past weekend when my wife TammyLyn got
water baptized at our church. TammyLyn
had an idea of a few things to say before taking the plunge but as she was
brought before the crowd of our church she “froze” and was speechless as she
humbly submitted to God’s commandment to be baptized.
And while some may think I would
have been disappointed by my wife’s missed opportunity to give glory to God, her
humble submission before the Lord made her absolutely beautiful in my eyes in a
way I can’t fully explain. Her
speechlessness took her by surprise but I think it actually is a good
reflection of what we bring to the table in our salvation, nothing. To be saved, we really can’t say anything to
God to be approved, we can only humbly submit to the Lordship of Jesus and
surrender to His will for our lives.
And as today’s verse tells us, God delights in our humble surrender to
become His people by crowning us with victory of over death and sin as we are
given a new eternal life and the power to overcome when we humbly follow the
Lord’s will for our lives.
In Christ we have salvation and victory, He crowns us for His glory and
gives us the salvation that makes us and our lives absolutely beautiful!
As
always, I invite all to go to mt4christ.org where I always share insights from
prominent Christian theologians and counselors to assist my brothers and
sisters in Christ with their walk.
Today
we continue sharing from John Piper’s “Don’t Waste Your Life”.
As always, I share this information for educational purposes
and encourage all to purchase John Pipers’ books for your own private
study and to support his work. This resource is available on many
websites for less than $5.00.
“If I Perish, I
Perish”
Queen Esther is another
example of courageous risk in the service of love and for the glory of God.
There was a Jewish man named Mordecai who lived in the fifth century before Christ
during the Jews’ exile. He had a younger orphaned cousin named Esther whom he
had adopted as a daughter. She grew up to be beautiful and eventually was taken
by Persia’s King Ahasuerus to be his queen. Haman, one of Ahasuerus’s chief
princes, hated Mordecai and all the Jewish refugees and persuaded the king to
decree that they be exterminated. The king did not realize that his own queen
was a Jew.
Mordecai
sent word to Esther to go before the king and plead the case of her people. But
Esther knew there was a royal law that anyone who approached the king without
being called would be put to death, unless he lifted his golden scepter. She
also knew that her people’s lives were at stake. Esther sent her response to
Mordecai with these words:
“Go,
gather all the Jews to be found in Susa, and hold a fast on my behalf, and do
not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my young women will also
fast as you do. Then I will go to the king, though it is against the law, and
if I perish, I perish.” (Esther 4:15–16)
“If
I perish, I perish.” What does that mean? It means that Esther did not know
what the outcome of her act would be. She had no special revelation from God.
She made her decision on the basis of wisdom and love for her people and trust
in God. She had to risk or run. She did not know how it would turn out. So she
made her decision and handed the results over to God. “If I perish, I perish.”
And this was right.
“We Will Not Serve Your Gods”
Consider one more example
from the Old Testament. The setting is Babylon. The Jewish people are in exile.
The king is Nebuchadnezzar. He sets up an image of gold, then commands that
when the trumpet sounds, all the people will bow down to the image. But
Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego did not bow down. They worshiped the one true
God of Israel.
So
Nebuchadnezzar threatened them and said that if they did not worship the image,
they would be thrown into the fiery furnace. They answered:
O
Nebuchadnezzar, we have no need to answer you in this matter. If this be so,
our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and
he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O
king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you
have set up. (Daniel 3:16–18)
This
was sheer risk. “We believe our God will deliver us. But even if he doesn’t, we
will not serve your gods.” They did not know how it would turn out. They said
virtually the same thing Esther said: “If we perish, we perish.” And they
handed the outcome to God the same way Joab and Abishai did: “And may the Lord do what seems good to him.” And
this was right. It is right to risk for the cause of God.
“I Am Ready to Die for the Name of the Lord
Jesus”
The great New Testament
risk-taker was the apostle Paul. Picture him first on his way to Jerusalem
after years of suffering for Christ almost everywhere he went. He had bound
himself in the Holy Spirit (Acts 19:21) to go to Jerusalem. He had collected
money for the poor, and he was going to see that it was delivered faithfully.
He got as far as Caesarea, and a prophet named Agabus came down from Judea,
symbolically bound his own hands and feet with Paul’s belt, and said, “Thus
says the Holy Spirit, ‘This is how the Jews at Jerusalem will bind the man who
owns this belt and deliver him into the hands of the Gentiles’ ” (Acts
21:11).
When
the believers heard, this they begged Paul not to go to Jerusalem. He
responded, “What are you doing, weeping and breaking my heart? For I am ready
not only to be imprisoned but even to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord
Jesus” (Acts 21:13).Then, Luke tells us, his friends relented: “And since he
would not be persuaded, we ceased and said, ‘Let the will of the Lord be
done’ ” (Acts 21:14).
In
other words, Paul believed that this trip to Jerusalem was necessary for the
cause of Christ. He did not know the details of what would happen there or what
the outcome would be. Arrest and affliction for sure. But then what? Death?
Imprisonment? Banishment? No one knew. So what did they say? They could agree
on one thing: “The will of the Lord be done!” Or as Joab said, “May the Lord do what seems good to him.” And
this was right.
“In Every City … Afflictions Await Me”
In fact, Paul’s whole life
was one stressful risk after another. He said in Acts 20:23, “The Holy Spirit
testifies to me in every city that imprisonment and afflictions await me.” But
he never knew in what form they would come, or when they would come, or by whom
they would come. Paul had decided to risk his life in Jerusalem with the full
knowledge of what it might be like. What he had already endured left him no
doubt about what might happen in Jerusalem:
Five
times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three
times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked;
a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from
rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles,
danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false
brothers; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and
thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. And, apart from other things,
there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches. (2
Corinthians 11:24–28)
What
does this mean? It means that Paul never knew where the next blow would come
from. Every day he risked his life for the cause of God. The roads weren’t
safe. The rivers weren’t safe. His own people, the Jews, weren’t safe. The
Gentiles weren’t safe. The cities weren’t safe. The wilderness wasn’t safe. The
sea wasn’t safe. Even the so-called Christian brothers weren’t safe. Safety was
a mirage. It didn’t exist for the apostle Paul.
He
had two choices: waste his life or live with risk. And he answered this choice
clearly: “But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself,
if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord
Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God” (Acts 20:24). He never
knew what the day would hold. But the Calvary road beckoned. And he risked his
life every day. And this was right.[1]
---------------------------more
tomorrow------------------------
Join
our “Victory over the Darkness”, “The Bondage Breaker”, "Freedom in
Christ" series of Discipleship Classes via the mt4christ247 podcast!
at https://mt4christ247.podbean.com, You can
also find it on Apple podcasts
(https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-mt4christ247s-podcast/id1551615154). The
mt4christ247 podcast is also available on Google Podcasts, Amazon Podcasts,
Spotify, iHeartradio, and Audible.com.
These teachings are also available on the MT4Christ247 You
Tube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTxjSNstREpuGWuL0bF3U7w/featured
Email
me at mt4christ247@gmail.com to receive the class
materials, share your progress, and to be encouraged.
My
wife, TammyLyn, also offers Christian encouragement via her Facebook Group:
Ask, Seek, Knock (https://www.facebook.com/groups/529047851449098 ) and her podcast Ask,
Seek, and Knock on Podbean (https://feed.podbean.com/tammalyn78/feed.xml)
Encouragement for the Path of Christian Discipleship
