Transformed... | Let Grace Be Grace

So we continue our Lent sermon series, Let Grace Be Grace, where we're looking at Jim

Osterhaus's book that kind of turns the idea of tulip, which is from the Canons of Dort,

our kind of reformed understanding of grace.

He uses an acronym faith, and we've already made it now to the T, which is the transformation

of the Holy Spirit.

And I'm going to start by reading from John 16, but let me set a context.

So this is in a couple weeks, we're going to celebrate Monday, Thursday, my favorite

service of the year.

And that is a service all about the Last Supper.

It's all about Jesus putting on a meal for his disciples, pretty much the culmination

of all of the things that he was saying about that he was going to be put to death.

Though we see multiple times the disciples don't really understand what it is, but here

we have a lot of things going on.

You have Judas getting set to betray him, Peter getting set to reject him, the disciples

getting set to desert him, all of these things he knows, but he feeds them, he washes their

feet.

And so he has, in the book of John, it's very elongated, it's the high priestly prayer.

There's multiple chapters of what is happening.

But we get to this section in John 16, so set the stage, you're disciples, I'm a disciple,

and Jesus has been talking about all of these kind of futuristic things, being one with

the Father.

Many times in John, Jesus talks about that, that me and the Father are one, all of those

things.

But then he says this, so as disciples, I want us to receive this like we were one of

the disciples.

We just had a nice meal, we just ate and drank our fill, but then Jesus starts talking about

all of these kind of futuristic things, and he says this, I did not say these things to

you from the beginning because I was with you, but now I'm going to him who sent me

and none of you asks me, where are you going?

But because I have said these things to you, sorrow has filled your heart.

Nevertheless, I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away.

For if I do not go away, the helper will not come to you, but if I go, I will send him

to you.

And when he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment,

concerning sin because they do not believe in me, concerning righteousness because I

will go to the Father and you will see me no longer, concerning judgment because the

ruler of this world is judged.

I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.

When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all truth, for he will not speak

on his own authority, but whatever he hears, he will speak and he will declare to you the

things that are to come.

He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

All that the Father has is mine.

Therefore, I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you.

So now the conversation turns from being about Jesus doing a thing to somebody else.

So a couple of people, you are a disciple, you are hearing these things from Jesus, what

is a reaction you might have?

And if you are new to the church, I ask questions and I love to have a dialogue.

Confused, absolutely.

Others.

How is it better, Jack give Ms. Nikki a high five, how is it better if he, Jesus, leaves?

I love that.

I didn't even think that way.

That's a great one.

Confused is good too.

Others.

Is he going to come back?

Absolutely.

Yeah, so wait, you're leaving, but then you're going to, but you've said stuff about like,

okay, now the confusion is really, anybody?

Take us with you.

Man, these are good.

Any others?

Where is he going?

Absolutely.

There's one word here that really should, if you are a disciple and you're being spoken

to in Aramaic, if there's a word that would be after he's done, there's one word that

would have stuck out and it was the helper translated in the ESV, also known as in the

Greek, the parakeletos, okay, the advocate.

So we have a couple definitions of that.

So as a noun, a person who publicly supports or recommends a particular case or policy,

he was an untiring advocate of economic reform.

What I love, similar or synonyms, champion, upholder, supporter, backer, promoter, okay,

and then as a verb, publicly recommend or support.

They advocate an ethical foreign policy.

Don't forget, don't worry about any of those actual definitions.

That's from Google.

But understand, the parakeletos, the advocate, is a very special word.

It is describing the person of the Holy Spirit.

So let me ask right out, when is the last time you guys thought about the Holy Spirit?

You don't really, let that one just be rhetorical because it's a weird question.

I get it.

Because I don't know how many times I actually think about it.

For a lot of us, we like to go to God because we're like, why go to the Spirit when I can

just go to God?

Okay, well then I'm just going to pray to Jesus.

The Spirit, that's weird.

All right.

The reason why I'm doing that annoying sound is because we like to parse and parcel this

Trinity thing and we can't.

And there are so many definitions, there are so many illustrations that we try to use that

are all, for the most part, pretty bad because God is three persons, right?

God, Son, Spirit.

And if you look at it in the Advent and if you look at it in the journey of Scripture,

we start with God, creator of all, creating and establishing order, establishing a people.

We see Christ coming as the Redeemer.

But a question has to be begged.

So we have redemption.

Fantastic.

Love it.

Go into heaven.

Heaven bound.

But we're not there yet.

We look around for two seconds and we know in the world that we live in, it is not heaven.

That if this is heaven, I don't want to go there.

If what we have on earth is heaven, I don't want to go here.

Or you go back to, what is that movie with Kevin Costner in the Field of Dreams, the

guy, is this heaven?

He says, no, it's Iowa.

If heaven's like Iowa, I don't want to go there either.

But understand that there's this understanding that as we're still on earth, something changes

and if Jesus is gone, if Jesus is back up with the Father, knowing he's going to come

again, that's the book of Revelation in the fall, how are we supposed to do this life?

We do this life because of the Holy Spirit.

We do this life because the Holy Spirit is the one at work.

Whether using him as a verb or a noun, it's all good things that sound pretty good.

That he's going to promote, he's going to advocate, he's going to walk alongside, he's

going to back us.

As we said with Cam's profession, of Cam's own volition, he would not come up and do

this.

He would not go meet with the elders.

Nobody would.

Without the work of the Holy Spirit, nobody would join a church.

No one would probably become a pastor or an elder or a deacon.

No one would work in a life of Christ without the Holy Spirit.

Why?

Because Jesus says that.

I have to go to the Father so the Spirit can come.

Just for a cup of coffee, now I'm going to put lunch on this, and if you're an elder

or deacon, you can't answer because we talked about this on Monday at our meeting.

What is the biggest kind of initial thing the Holy Spirit does?

Huh?

Faith?

It's good, that's not the right answer.

He fixes our sin.

Convicts us of sin, that's a point that I have Larry, but you still don't get lunch

because that's not the right answer.

Huh?

Well, that's easy because that's the name of the sermon.

Cole, you don't get lunch either.

What is the first thing the Holy Spirit comes and does?

Seals us in baptism.

Todd, get ready to give her a high five, then pull it back because it's the wrong answer.

I have office hours for now, the conflict I just started in your marriage.

Max?

Nope.

What's the first thing the Holy Spirit does?

No.

All of these are true, but it's not the answer.

Go to the book of Acts.

What is the first thing the Holy Spirit does?

Okay, we got to go to the book of Acts.

I'm going to, okay, we got to bump that sermon series up.

He starts the church, right?

The Holy Spirit comes down in the day of Pentecost and he starts the church.

Notice that Jesus leaves, the Holy Spirit comes because like I said to Cam, it's time

to get to work.

This is not a works righteousness, this is post redemption, now the Holy Spirit comes.

How is the Holy Spirit going to do that?

What we're going to walk through is now that the atonement is completed, we talked about

that last week, the Holy Spirit is now coming to transform.

Again, all of your answers were right, they just were not lunch worthy.

Understanding that the Holy Spirit has come to do a job until such time as Jesus comes

back.

We are in that time.

None of us know how long, I'm millennial, pre-millennial, post-millennial.

As I've said in the beginning, I will continue to say, I'm a pan-millennialist.

All will pan out in the end.

Understanding that when Jesus comes back, the fulfillment of everything Jesus says is

going to come to be, but the Holy Spirit has a job to do.

So we're going to walk through what in the world does the Holy Spirit does, or what does

the Holy Spirit do?

First, the Holy Spirit transforms and enables.

First Corinthians, the natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God,

for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually

discerned.

So the life of a believer, so we're going to use Hope and Cam as these examples, as

the two new believers in the church, that the Holy Spirit is transforming them and enabling

them of the ways of the Spirit.

Prior to this, and this is where you talk to spiritualists, you talk to, you know, Scientologists,

you talk to transmeditationalists, all of these world religions and cults, they think

that they understand the things of the Spirit.

They don't.

You cannot understand the Spirit until you acknowledge Jesus as Lord in your life, because

you may be discerning a spirit, but it's not the Holy Spirit, it's not the paracletos,

it's not the advocate, it's something else, probably evil, probably a demon.

So understanding that when we have the Spirit at work in our lives, he's transforming us,

he's enabling us to think of things of the Spirit.

And the one area that we get this so wrong as believers, our battle is not against flesh

and blood, yet we love to make our battles against flesh and blood.

We love to hate people, we love to judge people, we love to lie, we love to hurt, we love to

do all of those things, but no one can say, the Holy Spirit is calling me to lie about

this person.

Eh.

That's not how it works.

That's you and your depravity and the Spirit at war, which is something we will continue

to do until we get to heaven.

But what does the Holy Spirit enable us to do?

To understand spiritual things, which help us live in harmony with the Spirit.

So if there's someone in your life you have not forgiven, and you are harboring hurt or

negative feelings towards, you are not walking in line with the Spirit, because the Spirit

has already called that out, you just aren't doing it.

That we are, the Holy Spirit enables us through conviction, correction, calling, and care.

How can you say you care for someone if you're going to harbor negative feelings about them?

How are you going to say you truly love them when their back is turned, you start all sorts

of drama?

You are not walking in line with the Spirit.

You may say Jesus is Lord, you may live the life of a believer in your heart, but your

outward fruit is pretty tainted, pretty poisonous.

So what else does the Spirit do?

The Spirit transforms and replaces Ezekiel 36, and I will give you a new heart and a

new spirit I will put within you.

I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.

He opens our hearts to receive the things of God.

He removes our spiritual blindness and he gives us the gift of faith.

There was one of the first things one of you said.

The greatest thing that the Spirit gives us is faith.

Faith to believe God knows what he is doing.

Faith to understand that when we look out in the chaos of the world or when life just

doesn't go our way that Jesus is still on the throne.

Without the Spirit, how many of us would give Jesus a second chance?

None of us.

Because Jesus doesn't work the way we want him to work.

Because Jesus is not the genie from Aladdin.

It's not three wishes.

That if we confess that Jesus is Lord and we live that out, then we are doing our best

to replace the things of the flesh, the things that are of stone.

And we lean in to true faith.

Well you may be asking, what in the world is true faith?

I've never thought about faith that way.

For a lot of us, we think faith is coming out of us.

It's not.

It is something given to us by the Holy Spirit, the Heideberg Catechism, Lord's Day 7, question

answer 21, helps us with this.

What is true faith?

And I love the response.

True faith is not only a sure knowledge by which I hold as true all that God has revealed

to us in the scriptures, so it is a knowledge that faith is the understanding.

You have to have understanding to confess Jesus is Lord, to believe that God raised

him from the dead.

Nobody comes out of the womb understanding that.

No one just kind of comes at it on their own.

The Holy Spirit does the work.

And to me, that helps me understand depravity.

That helps me understand how bad and evil I actually am.

That given in of myself, we would want nothing to do with this.

Because let's face it, sinning is much more fun.

Now, I'm not sure where you stand on the whole murder issue.

And I'd hopefully, like in our depravity, like, man, I really wish I could murder people.

Maybe some of us have thought that in our minds.

And I go there because that's kind of more the extreme example.

But I mean, it goes back to the Ten Commandments.

It's not rocket science that we are called to live moral lives because God has defined

us that way.

If you love God, you will not have any other gods.

You will keep the Sabbath day holy.

You will not take the name of the Lord your God in vain.

You will not create an idol for yourself.

That's how we love God.

Where do we get that from?

The Ten Commandments.

And then we love people.

And those are those six, right?

We won't lie.

We won't murder.

We won't cheat.

We won't desire things that aren't ours.

That is how we can love people.

That is the spirit at work in us.

Because hear this.

If the spirit didn't come, if there was no advocate, we would all be in jail.

Because whether spiritually or physically, I know physically I would be.

And under, I just admitted that from the pulpit.

I apologize.

But understand, I'm sure a bunch of you would be in the cell right next to me.

Because that's ultimately depravity.

That is ultimately the evil that is in the world.

So not only is it a true and sure knowledge, it is a wholehearted trust, which the Holy

Spirit creates in me by the gospel that God has freely granted.

Not only to others, but also to me.

Forgiveness of sin, eternal righteousness, and salvation.

These are gifts of sheer grace granted solely by Christ's merit.

How do you apply the atonement of Christ that we talked about last week to our lives?

It's this.

That the Holy Spirit gives us true faith.

I'm going to pause.

What about us that have been burned by people of faith?

What about us, people that maybe have been burned by the church, by leadership, by all

of these things?

That's a reality in our church today.

Part of the reason why is because we have too many in my opinion.

Look at just the Ileana area.

Inundated.

Inundated with churches.

Hundred years ago, less churches, but they all kind of said the same thing.

You could probably go to any Reformed church on Ridge Road or down I-65 and you probably

would hear the same thing.

We call that Christendom.

Everybody was pretty much given the same message.

The church still held authority and that there was an attractional nature to the church.

Not attractional and smoke machines and all of that, but that people all went to church

on Sunday.

You still go to pockets of kind of the middle of nowhere and it's like that.

A professor of mine, actually my advisor in seminary, Dave Fitch, wrote a lot about this

and it's fascinating.

But over the years, what Dave would say is that we lost sight of what true faith is.

Because now you go to a bunch of churches on Ridge Road, you're not going to hear the

same thing.

You're going to go down I-65, you're not going to hear the same thing.

That we have been inundated with worldlyism that has changed the way this book is read.

The main charge that I have by your elders overseeing me is to preach what is in this

book.

Herm, when you were here, was that charge the same?

To preach what's in this book.

This is Herm Scott, two pastors ago.

His picture's there, but you can meet him in person here after service.

Good guy.

He was the same thing.

We don't change this to make us feel good.

Because guess what?

When we do that, the Holy Spirit's going to convict us.

He's going to throw those roadblocks up and say, no, no, no, no, no.

You're making it about yourself.

And Christianity has never been about you.

It's been about God's love for you.

And for us to receive that love and then show that love to the world.

R.C.

Sprouls, a great reformer of the faith who passed away a couple years ago, writes this

in his book, Grace Unknown.

Once we grasp the doctrine of total depravity, humanity's total fall, we know that human

beings will not incline themselves to faith in the intoning work of Christ.

If God does not supply the means of appropriating the atonement's benefits, namely faith, then

the potential redemption of all would result in the actual redemption of none.

I found that so, leave that up.

I found that so powerful, that last part.

If God does not supply a means of giving us the understanding of Christ's atonement,

which is faith, there's some other things, but as R.C. says, it's namely faith, then

the potential redemption of the world's the result in the actual redemption of no one.

Friends, because that's how evil we are.

I don't like saying that from the pulpit, but it's true, and I'm looking at myself

in the mirror first.

Friends, deep inside all of us is evil.

It's called depravity.

It's a bent against God.

Now, whether you choose to walk in that actively or not, that's a different story, but understand

that that is inherent in all of us.

The one thing we have in common, we're all sinners.

Again, this is a PSA.

If you are perfect, you do not need to come here, because you're not amongst perfect people.

What I love about Munster Church is that it's an imperfect church looking at a perfect God

trying to do our best to live like him, but like Easton said in the liturgy, we all fall

short.

That's why we need grace.

Hopefully it's starting to come full circle.

So, you, me, where does the change happen?

The regeneration starts where?

In the heart.

The regeneration of the spirit, and I'm not sure, Cam, I'm going to use you as an example

because I can.

I'm not sure.

When Cam and I met for Chipotle, we talked about it.

I don't know if he can put on a calendar, ooh, the regeneration started at 1147 or that

day, but something happened in Cam that was not the work of Cam, but it was the work of

the Holy Spirit.

Last week with Hope, that something changed in her heart, in her life because of the examples

of her siblings and her parents, of her church, that all of a sudden she goes to her mom and

dad and says something's now different.

Friends, none of us are good enough to make up that feeling.

None of us will get there ever on our own.

And what I love is they leaned into it.

They were supported to come to the elders, to make profession.

Some people say, well, if they don't come before the elders, does that mean they're

not saved?

No.

That is the work of the Holy Spirit.

The processing, if you will, of a profession is to bring about membership in our church.

That is our church order.

That is the Reformed theology that we lean into, and it's beautiful.

If you look at it more as logistical and kind of a pain in the neck, check your heart because

it's a beautiful thing.

Other denominations do it in a different way, though it ends the same way.

Do you believe in your heart?

Do you confess your sins and do you believe in your heart that God raised you from the

dead?

Then you shall be saved.

That is how it works.

It starts in the heart.

Yet for some of us, we fight it.

I believe in God, but I want to live by myself.

I want to live by my means.

Friends, that's not how it works because what is your means?

Your means are sin, and what are the wages of sin?

The wages of sin is, ooh, is that what we want for our life?

I want death all over my life.

No.

What Jesus has come is to give us life, give us life to the fullest.

But maybe God, Jesus, Spirit, sounds good on some days, but not every day.

And why?

Because we love to hold the cards of hate and selfishness, revenge, and judgment.

But friends, the Spirit shows a better way.

The transformation of the Holy Spirit is a better way, always.

Remember in the beginning, Jesus says he had more to tell the disciples at the Last Supper,

but he knew we couldn't handle it.

I don't know if you've ever thought about that part of John.

I always skip over that part.

This week I leaned into it, that Jesus had more to give us, but we weren't ready for

it.

Why weren't we ready for that?

Because the work wasn't done yet.

Jesus still had to go through the Garden of Gethsemane.

He still had to go through the courts of Herod and Pilate.

He still had to go through the Pharisees and the Sadducees.

He still had to go through the flogging and the mocking.

He still had to go through the crucifixion.

He still had to go through death itself, buried in the tomb of Joseph of Arimathea, to then

conquer death three days later.

See there's a process to this, and it's done solely for you and for me.

Think about that.

Jesus could have been any time, and I've said this before, after the first flog, after the

first whip, he could have been like, I'm out.

This is not worth it.

God, you said, or Father, you said you're not going to do this again by flood.

Do it by fire.

And just go, and he went back to the ranch.

He could have.

Spoiler alert, that's coming.

It's the book of Revelation in the fall.

But understand he didn't, because there was work that needed to be done, work that you

and I could not, cannot, will not ever be able to accomplish.

Hence why we get grace.

Because the work has been done, sin has been defeated, the spirit, our advocate, walks

with us, points out where we fall, when we fall, lifts our confessions to God, and lifts

us to our feet.

The spirit is the one that dusts us off.

Why?

So that we can be advocates for the lost.

That's the power of testimony.

When and where have you been lost?

That we can tell our redemptive story, we can't tell it without talking about Jesus.

Our life pre-crossed through the cross and now should be different.

So we can advocate for the lost, so we can shine a little light to wayward ships.

We've been transformed so we can show others not in a prideful way, but in a way of grace.

So as I close, a couple questions to wreck your week in mine.

Who do you need to show grace to today?

Your spouse, your kids, a family member, maybe your boss.

Maybe those who are marginalized in your eyes.

Maybe those who you hate.

Maybe you need to show grace to yourself.

But it's hard because we like to insert whatever depraved thought you have.

Would you rather live, what would you rather have in your life?

The transforming grace and forgiveness of Christ or your control to do what you want?

In church it's easy to say, oh we'll take the grace all day, transformation, sign me

up.

But do you really want that?

Do I really want that?

Because when someone who is transformed by grace and transformed to recognize Jesus as

Lord, the first thing Christ calls us to do is die to ourself.

Die to our emotions, not saying you can't have them.

Dying to our desires, not saying that they won't come to pass.

Dying to our agenda, absolutely.

Dying to our hurt and our pain, our grudges, our pound of flesh, absolutely we've got to

give those up.

Because how in the world can you extend the grace of the spirit if you're holding on to

a pound of flesh that actually doesn't exist?

It can be scary because we have to give up what we hold dear, our name, our possessions,

our power.

But what we don't realize is we don't actually hold those.

They shackle us.

That when we give into that sin, sin's not like hey, way to go, let's have a relationship.

No, sin says I want you all and I want to shackle you down to live my way.

Because that sin becomes God's in our life.

That's worldly transformation, worldly cancellation if you will.

We need the Holy Spirit to use us to drop our desire for what we want, but to hold dear

to Christ and then to the world.

And here's the kicker.

The whole transformation that is happening, the whole work of the Holy Spirit is showing

us one giant aspect of your and my, the person over there, the person over there, relationship

with God.

That all the while this is happening, we are being held by a God who loves us dearly.

More on that next week.