By Pastor Greg
A girl calls her boyfriend and says, "Please come over here and help me. I have a killer jigsaw puzzle, and I can't figure out how to get it started." Her boyfriend asks, "What is it supposed to be when it's finished?" The girl says, "According to the picture on the box, it's a tiger." Her boyfriend decides to go over and help with the puzzle. She lets him in and shows him where she has the puzzle spread all over the table. He studies the pieces for a moment, then looks at the box, then turns to her and says, "First of all, no matter what we do, we're not going to be able to assemble these pieces into anything resembling a tiger." He takes her hand and says, "Second, I want you to relax. Let's have a nice cup of tea, and then....." he sighed, "Let's put all these Frosted Flakes back in the box".
I don’t know which was more jumbled: the breakfast cereal or this young lady’s mind. And truthfully, some days my mind is a jumbled up mess as well. For instance, I had a difficult time this week trying to figure out what to say to you this morning. I had an idea in my heart. It was placed there weeks ago. I wanted to talk with you about Knowing Truth, but because of worries and interruptions and other things demanding my attention, I was too distracted to hear what God was trying to say to me so I could say it to you. In other words, my mind was a jumbled up mess this past week, and it influenced my ability to hear truth from God. But then it occurred to me, this was the exact problem the disciples had when Jesus was speaking to them the night before He was crucified.
“I have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come. “He will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you. “All things that the Father has are Mine; therefore I said that He takes of Mine and will disclose it to you.” (John 16:12-15).
Jesus says that He had many more things to say to the disciples but they simply could not bear to hear them now. Their hearts and minds were too clouded by worries and anxieties and sadness. Their emotions had become a jumbled up mess, and could not absorb any more that Christ was trying to say.
I’m not trying to pass judgment on these men. The past few days had been very stressful. Christ said he was going to leave them. He said they would be persecuted. He told them there was a traitor in the group. He said that they all would desert Him during His time of greatest need. What these men had been told was enough to jumble the hearts and minds of anyone. But the beautiful part about this is that Jesus promises to send them the Holy Spirit.
Jesus says that the Spirit will be given to these disciples as an apparent solution to their present problem. And their present problem was that that they couldn’t hear from Jesus because of their jumbled up emotions and clouded minds. But when He, the Spirit of Truth comes, He will guide them into all the truth. In other words, what Jesus was trying to say to His disciples would be revealed to them by the Holy Spirit. And it is the Holy Spirit who will penetrate the barriers in their hearts and minds that hinder them from hearing what Christ has yet to say. It is the Holy Spirit that enabled these men to do the work of Christ in spite of their apparent confusion and pain. It is the Holy Spirit that enabled these men to make sense of what was happening in their lives. As a matter of fact, it was the Holy Spirit that enabled some of these men to write down what happened while they walked with Christ. What Jesus has promised His followers in this section of John is that the Father will tell the Spirit what to teach the Apostles about the Son.
So even though Christ withheld sharing more information with His apostles, He did promise to send them the Spirit who would pick up where He left off. And what the Spirit would say to them would be the exact words of Christ. However, it would happen once their hearts and minds were prepared for more truth. And I find this to be significant; that our hearts need to be ready to hear the Truth, and that there are things in our lives that can hinder us from knowing Truth.
Without the Holy Spirit in our lives we cannot hear truth, we cannot understand Truth, and we cannot know Truth. Without the presence of God the Spirit within us, Truth is confusing and unknown. We are unable to know God or know Christ. And we are unable to know the words of God the Father and God the Son. Without the Spirit we cannot know or understand the mysteries of God. But I’m also learning that even with the Spirit, there are things that hinder us from hearing and knowing and doing the will of God.
Like the young lady with her Frosted Flakes, there are times we just can’t see the truth even though it is right before us. Sometimes it takes a person with a different perspective on things to help us understand. Sometimes what we need is a good friend who is highly committed to God and filled with the Spirit to help us see truth. This is like the Ethiopian Official who was reading from Isaiah one day. He needed Phillip to help him understand the Word (see Acts 8:27-35). The Spirit, working through Phillip, reveals Truth to the man.
So one of the ways Truth is hidden from a person is the fact that they are not Christian. Some people do not know Truth because they have not first known Christ. But what of those who are Christian? What of the believer who just needs to hear from God? What must a believer do in order to hear from God while they are facing trials and troubles of their own? They already have the Spirit, but for some odd reason the Spirit is silent. And what they need is for God to cut through their jumbled up lives and speak directly to their hearts. Well, I was reminded of this on Thursday. You see, I was that believer. I was the believer who was having a very difficult time hearing from God.
I was sitting here Thursday morning praying about what the Lord wanted me to say. But my mind was filled with a lot of other things; worries and concerns and fears and just about everything else that can jumble up a person’s mind. What I wanted was for God to speak His words to me so that I might have something of relevance to speak to you. But I heard nothing . . . nothing, that is, until I opened up His Word and the Spirit was able to wade through all the garbage in my life and reveal to me what the Father had been trying to say all along. And that’s the simple answer. The answer I was looking for had been written down centuries before. God had revealed Truth to His faithful followers, and they recorded that Truth in the Bible. I didn’t need to discern the mind of Christ, for the mind of Christ had already been revealed. What I needed was to take what Christ has already said and apply it to my life today.
There are two simple things you need to know this morning. If you want to know God or know Christ or know His will for your life or know what the Father is trying to say or know what the Father wants you to do, then get into His Word. Open your Bible and let the Spirit wade through your confusion. He is waiting to speak to you, and His words are right here inside this Holy Book. And the other thing is, if you do not have the Spirit within you to guide you into all Truth, then Jesus needs to become your Savior and your Lord. Do that, confess your sin and ask Him to forgive your sin, and true to His word, Jesus will give you the Helper; the Holy Spirit who will guide you into all Truth.
There is one other thing that hinders us from knowing Truth, but we’ll talk about that in a few weeks. But for now I want to point out these two things that hinder us from knowing Truth. Either we’ve not been Born Again or we’ve neglected looking for Truth in the Word of God. We either need Jesus or need to stop trying to hear from Jesus outside of the Words Jesus has already given us. So I’m curious, which of the two is hindering you from hearing from God?
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