Dennis Tuuri

# The Spirit of Justice

Sermon Notes for Pentecost Sunday, May 27, 2012
by Pastor Dennis R. Tuuri
Do Justice, Part Six

Is coming back to life. And you know the springtime season is filled with kind of images of the Holy Spirit, right? The wind is blowing nicely and moving things around. The water comes down. April showers bring May flowers. In Oregon it’s January, February, March, May, April flowers. Yeah. Whatever. So the April showers bring May flowers. You know, the spirit is associated with water flowing from heaven. Of course, the heavenly water that Jesus talks about in various places. The wind is this rushing wind from that we see described on the day of Pentecost, right? Even fire, you know, kind of people are clearing off the dead brush and they’re burning things in various places and you smell the smoke and this is kind of a springtime reminder, right? And this new life, you know, blossoming up from what are evidences or images rather in the natural order that we just read about in and responsibly from the psalm today. These images of the spirit that comes to bring new life, new creation, life from death.

And what we’re going to talk about today is how that works with us. Those things are symbols of a much greater truth, the significance of the church carrying on the work of Jesus Christ. You know, Luke, the things he began to do and say, Acts, the rest of the things he was doing and saying, not directly now, but intermediately through his spirit working upon his people. And so, how does that apply to us today? And I hope that at least in one section of this outline, I’ll give you some things to talk about this week in your families, with your friends, and in your small groups or whatever you do.

But before we get started, you know, the imagery here is that the reason why we’ve had this up and it will change out, Lord willing, and enough of you show up to help Rand with the cross this week. This will all change because we’re moving from Pentecost to next week is Trinity Sunday, but usually associated with the first Sunday after Pentecost. Now, we begin the second half of the church year when the life of the church is emphasized, the life of Jesus being emphasized in the first half or better, the life of Jesus through his church in the second half. And so, we’ll, you know, pick up our cross, right? We’ll bring this cross back up and we’ll change this. But it’s very important for you to recognize that you know to try to take up your cross daily to try to do this right live self-sacrificially and change the world through that living you can’t do it in your own strength. Jesus said you have to told the apostles that they had to wait for the indwelling of the spirit. What that means is the spirit is an absolutely essential part of who we are as Christians and our effectiveness for the kingdom. You can’t do that without that, without the waters of life that Jesus sends into the world flowing out of our own center of who we are. He describes in John 7, speaking of the spirit. The cross has to be powered by Pentecost, the proclamation of the gospel with our words primarily, but also with our deeds.

Jesus says, “You can’t do that until the spirit comes by.” That’s a once-for-all act. The spirit came upon the church at the day of Pentecost. But it means that each one of us having been united with Jesus Christ, receiving the gift of the spirit have to be aware that the spirit is empowering us to do the things that God wants us to do. Now, one of the primary things that I’ve emphasized this particular last couple of months is justice. That one of the huge deals going on in the ministry of Jesus Christ is bringing justice to victory. So, I want to begin by talking about that, talking about the spirit of justice and then maybe clearing away some remaining cobwebs of how we think of the spirit in the new covenant as opposed to the old covenant. What are the discontinuities and continuities? And then we’ll talk about this whole idea of new life and how that works in our lives.

And at the center of today’s outline for you is stuff really I’ve kind of pirated from N.T. Wright’s Simply Christian, but he talks about four points of intersection of heaven and earth. Right? So Pentecost is an image of the temple being filled with the spirit of God. Right? So they build the temple and then the spirit of God enters. God enthrones himself in that tabernacle at first later in the temple. So what happens is the new temple of the church is inhabited by the spirit of God is manifested in the flames etc. So it’s a temple imagery right and so it’s an intersection point where God is with his people in a particular way and the spirit can be thought of as that way.

Traditionally, the giving of the law was on Pentecost. And this is a way that we live out God’s purposes on earth in the present is by walking in the way of the law of God, the Torah. And so again, at Pentecost, the giving of the law happened in the wilderness in Mount Sinai. And so the day of Pentecost is also a reminder of the giving of the way of Jesus to us as well. We’ll talk a couple of other points. We’ll talk about those. And that center of the outline is what I’d like you to think about this week, maybe this afternoon even. And have some conversations in your families or with your friends about which particular elements, you know, you’re doing good on and which particular elements you and heaven are kind of like this as opposed to intersecting.

And then we’ll talk about, you know, warfare and, warn ourselves at the end of the sermon not to grieve the Holy Spirit and the dire consequences of that. All right. So, we’re going to start by talking again about the spirit of justice. What is the spirit doing? Well, all kinds of things. But we read in Isaiah 4:4, “When the Lord shall have washed away the filth of the daughters of Zion, and shall have purged the blood of Jerusalem from the midst thereof by the spirit of justice and by the spirit of burning.” Now, the context here is the prophecies about God’s judgment on the temple in Jerusalem in Judah that Isaiah gave.

But remember that the prophetic message is about death and resurrection ultimately of Jesus, right? And so it’s about the judgment ultimately that will come in AD 70 upon the Jews and upon Jerusalem, the Jews that didn’t receive Christ as Messiah. And so part of the work of the spirit is this spirit of justice that brings judgment to God’s enemies, to those who don’t repent of crucifying Jesus and instead are emboldened in their sin. And so the spirit of justice is an identification of what the spirit of Jesus will do 40 years after today’s event in AD 70 and begins to do at the proclamation of the gospel.

Jesus says you receive power so that you can proclaim the gospel. So the summary statement of what the spirit’s job is evangelism. But what is evangelism? And this text tells us that part of what happens when the spirit comes upon us for empowered witness is that justice happens. Which means the chastisement or judgment of people that are rebellious sinners. Jesus deals with them through his spirit of justice going out from the words of his people. In Isaiah 28, we read this. In the day the Lord of hosts will be a crown of glory and a diadem of beauty to the remnant of his people and a spirit of justice to him who sits in judgment and strength to those who turn back the battle at the gate.

So again, this is talking ultimately about the death and resurrection of Jesus and then his coming to his people in the spirit. The spirit brings Jesus to us and he is this lord of hosts. He has a crown of glory, a diadem of beauty to the remnant of his people to those that are the beginning of the new church on the day of Pentecost. And he comes as a spirit of justice to him who sits in judgment and strength to those who turn back the battle at the gate. So the spirit of God bringing Jesus is a spirit of justice that will bring judgment and justice to the world to make things right again and also to bring punishment to people who are trying to besiege the church, right? And so those will be given the spirit of justice who is a spirit of strength.

The opposition we face from the world systems as we proclaim the gospel and all of its implications. You see, the spirit of justice gives us strength to combat them not with military might but with the power of our words and the conviction of God’s spirit and it’s a spirit of justice. Isaiah 42 says this and we’ve looked at this text in earlier messages in this series. “Behold my servant who I uphold, my chosen in whom my soul delights. I have put my spirit upon him. And now what’s the purpose of God’s giving the spirit to Christ in at his baptism, right? The spirit comes upon him. Why? I have put my spirit upon him. He will bring forth justice to the nations.” There the summary message of what Jesus will do is to bring justice to the nations.

Now, we’ve got to think properly and justice is a big term. In a couple of weeks, maybe in a month, I’m going to do a sermon on alms and the relationship of giving the poor help and benevolent money as an aspect of justice. So, we don’t want to lose that, but we also don’t want to lose the fact that these texts tell us that justice is putting the world to rights. And there’s a good deal of people out there in systems that don’t like that and will oppose it and Jesus is going to accomplish it. So the summary statement of the spirit’s empowerment upon Jesus is to bring forth justice to the nations.

Interestingly by the way in this text in Isaiah 42 we read this familiar phrase, “A bruised reed he will not break and a faintly burning wick he will not quench. He will faithfully bring forth justice. He will not grow faint or be discouraged till he has established justice in the earth. and the coastlands wait for his law.”

Now, don’t want to get you off on a sidetrack that’ll cause you thinking about this the rest of the time I’m speaking about something else, but just maybe at a note in your Bibles, investigate. Some people believe, and I think there’s a good reason to believe that what’s being referred to here immediately in Isaiah 42, the bruised reed and the faintly burning wick are Babylon and Egypt. Babylon and Egypt. Remember, Israel and the church has an obligation to take the message of the gospel to the nations. Israel didn’t do it. They failed to bring justice to the nations through evangelism, through going out and ministering to other nations. They were excluded. They sat in the walls of the church instead of being missional. Right? And as a result of that, the nations suffered. They became almost deadlike. They became faintly burning wicks. And the nations of the world today, since Christianity 100 years ago kind of retreated somewhat, are know faintly burning wicks.

But Jesus is going to bring justice to the nations, the coastlands, the Gentiles will wait for his law. Egypt and Babylon, and we’ve seen this before in the prophets. These will be called God’s children. So, so justice and justice will be redemptive for the saving of the world.

This text is of course quoted in Matthew 12. Jesus aware of and I’m going to put it in context. He withdraws and many followed him and he healed them all and he ordered them not to make him known. This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah. This prophecy we just read. “Behold my servant who I have chosen, my beloved with whom my soul is well pleased. I will put my spirit upon him and he will proclaim justice to the Gentiles. So he’ll bring justice through the proclamation of justice. And he’ll do that through his church. He’ll evangelize the nations. He’ll disciple them. And part of discipling is bringing a political message of justice as well as personal messages of justice. But we’ll we’ll see this in just a moment from Micah.”

He’ll proclaim justice to the Gentiles. He will not quarrel or cry out nor will anyone hear his voice in the streets. A bruised reed he will not break. A smoldering wick he will not quench until he brings justice to victory. And in his name the Gentiles will hope. So instead of the coastlands waiting for his law, the Gentiles will hope in his name. His name is found it finds its expression. in the Torah, the way of God, the law of God that our savior demonstrated in the gospel accounts. Now, so he is healing people in fulfillment of this prophecy that he’ll bring justice to victory and he’ll save the nations.

And then immediately afterwards, what does it look like to bring justice? Well, verse 22, the very next verse, then a demon-possessed man who was blind and mute was brought to him, and he healed him so that the man spoke and saw. And all the people were amazed and said, “Can this be the son of David?” But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, “It is only by Beelzebub, the prince of demons, that this man casts out demons.” David was the spirit empowered king. We’ll mention this in a little bit later in the outline. But David’s a spirit empowered king. And they say, “Is this that spirit empowered son of David the king who’s going to come?” Because that’s what he’s doing. He’s bringing justice to the people.

And justice is described as freeing people that are oppressed in this case through demons. Jesus in the spirit in the power of the spirit and the church of Jesus Christ in the power of the spirit goes out to crush some heads goes out I hope this doesn’t maybe I shouldn’t say it to kick some demon butt so he goes about doing work to relieve people of injustice injustices that have made them deaf and mute. All right? They can’t hear really what God wants them to hear and they can’t speak the word of God. And we change those people right in Oregon City or in the communities in which we live so that they can hear the word of God in the power of the spirit and they can proclaim the gospel and they can continue to release people from oppression.

We don’t wrestle against flesh and blood. We wrestle against principalities and powers, world systems that in the last hundred years have been developed that are oppressive to people because they’ve not been developed on the solid rock of Jesus Christ. What’s happening in the western world? We are seeing I mean biblically defined I think and maybe you know you can argue with me about this during Q&A maybe biblically defined we’re seeing the entire Western civilization enslaved because the Bible says the borrower is servant to the lender debt is related in the scriptures to slavery. Now, every western nation, right, is in debt. America has trillions and trillions of dollars of debt. That means we’re in a debtor position. It means there is a degree of enslavement. There’s not too much yanking of the chains on our necks yet, but they’ve been fashioned. They’ve been formed. They’ve been put in place. Okay? There’s a oppression that’s happened and God is bringing his judgments. Okay? And he’s going to bring his judgments in the power of the spirit through the work of his church to bring justice to relieve oppression in whatever form it’s found.

So the spirit of justice is absolutely essential layering into this account of Pentecost. What is it to proclaim the gospel to all the world? Well, in part it’s proclaiming justice. God’s law and calling men to do it. Now, some won’t. The Pharisees say, “Well, he’s doing this. He’s demon-filled.” And you know, if people are benefiting from the present world system, they’re not going to be real happy when you start messing with it. There’s going to be people that are oppressive. Well, why wouldn’t we be upset about Christians being oppressed today? That’s a good sign, right? If you have a non-Christian nation and Christians, you know, aren’t oppressed, it means we’re probably not irrelevant. But when we are oppressed and that’s a good sign that God is doing things. He’s showing we’re different and they don’t like the fact that we’re different. We’re being public. Finally, we’re proclaiming the gospel in our lives with our messages. The world doesn’t like it. And justice will include, okay, having victory politically and what other ways over particular people. In other words, he’s not going to save every last person. He’s going to, you know, destroy some as well.

Micah 3 is another text that talks about justice. Now, in verse one of Micah 3, then remember, you know, Micah 6:8, right? “He’s told you what does God require of you to do to love mercy, to do justice, and to walk humbly with God.” What does Micah mean by doing justice, right? You probably thought about I thought about it at times. Well, maybe it’s just personally doing justice and not really have anything to do with Oregon City or the cities in which we live. But Micah will tell us here what he means in chapter 3. In chapter 3:1 he says, “I said here you heads of Jacob and rulers of the house of Israel. Is it not for you to know justice?” He goes after the people, the rulers who are supposed to be ruling in justice and declares for verses after verses here throughout chapter 3 that they’re doing injustice. He brings a political message to the rulers, but also to the priests and the prophets of his day.

He brings a political message, not simply a personal message. of justice. He brings a political message of their injustice. And as and and after he does this through verse 7, then in verse 8, he says, “But as for me, I am filled with power and the spirit of the Lord and with justice and might to declare to Jacob his transgression and to Israel his sin. Hear this, you heads of the house of Jacob and rulers of the house of Israel who detest justice.” Micah says that as a spirit empowered prophet. And remember that’s a picture of Jesus. Jesus is the ultimate spirit empowered prophet. As a spirit empowered prophet, part of his message is a political message of bringing justice defined by God’s word. Not by what people like and their feelings and emotions, but by God’s word. Bringing justice, a political message. That’s part of why the spirit comes. That’s part of what happens to us through spirit empowerment. If Jesus’s work was like Micah’s work to proclaim and to bring justice to victory and to bring conviction to people who are involved in unjust systems. Surely that’s part of who we are. Surely that’s part of what Pentecost is all about. Surely that’s how these nations are going to be converted. We’re going to declare to them as well their sins of injustice when we see them that we’re going to try to do something about it.

At the personal level, Jesus with the demon-possessed deaf mute guy. And at the broader level, the message of Micah of justice to political rulers. This is part of who we are as Christians. It’s central to who we are. If we equate evangelism and somehow end up without seeing it as linked to bringing justice to victory, that is not evangelism according to the Bible. It is not evangelism. Evangelism is the good news. And the good news is that Jesus is bringing justice to victory. And that includes relieving people from oppression of their sin by bringing them into salvation. But it includes beyond that then calling them to live in justice and to speak forth the word of God that justice might happen in our countries as well.

So the spirit of justice very importantly for us here to see that it has this political component for Micah and it should have that same political component to us as well. God has poured out his spirit of justice on us so that we can to quote Peter Leithart here in an article in this text. Embody the politics of the spirit. Embody the politics of the spirit. Now, what is the politics of the spirit? Well, that’s a whole another set of sermons, but that’s what we’re called to do. That’s what we’re called to do.

The spirit of justice. Well, we’ve gotten through one point. Spirit then and now. This will be short. So, we tend to think of the Old Testament spirit and the New Testament spirit. Is it continuous, discontinuous? And we tend to place the discontinuity in terms of what the spirit is actually like. We know that in the Old Testament the spirit came upon people for very specific tasks right. You know, Bezalel whatever the guy’s name was who did the you know work for the tabernacle and the temple rather you know these guys were spirit empowered. The spirit came upon these men to do craftsmanship to make beams and carvings and structures and stuff that’s what the spirit empowered men to do in the old testament.

The spirit comes upon the judges for particular tasks at particular times and those tasks usually have to do with you know crushing heads and defeating God’s enemies and bringing deliverance you know from oppression to God’s people. The spirit comes upon Saul right and Saul you know immediately fairly right fairly quickly in the text is out there hearing about enemies of God’s people and he’s empowered by the spirit to go take care of them. David is, you know, baptized in the spirit, so to speak. He’s anointed by Samuel and the spirit comes upon him, we’re told, and the task, one of the great tasks that he accomplishes in the power of the spirit is defeating Goliath. Jesus is driven into the wilderness when the spirit comes upon him to wrestle the greater Goliath, right? And David goes out there in to be the champion for Israel the way Jesus is the champion that David was pointing to. But anyway, the point is in the Old Testament, the spirit comes upon people for particular tasks.

There’s even a spirit empowered bureaucracy if you can believe that. Right? In the book of Numbers, Moses needs help not in judging the people. He’s already got that system set up. But he needs help in administering the people. Too much food, too many people. I can’t take care of all this. And God gives him 70 bureaucrats. That’s essentially what they were as I read Numbers. They’re bureaucrats to assist in the administrative work. of the government of this huge number of people who needed to be fed in the wilderness. That bureaucracy is filled with the spirit of God. The spirit comes upon them and two of them when that aren’t even there together, they get the spirit on them, too, which is a whole another story. But the point is the spirit comes upon them for a particular task. Bureaucracy, bureaucratic management. All bureaucrats aren’t bad. We need them. You like roads? We need some bureaucrats. And we need bureaucrats like these guys who are filled with the spirit of God for the task. Okay. So we know that in the Old Testament the spirit comes upon people for these particular tasks.

But we tend to think in the New Testament the spirit is more ethereal spiritual as opposed to earthly heavenly instead of earthly. You know that was the Old Testament. You know New Testament it’s more ecstatic sort of stuff like the illustration I’ve used which I picked up from Wright’s Simply Christian. You know it’s like having a spiritual day of being a Disney land, right? The spirit, we sort of think of it that way more. Well, there is discontinuity between the old and the new. The spirit did come upon people for particular tasks in the Old Testament. Jesus says in John chapter 7, speaking of water coming out from the innermost parts of our being, said, “Drink from me, right? I’ll give you water. It’ll flow out of your bellies and change the world.” And it says he said this about the spirit which had not yet been given because he was not yet actually literally in the Greek the spirit that was not yet because he had not been glorified.

So it’s as if there’s no spirit action going on in the world until the glorification of Jesus Christ in the day of Pentecost. And now not just a few people get empowered by the spirit. Now everyone united to the Lord Jesus Christ. If you’re here today and you’ve come to know that you’re a sinner that only Jesus Christ can take care of that sin, has paid the price for that sin, and graciously forgives you of your sin, you trusting in his death and resurrection. Right? If you’ve been united to Jesus by believing on him by the power of the spirit, the word of God says you now are spirit empowered yourself, you’re not, you know, in the Old Testament, few people spirit comes upon for particular times. No, New Testament, all God’s people. If you’re a Christian here today, you’re spirit filled. Okay?

So that’s the discontinuity, but the discontinuity doesn’t isn’t in the basic nature of who the Holy Spirit is. I think to have a covenantal perspective and a and a perspective that doesn’t see an evolving spirit, an evolving God, but says he’s the same spirit that was present in the Old Testament tells us that what the spirit comes upon us to do is perform particular tasks. And Jesus says that in Acts chapter 1, you’ll receive power from the Holy Spirit so you can do something. So you can proclaim the message. So you can take the gospel to all the world. So you can disciple the nations. And discipling the nations includes messages and actions to bring about justice to people that are oppressed by injustice. Okay? So all of that stuff is related to this work of the spirit. So really the spirit himself is doing the same thing. He’s equipping a people for particular tasks in the New Testament just like he did in the Old Testament. The overall task is evangelism. And then we’re told in 1 Corinthians 12, I think that there are these different ministries or gifts that the spirit has given to us. And those gifts fit into this proclamation, the evangelization, the discipling of the whole world, bringing justice to victory, bringing justice to all the nations. Okay?

Now listen, it’s not like you become a Christian and then maybe you join a church and then later you have a ministry. Then the spirit gives you a no the spirit as soon as you’re united to Christ whether you know what it is or not has given you ministry gifts he’s given you particular giftings for ministry there the Bible doesn’t know about Christians who aren’t serving or ministering in some way and who aren’t somewhat self-conscious about that in terms of the body of Christ so the scriptures teach us that we’re to have an every believer ministry if you’re not serving in some capacity talk to me. Talk to your parish group leader. Talk to one of your friends. Say, “Hey, I don’t think I’m dialed in. I’m not really doing ministry work. I don’t know what my giftings are and where God would use me.” But the spirit empowers particular people. So, you know, we want to remember that the New Testament is different in terms of it’s almost as if there was no spirit until Jesus pours forth his spirit. No spirit in the earth that is. And and it now comes upon all of God’s people fully. Doesn’t kind of come and go, it stays. That’s discontinuity. But the continuity is that God fills you. The day of Pentecost is a reminder that you got a tongue of flame, too. They all did, right? It was individual, but it was corporate. They all did. And as a result of that, you have ministry. Now, maybe you’re not doing it, which would be bad, but you have ministry. You’ve got the indwelling Holy Spirit.

Now, what is the purpose of all of this? Well, the purpose of all of this is new life. Jesus says in Revelation 21, “And behold, I’m making all things new. The new Jerusalem is coming down out of heaven. He says, “I’ll give you to drink at no cost.” Again, that’s a reference in the Gospels when Jesus says that to the spirit. He’s going to provide the spirit in Revelation 21 that will make manifest the new temple, the new Jerusalem that comes to fill all the world. And that’s what’s going on. That’s what’s been going on. The text in Revelation 21 says that happens from the alpha and the omega who says it is done. As he’s seated at the right hand of the father, the ascension of Jesus, it is done. Echoing the words on the cross means that from that point on, the heavenly Jerusalem is filling the earth. And he’s doing it by means of his spirit, that water of life. And he’s making, and it doesn’t say, “I’ve made all things new.” It says, “I am making all things new.”

Jesus is doing nothing short of bringing new creation into old creation. So, the purpose of the spirit of God, the true message of evangelism is there’s a new world. It’s coming, but it’s already arrived in the person of Jesus, and now it’s already arrived in you. You’re a signpost to the future, to what is inevitably the future of this planet. You’re a signpost of the kingdom. of Jesus Christ, the new Jerusalem which will grow to fill all the world. I mean, it’s unstoppable. That’s what he’s doing at the right hand of the father. And so, that’s the message. That’s ultimately what the evangelism is all about. The good news is the old creation where beauty was twisted, where justice was replaced with oppression, where spirituality became not a quest for Jesus Christ, but somehow inner spirituality or demon worship, right? Right? And where community was broken down in every way. That old creation is coming to an end. It has ended definitively through the work of Jesus Christ. And you now are called to be the people of justice and community, beauty, right, and spirituality in this world. And not only are you called to be that, that is who you are. That is your identity. That’s why the spirit came on the day of Pentecost. empowering the church, transforming the church, right? New world, new life.

Corinthians, Paul says, if you’re in Jesus Christ, you are a new creation. Read the texts of the epistles that way. When he talks about, you know, your flesh and your new man and all that stuff, that’s what he’s talking about is the future has arrived in the present. The future is becoming manifest in the present. The new creation is growing to fill all the world by, you know, speaking forth the gospel of Jesus Christ, which is that new creation has come, man’s sins are forgiven, and the world is being made new. He’s making all things new. That’s the purpose. That’s the message. That’s the big message of evangelism. And as I said, it includes the spirit of justice.

One of the aspects of justice is that. Now, you know, we’ve talked about justice here for six weeks now. Let me just, you know, the foolish man hears and he didn’t do anything about it. I preached a sermon somehow it’s not available now, but I preached a sermon on family justice, right? Preached another one talking about sexuality. You know, if nothing’s changed in your life, if your family doesn’t exhibit more of the justice that the scriptures talk about now than it did when I preached a month ago, be careful. Be warned. Move ahead. The way all this happens is through our own lives individually as well as you know corporately God’s doing things through his body but justice is an essential component of this new life and if you’re not trying to work through systems of injustice practices of injustice in your home if you’re not seeking out help to do it if you can’t do it on your own then you see you’ve kind of missed the whole point of being a Christian and I don’t know how you can expect to be profitable to your neighbors or to evangelize the nations or to engage in social justice in Oregon City doing justice if in your own home is still characterized by injustice.

So, you know, this isn’t just I mean, I think this is cool stuff, but you know, it better be real stuff to us.

I probably won’t get to it today, but the Bible gives us grave warnings about grieving the Holy Spirit. New life. Well, how does it work out? And here’s the center of the outline. And here’s what I want to leave you with. Basically, these are the discussion points for you. How we accomplish this, right? Well, and this is Roman numeral 4 in the outline, the spirit connecting earth and heaven. And as I said, this is material. The four points here are actually taken from N.T. Wright’s book, Simply Christian. And if you don’t understand what I say today, you can read chapters 9 and 10 of that book and you’ll sort of get an idea. And what he’s talking about here we can do this simply is that the new creation is being you know the heavenly Jerusalem is filling the earth heaven and earth we pray that God’s will moved on earth and as it is in heaven when heaven comes to earth it comes and brings new creation and in the old testament there was four ways that at least four right talks about four ways the temple itself is a picture of new creation of god dwelling with his people right he comes to fill the temple with his presence.

And that’s a place where heaven and earth intersect. We sort of get that and we get that in terms of the worship of the church, right? We go to heaven, he comes to earth, whatever it is, heaven and earth intersect. And then secondly, heaven and earth intersect by way of God’s law. You know, it’s interesting because Exodus at Mount Sinai, the last half of the book are instructions about the temple, but before that are three or four chapters instructions about law, Torah, the way Hey, the what kind of life do we live? How do we live as heavenly people on this ball, this sphere called the earth? How do we do that? The law tells us how to do that. The law is a point of intersection again of heaven and earth.

Now, that law changes in application, right, over redemptive history. This side of the cross, some things have changed. But the law essentially, what does Paul say? He says, well, you know, you’re not supposed to be violating those commandments. And love is what they’re all about. And love’s the fulfilling of the law. So, your job is to walk the way Jesus says we’re supposed to walk in Torah in the law, which is related to the fulfillment the fulfilling of it, which is love. That’s the definition of love. Don’t say you love somebody if you’re not keeping God’s law relative to them. So, the law is another point of intersection.

In our old man, we don’t do those things. And as soon as the veneer of Christianity gets rolled back from America, what starts to happen? Adultery, murder, theft. all kinds of weird things, the violation of the Lord’s day, of course, all kinds of things start happening because it’s not in our nature to do that stuff. That stuff is new creation stuff. And so, another point of intersection between heaven and earth is God’s divine instructions coming from the mountain in terms of how we’re to live our lives. And Jesus’s, you know, words, the sermon on the mount, it’s a point of intersection of heaven and earth. That’s what tops of mountains are about.

And then the third way, Wright, says that heaven and earth intersect is in the word of God. And we talked about this when I talked several weeks ago about the relationship of the spirit and the word. Again, some people want to distinguish those two, but in the book of Acts, they’re together. The spirit moves and the word flourishes. The word grows. Paul says the same thing. You know, the message is happening. The spirit is linked to the word of God and the word of God grows. And even in Thessalonians, he says it’s bringing forth fruit. fruit. Now, what’s that a reference to? Bringing forth fruit, new creation. The word of God brought creation into being. And the word of God that the spirit empowers us to is this point of connection. It’s this heavenly word. It’s the breath of God going out into the world. You evangelize the nations. You speak forth. And when you speak forth biblical truth, and when you evaluate the world around you and speak God’s truth into it, When you evangelize, that’s the word of God going forth in new creation life.

That’s springtime. That’s my garden getting green. When we stop talking about the Bible and we stop talking about Jesus and we stop talking about his word, then new creation doesn’t go right. Everything turns brown and dies. So the word is a point of intersection between heaven and earth that’s divinely intended to bring forth new life, creation, springtime, right? Except the best springtime of all, new creation life. So the word is another point. And then finally, he says wisdom. You know, all the wisdom that we know is hidden in Christ. It’s it’s manifold to us now, but it’s in Jesus Christ. Wisdom is what was involved at the creation of the world, right? Proverbs wisdom is this creation thing as well. So wisdom, God’s wisdom, heavenly wisdom distinguished from earthly wisdom is a point of intersection. between you know heaven and earth.

So we live the future in the present in at least these four particular ways we can think about them. And these four points of intersection are ways to think to plan to pray. We had a conference with Caleb Davis yesterday talking about intentionality. You should be intentional about these four areas. You should think this week, this afternoon, right now, how well am I intersecting Am I am I being this point of intersection in reference to the spirit of God being indwelling the temple? What’s the temple? Well, Paul tells the Corinthians that you all are the temple of God. And then later he says you individually are the temple of God. Okay? So the temple now is the church of Jesus Christ corporately and it’s you individually the spirit individual fire right each person’s dwelt. They’re a temple. Now, the fire comes to you, not just on the in the holy of holies, right? Or on the altar. The fire, a heavenly fire appeared to burn up the first offering, right? Well, now you’re that altar. You’re the temple individually, but they all receive it as well corporately.

And Paul tells the Corinthians that, and the verses are on your outline. He says, “Corporately, you’re the temple. Individually, you’re the temple.” Now, that sets up for us two very effective means of evaluating our life in terms of new creation whether we’re being really connected up heaven and earth in our own lives. Are you helping to build the unity of the church? Are you doing that? Okay. Now, the Corinthians, this is their big problem. One of their two big problems, right? Their two big problems were what? The Corinthians. They’re the worst church we probably know of in the New Testament, right? And he tells the worst church You’re the temple of God. And he tells the worst people, you’re individually temples. He’s calling them to repentance for what two areas? Disunity, right? They’re eating their own thing at the Lord’s supper. It’s a picture of their whole breaking apart. They have sex and divisions. I’m of Paul. I’m of Apollos. Their disunity and their sexual sin that they let go on. In the worst case, a guy sleeping with his whatever it was, mother-in-law. Sexual sin is the other thing. And what are the two references to being the temple in the book of Corinthians one is this idea of unity. You’re corporately the temple. So don’t you know bite and devour. Don’t tear down the body of Christ. Be part of the ministry of that body. Be united to it.

And then secondly when he says you individually are the temple. Remember that reference? He says therefore don’t engage in sexual immorality because you’re joining the temple of God with the temple of idols or whatever it is. So you know sexual purity, holiness as the emblem of holiness and every degree and the unity of the church. Those are particular ways you can today, right now into this afternoon and this week in your family, with your wife, your husband, your friend, with your small groups talk about that. Are we bringing new creation life by living out the connectivity between heaven and earth, empowered by the spirit of God? Are we Pentecostal people or are we not?

And if we’re Pentecostal people, we’re building and developing the unity and ministry of the church and we’re progressing in sexual purity. It’s that simple for the first one, the temple. Right? Those are points of discussion, points of evaluation, points to be intentional about in terms of your life this week and on into the future. And when you do those things, what happens? The world is changed. Creation, new creation life flows out from you.

Are you walking in the Torah, in the law? Are you obeying God’s word as best you understand what that law says? And if you’re not, again, the message is stifled. The connectivity of heaven and earth, the intersection point gets muddied up. Are you doing that? Another point of discussion for yourself. How well are we applying? How well do we know God’s law? Are we applying that? Are we walking in love defined by God’s word? Is our social justice defined by God’s Torah or not? Right? Is my way of interacting with people defined by the Torah or not? By God’s word, right? by love defined by God’s word.

Third area, the word. Are you speaking about Jesus? Who do you say that I am? Right back to Chris W.’s sermon of a month or two ago. If we’re not speaking the word, including the specific word that Jesus Christ is savior, and if we’re not speaking the word into our families, our communities, into the world, if we’re not being little mini Micahs, having some degree of speaking God’s word, prophetically into a situation, maybe even politically, then we’re stifling new creation. The breath of God is not going forth destroying old creation and bringing new creation. That’s what justice involves is to some degree you got to deconstruct to reconstruct.

Those judges in the power of the spirit, you know, banged heads, crushed skulls, and that’s what we’re supposed to do. And we do that by speaking the word. Another point of discussion, how much do you talk about God’s word, about Jesus and his word, about the father being honored by our actions united to Jesus, about the purpose of the Holy Spirit? How much do you speak about those things? Do you proclaim the gospel in your, you know, Jerusalem and Judea, Samaria, the uttermost parts of the earth? When you don’t speak God’s word into your world, creation is stifled, we could say. I mean, it really isn’t. But in a way, it is, right? Because that’s the power of God. The word is the power of God. By which we bear fruit. By which the world around us blossoms out. By which our garden gets so green is my garden, right? And gets so beautiful as our gardens do in springtime.

And then finally, wisdom. Do you rely upon the wisdom of this world which is increasingly anti-Christian? Or do you look to Jesus Christ as the source of wisdom? Do you seek a heavenly wisdom from above? James tells us what it’s about. List seven characteristics. The wisdom from above, the wisdom from below. Those are the points of intersection. They’re very practical. We can evaluate them. We can set up a matrix rather on them. We can plot how often we speak the word of God. We can plot how often we turn to the wisdom from above rather than the wisdom of the world. We can plot how often we work for the unity of the church or how often we hurt the unity of the church through our speech. Right? And we can we can make a graph about how well we’re doing in terms of growing sexual purity and we can make a graph about how well we understand and apply God’s law. That’s the power of the spirit. That’s being Pentecostal.

I’m going to leave you to look up the references in the outline. But one last thing I want to say as we close. There’s a warning. There’s a warning in Ephesians, right? Don’t grieve the Holy Spirit. The spirit can be grieved. Now that word grieve is used in relational terms. A widow robbed of her husband is grieved. Jonathan is grieved and David is attacked by his father. Grief implies this personal relationship that the spirit comes to bring us into this intimate relationship with the triune God. And we should understand that when we don’t live out our points of intersection with the word and wisdom and the temple, unity, sexual purity, and God’s law. When we don’t do that, we grieve, you know, our husband, our wife, whatever you want to put on it, the work of the Holy Spirit personally. We grieve him. Okay?

And then, so that’s one thing. The second thing is there’s another reference to grieving the Holy Spirit, and that’s found in Isaiah. You’re okay. You can go another couple of minutes to hear this, right? I’m sure you can. If you can’t, you tell me later. Yeah, I really can’t do that. A lot of good that’ll do you now.

Here’s the reference in Isaiah. Isaiah 63. He said, “Surely they are my people, children who will not deal falsely, and he became their savior. In all their affliction he was afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them. In his love and in his pity, he redeemed them. He lifted them up and carried them all the days of old.” That sounds like his work with us in Jesus. But verse 10, they rebelled and grieved the Holy Spirit. Therefore, therefore he turned to be their enemy and himself fought against them.

It’s not a light matter to grieve the Holy Spirit, folks. It’s not just about, you know, not treating the triune God and the relationship we have with him correctly. When we grieve the Holy Spirit, when we are out of sync in those four points of interconnection, then God says he wants us to be reminded that when that happens, he can become our enemy. He can war against us. Maybe some of you have that going on in your life right now. Maybe you know that God is warring against you because you haven’t done these four things. You haven’t brought justice to your family and you haven’t even thought about in terms of what it looks like in the workplace and maybe God’s fighting against you already to some degree.

Grieving the Holy Spirit is a big deal. It can result in disaster for you. Okay.

Now, I’ll close with this. You can read the Abba Father references later. But having said that, knowing now how disastrous it would be to grieve the Holy Spirit. By the way, God was grieved in Genesis 6. And when he got grieved about his people who were grieving himself, he destroyed all of them in the flood except a few. Okay, so that’s the warning about. Now listen, I’ll close with this. This is the context. for grieving the Holy Spirit. Beginning in verse 29 of Ephesians 4, let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up temple language as it’s the occasion that it may give grace to those who hear. And so he immediately ties that to do not grieve the Holy Spirit of God by whom you were sealed. for the day of redemption.

Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamor and slander be put away from you along with all malice. Those things grieve the spirit. And if you’re doing them, you better stop. I talk to myself and I tell you, we better be careful about what we say with our words. Are we building up the body of Christ? Are we tearing it down the temple? Are we with our words bringing life or death?

And then positively be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you. Therefore, be imitators of God as beloved children. Walk in love as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. Sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not be even named among you as is proper among saints. Let there be no filthiness, nor foolish talk, nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead, let there be thanksgiving. Let there be thanksgiving. When we’re not thankful, when bitterness and clamor and saying words that are hurtful to the body of Christ and to members of the body of Christ take place, then God says, “You better be careful. You don’t want to grieve the Holy Spirit. You don’t want to suffer his judgments.”

And on the opposite, when we do what God says we’re to, do when we speak forth his word, when we build up his unity of his temple, when we engage as the Holy Spirit, when we’re holy ourselves, move away from sexual immorality, when we rely upon heavenly wisdom and not our own wisdom or the wisdom of the world, and when we know God’s law and walk in the context of that, then God says, “New creation is springing forth. The heavenly Jerusalem is coming down. Jesus is indeed making all things new.”

Let’s pray. Lord God, I pray that you would help us this week to meditate particularly on these four points of intersection. Help us, Lord God, to be honest with ourselves, with those we speak with, and help us confess our sins to each other. We thank you that sin doesn’t disqualify us. David sinned, but unlike Saul, he repented. Help us, Lord God, to see the need to come to confession and repentance on a daily, weekly basis. And may we start confessing our sins in these four areas to you, to one another, other into the people we need to so that we can move forward and that we can be agents of your new creation. We thank you for this high unimaginable calling and thank you that you have equipped us for it by the indwelling spirit. In Jesus name we pray. Amen.