Today’s message summary of June 2, 2019 from Pastor Gus Brown:
The people of the church must have a desire to learn from God’s teaching. The Bereans studied on their own to make sure they were learning what God was presenting.
Acts 17:11
Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica; they received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so.
A person should never just take the word of a pastor or Sunday school teacher. You are to learn how to study God’s Word on your own.
Understand that God is a teacher. God teaches His people.
When the people of Israel were brought forth from Egypt, God was teaching them with His commands.
The purpose of the law was to provide instruction. It was brought forth 430 years after Abraham because of man’s transgression.
The law was teach men that they needed to acknowledge their sin.
Galatians 3:17-19
This is what I mean: the law, which came 430 years afterward, does not annul a covenant previously ratified by God, so as to make the promise void. For if the inheritance comes by the law, it no longer comes by promise; but God gave it to Abraham by a promise. Why then the law? It was added because of transgressions, until the offspring should come to who the promise had been made, and it was put in place through angels by an intermediary.
1 John 3:4
Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness.
The law provides knowledge of sin and what it is.
Romans 3:9-11
What then? Are we Jews any better off? No, not at all. For we have already charged that all, both Jews and Greeks, are under sin, as it is written:
“None is righteous, no, not one;
no one understands;
no one seeks for God.”
Man, at times, does not want to deal with the law. They will even go as far as to dismiss the law in order to justify their own behavior.
Romans 7:7-12
What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet if it had not been for the law, I would not have known sin. For I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” But sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness. For apart from the law, sin lies dead. I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin came alive and I died. The very commandment that promised life proved to be death to me. For sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, deceived me and through it killed me. So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.
The law is not for the righteous man.
1 Timothy 1:8-11
Now we know that the law is good, if one uses it lawfully, understanding this, that the law is not laid down for the just but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and sinners, for the unholy and profane, for those who strike their fathers and mothers, for murderers, the sexually immoral, men who practice homosexuality, enslavers, liars, perjurers, and whatever else is contrary to sound doctrine, in accordance with the gospel of the glory of the blessed God with which I have been entrusted.
Thankfully, God is a teacher.
Exodus 4:14-15
Then the anger of the Lord was kindled against Moses and he said, “Is there not Aaron, your brother, the Levite? I know that he can speak well. Behold, he is coming out to meet you, and when he sees you, he will be glad in his heart. You shall speak to him and put the words in his mouth, and I will be with your mouth and with his mouth and will teach you both what to do.”
When what you learn goes to your heart, you will effectively carry out what you have received in instruction.
God will teach you what you need to do in your service for Him. He wants you to know what to do in order to live effectively.
Exodus 18:19-20
Now obey my voice; I will give you advice, and God be with you! You shall represent the people before God and bring their cases to God, and you shall warn them about the statutes and the laws, and make them know the way in which they must walk and what they must do.
God said He will never leave you nor forsake you, as He provides His Spirit to live within the life of a believer. Moses reflected this in his communication with God.
The Spirit makes the difference. God’s presence through the Holy Spirit distinguishes us from any other group of people.
Exodus 33:12-17
Moses said to the Lord, “See, you say to me, ‘Bring up this people,’ but you have not let me know whom you will send with me. Yet you have said, ‘I know you by name, and you have also found favor in my sight.’ Now therefore, if I have found favor in your sight, please show me now your ways, that I may know you in order to find favor in your sight. Consider too that this nation is your people.” And he said, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.” And he said to him, “If your presence will not go with me, do not bring us up from here. For how shall it be known that I have found favor in your sight, I and your people? Is it not in your going with us, so that we are distinct, I and your people, from every other people on the face of the earth?”
And the Lord said to Moses, “This very thing that you have spoken I will do, for you have found favor in my sight, and I know you by name.”
Jeremiah 31:34
And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the Lord. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”
The Holy Spirit is today’s teacher. He confirms truth for us.
Where does your ability and skill come from? Where does your inspiration come from? Are you “filled with the Spirit of God”?
Exodus 35:30-35
Then Moses said to the people of Israel, “See, the Lord has called by name Bezalel the son of Uri, son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah; and he has filled him with the Spirit of God, with skill, with intelligence, with knowledge, and with all craftsmanship, to devise artistic designs, to work in gold and silver and bronze, in cutting stones for setting, and in carving wood, for work in every skilled craft. And he has inspired him to teach, both him and Oholiab the son of Ahisamach of the tribe of Dan. He has filled them with skill to do every sort of work done by an engraver or by a designer or by an embroiderer in blue and purple and scarlet yarns and fine twined linen, or by a weaver—by any sort of workman or skilled designer.
The Spirit taught them all kinds of crafts. The Spirit gave knowledge and ability.
John 14:18
“I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.”
What happens to orphans? They are often left alone and do not receive instruction.
If you ask the Holy Spirit to teach you about things, He will do it.
If you ask the Spirit to teach you about finances, He will do it.
If something is difficult for you, He can help you.
He knows that if we are left to ourselves, we will make choices that will harm ourselves. Also, bad company corrupts good company. They will teach you the ways of the world and keep you from God.
Deuteronomy 20:16-18
But in the cities of these peoples that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes, but you shall devote them to complete destruction, the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, as the Lord your God has commanded, that they may not teach you to do according to all their abominable practices that they have done for their gods, and so you sin against the Lord your God.
But in the cities of these peoples that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes, but you shall devote them to complete destruction, the Hittites and the Amoritesm the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites, as the Lord your God has commanded, that they may not teach you to do according to all their abominable practices that they have done for their gods, and so you sin against the Lord your God.
Men make their own gods.
Jeremiah 16:20-21
“Can man make for himself gods?
Such are not gods!”
“Therefore, behold, I will make them know, this once I will make them know my power and my might, and they shall know that my name is the Lord.”
God reveals, through the Spirit, truth.
John 14:14-17
“If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.
“If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.”
John 14:21
“Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.”
It is based upon your love for Jesus by how you keep His commands.
The Spirit teaches all things and remind you of things that you have already learned.
John 14:26
But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.
The One who dwells within you reminds you of the things of God.
John 20:30-31
Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.
John 21:25
Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.
The Holy Spirit reveals the things of Jesus that are not even recorded in Scripture.
The Holy Spirit is to teach. He provides knowledge, skills and ability. He reveals Jesus and the standards we are to live by. He demonstrates the victory of Jesus over Satan in our lives by teaching us that we are conquerors over sin by the power of the Holy Spirit who lives in us.
Akron Alliance Fellowship Church 