Life is the Spirit - part five
Jesus: Man As He’s Supposed To Be!
Let me ask you a question my friend. Do you feel as if there.s something missing in life, that you haven.t really grasped what life is all about? Well let me ask you a question. How many times have you been born? You say, come on Kay, I.ve been born once. Everybody.s been born once. O there is a physical birth and there is a spiritual birth. And it.s the spiritual birth that makes the difference.
Why did Jesus come? Was He born just to die and that was the end of it? No, He was born to die to pay for your sins, to be buried, to be resurrected, to walk in newness of life as the God-man. He was born and He came to die, to be buried and to be raised again so that He might walk in newness of life. He gave us a picture of what man is to supposed to be when man was created in God.s image.
Now what we.re going to see is how does that power that came on Jesus when He was baptized in the Holy Spirit as a man, how does that power come into you and to me so that you and I can be about God.s kingdom business, so that we can live in power, so we can live as an overcomer, how does that happen?
Well, we want to go back to where we left off in our last program and that.s to Luke, chapter 3. In Luke, chapter 3, remember in verse 21, Jesus is baptized with the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit comes upon Jesus. Then in Luke, chapter 4 Jesus goes out, He.s full of the Holy Spirit and He is led by the Spirit into the wilderness.
Now you.re learning several things about the Holy Spirit right here. Number 1: you.re learning that you can be filled with the Holy Spirit. And you.re learning that you can be led by the Holy Spirit. And really this is what life in the Spirit is all about.
Life in the Spirit is you and I being filled, controlled by the Spirit, led by the Spirit, and because we.re filled and because we.re controlled then we have the same power and the same authority that Jesus Christ has. Because what you see in Luke, chapter 4, it says in verse 1: “And Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan where He had been baptized with the Holy Spirit and was led about by the Spirit in the wilderness for forty days, being tempted by the devil.” He was tempted by the devil and yet He never yielded to the devil.
What did He do? He took the Word of God and every time the devil made a proposition Jesus counteracted it with the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. All right now, what does He do? He.s been baptized with the Holy Spirit. He has been filled with the Holy Spirit. He.s been led by the Holy Spirit. He.s been tempted by the devil.
Remember that when God created man, God breathed into man the breathe of life. And man was filled with the Spirit of God. But when Eve was tempted and Adam was tempted to take the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and they ate that fruit, then what happened? They died. They died. God.s Spirit of life moved out of them. All right? So, they died. Now what does God want to do? God wants to restore life to man.
But what I want you to see is now Jesus is beginning His public ministry. Go to Luke, chapter 4, verse 14 and it says, “And Jesus returned to Galilee....” Now this is after being tempted by the Holy Spirit. Jesus returned to the Galilee, to that beautiful Galilee in the northern part of Israel. It is absolutely gorgeous, just absolutely gorgeous. Well, He.s in the Galilee. And it says, “And Jesus returned to the Galilee in the power of the Spirit.” (Luke 4:14)
So what you and I have seen is we have seen that Jesus was filled with the Holy Spirit. Jesus was led by the Holy Spirit. It was the Holy Spirit that enabled Him to use the sword of the Word of God that counteracted the temptation of the devil. And now Jesus is moving in the power of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is life. It.s life in the Spirit. It is power in the Spirit. And so you want to mark Spirit there.
Now remember that.s our task as we study this inductively, is we go straight to the Word of God to see for ourselves what God is saying. That.s why it.s so important that you get out your Bibles. So if you are not able when you listen to this program and you.re not able to take notes, then get the CD.s on the program so that you can go back and you can mark your Bible.
Well, “…He began teaching in their synagogues…,” verse 15, “…and He was praised by all. And He came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up. As was His custom He entered the synagogue on the Sabbath and stood up to read. And the book of the prophet Isaiah was handed to Him. And He opened the book, and He found the place where it was written, „The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor..” (4:15-18)
Now look at these terms, filled with the Holy Spirit, led by the Holy Spirit, the power of the Holy Spirit, anointed by the Holy Spirit. They all basically almost speak of the same thing. And it says, “…He anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent Me to proclaim release to the captives.” (4:18) Now what is He doing? He.s quoting from Isaiah. He.s quoting from that chapter that we looked at several programs ago and that.s Isaiah, chapter 61 where He is quoting this. And He.s saying to, “Preach recovery, to bring recovery of the sight to the blind, to set free those who are downtrodden, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. And He closed the book.” (4:18-19) Now he closed the book before He finished the verse, before He finished the thought.
And it says, and, in Isaiah, chapter 61 as a matter of fact, I want you to look at it because we have been looking also at Joel. So go to Isaiah, chapter 61. And in Isaiah 61 and you want to see it with your own eyes because this is what helps you remember. It says, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me…,” Remember that? “…He has anointed Me to bring good news to the afflicted….” (Isaiah 61:1) Well you come down to verse 2 and it says, “To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord and the day of the vengeance of our God….” (61:2)
Well remember the prophet Joel says I.m going to pour out My Spirit on all mankind and this is what.s going to happen before the day of the Lord. Well if Jesus had continued to read He would have gone into this day of vengeance, which is the day of the Lord. And so He.s stopping there. He.s saying to you and He.s saying to me it is the acceptable year of the Lord. It is now time for you to know and to experience God.s power in your life.
Well let.s go to John, chapter 3. Jesus is in His public ministry. And as he carries on that public ministry there are people watching. And one of those men that is watching is a Pharisee. He is a teacher of the Jews and his name is Nicodemus. John, chapter 3. If you know the scriptures you know, don.t you, where I.m going. If not, listen, you.re learning and that.s what it.s all about. You know I was raised in the church and I never knew that this passage was in the Bible. I didn.t, I really didn.t much care because I had a religion, but not a relationship. And when I.d try to read the Bible, it was so terribly, terribly boring and I couldn.t understand it until this happened to me. John, chapter 3. “There was man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. And this man came to Jesus by night and he said, „Rabbi, we know that You have come from God as a teacher; for no one can do the things that You do unless God is with him..” (John 3:1-2) We.ve watched You heal the sick. We.ve watched You make the blind see. We.ve watched You make the lame walk. We.ve watched You. And we know that no man could this unless God was with him. “And Jesus answered and said to him, „Truly, truly I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God..” (3:3)
Now listen, what was Nicodemus? What was this teacher of the Jews all about? He was all about the kingdom of God. And all of a sudden God has said to Nicodemus unless you.re born again, you.re never going to see the kingdom of God. It absolutely blows Nicodemus. mind and, “He said to Him, „How can a man be born again when he.s old? Can he crawl up into his mother.s womb and be born, can he be born again?.” (3:4) This is ridiculous. And, “Jesus answered and said, „Truly, truly, I say to you unless one is born of water…..” and that.s the physical birth, because we.re conceived in that womb and there.s a sack of water. It.s called amniotic fluid around us. All right unless one is born of water and the Spirit. There is a physical birth and there is a spiritual birth. So you.re born of water physically. You.re born spiritually of the Spirit.
So what do you want to do? You want to mark the Spirit there. You want to underline that and put that cloud around it like we.ve been doing. And listen to what he says. “…unless a man is born of the Spirit he cannot enter the kingdom of God.” (3:5) In other words, according to Jesus, and when He says truly, truly, it.s like saying sure enough, sure enough. According to Jesus there.s no way you can go to heaven. There.s no way that you can belong to the family of God unless, Precious One, you are born again.
He says, “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, but that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit.” (3:6) So the question to you is: are you just a man or a woman of flesh and that.s it? Or is the Spirit of God inside of you? We.ll talk about it more after this break.
Welcome back. We.re talking about life in the Spirit. We.re talking about being born of the Spirit, because that.s where life comes, that.s where it originates. And I.m talking about a life, Beloved, that lives forever. I.m talking about a life in the Spirit that brings you power, that puts the anointing of God on every single believer. He is no respecter of persons. I.m talking about a life where you are led by God, where you are walking and ministering and you.re doing it, not in your own flesh and not in your own strength and not for your own glory and not for your own benefit, but for the kingdom of God.
Nicodemus wanted to belong to the kingdom of God and Jesus has just, in a sense, slapped him across the face, bringing him to his senses and saying Nicodemus, unless you are born of water and of the Spirit you cannot enter the kingdom of God. You.ve got to be born of the Spirit. Now, this is leading up to what God promised in the prophet Joel, when He says I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh. And what we.re doing is we.re looking at how this connects.
But what I want us to do is I want us to go now from John, chapter 3 where Jesus has just told Nicodemus that he must be born of the Spirit, otherwise he cannot enter the kingdom of heaven to the end of John, chapter 3 where a group of Jews have come along and they.re questioning John the Baptist because Jesus is other places and people are being baptized. And so they.re trying to say hey, isn.t there a little competition going here? Doesn.t this bother you? And this is what John replies. John, chapter 3, verse 31: “He who comes from above is above all, he who is of the earth is from the earth and speaks of the earth. He who comes from heaven is above all.” (3:31)
Now who is the one that has come from heaven? It is God the Son with the Spirit of God upon Him. So it says, “What He has seen and heard, of that He bears witness and no man receives His witness.” (3:32) Now one of the key words that you would mark all the way through the gospel of John is the word witness. And he.s saying listen; He.s bearing witness, nobody.s listening to Him. And listen that.s the way the world is today. Just start doing a survey. Go to the mall. Go out to your backyard; talk to some of your neighbors for a change. That would be great, wouldn.t it? But as you go out and you interact with them, talk to them about Jesus. Ask them what they know, what they think. You would be so surprised at what happens.
Now he.s receiving the witness that God has given of His Son. It says, “He who has received His witness has set His seal to this that God is true.” (3:33) It doesn.t matter what the public says about God; you need to know what the Word of God says about God. And you need to check everything that you hear, Christian radio, Christian television, from the pulpit. You need to check it out with the Word of God so that you know, because this Book is true. It says, “For He whom God has sent speaks the words of God…,” For He whom God has sent, which is Jesus, now watch “… gives the Spirit without measure.” (3:34)
Remember in our last program that.s what I told you, is when God gives the Spirit, He doesn.t give a little bit to this person and a whole lot to that person. O no, He gives the Spirit without measure. This is very important for you to mark. So you want to mark Spirit. You want to mark that He.s going to give this Spirit without measure.
All right, now how is the prophecy of Joel, that God is going to pour out His Spirit on all mankind, how is that prophecy in Joel going to come to pass? Well it.s going to come to pass through Jesus, who is anointed with the Spirit, who is baptized with the Holy Spirit, who in turn is going to bestow the Holy Spirit. So let.s look at it.
In Jesus. ministry, John, chapter 7, He goes up and he celebrates each of the feasts. You say what are the feasts? The feasts are seven holidays grouped in three segments that the Jews were to keep every single year. Those feasts pointed prophetically to truth about salvation and about our total redemption. As a matter of fact if you have a New Inductive Study Bible, after the program, if you will go to the end of Leviticus you.ll see a beautiful chart there that explains all the feasts.
Well Jesus has gone up to the final feast of the year. It.s the Feast of Tabernacles, the Feast of Booths. And on that day what would happen is the priest would come out of the temple, he would take the water and he would pour it out and he would sing the helel. And so Jesus, capturing that moment, then says this, verse 37. “Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, „If any man is thirsty, let him come to Me and drink…..” (John 7:37)
Now do you remember when we began this series? Do you remember how we saw that the Spirit of God moved in Genesis, chapter 1, verse 2 and then we looked at the last mention of the Holy Spirit in Revelation, chapter 22, verse 17? And it says, “And the Spirit and the bride say, „Come and let him who is thirsty come..”
You see there.s a void in our lives. There.s something missing until the Holy Spirit comes to live inside of us. So Jesus is standing up, takes that moment on the last day of the feast and as the priest is pouring out the water, He.s saying are you thirsty? Come to Me and drink. He says, “He who believes in Me, as the Scripture says…,” Jesus always shows you this is what the Word of God says. “…as the scripture says, from his innermost being shall flow rivers of living water.
What is He talking about? He.s saying from your life will come these rivers of living water.” (7:38) You.re not going to thirst. You.re going to be filled. And when you.re filled that living water is going to come from you. He says, “But this He spoke of the Spirit…,” Now hang on, this is so important. “…whom those who believed in Him, who believed in Jesus, were to receive….” (7:39)
In other words, those that believe in Jesus are going to receive the Holy Spirit. And when they receive the Holy Spirit, then rivers of living water are going to flow out of them. That emptiness is going to be fulfilled. That thirst is going to be quenched. And it goes on to say; I love it. “… for the Spirit was not yet given…,” That.s a time phrase, not yet. Why? And He answers it. “…because Jesus was not yet glorified.” (7:39)
Now what does it mean that Jesus was not yet glorified? Because Jesus had not yet died. Jesus had not yet been buried. Jesus had not yet been risen from the dead. And then Jesus had not yet ascended to the Father, so that He might send the Spirit.
Go to John, chapter 14. Jesus has told them that He is going to go away and He.s telling them that He doesn.t want them to be sad because He.s going to come again. And so Jesus says this. John 14:16, “I will ask the Father and He will give you another Helper….” That word another is allos in the Greek, a-l-l-o-s. And you know what it means? It means another of the same kind.
Remember our symbol for God, in marking God when we want to in the Scriptures, is a triangle. And that triangle.s a picture of God the Father, God the Spirit, and God the Son. And so what He.s saying is Jesus is going to God the Father. When He gets to the Father, this is what He.s going to do; He.s going to send the Holy Spirit. And He says I.m going to give you another helper of the same kind. We are one. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. We.re all part of the Godhead. And so He says, “…I will ask the Father and He will give you a Spirit that will be with you forever.” (14:16) Isn.t that awesome? And there.s more to learn, but we.re going to have to learn it in the next program
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