Sermon Tone Analysis

The Key to Life with God is the HOLY SPIRIT

True life starts within and it starts inside with the Holy Spirit.

It's not about material wealth, or health, or academics, or accolades, or sports accomplishments, or your 401K, or retirement, or building a platform, or being popular on social media, or having an influence, or changing the world.

The good, abundant life that Christ came to give us starts on the inside and it's an overflowing internal reality.

We can unintentionally prioritize a life for God over a life with him.

This is the difference between a life for God and a life with God.

I would encourage you today that as we read through scriptures to circle every time you see with, or within.

That is what I want you to capture.

That's what we want you to see today that God desires to live in you, with you, to teach you, to empower you, and the Holy Spirit is the person to empower and animate your faith.

You cannot do this on your own.

So, first it's this internal reality that overflows into an external reality.

And when we get this backwards, when we think that being a Christian is about having all of our ducks in a row, and our behavior in a row, and our mouth and do all these things, when we think that, that's what it means to follow Jesus we have completely missed the message of the gospel in the New Testament.

Religion will sink in and it all be about behavior, and rules, and judgment.

And Christ came to give you relationship.

To restore your relationship to God.

So, the good news is that you and I can get off a spiritual treadmill today.

You can step off of it into the glorious unknown of God's divine goodness and grace and discover a life with God through his Holy Spirit.

So, the Holy Spirit 's key to life with God.

So, what are his roles?

How does he do this?

And we want to talk just about four roles today.

There are so, very many and we could spend all day and afternoon, and really the next year talking about all the ways that the Holy Spirit works in our lives, but we want to focus just on four ways today primarily.

And they're focused out of John's chapter 13 through 17 and I would encourage you to, this week pick up your Bible and just read through those chapters.

They're the last alone time that Jesus had with his disciples before he was handed over to be crucified.

God’s Gift of the Holy Spirit is to . . .

1. Connect me to God’s presence forever.

The disciples are troubled, they're discouraged, they're confused, they don't understand what's happening.

They have literally given up everything to follow Jesus.

He is their rabbi, he is their leader, he is their teacher and they believe in his vision and his message, and they are not ready for it to be over.

They're not ready.

They've sacrificed everything and Jesus in his kindness responds to them this way, on your outline.

John 14:16 says, "And I will ask the father and he will give you another advocate to help you and to be with you forever the spirit of truth."

Circle that word with.

"The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him, but you know him.

He lives with you and will be in you.

I will not leave you as orphans I will come to you."

Up until now, Jesus has been their advocate.

He's been the very presence of God with them, even if they weren't fully aware of it at the time Jesus was making God known to them.

And here he's saying that, "I'm leaving, but don't worry I'm going to stay with you forever through my Spirit."

Jesus is comforting them and us by promising us that the Holy Spirit will be with us, to advocate for us.

And even though the disciples’ lives clearly will end, they're human.

The Holy Spirit, he's here to stay.

He's here to stay.

He's also saying that he's going to come live in them.

Now, this is a completely new concept for the Jewish people who are following Jesus.

These disciples, they're from a Jewish background, they follow Judaism and in the Old Testament when God comes to meet with his people he does so in a visitational form.

He comes to temples, he comes briefly to prophets, to kings, or to judges and he visits his people, but he can't stay because there's no repair in the rupture of relationship between humanity and God.

So, he comes for brief times.

So, they're in this mindset that God comes and visits, and if we see him we meet him in a temple.

And here God is saying, now Jesus is saying, "No, guess what?

I'm going to come live in you."

No longer is God going to dwell in temples or visit, he is going to be a...

We are going to become habitations of God.

God is going to come dwell amongst us.

Now, we don't really understand this, because we enjoy the freedom to choose what we want to believe, but that is not so for the majority of believers around the world.

For so many it costs family, and status, and safety, and tradition to follow Christ.

And Jesus knows that.

He knows the cost for his disciples, and he knows the cost that's coming for the rest of the world.

And he says, "I'm going to adopt you by my Spirit into my family.

And you're going to be a part of a family that never breaks up.

Never breaks up."

These are the last words that were recorded of Jesus in the book of Matthew.

And what comforting words they are.

This demonstrates God's clear, full heart for us, that he has no desire that we'd navigate this life on our own.

He is not interested in saving us and then saying, "Good luck, I'll see you in heaven."

2. Teach me how to know God.

The reality of Christ's presence is real.

Now, some of you might be saying, "Yeah, well, I don't feel like he's with me.

I don't feel any less alone.

I hear you say that, but I don't feel any different."

Then I would say to you what I say to my teenagers when we have this question about experiencing and feeling God is, do you feel your blood pumping through your body and your organs?

Do you feel your bone marrow making new blood cells?

Do you feel the synapsis connecting and firing in your brain as you're listening to me and processing what I'm saying?

Do you feel your immune system fighting for you and keeping invaders away?

No.

But your body is beautifully and harmoniously working together for you making your body work so that you can sit here, stay sitting up, pay attention, give me eye contact, and listen.

And that is the same with the Holy Spirit.

He is animating your soul and your faith life.

He is present regardless of whether you feel it or not.

Now, God is good and he wants you to feel it, and he wants to give you that experience for sure, but know that it's not dependent on whether you feel it in any given moment or not.

God's truth of his presence with us is irregardless of whether we feel it or not.

So, first, God's promise of the Holy Spirit is to give us his presence forever.

But secondly, it's to teach me to know God.

It's to teach me to know how to know God.

Teach me how to know God.

John 14:26 says, "All this I have spoken while still with you, but the advocate, the Holy Spirit whom the father will send in my name will teach you all things and remind you of everything I have said to you."

Jesus is saying here that it's his job to teach us.

It's his job to teach us.

Even more so than your ministers and teachers.

The Holy Spirit is our first teacher.

Jesus is saying it is his responsibility to remind us of what?

All things.

That's a huge promise.

All things about God.

To remind us and to lead us into truth.

“For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them?

In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.

What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us.”

There are three primary ways that need to be a part of every believer's life.

And they are scripture, prayer, and the family of God.