SPEAKER_00 1:21

Have you had that feeling of being left behind or rejected or neglected? I don't know if you've experienced those feelings, but if you have, like typically they're strong enough that they get etched into your memory, right? Like if you've experienced abandonment, like you you feel that in a small way. I I remember uh a moment where I felt abandoned when I was I think less than 10. My family went up to this big new, or at least big to us, new shopping mall. We were from a pretty small country town, and we went up and uh we were in this new shopping mall, and somehow in the process of being in there, I got separated from my mother. And I remember just freaking out. I mean, uh I was young, but not super young, but I remember being totally overwhelmed, feeling abandoned, and in that moment just breaking down and crying there in the mall. And somebody came to me, some nice lady came to me, and she's like, Okay, what's going on? And she helped me get reunited with my mother. Now, what happened there was I felt abandoned. But the reality was I had actually wandered off. My mother is like the least abandoning person you would ever meet. The reality is I'd wandered off, but I felt abandoned. And the reason I bring this thought up this morning is because I believe that lots of us at different times and maybe even for long periods of time struggle with thought, the thought that God has abandoned us. For some of you, it may look like this. Some people have this belief that there may be a God, specifically non-Christians, there may be a God. They look at the complexity of our creation, they look at the complexity of our world around us, all the beauty that they see, and they're like, okay, this didn't happen by chance. Obviously, there's an intelligent designer of some sort that's been a part of this, but then they look at the hardship in the world and the difficulty and all the problems, and they're like, obviously, this God has abandoned his creation. So if there is a God, he's walked out on it. And that may even be the view of some of you in the room here today. Non-Christians sometimes have that view of God. However, others of us, even Christians, sometimes struggle with this view. We look at the situations or circumstances in our life, and sometimes it can be a series of circumstances, hard things that happen, difficult things, pain, loss, struggle, difficulty, sickness, all of that stuff. We go through things, and as we look at the particulars of our situation, we're like, wow, God must have abandoned me. Like, what other explanation do I have when I look at all this difficult stuff? But the reality is God's word tells us over and over and over again that He has not abandoned us. One of my favorite verses that talks about this is Hebrews 13. Quoting God, it says, I will never leave you or forsake you. You guys know that verse? It's a promise. But to us as humans, sometimes words aren't enough, right? We want proof. And what I want to put to you today is that Jesus is the proof that God has not abandoned us. You see, Jesus is the disproof of any abandonment theory we may hold. An abandoning God does not incarnate himself into the creation. He does not become a human and then die for humanity on a painful death on a cross so that there can be restored relationship. Like that doesn't compute. An abandoning God does not do that. And so, very quickly, I know we're glossing over this, but I would say God does not abandon us because Jesus proves so. Now, let's take this one step further. Let's think about Jesus for a sec, because I think some of us feel like Jesus in some way has abandoned us. I don't know if you've ever had this thought, I have, where I'm like, wow, it would have been really cool to live and to be around Jesus in those 30-ish years he was on planet earth. If only I'd lived, you know, back 2,000 years ago in the area of Jerusalem and Judea in that region, I could have been around Jesus and seen Jesus, God incarnate right there. And in some ways, what that is pointing to is this feeling of I'm missing out because Jesus has left. He's at God's right hand and I'm missing out. But Jesus says very particularly that no, that's not the case. We aren't missing out. And that is actually stated in one of the scriptures that was read this morning in verse 18. I want to reread it with you. It says this this is Jesus speaking, I will not leave you as orphans. I am coming to you. Now, this thought that Jesus was going and coming obviously would have caused some confusion to the disciples. I don't know if you noticed it, but Jesus actually acknowledges it in verse 28. In verse 28, he says, You have heard me tell you I am going away and I am coming to you. So that's basically Jesus saying, Hey, let me acknowledge this. I understand. I've said I'm going away, but I've also said I'm coming to you. What are you trying to make of this? Well, what Jesus was trying to say to them is, yes, my I'm leaving in bodily form as Jesus. But what I'm going to do is actually send my Spirit to you. My Holy Spirit to you. And what we can know and believe is that, yes, we have Jesus here with us, and that is actually proof that Jesus hasn't abandoned us. We haven't been left as orphans. A Christ follower or a Christian is not orphaned because the Holy Spirit indwells them. That's your first fill-in-the-blank this morning. The Holy Spirit indwells us. Now, what does that mean? Well, we're going to get to talk about that, but let's back up and ask this question first. Who is this Holy Spirit? Well, I can tell you who he's not. The Holy Spirit is not a Santa Claus type figure. Some of us kind of have this idea that the Holy Spirit is this mystical part of God, that if we do certain things, he'll in return like bless us with these experiences or these, you know, things going on in our lives. He's kind of like this mystical force that we're working on. That's not an accurate picture of the Holy Spirit. Another thought that some people have of the Holy Spirit is that he's kind of just a little bit scary or creepy. Like they read Old Testament, sorry, old scholars' writings about the Holy Spirit, and they hear this Holy Ghost, and they're like, ooh, that kind of sounds creepy. I don't know if I want anything to do with that part of theology. Like, let's keep that up in the dusty attic of theology. That's not where we want to go. But that's not who God is. Sorry, that's not who the Holy Spirit is. The Holy Spirit, easiest definition for you is this: the Holy Spirit is God. The Holy Spirit is God. He is an integral member of the Trinity. What is this Trinity? Trinity is a word that we have made, it's not in the Bible, but it's a word that we've made to describe something that we see in the Bible that God is three persons in one. That He is God the Father, Jesus the Son, the Holy Spirit, all fully God, all fully one, and yet at the same time distinct. In relationship. These three persons are in relationship and in submission to one another. It's an absolute mystery, this idea of Trinity. J.I. Packer, a theologian that I really respect, a very smart man, in his excellent book, Knowing God, says this: the heart of Christian faith in God is the revealed mystery of the Trinity. He is this really intelligent guy saying, hey, this is a mystery. Like you're not going to figure it all out that God is three in one. But it's the very heart, it's the very essence of Christian faith and belief. He goes on to say about mysteries in another book, J.I. Packett says this all doctrines terminate in mystery, for they deal with the works of God, which men in this world cannot fully comprehend. Nor has God been pleased to fully explain. Isn't that good? He's showing us, yeah, this is a mystery, and that's just the way that God's ordered it. We've got to be okay with attention of that. And what I've put to you is that no man-made thought or idea fully encapsulates this idea of Trinity. People for centuries have tried to use different illustrations to say, well, it's like this or it's like that. None of it works. It all falls short. We see the Trinity, though, through all the text. You've probably heard us, if you've been here long enough, talk about how we see the Father, Son, and Spirit in the creation account, Genesis chapter 1. You've probably heard us talk about how at the baptism of Jesus we all see all three, but guess what? We see all three right in our text today. Look back at verse 16 with me. I want you to read it with me again. Says this, and I, that's Jesus speaking, will ask the Father, that's God the Father, and he will give you another counselor, capital C, to be with you forever. Who is this counselor? The counselor is the Holy Spirit. So just as the this concept of Trinity is a mystery, I would say that this idea of the Holy Spirit is a mystery to us as well. He's very mysterious. And because of that, sometimes we like to just kind of acknowledge him and yet at the same time ignore him. He's kind of like that person you see at a party that you really don't want to engage with. They're across the room and you're like, hey, nod your head, and then kind of head towards the drink table. You know what I'm talking about? That's how we treat the Holy Spirit oftentimes. And it's not how it should be. Again, J.I. Packer, so helpful on this subject in his book, Knowing God, says this. It is an extraordinary thing that those who profess to care so much about Christ should know and care so little about the Holy Spirit. Many Christians have really no idea what difference it would make if there were no Holy Spirit in the world. Were it not for the work of the Holy Spirit, there would be no gospel, no faith, no church, no Christianity in the world at all. I don't know how you think or how you were responding right now to those statements. Some of you may be like, well, that sounds a little bit extreme, but I would put to you, if you ponder these thoughts long enough, you will come to agree exactly with what Packer is saying here. That yes, the Christian faith and hope is only able to happen or be or to exist with the work of the Holy Spirit. So what I'm trying to say here is this we need to grow in seeing the significance and understanding the role of the Holy Spirit. We absolutely need to grow. Church, I believe we've got to grow in this. So, what do we know about the Holy Spirit? Well, just from this passage that we have read here together today, we have a lot of information that we can learn directly from one member of the Trinity, Jesus, about another member of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. I'm excited for us to jump into this and ask this question because there's actually a lot of information that we can draw from this text. And so I'm gonna just go through a couple of things. It's not super neat or organized, but we're gonna make some observations out of this text about what we can and should believe about the Holy Spirit. If we're gonna grow in him, we have to know about him. The first thing that I point to you is this the Holy Spirit was to come. And I would say actually he was to come in a new way. I don't know if you caught up onto that in verse 26, but it says there in verse 26 this. But the counselor, the Holy Spirit, the Father will send him in my name, will teach you all things and remind you of everything I have told you. Will, this idea that he is coming. And the idea is that yes, he's gonna come after Jesus goes to the cross and dies, and then when he goes back to the God the Father, the Holy Spirit is then gonna be present and working inside the lives of believers. There's a lot more that I could say about that, but we'll leave it for at this right now. Holy Spirit, sorry, the next thought is this the Holy Spirit indwells Christians. So not only was the Holy Spirit to come, when he did come, he came and he indwelled Christians. Now, this is again a bit of a mystery, but if you're a Christian, I believe with all my heart that the Holy Spirit indwells us. He indwells me, he indwells you if you're a Christian. At the moment of salvation, he comes and he resides in us. Verse 17, let's read that one. Verse 17 says this He is the Spirit of truth. The world is unable to receive him because it doesn't know, see him or know him, but you do know him because he remains with you and will be what? In you. He will be in you. So at the moment that you and I make a decision to say, yeah, my life's no longer mine, I'm actually going to give it to God. I'm gonna surrender my life to God. Now there's all sorts of churchy language we say, but basically what we're saying is, I don't want to be in control of my life anymore. I want to give it to God. I want to have a relationship with him, I want him to forgive me of my sins. When we go through that process, at that moment, the Holy Spirit comes and lives inside of us. It's not some extra bonus level thing that some Christians get. It's not an extra baptism. The Holy Spirit is in us at the moment that we believe in Jesus to save us. The next thing that I put to you is this that the Holy Spirit is with those who believe forever. I don't know if you picked up on that when we read verse 16, but it says that the Holy Spirit will be with us forever. Now, this is a really important thing to know and to believe because what this goes along with is this thought that the Holy Spirit actually seals us. Now that's an interesting word, an older word, but what that means is that the Holy Spirit is the down payment in us for what's going to be happening when Jesus returns and everything is made right and whole again. That word of sealing means that once the Spirit's there, he's there to stay forever. And I've personally wrestled with some of this, but I've got some great scriptures that I'm not going to read to you, but if you want to jot them down and look them up later, these are the verses that talk about how the Holy Spirit seals us. I'll just give them to you quickly. 2 Corinthians 1, verse 22. 2 Corinthians 1 22, 2 Corinthians 5, verse 5. These are the verses that talk about how the Holy Spirit seals us, or he's a down payment. And then Ephesians 1 verse 13 through 14. Ephesians 1, 13 through 14, and Ephesians 4, verse 30. That's a great starting point to like just unpacking what does it mean that the Holy Spirit seals us? He's with us forever. But I'm going to keep moving, I'm going to talk to you about the next thing. The Holy Spirit is seen and received by followers of Christ, but he's not received by the world. I don't know if you picked up on that when we read verse 17 earlier, but it said the world does not see him, and the world does not know him, does not receive him. So the Holy Spirit doesn't live inside of people who are not Christians. Now, that doesn't mean that the Holy Spirit isn't working on them or prodding them or leading them or guiding them and calling them towards salvation. Some of you in this room, I'm not going to assume that some people in this room today are not Christians yet. Because the Holy Spirit is actually got you here and is drawing you and working on your heart and highlighting things to you as you explore faith. And I want to encourage you in that process that the Holy Spirit is actually a part of that. John 16, which we'll come to in a few weeks, says this. The next point is maybe the most obvious out of this text. The Holy Spirit is, excuse me, the counselor. He is the counselor. We have that word in verse 16 and verse 26. Now, if you were reading along in a Bible that was not the same translation as me or as Eric this morning, you may have actually noticed that it said something else. And what I'm simply going to say is this that word counselor has given theologians and translators fits for centuries. Okay? They've struggled to be able to articulate what it actually is trying to say. So you'll find all sorts of different translations. Some will say helper, some will say advocate. Other people have tried to use this word encourager or comforter or somebody who mediates on behalf of. All of these things. And what that means is that the Holy Spirit is very involved practically in the life of a Christian. And so I want to give you a couple of examples of how I've seen that even play out in my life. The Holy Spirit has brought conviction in my life at different times to pray for someone or to call someone or to contact someone to reach out to somebody. There have been moments in my life where all of a sudden, you know, I'm just working away or doing something, and then somebody drops into my mind, and I'm like, I need to pray for them, and I'll pray for them in that moment. That is the advocate advocating for somebody, asking me to pray for them. Sometimes it's I should reach out for that person. Again, that's not a thought that comes naturally into my mind by itself. That's the Holy Spirit's work, counseling me and guiding me and leading me. That's one of the ways that he works in that specific capacity. Another way that he works in this capacity is he is a reminder of truth when my heart is getting hard. I hate to say this, but this weekend, I had a moment where I was getting frustrated. I was getting annoyed, and I felt my heart getting angry inside. And I was like, okay, as I was there, all of a sudden, this thought came, and it's not from me, this thought came that, hey, I don't need to be in this space. This is not honoring God, and I need to let go of what I'm clinging to here, thinking that I'm right. That's the Holy Spirit. That's his work, counseling, leading, guiding to repentance. That's one of the things that he does. Another way that this can look like is that he can give us peace in decision making. Again, counseling us and helping us in decision making. There have been moments in our lives, my wife and I, where we've made big decisions, and we've had this decision in front of us, and if you looked at it on paper through a worldly lens, it'd be like, oh, that's obviously the right decision for us to make. And yet as we've prayed about it, we're actually like, we really feel peace that this is the direction that we're meant to go. And as we've headed that direction, it's been shown that, yeah, that was what God was leading us to. But the only reason we went that direction was because there was something supernatural that said, yes, this is the right direction. This is the right decision to make in that. Sometimes the Holy Spirit will give us wisdom in conversation, especially in conversation with a non-believer. There have been times I've had conversations with people, and I'll walk away from it and be like, I don't know exactly what I just said, but I really don't feel like those were that was me figuring that out or leading them in that direction. And I think that was I hope that was helpful, but I think it was. I think that was the Holy Spirit speaking through me. And that's one of the roles that he has is he counsels us and leads us and guides us supernaturally as he lives inside of us. There's more that could be said, but I'm going to keep moving. Another thing that we see from the text is that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth. Verse 17 says that specifically. Jesus says, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father. Also reminds us of what we study in John 8, 32, where he says, You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. It shouldn't surprise us that, yes, God the Father is all about truth, and that Jesus, yes, is the truth, and that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth. That makes absolute sense. Verse 26 shows us something else that's interesting about the Holy Spirit. It shows us that part of his role is to teach and to remind us. And I realize that this kind of goes hand in hand with this idea of him being the counselor, but I think it's worth noting and reading that again with you. Verse 26 says to us, but the counselor, the Holy Spirit, the Father will send him in my name, will teach you all things and remind you of what? Everything I have told you. So the Holy Spirit, one of his roles is to teach and to remind us of everything he's told us. His word. And what I would simply say to this is that the Holy Spirit empowers us to know, believe, and obey God's word. Basically, what we're trying to say, those words, know, believe, and obey, we've used those a lot as we've talked about discipleship over the last few months. And what I'm saying is that the Holy Spirit empowers us to be disciples. I don't know if you noticed, but all throughout this text, there were parts where Jesus was talking about my commands and obedience and living in line with what Jesus has commanded. At first, when I started studying, I was like, it seems like there's two sermons here, but the more I studied, the more I realized they absolutely go hand in hand. It makes sense that, yes, there'd be instruction to follow and to be obedient and then say, yes, but you can only do that by my spirit, the counselor leading you to do that. Some of these verses that we read earlier were the ones like in verse 15: if you love me, you will keep my commands. Verse 21, the one who has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. And I could go on all throughout this passage. That makes sense. We've got to have the Holy Spirit leading and guiding us to help us to be obedient, to be disciples of Jesus. So just in a few verses, we've gathered a bunch of information about the Holy Spirit. There's so much that we've already said about the Holy Spirit, and we could go on from here and take in the whole counsel of Scripture to expand out. We could go for the next few hours. We won't go for the next few hours, but we could go for the next few hours talking about all that the Holy Spirit does. We could go on and talk about spiritual gifts and talk about how He He gives us those. We could talk about how the Holy Spirit first came at Pentecost in the book of Acts and read through that story. But the main thing that I want you to see at this point is this. The Holy Spirit's role is obviously hugely important. So why in the world would we ignore or neglect him? Let's ask this question together. If the Holy Spirit is so important, why is he so often neglected? Especially in our conservative evangelical circles. Why is he so often neglected? I'll give you two thoughts on this. The first one is this ignorance. We neglect the Holy Spirit because of ignorance. We fail to recognize what he offers, his role. And in our churches, we seem to be good at talking extensively about the role of God the Father and what he's done for us. And we should do that. We talk extensively about the Son and all that He's done in His sacrifice, and we should do that. But we fail to explore the importance of the Holy Spirit. You've heard the saying that ignorance is bliss, and I would say that is absolutely not true in this case because our ignorance is causing us to miss out on the benefits and blessings of the Holy Spirit. So I'd ask you: what peace, what wisdom, what assurance are we missing out on by ignoring the Holy Spirit? We need to be a church empowered by the Spirit. And the reason is that he is designed to walk hand in hand in the life of a believer. Yes, God is on his throne. Yes, Jesus is at his right hand, but the spirit, where is the spirit? He's right here. Why would we ignore him? We've got to know him. For illustration purposes, picture with me that you have a dog, and your dog is incredibly bad at shedding hair. Maybe you don't need to really picture this because you have this problem. But you've got a dog and it's really bad at shedding hair, and you're always complaining about how you have to clean up after this dog, and it's always making a mess, and the hair's everywhere, blah, blah, blah. Your friend hears you saying this, and the next time you see them, your friend has a gift for you. And they hand you this gift, it's about this big, and they hand it to you, and you unwrap it, and you're like, oh, cool, thank you. You don't really know what it is. You put it in the corner of the house and you leave it and you forget about it. A couple of weeks later, your your friend comes over to your house again and you start complaining about this dog hair problem. And as you're complaining, you see on their face that they look a little bit hurt and a little bit insulted. And you're like, okay, what's going on? And your friend says to you, Well, hey, didn't you use the gift that I gave you? And you're like, oh, you mean this thing that sat in the corner? And you're like, they're like, yes, that is a robotic vacuum cleaner that I bought you to help with the dog hair. And I know that that's a silly illustration, but we too have been given a gift that we are ignorant about. And our ignorance doesn't just lose us benefits and blessings, it also insults the giver of the gift. I want you to see that this morning. A Christian ignorant of the Holy Spirit is like a completely whole and healthy person ignorant of their ability to walk. If the Holy Spirit is so important, why is he often neglected? We said ignorance, but I'd also say arrogance. This is more condemnable than our ignorance. But arrogance says, I see what you have on offer and I don't need it. Arrogance sees and then denies. The stupidity of arrogance sounds something like this. It's like somebody coming up to you and saying, excuse me, but your fly is down, your zipper is down, and you've been like, oh, thanks, and then just walking on, not doing anything about it. That's arrogance. So what does arrogance sound like specifically when it comes to the Holy Spirit? Well, it may sound like this. I don't need this God or Holy Spirit that you guys are talking about to live inside of me. My life's fine. Why would I need this God? Why would I need this Holy Spirit? If you think and believe that, that's a very arrogant posture to have. I'm just saying that. For others of us who are Christians, you may think this: I don't need God's Spirit to lead or guide me to be a good fill in the blank. A good parent, a good spouse, a good employee, a good neighbor, good with my finances, hobbies, whatever. I don't know what you'd fill in that blank with, but you probably would never ever say that. But the way that you behave indicates that you believe that. You're never going to come out to somebody and say, Well, I don't need the Holy Spirit to help me with my parenting, but the way that you're acting shows that that's what you believe. Maybe arrogance may sound like this. If I had said the gospel just a little bit clearer to my neighbor, I would have convinced him to be a Christian. Now that may sound very holy. I'm witnessing to my neighbor, but that's actually a very arrogant statement. It's saying I'm the one who saves people, not the Holy Spirit. Arrogance can take on all sorts of forms, specifically when it comes to the Holy Spirit. And I'm saying this because I want you to see that we are guilty of ignorance and arrogance. I'm guilty of it. You are too. Why? Well, it's because there's another spirit that is at work in this world, and it's often referred to in the Bible as our flesh. We have the Holy Spirit if we're Christians inside of us. But we also have our flesh. Romans 8 says this those that are in the flesh cannot please God. You, however, are not in the flesh, but in the spirit, since the Spirit of God lives in you. But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to him. Now, if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. So it's basically saying, yes, this body that we dwell in, this tent, whatever you want to call it, yes, it struggles with the flesh, but the Holy Spirit's inside of you. There's this kind of wrestling back and forth, which we've talked about before. But it then goes on to clarify this, verse 12. So then, brothers, we are not obligated to the flesh to live according to the flesh, for if you live according to the flesh, you are going to what? Die. Strong language. But it's true. Our flesh, the spirit of self, if you want to call it that, produces ignorance and arrogance in us, so we don't live submitted to God, we don't live submitted to his Holy Spirit. Now, this shouldn't surprise us. This isn't some like new problem that humanity all of a sudden is struggling with. If you go all the way back to the very first struggle in the Garden of Eden, we see this problem coming out. Think about this. I want you to think about the Garden of Eden with me for a minute. So, Adam and Eve are there with God, and if you've ever read what it tells us about their relationship, what do we know? That they walked and talked with God, like they're in the presence of God. Like in the cool of the day, God would come and walk and talk with Adam and Eve. How cool is that? Have you guys ever thought about how cool that would be? Like just picture these guys walking through the Garden of Eden and Adam kind of turning to God and saying, Hey God, today I saw the craziest animal. It had this really long neck and it had dots all over it. I don't know how on earth it swallows, but man, it's cool. Like, think about the conversations they would have had. They're in the presence of God right there. Sadly, not very long in, Adam and Eve chose to believe that God was holding out on them. They believed a lie that God was not good. And in that moment, sin was injected into the world. Adam and Eve fell into sin, and the rest of humanity was tainted by that same sin. And in that moment, what happened was God remained holy, but man was sinful, and the holy, pure God could not be in the presence of sin. So what happened? Man, humanity was banished from the presence of God. And so God was here and his creation was separated by sin. Thankfully, God didn't abandon us. But he started to work out a rescue plan. And we've talked about that many times before. But basically, what happened is God set up the law. He sent prophets, messengers, and all of this stuff was set up so that man could somehow have a restored relationship with God. But it wasn't very good. It was a bit of a band-aid solution, if you would. Because what would happen, I think Nick talked about this last week, what would happen is the high priest, this one guy, could go into one place in Jerusalem, inside the temple, into the inner court. He could go there one time a year into the presence of God. Compare that to Adam and Eve walking in the garden with God, to what had happened, the band-aid solution was that, you know, God could be approached once a year by one person after they killed all of these animals as this crazy big sacrifice so that he could go in and hopefully not die. It was crazy. But God sent his rescue plan, his ultimate solution, Jesus. As he sent Jesus to us, Jesus came and he lived this perfect life that you and I could never live. And he goes to the cross. I don't know if you picked up it in the text, but in verse 20, sorry, in verse 30, it tells us that Jesus says, I'm not going to be with you much longer because the ruler of the world is coming. He knows what's about to happen. He knows he's about to go and be crucified on this cross. But what else does he say? He says, He has no power over me. And we see that that wasn't just a statement, that was proved to be true, because Jesus goes to the cross. He dies for the sins of humanity, and then he is raised to life again. And what happens in that is that Jesus defeats the ruler of this world. Not only that, he defeats death. Not only that, this is the part I really want you to hear. That temple curtain, I don't know if you guys have read the story, but that temple curtain that sectioned off that part that only one person could go to one time a year was torn from top. This is this huge, thick, tall curtain, torn from top to bottom. Supernaturally, symbolizing at that moment of Christ's death that we now had access to God's presence again because of Jesus. And what I want to highlight to you guys is that Jesus is so important because he is the mediator of a new relationship between God and humanity. As 1 Timothy tells us in chapter 2, verse 5, for there is one God and one mediator between God and humanity, Christ Jesus himself, human, who gave himself a ransom for all, a testimony at the proper time. Jesus is so important this morning because he's the mediator, and what he has done is he's enabled us to be in the presence of God again. But hear this. Think about this. Adam and Eve walked next to God, which would be pretty cool. But we have something that I would argue is maybe even cooler. We have the Holy Spirit in us. The presence of God in us, not next to us, in us. What an incredible thought, what an incredible revelation that Jesus, as he forgives us of our arrogance and calls us to ignorance, now gives us the ability to commune in relation to the Holy Spirit that lives inside of us. Now our bodies, as 1 Corinthians chapter 6, which we're not going to read this morning, but I want to highlight to you, tells us that our bodies are the temple of the Holy Spirit. You see, the Holy Spirit is proof of Jesus restoring our relationship with God the Father. He's the proof of that. I want to read back at Romans 8 with you and go back to the verse that I skipped over earlier because it's so powerful and so rich and so good. Romans 8.11 says this. And if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you, then he who raised Christ from the dead will also bring your mortal bodies to life through his spirit who lives in you. Guys, this is incredible. The idea that the Holy Spirit lives inside of us, as we quickly talked about earlier, is so incredible. Not only is he in us, he is powerful. The Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead. Have you stopped to consider the implications of that recently? There is no illustration that he's going to do this justice, but in an attempt, I want to give you this. I don't know if you've seen it, but there's this awesome scene in the first Captain America movie where there's this small little soldier, this guy who's really tiny and shriveled and just weak. And he's taken and he's put inside of this chamber, and he goes inside this chamber and they inject him and they expose him to all this crazy radiation or whatever. And he comes out the other side, and what is he? He's powerful, he's strong, he's Captain America. And I'm not saying that you're going to turn into Captain America when the Holy Spirit comes inside of you, but what I am saying is, just in a small way, that is the picture of the victory and the wholeness that we have in Christ when the Holy Spirit comes and lives inside of us. It's an incredible transformation. And yet we act like it's nothing. And so what I'm saying to you today is that the most powerful being of the universe has placed his spirit inside of you, not to make you amazing for your own sake, but for relationship with him and for his glory. So if this powerful, relational, caring spirit wants to live inside of us and to be our counselor, what should we do? How should we respond? Well, firstly, if this morning you're here and you're not a Christ follower, my challenge to you, my request of you is that you would allow Jesus to be your mediator, as we were talking about earlier. If you're not a Christian, you are separated from God's presence by sin, and that's not how God created it. He designed you for relationship. The only way that you will have a restored relationship is through Jesus. Know this morning that you are not abandoned. God has not left you. He loves you and he wants a relationship with you. He wants to put his powerful spirit in you and to infuse your life so that your life can be full of what? The fruit of the Spirit. Galatians 5. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, all of those things. Self-control. So you don't have the fruit of the flesh coming out of your life anymore. Frustration, anger, bitterness. All of those negative things. So you may be sitting there and being like, okay, cool. How do I do that? Well, very simply, you just ask God. This morning, your life could be transformed forever if you would just simply, in a moment or even right now, say, God, I want that. I want your spirit to come and live inside me. I want you to be my mediator. And you don't even need to use these theological words. You can use whatever words seem to fit. But I just ask you this morning, don't leave this place without submitting your life to God. Secondly, if you are a Christ follower, let's remember that He, Almighty God, by His Spirit is in us, and that that should deeply impact the way our lives are lived. Our bodies are his temple, so that should change what we watch, what we say, what we do, where we go, what we spend our time on. All of our lives should be impacted by this thought that yes, God Almighty, with the power to raise Christ from the dead, lives inside of me. Mysteriously. Let's not ignore or be arrogant enough to think that we don't need him. Let's do the opposite of those things and actually engage and submit to him. Those are the words that I put to you today. Let's engage and let's submit. His spirit is capable of bringing the dead to life. So let's submit to him. His spirit has wise solutions to the greatest problems in the world. So let's submit to him. He is all-powerful and all-knowing because he is God. Let's submit to him. He is in us as a gift because of the work of Jesus on our behalf. So his spirit is there, ready, able, wanting to bring us into a deeper relationship with God. The question I'm going to give you to ponder as we kind of have some reflection time here in a moment is this. If the Holy Spirit is in you, how do you need to grow in relating to him? I don't know the answer to this specifically for you. For you this morning, it may simply sound something like this: God, I feel very convicted that I haven't been living, believing that your spirit, the spirit of Jesus who raised Christ from the dead, is actually inside of me. And I often am ignorant of your work or arrogant enough to think that I don't need it. And I'm sorry for that. Would you help me to hear your voice, to discern your leading, to grow in that? Maybe that's the prayer you need to pray this morning. Maybe the prayer you need to pray is a lot more specific. Maybe it's, God, you know my life, but I haven't been submitted to your spirit. I need wisdom. I need counsel from you in how to be the husband that you're calling me to be. My marriage is a mess, and I've got to have wisdom. And you are the spirit that lives inside of me. Would you help me to be the person that you've called me to be and empower me by your spirit to be the man that you're calling me to be? Maybe it's about your parenting situation, maybe it's your work, maybe it's a family situation. I don't know what it is for you this morning. But I do want to say, let's not move from this place without engaging the Spirit and submitting our lives to Him again because He is absolutely essential for living. Like I said earlier, if you're a Christian and you're trying to walk out this life without Christ, it's impossible. It's impossible. It's like being completely whole and healthy and not being able to walk. We've got to submit to him. The Holy Spirit is real, he is present, and so we're gonna have the opportunity for us to respond now in the next few moments. Let's pray. God, thank you. Just for a couple of moments to stop and to consider the fact that you are beyond our understanding, that you are mysterious. There are three parts to you all working together for relationship and reconciliation. God, thank you for the mystery of that. Thank you for the mystery specifically of the Holy Spirit. Thank you that you haven't left us as orphans, but you have actually sent your spirit to come and to live inside of us. And I believe that some of us in this room think that that sounds really good in theory, but don't know what that means in practice. And so, God, I just pray that for those of us who just need to experience your presence today, that we would even just sense in the next few moments your Holy Spirit working on our hearts. God, for all of us here today, Christian and non-Christian alike, God, would you be working? We believe that you are powerful and that you are present. And so we're just asking you to work. And I don't think that's out of line with what you're already doing. God, thank you that you're here. Thank you that you're already working. God, help us to engage with you. Help us to be submitted to you. Help us not to be ignorant or arrogant today. We love you. We're reminded of how desperate and needy we are without you. Thank you. Amen.