Good, well please be seated. Now, we are going to be needing, you're going to be needing this sheet. Colin, could you just see if everyone's got a copy? It's number 13, the work of the Holy Spirit in bringing us to Christ. Oh, thanks, Jesse, as well. Appreciate that, thank you. You can be our new doorman, Jesse. Right, good, very good. So, let's pray and ask God for his help now. Oh, Lord God, we just want to thank you for what we've already read. And thank you for the songs, the hymns we've been able to sing. And Lord, we want to pray now that as we consider your word, you will speak to us. We pray, Lord, that those of us who already know you will be encouraged as we're reminded of the work of your spirit, what you've done in our lives. And we pray, Lord, that you will also work in any who do not yet know Christ, that you will move them to come to you to ask you to do a saving work in their lives. So we commit this time to you now in Jesus' name. Amen. Well, as I'm sure many of you will now know, be familiar, these Sunday evenings I've been doing a series which I'm calling key things you need to know about Christianity and the idea of this series is to teach key truths about Christianity in the hope that any who listen to the talks who are not yet born again and not yet saved God will use what is the word that is proclaimed to give them saving repentance and faith and bring them to Christ but also The aim is that those of us who are already saved might be strengthened in our faith both for our own good but also so that we can teach others and witness more effectively to other people who perhaps do not yet know the Lord. Now last time we were thinking about the person of the Holy Spirit. We were saying that the Holy Spirit is personal, he's not just the impersonal force or power of God, he is a person, he can be grieved, he teaches us and he does things that only a person can do, but also that he is God. and he is worthy of worship just as much as the Father is worthy of worship, just as much as the Lord Jesus Christ is worthy of worship. And that first hymn that we sang reflected that. The Father was worshipped in the first verse, the Son in the second verse, the Holy Spirit in the third verse. And then the fourth verse, the three members of the Trinity were worshipped together. Now some people can't sing a hymn like that. At least they can't sing it honestly. They might call themselves Christians, but they can't really honestly sing him like that because they don't believe in the Trinity. But we who are Bible-believing Christians, we unashamedly worship the Holy Spirit as well as the Father, as well as the Holy Spirit. Now, tonight I want us to think about, or to start to think about, the work of the Holy Spirit. And before we get into this, I want to just ask a question for you to think about. It's not one of those questions I'm asking you to answer out loud. But just stop and pause for a moment and think to yourself, think in your own mind, what difference would it make to you if God had not poured out the Holy Spirit? How would your life be different if If maybe the Holy Spirit, you know obviously God is Trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit eternally, which we know that's true, but what if the Father and the Son together decided not to send forth the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost? How would you be different? Just think about it for a moment. What would be different about your life? Just give you a few seconds to think about that. Well, let me mention some things which seems to me, which came quickly off my head as I was preparing and probably lots of other things as well. First of all, you would completely not understand the gospel. It would be complete nonsense to you. Also, you would not be able to understand who Jesus is. You'd also have no idea, no real proper idea that you're a sinner. You also would not have been born again. You'd also have no real desire to obey God. You might try and keep God's law outwardly, because you know you've got to, but you wouldn't do it out of love. You'd do it, oh, I've got to keep these rules. You'd also have no power over sin. You'd be all the time defeated by sin. Even if you wanted to overcome sin, you wouldn't be able to. You'd also have none of the fruits of the Holy Spirit, love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, they'd all be foreign to you. You might have some sort of outward morality to a certain degree, but no real Holy Spirit brought forth fruit. You'd also have no gifting to enable you to serve God. You'd also have no sense of the knowledge of God, no intuitive, internal sense of the love of God in your heart. In other words, you'd have no Christian experience whatsoever. In fact, you wouldn't even be a Christian. And all the things that we probably take for granted as being Christians would be completely alien to you. You'd be essentially like an Old Testament Jew, or even less than that, because even they had some knowledge of the Spirit. You'd be like a sort of moralistic, at best, a moralistic Pharisee, at best. if not an out-and-out immoral person. And so we see that the Holy Spirit is absolutely vital. His operation, His coming forth is absolutely vital to being a Christian, to becoming a Christian, and absolutely vital to living as a Christian. As I was preparing and I was thinking about the work of the Holy Spirit, I realized that there's so much that I could say, I can't really fit it into one session this evening. So what I'm hoping to do this evening is to just give you an introduction to the work of the Spirit in terms of bringing us to Christ, in terms of salvation. And then I want, hopefully on a future occasion, to think about the work of the Spirit once you've become a Christian. Now, of course, there is an overlap between the two because all those things that the Holy Spirit does to bring you to Christ continue in your life once you are brought to Christ. But I want to just try to distinguish it that way because otherwise it's just too big a subject to deal with in this small amount of time. Of course, even Even subdividing it that way, I can only give you just a very quick overview of what the Holy Spirit does in terms of bringing us to faith in Christ. So you'll see that on the sheet that I've listed here, five things that the Holy Spirit does in bringing us to a saving knowledge of Christ. And all these five things all overlap. It's not as though it's one thing, and then another thing, and then another thing, and then another thing. These are five things that happen simultaneously when somebody is born again, when somebody is saved. God does these five things by the power of the Holy Spirit. So the first thing is this, that he gives understanding of the truth. And for this I'd like us to turn first of all to 1 Corinthians chapter 2. Now in 1 Corinthians chapter 2, the Apostle Paul talks about how the people of this world just don't understand about the Lord Jesus Christ. They don't understand the gospel. To them, it's pretty much nonsense to them. We actually pick it up in verse 8. He says, none of the rulers of this age understood this, understood the gospel, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. They didn't understand who Jesus was. They didn't understand the nature of the gospel. They were blind to who Jesus was. They didn't see that he is the Lord of glory. And then he says, verse nine, but as it is written, what no eye has seen, no ear has heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him, these things God has revealed to us by the Spirit. People don't understand the glory that's to come, the great blessings of the gospel, but God has revealed these things to us by His Spirit, He's enabled us to understand. Verse 12, now we have received, not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. So we've got, we who are believers, we've received the Spirit, so that we can understand the gospel, we can understand the things that God is giving to us in Christ. And then verse 14, the natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God for they are folly to him and he's not able to understand them because they're spiritually discerned. The person who hasn't got the Holy Spirit, the person who's not born again is incapable of understanding spiritual things. They're folly to him. He doesn't understand them. But the Spirit, verse 15, the spiritual man judges all things, but himself is judged by no one. For who has understood the mind of the Lord, so as to instruct him, but we have the mind of Christ. God has given us the Holy Spirit to give us that understanding of the gospel and understanding of spiritual things. And the apostles say something similar. If you go over to 2 Corinthians, chapter 4, and Verse 3, page 1147, he says, even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. In their case, the God of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. When Paul preaches, he says, we don't preach anything that's not clear. The message we preach is crystal clear for anybody who's got the heart to see it. The reason why people don't see it is not because the message is all confused or difficult. A child could understand the message. That's not the issue. The problem is that there's a spiritual blindness to people. People cannot understand because the God of this age has blinded their eyes. But that blindness that they have is not, oh, poor things, they can't help being blind. It's not as if, oh, there's a difference between spiritual blindness and natural blindness. Natural blindness isn't your fault. You're born blind. That's not your fault. It's a tragedy that comes about as a result of the fall. But spiritual blindness is because we don't want to see the truth. We cannot see the truth. In our natural state, we cannot see the truth because our hearts won't let us see the truth. We don't want it. And therefore we cannot see in our natural state, we cannot see the truth. And the devil exploits that to bring that blindness upon us. But then he says, verse six, for God who said let light shine out of darkness has shone in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. How has that happened? Answer, by the Holy Spirit. Those whom God has chosen to save, at the right time, he sends forth the Holy Spirit into their hearts to give that understanding so that they see the truth about Christ. So he gives understanding of the truth about the Lord Jesus Christ and about the gospel. Secondly, the Holy Spirit brings conviction of sin. And for this I would turn us to John chapter 14, sorry, chapter 16 and verse 8. Now Jesus, of course, in John chapter 14 and John chapter 16 speaks a lot about the work of the Holy Spirit and hopefully we'll come back to this in terms of when we look a bit more about the work of the Spirit in us who believe once we're believers. But John 16 verse 8. He talks about the work of the Spirit in the world. When He comes, He will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment. Concerning sin, because they do not believe in me. Concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father and you will see me no more. Concerning judgment, because the rule of this world is judged. Now, of course, not everybody in the world is convicted of sin. Some remain in their sin, but some will come under conviction. And you see this often in times of revival, that there's a widespread horror that people have about their sin and grieving for sin. When the Holy Spirit is poured out, as it were, en masse upon people. But this often happens when people are converted. The first thing that happens when people come to Christ is a sense of grief, very often, and sorrow and horror. What have I done? I've offended against God. Now this is the work of the Spirit, bringing conviction of sin. And quite frankly, if somebody's never experienced, now that, sometimes it happens before, you know, somebody's saved, sometimes after, but if somebody's never had that sense of conviction of sin, I doubt whether they really converted. Because that is an authentic mark of the Spirit, that there is this sense, I have sinned against God. And that's what drives people to Christ. It's not, oh, Jesus can meet my personal needs. No. It's not true conversion. Real conversion is, I'm a sinner. I've offended against God. Judgment day is coming. I'm in trouble. But God has provided an answer. So he brings conviction of sin. Thirdly, the Holy Spirit gives spiritual life. And for this, I'd turn you back to Ephesians 2, which we read earlier in our service. So as I'm sure many of us will be familiar with this passage, very familiar passage, and rightly so, it's an absolutely fundamental passage for us understanding how God applied his grace in our lives, his salvation in our lives. Page 1,159. So in verses 1 to 3 of Ephesians 2, the Apostle talks about the condition that we were in before we were saved, before we were born again. And you, speaking to the believers in Ephesus, but of course this is true for us as well, living in Poplar in 2025, and true of anybody who has come to Christ. Indeed, of those who are not yet Christians, it's true for them now. But for us who are believers, it's what we used to be. So, verses 1 to 3 of Ephesians 2, and you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of body and mind, and were by nature objects, children of wrath, like the rest of mankind." So that's the disastrous situation that we were in before the Holy Spirit worked. Dead, spiritually dead, in trespasses and sins. walking in sin, following the course of this world, doing what everybody else does, following the prince of the power of the air, whose course is the devil, who is now at work, who is at work in the sons of disobedience. Living among the people of this world, living according to the passions of our flesh, the desires of our sinful nature, carrying out the desires of our body and mind by nature objects are wrath so there's that situation that we're in dead and unable to do anything to change that situation and not willing to do anything to change that situation because we were dead Unresponsive to God. No concern about our state. Heading for hell. That was the situation that we were in. But, then he says, verse 4, But God, being rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. By grace, you have been saved. So what has happened? Well, we were dead, but while we were still dead, God made us alive. Those of us who are Christians, God made us alive. Why did he do that? He did it not because of anything good about us. He did it because of his mercy, because he's rich in mercy. He did it according to his love. And so he made us alive together with Christ. Well, how did that happen? One answer, through the Holy Spirit. It's the Holy Spirit who did this work of making alive when we were spiritually dead. And then, verse six, not only were we made alive, but also we raised up, exalted with Christ, and raised us up with Christ and seat us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness towards us in Christ Jesus. Who is it that raised us up with Christ? Who is it that put us in the heavenly realms with Christ? Answer, the Holy Spirit. who just as the Holy Spirit raised Jesus from the dead, so spiritually speaking he raised us from the dead as well. Fourth thing is that the Holy Spirit has implanted in us a desire to serve God. a desire to please him in our lives and for this I would turn us to two scriptures from the Old Testament which prophesied the coming of the Holy Spirit. First one is in Ezekiel chapter 36 and verse 25 which is on page 860 and God says to his ancient people Israel but we know that this is applied to Gentiles as well in this new covenant age. He says, I will sprinkle clean water on you and you shall be clean from all your uncleanness and from all your idols. I will cleanse you and I will give you a new heart and a new spirit I will put within you. and I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh and I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules." So he's saying, God is saying that where they've got hard hearts, cold hearts, dead hearts that do not want to serve him instead he's going to give to his people a new heart where they've had a heart of stone now they'll have a heart of flesh and he specifically mentions the Holy Spirit, I will put my spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules so now the Lord's people will be moved to live a life of obedience where previously they lived a life of disobedience and rebellion against God. And a similar passage is in Jeremiah chapter 31. Again, I'm sure many of us will be familiar with this passage because it is quoted so often in the New Testament. And by the way, although this is addressed to the people of Israel, It's quoted in the New Testament in Hebrews clearly as applying to all believers. Some people think, oh, this is just a promise to Israel. No. Because it's picked up in Hebrews and clearly, it's most definitely applied to all beneficiaries under the new covenant. So, Jeremiah 31 and verse 31. Behold, the days are coming, declares the Lord. When I will make a new covenant with the House of Israel and the House of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the Lord. For this is the covenant I will make with the House of Israel after those days, declares the Lord. I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall one teach his neighbor and teach his brother, saying, Know the Lord, for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more. So God says he's going to, where the law of God, the Ten Commandments, were previously written on tablets of stone, external to the believer now those same Ten Commandments they will now be written on the hearts of the people of God and they will now want to do those things that before they knew they had to do but they didn't have any desire to do but now they'll want to do those things What, how has that happened? He doesn't mention the Holy Spirit here, but clearly this is, when we take that alongside the Ezekiel promise and alongside other scriptures in the New Testament, we know that this is talking about that work of the Spirit. That hearts, that he changes people's hearts, and that's why any of us is saved, because The heart is changed. You see, people misunderstand what they call Calvinism, or really reformed biblical doctrine, and they think, oh, they think that what we say is that people, God forces people to believe in Christ against their will. No, of course not. What happens is, God changes people's hearts through the work of the Spirit, so the only obvious thing to do is to believe in Christ. Because the heart that used to be hostile to God, now has become warm towards God. And so that heart says, I want Jesus. Where before, they said, no, I don't want him. And they would reject him. Now, the person says, well, why would I not want Jesus? Because the heart's renewed. heart is changed. So, there's this desire for God which reflects in receiving Christ, the Savior, but then also follows through in terms of a change of whole direction of life. Hence, Paul says in 2 Corinthians, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old is gone, the new has come. A fundamental change has happened. Now, fifth thing Now, I put it as a fifth thing, he may have made us to be born again, but really, all those four things that I've mentioned are all part of being born again. So you could say that number five is really a summary, and the four points that I've mentioned before are, if you like, unpacking what it means to be born again. When someone is born again, He understands the truth. When someone's born again, the Holy Spirit convicts him of sin. When somebody's born again, he's made alive spiritually. When someone's born again, he has a desire to serve God. But that's summarized by this phrase, being born again, or born from above. Now, of course, the classic passage for that is, I'm sure many of you all know, is John chapter 3. We can just read that now. Remember, Dicodemus came to Jesus at night and He said, he acknowledged that Jesus was a teacher from God. And then Jesus said, truly, truly I say to you, unless one is born again, John 3 verse 3, page 10655. Unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. Nicodemus said to him, how can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb to be born and be born? Jesus answered, truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit. Do not marvel when I say this to you, that I said this to you. He must be born again. The wind blows where it pleases and hear it sound but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit. So there has to be this work of the rebirth if we're going to be Christians, if we're going to see the kingdom of God. And thanks be to God. This is that work that God has done in the hearts of those whom he's chosen. He brings them to himself. Now, there's a summary of this in the 1689 Confession. And if you turn over the page there, I've got a quotation there from chapter 10, which is the chapter on effectual calling. But this really talks about the work of the Spirit in bringing someone to Christ. I'll just read it out now. In God's appointed and acceptable time, He is pleased to call effectually by His Word and Spirit those whom, those He has predestined to life. He calls them out of their natural state of sin and death to grace and salvation by Jesus Christ. He enlightens their mind spiritually and savingly to understand the things of God. He takes away their heart of stone and gives them a heart of flesh. See the echoes there of Ezekiel. He renews their wills and by his almighty power turns them to good and effectively draws them to Jesus Christ. Yet he does this in such a way that they come completely freely since they are made willing by his grace. So there's a summary then of the work of the Spirit in drawing us to Christ. Well, just by implication then, what lessons should we draw from this for ourselves? Well, first of all, if you're a Christian, if you have been born again, be grateful. God has done this miracle in you. If he hadn't sent forth the Holy Spirit into your heart, you would now be dead in your sins. You'd be a rebel. You'd be on your way to hell. but God graciously intervened in your life to draw you to Himself. So be grateful to God. But secondly, if you're a Christian, if you have been born again, that means there is an energy within you, a force within you for good. There is a desire that God has placed in your heart for good. You've still got the flesh that's going to try and drag you down, but there is now this desire for good And what we need to do as Christians is to, as it were, capitalize upon that desire for good and use that power for good with the help of the Spirit and through the Word of God and through fellowship and through all the means of grace to conquer that desire of the flesh. So Paul says in Romans 8, if you by the Spirit put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live. So we've got the Spirit, now use the Spirit to conquer the flesh. Don't just sort of say, well, I'm a sinner saved by grace, so I'm just gonna wait to go to heaven. No! You've got the Spirit, so now live by the Spirit, walk by the Spirit. Galatians 5, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Keep on walking with the Spirit. Don't just think, okay, well, I'm saved and I'm just gonna wait till I get to heaven before I get perfect. No. Start to conquer sin now in your life because you've got the means, you've got the Spirit. Now, what about for anybody who's not a Christian? Well, do you have to say, oh well, I've not got the Spirit, so I'm dead in my sins, nothing I can do. No, that's not what the Scripture says. The Scripture says, you've got a responsibility to repent of your sins. You've got a responsibility to believe. If you don't, that's because you're a sinner, and that's because you're rebelling against God. Hear God's call to repent. Hear God's call to believe. If you do, you'll realize afterwards, oh, that was because God enabled me. But don't just say, oh, I'm just waiting. Some people say to me, I'm waiting for a Damascus Road experience. It's never happened yet. No. God isn't going to say, oh, I'll let you off, and I won't send you to hell because you never had the Damascus Road experience. No. God's calling you. He's saying, repent of your sin and believe. So if you're not yet a Christian, hear God's call. and do what he says and repent and believe and then you'll know the Holy Spirit in your life.