[00:00:01] Welcome to the River Church podcast. We're all about bringing the life, hope and love of Jesus to everyone around us. For more information, check out our
[email protected]. would you trade your current experience of the Holy Spirit for 10 minutes face to face with Jesus?
[00:00:21] Okay, let's come back into the room.
[00:00:24] I reckon that is one of the loudest conversations you've ever had in this room.
[00:00:30] Hands up. Would you trade?
[00:00:32] Yeah, loads of trading. Who wouldn't trade?
[00:00:35] Okay. Oh, that's a 50 50, isn't it? That's a 50, 50. Because I think it's really tempting if you think about, you know, the fact that Jesus would be with you in that moment. And that leads me to think about the disciples. They didn't. They have it a lot easier than us. Yeah. Because they had Jesus with them 24 7.
[00:00:57] Like, just think about how little you would mess up if you were walking along and Jesus was there.
[00:01:05] Every bad thought you would come into your head, he'd be next to you thinking, I know exactly what's going on, wouldn't he?
[00:01:14] Yeah. What about witnessing? It would be dead easy. You would go, this is Jesus. Come on, Jesus, do your miraculous water into wine stuff.
[00:01:24] You know, tell them everything about their life that you know. It'd be dead easy. It'd be dead easy. And hey, preaching would be the easiest task in the world.
[00:01:34] So I'd be like, hey, guys, you would better listen to me because of Jesus.
[00:01:40] He's here. Thank you, Jesus.
[00:01:42] It would be simple. Wouldn't would be simple.
[00:01:49] Even though I know the Holy Spirit, there is a part of me that would be tempted to trade.
[00:01:57] Thing is, Jesus totally disagrees.
[00:02:04] Totally disagrees. He would never say trade.
[00:02:08] You see, we know that because it's written about in John's Gospel. And I'm just going to draw from three different chapters. We're not going to read them all.
[00:02:15] But what we see in John's Gospel is Jesus about to face the cross. So he's hanging out with his guys and he's having a chat with them and he's about to announce that he's off.
[00:02:26] So he says to them, look, it's for your good that I am going away.
[00:02:31] Another translation says, it is to your advantage that I'm going to go away.
[00:02:37] Go away, Jesus, where on earth are you going? Why are you going?
[00:02:43] You know, the disciples asked all these questions because then this felt like a trade, but like the wrong way round, you know, it's not like, can I get 10 minutes with you? I'm Going to have no minutes with you. Why are you going?
[00:02:58] So Jesus kind of prepares their hearts a little bit and comforts them and says three things to them that I think would be comfort even for us today.
[00:03:08] The first one is he says that I'm going to prepare a place for you, so you may be where I am.
[00:03:14] So, you know, they're thinking about this going, but how do we get there? How do we know how to be with you? And he says, oh, no, no, don't panic. Keep your eyes on me, for I'm the way, the truth, and the life.
[00:03:28] Keep your eyes on me. You'll be fine.
[00:03:32] Okay. They're reassured about point one, but then point two, he says, look, that's because, you see, I'm going to the Father, and so whatever you ask of me, I will do it.
[00:03:44] So not only are you going to be with me one day, but I'm going to the Father and I will still hear your prayers from up there.
[00:03:55] So no need to freak out, don't stress, don't worry, I will still hear you.
[00:04:00] Which is great news. So they're kind of getting their head around the trade. But then he gives them the greatest comfort, and he says this. I will also ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate.
[00:04:12] Another there simply means the same as, but a different one. Right. So Jesus maybe is the first advocate, and there is someone who is going to become the second advocate. And he says, look, this other advocate is there to help you and be with you forever. He's called the Spirit of Truth.
[00:04:32] And here's the thing. You know him, you know him, for he lives with you, and he will be in you.
[00:04:46] I don't know if you're following along in your Bibles at all. You might have lots of other words other than advocate you could have, counselor, helper, comforter.
[00:04:56] It's because the Greek word is so rich that our English language is pathetic at trying to summarize it in one word, which is why we've got so many. But the thing is, I'm not going to unpack any of the these Holy Spirit names today.
[00:05:13] Instead, I want us to notice the very biggest thing that Jesus is saying, because he is saying something huge, and that's this.
[00:05:25] It is better to have the Holy Spirit in you than me standing beside you.
[00:05:34] He's saying, it's not second best. It's not really much of a trade. It's not a consolation prize. It is better.
[00:05:46] So half of this room sounds like you'd agree with that statement.
[00:05:50] Yeah. The other Half not so sure.
[00:05:55] Because the reality is, why doesn't it always feel better?
[00:06:01] Why doesn't having the Holy Spirit in us feel as good or as exciting as having Jesus beside us?
[00:06:12] Well, you know, I like numbers. There was a recent survey done of Western Christians. So Christians, and they were asked this question, true or false? The Holy Spirit is a force, not a person.
[00:06:29] Oh, how would you answer that?
[00:06:33] Well, I can tell you the Christians and I go Christians quite deliberately. Because you think, hang on. Right, 51% said true.
[00:06:42] Yeah. 7% went I don't know.
[00:06:46] And only 42% said false.
[00:06:51] Take that in.
[00:06:53] According to the Christians in this survey, most believe that the Holy Spirit has something more to do with the force in Star wars than he does to do with being an actual person.
[00:07:07] But we would never say that, would we?
[00:07:10] Or would we?
[00:07:13] Because the thing is, right, we live with a bit of a gap in our lives even though we actually know he's a person. And even though we pretty sure we know what we would say to this, we'd say this is a false statement. We live with a gap because we look at things in the Bible, we look at the book of Acts and we see this personal and powerful dynamic spirit of God at work.
[00:07:42] But our experience can sometimes feel a little different.
[00:07:47] What's going on?
[00:07:49] And I'm speaking out of personal experience here. You know, I probably finished. There's different seasons in life. I probably finished last year. A bit, bit tired, bit disillusioned, you know, is the Holy Spirit still there?
[00:08:02] Do you have experiences like that in your life ever?
[00:08:06] You see, my hunch is that at least some of us here, we know about the Holy Spirit, but maybe we've not experienced him for a while.
[00:08:18] Yeah, maybe you're holding on to your Christian faith, maybe you're fighting for it. You don't sense the Holy Spirit with you. The Holy Spirit feels like someone you know about, but not someone, somebody you actually know.
[00:08:31] So what's the answer?
[00:08:36] It feels like we don't need more information. We need more revelation. Amen.
[00:08:43] I think it's really amusing to see as Jesus chatted with his disciples about what would happen. He didn't say. What you now need to do, guys, is go on a 12 week connect group course all about the Holy Spirit. And bring your notepads. I'm going to go fast.
[00:09:00] He didn't say that, did he?
[00:09:02] You see, the thing is, the early church was absolutely bonkers.
[00:09:08] The church, it changed the world and it is still changing the world. I don't know if you've noticed we're 2,000 years old and we're not doing too badly. We've outlived a number of significant empires.
[00:09:22] But it wasn't through doing a Bible study on the Holy Spirit that they did it.
[00:09:27] Because they didn't know squat about the Holy Spirit.
[00:09:31] They didn't know what he was like, really. They didn't know what he would do. Certainly. They just sat in an upper room. And what did they do?
[00:09:39] They waited and they prayed because that's what Jesus told them to do.
[00:09:47] That means if you've been a Christian for more than five minutes, your understanding, your theology of the Holy Spirit is way more than the disciples was. You ever thought about that?
[00:10:02] So we don't need more information.
[00:10:04] We need more revelation.
[00:10:07] And I don't want to disappoint you, but my goal isn't to tell you anything new. Today. It is the very opposite.
[00:10:14] What I have been praying for you is that today the stuff you already know actually sinks that little bit deeper. Deeper.
[00:10:24] You know, he's a person.
[00:10:26] You know, God has put his spirit in you. If you've put your trust in Jesus, that's his promise. The answer then is cultivating the reality of it.
[00:10:39] So I did some reflecting as I've pulled this together. And I remember when the penny dropped for me, you see, because I used to struggle big time with the Holy Spirit and all this spiritual stuff, I found the whole thing very, very confusing. I went to an Evange local church. There was a few bits happening. But as I was a young man looking at how others related to this person called the Holy Spirit, I saw two options in front of me. Option one was to be a little bit weird, all right? To relate to him in a kind of strange, mystical, floaty way. Do you know people like that? Yeah. So that was option one. Okay.
[00:11:19] Then option two was like the opposite of that.
[00:11:23] Relating to him more like, you know, he's just an important doctrine of the Bible. You know, Father, Son and Holy Bible. Right? That's the Holy Spirit relating to him a little bit, as you would your pituitary gland. Right.
[00:11:38] You know, it's there. You know, it's important. You don't want to lose it. But it's not your best friend, is it?
[00:11:45] Do you know what I mean?
[00:11:46] So these two options were in front of me.
[00:11:51] But they miss the point, don't they? Because they depersonalize the spirit.
[00:11:57] We're kind of back at Star wars at this end, aren't we? With the Force and this end. I don't Even know what that is. It's just a good idea maybe.
[00:12:07] You see, understanding some of this stuff was where revelation was.
[00:12:13] And I think the big thing for me is that I realized the Holy Spirit isn't some weird add on in the Trinity.
[00:12:19] That's really hard to explain.
[00:12:22] Instead, what did Jesus say? You know him already.
[00:12:27] What did that mean? He is with you, almost saying right now.
[00:12:32] And he will be inside you.
[00:12:36] So the Holy Spirit, isn't this stranger coming to babysit the disciples? When Jesus goes to be with the Father?
[00:12:44] The Holy Spirit is Christ in you.
[00:12:48] The Holy Spirit is Christ in me.
[00:12:52] Let's look at some verses about this. The apostle Paul writes about it in Romans and he says, look, and I'm going to words up there for emphasis. The Spirit of God dwells in you.
[00:13:03] The Spirit of God dwells in you. He says.
[00:13:06] And he says, anyone who does not have the spirit of who, Christ does not belong to him. But if. Say it with me, Christ is in you. Although the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, well, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his spirit, through Christ's Spirit who dwells in you. The Holy Spirit is Christ in you.
[00:13:40] Did you know that?
[00:13:43] But don't just take Paul's word for it, because Jesus talked about it as well back in John. He's carrying on the conversation with the disciples. He's saying, I will not leave you as orphans. I will come to you.
[00:13:56] What's he talking about?
[00:13:58] Is he talking about the very end of their days, where he'll meet them in a cloud?
[00:14:03] Or is he talking about the Holy Spirit?
[00:14:06] He says, look, before long the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me because I live and you will also live. And he says, on that day, you will realize that I am in my Father and you are in me. But guess where I am.
[00:14:19] I'm in you.
[00:14:22] The Holy Spirit is Christ in you. Amen.
[00:14:26] That changed everything. For me.
[00:14:28] It changed everything. I wasn't guessing what Holy Spirit was like. It's not floaty and mystical.
[00:14:36] It's nothing like Darth Vader or Luke Skywalker.
[00:14:41] If you want to know what the Spirit's like, look at Jesus.
[00:14:46] Look at Jesus. Read about him. Jesus was loving and compassionate and strong and fierce and outspoken. He was holy and funny and sad and protective and majestic and sacred. I could keep adding words.
[00:15:04] That person lives in you.
[00:15:07] The Holy Spirit is simply the invisible but personal presence of God. As if Jesus was living in you.
[00:15:18] If that doesn't slightly pop your skull, just check your pulse.
[00:15:26] This is possibly the craziest, most amazing news that has ever been shared.
[00:15:37] I think it's a little bit, for me, mysterious.
[00:15:42] It's hard to wrap your head around the whole thing. But you know what?
[00:15:46] It's true.
[00:15:48] I think it's a little bit like space.
[00:15:51] I feel pretty chuffed when I look up at the sky and I see the plough. Who's good at spotting the plough?
[00:15:57] Who's good at spotting anything else in the sky? Yeah, we're rubbish at it.
[00:16:02] But here's the thing. Scientists have calculated that there are between 100 billion and 2 trillion galaxies.
[00:16:12] Not stars, not planets, galaxies. And you're not looking at stars, they're all galaxies.
[00:16:19] Isn't that mental?
[00:16:21] That is mind blowing. I can't really see it with my eyes, I can't touch it with my hands, but it's true.
[00:16:33] Just like Christ is in you, the person of the Holy Spirit lives in you. And that has massive implications.
[00:16:46] Consider this for a moment.
[00:16:48] How would your relationship with God change if you really lent in to this and that you saw his presence within you as a person?
[00:16:59] What if that quiet conviction that you feel when you're about to sin isn't your conscience reacting, but the voice of a person who loves you?
[00:17:10] Yeah. Or what if sin wasn't simply breaking a moral code, but it was grieving the heart of a holy God who was present in you?
[00:17:19] Because surely that means what you touch, he touches. What you see, he sees. What you taste, he tastes. Where you go, he goes.
[00:17:28] How might that change your Christianity if you realize that even when you go through hard times, you're never alone, because inside you is one who is already there. God himself bringing you comfort.
[00:17:44] Or when scripture comes to mind, in those darkest, doubtful thoughts, fearful moment, what if it wasn't just your memory drawing on the scriptures you learned as a kid?
[00:17:57] What if it was actually the voice of a living person speaking just to you?
[00:18:05] For me, that changed everything.
[00:18:07] That's revelation.
[00:18:10] The Spirit lives in you.
[00:18:14] That Spirit is a person, not a battery to draw power from.
[00:18:19] The Spirit is not a genie that you wish to.
[00:18:24] Only three, please.
[00:18:26] The Spirit is not a pinata you get to whack in the hope that blessings might fall into your life.
[00:18:33] It's a person. He is a person. And he's with you all the time. And many of you know this.
[00:18:40] You knew it before you walked in and I spoke a word.
[00:18:44] But has it made the difference? It should in your life.
[00:18:51] There's a great quote from a great guy who gets the Holy Spirit. He's written a great book called the Forgotten God. It's called Francis Chan. If you want to read about the Holy Spirit, read his book. But he said this. He says, look, if I was Satan and my ultimate goal was to thwart God's kingdom and purposes, one of my main strategies to get churchgoers to ignore the Holy Spirit, right? What do you think of that?
[00:19:18] My prayer for this church is that we would never fall for this scheme, alright? Ever.
[00:19:23] Instead, I believe what we must do in response to this is to intentionally cultivate a relationship with a person that lives in you.
[00:19:35] Cultivate that relationship with the person who lives in you.
[00:19:41] And I believe we do that through attention and presence.
[00:19:48] How do you think about your spiritual growth?
[00:19:52] Maybe with discipleship? Two of our favorite questions is, come on, how often do you read your Bible? And how often do you pray? There you go. We know it, don't we?
[00:20:04] Do you think they're the questions the Holy Spirit asks?
[00:20:08] Or do you think he says, have you heard my voice today?
[00:20:14] Have you lent into me today?
[00:20:18] Have you received from me today?
[00:20:22] You see, I think that's where he's at.
[00:20:27] We can grow in one of two ways.
[00:20:31] And in life you've got these two options. You've got mechanical growth and organic growth.
[00:20:37] So mechanical growth is all about adding bricks. It's all adding things from the outside to make something bigger.
[00:20:45] How do you make a car go faster? You shove a big turbo on the engine, you put a big exhaust on the back, more bang.
[00:20:54] That is mechanical growth.
[00:20:57] But the other way is organic growth. Organic growth couldn't be any different because it comes not from the outside, but it comes from the inside. It's like a business deciding, hey, maybe if we treated our customers better, we might get more of them. It's a change on the inside, not the outside.
[00:21:17] But it's also just like a plant that comes from a seed that starts down here and something happens inside that seed and it starts to think, hang on a minute, am I not supposed to be bigger than this?
[00:21:30] And something biological happens and it starts to grow. And I got a very bad grade for science. And that's as far as I'm going to go with biology. But I will look at this and go, it is easier as a Christian to think, I'm going to go the mechanical route.
[00:21:47] I am going to do some stuff that's going to help me grow, I'm going to serve others and I am going to read more. And I'm going to do the right things and avoid the wrong things, because they're measurable, understandable, they're physical, they're practical, and I'm in control.
[00:22:06] That's you trying to grow you.
[00:22:10] Whereas Jesus says in John 15 the very opposite. He says, look, you're just a branch.
[00:22:18] You're just a branch, and without me, you couldn't produce a shriveled raisin.
[00:22:23] All right?
[00:22:26] Unless you connect to the life source, you'll die.
[00:22:31] But Jesus doesn't say the word connect such a 21st century word. He says, abide in me.
[00:22:39] Abide in me. That word abide, means remain.
[00:22:43] But it's deeper.
[00:22:44] It's stay. It's to make your home. It's about dwelling and staying and enduring.
[00:22:53] What does this look like in your life at the moment?
[00:22:56] And do you think that will give you joy?
[00:23:02] The Holy Spirit, he's not a hard landscaper.
[00:23:08] He doesn't want to fast track your life. Pour a load of concrete into you and Astroturf over the top.
[00:23:14] It would be quick, but it wouldn't be very real, would it?
[00:23:19] Instead, he's a gardener, and what he does, he comes along and he plants and he waters and he prunes and he throws away dead wood because he's trying to make way for the fruit he's producing in you.
[00:23:32] Because that's the point of the Spirit. There is something he is trying to do in you, which is why he's taken up residence in you. And that is so something would come out into the world that the world needs, that it doesn't have apart from him.
[00:23:48] All good things come from Him.
[00:23:51] Your world needs kindness.
[00:23:54] We've just prayed.
[00:23:57] Don't we need some change that's going to come from a better heart in the Middle East? It's going to come from a lack of selflessness. Sorry, lack of selfishness. Excuse me.
[00:24:09] We need peace and joy to counteract anxiety.
[00:24:16] We need humility to face off against arrogance.
[00:24:20] Think about your workplaces, think about your schools.
[00:24:24] We need love and forgiveness to cover everyone's mistakes, even us.
[00:24:31] This is the spiritual fruit of the organic growth that the Holy Spirit wants to cause in you. He does the growing, and I can tell you it is slow, but it is very deep.
[00:24:44] This is spiritual cultivation, and it starts not by valuing something, but someone.
[00:24:56] I don't know about you, but I've tried all sorts of different approaches over the years, and some things have been really good. Whether it's long Bible studies or deep ones or prayer lists on loads of post it notes and I really wind up my wife with them. They're everywhere.
[00:25:10] What about prayer walls? Had those as well. Big bits of paper up. I've offered prayer, received prayer. I've fasted, media, sweets, ice cream, chocolate, alcohol. I've Sabbathed. I've done loads of stuff. And they're great things. They intentionally point me back to God when my flesh wants to go the other way.
[00:25:30] But I want to say they aren't the thing that grows in and of themselves.
[00:25:36] They simply prepare the soil so the Holy Spirit can grow something.
[00:25:41] It makes a way.
[00:25:45] So really the thing that we need to do to cultivate is to give space for the Holy Spirit is to surrender our hearts and our time.
[00:25:59] We live in a noisy world, really noisy.
[00:26:05] It's easy to forget the most valuable stuff to us. It's easy to forget our priorities that really matter sometimes because everything else is screaming at us.
[00:26:17] I just want to say, have you made time to abide?
[00:26:22] Have you made time to grow?
[00:26:26] Are you making space on a daily basis just to be with the Holy Spirit and recognize he is in you?
[00:26:36] And I want to say, I think for some of you that's a really scary thought.
[00:26:41] And I know that because I used to be scared of it.
[00:26:44] I'm quite a people person.
[00:26:46] I hate being on my own.
[00:26:49] I'm not very good at it. It's not where my strength comes from.
[00:26:54] But when you realise you're not alone, that changes everything.
[00:27:00] It's not daunting to be alone with God ever.
[00:27:05] You've just got to stop.
[00:27:07] Put a timer on if you have to and just still yourself.
[00:27:12] Switch your phone off and have no agenda. Don't aim to pray for anyone or anything, but just be aware of his presence.
[00:27:28] He is there.
[00:27:32] He's always there.
[00:27:34] It's because Christ lives in you.
[00:27:40] Why don't we stand?
[00:27:41] Maybe the band could come up.
[00:28:00] I feel we need to do some of this now.
[00:28:03] We've got a few minutes. We don't need to rush.
[00:28:11] The cultivation starts with a degree of surrender on your part.
[00:28:17] My open hands, open heart.
[00:28:22] Why don't we do it now?
[00:28:24] We're going to pray an ancient prayer and it's just three words.
[00:28:31] You put your hands out, shut your eyes and still yourself and just pray. Come Holy Spirit.
[00:28:43] Come, Holy Spirit.
[00:28:48] It doesn't mean come where you weren't before.
[00:28:52] It means awaken my soul to your reality.
[00:28:59] Would I align with you again?
