Running To Win

Dave McAllister: Who or what is the Holy Spirit? It is vital to know, so today we will find out. From the Moody Church in Chicago, this is Running to Win with Dr. Erwin Lutzer, whose clear teaching helps us make it across the finish line. Pastor Lutzer, give us a preview of your message on "The Spirit We Embrace."

Dr. Erwin W. Lutzer: Dave, you and I know that the ministry of the Holy Spirit often times is avoided in some churches and in some Bible studies because there has been controversy about it. Issues regarding miraculous gifts and whether or not everyone has the Holy Spirit and what is the evidence of the Spirit, all of these things often times have been issues that have been debated.

But the basics are clear. The blessed Holy Spirit of God has been given to God's people as a divine gift, and of course, all who belong to Christ, in them is the Holy Spirit. So even as we listen to this teaching, I hope that we will open our hearts to understand better how we can walk in the Spirit.

And my friend today, the reason that you are listening to the ministry of Running to Win is because people just like you have invested in this ministry. At the end of this message, I am going to be giving you some contact info and the possibility of you becoming what we like to call an endurance partner. But for now, you may listen.

I think it was A.J. Gordon, who was one of the founders of Gordon Divinity School, who said that on one occasion he was walking along when he noticed in the distance there was a man pumping water. And he was pumping effortlessly, tirelessly, and consistently. But as Gordon got closer, he noticed that it was not a man at all. In fact, it was a man cut life-size out of plywood. It was not that the man was pumping water, but the man was being pumped by an artesian well.

Jesus said on one occasion, "He who is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me, as the scripture has said, from within him there shall be rivers of living water." And then John adds these words, "But this he spoke of the Spirit that those which believe in him should receive, for the Spirit was not yet given because Jesus was not yet glorified." So Jesus said you come to me and you drink, and you can have a well of water, as he said to the woman at the well, springing forth to everlasting life.

Why is it that the doctrine of the Holy Spirit is so critical for us as Christians? First of all, because many people think that walking in the Spirit is something that belongs to super-saints. They think it is something that is unattainable for those possibly who have walked with God for many, many years. Well, I am here today to tell you that the notion of walking in the Spirit and being filled with the Spirit, those doctrines actually apply to all struggling Christians. So if you are here today and you are a struggling Christian, I have got good news for you.

And then there are those who say it is too mysterious. It is also controversial. Churches have sometimes split over the filling of the Spirit, over the idea of whether or not there are certain manifestations connected with it. The devil has used all of these things to somehow blind us to the power that you and I can experience and the intimacy that we can experience with the Spirit.

And so today, we are going to think about the doctrine of the Spirit, but it will be transforming. We will leave here differently than we have come because we have heard God's word and God's truth has changed us. Have you ever thought to yourself how wonderful it would be if you had been with Jesus when he was here on earth? People want to walk where Jesus walked. Just ask Roy Schwartz, who is sitting here at the front. He has taken many, many trips to Israel. People say, "I want to walk where Jesus walked. Show me the steps where Jesus once walked."

We all want to walk where Jesus walked. So we would like to have been back there. But did you know that we have advantages today that the disciples did not have? Jesus said, "It is good for you that I go away because if I do not go away, I cannot send the Comforter to you. But when I send the Paraclete, the Comforter, he will abide with you forever. Now he is with you, but he is going to be in you." And Jesus said it is good that I am leaving.

By the way, that word "Paraclete" has been variously translated. Sometimes I have seen translations that call him the Counselor: "I will send the Counselor to you." And some translations call the Spirit the Comforter, the Guide, others the Companion, the Advocate, the Encourager. And I thought to myself, what is the best translation of that word "Paraclete"? Actually, all of those words fit because the Spirit is to us what we need at the moment. Do you need encouragement? The Spirit is there to encourage you.

Do you need guidance? The Spirit is there to guide you. Do you need an advocate with the Father? The Spirit is our advocate, and so is Jesus. Your need is to be met by the Holy Spirit of God. And Jesus said that in Old Testament times the Spirit was with you, but now he shall be in you, permanently indwelling you. He will abide with you forever. It is the gift of the Holy Spirit to God's people.

You say, well, when the Holy Spirit of God comes to live within us, as we will see in a moment, when the Spirit comes, is it right to say that Jesus comes too and that the Father comes? Now what we need to do is to think theologically. You know this is the fourth in a series of messages titled "What We Believe and the Difference That It Should Make." So let's think as theologians.

Of course, it is not possible for the Holy Spirit of God to indwell us without the Father and the Son also coming to indwell us because you cannot ontologically separate the Trinity. Jesus said in John chapter 14, verse 23, that if a person loves me, I will love him, and my Father will love him, and we together will come and make our abode with him.

So you see the Holy Spirit and the Father and the Son are separated in Scripture in certain ways, but then the distinction between them also is somewhat blurred, at least to our way of thinking, because the Trinity, while it is mysterious, is not a contradiction. And how thankful we are that God is a Trinity. If you were here a few weeks ago and I lectured on the Trinity, you know how important that is.

So it is correct to say that Christ is in you, the hope of glory. It is correct to say that the Father is within us, but the ministry that is emphasized in the New Testament is the ministry of the third person of the Trinity within us, the blessed Holy Spirit of God. And that means that we have the companionship of God. God is with us no matter where we go. He is with us as we drive along the Kennedy Expressway. He is with us as we ride the El. He is with us wherever we go.

The companionship of God, also the power of God. You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit is come upon you. Often times pastors say, "Now that word 'dunamis' is the word from which we get dynamite; the Holy Spirit is the dynamite of God." Well, that is true from the standpoint of the etymology of the word, but dynamite is not a good way to illustrate the Spirit's work. The Spirit works imperceptibly. The Spirit works gently.

The Spirit works quietly. Sometimes we do not even observe the work of the Spirit and he is working, but he is powerful because he is God of very God. The companionship of God, the power of God, the Spirit of God also gives us the desires of God. When you got saved, God gave you a new nature, and that new nature comes accompanied with the gift of the Holy Spirit.

You say, well, is it possible for a Christian to be genuinely saved and still walk in sin? And the answer is yes. I am sure we have all done it, and there are those who persistently live in sin. But listen carefully. If you are a Christian and the Holy Spirit is dwelling within you, when you deliberately sin, your misery index goes off the charts. You just cannot stand it because you are one person in Christ and you are living as if you are another person.

You belong to God and you are living as if you belong to the devil. God implanted within you a desire for holiness, and now you have chosen to live contrary to that, and it is so, so unpleasant, and in the end, so guilty and so much emptiness. That is why coming to Christ sometimes makes things worse.

A guy says, "You know, before I got saved, I was sleeping with my girlfriend and it never bothered me. We just thought that we were fulfilling our desires and after all, we were adults, etc., etc." After he gets saved, he still wants to, but he can't, and when he continues that lifestyle, it is so miserable, so unfulfilled. You don't want to hear the Bible, you don't want to go to church. Why? Because you are living a contradiction. You are contradicting who you have become in Christ.

Now the text for today is 1 Corinthians chapter 6. 1 Corinthians chapter 6, every Bible open. If you don't have a Bible, there is a pew Bible, at least a few of them, because it is important for you to always keep your finger on the text. 1 Corinthians chapter 6, the Apostle Paul has three questions when he gets to verse 15. Three questions in verse 15 of 1 Corinthians chapter 6.

"Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ?" Question number two, "Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them members of a prostitute? Never." By the way, I'm not going to preach on this today, though I could. The next verse gives the most interesting but the greatest insight into sexual immorality that can be found in all literature. All the wisdom of the world put together cannot equal what Paul says now.

He says that if you are a member even of a prostitute because you are involved with her sexually, he says you become one body. And it is that metaphysical relationship of oneness that has far-reaching implications. But then he says, "But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him. Flee from sexual immorality." Remember, Corinth was rife with homosexuality and prostitution. "Every other sin a person commits is committed outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body."

There is a kind of corrosion of the spirit that takes place in sexual sin that is unique. And then he says, or do you not know, now we are in verse 19, that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? Don't you know that? You are not your own. You can't live the way you please because you have been bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.

Here is what I am going to do. I am going to take the phrase "we are the Spirit's temple" and I am going to look at it in three different ways. Three different ways to look at the phrase, each having a different aspect of the Spirit's indwelling. First of all, we take the phrase "we are the Spirit's temple." The great emphasis is on the word "we." We are the Spirit's temple. That emphasizes the location of the Spirit. God has always wanted to dwell with his people.

In the Garden of Eden, he walked with Adam and Eve in the cool of the day. Then in the temple area, God came to dwell in the Holy of Holies. And now what Paul is saying is, "Do you not know that your body as a believer, because this now is post-Pentecost when the Spirit has come, do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit?"

In Greek, there are two words for temple. One is "hieron," which refers to the whole temple complex. The other is the word "naos," which refers to the inner shrine or the Holy of Holies. And that is the word Paul uses here. Do you not know that the Holy of Holies has been transferred to your body? That when you go to work tomorrow morning, you are taking God with you? The Holy of Holies is with you.

Do you not know that you are the temple of God individually, but also Paul teaches elsewhere that we are also the body of Christ collectively as a church? That is why he says whoever destroys the temple of God, him will God destroy. And now Paul is talking about congregations. This sanctuary is just an ordinary sanctuary built of brick and plaster and steel and other kinds of ingredients, features.

And yet there is a sense when we meet together here, God meets with us here in ways that he does not meet when we are not in church. No question about it. And when you come off of Clark Street or LaSalle Street and you step into this building on a Sunday morning, you are actually leaving that which we call profane to come to that which is sacred. God comes here. The Holy Spirit of God is among God's people.

A woman was bringing a trashy novel into a church service, and an usher stopped her and said, "You know, you shouldn't bring that in here." Maybe the usher was right. Normally, we want the ushers to let people sit down. But here is the question that I have for you. If it wasn't right for her to read it in the church service or even bring it into the sanctuary, if that wasn't right, how could it possibly be right for her to be reading it in secret and polluting her soul where the blessed Holy Spirit of God has been pleased to dwell?

So Paul says the Spirit of God dwells in you, and he who does not have the Spirit is none of his. And it shows you the location of the Spirit. The Spirit is within this body that you brought with you today here in Chicago or the body that you are listening with around the world. That is the location of the Spirit. Well, now we are going to emphasize the phrase "Spirit's." By that, I mean possessive. We are the Spirit's temple. That means ownership. We are owned by the Spirit.

Paul says, "Don't you realize you're not your own? You've been bought with a price." Now why is it that Jesus said that the world cannot receive the Holy Spirit? It is because the people of the world are not included in this phrase of having been purchased with a price. They can prove that they were when they believe, but it is important to understand that we have been purchased in a unique way by Christ.

Now let's suppose you are driving through the neighborhood and you come across a house that you really like. And you say to your spouse, "I like that house. Let's get a truck, a moving van. Let's take all of our furniture from our house and let's bring it to this house." Can you do that? Of course not. You would be arrested, at least. And then you would be tested by some psychiatrist to see whether or not all the lights were working. You can't do that. You have to buy it first.

Before Jesus can move in by his Spirit, he purchased us. We are his. And that is why the world cannot receive the Spirit. But the Spirit comes to those who have responded to Jesus, and he moves in. The Holy Spirit of God takes up residence. And we belong to God by virtue of creation. We were created by God. In that sense, everybody belongs to God.

But there is a unique sense in which we belong to God as Christians. We not only belong to him by virtue of creation, we also belong to him by virtue now of redemption. We have been bought with the precious blood of Christ. You say, well, did God overpay? If you know your own heart, you know right well he overpaid. That is why we call it grace. So what the text is trying to tell us is that we belong to God. We aren't our own. This impacts the use of the body.

The use of the body. Where the body goes, what the body sees, what the body buys, what the body says using its tongue and its mouth, all of that is involved and under the leadership and the guidance of the Holy Spirit. And everything that you own is also owned. Everything that that body owns, whether it is a bank account or whatever, a car you drive, everything that the body owns is owned by the person who purchased the body, namely Jesus.

It affects the use of the body. It affects the health of the body. One of the reasons that we should take care of ourselves, eat well, exercise, is because our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit. Remember some time ago, I told you about the man who stood on a bathroom scale and as he saw the numbers go by, he said, "My body isn't a temple; it's a garage."

Well, don't treat your body as if it's a garage. It's a temple of the Holy Spirit. And when it comes time for you to die, as inevitably it will, you say like one woman said, who was told that she had cancer, she said, "I struggled with it for a while until I realized that this body wasn't mine. It belonged to God." And you know how valuable God thinks your body is? He thinks it's so valuable that someday it's going to be raised and recreated like unto the body of Jesus Christ because God says, "I redeemed you body, soul, and spirit." And the day is coming when you're going to be fully and totally redeemed, even your body is going to be redeemed. Isn't that wonderful?

Dr. Erwin W. Lutzer: Well, my friend, this is Pastor Lutzer. When you stop and think about it, you can hardly wait if only we were to better understand our future. We here at Running to Win deeply appreciate the partnership of so many people around the world. I am holding in my hands a letter from someone who listens to us in East Africa. "I am spiritually motivated and love God more, always thinking about God's love to me and how I should please him." It is a word of appreciation to the ministry of Running to Win.

Very quickly, I hope you have a pen or pencil in your hand. Would you consider becoming what we call an endurance partner? Now of course you need more info. Here is what you do: go to rtwoffer.com. That is rtwoffer.com. Of course, rtwoffer is all one word. rtwoffer.com and when you are there, you click on the endurance partner button. Or if you prefer, you can call us at 1-888-218-9337.

At least investigate the possibility of becoming an endurance partner. But I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart for your generous support of this ministry. You've heard me say it before, but because of people just like you, Running to Win goes around the world. Once again, go to rtwoffer.com, click on endurance partner, or you can call us at 1-888-218-9337.

Dave McAllister: You can write to us at Running to Win, 1635 North LaSalle Boulevard, Chicago, Illinois 60614. As we learn about the Spirit we embrace, we discover an amazing breadth of provision for our daily lives. Next time on Running to Win, we will learn more about the four key ministries of the Holy Spirit in the life of a believer and how each one should impact your life. Plan to tune in. Running to Win is all about helping you understand God’s roadmap for your race of life. Thanks for listening. For Pastor Erwin Lutzer, this is Dave McAllister. Running to Win is sponsored by the Moody Church.