All right, if you would please open in the Bible to Revelation chapter 1, verses 4 to 6. You'll find it at the very back of the Pew Bible. You'll also find it online if you have those things. You will not find it in the bulletin today, but please do have the Bible open to Revelation chapter 1 verses 4 to 6. I got a text from Dalton. He was getting ready for the prayers. He sent me a text. He said, are we looking at, just to be clear, are we looking at Revelation 1 again? I said, yes, we are. It's not a mistake. It's not a typo. For Pentecost Sunday, we're going back to Revelation chapter 1. because I think it actually warrants some special attention, because as we will see, Revelation has a great deal to teach us about not only the Holy Spirit, who we'll be thinking about this morning, but also the Holy Trinity, who we will be thinking about next Sunday. So if you would open to that passage and stand, please. A reading from the Revelation of John, chapter one, verses one to 11. the revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show to his servants the things that must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, who bore witness to the word of God and to the testimony of Jesus Christ, even to all that he saw. Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear and who keep what is written in it, for the time is near. John, to the seven churches that are in Asia, grace to you and peace from him who is, and who was, and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, the holy witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth. to him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by his blood and made us a kingdom, priest to his father and God, to him be glory and dominion forever and ever, amen. Behold, he is coming with the clouds and every eye will see him, even those who pierced him and all tribes of the earth will wail on account of him, even so, amen. I am the Alpha and the Omega, says the Lord God, who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty. I, John, your brother and partner in the tribulation and the kingdom and the patient endurance that are in Jesus, was on the island called Patmos on account of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. I was in the spirit on the Lord's day, And I heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet saying, write what you see in a book and send it to the seven churches, to Ephesus, and to Smyrna, and to Pergamum, and to Thyatira, and to Sardis, and to Philadelphia, and to Laodicea. The word of the Lord. Amen. Praise you, heavenly Father. We pray that you would send the seven fold spirit powerfully upon us this morning as we open our Bibles, as we think about the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Gracious God, as we learn more about what revelation has to teach us, would that spirit, gracious God, pry open our cold hearts, our resistant hearts, give us openness to what you want us to know, that we might hear it, believe it, obey it, and rejoice in it for Jesus' sake. Amen. Amen. Please be seated. It is a bit unusual to spend several Sundays on one passage of the scripture, but what I'm actually going to be doing is making references all across the Old and New Testament. We'll look at several cross-references to help us better understand what John in Revelation is teaching us, specifically this morning about the work, the ministry, the person of the Holy Spirit. I worked for several years in Vancouver, Canada, told stories from my time there. It was overall a a wonderful time for me and Leslie and our family. It was a wonderful church called St. John's, and we had a wonderful time there. Four very, very happy years in Vancouver. And I made a lot of good friends. It was an Anglican church, and I made a lot of good friends in the Anglican world. The Anglican evangelical world is actually a fairly small world. It's not hard to get to know a lot of people. In Vancouver, I got to know almost all the clergy and certainly all the evangelical clergy. And one fellow that I was particularly fond of was the pastor of another neighboring church called Holy Trinity. And he was a great guy. I enjoyed him. He was funny. He was English. I like English folks. He had actually had a church in England before he came to Canada. And so we got to know each other pretty well, and he's been long gone from Vancouver. I'm not sure where he wound up going, but I remember distinctly a conversation we had, and it was one that, I've got to tell you, kind of troubled me. As I say, I like this man very much, and I would have called him an evangelical. But he was telling me something about the work of God in the world and how the church in the late 20th century at the time, was being called to proclaim the gospel. And he made the point that he thought that the father was the particular focus of the Old Testament, and that during the Old Testament period, the focus was primarily on the work and ministry and person of the Father. And then with the coming of Jesus into the world for an extended period of time, I think he would have said maybe up until the 20th century, the focus was on the Son and that the gospel proclamation centered on proclaiming Jesus. But he said that he thought that there had come a time when the church needed to move on from the Christ-focused evangelism and Christ-focused ministry to have a spirit-focused ministry. That bothered me generally, but the other thing that bothered me was when he told me why. He said, because the name of Christ has gotten so weighted down culturally. because of Western civilization and America and the connections that many people make to these different aspects of culture and history, the Crusades and all these different aspects of about, I guess, 1900 years of church history, it had made it too heavy a thing to try to minister and to focus on Jesus. And the time had come when we should focus in a particular way, in a new and different way on the Holy Spirit. He said he felt like in the late 20th century, which it was at that time, people were more open to the Spirit's way of ministering and that we should focus on the Holy Spirit. Well, that bothered me very, very much for a lot of reasons. I had to really go home and think about it because this was a man I respected. He was a man who was intentionally evangelical. He wanted to share the good news, but he had come to this sad conclusion that we had outgrown Jesus somehow and that we needed to sort of keep Jesus off the cover and focus instead on the work of the Spirit. I had that story in mind, and more importantly, I had that viewpoint in mind. I think the one thing about my friend, many years ago in Vancouver, was he just said it. I think he said what a number of Christians effectively do. especially outside the Bible Belt. We live in the Bible Belt. Things are slightly different here than in Vancouver, where it's very secular culture. And I think there is a tendency among some Christians to take the focus off the traditional teachings about Jesus and the cross and his gospel message and to slip instead to focusing on, well, something that I think has become a little bit of a wax nose, which is you can make it anything you want, a spirit ministry. We focus on the Spirit. We don't talk as much about Jesus. Maybe he's now, in some people's way of looking at these things, he's sort of a sidebar. And that now we need to focus on the work of the Spirit, making us happier, making us more successful, making us more capable of winning friends and influencing people. And that is the secret for the church in our day and age, to make that transition. Well, I really do think my friend was not alone in that. He was alone, perhaps, in saying it out loud. But I think he was describing what has become, sadly, all too commonplace. The focus taking it away from Jesus, maybe away from the Father for that matter, and putting it instead on something that can be turned into an impersonal, positive, kindly God who doesn't expect much and sort of is in the shadows a bit. Well, if I ever had that idea in my head for a split second, which I don't think I ever did, Revelation would have fixed it. That's dawned on me as we've been doing this series, we've been on Revelation already for several months actually, and What has struck me again and again is how much Revelation has to say about the Father, the Son, and the Spirit, about the unique relationship with them. And in particular, I want to focus on what Revelation has to tell us about the Holy Spirit. What does the Holy Spirit do? Who is the Holy Spirit? Let's be clear. Whenever the word or the phrase, the Holy Spirit or the Spirit, whenever we see those words, And there's a pronoun involved. The pronoun is not a neuter. It is a masculine. The Holy Spirit moved the writer to describe the person of the Holy Spirit as a person, not as a thing. The Holy Spirit is a person. So let's be very clear on that. He's not impersonal. So he is a he. Doesn't mean he's a man. He is not a man. But for whatever reason, God, and I think there are a lot of really good reasons why he does this, has revealed the Spirit in terms of being a person using these particular pronouns to describe the work and person of the Holy Spirit. So let's take a look at Revelation 1 again, and let's go on a little bit of an expedition to see what Revelation can teach us about the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit, and see how that might, this Pentecost Sunday, help us to better understand who he is and what he does, and how we can faithfully proclaim the gospel. All right, let's have that set of questions in our mind. If you look on page nine, you'll find a little outline. Might be helpful to have it open in front of you. because you can make sure we wind up at the same point at the same time. First thing I want to draw your attention to is actually the main part of today's reading. It's verses four and five. And we're gonna look, let me give you a heads up. We're gonna look at this same passage next Sunday, all right? So don't send me any emails or we're making a mistake again, Pastor Bill. We're gonna look at this passage all over again next Sunday with a slightly different purpose. But let's look at this particular passage, verses four and five, looking for what we can figure out about the Holy Spirit, what the Lord is teaching us, helping us to understand about the Holy Spirit. John, to the seven churches that are in Asia, grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of kings on earth. And if you look at verses, the rest of verse five through verse seven, you'll see it goes on to say a great deal about the second person of the Trinity, who is described in some detail, and particularly his atoning work on the cross, what he has done for us. Let's focus in on the second clause within a Trinitarian formula. Several commentators have pointed this out. Dr. Beal points it out. Another pastor named Baucom, another commentator. points this out. In some ways, what John does here is quite standard. Whenever we see references to the Trinity, it's a reference to all three of the persons of the Trinity. In many places in the New Testament, there are just two references. It's to the Father and to the Son. And it doesn't expressly mention the Holy Spirit. In fact, this is one of the only places where all three persons of the Trinity are explicitly mentioned in this formulaic way. There are a few others, but this is one of just a handful in the New Testament where this picture of the Trinity is being described in this formulaic way. And notice what John is moved to say. grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come well that is a clear reference to the father going all the way back to the book of Exodus when God revealed himself as the great I am I am who I am, I am who I will be. That is the source of this three-way description of the Father, the one who is and who was and who is to come. In other words, the first person in this formula that John opens his book with is described as the I am of the Old Testament. The God of Israel, the one true God of Israel, the perfect one God who dominates the Old Testament descriptions. It goes to the second person, which is usually the Son. In fact, if you look at all of Paul's letters, they open with greetings in the name of God the Father and His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, or some variation on that. But here John, led by the Spirit, does something a little different. He begins with peace, grace and peace from him who is and was and who is to come, and from the seven spirits who are before his throne. Seven spirits, wait, what? Seven spirits, is John giving us some radical new formula about God's life? It's not a trinity, but it's father, son plus seven, so it's the nine, I don't know, what do you call a unity of nine? what would that be? Is that what John is telling us here, that there's the Father, the Son we're familiar with, and there are these seven spirits who make up part of this formula that John is sharing at the beginning of the book? Well, That is not the point, as I've already pointed out, and I hope you realize immediately. John is not giving us some eccentric idea that there are nine gods, or nine persons to God. There are three persons to God, but he's describing the Holy Spirit, the one Holy Spirit, this third person of the Trinity, in this way, seven spirits who are before the throne. Seven, that's the number we bumped into before as we've made our way through Revelation. Seven over and over and over again in the book of Revelation is regularly used to describe completeness, wholeness, fullness. So the seven spirits refer not to seven different persons, but the seven fold one person. The Holy Spirit is who John is referring to, and he does so in a very interesting way. He describes the one spirit as the seven spirits. Why? I've mentioned it before, why does John do that? Well, let's just think for a moment about what the Old Testament, for instance, teaches us about the Holy Spirit. A spirit in Hebrew is ruach. Ruach. You have to really stretch that final consonant out, the ruach. The Ruach of God, the Holy Ruach. I don't know if you noticed out in the lobby, we try to play videos on the monitor that we recently installed in the lobby. And if you didn't take a look at it, I encourage you to look at it. It's especially good today. It's by a ministry called Bible Project. And funnily enough, our son, John, who's getting married, one of his best friends works for the Bible Project. So we've been supporters of the Bible Project for years and years. Well, we play regularly Bible Project videos because they're so good at explaining different aspects of what the Bible teaches. Well, the video playing out there today is about the Holy Spirit. It's specifically about Pentecost, and it begins talking extensively about ruach. What is ruach? Well, ruach is a Hebrew word which means breath or wind, but it's a way of describing breath and wind in sense of power. They use the word energy. That ruach has in it not just a soft breath or a gentle breeze, but power, energy is what ruach is meant to describe. Ruach, wind, breath, energy. It's interesting. Let me get you to look at a couple of cross-references. Look all the way back to Genesis 41, verse 38. It's a story of Pharaoh who's looking for someone to help him with some projects. And in verse 37, this proposal pleased Pharaoh and all his servants. And Pharaoh said to his servants, can we find a man like this? That is, one who will help accomplish Pharaoh's plans, to interpret his dreams and execute his plans. execute what the response to the vision is, the dream is. He says, can we find a man like this in whom is the Spirit of God? The Spirit of God. That's the first time that phrase shows up in the Bible. Now, the Spirit shows up. There are several references. For instance, in Genesis 1, there's a reference to the Spirit. There are several references to the Spirit as a person, but it's here for the very first time that the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of God, is said to be in someone, a person, that the person of the Holy Spirit is in Joseph. Can we find someone like that? Then Pharaoh said to Joseph, since God has shown you all this, there is none so discerning and wise as you are. You shall be over my house and all my people shall order themselves as you command. Only, he says, as regards the throne will I be greater than you. Lots of little hints in that expression. A reference to throne is curious. A reference to wisdom, as we'll see in a moment, that's curious. But here, for the very first time in the Bible, someone is described as having the Holy Spirit in them, the Spirit of God in them. Let me get you to look at one other one. Look over at Exodus chapter 31. This is the second place in the Bible. Exodus chapter 31, verses 1 to 3. The Lord said to Moses, see, I have called by name, Bezalel, the son of Uri, son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah. And I have filled him with the spirit of God, with ability and intelligence, with knowledge and all craftsmanship. Second person in the whole Bible who's described as not only having the Holy Spirit, but being filled. with the Spirit of God. There are other references as well. I could go on and on, but these are the first two references. And here's another one where there's some interesting little clues. Knowledge, skill, the tribe of Judah. These are little hints pointing us towards not only the Spirit working in creation or working to speak to the prophets, but actually to be in a person. The breath, the empowering power of God, for Joseph to be able to interpret the dreams and to help the greatest king of his age, and Belialel, who was given great skill and knowledge and wisdom in helping to create the tent of meeting. He was given responsibility for all the furniture, including the Ark of the Covenant, the Ark of the Testimony, as well as the Altar of Incense, ring a bell, the Altar of Incense that we read about in Revelation. There's these little hints given that people had an embodying, empowering presence of the Holy Spirit in their life. Almost all references to the Spirit are in the singular. That's true in both the Old and the New Testaments. But Revelation speaks of seven spirits. Now again, why does he talk about seven spirits? Is that just John making something up? I don't think so. Let me get you to open to the Bible to Isaiah, later prophets, Isaiah chapter 11. Verse 2, there shall come forth a shoot from, this is page 575, there shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse and a branch from his root shall bear fruit and the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him. The spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. Guess how many references there are to the Spirit? Seven. John knew his Old Testament. He knew his prophets. And the Holy Spirit moved John to take from Isaiah this picture of one Spirit, one person with these seven identifying qualities. The Spirit of the Lord, the one Spirit of the Lord, shall rest upon him." And then he describes what that means. The spirit of wisdom, the spirit of understanding, the spirit of counsel, the spirit of might, the spirit of knowledge, and the spirit of the fear of the Lord. If you include the reference to the spirit of the Lord and you add those up, there are seven references to a spirit, to the spirit. Dr. Beal and others point out that that's what John is doing. He's taking a significant image from the book of Isaiah and using it to A. describe what he saw and B. to tell us something significant about the Holy Spirit, the One Spirit. The One Spirit, according to Isaiah and according to John, is the spirit who rests upon those whom God sends the spirit and to bring specifically wisdom and understanding and counsel and might, knowledge and the fear of the Lord. And his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. That's the sevenfold spirit. So if you flip back to Revelation chapter one. I believe that is what John is telling us here, that what he's describing in the book of Revelation is going to be the sevenfold spirit from Isaiah, and then the idea of the fullness of the spirit. This is the fullness of the spirit that John is going to describe to us. And it's significant that in John's formula, the spirit doesn't come third, but second. The reason John, I think, puts the Holy Spirit second in this formula is because you can't say the third one and believe it without the work of the Holy Spirit. Without the sevenfold Spirit giving us wisdom and discernment, we can't say that Jesus is who Jesus is. We can't trust that. We can't believe that. We can't know the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, the ruler of kings on earth, apart from the work of the full spirit. See, that's what the spirit does and has always done in its relationship, in his relationship with people. He pries open, as I prayed just a moment ago, he pries open our hearts and then teaches us, gives us wisdom, gives us understanding. And that's what John is going to teach us in this section that we're looking at this morning for Pentecost. He's going to teach us about the work of the fullness of the Spirit. That's what he does. He reveals these things to us. And so John is making that point right at the beginning of his work. Right at the very beginning, he's making the point that the work of the Holy Spirit is necessary for us to know and trust him who is and was and who is to come. And specifically, the work of the sevenfold spirit is necessary for us to recognize Jesus as who Jesus truly is. Now, just one small point, if you wanna flip back to Isaiah chapter 11, verse one, page 575. I sped right over it, but I want to make sure we notice it. Notice the context for Isaiah 11, verse two. Read verse one. There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit. The Root of Jesse, that is a reference to the messianic promise that Jesse, David's father, would be the source of the kingdom, the kingship, and that this Root of Jesse would actually bring forth the fruit of righteousness, the fruit of God's work in the world, and would actually bring forth the Messiah. So you see, even in Isaiah, as he is putting together his description of the sevenfold spirit, it's intimately connected to the work, the person of the Christ, the Lord Jesus. He is the stump of Jesse, and he is the fruit of those promises that God had made to David. So flip back again to Revelation. fullness of the Spirit is and always has been intimately connected with Christ, with the Lord Jesus. Sinclair Ferguson, a great Reformed theologian who actually teaches at our seminary here in Dallas, he's written a book called The Holy Spirit and in it he describes how it is all too easy for us to view the Holy Spirit as quote, anonymous, faceless, an aspect of the divine being rather than a distinct person of the Trinity. I think that may have been what my friend years ago was talking about. Anonymous, abstract, faceless, a wax nose. If you want to view the Holy Spirit that way, you can make the Holy Spirit anything you want him to be. But in order to do that, you have to separate him from the Bible. You have to separate his work from the way the scriptures and the way revelation describes it. Because if you take the work of the Holy Spirit as it's described in the book of Revelation and in the New Testament, and really throughout the Bible, it has everything to do with God giving understanding, revealing what ultimately came to be seen in the person of Christ. And so no wonder John put the Holy Spirit, the fullness of the Spirit, second in this list. And then that leads us to Jesus Christ, the faithful witness. Ferguson had this to say about the work of the Holy Spirit. He said, the central role of the Spirit is to reveal Christ and to unite us to Christ and to all those who participate in his body." Haden made the same point when talking about the Nicene Creed. The Nicene Creed rightly connects the person of the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, with the church. He has spoken through the prophets, and it's because of the work of the Holy Spirit, giving illumination, drawing people to Christ, that the church comes into being. I agree with Dr. Ferguson. The central role of the Spirit is to reveal Christ. There is no abstraction of the Spirit that we can turn and use it as an evangelistic tool or anything else separate from Jesus. You can't use the Holy Spirit to do other than what the Holy Spirit does. What the Holy Spirit does and has always done is to lead us forward, to point us towards Christ and to bind us to him and to all those who are with him. The church. J.I. Packard. who was with us in Vancouver at the church where I work, says, the key to understanding the New Testament view of the Spirit's work is to see that His purpose is identical with the Father's, namely to see glory and praise come to the Son. Any model of ministry that kind of pushes Jesus into the background, tucks Him away somewhere, removes him from the center of the work of the church, is misguided, will fail, and is ultimately from hell. Now, the sevenfold spirit, the full spirit that Revelation tells us about will again and again and again and again draw us explicitly to Christ. That's what the Holy Spirit does. That's what he delights in doing. Sometimes I've heard him described as shy. I think he's just focused. That's what he's here to do. That's what the third person of the Trinity delights in doing from eternity. So the fullness of the spirit, the seven spirits, which teach us about the fullness of the Holy Spirit, giving wisdom and understanding. That's the spirit that John is going to tell us about. That's the spirit that's actually going to lead us through the book of Revelation. I want to stress that point because the second clue to what John is saying is an expression he uses later on in this section down in verses 9 to 11. The expression is in the spirit. Look at verse 9. I, John, your brother and partner in the tribulation, and the kingdom and the patient endurance that are in Jesus was on the island called Patmos on account of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus. Verse 10, I was in the spirit on the Lord's day. See, John knew the one person of the spirit. He wasn't confused about that. When he uses the expression seven spirits, he's using his A gift for numbers to underscore the fullness idea. He's here talking about the same spirit. And he says that he was in the spirit on the Lord's day. He actually says this a couple of times. If you look over at chapter four, verse two of Revelation. After this, I looked and behold a door standing open in heaven. And the first voice which I had heard speak to me like a trumpet said, come up here and I will show you what must take place after this. At once, verse two, I was in the spirit. And behold, a throne stood in heaven with one seated on the throne. Look over at chapter 17, verse three. This is one of the great judgment scenes in Revelation. Look at what John says in verse three. He carried me, this is describing the seven angels, the seven bowls. Verse three, he carried me away in the spirit into a wilderness and I saw a woman. Here he's describing this intense, powerful vision. And John describes it in terms of being in the Spirit. And finally, look over at chapter 21, verse 10. Next to last chapter in the book of Revelation. Look at verse 10, look at verse nine. Then came one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues, seven, seven, seven, seven, right? And spoke to me saying, come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the lamb. And he carried me away in the spirit to a great high mountain and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God. See John knew the singularity of the spirit as the third person of the Trinity. He's not confused about it. And he's able here to describe his experience, his vision in terms of on the Lord's day, like us here today, he was specifically in the spirit. Now, that's actually a slightly unusual phrase, in the Spirit. It doesn't show up many times. Because usually we think of the Spirit as being in us, right? The Holy Spirit dwells in us. Paul talks about the Holy Spirit dwelling within us. But here, and in a few other places, the language is about being in the Spirit. So, the Spirit in us, and here, us being in the Spirit. And there's another Old Testament reference. Let me get you a look up Ezekiel chapter 37 verse 1, page 724, the very famous section. 724 is the page, the valley of dry bones. Here's Isaiah describing a vision given to him. He says, the hand of the Lord was upon me and he brought me out in the spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of the valley. It was full of bones. This is a vision of the resurrection. And Ezekiel uses that same expression to describe his experience of this vision. And John, centuries later, moved by the Spirit to describe what he experienced, uses that same expression to describe his own repeated experience. He came to understand that he was in the Spirit as he saw what he saw, as he writes what he writes. He's in the Spirit. As a matter of fact, as you saw, chapter one is in the Spirit. And we meet in the Spirit a couple of more times. And then at the very end of Revelation, in the next to last chapter, John once again describes himself in the Spirit. The whole book of Revelation is framed in the Spirit. The book of Revelation came to John in the Spirit, and it is the product of the Spirit in his life and in this dramatic vision given to him by God that the Holy Spirit is involved. There's several references to the Spirit's work in the commissioning of the prophets. Ezekiel is the one who mentions being in the Spirit, but multiple prophets are specifically said to attribute their work to the work of the Holy Spirit in their lives, the work of the Spirit of God in their lives. So John here, at one level, is putting himself in the company of the prophets. I can't really say he's putting himself there because the Spirit is putting him there. The Spirit in whom he was placed him in the company of Isaiah and Ezekiel and Jeremiah, the prophets called by God. John wants us to understand that He is in that same line of spiritual blessing, that line of spiritual authority. The Holy Spirit has empowered him to do what he's doing in this book from start to finish. It's the work of the Spirit. And of course, in a very significant way, he's unique. He's unique. He stands with this unique and small company of people who expressly been told by the Spirit, they have this unique role to play and they are aware of it to some extent. And John is certainly aware of it. So in that sense, he stands with a very small company. We are right to recognize that. But let me get you to look over at Romans 8. Very, very important, very, very well-known passage from Paul. Romans 8 1-9, page 944. The ESV editors have done me a great favor. They put the heading right at the beginning of the chapter, Life in the Spirit. Paul, the apostle, understands that not only does the Spirit live within us, But we are called to live within the Spirit. Look at what he says. I'm gonna read a big chunk of this. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Sound familiar? Larry just led us through this. This is our absolution. That's part of life in the Spirit. There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. You can't pry the work of the Holy Spirit away from the work of Jesus. They overlap, intentionally so, because the work of the Trinity is always like that. All the Trinity does what the Trinity does in their own unique way. Verse three, for God has done what the law weakened by the flesh could not do. By sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemns sin in the flesh in order that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us. Who walk not according to the flesh, but according to the spirit. There's a sense in which that's what it means to be in the spirit, according to the spirit. Now, in a unique and extraordinary, one-of-a-kind way among a handful of people who ever lived, John, according to the Spirit, experienced and saw and communicated the book of Revelation. But all of us are called to walk not according to the flesh, but according to the spirit. He goes on. For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the spirit set their minds on the things of the spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law. Indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. Look at verse nine. You, however, are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit. If, in fact, the Spirit of God dwells in you. He connects them. The Holy Spirit in us leads us to living our life in the Spirit. And He tells the church in Rome to do that. And through them, He tells all of us. We're not all called to be unique prophets with the extraordinary privilege of presenting a book to the church, but we are all called to live and walk in the spirit. Paul goes on to talk about what that looks like and how we live that out. Well, that is the context for the book of Revelation, in the spirit. There's a lot said about the flesh. The book of Revelation is full of references to the flesh and to the sin of the world. But with John, our brother in the tribulation, in the suffering, we are in the Spirit. The Spirit is in us, and we live in the Spirit. So, back to Revelation 1. See what John is doing? He's got a very full picture of the work of the Spirit in his own work and in the church. He's going to say more about it. Look at chapter 2, verse 7. Well, actually, just look at chapter 2, verses 2 through 7. To the angel of the church in Ephesus, write, write the words of him who holds the seven stars in his right hand, who walks among the seven golden lampstands. Then look down at verse 7. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. Look down at chapter two, verse 11. Same thing. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. Verse 17, same thing. He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. Verse 29, chapter three, verse six, chapter three, verse 13, chapter three, verse 22. Over and over again, John says to the church, hear what the Spirit says. See, even though John is, as it were, taking a dictation from Christ or from the angel, it's the word of the Spirit who is speaking through the speaker. They are in a perfect agreement, but also What the whole full spirit says is what John is saying. John is repeating the words of the spirit. He is bringing the word of the spirit. And that has always been the instruction to the church, that the Bible is the product of the spirit speaking through humans, imperfect, sinful, broken humans, Each different, 66 different books, but one ultimate author who speaks. Chapters two and three, underscore this. Hear what the Spirit says. The book of Revelation is the Spirit speaking to the church. Hear what the Spirit says. You know, there's so much made of the frightening imagery. There's so much made of the mysterious, troubling, disturbing images in the book of Revelation. Over and over again, though, as I'm reading through Revelation, what I hear is the Spirit comforting, encouraging, explaining, giving wisdom and understanding and knowledge. The Spirit speaks to us, teaches us. That's one of the best ways to understand the work of the Holy Spirit. He is teaching us. That's what Jesus says in John's gospel. He describes the work of the comforter, the paraclete, the one who comes alongside. He will teach us. He will lead us into all truth. That's in John's gospel. Here in the book of Revelation to John, as John describes the Spirit, he comes again and again to this idea of the Spirit saying, speaking to us. through the Word of God, through the Word that we are listening to. Hear what the Spirit says. That's why Sunday by Sunday, as you come to Metrocrest, we unashamedly open our Bibles, and we say, hear what the Spirit says. We say that in revelation, with special application, to the seven churches, the Spirit says some specific things, all of which are intended to help us, to bless us as we read and as we hear this book. And as the whole Bible points us towards Christ, that is the work of the fullness of the Spirit, always. Finally, let me get you to look at the next to last chapter again, sorry, the last chapter of Revelation, Revelation 22. And let me get you to start up in verse 14. Blessed are those who wash their robes so that they may have the right to the tree of life and that they may enter the city by the gates. Outside are the dogs and sorcerers and the sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters and everyone who loves and practices falsehood. I, Jesus, have sent my angel to testify to you about these things for the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the stump of Jesse. Verse 17, the spirit and the bride say, come. And let the one who hears say, come. And let the one who is thirsty come. Let the one who desires take the water of life without price. striking how Revelation opens with the Spirit speaking to the church and Revelation closes with the Spirit with the bride. We know that the bride from Revelation chapter 19 verse 7 and many other places is a reference to the church. That's the way Jesus himself described the church. And that's the way Paul describes the church. The bride, we are the bride the bride. And here in Revelation 22 verse 17, within verses of the end of the book, there's this vision of the spirit and the bride with one voice saying, come. Let the one who hears say, come. And let the one who is thirsty come. The spirit and the bride. There's something very significant, I think, about the book closing in this powerful way, that the spirit and the bride are portrayed together. It really is significant that in the creeds, that both the Nicene and the Apostles' Creed both share this, that they give a description of the work of the spirit immediately in connection with the church, and from there, the faith of the church. Here's a quote from J.I. Packer, he says, it is by strict theological logic that the creed confesses faith in the Holy Spirit before proceeding to the church. This is a reference back to Revelation chapter one. Before proceeding to the church, and that it speaks of the church before mentioning personal salvation, that is forgiveness, resurrection, everlasting life. For though Father and Son have loved the church and the Son has redeemed it, it is the Holy Spirit who actually creates it by inducing faith. And it is in the church, through its ministry and fellowship, that personal salvation ordinarily comes to be enjoyed. And I think Creed has it exactly right. We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son. It was a late edition, but thank God for it, because it describes something extremely important. The way we're to understand the Trinity, we'll see this some next week, is in terms of relationship. What makes the Holy Trinity distinctive, the persons of the Holy Spirit distinctive, has to do with their relationship to each other. The relationship is what is key. And the Holy Spirit is, well, Augustine said the Holy Spirit is the love between the Father and the Son. Now, Augustine was crystal clear that love is a person, a mysterious person. But that love between the Father and the Son proceeding from them, according to Augustine, and later Christian theologians took that image and used it. That is the source, the beginning of the church. So no wonder Pentecost Sunday happened and looked the way it looked and happened the way it happened. Because it was the Holy Spirit in a powerful way, like a rushing wind, ruach, energy, power, surging upon the church in Acts chapter two, the very beginning of the story of the new reality of the church. The connection of the church with the Old Testament covenant, one but different, a new dramatic expression of what God is doing. That is the bride. And the spirit and the bride together call out to the world, come. I love the image of the Holy Spirit with the spirit-inspired, spirit-led church calling out to the world, to come to Jesus. Brothers and sisters, that is the ministry of the church. That is what we are here to do. That is what the Spirit is calling us to do this Pentecost Sunday. Not to push Jesus to the background or apologize for Him, but to exalt Him, to invite others to come to Him, to know the refreshment, to know the life that comes from Jesus. Well, John wants us to know all that. Took him 22 chapters, but it starts in chapter one, and he makes it clear all the way through what the work of the Holy Spirit is.