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Text Sermons : ~Other Speakers A-F : Richard E. Bieber : ALL THE PROMISES OF GOD FIND THEIR YES IN HIM

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It’s surprising how many people who say they believe
in Jesus believe in a Jesus who always seems to
have them hanging on a cliff. They never know whether
he’s going to come through or not. They’re never sure
whether he’s going to say ‘yes’ or ‘no’.

Sometimes it’s a Jesus who’s way up on top of a high
pedestal. You have to worship him from afar. Every
once-in-a-while, for no particular reason, he lifts
his hand and sends down a blessing. All the rest of
the time.....nothing.

Sometimes it’s a Jesus who’s on the other side of a
thick wall of frosted glass. You can dimly make out
the outlines of his face. There’s a telephone hanging
there and you keep dialing numbers; and every
once-in-a-while you get through. You say what’s on
your heart. You hear a few words of his answer, and
then the connection is broken.

Sometimes it’s a Jesus dressed in judges robes sitting
at a high bench. When you cry out to him in your need
he begins leafing through a big book and starts shak-
ing his head. Maybe one time out of a hundred he nods
‘Yes’ and things start happening in your favor.

Now listen to Paul describe Jesus in 2nd Corinthians
1:19—20:
For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom
we preached among you, Silvanus, Timothy
and I, was not Yes and No; but in Him
it is always Yes, For all the promises
of God find their Yes in Him.

Notice the difference between this Jesus and the vague
ambivalent Jesus so many people believe in.

Not ‘Yes’ and ‘No’.
Always ‘Yes’.

When the sick came to Jesus for help did he ever say
‘No’? When His disciples asked him a question, did he
ever turn his back and walk away? Did Mary have to dance
a jig to get him to turn the water into wine?

The Jesus who died outside Jerusalem on that Cross and
rose on the third day and is now King of Kings and Lord
of Lords,

- never keeps you dangling.

- never turns away indifferently from the
cry of your heart.

- never makes you hang on the edge of the
cliff wondering whether it’s going to
be ‘Yes’ or ‘No’.

Until the day of Grace comes to an end the answer of Jesus
to the cries of our hearts for help, is always ‘Yes’.
And when Jesus says, ‘Yes’ it’s not just a word --- it’s
life! Something happens. Light appears where their was
darkness!

When Jesus says, ‘Yes’ the Holy Spirit of God visits the
person to whom he says ‘Yes’. The Holy Spirit is Jesus’
‘Yes’ to us,

All through the Book of Acts wherever you see the Spirit
coming to believers,

- moving them with power,
- opening their eyes to truth,
- guiding them,
- correcting them,

This is Jesus who is Lord over this earth saying, ‘Yes’
to the people who are turning their hearts toward God.
Jesus says ‘Yes’ to their heart cries and the Spirit comes.

On Pentecost from the right hand of the Father, Jesus says
‘Yes’ to the God-thirst of his disciples and suddenly
strange things start happening in the house where they are
sitting. They are filled with the Holy Spirit.

Three days after Saul of Tarsus is struck down by the
glory of Jesus outside Damascus and has been groping
in blindness and is weak from the lack of food and
drink, Ananias comes in, lays his hands on Saul’s
head and says,

"Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus who appeared
to you on the road by which you came has
sent me that you may regain your sight and
be filled with the Holy Spirit."

This was Jesus’ ‘Yes’ to a penitent broken man’s
crying heart.

In Chapter 10 of Acts, a Roman centurian named
Cornelius who fears God, gives alms liberally, and
prays to God constantly is visited by an angel in a
vision who tells him to send to Joppa for one Simon
called Peter. Peter comes and tells that house full
of people about Jesus. While Peter is still talking
the Holy Spirit falls on all who are listening. This
is Jesus’ ‘Yes’ to Cornelius and his house.

- Jesus is not up on a giant pedestal.
Jesus is not walled away behind frosted glass.
- Jesus is not on that judge’s bench.

He is closer to us right now than our own beating
hearts. He is in this room. He is here to confirm
with a mighty ’Yes’ the message

- that he died on the Cross for our sins,
- that our sins are washed away in His blood,
- that He has redeemed us from death and the
power of the devil.

He is here to answer ‘Yes’ to every heart that cries
out to him for forgiveness and for power to walk in
the way of God by filling the emptiness within you
with the Holy Spirit.

And when He fills this emptiness within you with the
Spirit of God, you know it --- you don’t just feel it,
you know it. You know that ---

- God has come to dwell in the temple of your body.
- God has come to teach you from within
to walk that new road.
- God has come to give you victory where
you were defeated before.

Your eyes open as Paul’s eyes opened and you begin to see.
Especially do you begin to see when you open scripture.
It’s no longer boring and hard to understand. It shines
with glory. Mysteries become plain before your eyes.
Your heart opens. The Spirit of God teaches you to pray.
You begin to pray as you never prayed in your life to a
God who listens to every word. Your mouth opens and you
begin to speak as the Spirit gives you utterance. Your
tongue is loosed, You speak the word of Jesus and the
name of Jesus without shame or fear.


But the ‘Yes’ of Jesus to the cries of our hearts has to
be answered by a ‘Yes’ on our part. Jesus doesn’t give
you the Holy Spirit to make you feel good. The Holy
Spirit is not a feeling. The Holy Spirit is a Person.

- He speaks.
- He guides.
- He corrects.
- He teaches.
- He shows us everything Jesus wants
Him to show us.
- He lifts us up and comforts us and
gives us power, utterance, wisdom.

But we have to respond with our wills to the things the
Spirit shows us,
- He won’t make you go in a direction
you don’t want to go,
- He won’t make you do something you
don’t want to do.
The Spirit will speak to you or give you a nudge. Then
it’s up to you to say ‘Yes’.

- You have to go along with Him.
- You have to start obeying what He’s
showing you. Then the power comes.

The Spirit clearly tells me to love this particular
person that I haven’t been loving. Then I have to say
‘Yes'. I have to start loving that person and as I
do I get the power. The love of God is shed abroad
in my heart by the Holy Ghost.

Here’s a man who’s been a skin-flint all his life.
At an hour of desperation he repents and cries to
Jesus for forgiveness. Jesus says "Yes", forgives
him, pours out His Spirit upon this man, and the
man is filled with joy and praise.

But after the honeymoon is over the Spirit begins
to deal with the man’s habits --- his way of living.

"You must stop being a skin-flint."

Now it’s the man’s turn to say ‘Yes, I will obey you,
I will open my heart." But instead of this the man
says, with his living if not with his mouth, "No, I
don’t want to change. I will continue to be a skinflint."

The man goes to Bible Studies and believers’ meetings
and conventions and retreats boasting of all the gifts
of the Spirit he has --- but he’s still a skin-flint.
And people who have to deal with him can’t help but
see that he’s still a skin—flint. He can talk about
miracles and signs and wonders all he likes; all they
see is a stingy man.

This is what Paul is getting at when he says,

"If we live by the Spirit, let us
also walk by the Spirit."

If the Spirit has come as Jesus’ ‘Yes’ to us to make
us alive then we’d better say ‘Yes’ to him and do what
he says. If we don’t say ‘Yes’ to the Spirit in our
living,
- the way we treat our wives and husbands
and children,
- the way we handle our money,
- the way we deal with people,
- what we do about prejudice and bigotry
and hatred in our own heart,
if we don’t obey the
Spirit in these areas no matter how many gifts of the
Spirit we were given we are sowing to the flesh and we
will reap corruption.

Be not deceived, God is not mocked, for
whatever a man sows, that he will also
reap. For he who sows to the flesh shall
from the flesh reap corruption; but he
who sows to the Spirit will from the
Spirit reap eternal life.

And to sow to the Spirit is to say ‘Yes’ to the Spirit
as he guides us to do God’s holy, loving will in our
actual day-by-day living.

When the Spirit tells us to love,
to speak the truth,
to keep our eye single and
pure, we do it!

We hear so much these days about the gifts of the Spirit.
And it’s true, the gifts of the Spirit for power and
utterance and wisdom are necessary, if we are going to
do the job. But these gifts are useless to the man or
woman who isn’t walking in the Spirit in daily life.

Walk in the Spirit and you won’t fulfill
the lust of the flesh.

Yield to the Spirit of God as he guides
you to practice the love of God right
down there where you are. Then the Spirit
can use you.

The power to live a godly life, the power to literally
follow in the steps of Jesus, is with us at this moment.
To every soul who cries out for this power, the answer
of the Son of God is ‘Yes’ and the Spirit enters us with
life from Heaven.

One question:

Are you as ready to say ‘Yes’ to the
Spirit who goes with you as you leave
this place today as Jesus was ready to
say ‘Yes’ to you when you cried for
help?

Will it be Yes,

- when the Spirit says ‘"Forgive that man",
- when the Spirit says "Listen to that
woman’s complaint",
- when the Spirit says "Give to that person
in need",
- when the Spirit says "No self conceit, no
provoking of your brother, no envy."

For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, whom we
preached among you, Silvanus, and Timothy,
and I, was not Yes and No; but in Him it
is always Yes. For all the promises of God
find their Yes in Him.

God help us to answer Him with as consistent a ‘Yes’
in our day-to-day living as the ‘Yes’ He now gives
us, as we open our hearts........





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