Holy Spirit II | Pastor Jake Sweetman

Join us in this powerful message as we continues our new sermon series dedicated to exploring the transformative role of the Holy Spirit in a believer's life. Discover how the Spirit of God is likened to living water, capable of turning wastelands into flourishing gardens. Through insightful teachings from 2 Corinthians 3 and Galatians 5, we delve into the profound journey of becoming more like Jesus—a journey that leads to true freedom, not by self-reliance, but through submission and relationship with the Holy Spirit.

In this message, we unpack the process of transformation, starting with our character and how God prioritizes our inner formation. Learn about the crucial role of character development in fulfilling your life's mission and how the Holy Spirit works within us to convict, remind us of the truth, and change our affections. With practical applications and inspiring examples, you'll gain clarity on how to walk with the Spirit daily, resist the pitfalls of self-deception and self-reliance, and nurture a life marked by the fruits of the Spirit.

Tune in to discover the divine calling of representing Christ to the world and how embracing the Holy Spirit empowers you to live out this high calling with purpose and joy. Whether you're seeking personal transformation or greater understanding of the Spirit's work, this episode is your guide to experiencing ongoing change and fulfilling the supernatural potential God has placed within you.

🌐 Follow Us:

- Website: cathedral-church.com

- Instagram: instagram.com/cathedral.church

- New to faith? Sign up for our 5 week daily devotional!

Transcript

 Again, this new sermon series talking about the Holy Spirit and how the Spirit of God is the Spirit of transformation.

Everybody say transformation.

Yeah, He's living water, right?

He turns wastelands, wilderness into flourishing, fruitful gardens.

Good news today, the Holy Spirit does not avoid your mess.

He comes to transform it.

Every Christian is just a mess who met the Holy Spirit.

 That's what we are.

And when we meet the Holy Spirit and we walk with Him, the result is incredible.

The result is profound.

We become like Jesus.

Look at 2 Corinthians 3, verses 17 and 18.

 The Apostle Paul writes this, Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord's glory, are being transformed into His image, that is the image of Jesus, with ever-increasing glory which comes from the Lord.

 who is the Spirit.

In other words, the Spirit of the Lord Jesus is at work in you, transforming you gradually, progressively, not all at once, but progressively into the image of Jesus Christ.

To be the image of Jesus means that you get the great privilege of representing Christ to the world.

So that people look at you and they get a glimpse of who Jesus is.

Now isn't it interesting that this is how the Apostle Paul defines freedom.

 Where the Spirit of the Lord is working in your life, there is freedom.

And that freedom doesn't look like you doing whatever you want.

It looks like you being shaped into the image of Jesus.

It looks like submission.

Everyone say submission.

Yeah, submission to Jesus.

And here's the surprising thing.

If you submit to the Lord, you will actually experientially, you will experience submission as freedom in your life.

The seed of submission is what brings about the harvest of freedom.

 The so-called freedom of living life on your own terms, that's the real false advertising.

 True freedom, the kind that brings flourishing to your soul, your marriage, your relationships, your career, your purpose, your finances, comes through surrender to Christ Jesus.

Now Paul goes on to say that Jesus is the image of God.

So when people see Jesus, they see God.

And if you and I are being transformed into the image of Jesus, that means that when they see us, they're seeing the Lord.

Like what an amazing privilege that by reflecting Christ, we actually reveal God to the world.

 So it's the highest possible calling that you and I have received.

No wonder Paul says that this transformation can only happen by the Spirit.

It is not possible.

The transformation that we're learning about is only possible through relationship.

Everyone say relationship with the Holy Spirit.

So over the next couple of weeks, I want to explore how that truth shapes both our character and our mission.

Let's start with character today.

I hope you brought your boxing gloves because I'm going to get in a fight with you today.

 Let's start with character.

Here's this.

The Spirit's top priority in your life is your transformation.

Starting with who you are, not what you do.

This is where God wants to start.

 Now the Bible says that God promises you eternal life, and the way that that eternal life is going to take shape is by giving you a resurrection body.

He's going to resurrect your physical human body, and you'll enter into new creation with a resurrected body.

But what Ezekiel 36 teaches is that the first fruits of resurrection body is a resurrected heart.

 God comes to give you a new heart.

This is where the work of transformation begins, is in your character.

And until we embrace that, we will always be somewhat of a flight risk to the mission of Jesus.

That's why Jesus spent three years with His disciples, gradually giving them responsibility and shaping their character before sending them into the world.

That's why the Apostle Paul, he had a decade at least of developing in the dark.

 before he was called into leadership at the church in Antioch and then sent out in his church planting mission with Barnabas.

God needed to do a work in Paul that matched the work he wanted to do through Paul.

Because God always prioritizes the formation of a person over the fulfillment of that person's mission.

 In fact, it's the making of a man.

It's the making of a woman that God really cares about.

That's really the point.

Because what hasn't been produced in you will never be able to be reproduced through you.

So God's priority is what He's doing in your heart.

The primary purpose of the Holy Spirit in your life is not tingles on your skin.

It's the transformation of your heart.

 And don't go thinking that the first one is more exciting than the second one.

Because it's a more immediate experience.

No, no, no.

If you talk to somebody who's genuinely experienced the transformation of their character through the power of the Spirit working in their lives, they will tell you how exciting that really is.

Truly.

In fact, in my own experience, the miracle that testifies the most to me about the reality of God and the glory of God is not all of the outward signs.

It's not blue explosive hearing loss.

 That builds my faith.

But you know what builds my faith more?

Is the fact that me today is a different person from me five years ago.

That my character is being transformed into the character of Christ.

And when I look at that, I literally go, I couldn't have done that.

Because I know me.

 And who I've become is a miraculous outcome of the work of the Spirit in my life.

Right?

So this is what the Spirit comes to do.

And this is exactly what Paul expects is going to happen.

That you would experience ongoing transformation as you cultivate relationship with the Holy Spirit.

Look at Galatians 5 and verse 16.

Paul says this, So I say, walk by the Spirit and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.

If you have relationship with the Holy Spirit, your behavior will change.

 He spells out what those desires and works of the flesh are.

A couple of verses later, beginning in verse 19.

The acts of the flesh, this word flesh here is representative of your sinful humanity.

The acts of the flesh are obvious.

Sexual immorality.

That means any kind of sex outside of a marriage between one man and one woman.

If you are engaging in sexual activity outside of a marriage between a man and a woman, you are committing sexual immorality.

And Paul wants you to know that.

 Ooh, I told you to bring your boxing gloves, okay?

They're obvious.

Sexual immorality, impurity, your lustful thoughts that you don't crucify, debauchery, idolatry, witchcraft.

The Greek word is pharmakeia.

So it's all kinds of spiritual engagement, including drug-induced spiritual experiences.

If you're using drugs right now to engage with the spirit realm, stop.

 You're opening yourself up to the demonic.

Hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions, that is, divisiveness, envy, drunkenness, orgies.

Please stop.

And the like.

I warn you.

Here's the warning of God's word to you today.

I warn you as I did before.

In other words, Paul says this more than one time to the people that he's discipling.

He makes a point that they know that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.

 You won't.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

Against such things there is no law.

Now this is an incredible claim that Paul is making here.

Do you want to overcome anger?

Then walk by the power of the Spirit.

Do you want to uproot jealousy and envy from your life?

Then walk with the Holy Spirit.

 Do you want to break free from pornography addictions or other kinds of addictions in your life?

Then walk with the Holy Spirit.

In fact, if you walk with the Holy Spirit, not only will you uproot the tree that produces evil, but you'll plant a new tree that produces the character of God.

Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness and gentleness and self-control.

Now, to walk by the Holy Spirit, that comes from one of our favorite Greek words that we learned when we were going through our Ephesians series last year.

It's the Greek word peri...

 Oh, I'm so proud of you.

Wow.

You guys know Greek.

It's amazing.

Peripateo is all about your daily walk.

It's all about your daily conduct, right?

That's where the transformation happens.

Christianity is a daily kind of religion, a daily kind of walk with the Spirit.

That's where the victory is won.

Not just in big dramatic encounters, though we have those.

 but also in daily dependence upon and responsiveness to the Holy Spirit.

You were born again into a relationship, say it again, say relationship with the Holy Spirit.

That's Christianity.

And just like any relationship, it only grows, the relationship only grows when you engage the relationship regularly.

God's preference would be daily.

But if you don't walk with the Spirit, you won't be transformed into the image of Christ.

 Let me say it again because that's the scariest thing you've ever heard.

If you don't walk with the Spirit, you will not be transformed into the image of Christ.

You won't.

That transformation does not happen by default.

It does not happen on accident.

By osmosis.

It happens because we cultivate a relationship with the Spirit.

It also doesn't happen through self-effort.

And yet so often we treat becoming like Jesus like a spiritual self-improvement project.

 No, no, no, we're meant to walk.

It's like, that's a picture, right, of like going on a journey.

We're meant to walk with the Spirit down the path of life.

But too often we wander off, we fall into a ditch.

Now there are two main ditches, or let's call them traps.

Two main traps on either side of that path.

The first one is self-deception.

I made a little chart for us, self-deception.

Welcome to school.

Self-deception.

Now by self-deception, I simply mean that you have convinced yourself you're walking with the Spirit, when in reality you are not.

 If you are not engaging in the relationship, you will not be formed by the relationship.

In fact, not only will you not be formed by that lack of relationship, you'll be deformed by all the other relationships that you're prioritizing in your life.

Your relationship with your device.

Your relationship with the media that you consume.

Like that determines your mood more than your prayer time.

Your relationship with all of your friends who do not know the Lord, that you prioritize spending time with them more than you do spending time with the people of God in the church, or spending time with God in prayer.

 Listen, if you're a follower of Jesus, the Spirit's in you.

But do not mistake the fact of the Spirit being in your house with the experience of actually sitting down at the table with Him for breakfast.

Those two things are not synonymous.

He can be there, but you've still got to engage in the relationship.

The Spirit was in the Galatians' house.

But they were treating Him like an unacknowledged roommate.

And when that happened, transformation begins to degenerate.

 It does.

Because if we are not walking by the Spirit, Paul says we will end up gratifying the desires of the flesh.

So you can tell when someone's walking with the Spirit because their character will be moving in the direction of Christ.

I heard someone say recently that the clearest sign of your character is not how you act, it's how you react.

 So like your carefully crafted self, the you that you present to the world around you, that's not the best window into your heart.

No, it's your reactionary self when life is going sideways.

That's the best window into your heart.

So if being challenged, if being offended,

 if being corrected, if being passed over for the job, if being cut off in traffic for that matter, still gets the same reaction today as it did five years ago, it might be time to ask, am I really walking with the Holy Spirit?

Because there should be the fruit of Christ's likeness in your responses to life.

Or is it still the same?

I heard the story of a mother recently whose four-year-old asked her to make him an acai bowl, which is pretty awesome, the fact that the four-year-old wants an acai bowl.

 And so the mom makes the four-year-old an acai bowl, gives the bowl to the kid.

The kid starts crying.

The mom says, what's wrong?

And the kid says, you cut the strawberries the wrong way.

Next thing you know, the four-year-old goes, runs into the bedroom, hides under the bed and is screaming, you never loved me.

All the parents know.

Happy Mother's Day.

 Sometimes life is going to cut the strawberries wrong for you.

It's just going to happen.

Do you still throw spiritual tantrums like a four-year-old?

Do you get all melancholy?

Do you quit the job?

Do you move states?

Do you dump the boy?

Do you quit the team?

Do you ghost the leader?

Do you abandon ship and then justify it all with language like, God is moving me into a new season?

No.

No, he's not.

Amen.

 You're just resisting the transformative work of the Spirit in your life.

Now, I understand that the transformation is progressive, it's gradual, but it should also be undeniable.

A lot of Christians use slow as a cover-up for stuck.

I know it's slow, but you haven't changed in like a decade, man.

Listen, if you walk with the Spirit, you won't be sinless this side of eternity.

 But you should begin to sin less.

That ought to happen.

Some of you are in that place of self-deception right now.

That's where you are.

I love you.

I'm your pastor.

I've got to tell you the truth.

You think you're walking with the Spirit, but you're not.

You never take your seat at the table.

You're not actually cultivating relationship with Him.

You keep rushing off to your own plans.

Today the Spirit's calling you back.

Back to relationship.

Just come.

Begin to walk with Him.

The trap.

 The ditch on the other side of the path is probably even more sinister, is the trap of self-reliance.

This is where the Galatians were primarily slipping, trying to continue the transformative work of the Spirit through self-reliance and self-help.

Now they started with the Spirit, but they tried to finish the transformation project through legalistic law-keeping.

And here's the irony.

The irony is that self-reliance never leads to transformation.

Self-reliance never leads to transformation.

 You never become like Christ through self-reliance.

It only leads to deformation.

In fact, I noticed yesterday as I was reading through Galatians, Paul uses the same Greek word flesh.

It's the Greek word sarx.

 in chapter 3, Galatians chapter 3, he uses that word to define and describe self-reliance.

Your own effort to become like Jesus.

It's the Greek word sarx.

And then in Galatians 5, he uses that same Greek word to define sinful behavior.

Paul uses the same word to categorize self-reliance and self-behavior because self-reliance always leads to sinful behavior.

Every single time.

Every single time.

That's why Paul warns the Galatians so strongly against the acts of the flesh because that's where self-reliance leads.

 The book of Romans talks about this, that the law actually provokes your sinful nature.

Self-reliant righteousness provokes our flesh.

It doesn't tame sin, it exposes sin.

Your own self-reliance reveals just how deeply you need a savior and just how deeply sin runs in you.

The moment we try to reach for a moral standard by our own strength is the moment we realize that we cannot attain that standard on our own, right?

We're like toddlers who think we can dunk.

 We're like the Lakers who think they can make it past the first round of the playoffs.

Like, it's just not going to happen.

Nashville, pray for us.

Self-reliance.

You never achieve what you think you're going to achieve.

In fact, it just reveals your sinful nature.

I had an experience with this recently.

Several months ago, I was reading in the law.

In the book of Deuteronomy.

It's the fifth book in your Old Testament.

 It's part of the Pentateuch, the Mosaic Law.

And I came across this verse, Deuteronomy 32, 15.

It says this, that Jeshurun, which is another word for Israel, grew fat and kicked, filled with food.

They became heavy and sleek, quite the picture.

They abandoned the God who made them and rejected the rock, their Savior.

Now this verse is about how Israel prospered because of the blessing of God.

But instead of using their prosperity to worship and honor God, they became idolatrous.

 Now I read this verse and I started reflecting upon how the law calls us, commands us, to steward our finances for God's glory.

And as I thought about that command, I started thinking to myself, I do that.

I tithe.

I give offerings.

I'm a generous person.

I'm good at that.

I'm going to keep being good at that.

That was my thought process.

And the next thing I know, and I don't even know how, but the next thing I know, I start thinking about shopping for new clothes.

 No joke.

I've got my iPhone out.

I'm on bloomingdales.com looking for a jacket for myself.

And I caught myself.

I literally thought, wow, me thinking about achieving God's law through my own strength literally led me to thinking about myself.

Because self-reliance always leads to self-indulgence.

It just does.

Because if you go from spirit-led to self-reliant, you'll stop being formed into the image of the sun, and you'll start being formed into the image of the self.

 When I thought about this, I thought about King Saul.

King Saul was the first king of Israel.

Had a beautiful beginning and a tragic ending.

Look at how Saul's story begins in 1 Samuel 10, 6.

It says, the Spirit of the Lord, this is Samuel prophesying over Saul, the Spirit of God is going to come powerfully upon you, Saul, and you're going to prophesy with the prophets, listen, and you will be changed into a different person.

That verse captures one of the Spirit's core purposes in our life.

Transformation.

 And yet the tragedy of Saul is that he ended in failure.

He rebelled against God.

And eventually the Spirit left him altogether.

It's such a sobering thought that the same Spirit who came upon Saul to make him a different person was ultimately resisted by Saul until Saul became worse off than he was at the start.

Now two things that are important to differentiate us from Saul.

Number one, the Spirit came upon Saul when the Spirit comes within us.

 Number two, the work of the Spirit in Saul's life was purely vocational, empowering him to rule as king, whereas the work of the Spirit in our lives is vocational and regenerative.

He transforms us on the inside out.

But nevertheless, Saul's story stands as a warning that the Spirit can come into your life to transform you into a different kind of person, but you can still resist him through self-reliance.

And that's the not-so-surprising fact about Saul's story, is that his sin was the same sin as the Galatians.

He was self-reliant.

Now, his consequence was that he lost the Spirit altogether.

 Paul doesn't go quite so far as to say that that's what's going to happen to the Galatians.

But he does issue a serious warning.

He says that they have experienced the Spirit in vain in chapter 3.

And then later in chapter 5, they have fallen away from grace.

So while they hadn't lost the Spirit, they were clearly quenching the Spirit's work.

And they were in real danger of sliding back into the works of the flesh.

That is blatant, sinful patterns.

 Because that's where self-reliance always leads.

Listen to me.

Your self-reliance will not tame your flesh.

It will provoke it.

Why is that?

Because self-reliance does not produce humility.

Self-reliance produces pride.

And pride is the breeding ground for all manner of sin.

Pride tells you that you deserve what you desire.

It's self-congratulatory.

 A prideful man slays a giant, wins some battles, conquers the kingdom, seats himself on the throne, and then sees Bathsheba bathing on the roof and thinks, I deserve that.

This is why you haven't quit that habit that leaves you feeling so ashamed.

Because you are relying on your own willpower.

It's why your walk with God feels like it's constantly in fits and starts, because deep down you still think this thing is about you trying harder.

 And when success is up to your strength, guess what?

Failure won't look like failure.

Failure will look like a vacation.

Failure will look like a reward that you can give yourself because of all the effort that you've been putting in.

Failure comes disguised as self-congratulation, as a day lounging around the palace instead of going to war, David.

So leave behind the self-reliance.

It's not going to get you where you want it to get you.

Move into spirit dependence.

 Friends, you cannot become like Jesus apart from Jesus.

Now, of course, there are things that we do, spiritual practices, but the point of the practice is to be with the person.

The practice is just a context to meet with the person of the Holy Spirit who alone initiates and sustains the transformative work in our lives.

Yeah?

Yeah?

 Let me show you the three ways that the Spirit transforms your character and the tools that He uses to do it.

Number one, He convicts us of sin.

He convicts us of sin.

Acts 2, 36 and 37, Therefore let all Israel be assured of this.

This is Peter preaching on the day of Pentecost to the people who had just been participating in the crucifixion of Christ, that God has made Jesus, whom you crucified, both Lord and Messiah.

And when the people heard this, they were cut to the heart.

When Peter preached Jesus to these people, they were cut to the heart.

 They had an experience of cutting.

That's what conviction feels like.

They suddenly realized their guilt in rejecting Christ.

This wasn't a feeling that they produced on their own.

They were quite content just a few weeks prior to crucify Christ.

And now all of a sudden they're cut to the heart.

They're experiencing a guilt.

This is the fundamental truth about conviction.

It's the grief that comes when you realize you've turned away from God to pursue something else.

Conviction is relational.

 Sin is not just bad behavior.

It's relational betrayal.

And so when you experience the conviction of the Holy Spirit, that's Him letting you know, hey, you're participating in behavior that grieves the heart of God and He's calling you back to fellowship.

That's what He wants to restore you to.

To point out what hindered the fellowship in the first place.

The Spirit convicts us not to condemn us but to show us what grieves God so that we can return to Him.

Conviction is not a sign that God is leaving you.

 Conviction is a sign that God is loving you.

That He actually wants to transform your character the way that you live.

The ones that I worry about the most are the ones who no longer experience any conviction because of their sin.

The ones whose hearts have grown so hard because they've resisted the voice of the Spirit too many times.

And they continue to practice their sin.

And if they do not repent, they will not inherit the kingdom of God.

 Please do not be the person who loves your sin more than you love God such that you miss out on your eternal reward.

Pay attention to the conviction of the Spirit.

Look at 2 Corinthians 7, verses 8 to 10.

Even if I caused you sorrow by my letter, I don't regret it.

Though I did regret it, I see that my letter hurt you, but only for a little while.

Yet now, I'm happy I hurt your feelings.

 Not because you were made sorry, but because your sorrow led you to repentance.

For you became sorrowful as... Oh, I love this.

My goodness.

You became sorrowful as God intended.

And so you were not harmed in any way by us.

It might have not been church hurt.

 It could have just been the conviction of the Spirit and the correction of the church.

Godly sorrow that brings repentance, that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death.

Now listen, Paul had to confront all kinds of sin in the Corinthian church.

And as with all of his discipleship, his correction was rooted in the gospel of Jesus.

Hey, this is who Jesus has called you to be.

Come to this vision.

And the Corinthians, in response, they experienced godly sorrow, a grief that doesn't lead to shame, that leads to repentance.

 which is very different from worldly sorrow.

Worldly sorrow, N.T.

Wright says, is the sorrow of the person who's been caught, not convicted.

Sorrow is not just about being caught in the wrong that you've done.

Sorrow is about the Spirit of God coming to you and convicting you of your hindrance of your fellowship with God.

Godly sorrow flows from love, from a desire to please God, not just to void consequences.

And so it's a sorrow that draws you back into fellowship.

 And here's the point.

As followers of Jesus, we need to pay attention when we feel conviction.

When guilt follows our actions.

Even if nobody else in your life knows about the action, pay attention to that feeling of guilt.

That's the Holy Spirit at work, inviting you into transformation.

Even when you go to do something, and you feel that check in your conscience, that's the Spirit trying to reroute you.

 Right?

That's like when you go the wrong way and the GPS is like, you need to change directions.

You're going the wrong way.

Please don't be the person who thinks you know better than the GPS.

Please don't be the person who like trusts the voice of the GPS until it disagrees with you.

Don't be that person.

The GPS can literally see the whole world.

Like all of it.

You can see like a hundred feet in front of you.

Right?

That's like the Holy Spirit.

He knows where that's going to take you.

Listen to the conviction of the Spirit.

Listen and repent.

Change direction.

 That's how conviction changes you, only when you respond with repentance.

Not just regret, but an actual turning.

A change of direction, a change of your mind.

That means that you and I, we confess to God.

We confess to the person that you've wronged.

That's how we participate with the Spirit in the process of change.

Listen, the goal isn't to feel bad.

The goal is to be made new.

And confession is what brings about newness.

Look at James 5.16.

 Therefore, confess your sins to each other.

Pray for each other so that you may be healed.

That's an amazing thing.

Healing through prayer.

That's clearly the work of the Spirit.

But notice the order.

Before the healing comes the confession.

And not just to God, but to one another.

Listen, the primary tool that the Spirit uses to facilitate our transformation through conviction and repentance is the community of God.

 The saints.

This is the tool that the Spirit uses.

It's the community of the saints.

He wants to use the church.

Like Paul and the Corinthians, the Spirit will use pastoral authority to convict you.

He'll use someone in your neighborhood group who is close enough to you to see your sins to convict you.

And when you confess your sin, not just to God, but to a trusted sibling in Christ, something powerful happens.

Take the Bible at its word that when you practice that confession, the Scripture says that you will experience healing.

 The Spirit uses the church, people filled with Him, to facilitate your repentance and your restoration.

And this is what repentance looks like, and that's what leads to change.

Let me just say this.

If repentance is not a semi-regular feature in your life as a follower of Jesus, you probably aren't following the Spirit as closely as you think.

Either that, or you think you've got it together a whole lot more than you actually do.

 But if there's not a regular exchange of sharing your struggles with people who are journeying with you in Christ, then you might be resisting the voice of the Spirit who's leading you into the power of genuine repentance and confession that brings transformation and change in your life.

Friends, that's the point is transformation.

God wants to transform your heart.

Aren't you sick of dealing with the same issues that you dealt with a decade ago?

Aren't you tired of that?

He's given you a way out.

He's given you a way forward.

The community of the saints...

 To practice repentance.

The second way the Spirit transforms our character is so important.

He reminds us of the truth.

Because after you repent, any lingering guilt is misplaced.

It's shame.

It's rooted in lies that attack your identity in Christ.

Those lies, they might come from your own mind.

They might come from the enemy.

Satan knows that you will live out what you believe.

So if he can get you to believe wrong, then you'll live wrong.

 And you'll slowly deform into his image instead of the image of Christ.

So what the Spirit does is he comes to remind you of the truth.

Look at John 14, verses 15 to 17.

Jesus says this, if you love me, keep my commands.

And I'll ask the Father, he's going to give you another advocate to help you, be with you forever, the Spirit of truth.

The world can't accept him, doesn't know him.

You know him, for he lives with you in the person of Jesus and will be in you.

Day of Pentecost, the Spirit comes to fill the church.

Now notice the connection, the flow of this verse.

Loving Jesus leads to obeying his commands.

Yes.

 Obeying his commands requires the presence of the Holy Spirit in your life.

Jesus here calls him the spirit of truth.

And that's because the way that the Holy Spirit helps you to obey the commands of Jesus is by continuing to remind you of the truth of who Jesus is and who you are in him.

 Right?

That's the primary truth that John has in view here, is the truth of the salvation that comes through Christ, and the newness of life that you have through Christ.

There are things that fundamentally are about our identity, your identity, your fellow believer's identity.

And lies come to distort that identity.

And the way the lies do that is they belittle you.

They devalue you.

They devalue others.

And when your identity gets distorted, that leads to carnal behavior.

Because your behavior follows your beliefs.

 Right?

So that's why the Spirit wants to come and remind you frequently of the truth of Jesus and the truth of who you are in Christ.

This is why we take communion so regularly as a church.

This is more than remembrance.

This is discipleship.

Because as you consume the truth of Christ crucified for you, guess what?

A life of cruciformity begins to follow.

The work of the Spirit is working in this room as you and I consume the gospel and transformation takes place in our lives.

 Now, the primary way, the primary tool that the Holy Spirit uses to remind you of the truth, of course, is the tool of Scripture, the Word of God.

That's the Spirit's vocabulary.

If you want to hear the Spirit clearly, then open your Bible consistently.

You want a word from God?

He gave you 66 books.

And if you spend time with the Spirit in Scripture...

 The primary truth He's going to remind you of is the truth of Jesus.

The Holy Spirit loves to talk about the Son.

Loves to.

And He'll show you Jesus as you study the Word of God.

It's not that He doesn't have other things to talk to you about.

It's just that there's nothing better to talk about than that.

 Right?

I heard Michael Koulianos say one time that every other conversation other than the cross is a step down in conversational topics.

Right?

It doesn't get better than this.

So the Holy Spirit will remind you of the truth of who Jesus is and who you are in Him.

And as you are grounded in that truth, you'll start to live that truth out.

You'll be transformed.

You'll live a cruciform life.

The Holy Spirit's transformative work will have its way in you.

Meet with God in the Scriptures.

Transformation will take place.

Lastly, the way the Spirit transforms our character, He changes our affections.

 He changes our desires.

Look at Romans 8.5.

Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on what the flesh desires.

But those who live in accordance with the Spirit, they have their minds set on what the Spirit desires.

This is incredible.

That Scripture is literally telling you that part of the Spirit's transformative work in your life is that you'll start to want what God wants.

You'll start to share in God's desires.

You want to do the things that please Him.

 And you'll lose taste for the things that don't please Him.

Now, the key to your character transformation in this area is that you would actually respond to those new desires.

When the Spirit stirs up desire in you, you actually have to respond.

You've got to act upon that desire.

Because if you don't respond to that desire, you quench the work of the Spirit in your life.

Walking by the Spirit...

 means that you're going to start wanting to do things like joining a church getting water baptized serving people making things right with the person you wronged if you start walking with the Spirit you might wake up one day and feel like giving money away and you're like what the heck is that?

that's not me I grew up in a family that was constantly afraid

 about having enough money now all of a sudden I got these desires I want to give money away I want to go to work and serve my boss who has a bad attitude what is that desire?

that's not you that's not your flesh where did that come from?

that's the desire of the Spirit at work in you He's going to prompt those desires you have to obey them

 The Spirit will not force obedience.

And every time you obey, you're transformed.

Because you discover that what the Spirit wants for you is so much better than what you desire for you.

This is how you grow strong in the Spirit.

You feed the Spirit's appetite.

You starve the appetite of your flesh.

Do both.

Don't just resist.

Replace.

Follow Him.

 pure resistance that's self-reliance following the spirit that's obeying the voice of god that's allowing his transformative work to take shape in your life join the church be a giver put down your phone be present to your kids serve your wife and not just on mother's day serve your co-workers serve your church obey the impulses of the spirit many of you have felt them

 So many Christians fall into despair over their faith because they don't see change.

But the reason they don't see change is because they don't obey.

So their faith is flimsy.

 The book of Romans, at both the start and the end, says that faith is obedience.

There's no difference between obedience and faith.

Faith looks like obedience.

And so their faith is flimsy because it never amounts to obedience.

And flimsy faith will produce flimsy fruit in your life.

No wonder you're in despair over your Christianity.

No wonder you're not experiencing change because your belief hasn't amounted to actually walking out in obedience to the promptings of the Spirit in your life.

 But if you obey what the Spirit leads you into, you will grow in your taste for the things of the Spirit.

You'll taste of the Lord and see that He's good, and that appetite will grow, and your appetite for fleshly, carnal things will begin to diminish.

Make sense?

So in order to hear the promptings of the Spirit, the tool that the Spirit uses primarily is the tool of the secret place.

You would meet with God in prayer.

 If you would step away from the noise, even just 30 minutes a day.

Just give Him 30 minutes.

You'll start to notice, if you make this a pattern, you will start to notice the desires of the Spirit welling up in your heart.

He'll speak to you in the stillness.

If you'll just create a place for Him to speak and for you to listen.

Look at Philippians 2.13.

Have you ever read this verse?

It is God...

 who works in you to will.

That God is actually working in you for you to will certain things, for you to desire certain things, and to act in order to fulfill His good purpose.

God gives both the desire and the power to fulfill the desire.

That's an amazing promise.

And if you just give time and space for God to speak to you, He's going to bring those desires up in you and you'll fulfill the purpose of God in your life.

 So how does the Spirit transform us?

He convicts us of sin, cutting our hearts so we can turn back to God.

He reminds us of the truth, anchoring us in who Jesus is and who we are in Him.

And He gives us new desires, shaping our hearts to long for what God longs for.

And He doesn't do this in the abstract.

This doesn't happen by osmosis.

He does it through the saints, people who walk with us in repentance.

 He uses scripture to realign our thinking with the truth.

And he meets us in the secret place where he stirs new affections in our hearts.

That's the work of the Spirit.

That's walking with him to experience ongoing transformation in your life.

The Spirit is within you.

The only question is, will you walk with him?

Because if you do, you will be changed.

Let's all stand to our feet.

 I'm going to keep us all connected together across all of our locations as we close in prayer.

I want you to ask, Holy Spirit, what are you saying to me?

Maybe throughout the duration of this service, you have experienced the conviction of the Spirit.

Maybe He's leading you to repentance.

 Maybe you need to do that today before the service is concluded.

Maybe for others of us, you need the Spirit of God to open the eyes of your heart, to remove the veil, like Paul says in 2 Corinthians, so that you can see Jesus rightly, so that you can see the truth of who He is.

Because as the holy, beautiful, wonderful Jesus becomes your vision, you'll become like what you behold.

 You'll be transformed as you see the truth.

You need to pray that prayer today.

Ask the Lord to remove the veil.

Help you to see Jesus in the scriptures.

Others of us maybe need to pray, Lord, come change my affections.

Maybe you've been resistant.

Maybe you've felt the desires of the Spirit welling up in your life.

Instead of obeying, you've been running.

Let's just lift our hands all across this room.

Every one of us falls into at least one of those categories.

 Why don't you just take a moment right now just to pray right where you're standing.

Say, Lord, I need your help.

Maybe you need to repent.

Maybe you need to ask for your eyes to be open.

Maybe you need to invite the changing of affection.

We're believing for a real spiritual thing to take place this morning.

A work of the Holy Spirit.

The transformation of character all across our church.

Lord God, we thank you for the high callings.

 of revealing you to the world.

Thank you for the transformation of the Holy Spirit at work in our lives to make us look like Jesus.

And I pray by the power of the Spirit, Lord, in every single heart, that something transformative would happen even now.

Even now.

 We believe that every time we pray, God does something.

Sometimes when we pray, God does everything.

And I'm believing right now that there will be a transformative encounter with the Holy Spirit.

We thank you, Lord, for the deposit of godly desires in every single heart.

We thank you, Lord, you cut to the heart.

Father, reveal sinful practices in our lives that need to be repented of and left behind.

 Father, for those of us who haven't gone all in on our faith with you, haven't entered into the waters of baptism, Lord, lead us to that place that the old us would be dead in the water and that the new creation would rise again.

In Jesus' name, come.

Holy Spirit, open our eyes to the truth.

Help us to see Jesus rightly, that we would become like what we behold.

Lord, we recognize that this cannot be the outcome of our own self-effort and reliance.

Lord God, that has to be a work of your Spirit.

So we invite you.

We need you.

 I pray this in the name of Jesus.

And everybody said amen and amen.

Come on, let's give God praise.

God is good.

Praise the Lord.

Love you, South Bay.

Love you, Nashville.

God bless you guys.