Episode Transcript
[00:00:05] Speaker A: The following is a legacy recording from the archives of the C.S. lewis Institute. While the audio quality of these recordings may vary, the content remains vital to the mission of the institute, to develop disciples who can articulate, defend, and live faith in Christ through personal and public life.
[00:00:23] Speaker B: For those of you who haven't been here, what we've been doing in the series is going through three different perspectives on the Spirit's work.
And in a sense, even though I don't know whether those of you who have been here the whole time see the continuity here, but the main thing that I started out with the first day was the whole matter of the Spirit's work in the Old Testament, in that we have been empowered for ministry.
And even though we didn't have a chance to quite polish off all of the things about how our gifts are empowered and bring that to full completion because of lack of time yesterday, that was my purpose there, to really see that one of the unique things is not that we have gifts, but that those gifts are especially empowered for ministry within the body of Christ.
All right, and that's what we were looking at some yesterday.
And today we want to deal some with the whole matter of the advocate, which is the whole matter of outreach, whole matter of being able to make an impact on the world.
I think that as we look around at the church today, I mean, the complaint often is, and it's many cases true, that there's a distinct lack of power and that we desperately need to be able to reach out not only to our neighbors, but to people throughout the US, people throughout the world that pull power for evangelism, power for ministry. And when we think about, especially the whole matter of revival and reformation, that's what we so desperately need to understand the Holy Spirit's role in enabling us to reach out, right? Reach out beyond ourselves, to have the courage and the power and the ability to be able to speak with effectiveness to people, the gospel.
All right? And that's the significance in a lot of ways, of this area of the advocate, because it's not so much Kierkegaard said that the church is bad or immoral, but it's often that the church lacks energy or it lacks passion, it lacks that real power, that real excitement that really should be there if the Spirit is there.
And it's real interesting that Kierkegaard in the 19th century critiqued the Christian church along those lines.
And he wrote in a book called Stages Along Life's Way, that Christians often get stuck in one of three stages along life's way.
The first, he said, was the aesthetic stage, where people are aesthetes, spectators.
They might be involved in great cultural beauty, in aesthetics, in that way. They might go to concerts, they might go to great art shows or things like that, have the highest things in culture.
But sooner or later, overall, they're spectators.
They live a lot of their lives by looking on sometimes at the highest and noblest things. But nevertheless, they live their lives as spectators. And in a broader sense, we certainly see that today that we live in an extremely spectator society, perhaps even more so than the 19th century because of the advent of movies and television and sports events being shown everywhere, that we live very much in a spectator society and certainly also within the church. It's very easy to be a spectator, very easy to read Christian biographies or look at Christian films or look at Christian heroes, Christian tv, and maybe live a lot of our lives as Christians secondhand, without really involving ourselves out in life, without really putting ourselves to any degree of risk.
All right, it's sometimes very difficult and fearful for us to step out beyond being a spectator and start doing something, either speaking the gospel to somebody or going out and really serving people in any kind of difficult situation.
Anyway, he said that the first stage was the aesthetic stage, and that's where he saw many people in the culture being. Second stage, he said, was the ethical stage, where they were moving beyond merely being spectators and they were actually going out and doing something, putting their lives at risk for the Lord.
It's like the difference in a football game between those who are sitting up in the stands and those who get down on the field. At least you're putting yourself at risk when you get down and you start playing the game.
But the third stage along life's way that he mentioned, I mean, there's a. The second stage is just getting on the field, you might say, putting yourself at risk, taking a step out, moving beyond the spectator to the ethical. The final stage, though, was what he said was the religious stage.
He said the religious stage was characterized by a passionate commitment.
You know, there are some people that are on the field playing football that play the game. And then there are some who really play the game.
There's some who play it with passion and intensity. And you see that in any sport.
I was just reading last night about. You know, I'm a tennis player, and I always follow tennis tournaments. They had an article on Jimmy Connors and how he always plays with intensity, even though he's 34 now. I mean, he fights for every single point.
He never gives up I mean, he'll beat a lot of younger people because he just has that inner drive, that inner passion.
And even if his skills are not what they once were, his intensity makes up for a lot.
I was in Pittsburgh during the glory years of the Pittsburgh Steelers, you know, and there were some players like Jack Lambert, for instance, the middle linebacker for Pittsburgh Steelers, that kind of exemplified the Steelers. Lambert never played, but that he played with intensity. I mean, he would come onto the field, he would be intense, and every single play, he would do that.
So there's a difference between getting on the field and doing it with real passion.
In the same way, in the Christian life, there's a difference between moving beyond being a spectator and getting on the field and really getting out and doing something in the name of Christ and doing it with real energy and real passion and conviction.
And he said he saw very few people, very few Christians that moved beyond the ethical to what he called the religious stage.
And he had to really ask the question, why is that?
Okay? Why is it that we have so few Christians that not only are out doing something, but doing it with real passion and real conviction?
Or Friedrich Nietzsche, atheist, existentialist.
And he criticized the Christian church, certainly had different bases for doing it. But in a similar way, he accused the Christian church of his day of being very weak and spineless.
He said that by that the Christian church of his day was taking the whole culture to its grave, that it was so weak and so lacking in strength. And of course, Nietzsche's opposite philosophy was a will to power.
He called on the Superman, the Ubermensch, to come along and to do crazy acts of courage. I mean, he believed life was absurd, Nietzsche did. But go out and do crazy acts of courage, like build his house on the slopes of Vesuvius, the live volcano with it ready to erupt at any second, or to sail his ship into uncharted seas, not knowing where the reefs are, but just facing the possibility of death at every minute, living your life at high risk, all right? Just crazy acts of courage in an absurd world.
All right? But in any case, he saw Christians. I mean, he called for this kind of courage, but he saw Christians as being very, very weak, all right? And that by encouraging that weakness, all right? And I think he understood, he misunderstood in some ways the nature of humility.
And he misunderstood, I think, in many ways what meekness was all about.
All right? But I think in many ways he was quite correct that the Christian church of his day was not merely meek in the sense that Jesus was meek.
All Right. That the Christian church of his day was weak.
You couldn't call Jesus weak. He was meek but strong.
All right, There's a difference between weakness and meekness.
Jesus had a humility, but he was able to stand.
He had real courage. He wasn't afraid to confront clearly in love, but sometimes with strong anger, tinged with compassion, certainly. But he wasn't at all afraid to speak out strongly.
All right. And Nietzsche said that many of the Christians of his day were very weak. Yet I think he saw a contrast between Christ and the great courage of Christ and the weakness of Christians around him.
And that contrast, I think, bothered him. I don't know how much to psychoanalyze him and what the significance of it is, but Nietzsche died in insanity signing his letters, the Crucified one.
In other words, in his insanity, he took on the identity of one. Now, why? I don't know. I guess that he greatly respected, in some way, maybe he was fighting against, struggling against all his life.
In any case, I think his critique is in many ways true of the church of today.
And his observations that many Christians misunderstand the whole matter of meekness, turn it into weakness.
And I'm not able to be in the tension of being both humble and meek and turning the other cheek and going the second mile, but yet being strong people, being able to make tough decisions, being able to have a tough kind of love, being able to have real courage to make an impact on the world.
I was just talking to a guy who came to one of our sessions the other night. We had four nights on different historical characters in films, and he came to the session on Bunyan, and he was interviewing with people in the Senate. I later found this out. He was just in D.C. for a couple days and happened to come to the seminar, but he was interviewing with people in the Senate to be chairman of the sec.
All right. And as we were talking, he's a strong Christian man, and as we were talking, he was struggling with being a Christian and the way Christians view it. And being chairman of the sec, most Christians would be afraid of the presumption and pride, perhaps, or the assertion that would be involved in taking that kind of position.
Is that inconsistent with being a Christian? Can you be a Christian and be chairman of the sec?
I think certainly we'd say yes. But you see the tension that sometimes involved it.
How in the world can we really be involved in going out and exercising dominion over the whole creation as we talked about and making an impact on the world and yet still remain humble? And we're always within that tension of doing what Christ called us to do, which is go out and preach the gospel to the whole world and making an impact and yet remaining humble.
How can we do that?
Well, I think we certainly lack Christians that are doing that. Just one final little story, and we'll get down to the passages here we're going to deal with. I want to set the case. I want you to feel the dilemma a little bit here first before we begin. It had a professor, Dr. Gerstner, who was a very influential person in my life. I had a lot of courses from him at Pittsburgh theological seminary and R.C. sproul, too, at Ligonier Valley studies. And one time, R.C. and Dr. Gerstner were talking, and usually Dr. Gerstner was the optimist about the state of the church and R.C. was the pessimist. But this one time, Dr. Gerstner, it was like this one time there was real emotion and he was struggling just with the state of the church. And he's made some real statements about that. But he said orc.
He says, it's like we in the church, we stand between Migdol and the sea with the forces of the Pharaoh on the one hand and the Red Sea on the other hand, and we're caught between Migdol and the sea without a Moses in our midst.
He said, how I long for Christian leadership to come along and symbolically speaking, raise their arms and the waters will part and the people of God walk through on dry land and sing a new song.
Now, why don't we have that kind of courage and that kind of leadership, or only very sporadically in the church?
Well, I think there are a number of different reasons. I'm not going to exhaust those reasons here this morning. I think that one reason is that we have grieved, quenched or resisted the Spirit. I wish we could have taken a whole session or two or three on.
On that subject. And it's just one of those things. I almost did. But there are so many other topics that we could cover in three times. I had to limit it. But another reason is I think there's been a failure to understand the power of the Holy Spirit available to us.
How can we go out and make an impact?
I think a central answer, at least one of the answers, is that the Holy Spirit has been given at Pentecost. That Holy Spirit is our advocate who's given to us to convict the world concerning sin, concerning righteousness and concerning judgment, and we have been empowered and we can go out because of that. Advocate and make an impact not solely by our own self assertion.
That's not what I'm talking about.
But by the power of the Spirit.
We are called to go out and speak the Gospel with boldness and love and wisdom, but nevertheless to speak it. There's been a failure to understand the power of the Holy Spirit, and particularly I believe, the role of the Holy Spirit as advocate.
All right, so that's my main thesis. Let's look at John, chapter 14, the gospel of John.
John 14:16 says this.
I will ask the Father and he will give you another helper.
You have different translations there, counselor.
What is it?
Comforter. That's the King James.
Any others?
Intercessor or sometimes advocate. All right. He will give you another helper or advocate that he may be with you forever.
That is the spirit of truth whom the world cannot receive because it does not behold him or know him.
But you know him because he abides with you and will be in you.
All right. Now this word helper or advocate or intercessor or comforter in the King James is probably the most well known translation of that, of the word there. The reason for all those different words is that there's a. It's a difficult to translate Greek word at the root of it.
If we had a board here, I could put that up there. But the word there is and it might be of value if you're taking notes to write it down and look at it. The word there is parakletos.
Now it's in the margins of some of your Bibles. P A R A C L E T O S Parakletos.
Now it comes from two Greek roots.
The first root is para.
And we have taken over some of the Greek and Latin roots into the English language. And we use the word para. And it means para means alongside of. And we use it in the same way in the English language, like para troops that work alongside the army, or paramedics that work alongside the doctors, or para ministry that works alongside the church.
Alright, we could go on and on and on, deal with the ways that that's being used. So para means alongside of the kleitos. There is an adjectival ending for a Greek verb, a kale, which means to call.
Alright, to call. So very, very literally, that word comes from two roots meaning to call alongside of, to call alongside it. But it's not just to call anybody by your side.
Because a parakletos in the Greek culture was a lawyer.
Right? But it wasn't just any kind of lawyer.
You know, I go into federal state prisons all the time with prison fellowship. And you hear a lot of stories, you know, about good lawyers and bad lawyers and court appointed attorneys. And I don't know what to make of all of it, you know, how much of it's true and how it's just griping because they lost, all right, because they're in prison.
But in any case, it is possible, at least in theory. How much happens in practice, we don't know. But in theory, at least it's possible to have a lawyer on your case who perhaps is not really doing the fullest kind of job for you, all right, who's just going through the motions, maybe has many other projects that they're working on, can't give full attention to your case and therefore doesn't do the most excellent job. Well, there's a difference between that kind of lawyer and a lawyer that's bound to you by ties of loyalty.
And you know that that lawyer is going to do the most thorough job and is going to stand by you in court and going to stand by you inside and outside of court. In fact, I've looked at various commentaries on this idea of advocate. And sometimes it's translated, a legal friend or friend in court, a lawyer that is more than just a lawyer, but a lawyer that's bound to you. And that's the idea of a parakletos, an advocate, but not just any kind of advocate, a loyal advocate, a legal friend, a friend in court who has legal expertise.
Alright, now that's the first understanding that it is an attorney. Second thing is, notice in verse 16, another advocate or another parakletos.
So if the other parakletos is the Holy Spirit, who's the first advocate?
Christ.
All right, now where can you even paraphrase? Even if you don't know exactly where the verse is? Can you paraphrase where Christ is talking about as an advocate?
Does words come to mind? Probably do for a few of you.
Where does it talk about Christ as an advocate? Even if you don't know the verses? Can you give me the allusion to it?
Right, that's it. Okay. If we sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous. I believe it's 1 John 2:1. I think so.
So that Christ is the first advocate.
Now here's the interesting question. Who is Christ an advocate to Father? All right, it's too obvious for you here looking for the trick answer. That was the easy one, this is the harder one. Most people don't get this second question right, so be careful on this One, you're warned. All right. First one is easy. Christ is advocate to the Father.
Who is, do you think?
The Holy Spirit, an advocate to.
Everybody's got to be quiet here, as I warned you. Yeah, well, certainly the Holy Spirit works with us. And you know, the Holy Spirit has many roles, of course, and certainly the Holy Spirit works with us, but I don't believe that that's his role as advocate.
Jesus.
All right, now that's certainly the Holy Spirit is in relation to Christ and to glorify Christ and that kind of thing, but that's not the role of the Holy Spirit as advocate.
Well, the Holy Spirit certainly helps us in our prayers to interpret our prayers to the Father. So the Holy Spirit has a role in relation to the Father. I don't believe that that's his role as advocate.
So all these things are true.
I don't think that's his role as advocate. Yeah.
All right. To the world.
All right. You want to see the explicit biblical warrant for this? Let's look at John 16, verse 7.
Says this.
But I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away.
For if I do not go away, the helper or the Parakletos, the advocate shall not come to you.
But if I go, I will send him to you.
And he, when he comes, will convict the world concerning sin, concerning righteousness, and concerning judgment.
Concerning sin, because I do not believe in me.
And concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father and you no longer behold me. And concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged. Okay, but particularly verse eight. And he, when he comes, what's his role as advocate? To convict the world concerning sin, righteousness and judgment.
All right, now before I come back to that and talk about that a little bit, let's just look at verse seven for a minute that talks about the significance of this advocate coming says, but I tell you the truth, it's to your advantage that I go away.
For if I do not go away, the helper, the Parakletos, shall not come to you.
But if I go, I will send him to you.
All right. In other words, Jesus places a value judgment on his departure. He says, it's to your advantage that I go away.
It's to your advantage that I leave you.
It's better that I go than if I stay.
My absence is better than my presence.
Now, that's a rather incredible statement when you think about it. I mean, we might be tempted to feel, boy, it would be great to have Jesus according to the flesh, in our midst.
I mean, wouldn't it be great to have him up here speaking?
Wouldn't it be great to hear him give the sermon on the mount?
Wouldn't it be great to see him say, at Lazarus Tomb, Lazarus come forth, or to see him on the Mount of Transfiguration? You know, you might feel that it would be worth giving your whole life just to see one of those miracles. And then you wouldn't be worried about going to the arena.
You could face the lions.
All you have to do is just have one word from Jesus or one miracle and that would sustain you the rest of your life. You might feel. But Jesus is saying this, it is better that I go away than if I stay. It's to your advantage that I go away.
Now that's an astounding statement. Is it really better that Christ is gone?
And how in the world could it really be better that Christ is gone than if we say, why do you think?
Okay, that's certainly one reason.
Christ according to the flesh could only be one person at one place at one time. So the Holy Spirit can. So that if Christ were here according to the flesh, he couldn't be in Malaysia or in Africa or in South America or wherever.
Alright, but any other reason why?
[00:25:38] Speaker C: Because Jesus said he would do greater
[00:25:41] Speaker B: things than he did.
Certainly we'd do greater things because of.
Because of who he would send in his place, namely the Spirit. Actually. Okay, that's one reason. There's another reason I'll mention first before we come back to this.
And that is where he was going. There are two basic reasons why it's better that he was going away. Number one, where he was going and then who he was going to send in his place.
Number one, he was going away.
Not on vacation, but he was going away to be seated at the right hand of God, going away to his coronation, to become seated as the King of kings and the Lord of Lords, seated at the right hand of God.
Now that's a symbolic, metaphorical kind of way of speaking. God doesn't literally have a right hand.
So what does it mean to be seated at the right hand of God?
What does it mean to be seated at the right hand?
Well, certainly that. But what particularly is that seated at the right hand, though that's his function there. But what does it mean?
Set up his rule? His rule and his. It has the idea of rulership and authority, being in that status. To be seated at the right hand of a king was to have that power and authority that was given to you by the King.
Right in other words, all authority is given to me. Jesus said, all right to be seated at the right hand of God, to be proclaimed the Lord. I mean, he was the Lord, but proclaimed as the Lord because coronated as king, to be inaugurated as the King of kings and the Lord of Lords.
Right. And that's involved in that power and authority there.
All right. And you know, the early Christians had a profound understanding of that.
You know, they gave their lives because I think they understood that.
All right, they wouldn't. Early Christians, all they had to say was two words and they could have said, save their lives from the lions.
All they had to do was say, kaiser Kyrios, Caesar is Lord and throw a little bit of incense on them all. Just a little flick of the roof and they could have saved themselves from the lion or from being burned alive or thrown to the dogs or whatever.
Be pretty tempting, wouldn't it?
Be easy to rationalize. Be easy to rationalize, hey, I just bow my knee, but I wouldn't bow my heart.
Or I can just say it with my mouth and spend the rest of my life making up for it. I mean, think about my wife and my kids.
Think about it. I could spend the rest of my life making up for it. But you know what? They understood that Jesus was Lord and they were not about to give anybody else lordship.
They passionately understood that Jesus was Lord even that was the earliest confession. Jesus is Lord and they really believed Jesus was the Lord.
Caesar could not be Lord and Christ be Lord at the same time in the same relationship.
So they had a profound understanding of the authority of Christ in his place as Lord.
Go ahead. Well, whichever.
[00:29:00] Speaker C: Are we to see a changed role for the people of God in terms of the changing of the advocacy of Jesus to the Father as opposed to the Spirit having to see to the world?
[00:29:14] Speaker B: How's that now?
Okay.
[00:29:16] Speaker C: Jesus was an advocate to the Father.
He sent the Spirit, who was an advocate to the world. Does this infer a changed role for the people of God?
[00:29:28] Speaker B: Yes, in a sense. I mean, it's not that Israel shouldn't have reached out to the nations, but certainly that's particularly our task.
It's a real task of mission.
I think it was particularly through Christ that Abraham's descendants were to be as the stars of the sky and as the sand of the sea.
It was really through Christ and through the message and through the empowerment that the gospel was to go out throughout all the world changed, certainly part of the history of redemption and certainly an expansion of that whole mission, really with the Insight. I mean, a few people had it, but that whole idea of moving out to Jew and Gentile was not particularly prominent within Israel. You could say that that might have been a misunderstanding of some of the intent there.
Yeah, Right.
That whenever we sin, we have an advocate with the Father. Christ has offered up the sacrifice. He also prays for us. He is our advocate that pleads for us so that whenever people might condemn us on this earth, when we might even condemn ourselves, it's of great help and comfort to know that we have one who prays for us. We have one who pleads our case before the Father. We have an advocate who will stand up in court and win the case.
All right? So that we know that there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. Even though many condemn.
You know, it's God who justifies.
For us, for the gospel, but through us, he sends the advocate for us to be an advocate to the world.
When he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin, concerning righteousness, concerning judgment.
It's to your advantage that I go away. You're going to receive the benefit of this.
It's better for you if I go. Because I'm going to send the Spirit to be an advocate to the world.
That's a good question. Let me just stop here and contrast here.
This whole understanding of the idea of comforter in the King James. Now, originally, the King James was much closer to the Latin understanding of the word.
The word comforter comes from 2latin roots.com with forte.
Strength.
It comes with strength. But normally, as we understand it now, when do we need comfort? Before, during, or after the battle?
I've had a lot of people answer this different ways, but I know what I would say. What do you think it is?
I would say after.
I think the idea of comforter has given the impression that the main role of the Holy Spirit is after we get wiped out in the battle, he comes along and pours balm on our wound, whispers sweet nothings into our ears because everything is all right. Holy Spirit does really comfort us.
But that's not the role as advocate. I think the role as advocate.
Is it before, during or after?
I think particularly the idea is during the idea of speaking in the present whenever we go into the situation of conflict, that we have an advocate pleading our case.
All right. That we have the best prosecuting attorney or I don't know whether it's prosecuting or defense or both.
All right. But we have an attorney who's gonna plead our case, build up the best defense, the best Trial lawyer in the world who's there to plead our case. Go ahead, come back to this.
You had one there.
Oh, you had had one before, but we kind of skipped over. Sorry, go ahead.
[00:33:31] Speaker D: There are two things about Christ going. One was where he was going and
[00:33:35] Speaker B: the other was who he was going to send in his place, namely the Spirit. Yeah.
[00:33:39] Speaker D: He gets into a situation, say that I'm sitting talking to a non believer. Are you suggesting then that while I'm actually coming after the Holy Spirit to empower me to speak lucidly to this person, that perhaps the Holy Spirit is also sort of ending at hand so that their hearts will be more open? Is that what you mean?
[00:33:59] Speaker B: Yes.
Not only sort of, but whenever we go into that situation, we have the promise of the advocate. This is part of the privilege of Pentecost and I think of baptism of the Holy Spirit. When Christ goes away, who does he send? The Spirit. Now the Spirit's role is to empower us for ministry. Active, but also to be the advocate. That's the privilege of the New Testament believer. That's the pouring out of the Spirit of Pentecost. One of the reasons and the significance of that is that the Holy Spirit is there to empower us for that mission.
To convict the world concerning sin, concerning righteousness, concerning judgment.
That's a unique kind of privilege of being a New Testament believer because the Spirit had not yet been given in that sense, at least the church had not been in the same way. Now, I don't quite know exactly what the difference is and how to define it, but it's obvious it wasn't in the same way that it was before. There was something additional.
It's to your advantage. If I go away, I'm going to send the Spirit. And the Spirit came at Pentecost. And that empowers the New Testament Church for doing mission, for going out and convicting the world concerning sin, concerning righteousness and concerning judgment.
You see then.
[00:35:18] Speaker D: Yeah, what I'm hearing is that the Holy Spirit is both the prosecuting attorney and defender at the same time.
[00:35:26] Speaker B: It's an interesting thought. I don't know if I can settle it. I think probably both.
I think probably both defense and prosecution. I don't know that you can make the distinction to said the gates of
[00:35:36] Speaker C: hell shall not prevail against him which confers an assault on the part of the Church.
[00:35:42] Speaker B: He will convict. At least he will be the defense for us. And then also the prosecuting attorney. Maybe it's a little bit more prosecuting and Jesus is more Of a defense. Maybe. I don't know.
[00:35:54] Speaker D: The Holy Spirit interceding for us.
[00:35:58] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:35:59] Speaker D: So that he really is our dependent.
[00:36:01] Speaker B: Well, in that sense, in the sense of. In our prayer unit.
There's one other place where Jesus is spoken of as advocate, or at least it's alluded to.
It's right in the middle of Acts, the speech of Stephen. I think it's in Acts 8.
All right. And just as Stephen is giving that great speech before the Sanhedrin, reciting the whole history of redemption.
Alright. At the same time that he's being convicted on the earthly court, he looks up in heaven and has a vision of the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.
Now normally we see this idea, as I said, of sitting at the right hand of God. Well, what in the world is Jesus doing standing?
Well, I don't know. I mean, I've heard different speculations. But my guess is this, that as Stephen is being condemned on the earthly court, he's being vindicated in the heavenly court.
Yeah, Art, I think the hang up when you start talking about this question to me was why do I want to be advocated to the world?
Here I have an advocate in the world now that advocate in the world to the world.
When you say defender, then that makes sense to us that I do need defense in the world.
But advocate, I have a hard time exposing that word.
Talk about that thing about world. I don't quite understand what you're saying. We're trying as Christians to get out of the world.
Are we? I want to be abdicated into the world. I want to be.
Well, see, the world is used in many different ways in scripture, about eight different uses of the word world.
Now sometimes the world is used for that spirit of opposition to Christ. And that's what you're saying. Certainly we ought to be out of the world in that sense. We shouldn't be worldly in that sense. Part of those forces that are against Christ. But in a sense Christ in the whole work of redemption calls us back to the world in another sense. I mean, the world that God created is good.
And Christ's work and the work of the Spirit is to redeem this world.
Now sometimes, as I say, that word world is used for the spirit of opposition to Christ. But there's a sense in which we are more in touch with the world, the creation. Now that's what I'm using it for than anybody because we understand the significance of the whole creation.
So that who are the true inheritors of the world? Who are the Heirs of God, joint heirs with Christ of all of this world. Who understands the significance and the place of it? Certainly we do as Christians.
So the sense in which grace, when it comes to Spirit, brings us back to nature in a good sense.
Grace is not opposed to nature or on top of nature. Grace completes nature.
We understand the significance of nature. We are being redeemed to be what we were intended to be in the creation that sin has affected.
So it's a call back to the world to appreciate the world as God intended us to appreciate it. We're to rejoice in the world because God has given all of this as a gift for us.
We've been affected by sin, the world has been affected by sin, people have been affected by sin. But redemption calls us that in relation to the world, to exercise dominion, as I talked about yesterday, over the world. That's part of the task of people in the creation and that's still part of the people today. In a sense.
There are two conversions that you got to go through as Christians.
One is a conversion from nature or from sinful world to grace, from nature to grace.
And then there's a second conversion from grace to nature, from.
From the understanding of grace to appreciation for the creation and to see our place within that creation. You understand what I mean? Am I losing you there?
It's sort of a creation out of the world, out of the sinful world, but then a call back to the world and to take our responsibility there.
[00:40:17] Speaker C: Jesus command is to go and make this circle with all nations which is calling us once we have received grace, calling us to go out and interact with the world in that way.
That's what I think it means when you talk about advocate to the world in that task.
I have a problem if we can find the work of the Spirit to mission.
[00:40:43] Speaker B: Right? Exactly.
[00:40:44] Speaker C: Because the task that we have is not only mission, but it's worship itself.
[00:40:50] Speaker B: Well, and dominion. I mean, part of what I was talking about yesterday, we didn't have a chance to unpack all this. But I mean, the purpose of the Spirit is to redeem us in God's creation.
That's the Spirit's role.
The Spirit is to bring us back to who we were created to be, to restore that relationship with God that was lost, to restore our relationships with other people, to restore our relationship with the creation and bring about more and more that proper dominion and rulership over the creation that we were intended to have and to bring the whole world into submission to Christ. In terms of our task of evangelism, Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done. That rule to bring to bear that reign of Christ, the lordship of Christ in every area of life.
That's what the Spirit will do. Ultimately, that's what we are part of the task of doing. That's part of that role of the Holy Spirit as advocate to convict the world concerning sin, righteousness and judgment.
Is it only through us that the
[00:41:52] Speaker C: Spirit can work or the Spirit.
[00:41:54] Speaker B: Can the Spirit work directly which an individual. Okay, did you hear the question?
Does the Spirit work solely through us or does it reverse your question, or does it work?
Does the Spirit sometimes work apart from us or just directly to the person? Well, certainly the Holy Spirit can do whatever he wishes.
But I would say that the normal way that the Holy Spirit works is through us and through the Word, the normal way. Now, it doesn't mean the Holy Spirit never works, of course.
[00:42:25] Speaker C: I wouldn't say that.
[00:42:26] Speaker B: The Holy Spirit does work sometimes with individuals apart from that. But the normal way that the Spirit works is through the Word and the preaching of the Word. How can they hear without a preacher?
That's the normal way. The normal way the Spirit works is through the Word. And the Word is conveyed to the preacher.
[00:42:43] Speaker C: That's the way that affects us.
[00:42:44] Speaker B: The other work he does doesn't really affect us. No. Right.
Well, there are other works of redemption that the Spirit is involved in.
I'm talking about evangelism now.
All right, we've got to finish this up here. I think we're all right.
I don't want to cut off the questions, though. This is great.
Are there any other burning questions? If there are, we can maybe take one more. But then I want to finish this passage here.
All right, let's go on. And I can talk later with people.
And he, when he comes, will convict the world concerning sin, concerning righteousness and concerning judgment. Concerning sin, because they do not believe in me. And concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father and you no longer behold me. And concerning judgment, because the ruler of this world has been judged.
All right. Now, there's no real evangelism without a conviction of sin and righteousness and judgment.
Particularly it says concerning sin because they do not believe in me. I guess that's particularly conviction of the sin of unbelief.
All right. The Holy Spirit does that within people. Concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father and you no longer behold me. Now, that phrase has caused me a little bit of difficulty. I don't quite.
The best way I can think of it is. I don't know if this is right, this is my own thought. I haven't gotten this from a commentary, but that Jesus was the perfect picture and example of righteousness.
So the Holy Spirit comes to convict of righteousness. When you don't have that concrete picture of Christ there to show that model or example of what righteousness is. Concerning righteousness, because I go to the Father, you no longer behold me.
I think that's probably what you just missed.
That makes the most sense to me anyway. There's no real conviction of righteousness. I mean, righteousness is a central concept to the Christian faith in a sense. You could sum up the whole gospel in terms of that one word, righteousness. You could sum up the whole theme of the book of Romans in terms of that one word, righteousness.
That God is righteous.
Therefore, because we fall short of that righteousness, we are unrighteous.
The only way for us to be righteous is through the righteousness of Jesus Christ on the cross.
And because of the righteousness that comes in justification from Christ and his work on the cross, we the work of the Spirit, then we become more and more righteous in terms of sanctification.
So you can sum up that whole, that whole work in terms of righteousness. I mean, we need to profoundly understand the nature of righteousness and concerning judgment. He says, because the ruler of this world has been judged, it's particularly judgment that people need to understand. But to understand this, that the ruler of this world has been judged. That's an interesting little twist on that understanding of judgment. That God is not passed over evil.
That God has dealt with evil decisively on the cross.
All right, that he has won the victory. He's Christus Victor.
Use the title of Alain's book.
The victory has already been won. It's just a mop up operation. It's like D day has already happened. Just a matter of time before the war is over.
God is not passed over evil.
So I think that it's in the context of this understanding of the Holy Spirit as advocate that we can have courage to go into difficult situations. I wish I we had very short time. I wish I could tell you stories when Christians are with love and wisdom. I mean sometimes the temptation of Christians is just to kind of be like a bull in a china shop and just go in and throw themselves around. That's not appropriate or right.
But I mean the whole matter of lovingly and with wisdom, being able to have courage and boldness to speak out in the name of Christ, it needs wisdom. You need to know the right time in the Right place in the right way, but nevertheless, it's doing it that's the hard thing. Even if you know it's the right time, even if you know the right way, there's still some kind of risk that's involved in doing it. I know that when I go into federal state prison, I remember the first couple times it was hard, but now I love it. And I'll tell you why.
Because in that situation of the greatest confrontation between good and evil, where evil certainly reigns, I feel more of a sense of that spirit is advocate in that kind of setting than I do anywhere. It's like spirit is present in that kind of situation. It's where evil is really confined. When you walk into that situation of risk, then you really see his spirit work.
Like, I was just in a prison last month in Wisconsin, and a guy came on Saturday night. We had a Friday, Saturday, Sunday seminar. A guy came on Saturday night.
Some of the guy said, he's a Satan worshipper. He's probably here to disrupt the meeting. When he sat through the whole evening presentation, which was on the nature of the gospel and on sharing faith, he heard the gospel very, very clearly. Then he was in a small group and the guy said, watch out. He may try to disrupt the small group or do something against it. Well, later that night, some of the guys were coming over and they were hugging the guy and jumping up and down.
And the guy had committed his life to Christ.
He had just come that night. That was the only time he came.
And the next morning he came too. The Sunday morning service. He had to work that morning in the prison. He went to his boss and said, I'm going to chapel. And the boss said, you're not a Christian.
And he said, now I am.
And I talked to him later and he said, you know, that he'd been thinking about it for a while.
Kind of like the Spirit had already been working in his heart. And he'd been looking at those Christians and wondering why everybody hated him so much.
Maybe looking even at his own hatred towards Christ. And he was starting to wonder why.
I mean, they're not so bad. I mean, they're not doing anything evil.
Why so much hostility against them and why these other guys are into other religions. They don't get that kind of why.
Why Christian?
Why is it? What is there about the name of Christ that sets people off like that? It's so thundering along those lines.
He came to see he was in rebellion against the one who was. Really true.
But it's it. And I can Tell you story for story.
[00:49:31] Speaker D: Yeah, I thought that crosses my mind. For the ones that want to see the Holy Spirit, work through them or use them in a very powerful way. Maybe that the whole answer is to start doing evening practicing spirit.
[00:49:46] Speaker B: If you don't put yourself in a situation of risk, then you don't see things happen.
Christ could do more than you ever dare ask or expect or imagine.
Let me just give you one other instance. When I lived in a young life leadership house in Pittsburgh, we used to have the philosophies back in the early 70s, Christians ought to be where the action was so that when there was a protest, this is back in revolution days, whenever there's a protest or whatever, Christians ought to be there in the midst of it, when people are asking the questions, Christians ought to be there speaking the answers.
All right? And there was this rally at Carnegie Music Hall. It's in Pittsburgh. A great big hall, holds a couple thousand people. Student radicals came from all over the East Coast. And the two speakers were Rennie Davis and William Hoodswood.
Rennie Davis was the leader of the SDS 1, Chicago 7.
Alright. And Wayne Kunstler was Mr. Radical Lawyer, you know, the attorney for Chicago 7, Harrisburg 8, Cadenceville 9, carrying the little Attica. You know, you name it back in those days. All right, Now Kunstler got up and spoke to us and it was scary. After, well, I got to tell you this, we handed out a paper we had called Liberation. And then one of the guys wrote up a sheet, this guy named Bill Lane wrote up a sheet that on it spoke directly to Kunstel because he was the most articulate advocate of the whole position.
It basically said, we don't think Kunstler's solution is radical enough because it calls for, at the extreme a revolution. But we don't think it changes the heart.
The heart of people needs to be changed as well as the structures of society.
And it went through a whole bunch of things and said, really, listen, Chris, there are solutions. He doesn't have any real alternative. He doesn't know what the society that he would create if there was a revolution would be like. What are the standards? What are the values that would be at the root of it? All right? How would he really deal with people and dignity? Can he really bring about the kind of violence he's advocating, a peaceful and just society?
Or do you think he will just ask those kind of questions?
And 2000 radicals got those sheets of paper, all right, the magazine and one of those little yellow sheets, little rectangular sheets. Now you can imagine 2000 radicals with three balconies with two sheets of paper in their hand. They read them. But then there were paper airplanes flying everywhere.
Down on stage and floating down to the third balcony or whatever.
Anyway, Kunstler and Davis were the only people up on this big, big stage. Great big row of chairs all the way across.
Kunstler got up and spoke first. And at the end of his talk people were on their feet.
It was scary. They were with their fists raised. And here we were in the front row balcony, eight Christians sitting there.
Sitting there. It's kind of scary, didn't it? I mean, it was like a Nazi rally or something.
Kind of scary.
And then Kunstler sat down and Davis got up to speak. Well, it just happened that right next to Kunstler was one of these little yellow sheep that was about Kunzler.
Well, Kunstler reached over and he picked it up and in front of everybody, in front of us and finally everybody, he started reading. Because everybody had read it or at least known it was basically there. And everybody could see him reading it.
So we were going nuts.
Sorry. Not put over this little yellow sheet. He read it and he put it on the chair beside.
About five minutes later he reached over and he picked it up again and he read it through again and he folded it up and he put it in his inside coat pocket.
All right. Other words, he was thinking.
He was thinking about it. Well, we were going crazy by this time.
We were more bold than we would be today maybe. And we decided we had to go down and talk to him. Alright, so we did. We made our way down from the front row balcony and up onto the stage. And there were just big crowd of people.
Of course, you have a little group of eight people. You can't go single file through a big crowd. You all have to find your own way to Kunstler. And so we kind of went out through the crowd and kind of drew in on Kunsler. And I heard one of the radicals turn to his friend and he whispered.
Anyway, we started talking to him.
We started talking to Kunstler.
And the first question we didn't beat around the bush, I think it was Stu Beymick. First question he asked was, what do you think of Jesus Christ?
And I've never seen a guy that was. And all kinds of other people around who could have tried to put on a show. But he didn't. He was really humble.
He said, I was really moved by this little yellow sheep because I've been just reading the Gospel of Matthew in the last week or two and I've been Really convicted by some of the values here.
Right time, right place.
So he went on and we talked for about 15 minutes. And Bill Lane, who had written this little yellow sheet, put every question in a Very soft spoken, he looked like Clark Kent, mild man, recording was very much like him, soft spoken.
He could speak bluntly but speak it in love so that it took the edge off. But he asked all the questions very directly, but very lovingly.
And Kunstler was very humbled and he admitted one after the other, he didn't really have the answer. He was talking. I've never seen a man be so humble in that kind of situation where he could have easily been defensive and try to put on a show for other people.
He just admitted that he didn't have all these and he just finished his big talk.
Alright, so we talked to him for about 15 minutes and finally he said, well, I gotta go, I gotta catch a plane.
Then he walked up to Bill Lane who had carried on some of the discussion and he threw his arms around me and he said, I love you.
And we went out, we were leaping over hedges, we were doing somersaults in the park and we had a prayer and praise meeting right, right there in that park in the dark, just thanking God because he had done more than we could ever dare ask or expect or imagine. I could go on and on and on with it, but it's when Christians are willing to put themselves in that position of risk with love and with wisdom that things can happen.
They're not willing to speak up for the name of Christ, not willing to get beyond being a spectator, step out into the arena and do it with some kind of passion.
And what do we have to motivate us for that?
Well, Christ is Lord, huh? He's King of Kings, He's Lord of Lords. He's empowered us with the Holy Spirit. We have the advocate, we have the best prosecuting and defense attorney around to plead our case. The people.
We don't have to be afraid to walk into your room.
And it's not ultimately us that's going to make a difference. It's not how articulate we are, it's not how well we can argue the case.
Doesn't mean we shouldn't work on it in any case. That's not ultimately the issue.
The issue is we have the Holy Spirit who's the attitude to drive home the feeble words that we have.
Lord, we do thank you for this opportunity of coming together here this morning.
And we do pray that we might be able to move out from being spectators and become involved in life. Be willing to put ourselves on the line for the sake of Christ, in wisdom and in love, but yet also in boldness.
We pray that we might be those who live our lives with real passion, with a real love for Christ, with a real courage.
Not because we depend on ourselves, but because we've been.
Because we're one of God's people, because we have been filled with the Holy Spirit and because we are empowered by the advocate. We might look to your strength and your power, what you've promised, what you've given to us, and we might believe that.
And that you might convict the world through us of sin, of righteousness and judgment.
We ask this in Christ's name.
Amen.
[00:58:17] Speaker A: The proceeding was a presentation of the C.S. lewis Institute. In the legacy of C.S. lewis, the institute endeavors to develop disciples who can articulate, defend and live faith in Christ through personal and public life. For more information, please visit our website at www.cslewisinstitute.org. thank.
[00:58:46] Speaker B: You.
