Co-operation With The Holy Spirit - Part 1

Sermon preached at the 2002 Revival Camp of Gospel Light Christian Church
by Evangelist John R Van Gelderen
on 04 June 2002 evening service

Text   2 Cor 13:14b

The communion of the Holy Ghost be with you all

This morning we talked about what it means to have the Holy Spirit to help us.  Some people think that the word “help” means His power together with my power, we’ll make it. But that is somewhat confusing because it makes each entity looks like they're equal.  That is not the case.  You’re dealing with the Spirit of the glorified Christ living in our spirit and the battle is with the Spirit and the flesh and if we will but yield to the Spirit - you’re not talking equals here, it’s a done deal - the Spirit counteracts and overcomes the flesh; it’s glorious truth.

And so, I trust tonight as we look at the next subject, that we will see it in light of what we’ve thus seen so far. Though there is that problem of sin, we saw the provision that we have in Christ (Galatians 2:20) this morning, and that brings us tonight to The Need of Absolute Surrender.  You see, if we ask the question, “Well, how do you stay in the basket?” in essence, it's by that constant dependence, which is absolute surrender.  Now I want to take that concept tonight and we’re going to use a different terminology that I trust will be a help to us in understanding what it means to be absolutely surrendered.  So may we pray and let’s ask the Spirit of God to open our eyes and teach us tonight.

Oh blessed Spirit of the living God, quicken us I pray; I pray that You quicken each one physically and mentally, and may our faculties be sharp. Oh blessed Spirit, far more than that, would You open the eyes of our understanding?  And I pray that You will take the truth deep within our hearts tonight.  And I pray that You will confront us with where we are in light of the need of absolute surrender.  Lord, I pray that those things that we’re hanging onto, not willing to yield them to You, Oh Lord, tonight may we let go of those things and cast our dependence upon You in absolute surrender.  Lord lift up the Saviour before us tonight.  Oh blessed Spirit, do that work tonight that only You can do.  We thank You now for in Jesus name, that glorious name, we pray. Amen.

1985. I was reading a magazine that had an article about the Lewis Revival and I remembered being gripped in reading of how God came down on a little island off the north-west coast of Scotland using a preacher by the name of Duncan Campbell hearing the cry of the intercessors of Peggy and Christine Smith and several others. And since that time I have studied that particular revival more than any other revival.  Lord willing tomorrow, I’ll give you some of the details of that particular story. 

About two years ago in the summer of 2000, my wife and I, in connection with a meeting that was to take place in Ireland, went early to spend several days on the island of Lewis to research further that revival.  And we went to the church there in a little village of Barvas that the revival began in, and while we were there, the Lord allowed us to meet four people that were converted 50 years ago in that Lewis Revival, the glow of God still on their faces and one of the men that we met is talked about several times in the biography of Duncan Campbell.  While we were there we went to a mid-week service in that church and the pastor of that church was just an interim pastor that was just there for one month.  He was an evangelist.  He was trained under Duncan Campbell in the early 1960s.  His wife, her parents were converted in the Lewis Revival so they were very, very familiar with it and he invited my wife and I over to the mess after the service for some tea.  And so we went.  He had another couple there.  The man was a pastor.  He used to pastor on the Isle of Lewis.  He presently pastors in Scotland but his and his wife’s parents were also converted in the Lewis Revival and he also invited the man over, who was in the year 2000, 75 years of age, and he had been converted in the Lewis Revival himself.  In that meeting there at the house, we talked about the Lord, we talked about revival.  They shared some of the things about the Lewis Awakening.  At times, they would stop and then we would break out into song and sometimes they would read one of the psalms and they were just spontaneous as we went throughout the night.  It was joyous, it was a beautiful time.  I remember a few weeks later when I was back in the United States, the older gentleman that was 75 years of age wrote me a letter and he said that that night at the mess reminded him of the times during the Lewis Revival. 

And I remember as my wife and I drove home that night after we have been together with those dear folk, my wife said to me, “You know John, they were following the Holy Spirit tonight.  That wasn’t organized as to when they would read the psalms, when they would break out into songs, and when we would pray and when we would talk about the Lord.  It was not regiment but it was spontaneous and it was clear they were looking to, and depending on, the leadership of the Holy Spirit”. 

Well, I will never forget that night and a few days after that, Mary Lynn and I headed to Ireland for a meeting with the church that I had been with twice before.  We had good meetings but nothing extraordinary, if I can put it that way.  But this particular meeting, it was the summer of 2000, we were going to have a camp just like we’re having this week.  They would do the same thing and we’ve gone to a town in the country of Ireland and that particular week, I had told the pastor that the Lord laid on my heart to preach on the theme of the Spirit-filled life.  And so we began a progression of truth very similar to what we’re doing this week.  And the way they had the schedule, after the evening service, they had a dessert time and then they had a singspiration scheduled at 10 o’clock; and so we went to sing and they basically had to almost drag everybody into it and to get them all there because they were spread out everywhere. But we got in there and I remember thinking to myself as the singspiration went on and on that perhaps we are going to have the people staying up too late and it would hinder their alertness the next day.  And I noted that during the singspiration it was somewhat ritualistic and I just did not sense the life of God, if I can just put it that way.  I was deeply burdened about it because I know it was not helping the meeting.  And so I was burdened to talk with the pastor about it, my friend, David O’Gourman, an Irishman.  And I said:  Lord, if you want me to talk to him, would you open the door, would you cross our paths so I can talk to him?  Well, that night it just didn’t happen and so I just took it from the Lord that at that point I was not yet to talk to him.

But the next morning, I was out in the woods and lo and behold I came across the pastor, out there in the woods.  And I told him what was on my heart.  By the way, let me say this, I forgot to tell you this.  Before we gone to camp, I had told him what had taken place there on the Isle of Lewis with my wife and I and in that little meeting at the mess and I told him about how the Spirit led in that meeting and so this morning when we met, I said:  “You know, Pastor, I was a little bit grieved last night, I did not sense that there was the life of God in that meeting”, and he agreed.  And I said: “Let me just bounce some idea off you.  Do you remember how I told you about the Spirit of God leading in that meeting at the mess and how they just followed the Spirit and it was spontaneous?  So, why don’t we do that tonight?  Instead of just having a routine singspiration, why don’t we depend on the Holy Spirit to guide?  And really and literally not just say He’s in charge; let’s actually depend on His leadership”, something along those lines.  And he readily agreed. 

And so that night we had that service, the Lord gave us a precious service.  At the conclusion of the service, the Pastor said: “Alright, we’re going to head to our dessert time and at 10 o’clock, we’re going to meet back, and this time” he said, “we’re going to do something a little bit different in the singspiration”; and he said, “This time, I’m not going to yell and try to get you here and drag you in; and if you’re going to be here, you’re just going to have to be here at 10 o’clock”.  Well that night, about two-thirds of the group came.  They had about 50 people that were at the camp and probably 35 of them came at 10 o’clock.  And the Pastor said to his people, he said, “Folk, tonight we’re going to do something a little bit different”.  He said, “I want to make it public that we’re going to right now turn this meeting over to the Holy Spirit”. He said. “Now it seems almost a little scary, but,” he said, “I believe we can trust the Spirit; let’s depend on the Spirit to lead in this meeting.  Here’s what I mean by that”.  He said, “If the Holy Spirit leads you to sing, then just break out singing and we’ll join you and the piano can figure out what key it is and join in and that’s fine and if not, we’ll sing it acappella”.  And he said, “Now, if the Holy Spirit doesn’t lead you to sing, then don’t sing. Now,” he said, “if the Holy Spirit leads you to pray, then,” he said, “just start praying. And if the Holy Spirit doesn’t lead you to pray, then please do not pray.  In other words, don’t do anything just out of pressure, thinking well, it’s silent, somebody else need to fill the void and so I’ll pray”.  He said, “No, just pray when the Holy Spirit leads you to pray, and when He does, you better obey it.  And if He doesn’t lead you to pray, then fine, do not dare pray if He doesn’t lead you to.  And if the Holy Spirit leads you to give a testimony, then give a testimony and we’ll all look up and listen, but let’s just depend on the Holy Spirit to guide us in this time”.

Well, everyone just kind of naturally bow their head and before you know it, somebody broke out praying.  Now keep in mind, the night before had been a singspiration.  Typically, you might think that the majority of this night would be singing.  And yet this person prayed and then this person prayed and about 10 to 15 minutes into it, all of a sudden, nothing weird or mysterious, but there was a clear sense that the Spirit of God had descended on that prayer meeting.  And I remember hearing teenagers pray prayers that I have not heard mature adults prayed.  I mean, prayers that they could not have prayed unless the Spirit of God was moving!  And I remembered that there was such a realization of the presence of God that people - many of them - just had to sink to their knees, because God was there!  And God was working!  That went on and then there was a section in the middle where the people, one by one began to break out singing.  And the praises of God filled the room and the joy of the Lord was on their faces.  That filled about the middle third of the time.  There was a testimony or two in that time.  And then there was a solemn hush that came back on the group and they went back to pray.  And that night, that meeting lasted close to midnight, I’m guessing it was an hour and a half to two hours.  I do not know for sure.  And the first third and the last third were praying and the middle third was singing.  Now keep in mind the mindset from the night before was singing.  For two-thirds of that meeting to be praying clearly means God had stepped into that meeting and so real was the presence of the Spirit of God in that meeting that a deaf teenage boy who could not hear obviously the prayers, became aware of the presence of God.  He was not saved, and he came under deep conviction of sin and he elbowed one of the other young people that was there, and motioned and signed to him: “I need to talk with you.” And they went out and he said, “I want to be saved.  Would you tell me how to get saved?” And the young person signed and declared the Gospel, and the teenage deaf boy was saved.  He told us later that there in the room as we were praying, and the presence of God was real, and he said though he couldn’t hear obviously what the people were praying, he said his chest felt like it was going to burst.  Ah my friend, it was the presence of God! 

And for the rest of that week, there was prayer meeting after prayer meeting that would go till midnight, and I mean not contrite, I mean God was moving.  That Church began, from that point on, to delight in prayer.  From that day to this, they had at least four prayer meetings a week, primarily praying for the outpouring of the Spirit of God in revival.  There is much more that I could say but I tell you that story to point out that it is a glorious thing when we, as the people of God, began to co-operate with the Spirit of God.  See that’s what happened there.  There was an entering into a genuine co-operation with the Holy Spirit.  And my friend, it made a difference.  I’ve been in that Church before.  It was not a praying Church, now it is.  And some of the greatest prayer meetings I had ever been in had been with those people.  And I had been in other tremendous prayer meetings in other places in other congregations as well.  I’ve been in some here in Asia as well as in Philippines and so forth, but I delight to be in those meetings when there is reality to it.  I was just there for 3 weeks in the month of March and we had a prayer meeting that I supposed was the most remarkable prayer meeting that I’ve ever been in personally.  God so step into that prayer meeting that the fear of God fell.  And though we were in the room that did not have carpet (it was hard floors), the fear of God was so real that people began to slip to their knees (and normally they wouldn’t because it just was so uncomfortable).  It was a distraction, but the fear of God had fallen so really that people had to get on their knees.  Oh yes!  What a difference it makes, whether it is a prayer meeting, whether it is soul winning or whatever it is, when we are in genuine co-operation with the Holy Spirit. 

The title of this message tonight is Co-operation With The Holy Spirit.  Our text is 2 Corinthians Chapter 13.  And I have us to simply look at the last verse of the chapter, the benediction for the book, verse 14.  The scripture says: The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Ghost, be with you all.  Amen.  Our text tonight is that last phrase: and the communion of the Holy Ghost be with you all.  Be with you all!  My friend, this is not just for those super saints.  By the way, there is no such thing.  There is only a great God.  And it says: may the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.  My friend, God desires every one of his children to live in a communion with Himself and if you and I are not living in a communion with the Spirit of the living God, we are substandard to where God wants us to be.  And we are subnormal to the norm of the New Testament. The communion of the Holy Spirit, well, you say, “What is it?  What do we mean, Communion?”  Well, the term is from the Greek word “koinonia”. Perhaps you have heard that term.  It’s a word that means fellowship or partnership.  It is a sharing in something, a participation, those all-defining terms.  That’s a closely related word that refers to a person.  It means partner, share, companion even translated to partaker.  So, what are we talking about?  We’re talking about the participation of a partnership, obviously with a partner.  So we can sum it up this way and this is what I want us to see from the word of God tonight, that the communion of the Holy Spirit is simply the co-operation of a partnership with the Holy Spirit.  Now, I want you to think with me that's absolute surrender when we live in co-operation with the Holy Spirit.  That is absolute surrender.  That is staying in the basket.  You see, the communion of the Holy Spirit is the co-operation of a partnership with the Holy Spirit.  And my friend, I don’t know about you but I find it really a matter of awe to consider that God has chosen to draw us into a partnership with Himself.  What a glorious plan of God.  Now, there are obviously two partners in this partnership.  There is the heavenly partner, the Holy Spirit, and there is the human partner, the believer.  So, let’s look tonight at these two partners in this partnership so that we can understand how this co-operation is to work. 

The heavenly partner is a person

First of all, consider with me the heavenly partner.  What are the dynamics of co-operating with the heavenly partner, the Holy Spirit?  I want us to know quickly - I don’t know how quickly it will be but nonetheless, I want us to know - three dynamics involved in co-operating with the heavenly partner, the Holy Spirit.  First of all, recognize we are co-operating with a spiritual person.  Our text says: The communion of the Holy Spirit.  Here the definite article, “the”, is present in the original language, emphasizing His person and my friend, the Holy Spirit is a person.  He is a spiritual person.  Consider that question that a man of God asked Walter Wilson that literally changed Walter Wilson’s life, when the man asked him “What is the Holy Spirit to you?”  Ah, dear friend tonight, what is the Holy Spirit to you?  Is he God? Oh, when Jesus gave that Great Commission, he said we’re to win people for Christ, we’re to make disciples and then we’re to baptize them in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Now, would it not be blasphemous for us to delete the name of the Holy Spirit and plug it a human name?  Obviously!  You see the very fact that Jesus said the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit and then again, the Spirit is God and my friend, we need to recognize that the Holy Spirit is God.  Now, you might well say that there’s nothing new, but the fact of the matter is that there are many of God’s people who do not treat the Holy Spirit as God.  They called him God; in their creed they recognize Him as God, but in their practice, they do not.  We’ll say more about that in a moment.  You see, is the Holy Spirit God to you?  Is He really a person?  You see, consider the personality of the Holy Spirit.  If He is a person, He has personality.  Now many of you I have met before and yet many of you I have met for the first time this week.  For those of you whom I have met for the very first time this week, we have been introduced to each other, we may have been told each other’s name, but do we really know each other?  Well, no, not really, it takes a while to cultivate personality and my friend, if you are saved and if you are born of the Spirit, you have been introduced to the Holy Spirit, but it takes time to cultivate His personality.  You see, He’s a person.  And my friend, how do you treat Him?  For many of God’s people, they treat the Holy Spirit as an impersonal force.  They more or less consider the Holy Spirit as a signpost hoping that maybe there is an arrow telling which way to go but they interact with the Holy Spirit in the way it works but it’s really not an interaction, it’s an inanimate object.  My friend, what is the Holy Spirit to you?  Is He a person?  Oh, when you go in the beautiful discourse of the Holy Spirit in John 14 through 16, oh repeatedly we hear the Lord Jesus Christ referred over and over again to the Holy Spirit as “Him” and “He”.  You see, He is a person.  He is a spiritual person.  Though He is not made up of material matter like us, He nonetheless is substance.  He is a person.  You see, “He”, not “it”, brooded over the face of the waters in Genesis Chapter 1, “He”, not “it”, strove with man in Genesis 6, “He”, not “it”, was in Joseph, in Egypt in Genesis 41.  “He”, not “it”, was upon Moses in Numbers Chapter 11.  “He”, not “it”, was in Daniel, in Babylon in Daniel 4 and 5.

And my friend, on and on we can go throughout the scriptures.  We need to recognize that if you are saved, “He,” not “it” lives in you.  He is a person, He is a divine personality incorporated into our personality.  He’s a person.  Now, consider not only His deity, not only His personality, consider the communication then that would flow from that.  If He’s a person, should we not communicate with Him as a person?  The scripture says in Romans Chapter 8 in verse 16 that the Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit.  Now notice where the Spirit speaks to us, our spirit, our innermost being, not out of being, not out of man, not audible voices or those kind of things, typically a sign of counterfeit.  No, He bears witness with our spirit, our innermost being.  But notice He bears witness, He speaks, He communicates, and let me ask you a question.  Is that communication supposed to only be one-way?  We perhaps know enough to say “No” and yet for many people that is exactly what it is in practice.  Now what kind of marriage will a couple have if only one partner in the marriage is communicating?  You won’t have much of a marriage, won’t have much of a partnership.  You see, the Holy Spirit is a person and He lives in our body.  He is therefore present with us and personal presence carries with it the privileges of conversation.  He’s a person.  Our text alone gives us biblical authority for communicating with the Holy Spirit.  The word, “communion” - fellowship, participation, partnership, that is impossible if you don’t have communication.  So there is Bible authority right there in this text but not only that, Jesus in John 14 through 16 said: Though I am leaving, I am not going to leave you comfortless.  I will not leave you as orphans; I will send you another comforter.  The word “another” means “another of the same kind”.  The word “comforter”, among several answers, means “one who stands in another stead”.  Now think about it, Jesus said: I am sending another of the same kind to come and stand in my stead.  Well, now let me ask you something.  Did the disciples communicate with Jesus when He walked on this Earth?  Well sure they did, and Jesus said: I am not going to leave you as orphans.  I am going to send another of the same kind to come and stand in my stead.  So should we not then interact with the Holy Spirit as the disciples did with Jesus when He walked this Earth?  Obviously.  Now that communication, does it necessarily mean you are always praying to the Spirit, a husband and a wife communicate to each other?  That doesn’t mean that they are praying to each other - except when the wife is asking for a billfold.  The issue here is communication and yet the fact is it is not necessarily by any means improper to address the Holy Spirit in prayer.  You remembered what the Lord Jesus said in Matthew 9, He said, pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest that He will send forth labourers into His harvest.  Now who is the Lord of the harvest?  Who harvested 3,000 people on the day of Pentecost?  We are explicitly told that it was the Spirit who came down and 3,000 were harvested.  You see, who was it that explicitly told Philip, join yourself to this chariot so that the Ethiopian eunuch was harvested?  We’re told it was the Spirit.  Who was it that explicitly told Peter when a man came from Cornelius’ house, go with this man, nothing doubting?  We’re explicitly told it was the Spirit and that led to the harvest of Cornelius and open the door for the Gentile harvest of which we are a part.  Who was it that said in the church in Antioch in Acts 13:  Separate unto me, Barnabas and Saul for the work where unto I have called them.  What was that work?  It was the first missionary journey, a journey that produced harvest after harvest after harvest sometimes when the whole city came to hear the word of God.  Ah, we are explicitly told that it was the Spirit.  So, let me ask you a question.  Who is the Lord of the harvest?  I believe the implication very clearly in the Book of Acts indicates it is the Holy Spirit.  And Jesus said:  Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest that he would send forth labourers into his harvest.

Now sometimes people say:  Well then, you know, why didn’t the Bible tell us to address the Holy Spirit in prayer?  Well let me ask you this: Does the Bible ever ask us to address Jesus Christ in prayer?  No.  Let me ask you, is it wrong to address the Lord Jesus Christ in prayer?  I supposed probably at least 50% of the people that I know that are saved got saved asking Jesus to save them.  And though there is no Old Testament precedent to do so, when Jesus walked this Earth, people prayed to Him.  Peter, as he was sinking into the water said, Lord, save me!  Many people cried out and said: Son of David, have mercy on me.  He never rebuked them.  Why?  He is God.  You see, that’s my point.  The Holy Spirit is God too!  And my friend, please don’t misunderstand me tonight.  Generally speaking, the tenet of the scripture is that we address the Father on the merits of the Son through the ministry of the Holy Spirit but that does not mean that it is improper to address Jesus Christ or improper to address the Holy Spirit.  I am not saying let’s neglect the Father.  I am not saying let’s neglect the Son.  I am saying let’s stop neglecting the Holy Spirit, acting like He is not a person.  If you don’t talk to the Holy Spirit, if you don’t communicate with the Holy Spirit, obviously there is something wrong in our concept of who He is and we are treating Him as an inanimate object, as an impersonal force, when He is a person.  Ah yes, He is a person.  I have an evangelist friend who years ago heard Walter Wilson when Wilson was an old man.  He was preaching out in California and it’s at a camp and my evangelist friend said:  Walter Wilson got up and in a high pitch voice said:  “How many of you have spoken to the Holy Spirit today?”  Basically no one raised their hands.  He said:  “Now look, if you are saved, the Holy Spirit lives in your body.  If He lives in your body, He is always with you.  Now, you have a person who is always with you and you never speak to Him.  You know that is not very nice”.  Perhaps, that helps us understand just the practicality of what we are talking about.  He is a person.  Do you treat Him as such?  So, consider not only His deity, His personality, the method of communication with the Holy Spirit, but also consider the dispensation of the Spirit. 

John Owen, the puritan, points out an interesting thought concerning the dispensations of the Godhead and some tests of living orthodoxy that relate to that.  But let me just boil it down to this.  The dispensation of the Father would be what we would call the Old Testament.  In other words, the person of the Godhead that was in the forefront in that time period was the Father.  The emphasis was on the oneness of God and His monarchy over all.  Therefore, Satan’s attack on the people of God in that time period, in that era was on that issue and what happened to God’s people during that time period?  They were tripped up with idolatry.  Ah, but when Jesus Christ came into this world, you had the era of the dispensation of the Son. Now the testimony of orthodoxy concerning the people of God, will those who are orthodox in the Father now properly relate to the Son?  And therefore, Satan’s attack shifted during that time period to the Son and what does the Bible say?  He, Jesus, came unto His own and His own received Him not.  Ah, but the Lord Jesus Christ descended and received the promise of the Spirit in Acts Chapter 2 and sent the Spirit, thus launching the age or dispensation of the Spirit; and the Spirit has not been sent back, we live in that dispensation.  And now the testament of orthodoxy among the people of God, will those who are orthodox on the Father and the Son, now properly relate to the Holy Spirit?  And so therefore, Satan’s attack has shifted in this age since the Spirit is the person of the Godhead that would be in prominence.  Satan’s attack has shifted to the Spirit and it attempts to confuse people on the Holy Spirit.  Why?  Because in this age of grace, this age of Spirit-enablement, the Devil knows that if he can get a child of God to not be rightly related to the Holy Spirit, that child of God is powerless.  My friend, it is not an accident that there’s all sorts of confusion on the Holy Spirit.  That’s where Satan’s attack is.  He tries to get the people of God to embrace strange fire or to reject it to the point that they have no fire.  What we need is the fire of the Holy Spirit.  Ah, my friend, He is real. 



Now consider this.  Is it right to honour the Holy Spirit?  Well, 2 Corinthians 3:17 says:  Now the Lord is that Spirit.  The Spirit is called Lord and if he is Lord, He can be honoured as God, because He is God.  And we are living in the day where there are many of God’s people who do really despise the Spirit of God because they will not honour Him as God.  Now, let’s just put it together.  Who revealed the Father?  The Son.  Jesus said to Philip:  Philip, if you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father.  Now, who reveals the Son?  The Spirit.  In fact, Jesus said in John 16:14:  He the Spirit shall glorify me for He shall receive of mine and shall show it unto you.  Jesus explicitly tells us that the Spirit shows us the Son.  He reveals the Son.  Now, you remember what Jesus said in John 5.  He said:  You need to honour the Son as you honour the Father; and that if you do not honour the Son, then you do not honour the Father.  Why?  Because the Son revealed the Father!  And therefore, when someone tells you that they honour God, for example, when Jehovah Witnesses said that they honour the Father Jehovah, and yet they deny the deity of Jesus Christ, they are deceived.  Because Jesus said:  if you don’t honour the Son, you don’t honour the Father.  Why?  Because the Son revealed the Father!  Now, in the same way, since the Spirit reveals the Son, whom must we honour?  In order to honour the Son, - the Spirit!  Why?  Because the Spirit reveals the Son!  You see, if you totally neglect the Holy Spirit and say Oh, I honour the Son, the fact is in a measure you are deceived.  Why?  Because you are accessing to the Son - and really knowing who He is - through the Spirit!  It’s the Spirit who reveals the Son.  And that’s what Jesus says in John 16:14.  And if we do not interact with and properly relate to the Holy Spirit, then we don’t have the revelation of Jesus Christ.  And just as Jesus responded to Philip when Philip asked him that question: Show us the Father and it will be sufficient for us, and Jesus said:  Have I been so long time with you Philip and you’ve not known me.  If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father.  And in the same way, I am convinced that when the people of God downplay the Holy Spirit to the point that He is ignored, and yet they have a longing to know Jesus Christ, the Spirit of God must be saying:  “Have I been so long time with you and you not know me?  If you’ve known me, you’ve known the Son”.  Why?  He is the Spirit of Jesus.  Oh, may we never forget it.  He is God.  He is a Person and we must treat Him as such.  The fact is there are many of God’s people who had acknowledged the trinity in their creed, but in their practice, they don’t.  They do not interact with the Holy Spirit.  They do not treat Him as a person and they do not honour Him as God.  And we wonder why we are powerless.  So, He is a spiritual person.  Let’s moved to a second dynamic. 

The heavenly partner is the senior partner

He is the senior partner.  Ah yes, in this partnership with the Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit, the heavenly partner, is the senior partner.  That means we are to surrender to - which is to depend on - the Spirit for leadership.  We are to yield to His control.  Our will is to be brought into submission to His will.  Now, sometimes, people say: “Well, I want that.  I’ll tell you what.  I just tell the Holy Spirit to take over the steering wheel of my life”.  And to use that analogy, let me just ask you, “will the Holy Spirit do that?”  Well, as my father pointed out:  “No, He won’t!”  Because if He was behind the wheel and if you were in the passenger seat, you have to go where He went, and you won’t have any choice about it and it would all be automatic and that’s not the way it is.  That would take your volition and your responsibility out of it and that’s not how it works.  To use that analogy, as my father often pointed out, the Spirit of God would say:  “No, no, I’ll stay over here in the passenger seat.  You stay behind the wheel.  Just do everything I say.  Stop when I say stop, turn right when I say turn right, go when I say go, forgive when I say forgive, open your mouth and witness when I say declare the Gospel, turn that program off when I say turn it off”.  As we yield to the Spirit’s commands, we are yielding to the Spirit’s control and thus you have the Spirit-controlled life, one of the expressions for the Spirit-filled life - the life that is yielded to the leadership of the Holy Spirit.  And my friend, He is in charge whether you and I recognize it or not.  But if you want to benefit from it, you better recognize it.  Now, I’m afraid that if we are not careful, we want Him to lead certain areas of our life, but we don’t want Him to lead in certain other areas of our life, and we kind of compartmentalize these things about cooperating with the Holy Spirit.  You know, what that’s like?  How many of you would bring a guest into your home and bring them to the guestroom and show them to the other rooms, here’s the towel, here’s the bed, so on and so forth, and then go to the door of the other room, slam it shut and lock it.  And yet that’s what many people do to the Holy Spirit.  You see when you got saved, He moved into your spirit.  And as He steps out into another room of your life, many times people say, “No, no, you can’t go into that room.  You can’t go into the kitchen, you can’t go into the living room”, and round and round it goes and we don’t give Him free reign.  You see, if we hang onto one key to one room or even one closet of our life, we’re acting like we are in charge, when we are not.  And we must yield to the leadership of the Holy Spirit.  He is the senior partner.  And my friend, He’s God.  He’s all wise.  He knows what is best.  We need not fear casting our dependence on Him to lead in every part of our life and to give Him free reign and every room of our life. 

The heavenly partner is supernatural power

So, He is the spiritual person, He is the senior partner and thirdly, the third dynamic concerning the heavenly partner, He is supernatural power.  Now, He’s just not a power, He’s a person but He is the person of power.   He is the person of the almighty power of God, which means not only should we surrender to His leadership, we must also surrender to - which is to depend on - His enablement, so that we can follow His leadership.  Now, we will come back to that thought in just a moment.  Let me digress just for a second.  You’ve heard me say we are to surrender to - which is dependence on.  That’s not an accident; I’m saying that on purpose.  We need to understand that surrender and dependence - faith - probably understood, have a oneness.  In other words, when you surrender everything to God, you just transferred your dependence to God.  True surrender is dependence.  Or I can say it this way.  When you depend on God for everything, you just surrender all.  So, true dependence is surrender.  They’re distinguishable in their emphasis but they really are at oneness in their essence.  Now, let’s come back to our flow of thought.  We are to surrender to the Holy Spirit, not only as senior partner to lead us, but also as supernatural power to enable us to follow His leadership.  In other words, we are to surrender to His will and His way.  It’s not His will my way or it’s not His will.  In other words, we get confused and we say. “Okay I want to surrender, absolute surrender, consecration, yes I want that” and so we say: “Okay God, I surrender all, I surrender all and I’m going to do it”.  No, you’re not.  You see, if you surrender all supposedly but you depend on your power to carry it out, you didn’t surrender all - it’s a deception.  And it’s what frustrates many Christians, I’ll be honest with you.

I remembered hearing my father preached a series of messages on Romans 12: 1 and 2.  What a classic series that was on absolute surrender.  And I remember as a teenager making an attempt at absolute surrender.  You know, and I said to God, “I surrender it all” - but I didn’t have it clear that I was depending on myself to carry it out and you know, it didn’t change my life and I didn’t have any sense to bear any witness of the Spirit that the gift was accepted and I was frustrated by it.  So, I hear another message on it and I attempt it again, I hear another message and I attempt it again and over and over again till my college years and even the first couple of years of full-time ministry.  I made more attempts at absolute surrender every time knowing this isn’t it, but wondering what’s missing.  And finally when the Spirit of God open my eyes to the fact that I was trying to surrender all, I was trying to surrender to H leadership but I was depending on my power to carry it out and I began to recognize how foolish.  That means I did not surrender to His control.  And when I came to the understanding and began to depend on Him, not only for leadership but also for the power to carry it out, O what a difference it makes.  You see, we are to surrender to His leadership as President and also to His power to follow His leadership.  You see, He not only gives us the orders, He gives us the enablement to carry it out the very orders He gave us; that is an amazing thing.  Yes, He’s in charge, He gave the orders but He doesn’t leave us with our power and yet tragically, we often do not look to Him and depend on Him for that power and so we have all these things we’re to do with no power to do it.  And that is a frustration, if there ever was one.  But oh when you surrender to - which is to depend on - the Holy Spirit’s leadership and senior partner and enablement as supernatural power, what a radical difference it makes. 

Some of you in Netcasters are very familiar with the man, Blondin, the Frenchman, tightrope walker who in 1859 did a number of stunts and of course, we used the illustration about the wheelbarrow, but there are some other aspects to that story that is rather fascinating.  He did that, as I mentioned, in the summer of 1859.  He had been with Barnum in the circus and decided to strike out on his own and make his fortune and enter into a partnership with a man by the name of Harry Colcord.  Colcord kind of acted as the manager in the club and all of that and the business side of it whereas Blondin was the stuntman.  And so they put the word out that they were going to perform an unusual act and they had a tightrope stretched across the Niagara Falls.  That would be about 1,100 feet across, about 109 feet above that water below and then of course, in the backdrop, you have the Niagara Falls with the roar of that water and the mist spewing high into the sky.  A dramatic scene!  And so the historic walk, the first walk was on June 30th, 1859.  The crowds gathered.  Blondin took his 40 foot balancing pole and began to make his way out on that rope.  He went about a quarter of the way out and then acted like he got tired.  And he yawned and he laid down on the rope, placed the balancing pole across his chest and acted like he fell asleep.  And then he sprang back to his feet without using his hands.  Well, that man had everybody’s attention.  He went out to the centre of the rope, by the way I fail to tell you that in the centre it sagged about 20 feet and would sway with the wind.  He got on to the centre section.  He had a ball of rope with a light weight on the end.  He let it down.  There was a boat waiting beneath and they tied a bottle of water to the end of that string.  He brought it back up and then drank the water from that bottle.  He was good.  And before he made his way completely across, he did a backflip somersault and three people had heart attacks, no, not really.  But obviously he was good.  Well, he did all sorts of stunts throughout the summer.  It is said on the July the 4th, he went across blindly, feeling his way across because some blankets were put over Him.

On one occasion, it is said he bicycled across - he went across - in a scum bag.  By the way, if you were wondering how I know this, I got this from a very prestigious documentation.  It is called Highlights For Children but anyway, it is said that there was a day, when he did push a wheelbarrow across.  In the documentation from Highlights, it tells us that when he first pushed that wheelbarrow across, there was a stove in the wheelbarrow.  And when he got on to that centre section, he stopped and fired up the stove and prepared to cook an egg, an omelette.  He really was good.  It is said that on one occasion he stood on his head on the rope.  He was crazy.  Well, as the summer wore on, the crowds began to diminish because they got used to it and he knew he had to get bigger and better and that’s just the way it works with human nature and so he thought of a new idea and he went to his manager, Harry Colcord.  He said:  “I’ve got the idea that will complete our fortune. Let’s put the word out and get a man to volunteer for me to carry him across and I’ll put him on my back and I’ll carry him across”.  They put the word out and believe it or not, there were about seven people who applied but everyone of them, when got up and looked down, backed out.  So, they had no volunteers and it looked like they were not going to get a taker.  Then, one day Blondin went to his partner, Harry Colcord and said:  “Harry, you’re a small man like myself.  I could carry you across.  Be a good fellow and come along”. Those were his words.  Well, Harry Colcord did not respond.  He didn’t say yes, he didn’t say no.  He didn’t say anything and so at the next press conference, Blondin boldly announced that Harry Colcord was going to do it.  Well, the day came.  It was August the 17th if I remember correctly and of course the year 1859.  And on this occasion, 100,000 people gathered and now keep in mind, it’s 1859 and transportation was different in those days.  That’s amazing.  100,000 people gathered.  And when Blondin went over to Harry Colcord for him to mount his back, he recognized that the poor man was literally in a state of terror.  He had to take him by the hand and lead him over to the edge.  They had prepared a special stirrup-type setup to help and finally Colcord mounted Blondin’s back, wrapped his arms around his neck, placed his feet in those stirrups and Blondin began to edge his way out on the rope but still the ground was underneath, it was not the point yet when the ground gave way to the gulf below.  But even on that first little section, Colcord got so scarred that he so tighten his grip that Blondin could barely breathe.  And he grunted for him to loosen the grip.  Then he took a few more steps and when he took that step that literally put them out over that gulf below, the crowd got silent and according to Colcord, it was a silence that was different than any of the other days.  It was as if the crowd feared that they were not going to make it and they slowly kept edging their way out and when they finally got on to that centre section, the most dangerous section, Blondin stopped for a moment and he yelled above the roar of that water and that wind these words, he said:  “Harry, you are no longer Colcord, you are Blondin, until I clear this place, be a part of me, mind, body and soul.  If I sway, sway with me, do not do any balancing yourself”.  And Harry Colcord co-operated.  And they made it across.  By the way, there was a man that paid them US$1,000 if they promised they would never to do it again.  Now, think of that analogy.  Harry, you are no longer Colcord, you are Blondin.  Ah! Not I but Christ!  Until I clear this place, be a part of me, mind, body and soul.  See, that is the absolute surrender.  If I sway, sway with me - and that is the continuous surrender.  That’s a picture of what we are talking about.  You see, we are in a partnership.  That heavenly partner is the Holy Spirit.  Ah my friend, He is a spiritual person.  He is the senior partner.  He is supernatural power.  We are to surrender to  - which is to depend on - Him for leadership and the enablement to follow His leadership. 

Pastor, let me ask you a question, is there a service on Friday morning?  There is.  Okay, I was thinking it was not.  I’ll tell you what.  That is a relief to me.  We’ll finish this message tomorrow morning and that’s where I can bump everything back.  No service Friday morning?  Okay, there is a service Friday morning.  We’re out of time and only half way through.  This really is two messages.  I was going to try to merge them into one.  It’s not working.  So let’s just go ahead and stop at this point.  And then we’ll pick this up tomorrow with the human partner.  Let’s just have a word of prayer.

Father, we do thank you for your goodness to us. Lord I pray that you will help us to understand these truths. Help us not to get out of balance but Lord, I believe we’ve been out of balance as a movement.  Help us to get back in balance, recognizing the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.  Lord help us to think on these things and then Lord, would you speak to our hearts tomorrow as we deal with our responsibilities in this partnership?  Lord we thank you for it.  In Jesus’ name, Amen.