Sermon: Jesus and the Holy Spirit

Do you want to be like Jesus?

I don’t know how many of you are old enough or illuminated enough to remember the old tv series, Lost in Space. It was the saga of the Robinson family lost in the vast reaches of outer space, struggling to survive. It starred Guy Williams (who had previously starred in Zorro), June Lockhart (who had starred in A Christmas Carol and Meet Me in St. Louis), Angela Cartwright (who had been on the Danny Thomas show) and Billy Mumy (who had done all kinds of tv shows including Bewitched and I Dream of Jeannie, and the Munsters). It also had what they called an environmental control robot, whom they called robot. He was especially assigned to Will Robinson (Billy Mumy), the youngest member of the family and the most prone to getting into trouble. He was constantly with Will Robinson, going with him wherever he went. When Will was about to get into trouble the robot would say, “Danger, danger, danger Will Robinson!” We could liken the robot to the Holy Spirit in our lives, guiding us, warning us, helping us, making us stronger than we normally are, wiser than we normally are.

I. Jesus Depended on the Holy Spirit

And it makes sense for God to give us the Holy Spirit to be our Helper, because we are weak and spiritually helpless, aren’t we. Why then, however, did Jesus depend on the Holy Spirit? Jesus depended on the Holy Spirit? He’s not weak nor helpless. He’s the Son of God, the Messiah, the Lord of all, and yet, I submit to you, it is clear from Scripture that he totally depended on the Holy Spirit. Like Will Robinson’s robot, the Holy Spirit was with Jesus everywhere he went and lending him a hand, if you will, all the time. Let me give you some examples.

Jesus Was Led by the Spirit

At the very beginning of Jesus’ ministry after his baptism by John, at which, of course, the Holy Spirit alighted upon him as testimony that he was the Messiah, we’re told:

Luke 4:1 Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, left the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness.

Why would anyone, having been anointed by the Holy Spirit and had the seal of approval put on them for ministry, turn around and go off by themselves into the desert? The answer is simple, the Holy Spirit impelled him to. This, now, wasn’t a new thing for Jesus. And I’m making that statement based on my understanding of Luke’s usage of the words “filled with” the Spirit and “full of” the Spirit. Luke tells us that as Jesus was “full of the Holy Spirit” as he was led into the wilderness by the Spirit, which means it was characteristic of him to be fully controlled by the Holy Spirit. They’re not exactly the same thing, but it was like being demon possessed, possessed by an unclean spirit, but Jesus was possessed, in a sense, by the Holy Spirit. Jesus was imbued by the Spirit, filled with His qualities.

Luke, who by the way is the only one in the New Testament besides Paul who even uses the terms of being filled with or full of the Spirit, using two different Greek words, doesn’t say Jesus was filled with the Spirit, by which Luke normally means endued with sudden power to do extraordinary ministry. He says Jesus was full of the Spirit, by which he normally means Jesus was habitually characterized by the fruit of and intimacy with the Spirit. He was used to, even habituated to the Spirit’s ministry in his life. He wasn’t a neophyte regarding the Spirit. Of course, this was very key to his successfully resisting the temptation of Satan while he was in the wilderness where he was led by the Spirit to be tempted. Why did Jesus need the Spirit’s leading? We’ll address that as we go on.

Not only was Jesus led by the Spirit,

Jesus Was Empowered by the Spirit

Luke tells us that after Jesus left the wilderness he “returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit” (Luke 4:14).  Speaking in a synagogue in Nazareth he quoted Isaiah 61:1,2 and announced, “The Spirit of the Lord is on me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Saying the Spirit is upon Jesus the Messiah to do these things, is saying the Spirit is empowering Jesus to proclaim freedom for prisoners, to give recovered sight to the blind, to set the oppressed free, and to proclaim the Lord’s salvation.

Matthew tells us, quoting Isaiah 42 about the Servant of Yahweh, who is Messiah Jesus,

Here is my servant whom I have chosen, the one I love, in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him, and he will proclaim justice to the nations.

And shortly after that, when Jesus is accosted by the Pharisees for casting out demons and accused by them of doing so in the power of Satan, Jesus says, “if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you” (Matthew 12:28). Did Jesus cast out demons by his own power? He says he did not! He clearly says he cast out spirits by the power of the Spirit. And so, years later, Peter tells Cornelius, the first Gentile convert,

Acts 10:38 how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him.

Why did Jesus need to be empowered by the Spirit if he is God. We’re getting to that. And then, not only was Jesus led by the Spirit and empowered by the Spirit,

Jesus Was Given Supernatural Knowledge by the Spirit

We’re told when a lame man was brought by his friends to Jesus for healing, and Jesus pronounced him forgiven, the teachers of the law were thinking to themselves, “Why does this fellow talk like that? He’s blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?” (Mark 2:11). Mark 2:8 tells us,

Immediately Jesus knew in his spirit that this was what they were thinking in their hearts, and he said to them, “Why are you thinking these things?

Now you might argue, well, Jesus is God, and as God he knows all things. So of course he could know in his spirit what they were thinking. But let me challenge that argument. Do you remember when Jesus was speaking of the end days and he told his disciples in answer to their question about when this would happen,

But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. (Mark 13:32)

If Jesus was all-knowing, like the Father, how could he not know when he himself would return. Ah, but here is the mystery of the incarnation, the mystery of the Son of God taking on human nature and living among us. He chose not to exercise his deity. He didn’t exercise it to do powerful things like preaching, casting out demons and healing people. And he didn’t exercise it to know things a human would not normally know. He depended on the Holy Spirit to give him knowledge he might need.

I had a similar experience like this one time when I was ministering in India. I was doing a Bible conference in a local church and when I finished the conference the pastor, who by the way is a wonderful man named Dorychamy, told me that his people wanted me to pray for them. I’ll admit, I was thinking, oh man, they’re going to want me to bring God’s healing on them, expecting that the special speaker from across the ocean has the ear of God. But I went out back where they were all lined up for prayer, and I asked my friend Gigi to translate for me and as the first person in this long line of church members started telling me her prayer reques. As she was speaking to Gigi in Tamil, in my head I knew what she was asking for before Gigi could even translate. And sure enough, Gigi’s translation of her need was exactly what I already knew in my head. Why did God feel I needed that information? Why give me knowledge I couldn’t naturally know before I prayed. Probably, in my case, to give me encouragement about praying for these precious folks and to do so with greater faith in God’s desire to answer their prayers.

I needed information I couldn’t know except by the Spirit’s impartation, and, I’m suggesting, so did Jesus. Jesus was living his life just the way I need to live my life, not in him abilities as God, but in dependence on the Holy Spirit. How did Jesus know that the Samaritan woman at the well had had five husbands and was living with a man not her husband? By the Holy Spirit. How did Jesus heal the woman with the issue of blood who had touched the hem of his garment without even knowing who had touched him? By the Holy Spirit.

There’s a telling statement Luke makes about Jesus in Luke 10:21,

At that time Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children.

Where did Jesus get his joy? Where did Jesus get all his holy character? Where did he get his power, where did he get his knowledge, and where did he get his leading? It all came through his intimate relationship to the Holy Spirit and the Spirit’s enablement.

 

II. Jesus Lived Without Exercising His Deity

I know I am explaining the Holy Spirit’s role in Jesus’ life, but I need to explain why Jesus needed the Holy Spirit in his life.

Paul tells us in Philippians 2:5-11,

Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Jesus didn’t use his deity to his advantage. He humbled himself. He emptied himself. He didn’t stop being God. That’s impossible. But he chose not to exercise his deity so that he could be like us and so he could die on a cross to rescue us from our sins. The very fact that Paul is telling his readers to have Jesus’ same mindset, telling them to imitate Jesus, only makes sense if Jesus is imitable, only makes sense if we can imitate him. And of course, we can’t copy Jesus’ deity, can we, but we can copy Jesus’ dependence on the Spirit. I asked you a while ago, “Do you want to be like Jesus?” If you want to be like Jesus you are going to have to have the same humble attitude that recognizes that you are weak and insufficient in yourselves to live godly lives and do powerful ministry. Like Jesus you are going to need to be led by the Spirit, empowered by the Spirit, and given knowledge by the Spirit.

You’re going to have to get practiced at listening to the Spirit, so that when he says, “Danger Will Robinson,” you are paying attention. Instead of thinking, as I have all too often done, that you are sufficient for the ministry in front of you, that you know what to do when it comes to witnessing, or counseling, or facing temptation, or praying, or coming to church, or giving leadership, or raising children, or anything else worth doing, you must humbly acknowledge your need of the Spirit’s help.

The great English Baptist preacher of the 1800’s, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, pastoring the congregation of the New Park Street Chapel for 38 years, whose sermons and devotionals have lit up the lives of countless Christians through the years, made it his practice as he climbed the steps to the elevated pulpit in his church, to say with each step, “I believe in the Holy Spirit, I believe in the Holy Spirit, I believe in the Holy Spirit.”

Do you believe in the Holy Spirit?

III. Jesus Has Given Us the Holy Spirit to Help Us

Jesus told his disciples clearly, the night he was arrested, as he celebrated the Passover with them and gave us the holy symbol of the bread and the wine,

¹⁵ “If you love me, keep my commands. ¹⁶ And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate [another Helper] to help you and be with you forever— ¹⁷ the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. ¹⁸ I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. (John 14:15-18)

Jesus had been helping his disciples, but now he was going away. He would not leave us like orphans, with no one to guide or help us. He sent us the Spirit. The very Spirit he depended on himself, he would command to come to us. He would baptize his church in the Holy Spirit. The Father is God, the Son is God, and the Holy Spirit is God, and there is a hierarchy among the equals, the Father commanding the Son, the Son commanding the Spirit, yet nevertheless Jesus depended on the Holy Spirit during his life and ministry here, and the same must be true of us.

This is why Jesus says just a few short verses before,

Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.  (John 14:12)

We won’t do works more powerful than the works Jesus did, but we will do more works than Jesus did, greater in number, because Jesus went to the Father and his church does his ministry on earth in his absence yet at his direction.

Conclusion

Do you want to be like Jesus? I know that you do. And because you do, you will learn to depend upon the Spirit. You have all been baptized in one Holy Spirit so as to become one body in Christ. You have all felt the stirrings of the Holy Spirit in your hearts and minds. You have experienced the filling of the Spirit, even if you didn’t know that was what was happening, and you are coming to be full of the Spirit, maturing in the display of the fruit of the Spirit in your lives.