{"id":7160,"date":"2026-05-11T15:10:56","date_gmt":"2026-05-11T15:10:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/christforus.org\/NewSite\/?p=7160"},"modified":"2026-05-11T15:11:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-11T15:11:11","slug":"the-holy-spirit-the-church-and-the-bible","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christforus.org\/NewSite\/index.php\/2026\/05\/11\/the-holy-spirit-the-church-and-the-bible\/","title":{"rendered":"The Holy Spirit, the Church, and the Bible"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Rev. Rolf Preus| <\/strong>Cantate Sunday| May 3, 2026| St. John 16:5-15<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In the Nicene Creed, we confess \u201cI believe in the Holy Spirit . . .who proceeds from the Father and the Son.\u201d&nbsp; The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father.&nbsp; Jesus said, \u201cBut when the Comforter comes, whom I shall send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who proceeds from the Father,&nbsp;He will testify of Me.\u201d&nbsp; And the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Son.&nbsp; St. Paul calls him the Spirit of God\u2019s Son.&nbsp; The Son sends him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in unity.&nbsp; We worship the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.&nbsp; We don\u2019t say as much about the Holy Spirit as we say about Jesus.&nbsp; That\u2019s because the Holy Spirit doesn\u2019t point us to himself; he points us to Christ.&nbsp; Jesus said,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He will not speak on His own, but whatever He hears He will speak; and He will tell you things to come. He will glorify Me, for He will take of what is Mine and declare it to you. All things that the Father has are Mine. Therefore I said that He will take of Mine and declare it to you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Most translations add the word authority to the text so that it reads, \u201cHe [the Holy Spirit] will not speak on his own authority.\u201d&nbsp; Adding that word is misleading.&nbsp; It suggests that perhaps the Holy Spirit has less authority than the Father and the Son.&nbsp; He doesn\u2019t.&nbsp; The text literally reads, \u201cHe will not speak out of himself.\u201d&nbsp; He\u2019ll take what is Christ\u2019s and make it known to them.&nbsp; If you are spiritual, you have the Holy Spirit.&nbsp; And if you have the Holy Spirit, you have Christ.&nbsp; If you have Christ, you have the Father.&nbsp; The Holy Spirit always shows you Christ.&nbsp; Christ reveals the Father.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We pray, \u201cOur Father.\u201d&nbsp; What is the Father like?&nbsp; Look at Christ.&nbsp; He reveals him.&nbsp; Jesus is talking here to the men who would write the New Testament.&nbsp; The Holy Spirit revealed to them the mysteries of the Christian faith.&nbsp; They wrote it down for us in the Bible.&nbsp; The Bible is apostolic.&nbsp; It is Christian.&nbsp; It is the Holy Spirit\u2019s words about Christ.&nbsp; A spirit who does not talk about Christ or diverts you from Christ to something else, is not the Holy Spirit, but an evil spirit.&nbsp; Don\u2019t be deceived.&nbsp; If it is from the Holy Spirit, it is from the Bible and if it is from the Bible, it is all about Jesus.&nbsp; Spirituality apart from Jesus is demonic deception and spiritual slavery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The disciples were sad because Jesus told them he was going away.&nbsp; But Jesus had to go away before he could send the Holy Spirit.&nbsp; The way he left gave the Holy Spirit the treasures he gives to the church.&nbsp; He left by way of the cross.&nbsp; As he redeemed the world with his holy precious blood and his innocent suffering and death, he purchased eternal treasure that the Holy Spirit bestows on Christ\u2019s church.&nbsp; Giving us these treasures is how the Holy Spirit comforts us.&nbsp; Jesus divides the work of the Holy Spirit into four activities.&nbsp; First, he will convict the world of sin.&nbsp; Second, he will convict the world of righteousness.&nbsp; Third, he will convict the world of judgment.&nbsp; Fourth, he will guide his church into all truth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There are two religions in this world.&nbsp; The religion of grace and the religion of works.&nbsp; The religion of grace is revealed by the Holy Spirit.&nbsp; It is true.&nbsp; The religion of works is invented by sinful man.&nbsp; It is false.&nbsp; The religion of grace focuses on Christ and what he did to rescue us sinners from our sins.&nbsp; The religion of works focuses on us and what we must do to earn divine favor.&nbsp; The religion of grace takes us to heaven.&nbsp; The religion of works sends us to hell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Holy Spirit convicts the world of sin.&nbsp; What the world teaches about sin is wrong.&nbsp; It thinks that sin is only a matter of breaking rules.&nbsp; Well, sin is disobedience to God\u2019s commandments, but you\u2019re not going to be convicted of sin if you believe in Jesus.&nbsp; The only way sin is going to convict you is if you do not believe in Jesus.&nbsp; Jesus says, \u201cOf sin, because they do not believe in me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.&nbsp; God, for Christ\u2019s sake, forgives sinners.&nbsp; He does so freely, by his grace.&nbsp; The only way to receive forgiveness of sin is to believe in Jesus.&nbsp; This means that if you don\u2019t believe in Jesus your sin stands against you.&nbsp; You are accountable for it.&nbsp; You will be judged for it.&nbsp; You will be condemned because of it.&nbsp; Jesus alone takes away sins.&nbsp; Jesus alone silences the accusations the law makes against sinners.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Jesus faced the power of the devil, suffered his arrows, and willingly died a shameful death on the cross, thereby crushing the devil\u2019s head.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Though he will shed by precious blood<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Me of my life bereaving,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>All this I suffer for your good;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Be steadfast and believing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Life will from death the victory win;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My innocence shall bear your sin<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And you are blest forever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Faith seems like a small thing.&nbsp; You can\u2019t see it, touch it, measure it, taste it, or hear it.&nbsp; So very small!&nbsp; In fact, faith is the greatest miracle we can experience in this life.&nbsp; Those who believe in Jesus do not believe by their own power.&nbsp; The Holy Spirit makes them alive when they are spiritually dead.&nbsp; If you believe in Jesus, you know what sin is.&nbsp; It\u2019s everything Jesus died for.&nbsp; It\u2019s what Jesus took away.&nbsp; It\u2019s a burden that is gone because Jesus bore it in his body.&nbsp; The world doesn\u2019t believe in Jesus.&nbsp; They don\u2019t know what sin is.&nbsp; If they knew, they would run to Jesus for the forgiveness of sins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Holy Spirit convicts the world of righteousness.&nbsp; Why?&nbsp; Because, Jesus said, \u201cI go to My Father and you see Me no more.\u201d&nbsp; What does Jesus going to the Father and removing himself from our sight have to do with righteousness?&nbsp; Plenty!&nbsp; The world judges by what it sees.&nbsp; It judges based on empirical evidence.&nbsp; God sees the heart.&nbsp; He discerns motives.&nbsp; He sees the purity or guile that lies within.&nbsp; Nothing is hidden from his sight and his understanding is perfect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The world honors those it thinks are righteous.&nbsp; God honors his Son.&nbsp; Only Jesus is truly righteous in and of himself.&nbsp; There are good people who appear to do righteous things, but what you see is only the surface, the outward fa\u00e7ade.&nbsp; True righteousness lies in Christ alone.&nbsp; You cannot see it because you cannot see Jesus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We confess that our Christian faith is most certainly true.&nbsp; At the heart of this faith is the teaching that God reckons to sinners the righteousness of Jesus and thereby turns sinners into saints.&nbsp; Even as Jesus received in his body the sin of the entire human race as that sin was reckoned to him, so God reckons to the entire human race the righteousness of Jesus.&nbsp; The world neither knows this nor understands this.&nbsp; It\u2019s more enamored by the outward trappings of the righteousness it can see.&nbsp; It is Jesus at the Father\u2019s right hand, ascended far above all powers of this earth, filling all things, who credits to us Christians his own righteousness, so that through faith in him we are really and truly righteous in God\u2019s sight.&nbsp; Yes, we are!&nbsp; What the world values doesn\u2019t matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Holy Spirit will convict the world of judgment.&nbsp; The world judges by appearances.&nbsp; Christians know that truth is apprehended by faith, not by sight.&nbsp; What appears true is false.&nbsp; What appears false is true.&nbsp; Just look at the cross.&nbsp; Suffering a shameful death between two criminals is a waste of a life and a cruel waste at that.&nbsp; So says the judgment of the senses, of the flesh, of the world.&nbsp; But we glory in that death because we see it through the eyes of faith.&nbsp; In fact, Jesus is triumphing over his enemies and ours.&nbsp; Beyond the hatred of the mob, we see God\u2019s love for us.&nbsp; Jesus confronts judgment and turns it away.&nbsp; In his apparent failure on the cross, in what looks like the worst miscarriage of justice, we see God\u2019s justice satisfied as mercy triumphs over it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The ruler of this world is judged.&nbsp; The Lord of creation and the ruler over all is God Almighty, not the devil.&nbsp; There isn\u2019t some kind of parity between God and the devil.&nbsp; Jesus calls him the ruler or chief of this world because of his sway over the minds and souls of people in the world because they make the devil their god by following him.&nbsp; And they judge.&nbsp; Do they ever!&nbsp; They constantly judge Christians negatively because we hold onto Christ, confess him without compromise, and affirm divine truth wherever it applies.&nbsp; This can anger those who reject Christ and his word.&nbsp; So, they judge us.&nbsp; They think that their judgment is just.&nbsp; But the world is wrong about judgment, even as it is wrong about sin and righteousness.&nbsp; The devil is judged.&nbsp; Not us.&nbsp; He\u2019s the liar, the deceiver, the one out to lead us into sin and to destroy our faith.&nbsp; He\u2019s judged.&nbsp; And so are his disciples.&nbsp; We\u2019re not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This means we don\u2019t have to defend ourselves, make excuses for ourselves, or try to justify ourselves.&nbsp; The Holy Spirit has taught us the truth about our sin.&nbsp; Jesus died for us and so it is forgiven.&nbsp; The Holy Spirit has taught us the truth about righteousness.&nbsp; It\u2019s not what we do but what Christ has done for us and given to us the credit for it.&nbsp; The Holy Spirit has taught us the truth about judgment.&nbsp; We are not under the judgment of this world.&nbsp; We live under the grace of God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Finally, the Holy Spirit, who is the Spirit of truth, will guide his church into all truth.&nbsp; Jesus said, \u201cHowever, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth.\u201d&nbsp; Jesus was talking to the apostles.&nbsp; He was talking about the men, who with St. Paul who later became an apostle, would write the New Testament.&nbsp; He promised them that the Holy Spirit would guide them into all truth.&nbsp; He did.&nbsp; They wrote it down.&nbsp; This is the New Testament.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The church did not give us the Bible.&nbsp; God gave us the Bible through the men he chose to write it.&nbsp; Jesus promised them that the Holy Spirit would guide them into all truth.&nbsp; That\u2019s what he did.&nbsp; How much of the truth?&nbsp; All truth.&nbsp; The Holy Spirit did not guide the apostles into some of his truth and then gradually dribble out more of the truth over the following centuries.&nbsp; The Holy Spirit guided those men into all truth.&nbsp; We do not look for truth from God beyond what the Holy Spirit revealed to the apostles and that they wrote down for the church in the New Testament.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Look at the banner hanging up in the center of the nave on your way out of church this morning.&nbsp; You will see the words, \u201cGrace Alone, Faith Alone, Scripture Alone.\u201d&nbsp; This summarizes the faith that the Holy Spirit has implanted in our hearts.&nbsp; We are saved, rescued from sin, death, and the power of the devil, by God\u2019s grace alone.&nbsp; We did not deserve it.&nbsp; We could not earn it.&nbsp; It is purely by God\u2019s gracious favor.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We receive God\u2019s grace and salvation through faith alone.&nbsp; We love God, but we don\u2019t receive God\u2019s grace by loving him.&nbsp; We receive God\u2019s grace through faith alone.&nbsp; Faith receives.&nbsp; It does not do.&nbsp; Faith produces love and love does.&nbsp; Faith doesn\u2019t do.&nbsp; It receives.&nbsp; Faith alone receives.&nbsp; God says it and faith says Amen to what God says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>All that we know and believe about God is written in the Bible.&nbsp; The Scriptures alone are the source and standard of all Christian teaching; of everything we believe.&nbsp; God said it and that settles it and God said it in the Bible.&nbsp; The church doesn\u2019t decide what the Bible teaches.&nbsp; The Bible tells the church what to teach.&nbsp; Our intelligence does not stand in judgment over the Bible.&nbsp; The Bible says we must first become fools before we can become wise.&nbsp; We don\u2019t preach our own opinions, prejudices, or doctrines.&nbsp; We preach Christ crucified.&nbsp; We preach the Bible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>May God continue to bless this congregation with the gifts the Holy Spirit graciously gives so that you trust in Christ alone, rely on grace alone, and remain confident by faith alone that your sins are forgiven, you are clothed in Christ\u2019s righteousness, and neither the devil nor the world can judge you.&nbsp; May God sanctify you in the truth of the Holy Scriptures in life and in the hour of your death.&nbsp; Amen<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rev. Rolf Preus| Cantate Sunday| May 3, 2026| St. John 16:5-15 In the Nicene Creed, we confess \u201cI believe in the Holy Spirit . . .who proceeds from the Father and the Son.\u201d&nbsp; The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father.&nbsp; Jesus said, \u201cBut when the Comforter comes, whom I shall send to you from&#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"><a class=\"btn btn-default\" href=\"https:\/\/christforus.org\/NewSite\/index.php\/2026\/05\/11\/the-holy-spirit-the-church-and-the-bible\/\"> Read More<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">  Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[49,8,17,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-easter-5","category-latest-sermons","category-sermons-by-historical-lectionary","category-sermons-by-rolf-preus"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christforus.org\/NewSite\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christforus.org\/NewSite\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christforus.org\/NewSite\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christforus.org\/NewSite\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christforus.org\/NewSite\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7160"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/christforus.org\/NewSite\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7160\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7161,"href":"https:\/\/christforus.org\/NewSite\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7160\/revisions\/7161"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christforus.org\/NewSite\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christforus.org\/NewSite\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christforus.org\/NewSite\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}