God the Spirit 5pm
Series: Knowing God
Speaker: Glenn Davies
Date: 23rd February 2013
Passage: John 16:5-15
00:00:00 --> 00:00:07 Well good evening. It's great to be here tonight. I was here this morning but Sam said I could come
00:00:07 --> 00:00:17 dressed like he was this morning. So I've come like I am and I said I'm not really
00:00:17 --> 00:00:24 overdressed so that's good isn't it? Let's pray and we'll look at this passage particularly
00:00:24 --> 00:00:31 from John's Gospel tonight. Heavenly Father we thank you for your goodness to us in the Lord
00:00:31 --> 00:00:38 Jesus Christ. We thank you too for the Spirit of God, for your Spirit, that Spirit who hovered over
00:00:38 --> 00:00:44 creation, that Spirit who inspired the prophets of the Old Testament and that Spirit who inspired
00:00:44 --> 00:00:49 the Apostle John to write these words for us tonight and we pray that your Spirit would continue
00:00:49 --> 00:00:57 to do his work in our hearts and minds and lives so we might get a greater picture of your glory,
00:00:57 --> 00:01:03 the work of your Spirit, so the praise and the honour and the glory might belong to Jesus
00:01:03 --> 00:01:06 in whose name we pray. Amen.
00:01:09 --> 00:01:16 John's Gospel is a gospel that begins with very evocative words if you remember. In the beginning
00:01:16 --> 00:01:22 was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. All things were made by him and without
00:01:22 --> 00:01:31 him was not anything made that was made. Evocative because what John is doing is echoing the words
00:01:31 --> 00:01:39 of Genesis 1. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth and that language of creation
00:01:39 --> 00:01:48 which then speaks of God's Spirit hovering over the waters, of God's Word coming forth, is actually
00:01:48 --> 00:01:56 a reflection of the triune God in creation, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. So it's often expressed this way
00:01:56 --> 00:02:06 that the Word of God characterises the Son, the Logos, God's Word, the speaking of God by his breath and the
00:02:06 --> 00:02:12 word for breath is the same as the word for spirit. Both in Hebrew language and in Greek language,
00:02:12 --> 00:02:18 the Spirit is the breath of God, if you like the empowerment of that very word. So when you get to
00:02:18 --> 00:02:26 a verse like Psalm 33, by the word of the Lord the heavens were made and all their host by the breath
00:02:26 --> 00:02:34 of his mouth. So what you've got there is a description of God's interactive working of Father,
00:02:34 --> 00:02:41 Son and Holy Spirit. God spoke the word, let there be light, that word was empowered by his breath.
00:02:42 --> 00:02:48 So the Spirit of God is not something which is new to the New Testament. The Spirit with the Father and
00:02:48 --> 00:02:58 the Son always, always were. They don't have a beginning. They existed before time and we as mortals
00:02:58 --> 00:03:04 are so limited by our time, we're so temporally bound that we can't think of a language talking
00:03:04 --> 00:03:11 about the period before creation without using temporal language like before creation. But that
00:03:11 --> 00:03:18 itself is bound. God is everlasting. From everlasting to everlasting, you are God, says the psalmist.
00:03:18 --> 00:03:23 And the Spirit of God continues to work in the Old Testament, particularly we see it in the
00:03:23 --> 00:03:30 inspiration of the scriptures, but we see it in the way in which the word of God comes to the prophets
00:03:30 --> 00:03:37 and the saints of old. But if you go back to the very beginning of Adam and Eve, you see that God's
00:03:37 --> 00:03:47 word to Adam was a word which was, he breathed into Adam, God's breath, God's spirit as it were,
00:03:47 --> 00:03:56 breathed into Adam and Adam became a living being. But on the day in which he eats of the fruit of the
00:03:56 --> 00:04:06 tree of knowledge of good and evil, on that day you will die. And there death enters God's pristine
00:04:06 --> 00:04:14 good world. But it's not physical death, you notice. Adam actually doesn't die physically that day
00:04:14 --> 00:04:23 with Eve after Satan has tempted them. What happens is that Adam dies spiritually. Before that he was in a
00:04:23 --> 00:04:33 spiritual relationship with God. He was with God in the garden, walking, working, resting, loving his wife.
00:04:33 --> 00:04:38 Children hadn't come by then, but nonetheless that would have been the fruit of their relationship.
00:04:38 --> 00:04:47 And their harmony with God and creation was at one. But when they broke covenant with God,
00:04:47 --> 00:04:54 when they sinned and rebelled against God, the penalty was death. The penalty actually is eternal death,
00:04:55 --> 00:05:04 but God in his goodness prevents that penalty from operating automatically. That's the reason why Adam and
00:05:04 --> 00:05:09 even are cast out of the garden. They're cast out of the garden because in the garden is not only the
00:05:09 --> 00:05:15 fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, but also the tree of life. If they were to have
00:05:15 --> 00:05:21 eaten of that tree of life in a state of spiritual death, they would have died eternally. So it's by
00:05:21 --> 00:05:28 God's mercy that he prevents them from coming into his garden again. And he puts their cherubim and a
00:05:28 --> 00:05:34 flaming sword. Not your ordinary old seraphim, you know, cherubim, because cherubim are special angels.
00:05:35 --> 00:05:41 They're throne attendant angels. They guard the throne of God. That's why you find cherubim over
00:05:41 --> 00:05:47 the Ark of the Covenant in the tabernacle on the temple later to come. So Adam dies physically,
00:05:47 --> 00:05:55 spiritually, but God allows him to continue to be alive physically. Why? Because he has the prospect
00:05:55 --> 00:06:04 held out for him of spiritual life, of being what we call regenerated, of coming back into relationship
00:06:04 --> 00:06:11 with God out of the despair and the spiritual death that his sin has brought him in, so that God might
00:06:11 --> 00:06:21 vivify him, regenerate him, renew him, enliven him, make him spiritually alive. That's why the Apostle Paul
00:06:21 --> 00:06:30 writes to the Ephesians and says, you who were dead in trespasses and sins, you he made alive.
00:06:31 --> 00:06:40 It's a resurrection experience in one sense. That is spiritually made alive. So that's all in the
00:06:40 --> 00:06:47 background of John 1. And when we get to John 3, we find Jesus has a conversation with Nicodemus
00:06:47 --> 00:06:55 about being born again. And Jesus says to Nicodemus, unless you're born of water and the spirit,
00:06:56 --> 00:07:03 you cannot enter into the kingdom of heaven, unless you're born anew or born from above.
00:07:05 --> 00:07:10 And the interesting thing is, that was not new teaching that Jesus was giving. Because in the
00:07:10 --> 00:07:16 conversation in John 3, Jesus says to Nicodemus, are you a teacher in Israel? And you don't know
00:07:16 --> 00:07:23 these things. He actually chides him for not recognizing that it's a spiritual work that's
00:07:23 --> 00:07:31 needed to revivify, to bring a person alive. Ezekiel has an extraordinary description of it
00:07:31 --> 00:07:39 in the Old Testament, when he sees a valley of dry bones. God breathes on those bones, and the bones
00:07:39 --> 00:07:47 come alive. Flesh is joined to the bones, and a whole army rises up. A bit like a Tolkien's Lord
00:07:47 --> 00:07:54 of the Rings almost, but better. And here is God's revivifying, energizing spirit at work. And when
00:07:54 --> 00:08:00 Jesus describes that in the language of being born again, he describes it in terms of resurrection
00:08:00 --> 00:08:07 language, a person coming from death to life. So that in John's Gospel, when we find the death of
00:08:07 --> 00:08:17 Lazarus, we find that Lazarus, four days in the tomb, Jesus comes, says open the tomb, the sisters say,
00:08:17 --> 00:08:23 look, he's going to stink. I mean, he's our brother, we know. No, but he's been four days in the tomb,
00:08:23 --> 00:08:28 so he's really going to stink. So you don't want to have that tomb opened. But they open it because
00:08:28 --> 00:08:35 Jesus says so, and Jesus says these amazing words, Lazarus, come out.
00:08:38 --> 00:08:50 If anyone else had said that, what would have happened? Nothing. Why? Because Jesus' words are life-giving.
00:08:50 --> 00:08:59 They're spirit-empowered. The very words of Jesus come and bring life into Lazarus's dead body
00:08:59 --> 00:09:08 and makes him alive. It's a picture of regeneration. It's a picture of what's going to happen at the last
00:09:08 --> 00:09:14 day. It's a picture of so many things, but all to do with the spirit of God energizing Lazarus.
00:09:14 --> 00:09:23 So when Lazarus wakes up, as it were, comes alive in the tomb, he hears Jesus' voice. What does he do?
00:09:24 --> 00:09:28 He gets up and walks out. He obeys what Jesus says. Why? Because he'd made a life.
00:09:29 --> 00:09:34 And you can't imagine, can you, Lazarus lying there saying, oh, I hear Jesus' voice, but
00:09:34 --> 00:09:39 I don't think I'll go. It's kind of nice here, really, a bit damp. I could redecorate a bit,
00:09:39 --> 00:09:44 but I've been here four days. I could stay a bit longer. No. When you're in the state of death
00:09:44 --> 00:09:53 and you realize what life means, you gravitate automatically. It's irresistible. What theologians
00:09:53 --> 00:10:01 describe as irresistible grace, the call of God, the beckoning of that word. And so Lazarus walks out.
00:10:02 --> 00:10:05 Actually, he didn't walk out. He hopped out because he was all bound up in linen, but that's not the story.
00:10:05 --> 00:10:14 Anyway, the spirit of God, if you're a Christian, has made you alive.
00:10:16 --> 00:10:21 If you're not a Christian, it's only the spirit of God that can do that. And you should therefore
00:10:21 --> 00:10:28 call upon God for his enabling spirit to enable you to believe. But for those of you who are not,
00:10:28 --> 00:10:34 who are believers, you may have a conscious memory of becoming a Christian. It might've been a scripture
00:10:34 --> 00:10:40 class or a youth group or church or a friend or a conversation or just reading your Bible.
00:10:41 --> 00:10:44 Or you may have been had the great privilege of being born into a Christian family
00:10:44 --> 00:10:51 and grown up never knowing a time when Jesus was not your savior. But regardless of the first or the
00:10:51 --> 00:10:59 second, you are in Christ because the spirit of God has made you alive. He's regenerated you.
00:10:59 --> 00:11:08 He's made you born again. He's enabled you to hear the word of God and believe. He's unstopped
00:11:08 --> 00:11:14 your ears. He's opened your eyes so that you can actually see the truth of what it is in Jesus.
00:11:15 --> 00:11:21 That's not anything a human can do unless the spirit of God first operates.
00:11:21 --> 00:11:28 Otherwise, we're dead in trespasses and sins unless the spirit of God makes us alive.
00:11:30 --> 00:11:31 Well, that's the work of the spirit.
00:11:32 --> 00:11:39 Then you come to John 16 and you scratch your head and say, just a second, Jesus is talking about
00:11:39 --> 00:11:43 sending the spirit as if he hasn't come.
00:11:43 --> 00:11:49 In actual fact, there's a verse in John 7 that says, he's talked to us about the spirit
00:11:49 --> 00:11:53 who was not yet. That's really strange.
00:11:54 --> 00:11:59 What it means is the spirit hadn't yet come. But if what I've been saying is true and should
00:11:59 --> 00:12:04 always test anything a preacher says, especially bishops, by the word of God,
00:12:04 --> 00:12:14 then what does it mean to say when Jesus says, unless I go away, the counselor will not come to you?
00:12:15 --> 00:12:17 The counselor being a word for the spirit.
00:12:18 --> 00:12:23 Well, you see, what Jesus is talking about is, he's talking about the coming of the spirit
00:12:23 --> 00:12:29 in a new dimension. He's the coming of the spirit, which is going to be an empowerment.
00:12:29 --> 00:12:36 The coming of the spirit, which is actually going to bring the deliverance of salvation
00:12:36 --> 00:12:44 to God's people. What marks the Old Testament from the New Testament is promise and deliverance.
00:12:45 --> 00:12:50 The Old Testament saints were always looking forward to what God was going to do. The great
00:12:50 --> 00:12:56 salvation, the coming of the King, the coming of the Messiah, the victory over the evil one.
00:12:56 --> 00:13:03 A promise way back in Genesis 3, would you believe? Here is this expectation of the promised
00:13:03 --> 00:13:12 one coming. And what happens in the arrival of Jesus is that Jesus fulfills all the Old Testament
00:13:12 --> 00:13:19 promises about salvation for God's people. Not just for Israel, but for all nations. So the promises
00:13:19 --> 00:13:24 given to Abraham, be a father of many nations, would come true in the person of Jesus.
00:13:24 --> 00:13:32 And what we do, we live on this side of the cross. And we live now in the light of that
00:13:32 --> 00:13:40 fulfillment of the promises. And what God does now is, he says, I'm going to send my spirit to my people
00:13:40 --> 00:13:50 and bring to you all the benefits of Christ. All the benefits of salvation won. The difference between
00:13:50 --> 00:13:57 the spirit of Christ in the Old Testament and the spirit of Christ in the New Testament is that the
00:13:57 --> 00:14:04 spirit of Christ in the New Testament is the spirit of the ascended Christ. The God-man who'd won the
00:14:04 --> 00:14:13 victory, who dealt with your sins and brought you everlasting life. That, what Jesus has done, he now
00:14:13 --> 00:14:19 communicates to you. So the New Testament talks about the spirit of Christ in us.
00:14:20 --> 00:14:23 The New Testament also talks about, or Paul does to the Corinthians, he says,
00:14:23 --> 00:14:29 you are temples of the Holy Spirit. You'd have never said that about an Old Testament saint.
00:14:30 --> 00:14:39 You'd have never said of Abraham, Isaac or Jacob, Moses, David or Jeremiah, that they were temples of the
00:14:39 --> 00:14:46 Holy Spirit. There was only one temple, or tabernacle, or dwelling place in an altar in the patriarchal times,
00:14:46 --> 00:14:54 where the spirit of God was symbolically present in the Holy of Holies, with a cherubim, notice,
00:14:54 --> 00:15:02 over the Ark of the Covenant, the throne room of God. And the Apostle Paul says, all that belonged to the
00:15:02 --> 00:15:11 holiness of the presence of God in the temple, now belongs to you as Christians. Interestingly,
00:15:11 --> 00:15:20 collectively, as the temple of God, but individually, as temples of God. The Holy Spirit has taken up
00:15:20 --> 00:15:27 temple residence in you. That's why it's so important the way you live your life, because the
00:15:27 --> 00:15:34 spirit of God is in you. To grieve the spirit by your sin is a serious thing. It's a serious matter,
00:15:34 --> 00:15:40 because God is with you. Emmanuel, just as we sang in our song earlier this evening.
00:15:41 --> 00:15:49 So here is Jesus talking about the spirit of truth, that he will bring, and he'll bring, as it were,
00:15:50 --> 00:15:56 with him, all the benefits of salvation, enabling us to be in relationship with God, so that to be born
00:15:56 --> 00:16:02 again under the new covenant, is to be baptized with the spirit. And you have this language of baptism.
00:16:02 --> 00:16:06 We haven't got time tonight. Someone said to me this morning, why didn't I talk about Acts 2?
00:16:06 --> 00:16:14 Because they only gave me 20 minutes, that's why. So, and I've probably taken more. But nonetheless,
00:16:14 --> 00:16:20 there's much more to be said. The whole arrival of the spirit in that extraordinary activity in the
00:16:20 --> 00:16:26 day of Pentecost, you'll notice the day of Pentecost comes after Jesus has ascended. Not even just
00:16:26 --> 00:16:32 straight after resurrection. Resurrection, 40 days, that's ascension, and then 10 days later,
00:16:33 --> 00:16:39 you get Pentecost. And there, the spirit of God comes in mighty power, signs and wonders to demonstrate
00:16:39 --> 00:16:46 the extraordinary thing that God has sent his spirit. And Jesus is the one who sent the spirit,
00:16:46 --> 00:16:54 and he sent the spirit to us, to indwell us, to empower us, that we might live lives for him.
00:16:54 --> 00:17:01 You'll notice here in verses 12 and 13 and following, Jesus says,
00:17:01 --> 00:17:27 It's very interesting.
00:17:27 --> 00:17:33 The spirit of God, his chief task is to glorify Jesus.
00:17:33 --> 00:17:41 Whenever you talk to a person who speaks about the spirit of God a lot, listen to see if they're
00:17:41 --> 00:17:47 saying, are you glorifying Jesus? Have you noticed the harbour bridge at night? Perhaps some fireworks
00:17:47 --> 00:17:52 night or some of the night you might see it. And look at the harbour bridge and it's lit up, isn't it?
00:17:52 --> 00:17:59 Beautifully floodlit. And the interesting thing is, at night, you don't see the floodlights.
00:18:00 --> 00:18:05 What you see is the bridge. The floodlights don't actually draw attention to themselves.
00:18:06 --> 00:18:11 You don't even notice where the source of light is. All you see is the light shining on the bridge.
00:18:12 --> 00:18:16 That's what the spirit does. The spirit isn't there to glorify himself, he's there to glorify
00:18:16 --> 00:18:22 Jesus. You see, there's an order in the Trinity. You've probably recognised that if you've done the
00:18:22 --> 00:18:27 Trinity over the last couple of weeks. It's not the Trinity, for example, isn't the triplets,
00:18:27 --> 00:18:36 the three brothers. Nor is it the twin brothers and the Holy Spirit. No, it's Father, Son and Holy
00:18:36 --> 00:18:43 Spirit. And that's deliberate. That's to do with their personhood. Their divine nature is an ordered
00:18:43 --> 00:18:51 relationship of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Son longs to do the Father's will, submits himself to
00:18:51 --> 00:18:58 the Father in coming to the world voluntarily, at one with the Father in everything. But he is the Son
00:18:58 --> 00:19:04 and God the Father. And then the Spirit is sent by the Father and the Son. You might have noticed that
00:19:04 --> 00:19:10 when we read that creed, that ancient creed, where the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son.
00:19:10 --> 00:19:18 So that relationship of order is that the Spirit comes and he takes what is Jesus and declares it
00:19:18 --> 00:19:24 to us. Now these verses actually in chapter 16 are particular to the apostles, because the apostles are
00:19:24 --> 00:19:31 going to have the significant task of delivering fresh revelation to the people of God. That fresh
00:19:31 --> 00:19:39 revelation is encapsulated for us in our New Testament. It's the apostolic deposit, if you like.
00:19:39 --> 00:19:44 Paul says, the church is built upon the foundation of apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus being
00:19:44 --> 00:19:50 the cornerstone. Now the apostles and prophets of the New Testament, they bring the word of God. In
00:19:50 --> 00:19:58 the Gospels, they are reminded by Jesus' words. I mean, they didn't have iPads to write down what
00:19:58 --> 00:20:04 Jesus was saying on the road to Galilee, and they couldn't remember it all. So what God does,
00:20:04 --> 00:20:09 the Spirit comes and brings to remembrance all that Jesus had taught them.
00:20:10 --> 00:20:16 And through that, he then brings fresh revelation for the New Testament, the letters of Paul and
00:20:16 --> 00:20:21 James and John, Revelation, Hebrews as well as the Gospels. So the 27 books of the New Testament
00:20:21 --> 00:20:27 become our apostolic deposit, our word, if you like, that comes to us.
00:20:27 --> 00:20:34 In John chapter 17, when Jesus defines what eternal life is, he says this,
00:20:35 --> 00:20:42 this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you've sent.
00:20:44 --> 00:20:46 Isn't that interesting? Where is the Spirit?
00:20:46 --> 00:20:56 Well, the Spirit is here. How can they know the true God, the only true God? And how can they know
00:20:56 --> 00:21:05 of the Son whom the Father has sent? By the Spirit. You see, the Spirit is the one who enables us
00:21:05 --> 00:21:12 to learn about Jesus. The Spirit is the one who inspired these very words. In John 17,
00:21:12 --> 00:21:17 the chapter is an extended prayer of Jesus. He prays for himself first, with regard to himself
00:21:17 --> 00:21:25 and the Father. Then he prays for the 12 apostles. And then, would you believe, he prays for you.
00:21:27 --> 00:21:31 You can notice in that third section, he says, I don't just pray for these, the apostles,
00:21:32 --> 00:21:37 but I pray for everyone who believes in me through their word.
00:21:37 --> 00:21:50 Jesus had you in mind when he prayed that prayer. Doesn't that blow your mind? That Jesus had your
00:21:50 --> 00:21:59 name in mind. From before the foundation of the world, he's known you and loved you with an everlasting
00:21:59 --> 00:22:06 love. He's engraved your name upon the palms of his hands so that you belong to him.
00:22:07 --> 00:22:13 And he's orchestrated your life in such a way that his Spirit has come to engine your life at a
00:22:13 --> 00:22:19 particular point in time, to regenerate you, to open your eyes, to see the truth that is in Jesus.
00:22:21 --> 00:22:28 What a privilege. Nothing that you have done has earned that. Nothing that you have done has actually
00:22:28 --> 00:22:33 made Jesus do it for you, or the Spirit's had his arm twisted, if he has an arm behind his back,
00:22:33 --> 00:22:42 to do it for you. No, it's God's sovereign initiating action, what we call grace.
00:22:43 --> 00:22:48 And the Spirit continues to be alive in the world. And notice earlier in that chapter,
00:22:49 --> 00:22:54 and he says, I tell you the truth, the Spirit, when he comes, he'll do three things.
00:22:54 --> 00:23:03 He'll convict the world of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment. Of sin, because they don't believe
00:23:03 --> 00:23:12 in me. Of righteousness, because I go to the Father. And of judgment, because the Prince of
00:23:12 --> 00:23:17 this world has been judged. See, the Spirit of God, the only activity of the Spirit of God in the world
00:23:17 --> 00:23:23 is to convict people. And the word convict, in the original language, has a sense of convict or
00:23:23 --> 00:23:30 convince. And there's a sense in which the Spirit of God is continuing to convince people about Jesus
00:23:30 --> 00:23:36 by convicting them of their sins. Convicting them of the fact that Jesus has really come,
00:23:36 --> 00:23:43 that righteousness of God is demonstrated in Jesus' death and resurrection. And that in his death
00:23:43 --> 00:23:48 and resurrection, evil has been destroyed. And the Prince of this world, Satan himself,
00:23:49 --> 00:23:57 is now under wraps and ready for judgment at the last day. The Spirit of God still works in this world.
00:23:58 --> 00:24:04 And he normally works through us. In the way we communicate with other people, or the way we pray.
00:24:04 --> 00:24:08 When you put your name on that thingy bing, that whoever's going to be there, that Sam's going to put,
00:24:08 --> 00:24:16 hopefully, as you pray for people, you're praying that the Spirit of God will take that person's heart
00:24:16 --> 00:24:24 and mind and change them. It's good to have persuasive preachers. It's good to have powerful
00:24:24 --> 00:24:30 arguments. It's good to have logic and rationality. It's good to have emotions and all the aspects of
00:24:30 --> 00:24:36 the Christian life. But I'll tell you what, without the Spirit of God working, nothing will happen.
00:24:36 --> 00:24:40 It will be fruitless. You know, the best theological degree in the world,
00:24:41 --> 00:24:44 and don't have the Spirit of God, and you're of no worth.
00:24:46 --> 00:24:47 The Spirit of God takes a person
00:24:47 --> 00:24:50 and enables them to have life.
00:24:51 --> 00:24:53 And that's what God continues to do
00:24:53 --> 00:24:55 at the last day
00:24:55 --> 00:24:57 when
00:24:57 --> 00:24:59 the judgment comes
00:24:59 --> 00:25:02 and God gives us new resurrection bodies.
00:25:03 --> 00:25:06 They're described as spiritual bodies.
00:25:06 --> 00:25:07 It's fascinating, isn't it?
00:25:08 --> 00:25:09 Spiritual bodies.
00:25:09 --> 00:25:12 That doesn't mean they're like Casper the Ghost type bodies,
00:25:12 --> 00:25:16 but they're bodies empowered by the Spirit.
00:25:17 --> 00:25:20 If I said to you, think in your mind of a steam engine,
00:25:21 --> 00:25:24 you don't think of an engine composed of all steam, do you?
00:25:25 --> 00:25:27 You think of an engine, you know,
00:25:27 --> 00:25:31 very strong and metallic and all the rest of it,
00:25:31 --> 00:25:33 it's empowered by steam.
00:25:33 --> 00:25:34 Or an electric motor.
00:25:35 --> 00:25:36 It's not just made of electricity,
00:25:37 --> 00:25:39 it's something very substantial and solid,
00:25:40 --> 00:25:42 but empowered by electricity.
00:25:43 --> 00:25:45 A spiritual body is a body empowered by the Spirit.
00:25:45 --> 00:25:48 That's what's going to happen for us.
00:25:48 --> 00:25:49 We're going to have bodies
00:25:49 --> 00:25:52 which are going to be no longer tempted by sin.
00:25:52 --> 00:25:52 Wouldn't that be great?
00:25:53 --> 00:25:54 No longer subject to decay.
00:25:55 --> 00:25:57 No longer subject to disease.
00:25:58 --> 00:26:00 No longer subject to death.
00:26:01 --> 00:26:02 And in this world,
00:26:02 --> 00:26:05 God continues to work extraordinary miracles
00:26:05 --> 00:26:06 in our midst
00:26:06 --> 00:26:10 by seeing people raised from spiritual death
00:26:10 --> 00:26:11 to spiritual life.
00:26:12 --> 00:26:14 God gives all kinds of other miracles too
00:26:14 --> 00:26:15 at his pleasure
00:26:15 --> 00:26:16 to wake us up,
00:26:16 --> 00:26:19 to shake us up to the reality of heaven and earth
00:26:19 --> 00:26:21 and what's going to happen at the last day.
00:26:22 --> 00:26:24 But the Spirit's active and alive
00:26:24 --> 00:26:26 and he's working mostly,
00:26:27 --> 00:26:29 he chooses to work mostly through us.
00:26:30 --> 00:26:32 His little temples,
00:26:33 --> 00:26:35 the places where he's taken up residence,
00:26:35 --> 00:26:37 that he might purify us
00:26:37 --> 00:26:39 and make us more and more like Jesus,
00:26:40 --> 00:26:43 being transformed from one degree of glory to another
00:26:43 --> 00:26:46 so that all the praise and the honour
00:26:46 --> 00:26:48 might go to Jesus
00:26:48 --> 00:26:52 and that's the work of the Spirit.
00:26:53 --> 00:26:54 Let's pray.
00:26:55 --> 00:26:56 Heavenly Father,
00:26:56 --> 00:26:58 we stand in awe
00:26:58 --> 00:27:00 at your plan of salvation,
00:27:01 --> 00:27:03 your patience with your people,
00:27:03 --> 00:27:05 your generous heart
00:27:05 --> 00:27:08 and for the plan of sending Jesus
00:27:08 --> 00:27:10 and sending your Spirit
00:27:10 --> 00:27:12 to enliven your people
00:27:12 --> 00:27:13 and to join us to Christ
00:27:13 --> 00:27:16 so the Spirit of Christ might live in us.
00:27:17 --> 00:27:19 Father, we pray that with this fresh vision
00:27:19 --> 00:27:20 of your glory
00:27:20 --> 00:27:22 that we might live as disciples of Christ
00:27:22 --> 00:27:24 by your Spirit,
00:27:24 --> 00:27:27 giving praise to you and to your Son.
00:27:27 --> 00:27:29 for we ask it for Jesus' sake.
00:27:30 --> 00:27:31 Amen.