SPEAKER_00: Three quick things before we get to the sermon.
SPEAKER_00: First of all, welcome back, Huff family.
SPEAKER_00: Jeanette and kids, it's so good to have you back.
SPEAKER_00: And uh we missed you.
SPEAKER_00: It's good to have you with us this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, happy Father's Day, Dad's, and uh may God continue to grow you as spiritual leaders.
SPEAKER_00: Thirdly, this is Trevor's farewell.
SPEAKER_00: So, Trevor, um, we're gonna say goodbye later.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna have some cake downstairs and we're gonna give you a little send-off after the service, but uh I've had you in mind a lot in the preparation of this sermon, and just uh thank you for the way that you have led us in worship these past eight years.
SPEAKER_00: And so we look to the sermon text.
SPEAKER_00: It's still really, I just can't get out of this sermon series on the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: God just keeps extending it, and that's okay.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna come back to this text next next week, as a matter of fact.
SPEAKER_00: It's it's a short paragraph, but there's so much in here, we're gonna take a couple of weeks to absorb this.
SPEAKER_00: Paul reading to the Romans, verse 12 of chapter 8.
SPEAKER_00: So then, brothers, we are debtors not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh.
SPEAKER_00: For if you live according to the flesh, you will die.
SPEAKER_00: But if by the spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
SPEAKER_00: For all who are led by the spirit of God are sons of God, for you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, Abba, Father.
SPEAKER_00: The Spirit Himself bears witness with our Spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him, in order that we may also be glorified with him.
SPEAKER_00: This is the reading of God's holy and infallible and inerrant word, and so we ask his Spirit to teach us this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Father, even as the Apostle Paul wrote these words to the Romans, we understand that they are just as important for our understanding this day, all these years later.
SPEAKER_00: Spirit of God, would you please do your work in us this morning?
SPEAKER_00: We cannot truly receive or believe or live out these promises unless you do your work in us, O Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And so we invite you, we ask you now.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: So there's so much we could say about this passage.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna leave most of it till next week.
SPEAKER_00: What does it mean to be led by the Holy Spirit?
SPEAKER_00: How does the Holy Spirit actually help us put to death?
SPEAKER_00: The old nature.
SPEAKER_00: How does the Holy Spirit actually teach us how to live out of the gospel?
SPEAKER_00: And we're gonna look more at that next week, but this morning I just really want to simply focus on the prayer that the Holy Spirit alone can teach us to pray and actually pray it, which is Abba, Father.
SPEAKER_00: So, very briefly this morning, we're gonna note that this relationship with the Holy Spirit is personal, it's purposeful, and it's prayerful.
SPEAKER_00: It's so personal.
SPEAKER_00: It really is.
SPEAKER_00: The work of the Holy Spirit in your life is as personal as it will ever get with any person here in any relationship that you have, whether it's your marriage, whether it's your child, whether it's your best friend, it's personal.
SPEAKER_00: It just is.
SPEAKER_00: It's just personal.
SPEAKER_00: Sinclair Ferguson, a great reformed theologian, said the notion that we are children of God, his sons and daughters, is the mainspring of Christian living.
SPEAKER_00: Our sonship is the apex of creation and the goal of redemption.
SPEAKER_00: He's right.
SPEAKER_00: God gave us, this passage tells us two things that God gave us.
SPEAKER_00: He gave us his son, and we find really a parallel text in Galatians chapter 4, verse 6.
SPEAKER_00: Many of you know that as a famous sonship verse.
SPEAKER_00: God sent his son into the world at just the right time.
SPEAKER_00: The son who was born under law, born under a woman, to redeem those who were under law, to redeem us, to take off the shackles.
SPEAKER_00: Calvin said, Jesus did this by taking off the shackles from us, he put them on himself to free us, to redeem us, to buy us back.
SPEAKER_00: But the second great sending in the New Testament that many Christians, many Christians, myself included, really just didn't understand for so much of my life is God not only sent his son into the world to redeem us, but he sent his spirit into the world that we might have the experience, the full rights.
SPEAKER_00: Why is it that most of us are just so much more familiar with the sending of the Son than the sending of the Spirit?
SPEAKER_00: And is one really more important than the other?
SPEAKER_00: I don't think so.
SPEAKER_00: God knew what he was doing when he sent his son to redeem you, to free you, to save you, to forgive you.
SPEAKER_00: But as John Stott said, he sent the son so that you would have the status of sons and daughters, but he sent the spirit so that you would have the experience of it.
SPEAKER_00: That's where it gets so personal.
SPEAKER_00: It gets so personal.
SPEAKER_00: He gave us a new name, he gave us a new legal standing.
SPEAKER_00: God is no longer our enemy.
SPEAKER_00: Sending his son is the legal foundation.
SPEAKER_00: Sending his spirit is the personal delight.
SPEAKER_00: We're no longer slaves.
SPEAKER_00: John Wesley said in his diary, for many years in his life, a very deeply religious man.
SPEAKER_00: He said, For many years I had the I had the faith of a slave.
SPEAKER_00: But it wasn't one until one day at Alders Gate in England that he had an experience where the Holy Spirit now gave him a new faith, new life in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: That's really when he became a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: And that's when he gave him the faith, not of a slave, but of a son.
SPEAKER_00: Has he given that to you?
SPEAKER_00: There is no more intensely personal work that the Holy Spirit wants to do than to give you new life in Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: To take the work of Christ on the cross.
SPEAKER_00: It was Jesus who died, who was crucified on the cross.
SPEAKER_00: It was Jesus who was buried in the ground.
SPEAKER_00: It was Jesus who was raised from the dead on the third day.
SPEAKER_00: And 40 days after his resurrection was raised up into heaven.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is really the first paraclete, if you will.
SPEAKER_00: But he didn't want us to be alone on this earth, so he gave us the second paraclete, which is the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: But the first thing that the Holy Spirit wants to do in your life is to give you new life.
SPEAKER_00: The first thing that the Holy Spirit wants to do in your life is to bring you to Jesus for salvation.
SPEAKER_00: There's no greater work that he does.
SPEAKER_00: Do you have the faith of a daughter, son, or do you still have the faith of a slave?
SPEAKER_00: Are you still trying to serve Christ out of a sense of duty, an unlimited obligation?
SPEAKER_00: Are you still trying to just please God enough?
SPEAKER_00: And with that comes all the fear.
SPEAKER_00: With that comes all the sense of heaviness and duty.
SPEAKER_00: Am I doing enough?
SPEAKER_00: Have I done enough?
SPEAKER_00: But you haven't been set free yet.
SPEAKER_00: If it's all about the duty, and if it's all about the burden, he's waiting for you.
SPEAKER_00: He wants you to come to Christ for salvation.
SPEAKER_00: He wants you to come to Christ to receive a spirit of a child.
SPEAKER_00: What can a child do?
SPEAKER_00: What does a child do?
SPEAKER_00: Not every kid gets to jump on your dad's lap.
SPEAKER_00: Not every kid gets to call you daddy.
SPEAKER_00: Not every kid receives your gentle discipline.
SPEAKER_00: Only your kids in that sense.
SPEAKER_00: But that's true spiritually.
SPEAKER_00: Not everyone in this world, and not necessarily everyone in this room, is a son or a daughter of God.
SPEAKER_00: Has he given you that spirit of sonship?
SPEAKER_00: Do you know that you're forgiven?
SPEAKER_00: Do you have a growing joy in your life?
SPEAKER_00: I've seen that, Trevor.
SPEAKER_00: I've seen a growing joy in your life.
SPEAKER_00: I've seen a growing confidence that you're his son and he's your father.
SPEAKER_00: And because of that, you've grown as a gospel risk taker.
SPEAKER_00: Less and less concerned about what was prepared.
SPEAKER_00: And more and more open to follow the Spirit's leading as you lead us.
SPEAKER_00: That's a son.
SPEAKER_00: Rehearsal is important.
SPEAKER_00: Practice is good, but it never takes the place of the leading of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: And what the Holy Spirit does in your personal life has everything to do with what the Holy Spirit does in the worship leader's life, is what he does in the worship service.
SPEAKER_00: There's such a strong correlation.
SPEAKER_00: And I know you know that.
SPEAKER_00: And you're going to continue to grow in that.
SPEAKER_00: How about you?
SPEAKER_00: What does that look like in your life?
SPEAKER_00: You're not the worship leader at APC.
SPEAKER_00: But you have a calling from God.
SPEAKER_00: Are you leading in fear?
SPEAKER_00: Is it just all about can I do enough?
SPEAKER_00: Am I doing enough?
SPEAKER_00: Are you learning how to live out of a love relationship?
SPEAKER_00: It's personal.
SPEAKER_00: It's personal, and some of us still are really struggling because we just can't seem to get beyond our own view of ourselves and our the way we think of ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: It's just still getting in the way in some ways, and that's really tough.
SPEAKER_00: It's hard when you see yourself a certain way and you can't really come to believe.
SPEAKER_00: What is it that happens in the life of somebody when all of a sudden they start to believe?
SPEAKER_00: They start to believe.
SPEAKER_00: They've had it in their head for years, maybe they've had it in their head for a lifetime, but they start to believe.
SPEAKER_00: You know what I'm talking about?
SPEAKER_00: We've been talking about this the last few weeks.
SPEAKER_00: It's the Holy Spirit that sheds the love of God abroad in your heart.
SPEAKER_00: That doesn't happen just because you keep saying, God loves me, God loves me, God loves me.
SPEAKER_00: That's not the way it works.
SPEAKER_00: You have to read it.
SPEAKER_00: It does come in propositional statements.
SPEAKER_00: You can't just feel it.
SPEAKER_00: You have to believe it.
SPEAKER_00: But for you to really live it out, you need the Holy Spirit to convince you.
SPEAKER_00: He's the one.
SPEAKER_00: I had a counseling session with a couple.
SPEAKER_00: And I've just been thinking about that.
SPEAKER_00: The last, you know, for this sermon, I just thought, okay, let's just take a week, any week.
SPEAKER_00: Let's take this last week.
SPEAKER_00: What has the Holy Spirit been doing in my life?
SPEAKER_00: What has he been doing in other people's lives?
SPEAKER_00: And I was with a couple who've just really been going through a really, really hard time.
SPEAKER_00: And they um they've got a lot on their plate.
SPEAKER_00: And it's really intense.
SPEAKER_00: And we talked about may the God of all hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him.
SPEAKER_00: May the God of all hope, do you need hope?
SPEAKER_00: Most of us do.
SPEAKER_00: May the God of all hope fill you with all joy and peace as you believe in him, as you trust in him, so that you may abound in hope through the power of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Are you struggling, believing God's love for you?
SPEAKER_00: Are you struggling for hope?
SPEAKER_00: Are you struggling for peace?
SPEAKER_00: All these things, only the Spirit can make it believable and grow.
SPEAKER_00: So it changes you.
SPEAKER_00: The purpose of worship is not information, folks, it's transformation.
SPEAKER_00: That's what this is about.
SPEAKER_00: And so much gets in the way.
SPEAKER_00: There's a man that wrote a book, Leading by Naming.
SPEAKER_00: He talks about in India, the nation, the untouchables in India are required by a Hindu law to be given one name and it must be derogatory.
SPEAKER_00: How about that?
SPEAKER_00: Ugly?
SPEAKER_00: That's their name.
SPEAKER_00: Dung?
SPEAKER_00: Stupid?
SPEAKER_00: Imagine the transformation when they discover that in Jesus Christ, Jesus came as the untouchable to make them children.
SPEAKER_00: And that has, he has the power to rename them.
SPEAKER_00: When you become a Christian, you get renamed.
SPEAKER_00: Whatever name you've been giving yourself, sometimes we are the hardest on ourselves, aren't we?
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we are the ones that can't forgive ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we are the ones that can't get out of the shadow of our shame.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we're the ones, whether it's been spoken to us, whether other people have tried to name us, or whether we've named ourselves.
SPEAKER_00: And you can't live like a son or daughter doing that.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus came to give you a new name.
SPEAKER_00: Beloved.
SPEAKER_00: Loved.
SPEAKER_00: Chosen.
SPEAKER_00: Precious.
SPEAKER_00: Are you learning how to live out of your new name?
SPEAKER_00: Only the Holy Spirit can help you do that.
SPEAKER_00: It's so personal.
SPEAKER_00: I think about a couple, another couple this week.
SPEAKER_00: Going through a hard time in their marriage.
SPEAKER_00: By the way, they're not the only ones in this church.
SPEAKER_00: Alright?
SPEAKER_00: Let's be honest.
SPEAKER_00: Marriage is hard.
SPEAKER_00: Life is hard.
SPEAKER_00: And something just happened this week.
SPEAKER_00: Something happened.
SPEAKER_00: Where I think they got a new picture as the Spirit has been at work in them.
SPEAKER_00: They got a new vision for their marriage.
SPEAKER_00: That their marriage is not about just getting along better.
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that sometimes what we settle for?
SPEAKER_00: Boy, and I just wish it was better.
SPEAKER_00: I just wish I was happier.
SPEAKER_00: I just wish that there wasn't so much tension and there wasn't so much fighting in my marriage.
SPEAKER_00: If you just gave me that, that would be enough.
SPEAKER_00: Don't you dare believe that.
SPEAKER_00: You've missed the point of marriage.
SPEAKER_00: The point of a growing, maturing marriage is not to take the pressure off of you, it's to make you look more like Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And that your marriage, your marriage is pointing you to Christ, how much you need a Savior who can give you the love supernaturally to love your spouse.
SPEAKER_00: It's about Christ, not you.
SPEAKER_00: And that may be new to some of us.
SPEAKER_00: I think about a conversation this week with a man, and he's got his own challenges and he's got his own fears.
SPEAKER_00: And just talking about in the Holy Spirit showing up, and I think giving him new boldness to have conversations.
SPEAKER_00: To have new conversations that have just been so hard to be able to have with people close.
SPEAKER_00: Do you struggle with this stuff?
SPEAKER_00: Of course you do.
SPEAKER_00: Are you inviting the Holy Spirit in to replace your fear with faith?
SPEAKER_00: Your timidity with courage.
SPEAKER_00: Is he taking away the bitterness that you have towards certain people?
SPEAKER_00: Is he giving you reconciliation?
SPEAKER_00: Is he giving you faith to believe the promises of God in a new way?
SPEAKER_00: We've talked about that this spring, right?
SPEAKER_00: In the Capitol, the Arise Capital campaign.
SPEAKER_00: What a testimony to the work of the Spirit that so many people in this church finally faced their fears about money and stripped off their ornaments and started to trust God in a new way with their money.
SPEAKER_00: I'll never forget the journey we've been on this year.
SPEAKER_00: It's been powerful.
SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit has so much He wants to give you.
SPEAKER_00: It's personal.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, by the way, this is the way it looks, too.
SPEAKER_00: In the last week and a half, I had I just had to repent to my wife and ask her forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: Because I hurt her with my words.
SPEAKER_00: I hurt her with my words.
SPEAKER_00: And the Holy Spirit convicted me of that.
SPEAKER_00: And the Holy Spirit showed me you need to ask her forgiveness.
SPEAKER_00: Can you do that?
SPEAKER_00: Do you do that in your marriage?
SPEAKER_00: When was the last time?
SPEAKER_00: You went to your spouse and just asked them for forgiveness because you hurt them with your words or your actions.
SPEAKER_00: If you think that this is something that only happens like once every ten years, if you think that this is something that only happens once a year, listen to me, you're not walking in the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: You're just not.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it'd be ridiculous to think that we can live close with people, and this is true with your friendships.
SPEAKER_00: It would be ridiculous to think that we could just coexist, sinners as we are, and not wound each other.
SPEAKER_00: Only the Holy Spirit can open you up and give you the freedom and the honesty to be honest.
SPEAKER_00: It's personal.
SPEAKER_00: So we're out of time to talk about it's purposeful.
SPEAKER_00: We'll talk about that next week.
SPEAKER_00: What the Holy Spirit wants to do.
SPEAKER_00: Let me just give you one example.
SPEAKER_00: We've talked about this for the last five weeks off and on.
SPEAKER_00: When it comes to your evangelism, you're not going to really be much of a gospel witness to others if you're still depending on the training programs and the techniques.
SPEAKER_00: That's just not the way it works.
SPEAKER_00: Let's get good teaching.
SPEAKER_00: I'm all for good teaching.
SPEAKER_00: I'm all for good training.
SPEAKER_00: I've got a lot of that in my life.
SPEAKER_00: But the thing that is most valuable to be a witness for Jesus Christ is the Holy Spirit, causing the love of God to be shed abroad in your heart where you just can't help yourself.
SPEAKER_00: You have to talk about Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: That's the way it works.
SPEAKER_00: And it's prayerful.
SPEAKER_00: Look at the language.
SPEAKER_00: Can you cry out, Abba, Father?
SPEAKER_00: That's really a prayer.
SPEAKER_00: That only the Holy Spirit can make you believe that you're the Father's daughter.
SPEAKER_00: And that the Father loves his daughters.
SPEAKER_00: And the Father sent his spirit so that the Spirit will convince you more that you're his daughter.
SPEAKER_00: I did a wedding yesterday.
SPEAKER_00: Boy, it was great to see the father-daughter dance.
SPEAKER_00: I was just reminded one more time.
SPEAKER_00: You know, of my father-daughter's dances, and it just, there's something about it.
SPEAKER_00: When a father is giving his daughter away to another man and marriage, and there's just that closeness and there's that connection.
SPEAKER_00: And you just, and yesterday it was beautiful to watch.
SPEAKER_00: I was reminded what it's like when the Holy Spirit convinces us to believe.
SPEAKER_00: And we believe.
SPEAKER_00: And we start thinking differently.
SPEAKER_00: We start realizing, wait a minute, that's not my name.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not stupid.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not ugly.
SPEAKER_00: I'm his beloved.
SPEAKER_00: I'm his chosen.
SPEAKER_00: I'm his precious.
SPEAKER_00: Don't ever stop believing that.
SPEAKER_00: It'll change your life if you yield to the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Tim Keller tells a story of an old Puritan.
SPEAKER_00: And this Puritan one day observed a father and son walking along the way.
SPEAKER_00: He was Thomas Goodwin.
SPEAKER_00: And as they were, he was watching this father and son going down the street, suddenly the father swept the son up into his arms and hugged him and kissed him for like a minute.
SPEAKER_00: And then he finally put his son down.
SPEAKER_00: Was the little boy more of a son in the father's arms than he was when he was on the street?
SPEAKER_00: Good question.
SPEAKER_00: Was he?
SPEAKER_00: Was the little boy more the father's son when he was swept up in his daddy's arms and he was being hugged and he was being embraced?
SPEAKER_00: Was he more of a son then than when daddy put him down?
SPEAKER_00: What's the answer, class?
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: He was just as much the son when he was put down as when he was swept up.
SPEAKER_00: But I think you know that that little boy felt more like his daddy's beloved when daddy swept him up into his arms and twirled him around and hugged him and gave him kisses.
SPEAKER_00: That's what the father does when the spirit is at work.
SPEAKER_00: That's what the father wants to give you.
SPEAKER_00: He wants to give me.
SPEAKER_00: As Trevor and the band come up as we close our service, I want to just highlight some words that my hope is built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: Is that true?
SPEAKER_00: Is your hope built on nothing less than Jesus' blood and righteousness?
SPEAKER_00: I dare not trust the sweetest frame, but I wholly trust in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Christ alone, cornerstone, weak made strong in the Savior's love.
SPEAKER_00: Through the storm, He is Lord of all.
SPEAKER_00: Friends, you've got storms ahead of you.
SPEAKER_00: You've got storms behind you, but you've got more storms ahead of you.
SPEAKER_00: And this has felt a little bit like a storm, but it's okay.
SPEAKER_00: Because Christ is our cornerstone.
SPEAKER_00: No other person is your cornerstone.
SPEAKER_00: When darkness seems to hide his face, I rest on his unchanging grace.
SPEAKER_00: In every high and stormy gale, my anchor holds within the veil.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is your anchor.
SPEAKER_00: No one else.
SPEAKER_00: Nothing else.
SPEAKER_00: He's your cornerstone.
SPEAKER_00: Lord Jesus, thank you for being our cornerstone.
SPEAKER_00: And even now, as we continue to lift your name up in praise and adoration with hearts that explode with joy, because you are our cornerstone.
SPEAKER_00: Hear and receive our praise and our adoration.
SPEAKER_00: Lord Jesus, amen.