Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:04 Good morning. Good morning, good morning. My name's Michael Fueling. I'm the lead pastor here at the Village Church and, uh, we are starting a new series today. It's three weeks on the Holy Spirit, and we're gonna be tracking through John chapters 14 to 16. And I just, I just wanna say there is so much to say about God, the Holy Spirit in scripture. So one of the challenges of this series is we're, we're gonna focus on teaching the three major facts, truths, encouragement that Jesus teaches about the Holy Spirit in John 14 to 16. So I just wanna acknowledge on the front end, this is not gonna be exhaustive, but um, before Jesus is going to be killed, these are kinda the three big things that he wants to train them in. Uh, they are this, the Holy Spirit helps Christians know truth. In reality, we're gonna dig into that next week.
Speaker 1 00:00:53 In two weeks the Holy Spirit helps Christians by convicting of sin and righteousness. That'll be two weeks. And then today the Holy Spirit helps Christians bring glory to Jesus. Now, lemme tell you, I'm gonna structure this be a little bit different than usual. I'm gonna preach two sermons in one today, it's gonna be two short sermons I heard over there like, oh yeah, sure, fueling right? That's what's gonna happen. So at the, at the end of it, you can tell me if in fact there really were two shorter sermons. I do have a clock. I'm watching it, it watches me, it hunts me down the entire sermon. So just know I am somewhat aware it's true. All right? Now there, there are spiritual realities that Christians, this is sermon number one by the way. Uh, there are spiritual realities that we as Christians, we take for granted because we are so used to the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
Speaker 1 00:01:50 For example, have you noticed you haven't been possessed by a demonn? Anyone? Thank you Holy Spirit protection. Right? Have you, have you found yourself struggling with your own sin? Not just because it makes your life harder, but because you are concerned about what God thinks. That God impulse, that's, that is uniquely the Holy Spirit. Have you noticed great ideas get put into your mind and your heart? And maybe, maybe for a moment you are attempted to think you're really smart and novel and then you realize you actually have no idea where that great idea came from? Thank you, holy Spirit. When you read the Bible, do you understand not just the words, but more and more as you get into it? Are you, are you beginning to understand deeper spiritual truths when you read the Bible, hear sermons? Do you find yourself getting convicted of sin? Are there struggles that come to mind? And then you realize, I don't think God is pleased with this part of my life or this struggle in my life. I want to please him. Do you ever have that impulse or experience? That's not the conscience, that's the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1 00:03:18 When you, when you hear the gospel or remember your testimony, are there, are there times when you were just filled with gratitude? I, I get it, it's not every single time, but are there just times when it just hits you and you're like, thank you God for saving me. That's it's the Holy Spirit. You know, that uneasiness you feel when someone gets the gospel wrong? That's the Holy Spirit. You know that feeling of protectiveness that you have when other Christians make Jesus look really dumb or scientists get on TV and they start saying ridiculous things about what, you know, the Bible doesn't teach and they make Jesus look like just another mythological figure in the long line of gods and goddess and mythology. You know, that feeling of protectiveness and like almost like that's the Holy Spirit. You know when you're about to sin, some of you're like, I can't relate.
Speaker 1 00:04:13 Okay, whatever <laugh>, you know the voice, you have to quiet before you do it. The voice that says this does not please God, that's the Holy Spirit. Some of us are so used to the Holy Spirit that we assume these are normal human experiences. And I want to tell you, they are not everyone alive, Christian or non-Christian. You have a conscience and the conscience is a gift from God developed by culture and your parents and your family. And it does reign you in from being your worst possible self for sure, right? It's like this voice that says, don't do that. You don't know why the Holy Spirit is fundamentally different than the conscience. Well, we're talking about our Holy Spirit experiences given to those who trust in Christ. For those, for those of you who came to Christ a little bit later in life, remember what conviction of sin did not feel like before you trusted in Christ.
Speaker 1 00:05:16 Compare the differences between your life now and what your life was like before Christ. And you're gonna start to recognize the presence of the Holy Spirit in quiet places, but we just take them for granted and all the more, this is why Jesus gives the Holy Spirit a very special name. And in John 14 to 16, it's the most consistent name that he uses to refer to the Holy Spirit. And it is the helper. The helper is a name, uh, that comes from a Greek word perle. Para cleat is actually two Greek words that come together. The first is kleo, which is to call and then para, which means alongside of. And so literally it's somebody called to come alongside for support. And Jesus makes it explicitly clear multiple times in the book of John and elsewhere that the Holy Spirit is sent by Jesus, God the Son and God the Father, to every person who believes in him to come alongside of you 24 7 365 for the rest of your life.
Speaker 1 00:06:21 The moment you trust in Christ, everywhere you go there he is supporting, helping, advocating, fighting for you forever. You can't get rid of him. Now, some of us don't say a amen. Kick your spouse when I say this. Please, some of us have become pros at quenching the Spirit. Got it. But have you ever noticed the spirit is not content to be quenched for too long you've ever noticed like we can quench him and then he is like, I'm still here. Pay attention to me quench. So I want you to see in, in John 14 through 16, just how frequently Jesus uses the, the term the helper. Uh, and John 14, verse 16, he says, I will ask the father and he will give you another helper to be with you. I love this forever. And who's the first helper? Jesus. And he says, I'm gonna go away.
Speaker 1 00:07:10 I'm gonna give you another helper, John 1426. He says, but the helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring, do you remembrance, all that I have said to you, John 15, verse 26. But 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. John chapter 16, verse seven. Nevertheless, I tell you the truth, it is to your advantage that I go away. If I do not go away, the helper will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you. This is really confusing for the disciples because whenever they've needed help, who do they go to? They go to Jesus. And now he's saying, you're not gonna be able to come directly to me and talk to my physical body.
Speaker 1 00:08:06 I am leaving you. And, and I think this is actually genius. What they don't understand is that having Jesus bodily, physically present in one place at one time is not scalable. If he is going to minister to every single human who is going to believe in him personally, do you have undivided access to God? Thank you Holy Spirit. And, and one of the things that we see about Jesus is that he is bodily localized. Jesus is not omnipresent. The Holy Spirit is more omnipresent. It's all God. So God is omnipresent, but Jesus is God in physical form, localized. And right here today, Jesus is sitting at the right hand of God, the Father and the spirit of Christ is on this earth dwelling and working in the body of believers. So Jesus understood something that these disciples could not quite understand. Look, if, if I just stay here physically, this doesn't scale to become a global faith where every single person on the planet gets individualized access, help attention to me personally.
Speaker 1 00:09:20 So he keeps telling them, I'm going away. You cannot come with me, but I'm gonna be helping you in different ways every single day. I will make sure that you have everything that you need to do, everything I am asking you to do. So helper in English is actually translated, um, a few different ways that you may be familiar with if you've read a little bit of scripture. Uh, helper is translated by the New Testament, uh, in the New Testament by this word, advocate. Exact same Greek word, first John chapter two, verse one says, but if anybody does sin, which we do, we have an advocate with the Father Jesus Christ, the righteous. It's interesting, it's not just the Holy Spirit who has our helper. He helps us here on earth. But Jesus, like a lawyer, is advocating and defending us in heaven against all of the false lies and accusations of the evil one.
Speaker 1 00:10:11 The blood of Christ covers us and gives us full access to God The Father. Jesus is helping in heaven at the right hand of God and the Holy Spirit is helping in us. Helpers also translated in the New Testament by the word comforter. I'm, I'm sure you're familiar with this passage, but five times the word comfort or comforter is used. And this is the peric cleat word group. Let's read this. Bless bee the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. The father of mercy is the God of all comfort or help who comforts or helps us in all of our affliction so that we may be able to help or comfort those who are in any affliction with the help or comfort with which we ourselves are help or comforted by God. And how does God do this? Through the personal ministry of the Holy Spirit, God, the third person of the Trinity who dwells in every single person, child or adult who has trusted in Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit's role, his uniquely helping our mind, our heart, our soul from the inside.
Speaker 1 00:11:18 So open up your Bibles, John 14, let's set some context. Jesus is about to be arrested teaching his disciples some of the most important lessons they are going to learn that is gonna sustain them for the rest of their lives until they themselves are killed. And I, we have to teach 'em about the Holy Spirit. And I, and I need you to understand something about the disciples in this teaching. And we're gonna probably empathize quite a bit in this message with, with their perspective. They're going to hear quite a bit about the Holy Spirit, but they have no experiential category for how all this is gonna work. So like when I preach on the Holy Spirit to non-Christians, the ones who are, we'll just say, I'm aware that they're not a Christian. They're like, that's just super weird. That all feels like gobbly and gibberish.
Speaker 1 00:12:06 There's no way that having the Holy Spirit actually does make a measurable change in the way you think, the way you see God and your heart and all that. It doesn't make sense cuz they've never experienced it. And and, and sometimes what we find is when we teach 'em the Holy Spirit, there are people who thought they were Christians because they went to church cause they were really good or whatever else. And they realize when you talk about the Holy Spirit, I don't get what you are talking about that feels really distant and foreign to me. I wonder if I am in the category of what Jesus calls false or fake Christians. And I usually look at them and say, well, have you personally come to God and ask them to save you from your sins? And almost always they say no. Fyi, almost always.
Speaker 1 00:12:44 So when, when the disciples are hearing this teaching and the Holy Spirit, this is largely going to be confusing and nonsensical to them until later. But I I also need you to understand that, that the teaching of the Holy Spirit is very controversial, not for us, but it's very controversial for a first century Jew because of what the Old Testament teaches about the implications of when the Holy Spirit comes. The best way that I could help you understand this is that in their theology, the coming of the Holy Spirit was an enormous milestone event in the global historical plan of God that when the Holy Spirit comes, it would be accompanied by the Messiah and with the Holy Spirit, it is an inauguration of a whole new world order and way of relating to God. So what Jesus is actually implying here is things are about to change and it's gonna be enormous in scope.
Speaker 1 00:13:49 Uh, it's as significant for them as the second coming of Christ for us. And so we look forward to this is next. Like Jesus, come back, let's end this whole thing. Right? That's what we're looking forward to. And we know what comes after that, don't we? And and so for them, this is that monumental and they're having a hard time understanding how Jesus can be dead and the Holy Spirit and the Messiah. But I wanna share with you, the coming of the Holy Spirit has signified three monumental changes for these Jewish people. Number one, the coming of the Holy Spirit signified the end of the old covenant. If you think about all the laws, rules, et cetera, and the Old Testament bef like before Jesus, um, all of that is part of the old covenant. It's their old constitution. It's the rules. It's the way that they interface and interact with God.
Speaker 1 00:14:40 And, and and what's interesting about the Old Covenant or the Old Testament is that it has a built-in expiration date. In fact, there are multiple passages that look forward to, there will become a time when there was a new covenant, meaning the old, old one, the current one and the Old Testament, it's gonna go away. And so it had a built in expiration date. All those laws, they were never created and documented to be forever. And the covenant itself identified this. And one of the ways that you would know that this covenant's done, and there's gonna be a new one, is the Holy Spirit when moved from out of the temple and it would fill all of the people and there would be a new way that God's people and God would relate to each other on the earth. I I want you to imagine <laugh>, please don't too much.
Speaker 1 00:15:21 But the President were to say the Constitution has been revoked. It was good, fulfilled his purpose, but now there's a new constitution, a new law for a new era. How would you respond? Lose your ever love in mind there'd be revolution, <laugh>. Now you understand what it feels like when Jesus says there's gonna be a new covenant. And when he starts talking about the Holy Spirit, they go, that means a new order completely. This is a big deal. The second monumental change that would accompany the coming of the Holy Spirit is it would mark the beginning of not just the end of another covenant, but a the beginning of a new covenant area. Era where the Holy Spirit himself would dwell in every believer. This is utterly confusing because yeah, they can read about that in the prophets, but like how do you explain the presence of the Holy Spirit and a believer to somebody who has no category for that.
Speaker 1 00:16:23 Third, it would mark the inauguration of the Messiahs kingdom on earth where he would rain from Israel and global peace would ensue under his leadership. These are big shifts. This is the subtext of Jesus saying the Holy Spirit's coming. Do you see how this lands like a ton of bricks? Do you see why they might be troubled or upset or confused? And here's the bigger question. Jesus keeps talking about, I'm dying. They're gonna kill me. And in their brain they're like, how can you inaugurate a brand new covenant rule over the entire world as a messiah? Fulfill all the Old Testament props and be dead? You and I know the answer, right? It's called resurrection, resurrection, duh. They can't even wrap their brains around this. Look at their response and you can tell by what Jesus says how they're feeling in John 1427, peace, chill out. Shalom, guys, relax. I hear all your thoughts. I get it. I understand. I, I see all the theological implications, the confusion. You don't even know what I'm talking about. Like I get it. Peace I leave you. My peace I give to you not as the world gives. Do I give it to you? Let not your hearts be troubled. Why does Jesus say that? Because they're not at peace and their hearts are troubled, neither let them be afraid. Can you just put yourself in these, these kids' shoes?
Speaker 1 00:18:08 My helper, my God, the one I've committed my life to is not making any sense whatsoever. He's going away. He's saying things that just confuse me utterly. I don't know what life looks like without him. Jesus says I'm going to die. I imagine their response. But Jesus, you are the Messiah. Like I imagine them being like you dummy. How can you rule if you're dead? And he's like, oh, for the love of God on the third day I'm going to rise again. Remember that? It's like they just can't imagine it. Jesus says the Holy Spirit is coming and I, and he will dwell in you, but but Jesus, the coming of the Holy Spirit means Israel's gonna rule the whole world. How? How can that happen if you are dead? Jesus says it's, it's better that I go, but Jesus, literally you are the one we go to when we need help.
Speaker 1 00:19:06 And they, they can't understand a scalable plan. Yeah, but everybody needs help. And I'm localized in one place at one time. Jesus says, the world is going to hate you. And then they probably think in their hearts or say, but, but Jesus, I thought the coming of the Holy Spirit was gonna mark the Messianic age where you were gonna rule the entire world once now and forever in peace. Why is there gonna be war for for a moment? Can you just suspend everything you know and empathize with their utter confusion, the trouble in their hearts, the turmoil and the fear. In verse 28, Jesus goes on, he says, you heard me say to you, I'm going away and I will come to you. It's interesting because he says the holy Spirit's gonna come and now he says, I'm gonna come to you. And he actually affiliates himself with the spirit, which is why the Bible calls it the Spirit of Christ.
Speaker 1 00:20:07 If you loved me, you would've rejoiced because I'm going to the Father. For the Father is greater than I. Verse 29. And now I have told you before it takes place so that when it does take place, you may believe I get it. No, it doesn make sense, but when it does make sense, you're gonna go, oh, that's smart. I should have trusted you. Yeah. Verse 30, I will no longer talk with you much because in a couple hours he's gonna be arrested and the next day he is gonna be killed. But listen to this, for the ruler of this world is coming and he has no claim on me, they had no category for what Jesus is talking about. I appreciate that when we read these, knowing what we know now, we're like, oh yeah, it's so obvious it wasn't obvious to them. Let me, let me translate this.
Speaker 1 00:21:07 Knowing what we know now, disciples, when I leave two spirits are coming into the world. The first is God, the Holy Spirit, my spirit. He will help you. He will support you. He will advocate for you. He will comfort you. He will be your paraic lead. Second, the demonic spirit, Satan himself, I want you to remember he has no claim on me and he has no claim on you. I'm about to disarm him. He is not going to take it well, he will take it out on you, but don't worry, you have the Holy Spirit and these two spirits will wage war and the battleground will be on earth. Phil's church, the Holy Spirit and this dark, crazy world is our ever present helper inside of us working on us, supporting us, helping us, so that there is never something that God calls you to or asks you to do, that he will not champion you, support you, and help you. End of sermon one, sermon two, jump head to John 1614.
Speaker 1 00:22:36 He for words, he will glorify me. God is Trinity one God, three persons. Good luck on figuring that one out no more, no mortal man on earth has been able to wrap their brain around how we humans work with body and soul, let alone how they triun, eternal infinite God, bigger than anything we could possibly imagine could work. But each member of the Trinity has its role. And so the Father and the Holy Spirit are both obsessed with glorifying Jesus and helping us do the same. So here, here's what Jesus is saying In John 1614, the Holy Spirit, when he comes and he dwells inside of you, he will make much of me the Holy Spirit in you will point your heart to me. The Holy Spirit will push you and compel you and actually just change you and make it so that you want to worship and adore me. The Holy Spirit will make you more like me, but not just on the outside behavior modification. It's gonna be from the inner person. You inherently essentially are going to become a different person with all of your personality, but you're gonna become very different, almost unrecognizable the longer He's into you because he's gonna make you more like me. The Holy Spirit will put my name and my gospel and your heart and your mouth and you will love it.
Speaker 1 00:24:04 So Jesus taught that two spirits would be competing in this new covenant Holy Spirit era. Both spirits will be obsessed with Jesus, but in very different ways. The demonic spirit of the world is obsessively anti Christ. The demonic spirit of the world is obsessed with destroying everything the heart of Jesus holds. Dear. Why does he want to destroy the family? Because Jesus loves it. Why does he want to destroy women? Because Jesus loves women. Why does he wanna destroy masculinity? Because Jesus loves it. Why does he love abortion? Because Jesus loves babies. Everything Jesus loves the demonic realm is anti Christ. And although, although they know they are on their way and they are damned to hell, they will ruin as much as they can until that day comes. But the Holy Spirit, God himself is obsessed with the exact opposite. He is obsessed with building everything Jesus loves.
Speaker 1 00:25:13 He's obsessed with taking the people of God and making us more like Christ and compelling us to live for Christ and compelling our hearts to want to glorify God as much as possible. Now, have you ever wondered why? If the Holy Spirit is fully God, why in the Scriptures isn't there a huge emphasis on glorifying the Holy Spirit? Have you ever noticed that when you read the New Testament, it is like the Father and the Spirit are obsessed with lifting, hide the name of Jesus. Here's kinda how it works. God, the Father sends the Spirit, the Spirit glorifies Jesus. And Jesus glorifies the Father, but the Father glorifies Jesus. Jesus glorifies the Father. The Father sends the Spirit. The Spirit glorifies Jesus. It's like this big awesome community of giving glory, but it's all seemingly centered on Jesus Christ. To give glory to Jesus is to give glory to the Father, which is to give glory to the Spirit.
Speaker 1 00:26:12 Now, can we give glory to the Holy Spirit? Yeah. Can you give glory to the Father? Yeah, but there's this unusual New Testament, new covenant emphasis on giving glory to Jesus. So in order to understand this, we're gonna do just a little bit of of training. We need to understand what it means when the Bible talks about the glorification of Jesus, you're gonna wanna take notes or take pictures if you've never heard this before, four facts about Jesus' glorification. Number one, I think this will help make sense of all the funny little things that Jesus says. The Holy Spirit cannot come until Jesus is glorified. Why? Because that's the plan put out very simple. Like we were we like in our preaching prep, we were wrestling. Well, couldn't couldn't Jesus exist on the earth and the Holy Spirit at the ta same time totally could have.
Speaker 1 00:27:09 And you're gonna understand in just a moment why that wasn't the plan. But few chapters back, John chapter seven, verse 39. Now this he said about the spirit whom he had believed, who whom those who believed in him were to receive for his, yet the spirit had not been given. Why wasn't the spirit given? Because Jesus was not yet glorified. Now rhetorical question, when you think glorified, what does that mean? Because John means something very specific. John chapter 15, verse seven. 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. There is no Holy Spirit for you until Jesus goes away, until Jesus is glorified. What does that mean? And so here's what I want you to understand. The the plan of redemption did not culminate with the resurrection.
Speaker 1 00:28:10 That was huge. Can we agree? Yes, there was more to happen. It culminated with what is called the glorification of Jesus, where after Jesus ascended into heaven, what did he do? He sat down at the right hand of God the Father. That may not mean a lot now, and you may not hear it taught about quite a bit, but this is a monumental moment in the plan of redemption, the cross, the resurrection, the ascension, the glorification. We're gonna explain this more, which brings us to fact number two, Jesus' glorification is an event that happened when he ascended into heaven. Look at Hebrews chapter one, verse three. And and as you're thinking about this, I want you to think about the glory of God when he was a human on earth before the death and resurrection, he looked just like a regular person. But then after the resurrection, he was on earth for about 40 days.
Speaker 1 00:29:12 And you'll notice that there was a little something different about the body of Jesus. And then when you see pictures of him in scripture, like Revelation one, after the ascension, after the glorification of Jesus, he is more glorious than anything you can possibly imagine. There seems to be something that happened with the body, the glory of Jesus Christ from his pre-death and resurrection to his time on the earth after the resurrection to what happened when he ascended into heaven and sat at the right hand of God the Father. Here's what Hebrews one, three says, he Jesus is the radiance of the glory of God, the exact imprint of his nature. And he upholds the universe by the word of his power. He is what? When Hebrews is written and right now the reigning king of kings and Lord of lords, the king of heaven ruling and reigning in all of his glory.
Speaker 1 00:30:00 But watch this, Hebrews one, three goes on after making purifications of for sentence. He sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high. There was a moment where Jesus was glorified and that happened after the ascension. But number three, this gets better. Jesus was glorified by the Father, the spirit angels, Christians because like why does he get all this glory? Because he willingly and successfully bore the father's wrath for sin. I don't know what the conversation was in eternity pass, where the father was like, uh, hey son, do you wanna go die? And the son's like Spirit, do you wanna die? You know, like they agreed to a plan. I have a hunch it was much more simple and unified and they all knew the exact right plan right away because I don't know they're God. But there was some sort of plan and the burden of pain and suffering and redemption landed on the body and the soul of Jesus.
Speaker 1 00:30:57 Luke chapter 24, verse 26, was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and then enter into his glory? When you start listening to Jesus, you start realizing there is a very cohesive, linear, intentional plan. And for him it was incarnation, be born, live a perfect sinful life, start a three year ministry, provoke all the forces of evil out them, ultimately be killed, be raised from the dead ascent into heaven and sit down at the right hand of God the Father. But is that the end of the plan of redemption? No, because he's coming back, is he not? And he's coming back to judge the living and the dead. And when Jesus gets up from his throne at the right hand of God the Father, he's coming back and he will usher in the new heavens and the new earth. I can't wait.
Speaker 1 00:31:53 But number four, Jesus' glorification is accompanied with gifts for his church. And so the Bible has these sporadic passages that talk about the glorification of Jesus. Ephesians four, seven kind of confuses people quite a bit, um, but it's really helpful. He says, therefore it says when he ascended on high, he led a host of captives and he gave gifts to men. And what Paul's picking up on here is there is this practice of ancient kings where they would go fight a battle, destroy their enemies, and they would take prisoners of war captives and they would bring, bring them home usually in chains. And they would march through the city and the people would look at the shamed, humiliated, defeated foes. And the king would bring them back and it wouldn't just come back with the captives. The king would come back with the spoils of war.
Speaker 1 00:32:57 He would come back with gold and different things that were valuable to the people. And if you had the joy of living in the proximity of where the king lived, he would start to distribute the spoils of war. Now, don't get me wrong, and ancient kings took the best of the best for themselves, right? But what they did is they would come back and they would distribute the spoils of war and they would give gifts. And this is the imagery that the captives seem to be the demons. And Satan made a complete mockery of they have been disarmed and they have been shamed. And they are furious because God is making fun of them for what they did, shaming them publicly. And then here's what I love. Ephesians four talks about three kinds of gifts that God distributes to his people. Number one, the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1 00:33:47 This is the first spoil of war because what happens is the king, he marches through the city and he sits on his throne. The war might be over with the, with the cross in the resurrection. But here's what we understand. Until the boys are home, the war's not over until they come home and they sleep in their bed next to their wife and they're with their children. The war's not over. And so he comes home and he marches through the city, he sits on his throne, the glorification of Jesus, and he distributes gifts. Number one, the Holy Spirit, the next gift that he gives. So you read through Ephesians for you'll watch this. Are the leaders filled with the spirit of the church to protect the church his under shepherds in behalf of him? Sacred responsibility, joyful responsibility, the apostles, the prophets, the shepherds, the teachers, the evangelists or the five he identifies.
Speaker 1 00:34:47 And then he gives spiritual gifts to the people. He gives everybody a calling, a thing that when you do it, it bears unusual spiritual fruit. You do these flesh things, you serve somebody, you teach the Bible, you build something up, you maybe you're good with your hands or your head or you're talking or you're serving. And the and. And what God does is he actually grows people spiritually through your physical activities. The spoils of war that we get to savor the Holy Spirit, spirit-filled leaders and spirit gifts that He gives to every single one of us. And the Holy Spirit and your spiritual leaders and the spiritual gifts that you receive when you trust in Christ are all about helping all of us give as much glory and honor to Jesus as humanly possible. Once. So what? Two sermons. One. So what? You're welcome. So easy.
Speaker 1 00:35:43 It is the will of God for your life to glorify Jesus. Okay? Who you are, period. That's it. Get on board. When you came to Christ, everything is now about you bringing glory to Jesus, who gives glory to the Father, who sends the spirit to give more glory to Jesus, to give glory to the Father. And it's this wonderful glory cycle. I'm gonna get very practical again. Every one of these, I'm gonna show you five ways, just practically Christian, you can glorify Jesus. Every one of these is a sermon. So I'm just gonna trust that the Holy Spirit will maybe unpack for you if there's one of these that you need to, to focus on, imitate him. Even if you don't like it, imitate him. This involves obeying him, studying him, acting like him. He says, if you love me, you'll obey my commandments multiple times in John, one of the best ways that we can glorify him is to imitate him.
Speaker 1 00:36:40 Number two, ask the Holy Spirit to help you become like him. Now the Holy Spirit is gonna do that on the inside. You know the areas of your life where you force yourself to obey even though you don't want to. Yes, this is different. This is Holy Spirit, make me want to obey fundamentally change my desires. Number three, be proud of Jesus. He's pretty clear, this is really important to him. If you deny me before men, I'll deny you before my Father, what he's communicating is that public affiliation, which by the way, which is why baptism is so important. Because if you were baptized in the first century, that was a very, very public way of saying, I am now affiliated with Jesus Christ. I am proud of. I'm proud of him, I'm proud of his association. I'm proud of his death. I'm proud of his life.
Speaker 1 00:37:39 I'm proud of his resurrection. I'm proud of his glorification. I am proud of Jesus Christ. Very important. One of the best ways to give God glory is just to be proud that you are a Christian. Sometimes I'm not proud to be associated with other Christians. I can't control what people do with that. I just want people to basically know I'm really proud of Jesus. Number four, speak highly of him. So many people don't even speak of him, but speak highly of him to one another. To people who don't know Jesus. The best way I can say it is he's pretty amazing. And he deserves to be spoken highly of wherever you're at. And number five, worship Him alone. And with believers personal worship. So unbelievably valued. He loves when you, by yourself, glorify Him in your heart, with your, your mind, with your voice, with your words, with your prayers.
Speaker 1 00:38:38 And he loves when the people of God come together and lift high the name of Jesus. He loves it. He loves it because we were made for it. When God designed humans, he made us to come fully alive. When we glorify him individually and together, when we worship him, when you glorify Jesus, you are glorifying God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. And you are agreeing with the Spirit who wants you to give glory to Jesus. And you're agreeing with the Father who says Jesus is the name by which every person, if you wanna be saved, it's gotta be that name. And when you glorify Jesus, he punts all glory up the org chart to the Father <laugh>. It's again, it's a glory cycle to glorify. One is to glorify all of them. Now, if you're here and you're not a Christian, your first step in fulfilling your life's purpose to glorify God is always the same.
Speaker 1 00:39:36 It is not to be a better person. It is not to try harder. It's not to go to church more. It is to personally trust in Jesus as your God and Savior. And so if you're here and you have never ever told him yourself, I believe that you died in the cross for my sins. Jesus. I believe that you were raised from the the dead. I, I believe that I can't be forgiven or saved by being a good person. I need to trust in you. If you have never personally told him you're sorry for your sins and you believed him, you're not saved that this is actually a personal thing that you and I have to do. We don't inherit salvation, we don't get it through osmosis. It is an individualized personal thing. And here's the promise of God. If you trust in Christ, and this is sincere, he will give gifts and it starts with the Holy Spirit, spiritual leaders, spiritual gifts and forgiveness and having, and a billion other things.
Speaker 1 00:40:38 We can go down the line and talk for days. But sermon two over, I love you and I want you to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Now, next two weeks we're gonna talk about personally what this looks like in our, in our lives. But if you leave here and understand this, if it's really the Holy Spirit, it is going to bring much, much glory to Jesus. Amen. Let's pray together. Father love you, thankful for your word, that we don't have to wonder what all of this stuff inside of us is. That seems different than the world when we trust in you, but you've told us it is the Holy Spirit, the helper, the advocate, the comforter, our supporter, our champion who is fighting for us to give you as much G glory as possible. Lord, if there are any ways that maybe your Holy Spirit is prompting each of us individually to repent, to grow, to invest in Lord, overcome our ability to quench your spirit, overcome our anxiety and our fear and everything.
Speaker 1 00:41:42 And it God, I pray even in these moments that you would speak clearly and directly to our hearts, help us and our clearest moments. We want to hear you and we confess, we also want to stifle you because it can be petrifying to listen to you. Not because you are scary, but because we love ourselves so much. And so God, would you just break down our walls? Would you break down our worries, our troubles, our fears? And would you encourage us? Would you support us? Would you help us? Whatever the next right thing is in our life, whatever that thing is that we know we need to figure out or do, would you just do what you do best? Would you help us Holy Spirit? And as we go throughout this week, I pray you would open our eyes to multiple ways that we can give you more glory cuz this is what our souls are made for. And thank you for what we celebrate communion that for all of our failures, the blood of Christ covers those who have trusted in Christ. We love you, we remember, and we praise you, and we glorify you, and we do all of this in Jesus' name, by the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Amen. Amen.
