Why We Need Spirit and Truth

Spirit and Truth

Allen Snapp

Grace Community Church

Oct. 8, 2023

Why We Need Spirit and Truth

We’re going to be looking at a number of scriptures this morning but if you have your Bibles you can turn to Luke 24. We’ll have all the scriptures up on the screen this morning for you to follow along with as well.

A very wealthy person comes up to you and says, I will give you one million dollars if you can do something for me for just two months. Not bad. If you figure a 40 hour week, that’s over $3100 an hour. What do you want me to do? It’s very simple: for the next two months I want you to either go without eating or go without breathing - your choice which.

Obviously that's an absurd illustration but let’s shift from Captain Obvious to a little more nuanced. In the same way we can’t choose between eating and breathing we can’t choose between the Holy Spirit and Truth. The Greek word for Spirit is pneuma, or breath. God’s word is what feeds the flock. Breathing or eating? Breath or food? We need both for spiritual life and without both we die.

Depending on our spiritual background it’s very possible – likely even – that we emphasize one over the other maybe without even knowing it. For those from more cessationist backgrounds, the emphasis is strongly Bible teaching, bible study, bible preaching, bible truth. The work of the Holy Spirit is acknowledged but much talk about the Spirit makes some uncomfortable. Charles Stanley wrote that in some church traditions (and he was including his own denomination), the Holy Spirit is considered the weird uncle of the Trinity – that family member that makes Thanksgiving dinners uncomfortable.

In general I think it fair to say, many from this background tend to look uncharitably on their charismatic brethren as unbiblical, unstable, maybe even a little nuts. And that’s when they acknowledge charismatics are believers. In more extreme circles, speaking in tongues or other expressions of the Spirit are seen as counterfeit and of the devil.

On the other hand those from more charismatic backgrounds may find that the work of the Spirit was emphasized more than Bible teaching. Sermons were light on Bible exposition, heavy on whipping up the congregation in faith and expectation for the Spirit to do His work – the pinnacle of the service being manifestations of the Spirit such as healing, being slain in the Spirit, deliverance, prophecy, words of knowledge and so on.

In those circles seminaries are commonly referred to as “cemeteries”.

The truth is there are seminaries that are as dead as cemeteries spiritually but it’s not because they teach the Bible on a deeper level. And there are charismatic churches that are spiritually unstable even to the point of being weird (or, as we’ll be considering in a future message, even dangerous) but it’s not believing in the ongoing work of the Spirit that makes them unstable. It’s when Truth is unhitched from Spirit that things get unhealthy spiritually.

The Bible never unhitches them. God’s Spirit and God’s truth always work together in perfect harmony.

We need both! Like that small plane I mentioned last week that as it was pulling up had a wing fold upward on it and a moment later the other wing folded up if the church doesn’t have the Spirit it won’t have truth, and if it doesn’t have truth it won’t have the Spirit.

We see this in scripture very clearly – let’s look at a couple examples.

1. We need the Spirit of God and the Truth of the Gospel to be saved

Paul declares in 1 Cor 1, I am not ashamed of the gospel for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes. The message of the gospel – that Jesus died and rose again to pay for our sins is the power of God that saves us. And that power is the power of the Holy Spirit as we see in Titus 3.

But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, ⁵ he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, ⁶ whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior… Titus 3:5-6

The Spirit and Truth work together: we hear the truth of the gospel and believe, and the Spirit makes us spiritually alive to God. Our blind eyes are opened, our hearts are opened, and the light of God shines in our mind, chasing away the darkness of Satan’s lies and deceptions. We are washed clean of all our sins – praise God!

The Bible says that before we were saved we were dead spiritually. In Genesis it says God made Adam but he wasn’t a living being until God breathed the breath of life into his nostrils. When we hear the gospel and believe in Jesus, the Spirit of God or pneuma (breath) of God breathes spiritual life into us and we become a spiritually living being.

We need the Spirit of God and the Truth of the Gospel to be saved.

2. We need the Spirit and the Truth to do the mission of the Church

Look with me at a very interesting passage in Luke 24. Jesus is resurrected and he’s preparing his disciples to be sent out into the world. Let’s pick it up in verse 44.

⁴⁴ Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled.” ⁴⁵ Then he opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, ⁴⁶ and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead, ⁴⁷ and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. ⁴⁸ You are witnesses of these things. ⁴⁹ And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.” Luke 24:44-49

To carry out the mission Jesus gave the church we need Spirit and Truth. Jesus opened the disciple’s minds to understand the truth of the scriptures, then he told them to wait for the Holy Spirit so that

they could be effective witnesses for Jesus.

They needed the truth of God’s word and the power of God’s Spirit to fulfill their mission, and we do too.

This means we have the responsibility to have at least a basic knowledge of the Bible and understanding of the gospel that you can communicate clearly and crisply. If you can’t share clearly something along the lines that God is holy and that all mankind has sinned and fallen short of God’s holy standard and the penalty for sin is eternal separation from God and there was and is nothing we can do to bridge that divide but God sent His Son Jesus to take the death we deserved so that we can be given eternal life as a gift. Point to Jesus and what he did on the cross! Point to the empty tomb that tells us Jesus is risen and lives today! Emphasize that salvation isn’t something we work for or earn – it’s a free gift to all who believe in Jesus!

We also have the responsibility to pray and ask the Spirit to empower our witness. Jesus said “power to be my witnesses”. The Spirit’s empowering works on us so that we are authentic (not perfect) witnesses for Jesus. So that people see Jesus’ love in us. They see Jesus’ kindness in us. They see Jesus’ honesty in us. The Spirit empowers our witness so we can connect with people the way Jesus connected with people. Power to be Jesus’ witness.

And we should pray that the Spirit will cause our witness to hit their heart with far more force than is coming from us. Acts 2 Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, stood up and preached a short message and over three thousand got saved that day. It wasn’t his eloquence, it was the power of the Holy Spirit that took his words and drove them home, piercing hearts with conviction. Three thousand said, “I believe!”

We can witness till we’re blue in the face – nothing will come of it unless the Spirit moves on their hearts and opens their eyes to see and believe. So pray! “It’s not by might, not by power, but by My Spirit says the Lord.” Zech 4:6

So pray God fill me with Your Spirit today. Lord use me as a vessel of grace today. Lord give me opportunities to tell people about Jesus today, to pray with someone who’s hurting, to encourage someone who’s discouraged, to be an example of genuine Christianity to someone and do Your work in their hearts through my witness.

Jesus, I have labored all night and caught nothing, but tell me to cast the net on the right side of the boat for at your word, the nets will be full to breaking! Church, we have a mission – let’s recommit ourselves as we leave here to be a light for Jesus.

3. We need the Spirit to guide us in the Truth and the Truth to discern the Spirit

I’m going to hit this briefly because we’ll be talking more about this, but it’s important to see that we need the Spirit to guide us in the truth AND we need the truth to help us discern the spirit.

If you need proof that the Bible isn’t enough, think of this: the devil knows the Bible better than you do. Knowing the Bible isn’t enough. Satan quoted the Bible to Jesus for the purpose of getting him to misapply it to his life.

Cults and heretics build whole movements on Bible passages taken out of context or misapplied. The bible warns there will be teachers and preachers who will look and sound good outwardly but inwardly are ravenous wolves looking to devour the sheep. The devil is happy to have us quoting Bible promises all day long as long as we’re not trusting with our whole heart in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior. God wants me rich – here’s a bible verse! God wants me healthy – here’s a bible verse! God wants me to live my best life now – here’s a bible verse!

And it goes the other way too. 1 John 4:1 says,

Dear friends, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. 1 John 4:1-3

False prophets are those who falsely speak for God and this is saying that false prophets are motivated by false spirits so we are to test the spirits. How do we test the spirits? Primarily by testing it with the objective word of God. Nothing speaks for God authoritatively but this book! The Bereans received the gospel eagerly from Paul but it says they searched the scriptures daily to make sure that what Paul preached was in accord with the scriptures.

Discernment – such as the spiritual gift of discernment – may well involve an inner sense of unease and subjective feelings. You go to a meeting and you say, “something just doesn’t feel right”. Jesus makes room for a subjective discernment when he said “my sheep know my voice” and they will not follow the voice of another. There’s a legitimate gift of discerning (and all believers should have it) what’s Jesus’ voice and what’s not Jesus speaking. But that discernment isn’t built on subjective feelings (what we think the Spirit is saying) – it’s built on knowing the Bible. The more we know the Bible the more we can discern what isn’t biblical.

Your background may lean your priorities towards the importance of bible teaching or it may lean you towards the need for the power of the Holy Spirit. We could spend hours looking at Bible passages that instruct us that we need both. Desperately!

So read the Bible, meditate on the Bible, every day as much as possible. And ask the Lord to fill you with the Holy Spirit. As a church we want to pursue both: the priority of truth as found in God’s word and the priority of power as provided by the Holy Spirit.