Holy Spirit Sunday - 7/5/26

What does it mean to be truly seen?

Continuing our Paraclete series, we explore Jesus' encounter with Nathanael in John 1—a moment where a simple statement, "I saw you under the fig tree," reveals the deeply personal way Jesus knows each of us. Just as Jesus saw Nathanael beyond first impressions, the Holy Spirit continues to remind us that we are fully known, fully loved, and never overlooked.

This week's message reflects on the Spirit's role in helping us experience God's presence, not simply understand it. Rather than ending with another sermon point, the gathering concludes with an invitation to listen, reflect, and receive prayer as we make space for the Holy Spirit to encourage, comfort, and speak personally to each of us.

Whether you're curious about listening prayer or simply longing to remember that God sees you, this brief message offers a gentle invitation to slow down and encounter the God who knows your heart.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

All right. So a couple of years ago, as I started my sabbatical, um Clint Myers, who's one of our elders, he uh texted me and just said, Hey, I've got a gift for you. Uh, are you available? And he he came over and he made this pen. So if you don't know, Clint is uh does some word woodworking on the side. That's just a hobby of his. And what was so great about this pen is he bought some wood from the original bench at the University of Michigan. I'm a big University of Michigan fan. He bought a bench and he made it into a pen. So it's a one-of-a-kind gift, it's authenticated. Nobody else has it. I'm incredibly special. Now, all of us probably have these moments where somebody's given us a gift and we feel seen. Or maybe in a moment of sitting with them, and they the way they just listen and and and say, thank you so much for sharing that. And you feel seen. You feel validated. They don't try to fix it, they don't try to drop a word from heaven to be the cure all. They're just with you. Those moments we feel seen and loved. One of the things that we see in the Gospels is that Jesus sees people. He sees them right where they are. And we're gonna look at an example of that this morning from John 1. So if you have a Bible, you can turn there. It'll be up on the screen. We're not gonna do it just yet. Uh, but as you're turning there, just as a reminder, we're uh the second week of a series that we're calling paraclete. Paraclete's a word that Jesus uses to talk about the Holy Spirit. He calls them another paraclete. And the reason that we're doing it is because the Holy Spirit's mysterious to many of us. Uh, but he doesn't have to be all that mysterious. He sustains all of life. Every single person who's alive is being sustained by the Holy Spirit. He's worked in and through God's people throughout biblical history. He is the one who filled, empowered, and led Jesus during his earthly ministry. Even though Jesus is fully God and fully man, he still was filled with and led by and empowered by the Holy Spirit. He is the person of the Godhead who dwells within us. And last week we looked at how easy it is to miss the Holy Spirit because he is so present. Because he does sustain all of creation, and because he dwells within us, sometimes we just we're just not even aware of his presence. You know, as the cliche goes, familiarity breeds contempt. I think we can just could be so overly familiar with the Holy Spirit that we just miss him. So I'm gonna read from John 1, like I said, it's gonna be up on the screen, and then I'm gonna pray for us. All right, John writes, The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, Follow me. Now Philip was from Beth Seda, the city of Andrew and Peter. Philip found Nathaniel and said to him, We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus, son of Joseph, from Nazareth. Nathanael said to him, Can anything good come out of Nazareth? Philip said to him, Come and see. When Jesus saw Nathaniel coming toward him, he said of him, Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit. Nathanael asked him, Where did you get to know me? Jesus answered, I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you. Nathanael replied, Rabbi, you are the Son of God. You are the King of Israel. Jesus answered him, Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these. And he said to him, Very truly I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man. Let's pray. Lord, we know that you see us and know us. As Father, Son, and Spirit, you bring us into your life and allow us to partner with you. Open our hearts to hear and see what you have for us. In Jesus' name. Amen. Well, I'm going to just share a few observations and I'm going to talk about uh what we're going to do this morning, which is going to be a little bit different. So as we see in this passage, this is at a time when Jesus is gathering his disciples. He's calling specific men. It ends up being 12 men to follow him, to spend years with him, doing what he's doing, seeing him, getting getting uh front row seat to his teaching and the ministry that he does, and he empowers them to do the same. And so here, Philip makes this bold proclamation to Nathaniel. He says, We found him about whom Moses in the law and the prophets and also the prophets wrote. Jesus, son of Joseph, from Nazareth. Nathaniel fires back with this funny question. Can anything good come from Nazareth? So Nathanael, he's got some geographical prejudice or rivalry. Because here Nazareth is a small village, and important people only come from important cities.

unknown 5:23

Right?

SPEAKER_00 5:24

If anybody's any worth anything, they come from New York City or LA, Chicago, not Terre Haute. Sorry, no offense. Nathaniel, he still follows Philip. Why? Does he trust him? Does he trust Philip? Maybe he's curious. All right, that's pretty significant. Let's see who this guy is. And then when Jesus first sees Nathaniel, what does he say? Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit. Jesus is doing a play on Jacob and Israel. Jacob in the Old Testament. Jacob means deceiver. He was a deceiver. And so Jesus is saying, You're a true Israelite. There's no deceit in you. Nathanael comes back. Where did you get to know me? Is it disbelief? You think about that. Jesus is calling out something in his heart. They've only just met. And Jesus is speaking about his heart. You are not deceitful. Nathaniel can't believe it. So Jesus says, essentially, here's how I know you. I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you. We don't know what Nathaniel is doing, but with his response, it shows that there's a specific time that Nathaniel knows Jesus is talking about. And so he kind he responds, Rabbi, you are the Son of God. You are the King of Israel. We don't know what Nathaniel was doing. Speculation, maybe he was praying. Maybe he was studying Torah. Maybe he was meditating about the Messiah, the coming Messiah, and wondering what he's going to be like. And am I going to see him in my lifetime? If you've watched the chosen, their interpretation is Nathaniel screwed up royally. He made a huge mistake. So he's sitting, probably wondering what's going to become of his life. So Jesus is saying, You can know that I see your heart because I was able to see you in a specific moment. That's what Jesus is inviting Nathaniel into. And then he then, you know, Nathaniel's response, and Jesus comes back essentially saying, Oh, you think that was cool? You ain't seen nothing yet. Just wait. Jesus saw Nathaniel. Jesus sees you and me. It can be easy for us to forget. It can be easy for us to wonder does he actually ever see me? Does he pay attention? Does he care? And Jesus loves to remind us that he sees us and he knows us. So this morning, we're going to do something a little bit different. Our faith is not merely intellectual, it's not merely experiential, it's not merely emotional. It's all of those. It's all of those things. So in this series that we're doing on the Holy Spirit, we don't want it just to be intellectual. We want for there to for you all to have a moment where you could experience, like Nathaniel, you see me. You know me, Jesus. And so here's what's going to happen. Soon I'm going to dismiss our prayer teams to partner up and to spread around the room. We've got specific prayer teams that we've uh invited to pray this morning. Um and during this time, Michelle's going to come back up and she's going to play. And uh we'll have so we'll have some sort of soaking music playing during this time. Uh we're also going to have some questions up on the screen. There's about nine questions, maybe a little bit more, just for you to kind of reflect on or uh to contemplate. And whatever, if there's one or two that really strike you, just ask the Lord that question and sit and listen for his response. See what he might say to you uh this morning. Uh but what we're gonna also give you an opportunity to do is because these prayer teams are gonna be around the room for you to go up and to get prayer from these teams. And so I'll say it again, but if you've never done this, and I'll I'll explain some things to hopefully help lower any nervousness or anxiety. If you've never done this, go get prayer this morning. If you've done this before, go get prayer this morning. All right. My hope is my encouragement, my invitation is that everybody would at some point get prayer from one of these teams that are gonna be around the room. So this is not gonna be like our normal ministry time. So you're not gonna go up to them and say, here's a specific need that I have. All right, rather, you're gonna go up and they're gonna listen to the Lord on your behalf. So they're like I said, they're all gonna, they're gonna have a name tag, so you'll know uh if they're wearing a name tag, they're official, they're safe, they're authentic, they've been authenticated, deputized uh to do this. Uh they'll introduce themselves, ask you your name if you've never met before or if they've forgotten your name. Uh they'll ask you to then what as the vineyard vernacular assume the position. So you have hands out and close your eyes. And the reason we do that, close our eyes so we're not distracted, and the hands out and open, nothing magical, but there's a connection between our physical body and our inner person. If we're closed off with our hands like this, it closes off internally. Or if we've got our arms folded or or crossed, right? It just puts us in self-protection. So these are safe individuals, just hands, hands open. They'll ask you if they can put a hand on your shoulder. If you're not comfortable with that, you can say no. You're free to say no, and they won't they won't put a hand on you. All right, but they're they'll ask for that first. They'll then they'll ask the Holy Spirit to rest on you and to fill you, and then they're just gonna listen. Listen on your behalf. Now, if it takes a few seconds, don't worry. Right? Because they're wanting to really listen to the Lord, not just speak from themselves.

unknown 11:57

Right?

SPEAKER_00 11:57

And then they're gonna share what they're seeing or hearing. And they may ask if anything makes sense or resonates with you, or if you're feeling anything as they are praying. As I said before, if you've done this before, great. Get prayer. If you've never done this before, take a risk. You go up to one of these teams and and ask them to pray for you. So uh you're allowed to get prayer from more than one team. All right, that's totally illegal. In fact, I strongly encourage it because here's what's gonna happen. If you go to one team on one side of the room and they say some things, then you go to the other side and they say the same things, they don't have walkie-talkies, they're not talking to each other. God's in the room and he's speaking through them. All right. So it'll be great confidence. The Lord wants you to know something that he sees you and and cares deeply. If you're unsure about what they're gonna say, here's where you can take uh solace. They're gonna things that just align with one of three things something to build you up, to encourage you, andor to console you. Because that's the father's heart in this. We're using uh what kind of gets called a gift of prophecy. So they're just that's the heart of the the gift of prophecy to encourage, to comfort, or uh to console and build you up. So it may feel risky, but push through it. This is this is a safe place. So teams, if you would, um why don't you spread around the room, partner up, uh prayer teams. So again, if you are on a prayer team and you have a name tag, um then you are one of these teams. So if you're normally on a ministry team, you don't have a name tag, congratulations. You just get get to go up and receive. Get to receive uh a word this morning. So again, they're gonna be spread out all through the room, not just up front like we normally do, but all around the room. Now, here's a couple of things on how to receive a word. If you have a phone with you, bring it and record what they're saying. Record it. And then after they're done praying, I would encourage you if there's anything, one or two things, maybe more, that really stands out, write it down. Write it down right away. And then later on, go back and listen to it again and write down the things that really stand out to you, that it feels like God's speaking to you directly to you through what they said. So then you discern the word, do you test them? 1 Thessalonians 5 talks about do not despise prophetic utterances, but test them. Test them. Are they consistent with Scripture? Is it consistent with God's character? And if it is, you hold on to it. That's from the Lord. If it's not, you can toss it out. Um, yeah, so again, yeah, just hold on to those things that that really resonate because that's something that the Lord wants to do in your life, and so just that's a thing for you to pray through and ask God uh to bring about. So now if something really stands out to you, you may want to just like debrief with them. Please don't do it right now. Wait till after the service and then come back and share. Actually, it would be great if they say something that's like really spot on. That would be incredibly encouraging, but we just want to make sure everybody who wants to get prayer uh is able to get prayer. So this is not a counseling session or spiritual direction, right? Just an opportunity uh for them to listen to the Lord and to offer things to build you up, encourage you, andor uh console you. So um final instructions. Engage with the scrolling questions. You're free to receive communion again if there's something that that happens through either um contemplating one of these questions or you get prayer and that you just want to celebrate communion. These are the gifts of God for the people of God. There's you're not limited to one time per day. Um feel free to receive that again. So when you're ready, find an open team and receive prayer. Um, if every team is full, stand up close by so that they know that you're waiting to get prayer. Because if nobody's uh looking like they're interested in getting prayer, they may they may pray like longer. So that just gives them a nonverbal cue. So I'll just pray and then um that's how we'll we'll spend our time together. So, Lord, thank you for being with us. Thank you for these teams that are open to listening to you. Uh would you just open their their ears, their hearts, their eyes to receive from you and then to freely give what they've freely received. Thank you for each person who's here this morning. It's no accident that they're here. Uh, so we trust that you want to speak to each person. Um anybody that's feeling nervous, we just ask for peace for them from Jesus and that they would receive a gift from you this morning. Holy Spirit, would you fill this space in Jesus' name? Amen.