The Good Life of the Trinity

[0:00] Let me begin with prayer before we hear God's word proclaimed to us. Our God, we are grateful that you have given not only your son, but you have left your spirit to continue the work that you have been doing. This work on earth of making a new people, preparing the way for a new creation. Lord, we are longing for that new creation, for the resurrection from the dead, for this whole created order to be made new.

[0:33] Lord, as we look at the sin, the suffering in this world, as we see how terribly awry things have gone, as we see this good world that you have made reduced to this state, corrupted in this way, we grieve, we mourn, and we long for the one who is worthy.

[0:58] We look forward to the coming Christ. But in the present, Lord God, we ask that you might open our eyes to see the ways in which you are with us, so that we may live in hope with new life. Amen.

[1:16] I want to start our time together by thinking about something that's a long way off at this point, but let's think about Christmas. Most people like Christmas. I know a few people who don't.

[1:28] But apart from those Grinches, we all love Christmas together with the family. And you're usually celebrating Christmas, especially if you've got young kids in your family. You know what a special joy, what a special sort of magic there is to Christmas. And it's an absolute pleasure to give children good gifts, to look at their faces, to see their eyes light up in excitement at receiving something good.

[1:58] Now imagine, though, that you're a parent, that you're a father or mother of a few young children, and you've gone to, you know, the extra trouble to get them that perfect gift, to get them just the gifts that their little hearts are desiring. And so you settle down, and you're a nice comfy chair, and they're these, you know, your kids, they're foaming at the mouth.

[2:19] They're like tearing the wrapping paper off. They're like that. They're like a bear trying to get into your garbage bin. But then you're just sitting there watching this, and let's suppose your mind starts wandering, and you start to think, hmm, I wonder how other people's Christmases are going.

[2:36] And you pull out your phone, and you begin scrolling through social media, and then, oh, I want to listen to some Christmas music. So you put in some earbuds, and you're listening to Christmas music, and, you know, you're, oh, some Christmas-themed videos. Ooh, I want to watch that, and something like that.

[2:54] And then imagine all of a sudden, one of your children looks up from, you know, their wild, wanton destruction, and they see you there, and you're lost in your own little world.

[3:07] Now, how do you suppose your child would feel? How do you suppose your son or daughter would feel? They're opening a present from you, but your child doesn't feel that you are present with them.

[3:22] One of the best, really the best gift that parents can give their children is their own presence, presence, not presence in terms of Christmas gifts, but presence in terms of, I'm with you.

[3:34] I'm present in this moment with you. Not just showering good things from afar while you're distant and distracted. That's a way in which parents really give some hint of the good life to their children, this good life of being, of someone who is so good and a giver and is present with you.

[3:57] And so it is with God. Over the last two weeks, we've been getting to know this one true God, this God who is a Trinity.

[4:08] And I want us to remember, first, there is only one God. There is only one true God. But there are three persons called God, the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit.

[4:22] One being three persons. And each of these three persons is fully God. They're not partly God or have some aspects of God. Each of them is fully God. And we've learned that this difficult to comprehend truth, really beyond human understanding, it lies at the heart of the Christian faith.

[4:45] And it lies at the heart of the Christian faith because it means that in eternity, the God we worship is fundamentally a God of relationship and love. He is a Father loving His Son, giving Him His Spirit.

[5:00] That's who God is in eternity. And the love within the Trinity, within this triune God, it overflows to create the world, the time and space, the matter and energy, the people that we see around us, all the good things we see around us.

[5:16] And this world is created as a Father's gift for His Son. So the love of the Trinity creates the world. And though this world, last week we saw, has been corrupted by sin, has been, so much ruin has entered this world, yet though this love of this Trinitarian God, it overflows to rescue, to redeem, to restore a world that we've corrupted by our own evil.

[5:42] And yet this outgoing, life-giving God, He is not a God who does all that saving work from a distance. This is not like the God of Islam who sends you a book, but Himself stays out of the fray.

[5:59] No, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit come near to us. They save us from our sin. They save us from our relationship-destroying independence.

[6:10] When this triune God saves us, we find that God doesn't remain at that distance. He comes closer than our own skin.

[6:22] He is near to us. He is poured out within us. That's the message of Romans chapter 5, verse 5. Hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us, poured into the innermost part of who you are, down into your thoughts, desires, feelings, the Holy Spirit poured in.

[6:49] And the Apostle Paul shows us the result of this love a few verses later. He tells us, here's what happens when God the Father pours the Holy Spirit into the hearts of believers as a gift.

[7:00] He says, more than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. We now rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

[7:17] The Father planned, he purposed our salvation, he sent his Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, to save us, and he has sent his Spirit, who now fills us with joy.

[7:30] Now we rejoice in God. Now we experience our first taste of this good life, a first taste of the life that we never knew before, a life of enjoying God as he really is, as he really is.

[7:47] God, he is not a distant, distracted Father on Christmas Day. God is present with us. His Holy Spirit is given to us.

[7:59] God, the Holy Spirit, gives us himself. God, the Holy Spirit, gives us himself. This is how he gives us new life.

[8:10] If you've read the opening pages of the Bible, if you've read the first two chapters of Genesis, then it really should make sense to you that the Holy Spirit is the Lord and giver of life.

[8:23] That's how the Nicene Creed describes him. He's the one who gives life. Just like the Father, just like the Son, the Spirit was present. He was active when the world was created.

[8:34] He was active in creating. All creatures on earth are to this day given life by the Spirit. He bestows life. In Psalm 104, the following words are addressed to God as the creator of all living things.

[8:52] When you hide your face, they are dismayed. When you take away their breath, they die and return to their dust. When you send forth your Spirit, they are created and you renew the face of the ground.

[9:11] God made this world good. God filled this world with life. But we learned last week that all is not well in the world that the Father has given his Son.

[9:23] Death has entered the world and this has grieved the Holy Spirit by undoing his life-creating work. We learned last week that we as human beings, we were the ones who brought sin into the world and therefore death into the world because we sinned.

[9:41] We rejected God as trustworthy and good. We sought to be independent from him. We sought to look for life elsewhere to dismiss the Son he loves, to dismiss the Spirit he gives.

[9:57] These choices that our ancestors made, they are choices that you and I not only have inherited, but we have embraced. We have walked in the same ways as well. We've become spiritually dead, severed from the life-giving presence of the Holy Spirit.

[10:17] We're like little children at Christmas who smash the gift of God and spit in his face and don't even realize we've done it a lot of times.

[10:28] But that is what we have done. That's why it's written in Ephesians chapter 2. And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following in the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind.

[11:07] But then we are told this amazing good news. We are told this gospel message that the Trinity, this Trinity is a God who gives life. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.

[11:34] By grace you have been saved and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

[11:51] For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

[12:07] For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

[12:18] There's that final phrase. We are his workmanship. We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus. And this means that if you repent of your sin, if you believe in Christ Jesus, if you abandon your confidence, your boasting, your glory in your own good works, your own innate sense of I'm a pretty good person, if you confess that your only hope is this unmerited favor of God, this kindness of a triune, life-giving God, if you believe, then you are a new creation.

[12:58] The old has gone. The new has come. How does this happen? Certainly, mere belief can't make you new, can it?

[13:09] People believe and commit themselves to all sorts of things that don't make them new. No, it is not mere faith that makes you new. Because even that faith itself, it is a gift of God.

[13:22] It itself is the new work of a creator who makes you new. Only one who creates can make you new. Only the Lord and giver of life can make you new. Only the Holy Spirit can make you new.

[13:34] If you are to come alive with a new faith in Christ, then you need to hear these words of Jesus, words that he spoke in John chapter 3. Jesus answered, Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.

[14:01] That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit. Do not marvel that I said to you, you must be born again.

[14:14] The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.

[14:27] That same, this Spirit, this life-giving, it is the same word for wind, this life-giving Spirit is the only one who gives life.

[14:39] Flesh, that which is born of the flesh, it's just flesh. You can't, that's Jesus' way of saying, you can't reinvent yourself. You can't pick yourself up by your own bootstraps.

[14:49] You can't figure out how to get this new good life that only the Spirit can give. You can't get there on your own. You will fail and die. That's all the flesh can ever do.

[15:01] But the Spirit, He moves where He wishes. He gives new life to you, and then you are born again.

[15:16] That's what gives you new life. Do you know what I mean by this? Do you know instinctively, innately what I mean?

[15:27] Or are you still dead in your sins? Have you been born again? Or does hearing of God do nothing for you?

[15:41] Have you been born again? Do you rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ? When you hear His words, when you read of Him, when you see Jesus, do you just respond with, heh, that's nice?

[15:55] Or do you just have a delight in your heart, even just the tiniest spark of delight, of joy in Him? To enjoy eternal life with God and to be saved from eternal destruction in hell, away from His life-giving presence, you must be born again.

[16:16] And here is how the Spirit works. Here is how He causes us to be born again. The Spirit doesn't do this by staying at a distance, hovering outside of this universe, looking in on us like an absent-minded parent on Christmas morning, like a blind watchmaker.

[16:34] No. The Father has sent His Spirit to us. And the Spirit, He does not come grudgingly. He gladly comes to us.

[16:48] If you're a believer, the Spirit wants to be with you. He likes you. He wants to be in you. That is what we read in Romans 5.

[16:59] Hope does not put us to shame because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. He is not a resentful God, an irritated God who's just grudgingly, okay, I guess you can have my Spirit.

[17:16] And the Spirit's like, well, I guess if I have to, we made this promise, sure. No, God's love. This is just this cherishing, fatherly heart, this compassion, this joy.

[17:27] The Spirit has been poured, every drop poured into our hearts. That means that if you are a Christian, then you have the Holy Spirit, this divine person.

[17:38] He has made His home within you. He has made His way deep into every recess of your innermost self. And you have now become a home for Him, a temple for the Lord and giver of life.

[17:54] That's why Paul writes these words in 1 Corinthians 6. Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God?

[18:08] And then it gets better still because now that the Spirit is given, you are not an isolated individual either. It's not just that you're some sort of little temple by yourself and over there are all these other Christians who are all, they're all their own little temples and we're all sort of, you know, separated from one another in just dozens and dozens of little temples scattered around our town.

[18:30] No, you are also built together with other Christians to become a larger temple of the Spirit. He dwells not only within you, but among you.

[18:42] And you are building blocks of this larger temple. Christ is the cornerstone. That's what we read in 1 Corinthians 3. Do you not know that you, and this is plural, by the way, you, plural, collectively, are God's temple and that God's Spirit dwells in you collectively.

[19:03] And so what that means, what that tells us is that the Spirit, He not only gives us Himself, but as He gives us Himself, when He does that, He forms us into a new family, a new temple, the family of God, the body of Christ.

[19:22] It is through the one Spirit that we share, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is over all, through all, and in all.

[19:35] this Spirit, He brings us together and creates something new, this new oneness, a unity, and we're, and among all of our diversity, just all the differences that we have with one another, all the different ways, you know, just so much difference between each of us at our church, right?

[19:57] and yet in this diversity, there's this deep, singular mindset, the single unity that reflects the Trinity itself. We are welcomed into the good life that God has always enjoyed.

[20:10] This is the good life that God enjoys in eternity and He has welcomed us into it, welcomed into the family of God. So why does the Spirit do this?

[20:23] Does He do this because He loves us? Does the Spirit come into us and among us because He loves us? Well, certainly that is true.

[20:35] He is deeply affected by us. But the Scriptures show us that there are deeper reasons still. There are reasons that go even deeper than that. We've already seen that the Father sends this Spirit to give life and so it is the Spirit's joy to do.

[20:54] Fundamentally, it is His joy to do the Father's will. It is His joy to obey the Father. It is His joy to be sent by the Father. It is His delight in the Father that moves the Spirit to give life to you and to me.

[21:10] But it is not only the Father who sends the Spirit. In John chapter 15, Jesus Christ tells His disciples, when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father.

[21:25] The Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father, He will bear witness about me. So here it is, Jesus Christ. Here it is God, the Son, who sends the Spirit.

[21:40] It is the Spirit's desire, it is His joy, not only to be sent by the Father, but to be sent by the Son. Why does the Spirit give you life?

[21:53] He does it for the sake of the Father. He does it for the sake of the Son. Your salvation is rooted in the heart and relationship of the Trinity.

[22:05] I hope that gives you a sense of liberation, of joy, of peace, knowing that your salvation is this fundamentally this work of this Trinitarian God planning it out.

[22:22] It is not fundamentally your own work. It is the purpose and plan of God at its very heart, at its very root. And why is the Spirit sent to you?

[22:37] He is sent for the sake of the Son. He is sent for the sake of the Son. The Holy Spirit is sent to show you the Son. That's why Jesus tells His disciples in this verse, the Spirit of truth will bear witness about me, about me.

[22:57] The Spirit shows us the Son. The Spirit shows us the Son. And this is for our good.

[23:10] This is how we can come to know the love of God. It is by showing you who Jesus Christ is that the Spirit shows us and shows you how you are loved by God.

[23:27] you are meant to come to know Him as a person. Boy, we want to know Jesus in every way but as a person.

[23:40] We want to know Him as a, you know, I just want a mascot for my social and political causes. I want Him as just this delivery truck who gives all these blessings and teachings.

[23:53] He's useful for that. But oh, how much better it is when the Spirit shows us the person, the man, the God-man, Jesus Christ.

[24:06] You come to know Him for who He is. You come to see His glory. You come to see, oh, how beautiful, how delightful He is.

[24:16] You open the Scriptures, you read these words telling of the way He loves people, seeing the way He interacts with people and it just thrills you. It moves you.

[24:29] He is no longer merely useful to you. He is delightful to you. Do you know what is the best thing the Holy Spirit can ever do for you?

[24:43] The best thing the Spirit can do for you is to fix your eyes on this marvelous person of Jesus Christ. that's the best thing He can ever do for you because that is the way to the good life.

[24:58] That is the way to a life in which we become like Jesus Christ and become holy. You and I, we have, we are willing to settle for less.

[25:12] The Spirit loves us, the Spirit loves you so much more and so much more wisely than you love yourself because we're willing to settle for less, for comfort or for some sort of fleeting temporary happiness and joy, something that we think is the good life.

[25:28] We're willing to settle for a distant relationship, you know, some sort of handshake arrangement with God. He, we live under His distant governance and God doesn't interfere with us too much other than giving us some things that make us happy.

[25:43] Do you ever catch yourself thinking that way and relating to God in that way? Do you know that the Spirit wants so much more for you? It is you who have settled.

[25:58] It is you who have looked as God, as a stingy God, as a business partner, rather than a loving Father, rather than one who wants to know you and be known by you, rather than one who sent His Son to you.

[26:15] The Spirit, He stirs us up, He moves us beyond such feeble, pathetic desires. The Spirit, He fixes our eyes on Jesus Christ and He does that for a purpose.

[26:26] He doesn't do it just that we sit there and just bask in the glory of His Son and remain unchanged. You can't bask in the glory of Jesus Christ and remain unchanged.

[26:37] You can sooner bask in the sunlight and stay pale white. It is going to change you. It is going to change the way you look. Trust me, as a pale white guy, I know what happens when I bask in the sun.

[26:48] It changes you. Remember, we are told in Ephesians chapter 2, we are God's workmanship. We are created in Christ Jesus for good works.

[27:01] So we, the point here is we are made a new creation. We are able to, for the first time, to behold Jesus Christ, to see Him as He is, to marvel, to wonder at Him.

[27:15] Our hearts are thrilled and warmed by Him, even if it's just a tiny, tiny spark at first. And as we behold Him, we become like Him.

[27:27] You behold Him, you become like Him. We become the kind of people who now, we now do good works, and we do it in just the way that Jesus would do them. We share His very heart.

[27:41] We share His love, His wisdom. Him. We behold Christ, and so we become like Him. That is what the Spirit is up to in your life if you are a Christian.

[27:53] That's what the Spirit is doing in your life, the way He is working and He is pushing and moving you to become like Christ. And He will do it by any means necessary.

[28:06] Because He loves you, because He delights in the Father and delights in the Son. in 2 Corinthians chapter 3, it is written, And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image.

[28:28] We're being transformed to be like Jesus Christ, from one degree of glory to another. for this comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

[28:41] So we behold the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ, and so we are transformed bit by bit to become like Him.

[28:52] To become like Him in every way that a human being can possibly be. To be conformed to the human part of Jesus, the Son. this is the work the Spirit does in you and me as individuals.

[29:05] This is the work the Spirit does in us collectively as a church, in our relationships with one another. The author Michael Reeves, he tells us, if I am to be anything like the outgoing and outward-looking Father, Son, and Spirit, the Spirit must take my eyes off myself, which He does by winning me to Christ.

[29:37] Maybe you wonder, hey, would fixing my eyes on Jesus, would winning me to Christ, would that really make that much difference in my life? Well, I'll ask you this.

[29:50] What would happen? What would really happen in your life if you were fully following this advice that was given by Robert Murray Machain, that for every one look at yourself, you take ten looks at Christ.

[30:03] For every one time you look inward at yourself and think about yourself and your needs and wants and your desires and do that introspection, what if for every one time you did that, ten times you were thinking about Jesus Christ, who he is, what he's like, marveling at his glory and what he has done.

[30:23] Do you think that over time that would make a difference, that would turn you into a different sort of person? Maybe it's helpful to think of this in terms of, there's a water sport I've tried a few times now.

[30:37] I've gone stand-up paddleboarding a few times and, you know, I've done okay. Some of you would probably look at me and laugh pretty well, but the only reason I've done any good at all is because I didn't do it alone.

[30:49] I had friends with me to give me advice and one of my friends gave me a very essential piece of advice. my friend told me that when you're on the water, you're standing on top of this board, this unstable board.

[31:07] He said that where you fix your eyes is really important. Because, yeah, you do need to look at yourself a bit. You do. You need to have some degree of self-awareness.

[31:18] You need to look down and check your stance, make sure everything's secure on the board, make sure you're standing in the right spot, make sure you've got everything you need. But if you keep doing that, if you keep your eyes down on yourself and on your board and the water around you, you know what's going to happen?

[31:35] You're going to start getting really wobbly, really shaky. I say this from experience. You're going to be stuck adrift. You're barely going to be able to move.

[31:46] You're just trying to stay afloat. You're at the mercy of every little gust of wind, every little ripple of water. You're going nowhere. Maybe that's been your experience of the Christian life so far.

[32:01] And you've got your eyes on yourself. And they're fixed on yourself. On your status in society, among your friends, among your peers, in your family.

[32:13] On your security, whether you feel safe. on your felt needs, are all my needs getting met?

[32:27] Maybe you feel like you at every moment are about to fall into that icy cold water and sink to the bottom. My friend told me that what I ought to do is fix my eyes on my destination.

[32:42] That's what you do when you're on a paddle board. And I followed his advice. And would you know it? Immediately. It's just so funny how it works. Immediately, my shaky, shaky knees became firm.

[32:55] My wobbly stance became resolute. Then not only did I stay upright, I became stable. I became steadfast.

[33:08] I found I was now able to progress forward and much more rapidly to go where I was meant to go. And so it is with Christ. You must open the words of scripture.

[33:21] You must look for him there. Where do you begin? If you need to begin somewhere, read the gospel slowly and carefully. Get to know Jesus as a person. Know his personality, how he talks to people, how he relates to them, how he relates to his father.

[33:37] What are his priorities? What are his agenda? Get to know his every word, his every move. See what leads him to the cross. See what fills his life with glory.

[33:49] Look back in the Old Testament. See the story and how it leads us towards Jesus Christ, how it fills us with this need, this longing for Christ that God is stirring up throughout history in the hearts of his people.

[34:01] Look for the patterns in history that the people and the events that give us a glimpse of what Christ, this Christ is going to be like when he comes. Let the Old Testament prepare your heart in a deeper way to receive him and to understand him.

[34:16] Look further in the New Testament. See what the joy, the hope, the transforming power of Christ is now that he has come, now that he is raised to life, ascended into heaven, seated at the right hand of the throne of God and has poured out his spirit in you and among you.

[34:32] Look and see the power that he has, what he has given, all the resources and relationships you have in Christ. Fix your eyes on Jesus Christ and you will become what you behold.

[34:45] It is for that mission that the spirit, he has been poured into our hearts to make us as much like Jesus Christ as a human being can possibly be.

[34:57] And in so doing, the spirit, he welcomes us, he catches us up into the joy of God's family. The spirit fills us with God's delight.

[35:10] The spirit fills us with God's delight. That's why Paul writes in Ephesians chapter 5, do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.

[35:46] These verses paint a portrait of a community, of a family that is filled with the spirit. They paint a portrait of what we look like when the spirit is present among us, when the spirit is stirring up our hearts with affection and delight, and the spirit stirs up our delight in three directions.

[36:05] Here's the three directions that we see. First, we notice that at the center of these verses, there is a delight in God himself.

[36:17] There's a delight in God himself. That's the first direction of our delight. When you are filled with the spirit, you are singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart.

[36:28] You sing to the one you love. You are also giving thanks always praise and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

[36:39] Your prayers, they are not only requests and demands. We are very quick to come to God with requests and demands, and he wants to hear them from us, but our prayers are more than that.

[36:51] They are expressions of gratitude and expressions of thanksgiving. everything. You look at your life and your situation, you see this common grace that God has showered on us around.

[37:02] You see the saving grace of God, how he's reconciled you to him and he has delivered you from sin, and how he will deliver you on the day of judgment.

[37:14] You see this grace of God in everything. This is the kind of relationship with God that you were made for. It is the kind of relationship that God the Son has with his Father. That's why Jesus tells us in John chapter 14, I do as the Father has commanded me so that the world may know that I love the Father.

[37:38] I love the Father. He loves to do what his Father commanded him. And you, you are called by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

[37:52] You have been summoned to become like him. Michael Reeves tells us, at the heart of our transformation into the likeness of the Son, then, is our sharing of his deep delight in the Father.

[38:09] In our love and enjoyment of the Son, we are like the Father. In our love and enjoyment of the Father, we are like the Son. that is the happy life the Spirit calls us to.

[38:26] Is this good life? Is this the kind of relationship with God? Is this what you want? Do you long to be caught up in that harmonious relationship of the Trinity?

[38:37] Or are you just, you know, content with a cool and distant arrangement with God? I've known, I've known married couples who have been married for years, and there was a time when they were once, they were wildly in love with one another.

[38:57] They had this passion for one another. They would talk and share and pour out their hearts, and they knew each other. But then, as time went on, they stopped sharing their hearts.

[39:10] Life got in the way. They made it a lower and lower priority to continue to know one another. Over time, each of them changed. They drift apart. They lose touch with who the other person is. And soon, they are sharing a house with a mere roommate, a distant stranger.

[39:28] So it is with many professing Christians. though God does not change. They have stopped getting to know him. They have a relationship with God that is distant, a relationship that is without delight, that is without gratitude, a relationship in which like an old, unhappily married couple, God is merely useful to them, just like these spouses are merely useful to one another.

[39:56] They do not delight in one another. One of the reasons BK has been doing a series, the series on the doctrine of God is he wants to help you to get to know the God whom you think you know, but really you don't know.

[40:09] Get to know him. The Holy Spirit wants first and foremost a church of people who give thanks to the Father, who delight in the Son. So Reeves reminds us, the spirit of the Father and the Son would never be interested in merely empowering us to do good.

[40:27] His desire, which is the desire of the Father and the Son, is to bring us to such a hearty enjoyment of God through Christ, that we delight to know him, that we delight in all his ways, and that therefore we want to do as he wants, and we hate the thought of ever grieving him.

[40:47] So the spirit fills us with God's delight, leading us to delight in God himself. And then the spirit stirs up our delight in a second direction. He stirs up a delight in God's family.

[40:59] Delight in God's family. That's what Jesus prays to his Father for in John chapter 17. The glory that you have given me, I have given to them, that they may be one, even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.

[41:30] Jesus wants us to glory in him, to delight in him, so that we no longer have to go out there and seek our own glory for ourselves apart from him.

[41:40] We no longer need to elevate ourselves at another person's expense. We are now free to love, to delight in one another. To stop looking at each other as useful and to start looking at each other with delight.

[41:58] To share the same mindset that Jesus has, to look at one another as family. The Father is delighted to be the father of a family. And he longs for us to share his delight in his family.

[42:11] family. We're in circumstances as a church where it's a particularly relevant time to consider whether we truly do delight in the family of God.

[42:27] We've been enduring a time of unusual separation from one another, an unusual isolation from this family. And so let me just straightforwardly ask you this.

[42:38] What has happened to your desire during this time? What has happened to your desire? Do you desire to be with one another again? Do you desire and long to look for ways to help and care for one another?

[42:51] Do you long to gather with other Christians again? Or have you grown comfortable living apart from them? Boy, life is a lot more convenient when you can just watch a sermon on your own time whenever you feel like it?

[43:11] When you can live your life independently of others? Have you grown comfortable having Sunday mornings to pursue your own interests instead of looking to the interests of others? May God, the Holy Spirit, confront us and convict us over our faltering delight in God's family.

[43:31] May he stir us up toward love and good deeds toward one another. I encourage you, think about that visitation team I mentioned at the beginning of the service. Could that be a way that God is stirring up your heart?

[43:47] Finally, the Spirit stirs up our delight in God's mission. The Spirit stirs up our delight in God's mission. After Jesus rose from the dead, he told his disciples in John chapter 20, Peace be with you.

[44:02] As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you. And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, Receive the Holy Spirit.

[44:16] Here's what happens if you try to go on God's mission. Without any desire, without any real delight in God and in his family, you are going to go out on mission without the sending power and joy of the Holy Spirit.

[44:30] You are going to be like the rebellious people of Israel in the book of Numbers, who once they tried to enter and conquer the land of Canaan without the presence and help of the Lord, and they were beaten back.

[44:42] You will be trying to engage in spiritual warfare without any weapons or armor. You will be trying to, well, you know, to adopt the words of one of my seminary professors, you are going to be trying to charge at hell with a water pistol.

[44:54] But once you begin to share the Spirit's delight in the Father and the Son, the Spirit, he begins to transform the way you share God's mission.

[45:08] When you engage in acts of service, when you advocate for others who are oppressed, you are no longer doing these things merely to seek mercy and justice, not of mere compassion for others, all of which are unstable and pleading.

[45:24] You are doing these things because you want to reveal. You long for people to know the good life of the Trinity. You are wanting people to see and experience and share that merciful and just relationship within God, a relationship that you share and you delight in.

[45:40] And then the Spirit transforms the way that you speak and proclaim this good news with others. Evangelism. The proclamation of the gospel, the call to people to see and believe, in the Son of God.

[45:55] Evangelism is no longer a sales job in which you're trying to sell someone on a product that deep down you don't really enjoy. Evangelism is now driven by a longing to invite others to repent of their sins, to invite others to believe in Christ because he is the good life.

[46:17] United with Christ by faith, filled with the Spirit, we are caught up into the family of God the Father. And so you boldly speak the good news because how can you not?

[46:30] How can you not speak about the God that you delight in? How can you not gush and boast in him? You boldly speak the good news because how can you not summon others into the good life of the Trinity?

[46:49] Our final words and thoughts here come from Michael Reeves and here's what he tells us about the Spirit. His real work is to bring us to and keep us in the sunshine of God's love.

[47:05] It is there that we will sing heartily. It is there, abiding in Christ, that we will bear fruit. The Spirit shares the triune life of God by bringing God's children into the mutual delight of the Father and the Son.

[47:23] And there we become like our God, fruitful and life-giving. Oh God, our Father, I pray that even now you are stirring up the hearts of others.

[47:37] Stir up my own heart when it gets cold. Stir up my own heart when I grow fearful. Lord, show us how good you are.

[47:50] Spirit of God, would you give us eyes to see, ears to hear, a heart to understand, to know Christ, to know the love our Father has for us, to see that hope does not disappoint, that he is, that you, Father, have poured your love into our hearts through the Spirit whom you have given us.

[48:16] We rejoice in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Transform us from one degree of glory to another. Make us like your Son. That is the only way to truly be happy, no matter our circumstances.

[48:32] To behold him, to become like him. Do this for the sake of your name, so that the world may know this triune God, so the world may delight in the Father, delight in the Son, delight in the Spirit.

[48:48] In the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen.