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Tuesday, May 19, 2015

P4 The Ambassador of God's Greatness - The Holy Spirit


Isaiah 40:13-14 "Who has directed the Spirit of the Lord,Or as His counselor has informed Him? 14 With whom did He consult and who gave Him understanding? And who taught Him in the path of justice and taught Him knowledge And informed Him of the way of understanding?"

Introduction:
The Christian life begins with a visitation The Ambassador of the Trinity, Who is the Ambassador of God’s greatness. When I speak of this One and only “Ambassador of God’s Greatness”, I am speaking of the Holy Spirit. In previous posts we have looked at the greatness of God, and how the need for the greatness of God could not be any more than in today’s church and Christian life. We also saw in our last post on this theme how the church’s mission, and really the Christian’s mission is none other than promoting the greatness of God in a world that rejects God for lesser things. Romans 11:33-36 spells out more clearly than any other scripture the greatness of our God.

Today’s post aims to conclude our series by showing how the Holy Spirit, the Ambassador of God’s greatness, brings down to people this great truth – namely that God is great, and greatly to be praised. So as we shall see, our main point of application will be that: the Ambassador of God’s greatness brings to you and me the greatness of God. We saw already how the Holy Spirit brings to us the desire to worship God. We considered two days ago the details about this Mighty Ambassador and how the Holy Spirit brings to us the meaning of scripture. Today we conclude our study by noting how this Mighty Ambassador brings the Majesty of Jesus to us.


The Holy Spirit brings to you the majesty of Christ
Paul wraps up his doxology in Romans 11:36 with these amazing words: “For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever. Amen.” Paul is concluding this first portion of Romans 1-11, which begins by stating itself to be “the Gospel about Jesus Christ”. Romans 1:1-4 states – “Paul, a bond-servant of Christ Jesus, called as an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God,        2 which He promised beforehand through His prophets in the holy Scriptures, 3 concerning His Son, who was born of a
descendant of David according to the flesh, 4 who was declared the Son of
God with power by the resurrection from the dead, according to the Spirit of
holiness, Jesus Christ our Lord.” Thus the majesty of Christ is at the center of the Gospel, since the Gospel is the Gospel about the Son.

We saw earlier how Jesus told His disciples in John 16:13-15 that the Holy Spirit would be the One to bring to them further illumination regarding the majesty of Jesus Christ. Unless the Holy Spirit brings Jesus closer to us, we won’t see any reason to rejoice in Him nor glorify Him. John 7:37-39 explains - 37 On the last and most important day of the festival,  Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone is thirsty, he should come to Me and drink!  38 The one who believes in Me, as the Scripture  has said,  will have streams of living water  flow  from deep within him.” 39 He said this about the Spirit.  Those who believed in Jesus were going to receive the Spirit,  for the Spirit  had not yet been received because Jesus had not yet been glorified.” Even following our salvation, the Holy Spirit’s ministry is not only about bringing Jesus to us but also revealing Him in us. (Colossians 1:27)

Closing thoughts:
As we close out today’s post and this series, I want the reader to consider the fact that the Holy Spirit, the Ambassador of God’s greatness, brings to you and me the greatness of God. We saw how He does this first of all by bring to us a desire to worship God. In salvation this desire is initiated by the new birth in saving faith which the Holy Spirit works forth in the hearts of sinners. This same desire to worship God continues on in the Christian’s life through both the Spirit’s work and the believer’s obedient response. We then saw how the Holy Spirit brings to us God’s greatness by delivering to us the meaning of scripture. The Bible is His word, and the meaning thereof can only be accessed by the same Spirit Who illuminates and makes it plain to our understanding and application. Then we saw the third way in which the Ambassador of God’s greatness brings to us God’s greatness is by delivering the majesty of Christ. The Spirit’s main task is to point the way to Jesus Christ and to show Him for Who He is and what He is, namely as God in human flesh, the Prophet, Priest and Soon coming King worthy of worship and our True Friend. Thanks be to God for the Holy Spirit, the Ambassador of God’s greatness!