HOLY ISN’T HIS FIRST NAME – The Spirit of Conviction
John 16:5-16 (p. 753) April 12, 2015
Introduction:
I have a feature of my smart phone that immediately alerts me if there is a missing child in the area. It’s called an Amber Alert...It shows up on my screen with a name, sometimes a description of the abductor and a license number and vehicle description. Where did the Amber Alert originate?
In January 1996, nine year old Amber Hagerman was riding her bicycle when a neighbor heard the girl scream. The neighbor saw a man pull Amber off her bike, throw her into the front seat of his pickup truck, and drive away at a high speed.
The neighbor called police and provided a description of the suspect and his vehicle, but couldn't recall much else. Arlington, TX police and the FBI interviewed other neighbors and searched for the suspect and vehicle. Local radio and TV stations covered the story in their regular newscasts. Four days later, Amber's body was found in a drainage ditch four miles away. Her throat has been cut. Her kidnapping and murder remain unsolved.
A concerned citizen contacted a Dallas, TX radio station suggesting the idea that Dallas radio stations should repeat news bulletins about abducted children just like they do severe weather warnings. The idea was presented to the general managers of the radio stations in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. They agreed that such a program would provide an important public service and might help save the life of a child.
The Dallas Amber Plan was started in July 1997 to help safely recover missing children that police believe have been abducted. Since then, the program has successfully recovered eight children and expanded to other cities and states nationwide.
Although the Amber Plan is named after Amber Hagerman, this national program is dedicated to all children nationwide who've been abducted. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, up to 4600 children are abducted by strangers every year (about 12 children nationwide every day).
Every law enforcement official will tell you the most essential ingredient in recovering a lost child is time
I’m not sure what I would do if I’d lost a child or grandchild. It’s hard to even imagine the inner turmoil, fear and dread that would fill my heart.
I guess I’d ask...what would you do to find that child? What resources would you spend? How focused would you be?
In the gospel of Luke, in chapter 15, Jesus tells three stories of people who have lost important things.
The first, a shepherd who’s lost one of his sheep because it wandered off.
The 2nd, a woman who’s lost a part of her inheritance, a coin of great value.
The 3rd, a father who’s lost his youngest son, because of sin and rebellion.
Each of these stories lets us see the anguish of people who’ve lost something important and valuable...and when the lost article or person is found, each story ends with a particular phrase:
The shepherd says, “Rejoice with me I have found my lost sheep.” The woman says, “Rejoice with me I have found my lost coin,” and the Father says, “We had to celebrate...He was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found.”
There are lots of similarities in these 3 stories, but there is a glaring difference. In the first story the shepherd leaves the 99 and searches relentlessly for his lost sheep. In story number 2 the woman sweeps the whole house searching for her coin. In story 3 a father loses his youngest son and waits for His return.
In 2 stories God is shown as searching for that which is lost, but in the 3rd story God, the Father is shown...waiting. God is actively involved in seeking us...searching for us for salvation...but God will not force us to come home to Him. We have to come to our senses and make that choice. We are not sheep. We are not coins. We are sons and daughters...created in the image of our Father, but each of us has rejected our Father’s care and each of us have become prodigals because of sin and selfishness.
So this morning we look at the God who seeks and searches for His lost children, the God who so loved us He gave His only Son as our sacrifice.
Let’s start with our need to “come to our senses” as the lost son did in the pig sty in Luke 15. You know the story...He received his inheritance, (amazing the father would give it to him.) And this boy takes off for a far country...spends the money on “riotous living” according to his brother. And when it’s all gone, so are his so called friends...and then...things get worse...listen:
LUKE 15:14-20 (p. 730)
Jesus said, “No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them.”
There’s that seeking and searching God!
Satan tempts...God draws...Satan’s goal is separation...God’s goal is reconciliation.
Satan uses our sinful nature...God uses His Holy Spirit.
I. THE SPIRIT WHO BRINGS US TO OUR SENSES
There has to be a “catalyst” that makes us want to change. There has to be a very real recognition of the truth...or we’ll always believe the lie.
And I’m not just talking about the circumstances. The pig sty will make you long for the father’s house. Jail will make you long for freedom. Sickness will make you long for health. And God certainly will use circumstances to prepare prodigals for His Spirit’s working.
But many times when we focus on the circumstances we forget how we got there...and it becomes “about us”...instead of being brought to our senses we begin to blame others. We focus only on what we don’t have or what others aren’t doing to help us.
[I visited with a young man in the Woodford County jail who had shot his mother with a 30.06 rifle for refusing to let him use the barbecue grill. He was high at the time, and this young man ironically named “Ricky” was on suicide watch, and they had him heavily medicated. I remember talking to his sister Melissa and saying...he kept saying over and over again... “If she’d just let me do what I wanted this wouldn’t have happened.” I asked the administrators...when do you take away the medication so he can realize with a clear mind what he’s done? Their response was, “Not for a while!” They transferred Rick to Eddieville before I could see him again.]
Eventually this young man will have to deal with his sin honestly or there can never be forgiveness...and the consequences of his sin will last a lifetime.
Sin is never easy to deal with. It’s something we would rather keep hidden, and some of the darker places in our souls we’d rather never see the light...so we lie to ourselves, push them away, blame circumstances or others...for a lifetime.
I’ve met tons of people who choose to stay in the pig sty of sin because pride refuses to deal honestly with sin, and selfishness.
Satan does 2 things to assure this happens. He tells us there are some sins that God cannot forgive and conversion is impossible.
“He is a liar and a murderer from the beginning” according to Jesus.
Usually that’s someone else’s sin...like homosexuality...This seems to be the “featured sin” Satan is using to create hostility between the world and the church right now.
So as Satan lies to individuals engaged in this sexual sin, and also as he lies to Christians about how to engage struggling people...He does the second thing that keeps people trapped in sin.
Hate and repulsions become the weapons of the church, instead of truth and grace. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 10:4, “The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world.”
Ironic...many times the way Christians attack isn’t any different than the militant world...except we tack on “I’ll pray for you!”
In the class Barron Rulon and I are leading on Wednesdays called “Vanishing Grace” Philip Yancey includes one of the most powerful testimonies I’ve ever heard...
In February 2013 Christianity Today published the testimony of Rosaria Champagne Butterfield, who described her younger self as a "leftist lesbian professor" who despised Christians. "I was tired of students who seemed to believe that ‘knowing Jesus' meant knowing little else .... Stupid. Pointless. Menacing. That's what I thought of Christians and their god Jesus, who in paintings looked as powerful as a Breck Shampoo commercial model.”
As a professor of English and women's studies, Butterfield cared deeply about morality, justice, and compassion ... While researching the Religious Right and "their politics of hatred against queers like me," she forced herself to read the Bible, the source that in her opinion had led so many people off track. She published a critical article in the local newspaper about Promise Keepers, and proceeded to file away the response letters in two boxes, one for hate mail and one for fan mail.
One letter, however, fit neither box. In a kind and inquiring spirit, a Presbyterian pastor from Syracuse, New York, encouraged her to explore further her conclusions. How did she arrive at them? On what basis did she decide on her moral convictions? After first throwing it away, she later fished it out of the recycling bin and stared at it. Eventually she accepted the pastor's invitation to dinner and over the next two years became friends with Ken and his wife Floy. "They entered my world," she recalls. "They met my friends. We did book exchanges. We talked openly about sexuality and politics. They did not act as if such conversations were polluting them. They did not treat me like a blank slate."
Meanwhile, Butterfield continued to read the Bible, many times, in multiple translations. Finally, she found herself in the pew of that pastor's church, feeling conspicuous with her butch haircut. "Then, one ordinary day, I came to Jesus, openhanded and naked. In this war of worldviews, Ken was there. Floy was there. The church that had been praying for me for years was there. Jesus triumphed. And I was a broken mess. Conversion was a train wreck. I did not want to lose everything that I loved. But the voice of God sang a sanguine love song in the rubble of my world."
Rosaria Butterfield, now herself a pastor’s wife, still champions morality, justice and compassion. She came to faith in search of a foundation for what she valued, drawn by the tender care of two Christians who graciously pointed her to that foundation.
By the way...Corinth was a church that assimilated those who had once engaged in homosexuality into the body of Christ.
1 CORINTHIANS 6:9-11 (p. 795)
Your sin isn’t any different than Rosaria Butterfield’s...and it took the Spirit of conviction to break down her resistance...and it took 2 loving, Godly servants to show her Grace in the flesh.
This is always the starting place of salvation...the Holy Spirit bringing us to our senses...and someone loving us back home into the Father’s family.
Let me end this morning with a final encouragement concerning the Holy Spirit.
II. HE IS THE PROMISED GIFT OF JESUS’ PRESENCE IN OUR LIVES!
Jesus said, “It is for your good that I am going away because unless I go away the Advocate will not come to you, but if I go I will send Him to you.” (John 16:7)
While Jesus was here in an earthly body He could be at 1 place at 1 time but the Holy Spirit would be left to work in any person and any time. Holy isn’t His first name..it’s the work He accomplishes...He shows us our unrighteousness, the result real guilt for sin...and as Jesus tells his disciples in our text...judgment.
Simply put...The Advocate’s job is to reveal sin and then reveal the answer in Christ...His death, burial and resurrection...and His teachings...and His life...Jesus is the only One who was never unholy...so for those of us that are lost...He cuts our hearts and reveals a Savior...for those of us that have been saved the Holy Spirit molds us from the inside to be like Jesus.
2 Corinthians 5:21 says, “God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.”
Most of us understand that first part about the perfect Son of God taking all our sin...But do we understand what it means to become the righteousness of God?
Eugene Peterson in The Message says...it means “to live a resurrection life, a far better life than people ever lived on their own.”
The point is...God gave His Son...God left us “the promised gift.” We become heirs of eternity all because of his GRACE. Like this story:
A young man asked an old rich man how he made his money. The old guy fingered his worsted wool vest and said, “Well, son, it was 1932, the depth of the Great Depression. I was down to my last nickel. I invested that nickel in an apple. I spent the entire day polishing the apple and, at the end of the day, I sold the apple for ten cents. The next morning, I invested those ten cents in two apples. I spent the entire day polishing them and sold them at 5 pm for 20 cents. I continued this system for a month, by the end of which I’d accumulated a fortune of $3.50.
(pause)
Then my wife’s father died and left us ten million dollars.”
It’s important that we not forget that “We’re not the Holy Spirit”...He’s the promised gift to born again, adopted, sons and daughters...Holiness is His work in people’s lives. He convicts the world in regards to sin, righteousness and the judgment...He does this...it’s His work.
My least favorite people are folks who use guilt and manipulate, but forget their own sin. I think that’s exactly why the Apostle Paul precedes “God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God” with these words:
2 CORINTHIANS 5:14-18 (p. 805)
It’s Jesus’ love that compels us...not a desire to prove people wrong. It’s an understanding that we don’t judge people’s value or potential like Saul the Pharisee judged Jesus of Nazareth.
We are new creations...in Christ...Because He is in us.
Let’s pray.
