Open your Bibles to John 14, we'll be reading from verses 15 to 18. If you love me, keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever, the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him, but you know Him. For He dwells with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you." Let's pray. O Lord, I pray that You would take these words and bring understanding to our hearts that we would know the work of Your Holy Spirit, that we would be filled with the fullness of God, that in the spirit of the inner man, the Spirit of Jesus Christ and His sent Holy Spirit would illuminate and help us now. Lord, we pray that You would teach us Your ways. Amen. Please be seated. Of course, we're in the Upper Room discourse. Jesus is with His disciples. It's the last night of His life. It is Thursday night. By morning He will have been arrested, tried, crucified and laid in a grave. All these chapters here from chapter 13 to chapter 17 cover all of those events. These verses speak really of the beauty of salvation that is in Jesus Christ when you believe, when you receive, when you follow Jesus and He transforms you by the power of His Holy Spirit. And Jesus is saying these things to His disciples. in order to shape everything about their lives as they go on as Jesus departs from them. Now, Jesus is explaining particular relationships. He's explaining the relationship between love for God and the keeping of His commandments. Verse 15, look at that with me. If you love Me, keep My commandments. So love is proven by obedience. There's a condition, a relational reality, if you love Me and then a command, keep My commandments. And the idea is that if there's no obedience, there's no love. Those who love God obey God. Love and obedience cannot be separated. Then in verse 16, look at the first letter, the first word in verse 16, and...and. And I will pray to the Father and He will give you another Helper that He may be...that He may abide with you forever." Now, when you read that word, and, you're reading a marker of a sequence that's related to the previous idea. So the loving of God and keeping His commandments is related to the work of the Holy Spirit. These things are all related and that's why in verse 21 Jesus says, He who has My commandments and keeps them is he who loves Me and he who loves Me will be loved by My Father. And I will love him and manifest Myself to him." And Jesus is answering then a question of Judas, not Iscariot. Judas, not Iscariot, answered Him, Lord, how is it that You will manifest Yourself to us and not to the world? And Jesus answers. He says, "'If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word, and My Father will love him. We will come to him and make our home with him. He who does not love Me does not keep My words, and the word which you hear is not Mine, but My Father's who sent Me.'" Jesus is explaining the power of the gospel in saving sinners and that love for God is not separated from obedience and obedience cannot be separated from the work of the Holy Spirit. All these things are interrelated because that little word and is there to help us to know that the ministry of the Holy Spirit is to help us keep the laws of God, to keep the commandments of God. So, here's how Jesus is teaching His disciples. There is love for God that results in keeping His commandments, and the work of the Holy Spirit is to assist the believer to keep His commandments. So that's the logic that Jesus is bringing. And so, this whole passage is about the promise of Jesus to send the Holy Spirit. Just pause for a moment. We're dealing with the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. We'll be doing it at least for another week, maybe a couple more after that. But the Holy Spirit is sent to be your closest companion, really to be your dearest friend, the best counselor you ever had. As we read these verses, We need to recognize that God sent His Holy Spirit to be your most constant teacher and your most powerful advocate before the Father, your greatest comforter. He's closer than a brother. He's closer than a wife. He's closer than your best friend. He's with you. He's a person who lives inside of you. That's what's being said here, and it's so wonderful. It's so thrilling and comforting and life-altering to realize that you love God and you want to keep His commandments. And you have help. You have help in the person of the Holy Spirit to do all those things. It's like having a new person living inside of you. You know, people who just get converted, they often feel that like, what happened to me? I want to do different stuff. I want to go different places. I want to think different thoughts. Well that's because there's a new person living inside of you. And this inner person speaks to the heart, you know, and it actually...the Apostle Paul said that the Spirit of God is within you crying out, Abba, Father. In other words, the Spirit's in you helping you to love God. You know, when you don't...when you think you don't love God enough and the Spirit's crying out, Abba, Father, I want to love You more, that's the person of the Holy Spirit working in you. That's...you know, David said, Oh how I love Your law. Paul said it's...I delight in the law and the inner man because the Holy Spirit is helping the Apostle Paul to love the things of God. This is the presence of the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth who never leads you astray, who's always with you, He always sets you free. Jesus said, you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. The Spirit of God is the Spirit of truth. Now, at the same time... There's another person opposing the Spirit. He is the devil, the devil and his works, the flesh, the world of flesh and the devil are always working. But the voices of the devil are always inciting the deeds of the flesh to distract us and to taunt us and to discourage us and to condemn us, to lead us into things that would destroy us. So this is all about the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. Now, this is a very precious chapter for me, particularly this section, particularly these verses, verses 16 to 18. The first time I preached this passage of Scripture was 39 years ago. I was assigned this text at 26 years old in seminary to preach to my seminary chapel. So I was given these verses right here, 16 to 18, to preach to my classmates and my professors. The year was 1980. And I was given months to prepare for it. So I worked through these words. And then five years later, I preached it again as a pastor in my church in California in 1985. And during those years, I had a secretary who transcribed all of my sermons on a typewriter, I mean a capital T old-fashioned typewriter, right? And so I have all those sermons. And I went back and I was reading the manuscript of one of those sermons. And here's what I came across, these words, and it really bears witness to what this passage is attempting to do for us. Learn your pattern of life from the Word of God rather than from the people around you and from what's happening in your society. This is why we are committed to systematic teaching of the Word of God. because it is forever truth for a forever people. We want this book to shape our church and shape our lives together as His flock. We submit ourselves to Scripture. Heaven and earth will pass away, but His Word will not pass away." This is exactly what Jesus is doing in the Upper Room Discourse. He is telling His disciples what kind of pattern of life they would have. The overall message of the Upper Room Discourse is that Jesus is sending His disciples into the world and He's defining what kind of men they ought to be. Well they ought to be men who take up the towel and wash one another's feet. They ought to be men who seek the glory of God more than anything else. And they are men who are filled with the Holy Spirit. And this...it's interesting, there's a theory that some theologians hold on the Upper Room Discourse that this section... Jesus is like passing the baton in a race. And this is...and this sermon, it's a long sermon, it's like a succession ceremony. And R.C. Sproul calls it, quote, a kind of dynastic succession celebration, much like a patriarchal blessing where authority is passed down from father to son. Much like Moses passed His leadership to Joshua, the kings passing down their authority to their sons, and now Jesus to His disciples. He's about to depart to His Father's right hand and He is giving them the power to live out their days by the power of the Holy Spirit. That's R.C. Sproul. Well, Jesus is telling His disciples, and I'm sure it was hard to understand, that it's better to have the Holy Spirit in you. than to have Jesus with you. And this resonates throughout this sermon and it's very relevant for us. as a local church because all of us have been called to be filled with the Holy Spirit. But also it's very important, I think that Christians are often confused about the person and work of the Holy Spirit to such a degree that they liken their own impulses, they liken their own emotions to the work of the Holy Spirit in their hearts. And that can be very dangerous. And so, I want to As you hear this message, there are a couple of things I want you to hear, you'll hear them. Be careful when listening to your heart, but rather listen to the Holy Spirit. Or be careful when submitting to your impressions, rather submit your impressions to the Holy Spirit. So you'll see why I'm saying such things like this. Because the help that God gives us through His Holy Spirit is to do what? To help you love God. and to keep His commandments. That's the work of...the purpose of the work of the Holy Spirit. Now, there are three things, you see them in your outline on your page, three things I want to try to communicate. First of all, He's the Helper. Second, He is the Spirit of Truth. And third, His help never ends. So let's begin with this first element here that He is a person, the personality of the Holy Spirit. If you're going to understand the work of the Holy Spirit, you need to understand that the Holy Spirit is a person. He is the third person of the Trinity. Very interesting sentence here in verse 16, you have the whole doctrine of the Trinity in one verse. You have the Father, you have Jesus praying to the Father, and you have the Son, Jesus, speaking of the Father giving the Holy Spirit. He might abide with you forever. And I will pray to the Father, I, Jesus, will pray to the Father and He will give you another Helper, that's the Holy Spirit." The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are implied. It's...this is a demonstration of the reality of the three persons of the Trinity, three persons, one substance and the doctrine of the Trinity is deduced by implication in these...in this passage, in this very single verse. So He says, I will pray to the Father. So Jesus is telling His disciples that He's going to do something in the future. He's speaking of the future moment on the Day of Pentecost when the Holy Spirit is going to be poured out, when the New Covenant promises come to rest upon His disciples. And Jesus...Jesus is announcing that there is another person. that is coming to live inside of you, you are the temple of the Holy Spirit. And there's this relationship that you have with not only God the Father, not only with God the Son, but also with God the Holy Spirit. Now it's very, very important to understand who the Holy Spirit is. The Holy Spirit is a divine person, eternal and uncreated. The Holy Spirit possesses intellect, emotions, eternality, will, omnipresence, omnipotence and truthfulness. Here's what the Holy Spirit is not. The Holy Spirit is not a force. The Holy Spirit is not an it. The Holy Spirit is not something like an electrical outlet that you go plug yourself into. Don't think that you can cook up some experiences and finally somehow tap into the power of the Holy Spirit. You're not tapping into the power in that way. There was somebody in the Bible who wanted to do that, his name was Simon Magnus in Acts chapter 8. He thought the Holy Spirit was a force and you could buy it. And he tried to buy it. He was told, may your silver perish with you because you thought you could obtain the gift of God with money. Now, it's easy for us to depersonalize the Holy Spirit. In other words, make Him not to be a person but rather a force or rather an it. If you depersonalize the Holy Spirit, you will not understand what God has done and you will not understand how to relate to the Holy Spirit as the person who lives within you. You might...if you depersonalize the Holy Spirit, you might be thinking, I just need to get more of the Holy Spirit. But if you think of the Holy Spirit as a person, you won't be...you won't be thinking so much of how you can get the Holy...more of the Holy Spirit, you're going to...you're going to wonder how more of the Holy Spirit can get of you and there's a profound difference there. And so, many people have a very difficult time speaking of the Holy Spirit without talking about Him as an it, as a thing, as a kind of force. So, if you see the Holy Spirit as a force, you'll more easily confuse the ministry of the Holy Spirit to your emotions, to your feelings, and to your impressions. You know, I remember when Star Wars came out. You know, everybody tries to get so theological on these movies and it's usually a disaster. It was a disaster with Star Wars and you had Christians going around saying, may the force be with you, may the force be with you. They weren't talking about the Holy Spirit, well they thought they were, but they weren't talking about the Holy Spirit of God that's really communicated in the Word of God. The Holy Spirit is a person. In fact, the Holy Spirit does things that persons do. I'll give you a list of the things that the person of the Holy Spirit does. He convicts of sin in John 16 verses 7 through 11. In John 16, 13, He enables us to understand the truth. In John 15, 26, He reveals Jesus. In 1 Corinthians 12, He gives gifts. In Romans 8 verses 12 through 14 through 16, He leads. In Galatians 6.22, He produces fruit. In Romans 8, He helps us in our weaknesses. In Galatians 5, He sanctifies us and keeps us from fulfilling the desires of the flesh. All this to say that the Holy Spirit is a person. who possesses all the characteristics of personality. In Acts chapter 7 verse 51, we learn that He can be resisted. Now this is the resistance of unbelievers, they resist the Holy Spirit. In 1 Thessalonians 5 verse 19, we learn that believers can quench the Holy Spirit. In Ephesians 4 verse 30, we learn that believers can grieve the Holy Spirit. He's a person and you can grieve Him. By the way, you take Him wherever you go, wherever you pop open your computer screen, you're taking this person with you, you're not alone. You can grieve Him and you can oppose Him, as it says in Galatians 5, 17. In Acts chapter 5, we learn you can even lie to the Holy Spirit. So the Holy Spirit is a person, not a force. He's a person living inside of you. And He is given so that you would glorify God. So the Holy Spirit is a person. Now let's talk about the work of the Holy Spirit, talking about the work and the person of the Holy Spirit. He says, Jesus says that He's sending another helper. And this is a term that I heard over and over again as a young Christian in my church in California, my pastor loved to talk about the parakletos, the Holy Spirit, the one called alongside to help. This word helper is really a combination of two words, one that means alongside and the other means to call. So to call alongside. He is a person called alongside to help. John Owen loved to write about the Holy Spirit. He said that He is there to support, to cherish, to relieve and comfort the church. And we need Him. We need Him. He is the helper. He comes alongside to help. He's helping you to love God and to obey. We need help. Now, this word helper is a word that really pictures this kind of very common situation where you come alongside to help somebody. Have you ever taught your children to ride a bike? And you're running along, you know, behind them, and you're holding the seat behind them until they can finally get the rings. You know, I had a grandchild. I was trying to teach him how to ride a bike, and he was crying. He just couldn't do it. He crashed like five times. He thought, you never do it again. I said, let's try it one more time. And so I'm running behind him, holding the bike, and he starts saying, I think I can. I think I can. I think I can. And then all of a sudden, he just took right off. But he needed my help. You know, even recently I was teaching one of my grandsons how to fish, how to cast because most young boys don't know how to cast naturally, they'll just do some kind of crazy thing and, you know, the lure is going to go get tangled up, it's going to tangle up the whole world and you'll never get out of it and you'll have to throw the whole rig away. So you need to teach them how to cast. Well, I was teaching one of my grandsons to cast and I said, look, put your hand here and put your hand here and put your thumb there. And I had my hands right on his hands. And I reached back and I taught him how to cast, a side cast. Well, there are different ways to cast, but that's one. But he needed my hands on him. I did it three times and the fourth time he did it swimmingly. Well, there was one called alongside to help. That's what the Holy Spirit does. He puts His hand upon your hand. He brings His Word into your mind to help you do what you ought to do. He is another helper, that's also very important to notice. This is...Jesus uses this word very carefully and precisely. He is telling him that He is going to send another helper like him. They're two different words in the Greek language for another. One is heteros, you know, of a different kind, you know, like heterosexual, two different genders, right? That's heterosexual. But then there's allalos, the same kind. And Jesus uses this word, allos, another helper of the same kind. In other words, Jesus, the Holy Spirit is a helper like Jesus. He is just like Jesus. He says the things that Jesus says. And he has the objectives that Jesus has. And so, there are various meanings, you know, we've talked about one called alongside to help. Also this word helper is translated advocate in 1 John, one who pleads our case. He...the Holy Spirit actually fulfills an office. He is...He fulfills the office of the advocate. And He is pleading your case, this is His role. And He is a helper, He comes to your assistance. Now this word is used here in John 14, it's used in John 15, and it's used in John 16. We'll come back to it, we're not going to exhaust all this today. We have actually quite a bit of time to unpack the doctrine of the Holy Spirit in the passage that we're in. The Apostle John translates this very same word as advocate. My little children, these things I write to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. So he's saying, little children, don't sin, but when you sin, know you have an advocate. You have an advocate with the Father and that advocate is Jesus Christ. The Spirit is an advocate and Jesus Christ is an advocate in particular ways. An advocate helps us by bringing us before the throne of God. Now the accuser of the brethren is always condemning you before the throne of God. But the advocate is defending you before the throne of God. He is the accuser of the brethren and He's always condemning you. He's condemning me all the time. For some reason, when I wake up in the morning, the condemning voice of the devil is on me and I've got to figure out how to throw him off. And I need to remember that I have an advocate. You know, I was reading somebody one time said whenever they sense the condemnation of the devil, this person says, you go talk to my advocate. He's my appointed advocate. You go bring the matter up with him. And I think that's appropriate. You know, David said, he shall stand at the right hand of the poor and save him from those who condemn his soul. There are those who want to condemn your soul. Jesus Christ is your advocate. That's why Paul said, I can do all things through Christ. who strengthens me." So he is a helper as a person, not a force, not a feeling, not an experience. The Holy Spirit is a he, not an it, okay? We have that nailed down. Here's Charles Simeon. I like the way he said it. The Holy Spirit is represented by him not as a quality nor an operation, but as a distinct not as a comfort but a comforter who should come from the Father, Charles Simeon writing in the 1800s. So he is a person who comes to help you to obey. And that's why he says, I will pray to the Father and He will give you another Helper that He may abide with you forever. So the Holy Spirit enables obedience, you need to really understand that. and the Holy Spirit is given you to love God. In John 16, 14, Jesus says, He will take what is mine and declare it to you. So the Holy Spirit is declaring things to you from God, from Jesus Christ. The Father and the Son are making declarations and the Holy Spirit brings those declarations into your consciousness as you're living in this world. So we should give the whole government of our lives up to the Holy Spirit. And it's for our safety. It's for our good. We're not wise enough to run our own lives. We need the Holy Spirit. We need another voice. We are not autonomous. Our autonomy is always what gets us in trouble. And when the Spirit comes, He teaches us, He subdues our discouragements, He puts down our rebellions, He deals with our corruptions and makes us holy and think holy thoughts. But our desires are at war with the Holy Spirit. But the Spirit is pulling down strongholds, there's strongholds all over in our souls. The strongholds really are just wrong thoughts, that's all they are. The way that we think wrongly about things, the way we feel wrongly about things, all the wrong impressions that we have because of our sin. We get so messed up as a result of our sin that our impressions are wrong, our affections are wrong, and so our decisions are wrong because we want the wrong stuff. But we need the Holy Spirit to come and cleanse us with the washing of water by the Word. One of the English Puritans, Richard Sibbes, he wrote a really interesting treatise on the Holy Spirit. I'm going to talk about it next week, probably. But he says this, where there is no conflict, there is no Spirit of Christ at all. So there's conflict because the flesh wages war against the Spirit. So there's this conflict that goes on. It's not, you know, it's not always so peaceful to have the Holy Spirit because He is declaring a voice against the flesh. And so we need to recognize that. You know, the Spirit is given to guide the whole course of our lives. And there's so many things that cause us to grieve the Spirit. Our pride, our lust, our hatred, our fear, our bitterness, all these things grieve the Holy Spirit. These things are the things that grieve the Holy Spirit and resist the Holy Spirit the most. Okay, so he's a helper. Secondly, he's the Spirit of truth. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth. Verse 17, do you see that? The Spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. This is very important. I think this is where the confusion often comes in people's minds and when they think about the work of the Holy Spirit in their lives. In chapter 14 verse 17, He's the Spirit of truth. In chapter 15 verse 26, He's called the Spirit of truth. In chapter 16 verse 13, He's called the Spirit of truth. Do you get that? Jesus wants us to know that, okay? He repeats it because we need to know it. He's whacking us upside the head saying the Spirit of God is the Spirit of truth. It's not just how you feel, okay? We can expand this matter in many, many ways. You know, God is truth. Jesus Christ says, I am the way, the truth and the life. David says, Your law is truth. Zechariah says that when God takes over a city, it will be called the city of truth. Not the city of everybody did what was right in their own eyes and did whatever they felt. It's a city of truth. Paul tells Timothy that the church is the pillar and the ground of the truth. Jesus said in John 17, sanctify them by Thy truth, Thy Word is truth. And so Jesus is telling us that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth. So what does all this mean? It's all about guidance. It's all about how you lead your life. How do you follow the voice of the Holy Spirit? First of all, don't assume that your feelings and your impressions are always telling you the truth. Got that? I'm going to say it again. Don't assume that your feelings and your impressions are always telling you the truth. Many Christians associate their feelings with truth. Here's the truth. God says, My thoughts are not your thoughts. My ways are not your ways. We need to get that straight. There should be a sense of humility when we approach our feelings and our own impressions. We exalt our feelings, we deify them, we give them the same authority as the Bible. By the way, this is why we have a transgender revolution right now. People say, well I feel like I'm a girl. I was born a boy but I feel like I'm a girl. This is why we have rampant homosexuality. People are listening to their feelings and not being corrected by the truth. We exalt our feelings, we make them God. If you were born a boy and say, I feel like a girl, you're exalting your feelings, you've made a God, you've made an idol out of your feelings. That's all that's happening. There are only two genders that God made and they're fixed. But it happens in so many other levels, you know, when you're discouraged, when you're When you're lazy, when you're lustful, when you're angry, the Spirit of God comes to deliver you from those things. And He delivers you through the truth. The reality is is that the Spirit of God corrects your feelings. The Spirit of God was given to correct your impressions and bring them in line with truth. Now your truth source really determines everything in your life. Now I'm going to use a big word to describe a really easy idea, but it's describing what Jesus is saying. Jesus is saying the Holy Spirit is your epistemology. Epistemology is your theory of knowledge. Epistemology is how you arrive at what is true. It's your source of truth. And, you know, your epistemology reveals how you make decisions, the information sources that you use to make decisions, the ways that you arrive at true knowledge. Epistemology is what drives decision-making. And the sources of knowledge from which you make decisions is the most important factor. And in these verses, Jesus is teaching His disciples that the Holy Spirit is the source of a Christian's epistemology because the Holy Spirit teaches you to obey the commandments of God and to love God and He is the Spirit of truth. He's the Spirit of truth. He's not like a ghost. You know, the old King James translation of Holy Ghost is misleading to modern ears because He's not a ghost. He's a spirit of truth. You know, we are often driven and tossed by the winds of our emotions and our impressions because our epistemology is all wrong and we're looking to our feelings and our impressions rather than the truth of the Word of God. And if your decisions are oriented exclusively to the Word of God and for the love of God, you will not be led astray by your emotions most of the time. You'll be standing on the rock. Jesus talked about it, He said, if you obey these words of Mine, you'll be like the house built on a rock, but if not, you'll get blown away. And the whole idea is... If you don't obey His words, you're going to get blown off like a house built on the sand. Now our emotions and our inclinations are usually products or results of our epistemology and we need to get that straight. You know, you can overcome your emotions and your inclinations by obeying the commands of the Word of God and the transformation of the renewing of your mind. And it really...it should be that the older you get in the Lord, the more you obey His commandments, the more you love Him, the more your heart and your conscience and your impressions are going to be informed by the Word of God. Now we don't want to go to a crazy extreme. We don't want to completely discount emotions and impressions. But we need to be very clear about where they're coming from. Our emotions are either sanctified or unsanctified. They either spring from a good conscience or they're fortified by the Word of God. They may come from an immature and ungodly conscience. They...you know, our consciences are shaped by our previous lives, they're actually shaped by what we consume. You know, the writer of Hebrews talked about your hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience. In the same book, the writer of Hebrews is actually correcting the readers and he's saying, you should become...you should be teachers by now. And he says, You should be those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil." In other words, their senses had not been exercised to discern good and evil. And I believe he's saying they've not...they've not loved and known the Word of God, so their senses have not been exercised to feel and to have impressions that are right. Their senses have not been grown by the Word of God. really by the Spirit of God. So the Word of God is given you to judge your emotions and your impressions, not to run you all over town. If you're ruled by your feelings, I think you need to know that this is paganism. The great pagan philosophers We're crying out for you to go follow your heart, like Rousseau. Do whatever you want to do. Do whatever's in your heart. You can be anybody you want to be. You can do anything you want to do. Well, that's the message of the modern feminists. Follow your heart. That's the modern message of the sexual revolution. Do whatever you feel. It's your God. And that's really the problem. You know, when you're discouraged, when you're weak, when you're lazy, when you're angry, You need to be delivered from that. Those things are tied to your emotions and your impressions. I think we need to see ourselves as being rescued from ourselves and the wrong thoughts that come up in our minds. And so the Holy Spirit is given to us to shape our emotions and to help us interpret our emotions and change our emotions by the Word of truth. But our emotions don't always speak the truth and so we have to be very careful. Jesus said, you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. There is an anointing that the Apostle John talks about in 1 John 2, he says, but the anointing which you've received from Him abides in you and you do not need anyone to teach you. In other words, he's saying... Your thoughts and your emotions can be informed by the Word of God. You can have an...as time goes on, there's a progressive anointing that takes place in the life of the believer and they're more discerning as time goes on. We need to recognize that the heart is deceitful above all things, desperately sick. Who can understand it? That's what Jeremiah said. You know, emotions, they report the condition of your heart, but they shouldn't dictate the direction of your life. I'm going to give you some examples of how this works. Let's talk about fear. Your emotions are feared, are filled with a sense of foreboding. You're expecting the worst. You're expecting the axe to fall at any moment and ruin everything. And the Spirit, by the Word, comes and says, Fear not, for I am with you. Be not dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you. I will help you. I will uphold you with the right hand of my righteousness. That's a promise of the Holy Spirit to the person who's fallen into fear. Let's talk about loss, discouragement. It comes from loss, events, loss of a loved one, loss of something. And Jesus says, I will never leave you or forsake you. That's the voice of the Spirit. David says, I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul shall make its boast in the Lord. The humble shall hear it and be glad. And then he says this, O magnify the Lord with me. and let us exalt His name together. I sought the Lord and He heard me and delivered me from all my fears." The Spirit of God is given to deliver you from your fears, to be delivered from yourself, from your thoughts and your emotions. You know, my experience is that most people have discouraging thoughts, and they say, look how old I am. I'm so far behind. Look at how little I've accomplished in my life. I wonder why I'm not very impressive. Your heart says you're behind, but you're not behind. God made you. God has a plan for you. And it's better than your plan. Jesus said a man can receive nothing unless it's given him from heaven. Condemnation. You feel so inadequate. You feel that you're just not the kind of person that you want to be. You're not the successful person that is the real you. And you condemn yourself because of your accomplishments. And you condemn yourself because of your status or your looks or whether you're married, or whether you're single, or whether you're divorced, and your heart is condemning you. And God, by His Spirit, says, there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has made me free from the law of sin and death. And then He says, who will bring a charge against God's elect? Who will bring a charge? False. Who? Who's going to bring a charge against God's elect? Not with an advocate like Jesus. No, it isn't going to happen. Let's talk about anger. You know, you can't forgive your brother. And God comes to you and He says, forgive your brother as Jesus said in His prayer in Matthew. He said, if you don't forgive your brother, neither will I forgive you, giving you motivation to forgive your brother. You're full of lust. He says, flee immorality. He says, don't be involved in these things that shouldn't even be named. This is how the Spirit of God comes to your aid to help you to obey God. Let's talk about marriage. You know, many of you are preparing for marriage, you're getting into that age where marriage is on your mind, you know, more and more. Now if you're going to get married, there are two things, two really critical things that you need to pay attention to. First of all, do you love that person? Do you really...do you want to spend the whole rest of your life with that person? But the second thing is, does all this... find itself to be consistent with the Word of God? Because the Word of God says a lot about these kinds of things. You must have affection. But the whole process needs to be governed by the commands of God. And I'm going to give you ten data points beyond, well, do I just love somebody? Ten data points. These are words of the Spirit that are given to people to figure out who they ought to marry. Because you need to consult more than just your feelings. You need to consult far more than, well, I'm in love. There's far more to consider than just that. First of all, is the person a Christian? Do I have full assurance? that we will be equally yoked. 2 Corinthians 6.14 states it very clearly, do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers. Deuteronomy 7.3 says you shall not intermarry with them, with the Canaanites. Judges 3, 5 through 6 says they took daughters for themselves as wives. and gave their own daughters to the sons and served other gods." These are examples of equal and unequal yoking. So the first question that the Holy Spirit is going to bring to you beyond your emotions is, is this person a Christian? Secondly, am I honoring my father and mother? Exodus 20 verse 12, honor your father and mother, this is the fifth commandment. And often people get married and they dishonor their father and mother. Their father and mother are trying to slow them down and they would not be slowed down. Number three, am I listening to wise counsel? Solomon says in Proverbs, for in the abundance of counselors there's victory. Solomon also says, fools lack wisdom in Proverbs 1. They actually despise wisdom. They despise the wisdom of wise counselors. Number four, is the covenant community the Lord's planted me in happy about the union? Hebrews 13, 17 says, obey your elders, listen to them. They might be counseling you against it and you should listen to them. You know, you have to ask, you know, who are the elders in your life? Who has watch care over your soul? Has anyone been placed in authority over your life? Do you respect anyone enough to listen to them when they give you counsel? This is the covenant community. Life in the covenant community is meant to be a protection. David said in Psalm 92, those who are planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God. It's a blessing to be in a covenant community. Number five, are my godliest friends happy about the union? Proverbs 12, 15 says, The way of the fool is right in his own eyes, but he who heeds counsel is wise. This is not to say that you have to take everybody's counsel. This isn't to say that you take a majority vote. But this is just to say, is your heart open to the wisest, most godly people in your life? Or are you just running in the other direction? You know, anybody who's going to get married might find somebody who doesn't want it to happen. So we're not talking about perfection here. But there's this general sense of happiness in the union. Number six, am I marrying for the glory of God or just my own longing for security or companionship and am I just being driven by loneliness and not the Word of God? I mean, God gives reasons for you to be married, you know. You know, Malachi said, why marriage? Answer, God desires godly seed. That's why. You should get married to have godly seed. You should get married to have children and bring them up in the training and the admonition of the Lord. That's a good reason to get married. But if you're just getting married for your lust or your loneliness, you're not thinking right. The Spirit of God has something to say in the midst of your feelings. It has more authority than your feelings. Number seven, am I preserving God's moral code regarding sexual purity before marriage, including the use of pornography? You know, you have, you know, 1 Corinthians 10 telling us that no temptation has overtaken you except which is common to man. Flee immorality. Flee, you know. Am I preserving God's moral code regarding sexuality before marriage? You might say, well, I really...you know, I really love that person. We can do whatever we want. Well that's just rejecting the voice of the Holy Spirit. Number eight, am I marrying in order to be...to fulfill God's commands for family life, that I would take dominion? Marriage is a dominion-taking enterprise. It's where husband and wife work together. Are you marrying to take dominion? Are you marrying in order to spread the glory of the Kingdom of God throughout the whole earth? Or is it just all about you? Well anything that's just all about you is probably sinful, if it's just about you. Number nine, is there anything I'm doing in conflict with the revealed Word of God in any sense? Like am I being impulsive? Am I being sober-minded? Proverbs 16.32, 1 Peter 5.8. Number ten, are we going in the same direction in life? You know, don't get married unless you want to take dominion in the same direction. You know, the beauty of marriage is that you have these two really different people and they get to go out and create a life together. It's really wonderful. But you have to determine whether that kind of equal yoking is in place. Is this the kind of person that I want to work with for the whole rest of my life? And do we want to go out and do the same stuff? That has to do...that also has to do with equal yoking. Marriage is a labor of dominion together. The fundamental principle of marriage in Genesis is unity. The two shall become one flesh. And that one flesh unity is not just physical, it's unity in everything. It's unity in everything in your life. You become one in everything. So these are ten ways that the Holy Spirit shows you whether you should marry somebody apart from your emotions, apart from your feelings. Because God gives you more than your feelings, more than your impressions, He gives you direct commands in order to guide your life. And that's how God leads. And the Spirit of God will never lead you to compromise a command or a principle or a precept of the Word of God. Never. The Spirit of God is the Spirit of truth. Proverbs 28, 26 says, He who trusts in his own heart is a fool, but whoever walks wisely will be delivered. Proverbs 14, 12 says, There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death. So God gives His Spirit to help you not trust in your own feelings and in your own impressions. You know, one of the most common ways that we sin against God in this way, by thinking too highly of our emotions and our impressions, is when we say, God told me, when we say, the Holy Spirit led me. And this is one of the most common ways that people take the name of the Lord in vain. Taking the name of the Lord in vain is to attribute to God something that was not of God. And when you say, the Lord told me, you better be really careful whether you're taking the name of the Lord in vain or whether you're just spouting what you want to do. You know, taking the Lord's name in vain is not limited to cursing. In fact, it's primarily not about cursing. It's primarily about misrepresenting God, misrepresenting the Word of God. So, the Holy Spirit is a person, the Holy Spirit is a helper, and thirdly, His help never ends. And I will pray to the Father and He will give you another Helper, I love these words, that He may abide with you forever. If you're indwelt by the Holy Spirit, He indwells forever. You cannot ditch the person of the Holy Spirit. You can quench Him, you can resist Him, but you can't get rid of Him. But we should not resist Him or quench Him or grieve Him or lie to Him. You know, all of this to say the Holy Spirit is a person and He's the Spirit of truth. The Holy Spirit will teach you. The Holy Spirit will reveal Jesus to you. The Holy Spirit will make you fruitful. The Holy Spirit will lead you. The Holy Spirit will convict you. The Holy Spirit will speak truth to you. The Holy Spirit will educate you, empower you, encourage you. The Holy Spirit will equip you for the work of the ministry. This is so wonderful to have the person of the Holy Spirit, to have a person living inside of you to teach you the way in which you should go. And you're never alone with the Holy Spirit. You're never without help. You're never without truth. And you're never stuck because Jesus sent His Holy Spirit, and He's a helper. just like Jesus. So all of this to say, trust in the person and work of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth who teaches you to love God and to obey His commandments and let His laws govern your emotions and govern your oppressions and not the other way around. You know, I read, or I heard a theologian this year sometime, I think it was the Banner of Truth Conference, he said, the whole summary of the gospel of John is in John 20 where Jesus says, receive the Holy Spirit. That may be true. In John 7, 37, on the last day of the feast, Jesus stood out and He cried, if anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. But this he spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in him would receive, for the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified." Well, what a blessing it is that God would be so kind to send His Spirit to us to teach us and to help us. Lord, we're so grateful for the marvelous help You give us. You've not left us alone. You've given us another helper. We are so thankful that we're not left here as orphans but You've come to us in the person of Your Spirit. Lord, I pray that You would help us all to regard the work of Your Spirit in us. that we would submit to Him that all of our thoughts and impressions and emotions would be under His authority and not the other way around. Amen.