Don’t fear the Holy Spirit, know him

Aaron Armstrong on October 18, 2017

Sunrise

That title itself probably sounds strange, doesn’t it? After all, why would someone fear the Holy Spirit? How could someone fear the third person of the Trinity?

Maybe “fear” is the wrong word. Maybe neglect knowing him is a better way to describe it. Or positively, we should seek to know him. I’ve been thinking about this again as I write something not-so-short elsewhere on the member of the Trinity who tends to avoid the spotlight. The Spirit illuminates our minds to the things of God. He is the active agent in regenerating our dead hearts. He is the one who indwells our living hearts and applies all Christ accomplished to us.

And yet, the fear, or the danger of neglect still exists. Whenever it comes, as it does whenever I write anything about him, I need this reminder from Martyn Lloyd-Jones:

You would all agree that to neglect or to ignore the doctrine about the Father would be a terrible thing. We would all agree that it is also a terrible thing to neglect the doctrine and the truth concerning the blessed eternal Son. Do we always realise that it is equally sinful to ignore or neglect the doctrine of the blessed Holy Spirit? If the doctrine of the Trinity is true—and it is true—then we are most culpable if in our thinking and in our doctrine we do not pay the same devotion and attention to the Holy Spirit as we do to the Son and to the Father. So whether we feel inclined to do so or not, it is our duty as biblical people, who believe the Scripture to be the divinely inspired word of God, to know what the Scripture teaches about the Spirit. And, furthermore, as it is the teaching of the Scripture that the Holy Spirit is the one who applied salvation, it is of the utmost practical importance that we should know the truth concerning Him.[1. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, God the Holy Spirit, 6]

If the Holy Spirit is God (and he is), then we can’t let fear hold us back from better understanding him as he is revealed in Scripture. Because he is God, seek to know him as well as we can, trusting him to make us more like Christ in the process.

Seven words that crush “Sola Bootstrappa”

Aaron Armstrong on April 7, 2016

The fruit of the Spirit seem to be a recurring theme in my life lately.

You know the list, right? “The fruit of the Spirit is joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23). Those.

Here’s what I mean by these being a recurring theme: a few months ago, at work, our senior leaders felt it would be wise to walk the staff through these in a chapel series. During that season, I led one of our prayer chapels, and encouraged praying through this passage in the context of our work life (and let me tell you, doing that does a number on your attitude at work).

A few weeks ago, we had a guest speaker join us at our church. His message? Yep, the fruit of the Spirit—specifically, joy. And then there’s this extended season my family is going through right now, which has seen us waiting on something that has revealed how much (or rather how little) patience we all really have…

So yeah. The fruit: Joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.

Don’t misread the fruit of the Spirit

Whenever I think about them, whenever I read them in the Scriptures, I struggle. I’m tempted to see them as a list of character flaws, or areas for improvement. I need to be more joyful. To develop patience. To be gooder (or something).

But then I remember those last words from Paul at the end of the list: “Against such things there is no law” (Galatians 5:23). And these seven words have been a great source of encouragement for me as I struggle with my tendency to treat the fruit as a list of areas in which I need to improve. To succumb to the damaging lie of what Don Whitney has referred to as “Sola Bootstrappa”—trying to pull myself up by my bootstraps, beat myself up when I fail, and wonder why it’s not “working.”

The Fruit is fruit

Those seven words from Paul remind me that this is totally the wrong way to look at the fruit of the Spirit. After all, fruit is fruit. And this fruit is—if it’s not blasphemous to put it this way—the byproduct of his presence. Their presence in our lives requires his presence in our lives. Or to put it another way, if we have the Spirit, we will inevitably bear this fruit as we live by the Spirit.

As Basil of Caesarea said,

Just as when a sunbeam falls on bright and transparent bodies, they themselves become brilliant too, and shed forth a fresh brightness from themselves, so souls wherein the Spirit dwells, illuminated by the Spirit, themselves become spiritual, and send forth their grace to others.1

Should we be concerned if we don’t see this fruit in our lives? Yeah, probably. After all, if I say I know Christ, but am a total such-and-such, I should be worried (see 1 Corinthians 13). But if we are people who have the Spirit—if we have truly been born again—we will indeed see this fruit in our lives, even if it is only in the smallest degrees at first. So celebrate what you see. Pray for its increase. But don’t try to turn this fruit into a new law. The Spirit will have none of it.

Updated November 2023 for formatting. Photo by Oziel Gómez on Unsplash.

  1. As quoted in 300 Quotations for Preachers from the Early Church, Pastorum Series (Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press, 2013).[↩]

Why I try to pray right away

Aaron Armstrong on March 20, 2015

Prayer

“Well, how about we pray right now?” My wife looks at me with a stunned expression as these words come forth. We’re in the car, discussing whether or not it would be possible for us all to go to an event at the end of August, one that is a 14 hour drive away. This, naturally, means a long time in the car, overnights in hotels, and, of course, money. So, right there, in the car, at a stop light, we prayed and asked the Lord to provide the means for us to go to this particular event as a family if it were to be his will.

This has been something I’ve been striving to do more and more frequently of late. But why? Because of some pretty serious conviction that set in while reading William Edgar’s, Countercultural Spirituality: Schaeffer on the Christian Life. In the book, Edgar shares a question Francis Schaeffer posed to his wife, Edith—one that proved to be a defining moment for them:

What if we woke up one morning and our Bibles were changed? What if all of the promises about prayer and the Holy Spirit were removed from the Bible by God himself, not as the liberals might remove them, by demythologization, but really eliminated from the text? What real difference would it make in our lives? (129)

How would you answer this?

And I don’t mean what is the “right” answer—how would you, the person reading this post at this moment, actually answer it? I suspect, if you’re anything like me, and if you’re anything like so many Christians among us, it might not make that much of a difference at all.

And that’s what got me thinking. Cultivating a healthy prayer life has been one of the most challenging parts of my life as a Christian, and the area of my greatest weakness. It’s not that I don’t believe in the importance of prayer, nor do I disbelieve in God’s working through it. On the contrary. I take the God at his word on this, and I’ve seen him answer prayer powerfully and overtly. And yet, when it comes down to brass tacks, I still struggle with this disconnect and prayerlessness can easily reign in my life if I’m not watchful.

The tough thing about prayer is setting up more rules doesn’t really help. You can’t tell someone to pray more better and expect it to go well. You can’t set up an arbitrary schedule, committing in your heart that you will pray every day for two hours a day when you’ve spent most of the last month praying for barely 10 minutes during a week.  stirring “Pray more harder,” doesn’t really help, nor does scheduling prayer times throughout the day (though I’m not against such things). But something you can do that is helpful is simply to pray when it occurs to you to do so. If someone suggests praying, then pray. If someone asks for prayer, do it right at that moment, do it. It doesn’t have to be deep and profound. It just has to be from the heart.

And this is what I’ve been doing since I read this question from Schaeffer; and as a result, I’ve probably prayed more in the last couple of days than in the last two weeks. Why? Because if we believe in God’s promises about prayer, our lives ought to be shaped by that belief. If we see an ongoing pattern of prayerlessness, then we need to ask what we really believe about this?

If we believe God’s promises about prayer, then we ought to pray. If we are to break out of the grip of prayerlessness, the way to do so is to pray our way out. It’s not easy, but if we believe prayer makes a difference, we ought to pray like it makes a difference.

The Greatest Gifts Can Become Deadly Substitutes for God

Aaron Armstrong on February 2, 2011

The greatest enemy of hunger for God is not poison but apple pie. It is not the banquet of the wicked that dulls our appetite for heaven, but endless nibbling at the table of the world. It is not the X-rated video, but the prime-time dribble of triviality we drink in every night. For all the ill that Satan can do, when God describes what keeps us from the banquet table of his love, it is a piece of land, a yoke of oxen, and a wife (Luke 14:18–20). The greatest adversary of love to God is not his enemies but his gifts. And the most deadly appetites are not for the poison of evil, but for the simple pleasures of earth. For when these replace an appetite for God himself, the idolatry is scarcely recognizable, and almost incurable.

Jesus said some people hear the word of God, and a desire for God is awakened in their hearts. But then, “as they go on their way they are choked with worries and riches and pleasures of this life” (Luke 8:14). In another place he said, “The desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful” (Mark 4:19). “The pleasures of this life” and “the desires for other things”—these are not evil in themselves. These are not vices. These are gifts of God. They are your basic meat and potatoes and coffee and gardening and reading and decorating and traveling and investing and TV-watching and Internet-surfing and shopping and exercising and collecting and talking. And all of them can become deadly substitutes for God.

John Piper, A Hunger for God: Desiring God through Fasting and Prayer, 14-15.

HT: Adrian Warnock

A God-Sized Gospel

Aaron Armstrong on October 27, 2010

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption as sons through Jesus Christ, according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace, with which he has blessed us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth.

In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.

Ephesians 1:3-14

In this passage of Ephesians, Paul shows his readers a picture of the triune God initiating and accomplishing the reconciliation and redemption of His people all for the praise of His infinite glory. It’s one of the most beautiful passages of the entire Bible.

And in the Greek text, it’s one, long, elegant sentence.

It’s the run-on sentence to end all run-on sentences—one that some commentators call a monster!

So what would cause Paul to create a “monster” sentence like this, detailing the story of redemption on such an epic scale? Why would he, in the middle of writing a letter, break out into what almost seems to be a spontaneous fit of praise?

It’s that he has a God-sized gospel. I really appreciated reading Fred Sanders’ insights into this passage in The Deep Things of God. Take a look and ask yourself: Is my gospel too small?

On the basis of Ephesians 1:3-14, nobody can accuse Paul of having a gospel that is too small. There is an abundance here bordering on excessiveness. And Paul’s sentence has that character precisely because, as Scripture breathed out by God, it faithfully corresponds to the character of the reality it points to: a gospel of salvation tha tis the work of the untamable holy Trinity. Like all Scripture, this passage is the word fo God and has within itself the life, activity, and incisiveness we would expect in an almighty speech-act through which God does his work (Heb. 4:12). It is an effective word, and one of its effects here is to snatch its listeners out of their own lives and drop them into Christ. It immediately takes the reader to the heavenlies, to the world of the Spirit, and from that vantage point invites us to join in blessing God for the blessing he blessed us with…

All of us think from our own point of view, starting from a center in ourselves and how things look to us. This is unavoidable, since everyone has to start from where they are. . . . The only way to escape this tendency is to be drawn out of ourselves into the bewilderingly large and complex gospel of God. . . . What we need is the miracle of being able to see our own situation from an infinitely higher point of view. We need to start our thinking from a center in God, not in ourselves. . . . Paul invites us to an ecstatic gospel: the good news of standing outside (ek-stasis) of ourselves. (pp. 101-102)

Book Review: The Deep Things of God by Fred Sanders

Aaron Armstrong on October 26, 2010

For many Christians today, the Trinity is a doctrine to which we give almost no thought. While we certainly affirm it as being true, we don’t really know how it makes a difference in our lives.

So it gets easier for us to start thinking that maybe it doesn’t matter. The seeming paradox of God being one, yet three is a huge stumbling block to many people looking at the Christian faith… and maybe it wouldn’t change anything if we just let it go.

Fred Sanders, associate professor of theology at Biola University’s Torrey Honors Institute, disagrees.

“Deep down it is evangelical Christians who most clearly witness to the fact that the personal salvation we experience is reconciliation with God the Father, carried out through God the Son, in the power of God the Holy Spirit,” he writes (p. 9).

But we’ve lost something as a movement; we’ve settled for a theological and spiritual shallowness, especially in regards to the Trinity. “Our beliefs and practices all presuppose the Trinity, but that presupposition has for too long been left unexpressed . . . and taken for granted rather than celebrated and taught” (p. 11).

That’s why he wrote The Deep Things of God: How the Trinity Changes Everything. In this book, Sanders hopes to reawaken an understanding of, and desire to celebrate, the deeply Trinitarian nature of Christianity.

Because the Trinity is so overwhelming in it’s otherness, it’s tempting for us to avoid even attempting to speak to it. But as Sanders writes, “We . . . should not let ourselves be trapped into thinking that everything depends on our ability to articulate the mystery of the triune God” (p. 36).

The reality is we are tacitly (implicitly) Trinitarian in innumerable ways. The Trinity serves as the encompassing framework for our thinking and confession. “It is the deep grammar of all the central Christian affirmations” (p. 48).

This implicit knowledge leads to explicit expression in salvation, spirituality, church life, prayer and Bible study. These are the realms to which Sanders focuses the majority of the book. Read More about Book Review: The Deep Things of God by Fred Sanders

Book Review: Forgotten God by Francis Chan

Aaron Armstrong on February 12, 2010

Depending on who you talk to, the Holy Spirit is either overly discussed or utterly neglected. Francis Chan would be firmly in the latter group.

“[W]hat if you grew up on a desert island with nothing but the Bible to read? .  . . [Y]ou would be convinced that the Holy Spirit is as essential to a believer’s existence as air is to staying alive,” writes Chan (p. 16). And that’s why Chan wrote Forgotten God: Reversing Our Tragic Neglect of the Holy Spirit—to help believers recapture the necessity of the Holy Spirit to the Christian life.

Running on Fumes

Chan feels that we have lost a robust understanding of the Holy Spirit. We have neglected Him. This neglect has caused us to look and act no differently than our surrounding culture. But this should not be. Chan writes,

If it’s true that the Spirit of God dwells in us and that our bodies are the Holy Spirit’s temple, then shouldn’t there be a huge difference between the person who has the Spirit of God living inside of him or her and the person who does not? (p. 32)

In this assessment, I think Chan is right on. If our lives do not have a marked difference in any way aside from what we do on Sunday morning, perhaps we have some bigger questions to ask ourselves, no? If we were dead but now live, there should be some kind of marked difference in how we live, what we think and how we speak… shouldn’t there?

Absolutely, there should. And it’s only possible by the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit. This is a truth that we dare not take for granted and I appreciate Chan highlighting it.

The Spirit’s Work

Chan does a solid job of reminding readers of the person and work of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is a Person, a “He,” not an “it.” He is God; eternal & holy; omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent. He has emotions, a mind and a will. He prays for us. He teaches and reminds us of what we we need to know. He applies our salvation to our lives. Chan wants these truths to lead readers “to a deeper relationship with and a greater reverence for the Spirit—that good theology would lead you to right action, genuine love, and true worship” (p. 77).

Chan encourages readers to read John 14-16, to notice “how Christ desires that His disciples have peace and how He comforts His disciples with the truth that they are not left alone” (p. 110). He continues,

Part of His answer to how we are to have peace and be comforted is through the provision of the Holy Spirit, the other Counselor, who He promised would come once He left.

Having read these chapters, I notice that the peace that comes with the Holy Spirit is the fuller knowledge of what it means to be grafted into the vine (cf. John 15:1-11), and it’s the Spirit who does the grafting. The Spirit brings us peace and comfort by giving us the words to act as witnesses to the gospel, even as the Spirit Himself bears witness to Christ (cf. John 15:26-27). Truly, the Spirit’s role is to glorify Jesus and to guide us into truth:

When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you. (John 16:13-15)

A Life of Obedience

The heart of Chan’s message is that the Christian life is to be lived in the power of the Holy Spirit, in obedience to Christ, to the glory of the Father. We must not quench His work in our lives, caring more for comfort than for holiness. To walk by the spirit is to live a life that is counter cultural and often antithetical to the world in which we live.

But, it’s one thing to talk about what “walking by the Spirit” can be, and another to show it.

Where Chan best illustrates this is in the wonderful biographical sketches of men and women whose lives have been completely transformed as they’ve sought to obey the Spirit’s leading. These serve as testimonies to the truth that the Christian life is one that glorifies God in extraordinary ways.

A married couple in their 50s, Domingo & Irene, fostered thirty-two children and adopted sixteen. A teenage girl who works multiple jobs all summer to sponsor 14 children. Thomas Yun, who gave up a fortune in the restaurant business to work at a rescue mission because he believed that God was calling him to serve there.

These are the stories that move me and inspire me, probably more so than the rest of the book (no offense to the author).

The Primary Voice

What I find lacking is the relationship between the Holy Spirit and Scripture. Chan writes that Spirit “teaches and reminds us of what we need to know and remember” (p. 74), but I think this needed to be more than a bullet point. God’s written Word is the primary means through which God speaks to His people—it is the Spirit who gives us the ability to understand them. It’s through the hearing of the Word that the Spirit’s primary active role takes place, bringing the spiritually dead to life, sealing them as God’s people and sanctifying them (cf. Eph 1:13), all serving to glorify Jesus.

If Scripture is the primary means by which God speaks, it should probably have a more prominent role in any discussion on the Spirit’s work. I would have really enjoyed seeing Chan address this a little more, in addition to focusing on the “private nudging” of the Spirit (which is where he spends the bulk of his time).

Is the Holy Spirit Forgotten?

In Forgotten God, Francis Chan reminds readers just how much we need the Holy Spirit. “There is no such thing as a real believer who doesn’t have the Holy Spirit, or a real church without the Spirit. It’s just not possible,” writes Chan. Without the Spirit’s active presence in our lives, we cannot live a life of obedience to Christ. The question for you is, is the Holy Spirit forgotten in your life?

Read the book. It’s challenging and there are likely parts you’ll disagree with, but it’s worth investigating.

 

Title: Forgotten God: Reversing Our Tragic Neglect of the Holy Spirit
Author: Francis Chan
Publisher: David Cook

Buy it at: Amazon | Westminster Bookstore