Desiring God Through Fasting and Prayer, Session 1

the law of the Lord is perfect Reviving The Soul the testimony of the Lord is sure making wise the simple the precepts of the Lord are right rejoicing the heart the Commandment of the Lord is pure making wise the simple the fear of the Lord is clean enduring forever the ordinances of the Lord are pure and righteous alog together more to be desired are they than gold even much fine gold sweeter also than honey and dripping from the honeycomb moreover by them is your servant warned and in keeping them there is great reward who can

discern his errors declare me innocent of hidden faults keep back your servant from presumptuous sins let them have no dominion over me then I will be blameless and innocent of great transgression let the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in your sight oh Lord my rock and my redeemer that's an amazing statement about the word of God and my prayer for you is that many of you are very young in relation to me and so feel real auspicious about the next 50 years for you that patterns of life would

be built in in terms of meditating on the word of God praying over the word of God fasting for all the fullness of God through the word that that would happen for you and that when you're my age you would look back with great satisfaction upon your walk with Jesus that it had been V vital my assumption in this class is that the key to a joyful powerful Christian walk life is continual communion with the Living God through his word by his spirit Spirit communion or you could use the word Fellowship a a vital living

authentic feelable fellowship with God Almighty Father Son and Holy Spirit out of that hourly walk communion flows your power as a Christian your ability to fight sin your ability to love people your ability to endure suffering your ability to stay married and parent wayward children and do good to those who hate you so I regard this seminar as very foundational to everything it's not like a little oh Calvinism is the real thing and Christian he ism is the real thing and and those other seminars that he does that's the real thing and this is kind

of the icing it's not the case just the reverse you won't know anything right you won't think right about anything you won't do right about anything you won't know God you won't enjoy God if if this seminar doesn't get some Traction in your in your life and another preliminary thought I have before I pray is I was saying Marshall and car on the way over the younger generation at least the younger generation of the emerging gospel lovers are wired to react quickly and negatively to anything that feels legalistic which is good and dangerous because being

young you may not have the best sniffer for what is legalistic you may throw some babies out as you try to throw out the bwat of legalism and and I I don't know what I can say except to just plead with you don't assume you've got that figured out don't don't assume that at age 20 or 25 or whatever that you know how to divide up legalism and freedom you don't probably life is complex really complex and and relationships are complex including the one with God nobody stays married out of romance nobody and nobody stays

with God out of romance there's some days when you stay because because you made a promise and then the romance can be born again and so it is with God and in those days of obedience if anybody calls you a legalist just quietly walk the other way I speak whereof I know I want you to enjoy him at age 66 enjoy him freely and you won't get there without discipline I promise you you won't get there so life is is is beautifully spontaneous when it's at its best and it's ruggedly disciplined as necessary and all

in all it's a good life so preliminary remarks to hopefully wet your taste that this is serious and and I hope you'll you'll pray with me that the Lord would make it remark remarkably lifelong helpful for you so let's pray so Father in Heaven here we are now mainly we're going to be over your word together going to listen to some testimonies from people who've walked better than we've ever walked in this regard and we ask that you would guard our minds so that we're not deceived by the evil one guard our hearts and Grant

that we would have clear thinking right now and good attentiveness in this evening hour and that our hearts would be strangely and wonderfully warmed like on the road to emus did not our hearts burn within us when Jesus opened to us the word of God so Jesus do this word opening work this evening I pray so that the hearts of your people would burn and if any is is here who's not been born of God and has no spiritual taste buds for what I'm talking about and is always putting it through a naturalistic C Grant

that they would be made alive so I ask this in Jesus mighty name amen I will try to follow this uh outline because I've got um I've got the slides that correspond to the that and uh I would have to skip them if I was going to do anything other than follow this what you have in front of you so there you go I hope that helps we're going to begin with um some illustrations and uh John G Patton was a missionary to the new herdes are you together on this here we go Vanuatu today

um in the South Seas he was born in Scotland 1824 and experienced a joy in God in the most dangerous and discouraging circumstances so here's the question I asked Patton where did your joy come from where did this deep Repose that you had in these life-threatening situations and the answer is it rested most deeply in the experience of personal communion with Jesus Christ mediated through the promises of God in the written word the Bible most Central to his communion with God seems to have been the promise l i Am With You Always and what I

hope God does for you is so work in your heart that when you read something so familiar as this last phrase of the Book of Matthew behold look lo I Am With You Always you will get to the point where that is a personal address of the Risen living Christ to you as though he were standing at your side because that's the way Patton experienced it as you'll see and he experienced it that way in some very raw raw circumstances This Promise had been given precisely in the context of the Great Commission Go Make Disciples

of all Nations lo I am with you always more than any other promise this one mediated the presence of Jesus to John Patton in all his dangers after the measles EP epidemic that killed thousands on the islands and for which the missionaries were blamed he said this during the crisis I felt generally calm and firm of Soul standing erect with my whole weight on the promise lo I Am With You Always precious promise how often I adore Jesus for it and rejoice in it blessed be his name without that abiding consciousness of the presence and

power of my dear lord and savior nothing else in all the world could have preserved me from losing my reason and perishing miserably in his words lo I with you always even to the end of the world became to me so real that it would not have startled me to Behold Him as stepen did gazing down upon the scene so that's your goal in in appropriating the promises of God that they are spoken to you through the Bible so real that it would not surprise you if you looked up like stepen and saw the one

speaking the words when the Holy Spirit takes the Bible and applies it to your heart the bookishness of it the academic of it the skill in Reading of it the black and white marks on the page they all fade away and the connection between persons happens that's what this seminars about fellowship with God communion with God through words like this this was the central one for John Patton let's watch him I felt his supporting power it is the Sober Truth and it comes back to me sweetly after 20 years that I had my nearest and

dearest glimpses of the face and smiles of my blessed Lord in those dread moments when musket club or spear was being leveled at my life oh the Bliss of living and enduring as seeing him who is invisible that's a quote from Hebrews 11 oh the Bliss of living and enduring as seeing this is a quote from how Moses went out from Egypt in in Hebrews 11 he went out as seeing him who is invisible we got fighter verses at Bethlehem that we memorize each week and the fighter verse for this week is um this slight

momentary Affliction is working for us an eternal weight of Glory beyond all comparison as we look to the things that are unseen for the things that are seen or transit for the things that are unseen are Eternal as we look to the Unseen you can't look at Unseen or can you this says you can and that verse says you can you the Christian Life is lived in steady state gazing at what you cannot see and seeing it through the word by the spirit so the word is lo I am with you right now in this

room tonight and you look at him and he's not there and he's there and you see him with the eyes of the heart that is you know by the spirit that promise is being fulfilled in this room right now for John and for me amazing one of the most powerful paragraphs in his autobiography and I recommend it to you the autobiography of of John Patton describes his experience hiding in a tree now you got to get this this is terrifying he's hiding in a tree at the mercy of an unreliable Chief as hundreds of angry

natives hunt him for his life being entirely here's here's his words being entirely at the mercy of such doubtful and vacillating friends I thought I though perplexed felt it best to obey in other words go up in the tree and I'll take him that way and he doesn't even know if that's going to be true I climbed into the tree and was left there alone in the bush the hours I spent there live all before me as if it were but yesterday I heard the frequent discharging of muskets and the yells of the Savages yet

I sat there among the branches as safe In the Arms of Jesus never in all my sorrows did my Lord draw nearer to me and speak more soothingly to my soul than when in the moon than when the moonlight flickered among the chestnut leaves and the night air played on my throbbing brow as I told all my heart to Jesus now when I speak of communion with Christ or communion with God that's what I mean he's telling all his heart to Jesus that's what you do to friends right and Jesus speaks back lo I am

with you to the end and they have this communion that's what it is all of his heart being poured out to his Jesus and Jesus speaking the infallible word which the holy spirit makes feela true and real Jesus is in the tree that's what he felt believed knew was real alone yet not alone he says if it be to glorify my God I will not Grudge to spend many nights alone in such a tree to feel again my savior's spiritual presence to enjoy his consoling fellowship if thus this is a closing question for you if

thus thrown back upon your own soul alone all alone maybe tonight in your hotel room or wherever alone all alone in the midnight in the bush in the very Embrace of death itself have you a friend that will not fail you then that's the question at the beginning of this seminar have you a friend who alone all alone in the bush in the grip of death a friend who will never fail you oh the sweetness of fellowship with Jesus the sweetness of walking with the living Christ everybody else in your life is fickle are they

not I mean pick your favorite person your wife your husband they're all fickle they are they may love you to death and they don't come through for you the way you'd like them to he's never that way ever oh my what a privilege to be a Christian so that's Patton here's Newton John Newton's even better I mean he's I think he was a better person Patton was probably not easy to get along with I mean you don't survive muskets pointed in your face without being a certain hard Guy Newton was this tender even though he

was a slave dealer and God just broke him in half you know he he wrote Amazing Grace you know the story but he has a few things to teach us here by way of introduction to the nature of communion with God okay so let's watch him get saved and then let's watch him discover what communion with God is which didn't happen at the same time interestingly enough John Newton who wrote The himym Amazing Grace was awakened from the spiritual blindness and follow of his utter destitution wretchedness comes from the hymn wretch saved a Wretch like

Me on March 21 1748 on board the ship Greyhound during a violent storm at sea so God scared the hell out of him literally he he describes how he was only partially converted though because he did not yet though because he did not yet know what communion with God was here's what he said though I cannot doubt that this change when God met him on the Greyhound in the storm this change so far as it prevailed was wrong by the spirit and power of God yet still I was greatly deficient in many respects and this

is just so true of many who get saved right it may be true of many in this room tonight you you you met Jesus you put your faith in Jesus and and God LED you to this seminar because you know you're deficient in fact if I had you raise your hands you'd all raise your hand me too deficient in prayer deficient in meditation deficient in fasting I don't even know if I should fast what's his fasting stuff and he just felt very deficient as many many of us still do I was in some degree affected

with a sense of my enormous sins oh yes but I was little aware of the innate evils of my heart now here's a growth point for Newton when he met Christ on the boat he knew he sinned he was a slave dealer he was a leer I mean named the sin he did it all right but but when he ran to Jesus he knew very little about corruption where it all came from he just knew he did it and he felt horrible and that's a good place to start but he had to learn sins come

from somewhere they come from Sinners they come from inner innate corruption Fallen and he he just didn't know about that I had no apprehension of the spirituality and the extent of the law of God or the hidden life of a Christian as it consists in communion with God by Jesus Christ so he he just he there was this transaction that he was thinking about because I'm going run to you I need your forgiveness I'll put my faith in you and the whole dimension of Walking with God and communing with God was was foreign to him

at this stage notice how he describes this a namely a continual dependence on him for hourly supplies of wisdom strength Comfort was a mystery that I had yet no knowledge so he's thinking of communion with God as hourly supplies of wisdom strength comfort so he's walking through his day he became a pastor but he's walking through his day and hourly he's looking away to his Living Lord for I need wisdom right now I need strength right now I need comfort right now as I walk into this next conversation as I make this next phone call

as I write this next note I need you I need you I need you and there's this constant Reliance upon the outpouring of the Spirit by by the word for for strength and comfort and wisdom anything you need my God will supply all your needs according to his riches and glory in Christ Jesus hourly let him who serves serve in the strength that God supplies hourly so that hourly God may get the glory that's the way Christians live they they walk in a steady state looking away for help we're the neediest of all people we

shouldn't look like we're cocky I acknowledge the Lord's Mercies in pardoning what was ped but depended chiefly upon my own resolution this is the way he was acting to do better for the time uh to come I cannot consider myself to have been a Believer and then he adds in the full sense of the word I think if You' pushed on said now were you a Believer I think he would have said I'm not sure I think that's what he would have said cuz when he added in the full sense of the word I say

what's that like half sense believer or full believer 75% believer what is that so you may be in that situation you may say well I do believe help my unbelief that's a Biblical thing to say isn't it well that's what where we all are nobody's the perfect believer till a considerable time afterwards sometime between 1752 in 1756 on a morning in April he wrote prayed over a part of the eth of Romans in a way of paraphrase with some Readiness that is his heart was somewhat eager and getting into it I greatly fail in the

duty of meditation and am forced to use some artifice with myself to do it now here we start moving toward at least Newton's sense that given his own recalcitrance his own disinclination to the word of God he needed some as he called it artifice with myself and here's the kind of thing he means to do it at all thus sometimes I turn them into a prayer form so he reads the Bible Romans 8 and he turns it into a prayer that's what he called that an artifice that's I don't know how anybody can pray longer

than three minutes without doing that because Satan and your flesh and a thousand distractions are trying to keep you from praying but if you have the word in front of you you and you keep turning it into prayer and you can go for as long as the Bible is long sometimes hey where did I lose my place thus sometimes I turn them into prayer form sometimes I suppose myself in an imaginary conversation see conversing back and forth these little artifices sometimes that I am called upon to speak on a point so he's reading Romans 8

and he imagin himself no give a little talk on that verse right now so he gives a little talk to himself isn't that remarkable this is John Newton I mean if if John Newton needs help good night what hope is there for the rest of us well same same hope that that he had without something of this sort these artifices I'm not able to engage myself to attend with any fixedness of thought does that comfort you at all mind was all over the place it just ran here and there and he it wasn't fixed on

the word it jumped out of the Bible it jumped onto the you know the temperature in the room and jumped onto the dust on the window sill and jumped onto the sound of the bus going by outside and it jumped on the smell of bacon from downstairs it just it jumping Every Which Way except in the Bible it's the way the the human B brain does and with it alas how seldom I would remember to pray for grace and direction in this matter that my delight may be in the law of God to meditate therein

day and night well bless you John Newton for your struggle it bore good fruit and we are thankful so that's enough by way of biographical illustrations of the kind of thing that I mean when I say Comm Union with God so now we're going to go to another man only instead of reading about his life we're going to let him teach us about this namely John owens's trinitarian structure of communion with God and I brought along this book I asked Matt in the bookstore if he had any of these he's got a few but uh

I think if you want to order it through the bookstore he'll he'll let you sign up for it this is U communion with the tri God John Owen edited by Kelly kaic and Justin Taylor and this is a good modern um formatting of venture this probably the most important book on communion of God there is outside the Bible I don't I haven't read all of them so I don't know if that's true or not so you always have to be aware of people that talk like that um you know given the two or three I've

read but I I don't think I'm giving my personal opinion here the reason I say it is because um nobody that I know of tackled it quite Like This Owen tackled the issue of fellowship with God communion with God by asking the question what's unique about the way we relate to the father in Fellowship the way we relate to the son in fellowship and and the way we relate to the spirit in Fellowship because each of them has a unique way of relating to us and we perhaps should make some returns that are especially suited

for the way they have loved us so I'm going to talk about that for a few minutes uh with slides but here's here's where I'm getting it all in this particular introduction so communion with God and there are other additions besides this one but this is the most contemporary one and and um worthy of your investment John Owen has written what may be the most thorough treatment of commun with God is an experience the Saints enjoy distinctly with each of the three persons of the Trinity father son and spirit the title of the book published

in 1657 was this of communion with God the Father Son and Holy Ghost each person distinctly in love Grace and consolation or the Saints fellowship with the Father the Son and theol Holy Ghost unfolded you know the titles of books in 1600s and 1700s just took the place of tables of contents and so it save some space on the second page here's Owen's definition of communion with God our communion then with God consists in his communication of himself unto us with our returnal we don't we don't use that word anymore I didn't even know it

was a word when I read it return our return unto him of that which he requireth and accepteth flowing from that Union which in Christ Jesus we have with him so his definition of commun with God is God communicates himself to us and we make some returns and that back and forth is called fellowship or called communion with God so what are these returns that we make to God and in communion with him answer he says the way and means then on the part of the Saints whereby in Christ they enjoy communion with God are

all the spiritual and holy acting and doings of their souls in those Graces and by those ways wherein the moral and instituted worship of God doth consist and what he means by that difference Faith there's one return love there's another return trust Joy these are are the natural or moral worship of God whereby those in whom they are have communion with him so we have communion in trusting him loving him enjoying him now these are either immediately acted on God and not tied to any ways or means outwardly manifesting themselves or else they are farther

drawn out in solemn prayer verbal Praises according to that which he hath appointed so that's what he meant by instituted moral instituted so simply he's saying the returns that we make to God are the inward immediate acting of the Soul Faith love joy gratitude hope to God crying out and further drawn out in corporate acts of worship where prayers are appointed songs are appointed confessions are appointed and so on and that would be an extension further out those being instituted by God and we follow his rules and these being spontaneous acting of of the Soul

those are the returns so why we may ask Owen communion with each person of the Trinity my guess is that for many of you in this room this has never occurred to you the idea of communing with God fellowship with God not an unfamiliar thought and a desire of your soul the thought of uniquely fellowshipping with the spirit and uniquely fellowshipping with the son and uniquely fellowshipping with the father new for many and it was for me for sure when I read that book I had not made any attempt in those directions at least not

in those intentional categories there being such a distinct here's his answer why would you do this there being such a distinct communication of Grace from the several persons of the deity the Saints must needs have distinct communion with them so the father relates in such a distinct way the son in a distinct way and the spirit in a distinct way it would be strange not to have any personal response to the person of the spirit and person of the son and person of the father if the father has done things for me that are distinct

from the Sun and so on so it just when you think about it well yes and we just haven't thought very much about yeah they are persons we say that in our faith and why not relate to them as persons it remaineth only to intimate in a word wherein this distinction of each of them serving us lies and what is the ground thereof now this is that the father doth by way of original Authority he doth it that he's he communicates himself to us by way of original Authority the son by way of communic indicating

from a purchased treasury see the son purchased all our blessings the father didn't purchase them by shedding his blood the spirit didn't purchase them by shedding his blood that was the unique work of the Son and the Holy Spirit by way of immediate efficacy so here's some Bible passages that unpack what Owen is getting at first some Bible verses about the presence of the Father the Son and then some verses about how we fellowship with each of the distinct members of the Trinity I promise that the father will be with us make sure that your

character is free this is Hebrews 13 from the Love of Money being content with what you have for he has said I will never leave you nor will I ever forsake you this is the father this is a quote from the Old Testament this is the father talking I will never leave you I will never forsake you so when we think of God as our father and the father of the godhead we have a a word spoken to us that as father in the Trinity this is a pledge he makes to us another one for

the father or what agreement has the temple of God with Idols for we are the Temple of the Living God just as God said I will dwell in them and walk among them and I will be their God and they shall be my people so that's spoken to the church and God does it as the father or another one uh I'm not sure why I used this version my this is such a precious text to me fear not for I'm with you be not dismayed for I am your God I will help you I will

strengthen you I will hold you up with the right hand of my righteousness there is no promise in all the Bible bar none that I have used more often in more difficult situations than that one it is the sound of the gears in my brain when they're in neutral ready to be engaged at any moment when I'm in need if if I cannot think of a promise from my morning devotions to apply to a situation of need this is the one that kicks in just just ready to go any anytime just push the button and

the and the the gears come together and it goes and it has served me gloriously I love this promise it is given by by my father to me I'll be with you I'm not saying that the son hasn't made a similar promise he clearly has or the spirit but we have it from we have it from the father now here's this here's some words from the Sun teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you lo I Am With You Always to the End of the Age so you have patons dealing directly with Jesus

as his friend in the tree and he could have done it from the father but he happened to do it with the son there where two or three are gathered in my name there I am in the mid of them behold I stand at the door and knock if anyone hears my voice and opens the door I will come into him and dine with him and he with me this is this is a word from the Risen Christ to the church in Revelation that I'm knocking this is not a text mainly for unbelievers you can

apply it that way without ruining it but it's mainly a church that is not enjoying the fullness of the fellowship of Jesus and Jesus is knocking at the door of my church Bethlehem or maybe at the door of your family knock knock knock you're you as a family aren't even praying together and I come into the midst of two or three uniquely I I'm always here I'm always there in one sense but I I show up in a manifest and special way where two or three people like a mom and a dad and a daughter

my family are bowing over the word of God in the morning in the evening and and I'm knocking on your door because you're not doing that and I'll come in and I'll eat with you this is a picture I'll eat with you this is what you do with your the friends you really enjoy being with right that you sit at the table you're so relaxed you got good food you got a good friend things just flow because you can relax with each other and that's what he wants to do and we we shut him out

he has to knock that's the son offering himself so so we should have a a sweet personal relationship with the son in the Trinity who is knocking on our door and saying I'd like to have a kind of relationship with you which you haven't been enjoying with me recently because you paid no attention to Fellowship the Holy Spirit third I will ask the father and he will give you another helper that he may be with you forever that is the spirit of Truth whom the world cannot receive because it does not see him or know

him but you know him because he abides with you and will be in you so he promises that the holy spirit will be in his people so you should read that and the the spirit would apply this to you and say that is amazing that is amazing in me the spirit of the Living God and how could you not then say thank you Holy Spirit I love you you have you have been willing in this dirty sinful always halfhearted you've pledged to be in me you're amazing you are amazing holy holy spirit that in this

Unholy frame you would Dain to come and work on me so those are texts about the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit making promises to us about their presence with us and their availability for Fellowship uniquely now here are some about our returning what would the fellowship look like in these in these cases oops wrong direction first John the fellowship with the father what we have seen and heard we Proclaim to you John writes so that you too may have fellowship with us and indeed our fellowship is with the father and with his son

Jesus Christ the these things we write so that our joy may be complete this is the message we have heard from him and announce to you that God is light and in him there is no Darkness at all if we say we have fellowship with him with God and yet walk in darkness we lie and do not practice the truth but if we walk in the light as he himself is in the light we have fellowship with one another now I think in that one another there that's John and God and you we have fellowship

with one another and the blood of Jesus his son so now he's now we realize oh he's talking about the father here in this in this Fellowship so we we have John describing walking in the light enjoying fellowship with the father while the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin and just just an encouragement here John first John is one of the scariest books in the New Testament and one of the most encouraging it's scary because it puts up all these tests to see whether you're really a Christian and you read some of them

you say I'm not doing real well this week and and right at the front end of the book he says following this if you say you have no sin you deceive yourself and the truth is not in you because he knows he's going to say some things that make it sound like you might be sinless over over in chapter 3:9 he says those who are born of God do not go on sinning and say oh well it rules me out and everybody else and and you know he doesn't mean Perfection because back in chapter one

he said I didn't include it in the slide in verse 8 following if you say you have no sin you deceive yourself and the truth are in you if we say we do and he use both tenses have not sin and do not have sin both of them lest we say oh yeah we we got saved we used to sin we don't sin anymore and he's just absolutely ruling that out which means that walking in the light cannot mean sin sinlessness if you if you to read this and say if we walk in the light

if we walk in the light as he is in the light we have Fellowship you say well I can never have Fellowship because I sometimes I'm stumbling around in the dark and walking in the light in John's chapter doesn't mean walking without sin it means means walking with sufficient light that when you see sin you hate it fight it and renounce it and move on because if you said it meant sinlessness you would contradict verse 89 10 where he says if we say we have no sin we're just liars we're deceiving ourselves so walking in

the light is walking in the light of Grace in the light of the Gospel in the light of all that God is for us in Jesus so that when we do I me just very practically you you're you're walking through the morning and your friend says something to you that wounds you respond by not returning good for evil but evil for evil and 20 seconds later you know that was wrong now does that mean that morning you were not walking in the light it does not mean that whether you were walking in the light or

not it's going to depend on what you do 20 seconds later in your heart and in your mind if you say no big deal done with that stuff anyway not going to try to keep doing that legalistic stuff can't do it anyway blah blah blah I've seen people walk away from God that way but if you say God I hate that I hate that about me I'm sorry and then if occasion arises go back there and say you're sorry to that person too that means that whole thing was in the light and and Jesus had

not left you and you had not left him so fellowship with one another that is vertically and horizontally is possible because the blood of Jesus cleanses from such sin so that's fellowship with the father as we are walking and relying and and responding to him and here's fellowship with the son 1 Corinthians 1:9 God is faithful through whom you were called into fellowship with his son Jesus Christ Our Lord so becoming a Christian Paul says is being called into a fellowship into a communion into a relationship this is why you know when evangelicals over against

certain lurgical Traditions insist on asking their mom or sister but do you have a personal relationship with him what is that stuff we don't even talk like that in our our in our religion you know i' i' I've Stood Beside the bed of men who are dying who who visited our church regularly because their wives were here and they had grown up in another tradition very lurgical very formal never used that kind of language at all and they didn't know what I'm talking about now I don't really care about the names you put on these

things very much but the reality this is we we are called into a fellowship with the son that's what it means to be saved that's what it means to be converted to be a Christian and and so whatever language you can find to help people discern if that's real for them do you have a relationship with him if they say I don't use that language well well tell me help me I'm just trying to get this verse into language so that I can we can enjoy him together in a relationship like this is a fellowship

where where there are Personal Expressions going to him as a person the son the son I love you Jesus I remember when I first came to Bethlehem this just comes to my mind right now there were 24 deacons I got to be careful here because there might be some people left over I don't think there are I've outlived everybody just um and and uh and only one of them only one of them and never referred to Jesus as Jesus the rest had very formal language and I didn't I didn't assume they weren't Believers I just

I was just taking note what is it about this man that spoke of Jesus as his friend and the others were the Lord and God and and always always he and not you and and it was just there's the difference difference and I as a young Pastor I looked at that old man I'll tell you who it was it was Rand Erikson who who talked that way for just a handful of you will know who that was he's with the Lord now and I just admired him so much I I want to be like that

with with his beautiful long shock of gray hair I I I lost my hair and he his turned all beautiful white I thought I want to be like that he looks like God um but the Lord knows what we need right um but he he spoke of the son he spoke of Jesus he manifestly walked with the Son of God that's what attracted me so this was real this is real for him now the Holy Spirit 2 Corinthians 13 the benediction the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ the love of God and the communion or

Fellowship of the Holy Ghost be with you all amen or another one on the Holy Spirit here from Philippians 2 therefore if there is any encouragement in Christ if there's any consolation of love if there's any Fellowship of the spirit if any affection and compassion make my joy complete by being of the same mind maintaining the Same Love United in spirit and one purpose so one of the things that was foundational for this unity in the church was an enjoyment of fellowship with the spirit so one of the things I hope the Lord does for

you through this seminar is just first awaken you to the awareness that such is possible and then a awaken in your heart the real sense this is doable that you would henceforth in your life have a a personal relationship with a father and a personal relationship with the son and a personal relationship with the spirit and as you read your Bible there would be a heightened awareness now of things that the spirit does for you and the son does for you and the father does for you who are calling out of your heart responses that

make for sweet hourly fellowship with him let me show you we live in a day that's simply astonishing with regard to technology right so I'm working off an iPad here and um there's an app right there w a online WJ works of Jonathan Edwards online search so I'm just doing this the way I would do it so Co communion with God so you want to see wherever Edwards talked about the phrase communion with God you hit it this is this is and there they are is that incredible I mean I would have paid $110,000 for

that 20 years ago it's free this is everything Edwards ever wrote online for free I mean you just cannot imagine such a thing this next to the Bible so I was doing this this afternoon I'm scrolling down here looking at um David Brainard so where's David Brainard there it is the life of David Brainard and all these quotes So if you want to see how did David Brainard in the wilderness dying of leukemia at age 29 have fellowship with God it's right there in 30 seconds it's just incredible okay but that's now we're in our

L outline at pursuing communion with God through meditation on God's word before communion with God there must be spiritual life this life comes by the word so you see the way I'm thinking here if we're going to say that the word of God has a connection with communion with God or fellowship with God the first way that comes to my mind is you can't commune with God if you're dead right which everybody is apart from the Awakening quickening work called regeneration New Birth so communion with God is only possible by regeneration having life how does

that happen and I'm arguing at this point happens by the word so there's no communion with god without the word because there's no life without the word so let's look at some texts where I get that idea you have been born again first Peter 1 not of seed which is perishable but imperishable that is through the living and enduring word of God and then if you keep reading down to verse 25 which I didn't include here it says that word is the gospel which we preached to you so how does the um Spirit bring about

life in a unspiritual spiritual and dead heart he does it through the living and abiding the living and enduring word of God so if you want to commune with God you want life and if you want life you have the word do it or here's James 1:18 in the exercise of his will he brought us forth by the word of Truth he brought us forth caused us to be born again by the word of Truth so that we would be a kind of first fruits among his creatures Simon Peter answered him Lord to whom shall

we go you have the words of eternal life so the words of Jesus become life they penet trate and they create life John 663 it is the spirit who gives life the flesh profits nothing the words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life so again and again in the New Testament the Holy Spirit the seed the imperishable seed by the living and abiding word penetrate the heart and give it life create life a new creature is born and you can't ever separate these word and Spirit Come Together the Holy Spirit doesn't awaken

people without the word the word does not create life without the spirit it's the spirit using the word the spirit has a sword the sword of the spirit is the word and the sword penetrates or like a a scalpel Cuts away all the dead callous stuff and takes out the Heart of Stone and puts in the heart of Flesh that's the way he does it so that's the first thing we are given life through the gospel this life-giving word wakens and sustains Faith which is the crucial means of meeting God in his word so it's

my second way of thinking about how does the word relate to Fellowship the word awakens Faith or that life which the word awakens is a life that gives expression through faith and faith is the means by which we commune with the Unseen God so texts faith comes from hearing and hearing by the word of Christ so Faith from hearing and hearing by the word of Christ nobody gets faith faith is not awakened apart from hearing the word of of Christ Romans 10:17 or John 20:31 these things John says have been written so the Gospel of

John is written so that you may believe so the writing is the means to the believing that Jesus is the Christ the son of God and that believing you may have life so where does life come from out of which you can relate as a living person to the Living God it comes from believing and where does believing come from it comes from the written word John's gospel is written so that believer and unbeliever would read it and their faith would be awakened and it's amazing what God has done through that gospel through the centuries

both for believers and for unbelievers by making it the means of new birth here's another example of how the word awakens Faith now what I'm going to do here I couldn't get it all on one slide so Jeremiah 17 is on one slide and Psalm 1 is on another slide and I want you to kind of Imagine them side by side so when you lay them on top of each other you can see how they illumin each other blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord and whose Trust trust is in the Lord for

he will be like a tree like a tree planted by water that extends its roots by a stream and will not fear when the heat comes but its leaves remain green and it will not be anxious in the year of drought nor cease to yield fruit so why does trust make the tree green because it's planted by the water of the truth and the word and the grace of God is sinking its roots down so no matter how hot and desert-like this wind is up here in the circumstances of Life the roots of your life

are sunk by Faith by trust down into God in his word so that the sap of of grace and the sap of wisdom and comfort and and joy and hope are coming up on those those limbs that are being battered by all these hot winds and the leaves are green lo and behold and the people around you who are all drying up with bitterness and anger and rage because of the circumstances they in will look at your tree perhaps and say how come your leaves are green why aren't you drying up with anger and drying

up with rage and drying up with bitterness and and and your answer is going to be because I I trust in the Lord and my roots are sunk somewhere else than in the circumstances of of life now that's Jeremiah nothing there about the word of God but notice the parallel I mean I'm sure You' already seen it if you're a Bible reader here's here's Psalm one blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked nor stands in the way of Sinners nor sits in the seat of scoffers but his Delight is

in the law of the Lord so now we have we have Bible meditation here on his law he meditates day and night he's like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season its Leaf does not wither and in everything he does he prospers so now put those beside each other jermiah blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord he's like a tree and Psalm 1 blessed is the man who Delights in the law of the Lord that meditates on the the instruction and law of the Lord day and

night he's like a tree that has green leaves and lots of fruit when every everybody else is drawing up so my my way of putting those together is to say that what we what we trust is the word of God it's it's the word that begets faith faith comes by hearing hearing by the word so when we meditate on the word what say day and night which is one of the great Reasons by the way to memorize scripture I mean admittedly having smartphones reduces the need for that but not entirely I mean when I wake

up in the morning this is my alarm clock so it's going I'm scrambling turn off quick so Noel won't be awakened and my finger never works swipe swipe swipe swipe swipe and it just what's wrong with my finger so now it's turned off what's the first button I push first button I push is that red one right there fighter verse this slight momentary Affliction I'm lying bed like this barely wake this slight momentary Affliction I do have it memorized by you know the second or third day I'm working on so I don't have to do

the phone but that's sweet I mean this this these these things iPads and phones are devilish in their Temptation right we all know how you could become a really lecherous Wicked person in what you do with this and they are gold if your heart is gold they they they just can feed your soul so amazingly so readily so form the habit of defaulting to Bible apps not drudge or worse so the point there is Jeremiah 17 and Psalm 1 is that Faith or trust in the Lord gives you life green life in the midst of

drought and and it happens because you're meditating on the law of the Lord day and night and that's how faith is is nourished and how Faith expresses itself here's some more texts on the word as lifegiving Proverbs 22 incline your ear and hear the words of the wise and apply your mind to my knowledge for it will be pleasant if you keep them within you that they may be ready on your lips so that your trust your trust may be in the Lord I have taught you today even you keep them what the words of

the wise man keep them in you within you why so that your trust may be in the Lord so how does trust stay strong in the Lord so that you can say in to Hurricane Sandy I trust you on Staten Island Psalm 78 he established a testimony in Jacob and appointed a law in Israel which he commanded our fathers to teach to their children that the Next Generation might know them the children yet unborn and arise and tell them to their children why why would you want to pass on to your children the word of

God so that they should set their hope hope in God and not forget the works of God so where does Hope come from so if you're going to commune with God and say I hope in you I'm banking on you everything around my soul is giving away and I'm banking on You You Are My Hope where does that come from how does the heart rise to that instead of getting angry at God and the answer is here because somebody passed on to to us testimony Commandments that they might be given to the children yet unborn

tell them to their children we we want our kids to have hope in God and we want ourselves to have hope in God so we appropriate his word see faith in turn is the means of living in communion with God so the word produces life it produces Life by uh Awakening faith and Faith becomes now the means of living in communion with God so a few verses about that Galatians 2:20 when I was uh 20 years old sophomore this verse became precious to me I wrote it in the front of my King James Bible and

have used it for my steuding over and over again my orienting of life I have been crucified with Christ it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself self for me so the picture here it seems to be seems to me is I live a certain way the life I live in the flesh so I'm in the body with all of its it's Brokenness and weakness and inclinations

that drag me this way and that but I am walking in that body I'm living by faith in the Son of God and the reason I'm trusting him faith in him is because he loved me and he gave himself for me so faith is reaching out and receiving the love of Jesus I receive your love Jesus you loved me and the way you showed that you love me is by giving yourself for me which means that very very very Central and everpresent to your mind concerning how you relate to Jesus is his death and ever

asking Jesus please don't ever let me lose my grip on your cross don't ever let me fail to see how massive was the suffering how great was your sacrifice which means how much you love me so that in this circumstanc he's he's living by this he's living all right he's not just doing this in church he's W he's getting up on Monday Morning by faith in the Son of God who loved me he's eating breakfast by faith in the Son of God who loved me he's getting in the car and turning on the radio or

Not by the by faith and he's going to work and he's dealing with all the stuff that he has to deal with by faith in the Son of God who loved him and he's just saying to himself and enjoying Jesus saying to him I love you I love love you I love you are you don't don't forget that right now as you're starting to get angry at the person who did something harmful to you remember how much harm was done to me for you this changes everything so that's what it would mean by faith to

walk in communion with the Son Day by Day hour by hour another example here this is a sequence of texts that are are just magnificent I want to see the connections between Galatians and Romans 5 and Romans uh 6 to8 so then does he who provides you with the spirit and works miracles among you do it by works of the law answer no or by hearing with faith answer yes so now what is that saying it's a rhetorical question the answer is obvious and so let's turn it into a statement God provides you supplies you

present tense just pouring out with the spirit and by that Spirit he does amazing things in you and through you miracles does he do this by your earning it by works of the law no he does it by your hearing presumably his word with faith so the Holy Spirit then now is active working present as a person in your life by faith faith in something heard word because faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God so so you present yourself with the word of God holding up your smartphone before you get out

of bed and you say I trust you I believe that I will look to the things that are unseen now I will believe you that this is all working a weight of Glory for me today we all perplexing things I've got it's going to work for me a weight of Glory I trust you with that throw the covers off go brush your teeth in that confidence and when that happens the spirit is being poured into your life you're not doing that that's very unnatural that's the Holy Spirit at work in your life he's flowing through

the word he's flowing through faith creating it as he goes okay now expanding that idea in Romans 5:5 Hope does not disappoint because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the holy spirit that has been given to us so what what happens in the heart when the Holy Spirit is supplied and the answer is the love of God is poured out through the Holy Spirit who was given to us so God's love for you is felt by the work of the Holy Spirit Spirit and the Holy Spirit is moving through

faith so this Faith here in Galatians 3:5 is the conscious key to the experience of the spirit's moving and embodying as it were the love of God in you in fact if we were to push on this from a trinitarian standpoint I would argue that the holy spirit is the love of God in person so that the father is loving the Son and the son is loving the father from all eternity and this joy and delight and satisfaction and infinite energy of Love is carrying so much of the son in his fullness to the father

and so much of the father in his fullness to the son that it no longer an it becomes a a person namely the spirit of the Trinity and when the spirit is poured in he is pouring in the love of God because that's who he is when when you have the spirit in you you have the father loving the Son and the son loving the father and you experience by his presence love for the father and love for the son with the very love that they have for each other and that comes according to Galatians

3:5 by faith hearing with faith let me read five5 again and relate it to Psalm 143 hope does not disappoint because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who is given to us let me hear in the morning of your steadfast love for I trust in you so grant me to experience your love hear your love so you're lying in bed and seems like early in the morning he was saying let me hear in the morning of your steadfast love for I trust in you as though trusting

in you would be the Avenue or the vehicle or the means by which the love that God has for him flows into his life it becomes manifest and discernable in his heart so Faith the point I'm making here is that faith in turn is the means of living in communion with God now back to Romans 5 the later verses 6 through 8 the love of God has been poured into uh poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit which is given to us for while we were still helpless at the right time Christ died

for the ungodly he's he's giving some kind of support for this this present experience of the love of God being poured out it's being poured out right now by the holy spirit in me for and then he and he talks about history while we were still helpless at the right time Christ died that's 2,000 years ago so the holy spirit's being poured out in my heart right now for Christ died for the ungodly for one will hardly die for a righteous man though perhaps for a good man someone would dare even to die but God

demonstrates and I put the Greek in here because everybody would see it who takes Greek see that present tense present ongoing he's he's right now demonstrating God demonstrates his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died at past so the point here is this God has ordained that we experience his love presently by the spirit through being made aware and reminded of a historical event 2,000 years ago and this is and this is not a logical inference this is an experience of the holy spirit being poured out right and yet the

logic of it is here and I conclude from this that the way the spirit Works a sense of the love of God for me is that the story is told again the old old story is told again of of of The Old Rugged Cross and 2,000 years ago and the Holy Spirit takes the word of God and through faith pours the love of God by the spirit into my heart so that it becomes joyfully experienced and lifts me up out of my moroseness and my self-pity and my discourage encouragements it's a miracle when that happens

which is way the way we want to live and we have to look to the story over and over again I commend to you to to think about the logic of those verses often the love of God has been is now that tense is a a present State as a result of a past action uh has been poured out in your hearts by the spirit and the ground of your knowing it the grounds of your experiencing it is to be told that he demonstrates his love for you by reminding you of a 2,000 year old

action and the only way you can do that is by his word and so the word sustains the faith which is the Bridge or the channel of the spirit which makes for communion with him D this communion with God by faith is through his word again 1 John 1 what was from the beginning what we have heard what we have seen with our eyes what we have looked at with touch with our hands concerning the word of life the life was manifested and we have seen and testify and proclaimed to you the eternal life which

was with the father and was manifested to us what we have seen and heard we Proclaim to you so we Proclaim to you what we have seen and heard so his proclamations his word so that you too may have fellowship with us and indeed indeed our fellowship is with the father and the son Jesus Christ so you see the connection between the proclamation of what was seen and heard Jesus Christ the word incarnate we saw him we touched him and now we're we're the the connection between the historical Jesus and you is is our authoritative

inspired Proclamation and why do we give you that Proclamation so that so that you too may have fellowship with us it's just amazing you can't you can't do an end run around that Proclamation and expect to know Jesus expect to fellowship with Jesus expect to have a personal relationship and and this this is bothersome to some people who are more less word oriented more experience oriented and they just they want to get to it quick they get get to the experience quick and I don't blame anybody for that but you know what this is a

book God decided to give us a book as a means of experiencing Jesus which means you got to learn how to read to enjoy it in its full or if not learn how to read learn how to hear and make sense out of oral language you can't escape word and the reason is because he has planned for this proclamation to produce see this so that the logical connection Fellowship the way you come into fellowship with the living Christ is by hearing a proclamation about the historical Jesus and the living Christ comes to you see the

triangle here get dry in the air here's the here's the 2,000 year old historical Jesus dying for you and Rising again and here he is in heaven today ready and eager knocking on your door ready to commune with you and fellowship with you and you must hear this to enjoy this and in the enjoyment of this this is where he comes he comes with this word if I were to draw it I wouldn't draw it like a triangle I would draw it like this like okay he's coming and and I don't meet him any other

way if if I try or if people try to meet Jesus any other way than the authority of the book you know what happens Mormonism happens Jehovah's Witness happens spiritism happens Oprah Winfrey happens when you when you pull yourself out from under this authoritative word as Jesus and say I want to experience another way you'll get experiences and they can be very powerful but they won't be fellowship with the real Jesus who is the Jesus of the book who comes to us in a living way so I I I have a lot of sympathy for

people who who get impatient with excessive bookishness or academic efforts or or um doctrinal wrangling when they want Jesus but I'm I'm a chancellor of a College and Seminary and it's not by accident all my enjoyment of Jesus has been heightened the better I've known the book my experience for the 50 years or so that I've been a Christian had 60 years I've been a Christian has not been the harder I work on the book The More I miss Jesus the the person this has not been my experience and therefore I I teach the seminar

the way I do it he text text text text instead of me just telling you stories about my experience or whatever because I think this is the reliable thing I'm not reliable this is reliable this is where the holy spirit will will work so first John 1 1:3 same point still on it 1 John 5 this is powerful this this requires a little little effort to see so what is the testimony of the holy spirit so that you can enjoy the the test that the spirit is is witnessing in you what is that if we

receive the testimony of men the testimony of God is greater for the testimony of God is that he has testified concerning his son it's a little odd say it like that but hold it it'll get clearer I think the one who believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself if you're a Believer you have the testimony of God in you what is that what does he mean the one who does not believe has made him a liar because he has not believed in the test testimony that God has given concerning his son

and the testimony is this that God has given us eternal life ah ah so that's the closest thing we're going to get I think to a definition the testimony is this God has given Believers life life now and forever and this life is in his son he who has the son has life so when you believe the son you have the testimony because you have life and life is the testimony if you do not have the son you do not have life these things I have written to you who believe in the name of the

son of God so that you may know that you have life I've written these things that you may have life so let me see if I can put all that together go back the one who believes change colors here the one who believes in Son of God has the testimony in himself so Believers have the testimony and what is the testimony this is the testimony that God has given you eternal life you would not be a believer if he hadn't given you life life is the opposite of spiritual deadness spiritually dead people do not trust

God they do not treasure god they not enjoy God they find God mythological or boring or a harsh master and try to impress him when you get life through faith you know him for who he is and that's the witness within you the witness within you is that you love him you cry out father Romans 8 um all who are led by the spirit are the sons of God for he did not give us a spirit of of Slavery to fall back into fear but the spirit of sunship when we cry ABA father it is

the spirit witnessing with our spirit we are the children of God we're alive as children of God how do you know because your spirit is saying father you're relating to him as father you're trusting him as father you're submitting to him as father you're counting on his care as your father that's the witness in you that you're alive unbelievers don't do that natural people don't do that they don't relate to God that way it says also in uh 1 Corinthians 123 no one can say Jesus is Lord except by the spirit which means that if

your heart Rises up and cries out my Lord my God my master my owner that's the Holy Spirit of life in you and a testimony from God Almighty your mine so those are two two ways the spirit crying out ABA father the spirit crying out Jesus is Lord I'm not talking about vain language that a computer can do I'm talking about a heart that says my father and a heart that says my Lord my owner my master means it if you find your heart doing those two things guess what's happening God Almighty by his spirit

is in you and is bearing witness that you have life the life is in you you're alive dead people don't say Jesus is Lord and dead people don't say God is my father and mean it and that happens by the word that's the point of this long dsection communion with God by faith is through his word this testimony which is life was spoken to me this is my son hear him believe him and it awakened it awakened my life I'm going to skip this next one that entire section F David's testimony to the way the

word sustains communion with God the law of the Lord is perfect restoring the soul the testimony of the Lord is sure making wise the simple the precepts of the Lord are right rejoicing the heart the Commandment of the Lord is pure and lightening the eyes they are more desirable than gold yes much fine gold sweeter also than honey and drippings from the honeycomb moreover by them your servant is warned in keeping them is great reward so the law of the Lord is perfect and as you immers this word law here let me just clarify Torah

in Hebrew is instruction and it's used in lots of different ways sometimes for a legal code most often his instruction so don't don't hear Too Much demandingness in this word here hear a lot of instruction about the nature of God and his ways and works in the world the Torah was a tasty sweet honey like thing so when you meditate on the instruction of of the lord your soul is restored so I'm trying to show that the word sustains communion with God it has all these effects it restores the soul and isn't that encouraging that

the soul must be restored it's like the Lord's Prayer right after saying give us this day our daily bread daily bread it says forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors which you probably have to do every day which means you need to be restored don't don't have a perfectionistic notion of the Christian Life it'll kill you it will drive you away from the faith but if you have a a robust understanding of Grace and a sweet experience of regular repentance then these kinds of language will make sense the law of the Lord is

perfect and one of its Perfections is that it has the power to revivify or restore the word is is restore your life it makes you wise it makes the simple wise not the academic and complicated isn't that encouraging you don't have to go to Seminary to experience this in fact heady people often miss it and simple people often get it the precepts of the Lord are right rejoicing and this rejoicing is not rejoicing in stuff it's rejoicing in in God the precepts of the Lord incline us to rejoice in God and that's one of the

returns we make in Fellowship the Lord speaks to us a a precept and we respond back to say that's good that is so good makes me glad you told me not to commit adultery makes my marriage so much better thank you you believe that thank you for telling me not to steal if I had if if I had ripped off IRS year after year at by age 66 I would just be so depressed so discouraged so defeated and youve spared me you've spared me by teaching me not to love money and telling me don't steal

don't steal and I say yes like good precept I just I'm so happy that you told me that rejoices the heart the Commandment of the Lord is pure enlightening the eyes Paul prays that in Ephesians 1 that the eyes of our heart would be enlightened that we may know the hope for which to which we're called and and The Inheritance that's so great and the power at work in those who believe and that comes by attending to the Commandments of God and all of his other ways of speaking to us and thus they become gold

to US better than gold more desirable than gold and they become sweeter than honey and drippings from the honeycomb and they become wonderful protections against foolish choices that destroy our lives so the word of God has these effects of intensifying and sweetening and rewarding our communion with God God and and I put this down here at the bottom I added this this afternoon this 1 Samuel 3:21 so that it would be more explicit I should have included it here but I think when I did these slides I didn't have it in my head um 1st

Samuel 3:21 um get I want you to see it get go over here you read that the Lord appeared again at Shiloh for the Lord revealed himself to Samuel at shaloh by the word of the Lord the the reason all this stuff is true about the word enabling communion is that this happens through the word god reveals himself at Shiloh by the word of the Lord so when I go to my Bible every morning I don't open it primarily looking for doctrinal clarification that will happen but it's down a priority or two I go looking

for Jesus I go looking for the father I go looking for the spirit I want to have Fellowship I want to meet them because it's it's the Friendship it's the relationship that that gives uh life and is the meaning of existence it's it's not the the head construing of sentences and doctrines is a means theology is a means to doxology it's not not the other way around everything is terminating on a relationship everything's terminating on on this the the Lord revealed himself to Samuel at Shiloh by the word of the Lord if there was another

way to have Jesus I would take it but there isn't he has ordained that he be known and enjoyed and fellowship with by the word now six minutes to go and we're at a new section oh no no no we're not at a new section this is going to be perfect oh we got three more to go in fact okay go do this I want to finish the section on word this evening thinking hard about the word uh does not replace the illuminating work of God's grace that was implicit in what I just said let's

see the verse where I I get that uh Timothy think over what I say for the Lord will grant you understanding in everything so I'm arguing here that thinking about what the Bible says think over what I say thinking about it does not replace God's Sovereign communicating communication of himself and the understanding that we need to get the word and to get through the word because here it doesn't say think over what I say and you won't need the Lord to give you anything because you'll just figure it out and it doesn't say the Lord

will give you understanding so you don't need to think about it it says think over what I say because that's the way so this this uh granting here and this thinking here are means end right there this is the means and this is the end think over what I say when you open your Bible don't let your mind be passive think about these sentences with a prayer oh God fulfill 2 Timothy 2:7 this morning as I think about your word same thing in Proverbs 2 1-6 I don't think we need to read that just says

exactly the same thing now a testimony from from John Owen how Fellowship of the holy spirit is experienced through the promises of God this is really close you I wrote a whole book on this more or less called future Grace the purifying power of living by faith in future Grace future Grace is just a fancy word for promises the promises of God it's that book is an effort to explain Standing on the Promises I cannot fail that's just that great old hymn I said okay let's write a book about that and that and I just

gave it a different name so that it would sell more copies the life and soul of all our Comforts lie treasured up in the promises of Christ amen they do so the life and the soul of all our Comforts lie treasured up in the promises the promises of Christ they are the breasts of all our consolation who knows not how powerless they are in the bare letter meaning just to have a promise written in a book and you're going into your eyes and going in your brain nothing happens about confidence and joy and hope that's

all there is just a bare just a bare letter even when improved to the uttermost by our considerations of them so mere thinking isn't enough and meditation on them as also how unexpectedly they sometimes break upon the soul with a conquering endearing life and vigor here Faith deals peculiarly with the Holy ghost it considers the promises themselves yes I'm reading I consider the promise I'll never leave you looks up to him the Holy Spirit waits for him considers his appearances in the word depended on this is worth gold to linger over John Owen here he's

a he's gone deep with this he knows what he's talking about here and he's saying the bare promise won't do it but wait waiting upon the holy spirit looking up to him and receiving him consid it dependent on owns him in his work and efficacy no sooner does the soul begin to feel the life of a promise warming his heart relieving cherishing supporting delivering from fear entanglements or troubles but it may it ought to know that the holy spirit is there which which will add to his joy and lead him into fellowship with him so

here's here's what he's saying you read a promise I will help you I will strengthen you every time I'm sitting on the front pew at Bethlehem I'll do this tomorrow night just before I get up to preach my head is bowed I'm not reading the text but the guy was reading the text I'm praying and I'm generally praying my little apat but especially the tea in apat admit you can do nothing pray for help trust a promise act give him thanks that he helped you but right here at this tea is where I am I'm

laying hold on a promise I'll help you again we've done this together for 33 years I will help you again I have not left you I won't leave you I will put words in your mouth trust me and this says that as that promise becomes how does he say it conquering endearing life and vigor here Faith deals peculiarly with the Holy Ghost it considers the promises themselves that's what I'm doing right there looks up to him I'm looking up I'm waiting for him it's just 30 seconds before I preach considers his appearances his appearances in

the word now what what he means by that is the word takes on a yes I mean this John Piper feel this and and frankly sometimes I feel it way more than others just that's life right sometimes you go in with a huge sense God has addressed me God has spoken to me through the word and other times you just say I believe it it's true I'm not feeling a lot right now but I'm going because you told me to go it's my job it's what you want me to do no sooner does the soul

begin to feel the life of a promise warming the heart relieving the the fear the anxiety cherishing us supporting delivering from Fear delivering from entanglements or troubles as the promise begins to do that then you ought to know that the holy spirit is there you need to you need to learn how to read the presence of the Holy Spirit I mean how would you know how would you know if you were not told by God how his holy spirit is experienced and I think this is right he's telling you when the word of God in

promise starts to feel like life warming the heart relieving you cherishing you supporting you delivering you from Fear entanglements are starting to Fall Away troubles are not dragging you down anymore God is present the holy SP spirit is at work in your life and it leads you he says into Fellowship last line there with him so you pause right there or as I walk to the pulpit I whisper thank you Holy Spirit now hold on to me for these next 45 minutes or so thank you I love you I lean on you thank you for

being obedient to the father and coming to help me last section I think here J Owen's call and we're three minutes over do this real quick John owens's called to give ourselves to contemplating the revelations what poor low perishing things do we spend our contemplations on were we to have no Advantage by this astonishing dispensation contemplating God yet its Excellency Glory Beauty depths deser erve the flower of our inquiries this mediatory role of of Christ to make a way to the father yet its Excellency Glory Beauty depths deserve the flower the flower of our inquiries

not the leftovers the Vigor of our Spirits the substance of our time but when with all our life our peace our joy our inheritance our eternity our all lies herein shall not the thoughts of it Christ's mediatorial role making us a way to fellowship with the father always dwell in our hearts always refresh and Delight our souls so one of the effects I hope that you leave with this evening is a awakened sense Lord I really do spend a lot of my contemplations on low things things not evil things just such in things that don't

compare to what you have offered me in your word by your spirit so father as we go now I pray that we would go in the strength that you supply and that we would experience this Supply by the hearing of faith not the works of the law and that as we trust you Holy Spirit you would come Jesus you would come father you would come and we would enjoy fellowship with you this evening I ask this in the name of the son amen