The Spirit of Truth

Well, as Keith said, my name is Mark Lacour.

I've been pastor for a while, the saints of Grace Bible Fellowships and their love with us to you.

So we are blessed to know y'all, to know that God's always expanding his kingdom and adding more to those precious saints that he's bought with a price.

If you have your Bibles, we're going to be in John chapter 16.

John 16 · chapter mention

We're going to be looking at verses 12 through 15.

And this section here from John 14 to John 17 is what's called the farewell discourse of Jesus.

This is when he's with his disciples.

He's in the upper room having the Passover meal, but also it's called the Last Supper with His disciples.

And he's going over many different themes in that time.

One of them is he's trying to prepare his disciples for his departure.

Another is that he needs to prepare them, that they're going to treat you guys like they treated me for the persecution that's coming.

Chapter 17, John records his what's called the high priestly prayer, where he prays to his heavenly father at the end.

But our text in John 16, verse 12, that runs through 15, he says, I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.

John 16:12

But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own initiative.

But whatever he hears, he will speak, and he will disclose to you what is to come.

He shall glorify me, for he shall take of mine and shall disclose it to you.

All things that the Father has are mine.

Therefore I said that he takes of mine and will disclose it to you.

Let's pray.

Let's ask the Lord to bless his word and bless our ears to be able to hear what he has written, and so that we can be edified and we can grow accordingly.

Father, we thank you for this time.

Father, as we gather in your presence before your great throne of grace, that you bid us to come and to receive mercy and help in time of need.

And Father, it seems our time of need is always 24-7.

So, Father, we thank you that it's not a throne of judgment, like it will be for many, but it's a throne of grace that you dispense your compassion, your benevolence, even your pity, and your tender mercies towards your children.

But we're mindful, Father, it's called a throne of grace.

It's not some park bench of grace or some sort of pup tent of grace, but it's a throne of grace where you sit, you rule, you reign.

It's your grace, and you dispense it as you see fit.

And we're mindful, Father, whether we have a thorn in the flesh, like it says in 2 Corinthians 12, or we're sitting on easy street.

The answer is always the same.

My grace is sufficient for you.

For powers perfected in weakness.

And we thank you, Father, that we are mindful, Lord, as you have schooled us, educated us in your ways, the things that you like, the things that you don't like.

And you have caused us to mature, to be conformed to the image of your son, to think the thoughts that he thinks, speak the words that he speaks, perform the actions and deeds, and have the motives that he had and did.

Father, we bless you now.

Bless your word, bless this time as we look into it.

Change us, Father.

Have us, Father, to leave this place different than when we came in.

As your word is more powerful than any two-edged sword, as it pierces to the division of soul and spirit.

Would you send your Holy Spirit who crafted this work and do just that with our inner man, cause us to change.

For it's in Christ's great name we pray.

Amen.

There was a Swedish filmmaker back in the 60s, he got an award for one of the films he did called The Silence.

His name was Ingmar Bergman.

And he wasn't some great like Steven Spielberg kind of thing, but he was more back then you had philosophers who would make films, not just write treatise on philosophy.

And one of the films he made was The Silence.

It was part of a trilogy.

But the way he got the idea for this movie called The Silence is that one time he was daydreaming, had a vision, he said, had a dream or whatever it was, and he was, as he words it, he was listening to Stravinsky, and he had this vision of this big cathedral, 19th century, 1800s.

And in there he found himself wandering among the cathedral, and he came to this picture of Christ on the wall.

And he knew it was important, so he went up to the picture and he says, Speak to me.

And in the vision, the picture never speaks to him.

And so when he comes out of his trance or dream or whatever he was having, he writes the movie The Silence.

And in his atheistic mindset, he believes God doesn't speak anymore.

Francis Schaefer back in the day, where I kind of cut my teeth on apologetics and things of this sort to kind of get me grounded in the faith, he had a book called He Is There and He Is Not Silent.

We serve a God who speaks.

And so we sort of import that on our picture of God and we think, okay, so if I have this, that, or whatever, then that's God talking to me or whatnot.

But here, you've got to remember something.

Jesus is telling these disciples something that's very, very important to him.

Now, when you study your Bible, one of the one of the best little things to do when you're studying a section of scripture like verse um 12 through 15 here is take it out and try and read from verse 11 and jump to verse 16 and see what you miss.

And as you read, you go, okay, well, he just kind of changed horses in midstream here.

Now he's gone, okay, why is this in here?

What's he trying to say by this?

What's he trying to drive home?

Now we we started in verse 12, but if you really go back into a little bit more of the uh earlier section of chapter 16, where he says in verse 4, but these things I have spoken to you that when their hour comes, you may remember that I told you of them.

And these things I did not say to you at the beginning because I was with you.

There's a lot of things Jesus didn't say to the disciples because Jesus was with them.

There's a lot of things Jesus experienced with his disciples that he shielded the disciples from.

When they persecuted Jesus and his band, they persecuted Jesus more so than the disciples.

Well, times are a fixing to change because Jesus is going to depart and go to the Father.

And now it's going to seem like, well, what do we do here?

We don't have Jesus anymore.

How do we find our way?

Well, this is why we have verse 12 through 15.

He says, I'm not going to leave you without a helper.

And it's interesting you see the parallel.

When Jesus, especially in the book of John, you can read in John 8, you can read it in other places like John 10, when he's talking to the Jews and he's conversing with them on you know different subjects or whatever, he always talks about, you know, I and the Father were one.

I don't speak unless I hear the Father.

This is from the Father, this is his words.

I don't do anything on my own initiative but the Father.

So you see this tandem kind of thing where you have a like an engine in the in the trailer of the 18-wheeler.

One's pulling the other.

And Jesus doesn't do anything apart from the Father.

And he doesn't initiate anything on his own but what the Father initiates.

Now, why is that important?

Because now it's going to get duplicated now with the Son and the Spirit.

The Spirit isn't going to do anything unless the Son gives this to him to speak.

The Spirit doesn't have anything out of his own that he's just going to bring out of his heart.

Now remember, all three persons of the Trinity are God, part of the Godhead.

But there are three persons of the Trinity.

Each have their distinct roles in the Godhead.

Think of it like a business, and trying to explain the Trinity is going to be way beyond my pay grade here.

But it's like you have the CEO, the Father, right?

Chief Executive Officer.

When the Holy Spirit fills you and you're regenerated and you're born again, and you're converted and you become a Christian.

Romans 8 says, when you pray, you're going to talk to the CEO.

Abba, Father.

You're going to cry Abba to him.

And you're going to pray to him in such family language, that's a mark of the Holy Spirit in a person's inner hand.

No, you're not going to.

What's that nickname, Donnie?

I can tell you this, nobody in our church calls him that.

We call him Donnie.

If we started calling him by that name, that she calls him by, he looked at me and goes, You don't get to do that.

That's not your privilege.

That's her privilege.

Because of her relationship to him.

Well, it's the same thing with us.

We cry Abba Father because of what Christ has accomplished, who's the CFO of the corporation, chief financial officer.

Because the only currency that any matters at all in the kingdom of heaven isn't going to be money, it's going to be blood.

That's why you sacrifice animals and things of this sort.

Now, the blood of his son, as we sang, is the currency.

You're here today.

Because the CEO predestined all these things, as it says in Ephesians chapter 1, but somebody had to pay the price.

Ephesians 1 · chapter mention

Somebody had to pay the cost for this.

You got a ticket and you got to show up in court.

You might have the best lawyer in the world.

But when the judge says, Here, here's the fine, it's going to be$100, and you don't have the money to pay, someone's got to step up to the bar and pay that bill.

And there's Christ, the second person of the Trinity.

Now remember, God's spirit.

So one of the members in the economic trinity has to come down here and take on flesh in order to pay the bill that you incurred.

And so that's what he does.

Now the spirit, which is what our text is dealing with, which is what Christ is driving home with the disciples, is to see, oh, what's that?

Chief operating officer.

You're here today because of the work of the Holy Spirit.

There's no other reason why you'll be here.

We know you've come from God.

We've seen some signs.

And Jesus comes in and says, You don't know squat.

You got to be born again to actually see the kingdom of heaven.

Born again.

Well, he doesn't quite understand the metaphor.

And he says, No, I'm talking about going back into your mom's womb.

I'm talking about the spirit has got to be able to do what?

And it's going to regenerate you, cause you to be born again in the inner man.

And if you're not born again in the inner man, you're not a Christian.

So when he talks about the spirit here, when he says, I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.

Cannot bear them now.

Now, why can't they bear them?

Well, for one, as he's going to say, is the spirit hadn't been given.

He says that in John chapter 7.

John 7 · chapter mention

The spirit hadn't been given because the sun is on the front stage.

But the thing, none of the reason why they can't bear them, it's not because of their grief and their immaturity, and because many times when people are in this kind of state of mind, they can't listen to what you really need to tell them.

Jesus sees us, he recognizes that just not there.

It's like you trying to tell your little granddaughter or grandson something about, you know, I don't know, calculus.

It just isn't going to register.

It's going over the head.

You got to put the cookies on the bottom shelf if they're going to eat anything.

And so Jesus realizes that you can't, I'm going to tell you the truth, guys, you can't bear this now.

But the real kicker in all this, the biggest one on why they can't uh bear these things, as he would say, is because of what he says earlier is that I haven't gone to the cross, I haven't risen from the dead.

These things have to take place first.

But he's prepping his men toward this kind of end.

You know, he says, for example, in verse 5 of chapter 16, he says, But now I am going to him who sent me, and none of you ask me, Where are you going?

Now, in reality, they did ask him that question in chapter 13.

You can see it in verse 36.

Simon Peter said to him, Lord, where are you going?

Jesus answered, Where I go, you cannot follow me now, but you shall follow later.

Philip's going to say something similar in chapter 14, verse 5.

Thomas said to him, Lord, we do not know where you're going.

How do we know the way?

Now Jesus comes in, kind of contradicts that, and basically comes in and says in verse 5, what does he say?

He says, But now I'm going to him who sent me, and none of you ask, Where are you going?

Now, it's not because Jesus contradicted anything that they're saying.

It's kind of like the same kind of illustration that you'd have with a child whose father has promised them that, okay, now tomorrow we're going to the park.

We're going to do this and that, and we're going to have fun and all this.

And all of a sudden, the last minute, work calls up, and he's got an emergency and he has to go, and the kids come in and they kind of whine, where are you going?

Not, they're not really interested in where he's going.

They're just fatigued and upset that he's going, he's departing.

Jesus knows that.

But Jesus also kind of sharpens the pencil here and says, none of you really ask where I'm going?

What's going to take place?

Why this is so important?

And you see two basic ministries of the Holy Spirit here.

The first one, as he launches into in chapter 16, he says, It's to your advantage, first of all, that I go away.

Your advantage if I go away.

To process that.

But he says, it's to your advantage that I go away.

He says, first of all, I mean, you get need to understand this.

I'm going to send you a helper, a paraclete, a comforter, a come alongside like a lawyer, an advocate.

And the great thing about the spirit, as you don't have with the son, is the sun's localized and in one specific body, Jesus Christ, and he's with you.

But the spirit, the helper, and this is why it's to your advantage, he's going to be in you.

And you think, just think back on the history of God's presence with his people.

God has a people back in the old covenant, right?

And this, the Israelites.

And God, you know, at first he's on Mount Sinai, and the, I mean, it's fire, smoke, and everything.

No one can touch the mountain.

Anyone does, they die, you know, a painful death because of it.

So here it's God.

He's getting close to his people.

But they're not going to be able to get closer to him because he's on this mountain.

And so he gives them instructions to build a tabernacle, to build basically a tent that God's going to tabernacle with his people.

And you can see it.

There's the construction in the book of Exodus and how it's supposed to be moved.

And this part of the tribe of Levi is supposed to carry, they're the teamsters, they carry things.

And then you got this other part over here.

No, no, no, they don't carry anything, but they're the guys who tear down things.

Now, when you know the Holy of Holies, only these people can.

And you had all these different groups, workers and things, who did things with God's tent, and they would they would move and then they would construct it and they would tear it down, they would move and construct it.

But the thing is, God's with his people, and he would set up his home, and then all the other tribes would be around God.

So God is moving to get closer to his people.

And then when Christ comes, John 1 says, you know, he, you know, we we beheld him, God in the flesh.

And it says he dwelt among us.

Now that word dwelt is the same word for tabernacle.

So God's taking his tabernacle now that's out there, and you basically got this, do not disturb, do not get close, whatever, you're gonna die if you try to get into the holy place.

And you had people who were from the tribe of Levi that protected the holy place, you know, from even from other fellow Israelites.

So basically, what you had, you had God getting closer, but you also had this hands-off approach that God had with the rest of the people.

But not when Jesus came.

Also, when Jesus comes, he's a tabernacle, right?

And he's now closer to the people.

He's walking among them, and people are touching him.

Some people are touching him and getting healed.

Now, you don't do that with tabernacles, but yet here's God in the Son, and He's closer, getting closer with His people.

And to highlight the great work of what Jesus Christ accomplished on the cross.

God says, I'm gonna get my tabernacle a little bit closer to my people.

Okay, how are you getting closer?

I'm gonna indwell them.

I'm gonna send my spirit, and there he's gonna inhabit them.

I'm gonna give my Holy Spirit as a down payment for their inheritance of what they have in heaven that's coming.

And so when Jesus gets into this little section here, you can see how, put yourself in their shoes.

You can see how this is gonna comfort them.

Because he says, I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.

But when he, the spirit of truth comes, now let that settle in.

Because here's the main point of this sermon I'm driving home.

Okay, so you can see the point of this passage here.

We are people of the truth.

Now, in our culture, they use this little phrase, well, that's not my truth.

Well, that's not his truth.

Well, my truth is this, or your truth is that.

There's no such thing.

You don't get to do that with mathematics.

Well, my two plus two doesn't equal four.

Really?

Well, you're not doing my checkbook, I can tell you that.

And you're good luck being a CPA.

No, those numbers are gonna stay in play because they reflect reality.

You don't get to change reality.

I know the culture thinks that.

You can change genders, you can change all these kinds of things they think is changeable.

But the Bible has a word for that in 2 Timothy.

People who have a hardened heart eventually begin to lose their senses.

If you start losing the reality of God, you start losing your grip on reality, period.

That's why it shouldn't shock you when all of a sudden people just kind of go off the deep end.

That's part of the judgment of God.

You're going off the deep end.

You're losing the ability just to keep the car on the road, let alone win NASCAR.

Forget NASCAR, we're just trying to keep it from getting into the ditch.

And they can't process information like that anymore.

But when the spirit of truth comes, truth, now think about this.

He's going to continue the revelation of who Jesus Christ is after Jesus leaves.

I go to my heavenly Father.

But what's before that, his the ministry of the Holy Spirit is he comes to convict the world.

And he convicts the world in three areas: sin, righteousness, and judgment.

Sin, not because they don't know what sin is.

Yeah, a lot of people know what sin is.

Yeah, the Old Testament law and the Ten Commandments and all these 612 laws tell you what sin is.

All sin is lawlessness, it says in 1 John chapter 3.

1 John 3 · chapter mention

He's not, they don't need the Spirit to tell them that.

Just look at your little three-year-old when you tell them no, you can see their conscience working.

I remember my little middle daughter Megan, we would tell her, No, don't touch that.

She'd kind of move that little arm, trying to get a little finger to try to touch that.

She knew.

Her conscience knew to say, Don't touch that.

That's wrong.

So you don't need another conscience.

What he means here is the spirit's gonna come and convict the world of its sin because it doesn't believe in Christ.

Now think about that.

If you don't start with Christ, you don't start.

He is the center point, not all of all of history, but of all of logic.

In the beginning was the word.

You know what the word that word word in the Greek means?

Lagos, logic.

You can't think straight until you become a Christian.

And I'm not bluffing here.

He's made everything according to his image.

And I can quote you all kinds of things in logic and things I've taken before and critical thinking and how I used to teach this over the years.

And some of the most basic rules of logic, the architecture of your mind, it's the same architecture of God's mind.

There's a reason why there's laws of logic, axioms that you can't prove.

You just got to start with.

Because that's how God has made the universe.

Get with the program, or you're not going to be able to get with anything.

But when that spirit of truth comes, see, and not just truth in general, but it's a truth about Christ.

Have you ever asked the question?

What's the most basic truth in Christianity?

The most basic thing you can believe in Christianity, that bar none will send you in the right direction, is a simple truth.

Now there's a lot of truths in the Bible, and they're fundamental, the primary truths.

You can't be a Christian without them, but not this truth.

This truth is the linchpin.

This is the foundation, not just the foundation, but it's the cornerstone.

It's the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ.

When Saul gets knocked off his horse in Acts 9, let me tell you what the first thing he says when he gets up, who art thou Lord?

Someone just took me, dismantled me, threw me to the ground, and blinded me.

I think I'm going to address him by his proper title.

Lord.

Until you bow a knee and recognize he's Lord of all, which means he gets to control the lexicon of the dictionary.

You don't get to define reality he gets to, and you have to process his definitions and his and his words and things of this sort.

You don't get to call yourself a Christian.

Because on the on that day, think about this.

Think about what the great judgment is at the end of time.

It's the settling up of all the little dictionaries out there.

What everybody called reality in their own little bubble.

This is what I see it as.

Well, my opinion is this.

Well, everyone's got one of those.

It's God's opinion.

It's God's definitions.

It's what God's gonna say who you are.

If He says, depart from me, wicked one I never knew you, you don't get to appeal that.

You don't get to come in and say, Well, excuse me, I'd kind of like another review of this.

There's no other review.

This is it.

And so a wise man, a wise kid, is gonna settle up on this side of the grave.

I'm gonna buy into his dictionary now.

I hear all these other people's dictionaries.

I even hear my own dictionary, but Lord, I don't want to be using my dictionary.

My opinions and you know things of this sort.

Anybody talks about their pronouns.

You know what the number one pronoun people use is the word I.

I, I, I, I, because it's all about me, right?

It's all from my perspective.

It's where I start.

It ain't gonna work that way on judgment day, is it?

It's all gonna be from his perspective.

And you're gonna hope and pray that your little dictionary lined up with his.

You can know this on this side of the grave.

And that's why he says the spirit of truth comes.

Notice, he will guide you into all the truth.

And then notice the spirit is gonna act just like Jesus was when he was down here.

It says, for he will not speak on his own initiative.

Why is that important?

Because see, you're gonna duplicate that as a disciple.

You're not gonna speak on your own initiative, you're not gonna give people your opinions.

You didn't come here to hear me.

I got nothing for you.

Really?

You want my opinion on something?

You don't even know me.

Why would you want my opinion on something?

You don't need it.

I don't even need my own opinion on me, what I'm saying.

It doesn't amount to anything.

But what I do need, and what you need, and what you need to hear, and what I need to hear, is what he's saying.

Now, if the Spirit doesn't speak on his own initiative, we shouldn't be speaking on our own initiative.

And so the things he hears, it says, whatever he hears, he will speak, hearing and speaking, sender and receiver.

That's how you communicate.

Sender and receiver.

Now, by trade, my tent-making trade is I'm a court reporter by trade.

Now, if you know anything about the legal profession, I'm not a lawyer, but I'm with lawyers all the time because I'm a court reporter.

I'm an officer of the court in charge of the record.

So if you come into a deposition and you file a lawsuit and they want to take your sworn statement under oath, yeah, you're gonna appear before me.

And you're gonna appear before me as a court reporter.

And I'm gonna put you under oath, make you swear that you're gonna do what?

You're gonna tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

And when you do that before me, and I take down what you say, and I put my little imprimat or stamp at the end of the deposition that you, when we type it all out, that you've said, Q A Q A, and I say, This is what he said, this is what the question was, and this is what the answer was.

They can take that all the way to the Supreme Court, and it's ironclad evidence.

You can't come back and say, Well, I didn't I didn't say that.

He he's just fooling, really.

So now you come and call into question me as a court reporter, and I gotta produce now the backdrop tapes and things of this sort that I recorded all this, and if you want to come check my work, so to say.

But you do that in front of a notary, which is me, because I'm just a paid witness.

I'm witnessing what you're saying and I'm putting it down.

Well, see, this is what the spirit does.

The spirit's taking what Jesus says.

Right?

Jesus is speaking, it's propositional, and he's hearing it.

And he gives it, as he says here, Jesus is saying to his disciples.

Sounds interesting, he's not saying it to everybody here.

See, you don't get revelation from God.

What you get, you get illumination from God.

We're uh we're this Bible is illuminated to us.

Paul says in Ephesians chapter 3, you know, by a revelation it was given to me.

Ephesians 3 · chapter mention

And he says in 1 Corinthians chapter 2, when he's trying to convince the Corinthians, because they're always sitting here saying, I'm I'm of Apollos and I'm of Paul and I'm of Peter.

1 Corinthians 2 · chapter mention

He says, What's that?

He says, You're party lining based upon personality, cult to personality?

Really?

God didn't work that way.

He says, Let me tell you how God does work with the wisdom he gives.

He gives it to his apostles.

And the way he does it, you can read it, 1 Corinthians chapter 2.

1 Corinthians 2 · chapter mention

He says, These things that are taught to us are taught by the Spirit.

And that and the way the Spirit teaches us, he teaches us these, he takes these spiritual thoughts and he teaches us with spiritual words.

You don't get that from the Spirit.

I don't get that from the Spirit.

They did.

So if you see a word in your Bible, like the big word justification, trust me, it was a spirit-taught word that came to the disciples.

It's called inspiration, a doctrine of inspiration.

How you got your Bible.

This Bible is spirit-originated, which means this.

If the Spirit wrote this and that same spirit is inside of you, they're a perfect match.

They're going to team up.

That's why you will never find a Christian who has the Holy Spirit inside of them, who has absolutely no interest in reading the Bible.

It's a contradiction.

The Spirit wrote this.

He moved men, as it says in 2 Peter, to write words that He controlled, governed, orchestrated so that we would get the continued revelation of the Son, because the Son sent the Spirit.

And the Spirit comes and he hears and he speaks, as it says, and he will disclose to you what is to come.

See back in chapter 14, where Jesus talks about the Spirit, he says, the Spirit will remind you of these things I've taught you.

Now it's not just reminding, it's things to come.

So now after Jesus is off the scene and the Spirit's here, the Spirit is doing what?

Think about these people are going to abandon Jesus Christ in a matter of hours.

But in a couple of months, they're going to be at Pentecost, and Peter's going to be letting these people have it.

Because you see, remember, Jesus' testimony when the Jews would always come and say, Hey, your testimony's false.

You're witnessing about yourself.

You don't have you need two people to have a true witness.

And what did Jesus say?

He would say, Well, while my witness is true.

My father is the other witness to what I'm saying.

It's his.

I'm taking what he's telling me, and I'm speaking to you.

Two people comprise a witness, a true witness, or true testimony, as we would say.

Well, now you got the Spirit on board, right?

He's out in the world, he's convicting the world of sin and righteousness, its own false righteousness and its own false judgment and discernment.

He's convicting them in all this.

How is he doing that?

He's doing that with another witness.

You.

You're that second witness.

So when Peter gets up and preaches, and they're praying for boldness, and they're testifying, the spirit that inhabits them is also in tandem with the Spirit Himself saying, that comprises a witness.

You're under condemnation for not believing in Jesus, convicting the world because of its sins.

See, it's not believing in Jesus.

Convicting the world of his righteousness, like Paul would say in Philippians chapter 3.

Philippians 3 · chapter mention

Yeah, let me tell you something.

He says, I was a Pharisee and I was the best of the best.

You couldn't compete with me.

Valedictorian, Magnicum Law from, you know, school of Gamaliel.

When it came to Phariseeism.

But when it comes to Christ, man, it's dung.

He says it's nothing.

How did it get that way?

Spirit came, knocked him off his horse.

He was on his way to persecute Christians.

Nobody else on the horses around him got that revelation.

He did.

King Jesus singled him out through the Spirit and said, No, you're going to be mine.

You're going to be mine today.

We're going to stop this train right now.

I got work for you to do.

I'm going to commission you to be an apostle.

You're going to write half the New Testament.

I mean, think of all the things he's going to do.

Through the power of the Holy Spirit, there ain't thing one you're going to do to stop me.

Now that's called a throne of grace.

That's called a sovereign Lord.

We like to think of Jesus as our Savior, and He is, but He's Lord and Savior.

Paul.

And he says, I'm a prototype on the, you know, poster child for being saved.

He says in 1 Timothy 1, I'm the worst of the worst of sinners.

And yet if God saved me, He saved me to be an example to all the rest being saved.

So you can see in that little episode of his conversion what it takes.

God comes in and he does work.

So anyway, as he goes through this, he comes and he says, He will disclose to you what is to come.

He shall glorify me.

Glorify me.

I remember one of the questions I would get many times is, and I would get it usually from my Catholic friends.

Because my whole my whole family is Catholic.

I was raised Catholic.

And then I'd always try to say, you know, something, the church put the Bible together.

Go back in church history, you'll see all these councils of Nicaea and councils of this and that.

And you can see the church with the popes and all that, they put the Bible together.

But that's not true.

This is the work of the Holy Spirit.

Men didn't put the Bible together.

The Holy Spirit moved men to write this.

Trust me, the Holy Spirit's going to move councils to say this book goes in, and the Gospel of Thomas doesn't go in.

The epistle of Barnabas doesn't go in, but this one goes in.

And while they would have discussions about this, that, and whatever, it didn't matter.

It's going to happen.

It's going to come to its fruition that you're going to have 27 books in the New Testament, and you're going to have 39 that's going to comprise the old.

That was in play already.

Why?

Because this is from the Spirit.

So the point of the message today is that this book is what you ground your Christian walk in.

You got people who give their lives to translate this book called Wycliffe Bible Translators.

They go into the unreached peoples of the world and stay among those tribes people, and they learn their speech and they try to inscriptiate it into written form so that they can study it and say, this is what God's word says.

God's going to speak to you, not like Ingmar Bergman says, through a picture on a wall.

So speak to you through the scriptures.

You ever heard the old phrase, a picture's worth a thousand words?

Everybody said, Yeah, give me the picture.

You'd be lost with the picture.

You wouldn't know where to start.

If I gave you a picture and said, tell me what the picture says, oh, tell me what it says to you.

No, that's existentialism.

That's what the culture does.

Start with you.

Let your interpretation tell you what the picture is.

Never it's going to work.

You never start with a picture.

When Moses comes down from Mount Sinai and he's holding two tablets, trust me, they're not two iPads with pictures on them.

They're words, they're propositions.

God's going to be known and worshiped through that.

The disciples don't come and write scriptures to explain it away, whatever.

They come to say, this is what God has said.

This is what it means.

We can't add to the scriptures.

We're not God.

But having those words is everything.

Think about it.

When you Romans 8 28, great passage to to uh memorize.

You know, that all things work together for good, right?

It's in words.

I gave a message not too long, and I wanted to, I was trying to reach the kids.

And I said, let me ask you something.

I said, and I have had a puzzle and I pulled the piece, all the pieces of the puzzle out.

And um I said, you notice some things about this puzzle?

I got all kinds of different pieces, right?

I said, now if you're going to put this puzzle together, how do you put the puzzle together?

I say, well, let me see.

I would kind of want to see the box top.

That would be a help.

Got a thousand-piece puzzle.

Trust me, if you don't know what the box top looks like, good luck with all the pieces of the puzzle.

And they're cut off in all kinds of different ways and shapes and things of this sort.

And I got a couple of grandkids, and they'll get there and I'll put some pieces on the table and they're trying to make the fit, and this don't fit, and that's like you're never going to make it fit.

So your life is like that puzzle.

I can tell you what the box top's gonna look like.

It says in Romans chapter 8.

Romans 8 · chapter mention

It says you're being conformed to the image of Jesus Christ.

That's the box top picture of what is going on in your life.

But that one piece, that one piece of the puzzle on that one day that you just can't understand.

Why do I got this piece?

And it's black.

You lose a loved one.

Your business goes south.

You get that diagnosis from the doctor, and you're not expecting.

And it's black.

I didn't ask for that.

I don't want that.

Why is this going on in my life, right?

Good thing we got words here and not pictures.

And he's telling you something here about your trials that you're to consider them all joy, right?

In James chapter 1?

James 1 · chapter mention

And how they work for endurance when you're going through a trial, God, you you should know this about your trial.

Why?

Because it's in the book.

The Spirit of Truth has written this.

He's taken some things of Jesus and He says, I'm going to give it to you.

And you are going to write these things down and you are going to present it to the church.

And the church is going to take it and I'm going to grow my kingdom.

So when they have a trial or they have persecution, you ask those why questions, Peter comes in and says, Yeah, look, don't be surprised when the fiery ordeals.

You should know this.

You shouldn't act like you're all surprised at deer and a headlight look and all this.

No.

Yeah, but uh but why this trial?

Why this piece to the puzzle?

And if you're going to start anywhere and putting together a puzzle, and you kind of halfway know what the box top looks like, what's the first rule in putting together puzzles?

Did any of the kids know?

What's the first thing you do when you put together a puzzle?

You find the corner pieces to the puzzle.

There's only four of them, and they're going to be perfectly shaped like a corner.

Everything else is going to look like this.

But those are your corner pieces.

And for a Christian, here's your cornerpiece.

God is sovereign and controls all things.

If you don't have that as a cornerpiece, you ain't getting through the trial.

You're going to be like that guy who had that one talent, and all he saw was that he's a hard and exacting man reaping where he doesn't sow, he's never going to invest it.

You worthless slave.

Take what is his and give it to somebody else.

You never used a cornerpiece to get where you needed to be.

Sovereignty of God.

Second cornerpiece is going to be the wisdom of God.

God knows what he's doing.

You don't have to question it.

Every molecule is under his control.

He controls the stars and the galaxies and controls the molecules.

He controls every cell in your body.

Nothing is left to chance.

So the sovereignty of control is here.

The wisdom of knowing what he's doing is here.

I know what he's doing.

This is exactly what he wants at this moment.

My ignorance is exactly where I'm supposed to be at this moment.

I'm going to grow from it.

I'm going to learn.

He's going to show me something in here.

I'm going to be more like Christ.

That's a cornerpiece.

A third one, a big one, is going to be the love of God.

All things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to his purpose.

Trust me, not a hair on your head is going to fall to the ground.

Isn't this amazing?

He says, not a hair in your head is going to fall to the ground when they persecute you and kill you.

Wait, wait.

I'm not going to lose a hair on my head as it gets severed from my body.

Is that what you're saying?

Yeah, that's what I'm saying.

Now that almost looks like what every single hair in my head is exactly where I want it to be.

Everything's in place.

So when you go through a difficult time and you're losing your life and you're giving up your life as a testimony as a disciple of Jesus Christ, trust me, it's all under control.

And it's all going to be for my glory and it's going to be for your profit.

And you know what he says?

You believe that?

You're going to trust me with that?

You think I'm telling you a lie?

Whose dictionary are you going to work off of?

God's or yours?

Because there's the word.

That's not a picture.

That's the word.

Spirit of truth has come.

You look to me.

If I say this is going on, this is what's going on.

And that last little corner there is you need to understand those things about trials, those difficulties.

And kids, I hate to tell you this, you're going to lose your parents one day.

One day, that black piece of that puzzle is going to show up on your doorstep.

You're going to get the news.

Or worse or worse, a parent will get the news of their child.

You've been told in advance, and I'm not telling you anything you don't know.

You know this.

Yeah, we put it on the back burn.

I don't want to think about that.

I don't want to think.

No, you've got to think about that.

When I counsel with somebody who's going through a difficult time, one of the first questions I've I asked them when they, I mean, they're discombobulated, I get it, is I'll ask them the question, what?

Let me ask you a question.

Why did God do this to you?

Boy.

It was like, I'm so glad you asked that question.

No one's asked me that question.

And now that you brought it to the front burner, I'm going to tell you a few things I got some problems with.

Really?

Yeah, tell me some things you got some problems with.

Because what God has put his finger on right now is that you don't own your life.

And you don't own the things around your life.

And you have been skirting that question for a long time thinking you own your life.

And now I've brought it front and center and letting you know you don't own it.

Sovereignty of God corner.

I own it.

I own your pink slip.

I can take you out now.

I took something around you out, and you think you're owed a life.

You think you're owed some sort of my ships come in or something because you've been looking at the world.

I'm here to get you out of that mindset.

You're mine.

You've been bought with a price, and I'm not going to have my children being conformed to the image of this world, Romans 12 1.

I'm going to have their minds transferred.

And they're going to find those four corners of that puzzle.

And you're going to find those four corners.

He's going to make sure you do.

And that's a good thing.

Because now you're broken.

Now you're humble.

Now the Spirit of the truth has come and done all these things.

He shall glorify me, not you, him.

For he will take of mine and will give it to you.

You have the things of Christ.

You know what he knows.

Not everything.

You're not omniscient, but you know these things in such a way that Christ is honored.

You are being conformed to his image.

You are being shaped and changed.

Not by pictures, but you're being shaped and changed by the God's Word.

We memorize Scripture.

We memorize those promises.

When we fellowship with one another, and you try to encourage someone day after day, as it says in Hebrews 3, from the deceitfulness of sin.

What are you going to use to encourage somebody from the deceitfulness of sin?

Words, propositions, promises, statements.

I'm going to have to say, well, you know, brother, you know, sister.

You know the truth about this.

You know why you're going through this ultimately.

You know what God's trying to use.

It's like you're gritting your teeth, biting the bullet.

It's like it's not fair.

And then I got to come in and give you some more propositions that God's never promised to be fair.

He promised to be just.

There's a difference.

He doesn't guarantee the same outcomes from everybody.

Unless you're talking justice, then yeah, white throne judgment is going to be the same outcome for everybody who doesn't have Christ.

But fairness is different than justice.

Justice means you're going to be created up against a standard.

That's different.

But fairness, that's outcome.

I mean, was it fair Clemson lost last night by 40-something points?

Should everybody get the same trophy at the end of the race?

Everybody get the same victory?

Well, let's just say Clemson and LSU won it.

Don't do that.

Right?

Not in sports, at least.

Yet they want that in life.

And it doesn't work that way.

Yeah, how come I can't?

What about that guy, Jesus?

What about that guy?

Jesus tells Peter.

You follow me.

Your outcome's gonna be different from his.

And he was crucified upside down in Rome.

That was his difference.

John never died.

He was on the island of Patmos.

What about his outcome?

What are you gonna say?

You're not gonna follow me unless you have the same outcome as him?

And where did you get that law from?

Oh, that's right.

Your little dictionary.

I keep you keep bringing up this little black book of a dictionary.

You get got to get rid of that thing and go with his word.

And that's what he says the Spirit does.

Spirit of truth comes, and what does he do?

He does this.

He says, these are the things you got to trust me in those four corners.

Last little illustration before I leave, and this helped me an awful lot.

There's a tale about, and it's a tale about Jewish fathers and what they would, how they would teach their Jewish children growing up about God and his ways and providences and things like this.

And so this the little tale, the little fable kind of goes along these lines.

Moses was sitting underneath one of these trees one day, and he's fellowshipping with God, but not too far in the distance, maybe about 50 yards, there's this watering hole where people would come in, you know, and they'd water their animals and cattle and camels and things of this sort.

And they were doing this, and one guy came in, he had his camels and stuff, and he was watering them, and something fell out of his purse, his patch, his satchel or whatever, he fell on the ground.

And it was his money bag.

And he didn't notice it.

And he kept on going and he leaves.

Well, Moses is noticing this.

He goes, hmm.

Well, second guy comes up there and he's doing the same thing.

And he finds the little satchel with the money.

He goes, whoa, what a windfall.

Looks around, ain't nobody here to give it to.

He takes it, he goes on his merry way.

Third guy comes up there, he's watering his, you know, got his camels and things of the sort.

And while he's doing that, lo and behold, the first guy begins to realize, where's my satchel?

Oh, must have left it at the water hole.

He goes back to the water hole.

Well, who does he find at the water hole?

The third guy, still watering his animals.

And so they kind of get into a little discussion.

Hey, I left my lost money back, and you're here.

Give me my money back back.

I ain't got your money back.

The third guy didn't have his money back.

And so they start getting into a tussle.

Yeah, this is where I left it.

You gotta you have it.

Give it to me.

I don't have it.

Yeah, you do.

They get into a fight, they get into an argument.

And he kills the third man.

Now, at that point, Moses jumps in.

And he says to the guy, he said, I gotta tell you something, Lord.

This is why people have trouble trusting in you.

I mean, look at this.

Look at that injustice.

First man loses something.

I mean, when his fault lost it.

Second guy gets something he doesn't deserve.

And then the third guy loses his life over a misunderstanding from the first guy.

I mean, this is this can't be, you're gonna have to run the universe a little better, basically.

And so God turns and says to Moses, I'm just gonna tell you this one time and one time only.

I'm gonna explain this to you.

And you're gonna have to trust me for the rest of all the pieces of the puzzle later on in your life.

The first guy.

The first guy is a thief.

He he that satchel that he dropped on the ground that he lost is money stolen from a merchant over in Damascus.

Feel it.

Now the second guy who finds it is the son of that merchant.

So he gets his money back that was stolen.

The third guy was a murderer.

He killed three people, and he was on the lamb, he was on the run.

And he meets his demise at the water hole by the first guy, who's the thief.

Moses goes, Oh, I see.

Yeah, that's it.

I have to explain it in order for you to believe it.

But you're going to walk by faith.

You have to trust me that I know what I'm doing in providence.

And I know what I'm doing in your life.

Can you believe him on that?

You believe he's sovereign, but also wise.

He knows what he's doing in your life.

Really?

You believe that?

You better.

We talked about earlier Job never had a Bible when he lost 10 children in his health.

He didn't have Romans 8.28.

What's your excuse?

You got Romans 8.28.

All things work together for good.

He didn't say all things are good.

He just says they work together for good.

Like Jesus, like God explaining that to Moses.

They can't work together for good.

You can take that to the bank.

Let's pray.

Father, we thank you for this time.

We thank you for your word.

Help us, Father, to be a people who trust in you as we are mindful, Father, that your spirit of truth has come.

You have given us your word.

We have it.

We're to memorize it.

We're to meditate upon it.

We're to be a people, Father, that loves you, clings to you in all things.

Help us, Father, to be a people that become more and more conformed to the image of Jesus Christ.

For it's in his great name we pray.

Amen.