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Pastor Josh: go ahead and
turn in your Bibles to Matthew

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chapter five and John chapter 14.

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So I'm gonna read, the
Beatitudes and Matthew.

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Then I'm gonna read a little
passage we're gonna look at in

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John Fourteen . blessed are
the poor in spirit, for theirs

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is the kingdom of heaven.

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Blessed are those who mourn,
for they shall be comforted.

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John 14.

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We're gonna pick up in verse 16

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and I will ask the Father and he will give
you another helper to be with you forever.

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Even the spirit of truth whom the
world cannot receive because it

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neither sees him nor knows him.

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You know him, for he dwells
with you and will be in you.

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I will not leave you as orphans, I
will come to you yet a little while

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in the world will see me no more,
but you will see me because I live.

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You will also live in that day.

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You will know that I am in my
Father and you, and me and I in you.

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Whoever has my commandments and
keeps them, he, it is who loves me

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and he who loves me will be loved
by the Father, and I will love

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him and manifest myself to him.

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these things, I have spoken to you
while I am still with you, but the

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helper, the Holy Spirit with whom the
Father will send in my name, he will

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teach you all things and bring to your
remembrance all that I have said to you.

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This is the word of the Lord.

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I wanna open with the story in Luke 19
to kind of set the tone this evening.

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Jericho at the season's height
was a city fevered with commerce

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, corruption, and the queasy unrest
of a people under occupation, spices

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and honey and dates in the air.

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The market street swarm, the folk pressed
tight his olives in a jar into this,

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while the sun was a white hot coin.

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Above the palms, Jesus entered,
followed by those who trailed him

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everywhere, peasants, merchants,
the sick and the curious.

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by the time he set foot
beneath the first archway.

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The city's main avenue bowed with
bodies craning for a glimpse.

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And the Alis echoed with shouts and
the crowd was a man named Zacchaeus.

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He was the chief excise man, the
tax farmer, the velvet gloved hand

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that siphoned their labor into the
coffers of their imperial overlords

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and by all accounts into his own.

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And the bathhouse meant spat at dimension
of his name at night He dined behind

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locked gates, attended by servants
whose loyalty he could purchase.

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He was, not a man accustomed
to being denied what he wanted.

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And yet, here in the mob, he found
himself diminished first by stature

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and then more cruelly by the way the
bodies close ranks against him, leaving

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him tiptoeing and elbowing aside
the familiar contempt made literal.

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But Zacchaeus was clever as the
wealthy have to be and prided had

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not yet calcified into paralysis.

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He calculated, he withdrew from
the knot of townsfolk and hurried

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on ahead, trailing the path.

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Jesus route must take.

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Children pointed and giggled old men
muttered, but he did not break his stride.

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He came to the broad avenue where
merchant stands clustered beneath

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a canopy of ancient sycamores.

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Here the trees were nearly
as thick as columns.

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Their roots buckling the paving stones
and their limbs low and inviting without

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a moment's notice that he has hitched
up his robes and climbed, and he did

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not choose the most prominent branch.

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But he found a spot within an unobstructed
view, and they're hidden by the leaves

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and the dappled patterns of sunlight.

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He waited below him as the dust
rose with the approaching company.

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He had advantage more God-like than he
had ever enjoyed From behind his counting

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table, he watched the slow dulin ripple
of the crowd partying before Jesus.

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Jesus was not what Zacchaeus expected.

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He was plainly dressed, sun browned,
all the weariness and heartbreak and

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compassion of a man who spent too
long among the needy and the lost.

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The remarkable thing about him from
Zacchaeus angle was the way he did

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not so much move through the people
as allow them to move through him.

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It was as though their hopes battered
against him, like water against the stone,

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and it was the water that was changed.

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When Jesus reached the foot of
the sycamore, he paused beneath

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its broad, dusty leaves, and as if
plucking from another world raised

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his gaze and called up Zacchaeus.

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Come down this moment for today,
I must stay at your house.

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The word struck, the little tax man like
a throne stone, knocking the air from him,

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but also filling his chest with a bloom.

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That was part embarrassment,
part incredulous, glee, and

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part something like hope.

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All eyes turned to the tree,
even the breeze seemed to hush.

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The crowd accustomed to
ignoring or despising.

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Zacchaeus now saw him holy.

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His nobby knees clutching the branch.

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His expensive robes smeared with bark.

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His face gone pale and then flushing
with unfamiliar delight for his parts Z.

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He has nearly tumbled from his perch
and his haste snagging his tunic and

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scraping his shins, but he hurly felt it.

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He hurried to the ground, tripping
into the clearing that it opened around

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Jesus as if some centrifugal force
now spun the world around him alone.

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Me, he heard himself say, voice
cracked in thin my house, but

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Jesus smile wide and easy.

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Brook no misunderstanding.

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The short walk to Zia's house, one of
the finest in the city with a portico

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and mosaic floors was a gauntlet.

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The righteous murmured.

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What business does he have
getting cozy with this crook?

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They said, why is he elevating
this traitor, this blood sucker?

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There are a thousand more deserving
homes in Jericho than this house.

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Mothers schooled their children
from their path vendors made the

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sign against evil, almost hissing.

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Yet Jesus seemed immune as though
these arrows of scorn simply failed

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to find their mark at the threshold,
Zacchaeus turned to face the crowd,

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but his tongue trained for commerce
and bargaining failed him inside.

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In the cool atrium, Zacchaeus
was suddenly overwhelmed.

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The presence of Jesus in his house,
seated at his table, waiting to eat a

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meal was a dislocation, almost physical.

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He felt in his chest, a squeeze,
a trembling, and then clarity as

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if for the first time he saw the
precise dimensions of his own soul.

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All the wealth, all the clever stratagems
and accounts, the lattice work of

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extortion and plausible deniability.

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These in the company of Jesus seem not
merely empty, but actively poisonous.

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He stood mouth open and could
barely form the words  master.

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He managed his voice.

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Course.

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I give away half my income to the
poor, and if here he faltered,

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feeling in the eyes of Jesus who
knew already if I'm caught cheating,

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I'll pay back four times the damages.

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That's law.

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But I, he swallowed, but I have not
been just, I will pay it fourfold

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even more to whom I have wronged.

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It was not a confession rehearsed.

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It was the only thing left to
say in Jesus's presence and Jesus

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gazing and said to him in full
voice so that all the sneering and

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skeptical neighbors could hear today.

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Not tomorrow or some far off day, but
this very day salvation has come and

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set its table in this house, not as
a reward for virtue, not as a trophy

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for the strong, but as a miracle for
the meek, for the broken, for the ones

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who long counted themselves outside.

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Blessing Zach, he is Jesus continued.

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You are not only son of Abraham by
blood and birthright, but by the

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faith that now stirs your heart.

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A faith that risks mockery
and makes costly restitution.

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A faith that admits the wound and
dares to hope for restoration for

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the son of man has not come to judge
to tally debts, nor as a scholar to

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debate the merits of the righteous.

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But as a shepherd who haunts the
wilderness for the one sheep that

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none of the shepherds would bother to
count, the son of man came precisely

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scandalously to seek and save the lost.

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Today, all of Jericho will bear
witness to what that means.

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The lost are found, the
scorned are called guests.

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the long humiliated are
restored to honor and glory.

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Blessed are those who mourn,
for they shall be comforted.

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Why open with this story?

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The story doesn't say, Zach Kieu wept.

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maybe he didn't.

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I don't know if he was overwhelmed
at the grace of his entire house,

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meeting the grace of God that
day, breaking bread with Jesus.

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uh, someone who went out of his way to
find this one man hiding in a tree and to

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say, salvation is coming to your house.

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I'm coming to your house.

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But what I want you to focus on
this week, and what I want you

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to see is how Jesus pursued him.

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How he walked alongside him,
how he broke bread with him.

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And despite all the grumbling accusations
from the crowd, Jesus saved and

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transformed him and his whole house.

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Jesus did not let those insults reach him.

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That accusation penetrate
him, but transformed him.

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The word comfort, which is what
we're gonna focus on today.

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Blessed are those who mourn, for
they shall be comforted is peral.

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And it literally means to come alongside.

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It is the verb form of peral, the noun.

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And this noun is used for
someone in particular, John 1416.

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We read it and I'll pray to the
father and he shall give you another

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comforter, literally the noun.

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It's who he is.

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And what does he do?

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He Perot Ks, he comes alongside.

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He is our helper, our friend.

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And as we'll see, he actually is, it's a
legal term, of, advocate, but a comforter

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that he may abide with you forever.

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The coming alongside of one,
the coming alongside John 1426.

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Who is this comforter?

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The but the comforter.

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Which is the Holy Ghost.

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I'm reading from the Old King James.

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Some of you have it, whom the
father will send in my name, shall

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teach you all things and bring
all things to your remembrance

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whatsoever I have said unto you.

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So let's look at that tonight, because
right there I'll give you the comforter.

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And then in verse 26, he says,
who the comforter is is the

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Holy Ghost or the Holy Spirit.

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Um, if you read newer versions, I
want to see tonight who he is, what

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he does, and how to receive it.

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Who he is.

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Blessed are those who mourn
for they shall be comforted.

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We've been studying the Beatitudes and
the Beatitudes are the opening gospel

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salvo on the Sermon on the Mount.

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Those who come into the kingdom of
heaven must come through the narrow.

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But merciful gates, there's no climbing
over the fence, there's no shortcuts.

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It is humble and it is low , but it is
generously wide open to all, to any.

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those who hop the fence to climb
this ethical mountain, the Sermon

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on the Mount will find themselves
dashed to pieces even by its shadow.

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You must come by way of the gospel.

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You must come by way of the
narrow gate, so the gospel again,

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blessed are the poor in spirit.

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Nothing in my hands.

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I bring congratulations.

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Your poor in spirit for theirs
is the kingdom of heaven.

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Blessed are those who mourn.

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Congratulations.

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You mourn your, you're, uh, weeping.

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Not that you've been busted, but
that you realize that you are

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busted for they will be comforted.

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Blessed are the meek, a bit bridled horse.

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I've given the reins of my life
over into the hand of another.

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My life is not my own listener.

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Those who hunger and thirst for
righteousness, for they shall be

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filled a new heart with new desires
that is filled from the start.

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It amazing.

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I don't have to get this new
heart, and then I go seek it,

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But man, ye shall be filled.

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Blessed are the merciful.

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It's standing in light of the
mercy that we've been shown.

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We begin to extend that mercy out
to one another and our community,

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and out to our neighbors, and out
to our city, and out to the world.

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B, blessed are the pure in heart for
they shall see God, an identity statement

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about the gospel and who you are because
of what he's done and the righteousness

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that has been laid to your account.

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You have no hope without faith,
it's impossible to please the Lord.

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What is the faith that he is
looking for that Christ did for you?

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What you can never do for yourself, that
Christ alone was pleasing in your place.

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That's what's pleasing.

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That's the faith that he's after putting
all my weight, all my freight, all

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my trust in Jesus and what he's done.

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Blessed are the peacemakers for
even as God made a way where there

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was no way and destroyed that
enmity that was against us and him.

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So now he commissions us to go and
to make peace, to bring the message

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of reconciliation out and everywhere
we go, blessed are those who are

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persecuted because of righteousness
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

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00:13:48,942 --> 00:13:52,872
The reality of mission is that not
everybody will like the message of

228
00:13:52,872 --> 00:13:56,202
the good gospel because it exposes.

229
00:13:57,072 --> 00:14:03,622
Our desire deep down to make a religion
of our own so that we can achieve and

230
00:14:03,622 --> 00:14:08,932
that we can get to heaven so that we can
go back and the original sin, Adam and

231
00:14:08,932 --> 00:14:12,802
Eve saying, questioning God's goodness
and saying, I'm not really sure if you

232
00:14:12,802 --> 00:14:14,692
should decide God, what good and evil is.

233
00:14:14,692 --> 00:14:18,982
Maybe we'll decide what good and
evil is and, uh, we're gonna set it

234
00:14:18,982 --> 00:14:24,127
up this way, which is just another,
attempt at controlling our own lives.

235
00:14:24,847 --> 00:14:26,917
And we're addicted to
controlling our own lives.

236
00:14:26,917 --> 00:14:30,937
The masters of our own fate, the
captains of our own ship, as it were.

237
00:14:31,477 --> 00:14:32,707
So we looked at good mourning.

238
00:14:33,652 --> 00:14:36,802
The tax collector in the
temple, the prostitute washing

239
00:14:36,802 --> 00:14:38,272
Jesus' feet with their tears.

240
00:14:38,512 --> 00:14:40,792
Zacchaeus pursued by Jesus.

241
00:14:40,852 --> 00:14:42,172
You will be comforted.

242
00:14:42,172 --> 00:14:43,792
What happened to these people?

243
00:14:43,792 --> 00:14:46,822
What was the result of
someone coming alongside them?

244
00:14:47,092 --> 00:14:49,002
Of someone taking them up of.

245
00:14:49,087 --> 00:14:51,457
Advocating on their behalf.

246
00:14:51,457 --> 00:14:56,382
In the midst of, remember the pressure
from, the Pharisee, Simon who is

247
00:14:56,382 --> 00:15:00,822
looking at this woman and thinking
Jesus isn't even a real prophet and

248
00:15:00,822 --> 00:15:05,682
he's advocates for her and he defends
her, or the man in the temple who's

249
00:15:05,682 --> 00:15:09,282
praying in the Pharisees like, thank
God that I'm not like that fool.

250
00:15:09,282 --> 00:15:10,812
You know, I'm awesome.

251
00:15:10,812 --> 00:15:11,472
Thank you God.

252
00:15:11,472 --> 00:15:12,552
You made me awesome.

253
00:15:12,792 --> 00:15:15,042
And, you watched the Lego
movie too many times.

254
00:15:15,232 --> 00:15:20,422
and, and Jesus is saying, no, this man
goes home justified rather than that man.

255
00:15:20,752 --> 00:15:26,182
And Zacchaeus, his Jesus walks with him
through the streets, amidst the grumbling

256
00:15:26,182 --> 00:15:29,962
of the mob, amidst the grumbling of
the crowd, he breaks bread with him

257
00:15:30,202 --> 00:15:32,002
in that house in salvation is there

258
00:15:32,082 --> 00:15:36,222
Sin is forgiven they're declared
justified, they're declared save.

259
00:15:36,402 --> 00:15:38,772
And we see no language
in the Old Testament.

260
00:15:38,772 --> 00:15:41,862
Take up this imagery
of this transformation.

261
00:15:41,862 --> 00:15:44,322
Ezekiel 36, 25 to 27.

262
00:15:44,382 --> 00:15:47,472
I will sprinkle clean water
on you and you will be clean.

263
00:15:47,652 --> 00:15:51,252
I will cleanse you from all your
impurities and from all your idols.

264
00:15:51,252 --> 00:15:54,852
I will give you a new heart and
put a new spirit within you.

265
00:15:55,122 --> 00:15:59,262
I'll remove from your heart of
stone and give you a heart of flesh.

266
00:15:59,262 --> 00:16:03,652
And I will put my spirit in you
and move you to follow my decrees

267
00:16:03,876 --> 00:16:05,586
and to be careful to keep my laws.

268
00:16:05,586 --> 00:16:10,476
And then in Ezekiel 7 37, the very
next chapter, he gives them this,

269
00:16:10,526 --> 00:16:12,656
Ezekiel, this valley of the dry bones.

270
00:16:12,656 --> 00:16:17,666
And what a poetic picture as there's
this army that's been slain and time.

271
00:16:18,146 --> 00:16:18,986
Does what it does.

272
00:16:18,986 --> 00:16:23,216
And there's just rot and there's
dissipation, and there it's

273
00:16:23,216 --> 00:16:27,146
just all gone to nothing until
there's just bones and fragments.

274
00:16:27,476 --> 00:16:30,566
And he asked Ezekiel, can
these bones live again?

275
00:16:30,566 --> 00:16:34,736
He is like, well, you know, I
doesn't look possible to me.

276
00:16:34,976 --> 00:16:38,156
And he says, prophesied to the
wind and tell 'em to come together.

277
00:16:38,156 --> 00:16:41,906
And there's this rattling and the
bones and the joints start coming

278
00:16:41,906 --> 00:16:46,056
together, and the teeth fly back into
the jaws and there's togetherness,

279
00:16:46,116 --> 00:16:48,486
but yet there's no movement.

280
00:16:48,486 --> 00:16:51,066
And so he says, prophesied to
the wind, prophesied the breath.

281
00:16:51,216 --> 00:16:55,146
And all of a sudden the breath
of God, the rah is breathed in.

282
00:16:55,326 --> 00:16:59,406
And then this thing that was a corpse
comes back to the life with the breath

283
00:16:59,406 --> 00:17:04,257
of God , a picture of what the Holy
Spirit does in a life as he not only

284
00:17:04,497 --> 00:17:10,406
brings things back together, but that
he himself comes and gives you his very

285
00:17:10,406 --> 00:17:12,117
breath, his very life inside of you.

286
00:17:12,656 --> 00:17:18,032
Being a Christian is crazy . Yo
uses terms like born again and

287
00:17:18,242 --> 00:17:22,893
altogether different than if we were
getting self-help from somewhere.

288
00:17:23,323 --> 00:17:28,693
This is a whole different radical
thing that he's talking about here.

289
00:17:28,693 --> 00:17:33,013
Who number one is the Holy
Spirit, John 14, 16, and 17.

290
00:17:33,013 --> 00:17:36,223
I ask the Father and he will give you
another helper to be with you forever.

291
00:17:36,493 --> 00:17:39,793
Even the spirit of truth whom the
world cannot receive because it

292
00:17:39,793 --> 00:17:41,293
neither sees him nor knows him.

293
00:17:41,293 --> 00:17:42,253
You know him free.

294
00:17:42,253 --> 00:17:46,783
He dwells with you and will
be in you if you'll allow me.

295
00:17:46,783 --> 00:17:50,443
I've already tipped my hand a
bit with my pronoun selection.

296
00:17:50,923 --> 00:17:56,593
The Holy Spirit is not merely an aspect,
an energy or an ambient power, but

297
00:17:56,593 --> 00:18:00,583
rather the personal divine resident
within the heart of every Christian.

298
00:18:01,303 --> 00:18:04,003
The subtle distinction in the pronoun he.

299
00:18:04,708 --> 00:18:07,858
Not, it carries more weight
than you might expect.

300
00:18:07,858 --> 00:18:11,398
At first glance, shaping not
only our understanding, but our

301
00:18:11,398 --> 00:18:15,298
entire relationship to the spirit
and by extension to God himself.

302
00:18:15,958 --> 00:18:17,518
Number one, he's personal.

303
00:18:17,578 --> 00:18:18,478
That's what that means.

304
00:18:18,688 --> 00:18:21,538
Have you ever noticed, perhaps in a quiet
moment when you're reading the words

305
00:18:21,538 --> 00:18:27,718
of Jesus, that he never refers to the
Spirit as it not once does He suggest

306
00:18:27,718 --> 00:18:34,798
the Spirit is a faceless force, not a
mere outflow or a vague cosmic momentum.

307
00:18:35,308 --> 00:18:37,858
Instead again and again,
the spirit is referenced.

308
00:18:37,858 --> 00:18:44,068
This he note carefully, even in our text
in verse 17, the world cannot accept him.

309
00:18:44,998 --> 00:18:49,258
There is personhood here, a
subjectivity, a consciousness behind

310
00:18:49,258 --> 00:18:51,478
the actions and presence of the spirit.

311
00:18:51,808 --> 00:18:53,098
He can be known.

312
00:18:53,398 --> 00:18:57,028
He acts and he feels, and in
the language of the gospels,

313
00:18:57,238 --> 00:18:59,308
dwells and speaks and guides.

314
00:18:59,683 --> 00:19:02,053
Consider the implications
in Ephesians four 30.

315
00:19:02,053 --> 00:19:06,373
Paul writes, do not grieve the
Holy Spirit of God by whom you were

316
00:19:06,373 --> 00:19:07,903
sealed for the day of redemption.

317
00:19:08,563 --> 00:19:13,573
To grieve someone is not to damage
a machine or even neglect a rule.

318
00:19:13,963 --> 00:19:16,783
It is a word reserved for
personal relationship.

319
00:19:16,993 --> 00:19:21,703
For love that is spurned or misunderstood,
only a person can be grieved.

320
00:19:22,123 --> 00:19:24,373
The same holds in Hebrews 10 29.

321
00:19:24,613 --> 00:19:27,823
How much worse punishment do you
think will be deserved by the one

322
00:19:28,003 --> 00:19:32,083
who has spurned the son of God and
has profane the blood of the covenant

323
00:19:32,083 --> 00:19:37,243
by which he was sanctified and
has outraged the spirit of grace?

324
00:19:37,513 --> 00:19:40,303
That is an amazing tattoo
or a bumper sticker.

325
00:19:40,303 --> 00:19:43,543
Outrage, the spirit of
grace that is so weighty.

326
00:19:43,603 --> 00:19:45,013
Note the word outrage.

327
00:19:45,313 --> 00:19:45,793
One.

328
00:19:45,823 --> 00:19:47,743
Outrage is a self, a consciousness.

329
00:19:47,743 --> 00:19:50,623
You can't outrage a law
or a physical object.

330
00:19:50,893 --> 00:19:51,943
You can break a law.

331
00:19:52,603 --> 00:19:57,193
You can shatter a vase, you can
misuse a system, but outrage is

332
00:19:57,193 --> 00:19:59,233
a reaction of will and emotion.

333
00:19:59,803 --> 00:20:03,433
The relational attributes of the
Holy Spirit are not mere rhetorical

334
00:20:03,433 --> 00:20:08,353
flourishes In Romans 1530, Paul writes,
I appeal to you brothers by our Lord

335
00:20:08,353 --> 00:20:14,203
Jesus Christ and by the love of the
Spirit to strive together with me in

336
00:20:14,203 --> 00:20:16,873
your prayers and to God on my behalf.

337
00:20:17,143 --> 00:20:18,193
Did you catch it?

338
00:20:18,403 --> 00:20:20,713
The love of the Spirit here.

339
00:20:20,803 --> 00:20:24,073
Love is not something the spirit
inspires in us, nor is it a

340
00:20:24,073 --> 00:20:26,233
generalized force for unity.

341
00:20:26,503 --> 00:20:28,903
It is a property of the spirit himself.

342
00:20:29,023 --> 00:20:31,633
He loves, he desires, he appeals.

343
00:20:31,963 --> 00:20:33,283
Let's go deeper still.

344
00:20:33,733 --> 00:20:37,573
And the book acts, the Spirit
speaks and Acts 16, six.

345
00:20:37,723 --> 00:20:38,713
He forbids.

346
00:20:39,283 --> 00:20:40,903
Nope, you're not going there, Paul.

347
00:20:41,213 --> 00:20:44,153
in Acts 13, two, he appoints missionaries.

348
00:20:44,243 --> 00:20:48,533
This is who I'm picking in
Acts five, three to four.

349
00:20:48,833 --> 00:20:49,763
He has lied to.

350
00:20:51,238 --> 00:20:51,658
Mm-hmm.

351
00:20:51,833 --> 00:20:52,883
Anon nice and safari.

352
00:20:53,453 --> 00:20:56,183
In each case, the verbs assigned
to the spirit are those of

353
00:20:56,183 --> 00:20:58,283
conversation and deliberation.

354
00:20:58,433 --> 00:21:01,073
The spirit is not just a
doctrine, but a dialogue.

355
00:21:01,313 --> 00:21:05,513
The spirit is not a static presence in
our lives, but an active participant

356
00:21:05,513 --> 00:21:08,093
in the narrative of redemption.

357
00:21:09,023 --> 00:21:13,673
But all this raises a question, if
the Holy Spirit is a person, how

358
00:21:13,673 --> 00:21:16,993
is it that we so often talk about
the Spirit in such impersonal ways?

359
00:21:17,383 --> 00:21:19,723
Why don't we speak of God
the Father or God the Son?

360
00:21:19,723 --> 00:21:23,673
Do we find ourselves so readily putting,
and picturing a face, a voice of

361
00:21:23,673 --> 00:21:27,693
personality, while with the spirit we
default to abstraction, to electricity,

362
00:21:27,693 --> 00:21:29,673
to wind, or fire or invisible breath?

363
00:21:30,273 --> 00:21:35,163
The answer, I think, says much about
both our imagination or our reluctance

364
00:21:35,163 --> 00:21:37,203
to accept intimacy with the divine.

365
00:21:37,653 --> 00:21:41,163
What does it mean for the Holy
Spirit to be personally wounded,

366
00:21:42,153 --> 00:21:45,363
to be grieved, to be delighted?

367
00:21:46,533 --> 00:21:50,193
What does it mean for the spirit to be
the one who prompts, who remembers, who

368
00:21:50,193 --> 00:21:53,283
waits, and patience for hearts to churn?

369
00:21:54,633 --> 00:21:58,263
Well, one, it means that a Christian's
journey is not a solo adventure, nor

370
00:21:58,263 --> 00:22:03,733
is it a one-sided command performance
before a distant divine audience.

371
00:22:04,093 --> 00:22:08,113
It is an exchange, a relationship, a
partnership forged in the language of

372
00:22:08,113 --> 00:22:12,103
scripture, the witness of the saints
and the quiet persistent whisper.

373
00:22:12,673 --> 00:22:16,383
Of the spirit himself, and if
the spirit is personal, he can

374
00:22:16,383 --> 00:22:20,103
be known, loved, trusted, and
tragically grieved and resisted.

375
00:22:20,643 --> 00:22:23,883
He is not an impersonal battery
pack for our spiritual lives.

376
00:22:23,883 --> 00:22:27,753
He is not the wind beneath our
wings as the song says, the

377
00:22:27,753 --> 00:22:29,343
wind is one of his metaphors.

378
00:22:29,523 --> 00:22:33,003
He is the friend and the counselor,
the advocate, the comforter who

379
00:22:33,003 --> 00:22:35,163
is constant but not coercive.

380
00:22:35,373 --> 00:22:38,583
He may press upon us, but never
possesses us against our will.

381
00:22:38,703 --> 00:22:40,323
He brings truth but never caught him.

382
00:22:40,323 --> 00:22:40,743
Nation.

383
00:22:40,893 --> 00:22:43,773
He is the one who gently draws
us back again and again and

384
00:22:43,773 --> 00:22:45,393
again to the love of Christ.

385
00:22:46,323 --> 00:22:51,543
He is a person that he comes
and lives inside of you.

386
00:22:51,843 --> 00:22:54,573
The temple of the Holy Spirit.

387
00:22:54,573 --> 00:22:55,443
The spirit of God.

388
00:22:55,533 --> 00:22:59,793
Jesus says, it's better that I go away
because then the helper will come.

389
00:23:00,303 --> 00:23:00,723
Why?

390
00:23:01,383 --> 00:23:05,403
Jesus is like, man, I put myself in
this incarnate physical body and I

391
00:23:05,403 --> 00:23:07,593
can be at one place and one time.

392
00:23:07,833 --> 00:23:10,383
You need God himself to be with you.

393
00:23:10,848 --> 00:23:17,508
Everywhere you go at all moments of
life while you're sleeping, you need

394
00:23:17,508 --> 00:23:23,058
the spirit of, you need God himself
to take a residence in you every bit

395
00:23:23,058 --> 00:23:25,638
and moment, every second of every day.

396
00:23:25,848 --> 00:23:32,238
The promise in why Jesus says it's better,
it's 'cause God moves in for with you.

397
00:23:33,438 --> 00:23:38,838
Number two, he's a person, but what's
really great is that he's God, John

398
00:23:38,838 --> 00:23:43,961
14, sixteen , and I'll ask the father
and he will give you another helper.

399
00:23:44,411 --> 00:23:46,451
He's not only a person, he's God.

400
00:23:47,066 --> 00:23:50,156
The text is careful, precise,
unyielding on this point.

401
00:23:50,206 --> 00:23:53,146
Our English translation is,
frankly, a little impoverished

402
00:23:53,146 --> 00:23:54,796
when it comes to the word another.

403
00:23:55,456 --> 00:23:57,976
In Greek, there are two
distinct options for another.

404
00:23:58,366 --> 00:24:01,246
The first one is Heteros,
which may sound familiar, which

405
00:24:01,246 --> 00:24:02,446
is where we get the prefix.

406
00:24:02,476 --> 00:24:08,026
Hetero meaning different or
other of a different kind.

407
00:24:08,326 --> 00:24:11,686
If you order a drink at a cafe,
a black coffee with no creamer.

408
00:24:12,391 --> 00:24:17,731
And you say, give me another drink, and
you want something different, a green

409
00:24:17,731 --> 00:24:22,241
tea after that plain black, coffee
that you had, you would use heteros.

410
00:24:22,871 --> 00:24:26,711
It's another, but it's not the same
as the first, not even in essence,

411
00:24:26,711 --> 00:24:28,571
it's d it's in a different category.

412
00:24:28,571 --> 00:24:30,311
It's on the right side
of the Starbucks board.

413
00:24:30,386 --> 00:24:31,316
they hide the teas.

414
00:24:31,316 --> 00:24:32,666
You can't even find them anymore.

415
00:24:32,976 --> 00:24:34,896
It's not even in its essence.

416
00:24:34,896 --> 00:24:37,386
And it's a different
category, a different flavor.

417
00:24:37,386 --> 00:24:39,996
The other Greek word for another is aos.

418
00:24:40,236 --> 00:24:42,396
AOS does not mean another
of a different kind.

419
00:24:42,396 --> 00:24:44,526
It means another of exactly the same kind.

420
00:24:45,276 --> 00:24:48,456
Another that is so like the first
that for all intents and purposes,

421
00:24:48,666 --> 00:24:53,256
it's a continuation, but with
its own personal distinction.

422
00:24:53,256 --> 00:24:57,216
If you go to the counter and say,
give me another, and you want exactly

423
00:24:57,216 --> 00:25:00,516
the same coffee identically prepared,
the same taste, same strength,

424
00:25:00,516 --> 00:25:02,406
same temperature you're asking for.

425
00:25:02,466 --> 00:25:05,496
A, this is the word Jesus chooses.

426
00:25:05,616 --> 00:25:06,516
It's not an accident.

427
00:25:06,516 --> 00:25:08,916
It's not a slip of the tongue
or the quirk of the translation.

428
00:25:09,186 --> 00:25:12,726
When Jesus speaks to his disciples, the
circle of men, remember the context.

429
00:25:12,936 --> 00:25:15,936
Who spent years with him, who
had grown to love him, who

430
00:25:15,936 --> 00:25:17,916
would be devastated to lose him.

431
00:25:18,876 --> 00:25:21,876
As he is laying out everything that
he is going to the cross, he looks

432
00:25:21,876 --> 00:25:25,626
at them in the eyes and says, I will
send you another alos counselor.

433
00:25:25,626 --> 00:25:33,484
I will send you one just like ME . Not a
stand-in, not a substitute, not an echo or

434
00:25:33,484 --> 00:25:37,234
an aftershock, but another just like me.

435
00:25:38,317 --> 00:25:41,527
Have you ever thought
about that in that way?

436
00:25:42,547 --> 00:25:46,417
so often I'm like, if I had a time
machine, I just would glimpse if

437
00:25:46,417 --> 00:25:50,137
I could for five minutes, just see
Jesus and catch him and goes, I know

438
00:25:50,137 --> 00:25:51,787
you're bending the laws of time.

439
00:25:51,787 --> 00:25:55,297
Get back into that machine before
you create a multiverse or whatever.

440
00:25:57,292 --> 00:25:59,062
Do you know what Jesus
is saying right here?

441
00:26:00,292 --> 00:26:03,062
He's saying It's me,   everything.

442
00:26:03,482 --> 00:26:08,372
The tenderness, the tone, the
authority, the command, the wisdom,

443
00:26:08,552 --> 00:26:13,162
the power, the omnipotence, the
know that's who I'm sending you.

444
00:26:13,672 --> 00:26:14,752
It's not a small claim.

445
00:26:15,442 --> 00:26:18,112
In fact, it's a thunderbolt,
a theological earthquake.

446
00:26:18,562 --> 00:26:22,102
Jesus is equating himself in the Holy
Spirit in a way that goes so far beyond

447
00:26:22,102 --> 00:26:24,322
simple kinship or shared mission.

448
00:26:24,862 --> 00:26:29,422
He's saying in effect, the Spirit whom
I will sin is the same as I am, as

449
00:26:29,422 --> 00:26:31,792
I am the same as the Father, right?

450
00:26:31,792 --> 00:26:32,872
Me and the father are one.

451
00:26:32,872 --> 00:26:34,852
We just got done reading
that the father's in me.

452
00:26:34,852 --> 00:26:36,262
I'm in the Father, you're in me.

453
00:26:36,262 --> 00:26:38,452
We're in the what is happening here.

454
00:26:39,262 --> 00:26:41,992
No one in the upper room could
have missed the implication.

455
00:26:42,022 --> 00:26:45,352
They might not have words
for it yet, Trinity.

456
00:26:45,352 --> 00:26:47,452
That word would come later.

457
00:26:48,067 --> 00:26:52,747
And wrestling through the creeds
and the centuries of debate.

458
00:26:53,047 --> 00:26:55,957
But the shape of it was
there glowing in the dark.

459
00:26:56,497 --> 00:26:57,667
Jesus was God.

460
00:26:57,937 --> 00:27:00,817
The Spirit was God, the Father was God.

461
00:27:00,907 --> 00:27:05,707
And there were not three gods,
but one and yet three persons.

462
00:27:06,007 --> 00:27:12,757
A communion so perfect that it
could only be described as love.

463
00:27:13,357 --> 00:27:17,677
The divine dance from the beginning
of time, the Father giving to

464
00:27:17,677 --> 00:27:24,007
the son doting on him, the son
glorifying the father, just marveling

465
00:27:24,097 --> 00:27:25,867
at his goodness and his grace.

466
00:27:25,867 --> 00:27:30,727
The spirit being like, you guys
are crazy and marveling over them.

467
00:27:30,727 --> 00:27:36,547
Both this divine rhythm of self-giving
love existing from eternity past and out

468
00:27:36,547 --> 00:27:38,497
of that because God doesn't need anything.

469
00:27:38,707 --> 00:27:41,017
He's like, let's bring other
people into this dance.

470
00:27:41,067 --> 00:27:44,057
And only full well that before
the foundation of the world, the

471
00:27:44,057 --> 00:27:46,464
lamb was slain to bring you in.

472
00:27:46,958 --> 00:27:47,948
It would cost everything.

473
00:27:49,688 --> 00:27:52,778
Before we move on, it's worth
remembering that this was not the

474
00:27:52,778 --> 00:27:54,608
first time Jesus made such claims.

475
00:27:55,328 --> 00:27:59,198
There's a movement right now that
Jesus never claimed that he was God.

476
00:27:59,198 --> 00:28:00,908
I listen to the stuff all the time.

477
00:28:01,508 --> 00:28:05,588
I'm plugged into the apologetics
and, and the debates, and there's

478
00:28:05,588 --> 00:28:08,438
just, people are just like, no,
Jesus never claimed to be God.

479
00:28:09,128 --> 00:28:12,128
He never claimed it in the gospels,
especially the Gospel of John.

480
00:28:13,058 --> 00:28:17,378
but Jesus is always speaking this way,
always laying out, hints and paradoxes

481
00:28:17,888 --> 00:28:20,858
to the frustration of his opponents
and to the confusion of his disciples.

482
00:28:20,858 --> 00:28:22,778
He'd say things like I
and the Father are one.

483
00:28:22,778 --> 00:28:25,148
Or if you've seen me,
you've seen the Father.

484
00:28:25,898 --> 00:28:29,168
He would forgive sins by his
own name, which only God can do.

485
00:28:29,258 --> 00:28:32,918
He would refer to himself
by the divine name.

486
00:28:33,533 --> 00:28:37,103
The I am and not apologize for it.

487
00:28:38,003 --> 00:28:41,573
The accusations of blasphemy
were not misunderstandings.

488
00:28:41,873 --> 00:28:45,293
They were the only logical
response to what he was saying

489
00:28:45,653 --> 00:28:47,093
unless you believed him.

490
00:28:47,603 --> 00:28:51,173
The claimed divinity was as
clear as daylight and it got him

491
00:28:51,173 --> 00:28:53,603
killed, and it's on every page.

492
00:28:55,253 --> 00:28:58,193
So when he says in John 14,
I'll ask the father and he'll

493
00:28:58,193 --> 00:28:59,183
give you another counselor.

494
00:28:59,183 --> 00:29:02,183
He is doing the same thing again, but
now he's drawing the circle wider.

495
00:29:02,183 --> 00:29:04,253
He's saying, as I am to the Father.

496
00:29:04,253 --> 00:29:07,553
So the spirit is to me, the
spirit is not a junior partner, a

497
00:29:07,553 --> 00:29:09,383
lesser being, not a mere helper.

498
00:29:09,533 --> 00:29:12,833
The spirit is God himself, as
close to me as my own breath, as

499
00:29:12,833 --> 00:29:14,333
close to you as your own heartbeat.

500
00:29:14,603 --> 00:29:16,168
This is why the New
Testament will say with.

501
00:29:16,593 --> 00:29:20,523
Out embarrassment that to lie
to the spirit is to lie to God.

502
00:29:20,553 --> 00:29:24,363
Acts five, that the spirit
searches even the depths of God.

503
00:29:24,543 --> 00:29:29,558
One Corinthians two, that the spirit is
the very presence of God living in you.

504
00:29:29,768 --> 00:29:30,908
One Corinthians six.

505
00:29:31,208 --> 00:29:33,128
This then is the logic of the Trinity.

506
00:29:33,128 --> 00:29:36,548
Not a mathematical puzzle,
but a living relationship.

507
00:29:36,788 --> 00:29:42,068
A fellowship at the heart of the universe,
a love so overflowing that it spills out

508
00:29:42,068 --> 00:29:44,348
and creates and redeems and indwells.

509
00:29:44,588 --> 00:29:48,158
The spirit is no mere abstraction,
no ghostly afterthought, but the

510
00:29:48,158 --> 00:29:51,698
God who raised Jesus from the
dead, pulsing with power, alive and

511
00:29:51,698 --> 00:29:53,858
at work in the world and in you.

512
00:29:54,443 --> 00:29:56,603
This is what I want us to see
and why it's so important.

513
00:29:56,603 --> 00:29:59,453
Why does it matter that the Holy Spirit
is not just an idea or a force, but a

514
00:29:59,453 --> 00:30:04,073
person, a divine person at that it matters
because the whole project of Christianity

515
00:30:04,073 --> 00:30:08,753
is not about learning to manipulate
spiritual energies or optimize your inner

516
00:30:08,753 --> 00:30:11,176
life or maximizing happiness or success.

517
00:30:11,476 --> 00:30:14,746
It is about being drawn into a
relationship with the living God

518
00:30:15,046 --> 00:30:19,006
through Jesus Christ, by the power
and presence of the Holy Spirit.

519
00:30:19,006 --> 00:30:20,896
There's some trinity right there for you.

520
00:30:21,166 --> 00:30:24,976
The Bible talks about this often in
terms of being filled with the Spirit.

521
00:30:25,216 --> 00:30:28,546
It's one of the ways that I think we
get wacky, and where I, when I was

522
00:30:28,546 --> 00:30:31,366
growing up, I was taught like they
would take a picture of water and

523
00:30:31,366 --> 00:30:34,336
it's like you pour it in a cup and
this is what it's like to be filled.

524
00:30:34,336 --> 00:30:37,726
And then, you know, you're walking around
and somebody cuts you off in traffic.

525
00:30:38,266 --> 00:30:42,286
Some Holy Spirit pops out, and then
you, and then your wife, you know, she,

526
00:30:42,346 --> 00:30:46,506
she's, she argues, boom, some more water
pops out, and then at the end of the

527
00:30:46,506 --> 00:30:47,916
day you're like, Lord, I'm so empty.

528
00:30:48,941 --> 00:30:50,471
Please juice me again.

529
00:30:50,551 --> 00:30:53,521
and then he fills you up again, and,
and, and then you're setting out in

530
00:30:53,521 --> 00:30:54,841
the day and the, the Holy Spirit.

531
00:30:54,841 --> 00:31:00,481
He's just really, really, really making
a mess, just pouring out everywhere.

532
00:31:00,481 --> 00:31:01,891
My gosh.

533
00:31:02,354 --> 00:31:05,774
When it talks about being filled with
the spirit, it's one of the Bible's

534
00:31:05,774 --> 00:31:08,244
most repeated and mysterious, ideas.

535
00:31:08,244 --> 00:31:11,454
The, the apostles were filled, remember?

536
00:31:11,514 --> 00:31:18,204
And in fact, Jesus said, don't
do anything until that happens.

537
00:31:18,384 --> 00:31:21,054
And they're like, well, we're
gonna cast lots and pick Matthias.

538
00:31:21,154 --> 00:31:22,894
why, where is Matthias in the earth?

539
00:31:22,894 --> 00:31:25,234
Anyways, the early church was filled.

540
00:31:25,984 --> 00:31:28,774
Paul prayed constantly for
Christians to be filled.

541
00:31:28,774 --> 00:31:30,034
What is he talking about?

542
00:31:31,189 --> 00:31:35,059
It's not some kind of force that we're
filling up our batteries or we're

543
00:31:35,059 --> 00:31:37,039
recharging like a spiritual Tesla.

544
00:31:37,039 --> 00:31:40,189
What is happening being filled with
the Holy Spirit is to experience

545
00:31:40,189 --> 00:31:41,929
incredible divine joy and power.

546
00:31:42,109 --> 00:31:44,299
A kind of scene that is
brighter than the new day sun.

547
00:31:44,509 --> 00:31:47,659
A kind of knowing that burns
away all the fog from your mind.

548
00:31:47,809 --> 00:31:49,699
A kind of loving that
is stronger than death.

549
00:31:49,704 --> 00:31:53,239
Yes, the way you seek to be filled
with the spirit depends entirely

550
00:31:53,239 --> 00:31:55,219
how you think of the spirit himself.

551
00:31:55,459 --> 00:31:58,339
If you imagine the spirit is an
impersonal force, you are going to pursue

552
00:31:58,339 --> 00:32:00,229
him in a mechanical, formulaic way.

553
00:32:00,559 --> 00:32:03,739
You'll look for techniques,
steps, rituals, and formulas

554
00:32:03,739 --> 00:32:05,599
that guarantee the right outcome.

555
00:32:05,779 --> 00:32:08,749
You'll treat spiritual life like a
machine and put the correct prayers,

556
00:32:08,749 --> 00:32:12,349
the right emotions, the approved
disciplines at Presto, God's power

557
00:32:12,349 --> 00:32:15,199
flows into you ready to be consumed.

558
00:32:15,439 --> 00:32:16,429
This is not so different.

559
00:32:16,449 --> 00:32:20,139
From how the rest of the world in
every era has thought about the divine.

560
00:32:20,469 --> 00:32:23,289
If you look at nearly every
major religious tradition

561
00:32:23,289 --> 00:32:26,349
outside of Christianity,
you'll notice a key similarity.

562
00:32:26,679 --> 00:32:29,499
The divine is not fundamentally
personal, but rather an

563
00:32:29,499 --> 00:32:31,299
abstract principle or energy.

564
00:32:31,629 --> 00:32:34,599
In ancient Greek and Roman thought
that Gods themselves were essentially

565
00:32:34,599 --> 00:32:37,779
personifications of forces of nature.

566
00:32:38,524 --> 00:32:39,574
Or fate.

567
00:32:39,934 --> 00:32:43,834
And even the gods were subject to
impersonal laws and eastern religions.

568
00:32:43,834 --> 00:32:48,754
This is even more explicit eastern
thought, Buddhism, uh, Hinduism, Taoism,

569
00:32:48,854 --> 00:32:51,104
conceives of God as the ultimate reality.

570
00:32:51,224 --> 00:32:54,704
As an impersonable force, a kind of
spiritual electricity pervading the

571
00:32:54,704 --> 00:32:56,264
cosmos, holding it all together.

572
00:32:56,534 --> 00:32:59,744
The highest goal is to merge with
the one to lose yourself in the ocean

573
00:32:59,744 --> 00:33:03,374
of being, to dissolve the boundaries
of the individual personal hood and

574
00:33:03,374 --> 00:33:05,324
become absorbed into the all soul.

575
00:33:05,329 --> 00:33:10,394
The, the source, the path to divine
then is fundamentally about detachment,

576
00:33:10,664 --> 00:33:13,604
detaching yourself from your own
desires, your own thoughts, your

577
00:33:13,604 --> 00:33:16,064
own will, your own sense of self.

578
00:33:16,304 --> 00:33:18,944
And in fact, it me, Easter
meditation is empty.

579
00:33:18,944 --> 00:33:21,944
Your mind, like don't
think about anything.

580
00:33:22,454 --> 00:33:23,684
Empty it, right?

581
00:33:24,644 --> 00:33:26,414
Biblical meditation has fill your mind.

582
00:33:28,409 --> 00:33:33,449
With truth and in this scheme, this,
this other force scheme, spiritual

583
00:33:33,449 --> 00:33:35,969
growth is a subtractive process.

584
00:33:36,269 --> 00:33:41,729
Less you, more universe, less thinking,
more silence, less wanting, more being.

585
00:33:41,999 --> 00:33:44,219
If God is a force, you emerge
with him by letting go.

586
00:33:44,219 --> 00:33:48,329
But what if the divine is not less
than personal, but more, what if

587
00:33:48,659 --> 00:33:50,999
the ultimate reality is not blank?

588
00:33:50,999 --> 00:33:51,689
Infinity.

589
00:33:52,894 --> 00:33:56,429
An infinite, radiant person
as the Bible insists.

590
00:33:56,549 --> 00:33:59,879
What if the Holy Spirit is not an
it, but a he who has a mind and a

591
00:33:59,879 --> 00:34:03,119
will and a heart, who cares, who
chooses, who grieves, who loves what?

592
00:34:03,119 --> 00:34:07,499
If you were made to enter into living
relationship with him, to know him and

593
00:34:07,499 --> 00:34:10,918
to be known, then being filled with the
spirit is not about emptying yourself into

594
00:34:10,918 --> 00:34:16,469
a blank void, but about opening yourself
up for passionate mutual relationship.

595
00:34:16,619 --> 00:34:22,768
What a dialogue and embrace a union
that does not dissolve your personhood,

596
00:34:23,009 --> 00:34:28,589
but fulfills it for its original
intent to be more who you really are.

597
00:34:29,099 --> 00:34:33,719
What in Christianity, the fullness of
the spirit is not less personality, less

598
00:34:33,719 --> 00:34:37,259
consciousness, less desire, but more c.

599
00:34:37,259 --> 00:34:39,389
S Lewis said, it's not that
your desires are too strong.

600
00:34:39,389 --> 00:34:40,469
They're too freaking weak.

601
00:34:40,469 --> 00:34:41,159
He didn't say freaking.

602
00:34:41,159 --> 00:34:41,219
Yeah.

603
00:34:43,349 --> 00:34:46,259
But more life and life to the full.

604
00:34:46,259 --> 00:34:48,899
I came to give you life
in that more abundantly.

605
00:34:49,139 --> 00:34:50,399
I like who you are.

606
00:34:50,399 --> 00:34:54,059
God says, I designed you, I
gave you your personality.

607
00:34:54,208 --> 00:34:56,489
That's not to be lost in heaven.

608
00:34:56,609 --> 00:34:59,609
It's just you more perfected.

609
00:35:00,629 --> 00:35:01,649
Beautiful.

610
00:35:01,709 --> 00:35:03,089
What is that gonna be like?

611
00:35:03,869 --> 00:35:07,409
Oh, but let's be honest.

612
00:35:08,849 --> 00:35:11,999
'cause some of us, at least
this is how I used to be.

613
00:35:11,999 --> 00:35:16,859
We want spiritual power, but
we want it on our own terms

614
00:35:16,859 --> 00:35:18,269
because we want to have control.

615
00:35:19,259 --> 00:35:22,319
And that's why the idea of an
impersonal spirit is so attractive

616
00:35:22,979 --> 00:35:26,489
because it means I can use the spirit
rather than be transformed by him.

617
00:35:28,419 --> 00:35:32,049
It means I can bring
my list and my schedule

618
00:35:34,479 --> 00:35:36,069
instead of having him contradict me.

619
00:35:38,064 --> 00:35:41,334
And maybe point out some idols that I'm
still clinging to or have gone back to.

620
00:35:43,704 --> 00:35:48,474
But if the spirit is a personal, if
he's a living presence of God himself,

621
00:35:48,474 --> 00:35:52,014
then the relationship is not about
control, but about love and surrender.

622
00:35:52,734 --> 00:35:57,084
It's an invitation to intimacy,
not instructions for manipulation.

623
00:35:57,744 --> 00:36:01,434
When the spirit comes, it's like
being set on fire from within.

624
00:36:01,704 --> 00:36:02,844
The apostles at Pentecost.

625
00:36:02,844 --> 00:36:07,794
Begin to speak with tongues of flame, not
to retreat into silence when the spirit

626
00:36:07,794 --> 00:36:14,094
fills from when they become bold, alive,
creative, loving, fearless spirituality

627
00:36:14,094 --> 00:36:18,794
and the biblical sense is an explosion
of personality, not the loss of it.

628
00:36:18,794 --> 00:36:23,054
The spirit's goal is not to submerge you
into the cosmic ocean, but to fill every

629
00:36:23,054 --> 00:36:27,014
cell of your being with his radiant life,
making you a living icon of God himself.

630
00:36:28,964 --> 00:36:32,714
When the Bible says to be filled
with the spirit, it does not mean an

631
00:36:32,714 --> 00:36:35,204
occasional top-up or a seasonal revival.

632
00:36:35,204 --> 00:36:40,034
It means to be so pervaded by the presence
of this person that your priority shift,

633
00:36:40,034 --> 00:36:44,544
your relationship shifts your dreams,
and your dreads begin to reorganize

634
00:36:44,544 --> 00:36:47,754
themselves around the gravitational
pull of a love that will not let you go.

635
00:36:47,994 --> 00:36:53,284
When I was dating my
Andrea, who's now my Andrea

636
00:36:54,417 --> 00:37:02,997
people were impacted by my love for this
person, I would bring 'em, bring him up

637
00:37:02,997 --> 00:37:04,557
in conversa, bring her up, thank you.

638
00:37:04,737 --> 00:37:08,487
In conversation, I'd be like, oh,
did you know I was dating somebody?

639
00:37:08,637 --> 00:37:09,777
Yeah, she's a redhead.

640
00:37:09,837 --> 00:37:11,007
Yeah, she's very beautiful.

641
00:37:11,287 --> 00:37:13,777
you wanna see a picture
and I'd show a picture.

642
00:37:14,767 --> 00:37:20,707
Not only was I in my world changed
as I was filled with this person.

643
00:37:21,862 --> 00:37:26,797
I had something from her that had her
perfume on it and at night I'd, sniff it.

644
00:37:26,802 --> 00:37:30,702
It sounds creepy, but anyways,
because I was so filled, that's

645
00:37:30,702 --> 00:37:32,112
what it means to be filled.

646
00:37:32,502 --> 00:37:35,292
It means you're so filled and
what is the spirit's ministry

647
00:37:35,292 --> 00:37:35,997
is to make much of Jesus.

648
00:37:36,387 --> 00:37:40,347
He says, I'm gonna tell you everything
about Jesus and make what Jesus has done

649
00:37:40,347 --> 00:37:42,417
for you real, that he's your savior.

650
00:37:42,567 --> 00:37:43,737
He's like a floodlight.

651
00:37:43,887 --> 00:37:47,607
Uh, one preacher pointed
out he is JR r Packer.

652
00:37:47,607 --> 00:37:51,507
It was, he said, you know, at
night, uh, there's this beautiful

653
00:37:51,507 --> 00:37:53,187
church and it had this floodlight.

654
00:37:53,187 --> 00:37:56,607
You don't even see the floodlight, but
you see the beauty of the church that

655
00:37:56,607 --> 00:37:58,017
it's illuminating and the Holy Spirit.

656
00:37:58,017 --> 00:38:00,317
He said, oh, that's like the
Holy Spirit illuminates the

657
00:38:00,317 --> 00:38:01,337
work of Christ in our hearts.

658
00:38:01,547 --> 00:38:03,977
And so to be filled with the
spirit means to be filled with

659
00:38:03,977 --> 00:38:05,147
what the spirit's full of.

660
00:38:05,387 --> 00:38:06,107
What was I full of?

661
00:38:06,107 --> 00:38:08,597
I was full of with my wife and everything.

662
00:38:08,637 --> 00:38:14,317
it controlled everything from
my finances to, my hygiene, to,

663
00:38:14,387 --> 00:38:19,097
everything in my life was changed
because I was filled with this person.

664
00:38:19,097 --> 00:38:20,687
And so who is the Holy Spirit filled with?

665
00:38:20,807 --> 00:38:25,427
He's full with the person and the work of
Jesus, and as he is in you to be filled

666
00:38:25,427 --> 00:38:27,587
with him as to fill you with Jesus.

667
00:38:27,632 --> 00:38:27,692
Yeah.

668
00:38:28,322 --> 00:38:32,132
To be so overwhelmed by who he
is, his beauty, his magnitude,

669
00:38:32,252 --> 00:38:37,202
his grace, his love, his tone, his
tenor, his movement toward you is

670
00:38:37,202 --> 00:38:40,592
to come alongside you and to preach
to your heart the beauty of the one.

671
00:38:40,642 --> 00:38:43,487
think of people who have left
the deepest impressions on you.

672
00:38:43,787 --> 00:38:47,027
A teacher whose voice you still
hear in your mind on certain days.

673
00:38:47,027 --> 00:38:50,417
A parent whose gestures or idioms
have become part of your own.

674
00:38:50,417 --> 00:38:54,527
A friend whose presence recalibrated
the axis of your own decision making.

675
00:38:54,947 --> 00:38:58,427
We are, for better or for worse, the
sum of those who influence us, whose

676
00:38:58,427 --> 00:39:02,057
words and affections have burrowed
into the fabric of our very choices.

677
00:39:02,237 --> 00:39:05,447
To be filled with the person is to be
filled with the memory, the conviction,

678
00:39:05,447 --> 00:39:07,247
the anticipation of their presence.

679
00:39:07,937 --> 00:39:11,867
It is to find their perspective
gradually displacing your own.

680
00:39:11,987 --> 00:39:13,157
Isn't that what marriage is?

681
00:39:13,397 --> 00:39:18,257
When you are in love, the beloved's
words do not remain external commentary.

682
00:39:18,377 --> 00:39:23,987
You metabolize them, they become
inseparable from your own inner monologue.

683
00:39:24,197 --> 00:39:25,847
You hear their voice.

684
00:39:26,147 --> 00:39:27,707
I hear my wife's voice.

685
00:39:28,067 --> 00:39:32,267
Literally it was, I think it was
this morning, I was walking and

686
00:39:32,777 --> 00:39:35,357
there was some trash, and I just
heard her say, can you pick that up?

687
00:39:35,417 --> 00:39:35,987
She's gone.

688
00:39:35,987 --> 00:39:36,617
She wasn't there.

689
00:39:36,617 --> 00:39:37,787
She was at, at church.

690
00:39:37,877 --> 00:39:39,197
And I'm like, oh yeah, I should do that.

691
00:39:40,247 --> 00:39:42,707
I'm literally hearing her.

692
00:39:42,707 --> 00:39:43,397
Anyways.

693
00:39:44,207 --> 00:39:47,207
to be filled with the spirit is in
this sense, to have your eternal

694
00:39:47,207 --> 00:39:50,567
landscape rearranged by the personality
of God, the voice, the tone, and the

695
00:39:50,567 --> 00:39:52,607
motivations that are uniquely his.

696
00:39:52,607 --> 00:39:54,057
It is to be in the deepest sense.

697
00:39:54,417 --> 00:39:55,317
Re-author.

698
00:39:56,517 --> 00:39:58,287
Okay, so what does he do?

699
00:39:58,287 --> 00:39:59,397
Okay, that's who the spirit is.

700
00:39:59,397 --> 00:40:00,117
He's a person.

701
00:40:00,117 --> 00:40:02,877
He's God, what does he do?

702
00:40:03,657 --> 00:40:08,847
Spirit of truth, might
he set truth ablaze.

703
00:40:10,227 --> 00:40:13,527
John 1417, even the spirit
of truth is what he's called.

704
00:40:13,527 --> 00:40:14,097
What does this mean?

705
00:40:14,097 --> 00:40:16,887
At one level, we know the Holy Spirit
essentially authored the Bible.

706
00:40:17,277 --> 00:40:20,067
For example, two, Peter once
says, no prophecy of scripture

707
00:40:20,067 --> 00:40:21,597
came about by the pro's.

708
00:40:21,597 --> 00:40:24,717
Own interpretation for prophecy never
had its origin in the will of man.

709
00:40:25,497 --> 00:40:29,487
But men spoke from God as they were
carried along by the Holy Spirit.

710
00:40:29,757 --> 00:40:33,207
The phrase carried along is not
mechanical, not a matter of dictation,

711
00:40:33,207 --> 00:40:37,977
but we're like a hand upon a, a brush of
a painter where the very personalities

712
00:40:37,977 --> 00:40:42,087
and peculiarities of the writer's remain.

713
00:40:42,207 --> 00:40:45,267
Yet what is written is the word intended.

714
00:40:46,017 --> 00:40:48,927
The Holy Spirit in this
is not merely the penman.

715
00:40:48,927 --> 00:40:52,177
He is the breath behind the pen,
the mind within the language, the

716
00:40:52,177 --> 00:40:56,977
secret music that makes the plain
words of men capable of resurrection.

717
00:40:58,057 --> 00:41:03,367
And so when Jesus in John 6 63
declares the words I have spoken to

718
00:41:03,367 --> 00:41:08,287
you are spirit and they are life.

719
00:41:08,647 --> 00:41:12,037
He's not offering a metaphor, nor
is he describing a mere poetic gloss

720
00:41:12,217 --> 00:41:14,077
on the sayings of a dead rabbi.

721
00:41:14,257 --> 00:41:18,607
Instead, Jesus means the Holy Spirit
is present not only in the memory of

722
00:41:18,607 --> 00:41:23,827
his words, but in their very utterance,
in the way they are heard and received

723
00:41:23,827 --> 00:41:25,457
and metabolized into the Soul.

724
00:41:25,517 --> 00:41:27,077
The spirit is at work.

725
00:41:28,427 --> 00:41:29,927
That's why he can say like Revelation.

726
00:41:29,927 --> 00:41:33,167
If you just read this, you're blessed.

727
00:41:33,764 --> 00:41:39,044
The spirit takes the syllables and the
syntax of the teacher, and wherever

728
00:41:39,044 --> 00:41:43,814
the words are welcome makes them a
well of living water, John 1426, but

729
00:41:43,814 --> 00:41:47,234
the helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the
Father will send in my name, he will

730
00:41:47,234 --> 00:41:52,724
teach you all things and bring to your
remembrance all that I've said to you.

731
00:41:53,279 --> 00:41:57,119
There's a moment sometimes so swift
and unremarkable as it is almost

732
00:41:57,119 --> 00:42:01,739
missed when a phrase, you guys know,
this leaps from the page or the

733
00:42:01,739 --> 00:42:04,559
pulpit and it divides joint tomorrow.

734
00:42:04,679 --> 00:42:05,249
Laying open.

735
00:42:05,249 --> 00:42:07,649
The secret intentions of
the heart, you're undone.

736
00:42:08,849 --> 00:42:12,719
It is the spirit of truth, not
merely correcting air, but enabling

737
00:42:12,719 --> 00:42:15,989
the here to know what he could
never have found by his own power.

738
00:42:15,989 --> 00:42:18,899
I can't tell you how many times
people come up to me and they say,

739
00:42:19,019 --> 00:42:20,759
I really loved when you said this.

740
00:42:20,894 --> 00:42:24,789
It just, it got me and you know,
it, I, it showed, guess what?

741
00:42:24,789 --> 00:42:26,259
I didn't even say that.

742
00:42:26,889 --> 00:42:27,969
I've looked over my notes.

743
00:42:27,969 --> 00:42:29,259
I might even come close.

744
00:42:29,559 --> 00:42:35,679
So I am confident that whenever I preach,
if God would so have me, that there's a

745
00:42:35,679 --> 00:42:38,019
greater preacher at work all the time.

746
00:42:38,139 --> 00:42:40,389
And that's what I bank on, man.

747
00:42:40,389 --> 00:42:46,569
He is communicating and expounding
and bringing to life what

748
00:42:46,569 --> 00:42:50,109
is alive and making it real.

749
00:42:52,284 --> 00:42:55,224
This is the spirit of truth, not
merely correcting air, but enabling

750
00:42:55,224 --> 00:42:58,374
the hero to know what he could
never have found by his own power.

751
00:42:58,704 --> 00:43:02,394
It is the difference between reading
a travel brochure and walking the

752
00:43:02,394 --> 00:43:04,074
stony streets of a distant city.

753
00:43:04,074 --> 00:43:09,774
At dawn, at one moment, he may
bring comfort and assurance, a balm

754
00:43:09,774 --> 00:43:11,109
where the heart is raw the next.

755
00:43:11,109 --> 00:43:14,986
He may bring offense , a stumbling
block thrown into the path of one

756
00:43:14,986 --> 00:43:18,256
who thought himself mature and
maybe full of himself a little.

757
00:43:18,631 --> 00:43:19,111
Proud.

758
00:43:19,741 --> 00:43:24,091
The spirit as author is not a dead
hand on a completed text, but an

759
00:43:24,091 --> 00:43:28,831
active living will that interprets and
illuminates and sometimes sets fire

760
00:43:28,831 --> 00:43:31,711
to the inci, certainties of the pious.

761
00:43:31,741 --> 00:43:34,801
For, as Jesus says, in another
place, the wind blows where it will.

762
00:43:35,011 --> 00:43:37,681
So it is with everyone born of the Spirit.

763
00:43:38,221 --> 00:43:41,791
Paul writes in Ephesians to be filled
with the spirit in a parallel passage

764
00:43:41,791 --> 00:43:45,691
in Colossians three, let the word of
God dwell in you richly Paul's point

765
00:43:45,691 --> 00:43:47,251
in these twin passages, it's this.

766
00:43:47,251 --> 00:43:50,941
He's saying the same thing is that
you are saturated not by the force

767
00:43:50,941 --> 00:43:52,981
of truth, but by the person of truth.

768
00:43:53,791 --> 00:43:57,721
The Spirit is not an interior decorator,
rearranging the furniture according to

769
00:43:57,721 --> 00:44:03,571
the latest ecclesiastical fashion, but a
permanent resident, an unremitting house

770
00:44:03,571 --> 00:44:08,461
guest who cannot be evicted, who gradually
infuses every room with his aroma, who

771
00:44:08,461 --> 00:44:12,421
leaves a mug in the sink and a book on
the table and a coat on the chair until

772
00:44:12,421 --> 00:44:14,581
your space is indistinguishable from his.

773
00:44:15,541 --> 00:44:16,531
John 1421.

774
00:44:16,531 --> 00:44:19,801
Whoever has my commands and obeys
them, he is the one who loves me.

775
00:44:19,801 --> 00:44:23,361
He who loves me will be loved
by my father, and I too will

776
00:44:23,361 --> 00:44:25,851
love him and show myself to him.

777
00:44:26,001 --> 00:44:27,771
Notice that at in verse 21.

778
00:44:28,011 --> 00:44:31,011
What does it mean for Jesus
to show himself to someone who

779
00:44:31,011 --> 00:44:32,481
already claims to follow him?

780
00:44:32,481 --> 00:44:32,991
What does that mean?

781
00:44:32,991 --> 00:44:36,141
I already know you, Jesus, and
he's saying, no, guess what?

782
00:44:36,141 --> 00:44:38,571
The spirit's gonna show me to you.

783
00:44:38,961 --> 00:44:39,201
Hallelujah.

784
00:44:39,531 --> 00:44:43,491
It sounds circular, even redundant,
but we know that there is a chasm

785
00:44:43,491 --> 00:44:47,241
between knowing something is fact
and encountering it as reality.

786
00:44:47,241 --> 00:44:50,361
There's a difference between running
your fingers over the braille of a

787
00:44:50,541 --> 00:44:53,451
story and waking up inside the story.

788
00:44:54,501 --> 00:44:57,682
Jesus isn't content that you
merely acknowledge him or content

789
00:44:57,682 --> 00:44:58,582
that you merely acknowledge him.

790
00:44:58,582 --> 00:45:02,302
He wants to be experienced to
become an undeniable presence.

791
00:45:02,302 --> 00:45:04,732
The Holy Spirit is the
agent of this experience.

792
00:45:04,882 --> 00:45:07,852
He takes what is written, what
is memorized, what is recited,

793
00:45:08,062 --> 00:45:09,832
and he makes it an event.

794
00:45:09,907 --> 00:45:13,117
Yes, the word becomes alive.

795
00:45:13,117 --> 00:45:13,867
That's the difference.

796
00:45:13,867 --> 00:45:16,747
The Holy Spirit takes the written
and turns it into the spoken, the

797
00:45:16,747 --> 00:45:18,667
abstract and makes it personal.

798
00:45:18,907 --> 00:45:21,947
But let's be honest, most of us live
and the difference between the two.

799
00:45:21,947 --> 00:45:23,807
We say we believe, but we're not sure.

800
00:45:23,807 --> 00:45:26,627
We feel we claim Christ,
but we're not sure he's ever

801
00:45:26,627 --> 00:45:27,887
actually come into the room.

802
00:45:28,037 --> 00:45:30,077
I think this is why Paul repeats himself.

803
00:45:30,227 --> 00:45:33,527
It's easy to claim the presence of
Christ as doctrine, but difficult to

804
00:45:33,527 --> 00:45:35,857
sense it as a living, singing thing.

805
00:45:36,097 --> 00:45:38,467
We don't just need the
spirit, some abstract sense.

806
00:45:38,467 --> 00:45:41,737
We need the spirit to come and smash
through the wall of self-consciousness,

807
00:45:41,797 --> 00:45:45,577
self-protection, self obsession,
and to open us up to the possibility

808
00:45:45,577 --> 00:45:50,317
of being loved by God himself,
not just as fact, but as a pulse.

809
00:45:50,822 --> 00:45:54,452
As a drumbeat, as the only
thing we can't live without.

810
00:45:54,932 --> 00:45:56,792
This is what Jesus is saying in John 14.

811
00:45:56,792 --> 00:45:59,642
He's not just promising the
disciples a new textbook.

812
00:45:59,852 --> 00:46:03,902
He's not promising them more rules, more
obligation, more strategies for living.

813
00:46:03,902 --> 00:46:07,862
He's promising that when the spirit
comes, it will be if as if he himself

814
00:46:07,862 --> 00:46:12,302
walked through the door and sat down
besides you, I will show myself to him.

815
00:46:12,452 --> 00:46:15,992
He says, it's not an abstraction,
that's not a metaphor.

816
00:46:15,992 --> 00:46:18,512
That is the promise that through
the presence of the Holy Spirit,

817
00:46:18,722 --> 00:46:23,402
the person of Jesus will become
personally unmistakably real to you.

818
00:46:24,365 --> 00:46:26,195
Figure the spirit is a master chef.

819
00:46:27,935 --> 00:46:28,505
I like cooking.

820
00:46:29,035 --> 00:46:31,185
And the words of Christ
are, the ingredients.

821
00:46:31,185 --> 00:46:34,605
You can have the most perfect recipe,
the finest ingredients, but it is the

822
00:46:34,605 --> 00:46:38,145
chef who brings the meal to the table,
who turns those components into something

823
00:46:38,145 --> 00:46:40,395
nourishing, fragrant, and unforgettable.

824
00:46:40,605 --> 00:46:42,225
Michelin star quality.

825
00:46:42,225 --> 00:46:47,415
I can have the same ingredients and
it goes in the trash without the chef.

826
00:46:47,415 --> 00:46:49,935
All you have are instructions
and raw material.

827
00:46:49,935 --> 00:46:53,145
The spirit is the one who animates,
who transforms, who puts the meal

828
00:46:53,145 --> 00:46:58,035
before you and says, eat, drink, and
be satisfied and never thirst again.

829
00:46:59,175 --> 00:47:02,685
You can study recipes your whole life,
but you will never be fed unless the meal

830
00:47:02,685 --> 00:47:04,965
is actually prepared and given to you.

831
00:47:05,715 --> 00:47:09,225
Consider this, and this is where my wife
says I have way too many illustrations.

832
00:47:09,375 --> 00:47:12,875
You can know with reasoned,
clinical certainty of a

833
00:47:12,875 --> 00:47:14,435
chemist that sugar is sweet.

834
00:47:14,915 --> 00:47:16,985
You could read about its
crystalline structure.

835
00:47:16,985 --> 00:47:18,785
Measure the angle at which its grains.

836
00:47:18,785 --> 00:47:21,965
Refract the kitchen light,
memorize its caloric content.

837
00:47:21,965 --> 00:47:23,855
Understand the biological cascade.

838
00:47:23,855 --> 00:47:24,415
It triggers.

839
00:47:24,415 --> 00:47:28,765
Once it touches the tongue, you can ace
the exam and you can teach the class.

840
00:47:28,915 --> 00:47:32,355
But all of this is is different
from the sensation of sugar

841
00:47:32,355 --> 00:47:33,585
dissolving on your tongue.

842
00:47:33,795 --> 00:47:37,665
As the architectural plans for a
cathedral are from When the sunlight

843
00:47:37,665 --> 00:47:41,625
streams through a hundred stained glass
saints and the instance curls into the

844
00:47:41,625 --> 00:47:45,375
ribbed vault of your skull, This is
the difference the Holy Spirit makes.

845
00:47:46,080 --> 00:47:50,040
Is a difference between fact and
feast, between reading about fire

846
00:47:50,040 --> 00:47:53,550
and sitting close enough to feel the
hot living draft of it on your face.

847
00:47:53,880 --> 00:47:56,670
the spirit does not merely
float above the Texas scripture.

848
00:47:56,775 --> 00:48:00,705
annotating footnoting, compiling facts
for your intellectual satisfaction.

849
00:48:00,705 --> 00:48:04,125
No, the spirit cracks open the
honeycomb of truth and pours it

850
00:48:04,125 --> 00:48:07,395
out until it runs sticky down
your arms and stains your lips.

851
00:48:07,605 --> 00:48:10,485
The spirit is not satisfied with
you being able to recite doctrine.

852
00:48:10,665 --> 00:48:13,215
The spirit wants to electrify
your whole being with it.

853
00:48:13,455 --> 00:48:16,935
The spirit wants the sweetness
to linger so long on your tongue

854
00:48:17,145 --> 00:48:18,795
that it changes the way you taste.

855
00:48:18,825 --> 00:48:24,585
Everything else, which Paul would say
is renewing the mind in Romans 12.

856
00:48:25,485 --> 00:48:28,965
The Spirit is the difference between
hearing an overture played by a high

857
00:48:28,965 --> 00:48:32,625
school marching band and being pinned
to your seat as the full symphony

858
00:48:32,625 --> 00:48:36,135
peels through the concert hall and
shakes the dust from the chandeliers.

859
00:48:37,530 --> 00:48:40,410
He means to make the truth, pulse
and crackle inside your nerves.

860
00:48:40,680 --> 00:48:43,590
He means to make every word of Christ
feel as though it leaps from the

861
00:48:43,590 --> 00:48:48,470
page or the pulpit and seizes you by
the caller refusing to let you go.

862
00:48:48,470 --> 00:48:51,740
Until you have tasted and
seen that he's good, it is the

863
00:48:51,740 --> 00:48:53,030
spirit who takes the command.

864
00:48:53,030 --> 00:48:56,570
Love your enemies, which you've
heard a thousand times, but never

865
00:48:56,570 --> 00:49:00,770
really believed, and one day in the
middle of an unremarkable morning

866
00:49:02,300 --> 00:49:06,350
turns it like a key inside your
heart and floods you with compassion

867
00:49:06,350 --> 00:49:08,420
you didn't know was yours to have.

868
00:49:09,020 --> 00:49:12,860
It's the spirit, ew, in the split second
between your anger and your action makes

869
00:49:12,860 --> 00:49:16,940
the words of Christ shimmer and your mind
until suddenly you want to bless instead

870
00:49:16,940 --> 00:49:19,850
of curse to forgive instead of wound.

871
00:49:21,920 --> 00:49:22,970
Finally, he's a counselor.

872
00:49:23,970 --> 00:49:26,370
I will ask the father and he
will give you another counselor.

873
00:49:27,240 --> 00:49:30,360
It's tempting to let the word slip by
as, as if we already know what it means.

874
00:49:30,390 --> 00:49:31,320
We're educated people.

875
00:49:31,320 --> 00:49:34,020
We have counselors for every
realm of life, psychological,

876
00:49:34,020 --> 00:49:36,150
vocational, marital, financial.

877
00:49:36,150 --> 00:49:38,970
We live in a culture so saturated
with specialists that the very word

878
00:49:38,970 --> 00:49:41,430
counselor has almost lost its gravity.

879
00:49:41,480 --> 00:49:45,020
If you take a stack of Bibles, king
James, new International English Standard

880
00:49:45,020 --> 00:49:50,720
Revised, standard New American, new
World translation, just kidding, and

881
00:49:50,720 --> 00:49:55,010
open them all to this passage, you
will see an entire spectrum of words.

882
00:49:55,340 --> 00:49:57,890
The translators are not disagreeing
because they're careless.

883
00:49:57,890 --> 00:50:01,760
They simply recognize that the
word is too broad, simultaneously

884
00:50:01,760 --> 00:50:05,600
gentle and fierce, domestic and
judicial, intimate and cosmic.

885
00:50:06,110 --> 00:50:10,400
The Greek word that Jesus uses in
John 14 is paratas, which in its

886
00:50:10,400 --> 00:50:15,050
simplest rendering means one called
alongside, but it's also a legal word.

887
00:50:15,710 --> 00:50:17,300
And it's also an intimate word.

888
00:50:17,780 --> 00:50:21,470
It's an advocate, a helper, a comforter,
a kind of defined defense attorney

889
00:50:21,470 --> 00:50:23,420
who pleads the case of the accused.

890
00:50:24,110 --> 00:50:26,900
That's what I really
wanted to what drew me?

891
00:50:28,280 --> 00:50:30,740
'cause you just hear, you know, oh cool.

892
00:50:30,920 --> 00:50:33,170
Blessed are those who mourn
and they will be comforted.

893
00:50:33,710 --> 00:50:34,700
We have the Holy Spirit.

894
00:50:34,700 --> 00:50:36,260
He's gonna come give us a hug.

895
00:50:37,010 --> 00:50:40,400
There's something so much more
profound and life changing just

896
00:50:40,400 --> 00:50:42,350
right here on the pages of scripture.

897
00:50:44,270 --> 00:50:48,890
To have the spirit as a Paraclete is
therefore not to have a distant advisor,

898
00:50:48,890 --> 00:50:52,910
but a companion who is as close as one's
own breath, and who even in the thick

899
00:50:52,910 --> 00:50:57,980
of confusion or despair, is able to
whisper a truth that saves the one who

900
00:50:58,100 --> 00:51:02,360
translates the historical Christ into the
present tense reality of every believer.

901
00:51:02,360 --> 00:51:06,290
That's what the spirit does, where the
Son achieved the spirit applies where the

902
00:51:06,290 --> 00:51:08,540
Son accomplished the spirit communicates.

903
00:51:08,930 --> 00:51:11,390
The advocate does not simply
remind us of what Jesus said.

904
00:51:11,390 --> 00:51:14,720
He eternalize it so that the
words of Christ become over time.

905
00:51:15,260 --> 00:51:18,350
The instinct, the expectation,
the hope of the person.

906
00:51:18,350 --> 00:51:18,860
In dwell.

907
00:51:19,490 --> 00:51:22,010
There are some who have lived so
long in this relationship that the

908
00:51:22,010 --> 00:51:24,110
boundaries between self and spirit blur.

909
00:51:24,440 --> 00:51:26,270
Sometimes we get to know these people.

910
00:51:26,660 --> 00:51:28,040
What emerges something new?

911
00:51:28,040 --> 00:51:33,860
A life marked by unassuming wisdom,
uncanny courage or inexplicable patience.

912
00:51:34,370 --> 00:51:37,580
These are the fruits of the counselor
at work, or the fruits of the spirit.

913
00:51:38,360 --> 00:51:41,690
In the Roman world to be charged with
a crime was the stand, utterly alone.

914
00:51:42,080 --> 00:51:45,950
No due process, no assumption of
innocence, no Miranda rights, no sympathy,

915
00:51:46,190 --> 00:51:50,120
no sympathetic jury of your peers to
be accused was to be already condemned.

916
00:51:50,390 --> 00:51:51,230
It's where you started.

917
00:51:51,650 --> 00:51:55,480
And yet in that bleak, merciless
context, the Paratas was more

918
00:51:55,480 --> 00:51:56,830
than a defense, attorney.

919
00:51:56,950 --> 00:51:59,740
He was a character witness, a family
member, a friend who marshaled all

920
00:51:59,790 --> 00:52:03,810
credibility, and rhetorical fire to
argue not only that you were innocent,

921
00:52:03,810 --> 00:52:08,235
but that even if you were not innocent,
you were still beloved and wanted and

922
00:52:08,235 --> 00:52:10,590
worth more than the charges against you.

923
00:52:11,655 --> 00:52:14,355
Let's stay with that translation
for a moment because it is here

924
00:52:14,355 --> 00:52:15,585
that the real meaning takes root.

925
00:52:15,585 --> 00:52:19,725
The Paratas is another advocate,
Jesus says, which means there was

926
00:52:19,725 --> 00:52:22,455
already an advocate before the Word.

927
00:52:22,455 --> 00:52:24,675
Another in Greek is Alice, not Heteros.

928
00:52:24,795 --> 00:52:27,285
In other words, Jesus Christ
himself was the original

929
00:52:27,285 --> 00:52:29,325
advocate, the original paratas.

930
00:52:29,325 --> 00:52:34,275
He stood in the place of his friends
before God and man, he protected them.

931
00:52:34,275 --> 00:52:35,205
He argued for them.

932
00:52:35,205 --> 00:52:39,225
He covered their shame with his own
honor, and he laid his body on the line.

933
00:52:39,225 --> 00:52:43,095
When the mob sharpened its stones
now, he says, I will send you another

934
00:52:43,095 --> 00:52:46,935
who is just like me, who will do
for you what I have done for you.

935
00:52:46,935 --> 00:52:48,495
The Spirit will be your advocate.

936
00:52:48,495 --> 00:52:50,415
In my absence, read the passage again.

937
00:52:50,415 --> 00:52:53,895
I will ask the Father and he'll give you
another counselor to be with you forever.

938
00:52:53,895 --> 00:52:58,395
The spirit of truth, the phrase
with you forever is so critical.

939
00:53:00,495 --> 00:53:01,635
Oh.

940
00:53:03,930 --> 00:53:08,280
There is no statute of limitations,
no expiration date, no moment at which

941
00:53:08,280 --> 00:53:12,450
the spirit files your folder away and
moves on to a more promising client.

942
00:53:12,960 --> 00:53:17,280
The spirit is with you in you,
alongside you for as long as you exist.

943
00:53:17,610 --> 00:53:20,820
The spirit cannot be fired, cannot
be scared away, cannot be bribed

944
00:53:20,820 --> 00:53:22,410
or blackmailed into silence.

945
00:53:22,615 --> 00:53:25,740
He's in fact, more loyal to
you than you are to yourself.

946
00:53:26,610 --> 00:53:29,640
Your own self-advocacy
is feeble in comparison.

947
00:53:30,203 --> 00:53:32,933
We think of legal ad advocates
as professionals hired on the

948
00:53:32,933 --> 00:53:35,033
basis of expertise or necessity.

949
00:53:35,243 --> 00:53:38,693
But in the ancient world, especially
within families, the Paratas was

950
00:53:38,693 --> 00:53:40,403
an act of love and solidarity.

951
00:53:40,403 --> 00:53:44,423
It was to say, I'm so bound to
you that your case is my case.

952
00:53:44,603 --> 00:53:46,073
That your fate is my fate.

953
00:53:46,073 --> 00:53:47,783
That your shame is my shame.

954
00:53:48,023 --> 00:53:51,503
And this is what Jesus promises, that
the hour of our greatest vulnerability,

955
00:53:51,503 --> 00:53:56,033
whether it is the accusation of
the conscience, the condemnation of

956
00:53:56,033 --> 00:53:59,573
others, or the cold, rational tally.

957
00:54:00,038 --> 00:54:01,178
Of our own failures.

958
00:54:01,958 --> 00:54:02,858
You are not alone.

959
00:54:02,858 --> 00:54:05,528
You have an advocate who will
never rest, never quit, never

960
00:54:05,528 --> 00:54:09,488
abandon you to the mercies of your
accusers, but it goes even further.

961
00:54:09,488 --> 00:54:12,068
There is a mysterious, even
circular dimension to the work

962
00:54:12,068 --> 00:54:13,118
of the Spirit as advocate.

963
00:54:13,688 --> 00:54:16,598
One John two, one the apostle
writes, but if anyone does sin, we

964
00:54:16,598 --> 00:54:19,358
have an advocate with the Father,
Jesus Christ, the righteous.

965
00:54:19,628 --> 00:54:23,053
So Jesus is the advocate in heaven and
the Holy Spirit is the advocate on earth.

966
00:54:23,733 --> 00:54:25,563
One pleads your case before the throne.

967
00:54:25,713 --> 00:54:30,453
The other pleads in the inner courtroom
of your own heart, the seed of your soul.

968
00:54:30,603 --> 00:54:33,033
One is your defense in
the celestial court.

969
00:54:33,033 --> 00:54:36,123
The other is your defense
in your existential court.

970
00:54:36,543 --> 00:54:40,683
This is the double-sided advocacy of the
Christian life, Christ before God, and the

971
00:54:40,683 --> 00:54:43,173
spirit before your own self in the world.

972
00:54:43,233 --> 00:54:45,183
You are covered from both directions.

973
00:54:45,513 --> 00:54:46,893
What is the spirit's advocacy?

974
00:54:47,163 --> 00:54:49,353
It's not a whitewash of your story.

975
00:54:49,703 --> 00:54:53,183
This spirit does not paper over
your sins or rewrite your biography

976
00:54:53,183 --> 00:54:54,683
to make you more presentable.

977
00:54:54,893 --> 00:54:56,513
He does not edit the record.

978
00:54:56,543 --> 00:54:57,473
He owns it.

979
00:54:58,463 --> 00:55:02,483
He knows your story in detail, including
all those chapters you keep hidden

980
00:55:02,483 --> 00:55:04,673
from others and even from yourself.

981
00:55:05,453 --> 00:55:08,573
But the spirit loves you still,
and more than that represents

982
00:55:08,663 --> 00:55:10,103
you as you are, not as you wish.

983
00:55:10,103 --> 00:55:10,223
You.

984
00:55:11,198 --> 00:55:13,178
And in that representation is healing.

985
00:55:13,178 --> 00:55:16,748
Courage in the strange, but real
possibility of transformation.

986
00:55:16,928 --> 00:55:18,218
Let's get practical for a moment.

987
00:55:18,218 --> 00:55:21,338
In what way does the Holy Spirit
act as advocate First in the face of

988
00:55:21,388 --> 00:55:26,488
external accusation, you know this
experience, you fail, and the voices

989
00:55:26,488 --> 00:55:28,588
of condemnation gather like buzzards.

990
00:55:29,068 --> 00:55:30,928
Maybe it's a family member,
maybe it's a colleague.

991
00:55:30,928 --> 00:55:33,118
Maybe it's your own internal script.

992
00:55:34,581 --> 00:55:35,721
My own internal script.

993
00:55:36,891 --> 00:55:37,316
You are a fraud.

994
00:55:39,111 --> 00:55:40,101
You are unlovable.

995
00:55:41,001 --> 00:55:42,111
You'll never change.

996
00:55:42,891 --> 00:55:43,881
What's the use?

997
00:55:44,271 --> 00:55:48,051
The advocate enters at that moment and
speaks another word, a word of truth

998
00:55:48,051 --> 00:55:51,801
that is not flattery, but is truer
than the sum of all your failures.

999
00:55:51,801 --> 00:55:54,411
The advocate says, this one belongs to me.

1000
00:55:55,131 --> 00:55:56,631
This one is my beloved.

1001
00:55:56,751 --> 00:56:00,861
There is no condemnation for those who
are in Christ Jesus, and it is the spirit

1002
00:56:00,861 --> 00:56:04,701
who brings that word to your heart in a
way that cuts through all the arguments.

1003
00:56:06,141 --> 00:56:08,781
Second, the spirit is your
advocate before yourself.

1004
00:56:08,781 --> 00:56:10,671
We are our own worst prosecutors.

1005
00:56:11,661 --> 00:56:13,941
We rehearse our failures
with clinical precision.

1006
00:56:13,941 --> 00:56:19,071
I do dig up evidence against ourselves and
sentence ourselves to perpetual disfavor.

1007
00:56:19,821 --> 00:56:21,501
Man, that was my testimony.

1008
00:56:21,921 --> 00:56:25,071
The spirit is the one who interrupts
the trial, submits a motion,

1009
00:56:25,071 --> 00:56:26,301
and introduces new evidence.

1010
00:56:27,141 --> 00:56:30,441
That you are a child of God, that you're
standing is secure, that there is a deeper

1011
00:56:30,441 --> 00:56:32,901
reality than your own inner judge can see.

1012
00:56:33,261 --> 00:56:39,771
The spirit argues that you are beloved
the Holy Spirit's task 'cause daily,

1013
00:56:39,831 --> 00:56:43,911
our relentless concern is to stand
between you and the courtroom of your

1014
00:56:43,911 --> 00:56:48,051
own mind and the prosecution that
rises up against you, both from without

1015
00:56:48,141 --> 00:56:50,211
and even more fiercely from within.

1016
00:56:50,391 --> 00:56:52,056
You are never without an accuser.

1017
00:56:52,056 --> 00:56:55,471
We know that the accuser of the
breth night and day, but the world.

1018
00:56:56,206 --> 00:56:58,516
Is filled with voices that would
have you believe you're not

1019
00:56:58,516 --> 00:57:00,406
enough, that you fail beyond hope.

1020
00:57:00,496 --> 00:57:03,916
Sometimes in the church, they tell
you that, that your shortcomings

1021
00:57:03,916 --> 00:57:05,536
are the truest thing about you.

1022
00:57:05,866 --> 00:57:08,686
More insidious are the voices
that awaken when you're alone.

1023
00:57:08,686 --> 00:57:13,006
The internal prosecutors who are versed in
your entire history, every thought, every

1024
00:57:13,006 --> 00:57:14,956
mistake, every intention, every secret.

1025
00:57:15,106 --> 00:57:17,116
These skilled litigators.

1026
00:57:18,181 --> 00:57:20,671
They know exactly where to
find the evidence to discredit

1027
00:57:20,671 --> 00:57:22,021
you, belittle you, condemn you.

1028
00:57:22,231 --> 00:57:25,671
It is here in this eternal tribunal
that the Holy Spirit operates as your

1029
00:57:25,671 --> 00:57:29,571
advocate, not as a mere bystander or
comforter brought in after the verdict

1030
00:57:29,571 --> 00:57:32,931
to wipe your tears, but as one who
takes the floor, interrupts the case

1031
00:57:32,931 --> 00:57:37,329
and presents a defense so compelling if
forever alters the outcome of the trial.

1032
00:57:38,184 --> 00:57:41,214
You see this in Romans eight 15 where
the apostle Paul writes, God has not

1033
00:57:41,214 --> 00:57:44,064
given us the spirit of fear, but he
has given us the spirit of his son

1034
00:57:44,064 --> 00:57:45,234
who comes to do our hearts crying.

1035
00:57:45,414 --> 00:57:47,844
Abba, father Paul is not being poetic.

1036
00:57:47,844 --> 00:57:51,234
He's being literal in the face of your
fears, in the thick of your trembley.

1037
00:57:51,234 --> 00:57:55,164
The Holy Spirit arrives not as a distant
legal consultant, but as the very

1038
00:57:55,164 --> 00:58:00,024
voice of the beloved son alive in you
shouting above the clamor of accusation.

1039
00:58:00,654 --> 00:58:01,944
You are not condemned.

1040
00:58:02,244 --> 00:58:05,544
You are a son, a daughter, and you belong.

1041
00:58:05,544 --> 00:58:09,444
This is what it means that the
Holy Spirit bears witness with our

1042
00:58:09,444 --> 00:58:11,724
spirit, that we are children of God.

1043
00:58:11,724 --> 00:58:12,954
That is a legal word.

1044
00:58:12,954 --> 00:58:16,524
The phrase bear witness is not just
a figure of speech, this a technical

1045
00:58:16,524 --> 00:58:20,953
term, a Greek jurisprudence the star
witness, the one whose testimony is

1046
00:58:20,953 --> 00:58:23,923
so decisive that the case is closed.

1047
00:58:24,756 --> 00:58:28,896
What the Holy Spirit is not only your
advocate but your chief witness, he

1048
00:58:28,896 --> 00:58:32,556
does not appeal to your feelings which
wax and wane, nor to your performance,

1049
00:58:32,556 --> 00:58:37,296
which is inconsistent at best, he appeals
to the finished work of Christ and the

1050
00:58:37,296 --> 00:58:39,786
irrevocable adoption that you've received.

1051
00:58:40,086 --> 00:58:43,236
When your heart is in turmoil with
self-doubt and spiritual insecurity

1052
00:58:43,236 --> 00:58:46,656
mounts their evedince , the
spirit's testimony overrides them.

1053
00:58:46,806 --> 00:58:47,526
You are his.

1054
00:58:47,526 --> 00:58:48,336
You are beloved.

1055
00:58:48,516 --> 00:58:50,736
Nothing could separate
you from the love of God.

1056
00:58:50,736 --> 00:58:50,886
Amen.

1057
00:58:52,611 --> 00:58:54,021
It's right here, right here.

1058
00:58:54,021 --> 00:58:56,121
The Holy Spirit performs his work.

1059
00:58:56,601 --> 00:58:59,991
He interrupts your self-incrimination
to remind you in the depth of your

1060
00:58:59,991 --> 00:59:02,691
being that you're not on trial anymore.

1061
00:59:03,921 --> 00:59:05,181
The case has been dismissed.

1062
00:59:05,231 --> 00:59:09,401
The verdict, the beloved child stands
not by your merit, but by Christ and the

1063
00:59:09,401 --> 00:59:13,961
Spirit's entire project is to make that
verdict the loudest truth in your soul.

1064
00:59:13,966 --> 00:59:14,616
That's good.

1065
00:59:16,601 --> 00:59:17,771
And it's not a one time event.

1066
00:59:18,566 --> 00:59:20,336
The advocate's work is continual.

1067
00:59:20,336 --> 00:59:22,766
Every morning, the world
resets its case against you.

1068
00:59:22,766 --> 00:59:25,916
Every evening, your own
memory reopens old files.

1069
00:59:26,246 --> 00:59:28,656
The spirit's advocacy is there relentless.

1070
00:59:28,656 --> 00:59:33,066
Day after day, he calls you to remember
the promises of God superimposing them

1071
00:59:33,066 --> 00:59:34,776
over the clamor of the accusation.

1072
00:59:35,186 --> 00:59:38,636
When you fear people and the judgment
of others and you start performing

1073
00:59:38,636 --> 00:59:41,486
for them, when you feel alien among
your own people, when your past

1074
00:59:41,606 --> 00:59:44,696
seems unshakeable and you're future
unsure, the spirit stands beside you.

1075
00:59:44,696 --> 00:59:47,906
Bearing witness publicly as well
as privately that you belong.

1076
00:59:47,906 --> 00:59:49,046
You are not a servant.

1077
00:59:49,316 --> 00:59:50,216
You are not a guest.

1078
00:59:50,216 --> 00:59:52,829
You are not on probation
in God's household.

1079
00:59:52,879 --> 00:59:55,039
you are family and
nothing can un make that.

1080
00:59:56,074 --> 00:59:58,594
What is more, the spirit does not
make these arguments in the abstract.

1081
00:59:58,594 --> 00:59:59,944
He embodies them in your experience.

1082
00:59:59,944 --> 01:00:03,574
He gives you moments of inexplicable
assurance, flashes of joy amid the

1083
01:00:03,574 --> 01:00:07,834
anxiety, the subtle, but undeniable
sense that you are no longer an orphan.

1084
01:00:08,494 --> 01:00:10,084
These are not psychological tricks.

1085
01:00:10,084 --> 01:00:13,654
They're the spirit's own testimony
woven into your awareness, even when

1086
01:00:13,684 --> 01:00:16,984
you doubt him, even when the prosecution
in your mind seems to win the day, the

1087
01:00:16,984 --> 01:00:20,554
spirit's defense stands from waiting
for you to recover your senses and

1088
01:00:20,554 --> 01:00:22,564
hear his closing argument once again.

1089
01:00:24,774 --> 01:00:25,984
You may wonder if this is true.

1090
01:00:25,984 --> 01:00:27,184
Why do I still feel afraid?

1091
01:00:27,184 --> 01:00:28,174
Why do doubt still come?

1092
01:00:28,174 --> 01:00:31,114
The answer is the case is settled,
but the old accuser is stubborn.

1093
01:00:31,774 --> 01:00:36,364
The prosecution has been disbarred, but
he still lurks in the hallways, shouting,

1094
01:00:36,364 --> 01:00:40,474
accusation, hoping to be let back in
court, hoping you'll open the door.

1095
01:00:41,254 --> 01:00:44,014
The spirit's advocacy is not
to prevent every accusation.

1096
01:00:44,734 --> 01:00:46,684
But to ensure that none
of them ever stick.

1097
01:00:46,744 --> 01:00:50,764
'cause none of them ever can, 'cause
you're covered in the blood of a lamb.

1098
01:00:51,304 --> 01:00:55,054
The more you listen to 'em, the more
you will find your heart change Not

1099
01:00:55,054 --> 01:00:58,024
because you've worked up the right
feelings, but because you have begun to

1100
01:00:58,024 --> 01:01:01,954
see yourself as he does a beloved child,
perpetually and perfectly accepted.

1101
01:01:02,224 --> 01:01:04,624
So when your heart is filled with doubt,
when you're most certain that you have

1102
01:01:04,624 --> 01:01:07,564
failed, and that your relationship
with God is hanging by a thread, the

1103
01:01:07,564 --> 01:01:08,974
Holy Spirit is already in the room.

1104
01:01:08,974 --> 01:01:12,874
Argue in your case, not with new evidence,
not with empty platitudes, but with the

1105
01:01:12,874 --> 01:01:17,014
unassailable truth that you are already
acquitted, already embraced already home.

1106
01:01:17,719 --> 01:01:21,049
All that remains is for you to
believe it, to let that verdict

1107
01:01:21,049 --> 01:01:22,489
become the foundation of your life.

1108
01:01:22,489 --> 01:01:23,749
He persists, he returns.

1109
01:01:23,749 --> 01:01:25,789
He repeats the defense until bit by bit.

1110
01:01:25,999 --> 01:01:29,749
It sinks into your bones until
the courtroom grows quiet.

1111
01:01:29,749 --> 01:01:33,319
And the voice of the
advocate is the only voice.

1112
01:01:33,559 --> 01:01:34,909
You here.

1113
01:01:35,539 --> 01:01:36,949
This is the ministry of the Holy Spirit.

1114
01:01:36,979 --> 01:01:40,039
This is how he counsels you, how he
comforts you, how he changes you.

1115
01:01:40,039 --> 01:01:43,039
Not by making you perfect,
but by persuading you that you

1116
01:01:43,039 --> 01:01:44,179
are perfectly loved already.

1117
01:01:46,234 --> 01:01:48,664
This is what it means to have a counselor

1118
01:01:51,154 --> 01:01:53,764
how to receive it, and I
just melted by the gospel.

1119
01:01:55,414 --> 01:01:56,524
This changed my life.

1120
01:01:56,884 --> 01:01:59,674
I don't wanna talk to you about
the advocate, the first advocate.

1121
01:01:59,674 --> 01:02:02,494
Jesus, my salvation story.

1122
01:02:04,304 --> 01:02:07,597
I kind of pictured growing up

1123
01:02:09,270 --> 01:02:09,560
that

1124
01:02:10,477 --> 01:02:13,927
God kind of was getting worn out with me

1125
01:02:15,214 --> 01:02:17,034
in the same way I'd get
worn out with someone who.

1126
01:02:17,724 --> 01:02:21,774
Keeps doing the same thing, although
I oddly impatient with my kids.

1127
01:02:22,824 --> 01:02:23,484
Interesting.

1128
01:02:27,804 --> 01:02:29,184
Failing over and over and over

1129
01:02:32,184 --> 01:02:34,434
and growing up you kind of hear,
you know, the courtroom and we,

1130
01:02:35,184 --> 01:02:36,229
we worked through the theology,

1131
01:02:38,729 --> 01:02:39,749
but there is an accuser.

1132
01:02:40,464 --> 01:02:41,724
A prosecutor against us.

1133
01:02:41,724 --> 01:02:42,594
He's got good evidence.

1134
01:02:42,594 --> 01:02:44,724
Well, may the accuser roar of
sins that I have done, I know

1135
01:02:44,724 --> 01:02:47,663
them all, and thousand more.

1136
01:02:48,624 --> 01:02:49,644
My savior know if none,

1137
01:02:52,014 --> 01:02:56,634
but what changed my life and why I am
like where John writes in first John,

1138
01:02:56,634 --> 01:02:59,304
these things I write to you that you
may know that you have eternal life.

1139
01:03:00,594 --> 01:03:05,184
He's not like, leveraging
that to get more altar calls.

1140
01:03:05,544 --> 01:03:07,344
He's like, no, I, I I want you to be sure.

1141
01:03:12,879 --> 01:03:20,529
Is where it says that Jesus is
faithful and just to forgive, and

1142
01:03:20,529 --> 01:03:21,729
it goes right into his advocacy.

1143
01:03:21,788 --> 01:03:25,449
So Bar of Heaven accusation evidence.

1144
01:03:25,569 --> 01:03:26,109
Crazy.

1145
01:03:26,169 --> 01:03:29,409
This changed my life and I, I
like, can't stop thinking about it.

1146
01:03:29,679 --> 01:03:32,709
It's, it is the melting, the
heat in my heart so often.

1147
01:03:34,025 --> 01:03:38,045
Because I always pictured Jesus being
like, okay, father, I know he's a mess.

1148
01:03:38,285 --> 01:03:40,045
we were making a lot of people, but like.

1149
01:03:41,065 --> 01:03:41,785
He doesn't get it.

1150
01:03:41,785 --> 01:03:42,835
Kay doesn't get it.

1151
01:03:43,165 --> 01:03:44,425
This Kayla doesn't get it.

1152
01:03:44,635 --> 01:03:45,835
Oh, he is trying so hard.

1153
01:03:45,925 --> 01:03:47,035
He wants you so bad.

1154
01:03:47,035 --> 01:03:47,935
He's so desperate.

1155
01:03:47,935 --> 01:03:51,895
He cries, he recommits a prior
commitment of a previous rededication.

1156
01:03:52,165 --> 01:03:53,665
So often

1157
01:03:55,705 --> 01:03:57,775
you just, you give him mercy.

1158
01:03:58,110 --> 01:04:00,745
You please show him mercy.

1159
01:04:00,745 --> 01:04:01,645
He's my child.

1160
01:04:01,645 --> 01:04:02,065
I know.

1161
01:04:02,065 --> 01:04:04,375
You know, I started a good work.

1162
01:04:04,375 --> 01:04:05,515
I'm gonna be faithful to complete it.

1163
01:04:05,815 --> 01:04:06,595
My name's on him.

1164
01:04:06,595 --> 01:04:07,105
I'll take care of.

1165
01:04:07,105 --> 01:04:08,125
just show him some mercy.

1166
01:04:08,125 --> 01:04:09,775
Been your, it's not what happened.

1167
01:04:11,620 --> 01:04:14,890
We miss the weight of the gospel
when we think that's what happened.

1168
01:04:15,940 --> 01:04:18,910
What happened is that in
the high bar of heaven, holy

1169
01:04:18,910 --> 01:04:21,400
justice does not get diminished.

1170
01:04:22,510 --> 01:04:23,110
No, no.

1171
01:04:23,110 --> 01:04:29,590
We would be undone by the sheer scrutiny
of every bit and every molecule of it.

1172
01:04:30,040 --> 01:04:33,910
The justice is so weighty and divine
that the worst offender in all of

1173
01:04:33,910 --> 01:04:37,450
humanity as he glimpses the heavenly
throne is gonna fall on his knees

1174
01:04:37,450 --> 01:04:38,950
and confess Jesus Christ his Lord.

1175
01:04:40,135 --> 01:04:40,915
Instantly.

1176
01:04:42,535 --> 01:04:43,495
No arguments.

1177
01:04:43,495 --> 01:04:43,855
No.

1178
01:04:43,885 --> 01:04:45,115
Oh, what happens here?

1179
01:04:45,205 --> 01:04:45,595
No.

1180
01:04:45,685 --> 01:04:48,175
Down on the knees confessing
Jesus Christ is Lord.

1181
01:04:48,325 --> 01:04:51,535
The bar is so high and God is holy.

1182
01:04:51,565 --> 01:04:54,365
He cannot just let sin go by the wayside.

1183
01:04:54,485 --> 01:04:59,055
But what's beautiful is that
Jesus stands as the advocate, the

1184
01:04:59,055 --> 01:05:01,365
advocate before the bar of heaven.

1185
01:05:01,365 --> 01:05:03,085
And here I am with all the things.

1186
01:05:03,550 --> 01:05:08,830
And I, he knows everything because he
bore it and what he does is he shows

1187
01:05:08,830 --> 01:05:13,330
his hands and the scars and the wound in
his side and the nails in his footprints

1188
01:05:13,420 --> 01:05:17,920
that he was dead, but now alive as
he represent me before the throne.

1189
01:05:18,040 --> 01:05:19,960
He does not ask for grace for me.

1190
01:05:19,960 --> 01:05:21,880
He does not ask for mercy for me.

1191
01:05:21,940 --> 01:05:23,590
He doesn't ask for love for me.

1192
01:05:23,710 --> 01:05:29,529
What he does is he demands justice
for me because he paid for me.

1193
01:05:30,420 --> 01:05:32,550
And the father received the payment.

1194
01:05:32,580 --> 01:05:34,830
The resurrection was the
verification of that.

1195
01:05:34,890 --> 01:05:36,990
The Holy Spirit given is the seal.

1196
01:05:37,320 --> 01:05:42,660
So if God received payment,
then he cannot go back on that.

1197
01:05:43,695 --> 01:05:49,095
He can't, he, it's justice that God
forgave me because Christ made the

1198
01:05:49,095 --> 01:05:51,165
payment and I put my faith in Christ.

1199
01:05:51,285 --> 01:05:52,815
That changed my life.

1200
01:05:53,145 --> 01:05:55,605
I thought I was like,
because is he gonna run out?

1201
01:05:55,635 --> 01:05:57,825
No, he can't receive double payment.

1202
01:05:57,825 --> 01:05:59,154
The universe would unravel it.

1203
01:05:59,285 --> 01:06:03,275
Self, every Adam would fly
apart if that were the case.

1204
01:06:03,425 --> 01:06:08,045
And so as I stand, as I fail, as
I walk, as I stumble my way to

1205
01:06:08,045 --> 01:06:12,154
heaven, I am utterly secure in
the payment past, present, and

1206
01:06:12,154 --> 01:06:14,045
future that Jesus made for me.

1207
01:06:14,345 --> 01:06:21,365
I know that I have eternal life
because of that beautiful advocate

1208
01:06:21,575 --> 01:06:27,545
that did what I couldn't and paid
my debt and demanded justice.

1209
01:06:29,130 --> 01:06:33,100
It satisfied every bit of that
justice, every bit of that justice

1210
01:06:33,100 --> 01:06:34,660
that I deserve has been swallowed up.

1211
01:06:34,840 --> 01:06:36,610
That there is, therefore
now no condemnation.

1212
01:06:36,820 --> 01:06:40,570
That's why Paul can even say, who can
bring a charge against God's elect?

1213
01:06:41,020 --> 01:06:42,520
It's God who justified me.

1214
01:06:42,904 --> 01:06:43,395
It's done.

1215
01:06:45,100 --> 01:06:45,279
It's done.

1216
01:06:45,880 --> 01:06:46,300
I.

1217
01:06:48,010 --> 01:06:51,790
That melts me on such a deep level and
it frees me from so much performance.

1218
01:06:51,820 --> 01:06:54,070
I can take the mask off, I can be flawed.

1219
01:06:54,250 --> 01:06:57,400
I don't have to pretend I can
actually be real 'cause we're not

1220
01:06:57,400 --> 01:07:00,310
healed until we're actually real.

1221
01:07:02,800 --> 01:07:05,950
And it brings such a depth of
humility into my life that I named

1222
01:07:06,760 --> 01:07:13,240
as the cosmic Christ came and
humbled himself in such a way I.

1223
01:07:13,825 --> 01:07:15,025
I'm undone by this story.

1224
01:07:15,085 --> 01:07:21,775
I'm undone that God would give us
himself yes and the full force of it.

1225
01:07:22,945 --> 01:07:28,195
And that one day he's gonna peel
that veil all the way back and

1226
01:07:28,195 --> 01:07:29,875
we'll behold every bit of it.