Pneuma Week 1

We are gonna worship together as one family. Come on, who's excited to give God all the praise today? Amen, He's worthy. Put your hands together with me. And we sing. Oh, isn't He great? Come on and put your hands together. We sing together every hour. Every hour, every minute of my life has been part of Your design. Lord, the whole world's in Your hand. Every trial. Every battle that I face. God, You met me there with grace. Every part has served Your plan. Through it all, You have been so, so good. Has He been good to you today? Kept Your word like You said He would. Oh, Your mercies are new every morning. Your steadfast love will never end. This hope won't fade in the evening. Lord, how great is Your faithfulness. Lord, how great is Your faithfulness. How great is Your faithfulness. Here and now, looking back on where I've been. Still as good as You were then. There's no limit to Your love. Through it all, You have been so, so good. Kept Your word like You said You would. Your mercies are new every morning.

Your steadfast love will never end. This hope won't fade in the evening. Lord, how great is Your faithfulness. Lord, how great is Your faithfulness. Whoa, whoa. Come on, tell Him today. Oh, how great. Oh, how great. Oh, how great. Oh, how great. Oh, how great. Oh, how great. Lord, how great is Your faithfulness. I can sing about it. Oh, how great. Oh, how great. Oh, how great. Oh, how great. We say, Lord, how great is Your faithfulness. Come on and thank the Lord. Hallelujah, we testify. Through it all, You have been so, so good. If that's your story, would you just declare it? Kept Your word like You said You would. Come on, He's the promise keeper. Amen. Through it all, You have been so, so good. Yes, You have, Lord. Kept Your word like You said You would. Your mercies are new every morning.

Come on, we sing. Stand fast, love will never end. This hope won't fade in the evening. Lord, how great is Your faithfulness. Your mercies are new every morning. Put your hands together. Stand fast, love will never end. This hope won't fade in the evening. Lord, how great is Your faithfulness. Lord, how great is Your faithfulness. Lord, how great is Your faithfulness. He's great and ready to be praised. Come on, our God is worthy. Church, would you lift up a shout of praise to our God? Hallelujah. Come on, who believes our God is faithful today? Amen. Come on, we sing this. I'll praise in the valley. And I'll praise on the mountain. Oh, I'll praise when I'm sure. And I'll praise when I'm doubting. Oh, I'll praise when I'm sure. ♪ Our number and our praise will surround it ♪ ♪ Oh, cause praise is the water my enemies drown in ♪ Come on, as long as I'm breathing. As long as I'm breathing. ♪ I've got a reason to praise the Lord, oh my soul ♪ ♪ I've got a reason to praise the Lord, oh my soul ♪ ♪ Praise the Lord, oh my soul ♪

Come on, we sing. ♪ I'll praise when I feel it, and I'll praise when I don't ♪ ♪ Oh, I'll praise cause I know you're still in control ♪ ♪ My praise is a weapon, oh it's more than a sound ♪ ♪ My praise is the shout, my praise is the shout ♪ ♪ Oh, that brings Jericho down ♪ ♪ Oh, as long as I'm breathing, as long as I'm breathing ♪ ♪ I've got a reason to praise the Lord, oh my soul ♪ ♪ Praise the Lord, oh my soul ♪ ♪ Praise the Lord, oh my soul ♪ ♪ I won't keep quiet, my God is alive ♪ ♪ How could I keep it inside? ♪ ♪ Oh, praise the Lord, oh my soul ♪ ♪ Oh, praise the Lord, oh my soul ♪ Come on, can we praise Him in this place today? Come on, put your hands together, lift your voice. Praise our King, because He is good and He is faithful and He is true, so we declare this with one voice. ♪ I'll praise cause you're sovereign, praise cause you reign ♪ ♪ Praise cause you rose and defeated the grave ♪ ♪ I'll praise cause you're faithful, praise cause you're true ♪ ♪ Praise cause there's nobody greater than you, I'll praise ♪ ♪ I'll praise cause you're sovereign, praise cause you reign ♪ ♪ Praise cause you rose and defeated the grave ♪ ♪ Praise cause you're faithful, praise cause you're true ♪ ♪ Praise cause there's nobody greater than you ♪ Come on we say, ♪ Praise the Lord, oh my soul ♪ ♪ Praise the Lord, oh my soul ♪ ♪ Gotta praise the Lord, oh my soul ♪

♪ Praise the Lord, oh my soul ♪ ♪ I won't be quiet, my God is alive, how could I keep it inside? ♪ ♪ I won't be quiet, my God is alive, how could I keep it inside? ♪ ♪ I won't be quiet, my God is alive, how could I keep it inside? ♪ ♪ I gotta praise the Lord, oh my soul ♪ Oh we praise him! Come on church can we praise him? Hallelujah! Oh we thank you Jesus! Yes Lord! Oh hallelujah! We praise you Jesus! Come on would you continue to praise the name of Jesus in this place? I want to invite you all across this room, lift your hands to him. Would you exalt his name on high? Come on the name above every name. In his name we find everything we need. Healing, freedom, power. Jesus your spirit is in this place. We exalt your name, we worship your name. We sing about you. I just want to speak the name of Jesus Over every heart and every mind Cause I know there is peace within your presence I speak Jesus, yes I do I just want to speak the name of Jesus Come on we sing Till every dark cloud is gone addiction starts to break right now Lord declaring there is hope and there is I just want to speak the name of Jesus

I just want to speak the name of Jesus freedom I speak Jesus yes I do because your name is power your name is healing I just want to speak the name of Jesus your name is life we ask you to break every stronghold shine through the shadows sin your name is power your name is faith we declare your name is Jesus you break every stronghold shine through the shadows we shout Jesus from the mountains Jesus in the streets Oh Jesus in the darkness over every come on faith is rising in the room as you open up your mouth and you shout his name we speak his name over every situation powah your name is power your name is healing your name is peace your name is life you're bringing death and back to life Jesus come break every struggle Halleljah Burn like a Fire Your name is power Your name is power Your name is healing Yes it is Your name is life Come on receive it, receive it today We ask you Lord Break every struggle Shine through the shadows

Burn like a fire Hallelujah So Jesus be the name Oh Jesus be the name My Jesus be the name That gets all the glory Oh Jesus be the name Be the name Oh Jesus be the name It's all we need Yes Jesus be the name That gets Would you lift your hands in praising Him and giving Him glory Sing Jesus be the name Abode Jesus be the name Oh Jesus be the name That gets all the glory Oh Jesus be the name Oh Jesus be the name Lift you up Jesus be the name That gets all the glory Cause your name is power Your name is healing Yes it is Your name is life One last time ask Him To break every struggle

Shine through the shadows Spirit of God Burn like a fire Come on and praise His name Come on praise the name of Jesus today Hallelujah Hallelujah Amen Church are you excited to be worshiping the Lord in His house today? Amen Me too I want to invite you guys to step out of your seats in this moment Take a minute or so greet The person next to you We are all family here at Faith Church Orlando God bless you God bless you Still here? All right, well, good morning, everyone. Is anybody glad to be in church today? Come on, put your hands together. We're so glad that you're here today. And it's great to see everyone greeting each other. And we want to take a moment right now and welcome any special guests that we may have with us. If this is your very first time here at Faith Church Orlando, we just want you to know how glad we are that you're with us, and we want to recognize you. We want to clap for you and go crazy for you. So if it's your very first time, you've never been here before, would you kindly just raise your hand right now?

Hey, come on, church. Let's put our hands together. God bless you guys. Yeah, all over the room, just keep your hand lifted up. God bless you. So glad you're here. And if you would just keep your hand lifted up, our ushers are helping us, and we just want to put a booklet of information into your hands. And also, if it's your first time, do us a favor, if you would, unlock your phone. And on the seat backs, you can just tap your phone on the little circle there, the little badge, and that's a great way for us to connect with you and get some information from you. We want to connect you with all the great things that are happening at this church. And I believe that faith is a great church. Somebody say amen to that. And we're glad you're here. Also, we want to invite you, right after the service, for this little reception that we have at the Connection Hub, just go outside these doors and go past the grand staircase. Look to your left, and there's the Connection Hub. There will be people there to answer any questions that you have about the church and kind of get to know you a little bit. And so we invite you there right after church. So once again, come on, let's put our hands together for all of our first-time guests today. God bless you for being with us. Welcome to Faith Church Orlando. Here's a look at upcoming events. Since the official launch of Neighborhood Ambassadors Initiative this past February, God has been doing something remarkable. Gathering data from the Bless app, 550 of you are praying for your neighbors every single day.

That means right now, over 29,000 families in our community are being lifted up in prayer. Let that sink in. 29,000 families covered, but prayer has been moving into action. 217 intentional conversations have already started with neighbors, and 178 acts of kindness and service have gone out. Real and practical demonstrations of the love of Christ right on people's doorsteps. This is what it looks like to be the church beyond these walls. Don't stop now. Keep praying daily. Keep logging into the Bless app, and stay open for the conversation. The moment to serve, the invitation that could change someone's life, revival doesn't start on a stage, it starts in a driveway, on a front porch, across a back fence, one relationship at a time. If you would love to be a Neighborhood Ambassador, download the Bless app, select Faith Church Orlando, and then select the campus you attend to get started. Exciting things are happening at Faith. Here's a look ahead. ♪♪♪ We encourage you to connect, grow, serve, and reach here at Faith. So stay connected through the Faith app or our website. Have a blessed week. Yeah, we have a lot of great things happening here, and right now it's time to give to the Lord, so let's put our hands together for that, because we are a church that love, we love to give, and so thank you for being a church that understands the joy of giving. How many of you know giving is a good thing, right? And we give not out of obligation, but we give in obedience to the Lord, and we give to worship the Lord. It's another way that we do that. We worship God in this time, and we do talk about two steps to giving. The first is returning the tithe to the Lord.

So we receive our income, and the first thing we do is we give our first fruits, the 10% to the Lord, return that to the Lord. and that's called the tithe. And we encourage all of you to be tithers. And then there's the second step, which is kingdom builders. And as we give and become a kingdom builder, it's really you give through the church to help fund all the amazing missionary efforts that go out across the world here in the United States and even here locally. And so we talk about that from time to time and highlight different projects. One of the projects that we wanna highlight this week is our very own Narcoossee Road Campus. Is anybody excited about that campus? Listen, our church is extending its reach and we are on the brink of building and getting the site work moving. And so the threshold or this kind of milestone that we've been talking about is $300,000 this month. And as you give through kingdom builders, we're able to keep that project moving. And I would say thank you for that. And why don't you consider doing something even beyond what you normally do for kingdom builders as we are on the horizon of starting construction right out in St. Cloud. Right now, we have hundreds of church members that are meeting at the Narcoossee Road Campus

in an elementary school until they get their physical location built. And so we wanna get that thing moving without delay and you can be a part of that as you give in moments like this. So you'll see the ways to give on the screen. And this morning, I wanna take just a second and highlight one of my favorite ways to give and that's through the church app. And maybe you've never given that way before, but let me just quickly walk you through the steps. The first step is just to download the church app or if you already have that on your phone, you just open it up and you'll see the box there give, you just tap give. And then you'll be prompted to select your campus. And so this is the Curry Ford Campus and so you would select that. And then you would just choose either Tithe or Kingdom Builders. And you can select either one of those and I would just say you can enter your gift amount, but if you'd like to give to multiple funds in one transaction, you can do that. You just click the little plus sign there where it says give to another fund and you can actually add and give to both Tithe and Kingdom Builders and then hit give one time and it's one transaction. Really clean and convenient way for you to do that.

You just set up your payment method there and then at the bottom you can just click give and then really it's done. So we try to make it as convenient as possible for all of you to be a part of this and give. And let me just also highlight one cool feature as well. Some of you like to set up recurring giving where maybe you have a regular income and you wanna make sure that you're putting the Lord first in your finances and you can set this up in advance to where however frequent you would like it to be taken out of your account, you can set it up and it'll prompt you through all those different fields there and you can set it up knowing that, hey, I'm tithing and I'm being a part of Kingdom Builders and you're just doing it in one step right there. So however you choose to give this morning, thanks for being a part of this and let's go to the Lord in prayer right now. God, we do thank you for a church that understands the joy of giving. This is not a moment of obligation. God, we love to give. We love to advance your kingdom. I pray, God, that you would take these tithes and these offerings and you would use it to advance your kingdom, to build your church, to build the church here locally but also all around the world.

We wanna see heaven impacted. We wanna see the kingdom of God expand as a result of what we do in moments like this. So bless this offering, we pray and ask in Jesus' name. Somebody say amen. Amen. Amen. Well, a church, from time to time, we like to recognize some wedding anniversaries and typically what we do is we are open to highlighting the 25-year mark, the 50-year and up mark and we have a very special couple that we wanna honor today, Terry and Judy O'Donnell. They're celebrating this month 62 years of marriage and they're right over here. So would you guys stand? Come on, church, let's give it up. We love to honor marriages. God bless you. One of my favorite couples. We honor you, we celebrate you today and thanks for all that you do for this church. God bless you guys. Hey, Faith Church, we love being a place where families come and worship together which is why we've created spaces for every age group including our littlest Faith Kids. We know dropping off your little one for the first time isn't always easy but our Faith Kids nursery is a safe

and loving environment where your kids aren't just watched, they're cared for. They can play and enjoy age-appropriate activities while learning Bible stories, making crafts and worshiping. From newborns to toddlers, every detail is designed with them and you in mind. Our team is trained, attentive and deeply committed to creating a space where our babies and toddlers can encounter Jesus. We even provide snacks and take care of those messy diapers. So drop off your little ones before service, knowing they're in good hands and step into service, fully present, ready to worship and experience everything God has for you. Come on church, can we stand again and get ready to worship God today? Lord, we just invite you here right now. God, we long for your presence. God, we just wait on you today, Lord. Move in this place, move on your people, God. Come on, as we sing this, God, we sing our hearts. ♪ Our hearts are open wide ♪ ♪ Find us with your fire ♪ ♪ Lord, we surrender ♪ ♪ With worship we await ♪ ♪ Spirit, have your way ♪ ♪ And reveal your glory ♪ ♪ And we thirst for more ♪ ♪ We thirst for more of you ♪

♪ Spirit of God, Spirit of God ♪ ♪ Spring up a well in this place ♪ ♪ Let God arise, come and flood our lives overflowing ♪ ♪ In us ♪ Oh, Jesus, oh, Holy Spirit. Come on, with worship. ♪ And with worship we await ♪ ♪ Spirit, have your way ♪ ♪ And reveal your glory ♪ ♪ Yes, we long for more ♪ ♪ Yes, we long, we long for more of you ♪ ♪ Oh, we thirst, we thirst for more of you ♪ Come on, sing Spirit of God. ♪ Spirit of God, Spirit of God ♪ ♪ Spring up a world in this place ♪ ♪ Let God arise, come and flood our lives, overflow in us ♪ ♪ Spirit of God, Spirit of God ♪ ♪ Move like the wind in this place ♪ ♪ Oh, God, let us see indescribable things ♪ ♪ Come and move in us, come and move in us, overflow in us, overflow in us, overflow in us, oh ♪ ♪ Come and move in us, come and move in us, overflow in us, overflow in us, oh ♪ Oh, we long for you, Lord. Come on, keep this beginning, invite Him into your presence. Come on, invite Him here right now. Come on, Lord. Whoa, whoa, whoa, oh, oh, oh. You are welcome in this place. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.

You are welcome in this place. Come on, we invite you here. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. You are welcome. You are welcome in this place. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh. ♪ You are welcome in this place ♪ ♪ Spirit of God, Spirit of God ♪ ♪ Move like the wind in this place ♪ ♪ God, let us see indescribable things come and gloom in us ♪ ♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh ♪ ♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh ♪ ♪ You are welcome in this place ♪ ♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh ♪ All we want to hear, Lord All we long for, Lord ♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh ♪ ♪ You are welcome in this place ♪ Come on, let's welcome the very presence. Let's welcome the spirit of God to fill this place. Church, I just want to remind you of something and I want to speak this in every single location. Don't get fooled by the fact that there's a stage and there is some production value. Listen, being at church is not a spectator sport. You're not here to watch somebody else encounter Jesus.

Come on, you are here to get everything that God has for you today. And so, if you'll just join me in that, we just sang a lyric that said, come and move in us. I wonder if what would happen if we just took 20 seconds and just made a prayer like that. If we just said, Spirit of God, move in me, move in us today, move in our lives, move, God, in this room, in these rooms. Would you just pray that right now? Come on, maybe lift up a hand to heaven. Father, we pray that you would move, move in us, move in our hearts, oh God. We are here for more of you. Oh, stir up a hunger for more of you. We are here, God, for something real today. And so, I just pray every barrier would be gone. We need you, we love you, in Jesus' name. Now, let's celebrate what God's doing and what he's getting ready to do. Come on, amen. Amen. Praise God. Man, you can be seated. Y'all sound amazing at every single location. I just wonder, is anybody hungry for Jesus today, for real? Like, you came in here hungry. All right, that's enough, I think that's enough. That's gonna spread to the rest of you. And man, we're so excited that you are here.

And I do wanna mention, I mentioned our locations a second ago, but I wanna mention our locations because there are some people that are hungry for more of God today at the Michigan Street Campus. And there are some people that are hungry for God today at the Narcoossee Road Campus. And there are some people that are hungry for God today at the Red Bug Lake location. And I know there are some people that are hungry for God as today's service is streamed at the Central Florida Reception Center. So now, come on, across all those locations. Let's put our hands together and say thank you, Jesus. For a church that wants more of Him. Thank you, Jesus. If you have a Bible, if you have a copy of God's word today, go to the book of John chapter 14. John chapter 14. We are gonna start a new collection of messages today. And the theme of these next couple of weeks will be NUMA. So you could say we're starting a NUMA collection of messages. We're starting a new collection of messages around this Greek term, NUMA. We'll explain what that word means and where it's found in the Bible. But let me read John chapter 14. And I'm gonna read verses 15 through 19, and then I'm gonna skip to verses 25 through 27,

all in the 14th chapter of John. So if you're there, say amen. All right, if you're relying on the giant Bible behind me, say amen, amen, I know. All right, here we go. Jesus says, this is Jesus talking here. He says, if you love me, keep my commands. Can I hit pause right there and preach a little mini sermon, is it okay? Listen, there is some teaching out there in the Christian world right now that says it doesn't matter how you live, you can't live right anyway, like you're never gonna be perfect anyway, so it doesn't matter how you live, it's just about Jesus and He loves you anyway, and He does love you anyway. But can I just remind some of you that may have fallen into that trap of thinking that this is Jesus talking, and Jesus says, yes, I'm gonna love you anyway, but if you love me. He says, you'll keep my commandments. If you love me, there's still a certain way to live and a certain way to walk. That is scriptural, it's biblical, it's Jesus, all right. So he says, you're gonna have to obey my commands. But then he gets ready to get into how this is possible. This is what's so good, verse 16. Verse 16 will be kind of our key text.

He says, 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 can't accept him because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and he will be in you. I'll not leave you as orphans, I'll come to you. Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me because I live, you will also live. Skip down to verse 25. All this I have spoken while still with you. This is Jesus talking here. 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 and do not be afraid. Kind of like the title of today's message within this collection called NUMA, today's message is simply entitled Introducing the Holy Spirit. Introducing the Holy Spirit. And so let's pray one more time. And we're just gonna pray that our lives, our hearts, our minds, our spirits would be open to the Spirit of God. And so would you just pray that with me?

Join me in this across every location. Father, thank you God that you are here and Spirit of the Resurrected Christ, we just pray that you would move. Spirit, I pray you'd anoint, Holy Spirit, anoint this word with a prophetic edge that you would speak directly to where we are. Holy Spirit, give us ears to hear what you are saying to the church right now. And we just thank you for your presence and we thank you for what you are doing in this place and in our lives. Lord, draw us to you, we pray, as only you can, in Jesus' name. And everybody said, amen, amen. I read about this one church was doing a little class for some of their kids. This is some little younger kids in there. But they were learning the Apostles' Creed. And that's the, you know, I believe in God the Father, I believe in Jesus the Son. So they were learning that line by line. And the way that the class was learning this Apostles' Creed was each student in that little class each weekend. And on Sunday, each student had one line that they said and then the next student would say the next line and then the next student in the class would say the next line. And so they were gonna eventually get up

and do this in front of the whole church. And so they were doing some of their final practices for that in one of the classes. And so one little boy stands up and he says, I believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth. That was his line. And then the second child speaks out in the class and says, I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son. And when he completed his sentence, now there's this silence in the room. And the silence became a little bit long to the point that it was a little bit embarrassing and some of the kids are looking around. And then finally one of the kids in the class piped up and he said, teacher, the boy who believes in the Holy Spirit isn't here today. Well, I wanna tell you something. The pastor who believes in the Holy Spirit is here today. I wonder if there's any, I wonder if there's any Christians that are here today that believe in the Holy Spirit. Oh, I believe it. And listen, we have to, we have to. That's what this word pneuma means. The literal, it's a Greek word and the literal translation of this Greek word pneuma, this word that is found in the New Testament some 385 times, okay? So we're not talking about a rarely used word

here in the Greek New Testament. 385 times. And the literal translation is breath. Breath, wind, spirit. And so this word is used when the Bible translated and when you're reading the English Bible and it says Holy Spirit, pneuma is the word, the very breath of God, the wind of God, the spirit of God, that's what it is saying. And I understand what happens in a room like this and in rooms like our locations with some of us that have different faith backgrounds. And I understand what happens that when someone gets up and starts talking about the Holy Spirit or God help us. If we refer to him as the Holy Ghost, then some of y'all are really out at that point. And the way some of you think about it is you're like, God, the Father part, like I'm down with the, I'm down with the God, the Father part. And then we would talk about encountering Jesus, or a lot of you are like, man, I'm down to encounter Jesus. But then when we start talking about the Holy Spirit, some of y'all are like, I'm gonna check out on that one. I'm in for God and I'm in on Jesus, but I'm not in on the Holy Spirit. Well, what I'm gonna show you today is that is not a logical approach. It's actually an impossible approach to go at. We can't afford to, some of us treat the Holy Spirit like it's the weird member of the family.

Like you go to a family reunion and you might have to interact with them a little bit, but you're gonna keep that interaction as limited as possible. The church cannot afford to view the Holy Spirit like that. We view the Holy Spirit like it's some divine cosmic vibe that just floats around and it's all mysterious and we don't know what to do. We can't afford to do that. What the church needs to get back to is understanding that the Holy Spirit is of one substance, one power, one eternity with the Father and the Son. Come on, somebody. And so what we just read in James chapter 14 takes place amidst this, one of the final lengthy conversation that Jesus has with the disciples. This is the last supper before his death and burial and resurrection and ascension. And so this is the last lengthy conversation. John 14, 15, 16, 17 kind of gives us a real insight into this conversation. And can I tell you the main theme of the conversation that Jesus, the final lengthy conversation that he has with his disciples, the main theme of it was the Holy Spirit. And so that's what we're kind of looking into today. As we kind of maybe just do an introduction to the Holy Spirit, I think no introduction around the Holy Spirit

would be complete without understanding the person of the Spirit. If you're taking notes, that's kind of the first maybe main thing to write down is the person of the Holy Spirit. In other words, the Holy Spirit is not an it. Some of us have mistakenly referred to as an it. It's not an it. It's not a force. No, he is a person. And I said that verse 16 was gonna be kind of our key verse of John 14. So verse 16, that's where Jesus said, I'll ask the Father and he'll give you another advocate. Another advocate. And why did Jesus say another advocate? It's because he had been an advocate for them. And now he says there was going to be another advocate. Now, some versions of your Bibles might say another counselor or another helper. But some are translated advocate. But I wanna focus on the word before he says advocate when he says another. Because most of the time in the New Testament, when you see the English word another, it's translating a Greek word heteros. And that would be another of a different kind, okay? And so most of the time when you see another, it's heteros, which would be another of a different kind. That Greek word is not used here in verse 16.

It's a different word that gets translated another, and it's the word allos. And allos, instead of another of a different kind, allos is this. It's another of the same kind. Why is that important? It's because John seems to be emphasizing and actually highlighting the fact that the Holy Spirit is the same substance as Jesus, being fully God. He's not mysterious. He is the third person in the Trinity. In that, he is of equal essence, equal glory, and equal importance as God the Father and God the Son. We serve a triune God, three persons in the Godhead. God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Spirit. I'm gonna put a little diagram up that just kind of shows this, what we know about God from Scripture. And so we have there on the left top, the Father. God the Father, and if you go across, God the Father is not God the Son. No, they are two distinct persons. If you go to God the Son and you go down to God the Holy Spirit, you see an is not. God the Son is not God the Holy Spirit. It's a distinct person. God the Holy Spirit is not God the Father. But if you look at those internal parts of that diagraph, God the Father is God.

And God the Son, Jesus, is God. And God the Holy Spirit is God. And it's important that we understand this, which is why I'm saying you can't have this approach that goes, I'm down with the God part, and I'm down with the Jesus. this part, but I'm gonna keep the Holy Spirit part at an arm's length. You know who you're keeping at an arm's length, and you keep the Holy Spirit at an arm's length? You're keeping God at an arm's length. You're keeping Jesus at an arm's length. And so we see all three of these persons of God showing up in Matthew chapter three, verses 16 through 17. Let me read it real quick. As soon as Jesus was baptized, he comes up out of the water, and look at this, this is amazing. So Jesus is there in physical form, and at that moment, heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove. There's the Holy Spirit, and alighting on him. Verse 17, and a voice from heaven saying, this is my son whom I love, and with him I am well pleased. That's God the Father. All three persons of the Godhead right here showing up in this passage in Matthew chapter three. And I read somewhere that's kind of cool, like even in creation,

there is a trinity of trinities in the creation. Series of threes in the creation. Now what I'm getting ready to show you in creation, it's not proof that God is a triune God. It's not proof of the trinity. It is a picture of the trinity. And it seems as though God is setting this all up from the very, very beginning. And so we got a trinity of trinities. And so the three that we're gonna look at in creation are time, space, and matter. Time, space, and matter. So those are three. Let's break each of those down. Time has three parts to it. Time has past, time has present, time has future. Space, in a three, space has length, space has width, space has height. Matter broke up into threes. Matter is either solid, liquid, or gas. Even the human being, God's masterpiece in creation, we are created with body, soul, and spirit. And so the whole creation itself seems to bear the stamp of a triune creator. Again, it's not proof of the trinity. It's a picture of the trinity. And so it's important that we understand this person of God, the Holy Spirit. It's important we understand that it's not just a force. And it's not an it.

And it's not something that we try to manage in some sort of way. And I would say maybe even especially for Pentecostals, okay, when I say Pentecostal, again, that's another buzzword that kind of maybe scares some of us. I'll break down what that means because next week is the day of Pentecost and we'll continue to teach in this new series. But as Pentecostals sometimes, sometimes they're the worst ones at this that we start to make the Holy Spirit into some reaction or the Holy Spirit into some action or the Holy Spirit into some thing. And so sometimes I think the reason why the Holy Spirit is so misunderstood is because the Holy Spirit is so often misrepresented. If we can, can we just be honest that some of us have seen people handle this subject and they haven't handled it well and it's caused us to have some sort of misunderstanding or misconception about who He is. And so why is it so important that we understand it's not a force, it's not an it, here's why, is because you don't have relationship with a force. Some of you are like, well, through Star Wars, I do. No, I'm not. All the May 4th stuff started coming back in my head. You don't have relationship with a force, you don't have a relationship with an it, you have relationship with a person

and the Holy Spirit is craving and calling you into relationship with Him. That will actually change your life. You go, pastor, how will it change my life? Well, let's get into that. Let's get into the purpose of the Holy Spirit. And I'm just kind of being a little bit teachy today. I hope that's all right, but it's part of this introduction of the Holy Spirit is the purpose of the Spirit. So I said verse 16 is our key verse. Jesus says, I'm gonna ask the Father, He's gonna give you another advocate, really of the same kind, right? A helper of the same kind, but He says to help you. There's the purpose of the Holy Spirit. All of the different activity of the Holy Spirit really comes under that umbrella of it's to help you. And so here's Jesus saying, I'm going away, my Father's gonna send this advocate to help you. He's gonna enable you. Jesus even says this in verse 12, and I think it's one of the most provocative things that Jesus ever said. Jesus looks at His disciples and says, and y'all, and He says it to us today too, by the way, y'all are gonna do even greater things than I did. And can you imagine as the disciples are sitting around this table, and they're like, we know what you did, Jesus.

We know that you healed the sick. We know that you cast out the demons. We know that you raised the dead, and you're gonna look at us, you know us, we know you, you're gonna look at us and say I'm gonna do more than you did? Jesus, how can you say that knowing me? How could Jesus say that of you? Like, some of you sitting in church going, wait, Jesus expects me to do what he did, maybe even more than what he did? How does Jesus expect that of me? Can I tell you how? It's because he sent his spirit to live and dwell inside of you and to empower you to do. That's why it's so important we understand that he, the Holy Spirit, is here to help us. There is a science of proprioception, and in the science of proprioception, here's what that word means. So most of us are taught that we have five senses, and proprioception would say that there is an extra sense. There is a sixth sense, if you will. I wanna show you that sixth sense right now. So I need everybody to participate with this, okay? We're all gonna do it at every location. Everybody's doing it. Okay, everybody close your eyes, close them tight. Don't look, don't look, close your eyes.

Here's the other thing I want you to do now is I want you to put one of your arms out straight to the side, one of your arms out straight to the side. Watch out, don't hit the person next to you. No injuries, please. Okay, eyes closed. I have mine open to check to see who's participating and who's not. I'll be coming out to the crowd. I'll be coming to the, okay, here we go. Your arm is out, your eyes are closed. Here's what I want you to do. Now I want you to take that arm, take that finger, and just touch your nose. Keep your eyes closed, touch your nose. Eyes closed, touch your nose. Okay, I'm looking around. Almost all of you did, a couple of you. I need to meet with you after service. Something's wrong. Open your eyes, look at me, everybody. All right. How did you do that? Because you didn't use one of your five senses. You weren't, you couldn't see your hand, and yet you brought your hand exactly where you wanted to bring your hand. You didn't hear your hand over there. You didn't smell your hand over there,

in most cases, right? So your neighbor did, but that's a whole different thing. So how did you do that? How did you bring your hand to your nose? It's this sixth sense. It's a sense in the muscle. Some call it muscle memory. And so it's this other aspect that's kind of, it's part of your body. And there are medical conditions where someone would lose that. And man, when they do, they are a prisoner in their own body. It is a struggle because they can't seem to find the function of their muscles because they lose that sense. Well, that sense is what the Holy Spirit is supposed to be for us. Because there are too many Christians who live in the body, right? We are Christians, so we are part of the body of Christ. You're part of the body of this church, and yet because we lost the sense of the Holy Spirit in our life, we've lost the sense of what we're supposed to function. We don't know what our gifting is. We don't know what we're supposed to do. We don't know how we're supposed to live. We're not sensitive to the Spirit as he's prompting us to speak to this person or to serve in this lane

or to use this gift inside my life. And so we've lost, when we lose the sense of the Holy Spirit, we lose our function. Again, why it's so dangerous that we just choose not to interact with the Holy Spirit in this way. So what's just some of the ways that the Holy Spirit helps us? And I don't mean this one to be exhaustive, but we're gonna just, scripturally, we're just gonna see some of the ways that the Holy Spirit does help us. One, the Holy Spirit will comfort us. Holy Spirit will comfort us. And some of your translations said that Jesus was gonna send a comforter, but even in Acts chapter nine, verse 31, we see the Holy Spirit bringing comfort to the church. Not only does the Holy Spirit comfort, the Holy Spirit also convicts. John 16, eight, Jesus talks about how the Holy Spirit's gonna bring conviction upon people and show the unrighteousness in their life. Can I encourage you to welcome the conviction of the Holy Spirit? It's always interesting when someone's kind of new to this and they maybe come to one of our services, this happens usually multiple times a year, somehow come up to me and say, man, I came today, but I just kind of cried

all the way through and I don't know what this is about and I'm not sure if this is good. I was like, oh, it's good. Because what is that? That's just the conviction of the Holy Spirit. We should welcome that. And it might be ironic that the Holy Spirit brings both comfort and conviction because we don't put those two together. Now, we wanna stay comfortable and if we think if we're convicted, we're not comfortable anymore, I'd kind of liken it to this. It's kind of like a bad. from scale, we went through a stretch where our old one kind of was old and broke down and so we didn't have one, and so we went through a stretch where we didn't have one. And it was comfortable for a little while, until my clothes all started to be a little bit less comfortable. And I was like, this is so weird that all my pants seem to be shrinking at the same rate, what is going on? And so finally I told my wife, I was like, hey, we need to get a scale, I'm gonna get a scale, because I just need to see. And I got onto the scale, and it was convicting. I did not like what I saw. You go, well, Pastor, why didn't you just do it at Publix?

You could have been doing it at Publix all along. I ain't gonna be getting on the scale at Publix, have one of you walking by behind me going, oh, Pastor, I don't know, man. I don't need that in my life. Privacy of my own bathroom is where I'll be on the scale. But that conviction has brought about a life change. And I am on a path right now where now my clothes are more comfortable because of the conviction. Can I tell you the most peace you'll be in your life is when you listen to the conviction of the Holy Spirit, and the Holy Spirit's, no, don't go there, no, don't watch that, no, don't live like that, no, don't make that, don't react that way, and you land in this peace, in this comfort where you are right with God. Oh, thank you, Holy Spirit, for bringing conviction. You know, the Holy Spirit also brings guidance. John 16, 13 said he'll guide us into all truth. I like this, the Holy Spirit teaches and reminds. John 14, 26, look at this, the advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, this is amazing, will teach you all things and remind you of everything I have said to you. Wow, why am I going to keep that at a distance? I got somebody who's teaching me all things, reminding me of what Jesus said. Earlier this week, we were walking in the halls, and here at Faith Christian Academy,

they were going through some end-of-year tests, and so the sign's up, it said, please be quiet, because testing was going on, and I was kind of having a little bit of a post-traumatic stress just walking in the hall while kids were testing, because it just brought me back to those moments of testing when you walk into class, and the teacher's like, this is your final exam, and it's 99% of your grade for the whole year, and if you pass this, you'll go to next grade, but if you don't, you're staying here with me, like all of those, you're like, ah, I'm so scared. Can you imagine being in one of those times when you're taking those tests like that, and you're so scared of every answer, and all of a sudden, the teacher walks by and goes, oh, hey, the answer to number one is B, thank you, B. You get to that second question, oh, man, you start scratching your head, I don't know that either. The teacher walks by again, the answer to that one is D, all of the above. Can you imagine if they did that during the whole test? You got every answer right. This, the Holy Spirit teaches us all things, literally, as we're taking the test, and reminds us of what Jesus said. When I'm needing to make a decision, it's the Spirit of God that will remind me and say,

hey, you know what? The Word of God would maybe have you make this decision this way. Hey, remember what Jesus said about this, remember how we're supposed to live our life this way, and walk down the path this way. This is the, yet one of the many helps of the Holy Spirit in our life to teach and remind us. Of course, the Holy Spirit produces fruit, Galatians 5, 22 and 23. Holy Spirit gives gifts, amazing. First Corinthians 12, four, there are different kinds of gifts, but they're all given to believers by the same Spirit. The Holy Spirit prays, prays for us, and prays through us. Well, if you wanna grow in your prayer life, grow in your relationship with the Spirit of God, and the Holy Spirit empowers. Acts chapter one, verse eight, you'll receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you. You'll receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you. Some of you live in a anemic, weak Christian life, and you weren't designed for that. You were designed for this power source called the Holy Spirit, and we'll talk more about that next week, but as we talk about all these benefits and these helps of the Holy Spirit, I just wanna tell you, you attend a church

and that sets one of our markers of success, and we talk about it all the time. We talk about it amongst our team all the time, that one of our markers of success is dependence upon the Holy Spirit. Like we have determined that we're not gonna be a church that depends on our own understanding. We're not gonna do this in our own intellect. We're not gonna do this on our own talents. We're not gonna do this in our own giftings. Everything we do, we're gonna be dependent on the Holy Spirit, and I just feel like God's calling some of you to start to depend on the Holy Spirit when you're at work. Come on, on Monday morning that you would walk in there not relying on your. on intellect, oh, I've done my job for 20 years. I know, depend on the Holy Spirit to do your job at a different level, to bring a different impact to your team that you've never brought before, depending on his help. So it's the person of the Holy Spirit, the purpose of the Holy Spirit, and then no introduction of the Holy Spirit would be complete without the presence of the Holy Spirit. The presence of the Holy Spirit. How did Jesus say it? I'm gonna send another advocate to help you. Look at this, and he will be with you forever.

Oh, let that sink in. He'll be with you forever. Some of us, too many of us have gotten into this visitation mode when it comes to the presence of God. Look at me real quick, because some of us, we come to church on Sunday to visit the presence of God, and then we go. And if we're really radical, we come to church on Wednesday night, and we visit the presence of God, and then we go. We come back next Sunday, visit the presence of God. God, help us if we miss a week, because now I haven't visited the presence of God in 14 days, or if I miss three weeks, now I haven't visited the presence of God so long that I don't even know if I'll recognize the presence of God anymore. And listen, I want you to come to church. I think there's so many benefits to that. But you don't come here to visit the presence of God. What did Jesus say? No, Jesus said the Holy Spirit is gonna be with you forever. You go, pastor, is there a difference between the presence of God and the presence of the Holy Spirit? Well, let me say it to you this way. If you have felt God today, if you have felt stirred in your heart,

if even while I have been preaching this word, you feel your heart softening even towards the things of God, listen, the thing that you are feeling, the person you are feeling is the Holy Spirit. It is our, it's the age in which we live in. That is the emphasis of the triune God that we live in now. It's the era that we live in right now. So you could call it the dispensation that we live in, which just means a period of time. So let me show it to you this way. In the Old Testament and the law, God the Father was the emphasis of the Godhead, okay? Now, it doesn't mean the Holy Spirit wasn't moving. He was, and Jesus was, there are appearances of Jesus in the Old Testament. But the primary person of the Trinity that was in that period of time was God the Father. And then we move to the Gospels and the incarnation of Jesus. And now the primary emphasis is on the person of Jesus. The Holy Spirit is moving. Jesus is relying on the Holy Spirit. He's doing what the Father says. They're still active. And now in the church age, okay, this other dispensation of time, the church age, the Gospel age, we live under the emphasis of the Holy Spirit. That's why Jesus was talking so much

that when I go, the Holy Spirit. So when you feel God move in your life, you are feeling the Holy Spirit. People, we sing songs and people talk about, Jesus lives in my heart. Jesus doesn't live in your heart. Jesus doesn't live in your heart. He wouldn't fit. He was probably like 5'10 at least or something. Jesus doesn't fit. You know who lives in your heart? The spirit of a resurrected Christ dwells in you. Come on, to help you and to empower you. And this context is so important because he's looking at these disciples and he's saying, I'm gonna go, but I'm sending my spirit to you. What he was doing for those disciples is he was saying, you're gonna have to go from eyes of the flesh. That's what you've been living off of. You've been seeing me in person. I need you to transition from eyes of the flesh to eyes of the spirit. That's a good word for some of you because you've been living eyes of the flesh and everything you see is what, man, that's what controls you. And it's just all about my physical senses and my physical sight. Maybe Jesus is saying to you, hey, live by the spirit,

eyes of the spirit. Trust the spirit of God in your life. Let me end with this. There was a psychologist named Mary Ainsworth and she developed this procedure called strange syndrome. She'd bring in little kids and she would bring them into a room and she would also bring the parent in. And inside this room would be all these new toys and sometimes even scary toys. But if she brought the mom in and the mom would sit down in a chair in the same room, they found that kids would explore these new toys and they would learn how to do different things. Even some of the scary toys, they would go around and look at them and check them out. And then they would do that same test, sometimes with the same kids or with different kids, but instead of the mom sitting in the room, they would just have the kids go in the room and the mom or dad wouldn't be in there. And they found that the kids acted so much different without the presence of that. base, without the presence of their parent in the room, they'd be frozen. They wouldn't explore. They wouldn't go mess with the toys. They're just riddled with anxiety because the secure base wasn't there. Think about this. Now, Jesus is going. He was the secure base, but what does he say to the disciples? The Holy Spirit's gonna come. He's gonna be with you forever. Now, what happens when you don't understand, when you don't recognize the secure base of the Holy Spirit on your life?

Can I say that that's why you're afraid to minister to somebody? That's why you're afraid to reach out and pray for somebody. That's why you're afraid to witness and tell somebody about your relation with Jesus. You stay paralyzed in this fear because you're not realizing and recognizing the gift of the Holy Spirit who is in you and on you and around you to help you to do what God has called you to do. You know him. You know him. Let me pray for you, and what I'm gonna pray is that we, as a church, would just continue to open our hearts and lives to the activity of the Holy Spirit. I promise you that it's not about anything weird, and it won't be really about anything weird. We're gonna represent him well around here, but we're also gonna let him move and let him empower and let him change us and let him help us. So let me pray for you across every location. Father, thank you for your Word today, and I pray God for men and women and young people across every single location. Lord, just help us. Spirit of God, come as we open our hearts and our minds to you. Just guide us, teach us, lead us, convict us, equip us, comfort us, empower us, we pray. We need you. We need you. We depend upon you. In Jesus' name. With nobody, nobody looking around and nobody moving, you know, one of the things that Jesus said is the world, they don't recognize him because they don't know him. He's not with them. And maybe before we get too far into what it looks like for you to walk in the Spirit, you've got to come into an awareness of who you are in God. You've got to come to an awareness that the Spirit of Christ can be

transformative for you. Maybe you've never said yes to Jesus, or maybe you have, but you need to say yes to him today. Today, you need to make Jesus the Lord of your life. You need to believe on him as your Savior, and then you can open yourself to his powerful Spirit beginning to guide you and lead you and empower you. If you're here today, and you're outside a relation with God, can I just encourage you? Don't wait on this decision. Don't delay on this. This is the most important thing that you could ever do. This is why you're here today. This is why you're hearing me today. It's because the Spirit of God is trying to open your eyes to the things of God. You need Jesus today, and I'm gonna pray for you if you do. If that's you, nobody's looking around, but if that's you, would you hold up your hand right now? I need Christ. I need forgiveness. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Hold it up for just a moment. I'll see you. Yeah. Yeah. In the rises. I need Christ. I need forgiveness. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I see hands almost in every section. Anybody else enjoying this prayer? Amen. Thank you. Awesome. Awesome. Proud of you guys. I believe that today is gonna be a day of transformation. Why don't we do this? Why don't we stand to our feet? I want to lead everybody in this room in a prayer. I want you all to pray this with me. In a moment, we're gonna sing a song that just kind of seals this powerful person of the Spirit to be active in our lives. But first, we're gonna pray and just surrender our lives to Him. And those of you that need to make this prayer, maybe for the first time, I want you to pray this with all of us today. But come on, everybody. Pray this with me. Say, Jesus, I ask you right now to forgive me of my sin, to cleanse me, to make me new, and I open my heart to the same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead, would you dwell in me,

lead me, and guide me. I love you, Jesus, and I live for you. In Jesus' name, Amen. Amen. We can give God praise and celebrate that. Here's what I want us to do. We I've got two more minutes before we dismiss, and I wanna have our prayer team, they're gonna come, and we're gonna sing this song we sang a moment ago that just invites the Spirit of God to be active in our life. This is the posture I want us to kind of operate in as a church. And so, as we pray, as we sing, there will be people praying. If you need prayer today, you can step out and come. If you looked at your hand, I'd say come forward and let us have a moment of prayer over your life today. If you need healing today, if you need just a fresh stirring of the Spirit of God on your life, step out and come. But let's all sing this together. Maybe lift up a hand to heaven, and let's invite the Spirit of God to move in our life. Come on, sing, Spirit of God. ♪ Spirit of God ♪ Oh, Spirit of God. You need prayer today, come on. You need healing today, come on. If you accepted Christ today, then come on. You need healing in your home.

You need direction in your life. Come on, we're gonna pray for you today. Thank you, God. Let's sing it one more time, church. Say, Spirit of God. ♪ Spirit of God, Spirit of God ♪ ♪ Smooth like the wind in this place ♪ Thank you, Lord, thank you, Lord. ♪ God, let us sing in this time of need ♪ Come and move. Amen, we're gonna continue to pray for these. These altars will stay open. I'm gonna ask Pastor Josh to come. Closing a word of prayer. Church, I want you to stay hungry. I mean, would you just pray over these next few weeks as we look into this pneuma. I want you just to stay hungry for more of God in your life. So would you pray that with us as we close in prayer? Yes, God, we just commit to you right now, Lord. Got a new hunger, got a new desire for you, God. We ask for that right now, God. And we ask that you would just move in our lives this week. God, help us to see what you're doing. God, help us to get on board with the things that you're doing, Lord. Help us to see things through your eyes this week as we step out in faith to follow the footsteps you have for us.

God, we ask right now, Lord, keep us safe. God, strengthen us. God, we come against any attack of the enemy and anyone in this place, God, that is this week. God, we just ask right now, God, for peace, for love, for joy. God, let them rest on every person in this room, God. In your name we pray, in Jesus' name, amen, amen. Let me say we're so glad you were here today. We will see you again next week. If you've been watching online, I wanna say we're thankful that you're there as well. And if you gave your life to Christ, we wanna ask you to scan this QR code on the screen and fill out the form. We wanna have a chance to give you your next action steps in your walk with Christ. God bless you, hope to see you in the house soon.