When the Spirit Moves in Power
Transcript
But happy, happy Labor Day weekend. If it's your first time hanging out with us, my name is Matt. I'm one of the pastors, and we're coming to the conclusion of a little two-week series that we've been doing. I was reading recently in a book, and the author shared a story that I want to share with you guys. In 1857, there was this young guy named Jeremiah Lanphier who had just been given a new job as a pastor on the south side of Manhattan. It was a really small church, and like anybody who's going into a new job, he was excited.
He was excited to get to know people, to start spending time with them. But it didn't take long for Jeremiah to become discouraged and frustrated, because it seemed like every person he met didn't have time to talk about God, wanted nothing to do with the church. It was like people just bypassed him in such a fast-paced city. And so not really knowing what else to do, he decided to pray. And as he was praying, an overwhelming sense of God's Spirit, God's presence came over top of him. It was unlike anything he had ever experienced before.
And so what he decided was, okay, I'm going to just invite people to pray with me and ask for God to continue doing this. That was his new plan of attack. So he decided that one day every week, he would put a sign outside of the mission, inviting people to come in and pray with him during the lunch hour. So that was his new plan. So he put out the sign, the day came, he went inside and waited.
Five minutes. Ten minutes. Twenty minutes. A half hour went by and nobody. And again, defeated and discouraged, he went to close up shop when six people walked in the door. And he was excited because people had come to pray.
So he just, he prayed with those six people. And he was really excited about it. The next week he put the sign back out, 20 people showed up. The next week, 40 people showed up. And those 40 people decided, no, let's, let's, this is great. Let's do this every day.
So they started meeting every day at the lunch hour until after a couple of months, there were hundreds of people filling the auditorium of that church at the lunch hour every day praying. They outgrew that space and they started meeting in other places all around Manhattan. And in a couple of months time, reporters estimated that there were nearly 10,000 Christians crying out to God at the lunch hour in Manhattan. And in just nine months time, 50,000 people came to Christ in Manhattan at a time when New York's population did not exceed 800,000. That's amazing. That's amazing.
Like doesn't that like raise every hair on your arms? Just going, I want to see God do something like that. I want to see God move and work in Columbia. I want to see an outpouring of the spirit where there's thousands of people coming to Christ. In fact, the pages of Christian history are filled with stories like this. It's happening right now with the underground church in China.
I mean, there's just thousands of people coming to Christ. We see stories like Peter in the book of Acts. And every time I hear these stories, I just, I long for that. Like I want to see God doing a work like that, outpouring his spirit. And what we talked about last week is that as Christians, we understand that prayer and the Holy Spirit are vitally important to the life of a Christian. But sometimes we have a hard time wrapping our mind around like, how do I pray on a regular basis?
How do I see the Holy Spirit moving and working in my life in the day to day? And we made the connection that the reason that we pray in the first place is that we need God. So in the same way that a child is wholly dependent upon its parent to get the things that it needs to take care of it, we relate to God in the same way. And God's answer to everything that we need is to send the Holy Spirit. So we get to be needy children with a good father.
And the good gift that our father wants to give us is the Holy Spirit. And so when we're praying, we're praying about everything and we're asking for God to send the Holy Spirit to be active and at work. I was talking with one of our group leaders this week and he was telling me, he said, you know, I've been a Christian for a while and I pray. But just in this last week have begun to pray. Instead of God help me have a good day at work, I've begun to pray. Holy Spirit, help me do what I need to do at work today.
Help me reach the people that I need to. Help me interact with these people. And he just said it made all the difference in the world because he was asking for God to be at work in his life. That's what the point of prayer is. And so what we're looking at today is a specific prayer in the Bible where the guy is praying about God bringing about restoration, bringing about redemption. And as we look at this passage, we're not going to see specifically the Holy Spirit talked about here.
So as he's praying for restoration, he's not asking for the Holy Spirit. But we know on this side of the cross and in light of what we looked at last week is Jesus teaches us to pray. When we're asking for God to redeem, when we're asking for him to restore, what we're actually wanting, what we need to be asking for is the Holy Spirit. And so the question we're trying to answer this morning is if that's the case, if we should be praying for the Holy Spirit and God desires to work and he's going to use the Holy Spirit to do it, how does that show up? Like what exactly is that going to look like in our lives?
So before we hop into the text, let's pray and ask God to open his word to us. God, we don't have the ability to comprehend your word outside of you moving and working through your Holy Spirit. So God, I pray that these would not be my own words, that they would be yours. God, I pray that there would be encouragement this morning as we understand the point of prayer and what we're actually asking for and how you desire to send the Holy Spirit to be everything that we need. In Jesus' name, amen. Grab a Bible, turn to Psalm 126.
So if you grabbed one of those blue and white Bibles in the chairs, you're going to be turning to page 333. We're going to be looking at Psalm 126 today. And if you haven't spent a lot of time in the Psalms, I would encourage you to. They're amazing. It's basically a collection of songs and poetry that kind of span the range of human emotion from love to anger to despair to worship. And the majority of the Psalms are actually written as prayers.
So they're prayers to God. In the Psalm that we're looking at today, the author is yearning for the same type of outpouring of the Spirit from the story that we just saw in Manhattan. It's the same kind of thing. He wants to see God move and work. And before we start reading, if you look, look just above the text. So if you grab a Bible, you may see it says, Song of Ascents.
Okay, all that means is this is one of the songs that the Israelites would sing, they would recite, they would pray as they were going up to Jerusalem to worship. And it was almost as if they were setting their minds on who it was they were going to worship, why they were going to worship. And so it kind of in light of that, I want us to be reading it. This is the people reminding themselves of who God is and how they ought to be relating to him. So Psalm 126 is just six verses, but there's a lot here.
Verse one. So the writer of this Psalm is recalling a time when God came to the rescue of his people. So he says, God, when you restored the fortunes of Zion and that word Zion, it's just used throughout the Bible to either refer to the people of God or the place where the people of God were. He said, you came and you restored the fortunes of Zion. And it must have been amazing. And while we can't see it, we can get a picture of how they're describing it.
He says, we were like those who dream. It's one of those like you're wiping your eyes trying to figure out what's it's that type of moment. We were like those who dream. Our mouth was filled with laughter. Our tongues with shouts of joy. We celebrated as a church family last week the return of college football.
Hallelujah. And so some of you hopefully have enjoyed that all week long. It has been a great weekend of college football. There's even college football tonight and tomorrow night. It's a glorious Labor Day weekend, guys. And most of you were probably glued to your televisions on Thursday night watching the Gamecocks play.
Okay. There was not a whole lot of expectation with the Gamecocks going into this season. Everyone was kind of wondering what the must champ era was going to look like. And according to the first half, it wasn't going to look very good. Because the Gamecocks went in to halftime down 10-0. But then they came out in the second half.
Perry Orth started completing some passes. Some of those wide receivers started making some catches. And Carolina found themselves deep into the fourth quarter tied 10-10 with Vanderbilt. And so they're way out from the end zone. It becomes fourth down. And the field goal unit comes onto the field.
And the smallest guy on the team, which I can't help but point out, guys, his last name's Fry. So a small Fry comes out onto the field at about 130 pounds. And that joker kicked that ball. And it would have been good for another six to seven yards. He crushed it. And the Carolina fans that were in that stadium went nuts.
They were losing their mind and high-fiving. And I'm looking at the screen going, it's just Vanderbilt, guys. Calm down. And all across our city and all across our state, people, like, you may not have even known the person. Like, the people in the stadium, they might not have even known them. But they're high-fiving.
They're excited. That's the type of unbridled joy that the psalmist is describing. We couldn't believe it. We were like those who dreamed. This is unbelievable. It was so unbelievable that even the surrounding nations were looking at it going, the Lord has done great things for them.
Not a God. The God. The Lord. The Lord has done great things for them. And so the guy who wrote this Psalm is remembering what God has done in the past. And in verse 4, he begins praying.
So in light of what God has done in the past, he then brings his request to God. So this is verse 4. He says this. Restore our fortunes, O Lord. Okay, so he started praying now. He's using the exact same language that he used up in verse 1 to remember what God had done in the past.
So restore our fortunes, O Lord, like streams in the Negev. Maybe your Bible says Negev with a V. Maybe it's Negev with a B. There's an exclamation point. So he's getting hype right now.
He's really excited about what he's praying and asking God to do. He says, restore our fortunes, O Lord, like streams in the Negev. Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy. So the writer of this Psalm turns out of thanksgiving for what God had done in the past into a request. He says, okay, God, what you did, what you did in our past, how you rescued, how you redeemed, we want you to do that again. We need you to bring rescue and salvation and mercy.
God, come. Come to our rescue. And it's not hard to get the gist of what he's saying here. God redeemed in the past and there's a situation now where they need him again. And this is not, this is very akin to what we looked at last week when Jesus was teaching his disciples to pray. The whole point was they were needy and they needed God's active work in their lives.
Like they needed the Holy Spirit to be moving and working. And they're in the same situation right now saying, God, bring about restoration. So it's not hard to understand what they're saying, but they are using terms that we wouldn't use on a regular basis. And I think if we'll take some time to just kind of unpack what they're saying, to talk about what's going on in their culture, it'll help us have a better understanding of how we ought to be praying. So you guys know this.
Israel is located in the Middle East, which is one of the like harshest climates in the world. It is mostly desert. So like picture the cartoon version of the coyote, Wile E. Coyote and the Roadrunner and like the tumbleweeds rolling. And like it's that type of dry. It's arid.
It's hot. It's windy. Rains are sporadic. And the culture at this time was based off of farming. Oh, boy. It's like, could you imagine trying to plant crops in this kind of an environment?
And some of you, some of you have green thumbs like you. Maybe you've got some tomato plants or maybe you've got a garden. I know one of our group leader actually has a garden on her balcony of their second floor apartment. And you walk outside and it's kind of like you're in a jungle. And there's some spices over here and some tomato plants. It's actually pretty cool.
I'm impressed that it hasn't been scorched by the Columbia sun. But we don't talk about things in terms of farming in 21st century America because we don't interact with it on a regular basis. And so the language he's using, I want you to imagine that you've got to plant a garden. So you're thinking about the seeds that you're planting and the water and the sunlight. And the place that you had to do it is, oh, I don't know, the top of the Grand Canyon. And you've got a pretty good picture.
You've got an idea of what they were up against. And what the psalmist is praying is for God to restore. And the language that he's using is that of farming, that of bringing about growth, bringing about a harvest. And he's giving us two ways that God does that. So there's an Old Testament scholar named Derek Kidner.
He says that this Psalm is basically showing us two ways that God works in the hearts of people. And so one of the ways we say that, so look back at verse 5. Look at verse 5 again. It says this, Those who sow, so sow just means plant, Those who sow in tears shall reap, that means gather, with shouts of joy. Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy. Those who sow in tears.
That sounds terrible. Like the psalmist is imagining land so dry that individual seeds had to be planted and like watered with tears. Like you know you're in bad shape if to get your tomato plant to grow, you've got to like cry over top of it. You know you're in really bad shape. And that's what he's imagining. But the psalmist understands that even though that may require exhausting patience and excruciating labor, the growth would come.
That's the way the verse ends. Those who sow in tears shall reap with shouts of joy. And what he's saying here is that part of God's response to our prayer, part of his answer for his presence and for him to be working, is to actually send to the Holy Spirit to help us labor and sweat and work and toil on the grind to see growth come about. Jesus talks about this in the Psalms. Not in the Psalms, in the Gospels. He tells a story about a guy sowing seeds and he says, some of it fell on the road and some of it fell among rocks and some of it fell among thorns, but some of it fell among good soil.
And that produced a crop of 30, 60, 100 fold. Like even in Jesus' story, he's talking about how hard it is to sow seeds and to be planting. And the truth is, we often see God work like this through us. So we talk about planting the seeds of the Gospel, spreading the Gospel in the lives of people that God has placed us around. So maybe for you, that's the place that you work.
Maybe that's with your neighbors. Some of you, that's with your family. So like with your kids or your spouse. And it's painstaking. Your investment in their lives is just hard. It's difficult.
There are sleepless nights and tireless days. And you're shedding tears because it's just difficult. You can all think about those relationships right now where you've been investing for so long and you're just not seeing any kind of result. You're not seeing God at work. So maybe it's a co-worker.
It's someone that you work with and you've been talking to this girl about her relationship with her boyfriend. And you've been sharing the Gospel with her and you tell her that her worth and value doesn't have to come from that guy who sounds like a jerk based off of the stories. It can actually come from Jesus and she's actually, she's receptive to that. And you run into her the next week at work and she's really excited to tell you that she has since moved in with her boyfriend and wants to go on a double date with you and your husband. What the heck? Right?
You hear that and you're like, oh, what happened? What happened to the good conversation? Or maybe there's a guy that you work with that you've been inviting him to go get wings with the guys in your group. He came to your poker night. He's kind of a skeptical type person so he asks a lot of questions. But he's starting to see how Jesus is the answer to those questions.
And he comes by you in the warehouse. Hey, dude, I got that job in Philly. And like while his hand's in there, you just want to like get one of those jabs in. Dude, I didn't know you were looking for a job. Ah, yeah, man, I've been trying to get out of this dump for a long time. What about the countless hours that I've spent like pouring into what happens to this guy now?
Some of you have been like investing in the lives of your children. So like you're trying to teach them how to obey and like why obeying is good and should be motivated by the gospel. And they just got the third note sent home this week. And school's only been in session for two weeks and you're running out of patience. Your investment in their life is difficult. Some of you, you've been working in your marriage to really have the gospel come to bear.
You're trying to learn how to communicate. But they said that comment again. They brought that thing up again and you exploded and now you're in other rooms. You're having a hard time seeing it. It's hard. Planting seeds, sowing seeds is difficult and painstaking.
Some of you, maybe you've got some neighbors. You've been building with them. You've been investing in their lives. Like you've been watching their kids so they can go on date nights. You've been helping them do some yard work. And then in a discussion late one night, you point out an area of their life where there's some sin.
And they automatically become flaky. Not answering their phone. Not wanting to come to the door. They've just checked out. Sowing seeds is difficult. And it's even more difficult to see the results.
But what we're seeing in this Psalm is that some gospel work is just like that. It's long and laborious and costly. But that's not the only way. That's part of it. We get another picture of how God wants to bring about restoration. Go back to verse 4.
So we kind of skipped over this. We're going back to now. This is the beginning of the prayer. He says, Restore our fortunes, Lord, like streams in the Negev. Restore our fortunes, Lord, like streams in the Negev. Okay, so now the Negev, I already told you Israel is kind of a desert climate.
The Negev was like the desertiest part of the desert. Like it was the hottest of the hot. It was the, you see just the bones laying around everywhere. It's a rough patch in Israel. But every once in a while, torrential rains would come through that area.
And the small stream beds that kind of wiggle through the land would fill up, would overflow, and would flood the land. The flat land would be covered in water. And the land was so dry that it would soak up all of that water. And almost in a 24-hour period, it would go from looking like a desert to a green field. The landscape would be transformed in an instant. Like it was just sitting there waiting for it.
And the psalmist, as he's writing that, he's praying and asking, God, do that. Do the miraculous. Take desert and turn it into living land. Take it and make it green. Bring life. That's the miraculous.
So when you look at sowing seeds, and God bringing about this type of flood, the streams in the Negev, it's unbelievable. And that's what he's praying for. And that's what the story from Manhattan is. It's God sending his Holy Spirit and working in a big way. 50,000 people coming to Christ in just a nine-month period. I referenced the underground church in China.
Within the last century, the missionaries who had been serving in China got kicked out. And Christianity as a whole began to be persecuted. So the church had to go underground. So they just had to basically be the church in hiding. And so the handful of Christians, and it was still a pretty decent number, in the last century, the best estimates they can give is that the church in China is currently 60 million plus in the face of persecution, where they cannot openly be Christians and share the gospel. It's the same thing that we see.
If you read the book of Acts, that's all about the big movement of the Holy Spirit. So Jesus dies on the cross, rises from the grave, and ascends into heaven. And when he ascends into heaven, there's basically 120 believers. And he tells them to wait, wait to do anything until the Holy Spirit comes. And the Holy Spirit shows up at Pentecost. Peter stands up and preaches.
And 3,000 people get saved that day alone. The gospel begins to spread from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria to the ends of the earth. And within the century, they estimated that there were one million Christians. That's a huge move of the Holy Spirit. And every time I hear stories like that, I just want that. God was doing stuff that people laboring could not accomplish.
It was miraculous. And let's be real. If we're looking for God to bring about restoration, to bring about healing, to bring about salvation, and our two options are for us to sow seeds with tears, so to be empowered by the Spirit to do that, or for God to send the Spirit like streams in the Negev, like a flood, I don't know about you, this is the one I want. For lots of reasons. I want as many people to come to know Jesus as possible. I want them to know the hope and the life and the joy found in Him.
The other part is, I know what this is like. This is what life is like for a lot of us. Where we're sowing seeds and we're working hard. And if I can just have the flood, I'll take that because I know what I'm struggling with and what I'm working through right now. That even though the verse ends with, we'll reap with songs of joy, it still makes it difficult. And the truth is, if our only option was that we, like for restoration, was that we would sow seeds with tears and that's how the restoration came about, I think it would almost be easier than if we didn't know about the flood part.
But sometimes God works through us sowing seeds and tears and sometimes it comes through the flood. There's a story from South Korea in 1907. Christians had been there for a while. They had been sharing the gospel and there was a, it hadn't really gained traction, but there were some believers at this time. And so they decided that they would try to get all the believers together and hold a conference. And so the night came for the conference to begin.
And a man by the name of Mr. King walked up to the podium, visibly shaken. And in a trembled voice said, I must confess before God and before you that for the last several weeks I have harbored an intense hatred for Mr. Lee. And I repent before God and before you. And the room fell silent.
Because Mr. King had just admitted to hating the person who was hosting the conference. So all the eyes turned to Mr. Lee and Mr. Lee was visibly taken aback, but gathered himself and said, Mr. King, I forgive you.
And what happened next is indescribable. One reporter tried to describe it and here's what he said. What happened next was a poignant sense of mental anguish due to the conviction of sin. After Mr. King publicly repented before God and to Mr. Lee, Christians all across the room began to repent of their sin.
They began to cry out to God and to confess their sins. And they were going around the room, going to their brothers and sisters and repenting of sin. And they were shedding tears because they were broken over it. What began in the early evening continued on to 5 a.m. the next day. And the Christians gathered the next night and the next night and the next night. And by the end of the week, the missionaries didn't know what was going to happen because the presence of God's spirit was so strong in that place they couldn't contain it.
And so all of those Christians went back to their homes. And they sought out people that they worked with and that they lived near, people that they had harmed, people that they had sinned against, and they started repenting to them. And as they repented to them of their sin, the people began to understand the good news of the gospel and those people started becoming Christians. Within a couple of weeks, there were hundreds of new Christians in South Korea. This eventually spread to a local college campus. And by the end of the semester, 90% of the students at that college had become Christians.
Christians, the people who were in the city started traveling out into the rural areas. And then people from the rural areas were walking upwards of 200 miles to get to a city to hear what God was doing. In a year's time, 50,000 people came to Christ. Thousands of churches were planted. And the gospel began to spread to all the neighboring Asian countries. And it hasn't stopped.
If you know a South Korean Christian, you know what's up because they're not playing around. I want that. I want to see that. I want to see God do that. Within a five-mile radius of this place right here, which includes parts of downtown, there are over 60,000 people outside of a relationship with Christ. There are estimates of about 600,000 people in Lexington and Richland counties.
And if you apply those same statistics across the board, you're looking at 100, 150, possibly 200,000 people who don't know Jesus. You work with some of those people. And they don't know Jesus. You frequent the restaurants where they work and they don't know Jesus. They don't know the hope and the life and the joy found in Him. And as a church, we're not okay with that.
We want to see as many people come to Christ as possible. So when I hear stories of the Holy Spirit being poured out, I want that. I want to see streams in the Negev. I want to see God pour His Spirit out. And here's what's even harder to grasp. God wants to send those streams.
He wants to. It's all throughout the Bible. Psalm 2.8 says this, Ask me and I will make the nations your inheritance. Matthew 9.38 Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into His harvest field. Acts 1.8 You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth. Matthew 28 Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations.
The Bible is filled with the language of God wanting to send the flood, wanting to send the streams. How do we know? Because the streams of God's mercy flow from the cross of Christ. It's the sacrifice of Jesus that actually makes true restoration possible. That every bit of sweat and labor and work that as you invest in the lives of people that God's placed you around is only a shadow of the sacrifice that Jesus made on your behalf. The song that we just sang is an old hymn.
There is a fountain. It says this, There is a fountain filled with blood drawn from Emmanuel's veins. And you hear that and you're like, that's kind of weird language, weird imagery, but it's not. So the blood comes from Emmanuel's veins. Emmanuel means God with us. That's Jesus.
What about the blood? Sinners, that's you and I, plunged beneath the flood, lose all their guilty stains. The flood of God's mercy and salvation and rescue come from the cross of Jesus. God desires to send it incomprehensibly more than you do. Even more than you want it. So much so that he was willing to allow Jesus to go to the cross to make it possible.
So how do you reconcile those two? How do you reconcile those two ways that God moves, that God brings about restoration? When it feels, when you're praying for streams in the Negev, when you're praying for the flood, and all it feels like is you're just sowing seeds in tears. Look at verse 6. Those who go out weeping, carrying seed to sow, shall return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with them. The harvest happens.
You see that? They come back with sheaves and with shouts of joy. And some of you this morning are tired. You're frustrated. You're emotionally burnt out. There are people in your life that you've just been investing in.
You've been sacrificing for. You've been pouring yourself out for it. And you're just not seeing the results. And I want you to see what this Psalm is saying. See the promise. Those who go out weeping shall return with songs of joy, carrying the results of the harvest with them.
Don't give up. Don't give up. Don't stop. Don't quit. God promises it. Don't stop.
The harvest is made possible because of Jesus. Not because of your ability to hold it together. Not because of your ability to be strong, but because of His. Keep fighting. The harvest comes. Jesus makes the harvest possible.
And here's the deal. Wanting to see God send streams in the Negev, wanting to see Him flood, doesn't stop us from continuing to sow seeds. So how do you reconcile these two? How do you reconcile them together? We keep sowing and we keep praying. We keep sowing and we keep praying.
These aren't mutually exclusive. It's not either or. It's both and. We keep sowing seeds and praying for God to send the Holy Spirit. And He's going to bring about the harvest. He promises to do it.
And sometimes it's going to be through sowing seeds. And other times it's going to be through a flood of His Spirit moving and working. Sometimes people talk about a big move of the Spirit and they use the word revival. There's a pastor in New York City. His name's Tim Keller. He's a really smart dude.
And so we're going to see what he has to say about this. I've got a quote. I want to put it on the screen. He says that revival is the intensification of the normal operations of the Holy Spirit through the ordinary means of grace. Okay, now English. Let's do English this time.
The big move of God's Spirit. So that's the intensification. Okay. Of the normal operations of the Holy Spirit. Okay, so it's the intensification. It's getting bigger.
It's a bigger move of God's Spirit in His normal operations. So what does the Holy Spirit do? We talk about this stuff all the time. The Holy Spirit leads us. He convicts us of sin. He leads us to repentance.
He helps us understand the Word. He is God's response to everything in our lives. He's what leads us in the day to day. He's what helps us have courage and boldness as we invest in the lives of people around us. So revival is the intensification of the normal operations of the Holy Spirit through the ordinary means of grace.
Okay, what's that? The ordinary means of grace are just the ordinary ways that God continuously works in our lives. So if you're using that farming metaphor, it's the tilling soil. It's planting seeds. It's watering them. It's the sunlight.
It's those types of things in the life of a Christian. It's the things that we know that bring about growth in us and growth in the lives of people around us. It's preaching the gospel. It's reading the Bible. It's praying. It's repenting of sin.
It's actually being invested in church community. It's going out and serving and being on mission. Like revival is not so much the Holy Spirit doing a new thing as it is pouring great power on the things that normal Christians are already doing. And so our response this morning, some of us, what we need to hear is, is keep sowing. Keep sowing seeds. Keep pursuing the ordinary means of grace.
Keep doing the ordinary while you're praying for God to do the extraordinary. And there's a ton of ways this shows up, but I've got four. I just want to show us this morning. Preach the gospel. Preach the gospel to yourself and to others. The gospel is the life-changing good news.
It is not just good news that it's salvation. It is good news for all of life, which means that as Christians, we're thinking about how does the gospel impact me at work? How does the gospel impact me as I'm a dad or as a husband? Like, how does the gospel impact that? It means that we're actually opening our Bibles and asking God to show us and to help us be obedient. It means we're looking at the people that we work with and listening to their stories and what's going on in their lives.
And we're asking, how is the gospel good news here? How can I share the gospel with this person? That's the ordinary stuff of Christians. And we're praying for God to do the extraordinary, which is to actually cause belief, which is to actually bring about salvation. Some of us need to be praying for our entire floor at work to be saved. Some of us need to pray for our entire school to be saved because God can do that.
And so we do the ordinary while praying for the extraordinary. The other thing is this, we repent of sin. The Bible is clear that there is nothing that grieves the Holy Spirit more than unconfessed sin. Some of you may be sitting there this morning and you know, you know what God is doing in you right now. You know the sin that you're pursuing and you're not repenting of it and you're going, where's God's presence? Where am I?
I'm not seeing him move. I'm not seeing him work. Part of the way the Holy Spirit moves and works is through the repentance of sin. That's what happened in the story from Korea. That's what we're fighting for in our community groups through openness and honesty. It's the ordinary stuff.
And we're praying for God to do the extraordinary. In a culture where the mantra is you do you, do whatever feels best, we're praying for people to be convicted of sin and to follow what the Bible says. We're praying for the extraordinary while we do the ordinary. We persist in prayer. This is really what we spent most of our time talking about last week, is that we understand that we're needy. That's the story of the guy going to his house at midnight.
That's asking, seeking, knocking, persistently asking for God to be at work and to send his Holy Spirit. And we pray about everything. Work, family, relationships. There's nothing that we can't ask for the Holy Spirit to be involved in. And the fourth thing is that we're the church. Be the church.
Be invested in God's means to save the world. That's what the book of Acts is. That's what the New Testament is. It's Jesus continuing to work. So we do the ordinary while praying for the extraordinary.
This church began as seven people in a house. It is no longer. There have been people who have met Jesus and have been baptized. And there are disciples who are making disciples. And there is one group that became two groups that became four groups that is now six groups. It's the extraordinary.
We keep sowing seeds and praying for the flood. In South Korea before that conference, just a few months, just a few months before that conference, the missionaries got together. And they had been there for 23 years and they were tired. They were ready to give up. They had all but decided to pack their bags and go home. They had spent 23 years preaching the gospel and repenting of sin and praying and being the church with very little results.
And what God did through the ordinary means of grace was intensified the move of the Holy Spirit. The move of the Holy Spirit came through the ordinary means of grace. It started by repenting of sin and took the country and surrounding Asian nations by storm. So we keep sowing seeds, praying for God to send the flood. And so in this two-week series, what we've seen is that we're needy. We need God.
We need His active work. We need His presence. And so God wants us to pray, asking for the Holy Spirit. And as we do that, we pursue the ordinary means of grace, asking for God to move and work. So what does that look like for us?
For us as a church, that means we're a gospel-centered community on mission. It means everything. It means we preach the gospel. It means we read the Bible. It means we're pursuing Jesus. It means we're preaching the gospel on Sundays.
It means we're sharing the gospel where we go. And we're existing in community, in biblical community with each other, where we bear one another's burdens and we love one another and we fight alongside one another. And we're on mission to see more people meet Jesus in our city. It's the ordinary. And we're asking God to do the extraordinary. The way our church continues to grow is through the multiplication of healthy groups.
Josh said that earlier. Most of you are here because you got invited into a community group. Someone that was in a group invited you. And so you want to know the flood that we're praying for? And I want you to grab a card in front of you. Grab a card and grab a pen.
They're in the seats right there in front of you. Grab a card, grab a pen. You want to know what we're praying for? Remember, we're praying for 24 healthy community groups in 2019. Do the math. Yeah, we're six now.
That means it's got to double and become 12. And it's got to double again and become 24. We're praying for God to bring about 24 community groups by 2019. By the end of 2019. Because if we've done that, that means disciples are being made. People are meeting Jesus.
Leaders are being trained. Our city is being impacted by the gospel. God is doing work. And it happens through us doing the normal things that Christians are to do. And so we're going to spend some time praying. The band's not going to come up quite yet.
We're actually going to spend some time praying over these things. Like I said, some of you are tired this morning. Some of you are having a hard time seeing God active and at work. And you're struggling. And you want to. Like you need to see Him at work.
And so I want you to write those four things down. Preach the gospel. I want you to write that down. Repent of sin. Persist in prayer. Be the church.
Write those down. And here's what we're going to do. We're going to have some music playing in the room. We're just going to spend some time praying. So I'm going to kind of call these things out.
And I want you to start praying. I want you to start praying and asking God to be active and at work in you. For God to send the Holy Spirit to be working and moving. So that you can sow seeds. So you can not faint or grow weary.
Because it's hard. But Jesus promises that the harvest comes. He does work in it. So all across the room, I want you to bow your head. I want you to pray that God would help you grow in your own understanding of the gospel. That God would help you grow in your own understanding of the gospel.
That God would help you grow to love Jesus. To love his word and to want to follow. So all across the room, if you can let him know, what to say, God would help you grow in your own understanding of the gospel. Thanks for warning, 떨어�ctive, for the gospel.
God's Glory and Our Neediness
Transcript
Good morning. We're starting a new series today on prayer and the Holy Spirit. I have some very big, important news. Football is back. That means a whole, whole lot. It's a very, very special time of the year.
But I remember when I was in high school, I played football, and I was pretty good in high school. I was one of the bigger guys, one of the faster guys, one of the stronger guys on the team. We actually had a pretty good team. We won our region my junior and senior year, and we won state my senior year. And I got to go play football in college. And I remember getting to college and being at camp, and suddenly was not one of the stronger guys or faster guys or bigger guys and was completely in over my head.
Like I remember, like I thought I knew things about football. Would have told you, yeah, like I understand this game. And then I just remember showing up, and it was like at times, like they weren't even close to speaking English. Like I'm sitting in meetings, and I have no clue what they're talking about. Our coach would be drawn on a whiteboard, or he would actually have us out on the field, and he's moving people around, and he would say stuff like, all right, now if they come out in 10 personnel, and they got trips to the field, back to the field, we're going to be in 4-3 base. We're going to have two 2-I's, two 9-I's.
Will, if they come out in this, we're going to be in automatic bear blitz. Mike, you're going to have to have hook curl. We're going to have show two, roll 30 on the snap. We're going to have cover three to the right, and you're going to be backside corner. You're going to be man up. Now, if they shift the back to the weak side, Will, you've got to know you've got blitz peel.
If they send the slot into motion, which they'll do if they're inside the 40, or if they're over into the hash, then we're going to have to go banjo on both sides. We'll show three. You're going to check off the blitz, and Mike, you'll have a spot. And I remember, and he would do this. He would just over and over and over again, would shift around and move a guy and say, all right, now this is what happens. All right, this is what happens.
And I remember at one point looking at all the older guys and thinking, do they actually know what he's talking about? Or if they just learned to nod, and that's the best way to get through this. And I also remember thinking, I am so glad that I am not good enough to be on the field because I would mess this all up. Like, as soon as the ball snapped, I'd be like, a two-eye. I don't even know what that is. And would have just been in some serious trouble.
And honestly, I think it can be that way sometimes when we start hanging out with the church or we first become a Christian. As a church, we're a young church. Not only did we get planted just a couple years ago, but we have a lot of new Christians. And there's something about when you first start hanging out with Christians that you can at times feel like, I'm in over my head. Like, I don't understand what's going on. And I think this especially shows up in prayer.
Because I can remember being around and hearing prayers. And even here. So I'm going to walk you through a prayer that's perfectly legitimate. This is an acceptable prayer. I'm not making fun of this prayer. I just want you to hear it with the ears of someone who's just been around.
Just showed up. Just believe that Jesus dies for sin and that you can be saved. Like, just got that. And then we're like, alright, let's pray. And we bow our heads. You don't have to.
Because we're not actually praying. But this could be a prayer. And you bow your heads and it's like, God, Father God, we pray that you would humble our hearts. That you would circumcise our hearts, God. That we might approach you loving you. God, we ask you to open the eyes of our hearts.
That we might be a repentant people. God, we pray that you would crush our idols. That we wouldn't spend our lives drinking out of broken cisterns. That you would help us to be witnesses of your glory. And that we might be changed from one degree of glory to the next. As we behold the risen Christ.
Who has washed us in his blood. We pray, God, that you would sanctify us and purify us with your fire. Seven times. Amen. Now, that was scripture and perfectly okay things to pray. But if you just showed up, it's like.
And then here's what we do. Here, Christians. Just so you know. This is what you do. You pray that. And then you look at someone who just became a Christian and go, Do you want to pray?
Nope. I'd be like if the coach looked at me and said, Hey, Phillips, come here. You do the next one. Do the next one? I'd have been like, All right. They're going to have 11 guys.
One in the middle that they hand the ball to. That's the quarterback. Phillips, sit down. Yes, sir. Good call, coach. Like, I mean, that's about as good as I could do.
And we look at people and we're like, You want to pray? And it's like, No. Because what would you be like? God, help us do the good stuff. Help us not do the bad stuff. I'm sorry.
Amen. I didn't know how to insert circumcision. I broke down. I'm like, That's like, It's really, There's a lot when we first get around that it's like, And I think even as we continue to grow And as we continue to be around the church, We may pick up the word. Some of you grew up in churches. You've heard, you know, Traveling mercies and hedge of protection And upbuilding the kingdom.
And as we even, We learn these phrases. We know what they mean. We can use them in a sentence, Correctly in a prayer. I think we still have a lot of questions. When it comes to prayer, I have a lot of questions about, Why do we pray? How do we pray?
How should I pray? I think we all feel a little bit like, I should be praying more. Like, I know I should be, This should be, Like, I see that Jesus prayed. I see that Moses prayed. And David prayed. And the Psalms are a bunch of prayers.
But I just, I know I should be doing this. I don't really know how. And I kind of feel like I mess it up. And I kind of feel like I'm not good at it. And I'd like to get good at it. But I don't know how to get good at it.
I think we have that when it comes to prayer. And I think with the Holy Spirit, Like, you, You may be, You're just trying to get your mind around That the God of the universe exists as a trinity. Which means that He is three and one. And He's not more one than He is three. And He's not more three than He is one. He is God the Father, God the Son, And God the Holy Spirit.
And maybe you got that. Like, you got that on paper. You could put that on your Sunday school quiz. You don't really know what it means or how it works. But you could answer that correctly.
And if I were to ask, What's the Father do? You'd be like, Oh, well, the Father's like this. And God the Father does this. And He, you know, He's this. And it's like, What's Jesus do? Oh, I got this one.
He does this and does this and does this and does this. What's the Holy Spirit do? Well, He hangs out with God the Father and Jesus. I think the word regeneration is a word that He does. I don't know what that means. He does it.
Like, I think there's a little bit of like, When it comes to the Holy Spirit, We still maybe have some hesitation. And so what we're going to do, We're just taking two weeks. I hope you don't have a lot of questions Because they're not all going to get answered. We're taking two weeks. We're just trying to grow a little bit In our understanding practically Of how to pray And how prayer and the Holy Spirit Actually work together. How the Holy Spirit works through prayer.
And today specifically, We want to see one thing very clearly When it comes to prayer and the Holy Spirit. So I'm going to pray. We're going to ask the Holy Spirit to help us. And we're going to jump into scripture. God, we thank You That You're good to us. We pray, Lord, that You would, Through Your Holy Spirit, Give us wisdom.
Help us to understand Your word. And that we would grow today In our understanding of prayer. Our appreciation of prayer. And our understanding of the Holy Spirit. And to grow to appreciate. And love the Holy Spirit.
In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Grab your Bibles. Go to Luke chapter 11. It's going to be on page 564. If you're in a blue and white Bible.
If you don't have a Bible at home, Take this one with you. It's our gift to you. If you have five of these Bibles at your house, Bring one back. No, I'm just kidding. But, uh, Um, So, uh, We're going to be in Luke chapter 11. Um, And we're going to look at what Jesus has to say.
Some of the stuff that Jesus has to say about prayer. And I think it's going to be helpful to us. Really practically in knowing How to think about prayer. And how we ought to approach prayer. Uh, Luke chapter 11 verse 1. Now Jesus was praying in a certain place.
And when he finished, One of his disciples said to him, Lord, Teach us to pray. As John taught his disciples. So, uh, This is recorded in Luke. It's recorded in Matthew chapter 6. The disciples come to him and say, Lord, teach us how to pray. Uh, Now, It seems like they would have, What they've seen is that prayer is important.
Jesus prays, We ought to learn how to do this. You would feel like maybe they would have asked him other things. Like, Teach us how to do miracles. Do that thing you do where you make food last forever. Like, I almost feel like at times they'd be like, Jesus, I bet you can't multiply this sandwich. Like, Like, You would feel like they would come talk to him about other things, But they come and they say specifically, Teach us how to pray.
Help us pray. And so Jesus says, When you pray, Say. So he's just saying, Hear the words to prayer. Now, Raz walked us through this the other day. Uh, A couple Sundays ago. We're going to walk back through it, Talk really quickly about what he's saying to say.
Because he's then going to get into more of why we pray, Or how we ought to think about prayer. He says, When you pray, Say this. Father, Hallowed be your name. We don't use the word hallowed. Um, It really just means, May your name be honored. May you be, Uh, Honored above everything else.
And so really, When you begin praying, You're doing two things. One is, You're worshiping. So you ought to remember how good God is, And what he's done. And you also are asking him to mean more to you than anything else. Help me to love you more than I love anything else. Father, Hallowed be your name.
Your kingdom come. Meaning that, May the world look more like your kingdom. May, May earth look a little more like heaven. May more people meet you. May more people come to know you. Repent of their sin.
May your kingdom expand. Give us each day our daily bread. So, Supply our needs. Take care of us. Pray about practical things here. Forgive us our sins.
So it's a normal way for us to pray, To consistently repent of sins. To notice where we're wrong. To repent. For we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us. So he's saying, Uh, You need to realize that part of the way you are forgiven, Is you forgive other people.
To help you remember that. To keep that going. And to pray specifically about forgiveness. Forgiving others. And lead us not into temptation. So Jesus spends a good bit here just saying, You need to be aware of sin.
Run from sin. Ask God to protect you from sin. Repent of sin. And help forgive other people who have sinned against you. Um, Which, That's, That's important because if you've been around people long, Or if you've been a person long, Sin's been a big issue for you. So Jesus says you should pray about it a good bit.
Um, He says this, He said to them, Which of you who has a friend will go? So, He immediately jumps right in. They ask him how to pray. He says, Say these words. And then he jumps right into talking about, Uh, How to think about prayer. So he does this a lot.
Uh, If you'll notice in, In the, In the Bibles. He doesn't just say, Hey, Quote this prayer. Quote this prayer. Quote this prayer. He's going to say, Okay, When you pray, Here are things you ought to pray about. But then he's going to spend way more time saying, Here's how you ought to think about prayer.
Because if we understand how to think about prayer, If we understand what the point of prayer is, The purpose of prayer, Like why we're praying, Then what we're saying will just come naturally. So he's saying, Here's how you ought to think about it. And so we're going to look, Walk through this passage, And begin to see, What he says about how we ought to think about prayer. He said to them, Which of you, Who has a friend, Will go to him at midnight, And say to him, Friend, Lend me three loaves. Okay, Three loaves, Somebody said that that could feed a family of six for a week. So it wasn't like, Hey, Can I have a glass of water?
It was like, Can I have everything in your pantry? He knocks on the door at midnight. The guy's like, What? And he says, Hey, You got a couple loaves of bread, And some deli meat, And I'm going to need some mayonnaise, Dukes preferably, And are you writing this down? It's going to be long. I'm going to need, Like, He's asking for a lot of food here at midnight.
Knocks on his friend's door. They're not friends anymore. But he knocks on his friend's door. All right. Friend, Lend me three loaves, For a friend of mine has arrived on a journey, And I have nothing to set before him. And he will answer from within.
Do not bother me. The door is now shut. My children are with me in bed, And I cannot get up and give you anything. So they would have been just basically, Most houses were one room. Everybody slept in the same room. And so the guy doesn't even get out of bed.
He just yells from bed. Because of the ridiculousness of the situation. This guy's banging on his door at midnight, And is like, Hey, I need a lot of food. And his response is, From bed. No! My kids are asleep.
Which, Not anymore. Shouty. But, That's how he responds. And then Jesus says this, I tell you, Though he will not get up, And give him anything, Because he is his friend, Yet because of his impudence, He will rise, And give him, Whatever he needs. Impudence means, Shameless, Audacity, Bold, Craziness, Like he, He, He just, Presumes upon his friend, Aggressively. Like, No warning, Ridiculous request, At a terrible time of day.
He's assuming a lot, About his friend. And what Jesus says, He's not going to get up, Because he's his friend, He's actually going to give him this, Because of how big, The request was. How crazy, The request was. There's this moment where, In life, You see these moments, Where it's like, Everybody just freezes, And watches someone, And is like, Is this really happening? This person chose to do this right now? You're going to talk to your mom like that, At the Walmart?
Like that's what we're doing, Right now? Like, Like this is this, This kind of like, Are you seriously? This is as shameless, As we're going to get, And this is what his friend's doing, And Jesus says, He's not going to give it to him, Because he's his friend, He's going to give it to him, Because of how bold he is. Here, So then he says this, This is such a beautiful concept, For prayer. I tell you, So now he's, The disciples might have been confused, At this point. They said, How do you pray?
He says, Here's how you pray. And then he just jumps into a story, And says, Which of you will go knock on your friend's door? It's almost like he's like, Tomorrow I'm going to need one of y'all, To go knock on your friend's door, At midnight, And get us three loaves of bread. But he's, He's turned it into a parable, He's telling a story, And then he's going to, Explain what he's saying. So he says, Which of you, Will do this?
And then in verse nine he says this, I tell you, Ask, And it will be given to you. Seek, And you will find. Knock, And it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, Receives. And the one who seeks, Finds. And to the one who knocks, It will be opened.
Can we pause for a second? How beautiful of a promise is that When it comes to prayer? Ask, And you will receive. Seek, And you will find. Knock, And it will be opened. That's what he says about prayer.
Some of you right now have been praying for something, And you're wanting to stop. And what Jesus says about prayer is, Don't stop. The verbs there in the Greek are actually like, Asking. They're continual. So keep asking.
Keep seeking. Keep knocking. And the promise is, You'll receive. You'll find. It'll be opened. Because here's what he's saying.
We ought to think about how we ought to approach prayer. There's a story about Alexander the Great. He was a Greek king, Who took over this giant patch of land, Like just conquered people. And at one of his chief army people, One of his generals came to him and asked, Will you pay for my daughter's wedding? So he came to Alexander the Great, And said, Will you pay for my daughter's wedding?
Alexander the Great had a guy, Because Alexander the Great was king and general, Had a guy who handled his money. He said, Go ask him. Tell him how much you need. Go ask him what you need to pay for your daughter's wedding. So the guy says, Thank you.
Leaves. The guy who handles Alexander the Great's money, Comes back to him shortly after and says, So the general who said, You might want to pay for his daughter's wedding. Can I show you how much money he just asked for? And he shows him the sum, And it was outrageous. Like it was way more money than Alexander the Great Had ever given to anybody. And it was just for a wedding.
And so the guy who handles Alexander the Great's money, Comes over to him and is like, I didn't know what to say to him, Because, Look at this. And Alexander the Great looks at the sum, And he looks at the guy who handles his money, And he says, Give it to him. And the guy says, Why? And he says, Because he does me great honor. He thinks I'm both rich and generous. And what Jesus is saying, Is when we come to God, We should presume, We should assume, Boldly, audaciously assume, That he's rich and generous.
That he will answer if we knock. Because if you come bang on my door in the middle of the night, And ask for a ridiculous amount of things, Part of me is going to think you are crazy, And part of me is going to think, You think way more highly of me than you ought to. Because something in your brain made you think, This was going to work out. That I wouldn't open my door and physically assault you. Surprise! I'm going to open a can, But it's not going to happen.
I'm sorry. Alright. Like, But there would be part of you that would be like, Man, This person thinks I'm all, Alright, I guess I am. Like, That's what he's saying. It's like, We get to presume upon God that he's very generous, And very gracious, And that if we keep asking, And if we keep seeking, And if we keep knocking, He'll answer, Because he's that big, And he's that good, And he's that loving, And he's that generous. That's an amazing promise for prayer.
Because praying is hard sometimes. And continually praying over the same thing is absolutely difficult. But what he says is, Go to God with audacious requests, Because that honors him. Go to him with things that are God sized, Because that honors him. That he gets to look at us and go, Yeah, That's audacious. That's a crazy request.
And I'm big enough to handle it. Let's keep going. So Jesus is teaching about prayer. How we ought to think about it. Verse 11. What father among you, So think about, If you're a father, If you think about your father, Or think about a father you know, What father among you, If his son asks for a fish, Will instead of a fish, Give him a serpent?
Or if he asks for an egg, Will give him a scorpion? What father do you know that will do that? The answer to Jesus' question is, No father would do that. Because that's ridiculous. Not even close. That's the point of his question.
How many fathers you know, Think it's hilarious to give, Poisonous dangerous animals, To their little kids. Isn't that funny? No, It's not funny. Nobody does that. I've got a son, He doesn't speak English very well. He did learn cookie.
He knows ball, Cookie, Thank you, And daddy. And he's getting around life pretty well with those four right now. If he wants food, He'll say ball twice deeply. Like he uses ball for like 15 different things. And then one day, Someone gave him a cookie, And he thought, I need to memorize this word, Because I want this specifically at times. There's food, Which is ball, Ball, And then I, Cookie.
Like I need that one. And at no point has he been like, Cookie, And I've been like, It's going to be so funny, But I'm going to give him rusty nails. Like that's never happened. Like I want to, I want to give him a cookie. Like if he says cookie to me, He gets a cookie. I don't care what his mom says, He's getting a cookie, He said cookie.
That's just how it's working right now. That won't last forever, But it works right now. What Jesus just said was, The two ways that he's right now, Giving us to think about prayer, Is presume upon God audaciously, That he's bigger and better, Than you could imagine. And know that he's a good father, Who gives good gifts to his children. 13, If you then, Who are evil, Know how to give good gifts to your children. That seems like a mean turn for Jesus to take.
He says you're evil. But that's true. We're messed up. We're sinful. We're selfish. But we still do really good things for our kids.
Watch a mafia movie. Those guys will go from like, Having a guy's head in a vice, And then they'll go give their daughter a pony. Like that's, That's what he's saying. It's like we're evil, But we give good gifts to our children. And he says, If you're like that, How much more? How much more?
Will your father in heaven? And here's what he says. This is his big ending. If you then, 13, Who are evil, Know how to give good gifts to your children. How much more will the heavenly father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him? Boom.
That's Jesus' big ending to this section. How much more will the heavenly father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him? Now, If you're like me, When he said Holy Spirit, You got confused. It feels like, By the time he makes this big conclusion, Like he sticks the landing. Holy Spirit. That was the point of this whole thing.
How much more will he give you the Holy Spirit? There's an exclamation Mark. It was like he got super excited at the end. And immediately I'm like, Did I miss something? Did we take a turn? I don't see how that's the, Earlier, When he said, If you ask, You'll receive.
If you seek, You'll find. If you knock, It'll be opened. I was thinking about a lot of things. The Holy Spirit wasn't one of them. Like I was thinking about things I'm asking for, Or seeking, Or knocking. You know.
But I wasn't thinking about the Holy Spirit. Maybe y'all are just like way more spiritual than I am. I was thinking about other stuff. And so he gets to the end and says, How much more will he give you the Holy Spirit? And I'm suddenly like, What? And here's really most of the time how I've treated this passage.
Okay. And just kept reading. And didn't think about it. But here's what it means. If we get to this point in the passage, And Jesus says Holy Spirit. And we're confused.
It means that Jesus knows something about the Holy Spirit. That I don't. If he thinks the Holy Spirit is the good gift, And I was thinking about a lot of other things, He knows something about the Holy Spirit that I don't. He knows something about prayer and the Holy Spirit that I don't. Because he says, We ought to approach God audaciously, Knowing that he's our Father. And I've got really good news for you.
He'll give you the Holy Spirit. And we're supposed to be very excited. But part of me is like, I don't understand how that works. Or why I should be that excited. Y'all with me on that? Okay.
He does this another time in John. We're going to just show this on the screen. Where he talks about the Holy Spirit. And he says something that just feels like, I have a hard time knowing that that's true. You've got to think about it a little bit. So John chapter 16 verse 7 says this.
Nevertheless, I tell you the truth. It is to your advantage that I go away. Jesus is talking to his disciples. He says, It's better for you that I, Jesus, go away. For if I do not go away, the Helper, that's the Holy Spirit, that's why it's capitalized, will not come to you. But if I go, I will send him to you.
So later in this passage, he explains definitively that's the Holy Spirit. So here's what he just said. You're better off if I leave. Because if I leave, I'll send you the Holy Spirit. Now, if we got to take a vote, and Jesus could be our pastor, let's do it. Let's do it.
Let's install him as our pastor right now. That would be great. And Jesus says, No. You're better off if you have the Holy Spirit, and I'm not here. You're better off if I go away, and you're filled with the Holy Spirit, than if I'm here, and you don't have the Spirit. Now, part of me is like, I'm not sure that's true.
Which means I don't know what Jesus knows about the Spirit. So here's what we see in Scripture. Jesus was filled with, and led by, and worked through, the Holy Spirit. So in Luke, and Matthew, and Mark, when he's baptized, it says the Holy Spirit, came upon him, and then the Holy Spirit, led him. And over and over again, we see in Luke, that Jesus is working through the Holy Spirit. And then, when the church is birthed, and in Acts, we see that they're led by, and worked, worked through, the Holy Spirit works through, them.
That the Holy Spirit, is actually how healing happens. The Holy Spirit, is actually who, reconciles people, who changes people's hearts. It's the Holy Spirit that actually, leads us to repentance, and convicts us of sin. It's the Holy Spirit, that's actively at work, in life, for our good. At work in us, for our good. At work in our situations, for our good.
It's the Holy Spirit, that empowers all of that. And what Jesus is saying, is, while I'm here, you can't have the Holy Spirit, because your sin, hasn't been taken care of. And while I'm here, I'll be the only one, fully controlled by, led by, the Holy Spirit, working through, the Holy Spirit, and the world is worse off, and you're worse off. But if I go to the cross, and pay for your sin, then I'll send the helper, who will fill you, and lead you, for your good, for your salvation, and for the world, to be changed. See, Jesus has to go to the cross, has to die for us, in order for the Holy Spirit, to lead us, and fill us, and use us.
And here's why this is, huge. Here's really what we need, to understand from this passage. Three really simple points. You get to be, a needy child. Not you have to be, you get to be. In your approach to God, you get to be, a child, presuming upon, his generosity, and his goodness, towards you.
You just get to assume, he loves you, and is good to you, and at work for you. My son right now, the younger he is, the more of me he gets. The older he gets, the less of me he gets. Now he'll get different aspects of me, when we can start conversing, and those kind of things. But right now, he gets a whole lot of me, because he can't do anything.
Hardly. One of the things he does, on a regular basis, is this. This just means, pick me up. Let's do this thing. When I pick him up, he then does this. Like you think, maybe he wanted a hug.
He didn't. He wants to be carried somewhere. Like your legs are longer, and you're taller, and he'll do this. So we just walk, wherever he's pointing. And then we usually, like get to the counter, or something, and he does this. Well he doesn't talk, so I have to try to figure out, what it is he wants.
And here's what's beautiful. Because he's needy, he gets to be close to me, and I work on his behalf, and God says, we get to do the same thing with him. We get to say, God you're bigger than me, you're stronger than me, you're better than me, and I trust that you're good, and you're for my good, and I can just run to you, and rest in you, and trust in you, and hope in you, and you'll go to work, because you're big enough to do it. You can handle it, and here's what's great, he doesn't talk, my son doesn't talk, and he'll do this, and I'll hold a thing up, and he'll go, and I'll go, okay no, this, alright, this, I have not once, and he'll just go, ah, there's the noises he makes.
I've never once looked at him, and said, let me explain something to you. Until you get perfect diction, you will get nothing from me. Learn your words, child. Hadn't done that. I have told him, it'll be easy, when he learns how to talk, but I haven't, I haven't not gotten stuff for him. Some of us, we're afraid to pray, because we don't know what to say, but that's because you're assuming, God's not a big, good father, who doesn't care.
You don't have to have the right words. You don't have to have perfect, you're going to impress him? He's waiting for you, open to you, responds to you, loves you, wants to enjoy you, that's, that's what, that's what a good father does. So, you see, we get to be needy, and God is a good father. You get to go to him with everything. And the third thing, that's massively important for us, is the Holy Spirit is the good gift.
The best thing, God can give you, is himself. And he does that, through the person, and the work, of the Holy Spirit. That's how we get, God. You could not have God, outside of the cross. You couldn't be, connected with him, you couldn't be, redeemed by him, rescued by him, he couldn't come, and take you, and make you his, outside of him, paying for your sin. You see, us, getting the Holy Spirit, is what Jesus died for.
When Jesus said, how much more will God, go to any length, to give you the Holy Spirit, how much more, would this good Father, give you the Holy Spirit? He had in mind the cross. That's how far, God was willing to go, to give us himself. The best thing, he can ever give us, is himself. To be actively, at work in us, changing us, leading us. I mean, Jesus didn't have to die, for you to get a promotion.
He didn't have to die, for you to be, in that relationship, you want so badly. He didn't have to die, for you to have a nice house. He didn't have to die, for us to have, wealth or health. He didn't have to die, for any of that. That was all happening, long before the cross. Jesus had to die, so that we could have him.
It is the best gift, we can ever get, is the Holy Spirit. And, it's the point of prayer. Let me explain this to you, because I just want us to see, why Jesus says, when we pray, what we're asking for, is the Holy Spirit. My wife and I, we get in arguments, from time to time. We've been married for seven years, we're not pros at this yet. We're good at arguing, we're not pros at being married.
So here's what will happen sometimes, we'll get in an argument, and we'll be in different rooms, and that's how you know, argument's not going well. At least that's how it works, at my house. Like if I'm in this room angry, and she's in that room angry, conversation wasn't good. It didn't work well. One of us, left, angrily. And we're doing that thing, like, I don't know, some of y'all in relationships, you're doing that thing, where you're making as much noise as possible, because you're angry.
So it's like, I'm going to get a spoon, bam! Eating cereal, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Like, you just, you need the other person, they're not in the room with you, but you need them to know, I'm eating cereal, but I'm still mad at you. Chewing loudly, like you get the crunchiest cereal you got. Ha-da-da-da-da. Like, you know what I'm saying?
Like, okay, so this means the, like, it's not gone well, we're in different rooms, we're both angry, and here's what's going on in my heart. I'm walking around, and I'm thinking, okay, I'm not eating cereal, because I don't do that when I'm angry. I'm sitting here going, okay, I, I, I married a crazy person, and her brain doesn't, it doesn't, it doesn't work good. Like, there's something wrong with her, and she's so, she's so wrong, and sinful, and I, I told her that so clearly, and she just refused to see it. And this is, like, I'm just walking around, and here's what I need in that moment. I need the Holy Spirit in me, and in her, or this doesn't go well.
Here's the prayer I need to be praying. Not, God, you gave me a crazy wife. God, God, I need you right now, through your Holy Spirit, to lead me, because I cannot see my own sin, I can only see hers. And if I'm actually going to see my sin, I need you to show up and talk to me, because I realize, if we're in different rooms, and we've been arguing, I'm not completely right here. I need you to see my sin. I need you to help her see her sin.
I need you to help me, if I see my sin, to actually repent. God, I need you, to be at work in me right now, so that I can pursue her, like Christ pursued the church, so that I can actually go to her, because what I want to do, is sit down, and make a power move, where she has to come to me. I want her to have to come back to me, feeling sorry, and being sad. I want to tell her to sit down, and we're going to handle this, because I want to be the biggest, baddest person in the room right now, but I need you, God, to be the biggest, baddest person in the room right now, and I need you to change my heart, and I need you to help me see my sin, and if I see my sin, and you help me do that, I need you to help me say that out loud.
Baddest person in the room right now, but I need you, God, to be the biggest, baddest person in the room right now, and I need you to change my heart, and I need you to help me see my sin, and if I see my sin, and you help me do that, I need you to help me say that out loud. I need to be able to talk about my sin, without pointing at hers, and God, if I go in and confess sin, and her response to me is, you're right, you did do that, I'm going to need you to help me, not lose it. But God, I need you to be at work in her too, and I need you to help us both know we're sinners, and I need through the power of your Holy Spirit, for us to actually be reconciled,
And God, if our marriage is ever going to be good, it's going to be because you go to work on us, and the best thing God can give me is himself, and the best thing he can give her is himself, and if he gives her himself, and he gives me himself, through the power of the Holy Spirit, then we can actually have something good, but even if we can't, but I get more of Jesus, I'm going to be okay. See, Jesus died to give me himself, for the Holy Spirit to be able to enjoy me, and lead me, and help me, and that's the best thing I'll ever receive from him. Your boss calls you into his office, immediately, if you don't jump onto the worry track, of oh my goodness, I'm about to lose my job, it's going to be the worst thing I've ever had,
Like if you don't do that, if you actually can pray, then yeah, you can pray, God, help us to be good, help him to just want to give me a high five, or a promotion, or something, but we need to begin to pray, that the Holy Spirit would be at work, like the prayer needs to be, God help me, through your Holy Spirit, that if I walk into that office, and it actually is a promotion, or a raise, I need your Holy Spirit to be at work in me, so that I won't begin to immediately believe, that money is the greatest thing, that has ever existed on the planet earth, I need you to be at work in me, so that I won't immediately believe, that power of prominence,
Or a new office, or a new title, is actually what makes me whole, and complete, and God, on the other side of it, if I walk in that office, and this is the last day I ever stepped foot in this building, I need you at work in me, because I'm going to, I'm going to want to believe, that my self-worth, that my value, walked out the door, and I need you, to help me to respond graciously, I need you to be at work in me, I need the Holy Spirit, some of you in college, you just met your roommates, or you're just getting back around your roommates, and it takes, I don't know, a week,
Two weeks, to realize you dislike them, so, welcome back, you may, you may actually get along with them pretty well, but here's the problem, is that they're a sinner, and so are you, and so there's going to be some issues, there'll be some loud cereal eating, and there'll be moments, where you need to be praying, God, they use up all my ink, and they eat all my food, and they act like that's okay, and I want to, hit their computer with a bat, or something, but I need you to help me, be gracious to them, I need you to help me, to be forgiving,
I need you to help me, to know, that I only take from you, I need your Holy Spirit, to be at work in me, so that I can actually love them, like you love them, because I don't love them, if they got expelled, I would laugh, for a long time, I might even dance, God, I need you to help me care about them, because I don't, I need you to be at work in me, to give me peace and joy, in the midst of the situation, regardless of how it works out, some of you have lost a job, you've lost a loved one, and we need to begin to pray, God, I don't see,
I don't see you, I don't see how this will ever be good again, I don't see how life is worth living anymore, I don't see how, how any of this turns out okay, and I need you God, to comfort me, to lead me, to give me peace, in the midst of a situation, that would never have it, God, I need your Holy Spirit, and what he says is, he's a good father, who wants to answer that prayer, who wants to lead us, who wants to change us, who wants to give himself to us, so much so that he died, to do that, he loves you, you get to be needy, he is a good father,
And the Holy Spirit is the good gift, the situations right now, the things you began to think about, when it said that you could ask, that you could seek, that you could knock, the answer to that prayer, the best answer you'll ever get, is that God gives you more of himself, to give you rest, to give you peace, to give you joy, in the midst of any circumstance, there was a missionary named John Patton, who went to the New Hebrides, it's an island that had cannibals on it, and his story is really interesting, but he lost his wife, and he lost his children, and at one point, he was being chased by the cannibals, like they were having a, like a tribal war, but nobody liked him,
So if anybody found him, he was going to die, and he was being chased, and he climbed a tree, and he was in a tree, for like 24 hours, and he wrote later, that the best time he ever had, he said, he said, he said, was in that tree, he said, when all he had, was Jesus, and he said, how many times, I wouldn't give, to just be back in that tree, where I knew a peace, and a joy, and a love, that I didn't know, and had all this other going on,
That the best time I ever had, was when he just gave me, a whole lot of himself, and the promise is, he wants to answer that prayer, so much so that he died, for us to have that privilege, and that joy, and we get to pray, for the Holy Spirit, so here's what we're going to do, because we need the Holy Spirit, because in the midst of our anxiety, and our depression, what we need, is the Holy Spirit, to come help us, to free us, to give us joy, in the midst of trying to see people, meet Jesus, there's 60,000 people, in like this little area, of West Columbia,
Who don't know Jesus, how many people are in this room, our goal is to see, those people meet Jesus, but we're not doing that, like that doesn't happen, with just us, we're trying to multiply, community groups, we want to multiply, healthy community groups, to be gospel centered, communities on mission, in this area, to see more people meet Jesus, but that doesn't happen, outside of the Holy Spirit, leading us to sacrifice, leading us to find joy, in his mission, leading other people, to see their sin, and to repent, we're about to have baptisms,
In a couple of weeks, that happens, because the Holy Spirit, has been at work, to help people see their sin, to help people, want to know him, that he's been rescuing, redeeming people, there's so much, that we have to pray for, that we need, the Holy Spirit, to be active in, there will be times, there will be times, and maybe you've got them, going on right now, in your life, when you have, absolutely, no clue, what needs to happen, life is such a train wreck,
It's in, there's a relationship, in such a knot, that you have no clue, even how to approach it, but here's what we're promised, you get to walk up to God, and pray, send your Holy Spirit, because if your Holy Spirit, takes over, they'll repent, and I'll repent, and there'll be grace, and there'll be joy, and there'll be reconciliation, like if your Holy Spirit, gets this situation, it turns out well, I don't know what needs to happen, I don't know what decision, needs to be made, but I know that if you show up, it'll be okay,
So here's what we're going to do, if you're a note taker, a writer, I just want you to grab, there's pens, and sheets in front of you, we're going to spend, a little bit of time praying, actively asking our good Father, to give us the Holy Spirit,