Good morning church. My name is Daniel.
I'm the lead pastor here at Res. I'm excited to be here and
preaching today. I'm excited.
If you're joining us for the first time or you're pretty new
here, haven't had a chance to connect, I'm excited you're
here. I'm going to.
We're going to have a chance to connect with you right after
service at this meet the team that we do over here with
brownies that you should come and have.
Otherwise I will eat far too many of them.
So come and save me from some brownies.
Listen, I have a question I want to start out with because we're
we're like week 5 into this series.
And if you knew that you were going to die on Friday, what
would you do with the time that you have left in those last
couple days? In fact, as you start to think
about all the ice cream you would eat, what particularly
would you do to prepare the people that are closest to you
for the fact that you're about to leave them?
What, what, who are the people and what would you, what would
you be doing? Like, what do you want to leave
them with as kind of the last things you need them to know or
you want to express to them before you leave this world?
And I'm asking you that because it's it's kind of what's
happening in our story today. Jesus is in the last few days
before he's going to go to the cross.
He's right before he's going to end up dying for our sins,
coming back to life and then and then ascending to the Father.
And so we're right at the end in in John chapter 12 or so, this
whole story of John begins to slow down.
And by John 13, and we're all the way into 16 today, that
entire segment of Scripture is 1 dinner.
That's a long dinner. And it's Jesus preparing his
disciples, the closest people to him for the fact that he's going
to leave them. And so the reason I think it's
just so particularly interesting is, man, if there was one point
you should really pay attention to, you'd think, well, well, as
Jesus is in this last moment with his disciples, I wonder
what's important to him. I wonder what he thinks that
these people need to hear. And that's been so we're in week
5 as we've begun to do this. And so if you go all the way
back to week 1 of this series in John, it starts with Jesus
telling his disciples, listen, you're going to need to lose
your expectations. And then John 13, what we
covered a couple weeks ago, you need to learn to lose your
status. And then the next week you we
really need to learn how to lose our desire for control and the
last week lose yourself reliance.
And so we're we're in this the whole series is called losing
this week, week 5 of this series, we're going to be at the
very end of John 15 and into John 16.
And I have titled this the very deep, very philosophical title
of Lose Your training wheels. Lose Your Training wheels.
Because Jesus is actually about to explain that, that the
Christian life for his disciples is going to go from very
simplistic to a little bit more complex.
He's going to turn on expert mode.
And, and the reason is Jesus is not going to be there to teach
them everything. It's going to look a little
different. About 6678 years ago, something
like that. A few years back my wife and I
had an opportunity to go on a cruise around the Mediterranean
and and stop in these ports along the way.
And then the cruise stopped. It finished in Venice, Italy and
apparently I visited Venice or we visited Venice at the perfect
time. It was raining and I didn't know
that was good, but apparently it's really smelly except when
it rains. So anyways, we had a great time.
Part of the reason that is now it's my favorite city that I've
ever visited was we accidentally stumbled upon a tour that was
lead. We got a tour guide assigned to
us who was a young lady, a very young lady, like in her young
early 20s, who was born and raised in the city, the city of
Venice. And she knew when I say she knew
Venice, like she really. So we're we're, you know,
following her around and she's just, she'll be walking and then
she just check her right turn down this little alley.
We're like, we're following her down.
And then she knows everybody by name.
She's like saying hi to the Baker and they're giving her
bread. And I was like, I thought that
was a Disney movie. She's like, hello, Philippe, you
know, hello, Giuseppe. And we're just like, what is
happening? And so she's just taking turns
greeting everyone. This is a big place.
And we're just getting this is this lady's.
And at one point she stops and there's a door.
There's a door about this big. I mean, it looks like I think
she's going to get out a mop or a broom.
And I'm like, this, this thing is about to get weird.
She opens it up and it's a secret passage.
And I was like, we are getting our money's worth.
And so we all, we all walk through this thing you can
barely fit through. And it comes out and there's a,
there's a restaurant like hidden between these two buildings and
they've already laid out a table for us and they know her by name
and they're pouring wine and they're putting cheese and all
this stuff. And we're like, what is
happening? I was like, this is like Belle
from Beauty and the Beast, you know, now I was waiting for
music to just start up and she was going to dance or something.
We had a phenomenal time, but but we experienced more in like
a two or three hour tour that we we would have ever experienced
spending weeks in Venice not knowing what we were doing.
Because it is a very confusing place.
And my point is simply that the difference between having a
guide who knows what they're doing and where they're going is
very different than stumbling around life.
Amen. And so if you leave today.
And. Only remember one thing.
I want you to remember this. The Christian life is about
trusting the guide and that's what Jesus is about to explain
to His disciples before He goes to the cross.
Join me in the reading of God, God's Word in John 15 verse 26.
I'm going to read from the ESV. Here's what it says.
This is Jesus at the at the dinner table.
But when the helper comes, helper is probably capitalized
in your Bible because it's a name.
It's a proper noun for the Holy Spirit.
When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the
Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he
will bear witness about me. So here's Jesus at the dinner
table teaching these final lessons, saying they haven't
heard about this yet. Hey, the Holy Spirit is going to
come and he's going to play a very specific role in your life.
And I'm going to explain what it looks like, verse 27.
And you will also bear witness because you have been with me
from the beginning. I am missing a page.
All right, that's fine. And I have said these things.
This is chapter 16. I've said these things to keep
you from falling away. They will put you out of the
synagogues. Indeed, the hour is coming when
whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God.
And they will do these things because they have not known the
Father nor me. But I have said these things to
you, that when their hour comes, you may remember that I told
them to you. Now He's going to explain in
this next section exactly what the Holy Spirit's going to do.
I did not say these things to you from the beginning because I
was with you. But now I'm going to him who
sent me. And none of you asks, where are
you going? But because I have said these
things to you, sorrow has filled your heart.
Nevertheless, I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage
that I go away. For if I do not go away, the
Helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to
you. So Jesus is saying, listen,
follow, following. Jesus, being a Christian so far
has been on easy mode for the disciples.
Here's why. They didn't have to make any
decisions. They just followed Jesus.
What am I supposed to do today? I'm just going to follow this
guy. What's he doing?
He's making, he's going to feed 5000 people.
All right, because that's what we're doing.
If they don't understand something, do they figure it
out? No, they go, hey, Jesus.
Well, what did that parable mean?
If they're confused, he rebukes them.
If they do something wrong, he tells like so.
So life so far has actually been not that difficult to figure
out. You have Jesus standing next to
you. That's either really helpful or
really terrifying when you think about it.
But but he's going to leave and he's saying, no, it's going to
work different now. And I'm going to send you a
guide. And here's what the guide's
going to do. Pick this up in chapter 16,
verse 8. Here's what the guide's going to
do. Here's what the Holy Spirit's
going to do when he comes. He will convict the world
concerning 3 things, sin and righteousness and judgement.
OK, so if you're reading your physical Bible, I want you to
just underline the word convict and then underline those 3
words, sin, righteousness, judgement.
And Jesus explains concerning sin because they do not believe
in me, concerning righteousness because I go to the Father and
you will no see me no longer concerning judgement because the
rule ruler of this world is judge.
We'll explain that in a minute. I still have many things to say
to you, but you cannot bear them now.
When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all the
truth. That is another underlying
worthy statement right there, for he will not speak on his own
authority, but whatever he hears, he will speak and he will
declare to you the things that are to come.
I'm going to stop right there. May God bless the reading of his
word. When when as Jesus is explaining
what it's going to look like for the Holy Spirit to come and be
the guide in their life. I was thinking about when I
taught my has anyone here ever taught their kid how to ride a
bike? Couple.
Oh, yeah. OK, good.
OK, so when I taught every kid that I've taught, we taught the
same way. You put them on the little bike
with the training wheels. You guys, we've all done this,
right? And here's what happens is
they're like riding around and when they lean too far, he goes
Dick and he just hits the training wheel.
And they and actually when they're really bad, they just
bounce training wheel, the training wheel the whole way
down the road. It looks terrible, but you know,
they're figuring out how to balance.
But there's a point where they begin to mature and physically
develop. And you're like, I think they're
ready. And you take the training wheels
off and then you get them on there and you strap their
little, little Princess helmet. I had a lot of girls Princess
helmet on. And you get them on the little
bike and you and, and you hold the back of the seat.
You guys know what I'm talking about, right?
Some people are looking at me funny, like, you're going to get
there, OK. And you go, you go riding around
the neighborhood. And then what do you do?
At some point, you let go, but you don't tell them.
And you just keep running next to them.
And then at some point, every one of my kids does this.
They GoDaddy. I think I'm ready to go on my
own. And I'm like, you have been for
10 minutes. I'm just here for the jog.
What, what are we doing in that moment?
We're training them how to be sensitive to, to stay on the
course and not need the bumper rails in the same fashion,
right? So keep that in mind because
we're going to look at what it looks like for the Holy Spirit
to guide us. And you're going to see a lot of
similarities here. Verse 8.
And when he, the Holy Spirit comes, he will convict the world
concerning sin and righteousness and judgment.
Now, if you've been around church at all before, heck if
maybe if you just heard about church, then when I say the word
convict, you have like a, a pretty negative connotation,
right? Convict is like, you know, you
do something wrong and you you feel horrible about it.
You know what I'm like, like when my wife goes, Daniel, did
you eat the last cookie that I was saving for myself?
I hope you feel convicted. And I say I don't feel
conviction. I'm paying for all those
cookies. Not that kind of conviction.
OK. The actual word that's being
used here is a different kind of convict.
In fact, this, this Greek word in, in Konya Greek is, is
elancho. And so this, this word means a
little something different. It doesn't have as negative of a
connotation. It's still a very strong word.
But what it means is to to take this evidence, think of a
courtroom, almost take some evidence or some truth and to
clarify it like so well that you that no one can mistake it.
No one could, could, could miss it to place the truth so clearly
before something that it must be seen and acknowledged.
Now that evidence could be good or bad or what have you.
So it's not always negative, but it means that it's like
undebatable, like it's just man, it's very clear.
It's unavoidable. It's impossible to miss.
Now I was thinking about that, like, what does that look like?
And, and I know some of you guys are visual learners.
And so I was thinking through like, what does it look like to
to have a truth placed before you like so well that you can't
avoid it. And I remember the video I saw.
I want to show it to you did. You did you eat my?
Burger. I just don't understand.
This is crazy to me. Did you eat?
Did you enjoy it? You just ate an entire chicken
barn and bought chicken. Do you have any idea what you've
done? It was $20.
Who did this mess? Cody?
Did you make this mess? Elancho?
There you go. OK.
Now, why would humanity in this in this text?
Why would humanity need spiritual truths to be presented
in such an obvious fashion like this?
Because hopefully what they're presented to you is not that
you've been in the trash eating, eating the food.
Like what? What is it that that the Holy
Spirit is going to bring to light and put in front of us
that we cannot avoid? Well, he told sin, righteousness
and judgement. Those are these, these next 3
verses concerning sin, concerning righteousness,
concerning judgement. I don't want to break each of
those down in this sequence because they're actually in a
sequential order for a reason, because it's the problem, the
solution, and the consequence. The problem, the solution, the
consequence. So Jesus explains that the
presence of the Holy Spirit is going to be all that we actually
need to live this Christian life, to spread the gospel of
Christ and to live confidently until the end.
So let's start with the first one, The, the, the, the, the
word here that is used for sin. And in your Bible at different
times, different words are used that we then translate into
English as sin. And so sometimes they're
actually different words. This is a Greek word, hamartia.
Hamartia. It's in your handout, I think,
and it's in classic Greek. This, the actual definition and
the use of this word was about missing the mark.
And so if you want to think back to when they would have used
this word before they were talking about sin, it would have
been an archery. So if an Archer lines up to to
hit a bull's eye and they let that arrow go and it misses the
bull's eye, we would have used this term hamartia.
You missed the mark. Now here's the thing.
Imagine though that there's no target or that you can't see the
target. That has not been made clear.
If there's no target, then you know, I can take my bow and my
arrow and I could just be like, lodge that bad boy in the
ceiling and be like, looks like a bull's eye to me.
And, and, and, and we chuckle. But do we not live in a culture
that defines right and wrong that way?
Have you not heard someone tell you, whether it's in person or
on social media, like, well, that's just your truth.
It's not my truth. That's just your bullseye.
It's not my bullseye. What humanity, this this fallen
world has been trying to define right and wrong on their own
since the fall of creation. They're the very first humans
wanted to be gods so that they could justify their rebellion
and their failure, and they could call a bad thing good.
And we do too. I had AI had a a really
beautiful and impactful conversation with a young lady
about two or three months ago and she'd been raised Christian.
Walked away from the faith, ended up moving in with five
atheists as the only person with a Christian background.
And so somewhere along the way, as she's living with these
people, four of the roommates turned against her.
And they started to create a lot of a lot of turmoil, a lot of
drama in the apartment. They belittled her, started to
gossip about her and slander her.
They made-up lies about her. And she gets to the point where
she doesn't want to go home like she doesn't want to.
It's unbearable. And she's telling me all about
this, right? And it's, it's bad.
She's very emotional. She's telling me about this.
And I listen, I get we get to the end and I go, who says
that's wrong? And she she's like, well, no,
no, they did all these things. I go, yeah, yeah, yeah.
But who says that's wrong? What if I asked them and they
don't think it's wrong? Who says it's wrong?
And she's like, what do you mean?
What? Of course that's wrong.
So listen, if there's no objective morality, if there's
no objective right and wrong, who's to say that all that lying
and that horrible behavior is actually even horrible?
If you get to invent your own right and wrong, if you can't
even look at something that's obviously wrong and call wrong,
listen, if you don't believe in God and you make up your own
truth, you treat someone terrible and be like, yeah,
well, that's my own personal truth.
That's how I feel. Maybe you're here today and you
don't believe in God. You're like, I don't, I don't
think any. I don't think it's wrong.
I think it's a God. It's just us trying to figure it
out, right? Just checking it out.
Maybe one of your friends drug you here.
Thank you, friend. Do you realize that you you
can't even call anything right or wrong unless there's someone
greater than us, unless there's some power that has more
authority than we do that that has established A cosmic right
and wrong, a universal right and wrong.
Because without that, morality is just whatever flavor of
behavior that I can justify today to, to believe in a real
right and wrong is already to begin to believe in a God of the
universe because someone had to establish that.
And so verse 11 is he's saying, listen, the Holy Spirit's going
to come and he's going to convict, make clear.
This standard, these truths that everyone has to see.
And so, so the the first part of that is, is that the Holy Spirit
is going to help us understand that there is an objective right
and wrong. God does have a will.
He does have a character. He does have express purpose.
The second thing that the Holy Spirit does when he convicts us
of this sin is that he removes our blinders so that we can see
it. He removes our spiritual
blindness so that we can actually tell that we're falling
short. In fact, later after the story,
there's another disciple that will come along.
His name is Paul, and he will write almost this same thing to
a church, and he will say it this way.
In one of those famous passages in the Bible, in Romans 323,
Paul will say, for all have sinned and fall short.
There's that, Miss the mark, fall short of the glory of God.
And the crazy thing here is, in the Greek where it says all, it
actually means all. Say me.
Yep, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
And so it's actually the very first steps toward a
relationship with God. The God who loves us is
realizing the desperate state we are in without him.
And so when I was when I was in college, the first time I really
begin to see this, I began to realize I was I did nothing.
I ever I was always falling short.
I was always making a mess of my own life.
And I began to realize. I need something more than what
I can provide. In fact, it wasn't just when I
was in college. I see that now every single day
I wake up. And I realized, man.
I need God, oh, I need him. So it's more than just seeing
it, because then there's another thing in this text.
It's righteousness. So, so we see it.
There's a sin, I'm falling short of the glory of God.
I'm falling short, I'm missing the mark.
And then righteousness. Righteousness is this next step.
So, so once people like you and I begin to see we're convicted
of this sin, we're going to see that we're missing the mark.
We need a solution so. Not enough to know you.
Have a problem? That's a wonderful first step.
Because listen if. You left me only with the
knowledge that I was falling short and no solution.
That's not very encouraging. Hey, you're hopeless.
That's depressing. I'm going to need more than
that. I need help.
So I've realized I'm not righteous.
That's the falling short part. And Jesus says there is hope.
Even though Jesus is going to go to the Father.
When we place our faith in what Jesus is about to go do in this
story, when he goes to the cross, he dies for our sins.
He rises again. We will be granted the very
righteousness of Christ, the sinless Son of God.
Righteousness is more than good character or good behavior.
In this sense, the way it's being used, you kind of go back
to that courtroom. It is the legal status of being
called right, being declared right in God's eyes.
There, that's that. Is very good news for a couple
reasons. The 1st is it means that when
God looks at me because I've given my life to Christ, he
doesn't see me anymore. He's all my mistakes and all of
my failures and the ones that I have made, the ones that I am
making and the ones that I'm going to make.
He sees. Christ's righteousness instead
of mine. Lack of righteousness.
That's good news. Listen to the.
Same Apostle Paul in that same section of verses Romans 323.
If we expand it and read the whole section from 22 to 24, it
says it this way and you'll hear it.
This is the second part, The righteousness of God through
faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe, for there is no
distinction, for all that's you and me have sinned and fall
short of the glory of God, missed the mark and are
justified by His grace as a gift through the redemption that is
in Christ Jesus. That's good news because see, if
Jesus just got me off the hook, cleaned me up and then kicked me
out the door and said go and sin no more, I'm pretty sure I'd
make it about 32 1/2 minutes. Before I was back in the.
Mire in the mud again and I only say 32 1/2 minutes if no one
talked to me for about 31 minutes.
That wouldn't be very. Good news.
See I need a. Power that would actually change
the way I live. A power that would change the
things I wanted. I need something that's ongoing
and active and alive in my everyday life so the Holy Spirit
comes up, convicts me of sin, then doesn't just leave me
there. He shows me righteous.
Living. And he compels me to grow into
those things. And the Holy Spirit does that
through Scripture. That's why the Bible is alive
and active and pierces. Not because the words are magic.
Because the Holy Spirit takes God's word and does God's work.
We don't read. The Bible to get smarter, we
read it to expose ourselves to the Holy Spirit, can come in and
go. Got some work to do.
The Holy Spirit works through. Christian community.
It's why we're talking about small groups like every week
someone's up here. Through worship through.
Our prayer life, that's Holy Spirit work to change the very
desires of our heart. But.
You got to trust the guide. I was listening to a.
Debate between like two or three people I was watching online and
they're, they're going back and forth.
It was about like men and women and stuff.
And, and one of the guys had like all these scientific
studies. It's actually fascinating.
And he begins to explain that that that we have enough
surveys, enough studies at this point to biologically prove that
in general, men are wired to care more about things and women
are wired to care more about people.
And he's walking through all these.
Studies. Yeah, a lot of evidence and I
and I, here's what I remember thinking.
You probably. That's fascinating.
I thought that's fascinating. That's why I'm not gentle.
That's why. People think that sometimes I'm
a jerk. It's because I'm a man and.
The Holy. Spirit I'm talking about
immediately. The Holy Spirit's like Jesus was
a man. He didn't seem to to.
Struggle with any of that. Maybe it's not.
That you're a man? Maybe it's that you are a
sinful, selfish, insecure little creature who just happens to be
a man. Well, there's that.
Thanks helper. The Holy Spirit.
Lets us see clearly, even when we don't have Jesus in the
friend group, even though Jesus was going to going to leave and
not be walking with the disciples, He's going to leave
and he's telling the disciples, got you fam, I got something for
you. The Holy Spirit's going to come
24/7. Access never takes naps, sin,
righteousness and then third judgment, judgment and the
judgement part is kind of interesting because Jesus
explanation for judgement when he explains it in verse 11, he
says concerning judgement because the ruler of this world
is judged. That's kind of interesting.
The ruler of this world, He's referring to Satan.
Is judged. Now the the word, the Greek word
here for judgement is krysis. KRISIS is where we have
developed our word crisis. So what's the crisis here?
We'll see. The crisis is there's a problem,
sin. There's a solution in the life,
death, burial and resurrection of Christ to grant us
righteousness. But not everyone will.
Partake. Not everyone will believe.
Not everyone will surrender. So, so Jesus said during.
His ministry, he casts out demons and he's he's binding,
he's in spiritual warfare. And then when he ultimately goes
to the cross and defeats Death, he binds up Satan and he puts
him in a corner for the final judgement.
Because the devil. At that point has no claim over
Jesus, who's now conquered death being blameless.
And what what the point that? Jesus is trying to make here,
even though it seems a little obscure.
He, Satan, has been vanquished and put in the corner.
To what Jesus is about to do. And, and, and, and, and he's
referring to it. And here's what he's saying.
Listen, if, and I just want you to think about this, if someone
as powerful as Satan stands no chance against the inevitable
judgement of a holy God, how much more would you or I stand a
chance? If we waste our lives living
like Satan, you've got to live like Satan, choosing our own
goals. Defiant in the.
Face of the Creator who desires to save us.
Every moment my. Sinful flesh rises up in me and
tells me that I should be in charge, that I'm owed something,
that that I should make my own decisions, that I should please
myself. You know, life's not fair.
I think God owes me something. In every one of those moments, I
am living like Satan. I'm modeling behavior after
Satan. That's exactly what he did after
a fallen Angel that God flicked out of heaven.
If you are a Christian. If you've met Christ, if you've,
if you've, if the Holy Spirit has allowed you to see your own
sin, Elanto, if you've grieved the mess that you made of your
life and rejoiced in your own salvation and, and, and the
righteousness of Christ, if you, if that's the case for you, then
the coming judgement that's being referred to here, that is
good news to our ears. That's not negative.
Why? We're covered.
Here's what that means. That means that every wrong that
you're going to face in the rest of your life, every insult,
every grievance, every trial, every evil, will one day be put
right. You and I, if you put your faith
in Christ, get to live in the supreme confidence that nothing
that happens in this world will escape the attention of the
judge. You don't have to have.
Justice here, because justice is coming.
And that's either good news or bad.
News depending on who you follow, that should encourage
you in the toughest moments of your life.
And as a Christian, there are going to be some tough moments.
People are going to betray you. You're going to work hard and
feel forgotten. You're going to sacrifice and
feel like you're taking advantage of.
And that is OK because the judge sees all and knows all.
But that same judgement, it's coming for all of us.
When you walk in that courtroom, you're either covered with the
righteousness of Christ or you're answering for your own
sin. So if if.
Satan himself had no defense before a holy God.
You and I certainly don't either.
Sin. Righteousness and judgment.
Now we, we try to always leave you with application points,
things that you can use on Monday.
When we, when we, when we go through the text, we want you to
be able to wake up on Monday and use something that's in here.
And you know, what are you supposed to do with this?
What do you, Christian, what do you, what do you do with sin,
righteousness and judgement when you wake up on Monday?
I want you to think about this. You don't have to.
Manufacture encouragement from any source.
Because God has. Indwelt you with His spirit to
encourage you in all of these different ways.
When you get up. On on Monday and and you open up
your Bible. This is the this is the primary
way that God speaks to us. God will speak to you through a
lot of different ways. This is the primary ways through
His word. His word is.
Active and alive because the Holy Spirit is taking it and He
is getting into your heart and He is doing work, and what
you've got to do is give Him the time to do it.
And here's the question. I want you to ask yourself and
I, and I think I put it in your, in your handout because I want
you to think about this. If you're a Christian, I want
you to think about this. As believers, one of the
questions that we're going to someday answer is not how many
times did you hear the gospel? It's not how many times did you
read your Bible? It's not how many times did you
go to church? It's going to be this.
How did we respond to the convicting work of the Spirit in
our lives? Every day the Spirit is trying
to do work. How are you responding to that
work? Because if.
If you will. If you will.
Obey the Holy Spirit. When He convicts you, you will
change. Through, through.
Through. Through.
Scripture through accountability and Christian community through
worship, through prayer. Like if you, if you'll be
sensitive and as the Holy Spirit convicts makes it clear, if
you'll be active in obedience and your heart will change, your
life will change that. And that's going to look
different at different times. It might look like accepting
encouragement that he brings you.
So, so maybe you have a daily Bible reading plan.
I, I, I highly recommend being on a plan of some sort.
It doesn't even usually matter what it is that you're opening
the the Bible and before you open the Bible, you go, God,
will you speak to me through this?
And then you, you begin to read the text.
If you don't have a Bible reading plan, let me help Take
out your phone. Download the most downloaded app
in the history of apps, the Bible.
Go to. Plans.
Pick one, do it. And as you read, stuff's going
to stand out. I don't know how to explain it
other than stuff's going to like, they're going to be these
little letters, they're going to pop up and they hit you in the
head. You can be like, was that always
there? And when that happens?
Don't just move on. Stop.
Why does that stand out? Write it down.
Highlight it, underline it. Tell somebody about it, and then
as God begins to make clear why it's standing out, you go and
respond to it. It might mean listening.
There are times right now in my life, probably in the last year
or so, where like all day long, God will just put a person's
name in my head. And so I try to stop unless I'm
driving and. Then it's 10 and. 2 And I pray
with my eyes open. I stop and I just start praying
for them and I don't know why I'm just trying to be sensitive
to the Holy Spirit. And so sometimes it's 567 times
a day, someone's name will pop my head and I start praying for
them. Sometimes I text them, Hey, I'm
praying for you. I don't know why, but I and then
they'll call back or they'll send me a thing like, oh, I was
going through this thing. I'm so glad.
And I'm like, I don't know any of this.
I'm just trying to be sensitive or I'll call them like I don't
know why I need to call you, but I just feel like I need to call
you. I'm trying to be sensitive to
the work of the Holy Spirit. And listen, you can do the same
things too. If you'll respond.
If you'll trust the guide, it might be work to the beautiful
community of this church. Like you.
Underestimate what a healthy Christian community will do in
your life. I'll just tell you right now.
In November. I was sitting with my wife and
she looked at me and she gave me one of those looks.
OK men don't say this out loud. You.
Ever get one of those looks where you know?
You're in trouble. OK, Yeah.
I was like, Oh no, take the trash out.
It's like what? She's like, when are you going
to take a break? What are you talking about?
Take a break. It's like you've been going hard
for way too long. When are you going to take a
break? It's like, let me tell you what
my spirit said. Break woman I don't need.
To break, I was built for this. And she's like, uh huh, when are
you? Going to take a break.
It's like, oh, it's not going to work.
And people on staff go, hey, when are you going to take a
break? I was like, Oh no, what's that
word again? And.
Here's the thing, I. Here I didn't feel like taking a
break, but I took a break. Why would you surround yourself
with wise counsel and ignore the wise counsel?
So people were like, why'd you take?
A break? You're tired.
I was like, no, I took a break because people around me said I
should take a break. Listen to me.
There are people around you that have been saying some stuff and
you have been making excuses. And I know because.
I am really good at it. So here's what I want you to do.
On your on your handout, you got a little little section that's
open. That's for your input right now.
I want you to write down one thing.
It is the first thing that pops into your mind that God has been
pressing in on in your life. Write it down.
I don't know what it is, but you do.
It's in fact, I would bet that this is not the first time that
you're thinking about it. I bet he's been talking to you
about it for a little while and you've been fighting it.
Write it down. People have been telling you, or
you've been seeing it in Scripture or you've been hearing
in your prayer life. You know, you just been fighting
it. Put it on paper.
Tell somebody about it. Respond to the work of the Holy
Spirit. Trust the guide.
Guys, some of you have studied
the Bible for decades. And you can't walk.
In the spirit because you've become callous to conviction.
You've gotten so good. At disregarding the work of the
Spirit. And here's what I want to tell
you. I don't, I don't want you to
feel ashamed about that. What I want you to know is a
little bit of FOMO. You are missing out the the
Christian life is actually full of joy.
And that happens when you follow the Spirit, not when you make
your own decisions. Jesus is inviting.
You to follow the Holy Spirit in this life and it is so much more
satisfying than the way you would choose.
Now there there's another side to judgement.
There's a flip side to this coin because anyone on trial for this
judgement who's not covered by the righteousness of Christ has
to answer for their their own sin.
And the only acceptable answer is that Jesus paid for me.
So there. May be some of you here today
that are visiting. There may be some of you that
are watching online who have never surrendered your life to
Christ. The Bible says you must.
Believe in your heart and declare with your mouth.
That Jesus was. Raised from the dead, that he's
your Lord and your king. Let me.
Tell. You something I believe with my
whole heart, my whole life. Everyone in this world will one
day bend the knee to Jesus, the Lord of Lords and King of Kings.
Everyone, everyone. And the only question will be
how happy are you when you do it?
Either you're going to be. Overjoyed because the king is
back to make all things right, or you're going to be mortified
because he has come to punish the guilty.
And I have stuck my. Nose up and shaken my fisted
God, and He was loving and merciful enough to outlast my
rebellion with His unending grace.
And if you will let. Him, He will save you too.
Will you all bow your heads? For just a moment as we close.
If you do not. Know Jesus as your Lord.
If you've never given your life to Him, I beg you come to the
Father and taste and see that He is good.
I'm going to lead you in a. Prayer of surrender and if you
are ready to follow Christ as King.
If the Holy Spirit has. Shown you your sin.
I simply want you to repeat this after me.
Jesus, I know I'm a Sinner. And I can't save.
Myself, I want you to save me. I surrender everything to you.
Be my Lord. Please, Jesus.
If you prayed to. Surrender your life to Christ
for the very first time right now.
Would you be brave and raise your hand for me to see?
Thank you, thank you. Put your hands down.
Amen in Jesus name, Amen. Real quick right here.
If you just gave your. Life to Christ, welcome to the
family. We want to help you walk as you
follow Christ in this decision. And so will you stand.
We're going to sing a song to close.
There are tables in the back. They say I raised my hand as we
sing. If you made a decision to follow
Christ, we want you to go back there.
If you made it recently and you just haven't told anybody, go
back there and tell them we have a gift for you.
We want to talk about what it looks like.
We want to celebrate with you. Our prayer team is going to
come. Up right now we're going to sing
a final song. We're going to pray with you.
Anyone that any of you need prayer for any reason.
We we actually love to pray with you.
We're going to be up here doing that.
You guys move as the Lord leads you.
We love you.