June 23, 2025 • 35 mins
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Thank you.
All right, let me read to youfirst from Acts, chapter 2,
verse 1.
It says house, where they weresitting, they saw what seemed to
(00:22):
be tongues of fire thatseparated and came to rest on
each of them.
All of them were filled withthe Holy Spirit and began to
speak in other tongues as theSpirit enabled them.
Now they were staying inJerusalem, god-fearing Jews from
every nation under heaven, andwhen they heard this sound, a
crowd came together inbewilderment because each one
(00:53):
heard their own language beingspoken.
Utterly amazed, they asked aswe walk through this series on
the Holy Spirit, we haverepresented in just this faith
community, in this room,different people who speak
different languages and are fromdifferent places of every
nation in heaven.
And so this week we have ourfriend Frank Sorgensen, who's
going to read our scripture forthe day in Danish.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Jesus said again.
This translates into AgainJesus said Peace be with you, as
(01:44):
the Father has sent.
Said Peace be with you as theFather has sent me.
I am sending you.
And with that he breathed onthem and said Receive the Holy
Spirit.
If you forgive anyone's sins,their sins are forgiven.
If you do not forgive them,they are not forgiven.
This is the word of God.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Thanks be to God.
Thank you, frank.
You can stay back.
There are not forgiven.
This is the word of God.
Thanks be to God.
Thank you, frank.
All right, so I want to actuallyget to that scene, but I
actually want to begin today,just 72 hours prior to what
Frank just read, when he saidsomething, when this final night
of Jesus's life, when heactually said something that's
(02:22):
very difficult to understand,when even for the most seasoned
of disciples, and it wentsomething like this I'm going
away, but there's somethingthat's coming that's going to be
so much better.
You see, in the gospelaccording to John, chapters 14
through 16, there's this onelong conversation between Jesus
(02:44):
and the 12 disciples, right inbetween the Last Supper and his
arrest at Gethsemane, whereJesus cracks this wry smile and
says something like look guys,my days are numbered, but I'm
sending you my spirit, andthat's even better.
So, according to Jesus and he'sremarkably clear about this the
(03:08):
Holy Spirit is a staggeringimprovement to a direct
face-to-face conversation withGod in the flesh.
This indwelling presencesurpasses God in human form and
it's not even close.
That's what he said, and themost interesting thing about
that, to me at least, is wedon't buy it.
(03:30):
Like how many of you, honestly,if you could today trade your
experience with the Spirit ofGod so far for a direct
conversation face-to-face withJesus right now, if you could.
Regardless of maturity,commitment, gifting, education,
most, if not all, of us are abit underwhelmed with the
(03:52):
experience.
The very promise that Jesus gotso excited about, the better
plan that Jesus made, that evenmade him like a touch giddy on
the way to his own execution.
He knows that we're not goingto be left behind and I think a
lot of us would trade it if wecould.
(04:13):
So I want to talk to you todayabout the Holy Spirit and the
biblical understanding is ofthis triune God.
You have the Father, the Sonand the Spirit, and we mostly
get the Father.
I mean, it's God in heaven.
He's parenting all of us, hischildren.
We're here on earth and weunderstand the Son.
He is God in human flesh.
(04:34):
He came to live among us toexperience what we experience
and then reveal God to us fromdown here on our level.
But the Holy Spirit for many ofus is like this urban legend,
like we've heard the rumors, buthas anyone actually spotted the
Bigfoot, the Yeti, yet?
But from Genesis to Revelation,the Spirit is present, it's
(04:57):
active and it's essential.
And despite that, the tragictruth is that for much of the
church in the modern West, theHoly Spirit is kind of like a
familiar stranger.
Christianity Today did a surveya couple years back where they
asked one simple question andthey just wanted to know true or
false, which was the HolySpirit is a force, not a person.
(05:21):
True or false?
51% of responders said truethat the Holy Spirit is a force
to be used, not a person, 7%said they didn't know and 42%
said false.
So over half of AmericanChristians think that the Holy
Spirit, the third person of theTrinity, is a force to be used,
(05:41):
not a person to know or to beknown by.
So I want to introduce you tothe person of the Holy Spirit,
and today, friends, is going tobe a bit like trying to take a
sip of water from a fire hose.
I'm going to give you far morethan you could take in, and
that's okay, it's actually bydesign.
I want to douse you in theimagination of Jesus for your
(06:07):
life, empowered by his spirit,and then we're going to spend
the rest of this summer workingout all of the implications and
everything that it means for youand I.
So this is a shove in the deepend, if you will.
It's a playful, gentle shove.
But here comes the shove.
I want you to get acquaintedwith the Spirit in five biblical
scenes the Spirit in creation,the Spirit in the Old Testament,
(06:31):
the Spirit in Jesus, the earlychurch and us.
And we're going to work our waytoday all the way throughout
the scriptures, because I wantyou to see the Spirit in every
scene in the story.
And so, just so you have ananchor to hang on to as we make
our way through, a key word topay attention to as we go
(06:52):
through this would be tabernacleor temple, so just put that
there.
They're mostly interchangeablein the biblical narrative.
So here we go, way back to thevery beginning.
We're going to start in Genesis, chapter 2.
We're going to start withcreation.
It says this in Genesis, chapter2,.
But for Adam no suitable helperwas found.
(07:12):
So the Lord, god, caused theman to fall into a deep sleep
and while he was sleeping hetook one of the man's ribs and
then closed up the place withhis flesh.
So this is the first surgery inhuman history with complete
divine anesthesia.
Then the Lord made a woman fromthe rib that he had taken out
of this man.
(07:32):
Now, for a lot of you this is afamiliar passage, but the word
rib here is pretty interesting.
In Hebrew it's selah, whichprobably doesn't mean rib in the
biological sense.
As we read this, it's the exactsame word that actually appears
more than 40 times elsewhere inthe New Testament, and never
again is it actually translatedas rib in English.
In almost every other instance,selah refers to the side of a
(07:57):
sacred piece of architecture,almost always referring to the
side of the wall of the templeor the tabernacle.
In fact, you actually see itrepresenting the side of the
wall of the temple or thetabernacle.
In fact, you actually see itrepresenting the side of the Ark
of the Covenant.
Now, what that means is forGenesis 2 is that in the very
beginning, adam and Eve's bodiesare called temples or
tabernacles.
(08:17):
Temples are houses for thepresence of God, and so are our
bodies.
That's actually the revelation.
Moses for the presence of God,and so are our bodies.
That's actually the revelation.
Hang on to that, because it'sgoing to matter as we keep going
.
Now we'll move on to number two,the Old Testament.
(08:40):
So throughout the Exodus story,the presence of God is being
described as like a dense cloud.
There's other descriptions inhere, but it's a cloud that
actually guides the Israelitesthrough the desert, and a cloud
that then descends on MountSinai when God meets with Moses
face to face, as a friend, andeventually God instructs Moses
to build a tabernacle.
That's the Old Testament wordfor a tent, which sounds
ridiculous Like build me a tentso I can go camping with you as
(09:00):
you wander in this journeythroughout the wilderness.
But actually this was arevolutionary thought at the
time, because every conceptionof God that would ever been
recorded up to this point inhistory has God bound to a
particular location.
So now, here on the move, isGod with his people.
It's strikingly personal Godwalking with us, staying with us
(09:24):
, traveling with us wherever wego.
And this was a revolutionaryidea that set Yahweh apart from
every other conception of God upto that point, from any kind of
people.
So Exodus 40, the final verse ofthis book, reads this way Then
the cloud covered the tent ofmeeting and the glory of the
Lord filled the tabernacle.
(09:45):
Moses could not enter the tentof meeting because of the cloud
had settled on it and the gloryof the Lord had filled the
tabernacle.
So now fast forward your way inhistory and Israel's history,
just a little bit to first Kings.
Israel is now settled.
They're not nomadic anymore.
King Solomon upgrades God'shouse from a tent and he adds a
(10:06):
guest room to the tabernacle andso they start calling it the
temple, and the tent becomesmore of a permanent home and it
sits right in the center of thecity.
And when they finishconstruction on this house, we
read something very familiar.
It says in 1 Kings, chapter 8,when the priest withdrew from
the holy place, the cloud filledthe temple of the Lord and the
(10:26):
priest could not perform theirservice because the cloud for
the glory of the Lord had filledhis temple.
So here's this pattern thatyou'll see repeated throughout
the Old Testament that thetabernacle is good.
It's good, but it's incomplete.
It's good because God'spresence is clearly among his
people, and that's wildlyprogressive.
(10:48):
No one's arguing at this timeabout the existence of God in
ancient Israel, like where isGod?
They would say well, he's atthe dense cloud that's going
around or that's filling thetent.
But it's incomplete becausethere's no intimacy.
See Moses in the tabernacle.
He couldn't even go in becauseof the glory of God, was so
powerful.
And so, as for the rest of thepeople, they're told that if you
(11:09):
even put your foot at the baseof the mountain where I'm
meeting with Moses, you'll dropdead instantly.
So in Solomon's temple, thepriest would perform service
when God showed up.
Only the high priest couldenter the presence of God, and
only once a year, on Yom Kippur.
And even when that happened,they would tie a rope to his
ankle just in case he droppeddead in God's presence.
(11:31):
So there was a way to retrievethe body.
So no one was arguing about theexistence of God.
But no one knew God on apersonal level either.
And the tabernacle was theplace where his presence was
there, without intimacy.
But there was a plan to fixthat.
Fast forward to John, chapter 1.
This brings us to Jesus.
(11:53):
The word became flesh and madehis dwelling among us.
We have seen his glory, theglory of the one and the only
son who came from the father,full of grace and truth.
Now the English word here fordwelling is the Greek skinono.
(12:13):
This is an ancient Greek forthe word tabernacle.
The most direct translationthen of this verse would
actually be the word becameflesh and tabernacled among us.
The Old Testament pattern wasbuild a temple, then God fills
(12:34):
the tabernacle with his presence, and now John describes Jesus
as a tabernacle filled withGod's presence and the glory of
the Lord filled the tabernacle.
That filled the tabernacle thatfilled the tabernacle has now
filled.
The body of Jesus.
Now he is a living, breathing,walking, talking tabernacle.
(12:55):
Now, that's a lot more thanjust a clever play on words to
open up a biography for John.
This is the basis by which weunderstand Jesus's life, because
Jesus goes around acting likehe's a tabernacle, like the
tabernacle.
This is one of the reasons thatJesus got himself into so much
trouble with the priests isbecause he does a bunch of stuff
(13:17):
that you could not do outsideof the temple, and I'm not
talking about, like minor socialtaboos.
He was literally breaking theTorah.
For instance, jesus walksaround saying to people you're
forgiven, to which they would belike what, like, no, no, no.
It doesn't work like that.
Jesus, like, if you're in needof grace, you go through these
(13:38):
elaborate series of cleansingrituals.
You enter the temple, you offerthe right sacrifices and are
granted grace by the priestwho's qualified to offer God's
forgiveness to someone else.
Like, and then to which you'dsay well, really, where did you
get that?
He's like we got it from Moses,the founder of the tabernacle,
the author of the law.
You can't just go aroundbreaking the Torah and then here
comes Jesus no temple, nocleansing, no sacrifice, no
(14:03):
priest.
Do you want to repent?
Good, you're forgiven, you'reset free.
In Luke's gospel, jesus returnedto Galilee and the power of the
Spirit and the news about himspread throughout the whole
countryside.
He was teaching in theirsynagogues and everyone praised
him.
He went to Nazareth, where he'dbeen brought up, and on the
(14:25):
Sabbath day he went into thesynagogue as was his custom.
He stood up and read the scrollof the prophet Isaiah was
handed to him.
Unrolling it, he found theplace where it was written the
spirit of the Lord is on mebecause he has anointed me to
proclaim good news to the poor.
He sent me to proclaim freedomfor the prisoners and recovery
(14:49):
of sight for the blind, to setthe oppressed free and to
proclaim the year of the Lord'sfavor.
Now, after this, the entirecongregation literally tried to
push him off of a cliff.
This is how bad his sermon was.
But here's the issue, this oneright here he said the Spirit of
the Lord is on me Now.
(15:09):
This was extremely offensive.
Jesus claiming to be thetabernacle.
Literally what he's saying hereis I'm the container for God's
presence, I'm the vessel that'sfilled with God's Spirit.
And that was just a bit toomuch for them.
But to be fair, jesus doesn'tjust expect them to accept it.
He reads directly here fromtheir own scriptures about what
(15:33):
it would look like when God'spresence actually fills a person
.
It'll look like priority towardthe poor, like freedom for the
imprisoned, the healing ofincurable diseases and the
outpouring of God's favor.
In the days after thisdeclaration, what do we actually
see?
Does Jesus proclaim good newsto the poor?
Yes, we get to call that thegospel.
(15:55):
What about freedom for theimprisoned and the oppressed?
All the time, he literallybuilt a movement that by
defining, by dignifying theoppressed.
And what about the blindreceiving sight from Jesus?
They certainly do, spirituallyand literally, in every town
that he goes to.
And eventually he makes thisclaim in John's gospel.
(16:17):
He says in chapter 2, destroythis temple and I will raise it
again in three days.
Now it's important tounderstand that Jesus said this
actually while standing on theTemple Mount, which was one of
the architectural wonders of theworld.
It had been under constructionfor two generations at the time,
and so priests were offendedbecause they hear this and they
think he's talking about thebuilding.
(16:39):
But John goes on to write.
But the temple he had spoken ofwas his body.
Jesus was talking about hisSelah.
He's talking about Adam's rib.
He's talking about the firsttemple.
He's hearkening it all the wayback to creation his body, the
(17:00):
living, breathing, walking,talking temple.
Jesus was talking about talkingtemple.
Jesus was talking about theHoly Spirit.
And you may be building acontainer for God's presence.
So am I.
I'm just making a container forGod's presence, just like I did
at first, and what I'm buildingin three days through my death
(17:22):
and resurrection is a dramaticupgrade.
In fact, it's a replacement forwhat you've been working on for
generations.
That was what Jesus's point was.
So, moving right along, we'llgo to the early church.
We flipped just a few chaptersahead in the gospel, according
to John, to chapter 20, andwe've arrived now where we began
(17:44):
today with Frank.
Jesus said peace, be with you,as the father has sent me, so I
am sending you, and with that hebreathed on them.
So Jesus's message delivered tohis disciples on the
resurrection evening was receivemy spirit, the presence that
(18:05):
has been tabernacling in me I amnow giving to you.
Actually, you can even use someof that same language and hark
it all the way back to creation.
When Adam was created, thespirit breathed into dust and
created man.
Just as the father, he said,sent me into this world as a
living, breathing tabernacle, Inow send you into this world as
(18:26):
a living, breathing tabernacle.
This is more than just poetry.
Notice the line that followsLike, what do we make of that?
If you forgive someone's sins,they're forgiven.
This is Jesus talking toordinary people like you and me,
saying if you forgive someone'ssins, they're forgiven, but if
you do not forgive them, they'renot.
(18:47):
To which we would say are yousure that's in the Bible?
Like, is that how that works?
Because I don't know if I wantthat power, I don't know if it's
the power over me.
Like, look, this is messagenumber one off the lips of Jesus
to his followers after hisresurrection.
So then we ask well, what onearth does that even mean?
(19:11):
Remember, jesus got himselfinto trouble for doing things
that you could not do except ifyou were a qualified priest in
the temple.
And he's now saying now you go,and you go do those very things
, and he promises his spirit tohis followers.
And then he says now you do it,so does this mean I should go
around forgiving sins?
No, what it means, friends, isthat people should experience
(19:32):
God's forgiveness by proximityto you, because you are a temple
, carrying his presence with youwherever you go.
And so Jesus is saying thisthat the presence and the power
of God that you have seen atwork in me is now in you, and
it's not this comforting theoryor this poetic metaphor, but
(19:55):
it's an actual practice.
And right after that weencounter the book of Acts, when
those very disciples go arounddoing stuff that you could not
do outside of the temple.
They're preaching forgiveness.
They're preaching forgiveness,they're baptizing, they're
praying, they're healing, andthey go around doing the very
stuff that Jesus did.
Now remember the evidence thatJesus listed off.
The Lord anointed me toproclaim the good news.
(20:17):
They preached the gospel.
The church has always done itand will continue to do that.
This is a practice that we comefrom here.
But they did more than justpreach the gospel, because the
evidence of the Holy Spirit alsoincludes freedom and healing
and forgiveness.
And in Acts, in addition tothat, the Lord added to their
number daily, those who werebeing saved.
(20:38):
We also read many stories aboutprayer, where jail cells fling
open and Peter and John Hill, aparaplegic man, elderly man, on
the way to church, and then hedances in front of the opening
worship song and then Paulpreaches a sermon that's so long
that someone dozes off.
See, it's happened from thevery beginning.
They doze off and they fall outof a window and die, and then
(21:04):
somehow gets healed before thebenediction, before the blessing
at the end.
That was a long one.
Daily they're serving food tothe oppressed and to the
vulnerable and in the midst ofall that supernatural outbreak
that we see and we read, theyalso suffered.
They continued to grieve, theyquestioned, they doubted, they
(21:26):
went through spells, sometimeslong ones, of spiritual apathy.
They were us.
And you have to ask how canthose two things coexist?
How can the supernatural powerand the natural pain and
hardship exist together in onecommunity?
Pain and hardship existtogether in one community?
(21:50):
Well, it's because we'retalking about a relationship
with a person, not a box ofmagic tricks.
The church led by the Spiritlooks like a continuization of
everything Jesus started and itlooks very flawed because
everything was given to ordinary, flawed people like you, not me
.
You didn't hear that.
(22:11):
I didn't land right, but yougot it.
Like ordinary flawed peoplelike you and I.
The rest of the Bible isessentially just a bunch of
ordinary people tabernacling,ordinary people filled with the
Holy Spirit carrying on theministry that Jesus started.
(22:31):
Now, finally, us.
The final stop on our whirlwindtour through the Bible is in 1
Corinthians.
Now, what I'm about to read toyou is actually a letter that
was written by the Apostle Paul,and it was to the Church of
Corinth.
It's much like a letter thatwas written to be read in a
(22:52):
gathering, much like this one,and like a church like this one
and a city, a whole lot likethis one, starts out with this
Don't you know that?
You now, this is importantright here, you.
Right here.
That's the plural you.
English doesn't do a good job,as many other languages have a
(23:12):
way to make this more of aplural you.
I think that's why you knowback east, it's y'all right.
We want to talk about theplural way to do it.
That'd be the most simple way,and so in English we just have
one word for you.
It's just you, and so it's hardto translate, but here he's
talking to this whole gathering,this gathered community.
We're talking about the church.
So he says don't you know thatyou yourselves which is such a
(23:35):
weird sentence right there areGod's temple and that God's
spirit dwells in your midst?
So what he's saying is there'sstill a tabernacle, there's
still a place where God's glorydwells, and it's you, or
actually it's y'all it's thegathered church, it's not the
building.
It's whenever the collective'slives of Jesus' followers come
(23:59):
together as a community.
We are bound together by theHoly Spirit, and when we come
together, the glory of the Lordis in the atmosphere, just like
in Moses' tent or in Solomon'stemple, and like Jesus' body.
But there's even more.
He continues on and says don'tyou know that?
Your bodies?
Now he switched this.
This is now singular.
(24:20):
It's time for your individualphysical body that we're talking
about here.
Your bodies are actuallytemples of the Holy Spirit who
is in you, whom you havereceived from God.
You are not your own.
You have been bought with aprice.
Therefore, honor God with yourtemples, with your own.
You have been bought with aprice.
Therefore, honor God with yourtemples, with your bodies.
Your physical body is now aselah, just like it was at first
(24:45):
, it's the dwelling place of God.
Through the Holy Spirit, youare filled with the very Spirit
of Jesus.
So here's just a quick recap ofthis.
There's a familiar stranger inthe background of the whole
Bible, getting closer and closeras the story moves forward.
(25:06):
So at creation, god affirmsAdam and Eve's bodies as
dwelling places for his spirit,living temples.
And in the Old Testament Godfills Moses' tabernacle.
And in Solomon's temple God'sspirit comes to live in the
heart of the city with hispeople.
And in Jesus God's spirit fillsa person whose life, death and
(25:30):
resurrection breaks everybarrier between God and us, so
that the church is a communityof people bound together by
God's spirit.
And then, every time we gathertogether, god is here in our
midst.
That's us.
But it's even more intimatethan that you, any one of you
(25:55):
who accepts Jesus's offer oflife by grace is then filled
with God's spirit, exactly as hewas.
That's the story of the Bible,and if I had to sum it up in a
single sentence along this theme, I would say God's spirit has
been given to us and to you, andI think this is so beautiful.
(26:19):
But it's way more than justpoetry, it's actually practice.
Let's go back real quick to thelast night of Jesus's life, that
long conversation that he washaving about going away and then
sending his spirit.
Jesus also said that sameconversation very truly, I tell
you.
And Jesus is saying why is hesaying very truly, he's saying
this isn't hyperbole.
I actually mean conversationvery truly.
I tell you.
And Jesus is saying why is hesaying very truly, he's saying
this isn't hyperbole, like, Iactually mean this Very truly.
(26:41):
I tell you that whoeverbelieves in me will do the very
works I've been doing, and theywill do even greater things than
these because I'm going to theFather.
Now there's so much debateamong scholars about exactly
what Jesus meant by even greaterthings Like is it quantity of
works?
Is it quality of works Jesus istalking about here?
(27:02):
This is what we know, at theleast that Jesus doesn't mean
less or not as good as what Ihave been doing.
And to fixate on that partactually is to miss the most
staggering claim in the verse.
The key word here is whoever.
Whoever See Jesus has made usall tabernacles filled with his
(27:25):
presence, his power, by doingand doing the very things that
we see him doing.
And who is that offer for to beable to do that, whoever,
whoever the power of God hasbeen shared with, which is
whoever will actually receive it.
This is the supernatural core,a lived resurrection, holy
(27:45):
Spirit, core of the Christianlife.
And, to borrow a phrase fromJordan, seeing the Holy Spirit's
job description is to make theimpractical practicable.
The Holy Spirit makes thetotally impractical, the
supernatural, the miraculous.
The gospel ministry of Jesus isnot just practical, but it's
(28:06):
actually practicable.
It's not only possible inextreme situations by super
spiritual people, but it'sactually practicable by the high
school student struggling withpushing the envelope with his
girlfriend and the reallystressed out businessman who's
financially in over his head,and the mom who can barely pay
attention right now becauseshe's sure her kids are going
wild and ballistic in the kidsministry, and by the
(28:29):
half-interested guy that's onlyhere because she's here, and by
the doubter, right now with herarms crossed, who has an
objection and a counterpoint towhat I'm saying, and by the
woman who's on the edge of herseat because she wants it so bad
she can't even stand it.
Everyone, every child of God,everyone who has received Jesus,
(28:49):
has been filled with his spiritto make the impractical
practicable.
And who is it?
For?
Whoever, whoever believes in me, and this is what you can
expect from your life, to whichsome of us would say well, yeah,
if that's true, then like whatabout?
(29:11):
or like what about that or thisthing?
We'll get there.
I promise we'll get there.
We have the whole summer to goto talk about this.
But for a moment, will you justdream with me?
What if God's biggest dreams forus as a church aren't only that
more people would fill ourseats?
(29:31):
Don't get me wrong.
It definitely includes that.
But what if it also includesthe addicted finding freedom?
In a city with a long historyof substance abuse, a new
reputation emerges for freedomby the name of Jesus.
And what if it includes peoplewho are obsessively distracted
(29:51):
with their appearance and thesuccess of their startup finally
finding freedom to go to workbecause it doesn't have to hold
the weight of their worthanymore?
What if it includes being freeenough to spend a Friday night
at a high-end restaurant withsome of your best friends, or at
a nursing home serving foodentrees to widows, and actually
be present, actually be happyand equally alive in both of
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those places?
What if it includes theterminally ill rolling into this
church, because there's a rumorthat people here actually pray
for healing and every once in awhile it actually works?
And what if it includes asimple word that cuts all the
way to the hardest heart, andprayers that carry the weight of
(30:36):
the king himself, and a senseof joy that cannot be stolen.
And I'm going to tell you,friends, if it includes all of
that, you've got to admit,doesn't that sound a lot more
fun, Worth it?
This is the dream that, I think, put a light in Jesus's eye
even on the night of hisexecution that everything that
he has might be ours.
(30:56):
And one of the great tragediesmay be that the greatest tragedy
in the church of our time isthat the Holy Spirit has just
become a familiar stranger.
I mean, it must break the heartof Jesus.
The spirit that he was actuallyso eager to give us has become
(31:17):
unknown, feared and evendivisive.
The Holy Spirit for many isunknown, and the reason that so
many of us would reverse thedeal with Jesus if we could,
where we would just trade in theintimacy of the Spirit for just
a chat with the Son, is becausethe Holy Spirit has become a
stranger.
(31:38):
And some, even in this family,sit here and honestly feel like
you know what, Like.
If this is my experience up tothis point, if everything that
the victory of Jesus has won.
For me, then, like honestly,I'm a bit underwhelmed and a
touch disappointed if this isreally all that is accomplished.
(32:03):
Billy Graham, he says everywhereI go, I find that God's people
lack something.
They're hungry for something.
Their Christian experience isnot all that they had expected
and they often have thisreoccurring defeat in their
lives.
Christians today are hungry forspiritual fulfillment.
They're in desperate need ofthe nation.
(32:26):
The desperate need of thenation today is that men and
women who profess Jesus befilled with the Holy Spirit.
Now, those are words from a notparticularly charismatic,
theologically sound gospelpreacher who traveled the globe
seeing the church in everyvariety and form, and after all
of that, his major takeaway isthat the church is missing the
(32:50):
Holy Spirit, longing for theHoly Spirit, needing the Holy
Spirit.
Now, everything that I've justsaid to you is just an
introduction for the comingweeks, but here's the big idea
for today the Holy Spirit is aperson to know, not a force to
capture, and I don't want to getyou all wound up about the
(33:13):
power of the Spirit or about theexperience of the Spirit.
I want to introduce you to thepower of the Spirit or about the
experience of the Spirit.
I want to introduce you to theperson of the Spirit, and you
cannot know a person just bylearning or reading about them.
That's the terribly limitingaspects of these sermons.
To know the Holy Spirit, toexperience what Jesus was
(33:34):
talking about on his last night,that requires more than us just
listening to a sermon series.
It requires a risk ofrelationship.
It means personally interactingwith God as Spirit.
It means learning to enjoy thepresence of God, to tune your
ear to a still small whisper andto walk then in step with the
(33:59):
Spirit.
It is so much more personal andit is so much better.
So I wanna invite you to buckleup and now I wanna offer this
for you to engage in thisworship song and experience and
be attuned and aware that theSpirit is actually on the move.
(34:21):
May it be so.
Will you stand and worship withme?
Thank you.
All right, let me read to youfirst from Acts, chapter 2,
verse 1.
It says house, where they weresitting, they saw what seemed to
(00:22):
be tongues of fire thatseparated and came to rest on
each of them.
All of them were filled withthe Holy Spirit and began to
speak in other tongues as theSpirit enabled them.
Now they were staying inJerusalem, god-fearing Jews from
every nation under heaven, andwhen they heard this sound, a
crowd came together inbewilderment because each one
(00:53):
heard their own language beingspoken.
Utterly amazed, they asked aswe walk through this series on
the Holy Spirit, we haverepresented in just this faith
community, in this room,different people who speak
different languages and are fromdifferent places of every
nation in heaven.
And so this week we have ourfriend Frank Sorgensen, who's
going to read our scripture forthe day in Danish.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Jesus said again.
This translates into AgainJesus said Peace be with you, as
(01:44):
the Father has sent.
Said Peace be with you as theFather has sent me.
I am sending you.
And with that he breathed onthem and said Receive the Holy
Spirit.
If you forgive anyone's sins,their sins are forgiven.
If you do not forgive them,they are not forgiven.
This is the word of God.
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Thanks be to God.
Thank you, frank.
You can stay back.
There are not forgiven.
This is the word of God.
Thanks be to God.
Thank you, frank.
All right, so I want to actuallyget to that scene, but I
actually want to begin today,just 72 hours prior to what
Frank just read, when he saidsomething, when this final night
of Jesus's life, when heactually said something that's
(02:22):
very difficult to understand,when even for the most seasoned
of disciples, and it wentsomething like this I'm going
away, but there's somethingthat's coming that's going to be
so much better.
You see, in the gospelaccording to John, chapters 14
through 16, there's this onelong conversation between Jesus
(02:44):
and the 12 disciples, right inbetween the Last Supper and his
arrest at Gethsemane, whereJesus cracks this wry smile and
says something like look guys,my days are numbered, but I'm
sending you my spirit, andthat's even better.
So, according to Jesus and he'sremarkably clear about this the
(03:08):
Holy Spirit is a staggeringimprovement to a direct
face-to-face conversation withGod in the flesh.
This indwelling presencesurpasses God in human form and
it's not even close.
That's what he said, and themost interesting thing about
that, to me at least, is wedon't buy it.
(03:30):
Like how many of you, honestly,if you could today trade your
experience with the Spirit ofGod so far for a direct
conversation face-to-face withJesus right now, if you could.
Regardless of maturity,commitment, gifting, education,
most, if not all, of us are abit underwhelmed with the
(03:52):
experience.
The very promise that Jesus gotso excited about, the better
plan that Jesus made, that evenmade him like a touch giddy on
the way to his own execution.
He knows that we're not goingto be left behind and I think a
lot of us would trade it if wecould.
(04:13):
So I want to talk to you todayabout the Holy Spirit and the
biblical understanding is ofthis triune God.
You have the Father, the Sonand the Spirit, and we mostly
get the Father.
I mean, it's God in heaven.
He's parenting all of us, hischildren.
We're here on earth and weunderstand the Son.
He is God in human flesh.
(04:34):
He came to live among us toexperience what we experience
and then reveal God to us fromdown here on our level.
But the Holy Spirit for many ofus is like this urban legend,
like we've heard the rumors, buthas anyone actually spotted the
Bigfoot, the Yeti, yet?
But from Genesis to Revelation,the Spirit is present, it's
(04:57):
active and it's essential.
And despite that, the tragictruth is that for much of the
church in the modern West, theHoly Spirit is kind of like a
familiar stranger.
Christianity Today did a surveya couple years back where they
asked one simple question andthey just wanted to know true or
false, which was the HolySpirit is a force, not a person.
(05:21):
True or false?
51% of responders said truethat the Holy Spirit is a force
to be used, not a person, 7%said they didn't know and 42%
said false.
So over half of AmericanChristians think that the Holy
Spirit, the third person of theTrinity, is a force to be used,
(05:41):
not a person to know or to beknown by.
So I want to introduce you tothe person of the Holy Spirit,
and today, friends, is going tobe a bit like trying to take a
sip of water from a fire hose.
I'm going to give you far morethan you could take in, and
that's okay, it's actually bydesign.
I want to douse you in theimagination of Jesus for your
(06:07):
life, empowered by his spirit,and then we're going to spend
the rest of this summer workingout all of the implications and
everything that it means for youand I.
So this is a shove in the deepend, if you will.
It's a playful, gentle shove.
But here comes the shove.
I want you to get acquaintedwith the Spirit in five biblical
scenes the Spirit in creation,the Spirit in the Old Testament,
(06:31):
the Spirit in Jesus, the earlychurch and us.
And we're going to work our waytoday all the way throughout
the scriptures, because I wantyou to see the Spirit in every
scene in the story.
And so, just so you have ananchor to hang on to as we make
our way through, a key word topay attention to as we go
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through this would be tabernacleor temple, so just put that
there.
They're mostly interchangeablein the biblical narrative.
So here we go, way back to thevery beginning.
We're going to start in Genesis, chapter 2.
We're going to start withcreation.
It says this in Genesis, chapter2,.
But for Adam no suitable helperwas found.
(07:12):
So the Lord, god, caused theman to fall into a deep sleep
and while he was sleeping hetook one of the man's ribs and
then closed up the place withhis flesh.
So this is the first surgery inhuman history with complete
divine anesthesia.
Then the Lord made a woman fromthe rib that he had taken out
of this man.
(07:32):
Now, for a lot of you this is afamiliar passage, but the word
rib here is pretty interesting.
In Hebrew it's selah, whichprobably doesn't mean rib in the
biological sense.
As we read this, it's the exactsame word that actually appears
more than 40 times elsewhere inthe New Testament, and never
again is it actually translatedas rib in English.
In almost every other instance,selah refers to the side of a
(07:57):
sacred piece of architecture,almost always referring to the
side of the wall of the templeor the tabernacle.
In fact, you actually see itrepresenting the side of the
wall of the temple or thetabernacle.
In fact, you actually see itrepresenting the side of the Ark
of the Covenant.
Now, what that means is forGenesis 2 is that in the very
beginning, adam and Eve's bodiesare called temples or
tabernacles.
(08:17):
Temples are houses for thepresence of God, and so are our
bodies.
That's actually the revelation.
Moses for the presence of God,and so are our bodies.
That's actually the revelation.
Hang on to that, because it'sgoing to matter as we keep going
.
Now we'll move on to number two,the Old Testament.
(08:40):
So throughout the Exodus story,the presence of God is being
described as like a dense cloud.
There's other descriptions inhere, but it's a cloud that
actually guides the Israelitesthrough the desert, and a cloud
that then descends on MountSinai when God meets with Moses
face to face, as a friend, andeventually God instructs Moses
to build a tabernacle.
That's the Old Testament wordfor a tent, which sounds
ridiculous Like build me a tentso I can go camping with you as
(09:00):
you wander in this journeythroughout the wilderness.
But actually this was arevolutionary thought at the
time, because every conceptionof God that would ever been
recorded up to this point inhistory has God bound to a
particular location.
So now, here on the move, isGod with his people.
It's strikingly personal Godwalking with us, staying with us
(09:24):
, traveling with us wherever wego.
And this was a revolutionaryidea that set Yahweh apart from
every other conception of God upto that point, from any kind of
people.
So Exodus 40, the final verse ofthis book, reads this way Then
the cloud covered the tent ofmeeting and the glory of the
Lord filled the tabernacle.
(09:45):
Moses could not enter the tentof meeting because of the cloud
had settled on it and the gloryof the Lord had filled the
tabernacle.
So now fast forward your way inhistory and Israel's history,
just a little bit to first Kings.
Israel is now settled.
They're not nomadic anymore.
King Solomon upgrades God'shouse from a tent and he adds a
(10:06):
guest room to the tabernacle andso they start calling it the
temple, and the tent becomesmore of a permanent home and it
sits right in the center of thecity.
And when they finishconstruction on this house, we
read something very familiar.
It says in 1 Kings, chapter 8,when the priest withdrew from
the holy place, the cloud filledthe temple of the Lord and the
(10:26):
priest could not perform theirservice because the cloud for
the glory of the Lord had filledhis temple.
So here's this pattern thatyou'll see repeated throughout
the Old Testament that thetabernacle is good.
It's good, but it's incomplete.
It's good because God'spresence is clearly among his
people, and that's wildlyprogressive.
(10:48):
No one's arguing at this timeabout the existence of God in
ancient Israel, like where isGod?
They would say well, he's atthe dense cloud that's going
around or that's filling thetent.
But it's incomplete becausethere's no intimacy.
See Moses in the tabernacle.
He couldn't even go in becauseof the glory of God, was so
powerful.
And so, as for the rest of thepeople, they're told that if you
(11:09):
even put your foot at the baseof the mountain where I'm
meeting with Moses, you'll dropdead instantly.
So in Solomon's temple, thepriest would perform service
when God showed up.
Only the high priest couldenter the presence of God, and
only once a year, on Yom Kippur.
And even when that happened,they would tie a rope to his
ankle just in case he droppeddead in God's presence.
(11:31):
So there was a way to retrievethe body.
So no one was arguing about theexistence of God.
But no one knew God on apersonal level either.
And the tabernacle was theplace where his presence was
there, without intimacy.
But there was a plan to fixthat.
Fast forward to John, chapter 1.
This brings us to Jesus.
(11:53):
The word became flesh and madehis dwelling among us.
We have seen his glory, theglory of the one and the only
son who came from the father,full of grace and truth.
Now the English word here fordwelling is the Greek skinono.
(12:13):
This is an ancient Greek forthe word tabernacle.
The most direct translationthen of this verse would
actually be the word becameflesh and tabernacled among us.
The Old Testament pattern wasbuild a temple, then God fills
(12:34):
the tabernacle with his presence, and now John describes Jesus
as a tabernacle filled withGod's presence and the glory of
the Lord filled the tabernacle.
That filled the tabernacle thatfilled the tabernacle has now
filled.
The body of Jesus.
Now he is a living, breathing,walking, talking tabernacle.
(12:55):
Now, that's a lot more thanjust a clever play on words to
open up a biography for John.
This is the basis by which weunderstand Jesus's life, because
Jesus goes around acting likehe's a tabernacle, like the
tabernacle.
This is one of the reasons thatJesus got himself into so much
trouble with the priests isbecause he does a bunch of stuff
(13:17):
that you could not do outsideof the temple, and I'm not
talking about, like minor socialtaboos.
He was literally breaking theTorah.
For instance, jesus walksaround saying to people you're
forgiven, to which they would belike what, like, no, no, no.
It doesn't work like that.
Jesus, like, if you're in needof grace, you go through these
(13:38):
elaborate series of cleansingrituals.
You enter the temple, you offerthe right sacrifices and are
granted grace by the priestwho's qualified to offer God's
forgiveness to someone else.
Like, and then to which you'dsay well, really, where did you
get that?
He's like we got it from Moses,the founder of the tabernacle,
the author of the law.
You can't just go aroundbreaking the Torah and then here
comes Jesus no temple, nocleansing, no sacrifice, no
(14:03):
priest.
Do you want to repent?
Good, you're forgiven, you'reset free.
In Luke's gospel, jesus returnedto Galilee and the power of the
Spirit and the news about himspread throughout the whole
countryside.
He was teaching in theirsynagogues and everyone praised
him.
He went to Nazareth, where he'dbeen brought up, and on the
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Sabbath day he went into thesynagogue as was his custom.
He stood up and read the scrollof the prophet Isaiah was
handed to him.
Unrolling it, he found theplace where it was written the
spirit of the Lord is on mebecause he has anointed me to
proclaim good news to the poor.
He sent me to proclaim freedomfor the prisoners and recovery
(14:49):
of sight for the blind, to setthe oppressed free and to
proclaim the year of the Lord'sfavor.
Now, after this, the entirecongregation literally tried to
push him off of a cliff.
This is how bad his sermon was.
But here's the issue, this oneright here he said the Spirit of
the Lord is on me Now.
(15:09):
This was extremely offensive.
Jesus claiming to be thetabernacle.
Literally what he's saying hereis I'm the container for God's
presence, I'm the vessel that'sfilled with God's Spirit.
And that was just a bit toomuch for them.
But to be fair, jesus doesn'tjust expect them to accept it.
He reads directly here fromtheir own scriptures about what
(15:33):
it would look like when God'spresence actually fills a person
.
It'll look like priority towardthe poor, like freedom for the
imprisoned, the healing ofincurable diseases and the
outpouring of God's favor.
In the days after thisdeclaration, what do we actually
see?
Does Jesus proclaim good newsto the poor?
Yes, we get to call that thegospel.
(15:55):
What about freedom for theimprisoned and the oppressed?
All the time, he literallybuilt a movement that by
defining, by dignifying theoppressed.
And what about the blindreceiving sight from Jesus?
They certainly do, spirituallyand literally, in every town
that he goes to.
And eventually he makes thisclaim in John's gospel.
(16:17):
He says in chapter 2, destroythis temple and I will raise it
again in three days.
Now it's important tounderstand that Jesus said this
actually while standing on theTemple Mount, which was one of
the architectural wonders of theworld.
It had been under constructionfor two generations at the time,
and so priests were offendedbecause they hear this and they
think he's talking about thebuilding.
(16:39):
But John goes on to write.
But the temple he had spoken ofwas his body.
Jesus was talking about hisSelah.
He's talking about Adam's rib.
He's talking about the firsttemple.
He's hearkening it all the wayback to creation his body, the
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living, breathing, walking,talking temple.
Jesus was talking about talkingtemple.
Jesus was talking about theHoly Spirit.
And you may be building acontainer for God's presence.
So am I.
I'm just making a container forGod's presence, just like I did
at first, and what I'm buildingin three days through my death
(17:22):
and resurrection is a dramaticupgrade.
In fact, it's a replacement forwhat you've been working on for
generations.
That was what Jesus's point was.
So, moving right along, we'llgo to the early church.
We flipped just a few chaptersahead in the gospel, according
to John, to chapter 20, andwe've arrived now where we began
(17:44):
today with Frank.
Jesus said peace, be with you,as the father has sent me, so I
am sending you, and with that hebreathed on them.
So Jesus's message delivered tohis disciples on the
resurrection evening was receivemy spirit, the presence that
(18:05):
has been tabernacling in me I amnow giving to you.
Actually, you can even use someof that same language and hark
it all the way back to creation.
When Adam was created, thespirit breathed into dust and
created man.
Just as the father, he said,sent me into this world as a
living, breathing tabernacle, Inow send you into this world as
(18:26):
a living, breathing tabernacle.
This is more than just poetry.
Notice the line that followsLike, what do we make of that?
If you forgive someone's sins,they're forgiven.
This is Jesus talking toordinary people like you and me,
saying if you forgive someone'ssins, they're forgiven, but if
you do not forgive them, they'renot.
(18:47):
To which we would say are yousure that's in the Bible?
Like, is that how that works?
Because I don't know if I wantthat power, I don't know if it's
the power over me.
Like, look, this is messagenumber one off the lips of Jesus
to his followers after hisresurrection.
So then we ask well, what onearth does that even mean?
(19:11):
Remember, jesus got himselfinto trouble for doing things
that you could not do except ifyou were a qualified priest in
the temple.
And he's now saying now you go,and you go do those very things
, and he promises his spirit tohis followers.
And then he says now you do it,so does this mean I should go
around forgiving sins?
No, what it means, friends, isthat people should experience
(19:32):
God's forgiveness by proximityto you, because you are a temple
, carrying his presence with youwherever you go.
And so Jesus is saying thisthat the presence and the power
of God that you have seen atwork in me is now in you, and
it's not this comforting theoryor this poetic metaphor, but
(19:55):
it's an actual practice.
And right after that weencounter the book of Acts, when
those very disciples go arounddoing stuff that you could not
do outside of the temple.
They're preaching forgiveness.
They're preaching forgiveness,they're baptizing, they're
praying, they're healing, andthey go around doing the very
stuff that Jesus did.
Now remember the evidence thatJesus listed off.
The Lord anointed me toproclaim the good news.
(20:17):
They preached the gospel.
The church has always done itand will continue to do that.
This is a practice that we comefrom here.
But they did more than justpreach the gospel, because the
evidence of the Holy Spirit alsoincludes freedom and healing
and forgiveness.
And in Acts, in addition tothat, the Lord added to their
number daily, those who werebeing saved.
(20:38):
We also read many stories aboutprayer, where jail cells fling
open and Peter and John Hill, aparaplegic man, elderly man, on
the way to church, and then hedances in front of the opening
worship song and then Paulpreaches a sermon that's so long
that someone dozes off.
See, it's happened from thevery beginning.
They doze off and they fall outof a window and die, and then
(21:04):
somehow gets healed before thebenediction, before the blessing
at the end.
That was a long one.
Daily they're serving food tothe oppressed and to the
vulnerable and in the midst ofall that supernatural outbreak
that we see and we read, theyalso suffered.
They continued to grieve, theyquestioned, they doubted, they
(21:26):
went through spells, sometimeslong ones, of spiritual apathy.
They were us.
And you have to ask how canthose two things coexist?
How can the supernatural powerand the natural pain and
hardship exist together in onecommunity?
Pain and hardship existtogether in one community?
(21:50):
Well, it's because we'retalking about a relationship
with a person, not a box ofmagic tricks.
The church led by the Spiritlooks like a continuization of
everything Jesus started and itlooks very flawed because
everything was given to ordinary, flawed people like you, not me
.
You didn't hear that.
(22:11):
I didn't land right, but yougot it.
Like ordinary flawed peoplelike you and I.
The rest of the Bible isessentially just a bunch of
ordinary people tabernacling,ordinary people filled with the
Holy Spirit carrying on theministry that Jesus started.
(22:31):
Now, finally, us.
The final stop on our whirlwindtour through the Bible is in 1
Corinthians.
Now, what I'm about to read toyou is actually a letter that
was written by the Apostle Paul,and it was to the Church of
Corinth.
It's much like a letter thatwas written to be read in a
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gathering, much like this one,and like a church like this one
and a city, a whole lot likethis one, starts out with this
Don't you know that?
You now, this is importantright here, you.
Right here.
That's the plural you.
English doesn't do a good job,as many other languages have a
(23:12):
way to make this more of aplural you.
I think that's why you knowback east, it's y'all right.
We want to talk about theplural way to do it.
That'd be the most simple way,and so in English we just have
one word for you.
It's just you, and so it's hardto translate, but here he's
talking to this whole gathering,this gathered community.
We're talking about the church.
So he says don't you know thatyou yourselves which is such a
(23:35):
weird sentence right there areGod's temple and that God's
spirit dwells in your midst?
So what he's saying is there'sstill a tabernacle, there's
still a place where God's glorydwells, and it's you, or
actually it's y'all it's thegathered church, it's not the
building.
It's whenever the collective'slives of Jesus' followers come
(23:59):
together as a community.
We are bound together by theHoly Spirit, and when we come
together, the glory of the Lordis in the atmosphere, just like
in Moses' tent or in Solomon'stemple, and like Jesus' body.
But there's even more.
He continues on and says don'tyou know that?
Your bodies?
Now he switched this.
This is now singular.
(24:20):
It's time for your individualphysical body that we're talking
about here.
Your bodies are actuallytemples of the Holy Spirit who
is in you, whom you havereceived from God.
You are not your own.
You have been bought with aprice.
Therefore, honor God with yourtemples, with your own.
You have been bought with aprice.
Therefore, honor God with yourtemples, with your bodies.
Your physical body is now aselah, just like it was at first
(24:45):
, it's the dwelling place of God.
Through the Holy Spirit, youare filled with the very Spirit
of Jesus.
So here's just a quick recap ofthis.
There's a familiar stranger inthe background of the whole
Bible, getting closer and closeras the story moves forward.
(25:06):
So at creation, god affirmsAdam and Eve's bodies as
dwelling places for his spirit,living temples.
And in the Old Testament Godfills Moses' tabernacle.
And in Solomon's temple God'sspirit comes to live in the
heart of the city with hispeople.
And in Jesus God's spirit fillsa person whose life, death and
(25:30):
resurrection breaks everybarrier between God and us, so
that the church is a communityof people bound together by
God's spirit.
And then, every time we gathertogether, god is here in our
midst.
That's us.
But it's even more intimatethan that you, any one of you
(25:55):
who accepts Jesus's offer oflife by grace is then filled
with God's spirit, exactly as hewas.
That's the story of the Bible,and if I had to sum it up in a
single sentence along this theme, I would say God's spirit has
been given to us and to you, andI think this is so beautiful.
(26:19):
But it's way more than justpoetry, it's actually practice.
Let's go back real quick to thelast night of Jesus's life, that
long conversation that he washaving about going away and then
sending his spirit.
Jesus also said that sameconversation very truly, I tell
you.
And Jesus is saying why is hesaying very truly, he's saying
this isn't hyperbole.
I actually mean conversationvery truly.
I tell you.
And Jesus is saying why is hesaying very truly, he's saying
this isn't hyperbole, like, Iactually mean this Very truly.
(26:41):
I tell you that whoeverbelieves in me will do the very
works I've been doing, and theywill do even greater things than
these because I'm going to theFather.
Now there's so much debateamong scholars about exactly
what Jesus meant by even greaterthings Like is it quantity of
works?
Is it quality of works Jesus istalking about here?
(27:02):
This is what we know, at theleast that Jesus doesn't mean
less or not as good as what Ihave been doing.
And to fixate on that partactually is to miss the most
staggering claim in the verse.
The key word here is whoever.
Whoever See Jesus has made usall tabernacles filled with his
(27:25):
presence, his power, by doingand doing the very things that
we see him doing.
And who is that offer for to beable to do that, whoever,
whoever the power of God hasbeen shared with, which is
whoever will actually receive it.
This is the supernatural core,a lived resurrection, holy
(27:45):
Spirit, core of the Christianlife.
And, to borrow a phrase fromJordan, seeing the Holy Spirit's
job description is to make theimpractical practicable.
The Holy Spirit makes thetotally impractical, the
supernatural, the miraculous.
The gospel ministry of Jesus isnot just practical, but it's
(28:06):
actually practicable.
It's not only possible inextreme situations by super
spiritual people, but it'sactually practicable by the high
school student struggling withpushing the envelope with his
girlfriend and the reallystressed out businessman who's
financially in over his head,and the mom who can barely pay
attention right now becauseshe's sure her kids are going
wild and ballistic in the kidsministry, and by the
(28:29):
half-interested guy that's onlyhere because she's here, and by
the doubter, right now with herarms crossed, who has an
objection and a counterpoint towhat I'm saying, and by the
woman who's on the edge of herseat because she wants it so bad
she can't even stand it.
Everyone, every child of God,everyone who has received Jesus,
(28:49):
has been filled with his spiritto make the impractical
practicable.
And who is it?
For?
Whoever, whoever believes in me, and this is what you can
expect from your life, to whichsome of us would say well, yeah,
if that's true, then like whatabout?
(29:11):
or like what about that or thisthing?
We'll get there.
I promise we'll get there.
We have the whole summer to goto talk about this.
But for a moment, will you justdream with me?
What if God's biggest dreams forus as a church aren't only that
more people would fill ourseats?
(29:31):
Don't get me wrong.
It definitely includes that.
But what if it also includesthe addicted finding freedom?
In a city with a long historyof substance abuse, a new
reputation emerges for freedomby the name of Jesus.
And what if it includes peoplewho are obsessively distracted
(29:51):
with their appearance and thesuccess of their startup finally
finding freedom to go to workbecause it doesn't have to hold
the weight of their worthanymore?
What if it includes being freeenough to spend a Friday night
at a high-end restaurant withsome of your best friends, or at
a nursing home serving foodentrees to widows, and actually
be present, actually be happyand equally alive in both of
(30:15):
those places?
What if it includes theterminally ill rolling into this
church, because there's a rumorthat people here actually pray
for healing and every once in awhile it actually works?
And what if it includes asimple word that cuts all the
way to the hardest heart, andprayers that carry the weight of
(30:36):
the king himself, and a senseof joy that cannot be stolen.
And I'm going to tell you,friends, if it includes all of
that, you've got to admit,doesn't that sound a lot more
fun, Worth it?
This is the dream that, I think, put a light in Jesus's eye
even on the night of hisexecution that everything that
he has might be ours.
(30:56):
And one of the great tragediesmay be that the greatest tragedy
in the church of our time isthat the Holy Spirit has just
become a familiar stranger.
I mean, it must break the heartof Jesus.
The spirit that he was actuallyso eager to give us has become
(31:17):
unknown, feared and evendivisive.
The Holy Spirit for many isunknown, and the reason that so
many of us would reverse thedeal with Jesus if we could,
where we would just trade in theintimacy of the Spirit for just
a chat with the Son, is becausethe Holy Spirit has become a
stranger.
(31:38):
And some, even in this family,sit here and honestly feel like
you know what, Like.
If this is my experience up tothis point, if everything that
the victory of Jesus has won.
For me, then, like honestly,I'm a bit underwhelmed and a
touch disappointed if this isreally all that is accomplished.
(32:03):
Billy Graham, he says everywhereI go, I find that God's people
lack something.
They're hungry for something.
Their Christian experience isnot all that they had expected
and they often have thisreoccurring defeat in their
lives.
Christians today are hungry forspiritual fulfillment.
They're in desperate need ofthe nation.
(32:26):
The desperate need of thenation today is that men and
women who profess Jesus befilled with the Holy Spirit.
Now, those are words from a notparticularly charismatic,
theologically sound gospelpreacher who traveled the globe
seeing the church in everyvariety and form, and after all
of that, his major takeaway isthat the church is missing the
(32:50):
Holy Spirit, longing for theHoly Spirit, needing the Holy
Spirit.
Now, everything that I've justsaid to you is just an
introduction for the comingweeks, but here's the big idea
for today the Holy Spirit is aperson to know, not a force to
capture, and I don't want to getyou all wound up about the
(33:13):
power of the Spirit or about theexperience of the Spirit.
I want to introduce you to thepower of the Spirit or about the
experience of the Spirit.
I want to introduce you to theperson of the Spirit, and you
cannot know a person just bylearning or reading about them.
That's the terribly limitingaspects of these sermons.
To know the Holy Spirit, toexperience what Jesus was
(33:34):
talking about on his last night,that requires more than us just
listening to a sermon series.
It requires a risk ofrelationship.
It means personally interactingwith God as Spirit.
It means learning to enjoy thepresence of God, to tune your
ear to a still small whisper andto walk then in step with the
(33:59):
Spirit.
It is so much more personal andit is so much better.
So I wanna invite you to buckleup and now I wanna offer this
for you to engage in thisworship song and experience and
be attuned and aware that theSpirit is actually on the move.
(34:21):
May it be so.
Will you stand and worship withme?
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