INCREASE: The Message of Maturity

Anybody hot today? Anybody cold today? Oh, yeah. 49ers fans are pretty cold this week.

Kristen leaned over to me during worship. She goes, I don't know if it's the fire, the Holy Spirit, or menopause kicking in right now. I said, that's a hot flash, baby. Hang on.

Hang on. For those of you young women that haven't got there yet, I'm not a woman, but my gosh, I got to deal with it. I don't know what's worse. Puberty or menopause?

Menopause. Menopause. OK, I'll take your word for it. That's crazy.

Oh, I have this thing. I'm not going to go there, but we're in bed at night. I like to be touching my wife, like touch your leg or whatever. But man, I put my hand over the middle of the night, and she's on fire.

And so lately, I've been sleeping on a corner. She just radiates. But we're praying that that thing passes quickly, right? What's after menopause?

Ode age. Ode age. Ode age. Welcome to City Reach Church.

We're glad you're here today. If you're new, I just want to personally welcome you. If it's your first time, or you haven't been here a while, welcome back. We love you when you come here, your family.

And we're just glad that we can gather together on Sunday, worship God together, and just learn. We spend time. We worship the Lord, and then we go into the teaching of the Word, and that's another form of worship. And so our goal is that we continue to grow together as a body, that we continue to encourage one another.

And the name of our series is called increase, is that we're growing and maturing and increasing in every area of our lives. And the last few messages I've preached have been launched out of Ephesians 4 verses 14 and 15, which say that you should no longer be children. And that word children is the word nebeos in the Greek, which means infant or baby. So basically saying Paul's saying, I don't want you to be babies anymore.

I want you to grow up in all aspects into him who is the head, and that is Christ. And so he's saying that when you get saved and you accept Jesus, and the Bible has a term called born again, that you're born, you're made new. And there's a time to be a baby. That when babies are born, they're cute.

They're real cute. But after a while, if years go by, if Phil was, oh, what do you know? You 39? He just broke your phone.

I don't think your finger flies there. I'm going to watch it. But if I'm picking Phil up and burping him at 39 years old and changing his diaper and bottle feeding him, something's wrong, right? Something's not right with that.

Oh, you missed it. You missed it. It got me with his fingernail, just like babies do. I got nailed right there.

But Paul says, I want you to grow up into not just here and there, not just in a couple things, but he says, I want you to grow up in all aspects. And so the last few weeks, the message is in between the ones that pastor, and staff, has preached, I talked about the measurement of maturity. And the measure that we use is Jesus Christ himself. It's until we all reach the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.

So the measuring stick we use for maturity or growth is Jesus himself. And then the last time, a couple weeks ago, I preached was about the marks of maturity, things in your life that as you mature as a believer that you should see in your life. Like I should be able to see evidence of maturity in your life. And today, I probably want to wrap this up.

I want to talk about the message of maturity. The message of maturity. There's actually a message or a word that actually separates the mature believer from the unmature believer. There's one word.

It's one word that's really had a profound effect on my life. It's a word that has changed the way that I live my life day to day. And we're going to look at that today. If you go to the first slide, it says this in Hebrews chapter 4.

It says, everyone who lives on milk is inexperienced in what? The message of righteousness, because he's an infant or because he's a baby. It says, everyone who lives on milk is inexperienced in the message of righteousness, because he's an infant. We're going to read that context in a minute.

But I just wanted to watch with that. There is a message. There is a word. The version we're going to look at later is going to say that your inexperience are unskilled at the word of righteousness.

So there's a word about righteousness. There's a message about righteousness that you need to have experience and skill and handling, because it will be the difference. Let me get my bandaid. I'm bleeding.

We got a bleeder that wrapped up. That'll teach me to pick people up in the middle of service. So let's go next slide down if you would. I want to have to that.

So when we talked about being babies, we talked a few weeks ago that Paul says to the Corinthians Church, he says, I can no longer speak to you as spiritual or as adults or spiritual people, because you're still carnal. Now carnal doesn't necessarily mean sinful. It just means fleshly. That you pay more attention to the natural realm than the spiritual realm.

I can't talk to you as spiritual, but as carnal, because just like as babes in Christ, I fed you with milk and not with solitude until now you were not able to receive it, even now you're still not able. So Paul said, hey, I gave you the gospel. I preached you the gospel. You accepted Jesus.

You became a new creation. You should have matured. Like you should be off the bottle by now. And I wanted to give you, I wanted to cook a tebum.

I wanted to give you a ribeye. And I said it in front of you, but you can't eat it. All you can do is drink from the bottle. It's probably one of the biggest challenges that I see in the church today is arrested for inhibited spiritual development.

That a lot of Christians become Christians, they become babies. Some sort of growth spurt. And then all of a sudden they plateau before they ever reach or step in or tap into spiritual maturity. And it gets exciting.

You're a new Christian and everything's great. And then you just kind of stop. And you've probably met some of this people. You talk to them today.

And then you talk to them 10 years from now. They're still talking about the same things they were talking about 10 years ago. They've never really matured in the Lord. It's kind of stagnated.

We don't think it's a big deal though. But if it was in the natural realm, we think it was a big deal. Like if I step down here and bottle fed Phil, we would think that would be a big deal. It would make sense, right?

We used to live on, well, Chris and I were first married. Thank you. We lived on Fats Street. I mean, we're Fats Street.

We lived on Fats Street. And the couple across the road from us was from another country. They were from Germany. And their kid was six years old, was Phil nursing from his mother.

Exactly. I was like, this is weird. And Chris was like, well, it's cultural. I'm like, but we're not there.

We're here. And here it's weird. But in the church, we don't think anything of it. I'm like, well, that's OK.

I'm just going to nurse here for the next 20 years. It's time to grow up. It's time to get off the bottle. It's time to get to where we not only.

It doesn't mean once you eat meat, you never go back and drink milk, right? Like I still drink milk, but I don't live on milk. It's incorporated into my diet. But I also eat strong meat too.

So we're going to pick up in Hebrews, chapter 5. I want to read this in context. It says, everybody say, buy this time. So you remember when we talked about times and seasons?

There's a time to be a baby. But the writer Hebrews, which I believe Paul says as he says, but now at this time, something should have changed. You ought to be teachers. Like, you have been taught, and now you should be teaching somebody else.

See, everybody needs three different types of people in your life. You need people over you. You need the leadership that you permit to speak into your life from a position of authority. You need that.

You need peers. You need people that are maturing, and at the same level that you're at that you can hold accountable, that you can grow together with and learn together with. And you also need to have disciples that you're making. You need to have people that you're pouring into.

See, you just can't always be sucking in. You've got to be pushing out. And so as God begins to teach you and you begin to grow, there comes a time that you should be teaching other people. See, we're called to be disciple makers.

Disciple makers. The disciple is a learner. So if I'm going to make somebody who learns, I've got to be able to teach. So he says, by this time, you ought to be teachers, but you need someone to teach you.

Again, the first principle is that means ABCs. Like, you should be a teacher, but you need to go back and learn your alphabet. Like, you should be telling somebody, hey, here's how you put a sentence together, but you can't even formulate a word. He said, you need to talk to first principles of the oracles of God.

You have come to need milk and not solid food. Verse 13 says this. Next slide. It says, for everyone who partakes, here's the key.

Only of milk. It doesn't mean that once you eat meat, you can't go back and drink milk. But it says, everyone who only partakes of milk is unskilled. That word unskilled means inexperienced.

It means that you have, how do you develop a skill? Right, you got to practice. Like, even people that are born with natural talent have to develop it. And I want to tell you this, you have the natural talent deposited in you of righteousness.

It's already in there. Why do you think Paul says to work out your own salvation? Like, everything you need has been deposited in you. He says, whoever protects only of milk is unskilled, and here's what he said, you're inexperienced in the word of righteousness.

You're inexperienced. You haven't trained in it. You haven't spent time in it. You can know about something and have no skill in it.

See, I think a lot of the church know, well, this is basic. I would challenge you that a lot of Christians know about righteousness. Well, I know what that is. But you know about it, but you're not experienced in it.

You're unskilled in it. Like, I might be able to tell you how to fire a pistol, or I might be able to tell you how to drive a car. Like, do you remember when you took the driver's test? Krista reminded me of the other day that when I was 22 and I transferred from Maryland to West Virginia, I failed the West Virginia test at 22.

Apparently, West Virginia doesn't know that a yellow light means go slowly and not stop. I failed for questions like that. But as a 16-year-old or 15-year-old, you're studying for your test. And you know how to drive on paper.

But you don't have the experience that I have that I've now been driving 40 years. The experience only comes by doing something that you already know about. And so that he says that you're unskilled in the word of righteousness. He didn't say the work of righteousness.

He said the word of righteousness. Paul says this, the tightest and tightest three, he says not by works of righteousness that we have done, but by his mercy he saved us. Here's the thing about righteousness. It's not about what you do.

It's got nothing to do. Righteousness has nothing to do with your actions. It's got nothing to do with what you do. It's got everything to do with what Jesus has already done.

It's everything about him, nothing about you. And he says that you're unskilled in the word of righteousness for your obave. So he says this, he says, here's the thing that really differentiates the mature versus the immature believer. Are You Skilled in the word of righteousness?

So who's ready to develop some skills today? So how do you get skills? Like skills in something is more than just memorizing scripture on it. Like you have to know the scripture.

You've got to know the words, but then you have to put it into practice in your life. You have to be able to take what Jesus did for you, what's already a reality on the inside of you, wear it on the outside of you, and be able to live your life as if that's the only thing that matters. He says, solid food belongs to those who are at full age, but those who by, you'll love this. Reason of use means habit.

Anybody got any habits in here? Any habits you're proud of or not proud? So he says, those who by reason of use, that you've made a habit out of this thing, that I've practiced so much at the word of righteousness that it becomes unconscious in my life. Do you ever hear that term?

Have you ever driven, let me drive a car? Most of it, right? Or you have driven a car? Have you ever driven from point A to point B?

And all of a sudden you get to point B and you don't remember what you did for the last five minutes? Or yeah, exactly that. You forgot that you were driving. Like, oh my gosh, I could have just went through three stoplights.

I don't know. I just drove unconsciously. And that's the place that you need to get with the word of righteousness, that it becomes so ingrained in you that as you walk out life, you unconsciously actually exhibit the behaviors that we're going to talk about today. That you can actually walk in a thing to the point where you don't have to think about it.

It becomes part of you. It becomes a habit in your life. It says, who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern good and evil? Here's what he's saying in there.

He's saying, the more that you understand the word of righteousness, the more that you spend time in it, the more that you make a habit of it in your life, it will actually train your physical senses. See, as I spend time in the spiritual, it changes the physical. And when I begin to spend my time practicing and making a habit of the word of righteousness, it begins to change my natural senses to a point where, now my natural senses are impacted to the point where they can discern good and evil. Like, we all need discernment from the Holy Spirit.

We all need the Holy Spirit to help us discern things. But this says that I can actually train my physical senses to discern right and wrong. Not just right and wrong, but the origin of a thing. Where did this thing originate from?

What is it good or is it bad? What's the eventual destination if I do A, B, and C? Where's it going to take me? And so this thing, this knowledge and experience and the word of righteousness will radically change the way you live your life.

Let's go to the next slide. So where does it start? What's righteousness? Let me just give you a couple of basics in righteousness.

Righteousness, as I said, it's not what you do. Righteousness is not your good works. So a lot of times when you read in the Old Testament, the Old Testament, the way you became righteous was to do right things. If I did right, I was righteous.

But under the Old Testament, what did Isaiah say in Isaiah 64, he said, all of my righteousnesses, that's a hard word to say, righteous-nesses, but he said, all the plural, all the good things that I ever did, if you took all the best things that you ever did in life, all the good things you ever did, he said, all of those are as filthy rags. Like, they're worthless. So that when you think about all the good stuff you ever did, it's a filthy rag. It's worthless, it's nothing.

Jesus said this in the Sermon on the Mount Matthew 5, verse 20, he said, unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you'll never enter the kingdom of heaven. So if all my righteousnesses are as filthy rags, but I've got to be more righteous in my actions than a Pharisee who perfectly tried to keep the law, but didn't. How do I even get in this one way? Jesus did it for you.

Jesus did it for you, because when Jesus came, he came to take all the things that you couldn't do. He said, I didn't come to destroy the law, I came to fulfill it. When he came, he fulfilled it every little point of the law. He kept it perfectly, and he did it without sin.

And so that he lived this completely righteous life, so that when he died, he was able to take your sin, which is what, filthy rags? All your goodness, he was able to take everything that you did, and he put it on himself. All your bad junk, put it on him. And then he went to the cross, and then he died, and then he went in the grave.

Now how do I know that God accepted that payment? How do we know God accepted that? Paul says this, it says, he was delivered up because of our offenses, and he was raised up because of our justification. Here's what happened, Jesus paid for your sin, and the way that we knew that God accepted it is because God brought him back from the dead.

How do I know that somebody's been released from prison? I see him walking. How do you know you're out? Because you're walking, right?

And so the payment's been settled because Jesus came out of the grave. It said he was delivered up, he was sent to the cross because of all the bad stuff we did, and he was raised up because we were justified, which means we were declared righteous. The resurrection actually is like the receipt. Like God said, hey, I accept that payment, here's the paid and full receipt.

So we know that God accepted that payment. And here's what it did. It says in the 2 Corinthians 5, 21, it says, he became sin. He was made sin.

Who knew no sin? So Jesus had no sin, he was made sin so that we might become what? The righteousness of God in him. So that he becomes everything that I was, which was junk, so that I could become everything that he is, righteous.

It's an accounting term. Paul uses this, it's called imputed. Have you ever heard this term? It means imputed, it means to put on somebody's account.

It's like if you think of a balance sheet that has assets and liabilities, I had no assets. I had nothing good. I had nothing but liabilities. If I got no assets and all liabilities, that's what that's called, bankrupt.

Like I'm in the hole. I got zero minus x is negative. And so when Jesus died, he took all my negatives off the balance sheet and he puts on the other side all his righteousness. And so now I've got no liabilities and nothing but one asset, him, and all that he is.

See, here's what happens. If you think about that my sin put me in the red, when Jesus paid for my sin and he took it all, it got me out of the red and into the, I broke even. I'm back to zero. But zero is not good enough.

So he took my sin and he gets me to zero, and then he puts his righteousness on my account, and it takes me into the black. See, I've gone from being in the red to now in the black. Right? There's no limits.

See, it's inexhaustible. He put all of his righteousness on my account. He put all his righteousness on your account. He put all his righteousness on your account.

Like, and all of your debt is gone. So I don't know what that's called, but you're not bankrupt anymore. You're like set for life, all of eternity. We had a technical error.

It says, so just before it says, anyone's in Christ, he is a new creation. Old things have passed away. Behold, all things have what? Become new.

See, when you were made new, when you accept Jesus, the old you's gone. The new you is on the inside. And it says, all things have become new, and all things are of God. So everything in you that's new is where?

From God. So that the righteousness that you have is not your righteousness, but who's? God's righteousness. See, like, so you've got to think that what he's put on the inside of you is his.

And it's just like him. And it's got the same nature and the same properties and the same characteristics as God's righteousness. Does God's righteousness ever go up or down? Can God be more righteous than he is right now?

Are you sure? They can't. Like, he's infinitely righteous. It's everlasting.

In Daniel chapter 9, verse 24, it says, when it's talking about the 70 weeks, I won't get in the prophecy, but it says, he came in to make an end to sin and to bring in everlasting righteousness. Like, this is a righteousness that never ends. It's permanent. It's forever.

It's perpetual. And it's on your account. See, what happens a lot of times is we confuse terms. Righteousness is this.

It's right standing. So think of it like this. It's right standing. It's not right doing.

It doesn't matter what you do. So you can do a bunch of good. You can do a bunch of good stuff and not be righteous. You can become the righteousness of God and Christ Jesus and still do bad things.

And you're still righteous. So your nature does not fluctuate with your actions. Your standing does not fluctuate. What fluctuates is your state, the state you're in.

But your standing never fluctuates. So if I take, you've heard of putting lipstick on a pig, right? What happens when you put lipstick on a pig? It's still a pig.

It's a pretty pig. You might even want to give it a little snooch. Still a pig. I was 15 years old.

I went to a Baptist Church. I was always in the shock and awe. Like, I just like to be the guy that just created a stir. I went to a very legalistic Baptist Church, very formal.

We didn't have drums. We weren't even allowed to clap. You couldn't raise your hand. You could stand up and sit down.

And there was one person in the church that they were the amen person. Like, there was one person that could say amen. That was the kind of church I grew up in. So we had this youth group.

And we had a, of course, it wasn't called a Halloween party. It was probably called a harvest party. And so I went as a woman. I did.

I put the dress on. My mom was all into this, too. Like, she never had a girl. And she was loving this.

We went to the Goodwill. I bought a dress. I was this blue, white dress with blue flowers. And she got me a pair of heels.

The funny part was when I put the hose on, I was a lot bigger than my mom. And they started to split. And she said that she goes, oh, I got to fix for that, babe. All we got to do is put nail polish on that runner.

You guys ever done this? Well, here's the difference. I have a bunch of hair on my leg. Nail polish doesn't go well with hairy legs.

But I wore bright red heels. I wore hose with runners. And I had a wig, a wig, and lipstick. And I went to that party.

And let me tell you. They were shocked. They were shocked. But if I was born a male, did what I wear change the fact that I was born a male?

See, when you're born the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus, what you do after that doesn't change who you are. The who you are is your standing. The what you do is your state. See, that's why Paul says in Ephesians 4, 24, it says that you put on the new man who was created after God in true righteousness and holiness.

Put on the new man. So here's the new you. You were created new. He says, I want you to put that on like a dress.

Put it on like a sport coat. What's on the inside of you was created new after God. It's just like God. And what's like God on the outside or inside is now what I want you to wear on the outside.

But what I wear on the outside doesn't change who I am on the inside. So if I still mess up and I put the wrong clothes on, I'm still the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. And if I put the right clothes on, it's not because I'm wearing the clothes, but because he made me righteous and I'm righteous. See, it's never about what you do.

It's only about that you've put your faith and trust in him to make you that way. Next slide is Ephesians 4, 24. It says you put on the new man created according to God. So see this?

Are you being created according to God? What tense is that in? It's the past. You was created as bad English, but you was created.

You were created according to. According to means the same proportion as equivalent to, that you were created new equal to God. That his righteousness is the same. What he has you have equivalent.

And guess what? It doesn't fluctuate. His doesn't do this. He's consistent.

He's the same yesterday, today and forever. Guess what your righteousness is? The same yesterday, today and forever. You're as righteous today if you've accepted Jesus.

You are as righteous today as you'll be next year or a billion years from now. You're already there. You don't have to earn it, deserve it, work for it. You're there.

What you got to do is wear it. You got to put it on. You got to work out your salvation. See, he's already put it in you.

My righteousness is ever fluctuated. No. If God's righteousness doesn't fluctuate, and I've been made the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus, this is my righteousness fluctuate. Are you sure?

Are you sure? Yes. See, you've got to be experienced in this. You've got to be skilled in it.

You've got to know that you know that you know that you're the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. Well, I read that in the Bible. Good. I didn't do it, but you'll never talk me out of it.

Because I know that I know that I know that I know. And every time I've messed up, God says, you're my son. I made you righteous. And when I mess up again, he said, you're my son.

I've already made you righteous. You know better than that. Isaiah says this. I wanted to preach on Isaiah 54.

I'm maybe next week. But I'll just pull out two verses out here. It says Isaiah 54, 14. It says, in righteousness, you shall be established.

Like you, righteousness is right standing, but you got to stand in it. You got to stay in it. You got to remain in it. You need this thing to be your foundation in life.

He says, I need you to be established in it. You will be far from oppression for your not, but you won't fear. You know what? You don't have to worry about the attack of the enemy because I know who I am.

I know that I'm the righteousness of God. I know that I'm in Christ. I don't have to worry and be fearful of the oppression of the enemy. And you'll be far from terror.

It shall not come near you. Here's a verse that we all, the next verse says this. I put up there. It says, they will assemble, but not because of me.

And they will fall for your sake. Here's what I want you to know. When the enemy comes at you, he should fall because you're the righteousness of God and Christ Jesus. Don't ever let him talk to you out of it.

When you know that you know, see, when I know that I'm the righteousness of God, that means I can stand in front of God. I can stand in front of God, a holy God, a righteous God, a just God. I can stand right there face to face, look him in the eye and know that I am innocent. I am guiltless.

I am faultless before him and not have any question about it. If you question whether you could look God in the eye and know you're righteous, then you need to grow in this. It also means this, when you know that you're the righteousness of God, it means that you can walk into any room, face any person that you've ever wrong heard been shamed by in the past and look at them without shame. Like if I know that on the righteousness of God and Christ, I can look at you, whether you've heard me or I've heard you and not have shame or regret about it.

It also means that I can stand in front of the enemy and not allow him to affect my life. See, I'm going to stand before God and have no questions. I can stand before you and have no shame. And I can stand in front of the enemy and not have it affect me because I know who I am.

He says, as he says, no weapon formed against you shall prosper. See, we say no weapon formed against you will prosper. It won't be successful. Every tongue that rises against you in judgment, what do you do?

Condemit, is there going to be tongues rise against you in judgment? Absolutely. How can you bring a charge against me? Paul says this in Romans 8.

He says, who will bring a charge against the elect? Christ? No. He's the one that sits at the right hand of the Father, making the difference for you.

The only one that can won't. Jesus could, but he doesn't. And when the enemy comes at you with accusations, shoot that thing down. It says, when a tongue rises up against you in judgment, condemn it, render it useless.

Tell it. You got no business here because I know who I am. I'm righteous. You're not going to talk me out of it.

He said, this is the heritage. You know what I mean? That's your inheritance. You got an inheritance.

One of the things you got is the righteousness of God. It's your inheritance. He says, and that's why their righteousness is from who? It's from me.

Big M. Like it comes from God. You have that inheritance because it came from him for you. That's what the Lord gave you.

So what happens when I sin? So Paul asked this question of Seth read Romans 6 last week. Romans 6 starts out like this. It says, what do we say then?

Do we continue to sin? So grace will bow. No, absolutely not. So if I've been made right with God, and I've been born that way and I stay that way, and I'm forever permanently righteous, should I go out and sin just because I'm righteous?

No, that's stupid. Now if you mess up, you're still righteous. But why would you want to mess up? Why would you want to live that way?

Why would you want to open the door to the enemy to give him a chance to come into your life to steal, kill, and destroy? Dumb. But if you do mess up, see the Apostle John writes about the same thing very similar in 1 John chapter 2 verse 1 and 2. He says this.

He says, my little children, I write to you that you sin not. So does he want you to sin? No, he says I write to you that you sin not. But if you do sin, we have what?

An advocate with the Father, Christ Jesus, the righteous. It goes on to say this, it says, and he himself, speaking of Jesus, is the propitiation for our sins, but not our sins only, but the sins of the whole world. Here's what that means. Propitiation is just a really big word that means complete satisfaction.

That when Jesus died on the cross, he completely satisfied God's wrath on sin. That when he died and he took all your sin on him, God poured all his wrath out on Jesus, complete satisfaction. And he says he's not only the satisfaction for your sin, but he's also the satisfaction for the sin of the whole world. And so you've heard me say this before, that people will go to hell with their sins forgiven.

That Jesus has already paid for every sin. Every sin is paid for in him 2,000 years ago. The one thing that's left is you have to receive it for yourself and believe in him. That he died for you.

That he paid for you. That he rose again for you. He says that if you sin, we have an advocate. Advocate is the only word that's here used about Jesus.

It's predominantly used about the Holy Spirit. I've heard the word comforter or helper, same word. The advocate means one called alongside for the purpose of hell. That's what an advocate is.

It's one that's called alongside for the purpose of helping you. In a legal sense, it actually means defense attorney. Now I know you can relate to that. Right?

Oh, yeah, I got one right here. You can relate to a defense attorney. What does your defense attorney do? He defends you.

He doesn't convict you. He's on your side. See, it says that Jesus is my advocate with the Father and he's righteous and he's on my behalf. He's there for me.

He's there to help me when Jesus said this. But so when Jesus was here, how many places could Jesus be at one time? One. Why?

Because he chose to be limited to a physical body, right? Jesus said this. He says, I will pray the Father that he will send you another helper. That's the same word advocate.

So Jesus is my defense attorney there. And he says, I'm going to pray the Father that he will send you another advocate, another counselor, another helper, another comforter. So when he says another, there's two different words in other in Greek. There's one that means another of a different kind.

That's heteros. And there's one that means another of the same kind. That's alos. This is alos.

He says, I'm going to pray that the Father sends another comforter, another one of the same kind, just like me. It'd be like this. If I have this pen, and I give it to Seth. This is my favorite pen in case anybody wants to buy me pens.

It's a pilot. It's wet ink. 0.7 millimeter. I know exactly.

This is what I write with every day. It is. It's a G2. If I wanted another pen, and I said, Kristen, give me another pen.

And she gives me this thing. Is that another pen? Yeah, it is. But this is not another one, just like the one that I have.

This is another heteros, another one, but a different kind of pen. Jesus says, I'm going to pray the Father that he'll send another one just like me. So that when that one went to heaven as my advocate there, now I've got another one that's going to be my advocate here. That I've got not only out of house defense attorney, but I've now got an in-house defense attorney.

So I was in Madagascar 10 years ago, and I'm going through a message about the Holy Spirit at the time. And I'm reading through with the guy that's translating for me. And he says, why do you say defense attorney? I said, because that's what the Holy Spirit is.

He said, our Bible says, prosecuting attorney. Now, will that change the interpretation of that verse? So many Christians, although they know it, they see the Holy Spirit as a prosecuting attorney. They think he's on the other side.

See, he's on your side. He's called along your side, not called along the enemy side. Jesus says, I'll pray the Father. He'll send another help.

He may abide with you forever. The Spirit of the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him, but you know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. You're going to have another one just like Jesus Christ, the righteous, who's at the right end of the Father. You got another one just like him in you.

And when you get saved, see, remember I said that you're created new. The new man's created after God in true righteousness and holyness, if he's 424. The Holy Spirit can't live in a dirty house, right? But what you do is not your house.

Your house is the new you that's inside of you. And he's made the new you so holy, it's just like him that he can live here and feel completely at home in you. Because it's just like his home away from home. He lives in you.

John is on to say, in John 14 verse 26, he says, again, the helper, the Holy Spirit and the Father will send him my name. Will teach you all things and bring all things, remember what I've said. So does it make sense that if the Holy Spirit is identical to Jesus, it's Jesus' twin brother, that everything that he says is going to be just what Jesus said. You know, there's a guy, I read a book on the Holy Spirit one time by Michael Koolianus.

He says this, he says, Jesus is the Holy Spirit's favorite subject. Think about everything that the Holy Spirit does, points to Jesus. Everything, it says when he comes, he will not speak on his own authority, but he'll speak of me. Everything, there's this beautiful thing within the Trinity that you have the Holy Spirit pointing to Jesus.

You have Jesus pointing to the Father. And you have the Father saying, this is my beloved son in the well pleased. It's this great thing of humility where they're all pointing to the greatness of the other one. But the Holy Spirit's job is to point you to Jesus.

The Holy Spirit's job is to speak on behalf of Jesus. The Holy Spirit's job in your life is to be another Jesus that's there, but now in here. John 1526 says this, it says, when the helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit, who proceeds from the Father, he will testify. Everything he talks about is Jesus.

He testifies of Jesus. Like so, if you wonder if it's the Holy Spirit talking to you, have you ever wondered that? Here's a test, would Jesus say that? Because the Holy Spirit only points to Jesus.

He glorifies, he magnifies Jesus, and what Jesus did, his job is to draw you to Jesus. His job is to conform you to the image of Jesus to make you more like Jesus. That's what he does. And so if I got to wonder, was this the Holy Spirit speaking?

Well, is it something Jesus would say? Like would Jesus say that? Read the gospels. If you wanna know what the Holy Spirit will say, read the gospels, see what Jesus said.

Neither do I condemn you. Go and send them more. Do you wanna be made well? Rise up like all that stuff he said.

That's what the Holy Spirit would say. And finally this, John 16. Here's where a lot of times we get this wrong. And here's where I'm gonna make some of you mad, and I make some happy.

So do this, just put your seat belt on, put your feelings aside for just a minute. I want you to think through this. We talk, I hear a lot of people say, we need more preaching of sin in the church, or we need more conviction of sin. Think about this, the Apostle Paul says this, he says, I am not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ, for it is the power of God into salvation.

For everyone who believes, the Jew first and also for the Greek, for in it, that means in the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith. As the scripture said to just live by faith. He says this, he says in it, in the gospel, the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith. It doesn't say the sin of man is revealed in the preaching of the gospel.

See the preaching of the gospel should reveal the righteousness of God from one level of faith to another, not your insufficiency. See if I'm preaching a gospel that points out sin, I'm preaching a gospel that Paul didn't preach. The gospel that Paul preached was the gospel of grace, which was also the gospel of Jesus Christ. He says in Galatians chapter one, he says, I'm astonished that you're so soon removed from the gospel of Christ and to another gospel, and there'd be some that come among you that want to pervert it.

He actually equates the gospel of Christ to the grace of Christ. And if I'm preaching the grace of Christ, the gospel of Christ, that Paul preached, it should exalt Jesus, and it should point to his righteousness, which eventually becomes your righteousness. That's what Paul preached. He preached it so much so people thought, well, then I can just go live in sin.

He said, well, no, that's not the point at all. I want you to know who you are. Jesus says this, he says, he says, nevertheless, I tell you the truth, it's to your advantage. Everybody say my advantage.

God go away. Why? I can't go in place at a time. See, if Jesus were here and he runs into the woman that was caught in adultery, he can say to her, where's your accusers?

Does nobody condemn you? No, my Lord, no one, neither do I. He could say that one on one, but when he doesn't have any, he can't say that one on one. So he sends the Holy Spirit.

So billions of people at the same time can actually connect with Jesus. He says it's to your advantage, I go away. If I don't go away, the helper won't come, but if I depart, I'll send you. When he comes, he will convict the world of three things, sin of righteousness and of judgment.

Notice it doesn't say sins. You look it up, it's in the Greek. It's singular. He says, I'll convict the world of sin, not sins.

Says when he is come, he will convict the world of sin, of righteousness and of judgment. Next verse says this. Now he explains what he means. Of sin because they, this is in the third person.

If you look it up, of sin because they don't do what? Believe. How many sins in 1 John 2, it says, he is the propitiation, completes satisfaction for our sin, but not our sin's only, but the sins of the entire world. Jesus already took care of all the sins of people that aren't even saved yet.

The whole world. So what is left for that transaction to be complete? What do they need to do? Believe.

That's it. See when people talk about blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, it says there's no forgiveness. All blasphemy among men will be forgiven. Blasphemy because all he goes, it'll never be forgiven.

Why? Because blasphemy is rejecting what the Holy Spirit's saying. What's the Holy Spirit saying? He's pointing to Jesus.

And when I reject what he's saying about Jesus, there's no hope for that. It says when he comes, he will convict the world of one sin, of sin singular because they don't. Believe. The convicting work of the Holy Spirit and the unbeliever is you need to believe.

Jesus died for you. Jesus loves you. And he's drawing you to him. You only, you don't have to be good enough.

It doesn't matter how bad your past was. You just need to believe. The word convict means convince. See we translate this as convict and convict.

Who wants a conviction? No hands? Anybody ever been convicted? In the court system.

Is that fun? No. Did your defense attorney convict you? Or did your prosecuting attorney convict you?

Who was the other side? So it says when he comes, he will convince the world of one sin. They need to believe because if they don't believe, they're going to miss out on eternity. The next verse says this.

He says when he comes, he will convict of what? Righteousness. Now it's in the second person because I go to my father and you. There you go.

Go back there. Because I got my father and you see me no more. When Jesus was on the earth, he could tell me something. He could communicate to me.

But now he's up there. So here's the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of a believer. He convinces me that I'm righteous. But we say, oh, he convicted me of sin.

I'm sorry. But we're going to look at a minute. God says under the new covenant, your sins and transgressions, I will remember no more. If the Holy Spirit is God and God is Jesus and they don't remember him, what's he convicting you of?

If all the evidence is gone and it's been wiped away, what's he convicting you of? There's nothing there to convict you of. But one thing, that's the one thing on your balance sheet. Righteousness.