Sounds good. Man, I'm excited for that DNA intensive. I just want to encourage you, just build off of the sales pitch that Nick just gave. He's a salesman.
He was selling paper, right? Office supplies and paper before he was on staff at Groves, so he's like a very good salesperson. But anyways, DNA intensive, it really is such a great opportunity for you to, I remember growing up in the church and I never learned how to lead a Bible study. And in college, I was asking for mentorship just so I could figure out how do I actually lead a Bible study.
And I'd prayed for hundreds of hours. I knew God, but I didn't know how to facilitate something like that. That's one of the weeks in DNA intensive. This is how you lead a Bible study.
Like the practicals of this is how you share your faith, this is how you prophesy, this is how you pray for healing, this is how this is the Holy Spirit, all those things which we're going to talk about a little bit tonight. But all of that is in DNA intensive and it just demystifies so much and that's what we're all about at Groves. So sign up for DNA intensive. If you're in Generation X or a boomer, we've got VIP seating over here.
But there's very few of you in the room because tonight is actually there's a dinner happening right now for anyone that's in those generations and they're meeting out of pub so you are missing out. I'm so sorry. There's like a whole big crew over there and you didn't show up and they're missing you. So you should feel bad about that.
I'm just kidding. Tonight I have someone I want you to meet. Tonight I want to make an introduction. I want to introduce you to the Holy Spirit.
I want to introduce you to the Holy Spirit. Now maybe some of you I'm going to. Maybe some of you. You don't know what you think about the Holy Spirit.
You're a little indifferent. Maybe some of you are just those wild-eyed charismatic Pentecostal type and you're like, yeah, Holy Spirit. And that's like all that you think about when you go to church is feeling the Holy Spirit. Or maybe some of you are the people that got wounded and mistreated by the Holy Spirit people.
Maybe you're some of those people that think you know him but there's so much more to him. Maybe you have a long history with Holy Spirit or maybe you're maybe when you were young you encountered the Holy Spirit. But now it's like, yeah, it's been like 20 years. But man, I did why I went about 20 years ago and encountered Holy Spirit on outreach.
I just heard a snort. Somebody was like, yeah, that's me. Or like, no, that was my dad next to me. But whether this is your first introduction or this is your first introduction or this is a reintroduction, what I want us all to sign up for is giving him a clean slate in a new chapter.
However painful the past has been when you think about Holy Spirit or however familiar he's been. I just want to encourage us tonight and for the rest of this series because we're going to be talking about Holy Spirit, I want to encourage you to be open in a completely different way. And to give him like, hey, this is a new chapter. What do we do that?
Can we do that as a community? We're starting a new sermon series tonight called Same. Turn in your Bible to Romans 811. Same.
Here we go. Romans 811, same series is here. We've been planning on doing this series for almost two years. And now we've arrived.
Romans 811, say hallelujah when you get there. So you guys knew where the book of Romans was, didn't you? Romans 811, I'm going to read from the new living translation, says this, the spirit of God who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you. And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, he will give life to your mortal bodies by this same spirit living within you.
This verse is the theme of our whole sermon series that the same Holy Spirit that took a dead body in a cold grave, that same spirit raised up that body. And then there was the stone got rolled away by an angel and that dead body came out of the grave because of this spirit. And that same spirit that raised him from the dead 2000 years ago is actually inside of you if you've given your life to Jesus. If you've said, Jesus, I'm all yours.
I believe that you died and you rose again and ascended into heaven and seated at the Father's right hand in heavenly places. I believe that I need you. I need you to give me a clean slate. I need you to wipe all my sins away.
And you said, I surrender everything to you. Then what happens in that moment is that you get born again and you get born again on the spirit level and the Holy Spirit comes inside of you in that very moment. Whether you feel it or not, he just made a home inside of you. You know, I grew up in the church.
I grew up going to church and I grew up more evangelical, conservative and Pastor Katie, she grew up with more Baptist and conservative and neither of us really got exposure to the Holy Spirit. We'll talk about that later in the series. But, you know, wherever you grew up, if you grew up conservative, then Holy Spirit wasn't even talked about, right? But if you grew up charismatic to the costal, Holy Spirit got highlighted a lot.
But there wasn't a lot of, and maybe this isn't the case for you, but most of the time, Holy Spirit isn't really talked about scripturally, right? And tonight, what I want to do is I want to go to the Bible. Imagine that. We're talking about the Holy Spirit and using the Word of God.
Everybody's like, wait, what? We're going to be a people that loves the Bible and loves Holy Spirit all at the same time. Not, oh, I'm indifferent about the Holy Spirit, but I really love the Word of God. I believe that Jesus would have us be a people that is not biblically illiterate, but actually knows the Word and flows with the Holy Spirit and is led by the Holy Spirit.
And so tonight, I figured what better way to kick off a series on Holy Spirit than just go throughout the whole Bible and just read the Bible a lot, okay? So turn to Galatians 5. That's our first verse we're going to look at. Galatians 5.
And throughout this series, we're going to be discovering who the Holy Spirit is, that He's a gift to be received and that He gives gifts. We're going to be talking about the power of God. We're going to be talking about healing and prophecy, all of those things. It's been almost since 2015, since we've talked about healing and prophecy in terms of a series.
And I'm so excited for this whole series. It's going to be good. But Galatians 5, man, here we are Paul. He's writing to the Church of Galatia.
And there's a lot of weirdness going on in the Church of Galatia. They're abandoning the simple gospel and they're trying to add things to it. And Paul is writing to the Church of Galatia and he's just kind of giving a dividing line of this is what it looks like to be in the flesh. This is what it looks like to be led by the Holy Spirit.
That's what verse 18 says in Galatians 5. But if you're led by the Spirit, right? This is what happens in verse 22. Look at this.
But the fruit of the Spirit, how many of you guys know this? The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control against such things, there is no law. And those who belong to the Messiah, Jesus, have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. How many of you know that you are not your job title?
Maybe you're a student. Your identity isn't your student. Maybe you're a doctor. Your identity isn't your doctor.
But in the American culture, most of the time it's like, oh yeah, she's a doctor. Yeah, he's a stay-at-home dad. Yeah, she's a businesswoman. He's a salesman.
Remember, do you notice that it's kind of like we put people into the box of what they do, right? I think too often what we've done with Holy Spirit is we've put him in the box of what he does or what he gives rather than who he is. When I look at this passage, what it's saying is people experience love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, all the fruits because they encounter him and are led by him. How do they do that?
Because he is all of those things. So the Holy Spirit's personality, who he is, what he's like, is not what he does, but these are the things, these are the personality characteristics of Holy Spirit as a person. I feel like we need to get reacquainted with Holy Spirit, not according to what he does, but who he is. See, charismatic Pentecostal Church, we don't really talk about who he is.
We talk about what he does. Non-care, we don't even think about him. It's like he's great. I like him, kind of.
I think, right? Like, he's a little weird. And I know some weirdos that like him and I don't want to be weird, right? But we have a desire as a church community to be wildly passionate followers of Jesus that are empowered by the Holy Spirit that are actually socially normal.
Time out, that's rare in the earth, ladies and gentlemen, that you would be a passionate believer that walk in signs and wonders power and intimacy with the Holy Spirit and be normal. There's a new breed rising up. Amen? Okay.
So what we're going to do tonight is this. We're going to follow the storyline of history and we're just going to follow the Holy Spirit throughout history. And what I want to draw attention to is I'm going to pick one fruit of the Spirit, one personality trait of the Spirit for each verse that we're going to look out, look at as we follow him throughout the story. Can we do that together?
Where should we start? Should we start in Genesis? Okay, let's do it. All right.
Here we go. Genesis, turn in your Bible so you better get used to reading your Bible tonight and turning some pages because we're going to move pretty quick. Genesis 1, I'm going to start in verse 1. We'll start at the beginning.
Why not? In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Now, do you remember in John, it says that Jesus was in the beginning. He was there.
The Word was with God. The Word was God in the beginning. The Word was here. The Father is here.
Look at verse 2. The earth was without form and void and darkness was over the face of the deep and the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. So that word Spirit is actually the word Spirit is actually in Hebrew. The word ruk.
Do you want to say that with me? No, I just said it really fast just because I love the huk at the end of it, right? It's ruach, but it has a little huk in Hebrew. Okay.
Do you guys want to say that with me? It's ruach. All right. 1, 2, 3.
What that means in Hebrew is it's translated wind or breath. Wind representing how many of you guys have ever seen a tornado, right? I hope not very few of you, but it's powerful, right? The Spirit is powerful, but then breath.
What does breath do? It brings life. Do you remember the Father breathing into Adam and he became a living being? Breathe the Spirit into him and he became a life, right?
So the Spirit is wind, breath, power and life. I want you to look at the word hovering. I love that word. That's an interesting word.
Strong 73, 63 is that word. And this is what it means. Shake, flutter, move back and forth. Historically for the nation of Israel when there's bodies of water, what that represented was chaos.
And so we see in the beginning, Holy Spirit is exercising leadership over the chaos. Holy Spirit is peace. That's part of his personality is he brings peace and it's who he is. So he's hovering over the chaos and actually he's ruling over the chaos of your life.
Now how many times have you been exposed to the Holy Spirit in a setting like a church setting or a conference and you feel like it's chaotic? Have you ever had that experience? Raise your hand with me. I've been in some interesting places, okay?
And it seems it seems chaotic when Holy Spirit is doing things, but he's not the chaos. He's meeting people and because their bodies doesn't, they don't know what to do with what they're experiencing. It might seem chaotic because Holy Spirit is God and he's powerful and amazing and they're body is reacting to the greatness and the power of God. And so we think Holy Spirit's chaotic and it's no, no, sometimes people respond to him in chaos, but he's not chaotic.
He's actually peace. It's just who he is. Are you guys ready to move forward? Exodus 31, we've got peace.
Now Exodus 31 verse 3 through 4. Israel just got freed from slavery. God's saying, hey, I want to dwell with my people. The garden thing happened.
God was dwelling with man. Then they had to leave the garden. There's been 400 years of slavery. There's been a lot of stuff that's happened, okay?
I want to acknowledge that. Here we are in Exodus 31. And what God is doing is he's saying, I want you to set up a place so I can dwell with my people. And he has this intention of I want to anoint these two men that are skilled in their craft.
I want to anoint them to actually create a beautify a place for me to meet with my people. And I'm going to read it here in verse 3. It says, I've filled him with the Spirit of God, with ability, intelligence, with knowledge, and all craftsmanship to devise artistic designs to work in gold, silver, bronze, and cutting stones. I'm a guy, right?
Cutting stones for setting and in carving wood. These guys are very skilled to work in every craft. What God is doing is he's saying, I want the people of God to be reminded of my goodness in the garden, in creation. Remember, do you remember the start of the story?
How God is saying it's good. Every single day he's like, oh, it's good. Holy Spirit's giving these men the ability. Look at this, knowledge, intelligence, and craftsmanship so that they can create a space that reminds the people of Israel of what it was like in the very beginning when God dwelt with man.
It's like the lampstand looks like the tree of life. There's a cherubim in the tabernacle that's representing what happened at the end when Adam and Eve have to leave and there's a cherubim with a flaming sword. All those things are actually depicted in the tabernacle. And God's saying, by the power of the Spirit, I want my goodness to be remembered.
I'm good. And how many of you know that God is a God of excellence? I don't care if you're a barber. I don't care if you're a carpenter or a designer or an engineer.
God is wanting to give you ability, intelligence, knowledge, and craftsmanship in your creative field because he wants to make himself known as the good God, not the bad God. He wants to make himself known everywhere as, oh, he's really good. There's been a lot of accusation from the enemy that God is the one behind all of the bad. But I tell you today that the Spirit of God is good and the Father is really good and Jesus is good as well.
Amen. Okay, let's move forward. Judges six. Here we go.
Judges six. The book of Judges is messed up. Okay. What's happened is the nation of Israel has taken the land and God commanded them, hey, I want you to clear out all of the Canaanites because I want the bloodline of the promised Messiah.
I want that to be kept pure. And the nation of Israel disobeyed God and didn't clear out all the Canaanites. So now the Canaanite worship of pagan gods is actually interweaving with Israelite people. And what's taken place is there's oppression that's happening where the nation of Israel, they conquered and now they're getting oppressed by other peoples in their land.
And God says, hey, I'm going to have my spirit rest on those that are going to deliver my people. And so here we go. We're in Judges six. This is one of the judges and really what judges are like regional tribal chiefs in essence.
Okay. So they're like military leaders for tribes. Wow, lots of context. Are we okay?
All right. I know we're in Judges six, you guys. All right. Verse 34.
Judges six verse 34, but the spirit of the Lord clothed Gideon. Spirit of the Lord clothed Gideon and he sounded the trumpet and the abbias rights were called. Look at that. I pronounced that so well.
And the abbias rights were called out to follow him. This happened over and over and over again in the book of judges. And you might go, okay, so why? And then it just gets worse and worse and worse.
All the leaders are just the worst. Okay. Gideon was the best out of all of them. Debra and Gideon were great.
And then it just went downhill from there. Seems like the spirit is still anointing them to bring deliverance from the enemy. And then they fall back in a sense, just bad. But I believe that this is revealing the patience of God, the patience of the spirit, even when we're at our worst, even when we're like literally going to sacrifice our child on a pagan altar, because we think that's how God, the God of Israel is worshiped and God's still anointing that leader to bring freedom for his people.
It's like that is, I'm sorry, Lord. I don't get that. But how patient is he? Man, Holy Spirit, your patience.
Psalm 51. We're going to continue. So we've been to creation. We've looked at the nation of Israel out of Exodus.
Judges. All right. Psalm 51, David, he sleeps with a woman that's not his wife. Really great move.
So stupid that you did that, David. What were you thinking? Psalm 51, verse 11, then he murders the guy. Really bad idea again.
All right. Verse 11, David is crying out to God. He says this, cast me not away from your presence. Take not your Holy Spirit from me.
See, David understood that the spirit came and went in the old covenant. He remembers what happened to King Saul. And that was messy. Right?
And so David is desperately going, please don't leave me, Spirit. Oh, please don't leave me. This is really, really, really bad. I need you.
And there's this revelation of Holy Spirit. I need you. And David knew that he was faithless, but Spirit remained faithful. Holy Spirit is faithful.
Even when we did the worst thing, he remains faithful. It says in the new covenant that he doesn't come and go. He's not the scared bird that just flies in and flies out. And then, oh, shoot, now he's gone.
No, he said, I'm promised to never leave you or forsake you. I'm with you. He's faithful. Now, OK, can you imagine if all of these fruits existed without faithfulness?
That'd be a problem. Because if he wasn't faithful, then we might get these things sometimes and other times we might not. He might show up and he might be peace. But then sometimes he's not peace because he's not faithful.
But because he's faithful, he's true in love, in peace, in patience all the time. He's like that. Man, we need somebody consistent like that, don't we? New Testament, Matthew 1.
Oh, man. Wow, here we go. Matthew 1, this is the same God that, do you remember Jericho, the story of Jericho? And they go around the city a lot, and then they blow their trumpets.
We were reading in this history book as a family. That's what we do in our free time, as we read history books as a family. And we found this story about Jericho. And there's this 10-foot wall, like 10 feet thick.
Guys, this is probably a rug. Do you like our new rug? Look at that. We're just embracing the mob as a church here.
Listen, 10 feet is probably how wide this rug is. And it was all wall. That's how thick the wall of Jericho was. And it crumbles by the power of the Spirit of God.
I mean, literally, this is the same God where hailstones are dropped from the sky, and they're like boulders on the enemies of Israel. This is a God that, by the Spirit, says like, let there be light, and stars are thrown into the universe, and they go on and on and on and on. And we can't find the end of it. This is the God of all power.
And then what does he do here? This is wild. Matthew 1, verse 18, Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been the truth to Joseph, before they came together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.
Look at that. Verse 19, And her husband Joseph being a man, just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resulted divorce her quietly. But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. This great God of the ages, all powerful and mighty.
The gentleness that it takes to put a little seed into a teenage womb. Unreal. He's so gentle. And we think of Holy Spirit oftentimes as like, wind, it's like a lie, each other, wind and lightning and thunderings and fire.
And yet, he's like a whisper. He's gentle. Luke 3, Luke 3, 21. Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus had been baptized and was praying, the heavens were ripped open.
And the Holy Spirit descended on Jesus in bodily form, like a dove. And the voice of the Father came from heaven and said, you are my loved son with you. I am well pleased. I grew up going to Air Force Academy football games, because I'm from Colorado Springs.
So the Air Force Academy is in Colorado Springs. They have a really cool stadium nestled in the mountains. And their mascot is the Falcon. And so before each game and at halftime, they would do these Falcon shows that are just, I'm not talking about like the plane Falcon.
I'm talking about, or the jet, sorry. I don't know if there, is there a Falcon? Jet? Yeah.
All right. So there's this bird, the Falcon. How many, does anybody know how fast the Falcon flies? 83 miles an hour.
Any guesses? 239. Wow, what a guess. That is bold.
That is bold, Paul. Paul was one mile an hour off, 240 miles an hour is how fast the Falcon flies. Falcons knows dive at 240 miles an hour. And you should watch this bird, and it's just like a torpedo going through the air, landing on the person's arm, just like stops.
It's unreal. How much self-control did it take the Holy Spirit to be a dove? And descend on Jesus as he comes up out of the water, and the heavens get ripped open, and the Holy Spirit descends like a dove. Can you imagine how excited Holy Spirit is to anoint the Son of God with power?
And the Father's like, oh, no, not the Falcon. I want you to go as a dove. The Holy Spirit's like, really? Father.
Father, I wanna come like a lightning bolt, and soar in, and like hit him across the eyes, and just like blast him. You know how strong I am, Holy Spirit. Or Father, can you picture that? What a self-control did the Holy Spirit have to descend?
How much self-control did it take for Spirit to wait for Jesus to grow up for that moment? You know, he's in Nazareth, he's working with wood, he's a carpenter, he's working with stone, and the Holy Spirit's like, Father, can we just hurry this up? Right? Holy Spirit is self-controlled, and I wanna draw our attention to, we have the ability to exercise self-control, even when we're getting encountered by the Holy Spirit.
And we've been given free will and freedom to respond to the Lord and lean in to his Him touching us in special ways. But I wanna encourage you, even with the topic of tongues, some people have said in the past where there's like really crazy stuff happening, and they're like really loudly speaking in tongues, and it's very quiet in the room. It's like, you actually do have self-control to honor and love the room, well, right? And so the Spirit is a spirit of self-control.
Matthew 12, Matthew 12, verse 27, says, all things have been handed over to me by my Father. Actually, I'm sorry, that's 11, that's chapter 11. Matthew 12, 27, not 11, 27. And if I cast demons out by Beelzebub, by whom do your sons cast them out?
Therefore, they will be your judges, but if it is by the Spirit of God, that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. So there's this discussion that's happening, Jesus is having a conversation with Pharisees, Sadducees, and they're bringing accusations saying, you're doing all of this amazing work, you're setting people free because you're actually being empowered by the enemy. And Jesus is going, a kingdom divided can't stand, that doesn't make any sense, I don't know what you're talking about. And he's saying it's by the Spirit of God that I'm setting people free.
And oftentimes, when we, as a people in America, as a culture, when we think of deliverance, we think of horror films. But when the Holy Spirit thinks of deliverance, he thinks of kindness. He's a kind leader, and he's filled with so much love and kindness that he's going, oh, I see their destiny, I want them to get set free. And it doesn't have to be a shaming experience, it can be a kind one.
See, the enemy tries to blow himself up, put his chest out, and intimidate, but the Holy Spirit's such a good leader, he's a kind leader. And I believe that he has so much kindness when he empowered Jesus to bring deliverance. I believe that it felt like kindness as Jesus. And when I'm saying kindness, I'm not taking the same kindness to the enemy.
I'm saying kindness to the person because he sees their creative value and who they are and who they were always meant to be. Okay, are we ready for the last, wait a second, where we at, Luke, Luke 4, 18. Have we gone there yet? No, we're going there.
We're 18, that's our next one. We've got this one and one last one. Luke 4, 18, how are we doing? Are we doing, okay?
All right, verse 16, we're gonna start in 16 instead. Says he came to Nazareth where he had been brought up. And as was his custom, he went to the synagogue on this abith day, how many times did Jesus go to that synagogue in Nazareth? That's just fun to think about.
And he stood up to read. He's probably read that scroll before in the synagogue in Nazareth before as he was growing up. Verse 17, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written.
The spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me, why? To proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty, those who are oppressed to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. I believe it gave Holy Spirit joy.
He was joyful when he was empowering Jesus to proclaim the good news. There's so much bad news in the first century and the Holy Spirit's filled with anticipation. He's the Holy Spirit is seeing all of the captives, all of the blind, all of the oppressed, all of the poor, and he's going, oh man, I'm filled with so much joy, Jesus, that I get to anoint you to proclaim the good news to all of these people groups, because I know all of them and I have joy about that. Holy Spirit is full of joy.
Do you know what's interesting in all of these passages? Listen, all of these passages, he's all nine of these fruits, these traits. So it's kind of funny to focus on one of them, because he's actually all nine for every single moment, right? But I'm just selecting going, hmm, what makes the most sense?
In this passage, okay? So I realize, I know he's the same in all of them, but man, what joy did it give him? For Jesus to read this in his hometown. Can you imagine?
Oh man, Jesus, I know that they've known you. They saw you growing up, but this is our moment. I'm anointing you to proclaim it, and this is the first time they're hearing about it. Holy Spirit was full of joy.
Hebrews nine, and the greatest of all of these is love, love. Hebrews nine, 18. And when I said 18, I meant 14, all right? Okay.
How much more will the blood of the Messiah, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God? What is this passage saying? It's saying, Holy Spirit was the one behind Jesus going to the cross. And do you remember how we read in Romans 811 that the Holy Spirit was behind the resurrection?
So now we've gone through all of the Old Testament, all of the through creation, through the Exodus, the kings, David and Saul, the prophets, he was anointing the prophets and giving them words to prophesy of a coming day and also to speak to their people. Then Jesus comes on the scene because Holy Spirit has this little seed that he puts inside of the womb of the teenager. Then Jesus starts his ministry, is baptized in the Holy Spirit, comes up out of the water, then the Holy Spirit with joy leads him into the wilderness. That's like self-control right there.
Holy Spirit probably was like, all right, Jesus, it's our time. And then he leads Jesus to the wilderness to get tempted. Then Jesus is in his hometown, and there's joy as Holy Spirit says, he's gonna proclaim the gospel through my power. I'm gonna anoint him to proclaim it.
And now we see Holy Spirit was the one, he was the one behind Jesus going to the cross. And all of it was love. Jesus going to the cross, the greatest demonstration of love in all of history with Holy Spirit who is love behind it. Love leading Jesus to the cross.
The Spirit's joy in his empowerment of Jesus' ministry. It was his peace, Holy Spirit's peace when he hovered over the waters in the beginning. It was his patience when he clothed the judges of Israel. It was his kindness when he set the demonic free through Jesus.
It was his goodness when he anointed the craftsman to decorate his dwelling. It was his faithfulness. Who was faithful when David was faithless? It was his gentleness in the immaculate conception.
It was his self-control when he baptized Jesus from on high, the Spirit of God is way more than a tingly feeling. The Spirit of God is way more than an encounter. The Spirit of God is way more than a healing, a prophecy. The Spirit of God is way more than just getting knocked over.
Spirit of God is more than your conscience. It's more than a good time and worship. The Holy Spirit is a person. He's a person of love.
He's a person of joy. He's a person of peace. He's a person of kindness and gentleness and self-control and goodness and faithfulness. He's a person.
The whole purpose of tonight is to reintroduce him to you. He wants to reintroduce himself to us as a person, not a power, not a force, not something that's a theory that comes and goes if we ask him and we beg him enough. Holy Spirit is a person and he has a personality and I love his personality. Man, he's a person full of so much love.
And maybe you've had some weird experiences, some negative experiences, but tonight I would encourage you to get reacquainted with the person Holy Spirit. Worship team, you guys can come to the front. Holy Spirit is the most safe. Listen, Holy Spirit is the most safe person in all of creation I don't know if I can express that enough.
Sometimes we feel like I get the Father because I have a Father. I get the Son or Jesus as my brother because I have, I understand the family system, I get it. But the Spirit is kind of this weird thing. I'm telling you, he's the safest one I know.
And he is so committed to not just his job description, but having a relationship with you. He loves you. The Holy Spirit actually loves you. The Holy Spirit likes you.
The Holy Spirit wants you guys to get really close. He wants to be involved in all of it. He wants to just journey with you. And he's the greatest gift that Jesus gave us.
Jesus says, man, just wait. Can you imagine him on the Mount of Olives looking at his disciples? And can you imagine him going like this just late and I'll give you the Holy Spirit? No, Jesus is literally looking at his disciples and saying, oh, I'm gonna give you a gift.
He's the best. I've been hanging out with him my whole life. I love him. He's the greatest gift that I could think of giving you.
It's him. Holy Spirit, he's a person. Just wait. Let's all stand.
I wanna encourage you to spread out throughout the room and we're gonna go into a time of worship just to have a moment with the Lord tonight. I really think that there's an opportunity for us to respond to the Holy Spirit. I don't know what your story with Holy Spirit looks like or what it's been, but I see tonight as a new chapter in your relationship with the Holy Spirit. Now I wanna encourage you, if you've had more of a treacherous journey, a scarion journey with the Holy Spirit, I wanna encourage you that it wasn't him, but it was actually the misuse of his gifts or people responding in a way that was the only way they knew how, with the tools that they had.
And it was them and their soul, but it wasn't the intention of Holy Spirit to cause the damage that was done at all. Remember his peace. Remember his kindness. Remember his love.
It's all what I want us to do. If that's you, to turn the page on that journey or turn the page on that perspective of him and tonight is your new opportunity to start with the clean slate with Holy Spirit. Now if you're familiar and you're going, man, I love Holy Spirit, he's amazing. I love him and we just have a great relationship.
That's awesome. But I want you to do the same thing, to turn the page because there's more than you've known. You may be have some experience with prophecy. You may be have some experience with healing.
You may be have some experiences with Holy Spirit, whatever those are, but there's so much more than you've tasted and touched. There's so much more of him because he's a person. He's not just things. And I believe that there's a real tangible relationship that he's inviting us into.
So tonight, I think it would be amazing if all of us, if you want to, and you're willing, and you're hungry for him, to just give Holy Spirit permission. Say, Holy Spirit, I give you permission to have more access to my heart and my mind. Wherever you are with Jesus, I would encourage you, invite Holy Spirit, because one of the things that he does is he makes known to us what Jesus is saying. So maybe you don't even have a relationship with Jesus tonight.
Holy Spirit is actually gonna be the one that's gonna facilitate you seeking Jesus out. And so you can invite him and go Holy Spirit. I'm confused about these things, but you just help me in the process of figuring this thing out with God and me. That's what you can do.
There's an invitation for you to say, I give you permission. I don't know what it looks like, but I really like the things about you that I heard tonight. This is a new page for us. It's more than you've known.
I don't care if you've been following Jesus for 20 years. This is a moment. There's more. When I say more, I don't say more of the Spirit.
There's more moments that are prepared for you and him. If you'd say, oh, I still haven't touched the one, what I want. There's more here that I haven't experienced in him. Holy Spirit, here we are.
Lord, we don't take the posture of forced receive with our knuckles clinched, trying to feel you. Lord, we thank you that you're a person, that you're not just a feeling. You're not just electricity flowing through our bodies or something like that. Lord, we don't have to really try to receive you or really try to ask you and white knuckle encountering.
But Lord, I thank you that we get to have a conversation with you as a person tonight. And so Lord, Spirit, here we are. We give you permission. I want to encourage you just in your own words during worship, whenever that feels right, to just engage with him in a conversation, give him permission, to reveal more of who he is as a person to you over the next couple months.
We're gonna be in the series for a couple months and this is gonna be a journey. And he's the safest one I know. Kindest one I know. We love you Holy Spirit.
And as a people, we say that we like you. Thank you for being our God.