Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - Witness of the Spirit

Episode Date: January 23, 2023

We’re in a series on experiencing God, and we’re looking at the work of the Holy Spirit. The main job of the Holy Spirit is to assure you that you are a child of the King—to assure you that you belong to him, that you’re his child, that he loves you.  The three great ministries of the Holy Spirit, which are all assurance ministries, are 1) the ministry of regeneration, 2) the ministry of sanctification, and 3) the ministry of high assurance and power. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on April 6, 1997. Series: Lessons in Drawing Near. Scripture: Romans 8:1-17. Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all sermons, books, study guides and resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. If you've enjoyed listening to this podcast and would like to support the ongoing efforts of this ministry, you can do so by visiting https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

What does it mean to move from following a set of doctrines or ethics to actually having God be a living presence in your life? Today on Gospel and Life, Tim Keller is teaching on how we can experience God authentically in a life-transforming way. After you listen, we'd appreciate it if you would take time to rate and review the podcast. Your rating and review will encourage others to listen so they can experience the joy and beauty of the gospel because the gospel really does change everything. Now here's today's teaching from Dr. Keller.

Romans 8, chapter 8, verses 15 to 17. So let me read that with you. For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, receive a Spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you receive the Spirit of Sonship and by Him we cry, Abba, Father. The Spirit Himself testifies with our Spirit that we are God's children. Now if we are children, then we are errors. Heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ. If indeed we share in His sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory. And this is God's Word.

Now, as I just said, we're looking at experiencing God. And this whole passage, which now begins, we're beginning to see, since we've been covering it section by section, we're beginning to see the broad gist of it. I think it's helpful to remind ourselves of what the theme is. I've made reference to it. I think the first week we started looking at this.

And there's actually a difference of opinion amongst Bible students and Bible scholars as to what the theme of the chapter is. On the one hand, it seems to be all about the Spirit. How the Holy Spirit is mentioned, or the word spirit, or spirit of God, or Holy Spirit, or spirit of Christ is mentioned, something like 17 times in the chapter, all the time. The chapter in some way seems to be about the Spirit Himself as we read in verse 16, the Spirit, who is the Spirit, what He does.

Now, by the way, this little phrase, the Spirit Himself, this is a great claim. The Spirit Himself testifies with our Spirit. There's a little grammatical, there's a little Greek grammatical insight that helps us understand something about New Testament theology. For those of us who only speak English, it's a little hard to understand this,

but in many, many languages, Greek is one of them. I think most other languages. Nouns are either masculine, feminine, or neuter. In other words, the nouns have a masculine, feminine, or neuter category that they're put in in the language so that when you have a pronoun, when you use a pronoun for the noun like he, or even you, in some case, when you have a pronoun for the noun like he, or even you in some case, when you have a pronoun for the noun, the pronoun is either masculine, feminine, or neuter, depending on what the noun is.

And one of the most interesting things about the New Testament is that the New Testament writers take the word spirit, in Greek, the word spirit is neuter. And therefore everywhere that the pronoun is used, they should be saying, if they were sticking with proper Greek grammar, they should be saying the spirit it, but they don't. They never do.

The writers of the New Testament, some of you might find this interesting, trample on grammar for the sake of the truth. They continually say, this is not just a force or an emanation, this is the tremendous claim. The Spirit is God Himself. This is God Himself that's come to live within us and His whole chapter is about that. But the chapter is not just about the Spirit, it's also about assurance.

And all the way through, if you read it with that in mind, you'll see that it's continually assuring the Christians at Rome that they really belong to God. It starts off by saying, now there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. And all the way through in the middle it talks about it. And at the end, if you want to know what the theme of a particular piece of writing is, you can always look at the summary and conclusion. That's usually a great way.

And if you get to the end of chapter 8, which is in print here, you get that great phrase where Paul says, for I am persuaded that neither death nor life nor angels nor principalities nor powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth nor anything in all creation is able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. And what that is, assurance. So some of the writers I've been reading say, this is about assurance.

And some say, no, no, it's about the person and work of the Holy Spirit. But now, excuse me, do we have to make a choice here? I'll tell you, when you put those two things together, which clearly they deserve to be together, you see something very important, very important. What is the work of the Holy Spirit? You say, well, the work of the Holy Spirit is to sanctify, to make us holy, yes, yes, of course. Well, the work of the Spirit

is to empower us and make us give us strength, yes. Well, the work of the Holy Spirit is to regenerate us and give us new birth, yes, but you know what? There's something more fundamental than those. In fact, the reason that he can vixess and converts us, the reason and the way in which he does it, the way in which he sanctifies us, and the way in which he empowers us, what I would like to show you tonight, is by the main thing he's out to do,

is to show you, is to assure you that you belong to him, that you're his child, that he loves you. That's the main thing. That's the main thing he's not to do. That's the main thing that ails you. That means, you know what that means? That means that's the main thing that ails you tonight. I mean, if that's the main thing,

the Holy Spirit's out to do. If it's really true, then when you read Romans 8 and you pondered for years and years like so many of these teachers do, and you realize it's all about assurance and it's all about the Holy Spirit, that means the main job of the Holy Spirit, the work of the Holy Spirit

is to assure you that you are a child of the King, and whatever ails you tonight, you say, oh, Holy Spirit, help me with temptation or help me with weakness or no matter what you think you need, that's the most fundamental thing you need. You know that. Look, the Holy Spirit has three great ministries that are mentioned in the Bible, and they're all here. And actually, you can be kind of confusing if you mix them up. Let me show you what I mean.

The three great ministries of the Holy Spirit, which are all assurance ministries to some degree, are, let's call them this. First of all, look here in the first part, let's start down here at verse 9. From 9 to 11, we see the first great ministry of the Holy Spirit Spirit which we can call, I will call tonight, the ministry of regeneration. Verse 9 says, you are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the spirit. If the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, it is not belong to Christ. So what it means to be a Christian is the Holy Spirit comes in dwells in you. Look, but if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, but your spirit is alive

because of righteousness. The Spirit's job, it's first job, his first job. Sorry, I've got grammatically corrected, theologically incorrect. The Spirit's job is to regenerate you, quicken you, make you alive where you were dead. And the way it does that, by the way, we know this. The way it does is the spirit's job is not to convict you that you're a bad person and you need to be good, right? That's one thing I hope you learn here every demon that's not what the spirit does.

The spirit's job is to come and say that you can be His through the work of Jesus Christ. You can belong to the Father. You can be a child of the King. And so, I mean, that's how we begin. We move from death to life when we're born again, when we're renewed by the Spirit, the Spirit of regeneration, when He shows us that. It's not stay on that. It's not what we're after here tonight so much.

Now, there's a second great ministry, the Holy Spirit, and you see that moving down here from 9, 10, and 11, moved down to verse 12, 12 to 14. Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation not to live, not to the sinful nature, to live according to it. For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die. But if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body you will live. Because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. Now this is the next thing. This is the next step. This is the second I'll call it ministry of the Holy Spirit. And let me call it the ministry of sanctification.

And this is different. Now we talked about this the week before last, last week we had the Easter service and we were interrupted in our series here, but we mentioned this a couple of weeks ago. The Holy Spirit, it says here in verse 12, by the Spirit you put to death misdeeds, by the Spirit you put to death the sinful nature. And so the second ministry of the Holy Spirit, we can call it sanctification. And let me quickly remind you of how different this is than what people seem to think.

When you are simply stoically, volitionally looking at something that you think is sinful, look at sin and say, I won't do it. I won't. Now there's no reason why not to do that. There's many times in which that's the right thing to do, but that's not the ministry of the Spirit. That's not the ministry of the Spirit. By the Spirit you put to death and we talked about this last week.

The old Puritan word is mortification and the way the Spirit of God see, you said the main job of the Spirit of God is to show you that Jesus loves you. How is that? How does that kill sin? That's what actually kills sin. Because the mortification of the Spirit is not simply setting the will against superficial behavioral sins, but it's going down to the motivation, motivational level, and it's destroying the motivation for sin at the root. So quick, for example, I mean I don't want to overdo these things here,

but some are so obvious and some easy. What if you say you're experiencing sexual temptation? You say, well I've decided that this is my, this is what I think are the sexual standards of conduct, but I keep, I keep transgressing them. Why? Not just hormones. You can just say, I'm a Christian, I'm not going to do that. Or you can say, why do I keep doing it? Hmm? Why do I keep doing it? And the Bible says, living according to flesh is always sliding back under the law. That's what the book of Galatians tells us. That's what the book of Romans tells us. In other words, what you have to say to yourself is, if I want to deal with this temptation, I have to ask myself, why do I keep succumbing to it? And the answer is, there's something

besides Jesus Christ as my functional Savior. Something besides Jesus Christ is my mediator, my Savior. Something besides Jesus Christ is what makes me think today that I am a person worthy of love and respect. I've got to have this. That's why I'm doing it, but I don't have to have this. I'm a child of the king. I've got it. I don't need this. This is not my life. So you see the point is, the way that you wither the motivation for any sin. Why are you lying? Why are you afraid? Why are you bitter? Always the same. Do you understand? If you're struggling with bitterness because somebody has robbed you of something and you can't, you say, I'm trying to forgive and I can't forgive. Why are you just a couple of things you can do? You can say, I will forgive, I won't be mad, I won't be mad. I won't be mad. By the

very heart, it's like saying, I won't think the word elephant. I won't think the word elephant. I won't think it's something like that. It doesn't work. You can say, why are you so mad? Why are you so angry? You know, somebody else walks along and says, somebody did it to me and it didn't bother me. I forgave them. What's wrong with you? And you feel like, gee, what's wrong with me? I tell you, what's wrong with you? That person robbed you of something you thought you had to have. That person robbed you of something you felt like, I have to have that to survive. I have to have that if I'm going to have meaning in life. I'm going to have that if I'm going to know that I'm a lovable person. I got to have that. And see the spirit. The spirit of God does not tell you just to say,

no, the spirit of God does not just come and say, if you don't forgive, God's going to get you. That's not what the spirit does. That's what ministers do. You notice how well I did it? I can do it. You want to say me no, but the spirit of God does. The Spirit of God's job, remember we talked about this, is to flood like the beauty of Christ and to show you that you're his child, to assure you that now there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. And you see, the only reason you'd be bitter against somebody

is if you feel like that person robbed me of something without which I'm condemned. The only reason you keep on giving into this temptation or that temptation, the only reason you're lying, the only reason you're cheating, the only reason you're stealing. The only reason that you're addicted, the only reason that you're bitter, always, there's always a motivation underneath, see?

And that's the spiritual ministry, it's the spirit's ministry of sanctification, mortification is the old Puritan word. And how important it is. And don't you see, essentially, essentially, the ministry of sanctification is not that much different than the ministry of justification. In that, the ministry of justification, regeneration,

that was the first one. How did you get born again? You get born again when you stop trying to be good and see that through Jesus Christ, you can be accepted by God as the child, and he can be your father. That's what it trying to be good and see that through Jesus Christ you can be accepted by God as the child and He can be your father. That's what it means to be saved. What does it mean to be sanctified, to say to yourself, at this point I'm forgetting that. That's what it means to be sanctified.

The Spirit brings you that insight in order to save you and then it brings you the same insight. He brings you the same insight in order to sanctify you. And therefore, that's hard work. In Ephesians chapter 5 verses 18 and 19 and so on, there's a very interesting command. It says, be filled with the Spirit. And people over the years have pointed out, and you may have heard this in sermons, that this is a present progressive and it's an active word.

It's a command. This is something you can do. This is something that must continue. You have to continually remind yourself of who you are. You must continually say, I'm acting as if I'm not a child. I'm acting as if the gospel isn't true. I'm acting as if Jesus isn't my savior. I'm acting in the wrong way. And the Spirit of God reminds you of who you are and reminds you of what he's done and helps you act in that sanctification. That's how you get over bitterness.

That's how you deal with sexual temptation. Are those all mine? Yes, they are. And therefore, essentially you see the second ministry of the Holy Spirit is a wonderful ministry. It says, if by the Spirit you put to death and misdeeds of the body you will live. How does the Spirit do that? Well we talked about this two weeks ago and I just move on.

It says, those who live according to the sinful nature have their mindset on what the nature does that the nature desires, verse 5. But those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their mindset on what the Spirit desires. And we said that word is to yearn, passion. The Holy Spirit is in love with Jesus Christ. And that's how you mortify the deeds of the body to see what the Spirit sees. Now, believe it or not, that's not all he does. There's a third ministry.

You see, there's a certain sense in which there's a filmeness of the Spirit that comes when you're born again. When you're born again, you're filled with the Spirit. You see that, by the way, in Acts chapter 9, when Paul, the Apostle, is converted, and when he's converted, it says he was filled with the Spirit because the Spirit comes in, and in that sense fills you. But then there's a second kind of filling, and that's what we call the sanctification filling, not the regeneration filling, and in the sanctification filling, that is an ongoing

matter that you have to work at. When you continually, with the Spirit's help, remind yourself of who you are and therefore mortify, destroy the motivations for sin, bit by bit. Be filled with the Spirit. But there's a third kind of ministry, the Spirit. And I mentioned, I called the first kind, the ministry of regeneration, the second kind, the ministry of the Spirit. And I called the first kind, the ministry of regeneration, the second kind, the ministry of sanctification.

The third kind, I'm just going to call it, the ministry of high assurance and power. And that's what you have here in verses 15, 16 and 17. The ministry of high assurance and power. Look, for you did not receive a Spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of Sonship, and by Him we cry, O'Bah, Father. The Spirit Himself testifies with our Spirit that we are God's children.

The Psalms can profoundly shape the way you approach God, even Jesus relied on the Psalms to face every situation, including death. In Tim and Cathy Keller's devotional book, the Psalms of Jesus, you'll find daily readings through the Psalms with fresh biblical insight. If you have no devotional life yet, this book is a wonderful way to start. And if you already spend time and study and prayer, reading and praying through every verse of the Psalms can help you discover a new level of intimacy with God. We'll send you Tim and Kathy Keller's devotional as our thanks for your gift

to help gospel and life share the love of Jesus with more people. Just visit gospelandlife.com slash give. That's gospelandlife.com slash give. Now here's Dr. Keller with the remainder of today's teaching. All right, now every bit of this is very precious. First of all, look at this little word,

Abba. By him we cry, Abba, Father. Now you've heard this before, maybe not as much as I'm going to tell you right now. What, why does Paul, writing in Greek, to Greek speaking people, why does he use an Aramaism? Aramaic was the language of Palestine. And why does he say what the spirit does? See, and here's the job of the spirit.

Is he brings you to the place where you can turn to God and cry, Abba, Father. Why does he say Abba? Couple of reasons. First of all, if you look at the beginning of the Lord's Prayer in Luke, not in Matthew. And if you look at the beginning of his great high priestly prayer in John 17, you will see that Jesus called God, Abba. And when the disciples heard him do that, they were, they must have had a chill, there must have been goose bumps, they were maize.

And they began to realize, and of course this really was very clear when Jesus says to Mary, go tell my brothers that I'm ascending to my father and your father, that my father will be your father, and my father is your father because he's my father. And they realized that they could go to the father, the way Jesus went to the father, and he said, Abba, well, what does Abba mean? Well, Abba means Father and Aramaic, but it means something much more than that. Some of you have heard this.

It's really getting at a universal. I hear a child. That's appropriate. You know what the word Abba means? In every language, in every culture, when children first begin to reach out for their grandmother, their grandfather, their mother, their father, and they first are told the name of the parent. That child, all it does, there's always two things about the name that that child gives.

The first thing is, whatever that name is, it's got to be a syllable that doesn't need teeth in order to say, okay? You never see a child saying, Tata, no, they don't do that. Not the infants, they got no teeth. There's nothing to do that, they can't use that. They always have to use, they have to say, Gaga or Baba, and you see the other thing is,

they never, they're just not sophisticated enough to have two different syllables. They don't say grandpa. They say, Gaga or baba or mama or papa or aba. You see this is not an aeromake word actually. This is a universal language. It's a primordial desire on the part of every human being. In its earliest stages of consciousness to reach out for someone that's Abba or Mama or Baba, it doesn't matter. And you know what they're looking for?

You know what we were looking for when we reached out? We were looking for somebody who loved us, who loved us perfectly, who would love us no matter what. Someone who was completely powerful, who could control all things, would love us no matter what? Someone who was completely powerful, who could control all things, would love us to the end and would never, ever let us down. That's what we were looking for when we said, Abba, pa, pa, mama. And you know what happened?

We reached out and we grabbed hold of some human being when we said that, and that human being has not fulfilled the desire behind Abba. We've reached out for, we want someone who will never let us down. We want someone who will always be there. We want someone who can do anything. We want someone who will love us whatever. We want someone who will love us unconditionally all the time.

Now, I want to go on record and say that my children reached out for me and my wife, and unless they reach beyond me and my wife, they will never find the desire of their heart. I mean, this is what Paul's talking about here. There's a primordial desire on the part of every human being and this word, Abba, him preserving the word Abba, which is the diminutive. It's the, it's the aamaic version of dad-da.

That's all it is. That's the reason why it was so utterly incredible to the ears of the disciples for them to hear Jesus talking to God that way. And what Jesus was really saying was, first of all, A, you can know God with all the confidence and intimacy with which a little child grabs hold of a father, or a mother, a parent, with that incredible confidence.

And with that utter abandon, with that complete surrender, and with that absolute trust, absolute trust, there is nothing like the way a baby holds you. In fact, by the time they are three and four, they don't do that anymore. Can you be right? They don't trust you that much. But the little ones, the very little ones, the ones that are still in Abba, okay? I can't say father or anything like that, it's just Abba.

They utterly trust you. They utterly trust you. And Jesus is saying, you can trust the father that way. And Jesus is also saying, the father is that one, the father is the one you've been looking for. God is the one you've been looking for in all things. I want you to think about this. A lot of your lives have been distorted,

some of your lives have been ruined, because you haven't seen this. And it's the spirit's job to show you your mistake. For example, some of you has been all of your life very bitter because your father or your mother hasn't been this perfect Abba. And some of you, less of you, but some of you are incredibly bitter and unhappy because you have failed to be that perfect father or mother to your children.

And some of you have refused to have children, by the way, because you're that afraid that someone's going to let you, that you're going to let somebody down the way somebody let you down. And Jesus is saying the word, listen, this is the liberation, the sparse job is to come and say, they were never the ones you were after. They were stand-ins, they were substitutes. And the best ones are pretty good substitutes,

but the best ones are only pretty good. This is the one you're looking for. And through Jesus Christ, this is the one you can have. And that's the reason why verse 15 says, you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear. Now listen, if you want to understand the difference between the spirit of fear and the spirit of sonship, how these are two different things, these are two different religions.

Even though Paul is warning you that as a Christian you can fall back into it. As a Christian you can slide back into it, he's, don't do it. But here's the difference. Do you remember the the the prodigal son? Do you remember the man, the young son, who ran away, basically, I mean, he didn't run away. He came to his father and he said, I want my part of the inheritance. God gave it to him. He went away and he squandered it and riotous living and he decided when he came to a sense, said he would come back and repent. But do you remember what he said on the way back? He says, well my father would never take me back as a son.

But maybe he'll take me back as one of his servants. Maybe he'll take his back as one of the hired hands. I wouldn't want to live in the house. I'll live with the farm hands. I'll live out in the back 40 in the servants quarters. Remember that? He says, he decided, he says, I will come back. And if I'm really, really good, I can relate to him as an employee to an employer, which

means I'll see him on company time. I will relate to him to the degree that I perform well. He can always fire me. His love for me will be conditional. I could never come back and be a son to live with him all the time, to know him in every, every, you know, to have our lives completely mesh in every dimension,

to know that he loves me unconditionally, no matter what I do, I could never do that. But when he comes back and he asks, he actually says, Father, I have sinned against heaven in nice sight, the Father will not let him get to the second clause which he rehearses before he gets there. Remember it? He says, I am not worthy to be called your son.

Make me one of your hired hands. Father, we'll have nothing of it. Now, the job of the Holy Spirit is to show you that when you first go toward religion, that's all you ask for, that's what you want, and that will never get at the bottom of your problems. You've got to see that you're accepted in spite of your performance. That's the thing that's been driving you, that's the motivational route, that's the problem underneath all of your problems. And Jesus says, the Javahoy spirit is to come and show you that this is the perfect father,

and you can know him because of what Jesus has done. Now, here's what's so amazing. This is what is the third ministry of the Spirit? Look at verse 16. The Spirit Himself testifies with our Spirit that we're God's children. Now, you have to recognize it, and not everybody does, but this is the amazing thing. That verse 16 is actually not identical to verse 15. In verse 15, I believe you've actually got the ministry of sanctification. I believe what you've got here is the Spirit of God helps you to see that you're really a child. And this is the way you ordinarily go about living your life.

You're out there in life, you know, and somebody criticizes you. And you get all that's just devastated. Now how are you going to do something about that? How are you going to overcome it? How are you going to walk properly? You don't just say, oh, I shouldn't be upset. Just say no to being upset. You say, I'm forgetting who I am.

I'm acting as if their approval is more important than God's approval. I've got God's approval. You say, I mean, you know, you think this is my father. And see, that's how you move about during the day. But sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't. Verse 16 says, that there's a time at which the Spirit of God does something just wonderful, just incredible. It says, the Spirit testifies with our Spirit. Now, you know what this means? This word testifies the word martyrria and it is a legal word. And it's painting the picture of a courtroom. And the picture is, here you

are having a normal day. And in a normal day, your spirit is already testifying that you're a child of God. See that? Your spirit's testifying. In other words, somebody criticizes you, you get devastated, then you say, no, no, no, no, wait a minute, I'm forgetting that I am a child of God, I'm forgetting that I am righteous in Him, I'm forgetting how much He loves me, I'm acting as if I'm not love, I'm acting as if this person is whose verdict I need, when I've already got the only verdict that matters, right? You're testifying, sometimes the Spirit of God comes alongside of you and testifies with you.

And the picture is of a kind of courtroom situation in which there's a trial going on. And the jury isn't quite sure. And the verdict isn't doubt, but suddenly, in comes the defense witness. A new one, a new defense witness, and this new defense witness sits down and brings new information to light and breaks the case open and everybody sees the truth.

And that's what's going on. Sometimes the Spirit of God comes and descends upon you and says, yes, directly to you, intuitively to you, you are my beloved child in whom I'm well pleased. That's the witness of the Spirit. It's the witness of, it's the ministry of high assurance and power. And over the years, many, many people, many people have experienced it. Let me just read you a couple of examples of it. You've got a place like, here's Richard Sibs.

He says, sometimes our spirits cannot stand under trials. Therefore, sometimes the immediate testimony of the Spirit is necessary. It comes in saying, I am thy salvation. And our hearts are stirred up and comforted with joy and expressible. This joy has degrees. Sometimes it is so clear and strong that we question nothing. Other times doubts come back fairly soon. The Spirit does not always witness unto us by force of argument from our sanctification, but directly by way of presence as the sight of a friend's presence comforts without his speaking at all.

This witness weighs and overpowers the soul, hence, riseeth that which Peter speaks of, joy unspeakable and full of glory. It's a ravishing joy. Listen to this one. Here's another guy. He says this. Another minister says, I speak with the experience of many saints, and I hope according to the scriptures, if I say that there is a communication of the Spirit, which is a glorious manifestation

of God under the soul. Shedding abroad, God's love in the heart. Now listen to this. It is better felt than spoken of. It's not an audible voice. He's a, you know, he's a Presbyterian by the way. He's no audible voice. But it's a ray of glory filling the soul with God. It's exactly like that word that came to Daniel

that said, oh man, greatly loved. Or it is exactly like that word that Jesus spoke to Mary. The Lord only looked at her and said her name, Mary, and filled her soul so she no longer doubted she was his. Oh, how glorious is this manifestation of the Spirit. Faith sometimes rises to so full an assurance that it swallows one up into the presence of God. Now, how do you get that? I want to close this way. I want you to know that whereas the Ministry of Sanctification is something under your control, the

Ministry of High Assurance and Power is not. One of the biggest mistakes that happens is whenever you experience this and it does come, remember what Richard Sib says? It has degrees. Sometimes it comes kind of modestly. You might be listening to a sermon. You might be reading a passage of the Bible. And suddenly it looks, it stands out and comes to you. And it assures you, you are my child.

And it just, you know, it might be a passage you've read before, many times, and it stands up and it comes out you. And it takes a hold of you and grabs you and says, you are my child. Haven't you ever felt that? If you're a Christian, you felt something like that. These guys are saying it's possible to have a remarkable quality of that.

And one of the troubles is that people do think they can push buttons, and they do think they can control it. One of the troubles is that people do think they can push buttons and they do think they can control it. One of the troubles is that whenever you ever experience it, you'll take all the occasional features and immediately think they're causal features. In other words, if you happen to have it in a certain kind of church where people raise their hands, you're going to feel like if I'm ever going to get the Holy Spirit back again, I've got to raise my hands.

Or if you're in a church where nobody raised their hands, and you go to a church where everybody's raised their hands, they say, well, I have that experience and now I better not raise my hands. I don't want to be here. If you pray in tongues, when it happened to you're going to be sure that you have to pray in tongues again, or other people have to pray in tongues, or they'll never experience it. Or if you're reading old, Puritan-reformed Calvinisticistic literature when it hits you, you'll say, only us Calvinists, only Calvinists will experience this. In other words, I'm sorry, this is the Spirit of God. He is called the Wind in John 3. You can't harness the Wind, but I'll tell you this. Here's what I can tell you.

In some ways, it's not that hard. Work on the second ministry. In other words, are you mortifying your sin? Are you going under the surface? Are you going down there? Is your spirit testifying that you're a child of God and coming against, in a sense, in your daily life, the behavior that denies the fact that he is who he said he is

and that you are who he says you are? And you see, if you are working like crazy on buying more and more into sin and living more under righteousness, this will happen. And when it does, it fills you with joy and speakable and full of glory. This is the ministry of the Spirit. He comes and He says, Mary, and fills your soul so that you know you belong to Him. And when you know that, you've got a solution to what else you. Let's pray.

Our Father, we would like to know more of the ministry of the Holy Spirit. We would like to know far more of all three of these ministries in our midst. We want to see more people regenerated. We want to see more people walking, dying more and more into sin, living more and more unto holiness. And most of all, we really want to see more and more people experiencing the witness of the Spirit, living lives of boldness and joy. We pray for revival in that sense.

We pray for the anointing power of the Holy Spirit. We pray that we would be a spiritual boiling pot here. We pray that we would be a spiritual, a house filled with people who are filled with the Holy Spirit in all the ways we've talked about. That's what we want, because we believe that we glorify you. So we ask that you grant it in Jesus' name. Amen. We hope you enjoyed today's teaching on experiencing God and we hope you'll continue to join us today. you. So we ask that you grant it in Jesus' name, amen. We hope you enjoyed today's teaching on experiencing God and we hope you'll continue to join us throughout this series. Before you go, if you were encouraged

by today's podcast, please rate and review it so more people can discover the hope and joy of Christ's love. Thanks again for listening. This month's sermons were recorded in 1997 and 2013. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel and Life Podcast were preached from 1989 to 2017, while Dr. Keller was senior pastor, Everdemar Presbyterian Church. you