Mt. Lebanon United Presbyterian Church     
 
Pastor Tim Janiszewski - "What You and Jesus Share in Common"

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Messages of Grace

(Past Recorded Sermons) 







 
Pentecost Sunday
June 8, 2014

Sermon Title:
"Experiencing the Spiritual"

Scripture:

Acts 2:1-5; 12-21


Picture of Pastor Tim
June 5, 2014

 

Dear MLEPC Members and Friends:

 

How significant do we think the Person and the Work of the Third Person of the Trinity is for our lives of faith? How important is the Holy Spirit to our spiritual well-being? Are we dependent on Him? Can we do without Him? Or is it a shared arrangement in which we and the Spirit both contribute our complementary parts?

 

A way to answer these questions is by looking at the relationship of the Holy Spirit to Jesus Christ. After all, Jesus was and is the Second Person of the Trinity and therefore is divine. We therefore can surmise that if there is anyone who ever lived who did not need the Spirit's help, surely it was Jesus as the God-Man. But if Jesus as the God-Man was deeply interdependent with the Spirit, then how much greater is our need! So what does Scripture teach us?

 

We begin by noting that the Holy Spirit spoke to prophets during the Old Testament times who declared the future coming of Jesus as the Messiah for both Jews and Gentiles alike. Think of the Spirit-inspired words given by the prophet Isaiah anticipating Christ's birth in about 700 b. c., "For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace" (Isaiah 9:6). And how does the birth of the Messiah come about? As the angel tells Mary, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God" (Luke 1:35). 

 

Jump forward to the beginning of Jesus' ministry and we find Him being baptized by John the Baptist in the Jordan River. As Christ comes up from the water, "the Holy Spirit descended on Him in bodily form like a dove" (Luke 3:22). Immediately following His Holy Spirit filled baptism, what happens next? "Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the desert, where for forty days He was tempted by the devil" (Luke 4:1-2). Yes, we even find Jesus being led by the Spirit into the wilderness where Jesus will overcome the temptations launched at Him by Satan. It is then that Jesus begins His public work of ministry by reading in the Nazareth synagogue from Isaiah 61:1, saying, "The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he [the Spirit] has anointed me to preach good news to the poor" (Luke 4:18). At one point, Luke even tells us "At that time Jesus [was] full of joy through the Holy Spirit (Luke 10:21).

 

Coming to the end of Jesus' earthly life, we find that the Holy Spirit strengthened Jesus to go through with giving Himself up on the cross for us. Hebrews 9:24 notes that Jesus "through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God." On the third day, the Holy Spirit participated in Christ's resurrection from the grave, as Paul writes in Romans 8:11 of the "Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead." Finally, to continue His ministry after His ascension to God's right hand, Jesus pledges to send the Spirit as "another advocate"--a promise Christ fulfills on the day of Pentecost (John 14-16, Acts 2:1-4).

 

Of course, the simple point illustrated by this short survey is that the life and work of Jesus are not independent of the ministry of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit anticipates Christ's coming, creates Christ's conception, empowers Christ's ministry, enables Christ's sacrifice, participates in Christ's resurrection, and carries on Christ's work on earth to this day. I think that pretty much covers it. The Spirit and the Son are entwined in the work of bringing salvation to us and our world.

 

Returning to our original set of questions, we find that since the Spirit was/is so integral to Christ's life and work, how much more essential should He be to ours? As our Reformed and Presbyterian tradition long has insisted, based squarely on the Bible, our lives are to be ones guided by both the Word and the Spirit. We must be born again by the Spirit (John 3) as we then seek continually to be filled with the Spirit (Ephesians 5:18). By the Spirit, we call out to our heavenly Father, saying, "Abba, Father" (Galatians 4:6). Friends, this Sunday is Pentecost Sunday, the day we celebrate the outpouring of the Spirit of God on His people. Let us be people of the Spirit, recognizing that as we are, we shall be sharing this in common with Jesus Christ, our Savior and Lord.

 

Pastor Tim

 

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