Telling the Truth

Guest (Male): Today on Telling the Truth, Jill Briscoe shares from the Gospel of John how your faith can be empowered every day by the Holy Spirit. That’s coming up in just a moment, but first, so many people read their Bible, go to church, serve on mission trips, and go through the motions, yet still struggle to find God.

Jill Briscoe has a surprising and deeply encouraging answer to this dilemma, which she shares in her three-message series titled Finding God. In this inspiring series, you’ll discover how you can stop spending so much energy on finding God and let Him find you.

The Finding God series is our thanks for your gift today to help more people experience life through the teaching and resources of Telling the Truth. So request your copy when you give today. 1-800-889-5388. That’s 1-800-889-5388, or you can give online at tellingthetruth.org. Now here's Jill with part one of her message, The Fire that Ignites Our Faith.

Jill Briscoe: We're going to be doing a study about the Holy Spirit, and it's one of those studies that I have a feeling the devil won't like because it's as we get thoroughly informed of his work and his person that God can really do the things that he wants to do in this life.

God the Father made the earth and rested on the seventh day. God the Son came to earth, accomplished our redemption, ascended into heaven, and sat down on the right hand of God the Father. Finished, he said. Now it is the Holy Spirit's turn. He it is with whom we have to do, but what do we have to do with him? That's what this study is all about.

There is this huge problem in the church today. It's a problem of misconceptions. When I first came here, I've often told you about the misconceptions I had. I thought that sidewalks were pavements and cookies were biscuits, and hoods and trunks were boots and bonnets.

I do remember the day that somebody arrived at my door with a mixing bowl and a recipe and some flour and sugars and said, I've come to teach you how to make chocolate chip cookies. And I said, chocolate chip what? I couldn't imagine putting chocolate in cookies. I didn't even know what a cookie was.

But she said, you cannot live in America unless you know this. Now, I had been under a misconception. I thought you could. I really thought you could just live here and just do everything everybody else does, but no, I had to be taught the truth. I was set right.

Well, before I came to know Christ, I had misconceptions about God the Father, about Jesus Christ the Son, and certainly about the Holy Spirit. I've often said I thought he was a sheet-shrouded spook haunting old English graveyards. I didn't understand what the Holy Ghost was all about.

Then of course I became a Christian, and even then I still hadn't a clue. I thought he was a subject for conferences or a good feeling or a reason for argument. Whatever, I didn't understand who and what the Holy Spirit was. Well, just as you good folks set me right, God set me right.

And he set me right using the scriptures, which is the revelation of God about everything. Did you hear about the young man taking a test? And he was to write a definition of ignorance and apathy. And he wrote, I don't know and I don't care. Well, one of the problems we have is ignorance.

A.W. Tozer said in most churches the Spirit is entirely overlooked. Whether he's present or absent makes no real difference to anyone. Brief reference is made to him in the doxology and the benediction. Further to that, he may not as well exist. So completely do we ignore him, it is only by courtesy we can be called trinitarian.

The idea of the Spirit held by the average church member is so vague as to be nearly non-existent. And of course the challenge he goes on to say is to remedy this grave deficiency which is paralyzing the effectiveness of our churches. I wonder if that is true about us. I hope not.

David Watson, an Englishman who is not now with us but is in heaven, said most evangelicals say, I believe in God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Scriptures. And the Holy Scriptures, he says, has replaced the Holy Spirit, and there is a deifying of scripture in the evangelical world, or we are in danger of doing so if we're not careful.

The Bible, the Bible, the Bible becomes everything. And we need to get back to realizing that if we do call ourselves trinitarian, that we believe in a Trinity—God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit—then that is what we must believe in. But then what do we believe? Are we ignorant?

And if we are not ignorant, are we apathetic about even learning about him? Well, it's rather a silly point when you're all listening to me and you've come to learn about him, but I'm talking generally here. There is an apathy. Sins of ignorance in the scripture are talked about as willful blindness.

There are sins of ignorance. We think, well, if you're ignorant, you're ignorant and you can't be charged with sin. God is not going to lean out of heaven and clobber us and say, you naughty person, you are ignorant. Apparently the Bible says there is such a thing as willful ignorance.

Willful ignorance is the opposite of knowledge. Knowledge is gained by observation and experience, and all of us have that opportunity. And we will be held accountable if we have not observed from the word of God facts about the Holy Spirit and then experienced the truth of those facts in our life, we will be held accountable.

So it isn't any good to face God at the end of your life and say, the Holy Spirit really didn't use me in a mighty way in your world. He's going to say you had every opportunity of observing and of experiencing these things. Why didn't you do it?

And we might well be guilty of a sin of willful blindness, as the scriptures speak. So we mustn't be ignorant and we certainly mustn't be apathetic about our ignorance concerning the Holy Spirit. If we will commit ourselves to study and to prioritize that and not let lesser important things take its place, then the promise I believe for all of us as we study this together, teacher and taught alike, is a promise that the teacher, the Holy Spirit, will help us to understand the things we need to understand to make a huge difference in our lives.

In our Christian lives, powerless lives can become powerful. Weak lives can become strong. Character can be developed. Discovery can be made of your gifts. Prayer life can be transformed. That is all the work of the Holy Spirit. John's Gospel, chapter 14, verse 15.

If you love me, said Jesus, you will obey what I command. And I will ask the Father and he will give you another counselor to be with you forever, the Spirit of truth. Now the world can't accept him because it neither sees him nor knows him, but you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you.

I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you. Before long the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, you are in me, and I am in you.

Jesus is promising the disciples the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit. He calls him the Spirit of truth. And the disciples begin to get an understanding of many things in a few sharp sentences. One thing above all overwhelmed them to the exclusion of all else.

They really weren't interested in the Holy Spirit. All they were interested in was this incredible news that Jesus Christ was going away from them, that he was going to leave them as orphans in this world. And I'm sure at that moment of time they really weren't interested in a Bible study on the Holy Spirit.

All they could think about is what you mean you’re going away? Now come on, you can’t mean this. Where are you going? And why are you going? And you’ve just come and you’ve come to do all these things because we believe you are God. And what do you mean you’re going? You’re 33. You’ve only just begun.

Guest (Male): More teaching from Stuart and Jill Briscoe is coming up, so stay with us. Did you know you can find more life-giving content from the Briscoes at tellingthetruth.org and on the Telling the Truth app? There, you can sign up for daily devotionals, watch videos, read blogs, and access a variety of other resources to help you experience life.

And while you’re there, you can also request this month’s featured resource as thanks for your gift of support to help share the abundant life Jesus offers with more people around the world. Visit us online or download the app today and experience life with Telling the Truth. Now here’s more from Jill.

Jill Briscoe: So does he have a name? Who will he be? Well, he will be God and therefore omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, but does he have a name? There are quite a few little names here we can pick out and get started in our mind process so that they become part of us.

The first name is Paraclete: counselor, comforter, helper, advocate. And actually the best of all those words, and they all mean the same, is advocate. Advocate. It's a legal term and it refers to anyone in trouble with the law. And Jesus is saying, I will send you another one just like me who will be called alongside to help as your advocate.

Now he's more than a counsel for the defense. He's not a heavenly Perry Mason. God himself will be this person, this advocate that will come. The word comforter is the weakest of all those words I threw out to you. It was John Wycliffe in the 14th century that translated this word comforter, and it has lost some of its meaning like many of the words in our Bible today.

The root significance of advocate is strengthener, empowerer. For example, John Wycliffe translated "I can do all things through Christ instead of which strengtheneth me" as "which comforteth me." It's weaker. It doesn't mean the Holy Spirit will not comfort when he comes, but that is definitely the secondary reason for which he comes as we shall see as we go on in this study.

The secondary reason for sending the Holy Spirit is to comfort the disciples. Important, but not all-important. Slightly dilutes the meaning. So when we think of the Holy Spirit as our advocate, we think of one called alongside to help us in a legal sense. Strengthener, empowerer, he is there for us.

Now included in it is this sense, I will not leave you as orphans, fatherless, desolate. I will comfort you concerning that. But it is the lesser meaning. This is because Jesus is going. Because Jesus is going, the Spirit is coming. And Jesus keeps coming back to this theme. It's necessary I go away for you, he says further in this passage.

It's important that I go away because if I don't go away, he won't come. Now I am with you, then he will be in you, and that's going to be so much better. The Holy Spirit has been called the divine barrister, not merely the counsel for the defense. And a barrister looks after his client, pleads his cause, defends his name, and guards and administrates his property.

The Spirit is the advocate of the Son on earth. Catherine Marshall has a lovely picture of this in her book, "The Helper," concerning the Holy Spirit. She says Christ is in the spotlight and the Holy Spirit is holding it. And I love that. Christ is in a spotlight and when you follow the beam of light along, you see the Holy Spirit standing in the shadows, for he does not speak of himself.

He is the advocate of Christ. He pleads his cause. He is his client's representative. He defends his name. He guards and administrates his property. So the Holy Spirit wants to involve us in his work. And you see this immediately takes this bit of the Holy Spirit's here to comfort me and that's what Christianity's all about, meet my needs and pat me and say there, there.

No, no. The Holy Spirit primarily—he'll do all that—but the Holy Spirit primarily is here to involve us in his work, which is to be the advocate of Jesus Christ so that he will empower and strengthen us to be Jesus' representative, to plead Jesus' cause, to defend Jesus' name, to guard and administrate the kingdom of Jesus here on earth.

And I think we need to turn our eyes to that sort of work and get them off ourselves. And I think lately the church has been turning inward, inward, inward far too much. And what we need to do is to lend ourselves to the Spirit that, with him, cooperating with him, we might turn the spotlight on Jesus because that's his work. That's his work.

Who is he? He is Christ's advocate. Who is he? Secondly, he is our teacher. Remember he is God. He is omniscient God. Would you turn with me to 1 Corinthians chapter 2, verse 9? No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him. But God has revealed it to us by his Spirit.

Remember Jesus said he was the teacher. He is the teacher of all truth. Now listen to this: the Spirit searches all things. And do you know what that word means? I love it: rummages. Now you, you're a woman, I'm a woman, we know what that means, don't we? Those marvelous rummage sales that we have. Aren't they marvelous?

You get in there and there's something in a woman that just loves to rummage. I don't need to go to a sale, I just do it at home. We all know what the word to rummage means. And that's the essence of this word: the Spirit rummages, searches out, makes sure he knows what is there in this million things there are to know.

He searches and he rummages until he thoroughly understands what's in the sale, if you like, even the deep things of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except a man's spirit within him? Nobody really knows you, nobody really knows me but me. Nobody really knows you but you. In the end, whoever you're married to, whatever children are close to you, in the end, only your own spirit knows you, right?

Well, in the same way, no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God because the Spirit of God is in God and he thoroughly knows God. And we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words.

Guest (Male): Now let's chat with Jill about some important points to take away from today's message. Jill, you mentioned today that the idea of the Spirit to the average church is so vague that it's almost non-existent. How can we remedy that?

Jill Briscoe: Well it is hard because the Trinity is inexplicable to anyone, even to ourselves. And the problem is we have something to compare a father to. We figure the fatherhood of God is somewhere within our reach to grasp a slice of it or a piece of it. We know what a son is and so the life of Jesus is compared to something that's very familiar. But what is a spirit?

And there, you can't see a spirit, you can see the manifestation of all sorts of spirits, but the confusion comes there of what do you mean Holy Spirit? And so it is vague to our minds and our minds are already fed with movies and all sorts of weird stuff where spirit and spirits are concerned. But the Bible simply says basically that Jesus said, when I go to heaven, I'm going to send my Holy Spirit, my other self, the Son without the physical body, if you wish, all of God.

And that's the part of God, if you wish, that he offers to the human race so that he can be in all his allness in each one of us. And I think you need to be in a good situation with someone and not just throw a phrase out about the Holy Spirit, but to try and get a friendship going and a talk going with people that really want to know about the Holy Spirit outside of Christ so that you can do more than just make one statement about the Holy Spirit is God and you can think of some ways to explain it to them.

The Holy Spirit is an always present truth. That’s what we need to know. And his comfort, Christ in us, is both a strength, inspiration, and empowerment. He is all we need. When we are insufficient, he is all-sufficient. And we can hang our weakness on his strength. We can be Jesus suited in clothes. That’s all to do with the Holy Spirit.

Guest (Male): Thanks for being with us today here on Telling the Truth. We pray today’s message encouraged you and helped you experience life in Christ. So many people read their Bible, go to church, serve on mission trips, and go through the motions, yet still struggle to find God.

Jill Briscoe has a surprising and deeply encouraging answer to this dilemma, which she shares in her three-message series titled Finding God. In this inspiring series, you’ll discover how you can stop spending so much energy on finding God and let Him find you. By slowing down and putting yourself deliberately in His presence, you’ll recognize that He’s already there waiting for you.

You’ll be uplifted as Jill explains how God worked in the lives of men and women in the Old Testament and how He works in your life too, even when you don’t see Him and feel His presence. The Finding God series is our thanks for your gift today to help more people experience life through the teaching and resources of Telling the Truth.

So request your copy when you give today. 1-800-889-5388. That’s 1-800-889-5388, or you can give online at tellingthetruth.org. Join us tomorrow as Jill Briscoe finishes up her message, The Fire that Ignites Our Faith, about how the Holy Spirit can empower your faith when it feels like you’re running on empty. Experience Life Tuesday on Telling the Truth.