How do you get it from your head to your heart?

Steve Brown:
How do you get it from your head to your heart? Let’s talk about it, on Key Life.

Matthew Porter:
Welcome to Key Life. I’m Matthew, executive producer of the program. Our host is Steve Brown. He’s an author and seminary professor who teaches that God’s amazing grace is the key to a life of radical freedom, infectious joy, and surprising faithfulness to Christ.

Steve Brown:
Thank you Matthew. Hope you guys had a great week-end, and as always, I hope your pastor’s sermon was as good as my pastor’s sermon. If you’re just joining us, we’re in the middle of a study of the Biblical doctrine of the Holy Spirit. And because the Holy Spirit, and we’ve seen this, has a job description that doesn’t call attention to himself, sometimes, this kind of study is hard. The Holy Spirit points to the first and second persons of the Trinity, and often does it in the background. However, the Bible is clear on who He is and what He does, and how important that work is. And we’re spending a number of weeks looking at that from the Scriptures. And hoping that it will make a difference in our lives. It’s our practice on Mondays to pray before we study, so let’s do that. Father, as we come into your presence, and especially as we talk about, you, the Holy Spirit. As we come into your presence, we recognize that we are drawn here by your Spirit and by invitation. Father, thank you for that high and holy privilege available to us always. Father, when we come into your presence, we recognize our darkness, but we see your love and your absolute, unconditional forgiveness. And we rejoice. Father, thank you for finding us. Remind us sometimes, by your Spirit, where you found us. And Father, meet us in this place. You know everybody who’s listening to the broadcast, you know the pain and the joy, the laughter and the tears. Remind us that you’re God and you’re in charge of all of that and you’re good all the time. Remind us to go to you first. And then Father, as always, we pray for the one who teaches on this broadcast. Forgive him his sins, because there are many. We would see Jesus and him only. And we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen. If you’ve been with us the last two or three weeks, we’ve been, as a part of our study of the Holy Spirit, talking about the Holy Spirit’s connection to truth. Throughout the Bible, that connection is clearly taught. And we have seen that there is a necessary connection between truth presented and truth received. And when that happens, you call it the Holy Spirit. You’ll find that in John 16:12 through 15.

I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak of his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak.

In other words, when the truth is spoken, the Holy Spirit places in our heart a statement similar to, I’ve got it. It’s you, I’ve got it. One of the things that I’ve learned over the years is to trust the congregations where I served as a pastor. That didn’t mean that I didn’t lead. I don’t believe in weak leadership. I believe that leaders are called to lead, but always careful about their leadership, listening and submitting to the leaders in the church, but listening to the congregation and what they think and what they hear. I sometimes will visit churches where people in the congregation are ill at ease and upset and wonder if they’re in the right church or if the right thing is being taught. And sometimes I’ll say to the pastor of that church, you need to listen to your congregation because they are reflecting what the Holy Spirit is saying to them. Now, that’s not always, there are turkeys in the church, and I know that, and you know that too. But the general move of a congregation reflects the movement of God’s Spirit when truth is being taught. And I learned over the years, and I still do, listen to what people say after I teach. I do that at Key Life. We get thousands of letters and e-mail from you guys. And you would be surprised how often I dip into what you say and how often the staff will pass me letters from you and I listen. Even if I don’t agree, I listen because of what I just taught you. The Holy Spirit is connected to truth. And when truth is spoken, that connection happens and you file it under the Holy Spirit. And then we saw also that there is a necessary connection not only between truth presented and truth perceived, there’s a necessary connection between truth accepted and truth internalized in the Holy Spirit, or you call it the Holy Spirit when it’s internalized. We sometimes have trouble and probably I get more questions on this than anything else, and that is assurance. Steve, I know what you’re teaching is true, but how do I get it from my head to my heart? Acts 1:8 says.

“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and all of Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

Now, when we finish with this section on the connection between the Holy Spirit and truth, we’re going to talk about the Holy Spirit and power. But from right now, I want you to see in that verse I just read to you that something happened to these disciples in Jerusalem that caused them to be motivated to go into all the world. What was that? That was the Holy Spirit. It went from their head to their heart. Now, you can’t do that yourself. When we get questions on that, I often say, What should you do? Nothing. Pray and say, God, take this truth, take these verities of the Christian faith that are all proper and right, take the doctrines that I’ve learned and the Scripture that I’ve memorized and drop it down into my heart so I won’t be a cold, mean spirited Christian, but one filled with joy. And then I pray, put it in our hands and feet so that the world can hear the laughter of the redeemed. But the Holy Spirit does take truth. And as we read Scripture, we recognize it’s truth, and that’s from the Holy Spirit. But also, when we read Scripture, we recognize it’s truth, and it becomes convicting, and it drops into our heart, and eventually it translates into action. What do you do? Nothing. You can’t make that happen. You can’t make your heart what you want your heart to be. The heart knows its reasons. You can’t force the Holy Spirit to do what you want the Holy Spirit to do. But you can be still and say, Lord, I know this is true. My head says it’s true, and that’s from your Spirit. But take it further than that. Make it become the definition of my life. Make it become the reality of who I am. Make it real. For God’s sake, make it real. I think I’ve told you before, about the ugly American who was in a third world country. And he was walking by a citizen of that third world country who was sitting under a tree and reading a Bible. And the American said, and this is why Americans are sometimes called ugly Americans, said in a kind of arrogant way to this third world citizen, My man, in my country, that book is out of date. The third world citizen looked up from his reading of the Bible and he said, My man, if this book were out of date here, you would have been eaten by now. The Holy Spirit, the Holy Spirit puts it in your head and it says this is truth absolute, revealed, propositional truth. But the Holy Spirit doesn’t stop there with truth. The Holy Spirit takes truth and puts legs on it. Puts it into our hearts and our lives, that we may live it. And he gets the credit for it, not us. You think about that. Amen.

Matthew Porter:
And thank you Steve. That was Steve Brown resuming our exploration of the person and doctrine of the Holy Spirit. By the way, did you catch Jerry Parries on Key Life last week? Great teaching about grace from the book of Galatians. Be sure to visit keylife.org if you missed any of that. Well, here’s a stat you may want to sit down for. More than a quarter of self-professed Evangelicals don’t believe the Bible is true. We recently spoke about this with Dr. Hugh Ross on Steve Brown Etc. And about the science that supports the truth of Biblical inerrancy. Deep, deep stuff, but good. Check out that entire episode on CD for free, by calling us at 1-800-KEY-LIFE that’s 1-800-539-5433. You can also e-mail [email protected] to ask for that CD. Or to mail your request go to keylife.org/contact to find our mailing addresses for the U.S. and Canada. Again, just ask for your free copy of the CD featuring Hugh Ross. And finally, if you value the work of Key Life, would you support that work through your giving? You can charge a gift on your credit card or include a gift in your envelope. Or just pick up your phone and text Key Life to 28950. And Hey, if you can’t give, or maybe it’s not on your heart to do so right now, all good. But if you think about it, please do pray for us, would you? Key Life is a member of ECFA in the States and CCCC in Canada. And as always, Key Life is a listener supported production of Key Life Network.