Wait to remember the message and carry it with you throughout the
week. If you have your Bibles, please
take them and turn to John chapter 14.
If you're new to the Bible, John is there study notes in the back
of this Bible. So it's about 80% or so through
your Bible. It's in the New Testament before
Acts and after Matthew, Mark, Luke and again before Acts and
John is the the account of the disciple or the apostle John,
who was a follower of Jesus. And John writes his account of
the teachings of Jesus, the life of Jesus.
And he has more to say about the final days of Jesus's life
before he's crucified. And so it's I love that each of
the disciples that writes and Luke, Luke, a physician that
became a Christian, they write well in different perspectives
about the life and burial, death, resurrection of Jesus.
So this is John and it's halfway through, roughly halfway through
his book. But there's much that Jesus is
going to pray and say, and he'll have lots to say about the the
crucifixion of Jesus and again, the resurrection.
But we're going to start in verse 16 and Jesus says in verse
16, And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another
helper. Can everyone say with me,
helper, helper to be with you forever?
Even the spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive because
it neither sees him nor knows him.
But you know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.
He dwells with you and will be in you.
This morning I'm going to continue teaching about the Holy
Spirit. This is our 4th week for not in
the row, but the fourth time of teaching about Holy Spirit
recently. And this morning I want to talk
to you particularly about the attributes of the Holy Spirit,
The attributes of the Holy Spirit.
Let me pray for us, God. It's so good to be together with
our church family. And we pray that You would
supernaturally speak to us now in this time.
And our hearts are hungry for Your word and for Your truth.
And so we open our minds and as an act of worship, we say, Holy
Spirit speak to us and grow us in our understanding and lead
us, we pray. And when we leave here shortly,
we pray that our love for you and our awe for you Holy Spirit
will be more than it is right now.
So we open our hearts in Jesus name and everyone together
loudly said Amen and Amen. Now I'm really hoping I
mentioned this last week, but I'm mentioning again is that I'm
really hoping to build within our church a fluid flow of
speaking about the Holy Spirit. There are many Christian
traditions that hardly reference the Holy Spirit.
They might talk about the Father and the Son, maybe in their
creeds they might mention the Holy Ghost.
But many Christian traditions have gotten sideways when it
comes to having an understanding of the Holy Spirit and why?
Well, it's because there are some Christian traditions that
have kind of hijacked, if you will, and he kind of have taken
maybe some extreme thinking beliefs about the Holy Spirit
and, and about the gifts of the Holy Spirit and the baptism of
the Holy Spirit. So we're navigating through
because I feel very strongly that if we don't have a good
understanding of who the Holy Spirit is, then we won't know
how to relate to God because I'll break down even more this
morning. But the way that the
dispensation, the period of time that we're in right now is a
period where God is with us as the Holy Spirit, OK, So many
Christian traditions, they just shy away from talking about the
Holy Spirit. Or if they do talk about the
Holy Spirit, maybe they think that they have the corner market
on certain gifts or certain attributes of the Holy Spirit.
But I want to show you well that all Christian believers should
have an awareness and a relationship and a love for the
Holy Spirit. So we're diving deep in these
weeks and I want you to be able to talk about it well.
I want you to be able to sit with your family members and
those are The Who were friends and say, This is why I love the
Holy Spirit. That's why I love God and the
Trinity for being the Father, the Son, and the we Spirit and
we're able to say, yes, we love Jesus and we love the Father and
equally we love and have relationship with the Holy
Spirit. So next week, so you know where
we're going next week, I'm going to talk about grieving,
quenching and blaspheming the Holy Spirit.
You don't want to miss that week.
That's going to be a big message.
OK, so the Bible talks about grieving the Holy Spirit,
quenching the Spirit of the Lord, and maybe you've heard
about blaspheming the Holy Spirit as being the unpardonable
sin. I'm going to address that.
And then on to the weeks that after that, I'm going to talk
about the gifts of the Spirit and particularly the baptism of
the Holy Spirit. Now, I didn't start with the
baptism of the Holy Spirit. I wanted to give you a really
broad great foundation. And then I want to get around to
the baptism of the Holy Spirit because some, I think in, again
in Christian traditions, some have taken what we call the
baptism of the Holy Spirit. And they have, they start there.
And when they start there without a foundation of who the
Holy Spirit is and how we interact with the Holy Spirit, I
think they miss out on what should be the focus.
Is the focus chasing after supernatural gifts?
Supernatural, the miraculous? Well, I'll show you eventually
when we get there that yes, that is one of the attributes that
comes with the Holy Spirit, and yet it's a relationship with God
that we chase. We don't just want the
miraculous from the Holy Spirit. We want relationship and we want
understanding. So before we get to the baptism
of the Holy Spirit and the gifts of the Holy Spirit, we're
talking about other characteristics and attributes
of who God is as the Holy Spirit.
Now, if you want to relate well with anyone, it's good to know
their attributes. And I put in the note stupid
English because if you write it out, is it to attribute, you
know you're attributing something or is an attribute
attribute or attribute? Well, we're talking about
attributes, the characteristics of who God is, and it's true
when it comes to parenting or your spouse or friends, and it's
true of the Holy Spirit. So if you want to relate well
and have good relationship with people in your life, your family
members, then it's good for you to know how they're wired.
And for those of us who have more than one child
particularly, right, we want to understand that they're
different. And how do we relate?
How do we interact? Well, the point of this message
and some of these weeks is really to help you grow in an
understanding of how to relate and have relationship with the
Holy Spirit. Now when Jesus, if we're going
back to John chapter 14, Jesus says, and I will ask the Father
and he will give you another helper.
Now it's interesting that he doesn't say he will give you a
helper. He says he'll give you another
helper. So when he says that God will
give you another helper, well, Jesus is nodding at the fact
that Jesus had been their helper.
Jesus came and he, he walked with them and he taught them and
he mentored them, He discipled them, He was their helper.
And Jesus is pointing out here, he's saying, hey, I'll ask the
Father, and he'll send you another helper in addition to
me. He's going to send you another
helper. And from this, what we get is
that that Jesus is saying that the Holy Spirit is our helper.
You want to relate to the Holy Spirit.
Well, that's a good place to start to say because this is the
way that Jesus introducing them. Now again, Jesus isn't
mentioning some specific supernatural miraculous gift.
He's saying the Father will send you a helper.
So I want to show you that foundationally, when you want to
relate to the Holy Spirit, start there.
Start Holy Spirit, you are my helper and when you start there
then from that foundation then there are the fruits and there
are the gifts of the spirit that you can lean into now God is our
helper is not a new theme in the New Testament.
Jesus is is referencing an idea that had already been much the
tradition and the Old Testament. In fact, in Psalm 54 verse four.
We just finished the series on the Psalms and I'd love to
connect the Old Testament and the New Testament love to
connect the Psalms When the when the when the Psalms are being
quoted. So when Jesus is saying, hey,
the Father will send you another helper.
Well, Jesus would have well known this Psalm 54 and verse 4.
Behold, God is my helper. The Lord is the upholder of my
life. I love this passage and I'm
often hesitant to do this, but I will.
I'll tell you Jason, I, my wife and I wrote a song maybe six or
seven years and all before we moved here.
So let's say like 8 years ago. And it's called you are my
helper. And you can find it on YouTube,
You can find it on like Apple Music and wherever you stream
music. But the course just says you,
you are my helper. Come and rescue me.
You.
You are my helper. If I'm not playing guitar, I
often cannot remember lyrics, so I don't remember how it goes
from there. But if I had a guitar in my
hand, it would help. OK, but the idea, we took the
idea from the song from Psalm 54.
And I love singing the song because it reiterates when I'm
saying God, you are my helper. I'm quoting this idea from the
Psalms, but I'm also aware of the fact that Jesus is a helper
and He came to help us with our salvation.
And then Jesus says the Father will send you another helper.
And maybe to you it might seem belittling or or not majestic
enough to call the Holy Spirit a helper.
But that's what in the Old Testament they're calling God.
And Jesus in the New Testament is saying he is your helper.
So start here foundationally. Jesus introduces the Holy Spirit
as the helper. Now when we look at the word
that Jesus was using in this occasion, Jesus is using the
Greek word. When John is writing what Jesus
said, he's using the Greek word paracletos.
Paracletos is the word for helper or it's sometimes
translated intercessor. Sometimes it's translated
counselor or consoler or advocate will get around to an
occasion where that happens or comforter.
OK, so this is the way this word, it's a big word,
paracletos. And what's interesting is that
in the Catholic tradition, they don't try to translate the word
paracletos. They write it out phonetically
because it's a hard word to translate when Jesus says the
Holy Spirit will come and he that the Catholics, they just
left it at Paracletos, but they again, spell it out
phonetically. OK, it's hard to translate.
And so you can miss the meaning of it when you just see, oh,
he's our helper because maybe it doesn't sound profound enough.
Well, yes, Jesus is saying the Holy Spirit will come and be
your helper and your counselor. Isaiah said Jesus would be the
mighty counselor, right? All these ideas are they come
together to help us understand what the Holy Spirit is like.
And when Jesus is saying the Holy Spirit will come and he
will be your Paraclete, those. Well, the word para in Greek
means alongside or beside. So it's where we get our word
parallel from, right? If two things are parallel,
they're beside each other. And a paramedic is someone who
assist a doctor. A paramedic would be alongside
beside a doctor or a paralegal would be somebody that helps or
assist an attorney or somebody in legal matters.
So when Jesus says the I'm going to ask the Father and he's going
to send you another para counselor, advocate, all of
these things when you relate to the Holy Spirit, this is where
you start. So other translations, again, I
like the ESV, but some of the new modern translations, again,
they lean into these other ways of translating helper,
comforter, counselor or advocate.
Now another term that you might use to get an understanding of
the paracletos. When Jesus says, I'm asked the
Father and he'll send you the Holy Spirit as the paracletos.
Another good way to look at it is like a coach.
Have you ever had a great coach? Friday and Saturday and he had a
coach over in Petoskey. It was a track, field, track and
field coach. And sadly this coach had a
stroke and at 70 years old just died in the last day.
And I got to talk to the student, college student, and
just I felt his heart for his coach.
And certainly when someone coaches us, there's this really
beautiful relationship that starts because we're learning
and we're being encouraged by a coach.
And for me, I was never a great athlete, but I was in high
school. I did play golf.
They let me on the golf team. They were super desperate.
So I made the golf team and my coach's name was Coach Godwin,
and he was my government teacher and he was my driver's Ed
teacher. And I remember when he was
teaching me driver's Ed, he had this.
He must have said it to every kid, or maybe he only said it to
me. But he said, Kurt, there were
only two holes in that road and you hit all three of them.
All three of them you hit. What are you doing, you know?
So sadly, he passed away my senior year.
He was on the golf course, had a heart attack, didn't know it,
and went home and just gently passed away in his recliner at
home. But I remember what a great
impact he had teaching me government and teaching me
driver's Ed and then teaching me golf when Jesus, when he's
introducing the Holy Spirit as a paracletos.
Jesus had been their coach and he had trained them for those
three years. So in Jesus, I just really want
you to get a feel of what of what Jesus is saying to them.
I will ask the Father and he will send you another coach or
another helper. And Jesus, they would have been
confused because again, they don't get that Jesus is going to
leave them. Jesus is going to depart back to
heaven. So Jesus is the ultimate coach.
I used to be in a situation some years ago as a musician.
I was, I was, I was leading worship back then.
And Long story short, but I worked at a church where they
would, when we would do worship times, if you can imagine on the
front row, there were like 3 people standing with legal pads.
And they would, they would write out every little mistake that
everyone on the worship team made.
And then we would have these debrief meetings afterwards and
they would list all of these mistakes that happened in the
time of worship. Can you imagine that?
It was really awkward and strange.
And so, but the value there was in, in my opinion, in hindsight,
I, I, I coined the phrase, I said he who finds the most
mistakes wins. So we'd go into these meetings
and was just, oh, you made this mistake and this mistake and you
made this mistake and this mistake and you missed that and
you missed that to the worship team.
And I will tell you it really messed me up.
And so I coined the phrase that they coached me to confusion and
then they critiqued me to cowardice.
And that's poor teaching. But look at the way that Jesus
coaches and the way that the Holy Spirit, as our parity,
tells how he coaches us. Jesus leads us to confidence.
Romans 81 There's therefore no condemnation.
He doesn't condemn. Instead, the Holy Spirit
strengthens and encourages and exhorts.
That's the way that Jesus coached and it's the way that
the Holy Spirit coaches. And I would add to this that
this is the way when I'm thinking about coaching.
Jesus was also discipling A paracletos.
Our helper is also a disciple, and Jesus said to us that we
were to become disciplers. In Matthew 2819, Jesus says, go
therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in
the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus is saying that the Holy Spirit is going to come and be a
helper, coach, disciple. And then Jesus is saying, I'm
sending you also to be a disciple.
This is the fruit of having a relationship with the ultimate
coach, the Holy Spirit. When we follow an after and have
relationship with the Holy Spirit in that way, then we
become like Him, we become like Jesus, we become like the Holy
Spirit and we're able, instead of coaching people to confusion
and then critiquing them to cowardice, we're unable to
encourage people to grow more and more in love with Jesus.
And this is what Jesus is saying.
So watch, get the flow of this. Jesus comes to make disciples
and then he tells us disciples to wait until the parakletos is
poured out. Last week I looked at the story
in Acts chapter 2 where the Holy Spirit is poured out on the
disciples that were in the upper room.
And you can go back and listen to that message.
I won't re talk much of it, but I just want to remind you that
the Holy Spirit is poured out and then the disciples become or
the disciples become disciples but not until they receive the
Holy Spirit that is fulfilling the prophecy of the prophet
Joel. So the word paracletos is used
five times by John when he's referencing Jesus, either
quoting Jesus or talking about Jesus.
And I want to walk you through the times where John, it's a
unique word. He's the only one in the New
Testament that uses the word paracletos or helper, the Holy
Spirit. Yes, it's found in other places.
But if the word is unique to John writing about the words of
Jesus in John 1426, he's going to say it again.
And Jesus, he's quoting Jesus and he says, but the Helper, the
Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will
teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I
have said to you. So this leads us to another
attribute of the Holy Spirit. You want to relate to the Holy
Spirit. Well, understand this, that the
Holy Spirit is our paracletos, our helper, our coach, our
disciple. And now Jesus is saying the Holy
Spirit is going to be your teacher.
And this is beautiful. I love it.
Now, whenever we think about the Holy Spirit being our teacher, I
do want to clarify balance in this context because some
Christians want to adopt the idea that I don't need to be
around any other Christians. The Holy Spirit is my teacher.
I only need the Holy Spirit. Well, that contrasts what other
passages say. You need a balanced approach
where you're looking and saying, OK, the Holy Spirit, yes, is
teaching and leading me. And then I'm also going to find
growth and discipleship in the context of being around the
Christians. So watch what Paul writes in
First Corinthians 212 to 13, Paul writes, Now we have
received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is
from God, that we might understand the things freely
given us by God. So how are we going to
understand things freely given to us?
Well, it's the Spirit of God that's going to help us
understand. And we impart this in words not
taught by human wisdom, but taught by the Spirit,
interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.
So what Paul is saying, the Holy Spirit reveals things to us.
He teaches us. He's our Paraclete to us.
And we're open and eager to have that type of relationship where
you wake up and you start. You can start your day saying,
Holy Spirit, teach me today. You can do this as a student in
school, you can do this as a parent, whatever job you have,
However you're growing in the Lord.
You could say Holy Spirit, I I relate to you.
I look to you to be my teacher, but I'm also going to be in
community with other Christians and that's what you're doing
this morning. We're we're teaching and
learning in context of church family and community on Hebrews
10 in the context of this. Watch what it said there.
Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering,
for he who promised is faithful. And let us consider how to stir
one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet
together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one
another, and all the more as you see the day drawing near.
What you find here is that even in the early church, you're
getting the idea that there were some Christians who said, Oh, I
don't need to meet together with other Christians, I just need
the Holy Spirit. Well, it's just me and Jesus, me
and the Holy Spirit. I don't need to grow.
Just discouraging this choir this morning you're in church
and you're here to worship. And we had such a profound time
with just worshiping Jesus this morning and now you're open to
learning. So as I teach my my hope is that
you will get it and that you will grow in your understanding
of what the Holy Spirit is like his attributes.
And This is why I'm going to skip ahead of my notes here.
But This is why often when when teachers are teaching, maybe
you've seen this even in your own life.
Maybe you've you've shared some profound.
This and this and this and this and this.
I don't correct them and say, oh, I didn't say that.
I just go, man, the Holy Spirit must have been teaching you
that. The Holy Spirit was showing you
that. I can't take credit for it was
me, right? The Holy Spirit was teaching in
that moment. And that could happen in the
context of Christians sharing truths with each other.
The Holy Spirit is our teacher. And then in Colossians 3, Paul
writes and he says, And let the peace of Christ rule in your
hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body, and be
thankful, and let the word of Christ dwell in you richly,
teaching and admonishing one another and all wisdom, singing
psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your
hearts to God. Now today when Chase was doing
announcements, we've got all these studies coming up, teen,
teen women, teen men, Bible studies we're having she's doing
a Bible study. Why are we doing all of these
studies? Because we're trying to follow
what Paul says in the book of Colossians that teach one
another. And so in our church, we have
our our children in Sunday school right now.
They're being taught the truths of God and we'll have our fifth
and 6th graders in high school and junior high upstairs.
So we want teaching God's Word to be a really high value at our
church, knowing that the Holy Spirit is our teacher.
But he teaches through people, being in community with one
another. So we are to teach and admonish
one another. And we see that in the early
church in Acts chapter 2, it says, and they devoted
themselves to the apostles teaching and the fellowship, to
breaking of bread and the prayers.
So an early value in the church in Acts was a church gathering
together and teaching, focusing on the teaching of God's Word.
So the Holy Spirit is our ultimate teacher, but he's going
to use us in community to learn and grow.
So a balanced approach is that we trust the Holy Spirit to be
our ultimate teacher and then we teach each other.
Now, John 1426, Jesus says to his disciples, when he says all
ask the Father and he'll send the player Cletos.
He says, he continues and says, and bring to your remembrance
all that I have said to you. So another thing that the Holy
Spirit is going to do is the Holy Spirit is going to be a
reminder. Now this is a very interesting
point about who the Holy Spirit is because watch what happens
when the writers of the Gospels write the words of Jesus and the
stories of Jesus. How did they remember so well,
right? Matthew writes out like four or
five chapters long, the Sermon on the Mount.
How does he remember so well the words that Jesus said?
Well, Jesus said the Holy Spirit will remind you of all that I've
said to you. So here's what we know.
When you read Scripture, understand that the accounts
that the gospel writers write, they write them so well because
they're inspired and reminded by the Holy Spirit.
Now in first Peter 221 to build more on this idea, Peter says,
for no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but
men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy
Spirit. So here Peter saying, even in
the Old Testament it was. We give credit and honor and
worship to the Holy Spirit in that way.
Now, when we think about the Holy Spirit being a reminder,
could you use some help with your memory?
Well, the Holy Spirit is a reminder, according.
He will. We will.
Very good. You know the song also.
OK, so I started singing along with my sons.
Rock You, Rock You. And my sons were amazing.
They were like, dad, how do you know this song?
And I said, well, you know who sings it, right?
And I was about to teach. 1526 he says, But when the
helper comes, the paracletos 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, and you will also bear
witness because you have been with me from the beginning.
So when we're looking at attributes about the Holy
Spirit, another attribute is that the Holy Spirit bears
witness or testifies about Jesus.
And then Jesus is saying you, you're going to do the same.
You really filled, the Holy Spirit's going to be poured out
on you and you are going to bear witness about who I am.
And this should be the life of a follower of Jesus.
Our lives should bear witness to the glory and the love and the
salvation that comes from Jesus. And Jesus saying that the Holy
Spirit's going to point to me and you, you are going to point
to me. Also, Jesus prophecies in a way
in Acts 18, before he ascends into heaven, after he's been
crucified and buried and resurrected, he says, but you
will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and
you will be my witness. You will bear witness of me in
Jerusalem and in Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the
earth. So the Holy Spirit comes to
empower us to bear witness. Maybe that's a prayer that you
want to add to. Sometimes people are wondering,
what do I pray? What do I say to God?
How do I talk to God? Well, you can thank the Holy
Spirit and pray to the Holy Spirit to say, Holy Spirit, help
me bear witness. Help my life to bear witness to
who Jesus is. Let me be like the Holy Spirit
pointing to Jesus. This is the flow of the
Christian life. Now the next time that Jesus
mentions the Helper, this is John 16, seven.
So it's one long discourse that John captures and Jesus says,
nevertheless, I tell you the truth is 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 the Holy Spirit, when you think about, OK, the attributes
of the Holy Spirit, well, the next one would be that the Holy
Spirit is for our advantage. And that could sound selfish,
but this is what Jesus is saying.
Jesus is saying it's better for you, it's for your advantage
because when the Holy Spirit comes, the Holy Spirit is going
to be in all believers all over the world.
And remember, Jesus is his ministry and his life.
When he put on human skin, He is, He is unique to one place
and moment in time. So Jesus is saying the Holy
Spirit's going to come and it's better for you because the Holy
Spirit can dwell and all who believe Jesus says I tell you
the truth. Whenever Jesus says, you know, I
tell you the truth. Everything Jesus said was true,
of course. But when Jesus says I tell you
the truth, it's him saying, hey, this is even more true than all
the other true stuff I say. This is true.
Sometimes I'll start a story by saying not all my true stories
are true, but this is a true, true story, right?
Jesus is kind of saying the same thing.
He's saying that I tell you the truth.
It's for your advantage. Now we've talked about in weeks
past, I just remind you that the Holy Spirit was dwelling in the
Old Testament in tents and tabernacles and temples.
But now according to the New Testament, go back and listen to
the message from the second week.
Now according to the New Testament, we are the temple and
Tabernacle of the Holy Spirit. So he it is for our advantage
because now the Holy Spirit according to Jesus dwells in us.
Now the last time that John uses the term paracletos is in his
letter that is found towards the end of the Old Testament or New
Testament. It's first John 2 verse 1.
So this is much later in John's life and watch how he uses the
word here. He says, my little children, I'm
writing these things to you so that you may not sin, but if
anyone does sin, we have an advocate, a paracletos with the
Father, Jesus Christ, the righteous.
So John had called the Holy Spirit the paracletos, but on
this occasion now he's referencing Jesus in this way
and he's saying, I'm writing to you these things because I want
you to escape sin. And, and what will help you
escaping sin, knowing that Jesus in heaven now is our paracletos.
He's our advocate in this occasion.
The ESV translators don't say he's our helper.
They say he's our advocate. He's advocating with us like
maybe an attorney would do before God.
He's reminding God of the sacrifice, the Father God.
He's reminding the Father about the forgiveness that has been
given to us through the cross and the burial and the
resurrection. Now we relate to Jesus as if
he's advocating with the Father for our forgiveness and
acceptance. So when we worship and we pray,
we can thank God. This morning I intentionally
knowing that this is where I was going, I intentionally this
morning sing a lot of songs about who Jesus is.
We sang All hail King Jesus, we saying I believe in the
resurrection. Every song was kind of this
really thematic song in the mighty name of Jesus.
OK, so I wanted to tie the message here to the songs that
we sang because we've been singing songs on the weekends
that kind of help us relate to the Holy Spirit.
But here I'm ending with the Holy Spirit points to Jesus.
And how do we relate to the Holy Spirit?
What we relate by knowing the attributes of the Holy Spirit.
And then we remember, where is Jesus now again?
He's in heaven with the Father and he will return.
There will be a second coming of Jesus and when he comes back, he
will rule and reign forever. Then we will be with him in all
of his glory. But for now, in the time that
we're in the dispensation, it's the Holy Spirit that being God
that we relate to and grow to know.
So when we worship and pray, we can thank God the Father, the
Son, and the Holy Spirit for the attributes that have been
revealed to us. So let me close with a couple
questions, and these are in your notes that encourage you to take
them home with you and maybe wrestle through these in the
next couple days. How well do you know the Holy
Spirit and how well do you know His attributes?
How well you know His attributes will determine your relationship
with Him. And then I would say, can you
pray practical prayers of thanks, thanking and receiving
God for these attributes that are revealed to us?
And then I would say, do you live a life where you're aware
that the Holy Spirit and are you grateful for it?
That Jesus and the Holy Spirit, they are our helpers, our para
cletos. When we live aware of that, then
it takes us to different depths in our relationship with Jesus.
It's just not earning, you know, getting salvation through the
cross of Jesus and having, you know, a ticket of sorts to
heaven eternally. No, it's far more than that.
The life that we live now can be lived in light of the attributes
of the Holy Spirit and relationship that we can have
with him. Let me pray for us.
God. I thank you again.
I'm just in awe and amazed at how Scripture connects these
ideas. I love finding those moments
when it's like, Oh yeah, John and his letter was using the
same word that he used in the Gospel story that he wrote.
And I love seeing the Old Testament in Psalms talking
about you being our helper God, and other moments in the letters
where it's all connected. And it's such that it shows even
more the validity and the inspiration of the word of God,
your word God. And so we pray that you would
grow us in our relationship with the Holy Spirit in the weeks to
come. Even the more let us have Great
Expectations on what else we can learn and grow as we continue to
study the Holy Spirit in Jesus name.
Now before we go quickly, I just want to give an invitation to
anyone here who might have been wrestling with the claims of
Christianity, and yet you've not taken that step yet to say I
want to surrender my life to Christ.
And what does that take? It doesn't take a great
understanding necessarily of all of our creeds or our beliefs,
but it does take an understanding that God wants
relationship with you. And in order to have a
relationship with you, God himself put on human skin as
Jesus and came to live a perfect life and then to offer himself
as a sacrifice to pay for our sin that separated us from God.
So Jesus is crucified, that pays the penalty for our sin.
Then he's buried and then he's resurrected.
And in in his resurrection, it defeats death and sin and hell
in the grave. And so now we can have
relationship with God through what Jesus did on the cross when
he was buried and when he was crucified.
And so the invitation is for you to say, Jesus, I surrender the
lordship of my life to you. I want to follow after you.
And then the next step is baptism, which we will have
coming up here in the next couple months.
But in the meantime, you just say, Jesus, I want to receive
you as my Savior. I want to turn for my own sin,
and I want to receive your salvation and forgiveness.
And you can receive that this morning.
So I want to pray with you. And then I encourage you to tell
somebody, tell a friend, a family member, you could tell
me. You can e-mail me and say, hey,
I've made this decision and this commitment to become a follower
of Jesus and let me pray. And then I would encourage you
to echo this prayer that I pray as a acceptance of the salvation
of Jesus. You can pray.
Heavenly Father, I come to you in the name of Jesus.
And Jesus, I thank you that you offered yourself as a pen.
You took my penalty, You paid for my sin and the sin of all
those who want to receive you. So I surrendered the lordship of
my life to you. And I say I want relationship
with you. And when I say that, it means
that the Holy Spirit will come and dwell in me.
So Holy Spirit, I welcome you and I receive you and Jesus I
turn away from my own sin and selfishness and I say I want to
grow in your ways. I want to grow in relationship
and love with you. So come and reign in my life.
I pray I receive you as my Savior.
Thank you for eternity that I get starting now.
It doesn't have to just wait. Eternal life doesn't start after
we die. Instead it starts now on us.
You put eternal life in us now. Fulfillment, purpose and
meaning. So we received that in Jesus
name and everyone together said Amen and Amen.
Thank you for being here today so much.
Remember, if you're available to come back after the second
service and assist us in putting some decorations away, that
would be great. Otherwise, we will see you
ladies on Wednesday night for your gathering.
And before you go, if you'll stand with me, I want to say a
blessing over you, if you will prepare your heart to receive
this blessing. And now may the Lord bless you
and keep you, and may he make his face to shine upon you.
And may the joy of the Lord that is unspeakable and full of
glory, may it abound to you. And may the peace of God that
passes all understanding, may it surprise you in the midst of all
of the challenges that life brings.
And then may the mercies of the Lord, in other words, the
forgiveness of God, that is new every morning.
May it be especially new to you now in your mornings to come.
And now may the Lord Jesus Christ guard your heart and your
mind, your salt, and you are light.
Go now and be salt and light unto the world.
You are blessed. We'll see you soon.