A more comprehensive view of the Gospel includes not only Christ’s death for our sins but also His incarnation and resurrection. It highlights the critical role of the Holy Spirit in transforming believers’ lives and providing spiritual assurance. By understanding and embracing the full Gospel, Christians can experience deeper spirituality and recognise the world’s need for the ministry from “the Spirit of Truth.”

Automatically Generated Transcript
[00:00:01] In the bulletin there are the most famous verses about where the Center of the gospel is. And the gospel itself is a fairly … got more to it — than most people realize. Sometimes if you ask someone, what’s the Christian gospel? They’ll say, Christ died for our sins. They are actually picking on right at the center of the gospel. But the Gospel has an awful lot more to it than just the fact that he died for our sins. He’s also who he is, as the eternal Son of God. The fact that this third person of the Trinity took on human flesh, and became the God-man. And the incarnation, which is talking about God in humans, the incarnation which we celebrate
[00:00:51] at Christmas, is as much a part of the Gospel as anything. In fact, the sense of him coming and taking our sins is because he took on humanity to pay humanity’ s price, and if it hadn’t been for him becoming incarnate, he would not have been able to pay for our sins. But then the fact that he died for our sins, if that were where we put a full stop, is not doing full justice to the Centre of the Gospel, because this passage in Corinthians that was read to us said clearly that Christ died for our sins, but Christ arose,
[00:01:34] and the passage I have from 1 Corinthians 15 is a very familiar passage about what the central things are that the Apostle Paul believes that people should know as the gospel, and you’ll see that he talks about Christ dying for our sins Christ a rising red being raised from the dead in accordance with the scriptures and those two things are the necessities. If people don’t include the fact to the resurrection they haven’t really given enough of the gospel because he’s alive!That when we come to him for the forgiveness of sins for which he died
[00:02:15] it’s because he’s alive he’s able to transform our hearts and lives he’s able to bring this salvation to us personally the actual methodology or the means whereby uh… god brings to us the success of jesus’ death that resurrection is what on the day of petticoat Peter finished that first famous gospel sermon with a call for people to come and know the forgiveness of sins but by him also saying that not only did you get the forgiveness of sins but you would receive gift of the Holy Spirit. And so the fact of the availability of the Holy Spirit
[00:02:56] is also a part of the gospel, I could go further and say that it’s a part of the gospel one day that Jesus shall return and the second Advent is also a part of the gospel, just as the first Advent is. Though the Heart of the Gospel is at the events of the first Advent and not the second coming. So if someone were to teach you that the gospel is, and they just limited it to some verses in the book of Revelation, they’d be making a mistake. Or if we were to set up a thing that we’ll have a fellowship in a church, we’ll have a constitution and put in it, and what you’ve got to believe, but we put in so many details, all about the second coming, that anybody who didn’t follow suit to that particularly interpretation, they’re not included. I think we’re doing something that’s contrary to the spirit of the Gospel. There is a centre to the Gospel of Christ dying for our sins and Christ
[00:03:51] arising, and when you go to different Christian meetings, sometimes other denominational people are there, people who wouldn’t know what denomination they are. But they believe in Jesus, you could have fellowship, and so that’s why that famous verse is used sometimes at Easter Conventions. They used to be called Keswick Conventions. They had this banner, all one in Christ Jesus because the people came from all the different groups but they had something in common that’s defined by an equal acceptance of the gospel which is the sitter but we’ve just been rehearsing. Now the one thing I want to say today though is it does include, as the Apostle Peter finished in that first sermon at Pentecost, that if they did come to Christ and know the forgiveness of sins, if they confess that in baptism, they would not only receive
[00:04:41] the forgiveness of sins, but they would receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. And it is this aspect of the Gospel this morning I want to focus in on. And this aspect of the Gospel is to do with the availability of the Holy Spirit, and it actually, if you take it on board and begin to study how the Holy Spirit’s coming to us changes us and what it is to be a person who walks after the Spirit, then you’ll find the secret to spirituality. One of the things you notice about our generation of people in the media and in the politics and in all the influence of the different isms that are about and the pressures that are put on you to live up to date with the latest thing is the sheer lack of spirituality of the world and Jesus himself spoke about the facts that Jesus himself spoke about the facts that the world
[00:05:40] can’t understand the Holy Spirit. In fact he worded it even more strongly. He says the world cannot receive the Holy Spirit. It can’t understand it. And the verse I want to elaborate this morning now is in John 14 and verse 17, where Jesus has come to nearing the end of his time and he is about to go to the cross, But he’s talking to the disciples about the fact that they won’t be left like orphans, but they’re going to have another helper.
[00:06:10] The little word that is translated helper in various spots in John’s gospel gets a different translation at some of them. Not only is the paraclete, which is the word in Greek, translated as helper, but also another spot it’s translated comforter. Another spot is translated advocate, and the reason is that the little word paracul- para means alongside, the clique part comes from the word kala, Oh-to-call and when you’re in a desperate problem and you can’t- don’t know where to turn and things are not working out and
[00:06:44] but you call on someone who has expertise or someone who has special concern for you and you call them alongside you let them share the burden. You’re asking someone to be called alongside to help you That’s the word Paraklet. That’s the word that the Bible uses, Jesus used for the Holy Spirit and he said if I go away I’m not going to leave you comfortless, I’m not going to leave you orphans but I will send the Holy Spirit to you. And when he comes, and this is the verse that we have concerning how he will be when he comes Even the Spirit of Truth, whom the world cannot receive because it neither sees Him nor knows Him, you know Him for He dwells with you—that was while Jesus was there, the Spirit was on Jesus—and will be in
[00:07:38] you.” Now there’s four things that are said here which is the content of my message this morning, and they are simply for even the Spirit of Truth. And the facts, secondly, that the world can’t receive him because neither sees him nor knows him and then that you know him for he dwells with you and will be in you. I think there’s four ways I’m looking at this and this is what we need to understand. Jesus is speaking about spirituality because it’s one thing for people to have had the experience of hearing that Jesus is the Savior and of coming and knowing him as Savior, But I’m sure you would have noticed that amongst those who aren’t Christians is various levels of awareness About the Holy Spirit. There are some Christians you can talk to who don’t really know What you’re talking about? There are some whose tradition this is more back in the Baptist circles in olden days where they call the Spirit of God and it
[00:08:43] it and they Understood who the Spirit was was an influence or a helper only But what they didn’t understand is that the Bible Presents the Holy Spirit in a far more awed way than just that he’s an influence from heaven Spirituality is not something that comes that you merely read the right books or you’ve had the right devotionals, or you’ve been enough to church That is in facts out somehow. How we’ve communicated that going to church will make you spiritual That’s not a wrong thought. But it is not the full explanation of the role of the Holy Spirit to make someone spiritual and the reason why in church life you meet some people who seem to be in touch with the Holy Spirit,
[00:09:27] who somehow imbue that sense of the Spirit’s presence. And there’s other people who live their lives, and as you watch them they are no different from anybody in the world. Now why is that? And why is it that why is it that in the world the influences that come particularly through our secular governments is that they do not understand spirituality they do not understand Christians? And it’s because of what this verse says, even the Spirit of truth. Now, now I want to point out the very first thing here that the Bible the New Testament Jesus teaching included that the Holy Spirit would be one who would be the
[00:10:15] helper for us in order to know the love of God. And one way that you can know the love of God in Romans Chapter 5, it says about when you come by faith and become Christians, and you get to step into the relationship of grace with the Lord, then even though you have problems and persecutions and whatever, nonetheless God the Spirit of God is with you and one of thing it says there in Romans five I think his first five don’t worry to any man a bit that verse is that the he the spirit He sheds abroad in your heart the love of God And The way that we do have that continual
[00:11:00] Understanding of the presence of God and the favor of God more than only his favor that he’s smiling at us, for the fact that he loves us, the source, the Holy Spirit of that love, the Holy Spirit sheds abroad in your hearts the love of God. I’ve told you this before but when I used to be involved in running counseling rooms and being in charge of the counselor’s at crusades with Youth for Christ, when they had a person that the counselor couldn’t get through to. They’d bring them to me and I’d sit them down. But, many a time, those persons who the counselor couldn’t work out what to say, the reason was that the person had no assurance. And the verse that I’d show them to is this verse in Romans 5, that the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit of God is shed abroad in our hearts, by the Holy Spirit. And it is love that he reveals. And when I show them the verse and I say to them, if that was your
[00:12:08] experience, would you still have any problems in being assured that you’re in the door with God? And without an exception, they would say, Oh no! that would be the answer. And so I’d tell them that what they need to do is to ask God for that shedding abroad, of the love of God in their heart. And then they’d know that they were loved. And that key to knowing that you’re loved, is the key to knowing that you’re in a place of assurance. It is a spiritual happening. But the truth is that the world, according to this verse, cannot know it. And it gives another name for the Holy Spirit, not just the Spirit brings Love, but also here, verse 17, even the Spirit of Truth. Now, what that means is that there is an understanding of spiritual things
[00:13:04] that comes because of the work of the Holy Spirit. He is called the Spirit of Truth. And when he operates in your life, he has the capacity to lead you so that you know not only what is the truth, but you know the truth is true, or the gospel is true, that Jesus is who the scriptures assert that he is. That sense of conviction and being a person who doesn’t get shaken by other people disagreeing with you, They might be famous people with great minds to think up all sorts of explanations that are better than the ones that you had in your head and as you go listening to them you say, oh maybe I’m not right. But that’s not the normal Christian experience to be able to be swayed
[00:13:54] by the various things our society does. If you found that society won you over, I’ll tell you what’s wrong with you is that you don’t have a sufficient knowledge of the Holy Spirit of God because when he works in your heart, he being the spirit of truth tells you what the truth is. You have some conviction. I believe that it’s a proper spiritual thing to be in the church is to have convictions. I know some people have convictions, which really means they’re biases. And there are some convictions people have
[00:14:25] because it’s what they were taught when they were kids and they don’t really want to think any differently. there are people that have convictions because they’ve they’ve got reasons for Disliking other people in other people’s ideas. That’s that’s convictions coming out of the flesh But if you have a conviction that comes because of the spirit of Truth then you can’t be shaken and About this spirit of truth is the one that leads Christians to know their doctrines and to know where they stand And to be able to rejoice with assurance There’s such a thing as gaining assurance, and I’m telling you, the source of the assurance about your being a Christian, about you knowing you’re on the right track,
[00:15:09] even if God doesn’t reveal to you where He wants you to go or what He wants you to do, but you know He’s with you, that is, the ministry of the Holy Spirit, it’s the exact opposite of what people in the world have. They have ideas according to what has been fed in, according to what they’ve read, according to their own stubbornness, to stick to their own ideas. There are some people that are never going to change their ideas. That’s a conviction coming out of the humanity that we have. It’s not good. And in church life, if you have convictions that come because that’s the way you see it and you’re not going to change, you should ask the Spirit of Truth to put his stamp on the things that are guaranteed he will never change, God will never change, but that’s where convictions come, but the spirit of truth and then it says secondly whom the world
[00:16:00] cannot receive. Now it’s very interesting, the world cannot receive the Holy Spirit and particularly in his role as a spirit of truth. Why is that? It is because the truth of how it is between us and God or more particularly between the world of humanity cut off from God. The world of the Bible for us you know sometimes that reference the world means that means the geography, you know. We’re on one side of the world, and Kieran has just come back from the other side of of the world and is trying to find his belief, being home again. But that world we’re talking about is just the cosmos. But sometimes the Bible uses the word world to refer to the world of humanity, and in that sense it is the world that God loves, for God so loved the world, that he gave his
[00:17:06] only Son that whosoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. But, not only just the world of humanity, but where the world of humanity shows its colors in opposition to God, and becomes anti God, that’s the world that Jesus is speaking about. Certainly the world can receive the world of humanity, the Holy Spirit, because it is an offering of the Gospel. But it is the world that is in rebellion against God. The world that is made up by all the connections in it that the non-Christian connections that are the ones who are anti-God, and when you hear about parliaments making lawsSh that are just ridiculously against the Christian religion and eventually, if we’re not careful, they’ll come to the time when they say you can’t speak about Christ. Of all the silly things when they’ve been earlier speaking on about how we should get everybody
[00:18:06] their turn, it seems to be that the Christians the only ones that are not allowed to have their turn. All the other groups can say their things. But if we were to open the Bible and speak about the Christian belief about marriage, that’s an area where there’s a constant change in the world to militate against Christian understandings of marriage. the world hates the things of God and that’s why the Spirit of the world, Spirit of Truth, is one that cannot be received by the world. They’re two opposites… But then he goes on to tell us why. The next truth is here in this. It says, because it neither sees him nor knows him… I thought about a topic for this this morning’s message and it was going to be, or it can be, the amount or the blindness, the spiritual blindness of the world.
[00:19:08] And if you put your trust in the world’s leading and haven’t worked out yet just how blind that world is to true spiritual values, you’re in for a disappointment somewhere along the line. The world cannot receive the Spirit of truth because of the very basic opposition between all of the spirit of the world stands for and what the bible stands for. The spirit of truth is so contrary to what the world stands for that the two don’t go together.
[00:19:46] That’s the reason why the Bible say’s don’t be unequally yoked together with unbelievers. Don’t tie yourself up in a very tight business arrangement where their failure and success is your failure and success. That would be an unequally yoked business thing. You can’t stop there being some connections with people who are in the world. The Bible teaches us that too. It’s not to be unequally yoked and the other area is in our relationships. And in being married that if you are married to someone who is not a Christian, as God directs you or family if the other person is going in the other direction.
[00:20:29] Where is there a hope for the two of you together? Can two walk together unless they be agreed? The Scripture says. And the Spirit of Truth cannot be received by the world because it sees him, neither sees him nor knows him. And you’ll always be getting a blank when you try and explain to a worldly person using the word worldly not just to mean they’e a bit wise about society but worldly in the sense that they’ve imbibed the values of the world, that they have lived their lives according to the strictures of the world
[00:21:07] and the morals of the world and you try and make an alignment with them, it’s impossible Because that worldly part doesn’t see, nor know spirituality. Hence my sermon topic, The Spiritual Ignorance of the World as the Thing That is Most Amazing to Me, when you listen into so what should be learned, people in the politics and yet they come out proposing things that are so ridiculously against our Christian heritage. They’re certainly against the teaching of the Bible, and they’re wanting you to believe things just are not the case. And I’m amazed at how people will talk about marriage, they talk about male and female, but the Bible says God made them male and female at the beginning.
[00:21:59] From the beginning of human society there was a man and there was a woman. And there’s something intuitively strange when the world tells you that they’re all just a gender, that they can take a choice. And you gotta treat them all as they think they are. It’s very hard to do when you meet a person who says he’s one thing, and that person is not that. And we have a difficulty to know just how to be politique or to be a person who is doing the right thing and not stirring up a trouble, when you have that scene. And our schools and the people who run our schools, face the depth of this issue all the time.
[00:22:42] But the world cannot receive the truth of the Holy Spirit because it neither sees him nor knows him. But then Jesus went another step. He said you know him, for he dwells with you. Now he’s speaking particularly to his disciples at the time, because they were the ones who followed him around and there had been some reason why they had followed him. And that this had been articulated by Peter when at one stage Jesus asked them, Who do you people think that I am? And Peter articulated the fact he says, You are the Christ, the son of the living God.
[00:23:25] And Jesus comes back to him and says, You didn’t learn that from flesh and blood, it wasn’t a humanly gettable understanding, it was a revelation. But My Father who is in heaven has revealed it. He knew that by revelation through the Holy Spirit. And that’s why people that don’t know Christ, back then when He came in the first place, Jesus walked amongst them. But because the world cannot receive the witness of the Holy Spirit, though the witness through Jesus was extremely strong, They just had other explanations that they could make themselves believe. Some of it was willful and some of it was just this ignorance.
[00:24:06] This verse is talking about it. Neither sees him nor knows him, and when the whole world didn’t know the truth was when it was there in Jesus. How could you not see his love? As he healed the sick, as he cured the lame, As Jesus spoke words of kindness, as you saw him deal with the woman caught in adultery, and said to her tenderly, neither do I condemn you, but go and sin no more! When you see Jesus dealing with people, and you see how he has a care for them, the love of Jesus is there, that the truth of Jesus is there, and it’s there in front of all those Pharisees and leaders,
[00:24:49] and they got angry at him, because he took away their role, because of jealousy, because of other silly human things, they didn’t know him! They didn’t know the Holy Spirit when he was there, so present in Jesus at Jesus, going to the synagogue for the first time. We’re told about probably many times as a child he would be… have been taken… But, he goes to the synagogue, and they pass him to have a turn at reading from the scrolls, the Scriptures, all rolled up. And the man there, the side attendant, passes in the scroll of Isaiah. It’s a little bit unclear as to whether that man picked the passage, or whether Jesus turned it
[00:25:34] on purpose. But he turned to a passage that spoke about him. He turned to the passage which said about Jesus, “‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me with a set of things are going to happen because the Spirit of God was on him. You can’t understand Jesus unless you not only know not only he’s the Son of God but he’s also anointed of the Spirit of God. He was born of the Spirit. He was anointed of the Spirit, he was led of the Spirit. All those things were true of Jesus and he walks life in this time with the Spirit of God leading him and only a a person who was open to the spirit, would face the fact that you could not doubt the spirit of God was on Jesus. And the disciples were drawn to Jesus, and when it was not coming to a test time, and Jesus said, Will you also go away? And they said, No. To whom shall we go?
[00:26:34] For you have the words of eternal life. And they had been divvying into, they’d been getting used to, they’d been receiving the benefit of, The fact that the Holy Spirit was so infused through the ministry of Jesus And so he says to them you know him Because he’s been with me And then he goes on to say He dwells with you and will be in you which is to make a distinction between them knowing him because he’s there Whose Jesus is there And what’s going to happen when Jesus goes back to heaven? For Jesus is leading up to tell them that he is going back to heaven and when he goes to heaven,
[00:27:16] he says, I will send you, the Holy Spirit, that’s how I know they didn’t, the disciples, receive the spirit in the upper room, although Jesus breathed on them and said receive you the spirit, he was showing them that the spirit was going to come, it was a gesture to dramatize, the Spirit will come from him to them! He blew on them, told them they had received the Spirit meeting from him. Here in this verse, he’s talking about the fact he’s going back to heaven
[00:27:51] and when he goes back to heaven, the big amazing thing that will happen will be he will be crowned King of kings and Lord of lords and his name Jesus will be given the highest of all authority of every name and then he and the Father is going to send the Holy Spirit on the believing disciples, and the very word send means there’s distance in between Nobody received the spirit permanently they had the Holy Spirit come on them in Old Testament times But nobody received the spirit from Jesus till he was crowned as King of Kings and Lord of Lords And then he sent the spirit it was a post Resurrection post ascension it was something at the very day of petty cost
[00:28:35] when the Spirit came on the believing disciples That’s the moment when people first actually became Christians. I didn’t mean that they were first saved, because they got saved under the Old Testament revelations from some people earlier. But when the Day of Pentecost came, being saved became something that happens when you receive the Spirit from Jesus. And a part of the Gospel is not just that Jesus died, and that Jesus rose, and that Jesus went to heaven. but a part of the gospel is that he gives the Holy Spirit to those that come to him and if you are a Jesus trustor when you start that trust in Jesus when
[00:29:15] you begin your commitment he sends his Holy Spirit to invade your personally bring his very presence that’s the gospel and Jesus told the disciples you you know him, because He’s been with you, like, through me, see, through him, but he will be in you. And that will be happened after we got back to heaven, and he and the father together sent the Holy Spirit on the Day ofridicos, and from that moment on, any person coming to Jesus as Savior, any person coming to him for the forgiveness of sins, anybody hearing the Gospel, that He died for our sins, and He rose again.
[00:29:55] Anybody coming to say, yes, I want you as my Savior. Any person doing that also not only receives the forgiveness of sins but receives the gift of the Holy Spirit. You will never be a spiritual person, just by convictions in the humanity. You’ll never be a spiritual person especially if you listen too much to the world. You don’t get to be spiritual, contradicting the world, maybe because it’s just your background and teaching and because your family taught it, they’re not bad things to have, but they’re not the same thing as having that conviction that comes because the Spirit of God is being the Spirit of Truth in you. And when He dwells in you, it’s an altogether different seen. If indeed you’ve never recognized that you are someone that has the Holy
[00:30:55] Spirit or if you recognize maybe you’ve not had the Holy Spirit, sometimes, we don’t know the difference. Then just go and pray and say, Lord, I want to be spirit indwelled, I want the Holy Spirit to control me, I want to keep in step with the spirit as Galatians puts it in one new translation, and walk after the Spirit as the old translation, but keep in step with the Spirit. For that is how you know to be close to Jesus now. Through the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth who will show you all things. I’m hoping this message is a message of encouragement for us all, that we have the availability and spirituality that you can never get
[00:31:42] in the world because the world is spiritually blind. It cannot, neither sees him nor knows him, but through Jesus and his sending him, we can be spiritual people. Let’s pray. Heavenly Father, I thank you for this verse. It’s quite a strong and powerful verse. Thank you that the gospel center clearly is on the death of Christ and his resurrection. No doubts about that, how he died for our sin, that is the center of the gospel. and how he’s available to be our savior having risen from the dead. But Lord, there is more
[00:32:23] the fact that he went back to heaven, the fact that he’s coming back one day but in between time he’s sent the Holy Spirit. And Lord, I pray that we will be a church where we don’t miss, the ministry of the Holy Spirit but that we might be open to His effecting the will of Jesus and the lead of Jesus. Lloyd, if there’s folk here who need Jesus to lead them, to show them, or maybe empower them. Lloyd, you know how at times we are so very weak. Lloyd, we have lots of settings in us, our humanity, that don’t necessarily take us the right way.
[00:33:06] But Lloyd, praise you that your Holy Spirit be stronger than those. And we give him permission to take charge of what is Christ’s possessions, that’s us, because he’s the one who died for us and rose again. But may his Holy Spirit fill us and control us. We ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.