Jerry Bridges tells of a man who when reading a book would often write “YBH” in the margin. When asked what the letters meant, the man replied, “They stand for Yes, but how? I agree with what the author is saying, but I need to know how to apply it.”[2] In the first thirteen verses of this eleventh chapter of Luke’s Gospel, Jesus doesn’t tell his disciples to pray but instead gives us the “YBH” of prayer.
Tag Archives: Holy Spirit
The King’s Heralds
It is his word by his Spirit that does the work, as he told the seventy-two, “The one who hears you hears me, and the one who rejects you rejects me, and the one who rejects me rejects him who sent me” (Luke 10:16). We are simply called to be the King’s heralds, but where the gospel is preached the kingdom is near.
In One Spirit
After Jesus ascended to the right hand of God the Father almighty, in place of his physical presence he sent his Spirit, witnessed on the day of Pentecost in tongues of fire upon the apostles.[2] That day was unique in Israel, not because the Holy Spirit was absent from God’s people previously but because the Holy Spirit came in an unprecedented fullness, fulfilling Joels’ prophecy of the Spirit being poured out “on all flesh” (Joel 2:28), not indiscriminately but according to the sovereign grace of God.
The Message and Its Miracles
This is the first record we have of the apostles ministering as Jesus did, which tells us less about the apostles and more about the bestowing of Jesus’s power and authority, which is all the more intriguing considering one of the twelve was Judas Iscariot. But called, commissioned, and sent they were, for the purpose of carrying a message, the good news of the kingdom of God. And while the substance of their message and its miracles were specific to their context, we (though not apostles) may glean from God’s work in and through them, starting first with the message they carried.
The Family of Faith
When Jesus returned to his hometown of Nazareth, from preaching throughout Judea, he didn’t receive what we would call a “warm welcome.” Rather than celebrating his ministry, the people wondered, “Where did this man get this wisdom, and these mighty works?” (Matt. 13:54). To them, he was just the carpenter’s son, the son of Mary, the brother of James, Joseph, Simon, Judas, and his sisters.[2]
Who Are the Children of God?
On this Pentecost Sunday, a day on which we commemorate the coming of the Holy Spirit in fullness upon Christ’s church, I want us to consider within our passage today the indwelling characteristics of the Holy Spirit, and therefore the identifying characteristics, in every believer.
To that end, I want us to think on this simple question: Who are the children of God? Are they the natural descendants of Adam, as the universalists believe? In other words, is every human being a child of God? Or, are they the natural descendants of Abraham, as the Jews of Jesus’ day believed, or as dispensationalists believe today? In other words, is every one of Jewish ethnicity a child of God? Or, how do the writers of the New Testament use the term “child of God,” or do they make a distinction at all?
Keeping As Kept
We are a people prone to forget. As Moses said of Israel, we too forget the God who gave us life (Deut. 32:18). Given this propensity, we find commands throughout Scripture to remember God and what he has done for us.
Of All Peoples
He who said that he came to “fulfill all righteousness” (Matt. 3:15) did, in perfect obedience to the Law of God, not only as an adult but as an infant, as we see in our passage today. According to the law, as the firstborn male, he was to be presented to the Lord, harking back to the Egyptian captivity and God’s preservation of Israel’s firstborn sons by the blood of the lamb. Jesus’ presentation also included his mother’s ceremonial purification, following childbirth, and a required sacrifice of a lamb or “a pair of turtledoves, or two you young pigeons” (2:24), the offering of a family of meager means. It is a humble yet beautiful picture of covenant faithfulness, obedience, and the early blessings of a godly home.
The Holy Spirit Works
We are then God’s “workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them” (Eph. 2:10). Out of all of God’s glorious creation, we are his workmanship. We who were originally made in his image yet fallen in sin are now redeemed to be conformed to the perfection of his Son, which we live out in good works. Yet, even our good works are according to the sovereign grace of God, that the world might see our good works and glorify our Father in heaven (Matt. 5:16). Therefore, let the testimony of our lives show and the praises of our tongues proclaim “the immeasurable riches of [God’s] grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” I never wanted to follow Jesus, but he rescued me by his grace forever!
Unity of the Spirit
The Holy Spirit who miraculously brings us to spiritual life, leads us to repentance, gives us faith, and continues his sanctifying work in us, empowering us, also miraculously, to love like Christ with affection and sympathy! Is there then “any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy” (2:1)? Indeed there is, for the Holy Spirit is at work in us to glorify the one who loves us most. Let us then love one another as we have been loved, by the Spirit of unity, in the likeness of Christ, to the glory of God. Amen!
Planter, Pastor, Preacher 