Knowing The Holy Spirit May 8, 2005
The Spirit and Identity
Matthew 3:13-4:11
Donald Miller writes in “Blue Like Jazz,” “everybody wants to be fancy and new. Nobody wants to be themselves. I mean, maybe people want to be themselves, but they want to be different, with different clothes or shorter hair or less fat. If there was a guy who just liked being himself and didn’t want to be anybody else, that guy would be the most different guy in the world and everybody would want to be him.”
Jesus’ Baptism and Temptation
Jesus was a guy who just liked being who he was – he knew who he was.
Read Matthew 3:13-4:11
This passage is all about identity
Jesus is baptized to fulfill all righteousness – he is the righteous one
The Spirit descends upon Jesus like a dove. The Father speaks and says, “This is my Son, whom I love, with him I am well pleased.”
Jesus lives his whole life in the knowledge of who he is – he is the well loved Son of God. It is in this knowledge that he is able to walk the walk that he does. It is in this knowledge that he his able to live in obedience and respond to people in compassion and righteousness. It is because of this knowledge that he is able to pour himself out and serve the whole world
This is exactly what the Spirit does for us – he enables us to hear the voice of the Father saying, “this is my son/daughter, whom I love, with him/her I am well pleased.
Like Jesus, our baptism fulfills all righteousness (but in a different way)
Jesus was the only completely sinless person to walk the earth. Baptism was seen at the time as a symbolic gesture of repentance – of turning away from sin. So why was Jesus baptized? He had no sin to turn from! Jesus answer to the same question put by John was “to fulfill all righteousness.” It lets us know that righteousness is not just not doing the things that God tells us not to do, but it is also doing the things that God tells us to do.
For some of you, this might be a good reason to be baptized – just to do what God has asked you to do!
But our baptism isn’t something that we do to fulfill all righteousness, our baptism is a sign that Jesus, through his life, death and resurrection has fulfilled all righteousness for us.
When Jesus went to the cross and died, he died to deal with all the wrong that we have ever committed, Our baptism is a sign and a symbol of our unity with him in his death and resurrection – in Christ, our sin is paid for, in Christ we have been made righteous. Our Baptism is a sign that we have been washed clean. Our baptism is also a sign that in Christ we have been adopted by God and we become his children.
Ephesians 1 4Long ago, even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. 5His unchanging plan has always been to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. And this gave him great pleasure.
In the same way that the Father declares his love for, and pleasure in Jesus at his baptism, he declares his love for us and his pleasure in us through his Spirit.
The Holy Spirit enables us to hear the Father’s love
When we are made righteous through Christ, he gives us his Holy Spirit who enables us to hear the Father’s love
“for as many who believed he gave the right to become children of God” John 1:12
God has declared over us, “This is my child, whom I love, in whom I am well pleased.” But sometimes it is difficult for us to hear him. There is one time in John 12 that God the Father speaks to Jesus in a voice from heaven, some people hear it, others hear only thunder, while others thought they heard an angel speak.
The Holy Spirit enables us to hear the Father’s love
Romans 815For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship.[g] And by him we cry, "Abba,[h] Father." 16The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. 17Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.
Sometimes the Spirit gives us supernatural experiences to let us hear God’s love.
Once I went forward for prayer at a church service, and as I was waiting for one of the prayer team members to come and pray for me I felt something on my head - I first thought it was someone’s hand, then I realized that no one was there. I then thought it felt like a hat, but it was harder than a hat - I suddenly realized that it was the sensation of a crown, and I knew it was from God - I asked God why the crown, and I heard in my heart, “just because you are my son.”
Sometimes the Spirit uses what we might call coincidences to let us hear God’s love.
My friend Lynn was feeling really low at one point in her life, wondering where God was and what he was doing with her life. She was literally asking God for a sign. She was driving in the English countryside, and had gotten completely lost to where she was supposed to be, stopped the car to get her bearings, and someone had painted on a rock in the middle of a field, “Lynn, I love you!” She knew she was lost for a purpose and this was a message from the God who loves her.
There has been times in my life when God has used simple things like well-placed vanity license plates to remind me of his love for me.
Sometimes the Spirit uses Gifts of the Spirit through others to let us hear God’s love.
Nicky Gumbel tells the story of two women who were praying for each other at an Alpha meeting. One woman was praying that the other would know God’s deep love for her. She switched from praying in English to praying in a tongue - when she looked up she saw the other woman beaming, and asked why. The other woman explained that she had just prayed in Russian - the first woman spoke no Russian, but the second woman was fluent - studying the language in university. She asked what she said, and the second woman said “you were saying ‘My dear child’ over and over.” If she had prayed this in English, the woman might have just passed it off, but because it was prayed in tongues, the woman received the word and was deeply blessed by it.
The Spirit will use others, and his gifts through them to help you to hear the Father’s love for you – healing my knee?
Temptation
Immediately, after this identity affirming experience, the Spirit takes Jesus out into the desert to be tested. What gets tested is how much he believes the word that he has just received from the Father.
Out of the three recorded temptations, twice, the devil uses the phrase, “If you really are the Son of God…” “If you really are the Son of God, prove it”
The temptation – to stop listening to the Spirit, to find our identity things other that our adoption in Christ
The temptation of Performance: “make these stones into bread”
2After fasting forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. 3The tempter came to him and said, "If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread."
It is a great temptation to try to prove our worth to God, to others, even to ourselves through the things we accomplish. If I am useful, then I am worthy of God’s love (or of whatever god we have set up – spouse, parent, boss, society, friends, self…)
I have to admit that this is one of my greatest temptations – a day that I accomplish a lot is a good day, a day that I accomplish a lot is a bad day. My sense of Identity is caught up in my performance.
But God does not love us and adopt us and call us his children because of what we can do for him. – while we were still sinners God showed his love for us by sending his Son to die for us!
God demonstrates our worth to him when we could accomplish absolutely nothing for him!
We do not do the good things that God has planned for us to earn his love, we do them to show our love for him!
Periodically I buy Pam flowers just to show I love her. One day, at the grocery store, I was picking up a few things, and there were flowers beside the till. I decided to pick them up. I put them down on belt, the cashier looked at me, looked at the flowers, and said “what did you do wrong?” I didn’t do anything wrong, I was doing something right! This is how it is with the good deeds we do for God – they are not to make up for the bad deeds – they are good deeds to show him how much we love him.
4Jesus answered, "It is written: ’Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God."
The most resent word that came from the mouth of God was, “this is my son, whom I love: in him I am well pleased.”
The temptation of testing the limits of God’s love: jump off!
5Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. 6"If you are the Son of God," he said, "throw yourself down. For it is written:
" ’He will command his angels concerning you,
and they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’[b]"
I had a friend back in high-school who would do almost everything that she could to get the kids of the youth group to reject her. She was one of the neediest people I have ever known, and she was always pushing the limits of the rest of the youth group’s love.
She found her self-worth in how many people came running to rescue her when she got in a tight spot.
We can do the same thing with God – to try to drum up these gifts of expressions of love that he gives us.
We used to have dog when I was a kid who wasn’t allowed on the carpets. He would lie down on the floor with one toe of one paw on the carpet. If he got away with thatm he’d put the whole paw on the carpet, then a whole leg, then two legs and a head, and if you didn’t shoo him, he’d get his whole body on the carpet. We can do that with God – we know the boundaries that he has set for our own good, but we push them, all the time asking “Do you love me now?”
Many of those boundary pushing can be a self-destructive as Jesus throwing himself from the highest point of the temple.
7Jesus answered him, "It is also written: ’Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’[c]"
The point is that we do not have to force God to show his love to us, we only have to listen to the Spirit, he is whispering in our ear, “the Father loves you, he is well pleased with you.”
The temptation of Position: “all the kingdoms of the world”
8Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their splendor. 9"All this I will give you," he said, "if you will bow down and worship me."
Similar to performance, position finds its self worth not in the things it accomplishes, but in the power it attains.
I am worth more to God or my gods if I have more letters behind or in front of my name. I am worth more if I have power over people’s lives.
I am important if people call me “sir.”
This is the original temptation – to have power with out character – to be like God in power, but not in character.
The strange thing here is that the devil is promising Jesus something that God is going to give him anyway – but he is offering a very tempting short cut.
Jesus will receive all the nations of the world, but though service and obedience to death.
5Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
6Who, being in very nature[a] God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
7but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature[b] of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
8And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
9Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
10that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
11and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
Jesus knew that he is the son of God, so he did not grasp at the power of being the Son of God.
10Jesus said to him, "Away from me, Satan! For it is written: ’Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’[d]"
If we truly know our identity in Christ, if we listen to the Holy Spirit, and know that we are the well-loved child of God in whom he is well pleased, all the titles, even power over the nations of the world is just icing on the cake.
Listen to the Spirit.
Find your identity in the unchanging love that God has for you. If the Church was full of people who truly knew who they are in Christ, we would be unstoppable!
Listen to the Spirit –
Zephaniah 3: 17 The LORD your God is with you,
he is mighty to save.
He will take great delight in you,
he will quiet you with his love,
he will rejoice over you with singing."
