Dennis Tuuri

I remember learning that song thirty years ago or so, sitting around Howard L. and Valerie’s living room. I think it was in Multnomah Village in that part of the area, and how excited we were to sing Psalms, to learn them, to learn them from the Anglo-Genevan tradition, and to celebrate the history of the Reformation and to begin making our own history here at Reformation Covenant Church.

We come today to Palm Sunday. This is the first day of so-called Holy Week. And you know, there’s a reason why churches have for two thousand years celebrated the calendar and specifically Holy Week and Palm Sunday, or some churches Passion Sunday, followed by Resurrection Sunday. And one of the most important reasons for that is that our faith is rooted in history. It’s not a set of ideas. It’s not a belief system that doesn’t have some kind of substantial reality to it. We are people that are rooted in the historical death and resurrection and ascension of the Lord Jesus Christ.

And so it’s good when we have days in which we remember these historical events and place them in front of us. Today is, as I said, Palm Sunday, and we actually have a robe here too. Both of the texts we were reading and singing talked about how they put their robes down as well. And that was a little more opened up before, but there’s actually a robe down there this year for the first time. So you know what we’re going to do? I want to read from Matthew 21:1-3, and this is kind of the beginning of the triumphal entry story, the recitation of historical facts in that sense.

And what I want to do today is to focus not so much on the triumphal entry itself or the palms and the children, but where Jesus dwelt that week. We just had Trinity Arts Festival, and the theme was dwelling place. So where Jesus dwelt. And so please stand for the reading of God’s word.

Matthew 21:1-3: “Now when they drew near Jerusalem and came to Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, ‘Go into the village opposite you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied and a colt with her. Loose them and bring them to me. And if anyone says anything to you, you shall say, “The Lord has need of them,” and immediately he will send them.’”

Let’s pray. Lord God, we thank you for your word, and we thank you for the Holy Spirit that indwells us and illuminates this word to our understanding. Help us, Lord God, in all things to be dependent upon your Spirit, and particularly now, that he might give us an understanding of these scriptures and might transform us with the things of the Lord Jesus Christ, that we may worship you, Lord God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.

Please be seated. So what’s happening here is there’s a place that they arrive to: the Mount of Olives, as they’re drawing near to the city. And if you look at these texts about the triumphal entry, you’ll see this phrase “drawing near.” He’s drawing near. He’s drawing near. He’s drawing near. Repetitively issued as he moves toward the triumphal entry into Jerusalem, on what we celebrate as Palm Sunday, for that sequence of events.

But he doesn’t stay in Jerusalem. We want to think about drawing near to our cities and towns, right? So where are we? We’re with Jesus and the disciples and those that praise him, moving into our cities to transform them. And that transformation happens both in terms of judgment but also restoration. And so as we draw near to our cities, we are essentially enacting the Savior’s drawing near to Jerusalem and to cities along the way.

And as we do that, we want to be empowered like our Savior was. Our Savior spent every night of that week of days leading up to his crucifixion and resurrection at the Mount of Olives, which is mentioned in our text here. And we’ll look at a verse about that in a couple of minutes. But that’s where he dwelt. He dwelt. He stayed. His dwelling place was the Mount of Olives. And from there, he would go into the city.

And we want to be the disciples who hear the word of Jesus, make preparations for him, in the person of his church, going into cities, drawing near to our communities, our towns, our neighborhoods. And what we want to do is dwell in the same place that Jesus dwelt. And Jesus dwelt on the Mount of Olives. That’s a place, as we’ll look at in the text today, what is happening here is the Mount of Olives are associated with the Holy Spirit, and Jesus is dwelling in the Holy Spirit.

And if we’re going to be successful as Jesus’s disciples, doing what he tells us to do and being his body, re-entering our communities, towns, and villages and cities tomorrow, we’ll have to do it in the power of the Spirit, which is what Jesus did as well. So that’s what we want to talk about.

Now you say, “Well, did he really stay there?” Well, Luke 21:37 says this, speaking of this last week of his life, before his resurrection and ascension: “In the daytime, he was teaching in the temple, but at night he went out and stayed on the mountain called Olivet.” So the mountain called Olivet is the Mount of Olives, and it is a grove of olive trees. That’s what it is. So Jesus every night stays there. And so this dwelling place of his becomes then where he goes from, to draw near to his cities.

And so Jesus himself. Now, if we were to look at the actual text, not only did he dwell there, but on the night of his betrayal, right, they sang a hymn and went out to the Mount of Olives. So that’s where he was arrested. And while it would take too much time today to demonstrate it to you, I think it’s pretty evident from looking at the text of the New Testament accounts that not only was he dwelling there and arrested there, he was actually crucified there.

And you could probably make a pretty good case—you can’t prove it from scripture, but probably could—that it was on an olive tree. The piece he carried, the cross he bore, wasn’t looking like this. It was the cross member. This is what the Romans would typically do. They didn’t want to put up new trees. So maybe—we don’t know that—but maybe. But he’s crucified on the Mount of Olives as well. Everything seems to happen there, right? And he’s buried in that place as well. And then finally, the text of scripture explicitly tells us that he ascended while on the Mount of Olives. So his ascension is from there as well.

So he’s in an olive orchard, an olive grove in these important events. And I think that the imagery here is what we’re going to be looking at. The imagery is that he is in connection. He’s dwelling in the Holy Spirit. He’s spirit-empowered to do all those things he’s going to do. And we likewise, like our Savior, have to be spirit-empowered as we draw near to whatever task he’s called us to this week.

So we’re going to do the Lord’s business by being in the same dwelling place as him: union and communion with the Father through the Spirit because of the work of Jesus. And as we do that, we’ll draw near to our cities, successfully transforming them.

So first, I have a series of statements on your handouts today about the significance of the olive tree, and we’ll try to go over these quickly. But you know, I mentioned a couple of weeks ago about blades of grass, and how at Kaiser, even if you open a conversation, most of the people I talked to are Christians of some sort. This week, same thing, except they initiated the conversation. I go to check in, and the woman at the check-in place got to me right away. She says, “Oh, it was very busy this morning. I’m going to be late to my Bible study tonight.” And then I go to the nurse who’s going to wrap my two legs up, so my walk is difficult. But she starts talking. We just talk on and on about the Bible, and she became a Christian after being raised Catholic, etc. Solid stuff, and very encouraging to have these kinds of conversations.

But I mentioned to her this olive tree, the importance of it, significance of it to the Holy Spirit. And she had no idea. Most of us don’t. We live in a time when we don’t really know our Bibles all that well, and we don’t understand what’s being said as a result of it. When you get to the New Testament, you know, the imagery has all been established for us.

So quickly, first of all: the olive tree and the new post-flood creation. Genesis 8:11. So what kind of twig comes back to show that the new creation is now fruiting out and inhabitable on the earth? It’s an olive branch, right? So the olive is the first plant of the new creation. Okay? So the olive tree has this significance. What I’m saying here is that the Holy Spirit is going to bring new creation to our cities as well.

The olive branch—and what kind of bird is it that brings the olive branch back? Well, it’s a dove. And clearly the dove is associated in the scriptures, in Jesus’s baptism, etc., with the Holy Spirit. So the olive tree is significant in the resurrection of the world, so to speak, and it’s significant here in the final days of Jesus’s ministry and then in his ascension as well.

We have this new creation in Genesis. Secondly, olive oil was used to anoint the priests and actually everything in the tabernacle and temple, according to Exodus 30:22-33. All the things of the temple or tabernacle, and then the men themselves are anointed with olive oil. And the imagery going on here is the temple is an image of several things: one, the whole world. And again, the world is being rebirthed through the work of the Holy Spirit, just like the Holy Spirit moved over the waters originally, and that’s going on.

And the temple, of course, is an image of the Lord Jesus Christ. He’s the temple that will be raised back up. And again, we see this impregnation of olive oil and the things of the temple. We see our Savior dwelling in the context of the empowering Holy Spirit as man, new man. And of course, that’s who these priests represent. They go through a week of cleansing, and then on the eighth day—the beginning of the new creation—they’re ready to go.

But they need to be anointed with this olive oil. So olive oil is a picture of new creation life, and specifically it’s related to the temple in a lot of different ways. Another way it’s related is that there are olivewood cherubim on either side of the ark of the covenant, and there are also olivewood doors guarding the Holy of Holies. And so these, the temple has these doors and representations of olivewood in the context of them. And this is found in 1 Kings 6, as well as John 20:12.

So the temple is, if you think of what how it’s constructed, it really almost is an olive grove. There’s olivewood all over the place in very significant ways. And there’s olive oil that’s been the anointing oil for everything in there. So essentially, you’re in an olive grove. And you could make a pretty good connection between Jesus dwelling in the olive mount—dwelling in really the true temple of God, where the Spirit will come forth—and then the other temple will be destroyed because it’s now inhabited by those that reject Jesus.

So olivewood is real important. It’s important in lots of different ways, and it’s important as well for Old Testament images that are showing what’s going to happen in the new creation when Jesus dies, is resurrected, and ascends to the right hand of the Father. And so it doesn’t strike us as surprising when at the ascension, then shortly thereafter, the Holy Spirit is poured out upon his people.

The olive press. You know, it reads in the New Testament that Jesus went to Mount—went out to Gethsemane, which is where his agony was. Gethsemane just means olive press. That’s its literal translation. And as I said, in Matthew 26, after singing a hymn, they go out to the Mount of Olives. And so Jesus, his ministry is being completed by his dwelling in the context of olives, olive groves, olive trees, olives.

And as I said, in Acts 1:12, Jesus ascends at the Mount of Olives as well. Our entire life as Christ Christians is described as being an olive tree in Romans 11:16-17. You know, he talks about how we were a wild plant and we were grafted into the olive tree that is Israel. And so Israel, the people of God, including the inclusion of the church there, being grafted in, our whole identity is essentially that of being olive trees, an olive grove, so to speak, or an olive tree that we’re grafted into.

So Jesus spent each night of Holy Week at the Mount of Olives. The dove brought an olive branch back to Noah. The priests were anointed with olive oil. And then in Zechariah, the cherubim are seen as olive trees feeding the lampstand. And we’ll talk about this picture that’s on the front of your cover in just a minute. So if they’re feeding olive oil to the lampstand, olive doors guarded the Holy of Holies in the temple. And so we have this significance.

Well, what does all this mean? So we’ve got all these olives everywhere and olive trees. But what does it mean? Well, Zechariah 4 is the clearest picture of what it means. If you look in your Bibles to Zechariah 4, it’s a little complicated. There are some things in it that are difficult, a few words and verses. But in Zechariah 4, we have this vision given. Let me just touch on this vision by looking at Zechariah chapter 4.

So turning your Bibles to Zechariah 4. And we see in verse one that an angel is talking with Zechariah, and he wakes him, and he said, “What do you see?” Zechariah says, “I am looking, and there is a lampstand of solid gold with a bowl on top of it, and on the stand seven lamps with seven pipes to the seven lamps. Two olive trees are by it, one at the right of the bowl and the other at the left.”

So this drawing, while a little primitive, sort of shows you. So he’s got this bowl, right? And we’ve got these olive trees that he sees, and there are pipes. So the olive trees are giving their olive oil into these pipes into this bowl, which feeds the lamps, right? And the lampstand, of course, is a picture of Israel in the power of the Spirit.

There’s seven eyes, right? They’re overseeing these. The lamp is a representation of the eye. The Spirit is this seveneyed being, described in Revelation by way of imagery or symbol. And so the lampstand is us empowered by the Holy Spirit. And that Spirit is represented in the image of Zechariah 4 by this olive oil that comes from the trees.

So the olive oil and the olive trees which yield the oil are talked about in Zechariah 4. And this is sort of what it looks like. That’s on the front cover of your order of worship. And so Zechariah is describing this thing, and then he asks the person, the angel that’s talking to him, “What are these things?” And he says, “Don’t you know what these are?” Well, that’s the same question we would ask today. Most people, they’re going to look at this and say, “What’s that all about?”

But if you’re raised in this church, hopefully by the time you start thinking about things and get a little older and we show you this image, you know what it’s talking about, because you know what the Bible says about olives, olive trees, and what it says about the temple and new creation and all that stuff. So Zechariah, he doesn’t know. And the angel says, “What? Don’t you know what these things are?” And he says, “No.”

And here’s the answer from the angel. Verse 6: “So he answered and said to me, ‘This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the Lord of hosts.” So the angel interprets this as a representation that what will happen in the building of the new temple—they’re going to come back out of exile, they’re going to build a new temple, and this temple will be associated with this image. And the temple will be built not by might but by the power of the Holy Spirit.

So the olive oil is directly linked to the feeding of the temple, and it and what it represents is directly tied to the Spirit of God. Now there’s a couple of other images on here which go on to be described in Zechariah 4, and later in the chapter, including this plumb line. The plumb line is a building instrument, and so this is all associated with the building of the temple.

Now, in terms of us, what do we know? We know that the spiritual gifts that we’ve talked about for eight weeks are part. Their design is so that the temple will be built, so that we’ll be built up right as the people of God as one man. The temple is a representation of one man, and we’ll be built up. The work of the Spirit in empowering people and putting them into ministry in the local church is, you know, it’s the plumb line. It’s part of it. It’s the way the temple is going to be built all living stones here, right?

And so God is going to build this thing, but the building has to be the result, not of the power of men or their great reasoning, but ultimately of the work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit. Okay?

So when Jesus is dwelling every night in the olive grove on the Mount of Olives, symbolically he’s living in the new temple, we would say, the new creation. But he’s living in the dwelling place that is the Spirit and the environment of the Spirit. And so Jesus, as second Adam, comes in the power of that Spirit. He draws near to the cities. And if we’re going to draw near to the cities and do the work that God has called us to do, it is absolutely required that we live in the context. We dwell in the Holy Spirit.

That’s kind of the point of all of this. The imagery is pretty clear, and I hope that by explaining it, it hasn’t taken away from the image. But those three verses tell us we’re to draw near, coming from the environment of the Spirit, and we’re to do the work that Jesus has called us to do in our particular cities. Okay. So that’s an interpretation of the importance of olives, and then what that symbol is—a symbol of, according to Zechariah 4—is the Spirit of God.

Now, we can forget the imagery. All right, we don’t need the imagery. Isaiah 61, preached by our Savior in the synagogue in the gospel accounts, says: “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives.” And he goes on to describe his ministry.

So our Savior, at the beginning—at least at the recorded beginning of his public ministry in the gospels—what he says is, “I’m here in the power of the Spirit. I’ve been anointed by the Holy Spirit. I’m what Aaron and the priests pointed to. I’m in the temple what it was pointed to. When those things were anointed, they were anointed with olive oil. I’m empowered by the Holy Spirit, and this is what I’m going to do.”

So whether we look at the imagery of Palm Sunday and Jesus’s dwelling place throughout this week, or we look at the plain teaching, the idea is the same: that to bring justice to victory as the body of Christ, which is Jesus’s mission, we have to do that by dwelling in and being empowered, as our Savior was, with the fullness of the Holy Spirit.

What does it mean? Well, one thing it means is we should certainly be aware of our relationship to the Holy Spirit, right? I mean, at least means that much. You know, it’s interesting. Years ago, we went down and spent a week with R.J. Rushdoony, some of us men, and he was writing his Systematic Theology at the time. He had just begun writing chapters on the Holy Spirit. And if you read Rushdoony’s Systematic Theology, the first of about twenty or twenty-two chapters—they’re short—on the Spirit has to do with how, coming out of the Reformation, actually throughout church history, the doctrine of the Holy Spirit has not been developed very much.

And so we live in a day and age when the charismatics have done things incorrectly in different ways, and we’ve talked about charismatic gifts that we all have them in ministry. But on the other hand, Rushdoony was appreciative for the fact that the charismatics were drawing attention to the work of the Holy Spirit. And Rushdoony thought that the great theological development of the next century in the church would be an understanding, a fuller understanding of the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives.

So, you know, even the Westminster Confession of Faith, the Reformed documents, don’t really. They’ve got extended works on the nature of Jesus and on the Father, but really there’s not much there on the Holy Spirit. And yet this is exactly what we have to recognize: that bringing the work of Jesus to us is the work of the Holy Spirit. And this is to be our dwelling place for effective missional work in our particular cities, neighborhoods, and communities.

So these images of the Spirit essentially point us—as those who want to be intentional about the work that Jesus has called us to do in our communities and our lives—it draws us to see that intentionality as focused as well on being intentional about our relationship to the Holy Spirit. Intentional about our relationship to the Holy Spirit.

Now I’ve got several aspects of what the New Testament teaches us about the work of the Holy Spirit on your outlines, and much more could be said. Obviously, this scratches the surface. But I think that these things are significant and important as we try to work on and develop and mature in our dwelling in the Spirit.

And the first thing I want to point out here is that there’s this phrase repeatedly in the New Testament several times: that we’re to walk in the Holy Spirit. Okay? So we’ve got to have relationship—intentional relationship. This is what’ll equip us for missional activity. This is what’ll equip us for doing the Lord’s work.

So what do we do with that? Well, we at least think about it, and then we think about it according to the way the New Testament has kind of instructed us to see our relationship to the Holy Spirit. In Galatians 5:13-14, Paul says: “All the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ But if you bite and devour one another, beware lest you be consumed by one another. I say then, walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.”

Well, okay. So he tells us then we have a commandment, right? This is a commandment. You have to walk in the Spirit. It’s a commandment. It’s an imperative to us. Are you walking in the Spirit? It’s a good question to ask yourself, right?

Well, you know, what does it mean? Well, what it means is provided by the context of the command here. And you know, he says, to connect this command to walk by the Spirit to what he has just stated. And the verses he has just stated say that the law is fulfilled in one word: loving your neighbor as yourself. So walking in the Spirit doesn’t here have, you know, a focus just on you and Jesus in the Spirit. And that can tend to be what how the Spirit walk is described these days. Now, it is personal. You don’t want to lose the personal aspect of it. But walking in the Spirit is first of all the Spirit of obedience and empowerment to fulfill God’s law, to do it as the means of not salvation, but how we’re sanctified and how the world is sanctified. And then to see that law is summed up in one word: to love your neighbor as yourself.

So walking in the Spirit means not being in isolation from community. It means living in the context of community and having that community governed by the word of God. By the word of God.

Now, maybe that’s obvious to you, and maybe you say, “Okay, so what?” But I think, again, this week, what I want you to do is to meditate on whether you walk in the Spirit or not. And if you’re going to do that, I’m not pointing you to some sort of necessarily emotional experience. I’m pointing you to the pointers that God’s word points us to, to see evidence of that walk in the Spirit. Okay?

But I think it’s important to note that the other side of it is, you know, just because we have relationship and we’re trying to keep God’s law as a standard, and we know God’s word, I think that what the scriptures tell us is that’s great. But you should identify this as walking in the Spirit of God. The Spirit indwells you. The Spirit is a person, right? And so this relationship we have should be evidenced in a walk.

Additionally, it goes on to say in verse 18: “But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law, under the condemnation of the law.” Now, the works of the flesh are evident, which are adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness. So it gives us a list of activities and states of mind that are in complete rebellion against God’s word, which means these are evidences of not walking in the Spirit and not being led by the Spirit.

And then it goes on to talk about the fruit of the Spirit, in verse 22. And I want to say a little more about that later. But he says, these fruits—the fruit of the Spirit—are these things: love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. So again, he brings it back to the law of God is the means by which we know how to love one another. And what will be our joy is this walk with the Holy Spirit and, beyond that, being led by the Holy Spirit.

So walking with the Holy Spirit means that we’re side by side, right? He’s with us as we go through our day. Being led by the Holy Spirit means that he’s going to direct our walk in a particular way. And the way he’s directing our walk is to get rid of this list and it’s to put on this list, right? And so the Holy Spirit is the empowerment for us. Dwelling in the Spirit is the empowerment to do that—to put to death the deeds of the flesh and to come alive to the fruit, which are the fruit of the Spirit.

Spirit talked about explicitly. So he says, in verse 25 of this text: “If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another. If a man is overtaken in a trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one.”

So he says, you’ve been brought to life through the Spirit of life. The giver of life is the Holy Spirit. And we’ve been brought back to life through the regeneration of the Holy Spirit. And he says, if you’re alive in the Holy Spirit, walk in the Holy Spirit. And then he goes right back to the same topic. He talks about relationships in community. So the Holy Spirit and walking in the Spirit is directly related to walking in community.

Romans 8 is a text, a chapter that would be good for you to read this week. It talks about our relationship to the Holy Spirit quite a bit. It begins by saying: “There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. And so again, this is a text that tells us, commands us to walk according to the Holy Spirit.

And one of the ways it tells us to do this is found in verse 5: “Those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.” And then he contrasts being carnally minded with being spiritually minded. Okay, what does this mean?

It means the Spirit has come to affect new creation. By flesh, Paul, I think it means, at least one aspect of what he says when he uses the word flesh, is the old fallen man, old Adam, old ways of being. The deeds of the flesh were that list opposed to the fruit of the Spirit, right? And so what he says is to set your mind on things of the Spirit.

So one way we walk with the Holy Spirit is we get up in the morning and we are aware, intentionally, that this is a day that we’re to walk with the Spirit in, right? We don’t get up alone. We get up with someone. That someone is the Holy Spirit. We understand that. And we understand the scriptures have commanded us to dwell in the Spirit by having him walk with us through the day. And that the Holy Spirit will actually lead us as we go through that day.

And one of the ways we do that, or the Spirit does that work, is to cause us to reorient our minds—a reorientation of our minds. We live in a secular world. By that I mean it isn’t really secular. It’s God’s world. But every attempt has been made in our particular culture to remove images of God from around you. Now, they can’t do it, because the world is made to reflect God. And if you have right eyes about things, right, you’re going to see images of God all around you, the way you would in the temple, right, with the olive oil and impregnation of the olivewood and all that stuff. You’re going to understand those relationships to new creation and Noah.

But we have a world that doesn’t want you to be reinforced in a knowledge of the presence of God. And the Holy Spirit is a manifestor of the presence of God in your life. So I think it’s incumbent upon us, intentionally, as we rise in the morning, to say we’re going to walk by the Spirit today. It sounds, you know, might sound odd to you, but the world will be combating that throughout your day.

We’re to reorient our minds. Now, the mind is like the heart—we talked about last week. The mind doesn’t mean necessarily just your rationality or your intellect. It refers also in scripture to your desires. And to reorient our desires is part of what we should be doing. Okay? Now, that’s a whole other topic: how to reorient your desires. But, you know, it’s something you’re supposed to be doing.

And so as you go out throughout your day, today’s easy. Today’s training day, and we’ve reoriented ourselves. And what we do throughout most of this day, for most of us, has been oriented around the presence of the Spirit and community and Christ and the Father and all that stuff. And what we have to do is go from that dwelling place, taking it with us, being anointed by the Holy Spirit as we draw near to our cities tomorrow.

And how we do that is by reorienting our minds to think on things of the Spirit and not things of the flesh, and our desires. Desires are formed in part by what we do as well. So we correct what we do so that our desires will follow.

We have a liturgy here. We’ve got a thing we go through, and we’ve got this commanded liturgy here—very simple. And what God does with this is he reorients your desires by having you act in particular ways. I find it interesting that Job, for instance, in terms of sexual temptation, he didn’t make a covenant with his heart not to think improperly about a woman, right? He made a covenant with his eyes. I like that.

He tried to change the liturgy, his actions, take control of what we’re doing, reorient that away from, you know, giving into sinful relationships with women that are not called, are not our wives, and to grab hold of that not through trying to get a heart change. “Oh, I shouldn’t, you know, change the way I look with my eyes until my heart’s really right.” No. Change what you do with your eyes and with your actions, and your heart, your mind, your desires will change. Okay?

So anyway, however we do it, the scriptures tell us that one way to be, to walk in the Spirit and to be led by the Spirit as you go throughout tomorrow, is to reorient, to set your mind on things of the Spirit, self-consciously, to set your mind on things of the Spirit. Okay.

Romans 8, as I said, is quite a good treatment, a full treatment of all of this. Another thing it says, in verse 12: “Therefore, brethren, we are debtors not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. If you live according to the flesh you will die. But if you live by the Spirit, you put to death the deeds of the body. If you do this, you will live.”

So another thing about being led or walking with the Spirit is to intentionally put to death the deeds of the body. We’re going to talk more about this next week about the whole “put off, put on,” as Jesus, as the second Adam, resurrected, becomes a model to us, to walk in the resurrection by putting off and putting on. Okay.

So anyway, Jesus was filled with the Spirit. We know that. That’s what he did. The Spirit led Jesus as well as us. We read in Luke chapter 4, verse 1: “Jesus, being filled with the Spirit, returned from the Jordan after he was baptized and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness.”

Now, if Jesus understood being indwelt by the Spirit, walking in the Spirit, and actually being led by the Spirit, how can we hope to obey our Savior if we don’t obey what he did? If we don’t model him in that intent, eventually walking with and being led by the Spirit. And indeed, Romans 8 says: “As many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God. If you’re not led by the Spirit, okay, if you don’t do that, then the Bible says you’re not really a son of God. That’s what God says. So it has that kind of significance to us and should have that kind of importance to us as well.

I want to quote from Rushdoony’s Systematic Theology. He said this: “The Holy Spirit, as God immanent among us. So immanence and transcendence are big words. Transcendence means that God is, you know, other than us. Immanence means he is also with us, immediately present in the context of the world. So the Holy Spirit, as God immanent among us and active in God’s covenant people to accomplish God’s covenant purposes, cannot be left out of our daily thinking. He is the basic power in our lives. And to act or think without the continuing recognition and awareness of the Holy Spirit is comparable to wearing a blindfold and trying to perform our daily duties in a miserable darkness.”

That’s a good quote. I like that quote. The Holy Spirit is God immanent to us, and he says he cannot be left then out of our daily thinking. We’re to intentionally bring him into our daily thinking. He is the basic power in our lives. To act or think without the continuing recognition and awareness of the Holy Spirit is comparable to wearing a blindfold and trying to perform our daily duties in great darkness.

How about you? Do you feel like there are times in your life when you’re sort of wearing a blindfold, walking in a world of darkness? You can’t seem to progress in your walk or you seem to keep falling into the deeds of the flesh and all that stuff. Maybe it’s because you’re not intentionally doing this, bringing the Holy Spirit into your thoughts on a regular, on a daily basis—walking with the Spirit and being not only walking with, but being led by the Spirit of God.

I read an illustration. I don’t know if it’s a good illustration or a bad illustration, but the guy was saying that him and his wife took walks, right? And so if you walk with your wife and you try to hold hands and walk as you’re going along, you know, you can kind of bump into each other with your hips if you’re not in step with each other, right? And you’ve got to kind of do that, and then you’re both in step together, and you can walk well together.

If you’re trying to walk out of sync with what the Spirit would have you do, it’s a rough walk. But if we get into step with the Holy Spirit—which means these big emphases on community and the law of God as it structures community for us—then that walk is smooth and a blessing to us. Okay.

So we are to be aware of the Holy Spirit being with us, walking in the Spirit. The Spirit leads us in the way of the covenant. The covenant describes this personal relationship. You know, the covenant is not some kind of law arrangement alone. It is primarily a personal relationship whereby God makes himself known to his covenant people. And part of that is through, you know, giving us his word in terms of how we’re to live. It’s the covenant. And so the Spirit of God reminds us that our relationship to God is not a matter of, you know, empty lawkeeping. It’s a matter of personal relationship.

Your covenant with your bride or with your husband, your groom—you know, hopefully it’s not just a matter of law to you. It’s a personal relationship as well. And so the Holy Spirit is evident in that relationship.

So, one: being walking in the Spirit and being led by the Spirit. Two: encouragement in the Spirit. John 14:18. A very simple verse. “I will not leave you orphans. I will come to you.”

Now, it’s a simple verse, but it has great profoundness to it. And what he says, of course, is that I will come to you. And he comes by way of the Holy Spirit. He’s going to send the Holy Spirit. The Spirit will take things of Jesus and apply them to us. Jesus can be said to dwell in our hearts by faith through the work of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is indwelling us, bringing us things of the Savior.

And so Jesus will not leave us as orphans. Now, we sort of know something about orphans. But if we look at what the Bible says about orphans, you see, use the imagery of the Bible, like we do with olive trees and oil and all that stuff—if we think of orphans, what are they? They’re a protected class in the legal system. Why? Because they’re tremendously vulnerable.

And you know, we can say, well, in that society they were, so God used that by way of common language to say certain things. No. You know, history and the created order is the result of God’s fiat word. He creates the world in these circumstances to reflect the truths that he then tells us of. He doesn’t see orphans and say, “Oh, that’s a good illustration of helplessness.” No.

So, but what the point here is, that orphans, biblically understood, are in need. They’re needy. We’re like little children. We need a protector. We need a guardian. We’re going to get, you know, messed over in court more often than not if we’re in an ungodly culture, right? We’re going to have bad things happen to us. And the answer to that is that Jesus says, “No, I’m going to send you the Holy Spirit, and I will come to you.”

Now, this is an obvious thing. And so you’re listening to me, and you say, “Yeah, okay, okay, okay.” But ask yourself: Have you felt orphaned this week? I have. Have you felt in a situation that you’re being unjustly treated in? I have. Are you in a situation where you’re fearful of what’s going to happen and the result of geopolitical stuff or just the sins of people that you know and their difficulties that they bring into your life? Is fearfulness part of your life?

Is loneliness, isolation? The orphans were lonely. They were isolated from family, right? Is loneliness and isolation. Do you feel like an orphan that way? You see, the orphan imagery is given by our Savior to help us realize who we are without him. Now, we try to pretend we’re not like that. We’ve got a lot of bluster and braggadocio going on. But what the Savior does is he reminds us of our weakness, that we’re orphans without him. And that if we were bereft of him, we would be completely helpless, as orphans are helpless.

He does that. He awakens our need, and then says, “I’m fulfilling the need in you. I’m not going to leave you orphaned.” As much as alone as we may feel, we’re not alone. The Holy Spirit is with us.

Now, if we haven’t developed relationship with the Spirit, if we’re not intentionally thinking about him as we go through our week, well, then we’re going to feel more and more bereft and alone, even if he’s right there next to us, right?

So this is a very important verse. John Calvin says this about this verse: “Says this passage shows what men are and what they can do when they have been deprived of the protection of the Spirit. They are orphans exposed to every kind of fraud and injustice, incapable of governing themselves, and in short, unable of themselves to do anything. The only remedy for so great a defect is if Christ govern us by the Spirit which he promises that he will do.

“First then the disciples are reminded of their weakness, that distrusting themselves, they may rely on nothing else than the protection of Christ. And secondly, having promised a remedy, he gives them good encouragement, for he declares that he will never leave them.”

Good encouragement. The text is one of encouragement. The Holy Spirit himself is said to be an encouragement—strength, advocate—but an encourager. And the great encouragement is we’re not alone. We’re not alone. A tremendous statement that Jesus will never leave us. That we’re not orphans. We’re not going to be left orphans. That the Holy Spirit’s presence among us is this great blessing from God.

Luther talked about this as well. Luther said this: “Thus all Christendom has this comforting promise that it will not be forsaken or left without aid and help. Even if it is bereft of all human consolation, help, and assistance, still Christ will not leave it desolate and unprotected. It seems as though for a little he were leaving his Christians without comfort and protection. Despite everything they feel and see, despite everything they feel and see, they should cling to the promise he gives them here when he says, ‘I will not stay away from you. And though I must depart from you for a little while physically, I will not remain away long. I will return to you soon and be with you forever. You shall be protected against all devils, the world, sin, and death. And you shall live and conquer with me.’”

The goal of the Holy Spirit, the olive trees, and the olive oil is the creation of the new world, right? It’s the new creation. It’s budding out the fruit of the Spirit as a reference back to the Garden. And so Jesus will give us victory in the promulgation of the faith as we draw near to our cities. But only in the sense when we are drawing near, having dwelt in the Holy Spirit, walking with the Spirit and being led by that Spirit—that scenario is one that guarantees victory in the ministry that Jesus has called us to do.

So we know “Abba Father,” right? So Romans 8 again indicates the same truth: we’re not orphans, as much as we may feel it, may seem like that to us. He guarantees us that we’re not. And he expects us to take great encouragement in knowing this.

And Romans 8, of course, says in verse 15: “You didn’t receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, to fear, but you rather receive the spirit of adoption by which we cry out ‘Abba Father.’”

So you know, if you don’t have this sense of walking and being indwelt by the Spirit, you’re going to lose out on the sense of not being an orphan. And you’re going to be fearful as you go through your life or feeling in isolation. But the Spirit is ours. The spirit of adoption by which we cry out “Abba Father.”

Well, it doesn’t just work that way. It works with the Spirit doing the same thing. And this term “Abba Father” is used three times in the New Testament. The second is Galatians 4:6: “Because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts crying out ‘Abba Father.’”

As we cry out “Abba Father,” it’s the Spirit of God with us crying out “Abba Father.” So one text says we’re crying it out. The other says the Holy Spirit is crying “Abba Father.” Which is it? It’s both, because we’re in union with the Holy Ghost at all times. At all times.

And the third instance of “Abba Father” is found in Matthew 26:39, in the Garden. Jesus says in his prayer, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Take this cup away from me. Nevertheless, not what I will, but what you will.”

There it is. There it is. There’s the Savior in his relationship to the Father, crying out as we do. We’re united to Christ. And that crying out is seen directly in the context of difficult times, and yet an activity which will prove monumental in the history of mankind. The most earth-shattering event that’s ever happened—the great historical event that forms an understanding of every other historical event—is about to happen.

“Abba Father” means that in those times of trials and difficulties, of feeling orphaned, we cry out with the Holy Spirit in the Lord Jesus Christ to the Father and say, you know, we would rather not this happen, but we trust you. We trust. Not my will, but your will be done. “Abba Father.”

Some people say “Abba” means “Daddy.” I think the term—though it’s an Aramaic term—and I think it does have a sense of intimacy to it. So we’re not orphaned. We have an intimate relationship with our Father in heaven through the Holy Spirit. But it also has the connotation of respect. Respect in intimacy. And respect brought together in the relationship we have with God the Father.

One other thing before we close, and we’ll come back to some of this material in a few weeks. The last point I want to make—and we’ll develop this further in a few weeks—is power. You know, the reference to the Holy Spirit as power is—there’s a lot of them. There are some on your handout, but the one that really is the important one for our purposes today is found in the opening chapter of Acts. Our Savior tells the disciples, “Wait. You’ll receive power through the gift of the Holy Spirit,” right? Pentecost. “You’ll receive”—it’s a spirit of power—to what end? “That you might be my witnesses to various places and to the uttermost parts of the earth.”

And the point here is, as we prepare to become intentionally more missional as individuals and as a church, as we seek to continue to mature in our transformation of our towns, our cities, and our neighborhoods, as we seek gospel penetration and gospel movement this year in a more intentional way, we have—the work of the Holy Spirit is the power that Jesus Christ says is the key to doing that very thing.

The power of the Holy Spirit. First and foremost, I think, in our Savior’s concluding words, he’s discussing the kingdom. What he says is the Holy Spirit has as its primary purpose to give you power to be my witnesses, to be missional, to transform every culture. And not just every geographic region, as I said, he says to the uttermost parts of the earth, and I think that means that every aspect of our culture—not just the physical places but the entire things that we go through: economics, education, entertainment, technology, whatever it is—the uttermost parts of the earth includes the totality of human endeavor.

And we have the power through the Holy Spirit to transform all of that by being witnesses to Christ and seeing the transformation of the world through it.

May the Lord God grant us this year to have a more self-conscious, intentional walk in the Spirit, being led by him in community, in lawkeeping, and an understanding and application of his law, that we may have the power—not just to know we’re not alone, yes, that—but the power then to know that with the work of the Holy Spirit, our mission is absolutely guaranteed. Jesus Christ has come to fill the entire world with his Spirit-filled people.

Let’s pray. Father, we thank you for the Holy Spirit and his work. We thank you for the wonderful images we have in the Old Testament and of our Savior dwelling on the Mount of Olives. Help us, Lord God, this week to self-consciously dwell in the context of the Holy Spirit. May we walk with him, be led by him, be empowered by him, and be encouraged by him. In Jesus’ name we ask it. Amen.

Hosanna’s!