Not On Your Own

know, everything. And so here's the thing. Have you noticed like what were the top kinds of questions that kids ask? Were they what questions, why questions, how questions, when questions. What I want you to do is to know that there was a survey a couple of years ago of parents of children under the age of six. I don't know how it tracks for you, but these were the top percentages of the question. Some of them were what, some of them were when, some of them were why. Would you just lean over to someone next to you and say this is the toughest question a kid has ever asked me. It could have been you, it could have been you asking your parents, it could have been anything, but like what was it? Go ahead, just talk to each other real quickly. Okay. Those of you at the sites, I wish I could hear your answers, grants, trail, mid rivers, fettin, those of you online. Anybody here like best question ever? Anybody got one for me that you can say out loud? How about this? Yeah, say it again? Yes. Now, are you asking me or do we need to, that'll be an offline. Okay, we'll talk about that later. Yeah, and by the way, what's great about that is that question, the answer morphs through the years doesn't it? Like I'm hoping we don't give the full download to a five-year-old, right? But as they continue to grow and as they continue to handle more, we give them more and more information, right? I'm not so sure that it isn't different with us when we start talking about spiritual matters. That's a really interesting question. Here's what I thought was really fascinating though. Same people were surveyed and what the parent said was, out of all the questions that we get asked, we're pretty confident that we can answer 42% of them. Now, why am I even bringing this up? Because today, we're going to enter into something which will have some mystery. There will be some things that we have to build on our experience with as we go. But the truth is, I won't be able to fully put all of this into a spreadsheet for you. I will not be able to say, there it is, there it is, there it is. And we will not all walk out if we're going, well, I don't have any questions anymore. There will be some mystery involved. But I want you to know, as we enter into the mystery, there will also be undeniable truth. And I believe that truth changes everything. So we're going to pray now. I'm going to pray for

us. And then what I'm going to ask is, if you're ready, if you're comfortable with this, if you're, how about this? If these words actually mean something to you, and it's not just a memory, it's not just something that you're just like, you just have it on autoplay if you need it. But if these words mean something to you, and I know they do, then maybe together we could pray, the prayer that Jesus taught us to pray. But first, let me just say, Father, we're grateful for all that we've experienced. We're grateful for what you have done already in our midst. We're grateful for this church and what you're doing through so many different people, including the young families in our midst. Lord, we're asking you now to help us. Jesus, we want to cling to your words. Spirit, we need you to point us to the truth. And Father, show us just how close you are as we pray these words that your Son taught us to pray. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, as we forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil, for thine, the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen. Amen. So be it. So we're in the middle of this series where we're really listening in on a conversation that Jesus is having with His disciples. And it's in these middle chapters of the Gospel of John, and if you haven't been with us, this is a very difficult time. Jesus will be dead by this time tomorrow. Please understand the intensity of this conversation. Jesus will be in a tomb this time tomorrow, but this night He is with His closest friends, His disciples, and He is sharing, He is preparing them, He is teaching them, I believe He's teaching us about this life with God in in the I am the way, the truth, and the life. And then he says, nobody comes to the Father, but me, but through me. So that's how this works. And I would just say those of you, thank you for all the conversations, and the encouragement, and the challenging questions,

all that's been happening this past week because of what we went through last week. Thank you for being a part of that. I believe God is up to something, but I need you to hear me one more time. Every religion we talked about last week is making truth claims. What we have to do is move beyond, well, you believe what you believe, and I believe what I believe. If the stakes are as high as we say they are, then we need to know what is true. And around here, what we will tell you is that the life, the death, and the historical evidence around the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth pushes him to the top of the list. And so that's why we hang on to his words. I wanna say one more time. If you have just an inkling of, well, I still have a question about that. Yes, our pastors would love to talk to you, but I cannot stress enough how this short-term experience, this classical explorations is the place for you. I talked to people in a previous service who said, I wonder, I think we might, I would say, give it a go, and then afterwards tell me how it went. But we're now going to hang on to the words of Jesus as we move in to John chapter 14. So here we go, I'll start with verse 15. If you love me, keep my commands,

and I will ask the Father, and He will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever, the spirit of truth. The world cannot accept Him because it neither sees Him nor knows Him. But you know Him, for He lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans, I will come to you. Now, there's so much here. There's so many themes in John 14, 15, 16, 17. We're just seeing one of them here that just shows up. If you love me, then obey me. Now, we'll come back to this next week, but there's another theme I want us to just pay attention to, jump down to verse 26, but the advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. Peace I leave with you, my peace I give you, I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, do not be afraid. Jesus keeps telling them that He's leaving, and they don't know what to do with it. I mean, they are falling apart with this. Yes, He's trying to make the point here that it should be a comfort to you that the Holy Spirit will be with you. In fact, in chapter 16, He says, "It's actually a good thing that I'm going away "because then the Father will send the Spirit "and they are looking at each other going,

"How, how, how could that even be possible?" You ever thought about that? There's a theologian who asked this question once, who said, "Which would you rather have?" The physical person of Jesus, right next to you. You get to hear his voice. You see the expression on his face, the way he uses his hands when he talks, what it sounds like when he laughs, when he cries, when he prays, "Which would you rather have?" The physical Jesus sitting down next to you, or the presence of God almighty in you, in your thoughts, your hopes, your dreams, your fears. Now I'm not gonna make you answer that question, 'cause you talk about an impossible question. I'm guessing I know which way we would break. I know if you just made me think off the top of my head, it's like, "Oh man, Jesus next to me, "are you kidding me?" His voice, I get to see him face to face. But this same Jesus in this moment is telling these apostles, "It's gonna be better when the very presence of God "is even closer with you all the time." Now I think one of the things we struggle with is we don't know what to do with the Spirit. We don't really understand and appreciate the Spirit. Now in other words, Spirit gets used in a lot of different ways, right? I like the Spirit of this place.

I appreciate the Spirit in which you did that. Boy, you're in good spirits, Spirit of St. Louis. She's a very spiritual person, Greg. Have you ever used any of those? We've got Spirit, yes we do, we've got Spirit. (congregation laughs) You see, if we're gonna hang on to a word today, we need to hang on to two words, not just Spirit. If you want meaning, Holy Spirit. We're gonna hang on to the words of Jesus when he talks about the Holy Spirit. And so the first question that we need to answer is who is the Holy Spirit? And right there, I am helping you with your doctrine. It is who is the Holy Spirit, not what is the Holy Spirit? Make sure, even in your language, that you're getting used to referring to the Spirit as a person, not an it. Jesus refers to him as him. When you're looking at, like even here in chapter 14, It says he will testify about me in chapter 16. It says he will point you towards the truth. Now let's just go on ahead and say, I am using the pronoun he, because that's the pronoun Jesus used, because that's what's in the scriptures. But y'all, let me help you with something. This isn't controversial. This is not a statement about gender. We are talking about the Holy Spirit

who will not fit into physical human categories. I'm using the word he because that's what the scriptures say. He, we're not gonna soften this up or try to get it to fit into some cultural conversation by using the word it, because we rob the scriptures of their power there. He is a person, impossible to fully describe, but he is a person. In chapter 14 he comforts, in chapter 16 he teaches. In Hebrews 11 he can be insulted, in Ephesians 4 he can be grieved. In Romans 15 he loves, he is a person. If you take notes, write this one down. The Holy Spirit is to be experienced as a person, not a vibe. He is a person and he longs for us to experience him. I mean, he is who helps us with the terror of facing our failures, facing our dreams, facing our struggles. He is the one who pushes against the dread of the fear of abandonment. Jesus says right here, "I won't leave you as orphans. "I will come to you." Now part of what he is saying there is, "I will come back to you." It's a hint of the resurrection. "I will come to you. "I'm not gonna leave you as orphans." But there are many scholars who say, if you look at the whole big thing,

Jesus is also saying, "You all, there's coming a day "where there is one who is so like me "and so connected to me that when he is with you and in you, "it's like I'm with you." This is how Jesus gets to say later, "I am with you always." It's the spirit, it's the spirit. He's just a really personal language. He's saying, "I'm not gonna leave you as orphans." Now in the ancient world, if you didn't have a parent, if you didn't have someone to protect you, if you didn't have someone to stand for you and with you, your life particularly as a little one was in danger. I mean, your life was hanging by a thread. But as I started to kind of put all of that together, I thought, wait, is it just that way in the ancient world? And the Lord began to just kind of lead me and talk to me. And so on this of all days when these rooms have been full of such joyful noise, these little ones, I wanna say out loud that we are champions of life, all life, all that are made in the image of God. From the young to the not so young, as the old preachers used to say, "From the womb to the tomb." Yes, that means there are those who face struggles and intense storms these days and they are doubting if anyone sees them. Lord, open our eyes to the people we sit next to, to the people we work with, to the people down the street, to the people who are in our own families.

God, may we stand for them and with them. But yes, this also means that we will stand for and with little ones, born and not yet born. And yes, that means that we're gonna have heartfelt, difficult conversations that will always remain private around here. And yes, that means you need to prayerfully consider what God says to you right now and in the coming weeks. But it also means, as Pastor Angela said, just recently that we have been called to the healing work of addressing the heartache and the shame of women who now stand on the other side of abortion. It means that I can barely breathe when a woman privately comes up to me with tears in her eyes and says, you have no idea how grateful I am that I seek the God who forgives the God who restores and somehow that same God has invited me back in to his home, to his family, to his church, y'all. This too is a part of our calling. So God, now please, may we never forget the precious gift of life. Father, may we never forget the power of your mercy. May we never forget the work of your people and quiet and life-changing, life-saving ways. May we never forget the way adoptive parents can change the trajectory of a life. May we never overlook the sacrificial love it takes to step into the heartache and chaos as a foster parent who will not give up, oh God, you love us so

and we thank you on this day. But may we now love as we have been loved throughout our lives, God, with our words, with our thoughts, with our actions and with our prayers and we pray this in the name of Jesus because we desperately need him. Amen. Oh, yeah, who is the Holy Spirit? Jesus gives us a really important thing here when he says, "I'm going to ask the Father to send you another advocate. You need to understand the word another." The word another, we only have one of them in English, in Greek they had two. There was a word for another which was like another of a different kind, so similar but different. That word was hetero, okay, interesting, right? So here's the thing. If you offered me an oatmeal raisin cookie, I would respectfully ask you if you had another of a different kind, because I just don't do oatmeal raisin cookies and some of you are now haters. It's just me, okay? In the Greek there is another word, alos, which means another of the same kind. So if you gave me a chocolate chip cookie which had extra chunks of chocolate in it and it was crispy around the edges but gooey in the middle, after I had devoured it, I would ask you for another of the same kind, are you tracking with me? That's which word in Greek Jesus uses here, alos, it's another of the same kind. Jesus says, "I'm asking the Father to send another of the same kind to you." Well then who is Jesus? Well first of all, he is also called advocates, so this one is like Jesus. And Jesus, we've been learning in John, is making some pretty bold claims. He says, "If you've seen me, you've seen the Father, I and the Father are one."

Those big I.M. statements, we put them up there on the screen a few weeks ago, that all point to the covenant name of God Jesus is in essence saying in the gospel of John, "I am God come to you." So he's saying, "I am like the Father, I am God." I'm asking the Father to send another who is like me. So then this other is, yeah, that's right David, anybody else remember the transitive property from your, from your, what is that algebra? I don't know what that is. Do they teach that? I think now what? In preschool? I think so. Here it is. If A equals B and B equals C, then A equals C, some of you aren't so sure. Jesus says, "It's okay, it's okay." Jesus says, "I and the Father are one." We're different, but there is, we are one. Jesus says, "I'm asking him to send one who is like me." That means the Spirit is God, and yet different than the Father. The Nicene Creed is right. The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit deserve to be worshiped and glorified. At this point, if you were here last week, you're going, ah, so then that means you worship many gods. You are a polytheist Greg. No, I'm not. And let me tell you why. Last week we said that we trace our faith to the, to the ancient Hebrew Scriptures and to the God of Israel, and there is one, Echad, in the Hebrew, God of Israel. We'll come back to that word in a few weeks, but there is one God. He is revealed in a, in a mysterious way, the deeper into the Scriptures you go.

Jesus says, "I share that deity with the one I call Father." We're in the deep water now here. There are even Jewish scholars who do not follow Jesus as God who say, "If you read the Scriptures, Jacob Newsner would be one who run an entire book called "The Incarnation of God." Not a follower of Jesus, but he says, the Scriptures, the Hebrew Scriptures, open up, crack the door open for God. We think that God is going to come, like in the flesh, into history. I'm just telling you, you, you can think this way. I'm also telling you that there is one God, three persons. Not one God that wears a different hat depending on the scene. Oh, oh, here he's the Father. Now he's the Son. No, that's not it. That's not it. Because you actually see the three interacting together in a place like Jesus' baptism. So there's one God, three persons, each with unique personality role in the universe. But there is one God in essence, in nature, in being, in purpose. There is one, we say around here, there is more to the one in the one. Is your head hurting yet? I'm telling you, my little brain that can only really conceive three dimensions plus time, I don't know how that works, but I believe the Scriptures reveal this to me and I begin to see it in real life. Here's what I will tell you. It is a mystery. I told you up front, I'm not going to be able to explain away these mysteries. but y'all, we don't know what to do with mystery, do we? Now some of you love mystery. Some of you, like me, you just kind of love to just point out mysteries in life, right?

And it's like, well, that's a mystery. It's a mystery to me, I don't know. She's a mystery, they're a mystery. Mysteries, right? We make jokes about them. Why is the word abbreviation so long? Think about these things. Why doesn't Tarzan have a beard? You gotta let that one work in. He's in the jungle all alone, and every time you see him, he's clean-shave it. Why do we keep pushing the remote harder and harder and harder when the battery is dying? Why do we scream heads up? That's not helpful at all. Why do so many people say they hate imagined dragons, and yet they have billions of streams and their concerts sell out? Some of you are like, I don't even know who that is. They're this generation's Nickelback. (audience laughing) Everybody tells me they hate Nickelback, and yet they're one of the all-time. So these are all mysteries, right? And so we can make fun of mysteries, we can laugh about mysteries. Some of us, when we hear a mystery, we just, we dismiss it. It's just like, it's a mystery. Everything's gotta fit in a box for me, right?

I think making fun of it and dismissing it are both the wrong reaction. You see, sometimes when a mystery comes up next to an undeniable experience, which connects to a deeper longing that has been set in your heart, pay attention to it, because it can sometimes lead to all. So I'm having one of those under the age of six conversations a couple of months ago. Someone is asking me those questions. I'm trying to explain the wonder of God and how much he cares for this little boy. And along the way, he asks, like, well, does God get tired? And I said, you know, that is a great question. No, Psalm 121 says he never sleeps nor slumbers, like ever. He never sleeps. No, not ever. Not even a catnap at the pool. No, buddy, not even a catnap at the pool. As great as that sounds. He is always, always, always watching over, caring, protecting, cheering for you. And I'm watching the brain just kind of work that gears flying in this little four-year-old. And it led to a wow. Here's the deal. I wanna live with the humility that says I can't explain at all, that sometimes leads me to the awe of wow.

You see, I don't expect a God who has created billions of galaxies full of untold trillions of stars. I don't expect all of his work to fit into my little three-pound brain. I can't explain at all. It's not a cop-out. I will keep learning and listening and asking. But when I come up next to something that leads me to a place of awe, I'm not gonna fight it. Because I believe the God of the universe is saying something to us. So now we've talked about who he is. For just a few minutes now, before we leave, I want us to talk about who he can be for you, or maybe this way. What can the Holy Spirit, what does the Spirit of God do for you? Now, some of you, we're gonna have these conversations. Some of you, this is a time to brag on him. This is a time to, let's go ahead and put that question up there if we could. Some of you are going to be able to just kind of talk about what it is that he does for you. Some of you are going to say, I'll be honest with you, he is such a mystery to me. I'm trying to figure some of this out. Some of you are early enough on your journey that you're going, I don't know that I buy any of this. Some of you are saying, you know what? I know he gets some really good press and the creeds

and we sing about him every now and then. I don't get him. Just talk to each other for a few minutes, but some of you, some of you, ought to be able to say, this is who the Spirit is in my life, this is what he's done for me. Go ahead, just talk to each other real quickly. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) Okay. All right, hopefully we just stirred some conversation here. I wanna give you a few handles, a few things that the scriptures tell us. And we're gonna stay pretty anchored in this passage that Jesus, where he calls him the advocate. Now here's your other Greek word. Advocate in the Greek is parakletos. Now what that means is to come alongside or to call alongside. Sometimes it can be translated alongside and you're calling out, you're talking, you're exhorting. It's such a rich, complex word that in your Bible translations,

this word is rendered differently. In some translations, it's advocate, it's counselor, it's friend, it's helper. We're gonna use advocate as kind of the overarching thought here because an advocate is, what we sing earlier, for you. He is for you. I want you to show, I wanna show you how the Holy Spirit is for you. Now that word counselor, when you hear that, and maybe that was in your translation, think of it in a legal term, a counselor at law. I was telling some folks, a friend of mine was going through something, business related, needed an attorney, and I was talking with a dear friend who is an attorney, and he said, you know, it doesn't matter who you are. When you're in that situation, you feel unsettled. It's kind of like, oh boy, oh boy, oh boy. And he said, what you need more than anything is somebody who is your advocate, somebody who stands for you, somebody who is with you. And I watched this happen with that friend. This person was like tender, cared for them, and was ruthlessly committed to protecting them. That's who the Spirit is. But in the ancient world, you didn't have an attorney standing with you. In the ancient courts, it was often your friend

who showed up, it was your friend who said, no, I'm vouching for this person. I can tell you the details, I can show you this. So maybe the next word for us to think about is friend. Have you ever considered the Holy Spirit your friend? There's a theologian, I was reading one of his books recently, and he said, I believe the Holy Spirit was Jesus' best friend. On planet Earth, he was his best friend. I was like, wow, I never thought of it that way. He was there at his conception. He was there throughout his life. He was there undoubtedly in the struggles as a little boy he's growing up. His parents don't understand him at 12. We know he was there at the baptism. We know he was there in the wilderness with Jesus during the temptation on his first sermon in his hometown, Jesus, from the prophet Isaiah declares, the spirit of the Lord is upon me. This is how Jesus did life on planet Earth. He was filled and empowered by the Holy Spirit. When nobody else got him, when nobody else was around, the spirit was there with him. There is a closeness, a companionship. Can you even imagine the spirit being your friend? I'm telling you, for some of us, that might unlock some things. He is the teacher. John 16 says, he will lead you towards the truth. Right here in this passage that we just read,

Jesus said, hey, the spirit is gonna help you all remember everything that we talked about. Do you know what that means? That means it is the spirit that helped us get the New Testament that we read. Those guys are helping each other. They're sharpening their stories. They're, remember that, remember that. But it is the spirit who calls things to mind. Later, Peter would say, we were carried along by the spirit. That's how you guys get these books. But the spirit now that has inspired this book helps us. We open the book, we look at the book and he helps us. He helps us to understand it. Every time you open the word, spirit, please help me to understand this. He'll show you what to hang on to, what to let go of, what applies to you right now. He helps you to know how to grow, how to serve, how to love, how to obey. This, in that same part of the conversation, Jesus says, anyone who loves me will obey my teaching. My father will love them and will come to them and make our home with them. Now, if you were with us last week, Jesus said, I'm gonna go to the Father in eternity and make a home for you. But right here, he is saying, if you'll allow the spirit to have his way in your life, the Father in me will come, will set up shop now.

We're not gonna wait until eternity in a supernatural way. We're gonna be in your life closer than close. Now, that's a lot, people. But do you know what it means? It means the spirit is the one that helps you to connect to God that way. The spirit is the one who makes your life home. Home. Quick show of hands we're not gonna scream out names or anything but anybody ever go into a home and you're like man I do not feel comfortable here anybody else ever been in that yeah, and you think about it, and it's like well Why is that sometimes it's because it's too pretty because everything's expensive because you're like elbows in elbows in elbows in if you got the kids Please don't break anything. Please don't break anything Sometimes it's because it's just a different vibe. It's a different rhythm You know you're halfway through the party and you're like oh man half of the people have their shoes on half of them I have it which is I don't know which kind of a house is this you start wondering Was it the cat be honest? There's a lot of different reasons that we're like I don't know if I'm at home here flip it around You ever been in somebody's home where you felt so welcomed that the hours went by and you went oh boy week We got to go home You were so welcomed Now, I don't know what you would tell me but I'm gonna guess it had to do with the way that they opened their hearts and their lives to you It was the way that they anticipated that you were gonna be there Maybe they made like your favorite dessert. Maybe it was they saw you coming and there was something I don't know what it is, but you felt at home with him the spirit does this for us He is the renovator of your inner life Sometimes he's gonna knock a wall down. Sometimes he's gonna say we need a hallway here Sometimes he's gonna say you know what we really need to clean this closet out We've been putting it off. We need to sweep out this dark corner

We need to let light in here the spirit is the one who does this he loves us so much that he will continue to work in us To get to that life that we long for Now he also loves you so much that he is going to tell you about the things that you can't do You see the spirit loves you enough that he's gonna keep you different metaphor from falling into the ditch This is the spirit ever once just kind of like gotten ahold of you and said you've got to stop doing this And you now have a choice are you gonna listen to him or ignore him because you can't ignore him We can ignore the spirit But when we do it leads to disaster I remember a pastor who talked about a man in his church who was having an affair and He admitted to the pastor that I Can't even imagine this that he would bring his mistress to his house to his home And he told his pastor he said before she came over I had to go through the house and Turn every picture down of my wife and my kids Why? Because I didn't want any reminder of who lived in this home Can you imagine? the conscious rebellion on One level I can imagine because you're trying to to ignore this lingering presence But now take it a little bit further. What if the wife was in the house? You think he'd try to pull that I'm pretty sure the answer to that is no Why because now he has an acute awareness not a lingering presence. She is in the house Yo, it is good for us to live with an acute awareness of the one who dwells in our life He does keep us on track. He does help us to see what we should and shouldn't do But I'm gonna tell you when we fail not if but when we fail when I fail He is the one who shines the light on it and says you better deal with that you better confess that why to grind me into salt No, so that I repent so that I can be forgiven and so that I can come home the spirit is always pointing you to Jesus That's what he is doing here. I am telling you he is your champion

When you are forgiven He is the one who will whisper and sometimes shout to you if you belong to Jesus. You are a child of the king And he is the one who will be your peace in the storm not after the storm It's not my story to tell so I won't By a friends who are going through it just a profound and sudden shocking loss and we were going back and forth yesterday and This friend dear friend said you know what I'm gonna live in first Thessalonians 5 18 Will rejoice in the Lord always and we'll give him the glory And I said yeah, you're living there But you are living out the next verse too because the next verse says do not quench the spirit and that can be translated Do not extinguish the spirit. You see the blazing glorious presence of God Almighty the whole going to grieve and the way he's going to do this, and he'll be reminded that whatever it is that he faces and whatever it is that they lost, it's nothing compared to the God who will not leave them. He is peace in the middle of the storm. Have you ever experienced that? Some of you are like, "Greg, is that real?" "Yes." "I'm going to ask it this way. Do you all think this stool is real?" "Guys, not a magic show. You think this stool is real?" "Sight, you with me? This is real. Real." Scientists will tell us it is 99.9999% empty space. What? Yeah, it has to do with the size of atoms and the way that a nucleus is 100,000 times smaller than the total area in the atom. The way to think about that is an atom, if the nucleus is the size of a peanut, the

whole atom is the size of a baseball stadium. This thing is made up of atoms, and so there is so much empty space here. Then where does the mass come from? How does this work? How is it solid? Well, now you're going to get to quarks, you're going to get to wave function, you're going to get to gluons that are holding it all together. I love reading about this for, I don't know, like two minutes. My point is, it is a mystery when you start to look at it, but it is there. They can't even fully explain it. My point is, I trust the math, I look at all of that. All I know is that it's real, and there are times in my life that I have to trust. But I can't even fully explain, are you with me? Greg, how does the spirit become real to me? We're right back to where we started. Last week, Jesus is the only one who can tip the scale of justice. Jesus is death on the cross. He is our advocate, and when you turn to Him and you ask for His forgiveness, the spirit moves into your life. You're not a finished product yet, but He moves into your life. He is closer than close, and there is now no condemnation in those who are in Christ Jesus. This is how we live the Christian life. This is where peace and joy and passion, have you ever looked at some of your friends and said, "How is it that you just have more juice than I do? Why do you laugh deeper? Why do you seem to get more involved? Where does this come from?" I'm telling you, it's the Holy Spirit. It's where healing comes from, wisdom. It's how we grow, so let me just ask you this.

Have you ever been like just noticed in your life, like those moments where you just get insulted easily? Don't look at me like I'm the only one. It could be a headline. It could be a person in the news. It could be a person in your neighborhood. It could be a name in your family. It could be someone at work or the guy three lanes over on the highway, and all of a sudden you're like, "Whoa, where did that come from?" You're there. You need the peace of the Holy Spirit to keep reminding you of the bigger picture. Have you ever been in a situation where you're just completely exhausted with having to play the game, you're tired of wearing the mask, you're tired of constantly positioning and trying to manage everybody's impression of you? You need the Holy Spirit to whisper to you about your true identity. You belong to Jesus. He died for you. That's where you start. Have you ever been at a place where somebody takes a shot at you, or maybe it's a new struggle, but it triggers an old tape in your head, and you just keep going, "I will never get any better." It will never happen for me. You need the Holy Spirit to remind you that He is for you. Paul says, "He who began this good work in you is faithful to complete it." That's the Spirit. Is there anyone here in the middle of a storm, in the middle of a struggle, in the middle of a loss, in the middle of a heartache? It's kind of isolated you because that's what happens in those kinds of pain. Like, you think you're on an island, nobody gets me, nobody can understand. You feel a little orphaned.

Like, I don't think anybody sees me. You need the very Spirit of God to remind you that you're not alone. The Spirit groans with us in those prayers that we can't even put to words. What I'm trying to say to you is you don't have to pick between Jesus and the Spirit. Father who loves you. This is the life we live. Jesus says this, we need this. So here's how I would like for us to end. We're gonna, you can stand, you can open your hands, you can raise your hands, you can bow your head, you can eyes forward. It doesn't matter. Getting the, and Neil, we're just gonna sing the first few lines of a song that many of us know. And it will serve as an invitation to inviting the spirit into our lives. Then I'll pray and then we're done. But let's continue to imagine this spirit who longs. Let's, let's, could, could you even invite him in? (somber music) ♪ Come, holy spirit ♪ ♪ Full of nuts ♪ ♪ Come, holy spirit ♪ ♪ Living flame of love ♪ ♪ We're on our knees ♪ ♪ Holy God ♪ ♪ Show us your glory ♪ ♪ Oh God ♪ ♪ We're on our knees ♪ ♪ Crying for heaven to come ♪

♪ To learn ♪ - Well, there are people who need your peace, who need your courage, who need clarity. There are people who need to come home. There are people who need healing. Who need strength, who need to be reminded they're not alone, holy spirit. Please move in close, and there are people, there are people who do not yet know you. So for many, it is a, it's a conversation of what could be, holy spirit, point them to Jesus. (gentle music) We pray all of this now, and the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. - Amen. - So we're really glad you came today. Thanks for being here. Get to these young families and tell them how much you love them. If you have questions about any of this, come and find us. Come back next week. We're gonna keep the conversation going. (audience clapping) (gentle music)